text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1
value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1
value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A couple of weeks ago I started the new year off with a post about anti-cancer new year's resolutions. I outlined 5 steps we can take this year to protect ourselves from cancer. A caring.com user commented to say that while my tips were valuable, I'd neglected to talk about reducing stress.
And I have to agree: Stress-reduction is an important effort we all need to embark on if we want to stay healthy. This year, researchers have unveiled studies showing that stress not only contributes to cancer and other illnesses but can also cause relapses and recurrences, as well.
So okay, great, stress is bad. But what can we do? Between work stress, money stress, and the stress of caring for our aging family members (not to mention children), we're pulled in a zillion directions already. How in the world are we going to reduce our stress? I get stressed just thinking about it!
So I asked some experts for easy, quick stress-reducers; things we can do for just a few minutes each day to bring some relaxation into our lives. Here are their top 5 tips:
1.Cuddle a Pet. According to psychologists, the relaxation response is automatic when we hold or cuddle a pet. Some experts even say that when a cat purrs, our heartbeat slows accordingly.
2. Indulge In a Laugh. Tack comic strips on your refrigerator or next to your computer, buy a joke book and read a new joke every day, or check out an online humor site like The Onion. One friend buys a daily desk calendar featuring The Far Side comics so she has a new one to chuckle over every morning. Anything that takes your mind off your worries and makes you crack a smile will work.
3. Listen to a Song. Music is one of the great stress-relievers of all time. But if you don't have much time, one song is all it takes; the average pop or country song is 4 to 5 minutes long. When you're emptying the dishwasher or chopping vegetables for dinner, pop in a CD or put on your headphones and listen to a favorite tune on your MP3 player. If possible, sing along - experts say humming or singing along to music releases even more feel-good endorphins.
4. Take Two Deep Breaths. Close your mouth and inhale slowly through your nose, drawing the air as deeply into your lungs as you can. Exhale slowly through your mouth, expelling the air until your lungs feel empty, then do it again. Experts say that taking a couple of deep breaths can provide as much beneficial relaxation as meditating if you do it several times a day.
5. Do a Simple Stretch. We've all heard about the benefits of yoga for stress reduction, and five minutes is all it takes to do a couple of simple yoga-based stretches. Stand tall and fold forward at the waist; if you can't touch your toes, just bend your knees and bend forward as far as you can. Then stand up and reach for the sky, stretching your arms as tall as possible. If you have time, lie down on your back with legs straight up in the air, perpendicular to your body. In yoga you do this against the wall; if this is inconvenient, use a table or other piece of furniture to prop them up. This is a great one to do while watching TV or just before bed. | <urn:uuid:877de2a1-2e28-42d2-bb66-b8050f8ca91d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caring.com/blogs/caring-currents/stress-busters-reduce-stress-fight-cancer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958465 | 705 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Immortalised by his voiceless statement at the 1968 Olympic Games, where he joined fellow American Tommie Smith on the podium for their famous ‘black power’ salute, he has become a symbol not simply for athletic courage but for the strength of the human spirit.
While Carlos, now 66, finds himself defined by his gesture in Mexico City 44 years ago, few are so conscious of his struggle against prejudice at the University of East Texas or of the death threats he received once he had made his stand.
His actions in ’68 — encapsulating African-American poverty by wearing black socks and no shoes, and raising a black-gloved fist — had an incendiary impact upon the sporting world, and it becomes clear from meeting him in London this week that he still feels the same fire.
On a rare visit to the UK, Carlos projects a passionate sense of social justice. Just days after receiving his honorary doctorate in Texas, he discloses how several “good ol’ boys” at the ceremony had been visibly unhappy to see a black man recognised in this fashion. His indignation at his student memory of arriving from New York in Dallas, where he claims to have been addressed as “boy” at least 10 times by his athletics coach, is still raw.
But what strikes me, too, is the terrible toll he endured for taking a stance. Carlos had been among the most celebrated 200-metres runners of his generation but his friends, he says, deserted him. His children began to suffer under the relentless public scrutiny. His first wife Kim, paranoid at the aggressive barrage of inquiries from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, committed suicide. The memory still haunts him.
Carlos’s extraordinary life has recently been documented in Dave Zirin’s book, The John Carlos Story, and his recollections are peppered with memorable anecdotes. There is the story, for example, of how he was rewarded with silver dollars from Fred Astaire. Then I am regaled with the tale of his teenage desire to represent the US in the Olympic pool, having grown obsessed with the notion of swimming across the English Channel.
His is a narrative full of unlikely twists, not least his post-athletics experience of competing in the National Football League, for the Philadelphia Eagles. When we meet at New Broadcasting House, Carlos still carries a limp from his gridiron days. But it seems apt to ask first about the formative influence of his upbringing in Fifties Harlem.
“It wasn’t tough, it was revealing,” he argues. “Harlem made me wise and witty, it made me sharp enough to see a lot of things. Everything was laid out for me. Music played such a role in my life. I never played any instruments, but I had the fortune to be born between two of the greatest nightclubs in the world, the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club. I could sit in my room at night and listen to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and Buddy Rich.
"Even Fred Astaire would come to the Savoy. For him to dance with us and flip us a silver dollar — that was a statement that stayed with me for the rest of my life.”
Carlos explains, in his streetwise New Yorker manner: “It was a statement that informed my athletics career. It wasn’t about the medals, it wasn’t even about the competition, as much it was about the type of performance you would give to the folks who had paid to see you. You know the athlete type, man? ‘Look at me, how great I am.’ But I wanted to be up in the stands, talking to the people.”
Almost every question of Carlos invites an unconventional response, as I find when I ask him about how he discovered athletics in the first place.
“I got into it by breaking the law,” he replies. “I used to break into freight trains and steal clothes for people in my neighbourhood who didn’t have any. Two detectives came to my house and told my father, ‘Earl, we think John’s doing some break-ins. You need to talk to him.’ Then one said to me, ‘You have a talent.’ ‘What talent do I have, sir?’ ‘You’re a runner.’” His account of his thwarted ambition to swim is heartrending, for it was here that Carlos realised the scale of the racial injustice he confronted.
He describes how he had told his father, ‘Daddy, I’m going to be the first black swimmer for America at the Olympics.’ “That was my dream, right there.
He said, ‘Johnny, it’s time we talked. I don’t want to stop your dreams, but you will never make it to the Olympics as a swimmer.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about, daddy, I’m the best in New York. I’m good.’ He said, ‘It’s not about you being good. Where would you train? You can’t go to the Harlem River. You can’t go to the public pools. You can’t go to the ocean.’ I said, ‘But there’s a club.’ ‘You can’t join a club.’ ‘What’s the problem?’ He rubbed his hand.
"I thought he had a bug-bite, I didn’t know what he was doing. ‘The colour of the skin is going to prevent you from going to the Olympics.’ He knew what was happening in terms of race relations.” So, too, did Carlos Jnr by the time he arrived in East Texas on his athletics scholarship. “When I landed in Texas, it was mind-blowing for me.
I was walking through Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and the first thing I saw was a pair of signs saying, ‘White restroom, coloured restroom.’ I thought, ‘What do they mean?’ I began to look at the white restroom and it was pristine. You could have fried eggs on the floor, it was so clean.
"Then I noticed the coloured restroom and there was water running, toilet paper everywhere, flies. Then the coach began calling me ‘boy’. It really ------ me off. I had my wife and kid with me and I said, ‘Coach, my name is John Carlos.’”
Carlos’s civil rights activism was becoming more radical. From this point, the course to his salute in Mexico City was set. Having embraced the Olympic Project for Human Rights movement, and heard Dr Martin Luther King’s support for a boycott of the 1968 Games, he arrived in Mexico with just one agenda on his mind. As he has admitted since, “I was there for the after-race.” The symbolic scene of the salute itself has been replayed countless times.
I am intrigued more by whether Carlos believes, given the traumatic aftermath — of being banned from the Olympic Village, and ostracised by the athletics community — of whether he believes the decision was worth such sacrifice. “We were looked at as traitors, as saboteurs, as being unpatriotic,” he says.
“It lasted for about 35 years. You couldn’t find a job. Friends who you thought were your friends turned their backs on you.
Any money you had in the bank was starting to dissipate. It affected my wife to the point where she couldn’t deal with it any more and took her life. But I tell people, ‘Everything that happened, it could have happened 1,000 times over and I wouldn’t have changed it’.
"What I did was necessary, based on the vision that God gave me. It was something that I was born into this world to do.”
While I cannot imagine the impact these events had on Carlos’s life, I can sympathise with an athlete wanting to state his feelings. Sport and politics are always intrinsically linked and John, whether right or wrong, certainly understood this. | <urn:uuid:e48fdcbf-cbe9-49c8-89fb-b15b05b81493> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9276048/Sir-Steve-Redgrave-John-Carlos-reveals-the-personal-pain-that-inspired-his-famous-black-power-salute.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985551 | 1,752 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Milk goes sour in about a week, even if you keep it in the fridge. That's because Lactobacillus, the "good bacteria" that's found in yogurt, is constantly going about the job of oxidizing the lactose sugars in the milk into sour-tasting lactic acid - the same chemical that makes your muscles sore after exercise. But since this souring process requires the presence of oxygen, theoretically it could be slowed down even further if you kept the milk out of contact with oxygen. Rather than going with a high-tech nitrous contraption like the N2Wine globes we wrote about recently, one entrant to this year's James Dyson awards has come up with something devilishly simple: a shrinking milk jug that squeezes all the air out as you empty it. The inventor claims it lets milk last as much as a week longer. Simple and brilliant! | <urn:uuid:6dcfca18-fdde-419a-858b-17462f9fe792> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gizmag.com/fresh-shrinking-milk-jug/12358/picture/88015/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963404 | 184 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Q: My 8-year-old daughter has epilepsy, and she loves to play video games. Should I be worried that she'll become photosensitive and the games will cause her to have a seizure?
— Ava, Washington
A: Only about 3 percent of people with epilepsy may experience seizures when exposed to the flashing lights associated with television screens, computer monitors, or videogames. However, so-called photosensitive epilepsy is more common in children and adolescents. There is no reason to believe that videogames cause photosensitive epilepsy, but certain games can induce seizures in a small number of people with epilepsy.
Being as your daughter fits within that profile, certain steps are advisable: She should sit well away from the screen, reduce the screen's brightness, and limit her video time per session to no more than an hour. She should take frequent breaks from the games, and while playing a game, she should look away from the screen every few minutes. She should not play videogames if she is tired, sleep deprived, or hungry — three known seizure-inducers that could combine with the videogame to make a seizure more likely. Finally, she should not continue playing if she experiences any unusual feelings or involuntary muscular movements.
Richard M. Restak, MD, is clinical professor of neurology at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
This section created and produced exclusively by the editorial staff of EverydayHealth.com. © 2011 EverydayHealth.com; all rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:83d16810-f18f-48b4-a861-8dde1c82e444> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.everydayhealth.com/epilepsy-awareness/photosensitivity-and-seizures.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963824 | 305 | 3.375 | 3 |
In 1976, she married Edmond Safra, a Brazilian-naturalized Jewish syrian banker. Their international lifestyle included homes in New York, London, Geneva and the French Riviera. The couple never had any children.
In 1999, Edmond Safra, a sufferer of Parkinson’s disease, perished from a criminal fire at their apartment in Monaco. Lily Safra survived, as she was saved from the fire by the police. An American nurse, Ted Maher, was arrested under suspicion of starting the fire, and was convicted of the crime in 2002. He claimed that he had started the fire to carry out a daring rescue, in order to increase his standing in the Safra family’s eyes, but that he lost control of the fire. The details of Mr Safra’s passing were discussed by media outlets including 60 Minutes and by Dominick Dunne in Vanity Fair; the incident also served as a basis for an episode of Law & Order.
Edmond & Lily Safra Children’s Hospital
Mrs Safra is the Chairwoman of the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, which supports projects related to education, science and medicine, religion, culture, and humanitarian relief. Mrs. Safra shared her commitment to caring for the less fortunate with her husband, Mr. Edmond J. Safra, one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished bankers and founder of the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation. Since 1999 she has chaired this Foundation, which supports hundreds of projects over 50 countries. She has initiated many educational projects in memory of her husband, including endowing the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. A long and distinguished relationship with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem led to the naming of the Edmond J. Safra Campus.
Mrs. Safra is Honorary Chairman of the International Sephardic Education Foundation (ISEF), which she established with her husband in 1977. ISEF is the largest non-profit organization promoting higher education for gifted Israelis from disadvantaged backgrounds. Since its founding, over 16,000 scholarships have been granted, including support for more than 1,000 MA and PhD students. She also supports the Lily Safra Internship Program at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. The internship program takes place during the summer and allows six undergraduate and two graduate students to carry out research at the HBI.
Both personally and through the Foundation, she supports research into cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases,particularly Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, at hospitals and universities worldwide. Her awareness of the distress experienced by the families of those battling illnesses led her to construct the Family Lodge for patients and their families at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She and her husband built a cutting-edge children’s hospital in Tel Hashomer, outside of Tel Aviv, which treats thousands of Israeli and Palestinian children. She is a member of the Board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
In addition to being a Trustee of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Somerset House Arts Fund in London, Mrs. Safra is a member of the Chairman’s Council of the Museum of Modern Art and the Kennedy Center’s International Committee on the Arts. She supported the joint acquisition of Bill Viola’s “Five Angels of the Millennium” by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Whitney Museum in New York, and established the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professorship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. She is also significantly involved with the activities of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, supporting curators and providing scholarships to outstanding art history students, in addition to having underwritten acclaimed exhibitions in the Institute’s Hermitage Rooms.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mrs. Safra was a lead supporter of the American Red Cross’s relief effort, and she was instrumental in helping Dillard University of New Orleans continue to offer classes in temporary locations and to rebuild for the Fall 2006 semester. For many years she has assisted numerous New York City community organizations,chiefly Henry Street Settlement, the New York Center for Children, the Children’s Health Fund, and God’s Love We Deliver.
Lily Safra holds honorary doctorates from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Brandeis University, Tel Aviv University, and Imperial College London, and she is an Honorary Fellow of King’s College London and the Courtauld Institute of Art. The French Government accorded her the rank of Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004, and she was named Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur by President Jacques Chirac in 2005.
Visit : The Israel Museum, Jerusalem at : http://www.imj.org.il/ | <urn:uuid:2bf765d9-6679-4388-b380-78d74f69894a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://adrianasassoon.wordpress.com/tag/safra-bank/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946788 | 1,051 | 1.609375 | 2 |
vate affairs at the expense of individual initiative, energy, enterprise, courage, independent manhood.
The strength of self-government and the motive power of progress must be found in the characters of the individual citizens who make up a nation. Weaken individual character among a people by comfortable reliance upon paternal government and a nation soon becomes incapable of free self-government and fit only to be governed: the higher and nobler qualities of national life that make for ideals and effort and achievement become atrophied and the nation is decadent.
A fourth consideration is that in the nature of things all government must be imperfect because men are imperfect. Every system has its shortcomings and inconveniences; and these are seen and felt as they exist in the system under which we live, while the shortcomings and inconveniences of other systems are forgotten or ignored.
It is not unusual to see governmental methods reformed and after a time, long enough to forget the | <urn:uuid:38b31ebc-01c1-401b-9b81-b3fd12b4cc49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manybooks.net/titles/roote1048510485.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957233 | 189 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Second New York Hospital Warns Patients About Potential HIV, Hepatitis Exposure From Insulin Pens
January 25, 2013
Olean General Hospital is the second western New York hospital to notify patients that they may have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis through the improper sharing of insulin pens. The hospital says it is mailing letters recommending blood screening to 1,915 patients who received insulin there from November 2009 through last week. According to hospital officials, the notifications follow an internal review conducted after the recent news of insulin pen-sharing at Buffalo's Veterans Affairs hospital. In the Buffalo case, more than 700 patients may have been exposed to blood-borne pathogens over a two-year period after multi-use pens intended for use on a single individual may have been used on more than one person.
01.24.2013; Associated Press
This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update. Visit the CDC's website to find out more about their activities, publications and services.
Add Your Comment:
(Please note: Your name and comment will be public, and may even show up in
Internet search results. Be careful when providing personal information! Before
adding your comment, please read TheBody.com's Comment Policy.) | <urn:uuid:ac0faa41-773b-4f77-8f76-0dcd0cd5b12f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thebody.com/content/70367/second-new-york-hospital-warns-patients-about-pote.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91936 | 274 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Sport on TV: Topless boxing, bottomless well of Georgian depravity
Nicola Adams and Katie Taylor may have broken new ground, as well as noses, by being among the first women to box at the Olympics last summer. But according to Fight Club: A History of Violence (Yesterday, Wednesday) they are fighting to keep alive a tradition of female pugilism going back to the Georgian era. But in the late 18th century they were bareknuckle boxers – and that wasn't the only bare part of their anatomy; they were also topless. That's a tradition that might easily be revived by Richard Desmond's Channel 5.
The academic Lucy Inglis said: "It was over when it was over. There were no rules at all." Coming from "the lowest social strata", the women's attire consisted of a leather corset but they would rip that off because "you can just swing someone around with it. And people wanted to see their tits".
That may not sound very scholarly but it beats the hell out of Sean Bean's narration in this four-part guide to organised combat. His highbrow attitude to the subject is perhaps trying to cover up the fact that the historical evidence is almost as flimsy as the fighters' clothing. The first rule of fight club is you do not let Bean talk about it.
These "cat fights" were the original grudge matches, with women settling their scores in the slum of St Giles in the Field in London. The community gathered to watch and bet on the fights amid an epidemic of gambling in the capital. And that was not the only pernicious influence. Gin was running in the streets and women sold it from their front rooms. This meant they drank with men for the first time, and gained a strange kind of equality amid the depravity.
Mick Crumplin of the Royal College of Surgeons was on hand to tell us that the liquor didn't help the fighters. No Dutch courage here, "performance was not enhanced in anything they did". This was long before the days of Lance Armstrong, though he bears a classic bareknuckle fighter's name, and the only cycles around were those of poverty and despair.
"Just like today, it was a society riven by social problems," said Bean. There was a certain cachet to poverty, as Inglis added: "People owned their poor identity. It was very much a 'look' on the streets of London." Perhaps not much has changed, then. It's really no worse than a scrap over cheap designer- wear at the tills of Sport & Soccer.
* Gambling on blood sports was the great social leveller of Georgian times, but when the Victorians came along such spectacles were frowned upon and women's boxing died out. Ian Hislop's Stiff Upper Lip (BBC2, Tuesday) showed how a nation learned to hide its feelings along with its proclivities, but still challenged itself physically.
He told the story of William Webb, the first man to swim the Channel. It started when Webb pitted himself against a Newfoundland dog in a swimming contest; after an hour and a half the dog gave up and swam to shore. Then Webb took on his big adventure. After he reached the French coast, he was asked, in time-honoured fashion, how he felt. He replied he had "a peculiar sensation in my limbs somewhat similar to that which is often felt after the first day of the cricket season". So more Channel of supreme self-confidence than corridor of uncertainty.
Have shock jocks gone too far?
Former Google exec says he has 100,000 emails showing how 'immoral' company avoids paying UK tax
Notes from a small island: Is Sealand an independent 'micronation' or an illegal fortress?
British man confesses to slitting two children's throats in Lyon flat
'Swivel-gate': David Cameron goes to war with the press over 'swivel-eyed loons' slur
- 1 Asteroid nine times the size of the QE2 liner to sail pass Earth
- 2 Notes from a small island: Is Sealand an independent 'micronation' or an illegal fortress?
- 3 British business: We need to stay in the EU - or risk losing up to £92bn a year
- 4 You thought Ryanair's attendants had it bad? Wait 'til you hear about their pilots
- 5 It’s official: thanks to Stephen Hawking's Israel boycott, anti-Semitism is no more
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Travel and lunch expenses: ESI Media: Rare work experience opportunity for asp...
£28000 - £36000 Per Annum: The Green Recruitment Company: The Green Recruitmen...
£350 - £400 per day: Progressive Recruitment: Agile Java Developer London
£19000 - £20000 Per Annum: The Green Recruitment Company: Our client is a lead... | <urn:uuid:c8dbf9d8-a0f3-4921-8b9b-a9524e971875> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/sport-on-tv-topless-boxing-bottomless-well-of-georgian-depravity-8210388.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974149 | 1,079 | 2 | 2 |
The Ciber Case Series
In 2003, when Argentina was in the throes of a financial crisis that brought soaring inflation and unemployment, the Werthein Group paid $125 million for a 50 equity stake in Telecom Argentina, the country's major local telephone provider. The company had defaulted on $3.2 billion in debt - the largest corporate default in Argentina's history - after the peso's devaluation in 2002. Gerardo Werthein, the CEO of the Werthein group, was making a bet not just on the survival of the company, but on the country's financial system. This case provides an interview with Werthein and the data available to him at the time, and asks students to determine the value of his investment.
Case id: 110304
Supplemental Material: Teaching Note, Teaching Slides | <urn:uuid:4b833eee-fd5e-445c-9a3b-d8337f97e129> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/caseworks/node/289/Telecom+Argentina | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914826 | 173 | 2.4375 | 2 |
(NaturalNews) Researchers from Imperial College London have launched a £1 million ($1.6 million) study to create what they call an "artificial leaf," mimicking the process of photosynthesis that allows plants to generate energy from the sun.
Plants use solar radiation to power a chemical reaction that converts water and carbon dioxide into sugar. Part of this reaction entails splitting water molecules into their component hydrogen and oxygen parts, something that remains very expensive using modern technology.
Photosynthesis is so efficient, however, that scientists estimate that it could meet all the Earth's power needs for a year from merely an hour of sunlight. An artificial photosynthesis system that used only 10 percent of the light hitting it could meet all global energy needs if it covered only 0.16 percent of the Earth's surface area (about 315,000 square miles).
"We know that plants have already evolved to do it and we know that, fundamentally, it's a workable process on a large scale," said John Loughhead of the UK Energy Research Center. "Ultimately, the only sustainable form of energy we've got is the sun. From a strategic viewpoint, you have to think this looks really interesting because we know we're starting from a base of feasibility."
In contrast to other alternative energy sources such as solar panels or windmills, which produce electricity directly, the Imperial College researchers want to use photosynthesis to produce fuels -- either hydrogen for fuel cells, or sugars for biofuel
engines. Even though the burning of these fuels would still produce carbon dioxide, the researchers believe it would be balanced out by the carbon dioxide that the artificial leaf removed from the air to make the fuel in the first place.
As one of their first steps, researchers are working on an artificial
copy of the enzyme, photosystem 2, that plants use to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
"It doesn't mean that you try to build exactly what the leaf has," researcher James Barber said. "Leonardo da Vinci tried to design flying machines with feathers that flapped up and down. But in the end we built 747s and Airbus 380s, completely different to a bird."
Sources for this story include: www.telegraph.co.uk
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article. | <urn:uuid:d6ea897d-f0be-4f49-8622-c603d625d392> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naturalnews.com/028261_biofuel_sunlight.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949583 | 475 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Winter 2011 has definitely been a brutal one for us thus far. It’s still hard to believe the official groundhog from Punxsatawny didn’t see his shadow and predicts spring is near. “We don’t believe you!“
With the weather being cold and brutal, a lot of people have fallen victim to the cold and flu. If you’re trying to avoid the sickness, here’s five herbs you may want to add into your daily menu:
Keep a supply of thyme essential oil or dried thyme on hand in the event that you fall ill with either the flu or with a common cold. Thyme has long been known as an expectorant, which makes coughs more productive (that is, it helps clear out your lungs faster so you feel better sooner). You can brew a thyme herbal tea by steeping two teaspoons of fresh thyme in a cup of boiling-hot water for 10 minutes. Or, make a thyme steam bath: Toss either a handful of dried thyme a few drops of thyme essential oil into a bowl of hot water, and lean over the bowl, covering both your head and the bowl with a towel. Inhaling the steam will help loosen mucus in your chest.
Licorice root contains a compound called glycyrrhizin that has been found to have pretty potent antiviral effects against serious diseases, such as HIV and SARS, and a number of studies have found that licorice root extracts can fight off the flu, including strains of the avian flu virus. In Ayurvedic medicine, licorice root is also used as an expectorant. A number of companies make licorice root supplements and teas, but if using those, be sure they contain actual licorice; some products, licorice candy, for instance, often don’t contain any of the herb but instead contain anise seed, which tastes like licorice. Also talk to a doctor or pharmacist if you’re taking any prescriptions, as licorice has been found to interfere with some medications.
Garlic boosts the health of your immune system, and a number of studies have found that animals given regular doses of garlic supplements are better able to ward off viruses like the flu and various strains of rhinovirus, the kind responsible for the common cold. In one study from 2001, volunteers who took a daily garlic supplement were less likely to get colds from volunteers taking a placebo, and even when the garlic takers did get sick, they recovered more quickly. For the sake of people who have to talk to you, garlic supplements are probably the kindest way to go. But you can also get the same benefits by chewing on a clove of garlic once a day for prevention or twice a day to get over a cold or flu. Mince a clove of garlic into some honey if the flavor is too overpowering. It’s not clear whether adding more garlic to your cooking affords the same protection, but if you love the flavor, you can add more to your recipes while possibly getting an immune boost. | <urn:uuid:408cbfdf-5911-4e60-8966-9a0a55a6dea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myhoustonmajic.com/1777961/5-herbs-to-help-you-through-the-cold-and-flu-season/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955464 | 652 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Dora Bas Rivka Silver O'H
Along Came Amalek
The Jews moved their camp to Refidim where, again, there was no water. And, again, they complained to Moshe.
"What do you want from me?" he asked. "Are you trying to antagonize G-d?"
The people replied with their usual refrain of, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt, just so we could die of thirst in the desert?" (Mind you, lack of water is a legitimate complaint, but there's a right way and a wrong way to go about things.)
Moshe turned to G-d, Who told him to take his staff and strike a particular boulder in front of everyone. Moshe did this and water came gushing out. The place became known as Maasah U'Merivah ("test and strife") because of the way the people provoked G-d there.
And then, along came the nation of Amalek and started a war with Israel. Moshe had Yehoshua (Joshua) select men for battle. While Joshua and his forces fought, Moshe stood on an overlooking hill with his brother Aharon and his nephew, Chur (son of Miriam). When Moshe raised his arms, it spurred the Jews on to victory, but when he lowered his arms, they lagged. Aharon and Chur sat Moshe on a rock and held his arms up, so Moshe was able to pray while Yehoshua led their armed forces to victory.
"Write this down," G-d told Moshe, "and tell Yehoshua, too, that I will wipe out any trace of Amalek." Moshe them built an altar to thank G-d for His eternal vigilance against that antagonistic nation." | <urn:uuid:094871d5-724d-4cdd-82d2-e39c800be823> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ou.org/index.php/torah/article/Beshalach_-_Shvii/nach-text | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984069 | 375 | 2.75 | 3 |
ZCB Newsletter May 2012
Hello and welcome to what may be the last ZCB Newsletter for a while as the communications phase of the ZCB2030 report comes to a close and the ZCB team hunkers down into a new research phase. Once we are up and running we will let you know how things are going again.
Meanwhile here are a few snippets of ZCB team news and an assortment of mostly positive articles from across institutions and the press on our progress towards a zero carbon world.
Zero Carbon Britain is about to go into a new research phase in which we hope to improve on our previous report with up-to-date research and using an open-source energy evaluation system. This will allow others to test our conclusions and try their own energy mix against it.
The broad interest in our Land Use chapter has meant funding for further research in this area. If your interests lie in either of these areas, please have a look at CAT’s vacancies page.
Zero Carbon Britain Day – July 21st. Following up on last year’s success in which groups from around the country demonstrated with watery themes under the slogan ‘Zero Carbon Britain before we drown’, the Campaign Against Climate Change is once again organising a ZeroCarbonBritain day, this year’s slogan being ‘Race to Zero’. What are you going to do?
Finally, why not join the push for a Zero Carbon Britain yourself and gain new skills at CAT? CAT has a wide variety of innovative and relevant Short Courses, aiming to train individuals in the skills and knowledge they will need in the transition to a zero-carbon future. From Solar Thermal Systems to Sustainable Economics and Eco Building technologies, there is a wide diversity of courses for all disciplines and interests. Supporting the objectives of zerocarbonbritain2030, CAT Short Courses enable individuals to make positive changes whilst enhancing their individual skill-set and introducing them to a network of like-minded individuals. Short Courses coming up this summer include:
A full programme is available on our website www.cat.org.uk/shortcourses
Some good news! The UK’s emissions fell by 7% from 2010 to 2011, however, they rose 3.5% between 2009 and 2010 so we have an actual fall of 3.5% from 2009, which is still a lot. This is largely down to warmer weather (remember the two-week cold snap in December 2010?) but also due to renewables making up a record 9.5% of electricity in 2011.
The Committee on Climate Change have finally seen fit to recommend the inclusion of international aviation and shipping in our emissions counting. Since the passing of the climate change Act of 2008, campaigners have repeatedly said that these should be included (see last ZCB Newsletter), particularly as the UK has ‘outsourced’ most of its emissions to countries with cheap labour, like China. Let’s just hope that the Greenest government ever chooses once again to take the esteemed CCC’s advice, include these emissions in the UK’s emissions accounting and rid us of this hypocritical anomaly in the push to prevent dangerous levels of climate change.
We need to curb our methane emissions as well as our carbon emissions. Peter Cox thinks this may be a low-hanging fruit.
However, one thing is our own methane emissions but quite another is the amount of methane stored under the permafrost and the ocean floor. Just how imminent is its release?
Increased use of biomass could actually increase emissions according to scientists, NGOs and EU officials.
March was the hottest on record for the US and with temperatures at 3-4°C warmer than usual, it was the third warmest on record for the UK and this was exacerbated by us only receiving 40% of our usual March rainfall: hence the drought.
As you probably noticed, April was also the wettest on record for the UK since records began in 1766, according to the Met Office but somehow this hasn't helped the drought position.
The Built Environment
Scotland has just started its Universal Home Insulation Scheme (UHIS) whereby all homes will get free loft and cavity wall insulation.
John Connaughton, soon to be Professor of Sustainable Construction at Reading University, gives a checklist of what can be done to decarbonise commercial buildings in this podcast
Are games like ‘Energy Battle’ the best way of getting people to reduce their energy consumption?
A new PwC report shows that smart grids are expected to be in place by 2030, allowing this aspect of ZCB2030 to help reduce our energy use.
Interested in trying out an electric car? Why not head down to Millbrook in September? Electric transport will be playing a larger and larger role in our lowering carbon future.
A CENEX vehicles paper shows how the uptake of electric vehicles could benefit commercial companies.
B&Q are planning to invest in more forests so as to profit from the Green Deal.
Neil Kermode. MD of the European Marine Energy Centre, has very kindly written ZCB two opinion pieces, one on the government’s new marine energy parks and another explaining the various funds now available to marine renewables in addition to their presently benefitting for 5 ROCs (Renewable Energy Certificates).
Ed Davey to hold talks with US and sign agreement on the development of offshore wind turbines. As ZCB2030 relies heavily on offshore wind, this is a significant step toward realising the goal of a future zero carbon Britain.
Have some land and wondering what renewable energy technology it might be worth employing on it? Look no further for a brief explanation of the problems, potential and pitfalls of RE on your own land.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change steps up the Renewable Heat Incentive
Scotland is racing ahead of Wales in its ambitions for renewables, in fact it produced 13,750 GWh of power from renewables in 2011, or 35% of its consumption and it’s not stopping there, with another 370MW wind farm on Shetland just passing planning.
NPower RWE and EON have pulled out of their nuclear projects, including Wylfa B in Wales. But will they continue to invest in renewables in their stead or will this be an environmental disaster as in Germany and Italy?
DECC commissions report into the savings that could be made by linking up offshore wind farms.
A brief video by Action4Renewables about UK wind turbine manufacturing.
Japan is considering making solar panels obligatory on every house.
Policy and Economics
The UK is finally auctioning 7% of its EU ETS allowances (rather than giving them all away) and has chosen a company called ICE Futures Europe to conduct the auctions.
Waste and recycling could provide 84,000 jobs by 2020 and 15% of our electricity needs.
And on the down side, fracking in the UK has been given the go-ahead by government. This is the same process that has caused tremors in Blackpool and poisoned the water table in several areas of the United States. Do we really need this in Britain?
Do keep your eyes on this page for any further progress on the new Zero Carbon Britain.
The ZCB Team | <urn:uuid:387443f7-710b-4e14-bf23-fa0192d2470f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zerocarbonbritain.org/zcb-home/142-zcb-news-2012-feb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94573 | 1,494 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Human rights chief urges united action on Syria
"I am very distressed that the continued ruthless repression and deliberate stirring of sectarian tensions might soon plunge Syria into civil war. The longer the international community fails to take action, the more the civilian population will suffer from countless atrocities committed against them," Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday, 13 February 2012.
“The people of Syria are asking for the rights that every human being is entitled to. And they are looking to this Assembly to speak with one voice to support them in this endeavour,” she said.
14 February 2012 | <urn:uuid:7561a535-d2b0-4a14-852a-e58473638bed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohchr.org/EN/newyork/Stories/Pages/HRchiefurgesunitedactiononSyria.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961571 | 135 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The Sandusky sexual abuse trial has stirred up a multitude of emotions from those who’ve been following it.
It has brought about needed awareness of sexual abuse and validation for other abuse survivors that they’re not alone. Unfortunately, the media coverage and detailed abuse descriptions have also triggered anger, anxieties and fears in the general public as well as abuse memories and post-traumatic stress symptoms in trauma survivors.
It’s common for sexual abuse survivors to experience symptoms years after the actual event occurred, especially when the trauma is triggered. Triggers are a combination of emotional, psychological and physical reminders which occur when a survivor experiences an increase in sensory memories of a previous traumatic event. Triggers can include smells, sounds, touches, people, times of the year, events, holidays or any combination of these. These can cause flashbacks, nightmares, anxieties and anger. These memories can feel as intense as the day the abuse occurred.
I’ve had patients report that they were drawn to the media coverage of Sandusky’s trial because it was validating, fulfilling and vindicating to see an abuser face the crime and punishment. This is especially true for those survivors who chose not to or didn’t have the opportunity to hold their accuser accountable. However, others may feel shame for having not confronted their abuser.
And you don’t have to be a survivor of sexual abuse to have an extreme reaction toward sexual abuse coverage in the media. The following are examples of reactions you or somebody close to you may be experiencing related to the recent sexual abuse coverage:
• Anger and disgust toward Jerry Sandusky’s behavior. And confusion toward Mr. Sandusky about his attraction to young boys and his ability to sexually violate them.
• Frustration and anger toward Mrs. Sandusky and/or other officials who didn’t stop the abuse. When abuse occurs by a perpetrator, the spouse/partner is often referred to as the non-offending parent. This suggests that this person may not have directly contributed to the abuse but indirectly allowed the abuse to continue by ignoring signs and failing to report it.
• Frustration and confusion toward the victim. The public sometimes criticizes victims for coming forward years after the abuse, often thinking, “Why did you wait to report the crime” or “what is your motive for coming forward now?” Know that it’s more important to support victims as they confront memories and work to overcome the trauma. Every survivor is unique but deserves respect in his or her therapeutic path.
Here are some ways to deal with triggers and work to overcome abuse memories.
• Limit exposure to media coverage that heavily discusses abuse cases. And if you do choose to watch or read this coverage, make sure to process your thoughts and feelings in a journal or to a friend/family member who is supportive.
• Increase coping skills like deep breathing, exercise, meditation and journaling.
• Be aware of negative outlets, self-medicating and destructive behaviors. This could include alcohol, drugs and non-prescribed medications, as well as overeating or spending money.
• Explore support groups for sexual abuse survivors or attend therapy by somebody who specializes in sexual abuse. Children Services offer support groups for children, adults and families who’ve experienced sexual abuse. Call 402.661.7100 and ask for either Parents United or R-Safe program.
• To vent and get additional referrals, contact a 24-hour crisis line like the National Boys Town Hotline at 800-448-3000. | <urn:uuid:2f41a2d8-b4e3-4706-b54a-54225936c70b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/2012/07/03/the-sandusky-trial-effect/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951576 | 732 | 2.34375 | 2 |
People's Veto Application Packet
- Excerpts from the Constitution of the State of Maine
- Title 21-A, Chapter 11: "Ballot Questions"
- People's Veto Application Form (in Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) format)
Article IV, Part Third, Sections 17, 19, 20, and 22 of the Maine Constitution and Title 21-A, Chapter 11 address the procedures relative to a people's veto referendum.
Any Maine registered voter may circulate a people's veto referendum by following these steps:
- The voter must submit a written application to the Secretary of State. The completed application must contain the names, addresses and signatures of 5 Maine registered voters, in addition to the applicant, who are designated to receive any notices related to the processing of the application. The voter submitting the application must sign it in the presence of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State's designee or a notary public. The application must contain either the full text of or a reference to the public law to be vetoed.
- Within 10 business days after receiving the application, the Secretary of State must review the application and either reject it, or accept it, and provide the ballot question to the applicant.
- After the Secretary of State has provided the ballot question to the applicant, the Division of Elections will provide an approved petition form to be circulated by the petitioners. The proponents must print or duplicate additional petition forms as needed, in the exact format provided by the Secretary of State. The approved petition form must include the following specifications:
A. Printed on paper no larger than 11 x 17 inches
B. Text of the legislation
C. Ballot question and title (conspicuously placed on the face of the petition)
D. Instructions for petitioners
E. Common reasons signatures are rejected
F. Circulator's Verification
G. Certification of the Registrar
- Petitions may be circulated by any Maine registered voter.
The filing deadlines for people's veto referenda are determined as follows:
An application for a people's veto referendum petition must be filed with the Secretary of State within 10 business days after adjournment of the legislative session at which the Act in question was passed.
The filing deadline for a people's veto referendum petition is by 5 p.m. on the 90th day after adjournment of the legislative session at which the Act was passed.
Signatures totaling 10% (57,277) of the votes cast for Governor in 2010 are required. | <urn:uuid:53c7df40-e2ad-453e-b9ae-584a07fb0b29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.state.me.us/sos/cec/elec/peoppak.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928754 | 511 | 1.71875 | 2 |
- 5.16% (line of credit)
- 6.42% (loan)
Rates on loans backed by home equity increased in Bankrate's weekly survey.
The typical home equity loan rose 3 basis points to 6.42 percent. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The typical home equity line of credit, or HELOC, also rose 3 basis points to 5.16. | <urn:uuid:86f7d722-b220-4882-b71a-e38e262ff585> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/news/home-equity/interest-rates-071912.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93783 | 89 | 1.664063 | 2 |
London is visited by millions of people every year. They are here because of the rich heritage of culture, history, food, pubs, and hospitality. It is the second most frequented city in the world on a yearly basis and there is a good reason for it. A London tour looks like several things to several people. There is something for the young and the old alike – and the outdoor junkie to the food lover!
This place is a must-see for anyone who goes to London. Infamous for the Changing of the Guard and being home to the Queen, tourists are in for a treat. It is made famous because of well-disciplined guards that are placed at the entrance to the palace. Not only that the historical significance of the tradition dates back to the 1700′s and has been in play even to this day.
There are no specific guided tours here, but tourists can still nonetheless check out its ultimate ceremony. They will be glad they did.
This lifelike wax museum is certainly a must. Tourists can see their favorite celebrities up close but what’s even more amazing is that at times they can’t even tell it’s a wax figure. The elaborate scheme is credit to the detailed professionals that take pride in the work. Creating wax figurines is not an easy of a task as many people would think it is.
Original London Sightseeing Tour
This tour is the oldest and most popular. Booking a London tour almost requires this to be in the rotation. It is so famous because of the open top buses that ride through the city with a knowledgeable tour guide. These tour guides take pride in dispelling the secrets to the city and details the history that is behind every attraction they come across. A popular tour, to be sure.
Every gastronomical enthusiast can tour London’s vibrant food tour. London has come on of late as a wonderful food destination, thanks to their creativity in using locally grown dishes. Yes, even haggis tastes better these days! While on a food tour, grab an ice cold beer to soothe your soul.
No matter where tourists go or what they decide to do there are tour consultants whose job it is to book tours for the vacation to maximize their time. In London, this is a must because there is a lot to do and see. It is likely that one vacation is not nearly enough.
This post was submitted by Kath Green. | <urn:uuid:03f6e509-e014-4d99-b17f-7d2a4a5ce296> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelotrips.com/europe/england/london-the-best-place-for-vacation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96594 | 500 | 1.726563 | 2 |
At Last, A Personal Finance App that Isn't Boring or Hard
Improve your financial perspective with Spent Better, the only app that instantly shows you the true value of your money, easily and accurately.
Spent Better is a new approach to financial calculators: instead of forcing you to chose from many different calculators, Spent Better simply computes everything and instantly displays the results in a convenient list so that your eyes can do the thinking.
How It Works
Spent Better will prompt you to enter a money value. Let's say you're thinking of adding some premium channels to your cable TV subscription, and it'll cost an extra $19.95 per month. Just enter 19.95, tap on "Monthly" and then tap on "Done".
Spent Better will then instantly show you what $19.95 per month can add up to.
What It Shows
Spent Better calculates everything you see below and displays them all in a second, automatically filtering-out any meaningless results.
The Retirement Calculator computes the value of a single or repeating investment by the time you reach retirement age.
The Investment Calculator shows you how much your money will have grown to after a few years in a fund that tracks the S&P 500.
The Savings Calculator shows you how much your money might have grown if put into a typical high-interest savings account.
For One-Time expenses, The Credit-Card Payoff Calculator predicts how much you'll pay back to your bank if you only made minimum payments each month.
The Car Financing Calculator takes your repeating investment and calculates how much you could finance if that was your monthly payment.
For One-Time amounts, Spent Better will use the Time-To-Earn Calculator to figure out how long it would take you to earn that much money at your job. Tap on this result to customize it with your hourly salary and see the result updated instantly.
The Mortgage Calculator takes any repeating investment (click on the Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly button) and uses it to figure out the largest home loan you could finance with it.
Better yet, tap on this result and turn your phone sideways to get an instant Amortization Table:
Spent Better can also show amortization tables for Credit Card payoffs, plus Investment Schedules for the Retirement, Investment and Savings calculators.
Real World Comparisons*
Spent Better also helps you judge the value of money by comparing it to common, everyday purchases.
For One-Time amounts, the Time-of-Service Calculator gives you an idea of how many months of Internet Service or Newspaper Delivery you could pay for with the same money.
It can help you see what a repeating investment is worth in terms of simple luxuries and necessities, such as movie tickets and movie rentals per week, subway rides per week, cups of premium cappucino per day and so-on.
It can even show you how long a repeating investment would take to save up for big ticket items, such as a Home Theater system, new kitchen appliances, and home fitness equipment. Try entering what you pay for your gym membership to see how long it would take to save up for a top-rated treadmill!
Only Spent Better gives you all of this with no set-up or configuration necessary, just enter a number and let your eyes do the work.
For those cases where you do need to customize the results to fit your situation, all you have to do is tap on the result and you can adjust the way it computes the result. For example, tap on the "by Retirement" result and you'll see this:
Just tap on the controls to customize, and the re-calculated results will appear instantly. All of your customizations are saved and take effect immediately.
Spent Better is available in the iTunes App Store now for only $1.99 - The best two bucks you'll ever spend!
* Real-World comparisons are currently only available in the United States. But basic functionality (Retirement, Investment, Savings, Credit-Card Payoff, Car and Mortgage Financing calculators) is available in all countries and currencies supported by your iPhone or iPod Touch. We're working on getting these to work in more countries in future versions, but in a nutshell it's about the difference in currencies and local prices--which these particular calculators all depend on. IE: the price of a Value Meal ain't the same worldwide, and we're hard at work doing the research to make sure we've got it done properly. Stay tuned. | <urn:uuid:0a48e84b-ec27-47e4-9590-e5d84f1a5261> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spentbetter.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93059 | 940 | 1.710938 | 2 |
CLICK ON ARROW TO WATCH VIDEO
gloSecond-Generation Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System Completes Successful Intercept Flight Test The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS LAKE ERIE (CG 70) successfully conducted a flight test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, resulting in the first intercept of a short-range ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean by the Navy's newest Missile Defense interceptor, the Standard Missile -- 3 (SM-3) Block 1B. At 8:18 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time (2:18 a.m. EDT May 10) the target missile was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, located on Kauai, Hawaii. The target flew on a northwesterly trajectory towards a broad ocean area of the Pacific Ocean. Following target launch, the USS LAKE ERIE detected and tracked the missile with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar. The ship, equipped with the second-generation Aegis BMD 4.0.1 weapon system, developed a fire control solution and launched the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB interceptor. The USS LAKE ERIE continued to track the target and sent trajectory information to the SM-3 Block IB interceptor in-flight. The SM-3 maneuvered to a point in space, as designated by the fire control solution, and released its kinetic warhead. The kinetic warhead acquired the target, diverted into its path, and, using only the force of a direct impact, engaged and destroyed the threat in a hit-to-kill intercept. Today's event, designated Flight Test Standard Missile-16 (FTM-16) Event 2a, was the first successful live fire intercept test of the SM-3 Block IB interceptor and the second-generation Aegis BMD 4.0.1 weapon system. Previous successful intercepts were conducted with the Aegis BMD 3.6.1 weapon system and the SM-3 Block IA interceptor, which are currently operational on U.S. Navy ships deployed across the globe.. | <urn:uuid:f1c96679-8393-4edf-93d2-b8c605a3c2cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://corksphere.blogspot.com/2012/05/missile-flight-test-this-is-cool.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906705 | 442 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Earliest Canadian-made chanukiyah discovered
MONTREAL — What is believed to be the earliest known Canadian-made ceremonial chanukiyah has been identified by Eiran Harris, archivist emeritus of Montreal’s Jewish Public Library Archives.
It was discovered in the collection of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, Canada’s oldest existing Ashkenazi congregation, founded in 1858. The chanukiyah is now prominently displayed in the synagogue’s Edward Bronfman Museum.
In 1904, during his presidency of the congregation, Lyon Cohen donated the brass chanukiyah to the synagogue on the occasion of his son’s bar mitzvah.
The 40-by-32-centimetre candelabra was cast at the W.R. Cuthbert Brass Foundry, which was owned by the Cohen family. In his youth, prior to achieving international renown as a poet and singer, Lyon Cohen’s grandson, Leonard, worked at the foundry, Harris said.
On the base is engraved the following, “Presented to Shaar Hashomayim Congregation by Lyon Cohen, President, on the occasion of the Bar Mitzvah of his eldest son, Chanukah 5665, December 3, 1904.”
The eldest son was Nathan “Natty” Bernard Cohen, Leonard’s father.
Lyon Cohen would become the first president of Canadian Jewish Congress in 1919.
Harris is confident of his claim. “No other older Canadian-made chanukiyah in Canada or anywhere else has been identified,” he said.
“Hundreds of Chanukah lamps are displayed in museums throughout the world as examples of ornate Jewish art produced in various countries. Now a Canadian example is also proudly displayed,” Harris said. | <urn:uuid:a8471806-19b3-466e-87dd-88df80f0da1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cjnews.com/jewish-learning/donor%E2%80%99s-gift-enabling-milwaukee-school-offer-first-year-free?q=node/98039 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965847 | 386 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Adding to the problems, the survey of 1063 vehicles was for a single half-hour period on one day, and 50% of the half-hour period was before the start of official darkness (though they say visibility was low enough to make headlights necessary).
Posts filed under Surveys (83)
From the Wellcome Trust Monitor, a survey examining knowledge and attitudes related to biomedical science in the UK
The survey found a high level of interest in medical research among the public – more than seven in ten adults (75 per cent) and nearly six out of ten of young people (58 per cent). Despite this, understanding of how research is conducted is not deep – and levels of understanding have fallen since 2009. While most adults (67 per cent) and half of all young people (50 per cent) recognise the concept of a controlled experiment in science, most cannot articulate why this process is effective.
Two-thirds of the adults that were questioned trusted medical practitioners and university scientists to give them accurate information about medical research. This fell to just over one in ten (12 per cent) for government departments and ministers. Journalists scored lowest on trustworthiness — only 8 per cent of adults trusted them to give accurate information about medical research, although this was an improvement on the 2009 figure of 4 per cent.
Pew Research have released a report on public opinion in Europe. There’s lots of important stuff in there about austerity, the Euro, unemployment, inequality, and so on. There’s also this entertaining table:
As Robert Burns didn’t quite write: O wad some Pew’R the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!
A familiar topic on StatsChat is the use of surveys (of widely varying quality) purely to create a press release, in the hope of getting some free product placement from overworked journalists. The UK blog Ministry of Truth has a detailed look at a company that seems to specialise in this form of marketing
If you didn’t see it on the BBC, then you may well have caught up with the story via the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror or the Yorkshire Evening Post. In a sense, it doesn’t really matter where you saw the story because they were all churned from the same press release, which had been put out by a Gloucester-based PR agency called 10 Yetis, and they all, to varying degrees of cut and paste, uncritially reported at least some of the contents of the press release.
It is also, as you may also have already guessed, a complete and utter load of bullshit from start to finish, and that’s really what this particular article is all about.
There’s currently discussion in NZ about whether to change the 5-yearly census. North America is providing some examples of what not to do.
Canada decided a while back that they were going to chop most of the questions off the census and put them in a new survey. The new survey is still sent to everyone, but is voluntary — the worst of both worlds, since a much smaller survey would allow for more effort per respondent in follow-up. Frances Woolley compares the race/ethnicity data from the 2006 Census and the new survey: the survey is dramatically overcounting minorities.
In the USA, a Republican congressman has proposed a bill that would stop the Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau from collecting basically anything other than the census. That would wipe out the American Community Survey, the detailed 1%/year sample that provides a wide range of regional data. It would also wipe out the Current Population Survey, used to estimate the unemployment rate. Fortunately for the US economy, there’s no chance of this bill becoming law: the business community hates it, and Senate will never pass it. It’s still worrying that there’s a public-opinion advantage in pretending you want to abolish the government’s economic data collection.
The Herald today ran this story claiming that people think New Zealand is a racist country, based on the results of a survey run for TV3′s new show The Vote. Viewers voted through Facebook, Twitter, The Vote website or by text.
I haven’t watched The Vote, but I would like to know whether its journalist presenters, presumably fans of accuracy, point out that such self-selecting polls are unscientific – the polite term for bogus. The best thing you can say is that such polls allow viewers to feel involved.
But that’s not a good thing if claims made as a result of these polls lead to way off-beam impressions being planted in the public consciousness; that’s often the way urban myths are born and prejudice stoked.
I’m not saying that racism doesn’t exist in New Zealand, but polls like this offer no insight into the issue or, worse, distort the truth.
It’s disappointing to see the Herald, which still, presumably, places a premium on accuracy, has swallowed The Vote press release whole, without pointing out its shortcomings or doing its homework to see what reliable surveys exist. TV3 must be very pleased with the free publicity, though.
Two opportunities for public comment that will expire soon, and where StatsChat readers might have something to say
- Stats New Zealand wants to hear from people who use Census data. They have a questionnaire on how you use the data, and how this might be affected if they change the Census in various ways. It’s open until Friday May 3
- Public submissions on the new ‘legal highs’ bill close on Wednesday May 1. The bill is here. You can make a submission here. The Drug Foundation have a description and recommendations here.
This sort of public comment is qualitative, rather than quantitative. Neither the Select Committee nor Stats New Zealand is likely to count up the number of submissions taking a particular view and use this as a population estimate, because that would be silly. What they should be aiming for is a qualitatively exhaustive sample, one that includes all the arguments for or against the bill, or all the different ways people use Census data.
If you want to get Australian census summary data, you can download it from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, or buy a DVD for A$250.
An article in iTNews explains why someone might pay rather than downloading
“You have to click to download each pack individually, and they’ve set the site up deliberately to make it difficult to use a browser plugin to download everything that is contained on the released DVD image,” Bowland told iTNews.
Or, the data release is now available using bittorrent, thanks to Bowland, who bought the DVD (this is perfectly legit: the data are Creative Commons licenced).
Stuff has a story “Dishonest Kiwi Travellers”, based on a survey press release from Hotels.com. The survey asked people if they had stolen things from hotels and used the responses to rank countries by honesty, with the travellers who denied taking things being rated more honest than the ones who admitted it (rather than the other way around).
Fortunately it doesn’t really matter how honest the responses were, since if you follow a few links you can find a press release for the Canadian part of the survey, which admits
In a recent survey hotels.com® asked its Canadian email subscribers , including those in Quebec, about what they look for in hotel accommodations, and you might be surprised at what they had to say.
Or in other words, it’s a bogus poll.
The Herald has produced this Stat of the Week nomination
The obvious problem is that the percentages add up to about 170%, not 100%. That’s why the bar labelled “41.8%” is only about 1/4 of the circle.These are not mutually exclusive categories, and in fact someone who is in one of these categories is actually more likely to be in others.
The most interesting results from the underlying data would be about which purchases go together. Is there an more-or-less consistent ordering of things so that someone who buys food and beverages online will also buy reading materials and electronics online, or is it more complicated? That’s probably the sort of information that Roy Morgan Research would like to sell you, with the overall proportions as a teaser — selling detailed survey reports is their business.
On the other hand, while the ribbon adding up to a full circle is irrelevant because there isn’t a meaningful total, it’s hard to get very worked up about it. A table, or a ‘forest plot’ of points and margin of error would be a bit more informative — it’s not clear what the margin of error in the smaller categories is like.
I’m slightly more worried about the fact that reading isn’t counted as leisure, somewhat more worried that it’s news that more people use the internet now than ten years ago, and much more worried that the graph says it refers to 4977 people but the text of the story says 12000 people. | <urn:uuid:cc4e28f8-025c-4055-87b5-641627e61e37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.statschat.org.nz/category/surveys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957617 | 1,893 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Pop Music for Spring for Middle School Choirs
Stanton’s Sheet Music suggests that you welcome summer in style by closing out your school year with some of these great popular music choices for middle school choirs. Whether you’re looking for a nostalgic pop song, a jazzy standard or a choreography feature, we’ll help you find the perfect fit for your ensemble!
Originally released by The Jackson 5 in 1978, the funk-fueled pop classic Blame It on the Boogie has a freshness that still resonates! With a sunny lead line and energetic harmonies, this is a perfect dance showcase for pop and show groups!
The smooth sounds of Brazilian jazz great Antonio Carlos Jobim are set here in a sensational Discovery Jazz chart of One Note Samba. This song topped the charts in 1963 and will be an excellent selection for young singers to develop a feel for bossa nova style!
From the hit animated film “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” where food rains down from the clouds, the upbeat and cheerful song Raining Sunshine, performed by Miranda Cosgrove, is a delightful choice that’s especially good for younger choirs and audiences.
Don’t worry about a thing! Bob Marley‘s reggae hit Three Little Birds will make it all right! With influences from African, Caribbean, and American Rhythm and Blues music, it all combines with a cheerful lyric for an awesome showcase for younger groups.
We Love the ‘60s is seven minutes full of nonstop fun – and perhaps some fun memories for folks in your audience! This medley offers wonderful variety for concert or show choirs. Includes “He’s a Rebel,” “Sealed with a Kiss,” “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Turn Around, Look at Me,” and “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.”
For more suggestions, check out our video below, or contact us!
No comments yet. | <urn:uuid:58ede3cf-99b9-454a-bca6-0826f0324356> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stantonssheetmusic.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/pop-music-for-spring-for-middle-school-choirs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902 | 431 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Tip 3: Read
It’s good for your brain, and can help when you have to fill in the awkward silences that inevitably come up in conversation. What you read is not even important, really; anything from Sports Illustrated to War and Peace will do. While some things are better fodder for conversation topics than others, this is often dependent on the audience. Read what interests you, and the act of...
Tip 2: Scurvy Prevention
Breakfast and champagne mean only one thing: mimosas. As a rule, never skimp on orange juice or toilet paper; these things are worth shelling out a few extra semolians for the good stuff. A good friend of mine passed on this bit of wisdom: “When it comes to mimosas, use good orange juice and cheap champagne.” Using good champagne for a mimosa is a waste of good champagne, and...
Tip 1: What's Wrong With This Picture?
The Answer: Note the lack of champagne on the bottom shelf. Make it a rule to always keep two bottles of champagne in the fridge; one decent ($10-15) and one cheap (<$10). Use the cheap one for mimosas, and drink the good one when the time is right. When you use one, replace it ASAP.
Lesson 1: Breakfast
Every gentleman should be able to cook a good breakfast, if for no other reason than to be well prepared when guests show up first thing in the morning. Here’s a step by-step guide to a world-class breakfast. This whole thing takes about 15 minutes of prep time and 15 minutes of cooking time. Step 1: Potatoes Dice 1 potato per person into small pieces. Fig 1. Fig. 1 - This is the size... | <urn:uuid:792b535d-168e-4b99-855d-becf1ed34971> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bachelortips.tumblr.com/archive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901608 | 367 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Hi, we're Candace and Nicole from Crafty Sisters!
We are really excited to be here at Craft Goodies.
Wendy is super talented in the wood department and we just loved her star lantern she made for this month's craft. Her cut stars were amazing wrapped around the lantern!
Well, Nicole has been super busy this month, in the last few days she has been asked to create all the floral arrangements for a friend's wedding....so she has been up to her eyeballs figuring it all out.
Yep, she's a woman of many talents besides wood crafts.
So that leaves me (Candace) in charge of creating a lantern.
I have seen so many cool terrariums created from old wood frames,
and thought it would work for a lantern.
I am proud to say that I only spent money on the metal hook, and everything else I found in my garage. I found some IKEA cheapy frames I have had for ten years, and glued them together with Liquid Nails super adhesive. The rest were scraps left over from old projects...yeah!
You probably should nail, hinge, or use corner brackets to make the frame box stronger, but Liquid Nails adhesive is pretty good and it seems to work for my small lantern. I might go back and put a few wood corner braces in.
I let the glued frames dry for a day before attaching anything else.
I made the top of the lantern with a one scrap of mdf for the base of the lid,
and a small piece in the center to set the fencing cap up high.
You can find wood fencing caps in Home Depot for a couple of dollars.
I found some trim in my garage and cut it to fit like crown.
I used my miter saw to cut each piece at a 45 degree angle, flipping it to get the right angle.
If you have a question about mitering crown...Google it...that's how I learned, you will find great directions.
If you don't have a miter saw, you can also do this with a miter box.
I used wood glue to attach the trim to the top, and the rest of the top pieces.
I used LOTS of wood filler to fill in my gaps...it is amazing stuff!
Can you tell I am feeling a little less confident this time around without my trusty craft partner. ;)
I finished the lantern with orb spray paint.
Our mom gave me a fun idea to glue small strips of wood on the lid to keep the lid from slipping off.
I cut chopsticks up and it works great! I was going to use latches to hold the lid in place, but this will be sitting on a shelf somewhere in my house...so it should be okay.
**Notice I don't have a vent for a real candle. This is purely a "decorative" :) lantern.
I used battery operated candles...love them.
This lantern was reeeaallly easy to make, so give it a try!
You can do it! If you have four old frames somewhere...half your work is already done!
I hope you come join in on the fun!
Thanks Wendy for having us!
I'm always impressed with this dynamite duo! So much talent between them. I'm loving the black-super classy and so able to go anywhere. Thanks Candace for a great project. | <urn:uuid:c8152f00-ab17-4834-ac98-cf6427f75104> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wmcraftgoodies.blogspot.com/2011/06/wood-you-like-to-craft-with-candace-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954922 | 710 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The goals of this crusade are as follows:
- To mount a unified effort in building a global rosary
chain on the 13th of each month in honor of our Blessed
Mother's requests to pray the rosary for peace.
- To build awareness of the power given to mankind through
the use of the rosary.
- To proliferate the use of this powerful weapon against
In 1917, Jesus sent His Mother to Fatima, Portugal on the
13th day of consecutive months with pleas and warnings of
what might happen if man did not turn back to God. These events
culminated on October 13th with one of the greatest documented
miracles of modern times that was witnessed by literally tens
of thousands of people. Our Blessed Mother's message was quite
simple. Put Jesus back at the center of our lives. Ask for
God's mercy. Make sacrifices and reparations for the ways
man has offended God. And pray the rosary for peace!
"I am the Lady of the Rosary, I have come to warn
the faithful to amend their lives and ask for pardon for
their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more, for
He is already too grievously offended by the sins of men.
People must say the rosary. Let them continue saying it
--Our Blessed Mother to Lucia at Fatima
October 13, 1917
Most importantly, our Blessed Mother brought us a message
of HOPE! If we listen, and do these things, our merciful God
stands ready to embrace us. Great sufferings and disasters,
both manmade and natural can be averted!
"The rosary is my weapon." "Our Lady has
never refused me a grace through the recitation of the rosary."
"Love the Blessed Mother and make her loved. Always
recite the rosary."
--St. (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina
Sadly, as the Fatima messages went largely unheeded, many
of the things that our Blessed Mother warned of, including
WWII, the rise of Russia, and the spread of communism came
to pass. In fact, quite arguably, this century will go down
as one of the bloodiest and war filled in the history of mankind.
With the lack of peace in this new millennium, our Blessed
Mother's requests seem more urgent and more relevant than
ever, so please join in this worldwide effort of prayer in
response to our Blessed Mother's urgent pleadings. | <urn:uuid:2b03eb30-2edc-44ed-bb66-c46edf9fa147> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.savior.org/wwrc/default.htm | 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 | 0.910561 | 532 | 2.171875 | 2 |
"The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Strong"
Is there any excuse for McCain's gaffe?
Read more about Wall Street's ongoing crisis.
Listen to Daniel Gross in an audio podcast, "Everyday I Read the Book," by pushing the play button below or downloading the podcast here:
John McCain set off a firestorm Monday when he said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," while also noting that these are tough times. McCain, for whom the economy is not comfortable terrain, was simply repeating a formulation he's used before. In August, he told radio host Laura Ingraham, "I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong. We've got terribly big challenges now, whether it be housing or employment or so many of the other—health care. It's very, very tough times."
Commenting on the seaworthiness of the nation's economic ship even as it is being swamped by gale-driven waves is a staple of the modern presidency. When there's upheaval in the markets or a discouraging run of economic news, the president or the Treasury secretary trudges out to tell us to remain calm. On Monday, as Lehman Brothers was filing for bankruptcy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said, "Well, as you know, we're working through a difficult period in our financial markets right now as we work off some of the past excesses. But the American people can remain confident in the soundness and the resilience of our financial system." After 9/11, President Bush told a press conference, "I want to assure the American people that the fundamentals for growth are very strong." Treasury Undersecretary John Taylor told reporters on Oct. 4, 2001, "[O]ur basic fundamentals are very sound." In December 1991, with the economy stubbornly refusing to get out of its funk, President Bush the elder declared in a speech, "I remain convinced America's fundamentals are sound—not just the economic indicators that I mentioned a few moments ago, but the broad fundamentals that sustain American society." In October 1987, when the stock market crashed, Ronald Reagan reassured the public that "the economic fundamentals remain sound."
It's ironic that presidents (and would-be presidents) would continue to use such phrasing, because the president who seems to have minted the phrase is the one with the worst economic record of all time: Herbert Hoover. In the wake of a big stock-market downdraft, Hoover on Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929, proclaimed, "The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis." (The worst Depression-era attempt to calm Americans came from plutocratic Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, in early 1930: "I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism.")
It's easy to see why leaders resort to such banal, swaddling language in times of stress. It's a way of changing the conversation, redirecting attention away from the debacle du jour and tapping into Americans' basic pride and faith in their system. Yes, some of the numbers are less than optimal. But this too shall pass. A few windows may have been blown out, but the foundation of the building is just fine. One rarely hears protestations of soundness when the economy is doing well—the numbers and the markets speak for themselves.
The question remains: Are the fundamentals sound? Was McCain right, or hopelessly rosy-eyed? It depends on which fundamentals you want to emphasize. There are times when all the fundamentals are unsound, as was the case in 1931. And there are times when all the fundamentals appear to be sound, as was the case in the mid- to late 1990s. The rest of the time, the fundamentals reside somewhere between the two poles (the left pole signifying we're totally screwed and the right pole signifying that happy days are here again). Today, we're closer to being totally screwed.
Consider: The United States needs to create about 150,000 jobs per month just to keep pace with growing population. When payroll jobs fall for eight straight months and the unemployment rate spikes, and when new weekly unemployment claims remain above 400,000, the economy may not be fundamentally sound.
When inflation in the past 12 months has run at 5.4 percent, well over twice the level with which central bankers are comfortable, the economy may not be fundamentally sound.
When foreclosures are running at record rates and housing prices fall by nearly 16 percent year over year, the economy may not be fundamentally sound.
When the two largest financial institutions in the nation, which guarantee about half of the mortgages, fail and have to be taken over by the government, when the fourth-largest investment bank files for Chapter 11, and when the Federal Reserve effectively nationalizes a massive insurance firm that is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the economy may not be fundamentally sound.
In an economy in which consumption constitutes 70 percent of activity, retail sales falling two months in a row may indicate that the economy might not be fundamentally sound.
Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at email@example.com and follow him on Twitter. His latest book, Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, has just been published in paperback.
Photograph of John McCain by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images. | <urn:uuid:cd28d0a6-4b45-47a8-bd9f-0c284911581b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/09/the_fundamentals_of_our_economy_are_strong.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948168 | 1,121 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Posted on Friday, September 14th, 2012
The New York State Bar Association devoted the summer 2012 issue of its Government, Law and Policy Journal to an in-depth discussion of gun laws, public health, and public safety, and invited the Law Center, as well as other gun violence prevention organizations, public health experts, elected officials, and scholars, to contribute to the conversation. We are pleased to share our contribution, which analyzes the current laws on the books in New York.
Our article, entitled “Regulating Guns in New York: Existing State Laws and How They Could Be Strengthened,” focuses on six key legislative approaches to preventing gun violence that New York should adopt. For each approach, the article details New York’s existing law, or lack thereof, recommends how the law should be changed, and presents examples of relevant existing laws in other states and New York City.
Recent polling confirms that a strong majority of New Yorkers support limiting the number of handguns an individual can buy to one a month and strengthening the state’s laws regulating firearm sales, two of the critical issues that we discuss in our article.
This article is reprinted with permission from Government, Law and Policy Journal, Summer 2012, Vol. 14, No. 1, published by the New York State Bar Association, One Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207. | <urn:uuid:085fbe64-b546-4cf4-9fd0-59e9221d2807> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smartgunlaws.org/tag/government-law-and-policy-journal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919708 | 280 | 1.640625 | 2 |
For the first time, skiers and snowboarders can use augmented reality to move around the trails at ski resorts. What is augmented reality?
We've all seen that yellow line come across the television screen when we're watching a football or hockey game. That bright image lets the viewer know where the ball or puck is on the screen.
That same technology can be used on an iPhone 3GS at certain North American ski resorts, thanks to Colorado-based Resort Technology Partners.
The REALSKI application uses the iPhone's camera, compass, GPS and other 3G features.
Skiers and boarders can use their iPhone's camera to see their surroundings while the app overlays digital graphics that shows lifts, runs, bathrooms and even where you car is parked.
No need to unfold a trail map that is stuffed inside your coat pocket. The images are in real time so as someone heads down the hill, the key points of interest will adjust on the screen.
RTP launched REALSKI at Copper Mountain on Thursday. The plan is for the application to work at all Colorado resorts by the end of the year.
The man who invented REALSKI used to work for Microsoft. Mark Roebke then left the software company to work at Vail Resorts. Roebke left Vail when he founded RTP in 1998.
RTP provides software and Web development to the resort, recreation and hospitality industries. In the past year, it has seen double digit growth. That is impressive in a year when the economy has had a negative effect on this industry. RTP is expanding as well into Europe.
For more information on REALSKI go to http://www.rtp.com/info/realski.asp
(Copyright KUSA*TV, All Rights Reserved) | <urn:uuid:bb785d18-59b2-4f0b-85df-700804ab9e64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.9news.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=128163&catid=188 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938775 | 368 | 1.914063 | 2 |
The budget and tax proposals put forth by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not lead to the economic prosperity and job growth he has claimed, according to a new study released this week. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that Romney’s plans would actually lead to a net loss of jobs over the first two years of his administration, and the losses could grow even larger if Romney were to stick to his promise of reaching a balanced budget.
EPI had to make assumptions about Romney’s plan because of its lack of specificity, but according to its analysis, Romney’s plan to lower taxes and cut spending would cause a net loss of 554,000 jobs over the next two years if Romney abandons his plan to pay for the massive tax cuts he has promised. But if he maintains his promise to balance the budget while also providing the huge tax cuts, his plan would “lead to employment losses of 608,000 in 2013 and roughly 1.3 million in 2014″:
The deep spending cuts Romney has promised are the primary reason for the job losses, EPI’s analysis found. If Romney does pay for the tax cuts, as he insists he will, the spending cuts would get even deeper and thus cause the loss of even more jobs. Another independent analysis, meanwhile, found that fully paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require raising taxes on the middle class.
Romney’s call for a Balanced Budget Amendment would cause even more problems. “Government spending cuts of this magnitude would constitute an economic shock even larger than the one inflicted by the bursting of the housing bubble—a shock that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression,” EPI wrote. But because that shock would be so large, EPI concluded that passage of such an amendment is “exceedingly unlikely” and it chose not to include it in the analysis. | <urn:uuid:7ca9567a-9c76-42c1-beba-dd02299e761a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/27/919221/study-romney-job-killing-budget/?mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981197 | 387 | 1.960938 | 2 |
'Provocative and assured, History on Film/Film on History is a pioneering work of critical analysis. With his usual stylistic elegance, Robert A. Rosenstone conveys a sense of passion and tough intelligence in a series of intensely engaging arguments. It is the definitive work in the field.'
Robert Burgoyne, University of St Andrews
'Robert Rosenstones History on Film/Film on History is a provocative, important book about nothing less than how we define history in the twenty-first century. ... [It] offers a compelling case for the power of film to make visible larger historical truths. ... a must read for anyone who cares about history in an age of mass culture.'
Alison Landsberg, George Mason University
'In its second edition, Rosenstones book remains a benchmark in the ever-expanding fields of film history and history.'
Frances Guerin, University of Kent
Since first publication in 2006, Robert A. Rosenstones History on Film/Film on History has established itself as a classic treatise on the historical film and its role in bringing history to life.
In this updated version of his ground-breaking and widely-acclaimed text, Robert Rosenstone argues that to leave history films out of the discussion of the meaning of the past is to ignore a major factor in our understanding of past events. He champions the dramatic feature as a legitimate way of doing history, even though it is largely fictional. He examines what history films convey about the past and how they convey it, demonstrating the need to learn how to read and understand this new visual world. Integrating detailed analysis of individual history films, such as Glory, Reds, October and Schindlers List, this new edition includes:
· A new introduction, outlining the impact this work has had on the topic of history and film as well as general developments in the field
· New, up-to-date Guide to Key Reading
· Detailed examinations of a variety of films American, European, Mexican and Soviet made in different political systems and climates
· A chapter focusing on Oliver Stone as a brilliant historian of the Vietnam era
· A chapter on recent Holocaust films, showing how a group of works, taken together, can provide a wide-ranging understanding of a single historical event.
With its useful guidance on how to effectively analyse films as historical interpretations, this new edition will continue to hold its place as a text which not only shows the value of film on history, but also demonstrates how history can work on film.
Professor Robert A. Rosenstone of the California Institute of Technology is a leading scholar in the growing field of history and film. His award-winning biography of John Reed, Romantic Revolutionary (1975), was used as the basis of Warren Beatty's multiple Academy Award winner, Reds, on which Rosenstone served as historical consultant. He is author of several books, including Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (1995), Crusade of the Left: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War (1969) and Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Japan (1988), and is the founding editor of Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice. | <urn:uuid:ba928123-19a2-475c-bcda-f53c62aad5e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pearson.ch/HigherEducation/History/TheoryMethod/1471/9781408282557/History-on-FilmFilm-on-History.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93322 | 650 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Graphs and charts are great because they communicate information visually. For this reason, graphs are often used in newspapers, magazines and businesses around the world. NCES constantly uses graphs and charts in our publications and on the web. Sometimes, complicated information is difficult to understand and needs an illustration. Other times, a graph or chart helps impress people by getting your point across quickly and visually. Here you will find four different graphs and charts for you to consider. Maybe it will help explain what you are trying to show. Use homework problems, things you have a special interest in, or use some of the numbers you find elsewhere on this site. Have fun!
Looking to do even more with graphs?
Try the new Create A Graph! | <urn:uuid:4dea868e-9b9f-48b0-8596-5ab317c9c7f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/classic/ | 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 | 0.957228 | 148 | 3.21875 | 3 |
You pay Property Transfer Tax when you purchase or acquire an interest in a property. The tax must be paid when you register changes to a certificate of title with the Land Title Office. For example, a change may include adding or deleting a name from the title.
Property Transfer Tax is different from property tax. You pay property tax on an annual basis for services you receive from your local government, even if no money changes hands. | <urn:uuid:fb621806-14a0-4e25-937a-3e1fd5aed486> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.remax-kelowna-bc.com/property-transfer-tax-information/P195 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936657 | 86 | 2.0625 | 2 |
"What are we going to do today?", the Five-Year-Old Twins, Aimie and Ami, ask each other.
"I've got my dance class to teach", says Aimie.
"I've got my ballet to write for the new Kirov-Mariinsky Children's Dance Season", says Ami.
There's a knock on the door. It's The Dancer Who Lives In The Park.
"I've got to learn some new dance steps", she says.
"Let's take everything to the lake", they all say together.
Sitting at the lake they watch hundreds of Sparkles dancing on the water.
The Sparkles are really into some amazingly magnificent and complex choreography today.
A slow moving wave of waltzing Sparkles is dancing alongside another fast-stepping wave of swirling glittering Sparkles.
"This is really great dancing!", Aimie, Ami and The Dancer In The Park agree.
The glittering, dancing Sparkles seem to be glowing in appreciation.
"I am going to teach this to my dance class", says Five-Year Old Aimie, just as her class of little Five-Year-Olds arrive.
"Relevay, s'il vous play (if you please)", says Aimie to her dance class.
All the little children jump into the lake and start to merrily hop around. Aimie is overjoyed with the success of her first lesson.
Ami is watching the wonderful dancing Sparkles and excitedly writing down choreographic notes, using Advanced Kinetic Dance Notations For Five-Year-Olds. This will be wonderful for his new ballet.
The Dancer Who Lives In The Park watches the Sparkles dancing. She sees Aimie and the little children splashing merrily in the water while Ami is writing away triumphantly in his notebook.
"I think that I have an idea for my new dance step", she says, as she lifts herself into the air and performs one the most beautifully inspired 'Grand Jete Tour En L'Air' Jump Turns that she has ever done. | <urn:uuid:ad0a8684-74a2-484e-892a-388c475398e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ballet-dance.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=188979 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939594 | 443 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Rising seas attributed to human induced global warming have submerged Lohachara island, once the home to 10,000 people. Unhinhabited Suparibhanga has also vanished, while the inhabited island of Ghoramara has lost two thirds of its area to the rising seas in the Bay of Bengal.
While we were all distracted by Christmas festivities, this sober news on the impact of climate change was published in The Independent (UK), about the inundation of various Sundarban islands in the Indian part of the delta region of the Ganges and Brahmaputra river, where they empty into the Bay of Bengal.
The region is considered remote and researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University discovered the submergence through examining satellite photos of the area. According to the report in the Independent, Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, said that there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. | <urn:uuid:dd56db50-1abd-4c08-a87a-29e4418fb238> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://takvera.blogspot.com.au/2006_12_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960008 | 203 | 3.0625 | 3 |
1. Sports balls are interesting beasts with respect to aerodynamics. Baseballs, footballs, golf balls and yes, tennis balls don't have the design they do by accident.
The bernoulli effect with these items is influenced not only by shape but by whether it spins when used. The math is ugy, they didn't teach us the real equations until my college aerodynamics course, but in concept lift is created by the top of the airfoil creating a temporary vacuum, the bottom not and there is a turbulence effect involved that helps create the vacuum that depends on the shape of the airfoil and its behavior.
Tennis balls are round, and they're designed to travel straight through the air for the most part (sometimes you lob them, but mostly the idea is to have them go fast and straight). I don't know enough about tennis to know if you deliberately put spin on it, as you do in table tennis, baseball etc to make the ball move strangely but it seems likely.
With a baseball, you do a curve ball, fastball or knuckleball by varying the spin on the ball as you throw it...the stitching and the exact weight for our atmosphere causes it to create the right kind of turbulence to change the direction of travel. A tennis ball might be similar, with the "fuzz" contributing to the turbulence, to make "spin" more effective.
But I'm guessing here. I think to see a different Bernoulli effect between a hairy ball and a "bald" ball, you'd want to hit the ball in a way that causes "spin". But I've got nothing to back that up except some half remembered theory of how baseballs work.
Find somebody good at tennis and ask what kinds of strokes they use, whether they ever try to put "spin" on the ball and if they've ever noticed that some balls are better than others for this.
2. The "bounce" of the ball is based on its construction, and the surface it hits (clay, grass, concrete, tennis racket) and the force exerted. The "fuzz" isn't going to be significant compared to those things. I'd expect, in absence of "spin" the ball to have a little more drag with fuzz than without, but it might not be measurable with the tools you have.
If you're measuring "bounce" by dropping the ball from a known height, if the fuzz really exerted enough drag to slow the ball before it hits, that would mean less force exerted, and it would bounce up a lower height. You can try it but my guess is it won't be measurable with tools you have.
3. That's a good question. I can think of two ways offhand but I can't predict how well they'll work. One would be to get a mens electric razor (a new one, don't use your dad's) and try to "shave" it off. Those are designed to work on rounded surfaces and would be better and safer than a knife or straight razor blade. But you might ruin the electric razor or it might prove ineffective.
The other way would be to drop the ball in some kind of acid that dissolves the "fuzz" but not the rest. That should not be attempted without doing reseach on the materials of the ball and without adult supervision, as the acid itself, the fumes and handling of the ball are potentially very dangeorus.
Seriously though, I'd talk to somebody who plays tennis and ask them about how the tennis balls are used. It may well be that the only reason for the fuzz is to affect spin behavior and that may not be something you can set up easily with a drop experiment. | <urn:uuid:e419764a-3bf3-4d59-b952-9d14c09f01cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3233&p=21273 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97394 | 765 | 2.875 | 3 |
Whether you have just started your business or you are an established entrepreneur,
it is never too late to take a reality-check regarding your entrepreneurial skills. Most importantly, it is better to cross-check whether you are committing some of the most common and damaging mistakes that entrepreneurs across the world commit. This includes:
1. Not Defining Target Market
Many entrepreneurs seem to fall in love with their product/creation. The feeling of having created something overwhelms their sensibilities. They forget that for commercial success every product or service, no matter how great, needs a target market. Similarly, some entrepreneurs launch businesses without defining what constitutes their core/target market.
2. Getting Dejected by Early Failures
The biggest of brands and the most worshipped of business gurus faced failure during their initial days. So, what makes you different? Why do you need a guarantee that losses will never come knocking on your door? The learning curve is essentially the same for everybody. Entrepreneurs who aren't ready for the drill shouldn’t consider themselves as long-term players. “No Pain, No Gain” isn't just a gymming quote fad, it is a truth about life, including running a business.
3. Running Excessive Overhead Costs
Every start-up needs to go through a phase of financial crunches, breaking-even and entering profitability. Unless an entrepreneur is backed by daddy’s unending money resources, it doesn’t make sense to operate in a lavish manner. Recruiting staff beyond the immediate requirement and allowing overheads exceed the initial estimate starts eating into financial stability.
4. Inability to Lead When Difficulties Arrive
An entrepreneur is expected to take harsh decisions. However, many new start-up owners lack this skill. They cannot remove unwanted employees, cutback on supplies or correct the problems at the grassroots. Communication without conviction and taking half-hearted measures leads to critical decisions being procrastinated, causing business losses.
5. Failure to Market Aggressively
Having created a great product doesn’t guarantee success to anybody. You need to market it and make investors and consumers realize its uniqueness. Many entrepreneurs tend to sit back, smugly confident that the “greatness” of their idea will magnetize investors and sales.
6. Getting Obsessed with Profits too Early
Profitability in a start-up doesn’t come easy. When it does arrive, entrepreneurs tend to jump towards saving and spending. What they don’t realize is that they need to invest in sustaining the prospect of their business. A new business needs constant financial boosts until it becomes a well-oiled, profitable machinery.
7. Lacking the Will to Sell
Some entrepreneurs fail for a rather basic and stupid reason, i.e. they never yearned for becoming an entrepreneur. These are folks who became entrepreneurs under the illusion of success coming easy to those who are their own boss. People who aren't ready to pamper the customer’s ego shouldn’t turn industrialists or service-providers. If someone is pathologically hesitant of reaching out to people and working around the clock, becoming an entrepreneur shouldn’t even be a consideration. A better option would be to find a regular, desk job.
8. Dreaming Beyond their Horizon
Yes, entrepreneurs are supposed to dream big but this wisdom holds true when they are ready to dream big about capturing a bigger market and providing better customer services. Dreaming about too many supplementary sources of income or trying to divide the current resources for things that aren't related to the core business idea slowly infects a business. It is better to stick to the identity that defines a business and improve upon it rather than divide your focus.
9. Inability to Communicate Effectively
Communication is the pivot of all forms of management and running a business too requires effective communication. Entrepreneurs often fail since they don’t know how to communicate with purpose. This isn't limited to employees or supply vendors. It also refers to communicating to their audience, financing authorities, probable investors and people who have supported them for launching the business.
10. Not Being Humble to Customers
Many new entrepreneurs suffer from the misconception that the grandeur of their business plan or exclusiveness of their product means that customers are going to appease them. There is virtually no business niche today that has been able to maintain its monopoly. The biggest and best of business ideas get replicated within weeks of engaging the initial hysteria. Why would customers stick to an uncaring entrepreneur when a more welcoming competitor is humbly waiting?
11. Aiming for Glory without Gumption
Many new entrepreneurs are guilty of starting with a reservoir of creative, positive energy but losing their strength when the reality hits them hard. Initial failures are synonymous to start-ups across the world. People who aren't ready to invest their time and energy for the long haul shouldn’t enter this niche. Expecting recognition for their sacrifices and thinking of quitting when the going gets tough are not the traits associated with a successful entrepreneur. | <urn:uuid:40626ede-cf1a-4d0d-82cf-0f2e7ee7dffc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.singaporephilippines.com/2012/07/11-reasons-for-entrepreneurial-failure.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955152 | 1,045 | 2.09375 | 2 |
- Collection Home
- Property Rights of the Collection
- History of the Collection
- Editorial Comment
- Chronology of the Life of Louis Dembitz Brandeis
- How to Request Inter-Library Loan Copies of the Collection Microfilm Reels
- The Brandeis Family Tree
- Writings by Louis D. Brandeis
- Writings About Louis D. Brandeis
History of the Collection
Mr. Brandeis first demonstrated an interest in the University of Louisville in the early 1920s. In 1925, the Justice proposed to his brother Alfred, a Louisvillian, a plan to make the University a major center of academic research. Though he later withdrew his offer of financial support for the University's School of Law, he carried out his decision to donate his personal papers, books, and pamphlets. Furthermore, Brandeis encouraged the University of Louisville to acquire additional research material, made specific suggestions for purchases, and donated funds to catalog, bind and shelve them.
The first Brandeis papers arrived in Louisville in the fall of 1936. Those string-tied packets of correspondence and reports on Palestine constitute Series VI (Zionism/Palestine) of this microfilm publication. Other shipments followed, and in the fall of 1938 Brandeis directed the Boston law firm of Nutter, McClennen & Fish--successors to Brandeis, Dunbar & Nutter--to forward to the University those files that related to his pre-Court activities as a "people's attorney" (filmed as Series I.) While Brandeis insisted on a general policy of keeping his papers closed during his lifetime, he did allow Alpheus T. Mason to examine them for his biography, Brandeis A Free Man's Life (1946).
In September, 1978, forty-two years after Brandeis's initial gift, Nutter, McClennen & Fish donated their remaining Brandeis legal files to the University of Louisville's Archives & Records Center. This recent acquisition largely documents the jurist's work in estate planning with the firm of Warren & Brandeis, 1879 - 1897, and as senior partner in Brandeis, Dunbar & Nutter, 1897 - 1916. It also provides additional evidence of Brandeis' activities as an attorney for Progressive causes, and contains personal financial records. Approximately 20 percent of this recent accretion was restricted by the law firm, while the remainder was filmed as Series X, Warren & Brandeis/Brandeis, Dunbar & Nutter, 1881 - 1947.
The bundles that Justice Brandeis sent to the University of Louisville remained in storage until 1940, when Professor Mason began work on his Brandeis biography. At that time, Pearl Weiler (later Von Allmen) was employed to arrange the voluminous collection, commencing a long association with the Brandeis Papers that continued after she was named Law School Librarian. Mrs. Von Allmen retained the donor's subject titles and arranged them chronologically within eight broad topical categories. At the same time, she created a subject card index that has since been lost. Finally, she prepared a folder title list for each series that served as the primary finding aid for the papers.
When materials were added to the papers by family members and Professor Mason, only those relating to the New England railroad merger (a topic within Series I) were interfiled. The remainder was arranged separately and microfilmed as Series IX (Addendum) of this edition. After processing was complete, the Brandeis Papers were housed at the University of Louisville School of Law, most recently in a conference room dedicated to the Justice. Interestingly, urns containing the cremated remains of both Justice and Mrs. Brandeis are interred beneath the School of Law's front portico.
In 1970, Thomas L. Owen, assistant director of the Archives and Records Center, University of Louisville, and director of this microfilm publication, observed the critical deterioration of many of the Brandeis documents. With the support of the director of the Archives & Records Center, Dr. William J. Morison, and the encouragement of the University's School of Law, Owen secured a grant in 1977 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to preserve on microfilm the Brandeis Papers at the University of Louisville, numbering more than 250,000 items.
Selected portions of the Brandeis Papers at the University of Louisville had been microfilmed previously. In 1943, the Zionist Archives in New York City underwrote the cost of microfilming Brandeis's "Zionism/Palestine" papers and in 1955, Dr. Charles J. Kennedy, University of Nebraska, had the "merger" clipping scrapbooks filmed. In 1979, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, issued a commemorative eight-reel microfilm edition of Brandeis's published speeches and writings entitled "The Public Papers of Louis D. Brandeis," that included many printed items from the Brandeis Papers in Louisville. In addition, selected Brandeis Papers at the University of Louisville were the subject of Melvin I. Urofsky and David W. Levy's five-volume letterpress edition of Letters of Louis D. Brandeis (1973 - 1980.)
The Brandeis researcher will find four additional collections at the University of Louisville that complement the material found on this microfilm. While many volumes have been scattered, remnants of the book and pamphlet collection that the Justice donated to the University of Louisville can be found at the University Archives and in the Ekstrom and Law School libraries. In addition, the University Archives preserves photocopies of Brandeis correspondence gathered from around the world by Professor Levy for the five-volume edition of The Letters of Louis D. Brandeis. The Levy photocopies are arranged chronologically and are an excellent supplement to the original Brandeis Papers housed at the University. Brandeis correspondence is also found in the University President's and University Library's office files for the 1920 - 1945 period, also housed at the University Archives. Finally, the University Archives administers that portion of the Brandeis law files that was not filmed. Permission to examine those restricted files must be secured from Nutter McClennen & Fish in Boston. | <urn:uuid:0c4e058d-d96c-4c88-a631-1c10eacac619> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.louisville.edu/library/collections/brandeis/history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941938 | 1,298 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Techniques for Pulling Weeds in the GardenPosted by Yolanda Vanveen
In this video, Joey Baird of the group Wisconsin Vegetable Gardeners, shows us his techniques on pulling weeds which may not include pulling at all. By covering weeds up with mulch (organic material such as lawn clippings, leaves and other foliage or even newspaper) you can remove unwanted plants and create a new garden bed.
How to Garden Videos is delighted to feature gardening videos from the Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener. For more videos go to:
Our website https://www.howtogardenvideos.com/ is based out of the Northwest in the United States but our viewers are from around the world. We would love to feature your blog posts, pictures and videos on this website. please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.org!more >
How to Grow Hardy and Tropical WaterliliesPosted by Yolanda Vanveen
In this video, learn how to grow hardy and tropical waterlilies with William McClenathan of Garden Time TV and Eamonn Hughes of Hughes Water Garden. Waterlilies are a very exotic addition to your water garden and bloom in many colors.
Howtogardenvideos.com is excited to feature Garden Time TV gardening videos. Garden Time is the number one garden TV show in the Pacific Northwest. For more videos, view their website at: http://www.gardentime.tv/
Our website https://www.howtogardenvideos.com/ is based out of the Northwest in the United States but our viewers are from around the world. We would love to feature your blog posts, pictures and videos on this website. please contact us at email@example.com!
Herb Gardening TipsPosted by Yolanda Vanveen
By Yolanda Vanveen
___________________________________________________________________________________________________ With or without the H, herbs are the easiest and most rewarding plants you can have in a container or garden. As everyone knows, the American language is vaguely related to English. Americans have changed words, going so far as to remove the “H” from herbs. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ In general use, herbs (pronounced /ˈɜrbs/ by U.S. speakers, or /ˈhɜrbs/ by other English speakers) are any plants “with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume” or parts of “such a plant as used in cooking”. (In botanical use, the term “herb” is employed differently, for any non-woody flowering plant, regardless of its flavor, scent or other properties, and thus includes only grass-like plants and forbs.) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, and in some cases spiritual usage. General usage differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs. In medicinal or spiritual use any of the parts of the plant might be considered “herbs”, including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, resin, root bark, inner bark (and cambium), berries and sometimes the pericarp or other portions of the plant. Culinary use of the term “herb” typically distinguishes between herbs, from the leafy green parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), and spices, from other parts of the plant (usually dried), including seeds, berries, bark, root and fruit. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to James Stevens of the Sarasota County Extension Agriculture for contributing to this post: http://srq-ag-food.blogspot.com/2011/06/growing-herbs-in-florida.html Herbs are plants which are grown for the special flavor and aroma of their various parts. They are used mainly to season, enrich, or otherwise improve the taste or smell of certain foods. Since they are not primary dishes, they are not classified as vegetables. However, due to similarity of their growth habits and cultural requirements, herbs are often included with vegetables for discussion and in the garden. Since only a small portion of the plant is usually needed at any one time and because the plants are generally small, herbs are adapted to container culture. Their attractiveness as an ornamental plant makes them fit well into the home landscape, either in a border planting, or included in the flower garden. Specially designed formal herb gardens are both practical and attractive. Many herbs are planted among vegetables to repel certain insects and other pests.
LOCATION AND SOIL PREPARATION
Since only a few plants of each herb are required for family use, a small space such as a section of the vegetable garden is sufficient. Some of the herbs live from year to year (perennials), so should be grouped together to one side of the garden where they will not interfere with the preparation of the rest of the garden. In general, most herbs will grow satisfactorily under the same conditions of sunlight and soil, and with similar cultural techniques as are used for vegetables. Therefore, check the appropriate vegetable gardening guides for details on soil preparation, liming, fertilizing, and watering. Special consideration should be given to the location and care of a few of the herbs that are somewhat sensitive to soil moisture conditions. Sage, rosemary, and thyme require a well-drained, slightly moist soil, whereas parsley, chervil, and mint grow best on soils retaining considerable moisture. Additions of organic matter to sandy soils are particularly beneficial to herbs since they are shallow rooting. Keep in mind that some of the herbs, especially the mints, tend to proliferate and become a weed if allowed to grow unchecked.
Most of the annuals and biennials ordinarily are grown from seed sown directly in place. Perennials generally are best started in plant beds or boxes using seed or cuttings, and then transplanted into the garden or growing containers.
A few plants, such as sage, balm, and rosemary, can be propagated best by cutting. Stems from new growth or the upper parts of older stems make the best cuttings for easiest rooting. Cut the stems into 3- to 4-inch sections, each containing a set of leaves or leaf buds near the upper end. To prevent wilting, place the cuttings in water as soon as they are removed from the plant. A shallow box filled with 4 to 5 inches of a mixture of clean sand, peat, and perlite makes a good rooting bed. Insert the cuttings to a depth of one-half to two-thirds their length in the moist mixture; then saturate the mix with water. Place the box in a protected place and keep moist (but not sopping wet) continuously until roots develop in about two weeks. Continue to water until the cuttings are ready to set out in pots or in the garden.
Such plants as thyme, winter savory, and marjoram can be propagated by simple layering, which consists of covering the lower portions of the side branches with soil, leaving much of the top of the plant exposed. When the covered parts of the stem have rooted, they can be cut from the parent plant and set as individual plants.
Older plants of chive, rosemary, and tarragon can be multiplied by dividing the crown clumps into separate parts. These subdivisions can be set as individual plants.
Mint spreads rapidly by means of surface or underground runners that may grow several feet from the parent plant. These runners, with roots attached, can be removed and transplanted to other locations.
CONTAINER GROWN HERBS
Most herbs can be successfully grown in containers attractively arranged outdoors along borders of drives, walks, and patios or on porches and balconies. Hanging baskets are especially suitable for herbs. A few can be grown fairly well indoors with special care. Attention must be given to providing plenty of sunlight. The culture of herbs in containers, including soil preparation is similar to that for vegetables. Organic soil such as compost is the best.
HARVESTING AND CURING
The seeds, leaves, flowering tops, and occasionally the roots of the herbs are used for flavoring purposes. Their flavor is due for the most part to a volatile or essential oil contained in leaves, seeds, and fruits. The flavor is retained longer if the herbs are harvested at the right time and properly cured and stored. The young, tender leaves can be gathered and used fresh at any time during the season, but for later use they should be harvested when the plants begin to flower and should be dried rapidly in a well-ventilated, darkened room. If the leaves are dusty or gritty, they should be washed in cold water and thoroughly drained before drying.
The tender-leaf herbs (basil, tarragon, lemon balm, and the mints), which have a high moisture content, must be dried rapidly away from the light if they are to retain their green color. If dried too slowly, they will turn dark and/or moldy. For this reason a well-ventilated, darkened room, such as an attic or other dry, airy room, furnishes ideal conditions for curing these herbs in a short time. The less-succulent leaf herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme, and summer savory), which contain less moisture, can be partially dried in the sun without affecting their color, but excessive exposure should be avoided.
The seed crops should be harvested when they are mature or when their color changes from green to brown or gray. A few plants of the annual varieties might be left undisturbed to flower and mature seed for planting each season. Seeds should be thoroughly dry before storing to prevent loss of viability for planting and to prevent molding or loss of quality. After curing for several days in an airy room, a day or two in the sun will insure safekeeping.
As soon as the herb leaves or seed are dry, they should be cleaned by separating them from stems and other foreign matter and packed in suitable containers to prevent loss of essential oils that give herbs their delicate flavor. Glass, metal, or cardboard containers that can be closed tightly will preserve the aroma and flavor. Glass jars make satisfactory containers, but they must be painted or stored in a dark room to prevent bleaching of the green leaves by light.
Please see our videos on herbs: Growing Herbs : How to Grow an Herb Garden Indoors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCF2koqM1jw How to Grow Chives: How to Grow Chives Planting Oregano Tips: Planting Oregano Tips Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Our website http://www.howtogardenvideos.com/ is based out of the Northwest in the United States but our viewers are from around the world. We would love to feature your blog posts, pictures and videos on this website. Please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.org!
Please favorite our How to Garden Videos website http://www.howtogardenvideos.com/
Join How to Garden Videos on Facebook:
and How to Garden Videos Twitter: https://twitter.com/howtogardenvidsmore > | <urn:uuid:a58a592f-22af-44f3-8764-b6f438158c4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howtogardenvideos.com/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923555 | 2,527 | 2 | 2 |
|Plot||Big Bird takes a picture of Snuffleupagus to prove that his friend exists.|
|Air date||January 12, 1972|
|Season||Season 3 (1971-1972)|
- David holds a large cut-out letter U in his right hand and a large cut-out letter P in his left hand. When he puts them together, they spell the word "UP".
- A salesman from the Grouchy Greeting Card Company reads some grouchy rhymes to Oscar.
- Wally and Ralph attempt to unroll a rug, but a chair in the middle of the room presents a problem.
- Pat Paulsen counting.
- The Busby Twins, who are so close that they share everything, including talking, divide up the word can - dle.
- Big Bird takes a picture of Mr. Snuffleupagus. He's sure that the photograph will prove the existence of his friend to Gordon, Susan and David -- but the only thing they see in the picture is an old rug and a furry piece of rope.
- Ernie and Bert: Ernie listens to various sounds and tells Bert that he can't answer the phone in order to listen.
- While Gordon prunes a tree, he explains that some branches have to be cut off because they hurt the rest of the tree. The remaining branches now have more room for the sun and can get more tree food (or sap) and rain.
- As they watch a football game, Tom is happy and Gordon is sad when the Blue team gets the ball; but Gordon is happy and Tom is sad when the Red team gets the ball. They are both sad when it begins to rain.
- Susan sings the Same/Different song.
- Cookie Monster and Ernie: Ernie and Cookie Monster discuss hope. Ernie has something in a brown paper bag, and asks Cookie Monster what he hopes it is. Cookie Monster hopes that it is a cookie. It turns out that Ernie has ten cookies in the bag. (EKA: Episode 0233)
- Members of the cast demonstrate that U is for Under, Unlock and Unwrap.
- Ernie and Bert: Ernie approaches Bert in a harried manner, talking rapidly. Bert tells him to talk slower so he can understand him. Ernie says, slowly, that Bert's bread is burning in the oven, which causes Bert to speak in the same rapid, harried manner. (EKA: Episode 0288)
|Previous episode:||Next episode:|
|Episode 0322||Episode 0324| | <urn:uuid:6220c05d-6d2b-439f-a78a-53c2ac031392> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_0323?direction=prev&oldid=561241 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937655 | 534 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Salvation Army is struggling with dwindling donations across the country that will make it hard to give long-term assistance after a disaster. A spokesman for the charity says "we have to hope and pray" this year's hurricane season is mild.
The organization will continue to provide the basics, food, water and shelter, said Maj. George Hood, the Salvation Army's national spokesman.
But it isn't likely to offer more costly recovery aid, such as the $10,000 grants that were given to Hurricane Katrina victims to help them repair their homes.
The religious charity also has given mortgage, rent and down payment assistance to disaster victims in the past.
The Salvation Army's cost-cutting moves include plans to close two offices along the Hurricane-prone Gulf coast: one in Mississippi's Hancock County Aug. 28 and one in Metairie, La., in December. Both were Katrina recovery centers. | <urn:uuid:1ac274ce-941f-4c93-af27-62981ea71f7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtok.com/news/alabama/headlines/51404722.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97342 | 183 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Midlife and Menopause
Premature Ovarian Failure
If you are under forty years old, your ovaries have stopped working as they usually do, and you have not had gynecological surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment, you may be diagnosed with premature ovarian failure (POF). Some health care providers also use the term ovarian insufficiency to describe this condition. POF may occur years or decades before the typical age for menopause. Sometimes your menstrual periods may completely stop, but often with POF you may still menstruate sporadically. In fact, sometimes POF is not classified as strictly early menopause, because the biological causes can be different.
Researchers have not been able to determine exactly why some women’s ovaries stop working as usual at an early age. While autoimmune disorders, chromosomal disorders, smoking, and certain viruses have been implicated, some of us may just be genetically programmed to go through menopause at a younger age than others. In this case, despite the medical terminology, your ovaries have not really “failed,” they have simply completed their mission earlier than usual. Just as women begin menstruation at different ages, women also reach menopause at different ages. Also, sometimes ovarian function may be temporarily disrupted and may resume again.
Early natural menopause appears to be least common among Japanese-American women (0.1 percent of whom experience early natural menopause, according to a recent study) and most common among African-American women and Latinas (with 1.4 percent of women in these groups experiencing early natural menopause).16 About 1 percent of white American women and 0.5 percent of Chinese-American women experience early natural menopause. Early natural menopause is also more common among women who are poor.17
It is not usually possible to know whether your POF is temporary. In addition, the specific cause of your POF may never be found. A thirty-six-year-old woman with premature ovarian failure describes her frustration with this uncertainty:
When I finally got the POF diagnosis, after years of these weird and awful symptoms, I was in shock. I could not believe I was sitting there and my doctor was telling me,“Yes, it’s POF but we really can’t tell you how you got it.” I was like, “What? You’re the doctor. Tell me how I got this awful thing!” I truly think that’s one of the worst parts of the diagnosis—not knowing.
Some women may blame ourselves for behaviors or risks that we think may have brought on our POF. We often try to find a “reason” when there doesn’t appear to be a definite cause. Most causes of early menopause are beyond our control. Some factors that may affect POF are discussed in the following pages.
End of excerpt
Excerpted from Chapter 4: Sudden and Early Menopause in Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause © 2006 Boston Women's Health Book Collective
16. J. L. Luborsky, P. Meyer, M. F. Sowers, E. B. Gold, and N. Santoro, "Premature Menopause in a Multi-Ethnic Population Study of the Menopausal Transistion," Human Reproduction 18, no.1 (2002):201. [back to text]
17. Ibid., 204. [back to text]
Excerpted from Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause, © 2006, Boston Women's Health Book Collective.
< Return to Chapter 26 Overview | <urn:uuid:25077aa2-a2ac-4217-a46c-30b73ecd6107> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/menoexcerpt.asp?id=56 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953172 | 788 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Release Date: 2/25/2010
Clarksville, Ark. --- Q: What do these things have in common? G.I. Joe, Hulk Hogan, Luke Skywalker, Gene Simmons from Kiss, Spider-Man, and Ozarks President Dr. Rick Niece.
A: They are all action figures.
Action figures? Even Dr. Niece? Yes, even our beloved president, turned into miniaturized 3-D movable art (with bendable joints), thanks to the hobby crafting of Sociology professor Dr. Jesse Weiss.
“I’ve always liked toys,” says Dr. Weiss. “I started a collection of action figures in college, a mishmash of superhero and sports star figures – everyone from Michael Jordan to Batman – and rock stars.” He points to the bookshelves in his office, which also contain incredibly lifelike figures of Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Joey Ramone of the Ramones.
“Then one day I noticed that you could take them apart without destroying them,” he says. “I always enjoyed painting models as a kid, so I started making new characters out of the parts, professional wrestlers or movie characters that didn’t already have action figures based on them.”
Dr. Weiss says once he mastered using a dremel tool to be able to carve the figures, and sculpey, a clay-like product that hardens when heated, he was able to create new hair, beards, and glasses. “I did one of my dad, my brothers and myself,” he said. “Since then I’ve done Dr. Niece, Dr. [Sean] Coleman, and some others. It’s kind of random – you can’t really do one for everybody. I have done a few on commission through eBay, though.”
He said he did one figure based on the father of a tattoo artist from Fayetteville who had been a wrestler. “My wife and I have standing offers for free tattoos from that guy,” Dr. Weiss says. “We haven’t taken him up on it yet.”
He says he has a large plastic bin with drawers filled with spare parts. “The figures I use are from a manufacturer called Jakks Pacific. Unfortunately, they quit making the figures last December, but I have enough spares to keep me going for awhile.”
Toy modification has made its way into Dr. Weiss’s sociology classes, where he often uses a “Barbie Bash” to teach about gender roles to his students. “After Christmas I buy up a lot of Barbies off the clearance racks,” he says. “The students are asked to examine gender roles and to redesign their Barbies against gender roles. So on display downstairs are the Stay-At-Home Ken doll and the President of the United States Barbie, among others.”
At the end of the interview for this piece, Dr. Weiss presented its astonished author with a remarkable sight – a Web Site Content Media Writer Don Lee action figure, its fingers curled just right to tackle the keyboard. | <urn:uuid:a40e4b5f-62f8-4c12-a63d-6bf41d5eada8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ozarks.edu/newsevents/news/news_story.asp?newsID=3840 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964855 | 677 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Why Choose the General Biology Option?
By definition, biology studies how living things work and how they interact with each other and the environment. The biological sciences includes many fascinating fields; topics of study range from molecular properties of cell structure, heredity, functions of tissues and organs, habitats and behaviors and how ecosystems change over time. Recent advances in the biological sciences have made major breakthroughs that affect the world in extraordinary ways. With the accelerating pace of discovery, this trend will continue. A degree in general biology will give the student the ability to explore many diverse fields of biology and can lead to future graduate studies in professional or research institutions or to jobs in a wide range of industries.
General Biology Option in Biological Sciences at Purdue University Calumet
The biology program at Purdue University Calumet provides students a comprehensive and broad education in the biological sciences, yet with the flexibility to fulfill individual’s need. The strengths of the department include biotechnology, cell and molecular biology, ecology, microbiology and physiology. Choosing the General Biology Option (SBY) allows the student to develop a study plan that is tailored to their individual education goals with their advisor.
Careers in Biology
What career opportunities exist for biologists?
The field of biology encompasses a many diverse fields and so presents many job opportunities. After receiving a bachelor degree in biology sciences, an individual may work as a technician in laboratories in academic institutions, industries, government agencies, hospitals and private companies. An individual may also work as a science sales representative or a as a science writer. With a master degree, an individual may be hired as a research scientist, a laboratory supervisor or an instructor in community or junior college. A doctoral degree prepares individuals for research and teaching positions in colleges, independent research in academic and industrial settings as well as administrative positions in industry and government.
How much does a biologist earn?
Biologist salaries vary widely depending on several factors including level of education, employment sector and previous job experience. Even so, there are some general statements regarding biologist salaries that can be made.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one third of the thirty fastest growing occupations require education in biology.*
Jobs in biological sciences and healthcare fields are expected to grow an average of 23.5% over the next twenty years. When compared with average job growth of 14% overall, it is easy to see that pursuing education in biological sciences is a sound career choice.*
A degree in the biological sciences makes financial sense. Overall, salaries in biology and medical fields are 87% higher than the national average.**
- For more information on applying to this program visit the Purdue Calumet Admissions webpage.
Graduation Requirement for Bachelor of Science, Biology – Min 124 Credits
Download the General Biology Plan of Study (PDF)
- Required Biology Courses (26-17 credits, C or above average)
- Biology Electives (8-14 credits, C or above average, 300+ level)
- English and Communication (6-9 credits)
- ENG 104/105 or 108
- COM 114
- Math and Computer (12+ credits)
- PHYS 220/221
- CHM 115/116
- CHM 255, 255L / 256, 256L
- CHM 333
- Social Sciences and Humanity ( 15+ credits)
- Humanity (3+ credits)
- Social Science (3+ credits)
- Foreign Language (0-6 credits)
- General Electives
- AIBS Careers in Life Sciences Brochure (PDF)
- American Institute of Biological Sciences
- Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
Filed under General News. | <urn:uuid:669cedb4-43a7-432c-bc70-aaa71977d3f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://webs.purduecal.edu/biology/2012/12/07/generalbiology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90914 | 753 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Russian ambassador Andrey Avetisyan said the two countries are preparing an agreement that would regulate future efforts to recover the servicemen, who went missing during a decade of guerrilla warfare in the impoverished nation.
Difficulties remain, he noted, in accessing some areas believed to contain soldiers' graves because of the current war between international forces, the Taliban and other insurgents.
"We are talking about places where nobody goes, remote points where fighting is still heavy," he told reporters.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979, telling the world it aimed to transform Afghanistan into a modern socialist state. Moscow sought to prop up a communist regime facing a popular uprising, but left largely defeated on Feb. 15, 1989 by anti-communist mujahedeen forces receiving massive support from the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others.
The Soviets maintained a garrison of about 80,000 troops in Afghanistan through much of that war. Nearly 700,000 rotated through the country and about 15,000 died in the 10-year conflict.
A Russian veterans group says 265 soldiers remain unaccounted for. About 20 are thought to have
One of those was Nikolai Bystrov, an army lieutenant captured by guerrillas fighting the Soviet occupation. He later became the personal bodyguard of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud who battled the Taliban during the 1990s.
Aleksander Lavrentyev, deputy head of a veterans group searching for Soviet MIAs, said his group had received excellent help from Afghan authorities, the Red Crescent, NGOs and ordinary citizens—including those who had fought on the opposing side—in locating the remains of 15 soldiers in the past 4 years. Of those, five were positively identified while the rest were still undergoing forensic testing.
"But now time is passing and it is becoming more and more difficult to find witnesses of those events," he said.
The move to resolve the remaining MIA cases comes as the U.S.-led NATO coalition is preparing to draw down its forces in Afghanistan and hand over responsibility for the war in 2014 to the Afghan security forces.
Despite the presence of up to 140,000 foreign troops, NATO has not been able to defeat the guerrillas who have successfully regrouped after their crushing defeat by U.S.-led forces in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Russia has backed the international coalition in the war, providing air and land transit routes for troops and equipment. But Moscow has been critical of the alliance's plans to pull out while the Taliban remain undefeated. | <urn:uuid:2682dc70-08ac-4a03-b761-04b978e9b946> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publicopiniononline.com/nationalnews/ci_21775782/russia-asks-afghanistan-help-soviet-mias | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970941 | 522 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Law enforcement officers are a critical link in the survival of a victim of domestic violence. All law enforcement entities in Maryland also provide extensive training and guidelines on domestic violence.
When the Police Arrive
When the police come:
- Tell them all the details of your assault
- Request that they write up an incident report
- Ask for a copy of the report and the report number, and
- Write down the names and badge numbers of the police officers who came to the scene so you can follow up on your case later on.
If this happens, write down the officers' names and badge numbers and make sure that they know that you want them to file a report. Go to the police station and ask to file an incident report on your own. You should note in your incident report the names and badge numbers of the police officers who failed to write an incident report for you on the scene.
What the Police Are Required to Do
If you are a victim of domestic violence, the police are required by Maryland law to:
- Inform you of your basic rights as a victim of a crime. The police or sheriff's deputies usually notify victims of their basic rights by giving them a copy of the pamphlet, Maryland Crime Victims and Witnesses: Your Rights and Services .Read the Law: Md. Crim. Pro. Code §11-914(9)(i)
- Protect you from harm when you call for help and go with you to your home so you can get personal clothing and personal effects that you need immediately, such as medicine. Read the Law: Md. Fam. L. Code §4-502(a)(i-ii)
- Give you a written notice that tells you:
- The telephone number of a local domestic violence program that receives funding from the Maryland Department of Human Resources. Read the Law: Md. Fam L. Code §4-503(a)(1)
- You have a right to ask the District Court Commissioner to file a criminal charging document against the person you say abused you. When you go before the District Court Commissioner, if the police did not give you a copy of the pamphlet, The Commissioner will give you a copy of the pamphlet, “Maryland Crime Victims and Witnesses: Your Rights and Services.” Read the Law: Md. Fam. L. Code §4-503(a)(2)(i); Md. Crim. Pro. Code §11-914(9)(i)
- If the Commissioner refuses to file a charging document, you have the right to ask the State’s Attorney to file a criminal charging document against the person you say abused you. Read the Law: Md. Fam. L. Code §4-503(a)(2)(ii)
- If the court offices are closed, you have the right to file a petition for an interim protective order with the on-duty or on-call Commissioner. Read the Law: Md. Fam. L. Code §4-503(a)(2)(iii)
- Give you a copy of the domestic violence incident report completed by the police, if you ask for a copy. Read the Law: Md. Fam. L. Code §4-503.1(a)(2)
Police Officers Should Also
- Ensure the safety of all involved
- Secure and protect the crime scene
- Seek voluntary surrender of firearms for safekeeping purposes
- Seize firearms subject to State, territorial, local, or tribal prohibitions
- Identify whether an order of protection has been violated
- Evaluate the validity and enforceability of the order
- Arrest for violation of the order where required by enforcing jurisdiction
- Arrest for any other criminal offenses
- Seek an arrest warrant, when required, related to the criminal conduct if the abuser is not at the scene
- Attempt to locate and arrest the abuser.
Making the Referral at the Scene
The officer may also:
- Address transportation and housing needs of victim by making appropriate referrals to community services. In Maryland, there are local community resource centers listed by county and domestic violence hotlines .
- Refer victim to issuing jurisdiction for enforcement of economic provisions within order of protection.
- Refer victim to the appropriate advocacy agency to obtain assistance with the economic provisions of a support enforcement. In Maryland, this is the Child Support Enforcement Agency .
Lethality Assessment Program
The Lethality Assessment Program helps law enforcement personnel assist victims of domestic violence who are at risk of being killed.
These factors can be helpful predictors of future violence:
- Threats of homicide/suicide
- History of domestic violence and other criminal conduct
- Depression or other mental illness
- Obsessive attachment to victim
- Separation of parties
- Drug or alcohol involvement
- Possession or access to weapons
- Abuse of pets
- Destruction of victim's property
- Access to victim and victim's family and other supporters
Police Must Honor Your Protective Order
Regardless of which court (in any state) issued a protective order, the police must enforce the terms of the order. This is true even if the order is different from what a Maryland judge in your county might have ordered. In a final protective order, a judge may order a law enforcement officer to use all reasonable and necessary force to enforce a temporary custody awarded in the order. Judges are required to order respondents to surrender any firearms in his/her possession and to not acquire any new firearms for the duration of the order.
Read the Law: 18 U.S.C. §2265
If the Abuser Violates Your Protective Order
If your abuser violates your Protective Order by coming to your home, school or work, contacting you or abusing you, you should call the police right away.
- Show them your copy of your Protective Order
- Ask the police to file an incident report
- Tell them that you want to file criminal charges
If the police officers have probable cause to believe that your abuser violated your Order, they can arrest the abuser on the spot without a warrant.
Can a Police Officer Remove Firearms from an Abuser?
In Maryland, an officer may remove a firearm from the scene of an alleged act of domestic violence if the officer has probable cause to believe that the act has occurred and observes the firearm at the scene. The officer is required to store the firearm until the conclusion of a court proceeding on the domestic violence issue. The court may then order the abuser to surrender the firearm for the duration of the protective order. If the police remove the weapon from the scene but a court proceeding is not begun, the police can return the weapon. Also, the judge must include in the protective order a requirement that the weapon be surrendered, or the other side will be allowed to retake possession of the weapon. Read the Law: Md. Fam. L. Code Ann. §4-511; Md. Fam. L. Code Ann. §4-506(d)(12) | <urn:uuid:7a0829bd-e939-40b8-8acb-f20f6ad9e52a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peoples-law.org/print/188 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913378 | 1,430 | 1.929688 | 2 |
A hundred years and not out
St. Mary’s School marks the feat revitalising its mission of reaching out to the margins, writes D. KARTHIKEYAN
Photo: S. James
Standing tall A symbol of Christian inclusiveness
“Education is the transmission of a civilization” — Will Durant
St.Mary’s Higher Secondary School, East Gate, finds an integral place in the topography and educational map of the Temple city. One of the oldest schools in the city, St Mary’s has been providing good education and has dedicated itself in the nation-building process.
A product of colonial modernity and western idea of enlightenment and rationality, the school celebrated its centenary last Sunday (July 27). It had its humble origins under Rev.Fr.Trincal as “Thinnai Palli” a gurukul form of education in the year 1863, thus sowing the seeds for an educational mission, which has steeped itself in the annals of history and pedagogical practices.
The school has a unique prayer song, which does not refer to God despite being a Christian institution, which highlights the idea of secularism, nationalism, humanism and universalism, says Fr.Vincent Amalraj, Headmaster and Correspondent.
The Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola and his first companions in the year 1540 realised that education was not only an apt means for human and spiritual development but also as an as an effective instrument for reforming the Church, so they started a number of Jesuit schools.
Jesuits in India with their educational infrastructure championed and pioneered the cause of western education. In their efforts, they reached the periphery providing education to dalits, women, tribals and other marginalized communities thus demonstrating a potential to initiate a social revolution with greater ramifications.
Among others, Robert De Nobili, (1577-1656) who formed the ‘Madura Mission’ in the year 1606 and Fr. Joseph Constantius Beschi (1680-1747) — known locally as Veeramamunivar (Great among Ascetics) — evinced interest in local cultures, they became pundits in local language and perceived Christianity through indigenous eyes and presented Christianity through local idioms since the middle of the 16th century. This approach eventually contributed to the enrichment of the local languages and philology.
The old Madura Mission was revived in 1834 by the Jesuit priests from Toulouse province in France. St Mary’s school after its service of 16 years in the form of gurukul was transformed into a Government-recognized primary school in the year 1879 and served till 1904.
In 1908, the school was upgraded as high school and there was no stopping back as the school rose to become a full-fledged higher secondary school in the year 1978.
Fr.Arockiaraj, rector and former Headmaster says, “the school runs on the Jesuit principle of “option for the poor” and is aimed to provide good quality education inculcating principles of humanity and societal responsibility to the dispossessed and downtrodden sections in the community”.
The school under Fr. Simon S.J. saw the introduction of English language teaching, based on the Jesuit idea “By Light to Life,” which is the school motto that infers on the social responsibility to enlighten and empower the masses.
This change helped in gaining momentum to educate a person for a productive career developing the individual as a human person in the humanities and sciences with social and political responsibility.
During the years 1961-1965, Rev.Fr.Mathai’s concerted efforts saw library getting modernised and emphasis was laid on effective learning with students excelling in sports at district and state levels. In 1965, R.Ram and N.Subbiah secured state ranks and the next year, which was also the diamond jubilee year saw Ramesh Babu secure State first as a fitting tribute.
In an effort to promote religious harmony the school has for quite some time brought eminent religious scholars like Kirubananda Variar, Kundrakudi Adigalar and Thirukkural Munisamy to address the students.
Former Chief Ministers K.Kamaraj, M. Bhakthavatsalam, former Union Minister C.Subramaniam, State Ministers R.Nedunchezhian, former Chief Election Commisioner T.N.Seshan, State legislative assembly speakers Sedapatti Muthiah and K.Kalimuthu have visited the school and lauded the school’s achievements.
The school has a voluntary association called SUPAM (Students Upliftment and Animation Movement) formed in 1989 aimed at promoting compassion and courteousness among the students.
The school has a galaxy of stars in its alumni who have turned out to be achievers in their respective fields. To name a few, P.Mohan Member of Parliament representing Madurai, P.Mannar Jawahar, Vice Chancellor, Anna University, V. Palani Kumar, Coimbatore District Collector, Senthil Pandian an Civil Services officer in Uttar Pradesh, S.Rethinavelu, president, Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce .
A hundred years and still going strong, this school which has taken education to the margins is rejuvenating itself with a strong emphasis time and again to serve the society.
Send this article to Friends by | <urn:uuid:289eae01-792c-438f-ae85-f59b8eea4437> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2008/08/02/stories/2008080250470100.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948171 | 1,144 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Study the Past and Present of Sports and Media in Russia!
At the beginning of the last decade, many had written off Russia as a failed experiment of post-communist transition. But the last ten years have seen a remarkable makeover: a strong president credited with putting more cash in his citizens’ pockets; a strong economy is fueled by robust consumer spending and oil and gas profits; a military is battle-tested in several controversial wars; and culture and arts are blossoming (almost) as during the Russian Silver Age. But Russia’s success has come at the expense of domestic civil liberties, democracy, and rule of law. Through site visits, lectures and field trips led by experts in media and culture, this course gives participants a firsthand sense of Russia in the new millennium. Students will travel to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They will visit the Kremlin, the Bolshoy Theatre, the Moscow Circus, the Hermitage Museum, the KGB Museum, Rasputin's Museum, and many other sites.
Application Deadline: TBD
Deposit Deadline: TBD
Planned Program Highlights:
- Tour of Moscow, including Red Square, the Kremlin and Lenin's Mausoleum
- Tour of the Presidential Residence
- Tretiakov Art Gallery
- Vinzavod Art Gallery Complex
- Tour the great cathedrals of St. Petersburg
- COM 8001 Mass Media in Russia
- SPM 2205 Sports in Russia: Past, Present, Future
Program Dates: TBD
Program Fee: TBD
*Please note: Tuition and airfare are in addition to the program fee. Please check the tuition based on your school and how many credits you choose to enroll in while abroad.
- Alla Baeva - Communications, Journalism & Media Studies
- Emese Ivan - Hospitality, Tourism and Sport Management
For additional information and application forms, contact:
Prof. Alla Baeva,
Division of Mass Communication,
CPS, office R230, Bent Hall,
Contact the Office of Global Studies | <urn:uuid:d6252fe4-2424-483e-90bb-ab3fbaacba88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stjohns.edu/academics/international/globalstudies/programs/summer/russia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910789 | 421 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Researchers at the Laval University Hospital Center in Quebec are developing an approach that might expand the type of disease treatable with gene therapy. Most gene therapy treatments are being developed to insert a functional version of a gene into patients with a defective one, usually from a congenital abnormality. However, the group at Laval University Hospital is working to develop an approach to correct diseases where, instead of a defective gene, the disease is caused simply because too little of the gene is produced.
Genes are just DNA code that specify particular proteins which are the real machines in cells that carry out the biological reactions. Translating the DNA code into a functioning protein requires cells make copies of the gene sequence, then send the copies to the protein manufacturing part of the cell to make the protein. The number of copies of the gene is controlled so that the right amount of protein is made.
With some diseases, the problem is simply that the gene regulator is broken and not enough copies of it are made. Friedreich ataxia is one example of this where too few copies of the frataxin gene are produced. The protein made by the frataxin gene removes iron and, if there is not enough of it, iron builds up and causes free radical damage, especially to nerve and heart cells.
The group at Laval University Hospital has developed a way to engineer a type of gene regulator (formally called a transcription factor) from a bacteria that normally infects plants. When the engineered gene regulator was put into laboratory cultured human cells, it tripled the number of copies of the frataxin gene. This level of increase should produce enough of the frataxin gene to cure the symptoms for most patients suffering from Friedreich ataxia.
So far, the system has only been used in human cells growing in the lab. To cure the disease, the engineered gene would need to be present in most of a patient's body cells. This is where gene therapy comes in. One way to introduce the engineered bacterial regulator protein would be to use a gene therapy viral vector, such as the adeno-associated virus that is used in the gene therapy drug Glybera which was just recommended for approval in Europe uses.
There are two very unique aspects about the approach the Laval University Hospital group proposes. One, if this was tried in patients, it would be the first time a gene therapy approach is used to regulate a gene rather than just replace or supplement a non-functioning gene. This opens up the possibility to treat many more types of diseases.
The second novelty is that that group is suggesting to use an engineered gene that was made by fusing DNA sequences from bacterial and human genes together. This hybrid gene produces the protein to up regulate the production of more copies of the frataxin gene. Although non-human genes are sometimes used as labels to track delivery of DNA for gene therapy, I believe this would be the first time an engineered gene containing a novel DNA sequence derived from a non-human--in this case a bacteria--would be the functioning genetic element in the potential gene therapy drug.
The current study published in Human Gene Therapy is really just the first step in the development of this sort of treatment but it opens up some intriguing and exciting possibilities. | <urn:uuid:4012b4e4-afb7-479b-8da1-261bdcd8fa22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biotech.about.com/b/2012/07/26/new-approach-could-extend-types-of-disease-treated-with-gene-therapy.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955521 | 668 | 4 | 4 |
Updates to this story
Database giant Oracle has launched a legal action against Google, alleging that the company infringes seven patents it owns related to Java.
Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, was formerly a chief technical officer for Sun Microsystems. Sun Microsystems was bought by Oracle.
The move is interesting because when Sun Microsystems was a separate entity it promoted Java as an open source option.
Google never formally took out a licence from Sun Microsystems, while Java is widely used in a large number of applications created by other vendors. The law suit will cause other manufacturers to wonder whether Oracle will start a patent hunt against them.
The move prompted the Wall Street Journal to remind its readers that Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, is a friend of Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple.
Apple considers Android to be a considerable threat to the iPhone and the Google OS continues to grow its market share as an OS for smartphones. | <urn:uuid:8ac4cbd6-4cdc-4185-b528-e71f0c7706ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.techeye.net/business/google-sued-by-oracle-over-android-os | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95168 | 195 | 1.765625 | 2 |
This recipe is a keeper because it comes together quickly, uses ingredients you probably have on hand, and it expands the way children think about art supplies. When children have the opportunity to invent things and imagine new possibilities (in this case, making their own paint, inventing colors, and imagining what they can create with the paint), opportunities for creative thinking are greater.
Not to mention, both of my kids (21 month Rainbow and 4 year old Nutmeg) enjoyed painting with it, and, um, eating it too. Once dry, the paint has an attractive shiny coat to it. Because there’s sugar in the milk, I’m not going to guarantee its archival quality, but after we’ve had our paintings for a month they still look brand-new.
I get a lot of questions about activities that can be enjoyed by kids of multiple ages. Generally, my opinion on this is that children will adapt the materials in front of them to meet their own level of ability. This project will work for toddlers on up to adults; just expect that the results will vary.
My 4-year old’s completed paintings.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk
- Food coloring
- Small mixing bowls
- Paint brushes
- Tea spoons for mixing
- Card stock or other heavy paper for painting on
Pour a little milk into a bowl, add a couple drops of food coloring, and mix.
My 21-month old got into the mixing action too.
Our painting set-up: I have a big, clear plastic tablecloth that covers the art table. It’s perfect for sticky + wet projects like this. I taped my toddler’s paper to the table to keep it from slipping.
These paintings takes some time to dry. Rainbow did not have a delicate painting hand and her paint went on quite thick. The painting on the right had a deep puddle on it that took a good day to dry. And when it finally dried it caked up a bit and had a nice crackled effect to it. Just something to keep in mind in case you’re looking for a quick-drying paint…this is not it!
Have you tried this before? What kitchen supplies have you tried painting with?
And be truthful, aren’t you just a little bit curious about what it would be like to paint with sticky milk?
This post has been shared on It’s Playtime | <urn:uuid:4b4ad81d-64ab-47e5-a5c0-d8b72805148a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tinkerlab.com/how-to-make-paint-sweetened-condensed-milk-paint/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970332 | 508 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Discovering Warrior Wasps
Lynn S. Kimsey is an entomologist, and has been one for most of her life.
So begins the National Science Foundation's recent LiveScience feature on the UC Davis entomologist.
It's an interesting piece. Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, traces her interest in entomology to age 5, when she received her first butterfly net.
"I've pretty much had a burning passion for insects ever since, except for a brief foray into marine biology as an undergraduate," she told LiveScience.
Kimsey recently drew international attention with her discovery of gigantic "warrior wasps" on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.(The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey says. “Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male’s front legs.)
And what is "the most important characteristic a researcher must demonstrate in order to be an effective researcher?"
"A burning curiosity and the need to know."
Kimsey is also quick to point out the societal benefits of her research. "Understanding insects, where they occur and the ecosystem services they provide, is critical for our how important insects are to us. They are our principal competitors — they feed on us and our animals, they make us sick and yet provide critical pollination, recycling and nutritional services."
We're glad to see LiveScience singling out scientists for a "behind-the-scenes" look. It humanizes the scientists who do such intriguing research.
We remember when apiculturist Marla Spivak, a 2010 MacArthur Foundation and Distinguished McKnight Professor and Extension entomologist with the University of Minnesota, shared some of her thoughts with LiveScience.
When asked "If you could only rescue one thing from your burning office or lab, what would it be?" Spivak answered "My students." Then, showing a trademark sense of humor, she added "If there were bees in the lab, I would grab them, too."
Kimsey, too, has a honed sense of humor. The Bohart Museum is the home of a global collection of seven million insect specimens and what she calls "the live petting zoo"--insects you can touch and handle. They include Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a rose-haired taranatula, and walking sticks.
We thought she might gleefully answer "walking sticks" when she was asked what she would RUN out of burning building with, but no.
Kimsey replied: "My external hard drive: My entire research life, my brain, is in that drive."
Lynn Kimsey with a gigantic "warrior wasp" she discovered on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) | <urn:uuid:42edfa11-6502-42f5-9347-d721a47bc8ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/?blogpost=6136&blogasset=45538&email=yes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956348 | 613 | 2.6875 | 3 |
End the Israeli Apartheid State
by: Leila Farsakh
Thursday August 2, 2012 - 09:24
End the Israeli Apartheid State
“BISHOP DESMOND TUTU, the South African Nobel Prize winner, described how he saw on his visit to Israel “much like what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about” (1)….”
AN OCCUPATION THAT CREATES CHILDREN WILLING TO DIE Israel: an apartheid state?
by Leila Farsakh | Le Monde Diplomatique
BISHOP DESMOND TUTU, the South African Nobel Prize winner, described how he saw on his visit to Israel “much like what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about” (1). Comparisons between apartheid South Africa and Israel/Palestine have often been made, but not always clearly explained. Many factors have made the comparison attractive.
The first, perhaps most important, is the historical colonialist foundation of the two conflicts. White settlers in South Africa, like Zionist pioneers, colonised a land already inhabited. As in South Africa, the settlers in Palestine expelled the indigenous population, some two-thirds of the Palestinians in the land that became Israel in 1948, took possession of their properties and legally segregated those who remained.
However, admitting that Israel’s foundation was colonialist does not mean that it is compar able to apartheid South Africa. As Gershon Shafir, a leading Israeli sociologist, has noted, while both conflicts were about control of the land, they took place in different historical and economic conditions that had an impact on their evolution and their relation to the natives (2).
White South Africans and Israelis dealt differently with the indigenous demographic reality. In Palestine the Zionist project wanted to negate the idea of a native non-Jewish population, coining the phrase “people without a land for a land without a people” (3). It sought to establish Jewish demographic dominance by expelling Palestin ians and preventing structural dependence on the Palestinian economy, particularly on its labour. Before 1948 fewer than a third of the workers in the Jewish sector were Palestinian (4). From 1948-67, the remaining Palestinian Arabs supplied no more than 15% of the labour force (5).
South Africa was different. The white settlers sought to dominate, rather than expel, the native population by incorporating them as inferior citizens in a polity under exclusively white control. The indigenous population was in the majority, more than 75% of the total labour force since 1913, when the first segregation laws were passed. The white minority imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising legal, economic and residential discrimination. Fundamental to this was the construction of territorial segregation, through the labour reserves; the white-designated distinct geographic spaces – 13% of the land – on which blacks had to live.
Between 1951 and 1970 four major Acts (6) turned these reserves into bantustans. Those in these polities were given “self-government” rights and responsibilities, could define their own economic policies and run civilian and functional affairs. However, they had to coordinate with settler authorities on security matters, and could not have independent foreign policies. In 1974 bantustan citizenship was created and between 1976 and 1981 four of the 10 bantustans were granted independence, so their people were no longer South African citizens.
In Israel/Palestine no such territorial structure of segregation was created, though from 1948-66 the military governments controlled Israeli Arabs’ movements, curfewed them, controlled where they lived and confiscated their land to favour Jewish occupation. South African apartheid wanted the land and the people, albeit with segregation; the Israeli leadership tried to take the land without the people, a policy seriously challenged by the 1967 war, which altered the demographic reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly a million Palestinians remained in the occupied territories in 1967, equal to a third of the Jewish population on the total land controlled by Israel. Although Israel continued to pursue a transfer policy, more voluntary than forced (7), most of the Palestinian population remained. Examining Israel’s response to this, we begin to understand the similarities that have emerged between Israel and apartheid South Africa, despite their initial historical differences.
After the 1967 war Israel consolidated its claims to the occupied land. The rightwing government elected in 1977 developed an elaborate policy of territorial integration and demographic separation. The military government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WGBS) expropriated and enclosed Palestinian land and allowed the transfer of Israeli settlers to the occupied territories: they continued to be governed by Israeli laws. The government also enacted different military laws and decrees to regulate the civilian, economic and legal affairs of Palestinian inhabitants. These strangled the Palestinian economy and increased its dependence and integration into Israel. From 1967-90 the borders between Israel and the occupied territories were kept open. More than a third of the Palestinian labour force was employed in Israel and generated over a quarter of the territories’ GDP.
Israel had constructed more than 145 settlements by 1993 and moved in 196,000 settlers; half lived in 10 settlements around East Jerusalem (8). The settlements’ exponential growth and scattered distribution over the occupied areas began the structural-territorial fragmentation of the WBGS; they were intended to challenge the Palestinian demographic in the WBGS. Many view these Israeli policies of territorial inte gration and societal separation as apartheid, even if they were never given such a name (9).
The applicability of the South Africa model to Israeli-Palestinian relations is problematic. The first issue is the geographical delineation of Israeli “apartheid”: does it cover all of Israel or only the WBGS? Palestinians living beyond the Green Line are Israeli citizens, while Palestinians in the WBGS are not. The former are not confined to specific geographic areas out of which they cannot move, nor are they excluded from the Israeli political process – they vote and can be elected, though they are discriminated against. The latter are an occupied population awaiting a political solution.
THE second point of contention is the role of territorial partition as a solution to the conflict. The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the main political voice of the indigenous peoples, rejected the Afrikaners’ separatist position and called for the end of apartheid and the creation of a democratic South Africa for all citizens. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) had accepted by 1974 the idea of partition as the way to fulfil Palestinian rights to self-determination. Although it took 19 years more, and the Oslo process, for Israel to recognise the PLO as the only negotiating party, Israel accepted the idea of partitioning land with the Palestinians. The question was the definition of the boundaries and the political content of this partition.
The third difference between Israel-Palestine and apartheid South Africa is the position of the international community over the resolution of the conflicts. The international community never accepted apartheid or the idea of separate nationhood in South Africa. In 1976, when the South African government tried to get Transkei, one of the 10 bantustans, admitted to the United Nations as an independent state, the UN refused (10). In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the UN endorsed separate nation states as the model for conflict resolution. The UN Security Council resolution 181 in 1947 clearly set up the idea of land-for-peace as the guiding principle for solving the conflict. UN Security Council resolution 242 in 1967 reaffirmed that principle. While not specific about the boundaries of the land that Israel occupied or about Palestinian national rights, reso lution 242 affirmed that the way to peace in the Middle East had to be through returning land and recognising all states. The Oslo process was based on resolution 242.
Despite these important differences between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and South African apartheid, the past decade has brought them closer together. By institutionalising the societal separation and territorial integration that Israel created between 1967 and 1993, the Oslo process has prepared for the bantustanisation of the WBGS, transforming the Palestinian territories into fragmented population reserves, neither sustainable economically nor sovereign politically.
Oslo led to the territorial fragmentation of the WBGS. Although the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was supposed to control most of the West Bank by 1996, it only had jurisdiction over 19%, or less, of the West Bank by July 2000 (area A) (11). It can be argued that political opposition to Oslo – manifested in suicide bombings and their repercussions in the Israeli political establishment (the murder of Yitzhak Rabin and the election of Binjamin Netanyahu) – was a reason for the failure to ensure adequate Israeli redeployment. But the Palestinian jurisdiction before the al-Aqsa intifada was fragmented and excluded 59% of the West Bank (other than East Jerusalem) and 30% of the Gaza Strip.
Settlements were the key to the territorial fragmentation of the WBGS and to the bantustan isation of the Palestinian territories. Area C divided the West Bank into three parts that were further subdivided into smaller population reserves by the road bypass system and four major settlement blocs (Jerusalem, Ariel/Shomron, Gush Etzion, Binjamin/Jordan valley). Between 1993 and 2000 the settler population (including East Jerusalem) doubled to 410,000, around 15% of the terri tories’ total population. Israel built more than 400km of bypass roads and 72 settlement outposts (12).
The Oslo process made the Palestinian situation legally similar to South Africa’s bantustans. The Oslo accords did not make the native electorate the only source of authority for the Palestinian entity (as in the South African bantustans). Although the accords established a democratically elected Palestinian National Council and presidency, the jurisdiction of these elected institutions did not stem solely from the national electorate. The Israeli military government, which was not dismantled, continued to delegate to the newly elected Palestinian Council its civilian and legal jurisdictions. The elected Palestinian Council and the PNA were given mainly civilian, or functional, jurisdiction over 93% of the Palestinian population, but provisional territorial jurisdiction over 19%, or less, of the West Bank.
Oslo did not affirm the superiority of international law over Israeli law. It did not end the occupation and it did not mention the Fourth Geneva Convention, or UN resolution 181, which provides international legitimacy for an Arab state in historic Palestine. The accords referred only to UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 336, but these were vague about Palestinian rights to statehood and the size and boundaries of the occupied territories.
The Oslo agreements focused on establishing an infrastructure of close cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, rather than on separation. Joint Israeli-Palestinian committees were created in every field, especially in security, which remained under Israeli supreme control. This was the kind of security cooperation there had been in South African bantustans. The way that Oslo dealt with the Palestinian demographic presence contributed to bantustan isation. By institutionalising the permit and closure system, introduced in 1990, Oslo imposed on Palestinians similar conditions to those faced by blacks under the pass laws. Although the pass system in South Africa was created to ensure the control and supply of cheap labour, while in the WBGS it was introduced for security reasons, the consequences were the same. Like the pass laws, the permit system controlled population movement according to the settlers’ unilaterally defined considerations. The permit system, the pattern of Israel’s territorial control and the continuing Palestinian demographic presence, transformed the WBGS into fragmented, unsustainable population reserves.
The Israelis’ response to the al-Aqsa intifada was to develop the permit system and fragment the WBGS territorially. In April 2002 Israel declared that the WBGS would be cut into eight main areas, outside which Palestinians could not live without a permit (13). Settlement expansion went on unabated; more than 2,500 houses and 52 settlement outposts were constructed between September 2000 and January 2003 (14). The construction of the wall between Israel and the West Bank, expected to be at least 360km long, is establishing a unilaterally defined Israeli border that encroaches on the 1967 boundaries and cuts Palestinian areas off from each another (15).
The United States’ proposed “road map” is no different from Oslo; it insists on positive perform ance in security cooperation and Palestinian institution building, affirming Israel’s right to intervene in Palestinian affairs. It envisages the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders by 2005, but it does not specify how such a state can be independent and sovereign while having only provisional borders. It remains vague about three other issues central to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state: settlements, Jerusalem and refugees.
THE road map does provide a role for the international community that was absent in Oslo. It makes the Quartet (the UN, the European Union and Russia) guardian of the agreement with the US responsible for monitoring cooperation between the sides. However, the Quartet is given no power to impose arbitration and monitoring. The road map is an international endorsement of the bantustanisation of the WBGS; the international community accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders while settlements are not dismantled and the 1967 borders continue to be redefined by Israel.
Despite their initial differences, apartheid South Africa and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become similar since 1993. Will these similarities prove lasting? The Palestinian bantustans are neither as clearly defined nor as large as those of South Africa. Israel has less need of the Palestinian labour force, replaced more than a decade ago by 250,000 workers from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. If the current situation continues, the two-states solution is in peril. The disappearance of that option would condemn Israel to being an apartheid and binational state, unless it were to embark on a massive programme of population transfer. Palestinians and their supporters abroad would do well to take the South African resistance movement into account when rethinking their political vision and resistance strategy.
* Leila Farsakh is a researcher at the Centre for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston.
Israeli attack on Syria is a provocation against Russia
Wednesday 22 - 18:11by by Guennadi Ziouganov
IRS Scandal Headlines: More Than Meets the Eye
Wednesday 22 - 15:18by by Stephen Lendman
What’s Wrong With Bitcoin
Wednesday 22 - 13:08by The Cerebral Aesthetic Vagabond
37 low-cost ways to overcome Australian Educational Apartheid & social inequity
Wednesday 22 - 12:49by Dr Gideon Polya
WARNING TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE
Tuesday 21 - 12:30
Why Israelis Assassinated John and Robert Kennedy
Tuesday 21 - 10:16
The return of the Russian Med fleet is a warning for Israel
Monday 20 - 23:24by By Jim W. Dean
UN tells Israel to let in nuclear inspectors
Monday 20 - 12:58
MI5 files: Zionist terrorist plotted to kill Winston Churchill
Monday 20 - 12:34by By Duncan Gardham
Release of Two Books on the Same Day Recall the Aerial Massacre in Laos Fifty Ye
Monday 20 - 03:29by Nick
Sunday 19 - 20:02
Legally, Morally, and Ethnically Israel Has No Right To Exist
Sunday 19 - 01:36
Vladimir Putin Nemesis of the New World Order
Saturday 18 - 14:12
2300 yr old Mayan pyramid bulldozed for road rock
Wednesday 15 - 19:31by Amerikagulag
American Republic Army to surround White House for 3 days
Tuesday 14 - 16:39by William Morgan
Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
Tuesday 14 - 15:32by Brother Nathanael
McDonald’s Closes All Their Restaurants in Bolivia (video)
Tuesday 14 - 11:16
When Society Breaks Down
Monday 13 - 22:25by by Zen Gardner
Israel’s Act of War Against Syria—Madness or Cold Calculation?
Monday 13 - 14:31by by F. William Engdahl
Syria denies involvement in Turkey’s Reyhanli car bombings
Sunday 12 - 19:28
AIPAC — The Israeli Lobby
Sunday 12 - 19:07
Everything you wanted to know about how Zionists control US policy
Sunday 12 - 18:54by by Malooga
Everything you wanted to know about how Zionists control US policy
Sunday 12 - 16:21by by Malooga
Launch the International Diplomatic Mission of Islamic Human Rights
Sunday 12 - 10:16by Gaza News
UN’s Del Ponte says evidence Syria rebels ’used sarin’ (video)
Saturday 11 - 12:06
Canada: Harper’s Conservatives Promote Military Ties to Israel
Saturday 11 - 10:21by Johnny Canuck
The US government might be the biggest hacker in the world
Friday 10 - 22:19
US Watchdog Turns Blind Eye to Israel’s Religious Rights Violations
Thursday 9 - 23:22by by Stuart Littlewood
Putin, a thorn in Washington’s flesh
Thursday 9 - 17:54by by F. William Engdahl
Putin’s Geopolitical Chess Game with Washington in Syria and Eurasia
Thursday 9 - 17:48by by F. William Engdahl
Zionist terrorist attack in Moscow: Blast rips through Moscow bus on Victory Day
Thursday 9 - 17:31
Netanyahu summoned to China, Cabal purge starts in the UK, what about the US?
Thursday 9 - 14:50
Technocracy’s Endgame: Global Smart Grid
Thursday 9 - 14:38
Gerald Celente on WW 3 - Middle East Out of Control
Thursday 9 - 14:27
White Slaughter in Black Africa: Dr Gerald Caplan & the Rwanda Genocide Cranks
Thursday 9 - 08:46by Johnny Canuck
See for Yourself: Syrian Government Likely Did Not Use Chemical Weapons
Thursday 9 - 00:57by WashingtonsBlog
Israel Supports Al Qaeda Operatives in Syria
Thursday 9 - 00:35by By Dmitriy Sedov
Happy Texas-Israel Day!
Thursday 9 - 00:02by Dr. Kevin Barrett
China says United States is real "hacking empire"
Wednesday 8 - 08:42
Candles in the Sun
Wednesday 8 - 04:45by BenAMarine | <urn:uuid:ee436be8-225b-4b6b-adec-fafc1031cf02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article22063 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934502 | 3,859 | 2.140625 | 2 |
At their June 2007 meeting, the Village of Grafton Finance Committee identified their support for the concept of sustainability and directed Village staff to focus on specific topics.
The Sustainable Mission identifies these topics as transportation, water quality / quantity and green buildings. The charge was to further evaluate in detail these topics and make recommendations on the same.
How can the residents of the Village of Grafton help? Visit this site often to see new ideas.
Consistent with the Village's new brand Quality Life. Naturally. the Village Board has adopted the new Grafton Sustainability Policy Guidelines.
Aurora Hospital Goes Green in Grafton
Read what Aurora Hosiptal is doing to be sustainable.
Learn how to protect the environment at home and in your garden at EPA.
Wisconsin Be SMART Coalition
The Be SMART Coalition’s Recycle More Wisconsin campaign shows what items can be recycled, tells residents how to recycle more, and explains how recyclables are processed and shipped to companies who use them to manufacture new products.
The Wisconsin Be SMART Coalition, which stands for Save Money And Reduce Trash, is an award-winning partnership of 34 municipalities who are responsible for ensuring recycling compliance in their communities. The Coalition works with state agencies, non-profit and environmental organizations, business and schools to reduce waste, increase recycling, and conserve Wisconsin’s resources by preventing recyclables from going to waste in landfills.
For more information, please visit Wisconsin Be SMART Coalition. | <urn:uuid:d54ab692-b507-4ebc-8d9d-839f1a4497ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wi-grafton.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=269 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929702 | 309 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Taking part in the adventure of persuading others, sweeping them up into an idea, an unexpected action or an unproven vision, is a wonderful experience. The ability to create excitement all around you is what leadership is about.
Good grief -- I like some of what this article says but there is one glaring error: the confusion between persuasion and influence, particularly for leaders.
So what the heck is the difference between the two, why is it important, and what has it got to do with storytelling?
Well -- persuasion is getting someone to do something. Parents use persuasion all the time: "Finish your dinner or you won't get dessert." Or "Sit Fido and you'll get a treat!" Bosses use persuasion too: "Finish this report by X date or forget that promotion." We all use persuasion.
Influence however, is the power or capacity to cause an effect in indirect or intangible ways. Influence is more often 'showing' what needs to be done which then moves someone to take action -- hopefully in a desireable way.
There are many facets to influence including reciprocity, commitment, social proof and others (see Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by R. Cialdini, 2006).
Leadership at the highest levels is about influence, not persuasion. Management is about persuasion. Confusing persuasion and influence creates leadership that can feel more like manipulation than willing participation.
Storytelling -- IMHO -- lies squarly in the camp of influence. And leaders definitely need to master storytelling as an way to both engage and influence.
The list this author has created for leaders to focus on to be persuasive is mostly all about influential qualities to imbue in a leader's storytelling. Except the first one -- threats and consequences. Outlining global consequences if an organization does not change can be part of an influential conversation. Threats, not so much. That's pure persuasion.
Go read the rest of the list and let me know what you think!
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it | <urn:uuid:ec16fb5e-6fbe-4541-90b4-8ed87d7793c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it/p/3304127975/leading-through-the-power-of-persuasion-storytelling?tag=storycapture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942721 | 437 | 2.6875 | 3 |
This car—built by students at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences—doesn't need charging. It is powered by energy sucked straight from the road, using electric induction. Like the Powermat gadget chargers, but in motion.
The E-Quickie is like a full-scale slot racer but without rails. It doesn't need to be in contact with any metallic surface because it gets the energy through induction, sucking it from electrical conductors embedded on the road itself. | <urn:uuid:aa50c0ef-009a-4c87-abd1-4e74fdb004c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gizmodo.com/5636771/the-electric-car-that-doesnt-need-to-be-charged | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947036 | 99 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Can the “Sheriff of Wall Street” become the “Sheriff of State Street”? Critics have long charged that Albany’s inability to resolve festering policy problems is rooted in the state’s dysfunctional politics, which are enabled by laws designed to protect and insulate those in power. Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer has pledged to reform the way state government conducts its political business, and if he succeeds it would have a big impact on New Yorkers.
Powerful special interests have long held sway over policymaking in Albany. The state’s campaign finance system allows for huge contributions. The state’s “pay to play” system allows policymakers to subtly – and often not so subtly – link contributions to the awarding of government contracts, legislation and regulatory favors. Weak ethics regulations allow lawmakers to spend campaign contributions on personal items, such as country club memberships, trips abroad, the leasing of luxury cars and even ice cream parties with clowns!
New York’s system also allows lawmakers to essentially rig elections. Despite a national political tsunami, little changed in the makeup of the state legislature. The reason is in large part due to the fact that Senate Republicans draw the legislative district lines for the Senate and Assembly Democrats the house, all with an eye toward reducing the number of competitive elections.
In response to these problems, Spitzer has stated clearly that he is going to take on Albany’s ethically-challenged political culture, fight for an independent redistricting commission and demand campaign finance reforms.
If this campaign is successful, it would dramatically change Albany. Lawmakers would be forced to be more sensitive to the needs of the public and less to the demands of powerful interest groups. For example, do you think the State Senate would side with the pharmaceutical companies and keep drug costs high if they knew that they could face voter retribution? That’s what they did last year. In a competitive environment, they’d think twice. Furthermore, this new Albany may also reduce voters’ cynicism about state government and may help engage the public in the debates over the issues of the day.
So how could this new reform movement unfold? Of course, no one knows for sure, but here are some ways the new governor could kick off his reform efforts:
• Issue a series of executive actions that would open up the executive branch. For example, on January 1, Spitzer could require agencies to follow spirit of Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Laws; he could require agencies to post FOIL-able records, in which there is “substantial public interest,” on the Internet; and he could require the release of agencies’ budget requests and substantive bases for proposed budget items.
• Use his first State of the State speech to issue a challenge to the legislature to take steps of its own. Spitzer's actions combined with the use of the bully pulpit would put tremendous pressure on legislators to reform legislative rules that are notoriously unfair and allow for far too much secrecy.
• Advance proposals to change the redistricting process, overhaul the ways elections are funded, open up the budget process and strengthen the state’s ethics. Use his power to convene “leaders meetings” to force a public debate on these and other important topics.
Blair Horner is the legislative director of good government group New York Public Interest Research Group  | <urn:uuid:af068a84-fd09-4c3a-8a68-aa101d05a5c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/open-government/3415-the-sheriff-of-state-street | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961864 | 714 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Next time you’re thinking that your commute is bad, remember this: You could be a lawmaker from Western Maryland.
Take Del. Kevin Kelly (D-Dist. 1B) of Cumberland, whose commute to Annapolis is about 170 miles, or Del. Wendell Beitzel (R-Dist. 1A) of Accident, whose drive from his home near Deep Creek Lake to the State House tops out at about 200 miles.
“Three-hundred forty miles in one day, that’s tiresome,” Kelly said.
Of course, Kelly and Beitzel don’t make the drive every day.
Like many lawmakers, they spend most of the General Assembly session — which lasts from January until early April — living in Annapolis. As a result, Beitzel and Kelly were among the 139 legislators that spent at least $9,000 on lodging expenses during regular session this year.
In addition to their salaries of $43,500 per year, lawmakers can be reimbursed for some lodging, travel and meal costs during the session.
In 2012, they were eligible for $101 per day for lodging and $42 per day for meals during the 91 days that encompassed the regular session. Mileage was reimbursed at a rate of 55.5 cents per mile, according to the Department of Legislative Services.
Virginia’s part-time legislators earn a salary of about $18,000 per year and receive per-diem payments of $135 for House members and $178 for Senate members, while Delaware legislators make a salary of $42,750 per year, plus additional expenses up to $7,334. Pennsylvania lawmakers, who work year-round, are paid $82,026 per year, plus a per diem of $159, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Most state per diem rates are tied to federal rates and fluctuate from year to year — sometimes within a year — said Morgan Cullen, policy analyst for NCSL.
“The compensation for what [lawmakers are] doing is pretty low,” Cullen said. “[This] helps them cover expenses when they’re on the job.” Lawmakers’ salaries tend to lag behind the private sector, according to Cullen.
Although such expenses sometimes can draw fire from citizens who don’t like footing the bill, they help preserve a degree of equality among lawmakers, said Laura Hussey, professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
In a part-time legislature like Maryland’s, reimbursement helps make sure that independently wealthy candidates aren’t the only ones who can afford to run. And if expenses must be paid, it’s better for taxpayers to do it than bankers or casino owners, for example, Hussey said.
All told, Maryland lawmakers spent $1.96 million on such expenses during this year’s regular session — up about $5,000 from 2011.
Kelly says he prefers to stay in a hotel during the session, but other lawmakers rent houses or apartments for the months they spend in Annapolis, usually returning home only on weekends.
During the session, lawmakers who stay in hotels are compensated for one trip to and from Annapolis per week; those who commute every day are reimbursed for each trip, according to DLS.
Usually, Kelly drives down Mondays, when lawmakers don’t convene until 8 p.m., and drives back Friday afternoons. Beitzel says he does the same.
“It would cost as much to reimburse me for the cost of driving back and forth as to pay for hotel room,” Beitzel said.
Beitzel said he rents a house in Annapolis during sessions, and his wife usually stays with him. Winter weather can be severe in his home district and his children are grown, so he prefers not to leave her alone, he said. He spends many mornings at Chick and Ruth’s Delly on Main Street, a local hangout with many sandwiches named for legislators and governors.
Lawmakers from the far reaches of the state aren’t the only ones who take the full lodging reimbursement.
Twenty of Montgomery County’s 28 lawmakers took the full housing reimbursement of $9,191 in this year’s regular session. And, 15 delegates from Prince George’s County took the full amount.
“I stay probably three nights a week, sometimes less, sometimes more,” said Del. Doyle Niemann (D-Dist. 47) of Mount Rainier, one of the 15 delegates.
Others, such as Del. Dereck E. Davis (D-Dist. 25) of Upper Marlboro, tend to spend five nights per week in Annapolis because work often runs late.
“As [Economic Matters Committee] chairman, I have a responsibility for a few hundred bills that come through the committee,” said Davis, adding that he can spend hours every night studying the issues and talking with interested parties. Staying in a nearby hotel also ensures that Davis, who is diabetic, can get the rest he needs to stay healthy.
For Del. Jolene Ivey (D-Dist. 47) of Cheverly, staying in Annapolis provides additional chances to talk and network with other lawmakers.
“It’s what my constituents expect of me,” Ivey said. The breakfast room at the Marriott, where she tends to stay, often is packed with lawmakers having impromptu meetings each morning, Ivey said.
“It’s probably where I have the most contact with Republicans,” she said.
Anne Arundel County Del. Pam Beidle (D-Dist. 32) of Linthicum says there’s often a similar, unofficial morning gathering at the Calvert House, where she stays during session. Committee chairs and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis sometimes attend.
Beidle said she commuted each day during her first couple of sessions, but missed out on that time to get to know lawmakers on other committees. It’s also become dangerous for her to drive home at night because her eyesight has worsened in recent years, Beidle said.
Some lawmakers, such as Busch and fellow Anne Arundel lawmakers Sens. John Astle (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis and Edward R. Reilly (R-Dist. 33) of Crofton, took no compensation during the 2012 session. Others listed some meals and travel as their only expenses.
Of those who did list expenses, the three lowest-spenders of 2012 were Del. Joseph Vallario Jr. (D-Dist. 27A) of Upper Marlboro ($2,490.84); Del. Theodore “Ted” Sophocleus (D-Dist. 32) of Linthicum ($2,143.86); and Del. Geraldine Valentino-Smith (D-Dist. 23A) of Bowie ($1,105.02). | <urn:uuid:f86af2a8-b435-45bd-b0c3-5cbe6339c3ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gazette.net/article/20120824/NEWS/708249586/1122/police-expand-search-for-evidence-in-slaying-of-kettering-teen/No-time-for-killer-commutes&template=gazette | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963843 | 1,485 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Dispatch 07 - July 21, 2002
By C.A. Linder
Weather conditions: fog and haze, winds 20 knots from the NW, calm seas, air temperature 40° F.
Getting the Hang of It
Practice makes perfect. Undaunted by the harsh blowing mist and frigid temperatures this morning, Jim Johnson led two successful mooring deployments today. The constantly moving ice gave the mooring crew a few scares, though, as several small floes came close to the current meter dangling on the taut mooring line. Since the 1200 lb. anchor goes into the water first, the mooring line is under great tension. If a large ice floe hits this line, it can cut it or drag it along, possibly causing one of the deck lines to snap. The instruments, while robust enough to withstand being underwater for over a year, could be damaged by a sharp blow.
Luckily, the bridge was ready to respond by blowing out the ice in the wash of one of the propellers. In the span of a few short hours, the weather changed for the better; the fog blew off and left us basking in the suns warming rays. The next mooring was in the water in a half an hour, a testimony to the great teamwork between the Polar Stars crew and the science team. These moorings are located near the shelfbreak, where the bottom drops away steeply into the Canada Basin. They are designed to measure the water flowing off the Chukchi Sea shelf and into the Arctic Ocean throughout the next 14 months.
The CTD crew also honed their skills, finishing the west to east section in the early morning hours and starting into a south-north section on the outer Chukchi shelf. Tonight we discovered our first traces of warm Atlantic water (a balmy 32° F!) , which has traveled all the way across the Arctic Ocean from the Gulf Stream via the Fram Strait between Greenland and Iceland. We easily spotted it on our CTD trace since it is markedly warmer and saltier than the local waters of the Chukchi Sea lying above it.
You might be asking - how can the water get warmer as you go deeper? Well, remember that this water is saltier, and that salt makes the water more dense. After completing this section, we will turn back south for Barrow Canyon to deploy the fourth UW/UAF mooring.
We spotted another polar bear in the distance today, a slightly creamier-colored white spot moving amid the snow-white ice. Everyone on the ship is eager to see one of these awesome predators up close (yet from the safety of the ship). Given the prodigious size of the Polar Star, and the sound of her massive engines, if we meet any bears up close it will be on their terms.
Back to Calendar | <urn:uuid:3e565ccf-34ef-4aab-872b-dd1c78d615ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whoi.edu/arcticedge/arctic_west02/update/update_020721.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945418 | 583 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Stevens County Washington Gold Production
|Get regular updates on the WMH Facebook page|
Watch for Site Bulletins Here Soon!
By A. H. KOSCHMANN and M. H. BERGENDAHL - USGS 1968
The first mineral discoveries in Stevens County were made in 1883 in the Colville district (Weaver, 1920, p. 134). Shortly afterward additional discoveries were made in the Deer Trail and Chewelah districts. A major factor in attracting prospectors to this part of the State was the opening of the Colville Indian Reservation to mineral exploration in 1896. Rich gold ores were soon discovered on the reservation and across the Columbia River in adjacent parts of Stevens County. Those in Stevens County were quickly mined out, and gold mining in the county virtually ceased in the following years. Subsequent gold production was obtained almost entirely as a byproduct from the mining of base-metal ores.
Total gold production from 1902 through 1959 was 52,145 ounces, mostly from lode mines.
The major gold-producing district in the county is the Orient. The Chewelah district is second in importance, but its total recorded production, byproduct gold from copper-silver ores, is slightly less than 5,000 ounces. Much of Stevens County is underlain by metamorphosed sedimentary rocks of unknown age (Weaver, 1920, p. 44). Locally, these have been intruded by masses of granite and diorite and they are overlain by tuffs, flows, and volcanic breccias with interbedded sediments. Long irregular tongues of basalt flows of probable Tertiary age overlie the metamorphic and igneous rocks in the southern part of the county where they fill depressions on an earlier Tertiary erosion surface. A few small patches of tuffs, breccias, and lavas of late Tertiary age occur in the west-central and north-central parts of the county.
The Orient (Pierre Lake) district is in northwest Stevens County between lat 48°50' and 48°57' N. and long 118°05' and 118°10' W.
This district was formed in 1902 as a result of significant discoveries at the First Thought and Napoleon mines (Fulkerson and Kingston, 1958, p. 4). The First Thought was the major gold producer in the county during 1900-20 (Fulkerson and Kingston, 1958, p. 1).
Recorded gold production for the district through 1942 was 45,057 ounces; all was presumably from lode mines. From 1942, when the First Thought mine was closed, through 1959 no production was reported from the district.
The predominant rocks exposed in the district are andesite and latite flows of the Rossland Formation of Mesozoic or Tertiary age (Weaver, 1920, p. 257-258). These flows overlie various older rocks - shale, limestone, quartzite, and schist, which are typical of the metasedimentary Stevens Series of Weaver (1920, p. 50-51).
Ore deposits occur in the latite in fractured and brecciated zones that are cemented by silica and carbonate. Gold is the chief ore mineral and occurs with finely disseminated pyrite. Bancroft (1914, p. 69) believed that the ore deposits were related to bodies of rhyolite and monzonite porphyry that were emplaced during Mesozoic or Tertiary time.
Page 1 of 1 | <urn:uuid:e2f1c967-a696-4e31-8adb-34a2d1492ec6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.westernmininghistory.com/articles/183/page1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954419 | 728 | 3.171875 | 3 |
We Need Better Gun Safety Laws for Washington State
America is still grieving for the children and adults who lost their lives last Friday in Newtown, Connecticut. That horrific event ripped deep into our national soul.
The level of violence is higher in the United States than almost anywhere else in the developed world. Why? And more importantly, what can be done about it? A lot can get done -- if our leaders in Olympia can muster the courage to strengthen safety laws for the people of Washington State.
As President Obama said at the vigil Sunday night in Newtown, “We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.”
The Connecticut shootings should enable our Governor, our Governor-elect and leaders in the Washington Legislature to focus on solutions and bring us together to do something meaningful to end this nonsense.
Economist Richard Florida has looked for causation between gun violence and various social and economic conditions. While Professor Florida acknowledges that it is difficult to establish direct causation, he does suggest that there are obvious associations that shouldn’t be ignored.
Professor Florida’s data analysis shows that states with just three gun safety regulations—an assault weapons ban, trigger locks and safe storage requirements—have lower levels of gun deaths on a per capita basis than states without these protections.
Florida’s analysis also reveals that the factors associated with higher firearm deaths at the state level include poverty and an economy dominated by working class jobs. Conversely, firearm deaths are less likely to occur in states with higher levels of college graduates, more “creative class” jobs, higher levels of economic development and a larger number of immigrants.
Florida’s research suggests two separate courses of action for Washington State.
Reasonable Gun Safety Laws Needed for the State
First, to lower firearm deaths, our elected officials in Olympia should secure passage of reasonable gun safety laws, including:
- A ban on all assault weapons as existed nationwide until 2004.
- A ban on large capacity ammunition magazines that fuel semi-automatic weapons.
- Universal background checks, which must include closing the gun show loophole.
- Trigger locks and safe storage requirements.
- Micro-stamping technology in all firearms sold, purchased or delivered in the state to improve the capabilities of police in tracing fired bullets.
This afternoon I proposed an amendment adding these specific policy goals to the City’s lobbying agenda for the upcoming State legislative session. The City Council approved this amendment.
The evidence is clear. States with reasonable gun safety regulations have fewer gun deaths. Unfortunately, Washington ranks low on the list of states with strong gun safety laws. The Washington Legislature should quickly adopt prudent safety regulations during the next legislative session starting January 14.
And don’t be fooled by those who suggest that gun deaths are merely a big city problem. Professor Florida reports that “more than 80% of America’s 21 worst mass killings…took place in suburban towns or rural areas, including each and every one of the ‘five worst school massacres in U.S. history.’ More than two-thirds of the 61 mass shootings that occurred between 1982 and 2012…can also be traced to a suburban or rural location.”
Legislators outside of the Seattle area—Republicans and Democrats—should be leading the effort in Olympia to secure passage of gun safety legislation to protect their constituents from gun violence because gun violence occurs everywhere in Washington State.
Addressing Economic Factors
Second, Professor Florida’s research suggests that gun deaths are higher in states with high levels of poverty and working class jobs and lower in states with strong economic growth and a diversity of employment options. We can do something about these conditions as well, including—
- Investing heavily in evidence-based early childhood interventions known to reduce poverty and crime and improve education outcomes. My colleagues and I recently fully funded the Nurse Family Partnership, an example of a proven early childhood intervention. The city’s Families and Education Levy, renewed and doubled by generous Seattle voters in 2011, also invests early in a child’s life.
- Enhance prisoner release policies and programs so every offender released from prison has a work plan, a safe place to live, and a follow-up program designed to help the individual live a successful life. These programs are successfully used in other states to reduce recidivism, encourage work and keep offenders out of the ranks of the unemployed. Washington should join them.
- Create more family-wage jobs by heavily investing in public works projects, like repairing and enhancing our deteriorating transportation infrastructure. We can debate the role of government stimulus programs to restart the economy, but we can all agree that strategic public works investments make sense and create a solid foundation for future economic growth.
Washington’s Gun Safety Laws Just Don’t Make Sense
What happened in Connecticut on Friday is so beyond our realm of understanding that we can’t make sense of it. I also can’t make sense of Washington State’s gun safety laws. Olympia can do better.
The Seattle City Council can regulate the size of the signs people carry into Council Chambers for safety reasons, but we can’t prohibit firearms at Council meetings? Nonsense.
Here is the website for your State legislators: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/.
Let's tell our State leaders in Olympia: get serious about gun safety. | <urn:uuid:9dcb52dc-a1b8-4626-97c2-84a470428e28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seattle.gov/council/burgess/news/2012/1212.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935092 | 1,135 | 2.203125 | 2 |
CHOOSING AN EXECUTOR FOR YOUR WILL
The designation of an executor for a will is one of the critical steps in effective estate planning. The executor will be the individual responsible for the administration of the estate. He or she must execute the necessary documents to submit the will for probate. Then the executor must gather all of the testator’s (person who makes the will) assets and distribute them in accordance with the terms of the will. Good recordkeeping will be essential because an accounting may have to be filed. Creditors’ claims will have to be dealt with, and estate tax returns may have to be filed.
In short, the job of the executor is a substantial responsibility and can be very time-consuming, especially when it comes to large or complicated estates. So that a suitable candidate can be named, the testator should take into account a variety of factors. These include the trustworthiness, sound judgment, financial acumen, age, and physical and mental capacity of the proposed executor. More than one executor can be named by the testator, and these co-executors can share the duties of administering the estate.
In the case of married couples, the first instinct may be simply to name the other spouse as the executor and be done with it. While this may work just fine in some cases, the decision deserves more thought as to all of the ramifications of choosing one’s spouse as the executor. Will the mourning, surviving spouse be up to fulfilling all of the executor’s responsibilities so soon after suffering such a loss? If the spouses are about the same age, will the surviving spouse be too frail, physically or mentally, to do the job when the time comes, perhaps many years after the executor has been named? All in all, a better choice may be an adult son or daughter, a sibling, niece, or nephew, or a close and trusted friend.
The job of executor will be substantially easier if the testator has first done his or her job by keeping complete and accurate records of the assets that will comprise the estate. Upon naming the executor, the testator should review this information with the executor in detail. Another seemingly obvious matter that is often overlooked is simply making sure that the executor knows the location of all of the important papers relating to the estate. Testators should consider keeping the following documents with their will: life insurance policies, a brief description of assets, and the names and contact numbers of the testator's attorney, accountant, investment advisor and other professionals that will be helpful to the executor as he administers the estate.
As for payment for the executor’s services, if the estate is very simple, and especially if the executor is also a major beneficiary of the estate, additional compensation may not be necessary. Otherwise, the will may provide for a fee for the executor, which may be calculated as a flat fee, an hourly fee, or a percentage of the estate assets.
A testator should not forget an even more elementary first step: asking for the consent of the prospective executor, no matter how close a relationship there may be between the individuals. For the benefit of all concerned, the executor must be willing, not just able, to carry out the important responsibilities that come with this job. | <urn:uuid:e53107a2-d30d-4417-a1fb-993dbf6519c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://prhlaw.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952843 | 690 | 1.859375 | 2 |
- uploaded: Aug 30, 2008
- Hits: 220
Mexican archaeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some of which are submerged with human remains. In one of the caves researchers have found a bizzare 300 ft concrete rod that extends in front of a body of water along with statues of priests and other rare sculptures.
This strange underworld portal has been described in Mayan mythology in the book of Popul. The Mayans believed in a reality with many layers and the portal between life and where the dead go was very important to them.
A reality of many layers may seem to be of pure spiritual belief but with modern science confirming the discovery of 11 dimensions and quantum entanglement theory, the possibility alternative realities as studied by the Mayan's is yet another tribute to their advanced society and celestial knowledge. | <urn:uuid:afd42a4f-0ae9-446d-91e5-02444d7d9a8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewphoto/2471/Underground_Mayan_Maze_Discovered_in_Cave/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962907 | 170 | 2.078125 | 2 |
THE BRIEF AND HAPPY LIFE OF WORKSHOP WORKSHOP
Workshop Workshop, a factory and salon created by artist Jim Drain, poet P. Scott Cunningham and sculptor Graham Hudson, produces zines that respond to Design Miami/ itself - it's participants, objects, conversations, histories, narratives, belief-systems and forms. Even the detritus of the tent's construction has been put to use by Hudson, who is in the act of constructing the space using remnant lumber, rubber, plastic and furniture - anything the fair and the city (the larger fair) has cast off.
Drain, Cunningham and Hudson will draw from a rotating - and ever-expanding - crew of local and international artists, designers and writers, in order to produce as many zines as it can during the length of the fair, with as diverse a range of content as possible.
1. An abbreviation of the word fanzine or magazine.
2. A handmade journal, with small circulation and hyperlocal aesthetics, that maximize the
two dimensional intersection of image and text, using both original and appropriated
3. Any self-published work of minority interest reproduced via photocopier.
The above text is transcribed directly from the written description of this project at Design Miami. It was amazing to walk around this space, talk to the various "creators" involved and watch the daily creation of the zine. The space was divine in its unique chaos and the results were spectacular pieces of "art.". This "accessorator" was transfixed and impressed by the entire process!!!! | <urn:uuid:c4b5e68e-f025-4afa-9201-ec8ae9c28b8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theaccessorator.com/2009/12/post-4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950502 | 328 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps
Baroque Trumpet Ensemble
The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps Baroque Trumpet Ensemble is a specialized performance unit within The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, and is the only group of its kind in the American military.
As with many aspects of life in the Colonies, musical traditions were influenced by European practices. These included the use of trumpets for civic celebrations, religious events and military drill. Since the creation of the Army in 1775, musicians have been included and served as an integral part of military communication.
The ensemble performs on instruments inspired by those used during the 18th century. The instruments have 3 holes, a bell patterned after Johann Wilhelm Haas, and can be played in 4 different keys: baroque C and D (A=415), and modern C and D. The ensemble performs alone or accompanied by side drum or timpani.
The Baroque Trumpet Ensemble studies and performs music influential to the earliest American brass players. In addition to providing ceremonial support to the Old Guard, the ensemble performs at various special events and professional venues. For more information on the Baroque Trumpet Ensemble, please contact Master Sergeant Sandra Quaschnick. | <urn:uuid:5f050c0f-dd7e-49d1-b0e3-1d8cff568dd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fifeanddrum.army.mil/bte.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959906 | 258 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL.]. Photograph and text (2002) by
Wiltshire's Stourhead House was built by the London banker Henry Hoare in the early 1720s. Hardy, who was a friend of Lady Hoare, was doubtless familiar with the contents of the house's 5,000-volume Regency library.
Last modified 19 August 2002 | <urn:uuid:4cb1c842-bbf2-4b04-90cd-1ca3cf3fd471> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/victorianweb/photos/hardy/16.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952569 | 116 | 1.75 | 2 |
This picture shows a nearly intact fossil of Fuxianhuia protensa. The inset shows the fossilized brain in the head of another specimen.
The remarkably well-preserved fossil of an extinct arthropod shows that anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of evolution. According to University of Arizona neurobiologist Nicholas Strausfeld, who co-authored the study describing the specimen, the fossil is the earliest known to show a brain.
The discovery will be published in the Oct. 11 issue of the journal Nature.
Embedded in mudstones deposited during the Cambrian period 520 million years ago in what today is the Yunnan Province in China, the approximately 3-inch-long fossil, which belongs to the species Fuxianhuia protensa, represents an extinct lineage of arthropods combining an advanced brain anatomy with a primitive body plan.
The fossil provides a "missing link" that sheds light on the evolutionary history of arthropods, the taxonomic group that comprises crustaceans, arachnids and insects.
The researchers call their find "a transformative discovery" that could resolve a long-standing debate about how and when complex brains evolved.
"No one expected such an advanced brain would have evolved so early in the history of multicellular animals," said Strausfeld, a Regents Professor in the UA department of neuroscience.
According to Strausfeld, paleontologists and evolutionary biologists have yet to agree on exactly how arthropods evolved, especially on what the common ancestor looked like that gave rise to insects.
"There has been a very long debate about the origin of insects," Strausfeld said, adding that until now, scientists have favored one of two scenarios.
Some believe that insects evolved from the an ancestor that gave rise to the malacostracans, a group of crustaceans that include crabs and shrimp, while others point to a lineage of less commonly known crustaceans called branchiopods, which include, for example, brine shrimp.
Because the brain anatomy of branchiopods is much simpler than that of malacostracans, they have been regarded as the more likely ancestors of the arthropod lineage that would give rise to insects.
Read the rest here.
This picture shows a nearly intact fossil of Fuxianhuia protensa. The inset shows the fossilized brain in the head of another specimen. (from the article)
That was my reaction, as well. We found evolutionary processes of trilobites from Cambrian, Devonian and up to Cretaceous in Central Texas.
My favorite of all was ammonites ... and Devil's toenails ... and ...
The Cambrian is definitely one of my favorite periods in the Paleozoic. Marine life must have been fascinating then. Trilobites and the earliest arthropods.
He wont trip, I'm sure he'll tell us exactly how the devil planted those fossils.
rong>Amazing to me how aliens are depicted as insect like- eyes ; sticky bodies. Proof if any aliens are paranoias no one likes the look of them up close
Dianasaurs were around millions of years with time for evolution of their intelligence.that never happened Do reptiles descend from insects. Whether there was a brainy arthopod that came out of the cambrian range of possible species that could evolve is irrelevant since dinasaurs didn't.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that this arthropod is the ancestor of modern complex-brained animals - but the fact that this fossil shows evidence of a brain much larger and more complex than was previously believed to exist that far back suggests that large complex brains first showed up even earlier, and maybe when vertebrates and invertebrates split they were already "brainier" than we ever imagined.
Or alternately, perhaps large complex brains evolved multiple times independently. That would imply that there may have been other ancient species with large brains that we have not found fossils of yet, maybe many intelligent lineages we know nothing about.
Either way, we have just learned that the world is different than we thought, weirder than we thought, and that is always a cool thing. That is our big advantage over the religious - finding out that what we believed was wrong is icing on the cake for us, while it is spoilage for them, mildew on the cake instead. What disturbs and depresses them excites us.
Sean, the brain is an amazing organ. During my training, I had to learn how to teach and the way we learned was to teach different animals with brains how to do something we wanted them to learn. I taught rats, pigeons, dogs, fish and octopus how to do something. That is the function of the brain is to change behaviors by learning different ones. We would know we were successful if the organism changed its normal behavior. For example, we changed access to food by teaching the organism to push a lever. Learning means change in behavior. We teach our children how to behave at home and in public, teachers teach children how to read and write and a lot of other things. These are things that do not come naturally to even human children. We "socialize" them. Unless there is a brain dysfunction, we train our children how to whine, misbehave at restaurants and grocery stores. With a little coaching, a parent can learn how to teach their children socially appropriate behaviors. Children have many influences on them and they learn from peers, videos and a lot of other ways. It is not only parents, but as to healthy discipline, parents and teachers have a great influence on what they learn and retain. | <urn:uuid:284e6c27-2e12-42f7-9279-73374d49c7b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/originsuniverselifehumankindanddarwin/forum/topics/cambrian-fossil-pushes-back-evolution-of-complex-brains?page=1&commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A2119271&x=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968219 | 1,180 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Relates to reimbursement for aerial spraying for mosquitoes on state land.
- Jun 19, 2012: SUBSTITUTED BY A10372
- Jun 19, 2012: ORDERED TO THIRD READING CAL.1369
- Jun 19, 2012: COMMITTEE DISCHARGED AND COMMITTED TO RULES
- May 15, 2012: REPORTED AND COMMITTED TO FINANCE
- May 2, 2012: REFERRED TO HEALTH
S7340-2011 MeetingsHealth: May 15, 2012, Rules: Jun 21, 2012
S7340-2011 CalendarsFloor Calendar: Jun 19, 2012
VOTE: COMMITTEE VOTE: - Health - May 15, 2012
VOTE: COMMITTEE VOTE: - Rules - Jun 19, 2012
BILL NUMBER:S7340 TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the public health law, in relation to reimbursement for aerial spraying for mosquitoes on state land PURPOSE: To provide reimbursement to counties for aerial spraying for mosquitoes on state lands. SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS: Section 1 provides that aerial spraying for mosquitoes on state land shall be reimbursed at one hundred percent, subject to amounts appropriated. Section 2 provides for the immediate enactment of this bill. JUSTIFICATION: Under current law, counties may be reimbursed for 50% of the emergency measures taken during public health emergencies, if it is determined that there is an imminent threat to public health. Under this bill counties may be reimbursed for 100% of the cost of aerial spraying for mosquitoes that is undertaken on state land, within amounts appropriated. The 2012 state budget appropriated $100,000 for such spraying. Aerial spraying is done to combat mosquito bourne diseases such as Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) which is a viral disease of wild birds that is transmitted to horses by mosquitoes. The virus is found in wetland habitats along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. The virus rapidly attacks the central nervous system and is almost always fatal in horses. While human cases of EEE are very rare, they are also extremely serious with a recovery rate of less than 50%. Even in those individuals who do recover, they are frequently left with brain damage. Children are more susceptible to EEE than are adults. Tragically, one such child was Maggie Sue Wilcox, a four-year-old from Central, New York, succumbed to EEE in the summer of 2011. In an effort to prevent further such tragedies, this bill seeks to assist counties in combating the public health threat of EEE by providing them with 100% reimbursement when they conduct aerial spraying for mosquitoes on state land. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: New Bill. FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: $100,000 was appropriated in the 2012 budget to accomplish this bill. This bill language is needed in order to distribute the funds to affected the counties as appropriated. LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: There would be a savings to localities since counties who conduct aerial spraying on state land would be reimbursed at 100%. EFFECTIVE DATE: Immediately.
S T A T E O F N E W Y O R K ________________________________________________________________________ 7340 I N SENATE May 2, 2012 ___________ Introduced by Sen. RITCHIE -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Health AN ACT to amend the public health law, in relation to reimbursement for aerial spraying for mosquitoes on state land THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM- BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Section 621 of the public health law, as amended by section 5 of part A of chapter 58 of the laws of 2008, is amended to read as follows:
S 621. State aid; public health emergencies. If the state commissioner or a county health department or part-county department of health or municipality, with the approval of the state commissioner, determines that there is an imminent threat to public health, the department shall reimburse counties or municipalities at fifty per centum for the cost of emergency measures as approved by the department and subject to the approval of the director of the budget, EXCEPT THAT AERIAL SPRAYING FOR MOSQUITOES ON STATE LAND SHALL BE REIMBURSED AT ONE HUNDRED PER CENTUM, WITHIN AMOUNTS APPROPRIATED. Such funds shall be made available from funds appropriated for public health emergencies, only to those counties or municipalities, which have expended all other state aid which may be available for related activities and have developed measures to adequately address the emergency. Reimbursement is conditioned upon availability of appropriated funds. For purposes of this section, "muni- cipality" means a health department of a city that is not located in a county or part-county health district or a county in which the legisla- ture has the powers and duties of a board of health of a county or part- county health district and cities with a population of over one million persons. S 2. This act shall take effect immediately. EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD15544-01-2 | <urn:uuid:203aaf64-06b2-4840-a7ac-17ff475cef94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/api/1.0/html/bill/S7340-2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927938 | 1,099 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Illinois is synonymous with political corruption, but a new study gives hope to the Land of Lincoln. Illinois has the seventh strongest campaign finance laws in the country, according to a report released yesterday by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C. government watchdog.
As with a CPI study Progress Illinois examined
in February on overall public corruption by state, the campaign finance
report is not concerned with past shenanigans but current law, and
Illinois ranks well on both citizen access to financial records, and decently on
rules placed on the financing of political parties and individual
candidates. Read more » | <urn:uuid:6de6c3f1-0775-4ad5-b77f-df565e1514cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.progressillinois.com/explore/tag/government-reform | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952446 | 125 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Memorial Sloan-Kettering's multidisciplinary team of specialists has surgically treated more than 8,000 patients with soft tissue sarcoma in the past two decades, and has seen almost twice that number in consultation.
As the understanding of soft tissue sarcoma has improved, doctors have learned that different sarcoma subtypes have varying growth patterns, as well as differing risks for spread. While surgery continues to be the primary form of treatment for this disease, pathologists now are better able to classify which tumors will be more sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In addition, for some patients, we use a computerized nomogram, a prognostic tool that gives physicians the ability to decide which treatment approach will yield the most beneficial results.
Surgery remains the primary form of treatment for soft tissue sarcoma. The goal of surgery is to remove the tumor and at least one to 2 centimeters of the surrounding tissue. While amputation of an arm or leg was once a standard treatment for soft tissue sarcomas found in the limbs, today amputations are performed in only about 5 percent of cases nationwide.
In addition, new reconstructive techniques that permit the repair of nerves and blood vessels and the transfer of muscle and soft tissue have allowed extensive operations to be performed with the knowledge that function can be preserved. These techniques, which have developed over the last three decades, include the use of nerve grafts to restore function and avoid amputation.
Conservative Multimodal Approaches
Treatment approaches pioneered at Memorial Sloan-Kettering place an emphasis on more conservative operations, combined with radiation therapy or chemotherapy (and sometimes both), which offer patients a high rate of tumor control without the need for amputation.
For retroperitoneal sarcomas, such as liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma, where the location of the tumor (the abdominal cavity) accommodates significant growth without causing specific symptoms, detection usually occurs at a late stage, when the sarcoma is usually large and has grown near major abdominal structures and organs. These tumors are treated with surgery. It is important that the surgeon remove the entire tumor and any surrounding organs or tissues that have been affected in order to reduce the risk of recurrence.
Although small sarcomas can be treated with surgery alone, the majority of sarcomas are greater than five centimeters in size and, thus, are managed by a combination of surgery and radiation therapy. Radiation therapy may be used before, during, or after surgery.
When used in combination with surgery, radiation therapy may reduce the chance of recurrence. Alternately, radiation may be used before surgery to shrink the tumor and thereby increase the space between the tumor and vital structures and organs, helping to improve the chance that the surgeon will remove all of the tumor cells. Radiation sterilizes tumor cells, damaging their DNA so they are no longer able to divide and multiply. This treatment can neutralize tumor cells beyond the reach of surgery.
In comparison to other tumors, soft tissue sarcoma requires that a larger margin of normal tissue be subjected to radiation. This is because sarcoma can spread along and between muscles in ways that sometimes cannot be detected. Microscopically, sarcoma cells are discrete, but they can trickle out deceptively and be left behind after surgery. The further away from the tumor site, however, the less likely there are to be sarcoma cells. Radiation oncologists typically deliver radiation to tissue five centimeters (approximately two inches) beyond where the tumor was located.
External-Beam Radiation Therapy
In external-beam radiation therapy, doses of radiation are delivered to the tumor area from outside the body. This approach is most useful when it is not feasible to leave catheters in place, as for tumors located in the retroperitoneum (the tissue that lines the abdominal wall and covers most of the organs in the abdomen) and the chest. Therapy with external-beam radiation therapy typically takes place over the course of seven to eight weeks, with the patient coming in five days a week for treatments that are several minutes long.
Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is a sophisticated computer-guided technique that allows for safe delivery of much higher doses of radiation to the tumor than traditional radiation therapy while sparing the normal surrounding tissues. IMRT has become the standard radiation therapy used to treat soft tissue sarcoma because it reduces the risk of exposing bones to radiation, thereby reducing the risk of fracture after treatment.
IMRT can be used to treat most soft tissue sarcomas in the body, but it is best reserved for cases in which protection of important organs from radiation exposure is particularly important. Another added benefit of IMRT is its improved distribution of radiation throughout a large treatment area, which can be effective for treating tumors located in the thigh or retroperitoneal sarcomas.
A recent publication demonstrated the efficacy of IMRT in terms of local tumor control of soft tissue sarcomas in the extremities with a low risk of complications. The study, conducted by Memorial Sloan-Kettering investigators, found that using IMRT for the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas located in the arms or legs provides excellent tumor control. This suggests that the precision with which IMRT distributes the radiation dose has a beneficiary effect in sparing normal tissue and improving tumor response.
Today, using a form of IMRT known as image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT), radiation oncologists are able to verify the exact location of a soft tissue sarcoma tumor prior to the delivery of radiotherapy or even during a treatment. This technique can help reduce the margin of healthy tissue exposed to radiation to five millimeters and, in certain cases, to as little as one or two millimeters. Because some soft tissue sarcoma tumors are located very close to the spine or major blood vessels, targeted therapy can provide substantial benefit in these cases.
Pioneered by Memorial Sloan-Kettering doctors for the treatment of sarcoma, brachytherapy involves delivering radiation therapy locally. It can be administered in one of two different ways to treat soft tissue sarcoma.
In one approach, which takes place during surgery, after the surgeon has removed the tumor, special tubes called catheters are inserted into the tumor bed. Once the surgical wound has healed (usually five to six days), the radiation oncologist inserts radioactive seeds into each of the catheters, which deliver a high dose of radiotherapy to the site.
When the treatment is complete (usually about five days after the radioactive seeds have been inserted), both the seeds and the catheters are removed. The entire course of treatment lasts from ten to 14 days. In certain situations, this form of brachytherapy may be administered for two to three days, combined with external radiation for five weeks.
A second form of brachytherapy, called high-dose-rate intraoperative radiation therapy, is delivered entirely during surgery. After the surgeon removes the tumor, applicators are placed against the tumor bed. The applicators are attached to a radiotherapy machine that is programmed to send a high dose of radiotherapy directly to the site.
For some types of sarcoma, such as rhabdomyosarcoma, patients will first receive chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, followed by surgery to remove the tumor and adjuvant (postsurgical) chemotherapy to kill any remaining cancer cells. This multimodality approach to treatment has improved the five-year survival rate significantly for certain types of sarcoma.
Unlike surgery and radiation therapy, which are directed toward specific areas of the body, chemotherapy travels through the bloodstream to all areas and systems of the body. For that reason, chemotherapy is called systemic treatment.
Today, doctors often give chemotherapy before surgery to patients with large, fast-growing sarcomas, a form of treatment which is called “neoadjuvant chemotherapy” or “preoperative chemotherapy.” In addition to destroying microscopic areas of metastasis (if they exist), this approach often reduces the size of the primary sarcoma. This may permit the surgeon to perform a less radical operation, and may save some patients from an amputation. Preoperative chemotherapy may also contribute to better chances of survival. The involvement of a coordinated team of doctors and nurses is critical to the success of this strategy.
Doxorubicin and ifosfamide are the chemotherapy drugs most commonly used in the treatment of sarcoma patients. For certain patients, chemotherapy that includes both doxorubicin and ifosfamide almost doubles the likelihood of shrinking a sarcoma, compared with older treatments. The nausea that has accompanied treatment with doxorubicin can now be managed for 90 percent of patients through the use of one or more antinausea drugs. These recently developed drugs have proven so effective in controlling nausea that patients often can receive chemotherapy for soft tissue sarcoma in an outpatient setting.
Chemotherapy for Distant Recurrence & Metastasis
The location in the body in which a sarcoma arises is called the primary site. Surgical removal of a primary sarcoma, sometimes followed by radiation therapy, will cure many patients. In some cases, however, sarcoma spreads through the bloodstream to distant sites such as the lungs or liver. The process of spread is called metastasis, and the tumors that result from the spread of the cancer are called metastases. Today, more than 80 percent of all soft tissue sarcomas are diagnosed before they have metastasized.
When a patient is at risk for metastatic disease due to his or her tumor type, chemotherapy may be given either before (neoadjuvant) or after (adjuvant) surgery.
Some sarcoma patients may have microscopic metastases (micrometastases) that cannot be detected, even with modern imaging techniques. However, doctors are able to estimate the chance that a tumor has spread based on the size of a sarcoma and on its appearance under the microscope. Chemotherapy given after surgical removal of the primary tumor may be able to eradicate micrometastases, but the evidence for this is controversial and usually needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis.
Treatment for Local Recurrence
At Memorial Sloan-Kettering, treatment for local recurrence of soft tissue sarcoma is individualized based on several factors. First, a physician performs an “extent of disease workup” to determine the precise stage of the recurring sarcoma. The workup may include x-rays of the area of local recurrence and chest x-rays, as well as CT and MRI scans.
Patients with an isolated local recurrence typically have a second operation (called re-resection). The majority of these patients who undergo re-resection demonstrate long-term survival. Many patients with local recurrence also receive adjuvant (additional) radiation therapy with surgery. The approach to radiotherapy will depend on the type of treatments administered previously and may include brachytherapy or external-beam radiation.
Even after a local recurrence, amputation is usually not necessary to treat sarcoma of the extremities. Although local recurrence can be a frightening event, most are treatable.
Doctors hope to develop vaccines and immunotherapies (treatments that use the body's own defenses to combat cancer), as well as strategies that block specific proteins (drugs that block the development of blood vessels, thus starving the tumor) to treat soft tissue sarcomas. Early-stage clinical trials testing these concepts are in progress.
Therapies investigating the use of high-dose radiation therapy, such as IMRT, are being studied for the treatment of some recurrent retroperitoneal sarcomas, such as liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma.
For patients with leiomyosarcoma, our doctors are assessing a combination of drugs — gemcitabine, docetaxel, and doxorubicin — given after surgery, to see if such treatment reduces the chance of the cancer coming back.
Our investigators are evaluating a treatment that includes seven chemotherapy drugs plus radiation therapy and/or surgery for rhabdomyosarcoma. Five of the drugs have been helpful in many patients with rhabdomyosarcoma. Three drugs are given at higher doses than those used at most other hospitals. The study also uses two new drugs — irinotecan plus carboplatin — given in combination. Both of these drugs have been used in children and adults with different cancer types.
We are investigating a number of new agents, and combinations of standard agents and new drugs, to try and find more effective treatments once sarcomas have recurred. | <urn:uuid:a4a68982-0e19-40c5-89be-107656f1d9e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/adult/soft-tissue-sarcoma/treatment?glossary=on | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949888 | 2,634 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Foreword to December 2007, Volume 2 Issue 3
We are pleased to present eight articles in the third and last edition of the Linguistics Journal for 2007. Warm congratulations to all authors whose papers have been accepted. We are delighted to announce that interest in the journal has increased significantly in 2007, which is in line with the number of published articles in this issue. Special thanks go to a large Editorial team and a large proofreading team of nearly fifty colleagues working very hard in order to offer state-of-the-art contemporary linguistic research in this journal.
The first paper by Georgia Andreou from the University of Thessaly in Greece investigates the linguistic phenomenon of child bilingualism and an understudied area of child trilingualism, with a special emphasis on phonological awareness in the third language of bilingual and the second language of monolingual schoolchildren. The sample of the research consists of thirty fourth grade students: fifteen native speakers of Albanian and the same number of Greek native speakers, who have been learning English as a foreign language for a short period of time. The results imply that trilinguals scored better in all the tests performed in this study. Their heightened sensitivity to phonological awareness may be attributed to a constant need trilinguals experience in making repetitive choices among their three languages and organizing developing lexicons of these three.
The second paper coming from Kazuya Saito of Syracuse University focuses on effective pronunciation pedagogies, which are derived from the author’s experience with English education in Japan. Experimental evidence shows that explicit phonetic instruction is a useful and effective strategy for improving the pronunciation of Japanese learners of English in the target language, which ultimately minimizes the salience of their foreign accent and facilitates more effective communication with native speakers. The importance of a contrastive analysis approach to pronunciation teaching is highlighted in this study. Such an approach validates the use of explicit phonetic instruction and its influence on the speech production of Japanese learners of English by correcting their segmental errors. The author also shows that an acoustic speech analysis method may enhance intelligibility of non-native speakers in real-life communicative activities. The pedagogical idea described in this article may be advanced to other EFL contexts in Asian countries, which are similar to that of Japan.
Joanne Rajadurai from MARA University of Technology in Malaysia argues that investigations into L2 varieties of English should not be avoided, given the fact that a sizable proportion of communication conducted in English is realized by non-native speakers of this language, many of whom are proficient in this language. As is the case with the studies involved in native varieties of English, linguistic research in L2 Englishes should also attempt to grapple with ‘real’ spoken English as used in Malaysia. The author presents an innovative method used for authentic data collection. A detailed account of a technique developed and used to collect naturalistic spoken language in a range of everyday contexts is presented and various other research issues raised. Furthermore, the author also tackles problems associated with the evaluation, selection and preparation of informers, the research tools and procedures employed, as well as the roles and relationships almost every linguistic research faces.
The fourth contribution by Reza Ghafar Samar and Goodarz Alibakhshi of Tarbiat Modares University in Iran examines face-to face communications in the Persian language and accounts for possible gender-linked differences in the use of linguistic strategies in the Persian speech community. A total of twenty face-to-face conversations very close to natural speech were recorded in the course of the participants’ daily activities. The factors observed indicate that there is an interaction between gender and experience, education and power of the interlocutors in the use of linguistic strategies. Finally, the authors point out that the results of their study may come useful in communication strategies employed by males and females in different circumstances, particularly in classrooms all around the world. Finally, those involved in teaching language courses, particularly teachers, should take gender differences into account while teaching male and female learners.
The next article written by Ying-chien Cheng of Lan Yang Institute of Technology in Taiwan aims to explore the effects of two grammar approaches, forms-focused instruction vs. the integration of forms-focused instruction and communicative approach to the teaching of English restrictive relative clauses to Taiwanese tenth graders. A six-week ‘quasi-experimental’ design and three kinds of grammar tests (a grammaticality completion test, a sentence combining test, and a sentence rearrangement test) were specifically devised for the purposes of the study which included 150 research participants divided into experimental and control groups. The author also provides potential pedagogical implications of the two approaches to language teaching, concluding that a balance between form and function should be integral to curricular design and it should be implemented in classroom instruction.
Pham Phu Quynh Na from the University of Western Sydney addresses the structural issues underlying the typological characteristics of the Vietnamese language and effects they might have on translation into English. A deep insight into the linguistic concept known as ‘Topic/Comment’ is provided, with a special emphasis on its application in Vietnamese grammar as seen from two opposing viewpoints. The use of articles, the handling of dropped subjects, and the passive constructions are analysed in the translations of fifteen Vietnamese students majoring in English and their common errors presented and explained. The paper also identifies some typical errors which may be considered as evidence of the direct influence from Vietnamese as L1, whose topic-prominent typology is strong enough to override the students’ competence in English. Finally, the author offers several strategies which can be used to prevent the possible effect of Vietmanese topic-prominent structures when translating into English.
The seventh contribution comes from Shan-fang Guo from Heze University in China. This article deals with idiomatic expressions and their acquisition in English as a foreign language. Such expressions have often been believed to be subject to rote-learning, due to the absence of reliable clues inside the expressions themselves (Boers, 2000; Li, 2005). With the development of cognitive science, some researchers have proposed that most idioms fit one or more patterns of metaphors present in the human conceptual system, and that the idiomatic meaning is not arbitrary, but rather motivated by conceptual metaphors (Gibbs & O'Brien, 1990; Lakoff, 1993; Gibbs, 1997; Boers, 2000; Krishna, 2006). In a foreign language teaching context, cognitive linguistics provides new ways of teaching idioms in ways that promote insightful learning rather than learning by heart. Seventy Chinese college level students, who had just started learning English, participated in the present study, following a quasi-experimental research design. The statistical analysis shows that the experimental group performed much better than the group which had not received instruction based on the cognitive cues. Such a conclusion comes as an encouragement to foreign language teachers to employ a metaphor-based approach when teaching idiomatic expressions.
And last, but not least, the closing paper in this volume, written by Giao Quynh Tran of the University of Melbourne in Australia, discusses linguistic and cultural influences of L1 on second language performance in cross-cultural interaction. As the Vietnamese language (as L1) seems to be understudied in the area of pragmatic and discourse transfer when in contact with other languages, the author investigates these issues in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics. The author analyses pragmatic and discourse transfer in compliment responses by Vietnamese speakers of English in cross-cultural interaction with Australians. Sixty role-play informants were native speakers of Australian English, Vietnamese native speakers and Vietnamese speakers of English as an L2 in Australia. The data is elicited by way of an innovative methodology – ‘Naturalized Role-plays’ – which provides spontaneous data, even in controlled settings. Finally, the analysis of transfer types results in the formation of two new continua of compliment response strategies to account for the data collected.
We hope you enjoy reading these articles in the Winter edition of the Linguistics Journal and look forward to your own contributions in 2008.
Biljana Cubrovic, PhD
The Linguistics Journal
Volume 2. Issue 3. December 2007.
PDF E-book version pps. 1-
SWF Version view
Foreword by Biljana Cubrovic
1. Georgia Andreou. Phonological Awareness in Bilingual and Trilingual Schoolchildren
2. Kazuya Saito. The Influence of Explicit Phonetic Instruction on Pronunciation Teaching in EFL settings: The Case of English Vowels and Japanese Learners of English
3. Joanne Rajadurai. Capturing L2 Spoken English: Methodological Challenges
4. Reza Ghafar Samar & Goodarz Alibakhshi. The Gender Linked Differences in the Use of Linguistic Strategies in Face-to face Communication
5. Ying-chien Cheng. The Effects of Two Teaching Methodologies on the Hierarchy of Difficulty of Restrictive Relative Clauses among Taiwanese Tenth Graders
6. Pham Phu Quynh Na. Translating Topic-Comment Structures of Vietnamese into English
7. Shan-fang Guo. Is Idiom Comprehension Influenced by Metaphor Awareness of the Learners?
8. Giao Quynh Tran. The Nature of Pragmatic and Discourse Transfer in Compliment Responses in Cross-Cultural Interaction | <urn:uuid:1a06b747-f54d-4df3-b49b-5d5b5dc5bc00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linguistics-journal.com/December_2007_fwd.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933461 | 1,936 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Things you think about over a sunny weekend.
One way to think about the different types of contracts modelled in contract theory is to divide contract theory into three groups: complete contacts, comprehensive contracts and incomplete contracts. Complete contracts are those which are written in a zero transaction cost, Arrow-Debreu type, world. Such contracts can be made continent on all variables in all states of the world. They result in the first-best being achieved in all states of world. Comprehensive contracts are those written under conditions of asymmetric information, that is, in a world with moral hazard and/or adverse selection. Such contracts are "constrained optimal" in that they are optimal given the existence of the information asymmetry. Comprehensive contracts maximise the objective function of the agent subject to the informational constraint. Incomplete contracts do not maximise the objective function of the agent, they result in "money being left on the table", even taking into account any informational asymmetries. A standard incomplete contracts model will be a symmetric information model and thus neither moral hazard or adverse selection are driving the model's results. The issue for incomplete contracts is generally argued to be one of "non-verifiability" rather than asymmetric information. That is, the informational problem with incomplete contracts is between that contracting parties and the courts rather than between the contracting parties themselves, as in asymmetric information models.
In the law and economics literature it is argued that there are two forms of incompleteness: obligationally incomplete [OI] and informationally incomplete (or insufficiently state contingent) [II] contracts. A contract is obligationally incomplete if it does not fully describe the obligrations of each party in every state of the world. That is, the contract has a "gap" and thus will be silent on what should happen in any state of the world which falls within the "gap". The problem here is why should a contract be ever be obligationally incomplete since it should be possible to complete a contract with an obligration that applies to a broadly enough defined set of contingencies at a reasonable cost. A contract is informationally incomplete if it fails to describe an efficient set of obligations in each possible state of the world. As Oliver Hart puts it
[...] the contract might not specify what is to happen if the supplier's factory burns down, because this is not anticipated [OI]; or the contract might say that the supplier must always supply one widget, rather than a number of widgets that varies with the state of the world, because it is too costly to distinguish between different states of the world [II].A problem here is that if a contract with an inefficient set of obligations specified is incomplete then why are asymmetric information contracts not incomplete?
Eric Maskin writes that
I will consider a contract to be “incomplete” if it is not as fully contingent on the state of the world” (the resolution of uncertainty about the future) as the parties to the contract might like it to be.This seems to mean that asymmetric information contracts are incomplete. But in a footnote Maskin says
This definition is so broad that it covers many contracts in the literature that are not normally considered "incomplete", e.g., insurance contracts with adverse selection.So moral hazard and adverse selection contracts are not, it seems, incomplete contracts. The issue is that asymmetric contracts are verifiable, the variable on which the incentive contract is written is assumed to be observable and verifiable so that the courts can fully enforce the contract. As noted above the standard assumption for incomplete contracts is that they are incomplete because some relevant variable is not verifiable, to the courts. Another way to look at this is that if performance of the terms of a contract would result in the gains from trade not being fully exploited, given the information that the contracting parties and the courts have available to them at the time performance takes place, then the contract is incomplete. Under the assumptions of complete or comprehensive contracting any gains from trade available are always exploited to the fullest extent possible.
But the assumption of non-verifiability has its own problems as Maskin and Tirole have pointed out. Maskin and Tirole argue that information which is observable to the contracting parties (symmetric information) can be made verifiable (to a third party) by the use of ingenious revelation mechanisms. The contracting parties write into their contract a game which when played gives the appropriate incentives for them to truthfully reveal their private information in equilibrium. This undermines the non-verifiability approach to incomplete contracts.
To deal with the Maskin and Tirole critique, Hart and Moore developed the 'reference point' approach to incomplete contracts. Very briefly the Hart and Moore reference point theory argues that when the parties meet at date 0 there is uncertainty about the state of the world. This uncertainty is resolved shortly before date 1. There is symmetric information throughout, but the state is not verifiable. A date 0 contract serves as a reference point for the contracting parties' feelings about entitlements at date 1. Specifically, neither party feels entitled to an outcome outside those permitted by the contract but within the contract there can be disagreement about the appropriate outcome. To simplify matters, it is supposed that each party feels entitled to their best possible outcome permitted by the contract. Of course, this means that usually at least one party will be disappointed or "aggrieved" by any particular outcome. Hart and Moore assume that no outcome from a transaction is perfectly contractible even at date 1. In particular, they assume that each party has the discretion to provide "perfunctory" performance rather than "consummate" performance. Performing at the lower perfunctory level rather than the higher consummate level is referred to as shading and it is assumed that shading cannot be penalised by a court. A court can, however, enforce the perfunctory level of performance. When a party is aggrieved he shades, by an amount theta times his level of aggrievement where 0< theta <=1. Consummate performance does not cost significantly more than perfunctory performance to whomever is providing the good or service, and a party will provide consummate performance if he feels "well treated" but not otherwise. Shading hurts the other party and causes a deadweight loss. The important point here is that the reference point approach does not suffer from the Maskin and Tirole critique but get around it by introducing a number of ad hoc behavioural assumptions, e.g. aggrievement and shading.
After all of this we find that M'hand Fares argues that the difference between complete and incomplete contracts is not verifiability at all but the ability to commit to not renegotiating the initial contract.
In the controversy on the theoretical foundations of the property rights approach, Hart and Moore [...] and Maskin and Tirole [...] point out that a key distinction between complete and incomplete contracting is the ability of risk neutral parties to commit not to renegotiate the initial contract. The renegotiation design issue in contract solutions to the hold-up problem restates this view in a more general fashion as a contrast between (i) a world where contract can determine the entire relationship between the parties and (ii) a world where contract can only influence an existing underlying game between them, that is, the renegotiation game. This implies that the capacity of a contract to influence this game defines its 'incompleteness' or 'degree of incompleteness' [...]: the more a contract is able to design the renegotiation game, the less it is incomplete.So in the end we are left with Jean Tirole's point that,
[f]or all its importance, there is unfortunately no clear definition of "incomplete contracting" in the literature. While one recognizes one when one sees it, incomplete contracts are not members of a well-circumscribed family; at this stage an incomplete contract is rather defined as an ad hoc restriction on the set of feasible contracts in a given model. The concept of "ad hoc restriction" is of course subjective: to give it some content, we will [...] take the standard approach to contract theory as the benchmark. The methodology developed in the last thirty years to treat moral hazard, adverse selection, and implementation problems provides a well-defined delineation of the set of feasible outcomes by incentive constraints. Incomplete contracting then relates to a focus on a subset of feasible outcomes through the imposition of restrictions on the set of allowable contracts.Thus I'm left asking, When is a contract incomplete? | <urn:uuid:8d18dfda-54f7-41de-aac0-ac2c959f88e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://antidismal.blogspot.com/2012/01/when-is-contract-incomplete.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942781 | 1,743 | 2.5 | 2 |
Connelly Springs, NC Real Estate
According to census data in the year 2000 there were 758 housing units in Connelly Springs.
This represents a 31.4% growth from 577 in 1990.
Of those housing units, 557 were located in either urbanized areas or urban clusters, and 201 were located in what is classified as a rural area.
Homeownership rate in Connelly Springs is about 83.1%.
Connelly Springs's vacancy rate, including seasonal lodging, is about 8%.
Average household size is 2.55 people.
The majority of houses, apartments or condos in Connelly Springs were built after 1976.
|Housing Units by Size|
|Five Bedrooms or more||1.60%|
Owned Homes, Apartments and Condos
|Average Household Size||2.53|
|Median year structure was built||1977|
|Median Value of occupied units||$77,100|
|Median Price asked for vacant units||$25,000|
Rented Homes, Apartments and Condos
|Average Household Size||2.65|
|Median year structure was built||1973|
|Median Monthly Rent asked for vacant units||$350|
Owners Finance Status
|Second Mortgage & Equity Loan||0%|
|Home Equity Loan||9.20%|
|Median part of Monthly Household Income dedicated to covering home ownership costs||15%| | <urn:uuid:a19427c2-21bf-45bd-9129-e664583b5492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.idcide.com/realestate/nc/connelly-springs.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938538 | 305 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Biologically Inspired Hearing Aid
This site has just been crammed with new content. This includes testimonials, news reports, new help, new project information, FAQs, videos and more. Please browse the links in the sidebar.
The core of the BioAid project is a novel hearing aid algorithm based on our knowledge of the biological processes that occur in the ear.
|A free implementation of the algorithm can be downloaded on the app store. The app turns your iOS device into a hearing aid by processing sound from the microphone, then delivering the processed sound over headphones in real time. Care has been taken to make the user interface to the BioAid app very simple. However, please read the information on this site to get the best possible user experience.|
The algorithm source code is freely available. This allows others to contribute by creating and evaluating their own implementations of the hearing aid.
Thank you for your interest in the BioAid project. | <urn:uuid:3e6ba728-98f0-495b-a5f5-4fdfb76dbf2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bioaid.org.uk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930163 | 193 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Learn to Outline
Outlining is an easy and great way to get organized. You can use outlining for many different things. One of the most
common uses of outlining is for writing essays, outlining stories, or outlining reports.
Before you learn how to outline you probably will first want to know WHAT an outline is. Many people define outlines differently. Here are some of them:
A logical and general description
A schematic summery
An organizational pattern
A concept or design of what you are writing
Now that you know what outlines are for, you might want to know what the purpose of an outline is:
An outline helps your writing process
It helps you organize your ideas
It shows your relationship between your ideas
It has an ordered overview of what you are writing
It orders your ideas in groups
Also, there are many benefits for outlining.
You can check the developments in your work.
It is easy to see the minor and major points in what you are writing.
You can order your work better.
You can help straighten the flow in the logic
To make an outline you can either group the outline by subject, or by paragraphs. If you outline a book, you outline by paragraphs. If you outline a book to write a report about Egypt, you would probably first take note cards by a subject and then put them into an outline. "What is the point of doing the outline then?" you ask. It is easier to put the notes in order. With an outline, you can get a mental picture of what the document should look like. Go to this link to learn how to make an outline.Learn to make an outline | <urn:uuid:3102986f-4c02-429f-a391-d49853055ce3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/J002345/outline3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95 | 340 | 3.859375 | 4 |
This story shows how the troubled relationship between two brothers was a therapeutic opportunity to change maladaptive family patterns.
Drew, 19, and Steve, 20, were close brothers raised in a volatile family. When Drew started getting into trouble in college, their mom arranged for the brothers to live together in an apartment, hoping that Steve could watch out for Drew. This solution backfired; the boys acted out family-related power plays. Physical confrontation escalated along with family-related conflict and hostility. At this point, the mom sought help.
Mom and Dad’s Perspective
Kate was an immigrant from Italy who, more than anything, wanted a better life for her children. She worked tirelessly to earn money for their education.
Consistent with the old-school style of authoritarian parenting with which she was raised, Kate demanded devotion and obedience. She was very involved with her sons and, though caring, she was also high-strung, anxious and unrelenting when they didn’t perform – yelling, threatening and lecturing – reminding them of her very real sacrifice and suffering on their behalf.
Drew perpetually disappointed and upset Kate. He failed to live up to her expectations and often lied to appease her. She worried about his ability to be independent, responsible, and protect himself. Steve, on the other hand, was seen as the ideal son: high-achieving, responsible, and aggressive. She constantly compared the two of them.
Both Kate and Don, the boys’ father, had frequent, explosive outbursts and acknowledged that, at times, they were physically abusive to their boys. Don had a short temper and unpleasant disposition, often angry, entitled and humiliating toward Kate and Drew. He was only minimally involved with the boys and didn’t attend therapy.
Brothers: Steve and Drew
With family, Drew typically was argumentative and defiant, defensively reacting to criticism and attacks for failing to measure up. Otherwise, Drew was friendly, good-natured and sensitive. He had a palpable longing to be loved, and a chameleon quality designed to get it. Drew’s sense of worth was tied up in how he appeared, always needing others’ approval, and often feeling insecure, anxious and bad about himself.
Drew had come out as gay in high school. In college, he tried to emotionally break away from his mom and flaunt his separate identity. Seeking admiration and celebrity, he began to dress in a flamboyant and revealing style, posing online in sexually provocative photos, and behaving in ways that put him at risk to be victimized, which he was.
In college, Drew became involved in mutually obsessive relationships in which he was dominated and controlled. In these relationships, he was unable to hold his own or break away, leading to the downward spiraling of his grades, family relationships, and friends.
Growing up, Steve acted as man of the house, protecting Drew and their mom from their dad, who picked on Drew. Steve also actively defended his brother from bullies at school.
Steve proudly considered himself “the alpha male,” coming across as loud, aggressive, and stilted as if lecturing. He had an intensity, dominance and perseverance reminiscent of his mom.
Steve behaved in a paternalistic and arrogant way toward his brother, acting as co-parent and agent of their mom. As they got older, this dominance and loyalty to their mom led to increasing fights between the two willful brothers.
Power Plays between Brothers
This cycle intensified after they moved in together, escalating into physical brawls, as Drew felt ganged up on and put down. Seeing himself as in charge, Steve used his authority and physical strength to try to force Drew to behave as he deemed appropriate, including around the house. Drew rebelled and fought back. Though weaker and less physically powerful than his brother, Drew wouldn’t back down, but inwardly became increasingly panicked.
Therapy initially involved Drew and his mom, but evolved into sessions with the brothers alone.
Children internalize blueprints from the family. Experiences in the family become imprinted in the brain, serving as templates for future relationships. In this family, aggression and threats were used to force obedience. The mom also used emotional force in the form of guilt and shaming.
Drew and Steve learned that the only roles available in relationships were perpetrator and victim, dominance and submission. In this dynamic, power is abused, and force is used to control other people in order to manage one’s own anxiety and helplessness.
Both boys internalized this blueprint. They submitted and accommodated to what was expected in an instinctive effort to keep their mom from getting upset. Doing so also protected themselves from physical and psychological threat.
Children’s Responses to Rigid Parental Expectations
On the outside, Steve became the man his mom wanted – obsessively driven and protective, with a reflexive survival instinct to dominate and attack. Underneath, however, Steve felt anxious, empty and lonely. He was also unsettled by the awareness that he was easily triggered into a detached anger and ability to get out of control.
Unlike his brother, Drew couldn’t develop the image or behaviors expected of him, and felt inadequate and ashamed. He learned to lie, and alternated between accommodating and rebelling. Insisting that no one could stop him from being himself or make him into someone else, Drew developed an “identity” based on needing to prove he could defy his family’s values and attempts to control him. In doing so, however, ironically he took on the familiar role from which he was escaping, in which he was the object of others’ fantasies – desperate to secure love and affirmation, but betraying himself.
Steve felt terrified and helpless as he witnessed his brother setting himself up to be victimized. His efforts to force him to behave not only failed but inadvertently trained Drew to be submissive in close relationships, and tempted him to break out and do the opposite of what the family wanted.
Steve felt protective of his brother and cared deeply about him. But when they talked, he lectured and made fun of him, modeling himself after his mom. Feeling overpowered and judged, rather than cared about, Drew shut him out and counterattacked, rigidly determined not to submit. This defense provoked Steve into asserting more dominance, perpetuating a battleground and stalemate between them.
Effects of Growing Up in a Stressful Environment
Steve and Drew were driven by a chronic sense of agitation and reactivity as a result of growing up in a highly stressful, chaotic environment. With looming emotional or physical threat, children are catapulted into a constant state of hyperarousal. This state perpetuates ongoing activation of survival instincts such as fight and surrender, persisting into adulthood even when threat no longer exists. Overwhelmed physiologically, and armed with a paradigm of rigid relationships, Steve and Drew were unable to extricate themselves from a battlefield mentality.
Therapy helped Steve and Drew see that they were re-experiencing the pervasive anxiety and power struggles they internalized growing up. As they recognized this, and saw that their fights were fueled by trying to fend off being overpowered or shamed, they no longer felt so divided. Also, when Steve recognized that his approach was reinforcing Drew’s inability to hold his own in other relationships, he was determined to learn more effective ways to relate to him.
Learning to Communicate Differently
Coached to use a softer tone and express caring directly, Steve began to reach his brother emotionally in the sessions. In turn, Drew became less defensive and more cooperative, and began to see that resisting others was not always the way to be true to himself.
Leveling the Playing Field
When the brothers first moved in together, the therapist empowered Drew to temporarily be in charge of household decisions, letting him know that he was on his honor to consider what was fair and take care not to abuse his authority. This strategy was designed to change their power dynamic, and give the brothers experience learning to consider the concept of fairness and respect for one another’s autonomy.
Respecting Autonomy and Learning to Negotiate
When being introduced to the concepts of negotiation and persuasion, Steve was instructed to practice making requests and tolerate the possibility that Drew might say “no.” They learned how to recognize the beginning signs of agitation and step back to calm themselves before engaging in conversation.
One night, dressed in a skimpy outfit, Drew woke Steve asking him for a ride to a party in town. Steve felt his anger beginning to boil. He felt held hostage and was outraged seeing Drew dressed this way. Steve knew that if he let his brother take the train looking so provocative, Drew would be at risk for danger. But he felt jerked around and didn’t want to be seen with his brother dressed that way. Previously, a predictable power struggle would have erupted in which Steve would make fun of and attack Drew, who would protest, “ You can’t boss me – I’m my own person.” In the end, one or both would get physically injured, or Drew would run out and in fact get into trouble.
This time, Steve remembered how it usually played out. He calmed himself – attempting to step back from his survival instincts and commander-in-chief mentality. Instead of attacking his brother, Steve asked Drew to make a deal with him: in exchange for the ride, Drew would put sweatpants and a sweatshirt on for the ride. Drew initially started to engage reflexively in a control struggle, but Steve did not take the bait. Aware that they could persuade but not control the other, or use physical or psychological force, they managed to stay in the mindset of negotiating. Neither was happy having to compromise. But they smiled proudly as they told this story from the perspective of brothers on the same team.
Therapy helped Steve and Drew become less polarized and see that they struggled with counterparts of the same dynamic and that they were not so different from each other after all. As the brothers learned to solve differences together without force, they experienced a true sense of empowerment and the possibility of freedom from the inner world of the past that entrapped them.
Negative Effects of Authoritarian Parenting
Power plays can unconsciously protect people from a feeling of separation, loss of control and helplessness. But demanding submission and obedience can backfire. It can teach children dependency and automatic behavior and discourage the development of problem-solving, judgment and autonomous thinking. Requiring children to surrender themselves leads to the development of a false self, precluding authentic relationships and impeding the development of identity and self-reliance. Further, forcing obedience breeds aggression, resentment, and the need to escape through disobedience or becoming submerged.
Parents Letting Go and Tolerating Separation
Ultimately, in this case, Kate was able to loosen her hold over her sons, recognizing that she was unintentionally passing on family dynamics that created aggression, fragility and division instead of strength. As these patterns were made explicit, they could be changed, freeing Steve and Drew from expectations that did not fit them, and creating a space among them to accept and navigate differences.
Disclaimer: The characters in this vignette are fictitious. They were derived from a composite of people and events in therapy to represent real-life family dilemmas.
Margolies, L. (2012). Power Plays Between Brothers & Families. Psych Central. Retrieved on May 24, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/power-plays-between-brothers-families/
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 30 Jan 2013
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:45edec75-a062-4f07-8da7-e7a89d49ce7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/power-plays-between-brothers-families/all/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983408 | 2,427 | 1.929688 | 2 |
About Pancreatic Cancer
Types of Pancreatic Cancer
All pancreatic cancers begin when abnormal cells grow out of control within the organ. There are two types of glands in the pancreas: exocrine and endocrine, both of which have different functions and give rise to different types of tumors. Ninety-five percent of all pancreatic cancers are exocrine in nature because they originate in the exocrine cells, which produce digestive enzymes.
In contrast, fewer than 5% of pancreatic tumors are endocrine; these also are called neuroendocrine, or islet cell, tumors. The islet cells produce essential hormones such as insulin, glucagon and somatostatin, which control the amount of sugar in our bloodstream.
Subtypes of islet cell tumors include: insulinomas, which originate in cells that make insulin; glucagonomas, from cells that make glucagon; gastrinomas, from cells that make gastrin; somatostatinomas, from cells that make somatostatin; VIPomas, from cells that make vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP); and PPomas, which arise from cells that make pancreatic polypeptide
Endocrine tumors may be either malignant or benign and tend to grow more slowly than exocrine tumors. These tumors may be functional (they produce hormones) or nonfunctional (do not produce hormones). The majority of functional endocrine tumors are benign, however 90% of nonfunctional endocrine tumors are cancerous. | <urn:uuid:bbcf7f32-60cc-46ec-b8eb-7192c9d1475a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pvhmc.org/Cancer-Care-Center/If-You-Have-Pancreatic-Cancer/About-Pancreatic-Cancer-Details.asp?RID=7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90554 | 306 | 3.578125 | 4 |
A young swimmer leaps into the waters of Mead's Quarry Lake on Sunday, June 24, 2012. The 25-acre lake and surrounding quarry was acquired by Ijam's Nature Center in 2005.
(SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL)
This photograph never published in the News Sentinel. The main reason is that swimming and diving from large rock outcroppings is not allowed at the quarry. However, the photograph was moved on the Associated Press wire and it published on a few websites. What I liked about this photo are the triangular shapes in the composition made by the diver and the swimmers.
The most difficult part of choosing photographs of the year is determining which photograph can stand on its own. When on assignment, I often decide what to photograph based on how well it helps illustrate a news story. This approach
Related Stories for Saul Young: Photos of the Year 2012 | <urn:uuid:b2ecadd7-eb43-4513-96af-64dfc2ba5aef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knoxnews.com/photos/galleries/2012/dec/17/saul-young-photos-of-the-year-2012/58097/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979359 | 182 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Whether it is what is happening with the details of Lindsay Lohan’s life, or the allegations concerning Herman Cain, the fact is, we have all made bad choices we wish we could take back, but today is a new day…and its time to make better choices.
“When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels” ~ Anonymous
It’s choices that determine how much money you make, your career, whether you realize your dreams, who you date, how much weight you lose or gain, and so forth. Unfortunately, no matter what our education, society doesn’t always do a great job teaching us how to make good choices. We rarely learn a decision-making process we can implement repeatedly, no matter the topic. Here’s five things to consider before you go forward on any project or decision:
1. Get my mind in a good place.
2. Get my spirit in a good place.
3. Have I checked my plans with smart people?
4. Do my plans coincide with God’s plans for my life?
5. How will this choice make me feel in the future?
This is what God says,
the God who builds a road right through the ocean,
who carves a path through pounding waves,
The God who summons horses and chariots and armies—
they lie down and then can’t get up;
they’re snuffed out like so many candles:
“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands.
Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’
—the coyotes and the buzzards—
Because I provided water in the desert,
rivers through the sun-baked earth,
Drinking water for the people I chose,
the people I made especially for myself,
a people custom-made to praise me.”
Isaiah 43:16-21 (MSG) | <urn:uuid:6fbb499b-d50d-484e-934c-d11380db2149> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://storeystyle.com/Entertainment,Inspiration,Motivation,Spiritual,Hollywood,TimStorey,LifeCoach,LifeAdvisor,Author,Speaker/wealthy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908334 | 479 | 1.726563 | 2 |
In my work as an intern with the History Department here at Te Papa, one of the objects I’ve had the opportunity to work on is a memorial banner commemorating New Zealand soldiers from the First World War. I have been working to add more detail to the museum’s records around the lives of the soldiers who are named on the banner, and in doing so have had the opportunity to learn more about the story behind this fascinating object.
Early in the First World War, the New Zealand War Contingent Hospital was established at Mount Felix in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England. It was the first New Zealand hospital set up in England, and was soon re-named the New Zealand General Hospital No. 2.
Initially plots in the nearby parish cemetery were acquired for soldiers who died in the hospital. Expecting a large number of burials, the War Graves Commission arranged for more than one burial to take place in each grave. However, a larger plot became available in the nearby Brookwood Cemetery, and so fewer burials than was first expected took place at Walton-on-Thames churchyard. This meant that some of the grave sites which were used early-on contained multiple burials, while others remained empty.
The soldiers commemorated on the banner
The names of eighteen soldiers and one nurse of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) are recorded on the banner, which was originally installed in the Walton-on-Thames Parish Church. It also shows the date they died, their military serial number, their rank and the unit they were serving with – very useful to the History team at Te Papa for locating their Military Personnel files and finding out more information about them.
Private James Livingstone Porter served with the Otago Infantry Battalion. He worked as a moulder before joining up early in the war and departing from Port Chalmers in October 1914. He died of wounds sustained at Gallipoli in October 1916.
Corporal Thomas Wallace Phillips was part of the Auckland Mounted Rifles and the 2nd Reinforcements, he is mentioned on the War Memorial at Cambridge, New Zealand.
Private William Fox’s name is recorded wrongly on the banner as ‘Cox’. He was a member of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion with the 4th Reinforcements. The spelling mistake has been transferred once more from the banner to the modern commemorative plaque which is now installed in the church! (See photograph below).
Acting Corporal John Brian Dalton had previously had a long association with the Hawera Mounted Rifles Volunteer Force. He embarked from Wellington on 17th April 1915 to serve with the Otago Mounted Rifles as part of the 4th Reinforcements. He was slightly wounded at Gallipoli but had become seriously ill by the time he reached England, where he was admitted to the hospital at Walton-on-Thames and died on the 2nd December 1915.
Corporal Henry Hudson was part of the Main Body of the Wellington Infantry Battalion who left Wellington in 1914. He died two years later from heart failure following pneumonia.
Driver Arthur Hall was part of the Army Service Corps. He died of heart failure following an operation at Walton-on-Thames in June 1916.
Driver William Henry Russell was part of the 9th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Field Artillery, he died of his wounds in September 1916.
Rifleman Edward Rout was employed as a general labourer by J. Cole of Papatoetoe before joining the 1st Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. He died of wounds inflicted to his right shoulder and right leg in October 1916.
Private Kingi Hamana was part of the 1st Maori Contingent, B Company. He died of tuberculosis in October 1916.
Private John Lewis Boyd was part of the Auckland Mounted Rifles and the 7th Reinforcements. His injuries left him paralysed from the waist down. He remained in England after being discharged from the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as his mother lived in Hampshire. He died in 1932 and was buried at Walton-on-Thames, so his name must have been added to the banner long after it was originally installed in the church, and only shortly before it was removed to make way for a more permanent memorial.
Sapper Jack Fleming was married to Anne Charleswood and had two daughters, Annie Elizabeth and Nellie. He left his family in Auckland when he embarked in April 1916 with the New Zealand Field Engineers. He died of disease in October the same year.
Private Montrose Baker from Gisbourne was a member of the Wellington Infantry Battalion and the 7th Reinforcements. He died from his wounds.
Private Ramera (Raniera) Wairau embarked from Wellington in September 1915 as part of the 2nd Maori Contingent. He died of tuberculosis in October 1916.
Private William Henry Rishworth of Dunedin was wounded by shrapnel whilst serving with the Otago Infantry Regiment in the 12th Reinforcements. He later died of his wounds at Walton-on-Thames.
Rifleman George Blinko was a cabinetmaker from Hastings who served with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade before contracting pneumo-coccal meningitis and dying on 6th January 1917.
Private Taura from Atiu, Rarotonga, joined the Rarotongans Unit of the 3rd Maori contingent, despite not being able to speak any English. He contracted tuberculosis and died in January 1917.
Private Robert Black was husband of Alice Ann Black from Rarotonga and an accountant before he joined the Wellington Infantry Regiment. He died of disease in April 1917.
Miss T. W. Bennet was a nurse in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) who worked at the New Zealand General Hospital No. 2. Unfortunately we have so far not been able to uncover any more information about her.
Colonel Charles Mackie Begg was a surgeon in the New Zealand Medical Corps and became the Director of Medical Services for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He died at his home in Twickenham from influenza and pneumonia in 1919.
In the 1930s, Colonel Begg’s brother wrote to the High Commissioner of New Zealand with several complaints about the visibility of his brother’s grave. After visiting Walton-on-Thames, he claimed that the graves were hard to find, that he found his brother’s name quite illegible on the gravestone, and that it did not list his full honours. As the Beggs were an influential family, the High Commissioner took the complaint very seriously, and sent the Director of Works from the Imperial War Graves Commission, a Mr. Sheppard who worked for the Imperial War Graves Commission, but was also a New Zealander, and a representative from the Office of the High Commission, all to inspect the site.
A rubbing and a plaster impression were taken on the headstone and sent to New Zealand, where they are still held at Archives New Zealand in Wellington. The reports of all three officials concluded that the headstones were quite clear, and located just inside the entrance to the churchyard, so easy to find. As was standard practice with war graves, they listed only each soldiers’ rank and serial number, and were not separated into a separate section of the churchyard as so few burials had actually taken place. Still concerned that Dr. Begg would not be satisfied, the High Commission passed on all the recorded evidence to the Prime Minister in case the complaint should be taken higher!
Use of the banner
In January 1920, a ceremony was held at Walton-on-Thames Parish Church to install this embroidered banner which recorded the names of nineteen New Zealanders buried in the adjoining cemetery. After its installation, this banner was taken out of the church to the graveside once every year as part of the Anzac Day service held on 25th April.
In 1932, it was proposed that a brass tablet should be installed to replace the ageing banner. The Returned Soldiers Association of New Zealand raised money from their members to pay for the tablet, which also included the names of two further soldiers who were recorded as ‘Missing in the UK’, Captain C. K. Ward and Private W. O. McDiarmid. This was installed inside the parish church where it can still be seen today (below).
The banner eventually found its way to New Zealand where it was presented to the Dominion Museum in 1961 by Adjutant General Brigadier McKinnon on behalf of the New Zealand Army Headquarters in Wellington.
Remembering New Zealand in Britain
Today, Walton-on-Thames still celebrates its entwined history with that ofNew Zealandand the NZEF. The former site of the hospital atMountFelixis now at one end of a road built in the 1930s named ‘New Zealand Avenue’. There is also a tribute to our capital in the naming of a local pub – the Wellington!
The making of the banner
The banner was made or ‘worked’ by one or maybe more soldiers during recovery at the New Zealand General Hospital. As well as a commemoration for those who had died, the process would have acted as a form of rehabilitation and way to pass the time. The apron pictured below is another example from the museum’s collection of an object made as a form of occupational therapy for an injured soldier. | <urn:uuid:f6c2aca3-69d8-4fb3-a380-a52c7b796ca8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/tag/new-zealand-general-hospital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987553 | 1,946 | 2.953125 | 3 |
DRC: North Kivu in turmoil again
GISENYI (WESTERN RWANDA), 16 May 2012 (IRIN) - In the last few weeks fighting between government troops and "mutineers" has ended three years of relative peace in North Kivu Province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and thousands of refugees have been streaming across the border to Rwanda.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the clashes have displaced 40,600 people since April. For many of them this is the third time they have been forced to flee their homes since the mid-1990s.
"It [war] is something they have seen and that they know," Richard Ndaula, the UNHCR team leader at western Rwanda's Nkamira transit camp, told IRIN. The camp has received at least 8,000 refugees since 27 April.
Who are the "mutineers"?
Bosco Ntaganda was second in charge of the Tutsi rebel group Congrès national pour la défense du people (CNDP) until 2009, when he brokered a deal to integrate its troops into the national army and take over the North Kivu command. After integration, CNDP soldiers operated a parallel leadership structure, taking orders only from Ntaganda.
However, in early April, the former CNDP soldiers began to defect, citing unpaid salaries and poor living conditions, and said the government had failed to uphold the terms of the 2009 peace accord. Commentators said the "mutineers" were protecting Ntaganda from arrest, but they denied this, calling themselves M23 in reference to the 23 March 2009 accord.
Ntaganda, already indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), stands accused in the past week of continuing to recruit children as young as 12 into the ranks of his armed group.
On 15 May ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he wanted to add charges of murder, ethnic persecution, rape and sexual slavery to the 2006 charge against Ntaganda of recruiting children.
Ntaganda was Thomas Lubanga's successor in another militia, the Union des patriotes congolais. The ICC on 14 March found Lubanga guilty of conscripting child soldiers in the northeastern DRC region of Ituri.
Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Goma (eastern DRC), said: "There is evidence to suggest extensive recruitment of children and young men by the mutineers. Bosco Ntaganda is once again committing the very crimes against children for which the International Criminal Court has been demanding his arrest."
Allegations of mistreatment
It took Jean-Pierre Iransi, a 20-year-old student from Burungu in Masisi, North Kivu, five days to reach Rwanda, a journey which normally takes one day. Iransi said he was detained 12 times by both government soldiers and rebels. At one point rebels forced him to carry equipment; when he refused, he said they threatened to kill him. "Many civilians were taken to become soldiers. Up to this moment we don't know where they are," he said.
HRW in a 16 May statement based on interviews with witnesses and victims, said: "Ntaganda's troops - an estimated 300-600 soldiers who followed him in his mutiny - forcibly recruited at least 149 boys and young men around Kilolirwe, Kingi, Kabati, and other locations on the road to Kitchanga, in Masisi, North Kivu Province, between 19 April and 4 May. Those forcibly recruited were between 12 and 20 years old and were largely from the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups." It said the actual level of recruitment during this period may have been significantly higher.
In an excerpt from the HRW statement, a woman said that in mid-April Ntaganda had personally come to her village and said: "Since you [villagers] have been with the government, you've got nothing. Why not join me?" The woman said: "[Ntaganda] asked us to give our children, our students, to him to fight. He came to our village himself, like [detained rebel leader Laurent] Nkunda used to do. But we refused and said our children should go to school."
Later, Ntaganda's fighters took children by force from schools, their homes and farms, or from the roadside as they tried to flee on foot or on motorbike taxis, said HRW. "A number of those forcibly recruited were given quick military training, but the majority were immediately forced to porter weapons and ammunition to frontline positions. Many were put in military uniforms or partial uniforms."
According to Omar Katova, a spokesperson for a number of North Kivu civil society groups, the Congolese government should end the "new war" in North Kivu by disbanding armed groups and arresting "mutineer" defectors, amid increasing concern that other rebel groups, including the pro-Hutu Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), could take advantage of a security vacuum.
On 7 May FDLR attacked some government positions and abducted five women in neighbouring South Kivu Province.
At present, Ntaganda's location remains unknown, although according to the HRW statement, he could be in the Virunga National Park with a small group of fighters. His M23 "mutineers", reportedly numbering 500-800, have in large part left Masisi. After gathering at the border junction between the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, they attempted a takeover of Bunagana town, along the DRC-Uganda border in early May.
The absence of Ntaganda's CNDP troops in their Masisi stronghold, which is currently under the control of the Congolese army, is emerging as a threat to the remaining Tutsi population, with many of those who have fled to Rwanda speaking of ethnic intolerance.
"They [Congolese soldiers] beat us when they find us. They tell me I'm Rwandan. Every time, they say this is not your country. But I was born in Congo, I grew up in Congo," said a refugee.
Meanwhile, Congolese refugees arriving in Rwanda from their homes in Masisi, say they saw friends and family beaten and arrested on the way. Arsene Harnyurwa made it to Rwanda from Rubai but said soldiers took everything he had, down to his baby's milk. "The rebels and the government are the same. The people who made it here are the lucky ones," he said.
Voting with their feet
On 7 May Liz Ahua, deputy director of UNHCR's Africa Bureau, warned that "a new site will have to be found if more refugees continue to arrive on a daily basis."
Rwanda is already hosting some 55,000 Congolese refugees in three crowded camps.
In neighboring Uganda, the challenge is different with an estimated 30,000-40,000 so-called Congolese "night commuters" at the Bunagana border point. They are refusing to seek asylum in Uganda, waiting for the situation back home to stabilize. The Ugandan government is encouraging them to seek refuge and get UNHCR assistance.
As to when they will return home, HRW's Van Woudenberg said: "People will decide with their feet."
A selection of IRIN reports are posted on ReliefWeb. Find more IRIN news and analysis at http://www.irinnews.org
Une sélection d'articles d'IRIN sont publiés sur ReliefWeb. Trouvez d'autres articles et analyses d'IRIN sur http://www.irinnews.org
This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. Refer to the IRIN copyright page for conditions of use.
Cet article ne reflète pas nécessairement les vues des Nations Unies. Voir IRIN droits d'auteur pour les conditions d'utilisation. | <urn:uuid:3c639319-3e01-46bf-b261-b4e655f064b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/drc-north-kivu-turmoil-again | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962993 | 1,694 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Principles Of Civil Procedure by Pinsler, Jeffrey
This book examines the rules of civil procedure and the ever-increasing case law in the context of carefully designed, underlying principles. This is a unique approach and its purpose is to inculcate a fuller and deeper understanding of procedure. Principles of Civil Procedure will enable the reader to gain a fundamental understanding of the elements of civil procedure in a very meaningful way at every level. It will assist lawyers in mastering difficult issues of procedure and present them with persuasive points which they can use in their arguments in almost every area. Civil procedure is not merely a body of rules. Rules are the mere facets of the subject. A true understanding of civil procedure comes only with an appreciation of the purposes of the rules and their link to the objectives of litigation. Apart from examining the principles and analysing the corresponding sources of law and the developing jurisprudence, the book aims to provide a clear account of civil practice in the courts. Lawyers will find this book extremely useful in preparing and presenting their cases in interlocutory proceedings and at trial and on appeal.
Industrial Design Law In Singapore by George Wei Sze Shun
This volume is the Academy of Law's Monograph Series deals exhaustively with Industrial Design Law in Singapore. This aspect of intellectual property law is of course very relevant to Singapore's copyright policies and development. Indexed case references.
Law Of Contract In Singapore by Phang Boon Leng, Andrew (Ed.)
This is the first textbook on Singapore contract law that is written for a local audience. It offers a comprehensive and structured discussion of all aspects of Singapore contract law. The book also draws, wherever applicable, on salient decisions from other Commonwealth jurisdictions (particularly with regard to areas of Singapore contract law that are not well-settled or which may benefit from comparative contract jurisprudence). In addition, the book contains references to relevant secondary literature as well as suggestions for reform, where applicable and necessary. Given its comprehensive treatment of Singapore contract law as well as its reference to a wide range of comparative material, this book will be useful not only to local practitioners and students but also to practitioners and students from other common law jurisdictions.
Law In His Hands, The: A Tribute To Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong by Chao Hick Tin, Andrew Phang Boon Leong Et Al(Eds.)
This massive volume indicates the substantial nature of the achievements of Chan Sek Keong (b. 1937), Third Chief Justice of Singapore from 2006 to 2012. The six papers in Part One include a biographical summary and speeches and interviews given on celebratory occasions. Six essays then describe and honour different aspects of Chan Sek Keong's expertise. They are followed by ten speeches made by him at different stages of his career. Nineteen of his speeches and publishes essays on aspects of Criminal, Public, International and Commercial Law follow, and the volume ends with five of his obituary tributes to major legal luminaries who have played a major part in Singapore's legal development. With case table and index.
Asian Legal Revivals: Lawyers In The Shadow Of Empire by Dezalay, Yves; Bryant G. Garth
More than a decade ago, before globalization became a buzzword, Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth established themselves as leading analysts of how that process has shaped the legal profession. Drawing upon the insights of Pierre Bourdieu, Asian Legal Revivals explores the increasing importance of the positions of the law and lawyers in South and Southeast Asia.
Dezalay and Garth argue that the current situation in many Asian countries can only be fully understood by looking to their differing colonial experiences - and in considering how those experiences have laid the foundation for those societies' legal profession today. Deftly tracing the transformation of the relationship between law and state into different colonial settings, the authors show how nationalist legal elites in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea came to wield political power as agents in the move toward national independence.
Including fieldwork from over 350 interviews, Asian Legal Revivals illuminates the more recent past and present of these legally changing nations and explains the profession's recent revival of influence, as spurred on by American geopolitical and legal interests.
Law And Long-Term Economic Change A Eurasian Perspective by Debin Ma; Jan Luiten Van Zanden
Recently, a growing body of work on "law and finance" and "legal origins" has highlighted the role of formal legal institutions in shaping financial institutions. However, these writings have focused largely on Europe, neglecting important non-Western traditions that prevail in a large part of the world.
Covering the regions of Western Europe, East and South Asia, and the Middle East, the chapters explore major themes regarding the nature and evolution of different legal regimes; their relationship with the state or organized religion; the definition and interpretation of ownership and property rights; the functioning of courts, and other mechanisms for dispute resolution and contract enforcement; and the complex dynamics of legal transplantations through processes such as colonization. The text makes clear that the development of legal traditions and institutions-as embodiments of cultural values and norms-exerts a strong effect on long-term economic change. And it demonstrates that a good understanding of legal origins around the world enriches any debate about Great Divergence in the early modern era, as well as development and underdevelopment in 19th-20th century Eurasia.
Law Of Reputation And Brands In The Asia Pacific, The by Kenyon, Andrew T.; Megan Richardson Et Al (Eds.)
Efforts to expand the scope of legal protection given to reputation and brands in the Asia Pacific region have led to considerable controversy. Written by a variety of experts, the essays in this book consider the developing law of reputation and brands in a fraught area.
Law And Legal Institutions Of Asia: Traditions, Adaptations And Innovations by Black, E. Ann; Gary F. Bell (Eds.)
The study of Asia and its plural legal systems is of increasing significance, both within and outside Asia. Law and Legal Institutions of Asia is the first book to offer a comprehensive assessment of eleven key jurisdictions in Asia - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and the Philippines. Written by academics and practitioners with particular expertise in their state or territory, each chapter uses a breakthrough approach, facilitating cross-jurisdictional comparisons and giving essential insights into how law functions in different ways across the region and in each of the individual jurisdictions.
Sal Conference 2011: Developments In Singapore Law Between 2006 And 2010 - Trends And Perspectives by Yeo Tiong Min; Hans Tjio Et Al
These 25 substantial legal papers reflect on developments in Singapore Law between 2006 and 2010 and were given at the quinquennial 2011 Conference of the Singapore Academy of Law. They deal with aspects of Singapore's: arbitration law and practice; contract law; civil procedure; on tort, land and on administrative law; conflict of laws; and corporations law. With a table of cases.
Treatise On Singapore Constitutional Law, A by Thio Li-Ann
This substantial and authoritative study of Singapore constitutional law will clearly become a major reference resource. Discussion of the constitutional framework of powers and rights is comprehensive and geared to the situation of an ethnically, and religiously diverse society with particular problems and needs in the context of international and human rights movements. Comparative reference is made to Malaysian, Indian and other common law contexts. With tables of cases and of legislation and index.
Law Of Torts In Singapore, The by Gary Chan Kok Yew
This substantial textbook on the law of torts in Singapore will clearly become a pivotal resource and vademecum for both law students and practitioners. The vast subject is expounded with local and foreign comparisons and case material. Indexed.
Singapore Law On Arbitral Awards by Chan Leng Sun
This substantial legal text on arbitration in Singapore deals with awards, i.e. the end result of the arbitration process in Singapore, and also enforcement aspects of arbitration made outside Singapore. Details of relevant legislation, the appointment of lay and legal arbitrators, and relevant local and foreign legislation and case material are set out in this comprehensive volume. With appended documents, and index.
Criminal Procedure Code Of Singapore, The by Marie, Jennifer (Ed.)
The enactment of the revisionary and innovative Criminal Procedure Code 2010 formed a major watershed in Singapore's criminal legal structure which had grown from the 19th century basic Criminal Procedure Code. Seven legal specialists contribute to this weighty tome which provides case references and guidance for practitioners and prosecutors. The context, rationale and implications of many of the new provisions are also explored with extensive cross-referencing. With appended documents, comparative table of provisions, and index.
International Commercial Arbitration: An Asia Pacific Perspective by Greenberg, Simon; Christopher Kee Et Al.
There has been an exponential rise in the use of ICA for resolving international business disputes, yet international arbitration is a scarcely regulated, specialty industry. International Commercial Arbitration: An Asia Pacific Perspective is the first book to explain ICA topic by topic with an Asia Pacific focus. Written for students and practising lawyers alike, this authoritative book covers the principles of ICA thoroughly and comparatively. For each issue it utilises academic writings from Asia, Europe and elsewhere, and draws on examples of legislation, arbitration procedural rules and case law from the major Asian jurisdictions. Each principle is explained with a simple statement before proceeding to more technical, theoretical or comparative content. Real-world scenarios are employed to demonstrate actual application to practice. International Commercial Arbitration is an invaluable resource that provides unique insight into real arbitral practice specific to the Asia Pacific region, within a global context. With glossary and index.
Environmental Law In China: Mitigating Risk And Ensuring Compliance by Mcelwee, Charles
In recent years, China's leaders have started to confront the environmental, economic, and social costs of unchecked development. China's increasing reliance on foreign oil has engendered national security fears and launched a drive for more efficient transportation systems and domestic renewable energy projects. Meanwhile, pressure from a rising middle class and the international community has focused leadership attention on ways to make China's economic engine run more efficiently and with less impact upon the domestic and global environment. This profound shift in priorities has elevated environmental sustainability to the top of the national agenda. To advance this new agenda, the environmental laws that China has enacted over the past 30 years are being strengthened, and new environmental regulations and standards are being issued everyday. Entities operating in China are faced with the need to understand the impact of China's environmental law requirements upon their businesses, and to take actions to ensure that they are in compliance with those requirements.
In Environmental Law in China: Managing Risk and Ensuring Compliance, Charles McElwee addresses how China's environmental regulatory and legal frameworks are structured, how to maintain operational compliance with the environmental laws and regulations, how to ensure products sold in China comply with environmental regulations, and the potential risks and liabilities that attend non-compliance. McElwee offers unique insight into how environmental law is in fact applied, setting forth a realistic account of the way companies encounter Chinese environmental regulations at both the local and national levels.
Japanese Law by Hiroshi Oda
This book presents the only English language, up-to-date, and comprehensive reference to Japanese law. It covers a wide range of topics, from the fundamentals of the Japanese legal system to the Civil Code, which is the cornerstone of private law in Japan and business related laws in a comprehensive manner. The author presents the current state of Japanese law in operation by referring to numerous cases and the latest discussions.
Since the last edition in 1999, Japanese Law, in almost every area, has undergone substantial reform, all of which is reflected in the new text. In particular, the new edition contains the first comprehensive analysis of the new Company Law and the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law.
Islam, Law And The State In Southeast Asia. Volume Iii - Malaysia And Brunei by Lindsey, Tim; Kerstin Steiner (Ed.)
This volume traces the development of a unique 'Anglo-Malay madhhab' in these states, initially by colonial and latterly by successor states. In Malaysia and Brunei, shari'ah has been filtered through Anglo-common law state institutions, creating a hybrid 'Anglo-Muslim' mixture of legal doctrines.
Islam, Law And The State In Southeast Asia. Volume I - Indonesia by Lindsey, Tim
Based on extensive fieldwork, this volume gives a detailed account of current debates, legal institutions and substantive laws, explicitly asking whether a uniquely Indonesian approach to Shari'ah can be identified, as many local Muslim leaders have long argued is the case.
Towards A History Of Law In Malaysia And Singapore by Ahmad Ibrahim
2011 reissue of the 1992 publication of the First Braddell Memorial lecture given in 1970 by the Tan Sri Datuk Ahaed Ibrahim (D. 1916) who has had of course wide experience of the law in both Singapore and Malaysia. Law and the forms of its survival and of customary law as well as the 1786 beginnings of Colonial/ British Law in Penang and subsequently in the Straits Settlements. Legal provisions and practice in the mid-19th century onwards is traced through to various modifications and developments under the Federation of Malaya . The third section reviews aspects of legal history in the Borneo States. It should of course be noted that the lecture was given in 1970. With bibliography and index.
Modernization, Tradition And Identity: The Kompilasi Hukum Islam And Legal Practice In The Indonesian Religious Courts by Nurlaelawati, Euis
This book looks at the extent to which the judges of the Indonesian religious court have referred to the Kompilasi Hukum Islam as a close or legislated code in resolving the cases. The book stresses the role of judges at the religious courts and shows how a different perspective can produce different pictures and how the main actors in what other legal scholars portray as the success story of Indonesia's legal system, if depicted from a different angle, suddenly become weak and powerless figures, lacking strong weapons. Using Weber's approach on legal rationalization, the book investigates important dynamics in the history of Islamic justice and portrays the shift of legal awareness among Muslims in the country. | <urn:uuid:788eb1e6-be89-4805-afd7-40d019b9c977> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/CategoryHome.aspx?cate=LAW | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923941 | 2,968 | 1.554688 | 2 |
From Ancestry.com Wiki
|This article is a stub. Help us to expand it by contributing your knowledge. For county and town page guidelines, visit U.S. County Page Content Suggestions.|
Gray is a town in Cumberland county, Maine. It was formed in 1778. Gray began keeping vital records in 1700?* and town records in 1778*. For more information, contact the county at 6 Shaker Rd., Gray 04039. On the attached map, Gray is shown as 7 in Cumberland county.
For information about the state of Maine see Maine Family History Research. | <urn:uuid:4b464f37-c944-49bb-9e69-c241f6db8404> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gray,_Maine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908367 | 125 | 2.28125 | 2 |
(CNN) -- Can chicken breasts help beat breast cancer? KFC officials are hoping customers will flock to help the chicken chain make a record-breaking donation of $8.5 million.
But some critics are calling foul on the company's mixed message, especially in light of the recent, heavily publicized addition of the aggressively fat-and-sodium laden Double Down sandwich to their menu.
KFC's "Buckets for the Cure" initiative boasts a bright pink website, packed with breast cancer facts, survivor stories and a pledge to donate 50 cents from each specially branded pink bucket of their grilled or Original Recipe chicken to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
The Komen organization funds research grants and community-based outreach projects focused on breast health education, screening and treatment.
The KFC site's stated goal is to make the largest single donation in history toward Komen's efforts with combined individual and KFC corporate contributions during the campaign that runs until May 5.
Sounds like something to crow about, right? Not according to New York University professor Marion Nestle, who maintains the Food Politics website.
"OK, scientists are still arguing about the dietary determinants of breast cancer and aren't too worried about fat, but they do worry about body weight," the professor of nutrition, food studies and public health posted on her blog. "Maintaining a healthy body weight is still the first recommendation of the American Cancer Society, for example."
The Food and Fitness section of ACS's website warns, "Being overweight or obese increases the risk of several cancers, including cancers of the breast (among women past menopause)..."
Nestle tells CNN, "The goals of food companies, alas, are not the same as the goals of public health. Food companies are businesses that must sell expanding numbers of products. While it seems possible that their goals and those of public health could overlap, they rarely do. Buckets for the Cure gets money for whatever it does. KFC sells more buckets. Sounds good, if you don't think about it too much."
However, KFC officials tell CNN that they're sensitive to conscientious customers. KFC's Rick Maynard said, "We have something for everyone, including people who are counting calories for health reasons."
"Last year, we introduced Kentucky Grilled Chicken, which has fewer calories, fewer fat grams and less sodium that our Original Recipe chicken. Kentucky Grilled Chicken is the product that is featured in our commercial for 'Buckets for the Cure,' and we are seeing lots of customers ask for pink buckets filled with KGC."
It is the bucket color that is troubling Barbara Brenner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action, an organization that calls itself a watchdog group seeking to compel the changes to end breast cancer.
She tells CNN that her group believes the KFC campaign is based in "pinkwashing" -- putting a pink, cancer-awareness ribbon on products that are bad for health.
Her beef isn't just with the chicken chain, though; it's with the Komen Foundation.
"This will keep them (Komen) in business for years. They talk about a cure, but this this partnership will create more breast cancer. And Komen knows this," said Brenner on the assumed relationship between fast food, excess weight and cancer risk.
Brenner went on to say, "Komen puts the responsibility for health in individuals' hands, but some people don't have the option to take care of themselves. Say you don't have the money or choice -- KFC is making money in the poorest communities."
Komen's director of communication, Andrea Rader, tells CNN the claims are "ludicrous."
"These partnerships go a long way toward supporting education and direct care for over 1,900 communities across the country. These programs provide mammograms to women in low-income communities," Rader said.
"And people are still operating under old and crazy myths -- people ask us if they can get cancer from wearing a underwire bra. There is not enough awareness out there," she says.
As to Brenner's claims, Rader says, "It's insane to say that we're exploiting poor people, and there's a logical flaw in that argument. Healthier choices are available on the menu. Are they saying that poorer people won't make them?"
Rader added the Komen Foundation seeks to add $20 million in funding for cancer prevention research this year, atop the $50 million they've previously invested.
"Buckets for the Cure" website states, albeit at the very bottom, that individual consumer purchases will not directly increase the total donation -- rather that the money is determined by purchases of buckets by KFC restaurant operators.
Despite the controversy, it seems franchisees have been flocking to help out. The campaign has thus far raised more than $2 million dollars. | <urn:uuid:fef819be-2412-4bff-9ed5-d42d5eb7124e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/homestyle/04/28/kfc.pink.bucket.campaign/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958568 | 1,003 | 2.40625 | 2 |
The Power of Script and Image
Distributed for British Library
In Hebrew Manuscripts, Ilana Tahan explores the fascinating milieu that Jewish scribes and artists worked in during the medieval period. With Judaism widely suppressed, these bookmakers were heavily influenced by the artistic trends of the majority cultures that surrounded them. This isolation from other Jewish communities led to two dominant traditions within Hebrew illumination styles: those that drew from Islamic art for inspiration and those that exhibited an affinity with Christian methods. Nonetheless, the exquisitely crafted images reproduced here are a vivid testimony to a distinctly Jewish creativity and passion for books and an enthralling look into the world of Jewish rituals and customs. | <urn:uuid:db224bd6-ae32-4f2d-8e9e-54a69fc6df23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/H/bo5530451.html | 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 | 0.937201 | 136 | 2.828125 | 3 |
When documents include graphics such as diagrams, photos, and data plots, the graphics may also require summarization. This paper discusses essential differences in informational content and rhetorical structure between text and graphics, as well as their interplay. The three approaches to graphics summarization discussed are: Selection, in which a subset of figures is chosen; Merging, in which information in multiple figures is merged into one; and Distillation, in which a single diagram is reduced to a simpler form. These procedures have to consider the content and relations of the graphical elements within figures, the relations among a collection of figures, and the figure captions and discussions of figure content in the running text. We argue that for summarization to be successful, metadata, a manipulable representation of the content of figures, needs to be generated or included initially. Often, the textual references to figures are not very informative, so it will be necessary to generate metadata by diagram parsing, as we have done, or to develop intelligent authoring systems that will allow the author to easily include metadata. This paper introduces this new area of research with manual summarization examples and follows them with a discussion of automated techniques under development. | <urn:uuid:8bf33949-e65a-44d7-bfc8-4c0cde3e8d90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aaai.org/Library/Symposia/Spring/1998/ss98-06-012.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941235 | 237 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The fact of the matter is that Americans are eating too much sugar as a whole. For many people in the US, their diet has been getting steadily worse over the years. The average diet for an American has become too high in calories, and it does not contain enough of the nutrients and other essentials that we need to stay healthy. These diet trends have been having a disastrous effect on our population. In 2007, it was estimated that 57 million Americans had pre-diabetes. As of 2011, the estimated number of people with pre-diabetes has grown to 79 million! At this stage, the body’s blood glucose levels are higher than the healthy level, and you are at serious risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
It is a myth that eating too much sugar is a direct cause of diabetes. While sugar may not be a direct cause, a diet that is high in sugar can lead to obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of diabetes. The rate of obesity in the country has been steadily rising over the last several years, and it continues to go up. The number of cases of type 2 diabetes in the US has been climbing in positive correlation with the rate of obesity. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form, accounting for about 90% of all cases. A majority of type 2 diabetes patients are also overweight. A person who is at an unmanageable weight is putting themselves in a lot of risk. This excess weight can make it harder for the body to produce and use insulin effectively.
Obesity and Diabetes Stats in the United States
The current estimates are that there are 25.8 million people in the United States who are affected by diabetes. That is 8.3% of the entire US population who have diabetes. Only 18.8 million have actually been diagnosed, which means that there are 7 million people who are undiagnosed. These numbers are quite shocking, and as the rate of obesity keeps going up, the number of T2D cases is expected to continue to increase. Also, be sure to check out some of the diabetes organizations worth knowing about!
Back in 1915, the average American consumed roughly between 15 – 20 pounds of sugar annually. Now the USDA estimates that the average amount of sugar consumed in a year is 156 pounds! Looking at these numbers, one may not be as shocked to learn that roughly one third (35.7 %!!) of the American population is considered obese. The rate of obesity has skyrocketed among children and adolescents as well with an estimated 17% or 12.5 million now considered obese.
Diabetes is currently the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. In 2007, diabetes was listed as the underlying cause of death on 71,382 death certificates. That year, diabetes was listed as a contributing factor on 160,022 death certificates. So in the year 2007, diabetes was in some way involved in the deaths of 231,404 deaths! With diabetes, your overall risk of death is about doubled compared to other people in the same age range. This may also be the reason for the increasing number of diabetes clinical trials.
The Sugar Content in Some Foods May Shock You!
Taking a trip to your local grocer, you may be very surprised at what you see if you took a look at the nutritional information for some foods. Many items, which a lot of people assume are generally healthy, can contain a lot more sugar than you’d expect. The info-graphic, How Sugar Has Been Changing America, lists more than 10 food items which are surprisingly high in sugar. For example, it probably won’t come as much of a shock to learn that a can of Mountain Dew contains 46.5 grams of sugar. If you have ever tried one, you’d know that it is one surgery beverage! So how about a drink like Sobe Energize Green Tea? That sounds like a drink that should be relatively good for you right?? In fact, a 20 ounce bottle of Sobe Energize Green Tea packs a whopping 61 grams of sugar! That is about the same as adding 15 sugar cubes to your tea! Pardon me, but would you like some tea with that sugar?? Be sure to check out the info-graphic as it lists a number of other surprising food items that pack a surgery punch.
Sugar Substitutes – How Safe Are They?
Product name: Sweet N Low
Key Ingredient: Saccharin
Negative Characteristics: According to FDA reports, the key ingredient saccharin had been linked to cases of bladder cancer in lab tested animals; this was what prompted the health warning label on sweet n low packages back in 1977. The label was removed back in 2001, and there have been studies suggesting that it doesn’t cause cancer in humans, but the dangers of saccharin remain controversial. While saccharin has been currently “delisted” as a carcinogen in humans, there is still increased risk in some small sub-groups like heavy users of these artificial sweeteners.
Product name: Equal
Key Ingredient: Aspartame
Negative Characteristics: There are reports that Aspartame which is used in artificial sweeteners like Equal could be toxic. It has been investigated as a possible cause of mental retardation, brain tumors, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, birth defects, diabetes, and fibromyalgia. Since it was first approved by the FDA, Aspartame has stirred up a lot of controversy.
Product name: Splenda
Key ingredient: Sucralose
Negative Characteristics: The debate continues over how thoroughly sucralose was tested by the FDA. Basically the long term effects of splenda are still unknown. Some tests have shown atrophy of lymph follicles in the thymus and spleen, signs of shrunken thymus glands, increased cercal weight, and lowered red blood cell count among other things. In diabetics, Splenda can cause an increase in glycosylated hemoglobin, which could harm that person’s control over their condition. There is chlorine in sucralose, which means consuming a large quantity could be toxic.
Product name: Truvia
Key Ingredient: Stevia
Negative Characteristics: Truvia is still a relatively new product, but so far it has been linked with some gastrointestinal issues such as causing gas, bloating, and constipation in users. These effects have been reported with consumption of large amounts of truvia. Some other possible side effects could be headaches and exhaustion. Since Stevia is an herb, some people may experience an allergic reaction from consuming Truvia.
Product name: Brown Sugar
Brown raw sugar is a natural sweetener developed from sugar crystals of molasses syrup. This is a good substitute for regular white sugar for a few reasons. First, brown sugar contains fewer calories than white sugar. Since this is the unrefined form of sugar, it retains a higher nutritional value. There are also other natural components contained in the brown sugar that make it beneficial to human health. | <urn:uuid:bf46a67d-9c88-4c20-84d6-4070bf54bc8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.availclinical.com/news/sugar-rush-how-sugar-consumption-is-changing-america-infographic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962073 | 1,451 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Stalking Cat Dennis Avner whose body was transformed by Steve Haworth into a tiger found dead
- From: news.com.au
- November 14, 2012
A MAN who earned a Guinness World Record for extreme body modifications to look like a tiger has died.
Dennis Avner, a US Navy veteran better known by his Native American name Stalking Cat, was 54.
The man with overgrown fingernails, fangs and a striped skin tone was found dead in his home in Tonopah, Nevada, the New York Daily News reported.
Shannon Larratt, who knew Stalking Cat, wrote in a blog post that Avner had tried to adopt the spiritual essence of the animal world.
He had tried to transform “himself not just into a tiger, but a female tiger at that, blurring and exploring the gender line as much as the species line," Larratt said.
Avner's operations, mainly by artist and body modification pioneer Steve Haworth, included bifurcation (splitting) of his upper lip, surgical pointing of the ears, silicone cheek and forehead implants, tooth filing, tattoos, and facial piercing, the Mail Online reported.
"In addition to being almost completely covered in tattoos, he'd also sculpted his face and body with extensive silicone work, had custom teeth built to emulate his inner nature, and regularly wore contact lenses and an artificial robotic tail," Larratt said.
"Dennis's boundary-breaking life was never an easy one, and as he was fond of saying, he 'found fame, but never fortune'."
Jodie Michalak of About.com, said that Avner - who descended from American Indians - "felt his spirit … called to the wild and made it his goal to modify his body in honor of the tiger," his totem animal.
"I'm Huron and Lakota," he told The Seattle Times in 2005.
"I'm just taking a very old tradition, that to my knowledge is not practiced anymore."
''I am Huron and following a very old tradition have transformed myself into a tiger,'' he said on his now-defunct website.
His cause of death has not yet been revealed, yet speculation is rife that Avner killed himself.
Avner worked as a computer programmer and often appeared at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! events around the world.
NORTH Melbourne suffered its second consecutive last-gasp defeat as Adelaide hit the front late to win a thriller by one point at Etihad Stadium.
TONI McCaffery lost her beautiful four-week-old daughter to whooping cough in 2009. Then the victimisation started.
POLICE have arrested a man following an all-in brawl at an amateur league football match last night at Smithfield.
DRINKING too many coffees a day - even when decaffeinated - has been linked to obesity and chronic disease by Australian researchers. What's the magic number? | <urn:uuid:b95c5822-9fc8-4527-a3ab-6fd8ca2442c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/stalking-cat-dennis-avner-whose-body-was-transformed-by-steve-haworth-into-a-tiger-found-dead/story-e6frea6u-1226516606094 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981841 | 617 | 1.523438 | 2 |
UnNews:Arsenic poisoning discovered in California lake
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
3 December 2010
MONO CITY, California -- This Thursday, NASA scientists searching for a new type of bacteria to abuse for the sake of pharmaceuticals were astonished to discover that one of California’s most beautiful natural wonders, known as “Mono Lake”, contained trace amounts of arsenic, a poison deadly to all known living creatures in existence.
Mono Lake, only miles away from Yosemite, is a natural safe haven for thousands of California’s famous brine shrimp and flies. Unfortunately, this revelation may be cause for concern for the numerous tourists and shrimp-enthusiasts who flock there every year.
Explained NASA Geochemist Carl Foster: “Lakes, such as this one, are places that are usually only supposed to contain water (Or H2O for short). As lakes are often places that people go to swim in and to fish in, and arsenic is poison, this means that this is not something which is good. Clearly this explains the lack of fish here.”
Carl, among others, has recently attempted multiple fishing trips to the lake to no avail.
When searched for a reason behind this ecological abomination, most experts point to factory farm runoff as the primary culprit. Unbeknownst to many, Mono county is in fact one of the most fertile places in California. With orchards and vineyards spanning all the way from bustling Mono city to the Nevada state border, Mono county is indeed not only one of the most picturesque places in the whole of California, but one of the most affluent wine-producing regions in the state, second only to Napa. Recently, however, the agricultural-political climate of the area has begun to change due to an increasing influx of factory farmers relocating to the region from crowded central valley: an industry whose presence has caused great unrest among many environmentally-conscious locals.
“Sooner or later, something like this was bound to happen,” said Sharon Chervil, activist and spokesperson for the site ShareMono.com. “Populations of shrimp and flies have decreased drastically over the past several years, leaving our precious seagulls no choice but to forage for food in the parking lots and restaurant chains of our towns. It’s sick, it truly is. And our fish are dying, too. Our world-famous flying unicorn sturgeon hasn't been seen for decades.”
Not everyone is exactly convinced, however.
“I’ve been feeding arsenic to my cows for years and I never had any problems,” said one local farmer and longtime resident, Rob Sherbert. “It’s good for them, helps build the immune system. Well, it cuts down on slaughtering costs, ‘specially. Plus it makes their poo nice and sterile.”
When pressed to address the concerns of his neighbors, Rob answered belligerently:
“Of course there’s going to be runoff! You think I can control where them poo juices get to? I ain’t no mother nature. Hell, if you want to look somewhere else to get your meat at 80 cents a pound, be my guest, but I sure as hell ain’t changing a thing.”
Currently, numerous laboratory tests are being conducted to determine the effects of arsenic on rats and dolphins. Though Mono Lake still remains a shining gem in the treasure chest that is California, the question remains: for how long?
- Dan Vergano "NASA scientists find bacteria that can live on arsenic". USA Today, December 2, 2010 | <urn:uuid:5a33c60b-d6fb-4725-87fa-6031538ececb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/UnNews:Arsenic_poisoning_discovered_in_California_lake?oldid=5359357 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949517 | 766 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Our programs reach some five million people a year, restoring dignity, self-sufficiency, and independence to vulnerable populations around the world.
Whether it was food shortages in the Sahel, political tensions in the new nation of South Sudan, or the difficulties faced by displaced communities in Pakistan and D.R. Congo, the need for humanitarian assistance hasn’t let up.
Action Against Hunger’s nutrition programs treat and prevent acute malnutrition. Launched most often during times of crisis, our programs center on the evaluation of nutritional needs, the treatment and prevention of acute malnutrition, technical training and support for local staff, and capacity building with national ministries and government structures. The contexts for our programs can be as varied as the crises: from rural mountain villages, to ethnically divided cities, to the confines of overcrowded relocation camps for internally displaced peoples.
Action Against Hunger’s integrated approach to hunger involves extending water and sanitation services to communities faced with water scarcity, unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene: We truck water into affected communities during emergencies, decontaminate wells and install hand-pumps. Employing sophisticated geophysics, we locate water resources and tap aquifers. We protect natural springs and pipe water into villages and health centers, and rehabilitate damaged infrastructure to ensure access to adequate sources of clean water. We build latrines, bathhouses and introduce basic sanitation infrastructure to keep communities hygienic.
Action Against Hunger’s food security programming forms a continuum with the work we do in nutrition. While our therapeutic nutrition programs restore to health individuals suffering from acute malnutrition, our food security programs prevent future outbreaks by supplying needed inputs (seeds, fertilizers, tools, fishing nets, etc.), introducing new techniques, and fortifying coping mechanisms and livelihoods through training in income-generating activities such as farming, gardening, animal breeding, and food conservation. Our food security programs put people on the road to self-sufficiency.
From cholera epidemics sweeping through refugee camps, to catastrophic natural disasters, to spikes in malnutrition rates brought on by drought, Action Against Hunger responds to humanitarian emergencies all over the world, delivering immediate life-saving services to populations in distress. With emergency teams on call 24 hours a day, and pre-positioned stocks of essential supplies ready for deployment, our internationally renowned rapid response capabilities ensure that life-saving assistance can be delivered anywhere in the world when needs arise.
Join thousands of Action Against Hunger supporters and subscribe now to our monthly newsletter and alerts.
Action Against Hunger is a top nonprofit as rated by BBB, Charity Navigator, and CharityWatch. Support our lifesaving work by making a monthly donation. | <urn:uuid:dc07dab3-3862-4134-8fdf-05ddb08259b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/impact | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922258 | 550 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Annan: Iraq Should Make Extra Effort to Return Kuwaiti Property
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Iraq on Thursday to make extra effort to find and return archives, military equipment and cultural items removed from Kuwait in the Gulf War.
In a report to the Security Council, he acknowledged that "Iraq has returned a substantial quantity of property over a nine-year period of time, with the bulk of the handovers occurring between 1991 and 1994."
But, he said, "there remain many items which Iraq is under obligation to return to Kuwait."
An annex to the report listed military equipment demanded by Kuwait including eight F-1 Mirage planes, six M-84 tanks and several thousand surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles.
The report was the second since December 17th, when the council overhauled its Iraq sanctions regime and asked Annan to appoint a coordinator to oversee the return of 605 missing persons and property to Kuwait.
Annan appointed the former Russian ambassador to Washington, Yuli Vorontsov, on February 14th.
"It may never be possible to reach a point at which there will be 100 percent certainty that all items in Iraq's possession have been returned," Annan wrote.
But "Kuwait considers essential the return of archives and military equipment, as well as the items from the Islamic and National museums of Kuwait," he said.
Urging Iraq to "make additional efforts" to make it possible to close the property dossier, he said that "understanding and goodwill are of critical importance to the success" of Vorontsov's mission - UNITED NATIONS (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
- UN Urges Iraq to Return Kuwaiti Property, Account for Missing
- Annan hopes Iraq to return most of Kuwait looted national archives
- Annan Urges Iraq to Cooperate on Missing Kuwaitis
- Mussa: Iraq ready to return national archives and official documents to Kuwait
- Iraq Slams Annan's ‘Powerlessness’ to Stop US, British Air Raids | <urn:uuid:51f88e8c-8791-4fce-96c3-a7d7037e32bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albawaba.com/news/annan-iraq-should-make-extra-effort-return-kuwaiti-property?quicktabs_accordion=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939688 | 429 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Banks have been given more time to meet new capital requirements.
The rule change affects the "liquidity coverage ratio," a minimum standard set by regulators as part of the Basel III accord. Banks will now have more time to comply with the rule, and the standard has been eased.
Tougher capital requirements are considered a key step toward making banks safer and avoiding future taxpayer bailouts.
The decision comes after years of pressure from banks, which view the elevated capital requirements as onerous. Opponents of the higher standard have also argued that the capital requirements will limit access to credit at a time when lending is needed to boost economic growth.
The changes announced Sunday will delay full implementation of of the liquidity coverage ratio until 2019 -- a four-year extension. The ruling also expands the definition of "high quality liquid assets," which should make it much easier for banks to comply with the regulations.
The liquidity coverage ratio, in theory, should reflect the number of assets a bank would need to survive a severe 30-day credit crisis.
Despite the decision to relax requirements, Bank of England governor Mervyn King said the agreement is "very significant" and that "for the first time in regulatory history, we have a truly global minimum standard for bank liquidity."
Yet the implementation of Basel III rules has proved problematic. Many banks have not moved quickly to boost capital reserves, drawing rebukes from regulators and governments.
Capital cushions have come under scrutiny again in recent months, as Spanish banks required bailouts and JPMorgan Chase, thought to be one of the best-run banks on Wall Street, disclosed it had lost billions on a series of bad bets.
|Chrysler relents, agrees to recall 2.7 million Jeeps|
|Stocks: Investors hold their breath for Bernanke|
|China's fastest-growing cities for millionaires|
|U.S. oil boom helps thwart OPEC|
|Fed not expected to taper QE3 until December| | <urn:uuid:4dc6e69d-cc33-469c-9c35-4d385553b80b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/06/news/banks-basel-rules/index.html?source=yahoo_hosted | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949654 | 407 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Looking for new ways to explain best placemaking practices? Today's guest Shaker, Amanda Thompson, has a novel take: dance. Complete with video!
Feb 17, 2013 PlaceShakers
Luis Alberto Moreno explores how Facebook and Twitter are improving cities in the developing world, as the governments of many Latin American municipalities take advantage of the explosive growth of social media to engage with citizens.
Nov 14, 2012 The Atlantic Cities
What does it mean to truly involve the public in planning processes? Neeraj Mehta finds "too much placation, manipulation and tokenism in our engagement efforts," and identifies principles for collective problem-solving and shared decision-making.
Nov 1, 2012 Next American City
If you want to know something about Davis, CA, don’t go to the website of the local paper or the city, go to DavisWiki, a repository of all things Davis, written by the public. Thanks to a recent grant, could something similar be coming to your town?
Oct 26, 2012 Fast Company Co.Exist
"Since the beginning of 2011, 180 bills restricting voting and voter registration have been introduced in 41 states. Over 70% of the electoral votes needed to win the 2012 Presidential election will come from states with new restrictive voting laws."
Oct 25, 2012 Shelterforce Magazine
Zoning reform is a political campaign. Coder Susan Henderson talks about audience dynamics, with a special focus on how to communicate with property owners and the developer community.
Oct 2, 2012 PlaceShakers
A young artist in New Orleans launches a social experiment on the built environment, turning the walls of the city's buildings into a public forum.
Jun 24, 2012 Next American City
The Project for Public Spaces has compiled a "how-to" list for re-claiming your community's public spaces.
Jun 19, 2012 Project For Public Spaces
Roger Valdez gives his take on the new obstructionism that is dominating public participation and holding up much-needed growth in Seattle and elsewhere.
May 24, 2012 Crosscut
Ole Amundsen discusses the Central Indiana Land Trust's recent work in proactive land use planning, signaling a broader change in the way land trusts are doing business.
Apr 27, 2012 APA - Sustaining Places Blog | <urn:uuid:2d62cd23-c2a5-442f-bfb5-105c3f285325> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.planetizen.com/taxonomy/term/225 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919135 | 469 | 1.5 | 2 |
The path not taken
Evolution has produced overwhelming diversity (from bacteria to bats) and amazing adaptations (from photosynthesis to echolocation) but, as you've just seen, evolution is not all-powerful. Evolution is an undirected process, constrained by physical laws (such as gravity), by genetics (which might, for example, encode the directions for building breathing organs in a particular way), and by the environment (which might not, for example, contain a niche for a large, slow-moving, and fragile ant). In the case of the arthropods, the exoskeleton a useful adaptation for body support, protection and water retention as well as their respiratory system, may have brought evolutionary constraints along with benefits.
Although it's difficult to know exactly why behemoth ants don't roam Earth today, you've explored several possible evolutionary explanations: the dangers of molting, the structure of the exoskeleton, and the tracheal system. These are artifacts of arthropod evolutionary history and arthropods cannot simply ignore that history and start afresh. The mechanisms of evolution can only work on what already exists. Whatever direction their future evolution leads, it will always be dependent upon the characteristics they inherited from their ancestors.
Now let's look at a summary of what we've learned about evolution and the arthropod. | <urn:uuid:e52418af-7043-45c2-a677-6849776c1051> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/constraint_18 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952504 | 274 | 3.609375 | 4 |
|CMP 130: Capitalization and Depreciation|
To establish policies and procedures for recording and depreciating fixed assets.
University Policy, GAAP, GASB 34, 35 and 51, ABOR, State of Arizona Accounting Manual (SAAM)
Land - Capitalized at original cost or value at donation. Land and structures purchased or donated together will be capitalized separately when possible. Cost of readying the land for use will be capitalized along with the cost of the land.
Buildings - Capitalized at cost and depreciated over 40 years.
Mobile Homes or Modular Buildings - Capitalized at cost and depreciated over 25 years
Improvements - Capitalized if cost is $5,000 or greater, depreciated over 20 years.
Infrastructure - Capitalized at original cost and depreciated over 20-40 years.
Equipment - Capitalized if cost is $5,000 or greater and depreciated over periods of 5-15 years (see attached schedule in Excel format).
Library Books - Capitalized if the item becomes part of the library volume count. All acquisitions of books, periodicals, and other media for the Cline Library will be capitalized at direct cost including shipping. The total value expended during a fiscal year will be assigned a tag number and capitalized as one item. Annual removals will be determined by a memo from the Library's Bibliographic Services Department which will include the number of volumes/items at a set rate. Library books will be depreciated over a period of ten years.
Major renovations to buildings or systems. Capitalized at cost and depreciated over 40 years.
Intangible Assets - See CMP 140 - Intangible Assets
Collections – The University does not capitalize and therefore does not depreciate qualifying collections. There are two categories of collections:
Qualified Collections are those collections that meet the three provision listed below.
Non-qualifying Collections are those collections that do no meet the three provisions.
A qualifying collection is subject to all of the following provisions:
1) The collection is to be held for public exhibition, education, or research in furtherance of public service, rather than for financial gain: and
2) The collection is to be protected, cared for and preserved: and
3) The net proceeds from the sales of collection items are to be used to acquire other items for collections.
a) “Net proceeds” is defined as the gross selling price less all direct expenses of the sale.
b) The collections to which the sold items and the acquired items belong need not be the same.
Departments are responsible for maintaining a listing of each collection. By June 30th of each fiscal year, departments should furnish the Comptroller's Office and Property Administration a summary listing of qualifying collections in their possession; collection name and general type of items in the collection.
Disposal of Collection Items
In the unlikely event that an item from sold, all proceeds from the sale or disposal are to be used to acquire other items or to enhance the university other special collections.
Non-qualifying collections are to be capitalized at cost or fair market value at time of donation (established by appraisal). Departments with or acquiring non-qualifying collections must notify the Comptroller's Office.
Departments should consult Property and Liability Insurance Services to determine the insurability of their collections.
For more information see the Cline Library, Special Collections and Archives Department Deaccession policy, approved in 1995 (Word document).
The university will capitalize and depreciate assets using a zero salvage value.
The University will use the Straight Line method
over the estimated useful life of the asset. Useful lives will be 40
years for buildings, 20 years for renovations (improvements), 20 – 40
years for infrastructure, 5-15 years for equipment (see attached
schedule) and 10 years for library books. All Buildings, Improvements,
Infrastructure and Library books will use a July 1st acquisition date in
the year of completion or acquisition for the start of the calculation
of depreciation expense and a July 1 disposition date in the year of
disposal for the termination of the calculation of depreciation expense.
Equipment will use the RC (Advantage receiver document) date for the
acquisition date and the start of the calculation of depreciation
expense. Equipment will use
the disposition date for the termination of the calculation of
depreciation expense. The
disposition date is determined by either the date of the receipt for
assets sold, or the PCA, (Property Control Authorization), document date
for assets lost or stolen.
DEPRECIATION - NON-TITLED ASSETS
(Purchased with non-NAU funds (Post Award) where title to the asset remains with the sponsor). No depreciation is recognized on these assets. Assets are tracked in the Property Control system as a separate asset type. These asset result in a zero effect on the University Financial Statements (asset and offsetting contra-asset). Post Award Accounting Services and Fiscal Compliance should notify Property Administration when grants, which will be purchasing assets, are received and the sponsor retains title to the asset.
DEPRECIATION - FEDERAL FUNDED ASSETS
These are treated the same as all other capital assets and depreciated, unless the sponsor retains title, see depreciation – non-titled assets.
CONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS
Buildings under construction will be capitalized upon completion. Construction of a building will be deemed complete when it is ready for occupation. Interest during construction of buildings will be capitalized according to generally accepted accounting principles. CIP is not depreciated.
All assets will be valued at historical cost, which is the consideration given or received, including purchase price and ancillary charges necessary to place the item in its intended location and condition for use.
The Comptroller's Office will establish and maintain records of land owned by the University and the value assigned.
Leased equipment will be recorded and valuation will be determined using current generally accepted accounting principles.
All equipment will be tagged and recorded in the fixed assets system according to NAU Property Administration Policy.
DEFINITIONS (ABOR and NAU)
Infrastructure - Nonbuilding improvements that directly support operating a facility that is listed in the annual building systems such as , but not limited to, utility delivery systems, roadway systems, external lighting systems, irrigation systems, sidewalks and parking lots. Additional campus infrastructure includes: campus grounds, other circulation systems (bike paths, pedestrian routes, etc.) and parking structures.
Land Acquisitions - The procurement of real property by gift, grant, purchase, lease purchase, condemnation or by other lawful means.
Fixed Equipment - Consists of permanently affixed/installed furniture, fixtures and equipment. Examples include but are not limited to: elevators, bulletin boards, kitchen cabinets, walk in boxes, building directories, library shelving, drinking fountains, signage, plumbing fixtures, building mechanical systems, chalkboards, backbone telecom/data/systems and electrical systems, fixed electronic equipment, and fixed theater or classroom seating, as well as other fixtures and equipment installed with the intent of permanent use in that location.
Furniture/Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E) - Moveable furniture, fixtures, or equipment that requires no permanent connection to utilities or to the structure. They may require utility outlets, but are plug-in types. Examples include but are not limited to: moveable or non-fixed theater or classroom seating, electronic equipment, desks, chairs, bookcases, files, waste receptacles, easels, partitions, refrigerators, tables, credenzas, stools, typing stands, computer stands and other furniture, including interior wall/furniture systems. FF&E also includes scientific or technical equipment such as centrifuges, lasers, spectrometers, shop equipment/tools. kilns, and microscopes.
Building - Structures owed by Northern Arizona University for housing humans, marine, plant or animal life, materials, supplies, equipment, and mechanical apparatus. The cost of buildings include all expenditures related directly to the acquisition or construction. These costs include materials, labor, overhead, professional fees, and building permits. All costs incurred, from excavation to completion, are considered part of the building costs.
Renovation - The reworking of an existing building or portion of an existing building, including the upgrading of major systems, which extends the useful life. Renovation includes the major replacement, or upgrading of building systems, components, or fixed equipment that is necessitated by facility obsolescence, change in use, code requirements, physical plant wear-out, and/or related interior space modifications and aesthetic improvements. Examples include but are not limited to: demolition of the interior of a building or portion thereof including the removal and subsequent replacement of electrical, plumbing , heating ad air conditioning systems, fixed equipment, floor coverings and interior walls and partitions (whether fixed or moveable). The renovation of historical buildings that meet the evaluation criteria listed in the National Register of Historical Places shall be performed in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Historic Buildings.
Building Renewal - Major activities that involve the repair or reworking of a building and the supporting infrastructure that will result in maintaining a building's expected useful life. Building renewal does not include new building additions, new infrastructure additions, landscaping and area beautification, routine maintenance, or demolition and removal of a building.
Arizona Board of Regents - Policy Manual
CMP 430-24 Capital Equipment Object Codes
CMP 430-25 Physical Count of Capital Equipment
CMP 430-27 Other Capital
CMP 140 Intangible Assets
State of Arizona Accounting Manual (SAAM) – Long-Lived Resources: Capital Assets, Etc
NAU Home Page | Comptroller's Office Home Page | Back to Table of Contents
Back to Top | <urn:uuid:344d4e0f-ff9a-40d3-8203-c83f47f973f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www4.nau.edu/comptr/policies_procedures/com130.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914046 | 2,051 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Greg Grandin reviews Robin Blackburn’s latest books for the Guardian. Grandin describes Blackburn’s The American Crucible not as “the capstone of an influential career” but rather as “a catching of breath and a continuation of arguments initially made by the great original theorists of the Atlantic World system.” In this monumental new book, Blackburn explores some of the historical conceptions and misconceptions of the complex system which sustained slavery and its economy in the Americas, with a new focus on the Haitian revolution:
The centrepiece of The American Crucible is Blackburn's measured reconstruction of the chronology of the Haitian revolution and its influence on freedom movements in the United States, Spanish America and Brazil, a persuasive rebuttal of scholarly assessments that the revolution was exceptionally bloody or that its leaders instituted a new form of anti-European racism.
Grandin also praises An Unfinished Revolution, Blackburn’s presentation of the correspondence between Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln. Blackburn’s extensive introduction brings to life the relationship of the two men who occupied very different worlds and held contrary views, yet who coincided on an issue of historic importance, bringing those worlds into fleeting contact with one another. He urges that the Civil War and Reconstruction – “America’s unfinished revolution” – was of larger influence on Marx than often understood – and likewise suggests that the ideas of Marx and Engels had a greater impact on the United States – a country notoriously hostile to socialism – than is usually allowed.
In addition to a range of writings and speeches by Lincoln and Marx, such as the Gettysburg Address and Marx’s journalism, An Unfinished Revolution includes Raya Dunaevskaya’s assessment of the impact of the Civil War on Marx’s theory and a survey by Frederick Engels of the progress of US labour in the 1880s.
What would have happened, Blackburn asks, had Marx – who in Europe supported both union and party building – relocated to New York or Chicago? His answer is necessarily wistful: just as Marx "saw the importance of slavery at the start of the civil war, so he would surely have focused on 'winning the battle of democracy'" by urging his comrades towards a more flexible, potentially successful strategy to secure both political liberty and social equality, which Blackburn, like Marx, understands to be indivisible.
Visit the Guardian to read the review in full.
Greg Grandin is the author of Who Is Rigoberta Menchú? | <urn:uuid:ddf388b2-be50-4440-8507-238fddb5f258> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/621-greg-grandins-guardian-review-of-robin-blackburns-the-american-crucible-and-an-unfinished-revolution | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942233 | 506 | 2.71875 | 3 |
There is a movement afoot to rename US 19 in Lee County after Lance Corporal Steve Sutton. Normally, I would probably complain about the expense of something like this, but not this time. Sutton, for those with short memories, was killed in action and a resident of Lee County. He’s been our only loss in these long wars that our nation has been embroiled in, and we need to remember him as best we can.
The fact of the matter is that we need to remember those we have lost in war. The memorials need to be as permanent as we can make them. People like Sutton have given up everything, and they did it for the idea of freedom.
We can argue about whether we should have gone to war in the first place if we want. We can argue about a lot of things dealing with war if we’d like. However, as a veteran myself, I’d like to point out a few facts about those who serve.
First, while many in my day enlisted for things like college money, we were told quick, fast, and in a hurry what we had really signed up for. A few, like myself, already knew. We were the sons and daughters of Vietnam vets. Oh, we may have enlisted for college money or job training, but our parents had beaten the realities of war into our heads. We knew that the benefits were fine, but we may have to pay for those with our lives.
There are some out there who think anyone who enlists these days is culpable for the war. These people refuse to acknowledge that those who serve may not be those looking forward to killing, but those with idealistic beliefs. Folks, these people are so wrong that it would be hysterical if it weren’t so tragic.
Many of those serving today were children when 9/11 happened. They were traumatized to an extent by the events of that day. Like a superhero who witnessed the death of a loved one, these children grew up with a burning in their soul. That burning was to do whatever they could to see that the next generation would never see such a thing.
We can debate the merits of that until we’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t negate the honorable service these people give to their nation. Naming a stretch of highway after Sutton isn’t to much. The problem is, it’s nowhere near enough. | <urn:uuid:d9fc016d-a510-4092-883a-bc837e9ebfec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thealbanyjournal.com/2013/01/honoring-sutton-makes-a-lot-of-sense/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98715 | 502 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Freedom in Byron
Photo and caption by marc stapelberg
A man swims in a disused quarry in Byron Bay which was also the site of an alternate living project. The scene is reminiscent of Byron Bay's 1970 area where the alternative lifestyle movement was still a large feature of the area. Now Byron Bay has become the home of backpackers and the rich, while Nimbin and Mullumbimby still retain that original ethos.
Location: Byron Bay, Northern NSW, Australia | <urn:uuid:99a5c456-d597-4caf-af46-42fe48a36a21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries/165982/view/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945808 | 100 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Marketing strategies make it difficult to define what it means to be green.
For anyone who can count, it's easy to conclude that the Toyota Prius hybrid, which gets 48 miles per gallon in city driving, treads much more lightly on the environment than the behemoth Ford Expedition, which gets 14 miles per gallon.
Not so fast. Loading eight people into the Expedition yields 112 passenger miles per gallon, compared with 96 for two people riding in a Prius. By that measure, explained Steve Rypka, president of the Green Dream Enterprises consulting firm in Henderson, Nev., the Expedition comes out as a greener vehicle than the trendy Prius.
As the green movement has grown from a few groups partial to wearing tie-dye and into an popular marketing strategy, it now faces the pivotal issue of defining what it means to be "green." Many companies have slapped the green label on their products or services, but few organizations outside of the construction industry have written standards that carry the same level of authority or recognition as the Consumer Reports reviews or Underwriter Laboratories product tests.
"It's a pretty nebulous term and everybody is throwing it around pretty loosely," said Sean Thueson, an attorney at Holland & Hart. "It think it's getting to the point when you say green, it probably doesn't mean much."
Some people contend that paying attention to membership lists of organizations such as the U.S. Green Building Council can help to identify the true believers and practitioners. But mygreenpages.com, which says it lists green-oriented businesses, has categories for businesses as far-flung as day spas, Italian restaurants and Western clothing sellers on its Las Vegas page.
"A lot of so-called green is on the surface," said Richard Nelson, a vice president at the consulting firm BEC Environmental in Las Vegas. "It looks good, it sounds good, but it doesn't accomplish much. When we say green, we look at the impact on the environment and not how it's going to sell something."
The building council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, known as LEED, has become perhaps the most widely recognized green label around. When judged against a specific checklist, a project can earn silver, gold or platinum LEED status based on the number of points it accumulates. For example, the Palazzo reached silver, and touted the rating at a ceremony last April that included Gov. Jim Gibbons. Measures such as drip irrigation for landscaping, solar-heated swimming pools, low-flow shower heads and structural steel made from recycled elements helped the hotel-casino earn the rating.
Still, owners or developers can claim their buildings are green, even though they have not gone through a LEED review, by installing low-energy heating and cooling systems but designing everything else in a conventional way.
Even LEED has its limits. Architect Ray Lucchesi of Lucchesi, Galati recalls clients who have asked for a platinum LEED house covering 10,000 square feet for two people. Even though a house could meet all the LEED standards, he doesn't believe it qualifies as green when it is that big for two people to live.
"A lot of people are saying green and marketing green, but not really doing anything to make a better-peforming building," he said. "The term I use is 'ecochic.'"
Against that backdrop, marketers have started to worry that popularity has diluted the value of green. Las Vegas Rock has earned the silver level Cradle-to-Cradle certificate, created for manufacturing operations by the Charlottesville, Va., consulting firm MBDC. To do so, the company took specific steps. For instance, it recycles all the water it uses at its quarry in Goodsprings and its processing plant in Jean. It also agreed to take back and recycle material when a building is razed.
But as competitors have also adopted green with any certification, Las Vegas Rock finds it can have a difficult time wringing any advantage from the cradle-to-cradle certificate.
"I believe there should be some type of agency that checks these things and makes companies go through tests to weed out who's real and who isn't," Las Vegas Rock Vice President Dan Rhoades said.
Although the Federal Trade Commission has issued broad-based guidelines on green marketing that are under review, they have had little effect to date.
Besides checking with the industry groups that keep their own green rosters or independent groups such as the Forest Stewardship Council or Green Seal, business and individual consumers are pretty much on their own when determining whether their purchases are green.
"It's really common sense," Rypka said. "You have to go beyond the marketing hype and ask questions. Is the company doing something for the right reasons or is it just marketing?" | <urn:uuid:25678e03-0988-4229-afda-eae1c4d18075> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/what_does_green_really_mean.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969226 | 995 | 1.984375 | 2 |
The findings of the national youth readership survey carried out by the national council for applied economics research (NCAER) on what occupies the mindspace of Indians between 13 and 35 years of age.
The survey, conducted for the national books trust, had a sample size of 38,575 literate youths in 199 towns and 432 villages in 207 districts covering all the States and Union territories.
The survey suggests that a literate youth spends an average 98 minutes everyday viewing television. Based on the sample data, NCAER said nearly 65 per cent of youth households in the country would be having a television set.
Image: courtesy The Telegraph | <urn:uuid:2f5c0fbd-58f9-4db5-b7c5-4bb70a991b25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wearethebest.wordpress.com/tag/ncaer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931184 | 130 | 2.59375 | 3 |