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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Yahoo and CNET. If the bill passes, government agencies will no longer need a warrant to have total access to citizens’ email accounts and other forms of electronic communication.The Senate will consider a new bill that threatens Internet privacy rights on Thursday, November 29, reports
Thus far, the bill has not received too much attention, in part because it has played out as a bit of a bait and switch. Initially, the bill was written explicitly to strengthen email privacy by necessitating that police have probable cause and a search warrant to access citizens’ email. However, law enforcement agencies objected to the content of the bill and it was consequently postponed from its initial review date in September.
In the interim, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy has rewritten and completely overhauled the bill. The potential legislation would now counter its original intent and give the government unprecedented access to private Internet accounts.
Government agents would no longer need a judge to approve searches of private Internet content. This legislation would not only apply to emails. Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, and just about any form of electronic messaging, would also be subject to Big Brother’s watchful eye.
If the bill passes, over 22 government agencies would achieve easy access to American’s Internet accounts, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Postal Regulatory Commission. State and local police would be granted similar advantages.
One provision even stipulates that if service providers such as Google, Facebook, or Twitter want to inform specific users that law enforcement is monitoring their content, they must first tell the agencies that they intend to do so. Internet users will not be notified for about two weeks after it occurs, although agencies can delay the report from being released for as much as a year. In other words, the government expects a little privacy while invading the privacy of its citizens.
Another provision states that all existing laws and practices can essentially be ignored if enforcement agencies feel the situation is an “emergency.”
Critics of the bill find it alarming that a bill designed to protect privacy is now promoting the precise opposite. “There is no good legal reason why federal regulatory agencies such as the NLRB, OSHA, SEC, or FTC need to access customer information with a mere subpoena,” argues Markham Erickson, a Washington D.C. attorney. | <urn:uuid:106c7dc0-2321-49f7-bc03-9d3a3c0d1d21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/12952-internet-privacy-not-if-the-government-has-its-way | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952944 | 494 | 2.125 | 2 |
Some think of them as nightmares. Of course even “nightmare” originally referred to a wicked mare rearing over the sleeper in the night, waking them in a panic by making it hard to breathe. Like every word ever invented it is at bottom an image, an incident, a scene that speaks of something both bigger and smaller, less abstract than itself. There are many such creatures whose beauty, as Rilke famously said, is nothing but the beginning of terror: nightmares giving life something that comes close to but never quite becomes meaning. Unlike other strings of sounds that give meaning in more straightforward or practical ways, they are truer than reality.
Others consider them little mechanical constructions. Like buildings, they are essentially functional schemes. They contain spaces and have plans. You can walk through them, sit or lie down; sometimes, once inside, you can dance. They are made up of bricks and blocks; the difference is that they themselves can walk and talk. They take on shapes and colours, even sizes. They are designed according to futuristic schemes that make them at once solid and mobile. You may sleep in one of them only to wake up in another. They transmigrate through space; time is their mortar. They are the planets and stars of miniature solar systems of minds sensitive and diseased.
Others still conceive of them as incantations: spells, hexes, blessings. Unlike other little texts they have the ability to harness energy and reuse it. They work like magic, which is defined as “an intervention that alters reality”. That intervention does not have to be physical or perceptible; it does not have to be world-bound as such: the point of the hunter’s chant, the healer’s prayer, is that it is not mundane. You write them, you read them or you recite them; and like words dictated to prophets by archangels, they change the world. What it is important to remember is that they change your private, inner world. They are not revolutions.
Yet in as far as anything at all is important, they are even more important than revolutions; in the long run, at least, if they have not been abused, if they have not calcified into codes that stifle and kill, they give the world a slightly more meaningful look and feel. Which is why, in case you have not guessed by now, I am thinking of poems, not Poetry. | <urn:uuid:694f754e-6966-4090-a978-16ffdb1e01a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yrakha.com/tag/hex/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975959 | 500 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Though currently overshadowed by the astonishing output of his father, Johann Sebastian Bach, C.P.E Bach was much more influential in his day, introducing new ways of thinking about composition and performance technique. His development of the Sonata Symphony form influenced the way that composers would begin to think about developing a theme. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms were among his followers, and his music, though rooted in the Baroque and Classical eras, had emotional elements and sonic oddities that served as a preface to the Romantic style of the second half of the nineteenth century. Bach's exacting attention to detail led to a more focused role for the composer -- an influence which is felt to this day. | <urn:uuid:2ed24c25-4421-4ac5-9f6b-a5aecc6d17bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.napster.de/artist/carl-philipp-emanuel-bach | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980288 | 152 | 3.46875 | 3 |
For Graduating Students and Alumni under the age of 26
Residents of Massachusetts over the age of 18 must provide proof of continuous health insurance coverage or be subject to tax penalties. Understanding that health care premiums here in Massachusetts and across the country can be unaffordable for those who are starting out on their own, unemployed, or self-employed, the Berklee Alumni Affairs Office wanted to let you know that you may now have access to employer sponsored health insurance through your parents even if you previously had coverage and were canceled due to your age or student status.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by the President last March requires that health insurance plans that offer dependent coverage make the coverage available until a child reaches the age of 26. So if you are under the age of 26, you can be considered an eligible dependent for coverage under your parents plan regardless of whether you are a full-time student, you live with your parents, can be claimed as their tax dependent, or are married.
Starting September 23, 2010, your parents may have been able to add you to their insurance plan in conjunction with their plan’s next annual open enrollment period. There is also the opportunity to enroll within 30 days of a qualifying event such as a loss of coverage due to a job change or the expiration of your student health insurance.
If you remain on your parents plan until your 26th birthday, you will at that time be canceled, but will be offered COBRA coverage for 18 additional months at the cost of 102% of the premium.
So talk to your parents or guardians and be covered. | <urn:uuid:070d70dc-2903-4338-9c7e-cd4fba2ac7d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.berklee.edu/alumni/insurance-info-ma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977639 | 326 | 1.570313 | 2 |
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way—the children’s eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire. a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy—
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato’s parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t’other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age—
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler’s heritage—
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.
Her present image floats into the mind—
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her Son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But thos the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother’s reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts—O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise—
O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance? | <urn:uuid:e90a42fc-6004-410a-acd9-865151294d81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1437/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907268 | 677 | 2.046875 | 2 |
There are names in the theater business that inspire a mix of emotions such as ambitious envy, jealous desire, and appreciative awe. They are the names of those who have taken a walk down the Great White Way and who have emerged as legends of their craft. Whether by means altruistic or underhanded, the great visionary producers of American theater have earned their place in history and have much to teach about their journeys.
In Great Producers: Visionaries of the American Theater, scheduled for an August 2008 release, author Iris Dorbian profiles standouts Florenz Ziegfeld, David Belasco, David Merrick, Roger Berlind, Jack Viertel, Joseph Papp, Andre Bishop, Margo Lion, Daryl Roth, Fran Weissler, Cameron Mackintosh, Michael David, Thomas Schumacher, and Roy Gabay to get at the heart of what it takes to be a great producer and work behind the scenes of some of Broadway’s most influential shows. Uncovering the stories behind some of Broadway’s most accomplished commercial and nonprofit producers, Dorbian finds out how they got started, what their most challenging project was, how they learned from their errors, and the key to leveraging hard-won wisdom into bigger and better shows.
From the familiar stereotype of the producer as a control-hungry despot to the new model of producer-as collaborator, Great Producers profiles some of Broadway’s best. Filled with tell-alls from insiders, this guide for students, educators, and aspiring producers will allow them to learn from the masters’ advice on the qualities a good producers should possess and how to solicit donors, choose projects, and deal with critics. Inspiring and edifying, Great Producers: Visionaries of the American Theater is a must-read for anyone looking to know what it takes to be a success in one of the most competitive roles on Broadway.
Great Producers: Visionaries of the American Theater
978-1-58115-646-1 ~ Paperback ~ $19.95
6 x 9 ~ 208 pages ~ 40 b&w photos
Bibliography ~ Appendix ~ Index
August 2008 ~ Allworth Press | <urn:uuid:1d7d5d4a-6df8-4889-ab35-87be860f80ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livedesignonline.com/theatre/visionareies-american-theater | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920729 | 446 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Beef is what's for Christmas dinner in many Bay Area households, but rising prices may soon push some families to swap their prime rib for chicken breast.
Shoppers mobbed the meat counters in grocery stores and neighborhood markets Monday to pick up a cut of beef for the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. Hidden from the shoppers who browsed the thick slabs of pink meat ready for roasting is the tumult in the beef industry, where a sharp decline in the number of cattle headed for slaughter has sent prices to record highs.
Those higher costs have nudged up prices ever so slightly at some grocers, and analysts predict beef prices will soon hit new highs at stores and restaurants.
November choice beef prices for retail were up about 3 percent over a year ago and 2.4 percent from the month before, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Grocers and retailers said they are bracing themselves for 2013's beef prices.
"I don't even want to think about it," said Daniel Zanotto, one of the owners of Zanotto's Family Market in San Jose. "I've got to pay the bills."
Keeping the lights on should be easy for the family grocer this year anyway, as Zanotto and his crew scrambled to keep up with a throng of customers Monday.
Anna Martorana, of San Jose, was in the store to pick up a prime rib roast for dinner that cost $57.
"We do it every year," she said. "It's a tradition."
She's not alone. At grocery stores and ethnic
But they all had one thing in common -- beef.
While beef consumption has fallen steadily in the U.S., with Americans becoming more health-conscious and the "pink slime" controversy over treated meat driving more people to alternatives like fish, Christmas remains an exception, according to butchers and grocery retailers around the Bay Area.
Even San Jose resident Valli Horwitz, who said she rarely has meat in her house and a daughter who is a vegan, was at Zanotto's to splurge for a sirloin.
Daniel Olveda, who works in the meat department at Sprouts Farmers Market in Walnut Creek, explained the appetite for beef at Christmas like this: "It's the same as the Thanksgiving turkey."
Shoppers were bolder in their meat selections at Mi Pueblo Food Center in Palo Alto. The expansive meat department features exotic choices like beef tongue and pig feet, along with the more standard beef fare. Shoppers walked away with bursting four- and five-pound plastic bags of beef and pork and said they were heading home to make tamales and posole, a traditional Mexican stew. The bags cost about $12 each. Shopper Francisco Ochoa, of Palo Alto, said he goes to Mi Pueblo because it's cheaper.
Regional retailers and ethnic markets are able to keep down the prices a bit better than larger chains. Some, like Zanotto's, deal directly with a single beef supplier and can negotiate better deals. Others say they have to offer holiday specials and discounts to survive in the ultracompetitive grocery market -- which is why the price increases have yet to really hit consumers in the Bay Area and shoppers say they're spending about the same as last year.
Zanotto said his store lost money by keeping costs low for customers after beef prices started to rise but finally bowed to market pressures and raised prices by 20 percent last year, and there's no guarantee they won't go up again. Supermarket industry expert David Livingston said other retailers will soon have no choice but to pass the price onto the customer.
"A lot of producers are eating the cost now, but they'll make it up down the road," he said.
And there's a lot to make up. Choice-beef prices have been running above year-ago levels for every month this year, and some experts have said the high prices are just a taste of what is to come. Droughts have driven up the price of cattle feed, and with reports of dry forecasts next year, some fear more loss of the nation's cattle herds.
Many shoppers are willing to splurge at Christmas. Joel Wealty, of Sunnyvale, said he's willing to spend a bit extra for a good prime rib: "It's a little more expensive to get a quality piece of meat. But it's worth it."
But shoppers on a budget or with extra-large dining room tables, like those at El Pueblo who said they were shopping for four or five families and preparing dinner for 30, may rethink their menu next year.
It may be turkey or chicken -- even pasta -- that's what's for dinner.
Contact Heather Somerville at 925-977-8418. Follow her at Twitter.com/heathersomervil. | <urn:uuid:c5fd9c39-1ba7-463b-9645-83c8e9cd78ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_22256414/beef-menu-this-christmas-but-maybe-not-next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973416 | 998 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Dragonfly TV debuts on WTTW
Thursday, January 01, 2004
New PBS show makes science funImage courtesy of DragonflyTV . Dragonfly TV debuts in Chicago Jan. 18.
I think you really have to work hard to make science boring. Unfortunately, too many people have worked too hard for too long. Maybe that is why nationally our children are behind in science. But there are bright teaching lights who give science majesty, mystery and fun. You've probably met them. For me, it was Mrs. Chico in eighth grade. For my sons, it's been Mr. Vicente and Mr. Walsh.
"Dragonfly TV" is in the same tradition. The 30-minute show produced in St. Paul, Minn., by TPT/Twin Cities Public Television, will debut at 7 a.m., Jan. 18, on WTTW-TV Channel 11.
It is the third season for the show but the first time here in Chicago. The show's publicity describes it as a reality program, like "Survivors" and "The Bachelor" but better since it is "real reality television for the thinking kid."
Is it "Real World" meets "Bill Nye, the Science Guy"?
Not quite. It is more a marriage of Bill Nye's wonderful show with an older one, "3-2-1 Contact," produced by the Children's Television Workshop-the same outfit that developed "Sesame Street." Contact had a company of kids who were the scientists, going out and finding the real truth behind garbage or what happens when water runs down the drain. The show, like Bill Nye, aired on public television and was an extension of the questions that kid viewers had.
"Dragonfly TV" switches between two regular hosts and regular kids, combining the kids' exploration with a more sound-bite-Bill-Nye-format-using fast-paced graphics, music, sounds and angled camera shots to smooth the transitions, switch the topics and make the show appealing.
"Dragonfly TV" is not as good as Contact or Bill Nye. But it is a good science program featuring tensomethings. It also brings the Internet into the show, asking kids to explore the same science questions and post their findings at www.dragonflytv.org. The next episodes supposedly draw from those e-mails, highlighting children's names, cities, ideas and questions.
It is a shame the show is in such an obscure slot. While Sunday morning television has been catching up to Saturday morning, it would be nice to have an interesting show airing for the 7-12 set after school.
But you can always tape "Dragonfly TV" or find a used copy of "3-2-1 Contact" at www.amazon.com or the library.
And there is always the king of science, Bill Nye. Find him at www.billnye.com. Susy Schultz. | <urn:uuid:68fc0a75-3921-42fe-8471-e46038a5570a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/archives/2004/dragonfly-tv-debuts-on-wttw | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95696 | 610 | 1.867188 | 2 |
There are various parts of the ear that are always prone to danger when underwater. They include the middle ear, Eustachian tube, outer ear and the eardrum. Divers must equalize their ears early and often to prevent problems like infections and hearing damage. One of the risks of SCUBA diving is ear barotrauma, an injury resulting from pressure that can cause rupturing of the ear drums. But the risk isn’t insurmountable — there are several ways to equalize that can instantly relieve pressure and prevent long term damage. Here are 3 of the most basic techniques for equalizing on a dive.
The Valsalva maneveur is the most basic technique for equalization, and will work the first time for the majority of divers. All it entails is pinching your nostrils closed and exhaling gently through your nose. It is crucial that your exhalation be gentle and intermittent, rather than one sharp burst, because pressure coming at the Eustachian tubes from the opposite direction has potential to cause real damage. If the Valsalva alone isn’t helping, try adding a step to perform the Toynbee maneuver.
This technique is a combination of Valsalva maneuver and swallowing, which may sound a bit like chewing gum and walking, but it gets easier with practice. You must remember to position your tongue on the roof of your mouth to make this technique work properly. The action of swallowing causes the tongue to move gently upward, which facilitates the muscle movement required to equalize the pressure. This is an effective and safe technique, as it does not squeeze the Eustachian tubes and does not need respiratory cycles to succeed.
If the Toynbee still isn’t equalizing that pressure, don’t despair — the Lowrey is slightly more advanced, but can produce immediate relief if done correctly. For the Lowrey, you’ll combine the pinching and exhalation of the Valsalva maneuver with the swallowing action of the Toynbee, effectively blowing out and swallowing at the same time. You should practice this technique topside first to familiarize yourself with what it feels like so you know you are doing it correctly underwater.
It’s important to never force yourself to continue descending if you haven’t equalized properly. If the methods aren’t working right away, ascend a couple of feet and try again. Make sure your dive buddy knows that you are having equalization issues so you don’t get left behind. Because every diver has equalization issues at one point or another, dive masters will typically linger a bit after everyone reaches the bottom to ensure everyone gets to equalize before pressing on. If you simply cannot equalize, do not feel bad about calling the dive. Another dive will always be there, but your precious gift of hearing may not! | <urn:uuid:30f2edf4-d94f-4306-9bc3-28cf4af20d8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aquaviews.net/scuba-guides/3-methods-equalization/?wt=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920385 | 592 | 3.03125 | 3 |
You can view the current or previous issues of Diabetes Health online, in their entirety, anytime you want.
Click Here To View
Latest Insulin Articles
Popular Insulin Articles
Highly Recommended Insulin Articles
Send a link to this page to your friends and colleagues.
Giving intensive insulin therapy to patients with elevated blood-glucose levels in the surgical intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital significantly reduces their chance of death, even if the patients did not previously have diabetes, say researchers in Belgium. Greet Van den Berghe, MD, PhD, and colleagues reported their results in the November 8, 2001, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
In a prospective, randomized, controlled study, researchers tested intensive insulin therapy on 1,548 surgical ICU patients for a period of 12 months. The patients were assigned to receive either intensive insulin therapy (maintaining their blood-glucose levels between 80 and 110 mg/dl) or conventional treatment (receiving insulin only if blood-glucose levels were higher than 215 mg/dl and keeping levels between 180 and 200 mg/dl). Novo Nordisk's Novolin insulin was used.
Of the conventionally treated patients who remained in ICU for more than five days, 8 percent died, compared to a 4.6 percent death rate among those who received intensive insulin treatment. Hospitalwide, there were 34 percent fewer deaths in intensively treated patients. In addition, 46 percent fewer of those patients had bloodstream infections; there were 50 percent fewer transfusions; renal failure requiring dialysis decreased 41 percent; critical illness polyneuropathy decreased 44 percent; and patients were less likely to need respiratory support.
"Intensive insulin therapy to maintain blood glucose at or below 110 mg/dl reduces morbidity and mortality among critically ill patients in the surgical intensive care unit," the researchers conclude.
0 comments - Feb 1, 2002
Diabetes Health is the essential resource for people living with diabetes- both newly diagnosed and experienced as well as the professionals who care for them. We provide balanced expert news and information on living healthfully with diabetes. Each issue includes cutting-edge editorial coverage of new products, research, treatment options, and meaningful lifestyle issues. | <urn:uuid:a6d41258-8835-4466-805d-a6e2c21fd7ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://diabeteshealth.com/read/2002/02/01/3503/study-shows-insulin-therapy-lowers-mortality-rates-in-critically-ill-hospital-patients/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952695 | 457 | 2.375 | 2 |
Essay on ‘Constitution Day’ and Constitutional Ignorance
June 15, 2007
by Luke Sheahan
Minding the Campus has a lengthy essay by Princeton Professor Bradford P. Wilson titled “Constitution Day.” Dr. Wilson explores contemporary ignorance of constitutional ideas and their absence from the curriculum. While he explores the larger curricular reforms necessary to bring constitutional education back to the university, of concern to FIRE is the simple fact that many students are unaware of their rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Because of this ignorance, students succumb to campus censorship and some even object to FIRE’s efforts to ensure that individual rights are secure. Just the other day we got an e-mail from a student at Northeastern University who objected to our selection of Northeastern’s speech code for February’s Speech Code of the Month (we responded to his objection here). A better knowledge of constitutional history and the content of First Amendment rights would stem these sorts of responses.
One of the missions of the Campus Freedom Network is to educate students at American universities about their constitutional right to free expression, religious liberty, and due process. We encourage CFN members to utilize our Guides Program to help cure contemporary ignorance of these issues on their campuses. All guides are free to students and faculty upon request. The order form can be found here. | <urn:uuid:94a45f64-b872-4f0b-92a9-720fd5857a72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thefire.org/article/8143.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94188 | 274 | 2.515625 | 3 |
WHO WE ARE
TARAXIA are a few artists from Italy who explore and create music, painting/images, poetry and theatre and who decided to dedicate their lives completely to art. ATARAXIA are travelling musicians mainly inspired by their actual and inner travels in places that still own the nobleness and charge of centuries, they transmit through music what they obtained by silence.
LOVE FOR EARLY TIMES
We have grown up in Medieval burgs and we carry on the 'oral tradition' of those times. We are wandering clerics and pilgrims who want to maintain memory and remembrance of all those souls cancelled by bigger event that annihilate the single. Furthermore we are craftsmen, we utilize our hands to create, to give nuances and we don't like to imprison knowledge channeling it in a specific branch. The ancient studies were adopted in many areas and they were all interconnected : music, painting, science, math, philosophy, architecture, alchemy. Sometimes we feel to be the crossroads among the Orient and Mediterranean cultures and the Northern celtic one, we are a land of meeting and translations, citizens of the world who bring the physical and spiritual signs of far different experiences and cultures.
MEANING OF THE NAME
ATARAXIA is a spiritual balance, the synonym of a state of physical and psychical perfection that is not possible to be reached by human beings. So ATARAXIA becomes a state of tension and we try to open our minds to be receptive and perceptive towards the occurrences of life. Creativity is the basis of our research.
Ancient stones and the water of the sea speak to us. For this reason we want to play and record in those places, just to hear their silent voices...........
THE CHOICE OF MANY LANGUAGES
We studied many languages, we simply pronounce other languages, what is greatly beautiful is the fascination of the sound, of different sounds and accents, the mystery of a culture that's not only our culture, the personality that each song can gain thanks to a language.
A concert is a sort of theatrical drama. The best act is always performed in an ancient place where stones and architectures give us great inspiration. Our performances usually represent our concept albums and they are not a sequence of songs but a deep research into many ways of expressing ourselves through music, words, images, theatrical and dance acts and scenographies. When music is born we begin creating the costumes of the mime/dancer who works with us and the choreographies and scenographies for the live-acts, I also have special ritual dresses. The magic created by concerts is the great exchange of energy among us and the listeners, concerts are often held in ancient places where the earth currents flow like abbeys, castles, gardens, courts, ancient palaces. We explore and travel in primeval kingdoms...
Our influences come from our roots (celtic, latin and Greek cultures), the studies we did (historical, classical, literary, anthropological), the way we have grown and how nature has decided to utilize us to express its own language. We have a medianic attitude towards art and creation. This is an unconscious gift. Creation is the way to express the divine part of the human being. In the ancient Dionisiac rituals the musician was possessed by the God of Nature who spoke through him/her. We have what you could define a mystic attitude towards life, we are unconscious channels that can vibrate expressing, translating the energy around us.
WHERE WE ARE GOING
We are travelling along a path and this path had its origins in very far times. Our aim is not losing anything of what the past has given us in order to remember who we were, what we are, where we are going. Ancient spirits are still speaking.
Please click here to submit the latest Ataraxia biography
The following area is only for review,
Recommend the artist to your friends. | <urn:uuid:861f2dcb-4290-48a0-9d49-733f0d4ec864> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Ataraxia-Biography/0235D889401975BA48256CE200185CC7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956299 | 806 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Earlier this week, I mocked liberals who attribute the Obama administration's domestic policy compromises/failures to a lack of presidential will. If only Obama had tried harder, they say, he could have passed the public option, expanded Medicare, etc.
As I've argued, this claim, which I call the Green Lantern theory of the presidencyTM, fails as a description of political reality. But it's also worth noting that this sort of president-centric perspective has real costs both for the political movements that promote it and for the country.
In the short term, the liberal elites who publicly blame Obama rather than the structure of Congress for the loss of the public option are fostering long-term disappointment that will depress Democratic turnout and enthusiasm in 2010 and 2012. Kos, Jane Hamsher, Move On, and Congressional liberals can certainly put more pressure on Obama than, say, Joe Lieberman, but they are poisoning the well for their own movement in a way that we didn't observe among conservatives during, say, the debate over the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
Over the long term, Green Lantern-ism promotes cynicism and distrust in the political system. Who wouldn't feel betrayed if they thought that the president could achieve an important goal but wasn't willing to try hard enough to get it? Unfortunately, the press does an exceptionally poor job of explaining the structural constraints that presidents face. We shouldn't be surprised by this failure -- journalists tend to lack detailed knowledge of the legislative process and have strong commercial incentives to cover politics as a dramatic narrative -- but it means that the Green Lantern message goes largely unchecked. | <urn:uuid:c4ee9d9c-60a7-484d-ac86-e4796fdd41aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2009/12/the-costs-of-green-lanternism.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956245 | 322 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Energy giants will be rethinking their presence in the region after Islamist fighters seize foreign workers at Algeria's In Amenas field, an energy security analyst tells Channel 4 News.
Please wait while this video loads. If it doesn't load after a few seconds you may need to have Adobe Flash installed.
The In Amenas field is at the heart of an oil and gas region that has attracted international firms in recent years, including BP and Norway's Statoil, who operated the captured plant with Algeria's state firm.
Events this week may change perceptions of an oil industry that has attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment since Algeria's government crushed an Islamist revolt during the 1990s.
That in turn could store up trouble for a government reliant on oil and gas revenues to finance domestic spending.
"For this group to have attacked there, in spite of tremendous security, is remarkable," said Azzedine Layachi, an Algerian political scientist. "Even as an Algerian, I need a special permit to go there."
Geoff Porter, director of North Africa Risk Consulting, said that security had become less and less of a concern for oil companies operating in Algeria. "For the first time in a decade the security situation has plummeted, causing consternation amongst international oil firms."
Algeria is also an important supplier of gasoline rich crude oil to world markets.
The Algerian oil and gas industry is dominated by state oil firm Sonatrach, which employs over 100,000 people. Sonatrach has encouraged foreign investment since the late 1990s, after the end of a civil war which cost an estimated 200,000 lives.
As a result, international oil companies ventured into remote and challenging areas on the border with Mali and Libya, including In Amenas.
But the events of Wednesday and Thursday, the first major attack on Algerian energy assets, looks set to change this. BP, Statoil and Spain's Cepsa are to start evacuating staff, even though some of their projects are located hundreds of kilometres away from the site.
Several oil experts said the biggest risks were for the fields near In Amenas in the southern Illizi province where Eni, BP and Statoil operate.
But most large fields are located far away from In Amenas and are believed to be still well insulated from attacks.
John Hamilton, contributing editor to African Energy, said the security offered by the military to oil companies in the desert had reassured them about basing workers hundreds of miles from the main centres of populations.
He told Channel 4 News that the events of the past few days were "unprecedented", despite the presence of international companies throughout the Algerian civil war in the 1990s.
"Even during a decade of terrorism the way they dealt with it was by deploying a ruthless military machinery, which kept lid on the problem," he added.
"This is humiliating for Algerian military and intelligence. They lost control of their backyard."
Mr Hamilton said that every oil company in the broader region would be reviewing its staffing and working out whether it is safe.
"As far as these companies are concerned, there are only two choices: they either have their employees operating in the desert or they don't.
"They do not organise their own security. If you are sending people out into the desert you have to have faith in the Algerian military."
Wider Sahara region
There is also concern about the effect on the wider region.
Some oil experts speculate that Islamists could next pour over the border into Libya where the military too weak to be efficient," he said.
And with France's military intervention in Mali, risks are on the rise of displacement of jihadists, many of whom will likely look to Libya for refuge.
Mr Hamilton said that concern was that if can happen in Algeria, which has a military with a "feared reputation", then it can happen in fractured, post-Gaddafi Libya.
"I am sure it will have an effect on Libya, it is right up against the border with Libya, he said, noting that In Amenas hostage takers Al-Mulatahemeen were said to have come in via Libya.
He added: "It's inevitable that companies with personnel in these far-flung places will reconsider."
Richard Mallinson, from Energy Aspects consultancy, said: "The worst case would be that the interim Libyan government breaks down and we see a return of large-scale fighting between tribes and factions, with Libyan production dropping off significantly."
Energy companies active in the Sahara region
Spain's Cepsa has become a significant foreign player in Algeria, and says it is responsible for 17 percent of the country's output, producing 220,000 barrels per day from a group of fields near the Libya-Tunisia border. The fields, including the country's second biggest oilfield Ourhoud, are located some 300 kilometres north of In Amenas.
Repsol has planned gas production in Algeria from 2016 onwards. Repsol lists Algeria's Illiza province as one of its most important areas of exploration globally.The Spanish energy company already has a presence through Gas Natural Fenosa, which maintains business relations for the buying and selling gas in Algeria.
Algeria's third largest gas field In Salah, is jointly operated by the Norwegian company, BP and Sonatrach. Production capacity is 9 billion cubic metres per year. The first gas was delivered in August 2004. The same team operates In Amenas, where the hostage crisis took place. Statoil is also involved in oil production in Libya.
BP, along with Algerian company Sonatrach, are Statoil's partners in the In Salah and In Amenas oilfields. The British company has been operating in Algeria since the mid-1950s and is also involved in exploration in the Bourarhet block, adjacent to In Amenas.
Russian energy giant Gazprom is exploring opportunities in Algeria in partnership with Sonatrach at the Berkine Basin, close to the border with Tunisia.
The Italian company is responsible for producing 70,000 bpd of oil in Algeria. It has also started exploration in Mali, but pulled out this week citing a poor prospecting outlook.
18 January 2013
18 January 2013
22 July 2010 | <urn:uuid:f97f2366-f66e-45e6-bb78-7ea6cd63d185> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.channel4.com/news/algerian-hostage-crisis-energy-giants-security-concerns | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973278 | 1,287 | 1.539063 | 2 |
(Don't scratch your head…)
While head lice is most often found in children, they're also known to be found in adults. BT tells you how to avoid this embarrassing problem...
Do not share: Avoid sharing things that have been on or near another child's head, including hair brushes, combs, hats, scarves, towels, helmets, pillows, sleeping bags, etc. And if you know someone who has lice, stay away!
Separate everything: Lice is transferred very easily. That is why it is essential to separate your clothes from those of your family members instead of just throwing them in a pile with everyone else's clothing.
Clean your scalp regularly: Regularly clean things that your head has direct contact with such as car seats, pillows, head phones, etc.
Use a medicated shampoo: There are quite a few lice shampoos in the market. The moment you find lice on your head or your child's, it's best to use a medicated shampoo to get rid of the lice before they increase in number.
Notice the signs: Nits are the eggs that turn into lice. If you are quick to notice the nits, you can prevent lice.
Recognise the symptoms: These include an itchy scalp and small red bumps or sores on the back of your neck and scalp.
Follow us on Twitter for more stories | <urn:uuid:c4b07395-7172-46e6-9b3d-af02efc8209f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-10-15/beauty/28256440_1_lice-nits-pillows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96825 | 293 | 2.609375 | 3 |
I fear that Haskell is doomed to succeed. — Tony HoareI ♥ Lisp. I think it's the best tool we have, at the moment, for many applications.
I don't really love Haskell that much, but I track its progress with awe. (When I say Haskell, I'm not only speaking about Haskell per se, but also about all the FP languages in its halo, like Ωmega, Agda, Epigram, ...)
And when I look at Haskell, it seems obvious to me that it's out to eat Lisp's lunch. In fact, eat all other languages' lunches.
The gist of this post is: In the not-so-far future, Haskell will be able to do everything Lisp can do now (and more), but in an adjustably-safe, statically-verified manner.
What do I mean by that?
Adjustably-safe: In this mythical, not yet-existing, but clearly on-the-horizon "Haskell", you'll be able to choose how much safety you want. You'll have "knobs" for increasing or decreasing compile-time checks for any property and invariant you desire. Or don't desire. You'll be able to switch between Lisp-style dynamic typing, Haskell-style static typing, and probably even C-style weak/no-typing. In the same program.
Statically-verified: Haskell is clearly moving towards dependent typing, which in theory, allows the expression of arbitrary invariants that are maintained statically, without having to run the program. Dependent typing is the weirdest and most awesome thing to expect of programming, this side of quantum computers.
Lisp, as it stands, can't do any of that, and won't be able to do any of that. That's simply a fact. Why? Because it's coming at the problem from the wrong direction. Trying to graft an interesting type system or verification onto Lisp is simply too heroic and ill-specified a task. Lisp starts with ultimate freedom/unsafety, and you can't constrain it. Haskell starts with ultimate bondage/safety, and then, piece by piece, adds that freedom back. On a theoretically well-founded basis.
Right now, Lisp has certain advantages. As a command or scripting language where ultimate dynamism is desired (Emacs), it's still clearly superior. But Haskell is encroaching on its habitat from all sides, just like it's encroaching on the habitats of all other languages. Right now it may appear pointy-headed and harmless. But I think it's unstoppable, and doomed to succeed.
How does that make Lisp a big hack? If my theory is right, then once Haskell will be able to do everything Lisp can do now (and more), all the while maintaining adjustable safety and static verification, I think it will be justified to call Lisp a big hack - because it lacks the possibility of this safety and verification, in principle. (Of course you have to subscribe to the idea that this safety and verification is something that's good and superior. I do.) | <urn:uuid:7555b9d8-8465-4931-9fc7-6dc1c660eb9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://axisofeval.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-lisp-is-big-hack-and-haskell-is.html?showComment=1294040989146 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945249 | 637 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Kings & Queens
House of Windsor
Line of Succession
Frequently asked Questions
Coat of Arms
House of Wessex - King Edward The Confessor
Family Tree poster and books House of Wessex Family Tree All Kings & Queens |
Name: King Edward The Confessor
Father: Ethelred II
Mother: Emma of Normandy
Born: c.1004 at Islip
Ascended to the throne: June 8, 1042
Crowned: April 3, 1043 at Winchester Cathedral, aged c.39
Married: Edith, Daughter of Earl Godwin of Wessex
Died: January 5, 1066 at Westminster
Buried at: Westminster Abbey
King of England from 1042, the son of Ethelred II. He lived in Normandy with his mother Emma of Normandy's relatives until shortly before his accession to the English Throne. During his reign power was held by Earl Godwin and his son Harold, while the king devoted himself to religion, including the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey (consecrated in 1065), where he is buried.
Edward died in January 1066 and his childlessness led to a struggle for power. The succession went first to Harold Godwinson and then to the conquest by William of Normandy nine months later at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. Edward was canonized in 1161.
Harthacanute dies and is succeeded by Edward the Confessor, son of Aethelred II.
Earl Leofric founds Coventry Abbey. His wife Lady Godiva according to legend rides naked through the streets of Coventry
Edward marries Edith daughter of Earl Godwin of Wessex
Edward quarrels with Godwin and banishes the rebellious Godwin family from England. Edward promises the throne to William, Duke of Normandy.
Godwin, Earl of Wessex, returns to England.
Godwin’s son, Harold, becomes principal adviser to the King.
Welsh led by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn attack England and burn Hereford Cathedral
Edward, son of Edmund Ironside and potential heir to the throne, returns to England but dies mysteriously
Harold Godwinson (later Harold II) and his brother Tostig of Northumberland attack Wales. Gruffydd ap Llewellyn is killed by his own troops.
Harold visits William of Normandy and swears on oath to support his claim to the throne
Northumbria rebels against Tostig who is exiled. Harold fails to support his brother and they become bitter enemies.
Edward dies and Harold Godwinson is chosen as successor, but William of Normandy declares the throne was promised to him.
Britroyals Books and Kings & Queens Family Tree Poster | <urn:uuid:bb8c0f74-d5a3-4372-8aa4-c95202fdccc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britroyals.com/wessex.asp?id=edwardconfessor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947758 | 571 | 2.859375 | 3 |
From Monkey Island wiki
In the "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal" the Voodoo Lady tells Guybrush to visit the Jerkbait Islands in search of La Esponja Grande. Her old lover Coronado De Cava studied there in search of the same sponge years before.
The islands are the epicentre of activity in "The Siege of Spinner Cay". Someone with a travel pass can hire a raft from a Vaycaylian employee to travel between the three islands. Later Captain McGillicutty's fleet uses Spoon Isle and Roe Island as natural barriers to more efficiently block in Spinner Cay during the episode's titular siege.
"Jerkbait" are artificial fishing lures, meant to be zig-zagged back and forth to attract fish. After Guybrush's primary adventures in the Jerkbait Islands, he and Winslow sail the Screaming Narwhal in several supposedly aimless directions before being swallowed by a giant manatee. | <urn:uuid:6b71ea5d-5403-4f0e-8846-d1780d48ef16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miwiki.net/Jerkbait_Islands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913739 | 204 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Taking the oath of office from D.A. Steve Cooley, surrounded by (L to R) April (daughter), Kareem (son), and David (husband)
When she was sworn, she also became the first African American and the first woman to hold that prestigious office.
The swearing-in of Jackie Lacey, as the first African American and the first woman elected as district attorney, to lead the nation’s largest county prosecutor’s office was a momentous occasion. It was history being made in ‘our’ presence – not just Black History, but American History.
The ceremony started off with musical selections by the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, then master of ceremonies, U.S. Attorney for the Central District Andre Birotte and conducted the program from that point beginning with the presentation of colors, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem and the Invocation.
Dr. C.L. Nikias, president of U.S.C. about Lacey spoke in glowing terms as an outstanding alumna of the university and said that its Galen Center was the setting of her swearing-in as the 42nd district attorney of L.A. County.
Judge Lee Smalley Edmon, the presiding judge of L.A. County Superior Court followed, and like Lacey, was the first woman to hold that office. She extolled the progress of the legal profession that presently has a California Supreme Court dominated by women including the Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye; the Attorney General Kamala Harris; Judge Audrey Collins, former chief federal judge, who all laid the groundwork for the day’s historic occasion.
U.S. Attorney Birotte spoke briefly about Lacey from his official and personal perspective as a law enforcement colleague and a friend, before introducing D.A. Steve Cooley, the man Lacey followed as the 42nd D.A. Lacey took the oath of office from D.A. Cooley then he joined three other former D.A.s and presented D.A. Lacey with her official badge. She then delivered her inaugural address.
D.A. Lacey spoke about all the people who helped make that moment possible: her friends, supporters and especially her family. She said, “I want to thank my husband, David, and my kids, Kareem and April, for all they’ve done to help me realize this dream. Also my nephew Laydell.”
During an interview, just after she had won the election, she said that it wasn’t until she took a trip to the post office to mail ‘thank you’ cards that she finally began to realize the enormity of what she had done. “I was just going to pop in there and mail my stuff and I was sort of surprised that people said, ‘I know who you are. You’re the District Attorney of L.A. County.’ I still haven’t really watched television and I’m barely picking up things and reading the papers. And so, something tells me it was a bigger deal than I realized at the time.”
Back at the Galen Center… She thanked Dr. Nikias and the university for their hospitality and reminisced about her days, as a child when her father drove her past USC. Furthermore, she went on, “I went to law school here, and my husband, David and I made our first home on campus in a studio apartment facing the corner of Vermont (Ave.) and Exposition (Blvd).”
At the interview with the Sentinel…“You have to understand, I have been in the background for 12 years being a part of the team that runs the office, but not being in charge,” Lacey explained. “Anyone who works with a boss for 12 years often says to themselves, ‘you know, I would have done things a little differently. If I was in charge, I would do this, or I would do that. I’d keep this or I would keep that.’”
Back to her inaugural address … Lacey spoke of her vision of the district attorney’s ceremony, her staff, and in looking back at her immediate family, it was impossible to accomplish what she did without their help, strength and guidance. “I tell that story because it is a story of determination, of faith and true strength,” she said. “It is this strength that I draw on when I think I am out of steam. It allows me to keep going.”
She told about the role the Bible played in her and her family’s lives which dovetailed into the leaders of the present. “Elected leaders of good character and sound values are still important today,” Lacey said, “they affect everyday lives in more ways than we can imagine – especially in the criminal justice system. We in Los Angeles County are experiencing good fortune for the D.A.s office is in good shape.”
Lacey thanked her predecessors for the benefit of their leadership: Cooley and those who were there to lend their support Gil Garcetti, Robert Philobosian and John Van de Kamp. She singled out Cooley for his leadership, for being her mentor and her biggest supporter outside of her family.
Back at the interview… She stated that her top priorities now would be public safety, alternative sentencing and prison realignment. “There are a lot of business things that have to be taken care of in the office,” Lacey said.
“The legislature will be in session in January. I want to talk to our legislative lobby as to find out what are we going to do. What’s our agenda? Right now [for instance] with prison overcrowding, the legislature is reluctant to pass enhancements that would add even a day to someone’s prison sentence. I want them to understand that there are some bad actors out there that they may not want in their community. So, we’ll be talking about that.”
In addition, she included an ambitious agenda saying: “We’ll also be talking about expanding alternative sentencing courts, which are courts that are alternatives to jail. Right now there are pilot programs in place for drug and mental illness. We can probably expand those.
“I’m most concerned about people in need of mental health services, particularly African Americans. There are a lot of us who are suffering from undiagnosed, untreated mental illness. Some of us are out on the streets right now. There is hope, I know a lot of people who are suffering from mental illness who are working because they’ve got it managed. They’ve got healthcare. Their doctors have found the right drugs to bring them out of depression, etc. There’s nothing worse than being lost in your own mental illness.”
At the Galen Center … “As of my first official day on the job, I have started to fulfill my commitment to you. I want to introduce to my ‘starting line-up’ as they say in sports.” She asked them to stand and be recognized to a resounding applause. And to the rest of the staff at the D.A.s office she proclaimed, “I will lead by example. I will treat you the way I would want to be treated if our roles were reversed. I will support you as you do your job; you are my heroes.
“To my counterparts in the justice system, I will work with you, listen to you, and respect what you do and your opinions. I will make decisions that are in the best interest of justice. I look forward to working with my fellow law enforcement executives: U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte; California Attorney General Kamala Harris and local police chiefs – so many of whom are here with us today.”
After a few other thank-you’s and some mentioning about her upbringing in the Crenshaw district, D.A. Lacey thank the crowd: “I am honored to be your District Attorney.” | <urn:uuid:02f03c95-eda9-4b12-9249-e9515cf30b3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10073&catid=21&Itemid=114 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980893 | 1,717 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” Mark Twain
Story and photos by
Special to the Vindicator
A visit to the Poland library should start off with a leisurely walk around the property. At the very front, there are sitting areas and a delightfully expressive fountain by artist Tom Antonishak titled “Fountain of Knowledge.”
Just a few steps to the left of the fountain, there still stands the historical Poland Union Seminary Dormitory. The seminary’s most famous student was William McKinley (1843-1901), 25th president of the United States.
Too often, we destroy the old to make room for the new and thus lose the best part of ourselves, so it was unusually sensitive that the designers included the old dormitory in the design of the new site.
Around to the left of the fountain is a stone stairway leading down to Yellow Creek. At the foot of the stairs, you can trek right across a tiny, wooden bridge under Main Street or turn left to stroll along the creek side of the building.
The library building itself was designed to allow in as much natural light as possible, with broad windows and exit-only doors all the way around. The main entrance brings you to the Chapters Caf to the right and a tiny sitting area to the left. A wooden staircase to the extreme left takes you up to the library proper, and the corridor ahead leads you to a fully outfitted meeting room and the bookstore.
The original Poland library was dedicated in 1935, a small room at the Town Hall with a collection of 1,377 volumes. In 1941, the library moved to a larger room in the Town Hall, then moved again in 1962 to the north side of the historic Kennedy House across the street from the current site.
The 311 Main St. site was first built as a colonial-styled building in 1965. The new building, a monument to ingenuity, is made almost entirely of recycled material and outfitted by local craftsmen. It houses more than 70,000 items.
As with almost everything these days, our local libraries have felt the pinch of economic downturns and budget cuts. Still, few things can rival a quiet corner of the library, a comfortable chair and a good book. In fact, now more than ever, this respite and escape into a good book might be just the thing to hold at bay the concerns that surround us. | <urn:uuid:2462d735-4255-4473-b915-bd9934a4226b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vindy.com/news/2009/aug/03/beautiful-reading-environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958072 | 509 | 2.15625 | 2 |
I stumbled upon the “graffiti” to the left earlier this year while on a walk through my neighborhood. I stopped and immediately took a picture because it was so striking. I paused and read the words. I didn’t know what it was all about, and I didn’t know how to feel about it because this wall is continually being graffitied by kids and painted over by the city.
This didn’t seem like graffiti though.
I only recently heard the story of Candy Chang, the artist who created the Before I Die project. She’s an artist who is uniquely using public space as a way for people to connect and be heard.
The canvas she chose for this project was an abandoned house in her neighborhood. She turned the walls into a huge chalkboard and painted the giant words, “Before I Die I Want To…” with blank lines and chalk for anyone who walked by to write in their thoughts.
She had no idea what to expect. What she found was that the wall filled up quickly with comments that spanned the range from funny (“Before I die I want to be tried for piracy”) to moving (“Before I die I want to hold her one more time.” “Before I die I want to be myself.”)
Her inspiration came from losing someone she loved dearly. It caused her to reflect and struggle with death, and it also put her life in perspective. She found that maintaining this perspective was challenging in everyday life, and her project aimed at finding a way to keep this perspective alive.
Walls have now been created worldwide, inspiring communities to share their dreams publicly.
Chang’s intention to turn neglected spaces into welcoming ones is becoming a reality. Getting to know our neighbors in this way and documenting what really matters to us as we change and grow carries a uniting factor, as well as reminds us that wherever we may be in life, we are not alone.
Death is an uncomfortable subject. We often don’t deal with it until it’s forced on us through loss. Facing our mortality is sobering, but it can be a powerful incentive to step into our lives and relationships fully. In Chang’s words, “Thinking about death clarifies your life.”
I’d like to invite all of us to create an online wall right here. In the comments section, finish this sentence: Before I die I want to…
I’ll go first.
Before I die I want to be a mother.
Write your dream and inspire others to live theirs. Let’s remind each other we are never alone.
Photo by Monique Minahan | <urn:uuid:4f23b20e-9bc6-4fad-9533-65a974f0e02e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://intentblog.com/what-do-you-want-to-do-before-you-die/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976216 | 568 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Sep 30, 2011 at 8:35 am
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Officials are planning to release stingless wasps near St. Paul's stately Summit Avenue to combat a newly discovered infestation of emerald ash borers.
The stingless wasps are one of the few natural enemies of the emerald ash borer in their native Asia, so the Minnesota Department of Agriculture plans to release them Friday afternoon as part of a broader pest management plan.
Other weapons include removal of infested trees and treating trees with insecticides.
The emerald ash borer has killed millions of ash trees in other states and threatens close to 1 billion trees in Minnesota.
The metallic green beetles were discovered in St. Paul in 2009 and have spread to Minneapolis, Falcon Heights and Shoreview. They've also turned up in Winona and Houston counties of southeastern Minnesota. | <urn:uuid:bb6ae2a0-1c19-451c-bafd-781c23f1a4c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knsiradio.com/news/local/state-to-release-wasps-to-fight-emerald-ash-borers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953043 | 182 | 2.359375 | 2 |
NGOs Lobbying for War?
- General Smedley Butler:
WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. – A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill? – This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. – For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
…. to continue reading click here!
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. | <urn:uuid:05fab26d-e5c3-46a1-a885-3e5a80ce34ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/ngos-lobbying-for-war/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977617 | 473 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Obama could look west to fill Interior job
President Obama could look west to fill the job of Interior secretary that will become vacant by the end of March with the departure of Ken Salazar. Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, who supports the president’s progressive clean-energy and climate-change agenda, is one possible candidate. Gregoire, who has also been mentioned as a potential successor to Lisa Jackson at the Environmental Protection Agency, has pushed policies to move her state away from coal-fired electricity.
Another candidate for Interior is John Berry, director of the White House Office of Personnel Management. Berry is a previous director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the National Zoo. He has held posts at the Interior Department as well as the Treasury Department and the Smithsonian Institution. If selected, Berry would be the first openly gay Cabinet member.
The Interior Department oversees oil and gas drilling and also conservation on the nation’s 700 million acres of public lands. Traditionally, it has been run by governors or senators from Western states. Salazar had represented his home state of Colorado as a senator and also served as Colorado's attorney general before Obama appointed him to Interior.
Salazar oversaw the department’s first forays into developing renewable energy on public lands. While Interior has always overseen oil and gas drilling on public lands, it has made an aggressive push to begin developing large-scale solar power on federal lands in the deserts of the Southwest, and the nation’s first offshore wind farms in the federal waters off the East Coast.
Salazar plans to return to Colorado, according to a statement from the Interior Department. | <urn:uuid:f12f7800-2d15-43fe-bbe3-58680a516237> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/01/obama-could-look-west-fill-interior-job/60702/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964587 | 333 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Coffin Elementary School in Brunswick Celebrates 5-2-1-0 | Community Spirit
Students and staff of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Coffin Elementary School in Brunswick recently held a Kindness Assembly during which they educated each other and celebrated healthy living. In partnership with Mid Coast Hospital and Let’s Go!, the school focused on the following messages: 5 or more fruits and vegetables per day, 2 hours or less of recreational screen time, 1 hour or more of physical activity and ZERO sweetened drinks. These photos show staff having fun with a fruit and vegetable parade, and Mrs Bradley’s first grade instructing the assembly about the importance of reducing screen time. The 5-2-1-0 program is now active in many schools, early childhood centers and pediatric practices throughout Maine and the country. Over the past four years Mid Coast Hospital has sponsored and supported the program in the Midcoast region. | <urn:uuid:7ba4c94d-2ffe-47a0-8684-7d0ce4387f8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biddsaco.wcsh6.com/news/community-spirit/102060-coffin-elementary-school-brunswick-celebrates-5-2-1-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94142 | 194 | 1.75 | 2 |
POLITICS FEBRUARY 20, 2012
When the Obama administration announced last month that religiously-affiliated institutions would be required to provide health plans covering contraception, there was widespread talk that a wedge issue was emerging. Several prominent Catholic liberals were quick to point out that Obama would lose the Catholic vote and seriously damage his re-election prospects. But as Republican politicians gleefully piled on, the evidence for such a dire development—and indeed, for the continued existence of anything you could describe as a “Catholic vote”—has diminished almost daily.
Of course, the White House responded to the Catholic Bishops’ furor with a deft maneuver that changed the political dynamics of the issue, offering a compromise that allowed the cost of contraception coverage to be borne by insurance companies, not the religiously-affiliated institutions themselves. This step won immediate praise from the leadership of the Catholic Health Association, Catholic Charities, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. But the split among Catholic elites simply reinforced the more fundamental reality: American Catholics are hardly monolithic, even on issues supposedly touching on the Church’s authority and teachings.
Polling of Americans on the contraception mandate controversy has produced significantly varying results, often depending on when the poll was taken and question wording and order. But no survey has shown a significant difference between Catholics and other voters on this issue. (John Sides found some evidence of a drop in approval ratings for Obama among highly-observant and conservative Catholics, but conceded that these are largely already Obama opponents.) Among the many polls, the most credible is perhaps a Democracy Corps survey that formulates the positions of the administration and of the Bishops in their own words. The results show that Catholics support the administration’s position by a 49-42 margin—barely distinguishable from the full pool of respondents, who support the administration’s position by a 49-43 margin.
This should come as no particular surprise to anyone familiar with the history of U.S. Catholic lay attitudes on issues where the Church hierarchy has taken strong positions. The most thorough recent research on public opinion involving abortion and same-sex marriage—issues where the Catholic Church has clear, unambiguous positions that are frequently communicated to the laity via channels ranging from papal encyclicals to the parish pulpit—comes from the Public Religion Research Institute, which did a major survey examining the views of Americans of differing confessional backgrounds in June of last year. At that time, 56 percent of all Americans and 54 percent of Catholics indicated they thought abortions should be legal in all or most circumstances. Only 29 percent of white evangelical Protestants, however, support legalized abortion—another indication that the anti-choice base in American politics is now more Protestant than Catholic.
To be sure, the same survey shows slightly stronger personal disapproval of abortion on moral grounds among Catholics than among the population as a whole. That attitude, however, is heavily concentrated among Latino Catholics. Forty-two percent of white Catholics consider abortion “morally acceptable,” compared to 40 percent of all Americans, while only 17% of Latino Catholics say the same. There is hardly a consenus Catholic position, even on personal attitudes towards abortion.
On same-sex marriage, again, Catholics are more likely to agree with other Americans than with their own leadership. An October 2010 Pew survey showed 46 percent of Catholics favoring legalization of same-sex marriage, as compared to 42 percent of all Americans. The hardcore resistance to gay marriage, on the other hand, is among white evangelicals (who oppose it by a 20-74 margin) and to some extent black Protestants (who oppose it by a 28-62 margin).
Conservatives often argue that support for the hierarchy’s positions is much higher among “real Catholics”—meaning those who attend Mass weekly. That’s true, but it’s not a phenomenon particular to Catholics. According to the PRRI survey, for example, support for legalized abortion varies inversely according to frequency of worship service attendance among evangelical and mainline Protestants, as well as among Catholics. Moreover, Catholics who disagree with the Church’s position on hot-button issues do not seem to be suffering from any misinformation about Church teachings (72 percent of white Catholics say they’ve heard about abortion from the pulpit) or from a bad conscience about their disagreements. Again according to PRRI, 68 percent of Catholics think you can still be a “good Catholic” while disagreeing with Church teachings on abortion, and 74 percent say the same about same-sex marriage.
The more you look at the numbers, the idea that there is some identifiable Catholic vote in America, ready to be mobilized, begins to fade towards irrelevance. In the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential elections, Catholics voted within a couple of percentage points of the electorate as a whole. It’s notable that both the Democratic vice president and the Republican Speaker of the House are Catholics—and that few Americans are likely aware of that fact.
This was not always the case, of course. From the days of Andrew Jackson to JFK, Catholic voters were considered a mainstay of the Democratic Party coalition. Irish and German Catholics were at home in the conservative Democratic party of the nineteenth century, and were supplemented by southern Europeans as the New Deal Coalition developed in the twentieth. While the Catholic attachment to the Democratic Party has persisted to a steadily diminishing extent in state and local elections, the disproportionate pro-Democratic “Catholic vote” at the presidential level abruptly ended in 1972 and has never returned.
To a large extent, that shift has simply reflected the broader ideological polarization of the two parties, which demolished traditional ethnic loyalties. Moreover, the upward mobility and suburbanization of previously urban white Catholics communities has naturally made them more susceptible to Republican economic and cultural appeals, a trend that among Catholics as a whole has been partially offset by the influx of Democratic-leaning Hispanics.
The idea that Catholics no longer behave self-consciously as “Catholics” on hot-button issues reflects the broader reality that they have become hard to distinguish from other Americans in their political behavior. And so whatever happens between the White House and the Bishops, it’s not likely to change the reality that the “Catholic vote” looks just like America.
Ed Kilgore is a special correspondent for The New Republic, a blogger for The Washington Monthly, and managing editor of The Democratic Strategist. | <urn:uuid:1fbca6fe-7689-456a-a09f-cac7aa47d5fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newrepublic.com/article/the-permanent-campaign/100860/end-catholic-vote-election-bloc-constituency | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962511 | 1,336 | 1.765625 | 2 |
FOUR-SECTION ACT. The so-called Four-Section Act of April 4, 1895, allowed the sale and lease of a maximum of four sections of school, asylum, or public lands in all Texas counties except El Paso, Pecos, and Presidio. The act was an extension of laws made as early as 1887 allowing settlers to purchase four sections of pastureland from the public domain. A law passed in 1881, which allowed the purchase of as much as seven sections of grassland in certain localities, had been modified in 1883, after an orgy of land speculation, by an increase in the price of school lands from one dollar to two dollars an acre. According to the 1895 act the sales were directed by the commissioner of the General Land Office, and three-year residence and improvements were required. Although the object of the law was to attract ranchers to unsettled regions, many farmers moved into the western plains and started wheat farms. The law was later modified and extended, particularly by the Eight-Section Act.
Hans Peter Nielsen Gammel, comp., Laws of Texas, 1822–1897 (10 vols., Austin: Gammel, 1898). General Laws of the State of Texas Passed by the Thirty-eighth Legislature at Its First, Second and Third Sessions, 1923 (Austin: Secretary of State, 1923). Revised Civil Statutes of the State of Texas (Austin: Baldwin, 1925). | <urn:uuid:99dd72d5-f336-4d7e-acfe-e00a0a6ddb0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ugf01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97516 | 297 | 3.21875 | 3 |
by Stephen Lendman
They're merciless cutthroat murderers. They commit grotesque atrocities. Torture, beheadings, and other monstrous savagery are all in a day's work.
They're Washington favorites. They're recruited, heavily armed, trained, funded and directed in all US regional wars. Ronald Reagan called earlier equivalents "freedom fighters." Some got White House visits.
A March 1983 photo showed Afghan Mujahideen fighters there. Reagan called them "an inspiration to those who love freedom."
He called Nicaraguan Contra killers "our brothers, these freedom fighters and we owe them our help. They are the moral equal of our founding fathers."
History doesn't just rhyme. It repeats in horrifyingly disturbing ways.
By Gary G. Kohls, MD
“We're not made by God to mass kill one another, and that's backed up by the Gospels. Lying and war are always associated. Pay attention to the war-makers when they try to defend their current war. If they’re moving their lips they're lying.” -- quote from Catholic Worker ex-priest and antiwar activist, the late Philip Berrigan, who spent a total of 12 years in jail for a variety of inspired antiwar resistance actions.
Not too long ago I watched Johnny Got His Gun, the film adaptation of Dalton Trumbo’s famous antiwar novel with the same title about a young American soldier who came home from the trenches of World War One France, having miraculously survived an artillery explosion that blew away his face, as well as both legs and both arms ? not to mention his dog tags. The helpless victim was being kept alive in the back wards of a military hospital by his “caregivers”, probably out of scientific curiosity. The doctors and nurses treated him as a vegetable that was unable to communicate. Moreover, the staff believed that he was unable to perceive pain or have feelings.
By Gilad Atzmon
This week, a new Jewish ‘progressive’ text has been published which you simply must read and circulate around - not because it’s any good, quite the opposite, it is, as usual, just a window into a tribal psychosis and a glimpse into morbid, Jewish, progressive nonsense. The reason you should read and spread ‘Rewriting History, Holocaust Revisionism’ is because it is a delightful journey into Jewish political despair. They are losing the battle and they know it.
‘Hope not hate’, presents itself as a ‘left anti racism’ campaign and claims to ‘celebrate Britain’s diverse society’. So why does it engage in relentless thought-policing? The answer is that, though ‘HOPE not hate’ claims to oppose the British ‘far Right’, if you dig a little and you will find that HOPE not hate and its leader Nick Lowles are integral parts of the Zionist network, dedicated to promoting Jewish tribal politics.
Last year I exposed ‘HOPE not hate’ as a Hasbara unit and as an offshoot of the notoriously Zionist Searchlight magazine. At the time, ‘HOPE not hate’ had exhausted itself in a huge campaign to cancel a performance of mine at a Marxist Arts Festival in Bradford and, in order to have any chance of success, joined forces with the infamous Zionist Board of Deputies of British Jews (BOD) and the openly Islamophobic blog Harry’s Place. Lowels and his HOPEless organisation were both utterly defeated and why, because the Marxists who invited me knew very well who Lowels was and what he stood for. Again, a few month ago, the ‘anti’ racist Lowles campaigned against a Muslim conference. You get the picture. Zionists to the core, both ‘HOPE not hate’ and Lowles are actually united against anyone and everyone who challenges Jewish power, supremacy and racism.
By Shawn Connors
There’s not many advantages of growing old, but one of them is living through history instead of reading a revisionist version of it. During the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s mass shooting of innocent people were literally unheard of. We never experienced these atrocities until the last 20 years. Sure, criminals shot each other up – but mass killing of innocent kids? Hardly.
American Pilgrims had guns in 1620. We’ve had the U.S. Bill of Rights 2nd amendment for 236 years. Gun laws today are stricter than ever.
Q: What social construct has changed in the last 20 years to cause this phenomena of massive killing?
Since the introduction of Psychotropic drugs, erratic behavior has become substantially more extreme. Examples are abundant. The introduction of constant behavioral medication became mainstream in the 1990’s. Mass shootings followed. Administering brain altering medication is questionable science, but the dependency and withdrawal effects from it are not.
By: Andrew Gavin Marshall
The following is a sample from the first volume of The People’s Book Project, a crowd-funded initiative to produce a series of books studying the ideas, institutions, and individuals of power and resistance. Please consider donating to help the Project come to fruition.
As one of the most resource-rich countries on earth, and the largest single trading partner with the United States, Canada is strategically positioned to influence the changing nature of global power structures. Do we support – and siphon our resources for the benefit of – the American Empire, co-operating in the wholesale plundering of the world, the oppression and impoverishment of peoples, destruction of global ecology, all for the benefit of an increasingly small class of global corporations and banks… Or, do we become independent and free? Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper once said, “You won’t recognize Canada when I get through with it.” With multiple “free trade” agreements under way, expanded corporate rights, expropriation of vast amounts of natural resources, Canada is becoming one of the world’s foremost corporate colonies, unrecognizable from what Canadians once imagined our nation to be.
Until April 5, 2013 the 1984 American science fiction-horror film, directed by John Carpenter could be streamed or downloaded from a number of websites. They Live (Full movie) was in the playlist below created by Buddy Huggins.
|Your donation helps provide a place for people to speak out. thepeoplesvoice.org P.O. Box 159113 Nashville, TN 37215 Not tax deductible. email@example.com|
|Articles and Writers||Old TPV|
|<< <||Current||> >>| | <urn:uuid:97c002eb-a5a6-4082-8317-c4552ed85a13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2012/12/17/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949384 | 1,395 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Keeping the Lights On: a look at UKIP’s energy policy evidence base
- 09 Nov 2012, 16:00
- Carbon Brief Staff
Unproven and implausible" climate science and an energy policy
based on coal, gas and nuclear: welcome to the UK Independence
Party's vision for UK energy, according to its new policy document.
We check our pick of the report's claims.
UKIP's energy policy document, '
Keeping the Lights On: How UKIP would prevent the impending
energy shortfall', came out last month. Co-authored by UKIP MEP Roger Helmer, it
threatens energy apocalypse at the hands of Brussels, climate
scientists and, of course, wind power, unless the UK ditches them
all in favour of UKIP's plan - highlighted in Union Jack bullet
1. Climate science - back to the dark ages
First, climate science. According to UKIP:
"Professor Phil Jones of the Climate
Research Unit at the University of East Anglia recognises that
there has been no statistically significant warming for fifteen
This is a misrepresentation of an interview Jones
did with the BBC in 2010. Jones told the interviewer
temperature rise from 1995 to 2010 was statistically insignificant,
"but only just". Whether a trend is statistically
significant can vary depending on the time period over which it
is measured - and a bit more data either side can change the
And as we have
discussed before, scientists don't draw general conclusions
about global temperature trends
based on short timeframes, as
Jones himself and the Met
Office have said. The argument also ignores the
well-established evidence base from different scientific
disciplines showing that
the world is warming.
Next, in our favourite comment, UKIP says:
"The slight warming in the last hundred
years is entirely consistent with well- established, long-term
natural climate cycles - the Roman Optimum, the Dark Ages, the
Mediæval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age. And now we seem to be
moving into a new, natural 21st century optimum."
Many climate skeptics cite
solar activity or other natural climate variation to explain
the warming trend. Scientists at bodies such as the US National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have investigated all of
natural forcings, and have ruled them out as the dominant cause
of warming over the last few decades. According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), these have been
ruled out as the dominant cause of warming over the last few
FAQ page gives a good explanation.
And no - the Dark Ages is not a climatic
period. The term - now rarely used by historians - refers
to a period in the Middle Ages ushered in by the fall of the
western Roman empire.
2. Renewables - no jobs, or not enough
In the next section, UKIP takes issue with the idea that the
renewable energy industry could create jobs. It cites two studies -
both of which former presidential candidate Mitt Romney also used
energy strategy. First, a "recent report" by small and hitherto
little-known Fife-based consultancy Verso Economics
called 'Worth the Candle?'. According to UKIP, the study, which was
"demonstrates that for every job created
in the renewable sector, four jobs are destroyed elsewhere in the
economy [...] by driving up energy costs, reducing
competitiveness and deterring investment."
industry has countered that Verso significantly underestimated
the number of people working in the renewables sector. And
according to the BBC, a
spokesman for the Scottish government said in making its
calculation, Verso focused only on public subsidies to renewables
and did not consider any private investment in the sector.
The second report, from King Juan Carlos University, has also come
Spanish government argues it is "based on a simplistic,
reductionist and short-term view of the problem". Meanwhile, the US Department of
Energy says the authors' premise "is not supported by their
work". And even the
Wall Street Journal, which cited the Verso report in an article
criticising Europe's renewables strategy, says the Spanish
report's premise based on opportunity cost - that the money Spain's
government spends on green jobs cannot be spent by private parties
- is flawed as Spain's renewable subsidies come from existing tax
3. Energy bills
UKIP also claims UK and EU climate and energy policies are driving
up consumer bills. It says:
"Government Feed-In-Tariffs (FITs) [...]
have encouraged households to become small-scale electricity
producers with solar PV panels on south-facing roofs connected to
feed into the grid [...] But the costs come back to other
consumers, with Ofgem reckoning the average householder to be
subsidising the favoured few by £70 per year."
In fact, Ofgem's estimate for 2012 the
cost of the FITS policy is less than £1 per year on the average
household electricity bill.
4. UKIP's alternative
So, what's UKIP's alternative? It says it will ignore the "black
propaganda from the green lobby, which seems to be opposed to just
about every viable energy technology", and promote an energy mix of
coal, gas and nuclear technology.
UKIP's arguments in favour of reinvigorating the UK's coal
industry are particularly noteworthy. First, while it "strongly
supports a clean environment and clean air" it says it's not
concerned about emissions from burning coal:
"We do not...regard CO2 as a pollutant.
It is a natural trace gas in the atmosphere which is essential to
plant growth and life on earth. Higher CO2 levels increase
agricultural crop yields and 'green' the planet. Man- made
CO2 emissions amount to only around 3% of the natural carbon
Some studies show that it is possible to increase
the growth of some plants with extra carbon dioxide, under
controlled conditions inside greenhouses. But when scientists have
experimented with real outdoor conditions, the outcome
is less promising, with average yields around 50 per cent lower
than the greenhouse experiments. Many factors affect plant growth,
like temperature, water and nutrient availability, pests and
diseases - all of which may be affected by climate change, which
means the claim that carbon dioxide will enhance growth is a huge
As to the three per cent claim, given the volume carbon dioxide
already in the atmosphere, an extra three per cent is still a
considerable increase in the total abundance. Adding more
greenhouse gases and aerosols alter the Earth's energy balance, so
even a relatively small change will make a big difference to the
global climate. The IPCC's
AR4 report says:
"Changing the atmospheric abundance or
properties of these gases and particles can lead to a warming or
cooling of the climate system."
And since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has altered
that balance in favour of warming.
"...the UK still has substantial coal
reserves - enough for 200 years, on some estimates."
Enough to revive UK coal mining, then? Not according to UK
Coal: it says only about 20 years' worth of coal remain from
known reserves in the UK.
Keeping the lights on
These highlights are just a few of the claims UKIP makes about the
climate and energy. But while UKIP certainly provides a lot of
references, we're not sure this document counts as evidence-based | <urn:uuid:8cdfe46c-a92c-4b5c-b73e-526589dae320> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/11/keeping-the-lights-on-ukips-energy-policy-evidence-base | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910726 | 1,585 | 2.53125 | 3 |
MODESTO -- Jim Stevens of Turlock plans to tune in Sunday night to a Ken Burns film that speaks to his experiences.
"The Dust Bowl" on PBS recounts how drought and the Depression forced people from the Plains to the San Joaquin Valley and other points West.
Burns, the nation's premier documentarian, has turned his attention to a story many valley residents know well.
"We all came out here just looking for work," said Stevens, who left north Texas at age 3 and toiled with his family on valley farms as a boy. "My dad was always looking for the end of the rainbow, moving here and moving there."
Part 1, airing Sunday on Channels 6 and 9, tells of the drought that gripped the Plains, from Texas to the Dakotas, and the dust storms that mostly happened in and near Oklahoma.
Part 2 on Monday night follows people who headed West, mainly on Route 66, with the hope of finding work.
The Bee told the tale in a four-day series of articles and videos in 2008. Soon afterward, a researcher for Burns contacted the paper in search of Dust Bowl survivors to interview.
None of them was included in the film, but there's still a local angle. Four relatives of Modesto physician Bob Forester are among the 26 people whose interviews made the final cut.
They include his father, Bob Forester Sr. of Napa, who was 8 when his family left Oklahoma for Oakland in 1936.
Recalling the cataclysm
He recalled Thursday how the wind scraped up the parched soil on farms that had produced grain for decades, including one especially bad storm known as Black Sunday.
"The breathing is the hardest thing," he said. "When we had the dust storms, my mom would have us cover our faces with wet cloths so we could breathe through them and keep some of the dust from going in our lungs."
Burns' team also interviewed two aunts and an uncle of Dr. Forester, who live in Nevada and Oregon. Members of the extended family traveled to Oklahoma in April for the first screening of clips from "The Dust Bowl."
Burns has spent more than 25 years making films about iconic topics in U.S. history the Civil War, World War II, baseball, jazz, Prohibition and more. Some of the films have touched on places close to the north valley, such as the Mother Lode in a series called "The West" and Yosemite in a series on the national parks.
"The Dust Bowl" hits home. An estimated 70,000 people in the 1930s came from the Plains to the valley, which had started the decade with a population of about 540,000.
It was one of the major forces shaping the region, along with the migrations from Mexico, Europe, Asia and other parts of the United States.
The people from the Plains ran into hostility from some valley residents, who were struggling themselves in the Depression.
"There were a lot of people who looked down on us," said Stevens, who went on to own Latif's Restaurant in Turlock. "We were the Okies. It didn't bother me too much, but it certainly bothered my parents and grandparents."
Other residents offered a welcome, including the sizable number of people who had moved here from the Plains in the more prosperous 1910s and 1920s.
The newcomers gained a footing through work and the help of friends, family and New Deal programs. World War II brought new opportunities in the military and at defense plants.
Stevens was a boy when he set up a shoeshine stand in San Francisco, where his father had gone for the war effort. The values forged in the Dust Bowl had stayed strong.
"It sure made us determined to be hard workers and to try to succeed and have something for our immediate families," Stevens said. "It was a very different time. We didn't have anything, and we appreciated everything."
By the 1950s, the migrants had put down roots and made an impact on valley life. They started businesses, practiced their faith and enjoyed country music and other pastimes.
But the region remained a place of poverty for many, notably the people from Mexico who worked the fields.
Today, the Modesto area has yet to recover from the housing market collapse that started in 2006 and contributed to the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s.
Dr. Forester moved to Stanislaus County in 1985 to take part in a medical residency program. In 2004, he and Dr. Richard Heck founded St. Luke's Family Practice, which cares for poor patients via donations from those who are more well-off.
"I think the Dust Bowl experience of my family taught me a lot about hard work, thrift and self-sufficiency," he said. "It instilled a sincere respect for, and a desire to help, those who are down on their luck."
Bee staff writer John Holland can be reached at email@example.com or (209) 578-2385. | <urn:uuid:9f2e8a5e-3dca-4ac1-af2e-deeb29a25498> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.modbee.com/2012/11/16/2459494/dust-bowl-film-tells-tale-of-forces.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982093 | 1,044 | 2.28125 | 2 |
› Violating red signals inevitably leads to accidents involving vehicles and/or pedestrians. Please make sure to stop at a red signal to avoid legal action.
› Sudden lane change increases the chances of accidents. Please make sure to use indicators while changing lanes.
› Not wearing your seatbelt is a major factor to the injuries sustained to the driver and passengers in an accident. Please make sure to wear a searbelt to improve your chances of surviving a crash.
› Maintaining safe distance between your car and other cars on the road allows better control reaction during sudden braking, thus reducing collision. Please make sure a distance of one car is maintained between vehicles.
› Driving while tired, sleepy, or intoxicated can lead to serious accidents. Please make sure to avoid driving while in this condition or to use the public transport system.
› Using your mobile phone while driving is aserious safety hazard and could cause fatal accidents. Please make sure you use your handsfree/ headset while driving.
› Speeding is the leading cause of accident involving serious injury and fatality. Please make sure to stay within the legal speed limit. | <urn:uuid:ce17d852-8a60-4349-8390-cd1330ac4c99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saaed.ae/en/remember.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940159 | 236 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Food Allergies: Do They Cause or Worsen Autism?
Defeat Autism Now / Katie Berry is my new hero. She’s a funny, crafty, talented military mom who happened to be the parent of an autistic child.
After attending a recent “Autism and ADHD” lecture by Thauna Abrin, ND, at Baby Awareness, an eco-friendly family store and resource center, she shared some of her experiences.
The gist of Abrin’s lecture was as follows: Modern-day, Western diets–diets devoid of B vitamins, trace minerals and the essential fatty acids found in leafy greens, whole grains and nuts/seeds–have effectively incapacitated the gut and shut down the liver. This dysfunctional “leaky gut” leaves our body starving for the nutrients it needs to properly function. The liver, meanwhile, can’t properly process environmental toxins, so our body turns into a cesspool of sorts, she adds.
Thus, mindless eating has led some to mistake food sensitivities and gastrointestinal disorders for behavioral problems that are often treated with heavy doses of medicines ranging from stimulants to anti-depressants.
After Abrin’s lecture, Berry recounted nights of terror as her then-2-year-old son experienced a “meltdown,” with unexplained crying spells and vomiting. Her days were filled with anxiety over her son’s high-pitched screams and tantrums. Her life was spiraling out of control.
After months of denial about the seriousness of the problem, Berry began pounding the pathways of various military medical offices, desperately seeking help for her son. She fired doctors, walked out of day-care centers and refused the recommended medication-based treatments.
“It was just me, my husband and celebrity mom Jenny McCarthy,” Berry laughed.
In addition to the standard occupational, speech and behavioral therapy, Berry decided that her family needed a total diet overhaul and she began practicing the wholistic DAN (Defeat Autism Now) treatment made nationally famous by McCarthy.
Mixing the Feingold and GFCF (gluten-free, casein free) diets, Berry’s family also stopped eating processed foods and artificial food additives. “It was hard…but within two weeks, the crying stopped. He started to sleep, and I felt sane for the first time.”
DAN, or the biomedical approach to autism, examines “how [gastrointestinal] disorders, detoxification and other metabolic issues, and nutrition, impact a child’s sense of self, behavior, attention, speech and general health and wellbeing,” according to Abrin.
The strategy primarily involves testing for toxins and food sensitivities, taking supplements and making dietary changes.
Mainstream treatments for autism focus on behavioral, occupational and speech therapies, but some say diet is overlooked.
“There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that a gluten-free, dairy-free diet is helpful, but there is not, to my knowledge, any scientific evidence to back up the personal stories,” cautions Kristine Cuthrell, MS, a registered dietician and former president of the local Hawaii Dietician’s Association.
Indeed, many MDs tend to disregard the biomedical approach because DAN therapies lack the evidence-based studies that use double-blind, placebo-controlled experiments to soundly demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of specific products or treatments.
For Abrin, its not worth the wait. “If we waited for these studies to come out for every therapy we use, we’d be missing the opportunity to help kids who could significantly benefit,” she points out.
While the biomedical approach to autism is marginalized by anecdotal stories like Berry’s, one must ask: Why are we so attached to our industrial diets that we are willfully ignoring their possible tragic behavioral side effects?
Although most parents of autistic children are not autism experts, the growing number of stories similar to Berry’s and Abrin’s resonate with many people.
We are surrounded by food– cheap, seemingly healthy, low-fat, no-carb food–and yet we don’t know what healthy foods to eat. Despite the proliferation of scientifically backed, American Heart Association-supported, FDA-approved products and diets, every year we’re getting fatter and sicker–with heart disease, diabetes and high cholesterol levels.
“People don’t see the gut/brain connection,” muses Berry. “They might acknowledge having a sugar rush, or being drunk from the beer in their belly, but if you suggest that processed food contributes to autism symptoms, suddenly there is no relation.”
Practicing the Feingold or GFCF diets is no walk in the park. Parties and school lunches suddenly become battlegrounds. On top of it being difficult to prepare these foods on a daily basis, the tests and treatments are expensive (many lack any insurance coverage), and they take time to show results.
“People are looking for a quick fix, a magic pill,” explains Abrin. “A biomedical breakthrough generally takes around a year and a half. That can cost close to $10,000.”
For Berry, the money, time and effort were worth it.
“I just needed hope…and the stories of moms who had success through diet gave me that hope.”
Today, Berry’s son is a quirky, happy, healthy 7 year old. Their story, like so many others in the autism community, powerfully demonstrates the important role that our diets play in maintaining overall health and well being, as well as the need for all of us to think about what we are putting into our own mouths and the mouths of our kids.
“It’s OK to report on personal experience but very important to state that the scientific research has not yet been done to support the claims,” says Cuthrell. “Checking sources like Medline or PubMed for studies, or looking at Tufts Nutrition Newsletter or CSPI’s Nutrition Action Newsletter are good for solid nutrition information.” | <urn:uuid:c0b890b5-3e6f-469f-97e7-63f30f69c3ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://honoluluweekly.com/feature/2010/12/food-allergies-do-they-cause-or-worsen-autism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948527 | 1,300 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Good morning. Today is the 48th day of the year. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle for Feb. 17, 1902, reported on a huge snowstorm that tied up the Downtown Brooklyn business district the day before with “mountains of snow.” By noon, Fulton Street, Montague Street and Flatbush Avenue were clear, thanks to hundreds of volunteer snow shovelers. As for rapid transit, most of the elevated lines operated without too much trouble, but only about 60 percent of the streetcar lines were able to run by noontime. “The Brighton Beach line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit company was one huge joke,” one sentence read—in those days, the Brighton Beach line ran at street level.
The article also reported that “the Eastern District [Williamsburg and Bushwick] was completely snowed over, and Coney Island and Brighton Beach were completely cut off.”
Well-known people who were born today include Hall of Fame football player Jim Brown, Brooklyn-born Hall of Fame basketball player Michael Jordan, socialite Paris Hilton and actor Hal Holbrook. | <urn:uuid:a5c295a7-057e-4eb6-bc4c-1aabcd43eefd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/brooklyn-today-feb-17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977984 | 228 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Question: How are sinus infections treated?
Answer: Treatment of sinus infections is a step-wise approach. First, a simple home remedy. Saltwater irrigations work for many patients who have symptoms of sinusitis, particularly that thick mucus drainage that leads to nasal congestion.
If you just take a simple bulb syringe and fill it with a glass of warm saltwater. You can make that saltwater by just taking an 8 oz glass of warm water; adding a teaspoon of salt, just so it's slightly salty to taste -- the exact amount of salt is not critical; fill up the bulb syringe -- again this bulb syringe is similar to what you would use to clean an infant's nose; lean over the sink; put the tip of the syringe into the nostril and squeeze gently. The saltwater will run up into the nose and sinuses and run right back out the same nostril and carry with it the bacteria particles, allergy particles, and mucus that's leading to the infection and the swelling inside then nose and sinuses.
Repeat the same irrigation on the other side of the nose. If you do that twice a day, you'll find that it may help tremendously with your sinusitis symptoms. I say to my patients do it after you brush your teeth each day. You brush, and then you flush.
Previous: How Are Sinus Infections Diagnosed? | <urn:uuid:609f71a5-b775-4247-94a6-c085228d6960> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AllergiesSeasonal/story?id=4520574 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928649 | 289 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Area and Hole Orientation
Organized by area and hole, the software lets you define and control your irrigation system in the same way that you think about your golf course.
Irrigate by minutes or inches
Control your irrigation by setting runtime minutes or application inches and let the system calculate the other. See exactly how much water you will apply and how long you will irrigate each area.
Dynamic Drill Down
Intuitive user interface tool that guides you to where you need to go. Follow the water drop indication in the Watering Plan to find stations, holes or entire areas that are disabled, on hold or otherwise not programmed to irrigate. Quickly find any stations in the Course Report that did not operate as intended.
Provides a daily summary of how your irrigation system performed. Captures both scheduled and manual irrigation events conducted at the central computer, from the handheld radio, or at the satellite faceplate. | <urn:uuid:ca11a41d-9d97-40bc-a032-dc4c25877575> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toro.com/en-gb/sports-fields-grounds/irrigation/central-control-systems/Pages/Model.aspx?pid=lynx-central-control | 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 | 0.92995 | 187 | 1.695313 | 2 |
“These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy ... in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left." (John Phillip Sousa, testifying before the US Congress 1906).
Lars Graugaard's and Hans Tammen's INFERNAL MACHINES are characterized by vicious beats, rapid-fire juxtapositions of radically contrastive noises, quiet pulses and bizarre timbres. They explore sonic spaces through codes for algorithmic rendering of basic artistic ideas, contrasting them with noises created from mechanical preparations of a conventional guitar, morphing them into a maze of infinite complexity.
When performing laptop music Lars Graugaard often uses the alias Lars from Mars. Releases under this alias have been released on the online netlabel Pueblo Nuevo. This music is characterized by an often very strong grounding in rhythms, combined with at times quite abstract sound-worlds. http://l--l.dk/
Hans Tammen creates sounds that have been described as an alien world of bizarre textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic operations – through means of his “Endangered Guitar” and interactive software programming. Signal To Noise called his works “…a killer tour de force of post-everything guitar damage”
$8 Students and Seniors | <urn:uuid:1880e06e-4f29-4075-be6b-79cc4d2d4aed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artfacts.net/en/exhibition/lars-graugaard-and-hans-tammen-infernal-machines-355661/overview.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941339 | 312 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Woodside School gears up for kindergarten registration Schools & Kids, posted by Editor, The Almanac Online, on Feb 5, 2013 at 2:32 pm
Parents whose children are eligible to attend kindergarten or transitional kindergarten next fall at Woodside Elementary School are invited to attend a informational meeting on Thursday, Feb. 28, at 8:30 a.m.
Read the full story here Web Link posted Monday, February 4, 2013, 4:03 PM
Posted by Tax Payer, a resident of the Atherton: West of Alameda neighborhood, on Feb 5, 2013 at 2:32 pm
Why are there 4 elementary school districts serving Menlo Park, Portola Valley and Woodside with a total of 9 Schools?? There seems to be a bond measure every election year to support the schools, but if these four school districts were reduced to one, eliminate 3 administrations, how much money could be saved? More money is not needed, manage the money you have in a more fiduciary manner and eliminate the unneeded administrative overhead. How much are the administrators paid in each of these districts?
Posted by Sir Topham Hatt, a resident of the Menlo Park: University Heights neighborhood, on Feb 7, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Menlo Park CSD is Basic Aid, I agree, but their overall property values are lower than the other three districts. That, combined with district-specific fundraising and property rental income, gives the other district higher spending per pupil averages than Menlo Park CSD. | <urn:uuid:83795e52-7431-466b-8f20-a673067acf75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.almanacnews.com/square/index.php?i=3&t=8367 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949648 | 310 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Areas of Work
Electrical Engineering Investigation
Our electrical forensic engineers have investigated and given evidence on failures in design, installation and maintenance of electrical equipment, the failure of electrical systems and the causes of personal injury. Investigations have included electrical and electronic systems on aircraft, ships, power stations, distribution sub-stations, chemical plants, factories, farms and private dwellings.
Our extensive library houses Codes of Practice, regulations, standards and articles published in a variety of technical publications. We maintain records of recall notices published by manufacturers, and have established links with academic and electrical test facilities.
Incidents investigated include:
We can undertake screening investigations, where costs are capped, on failed equipment submitted to Burgoynes or on site. Any member of our team would be pleased to discuss with you the most appropriate approach and provide a quotation for a screening investigation. | <urn:uuid:ed5e4694-7e01-4beb-84e4-90b716f52934> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.burgoynes.com/electrical-engineering-investigation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945864 | 172 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Parents are protesting against an educational PC game funded by the Department of Defense.
Currently Albuquerque, New Mexico parents are in an uproar over a PC game designed to teach math to students at Madison Middle School--one of three Albuquerque Public Schools that's using the high-action PC game which is fully-funded by a grant from the Department of Defense.
According to the school's science department head Gary Bodman, the game--DimensionM (multiplayer) from Tabula Digita-- is "something that [is] just like a 21-century flash card," covering math subjects ranging from basic properties to algebra.
Doesn't sound harmful, right? After all, it's backed by the government. It's also not designed to replace the teacher, but rather to reinforce what the students have already learned in class. They get to use jetpacks, shoot a green goo gun (ripped from UT series), and endure plenty of math-charged action that is apparently doing the trick.
But local Albuquerque parents don't see it that way. They're complaining about the game's action-oriented content, and are starting a crusade to get it banned from the schools.
"We are feeding the addiction of these children to video games," said one parent. "They were all excited … because of the violence."
One comment from a student could be a prime example of the parents' concern. "I don't like to leave," the student said. "If I could have a choice to play this night and day, all summer, I would play it every day." On the other hand, the student also said that he had no idea what prime numbers were until he got a chance to play DimensionM.
"What the recall is, is not the prime number they were talking about, but rather getting through to the enemy," the same parent retaliated.
Despite recent protests, DimensionM has been around for many years, played by students all across the nation. There are even large-scale tournaments where students get together and battle it out in the name of math. Starting a crusade against the game may be a little moot at this point.
"Anything we can do to meet the kids on their own grounds and educate them is to our advantage," Bodman added. Interested parents and educators can download a demo that is playable on the Internet. | <urn:uuid:01758204-b9d7-464a-8f4f-083cbd1cdb17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Math-FPS-DimentionM-PC-Game,10625.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980419 | 480 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Maintaining a workout routine can be mostly about having the motivation to get up and get out. Even so, you should also have a plan for what you should watch out for while you're sweating. To get the most of your workout, make sure that you're monitoring these stats while you exercise.
- Heart rate: You should monitor your heart rate so that you are reaching your cardio goals, such as the right level of intensity in your workouts. It also helps to know what your max heart rate is so that you don't continuously overwork yourself — you should normally be working out at 60 to 90 percent of your heart rate unless you are sprinting or otherwise doing interval training. If you don't want to invest in a heart rate monitor, you'll have to do the math to find out your heart rate manually. Just make sure you're using the newer formula for determining your maximum heart rate; the old school "220 minus your age" formula isn't optimized for women. Learn how to calculate your maximum heart rate more accurately.
Read on for more stats you should be monitoring with every workout.
- Calories burned: You may be exercising for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with weight loss, but even so, knowing how much energy you're expending while you exercise helps you get a clear view of how much your routine is affecting your health. And if you are trying to drop some pounds, knowing how much you're burning is probably what you want to know about the most. Invest in a device that tracks how many calories you're burning during a workout, enter accurate information in the machines at the gym, or check resources online that can give you an estimate of how many calories you're burning (for example,here's a chart of how many calories you burn while running).
- Your progress: Remember when you started out your exercise routine? Maybe you wanted to leave halfway through that exercise class, and now you can sweat the whole way through. Or maybe you couldn't run a mile without stopping but now do a daily five without a second thought. It's important to keep track of your progress so you have a concrete idea of just how much more fit you are now. Take time to acknowledge (not to mention celebrate!) your accomplishments by keeping a workout journal or using an iPhone app that tracks your workouts.
Be sure to enter our Get Fit For 2012 giveaways for prizes like running shoes for the year from Asics, a $500 gift card for Under Armour, or a deluxe food processor. All good tools for helping you attain your fitness and health goals for the year! | <urn:uuid:c63af6e8-eaf7-4182-b1d0-e3733dda2614> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fitsugar.com/What-Monitor-During-Workouts-21314069 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964006 | 528 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Karen Mills, founder of Public Art Management, is the public art advisor for Pier 27. Luckily, she was able to give us a sense of how public art is chosen for developments in Toronto. Read her explanation about the process below.
It's no doubt that Toronto excels in the realm of arts and culture. But beyond our museums, galleries, and music scene, Toronto holds one of the most important collections of contemporary "public art" in North America. As private development grows, public art increasingly becomes part of our urban identity.
So, how do we choose our public art? Part of the planning and development approval process requires that the City of Toronto secures certain public benefits from developers. One way that Cityzen does this is by participating in the Percent for Public Art Program.
The first part of the process involves proposing a public art outline with a public art advisor and city planning staff. The plan then undergoes review by an independent art body before reaching City Council for the final analysis. Once approved, the developer and the art advisor implement the plan, so that art and construction move together in harmony.
Pier 27 is seen as a development of international profile and stature, and the public art had to reflect this. This philosophy also mirrors the idea that Toronto is a city made up of people from around the world, giving us a cosmopolitan energy.
Following an invitational competition process with the advice of our art consultant, architect, and a jury of art experts and artists, we selected United Visual Artists (UVA), from London, UK, to devise artwork for Pier 27.
Comprised of young artists, lighting designers, software engineers and creative thinkers, UVA's clients include U2, Kylie Minogue, Massive Attack, Vivienne Westwood and the London 2012 Olympics.
Drawing inspiration from the idea of lenses contained in lighthouses, the signature for Pier 27 will be an elegant sculptural element resting in the landscape just north of the waterfront esplanade, emanating light to signal the development. This iconic work exists as a sophisticated and modern piece of stand-alone sculpture. A second element -- tied to Phase 2 at Pier 27 -- will form a portal near Queens Quay.
The fabrication will take place in Toronto, giving local manufacturers a chance to bring one of Toronto's most significant public artworks to life. Investing in public art will benefit the city, its visitors and the development, and will exemplify Toronto as one of the culture capitals of the world. | <urn:uuid:ca0ebfc5-64df-4696-b9bd-18fcc12a70db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mycondomylife.com/cityzen-developments/2012/04/pier-27-how-do-we-choose-our-public-art.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929214 | 510 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The Laurel College Center, a partnership between Prince George’s Community College and Howard Community College, opened its doors in 2001. In 2004, the LCC was designated a Regional Higher Education Center by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. With the help of federal funding from Congressman Steny Hoyer, the LCC opened a biology laboratory space for nursing and allied health instruction in 2005. In the Spring of 2010, a microbiology lab was added to further instruction in the science areas. This lab was built with the help of a BRAC grant, through the Maryland Higher Education Commission.
The LCC frequently offers information sessions that highlight a variety of college programs and services. Please contact the administrative office at 1-866-228-6110 for information on the next open house. | <urn:uuid:6ea29b8d-db65-45e0-8951-3387c4d8f4b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.laurelcollegecenter.org/Visitors_Community/community.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941077 | 156 | 1.5 | 2 |
|Thulani, 13, sits with his younger brother at a primary school in Entfubeni, Swaziland. He is only now learning how to read and write.|
In the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative and the global conference entitled 'E4 - Engendering Empowerment: Education and Equality' to be held in Dakar, Senegal from 17 to 20 May, UNICEF is featuring a series on girls’ education and gender equality. Here is one of those stories.
By Shantha Bloemen
ENTFUBENI, Swaziland, 14 May 2010 – At sundown, Thulani Gama tells his 10-year-old twin siblings to collect firewood while he grinds corn for their supper. At sunrise, he wakes the twins and tells them to wash. Without breakfast, all three children begin their hour-long walk to school in rural Swaziland.
Thulani, 13, is the head of his small household. He and his siblings Samkelo and Samkelisiw look after one another since, like many parents, their widowed mother left home to look for work in Mbabane, Swaziland’s capital. Thanks to a new programme supported by UNICEF and the Government of Swaziland, Thulani and his siblings are now able to attend school.
Children raising children
Thulani’s father died from an AIDS-related illness in 2000, while his wife was pregnant with twins. After seeing the younger children to their tenth year, Thulani’s mother left the family seeking to find work and send home money. But the combination of low wages as a housekeeper, expensive transport and only a single day off per month means the mother’s visits home are rare.
|Primary school-aged children in Swaziland study with the help of a UNICEF-supported free school programme.|
“Things are bad since my mother left,” said Thulani, sitting in his two-room home decorated with newspaper cut-outs of football and movie stars. Like many young people across the country, he is a child raising other children.
At more than 26 per cent of the adult population, Swaziland has the world’s highest HIV prevalence rate. About 10 per cent of Swazi children under the age of 18 have lost at least one parent to HIV and AIDS. Many thousands of orphans – and children like Thulani, whose parents have left to find work – live in child-headed households. About one out of every five primary school-aged children is not enrolled in primary school.
In the face of this crisis, the Government of Swaziland is aiming to improve access to education for vulnerable children. A 2005 constitutional law requires the first phase of free primary school education, starting with grades one and two. The programme will expand by one grade level each year until 2015, when it will cover all seven grades of primary school.
While the free primary education programme is making headway, officials say that it takes time to implement the initiative.
|Samkelo and sister Samkelisiwe stand outside their home near Entfubeni, Swaziland. The household is run by children since their widowed mother left a year ago to seek work in the capital.|
“We wanted to have time to construct classrooms, put in a structured approach and recruit teachers,” said Israel Simelane, Director of Education in Swaziland’s Ministry of Education and Training.
To achieve these goals, participatory-based learning materials were introduced to complement teacher trainings and ensure quality education. Schools were stocked with books. With financial help from the European Union, the Government also introduced a block grant scheme that provided every primary school $60 per student to cover the costs of maintenance, electricity and water.
In addition, the funding support enables some schools to provide a nutritious lunch each day. At the Entfubeni primary school where Thulani studies, community volunteers serve beans and porridge – the only nutritious meal that Thulani and his siblings eat each day.
“The children all complain about missing their mother,” said Simphiwe Simelane, Thulani’s teacher. “They often come to the classroom with problems that you have to help them solve. Sometimes they are so hungry I have to go fetch food from my house.”
Like Thulani, some students at the school are beyond primary school age. They study in these lower grades because they have never before been able to access education. While it is not easy for older children to sit amongst smaller classmates, said Ms. Simelane, they face a future with few opportunities if they do not learn.
“I am really happy with the free education,” the teacher added. “And I am praying and hoping Thulani continues studying.” | <urn:uuid:5cfed1bf-546b-4097-b9d9-fd3d79efdb84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/swaziland_53646.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964692 | 1,031 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Summer has faded into fall and it’s time for dog lovers — and dogs too — to head to college, where dogs are taking their place in the dorm, the psych lab and even the classroom.
While some dogs simply kick back and enjoy campus life at a university with pet-friendly housing, such as Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., or Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., others give their intellectual muscles a workout by participating in research studies designed to test their ability to think and solve problems.
Dogs are taking their place in collegelevel human studies as well. At several universities, they dominate the syllabi of courses devoted to companion-animal behavior and welfare. Other schools offer entire classes or majors focused on the human-canine connection.
To a dog lover, the appeal of taking a dog to college is obvious, as is the draw of canine-focused study — but what’s in it for the dogs? While it has long been possible to study animal science, wildlife management or food-animal husbandry, formal study of dogs in academia is a relatively new phenomenon. As recently as the 1990s, academic researchers who wanted to focus on Canis lupus familiaris were greeted with raised eyebrows, ridicule or worse. But the nascent fields of anthrozoology — the study of human-animal relationships — and cynology — the study of the domestic dog — are growing quickly in academia.
Applying academic rigor to the study of dogs can increase our understanding of their abilities and deepen our bond with them, ultimately resulting in improving their treatment by society as a whole. These goals spurred the development of the country’s first anthrozoology program and the establishment of a university wholly devoted to the study of dogs. Both of these pioneering efforts are part of a growing collection of canine-focused educational options.
When Anne Perkins was head of the psychology department at Carroll College in Helena, Mont., she was dissatisfied with existing animal-focused study options, which were basically limited to animal science and zoology. “These programs were not addressing why we love our animals so much,” she says. Perkins spent a 2005 sabbatical designing a new program, anthrozoology, which would “study the value of animals from an academic, scholarly perspective.” The new program was first offered as a minor at Carroll in 2007.
“I bit it off in pieces,” she says, adding one class at a time. The students wanted more; the minor grew into a major, and Carroll offered the nation’s first bachelor of arts in anthrozoology in 2011. The bachelor’s degree “embedded the study [of the animal-human bond] in traditional fields,” where research is peer-reviewed and published in scholarly journals, Perkins says.
Carroll College anthrozoology students focus on either horses or dogs. Students in the canine track examine theories of domestication and attachment. They study puppy development, socialization and learning, and they practice assessing temperament. Seniors raise puppies, preparing them for a broad range of doggie careers, including scent work, assistance and acting.
Like Perkins, Bonita Bergin, founder and president of Bergin University of Canine Studies (BUCS), argues that academic study is essential to improving the status and treatment of dogs. As BUCS graduates leave the Rohnert Park, Calif., campus to teach or run businesses that model ethical humancanine relationships, “we hope to enrich the understanding of the relationship that has inspired and fulfilled so many,” Bergin says. “We also hope to help eradicate the horror of euthanasia of unwanted dogs.” Offering post-secondary study wasn’t enough for Bergin; she also wanted the respect of academic peers. Tenacious as a terrier, Bergin spent three years pursuing her vision: the world’s first accredited university focusing on our canine pals and partners. Why? “I believed the dog deserved it,” she says simply.
Undergraduate and graduate students at BUCS explore the influence of genetics and heredity on dogs’ behavior and temperament. They also analyze the growing body of published research on dogs, and are encouraged to contribute original research of their own. But it’s not all books and theory. Puppies and service-dogs-in-training fill the campus with hands-on opportunities. The associate degree program, in particular, emphasizes dog training and socialization; starting the day students help out with the whelping process.
Bergin has revolutionized earlypuppy education. BUCS students begin “formally” training puppies as soon as the puppies open their eyes at about four weeks of age. The astonishing result is that most puppies respond eagerly and accurately to more than a dozen verbal cues by the time they are eight weeks old.
On the opposite side of the country, dog-loving students at SUNY Cobleskill choose among a half-dozen dog-focused electives in the animal science department. “[The courses] are designed to give students a solid understanding of the important factors involved in producing good working dogs and the behavioral basis of popular training techniques, emphasizing positive, reward-based approaches,” says Stephen Mackenzie, professor of animal science at the university. According to Mackenzie, a canine management major is in the works. Dogloving students “can work dogs almost every semester they are here,” he adds, training dogs for anything from offleash obedience and agility to tracking, trailing, air scenting and detector work “under the guidance of someone with good academic credentials.”
At some universities, dog scholars have to search for dog-related material buried like treasured bones among more traditional offerings. The psychology department at the University of Michigan, for example, offers “Dog Cognition, Behavior and Welfare,” a popular course taught by Camille Ward. The class, described as “for people who love dogs and want to learn about them from many different avenues,” has a long waiting list. Also in the psychology department, Dr. Barbara Smuts teaches “Behavior of Wolves & Dogs”; she also offers students the opportunity to participate in research projects on dogs’ social behavior.
At Barnard College , in New York City, Dr. Alexandra Horowitz (author of Inside of a Dog) teaches a psychology class on canine cognition. At Eckerd College, a course on animal learning and training includes considerable material on dogs, says its instructor, Lauren Highfill. The Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., offers companion-animal welfare and management courses that primarily focus on dogs and cats. Graduate students can head to Tufts University for a master’s program in animals in public policy that includes study of companion animals, or to Harvard, where psychology grad students can take a seminar called “Puzzles of the Mind: Humans, Animals, Robots.”
At Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., dogs figure prominently in undergraduate coursework on the social organization of animals, animal learning and applied animal behavior. And the college’s master of anthrozoology coursework includes a popular class on companion animals in society. A dog-human relationships expert was recently hired, and Canisius plans to expand its dog-centered offerings, says Michael Noonan, professor of animal behavior, ecology and conservation.
We’ve come far since 17th-century philosopher René Descartes asserted that animals lacked the ability to feel pain, yet cruel treatment of dogs is still far too common. Canisius prepares animal-behavior graduates to eradicate that cruelty and to “make the world a better place in the way we interact with animals” by providing a “strong, science- based education balanced with critical thinking and ethics,” Noonan says. “From the science, we see that they [animals] are more like us than was thought in the past.” Therefore, “most ethics that apply to us apply to them — animals are sentient beings whose concerns matter.”
Some schools recognize the importance of the human-animal bond by allowing pets in selected on-campus housing units — about a dozen colleges nationwide have at least one pet-friendly dorm. Other schools conduct research studies that aim to improve understanding of dogs’ abilities and view of the world. Indeed, new evidence of dogs’ intelligence, creativity and ability to understand and communicate their concerns is uncovered daily at cognition labs, where dogs take center stage.
New York City dogs can join cognition studies in Horowitz’s lab at Barnard where anthropomorphic beliefs about dogs are tested with an emphasis on “getting the dog’s perspective,” rather than a more traditional behavior-focused approach, said researcher and Bark contributing editor Julie Hecht . Current studies examine dogs’ understanding of the concept of “fairness” and the way they use their noses in daily life. “We’re trying to better understand the dog’s perspective, but we are, of course, limited by our human perspective,” and sometimes the hardest part is separating the two, she said.
Southern dogs have a choice of schools: Duke University (Durham, N.C.), the University of Florida (Gainesville), the University of Kentucky and Eckerd College all recruit local canine “students” for their research. Current studies examine whether dogs can count, how dogs form trusting relationships with humans, dogs’ interpretation of human social gestures, and canine imitation and social learning.
The studies might sound esoteric, but they can lead to real changes in the way people regard and teach dogs: Watching four-week-old puppies learn to sit, lie down and solve problems banishes forever any idea that training must involve force. Discovering that dogs can use pictures to indicate their preferences compels scientists to reexamine human-centered ideas that tie thinking to spoken language. And seeing how dogs’ behavior changes when they know that human “observers” are distracted hints at their ability to strategize.
The more we learn about dogs’ abilities, the greater the potential for true partnerships based on mutual respect rather than compulsion, says Bergin. “This is crucial in transitioning the dog from a backyard animal we see as disposable to recognizing the key role dogs play in the evolution and continued development of humans.”
Illustration Tim Carpenter | <urn:uuid:a612bc47-8c18-4e1b-b31c-d1d408144f00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thebark.com/print/5120?page=show | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951293 | 2,184 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Examples of this type of blackmail are rampant in the seven years of bad experience that Pakistan has had with the U.S. in Afghanistan.
By Ahmed Quraishi
Wednesday, 15 April 2009.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—We knew there will be consequences. But not this fast. Pakistan stood firm as it received Mr. Holbrooke and Adm. Mullen last week. The payback, it appears, came in swift succession: Balochistan erupted in violence, and America’s B-team – Britain and India – chipped in to unsettled Pakistan’s weak rulers: Britain suddenly discovered a “very big” terrorist plot involving two dozen Pakistani students, and India claimed the Afghan Taliban were planning to sabotage Indian elections.
We in Pakistan have been seeing this pattern over the past seven years of our Afghan occupation alliance with Washington that we can now detect it with a naked eye. As always, the usual suspects are putting Pakistan on the defensive on issues on which they can furnish no evidence.
Washington can offer no evidence that OBL is in Balochistan [more on Balochistan in a moment]. The Brits can offer no evidence linking Pakistani students to what a British policeman described as a “very big” terrorist plot. Since there is no evidence, Britain has decided to arbitrarily deport the kids because British courts won’t be convinced and the plot theory won’t stick. And there is no way that Indian Premier Manmohan Singh’s election campaign firecracker about a Taliban attack on India can be verified or proven.
What is definite, however, is that the dramatic British and Indian claims came on the heels of Mr. Holbrooke’s bumpy visit to Pakistan and served no purpose – in the absence of evidence – except to increase pressure on Pakistan. Islamabad has asked London and New Delhi for evidence. In case adequate proof is not furnished, Prime Minister Gilani’s government should not hesitate in asking Washington to restrain itself and its regional watchdogs from deliberate demonization campaigns against Pakistan that arise every time someone here tries to show some spine. Examples of this type of blackmail are rampant in the seven years of bad experience that Pakistan has had with the U.S. in Afghanistan.
Balochistan is an example of this blackmail, a Pakistani province that is in the throes of a terrorist insurgency, remote-controlled from Afghanistan. The ugly murder of three Pakistani Baloch political activists and then the immediate reaction by the U.S. embassy, which appeared to complicate an already explosive situation, are intriguing to say the least.
Two Indian assets: Brahamdagh Bugti & Balaach Marri. Marri
died in an ambush in 2007 while crossing from Afghanistan to
Pakistan after meeting his sponsors there.
John Solecki, an American citizen and U.N. official, was kidnapped by terrorists trained and financed by Brahamdagh Bugti who was last sighted in Kabul. Indian ‘diplomats’ in the Afghan capital are some of his most frequent visitors. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad knows very well about Mr. Bugti’s activities. So do senior U.S. officials since Pakistan did share startling information with them on this subject. Mr. Bugti, a Pakistani citizen, enjoys Indian and Afghan safe houses provided by elements in the Karzai government in return for helping recruit young Pakistanis to wage war against their own country exploiting legitimate grievances. The three murdered activists were in contact with all parties including Pakistani security officials during the effort to secure the American’s release. Pakistani intelligence agencies do not gain anything from kidnapping the three, killing them and then throwing the bodies in full public view. If anything, the murder of the three activists was designed to create forward motion for the terrorist insurgency and put the Pakistani government in the dock. Contrary to the anti-state propaganda that seeks to exploit this incident, information suggests that the three activists became privy to a lot of information about the captors and their chain of links outside Pakistan. The contacts that developed between the three activists and Pakistani security officials during the negotiations apparently unnerved the shadowy captors. Multiple parties benefited from the murder of the three politicians and our security agencies are the least of these beneficiaries.
This is why the calls by some opportunists for a U.N. investigation are malicious to say the least. And equally reprehensible is the statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad on Apr. 9 that appeared to provoke the inflamed sentiments and pour fuel on fire. For Islamabad to allow such naked displays of challenge to its authority sends a message of weakness and invites more outside interference.
This whole regional dynamic can be traced to a core issue: Pakistan’s right to decide its national interest. For the United States to mislead Pakistan after 9/11 and turn the Afghan soil over to anti-Pakistan players in the region is not what we signed up for. It is preposterous for Washington to unleash a media campaign that portrays Pakistan and its intelligence operatives as supporters of extremism. National institutions are not purveyors of any ideology. They simply protect the nation’s interest using multiple tools. Imagine us in Pakistan launching a media campaign to expose how the CIA funded and armed Nicaragua’s rightwing Contra rebels in advanced terrorism tactics in the 1980s. Or how the U.S. proxy, the Unita rebels in Angola, planted landmines whose victims’ count today begins at 15,000 amputees.
The only way forward is for Washington to mind its Pakistani ally’s interests as it consolidates its own position in the region. Pakistan will not submit to Indian regional hegemony simply because that suits U.S. interests in this point in time. | <urn:uuid:1e505a3c-3657-4fab-ae25-0c21a932df82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953536 | 1,185 | 1.570313 | 2 |
A lot of the fighting in Iraq isn't military, it's mental. The Department of Defense has flooded Iraqi with uniformed (both active duty and reserve) and civilian brainiacs, and told them to find the problems and come up with solutions. Most people don't think of the armed forces as an organization with a lot of really smart people. But since World War II, and particularly since the post-Vietnam reforms, the military has gone out of its way to fill its officer ranks with PhDs and people who can, well, really, really brain storm situations. The results of this peculiar organizational quirk are not always evident. But in Iraq it has brought the military quickly face to face with some key problems, and solutions. One of the most vexing problems is the ill effects on Iraqi thinking from four decades of living under a police state. The immediate response was to try and re-educate Iraqis to the benefits of personal responsibility and using initiative. That had some success, but newly hired police and government officials were still prone to looking over their shoulders to see what the, now absent, guy from the secret police was doing. Several solutions to this problem are being tried. One of the more promising is bringing in civil and military experts with experience in the reintegration of East and West Germany during the 1990s. This process had East Germans exhibiting some of the same bad habits as Iraqis now demonstrate. What was absent in Germany, however, is the presence of the former Iraqi secret police, working with foreign terrorists, to re-establish the dictatorship using terrorist attacks on police and government officials. Unfortunately, one of the lessons learned from the 1990s German experience (and the post World War II one as well) is that the people best equipped (mentally and in terms of experience) to fight Saddam's secret police and al Qaeda are former secret policemen. While many of Saddam's secret police were basically thugs and sadists, some were there because they wanted to be cops and Saddam's security forces were the only game in town. The coalition has been dancing around this issue for some time, as a few of the former Saddam super-cops were put on the job and turned things around where they were. But the more of these guys you put to work, the more likely one would go rogue and do something that would eventually make headlines during a presidential election year. What to do? The brainiacs say that it's worth the risk. The Iraqi police and security commanders need examples of Iraqis like themselves who can get things done, who will not be scared off by the terrorist attacks. If one of the recycled Saddam police hot shots goes bad and gets caught, it's easier to do damage control on that then to let the terrorists and Saddam's followers get the upper hand.
Meanwhile, Polish troops arrested a group of 9 terrorists on February 24th, 2004. The operation took place near the city of Kerbala (100 kilometers south-west from Baghdad). The nationality of the terrorists was not announced. Six of the nine men were on the wanted list provided by coalition forces. The soldiers seized a large arsenal of weapons (machine guns, RPGs, munition, explosives) as well as GPS devices, drugs/narcotics and communication equipment (including satellite-phones.) Actually during the operation, one of those arrested used his satellite phone to receive a call coming an unnamed Western country. The raid was conducted at dawn and was based on the information given by the local population. Bulgarian soldiers took part on the operation. American Air Force provided air cover. The terrorist were totally surprised. Not a single shot was fired.
It is said that the arrested men might be connected to the recent bomb attack which occurred on 18th February. During that attack. 1500 pounds of explosives were detonated at the gate of a Polish logistic base in Al-Hilla (near Kerballa). Two cars were involved in the attack. The first one was supposed to destroy the blocking barriers. The second was probably planned to explode within the compound. This plan was prevented by the guards. Both terrorists (drivers) were killed by Mongolian guards who fired their weapons from a distance of 70 meters. Before dying the driver was able to detonate the car bomb. Ten Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast, while 12 Polish, 1 American and 1 Hungarian soldier were wounded. After the attack there was talk in the Iraqi community that the explosion was caused by an American rocket. Polish forces organized a large media conference for Iraqi journalists in order to provide the evidence of the terrorist attack and calm the tensions.
There are 2.300 Polish soldiers in the Polish zone. Polish replacement units are arriving in Iraq, some of these are elite parachute battalions and "Grom" ("Thunder") commandoes (who are the Polish equivalent to the British SAS and the American Delta Force). Grom has worked with British and American commandoes sever times since the 1990s and are highly respected. Poland has been a member of NATO since 1999 Poland is a member of NATO and Polish armed forces have served in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. --Tomasz Nowak | <urn:uuid:87cdb329-df06-43ae-a447-13ed51ee10a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20040225.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987405 | 1,042 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A Changing Understanding of Religious Education
“What is Christian Religious Education?” It has been almost 30 years since this question was first posed to me in one my first courses at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. Dr. Charles Melchert, the professor teaching the course Theory of Education in Religion, posed the question to his students on the first day of class. We wrote an initial response at the beginning of the course.
Christian Education is educating people about Christianity. I view this type of education to be done within a church as it is the responsibility of the church to teach people about God, and Christ, and their relationship to us.”
For our final exam, we evaluated our initial response in light of what we learned after studying renowned religious education theorists. My assessment of my initial response, “Yuck!” By the end of the semester, I penned a revised definition:
Christian religious education is a joining together of people in a community of faith to share experiences of faith and life, and to help and challenge one another in ways that nurture our relationships with God and Christ.
I, and many of my classmates, wrestled with perceived dichotomy in religious education that engages the soul toward embracing faith in Jesus Christ, and religious education that indoctrinates the person in a proper understanding about God and an informed life of faith. This is the difference between “educating about Christianity… about God and Christ,” and “share experiences… that nurture our relationships with God and Christ.”
Each of us, in a Christian institution, understood religious education as a means to teach the Christian faith, rather than teaching another religious tradition. Yet we struggled to articulate a balance between teaching methods that served to open a person’s soul to the work of God in their lives, and tapping educational models that taught concrete knowledge of Scripture, doctrine, and Christian practices.
In reading the new insights coming from Dr. John Roberto’s work in Faith Formation 2020, I’m struck that the wrestling we did over Dr. Melchert’s question was so … 20th Century! The Sunday School movement of the 19th Century, with its Sunday morning classrooms of gathered children soaking up the wisdom of caring and respected teachers, expanded in the 20th Century to include the broader context of Christian education for the whole faith community. As we move into the second decade of the 21st Century, churches are bumping up against new realities and expanded resources, calling us to develop new models of faith formation.
21st Century Changes
The 21st Century presents Christian educators and pastors with new challenges and opportunities to support faith formation efforts in congregations. The mere mention of the digital revolution calls church leaders to broaden the scope and methods used for nurturing the faith of people in our churches. Increased use of 21st century technologies allows individuals to access a mind-boggling array of information, opinion, and connection — instantly.
In this digital era, researchers are finding a generational shift between people under 40 years of age, and those who are over 40 (roughly). Among the younger generations, there is a decline in levels of faith practice and less family socialization in church communities. Face-to-face communication is being supplanted by social networks and electronic mail. Groups form on the internet, gathering people from across the country around common interests and ideology. New patterns of daily life are forming and, often, the church is not part of these emerging patterns.
Alongside generational shifts, researchers are documenting a reality witnessed by many of us who know and love the church: there are varying levels of commitment to faith communities and faith practices, and the church is struggling to address these variances. Roberto lays out four broad scenarios which describe various ways people approach faith and faith commitment (Ecumenical Study, 2009).
- Scenario 1, Faith and Active Engagement: People of all ages and generations are actively engaged in a Christian church, are spiritually committed, and growing in their faith.
- Scenario 2, Spiritual but Not Religious: People are spiritually hungry and searching for God and the spiritual life, but most likely not affiliated with organized religion and an established Christian tradition.
- Scenario 3, Unaffiliated and Uninterested: People experience little need for God and the spiritual life, and are not affiliated with organized religion and established Christian churches.
- Scenario 4, Participating but Uncommitted: People attend worship and church activities occasionally, but are not actively engaged in their church community or spiritually committed.
For the most part, church leaders meet people from Scenarios 1 and 4 in our congregations, and our efforts to support faith formation are designed to address these two groups. As more and more people opt into Scenarios 2 and 3, the church struggles to make meaningful connections with them. The numbers of people who walk away from the church, or who have never darkened the doors of our churches, is increasing in the 21st century.
Faith Formation for Everyone
In his article “Faith Formation for Everyone, Anytime, Anywhere” (Lifelong Faith, Summer 2011) Roberto poses the question: “What would faith formation look like if we developed it using 21st century technologies?” (p.3) God places in front of us a great abundance in modern technology. Yet, the church is barely scratching the surface in tapping what can be mined from this resource to present new models for faith formation. Digital technologies are also ripe for enabling connections with people outside the church’s fold.
Roberto challenges church leaders to use technology to open up traditional models and resources for Christian religious education. He urges us to shift from the use of “one-size fits all curricula and programming to personalized and customized faith formation using digital applications” (“Envisioning the Future” Roberto). His vision of expanded models of faith formation in the 21st Century includes developing networks to engage the inner work of the soul, the mind’s encounter with religious doctrine, and the person’s experiential means of faith formation into a full package targeted to the needs of the individual learner. This includes the individual church member who seeks to deepen their faith (Scenario 1), as the individual seeking spiritual (but not religious) connections (Scenario 2).
A Network Approach to Faith Formation
As society is increasingly networked via social media and the ever-present access to technology, lifelong faith formation can be built upon inter-connected networks which address the spiritual needs, religious growth, and communal connections of individuals through a wide variety of religious content and experiences. Learners use well-chosen websites to interface with religious content. Leaders promote faith forming experiences in physical settings both at church and in homes, and through virtual connections such as social media sites, chat rooms, and video learning programs. Each of these settings represents a separate link in a network.
The faith formation network can best be described as a wheel with a number of spokes. At the center of the wheel is an individual’s faith formation endeavor. Each spoke connects the individual with a different piece of the network. One spoke may connect the person to corporate worship. Another may be a small group Bible study using Web-based curricula. Another spoke may be a daily prayer web site that sends prayer reminders to his or her email inbox. Still another may be a church-sponsored volunteer opportunity for tutoring ESL students in an after-school reading program. Each of these elements nurture the faith of one individual, tapping service and study opportunities, community gatherings, individual spiritual support, and using both virtual and in-person connections.
The faith forming activities described in the above example aren’t too different from the activities and programs currently available in many churches. The key difference with Roberto’s model is an intentional development of lifelong faith formation networks across generations, and across his Scenarios, using both in-person (physical) and virtual settings for learning, serving, and worshipping. Faith formation networks blend historic, traditional, and future elements of religious education for members of a faith community to develop and deepen a living relationship with God, in Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit.
A Difficult, Yet Not So Difficult, Transition
As noted, some of the faith formation examples are not much different from what already is done in many congregations. Yet one of the biggest stumbling blocks in a transition toward a new model is that it seems like such a big change.
Transition begins with a mindset change. The transition toward lifelong faith formation encompasses the life-cycle of persons, it’s a comprehensive approach to a life of faith. Transition in the 21st century includes both digital and in-person connections and content; the Web is a resource. Christian education is no longer limited to purchasing curricula, recruiting and training teachers, and offering confirmation classes. Emerging congregations don’t have to replicate a 19th Century Sunday School model. Faith formation is recognized as a lifelong, life-enhancing process that happens at church, at home, on the internet, in worship, and beyond the walls of the church. This transition calls church leaders to orient their minds to broader ways to connect people with religious content, with Christian community, with personal spiritual growth.
“Imagine the life of your congregation in 2020 if faith formation addresses the spiritual and religious needs of all ages and generations in each scenario.” (Faith Formation 2020) Roberto’s model of Lifelong Faith Formation Networks does not negate what I learned about religious education in Dr. Melchert’s class. Rather, it builds upon and expands Christian religious education to thrive amidst emerging scenarios in our modern society.
Ecumenical Study of Lifelong Faith Formation, Final Report to the Louisville Institute.
Submitted by the Center for Ministry Development, March, 2009.
Roberto, John, “Faith Formation for Everyone, Anytime, Anywhere”—A Lifelong Faith Formation Network for the 21st Century, Lifelong Faith, Volume 5.2, Summer 2011. Pages 3 – 20. lifelongfaith.com/uploads/5/1/6/4/5164069/lifelong_faith_journal_5.2.pdf
Roberto, John, Faith Formation 2020. Naugatuck, CT: Lifelong Faith Associates. 2010. faithformation2020.net/ff-2020-book.html
For a complete description of Roberto’s thesis, and recommended approaches to developing Lifelong Faith Formation Networks, see lifelongfaith.com | <urn:uuid:c970b6ad-734f-435f-9443-1f835b21886f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecclesio.com/2012/10/a-model-for-21st-century-faith-formation-by-beth-herrinton-hodge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932523 | 2,166 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Weight loss boils down to a simple formula: burn more calories than you take in. There is no magic pill. Results come from hard work and consistency.
The full body nature of rowing makes it a huge calorie burner: in a few minutes a day, you’ll burn more calories on the indoor rower than you would on a machine that doesn’t engage as many muscle groups. If you have a lot of weight to lose, the seated nature of rowing takes the pressure off your joints while providing a superior workout. Our indoor rowers accommodate up to 500 pounds, making it versatile for many body sizes, and your workout intensity is always in your control.
Review our Technique Videos to learn the proper rowing stroke. Learn how to get comfortable on the indoor rower, and which stretches and breathing techniques are helpful for rowing. Educate yourself about the damper setting, starting off between 3 and 5 until your fitness improves. Work with a nutritionist, or read up on healthy eating, and keep track of what you consume each day so you know exactly how many calories you’ve taken in. Learn how to view calorie output on the Performance Monitor, and then use our Calorie Calculator to determine the calorie burn for your weight. Sign up for a free online logbook and enter your meters. On days when you need a boost, review your log to see how far you’ve come, connect with other rowers through the forum, or check out the many online challenges available to you.
Becoming overweight doesn’t happen overnight; neither does becoming fit. Be patient with yourself and work to make good choices every day. Before you know it, you’ll have reached your weight loss goals.
If you’re new to exercise or are resuming after a long break, start with the following workouts in the order presented. Take a rest day every few days.
- Workout 1: Row very easily for 5 minutes at a stroke rate of 24–28. Get off the indoor rower and stretch or walk for 5 minutes. Complete another 5 minutes of easy rowing. End with 5 minutes of walking or stretching.
- Workout 2: Row easily for 5 minutes. Do five minutes of stretching off the indoor rower. Row easily for 10 minutes. End with 5 minutes of walking or stretching.
- Workout 3: Row easily for 5 minutes, then do 5 minutes of walking or stretching. (This will become your standard warm-up.) Complete 5 minutes of easy rowing, doing one Power 10 (a 10 stroke burst at higher intensity) per minute.
- Workout 4: Do your standard warm-up. Then, row 5 minutes at a moderate pace, followed by 5 minutes of Power 10s each minute, followed by 5 minutes easy rowing. Finish with another 5 minutes of Power 10s each minute, then row easily for 5 minutes to cool down.
- Workout 5: After your standard warm-up, do 10 minutes of steady rowing while gradually increasing the intensity. For the next 10 minutes, alternate 1 minute of easy rowing with 1 minute harder rowing.
- Workout 6: After your standard warm-up, row steadily for 20 minutes at a comfortable pace. Do a Power 10 every 500 meters. Cool down with 5 minutes easy rowing.
- Workout 7: After your standard warm-up, row for 10 minutes, alternating 40 seconds of harder rowing with 20 seconds of easier rowing. Row steadily for 5 minutes, then repeat the 40/20 alternation for 5 minutes. Finish with 5 minutes easy rowing.
- Workout 8: After your standard warm-up, do 3 rounds of 5 minutes easy rowing followed by 5 minutes of hard rowing. Finish with another 5 minutes of easy rowing.
- Workout 9: After your standard warm-up, row for 30 minutes and make note of how many meters you complete. As your fitness improves, repeat this workout to gauge your progress.
Workouts for Weight Loss
When rowing for weight loss, workout consistency and duration are key. For maximum results, strive to complete 30–50 minutes of rowing five to six times per week. Aim for a comfortable intensity of moderate, steady work where you can still carry on a conversation. Add intervals for variety. Good workouts for weight loss include:
- 5000–7000 meters
- 10,000 meters
- 30 minutes
- 20 minutes (or more) alternating 1 minute of hard rowing with 1 minute of easy rowing.
- Two to three moderate 10 minute pieces with 2 minutes easy rowing in between.
Remember to warm up before and record your meters following each workout.
Rowing for longer distances requires mental fortitude as well as strength. Here are some ideas to keep you focused and motivated:
- Add variety. Mix up the length of your workouts to give yourself something to look forward to.
- Take breaks. Feel free to stand up and stretch in between sessions.
- Try new workouts. Be creative in challenging yourself! Row during each commercial break one night in front of the TV or try something different like the Fish Game. Use our Workout of the Day for some fresh workout ideas.
- Change the display. Rotate through different displays in the Performance Monitor to give yourself a new perspective.
- Make a goal. Record your meters to see your progress. | <urn:uuid:17d6ff12-b6de-4a62-ac71-fe8ab155ab45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/rowing-for-specific-goals/weight-loss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909178 | 1,118 | 1.914063 | 2 |
You know what cavemen and cavewomen never said.
“Honey, I have had a few too many organically grown vegetables and fruits and that deer that has bounced around the woods eating grass for years that we ate for the last few days certainly is making my butt look fat. I need to lose a few pounds. I am going to start eating 250 calories for the next few weeks and I should be good.”
(Take assumptions and caveman quotes with a grain of salt)
Surprisingly, this was not a way of life until the abundance of the second half of the 20th century showed up alongside fast food and cookie dough ice cream.
Dieting Versus Diet
There was a time when the word “dieting” was nonexistent. Long before “dieting” came this word “diet”. The two are extremely different and often confused for one another in a negative connotation. Let’s clear it up once and for all.
Dieting is the effort towards limiting intake of food or types of foods with the desired result to be to lose weight over a specified period of time.
A diet is the food and types of food one consumes on a regular basis for their entire life.
Not clear enough. Let me help.
When I was asked to be in a wedding for a couple friends a few years back, the bride-to-be asked me the one question I hate to hear the most. “How should I lose weight for the wedding?”
That’s a big red flag people.
I started to explain what she would need to do to which she nodded that nod people give when they are absolutely not going to take your advice. You know that nod.
After a few of the nods, I stopped and said, “You shouldn’t just be doing this for the wedding. This is a way of life.”
There was that hesitant laughter followed by us going back to enjoying dinner and drinks that weren’t helping her cause much.
A few weeks later, her husband-to-be started laughing out of the blue when we were having a conversation with his bride. He told me that she had asked a friend of theirs, who was a personal trainer, for the same advice and HE REPEATED THE EXACT SAME THINGS I SAID.
The entire issue boiled around the perception and choice of dieting versus a diet.
See, a diet is a way of life. My diet consists of A, B, & C. Now, A could be orange chicken, B could be pasta and C could be pancakes. Despite not being the healthiest, these three choices create a diet. What I was trying to get the bride-to-be to realize is that she needed to work on her diet. Not for 9 months until the honeymoon, but for her life. Dieting should have been off the table before she could say, “Happy Hour!” She needed to address A, B, & C (and the rest of her primary nutritional sources) within her diet. She needed to change the orange chicken, pasta, and pancakes to healthier choices for the long haul and not a few months.
Dieting takes into consideration an end date. 1 month. 6 months. 1 year. A diet has no end date that you set. It ends when you end, if you get my drift.
What do you choose? What have you chosen in the past?
Do you choose the lifetime choice or the end-date choice?
Like all of the self-reflecting questions here, only you can truly know the honest answer.
How You Can Change Your Diet(ing) Predicament
It took me a long time to realize the difference between dieting and diet. My family isn’t the healthiest of individuals and one of my closest family members has been a serial dieter their entire life. To this day, most of my family still doesn’t understand or accept the difference despite my endless educational attempts.
However, you can choose to be different than the growing numbers of yo-yo dieters. The following are my suggested action steps to changing your diet(ing) predicament.
1 – Over the last 6 months, have you been dieting or have you been on a regular diet? Answer honestly. No one will really ever no, but yourself. If you are of the dieting variety, proceed to #2. If you are of the regular diet variety, proceed to #3.
2 – Ask yourself the following questions: Has dieting brought about the results I wanted when I started and do I feel good? Answer those, before continuing. I said…answer them. Okay. That was somewhat of a trick. Why you ask? Because, often, people who are dieting are not able to answer yes to both of those questions. They often answer yes to one or no to both, but rarely yes to both when dieting. You need to be able to say, “Yes,” to both.
3 – Grab a pen and paper and write this down. Go ahead. Go get the pen and paper. We’ll wait. Once you have both, write down one physical activity you want to be doing or capable of doing at the age of 80 (Yes, you can include sex as your activity you horny beasts). Prior to 90% of the time you are sticking food or drink in your mouth, I want you to ask yourself, “Will this allow me to do (fill in activity from above) when I am 80 years young? Your answer should help you decide, each time, whether to continue gorging on popcorn chicken or grabbing an apple.
4 – Write down a diet list consisting of 20 natural foods that you could see yourself eating for the rest of your life. Key word being ‘natural’. I love orange chicken and I damn well will be eating it sometime in the future, but my diet does not consist of orange chicken on a regular basis. It is a cheat meal. 90% of what I eat can be narrowed down to a list of 20 or so things that I eat over and over and over. This list contains lots and lots of fruits, veggies, and meat. Why? Because they taste good and they provide the necessary nutrition to get the results I want.
That’s about it. If you are struggling grasping this concept, feel free to start at #1 and work through the questions again. If you are still having issues understanding the concept, we need to have a little talk.
Dieting could have been a great thing. It could have been something that normally healthy people did to shed 1-2 unnecessary pounds over a day or two. Unfortunately, it has become a way of life rather than a temporary option. Be the start of the reversal of such choice. Stop dieting today.
photo credit: Lord Jim via photopin cc | <urn:uuid:72d8115a-03a2-463d-9e5f-988f2a7a57b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://becomeabeast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-dieting-stop-dieting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97089 | 1,448 | 1.757813 | 2 |
North American Network Operators Group|
Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical
Re: DNS Anycast as traffic optimizer?
> > This isn't really 'anycast' so much as 'different A records depending on > > server which was asked' right. > Well, there'd be one NS record returned for the zone in question. That > NS record would be an IP address that is anycasted from all the > datacenters. So end users (or their DNS servers) would all query the > same IP address as the NS for that zone, but would end up at different > datacenters depending on the whims of the anycasted BGP space. that's generic dns anycast. it's safe if your routing team is very strong. > Once they reached a name server, then yes, it changes to 'different A > records depending on server which was asked' that's incoherent dns. when i first began castigating people in public for this, i coined the term "stupid dns tricks" to describe this behaviour. cisco now has products that will do this for you. many web hosting companies offer this incoherence as though it were some kind of feature. akamai at one time depended on it, speedera at one time did not, i don't know what's happening currently, perhaps they've flipflopped. dns is not a redirection service, and incoherence is bad. when you make a query you're asking for a mapping of <name,class,type,time> to an rrset. offering back a different rrset based on criteria like source ip address, bgp path length, ping rtt, or the phase of the moon, is a protocol violation, and you shouldn't do it. the only way to make this not be a protocol violation is to use zero TTL's to prohibit caching/reuse, which is also bad but for a different reason. > > I suspect you'd really also introduce some major troubleshooting > > headaches with this setup, not just for you, but for your users as > > well. > > I don't doubt that. :-) not only is it bad dns, it's bad web service. the fact that a current routing table gives a client's query to a particular anycasted DNS server does not mean that the web services mirror co-located with that DNS server is the one that would give you the best performance. for one thing, the client's dns forwarding/caching resolver might have a different position in the connectivity graph than the web client. for another thing, as-path length doesn't tell you anything about current congestion or bandwidth -- BGP is not IGRP (and thank goodness!). if you want a web client to get its web data from the best possible web services host/mirror out of a distributed cluster, then you will have to do something a hell of a lot smarter than incoherent dns. there are open source packages to help you do this. they involve sending back an HTTP redirect to clients who would be best served by some other member of the distributed mirror cluster. -- Paul Vixie | <urn:uuid:ad02b481-1c9b-4d89-b0b8-6bf6435a5160> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nanog.org/mailinglist/mailarchives/old_archive/2004-09/msg00030.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964994 | 660 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Mr. V was one of my first primary care patients. He arrived at my outpatient clinic with a complex array of medical problems, having recently been discharged from the hospital following a massive heart attack and still undergoing treatment for cancer. An elderly gentleman who had spent much of his life abroad without medical care, he was thrust abruptly into the American health care system filled with doctors’ visits, tests, and treatments. As if his medical history wasn’t overwhelming enough, Mr. V spoke no English — like many patients under my care.
Over the next few months, he came to see me frequently, always with a medical interpreter who translated while I examined, explained, and prescribed. Waiting for her to repeat everything that Mr. V or I had said was cumbersome at times, but the interpreter’s presence was invaluable. When I changed a dose or suggested a new treatment option, Mr. V would smile and nod, seemingly in agreement. I felt that we had established a rapport.
But the language barrier, I came to learn, presented a serious challenge to building a relationship with him. When various test results repeatedly came back different from what I expected, I began to suspect that Mr. V wasn’t doing what we had discussed, which given his health problems worried me deeply. Some of his prescriptions were absolutely vital — without them, he could have another heart attack, a stroke, or die from a fatal heart rhythm. So I asked him to come back for another visit.
This time, I asked Mr. V point blank whether he was taking his medications as prescribed. Guarded at first, he eventually admitted that he often took “medication holidays” to give his body time to rest. Through the interpreter, I tried to convey the grave consequences that his decision might pose. My words were being translated literally, but looking at his face, I couldn’t quite tell if he fully grasped my warnings about his blood pressure, laboratory results, and medications.
Studies have shown that patients who do not speak English generally fare worse in our health care system. They are often diagnosed with more advanced disease, have difficulty taking medications as prescribed, and spend more time in the hospital. Medical interpreters are essential in bridging this gap, lending meaning to our interactions with non-English-speaking patients. Yet sometimes the barrier between patient and provider is greater than language alone, one that no interpreter, regardless of how skilled or compassionate he or she may be, can surmount.
For Mr. V that barrier stemmed from a cultural belief, instilled in him at a young age, that medications poison the body. He associated feelings of illness or fatigue with his prescriptions, attributing his symptoms to the very medications upon which his life depended. How could I, as his doctor, overcome such deeply embedded perceptions in a 20-minute office visit while communicating through a medical interpreter?
As physicians, we are advised not to allow our patients’ friends or family members to act as translators. In addition to lacking the linguistic capability to translate complex medical terms, they may let their emotions, personal beliefs, or biases get in the way. But sometimes, these individuals can help us bridge underlying cultural divides with non-English-speaking patients and provide essential context that professional medical interpreters alone cannot.
While working in the emergency room last year, I met an elderly Indian woman who spoke only Hindi and was rushed to the hospital by her family after a bad fall. Communicating through a hospital interpreter as I examined her, she insisted that her pain was minimal. Afterward, her adult son took me aside and explained that his mother would never reveal how much her leg was actually hurting — out of concern for unnecessarily causing her family to worry. Upon reexamining the patient with the interpreter, I gently advised that she take some pain medicine. Eventually she relented, visibly relieved to be released from her quiet suffering.
Last year, a middle-age Middle Eastern woman who spoke very little English came to see me for a routine pelvic exam. She had already rescheduled our appointment twice, and I was growing concerned. This woman felt deeply uncomfortable about having a stranger in the examination room, even though the clinic’s female interpreter would remain behind a privacy curtain the entire time. Eventually, the patient told me that she was willing to undergo the exam with the interpreter present as long as I let her sister, who spoke English, sit behind the curtain as well; I decided to let her do so, and the exam went smoothly.
As our health care system adapts to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse society, we must recognize that gaps in understanding — driven by language and culture — often leave patients and providers feeling that something is lost in translation. Professionalizing functions like interpretation is necessary if we are to provide care for a growing non-English-speaking population. But we should take a holistic approach to treating such patients, engaging with their families and friends who may serve as essential links in bridging such divides.
A few months ago, Mr. V began complaining that he was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, likely because he wasn’t taking his medications. Concerned that this might lead to another hospital admission — or worse — I called his daughter, who lives out of state, and encouraged her to come with him for our next appointment. She agreed to do so. Although the interpreter was present, Mr. V’s daughter often interjected, talking to both her father and myself, switching back and forth from English to their native language. I could tell that Mr. V was engaged. Rather than smile and nod politely, he leaned forward and asked questions. I learned that several of his family members had had negative interactions with the health care system in his native country, leaving him with tremendous distrust for medications and tests. After deliberating with his daughter, he finally agreed to start taking at least some of his vital medications regularly. I now know that he didn’t agree with everything I was conveying through the interpreter, but a deeper transformation in his understanding — and our relationship — had begun, thanks to context his daughter had provided. | <urn:uuid:c78a7ae3-a613-4631-9214-fdb2090a830f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2012/11/19/reflections-from-residency-language-can-barrier-between-doctor-and-patient/Qd0D2AOquheBHd60Xob3xK/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986466 | 1,251 | 1.820313 | 2 |
is a city in Caldwell County
, United States
. It is the county seat
of Caldwell County
. The city of Lockhart is named after Byrd Lockhart, an assistant surveyor and reportedly the first Anglo to set foot in Caldwell County. Byrd Lockhart is survived by James H. Lockhart and his family, who currently reside in Dallas
. Lockhart was the site of a victory of the Texans over the Comanche
, at the Battle of Plum Creek
in 1840. The Texas Legislature
proclaimed Lockhart as The Barbecue Capital of Texas
. Lockhart has four major barbecue
restaurants: Black's Barbecue
, Smitty's Market
, Kreuz Barbecue
, and Chisholm Trail Barbecue
. The local style of barbecue cooking does not use barbecue sauce
. The 1996 Christopher Guest
comedy film Waiting for Guffman
was filmed partly in Lockhart, including the historic courthouse square. Lockhart's Dr. Eugene Clark Library
is the oldest operating public library in Texas.
Lockhart is located at (29.881870, -97.676040). Located near central Texas
, Lockhart is 25 miles southeast of Austin
on Hwy 183.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 11.3 square miles (29.2 km²), of which, 11.2 square miles (29.1 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (0.18%) is water.
As of the census
of 2000, there were 11,615 people, 3,627 households, and 2,691 families residing in the city. The population density
was 1,032.7 people per square mile (398.6/km²). There were 3,871 housing units at an average density of 344.2/sq mi (132.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 65.42% White
, 12.68% African American
, 0.67% Native American
, 0.34% Asian
, 0.06% Pacific Islander
, 18.00% from other races
, and 2.82% from two or more races. Hispanic
of any race were 47.41% of the population.
There were 3,627 households out of which 38.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.0% were married couples living together, 16.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.8% were non-families. 21.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.81 and the average family size was 3.28.
In the city the population was spread out with 26.5% under the age of 18, 9.2% from 18 to 24, 32.1% from 25 to 44, 18.9% from 45 to 64, and 13.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 93.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $35,763, and the median income for a family was $41,111. Males had a median income of $29,329 versus $20,923 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,621. About 12.2% of families and 14.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.8% of those under age 18 and 18.1% of those age 65 or over.
Lockhart is served by the Lockhart Independent School District
Significant Historic Buildings
Dr. Eugene Clark Library
Caldwell County Courthouse
Caldwell County Jail
Famous People from Lockhart
Country music recording artist Justin Trevino
was raised in Lockhart. | <urn:uuid:a90ea387-33c0-4107-ad87-f0e0de3f5fc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reference.com/browse/Lockhart%2C+TX | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972626 | 850 | 2.171875 | 2 |
March 03, 2004
I have a sign-in sheet next to a box of folders for each subject. The kids initial the completed assignment on the sign-in sheet and put their assignment in the appropriate folder. I highlight any assignments that aren't signed off to let them know and to help them take care of it. On Fridays, I send home a fluorescent envelope with letters to the parents of students missing assignments. Parents sign the letters and return the envelopes. I call them if the envelopes don't come back to me. This system really helps students show responsibility and keeps parents knowledgeable of missed work. | <urn:uuid:5363248a-3eab-4910-b987-ac21bc12cfc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nea.org/tools/tips/The-Fluorescent-Envelope.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972706 | 123 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Thyroid Disease, Osteoporosis, and Calcium
A very interesting patient came into my office last month. She was a fair, slender woman of Northern European background. In her mid 40's, she had already broken several bones (two of her wrist and one of her leg). Her primary doctor was appropriately concerned and had her evaluated with a bone density scan, which showed significant osteoporosis. Although she was slight and Caucasian (both risk factors for osteoporosis), there was no significant family history of fractures of which she was aware.
While the initial referral of this patient was for management of her bone disease, we started talking about her general health. She complained of extreme fatigue, unintentional weight loss, and a sense of heat intolerance. Her bowels were often loose and she had trouble sleeping. She was taking thyroid hormone replacement medication because she had had her thyroid removed years ago for a goiter. Because of an awareness of the association between excessive thyroid hormone and osteoporosis, I checked this patient's thyroid function. As I suspected, she was hyperthyroid due to taking an excessive amount of thyroid medication.
Thyroid disease falls into 2 major functional categories; conditions that produce too little thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) and conditions that produce too much thyroid hormone (hyperthyroidism). In general, excessive replacement of thyroid hormone in medications can also result in signs and symptoms of hyperthyroidism. One of the problems that occurs when the thyroid is too active, or when too much thyroid hormone medication is given, is bone loss from osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is the thinning of bone mass (decrease in bone density), which leads to fragile bones that can break more easily. There are a number of contributing factors for osteoporosis, including heredity, the amount of peak bone mass acquired during youth, and factors that contribute to an increased breakdown of bone and/or a decrease in the formation of new bone. Hyperthyroidism is associated with an increased excretion of calcium and phosphorous in the urine and stool, which results in a loss of bone mineral. This loss is documented by the measurement of bone density (densitometry) and leads to an increased risk of broken bones (fractures). If the hyperthyroidism is treated early, bone loss can be minimized. In the same manner, excessive amounts of thyroid hormone replacement medication can also result in bone loss.
In addition to osteoporosis, hyperthyroidism can cause blood calcium levels to rise (hypercalcemia) by as much as 25%. Occasionally, this may be severe enough to cause stomach upset, excessive urination, and impaired kidney function.
What do you need to know?
If you are on thyroid replacement medication, it is important to have your thyroid blood levels checked regularly to ensure that the appropriate amount of medication is taken. If you have a history of hyperthyroidism and are concerned that you may have osteoporosis, discuss the role of a bone density scan with your doctor. The level of calcium in the blood can easily be determined through a routine blood test.
If you have osteoporosis, there are many medications on the market that help to prevent further bone loss and can actually help to rebuild bone mass. Your doctor can guide you through the choices available. The main thing to remember is that prevention is the ideal course of action to fight osteoporosis. Weight-bearing exercises, a good diet, and calcium intake of about 1500 mg a day go a long way in helping your bones, regardless of whether you have or have had hyperthyroidism.
Last Editorial Review: 12/7/2006
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:de4486fc-73e1-4e7e-9f8c-adf8f1eec52c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=18637 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960797 | 776 | 2.875 | 3 |
UNITED NATIONS (USA Today) - The United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday 138-9 with 41 abstentions to grant Palestine non-member state status.
The vote does not settle outstanding issues with Israel or change anything on the ground, say experts.
"We are here for a final serious attempt to achieve peace," Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told General Assembly delegates before the vote. "Not to end the negotiation process... rather to breath new life into the negotiation process."
Vuk Jeremic, president of the General Assembly acknowledged the historical nature of the vote and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders "to work for peace, negotiate in good faith and succeed."
Israelis say the Palestinian appeal for non-member state status will make peace less likely. Currently the Palestinian Authority has the status of U.N. observer.
Abbas went forward despite appeals to postpone the request, which the United States says will only make negotiations for a permanent state less likely to happen.
"If the Israeli authorities want to threaten my life, they can," Abbas said according to Palestinian news agency Ma'an. "The whole world realizes that the Palestinian Authority, with all its political and security services, and administrative bodies, has been ready to upgrade its status for six years."
The Israeli government did not threaten Abbas' life, but said said that peace is only achieved through negotiations, and not by unilateral declarations that do not take into consideration Israel security needs.
"Israel's hand is always extended in peace, but a Palestinian state will not be established without recognition of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, without an end-of-conflict declaration, and without true security arrangements that will protect Israel and its citizens," he said Thursday.
Ahead of the vote, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch filed an amendment to a defense bill that would eliminate funding for the United Nations if the General Assembly changes Palestine's status.
"Increasing the Palestinians' role in the United Nations is absolutely the wrong approach, especially in light of recent military developments in the Middle East," he said in a statement. "Israel is one of America's closest allies, and any movement to strengthen one of its fiercest enemies must not be tolerated."
In his speech, Abbas said he"did not come here to de-legitimize a state established years ago, that is Israrel. Rather we are here to affirm a state that must achieve its independence, and that is Palestine."
His bid to seek U.N.recognition was met with "an incessant flood of Israeli threats," he said, including "justification of military assaults and ethnic cleansing,particularly in east Jerusalem."
Israel's occupation "is becoming consistent with an apartheid system" that promotes "racial hatred and incitement," he said. "The window of opportunity is narrowing and time is running out."
Israel and the United States are concerned that the Palestinians are trying to create a state without negotiating a lasting peace with Israel and solving once and for all the issues that have prevented a resolution to the conflict.
Palestinians are "trying to grab statehood without having to compromise with Israel," said David Weinberg, director of public affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a think-tank in Israel.
Rather than leading to a Palestinian state or improving the prospects for negotiations with Israel, the bid will do the opposite, Weinberg said. "It will harden positions on all sides and force Israel to take actions against Abbas' authority that will set any chances of real peace emerging back for years."
Among the issues to be decided are the status of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim for a capital, the details of borders and security, mutual recognition and refugee claims.
Palestinian leaders are pressing ahead, arguing that improving their status at the United Nations will give them better bargaining power against Israel, which they say has been stalling on negotiations while expanding settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a former peace negotiator, said upgrading Palestinian status in the United Nations from observer to non-member state status will "enshrine our right to self-determination and statehood" and "help prevent Israel from destroying the chances for peace."
She said Israel is working against peace by annexing Jerusalem and building a security barrier on land that should belong in a Palestinian state.
The world must move quickly, "unless there are no more chances of peace," she said.
Unlike Abbas' failed attempt at gaining full state recognition in 2011, Thursday's measure does not require Security Council approval or risk a U.S. veto.
Many U.N. countries are likely to agree to the Palestinian request, including France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway, according to Israeli news outlet Ynet News. The United States sees it as the wrong move, according to the State Department.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says U.N. recognition of an independent Palestinian nation won't help Palestinians or Israelis reach a lasting two-state peace agreement. Clinton said the "path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York."
"We're focused on a policy objective on the ground for the Palestinian people, for the people of Israel, which is to end up with two states that can live peacefully next to each other," Nuland said. "Nothing in this action at the U.N. is going to take the Palestinians any closer to that. ... We think it makes other steps that might improve the lives of Palestinians and Israelis harder."
Israel says the U.N. request contradicts agreements with the Palestinians that issues of statehood and sovereignty would be settled through negotiations.
Israel has threatened to withhold tax revenue it collects for the Palestinian Authority, while members of Congress have threatened to cut aid payments to the Palestinian governing body. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said only negotiations with Israel can bring about a Palestinian state.
Three Israeli prime ministers have offered Palestinian negotiators a Palestinian state on 100% of Gaza and more than 90% of the West Bank with additional land swaps from inside Israel to make up the difference.
Weinberg said there's room for compromise, "but Israel's not going to fold under international dictate coming through Palestinian maneuvers in the U.N. where they have an automatic majority."
Many negotiations have taken place since peace talks began with the Oslo accords in 1994 but have not resulted in agreement. Abbas insisted that Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem cease before talks resumed. Israel won't accept such preconditions.
Aaron David Miller, vice president of the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former Middle East peace negotiator for the State Department, said Abbas' bid at the United Nations is "a non-consequential move by a weak player holding very weak cards."
The U.N. status may allow the Palestinians to request charges against Israeli actions in international bodies such as the International Criminal Court. Even if Palestinians bring Israel before U.N. legal bodies, the outcome of such efforts is uncertain because Israel would bring counter charges against the Palestinians, Miller said. | <urn:uuid:add53f64-21d2-4c55-b11f-5d65ae7fa5a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=266112 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954531 | 1,474 | 1.867188 | 2 |
By David Crossland in Bad Arolsen, Germany
Wilhelm Thiem was two years old when an SS man pulled him from his mother's arms. It was in 1942, and she was sent from their home in Lodz, in occupied Poland, to become a forced laborer in Germany. He never saw her again.
Wilhelm spent an unhappy childhood with a reluctant foster mother who brought him to Germany in 1944 and gave him her surname. Since then, Wilhelm has agonized about what became of his mother, who his father was and whether he had any real relatives left. He has spent a lifetime wondering why all this had to happen -- and who he really is.
"I have this abiding memory of being held in the arms of a strange woman and being carried through a stone brick arch," Thiem, 72, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "I've always felt alone, like an outsider. People always demanded to know who I am and where I came from and I just didn't know. It was like I never really had a face. I grew up with a sense that I don't belong in this world. It has dogged me all my life."
But Thiem's life may be about to change. Last month, he received a letter from an organization called the International Tracing Service (ITS) in the town of Bad Arolsen, just 40 kilometers from his home in the central German town of Brilon.
"They told me I have an aunt in Lodz who's still alive and who knew me," Thiem said. "They also sent me my birth certificate and that of my mother. Now I know for sure for the first time when my birthday is. It has overwhelmed me emotionally. My aunt should be able to answer a lot of questions. I feel a new certainty growing me," said Thiem.
Or rather Zbiegniew Kazmierzak, which is his real name.
Families Still Reunited Every Year
The striking aspect about Thiem's case is that it's not that unusual. Even after all these years, the ITS still helps to reunite 30 to 50 families per year. It gets about 1,000 requests per month from people trying to find out what happened to their ancestors in the war. Actual tracing requests involving survivors still account for around 3 percent of enquiries.
The ITS is the world's biggest archive of original documents relating to the Holocaust and the millions of so-called Displaced Persons who were dragged away from their families in World War II to be put in concentration camps or conscripted into forced labor to keep the Nazi war machine going.
In many cases, those looking for family members were children taken away from parents being sent to prison or condemned to forced labor, as happened to Thiem. They feel a need at the end of their lives to find out what happened to their parents and to establish their true identities.
Another typical request comes from families in Russia, the Baltic States, Ukraine or Belarus that were torn apart when relatives who survived the Holocaust were stranded in western Europe at the end of the war. Many of them then opted to emigrate to America or Australia rather than be repatriated to Stalin's Soviet Union, where they would have faced an uncertain future and possible imprisonment for alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany. In the 1990s, the ITS was overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of requests from former forced laborers seeking official confirmation of their status so that they could claim compensation under a new scheme offered by the German government.
The Giant Task of Repatriation
After the war ended in 1945, the Allies faced the monumental task of repatriating an estimated 10 million former forced laborers and concentration camp survivors, and enlisted the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had expertise in tracing via its global network, to help find their families.
A Tracing Bureau had already been set up with the British Red Cross in London in 1943. In 1946, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration took charge of caring for non-German refugees. The sedate little town of Bad Arolsen, home to an SS officer training school, was picked as the base for the ITS because of its central location between the four zones of occupation and because it had come through the war with its infrastructure virtually unscathed, including a line of SS officers' villas along its main street.
Any file that could be found with a name on it -- concentration camp registers, lists of forced laborers, Gestapo secret police records, birth certificates -- was carted to Bad Arolsen to create a database that now contains some 30 million documents on 17.5 million people. It has processed some 12 million requests since its inception.
'Every Day People Were Incinerated'
The papers include a carbon copy of Schindler's List typed by Mieczyslaw Pemper, a Holocaust survivor who had helped compile the famous register of Jewish workers employed by Oskar Schindler, the ethnic German industrialist who saved over 1,100 Jews from being killed by employing them in his companies.
They also include forms filled out by displaced persons after the war in which they were asked to describe their experiences. One wrote: "Every day people were incinerated."
The Red Cross was formally put in charge of the ITS in 1955 because the Allies still didn't trust the young West German republic to control an archive brimming with evidence of the nation's guilt. The directors of the ITS have all been Swiss nationals. At the end of this year, the Red Cross will withdraw from the management, reflecting the gradual transition of the archive from a tracing service to a priceless, untapped source of material for historical research into the Nazi era, the Holocaust, and the immediate aftermath of the war
As the number of survivors dwindles, databases like the ITS will become even more important because of the silent stories they will tell. Millions of personal fates are recorded in those yellowed, brittle documents, punched with cold bureaucratic typescript or scratched in shaky hand-writing by prisoners scared for their lives and stunned by their ordeal.
"I have no great fear that we will forget the Holocaust, you can't forget that, but there is a risk of the banalization of commemoration," Jean-Luc Blondel, the outgoing director of the ITS, told SPIEGEL ONLINE in his office in Bad Arolsen. "I have heard many speeches on the memorial days like January 27 and November 9, they all sound very proper, but I miss the passion and the conviction. One talks about it a lot, but one doesn't think about it. That is why education is such an important part of our work now. We don't confront young people with images of piles of corpses. Our approach is to say, 'what ended in Auschwitz started in your street.'"
Blondel, a Red Cross executive, will be succeeded by Professor Rebecca Boehling, an American expert on the Holocaust and World War II at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. The Red Cross will continue to help the ITS with tracing requests, and Germany's national archive will provide advice on restructuring the database.
The ITS only opened its archive to researchers in 2007 after years of pressure from historians as well as Holocaust survivors in the US and Israel angered at the long time it was taking to obtain information.
The archive had increasingly been seen as hamstrung by its statute, overseen by an international commission of 11 countries, that placed the emphasis on the privacy of the data and restricted access to information to its own staff and to prosecutors in Nazi trials.
Most of the documents have been digitized and the staff of just under 300 is busy deacidifying the decaying paper to stabilize it. Whole files are put in machines resembling large tumble driers that remove the acid corroding the documents. Laminated files are put through a chemical treatment that separates print that has stuck to the plastic and reattaches it to the paper.
It will take years to sort and cross-reference all the information in the database. The archive was devised from the outset to be searchable only by names, because that was its initial task -- to find people. But researchers want to be able to apply different search criteria such as locations or themes. What happened to the Sinti and Roma in Galicia? How were the death marches organized, when hundreds of thousands of prisoners were forced to walk to Germany from concentration camps in the occupied east as the Red Army closed in on the Reich?
At present, getting the information one wants from the ITS still requires a lot of sifting.
Thankfully, German bureaucrats often recorded the ordeals of the victims with chilling thoroughness. "Buchenwald concentration camp diligently updated its registers until April 10, 1945. It was liberated on April 11," said Kathrin Flor, the spokeswoman for ITS. "They would fill out a form on a prisoner's personal belongings even if he had just come on a death march from Auschwitz and only had the rags he was wearing."
There were limits to the record-keeping, however. "With death camps like Sobibor or the extermination part of Auschwitz, the last trace of a life was the transport to the camp. There was no registration after that," said Flor. "And you won't find the word 'gassed.' In the death books of Auschwitz you'll find natural causes of death like pneumonia or heart failure. They were at pains to hide the truth then."
There is also no written record of the approximately one million people shot dead by German troops and SS death squads in mass executions following the invasion of the Soviet Union, said Flor. The German documents are infused with the racism of the Nazi era. Prisoners are categorized with humiliating descriptions such as "protruding ears" or "crooked teeth." The lists compiled by the Allies, by contrast, served to help the refugees and give them back their identity. Obvious though that difference may seem, it is part of Bad Arolsen's legacy. The archive in itself is a piece of history.
Global Web of Memory
Reorganizing the database is one of the tasks of Susanne Urban, the ITS head of research, who joined the archive in 2009 after working in Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Holocaust. She says she expects the archive to reveal a plethora of "mosaic stones" to complete the picture of the genocide rather than alter it.
"Here you keep getting confronted with the global aspect of the Holocaust and survival, you see how it started in Germany, spread across Europe and with the documents about the survivors we see how a web of memory has spread across the whole world. Here you get an overview over everything. What makes it so harrowing is that you don't just get one aspect, you get them all. You sense this monolith that was built of pain and sorrow."
The work may be fascinating, but it can also be exhausting and saddening. Urban has only two research assistants on temporary contracts, which she says isn't enough.
'Tiny Rays of Light'
"You can't work here without empathy but you can't let it overwhelm you. You read some stories for example in files about children and then you go home and you have to go for a run through the fields for a couple of hours. But what I personally find very heartening is that in the midst of all this horror you find tiny rays of light, for example files of people who helped someone else or people recalling how they were hidden as children."
In her work in schools and universities, she uses information from the archive to focus on the fates of individuals such as children who lost their identity by being separated from their parents and taken far away. That, she says, is an effective way to get people to think about the Holocaust and to empathize with the victims.
"After seeing the bureaucratic diligence in these files, we get unprompted responses from many young people like 'Wow, are we lucky we live in freedom.' That is of course a wonderful side effect. Learning not just about history, but from it," says Urban.
She recalls one particularly moving instance in her research on death marches this year. She stumbled on an exhumation report dated October 13, 1949 from a military cemetery in Neunburg, Bavaria stating that a previously unkown corpse had been identified as one Jozef Walkowski.
The Polish prisoner was identified by his prisoner number and by two letters in his pocket, one from his wife Zofia and one addressed to her but never sent. Urban had a name and searched the archive. She found out that he had two children, that he had lived in Poznan and that he had been drafted into a forced labour camp in September 1943 to do backbreaking work building a highway.
She learned that he had been taken to Auschwitz in November 1943 before being deported to Buchenwald in January 1944, where he was registered as suffering from "general physical weakness." He was shot dead in April 1944 during a forced march.
His daughter is still alive. "We have contacted her and were able to tell her where her father is buried," said Urban. "The nice thing is she knows where he lies now and she knows that her parents loved each other. And now she can visit the cemetery and place some flowers on her father's grave."
It's the kind of certainty Wilhelm Thiem, who was taken from his mother when he was a toddler, has craved for all his life. He now plans to travel to Poland to meet his aunt. "She must be very old now, I want to speak to her before she dies," he says.
He knows his mother returned to Poland after the war, married a Frenchman and is then believed to have emigrated to France. "Just imagine, I might have a brother or a sister there! I'd be able to die in peace."
Stay informed with our free news services:
|All news from SPIEGEL International||Twitter | RSS|
|All news from Germany section||RSS|
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2012
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH | <urn:uuid:f24264e0-65ec-4bdf-9ab4-dab19e6a0de6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/holocaust-tracing-service-in-bad-arolsen-still-reunited-survivors-a-869289.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982234 | 2,906 | 2.375 | 2 |
The end of the school year is almost here and a lot of high school students have one thing on their minds- Advanced Placement exams. Compared to 10 years ago, the numbers are staggering of just how many students are now taking AP courses nationwide. Brittany Gunter talked with AP students and teachers in Pitt County to find out why, and just how stressful those AP exams can be.
At J.H. Rose High School some students prepare for the AP exam by playing a review game.
They are just some of the more than 800 students in the Pitt County school system that took an AP class this year and plan to take the exam.
Senior Emily Kragel has taken 14 AP credits in her high school career and her hard work has paid off. She's graduating with a 5.2 GPA and is going to attend Duke in the fall.
"I wanted to take a challenging course load and learn as much as I could in high school." said Kragel. "Colleges definitely look to see that you took the most challenging courses that you could and that you tried your hardest."
Taking AP classes and exams is a pressure many high school students are feeling these days. While many students say the classes pay off in the long run, it can be very stressful.
"I feel like I'm feeling it a lot right now because of AP exams and so many at one time. It's definitely stressful, but once you keep your eye on the ball and know what your goal is then it becomes easier as time goes along," said junior Petrice Blemur.
Kragel and Blemur say they spend 2 to 3 hours a night on homework because of the heavy course work involved with AP courses. The courses are meant to be just like a college class.
"I think it's really important for college-bound students to take AP classes because they do prepare them for college especially for the type of writing, and I think a lot the classes have research components," said AP teacher Ashley Hutchinson.
Nationwide, more than double the amount of students are taking AP courses compared to 10 years ago.
For the last three years in Pitt County, each year more students have taken an AP course.
School Year Number of Students Taking AP Courses
Teachers say there are multiple reasons why enrollment continues to rise.
"Going to college is becoming the norm, so that means that's it's become more competitive and so students want to take those AP classes to boost their GPA,"said Hutchinson.
"If you can take the class and get college credit then is less money that you have to pay at the college level." said AP teacher Jed Smith.
In a tough economic climate trying to save money, or possibly cut out a semester or year of paying for college can be very beneficial. In the end teachers believe this trend is a good thing and it pushes students to better themselves.
"Exposing a student to that level of instruction before they go onto college really opens the doors and prepares them." said Smith.
Students can get college credit for an AP class if they make a certain score on the AP exam. The score needed to get credit varies at universities and colleges. | <urn:uuid:dc6ff633-1307-4480-b3db-6398427a2b30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.witn.com/news/education/headlines/AP_Courses_More_Popular_Help_Advance_Students_College_Careers_151642895.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979322 | 653 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Interested in linking to "Have You Seen This Engineer?"?
You may use the Headline, Deck, Byline and URL of this article on your Web site. To link to this article, select and copy the HTML code below and paste it on your own Web site.
Brain drain is happening all over the world. In Europe and Asia, they lament that their best and brightest are moving to the U.S. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we moan that our engineering and manufacturing jobs are moving overseas.
If you believe half the opinion pieces and editorials floating around, there must be a giant black hole somewhere in the universe that is sucking up all of Earth's brainpower.
Closer to home, the process industries are facing their own version of brain drain; but the engineering talent is not leaving this country, it's going idle or leaving the profession altogether. Process plants are laying off engineers and outsourcing work to service companies. Further, advances in control technologies and related IT and asset management technologies have, over the last several years, boosted individual productivity so much that a few can now do the work of many.
Experienced engineers (read: older), operators and technicians are leaving the ranks at a faster pace, either by retiring early, being retired early, or leaving the industry in search of greener pastures. There's also growing evidence that the process control discipline is not attracting the new engineering talent coming online. Not only are experienced brains draining away from process control, not as much talent is pouring into the pool either.
Process Plant Jobs Draining Away
"Some of our clients have cut deeply into their engineering departments," says Cliff Speedy, controls engineer at C&I Engineering, Louisville, Ky. "A number of the food and beverage plants we work in only have an engineering manager.
A chemical company manager in Tennessee agrees. "We are losing engineers at process plants," he says. "At my company we have fewer engineers. The situation is not dire, but it's not particularly enjoyable either. Fewer engineers are required due to productivity improvements enabled by automation and information technology. It would be nice if the technology made our jobs easier and we were able to keep all the people that were required with lesser technology. However, that is not the case, due to competition. As soon as one company reduces headcount, the rest are pretty much bound to follow."
Downsizing the engineering staff can be detrimental to plant operations. "The impact to the plant is that only what absolutely needs to be done gets done," says an anonymous engineer at a chemical plant in Michigan. "I am one of the last engineers at this manufacturing site who is in a traditional engineering role. There is an extreme focus on cost reduction all the way around."
We've heard this before. Plants no longer shut down for regular maintenance. Instead, they run for years at a time as maintenance problems pile up and the plant runs more and more inefficiently. Studies by Honeywell and Fisher Controls (Emerson Process Management) show that few control engineers have time to tune loops these days. They just let them run, as long as the plant doesn't blow up.To most engineers, none of this makes a bit of sense. Inefficient operations cost millions in excess energy, low-quality product and waste. Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to keep engineers on staff? Not to an accountant.
Part of the problem appears to stem from the fact that engineers and chemists no longer play as important a role in managing and operating process plants. The accountants and lawyers hold sway now, and have less of a professional stake in the work process engineers do.
"The accountants want to reduce the number of employees," says Glenn Givens, PE, at Innovention Industries in Burlington, Ontario. "They measure the value of these employees by their salaries. They cannot measure the relative benefit that each employee provides to the company so they assume that each employee in a given class provides the same benefit and has the same worth. Therefore, the accountants try to retire older, more experienced engineers and technicians and replace them with younger cheaper ones. They cannot measure the cost of the loss of experience."With all due respect to Mr. Givens, there's little hard evidence that there is a campaign against older process engineers. Staff cuts in the U.S. appear to be across the board, with no widespread discrimination. That may also be because of salary compression here in the U.S., where fledgling engineers have starting salaries roughly comparable to that of grizzled veterans.
"My former employer (a paper company) is apparently looking at engineering more and more as a commodity to be bought in the open market," says Tom Burger, owner of Burger Engineering, Camden, AR. "They are only hiring engineers to be production and maintenance managers, not engineers."
Invensys has studied the problem in depth. They commissioned a study of customers and did some market research, mainly because the brain drain affects how they sell systems.
Loss of key individuals and their knowledge is a major concern within the process industry, according to the company's research. "Two major factors contributing to this are downsizing and retirement," says Neil Cooper, director of strategic marketing at Invensys. "In the case of downsizing, senior engineers are being let go in an effort to reduce costs. But is this really effective? The people who keep production processes running smoothly are now gone. This significantly raises the risk of plant outages as well as injuries and environmental issues including the personal liability that plant managers now face under new legislation." What's the cost of an engineer compared to the cost of outages? As Cooper puts it, "If your plant is down for three hours, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars have you lost?"
The problems created by downsizing are compounded by the retirement "bubble," where a significant base of critical knowledge is walking right out the door when senior process engineers retire. "We estimate that 20-30% of what is considered the core knowledge staff within process industries will retire within the next 5-10 years," says Cooper. "This is particularly prevalent in the 'brown field' environment in North America and Europe."
ControlGlobal.com is exclusively dedicated to the global process automation market. We report on developing industry trends, illustrate successful industry applications, and update the basic skills and knowledge base that provide the profession's foundation. | <urn:uuid:cab5363f-b8f1-459e-9df4-684c4171e8a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.controlglobal.com/articles/2004/36.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968935 | 1,311 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Antique Diamond & Natural Pearl Necklace
The answer…diamonds, pearls and gold. The question…what materials comprise a piece of classic jewelry?
Pearls, pearls and more pearls…to be exact, thirty-four (34) in total with thirty-one (31) natural saltwater pearls of the “pincata fucata” species or akoya with no treatment whatsoever are set within the shell motif necklace. The remaining three (3) are sumptuous cultured pearls. Diamonds…thirty five (35) in all with twenty nine (29) old European and old mine cuts, five (5) rose cuts and 1 (one) modern brilliant cut for a estimated total diamond weight of 1.75 carats of sparkling stones.
This pendant of oyster shell motif of 14k yellow gold radiates with nine petals each set with a trio of diamonds (graduated in size) and concluding with a white and lustrous pearl. The ten (10) pearls in the pendant, ranging in size from more than 3 mm to over 5 mm, are well matched and round in shape. The ornate 14k yellow gold chain sports lengths of links interspersed with eight sections of three pearls each; twenty-four (24) in all, these pearls are also well matched in their slightly golden color and 3.5 mm size.
The pendant and chain, circa 1900 is accompanied by a gemological lab certificate for the pearls (see "Measurements & More").
Measurements: Pendant length from top of top diamond in the bale to bottom pearl is 1-1/8 inches (3 cm); width at widest is 1 inch (2.6 cm). Chain is 16 3/4 inches long (40 cm). Weight of 12.3 grams (7.9 dwt) for pendant and chain.
Hallmarks: “585” to clasp; "B"; unidentified hallmark.
Condition: Excellent; one diamond replaced visible with a loupe as it is a modern brilliant cut.
Date & Origin: Circa 1900. Chain is European in origin.
Note 1: Diamonds have not been removed from their mounts to preserve the integrity of the setting. All diamond weights have been approximated by measurement and formula and may vary from actual weights.
Note 2: Gemological Institute of America (GIA) certificate for the pearls.
Forms of Payment
- VISA and MasterCard, Discover and American Express credit & debit cards.
- Personal checks drawn on U.S. banks only - Please allow 7 business days for clearance.
- Money orders, cashier's and traveler's checks - Please allow 7 business days for clearance.
Other Forms of Payment
Bank Wire - For international orders and orders of $5,000 and over. Please contact us for more details.
FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE!
Same day shipping - Order by 1 pm CST!
FREE for All U.S. Orders - Standard 2-3 Day Shipping.
FREE for All International Orders - Standard 2-7 Day Shipping.
Full details at Shipping & Insurance.
Complete Money Back - No Risk Guarantee
If for any reason whatsoever you are not completely satisfied with your purchase, we will refund the FULL purchase price including U.S. shipping if charged. Remember, there is no charge for our regular shipping service!
International Orders - Due to customs and paperwork requirements, return shipping charges cannot be reimbursed.
- Notify us of your intention to return the item within three (3) days of receipt. You may contact us by email or by telephone.
- Please ship back to us within another two (2) days after we receive notification from you.
- As soon as the item is received, a full refund is issued to you that same day.
More details at Full Guarantee including gift giving options. | <urn:uuid:0defa38a-2e01-4403-8cfa-bd9047fad230> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgianjewelry.com/items/show/13227-antique-diamond-natural-pearl-necklace?similar_items_page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903116 | 814 | 1.875 | 2 |
Charlotte Chaney - Dachau
After graduating from Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, in 1943, Charlotte Chaney enlisted as a nurse in the Army. She arrived in France early in 1945, and served in an evacuation hospital with the 3rd Army in Germany.
"I reached Dachau immediately after its liberation. We had no idea about concentration camps before that. You couldn't believe what was going on. We saw the rooms where people were gassed. The survivors were sick and emaciated. Our job was to give them the medical assistance needed to keep them alive. Almost all of the survivors were suffering from TB and malnutrition. We worked around the clock, day and night, trying to get these people out of the Dachau compound. I was there for three months; it was a nightmare, day after day.
We found about eighty women and seven babies. We couldn't give them any food at the beginning. We had to start them on gruel. We put them into clean beds, washed them and tried to delouse them and treat their illnesses.
There were children who looked like they were eighty years old with bloated stomachs from malnutrition. We had hundreds of deaths every day.
All of this had a profound effect on my life later on. As a Jew, as an American, and as a nurse, I have devoted my life to trying to help people. I worked for a number of years at the Mt. Sinai hospital in Miami and later was involved in taking care of children with cystic fibrosis. I am active in Jewish affairs and belong to the Holocaust Center in Miami."
Source: GIs Remember, (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Jewish Military History, 1994). | <urn:uuid:86f11eb2-30ef-46a9-b620-bc98190e8ce0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/GI24.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992046 | 357 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Just what you needed: A cell phone with a remote control. No, really
Got an amazingly huge coat with pockets too far away?
Bluetooth has achieved its dream of being in a remote control, sadly it’s a remote for a mobile phone and not a TV, but surely a step in the right direction.
The keyring-sized LG One Key can be used to find one's Optimus VU2 handset, fire up the camera for self-portraits and even control music playback, though with only one button the control is obviously limited. More importantly, though, it can run for years on a button cell battery and shows how Bluetooth Low Energy can be used for remote controls.
Bluetooth has always wanted to be in a TV remote control, but never made it. Bluetooth chips still cost a lot more than Infrared LEDs (which are astonishingly cheap) and better software has removed the problems of bounce (where a key press is interpreted twice) and working in sunlight which were never very serious anyway, making it impossible to justify the higher cost of Bluetooth which would also chew through the batteries.
The latter problem disappears with Bluetooth Low Energy, part of the Bluetooth 4 specification, and Bluetooth LE chips are turning up in running shoes and wrist watches, but they still can't grab that elusive spot in the ubiquitous TV remote.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is pinning its hopes on active 3D specs. The Bluetooth SIG has been working with TV manufacturers to design a standard specification - so that specs from one TV will work with another, but (more importantly) that will mean actually getting Bluetooth into the TV - which would hugely improve the prospects for a Bluetooth remote control.
But it's not alone in coveting the top of the coffee table - lurking on the sidelines is Ozmo Devices, which has been trying to get Wi-Fi built into computer mice for years , and failing because every computer has Bluetooth these days. But last week Ozmo announced that Roku would be using a Wi-Fi Direct remote to control its Roku Streaming Stick, which sits in the HDMI socket and therefore lacks line-of-sight to the viewer. Lots of TVs have Wi-Fi these days, making Wi-Fi Direct an easier sell.
Bluetooth Low Energy has lower power consumption than Wi-Fi Direct, but the two are competing for the same market, and while LG's One Key is pretty and shows off what CSR's Bluetooth chips can do, it's not the TV remote the SIG is hoping for. ® | <urn:uuid:40ba4508-8f11-4113-8073-d967fd0a09d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/21/bluetooth_remote/print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960645 | 513 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Rocky Barker is the author of Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America. The highly acclaimed book was a finalist for the Western Writers of America's Spur Award in nonfiction.The story has inspired a television movie, Firestorm: Last Stand at Yellowstone on A&E Network starring Scott Foley and Richard Burgi and co-produced by Rocky. His first book,Saving All the Parts, Reconciling Economics and the Endangered Species Act, was published in 1993 also by Island Press. The book was cited for "excellence in achievement," by the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award judges. He co-authored the Flyfisher's Guide to Idaho and the Wingshooter's Guide to Idaho with Ken Retallic.
He is environmental reporter for the Idaho Statesman, where he was a part of a team of reporters chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for their coverage of Senator Larry Craig's arrest. After a trip to China in 2010, Barker has written a series of articles on our shifting relations with China. He also was the primary researcher for an award-winning series of editorials calling for the breaching of four Snake River dams to save salmon. The team was the first winners of the Dolly Connelly Environmental Journalism Award in 1998. The National Wildlife Federation awarded him with its National Conservation Achievement Award in 1999.
Previously, he was columnist and correspondent-at-large for the Idaho Falls (ID) Post Register. He led the newspaper's team of reporters and editors in its examination of the Endangered Species Act and its effects on the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Rockies. The series was a finalist for the Edward J. Meeman award for environmental journalism. The series also won many state and regional awards.
Barker also was the lead reporter for the Post Register's award-winning coverage of the Yellowstone fires in 1988 and its nationally recognized coverage of nuclear waste problems at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The 36-year newsroom veteran has covered environmental issues ranging from mining in Wisconsin, acid rain in Canada, rain forest protection in Hawaii, to fish and wildlife conservation in Russia's Far East and Africa.
The Sandwich, Illinois native holds a bachelor's degree in environmental studies from Northland College in Ashland, WI., which awarded him an alumni award for environmental achievement in 1994. Barker also is a fellow of the Knight School of Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland. He has won four Blethen Awards for journalism excellence from the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association.
Barker has been covering environmental and western issues in Idaho since 1985. Previously he was managing editor of the Rhinelander Daily News in Wisconsin. He is syndicated through the Writers on the Range syndicate and has chapters in three books; Living in the Runaway West (Fulcrum Publishers 2000) The Next West, (Island Press 1997) and Writers on the Range(University of Colorado 1998) on forestry, West, and range issues. Barker built, designed and developed Idahonews.com.
He and his wife Tina have two sons and a daughter. They live in Boise, Idaho. | <urn:uuid:e4dfb2b8-57a4-4246-9b0e-ccb7224bc46e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rockybarker.com/shamless.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967707 | 637 | 2.015625 | 2 |
See for example "Protestantism and Popery " Sermons (1854) I, 307-319. Ruskin's bitterly anti-Catholic mother was greatly troubled by his new attitudes toward religion. After their return from Venice Effie wrote to her mother that "Mrs R goes to such extremes of anti-popery that I am really afraid of her tormenting John into being more with them than he otherwise would.... She says we have been living for a year amongst idolators and infidels and that for that time we have not heard a word of truth. She abuses the Austrians and holds up the Hungarians and Italians by the Hour and if we say anything she says we know nothing but lies. John says he never heard anything like her and that you are nothing to her now she abuses the Jesuits far more than ever you did" (Millais and the Ruskins, 16). Effie wrote not from tolerance but from an equal desire to protect Ruskin from Roman Catholicism and her letters prompted her mother Mrs. Gray to write to her son-in-law to warn him of the dangers of the Papists.
Last modified 2000 | <urn:uuid:e6c9197c-b0a9-4ef9-82da-271cd92fe5c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ruskin/atheories/anticath.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979455 | 235 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Forecasters predict as many as four to eight hurricanes this year. University of Houston resources have expertise in a variety of topics related to storms – before, during and after.
UH Hosts Collaborative Leadership Seminar
Vermillion's presentation is the keynote address for the seminar, which takes place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Jan. 23 at the Rockwell Pavilion on the second floor of the M.D. Anderson Library.
These free, one-day seminars are designed for Houston- area high school students and are a joint effort between UH Air Force and Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) units, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, C.T. Bauer College of Business, College of Technology and the College of Education. Seven additional seminars are planned in the next year.
Lesson topics include leadership fundamentals, characteristics of an effective leader, servant leadership, planning and execution, teamwork and "followership," and lifetime leadership learning. Two case studies are provided including a NASA teambuilding exercise and an event that applies military planning principles to organizing a high school prom.
These are the only leadership seminars in the nation given by ROTC units and their host university. These innovative events directly support the University of Houston's community outreach efforts and goal of attaining top-tier status, said Col. Phil Bossert, commander of Air Force ROTC Detachment 003 and professor of Air Force studies at UH.
Vermillion is a 2008 graduate of UH, where he earned a bachelor of business administration degree in operations management with a minor in accounting. He was commissioned from the Rice University unit of Navy ROTC. Prior to attending college in Houston and ROTC, he was enlisted in the Navy for five years as a personnel specialist and capped his short enlisted career as special assistant to the commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command.To attend this event, please RSVP by contacting Bossert at email@example.com or at 713-743-3707/4932.
|WHAT:||UH Collaborative Leadership Seminar hosts U.S. Navy Ensign Austin Vermillion|
|WHY:||11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Friday, Jan. 23|
|WHEN:||University of Houston
Houston, TX 77004
|WHERE:||The Houston Corps of Cadets
3855 Holman St.
Houston, TX 77004 | <urn:uuid:83d229db-886e-44f7-bb0e-ce00d5af75ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uh.edu/news-events/stories/2009articles/january09/UH-Hosts-Collaborative-Leadership-Seminar.php | 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 | 0.948476 | 514 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939). The Dinner Party (Heritage Floor; detail), 1974–79. Porcelain with rainbow and gold luster, 48 x 48 x 48 ft. (14.6 x 14.6 x 14.6 m). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. Photograph by Jook Leung Photography
b. 14 B.C., Rome; d. A.D. 33, island of Pandateria (modern-day Ventotene)
Julia Vipsania Agrippina, also known as Agrippina I or Agrippina the Elder, was the granddaughter of Emperor Augustus and played a key role in the succession struggles under Tiberius (ruled A.D. 14–37). She married Germanicus, a popular general who posed a threat to the emperor and died under suspicious circumstances in A.D. 19. When the emperor's son died, Agrippina's children came into the line of succession; tensions mounted as she made no secret that she suspected Tiberius of involvement in her husband's death. In A.D. 29, Agrippina and her children were arrested under Tiberius' orders and she was banished, dying in exile—most likely of starvation—in A.D. 33.
Related Place Setting
Related Heritage Floor Entries
Flavia Julia Helena
Martha of Bethany
Mary of Bethany | <urn:uuid:5d033be7-2b7d-4485-8bb1-90fb5e3976b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/agrippina_i.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900543 | 303 | 2.625 | 3 |
REWIND: I remember when I first heard about the A to Z Blogging Challenge. It was last March, only a few weeks before the challenge was scheduled to begin. “What a fabulous idea!” raced through my brain. I was so excited at the thought of being included in an event with so many other bloggers that I signed up.
Obviously, there were ideas that immediately came to my mind for a few letters. But then I started to think about it, really started to think—THE ENTIRE ALPHABET—and then quiver, shiver, and sweat. How was I to handle committing to a new letter each day? What had I done?
What about those strange letters like X and Z? Or what if I had another commitment on the day P was supposed to be posted and there was no way to fit that letter into my post? How could I be unique? Would I make my posts about writing, which is what my blog is geared to? Or should I veer off course? If so, what the heck do I write about? What if there was an earthquake, a hurricane, or a flood?
I think you get my drift here.
With the help of a few deep breaths, I put an axe to that train of creative-diluting thoughts and went for the fun angle. I decided to stick to my normally posting days of M-T-F, highlight whichever letter fell on said day, and committed to seeking out new and interesting ideas to post about.
FASTFORWARD: This challenge is to exercise your thoughts and push you out of that safe comfort zone. How else do we expect to grow if we don’t try new things? Whether you’re looking to grow as a blogger, a writer, or as a thinker, this challenge is for you.
Here’s a list of some fun ideas. All are special days celebrated during the month of April. Use this list as a reference if you feel stagnant during the challenge. I’ve even shared with you my official logo I’ll be using for all my ‘April’ posts! Hope you like it.
- · Autism Awareness Month = Letter A
- · National Frog Month = Letter F
- · National Humor Month = Letter H
- · National Educational Mathematics Month = Letter M
- · National Volunteer Month = Letter V
Of course, there are individual days to celebrate as well. April:
- · 1st – Cents Day = Letter C
- · 3rd – Find-A-Rainbow Day = Letter R
- · 6th – Jump-Over-Things-Day = Letter J
- · 10th – Encourage a Young Writer Day = Y
- · 13th – Scrabble Day = Letter S
- · 21st – Kindergarten Day = Letter K
For a more complete list and for fabulous explanations of each, click HERE. (can you link the HERE with this http://familycrafts.about.com/library/spdays/blaprdayslong.htm. *credit for research goes to family crafts
Sheri Larsen is a published freelance and short story writer, and KidLit author. Her current YA novel is with literary agents, and she’s preparing to sub one of her picture books to agents. Her website, Writers’ Ally (http://writersally.blogspot.com), is where she explores writing, children’s literature, and motherhood. She lives in Maine with her husband and four children.
We're still accepting A to Z videos until Sunday March 11th. Details can be found in the tab at the top of this page. This video comes from Reka at A Chronicle of Dreams. | <urn:uuid:81022b77-4c86-4767-920f-d72b8679f3f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2012/03/relax-and-have-fun-guest-sheri-larsen.html?showComment=1331076491895 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960999 | 781 | 1.914063 | 2 |
The European Commission has delivered a “statement of objections” to Samsung’s leadership, in which it claims that Samsung was abusing its standard-essential patents in preventing Apple from making use of the same. Providing written notice is the next step in the EC’s investigation of Samsung, which began due to the Korean company’s many injunction requests and lawsuits filed in EU member states against Apple, and which isn’t going away despite Samsung having dropped all of its injunction requests in EU countries.
From here, the next step is for Samsung to formally reply to the charge from the EC, and ask for a hearing in front of regulators to defend its position. Once the Commission makes its judgement on the violations, following any defence mounted by Samsung, the gadget maker could face a fine up as much as 10 percent of its annual sales. The patents in question are related to 3G UMTS wireless communication, which Samsung had agreed to license with fair terms to its competitors in Europe.
“Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market. However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike,” Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in statement released to Reuters on the subject.
This all began with the EU opening its investigation back in January. At the time, it explained that the reason for the investigation was due to Samsung’s pursuit of “injunctive relief in various Member States’ courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards.” Samsung tried to defray any potential fallout of this by dropping its requests for said “injunctive relief” earlier this week. That hasn’t stopped the formal charges, but it may help Samsung plead its case when it responds to this written request, helping it to eliminate or lessen any potential fine that might result.
Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook Air) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod, the... | <urn:uuid:a8db9908-5c28-4de6-a8b7-1038b78b2a3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/21/eu-issues-formal-objections-against-samsung-for-patent-abuse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961616 | 531 | 1.734375 | 2 |
With the time counting down to the next United Nations conference on “sustainable development,” a new report recently published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) clearly indicates that the UN’s approach to the entire topic is to expand the power of government to regulate and control all levels of economic development throughout the world.
Officials in the City of College Station, Texas, announced that the city government would be withdrawing from ICLEI, an international organization linked to the United Nations and its controversial “Agenda 21.” Local Tea Party activists and concerned citizens promptly applauded the decision as another victory for national sovereignty and property rights.
Imagine you paid thousands of dollars for a vacant lot where you wanted to build your dream house. The lot is 500 feet from a rural lake, with only a couple of houses between the lot and the lake, with a partial view of the lake. You obtained all the appropriate permits from the county and state, and then — just days after you laid some gravel — the federal government came in and told you that you couldn't build on the land.
Peter Gleick (left), environmental activist and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, admitted Monday that he had posed as someone else in order to obtain confidential materials from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank in Chicago that challenges the accuracy of the theory of manmade global warming.
The Obama administration announced without congressional approval Thursday that it was forming a new international coalition overseen by the United Nations, supposedly in an effort to fight “climate change” by regulating certain types of emissions. Dubbed the “Climate and Clean Air Coalition,” the emerging alliance includes the governments ruling Mexico, Bangladesh, Canada, Sweden, and Ghana. | <urn:uuid:74cc04fb-c345-40f8-a36f-a536913bee3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thenewamerican.com/tech/environment?start=110 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957369 | 361 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Should the local sales tax be raised? Should the mill levy increase?
These questions, and more, were raised last week at a public forum/work session held by the Archuleta School District 50 Joint board in an attempt to solicit ideas on how to address an impending budget crisis faced by the district.
Playing to a packed room filled with area parents, residents and school staff, the board had members of the Pagosa Springs Town Council, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, and representatives of the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District, Upper San Juan Health Service District and Pagosa Fire Protection District at the table, in a show of community involvement and concern with the district’s financial plight.
Unfortunately (and, perhaps, due to an oversight), the newly-formed Pagosa Community Development Corporation was absent in the discussion.
District Superintendent Mark DeVoti introduced the forum by explaining the bind the district is facing — $1.35 million in state cuts during the 2010-2011 school year (an almost 10 percent cut — see related story) with possibly an additional $1 million in cuts the following year.
However, it was board president Linda Lattin who cut to the chase saying, “Where we’ve taken this is a possible sales tax, a possible mill levy (increase).”
In making her case for a sales tax increase, Lattin referred to Steamboat Springs, a home-rule municipality, which increased its sales tax a half-cent in 1993 for the express purposes of raising money for local schools. Like Steamboat Springs, Pagosa Springs is a home-rule municipality and can raise taxes free of TABOR (Tax Payer Bill of Rights) restrictions. Steamboat Springs voters approved a 2008 referendum to recertify the tax through 2019, raising about $3 million a year for their schools.
According to DeVoti, a similar tax in Pagosa Springs would raise an estimated $750,000 annually for the district. DeVoti also said that a two mill increase on property taxes — about $32 a year per property owner — would raise an additional estimated $850,000, with the combination of the two sufficient enough to cover budget shortfalls that could reach as much as $2.5 million of the next two years.
“If we could do something and combine resources, quite literally,” said board director Ken Fox, “we could get through this.”
“The issue is,” added director Bill Nobles, “we’re probably going to get through this one. Our problem is, we’re probably going to take another ten percent (budget reduction) next year.”
While the district had presented a proposed $1.3 million in budget cuts for the 2010-2011 school year (about $189,000 shy of its 10-percent reduction target), unpopular ideas such as closing the intermediate school or embracing a four-day school week were left out of the equation. However, according to Nobles and the rest of the board, another unmitigated 10-percent reduction in the following year would necessitate all of those measures.
“We will affect each and every one of you,” said director Joanne Irons, referring to the effects of a decrease in education quality on potential economic development.
In fact, numerous comments from the audience supported Irons, most contending that it would be difficult to attract new businesses to the area with the prospect of substandard schools faced with undue budget constraints and lopsided student-to-teacher ratios.
“The biggest reason people are coming here and staying here,” said local resident Jerry Smith, “even second homeowners, are quality schools.”
“Reducing teachers and increasing class-size is counterproductive to economic development,” added Parelli CEO Mark Weiler.
However, town council member Jerry Jackson was not certain that raising taxes was a solution to the district’s crisis. “Money isn’t always the solution,” he said. “I would encourage you to bring in some of the student leaders and get their opinion,” adding that the town had responded to its own budget crisis with deep cuts.
Indeed, while the town had in fact responded to its own crisis with a 15-percent budget reduction, in response to an almost 9-percent decrease in sales tax revenues during 2009, most of those cuts came at the expense of proposed capital improvements, with very little savings realized from staff salary cuts. Furthermore, the town had saved well over $100,000 through attrition (by not hiring a planner or associate planner). Finally, while the town had reversed a 2008 $1.4 million spending deficit through instituting the above measures (building general reserves to almost $1.7 million), the school district has not operated in the red during the past five years.
Whether Jackson’s point was taken to heart or not, it was an apples-and-oranges comparison. Similarly, a comparison with the county (and its fiscal crisis) would likewise be errant as the county partially answered its dilemma with a substantial reduction in force — approximately 20 percent of county staff via layoffs and attrition in response to a multimillion dollar dilemma.
Yet, while financial turmoil on the part of the town and the county were the result of mismanagement, the district’s problems are due to the state’s diminished revenue stream compounded by a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget.
“This is not our doing,” said Irons, “This is statewide.”
In fact, education funding in Colorado has fallen to the wayside for more than a decade. Nationwide, Colorado ranks 48th in school funding, 49th in graduation rates, and 28th in achievement scores. However, areas of Denver and Boulder (among the highest funded districts in the nation) skew statewide results in student achievement; when those counties are removed from the equation, Colorado drops within the lowest quartile in student generic achievement scores. Conversely, the top ten states in school funding are also the top ten states in overall achievement scores.
As Smith pointed out, Archuleta County residents are paying less in mill levies than they were a year ago and those mill levies would continue to fall along with tax valuations. While county residents have felt the squeeze of increased property taxes (relative to decreased property values due to a state-mandated formula putting valuations three years behind), Archuleta County gets less bang for its buck.
Part of the problem is wild land speculation and rampant home sales between 2005 and 2007 that led to high property values; as those property values plummeted after the crash in late 2007, valuations (and subsequent taxes) would remain at levels determined from previous years — and not expected to meet more recent market values until 2011 valuations.
Another problem is affluent landowners in the county who skew average land values away from the county’s real median income. Thus, while another county which has less than 5 percent of students on free and reduced lunches might hand $12 million to the state in property taxes and get $6 million back for the school district, Archuleta County (with about 52 percent of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunches) hands the same amount over to the state in property taxes to get less than $4 million in return for the lcoal school district. Due to a combination of inflated property values and state equalization funding (the Archuleta County school district has seen a drop in student population over the past four years), the county gets far less than it puts in as far as state funding.
Asking how much current budget cuts affect the district, local resident Teddy Herzog asked, “How much pain is this?”
“It’s a lot of pain,” DeVoti answered. “It’s not good for anyone. It’s good to us as a financial crisis, it’s an opportunity, it makes us more efficient…”
However, DeVoti added, “It hurts the kids, it hurts all of us; it hurts employees, it hurts the town … it’s not good.”
As far as cooperation regarding the crisis, the PFPD committed to not pursuing their own request in a raise in the mill levy while PAWSD remained noticeably silent. However, Pagosa Springs Mayor Ross Aragon said, “I’m sold that we have a crisis … and I’m aware that we can’t be a progressive community without good education.” Aragon promised that he would bring the matter before council.
Speaking for the county, BoCC Chair Clifford Lucero said, “Likewise, we’ll try to come back with some ideas.”
What those ideas might be remains to be seen. Although it seems questionable whether an increase in the mill levy would pass in a depressed economic environment and another year of inflated property valuations, waiting another year to present the proposal wouldn’t mitigate the district’s immediate crisis. Likewise, faced with questionable sales tax receipts over the next year, a proposal to raise the local sales tax for dedicated funds to the school district seems a far-flung dream from a council that has no investment in local schools (neither the mayor, nor any council member, has any children attending local schools) especially as it would limit a potential revenue stream for the town, if needed.
While the district is about to make its cuts for this year, most of the future is reliant on how the town and county responds to the crisis: those entities could accept the district’s pleas, offer solutions — or do nothing. As such, a community could come together, as it did last Thursday night, and work out a solution, both for the schools and for the future of economic development in Pagosa Country.
Unfortunately, the alternative, of course, also determines the future of our community. | <urn:uuid:0347520a-dbf1-41c0-b781-33ce9be2910b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pagosasun.com/archives/2010/03%20March/031110/edschoolbudgetcrisis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963055 | 2,067 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Monday, March 31, 2008
Interesting case the other day. A reasonably healthy 51 year old lady presented to the ER with acute, severe epigastric pain, accompanied by unrelenting vomiting. Her history included an operation 7 years ago for "twisting of the stomach". Not clear what was done at that time, however. When I saw her she looked beaten and worn out. Electrolytes out of whack, severely dehydrated. A nasogastric tube had fortunately been placed and she was feeling a little better. The CT scan showed most of the stomach up in the chest and it appeared that none of the oral contrast was making it into the decompressed duodenum. Classic gastric volvulus. Her lactate was elevated and I was worried about ongoing ischemia.
I took her to OR in the middle of the night and the volvulus was easily reduced and the stomach returned to the peritoneal cavity. No ischemic changes; it actually pinked up and looked pretty healthy. There was a large posterior hiatal hernia with the sac extending high up into the mediastinum. I'm still not sure what was done at the initial operation, but the adhesions and scarring made things difficult. The key thing is to get that sac down, otherwise the hernia will recur and you'll end up in the same position in a few months/years. I didn't wrap the fundus around the esophagus (Nissen/Toupet) because I didn't know anything about her esophageal motility and I didn't want to potentiate dysphagia at the GE junction. Instead, I did a primary crural repair and then fixed the greater curve of the stomach to the anterior abdominal wall with sutures (gastropexy) and placed a Stamm gastrostomy tube to further fix the stomach intra-abdominally. Ideally, I'll remove the tube in 6weeks or so. She had a barium study today that confirmed easy passage of contrast through the GE junction and into a completely intra-abdominal stomach. | <urn:uuid:11e78859-d6ca-4875-9d9b-293fa2a4d0b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ohiosurgery.blogspot.com/2008/03/gastric-volvulus.html?showComment=1209239040000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970002 | 438 | 1.546875 | 2 |
This is a neat little problem that I was discussing today with my lab group out at lunch. Not particularly difficult but interesting implications nonetheless
Imagine there are a 100 people in line to board a plane that seats 100. The first person in line realizes he lost his boarding pass so when he boards he decides to take a random seat instead. Every person that boards the plane after him will either take their "proper" seat, or if that seat is taken, a random seat instead.
Question: What is the probability that the last person that boards will end up in his/her proper seat.
Moreover, and this is the part I'm still pondering about. Can you think of a physical system that would follow this combinatorial statistics? Maybe a spin wave function in a crystal etc... | <urn:uuid:057858cf-b1f2-45b0-a476-5474f1e88505> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/5595/taking-seats-on-a-plane | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967672 | 161 | 1.835938 | 2 |
This Internet is such a wonderful teaching device. Everyday my knowledge expands thanks to things I uncover on my own but even more so from that small band of military brothers who daily drop tidbits into my mailbox. Such is how I first learned of the history of the Sword Hunts, a series of repeated transgressions in Japanese history that served to keep that nation in a state of feudalism until the 19th Century.
The what? The Sword Hunts, a despicable series of mass disarmaments of the people in feudal Japan for precisely the purpose of eliminating them as a threat to tyranny. The most powerful of the Japanese lords knew well that an armed peasantry presented a constant threat in a feudal society where order and good discipline were to be the province of the Samurai or warrior class, who roughly equate to a much more savage version of medieval, European knights. While Teutonic knights, Knights Templars and others of the European knights were frequently indiscriminate in their killing, the Samurai possessed a standing warrant to kill any ordinary Japanese citizen at will for the slightest infraction of rules or show of disrespect. Possession of any weapon of defense was an immediate death warrant.
And kill them they did because, first, they simply could under existing law, and second because it was so easy for that simple reason that the peasants were forbidden to possess arms. To ensure that the people had no means of defense or retaliation, the rulers of Japan conducted periodic Sword Hunts where all weapons were confiscated from all Japanese but those in the nobility and the Samurai classes. The most effective of these Sword Hunts occurred under the dictate of warlord and imperial regent, Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 16th century. He so thoroughly disarmed the common people of Japan that they remained helpless, kneeling, head-bowing servants of the ruling class until Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Uraga Harbor near Edo in 1853 and opened up Japanese culture to western democratic concepts.
So why all this Japanese history, you ask? Substitute Gun Grab for Sword Hunt and consider that the tyrannical threats to humanity never really change. There have always been and there will always be those self-anointed patricians among us who think they know better than we do as to how our lives should be ordered. One thing these elitists know full well is that it is much easier to impose their version of social order on the rest of us if they and their enforcers are heavily armed while the masses are not. Toyotomi Hideyoshi knew just as assuredly as did Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, that you will never break the people to your yoke as long as they possess arms. Each of those leaders disarmed his people and then proceeded to exterminate hundreds of millions of them who refused to submit.
Two things Americans should take away from this history lesson: Never ever trust a politician who says, “Trust me;” and more importantly, never ever let him talk you into surrendering your guns no matter how slickly persuasive he may be. Unless, that is, you want, like those several centuries of Japanese peasants, to kneel beside the road with your foreheads touching the ground in abject obeisance as Barack’s Homeland Security Forces patrol your streets.
Crossposted at American Thinker | <urn:uuid:0d5514a0-392f-4c56-a24a-dea37360c2e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=33909&cpage=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968703 | 671 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Even before he takes the oath of office for a second time, President Barack Obama has a crisis on his hands.
On Jan. 2, 2013, America will begin a long fall off the "fiscal cliff" -- unless the White House and Congress can agree on a deal to avert the plunge.
And that's not going to be easy.
"It's going to be tough to govern" with Congress still split and the Republican majority in the House intact, noted CNN political contributor David Gergen, who urged the president to heed the words of Winston Churchill: "In victory, magnanimity."
Beyond the domestic agenda, the global economic slowdown threatens an anemic U.S. recovery -- while Iran's nuclear program and Syria's implosion will also demand urgent attention after the rigors of the campaign trail.
The in-tray may not seem as daunting as the one that greeted Obama on his first day in office in 2009, but he'll have little time to savor his latest victory.
In fewer than 60 days, arbitrary spending cuts and tax increases will begin to kick in unless the president and Congress -- half of which is still controlled by the Republicans -- can find a better way to manage debt reduction.
The challenge for Obama and the divided Congress is to come up with a credible consensus that tackles the deficit and doesn't smother the fragile roots of recovery.
The Tax Policy Center estimates that allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire means an average tax increase of almost $2,000 for middle-class Americans. Sucking that much money out of circulation could push unemployment above 9 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Obama has declared that the estimated $109 billion worth of automatic budget cuts to defense spending, social services, education and other discretionary federal spending won't happen. And White House officials -- but not the president himself -- say he will preserve the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class but veto any bill that extends the cuts for households with incomes over $250,000.
The expiration of those tax cuts would raise some $500 billion in revenues, according to the latest CBO data.
If the United States doesn't address the impending fiscal cliff, ratings agency Moody's has warned of a further downgrading of U.S. sovereign debt.
Foreign governments are watching the situation with trepidation. Sustaining the U.S. recovery is vital to the health of the global economy -- with most of Europe mired in recession, Japan facing its own version of the fiscal cliff -- its public debt is twice the size of its $5 trillion economy -- and growth in China slackening, though most countries would love to have its 7 percent expansion rate.
Deferring judgment day
Now that the hyper-partisan presidential campaign is out of the way, there may be a window for compromise. But with Congress due to be in session for only 16 more days in 2012, that may extend only as far as a deal to kick the can down the road once more -- resulting in a Band-Aid rather than a grand bargain.
House Speaker John Boehner told CNN last weekend that was the most likely path.
"I think the best you can hope for is some kind of bridge," he said. Boehner and other Republicans have demanded spending cuts and other measures that would exceed any increase in the federal borrowing ceiling.
Deferring the day of judgment is unlikely to impress the markets. Nor will another bout of protracted wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, something that will likely become necessary early in the new year.
In September, Moody's indicated it would downgrade the U.S. sovereign rating from its "AAA" rating without "specific policies that produce a stabilization and then downward trend in the ratio of federal debt to GDP over the medium term." Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. rating in 2011 after the first bout over the debt ceiling.
And as more baby boomers begin retiring and adding to the burden on Medicare and Social Security, it won't be long before entitlement programs come under even greater pressure.
Meeting in Mexico over the weekend, G-20 finance ministers cited the U.S. fiscal cliff as the biggest risk to global growth. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty warned of "dire consequences" if it's not tackled.
If the fiscal cliff is the most immediate problem, the consequences of a eurozone break-up could be equally as damaging. The G-20 ministers voiced concerns about the "complex implementation" of much-needed reforms.
The potential for the events in Europe to add to the president's woes is probably underestimated because that situation seems interminable and impossible to unravel. It's only been a month since the International Monetary Fund warned of "a downward spiral of capital flight, breakup fears and economic decline" in Europe.
Given that EU-U.S. trade was worth $636 billion in 2011 and U.S. investment in the EU was about $150 billion, Europe's economic health is hardly marginal to America.
The European Union has averted imminent crisis by putting the European Central Bank on steroids, allowing it to use massive financial firepower to buy the bonds of troubled members. But Spain is not yet ready to accept bailout terms, Greece is already dangling off a fiscal cliff and several of Europe's largest economies are either in or on the edge of recession. | <urn:uuid:450455a2-5816-4986-9d53-e0d04b86c132> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.click2houston.com/news/Politics/No-shortage-of-issues-for-Obama-s-next-term/-/2574696/17311616/-/item/0/-/e60sh2/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951495 | 1,095 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Tom Tomorrow has more scoops on the “fake news is everywhere” thing.
While the people producing these Video News Releases are shady, it looks as though major news media outlets are making money off of distributing them. It looks as though these networks might be above showing VNRs on their own channels, but are willing to take cash for distributing them to other stations through their subsidiaries. Two passages in the article lay it out:
The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them… Several major television networks play crucial intermediary roles in the business. Fox, for example, has an arrangement with Medialink [a VNR producer] to distribute video news releases to 130 affiliates through its video feed service, Fox News Edge. CNN distributes releases to 750 stations in the United States and Canada through a similar feed service, CNN Newsource. Associated Press Television News does the same thing worldwide with its Global Video Wire.
In fact, these networks get paid twice, says Tomorrow reader Zachary Roth. The network gets paid by the VNR producers for ” transmission time on various satellite news feeds, run by CNN, Fox, CBS, AP or whoever” and then “local stations also pay the owners of the news feeds to gain access to the stories.” No wonder the networks do it, easy cash money– twice.
1 Comment »
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> | <urn:uuid:2e0c3c41-9d78-494b-8669-52db0fb93f38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lyingmediabastards.com/2005/03/pr-nation-cont | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929529 | 358 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The turmoil in the Middle East is not unique. Half a century ago, a similar series of revolutions shook the ground beneath the Arab rulers. The immediate catalyst was the Suez crisis. After Gamal Abd al-Nasser, the charismatic young Egyptian ruler, nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, the British and French, in collusion with Israel, invaded Egypt to topple him. They failed; Nasser emerged triumphant.
...In the 1950s, the dominant ideology, pan-Arabism, focused on external threats: gaining independence from imperialism and confronting Israel. In contrast, today’s revolutionary wave is driven by domestic demands: for jobs and political representation. Yet the underlying ethos of both revolutionary waves is very similar. Then, as now, the people in the street believed that the existing order was dominated by corrupt cliques that exploited the power of the state to serve their own interests. In addition, then, as now, the revolutions tended to topple leaders aligned with Washington.
Although there is no personality like Nasser towering over the revolutionary events, there is one state taking a leaf from Nasser’s book: Iran. Under Nasser, Egypt opposed British and French imperialism, which it worked to associate in the public mind with Israel. Iran is taking a similar stand today against Britain’s “imperial successor,” the United States. And like Nasser, Iran has created an anti-status-quo coalition — the resistance bloc which includes Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.
The bloc’s strategy seeks to turn the anarchy of the Middle East to the disadvantage of the United States. As the revolutionary wave expands political participation, the bloc will insinuate itself into the domestic politics of its neighbors. In countries divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, it will use terrorism and work closely with partners on the ground who are willing to make direct alliances, as we have already seen in Iraq and Lebanon. In more homogeneous countries, such as Egypt, the bloc will resort to more subtle and insidious means — for example, inciting violence against Israel through Hamas, in an effort to drive a wedge between Cairo and Washington.
Although the resistance bloc may not be as influential as Nasser was, it is nevertheless poised to turn the turmoil of the region to the detriment of American interests.
And from John Bolton in the WSJ:
Since the "Arab Spring" began four months ago in Tunisia, U.S. media have focused constantly and generally optimistically on the turmoil in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the rising threat of an Iranian Winter—nuclear or otherwise—is likely to outlast and overshadow any Arab Spring.
Iran's hegemonic ambitions are embodied in its rapidly progressing nuclear-weapons program and its continued subversion across the region. In a case that emphasizes the fragility of aspiring democracies, Iranian Winter has already descended upon Lebanon, where Iran's influence has helped replace a pro-Western government with a coalition dominated by Tehran's allies, including Hezbollah. Last week, departing Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned Iran's "flagrant intervention" in his country.
In Syria, despite substantial opposition to the Assad dictatorship, regime change is highly unlikely. Iran will not easily allow its quasi-satellite to be pried from its grasp, and is reportedly helping the Assad regime quell this week's protests.
Then there's the Victoria, a ship containing tons of weaponry bound for Hamas that the Israeli navy seized last month. The episode recalls the Karine A, a weapons shipment from Iran to the Palestine Liberation Organization seized by Israel in 2002. Clearly Iran has a penchant for arming Sunni and Shiite terrorists alike.
...America's failure to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions—which is certainly how it would be perceived worldwide—would be a substantial blow to U.S. influence in general. Terrorists and their state sponsors would see Iran's unchallenged role as terrorism's leading state sponsor and central banker, and would wonder what they have to lose.
The Arab Spring may be fascinating, and may or may not endure. Sadly, Iran's hegemonic threat looks far more sustainable.
I touched on these themes in an earlier post that concentrated on how a resurgent Muslim brotherhood can only help Iran, despite the Shi'a/Sunni rift.
Read both articles (you need to find the Bolton article in Google in order to read the whole thing - the title is "Iranian Winter Could Chill the Arab Spring" so search for that.)
(h/t David G) | <urn:uuid:b9e769f2-6875-4ada-81a4-3bac7be5dc4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/04/some-sober-analysis-of-arab-spring.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952635 | 921 | 2.359375 | 2 |
The classic overbalanced wheel, a so-called "perpetual motion machine", as designed by French Architect Villiard De Honnecourt in about 1235, and studied extensively by Leonardo Da Vinci in the late 1400's.
$169.00 more info
It was invented in China, about 2600 years ago, and is one of the most precise machines in ancient history. It is a non-magnetic compass, and the oldest example of differential gearing in the world.
$79.00 more info
This Easy Assembly Version of our popular Chinese
South Pointing Chariot comes with many of the same
features but has been re-engineered to reduce
assembly time and increase accuracy of the
$59.95 more info | <urn:uuid:22dea19a-0fee-412a-8923-7793b4a289b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davincikits.com/dynamic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956875 | 153 | 2.34375 | 2 |
- ABOUT SAY NO
- AROUND THE WORLD
- THE ISSUE
- TAKE ACTION
Commit to ending violence against women and girls
governments have committed to take action
Violence against women and girls is the most pervasive human rights violation. Up to seven in ten women have experienced violence in their lifetime. It's time to end this pandemic, with one commitment at a time.
UN Women is calling on Governments everywhere to COMMIT to end violence against women and girls. There are many ways to make a life free of violence a reality for women and girls in every country: from passing or improving laws; launching public awareness campaigns; providing safe houses, free hotline services and free legal aid to survivors; supporting education programmes that address gender stereotypes and violence; and increasing women in law enforcement, peacekeeping forces and frontline services. Check out if your Government has committed yet!
Romania commits to develop strategies on family protection and policies to combat and prevent domestic violenceRomania
The Romanian Government joins UN Women’s "COMMIT to end violence against women and girls" initiative by developing strategies on family protection and policies on combating and preventing domestic violence. Romania recently adopted a law on preventing and combating violence, introducing amendments to the existing law and introducing protection order for survivors of domestic violence. The implementation of 2013-2017 National Strategy on Preventing and Combating Domestic Violence aims at developing social services specializing in preventing and combating domestic violence as well as at ensuring their quality through a non-discriminatory approach, particularly sensitive to cultural, age and gender differences. By the measures set out in the Operational Plan for the implementation of the 2013-2017 National Strategy to Prevent and Combat Domestic Violence, Romania aims to reduce family violence, to alleviate the victim's sense of insecurity, to reduce the risk of recurrence and to facilitate the social reintegration of persons who have committed crimes of domestic violence. The Strategy will also promote cross-sectoral cooperation, including partnerships with civil society and the private sector. A permanent working sub-group on domestic violence has been set up in the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Protection and Elderly in order to strengthen the institutional capacity of central public administration authorities to manage domestic violence correlated with violence against children. Furthermore, Romania has contributed towards the development of the European Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and the current National Strategy to Prevent and Combat Domestic Violence expressly provides for necessary steps towards the signature and ratification of the Convention.
Afghanistan commits to proper implementation of laws and accountability of State actors to end violence against womenAfghanistan
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan commits to ensuring the laws of the country are not misapplied and only those found guilty of defined crimes are punished, and that Government actors, including police and prosecutors, are held responsible for the correct application of laws.
Albania commits to implement laws, make justice accessible for survivors and engage men and boys in prevention effortsAlbania
The Government of Albania commits to implement the criminal code, introduce further amendments and ensure sensitization and training of members of the judiciary, to address violence against women and girls. It further pledges to improve access to justice for vulnerable women, survivors of domestic violence, by eliminating unaffordable court fees and by enhancing free legal aid services. It will undertake regular awareness-raising and educational campaigns to make violence against women socially unacceptable and involve men and boys in combating violence against women and girls.
Argentina commits to improve support services, raise awareness about existing laws and gather national statistics on violence against womenArgentina
The State of Argentina commits to take the following national measures to end violence against women. It will establish a national hotline for victims of domestic violence, and consolidate gender mainstreaming in public policy-making. The Government will create new “Women’s Municipal Areas", conduct workshops to train State and civil society actors on the reach of its national law on gender violence, and create a new registry for cases of violence against women. It will gather data and produce the first-ever national statistics on violence which will inform future public policies aimed at prevention and eradication of violence against women.
Australia commits to a zero tolerance approach to domestic violence and sexual abuseAustralia
The Australian Government is committed to a zero tolerance approach to domestic violence and sexual abuse, under the current National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. Australia has released the National Implementation Plan and key initiatives include the following: A public campaign, The Line, aimed at encouraging young people to develop respectful relationships, and education projects being implemented in every state and territory in school and non-school settings to prevent sexual assault and domestic violence. Community Action Grants will support local community action to reduce violence against women, and for sporting clubs to establish zero tolerance programs in local clubs. The White Ribbon Workplaces Project is promoting safe workplaces for women, and the Safe at Home, Safe at Work toolkit for workers experiencing domestic violence has been published to help people remain in work, and provide details of where to get professional help and support. The government has launched the National Sexual Assault and Domestic and Family Violence Telephone and Online Counselling Service: www.1800RESPECT.org.au. Through another programme, DV-alert, for health, allied health and Indigenous health workers will be trained to recognise and respond to domestic violence. A National Centre of Excellence will facilitate and coordinate research activity into domestic and family violence and sexual assault to inform policy and programs.
Austria commits to ratify and implement the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against womenAustria
Austria commits to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (CAHVIO) by the end of 2013 and use gender responsive budgeting practices when developing national budgets, including for justice and security sectors.
Belarus commits to combat trafficking in persons and domestic violenceBelarus
Belarus commits to implement a new law to combat trafficking in persons and provide financial assistance to civil society organizations providing assistance to survivors of trafficking. Under the Fourth State Programme on Combating Trafficking in Persons, Illegal Migration and Related Criminal Activities, Belarus will focus on prevention of trafficking in persons, prosecution of perpetrators and implementation of measures to ensure the fundamental right of victims of trafficking to live free of violence. Furthermore, under the current National Plan for Gender Equality and the Law on Crime Prevention, Belarus will implement concrete measures to address and prevent domestic violence and develop a new law to counter domestic violence. During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, Belarus has launched a nationwide public awareness and educational campaign ‘A house without violence’ aimed at preventing domestic violence. The first stage of this campaign is promoting the recently launched toll-free hotline for victims of domestic violence. The Government of Belarus commits to develop a comprehensive national system of response to gender violence, which will include increased number of crisis rooms and improved medical, social and legal services for survivors and measures to combat male aggressive behavior.
Belgium commits to align its policies to the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and expand its National Action PlanBelgium
The Government of Belgium commits to take the following steps to end violence against women and girls: Belgium commits itself to ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, and to align its policy in accordance with the provisions in the Convention. Through the new National Action Plan (NAP), Belgium commits to implement more than 120 new measures to fight against various forms of violence, including intimate partner violence, forced marriages, honour-related violence and female genital mutilation. The NAP has been updated in collaboration with the different stakeholders with new measures. Belgium will stay committed to implement its action plan to end violence against women.
Furthermore, following the General Recommendation 19 of the CEDAW Committee and the Universal Periodic Review of Belgium adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council, Belgium committed itself to extend its NAP to all forms of violence against women and girls. A working group has been created in order to prepare the integration of a section on “sexual violence” in the following long-term NAP for 2014-2018.
The fight against intimate partner violence and other forms of domestic violence requires an integrated approach. Belgium commits itself to carry on the development of strategies of coordinated and integrated intervention and to continue to support the official national bodies responsible for the coordination, implementation, follow-up and the evaluation of relevant policies. The Government commits to strengthen legal measures in order to guarantee a protective environment for women and children who are the victims of violence. Recently, two new laws have strengthened the fight against domestic violence: a law on the temporary banning of a violent partner from the home in case of domestic violence, and another law enables persons bound to professional secrecy to inform the public prosecutor when they are faced with a victim of domestic violence.
Belgium commits to carry on sensitization of the general public and specific groups such as young people. It commits to fully implement the new National Action Plan (2012-2014) to fight against human trafficking, which includes developing an integral and integrated approach to address human trafficking, legislative and regulatory aspects, prevention and protection of the victims, research and prosecution.
Belgium will pay particular attention to the protection of women and girls against gender-based violence in conflict and post-conflict situations, and commits to adopt a new national action plan "Women, Peace and Security".
The European Union commits to take action to end violence against women within the 27 EU member states and through foreign policy and development cooperationBelgium
The European Union is committed to prioritize ending violence against women. To support the COMMIT initiative and national policies that combat violence against women, the Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS), working with the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, will take a number of specific initiatives.
To accelerate progress towards the elimination of female genital mutilation (FGM), the Commission and the EEAS will hold a public consultation to help shape the internal and external aspects of EU policy in this field. In 2013 the Commission will also conduct and support awareness raising activities at EU and national levels. It will support transnational projects to combat violence against women at grass-root level and continue to support these activities through the future rights equality and citizenship programme covering 2014-202.
A proposal for a 'European Protection Order ', aimed at protecting crime victims is planned. When adopted, it will complement recent criminal and civil justice legislative measures on human trafficking, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children, and on the strengthening of the rights, support and protection of victims of crime.
The Commission 's strategy for equality between women and men, 2010-2015, presented comprehensive actions for the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment, including the promotion of women's employment, policies to reconcile work and private life, to address the gender pay gap, and to promote gender balance in decision-making. The EU commits to taking these actions further in 2013.
The EU will promote the prevention of early and enforced marriages affecting children in an international campaign in 2013-2014. Campaigns will be launched on women's political participation and sexual violence and rape in armed conflict, in addition to combating FGM. Furthermore, by 2015, 80% of EU delegations will introduce specific measures on the role of external assistance and development cooperation in their local strategies for the implementation of the EU guidelines on violence against women and girls and combating all forms of discrimination against them.
Bosnia and Herzegovina commits to implement the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (CAHVIO) and to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1325Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina commits to implement the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (CAHVIO). In order to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach to preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, a Strategy to implement the Convention will be developed. The strategy will include the substantive issues of the Convention and define the strategic direction and specific strategic programs to address violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will pay attention to the prohibition of discrimination as well as include legislative and other measures to prevent violence against women and domestic violence and to protect and support victims. The Strategy will provide a mechanism for monitoring the implementation of the Convention.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is also committed to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 through the Action Plan for the Implementation of UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which focuses on increasing participation of women in decision-making position at all levels of government, increasing the number of women in military and police forces, increasing participation of women in peacekeeping operations and introducing the gender perspective in the training for peacekeeping missions. Through this Action Plan for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325, Bosnia and Herzegovina is committed to fight human trafficking, reduce risk of mine contaminated areas and improve support and assistance networks to women and girls victims during the armed conflict.
Brazil commits to implement laws and strengthen the National Pact for Ending Violence against WomenBrazil
The Government of Brazil commits to implement the Maria da Penha Law on Domestic and Family Violence, which calls for the establishment of special courts and stricter sentences for offenders, as well as shelters for women survivors. The Government further pledges to strengthen the National Pact for Ending Violence against Women, address trafficking of women and girls, and promote public campaigns and actions to end violence against women.
Canada takes national measures to combat human trafficking, violence against aboriginal and immigrant women, passes new laws and engages men and boys in prevention effortsCanada
Canada commits to ending violence against women and girls. The Canadian government is taking action to protect the most vulnerable women in Canadian society women in immigrant communities, women living in poverty, and aboriginal women and girls. Recognizing that the majority of victims of human trafficking are women and girls, the Canadian government recently launched a comprehensive National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking to ensure the safety and security of women and girls across Canada who are being targeted for sexual exploitation by violent traffickers. Aboriginal women and girls are Canadians most at risk of violence. The Government of Canada announced a further 5 year strategy aimed at enhancing the response of law enforcement and the justice system to cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.
Canada believes violence against women is an issue for all Canadians to address, and for the first time, Canada is taking an innovative approach by directly funding projects that engage men and boys to end violence against women and girls.
Recognizing that girls are our future, Canada successfully championed the International Day of the Girl through the UN, celebrating the first annual day on October 11, 2012. The Canadian government has made our position clear on the topic of violence committed in the name of so-called "honour" by clearly condemning the practice in our
new Citizenship Guide, and being the first to provide funding specifically for immigrant women's organizations across the country to address this highly complex issue. To ensure the safety of women and girls, Canada has passed some new laws, addressing issues such as: ending house arrest for sexual assault involving serious personal injury
and aggravated sexual assault; strengthening sentences for child sexual abuses; and, toughening penalties for those who import, produce and traffic in date rape drugs. Canada has been active in the collection and analysis of evidence and data on the nature, extent and impacts of violence against women and girls, including the economic
costs. Canada will continue to support a range of projects to prevent and respond to the issue.
Chile commits to update National Plan to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325Chile
Chile makes a commitment to update its National Plan by adjusting it to the new requirements and international needs arising after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and to share this year its know-how, experiences and good practices by means of different training activities addressed to countries of its region, including its officers, experts and civil society organizations concerned.
Colombia commits to implement national plan to end violence against womenColombia
The Government of the Republic of Colombia expresses it´s commitment to “Implement a Comprehensive Plan to ensure the right to a life free of violence for Colombian women” as a strategy to end violence against women and girls in Colombia.
Denmark marks the International Day to End Violence against Women by making the following commitmentsDenmark
Denmark will place special focus on violence against young women. We will initiate a national debate on how to eliminate attitudes and behaviours that condone violence, address the root causes and risk factors and focus on preventing “dating violence” by addressing gender stereotypes and promote respectful relationships and to raise awareness between girls and boys, women and men. We have launched a new study documenting best practices and efforts that have worked in changing attitudes, norms and practices.
Some 1.4 % women are victims of domestic violence in Denmark. Up to 28,000 children live in homes where domestic violence occurs, and one in ten young women under the age of 24 have been abused by a partner. Denmark commits to continue its efforts and implement targeted activities to bring down the number of victims of domestic violence. Through its new Equal Futures Partnership programme Denmark has initiated a project that will run until the end of 2013, to increase awareness of violence in the family and train civil servants and front line staff in municipalities to detect signs of violence and address them.
Denmark is committed to ensuring inclusive policies and strategies to eliminate other forms of violence against all women and girls, for example, women with disabilities, indigenous women, migrant women, adolescent girls, and honor related crimes. We will continue our efforts to implement legislative and policy measures and establish the necessary institutional mechanisms to support victims of human trafficking and ensure prosecution of traffickers.
The Dominican Republic commits to expand and strengthen programmes to prevent and respond to violence against women and girlsDominican Republic
The Dominican Republic commits to take concrete actions to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of all its national plans, projects and programmes targeting violence against women and girls. Announcing the country’s support for the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, the President signed a Declaration of Commitment of Institutions that integrates the National Commission on the Prevention and Struggle against Domestic Violence (CONAPLUVI). The Dominican Republic commits to reform criminal prosecutions and prevention policies so as to ensure greater access to justice for women, and sets a concrete deadline of December 2013 for the establishment of a more efficient criminal complaints system to address violence against women and girls. The Dominican Republic further commits to strengthen its public health policies and plans, expand and improve prevention programmes as well as gender and human rights education in all institutions of the State. The Ministry of Women has launched a new national campaign “You can: Unite Now to End Violence against Women” to raise awareness and publicize a 24-hour hotline established for women at risk of domestic violence. The Government of Dominican Republic has also launched the new “Men promise: fewer every day until we reach zero” public awareness campaign for men, with the end goal of halving the country’s rate of Femicide.
- 1 of 4
Governments around the world have promised to end violence against women and girls. Ask them to fulfill their promise by making a concrete national commitment today!
- Tweet to make your government COMMIT.
- What will you COMMIT to do to end violence against women and girls in your country/community? Share it on Facebook!
- Donate a blog post and invite others to COMMIT to end violence against women. | <urn:uuid:5ee41e6c-0b43-4b0f-a14f-841ad2b26d5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saynotoviolence.org/commit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936815 | 4,013 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Mike Mullane. Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut. New York, Scribner, 2006. 368 pages.
This is a book everyone who has any kind of interest in the history–and future–of manned space flight should read. For that matter, anyone who doesn’t have an interest in manned space flight should read it, too, so they have an idea of why it’s so important.
I was born after the Apollo program ended, and have vague memories of Skylab (mostly my dad assuring me that it wouldn’t land on us when it re-entered earth’s atmosphere in 1979). I remember hearing that, by the mid-1980s, we’d be sending shuttles into space every other week, and that space travel would be safe and commonplace. Of course, history told a different story.
Since I started explaining the history of the space program to my four year-old (who is full of questions), I’ve been reading up on it as much as I can. When I learned about Mike Mullane’s book, I figured I’d give it a read and get a few new insights on the shuttle years.
Suffice it to say that Riding Rockets gave me much more than that. About one page in, I realized something: Mullane is a hell of a writer. You might think that, as one of the few human beings to have escaped earth’s gravity, he’d start his story with the sublime joy of watching a sunrise from space or seeing the earth speed by below him at 17,500 miles per hour. No. He starts the book naked, lying on a table at a NASA facility, giving himself an enema.
Too much information! you might think, but within a few paragraphs Mullane is able to explain exactly why it was so important to administer that enema, and along the way introduce the reader to the astronaut selection process without doing a data dump or being didactic. When a NASA psychologist asks him about his motivations for going into space, he gives the reader a detailed account of his early years–and tells us the simple, boring story that he told the psychologist–again, letting us understand his deception.
Once he gets into the selection and training of 1978 Astronaut Class (nicknamed TFNG, ostensibly “Thirty-Five New Guys), the book really takes off. He shares painfully honest details of the process, including the tension between him and the other military flyers and the civilian astronauts. He also isn’t shy about revealing a nearly dysfunctional management structure, singling out Chief Astronaut John Young and George Abbey, Flight Crew Operations Directorate chief, for keeping the astronauts in the dark about the flight assignment procedures.
Mullane was assigned as a mission specialist on STS 41-D, the first flight of Discovery, and gives a personal perspective on that mission, which included the program’s first launch pad abort. He also talks about his friendship with fellow TFNG Judy Resnick, who was killed in the Challenger disaster in January 1986.
Discussing the aftermath of the Challenger tragedy is where Mullane is at his most searing. He is forthright in blaming almost everyone at NASA for the disaster, including himself and the other astronauts, who almost uniformly let their desire to go into space outstrip safety concerns. The story of the disaster is a cautionary tale for any organization, and the insights Mullane adds convinces the reader that the disaster itself wasn’t a fluke–that it took so long for such a tragedy is. His first flight, for example, saw erosion of the O-rings and “blow-by,” which ultimately doomed Challenger, but none of the astronauts were told of the safety concerns. Similarly, one of his post-Challenger flights saw the orbiter struck by debris during its ascent–the same scenario that doomed Columbia in 2003.
What struck me most about the book was Mullane’s unflinching, often uncomfortable, honesty. Sometimes it’s humorous, as when talking about the culture clash between the “Arrested Development” military aviators and the liberal civilian “post doc” astronauts, but it’s usually quite personal, as when he candidly admits his owns failures as a husband and father. Reading this book, you understand why spaceflight is such a beguiling prospect, but you also appreciate, probably as never before, exactly how many sacrifices astronauts make. | <urn:uuid:96107438-d8c6-466c-b08f-8bfd8c19a9b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dgschwartz.com/tag/riding-rockets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971641 | 940 | 1.882813 | 2 |
This summer, PBS KIDS’ summer learning initiative helps kids continue building key literacy skills throughout summer vacation with themed weeks.
Starting June 18 at 3 p.m. on KLRU
Baby Kate Adventure Week
Fifteen – Parts 1 & 2 – June 18
How much can Arthur and his friends do in 15 minutes? Arthur tries to race home to find his report and get back to school before class starts. George gets his shot to win big bucks for his school on the radio show “15 minutes of Fame.” Kate and Pal try to defeat the “Red Claw” and their mission of getting kids to play with cats by eliminating all imaginary friends. Can they all accomplish these missions impossible before the clock counts all the way down? Only time will tell!
Around the World in 11-Minutes/Muffy and the Big Bad Blog – June 19
Pal, Baby Kate, Amigo, and Mei Lin enthusiastically accept Nemo’s dare to travel around the world and make it back in 11 minutes. After all, there’s a prized pork chop and a lot of pride on the line! Adventuring by plane, hot-air balloon and motor scooters, the gang encounters many obstacles along the way – mostly because of Nemo’s meddling! – but giddily experience the joys of global expedition.
Muffy discovers that web blogging is a great way to keep her readers up to date with her every move…whether they’re interested or not! But then she goes too far and publicizes a disagreement with Francine. Can Muffy learn that some things really are better left private?
Paradise Lost/The Pride of Lakewood – June 20
Baby Kate is growing up! She’s started saying her first words. But strangely enough, the more words she learns, the less she seems to understand their dog, Pal. The two head off to the Children’s Zoo in search of the Dolly Llama for an explanation, and to see if they can reverse the process. Along the way, they learn that growing up is inevitable and maybe it isn’t so bad.
To boost school pride, Arthur and his classmates form the Lakewood Pride Committee, which immediately and fervently adds members, distributes buttons and creates special chants. But Brain and Sue Ellen, feeling pressured, decide they don’t want to join – and are accused of not loving their school. Can they prove that they’re proud of Lakewood Elementary even if they’re not part of this new group?
The Blackout/Mei Lin Takes a Stand – June 21
It’s the hottest day in Elwood City, when a total blackout leaves its residents without any electricity. Will Arthur and DW survive without AC and TV? Luckily, the Molina family steps in to teach the Reads a lesson on how to keep cool and have fun as a community even under the toughest of weather conditions!
Binky’s baby sister Mei-Lin isn’t keen on learning to walk and would rather stick to crawling. But then Baby Kate and Pal’s flea friends, brothers Sale and Pepe, return to Elwood City and share a tale of a little princess in the land of “Hanzan-Niis” who learns to walk in order to save her beloved court jester. Will Mei Lin be inspired to take a stand or continue to stumble?
Baby Kate and the Imaginary Mystery/Strangers on a Train – June 22
Nadine, D.W.’s imaginary friend is missing! Baby Kate, Pal, Amigo, and Nemo are all on the case and won’t give up until this mystery is solved – even if some fur gets ruffled along the way! Could the Tibbles be hiding Nadine? Or is the solution to the mystery closer to home?
Sue Ellen can’t wait to travel on an old-fashioned train with her mom. It will be just like those black and white movies! But once onboard, Sue Ellen discovers that the train is not as spectacular as she had hoped – until she finds a mysterious diary on board. Could it belong to the ghost of the “Crown City Star”?? | <urn:uuid:8dc54557-718d-494b-956a-3404ced2fb7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.klru.org/blog/category/education/page/4/?M=support | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947321 | 885 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Today is the 45th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the subject of a new novel and unending, inconclusive debate. We may never know the real answer about what happened that day in Dallas, although the coming years will see more and more declassified documents released to the public, finishing with Jackie O's oral history about JFK that enters the public domain in 2044 if all her children have passed on. The photos and footage of that day tells a grave story that eclipses mere words. Click for images that will still move you 45 years after the fact: Kennedy was headed to meet the press at the end of the motorcade, so most of the reporters weren't traveling — they were patiently waiting for the president to arrive. Victor Hugo King's photograph of the motorcade taking off. Justice Department spokesman Edwin Guthman was with RFK on the fateful day. He described RFK's state of mind, quoting him as saying, "There's so much bitterness, I thought they would get one of us, but Jack, after all he'd been through, never worried about it." Mary Moorman's photograph was taken right after the first shot. Kennedy's left fist is raised towards his throat, and Texas Governor John Connelly has also been shot. AP photographer Ike Altgens took a picture of President Kennedy's limousine as it proceded down Elm Street in Dealey Plaza. You can see Kennedy reaching for his throat if you look closely enough.
We can't forget the Zapruder film, later modified for widescreen viewing: Here's a look at where the Warren Commission determined the bullets fired by assassin Lee Harvey Oswald came from. The debate over whether or not there was another shooter involved still isn't completely settled. This is the view from the depository, where Oswald fired from. "I told the FBI what I had heard [two shots from behind the grassy knoll fence]," said Ken O'Donnell, "but they said it couldn't have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn't want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family." This is a drawing from the autopsy photo. Here's a more graphic photo of the autopsy. Later, the autopsy process was determined to be riddled with errors. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and no one could have known how much controversy the event would spawn. "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind," Kennedy had told the UN two years earlier. After he was sworn in, President Johnson addressed the nation: "No words are sad enough to express our sense of loss. No words are strong enough to express our determination to continue the forward thrust of America that he began." He later accepted the lengthy findings of the Warren Commission. "I wonder how it is with you, Harold? If I don't have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches." - JFK to Harold Macmillan in Bermuda, 1961. Dwindling Club of Witnesses [Dallas Morning News] | <urn:uuid:3887bede-1449-461e-88e8-ea1323ecf48e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gawker.com/5096650/45-years-ago-jfk-left-us?tag=lyndon-johnson | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979959 | 631 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The progression of the program generates exciting opportunities for the 2012 summer. Building off the foundation of the first two years, the 2012 summer will offer exciting new opportunities for participants and community members. In coordination with natural evolution and structural needs, GELT has made several adjustments to once again lead the country in green economy training.
Industry Training Tracks: In 2012, participants will opt into specific training tracks that are geared to provide the most comprehensive experience, specific to a green industry. Tracks of Renewable Energy, Urban Agriculture, Energy Efficiency and Resource Management will offer individuals tailored curriculum, projects and experience, providing the necessary time and relevant sites to prepare them for financial success in the industry of their choosing.
Architectural Salvage Training: includes both deconstruction and skimming. Deconstruction is the dissassembly of buildings to their foundation to preserve up to 85% of the materials that otherwise would be sent to a landfill. Skimming is a less intensive method where easy-to-remove materials are salvaged.
WeSource Management Training: Water and Waste will be focus of this training to identify solutions, projects and businesses grounded in the capture and re-purposing of these vital assets. Greywater/Blackwater systems, along with rain water harvesting trainings will combine with innovative recycling programs(such as food waste, used vegetable oil and discarded community materials) to provide the necessary skills to become leaders in creating financial solutions to these resources.
Business Integration: Experiencing green industries on the front-lines, participants will work directly with local businesses to understand the complexities of starting, operating and growing a green business. From accounting, to sales, to manufacturing, businesses in new, emerging arenas must be able to compete(against large, corporate business) to stay solvent, providing the critical opportunity for program participants to be apart of the challenges facing these new industries.
Nutritional Health Series:
All food has distinct qualities and energetic properties that affect your body depending on where, when and how it’s grown and prepared. This series will educate on different foods and how growing conditions affect the way you feel, think and act. Teachings on bio-individuality and superfoods will provide direct, personalize solutions for every lifestyle Infrastructure Projects
A critical component to GELT, is the deployment of resilient projects that not only serve immediate functions for community members, but also provide the experience of project development and application. There will be 4 main program installations, specific to Industry Training Tracks, that participants will design, develop and deploy in Highland Park. Additionally, participants will assist in developing, expanding or designing 2 city-scale projects that GELT, in collaboration with the city and sister-organizations, are currently engaged in.
Renewable Energy Track Project: In collaboration with community, regional partners, RE participants will design, resource and install a solar PV system on the apartment building at 116 Candler. Expanding on the research performed in 2011, procuring funding sources as well as designing, with an aim at install, will be the goal of this ground-breaking project; the first multi-family residential structure solar pv system in Highland Park
Additionally, individuals in this Track will begin to design the first-of its kind, city scale solar street light system. Through partnership with the City of Highland Park, the mayor and the HP Sustainability Task Force, participants will have the opportunity to revolutionize the way cities look at lighting.
Energy Efficiency Track Project: Partnered with several local businesses, participants in this track will perform over 100 residential weatherizations, saving residents over $150 annually, on their utility bill. Additionally, individuals will conduct 5 comprehensive energy audits, preparing owners to seal their building and install renewable energy. Two audits will be performed on city-owned buildings; the Administration building and the Recreation Center. Another Audit on the Administration building for the Highland Park School District, with the remaining two audits coming from local churches
Urban Agriculture Track Project: Transformation of a vacant lot into a full-scale agriculture production, a hoop house, a CSA or Perennial Fruiting Orchard, will be the project for individuals in this track. Working on land owned by GELT sister organization, Distributed Power, participants will design, develop and install an accessible, functional growing space that drives revenue, feeds local residents, and teaches urban agriculture. Long-term viability of the development will be the foundation for what is designed, ensuring success and evolution of the space.
Resource Management Track Project: Participants in this track will get a sampling of effective, practical solutions to managing and using vital resources. First, building off the 2011 Garbage Kingdom project, individuals will use a Kaboom grant to revamp the aesthetics and functionality of the playground. Next, participants will design and install a composting toilet for a bathroom inside of the apartment building at 116 Candler. Finally, this team will be tasked with designing and installing a water catchment system for the 116 Candler building, and the existing Hoop House on the adjacent lot.
Additionally, this team will work with directly with the City of Highland Park and the HP Sustainability Task Force to expand on the Resource Recovery Project, a city-wide project to relcaim, repurpose and reuse all discarded materials in the city. A unique opportunity to leave a mark on how a city addresses waste and unwanted materials. | <urn:uuid:d2ddd3e6-b13e-4cf4-809c-8613b0fbd959> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalexchange.org/greeneconomy/GELT/whatsnew | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919195 | 1,091 | 1.578125 | 2 |
There have been the best of times; there have been the worst of times in this gig. You read The Grapes of Wrath when you were 12 and Ma and Pa Joad's struggles have never left you. You weren't trying to get rich, not for yourself. You just wanted your brothers and sisters to have a decent life - to not have to suffer abuses from The Man. You wanted a fair shake.
As union head, your job is to aggregate the working efforts of your constituents/ partners/ fellow union members to use "collective bargaining,” a fancy word for "my side versus your side.” That way, when The Man says your peeps have to make $9 an hour instead of the $15 an hour you feel they deserve, you have a way to fight back.
And the world has not been kind to the working man, at least it hasn’t been for centuries - maybe even millenia.
The working man used to be a relatively uneducated but well-meaning and hard-working man (and yes, it was a man, not a woman for a vastly long time), who wanted to provide food and shelter and clothing and a few toys for his family. He wanted to protect them from the evil elements in the world and "give them a nice life.”
But the individual man was dissed - by King, countrymen, and marauders who came to town every decade or three. The individual man had few rights and was really a projectile of the wealthy, the empowered.
Until the 20th century. At least in the United States. A bunch of things changed, the most important of which was the shift in global economies to manufacturing over farming; that is, the countries who dominated the world in the 20th century built stuff, rather than grew stuff. Namely, the car. (They tried growing cars for a while, but when they planted the fuzzy dice, surprisingly little would happen.)
The Model T was the first big manufactured product that had legs (not literally) and was globally exported from the United States. It was the standard in cars for a decade and made Henry Ford a billionaire. Henry tussled with unions - he wanted to pay the $9 an hour; his workers wanted $15 an hour (inflation adjusted, of course). Henry's push however, was that men were machines and he wanted to treat them as such, narrowing their duties and refining their physical movements until they were no more than automatons.
Then one day a group of men (at this point it was still pretty much only men who were agitatin') said, "there's gotta be a better way.” And United Auto Workers (UAW) was formed.
Fast forward - go past strikes that assaulted corporate America in the middle part of the 20th century, and recall that in a strike, workers simply refused to work. They ... just... sit. No violence. No shoving. Just a whole lotta nothing.
In the era of peach-picking Joads, The Man was easily able to find others who would pick peaches within a few hours so the Joads were easily replaced and the famished labor supply was seemingly endless. But in a boom economy where everyone in France, Italy, Spain, England and beyond all wanted American cars, things weren’t so simple - a car was hard to make. Or at least harder to make than a picked peach.
So unions struck and set an example and, over time, a huge percentage of the American work force was Union.
It was almost a game - one union looked over its shoulder at the work contract that the other union "won" in negotiations against the owners of the business and said, "Hey, gimme somma that."
So pay went up. And up. And up. Today, many unskilled laborers (those who didn't read Shmoop, didn't study at night, didn't graduate high school) earn $30 an hour or more - guaranteed. Not only did unions come to dominate the manufacturing sector of corporate America, they dominated - and still do - the public employee world. That is, the people at TSA (at the airport/ the gal who checks you in), the people at the DMV, school teachers, the postal workers and so on... they're all union. They all threatened strikes at one point or another and the government raised their pay and benefits.
They raised 'em high. So high, in fact, that in many cases the benefits and pay and pension obligations are now bankrupting the states that made those deals.
Couple that trend with the fact that the United States is no longer the “powerhouse" in making cars - Japan, Germany and Korea are now major players. The US isn't growing like it used to be. The world is competitive - and simply put, other countries pay their laborers a lot less, or at least differently, from how the US pays its laborers.
So the era of "great unions" appears to be over. Union membership is shrinking - and it's not just the UAW. Unions were a very large part of the newspaper industry, for example. But the internet came along, filled with bloggers who opine for free(ish), and almost the entire industry went from flush to nearly bankrupt in 25 years.
So you as Union Head now have a brutal vice inside of which you live. If you push hard for union contracts to be better, in many cases, you will bankrupt your employers and then everyone is out of a job. Or you'll piss them off Wal-Mart style (Wal-Mart famously hates unions; they won't deal with them and in a number of cases, they have simply closed their stores when the local workers tried to organize unions).
In corporate America, the reality for many sectors is that the world can't afford unions any more - that is, the US is a high cost labor area and if you are a consumer, why would you pay $612 for a printer made in Chicago over the exact same printer made in China for $316?
In public sector America, the union challenges you've reviewed have been different; there, the "revenues" don't come from selling printer units - they come from taxes. And in many areas, taxes are so high that they are changing behavior. In theory, if the government taxed 100% of your earnings above $100,000, you'd work during the year to make that much; then just stop working in September if you'd hit your number. Why work more? The taxes would just take away everything you'd have worked for.
Well, in the proposals around the 2012 Obama campaign, the rich in California, New York and other high tax states will be paying about 65% marginal tax, meaning that for every dollar they earn over $250,000, the proposals revolve around those people keeping only 35 cents on each dollar. So it's a fair question to ask: "why bother working more?" And that's bad for the people that the rich would employ - their spending likely reduces and... bad things happen to the economy.
The taxes issue assaults public workers directly who work for states rather than the federal government. The press has been vociferous in covering the near-bankruptcy status of California. Bad deals cut with unions by the government are blamed for much of the states’ woes. And many wealthy people are simply moving out - it means that tax revenues go down a bunch and the state unions struggle further.
So... you're the union head. You have to figure out what to do. You’re just trying to get your fair share and do right by the people who have elected you to… optimize. Still happy you took this gig? | <urn:uuid:73dfc051-0ee7-4ac9-9289-218077739338> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shmoop.com/careers/union-head/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981924 | 1,604 | 1.789063 | 2 |
CLE ELUM, Wash. - More than a century after their runs up the Cle Elum River were wiped out by dams, sockeye salmon are spawning again.
The Yakima Herald-Republic says ( http://is.gd/IIkk05 ) this is the fourth year of an effort to reintroduce this prized salmon species back into the Yakima River Basin.
The Yakama Nation is overseeing the program, which collected Wenatchee and Okanogan sockeye salmon at Priest Rapids Dam east of Yakima about three months ago and trucked them to Lake Cle Elum for release.
A total of 10,000 wild sockeye were released in the lake this year.
Ultimately, the hope is for a self-sustaining run of Yakima River sockeye that will allow for a sport fishery. | <urn:uuid:25735f16-789e-4138-8868-fdc136e1ce0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.king5.com/news/environment/Sockeye-salmon-return-to-Cle-Elum-River-173032111.html?ref=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961909 | 168 | 2.25 | 2 |
Most bicycle aficionados point out that dedicated bike lanes in the San Gabriel Valley go north and south, such as the popular San Gabriel and Rio Hondo river bikeways.
But when bike riders want to travel east and west, they are out of luck. Usually, they end up riding on the busy boulevards shoulder to shoulder with trucks and cars.
Fixing that reality has recently been made a priority by regional transportation planners.
The north-south bias was recognized nearly a decade ago by the former executive officer of the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC), Belinda Faustinos. She and Sam Pedroza, the mayor of Claremont and the chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (COG), began planning an east-west bike trail back in 2003 that would stretch 22 miles from Claremont through Thompson Creek, touching the south end of the Fairplex, crossing the 10 Freeway and largely picking up an east-west bearing as a paved lane along San Jose Creek.
The San Jose Creek/Thompson Creek Bike Trail would roughly parallel the 60 Freeway, a mile or so north.
If funded, the bike trail would be built not just for recreation, Pedroza insists, but would serve as a non-vehicular commuter route for thousands of people who work in warehouses, factories, car dealers, restaurants and offices along the east-west industrial corridor of the San Gabriel Valley.
To make this bike lane a reality, Pedroza began working with the new RMC executive officer, Mark Stanley, and Rob Romanek, project manager with the Watershed Conservation Authority, an arm of the RMC.
Stanley's background is in transportation, having worked for Foothill Transit before coming to the conservancy.
"It would be a good east-west transportation corridor," Stanley said, one that could continue west of the 605 into downtown Los Angeles.
There are two main obstacles for such a groundbreaking project. First, it takes money.
Romanek has applied for a $477,260 grant from the state agency managing funding from Prop. 84, an environmental ballot measure passed by voters in 2006. The funds would be used for a feasibility study - a crucial next step.
The RMC would not put a total price tag on the project, saying the designs are too preliminary. But the bulk of the cost would go for bridges or underpasses, so bike riders don't have to exit onto roads with traffic.
The other big problem is competing bureaucracies.
Pedroza, who represents the COG, has seen interest from Claremont, Covina, West Covina, La Puente, Walnut and Industry. West Covina and La Puente have suggested an additional bike lane through their cities to pick up dense residential areas, in addition to commercial and industrial Industry.
"As far as building a bike trail, it's just pavement and striping," Pedroza said. "The right-of-way is there. It is a matter of working in the bureaucracy so say, county Flood Control buys into it."
Romanek has that one covered, too.
A February 2010 draft of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Plan listed the project as 47th out of 47 projects, the least important one in the East San Gabriel Valley planning area. Romanek disagreed and began talking to county planners. He even solicited local cities to support the east-west bike trail.
When the new county bicycle plan was released in October 2011, the project had jumped to No. 2. It is now the second-highest rated project out of 58 projects, he said.
"I told you this story had a happy ending," Stanley remarked. Being part of the plan and so high up on the list means it's much more likely to get funded, Romanek said.
"It's a good sign. A good sign, but it's not money," Stanley said.
There's another obstacle. A regional transportation plan calls for a double-decker truck lane along San Jose Creek. It may be a competing proposal. Or not.
"I don't know if anyone has looked if they could both be there," Romanek said.
Pedroza said Industry, which supports a dedicated truck lane for moving goods more quickly to its warehouses, indicated there still would be room for the east-west bike lane.
626-962-8811 ext. 2237 | <urn:uuid:899febf7-b642-444d-829d-b53159ebce69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_19327618 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966983 | 915 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Joan Miro (1893–1983)
Joan Miro was born in Barcelona, Spain as the son of a goldsmith and jewelry maker. He studied art at the Academia Gali and at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts where he was admitted at 14, but his parents dissuaded him to pursue his desire to become an artist and he initially worked as an accountant. Eventually convincing his parents of his determination, Miro made his first trip to Paris in 1920, and settled there in 1921. He met Picasso and other important emerging artists in Paris, which at the time was the cultural center for art in the early part of the 20th century. In 1924, Miro aligned himself with the Surrealist movement through the movement’s founder and proponent, Andre Breton. He associated with the artists Max Ernst, Andre Masson and others, but always remained on the periphery of Surrealism.
By 1930, Miro had developed his own unique style of imagery derived from elements of Catalan folk art, the art of children, and randomness. Eventually, Breton described him as, “the most surreal of us all.” His fame and recognition became international during the 1930’s and from 1940 to 1948, Miro returned to his homeland, beginning to experiment with many media, including, lithography, etching, ceramics, sculpture and the creation of murals. He visited the United States in 1947 for the first time and was the subject for many important museum exhibitions including two at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1951 and 1959. In 1956 Miro settled in Majorca, Spain in a studio that eventually was transformed into the Miro Museum.
Miro’s personality was surprising as well. He was a remarkably modest man, and wore dark business suits. He was orderly, detail oriented, meticulous and reliable, in contrast to his art, there was nothing of the “bohemian artist” present in him at all. He became one of the most prolific creators of original lithographs and etchings, and innovated the techniques of etching through the use of highly-textured applications of color, a technique that would later be called carborundum aquatint. Today, Miro is viewed by the art world and collectors, as one of the most important artists of the 20th century and the precursor for much of modern art.
Major Dates in Miro's Life
- First exhibition in Paris
- Painted “The Farm”
- Joined the Surrealists
- Did his first lithographs for Tristan Tzara’a L’Arbredes Voyageurs
- Completed his first etching, “Childhood”
- Executed his first drypoints, the black and red series, and his first linocut.
- The war caused him to leave Paris for Majorca and then for Barcelona, where in 1944 he did the set of fifty lithographs in black and white entitled “Barcelona.” That same year, he returned to Paris and in 1947 went to America.
- He did seventy-two color lithographs for Tzara’s “Parler seul.”
- Completed his first color woodcuts.
- He was awarded the Graphic Art Prize at the Venice Biennale.
- Finished his hundred color woodcuts for Eluard’s A toure Epreuve.
- The Musee National d’ Art Moderne, Paris, finally organized its first Miro retrospective.
- He was awarded the Carnegie Prize in Pittsburgh.
- Miro rendered homage to his great friend Joan Prats with a show of lithographs, Sala Gaspar, Barcelona, where later he also showed tapestries and sculpture.
- Had a major exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris, of painting, sculpture, and ceramics. The Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presented his complete graphic work.
- In Barcelona, in the Parque de Mintjuich, the Fundacio Joan Miro, built by J.L. Sert, opened and was inaugurated officially in 1976 with a show of 475 drawings (1901-75) from among the five thousand donated by Miro.
- His ninetieth birthday was celebrated by events at the Galeries Maeght Lelong and Adrien Maeght in Paris and the Fundacio Miro. Ill for many months, Miro died on December 25th in Palma de Majorca. | <urn:uuid:f9576e53-f6df-49bc-9aef-b3eae4860f67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bio.parkwestgallery.com/artists/Joan-Miro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975053 | 946 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Press Release 13 November 2007
JUM'AH OFFERS POSITIVE AND REALISTIC VIEW OF WORLD LIQUID ENERGY RESOURCES
Rome November 13 2007 - Saudi Aramco President and CEO Abdullah S. Jum'ah today addressed attendees of the 20th Congress of the World Energy Council, where he demonstrated that there are enough conventional and non-conventional liquid energy resources available for petroleum to be a significant part of the global energy mix for decades to come.
In a speech titled Global Oil Resources and the World's Energy Future: A Holistic View, Jum'ah examined the more than 30 years of doomsday forecasts that have been put forward about the petroleum industry and that have since been proven false. He offered a statistical basis for his argument that forecasts for the ultimate recovery of conventional oil resources have actually increased over time.
"In general, we have grossly underestimated mankind's ability to find new reserves of petroleum," he said, "as well as our capacity to raise recovery rates and tap fields once thought inaccessible or impossible to produce. On balance, I am confident that this growth trend can continue. But confidence is no excuse for complacency, and I also believe we must take a hard look at the Earth's total endowment of liquid fuels, and realistically assess our ability to meet future demand for energy."
In addition to conventional oil, Jum'ah stated his belief that non-conventional resources of liquid energy such as condensates, natural gas liquids, tar sands, bitumen, extra heavy oil, oil shales, gas-to-liquids, coal-to-liquids and bio fuels will ultimately contribute to the global supplies of petroleum that are currently meeting consumers' needs. "The amount of conventional oil-in-place is somewhere between six and eight trillion barrels, depending on whether you go with the Conservative or Target Scenario," he said.
"The volume of non-conventional oil-in-place is rather murkier, with a Conservative Scenario figure of seven trillion barrels and a Target Scenario number of roughly eight trillion barrels or higher," he added.
"But let us also remember that we basically know where these non-conventional liquids are located," Jum'ah said, "and that there is little or no exploration work to be done when it comes to these resources." Jum'ah went on to explain that most of the non-conventional resources are located in the Western Hemisphere and that that region will play a greater role in the future of petroleum.
Jum'ah noted that, taking into account both conventional and non-conventional resources, there are between 13 trillion barrels and 16 trillion barrels of total in-place liquids available worldwide. "To put those figures in perspective," he said, "to date we have consumed only 1.1 trillion barrels of oil, or seven to nine percent of resources in place. Nearly all of that was conventional oil."
Jum'ah emphasized that recovery of liquid energy resources, particularly non-conventional resources, will be impacted by a complex interaction of factors including advances in technology, recovery efficiency, demand and its growth, levels of financial investment, economics, policies pursued by both consuming and producing governments, and environmental considerations. He said that though the world average recovery rate of conventional oil fields remains at 35 percent, "under the Target Scenario, the world as a whole could add up to a trillion barrels of additional reserves from known fields. Even under much more conservative assumptions made by some analysts in the Conservative Scenario, there will be another 200 billion barrels of conventional recoverable oil resources to be tapped from already discovered fields."
Jum'ah stated that maintenance of the world's conventional oil reserves is equally split between national oil companies (NOC) and international oil companies (IOC). But access to practically all non-conventional reserves falls to the IOCs. He also said that it is largely the IOC's that are pursuing niche opportunities like ultra-deep water and Arctic plays. "The development of conventional and non-conventional liquid fuel resources will take place over many decades," Jum'ah said, "and I will exercise caution in trying to stake out exact timetables. However, I believe there will be a predictable sequence to this development, as dictated by both technology and economics."
Regarding bio fuels, Jum'ah noted that their growth will be the result of government policies and initiatives rather than market fundamentals. He spoke of the pressure that bio fuels exert on both arable land and on food supplies needed to feed a growing global population. He also addressed the resulting increase in the use of pesticides and fertilizers used in the production of bio fuels that is expected to have its own environmental implications. "Frankly, there are huge uncertainties associated with biofuels, and I think it is therefore difficult to predict with any degree of certainty their ultimate contribution to the global energy mix," he said.
Tackling environmental issues associated with the energy industry was a major theme that Jumah discussed. He stated that the two most pragmatic and least disruptive methods of lightening the environmental impact of energy use and consumption were improved efficiency and R&D efforts. He also said that alternative energy sources such as nuclear, renewables, or even coal, though not applicable to the transportation industry, "are needed and welcomed."
"And eventually these fuel sources will become a more important component of global energy supplies," he said. "But we must be realistic about the pace of their future development, and understand that for the foreseeable future, their significance in the energy supply mix will continue to be limited."
Jum'ah concluded his remarks with an exhortation to worry not about "peak oil" scenarios, but to worry about ignoring liquid fuels in our energy policies and investment decisions and discouraging its development and growth on various pretexts. "Such steps would, without a doubt, stunt the development of new technologies, undermine efforts to produce more environmentally friendly and cleaner liquid fuels, and block some of the available liquid resources from being converted into economic supplies to meet the world's growing need for energy," he said.
The World Energy Council in partnership with Oliver Wyman (global consulting firm) has over the past year worked on its third Assessment of country energy and climate policy aiming to identify key areas for policy improvements and to understand how successful policies can be transferred from one country to another. more > | <urn:uuid:912ecb26-3efb-4cf2-a1cf-e318f6473b04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldenergy.org/wec_news/press_releases/946.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960658 | 1,309 | 1.539063 | 2 |
That really doesn't tell you anything, so maybe a little background is in order. Los Padres County was the name chosen in 1978 when the idea of splitting Santa Barbara County in two was first put to the voters. I chose the name Los Padres County as my virtual home, since I like the sound of it. Several years ago, petitions were circulated to put the issue on the ballot again, but the name chosen this time was Mission County. No comment.
In the June 6, 2006 election, County voters overwelmingly (82.85%) voted No on the formation of Mission County, including 81.35% within the boundaries of the proposed new county.
Update: Most the following links died because the sites went away. Courtesty of the WayBack Machine at the Internet Archive, I've replaced those with links to their archived material. | <urn:uuid:3eb26beb-5b84-4d9b-a563-bf50c6dcd8f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lospadrescounty.net/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97589 | 172 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Approximately five thousand years ago in the Himalayas, one of the greatest sages of India, Srila Vyasadeva wrote down the Vedas which included Ayurveda or "The Science of Life". "Ayur" means "Life" and "Veda" means "Science". As with all holistic medical systems it is based on a premise of balance creating good health.
Srila Vyasadev entrusted the original copies of the texts with his most erudite and enlightened disciples, who, along with other great sages, inaugurated a very long sacrificial ceremony for hundreds of years for the purification and blessings of the entire world. Disciples studied and discussed these ancient texts as the knowledge was passed down through the centuries expanding and developing these original and eternal truths without ever altering them.
The notion that Ayurveda is of divine origin is shared by many Ayurvedaic personalities. That the knowledge of medical sciences come from the gods is a common belief in other civilizations as well. Thoth and Apollo were thought to have given medical practices to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, while in India, it is said that Lord Brahma is the originator of Ayurveda.
The cause of disease in Ayurveda is viewed as the lack of proper cellular function because of an excess or deficiency of Vata, Pitta or Kapha and/or the presence of toxins. Body, mind and consciousness must work together in maintaining balance. They are simply viewed as different facets of one's being. To learn how to balance the body, mind and consciousness then requires an understanding how vata, pitta and kapha work together. According to Ayurvedic philosophy the entire cosmos is an interplay of the energies of the five great elements - Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Vata, pitta and kapha are combinations and permutations of these five elements that manifest as patterns present in all creation.
In the physical body, vata--composed of Space and Air--is the subtle energy associated with movement. It governs breathing, blinking, muscle and tissue movement, pulsation of the heart, and all movements in the cytoplasm and cell membranes. In balance, vata promotes creativity and flexibility. Out of balance, vata produces fear and anxiety.
A person with vata predominant is blessed with a quick mind, flexibility and creativity. Vata provides the essential motion for all bodily processes and is extremely vital for health. One purpose of lifestyle considerations is to "ground" or stabilize this motion. On an annual basis, vata is most prominent in the fall and at the change of seasons, and these are the most important times to be careful of diet and lifestyle. Routine is very useful in assisting the vata individual to effectively ground all this moving energy.
Vata types have variable appetite and digestion. They are often attracted to astringent foods like salad and vegetables, but their constitution is balanced by sweet, sour and salty tastes. Vata people tend to produce little urine and their feces are hard, dry and small in size and quantity. Mentally, vata people usually grasp things quickly but then forget them quickly. They are alert, restless and very active.
They walk, talk and think fast, but are easily fatigued. They have less willpower and often feel unstable and ungrounded. They have less tolerance, confidence and boldness. When unbalanced, vata types have a tendency to become fearful and nervous, and may experience high anxiety. In the external world, vata types tend to earn money quickly and spend it quickly.
They are not good planners and as a consequence may suffer economic hardship. Vata resides in the colon, as well as the brain, ears, bones, joints, skin and thighs. Vata people are more susceptible to diseases involving the air principle, such as emphysema, pneumonia and arthritis.
Other common vata disorders include flatulence, tics, twitches, aching joints, dry skin and hair, nerve disorders, constipation, and mental confusion. Vata tends to increase with age as is indicated by drying and wrinkling of the skin.
Since the attributes of vata are dry, light, cold, rough, subtle, mobile, clear and dispersing, any of these qualities in excess can cause imbalance.
Frantic travel, especially by plane, loud noises, continual stimulation, drugs, sugar, and alcohol all derange vata, as does exposure to cold and cold foods.
Like the wind, vata types have a hard time becoming and staying grounded. Routine is difficult but essential if vata is to be lowered and controlled.
In general, people with excessive vata respond most rapidly to warm, moist, slightly oily, heavy foods. Steam baths, humidifiers, and moisture in general are helpful.
General food guidelines for decreasing vata are:
As you continue to improve your eating habits, your body will begin to naturally detoxify itself. You can help boost your body's natural detoxification processes by stimulating digestion with an herbal fiber supplement. When combined with digestive herbs and psyllium husk, fiber supplements also make a great colon cleanse for detoxification.
General guidelines for balancing vata:
Pitta, made up of Fire and Water, expresses as the body's metabolic system. It governs digestion, absorption, assimilation, nutrition, metabolism and body temperature. In balance, pitta promotes understanding and intelligence. Out of balance, pitta arouses anger, hatred and jealousy.
Pitta people have many of the qualities of fire. Fire is hot, penetrating, sharp, and agitating. Similarly, pitta people have warm bodies, penetrating ideas, and sharp intelligence. But they can also become very agitated and short tempered.
The pitta body type is one of medium height and build, with ruddy or coppery skin. They may have many moles and freckles. Their skin is warm and less wrinkled than vata skin. Their hair tends to be silky and they often experience premature graying or hair loss. Their eyes are of medium size and conjunctiva is moist. The nose is sharp and the tip tends to be reddish.
Pitta people have a strong metabolism, good digestion, and strong appetites. They like plenty of food and liquids. They tend to love hot spices and cold drinks. However, their constitution is balanced by sweet, bitter and astringent tastes.
Pitta people sleep well and of medium duration. They produce large quantities of urine and feces, which tend to be yellowish, soft and plentiful. They easily perspire. Hands and feet stay warm. Pitta people have a lower tolerance for sunlight, heat or hard physical work.
Mentally, pitta types are alert and intelligent and have good powers of comprehension. However, they are easily agitated and aggressive and tend toward hate, anger and jealousy when imbalanced. In the external world, pitta people like to be leaders and planners and seek material prosperity. They like to exhibit their wealth and possessions. Pitta people tend to have diseases involving the fire principle such as fevers, inflammatory diseases and jaundice. Common symptoms include skin rashes, burning sensation, ulceration, fever, inflammations or irritations such as conjunctivitis, colitis, or sore throats.
Since the attributes of pitta are oily, hot, light, mobile, and liquid, an excess of any of these qualities aggravates pitta. Summer is a time of heat, the pitta season. Sunburn, poison ivy, prickly heat, and short tempers are common. These kinds of pitta disorders tend to calm down as the weather gets cooler. The diet and lifestyle changes emphasize coolness-cool foods, avoidance of chilies and spices (especially difficult for New Mexicans), and cool climates. People with excessive pitta need to exercise at the coolest part of the day.
Dietary guidelines for pitta are:
Kapha is formed from Earth and Water and is the energy that forms the body's structure--bones, muscles, tendons--and provides the "glue" that holds the cells together. Kapha supplies the water for all bodily parts and systems. It lubricates joints, moisturizes the skin, and maintains immunity. In balance, kapha is expressed as love, calmness and forgiveness. Out of balance, it leads to attachment, greed and envy.
Kapha people are blessed with strength, endurance and stamina. They have sweet, loving dispositions and are stable and grounded. Their skin is oily and smooth. Physically, kapha people tend to gain weight and have a slow metabolism. They shun exercise. They have thick skin and their bodies and muscles are well developed. Their eyes are large, dark, and attractive with thick, long lashes and brows.
Kapha people evacuate slowly and feces tend to be soft, pale and oily. Perspiration is moderate. Sleep is deep and prolonged. Kapha types are attracted to sweet, salty and oily foods, but their constitutions are most balanced by bitter, astringent and pungent tastes.
Psychologically, kapha people tend to be calm, tolerant and forgiving. However, they may become lethargic. While they may be slow to comprehend, their long term memory is excellent. When out of balance, kaphas tend to experience greed, envy, attachment and possessiveness. In the external world, kapha tendencies toward groundedness, stability, and attachment help them to earn and hold onto money.
They tend to have diseases connected to the water principle such as flu, sinus congestion, and other diseases involving mucous. Sluggishness, excess weight, diabetes, water retention, and headaches are also common. Kapha can become more aggravated as the moon gets full because, as biologists have discovered, there is a tendency for water retention at that time. Winter is the time of greatest kapha accumulation and following the dietary and lifestyle changes are most important during that season.
Ayurveda encompasses various techniques for assessing health. It assesses prodromal symptoms, cardinal signs and symptoms, and one's suitability for treatment to help determine the etiology and pathogenesis of an imbalance. Various methods are utilized to help acquire information during an assessment with a client.
These methods include: questioning, observation, palpation, direct perception and inference. Techniques such as taking the pulse; observing the tongue, eyes and physical form; and listening to the tone of the voice are employed during an assessment.
Palliative and cleansing measures, if appropriate, can be used to help eliminate an imbalance along with suggestions for eliminating or managing the causes of the imbalance. Recommendations may include: implementation of lifestyle changes; starting and maintaining a suggested diet; and the use of herbs.
In some cases, participating in a cleansing program, called panchakarma, is suggested to help the body rid itself of accumulated toxins so it can gain more benefit from various suggested measures of treatment.
In summary, Ayurveda addresses all aspects of life--the body, mind and spirit. It recognizes that each of us is unique, each responds differently to the many aspects of life, each possesses different strengths and weaknesses. Through insight, understanding and experience Ayurveda presents a vast database of the relationships between causes and their affects, both immediate and subtle, for each unique individual.
Amalaki - is used to rebuild and maintain new tissues and increases red blood cell count. It is considered helpful in cleansing the mouth, strengthening teeth, nourishing the bones and is the highest natural source of vitamin C. It reduces pitta without aggravating vata or kapha.
Ashwaghandha - has been traditionally used for general debility, sexual debility and nerve exhaustion. It also is said to generate the hormonal system, promote healing of tissues, and support sound sleep. It is very balancing for high vata conditions.
Bala - is commonly used for heart disease, arthritic pain, and helpful in soothing inflamed nerve tissue. Bala pacifies high vata-pitta conditions.
Bibitaki - has been used as a strong laxative to cleanse the bowels. It is also used as a gargle for sore throats because of its heating and soothing properties. It is a powerful tonic for kapha.
Brahmi has been traditionally used for nervous disorders, epilepsy, senility, premature aging, hair loss, obstinate skin conditions and venereal diseases. It pacifies high vata or pitta.
Bringaraj is considered helpful in premature graying of hair, balding , alopecia, loss of teeth, enlargement of liver or spleen, chronic hepatitis, anemia and skin diseases. It is a rejuvenative for pitta.
Guduchi is a considered a bitter tonic. It is regarded as a blood purifier and stimulant. It is considered helpful in eye disorders and promotes mental clarity. It balances high pitta conditions.
Haritaki - is used for coughs, asthma, abdominal distention, tumors and itching. It is a rejuvenative for vata.
Manjistha - is considered one of the best blood purifying herbs in Ayurveda. It is said to cool and detoxify the blood, dissolve obstructions in blood flow, and clear stagnant blood from the system. It clears high pitta from the system.
Neem is considered one of the best healing and disinfectant agents for skin diseases and anti-inflamatory for joint and muscle pain. It balances high pitta conditions.
Shardunikha is commonly referred to as "Gurmar, the destroyer of sugar". It is traditionally used to control blood sugar levels in the body.
Shitawari is traditionally used to support the female organs, prevent sexual debility, help menopausal conditions, stomach ulcers, and chronic fevers. It is a rejuvenative for pitta.
Hingwastika is traditionally used in supporting digestion, reducing abdominal distension and flatulence and in controlling candida. It balances vata and kapha.
Trifala is said to promote normal appetite, good digestion, increase red blood cells and hemoglobin and aid in the removal of undesirable fat. It is a balanced formulation good for all doshas.
Trikatu is used as a digestive tonic and to clear the body of toxic material. It clears excess kapha from the system.
Yograj Guggulu is said to be useful for reducing joint pain, reducing cholesterol and excess fat from the system. It clears toxins and excess kapha from the body.
Task Specific Formulas
Digest Ease is a digestion formula for pitta. It supports proper digestion and absorption for individuals prone to hyperacity and heartburn.
Digestive Fire can aid in increasing appetite, promoting digestion and burning up excess toxins in the body.
Geriforte a proven rejuvenating tonic that slows down ageing.
JointCare helps to reduce morning stffness and joint pain. Also considered helpful for relieving pain due to sports strains and sprains.
LeanCare a unique herbal formula that regulates lipid metabolism and aids in weight reduction and contol of body fat.
LiverCare is a potent liver protection formula that acts against toxins from food, water, alcohol or pollution.
Liv.52 improves the functional efficiency of the liver and regulates levels of enzymes and optomizes assimilation.
Mentat enhances learning ability and attention span. A natural and safe calming product.
Prana/Breath of Life warms and energizes respiration and circulation and helps dispel excess cold and mucous in the system.
Rumalaya supports healthy joints, promotes circulation and maintains freedom of movement.
Septilin helps increase production of white blood cells and stimulates the immune function to cope with common allergens.
Shakti/Energy Tonic renews vital energy to strengthen mental and physical functions and maintain immunity against disease.
StressEase is a balancing formula for coping with stress and fatigue. It helps to deal with the mental strains of daily life.
SweetEase promotes healthy glucose levels. It may be useful for individuals prone to obesity, or related conditions of high blood sugar or high cholesterol.
Tentex Forte is a non-hormonal stimulant that tones up the male system and improves vitality and stamina.
TranquilMind promotes relaxation and sleep. It also alleviates nervous tension or anxiety due to stress.
Triphalax is a bowel tonic that strengthens the colon and supports proper assimulation of nutrients.
UriCare helps to clear impurities from the urinary tract and maintain efficient kidney and urinary system function.
Wisdom/Mind Force supports creativity by increasing mental energy without causing restlessness or difficulty sleeping.
Women's Freedom is a formula that nurtures and regenerates the female reproductive system
Paving the way for greater use of ancient medical knowledge PhysOrg - March 14, 2013
Scientists are reporting an advance toward overcoming a major barrier to tapping the potential of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and India's Ayurvedic medicine in developing new and more effective modern drugs. Andreas Bender and colleagues explain that TCM has made key contributions to modern medicine. In the world's largest international clinical trial, for instance, scientists concluded that Artesunate, a derivative of the Chinese herb qinghao, should replace quinine as a treatment for severe malaria in both adults and children worldwide. Traditional medicines have a track record in benefiting human health that spans thousands of years. However, gaps in knowledge about how these medicines work in the body, their "mode of action" (MOA) - limit their use today. Information about a drug's MOA is important for better understanding of both the beneficial effects and side effects of treatments.
HEALING AND ENERGY INDEX
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF ALL FILES
CRYSTALINKS HOME PAGE
PSYCHIC READING WITH ELLIE | <urn:uuid:815c5a8b-8861-44d0-b728-f1383e3fb9ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crystalinks.com/ayurveda.html | 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 | 0.938278 | 3,749 | 2.671875 | 3 |
UF/IFAS research into bacterial disease could lead to natural herbicide
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida scientists are researching a natural herbicide that could be used in traditional and organic farming.
The herbicide, a chemical called thaxtomin, occurs naturally in Streptomyces bacteria that cause potato scab, a major disease of potatoes worldwide.
A study describing a key step in the process that could lead to its commercial production is published in the current issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
Rosemary Loria, a professor and chair of the UF/IFAS plant pathology department, is a co-author of the publication. She worked on the study while at Cornell University and has continued the research since joining UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences in 2011.
In the study, the researchers describe an enzyme in the bacteria that is essential to producing the herbicide and showed that without the enzyme, thaxtomin production doesn’t occur.
This is important, Loria said, as it could allow researchers to increase the amount of thaxtomin the bacteria produces, which must happen for the herbicide to become commercially viable.
“So we could within the next couple of years be able to create a strain of bacteria that would produce much higher levels of thaxtomin than the natural strains produce and that will assist in getting thaxtomin onto the market,” Loria said.
Thaxtomin works as an herbicide by causing the abnormal growth of plant cell walls. Loria said the chemical could be used as a pre-emergence herbicide to kill weeds when they are just starting to sprout and most vulnerable to thaxtomin.
And since it is a natural herbicide produced from bacteria rather than one created in a lab, it can be used on organic farms, she said.
Study co-author Evan Johnson was on the research team with Loria at Cornell and is now a plant pathology postdoctoral associate at the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.
He said advantages natural herbicides offer over lab-synthesized herbicides include more specific targeting of the organisms they control and faster breakdown in the soil.
“Because it’s naturally produced in the soil, it can generally be broken down more easily by organisms in the area,” Johnson said. “It’s something that the organisms in the soil that break down organic matter are used to seeing.”
Other study authors were Sarah M. Barry, of King’s College London’s department of chemistry, school of biomedical sciences; Johan A. Kers, of the industrial products division of Intrexon Corporation in San Carlos, Calif.; Lijiang Song, Philip R. Aston and Gregory L. Challis with the University of Warwick department of chemistry in Warwick, U.K.; Bhumit Patel, of the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology in Newark, Del.; Stuart B. Krasnoff and Donna M. Gibson, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, N.Y.; and Brian R. Crane with Cornell University’s department of chemistry and chemical biology in Ithaca.
The United Kingdom Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the National Research Initiative of the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service funded the research. | <urn:uuid:100cc7dd-91c8-4055-adfa-18aa545f0277> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.ufl.edu/2012/09/26/natural-herbicide/ | 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 | 0.923471 | 718 | 2.84375 | 3 |
For those whose curiosity has been piqued by the Himalayan glacier error in the IPCC’s report, Nature magazine has a great article on the real holes in climate science. Far from undermining climate science, though, it underlines the importance of continuing research.
The story notes that the IPCC highlights 54 ‘key uncertainties’ in its 2007 report, but it picks out four key areas of concern:
Regional climate prediction: “To plan for the future, people need to know how their local conditions will change, not how the average global temperature will climb. Yet researchers are still struggling to develop tools to accurately forecast climate changes for the twenty-first century at the local and regional level.” This makes it difficult for countries to make specific adaptation plans – and simply extrapolating from global forecasts risks enhancing weaknesses in the broader model.
Precipitation: Knowing how rising temperatures will affect the hydrological cycle – more simply, evaporation and rain – is another challenge. Different models agree that subtropical areas will be dryer, increasing precipitation at higher altitudes. But beyond that, they tend to diverge. Robust predictions were particularly problematic for winter precipitation, which is most important for water supplies. And, worryingly, the models appear to underestimate the changes that have already occurred.
Aerosols, or airborne liquid or solid particles, are also a big source of uncertainty. Exactly how aerosols interact with sunlight and clouds to affect the temperature, and how extensive their effects are, is not clear. Actual data on the presence of aerosols is lacking too. (Bad news, we suspect, for those putting hope in geo-engineering based on aerosols.)
Tree rings: The subject of much of the controversy over the climategate emails, and the Michael Mann/Stephen McIntyre debate. In short, tree rings are one of several ‘proxy’ records used to estimate temperatures pre-1850, or before more reliable records were kept. While they mostly reflect known changes in temperature, tree rings from a few sites began to diverge from the recorded temperatures in recent decades. Why this happens isn’t known – “It may be that when temperatures exceed a certain threshold, tree growth responds differently,” writes Nature. In any case, the ‘trick’ referred to by Phil Jones in the most famous climategate email involved substituting actual temperature data for those trees when they did begin to diverge.
However as the story concludes, the IPCC’s recommendations were based on the totality of research, and not on any one particular observation.
Nature also takes a look at the six most enduring climate myths, featuring all the classics such as ‘global warming stopped 10 years ago’ and ‘temperatures were higher in pre-industrial times’.
Himalayan glaciers – another climategate? Not quite (FT Energy Source, 19/01/10)
Top 10 questions for 2010: Climate change and clean tech edition (FT Energy Source, 23/12/09) | <urn:uuid:aea87325-d458-456b-bcb4-2e59d136c6fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/01/21/the-real-problems-with-climate-science/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93801 | 627 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A misty fog makes the sky moss-green, and the ground is puddled with yesterday’s rain. Live oaks the size of grain silos frame a levee that holds at bay the Mississippi River. A few miles from the New Orleans airport, this place is a world away from the city’s siren bray and hustle.
The big house here was built and most probably designed in 1787 by a slave, Charles Paquet, who not only bought his freedom with the construction, but afterward was rewarded with a slave of his own. Human life might not have been cheap, but it was for purchase.
Slaves along the Great River Road plantations – the so-called German Coast – presumably had heard about the successful slave coup in Haiti in 1804 and carefully, over several years, planned one of their own. On Jan. 8, 1811, the time must have seemed right.
With the drumbeat of freedom in their heads, the slaves began their doomed march. Historians say eventually the army was anywhere from 150 to 500 strong, men and women, led by a rebel slave driver named Charles. Some believe he originally was from Haiti, where his inspiration gelled.
The determined group first attacked a planter, Manuel Andry, and killed his son. The insurgents had heard that the Louisiana Militia had weapons stored at the Andry Plantation, thus the tactical choice.
But that cache had been moved, so the marauding slaves armed themselves with whatever crude weapons they could muster and marched on toward New Orleans and the seat of territorial government.
Word spread. Houses and property were pillaged and burned. There was panic in the white community, with many planters fleeing to New Orleans. The rebellion that began with bloody bluster quickly was squashed. Within 48 hours, better-armed militia troops from Baton Rouge and New Orleans had ended the feeble slave effort.
Two whites were killed. About 100 blacks. One report has 66 killed in battle and 18 executed after summary trials, one held right here Jan. 13 – five days after the revolt began – at Destrehan. Nobody knows for sure how many slaves were killed, but many of their corpses were mutilated. Documents show the executed had “their heads harvested” and displayed on poles along the levee.
The piked heads of their fellow slaves would serve to keep others in line. Or so went planter reasoning.
An economy that depended on the enslaved to harvest its sugar cane crops would not show mercy. Destrehan documents said execution and the grotesque display of human heads was “necessary to suppress a revolt which could take on a ferocious character if the chiefs and principal accomplices are not promptly destroyed.”
Today, a few primitive art paintings depict the bloody rebellion and are displayed in an outbuilding on the Destrehan property. The imagination has to do the rest.
In the world of plantation tours – endless petticoat mirrors, shoo-fly fans and four-poster beds – this one may hold the most important history lesson of all.
Syndicated columnist Rheta GrimsleyJohnson lives near Iuka. Contact her at Iuka, MS 38852. | <urn:uuid:4ab5ce15-7531-4ccd-81e6-07af9e913250> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://djournal.com/view/news_obituaries_full/21459047/article-RHETA-GRIMSLEY-JOHNSON--At-this-plantation--more-than-petticoat-mirrors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980586 | 660 | 3.3125 | 3 |
As I tweeted and wrote for Danger Room today, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Buck McKeon, briefly argued in a speech today that Congress should “reaffirm — in statute — the Authorization to Use Military Force of 2011.” To expand on that: McKeon mentioned the AUMF in the context of detainee policy — that is, to keep terrorism detainees out of federal courts. But it clearly goes beyond that. Here’s what a McKeon aide told me:
The objective wouldn’t the “drop a new Authorization to Use Military Force, but to reaffirm and strengthen the existing one,” says an aide to McKeon who requested anonymity, “recognizing that the enemy has changed geographically and evolved since 2001.” Sounds like the shadow wars may get some sunshine.
For the Obama administration, AUMF has operated like an Emergency Law, providing blanket authorities for things like drone strikes beyond Afghanistan that are never mentioned in the brief 2001 language. A new AUMF would at least be more specific about what powers Congress actually intends the president to have to conduct a war against al-Qaeda — as well as, perhaps, what the boundaries of those authorities might be. It’s still not a declaration of war — my understanding is there’s not an appetite for that in Congress — but it also would represent the first congressional reconsideration of the scope of a war that, in practice, is endless. That could go in any number of directions, but at least it’ll be debated.
As for the actual detention structure McKeon advocates for the AUMF, take a look at H.R. 4892, which he introduced last year. A relevant section:
An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(b)(1) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.
Not so dissimilar to what Lindsey Graham has advocated, and I imagine my friends at Lawfare would be pretty stoked to see this debated as well. (Ah, I see Ben Wittes has some mixed preliminary feelings.) The relevant question for revisiting the AUMF with a detention structure in mind is if the revised AUMF would bound the period of hostilities for which such an “unprivileged enemy belligerent” may be detained.
But make no mistake: the next Congress really will debate a terrorism detention statute. I don’t currently understand how Graham’s proposals would be different than the old Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantanamo, with an annual review — except this time by a federal judge (if I understand Graham correctly, that is). McKeon’s removing any doubt that Graham is alone on this. It’s beyond Guantanamo, it’s systematic, and the Obama administration’s perspective on it doesn’t appear to be decided yet. | <urn:uuid:6f86105a-1b3d-43d4-9780-9b0ec5c65168> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/11/15/coming-soon-congress-revisits-the-authorization-to-use-military-force/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944022 | 687 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The Tao of Gideon
Posted By: Charles Pope
Date: Friday, 28 July 2006, at 6:45 a.m.
In the Book of Genesis, Abraham takes 318 men to rescue his nephew Lot from Khedorlaomer and his allies. In the Hebrew this number is actually broken down as two numbers, 300 and 18. The Greek Septuagint translates three hundred as tau (19th letter of the Greek alphabet and representing the value of 300). This is an obvious word play (at least to us here) on Tao, the Egyptian name of Abraham's ally Mamre-Gideon. Likewise, in the Book of Judges, Gideon is famous for his 300 men. It is also another little clue that the Torah was not completed until the Greek period.
- The Tao of Gideon
Charles Pope -- Friday, 28 July 2006, at 6:45 a.m.
© Charles N. Pope, US Library of Congress. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:b6d34ea5-01e0-42c2-983b-6b0a04c184fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.domainofman.com/forum/esindex.cgi?noframes;read=3562 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96152 | 199 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Online Video Takedowns: What Happened to "Buffy vs. Edward"?
What can I do if my online video is challenged on YouTube?
My friend told me the guy behind Buffy v. Edward had his video pulled from YouTube based on a copyright dispute! I thought he was fair use protected. How can online video generators protect their own work?
Actually, the system worked in this case, although slower than many would want. Remixer McIntosh was fully within his fair use rights, and his work was restored. His gender critique, Buffy v. Edward, is now back online.
But he did need to show a rightsholder that he understood those rights. (Indeed, McIntosh’s pop-culture hit is actually listed in an official US Copyright Office document that cites Buffy v Edward as an apt example of a creation exempt from copyright circumvention prosecution, given the strong application of fair use principles.) Because he knew his rights, he could assert them.
Jonathan McIntosh is a vigorous fair user and creative artist; he's also a friend of the Center for Social Media. He is among the people who use and helped to spread the word about the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video.
Lionsgate Entertainment (the owner of the "Twilight" franchise) issued the takedown of the mash-up after McIntosh refused the corporation's efforts to generate revenue via the insertion of Nordstrom pop-up ads into his video. McIntosh formally engaged a fair use dispute filing process that is part of YouTube's compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's provisions. The process allows creators to assert their fair use rights, which McIntosh did. With reassurance from non-profit lawyers over at New Media Rights, McIntosh got his fair use rights and rationale acknowledged by Lionsgate.
For fans of the social commentary McIntosh crafts, section six of the “Fair Use for Online Video” code, “Quoting In Order to Recombine Elements to Make a New Work,” is a particularly helpful resource when constructing a copyright appropriating work that endeavours to remain within the scope of fair use.
Know your fair use rights and assert them. If you understand a copyright holder's claim to be invalid (and many of them are simply issued automatically, as a result of a computer match, without human intervention), then assert your rights.
Helping People Make Media That Matters
We investigate, showcase and set standards for socially engaged media-making. We organize conferences and convenings, publish research, create codes of best practices, and incubate media strategies. More... | <urn:uuid:27100b4b-a286-44eb-bb03-0284a19dfa0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://centerforsocialmedia.org/blog/question-month/online-video-takedowns-what-happened-buffy-vs-edward | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951164 | 534 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Capital Punishment Is Still Pro-Life
By: Robert E. Meyer
“Kill them all, let God sort them out.” That was the saying displayed defiantly on the T-shirt of the ex-Marine I was working with. Obviously, that is well beyond an extreme position in terms of respect for the sanctity of life.
However, objections have been raised, originating from both the secular and religious camps, which go to the opposite extreme in an attempt to repudiate the death penalty for even the most extreme cases.
Many secularists would appeal to the use of the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Constitution, as an argument against capital punishment. Their world view often brandishes what British philosopher Mary Midgley dubs, “the Escalator Myth,” in regards to the assumed progressive direction of human discourse. This idea is best embodied in a ruling by the late Chief Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, who said that the meaning of “cruel and unusual” punishment in the Constitution is in a state of flux. According, the definition reflects the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. That is taking quite a bit for granted.
Likewise, many Christians, in endeavoring to maintain a consistently pro-life position, have taken a perspective that is equally unbiblical and fundamentally false. While I respect their intent to preserve life, the idea that the state never has the right to take the life of another person, is theologically, constitutionally and historically flawed.
A big problem arises from the misuse of the commandment in Exodus, “Thou shall not kill.” Virtually every modern translation of the Bible, renders “murder” in place of “kill,” to better reflect the meaning of the original Hebrew text. Furthermore, executions by the state, killing in legitimate warfare, accidental deaths and appropriate self-defense, are not considered to be murder.
Genesis 9:6 ought to have gone far in settling the matter. “He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” This illustrates several principles. First it provides that God has indeed delegated authority to human institutional authorities to take the life of another. According to Romans chapter 13, the state has the authority and duty to use the sword of wrath against the evil doer. So execution is the duty of the state, but only God has the right to determine eternal rewards or punishments. Many sincere religious folks confuse the jurisdictions of the temporal and eternal domains.
They might argue that Christ repudiated capital punishment with his command to forgive others. Forgiveness is an act of charity between two or more parties; the one who in some way was offended, and the offending party. Grace and forgiveness come from the individual and from the church. The function of the state is to execute remedial justice. While a court may show leniency due to some extenuating circumstances, they have no general obligation to set aside the punishment of one who is found guilty. Thus, the true understanding of church/state separation, embodies the grace versus justice dichotomy. It is consistent with biblical teaching, that one could be forgiven by a victim or their family, and be forgiven by God, yet suffer punishment from the state in this life as consequence for their transgression. That could and should include capital punishment when necessary.
A perfect example is the thief who hung on the cross next to Christ. He repented and received assurance of his eternal state from Christ (I say to you this day thou shall be with me in paradise). However, this act of contrition didn’t save his physical life. The thief, in fact, admitted that he was getting what he deserved in suffering his death sentence.
Sometimes the claim is made that capital punishment is not forgiving or compassionate. It is very compassionate to the “would be” victims, that often become statistical tragedies due to the will of lenient courts. How is capital punishment any less forgiving then putting someone behind bars for life?
People frequently claim that capital punishment has no effective deterrence quality, as though that should be the only objective of criminal punishment. The execution of a murderer provides, however, that such a malefactor will never kill anyone again–the ultimate deterrent.
Capital punishment is pro-life because it defends the right of the innocent by mandating the life of the guilty offender be taken. Those against capital punishment for the sake of consistency, while sincere, are simply misguided in their theological or philosophical perspective and principle. | <urn:uuid:795e4424-2178-4fd4-8ef3-bd410b7babee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelandofthefree.net/conservativeopinion/2006/03/17/capital-punishment-is-still-pro-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962417 | 939 | 1.609375 | 2 |
$10 Million in 'Quick Release' Funds Will Aid Road Repair
The Governor's office announced
An additional $10 million in quick release emergency relief aid being sent New Jersey's way will help the state make emergent repairs to roads, bridges, and tunnels, the governor's office announced Thursday morning.
Quick release emergency funds are provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration and are used to repair critical infrastructure. The additional $10 million New Jersey's received from the DOT thus far brings its quick release relief fund total to $20 million following Hurricane Sandy.
In a release, Gov. Chris Christie said the funds will provide key additional resources to repair infrastructure and prepare the shore for next year's tourism season. With New Jersey tourism estimated at $37 billion annually, repairs to the state's most prominent tourist destinations are an economic essential for the region, according to Christie.
The funding was approved by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
"The additional federal transportation funding is welcome and warranted, and I want to personally thank Secretary LaHood and the Obama Administration for continuing to work together with us to get New Jersey what we need to recover and rebuild," Christie said in a statement. "This funding is another recognition and acknowledgement of the extent of damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy and the uphill climb to recovery we still face. Moreover, it’s a statement of the critical importance of New Jersey's transportation system, not just to our state but also the region, and the need to restore our infrastructure as quickly as possible."
It was not immediately clear how and where the funds will be allocated. | <urn:uuid:2c751828-480a-4729-ad04-f248b820a2fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://middletown-nj.patch.com/articles/10-million-in-quick-release-funds-will-aid-road-repair | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954752 | 332 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The effect of varying the interior geometry of three different styles of reed shallots was studied. Three shallots---American, French, and German---were successively filled with approximately 0.065 g of wax for a total of eight fills. The wax was added to the shallots where the face opening was largest. The spectra for each of the shallots were found after each successive fill. A regulatable air source was adjusted to maintain a constant air pressure of 4 in. of water inside the boot. A reed length in the middle of each shallot's face opening was kept constant for each shallot to facilitate comparisons. The effect of filling the shallot with wax was that the frequency of vibration initially decreased. Further filling caused the frequency to increase slightly and then level off. In general, the addition of the wax tends to brighten the tone of the spectra by raising the amplitudes of the higher-order harmonics relative to the fundamental. | <urn:uuid:b2efae70-c371-43bf-abd0-4553d7b5ae14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.auditory.org/asamtgs/asa96haw/5pMU/5pMU10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965692 | 195 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Complex texts are a cornerstone of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. They even have their own section—Reading Standard Ten. A focus on text complexity means students will be expected to read, comprehend, and cite increasingly difficult texts. What heralded this shift, and what does it mean for your school?
A landmark study published by ACT in 2006, Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT Reveals about College Readiness in Reading, identified facility with reading complex texts as the gatekeeper skill for reaching the reading benchmark on the standardized ACT test. Of nearly a half million students taking the ACT, 51 percent scored at or above the reading benchmark. This passing rate was the lowest in over a decade, and ACT was understandably curious about why some students met the benchmark and others missed it.
Satisfying the ACT reading benchmark correlates with long-term outcomes, including enrolling in college, persisting in college, and maintaining a 3.0 or higher GPA, to name a few. According to the ACT study, across racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines, "students who can master the skills necessary to read and understand complex texts are more likely to be college ready than those who cannot." Therefore, knowing that the ability to understand complex texts is such a crucial skill—even more so than other critical-thinking skills, like the ability to make inferences or answer questions about textual elements—education researchers have tried to determine why U.S. students have fallen so far behind on complex text comprehension and what could be done about it.
Reading Between the Lines
Increasing the complexity of texts used in the classroom poses two big-picture challenges for educators: measuring complexity to make sure texts assigned are appropriately complex, and putting students on target to handle more difficult reading. Grant Wiggins, coauthor of Understanding by Design, thinks the real problem for teachers won't be identifying complex texts, but rather "staying true to the demands of the standards, without overscaffolding, and in heterogeneous classrooms where teachers may have students reading three levels below proficiency." To that end, experts advise focusing interventions on what causes students the most difficulty—vocabulary and complicated sentences. Despite their essential role in determining students' success in reading comprehension, vocabulary is the least systematic and least intensive part of English/language arts instruction, and syntax is virtually absent from U.S. K–12 education, says David Liben, a consultant with Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit founded by three of the Common Core State Standards' contributing writers.
In a more general sense, students working with complex texts need to know how to do a close reading, and this is a skill teachers can explain and model to help students internalize the process. "It's really important to be explicit about the steps, strategies, and tools that support interpretive and critical reading, especially as the texts become more complex," says Jay McTighe, coauthor of Understanding by Design. For example, he says, you can teach students to notice and understand the function of text structures like headings, bullets, bold type, sidebars, and chapter organization. Also, story maps and character analysis charts can help make the invisible visible and give kids a concrete structure for understanding abstract ideas.
Although strategies are important for students to understand and use, experts caution teachers to be mindful of how much time they spend teaching strategies versus teaching the actual texts. "There are some classes where strategies themselves seem like the point of instruction, not becoming better readers," says Meredith Liben, who is a researcher and coordinator of the text complexity project at Student Achievement Partners. "The shift we're trying to get people to make is that strategies serve kids when they need to use them to better understand the text, as opposed to the text serving the strategy."
When kids stumble, she says, try simply having students reread the text, instead of getting in the weeds with strategies instruction. McTighe suggests having students periodically summarize text as another basic way to aid comprehension and check for understanding. Good readers ask questions of the text; that's a strategy you can teach, model, and encourage, says McTighe. Other complex text supports he recommends include
- The stance framework developed by Judith Langer: four stances (Global, Interpretive, Critical, and Personal) that prompt students to analyze the gist of a text, implied meaning, source, and connections.
- A perspective chart: a graphic organizer that helps students identify multiple viewpoints in a historical text and ask questions such as, Whose story is this? Is this the full story? What's missing?
- A character analysis frame: a graphic organizer that helps students record what literary characters say or do in a text so that students can identify patterns in behavior and relate them to broader themes within the text.
Wiggins and McTighe agree that overscaffolding—whether by the teacher or the textbook—has watered down expectations of students. Teacher-led reading strategies are like training wheels that eventually get taken off, says McTighe. "The goal is independent meaning making of text, that's what the Common Core calls for—but it rarely happens on its own."
Don't Take It Personally?
Another phenomenon that may also need reining in is overemphasis on students' personal impressions of complex texts. So-called "text-to-self" questions are absent from the standards, reflecting a push away from personal meaning making and toward more rigorous, evidentiary analysis. "The mantra of a good middle or high school English class is, 'Where is that in the text?'" says Wiggins.
"We're not automatons," says David Liben. "The standards are supposed to be 80 percent of what you teach; it would be absurd to say you don't ever want to connect a text to kids' lives and experiences. But it should be after you have mined from the text every insight and understanding you can." He explains that there are several good reasons text-to-self questions do not appear in the standards:
- Instructional time: Complex texts take time, and the more time you spend outside the text, the less time you spend inside the text. Many materials and discussions spend as much time on student feelings about the text, or how the text relates to their experience, as they do with what's going on inside the text.
- Equity: When you go outside the text to students' experiences, you privilege those students who happen to have those experiences or have practiced having these types of personal meaning making discussions in their home setting. That's usually students from more affluent households. If you focus on just what's in the text everyone has read and studied, you have more of a level playing field.
- Rigor: It's easier to go outside the text, and it's a shortcut to student engagement. But it sends the message that the texts are not engaging on their own and that working hard to wrestle with texts is not a worthwhile endeavor.
"Part of the learning transfer goal is helping students understand when they should be guided directly by what's in the text, and when it's appropriate to bring in personal meaning making and other connections," says Wiggins.
Many teachers have been taught that good teaching smooths the road for students, but the close reading or Socratic approach required by complex texts is a bumpy road, marked by dissonance, ambiguity, and hard work, says Wiggins. "The ultimate goal of education is transfer, but to get there is a long haul, and it requires a gradual release of teacher responsibility, lots of practice and feedback, internalizing ideas and strategies and then using them," he says.
David and Meredith Liben worked with Student Achievement Partners to create exemplar lessons that address teaching vocabulary, syntax, and implementation of the Common Core State Standards. The lessons are set up to help students persist despite the discomfort inherent in analyzing complex texts. Notably, the texts are short (e.g., the Gettysburg Address is only three paragraphs), but the lessons plan for three to four days of study each.
"Within short, complex texts, students are able to build stamina and habits of mind, and the teacher can keep pushing them back into the text and providing support to the level where the skills will transfer to their own reading," says Meredith. In the heterogeneous 9th and 10th grade New York City classes that piloted these lessons, David says students stuck with the content over several days of instruction. They even seemed to enjoy the challenge. One student remarked, "This is interesting. We usually just read the text once, and then make a whole bunch of assumptions."
Why U.S. Students Stumble on Complex Texts
- Research shows that texts students read in grades K–12 became easier after 1962.
- Instruction is heavily scaffolded compared to college.
- High school students are rarely held accountable for independent reading.
- College reading is mostly expository, but K–12 reading is mostly narrative, which is easier to comprehend.
Source: Liben, David. (2010). "Why text complexity matters" in Common core state standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Appendix A: Research supporting key elements of the standards. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers: Washington, D.C.
David Liben, Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, and Matt Copeland, a consultant with the Kansas Department of Education English Language Arts and Literacy, discuss approaches to teaching complex texts. Watch the videos.
Click on keywords to see similar products: | <urn:uuid:e233d2ba-5572-494c-8c3c-e505c9e045e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/apr12/vol54/num04/It's-Complicated.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948165 | 1,965 | 3.8125 | 4 |
|— City —|
Location of Tuttle, Oklahoma
|- Total||29.2 sq mi (75.5 km2)|
|- Land||29.2 sq mi (75.5 km2)|
|- Water||0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2)|
|Elevation||1,319 ft (402 m)|
|- Density||147.3/sq mi (56.9/km2)|
|Time zone||Central (CST) (UTC-6)|
|- Summer (DST)||CDT (UTC-5)|
|GNIS feature ID||1099088|
Tuttle is a largely agricultural community with a focus on wheat, cotton, corn, alfalfa hay, Bermuda grass hay, and cattle. Nearby Braum's Dairy, the largest farm in the area, is located just outside the city's limits and has a market presence spanning several states. The city serves as a minor bedroom community of Oklahoma City.
The town was named in 1902 after a local cattleman and rancher, J. H. (Jim) Tuttle.
Tuttle is located at (35.294963, -97.785683).
Tuttle, located in a low-lying river basin along the South Canadian River, is considered to be part of a rapidly growing area of northern McClain and Grady Counties known as the "Tri-City Area" with Newcastle and Blanchard.
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,294 people, 1,585 households, and 1,272 families residing in the city. The population density was 147.3 people per square mile (56.9/km²). There were 1,648 housing units at an average density of 56.5/sq mi (21.8/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 91.34% White, 4.98% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 0.09% from other races, and 3.42% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.21% of the population. 0% of the population is African American.
There were 1,585 households out of which 38.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 67.9% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.7% were non-families. 16.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.69 and the average family size was 3.02.
In the city the population was spread out with 26.7% under the age of 18, 8.5% from 18 to 24, 27.7% from 25 to 44, 26.4% from 45 to 64, and 10.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 97.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $40,396, and the median income for a family was $48,682. Males had a median income of $35,599 versus $25,850 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,250. About 4.5% of families and 5.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.0% of those under age 18 and 10.2% of those age 65 or over.
The Tuttle Public School system has four schools: Tuttle Elementary (grades K-3), Tuttle Middle School (grades 6-8), Tuttle Intermediate School (grades 4-5), and Tuttle High School (grades 9-12). Their colors are cardinal red and white, and their mascot is the Tiger.
Tuttle has a long sports tradition, complete with rivalries with both Newcastle and Clinton. The Tigers have earned many championships:
In March 2006, Tuttle gained brief notoriety in some technical circles after former City Manager Jerry A. Taylor exchanged emails with CentOS developer Johnny Hughes, confused that a misconfiguration issue at the webhost provider was an attempt by CentOS to "hack" the City's website. In spite of attempts by Hughes to explain the cause of the issue and repeated requests for information needed to diagnose the problem, the conversation degenerated. Taylor threatened to call the FBI, and Hughes posted the conversation to the CentOS website. The posting and its content stirred a global reaction in both Linux circles and media outlets.
In response to the media coverage of the incident, Taylor defended his actions and pointed out that his threats of FBI action were effective. “After that, he called me Mr. Taylor,” he said, “And he got me the information I needed.” In response to the derision he had received from the Open Source community, Taylor stated that those commenting about him online were "a bunch of freaks out there that don’t have anything better to do ... [CentOS is] a free operating system that this guy gives away, which tells you how much time he’s got on his hands." | <urn:uuid:b1869fd8-dac0-408a-ae58-db7beca1166d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefullwiki.org/Tuttle,_Oklahoma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97477 | 1,106 | 2.296875 | 2 |
The pieces of cow's fecies, which hangs from the fur around its anus, after the cow has finished defecation.
Assistant, help me remove the korish from the cow's rear.
Another word for best buddy, mate, friend.
The original etymology of the word comes from the Latvian word korish, which describes cow fecies hanging from the fur around its anus, because buddies stick around, just like cow and poo.
Me and my korish will go get some foodz n beer. | <urn:uuid:c5ff9c18-9cef-4778-bff2-75337566e6e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=korish&defid=4634646 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935773 | 113 | 2.03125 | 2 |