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Reclaim the real heart of the kitchen and turn it into the living, breathing centre of your home.
This is not a kitchen design book. It is about what a kitchen is – or should be.
Traditionally, the kitchen was a place of feminine nurturing and sustenance, a place of safety and magic in which culinary and psychological magic both took place. Sadly, nowadays we have lost balance in our homes. Many of us no longer have a hearth, a living fire. The heart of the home is all too often replaced by a status symbol of clinical modern design. As part of a superb series, Spirit of the Kitchen includes advice on:
How to bring out the potential of the room; considering its history, mythology and psychology.
• How to use colour, sound, scent and light in the room.
• Furnishings and decoration, creative storage and finishing touches.
• Simple rituals and blessings for the room – smudging, cleansing and rituals.
This beautifully illustrated full colour guide from Jane Alexander shows you how to put the heart back into your home. | <urn:uuid:8b39fa52-b7c0-4632-8dab-39e222fae879> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Kitchen-Jane-Alexander/dp/0007136773 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948769 | 222 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Short Summaries of Articles about Mathematics
in the Popular Press
"E-mail reveals real leaders," by Philip Ball. Nature Science Update, 20 March 2003.
Research that is the subject of this article concentrates not on the content of email, but on the senders and recipients to identify collaborative networks called "communities of practice." The communities correspond to components in a communications graph once a few edges have been removed. J.R. Tyler and colleagues at Hewlett-Packard used 200,000 email messages involving 485 HP employees to construct a communications graph for the purpose of determining how the organization at HP really functions. By doing such things as deleting links between sub-graphs of highly-connected nodes, an algorithm reduces the graph to identify the communities of practice and map the de facto structure of the firm. The claim is that this process not only identifies the communities, but also determines who is at the heart of a community. Ball writes that "The approach might even help to pinpoint the heads of criminal or terrorist networks."
--- Mike Breen | <urn:uuid:c3ac3fe5-cf6f-4da9-86c7-0e36200fa571> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ams.org/news/math-in-the-media/mathdigest-200304-email | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936297 | 216 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The film studios love award ceremonies. All that positive publicity
gives the impression that they are turning out quality products,
not mindless entertainment. And it's not just the Oscars they want
to win. Earlier ceremonies, like the Golden Globes, are seen as
an indication of who will take away the Oscars, and so can be just
The American Academy, who hand out the Oscars, frowns on blatant
campaigning for votes, but other organisations may have fewer scruples.
Some awards are voted for by quite a small number of people, and
can be easily influenced. The Golden Globes are awarded by the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association (HFPA), a group of about 90 journalists
from around the world. Studios put pressure on them by giving them
chances to meet the stars personally and be photographed with them,
a great opportunity for a star-struck scribbler from some small
The stars are quite happy to take part in all this. After all, winning
an award can show that what they make is art, not mere entertainment.
They'll gladly turn up to receive any old award, and then react
as if it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to them.
With all this fuss going on, it's easy to forget what the purpose
of film awards is meant to be. They are supposed to be given for
examples of excellence, films and performances that move us and
make us think. Nowadays it often seems that a decision is made as
to what is the big blockbuster film of the year, which then goes
on to clean up at the major awards. The leading actors are automatically
rewarded, with little thought about whether they really gave the
best performances of the year.
We may be cynical about the decision-making process, but we should
remember that there is a positive side to all this, and it isn't
only the big film studios that do well. The promise of big audiences
means that television companies will pay large sums for the rights
to cover award ceremonies. The award-giving organisations decide
what to do with the money, which includes donating to charities.
The Golden Globes is a good example. As it becomes better known,
it generates more income, and over the past few years the HFPA has
given millions of dollars to film-related charities. | <urn:uuid:4e0258ed-5e97-4700-9757-077dae6cd650> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/profsLessons/FCE%20reading/FCE%20E-mail%20lessons%20reading%201.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937241 | 491 | 1.742188 | 2 |
How McClure Junior High Got Its Name
McClure Junior High School has served Western Springs since 1924. But, do you know for whom it was named ... and why?
The thousands of students who have attended McClure Junior High School … as well as parents who have attended school functions… have seen the plaque that honors E. P. McClure, a former President of the School Board, for whom the school was named. But, few know why he was so honored.
Elmer Perry McClure was born in 1867 in Assumption, Illinois, the son of a successful farmer. But, unlike most farm boys of that era, Elmer attended college, graduating from Oberlin in 1895. He soon married and moved to Chicago, where he opened a drug store in 1895. In 1904, the couple moved to Western Springs, building a home at 4306 Central.
During this time, he and a business partner concluded that a new metal could be the basis for a successful business venture. So, they formed the Aluminum Products Company, which manufactured kitchen cookware. As time went on, the company expanded from just one factory in LaGrange Park to three, the others being in Lemont, Illinois and Oakland, California. And, by all accounts, McClure was extremely successful.
In 1915, he purchased and remodeled a home at 4318 Grand from his widowed mother. See second photo.
Despite the challenges of operating three manufacturing plants in diverse locations, as well as helping raise two children, McClure was asked in 1919 to serve as the unpaid President of our village’s Board of Education. After completing his first term, he was repeatedly asked to stay on the Board, serving a total of 15 years.
This service alone might have justified having a school named after him. But, his devotion to the education of the village’s children was especially noteworthy.
Early in his tenure, McClure recognized the need for more land to accommodate the expanding school population. However, he also recognized that the Board of Education could not afford to embark on such an expensive venture. So, unbeknownst to village residents, McClure purchased several vacant lots north of the Grand Avenue School at very favorable prices. And, in later years, when the Board needed the land, he transferred title to the property at the same price he had paid years earlier.
The importance of McClure’s farsightedness became even more evident as the school population boomed. Few people were aware when he purchased an entire city block on Wolf Road using his own funds. But, later, when the village needed land for a second elementary school, he donated the property. And, characteristically, he donated the land in memory of his parents. The resulting school was initially known as the Wolf Road School and later renamed McClure Junior High School.
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the School Board was in even more serious trouble, literally unable to pay its teachers. Again, without any fanfare, McClure stepped forward and personally purchased many of the school bonds that provided the needed capital to keep the schools open.
In 1935, the village held a dinner in honor of McClure. In later years, McClure sold his business to the Reynolds Metals Company and retired to Waterloo, Illinois. He died in 1956 at the age of 89.
Get news alerts and Facebook updates from these Patch sites: | <urn:uuid:4ce9d9d1-944e-445c-98a1-3237e58b694a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lagrange.patch.com/articles/how-mcclure-junior-high-got-its-name | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986311 | 702 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Neurofeedback, also called electroencephalogram (EEG) biofeedback or neurotherapy, is an adjunctive treatment used for psychiatric conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, phobic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, depression and affective disorders, autism, and addictive disorders (Moore, 2000; Rosenfeld, 2000; Trudeau, 2000).
In an interview with Psychiatric Times, Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D., chief scientist at EEG Spectrum International Inc., described neurofeedback as neuroregulation in the time and frequency domains through the use of bioelectrical operant conditioning. Like repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), neurofeedback is an innovative form of electrotherapeutics that complements neurochemical interventions for mood disorders. "With the use of anticonvulsants as mood stabilizers," Othmer said, "we have seen a convergence of psychiatry and neurology in the field of pharmacology. Similarly, neurofeedback signals a convergence of psychiatry and neurology in bioelectrical approaches to treating affective disorders. By stabilizing the brain and rewarding it for holding particular states, neurofeedback acts as a natural anticonvulsant." The rationale for using neurofeedback therapeutically is that it corrects deficits in brain cerebral regulatory function related to arousal, attention, vigilance and affect (Othmer et al., 1999).
During neurofeedback sessions, patients learn to produce desirable brain wave patterns displayed on a computer screen by controlling the activity of a computerized game or task seen on a second screen. Increases in the amplitude of slow spindle activity are instantaneously rewarded. The reward corresponds to the earned score, similar to scores accumulated in a computer game (Othmer, 1999).
Neurofeedback represents a window of opportunity for assessing and shifting any given brain state (Manchester et al., 1998). The designated frequency band determines which brain state is rewarded (Othmer, 1999). Beta (15 Hz to 18 Hz) training usually produces a slightly upward shift in arousal levels, leading to increased wakefulness and attentiveness or to decreased depression. The sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) (12 Hz to 15 Hz) elicits a slightly downward shift in arousal. The SMR is associated with subjective feelings of relaxation, emotional calm and centeredness (Othmer, 1999). Combined left-side, ß-SMR and right-side - neurofeedback is often used to treat brain wave dysregulation associated with traumatic memories. Right-side training is also employed for social and emotional deficits such as conduct disorder, autism and reactive attachment disorder (Othmer, 2000; Othmer et al., 1999).
Assessment of Clinical Evidence
The efficacy of neurofeedback in the treatment of seizure and pseudoseizure disorders has been well documented in peer-reviewed literature for over 25 years (Lubar, 1997; Swingle, 1998). On the whole, however, clinical support for the effects of neurotherapy is limited and based primarily on case studies, rather than randomized, controlled, blinded studies. While Joel Lubar, Ph.D., professor of psychology at University of Tennessee in Knoxville, recognizes the shortage of randomized trials on neurofeedback, he told PT that matched-group studies conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki are more appropriate than controlled trials for studying hyperactivity. He noted that 1,500 groups worldwide currently use neurofeedback for psychiatric applications, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comorbidities. Since the 1970s, his team has investigated various interventions for treating hyperactivity in children and found EEG to be superior.
Lubar and his colleagues (1995) evaluated the effects of neurofeedback treatment on ADHD in 19 youth, ages 8 years to 19 years, under relatively controlled conditions. The subjects received one-hour sessions of ß brain wave training daily for up to 40 hours over a two- to three-month period. The goal of the therapy was to increase 16 Hz to 20 Hz (ß) activity while reducing the amplitude of brain waves (4 Hz to 8 Hz). Compared to pre-training results, post-training changes showed improvements in Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA) scores, Attention Deficit Disorders Evaluation Scale (ADDES) behavior ratings and Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) performance. Twelve out of 18 subjects with pre-/post-TOVA scores had EEG-responsive improvements on an average of three of four possible scales. This change was comparable to pre-/post-medication differences in TOVA scores in youth with ADHD.
While TOVA scores typically return to baseline when the effects of pharmacotherapy wear off, the TOVA scores of the EEG-responsive subjects remained at the improved level. Significant post-test increases in IQ scores were observed in 10 EEG-responsive subjects who had been tested on the WISC-R two years earlier. Parental and teacher ratings of the children's behavior also improved following neurofeedback training. Thus, in the EEG-responsive youth, behavioral improvements corresponded with increased scores on TOVA and WISC-R. Lubar and his associates cautiously concluded that EEG neurofeedback training is a powerful adjunctive technique for treating ADHD when used as part of a multi-component therapeutic approach. | <urn:uuid:ee18d4ab-c7d4-4cd7-9dc2-f7d3be343f73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/mdd/content/article/10168/54916?_EXT_4_comsort=nf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920371 | 1,114 | 3.125 | 3 |
(Or WILLIAM OF MONTE VERGINE.)
The founder of the Hermits of Monte Vergine, or Williamites, born 1085; died 25 June, 1142. He was the son of noble parents, both of whom died when he was still a child, and his education was entrusted to one of his kinsmen. At the age of fifteen he made up his mind to renounce the world and lead a life of penance. With this end in view, he went on a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella, and, not content with the ordinary hardships of such a pilgrimage, he encircled his body with iron bands to increase his suffering. After this journey he started on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but it was revealed to him that he would be of greater service to God if he remained in Italy. He built himself a hut on Monte Vergine, wishing to become a hermit and live in solitude, but it was not long before many people flocked to him to put themselves under his guidance, being attracted by the sanctity of his life and the many miracles which he performed. Soon a monastery was built, and by 1119 the Congregation of Monte Vergine was founded. St. William lived at Monte Vergine until the brethren began to murmur against him, saying that the life was too austere, that he gave too much in alms, and so on. He therefore decided to leave Monte Vergine and thus take away from the monks the cause of their grievances. Roger I of Naples took him under his patronage, and the saint founded many monasteries, both of men and of women, in that kingdom. So edified was the king with the saint's sanctity of life and the wisdom of his counsels that, in order to have him always near him, he built a monastery opposite his palace at Salerno. Knowing by special revelation that his end was at hand, William retired to his monastery of Gugieto, where he died, and was buried in the church.
Acta SS., V June, 112; VI June, 259; RENDA, Vita. . .S. Gulielmi (Naples, 1591).
APA citation. (1912). William of Vercelli. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15639b.htm
MLA citation. "William of Vercelli." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15639b.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett. Dedicated to the memory of William of Vercelli.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads. | <urn:uuid:453be3c9-813d-49d6-9665-df0e85de68d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newadvent.org/cathen/15639b.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98124 | 698 | 2.53125 | 3 |
LAS CRUCES — Horrified by Friday's news of the Connecticut elementary school massacre, Mariaelena Johnson left her home before lunch to take her son out of his Mesilla Park school.
"I just want to hug him and hold him close," Johnson wrote on the Sun-News Facebook page, just before heading out.
As they sat in her car, Johnson told her fifth-grade son about the people shot to death, including the children.
"He just sat there," Johnson said.
Finally, her son spoke.
"Are there crazy people like that here in Cruces?"
As it broke Friday, the news riveted many around the nation because of the number of casualties and who they were. Most of the victims — 20 as of the latest reports — were young children, leaving parents and teachers to sort out how to explain such disturbing incidents to kids around the same age.
"You talk to your kids as much they can understand," said Melinda Shane, a longtime school psychologist now pursuing a doctoral degree in special education. "I think most parents know what their kids can handle and what they can't."
Shane, who has children in Las Cruces elementary and middle schools, said that with younger kids it's better to be conservative about the depth of description because kids are "very imaginative."
She added that "you probably don't want to watch hours of news coverage with a kindergartner," and that "you could probably just get away with saying, 'Something bad happened.'" She said to turn off the TV and
Henry Jasso is a technology teacher at Mesilla Elementary. He heard of Friday morning's deadly rampage thanks to a mass email from his school's principal. Through the early afternoon, he said none of his students had asked him about it — though it was talked about among staff members.
If questions from any students do arise, Jasso said he would use a direct yet delicate approach.
"I would be honest," he said. "You listen to their concerns first. You have to be careful not to scare them, and be comforting to them."
Johnson said she pondered her son's question about "crazy people" performing similar acts of mass violence in Las Cruces.
"I told him maybe," she said. "They can be anywhere."
Some questions are harder to answer than others.
"There's no rational explanation for any of this," Shane said. "How do you explain that to a kid and craft that as a parent? You don't."
She said it's OK to say, "I don't know."
The Connecticut shooting hit home to Shane. Early reports from CNN said one of the adults killed was a school counselor. Parents have threatened her as a counselor, one even said he would kill her.
Shane also has a cousin working at a publication with an office near Sandy Hook Elementary, where the terror unfolded.
Some took a more stubborn approach to the news.
Wrote Kelly Bloomfield on the Sun-News Facebook page: "If my girls (third grade and first grade) ask about it, we'll talk about it. Otherwise, I refuse to allow this evil man who has done so much harm to impact MY family. I will NOT be afraid or alter my actions because of this coward. Will I hug my children tighter and pray harder when they're away from me? Absolutely. But I will not let this monster affect my family. He's not worth the dust under my feet."
Some prefer to keep their children away from the disturbing story.
"Why would (I) discuss this with my children?" Brandon Hawkins wrote on Facebook. "So they can fear going to public school? So they can fear going out in public, to fear what may happen to them if they do!? This is a sad situation, but this is out of the control of anybody but the person who performed these (heinous) acts."
Details of Friday's shocking and painful tragedy will emerge over the next several days, then likely be repeated, by news outlets, in living rooms and around the water cooler.
If it does come up at Mesilla Elementary, Jasso said each teacher there makes themselves available to speak to students. Once per week, he said, the school counselor stops in each classroom to talk to children about how they feel about broad topics and some current events.
Shane said she kept coming back to a quote from children's TV host Mister Rogers, circulating on social media Friday. It seemed most appropriate for dealing with children in the wake of the mass killing.
Wrote Rogers: "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world."
James Staley may be reached at 575-541-5476. Follow him on Twitter @auguststaley
Here are some tips for adults to help children deal with national tragedies.
1) Maintain calm and control
2) Reassure children they are safe
3) Remind them trustworthy people are in charge
4) Let them know it's OK to be upset
5) Watch their emotional state
6) Monitor at-risk children closely
7) Tell the truth
8) Stick to the facts, don't embellish
9) Keep explanations developmentally appropriate
10) Watch your stress level
Source: National Association of School Psychologists | <urn:uuid:46e070cf-179f-4de8-9fc0-ec3ee9b94268> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_22195737 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979089 | 1,163 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Verses with the word scatter in the Old Testament (38 verses):
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.
And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
Speak unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning, and scatter thou the fire yonder; for they are hallowed.
And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.
I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
1 Kings 14:15
For the LORD shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the LORD to anger.
Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations:
Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield.
Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver: scatter thou the people that delight in war.
To overthrow their seed also among the nations, and to scatter them in the lands.
Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.
When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?
Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.
I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.
Therefore will I scatter them as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.
I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.
And their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their cattle a spoil: and I will scatter into all winds them that are in the utmost corners; and I will bring their calamity from all sides thereof, saith the LORD.
And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come.
Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.
Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.
A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight.
And I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him, and all his bands; and I will draw out the sword after them.
And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries.
I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries;
And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee.
And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.
And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.
And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches:
He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.
Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
Then said I, What come these to do? And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it. | <urn:uuid:ae4e240a-a210-46c0-b36a-f62156e20689> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artbible.info/concordance/s/6243-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959028 | 1,541 | 2.625 | 3 |
In 1938, when Thornton Wilder's second full-length play, "Our Town," had its world première, at Princeton's McCarter Theatre, Variety's verdict was brusque. "The season's most extravagant waste of talent," the broadsheet's critic called the play. In a parting shot about its flamboyantly experimental, Pirandello-influenced construction, he added that it "should never have left the campus." But "Our Town" outfoxed the critics and endured to become part of the century's slim volume of American stage classics. In a marvellous Broadway revival, directed by James Naughton (at the Booth), it speaks as unforgettably as it did back then to the vanity of national despair.
"You never teach anyone anything," said Wilder, who believed that theatre was not a "discussion forum" but a place to "show the human condition." "You merely recall things to them that lay sleeping just below the level of consciousness." What "Our Town" coaxes its audience to recall is glory in the midst of grief. "So all that was going on and we never noticed!" says Emily Webb, who died in childbirth and has chosen to return to Earth to relive her twelfth birthday, before being finally "weaned" from life. Of the play's many stylistic and narrative accomplishments, the most profound is its ability to engineer a sort of imaginative detachment that lets us reconnect to the bittersweet thrill of existence.
Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, is the cosmic Protestant antecedent of the comic Lutheran Lake Wobegon, Minnesota; here, too, the women are strong, the men are handsome, and the children above average. The play's narrator and general master of artifice is the Stage Manager, who gives the phrase "deus ex machina" a whole new meaning. He holds the script, he sets the scene, he serves as an interlocutor between the worlds of the living and the dead, calling the characters into life and out of it; he is, it turns out, the Author of Authors, the Big Guy himself. It seems, in every way, apt for Paul Newman to have taken on this role. God should look like Newman: lean, strong-chinned, white-haired, and authoritative in a calm and unassuming way—if only we had all been made in his image! Newman brings onto the stage half a century's expertise and good will; he can't miss, and he doesn't. He doesn't even have to work too hard.
Dressed in a brown vest, tan slacks, and what look like sensible brown Johnston & Murphy brogans, he sets the play's amiable, reflective tone and its aesthetic agenda. "Here's a couple of trellises for those that feel they have to have scenery," he says at the opening, pushing the wooden constructions onto a mostly bare stage. In the preface to the play, Wilder writes, "Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the minds—not in things, not in 'scenery' "; the Stage Manager is there to remind us that what the play sets out to capture is, in Wilder's words, "not verisimilitude but reality." As he introduces us to the inhabitants of Grover's Corners, one by one, it becomes clear that the play is a sort of séance with the dead. "Here's his wife comin' downstairs to get breakfast," the Stage Manager says of Mrs. Gibbs (Jayne Atkinson). "She's up in the cemetery now." This is a paradigm, it seems, of both life and playwriting, in which the dramatist fashions an event from his interior world, haunted as it is by scenes, voices, and fragments of memory. The play itself appears to make this connection at the finale, when the newly dead Emily comes to terms with her former glibness about life. "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?" she asks the Stage Manager. "Saints and poets maybe," he replies.
Because the play's roles are allegorical, more illustrated than characterized, "Our Town" requires actors with strong personalities. As Emily's mother, Mrs. Webb, Jane Curtin gets amusingly persnickety at her teen-age daughter's infernal questions—for instance, whether she's pretty enough to make people interested in her. "Now stop it," she tells Emily (Maggie Lacey, who is very pretty indeed). "You're pretty enough for all normal purposes." Jeffrey DeMunn, who plays Mr. Webb, the editor of the town paper, also has an appealing bluster. And Stephen Spinella, as Simon Stimson, the town drunk who turns into the town suicide, wrings every sour comic note from a small part. Even in Purgatory, Stimson's ghost percolates with negativity. "Now you know: that's what it was to be alive," he tells Emily. "To always be at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. . . . Ignorance and blindness!" But the living heart of the play lies in the romance between the young Emily and the strapping George Gibbs (played by Ben Fox with a puppy-dog eagerness). Both actors exude decency and sweetness, and their courtship is moving without being cloying. Lacey's winning openness makes Emily's death even more heartbreaking. The audience falls completely silent as she speaks to us from the other world—the world of loss—about the miraculous moment that we still inhabit. "Goodbye, world," she says. "Goodbye to clocks ticking—and my butternut tree! And Mama's sunflowers and food and coffee—and new-ironed dresses and hot baths and sleeping and waking up!" | <urn:uuid:ec3e8ccc-add5-4a9a-8243-ab2e0e08d6e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/12/16/021216crth_theatre | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972037 | 1,216 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The sad state of contemporary Malayalam Cinema becomes more evident while viewing them as part of our International Film Festival. Among the cinematic gems of World Cinema that provoke our senses, our cinema, in its near dead state, resembles mere ugly stones. The superficiality that has become the very face of our cinema is indeed very repulsive. But, when our cinema pundits theorise that this very superficiality makes our cinema extraordinary, the downfall of our cinema completes.
Cinema is often considered as the youngest of all art forms. But no other art form could have been defined and re-defined so many times within such a short period as cinema. Each new definition of the form, the language and the very purpose of cinema contradicted the earlier one. But one would be compelled to accept that most of the greatest works of cinema that survived the test of time, were creations that surpassed and even rejected all such theories and definitions. It can also be noticed that most of these films instead of dwelling upon the exterior of the social issues of the time of its creation, probed deep into the core of these issues, making them relevant for all times. The act of defining good cinema, good art and placing them in narrow compartments would be nothing more than mere absurdity. Only a free minded individual can create a good work of art and the art thus created would definitely break-free from these compartments.
Slow Paced Cinema, Fast Paced Cinema….
Contemporary World Cinema
Gus van Sant’s Elephant, based on a contemporary social issue, which adapted an innovative form had won the coveted ‘Palme d’Or’ at the Cannes. Even while having all these qualities the film fails to communicate anything beyond the skin depth of the issue it handled. Indeed, such films might have some relevance for a short period, but would be forgotten within a short time. But the films from Iran and South Asia, which took the centre stage of World Cinema becomes different probably due to the depth in which they handled their topics. This may be the reason why the film from directors like Abbas Kiarostami (Iran), Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran), Tsai ming Liang (Taiwan), Kim ki Duk (S.Korea) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) stands out in the crowd of contemporary World Cinema. Their films reiterates that the art of cinema which survives the test of time is born out of deep probes and meditation into the core of human and social issues but not from creating superficial images of the world we live in. The fact that the outcome of ‘Dogme 95’ was limited to some great films from a single director, Lars von Trier, once again establishes that any kind of cinematic trends and formulas becomes irrelevant in the process of an artist’s journey in search of the truth beyond the mundane.
The Problems of Contemporary Malayalam Cinema
The new trend in Malayalam Parallel Cinema seems to have no relevance beyond replacing with a new formula for content, form etc. in place of the failed old formula. If we closely observe contemporary World Cinema it would become clear that it is not the pace of the film but the strength and depth of the content supported by an appropriate form that makes a good film. Such films come out as result of explorations of an artist deep into the core of social and human issues. This may come as a result of cultural vibrancy of a society. Perhaps the lack of this may be one of the reasons for the poor state of contemporary Malayalam Cinema.
The real problem with our cinema is that the present day filmmakers are unable to take forward our cinema, which had shown its presence in the World Cinema arena in the past. The crisis of Malayalam Cinema is that the new age directors are getting more and more engulfed in superficial narrations of social issues.
The sad condition of contemporary Malayalam Cinema may not be solely due to the low standards of our film viewer as normally claimed by our filmmakers, but it may be also due to the inability of our filmmakers to reach the standards of our film viewers. To substantiate this viewpoint the superior level of readership of Malayalam literature can be pointed out. It can be seen that readers from both old and new generation still exist in plenty for our literature, which had undergone drastic changes by abandoning the superficiality of social dramas to adapt innovative forms and contents. Probably a good amount of these readers may form the quality viewers of our Parallel Cinema! | <urn:uuid:39b2327c-e664-494b-a97a-3d06ec727040> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cinemaofmalayalam.net/cinemaproblem_eng.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956588 | 923 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Voucher Bill Considered
During Alabamas 2000 legislative session, an educational voucher bill was introduced but died in committee. This legislation was named the Student Opportunity Scholarship Program, also known as the SOS Program.
If passed, this voucher proposal would have permitted public school students in districts not meeting state academic standards to transfer to a public, private, parochial, church, or home school, or a private tutor. However, attending a home school is not one of the educational options for complying with the compulsory attendance law of Alabama. Parents teaching their children at home do so either by enrollment in a church school or through the services of a private tutor. A home school is nowhere defined in Alabama law. Accordingly, it was uncertain how this voucher bill would be applied to students being taught at home by their parents.
HSLDA has long opposed any type of voucher system whereby parents receive state money in the education of their children. State funding for education inevitably leads to state control of education, and loss of freedom is a high price parents must pay in receiving state funds to educate their children. Instead, HSLDA believes that parents should be able to keep more of their hard-earned money through income tax credits in order to have more money to spend for their childrens education. Dewitt T. Black | <urn:uuid:6c775e9c-12ea-4910-b06a-8e687a6c3562> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V16N4/V16N4AL.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980421 | 264 | 2.484375 | 2 |
As Bishop Lawrence Scanlan planned the design of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the building was to be surrounded on three sides by five windows each, representing the Mysteries of the Rosary. In the west nave were the Joyful Mysteries, in the apse (north) were the Sorrowful Mysteries, and in the east nave were the Glorious Mysteries. The Joyful and Glorious Mysteries are depicted in proper order from left to right just as one says the rosary. The Sorrowful Mysteries, though, had to be slightly rearranged so that the Crucifixion, the culmination of the Passion drama, would be situated in the center over the main altar, rather than on the far right where it appears on the rosary. Thus, the order from left to right was: The Agony in the Garden, The Scourging at the Pillar, The Crucifixion, The Crowning With Thorns, and The Carrying of the Cross.
As we see the Cathedral today, the windows on both sides of the nave are still there, but the apse windows were removed during World War I by Bishop Joseph S. Glass and replaced by two more abstract windows and a huge mural by artist Felix Lieftuchter depicting the Crucifixion flanked on each side by figures from the Old and New Testaments (other decorations were added as well). Those alterations have given rise to two knotty problems that have vexed Cathedral historians ever since: what happened to the removed windows, and what did the windows depict? On the latter problem, we know, as indicated above, what the subjects of the windows were, but there are no surviving photographs that show how the artists rendered them.
The first problem remains unresolved. Some have speculated that the three central windows are still there, having only been encased in plaster. But not only do we have a document in Bishop Glass's hand recording their removal, but also during the Cathedral renovation in the 1970s, the plaster was drilled to see if anything was inside, and the spaces were empty. Archbishop Robert J. Dwyer of Portland, Oregon, who grew up in the Cathedral parish and in fact served as its rector, wrote to Msgr. William H. McDougall in the 1960s that the windows had been taken to Boise, whose cathedral was built during the First World War. Subsequent investigation, though, has disclosed that the Boise windows were made from scratch at the time and that our windows did not go there. So where did they go? One can hardly imagine destruction of such magnificent works of art, nor can one imagine reinstallation in any other structure than a church. But which church? We simply do not know.
The other problem-what the windows looked like-we can happily announce has been in recent weeks at least partly solved. Last fall, Msgr. Joseph M. Mayo, Cathedral rector, received a surprise gift in the form of a book from the firm Franz Mayer of Munich (which after 1862 included the F. X. Zettler firm which built our windows) giving the history of the company and advertising some of their creations-including the rose window in our Cathedral. Neither Msgr. Mayo nor I were aware that the firm even still existed, so we were astonished to learn that it not only exists but thrives, employing over 600 people in their shop! Prompted by that knowledge, I wrote to Dr. Gabriel Mayer, the current president, to ask if their archive might include illustrations of our missing windows. In his reply, he indicated that although most of their archive had been destroyed during World War II, he found illustrations of two of the missing windows: The Crowning With Thorns and The Scourging at the Pillar. I include them with this article.
Is this the end of the search? Not necessarily. Although Dr. Mayer indicates that their damaged archive probably contains no illustrations of the other windows, we cannot close the door on that possibility. Also, there is always the tantalizing possibility that the windows themselves may yet turn up. What a find that would be! | <urn:uuid:58e9e817-52a1-4dc4-b757-2e4edc3973b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dioslc.org/history/lost-windows-found | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982923 | 839 | 2.59375 | 3 |
This course grows out of my own research where I have been developing methodologies for understanding Roman coin images, but the course is designed to give a broad overview of the historiography of the study of coin reverses in addition to introducing students to the potential of developing methodologies in numismatics, Roman art historical theory, and archaeology.
I understand I am fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct a course on a specialized topic relating to coins since it is rare for even general numismatic courses to be offered at North American universities. Naturally, I realize there may be a broader interest in this subject and, taking advantage of the Internet Age, I invite any interested readers to follow along as we progress.
I have started a blog for the course: "Die Bildsprache auf römischen Münzen." When the course begins on April 14, I will begin updating the blog weekly with new themes and readings for each meeting. All of the downloadable course materials on the blog will be in German. However, I understand that some interested parties may not read German and so I will try to post handouts in English here, on this website, as we go through the course.
Although this course is upper-level and thus I would normally plan a more intensive list of readings for a seminar-style course such at this, I have consciously scaled back. I am told by my colleagues it will be of a more "elective" nature, according to the course requirements and system here, and so too many readings would scare off otherwise interested students. Therefore, for certain themes I will also be listing "further readings" for those who wish to be more thorough.
The documents I have posted on the course blog so far, which I provide in English here, are:
-Syllabus with course overiew (pdf)
-Tentative course schedule (pdf)
-Week 1 (pdf)
-Week 2 (pdf)
(Foto: Sesterz von Vespasian, 71 n. Chr. Münzkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Objektnummer 18200606.) | <urn:uuid:75ed54f3-d00b-4816-b42d-09c2785a1f62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coinarchaeology.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923026 | 443 | 1.882813 | 2 |
The Federal Reserve is extending a program intended to further lower long-term interest rates, noting hiring has weakened, consumer spending is rising more slowly, and the economy needs more support. The Fed will continue Operation Twist through the end of the year, it announced today. The Fed has been selling $400 billion in short-term Treasurys since September and buying longer-term Treasurys. It says it will shift another $267 billion through December.
The Fed's goal is to spur more borrowing, spending, and growth. But extending Operation Twist might not provide much benefit. Long-term US rates have already touched record lows. Businesses and consumers who aren't borrowing now might not do so if rates slipped slightly more. Fed officials are also reiterating their plan to keep short-term rates at record lows until at least late 2014. | <urn:uuid:36c2e645-1015-4d11-8500-393c6a942a9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newser.com/story/148534/fed-pumps-267b-more-into-operation-twist.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966468 | 172 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The online news portal of TV5
COTABATO CITY - The reproductive health bill will be deliberated in the Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Monday, its principal author said.
"This is timely as we prepare for Ramadhan on Thursday (sighting of the Moon) because the health of half the population, women, is taken into consideration," Assemblywoman Samira Gutoc-Tomawis, representing women in the Regional Legislative Assembly, told reporters Sunday.
"Women and men must fast during Ramadhan. This month displays the humanitarian side of the faith when we feel the plight of the poor in poverty. But it is also a time to highlight the health aspects in promoting a responsible lifestyle," she said, urging her co-lawmakers to act on the bill swiftly.
During Ramadhan, she said, the body is renewed and cleared of its toxins, although women who are pregnant, have menstruation, and are sick are exempted from the fast.
"We are inspired to learn that Islam is actually a liberating force in advising women to prioritize their health in natural family planning," the regional solon from Lanao del Sur added.
She explained that the fasting month is a good time to highlight the plight of women and the reproductive health bill.
"While women hold half the skies, women also hold more than the sun, rain, its torrents and its thunders. While we celebrate the victory of many political rights for women, Muslim women are burdened several times over. A Moro woman is a mother, daughter, sister, teacher, cook, income-earner, house manager to a clan of tens of heads in just one house," she said.
She stressed that in the Muslim world, when the men are away because of overseas work or worse, war, the women have to solve the myriad of problems confronting a clan which range from daily acts of giving to relatives in need (from death, marriage, hospitalization etc).
She said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) also noted that ensuring access to high-quality basic social services like education and health is a bit of a challenge in the Philippines.
"More so, I note, in ARMM, where all the mosts are found, the poorest, farthest, thus voiceless and powerless. The ADB further notes, while there have been some notable accomplishments in the public health system (including the devolution of health services to the local level), major geographic inequities in access to health facilities and services still exist," she said.
She added that users of health services largely pay expenses out of their own pockets, a system that particularly burdens the poor, while the exodus of nurses and doctors abroad exacerbates problems in the health sector.
She explained that one of the most pressing concerns for women is access to reproductive health care services.
Gotuc-Tomawis stressed that the maternal mortality rate of 162 per 100,000 live births means that an average of eight women die every day of pregnancy and childbirth-related causes.
She said the passage of the reproductive health bill will ensure that women have access to needed health services especially in the poorest region of the country. | <urn:uuid:8854ef87-cfc5-4835-ba6e-a84b8e70452f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.interaksyon.com/article/37578/armm-assemblywoman-calls-for-passage-of-rh-bill-in-region | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966337 | 658 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Science news digest - 10th December 2012
In the science news this week, scientists reveal we have hundreds of genetic flaws, a journalist plans his trip across the world, African elephant numbers drop by a 1000 in just four years, and finally… satellites reveal the gravitational hotspots on the Moon.
No-one is perfect, at least not genetically
Scientists have found that everyone has, on average, 400 flaws in their DNA, reported the BBC.
Most are “silent” mutations that don’t affect your health, but some may cause problems when passed on to future generations. Others are linked to conditions such as cancer or heart disease, which could cause problems in later life.
The study involved 1,000 seemingly healthy people from Europe, the Americas and East Asia, all of whom had their entire genetic sequence decoded, for the 1,000 Genomes project.
This new research compared the genomes of 179 participants with a database of human mutations developed at Cardiff University.
The researchers found that a normal healthy person has about 400 potentially damaging DNA variations, and two DNA changes that are known to be associated with disease.
"Ordinary people carry disease-causing mutations without them having any obvious effect," said Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, a lead researcher on the study from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge.
"In a population there will be variants that have consequences for their own health."
It has been known for decades that we all carry some genetic mutations that appear to cause little or no harm. In some cases the mutations only cause harm if they are passed on to children who inherit a copy of the faulty gene from the other parent.
In around one in ten of those studied, the mutation causes only a mild condition, which appears to be inactive or shows up in later life.
Databases like the one at Cardiff University which hold information about known genetic mutations will become increasingly important in the future as steps are made towards personalised medicine.
In this study, all of the samples were anonymous so the participants will not be given any information about any mutations found that are linked to disease.
However, as DNA sequencing becomes more widespread, the ethical debate on what to tell people about their genetic makeup will need to be addressed, particularly as so many of the risks are uncertain.
Dr Chris Tyler-Smith said: "All of our genomes contain flaws; some of us will carry deleterious variants but will not be at risk of acquiring the associated disease for one reason or another.
"For others, there will be health consequences, and early warning could be useful, but might still come as an unwelcome surprise to the participant."
Writer will retrace the steps of early humans
A writer for National Geographic, Paul Salopek, has decided to make an incredible journey to retrace the route taken by early humans tens of thousands of years ago out of Africa.
Starting in the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia, he will walk 21,000 miles across three continents finally finishing an astonishing seven years later at the most southerly point of South America.
He will update his website regularly with pictures, videos and accounts of his travels, as well as writing a story for National Geographic each year. His route will take him across the Red Sea, into the Middle East, before continuing on to China, Siberia and up to the Bering Strait into Alaska. He’ll then walk down the whole of the western coasts of North and South America.
The 50-year-old is now preparing himself for the epic journey, and spending time with his family. "It is an old way of story-telling: the wandering bard. I am curious myself to see how it all turns out," Salopek told the Guardian. "It is the notion of a questing story which we find in all cultures, that you have to go away from home and come back in order to truly discover what 'home' was," he added.
The journey will be anything but easy. Not only will it be a huge physical challenge, it will also be virtually impossible to plan ahead for the trip as his route will take him through some of the globe’s most dangerous political hotspots.
However, Salopek admits that it is likely to be the mental challenges that he will find most difficult. He will be alone for much of the journey, so he has planned to have some periods where he’ll go offline and rest. He wants his writing and website to reflect real stories, not just the pain and travails of a man walking 21,000 miles. His wife will also likely join him for some of the quiet periods to help him cope with the challenge.
Kenyan elephant numbers plummet
The second largest population of elephants in Kenya has lost over 1000 elephants in just four years following a spate of illegal poaching driven by Asia’s demand for ivory.
After a promising growth spurt, the elephants are now dying faster than they are being born, reported New Scientist.
The Kenya Wildlife Service conducted a census of the Samburu/Laikipia population and found that it now stands at 6361, after a peak in 2008 at 7415.
Poaching is suspected as the culprit of this dramatic decline. A report made in July by three conservation groups found that poaching has been on the rise since 2006, with more than half of the elephants found dead in Africa in 2011 being illegally killed.
Twin spacecraft reveal the structure of the Moon
Also, in New Scientist this week, an amazing image and video of the Moon created by two spacecraft orbiting the satellite. The colours on the image represent the variations in the structure of our companion – red indicating more massive areas, and blue corresponding to less massive areas.
The two satellites, called Ebb and Flow, are together known as GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory). Measurements of the microwaves between Ebb and Flow allowed NASA to build the map from the data collected between March and May earlier this year.
The spacecraft are able to get incredibly close to the surface of the Moon because it lacks an atmosphere, making the map extremely detailed. In comparison, a similar survey of the Earth’s mass carried out by the GOCE satellite has to stay ten times further away from the surface to avoid atmospheric drag.
The researchers are hoping that the gravity map could reveal whether the Earth once had two moons, but lost one when they collided, creating the thicker crust seen on the far side of the moon. | <urn:uuid:3f258018-9c7e-4faa-b950-d746784628a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/british-science-association/news/science-news-digest-10th-december-2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961313 | 1,334 | 2.625 | 3 |
• Unbiased Behavior: Contrary to popular belief, analysts at large investment banks don't seem to let conflicts of interest bias their stock-market recommendations, according to research by Georgia Tech finance professors Jonathan Clarke and Ajay Khorana, whose findings were reported recently by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Two years ago, 10 Wall Street investment banks agreed to pay $1.4 billion to resolve charges that their analysts hyped the stocks of existing and potential customers of the banks' services during the 1990s. Part of the settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission required the investment banks to put $432.5 million over five years into a fund to provide investors with stock-market analysis from independent research firms that might be less biased.
• Moving Up: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently spotlighted the College of Management's 10-position jump in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation's top MBA programs. Georgia Tech rose from 42nd to 32nd. "That is an unusually strong showing for any program, and I'm very pleased for our business school," said Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough. "We've done a lot to invest in the College of Management, and we've known that those investments would pay dividends. While the rankings are not the sole measure of success, it's great to see such a strong, positive direction for the college."
• Shades of Gray: Following reports in national media that research by the College of Management's Financial Analysis Lab led the Securities and Exchange Commission to ask some companies to correct their cash-flow reports, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution featured a Q&A with the lab's director, accounting professor Charles Mulford, on his work. When asked about the multitude of gray areas in accounting, Mulford responded, "There are so many differences among companies and industries that if accounting rules became very strict, we would probably lose value in financial reporting. We need flexibility to deal with differences across companies and industries." Mulford also appeared in a recent issue of BusinessWeek, discussing big-box retailers' unclear accounting of various incentive programs, including gift cards.
• Turbulent Times: WAGA-TV (Fox 5) and WSB-FM recently turned to Fred Allvine, professor emeritus of marketing, for commentary on the challenges facing Delta Air Lines. Allvine believes the troubled airline might have to declare bankruptcy as early as July, given high fuel costs and other financial problems.
• Statistical Significance: Six Sigma strategies for improving the bottom line are spreading to companies throughout metro Atlanta, reported Business to Business magazine recently. The article described the Six Sigma training offered through the College of Management's Executive Education area. "The power of it today is it has become a management philosophy," said Lee Campe, a Six Sigma instructor at Georgia Tech. "The philosophy is manage your organization, make business decisions based in data, not hunch and intuition. I haven't been in a company yet that can support most of the business decisions they are making with hard data and analysis, with the exception of those that are applying Six Sigma."
• Hot Commodity: As the dollar cools, commodities are heating up, reported the Global News Wire's Business Line recently. The report featured research by Rajesh Chakrabarti, assistant professor of finance, who addressed the history of trading commodity futures in a recent paper. "The idea of trading futures may be traced to forward contracts as far as back to around 2000 B.C. in China," he wrote. | <urn:uuid:1d873cfb-5248-4ec9-875e-ab0a8c39a2ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scheller.gatech.edu/news_room/inthenews/2005/april.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967159 | 718 | 1.570313 | 2 |
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In this study, known as a meta-analysis, researchers reviewed 15 randomized controlled trials, which are considered more reliable than other study types, with a total of 55,764 participants to see if folic acid supplementation helped prevent strokes. All of the trials included folic acid supplementation for at least six months, and the number of strokes that occurred during the study period was tracked. In some of the studies, the participants ate folic acid–fortified foods as a regular part of their diet and in other studies they had little or no exposure to fortified foods.
Results showed that, overall, folic acid supplementation reduced the stroke risk by 8%. The risk was reduced by 11% when researchers looked at only those studies of people with little or no access to fortified foods. The authors note that a daily dose of 0.4 mg to 0.8 mg of folic acid appears to be adequate for stroke prevention.
The study authors state that these results are particularly important “for those living in China, India, and African countries” where folic acid is not routinely added to foods (fortification). They comment, “Our findings underscore the importance of identifying target populations that can particularly benefit from folic acid therapy.” More research is needed on this topic.
What is folic acid? Folic acid is a B vitamin that is important for cell growth and function and is well-known to help prevent birth defects such as spina bifida. Folic acid may also help lower blood levels of an amino acid called homocysteine, which has been linked to heart disease and stroke.
What are fortified foods? When a nutrient is added to a product before it reaches a store’s shelves, that is called fortification. As this article points out, many countries do not routinely add folic acid to their food products, though the US government mandated in 1998 that some food products should be fortified to optimize people’s intake. This helps address common nutritional deficiencies, but still isn’t always enough to ensure that people are getting enough to prevent disease and optimize health. Foods commonly fortified with folic acid include grain products such as cereal and bread.
Should I take folic acid? Talk with a doctor about your nutritional needs and which supplements you should be taking in order to optimize your health. Folic acid is especially important for women planning to have children, as getting enough early in pregnancy is an important protection against certain birth defects.
(Int J Clin Pract 2012;66:544–51) | <urn:uuid:9c052e14-526a-4215-b598-35bc34c470d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nutritionexpress.com/hn/feature/folic-acid-may-reduce-risk-of-stroke_15293_4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969747 | 551 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Chemical elements of fish
Water, lipid and protein content in various fish species vary greatly, as outlined in the table below.
The lipid fraction is the component with the greatest variation. Often, the fluctuations within a fish species will display a characteristic seasonal curve with a minimum around the time of spawning.
Although the protein fraction is rather constant in most species, changes have been observed, such as the protein reduction occurring in salmon during long spawning migrations and in Baltic cod during the spawning season.
The carbohydrate content in fish muscle is very low, usually below 0.5 percent. This is typical for striated muscle, where carbohydrate occurs in glycogen and as part of the chemical constituents of nucleotides. The latter is the source of freed ribose after post mortem autolytic changes.
Aquacultured fish can also vary in composition, although more predictably because several factors are controlled. In fact, a fish farmer is able to design, to some extent, the composition of the fish by selecting the farming conditions - the feed composition being the single most pronounced factor to have an impact on the composition of the cultured fish. | <urn:uuid:73016950-12bb-4070-baad-04241708f639> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/14820/en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957186 | 231 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Just got word in my inbox a while ago that public housing residents and advocates took over the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HONA) earlier today, in response to the utter dereliction of duty that HONA has shown in restoring public housing in the city. From the press release about the action:
Across the country public housing authorities are selling off land, raising rents, firing workers, and leaving countless residents with no place to live. In New Orleans more than 300,000 residents, mostly poor and black, have been denied the right to return to their homes since Katrina hit two years ago.
The Housing Authority building has been locked down and is being surrounded by the National Guard, the New Orleans Police, and Swat. Residents are determined to save their homes and to show that public housing is still a valuable community asset.
The take over of the Housing Authority of New Orleans is a part of the International Tribunal and 2nd Survivor’s Assembly, which is being organized by Grassroots Global Justice (GGJ) and is being held to bring charges of racial discrimination and the denial of the right to return.
The city of New Orleans is in fact actively doing away with public housing:
New Orleans’ five public housing complexes were spared major flood damage, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans intend to demolish four of them anyway, with plans for mixed-income housing that would leave less room for the poor. Before Katrina, more than 5,000 families lived in the city’s 5,100 public housing units. At present, only about 1,500 units are occupied.
Of course, this is only part of a greater, nationwide trend of neglect and reduction of public housing, further evidence of which I wrote about in July when NYC advocates demanded attention for the ailing public housing system in this city. But the specific situation in New Orleans puts the neglect and even direct targeting that low-income people and people of color have faced in New Orleans in these two years since Hurricane Katrina.
Yesterday’s episode of Democracy Now! focused on the situation in New Orleans on this second anniversary of the disaster, giving a far more incisive and honest take than most of the mainstream media’s coverage, as one might expect. Listen to the podcast or read the transcripts for a revealing and infuriating picture of what has and has not been done in the city. I haven’t gotten to listen to the last segment of the show yet, but it’s about what happened to the New Orleans public education system after the hurricane – did you know that 7,500 school employees – nearly all of the teachers in the city – were fired almost directly after the storm? I was shocked to hear that. Gotta listen to find out why that went down and what it meant. | <urn:uuid:38c4fb57-36af-48db-831a-72bc56b5c5eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://angrybrownbutch.com/category/new-orleans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972367 | 579 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Invite a friend
Turns Out Trapping Coyotes Is Counter Productive
TURNS OUT TRAPPING COYOTES IS COUNTER PRODUCTIVE, NEW MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL UNVEILED FOR METRO ATLANTA
WHAT: An innovative approach to resolving human-coyote conflicts is being unveiled in metro Atlanta, where residents often see coyotes that are being squeezed out of their habitat due to urban growth. The management protocol incorporates behavioral modification, outreach and education based on science and best management practices. Traditional trap-and-kill methods are not effective and they create long-term negative consequences. Benefits of this novel approach on the coyotes and on the community will be addressed.
WHEN: Tuesday, January 29th at 7:30 pm
WHERE: Church of the Epiphany, in the parish hall, 2089 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia [Map]
WHO: There will be three speakers:
- Mary A. Paglieri is a consultant with Little Blue Society in the San Francisco area. She specializes in human-animal conflict resolution, and is the Director of Program Design and Implementation.
- Chris Mowry is an associate professor and head of the biology department at Berry College. A former resident of Druid Hills, Dr. Mowry has studied coyotes in the southeast and Yellowstone National Park, and he is currently talking with local and state officials about a proposal to study coyotes in Atlanta.
- Chip Elliott is a coyote trapper who has been working throughout the metro Atlanta area for over 20 years. He was recently hired by private citizens to trap coyotes in Druid Hills.
WHY: Recently, trappers have been hired by neighborhood groups that were not aware of alternatives to killing the species. Residents are increasingly questioning the regular use of trapping and killing that is occurring in their neighborhoods. At the request of Coyote Coexistence (http://coyotecoexistence.com/), a concerned community group, Mary Paglieri will discuss the new techniques for managing and coexisting with coyotes in urban areas. A petition has been launched calling for a more humane solution based on science, observational research and education. Petition link: http://signon.org/sign/stop-coyote-trapping?source=c.url&r_by=6767189 | <urn:uuid:cfeff0ad-9343-413d-9179-90e01dae5a5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stonemountain.patch.com/events/turns-out-trapping-coyotes-is-counter-productive-6ad8cb41 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946551 | 481 | 2.375 | 2 |
Television is something we all know and love -- sometimes without good reason. Critics routinely argue that shows like Temptation Island and WWF Smackdown! have pushed us several steps down the evolutionary ladder, but people still watch them. One thing that has evolved is the technology for displaying video images. We're all familiar with the classic cathode-ray tube (CRT), an analog technology that's been around since TV's earliest days. The CRT served us well for over 50 years, but in this digital era, when video can be broken down into ones and zeros and routed through countless conduits, it's become something of a dinosaur.
Enter Digital Light Processing (DLP), a video display technology based on the proprietary Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) from Texas Instruments. Though DLP has been around for a few years, it's only recently started to gain recognition as movie theaters contemplate a move away from traditional film projection. A handful of theaters installed DLP systems to project the much-hyped Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace when it was released in 1999, and it continues to gain momentum. Worldwide, 30 theaters had made the switch at this writing in late March.
DLP is now starting to show up on the home front in the form of front and rear projectors. The advantage of a DLP-based display is that the video signal remains in the digital domain from the moment it enters the set until it's reflected as light onto the screen. DLP's fully digital signal path not only holds the promise of higher-quality images than CRTs currently deliver but also makes it the ideal display technology for folks who want to mix up their TV viewing with videogames and Web surfing.
Compared with CRT displays, which generate images using high-voltage electron guns and bulky glass tubes, the technology behind DLP is elegantly refined. At the heart of a DLP display is the DMD, an integrated circuit covered with an array of tiny mirrors. A lamp inside the set throws light at the DMD chip, and the mirrors pivot up to 50,000 times a second, switching between on and off states in which light is either reflected toward a projection lens or deflected toward light-absorbing material. The amount of time that each mirror, or pixel, reflects light at the lens determines the pixel's brightness -- that is, where it falls in the scale between black and white.
DLP displays handle color in two ways. In three-chip DLP projectors, which are found in movie theaters and a few ultra-expensive home installations, a prism splits the light from the lamp into red, green, and blue components. Each color is directed to a separate DMD chip, and the reflections are optically recombined before the image hits the projection lens. In less expensive one-chip models -- the kind intended for home use -- a rotating color wheel filters the light into red, green, and blue. Although the three separate beams are reflected off the DMD sequentially, the rate at which they flash onscreen is so fast that the eye perceives a full-color image.
Copyright © 2013 Bonnier Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. | <urn:uuid:1da02f30-236b-409b-aac5-25781e0026e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article/seeing-digital-light?quicktabs_1=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945313 | 667 | 2.265625 | 2 |
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”
With an emphasis on the slain civil rights leader’s commitment to service, a group of about 20 volunteers showed up to help clean Fred Moore Park on Saturday morning. Their work helped kick off local Martin Luther King Jr. Day observations, which continue Monday.
“I feel it’s really important for our community to be involved,” said Ericca Cordier, a Denton resident of three years. This is her second year to participate in the MLK festivities.
“These important events are always so under-attended and I think these positive events should have larger turnout, hopefully encouraging our youth to get out and be involved,” Cordier said while cleaning the park.
This message of service is just what Denesha Factory wanted when she proposed the idea to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center advisory board.
“Since we weren’t going to have a parade, I suggested a day of service — because that’s what the day was mandated as, not a day of rest as we know it today,” said Factory, a recreation specialist at the center.
She thought the cleanup was a success.
“Volunteers were very excited and already making suggestions for next year,” Factory said.
After the park cleanup, residents headed down the road to the King recreation center for a celebration that included a candlelight vigil, gospel hymns and a dance performance.
Keynote speaker Alma Clark, a longtime member of the community, concluded the celebration with a heartfelt message that summed up the reason for the holiday.
“Our opportunity is now,” said Clark, who worked for 25 years at the University of North Texas. “Now is the time to sow the seeds of kindness and the seeds of service, volunteer … even if it’s just for an hour at your local school.”
Denton City Council member Kevin Roden said he was happy to be part of a celebration that’s rich in cultural significance.
“This is what King would want, to bring people together,” Roden said. “MLK Day continues to be a good time to educate the public.”
Loud applause broke out after Clark ended her speech by saying, “The dream is still alive. God bless America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, because you made it that way.”
MEGAN GRAY can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is email@example.com.
MLK DAY EVENTS
Martin Luther King. Jr. Day observations continue Monday:
9 a.m. to noon — Community service project at Fred Moore Day Nursery School, 821 Cross Timber St., led by the Denton Faith Alliance. Volunteers will help with projects on the school grounds.
11 a.m. — Free flag football for youths at Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center, 1300 Wilson St. Call 940-349-8575.
3 p.m. — Rally at the University of North Texas Union, 1155 Union Circle. March begins at 4 p.m.; marchers will meet up with community members at Fred Moore Park at 5 p.m., then continue to Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center for the concluding celebration. | <urn:uuid:177b9568-e920-49d4-9776-2f222016c722> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20130119-to-serve-and-reflect.ece?ssimg=862502 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947888 | 733 | 1.757813 | 2 |
| June 20, 2013
The picking game
Do spokescharacters work? 4-year-olds are asked to choose between a plain chocolate cupcake, and one that bears the image of their favorite cartoon characters. And what about the choice between a banana and a cupcake –- would cartoon associations still work?
Sorry, we do not have a transcript available for this video at this time. | <urn:uuid:fde595be-f523-47a5-954c-9217f2431dea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/video/dateline/14384659 | 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 | 0.97157 | 81 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Sims is 50 years old, an avid rock climber and former professional mountain guide. He doesn't like cities; he's allergic to crowds. He dresses as if life were one long camping trip. A professor at the University of Wyoming, he lives in Laramie with his wife and two young children. He hasn't owned a TV set in 25 years. Volcano science has never been a safe occupation—more than 20 scientists have died on volcanoes in the past 30 years. Sims carries a scar on his right arm from Sicily's Mount Etna, where his shirt melted into his skin. He's even-tempered and analytical and seemingly never off duty. He once wrote a paper on a restaurant tablecloth, scribbling until 3 a.m. Then he took the tablecloth home.
Tedesco, 51, is fiery and fashion conscious, an inexperienced alpinist and an unrepentant epicure. On the Nyiragongo expedition, where every ounce hauled up the mountain was carefully considered, Tedesco brought a large glass bottle of extra virgin olive oil. He lives with his wife, teenage daughter, five cats, and three dogs just outside Rome and is a professor at the Second University of Naples. When he speaks of Nyiragongo, he drops all pretense of scholarly dispassion. "It's no secret that I love Goma," he says. "My greatest fear is to make a big mistake—not to predict an eruption."
Sims led the descent into the crater, anchoring ropes and spidering down walls. The rest of the party followed. Nyiragongo is in the Great Rift Valley, where the African continental plate is being wrenched apart, and microquakes constantly shake the volcano. Pebbles clattered down walls. Town-house-size rocks wobbled like loose teeth. The mountain seemed ready to collapse.
The team set up camp on a wide ledge 800 feet below the rim, a few hundred feet above the thundering lake. The ledge was covered with heavy ash, called tephra, and speckled with droplets of volcanic glass and delicate lava threads known as Pele's hair. The surface was warm; hiking pants left on a tent floor had a fresh-from-the-dryer feel in the morning.
Every day the lava lake emits around 7,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, the chief element in acid rain. This is more than the total from every car and factory in the United States. "Basically, it's one big chimney," Tedesco said. The environment was noxious, the air full of acid and metallic aerosol particles. Raindrops sizzled as they landed in fumaroles. Gas masks were worn. Within days, zipper pulls corroded; camera lenses began disintegrating. Sims handed out throat lozenges.
Here on this ledge Tedesco and Sims began working with the field lab they'd brought. A blue padded case held what Tedesco called a "gas sniffer" to measure carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane. A shoe-box-size RAD7 tested for radon. A vacuum pump, housed in a rusty ammo box, captured a fumarole's plume.
Why measure gas? Because volcanoes are gas-driven machines. An eruption is often preceded by an increase in discharged gas and by variations in its chemical composition. The rise of magma, its accumulation in chambers, its propulsion into fractures—these events produce chemical signals that reach the surface well ahead of the magma itself.
Sims uses radioactive clocks to decipher volcanic processes, measuring and comparing two isotopes of radon. By tracking this ratio over time, he can determine how long gas has taken to reach the surface and gain clues to the chemical, thermal, and mechanical state of the rocks the gas is passing through. But few conclusions can be derived from a single expedition. Only long-term studies can determine which type of gas fluctuations are cause for alarm and which are part of the volcano's normal cycles. Until top scientists make regular visits—something Tedesco has been desperately urging—the best that can be done is to maintain a precise record of Nyiragongo's every move.
That task falls to the Goma Volcanic Observatory, located in a dilapidated one-story building in the city center and staffed around the clock. Katcho Karume, 44, the observatory's director general, has a Ph.D. in environmental physics. "Seismology is the heart of what we do," he said. Swarms of tremors are usually, though not always, a sign that an eruption is coming. But many of the observatory's seismic stations on Nyiragongo's slopes were looted during the wars. "For batteries," said Karume, shaking his head at the thought that Goma's population could be decimated for a few dollars' worth of batteries.
"You know, I hardly sleep," said Karume. "One million people depend on us." Without modern equipment, which could cost two million dollars—a daunting sum in one of the poorest nations in the world—an accurate forecast might not be possible. And even if the observatory were able to predict an eruption, then what?
"There is an emergency plan," insisted Feller Lutaichirwa, vice governor of North Kivu Province. Warning flags at stations throughout town, he said, announce the risk level of an eruption, from green, indicating low danger, to red, meaning an eruption is imminent.
Others begged to differ. "There is no plan," said journalist Horeb Bulambo. "And the flags are old." He was right. At most of the stations I saw, every flag had faded to white. Esteban Sacco, who until recently operated Goma's United Nations humanitarian affairs office, mentioned that only one road leads out of the city away from the volcano. "Within a couple of hours the whole town will be stuck," he said. "Imagine the worst."
Meanwhile, people continue to live on top of the lava. "I saw the eruption in 1977 and again in 2002," said Ignace Madingo, administrative secretary of the city district closest to the volcano. Both times he fled with his family, and both times his house disappeared. "Many people from this area died," he said. "The lava turned them into stones. You can't imagine. You never see them again. No trace." Today his land is a pile of jagged volcanic rocks. "We know the mountain will erupt again. Lava will come. Our houses will burn. And after, we will build once more."
To prevent a catastrophe, Sims believes, we must gain a deeper understanding of Nyiragongo. For starters, one crucial source of information is what's known as a zero-age sample: a chunk of lava fresh from the lake. It would be the Rosetta stone of Nyiragongo, the piece that could unlock the mountain's story, allowing every other rock to be accurately dated. "Ultimately it could lead to better eruptive predictions," Sims said.
Sims wanted that lava chunk. But he knew retrieval would be dangerous, and he struggled with the decision. He thought of his family; he fretted over lava bombs and rockfalls. He would never allow one of his own students to risk his or her life for such a sample. Yet he also understood that he was one of only a few people with both the climbing skills and scientific knowledge to get exactly what he wanted.
So he rappelled into the heart of the volcano. Standing on the crater floor, he couldn't see the lake itself, which was above him within the cone of cooled lava. But he could hear its hissing gases and smell its acrid fumes. He pulled on a silver-colored thermal suit, like a full-body oven mitt, so rigid he couldn't bend over to tie his shoes.
As he approached the spatter cone, the lava crunched like eggshells beneath his feet. The rim was 40 feet high, the wall nearly vertical, requiring rock-climbing skills to ascend. He started up, stretching for handholds and foot placements, drenched in sweat inside the suit. When he was ten feet from the top, spotters described to him over the radio the level of the lava, where it was exploding, where it was spilling over. Conditions changed by the minute. He was five feet away. Then three. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he smelled burning rubber. Looking down, he saw his shoe melting out from under him.
But he kept going. He peeked over the top, eye to eye with the boiling lava. This was beyond science. This was personal, the culmination of a lifetime of exploration and adventure and tireless curiosity. Over the radio the emotion in his voice was palpable. "Amazing. Incredible. I'll never see anything like this again."
After a few seconds he backed away. There was still essential work to do. He didn't have a hammer, so with a hard slam of his fist he broke off a piece of fresh lava. It was shiny, iridescent black, and so hot that, even wearing thermal gloves, he juggled it from hand to hand.
But he had it. The zero-age sample. Through a war zone, up a mountain, down a crater, to the edge of a lava lake, he had it. Now the science, at long last, could begin. | <urn:uuid:805086a1-9221-4df8-a5d0-da577c5ffcb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/nyiragongo-volcano/finkel-text/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977587 | 1,962 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Illinois Compiled Statutes
Information maintained by the Legislative Reference Bureau
Updating the database of the Illinois Compiled Statutes (ILCS) is an ongoing process. Recent laws may not yet be included in the ILCS database, but they are found on this site as Public Acts
soon after they become law. For information concerning the relationship between statutes and Public Acts, refer to the Guide
Because the statute database is maintained primarily for legislative drafting purposes, statutory changes are sometimes included in the statute database before they take effect. If the source note at the end of a Section of the statutes includes a Public Act that has not yet taken effect, the version of the law that is currently in effect may have already been removed from the database and you should refer to that Public Act to see the changes made to the current law.
MENTAL HEALTH405 ILCS 45/0.01
(405 ILCS 45/) Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Persons Act.
(405 ILCS 45/0.01)
(from Ch. 91 1/2, par. 1350)
This Act may be cited as the
Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Persons Act.
(Source: P.A. 86-1324.)
405 ILCS 45/1
(405 ILCS 45/1)
(from Ch. 91 1/2, par. 1351)
The Governor shall designate an agency to administer the
protection and advocacy system for mentally ill persons, pursuant to the
federal Protection and Advocacy of Mentally Ill Individuals Act of 1986. The
agency shall be independent of any agency which provides disability-related
services (other than advocacy services), including treatment,
rehabilitation, guardianship or habilitation. The agency may receive and
expend funds to protect and advocate the rights of mentally ill persons.
(Source: P.A. 85-623.)
405 ILCS 45/2
(405 ILCS 45/2)
(from Ch. 91 1/2, par. 1352)
For the purposes of this Act, the following terms
shall have the following meanings unless the context clearly requires otherwise:
(1) "Mentally ill person" means an individual who has a significant mental
illness or emotional impairment as determined by a mental health professional
qualified under the laws and regulations of this State and who is receiving
care or treatment.
(2) "Abuse" means any act or failure to act by an employee of a facility
rendering care or treatment, which act or failure was performed knowingly,
recklessly or with intentional disregard for the rights of a mentally ill
person, and which caused, or may have caused, injury to a mentally ill person,
and includes but is not limited to acts such as: (1) the rape or sexual
assault of a mentally
ill person; (2) the striking of a mentally ill person; (3) the use of
excessive force when placing a mentally ill person in bodily restraints;
and (4) the use of bodily or chemical restraints on a mentally ill person
which is not in compliance with federal and State laws and regulations.
(3) "Neglect" means a negligent act or omission by any individual responsible
for providing services in a facility rendering care or treatment, which
caused or may have caused injury to a mentally ill person or which placed
a mentally ill person at risk of injury and includes an act or omission
such as failure to establish or carry out an appropriate individual program
plan or treatment plan for a mentally ill person; the failure to provide
adequate nutrition, clothing or health care to a mentally ill person; or
the failure to provide a safe environment for a mentally ill person.
(4) "Authorized agency" or "agency" means the agency designated by the Governor
pursuant to Section 1 of this Act.
(Source: P.A. 85-623.)
405 ILCS 45/3
(405 ILCS 45/3)
(from Ch. 91 1/2, par. 1353)
Powers and Duties.
(A) In order to properly exercise its powers
and duties, the agency shall have the authority to:
(1) Investigate incidents of abuse and neglect of
mentally ill persons if the incidents are reported to the agency or if there is probable cause to believe that the incidents occurred. In case of conflict with provisions of the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act or the Nursing Home Care Act, the provisions of those Acts shall apply.
(2) Pursue administrative, legal and other
appropriate remedies to ensure the protection of the rights of mentally ill persons who are receiving care and treatment in this State.
(3) Pursue administrative, legal and other remedies
on behalf of an individual who:
(a) was a mentally ill individual; and
(b) is a resident of this State, but only with
respect to matters which occur within 90 days after the date of the discharge of such individual from a facility providing care and treatment.
(4) Establish a board which shall:
(a) advise the protection and advocacy system on
policies and priorities to be carried out in protecting and advocating the rights of mentally ill individuals; and
(b) include attorneys, mental health
professionals, individuals from the public who are knowledgeable about mental illness, a provider of mental health services, individuals who have received or are receiving mental health services and family members of such individuals. At least one-half the members of the board shall be individuals who have received or are receiving mental health services or who are family members of such individuals.
(5) On January 1, 1988, and on January 1 of each
succeeding year, prepare and transmit to the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and to the Illinois Secretary of Human Services a report describing the activities, accomplishments and expenditures of the protection and advocacy system during the most recently completed fiscal year.
(B) The agency shall have access to all mental health facilities as
defined in Sections 1-107 and 1-114 of the Mental Health and Developmental
Disabilities Code, all facilities as defined in Section 1-113 of the
Nursing Home Care Act, all facilities as defined in Section 1-113 of the Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Act, all facilities as defined in Section 1-113 of the
ID/DD Community Care Act, all facilities as defined in Section 2.06 of the Child
Care Act of 1969, as now or hereafter amended, and all other facilities
providing care or treatment to mentally ill persons. Such access shall be
granted for the purposes of meeting with residents and staff, informing
them of services available from the agency, distributing written
information about the agency and the rights of persons who are mentally
ill, conducting scheduled and unscheduled visits, and performing other
activities designed to protect the rights of mentally ill persons.
(C) The agency shall have access to all records of mentally ill
persons who are receiving care or treatment from a facility, subject to the
limitations of this Act, the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities
Confidentiality Act, the Nursing Home Care Act and the Child Care Act of
1969, as now or hereafter amended. If the mentally ill person has a legal
guardian other than the State or a designee of the State, the facility
director shall disclose the guardian's name, address and telephone number
to the agency upon its request. In cases of conflict with provisions of
the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act and the Nursing Home Care Act,
the provisions of the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act and the
Nursing Home Care Act shall apply. The agency shall also have access, for
the purpose of inspection and copying, to the records of a mentally ill
person (i) who by reason of his or her mental or physical condition is
unable to authorize the agency to have such access; (ii) who does not have
a legal guardian or for whom the State or a designee of the State is the
legal guardian; and (iii) with respect to whom a complaint has been
received by the agency or with respect to whom there is probable cause to
believe that such person has been subjected to abuse or neglect.
The agency shall provide written notice
to the mentally ill person and the State guardian of the nature of the
complaint based upon which the agency has gained access to
the records. No record or the contents of the record shall be redisclosed
by the agency unless the person who is mentally ill and the State guardian
are provided 7 days advance written notice, except in emergency situations,
of the agency's intent to redisclose such record. Within such 7-day
period, the mentally ill person or the State guardian may seek an
injunction prohibiting the agency's redisclosure of such record on the
grounds that such redisclosure is contrary to the interests of the mentally
Upon request, the authorized agency shall be entitled to inspect and copy
any clinical or trust fund records of mentally ill persons which may further
the agency's investigation
of alleged problems affecting numbers of mentally ill persons. When
required by law, any personally identifiable information of mentally ill
persons shall be removed from the records. However, the agency may not
inspect or copy any records or other materials when the removal of
personally identifiable information imposes an unreasonable burden on any
facility as defined by the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities
Code, the Nursing Home Care Act, the Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Act, or the Child Care Act of 1969, or any other
facility providing care or treatment to mentally ill persons.
(D) Prior to instituting any legal action in a federal or State
court on behalf of a mentally ill individual, an eligible protection and
advocacy system, or a State agency or nonprofit
organization which entered into a contract with such an eligible system under
Section 104(a) of the federal Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill
Individuals Act of 1986, shall exhaust in a timely manner all
administrative remedies where appropriate. If, in pursuing administrative
remedies, the system, State agency or organization determines that any
matter with respect to such individual will not be resolved within a
reasonable time, the system, State agency or organization may pursue
alternative remedies, including the initiation of appropriate legal action.
(Source: P.A. 96-339, eff. 7-1-10; 97-38, eff. 6-28-11; 97-227, eff. 1-1-12; 97-813, eff. 7-13-12.)
405 ILCS 45/4
(405 ILCS 45/4)
(from Ch. 91 1/2, par. 1354)
Any person who in good faith complains to the agency
on behalf of a mentally ill person or a person with any other disability,
or who provides information or participates in the investigation of any
such complaint, shall have immunity from any liability, civil, criminal
or otherwise, and shall not be subject to any penalties, sanctions, restrictions
or retaliation as a consequence of making such complaint, providing such
information or participating in such investigation.
(Source: P.A. 85-623.) | <urn:uuid:c6166057-b7fd-4e4f-99b2-ec9a2d98921c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1504&ChapterID=34 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929559 | 2,375 | 1.65625 | 2 |
By APLONDON — Britain's defense ministry says it will shred records of UFO sightings after a huge rise in the number of reports submitted by the public.
The Ministry of Defense said Sunday that new reports will be thrown out after 30 days, rather than kept on file.
It means details of the sightings will be exempt from freedom of information laws that have allowed campaigners to force Britain's government to disclose details of apparent UFO encounters.
The ministry had 634 reports of UFO sightings in 2009, the highest total since 1978 when the public submitted 750.
In December, Britain scrapped a phone line and e-mail account for the public to report details of UFO activity.
Britain's government said the service was a waste of defense resources. | <urn:uuid:9fadab7c-8879-414c-8d2e-9e940df787df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theufochronicles.com/2010/02/uks-ufo-unit-says-it-will-shred-ex-x.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931919 | 149 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Yoon Young-kwan: Asia's Next Axis
SEOUL - Last month, the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea agreed to begin negotiations later this year on a trilateral free-trade agreement. If the talks succeed, the global trade map will need to be redrawn. An FTA that encompasses, respectively, the world's second, third, and 12th biggest economies (in purchasing power parity terms in 2011), with a population of 1.5 billion, would dwarf the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), comprising the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Indeed, Northeast Asia would become the third major axis of regional economic integration, following the EU and Nafta. Until now, the region has been unable to institutionalise economic cooperation as vigorously as Europe and North America have. But if the proposals discussed in Beijing last month are realised, the resulting FTA could surpass Nafta in its degree of integration and importance to the world economy.
In addition, the formation of a China-Japan-South Korea FTA would most likely trigger a chain-reaction. For example, the momentum could expand southward and stimulate Asean, which has bilateral FTAs with all three countries, to join the group. Such a turn of events would be equivalent to establishing the East Asia Free Trade Area, which the Asean+3 envisioned about a decade ago. If that happened, other countries - Australia, New Zealand, and, most importantly, India - might seek to jump on the bandwagon.
The US would, of course, need to respond to the conclusion of any trilateral Northeast Asian FTA in order to preserve its own role in global trade - and in the supply chains that dominate the Asian economies. It would likely seek to expand and deepen the infant Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade agreement that President Barack Obama committed the US to last year.
In particular, the US would strongly encourage Japan to join the TPP, because the US might want a united Asia-Pacific economic community, rather than a division between Asia and the Pacific. Because Japan would not want to be disconnected from the US for strategic reasons, it might indeed accept America's invitation.
In this scenario, both Japan and South Korea would have to find some means to bridge a Sino-centric Asia and a US-centered Pacific. Despite its smaller economy, South Korea seems to be better prepared than Japan to play this critical role. South Korea has already concluded an FTA with the US, after years of difficult negotiations, and plans to negotiate a bilateral FTA with China this year.
Thus, the key question is whether and how much Japan will be willing to take on a similar bridging role. Robust Japanese participation would mitigate Asia-Pacific polarisation and contribute to building momentum for regional integration.
But the magnitude of domestic challenges that Japan faces nowadays seems too great for its political leaders to play a proactive international role. Japan's governments have been fragile and short-lived for close to a decade, and the current debate over raising the value-added tax could cause another change of administration. Moreover, Japan's powerful agricultural interest groups, especially the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, may strengthen their opposition to both a trilateral FTA with China and South Korea and the TPP with the US.
But Japan's leaders are being squeezed from both directions. If they do nothing while South Korea continues to conclude FTAs, Japan will lose markets in the US and China. But if they act, domestic political opposition would likely be so severe as to drive them from power. This is the main reason why it will be difficult for Japan to conclude the proposed trilateral FTA, despite Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's recent endorsement of it. Indeed, only a looser FTA that would exclude each country's sensitive economic sectors appears to be viable.
For China, political considerations seem to be the strongest motivation for pursuing a Northeast Asian FTA. But using the trilateral FTA to expand its economic and political influence would require China to increase transparency, open its service sector, and remove non-tariff barriers. In essence, it would have to accept a rules-based system for its relations with its two neighbors, something of which China's government has been wary. One advantage for China, however, in pursuing an FTA strategy is that it is still an authoritarian state, and thus could overrule domestic opposition far more easily than could governments in Japan or South Korea.
Finally, South Korea, which has concluded FTAs with almost every important economic actor in the world - the US, the EU, Asean, India, and others - may be better prepared to conclude a trilateral FTA than Japan. But it, too, will have to face strong opposition from domestic agricultural interest groups and manufacturing sectors, which might mobilise even more strongly than they did in opposing the FTA with the US.
If a trilateral Northeast Asian FTA can be concluded, the three countries would be able to generate more market demand domestically at a time of weak demand from the West, and would gain greater influence in the global political economy. A trilateral FTA would also most likely contribute to stabilis ing the three countries' troublesome political relations with each other, and could provide a better environment for North Korea's eventual economic reconstruction.
The myriad benefits of a Northeast Asian FTA are clear. The question is whether it is an ambition too far.
Yoon Young-kwan, South Korea's foreign minister in 2003-2004, is currently Professor of International Relations at Seoul National University. | <urn:uuid:b77f8f61-24bf-44fb-821d-59115ac262ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.straitstimes.com/microsites/global-perspectives/story/yoon-young-kwan-asias-next-axis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953357 | 1,126 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Born in Wyoming and raised in Arizona and California, Jackson Pollock attended art school and worked in New York where he dominated the art scene in the 1940s and 1950s, becoming widely recognized as the leading Abstract Expressionist in America. Best known for the drip paintings that have come to exemplify the innovations and freedom of Abstract Expressionism, Pollock was also a gifted and prolific draughtsman. In fact, drawing played a seminal role throughout his career. He often used his sketches to work through artistic ideas and experiments, from the realistic studies of the 1930s to the personal symbolism of the 1940s and ultimately to the individually characteristic linear expressionism of the 1950s.
Pollock's famous "War" is the only drawing he ever titled, and, although inscribed "1947," it relates to the iconographically complex images he produced earlier, around 1943–44. In this composition, the monstrous destruction of war is conveyed both by the fierceness of the graphic execution and by the imagery, much of which is camouflaged by the many linear motions, darkened and thickened and highlighted with flashes of red and yellow pencil to heighten the dramatic intensity. The drawing's narrative is one of horrific proportions. A human figure and a bull are flung onto a raging pyre of human debris. To the right, the crucifixion of a hooded figure is suggested. Some of the imagery may be traced to Picasso's pair of etchings "The Dream and Lie of Franco," and to the Spanish artist's epic painting on war, "Guernica," both from 1937. Yet even as Pollock's work engages with the history of art and offers a statement on the universal horrors of war, it also has a personal dimension, drawing on from the psychological language of Surrealism that fueled his early works. | <urn:uuid:63a872ac-52d1-44ff-aa58-a824b3ac2c6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210002644?high=on&rpp=15&pg=1&rndkey=20121003&ft=*&what=Drawings&pos=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976981 | 369 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Jack London is an American original, a self-taught writer whose life was almost as interesting as his fiction. He is best known for his tales of adventure in the North, such as The Call of the Wild and White Fang, but his literary achievement encompasses much more, from the autobiographical masterpiece Martin Eden to short fiction set everywhere from the Arctic Circle to the South Seas. He is one of the few writers both beloved by students and admired by scholars.
Critical Companion to Jack London is a comprehensive reference to the life and works of this prolific author as well as some of the themes that can be found in his writing.
- A concise but thorough biography of London
- Entries on all of London's major works, including novels such as The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Martin Eden, The Iron Heel, and The Sea-Wolf; stories such as "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," and "The Law of Life"; essays, travel books, and other works of nonfiction; and much more. Each entry on a fictional work contains subentries on the work's main characters
- Entries on related people, places, and topics, such as Joseph Conrad, dystopian fiction, Manifest Destiny, wolves, and the Yukon Territory
- Appendixes, including a chronology, a bibliography of London's works, and a secondary-source bibliography. | <urn:uuid:4cec98ec-6888-4d98-be7f-ada521369ca2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infobasepublishing.com/Bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=1438134894&eBooks=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976413 | 286 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Insurance Helper Blog
Insurance fraud comes in many different forms, from creative and complicated to simple and childlike. In the U.S., insurance fraud costs about $30 billion per year, or 10% of the total losses paid out by insurance companies. And while some people may cheer this activity on, thinking that the large insurance companies deserve a little fraud since they are so big and heartless, these people are forgetting that these costs just end up in everyone else’s premiums. So if we could get rid of insurance fraud completely, you could expect to pay 10% less for every kind of insurance policy that you buy.
Until recently, solving insurance fraud claims has been a slow and difficult process. But social media sites, like Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and others are providing a wealth of information and clues to investigators. Take a look at a few of these real world examples to see just how these social media sites are helping investigators catch and stop some of the insurance fraud criminals out there.
Let’s start with a case of fraud that doesn’t include an insurance company to see how powerful these tools can be. A woman worked in the payables department of a large firm that had awarded a maintenance contract to a firm that was secretly run by her husband. The husband then began billing for services that were not actually performed and the wife paid them on behalf of the firm. This kind of fraud would be nearly impossible to detect. But the investigator cross referenced information from all of the social media sites with traditional sources such as the white pages and eventually found an address associated with the maintenance firm that matched an address of one of the couple’s grown children. This allowed him to connect the two put an end to their fraud.
Workers compensation insurance is the area of insurance that has perhaps gained the most from these sites. An injured worker, out on disability post photos of himself on top of a mountain in Aspen ready to ski down. Another disabled worker left social media trails that led to him playing basketball in an adult basketball league. Instead of having to hire an investigator to follow him around everywhere, the insurance company can now just have the investigator show up at the game and witness the disabled worker playing basketball. The fraud is stopped and the investigation costs are reduced. Or consider the case of a worker who was out on disability for a back injury that posted photos of himself at a karate class, thereby ending his disability workers compensation claim.
Relationships between different players in fraud can also be discovered using social media. A doctor and an attorney who were involved in a scam together turned out to be connected on Linked In and it was later found that they were tweeting to each other to set up meetings to work out their next moves. In one case, an investigator of a slip and fall claim that seemed suspect, found that 2 other people living in the same apartment with the victim were also victims of slip and fall claims. It turns out that only the first of these claims was legitimate and that the other two took their knowledge of this one incident to fabricate their stories to set up their fraudulent insurance claims.
Even Craigslist is a part of this action. One fraudster filed an auto insurance claim that his car had been stolen. Several months later he was listing that car for sale on Craigslist. In another example, a person filed a claim for their car that had been burned and investigators later found several earlier ads on Craigslist where this person had tried unsuccessfully to sell the car. I guess he decided it would be easier to burn it and collect the insurance money.
All of these sleuthing techniques will help keep your insurance costs lower over the long term. If you want to cut your insurance costs dramatically in the short term, then I suggest that you call Clinard Insurance Group, toll free, at 877-687-7557 and let us help you find the policy that suits your needs at a rate that will shock you.
Hurricane Sandy struck the northeastern US with a severe blow and the clean-up that is going on now will probably continue for many weeks more. Most of us in North Carolina were spared damage to our homes and property but did you know that despite this, hurricane Sandy will have an impact on your future home insurance rates? And if Sandy represents a changing weather pattern for the long term, then over time we may pay as much for our home insurance in North Carolina as homeowners now pay in Florida.
The rates that you pay for your home insurance are generated by data from many different sources and as such are affected by many things. But as far as weather related losses such as hurricanes go, there are really three ways that you can be affected negatively. Let’s take a look at each of them separately.
The most obvious type of impact would be when your home or property suffers a direct loss from a storm and you have to file a claim. Most insurance companies will allow some number of weather related claims to be filed before they take the more drastic step of non-renewing your policy. This used to be as many as three claims though lately with tougher underwriting and lower profits in NC, some now won’t tolerate even one weather related loss without at least requiring that you increase your deductible. Many might just not renew your policy after one weather related loss.
A second, less obvious way that your rates are affected by storms happens when a storm hits your local area. Even though your home may be spared the damage, the storm track through your neighborhood or your town puts that locale on the map for higher risk areas with insurance companies. When they pay out for a lot of losses in an area, you can bet that they start to train their attention on that area and begin to work to get more rate increases in that geography. So even though you dodge the bullet of storm losses, you may not dodge the rate increase bullet caused by that local storm.
The third way that storms affect your homeowners insurance rates is caused by the fundamental mechanism of how insurance spreads losses around. In a sense, when you purchase home insurance you are substituting a smaller know loss (your premiums) for a larger unknown one (storm damages to your home). One of the ways that he insurance industry spreads this risk around is through the use of reinsurance contracts. Reinsurance is insurance protection that insurance companies purchase from reinsurance companies for their entire book of business. For example, an insurance company might sign a reinsurance contract with a reinsurer that says that if they suffer losses from any one storm that exceed $300 million then the reinsurer will pay for all claims over that amount. Now when large storms hit the US and cause extensive damage, the reinsurers have to pay out on their contracts with the insurance companies. When this happens, the future costs of reinsurance will be higher as the reinsurers attempt to cover past losses and also make sure that they are profitable in the future. These higher reinsurance costs are then passed on down to the homeowners insurance consumer.
With a storm like Sandy, where the loss of property is extensive and widespread, future insurance costs are bound to be affected negatively. For most NC residents, the rate impact will only come from the third leg of this stool so our negative rate impact will certainly be much lower than areas of New Jersey and New York. But make no mistake; this storm will cost all of us more money in higher insurance premiums.
At Clinard Insurance Group, we want to help you with all of your insurance needs. Please feel free to call us toll free, at 877-687-7557 if you have any questions about your personal or your business insurance. We are here to help you. | <urn:uuid:aba98852-8d64-4e4f-af57-cb4c0100f987> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clinardinsurance.com/contact/general-blog?start=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976571 | 1,563 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Tablets are great fun and add a uniquely touchy-feely new way for interacting with your media. As productivity devices… eh, not so much. Ideally you want the right tool for the right job. It’s like removing a screw with a pair of pliers. Yeah, it’s technically possible, but…
U.K. computer magazine site PC Pro was contacted recently by a local ICT coordinator at a secondary school where the staff had undergone the the switch from conventional PC laptops to iPads.
“He tells how his “image-conscious” headmaster was seduced by a scheme that allowed all the school’s staff to replace their laptop computers with an iPad 2.
Our source says staff were initially thrilled at the prospect. “Most staff are IT illiterate and jumped at the chance of exchanging their laptop for an iPad,” he writes.
Now, however: “the staff room is full of regret.”
What’s gone wrong? The biggest obstacle is that staff still cling to old documents and resources created in software such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, and of course there aren’t fully-fledged versions of the Office apps available for the iPad as yet. “Some staff are needing to produce documents and resources by remoting in [to a PC] on an iPad,” our source reveals. “Trying to operate Microsoft Word using a remote app that dumps you out of the connection is a nightmare.”
Staff are also having problems transferring work to their devices. “One of the biggest problems is the storage, since you can’t connect USB memory sticks to it,” our teacher writes, adding that staff are now experimenting with Dropbox to get documents on their tablets, which raises inevitable questions about data security.”
Check out the full article at PC Pro. | <urn:uuid:8d49fc09-2797-45f3-b80f-df45edf9c45f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.growingupotaku.com/2012/09/ipad-powered-school-wants-their-laptops.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962724 | 389 | 1.882813 | 2 |
PD50019113_000_031We serve our fellowmen because that is what we believe God wants us to do.
We live in perilous times when many believe we are not accountable to God and that we do not have personal responsibility or stewardship for ourselves or others. Many in the world are focused on self-gratification, put themselves first, and love pleasure more than they love righteousness. They do not believe they are their brother’s keeper. In the Church, however, we believe that these stewardships are a sacred trust.
Recently a group of highly respected Jewish leaders and rabbis visited Church facilities in the Salt Lake Valley, including Welfare Square, the Humanitarian Center, the Family History Library, and the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple open house. At the conclusion of their visit, one of the most eminent rabbis in America expressed his feelings about what he had seen and felt. 1
He cited concepts from Jewish thinkers rooted in the Talmud 2 and pointed out that there are two very different reasons people engage in acts of kindness and generosity. Some people visit the sick, assist the poor, and serve their fellowmen because they believe it is the right thing to do and others will reciprocate and do the same for them when they are in need. He explained that while this is good, builds caring communities, and should be considered a noble reason, a higher motive is when we serve our fellowmen because that is what we believe God wants us to do.
He stated that as a result of his visit, he believed the Latter-day Saints undertake welfare and humanitarian efforts and the work of salvation in our temples in order to do what we believe God wants us to do.
This feeling of accountability, which is encompassed by the first great commandment to love God, has been described by some as “obedience to the unenforceable.” 3 We try to do what is right because we love and want to please our Father in Heaven, not because someone is forcing us to obey.
The War in Heaven was fought after Satan said that he would force everyone to obey his ideas. That was rejected. As a result, we have our moral agency and the freedom to choose our course in this life. But we also are accountable for that agency. The Lord has said we will be “accountable for [our] own sins in the day of judgment.” 4 The principles of accountability and stewardship have great significance in our doctrine. 5
In the Church, stewardship is not limited to a temporal trust or responsibility. President Spencer W. Kimball taught: “We are stewards over our bodies, minds, families, and properties. … A faithful steward is one who exercises righteous dominion, cares for his own, and looks to the poor and needy.” 6
While there are many areas of stewardship, I have chosen to address two. The first is stewardship of ourselves and our families. The second is stewardship for the poor and needy.
The Lord often used parables relating to the land in teaching accountability and stewardship. When I was a small boy, I would visit my grandparents at their ranch during the summer. There was no electrical power, running water, or indoor plumbing. There was, however, a spring of water next to their small ranch house. The spring created a little pond of clear, pure water, where several times a day I would help my grandmother carry water to the house for drinking, cooking, bathing, and washing clothes. My grandparents loved this life-giving spring and took special precautions to protect it.
Many years later my grandfather was in his early 90s and did not live on the property; he was unable to maintain or oversee it. I drove him to see the ranch which he loved. His high expectations at seeing the ranch turned to disappointment when he realized the fences that protected the spring had fallen into disrepair and cows had damaged the spring and the precious, pure springwater had been significantly polluted. He was upset with the damage and the pollution. To him, it was a violation of a trust he had observed all his working life. He felt somehow he had not protected that life-sustaining spring which had meant so much to him.
Just as the pure spring was polluted when not protected, we live in a time when virtue and chastity are not safeguarded. 7 The eternal significance of personal morality is not respected. A loving Father in Heaven has provided us with the means to bring His spirit children into this world to fulfill the full measure of their creation. He has instructed us that the wellsprings of life are to be kept pure, just as the beautiful spring on the ranch required protection in order to sustain life. This is one of the reasons why virtue and chastity are so important in our Father in Heaven’s plan.
Because of my grandfather’s reaction to the polluted spring, improvements and protections were undertaken which returned the spring to its original beauty and purity.
As servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is our sacred responsibility to teach His standard of morality, which is the same for all of His children. When our thoughts or our actions are impure, we violate His standard. The Lord has said, “I … cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” 8 Some attempt to rationalize away their conduct.
In a poem by John Holmes titled “Talk,” an old, deaf New England shipbuilder teaches a young man about rationalization. In describing one of the lessons he learned, the youth explains, “I wouldn’t have known that however you build it, the ship must sail; you can’t explain to the ocean.” 9
It has been suggested that what happens in a certain city stays in a certain city. I like the sign posted in Sevier County, Utah, which states, “What happens in Sevier County … you can share with your friends!!!” When we realize that we are accountable to God, we see how foolish rationalizations can be. Those who rationalize remind us of little children who cover their eyes, convinced that if they can’t see us, we can’t see them. I would suggest that if we think about giving an accounting of our actions to the Savior, our rationalizations will be seen in their true light.
We are aware that there are those who have already engaged in conduct inconsistent with this sacred standard of morality. Please understand that through the Savior’s Atonement, all can repent and return, like the spring of water, to a clean and pure state. It is difficult to repent; it requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit. 10 But when the steps to repentance are righteously followed, the words spoken by the prophet Alma to his son Corianton, who had been involved in moral transgressions, are applicable: “And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance.” 11 The Savior has said, “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.” 12
With respect to our stewardship for our families, some have taught that when we report to the Savior and He asks us to give an account of our earthly responsibilities, two important inquiries will relate to our families. The first will be our relationship with our spouse, and the second will be about each of our children. 13
It is easy to confuse our priorities. We have a duty to secure the physical safety and well-being of our children. However, some parents place undue priority on temporal and material possessions. Some are far less diligent in their efforts to immerse their children in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 14 Remember that having religious observance in the home is as important as providing food, clothing, and shelter. Parents can also help children discover and develop their talents. We are responsible for the talents we have received. Children who are not taught that they are accountable for their time and talents are increasingly subject to the foolishness and unrighteousness that are so pervasive in the world. 15 The family proclamation warns that individuals “who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God.” 16
The second stewardship is caring for the poor and those in need, which applies to virtually all of us at one time or another. The Lord’s admonition that we are stewards for those in need contains some of the strongest language in all of scripture: “If any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion … unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.” 17 We are accountable as stewards over earthly blessings, which the Lord has provided.
The Jewish leaders I mentioned earlier were particularly impressed with the principle of fasting and then paying a generous fast offering. They thought it was remarkable that Church members across the world would fast monthly and then make a freewill offering for the benefit of those who are in need.
When the rabbis visited Welfare Square, they were touched to learn that even in difficult economic times, our members, concerned about the challenges experienced by many, continue to donate generously to help the poor and needy.
I can remember when I was called as a bishop, my predecessor, Bishop Russell Johnson, warned me that I would have to be careful what I asked the members to do. He said, “Some will respond to every suggestion, even at great sacrifice.” He mentioned one widow in her 80s who had cared for both a husband and a son through long illnesses before they passed away. Bishop Johnson said that despite having small resources, she would always try to respond. I found this to be true. Every time I mentioned the need for contributions or service to bless others, Sarah was often the first to respond.
One Saturday another sister called me and said, “Bishop, come quick! Save Sarah!” This sister reported that 80-year-old Sarah was on top of a ladder cleaning out this neighbor’s rain gutters. This sister was terrified that Sarah would fall and wanted the bishop to intervene.
I am not suggesting that everyone can or should imitate Sarah. Some feel guilty because they cannot meet every need immediately. I love the quote Elder Neal A. Maxwell often used from Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.” 18 King Benjamin taught, “See that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.” 19 But he added that we should be diligent.
My heart rejoices as I observe the Saints all over the Church doing everything they can to provide Christlike service wherever there is a need. Because of member contributions, the Church can quietly and quickly, without fanfare, respond to needs all over the world. 20 The Church is already responding to the natural disasters in the Philippines, the Pacific Islands, and Indonesia.
Last year our members responded to Hurricane Gustav. The Church worked closely with a humanitarian organization led by Martin Luther King III. Mr. King subsequently visited Salt Lake City and said: “I originally came to express my appreciation to the Church for their humanitarian support, but I quickly learned that the essence of who you are is so much deeper and profound. Between the Humanitarian Center, Welfare Square, and the temple open house, I now have a greater appreciation for why you do what you do.”
In all of our stewardship efforts, we follow Jesus Christ. We try to emulate what He has asked us to do, both by His teachings and His example. With all our hearts we express our appreciation to the membership of the Church for their generous contributions and Christlike service.
Isaiah, speaking of the fast and feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, in touching language promised, “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer.” 21 Isaiah continues: “And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; … the Lord shall guide thee continually, … and thou shalt be like … a spring of water, whose waters fail not. … [And] thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations.” 22
My hope is that each of us will review individually and as families the stewardships for which we have responsibility and accountability. I pray that we will do so knowing we are ultimately accountable to God and that in this life we will be adhering to the unenforceable.
I am grateful for the counsel of a loving, faithful prophet to serve and rescue those in need. As we follow his counsel, I know we will qualify for the Lord’s promise: “And whoso is found a faithful, a just, and a wise steward shall enter into the joy of his Lord, and shall inherit eternal life.” 23
I bear my witness of this sacred truth in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
1. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, former president of the New York Board of Rabbis, president of the Synagogue Council of America, and chairman of the National Rabbinic Cabinet of UJA.
2. “The Talmud is the repository of thousands of years of Jewish wisdom, and the oral law … finds expression therein” (Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud , 4).
3. John Fletcher Moulton, quoted in Clayton M. Christensen, “The Importance of Asking the Right Questions” (speech given at Southern New Hampshire University commencement, May 16, 2009), 3; see also Deuteronomy 6:4–7.
4. D&C 101:78.
5. See D&C 20:71. All who are accountable should repent and be baptized (see D&C 18:42). Those who die before the age of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom (see D&C 137:10; see also D&C 29:46–47, 50).
6. Spencer W. Kimball, “Welfare Services: The Gospel in Action,” Ensign, Nov. 1977, 78.
7. See Gregory Katz, “U.K. Health Booklet’s Message: Teen Sex Can Be Fun,” Deseret News, July 15, 2009, A9.
8. D&C 1:31.
9. “Talk,” in Collected Poems of John Holmes, http://hdl.handle.net/10427/14894.
10. See D&C 20:37; 2 Nephi 2:7; Alma 39; 3 Nephi 9:20. President Ezra Taft Benson defined a broken heart and a contrite spirit this way: “Godly sorrow … is a deep realization that our actions have offended our Father and our God. It is the sharp and keen awareness that … our sins caused Him [the Savior] to bleed at every pore. This very real mental and spiritual anguish is what the scriptures refer to as having a ‘broken heart and a contrite spirit’” (“A Mighty Change of Heart,” Tambuli, Mar. 1990, 5; Ensign, Oct. 1989, 4).
11. Alma 42:29.
12. D&C 58:42.
13. See Robert D. Hales, “Understandings of the Heart,” in Brigham Young University 1987–88 Devotional and Fireside Speeches (1988), 129; see also 2 Nephi 9:41.
14. See Joseph Fielding Smith, Take Heed to Yourselves! comp. Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (1971), 221.
15. See Mark 7:20–23.
16. “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Liahona, Oct. 2004, 49; Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102; see also Russell M. Nelson, “Set in Order Thy House,” Liahona, Jan. 2002, 80–83; Ensign, Nov. 2001, 69–71.
17. D&C 104:18.
18. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, quoted in Neal A. Maxwell, “Wisdom and Order,” Liahona, Dec. 2001, 20; Ensign, June 1994, 41.
19. Mosiah 4:27.
20. Over the last 10 years, the Church has provided over U.S. $900 million in donations and material assistance for humanitarian aid and countless man-and woman-hours of service. For example, with respect to Hurricane Katrina, over 330,000 hours of hard, dedicated service were provided (report of Elder John S. Anderson, Area Seventy, who supervised the relief effort).
21. Isaiah 58:9.
22. Isaiah 58:10–12. | <urn:uuid:f7fe263a-61ae-4108-8443-0603b7d4b934> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/stewardship-a-sacred-trust?lang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967143 | 3,555 | 2.171875 | 2 |
One of the rarest stamps, The Mauritius “Post Office” issued by the British Colony Mauritius in September 1847 fetched a record amount of £1,053,090 ($1,600,000) at an auction at Spink in London. This is a record price for stamp sold in UK.
The stamp was one of the highlights of the Chartwell collection, which consist of over 80 stamp albums formed by businessman and philanthropist Sir Cyril Humphrey Cripps.
By end of 2012, Spink will sell The Chartwell Collection through a series of 9 auctions and it is estimated to fetch well in excess of £20,000,000 before the last lot is sold in December 2012.
Olivier Stocker, Chairman and CEO of Spink, comments: “The Chartwell Collection is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the biggest “wow” moments we have ever experienced here at Southampton Row. When the collection arrived in London it was amazing to watch as our specialists turned the pages of what may be one of the finest philatelic collections of our time. Over eighty albums were opened, examined and taken in and it was wonderful to see the faces of the Spink team as treasure after treasure was revealed. The story behind this collection is absolutely amazing and so unusual in so many ways. It is a great pleasure to be a part of these momentous sales!” | <urn:uuid:8797e35b-54cf-4cf7-8335-d918476281af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theconsumerism.com/the-mauritius-post-office-stamp-sold-for-record-1-6-million/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97339 | 295 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Learning the hard way
Sheila Howell of the African Virtual University program.
Photo: Neil Newitt
University exams are nerve-wracking experiences at the best of times. But a class of computer science students at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia found new reasons to fear them when police stormed the campus during their end of semester exams in May and enforced a lockdown, taking more than 500 students into custody.
The arrested students were protesting in the wake of disputed national elections - around the same time some Australian students were protesting against the introduction of voluntary student unionism.
The two realities could hardly seem further removed, yet thanks to RMIT University's World Bank-funded African Virtual University program, a handful of Ethiopian computer science students share a vital connection with Australia.
The distance learning program enables African students to obtain an RMIT diploma of computer science using online and mixed mode study tools. The course is available in nine universities in six African countries - Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Namibia.
RMIT started the program in 2002 after winning a four-year contract with the World Bank through an international competitive tendering process. Last year the program graduated 66 students and hopes to have 400 by the end of next year.
The program's 250 staff - 200 in Africa and 50 here - support more than 1000 students in the nine participating universities. Classes are held online and on-campus, led by an African lecturer. Students pay fees that go to their own institute.
Program co-ordinator Sheila Howell says running an academic program where virtually anything can go wrong at any time - from a breakdown to a lockdown - forces everyone to be flexible.
"We really have to be able to deal with things going wrong," Ms Howell says.
Despite the course's heavy online component, there are times when RMIT's information systems break down and students can't access the internet.
Ms Howell says staff and student have learnt to get around the problem by having fallback positions.
Ideally, course material is available online from the central server in New York. But some universities' communications systems are not advanced enough to access the central server, so students at those universities rely on a local server. If that is not working, they use a CD-ROM that runs the open source database MySQL - provided they can get to a computer off-campus. If they cannot, there are paper handouts to read.
She says students should use the highest level of technology available at the time, but when it is not available some students routinely work at a lower technological level. "They may say 'I'll just use the CD', and then they miss out on some of the nice parts of the technology, or the opportunity to exchange discussions through a discussion board."
Internet access varies between countries, from chronic bandwidth shortages in some to more reliable in others.
"(Some) universities we deal with have less . . . internet access . . . coming into the whole university than I would have coming into my home," Ms Howell says.
Despite logistical headaches, she says the program is achieving good results, with a pass rate of 75-80 per cent: "That is phenomenally good for distance education programs."
The program's future when the contract expires at the end of 2006 is undecided. Its lead institute, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, will probably take sole responsibility. | <urn:uuid:ecd8535a-38b4-430d-8f7f-e084190ffa40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-training/learning-the-hard-way/2005/08/22/1124562798726.html?from=moreStories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948097 | 690 | 2.578125 | 3 |
In these opening years of the twenty-first century, as the human community experiences a rather difficult situation in its relation with the natural world, we might reflect that a fourfold wisdom is available to guide us into the future: the wisdom of indigenous peoples, the wisdom of women, the wisdom of the classical traditions and the wisdom of science. We need to consider these wisdom traditions in terms of… their common support for the emerging age when humans will be a mutually enhancing presence on the Earth.
-- Thomas Berry
Last Sunday, a major event unfolded in our nation's capitol. The largest climate rally in US history took place in cold winter winds, in the shadow of the Washington Monument. An estimated forty to fifty thousand people gathered together to speak out against the Keystone XL pipeline, against fracking, and against business-as-usual energy policies that heat up Earth's atmosphere and continue to threaten the long-term viability of the planet.
In addition to the strong opposition to further extraction and use of fossil fuels, there was a conspicuous feeling of unity. Represented at the rally were a diversity of peoples and perspectives. From the stage, we heard the voices of a remarkable assembly of First Nations and Native American leaders, women, people of faith, people of color, scientists and activists. All of them are confronting on a daily basis the direct effects of serious climate change and dirty energy in their communities.
Though the tone of urgency was palpable, so too was the sense of hope that this event was part of an awakening of a deep common wisdom. Thomas Berry wrote that humanity would need to call upon a “four-fold wisdom” to develop a mutually-enhancing relationship with Earth. This four-fold wisdom — the wisdom of the feminine, of indigenous people, of classical religions, and of modern science — were on display in full and glorious force at the rally.
At this point in human history, we face urgent choices and complex problems. And everywhere, ordinary people are responding. Something is stirring that is unprecedented, and we are gathering as never before. Idle No More's defense of First Nations rights in Canada, or 350.Org's movement to divest college monies from fossil fuel corporations, or the many people who are blocking the path of the Keystone XL Tar Sands pipeline are but three examples just on this continent.
This rising of an uncommon wisdom is everywhere across the planet. As we work to reverse the drift toward global warming, we will draw from our deepest reserves of inner wisdom to inform our actions. As Berry wrote, “We need all of the traditions. Each has its…own special contribution toward an integral wisdom tradition that seems to be taking shape in the emerging twenty-first century.”
We might observe here that the Great Work of a people is the work of all the people. No one is exempt. Each of us has our individual life patterns and responsibilities. Yet beyond these concerns, each person in and through their personal work assists in the Great Work. The Great Work now… is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.
-- Thomas Berry
All quotes are taken from Berry's book The Great Work: Our Way into the Future | <urn:uuid:79cd2790-ce1d-48b1-b294-2aee6e4d94e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fore.research.yale.edu/news/item/forward-on-climate-rally-washington-dc-february-17-2013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954414 | 665 | 2.625 | 3 |
A handful of Occupy Littleton folk attended the hearing of HB-1277, A Bill for an Act Strengthening Local Governments’ Regulation of Oil and Gas Operations, and, in Connection therewith, Strengthening Local Governments’ Zoning and Land Use Authority Over Oil and Gas Operations, on Monday afternoon. Bill’s sponsors are Senator Bob Bacon (District 14, Fort Collins) and Representative Matt Jones (District 12, Loveland). The House Local Government Committeeheld the hearing, in which both opponents and proponents of the bill, had an opportunity to speak.
Opponents of the Bill included, surprise, lobbyists for the oil and gas industry, lobbyists for royalty owners (people or corporations who have bought up the rights to minerals, gas and oil, etc, under the surface of the land), and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the State Regulatory Agency.
Supporters of the Bill included twenty-seven Colorado citizens, speaking for themselves and for various organizations that they represent.
Opposition has been building to oil and gas drilling, and more especially, to “fracking” operations, that have begun or are proposed, in the more urban areas around Boulder, Longmont, Lyons, Greeley, Erie, Commerce City and Aurora, as well as to the south in Douglas and Elbert County.
The opponents of the Bill argued that giving local governments control over oil and gas operations in their cities and counties would result in a patchwork of regulations that would drive the industry to leave Colorado and drill elsewhere, resulting in job drain and lost tax revenue.
Those in favor of the Bill countered that Colorado has the oil and gas deposits in the rich Niobrara Shale formations and to gain access to these deposits, the industry is going to have to be located here. It’s not like they are running call centers that they can outsource to India when some local regulations upset them.
As for job creation, many testified that jobs are not given to local people but to a migrant band of oil workers that travels from site to site.
But the primary complaint of the Coloradans testifying involved the degradation of their neighborhood environment when these drill sites are dug. They are essentially heavy industry that, under current laws, cannot be relegated to areas zoned for heavy industry. They produce noise, dust, heavy truck traffic, and 24/7 bright lights.
And these are the visible, short term drawbacks. They also produce air pollution and, especially with fracking operations, long term water pollution. Fracking operations are notoriously heavy users of water, averaging from 1 million to 5 million gallons per well. Although the people testifying were cut off by the Committee Chair, when they mentioned these latter problems, since they supposedly had nothing to do with the Bill under consideration.
Those advocating for more local control told of their efforts to obtain help and redress from the COGCC, only to be ignored, told they (COGCC) could do nothing, or in some instances, threatened by lawyers from their own state regulators.
While Colorado has some of the more stringent oil and gas regulations in place, COCGG has only 17 inspectors to monitor over 34,000 active wells. When air, water and soil pollution or spills occur, they most often go undetected and uncorrected. Advocates of the Bill argue that moving the regulation down to the local level will empower the neighbors, who have a strong interest in insuring that the air they breathe and the water they drink is clean.
Well, long story short, the Local Government Committee, after hearing testimony for four hours, voted 6 to 4 to postpone the bill indefinitely. (For those of us who are not experts on Robert’s Rules:
The Purpose of this motion is not to postpone, but to reject, the main motion without incurring the risk of a direct vote on it, and it is made only by the enemies of the main motion when they are in doubt as to their being in the majority.)
You residents of Longmont and Greeley and Aurora and Lyons and Erie and Douglas and Elbert Counties, you may be the majority who demand clean air and water and the right to quiet enjoyment of their homes. But the Legislative Minions of the Oil and Gas Industry have spoken.
Suck it up, Coloradans! | <urn:uuid:52c63024-e5c4-49fd-baea-8d4e15f1c902> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://occupylittleton.org/2012/02/suck-it-up-coloradans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967881 | 882 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Thermal Separation Evaporation Technology
GIG Karasek design, manufacture and deliver evaporation and distillation plants, as well as crystallization units for pulp, starch, food and the chemical industry. Installations for thermal separation technology are mainly applied for concentration of liquids, which may be solutions, suspensions or emulsions. Water can be removed from the liquid until you reach the concentrate limit of pumping ability. Besides the minimization of waste water and following thermal or commercial utilization of the products, the function of these plants may also be manufacture of precursors and end products. The most important task of distillation is product recovery. Here a mixture of various soluble substances with different boiling points is separated. These units are a combination of evaporators and columns in different configurations. | <urn:uuid:f45d47c3-6605-44f5-bd7e-69c0ee51157b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gigkarasek.at/thermal-separation-evaporation-technology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922668 | 159 | 2.140625 | 2 |
I heard a caller have a conversation with Matt Mittan on the radio about political parties. Matt is an "unaffiliated voter". The parenthesis is mine because I hear them when he speaks.
I think I have it right when I say that Matt thinks that parties are harmful to self-government. I disagree with that statement.
He said he supported coalitions rather than parties. I think of the horrors of Israeli coalition building, as well as the system it was based upon, the British System. I guess the bright side of that is government efficiency would suffer.
Another statement he made totally floored me. I thought he was joking, but evidently he wasn't. Here it is... He thinks it was awesome that 142 candidates were on the ballot for California Governor the last time around. Nuts, I say. I can think of not one positive thing about that race, save the word Governator.
I tried to get through, even using both my phones on auto-redial, but it was late, and ever since the two-call per week rule went into effect, I have only got in twice... I guess because I don't even try on the frivolous issues now, and everyone is waiting for the right topic to jump up on The Porch. Here is along the lines of what my response to him would have been, along with a challenge of my own in response to his challenge for Kathy to find anywhere in the U.S. Constitution about Political Parties...
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or he right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It is my belief that Political Parties are a right granted in the 1st Amendment clause "the right of the
people to peaceably to assemble," and any act by Congress to limit Party Affiliation is a violation of free
speech due to the prohibition agaisnt "abridging the freedom of speech," clause.
Put simply, Political Parties are the vehicle used by people to transmit their wishes in Government in an
amplified form using the adages that many heads are better than one, and many voices in unison are
louder than many voices alone.
People who do not belong to a party have the illusion of freedom of action, much like a hitch hiker has the
freedom to move in any direction. The fact remains for the hitch hiker to get anywhere efficiently, he must
ride in someone else's vehicle. He cannot be very effective at changing anything about that vehicle, he has to accept the way it is because he has no stake in that vehicle; with vehicle being the analogy for political party. Everyone cannot
steer the vehicle, that is what party leaders are for. We are not a Democracy, where a headcount is made before every tiny adjustment is made to the vehicle controls. We are a Republic, where our leaders are selected who will make these decisions for us based on general guidelines established in the Party Platform, and by
his/her establishing a case for following the vision of the person running for office.
Political parties are a way that has evolved to put a check on the mob rule of Democracy, which our Founding Fathers were right to fear, for they grew up learning of the disaster that became of Greek Democracies, time and again. They also looked upon the horrors of Rome as another example of Strong Men seizing the reins of governance, giving the mob bread and circuses to appease them.
Our Founding Fathers put many Checks and Balances into the Constitution, and virtually every Congress, President, and Supreme Court has attempted to chip them away for over two centuries.
ARGUMENT II.I like "Take A Stand" and listen on a regular basis. Matt infuriates me sometimes because I feel he tends to cut people short, and hasn't really thought through the implications of a partiless America. (If it ain't a word, it is now.) I have more, but my time is running out in the cafe, and it is expensive. Maybe I can add more on Monday night.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (click here because Wiki is acting funny and click on the third listing.)
Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that a plurality voting election system naturally leads to a two-party system. The discovery of this principle is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a “law”. Duverger's law suggests a nexus or synthesis between a party system and an electoral system: a proportional representation (PR) system creates the electoral conditions necessary to foster party development while a plurality system marginalizes many smaller, single-issue political parties. | <urn:uuid:bd352eee-a693-4034-b7a1-6448d88dac75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thunderpigblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/my-response-to-matt-mittan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975931 | 1,029 | 1.8125 | 2 |
It’s very disconcerting to go to your local drug store or grocery store and see a line of people waiting to get in a clinic. Some of these people are ill and there’s no door, wall or curtain to separate them from the public. Unfortunately, it’s the same in doctors’ office waiting rooms. It’s the responsibility of all medical establishments to protect the general public as much as possible. Using curtains or a separate waiting area should be a standard to help protect the health of everyone who is trying to avoid becoming sick.
Morning View, Ky. | <urn:uuid:e02ee84d-a8fa-43da-a398-af011d82d7f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cincinnati.com/blogs/letters/2013/01/14/separating-the-sick-will-prevent-spread-of-germs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951222 | 123 | 1.882813 | 2 |
love feeding the missionaries in our home. They bring a feeling of
peace and excitement to our home as our young boys look up to them in
preparation for their missions.
one thing I always dread, though, is the inevitable challenge and
questions they extend prior to leaving my home. “Do you have
anyone we can talk to?” “Do you know anyone who would be
willing to visit with us?” “We would like you to take
these pass-along cards/this copy of The Book of Mormon and give it to
someone this week. Will you do that?”
these challenges conjure such a knot in my stomach and throat, I have
not yet figured out, but thanks to a friend (we’ll call her
Tinta), I am learning to overcome this fear.
is from Zambia. She is a wonderfully eccentric, outspoken lady who
is completely at ease discussing Christ and scriptures with anyone.
So, during our Spanish 101 class, when we really should be practicing
Spanish, we talk about religion, Christ and the scriptures. Here is
something I have learned from Tinta:
talking to others about religion, find a common ground.
of us are, to some extent, Christians, whether we admit it or not.
That is, we believe in the existence and/or life of Christ. We know
as much about Him as our friends of other faiths. We read the Bible
and study His life and teachings. So, all we have to do is be
comfortable enough with our knowledge and understanding of Christ to
talk about Him with them.
Tinta’s help, I have had the opportunity to visit with friends,
talk about our commonalities, and expound the differences to those
who would like to know. Suddenly, handing out pass-along cards and an
occasional copy of The Book of Mormon isn’t so daunting. We
aren’t asking them to be baptized next week, just to understand
or respect our point of view.
the way, Tinta has a copy of The Book of Mormon, and some pass-along
cards, but she is happy with her own faith, and I have a friend I can
talk to about gospel principles without fear of rejection, and whom I
can count on for support when others join our conversations. As a
result, it has become much easier to share my testimony of our Savior
with others. That is a feeling everyone should be able to experience
Heather Best grew up in Washington State as a Navy brat. After a tour in the US Army, she pursued her education obtaining degrees in medical assisting and biology and is currently completing a degree in chemistry. Heather has volunteered over the years in public and private schools, hospitals and her community in various roles.
Heather currently resides in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her family, where she serves as the CTR 6 Primary class teacher for her ward. | <urn:uuid:32599651-49ca-477d-8c91-88d2c0ce746d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nauvootimes.com/cgi-bin/nauvoo_column.pl?number=101184&author=heather-best | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962895 | 630 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Posted - 08 Jul 2012 : 00:34:50
How one man derailed 20 years of democracy in Mali
SEGOU, Mali (AP) - On the morning three months ago when the fate of Mali was irrevocably changed, Mamadou Sanogo awoke in the house here where he and his wife had raised six children, including a 39-year-old son, now a captain in the nation's army.
It was still dark outside. The elderly man got up and turned on the TV, setting the volume to low so as to not disturb his sleeping wife, according to relatives and friends. What he saw next made him shake her awake. "Come see what your imbecile son is doing," he yelled.
Instead of the normal newscast, they saw a group of soldiers huddled in front of the TV camera. It took them a moment to recognize their son, Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, who was announcing that the military had overthrown the government of Mali.
If the coup was a shock to his parents - his mother subsequently fainted - it seems also to have come as a surprise to Sanogo himself, who by all accounts had no plans for it. Perhaps most of all, it was like a bucket of ice water over the heads of Mali's 15.4 million people, who saw two decades of democracy collapse in just a few hours into what is rapidly becoming an ungovernable hole and a haven for al-Qaida-linked terrorists.
The ease of the takeover, just six weeks before a presidential election, shows how quickly the course of a nation in this part of the world can change, despite or even partly because of funding and training from the West. And it underscores how fragile democracies remain in Africa, and how the fate of an entire country can still be bent by the ambitions of a single man.
"This is considered a thing of the past in Africa. If you look at the video, it looks like a caricature of a 1970s coup," said Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This is why this is so tragic and disappointing - the trend for this kind of ham-handed power grab has been, fewer and fewer."
Mali is a landlocked nation twice the size of France that has long taken pride in its democratic track record, despite chronic poverty and repeated rebellions in the north.
In the past decade, the U.S. alone has poured close to $1 billion into Mali, including development aid as well as military training to battle an al-Qaida offshoot in the north. In doing so, the U.S. unwittingly also helped prepare the soldiers for the coup: Sanogo himself benefited from six training missions in the U.S., the State Department confirmed, starting in 1998 when he was sent to an infantry training course at Fort Benning, Ga.
He returned in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2010 to attend some of the most prestigious military institutions in America, including the Defense Language Institute at the Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. He took a basic officer course at Quantico, Virginia, and learned to use a light-armored vehicle at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Just a few weeks before the March takeover, Sanogo made a trip to Segou to say goodbye. He'd been accepted into a peacekeeping training course abroad and was due to leave sometime in April, said his cousin, Salif Sanogo.
What happened next is described by those who know him as an "accidental coup."
It started at the Kati military camp, where Sanogo lived in a decrepit housing unit with cement walls and a tin roof, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) over a barren hill from the presidential palace.
Sanogo, an English-language teacher at a military college, had failed several exams in officer school, according to Lt. Col. Oumar Diawara, an officer also stationed at the camp. However, because of his training in the United States and because he spoke and taught English, he gave off a worldly air. The rank-and-file soldiers looked up to him because he frequently socialized with them, unlike other officers who adhered to the strict hierarchy of military life.
Sanogo, officers said, was among the instructors fired last fall at a military college where five recruits died in a widely publicized hazing incident. He was sent back to Kati, said Diawara.
"He was there with no function," he said. "He had absolutely nothing to do."
In the meantime, anger was growing at the corruption that had spread like a tumor across the arteries of Mali's government and military: In recent years, the country dropped from No. 78 out of 182 countries to No. 118 on Transparency International's index tracking corruption.
In the military, generals sat in lavishly decorated offices while soldiers were routinely sent to the battlefield without proper boots. Earlier this year, an entire company of several dozen soldiers was wiped out after fighting a new rebellion in Mali's north without enough ammunition.
The troops at Kati started to plan a march to protest how the government had handled the rebellion. At around 1 p.m. on March 21, Minister of Defense Gen. Sadio Gassama came to the Kati barracks to ask them to call it off.
Soldiers who were present said the general talked down to them, and the crowd became angry. The mutiny erupted when the minister's bodyguard shot into the air in an effort to push back the mob.
"The minister spoke in a way that was not polite," said George Coulibaly, a civilian who lives in the Kati camp and accompanied the soldiers during the coup. "He said things like, 'You want to march? You're a bunch of uneducated people. I'll educate you.'"
The renegade troops stoned the defense minister's car as his driver floored the gas to get away. They forced the doors of the armory and emptied it out. Then they began hunting down the other officers, nearly all of whom fled or hid - except Sanogo, whose recent dismissal as an officer had given him credibility with ordinary soldiers.
The crowd, led by Sanogo, initially planned to march to the palace to dress down President Amadou Toumani Toure, said several soldiers. Instead, the president fled. They found themselves inside the seat of government.
"Our objective was not a coup d'etat," said Lt. Samba Timbo, one of the leaders of the putsch. "Not at first."
By late afternoon, around 100 soldiers had arrived at the state television station. They sent the employees home, and television screens across the country went black.
"The presidential palace fell in their laps," said the cameraman who helped them broadcast their first message, and who requested anonymity for his safety. "For two hours, not a single person, not a single interlocutor, tried to contact them to see what they wanted. To negotiate. It was after that they got the idea for a coup."
By the time Sanogo's father turned on the TV the next morning in Segou, some 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of the capital, the intentions of the soldiers had become clear. So had their leader.
When his mother saw him on TV, she at first refused to believe it was her son, called "Bolly" by friends and family. Shaken, she left the house and crossed a sandy courtyard to the home of his cousin, Salif Sanogo.
Salif Sanogo was brewing his morning tea on a bed of charcoal when she knocked. "She asked, 'Is it true? Is it true that Bolly did this?'" recalled the cousin. "We said, 'Yes, Ma. It's true.'"
She screamed. She got hysterical, and then she fainted. They carried her in and fanned her until she woke up.
If Sanogo's parents were initially mortified, they quickly became used to their new status. Just days after the coup, visitors started to line up outside their house on Road 270 in Segou.
In the capital, the soldiers were looting government buildings. A businessman with ties to the junta estimates that they raked in between $2 and $3 million in the first three days after the coup, from government safes they pried open.
Most of the ministries no longer have computers. And the normally 1 1/2-hour-long evening news hour is now just 40 minutes because all but a few of the cameras at the state television station were stolen.
Even while Sanogo said the army had only seized power to address rebellion in the north, the rebels took advantage of the confusion to seize half the country. Among the groups that invaded the north is Ansar Dine, or "Defenders of the Faith," an Islamic faction with ties to al-Qaida.
In the capital, Bamako, Sanogo and his men quickly made themselves at home. The captain held court from the office of the Zone 3 commander at Kati, a rundown colonial structure that became increasingly well-equipped. Each week, construction crews poured cement, updated the electrical wiring and hauled in new office chairs, their metallic legs still covered in plastic.
Months later, the future of both Mali and Sanogo remains uncertain.
A poll of 1,100 residents of the capital found that after the initial shock, about 60 percent were either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the coup because it put an end to a regime viewed as corrupt.
"Our democracy? It was a facade," said 54-year-old Soumara Kalapo, who took part in pro-coup demonstrations after the putsch. "Our democracy needed this coup so that it could right itself. ... It was a democracy run by, and benefiting, a mafia."
But in his last blog post before leaving Mali for the U.S., anthropologist Bruce Whitehouse lists the disastrous consequences of what happened, including the suspension of more than a billion dollars in aid, the closing of Bamako's flagship Grand Hotel and the government's loss of control of half its territory. Last month, Islamic fundamentalists announced that they now hold the major towns in the north.
"In the 90 days since the coup, it's hard to look at any area and see anything good," said Whitehouse, an assistant professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn. "Some of us were looking for a silver lining. Months later, we can't see any reason for hope."
After countless diplomatic interventions, a round of sanctions and a library's worth of condemnations from world leaders, Sanogo finally agreed to step aside on April 6. But the young captain continued to meddle in state affairs until May, when he signed a second agreement promising to leave in return for the status of a former head of state. A diplomat versed on the matter said that status includes a salary of $9,000 a month, more than 30 times the salary of an army captain.
The former head of the national assembly, Dioncounda Traore, took over as interim president of a transitional government. In May, a mob of pro-Sanogo youth forced their way into his office and beat him. Traore was evacuated to France for treatment on May 23, and has not returned since.
Even the Wikipedia entry on Mali is confused about who is now in charge. In the box naming the head of the government, the online encyclopedia lists both Sanogo, as chairperson of the military junta, and Traore, as acting president.
Repeated attempts to speak to Sanogo for this article were unsuccessful.
On Wednesday, the body representing nations in western Africa sent notice that it does not recognize Sanogo's status as a former head of state, and threatened sanctions against him if he continues to obstruct the return to constitutional rule. But diplomats say businessmen are still waiting in front of the former commander's office to see him, with the customary suitcase of cash, a sign of his enduring influence.
Those around him still call him "Le President." And a framed portrait on the wall shows Sanogo, a green beret cocked to one side, next to the title, "Head of state."
A clear concience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone | <urn:uuid:3f3bf636-71a5-4a6d-beeb-888f2887ec96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=1&TOPIC_ID=12414 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983322 | 2,551 | 1.679688 | 2 |
It’s practically a requirement to raise an eyebrow at a person who calls herself an innovator. Innovator. It’s such a grand word. Isn’t that something we get to brand a person, not something she gets to call herself? Yet, every once in a while, somebody gets a pass. Or more than a pass. Every once in a while you come across a person who really should have “innovator” bedazzled on all of her shirts and printed on her license plates.
Take, for instance, Cathy Davidson. After a few minutes of eyeballs a-jumping through her bio—co-founder of the 7,000-member Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), former Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke from 1998-2006, current English professor at Duke; after scrolling through the list of books she’s written or edited, which cover territory from understanding Japanese culture to the rise of the American novel to brain science; after finding out about her role in the creation of programs at Duke, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS); and, even more so, after hearing the sheer excitement in her voice when she discusses the Internet, education, her newfound love of young adult fiction and her ability to tie ideas together and make them accessible—well, innovator sounds downright humble.Read the profile. | <urn:uuid:699193c0-b406-43fe-84ae-0ec6ef1e55af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jennaschnuer.typepad.com/writer/webtech/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931323 | 299 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Why Clergy can no longer say "just get anything at Cokesbury"
This is a series using quotes and perspectives from Cokesbury insiders as to why the official bookstore of one of the largest Protestant denominations that for decades contributed its profits to the Pension fund…chose to shut down and close its brick-and-mortar stores (including seminary stores) by May 2013.
The Lego Heavy Weapons Fiasco
This past weekend was an embarrassing weekend for Cokesbury. It started on social media: someone noticed that Cokesbury had as part of its stock the Lego Heavy Weapons Book that showed how to make four assault rifles out of Legos. Harmless but tasteless especially in the months after Newtown.
So social media did what it does best and got up in arms and even the Tennessean newspaper posted an article about it entitled “LEGO assault rifle manual dumped from Methodist online bookstore.”
It has obviously finally been taken down after being live on the Cokesbury website for at least 48 hours.
How did this happen? As embarrassing and misunderstood as that item was, it exposed a problem with Cokesbury’s business model: a substantial portion of their catalog is automated, as per Neil Alexander. A friend on Facebook expounds on what the Ingram database is:
When you go to Cokesbury.com and it says a book is “In-Stock”, that doesn’t mean its actually in the Cokesbury Warehouse. Most likely, it is in an Ingram warehouse, Cokesbury’s primary book vendor. In fact, the vast majority of books on the website are coming from Ingram, not the Cokesbury warehouse.
So, Cokesbury’s computers automatically port over any titles in the Ingram database that are marked religious. That’s why you can find some really non-Methodist stuff. Occasionally, Ingram codes a book wrong and it slips through the filter. Cokesbury also filters the Ingram database to try and prevent offensive stuff from getting through. Occasionally it fails. Like this weekend.
To be clear, there is plenty more stuff that has slipped through the filter. One enterprising person on Facebook found the following books that violate the social principles: The Beer Guide, 101 Whiskies to try before you die, No Limit Texas Hold-Em instructions, and likely more.
Problems of an Automated Catalogue
In Neil Alexander’s statement (and my friends explanation) one could surmise that a substantial portion of Cokesbury’s online catalog is automated: whatever is marked as “Religious” (with some extra filters) will show up as “For Sale” at Cokesbury (and even the 101 Whiskies got the usual 20% off).
This decision finally makes clear the problem that clergy have increasingly had regarding church curriculum and Sunday School study books: We can no longer trust that Cokesbury only offers solid Wesleyan products that are acceptable to most United Methodist clergy.
When I moved back to Oklahoma, the common refrain from other mainline/progressive pastors was “you have to preview what people buy at Cokesbury now.” I didn’t think that was true, surely our own Denominational bookstore would police its products, right? I mean, Lifeway Christian Bookstores keep out uppity women’s books and faces from their catalog, surely Cokesbury can take a cue and keep out some Calvinist or Neo-Calvinist products, right?
Wrong. Instead, Cokesbury had displays of Beth Moore, David C. Cook curriculum, Francis Chan and other Calvinist products that if I encouraged study of in my church, the core Wesleyan theology that I preached and teached would be argued with daily by those authors.
I’ve already written substantially about the problem of Beth Moore, who is invited into many church houses and ends up setting fire to core Wesleyan values. Read the full article here (and especially the 100+ comments if you have a thick skin). But more recently I wrote about the problem of churches that choose to allow in popular studies so that they can get in the crowds that give the resources to do other parts of the church.
So the problem that clergy have with their congregations is exacerbated by Cokesbury’s willingness to outsource their watchdog and chase after the dollars.
I mean, I get it. It is a business and you go where the business is. But as we have seen this weekend, an automated catalog that is not seriously reviewed by theologically-inclined people but rather by marketers not only has “oops” moments, but also contributes to the overall mess that theological education is in the churches. And when we want a doctrinal source, one so close to our heart as the Book of Discipline, when we want it to be free (as a petition from Oklahoma sent to General Conference 2012), it is amended to still cost money as “that money goes to our pension fund” which has not been the case for at least the last few years.
I also get that that same business mindset hurt the local stores. I admit I would go to the store and peruse a book or two that parishioners had asked to study as a class, so that I could preview the chapter headings and conclusions. Then we would order the products through our official rep…not the local store. Little wonder the leadership decided to close the local stores if more people were doing this than I was. Now, I changed my habits after the first year as I wanted to support the local store. But going forward…without a local store to examine products (and conceivably these traveling Cokesbury Reps wouldn’t have a trunk full of the entire Ingram catalog), it’s difficult to believe we will have any way to preview materials easily and faithfully.
But it is my belief that the business model of a substantially automated catalog does not empower churches with more options, it constricts pastoral authority over what is taught in their churches in harmful ways by allowing in anti-Wesleyan theologies in the back door of the Sunday School rooms. And that’s a two-front conflict that few clergy can properly handle. thanks to Cokesbury.
This is the first in a series of posts including comments by Cokesbury insiders, employees at the local stores and at the mothership. My goal is not the denigrate the past decisions but to help laity understand the importance of Cokesbury and what role it has played in our history.
I welcome other comments if you want to remain anonymous. Send comments to my twitter handle at gmail.com and I will respect confidentiality.[Photo credit: "Vintage Postcard: Cokesbury" by Coltera on Flickr, shared via Creative Commons license] | <urn:uuid:81902d71-90c1-402f-89aa-ebc7eeff20d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://methoblog.com/3_0/2013/01/why-cokesbury-failed-01-automated-catalog-why-clergy-can-no-longer-say-just-get-anything-at-cokesbury/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967181 | 1,416 | 1.507813 | 2 |
On Haida Gwaii, formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, the school curriculum might include deer hunting or berry picking – exposing students to traditional aboriginal culture. These “lessons on the land” were detailed in an article in last weekend’s Globe and Mail, sparking an online debate about the value of going back to the ways of the past to prepare young First Nations students for the future.
Yvette Nolan’s The Unplugging, which had its world premiere at the Arts Club Revue Stage in Vancouver on Wednesday, could do much to illuminate that discussion. It offers an aboriginal – and feminist – perspective on how the lessons of the past can help us survive an uncertain future.
In The Unplugging, the (very near) future is a post-apocalyptic nightmare: One day the power went out and that was that. Unable to cultivate their own food, people scrounge around for what’s left – which isn’t much. Even in aboriginal communities, people have become so removed from their native culture that they are no longer able to live off the land, to fend for themselves using the ways of their ancestors. And there’s no more Google to provide the answers.
For Elena (Margo Kane) and Bernadette (Jenn Griffin), this has meant exile. Their native community, unable to handle the abrupt change and the consequences for survival, has expelled the women, who are deemed a drain: no longer necessary, because of their post-reproductive age.
When the play opens, we see them moving slowly through the snow in the north, in search of shelter. Elena despairs, while Bernadette, or Bern, tries to motivate. “It’s not over,” she says. “We’re not over.”
They find a place to live, some food to eat, and develop systems to sustain themselves. Their friendship, though still strained at times, also develops and strengthens.
But for as long as there have been girlfriends, there have been men who come between them. And this is a threat that survives even the apocalypse.
After some time, Elena and Bern’s now somewhat comfortable, fruitful routine is rocked by the sudden appearance of the young, handsome Seamus (Anton Lipovetsky). He tells them he has left the community in disgust over its leadership. Not surprisingly, Seamus and Bern – who earlier told Elena how much she misses sex – hook up. But there are surprises to come (which I won’t reveal here).
This play, which is based on an Athabascan legend, raises some important and timely questions – cultural, social and environmental. If only the production lived up to the premise. Rather than a dynamic story (and, okay, message) that erupts through a genuine interplay of complex characters, the whole effort comes off as frankly a bit earnest and preachy. Rather than insight, we get clichés.
There were moments of tension and some lovely humour between the two women, but these were overwhelmed by interactions that felt awkward.
At 90 minutes (with no intermission), this play should move along. But the pacing was off, in part because of a bunch of unnecessary stage business in between scenes.
The sound design – a plaintive wail to begin, with the wind underneath picking up steam – was another cliché and overpowering to boot, rather than a subtle enhancement. The silhouetted love scene behind a screen felt very 30 years ago.
Even if timely, this production felt stale.
Still, back to those native-culture field trips on Haida Gwaii, I can think of a few people who commented on the article who could use a trip to the theatre to see this. It would also be a worthwhile field trip for those Haida students (for any students, in fact) because there is something important to learn here. I just wish the wisdom had been wrapped in a more dynamic package, rather than coming off as something that might have felt more at home in a school gym. | <urn:uuid:2ad19e5d-8faa-4135-a299-3a396792366a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/theatre-reviews/the-unplugging-long-on-clichs-short-on-insight/article4624729/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967791 | 840 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The very first from the United kingdom’s large power businesses offers introduced that they’ll end up being reducing their own gasoline costs. EDF Power offers stated their own gasoline clients is going to be viewing the 5% decrease in expenses through Feb, creating with regard to a few of the 15% raises which have arrive during the last 2 yrs because of elevated at wholesale prices costs.
Following increasing during the last few years, at wholesale prices gasoline costs possess began to decrease. The primary 2 causes of it’s already been the actual effect from the economic climate is actually common along with a moderate winter season, which means removing gasoline may be simpler and it has consequently price much less. Buying gasoline offers price the power businesses much less therefore they could move this particular on to their own clients.
It’s nearly sure that additional gasoline companies follows within decreasing their own costs, or else these people danger becoming left out as well as dropping clients. A few little power businesses possess decreased their own costs, however by thirteenth The month of january, not one from the additional big companies possess adopted match. Cost cutbacks are required to become introduced within the following couple weeks. | <urn:uuid:2c94faec-91be-406b-8943-29ea0f7de7ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.environmentalbioinformatics.org/tag/gas-prices-to-fall | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982769 | 243 | 1.507813 | 2 |
a brief introduction to ice age theories
[The objective of geology is] "to confirm the evidences of natural religion; and to show that the facts developed by it are consistent with the accounts of the creation and deluge recorded in the Mosaic writings."
-- William Buckland,
Oxford Professor of Mineralogy and Geology
in The Connection of Geology with Religion Explained (1820)
To the modern reader, it may seem surprising that astronomical forces drive global climate change. In the 1950s, changes in the weather were attributed by many people to nuclear testing; in the 1990s, they were attributed to emission of carbon dioxide and other gases that enhance the Greenhouse effect. Yet in the 1840s, the obvious cause of climate change, to many people, was astronomy. It was understood at that time that the seasons were driven by astronomical causes, as is the 24 hour cycle of day and night. So when the existence of long-term changes of climate were discovered, it was natural to see if they could be attributed to astronomical forcing. This was long before the 100 kyr and 41 kyr cycles of the ice ages had been discovered.
By the 1840s, astronomers had already shown that the orbit of the earth undergoes slow changes. It is not the same ellipse this year that it was last year. The orbit would be an unchanging ellipse, if the Sun were the only source of attraction. The deviations come about because of the presence of the moon and other planets. Gravity from these objects means that the force on the earth is not a simple inverse square centered on the sun, and the natural result is that the orbit is not a simple repeating ellipse.
However the effects of the planets are relatively small. Jupiter has 103 of the mass of the Sun, and it is, on average, about 5 times further away. Venus, although having a mass 390 times smaller than Jupiter, comes much closer, within 0.28 AU (where the Astronomical Unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance) vs. 4.2 AU for Jupiter. Since gravity varies as 1/(distance squared), and tidal gradients vary as 1/(distance cubed), the effect of Venus is often more important than that of Jupiter. But all these effects are small enough that they can be treated as perturbations, small changes, on the classical elliptical orbit. The nice consequence of this is that the Earths orbit is always approximately an ellipse, and we can treat the perturbations of the planets as extra forces that gradually alter the parameters of that ellipse. For example, the major axis of the Earth slowly precesses or rotates relative to the "fixed" stars. This effect is big enough that it was discovered experimentally in 120 BC by the astronomer Hipparchus, who found differences between his own measurements and those of earlier astronomer Babylonian records.
By 1749, Alexis Claude Clairaut had shown, using Newtons laws, that the north pole of the Earth precesses with a period of 25,800 years. So, for example, 13,000 years from now, the North Pole of the Earth will not be pointing towards the "North Star," but will be pointing away by an angle of about 47 degrees, close to the star Vega. This happens because the Sun and Moon exert a torque on the equatorial bulge of the Earth. This causes the axis of rotation of the Earth to wobble, an effect completely analogous to the wobble of a tilted top under the torque of gravity.
Precession implies that the signs of the zodiac change, or "advance." When astrology was defined, about two thousand years ago, a person born in January was said to be under the sign of Capricorn, since the sun was in the constellation Capricorn at that time. Since then, the precession of the axis of the earth has changed by 2000/26000 = 1/13 of a cycle; this corresponds to a change by about one sign of the zodiac. This means that a person who is born in January any time in the last few hundred years, was born when the Sun was actually in Sagittarius not Capricorn. Nevertheless, following tradition, such a person is still said to be "born under the sign of Capricorn." The more educated astrologers are aware of this change, and claim that they compensate for it .
Another consequence of the Earths precession is that the location of the sun at the spring equinox also changes. It is presently leaving the constellation Pisces and entering Aquarius. Astrologers say that this change could have a profound effect on our lives, and it is why they talk about the future (and sometimes the present; it depends on exactly where you draw the constellation boundaries) as "the Age of Aquarius."
Evidence for ancient glaciation, including polished bedrock and erratic boulders, is extensive. But in early 1800s, the prevailing paradigm to explain these was diluvianism belief that they were artifacts of the great flood of the Bible. According to William Buckland, one of the most widely respected geologists of the time, the goal of geology was "to confirm the evidences of natural religion; and to show that the facts developed by it are consistent with the accounts of the creation and deluge recorded in the Mosaic writings." (quoted in , page 35). A detailed scientific case for ancient glaciation was first synthesized in detail by Jean de Charpentier in the early 1830s, and the great geologist Louis Agassiz became an early convert. By 1841 Charles Lyell, and even Buckland, had been won over, and over the next 20 years, the theory of ancient periods of extensive ice became generally accepted.
Soon after the existence of the ice ages was postulated, they were attributed to these orbital changes. The first person to create a detailed theory was Joseph Adhémar, who published a book on the subject in 1842 called Revolutions de la Mer, Deluges Periodics. He believed that the 26,000 year precession cycle was the cause, and he suggested that it was the direct gravitational attraction of the sun and moon on the ice caps, a result that many scientists at the time correctly rejected as absurd.
One person who was inspired, in part, by Adhémars book, was James Croll. In many ways, Croll is the true hero of the astronomical theory of the ice ages. For a moving account of his life and tribulations, we urge you to read the delightful and informative book, "Ice Ages, Solving the Mystery," by John Imbrie and his daughter Katherine Palmer Imbrie . Croll was a carpenter who became disabled from an accident, and was forced to take a menial job as a janitor. But his janitorial duties were at the Andersonian College and Museum in Scotland, and there he discovered a wonderful library. He found that he could finish his mopping and polishing work early, and spend the rest of the night reading books on physics in the library. Among these was the book by Adhémar, and new calculations of the Earths orbit by the astronomer Urbain Leverrier (one of the discovers of Neptune). Croll taught himself advanced physics, and set to work on the origins of the ice age. He decided that the most plausible driving force changing climate was variations in insolation, the sunlight hitting the Earth. He managed to get his papers published, and his theories received favorable attention. Eventually he accepted a job at the Geological Survey. In 1876, a year after his own book was published, Croll was given the high honor of being named a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Croll contributed many insights that are still recognized as important. He realized that the presence of large glaciers would reflect sunlight, and that this would enhance further the chill of the ice ages. He recognized the importance of ocean currents in climate, and incorporated them into his theories. He took into account not only precession, but the changes in the eccentricity of the Earths orbit an effect that can contribute a 100 kyr cycle to the glaciation (which, of course, had not yet been discovered).
But Croll published several predictions that proved to be very wrong, and that eventually caused his theory to be abandoned. Since the insolation in the Northern Hemisphere is out of phase with the insolation on the Southern Hemisphere, he thought that the ice ages in the two hemispheres would alternate, and we now know they are synchronous. He also estimated that the time since the last ice age to be 80,000 years ago, much older than the true value; we now know it ended between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The insolation theory of Croll was revived in the early 1900s by Milutin Milankovitch, a Serbian originally employed as an engineer, but who had become a professor at the University of Belgrade where he taught physics, mathematics, and astronomy. He took on the riddle of the ice ages as a challenge. Ludwig Pilgrim had recently completed new and more detailed orbital calculations, and Milankovitch made use of these. He had the critical insight that insolation on the Northern Hemisphere might completely dominate, since that is the location of two thirds of the Earths land area. The ice ages in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are in synchrony because they are both driven by the same force: insolation on the Northern Hemisphere land. With this Gordian slice, Milankovitch solved the problem of alternating hemispheric ice ages.
Milankovitch then set out on the heroic task (at that time) of doing detailed insolation calculations based on Pilgrims orbital work. Today these calculations are an interesting task for an undergraduate to do over the course of a summer, using a desktop computer. But Milankovitch had to do all the calculations by hand, and it took him many years (interrupted by war and imprisonment again we urge you read the book by Imbrie and Imbrie!). Milankovitchs calculations showed (correctly) that the insolation was dominated by a 23,000 year cycle; we have modern data for this plotted on page *. Milankovitch concluded that the ice ages would be most intense when the insolation dropped below a certain threshold. Since the envelope of the insolation curve has an approximately 100 kyr cyclicity, his theory has implicit in it a prediction that such a cycle might be seen in the ice ages.
Milankovitch concluded, somewhat prematurely, that the problem was completely solved, and he devoted much of his time in later years to writing popular accounts of the ice ices, including a series of letters to a (presumably fictional) young girl. This effort did a lot to increase the public interest in the ice ages, and undoubtedly led to the artwork shown in Figure 1-7.
But Milankovitchs theory was abandoned when precise age estimates, made possible by Willard Libbys invention of radiocarbon dating, appeared to show that the timing of the ice ages were in conflict with Milankovitchs detailed calculations. In retrospect, this was unfair. The Milankovitch theory actually explains many of the phenomena that we now see in the data. Do we throw out the astronomical theory of the seasons, simply because the first day of Spring is not always Spring-like? The warm weather of spring can be delayed by a month, or it can come early by a month; the important fact is that it always comes. We demand too much of a theory if we require it to predict all the details in addition to the major behavior.
In fact, it was the observations of the regularity of the ice age cycles that led to the revival of the insolation theory. Science and technology advanced, thanks to the work of many people. Harold Urey, Cesare Emiliani, and others developed and promoted the use of isotopes as proxies for changes in the Earth. The technology for obtaining sea floor cores rapidly improved. In 1970, Wally Broecker and Jan van Donk published a seminal paper that showed for the first time that the dominant variation in the ice ages was a repeating cycle of 100,000 years. This was a frequency that appeared in the insolation theory. The use of geomagnetic reversals in sea floor cores allowed an vastly improved time scale. In 1976, James D. Hays, John Imbrie, and Nicholas Shackleton published their paper showing the presence of both a 41 and 23 kyr cycle in data derived from sea floor sediments. The same frequencies were dominant in spectral analysis of the insolation. Even if the details of the theory were wrong, the presence of the same frequencies as those present in the orbits of the planets was a strong reason to revive the astronomical theory.
Although it had been resuscitated, the insolation theory continued to have problems. In the glacial data, the 100 kyr cycle dominated, with the 41 kyr cycle weaker, and the 23 kyr precession signal weakest of all. Yet in insolation theory, it is the 23 kyr cycle that dominates, with a weaker 41, and an extremely weak 100. Why were these strengths reversed? A possible answer came from the old threshold idea of Milankovitch, which had been revived by Kenneth Mesolella and George Kukla, and put into an elegant mathematical form by Imbrie and Imbrie. They showed that a nonlinear response of the climate to insolation could greatly strengthen the 100 kyr cycle, through a mechanism that we discuss on page later in this book. This was both physically plausible, and seemed to solve the amplitude problem.
But there was another issue: the nonlinear ice model strengthened even more an additional cycle with a 400 kyr period that was not observed. In fact, the 400 kyr cycle should have been the strongest cycle of all, according to that theory. One way to get rid of this was to make the ad hoc assumption that the 400 kyr cycle was so long that it was suppressed by the more rapid time constants that are natural in ice production and destruction processes. At least one such assumption should certainly be allowed in any complicated theory.
Other problems continued to nag the insolation theory. In 1992, measurements of climate with precise dates became available from a water-filled cave in Nevada called Devils Hole. The sudden rise in temperature at this location appeared to precede the increase in insolation that was supposed to trigger it. This was a "causality problem," since the presumed effect appeared to precede the cause. This problem persists, and has recently become critical with the vindication of the Devils Hole chronology by radiometric dates from coral records. We will discuss the causality problem at length in Section 8.3.
Another problem with the insolation theory is called the "Stage-11 problem." Stage-11, in the jargon of paleoclimate, refers to a period about 400,000 years ago when variations in insolation were very weak, and yet the cyclical behavior of the ice ages was very strong. A similar problem exists at present: insolation variations are weak, and yet there was a great termination just 10-14 thousand years ago; this might be called the "Stage-1 problem." Various solutions have been proposed to address these problems, but they all involve ad hoc assumptions and the introduction of arbitrary parameters.
The set of problems continues to grow. It has led some to abandon the astronomical theory altogether, and postulate that the cycles of the ice ages are driven by natural oscillations of the ocean/continent/atmosphere system. Yet it is hard to dispute that the astronomical theory can account for the values of the observed frequencies. This agreement, more than anything else, gives life to the astronomical theory. It is also the reason for the central role played by spectral analysis in this book. Moreover, it is possible to make a general argument, independent of the frequency agreement, that the ice ages are astronomically driven. This was first done by the authors of this book in a paper in Science Magazine . The argument is based on the narrow structure seen in the spectrum of the data, and is explained on in Section 2.1.
The attention given to line shape has created another serious problem for the insolation theory. A high-resolution analysis of the 100 kyr cycle shows that the insolation theory, and its variants, all predict that the peak will have a split structure: it will be resolved into a 95 kyr line and a 125 kyr line. (An exception to this general rule is a model recently published by W. Berger, and explained in Section 6.4.8.) The bulk of the data shows that this prediction is contradicted. The 100 kyr cycle is a single narrow line. Ad hoc mechanisms that were plausible for eliminating the 400 kyr line are not plausible for turning the predicted doublet into a singlet. It is remarkable that this problem was not noticed until 1994. The seriousness of the problem was emphasized in an article in Science Magazine in 1997. Although there had been many theories published to account for the ice ages, none of them predicted the narrowness of this peak. A review of the theories published in 1993 included a "short list" of nine different "groups" of models, and yet every one of these theories was contradicted by the simple observation that the 100 kyr peak was narrow.
It is dangerous to dismiss a theory based on any one contradiction, since minor modifications of the theory can often solve apparently intractable difficulties. But the growing number of problems with the insolation theory is cause for serious concern. It may be the fact that the insolation theory predicted the correct values of the frequencies that leads to its tenacity in holding the minds of paleoclimatologists. But there are alternatives now appearing. In 1993, it was discovered that there is another astronomical oscillation (orbital inclination) that could contribute to climate that has a spectrum that is an excellent match to the narrow 100 kyr peak. The theory based on this does not have a Stage-11 problem (or a Stage-1 problem), nor a causality problem. It does not predict a nonexistent 400 kyr peak, and it accounts in a natural way (no adjustable parameters) for the shift of frequencies that took place about one million years ago, when the dominant frequency of ice age oscillation changed from 41 kyr to the present value of 100 kyr. This is, however, a new theory, and although we like it (it is our theory), it is not yet widely accepted, so we relegate detailed discussion of it to near the end of this book, Chapter 7. | <urn:uuid:6197ee6f-c2dd-4855-bc13-698f4eb483ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/iceagebook/IceAgeTheories.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973876 | 3,863 | 4.03125 | 4 |
Update: Still haven’t seen the details, but according to the Press Release, the answer to question number three is a partial yes, with calls for “full funding” of SAGE (it isn’t really “full funding,” see here on the complexities of SAGE funding), increased sparsity aid, increased Bilingual/BiCultural aid in the second year, increased special education aid in the second year, new grant programs around STEM and vocational education, “educator effectiveness, ” and more). No poverty aid. For overall state funding the combined “categorical and general school aid” Evers calls for would be “a 2.4 percent increase in the first year of the budget, the same as the Consumer Price Index, and 5.5 percent in 2014-15.” I don’t see anything on Revenue Limits. More later.
Update #2: From a second Press Release, on Revenue Limits: “The plan restores revenue limit authority to all districts. It calls for an increase in the per pupil revenue limit to $225 per student in the first year of the budget and $230 per student in 2014-15.” More details on Fair Funding and other matters in this Press Release also. A district by district tally may be found here.
Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers will reveal the remainder of his 2013-15 budget proposal on Monday (the first portion was released in September, but it lacks full school finance information; WisconsinEye will be covering the event). Evers has also announced he is seeking re-election next April (campaign website here; see here for thoughts on elections and holding Evers and others accountable for their actions and inaction).
We know that Evers budget will be based on the Fair Funding For Our Future framework. We know that in outsourcing how our state defines what it means to be educated to American College Testing (the ACT) it will call for an increase in spending of time and money on standardized testing and the processing of standardized test based data (for a horror story outsourcing testing related things in Florida, see “The outsourcing of almost everything in state departments of education,” from Sherman Dorn. We know that it will in most ways be better than what Governor Scott Walker proposes, especially if the rumors that the Walker proposal will include Tim Sullivan’s “Performance Based Funding” are true ( by design this would direct resources away from those students and schools that are struggling and toward those that are thriving, an incredibly bad idea and the essence of the Republican philosophy). But there are some essential things we don’t know. Here are three things I’ll be keeping an eye on.
1. How much of an increase in State Aid will Evers call for?
Wisconsin school have endured huge cuts in state aid in both the last budgets. Depending on how you count the combined dollar total is close to $2 Billion. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the per pupil cuts in Wisconsin have been the fourth largest in the nation. Here is their chart:
The vast majority of districts have experienced cuts in state aid (the most recent figures from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, here). How much of this lost ground will Evers try to make up?
2. What increases in Revenue Limits will Evers call for?
The FitzWalker gang
essentially froze cut Revenue limits for 2011-12 and provided a $50/student increase for most districts for 2012-13. Revenue Limits matter. Higher Revenue Limits give local district the power to make up for lost state aid and more. To what extent will the DPI budget restore this local control? As the bar in expected achievement keeps getting raised, through a combination of state and local resources, we need to give the schools the resources they need to meet their challenges.
3. Will the DPI budget direct resources to those students and schools with higher needs?
In particular, will it call for increases in aid for English Language Learners, for Special Education, for SAGE reimbursements, for Sparsity (see this column for Kathleen Vinehout on school budgets in general and sparsity in particular)? Will it direct real aid to those schools identified as needing improvement by the new “Accountability” system (see here for a discussion of that system, including this issue).
One thing the new State Report Cards confirmed is that poverty is a great predictor of which students and schools are struggling. Will the Evers budget address this in a real way by providing additional resources instead of the property tax cuts to based on student poverty that have been in every other iteration of the Fair Funding plan? Property tax cuts don’t help students; students need help. For more on school funding “fairness,” see this report from the Eduction Law Center (Wisconsin doesn’t rank very well).
Those are the big three. I’ll also be looking at the size of the guaranteed state funding per pupil (which in essence replaces the levy credits in Fair Funding), what kind of “hold harmless” provisions Evers includes, and like all of us I’ll be looking at the impact of the package on my school district (along with a variety of other districts I’ve been informally tracking for years).
This is step one; the next steps involve key players like WEAC and WMC, advocates in general, the Governor and the Legislature. Much of what will happen with these is predictable. I can say with great confidence that I will consider whatever Tony Evers proposes to be better than what comes out of the Republican controlled budget process.
One thing I don’t know is how advocates and Democratic Legislators will react. If past actions and the recent press release from Senator Chris Larson are indications, they will follow Tony Evers lead and take up Fair Funding as their own. Depending on the answers to the questions offered here, I hope that people who care about our students, inside and outside the Legislature, keep an open mind to advocating for something better than Fair Funding, something that does make up the ground lost over four years of cuts, something that does give real local control, and most of all something that does a better job directing resources to the schools and students who most need the opportunities of quality public education. Penny for Kids would be a start, perhaps in conjunction with Fair Funding. | <urn:uuid:154bd9c7-4285-4baf-80e6-23046e92e2c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://madisonamps.org/2012/11/12/what-to-keep-an-eye-on-in-tony-evers-budget/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948836 | 1,319 | 1.609375 | 2 |
An empirical analysis of imprisoning drug offenders
Coauthor(s): Steven Levitt.
The number of prisoners incarcerated on drug-related offenses rose 15-fold between 1980 and 2000. This paper provides the first systematic empirical analysis of the implications of that dramatic
shift in public policy. We estimate that cocaine prices are 5–15% higher today as a consequence of increases in drug punishment since 1985, presumably leading to reduced drug consumption. Incarcerating drug offenders is found to be almost as effective in reducing violent and property crime as locking up other types of offenders. Thus, although we demonstrate that the increase in drug
prisoners led to reductions in expected time served for other crimes (especially for less serious offenses), the overall impact of increased drug incarceration has likely been a small (1–3%)
reduction in violent and property crime. Back-of-the envelope estimates suggest that it is unlikely that the dramatic increase in drug imprisonment was cost-effective.
Source: Journal of Public Economics
Kuziemko, Ilyana, and Steven Levitt. "An empirical analysis of imprisoning drug offenders." Journal of Public Economics 88 (2004): 2043-2066. | <urn:uuid:e4f21594-0ee0-437b-aa52-5f10122c2c86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/whoswho/more.cfm?uni=ik2216&pub=5800 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932126 | 239 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Copley, John SingletonDate of birth and death: 1738-1815
Nationality: AmericanUploaded artworks: 61
Generally considered the finest painter of colonial America, John Singleton Copley painted portraits and historical subjects. His Boston portraits show a thorough knowledge of his New England models, and his talent as a draftsman and colorist produced pictures of aristocratic elegance and grace (emigrated to London in 1775).
Copley was born on July 3, 1738, in Boston, Mass., to immigrants recently arrived from Ireland. He began to paint in about 1753. His earliest works show the influence of his stepfather, an engraver, and the Boston artist John Smibert. In about 1755 Copley met the English artist Joseph Blackburn, whose use of rococo lightness and coloring he quickly adopted. He also made use of the rococo device called portrait d'apparat--portraying the subject with objects associated with his daily life--that gave his work a distinction not usually found in 18th-century American painting.
Eager to expand his reputation beyond New England, Copley sent his Boy with a Squirrel in 1766 to the Society of Artists in London. It was praised by both Sir Joshua Reynolds and by the transported American artist Benjamin West, who urged him to come to London. He did so in 1774 and painted his first important work, Watson and the Shark, there in 1778. In this painting Copley used what became a frequent theme of 19th-century Romantic art, the struggle of humans against nature.
Although he remained in England the rest of his life and was moderately successful, his historical paintings never had the vitality or realism of his Boston portraits. Copley died in London on Sept. 9, 1815.
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You can also use TerminArtors Social Connect to log in. | <urn:uuid:054b16db-4885-40f4-bed3-8fb9648899cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.terminartors.com/artistprofile/Copley_John_Singleton | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977956 | 470 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Explore your blind spot by Tom Stafford
Price: Free! 1880 words.
Published on December 3, 2011. .
Discover how the mind hides its tracks.
This is a short guide to one of the secrets of mind and brain. Find out about the gaps in your vision and how your mind is designed to stop you noticing them. | <urn:uuid:51a5f27a-206c-483f-a2ee-8e0cf7cdbe19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smashwords.com/books/tags/mind_hacks?adult=on | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937416 | 69 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Army to recall former military members
Tuesday, June 29, 2004 Posted: 12:43 PM EDT (1643 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army is preparing to notify about 5,600 retired and discharged soldiers who are not members of the National Guard or Reserve that they will be involuntarily recalled to active duty for possible service in Iraq or Afghanistan, Army officials said Tuesday.
It marks the first time the Army has called on the Individual Ready Reserve, as this category of reservists is known, in substantial numbers since the 1991 Gulf War.
The move reflects the continued shortage of troops available to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to fight the ongoing war on terrorism as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lt. Gen. Frank Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel, said earlier this month of the Army's troop strength, "We are stretched but we have what we need."
Pentagon officials have echoed that statement explaining that while the military is reaching deep into its resources, war planners have long had contingency plans such as this for when troops are really needed.
Several hundred members of the ready reserve have volunteered for active-duty service since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Those who are part of the involuntary call up are likely to be assigned to National Guard or Reserve units that have been mobilized for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Army officials. An announcement is planned for Wednesday.
Members of Congress were being notified of the decision Tuesday, the officials said.
Unlike members of the National Guard and Reserve, the individual reservists do not perform regularly scheduled training.
Any former enlisted soldier who did not serve at least eight years on active duty is in the Individual Ready Reserve pool, as are all officers who have not resigned their commission.
The Army has been reviewing its list of 118,000 eligible individual reservists for several weeks in search of qualified people in certain high-priority skill areas like civil affairs. | <urn:uuid:663dc877-621e-436b-ad2a-5e1b6511d465> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.extremeskins.com/showthread.php?64414-To-all-the-retired-and-discharged-service-members-pack-your-bags.........&p=754919&mode=threaded | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975267 | 400 | 1.929688 | 2 |
France 36C SW : Lens-Maroc-Souchez-Vimy
Date of publication:
Publisher: G H Smith & Son
FRANCE 36C SW - Sachez, Givenchy, Vimy: Edition 9A.
This 1:20,000 scale map shows the trenches and the area as it was in February 1917. It shows in incredible detail the evidence of mining in the area with Petit Vimy and Vimy itself at the bottom of it. Fresnoy is also shown at the bottom of the map which goes over as far as Mantiqny and Rouvroy. The defences of Lens are shown in great detail and the area is mainly German occupied, of course. This map is unbelievably evocative and indicates the depth of the German defences in great detail. Note the Oppy Méricourt, Verdim line. The area was to change dramatically not long after this sheet was produced, of course. Note the proximity of the two front lines and the abundant evidence of mine warfare.
P&p for trench-map only orders sent to addresses in the UK costs £0.50p, £1.50 to Europe and £2.00 for Rest of World addresses. Our standard postage rates will apply for combined orders of books and trench maps. | <urn:uuid:c1fa1df2-f294-4390-938c-b3530b38b5ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/BOOKSHOP/details.aspx?titleId=608 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931986 | 266 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Posted on | October 11, 2012 | No Comments
In conjunction with National Cooperative Month, we will be featuring a series of posts detailing the recent work Farmers Union members have done in western Africa through the Farmer-to-Farmer program. Erin Schneider, a Wisconsin Farmers Union member, recounted her time abroad.
By Erin Schneider
The Assignment: Project in support of Organizational Development, Horticultural Techniques with KEOH; Kedougou Region, Senegal.
KEOH stands for Kedougou Surrounding and Guidance for Human Development and is an association of private farmers who are producing fonio (a kind of millet), hot pepper, okra, and honey. They are also leading other activities to have a more efficient and effective Association, which is where Melissa Augusto’s, NFU Communications Director, role in helping with organizational development came in. KEOH provides its members with training in developing their capacity as farmers whether its seeds, savings, or accessing credit. Their specific request of me was help in improved horticultural techniques with pepper, okra, and onion. A broad topic, yes, but I was able to winnow down some specifics from the farmers ahead of time and learned that water (too much or too little), insects, and soil fertility were some of the immediate challenges they faced. Sound familiar to fruit and vegetable growers everywhere? Absolutely? That is the background from which I prepared for my role in providing horticultural techniques. Upon arrival all changes were subject to planning, yet some things remained universal. I learned that KEOH has been around for a while, but new to working with the Farmer to Farmer Program and USAID/Yaajeende project implemented by NCBA-CLUSA.
I also learned that working with a women’s grower group meant that I would be working with and training men who then work as liaisons and trainers to the women farmers. Perhaps this is a peculiarity to the culture (more on culture of agriculture in Senegal in my next F2F blog post), or maybe that’s just how they work in this corner of the world. Either way, it’s not to say that the men don’t farm, or value the work of the women farmers, it was just an adjustment for me given my involvement in Wisconsin with women grower groups that are run by and for women. Nonetheless, we used a train the trainer model for sharing expertise to employ with KEOH staff and linkers who work with the women grower groups in their respective farms and villages.
After a rapid fire two days demonstration/teaching techniques in composting, agroforestry, and crop rotation with KEOH linkers, we headed to the fields to meet with four different grower groups associated with KEOH in the villages of Bawal, Saraya, DaLoto, and Dar Salaam.
Field and farm visits meant ~1 ½ to 2 hrs travel time to ferry across rivers and navigate dirt roads (and in some cases make new roads). This gave us plenty
of ‘time’ to ‘plan’ and soak in our surroundings and details of the day. The Kedougou landscape features people out and about (using all possible modes of transportation available to man, save an airplane) whether in town or along backroads going about their daily business of living, trading, working, praying, cooking, and laughing amidst a backdrop of expansive skies, and distant mountains, with water, flowers, animals everywhere.
Tomorrow: Farm Visits and Horticultural Techniques. | <urn:uuid:1947628c-475f-487d-af44-8f9ba8329d4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nfu.org/blog/?p=575 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955901 | 741 | 1.921875 | 2 |
I’m very pleased to introduce Kyoto University’s great range of degree programs for international students. The programs in this brochure are taught and supported entirely in English, and are designed to open our doors to students and scholars from around the world who are seeking enroll in a top-class degree program in the heart of Japan.
Kyoto University has a long history of academic excellence, imbued with the unique cultural heritage and philosophy of Kyoto. Our academic tradition was founded on the concepts of self-reliance and self-respect (in Japanese, 自重自敬 jichō jikei). Those words were memorialized in calligraphy by Professor Hiroji Kinoshita, the first president of Kyoto University, and they continue to guide our approach to education and research today. Our campuses have been home to historically respected scholars such as Nobel laureate Professor Hideki Yukawa, who promoted the concept of innovative collaborative research initiatives merging diverse academic fields as a key to making scientific breakthroughs. To this day, we continue to emphasize dialogue and cooperation, pursuing interdisciplinary collaborative research that crosses the boundaries which have conventionally divided the natural sciences and the humanities.
The dedication and achievements of our scholars have been acknowledged by the fact that we have been selected for numerous prestigious government programs, and worldwide, in the form of numerous internationally recognized accolades. A notable recent example of the latter is the award of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, director of our Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA). Dr. Yamanaka’s discoveries have opened new realms of possibility in biology and medicine, and are certain to have a profound effect on the advancement of science and technology as a whole, as well as on the humanities and social sciences.
Advances in science and technology coupled with today’s environmental issues are changing the very ways in which humanity and nature are perceived and understood. In this age of such profound change, our university is committed to its mission to pursue harmonious coexistence within the human and ecological community on this planet. I should mention that in this context, we use the term “community” to include everything from the Earth’s plants and animals, mountains and rivers, to the sea and sky, and even its lithosphere and surrounding interplanetary space. Through that ambitious mission, we aim to inspire students and researchers from around the world to not only become specialists in their chosen field, but also to help tackle the world’s most urgent problems and contribute to the global community.
You are invited to join us. The degree programs in this brochure exemplify Kyoto University’s flexible and innovative approach to education and research —both an opportunity for personal advancement and a chance to address greater issues. I am confident that students who enroll in these programs will benefit from, and enjoy, an educational experience of the highest caliber.
I also hope that Kyoto University will surprise you, and surpass your own expectations. I look forward to welcoming you to our campuses in the heart of Kyoto when you commence your academic journey. | <urn:uuid:328713bc-7156-4c31-97bc-4e94453ed4ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opir.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kuprofile/about/message/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953036 | 640 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Following Pope Benedict's YouTube warning to his younger followers that "virtual friendship" cannot substitute for real-world connections, and that "obsessive" texting "may isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection," a group of Italian Catholics are encouraging their countrymen to give up texting for Lent. The campaign began in the dioceses of Modena, Bari and Pesaro and has spread to other regions of the predominantly Catholic nation. The Trento diocese, sandwiched in the Italian Alps, also urges youngsters to give up computer games and "egocentrism." (No more blogging, either?) Meanwhile other dioceses are pushing for television rejection and avoiding bottled water. A Venice priest explains that "sobriety" is not only part of Lent but recession-appropriate. But of course, where there is holiness, there is also dissent: One theologian says, "You might as well launch a campaign to turn off the electric light and stay in the dark. This wave of bizarre proposals risk making the whole idea of Lent banal." | <urn:uuid:dcd347f5-17b8-4be7-bbd0-95a4a56f553e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2009/03/03/italians-give-up-txtn-4-lent.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955735 | 226 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Want to know how friendly your bank — or any bank — is to small business borrowers?
MultiFunding, a small business loan advisory firm, is testing an online bank search tool that lets users see the small business lending records of banks, including branch offices, in their area.
Business owners can search for banks by their zip code, address, city and state or by bank name. The site lists only banks supervised by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
“We hope this will help them make informed decisions about what banks to go to,” said CEO Ami Kassar. “It’s all part of our effort to make small business lending as assessable as possible to entrepreneurs.”
When I typed in my Dallas zip code, the site listed 13 bank branches and a grade for their commitment to small business lending.
Of the 13, two received an “A” for using at least 25 percent of their deposits to make small business loans. There were two Bs for using 10 percent to 25 percent of their deposits to make loans, three Cs (average) for using 6 percent to 10 percent of their deposits, three Ds for using 3 percent to 6 percent of their deposits and three Fs for using less than 3 percent of their deposits.
MultiFunding uses public data filed by financial institutions in quarterly FDIC call reports, which includes active loans to small businesses with balances of $1 million or less. MultiFunding divides each bank’s small business loan balance by its total U.S. deposits for the grade. Current data is as of Sept. 30.
The average U.S. bank uses roughly 7.8 percent of their deposits to make small business loans, according to MultiFunding.
Click below to read more about Kassar and the Beta test. | <urn:uuid:f9363a58-faf9-42ea-8808-6af9a7ef0919> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/tag/bank/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966163 | 375 | 1.617188 | 2 |
This 1.8 litre motor put out around 80kw of power and could take you over 1000km's on a 70 litre tank of fuel...travelling at 110-130km/h.
Fuel savings were around %30-%50 depending on driving conditions.
People must understand...this was NO pie in the sky. It was a happening product underwritten by Ford.
In the end Sarich gave up trying to make the engine locally and sold his engine and patents to Ford outright for 190 million dollars. Sarich now SPECULATES on property and suggests no one bother to get an invention going. Just design and patent it and then sell it to the big boys. He was absoloutly sold out by everbody and was bitter as hell for a long time.
After all is said and done we heard that the motor would be in outboard motors, motorbikes and fuel efficient cars...we heard about this constantly for five years back in the early 90's and then...NOTHING.
Ford have the engine and the patents locked up in their U.K subsidery.
What will be interesting is what happens to this motor today. In the late 80s and early 90s with gas prices low (even in the late 90s, I was buying gas for $0.75 per gallon in the Washington, D.C. area), there was simply no market for a 60 horsepower moter that could go 59 mph. The market wanted big motors and big cars, not fuel efficient ones.
The motor may have been seen as a threat to Ford, but I doubt it. At that time, there was not a market for it.
Where the rubber will meet the road is if Ford or someone doesn't bring out something like that now. If your numbers are true, it is much better than a hybrid and likely to be much less expensive. Ford or anyone would have an incentive now to bring it out. It could be the company's salvation.
Several years ago, I worked for a company that had been a large conglomerate involved in oil and gas, mining, etc. The company had reconstituted itself as a pure play in E&P but had a legacy in R&D in all sectors. My job was literally to troll the warehouse and look for commercial applications for anything in the shelves.
There was literally a ton of good ideas. The reasons they were on the shelf were myriad, but none that I could find were particularly diabolical. Sure some of them were there because they could have cannibalized an existing business, but that was more management or bureaucratic politics than anything sinister. Most were not economical at the time, including one that we were able to spin into a JV with a battery player who had a complimentary technology and now the JV is the leader in large battery systems, including for hybrids.
I am not saying that there are not inventions that have been shelved because they could kill a powerful business interest. I believe there are. I just think the jury is out on the one you mention. For now. | <urn:uuid:8ddd55f2-a6cf-4621-b881-631cda9184c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/showthread.php?p=28317&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989212 | 633 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Lynn is director of the Markets, Enterprise, and Resiliency Initiative, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of Too Big to Fail about the dangers of monopoly capitalism.
He expands on the threat in his newest book titled, Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, explaining today’s peril given the power of predatory giants.
They control governments, the courts, war and peace, dominant information sources, and essential services, including health care, air and water, what we eat and drink, where we live, what we wear, and school curricula to the highest levels. They own genetic code patents, basic human life elements to be commodified the same as toothpaste, tomatoes or toilet paper.
Omnipotent, they plunder recklessly, ruthlessly at our expense. They’re private tyrannies, endangering humanity, basic freedoms, environmental sustainability, and planetary survival. Without exaggeration, they’re unaccountable, unchecked “weapons of mass destruction.”
In Cornered” Lynn explains the danger and urgency to address it. Our lives and futures depend on it.
It might have been different had Thomas Jefferson and James Madison prevailed over John Adams and Alexander Hamilton in crafting America’s Bill of Rights. They wanted 12, not 10, including “freedom from a permanent military (and) monopolies in commerce.”
Imagine the possibilities had they prevailed, or if early leaders agreed with Jefferson in 1816, seven years after his presidency, saying in a letter to a friend:
“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
Earlier, he opposed chartering the first Bank of the United States, a 19th century version of today’s central bank, what Andrew Jackson called a “hydra-headed monster,” and Lincoln described as predatory money powers “more despotic than a monarch, more insolent than autocracy and more selfish than a bureaucracy.” He feared they’d accumulate enough wealth and power to destroy the Republic, similar to former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ view saying, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.”
Others call it fascism or a reasonable facsimile with elements including:
- the despotic union of corporate and state power — aka corporatism;
- rampant corruption;
- the disdain for human rights, civil liberties, and ordinary workers;
- the dominance of militarism, belligerency, and permanent wars;
- fraudulent elections;
- an obsession with national security;
- the control of public information; and
- the omnipotence of corporate giants, taking full advantage to pillage and profiteer.
Lynn’s book tells why, beginning in his preface titled, “Of Rule and Ruin,” saying he warned about monopolization dangers because:
“our political economy is run by a compact elite that is able to fuse the power of our public government with the power of private corporate governments in ways that enable members of the elite (to freely decide) who wins, who loses, and who pays.”
His book is “a chronicle of a death foretold, and the corpse on the street (is) the American Republic.” Consolidated corporate power and the political complicity behind it means monopolists run the country and the world, justifying it as free-market fundamentalism — a corrupted deception masking predatory dominance that destroys democratic freedoms.
Ronald Reagan accelerated it when government stopped enforcing anti-trust laws, and encouraged consolidation, production outsourcing, destruction of America’s manufacturing base, the offshoring of high-paying jobs, financialization’s ascendency and power of Wall Street, and the ability of corporate predators to break the law and get away with it, today more than ever under Obama.
Lynn calls his book “a sort of tour of monopoly in all its many guises, in the United States today….how monopolists rip us off as consumers, raising the prices we must pay” for everything including essentials becoming more unaffordable. He covers new monopoly forms and others thought long ago vanished. Understanding them is key to knowing the dangers, from phenomena including:
– problems launching and successfully running a small business;
- good jobs disappearing, replaced by low-paying service ones with few benefits;
- the destruction of organized labor, aided by corrupted union bosses;
- skyrocketing medical costs;
- blocking efficient, low cost technologies that hurt profits;
- low quality food, drugs and other products;
- the burgeoning national debt and current account deficit; and
- corporatization’s corrupting dominance heading America toward despotism with governments as willing partners.
The auto industry is instructive, Lynn saying it “resembles the Hydra, the many-headed monster from Greek mythology.” Like their heads relying on one body, the automakers “increasingly rely on a single common body of companies that supply the same components to all of them.”
In today’s hard times, they stand or fall together, governments facilitating consolidation and bailing out the majors, or, in other words, socializing risks, privatizing profits, and doing it for other endangered sectors, Wall Street getting the most by far from a privatized central bank they own and US Treasury they control.
Lynn structures his book in three parts:
– examples of monopolies and the fallout from unrestrained corporate dominance;
– the effects on ordinary people; and
– how it affects other systems – ones in place “to protect peaceful international relations, our knowledge of how to make the products and grow the foods we need, and our political institutions.”
Combined, he reveals a neofeudalist system of vast size and power, dominating all major American and global industries, consolidating for greater strength, partnered with governments, operating ruthlessly, crushing competition, exploiting workers, and colluding for greater control, the public welfare be damned.
Without antitrust enforcement, monopoly options include:
- home-based ones to build a power base to capture global markets;
- pincer ones — “One of the oldest techniques for capturing and protecting monopoly positions” by controlling related activities, then using them to consolidate and crush competition;
- trading ones that rely on offshore suppliers, investing instead in marketing and strategic alliances for greater market share;
- middleman ones to build power positions between producers and end users;
- privatized public monopolies — the simplest, fastest way to create private ones;
- leapfrog ones by repackaging old businesses in new technologies to escape government oversight;
- future ones so financiers can dominate trading markets for commodities, financial instruments and currencies, etc.;
- respecting other monopolies so they’ll respect yours; and
- perfecting your monopoly with new positions, raising prices to exploit them.
These practices made the land of “free-market capitalism” the land of monopoly, Lynn calling it nothing mysterious, saying:
Monopoly is just “a form of government that one group of human beings imposes on another group, (its purpose being to let) the first group… transfer wealth and power to (itself. They) organize and disorganize, to grab and smash, to rule and ruin, in ways that serve their interests only. At bottom, monopoly is merely a political tool,” not because of a better product or service, but through better capitalization and political connections.
The rich “reappropriated the institution of the corporation after (early 20th century antitrust laws restrained them), regarding (them) as the ‘owners’ of these institutions lies at the heart of our present crisis.”
Our system’s single biggest problem is having ceded “almost complete power over these institutions (to) a class of people whose interests (aren’t) served… by building things but by breaking” them. Capitalism lets some people “use the power in concentrated capital to harness free citizens” and crush democratic freedoms.
As a result, monopolies run America. Antitrust enforcement is null and void, and according to Lynn: “It will take more than a lawsuit or two to overthrow America’s corporatist oligarchy and restore a model of capitalism that protects our rights as property holders and citizens.”
Getting money out of politics is key — the reality that big money dictates policy, pre-selects candidates, pre-determines outcomes, gets the best democracy it can buy, assures a de facto one-party state, and a dominant media trumpeting the best of all possible worlds that’s, in fact, corrupted, broken, despotic, and ruinous by benefiting the rich against the rest.
Short of sweeping fundamental change, nothing will deter corporate giants from securing total global control in a world intolerable for most, the direction we’re now heading unless mass people power stops them. There’s no other way! So what are we waiting for? | <urn:uuid:1f21b15d-5032-421e-bd52-f9fb62102a4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/barry-c-lynns-cornered-the-new-monopoly-capitalism-and-the-economics-of-destruction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921294 | 1,947 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Learning outside the classroom : theory and guidelines for practice
Source:Routledge, New York, p.126 (2012)
Call Number:Cubb LB1047 .B37 2012
Keywords:EDUCATION / Aims & Objectives, EDUCATION / Curricula, EDUCATION / Non-Formal Education, Outdoor education, Place-based education
Summary: "The first curricular-focused outdoor learning textbook for prospective and practising K-12 teachers, this book provides both academic justification and practical support for educators working in a wide variety of environments and with diverse populations of students to incorporate more meaningful outdoor learning opportunities into their daily teaching activities. Learning Outside the Classroom is not a set of prescriptive activities that can be read and used uncritically. The idea of adaptation for personal relevance is central. All teachers are capable of enhancing their students' learning experiences by systematically and progressively incorporating ventures outside the classroom into their lessons. The principles and examples presented in this book are intended to be adapted by teachers to suit the needs of their students in ways that draw upon content offered by the local landscape and its natural and built heritage. Nor is this book just about outdoor learning; it's about good teaching -- wherever it takes place. It is about helping teachers devise and use the tools with which they can address the largely uncontested assumption that legitimate learning only occurs within four walls. Learning outside the classroom affords teachers the privilege of helping and the joy of observing students in a process of intellectual, emotional, and social growth that can last a lifetime"-- Provided by publisher. | <urn:uuid:91a64e08-9761-4b8e-bc3e-eac6ebd21aae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stanford.edu/group/cubberley/biblio/learning-outside-classroom-theory-and-guidelines-practice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942246 | 324 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Click here for photos from the Saguaro Solar Power Plant in Red Rock, Arizona, the first plant of it's kind to be built in the United States in nearly 20 years.
And in Asia, we explore perhaps the most fundamental issue of all: Is the world willing to make the changes we'll need?
From alternative energy programs as small as a solar panel on a rooftop and as large as the biggest "wind farm" in America, to scientists with a prototype of a machine that could take damaging greenhouse gases right out of the air, you'll have a chance to look down from space and get an overview of what in the world we can do to improve the environment.
We'll even look at what the average American uses up in their lifetime -- how many light bulbs and coffee cups do you think you'll use from the cradle to the grave? Newspapers? Hangers? We will fill a 900,000 cubic foot hangar with one person's lifetime quota of "stuff" -- and your jaw will drop.
The report will also focus on the smartest changes you can make in your own homes to help -- things you can do tomorrow to do your part. It's as easy as changing a light bulb, and as odd as changing your driving habits -- don't turn left. That's right, UPS has instructed its drivers to develop "right turn routes" to their destinations, since left turns involve idling engines as you wait to turn. Idling engines mean more gasoline used -- and more greenhouse gases up into the air.
The reports will span "Good Morning America" through "World News With Charles Gibson," an hour-long "20/20" anchored by Diane Sawyer, and "Nightline" -- and, of course, ABCNEWS.com and ABC News Now will be on all day with live reports. As the world goes green, ABC News goes global -- Earth Day 2007. | <urn:uuid:938ad7d1-18b3-4701-b551-2cd88902dc98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GlobalWarming/story?id=3023804&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958042 | 386 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Mediocrity is starting to creep into the world of education and specifically into the practice of teaching. I am afraid that it might always have been there and I am just now becoming increasingly aware of it. While many might want to place the full blame on teachers, I think there might be plenty of blame to go around. There are a handful of people that are responsible for the prevalence of mediocrity in the profession of teaching.
Media perpetuates it
This is obvious in the fact that they are fixated on stories that paint teachers in a negative light rather than focusing on the great things happening on a daily basis. In a recent session at a local technology conference there were reporters from NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox and they all admitted they don’t even have education reporters on staff. What does that say about their priorities? This is sad because they have some real power to sway public opinion about teachers and the current trends in education.
Administrators allow it
Most administrators encourage mediocre teaching more through their inaction rather than their actions. Lots of people feel as though teacher tenure is a problem and keeps poor teachers around. However, a tenured teacher can be let go if the administrator goes through the legwork to do so. Unfortunately, many do not put in the work to do this and the cycle of poor teaching is just reinforced. In most cases, teachers keep their heads down until their reach tenure because one they get it; they know administrators won’t do anything to remove them. In some cases, the administrators have not been properly trained on what “good teaching” looks like and therefore are not good judges of it. Sadly some administrators were not good teachers themselves and therefore don’t even know what a good teacher looks like. (I think they wear a tieJ) Another area is the lack of administrator presence in most schools beyond the front office. Are administrators in classrooms observing, teaching or interacting with kids on a regular basis? If not, they cannot hope to have an understanding of the quality of teaching or learning happening in their schools.
Unions protect it
In many states teacher unions have been slammed and in some cases dismembered. Now, I value the intent of a union to protect the rights of its members as well as its role in collective bargaining. There are many things teacher unions do in favor of teachers. With all that being said though, they are guilty of protecting mediocre teachers in many ways. Again, I am not suggesting we need to toss out teachers due to low standardized test scores as some have suggested. However, there are things being done in schools by teachers that should be immediate grounds for removal and not be blocked by a union. In many other blue collar unions, they uphold the highest standard of their profession and certainly don’t protect those that fail to live up to that standard.
In addition, unions often create combative and adversarial situations between its members and policy makers and administrations. This leads to change being near impossible and again continues the cycle of the status quo on many fronts.
Parents are oblivious to it
As a parent and a teacher, I have a unique perspective of being on both sides of the education fence. Most parents, though, are not aware of the education their kids are receiving beyond the infrequent notes or emails that come home. They assume since school worked for them, it should be the same and often do not question much of what happens. There are too many examples of things going on in schools without parent’s knowledge. Parents need to take a more active role and schools need to be more transparent and welcome parents into the schools. Also, parents should not have to “settle” for mediocre teaching for their kids.
Kids deal with it
Students are obviously the ones that hurt from the prevalence of mediocrity in our profession. On a daily basis they go through classes taught by a spectrum of teachers. In many cases, they have fabulous teachers that care for them and are outstanding in what they do. Yet, they still have a handful of teachers that in most people’s opinion should not be teaching. Their response is often just to complain amongst themselves and just deal with it. This is also reinforced at home when a parent simply says, “that’s school…just deal with it and hope for a better teacher next year.” I am not saying kids need to rebel against their teachers, but they certainly need to exercise their voice and demand the best. In most cases, kids know what good teaching is and what is not.
Policy makers force it
From policy that ignores what is best for kids, to policy makers with no education experience, the world of educational policy is doomed to continued mediocrity. In the face of common sense and sound research, our educational policies do nothing to lift up the profession of teaching. Instead, it ranks and files teachers and students with little regard to what life is truly like in a classroom and what their policies mean for kids or teachers. The few attempts to lift up our profession are often superficial with no real intent to change but are more often a political agenda in an election year.
Teachers ignore it
Teachers are probably the biggest problem within our own profession. We don’t want to confront our fellow teachers when we see opportunities for growth within them. Instead, we just shut our doors and do good by our own kids. Heaven forbid if we made a suggestion or offered criticism without fear of personally offending someone. We don’t share our good lessons because we are afraid somebody else will get credit for our hard work. In some cases we are being ranked against our colleagues and we would not want anyone having an advantage. When our own teachers are lifted up and recognized we shun them out of jealousy and envy. If we have a mediocre administrator we do nothing but complain in our lounges or behind closed doors because we fear repercussions for speaking out. Many of our teachers instruct in the exact same manner they were taught when they were in school 10, 15, or 25 years ago. If we are non-tenured we take what is given to us and do exactly what we are told for fear of losing our job. We want our students to be lifelong learners and yet we fail to model this on a daily basis. In reality, many of us are just as afraid of failure as our own students. This is not totally our faults as our administrations, policy makers and in some cases the media have made it clear that failure is not an option for teachers in any way.
Teaching is what I do, and I strive for excellence in that every single day. I would be lying if I said there were not days when some of these factors get to me. Yet, I will keep teaching. I will keep pushing my fellow teachers even if they get upset with me. I will keep celebrating my fellow teachers even if it makes others jealous. I will keep challenging my administration even if it gets me into trouble. I will keep trying to get a seat at the table with the policy makers even if they repeatedly ignore me. I will keep looking at ways to make sure every student I have is given nothing but the best that I have to offer. Bottom line, I will keep teaching and keep striving to be better than mediocre and demand nothing short of that from those around me… | <urn:uuid:46a299ab-7a49-43df-86ce-ab4f8962bcb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stumpteacher.blogspot.com/2012_03_04_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98058 | 1,499 | 2 | 2 |
Robert Freidus. Formatting by George P. Landow. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one. [Click on all images for larger pictures.]. Sir Thomas Brock. Bronze. 1880. Victoria Embankment Gardens, London. Photographs and captions by
According to Leslie Stephen's entry for Robert Raikes (1735-1811) in the 63-volume first edition of Dictionary of National Biography, the social reformer often credited with originating the Sunday School Movement, was born at Gloucester on 14 September 1735, the son of Robert Raikes, who founded The Gloucester Journal, “one of the oldest country newspapers. . . . Robert[, who] succeeded to the Gloucester business on his father's death, . . . was an active and benevolent person, and in 1768 inserted in his paper an appeal on behalf of the prisoners in Gloucester. The gaols were marked by the abuses soon afterwards exposed by Howard. No allowance was made for the support of minor offenders, and Raikes says that some of them would have been starved but for 'the humanity of the felons,' who gave up part of their rations.”
Concerned with the lack of training or education for children, he began to promote Sunday schools.
Various accounts are given of the circumstances which led to the action which made him famous. He mentions an interview (traditionally placed in St. Catherine's meadows) with a woman who pointed out a crowd of idle ragamuffins. He is also said to have taken a hint from a dissenter named William King, who had set up a Sunday school at Dursley. Cynics reported that Raikes made up his newspaper on Sundays, and was annoyed by the interruption of noisy children outside when he was reading his proofs. In any case, he spoke to the curate of a neighbouring parish, Thomas Stock (1749-1803), who had started a Sunday school at Ashbury, Berkshire. Raikes and Stock engaged a woman as teacher of a school, Raikes paying her a shilling and Stock sixpence weekly. Stock drew up the rules. Raikes afterwards set up a school in his own parish, St. Mary le Crypt, to which he then confined his attention. Controversy has arisen as to the share of merit due to Raikes and Stock. It must no doubt have occurred to many people to teach children on Sunday. Among Raikes's predecessors are generally mentioned Cardinal Borromeo (1538-1584), Joseph Alleine, Hannah Ball, and Theophilus Lindsey. Raikes's suggestion fell in with a growing sense of the need for schools, and became the starting-point of a very active movement.
His first school was opened in July 1780. In November 1783 he inserted in his paper a short notice of its success, without mentioning his own name. Many inquiries were consequently addressed to him. An answer which he had sent to a Colonel Townley of Sheffield was published in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1784, and a panegyric, giving a portrait and an account of his proceedings, was in the European Magazine of November 1788. The plan had been quickly taken up at Leeds and elsewhere. Raikes's friend, Samuel Glasse, preached a sermon in 1786 at Painswick, Gloucestershire, on behalf of the schools there, and stated in a note that two hundred thousand children were already being taught in England. The bishops of Chester and Salisbury (Porteus and Shute Barrington) gave him their approval. William Fox , who had been trying to start a larger system, thought Raikes's plan more practicable, and, after consulting him, set up in August 1785 a London society for the establishment of Sunday schools. Jonas Hanway and Henry Thornton were members of the original committee, and ten years later the society had sixty-five thousand scholars.
Wesley remarks in his journal of 14 July 1784 that he finds these schools springing up wherever he goes. He published a letter upon them next year in the Arminian Magazine, and did much to encourage them among his followers. They were introduced into Wales by Thomas Charles of Bala, in 1789, and spread into Scotland, Ireland, and the United States. They had attracted attention outside of the churches. Adam Smith, according to one of Raikes's letters in 1787 (GREGORY, p. 107), declared that no plan so simple and promising for the improvement of manners had been devised since the days of the apostles. At Christmas 1787 Raikes was admitted to an interview with Queen Charlotte, who spoke favourably of the plan to Mrs. Trimmer, and Mrs. Trimmer started schools, which were graciously visited by George III. Hannah More followed Mrs. Trimmer's example by starting similar schools in Somerset in 1789. . . .
Raikes . . . died at Gloucester, 5 April 1811, and was buried in the church of St. Mary le Crypt, where there are monuments to him and his parents. His widow died, aged 85, on 9 March 1828. They had two sons and six daughters.
Raikes is accused of excessive vanity; but he seems to have been a thoroughly worthy man. His merit in the Sunday-school movement appears to have been not so much in making any very novel suggestion as in using his position to spread a knowledge of a plan for cheap schools which was adapted to the wants of the day. He very soon came to be regarded as the 'founder of Sunday schools,' but does not appear to have himself ignored the claims of his co-operators. A 'jubilee' was held in 1831, at the suggestion of James Montgomery, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the movement (really the fifty-first), when it was said that there were 1,250,000 scholars and one hundred thousand teachers in Great Britain. A centenary celebration was also held in 1880, when Lord Shaftesbury unveiled at Gloucester the model of a statue of Raikes, intended to be placed in the cathedral. It has never been executed. Another statue was erected upon the Victoria Embankment.
Byron, Arthur. London Statues. London: Constable, 1981.
Stephen, Leslie. “Raikes, Robert.” Dictionary of National Biography. Eds. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. London: Smith, Elder: 1885-1900. Internet Archive/Online Books Page (U. of Pennsylvania). Web. 14 June 2011.
Read, Benedict. Victorian Sculpture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
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As we continue to celebrate Easter and feel the hope and joy of Christ's resurrection, let us continue on our journey that started as Treading Lightly for Lent.
The last action on the "Tread Lightly for Lent" calendar read:
"Contemplate the environmental lifestyle changes that you have made throughout Lent, and make a plan to integrate these into your life in the long term. Share about your journey with friends and family." What will you continue that started during your Lenten journey? Is there anything that you learned that stuck with you?
Ideas For Further Learning and Action
• Lead a study on the biblical and theological basis for eco-justice at your church with resources from Environmental Ministries.
• Look into serving fair trade coffee through the Presbyterian Coffee Project at your church.
• Organize a light bulb swap to change out incandescent light bulbs with CFLs in a low income neighborhood. The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program has tips for this.
• Find a more complete list of ideas for church earth care activities in the Earth Care Congregations guide. | <urn:uuid:70c78609-e72b-4d51-b5f2-dc78a546fa14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://presbyterian.typepad.com/ecojourney/2011/04/continue-to-tread-lightly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943223 | 225 | 1.851563 | 2 |
A Reviewers Notebook: The New Class?
DECEMBER 01, 1980 by JOHN CHAMBERLAIN
The late Richard Weaver, who wrote a book to prove that “ideas have con sequences,” knew that the efficacy of a concept often has nothing to do with its truth.
To pick a most horrendous illustration, there is the Marxist theory of the class war. The so-called dialectic of the class struggle is responsible for the Russian Revolution, but if it hadn’t been for Lenin’s professional mechanics of the arts of incitement and propaganda (“agitprop”) the idea that the Russian proletariat was bound to take over would never have become more than a slogan exploited by a minority in a St. Petersburg parliament.
Marx never intended to apply his theory to backward agrarian societies anyway. He elaborated it for the industrial countries of the West. So what happened? Instead of coming to a revolutionary confrontation of grasping capitalists and maddened workers, the “struggle” took an entirely different turn. As Eduard Bernstein predicted in Germany, workers became rich enough to constitute a lower middle class. To use John F. Kennedy’s figure, the rising tide of affluence lifted all the boats. The whole western society became bourgeois; Labor Day became the great middle class holiday, and May Day was more or less forgotten.
Now, to fill the gap caused by the failure of the Marxian idea of the “final conflict” between factory owners and workers, we have the theory of the so-called New Class. In our rush to build what Daniel Bell calls “post-industrial society” we have exalted a whole new tribe of symbol-manipulators—foundation employees, research associates, teachers, government regulatory bureaucrats, social workers, publicists, communications experts and “public interest” lawyers. The symbol-manipulators have status and make good salaries. Their productive “property,” as distinguished from a farm, a set of tools or a shop, consists of their brains. In many ways they certainly affect our culture and our politics.
But taken as a group, do the symbol-manipulators manifest the coherence of a class? B. Bruce-Briggs, a former city planner and foundation executive, has addressed himself to this question by inviting twelve theorists, some of whom would describe themselves as neo-conservatives, to provide tentative answers to the question. The book he has edited is called The New Class? (Transaction Books, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 229 pp., $16.95), and the presence of the interrogation mark in the title is quite calculated.
Going to the census figures, Mr. Bruce-Briggs discovers plenty of evidence that proprietorship has been in decay and the role of salaried managers and professionals has been increasing. Meanwhile we have had the growth of the health industry and the swelling of “number workers” (scientists, engineers and computer programmers). If we add the “ballooning of academia, teachers and college students” and %he appearance of well-paid federal officials” to the managers, number workers and health industry em ployees, we have a sizable group.
Mr. Bruce-Briggs says that “one deviant in a community is a troublemaker, ten are a clique, a hundred a club, a thousand a pressure group.” But what does it take to make a “critical mass”?
The twelve contributors to the book are sufficiently unified to indicate there can be small explosions of “critical mass” size, but none of them seems willing to consider that we are in danger of a New Class takeover. Sociologist Daniel Bell thinks the New Class is a “muddled concept.” Historian Andrew Hacker says of the new symbol-manipulators that they have larger vocabularies and greater verbal facility than their fathers, but “when all is said and done they remain workers beholden to the organizations employing them.” As “upper-level employees” they “do not constitute a class by themselves.” They are “bit players who do not even choose their own lines.”
Nathan Glazer, considering the legal profession, makes a good case for the class consciousness of the public service lawyer. And twenty thousand lawyers work for the federal government. But when you consider that there are two sides to every legal case, you are compelled to admit that lawyers live by fighting each other, which means there can’t be much lawyer class solidarity, either “new” or old.
For a moment in the Nineteen Sixties, when the campuses were erupting, Seymour Martin Lipset thought there might be some Marxist class consciousness developing among the professoriate. But he notes that, despite their distaste for the existing order, “the leaders of the American intelligentsia do not know what they want for a new society.” Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks the New Class of symbol-pushers has “second-level stratum” importance in government. But they have not often achieved “apex” positions, and she is glad of it. “As surely as a monopoly of power or wealth is dangerous to the rest of us,” she says, “a new-class monopoly on meaning and purpose is incompatible with the common weal.”
Michael Harrington, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, thinks Irving Kristol’s hope for a “neo-conservative” response from the New Class in favor of a free market is deluded. He worries lest the New Class should succumb to Fascism. Kevin Phillips likes the New Class tendency toward a “neo-populist insurgency,” but he fears it will provoke a reaction of “nationalistic, majoritarian, work-and-productivity-minded” people toward a “strongman.”
The “modernism” of the New Class, deriving from secular up-bringings that have de- emphasized religious values, bothers Peter Berger, who considers that disillusion with “repressive secularism” could lead to “fanatical retrenchments.” Everett Carll Ladd, Jr., acting director of the Roper Public Opinion Research Center, is Olympian, as befits a pollster. He doesn’t claim any proof of a class conflict between the intelligentsia and the “embourgeoised working class,” but he sees some differences emerging “at the level of activism.” This, he says, is to be expected.
The best papers in Bruce-Briggs’ book are by authors who have limited their aims. Aaron Wildavsky, former dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at Berkeley, ex plores the interest the New Class has in preserving a no-or-little-growth status quo for their own elite cadres. Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, describes the de veloping battle between the “adversary culture” and the neo-conservatives who have revolted against the New Politics liberalism of the McGovern years. Since both the “adversaries” and the neo-conservatives are, roughly speaking, “new class” in their symbol-manipulating capacities, what Mr. Podhoretz has to say points to a serious schism in New Class ranks. It would be relevant to conclude from this that the fight for America’s soul transcends class limits.
Finally, Robert Bartley, editor of The Wall Street Journal, investigates the sources of the anti-business clamor of recent years. Bartley is specificity itself as he explores the ramifications of the so-called public interest groups that owe their existence to “Mr. Public Citizen—Ralph Nader, Inc.” Nader has been “the prime mover behind some thirty-five books and reports,” and is credited with the passage of much anti- business legislation.
“Predictably,” says Mr. Bartley, “Nader has inspired a host of imitators, founding not only his conglomerate but an entire industry.” So we have the New Class isolated and personified in one towering figure. Mr. Bartley does not challenge Nader’s sincerity, but he thinks that “Ralph Nader and Friends are sometimes wrong” and that the “public interest” might often be better served by “more careful attention to a balance between benefits and costs.” Amen. | <urn:uuid:882678e0-f413-481e-b369-db759400bbee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/a-reviewers-notebook-the-new-class | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956892 | 1,816 | 1.914063 | 2 |
The Brown Deer Police Department will use this blog to provide residents with current crime information and trends, crime prevention tips, as well as pertinent news, legal updates, and notes as it relates to your community and Police Department. E-mail the department | Police Department's Web Site
As the Holiday shopping season peaks the Brown Deer Police Department encourages citizens to be alert and take some simple crime prevention measures while shopping. Here are some important safety tips to keep in mind to avoid becoming a victim of crime.
· Avoid shopping alone. If you do shop alone, be sure to let someone know where you are going and when to expect your return.
· If carrying a purse be sure to keep it around your shoulder and not around your neck. Do not place purses or wallets in shopping carts, and if you do be sure they are not left unattended.
· Only carry with you what is necessary for your shopping trip. Avoid carrying excess sums of cash or credit cards and check to make sure that you have all belongings (purse, wallet, credit cards etc.) prior to leaving the store.
· When leaving a store be sure to have your car keys in your hand and check the inside of your vehicle prior to entering it.
· Park as close as possible to the store you are shopping at and attempt to park in a well-lit area.
· Be alert when exiting the store and report any suspicious persons or activity you observe to the police.
· Never leave packages or anything of value in view in your vehicle.
· If shopping with children be sure they know what to do if they become separated from you during your trip.
Following these tips will help to ensure you have a safe and enjoyable shopping experience during the Holiday season. | <urn:uuid:c70f6cf2-dbb1-4801-85cf-bab69494a639> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mybrowndeernow.com/blogs/institutionalblogs/182824551.html?_escaped_fragment_=page=1%26viewAll=0%26sort=oldestfirst%26pageSize=50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957737 | 355 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Bernd Thissen / AFP - Getty Images
A laboratory assistant prepares a sample of lasagna for a DNA test at a veterinary research facility in Germany Thursay.
LONDON -- When officials in Ireland made a routine check on a few hamburgers, what they found made them nervous: One burger was actually nearly one-third horse.
It was a discovery that has sent shock waves reverberating across Europe.
Since the disturbing DNA test results were disclosed last month, horse meat has been found masquerading as beef in countries including the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and Norway.
A small amount of horse meat was also found by British officials to contain a banned drug that, in high enough doses, could be fatal, although U.K. Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies has stressed there is a "very low risk indeed" that eating contaminated meat would be harmful.
As supermarket shelves were cleared, meat suppliers in Ireland, the U.K., France, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Romania and elsewhere have come under scrutiny.
Jean-Philippe Arles / Reuters
A dump truck is filled up with blocks of meat at French meat processor Spanghero's factory in Castelnaudary near Toulouse, France, Friday.
Some in Western Europe have pointed the finger particularly at Romania, where a ban on horses in cities and the tough economic climate have been cited as reasons for a rise in exports of horse meat. The Romanians have insisted the meat was properly labeled as horse when it left the country, Reuters reported.
According to French investigators, one French firm alone made a profit of $733,800 over six months by selling cheaper horse meat as beef in a supply chain involving 28 companies in 13 countries, Reuters reported. The company, Spanghero, protested its innocence Friday.
Intelligence agency Europol -- normally tasked with combating the trafficking of guns, drugs and humans -- was brought in to investigate what one British lawmaker has described as an “international criminal conspiracy.” Three arrests -- the first over the scandal -- were made in the U.K. on Thursday.
Expert: Watch what you eat
Some officials believe only the “tip of the iceberg” has been revealed, and on Friday the European Union endorsed a major DNA-testing program to establish just how much unlabeled horse meat is being sold as beef or other foods.
For ManMohan Sodhi, a professor specializing in supply chains at London’s City University, the news has been a revelation.
“If you had talked to me a month ago, I would have said: ‘No, it would never happen; I completely believe in the [food supply] system,’” he said.
Now his message is “Watch out for what you eat.”
The U.K. has ordered thousands of beef products be tested - as companies recall ready-to-eat meals bought by millions after finding horsemeat in lasagna. ITV'S Chris Choy reports.
Sodhi compared the current situation to the first signs of the gross mismanagement of subprime mortgages that led to the banking crisis. “People began to uncover risks and suddenly there were too many problems,” he said.
He said large supermarkets like to deal with large suppliers who are in turn supplied by other firms and so on down to farmers and other actual food producers. At any point in the chain, someone could decide to cut costs by replacing a high-cost food with a cheap substitute.
Sodhi explained it was not in the interest of supermarkets to check their suppliers. This, he said, would be an added expense and would also make them legally liable if something went wrong.
Taking goods on trust meant they instead had “plausible deniability,” he said. “Then if something bad happens, all I do is put out an advertisement and say, ‘We really care about our customers, we’re doing everything we can … too bad somebody did something horrible.”
In a video message, Tim Smith, group technical director of supermarket giant Tesco, spoke of the firm's "unreserved apology" over the discovery of horse DNA in its frozen hamburgers and said it had dropped a supplier in Ireland.
But he also stressed the company was taking steps to ensure this never happened again.
Smith said Tesco planned to "launch a new program of activity which will test on a DNA fingerprinting basis all the meat and meat products that we source from our suppliers ... adding another layer of surveillance to help protect our customers."
On Thursday, a Tesco spokesman was unable to clarify exactly how extensive the DNA tests would be.
'Cynically and systematically duped'
Sodhi’s opinion that things could be far worse than they currently appear might be dismissed by some.
But a committee of British lawmakers that investigated the situation published a report Thursday that concluded the discoveries so far were “likely to be the tip of the iceberg” amid “suggestion of fraud on a massive scale.”
The committee concluded that it appeared consumers had been “cynically and systematically duped in pursuit of profit by elements within the food industry.”
“This scandal has also raised broader food policy questions about cheap food production, transparency, consumer confidence and pressures within the supply chain,” it added.
There are suggestions that traditional butcher’s stores have benefited from the furor.
Toby Melville / Reuters
Danny Lidgate hangs meat in the cold store area of Lidgates butchers in London Wednesday, as traditional butchers report a surge in demand from consumers.
Roger Kelsey, of the National Federation of Meat & Food Traders, estimated his members had seen an increase of up to 50 percent in demand for sausages, ground beef and burgers, according to the BBC. The British Retail Consortium, which represents supermarkets, has insisted their sales have not suffered.
Family-run store Aubrey Allen, of Leamington Spa, was named the U.K.’s Butcher’s Shop of the Year 2012 and was recently given a royal warrant to supply meat, poultry and game to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
Russell Allen, who was born into the business, said supermarkets would “push and squeeze” and “bully their suppliers” to cut costs.
But he also said ordinary people shared some of the blame for the horse meat scandal by providing the demand for very cheap food.
“If you are buying five burgers for a pound ($1.55), I kind of think you get what you deserve," he said. "It suggests you don’t care, so why would you suddenly care?”
Allen said he thought people should eat better quality meat and have it less often.
He lamented the loss of a culture of cooking. Now, he said, people don't know what to do with cheaper cuts of meat and view him as strange for having homemade soup for lunch.
“Generally people say, ‘I don’t have time to cook’ and I say, ‘Well, you’ve got time to watch people cooking [on television],’” he said.
Allen said butcher’s shops were making something of a comeback after many were put out of business by supermarkets in the 1970s and 1980s.
But he admitted mass-produced food was probably here to stay. “I think it’s possibly a necessary evil on some levels. Not everyone can afford to, not everyone has the luxury of eating quality products all the time,” he said.
'Going on for years'
Frenchman Michel Roux Jr., whose restaurant Le Gavroche is one of Britain’s best, also criticized supermarkets for putting pressure on their suppliers and suggested the horse meat scandal was not a recent occurrence.
“I’m sure that it’s been going on for years, absolutely years,” he said. “It’s being done on a nod and a wink.”
Roux said he remembered as a child eating roast horse and horse burgers. And he suggested a legitimate market for horse meat might be a positive step.
“Horse meat is a good meat … maybe in Britain we should embrace it, we should be eating more,” Roux said.
He said the flavor was “not too dissimilar to beef, slightly sweeter and richer,” admitting it wasn’t his favorite.
However, asked if he would put horse meat on his menu, he replied, “Not as yet.”
In Ireland, the officials who uncovered that first horse meat burger and several others with trace amounts can scarcely believe what has transpired since they went public on Jan. 15.
Ray Ellard, director of The Food Safety Authority of Ireland, said they had been “not expecting to find too much” when they carried out a small survey of beef products.
“We were kind of … I wouldn’t say taken aback, but that’s kind of the truth,” Ellard said. “We were wondering, ‘What’s going on here?’ and wanted to be absolutely sure of the science of what we were doing.”
“We set out to do something fairly simple. We didn’t know it was going to end up where it is,” Ellard added. “It’s been painful for a lot of the food industry, some people have had reputational damage.”
“We’re glad in one way. Systems will all improve and the potential for defrauding people will be a lot less. We’re glad that that’s happened, but we had a nervous few days, I can tell you.”
Reuters contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:496420ec-91dc-4cb7-a051-c61167dde9e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/16/16964619-fraud-on-a-massive-scale-europes-horse-meat-scandal-keeps-on-growing?lite= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977817 | 2,077 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
The Department of Mathematics & Computer Science seeks to graduate students who can:
- appropriately analyze a wide variety of mathematical and computing problems,
- understand and apply relevant theory and technology to solve real-world problems,
- develop and implement insightful and efficient solutions, and
- effectively communicate both abstract ideas and practical solutions.
Entering students take a placement test in mathematics prior to enrolling in courses. The test results in conjunction with other criteria are used to place students in an appropriate mathematics course. Advanced placement credit in calculus and statistics is possible for students who have an especially strong mathematical background.
Courses in mathematics are designed for students who want to:
- acquire cultural knowledge of mathematics and its applications,
- apply mathematical principles of analysis and modeling in the natural and social sciences and also in industry,
- prepare for graduate studies in mathematics or related disciplines, and
- become teachers of mathematics at the precollege and college levels.
Courses in computer science are designed for students who want to:
- acquire a conceptual foundation for understanding and working with computers in a continuously changing field,
- learn practical skills in programming and software development,
- prepare for careers in computing in business and industry, and
- prepare for further study in computer science or information systems.
Emphasis is placed on working with a variety of industries and software companies to provide students with real-world software experience through classroom projects, internships and senior research. | <urn:uuid:b68c6ed6-b6a0-4fad-9327-9130e091e8f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manchester.edu/Academics/Departments/Math_CptrSci/index.shtml | 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 | 0.930744 | 302 | 2.0625 | 2 |
September 11, 2006
Captain Charles Leidig, a low ranking officer temporarily in charge of the NMCC, is handling the NMCC’s crisis teleconference. He mentions reports of a crash into the opposite side of the Pentagon, and requests that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld be added to the conference. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] As one magazine has noted, “On September 11, the normal scramble-approval procedure was for an FAA official to contact the [NMCC] and request Pentagon air support. Someone in the NMCC would call NORAD’s Command Center and ask about availability of aircraft, then seek approval from the defense secretary—Donald H. Rumsfeld—to launch fighters.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Rather than join the NMCC conference, Rumsfeld has already gone out of the Pentagon to see the crash site, and remains out of contact for some time. It is unknown if Rumsfeld had a cell phone or pager, and if so, why he cannot be reached.
Two seconds after 9:39 a.m., reporter Jim Miklaszewski states on NBC News, “Moments ago, I felt an explosion here at the Pentagon.” [Name Missing, n.d.] However, no media outlets record video footage of the Pentagon crash, and the cause of the crash remains unknown for some minutes afterward.
The Flight 93 hijackers (probably inadvertently) transmit over the radio: “Hi, this is the captain. We’d like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board. And we are going to turn back to the airport. And they had our demands, so please remain quiet.” [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; MSNBC, 9/3/2002; Longman, 2002, pp. 209; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] The controller responds, “United 93, understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead,” but there is no response. There was a very similar “bomb on board” warning from the same flight at 9:32 a.m. (see (9:32 a.m.)). The 9/11 Commission indicates that these are separate incidents. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Cleveland flight control apparently continues to wait for FAA superiors to notify NORAD. Earlier in the morning, Boston flight control directly contacted NORAD (see (8:37 a.m.)) and local air force bases when they determined Flight 11 was hijacked.
TrackBack URL for this entry: | <urn:uuid:4887ae6f-31c9-460c-92e2-420ccda4277f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caerdroia.org/blog/archives/2006/09/939.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925077 | 550 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Michigan state legislators are pushing forward on their own proposed reforms for health care in the state. States should be encouraged to initiate their own reform efforts and reject one-size-fits-all federal reforms, but the enthusiasm that Teamster lobbyist William Black expressed in the Lansing State Journal for state Rep. Marc Corriveau’s proposed reforms is misplaced. Mr. Black did a fair job of characterizing these changes. Here’s his bullet points:
- Guarantee access by requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
- Prohibit insurance companies from raising rates on people when they get sick.
- Require all insurance companies to accept everyone for coverage, regardless of their pre-existing conditions, rather than “cherry-picking” only the healthy to cover.
- End discrimination against women when determining rates.
- Expand the MIChild program to help cover every Michigan child.
- Create a special fund that will rein in health care costs and protect sick Michiganders from predatory insurance companies.
These are all suggestions we hear often — and well-intentioned ones, to be sure. It doesn’t seem fair that those with pre-existing conditions should be denied access to health coverage in the interests of a health insurance company’s bottom line, but this line of thinking ignores the realities of the insurance business.
Insurance works by allowing you to pay ahead of time to hedge against the possibility of some bad event occurring — such as a car accient, illness or fire. Everyone pays into a plan and that covers the costs of these events when they occasionally occur. You may not pay less over the entirety of your coverage than you would without insurance, but you are protected from large costs when a bad event occurs. These costs, even if they are high, are covered by everyone’s low contributions because they are typically unlikely. As an incident becomes more likely, the average cost of insuring you increases — this is why car companies increase insurance rates when you demonstrate a propensity for fender-benders. In this case, it’s obvious that those who are more likely to be in an accident should shoulder the cost of insuring themselves — they shouldn’t be able to spread those costs to everyone.
(It’s worth noting that health insurance companies can’t cancel your coverage or change your rates if you get sick the way auto insurance can, so long as you keep up with paying your premiums, so point two of these reforms is redundant.)
If someone has a pre-exisiting condition, there is a 100 percent liklihood that that condition will occur. In order to cover the costs to this person, the insurance company will either have to charge the sick individual the full cost of their care or spread out that amount to all of its customers, effectively raising all insurance rates and maybe making them too expensive to those who might otherwise insure themselves. This is the reason that those with pre-existing conditions are actually not appropriate candidates for insurance.
Does that mean these individuals can’t be guaranteed access to some sort of coverage for their health care costs? No — but direct subsidies to the patients are a more appropriate program than reforms that will raise insurance rates for everyone — especially if that would leave more Americans without insurance. | <urn:uuid:45b821a2-3059-4e4f-b921-e2852705c74e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=11691 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962019 | 674 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Putting the opening contents of Speculation + the "Contradiction" section here, so when I go through and change it, I'm not just obliterating someone's ideas, and if they want to argue for them, here they are:
The term Commander is used in two separate ways. All units with Leadership, including Warlords, and Chief Warlords, are periodically called Commander by their associates as a title. The actual rank of Commander indicates that a unit has the Leadership Natural Ability, but no confers no Leadership Bonus to units under its command; whereas, Warlords and Chief Warlords confer a Leadership Bonus to units in their stack and in other cases as well.
Contradiction in Terminology
It seems that "Commander" is a more general term - Commanders have an ability to lead other units in combat (not necessarily deriving from Leadership natural ability) while Warlords are Commanders who have Leadership ability and thus give units under their command a Leadership bonus. It should be noted that in some special cases Casters can give a bonus to certain units under their command (known examples are Golems led by a Dirtamancer and uncroaked led by a Croakamancer)Erf-b1-p084a.
- Commander I. Heartly Noah June 3 2009
Noah, that thing reads badly. It is also reliant on "Only Warlords have leadership." But you're taking all of the context away. The bit aboout Casters being Commanders comes first. Further, Parson learns over time. We've seen him correct himself without noting mistakes before. "Casters are Commanders and can lead stacks... but [Casters] give no leadership bonus to the stack anyway. Only warlords have Leadership." Is the correct way to rad that paragraph. You're flipping sentences around, and that changes context away from intention.
Commanders must have Leadership. If they don't, then "stacks without a leader are forced to auto-attack" would change to become "stacks without a warlord are forced to auto-attack".
This all resolves very easily with the restored context for "Only Warlords have leadership." That coccurs immediately after the mention that Casters can leda but don't provide a leadership bonus... their Leadership is 0. They have leadership, but it's 0. The Warlords comment means only that Warlords provide a Leadership bonus, but Commanders do not. Look at the paragraph that follows. "Makes sense. Except for certain exceptions. Like say.. the bonus to those golems if they're lead by the Dirtamancer." So, to complete the return of context...
""Casters are Commanders and can lead stacks... but [Casters] give no leadership bonus to the stack anyway. Only warlords have Leadership. Except for certain exceptions. Like the bonus to those golems if they're lead by the Dirtamancer." Parson is only talking about "Only Warlords have a leadership bonus." It's the only explanation that keeps it all in context. It explains the first Klog ont he subject, and resolves this seeming Terminology Conflict. Rob took a short cut on that sentence, that's all. (Honestly, I didn't know anyone had a problem with this.) --Kreistor 07:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC) | <urn:uuid:0a4684a0-8f64-475e-babb-322d17759182> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:Commander&oldid=20878 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971413 | 687 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Refraction at a Boundary
Interact, view, and manipulate variables with the Refraction of Light activity from the Shockwave Studios.Flickr Physics
Visit The Physics Classroom's Flickr Galleries and enjoy a photo overview of the topic of refraction and lenses.Flickr Physics
Visit The Physics Classroom's Flickr Galleries and enjoy the terrific display of photos showing the refraction of light by dew drops.Shockwave Studios
Take the challenge. Try the Least Time Principle activity at the Shockwave Studios.Phun with PhET
Explore the effect of the index and angle of refraction on the direction and amount of bending of a light ray.
Demonstrate the effect of n values using Refraction of Light from the Shockwave Studios.Shockwave Studios
Give your students a challenge with the Least Time Principle activity at the Shockwave Studios.The Laboratory
Looking for a lab that coordinates with this page? Try the Direction of Bending Lab from The Laboratory.Curriculum Corner
Learning requires action. Give your students this sense-making activity from The Curriculum Corner.Treasures from TPF
Need ideas? Need help? Explore The Physics Front's treasure box of catalogued resources on ray optics, including the topic of refraction.Phun with PhET
Use this simulation from PhET to demonstrate the effect of the index of refraction on the direction and amount of bending of a light ray.Fermat Light Ray Model
Demonstrate Fermat's principle of least time and its relation to refraction with this EJS simulation from Open Source Physics (OSP).
The Direction of Bending
Refraction is the bending of the path of a light wave as it passes from one material into another material. The refraction occurs at the boundary and is caused by a change in the speed of the light wave upon crossing the boundary. The tendency of a ray of light to bend one direction or another is dependent upon whether the light wave speeds up or slows down upon crossing the boundary. The speed of a light wave is dependent upon the optical density of the material through which it moves. For this reason, the direction that the path of a light wave bends depends on whether the light wave is traveling from a more dense (slow) medium to a less dense (fast) medium or from a less dense medium to a more dense medium. In this part of Lesson 1, we will investigate this topic of the direction of bending of a light wave.
Recall the Marching Soldiers analogy discussed earlier in this lesson. The analogy served as a model for understanding the boundary behavior of light waves. As discussed, the analogy is often illustrated in a Physics classroom by a student demonstration. In the demonstration, a line of students (representing a light wave) marches towards a masking tape (representing the boundary) and slows down upon crossing the boundary (representative of entering a new medium). The direction of the line of students changes upon crossing the boundary. The diagram below depicts this change in direction for a line of students who slow down upon crossing the boundary.
On the diagram, the direction of the students is represented by two arrows known as rays. The direction of the students as they approach the boundary is represented by an incident ray (drawn in blue). And the direction of the students after they cross the boundary is represented by a refracted ray (drawn in red). Since the students change direction (i.e., refract), the incident ray and the refracted ray do not point in the same direction. Also, note that a perpendicular line is drawn to the boundary at the point where the incident ray strikes the boundary (i.e., masking tape). A line drawn perpendicular to the boundary at the point of incidence is known as a normal line. Observe that the refracted ray lies closer to the normal line than the incident ray does. In such an instance as this, we would say that the path of the students has bent towards the normal. We can extend this analogy to light and conclude that:
The above principle applies to light passing from a material in which it travels fast across a boundary and into a material in which it travels slowly. But what if light wave does the opposite? What if a light wave passes from a material in which it travels slowly across a boundary and into a material in which it travels fast? The answer to this question can be answered if we reconsider the Marching Soldier analogy. Now suppose that the each individual student in the train of students speeds up once they cross the masking tape. The first student to reach the boundary will speed up and pull ahead of the other students. When the second student reaches the boundary, he/she will also speed up and pull ahead of the other students who have not yet reached the boundary. This continues for each consecutive student, causing the line of students to now be traveling in a direction further from the normal. This is depicted in the diagram below.
From this analogy and the diagram above, we see that the refracted ray (in red) is further away from the normal then the incident ray (in blue). In such an instance as this, we would say that the path of the students has bent away from the normal. We can once more extend this analogy to light and conclude that:
Now lets consider another analogy to assist in our understanding of these two important principles. Suppose that a tractor is moving across an asphalt surface towards a rectangular plot of grass (as shown in the diagram at the right). Upon entering the grass, the tractors' wheels will sink into the surface and slow down. Upon exiting the plot of grass on the opposite side, the tractor wheels will speed up and achieve their original speed. In effect, this analogy would be representative of a light wave crossing two boundaries. At the first boundary (the asphalt to grass boundary), the light wave (or the tractor) would be slowing down; and at the second boundary (the grass to asphalt boundary), the light wave (or the tractor) would be speeding up. We can apply our two important principles listed above and predict the direction of bending and the path of the tractor as it travels through the rectangular plot of grass. As indicated on the diagram, upon entering the grass, the wheels slow down and the path of the tractor bends towards the normal (perpendicular line drawn to the surface). Upon exiting the plot of grass, the wheels speed up and the path of the tractor bends away from the normal. The path of the tractor is closer to the normal in the slower medium and farther away from the normal in the faster medium.
This analogy can be extended to the path of a light wave as it passes from air into and out of a rectangular block of glass. Since air is less optically dense than glass, the light wave will slow down upon entering the glass and speed up when exiting the glass. In other words, the light wave will be undergoing the same change in speed as the tractor in the above diagram. For this reason, the direction of bending for the light wave upon entering and exiting the glass will be the same as in the diagram above. The light ray refracts towards the normal upon entering the glass (crossing from a fast to a slow medium) and refracts away from the normal upon exiting the glass (crossing from a slow to a fast medium). This is shown in the diagram at the right.
There is an important point to be noted in these diagrams of the rectangular plot of grass and rectangular block of glass. Notice that the direction of the original incident ray is the same as the direction of the final refracted ray. Put another way, the direction at which the light is traveling when entering the rectangular block of glass is the same as the direction that the light travels after exiting the rectangular block of glass. There is no ultimate change in the direction that the light is traveling. This small detail will only be the case under two conditions:
- the two sides of the glass through which the light enters and exits are parallel to each other
- the medium surrounding the glass on the side through which the light enters and exits are the same
These two conditions are met in the case of a rectangular block of glass surrounded by air.
The diagrams below provide a contrast to the rectangular plot of grass and the rectangular block of glass. Both diagrams involve the refraction of a tractor or a light wave as it passes into and out of a triangular plot of grass and a triangular block of glass.
Copy this diagram onto a sheet of paper and apply your understanding of refraction principles to predict the path of the tractor and the light wave as it travels through the triangle-shaped obstacle. Draw the path on your separate sheet of paper and then click on the button below to check your answer
Another means of approaching the subject of the direction that light bends when crossing a boundary between two media is through the Least Time Principle. This Least Time Principle is sometimes stated as follows:
A useful analogy to understanding the principle involves a lifeguard who has become aware of a drowning swimmer in the water. In order to save the drowning swimmer, the lifeguard must run through the sand, cross the boundary between the sand and the water, and then swim through the water to the drowning swimmer. Of course, the guard must reach the swimmer in as little time as possible. Since the guard can run faster on sand than she can swim in water, it would make sense that the guard covers more distance in the sand than she does in the water. In other words, she will not run directly at the drowning swimmer. The optimal entry point into the water is the point that would allow the lifeguard to reach the drowning swimmer in the least amount of time. Obviously, this point would be at a location closer to the swimmer than to the guard. The diagram below depicts such an entry point.
Observe in the diagram, that minimizing the time to reach the swimmer means that the lifeguard will approach the boundary at a steep angle to the normal and then will bend towards the normal upon crossing the boundary. This analogy demonstrates that the Least Time Principle would predict the following direction of bending:
A ray of light will bend towards the normal when crossing the boundary from a medium in which it travels fast into a medium in which it travels slowly.
This is the very generalization that was made earlier on this page.
Using the above principles and logic to explain and predict the direction that light refracts when crossing a boundary will be a major objective of this unit. Rather than merely restating the principle, you will be asked to apply it to a variety of situations (such as those in the Check Your Understanding section below). Part of accomplishing this task will involve remembering the principles. For this reason, the following useful mnemonics are offered.
A mnemonic is a tool used to help one remember and difficult-to-remember idea. Of course, there is always the risk that the mnemonic will be forgotten. And since FST and SFA might not be the most easily remembered mnemonics, perhaps the following oddity will help. You can remember FST (fast to slow; towards) by simply thinking about those Freaky Science Teachers that you have had through the years. And you can remember SFA by thinking about the disgusting habit of your friend Sara (or Susan or Sammy or Samir or Somebody ...) - Sarah Farts Alot.
Flickr Physics Photo
Test your ability to apply these principles by answering the following questions.
6. Arthur Podd's method of fishing involves spearing the fish while standing on the shore. The actual location of a fish is shown in the diagram below. Because of the refraction of light, the observed location of the fish is different than its actual location. Indicate on the diagram the approximate location where Arthur observes the fish to be. Must Arthur aim above or below where the fish appears to be in order to strike the fish?
7. For the following two cases, state whether the ray of light will bend towards or away from the normal upon crossing the boundary. | <urn:uuid:9f087809-2edf-40bd-bd86-d93c78a2d0c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/refrn/u14l1e.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933724 | 2,467 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Welcome to the little black book project.
It’s officially out on the street
(or should we say coffee counter near you). Thanks to an enthusiastic group of grade twelve students at Bert Church High School, thirty little black books have made their way out into the universe! Many of the students wrote or drew entries to get people motivated to take part. If you see one of these books add your thoughts and if you like drop us a line and tell us where you found it.
Bert Church Drama Students above have fun prepping our little black books. From left; Rheana Baccus, Levi Bullock, Chyanne Breland, Tamara Vis, in front Mackenzie Jones. Photo credit: A.M.J. Bert Church High School
What it says inside:
If you are holding this book to read the thoughts, notes, quotes and doodles of others and then add your own, think of it as an old fashioned facebook. A sort of message in a bottle.
- You can be anonymous or use your initials.
- You can be funny, reflective, honest or upset.
- You can be vague, direct, clever or silly.
- All we ask if that you don’t use profanity or print messages of hate.
Once you have added your words or doodles please for someone else to share. You may leave it where you found it or take it to another public place.
If you find this book and there is no more room to write in it please send it to:
Creative Airdrie Society
#509, 203 – 304 Main Street Square
Airdrie AB T4B 3C3
Your postage will be reimbursed if you provide a return address. | <urn:uuid:46cc42bd-a5ea-478e-86f6-7d1818d3cf95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creativeairdrie.ca/?page_id=28 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900642 | 363 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Fireworks are popular and fun, but it is important to remember that they are explosives and burn at very high temperatures, so they need careful handling and storage. Misuse of fireworks might lead to injury and may also cause misery to residents, pets and wild animals.
It is important that consumer's take care when purchasing fireworks and that retailers ensure safe storage and observe age restriction legislation.
The GOV.UK web site has some useful page for anyone who may be handling fireworks.
If you are a Leicestershire business and would like guidance on the laws and restrictions that apply to the sale of fire works please refer to the guidance set out on our Fireworks - Information for Retailers page. If you are a consumer you may find the information below helpful.
Always check labelling when buying fireworks. Fireworks sold to the public in the UK must meet British Standard BS7114. The British Standard marking should appear on the packaging and firework itself.
It is illegal to break down retail boxes of fireworks for sale. Do not purchase fireworks sold loose.
There are different categories of fireworks. Members of the public can buy and set off most of the fireworks that come under Categories 1 to 3. These are generally fireworks that can be used indoors, in your garden or at a display.
Some fireworks can only be bought and used by firework professionals. These include air bombs, aerial shells, aerial maroons, shells-in-mortar and maroons-in-mortar, all bangers, mini rockets, fireworks with erratic flight, some Category 2 and 3 fireworks which exceed certain size limits, and all Category 4 fireworks.
Always read the packet carefully and make sure that the fireworks you buy are suitable for the place where you are going to set them off.
It is illegal to sell adult fireworks (which includes sparklers) to anybody under the age of eighteen and caps, cracker snaps, indoor fireworks, novelty matches, party poppers, serpents and throwdowns to persons under sixteen. It is the retailer’s responsibility to determine the age of the potential buyer and the Service advises that the Challenge 21 approach is followed. This means that anyone appearing to be under 21 years of age will be asked to provide suitable photographic proof of age. This would be a passport, photo driving licence or PASS accredited proof of age card such as Validate UK. Please don’t take offence if a retailer asks you for proof of age when attempting to purchase fireworks or another age restricted product. They are simply taking steps to prevent illegal sales. If you look under 21 years of age and wish to purchase fireworks it would be advisable to carry proof of age with you to avoid a sale being refused.
If you have any information regarding the sale of fireworks to underage children please report it to Leicestershire Police on 0116 2222222 or Consumer Direct on 08454040506. Trading Standards do carry out test purchase operations working with underage child volunteers to test compliance with the age restriction and will react to any intelligence alleging illegal sales to children.
Legislation is in place which affects the sale, storage and use of fireworks.
It is a criminal offence to:
- Throw or discharge a firework in the street
- Possess an adult firework (this does not include caps, crackers snaps, novelty matches, party poppers, serpents, sparklers, or throwdowns) in a public place if aged under 18
- Possess a Category 4 firework if not a fireworks professional
- Use a firework between 11pm and 7am except for:
- November 5th - Midnight
- New Year’s Eve - 1am following day
- Chinese New Year - 1am following day
- Diwali - 1am following day
Please ensure that your children are aware of the dangers and potential repercussions associated with firework misuse. People found guilty of the above offences may be liable to a fine of up to £5,000 and 6 months imprisonment.
If you have any concerns regarding misuse of fireworks please contact Leicestershire Police on 0116 2222222.
Page Last Updated: 28 October 2009 | <urn:uuid:6c0f07ea-caee-4802-9025-e6e4b209a248> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.leics.gov.uk/index/business/tradingstandards/ts_whats_new/fireworks.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931683 | 851 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In a time of major spending cuts, two Republican governors have said they’ll spare film-industry tax credits from the budget knife, unlike Republican Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, whose proposal to ax them scared the film industry away from his state.
Republican governors Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania and John Kasich of Ohio both preserved the Film Tax Credit program in their recent state budgets, deciding instead to cut subsidies elsewhere, a move one tax expert says will not pay off.
“The biggest problem is [states are] using an extremely inefficient instrument … at a time when deficits are a problem,” said Robert Tannenwald, Senior Fellow for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “An industry that is so risky and geographically mobile — that is not the kind of industry that states should try to cultivate.”
Under Mr. Kasich’s proposed fiscal year 2012 budget released Tuesday, the Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs, Department of Health, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture, to name just a few, would all see their current funding levels slashed. By exempting the film-industry tax breaks, the inveterate deficit hawk hopes to lure big-name Hollywood producers to film in his state — a hope that now looks realistic.
Earlier this month, the governor announced that Ohio had snagged Marvel Studios’ next super-hero movie “The Avengers,” which will bring popular actors such as Robert Downey Jr. to the state. The film’s producers had earlier been eyeing Michigan as a location, according to the Detroit Free Press, but after Mr. Snyder announced his plans to cut out film tax credits by 2012, they backed away and decided to shoot in Cleveland.
Although Michigan has left its future as an attractive filming location in question, Mr. Tannenwald said other states would be wise to follow suit. The economic benefits of film tax credits are often exaggerated by proponents, he said.
“Yes, you see an increase in hotel bookings, business for carpenters, hairdressers … you see all of that,” Mr. Tannenwald said. “But the bulk of the payroll for film shoots goes to nonresident, specialized film production talent, people brought in from Hollywood, New York City and other places. If a state is interested in developing and growing its economy long term, it should follow Michigan’s example.”
The proposed budget for Michigan must pass before film tax credits are eliminated. Until then, the Michigan Film Office is still accepting applications, but not approving them until the budget is settled, according to Michelle Benoche, the office’s communications adviser.
“Our office was given directive to follow the proposed fiscal year 2012 budget,” Ms. Benoche said. “We weren’t given a clear meaning of what that means for our budget for 2011. In the meantime, we are accepting applications, but until we get that policy into place we are not approving the 43 pending applications.”
The governor’s proposed $25 million cap on film incentives comes on the heels of what Ms. Benoche calls Michigan’s “biggest year” yet with the film industry. According to the Michigan Film Office 2010 Annual Report, 58 projects spent more than $293 million in Michigan, 5,310 Michigan workers were hired by productions, and more than $115 million was awarded in incentives by the state in 2010.
Maintaining that momentum won’t be easy under the proposed $25 million cap.
“It’s not how much harder,” said Jim Burnstein, vice chairman of the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council. “It’s impossible. I deal with Hollywood every day; they have written us off. If this stands, it’s over, we’re done. I believe that over time we would have had a very nice mix of projects coming in from Hollywood but also projects we would generate, like Michigan-based movies.”
Mr. Burnstein, the screenwriting coordinator at the University of Michigan, said the governor’s proposal also puts a damper on the dreams of many film students who planned to graduate and live in Michigan to begin their careers. They are lost talent that will now leave for other places such as New York and L.A. to find work, he said.
According to Mr. Burnstein, the film incentives have spurred the creation of thousands of jobs in Michigan since their inception. Although the incentives are given to producers, local hires are favored, and hotels, dry cleaners, clothing stores and local actors beginning careers benefit, he said.
“It’s jobs, jobs, jobs,” Mr. Burnstein said. “I’ve worked in this industry as a screenwriter since 1989. Everywhere I’ve gone, where I’ve seen it done right, it is great for the economy.”View Entire Story
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
In a world that is increasingly complex, we need to seek greater awareness of the blending of cultures and America's changing role in a global community.
A look at what’s new and what’s worth driving, no matter the budget.
Finding health and health care is not easy. It is changing. Know what's on the rise.
Television commentary, reviews, news and nonstop DVR catch-up.
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
NRA kicks off annual convention
California wildfires wreak havoc | <urn:uuid:80257b98-ee86-449a-ab20-860844e0453c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/20/two-gop-governors-plan-to-spare-film-tax-credits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952846 | 1,209 | 1.515625 | 2 |
One of the foremost international human rights organizations, the Robert F. Kennedy Center, is calling for nominations to a new Journalism Award on International Photography and International Social Media hosted by their European Office in Florence, Italy. The award will recognize the achievements of professionals and students who investigate human rights issues and advocate for change.
The journalism award is a first step of a long-term Smart Dissident Project by the RFK Center, aiming at providing digital activists from countries in the Middle East and North Africa with a physical working space (the former prison complex Le Murate in Florence, now beautifully restored) and an opportunity to stand up for freedom of expression and for the defense of human rights. The winners in the professional categories will win two weeks stay at Le Murate complex.
As part of the same project the Center will offer a course on “Social Media and Human Rights: Can Smart Dissidents Create Change?” planned for 18-19 June, 2012 (with participation from Global Voices), followed by the Journalism Award ceremony.
Nomination entries should describe the causes, conditions and remedies of injustice and critical analysis of relevant public policies, programs, attitudes, and private endeavors.
Submission deadline is May 15, 2012 (click here to download an entry form).
Updates from the RFK European Office are on Twitter:
The Robert F. Kennedy Center present awards every year for both Human Rights and Journalism. In September 2011, the winner of the Human Rights Award was Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an umbrella organisation that protects LGBTI people in the country. | <urn:uuid:aa680bba-60ed-493d-9bd3-41acb3ce0050> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/11/robert-f-kennedy-award-will-recognize-social-media-journalism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919571 | 322 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Supernova ‘CSI’ Team Eyes Old Photos for Stellar Blast Victim
In a forensic twist on astronomy, scientists turned sleuths are trying to track down the stellar victim of a supernova explosion that occurred last year.
Image: This artist’s conception shows what scientists believe to be the progenitor system of the supernova SN 2011dh, which exploded in the Whirlpool galaxy in May 2011. The system consists of a blue star and a yellow supergiant. Credit: Kavli IPMU/Aya Tsuboi
An exploded star was discovered on May 31, 2011, in the famous nearby Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), which lies about 23 million light-years from our own Milky Way. Supernovas are thought to occur when massive stars reach the end of their lives, running out of fuel to power their inner furnaces and collapsing in on themselves to form dense neutron stars or black holes.
This supernova, called SN 2011dh, peaked in brightness in June 2011, shining light across the universe that was picked up by telescopes here on Earth. Now, astronomers are going back to photos taken of the galaxy before the supernova to try to find the star that exploded. | <urn:uuid:3b1057c8-5b43-485a-8b6a-e90f9b54194f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ikenbot.tumblr.com/post/32780291145/supernova-csi-team-eyes-old-photos-for-stellar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93524 | 250 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Learn To Ski & Ride for FREE & Safety Week
JANUARY INCLUDES LEARN TO SKI AND RIDE MONTH AND SAFETY WEEK AT POWDERHORN MOUNTAIN RESORT
MESA, Colo. Jan. 3, 2013 – In January, Powderhorn Mountain Resort celebrates the National Ski Areas Associations 'Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month', and 'National Safety Week' – January 19th-27th, 2013. In honor of Learn to Ski and Ride Month, Powderhorn introduces the Daily Sentinal’s Learn to Ski and Ride Season Pass Series. And, throughout Safety Week, guests can visit Powderhorn’s guest service desk to gather safety tips and other helpful information on how to play safely and responsibly on the mountain. Find more information for each program below:
The Daily Sentinal’s Learn to Ski and Ride Season Pass Series
Designed for First Timers ages eight and up, The Daily Sentinal’s Learn to Ski and Ride Season Pass Series features three consecutive ski or snowboard lessons at Powderhorn Mountain Resort. Participants emerge from the series with a great foundation in their chosen snow sport, and are able to put new skills to the test, on-mountain. Upon completion of the three-lesson program, participants receive a FREE season pass for the rest of the season. Cost for the program is: $249 for Youth and Pre-teen program participants (ages 8-17), and $299 for Adults (18+).
*This is a full day Group Lesson with an hour break for lunch. Lessons run from 10am-12pm and 1pm-3pm.
Safety Week- January 19th-27th, 2013:
Powderhorn Mountain Resort is dedicated to the safety of all guests and staff members throughout each season, and those efforts get the spotlight in January during National Safety Week. Skiers and riders can stop by the guest service desk in the Powderhorn Mountain Resort Lodge to pick up a “Know the Code” document including skin and health safety, as well as information on safety rules on the mountain.
“Supporting and encouraging safety across the resort will help us enhance the mountain experience for our guest,” said General Manager Daren Cole.
About Powderhorn Mountain Resort
Powderhorn Mountain Resort continues its commitment to an authentic skiing and riding experience for the 2012-2013 season. Nestled deep in the heart of the Grand Mesa on the storied Western Slope of Colorado, Powderhorn is a scenic, family-friendly resort featuring 1,600 acres of terrain suited to a variety of abilities and preferences. Powderhorn is known for extending exceptional value to each guest, thanks to improvements at the Resort and mountain focused on creating a one-of-a-kind, year-round experience. Western Colorado is known for its wide-open spaces, distinctive topography and friendly local residents. It is also recognized for its vineyards, wineries and agriculture. The climate allows for skiing or snowboarding in the morning and playing a round of golf, or enjoying a hike or mountain bike ride in the afternoon. Thanks to its location, the options for exploring, both on the mountain and throughout the Grand Mesa, are virtually endless. This season, Powderhorn welcomes guests with new pass options and resort partnerships, unique events, enhanced activity options, and more.
To learn more about Powderhorn Mountain Resort, visit www.powderhorn.com or call 970-268-5700.
You can also join the conversation on Facebook! | <urn:uuid:93db8070-bdbf-4e6b-8dde-a1a67ef50159> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powderhorn.com/news/learn-ski-ride-free-safety-week?qt-view__home_event_feed__default=3&qt-view__news_feed__block=0&qt-social_media_tabs=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92962 | 726 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Operations of The Salvation Army are supervised by trained, commissioned officers. They proclaim the gospel and serve as administrators, teachers, social workers, counselors, youth leaders, and musicians.
These men and women have dedicated their lives, skills, and service completely to God. Lay members who subscribe to the doctrines of The Salvation Army are called soldiers. Along with officers, they are known as Salvationists.
Candidates for officership undergo an intensive two-year course in residence at Salvation Army colleges in Chicago; Suffern, New York; Atlanta; and Rancho Palos Verdes, California. The curriculum combines theory and field practice, including Salvation Army doctrine, sociology and social work, psychology, Salvation Army regulations, homiletics, public speaking, Bible studies, church history, composition, community relations, business administration, accounting, and vocal and instrumental music.
After two successful years of training, cadets are commissioned as captains, ordained as ministers, and assigned to active duty while continuing their education. Captains are required to devote five years to additional studies.
Numerous advanced training courses are available for officers wishing to specialize in a particular discipline. Institutes, seminars, and conferences have been established to ensure that officers are informed of new and innovative programs and developments.
Promotion is based on length of service, character, efficiency, capacity for increased responsibility, and devotion to duty. The ranks are captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel and commissioner. The international leader holds the rank of general and is selected by a high council of active-duty commissioner and territorial commanders.
Salvation Army officers must devote full time to Army work. An officer who marries must marry another Salvation Army officer or leave his or her officer status. Married captains and majors will individually carry the rank applicable to their own length of service, not that of their spouse. In case of married officers, the conferred ranks of lieutenant colonel, colonel and commissioner will be held jointly. As ordained ministers of the gospel, they are authorized to perform marriage ceremonies, funeral services, and infant dedications. They also provide counseling and consolation to the bereaved.
The Salvation Army provides officers' living quarters, furnishings, and official transportation. Sixty-five is the retirement age. | <urn:uuid:e4f7c01c-51f2-4e64-8f34-75f0cde46242> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uss.salvationarmy.org/uss/www_uss_mgcc.nsf/vw-sublinks/DEDAE90258A463D480257377005524AA?openDocument | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962658 | 453 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Russian Billionaire Unveils Country's First Hybrid Car
Russia’s second richest man, billionaire Mikhail D. Prokhorov, has joined an exclusive club of wealthy movers and shakers who have invested in the green car movement. Prokhorov, who is the major owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, unveiled the first Russian hybrid vehicle, the Yo, this week in Moscow.
Looking somewhat like large toy cars, the three prototypes shown—a two-door car, a minivan and a small cargo van—are touted as being the world’s first natural gas hybrid electric vehicles. The Yo’s drivetrain is a series hybrid design that operates with two small electric motors, a bank of capacitors and a small engine that can burn either gasoline or natural gas. The engine operates almost continuously, generating electricity that powers the motors directly or charges the capacitors that discharge energy for start-and-stop city driving.
Noteworthy, and perhaps suspect, the internal combustion engine is a “rotary vane” type. Rather than move up and down as in a conventional engine, the pistons move in a circular arc. The advantage of this design is there are few moving parts resulting in a smooth operation.
During the press introduction, engineers said that at around 67 miles per gallon, the Yo delivers better fuel economy than the Toyota Prius (51 mpg) and has a range of 680 miles when both its natural gas and gasoline tanks are filled. The fuel mileage is due in part because the car is lightweight and also because of the unusual engine. According to Yo chief engineer, Andrei G. Ginzberg, the engine is a Soviet-legacy design that had limited use in Germany in the 1930s but was then cast off, except in the Soviet Union. Soviet scientists continued to work on it at a secret laboratory in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk but it was never commercialized.
Rotary vanes are actually an old technology that was patented in 1874. It is used today in automobile superchargers, power steering and transmission pumps.
Mr. Prokhorov is the sole investor of the hybrid car project. An initial investment of about $200 million will be made in a new Russian company called ë-Mobile, which will also manufacture the Yo in a venture with St. Petersburg carmaker Yarovit-Motors. Production is expected in mid-2012 and most of the components will be from Russia or the former Soviet Union. With a selling price of $14,500, the group forecasts 10,000 units annually, which is about 0.5% of Russia’s 2010 new car sales.
As for the name Yo, it’s how the letter “e” is pronounced in Russian. To the Russian ear it suggests something obscene, but a spokesman said, “We have no problems with that—everyone interprets it as he pleases.”
We hope that Mr. Prokhorov’s newest investment fares better than his ownership of the Nets, who have won only six games so far this season. But hey, that’s already showing an improvement over last year’s season record of 12 wins and 70 losses. | <urn:uuid:6a4e5f10-a666-48ad-986f-5e5aeb67d02a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hybridcars.com/russian-billionaire-unveils-countrys-first-hybrid-car-29039/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961344 | 671 | 2.0625 | 2 |
The Snake River is one of the major watercourses in the western USA, with headwaters rising in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, ultimately discharging to the Columbia River. The catchment area of the Snake River and its tributaries span portions of seven states, encompassing an area of 278,450 square kilometers.
One of the main conservation and water quality issues is reversing the agricultural diversions of the Snake, which actions would correspondingly reduce agricultural runoff of nitrate, herbicides and pesticides; other desirable conservation issues would be removal of hydroelectric dams, which inundate habitat and interfere with fish migration.
Source: USGS/ modified for Wikimedia Commons
The Snake River discharges to the Columbia River with a mean flow of approximately 1500 cubic meters per second, at its discharge in the state of Washington. Chief tributaries of the Snake River are Salt River, Gros Ventre River, Portneuf River, Owyhee River, Malheur River, Powder River, Wood River, Grande Ronde River, Henrys Fork, Malad River, Boise River, Payette River, Salmon River, Clearwater River and the Palouse River
Wild bison grazing on the Snake River Plain, Wyoming. @ C.Michael Hogan
From Jackson Lake to King Hill the Snake River travels about 810 kilometers, with an average gradient of slightly less than two percent. Surface water as well as groundwater exits the eastern plain of the upper Snake basin via the Snake River channel. Surface streamflow from six tributaries north of the Snake River Plain fails to reach the Snake River, but is lost via evapotranspiration and infiltration to groundwater underlying the Plain. Approximately 4.8 million acre-feet of water per year enters Idaho through the Snake River surface flow, with around 7.9 million acre-feet per annum exiting the Snake at King Hill.
In the irrigation season, the majority of the Snake’s volumetric flow upstream from Twin Falls is diverted for agricultural irrigation. Before irrigation commenced around 1900, two-thirds of the groundwater recharge to the eastern Snake River Plain was attributed to drainage basins tributary to the plain. However, by 1980, two-thirds of the groundwater recharge came from percolation of excess surface water diverted for irrigation, twenty percent came from tributary drainage basins, and about 13 perecent from precipitation on the plain.
A remarkable occurrence is found in the headwaters reach, where Two Ocean Creek actually splits at the Continental Divide in a relatively level marshy area; a pond is formed which simultaneously discharges to Atlantic Creek that flows east and into Pacific Creek that eventually reaches the Snake and hence the Pacific Ocean.
Some of the principal water quality issues of the Snake River derive from agricultural runoff, including sedimentation, nitrate, phosphate, herbicide and pesticide substances. For example, in the Snake River plain of southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, more than three million acres of agricultural lands are irrigated, resulting in annual sediment loss of ten to 100 megagrams of sediment loss per hectare, due to the erodible silty soils.
Nitrates in the Upper Snake Basin are 70 to 80 percent attributable to agricultural return flow, via initial infiltration to groundwater. Greatest impacts to nitrate concentrations are from rill-irrigated row crops, as distinguished from drip or sprinkler type irrigation; correstpondingly sediment loads are much higher from rill-irrigation.
The endemic Cottus leiopomus. found in the upper Snake River. A number of fish species having very limited distributions are found in the Snake River Basin. For example, the Snake River sucker (Chasmistes muriei), is known only to a restricted reach of the Snake River below Lake Jackson, Wyoming; however, this fish is deemed to have become extinct by the year 1986. The endemic Wood River sculpin (Cottus leiopomus) occurs only in the Wood River and in a section of the Snake River near the Wood River confluence.
Shoshone Falls is thought to have formed in the time period 60,000 to 30,000 years before present. These falls presently form an absolute barrier to fish migration; moreover, the Shoshone Falls have formed a biological migration barrier for sufficiently long that only about 35 percent of the fish fauna above these falls with fish taxa of the lower Snake.
Early 1890s surveys from the upper Snake basin indicate the following historically abundant fish species: Utah sucker (Catostomus ardens), silver-sided minnow (leuciscus hydrophlox), longnose dace (Rhinichthys dulcis) and Utah chub (Gila atraria).
The Snake River traverses a number of ecoregions, chiefly:
Source: World Wildlife Fund
Snake-Columbia scrub steppe - An endemic forb on the sagebrush steppe of the Snake River Plain is Lepidium papilliferum, a rare ephemeral species that is found in Lepidium (slickspot) microhabitats, and is threatened by overgrazing and trampling by domesticated livestock.
Palouse grasslands - have been mostly destroyed and degraded by overgrazing and by historic agricultural land conversion. The Palouse historically resembled the mixed-grass vegetation of the central grasslands, except for the absence of short grasses. Such species as Agropyron spicatum, Festuca idahoensis, and Elymus condensatus, and the associated species Poa scabrella, Koeleria cristata, Elymus sitanion, Stipa comata, and Agropyron smithii originally dominated the Palouse prairie grassland.
North Central Rockies forests - have a number of notable populations of large carnivores, including wolves (Canis lupus), grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), and wolverines (Gulo luscus). There are also populations of rare woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus ssp. caribou), the only caribou to live in areas of deep snow. Other wildlife include: black bear (Ursus americanus), mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus), grouse (Dendragapus spp.), waterfowl, black and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus and O. virginianus), and moose (Alces alces). In the southeast, marten (Martes ameriana) and bobcat (Lynx rufus) occur.
South Central Rockies forests - have considerable intact habitat units including much of Yellowstone National Park, Grand Tetons, Frank Church Wilderness, central Idaho; Lemhi and Lost River Ranges, eastern Idaho; the Beaverhead, southwestern Montana;Anaconda-Pintler, southwestern Montana; Pioneer, southwestern Montana; Tobacco Root, southwestern Montana; Snowcrest, southwestern Montana; Centennial, southwestern Montana; and the Madison Ranges, southwestern Montana.
- Looking south along the Snake with Tetons in background. @ Ansel Adams 1942
Early explorers and fur traders recorded two main prehistoric centers on the Snake river Plain in the early 1800s: the vicinity of Camas Prairie, and along the lower reaches of the Weiser and Payette rivers. These sites functioned as elements of a continental network, where commodities, manufactured goods, and environmental information were exchanged. They also served as a locus for dancing, gambling, tribal intermarriage and other social activities.
The Weiser sites were active as early as 2500 years BC, featuring obsidian trading along a Blue Mountain north-south trading axis stretching from Timber Butte in southeast Idaho north to the Clearwater River and even to the Pacific Ocean, via the Columbia Plateau, while Ollivella shell beads were also traded.
The Fremont Culture in southern Idaho is evinced by diagnostic artifacts, such as pottery, basketry and arrow-points. Shoshone Ware was found to be too broad a pottery type for the Snake River Plain here. Instead Southern Idaho Plain pottery has become recognized here to denote a finely made pottery, distinct from the classic thick-walled, flat-bottomed vessels usually called Shoshone Ware.
Satellite imagery of lower Snake River. @ NASA 1994
The Midvale Complex was first defined based on archaeological digs conducted at a sites near Midvale. The sites display a suite of activities including basalt quarrying for stone tool production, hunting, and root and seed processing. The Midvale Complex assemblage contains Bitterroot large side-notched arrow-points, Cascade arrow-points, leaf-shaped arrow-points, scrapers, choppers, edge-ground cobbles, elongate scrapers, and a gamut of unifacial and bifacial blanks or roughouts. Manos, pestles, milling stones, mortars, gravers, drills and pitted pebbles were also found, dating to 2500 BC to the time of Christ.
The corresponding assemblage has been documented at a host of sites throughout east Oregon and southwest Idaho. The distribution of the Midvale Complex includes most of the Blue Mountains region in eastern Oregon, Hells Canyon along the Idaho-Oregon border and much of southeast Idaho. The temporal span of this complex appears focused between 2500 to 500 years BC. The Midvale Complex has been linked to the Western Idaho Archaic Burial Complex found in southeastern Idaho. The Midvale Complex demarcates the convergence, by 2500 BC, of a subsistence lifestyle focused on regional trading. Its attributes are the cotemporaneous appearance of sizable pithouses, an array of highly stylized point types, diversification of ground stone tools, and burial grounds containing elaborate interments with rich burial furniture, a pattern noted for much of the Columbia Plateau. This complex is associated not only with enhanced residential sedentism and intensified exploitation of root-crops and salmon.
The explorer David Thompson was the first to note the Native American appellation for the Snake River as the Shawpatin as he arrived at the discharge location to the Columbia River in the year 1800.
- Robin A. Abell. 2000. Freshwater ecoregions of North America: a conservation assessment. books.google.com World Wildlife Fund (U.S.) 319 pages
- Gregory J.Fuhrer & Henry M.Johnson. 2000. Water Quality in the Yakima River Basin, Washington, 1999–2000. U.S.Geological Survey. Google eBook
- Idaho Water Resources Research Institute at Idaho Falls. Snake River Tributary Basins. University of Idaho, Idaho Falls.
- J.C.Kammerer. 1990. Largest Rivers in the United States. U.S.Geological Survey Government Printing Office. Washington DC
- Mark D.Lovell and Gary S.Johnson. 1999, Assessment of Needs and Approaches for Evaluating Ground Water and Surface Water Interactions for Hydrologic Units in the Snake River Basin. Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
- Daniel S. Meatte. 1990. Prehistory of the Western Snake River Basin. Idaho Museum of Natural History. Abe Books. 107 pages
- Susan E.Meyer, Dana Quinney & Jay Weaver. 2005. A life history study of the Snake River plains endemic Lepidium papilliferum (Brassicaceae) Western North American Naturalist, Vol 65, No 1
- William F.Ritter & Adel Shirmohammadi. 2001. Agricultural nonpoint source pollution: watershed management and hydrology. 342 pages Google eBook
- Sarah V. Thomas & Claudia Copeland. 2008. Water pollution issues and developments. 280 pages Google eBook
- U.S.Fish Commission. 1893. Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission: Volume 11 United States. Google eBook | <urn:uuid:09f3695a-ef6c-41af-8904-b646f144ae6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eoearth.org/article/Snake_River?topic=49578 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902255 | 2,452 | 3.90625 | 4 |
California has strict laws prohibiting gun possession by a long list of persons due to past criminal activity, mental health issues and other objectionable actions. But despite these restrictions more than 99 percent of Californians desiring to purchase firearms pass the required background check, and persons who could not legally possess firearms continue to possess them.
Any adult convicted of a felony is ineligible to possess firearms or ammunition, under California law. Serious violent felonies committed by juveniles also make them ineligible to possess firearms as adults. But in a typical week, Mendocino County sheriff's department booking logs have one or more persons arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
It is not unusual to see the same person drift through the booking logs for the same offense more than once. This means the felon obtained the gun illegally and one rarely, if ever, sees a follow up arrest of the person or persons who provided the weapon(s).
Anyone convicted of certain misdemeanors is also banned from possessing a firearm. Prohibited misdemeanors include convictions for assault, battery, discharging a weapon in a grossly negligent manner, shooting at a dwelling or vehicle, drawing or exhibiting any deadly weapon in a threatening manner, possession of a firearm at a school or playground, stalking, domestic violence involving corporal injury, violating a protective court order and providing a firearm to a person prohibited
The court can issue temporary protective orders requiring an individual turn over his/her firearms to law enforcement and to avoid possession of any firearms for the duration of the order. Such orders typically involve harassment, threats, disturbing the peace or other violations.
Persons with certain mental illness are prohibited from possessing or purchasing firearms. This includes individuals receiving treatment because they are deemed to be a danger to self or others. Persons admitted to a mental health facility for this reason may be prohibited from owning a firearm for up to five years after discharge.
Licensed psychotherapists are required to report to law enforcement any patients who make any serious threat of violence to another person. These persons are prohibited from owning a firearm for six months after the threat is given to law enforcement. Those persons may petition the court to have their firearm owning privilege restored.
Persons deemed not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial for certain violent crimes may not possess firearms.
Any person addicted to any narcotic drug may not possess a firearm. | <urn:uuid:e573c9e7-43da-4ba8-a904-b626601fc540> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.willitsnews.com/opinion/ci_22492575/californias-current-firearm-ownership-laws | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929411 | 479 | 1.726563 | 2 |
OEwaves to develop Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) Radar Design for one of the smallest UAV’s, the WASP, developed under a previous DARPA Program
Pasadena, CA - June, 24 2010 --[ASDWire]-- OEwaves performed a study based on its unique microwave photonics technologies, when combined with conventional RF technologies, to investigate the feasibility of deploying a miniature GMTI radar system on the WASP UAV. Using Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) optical resonator technology, OEwaves developed and demonstrated a transmit/receive capability that is small in size and weight, consistent with the GMTI Radar parameters required to enable detection of slow moving personnel and material, and compatible with the power availability payload capacity of the WASP UAV. The findings of this study will support development of a future DARPA program addressing this need.
OEwaves’ unique microwave photonic technology simplifies the architecture of conventional microwave techniques by addressing the critical need to substantially reduce its size and power requirements. This is accomplished through the patented technology of ultra-high quality factor crystalline whispering gallery mode optical resonators. Based on the previously demonstrated use of WGM resonator in a monopulse receiver configuration, this one-step photonic mixing, combined with the small bandwidth of the miniature resonator and the photodetector, eliminates the multiple steps of mixing and filtering required in conventional super heterodyne receivers.
About OEwaves, Inc.
OEwaves, Inc. headquartered in Pasadena, Calif., is a leader in innovative microwave photonic products and solutions. OEwaves develops and offers state-of-the-art technologies and products in support of radar, communications, and test and measurement systems for military and commercial markets. OEwaves was founded in 2000 and has maintained an Intellectual Prpoerty Portfolio of 75 cases, 26 of which were licensed via and exclusive agreement with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), to establish a secure path in which to develop our initial core technologies. For additional information, please visit www.oewaves.com. | <urn:uuid:627e1151-0479-44c5-af3f-4440353eca0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asdwire.com/press-release-8418/OEwaves-Received-Award-from-DARPA-to-Investigate-GMTI-Radar-Feasibility-for-WASP-UAV.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913801 | 430 | 2.03125 | 2 |
This post can be summarised in one sentence (brevity, see – an often under-rated skill these days):
- You really need to know your onions before crashing the social web party.
The chances are that if you run a business, charity or want to promote your skills, you know you should be joining the social media social whirl.
The music at this shindig is pretty loud, you can’t have failed to hear it – I think they’re just about to call the police.
But how can you do social media well – it’s so confusing, right?
There are enough people around who claim to be experts. There are books on it, blogs on it galore, but it boils down to this:
- Know your audience
- Plan your content
The article below contains a really useful graphic – you could use the topic headings to inspire your social media strategy.
And here are two resources I also really like for inspiration:
http://nonprofitorgs.wordpress.com/about/ (particularly good for charities and small organisations) | <urn:uuid:d364e1e7-a60f-46c6-896d-d92b3bb14a9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tellmeintwosentences.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/social-media-posting-guide-free-download-top-nonprofits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935243 | 228 | 1.859375 | 2 |
The average life expectancy of a senior citizen in the United States (that is, someone who has reached the age of 65) is 18.6 years, or roughly age 84. Between 2000 and 2030, the number of adults age 65 and over is expected to double, from 35 million to more than 70 million, resulting in a U.S. population that is comprised of 20 percent older adults. Most older adults and their families and caregivers prefer to live as independently as possible, for as long as possible. Further, they believe that with appropriate care giving resources, physical design changes, and accessibility to needed services, conventional residences can accommodate individuals with all types of limitations and chronic health conditions, allowing older adults to avoid or delay leaving their independent housing for a higher level care such as a nursing home.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides critical housing resources to low income elderly households. More than one-third (37 percent) of the approximately 5 million households receiving housing assistance from HUD are headed by an elderly person (defined by HUD as at least age 62). Indeed, just over one-quarter of elderly households leaving HUD-assisted housing between 2000 and 2008 were aged 85 or older when they left. HUD would like to learn more about the demographics of elderly residents the agency assists, the ages at which these residents leave assisted housing, and the strategies that could enhance elderly households’ ability to live safely and comfortably in HUD-assisted housing for as long as possible. To inform strategies to encourage and monitor such “aging in place,” HUD requested that Abt Associates undertake this research on elderly households’ “end of participation” (EOP) in HUD-assisted housing programs. | <urn:uuid:3b58e9e2-6608-4bda-bd44-9afd591023d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huduser.org/portal/publications/pubasst/locke_aging.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972193 | 350 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Research Presentations: In the last year or so, RAA presented a number of scientific research presentations at national conferences (below), and continues to submit additional abstracts to other scientific organizations.
Articles: RAA is working on a number of articles for industry periodicals. Below is a list of some topics currently in print or in progress:
Pediatric EMS Research: RAA is collaborating with university and community initiatives in Richmond, looking at pediatric injuries and illnesses and how to effectively identify areas of need, develop and implement intervention programs, and evaluate the effectiveness of those programs.
Bonn Project: Partnering with GeoMed at the University of Bonn, RAA is exploring a myriad of way that GIS can be applied to EMS and Public Health. | <urn:uuid:eef830fe-dc6d-4027-a23a-3f46827ec768> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.raaems.org/research-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910988 | 154 | 1.5 | 2 |
Mike the headless chicken was a wonder of the age in 1946 and 1947, after Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, cut off his head. Rooster Mike continued to live, and with some help, thrive, for 18 months after being decapitated.
My mom used to warn me about acting like "a chicken with its head cut off." As a child I saw it happen to a neighbor's chicken, which my friend's dad decapitated. It ran around the yard spouting blood until it finally dropped dead, impressing me greatly. I only remembered vaguely the story of Mike until seeing this story in the October 22, 1945 issue of Life magazine.
Mr. Olsen, according to the article, cut off most of Mike's skull but left intact one ear, the jugular vein and the base of the brain, which controls motor functions. He was originally exhibited in my home town of Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was taken so the University of Utah could verify he wasn't a hoax. Mike lived on until March of 1947, being fed by an eyedropper. According to Wikipedia Mike died in a Phoenix motel.
As is human nature, according to Wikipedia, people tried to imitate what happened to Mike with other chickens, but none of them lived more than a day or two. Mike was a big money earner in his time. The Olsens toured with their headless rooster, charging 25¢ to see Mike, and made a pile. At one point Mike brought in about $4500 a month. In the mid-1940s that had today's purchasing power of about $50,000. Very impressive, and that's not chicken feed. | <urn:uuid:84ff8b11-6dd5-4c91-bf82-e597b55f353f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paranoiastrikesdeep.blogspot.com/2011/06/chicken-with-its-head-cut-off.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982418 | 343 | 2.015625 | 2 |
This summer, Ph.D./MSW student Sara Pilgreen shares postcards from Johannesburg, where she is living and working.
Donald Shoup was quoted in an article in the New York Times commenting on the new parking meter system in Santa Monica. The system resets the time on each parking meter to zero the moment a car pulls out of a space. City officials say the changes are devised to make street parking more efficient by turning over spaces more quickly.
On March 11, 2012 Dean Frank Gilliam and Professor and Chair of Urban Planning Lois Takahashi attended an event commemorating the one year anniversary of the Great Northern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami at the Forum for International Research Collaboration in Sendai, Japan. The goal was to bring together universities from around the world to discuss possible cooperation on issues of disaster preparedness and disaster science.
We spent the night at a unique Japanese "ryokan" accommodation called San-san-kan, which used be a local elementary school that was reformed as accommodation after it closed. The old wooden building did not get any serious damage by the the consecutive major earthquakes, although it is located in Minami-sanriku city, which is close to the epicenter of the 311 Great East Japan Earthquake. This disaster caused a myriad of tragedies by the huge tsunami, however, it also revealed that buildings in snowy regions are robust and resilient against earthquakes.
After touring two distinctly different parts of Japan, the bustling and modern metropolis of Tokyo and the quiet devastation found in the wild and scenic northern region of Tohoku, we arrived in Kyoto for the final leg of our trip. Once the Imperial capital of Japan, Kyoto is largely viewed as the most "traditional" Japanese city with over 2,000 religious places scattered throughout this beautiful city nestled in the valley of the Yamashiro Basin and surrounded by majestic mountains.
After a couple of carefree days in Tokyo, today we headed to the Tohoku region which only one year ago was the site of the most powerful known earthquake to ever hit Japan.
The earthquake began at 2:46 PM on March 11, 2011, and was the first in a chain reaction of disasters that went on to affect this region. By 3:30 p.m. that same day, the tsunami came and tore across the land, taking with it all that stood in its path - buildings toppled, cars crushed and, sadly, many lives lost to the power of the ocean. | <urn:uuid:4af6b9b7-42d3-4a02-bbac-f9fa5de25b01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://luskin.ucla.edu/blog?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961607 | 502 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In politics, the best way of knowing which candidate is gaining the upper-hand is to monitor the campaigns’ degree of negativity. Yesterday, I wondered whether Obama’s trip had an impact on the race and whether voters are now more comfortable with the idea of an Obama presidency. One answer to that question is provided by the tracking polls, in which Obama continued to inch ahead today (6% in Rasmussen and 7% in Gallup).
Another answer is the fact that the McCain campaign has upped the tone of its attacks against Obama this week, suggesting that they are worried that the Illinois Senator might be gaining an edge and that they have to go negative to cut his momentum. Here is the ad McCain released today:
The ad will air in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC (where it will reach voters in Northern Virginia). It is very similar to the ad the McCain campaign unveiled last week - just before Obama left for Afghanistan - except that (1) it has been slightly modified to reflect events of the past week and (2) it contains a more frontal attack on Obama’s character.
First, Obama is blamed for never having held a Senate hearing on Afghanistan. As I said last week, I do not understand why the McCain campaign is so determined to make this one of its main attacks against Obama. Will voters even know why he should have held such a hearing? Are they at all familiar with the fact that Obama chairs a Foreign Relations subcommittee in which he might have had the authority to hold hearings on Afghanistan?
Second, and whereas last week’s ad says Obama “has” not been in Iraq for years, this week’s has been updated to say that “he hadn’t been in Iraq for years,” with graphics showing that more than 900 days had gone by since Obama’s previous trip. Here again, I am unsure that this charge could be very effective. Will voters consider the less than 3 years Obama spent without going to Iraq that excessive a time - especially if they don’t know McCain has gone to Iraq 8 times (the ad makes no mention of that fact?
The main difference between the two ads is the charge that Obama “made time to go to the gym” but “canceled a visit to wounded troops.” (Jonathan Martin points out that the footage used by the ad when Obama is said to have had time to “go to the gym” is one of Obama playing basketballs with US troops.) This refers, of course, to the hospital for wounded US soldiers Obama was supposed to visit in Germany; the Pentagon warned Obama at the last minute - weeks after the event was in the works - that he could not visit the troops accompanied by campaign staff, leading Obama to cancel the trip at the last minute.
The ad goes on to say that “it seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” This last charge is as personal as a McCain ad has gotten up to this point in the campaign, as it clearly implies that Obama is only feigning interests for the military to get elected (whereas McCain “is always there for our troops,” the ad informs us). It echoes a new line McCain has been using despite a lot of criticism over the past few week: “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign” - a line that comes as close to accusing Obama of treason as anything McCain could say.
Just like last week’s spot, then, this one seems to me to be inefficient for a very simple reason: It attacks Obama on obscure details that can only resonate with voters who are well acquainted with campaign news, who know Obama’s role in the Senate or who are aware of how often other Senators go to Iraq. No undecided low-information voters is likely to have heard of any of this. In short, it seems that the McCain campaign is so eager to knock Obama down a notch on national security issues that they are taking what makes them snicker at staff meetings on air as their main message.
However, the ad’s potential should not be dismissed, and the aggressive tone reveals more about McCain’s strategy. Through this ad (and through McCain’s implied accusation of treason) the GOP is trying to build up the theme that Obama is not interested in protecting the country in the hope that this can undercut Obama’s appeal and feed voters’ doubts. By themselves, the lack of Senate hearings, the 900 days out of Iraq and the canceling a troop visit are unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
But put together and hammered continually by the Republican machine, these pieces of information are meant harden voters’ anxieties that there is something about Barack Obama - his inexperience, his opportunism - that will not keep them safe. As has been obvious for months, McCain’s only chance to win the presidency in a Democratic year is to make the election about Barack Obama, make voters doubt his character and whether he has the temperament to be commander-in-chief. This ad is one of the first steps in that direction and, as Ben Smith notes, it even picks up the themes of debunked e-mail smears.
The GOP is now clearly worried that Obama’s trip was executed flawlessly enough and generated enough coverage that it will blunt this storyline and that it will boost Obama upwards. When a campaign feels that it is falling behind, it often has no choice but to air more outrageous attacks. The McCain campaign’s new sense of urgency explains their decision to up the attacks over the past week. There are greater risks in going more negative, but there are also more rewards. | <urn:uuid:3c1b93b6-3879-40e6-8dfd-7ca953043cb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://campaigndiaries.com/2008/07/26/mccain-ups-attack/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979159 | 1,183 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Revamp Your Snack Habits to Lose Weight
Here are 5 tips for healthy snacks that help you stay slim.
Have you replaced sit-down meals with snacks? If so, you’re not alone. A recent survey found that 40% of Americans prefer snacking throughout the day over three square meals. Snacks are great — when they help you stay slim (or even lose weight) rather than add belly fat. The key to smart snacking is knowing when and what to nibble. Here are 5 tips to revamp your snack habits:
- Skip mid-morning snacks. A recent study of women on diets found that those who didn’t have a mid-morning snack lost 4% more weight than morning noshers. Why? The gap between breakfast and lunch typically isn’t long, and you’re probably not really hungry for something by mid-morning (but someone brought in doughnuts and . . . well, you know how that story ends), which brings us to our next strategy.
- Follow the 5-hour rule. If there’s more than 5 hours between meals, go ahead and have a snack. The break between lunch and dinner often is longer than 5 hours, and a late-afternoon snack will satisfy your appetite so you’re less likely to overeat at dinner. The same study also found that afternoon nibblers tend to eat more fruits and vegetables compared to those who skip an afternoon snack, so well-planned afternoon snacks can help boost your nutritional bottom line, too.
- Add some protein. It helps you stay satisfied. Plus, protein helps you build muscle so you burn more calories and lose more weight. Good protein candidates include plain, fat-free Greek yogurt with walnuts, a hard-boiled egg, or peanut butter on celery or whole-grain crackers.
- Revamp your snack lineup. Clean out your pantry, fridge, and desk drawer at work. Toss out anything that has more than 4 grams of sugar per serving. Restock with healthy snacks, such as nuts, whole-grain crackers, fat-free yogurt, fruit, and cut-up veggies. If healthy stuff is on hand, you’re less likely to visit the vending machine. (Pistachios vs. Pretzels: Which is the best snack?)
- Eat the same snack every day. Variety may be the spice of life, but it can spell trouble for your bottom line. A new study from Cornell University finds that the greater the variety of foods we eat, the more calories we gobble, so find your favorite healthy snack combo and stick to that. | <urn:uuid:e3727299-45ad-4fcb-8bc2-158e3deaeb39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fit2k.com/revamp-your-snack-habits-to-lose-weight | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945499 | 546 | 1.96875 | 2 |
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about healthcare in France. It details the financial difficulties that France’s national healthcare plan is experiencing. The data on this graph need a little explaining. It presents the percentage change in medical (not health as it states) cost in four countries. To accurately analyze the data you need to know what the rate of growth in GDP in these countries has been. If GDP rose greater than medical costs the problem of medical expense is a manageable problem.
As the next graph shows, France growth in GDP has been anemic to non-existent. Thus the sharp rise in medical spending is a terrible strain on the French economy made worse by the French public’s unwillingness to confront its problem.
The UK’s National Health Service seems to be in even worse shape. It’s never been considered to be a model of good medical care as has France’s system. But until the current world-wide recession the UK’s GDP has had a rate of growth much better than France. But last year GDP in the UK fell much more than France’s. This is going to put the NHS in Britain in even greater peril.
The US with it’s strange amalgam of national (Medicare and Medicaid make up 50% of the country’s medical spending) and private medical care is in a similar situation. Until the economic collapse growth of GDP was pretty good.But like France and the UK medical spending has risen faster than GDP and is unsustainable.
The Japanese seem to be doing better than than anyone else. Medical expenses have gone up far less than elsewhere. The Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the world. Commentators typically attribute this to the Japanese medical system’s focus on prevention which is wishful thinking. Prevention, however desirable it may be, doesn’t save money. The Japanese have the highest smoking rates in the world; the same is true for salt intake, hypertension, and suicide. Yet they live longer than anyone else. Why? Medical care likely has almost nothing to do with this longevity. The Japanese are a genetically homogeneous population. Their longevity is most likely the result of a good toss of the genetic dice.
Japan’s GDP has not been robust over the past decade and fell off the cliff last year. The country’s expenditure as a percent of GDP will increase a lot more than it has before the economic downturn. Even without Japan’s current fiscal difficulties there ‘s not much we can learn from them. They are almost all the same. We are the most diverse country on earth. They willingly conform to national directives. We are notoriously unruly and resist regimentation. Their system cannot be transplanted to the US. Incidentally, organ transplantation is rare in Japan because it culturally unacceptable. Another difference between them and us.
The European experience shows how medical care is too expensive no matter how you deliver it. The Canadians are also breaking their medical bank. Until we ask the essential question – why is medical care so expensive? – we will waste our time and worse our money on futile solutions that can’t possibly work. The Congress is currently considering ways to “reform” healthcare that have no element of reform in them. Rather they will make a deeply troubled “system” worse, more expensive, and slower. | <urn:uuid:333e80d6-862e-410f-9938-0d60dff77c68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicine-opera.com/2009/08/healthcare-abroad-and-at-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967545 | 690 | 2.1875 | 2 |
November is national “Long Term Care Awareness Month.” During this month the insurance industry wants to motivate you to purchase Long Term Care insurance.
Long Term Care insurance is nice. It does a wonderful job doing what it does. If every middle class wage earner purchased Long Term Care insurance and did not rely on Medicaid for their Long Term Care, our state budgets would not be in the red.
Never-the-less, Long Term Care insurance is just one option for paying for Long Term Care. If it is not the option for you, you can elect to save money elsewhere or use life insurance to help with your potential future costs. There are a handful of ways that you can make plans to help your loved ones pay your future bills. Long Term Care insurance is just one of them.
With that having been said, this post provides facts in support of using Long Term Care insurance. If you are a visual learner, here are 5 charts about Long Term Care insurance that should help you understand why I feel that Long Term Care insurance is an important part of your insurance portfolio. The sources for this information are cited at the bottom of each chart.
(Click on the charts if yon need to enlarge them.)
1. WHEN DO PEOPLE BUY LONG TERM CARE INSURANCE
2. WHO USES LONG TERM CARE INSURANCE
3. WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF USING INSURANCE AFTER AGE 65
4. HOW MUCH CAN YOU EXPECT TO PAY FOR LONG TERM CARE | <urn:uuid:3306b32c-32f9-49df-9ef9-67295d01585f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theinsurancebarn.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/long-term-care-facts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905214 | 312 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The trAce Online Writing Centre
From 1995-2005 the trAce Online Writing Centre hosted a unique international community where, using the internet as both medium and raw material, trAce contributors generated an unequalled body of innovative creative work. This open and generous group of people supported and influenced the development of new media writing worldwide and promoted lively debate about the impact of the World Wide Web on the future of text and literature.
The trAce website evolved its own distinctive artistic ecology and the resulting complex interlinkings permeate this highly enjoyable archive of writing and making by numerous writers and artists. Like the original website itself, this archive will be of interest to many different kinds of visitors, including practitioners, researchers, teachers and general audiences.
The trAce Archive was produced as part of Writers for the Future, generously commissioned by NESTA,The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. It is a collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and De Montfort University.
Scope of the archive
This archive contains all the major works of new media writing commissioned by trAce between 1995-2005, including The Noon Quilt, Home, and Migrating Memories. It also houses frAme, trAce’s Journal of Culture and Technology, featuring many well-known names in new media writing including early works by Mark Amerika, M.D.Coverley, Matthew Fuller, Geert Lovink, Talan Memmott, Mez, Melinda Rackham, and Francesca da Rimini; and Assemblage, Carolyn Guertin’s showcase of new media writing by women (1999-2005). You will find archives of the three Incubation conferences (2000, 2002, 2004) and works by Writers-in-Residence Bernard Cohen, Alan McDonald, Kate Pullinger, Christy Sheffield Sanford, Alan Sondheim, and Tim Wright. Some artists, including Randy Adams and Catherine Byron, developed online Studios accompanied by Writers’ Journals which make fascinating reading. There are research projects including the AHRB-funded Mapping the Transition from Page to Screen, and reports from several user surveys, plus over 60 critical articles published between 2002-5. There are also many minor works whose inception and development were supported by trAce during numerous training programmes. It is impossible to include every archived page here but an indicative list of works archived by this project can be found in Contents.
It is worth noting that over ten years the trAce server evolved into something of an organic entity itself, and in that respect the content of the archive can sometimes be uneven. The site housed many experiments created by many people, and as a result some pages work and/or remain viewable in recent browsers, whilst others don’t. We have archived all complete pieces but not earlier drafts of those pages, and since much of the work at trAce was innovative and often produced as part of a learning process, you will still find page errors, dead links, missing images etc. We have left these anomalies to stand since they are an integral part of this enormous experimental sketch-book of a website.
The archive also contains transcripts of chat
and MOO meetings, but constraints of time and personnel have
made it impossible to archive entire message-boards and email
discussion lists. These have always been an important feature of
trAce, especially the O’Reilly WebBoard, which hosted many
lively conversations and examples of work-in-progress. However,
although it was closed for technical reasons in 2002, the
WebBoard remains on a server at Nottingham Trent University and
private access can be arranged for researchers. The trAce forums
are archived at http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/forums/.
The trAce Archive does not include the trAce Online Writing
School (2002-2005) since its contents were private to the
tutors and students, nor does it include
the Net because although it shares server space with trAce
it has a different audience and remit.
Opportunities for further research
We warmly encourage and support future research into the history and influence of trAce. The XML format is open to future development, and there are many other opportunities for study but please note especially the following areas which we were not able to cover due to finite resources:
To our regret, we did not have the time or personnel to provide long descriptions of the works and projects, but we would like to recommend this as an important area of enquiry because changes in platforms and operating systems may soon mean that some of the works can no longer be properly viewed or understood. We created a field in the XML for long descriptions but did not have the resources to enter any data.
We know that the trAce site is used intensively and at many
levels by teachers around the world but since the project has
been largely funded by arts grants rather than academia we have
addressed the issue of pedagogy only very infrequently. We
created a field in the XML for pedagogical applications but did
not have the resources to enter any data.
This archive website features only digital content. There is also an extensive collection of print and other offline media which is held at Nottingham Trent University and has yet to be catalogued. See Other Media for details.
This archive was built using the Microsoft Indexing Service and XML iFilter (quilogic.com) running on Windows 2003 Server. | <urn:uuid:916e13f7-31e9-4df6-8c77-5a5d5cf2427c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/about.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942566 | 1,134 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Luxury goods will likely maintain rich returns
Given the recent and current global economic woes and a year of unusually extreme natural disasters, some would assume that luxury goods makers would be watching their products gather dust on shop shelves, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said in a report published Nov. 14, 2011, titled "Can Luxury Goods Continue To Deliver Rich Returns In An Era Of Austerity?."
November 16, 2011 1:02 by Reuters
Whereas the consumer goods sector in general is coping with the fragile recovery–facing the specter of a second recession in Western Europe–sales of designer handbags, premium quality cars, and other luxury goods continue to climb.
“Growth rates in the luxury industry should decelerate somewhat in 2012 from the 2010 and 2011 record figures,” Baudouin added. “But we expect them to remain healthy on the back of strong momentum in emerging markets.”
We believe that credit quality in the luxury goods industry will continue to outperform the broader consumer goods sector in the coming years. | <urn:uuid:e63e2489-8d5b-4f68-9182-dca0487af2ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kippreport.com/news/gcc-2/luxury-goods-will-likely-maintain-rich-returns/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915724 | 217 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Philosophy is inseparable from a true liberal arts education
Many of the careers of tomorrow have yet to be imagined, making a liberal arts education more important than ever before. According to Professor Paul Nnodim, his specialty - philosophy - is inseparable from a true liberal arts education.
"Philosophy challenges students to bring a rigorous, critical, and constructive attitude to every aspect of their lives," Nnodim explains. "These transferable skills and habits not only complement students' future careers and scholarly pursuits, but more importantly equip them for lives marked by intellectual curiosity and engagement."
A number of successful philosophy majors have passed through MCLA's gates, and now are doing very well in top graduate schools across the country, according to Nnodim.
" For example, one is about to complete a master's program in ethics and public policy at Suffolk University in Boston, and another is in his third year of the direct Ph.D. program in clinical psychology at Antioch Graduate School of Psychology," Nnodim says. "The recent feedback I received from their supervisors is more than gratifying."
MCLA's philosophy majors are equipped to compete with their peers around the world.
"Another of our majors has just returned from Germany, where she successfully completed a one-year study abroad program," Nnodim says. "She was one of the 45 students chosen from across Europe and the U.S. to study at the European College of Liberal Arts (ECLA), Berlin - a highly selective liberal arts college of only about 50 students."
At ECLA, students are taught by professors from across the globe, including those from Columbia University, Eberhard Karls University of Germany, Cambridge University, Harvard University, Arhus University of Ireland and London University.
Nnodim considers philosophy to be an extremely useful pursuit because of the way it challenges students to bring a rigorous, critical, and constructive attitude to every aspect of their lives.
"As a humanistic discipline that explores the most fundamental questions of human existence, value, life, and knowledge, philosophy deepens and unifies other academic disciplines through the systematic exercise of historical, logical, literary, scientific, abstract, and practical thinking, and is in that way inseparable from a true liberal arts education," he says.
"While many students who major in philosophy may not become philosophy teachers, they certainly have a wide range of career perspectives and opportunities," says Nnodim. "Some may pursue a career in law, business, management, as well as in government, non-profit or international organizations. The skills they gain studying philosophy complement most careers."
Nnodim, who was born and educated in Nigeria, earned his doctorate from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany. He recently was appointed associate editor of the International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences.
As an editor, he reviews scholarly articles submitted by his peers from around the world. In 2007, that same journal recognized Nnodim for his exceptional work by awarding him the International Award for Excellence. | <urn:uuid:80f97d7f-12bf-4d5c-b03e-ee1e475e2576> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcla.edu/BWLI/news/alwaysthinking_158/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968194 | 624 | 2.4375 | 2 |
The statement relates to recent media reports claiming that an ingredient, triclosan, used in some cosmetic products may not be safe and could be linked to cell and muscle damage , and so cause heart problems.
The stories are based on a study conducted at the Universities of California Davis and Colorado and looked at the effects of triclosan on isolated muscle cells from the heart and general muscle fibres in the laboratory and also in some animals, and found that under the test conditions the ability of the muscle cells to contract was reduced.
However, CTPA responded by saying that whilst the study has academic interest, cosmetic and personal care products are safe.
“There are stringent EU rules surrounding the manufacture of cosmetic products, and these require manufacturers to carry out a rigorous safety assessment by a professionally qualified safety assessor before placing a cosmetic product on the market,” it says.
This assessment takes into account the finished product and all of the ingredients (whether they are natural or man-made) as well as how and where the product is to be used and how often.
“It must be remembered that the doses used in the study are unrealistically large when compared with the maximum permitted level of triclosan in cosmetic products and the amount people would be exposed to,” CTPA continues.
“This new study does nothing to undermine the proven, safe use of Triclosan in cosmetic products.”
Triclosan is approved for use as a preservative in cosmetic products at up to 0.3 per cent by the strict European laws which control the safety of cosmetics.
Authors urged caution
It is worth noting that even the authors of the study urged caution that translating the results from their animal experiments into humans is a large step and would require further study.
It is not the first time the ingredient has been scrutinised over its safety. In 2011 the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety found that a maximum 0.3 per cent dosage in personal care products such as deodorants, toothpastes and hand soaps was considered safe.
The American Cleaning Institute (ACI) also hit back over the media reports concerning the study expressing its ‘disappointment’ over the matter. | <urn:uuid:83fad089-01ab-4f18-a760-20538b12192f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com/Regulation-Safety/CTPA-Avoid-unrealistic-scare-stories-cosmetics-are-safe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958384 | 462 | 2.46875 | 2 |
From next month's 24 Hours of Nürburgring endurance race to next year's F1 season, auto racing is embracing hybrid initiatives
Making Formula One racing "greener" may be as much a marketing decision as a policy of corporate responsibility. But according to F1 officials, there's another reason to do so. The series has been moving further out of sync with the technical direction of the passenger car industry, which increasingly has fuel economy on the brain. F1 was always intended to be a bellwether, not a rogue element. That's one reason why, beginning in 2009 Formula One racing will introduce a hybrid-drive system into the series. If you want a sneak preview of how a hybrid setup might work in a racing application, keep an eye on how well one oddly named race car performs in next month's 24 Hours of Nürburgring endurance challenge in Germany next month. | <urn:uuid:eab32c89-fecc-4e6b-9f75-3d8b7ca6ef4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/hybrids?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955745 | 181 | 2.0625 | 2 |
By JULIA ANGWIN
Online tracking on 50 of the most-visited websites has risen sharply since 2010, driven in part by the rise of online-advertising auctions, according to a new study by data-management company Krux Digital Inc.
The average visit to a Web page triggered 56 instances of data collection, up from just 10 instances when Krux conducted its initial study, in November 2010. The latest study was conducted last December.
The rapid rise in the number of companies collecting data about individuals' Web-surfing behavior is testament to the power of the $31 billion online-advertising business, which increasingly relies on data about users' Web surfing behavior to target advertisements.
Krux, which sells a service for website publishers to protect their customer data, conducted its survey by automatically crawling six to 10 pages on each of the 50 most-visited sites as measured by comScore Inc. The study didn't includes sites that require a user to log in, and Krux didn't identify the sites it surveyed.
Despite rising privacy concerns, the online industry's data-collection efforts have expanded in the past few years. One reason is the popularity of online auctions, where advertisers buy data about users' Web browsing. Krux estimated that such auctions, known as real-time bidding exchanges, contribute to 40% of online data collection.
In real-time bidding, as soon as a user visits a Web page, the visit is auctioned to the highest bidder, based on attributes such as the type of page visited or previous Web browsing by the user. The bidding is done automatically using computer algorithms.
Forrester Research estimates that real-time bidding will constitute 18% of the online display-ad market this year, up from 13% last year.
"It's gone from virtually zero in 2009 to about a fifth of the entire market right now," said Michael Greene, a Forrester senior analyst. "We've moved from a traditional advertising model of buying 1,000 impressions. Now you evaluate and buy a single impression."
To make the auctions work, advertising companies are racing to place tracking technology on as many websites as possible. That technology gives them user and Web-page data to sell in the auction.
Krux in its latest study found that more than 300 companies collected data about users, up from 167 companies in 2010. The latest figure easily topped the 131 companies that The Wall Street Journal identified in a 2010 survey of tracking on the 50 most-visited websites.
More than half the time, Krux found that data collectors were piggybacking on each other. For example, when a user visited a website that had code for one tracking technology, the data collection would call out to and trigger other tracking technologies that weren't embedded on the site. As a result of such piggybacking, websites often don't know how much data are being collected about their users.
"It may be the first medium where the buyers have more information about the price, the value and the amount of inventory than the seller," said Krux President Gordon McLeod.
Write to Julia Angwin at firstname.lastname@example.org
Corrections & Amplifications
Gordon McLeod is president of Krux. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he was chief executive. | <urn:uuid:2e64ca0c-d0b4-46bf-a605-b9f1d8b28671> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303836404577472491637833420.html?mod=rss_whats_news_technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950882 | 678 | 1.804688 | 2 |
|Explore the Rideau Canal
and Friends of the Rideau
by following these links:
The Rideau Canal
What's A Rideau
Map of the Rideau
How A Lock Works
The Rideau Canal, opened for navigation in 1832, is the oldest continuously operated canal system in North America. In 1826, Lt. Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers was assigned to create a navigable waterway from Kingston to Ottawa through a wilderness of rough bush, swamps, and rocky terrain. Five years later, in the fall of 1831, one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century was essentially complete. The Rideau Canal is one of North America's most beautiful navigable waterways, with exquisite stonemasonry admired to this day.
The canal was designed by Colonel By and built, for the most part, by independent contractors under the supervision of Colonel By and his staff of Royal Engineers. The work was done by hand. Hundreds of Irish and French Canadian labourers, Scottish stonemasons, and British Sappers & Miners battled the Canadian wilderness, nineteenth century working conditions and malaria to complete this wonder of a canal system in less than six years. It is guesstimated that about 1,000 men died during the six years of contruction, about half of those from malaria, the other half from other diseases and work related accidents.
The beautiful arched dam at Jones Falls and the four locks ( three locks, a turning basin, and a fourth lock, with a total lift of 60 feet ) are one of the engineering triumphs of the Rideau Canal. The dam was one of the first of its kind. Spanning 350 feet and rising 62 feet, it was the largest such structure in North America. One of the jewels of the Rideau, Jones Falls is a "must see" for visitors.
Narrows Lock and Blockhouse - 1841
If you've heard of the Battle of Waterloo, then you remember the Duke of Wellington. After the War of 1812, he laid out a defense strategy for Upper Canada. Forts, towers, blockhouses, navigable waterways, and settlements of trained, loyal settlers were the key elements of this strategy. Perth was the first such settlement. A brief journey to Perth up the Tay Canal starts at Beveridge Lock, between Rideau Ferry and Poonamalie.
Perth was the social, judicial and administrative centre for the Rideau Corridor away from the border. Large, elegant homes of brick and stone, built by military officers, hosted genteel dinner parties - but guests had to bring their own chairs. Canada's Last Fatal Duel, fought by two law students, Robert Lyon and John Wilson, over the honour of a local belle, took place in Perth on June 13, 1833. Mr. Lyon was on the losing end of the exchange.
The original road from Brockville to Perth, crossed the Rideau at Oliver's Ferry (now known as Rideau Ferry). The ferry crossing was named after a man named Oliver who set up a ferry to take people across Rideau Lake. Mr. Oliver had an unusual habit of refusing to transport passengers after dark, instead he would put them up in his house. His neighbours though, seldom saw the travellers in the morning. Several travellers did not make their destination and it was assumed at the time that they were victims of highway robbers.
It was many years later that the truth was revealed. When a bridge was built to replace the ferry, Oliver's house had to be torn down. It is said that in the walls and under the floorboards of additions Oliver had made to the original house, human skeletons were found. It seems that many of Oliver's late night guests never left. (story adapted from the Parks Canada Rideau Canal Edukit)
By the 1950s, the Rideau became the waterway that visitors enjoy today, a recreational paradise. Cottages dot the shorelines, and boats of all sizes cruise the lakes and canals.
The Rideau Canal System is run by Parks Canada, who maintain the original spirit, even operating the locks by hand. A tour of the Rideau Canal system is a must.
Learn More History:
The Sales Section of our website offers many books detailing the fascinating history of the Rideau Canal.
Those interested in detailed research history of the Rideau Canal may wish to look at our Resources of the Rideau project.
1 Jasper Avenue
Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada, K7A 4B5
Tel : 613 - 283 - 5810
Fax : 613 - 283 - 2884
Comments about the website | <urn:uuid:831da111-b5d7-49e7-bd2f-52a4de4cc349> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rideaufriends.com/history.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959603 | 953 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently expanded its website to include a norovirus toolkit advising the ways in which one might contract the killer virus.
Among the public health agency's prescribed practices to stop the spread of the virus: "Practice proper hand hygiene … Take care in the kitchen … Do not prepare food while infected … Clean and disinfect contaminated surfaces after throwing up or having diarrhea … Wash laundry thoroughly."
But nowhere in that exhaustive battery of norovirus dodges was a recommendation to avoid reusable grocery bags. Curious, considering that reusable-but-not-recyclable alternative to single-use plastic bags were recently linked to an unsavory outbreak of norovirus that struck a hapless middle school-aged girls' soccer team.
The proliferation of the virus, which is estimated to cause 21 million of acute cases of gastroenteritis and the deaths of some 200,000 children annually, via the bags is in part the result of an unfortunate merger of form and function.
Successive studies have shown reusable bags to host bacteria like E. coli, salmonella and fecal coliform in addition to norovirus. One study even found the bacteria build-up on reusable bags was 300 percent higher than what is considered a safe level by public health officials.
Researchers at the University of Arizona sampled 84 reusable bags from shoppers in Los Angeles, the most recent major municipality to ban plastic bags, and two additional bag-outlawed cities. The findings were stunning: just over half were contaminated with some form of harmful bacteria while at least twelve percent contained traces of fecal matter. When the contaminated bags were housed in car trunks for two hours, scientists found the number of bacteria was boosted ten-fold.
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