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‘Fiscal cliff’ could mean $22 billion more in taxes for Pa. residents
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvanians will face billions of dollars in higher taxes unless Congress acts by the end of the year to defuse a threatening combination of tax increases and spending cuts contained in the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
A recent report by the state’s Independent Fiscal Office, Pennsylvania’s version of the federal Congressional Budget Office, suggests the fiscal cliff would drain billions from Pennsylvania’s economy, putting a strain on state tax revenues and the state budget. Based on estimates from the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., the IFO projects the fiscal cliff will raise federal taxes by $536 billion — with about 4.1 percent of that total, or $22 billion, coming from the pockets of Pennsylvania taxpayers.
LONG FALL: The cliffs of the so-called “Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania” might be beautiful, but the so-called “fiscal cliff” certainly won’t be.
Nationally, analysts believe the fiscal cliff will substantially reduce economic growth and may tip the nation into another recession in 2013.
Matthew Knittel, director of the IFO, said he expects the consequences of the fiscal cliff in Pennsylvania to mirror whatever happens nationally.
“If none of these (tax cuts) got extended, it would have a significant drag on economic growth, and there is no reason to think the effect in Pennsylvania would be any different,” he said.
Knittel said the $22 billion tax hike is the “worst-case scenario,” because most experts believe a “mixed bag” of tax cuts and spending would be extended into 2013.
The fiscal cliff is a combination of the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and a cost-cutting maneuver known as sequestration, enacted by Congress during the tense battle over raising the debt limit in 2011.
The expiration of the tax cuts would mean higher income taxes for all Americans, along with higher taxes on capital gains, larger payments for Social Security and a 50 percent reduction in the child tax credit.
On the spending side, sequestration would cause about $110 billion in cuts at the federal level, resulting in the loss of about $60 million in federal grants for Pennsylvania. It would not affect federal funding for Medicaid or transportation, but it could hit grants that fund defense, education and other subsidies to states. Continued...
The question facing Congress is: What stays, and what goes?
Whatever outcome congressional leaders agree to will have significant effects on state governments, said Anne Stauffer, a project director for the Pew Center on the States, a national nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C.
WAITING GAME: Business owners say they are waiting to hire new workers or expand operations until the fiscal cliff is resolved by Congress.
“The fiscal cliff is not just a federal issue,” Stauffer said. “The implications for states should be part of the discussion so that problems are not simply shifted from one level of government to another.”
Many states use the federal deductions to determine taxable income at the state level, meaning the end of some federal deductions could cause higher income taxes at the state level, as well.
Fortunately for Pennsylvania, the state uses a flat income tax with few deductions not linked to the federal tax system, so taxpayers in the Keystone State will not be hit with that same double-whammy of higher taxes, though it would still have to deal with the loss of 7 percent of federal grants, about in line with the national average.
Even if Pennsylvania dodges part of the tax bullet, higher federal taxes on payroll and income means less cash in consumers’ wallets — and that translates into lower sales tax collections at the state level.
Knittel said it is likely the payroll tax cut won’t be extended. If so, Pennsylvanians’ paychecks will be a total of $5 billion lighter next year, after the rate jumps from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent.
The payroll tax increase means the average household in Pennsylvania with an income of $50,000 would face $1,000 in additional taxes, even before higher income taxes or other costs are figured.
Since most residents would use those extra dollars to purchase goods and services, the trickle-down effect is that state sales tax coffers will miss out on about $80 million of future revenues, Knittel estimated. Continued...
He also expects income tax rates to climb for high earners — President Obama wants to extend the cuts for taxpayers making less than $250,000 per year, but allow them to expire for people above that threshold.
But as bad as the tax hikes could be, Knittel and Shaeffer agree the uncertainty created by the fiscal cliff scenario is worse.
Business leaders say the unknowns in the tax code are stalling the tentative recovery.
“It has forced employers to stand in place,” said Kevin Shivers, executive director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents small business owners. “It is preventing them from hiring, it is preventing them from expanding.
State policymakers are also stuck in neutral, unable to plan for 2013 because they don’t know what parts — if any — of the tax increases and spending cuts will become reality.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Gov. Tom Corbett said the pending tax changes from the fiscal cliff were putting a strain on budgetary plans in Pennsylvania and in other states. He called the tax increases caused by going over the cliff “overwhelming.”
“The fiscal cliff is frightening,” Corbett said Monday. “I fear for the economy. I fear for another recession.”
It’s all up to Congress now, but federal policymakers are also stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.
The CBO estimates allowing the nation to go over the cliff would cause GDP growth to drop from 2.2 percent to 0.5 percent during 2013, throwing the nation back into a recession and sending unemployment back above 9 percent.
But avoiding the cliff has its problems, too. Continued...
A separate CBO study concludes that dodging the fiscal cliff would keep the economy out of recession in 2013, “but adopting this policy without imposing comparable restraint in future years would have substantial economic costs in the long run.”
Stauffer summed up the mess facing states, businesses and taxpayers.
“Right now there is just not a lot of certainty about what will happen with the fiscal cliff,” she said.
Contact Eric Boehm at Eric@PAIndependent.com and follow @PAIndependent on Twitter for more.
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Cliff Wilson served as chairman of the Delaware County Democratic Party for 16 years (1994-2010). He will write on politics and other issues he feels strongly about.
Offers timely health advice for pets, behavioral tricks of the trade, follow-up success stories, and more. Updated regularly by ACDC's all-volunteer staff that includes long-time foster parents and pet owners who have years of experience.
Kent Davidson covers local politics, events, and goings-on in the borough of Media, PA. | <urn:uuid:a05acaf1-f093-48b7-b902-b8e71094db11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://delcotimes.com/articles/2012/11/20/news/doc50ab65a828d5a002546249.txt?viewmode=default | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945345 | 1,913 | 2.140625 | 2 |
I have been looking at the data in the latest survey of public attitudes towards conduct in public life, carried out for the Committee on Standards in Public Life. One interesting contrast continues to persist in public attitudes towards Members of Parliament. Attitudes towards MPs in general tend to be far more negative than those towards the local MP. This has been tapped over time by various surveys and it is not confined to the UK. The same applies in the USA in respect of the House of Representatives and its individual members.
The survey finds that between 2004 and 2010 the percentage who trusted MPs in general to tell the truth ranged from 26% to 29%. The percentage trusting ‘your local MP’ to tell the truth ranged from 40% to 48%. Possibly counter-intuitively, those showing the greatest levels of trust (in MPs generally and the local MP) were young people: levels of distrust increased with age. In terms of occupational background, skilled/manual workers tended to be most distrustful, and in terms of ethnicity those classed as White British were far more distrustful than people drawn from minority backgrounds. Perhaps not surprisingly, supporters of third parties were more distrustful than those who supported the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democratic parties.
The most worrying finding, though, is that the percentage thinking that MPs are dedicated to doing a good job for the public fell from 46% in 2008 to 26% in 2010. Those thinking MPs are competent in doing their job fell from 36% to 26%. There is clearly a major task involved in restoring public confidence. | <urn:uuid:ae99b7cc-bdaf-48fb-94e0-4dc91f25393a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nortonview.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/trust-in-mps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971189 | 312 | 2.125 | 2 |
Google founders, Cameron to mine asteroids
Two of Google's co-founders -- Larry Page and Eric Schmidt -- plan to join filmmaker James Cameron to mine asteroids in outer space. They call the project "Planetary Resources."
Planetary Resources aims to increase the amount of natural resources available to us here on Earth by mining asteroids.
A post on MIT's Technological Review website describes the venture as an investment in space exploration as well. Planetary Resources will formally unveil its plan in Seattle on Tuesday.
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- weather: Bay Area weather forecast for Wednesday | <urn:uuid:d7454531-fa4d-4f4c-9d9e-abb5cfa3e4f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/technology&id=8628854 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901196 | 261 | 2.265625 | 2 |
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Chances are, when one thinks of soul men, it’s a memory of that old song by Sam and Dave, “I’m a soul man.”
But that wouldn’t be the current usage. “Soul Men” is the name of the first program of Chamber Music Unbound’s winter music series.
Mammoth’s resident Felici Piano Trio will perform Bach, the grand master of the Baroque; the great Classical hero, Beethoven; Chopin, the Romantic piano virtuoso; and the eloquent musical narrator Robert Schumann.
Bach - Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Major
Originally scored for the viola da gamba and harpsichord, the sonata has four movements, alternating slow and fast. Bach’s genius as a performer combined with his supreme creativity as composer. The perfect balance of original inventiveness and intellectual control exercised in all his compositions, have earned him a unique place in the history of music, towering high above previous and subsequent generations of composers.
Schumann - Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Minor
The musical storyteller Robert Schumann was a soulful man who lived during a time when the fairy tale flourished as a popular form of literary entertainment. Fairy tales were said to possess “a quietly progressive tone, a certain innocence of representation… which hypnotizes the soul like quiet musical improvisations without noise and clamor” (poet and writer Ludwig Tieck). This quality of quiet improvisation characterizes much of Schumann’s music, including the violin sonata.
Chopin - Selections for Solo Piano
The legendary pianist and composer Frederic Chopin was born in Poland. In 1829, at the age of 19, Chopin traveled to Vienna and attracted a great deal of attention by displaying his brilliant virtuosity and inspired improvisations on a Polish folk song, an exotic novelty for the public. Even in his earliest compositions, there is great individuality to thematic invention, colorful harmonies and ornamental, yet poignant pianistic style that is unmistakably Chopin.
Beethoven - Piano Trio in G Major, opus 1 no. 2
The opening of the first movement follows a typical form of the day; a slow and stately Adagio introduction followed by a more lively Allegro section, which makes up the main body of the movement. Here is a completely different world, full of beautiful modulations and rich, sweeping melodies. After a charming scherzo movement, with quick interplay between instruments and rhythmic surprises, we once again see the ebullient Beethoven, who gives us a non-stop energy-filled presto finale with machine-gun repeated 16th-note melody and incessant drive.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25 at Cerro Coso College. Tickets at chambermusicunbound.org.View more articles in: | <urn:uuid:b6d2a4dc-258f-433c-93af-612fbdbc4dfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mammothtimes.com/content/winter-music-series-begins-soul-men-classical-sort?quicktabs_2=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923177 | 632 | 1.742188 | 2 |
In February, President Obama said “Companies are taxed heavily for making investments with equity; yet the tax code actually pays companies to invest using leverage”. And he is right: the corporate tax code in the United States creates a significant bias toward debt finance over equity.
Of course, the U.S. is not unique. In most of Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world, the tax advantages of debt finance are even bigger than in the U.S.
The crux of the issue is that interest paid on borrowing can be deducted from the corporate tax bill, while returns paid on equity—dividends and capital gains—cannot.
The debt distortion is not new. What is new, however, is that we have come to realize that excessive debt (or leverage) is much more costly than we have always thought. (more…)
Filed under: Advanced Economies, Financial Crisis, Fiscal policy, International Monetary Fund | Tagged: capital gains, corporate income tax, corporate profits, debt bias, debt finance, dividends, equity, financial crises, global financial crisis, interest deductiblity, investment, leverage, tax avoidance, tax deduction, tax incentives | Leave a Comment » | <urn:uuid:e02ee811-a39f-447d-b755-7cc230607995> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/tag/debt-finance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950576 | 246 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Lipstick & Pearls
Written by Malinda Just Tuesday, 15 September 2009 13:41In 1895, H.G. Wells wrote “The Time Machine,” centering on a main character who uses a time machine to selectively travel through the years. This novella is credited with the mainstream popularization of the sci-fi concept of time travel.
Since then, the notion of time travel has made millions of dollars in the film industry alone.
In the 1985 movie “Back to the Future,” the main characters use a DeLorean—equipped with a flux capacitor—to time travel. But any changes made to...
Written by Malinda Just Tuesday, 18 August 2009 14:11My grandma loves to tell the story of two young girls who went outside to play. Before long, as my grandma tells it, she passed by a window just in time to see the older of the two smear mud down the front of the other’s coat. The youngest ran to the house crying, “She got me dirty, she got me dirty.”
Contending that the oldest didn’t want to get in trouble for getting muddy, my grandma laughs about how a dirty coat put the youngest in such hysterics.
And I still don’t like to get dirty. (My cousin knows that, and still makes fun of me. But, hey, better that than getting mud smeared down my front.)
I like my clothes to stay clean and my shoes to look like new. I like my fingernails to remain un-appalling. In the uncommon...
Written by Malinda Just Tuesday, 14 July 2009 14:12Even though it’s once again illegal to shoot fireworks, we continue to have daily explosions at the Just house. But before reporting us to the authorities, you should know that our explosions have nothing to do with fire, and everything to do with words.
Now a 15-month-old, my daughter’s language development is exploding. Each day, it seems, she says a new word or imitates a new phrase. Staple words include outside, shoes, hi, hot and OK.
The phrase most often heard is a high-pitched, “It’s a kitty.” We will be playing in our backyard when my daughter stops everything and points while saying, “It’s a kitty, it’s a kitty.” She’s very astute, as it takes me a few moments to finally focus on the cat sitting at the back...
Written by Hillsboro Free Press Wednesday, 17 June 2009 06:59I recently stepped out of my brown-and-black comfort zone and borrowed a pair of red-patent wedges to wear for my husband’s and my fifth wedding anniversary. It was refreshing to dress up for an evening out, and the bold shoes added to the fun.
Shoes have the potential to make or break an outfit. First designed for foot-protection, modern shoes now require a flair for fashion. And the more fashion-driven, the less foot-protection offered.
Gone are the days of simple foot-bags made of leather, although the simple, inexpensive flip-flop could compare. Today there are shoe engineers paid to design aero-dynamic tennis shoes, light-weight, innovative Crocs, earth-friendly mules. The list could go on.
And my 14-month-old has already bought...
Written by Malinda Just Tuesday, 19 May 2009 14:45A couple years ago, before beginning my journey into motherhood, I sat on a folding chair, waiting to donate blood at a local Red Cross blood drive.
I had made my appointment for a busy time of day, so I had ample time to observe my surroundings. It was then I engaged in reading each of the survivor stories mounted on the makeshift lab cubicles.
There were stories of car accident survivors, needing 12 units of blood to pull through. There were stories of children born with sickle cell anemia, needing regular blood transfusions to live an active life.
And there were stories of babies, barely out of diapers, needing the gift of blood to help combat childhood leukemia.
I was glad I had the chance to donate my O negative blood to...
Page 10 of 13 | <urn:uuid:b9bcda6a-43b1-4e9a-a6d3-33e196383331> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hillsborofreepress.com/opinion/lipstick-a-pearls.html?start=45 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957277 | 905 | 1.664063 | 2 |
My first option is a base ball bat- yet that could lead to a short time in jail, which would not be the best thing, so there are things you can do, or at least consider, one would be to take some self defense classes- that way in the event of something happening you have away to protect yourself, other things are to make sure you someone is either with you or know where you will be.
As for techniques- Just notice how you are feeling right now, and what ever name you might call that feeling, just let it be, and just notice the sensations, the warmth or coolness, the weight or lightness, does it have a shape a colour? a sound and just notice noticing- and just be with that, nothing more nothing less, what do you and can you notice on the outside- what are you seeing hearing? and just be aware of being aware- and now if you was feeling strong calm and confident right here and right now, whats happening inside for you to know that you are feeling strong calm confident right here right now? and if you was to increase that feeling by just 1 half of percent how would that then feel? now while your in this/that state (press your index finger and thumb together and while your doing that at the same time say in a very strong inner voice inside your head (Strong Now!!) now repeat this this 7-11 times and each time increase that feeling of being strong calm confident in this/that time in the here and now- now go in to a time in the future several years from now, and while your in that time, turn around and look back from that time to this time, and press your finger and thumb together, and say Strong now, in that strong voice, and while your in that strong place in that time in the future walk back from there in to the now minute by minute, hour by hour day by day, week by week, month by month tear by year, getting stronger and stronger until your reach the here and the now, then turn around and walk back to the future and again taking this that state of being strong, all the way back there in that future time, and again turn back and do this several times each time making it faster and faster stronger and stronger- then stop- go for a drink of water- and just notice noticing- and when you need a boost press your finger and thumb together- and just notice and just increase the feelings of strong just by one half of a percent each time. | <urn:uuid:570cadc8-04f2-4d31-8c9d-5abd814e6e4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geniuscatalyst.com/forums/index.php?topic=1253.msg7580 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966213 | 512 | 1.585938 | 2 |
This year as well as last, Lacey Patch received complaints from residents who failed to hear Oyster Creek's siren test.
At 10 a.m., a three-minute full volume siren was activated within Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station’s emergency planning zone. The siren went off again for a few seconds at 2 p.m.
The 42-siren system goes off within a 10-mile radius of the nuclear plant as a part of Exelon’s comprehensive emergency preparedness program.
Exelon Corporation issues the annual test, which is not a signal to evacuate, in cooperation with Ocean County and the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management.
"We had 100 percent success. All 42 sirens sounded," Oyster Creek spokesperson Suzanne D'Ambrosio said. "Every siren works."
D'Ambrosio added that the plant does receive complaints that some residents were unable to hear the sirens but those are directed through Ocean County's Office of Emergency Management.
Usually the county's office gets complaints but they have yet to receive any today, said Sheriff's Officer Steve Healey, also the Radiological Officer for the Emergency Management Division of the Ocean County Sheriff's Department.
"If there is someone who can't hear the siren for some reason, because they're very loud and strategically placed throughout the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone, (the Office of Emergency Management) has gone out to see if we can hear the sirens," he said.
When an official complaint is filed with the Office of Emergency Management, representatives are sent to that address the following year to document it, he said. If the sirens are unable to be heard, the office looks into installing another siren.
"If you're inside the house, in the shower, with the radio on, you're not going to hear it," Healey said. "That can happen. The public needs to understand that you might not hear the sirens but you should always be watching the news, listening to the radio and be aware."
D'Ambrosio pointed out that the sirens are only one part of Oyster Creek's "comprehensive plan" to alert residents in the event of an emergency.
County emergency management authorities may use the sirens to warn the area of threatening events including fires, floods, tornadoes, hazardous material releases, and plant-related events.
In the case of an actual emergency, all residents should tune to one of the county Emergency Alert System radio or television stations. If a siren fails to activate, local police and firefighters would alert residents using mobile public address systems or door-to-door notifications.
"Those sirens aren't an indication for people to evacuate," D'Ambrosio said. "It's an indication for people to stay put and to tune into the radio and television for more information."
From the Lacey Township Police Department, the sirens were heard loud and clear and the dispatcher even received several calls of concern.
Anyone within the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone who did not hear the sirens can file a complaint with the county or state's Offices of Emergency Management. But Healey recommended contacting your municipality first, who would then forward the complaint to the county.
Lacey's Office of Emergency Management can be reached at 609-693-6636; the county is at 732-341-3451.
A PDF containing information on Emergency Planning for Oyster Creek Generating Station is attached to this story. More information can be found here.
Lacey Patch is wondering, did you hear the sirens? Cast your vote below. | <urn:uuid:aef822c2-4ea1-4114-b9da-65f90009568e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://barnegat-manahawkin.patch.com/articles/did-you-hear-oyster-creek-s-siren-test | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959554 | 752 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Risk and Financial Management: Mathematical and Computational Methods
Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Author(s): Charles Tapiero
Published Online: 21 JUN 2004
Print ISBN: 9780470849088
Online ISBN: 9780470020364
About this Book
About The Product
Financial risk management has become a popular practice amongst financial institutions to protect against the adverse effects of uncertainty caused by fluctuations in interest rates, exchange rates, commodity prices, and equity prices. New financial instruments and mathematical techniques are continuously developed and introduced in financial practice. These techniques are being used by an increasing number of firms, traders and financial risk managers across various industries. Risk and Financial Management: Mathematical and Computational Methods confronts the many issues and controversies, and explains the fundamental concepts that underpin financial risk management.
- Provides a comprehensive introduction to the core topics of risk and financial management.
- Adopts a pragmatic approach, focused on computational, rather than just theoretical, methods.
- Bridges the gap between theory and practice in financial risk management
- Includes coverage of utility theory, probability, options and derivatives, stochastic volatility and value at risk.
- Suitable for students of risk, mathematical finance, and financial risk management, and finance practitioners.
- Includes extensive reference lists, applications and suggestions for further reading.
Risk and Financial Management: Mathematical and Computational Methods is ideally suited to both students of mathematical finance with little background in economics and finance, and students of financial risk management, as well as finance practitioners requiring a clearer understanding of the mathematical and computational methods they use every day. It combines the required level of rigor, to support the theoretical developments, with a practical flavour through many examples and applications. | <urn:uuid:ec121220-dc62-4a79-88a4-b46a7acd8862> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/0470020369 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904572 | 358 | 2.25 | 2 |
5 Things to Know About Single Mothers in Poverty
A Look at the Challenges Facing These Mothers and Their Families
SOURCE: AP/Mike Derer
As we approach another Mother’s Day, we as Americans reflect on the challenges facing some of the mothers struggling the most out there—single mothers living in poverty—and what we can do to create greater economic opportunity for all kinds of families.
Too often the space in the national discourse for this discussion is clouded by myths, personal attacks, and stereotypes about this group of women. This Mother’s Day let’s move beyond the stereotypes and take a fresh look at not only the challenges facing single mothers living in poverty but also some of the policy solutions that can lift them out of poverty.
Here are five things to keep in mind about poor single mothers this Mother’s Day.
A full-time, year-round job makes all the difference
Single-mother families are nearly five times as likely to be poor than married-couple families. But when single mothers have a full-time, year-round job, the poverty rate for these families falls from 40.7 percent to 14 percent. (see graph) With two or more full-time, year-round workers in the household, the rate drops even further, to 4 percent. Stable employment and the contributions of another earner can play an important role in bringing down poverty rates among single-mother households. Nearly two-thirds of single-mothers also work outside the home.
Job quality matters
Job quality is critical for single mothers, who are especially likely to work in low-wage jobs. In fact, more than 80 percent of low-wage workers don’t have access to a single paid sick day. Without paid sick days single mothers are forced to choose between losing their job and caring for a sick child. A single mother with two children, working full time at $10 per hour, would slip below the poverty line if one of her children got sick, and she had to miss three days of work without pay. Inflexible work schedules and unstable child care arrangements can be significant barriers to work for single mothers in poverty.
In addition to tackling the overall unemployment rate, it is critical to improve job quality, connecting workers to jobs that provide a family-sustaining wage and benefits such as retirement savings, health insurance, and paid sick days.
Efforts to weaken the safety net hurt single-mother families
The 1996 welfare reform law transformed income assistance for poor families from an entitlement program to a block grant, a program known today as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Unfortunately, the number of families with children in poverty has risen since reform, but TANF caseloads have mostly stagnated or declined. This means that many poor families eligible for TANF, the majority of which are headed by single mothers, have been left out in the cold. Because of its flat amount and block grant structure, TANF was more constrained during the recession and could not respond as effectively to help more families in need. In contrast, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was able to quickly adjust to meet the increased need because of the dynamic nature of the program.
It’s in our nation’s best interest to lift more single mothers out of poverty
A majority of the nation’s poor children live in single-mother-led households. Child poverty is not only morally objectionable, but it’s also costly. Child poverty costs the U.S. economy more than $500 billion annually as a result of lost productivity, negative health and education outcomes, and increased criminal justice expenditures. By extending ladders of opportunity to single mothers and their families, we can make a dent in child poverty, educate and equip children for tomorrow’s workforce, and increase our economic competitiveness.
Single mothers living in poverty have a lot at stake in deficit reduction
Work and income supports such as tax credits for working families, nutrition assistance, and housing vouchers lift millions out of poverty each year, boost our economy, and help families make ends meet. The safety net has faced and will likely continue to face troubling attacks by conservatives determined to restructure programs or make deep cuts in funding.
A prime example is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is facing cuts of $36 billion over 10 years in addition to another $134 billion as articulated in the House Republican budget. As a result of these cuts, 8.2 billion meals would be lost by low-income Americans. Two million families would lose their benefits entirely and 44 million more would see their benefits reduced. With most supplemental nutrition assistance going to households with children, the majority of which are headed by single-parent families, single-mother families have a lot to lose should supplemental nutrition assistance be reduced or eliminated as part of short-sighted and ill-conceived deficit reduction efforts.
Mother’s Day shouldn’t be the only day of the year that we celebrate mothers. By pursuing a progressive agenda to create good-quality jobs, advance efforts to offer paid family leave to all, and protect the safety net for those who fall on hard times, we can honor our nation’s single mothers every day.
Katie Wright is a Research Associate with the Center for American Progress.
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202.481.8119 or email@example.com | <urn:uuid:a42a3577-7096-4327-a611-e688e1654dad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/news/2012/05/11/11634/5-things-to-know-about-single-mothers-in-poverty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944125 | 1,332 | 2.390625 | 2 |
By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Nov. 26 -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) on Nov. 23 began production tests at Platform P-52 in Roncador oil field in the Campos basin 125 km off Brazil.
P-52 is a semisubmersible production unit with a capacity to process 180,000 b/d of oil, to compress 9.3 million cu m/day of gas, and to inject about 300,000 b/d of water into the reservoir (OGJ Online, Nov. 7, 2006). It is installed in 1,800 m of water, a Brazil record.
The platform initially will handle volumes of about 20,000 b/d but is expected to reach its total capacity of 180,000 b/d in mid-2008 when it will be interconnected to 18 production and 11 water injector wells.
The platform's hull was built in Singapore, and its operating modules were manufactured in Brazil. | <urn:uuid:8dfc4e19-fb56-4ea4-8958-bd6b0bf5688a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ogj.com/articles/2007/11/petrobras-starts-production-tests-at-p-52-platform._printArticle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932233 | 202 | 1.515625 | 2 |
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 18, 2001
Physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have smashed the nuclei of gold atoms together at near the speed of light to produce the highest density of matter ever artificially created, it was announced Tuesday. The density was more than 20 times as great as that within the nuclei of ordinary matter and produced temperatures above 1 trillion degrees.
June 19, 2003 |
Physicists said they had created a new form of matter strongly resembling the stuff of the universe one-thousandth of a second after its birth. This matter -- created in a project at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton -- is called quark-gluon plasma, and physicists believe it is crucial to understanding the dawn of the universe and the interior of atomic nuclei.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
June 27, 1988 |
"It's the ultimate insult," said Thomas Weiler, visiting professor at the University of Hawaii, as he considered evidence that almost all of the universe is made of exotic matter different from that making up stars, the Earth and people. Mounting evidence suggests that as much as 99% of the universe's matter may be exotic, infinitesimal particles that pervade space, undetected except for their gravitational effect on stars.
July 7, 2001 |
A central piece of a major scientific puzzle fell into place Friday when physicists announced experimental results confirming a basic theory about how matter was created in the first moments after the Big Bang. The results, released by an international collaboration based at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, do not completely explain the mystery--indeed, as with many scientific discoveries, the new findings created even juicier mysteries.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 13, 1995 |
Last month physicists at the University of Colorado chilled a batch of atoms to the coldest temperatures ever achieved on Earth--or anywhere else in the universe, for that matter. Any day now, they're hoping to get the atoms cold enough to freeze into an entirely new state of matter. This feat of unnatural frigidity consumed six years and more than half a million dollars. Physicists are suitably impressed. But lay people might well want to ask: What's the point?
July 14, 1995 |
In a discovery that experts are calling breathtaking and beautiful--and of "Nobel Prize caliber"--physicists at the University of Colorado at Boulder have created an entirely new state of matter. It exists only in the coldest spot in the universe, which is currently a carrot-size tube in the laboratory of physicists Carl Weiman and Eric Cornell.
October 5, 1993 |
A coveted antimatter research project awarded Monday to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center aims to answer one of the most fundamental questions about the universe: Why does matter exist? Scientists will analyze millions of special subatomic particles called B mesons to compare the behavior of matter and antimatter. They hope they can understand how a universe of physical stuff--stars, planets and people--emerged from the primal fireball of the Big Bang.
January 18, 1991 |
A promising theory that some scientists hoped might explain the nature of the invisible matter that makes up 90% of the universe has been all but destroyed by data collected during last month's astronomy mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery, scientists said Thursday.
February 28, 1995 |
Ever since physicists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced in April that they had detected "strong evidence" for the final particle in the subatomic puzzle, physics watchers have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. This week, the sound of shoes dropping will be heard worldwide with the expected announcement that 900 collaborators in two simultaneous experiments have found the long-sought "top quark." | <urn:uuid:e3e81f49-543e-41f7-bd73-4a9c4afcf0f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/matter/featured/3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952978 | 774 | 3.015625 | 3 |
"He who saves a person's live, saves the whole world.�?
(From the Talmud)
If many people think like this,there won't be any suffering. Every year, between 80,000 and 90,000 children die of Noma worldwide. Only education and prevention canhelp in the long term. To do this we need your help. We needmoney for the children that are disfigured by Noma for their survival through medication, nutrition and operations.
Malnutrition, bad hygiene and social rejection are the biggest enemies in battling Noma. Even if the disease has already spread, cheap medication can still save children from severe disfigurements, which lead to rejection from their community.
The organization has already helped more than 50.000 children through education. The Hilfsaktion works on a volunteer basis in Germany. Thanks to past donations of more than six million euros, Noma e.V. could battle the disease in Niger and erect three children's stations, a treatment center at the national hospital and a hospital especially for Noma patients. Please help us with your donation to expand our help for the children so that by 2010, no child loses face because of the disease. The organization is recognized by the German Internal Revenue Service and donations are tax deductible. Thank you! | <urn:uuid:023d4a58-ae08-4def-b7fb-0f202dcacbfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hilfsaktionnoma.de/70.html?L=2'%60(%5B%7B%5E~&L=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953999 | 267 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Closing the gap between idea and reality
- Our Approach
Project management methodologies are the various ways in which projects are initiated, planned, and executed unto completion. There are different project management methodologies to benefit different projects. Selecting the most suitable project management methodology could be a tricky task. Each project management methodology carries its own strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, there is no good or bad methodology, and what you should follow is the most suitable one for your project management requirements.
Managing software projects has become essential not just to keep track of a project’s timeline, scope, and budget, but also to increase efficiency and maximize return on investment.
Based on project types, time and budget constraints, and your needs, our project teams can use one of the following proven software development methodologies for your custom web application development and mobile application development:
Team would customize the selected project methodology to accommodate changes based on your organization’s requirements. The goal of each methodology is the same: to deliver a project successfully, on time, and within budget.
This is the first phase of the project management process where we meet with you to discuss your project objectives and needs. As part of this phase, we go through a series of brainstorming sessions that help refine your project needs. We prepare an initial project scope and provide you high level time and cost estimates. In this phase we discuss proposed approach,risks, different technologies, proposed team structure, and deliverables.
In this phase, business analysts and project managers thoroughly analyze requirements and prepare functional specification documents. Functional specifications are then reviewed and approved by stake holders of this project in your organization.
In this phase, the project manager and development team design high level application architecture, define units of work, and produce technical specification documents. QA engineers perform high level QA review and generate a test plan.
After receiving approval on functional and technical specifications, the project manager works with the project team to produce a project plan with milestones, resource allocation, and a release schedule.
This is the phase where the development team starts the development process.The project gets developed using progressive milestones/releases and QA testing begins at the end of each individual development milestone. At the end of each milestone, internal acceptance testing and initial reviews can also be performed. In this phase routine status checks are performed and status updates are provided by PM to keep you informed and involved.
At the completion of significant project milestones or at the completion of the entire project, project source code and finalized project documentation get delivered to you.
Contact us today to discuss your project methodology development needs. | <urn:uuid:f7cd0d66-905b-4291-971a-22fa12793322> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brainypro.com/projectMethodologies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9132 | 532 | 1.929688 | 2 |
After the positive response to their Eneloop rechargeable batteries, Sanyo is back with some more excellent gadgets for their environmentally-friendly Eneloop line. Most notable, though, is the Eneloop Portable Solar. It looks kind of like a briefcase, but the outside is covered in photovoltaic panels. A mesh pocket on the other side holds the Eneloop Power Booster, which is the battery that stores the collected solar energy, as well as any gadgets you’re toting around.
Eneloop suggests leaving the Portable Solar outside, hanging it in a window, or just carrying it with you while you walk around. You can choose models with one set of panels or two, depending on how much power you need. Then anytime your gadgets need a pick-me-up charge, plug them into the Power Booster via a USB cable. Sanyo says that after charging the twin panels in the sun for one hour, there will be enough power stored up to give your cell phone 40 minutes of talk time.
Not only would this be good for keeping battery-draining devices powered up wherever you go (we’re thinking camping trips would be a lot more fun with a fully-charged Nintendo DS); it would be perfect for emergencies, too. If the power goes out and you can’t charge your phone for a while, there will (hopefully) still be sunlight to keep you connected. The Eneloop Portable Solar is already on shelves in Japan; no word yet on when it will hit North America. | <urn:uuid:8f8503e7-19de-4497-9ad4-a364441afa31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gajitz.com/schleppable-solar-briefcase-size-solar-panel-goes-with-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940702 | 319 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Steward and the King
|The Return of the King chapters|
The Steward and the King is the fifth chapter of the sixth book in The Return of the King.
The narrative jumps back to the time before the quest is finished, now focusing on the perspective of those in Minas Tirith. While Aragorn and the forces of Gondor are away, the city remains shrouded in fear. Faramir meets Lady Éowyn in the Houses of Healing. Éowyn longs for Aragorn and the chance to fight with the Riders against Mordor. Her sadness, mixed with pride and beauty, leads Faramir to fall in love with her. For days, they stare to the east, waiting for word of Gondor’s success, until they eventually see the Darkness break. As sunlight breaks through the sky, the citizens of Minas Tirith break out in song. Messengers soon arrive telling of Aragorn’s victory. The conflict resolved, Éowyn’s longing for war fades, and she and Faramir agree to wed.
When Aragorn returns, Faramir rides out of the gate of Minas Tirith and offers him the keys of the city and an ancient crown. To everyone’s amazement, Aragorn calls for the Ring-bearer and Gandalf. Frodo hands the crown to Gandalf, who places it upon Aragorn’s brow.
The city of Minas Tirith begins to revive. Its walls are restored, and the city is filled with trees, fountains, and laughter. Ambassadors from many lands arrive in Gondor, and Aragorn shows mercy by rewarding both the faithful and the enemies of the West. Gandalf explains that the Third Age of Middle-earth has passed: the war against Sauron is over, and Aragorn’s reign in the age of Men has begun. The group climbs up an ancient, snowy path, at the end of which, amidst a pile of debris, Aragorn finds a sapling of the great White Tree—the symbol of ancient Elendil, Gondor’s kingdom. Aragorn takes the sapling back to the Citadel. The old, dead tree is removed and laid to rest, and the new one planted in its place.
The day before Midsummer, a group of Elves approaches Minas Tirith. Celeborn and Galadriel, Elrohir and Elladan, and all the Elf princes arrive in the city. Behind them, mightiest of all, is Elrond with his daughter, Arwen. On the day of Midsummer, Aragorn (now called King Aragorn II) and Arwen are wed. Queen Arwen, seeking to repay Frodo for his immeasurable service and suffering, offers him a gift. When the time comes, he may sail in her stead across the Great Sea to the unknown West, where the Elves dwell in eternal youth and joy. | <urn:uuid:44f5519d-635d-4e76-b6ad-3bfa254c141b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tolkiengateway.net/w/index.php?title=The_Steward_and_the_King&direction=prev&oldid=220266 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92808 | 628 | 2.25 | 2 |
January 23, 1816 ~ September 17, 1907
Joel Evans had a good reputation for being a very intelligent man. Daniel R. Anderson tells the following story about Joel Evans and some of his friends in Waynesville:
"A coterie of wits, E. Baily, Arnold Boone, Neddy Lynch, Sam Rogers, Sr., David Evans, Sr., Joel Evans, Geo. W. Brown, Elton Dudley, ~~ that lot; and another regular was my father, Dr. Wm. H. Anderson, were member of a club that made a rookery of the store house of Hadden & McClelland, and the way they did "rook", oh, my! An open debate on any live subject, interspersed with well-told stories, filled out the long evenings till closing time.
I was always interested in that "gang" because it was as good as a moving picture show is to me now. My father had a sense of the eternal fitness of things ~ and boys were not eligible ~ so when I wasn't busy playing "Welly," with the other "kids" of the town, I would sneak into the store, and slip behind a large table that was piled high with goods and "stop, look and listen!" They were always great on conundrums, only one of which will I record.
Geo. Brown was late, and some one had propounded to those present, "what is the worst kind of 'bat' that flies after night?" Joel Evans answered, "A brick bat." About that time Geo. Brown drifted in and immediately Joel put the new one on him in this wise, "George, what is the worst kind of 'brick bats,' that fly after night?" George was silent for only a little while, and with a funny little grin said, "I don't know unless it is hard ones," and the laugh was on Joel.
Joel Evans was a man of superior intelligence, and vast information on most any subject, and I have put a question to him, and he would look at me and pass on and never open his head. Perhaps I would meet him again in a week or so, and without any preliminary he would answer that question as though he was just asked about it. That was his way! If he didn't know, he would find out; being sure that you wanted the information, or would not have asked him. | <urn:uuid:6b3853e6-16d6-4862-b946-be145c74dcd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://qugenswohio.blogspot.com/2006/01/joel-evans-quaker-mayor-of-waynesville.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993398 | 503 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Fuel cell technology will help light the way as the Space Shuttle Endeavor launches off into space for the final time.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is one of several test sites for a new hydrogen fuel cell-powered mobile light tower that has the potential to drastically reduce dependence on diesel-fueled mobile lighting across the United States. NASA’s first testing of the product coincides with today’s launch of the Endeavour -- the mobile tower will supply additional lighting during the launch.
Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) sponsored by the Energy Department, is participating in a joint effort to launch this clean technology alternative to diesel-powered equipment. Participants include Multiquip, Luxim, Lumenworks and Ovonic Hydrogen Solutions; as well as Altergy Systems -- the manufacturer of the 5 kW hydrogen fuel cell system that provides power to the mobile light stand.
The collaboration targets three customer areas at this time -- entertainment, transportation and airports -- to test these light towers in real-world operating environments. In addition to the Kennedy Space Center, other customers who are providing test sites include the San Francisco International Airport and the California Department of Transportation. The technology already has made a debut in the entertainment industry -- lighting up red carpet events for the 2011 Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards ceremonies in Los Angeles, in addition to the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony and other events.
The diesel mobile light towers used today are noisy and release particulates, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. Researchers at Sandia estimate that replacing a single one of these lights with a hydrogen fuel cell mobile light tower will offset 900 gallons of diesel fuel per year.
A fuel cell-powered mobile lighting system running on hydrogen produced from renewable resources used in lieu of a diesel engine reduces Nox (mono-nitrogen oxides) and particulate matter emissions by nearly 100%. Fuel cell-powered mobile lighting also significantly reduces noise -- achieving near silent operation.
Energy Department-funded research has helped to reduce the cost of fuel cells by 30% since 2008 and 80% since 2002. This has enabled increased widespread adoption and enabled commercial developments for fuel cell applications.
For more information, visit the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology website. | <urn:uuid:a13f7961-e9f9-436b-824d-9976167583fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/articles/fuel-cells-shine-light-last-endeavour-space-shuttle-launch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924268 | 454 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Analysts might have shrugged at the move, but users didn’t: By early last week, Microsoft boasted that 1 million people had signed up for the new service.
Was it because of the integration with SkyDrive and Office Web apps? The new UI? Or just curiosity?
Who knows. But what we do know is that there are lots of questions about Outlook.com. Here are the answers to some of the most pressing.
I use Hotmail now. What happens to my email? The next time you open Hotmail, you may see the new interface.
If you don’t, you can switch by choosing “Upgrade to Outlook.com” from the Options menu in the upper right when you’re at your inbox.
How do I get one of the new Outlook.com addresses? For a brand new account, go to Outlook.com. (You may need to log out if you’ve already used the new site, then return to Outlook.com.) Start the process by clicking the “Sign up” button on the left. Fill in the form, which includes a field for your new xxxxxoutlook.com address, complete the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”) and click the “I accept” button at the bottom.
What does it look like? Very Metro. The user interface (UI) has the same flattened, color-subdued look as a Metro app in Windows 8. By comparison, the traditional Hotmail UI looks like a carnival … busy, garish, loud, cheap.
Obviously, Outlook.com’s UI will mesh well with Windows 8. Depending on your opinion of that UI, however, it may seem jarring on older or non-Microsoft OSes, including Windows 7 and OS X.
Can I keep my old address and still use Outlook.com? Yes, you can.
You can keep Microsoft-related addresses ending with hotmail.com, msn.com and live.com while switching to the new UI.
I want to ditch my hotmail.com address. How do I do that? Start at Outlook.com. If you’re not automatically pushed to the new UI, switch by choosing “Upgrade to Outlook” from the Inbox’s Options menu — and select “More mail settings” from the gear icon’s menu. Click on “Rename your email address.”
Enter your existing hotmail.com address — the portion to the left of the @ character — and click Save while “outlook.com” is visible in the drop-down list. If the address is already taken, you’ll see a message to that effect.
Does Outlook.com show me ads? Yes, it does. Text-based ads, to be specific.
If you want an ad-free screen, you have to fork over US$19.99 annually for what’s still called “Hotmail Plus.” According to Microsoft, subscribing to Plus keeps ads off Hotmail and Outlook while they operate side-by-side.
Will Microsoft force me to use Outlook.com? At some point, yes.
There’s no public timeline, but Microsoft said that when it wraps up the preview, “we will upgrade [users] to Outlook.”
We expect that even after the preview ends, former Hotmail users — perhaps identified by their account addresses — will be able to access a “classic” UI for some length of time. That’s been Microsoft’s practice in the past when it’s made drastic changes to the look of Hotmail.
How much SkyDrive space do I get? All new Outlook.com accounts receive the SkyDrive-standard 7GB storage allotment.
Migrating or upgrading an existing Hotmail account doesn’t boost the storage on your already-in-place SkyDrive by that amount, however; you get bupkis in that scenario.
I love Gmail, want to try Outlook.com, but don’t need another email address. How do I proceed? Sorry, you can’t avoid the new address.
Microsoft’s published a short list of steps to forward your Gmail messages to Outlook.com, link Gmail contacts to the new Microsoft service and even set Outlook to send messages from your Gmail address.
Check out the how-to here.
Can I use Outlook.com on my smartphone or tablet? Yes. Microsoft has posted instructions for adding an Outlook account to an Android, iOS or Windows Phone device here.
Can Outlook.com sync my mail to another PC or my smartphone? Yes. The new service relies on Exchange ActiveSync to synchronize not only email but also calendars and contacts.
ActiveSync was developed for mobile sync, so it’s no shock that the technology synchronizes data between Outlook.com and various devices, including those powered by Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Outlook also syncs with Outlook 2013, the email client that’s part of the Office 2013 suite, which was released as a preview last month. It also synchronizes with the Metro-ized Mail app in Windows 8, although you’ll have to add your new Outlook.com to the app.
Some are out of luck, though: Mac users running the Entourage or Outlook 2011 clients can’t sync their mail with Outlook.com. Nor can users of OS X’s own Mail client.
Can I view Office document attachments sent to my Outlook.com account? You can do better than that.
Outlook.com includes integrated access to Microsoft’s Office Web Apps — cloud-based, Webified versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Word — so that those programs’ documents can be viewed, edited and saved within the browser.
There’s no setup necessary. When you receive a Word document attachment, for instance, you simply click on the icon that shows in Outlook’s inbox to launch the Word Web app. (The Office Web Apps were already part and parcel of SkyDrive, so when Microsoft tied Outlook to the storage service, the Web-esque Word and friends came along.)
For some reason, we weren’t able to open a Word doc from Windows 8′s Mail app using Office Web Apps; Microsoft wasn’t able to come up with an explanation or solution.
I don’t like it. Can I switch back? Yes. At the upper right of the Outlook.com window, select “Switch back to Hotmail” from the options menu. Hint: It’s marked with an icon that looks like a gear.
Any problems with the preview? The most prominent discussed last week on reddit.com, where the Outlook.com team took questions, was the CAPTCHA used to prevent bots from registering accounts.
“Your CAPTCHA is not only filtering out bots but also people. I for one tried 10 times with no luck and will not be registering for the time being because of this,” said one commenter named “soowarn.”
The CAPTCHA was case-sensitive, and so required users — or lost users in the cases of those who quit trying — to determine whether a letter was uppercase or lower.
In a post, ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley also reported that some Office 365 subscribers were unable to sign up with Outlook.com.
Finally, scores of users headed to Microsoft’s Answer support forum, frantic because they were unable to access their live.com or hotmail.com mailboxes and messages after mistakenly changing a Microsoft Live ID or after converting an older account to Outlook.com. (See the next Q&A for the link to that forum’s thread.)
Where do I get help? Microsoft will soon add Outlook.com to the Answers peer-to-peer support forum currently labeled “Hotmail, Messenger & SkyDrive,” which will then become the go-to locale for Outlook help.
In the meantime, Microsoft asked that Outlook.com users post questions to the thread titled “Where can I report my problem with Outlook.com mail?” | <urn:uuid:44c38395-7103-4099-bb9b-2c61dd61b07a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macworld.com.au/help/faq-trying-microsofts-new-outlook-com-66699/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90944 | 1,731 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Google gunning for Twitter, Facebook. In a not-so-subtle attempt to put some pressure on social networking behemoths Facebook and Twitter, Google is set to announce today that its adding new status-driven functionality to Gmail, The New York Times reports. The Times describes the new features as "add-ons to Gmail that let users post and view messages about their day-to-day activities." But over at TechCrunch, Michael Arrington expects more, writing, "our understanding is that the product goes well beyond a Gmail integration."
How to avoid getting duped. We've all been guilty of falling for a deal that seems too good to be true or an idea that seems so perfect that only a fool would pass it up. Thankfully, Guy Kawasaki at the American Express OPEN Forum has a few tips on how to avoid being so gullible. Tip #1, and perhaps most important, is to avoid being rushed into big decisions. As Kawasaki points out, "If someone is rushing you to make a decision, you should be even more skeptical." The post goes on to explain how you can avoid "high-gullibility situations" before they arise and how to disengage from a high-pressure situation. Very important tips for anyone who's ever given his bank account number to a wealthy Nigerian prince looking to transfer a vast fortune to the United States for safekeeping.
Matchmaking for start-ups and angels. Venture Hacks, one of the best blogs about raising money from angels and VCs, has launched a new service to help start-ups find angel investors. Every week, the blog asks for start-up pitches and sends the best ones to a small list of angel investors who have agreed to get pitches. Here's the list, and here's how to apply.
Will the iPad be a good product or a great product? Paul Buchheit, the founder of FriendFeed and the creator of Gmail, quotes an early iPod review--"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame"--and guesses that the new Apple iPad will prove the skeptics wrong and be a hit based on the fact that it will offer a better Web browsing experience. Buchheit then distills his philosophy for how to design a great product: "Pick three key attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and then forget about everything else," he writes. "If your product needs 'everything' in order to be good, then it's probably not very innovative (though it might be a nice upgrade to an existing product). Put another way, if your product is great, it doesn't need to be good."
Entrepreneurship thriving in...France? Despite tough labor laws, high taxes, and a socialist ethos, France is undergoing something of a start-up renaissance, according to the BBC. In 2009, the country had a higher number of new businesses than any of its European peers. Some attribute the growth of France's entrepreneurial sector to its new "auto-entrepreneuer program," in which new businesses can register in minutes on the Internet, file invoices online, and pay charges to the state only when they start making profits. Others attribute the growth to high unemployment in the country.
Silicon Valley's baby problem. Recently, TechCrunch posted an article about the lack of women among U.S. venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs, which included a list of possible reasons for the gap. Those reasons, however -- which all pretty much boiled down to gender biases in business -- skipped over one important factor, according to a blog over at GigaOm: the expectation for women to be the primary caregivers of children. "Society at large explicitly perpetuates motherhood and not parenthood, and implicitly enforces the status quo through its policies around access to childcare for babies, school calendars and thousands of other complicating factors," says writer Stacey Higginbotham, arguing that women shouldn't have to choose between raising a family and building a startup any more than men should. Check out our slideshow on a few moms who found the balance and built great companies of their own.
When profits are secondary. CNN Money writes about a new class of for-profit company, called an L3C, where the primary goal is not making money. Since April 2008, five states and two Indian tribes have signed legislation that enables a business to incorporate as an L3C, and at least five additional states are considering similar laws. In Vermont alone, which was the first U.S. state to pass the legislation, more than 80 companies have incorporated as L3Cs in the past 21 months. According to Robert Lang, one of the creators of the L3C concept, the main goal is "to create an LLC whose very DNA insists that it has to put its beneficial activities in front of making money."
9 tips HubSpot's CEO learned while raising $33 Million. Dharmesh Shah and his co-founder have raised $33 million in three rounds of venture financing for their lead generating software company, HubSpot. Shah shares the lessons he's learned on what to do and what to avoid on his blog, OnStartups.com. Do's: get the first round right, raise more than you need, figure out orchestration, familiarize yourself with VC-speak, and pick VCs with partners you get along with. Don'ts: use your Uncle Larry as your lawyer, switch partners without doing your homework, or get obsessed with valuations. (Via peHUB.)
More from Inc. Magazine:
Friend us on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:c173faf1-e6ea-42cb-872a-18ea6cf2692c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inc.com/staff-blog/2010/02/matchmaking_for_Printer_Friendly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96001 | 1,140 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Saying used to avoid a direct answer, which is most often no. It was first used many years ago by the child created when Jesus, Confucious, and Ghandi gang raped Fergie.
Boyfriend: Please can we watch the game tonight, i've seen this gossip girl like six times
Girlfriend: We'll see
|2.||frog in a well|
Used to describe a situation or individual who cannot or refuses to see the big picture because of being sheltered and/or closed minded. This is the opposite of a frog in a field.
You have no idea what skills are required, as you have been a frog in a well for the last 30 years, stuck in the same old job with the same old skills. I have been a frog in a field jumping from job to job learning a vast amount of skills you have no idea about.
|3.||Mr Brightside's Laws of Social Well Being|
Mr Brightside's Law of Social Well Being was discovered by Daniel M. Keysell, LMH of Shevamania in November 2006, in England, United Kingdom.
Mr Brightside's Laws of Social Well Being states the 5 laws of social well being are:
1. Paul Burgess and David Blunket are one and the same person.
2. If a person wants to stay socially well, they must respect the teachings of Harry and Ron, and Shevamania.
3. Alcohol should be consumed when out either in big amounts at party's or nights out, or small amounts if out on a social occation like a date.
4. Amit's height will always be smaller than everyone else, mathmatical fact.
5. Nod when you see a sexy girl at a fellow peer nearby
|4.||See what had happen was|
Commonly used when trying to explain somethin that had resulted from wrong doing, or forgetfulness or somethin thats just really hard to explain or not wanting to be explained.
Parent: Y aint the dishes done?
Child: Well see what had happen was!(pause) 106 and park was on!
Husband: Y iz u late comin home?
wifey: ummm See what had happen was (pause) I got lost!
|5.||K w.e see ya bye|
A friendly saying used when departing your friends. It may also be used if one is annoyed with their friend as well.
Sara: Sorry I made fun of your swisspa boyfriend, I guess I will see you tomorrow or something.
Kristen: Ya maybe. K w.e see ya bye.
|6.||Its nice to see you|
A greeting exchanged, usually in a sacristy or rectory between two Catholics. One is attracted to the other but, for fear of saying something inappropriate, the affinity is channelled into this benign salutation. It can be accompanied by a long, firm handshake, a tight embrace or a kiss on the cheek.
There are three ways to respond.
If the person being greeted returns the affinity, they say "Its nice to see you too," or "Its nice to be here," but if they do not return the affinity they simply say, "Thanks!"
When the distanced admiration has existed over the course of several months or years, the greeting may also be expressed as "Its so nice to see you again."
Francis: Hey, Clare how have you been! Its nice to see you!
Clare: Its nice to see you too, Francis. I've been been well, how are your brothers?
A person who is obese and will soon risk major health problems. Well known as an ogre looking like because of the structure of his nose. Also known as an arrogant cunt face who thinks they’re “BAD”. Tramps around like an ugly elephant; doesn't know how to carry their feet when walking.
I hear you've been talked about by your friends and they still be friends with you. LOL quit acting fat & tough when you know you can't even do shit. Cut the crap, you must be an see c. | <urn:uuid:dce06b57-ae1b-4706-b04f-032903128b94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=well%20see | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964469 | 868 | 2.265625 | 2 |
We’ve got major transportation funding problems in Texas. So much so that multiple elected member of the Texas GOP are saying stuff like this, Official stresses importance of finding additional revenue for state highways.
Besides the need for new road construction, [Larry Phillips (R-Sherman)] also cited the amount of existing roadway components that need to be maintained. This includes the state’s current 194,000 lane miles
and the 51,808 miles of bridges.
“All of this will eventually cost the average Texas household about $9,500 a year in fuel, car maintenance, depreciation, tires and auto insurance,” he said. “The credit-card system will eventually no longer be available. We need some additional long-term funding solutions.”
Phillips concluded his remarks by urging everyone in the room to call their local state representatives and officials and discuss with them ideas for alternative revenue streams. [Emphasis added]
We all know what dirty phrase “alternative revenue streams” is in GOP circles, it’s like saying tax increase! Read what GOP state Rep. Drew Darby recently said on the same subject. The TxDOT leadership is going to be a problem moving forward. TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson’s answer to this question shows why, Phil Wilson: The TT Interview.
TT: [With gas tax revenue failing to keep pace with the state’s transportation needs, toll roads have become a common method to fund major highway projects. Some lawmakers say Texans are getting “toll road fatigue.”] Is that a concern TxDOT has as well?
Wilson: Our objective is to be a people agency that facilitates economic development, and our product is transportation. Our charge by the legislature is to go out and find the ways we can to build infrastructure, mobility, to address congestion and safety. And so we look at all methods of financing, and I think that tolling and this kind of growth allows us to jump-start projects by three to four times faster. It’s the nature of what we have to do. … I think you have to look at tolls as one method of financing. [Emphasis added]
It’s not surprising that this is Wilson’s focus given the corporate shills he came up under – Phil Gramm and Rick Perry. But it shows where his focus is, or isn’t, as the case may be. While the needed transportation infrastructure improvements in Texas will improve economic development, they should not be the main “objective”. Notice that TxDOT’s mission statement never even mentions economic development.
It’s clear fro this that the main mission of those now running our state is not on the needs of Texas taxpayers. It’s on those who finance their campaigns. And we now have a trickle-down transportation policy, to go with the trickle-down economic policy. They will authorize the building of toll roads that “facilitate economic development” and the traffic de-congestion will magically trickle-down (NOT!). Mission Accomplished, as they say. | <urn:uuid:3c5dd677-c2bb-42b7-a4ef-0285cd26878e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eyeonwilliamson.org/?p=11516 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953187 | 656 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Book Review | Rwandan teen's visions of Jesus make for engaging reading
Some skeptics might call the religious visions detailed by author Immaculee Ilibagiza in "The Boy Who Met Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho" nothing but the hallmark hallucinations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Others will see them as direct manifestations of the divine in everyday life. In any case, this story of a poor, illiterate Rwandan shepherd boy's spiritual journey is absorbing and sometimes inspiring.
Segatashya came from a pagan family and never had the opportunity to attend school or church or read a Bible. On a summer day in 1982, under a shade tree, the teenager experienced an apparition of Jesus.
As he explained, "I saw Him (Jesus), and He spoke to me. ... He said He chose me as a sign to show people who don't believe in Him -- like pagans and any other nonbelievers -- that He is not forgetting them. He sees them, He cares about them, He loves them and He hopes that they invite Him into their hearts."
Eventually Segatashya set off on a profound spiritual mission. For eight years, before he was murdered in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, he traveled and bore witness to life's purpose: to love Jesus and one's fellow humans, to strive to reach heaven.
Despite sometimes being beaten by those who doubted his sincerity, Segatashya seemed to retain his innate innocence. Ultimately the depth of his spiritual wisdom convinced and comforted many of his critics.
Ilibagiza has also written "Our Lady of Kibeho" (with Steve Erwin), a book about the Marian visionaries whose experiences in the early 1980s made the town a famous pilgrimage site. Unlike their visions, however, Segatashya's were not officially authenticated by the Catholic Church before his death. Ilibagiza recounts in "The Boy Who Met Jesus" how Segatashya once appeared to her in a dream, advising her not to be overly concerned with this: "'Isn't telling my story more important than waiting for someone on earth to give my words a stamp of approval? Isn't letting people know about the messages Jesus gave to me the most important thing in the world?'"
Ilibagiza, who studied electronic and mechanical engineering at the National University, lost most of her own family in the Rwandan genocide. She met Segatashya about a year before he died; her research sources also include extensive interviews with his younger sister, Christine. Ilibagiza's tone throughout "The Boy Who Met Jesus" is reverent and respectful. She spends perhaps more time than needed in reflecting on her own feelings toward Segatashya.
No matter how one regards supposed mystical apparitions such as this, the story is often engaging. After all, Segatashya represents our own primal yearning with the questions he poses directly to Jesus: Why were we created? Why must we suffer? Is there life after death? How do we get to heaven?
(Ilibagiza's life was transformed dramatically during the 1994 Rwandan genocide where she and seven other women spent 91 days huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor's house. The story is told in her first book, "Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust," released in March of 2006.)
Roberts directs the journalism program at the State University of New York at Albany. She is the author of "Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker" and other books.
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- Special Sections » | <urn:uuid:7c5af212-e8b7-410b-853d-9ed61e1f7521> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stlouisreview.com/article/2012-05-09/book-review-rwandan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968633 | 766 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The Masque of Red Death
For my literary analysis I’ve chose the story The Masque of Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe. I really like this story; I’ve read it before in my classes and researched about it. The Masque of Red Death teaches a moral, that no matter who you are, you can’t escape your fate. The Masque of Red Death is a story about this somewhat of a plague coming over Europe in the early 1700’s. The Red Death is everywhere, it’s killing people by the hundreds daily. The main character is Prince Prospero. The Prince is happy and sagacious, even with his people dying ever so rapidly. He summons at least a thousand of his friends, knights, and anyone close to him to his abbey. Within seclusion from the Red Death he is able to maintain a happy lifestyle with people close to him. In his magnificent structure, he has 7 different rooms that all have a color theme. In a metaphoric stance, these seven rooms represent your stages of life, each color getting dimmer then fading to black. They start in bright colors, the first six, and then the last room has a black theme with red velvet curtains. Every night they throw a masquerade and have a ball with each other. One night, the ebony clock in the black room stuck midnight and silence fell in the party. Someone spotted a man, dressed in all black, hooded, and just standing in a doorway. After no guard wanting to chase after this intruder out of fear, the Prince takes matters into his own hands. He comes to the figure in the black room and quickly, he meets his fate. After that, the Red Death slowly makes its way throughout the abbey killing every person in its path.
Now in my opinion, there is a lot more to this story than Poe actually wrote. It seemed that he was implying a lot, like he does with much of his work. The way that I took the message of this story is that no matter who you are, and what you’ve got in the world, you’re no better than anyone else. “No one escapes death. Human happiness... | <urn:uuid:4b65a921-4a19-4ed1-90a4-3b8b8d8920b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/211382.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972954 | 455 | 2.578125 | 3 |
As genealogists our main goal is to go another generation back or out, so when we come to ancestors who did not marry, and/or did not have children, we rarely want to spend much time on them. We dutifully enter their vitals in our trees, and move on.
The importance of these aunts and uncles becomes clearer when we reach the stage of adding flesh to the family tree, becoming family historians and putting our ancestors in context, trying to find out more than just their vitals. Often they will be the ones with the most exciting stories to add, as they had the the extra time and energy perhaps to accomplish more that was out-of-the-ordinary for the time. It seems, in my family at least, that they also come down in the one-line family lore: Aunt Annie was a nurse in the war, uncle Barnie was a Sapper in Egypt, aunt Kit was like a second mother to grandma, uncle Hervey was a practicle jokster who was killed in WWI, uncle William headed to the California Gold Rush but never made it and so on. These are women who worked, even had careers, before it was a societal norm and men who sought out a little more adventure.
Not all did, of course. There will likely be many a spinster who stayed at home to look after the family, a dutiful daughter who cared for her widowed father. I have one instance where a childless married uncle basically raised three of his brothers children when the brother and his wife died in a cholera epidemic. Nearly 150 years later, the names of aunt Annie and uncle Robert are still uttered with an endearment passed on through generations. “Hugh and Winnie” travelled and raced greyhounds and their feats may be found in newspaper clippings and postcards, but not in the family tree as they had no children. “Fran and Bill” had no children either, yet they were like second parents to my own mother who, as a child, called Bill da-Bill (daddy-Bill) and was very close to her aunt Fran. Some family money came from uncle Charlie and aunt Norah. So they were important, and are important. They did not live ostersized lives, sitting on the sidelines, watching our ancestors live. They lived, and influenced those around them.
Theirs may also be the Will and Testament that helps you knock down a brick wall, for who did they have to leave anything to but slightly more distant relatives–brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. They may also be the keepers of family heirlooms and legend–I am not the first spinster in my family tree to be genealogically inclined. Family is arguably more important to us precisely because we haven’t got children of our own. I myself keep in touch with as many cousins, and cousins-once-removed, as possible as often as possible. I may be able to tell you more about their lives than their own parents our children could.
I have to admit I hold a personal stake in this for I am just such a lifeless limb, not at all what I planned. And as I hit 40 this year I am trying to make sense of my own contribution to life and to my family. It’s not so easy to see so close up, so I have begun to re-examine from farther afield, studying my fellow spinster and bachelor family-gone-before. It has been heartening to me to see that they have indeed contributed and many still live on in the family lore. | <urn:uuid:8f04c349-4386-4985-a1d6-08f977675572> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://folkarchivist.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/hello-world/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=1ba466d084 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988677 | 752 | 2.375 | 2 |
From the hands-on experience of feeding a herd of friendly goats in our farmyard area, to the chill down your spine as you “enter the realm” of Tigers and Snow Leopards - The Dakota Zoo offers a number of ways to experience our animal residents. Many exhibits feature glass walled viewing stations for clear vistas and excellent photo opportunities.
The Zoo is located on a 90 acre site along the banks of the scenic Missouri River and encompasses a large meadow area and gently rolling river bottoms filled with mature cottonwood and hardwood trees. This setting allows most of our exhibits to closely emulate the natural habitat of our animal residents.
The Jack and Joyce Schuchart Big Cat Complex is equipped with heated viewing stations, plus a system of tunnels that let visitors safely observe Tigers and Snow Leopards from viewing turrets inside the exhibit!
The bi-level North American River Otter enclosure has large underwater windows allowing visitors to watch the fun as these natural show-offs perform amazing underwater feats.
The Mountain Lion, Bobcat and Lynx exhibits all have large glass viewing windows, as does the Elk Overlook, and Grizzly Bear enclosure.
Our Gray Wolf exhibit features a raised viewing platform that affords birds-eye views of the Wolves as they move about this spacious enclosure.
The Prairie Dog enclosure is designed with our younger visitors in mind, with tunnels and viewing domes that offer a chance to get up close and personal with these inquisitive rodents.
The “Monkey Barn” houses a number of small primates in glass fronted enclosures, and the Bismarck Tribune Discovery Center is home to salt and fresh-water Fish, Reptiles, and Amphibians, all displayed indoors in climate controlled comfort.
The animals that require fenced exhibits are still highly visible to Zoo visitors, with enclosures that allow viewing from much closer proximity than one could ever achieve in the wild. | <urn:uuid:f176a7c1-3ba8-4405-af89-20afa32d8fd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dakotazoo.org/?id=60 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932264 | 394 | 1.929688 | 2 |
|Rediff India Abroad Home | All the sections|
Foreigners barred from working in Bangladesh for 5 years
October 21, 2007 15:48 IST
In a step intended to create more jobs for locals and help them grasp techincal know-how, Bangladeshi authorities have decided to bar all foreign nationals, including Indians, from working in the country for the next five years.
"If any industry desires to transfer technical know-how to the local people, five years is enough for the task," a Board of Investment director, who was not named, told the Daily Star newspaper.
As a least developed and over populated country, he said, Bangladesh was not able to accommodate unskilled work force in different industries.
The officials said the BOI would also not allow any ordinary workforce from abroad to ensure more jobs to the locals in industries fully owned by foreign nationals or joint venture companies.
The decisions were taken after a taskforce recently identified that a number of foreign nationals working in Bangladesh hid their actual income to evade government revenue prompting BOI to scrap work permits of 25 foreign nationals.
As part of the tightened policy, the BOI has barred foreign nationals whose income is shown below $500 a month. | <urn:uuid:32c05154-8aa6-437a-a174-06e714a16abd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/21bdesh.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963346 | 249 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Welcome to the NEW ClassAct website!
Class Act was developed to support instructors and staff who work with deaf and hard of hearing students in all mainstreamed academic environments. The core of the site focuses on teaching challenges and strategies, but you will also find information to support communication strategies, support services and the classroom environment. The goal of the ClassAct site is to improve existing teaching practice by providing access to instruction for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in mainstream classes.
Major Funding for this project was received from Demonstration Projects to Ensure Students with Disabilities Receive a Quality Higher Education, the Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education and The National Science Foundation under award number DUE—1104229. | <urn:uuid:55098639-32ca-4a91-9092-7abb1db53b0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deaftec.org/classact | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948745 | 156 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It's 8am in Hanoi and already thousands of motorbikes, mopeds and scooters flow through the streets. Some sway with the weight of two or three passengers, boxes of merchandise, sacks of rice, or tied-down pieces of furniture that look heavier than vehicle and driver combined.
For the first-time pedestrian, crossing the road is a daunting experience, but, amid all the apparent chaos, the "system" works. The trick is to just walk when you can, and let the torrent of bikes flow around you. Don't look left, don't look right. Just walk.
This functioning chaos contrasts sharply with the mostly prudent macroeconomic course that Vietnam has been taking. The Doi Moi, or "renovation" economic reforms were launched in 1986, emulating China's move to open up its markets, after more than a decade of stagnation since the fall of Saigon to the Vietnamese communist forces.
Vietnam has changed rapidly in the past 10 years, but locals say the country still lags behind its neighbours, such as Thailand and Malaysia, which have a gross national income (GNI) per capita of $3,760 and $7,230 respectively. Last year, Vietnam's GNI per head was US$1,010, highlighting the country's impressive progress on eradicating extreme poverty. Hanoi is a far cry from the quiet, inward-looking city it was prior to Vietnam's economic take-off, though rural poverty persists, particularly in more remote and ethnic minority areas.
How to maintain this progress is the key challenge facing Vietnam's policy makers. Thailand and Malaysia are hemmed in by the so-called "middle-income trap", which suggests that while countries can move up from the ranks of the very poor, moving further forward is more complex, as competitiveness falls off and costs for investors increase. With the middle-income trap comes widening inequalities, as vast wealth often gets concentrated in a few hands.
Kuala Lumpur this year announced ambitious plans to transform Malaysia into an OECD-standard economy, attempting to emulate the rise of South Korea, once one of the poorest countries in the world. Crucial to South Korea's rise was education reform, and that is one area in which Vietnam is doing well. In Hanoi, conversations with young Vietnamese professionals and students were all peppered with references to the importance of a good education to Vietnamese people. Investments in eduation and health were part of Vietnam's renovation reforms.
Vietnam has just been promoted to this middle division of the international economic league tables, but wants to keep moving up the ranks. In common with much of Asia, Vietnam's economy is vaulting clear of the global slowdown – which in hindsight now looks more like a western malaise. Growth for 2010 is projected to beat the 5% recorded last year – though these numbers are down on the 6.5% -8% average for the previous decade.
The opening, in October, of technology firm Intel's largest plant in the world, in Ho Chi Minh City, was a high-profile reminder of the country's emergence as an investment target for multinationals. Intel president and chief executive Paul Otellini joined Vietnam's deputy prime minister, Hoang Trung Hai, at the opening, with Hai remarking that the new facility "supports our goal of accelerating economic transformation led by technology-intensive industries". Less than a week later, at the culmination of the East Asian and ASEAN summits, held in Vietnam, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, witnessed the signing of investment deals by Microsoft and Boeing.
However, Vietnam's move out of poverty and its economic growth owes a good deal to the thawing of its relations with the US and the subsequent forging of trade and investment links. The US is Vietnam's second largest trade partner, but its largest is China. Despite all the historic enmities - Vietnam was a Chinese colonial outpost for a millennium – the Chinese style of political economy was adapted. The ambivalence toward the emerging superpower to the north endures, with Hanoi now trying to balance the fears aroused by Beijing's growing assertiveness with the economic realities of having China as a neighbour.
Vietnam has been sidling closer to the US, letting China know that it has options should Beijing lean too hard on its smaller neighbours. When the naval destroyer USS John S. McCain docked in Da Nang port in mid-August, the symbolism was rich. The ship is named after the grandfather of 2008 US presidential candidate John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam.
However Hanoi's strategy will likely be a balance between the two giants. China's presence in Vietnam's central highlands has proved controversial, with plenty of criticism fired at the ruling communist party by bloggers and writers who think that the country's rulers have sold out to Beijing. Their focus has been on mining projects run by the Chinese, citing environmental concerns – a downside of Vietnam's economic rise - and the siphoning-off of Vietnamese resources to China.
However, this outcry in turn has prompted a clampdown on opposing voices ahead of the five-year party congress, scheduled for early 2011. Around 20 activists have been arrested or jailed since October, a clear signal that, like China, Vietnam's one-party rulers will not cede power or allow democracy to play a part in its "renovation". And other damaging aspects of China's governance model have been adopted.
Vietnam's two-child policy has doubtless done a lot to boost the country's progress in the millennium development goals in terms of reducing child and maternal mortality, but is leaving Vietnam with a demographic imbalance , just like China. In Vietnam, according to UN statistics, the birthrate is 112 boys to every 100 girls, as women have an average of three abortions in a lifetime, to meet the two-child policy. | <urn:uuid:d37cc367-0705-4043-9957-cb75e9ab8beb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/dec/23/vietnam-development-middle-income-trap | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962685 | 1,204 | 2.171875 | 2 |
- 0% INTRIGUED
- 0% FURIOUS
- 0% BORED
- 0% SAD
On a cool, grey April morning on Chicago's South Side, Rami Nashashibi walked purposefully into the conference room of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (Iman) and sat at the head of a rectangular table, where four of his charges awaited instruction.
"I can't explain how much you have on your shoulders," Nashashibi, wearing loose-fitting jeans, a knitted skullcap and a comfortable sweater, told his men. "What we have right now is a little seed, and if we want that seed to become a great forest, we've got to cultivate it."
Nashashibi has been cultivating Iman for nearly 15 years. Today the organisation provides just about everything to those in need in Chicago Lawn, a predominantly African-American neighbourhood with a mix of Latinos and Palestinians. Its free clinic serves the sick from across the city. A computer lab offers technical training. Tens of thousands of people go to its annual concert benefit, Takin' It to the Streets, while its bimonthly music and arts gatherings are well attended. One project supports healthier eating alternatives for the area; another reduces gang violence. A new initiative, Green Reentry, builds eco-friendly houses for Muslims recently released from prison.
Iman's work has earned plaudits for its leader. In 2007, Islamica magazine placed Nashashibi among the 10 Young Muslim Visionaries Shaping Islam in America. The next year he was named one of the world's 500 most influential Muslims by Georgetown University and described as "the most impressive young Muslim of my generation" by Eboo Patel, chairman of President Barack Obama's interfaith task force. Last autumn, the US state department sent Nashashibi on a diplomatic speaking tour of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this year, Iman received another honour: Imam Habib Umar, the director of Dar Al Mustafa, based in Yemen's Hadhramaut Valley, and among the world's top institutions of Islamic education, spent an afternoon in Chicago Lawn as part of his first North American tour. He visited the organisation's Transitional House, where Muslim men recently released from prison stay until they can get on their feet, and delivered a speech on spirituality and community accountability. "The most beloved of God's creatures are those who are most beneficial to others," Umar had said, thanking Iman members for "fulfilling a communal obligation upon all Muslims".
Nashashibi balances a commitment to Islam, an intellectual rigour and an unstinting morality with the style and mannerisms of the street. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he teaches, and has worked in high-security prisons and some of the city's roughest neighbourhoods. On the South Side, he is friendly with shopkeepers, businesspeople and political and religious leaders and trusted enough by school administrators to be called in to mediate student disputes.
"We must serve humanity by serving the creator in the most humble way possible," Nashashibi advises the men in the conference room. "What we do on all levels continues to represent the larger project. You're being watched now by Habib Umar. People around the city, around the country, around the world, are hearing about our work." | <urn:uuid:ec36ce6b-801a-4a7f-bc93-dfbd1132f2c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.illumemagazine.com/zine/articleDetail.php?Activist-Puts-His-Faith-to-Work-in-Troubled-Chicago-13665 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968281 | 695 | 2.046875 | 2 |
"Mom!" you yell down the stairs. "Where's my math book? I can't find it and the bus is coming! Please help me ... it's an emergency!"
It is kind of an emergency with the bus coming and all, but what about a medical emergency? That kind of emergency is usually more serious. If you don't have your math book or miss the bus, that would be bad. But a medical emergency means someone needs care from a doctor right away. Let's find out the right thing to do.
Quick Thinking: What Would You Do?
Liz and her little brother Jamie are out for a walk. Jamie decides to race ahead down a very steep hill. He's running pretty fast when he suddenly trips. Over and over he falls, rolling down the hill at high speed until he's sprawled out on the sidewalk at the bottom.
Liz rushes to her brother's side, hoping that he's OK. Then she sees some blood on the pavement. And Jamie isn't moving at all. What should she do? First things first: Liz should look around for a grown-up and call him or her to help right away. If no one is close by, she should make a phone call either on a cell phone or from the closest phone.
Calling for help is the most important thing a kid can do in an emergency.
If you're going to be the one making the emergency phone call, here's what to do:
Take a deep breath to calm down a little.
Tell the operator there's an emergency.
Say your name and where you are (the exact address if you know it).
Explain what happened and how many people are hurt. (The operator will need all the information you can provide, so give as many details as you can.)
Follow all of the operator's instructions carefully.
Stay on the line until the operator says it's OK to hang up.
After calling for help, your first thought might be to rush over to the person who's injured. But stop and look before you do. Make sure the scene is safe. If it's not, wait in a safe spot until a grown-up or an emergency team arrives.
If the scene is safe, and as soon as Liz is sure someone is calling 911 — or she has called it herself — she could return to her brother and wait until help arrives. (She shouldn't move her brother at all because he could have a neck or other bone injury. Moving someone who has that sort of injury can make it much worse.) She can help him feel calm by being calm herself.
The best way to handle an emergency is to be prepared for one. Knowing what to do ahead of time can help you stay in control so that you can help. Here are some suggestions on how to be ready to help in an emergency:
When you're outdoors, make sure you're in an area where you can call out for help even if you don't have a phone with you.
Know how to dial 911 or your local emergency number (in most areas in the United States, it's 911).
If you have one, carry a cell phone or know how to use your parent's cell phone.
Learn first aid. Look for basic first-aid classes with your local Red Cross, the YMCA or YWCA, the Boy or Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, your local hospital, and other organizations. Or ask your school nurse to have a first-aid class just for students in your school.
It's scary to think about someone getting hurt. But the truth is that accidents can and do happen. They happen when people are being careless and careful. Sometimes, kids are the ones who get hurt. Sometimes, grown-ups get hurt. Either way, it's good to know what to do if someone needs emergency medical help. Even though you're a kid, you can make a big difference by doing the right thing. | <urn:uuid:bf6007a6-038b-4d9f-a2d0-e7020b07c94b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidshealth.org/PageManager.jsp?dn=Virtua&lic=55&cat_id=115&article_set=22056&tracking=K_RelatedArticle | 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 | 0.973854 | 814 | 3.4375 | 3 |
FORT PIERCE — The St. Lucie Master Gardeners have spent months preparing over 3,000 plants for the 27th annual fall plant sale at the St. Lucie County Extension Office from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 9. All plants will be sold at wholesale prices during this one-day-only public sale.
October is the an important in-between month to add new plants to your landscape or special garden for the fall. Thousands of plants, over 150 varieties, have been tended by volunteer Master Gardeners for months in preparation for the fall gardening season.
Several plant vendors will also be bringing in plants to supplement the selection. This means a huge variety of quality landscape plants, including Florida native, bromeliads, roses, and orchids will be sold by at unbeatable prices, but serious gardeners need to come early for the best selection.
In addition to a huge selection of plants ready to go at wholesale prices, over a dozen volunteer master gardeners will be on-hand to assist with Discovery Garden tours, soil pH testing, 4H compost sale, and to assist with plant selection and answer specific gardening questions.
Bring a soil sample from your troubled turf grass or garden area for free pH testing. Soil pH testing is the most efficient way to determine nutrient deficiencies, troubleshoot problems with plant growth, and plan a landscape.
For more information about how to collect your soil sample, visit the University of Florida Web site at: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/SS494
In desperate need of new landscaping ideas?
A visit to the award winning Discovery Garden during the plant sale is a must. Guided tours will be offered through this public demonstration garden that boasts more than 72 perennial plant species, many annuals, and herb too.
The Discovery Garden showcases sun-loving plants, features a variety of variegated and flowering plants to maximize year-round color, demonstrates the principle of right-plant, right place, and uses environmentally sustainable gardening practices, including water conserving micro-irrigation and a solar powered water fountain.
This nonprofit sale is the perfect opportunity to get fantastic plant deals for that small or large gardening project. All funds generated from the plant sale support the volunteer Master Gardener Program, including the maintenance of three public demonstration gardens at the Extension Office and an annual student scholarship.
The festival and plant sale will be held on Saturday, October 9, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the St. Lucie County Cooperative Extension Office, 8400 Picos Road, Fort Pierce, FL 34945.
For more information about this event, please call (772) 462-1660, or check the Web site - http://stlucie.ifas.ufl.edu/master_ga... | <urn:uuid:fdf3e412-ac27-48b0-8668-ddebc6282ffa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/sep/28/fall-plant-sale-to-boast-october-gardening-season-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912784 | 588 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Policing in Mumbai is set for a three-year Rs. 300-crore makeover under which the best practices from around the world, including those of the Metropolitan Police of London and the New York Police Department, will be adopted to improve intelligence-gathering to prevent another attack like the
26/11 carnage four years ago that left 166 people dead.
The Mumbai police will get a control room similar to that of the London Met, with 12,000 CCTVs set up all over the city being monitored real-time by over 300 staffers, and a wireless communication system like the NYPD’s. The cost of this “metro policing” project will be shared by the state government and the Centre.
The government notification is likely to be issued by this month-end.
“This will be a three-year-long programme where the upgrades will take place step by step. To begin with, top police officials across the country, including the Mumbai police commissioner, Satyapal Singh, were sent to six cities in the United States and the United Kingdom, which have advanced policing systems,” said a senior government official, who asked not to be named. “They have studied the best systems and will be picking up some for us to replicate.”
The Mumbai police want to replicate systems like the London police’s huge communication network between the control room and patrolling policemen on what they notice on the CCTVs. Besides, the Mumbai police are looking at alternative communication modes using the Internet when traditional modes collapse in emergencies.
For more ears to the ground for better intelligence gathering, the “metro policing” project envisages tie-ups with private companies, area local management groups, private security agencies, and community leaders, to share CCTV footage and other information.
Appreciating the move, Narinder Nayar, chairman of Bombay First, an initiative of business houses and citizens to make the city a better place to live, work and invest in, said, “The Mumbai police are one of the best in the world but are still dealing with issues of lack of modern equipment and inadequacy of funds. This will give the much required push and put systems in place.”
On involving citizens and NGOs in the intelligence network, Nayar said this was the need of the hour. “We need to soon set up networks like the neighbourhood watch scheme in Singapore where citizen networks help police in basic intelligence gathering and maintaining security.” | <urn:uuid:66a0ee48-e651-4265-a0f5-23025f4d119b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/2611-topstories/Rs-300-cr-upgrade-for-cops-to-prevent-another-26-11/Article1-964290.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947037 | 512 | 1.53125 | 2 |
To me, which annoys to me, it is that so much by according to that things is criticized to you, while here they forget the beasts that were in the Inquisici?n, that that if that was tortures.
What I will explain next is what it was made here (so that soon they criticize what the CIA compared with these savageries did)
The dark side of history is the torture. Several of the elements used during the Average Age to make these savageries were:
* THE COLT: The victim was tied to the ends and later she was thrown of the cords until the members are descoyuntaban. It was used mainly in France and Germany, during the times of the Inquisici?n.
THE CRASH HEAD: Destined to compress and to burst the bones of the skull. The chin of the victim was placed in inferior bar, and the cap was pushed downwards by the screw. The effects of this device are, in the first place, the rupture of the dental alve?los, later the jaws and finally the brain slips by the cavity of the eyes and between fragments of the skull
THE WHEEL: It was commonest in germanic Europe. It turned the prisoner, completely immobilized, in true material of work, so that the twig was descoyuntando to him or taking members to him voluntarily. He was one of the most horrible suplicios of the Average Age. The condemned, naked, was prim mouth above in the ground, or pat?bulo, with the members extended to the maximum and tied to stakes or iron curtains ring. Under the wrists, elbows, knees and hips were placed wood pieces. The twig struck violent blows to the wheel, crushed all the bones and joints, trying not to give fatal blows. Later he was loose and introduced between the radii of the great horizontal wheel to the end of a post that later was raised. The crows and other animals took meat strips and drained the river basins of the eyes of the victim, until at this one the death arrived to him.
THE STICK: Method by which an iron striker pin at the same time penetrates and breaks the cervical vertebrae that all the neck pushes towards ahead squashing the trachea against the fixed necklace, thus killing by asphyxia or slow destruction of the spinal marrow. The presence of the end in the later part does not not only cause a fast death, but that increases the possibilities of a prolonged agony. It was used until principles of century XX in Catalonia and some Latin American countries. It is still used in the New World, mainly for the police torture, and also for executions.
THE MOUNTAIN RANGE: This instrument of torture does not need many explanations. Their martyrs are abundant. As a result of the inverted position of the condemned, sufficient oxigenaci?n to the brain makes sure and the general loss of blood is prevented, with which the victim does not lose the knowledge until the mountain range reaches the navel, and even the chest, according to stories of century XIX. The Bible (II Samuel 12:31) makes mention to this type of torture, at the time of King David. This fact I contribute to the acceptance of the mountain range, the axe and the bonfire. The mountain range was often applied to homosexuals (gays and lesbians), although mainly to men. In Spain the mountain range was means of military execution until century XVIII. In Catalonia, during the War of Independence (1808-14), the Catalan guerrillas put under tens of enemy officials to the mountain range. In luterana Germany the mountain range waited for to the ringleaders rebellious farmers, and in France to the pregnant witches by Satan.
THE CRADLE OF JUDAS: The criminal was tied and hoisted and once he was high loosen dropping it to him on a pyramid causing that, with its own weight, nailed the end of the same one in the anus, the vagina, escroto, etc. This maneuver was made several times. It was used practicamente to make confess the condemned.
These are some examples of which it was made this way.
In those times, when you had the black slaves, also were used torture methods? | <urn:uuid:b8edb930-432c-422f-ae29-329ac28d45f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=722.0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976667 | 881 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Published on November 21, 2012 at 3:08 AM
According to a new briefing paper (.pdf) from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), access to emergency obstetric care, including ambulance service, could help save the lives of up to three quarters of women who might otherwise die in childbirth, AlertNet reports (Batha, 11/19). In two projects, one in Kabezi, Burundi, and the other in Bo, Sierra Leone, MSF showed "that the introduction of an ambulance referral system together with the provision of emergency obstetric services can significantly reduce the risk of women dying from pregnancy related complications," according to an MSF press release. The services, which cost between $2 and $4 per person annually, are offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are free of charge, the press release notes (11/19). The projects "cut maternal mortality rates by an estimated 74 percent in Kabezi and 61 percent in Bo," Reuters writes, adding, "The charity hopes its model could serve as an example for donors, governments and other aid agencies considering investing in emergency obstetric care in countries with high maternal mortality rates" (11/19).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. | <urn:uuid:fafad07f-b0eb-4fc9-a1bd-02222ee12cb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news-medical.net/news/20121121/Emergency-obstetric-care-reduced-maternal-mortality-rates-up-to-7425-in-two-African-projects-MSF-reports.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934743 | 305 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Most loyal subjects
The papal visit has caused me to reflect on Catholics and the fate of Catholics in my period of special study – seventeenth century England. The story begins with the most infamous terrorist conspiracy in English history and ends with the deposition of king: it begins with the Gunpowder Plot and ends with the so-called Glorious Revolution.
It’s difficult to imagine the hostility and suspicion with which English Catholics were perceived from the reign of Elizabeth to the flight of James II. In modern terms they might be said to have occupied then the position that some sections of the Islamic community do now.
To a degree the fear of the Protestant state was understandable. After all, in 1570 Pius V issued Regnans in Excelsis, a bull describing Elizabeth I as a heretic, releasing her subjects from obeying her orders and threatening excommunication against any who did. Elizabeth, who had hitherto pursued a policy of toleration, had little choice but to begin a campaign of repression, particularly against perceived agents of the Vatican. The Jesuits were obvious targets, but even ordinary priests were drawn into the net.
But it is one of the great misconceptions, a Protestant retrospective, to put it another way, that Catholics were always ready to obey the Pope in political as well as religious matters; they were not, either before or after the Reformation. By and large English Catholics remained loyal to Elizabeth and her successors, the aberration of the Gunpowder Plot notwithstanding. More than that, as the century progressed they were among the most loyal, as the Civil Wars proved.
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II, who had direct and intimate experience of Catholic loyalty, retained a sense of gratitude, evidenced by periodic attempts to reduce the penalties and restrictions with which the community was burdened. But his good intentions were invariably frustrated by a Parliament deeply hostile to the ‘recusants’, so called because of their refusal to attend Anglican services. They continued to be barred from public office and compelled to pay fines for non-attendance at church.
Even so, life, though difficult, was not impossible, especially for England’s great Catholic families, particularly strong in the north. Then came an unexpected disaster, the greatest and most vile fabrication in English history – the Popish Plot. In modern terms it was a ‘conspiracy theory’, one conceived in the mind of a half-mad clergyman by the name of Israel Tongue but more generally associated with his principle collaborator, a wholly unsavoury individual by the name of Titus Oates.
By a mixture of verisimilitude, perjury and pure speculation Oates managed to convince the authorities that there was a grand Catholic plot to kill the King. In itself it might have come to nothing but for one crucial element: James, duke of York, the king’s brother and heir, had long been suspected as a secret papist, confirmed after he refused to take the Test Act of 1673. So, the plot to kill the king acquired an additional plausibility: that he was to be replaced by a Catholic.
In the three years from 1678 to 1680 England was gripped by a kind of collective insanity, with stories of dark riders and secret meetings across the land. Perfectly innocent Catholics were indicted on a charge of high treason, convicted and subject to the hideous butchery that followed on no more that Oates perjured evidence.
James did eventually succeed after the madness had reduced and the lies had been exposed, but the suspicion remained, not helped by his own political clumsiness. In 1688, in fear of a permanent Catholic monarchy, he was deposed by a group of aristocratic conspirators, an oligarchy whose rule was to become self-perpetuating. In one of their first acts Catholics were excluded from the royal succession, which remains the position to the present day.
For me the Popish Plot is both acutely fascinating, an insight into political pathology, and deeply shameful, even though historians are not allowed feelings in such matters! But these days are over, the hysteria is long gone, my interest is purely intellectual and academic. Not quite, sadly. I felt a renewed sense of shame over the churlish reception of Pope Benedict by some sections of our national community, shamed that his message was being drowned out, as the Spectator lead puts it, by the mendacious caricature of him as a former Nazi apologist for child abuse. It all fits with unregenerate bigots like Ian Paisley, whose imagination has not moved much beyond the days of the Popish Plot, as well as self-righteous clots like the laughable Peter Tatchell, the conscience of all gay-kind. English Catholics deserve better; they’ve earned it, my goodness, how they have earned it.
I’m not a Catholic, as I previously said, but I am a romantic. The papal visit fills me with a sense of occasion, a sense of history. I fail to see how one could not be moved by the whole thing, unless one had a soul of clay. For the first time in our history, in the history of Christianity itself, the head of the Catholic Church came to our island on an official visit. More than that, he gave a speech in Westminster Hall, in the very place where Thomas More stood trial for his life, holding to a simple principle that there was a higher duty than duty to the state. More, as a Catholic, believed in miracles. Even so he could never have conceived that the miracle of time and of circumstance would bring the successor of Saint Peter to a place where he once stood alone.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. | <urn:uuid:ccd8104d-7185-4e70-bac3-84886c2c0e11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://anatheimp.blogspot.com/2010/09/most-loyal-subjects.html?showComment=1284965290205 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979492 | 1,193 | 2.546875 | 3 |
“A genius! For 37 years I’ve practiced fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!” –Pablo Sarasate (Spanish violinist)
Give Practice some Glory
Practice deserves a lot more glory around here, frankly. It is far too often the unpopular accompaniment to success and stardom. It is the unworthy servant next to Gods of fame and fortune. Practice hardly makes cocktail conversation, much less a serious topic of every day discussion and attention.
Today, I am going to put practice up on a pedestal, shower it with glory and worship it all over again. Today, I am choosing to remember the importance of practice and the essence of true growth and improvement.
Practice can be the one gap you have to close between yourself and your goals (Choose to close it). It can be the one impediment that can hold you back and leave you wondering why others are so much better at that something for which you pine (Don’t allow it). It can make the difference between good and great, mediocre and magnificent (Go for the latter). It can define your skills by different scales altogether (Up the ante) It can be your breakaway strategy and your true path to your very own authentic success or the lack thereof (Seriously, practice is that good and almighty.)
Practice is the brutally honest friend, dropping rude awakening on your path on an idle Tuesday. Unsolicited, unwanted, unasked for but nonetheless, it shows up, telling you quite frankly why you are not good enough at something just yet. A (big!) part of you wants to kick him out of your life and the other part – the smart part – knows the layers of truth hidden in the message.
The Difference between Hard Work and Practice
All practice takes hard work but not all-hard work is practice.
Hard work is the sweat and tears you put toward a single task, be it a challenging, intellectually stimulating, complex task or a boring, dull and repetitive task. Hard work is going through college, medical school, or a certification program. Hard work is also shoveling snow, cleaning your boat, washing your dog, and chasing after your kids. Hard work is exertion of the body and the mind regardless of the task.
When hard work trains and refines your body or your mind to perform a single task beautifully, effortlessly, strongly and gracefully, then it is called a practice. This can be the practice of your abilities and skills at something that greatly interests you, be it your writing, your dance, your art, your cooking, your communication skills, your yoga, your running, your photography, your meditation, your fill-in-these-blanks passion.
Hard work can be wasteful and show no results beyond the immediate. I bet you can think of examples and spare me the trouble to reflect on the wasted hours of my life at menial, ridiculous tasks and jobs. (Please nod yes and let us move on.)
Practice, on the other hand, never goes unnoticed for long. When you practice consistently at something, it shows – whether you like it or not. Lo and behold, the fruits of all practice resurface and subtle that they may be, they gently nudge you forward on your particular path.
Practice is the beginning of beautiful miracles waiting to unfold. For me. For you. For anyone – and I mean anyone – willing to put in the practice to build a skill and develop a talent.
What Happens When You Practice?
When you practice, you use your skills and you build on them. You start to break boundaries, the ones you swore you’d “never be able to do”; you push past your old edge and start playing around new ones. Simply put, you get better with practice. Oh and you look like a genius on the side. (See my favorite quote at the opening).
Practice is intoxicating, brilliantly simple and simply brilliant and truly the best antidote for a dip in motivation. It empowers and enables. It reminds you that building a skill is difficult but not impossible. Practice makes things possible. Practice opens doors but only – and not a minute sooner than – when you are ready for it.
Consistent and regular practice has more of an exponential than a linear effect. If you practice your dance weekly, you advance very slowly over time but if you practice it daily, the jump is not linear. It is exponential – in other words, it’s a big jump, a huge jump, the kind of jump that makes the difference between good and great, mediocre and magnificent.
And practice rewards handsomely in all instances. It does not care about the state of economy, your business or even your relationships. When you practice something – anything – you improve, you grow, you advance, you gain a skill and heaps of confidence to boot.
On the scale of good to great, I have stumbled on these moments of progress in my yoga journey and cycling path – things I thought I’d never be able to do are now part of my regular practice. What beautiful proof to believe that practice pays in abundance.
What Happens When You Don’t Practice?
When you don’t practice, you lose your skills, not all at once – now that would be obvious enough to terrify you back into practice – but instead, one subtle muscle and brain memory at a time. At first, it is frustrating but hardly bad enough to sound a loud alarm. Then you notice that what seemed so effortless at the height of your practice now takes so much more time and energy.
You slip here and there. You lose your refinement and agility. You notice that the skills you once held at the palm of your hands are now slipping through your fingers and you wake up to reality. You have slowly lost your sharp skills for that which you swore you loved more than anything else.
Without practice and use, you lose what you built. The less you practice, the faster it fades and it is a terrible thing to witness so stop the insanity early on!
Beware of the impending effect on your beloved skills. I have noticed this bitter effect many times. When we lived in Turkey, I had mastered Turkish like a native. I would ace geography and history in 8th grade, gossip with the best of them in school, and once successfully translated a car-buying negotiation between my dad and the dealer from Farsi to Turkish. Today I remember a few words and harbor some regret in losing my skill for not using it.
Fall in Love with Your Practice
Practice is tangible. Motivation and inspiration are sometimes fleeting but practice, you can hold on to it. You can count on it. You can schedule it. You can plan it. You can commit to it. You can return to it anytime so long as you believe in its power and its rewards.
So whatever your goals, your desirable skills, your artistic aspirations and dreams of creativity, build a consistent, unshakable practice around it. Stay the course, detach from the end-goal and delve into the world and wonder of your practice.
Fall in love with the slow, the steady, and after a while, the significant progress which awaits you. Fall in love with your practice and compromise it for nothing in exchange on your path to greatness.
What do you think? Does practice deserve the glory I bestow upon it today? Share away those brilliant thoughts below!
All Photography here by Pascal Monmoine. All graphic design by Prolific Living. | <urn:uuid:f5df7cbf-f657-4b4e-af85-189ec0467786> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prolificliving.com/blog/2010/12/22/the-importance-of-practice-use-it-or-lose-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943792 | 1,562 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Some of the nation's largest mortgage companies used a single document processor who said he signed off on foreclosures without having read the paperwork - an admission that may open the door for homeowners across the country to challenge foreclosure proceedings.
The legal predicament compelled Ally Financial, the nation's fourth-largest home lender, to halt evictions of homeowners in 23 states this week. Now it appears hundreds of other companies, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, may also be affected because they use Ally to service their loans.
As head of Ally's foreclosure document processing team, 41-year-old Jeffrey Stephan was required to review cases to make sure the proceedings were legally justified and the information was accurate. He was also required to sign the documents in the presence of a notary.
In a sworn deposition, he testified that he did neither.
The reason may be the sheer volume of the documents he had to hand-sign: 10,000 a month. Stephan had been at that job for five years.
How the nation's foreclosure system became reliant on the tedious work of a few corporate bureaucrats is still a matter that mortgage lenders are trying to answer. While the lenders may have had legitimate cause to foreclose, the mishandling of the paperwork has given homeowners ammunition in their fight against foreclosure and has drawn the attention of state law enforcement officials.
Ally spokesman James Olecki called the problem with the documents "an important but technical defect." He said the papers were "factually accurate" but conceded that "corrective action" may have to be taken in some cases and that others may "require court intervention."
Olecki said the company services loans "from hundreds of different lenders," but he declined to provide names.
Spokesmen for Fannie and Freddie confirmed Tuesday after inquiries from The Washington Post that they use Ally, formerly called GMAC, to oversee some mortgages. The companies have launched internal reviews to assess the scope of any potential issues.
Ally, Fannie and Freddie - all troubled mortgage companies that received extraordinary bailouts by the federal government during the financial crisis - declined to say how many loans might be affected. The Treasury Department, which owns a majority stake in Ally and seized Fannie and Freddie in 2008, also declined to comment.
Fannie and Freddie, created by Congress to finance mortgages and encourage homeownership, have in recent years been repossessing houses at record numbers. Fannie alone reported recently that 450,000 of its single-family loans were seriously delinquent or in the foreclosure process as of June 30. That's nearly 5 percent of the loans it guarantees.
Lawyers defending homeowners have accused some of the nation's largest lenders of foreclosing on families without verifying all of the information in a case, but it has been hard for them to stop foreclosure proceedings.
Ally's moratorium comprises only the 23 states - none in the Washington area - that mandate a court judgment before a lender can take possession of a property. But if Stephan signed documents related to foreclosures in states without this requirement (it's unclear whether he did), it could help a much broader range of borrowers.
Iowa Assistant Attorney General Patrick Madigan, chair of a national foreclosure prevention group composed of state attorneys general and lenders, said the fallout from the Ally review could be enormous because Stephan's actions could be considered an unfair and deceptive practice.
"If servicers are submitting court documents that aren't true or that have not been verified, that is of great concern," Madigan said.
Stephan's job at Ally was arguably one of the least enviable in the mortgage business: formally signing off on foreclosure papers that his company would submit to the courts to get approval to evict delinquent homeowners and resell their homes.
From his office in suburban Philadelphia, Stephan oversaw a team of 13 employees that brought documents to him for his signature at a rapid clip. Stephan did not respond to messages left at his work and home.
His official title was team leader of the document execution unit of Ally's foreclosure department, but consumer advocates call him the company's "super robot signor" or "affidavit slave."
In sworn depositions taken in December and June for two separate court cases involving families trying to keep their homes, Stephan revealed his shortcuts when reviewing the files. He said he would glance at the borrower's names, the debt owed and a few other numbers but would not read through all the documents as legally required. He would then sign them. The files were packed up in bulk and sent off for notarization several days later.
Stephan testified he did not know how the "summary judgment" affidavits he signed were used in judicial foreclosure cases.
At the rate Stephan was reviewing files, if he worked an eight-hour day he would have had an average of only 1.5 minutes for each document.
"A ridiculous amount of time for something so critically important," said Thomas Cox, an attorney in Maine who was one of those who deposed Stephan. He added that Maine and Florida law enforcement officials are investigating the matter.
Stephan was the only employee signing papers for foreclosures that were to be submitted to courts that did not involve bankruptcies. The latter cases, which were more complex, were handled by a separate department.
Olecki said Stephan still works for Ally but added, "We cannot comment further about his position."
While several large lenders contacted by The Post declined to talk about the document review process for foreclosures, attorneys working on behalf of homeowners said the setup at Ally was not unusual.
Christopher Immel, an attorney in Florida who deposed Stephan for a case in Palm Beach County, said he thinks Stephan was not a rogue employee but one that was performing his job responsibilities as the company told him to do.
"GMAC has a business model to do this, and Stephan was just one small part of it," Immel said. "He was under the impression it was okay to do this."
March 23rd, 2013
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March 21st, 2013
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March 15th, 2013
The response to my Newtown letter this week has been overwhelming. It is so very clear to everyone that the majority of Americans have had ...
March 13th, 2013
The year was 1955. Emmett Till was a young African American boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi. One day Emmett was seen "flirting" with ...
February 26th, 2013
Thanks to everyone for bearing with me as I spend so much time on what happened to Emad Burnat. It's important to me because he's ...
February 26th, 2013
On Tuesday, February 19th, Emad Burnat, the Palestianian co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary '5 Broken Cameras,' was detained with his wife and son at Los ...
February 20th, 2013
Last night was the Motion Picture Academy-sponsored dinner in Beverly Hills honoring the directors and producers of this year's five nominated films for Best Documentary. ...
September 11th, 2010
OpenMike 9/11/10 Michael Moore's daily blog I am opposed to the building of the "mosque" two blocks from Ground Zero. I want it built on ...
December 14th, 2010
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that ...
May 12th, 2011
"The Nazis killed tens of MILLIONS. They got a trial. Why? Because we're not like them. We're Americans. We roll different." – Michael Moore in ...
November 22nd, 2011
This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and ...
September 22nd, 2011
I encourage everyone I know to never travel to Georgia, never buy anything made in Georgia, to never do business in Georgia. I will ask ...
December 16th, 2010
Dear Swedish Government: Hi there -- or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your ...
November 2nd, 2010
This letter contains (almost) no criticisms of how the Democrats have brought this day of reckoning upon themselves. That -- and where to go from ... | <urn:uuid:795a5b08-74a1-41d3-90e6-f2569de1c7c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/ally-financial-legal-issue-foreclosures-may-affect-other-mortgage-companies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977342 | 1,759 | 1.5 | 2 |
Via Susie writing at Crooks and Liars:
Summary: Haiti was forced to pay France for its freedom. When they couldn't afford the ransom, France (and other countries, including the United States) helpfully offered high-interest loans. By 1900, 80% of Haiti's annual budget went to paying off its "reparation" debt. They didn't make the last payment until 1947. Just 10 years later, dictator François Duvalier took over the country and promptly bankrupted it, taking out more high-interest loans to pay for his corrupt lifestyle. The Duvalier family, with the blind-eye financial assistance of Western countries, killed 10s of thousands of Haitians, until the Haitian people overthrew them in 1986. Today, Haiti is still paying off the debt of an oppressive dictator no one would help them get rid of for 30 years.
The rest of the world refuses to forgive this debt.
She also talks about the Jubilee Act, which would forgive Haitian debt without tying that forgiveness to the privatization of the entire country and what ever resources it has left. Feel free to call your member of Congress in support thereof.
So, in a way, maybe Robertson is right. Haiti is caught in a deal with the devil, and the devil is us. | <urn:uuid:0c8e2c39-a0eb-43a7-896f-f57cbd952d11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/haiti/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9775 | 264 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Everyone knows there is a huge push going on to optimize building performance. Building owners may wish to have a “green” and efficient building for environmental or financial reasons, but, either way, our industry has the knowledge, skills, and technology to create the better-performing buildings they desire.
After a building has been optimized, however, proper operations and maintenance (O&M) becomes the tool that will enable it to sustain its best performance. As might be expected, as building systems become more efficient and more tightly controlled, they also become more complex. In turn, so does O&M. Therefore, this column assumes that everyone understands the importance of general maintenance of equipment to maximize its lifespan, optimize efficiency, and minimize operating costs. In green buildings, however, it often is necessary to go beyond the proverbial “boxes.”
Establish a Baseline
When assessing an existing facility for a preventive-maintenance (PM) program, it is important to understand the building’s current energy consumption. We utilize a database of similar buildings along with the past year’s utility bills. If a full year of bills is not available, filling in the missing bills with construction-period bills will suffice. We use the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, which is an easy-to-use third-party tool that helps us identify a building’s “energy intensity,” or total overall energy use expressed in British thermal units per square foot per year.
We use Portfolio Manager to establish a building’s energy-use baseline, compare the building to similar buildings, and develop an energy initiative. This helps us determine what steps we need to take in a building. We must know the baseline to develop the best possible O&M program. If a building’s energy consumption is on the lower end of the scale when compared with similar buildings, the focus can be on basic PM tasks. If energy consumption is at the high end for buildings of its mechanical type, we know we need to look at other items along with PM tasks.
Maximize the Value of Controls
Once a baseline has been established, the next crucial element in ensuring peak building performance is the building-automation system (BAS). The BAS is the heart of a continuous optimization process.
The BAS allows monitoring of building trends that can indicate and help identify issues. For example, reviewing the historical trends from the weekend, when a building is shut down, may reveal that in 50 rooms the temperature drops at a rate of 1°F every 8 hours, while in 10 rooms the temperature drops at a rate of 1°F every one hour. Because the equipment is off at the time, the cause of the discrepancy in those 10 rooms is likely the building envelope. Likewise, if monitoring the BAS in the morning reveals that most rooms are warming at a rate of 1°F per hour but others are warming by 1°F every four hours, the cause might be an envelope issue, but it also may be an equipment issue, such as improper coil sizing, a dirty coil, or an airflow problem. A BAS can be used not only for optimization, but for maintenance and troubleshooting. By keeping utility bills current in Portfolio Manager, we are able to track the impact of any changes made to a BAS.
Of course, the data received for analysis will be only as good as the BAS that provides it, so the system’s sensors should be calibrated regularly, and the building should be periodically run through a sequence of operation to ensure the equipment is functioning in the way it is intended.
If a building does not have individual gas and electric meters, submeters should be added. Not only are submeters helpful in determining energy-conservation strategies, they are needed if the owner wants to pursue ENERGY STAR certification in the future. Connecting submeters to a BAS allows monitoring of energy consumption based on building load and can provide notifications of deviations from desired performance.
Comfort and Energy Must Walk Hand-in-Hand
Finally, do not forget that a major part of O&M is occupant comfort. The cost per square foot per year of a building’s human resources can be 100 times that of the energy costs for the same square footage of floor space. Be sure not to implement changes that reduce energy consumption at the expense of occupant productivity. A 10-percent savings in utility costs may save a building owner 20 cents per square foot. But if the energy improvements cause occupant discomfort that results in a 10-percent reduction in productivity, the cost to the owner in terms of lost productivity can be $20 per square foot. Occupant comfort must go hand-in-hand with energy performance for a building to be truly successful.
James Workman is a service operations manager for CCG Automation, an authorized Automated Logic dealer. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:6e696764-50f2-4642-a61c-7fc11bcf1f73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hpac.com/managing-facilities/om-key-keeping-green-buildings-optimized | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934685 | 1,024 | 2.59375 | 3 |
England is hard.
Itís dear, dour, and bitter; itís grey, and itís old.
Summer comes at least twice every thirty years.
Itís also beautiful, grand, and majestic.
Itís vital, mystical, and much more than medieval.
Church bells ring, throngs of people fill public squares and party through the night while rabbits hop across fields, foxes lurk on the edges of the wood, and stoats dance with each other. Dramas, pageants, and parades are a daily occurrence. Occasionally fireworks take to the sky. All of this Iíve seen, smelt, felt, and heard.
Iíve been to the magical, easy-going England Ė a place you never want to leave. It starts just before Bradford on the Avon and goes all the way to Bath. Itís a place of misty sunrises, the home of one of only four only known remaining copies of the Magna Carta, Stonehenge, canal towpaths, and Roman baths. Horses and sheep dot the hillsides, people smile, say hello, and invite you for tea.
Itís an England to love in ten thousand words Ė more or less. | <urn:uuid:644c9833-e938-4c69-8dd4-17c1d819bfb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davewodchis.com/s_42.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905182 | 255 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Healthy Living: Menopause
When it comes to process of menopause, it's different for everyone. According to researchers, it can be different depending on a woman’s particular ethnic background. Marcie Fraser explains.
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As a woman ages, menopause occurs when the ovaries become resistant to the hormones FSH and LH.
"When the ovaries become more resistant then you don't make follicles and hence you don't make as much estrogen and progesterone," said Dr. Naomi Bloomfield, OB/GYN.
Peri-menopause, the transitional period leading up to menopause, can take between seven to ten years.
"You can have irregularities like you were talking about or heavy periods like you were talking about," said Dr. Bloomfield.
The most common side effect is hot flashes. Other symptoms include thinning of the bones and a reduction in skin elasticity, causing wrinkles.
"Vaginal dryness because the skin of the vagina is very estrogen sensitive, it becomes very thin and less stretchy and intercourse is painful," said Dr. Bloomfield.
The average age of menopause is 51, but some studies indicate African Americans transition earlier.
"Perhaps they may go through, maybe on the average six months earlier than Caucasian women. We do know they experience more hot flashes, however they are less bothered by the symptoms," said Dr. Bloomfield.
Weight gain can be expected but some gain more than others.
"Black women are more likely to get more weight than Caucasians, Asians or Hispanics when they are in menopause," said Dr. Bloomfield.
While fewer women are taking hormone replacement therapy more are trying natural remedies such as vitamins. The doctors do advise that you should be careful, since nothing has been proven to work, but it doesn't mean it won't give you some relief.
"A lot of people suggest soy products that have phytoestrogens and they are a less potent plant estrogen that can help; soy bean; soy milk. Black Cohosh to decrease the hot flashes. A lot of people say vitamin E suppositories for vaginal dryness," said Dr. Bloomfield. | <urn:uuid:4bd26ece-1553-4a4e-a970-d110e4a053e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ithaca-cortland.ynn.com/content/health/healthy_living/578719/healthy-living--menopause/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961159 | 482 | 2.703125 | 3 |
- SmithKline Beecham has asked the High Court to throw out a ruling against it by advertising watchdogs because of what it claims was bias by an "independent" expert.
Dental specialist Dr Steve Creanor had already publicly criticised advertising for the company's Ribena Toothkind children's drink before he was called to give impartial advice to the Advertising Standards Authority.
As a result, his views "infected" the ASA's decision to ban what it said were unsubstantiated advertising claims for the product, the court was told.
The legal battle centres on whether or not SKB has the right to claim that Ribena Toothkind "does not encourage tooth decay".
The company has invested £19 million in the development of Ribena Toothkind, launched two years ago in an attempt to rehabilitate the Ribena brand after widespread criticisms of its effect on children's teeth.
The application for a judicial review is the first to go to court since the setting up of an independent appeals system against ASA decisions which failed to resolve the dispute.
SKB said Creanor, senior lecturer in oral sciences at Glasgow University's dental school, had already been critical in print of a Ribena Toothkind poster depicting bottles of product as bristles on a toothbrush.
He claimed it to be "inappropriate" and not putting across the message that the British Dental Association, which has accredited the product, would have wanted.
SKB claims the ASA had paid insufficient regard to the backing of Ribena Toothkind by the BDA's panel of distinguished scientists as well as other experts from Leeds University who found the product posed "no significant risk" to tooth enamel.
David Pannick QC, representing SmithKline, told Mr Justice Hunt: "We have been found guilty of misleading the public. We say that is a complaint which cannot sensibly be substantiated when a large number of independent experts take the view that the advertising claim was a perfectly proper one based on the scientific evidence."
Charles Flint QC, for the ASA, claimed Creanor had expressed a view about the advertising that any responsible expert might take and that two of the four experts of the BDA's panel had been given research grants by SKB.
He described Creanor's remarks as "preliminary only, a matter of first impression and did not preclude him from fairly judging the evidence."
He added: "The ASA was entitled to take the view that the BDA had not approved the blanket claim that the product did not encourage tooth decay".
The judge is expected to deliver his verdict early in the new year.
This article was first published on Campaign | <urn:uuid:dd7032b2-99b0-4be4-b01a-2c3e0148862d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/46050/SmithKline-Beecham-ad-bias-legal-row/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979069 | 542 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Bangladesh: Islamists again violently oppose women’s rights - Secularists need to resist firmly
Police in Bangladesh broke up angry protesters blocking a main highway in the capital Dhaka, over a new law giving women equal property rights. Dozens were arrested and injured as police used tear gas and batons. Schools, businesses and offices across the country remained closed in a nationwide strike enforced by a group of Islamic parties. Bangladesh has a secular legal system, but in matters relating to inheritance it follows Sharia law. Under Bangladeshi law a woman normally inherits half as much as her brother. But under the new rules, every child would inherit an equal amount.
Protesters blocked a key road linking the capital, Dhaka, with the main port of Chittagong. Officials say around 100 protesters have been taken into custody.
"The protesters blocked the highway for sometime. The road has been cleared now," Mahbubur Rahman, a senior police officer told the BBC.
But Fazlul Huq Amini, who heads the Islamic Law Implementation Committee, said the strike was successful and "people spontaneously supported the protest".
Protesters, organised by the Islami Oiko Jote (Unity group), argue that the new proposals go against the Koran.
The government says its new policy does not violate Islam and aims to give women greater rights in employment, inheritance and education.
Our correspondent says the proposed law has been welcomed by women’s rights groups. They say the policy has the support of the majority of people in the country.
Although the hardline religious parties do not have major political influence, their campaign to portray some of the government’s policies as anti-Islamic could have an impact on rural areas of the country in the long term, according to our correspondent.
Thursday 7 April 2011
o o o
The Daily Star, April 4, 2011
Women’s policy detractors - Don’t use religion for party politics
WE are saddened and worried that in the name of Islam some people have been trying to create confusion around the issue of the proposed national policy on women. In many ways, it is a repeat of what these very elements tried doing recently about the education policy, a move that created some unnecessary confusion. Now when a progressive step is being taken to ensure that Bangladesh’s women enjoy equal rights with men politically, economically and socially, these extreme elements are busy spreading the false notion that the proposed policy goes against the Quran and Sunnah. It does nothing of the sort. Indeed, we are outraged that where Islam once caused a positive transformation in people’s thoughts and even now symbolizes equality and self-esteem for all men and women, some quarters are happy to convey the impression that Islam stands against granting equal rights to women. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A section of people, who base their politics on misinterpretation of religion, have called for a hartal today. We wonder if they and their followers went through the entirety of the proposed policy before raising the bogey of Islam and the Quran being in danger should rights be accorded to Bangladesh’s women. Nowhere in the policy is there any mention or even a suggestion of its being in contravention of the Quran and Sunnah. The truth is that the policy simply means to ensure a more pro-active role for women in the various sectors of national life and thus make it possible for them to pursue life in dignity and freedom. Those are principles which are enshrined in the Quran as well. The ignorance of those behind the current ruckus is therefore inexcusable.
The women’s policy is surely a necessary one and a good one. It ought to be a step forward not just for women but for the whole nation as well. We ask those agitating against it to desist from denigrating Islam by using it as a weapon for political propaganda.
o o o
New Age, 5 April 2011
ILIC hartal and duplicity of dominant political class
THE dawn-to-dusk hartal, enforced on Monday by the Islamic Law Implementation Committee, a combine of some religion-based political organisations, under the leadership of the Islami Oikya Jote faction of Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini, tends to indicate that these undemocratic organisations have the mettle, organisational or otherwise, to undermine the universal democratic principles, defy the constitution and the judiciary of the country, and, most importantly, get away with it. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Tuesday, the pickets attacked the cars of two members of parliament, vandalised nearly 150 vehicles, set fire to a petrol pump and a police van, and clashed with law enforcers during the hartal hours at several districts, which left some 250 people, including 50 policemen, injured. While the hartal and the concomitant violence and vandalism by the pro-hartal elements are deplorable, not least because they were driven by a cause that is undemocratic, unconstitutional and illegal, the express reluctance of the mainstream political parties, especially the ruling Awami League and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, to take a decisive stance was simply disgraceful. Both these parties, which have alternatively run the country for most of the past two decades, appeared more concerned about appeasing these undemocratic organisations, with the former bending backward to assure them that the government’s women development policy is in no way contradicts Islamic values and the latter extending moral support to the general strike. So much for their self-professed commitment to consolidating democracy, upholding the constitution and the rule of law, and protecting and promoting women’s rights.
Perhaps, it is foolhardy to expect either of the two parties to take a decisive position against the religion-based organisations; after all, both these parties have time and again turned to them for political and electoral expediency in their crude struggle for state power. Here it is pertinent to point out that the ruling Awami League made a pact with one such organisation, prior to the last generation elections, that it would not enact any law contrary to the tenets of Islam, to secure the latter’s electoral support. Similarly, the BNP has also not sought to disentangle itself from as Jamaat-e-Islami.
As such, the repeated public statements by key functionaries of the government and the Awami League since the cabinet approved the women development policy, insisting that the policy is not anti-Islam, and exhortation to the Islamic Law Implementation Committee to call off the general strike, a privilege that it has hardly ever afforded to the BNP-led opposition alliance, were only expected as was the BNP’s moral support for the hartal. Regrettably still, the political theatrics, initiated by the committee and played along by the mainstream political parties, seems to have overshadowed the issue at hand, i.e. the national women development policy. The policy, which, as we have pointed out in these columns on more occasions than one before, seems geared more towards avoiding any backlash from the forces that are evidently against the democratic equality between men and women, than genuinely addressing women’s rights.
Hence, the politically conscious and democratically oriented sections of society, especially the women’s rights organisations, need to realise that protection of women’s rights is hardly a top priority for the mainstream political parties and that they need to organise themselves, mobilise public opinion and sustain pressure for a women development policy that truly ensure women’s equal rights in every sphere. | <urn:uuid:3ef86c19-6560-4544-8319-57873d91b2fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wluml.org/zh-hant/node/7238 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9631 | 1,566 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Updated: 3:38 p.m., June 2, with statement from school district
The ACLU of Georgia has issued a letter to the Gwinnett County schools district demanding that the system remove filters that effectively ban sites related to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. After receiving a number of complaints, the American Civil Liberties Union decided to press forward with a warning in May: Keep blocking these sites to students, and legal action could be next.
The letter was issued May 23 and written to Gwinnett County Public Schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks. The ACLU asked that the school district respond to its complaint by May 30, a week later as it does with all complaints.
By June 1, the agency still had not heard anything from the district about the filters, said Chara Jackson, legal director for the ACLU of Georgia. The agency plans to follow up with Gwinnett County schools, but it wants to give the district the opportunity " to do the right thing."
Gwinnett County Public Schools could not immediately provide comment on Wednesday regarding the complaint, but Jorge Quintana, a spokesman for the school district, issued a statement regarding the letter on Thursday, June 2.
"We have received the letter from the ACLU and are looking into the concerns raised. Following guidelines from CIPA ( Children's Internet Protection Act), the school system does filter Internet content. That said, if a student or employee needs access to a site for a legitimate instructional or work purpose they can make a request for that access."
As part of the ACLU's "Don't Filter Me Campaign," students across the country have complained that the filtering software installed by the district was "configured to improperly censor websites advocating the fair treatment of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender persons or reflecting the viewpoints of LGBT people." Overall, Jackson said the agency got more than 70 complaints from across the county about what the ACLU calls "viewpoint-based censorship."
The letter states that the Gwinnett County school district recently activated the specific Blue Coat filter, which is "designed to discriminate against LGBT viewpoints and does not serve a legitimate pedagogical purpose." Oftentimes, these filters trigger prohibition of LGBT related content, considering them sexually explicit or pornographic, the ACLU said.
“The administration at Brookwood High School has always been really supportive, but a few weeks ago the web filter system at our school was changed, and suddenly websites that I’d been using all year to plan activities for our gay-straight alliance club started being blocked,” said Nowmee Shehab, who recently graduated and was the president of the school's gay-straight alliance. “Students need to be able to find information about their rights and about suicide and bullying prevention, and now they’re not able to get to information that’s really important for them.”
If the school district continues to use the filers, the ACLU contends that Gwinnett County Public Schools would be in violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act. The act allows for those students seeking to form gay-straight alliances to have equal access to school resources that are generally available to other non-curricular clubs.
"We hope that by promptly disabling the 'LGBT' filter, your school district will set a positive example and prompt other school districts to make sure that similar filters have not been activated on their own filtering software," the ACLU said in the letter.
The ACLU stated that it would look to pursue legal action if nothing is done. Already, the ACLU has sued two Tennessee school district regarding filtering software. In the Tennessee cases, both school districts entered into a settlement agreement to stop blocking access to LGBT-related website resources. Other districts have voluntarily changed their protocols.
All it takes, Jackson said, is changing the filtering level or settings on district computer systems. "It's such an easy thing to fix," she said. | <urn:uuid:57e9f26d-9c31-473f-8202-6e1fab06b7b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://snellville.patch.com/articles/aclu-demands-gwinnett-schools-end-censorship?logout=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969598 | 797 | 1.640625 | 2 |
If the twitter stream and blog posts over the past week or so are an accurate representation, it seems that iPads and other tablet devices have really started to solidify their roles in and out of the classroom.
In fact, I should disclose, this post comes at the conclusion of my first week with an iPad. Would you believe that this entire post (with the exception of adding the tweet images down below) was composed from the couch using this free blogging app here?
Really, it isn’t the fastest way to compose blog posts on a regular basis, but it certainly is fun and convenient. :)
Most reviews and experiences seem to be positive about the use of iPads in the classroom. And as announced this week with Google Apps coming to iPad and Android, the number of tools and uses are still multiplying.
So how do you sift through all of these classroom apps?
Luckily, edubloggers are making this easy.
Here are our favorite five blog posts and resources from just this week related to iPad and tablet use in the classroom:
- iPads in Education – Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org
- The Essential iPad Guide for Principals – eduleadership.org
- Education departments go wild for the iPad – delimiter.com.au
- Top 200 Education Apps -appannie.com
- The E-Textbook Experiment Turns A Page – NPR.org
What about personal and productivity apps too?
It’s only been a week, and the truth is, the iPad can be a great productivity tool useful to teachers, administrators, and edubloggers alike.
Here are a few must-have apps to download on your first day with an iPad:
- Reeder – Integrates with your Google Reader. Can make catching up on all the great blogs you read a bit more interactive and fun!
- IM+ for Gtalk and IM – will run in the background and has been known to wake up our resident blogger and support hero, Sue Waters, in the middle of the night when the sound is left on. (Sorry, Sue!)
- Skype – Turns your iPad into a massive iPhone for messaging and free calls around the world. Not a bad speaker phone too for meetings or group conversations.
- MaxiVista iPad – For Windows machines, will turn your iPad into a second monitor for your computer. This is good for keeping email or chat open on the iPad while working in other windows.
- AirDisplay – The same as MaxiVista above, but for Macs. AirDisplay has a Windows Beta version, but there seemed to be some bugs when testing it out.
- Mobile Mouse – Makes it easy to turn your iPad into a giant wireless mouse touch pad for your computer. This would be useful when doing presentations or teaching a lesson and wanting to control a computer from a distance. What is different about this than other wireless mouse technologies is that the iPad allows you to type on the keyboard as well!
Top #ebshare tweets from the week:
Want to share a post, ask others to visit a blog for comments, or show off cool student work? Use the hashtag #ebshare to let us know so we can re-tweet it for you!
Featured Edublog of the Week
|Kids in the Mid
Using technology in Middle School.
Find more great blogs like this one in our International Edublogs Directory.
Summing it up
Getting to see more examples of iPads in the hands of students will be interesting over the coming months.
Let us know if we missed a great resource or app so we can share with the community! | <urn:uuid:2d6fc9e5-dd00-45aa-8e11-c456221debba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edublogs.org/2010/09/24/edublogs-weekly-review-ipads-are-changing-the/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918195 | 754 | 2.15625 | 2 |
FRIDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- People with specific antibodies may develop both cancer and a certain type of scleroderma -- an incurable autoimmune disease -- at nearly the same time, new research finds. The finding, from a small study of 23 patients, hints at a possible link between cancer and autoimmune disorders.
Scleroderma is a condition that causes scar tissue to build up in the skin and in major organ systems. Some people with scleroderma seem also to be at increased risk for cancer.
"Our research adds more to the discussion about whether cancer and autoimmune diseases are related and whether cancer may be a trigger for scleroderma," study lead author Dr. Ami A. Shah, an assistant professor of medicine in the rheumatology division at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a university news release.
Shah and colleagues analyzed blood and tumor samples from 23 patients with both scleroderma and cancer. Patients with antibodies called anti-RNA polymerase I/III had the most closely related onset of cancer and scleroderma - both diseases developed within two years of one another.
Similar results appeared in another subset of patients, although they did not test positive for any known autoimmune antibodies. The researchers speculated that they may have immune markers in their blood that have not yet been discovered.
The study appears online in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
The reasons for the apparent association between scleroderma and cancer aren't known, and it's not clear whether cancer could be causing scleroderma or vice versa, Shah said. Among the theories:
- An immune response generated by the body to fight a tumor may trigger the development of scleroderma.
- Organ damage from scleroderma could increase the risk of cancer.
- Immune-suppressing drugs used to treat scleroderma could lead to cancer.
A number of other autoimmune disorders also appear to have a possible connection to cancer and this research could have implications for those diseases as well, Shah said.
The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases has more about scleroderma.
SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Medicine, news release, July 7, 2010.
Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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Join the Doctors Lounge online medical community | <urn:uuid:09697c9f-50c6-4d89-9e67-8195ee151d1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/hd/12228 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929198 | 548 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Lincoln Financial Field Project
NRG Solar, wind to power Philadelphia Eagles stadium
We have successfully installed more than 11,000 solar panels at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. NRG, our parent company, is has contributed 14 micro wind-turbines. Together, the systems generate more than 3 MW generating capacity.
Annually, that’s about six times the power used during all Eagles home games.
Fixed solar panels in the stadium parking lot generate the bulk of renewable power. Solar panels are also being constructed along an adjacent street and on the stadium’s south wall. It is the largest solar-power system in the NFL and in the Philadelphia area.
NRG is the official grid power supplier to the Eagles and a major sponsor to the team. | <urn:uuid:14fcc394-1796-40c9-82c7-22991e9f9c40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nrgsolar.com/projects/stadiums/lincoln-financial-field-project/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932667 | 158 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Petrol vapour recovery during refuelling of vehicles
Petrol vapour which is emitted during the refuelling of motor vehicles at service stations should be recovered in order to limit emissions of harmful vapour into the atmosphere. This vapour adds to emissions of atmospheric pollutants such as benzene and ground-level ozone which are harmful to human health and the environment.
Directive 2009/126/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 on Stage II petrol vapour recovery during refuelling of motor vehicles at service stations.
This Directive aims at ensuring that harmful petrol vapour displaced from the fuel tank of a motor vehicle during refuelling at a service station is recovered. The petrol pumps of many service stations in the European Union (EU) will have to be equipped to recover this vapour.
This Directive applies to new service stations or those having undergone major refurbishment, of which the annual throughput must be in excess of 500 m3 of petrol. It imposes upon operators of these service stations an obligation to install a Stage II Petrol Vapour Recovery system or “Stage II PVR”. Furthermore, service stations with a throughput in excess of 100 m3 per year which are located under living accommodation must also install this equipment.
Larger existing service stations with a throughput in excess of 3 000 m3 per year must also apply Stage II PVR by 2018.
Stage II PVR equipment has already been installed in service stations in almost 50 % of the Member States. This Directive extends this practice to the whole European Union.
Minimum level of petrol vapour recovery
The Stage II PVR equipment installed on petrol pumps in service stations must capture 85 % of petrol vapour. The petrol vapour capture efficiency of such systems must be certified by the manufacturer in accordance with the relevant European technical standards or type approval procedures or, if there are no such standards or procedures, with any relevant national standard.
Stage II PVR equipment draws off petrol vapour. It is then transferred to a storage tank at the service station. The vapour/petrol ratio shall be equal to or greater than 0.95 but less than or equal to 1.05.
The petrol vapour capture efficiency of Stage II petrol vapour recovery systems must be tested at least once a year. This test may be carried out either by checking the vapour/petrol ratio defined above under simulated petrol flow conditions, or by any other appropriate methodology.
If the service station has automatic monitoring equipment, capture efficiency shall be tested at least once every three years. If the tests detect anomalies, the service station operator must rectify the fault within seven days.
All service stations which have installed Stage II petrol vapour recovery systems must inform consumers thereof. In order to do this, the operator may place a sign, sticker or other notification on, or in the vicinity of, the petrol dispenser.
This Directive comes under the Sixth Environment Action Programme adopted in July 2002 which established the need to reduce air pollution to levels which minimise harmful effects on human health and the environment.
This Directive supplements the technical specifications for the storage of petrol. These technical specifications are harmonised at European level by Directive 94/63/EC which forms Stage I of petrol vapour recovery.
|Act||Entry into force||Deadline for transposition in the Member States||Official Journal|
OJ L 285 of 31.10.2009 | <urn:uuid:7bffba21-249a-42f6-bb23-37a5cedfb4fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/environment/air_pollution/ev0020_en.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917929 | 699 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The President of the Republic of Liberia, Madame Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has pledged her Government's fullest support to the children of Liberia.Addressing the Liberian Children's Festival at the Samuel Kayon Doe Sports Complex last Saturday, the Liberian leader said the Liberian children have suffered bitter pains and agonies from abuses of rape, violence and sexual harassments.
The Liberian leader also said, it has been her anticipation to seeing the children of Liberia smile again as in the past and said six years back during her first inauguration, she wished to see a country where all children of Liberia would laugh again.
Earlier, the President of the Liberian Children's Parliament Forstina Gongba spoke on some of the ills affecting the Liberian Children.
He said for the children of Liberia to reach their full potentials, it needs the assurance of the rights of children to survival, growth, development and protection to be realized with dignity and without any form of discrimination.
The Liberian Children Forum's speaker drew everyone's attention to what he called "The Severe Child Deprivation and Violations of Rights such as Child Rape, the lack of quality education for all children in Liberia, as well as the problems of malnutrition and undernourishment of Children."
For her part, UNICEF Country Representative Isabel Crowley thanked the Liberian leader President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for attending with the children of Liberia as a mother.
UNICEF Country Representative Crowley said Liberia must be commended for taking a big step forward early this year which had a powerful impact in the lives of children and their families in years to come with some of the key initiatives.
She said the first most important was the Children's Law of Liberia which was passed by her President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf which she said the Liberian leader needs to be appreciated for.
She lauded the Liberian Legislature and the Government, civil partners that were involved in the historic initiative; which saw the successful launch of the children's law in all 15 counties led by Gender Minister Julia Duncan Cassell, the Liberian Children's Parliament, Child Protection Network, and civil society partners HOPE and THINK.
The Liberian Children's Festival was initiated in 2009 with the theme: Moving Forward with Children," an event where children can have fun, see and learn new things, express their opinions, and views directly to the leader of the country.
Also speaking, THINK's Executive Director Rosanna Schaack said she was grateful for being part of the Liberian Children's Festival and said it was indeed history-making.
The THINK Boss also extended thanks to the Liberian leader for attending the occasion and said President Sirleaf is a real mother who always attends to the children's invitation whenever she is invited.
Also, an official of the Liberian Children's Parliament Beyan F. Pewee lauded the children of Liberia for showing up at the SKD and said Liberian Children stand to benefit greatly during the regime of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. | <urn:uuid:68d65c64-1704-4a47-a12d-26b1dd943e7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/201211261387.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971747 | 609 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
The global mission of UNAIDS as the main advocate for worldwide action against HIV/AIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an expanded response to the epidemic. This response has four goals:rnrnto prevent the spread of HIV; rnto provide care and support for those infected and affected by the disease; rnto reduce the vulnerability of individuals and communities to HIV/AIDS; rnto alleviate the socioeconomic and human impact of the epidemic.
UNAIDS brings together in the AIDS response the...
Free the Children
Free the Children is an international network of children helping children
through representation, leadership and action.
Free the Children has two main purposes:
To free children from poverty, exploitation and abuse.
To give children a... | <urn:uuid:e0c33ba9-cabd-4322-8bd5-c19680aa78a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tigweb.org/resources/orgs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920478 | 169 | 2.828125 | 3 |
A Happy and Blessed Christmas to you all.
And a Happy St Stephen's Day
Today the Church wisely teaches us that the message of Christmas has to be seen through the lens of the blood of the Martyrs. Same sex "marriage" will test many people's fidelity to the Catholic faith.
Thank God for some good strong support from some of our Archbishops and Bishops over Christmas, some sadly seem have had nothing to say at all, either over Christmas or in the Pasroral Letters that many Bishops issue for the Feast of the Holy Family.
C4M lists 10 ways redefining marriage would damage civil liberty, (my comments in red). As our local Conservative MP Mr Weatherly has called for Churches that will not marry same sex couples, to not be allowed to marry anyone, these issues should be taken seriously.
1. Teachers in state schools will be forced to endorse the new definition of marriage. Those that refuse could be disciplined or even dismissed. Such action would be legal. As Catholics were forced out of offering adoption services, so we are likely to be forced out of education entirely, or any charitable work that envolves Government funding, or resources of any kind.
Will the Government also get rid of school governors who disagree with redefinition.
2. Parents will ultimately have no legal right to withdraw their children from lessons which endorse the new definition of marriage across the curriculum. As there has been in Canada and Spain were SS "Marriage" has been introduced there has also been legislation introduced to remove the terms "Mother" and "Father" and replace them with "Parent #1" and "Parent #2".
3. NHS/University/Armed forces chaplains could be lawfully fired by their employers if they express, even outside work time, the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. It is not only chaplains but other government/local government employees whose jobs could be at risk.
4. Foster carers and prospective adopting parents could be legally rejected by local authorities on the basis that they fail to embrace the new definition of marriage.
5. Public sector workers could be demoted or dismissed for expressing support for marriage between one man and one woman. Will we also start banning texts that promote
marriage between one man and one woman from public libraries and public places?
6. Registrars who have a conscientious objection to the new definition of marriage will be dismissed unless they are prepared to act against their beliefs. And what about psychiatists and counsellors employed by the NHS?
7. Churches/mosques/synagogues could ultimately be forced to perform same-sex weddings if a Government ban on such weddings in religious premises is overturned by the European courts. Despite the Cameron's talk of "triple locks" the scenario of a member of the clergy taking his/her religious institution to court for forbidding him/her to "marry" ss couples is highly likely.
8. The Church of England may have to disestablish or face the prospect of court action because, as the established church, it must provide a wedding to any person who is legally eligible to get married. It is inconceivable that the State Church will be allowed to continue to be opposed to redefined "marriage", increasingly pro-ss "marriage" bishops will be appointed. As we have seen with the ordination of female bishops the Cof E will be increasingly urged to "get with the programme". The CofE is a fairweather friend on this matter, unfortunately.
9. Faith-based charities could be banned from hiring public facilities if they refuse to endorse the new definition of marriage. Faith based charities and Churches are likely to lose their charitable status.
10. Clergy who disagree with same-sex marriage, but who are in a denomination which has no such objection, could be taken to court if the Government allows religious same sex weddings. Such clergy are likely to be forced out, anyway.What the "shambolic" and shallow Mr Cameron has shown is that this Government cannot be trusted on any promise it makes regarding marriage or the family. The relationship between male and female is hardwired into nature itself not just human beings, the Government wants to alter this, my great anxiety is if this goes ahead what else will a future government decide it can legislate on: abolish death, or turn back the sea? | <urn:uuid:04765bf5-c106-4efe-aef1-fc73aceee462> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2012/12/10-ways-of-damaging-civil-liberties.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969372 | 891 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Tips for Removing Three Common Existing Floor Materials from Concrete
Removing carpet from concrete is not an easy task, especially if it’s tacked or glued to the subfloor. But the result of exposing your concrete floor and applying a decorative stain will be worth the time and effort. Once you pull up the carpet, roll it up for easier removal and be sure to dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner.
Removing Linoleum or Sheet Vinyl
As with carpet, removal of linoleum and sheet vinyl can be a major undertaking. The tile often must be scraped off the floor and properly disposed of. Mastics used to glue down the flooring must be removed, either by grinding or stripping. Before taking up the flooring, make sure the tile is indeed made of linoleum or vinyl, and does not contain asbestos. It is usually wiser to hire a concrete contractor to perform these tasks and check for related issues. It may be possible to go right over linoleum or vinyl with a concrete overlay, and then apply the stain.
Removing Ceramic Tile
With ceramic tile, you not only have remove the tile from the existing floor, but also all the grout and the backerboard layer. Once the tile comes up, you never know what you might find. Often you’ll need to scrape or grind the surface to get it smooth and remove flaws before staining. It’s possible to go over tile with an overlay, but only if the tile is in good condition. If the tile is glazed, it must be scuffed up first to ensure a good bond. You must also address the grout joints, which can absorb moisture from the overlay, resulting in differential curing and ghosting of the joints through the overly. To prevent moisture absorption, it’s important to preseal the tile and grout joints before applying the overlay. | <urn:uuid:c234d2a2-e7ab-4d9f-8a68-ee649ad1533f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concretestained.com/diy/existing-floor-materials.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912796 | 390 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Brussels, 27 mars 2006
This morning the Council of Ministers approved the European Parliament’s amendments on the Eurovignette Directive and thus finalised the new European road charging regime. The new Directive will enter into force following its publication in the Official Journal. This legislation will encourage Member States to introduce and develop tolls and charges which will make it possible to improve the management of commercial freight traffic, reduce pollution and generate funds for investment in new transport infrastructure. “I welcome the adoption of the Directive which has been the subject of tough discussions between the Member States and Parliament. With the possibility of differential tolling and introducing toll “mark-ups”, this new framework represents a major step towards fairer and more efficient transport infrastructure charging”, said Commission Vice-President Jacques Barrot, who is responsible for transport policy.
The text amends the 1999 “Eurovignette” Directive, which provides a framework for the levying of tolls and user charges on Europe’s motorways. The aim of the Commission’s 2003 proposal was to increase the efficiency of the operation of Europe’s roads. With the new charging framework, transport users will gradually assume responsibility for the costs generated by their activities, the aim being to reduce pollution and congestion and generate additional funding for investment in transport infrastructure.
The scope of the new road charging Directive is broader. It lays down rules for tolls or user charges on the trans-European network, whereas the existing Directive limited tolls and charges to motorways. It allows Member States to levy tolls and user charges on all other roads as well. The Directive applies to vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, rather than only to vehicles over 12 tonnes as at present.
The new Directive represents the first step towards taking account of external costs: it will allow a greater variation in tolls to reflect congestion, and toll variations to reflect the pollution caused by vehicles will be mandatory from 2010. It also makes provision for Member States to be able to increase tolls with a “mark-up” on roads in particularly sensitive mountainous regions. The income from these mark–ups must be used to fund alternative transport infrastructure.
The new Directive also establishes the principles for calculating tolls and limits frequent user discounts, to ensure that they are fair, proportionate, transparent and non-discriminatory. These improvements will reduce obstacles to the free movement of goods and guarantee fair competition between road haulage operators.
The Member States will be required to incorporate this Directive into
national law within two years.
For further details see IP/05/1614.
European Parliament and Council Directive 1999/62/EC of 17 June 1999 on the charging of heavy goods vehicles of the use of certain infrastructures - Official Journal No L 187 of 20 July 1999. | <urn:uuid:c6500821-55c9-4431-8f9e-ff03e0d7c6ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-06-383_ro.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923427 | 578 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Deer at Dalma sanctuary
The deer enclosure at Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary’s Makulakocha, around 20km from Jamshedpur, has been keeping the stork busy.
The enclosure’s population of 40 cheetals, sambars and barking deer has gone up by four recently, bringing joy to the foresters. At least four more cheetal mothers were expecting, they claimed.
The sanctuary’s elephant population had also received a boost in May with three calves, which were spotted by villagers of Suklara, Kudlum and Deko, being born. Some other elephants are reportedly pregnant, said a forester.
Apart from this, the forest officials have also decided to release one barking deer, which they rescued from near a canal at Kanderbera village recently, into the sanctuary soon, thus bolstering the animal count there.
“We have decided to release the deer in the enclosure as we have no other option. The formalities regarding the same will be completed soon,” said Mangal Kacchap, range officer of the 192sqkm sanctuary. The one-month-old deer has been presently kept at the Dalma range officer’s residence at Mango.
Kacchap added that they were keeping a close watch on the diet of all the deer and sambars.
The range officer said that the animals in the deer enclosure were surviving on gourds and cucumbers, which were being grown in plenty, in and around Makulakocha.
“We started plantation of gourds and cucumbers on a plot just beside the enclosure. We are feeding the deer and four rescued elephants on the vegetables, since we have lots to spare,” he said.
In fact, the production of gourds and cucumbers has been so high this year that the Dalma officials have also been distributing them among tourists, villagers and its staff.
Meanwhile, the Ranchi wildlife division has also mooted plans to extend the area of the Dalma reserve by 10 hectares due to dwindling levels of grass and leaves.
According to Kacchap, although the animals feast on a daily supply of chokar and khalli, they do need natural food supplements for survival.
Grass takes times to grow. The deer have consumed almost everything that the sanctuary had to offer, turning the place barren and forcing the foresters to feed them with a diet of gourds and cucumbers.
However, the arrangement is only stopgap and foresters warned that it would last only till the supply of gourds and cucumbers were exhausted.
“As of now, as we see it, expansion of the forest reserve is the only way out. But, if we do mange to expand, then the additional 10-12 hectares that we would take in should be sufficient to take care of the food scarcity,” Kacchap said. | <urn:uuid:b3830d46-de44-4933-9d72-b5abfb6c015f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120627/jsp/jharkhand/story_15661755.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978707 | 613 | 1.75 | 2 |
Some people are surprised to hear that spirituality ever had a role in healing. However, not counting this blog site, I believe you will hear more and more about the importance of spirituality in regards to health issues.
Perhaps we've all forgotten that religions and religious organizations were the first sponsors of medical care institutions.
For those asking whether spirituality and faith should have a place in health care discussions or for those questioning the interface of theology and medicine, Dr. Jeff Levin's book, God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality Healing Connection, supplies considerable talking points.
Who is Jeff Levin? Here's a small snip from his bio:
Dr. Levin was the first scientist to systematically review the empirical literature on religion and health, and the first scientist funded by the NIH [National Institutes of Health] to conduct research on the topic. He is a Past President of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, is a member of the Extended Faculty of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, was Chairman of the NIH Working Group on Quantitative Methods in Alternative Medicine, and has served on the editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed journals.Yet, as fascinating a read as Levin's book is, the forward by Larry Dossey, M.D., is just as enlightening. For example, Dossey, in part, writes:
Future historians of medicine will describe the twentieth century as the period in which spirituality, after a long absence, began to return to healing... Most people outside of medicine take for granted the idea that religious practices such as worship, prayer, and meditation are important for their health, and they often wonder what the fuss is over these issues is all about. But the fact is, unfortunately, that medical science has long looked with disdain on the possibility of a spiritual factor in health. ... Generations of physicians have viewed with skepticism and often with ridicule the possibility that our patients' religious views and spiritual practices might make a difference in their health. But today our patients are having the last laugh.Perhaps, in years to come, spirituality will be recognized as having an even greater role in health care than most of society can now imagine. It will be intriguing to watch the evolution of our spiritual awakening.
Not too long ago, physicians believed they should not inquire about the sexual practices and drinking habits of their patients. But as evidence mounted that these were important health issues, physicians began to inquire about them with the appropriate sensitivity. Today it would be considered malpractice to avoid these areas. In the same way, physicians can learn to interact skillfully and gently regarding their patients' spiritual life, to the benefit of their health.
Yet, what will cause this awakening, this radical shift in health care? Could it be a growing dissatisfaction with the multitude of disturbing side-effects caused by most medicines? Perhaps it is because plenty of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is eventually found to be misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong? Or could it be that many are learning that each of us, first and foremost, is a spiritual being? My study of Jesus' healing ministry and my own twenty-eight year healing practice has taught me that since we are spiritual, spiritual treatments are effective.
I welcome spirituality's return to the health arena. I hope you will too.
Keith Wommack is a blogger, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, musician, and step-dad. He is the media and legislative liaison for Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). He is also fond of breakfast tacos.
» Life » Love » Science » Christian » Health » Prayer » World » -- Yes, we are finding that they are connected. Discovering the links and exploring how each one impacts the other is an adventure.
Keith on Twitter: @TexasCS
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- Follow KeithWommack | <urn:uuid:3786d7a6-e166-4eea-9740-f3f26b6db128> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/weblogs/connections-spirituality-consciousness-health/2012/jan/31/spirituality-rides-back-into-the-health-arena/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963156 | 810 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Flashback 2007 -- Clinton: Obama 'Irresponsible And Frankly Naive' For Committing To Meet With Chavez AP 2007: WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s offer to meet without precondition with leaders of renegade nations such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran touched off a war of words, with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton calling him naive and Obama linking her to President Bush’s diplomacy. Older politicians in both parties questioned the wisdom of such a course, while Obama’s supporters characterized it as a repudiation of Bush policies of refusing to engage with certain adversaries. It triggered a round of competing memos and statements Tuesday between the chief Democratic presidential rivals. Obama’s team portrayed it as a bold stroke; Clinton supporters saw it as a gaffe that underscored the freshman senator’s lack of foreign policy experience.“I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive,” Clinton was quoted in an interview with the Quad-City Times that was posted on the Iowa newspaper’s Web site on Tuesday. In response, Obama told the newspaper that her stand puts her in line with the Bush administration. | <urn:uuid:b479483e-7f60-421e-8979-b67f5b64c402> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV?id=%7B56497AD0-77B0-4D63-853C-7F52A3144B10%7D&title=Flashback-Clinton-Slams-Naive-Obama-For-Agreeing-To-Meet-With-Chavez | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953001 | 229 | 1.71875 | 2 |
To increase the accuracy of slugsType of shot shell which features a single lead projectile. Typically used for big game shotgun hunting. in a shotgun, purchase shotgun barrels or chokes that are rifled - these are becoming increasingly popular and do an excellent job in harvesting game at reasonable ranges.
A saboted slugSlug designed to be fired from a rifled barrel shotgun or shotgun with a rifled choke tube. is designed to be fired from rifled barreled shotguns or shotguns with a rifled choke tubeTube of different constrictions that are found in shotguns. The degree of constriction helps control the spread of the shot at different distances.. As the saboted slug exits the shotgun muzzleThe opening in a barrel where ammunition exits after being fired., the sabot is separated from the slug and falls away, allowing the slug to continue down range unimpeded. This type of shotgun ammunition is very accurate and provides plenty of knockdown power for most big gameLarge animals that are legal to hunt (example - deer, bear, moose, etc.) at ranges up to 150 yds.
The foster slugAlso called rifled slugs, they are designed to be fired from a smooth barrel shotgun. is used for hunting targets at longer distances. The hollow rear on this slug pushes its center of gravity toward the front, which in turn gives it greater stability, up to a distance of 75 yards. Most will feature small fins toward the rear, called "rifling".
Shotgun slugs are generally required to be used when hunting in built-up or semi-rural areas. In these areas, it would be unsafe to discharge center fire high power rifle cartridges that are capable of firing bullets that can travel distances greater than 2.5 miles.
The chart below shows how far shot and slugs from a shotgun can potentially travel. | <urn:uuid:e88801f0-60f0-4257-abda-3392a8e7a4d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.huntercourse.com/utah/study?chapter=3&page=21 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954311 | 373 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Our Project: “Minotaur’s Revenge”
We built two giant marble mazes. The maze itself is all mechanical, with a 2 person team controlling x and y axis. The fun happens though when you hit buttons to activate magnets and traps on the other team’s table.
Check out the Live Stream. Nothing is happening at the moment, but a couple of dedicated Hackaday fans are checking out an empty couch. We have a very strange readership.
[sonofabit] recorded the last 8 hours of the build at 1fps and made a time lapse video. It’s an hour long, and we thank [sonofabit]‘s CPU for all its hard work. You can also check out the video after the break.
Rules of the contest as announced via Live Stream at 8:20pm Central Time on 7/18/12:
-Develop a game
-This must be a physical tangible game (not just a video game made from code)
-It must function like a game (there must be a way to win)
-The game must be safe and must be playable so the public can use it-Physical constraint: Must be able to be crated (8′x7.5′x7.5′) and must weigh under 2000 lbs.
Summary of 7/19:
We gathered, got our topic, made a shopping list and preceded to slack the rest of the night.
There was a fire breather, then lots of whiskey. At one point we pulled the red bull cannon out and shot things with it.
Summary of 7/20:
Decided what to build and bought supplies. General carpentry took the entire day. [Andrew Mitzel] and [Shawn McKee] pretty much did all the work while the rest of us ate food and watched fire breathers and graffiti artists. Here’s a pic of what they created (click to embiggen):
Summary of 7/21:
We split into teams for tasks. [Phil], [Ryan], and [Scott] set out to design the puzzle itself. [Shawn], and [Brian] built up the electronics. [Andrew] kept kicking ass at general construction. We barely made it, but it was done by the deadline.
[sonofabit]‘s time lapse video: | <urn:uuid:dbab74d1-7a7d-4f7e-8e26-0c992bb5a1d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2012/07/19/hackaday-rbc-team-live-streaming-now/ | 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 | 0.944126 | 491 | 1.5625 | 2 |
You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Mesopotamian’ tag.
The most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia was Inanna (also known as Ištar). Monotheistic religions have a way of leaving out women (or making them ancillary characters like Mary). Polytheistic religions often divide their goddesses into fertility goddesses (like Aphrodite) versus power goddesses like Athena or Artemis. Inanna reflects no such omission or dichotomy: as Queen of Heaven, she was both the goddess of sex and the goddess of war. In fact, saying that she was the most prominent female deity of the Babylonian/Akkadian/Sumerian pantheon might be unfair: arguably she was the most prominent god of any sort in that pantheon.
Worship of Inanna seems to have begun in the city state Uruk around 6000 years ago. Her sacred symbols were the eight pointed star and the lioness. She is especially affiliated with the planet Venus (which, obviously, was known instead as “Inanna” to the Mesopotamians), the third brightest object in the sky which, bafflingly, can rise in the East and the West in both the morning and evening (we realize that his is because Venus is our closest neighbor, but to the Babylonians it was uncanny). Inanna was not just the day star but also storm, flood, wrath, and war. Additionally, she was a goddess of fertility and unbridled sensuality. Inanna had many lovers (and was always looking for more) but her actual husband was the beautiful shepherd god, Dumuzi. There are several unabashedly graphic poems about the physical nature of the pair’s marriage (which you can look up on your own).
In addition to personifying forces of nature, Inanna possessed all of the secrets of civilization. She beguiled ancient Enki, the first god, with her charms and made him drunk on beer. Then she convinced him to give her the Mes, clay tablets which represented fundamental truth and all the blueprints for power and civilization. When Enki sobered up, he sent his attendants after Inanna to fetch back the Mes, but it was too late. Uruk blossomed and outshone Enki’s city, Eridu, in glory.
Probably the most famous story about Inanna concerns her trip to the underworld (ruled by Inanna’s sister, the dark and jealous goddess Ereshkigal). One day Inanna left heaven. She abandoned her seven cities and emptied her temples. She donned the seven sacred objects symbolic of her queenhood and set out for the realm from which no traveler returns. Before leaving, however, Inanna left explicit directions with her faithful vassal, Ninshubur, concerning what to do if she (Inanna) did not return in three days.
Arrayed in splendor, Inanna came before the great bronze gate to the underworld and announced herself as “Inanna, Queen of heaven.” She claimed to be visiting the underworld to attend her sister’s husband’s funeral. The doorkeeper of the dead, Neki was amazed and he sought Ereshkigal’s orders. To enter the underworld, Inanna had to give up her crown and, at each subsequent gate she was forced to part with another of her treasures/garments. One by one she set aside her lapis earrings, the double strand of beads about her neck, her breastplate (called, “Come, man, come”), her golden hip girdle, and the lapis measuring rod. She walked on and on through the dreary lands of spirits, ghosts, and wraiths. Whenever she tried to talk to Neti, he answered, “Quiet Inanna, the ways of the Underworld are perfect. They may not be questioned.”
Finally at the last gate she had only her royal breechcloth. Surrendering this last garment she came to the final depths of the realm of the dead naked and stripped of power. As she stepped before the throne of Ereshkigal she was knocked to her knees by the annuna, the monstrous judges of the underworld. They surrounded her and judged her. Here is a translation of the actual Sumerian text:
They passed judgment against her.
Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death
She spoke against her the word of wrath
She uttered against her the cry of guilt
She struck her.
Inanna was turned into a corpse
A piece of rotting meat
And was hung from a hook on the wall
After three days Inanna did not return. Ninshubur became worried. She was a goddess in her own right who sometimes served as a herald or a messenger for the other gods, but her true devotion was always to Inanna (some myths even describe her as one of Inanna’s lovers). Acting on Inanna’s instructions, Ninshubur went to various deities to ask for help rescuing Inanna.
Inanna’s father and paternal grandfather were unmoved by her death (having warned her against sojourning in the land of the dead). However ancient Enki, still loved her, despite the fact that she had taken the Mes from him. In order to save Inanna from death he summoned kurgarra and the galatur, demon beings, to whom he gave the water of life. Assuming the guise of houseflies, the two demons flew into the underworld and descended to Ereshkigal’s throne room where Inanna was suspended dead and decomposing on a hook. With magical powers they rescued Inanna’s corpse from suspension and poured the water of life upon it. Inanna returned to life and proceeded back through the underworld, gathering her clothes and treasures as she went.
Unfortunately the galla, the demons of the underworld, discovered her as she was leaving. Unable to prevent her egress, they nevertheless demanded a substitute life to take her place and they followed as the goddess made her way back through the underworld and back out into the world of life. As Ninshubur joyfully greeted Inanna, the galla asked for the attendant’s life (which Inanna angrily refused). The underworld demons then asked for Inanna’s sons, Shara and Lulal, and even for Inanna’s beautician Cara as sacrifices to take Inanna’s place. However the goddess was firm: since all of these people were dressed in mourning for her, she refused to let them be touched. However when the Queen goddess came home to her palace, she found her husband, Dumuzi (who was once a shepherd but now lived as a god-king) dressed in rich robes, drinking and feasting merrily. Infuriated, she pointed him out to the galla and the demons sprang at him. Dumuzi appealed to the sun god Utu for help and was transformed into a snake, but the demons were remorseless and they found him in his new form and dragged him away to the depths of the underworld in place of the resurrected Inanna.
The gods cared little about Dumuzi’s fate, but his sister Geshtinanna remained loyal to him. She begged Ereshkigal to take her in her brother’s stead and the death goddess (impressed by such love for a sibling) relented and allowed her to spend half the year as a stand-in for her brother. Their annual place changing was believed to drive the seasons. As for Inanna, she went back to war and sex. Yet something had changed, reborn, she had knowledge of the underworld and the ultimate mysteries.
Ningishzida was a Mesopotamian deity, worshiped in the city of Gishbanda which lay near Ur in the orchards of the Fertile Crescent. It seems that he was originally a tree god (the name Ningishzida means “lord of the sacred/giving tree” in Sumerian, the first known written language), but he became associated with fertility, the underworld, and the healing force of nature. I wish I could tell you more about Ningishzida, but, remember how I mentioned Sumerian was the first known language? Surviving texts concerning Ningishzida are ancient. The texts were baked into clay tablets and these have become smashed and broken. When translated they look like this (roll over the links along the left side for source identification and click any of the “GI” links for English translations). There is beauty, nature, the underworld, and magic. There are serpents and lions and glowing portals, but the meaning is unclear (to say the least).
Yet if the combination of fertility, a magical tree, the Fertile Crescent, and a serpent do not seem immediately familiar to you, perhaps you should peruse the book which comes free with the hotel room (you don’t even have to read very far). Scholarly tradition asserts that the Pentateuch was written before or during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century. The author/authors seem to have used Mesopotamian sources for the portions which deal with creation and primeval history.
Ningishzida is portrayed as either a serpent with the head of a man, or, more frequently, as a double-headed serpent coiled into a double helix. It is believed that the Greeks also made use of this symbolism in their myth of the caduceus, the wand of Hermes/Mercury which is associates with theft, deception, and death (for Mercury was a psychopomp who led souls to the underworld with his staff). Of course contemporary people are familiar with the double helix as well. We know that DNA, the fundamental blueprint of life is latticed together on a double helix. It is strange that the first use of this symbol is a mysterious Sumerian tree/snake god who apparently also appealed to Jewish scholars during the Babylonian captivity.
The concept of crowns—ceremonial headdresses which indicate leadership–is ancient. If contemporary tribal society is any indication, the concept of providing kings, chiefs, and high priests with fancy hats to mark their status predates civilization. But whether that is the case or not we conclusively know that the concept goes back to the very beginning of civilization because we have textual evidence, and, more importantly, we have magnificent physical evidence! Here is the headdress of Puabi, an important noblewoman in the city of Ur, during the Ur’s First Dynasty (ca. 2600 BC).
It is not clear whether Puabi was a queen or a high priestess: her title “nin” or “eresh” was applied to queens, high priestesses, and goddesses. Perhaps the distinction was not meaningful to her Sumerian subjects. Puabi is also known as Shubad in Sumerian (although evidence indicates that she was Akkadian/Semitic). She lived at a time when Ur was one of the largest cities on earth.
The crown of Puabi was discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1928 (when the great archeologist was half way through a 12 year series of excavations in Ur’s “Royal Cemetery”). The tomb had never been discovered by looters and it contained a treasure trove of precious grave goods including a chariot, a variety of jewelry, a set of golden tableware, and the remains of two golden lyres.
Puabi did not merely take riches with her to the next world. Her tomb also contained the remains of several oxen and 26 human attendants (most likely sent along with the Nim by means of poison). Most of these attendants were discovered in a central chamber of the tomb structure (which Woolley colorfully, and aptly, called a “death pit”). The queen was buried in state a sumptuous treasure chamber with only three other retainers. The Oriental Institute website provides a more complete description of Puabi’s dead attendants:
Puabi’s death pit contained the remains of more than a dozen retainers, most of whom were women. The approach to the pit appeared to have been guarded like that of the king [whose looted grave was found nearby], in this case by five men with copper daggers. The vehicle here was a sled, pulled by two oxen, and accompanied by four grooms. Other attendants within Puabi’s pit included ten women, all wearing elaborate headdresses, positioned in two rows “facing” one another and accompanied by musical instruments
The Oriental Institute goes to pains to point out that human sacrifice and mass suicide remain speculative and that “scholars have failed to come to any consensus concerning the exact beliefs and practices behind the royal tombs at Ur.” I am going to ignore those august words and rely on the (heavy) circumstantial evidence of all those extra corpses to say “human sacrifice”.
Puabi herself was about 40 years old when she died and she only stood 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall. Although she may have been tiny, the stature of her city-state was rapidly rising at the time. Ur was located near the mouth of the Euphrates and its location allowed it to grow wealthy from trade. At the time of Puabi, it was beginning to rival Uruk (its predecessor) and it had long eclipsed ancient Eridu, the first of the Mesopotamian city-states.
Shamash was the Mesopotamian deity of the sun. To the Akkadians, Assyrians, and the Babylonians he was synonymous with justice, generosity, and salvation. However there was a second solar deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon, Nergal, who was not associated with such positive aspects of existence. Nergal was the child of Enlil, god of the wind, who was exiled from earth for raping Ninlin, the goddess of the open fields. Ninlin followed Enlil into exile and gave birth to their son Nergal in the underworld (Sumerian myth-makers should be ashamed of the sexism of this story). Nergal’s dark origins foreshadowed his nature. Unlike Shamash, who represented the life giving power of the sun and divine justice, Nergal was only associated with certain phases of the sun. To quote Wikipedia “Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle.”
As a god of plague, drought, fire, and insufferable heat, Nergal quickly came to be associated with death and the underworld. He was portrayed either as a powerful man bearing a sickle-sword and a mace, or as a lion with a man’s head.
Although he was a terrible god of destruction, the main myth we have about Nergal is romantic in nature. Mesopotamian scholars have discovered and translated a poetic epic recounting Nergal’s tempestuous courtship of the dark goddess Ereshkigal (the queen of the underworld, who once gave Ishtar such a wretched time). After a passionate tryst, Nergal left Ereshkigal, who thereafter was overwhelmed by passionate longing for further intimacy. Hearing of her unhappiness and realizing how much he in turn missed her, Nergal abandoned his place in the heavens and traveled down through the seven gates of hell to rejoin Ereshkigal. The two death gods then shared a bed for seven days and seven nights before marrying and jointly sharing rule of the underworld (it’s a happy story!).
Despite the felicity of his connubial circumstances, to the people of Mesopotamia, Nergal represented the unpredictability of mortal life and early unnatural death. He was worshiped, particularly at his chief temple located at Cuthah (a smaller city just northeast of Babylon) but his cult was far from the most popular. Unlike many other Babylonian deities, Nergal was mentioned in the Bible (2 Kings 17:30) and his name has therefore found a place among the demons and boogeymen of Christianity. If you search for “Nergal” on the internet you are likely to find the picture of a heavy metal singer from Poland dressed up in gothic makeup! | <urn:uuid:53726169-0bb9-487b-b169-cca37750bced> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/tag/mesopotamian/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975961 | 3,470 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Treatment 1 is you give people a cookie and some cake and you ask them to rate how much they like the cookie better (which of course would be negative if they like the cake better.)
Treatment 2 is you present them with the cookie and the cake and you let them choose. Then you also give them the other item and have them rate just as in treatment 1.
Of course those in treatment 2 are going to rate their chosen item higher on average than those in treatment 1. But let’s look at the overall variance in ratings. A behavioral hypothesis is that the variance is larger in treatment 2 due to cognitive dissonance. Those who expressed a preference will want to rationalize their preference an this will lead them to exaggerate their rating.
Now I wouldn’t be surprised if an experiment like that has already been done and found evidence of cognitive dissonance. The next twist will explore the effect in more detail.
The cookies will be tinged with a random quantity of some foul tasting ingredient, unknown to the subjects. Let’s think of the quantity as ranging from 0 to 100. We want to plot the quantity on the x-axis versus the rating on the y.
My hopothesis is about how this relation differs between the two treatments. At an individual level here is what I would expect to see. Consider a subject who likes cookies better. In treatment 1 he will have a continuous and decreasing curve which will cross zero at some quantity. I.e too much of the yucky stuff and he rates the cake higher.
In treatment 2 his curve will be shifted upward but only in the region where his treatment 2 rating is positive. At higher quantities the curve exactly coincides with the treatment 1 curve.
I have in mind the following theory. There is a psychic cost of convincing yourself that you like something that tastes bad. Cognitive dissonance leads you to do that. But when the cookie tastes so bad that it’s beyon your capacity to convince yourself otherwise you save yourself the psychic cost and don’t even try.
Now we won’t have such data at an individual level to see this. The challenge is to identify restrictions on the aggregate data that the hypothesis implies. | <urn:uuid:b7708b16-2fca-46cc-acfa-bc311a37e5e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cheaptalk.org/2012/06/25/an-experiment-id-like-to-see-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97181 | 456 | 2.78125 | 3 |
"A Reluctant Queen" by Joan Wolf is the compelling, real-life story of Queen Esther of Persia who, when faced with an impossible choice, did not falter in her faith or flinch in her resolve. In a beautifully drawn portrait, described well with great sensitivity and perception, Joan Wolf presents Queen Esther exactly as she should be known by successive generations of Christians across the centuries.
Queen Esther's heart must have skipped a beat when Mordecai, her elder cousin, who had raised her up as his own daughter, requested her to speak to King Ahasuerus to save the lives of her people. She had not seen the King for a whole month. The law stated that anyone who approached the King in the inner court, without being summoned, faced instant death. The only exception was that the King could extend his gold scepter to save the person's life.
When Queen Esther apprised Mordecai of this alarming scenario, his response was noteworthy. If she did not speak up for her people, someone else would and her life and that of her paternal family would perish. His next words were utterly symbolic - "Who knows whether you have come to the throne for such a time as this?"
Queen Esther was fully aware of the dire implications and possible consequences of her actions when she requested Mordecai to tell the people to fast and pray for three days, along with her, after which she would speak to the King, even if it was against the law of the land. She was fully prepared to place her own life of the line to save the lives of her people. Her last words to Mordecai were chilling proof of this - "And if I perish, I perish." Haunting words from a newly-crowned Queen in the full bloom of her youth.
In "A Reluctant Queen," Joan Wolf transforms a Biblical tale of courage and bravery into a heart-stirring love story in which Esther, a simple girl, faced with a daunting task and an impossible choice won the heart of the magnificient King Ahasuerus of Persia. Their love altered the course of history. It was a divine surprise that God sprung upon the world. Joan Wolf brings Queen Esther to life in this beautifully inspired novel that scintillatingly vibrates with the elements of mystery, intrigue and romance in the exotic setting of the Persian empire.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from LITFUSE GROUP through the LITFUSE GROUP book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255
Read more articles by MIRIAM JACOB or search for articles on the same topic or others. | <urn:uuid:4dd30ed7-1dd0-4e98-b43c-dcd19d94c5b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=151171 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977112 | 577 | 2.21875 | 2 |
10:55 ET (estimated time): President Obama delivers remarks at St. Petersburg College-Seminole Campus
4:30 ET: Delivers remarks at Kissimmee Civic Center
SeaCoastOnline: Folks were as optimistic as the sunny day as they left Strawbery Banke Museum after President Barack Obama’s remarks to a crowd of an estimated 6,000 people.
“You really got the feeling that this was about you,” said Jude Flynn of Kittery, Maine. …. “He needs to finish the job he began on turning around the economy,” he said. “I also agree on his principles of allowing people to make choices on marriage and other things. I feel safe with him. The other side is scary to me.”
“We definitely need to go forward with the president’s plans,” said Pat Dunnell of Manchester, who was accompanied by her husband, Bud. “I don’t want Medicare vouchers,” she said.
….. “I’m also for women’s choice,” Corinne Baker of Hampton said. “If you’re a woman, you have to vote for him.”
Lilly Ramos-Spooner of Manchester was with two friends and her 9-year-old granddaughter, Sophia Victoria Spooner. “I am so motivated right now,” she said. “There were a lot of young people surrounding us and they all said they were signing up to vote after today.”
Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sept 7 | <urn:uuid:fa74a6bf-2cd0-43f9-b7e4-0a1790ab98ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theobamadiary.com/tag/herald/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979314 | 345 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Hymenoptera is one of the largest and best studied orders of insects which includes wasps, ants and bees. There are over 130,000 known species, with many more remaining to be described.
Hymenoptera research at the Museum is concerned mainly with the evolution and diversity of bees and parasitoid wasps.
Find out about our bumblebee research which concentrates on identifying and conserving these important insects.
We are researching the diversity of parasitoid wasps and their use in biological pest control.
Bee-flower interactions are one of the driving forces of evolution. Find out more about our projects that study the evolution of bee species across the world. | <urn:uuid:b52fdcec-5335-4e21-878f-f43f8456e4b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nhm.ac.uk/print-version/?p=/research-curation/life-sciences/terrestrial-invertebrates/research/hymenoptera-research/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947909 | 139 | 3.265625 | 3 |
The gospel doctrine teacher in our ward introduced the lesson on Joshua by asking a group of young women to recite the 2010 Mutual theme. Without hesitation and with conviction in their voices, the girls said in unison: “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9).
Although it was only May and the Young Women will be reciting this scripture many more times this year, I believe that this verse is already firmly planted into their minds and hearts and will surely guide them “whithersoever” they go — to their schools, activities, “hanging out” with friends, to dating in a few years, and to the many other venues of their lives.
These “Young Women of Zion” are blessed, as are a half million other Latter-day Saint teens, to belong to the greatest (and likely the largest) organization for adolescent girls in the world. Young women today, like their predecessors, are much blessed by this auxiliary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The organization’s name has changed several times over the years:
The Young Gentlemen and Ladies’ Relief Society of Nauvoo (1843)
The Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association (Young
Ladies’ Retrenchment Association) (1869)
Young Ladies’ National Mutual Improvement Association (1877)
Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association (1904)
Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association (YWMIA) (1934)
Aaronic Priesthood MIA, Young Women (1972)
Young Women (1974)
Yet the purposes — to help young women improve themselves, develop their talents, serve others, and strengthen their testimonies of Jesus Christ — have not.
Many years ago, Marba C. Josephson, then editor of the Improvement Era and a YWMIA general board member, described the young women’s organization as “aiding the LDS girl to gain a testimony of the gospel through wholesome lesson work and spiritualized recreation.”
Church leaders have long recognized the vital role that this auxiliary fills in helping adolescent girls develop testimonies of the Savior and to become faithful, covenant-keeping women. The guidance and strength available through the “Lord’s organization for [young] women” today is more needed, more vital than ever before.
When I was serving as stake Young Women president in the early 1990s, my husband gave me a book titled Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, whose practice focused on teenage girls. She said, “This book is an attempt to share my thinking with parents, educators ... and anyone else who works for and with girls.” (She is also the author The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families.)
My husband thought the book would help me to better understand the world of young women. At the time our only daughter was serving a mission, we had four of our five sons at home, and my only other calling in Young Women had been assistant camp director one summer. I did need to become better acquainted with the environment of the young women I would be serving; this book would be one avenue to explore.
As I read about the moral challenges and lack of family structure and involvement described by Dr. Pipher, I was astonished — yet even more committed to help the young women in my stake navigate the challenges of the 1990s. Although Pipher’s studies did not involve Latter-day Saints, unfortunately, in many areas of social behavior, the percent of the Church population following national trends is fairly high (i.e., divorce, blended families, teen pregnancy, drug use, and other challenges). And young women are not isolated from the world at large.
Since the book’s publication sixteen years ago, the general moral climate and the status of marriage and the family as an institution has deteriorated at an alarming and accelerating rate. Add to the mix the technological temptations, and one wonders how a young woman could possibly survive to adulthood, let alone to become a virtuous woman, prepared “to make and keep sacred covenants,” and to become a righteous and loving wife and mother.
Mary Pipher noted that adolescent girls need mentors and role models, good friends, meaningful activities, leadership opportunities, and to be emotionally connected to a whole.
Regarding mentors, she observed: “In the past, many young women were saved by conversations and support from a beloved neighbor, a kindhearted aunt or a nearby grandmother. Many women report that when they were in adolescence, they had someone they could really talk to, who encouraged them to stay true to who they really were. | <urn:uuid:22de651f-5c1e-4524-85e2-912ed35619b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ldsmag.com/1-ac-1/article/5014 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964496 | 1,008 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's prolonged health scare has supporters worried that it could undermine her potential 2016 presidential run as voters look to a younger, healthier standard bearer.
One longtime Clinton associate said there are concerns that her hospitalization for a blood clot beside her brain may be the last thing voters recall of her before she retires from State.
As a result, there is a push to make sure she checks out of New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center with a very public clean bill of health. Her doctors expect her to be cleared. Earlier this week they found the clot in a vein in space between her brain and skull behind the right ear.
Pollster John Zogby told Secrets that barring another health scare, Clinton should still be the Democratic favorite.
"If we were talking about the rest of us mere mortals, the blood clot issue could be a game-changer for Hillary. She will be 69 in 2016, the same age as Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan appeared healthy and robust, but we knew later about health problems that raised some serious concerns," he said. "But Hillary will probably get a clean bill of health from all this and then go on to be Hillary: focused, a winner, someone who will accomplish whatever she chooses. A race for the presidency will be on her terms alone."
With the lone exception of Vice President Joe Biden, all the other potential Democratic presidential candidates looking at a 2016 race are younger than Clinton.
Hillary advocates report that the former first lady has made no decision to run--or not. They said that she plans to take the next two years to decide. | <urn:uuid:5e628dfb-8e84-47d0-85a4-8bcb59a21d63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/worries-hillarys-health-scare-will-hurt-2016-bid/article/2517373 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97009 | 330 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: Natural Health Sherpa
Studies show that caffeine helps fight against fatigue and drowsiness and can help boost alertness. These benefits, however, comes with a price, says Natural Health Sherpa.
Wilmington, NC (PRWEB) January 21, 2013
Natural Health Sherpa, leading natural health website, recently published its review of caffeine. The website agrees that “caffeine is an effective way to wake up and may even act as medicine” but warns against its long-term effects.
Caffeine increases levels of the hormone epinephrine in the body, explains Natural Health Sherpa. This hormone stimulates the sympathetic nervous system thereby increasing heart rate, blood pressure and blood flow to the muscles. Epinephrine, at the same time, decreases blood flow to the skin and the inner organs and induces the liver to produce glucose. According to Natural Health Sherpa, “This is the same process that occurs when your body reacts to a perceived threat. It’s like facing a saber-toothed tiger every single morning!”
Natural Health Sherpa explains that the body’s reaction to caffeine is the same as what happens when it’s under stress. Caffeine can cause side effects such as “insomnia, nervousness and restlessness, stomach irritation, nausea and vomiting, increased heart rate and respiration, tremors, chest pain, and ringing in the ear,” according to the health website.
Natural Health Sherpa advises people who consume a lot of coffee to cut back slowly rather than quitting cold turkey to avoid unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
Natural Health Sherpa provides in-depth, science-based, independent reviews of natural health therapies and remedies that have been proven to be both safe and effective and are backed by good science -- multiple double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized studies. Unfortunately, there are many charlatans making bogus, unfounded claims in the natural health area, so our goal is to separate fact from fiction to pinpoint what actually works.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2013/1/prweb10337987.htm
1720 Valley View Drive | <urn:uuid:2d107d46-6829-4c06-8f1a-ebe7e737b9d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxal.com/story/20637189/natural-health-sherpa-publishes-review-of-caffeine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915615 | 488 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Stevia First Corp. Licenses Fermentation-Based Stevia Intellectual Property From Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
Aug 29, 2012
Development Efforts Aim to Bypass Traditional Stevia Farming, Create Superior Products at Lower Cost
SACRAMENTO, CA -- Stevia First Corp. (
The license encompasses compositions and methods for producing steviol and steviol glycosides through fermentation-based production methods. In addition to the license, Stevia First has entered into a separate consulting agreement with Vineland to assist with further development of the underlying intellectual property.
Today, production of stevia extract involves a complex agricultural supply chain servicing a sector that includes approximately 75,000 acres of stevia plant reportedly being grown overseas in 2010. It is currently estimated that 70% or more of the cost of stevia extract is directly attributable to the cost of stevia leaf production. Because the stevia leaf contains small quantities of the most desirable sweet components, complex extraction and purification processes must be used, adding to the cost, and yet still, many stevia extracts today do not meet the standards for taste and consistency that consumers demand.
Canadian researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) were among the first to discover and characterize the natural biochemical pathways that are involved in the production of the sweet components of the stevia leaf. Using this knowledge, it has become possible to produce stevia extract through fermentation-based technologies. These methods are capable of converting low-cost plant materials into sweet steviol glycosides through controlled fermentation methods, a process that could bypass or significantly diminish the need for stevia leaf production. Vineland currently controls intellectual property related to this technology.
Through a worldwide license to Stevia First by Vineland, the Company will have exclusive rights to an intellectual property portfolio derived from a patent titled, "Compositions and methods for producing steviol and steviol glycosides." Stevia First is commencing fermentation-based stevia development efforts at its Yuba City, CA facility, which first involve process optimization studies and completion of pilot-scale stevia extract production.
Dr. Jim Brandle, CEO of Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, states that, "We're very pleased to move this technology closer to the market via this license with Stevia First. In addition to advancing this technology, this partnership will enable Vineland to make further investments in horticultural research." Stevia First Corp.'s CEO, Robert Brooke, adds that, "In the stevia industry, which has grown tremendously over the past several years, there is still significant unmet demand from multinational companies for a supply chain that can consistently produce great-tasting stevia extract in large quantities. The technology we've licensed represents a potential solution for this need, and one that our scientific team is eager to commercialize."
About Stevia First Corp. (
Stevia First Corp. is seeking to establish a vertically-integrated stevia enterprise in the U.S. with expertise in stevia seed and tissue propagation, plant breeding, and cultivation. Stevia First's U.S. operations are located in the heart of California's Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. For more information visit: www.steviafirst.com.
About Vineland Research and Innovation Centre
Vineland Research and Innovation Centre is a world-class research center dedicated to horticultural science and innovation. Located in Canada's Niagara Region, Vineland's mission is to deliver innovative product and production solutions that address the needs of the horticulture industry and advance Canada's research and commercialization agenda. Vineland is an independent, not-for-profit organization, funded in part by Growing Forward, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative.
About the Stevia Industry
The market for all-natural, zero-calorie stevia sweeteners is expanding rapidly. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates stevia intake could eventually replace 20-30% of all dietary sweeteners. The total global sweetener market was estimated at $58.3 billion in 2010. For more information visit: www.steviafirst.com.
Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in Section 27(a) of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, projections of worldwide sales of stevia products, growth of stevia production and global markets. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects and development stage companies. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Historical Press Releases
This website contains historical and archived press releases for Stevia First Corporation The information in these press releases is historical in nature, has not been updated, and is current only to the date indicated in the particular press release. This information may no longer be accurate and therefore you should not rely on the information contained in these press releases. To the extent permitted by law, Stevia First Corporation and its employees, agents and consultants exclude all liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of, or reliance on, any such information, whether or not caused by any negligent act or omission. | <urn:uuid:17ebf3ae-381a-4aa6-a1e0-5bc6884f3761> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steviafirst.com/news/news_releases/2012/08/stevia-first-corp.-licenses-fermentation-based-stevia-intellectual-property-from-vineland-research-and-innovation-centre | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924443 | 1,303 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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FSMA 7103 - Money & Banking
This course is an exploration of the role and importance of money in effective monetary policy as a solution for inflation and unemployment. The operation, function, and structure of the banking system and the functions of the central banking system will be the focus. The role of monetary theories, money management, and monetary policy will also be studied. The theoretical foundations of commercial and central banking will be discussed within the context of general economic activity. | <urn:uuid:eb6651c9-b85f-40f1-aeff-e7be6a11f2b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alfredstate.edu/academics/courses/fsma-7103-money-banking | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933041 | 99 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Kansas Master Teacher Award Program
Lincoln Elementary School
USD 489, Hays
At four years old, a little girl imitated a much older sister who was a teacher. Putting on the sister’s high-heeled shoes and carrying an old grade book, the little girl conducted her own school. It wasn’t too much longer when, at the age of 17, she actually began her teaching career.
Now, nearly 60 years later, Miss Miller–who dresses in the colorful clothing her kindergarten students like–looks every now and then at women in business, wearing fancy clothes in offices and envies them for a minute, before thinking, “But how boring would that job be compared to teaching.”
“Miss Miller is a role model for all professionals; one leaves her presence uplifted, inspired, and ready to pursue new avenues of learning in the classroom, and a clear understanding that education is truly the most important profession on the face of the earth,” said a colleague.
Miss Miller has been a kindergarten teacher at Lincoln Elementary School since 1965. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Fort Hays State University. | <urn:uuid:fe402b59-1710-43a6-bdd7-d8b7bc0ea5bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emporia.edu/teach/master/millerelouise.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967037 | 245 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Washington’s road to Iran goes through Syria
Washington’s road to Iran goes through Syria
The results of the Geneva talks on Syria depend on whom you ask.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insists that the principle of “mutual consent” on which a “transitional government” in Syria would be based, means President Assad has to go. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on the contrary, insists the formation of a “transitional government” will be made on inclusive basis.
Before discussing what it means, let’s stop for a second to grasp the sheer fact: five foreign powers gathered to decide the fate of a country, in the absence of its leader and its people, who never asked them to do anything of the kind, let alone gave any mandate. This is an outrageous breach of international law. And what is even more outrageous is that nobody is concerned or even talking about it.
Now, the wording of the final communiqué, at Russian insistence, does not explicitly call for Assad’s ousting but instead says the new government “shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.” Russia and China understand this formula to mean, according to the countries’ officials, that President Assad is part of the process.
But listen how the author of the new plan, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan interprets it: “The government will have to re-form by discussion, negotiation and by mutual consent, and I will doubt that the Syrians who have fought so hard for their independence, … will select people with blood on their hands to lead them.” French Foreign Minister Fabius, in a surprising continuation of Sarkozy’s allegiance to Washington, spells it out even clearer: “Even if they [Russia and China] say the opposite, the fact is that text … means it won’t be Bashar al-Assad. The opposition will never agree to him, so it signals implicitly that Assad must go and that he is finished,” Fabius told television station TF1.
It sounds as though Washington found the final solution for Bashar Al-Assad. “Transitional government” based on “mutual consent” will be to Syria what the “no-fly zone” was to Libya. While a normal person understood the term “no-fly zone” as an area over which aircraft are not permitted to fly, Washington defined the term to mean more than 30,000 sorties of NATO fighter-bombers and reconnaissance flights.
In Syria’s case, by the Geneva agreement Washington has launched the final phase of President Assad’s removal. And again as with Libya, “regime” change will be carried out with the full agreement of UN Security Council’s permanent members!
The most appalling element here is that Russia seems to have fallen again into the Washington’s trap. Notwithstanding all the right declarations and efforts, at the end of the day Russia nevertheless signed a tacit agreement to abandon Syria, similar to the abstention vote on “no-fly zone” for Libya that allowed Washington to launch strikes.
A few words need to be said about Kofi Annan’s role in the process, which uncovered one more tactical approach in the “regime” change business of America. Compared to the “bad cop” behavior of the US administration, the silken-voiced elegantly-attired originally Kenyan diplomat served as a perfect peace-loving “good cop” figure.
In February 2012, just as the Syrian government was about to neutralize the armed insurrection within its country by terrorists illegally armed and trained by America and its allies, Annan comes up with a “6-point peace plan” that required government troops to “immediately” return to their barracks while the terrorists had to only “commit to stop the fighting.” In fact, Annan’s plan gave time to arm and train insurgents, to build up their terrorist capabilities, while gearing up western public support to war.
In preparation for Geneva talks, Kofi Annan pulls out one more “peace plan” that promotes the next stage of subverting President Al-Assad: a “government of national unity” must be created, which “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups” with the exception of “those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation”. Thus, in the Annan/US vision, the murderers who perpetrated the Houla massacre are entitled to be part of the government, but the only democratically elected leader of the country is not.
As if that were not enough, Annan’s “peace plan” № 2 requires prompt “free and fair multiparty elections” – which as “color revolution” methodology proved is the most practical environment to overthrow a government and solidify “opposition”’s gains.
US immediate goal in destabilizing Syria is to move forward the front against Iran. In this direction, operations in Syria are proceeding in tandem with gearing-up of Azerbaijan on Iran’s northern border.
For Russia, once again falling into Washington’s trap will have dire consequences. On the international arena, Moscow loses precious credibility with its strategic allies, with Iran in particular. Geopolitically, Syria’s fall will speed up American’s relentless push across the Middle East into the Caucasus and Central Asia, consolidating its infrastructure on Russia’s southern military front and putting a definitive end to the prospects of the Eurasian Union.
These losses will hardly, if ever, be recoverable.
Veronika Krasheninnikova, Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy Research and Initiatives in Moscow, for RT
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. | <urn:uuid:eff44d4f-948f-434c-85a3-ab75403fd1d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nsnbc.me/2012/07/03/washingtons-road-to-iran-goes-through-syria/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952289 | 1,256 | 2.0625 | 2 |
This section of the National Council of Nonprofits’ website offers resources on selected topics that provide nonprofit leaders a fresh look at the operations of their nonprofit, as well as useful tools for tackling challenging issues.
What do experts consider to be the ‘best practices’ for sustainable nonprofit operations? What tips are being used by nonprofit leaders to help focus board and staff on sound internal procedures?
What are the expectations for sound financial policies and internal controls? What are the roles of the treasurer and the finance committee? Explore this section for the current thinking about everything from budgets and overhead to internal controls.
What would happen if your largest funding source dried up? Or if your nonprofit were to experience an unexpected interruption in its business operations? Resources in this section describe why business plans are important and link to tips and tools for business continuity planning.
What are some pitfalls to avoid and best practices to develop? Resources include sample personnel policies and job descriptions.
A nonprofit can be quite vulnerable when there is a change of leadership. What are the keys to successful transitions in board and staff leadership? We’ve collected some reports, case studies and white papers to help your nonprofit navigate these challenging waters.
Even if you are kicking and screaming, you know you need to do it! Conducting self-assessments doesn’t need to distract you from core operations or sideline strategic initiatives. Instead, self-assessments and program evaluations can transform your organization in positive ways. We’ve assembled tools to help a nonprofit evaluate its own management practices, as well as tackle the process of evaluating program outcomes.
What practices in partnering and collaborating are most successful? What are the pitfalls to avoid? We’ve gathered case studies and resources to help you plan for successful partnerships.
Learn about activities that can cause a nonprofit to lose its tax-exemption.
Connect with local resources and expertise Find | <urn:uuid:efa37b6f-037f-4dcd-88c3-60ff5f6bc3a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/resources/resources-topic/administration-and-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937663 | 386 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Career Services holds open house to showcase resources
February 21, 2011 —
Preparing for a career after graduation can be difficult for college students, but Career Services can help with that transition.
The Career Services office held an open house for students to showcase the services it offers to students and alumni Wednesday, Feb. 16. Megan Biskup, assistant director of Career Services, said that the open house was meant to get out information about what the office can provide for those who walk in the door.
“We’re basically just trying to get students into the office for them to see what different services we offer and basically just let them know that we’re here,” she said.
Career Services offers résumé workshops, mock interviews, job shadowing and personal career advising for students and alumni. They also host employment fairs that allow students to meet with potential future employers. The next employment fair hosted by the office is Friday, April 15, in the Ryder Center.
The directors of Career Services aim to bring new ideas and opportunities to SVSU students with the help of employers and organizations that approach the office. One of these new opportunities is the State of Michigan Focus Group on Wednesday, March 2 where a select number of students will attend.
“This was actually something that the state of Michigan wanted us to do, and they wanted originally five students,” Biskup said. “We’ve already upped that to 10 students because I’ve had 60 e-mails from students that were interested, but that’s really the most that they can handle at one time.”
According to her, the state of Michigan wants to “pick the brains of our students.” Students will be asked about their thoughts and perceptions on the situation in Michigan. Students’ knowledge about working for the state will also be gauged. Biskup said that this information will influence the way the state will try to keep students working in Michigan.
“From there, they’re going to take that information back to the state of Michigan and they’re going to work on some different advertising, how they can advertise the different positions they have available to our students and different ways they can really start changing the perceptions of the state of Michigan,” she said.
Career Services also created a Career Pathways workshop. Biskup said that the workshop is designed for students who are undecided in a major and will provide information about the future associated with each major, which includes career paths and salaries.
“We really go into what types of careers fit what personalities and what you’d be good at given your strengths or weaknesses,” she said.
The next Career Pathways workshop is Thursday, March 24. and student RSVP is required.
Samuel Tilmon, an assistant director of Career Services, said that student interest in using resources provided by the office has grown.
“There has been an enormous increase in interest in our students,” he said. “Employers now know the quality of students that Saginaw Valley produces.” | <urn:uuid:2a39a2ef-03bc-4135-a040-b823327702b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orgs.svsu.edu/clubs/vanguard/stories/3113 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972718 | 648 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Nation Topics - Law
Crime Supreme Court Death Penalty Drug War and Drug Policy Guns and Gun Control Immigrant Detention Centers Immigration to the US Increased Security After 9-11 International Law Jails and Prisons Lawsuits Police and Law Enforcement Police Brutality Profiling Separation of Church and State The Constitution The Courts
News and Features
Refusing to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, Republicans are leaving rape victims with few options.
Republicans have been blocking Obama's nominations—but the president’s refusal to fight back is part of the problem.
Bork was denied a seat on the Supreme Court because he was a right-wing zealot, not because of campaign of liberal lies.
Our civil rights discourse must address the ways our institutions systemically oppress certain communities.
A massive recent spike in gun sales has boosted Walmart’s flagging profits, making it the top seller of firearms and ammunition nationwide.
We have the ability to prevent another mass shooting. But do we have the will?
It's still unclear what motivated the Newtown shooter, but the small towns where such deadly outbursts tend to occur have some things in common.
When The New York Times first revealed the NSA was wiretapping Americans without a warrant in 2005, it was a scandal. But the government continues to spy with impunity—and what was once illegal has become the law.
In crafting laws after the horrifying killings in Connecticut, it’s crucial that we recognize our own collective trauma before we rush to act.
For the gun lobby, Newtown was evidence that more guns are necessary.
- How America Became a Third World Country
- The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks
- Why Prosecuting Ariel Castro for Murder Won’t Prevent Violence Against Pregnant Women
- Rahm Emanuel's Zombie Pigs vs. Chicago's Angry Birds
- The First Couple’s Post-Racial Bootstraps Myth | <urn:uuid:ee6c6de7-a6c7-4473-9d63-b5258ca22c9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenation.com/node/153/law?page=8%2C6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907784 | 399 | 1.96875 | 2 |
In an effort to make pricing my scores easier and less subjective, I’ve been tinkering with a series of formulas to tell me what I should charge, and I think I’ve come up with some good stuff.
However, before I get into the math of it, I want to quickly paraphrase my post Pricing: The Goldilocks Zone where I talk about my philosophy on setting prices. Until now, I’ve set mine by asking myself two questions: 1) “If I were buying an identical score by another composer, what price would be most attractive to me?” and 2) “Is that price something I’m willing to accept for my own work?” It’s worked well so far, but is hardly objective.
I actually designed a whole Excel spreadsheet that does double duty as my catalog and a price calculator. All I have to do is plug in what it costs to print one copy of the score, and it spits out what I should charge for print scores on one sheet, and what I should charge for electronic scores on another. It took me an afternoon to create, and is a lot of fun to play with.
Let’s walk through an example of how the formulas work with a bit of math. For this example, I’m going to assume that the score costs exactly $5.00 to print and bind, and that there are no other costs associated with the production of the score itself. Your score will cost more or less depending on the number of pages and the quality of the materials. But for right now, we’re going to take $5.00 as our starting point.
The other assumption we’re going to make, aside from the starting cost, is that we want our works picked up by distributors like J.W. Pepper or Theodore Front; so we’re going to figure in the discount that distributors take, which is typically around 40%.
So we start out with our $5.00 cost to produce the score.
Step one is just about the only subjective step in the print pricing process: figuring out our base profit per score. This can be a set dollar amount, or a percentage of the sale. I prefer the latter because it’s flexible, and it helps keep the final price more reasonable.
For myself, I’ve chosen a 20% base profit*. Meaning: 20% of the price after adding the base profit to the printing costs. Not 20% of the printing price.
So: “Cost with Profit” = $5.00 + (20% of “Cost with Profit”).
The easiest way to figure this is to subtract your percentage from 100% and turn it into a decimal: 100% – 20% = 80% or 0.8.
Then divide your cost by this new number: $5.00 / 0.8 = $6.25.
I may have lost some of you already. Let’s do it backward to show you what just happened. 20% of $6.25 is $1.25. So we have our $5.00 printing cost plus our 20% ($1.25) base profit.
|Cost with Profit||=||$5.00||+||(20% of Cost with Profit)|
Step two: we add the distributor discount, which is typically 40%. We add this into our price because we have to price our scores the same as the distributor sells them. The discount they take is their incentive for buying scores from you, as well as their profit. Why is theirs twice what mine is? Because they have a staff and I don’t.
So, we do the same trick to calculate the distributor price that we used to get our Cost with Profit.
$6.25 / (100% – 40%) = $10.42
|C w/ P & Disc||=||$6.25||+||(40% of C w/ P & Disc)|
One final step, just for the sake of aesthetics. Let’s round up to $10.50. It’s just a prettier number.
So there’s your print price for a score that cost you $5.00 to print.
If a distributor wants to sell this score, you sell it to them for $6.25 per copy (or $6.30 since we rounded up, and that counts for something), and they sell it for $10.50. Of the $6.30 you got from the distributor, you paid $5.00 to print it, and end up earning $1.30 – your Base Profit!
To sell it on your site, you sell it for $10.50 and make $5.50 after your production costs. Awesome.
A quick recap:
|Base Profit (20% of Price net of distributor discount, or 12% of Gross)||$1.25|
|Discount (40% of Gross)||$4.17|
* The base profit here is not 20% of the gross price, but 20% of the price net of the distributor’s discount. I figure it this way to keep the price more affordable. See “Another Approach” below for an example of how calculating the base profit against gross affects the gross price.
So let’s start with our final Print price of $10.50 and go from there to find the price for our Electronic score.
We have a few options of how we want to deal with this. You’re entitled to keep the same price, but I don’t particularly approve of that since you have no printing/binding costs for an electronic score.
I prefer to just subtract out the printing costs, so $10.50 – $5.00, leaving you with $5.50, which is pretty damned good for a product with no overhead costs.
Some other composers take half of the print price, which in this case would be $5.25. A negligible difference between this and what I do.
Assuming you sell the electronic scores on your own site and use PayPal as your payment solution, you’re going to pay $0.46 on $5.50, leaving you with a net of $5.04.
Or you can set your price taking the PayPal fee into account. If you want to net $5.50, you can set your price at $6.00 and net $5.53.
If you were to use NewMusicShelf as your distributor, the fee is 14% of the gross price plus the PayPal transaction fee (2.9% + $0.30). So if you want to end up with $5.50, you’ll set your price at $7.00 to account for the $0.98 NewMusicShelf distribution fee and $0.50 PayPal transaction fee, and you’ll net $5.52. (To start at $5.50, you’ll have a total of $1.23 in fees and net $4.27.)
Obviously there are lots of choices here, and a lot of wiggle room. There’s no overhead to take into account, although there are various transaction fees that you might pay, depending on where and how you sell your electronic scores.
Another approach that can be taken is to calculate the base profit and the distributor discount together. This changes the price because the profit in the example above is not calculated against the final gross price. Instead, it is only calculated taking into account the overhead costs. Calculating the profit and discount together looks like this:
Gross = $5.00 + (20% Gross) + (40% Gross)
Gross = $5.00 + (60% Gross)
$5.00 / 0.4 = Gross
$5.00 / 0.4 = $12.50
I prefer not to do it this way because it actually raises the price more than I’m comfortable with. Because I don’t expect to have a print distributor for a while, and because I anticipate selling the bulk of my scores through my own website anyway once I do get one, I’m content for the time being to have a profit of $1.25 on this example score sold through a distributor. After all, I’ll be making a $5.50 profit when it’s sold on my own website. | <urn:uuid:4154ac79-bad0-406f-a70c-98feb8eb495f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newmusicshelf.com/news/2011/06/pricing-a-practical-approach/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938476 | 1,776 | 1.960938 | 2 |
This post kicks off Blog for IDEC 2012 week.
At an extraordinary and unusual school I visited recently, I observed a seven-year-old girl come before the school’s judicial council. The day before she had violated a cardinal rule of the school. She had failed to look after her own safety. She and four of her friends had ventured to a pond dock on the school grounds, where they saw a water snake. Intrigued, they wanted to catch it. Using a Tupperware container, string, and some duct tape, they made a trap and dipped it into the water. The little girl, her heavy backpack still on her back, leaned too far out over the dock and fell into the water. Some of the older, high school boys saw her fall in, rushed to the pond, and pulled her out. The water was only waist-deep and slow moving, but in the life of the school, where children are allowed full freedom to roam the school grounds as long as they look out for their safety, no kid had ever fallen into the pond before. The adults at the school, understandably, were beside themselves.
As I watched the judicial process unfold–the judicial council is run entirely by students with a carefully developed set of understandings and procedures evolved over many years–I wondered, how could holding a seven-year-old responsible for her own behavior in this way be “human,” the topic of this post? Developmentally, aren’t seven-year-olds just a bit too young to be expected to think about these kinds of things for themselves, especially in moments of intense curiosity? What were the implications of sanctioning this little girl more severely than her four friends, perhaps simply because her backpack made her unbalanced in ways she was unaccustomed to?
Human education is about exactly these sorts of questions. Real and important questions about individual liberty, collective responsibility and accountability–and how ironically, safety can sometimes be achieved only in a confrontation with danger.
The love and care with which the students on the judicial body, ages 8 to 17, gently questioned the little girl, was touching, beautiful and very serious. When she entered the room (each little girl was questioned separately), she was asked to explain what happened. She said, “I’m afraid,” and an adult she had chosen to accompany her to the meeting held her in her arms. A fourteen-year-old girl gently queried, “How far were you away from the edge? Can you show me on this table?” “Did you hear the older boys calling to you to be careful?” The little girl answered in calm, clear tones. “This far. No.” The council asked her: you know that you are going to be charged? Yes, she said. Do you know why? Yes, she said. A member of this community for a couple of years already, this child understood what was afoot, and perhaps also, why it was a very big deal. As I watched this little girl, in a pink t-shirt with a peace sign on her tiny flat chest, I saw her grow under the gaze of this serious attention. Charged and unforgettable, it was a moment of human beings in real consideration of the right way to hold each other and love each other, and offer each other freedom and boundaries at the same time. And how little people can grow into themselves in such a circumstance.
Later in the day, when the whole school deliberated the recommended punishment–lack of access to the pond and a suspension–the adults in the community passionately disagreed with each other. They debated the philosophical principles the incident represented. If a fence goes around the pond, then what? When we tell parents that we expect their kids to be responsible in this way, and we live it, then it creates a “charge,” real and important, for us, the parent, the child. Powerful human education continued on for everyone, in all its unvarnished complexity and lack of clear answers. Small, squirmy nine-year-old boys sat through the entire two-hour meeting voluntarily; older girls knit while the talk went on. The whole-school meeting was ably run by a senior girl.
Without writing at length about the circumstances of this fascinating incident–and its complex and multi-hued punishment–what I saw at this extraordinary school was almost the direct opposite of what I observe in many American schools, where children are schooled down to size almost from the moment they enter. They are–even now with our slightly-better-informed understandings of human capacity–still tracked into ability groups, labeled and sorted around learning abilities and disabilities, and denied creation of a truly accountable community, because adults are almost entirely in charge. (It is inconceivable for them not to be.) In the conventional educational system, the places where children are allowed to show initiative and to be in charge, are all around individual attainment (get good grades, do well on the state tests), competition, and engagement in adult-sanctioned activities. Legally and morally, students are inmates in a system that denies them access to the complexity of the question of what to do if a seven-year-old falls into the pond. When one of our members has violated a rule, what does this mean for all of us, when we are all truly bound together?
A tiny girl becomes big, through contemplation of the seriousness of her own actions. A community becomes more complex and interknit through passionate disagreement, not bland adherence to a set of rules. Children are allowed genuine and near-complete adult authority, and they handle it ably and maturely. Human education means that we will break some of the old rules because they no longer serve us.
How big are you willing to let kids be? How big are you willing to let yourself be? How many rules are you willing to break in service of a new kind of education? | <urn:uuid:eb80dbf8-8f19-4217-8e0d-e2042525292b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/real-education-is-human/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=f9c0eced4e | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980088 | 1,231 | 2.3125 | 2 |
The morning after George W. Bush's 2004 re-election, Britain's Daily Mirror famously asked: "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" The morning after Barack Obama's election, a far more upbeat Daily Mirror gushed "GOBAMA!" on its front page.
Other British papers from across the political spectrum shared the triumphant mood after Barack Obama's decisive win. "Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory," proclaimed the left-of-center Guardian. Rupert Murdoch's The Sun echoed the moon landing with a "One Giant Leap For Mankind" headline beneath a photo of a determined Barack Obama jogging toward the camera.
The enthusiasm was hardly limited to Britain—across much of the world, newspapers welcomed Obama's victory. To many, the election showcased what they like about the United States—the vitality of its democracy and the notion of America as a land of opportunity. And just as importantly, President-elect Obama represents a significant change from an administration widely disliked around the globe.
Still, buried in the positive international press coverage of the election were some caveats, concerns, and notes of discord. "He's Just A President. Not the Messiah," read an opinion piece headline in Italy's Il Giornale. While Obama now enjoys considerable goodwill in many nations, journalists, policymakers, and others are starting to focus on pressing concerns—the world economic crisis, the Middle East conflict, ongoing and unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to name just a few—and their nations will look to President Obama with high expectations.
Read the full report Global Media Celebrate Obama Victory -- But Cautious Too on the Pew Research Center Web site. | <urn:uuid:a830fc90-4b9e-4867-8d82-5575d8bfeb44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=46146&category=240 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936265 | 346 | 1.695313 | 2 |
When you buy new stuff for your home, do you put your old stuff in the garage or the basement just in case you might still need it? Mike Monroe really wishes you’d stop doing that. Or tossing it so it ends up in a landfill. The creator of Give Your Stuff Away Day, Monroe wants people to give away their excess stuff by putting it out on the curb this Saturday, May 12.
“I’m a minimalist,” he says, “but I like picking things up. I was distressed about the stuff we throw away and the stuff we store.”
He started promoting the idea of Give Your Stuff Away Day on Facebook more than a year ago, hoping to get some municipalities to join in his campaign. That hasn’t happened because politicos believe the stuff that isn’t picked up would be an eyesore for the neighbors — and not so popular come election time.
I lived in a townhouse neighborhood where renters moved out at the end of almost every month, often leaving behind a pile of what I’ll politely refer to as “stuff.”
Since the county didn’t take bulk items in the trash, the leftovers would sit and sit until the home owners association convinced the landlord to remove them — or, more often, until the one of the neighbors gave up on that happening and drove the stuff to the dump.
Since your crap might not be someone else’s find and can muck up your curb appeal, opt for other great ways to give away your stuff all year long:
1. Use Freecycle. You join online and post a description of the stuff you want to be rid of. Members email telling you they want your stuff and when they can pick it up. My friend has gotten rid of old interior doors, a couch, a ficus tree, and unwanted chocolate-covered cherries she got for Christmas this way.
2. Organize a swap meet where neighbors trade sporting goods, clothes, or even Halloween costumes.
3. Post a picture of your stuff on Facebook and ask if any of your friends could use it.
4. Post a free online notice to either give away or sell your stuff on Craigslist. While you’re there, check to see if someone is giving away stuff you need, rather than buying new. Today in Baltimore, folks were using Craiglist to give away backyard playgrounds, landscaping rocks, and a hot tub.
5. When you remodel, donate the fixtures you’re replacing to Habitat for Humanity’s Restore. When you’re dropping off your stuff, you can check out salvaged building materials to use in your next home improvement project
What have you put out on the curb in the hopes someone would take it? What have you picked up? | <urn:uuid:44430540-6365-44ad-afd0-64a35a9191e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.houselogic.com/blog/recycling-reusing/give-your-stuff-away-day/ | 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 | 0.952992 | 585 | 1.734375 | 2 |
DSU supports distance education as a way of building, maintaining, and extending quality programs that complement the traditional work of the University. Distance education refers to courses and programs delivered by electronically mediated formats in which instruction occurs when the students and the instructors are not in the same place.
Online Instruction (course): Online instruction is defined by IHL as education or training in which at least 51% of the content of a course is electronically delivered to a student who is separated from the instructor. Students can take courses via the Internet, contact their tutors and peers, take tests, and put their own work up for discussion. Study is organized around fixed units of time. Online Courses at Delta State University have no regularly scheduled campus class meetings. Instructors may schedule meetings with students that meet the student’s time schedule.
Online Program: A distance education program that offers more than 50% of its content in an online format will be designated as an online program. This designation follows the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Substantive Change guidelines for distance learning programs.Hybrid Instruction: Although not recognized by IHL as a delivery type, the term hybrid instruction in this document is used to describe a course or program that combines an online segment with regularly scheduled face to face class meetings. The regularly scheduled class meetings are reduced in number and those segments are replaced by an online portion.
Synchronous: In terms of distance education, synchronous refers to activities that the learner needs to do either in a sequential order or in real time with other class participants. For example, students participating in a chat session are communicating in a synchronous manner.
Interactive Video Conference: occurs in real time and allows the instructor to communicate with remote site sections of the class via one or two-way video and two-way audio. Instructors and students speak to each other via microphones provided at each receive site.
While keeping within the established mission of the university, the distance education program will provide the following:
All distance education credit courses are taught by faculty, with all the same standards, prerequisites, and requirements as on-campus sections of identical courses. All DSU policies and procedures, standards, and guidelines for on-campus programs and instruction are applicable to distance education instruction, unless noted otherwise.
Distance Education Committee
Committee members are appointed by the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs and includes representation from all colleges/schools and other units as determined by the Academic Council. The Director of Instructional Technology and the Director of Distance Education serve as Co-chairs of the Distance Education Committee for coordination and staff support. The DSU Distance Education Committee develops and recommends distance education policies and procedures to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, who in turn, submits the recommended policies and procedures to Academic Council and then to Cabinet for approval.
Distance Education Delivery Coordinator
The Director of the Instructional Technology will facilitate working with cooperating institutions for delivery of interactive video courses as directed by the respective dean and department/division head. All use of the videoconferencing studio will be coordinated between the department heads, deans, the Academic Affairs Office, and OIT. The Director of Instructional Technology will be responsible for coordinating implementation, maintenance, and backup of all online courses.
Distance Education Approval
Distance education courses will be recommended and approved through university review procedures following the path of Department, Dean, and Academic Council. Distance education programs will be recommended and approved through university review procedures, following the path of Department, Dean, Academic Council, Cabinet, IHL, and accreditation groups. For approved courses and programs, departments assign teaching faculty, determine quotas, and accrue student credit hours for courses taught. The Technology Learning Center schedules courses in conjunction with academic departments, provides on-site support staff, and assists academic departments with evaluations.
The enrollment process for students in distance education courses is equivalent to the procedures used for traditional classroom courses.
Classes will be cancelled only in emergency situations and with as much advance notice as possible.
Faculty members teaching distance education courses will be evaluated using DSU evaluation procedures and instruments.
Academic Standards for Distance Education
Distance education courses will meet all academic requirements and quality standards of Delta State University and of all accrediting bodies.
Interactive Video Courses
Delta State University offers Interactive video classes in several formats. Not all courses are available at all remote sites or in every format.
Students in Live/Interactive sections of a course may be required to take proctored exams at their remote sites. Instructors may require online students to take a proctored exam. Picture IDs will be checked at the exam sites. Students may be allowed to take proctored tests at a local college or university testing center. In any case of proctored exams, instructors will provide test dates for the semester to the Director of Distance Education approximately two months prior to the start of the semester a course is to be taught and assist the Director of Distance Education in arranging for exams.
Quotas for distance education classes are set by the department/division head in consultation with college/school dean.
All faculty scheduled to teach a distance education course for the first time must participate in a course preparation program. The Director of Instructional Technology provides training opportunities for all faculty using distance education technology in instruction. Any instructor wishing to teach an interactive video or online course for the first time will attend an orientation and logistics meeting, which will be conducted by the Instructional Technology Center staff, who will coordinate and lead these activities as well as work with interactive video and online courses, and assist faculty as needed prior to and during the semester their course is delivered. Web design consultants may also be assigned to assist online faculty.
Faculty Support Services
The services are available to all faculty. Faculty interested in incorporating technology into their traditional (classroom) courses are provided assistance and instruction in one-on-one sessions as well as group workshops. Interactive video and online faculty are provided assistance and instruction during the orientation and logistics meeting conducted by the Director of Instructional Technology. Online faculty are also provided web courseware, web accounts, and design assistance by Instructional Technology staff preceding and during the semester the course is taught. In addition, OIT personnel provide help setting up courseware accounts, web accounts, home pages on the Internet, forms for gathering data on the Internet, and other assistance with websites for distance education faculty.
The Roberts LaForge Library staff coordinates library support for all distance education classes and will consult with faculty in planning their courses to assure appropriate library services. Faculty can determine the needs for their class and can receive assistance in determining availability of resources at various libraries, online access information and training, or the mailing of specific materials requested by students.
The OIT staff provides assistance in establishing student e-mail accounts for distance education courses. All distance education faculty and students must have an e-mail account. These accounts will be activated at the request of the course instructor or student(s) enrolled in the class.
Textbooks and Copy Center Packets
Faculty textbook orders will be handled through the usual departmental channels. A Copy Center packet containing all class handouts or handouts can be scanned in and made available through the homepage. Students may purchase these at the beginning of the semester through the Campus Bookstore. Students may order their textbooks and packets by phone from the Campus Bookstore and receive them by mail for an additional handling fee, if they call before the Campus Bookstore's specified mail order deadlines.
Faculty members are responsible for securing advance written copyright clearances on any copyright-protected materials they may use in their broadcast, re-run, or online classes. Additional information on Copyright is available on the U.S. Copyright Office’s website at: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html. The only substantial exception to the rule that only copyright holders may distribute copyrighted material is the long-standing provision that individuals may make “fair use” of copyrighted materials. Use of a copyrighted work “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research” (17 USC 107) is generally considered fair use. Fair use does not extend to extensive quotations and may not adversely affect the commercial market for the work in question.
The materials created by faculty members for distance education courses will be treated in the same fashion as materials created by faculty members for traditional courses.
Site Facilitators and Distance Education Assistance
Technology Learning Center staff are available to assist faculty and students in the on-campus section of interactive video courses. Everyone involved with distance education may also call the Technology Learning Center for assistance. The Technology Learning Center maintains and updates an informational distance education website and provides instructional and technical support to faculty and students.
Enrolled students in distance education courses shall have access to the range of student services to support their learning comparable to that of the on-campus learner. Services will also be supportive of the part-time distance learner. Students will be provided with clear, complete information about programs of study including curriculum, course and degree requirements; the nature of faculty and student interaction; assumptions about technical competence and skills; technical equipment requirements; and availability of academic support services, financial aid resources, and cost and payment policies. Enrolled students will also have adequate access to the range of services appropriate to support their learning including, but not limited to, admission services; registration; transcripts; financial aid – including access to Veteran’s Assistance programs, scholarships, grants and loans; academic advising; library services; methods of adding or dropping course; bookstore services; and adequate communication about registration and admission requirements.
Information and advice about requirements for admission to DSU and admission to a specific program will be available to distance education students.
Students enrolled in telecommunication-based courses are eligible to apply for Federal Financial Aid. Federal Financial Aid includes grants, loans, and a student employment program. Students should apply online at www.fafsa.ed.gov each academic year. For additional information, please contact the Office of Student Financial Assistance at (662) 846-4670 or visit their office in Kent Wyatt Hall 144.
Comparable advising services are available to both on-campus and distance education students. Advice about academic programs is critical to the success and productivity of the student. Distance education advising is available in a range of modes, using new technologies (e.g., e-mail, telephone, toll-free numbers)
Appropriate library services will be available to distance education students. Quality programs demand adequate library services for all students. Specific library/staff resources will be designated at campus libraries to adequately service distance education students as well as support interlibrary loan policies and online access to catalogs and materials.
Computer Literacy Prerequisites
It will be necessary that students come to the course with the requisite knowledge enabling them to use the technology. Because access to computers in homes and schools is not uniform, students arrive in distance education classrooms in all states of readiness. Distance education programs/courses will identify computer literacy prerequisites needed for students to participate successfully, so students may be properly advised about skill level that is required.
Students taking distance education courses will be held to the same requirements of academic honesty as students taking traditional courses. Faculty will ensure that safeguards have been built into the distance education course format to require that students be held to the same standards of academic honesty as students in traditional courses.
Students with Disabilities
Students with disabilities needing special accommodations should contact the DSU Counseling Center in the Reilly Health Center; Dr. Richard Houston, 662.846.4690, firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:2a5239ac-8480-433d-88e4-65b6ca9c339d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://deltastate.edu/pages/2473.asp?id=%7BA7EEE0A8-C122-4BEB-BADB-8E416A5F87F8%7D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93604 | 2,394 | 2.46875 | 2 |
City of Guyton
Guyton, Georgia is a small community of approximately 750 people. Located just 25 miles north of Savannah, it is an easy commute for its many citizens who work in Savannah.
While some of the early settlers came from the Savannah area, it seems that most came from North and South Carolina. In 1792 a tract of 250 acres of land in the form of a land warrant from Effingham County was issued to Squire Zachariah White. The community became known as Whitesville. The Squire was not married and left no heir when he died in 1838. White had granted a right-of-way to the new Central of Georgia Railway Co., prior to his death. He was buried on his own land, as was the custom then. His grave is in the rear of the present New Providence Church. Years later, a local controversy was started when some of this community tried to have Squire White's grave moved to the new local cemetery. It was never moved.
Shortly after Whites death, the Effingham County Commissioners took over White's land for unpaid taxes. They had a survey made, laid off lots and streets just as they still are today, and sold it all at public auction as payment of his taxes. Many lots were bought by affluent Savannah residents as a place for a summer home. At this time, the fever was very bad in Savannah.
When the Central of Georgia Railroad Company, having a charter to build and operate a railroad from Savannah to Macon and on to Marthasville (now ca1led Atlanta) laid their tract through Whitesville in 1837 or 1838, they referred to this place as Station Number 30. After a short time, local people ask the railroad company to give this place a name so they could request the federal government place a post office here. Since there was another town in the state named Whitesville, Mr. W. W. Gordon, President of the Central Railroad, named this location Guyton, after Archibald Guyton, a prominent, local citizen. The U. S. Post Office established a post office at Guyton, Georgia, December 3l, 1851.
Guyton was an affluent town by the time of the Civil War. During the Civil War, the Confederacy built a hospital in Guyton. There are buried 26 Confederate soldiers buried in the local cemetery. When General Sherman marched from Atlanta to Savannah on his burn and destroy mission, he came through Guyton with his main body of troops. It took five days for his army to pass through, with some of his troops looting, burning and stealing. The depot and tracts were destroyed, which could explain why some records of this period are not complete.
In 1887, Guyton was incorporated and issued a town charter by the State of Georgia. The local member of the Georgia Legislature who had the bill introduced and passed was Colonel Clarance Guyton, a grandson of Archibald Guyton.
The Guyton City Hall has had many requests for information about the family of Guytons. However, little is known about their background. They were rumored to have come from England to North Carolina. Then, Archibald Guyton came to this area from North Carolina in l825. Archibald was married twice. His first wife was the widow Tondee of Savannah. There is a Tondee farm or plantation listed in Effingham County near Guyton during this period, so she may have had connections there. The Georgia census of l850 shows Archibald came to Georgia in l825. He was in the timber business. His first wife, widow Tondee died (fever) and is buried in the old Providence Baptist Cemetery. His second wife was Harriet Patterson, of this area. Archibald had a son, Robert, by his first wife and a son, Charles, by his second wife. There were several girls also as are listed in his cemetery plot. Archibald's grandson, Clarance, was an attorney and maintained a law office in Savannah. Everyone called him Colonel Guyton. He was a member of the Georgia Legislature and was very prominent.
There are no families named Guyton living in the community today. The last Guyton family home, which was occupied by Clarance, his sister Belle Hendry and also his sister Tallullah and her husband Fred Seckinger is still in excellent condition. It is located on Highway. 17, just north of the Guyton city limits.
Every December, the spirit of Christmas is highlighted in Guyton with an annual tour of homes. This community-sponsored event will usually host around three to four thousand visitors every year. Visitors will usually tour about a dozen homes and nearly all of the churches are open for the tour. Many homes in the historic district will have lighted doors. The festivities usually begin with a country supper and tour of the historical city. As visitors drive down main street in Guyton, they can view the lighted trees that line the old railroad median for one mile. The Guyton Volunteer Fire Department usually illuminates the nearly 7,000 lights each year on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.
Today, Guyton is still a small town, but one with much history. As visitors drive through its narrow lanes and streets, particularly in December of each year, they see a Georgia town pretty much the way it was nearly a century ago. | <urn:uuid:9ee91574-0646-49cc-8c84-894e8a99ccc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.effga.com/guyton-history.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989016 | 1,096 | 2.546875 | 3 |
In November of last year, RIM announced the Blackberry Advertising Service which would help app developers connect their apps with an array of ad networks to better monetize their applications.
The company has today applied for two patents related to the advertising segment. One patent titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INCORPORATING MULTIMEDIA CONTENT INTO A MESSAGE HANDLED BY A MOBILE DEVICE” delves completely into what the Blackberry Advertising Service is supposed to do. The inventors write
This (advertising) may be done by examining content in the message handled by a mobile device and matching portions of the message with predetermined criteria such as keywords or phrases. Upon finding matches, corresponding multimedia content is associated with a respective portion of the message content and access to the multimedia content is enabled through selection of a linking mechanism that is visually identifiable with the respective portion of the message. The message is modified to include such linking mechanisms such that upon viewing the modified message, a user may reveal the multimedia content by selecting the linking mechanism. It has also been recognized that multiple layers of multimedia content can be provided such that different types of user interaction can reveal different forms of multimedia content.
In another patent, RIM has described a technology that will minimize occurrences of ad impression-inflation on part of app developers. The patent says this will be done by “A method of evaluating advertising metrics may include, but does not require, receiving advertising metrics from an application handling advertisements, augmenting the advertising metrics with data from an advertising client, and validating the advertising metrics”
The strategy for RIM is clear – Make the environment as developer-friendly as possible in order to attract more of them which the company sees is the way to take on Apple’s App Store. | <urn:uuid:fef92ee1-f6cb-4b65-8760-2d20e7128698> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gorumors.com/rim-blackberry-advertising-service-ad-metrics/275624 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938658 | 367 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The future of the semantic web is LSI
May 13th, 2003
LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. I found it on this interesting story (via Jon Udell) and dived into it last night. I downloaded all the papers I could find and went thru the math (seems complex at first but it’s not, it’s just a bunch of highly multidimensional linear algebra).
LSI emerged as a way to improve searching of large quantities of unstructured text, then Google hyperlink-topology-based approach proved to be vastly superior (and much less computationally requiring) to text-only approaches and silenced all tries to improve textual searches. Now it has been resorted in the battle against spam. You can bet that pretty sure everybody will be talking about LSI vs. Baysian. And, in fact, LSI has the potential to kill bayesian approaches because it can match documents where the word wasn’t even present!!!
LSI works simply by describing documents into a syntactic space then rotating it into a semantic space. It’s not so different from good old Fourier, Laplace or even Haar and Daubechies transformations (or JPG/MPEG compression for that matter): you are rotating a hyperdimensional space until you find a group of orthogonal eigenvectors that are capable of describing the same solution space, hopefully with a lower dimensionality.
Querying is just a matter of measuring the distance of the query as described into the rotated space from all the documents in the space.
Ranking is performed by ordering that distance.
The results are impressive: you are no longer searching for a token (a syntactic axis) but on the orthogonalization of those axis in a text corpus. That is: you are searching against its semantics as extracted by the way the tokens relate in the various documents.
This is the reason why LSI is capable of coming up with a significant result even if the word you are searching for is not even into the document!!!! you are matching against the transparent and all-text-permeating relations of the words, not on the words themselves!
LSI has been proven effective to judge between synonyms by extracting contextual information automatically! It is also capable of passing the TOEFL text with 65% score (the average student score) and has been compared to the semantic discerning abilities of a 8-years-old kid.
Forget RDF, topic maps and all that semantic catalogs impositions: LSI is future of the semantic web. And, potentially, if aggregated with markup-extracted information, a google killer.
This is a happy day for the web. | <urn:uuid:916e1d6f-8f40-4cbc-b2c9-fabf6a41398c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/9/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939162 | 566 | 1.898438 | 2 |
“The Faces of Medical Error…From Tears to Transparency”
An award-winning, multi-part educational video series produced by Transparent Health®
In May 2009, the Consumers Union Safe Patient Project gave the U.S. a failing grade on progress toward reducing the estimated 100,000 deaths caused each year by preventable medical harm. That’s 10 years after the Institute of Medicine’s landmark report “To Err Is Human.” According to the Consumers Union report, over a million deaths have occurred during that time.
It’s time to bring new tools to the many efforts already underway to reduce medical error through patient safety education. “The Faces of Medical Error…From Tears to Transparency” is a multi-part educational video series that puts a face on medical error in a way that caregivers, hospital administrators, risk managers, educators, policymakers and consumers can all relate to on an emotional level—the key to behavior change. The series addresses learning from medical error as well as the importance of transparency and disclosure in dealing with error when it occurs.
Whether you are launching a new patient safety program or supplementing an existing initiative, “From Tears to Transparency” will capture attention and add value to your patient safety program. Programs in the series challenge viewers to analyze and reflect upon what went wrong, where their own systems may be vulnerable, how to improve care within their system and how to effectively address errors when they do occur.
Each DVD is accompanied by a CD filled with high-value educational resources, including a PowerPoint file of support materials to help facilitate the video, supplementary video when appropriate, learning objectives and reference materials related to the topics covered in the video.
From board chairs to front-line staff, “From Tears to Transparency” is designed to meet the needs of a broad audience including:
- Allied health practitioners
- Healthcare administrators
- Risk managers
- Patient safety leaders
- Healthcare leaders
- Healthcare attorneys
- Health science students
- Residency Program directors
- Curriculum directors/instructors for healthcare education
Videos in the Series
"The Story of Lewis Blackman"
“The Story of Lewis Blackman” chronicles the experience of a vibrant, healthy 15-year-old who entered the hospital for what was believed to be a low-risk medical procedure. He died several days later as the result of a series of medical errors. Through the thought-provoking insights of a number of leading voices in patient safety education—including Lucian Leape MD, Tim McDonald MD, JD, Bob Galbraith MD, David Mayer MD, Rosemary Gibson and Lewis’ mom, Helen Haskell—viewers are taken through all aspects of Lewis’ care.
This multiple award-winning program artfully combines a thorough review of the case with a deeply emotional narrative that challenges viewers to look at the care they give in a new light. The program touches on many aspects of safety and transparency including night and weekend care, training levels of caregivers and disclosure.
"The Story of Michael Skolnik"
In “The Story of Michael Skolnik,” viewers are compelled to rethink the critical role that shared decision-making and informed consent play in patient safety and transparency. This emotionally engaging program tells the story of Michael Skolnik, an intelligent, compassionate young man who died at age 25 after a three-year ordeal following brain surgery. Michael’s parents, Patty and David Skolnik, are joined by industry visionaries who together challenge viewers to consider how fully informed consent, true shared decision-making, and open and honest communication can change outcomes, how it could have changed the outcome for Michael, can change outcomes for countless others, and in the process reduce risk for institutions and the dedicated providers who care so deeply.
Industry luminaries Harlan Krumholz MD, Rick Boothman JD, Peter Angood MD, and Rosemary Gibson present powerful new ways to elevate the importance of informed consent and shared decision-making for all who are committed to providing true patient-centered care.
What the Experts Are Saying
“”From Tears to Transparency: The Story of Lewis Blackman” is an exceptional resource not only to meet the face and voice of harm but also to learn from experts how to create the culture to prevent it.”
James Conway, Senior Vice President, The Institute for Healthcare Improvement
“This is the most powerful educational film in health care that I have ever watched...”
Rosemary Gibson, Author
“This film should be in the tool box of everyone involved in the care of patients."
Helen Haskell, Mother of Lewis Blackman, Founder, Mothers Against Medical Error, Co-Founder, The Empowered Patient Coalition
“This is a rare film that pulls at the heart and enters the soul…”
Michael L. Millenson, Health care consultant and Author
“‘…Lewis Blackman’ works to disarm the reflexive defensiveness of clinicians and administrators and make room for some genuine soul-searching."
Transparent Health® is proud to contribute a portion of all proceeds to a charity selected by the families featured in this series.
Transparent Learning, Inc.
P.O. Box 651
Littleton, CO 80160 | <urn:uuid:1cd2af97-2a8f-4f65-bb93-747eedd4f138> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.transparentlearning.com/seriesdescription.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919166 | 1,101 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The World Health Organization's representative to Sudan, Mohammad Abdur Rab, told reporters yesterday that 10 percent of children in Darfur and in South Sudan die before their first birthday, and that 15 percent of children in western Darfur were malnourished. This immense figure provides a quantitative background to PHR's work on food security issues, as well as sanitation and health needs of displaced Darfuris living in UNHCR camps for the past five years.
You may have seen the news last week that the Obama Administration unveiled its long-awaited Sudan policy. PHR welcomed the renewed sense of urgency in the policy but took a skeptical position on the Khartoum genocidal regime's ability to fulfill the role of trusted partner envisioned in the new policy.
The "Make Believe" exhibit is totally amazing. I urge all PHR supporters, and their friends and family, to visit the Atlantic Works Gallery in East Boston on September 17 for their "Third Thursday event" so you can see what all the buzz is about.
The panel will explore: What is the current US policy on the Darfur crisis? Is humanitarian aid still available to displaced refugees? What are the prospects for accountability and international justice for officials responsible for atrocities?
This week, congressional hearings will give the crisis in Darfur the attention it deserves. Using the script below, call your Senator today to urge them to ask the tough questions and demand a US plan of action on Darfur. | <urn:uuid:3c1b9aad-e257-4c78-b2f0-faa834280241> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/blog/index.jsp?country=sudan&page=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946151 | 294 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Download. Listen. Converge.
A Science and Public Art Experiment
In partnership with the NSF/NASA Center for Chemical Evolution, Atlanta’s Out of Hand Theater and The Lunatics, a theater group from The Netherlands, have created a flash mob-inspired performance converging science and art: Group Intelligence.
Once participants have registered for one of six performances, they receive an MP3 track to download, or they sign up to borrow an MP3 player at the event. Following cues on the MP3 track, participants transform into performers and a spontaneous spectacle unfolds for onlookers.
During the experience, participants travel together, solve problems, do a little work, have a lot of fun, build something extraordinary together and ultimately, achieve Group Intelligence. How hard they work is up to each individual, but the diversity of the group is key.
Out of Hand collaborates with leading scientists, making new events inspired by new discoveries. In celebration the 2011 International Year of Chemistry, and partnering with the National Science Foundation/NASA Center for Chemical Evolution, Group Intelligence explores the vital issues of global water scarcity and origins of life chemistry.
Combining the spontaneity of a flash mob, the confusion and thrill of MP3 cues, and a real live experiment in molecular self assembly, order will arise from chaos; Group Intelligence is an entertaining experience that just might blow your mind.
After each performance, participants and onlookers can view their experiment and find out more about the science behind it as they watch their performance shared with the world online right here!
Click Here to sign up and get details for one of our performances at Emory on April 14th-16th.
Click Here to sign up and get details for one of our performances at Woodruff park on April 21st-23rd
Scientists are closer than ever before to answering the question, How did life begin? They now know that molecules self assemble, just like groups of people. In fact, the complex structures of biology seem remarkably, almost magically, to self assemble without assistance, forming everything from RNA to multicellular organisms like plants, animals and people. All life is made of molecules behaving cooperatively, creating group intelligence, and diversity is necessary for molecules to survive and behave intelligently. Life lessons from chemistry. Find out more about the latest scientific research on the origins of life at Exploring Life's Origins' website. | <urn:uuid:221f7f5e-85fc-4f27-86f4-1d92eb9c0785> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.outofhandtheater.com/groupintelligence/performances/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910466 | 486 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Innovation of Olympic Proportions, pg. 78
As Olympic athletes gather for the Games in Beijing this August, many of them will be wearing shoes built like suspension bridges; using softball bats made of aerospace carbon; or wearing swimsuits that literally shrink the swimmer. The July/August issue of Fast Company peeks inside the secret labs at Adidas, Nike and Speedo, and reveals the products helping Olympic athletes go higher, faster, stronger. Fast Company also reports that Nike's Flywire HyperDunk basketball shoes-which utilize a space-age fiber called Vectran-could also change the shoe business. They are not constructed like traditional shoes but "printed out" via embroidery machines. As Paul Hochman writes, "There have been rumors that the new technique is so inexpensive it could allow Nike to return some of its manufacturing to the United States from China." That would be an ironic and unexpected outcome for the Beijing Olympics. Fast Company Contributing Writer Paul Hochman is available to discuss the 18 hot new products that will give the U.S. an edge up on the competition.
Last Call, pg.124
Online gambling has grown from a market size of zero in 1990 to somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 billion today. On top of it all was Calvin Ayre, founder of online gaming powerhouse Bodog, who had mountains of cash, beautiful women, and a nonstop round-the-world party. This spring Ayre abruptly retired and then disappeared. In the July/August issue is the last interview Calvin Ayregave before he disappeared. The question now is: why did the flashy face of BoDog suddenly vanish, and where did he go? More importantly, will he ever come back? Fast Company Contributing Writer Josh Dean is available to discuss the mystery behind what has happened to Calvin Ayre as well as his vision for the future of the industry.
Carbon Boom, pg.108
The carbon-credit market, promoted as a way to slow global warming, already measures in the tens of billions of dollars and is expanding at a breakneck pace (the U.S. Carbon market alone is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2020). Sounds great, but there is one problem: the notion that a carbon market can save the planet is still unproven. The July/August issue takes a look at how at the core of the carbon market stands a cadre of young, idealistic Yale forestry grads intent on saving the planet, and making some money in the process. Fast Company Staff Writer (and Yale grad) Anya Kamenetz is available to discuss this unusual group leading the charge for a carbon credit market and their likelihood for success.
Green Grown the Rockers, pg. 27
This summer musicians from Jack Johnson to John Mayer will be cleaning up their acts, concert promoters will be buying carbon offsets and recycling, and the Green Apple Festival will span eight cities as summer concerts go green. The July/August issue investigates how the music business and the green business community are coming together for a rocking summer. Fast Company Editor Tom Foster is available to discuss how the music industry is going green.
Inside Hackerland, pg.51
Most people are unaware that there exists a shadowy underworld where rogue employees sell holes in their companies' software - blackmarket code so disruptive that it can fetch anywhere from a few thousand dollars to the high six figures. The July/August issue goes inside the code-crasher underworld to find out who's doing the buying (governments - both allies and enemies of the United States - are among the biggest buyers), who's doing the selling, and who is at risk. Fast Company Contributing Writer Adam L. Penenberg is available to discuss the cost of cybercrime on corporations and the American economy.
The Numbers Behind America's Favorite Sausage, pg. 39
Did you know that the 2007 winner of the Nathan's annual hot dog eating, Joey Chestnut, ate 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes? Or that Americans will eat about 2.3 billion hot dogs - a disgusting eight per person - during National Hot Dog Month? National Hot Dog Day is July 18th, but the 4th is the biggest dog day. The July/August issue takes a look at facts and figures behind ever single wiener. Fast Company Staff Writer Anya Kamenetz is available to discuss the fourth of July's favorite food.
Baseball's Baby-Faced Managers, pg. 43
In an age when individual baseball franchises are valued as high as $1.2 billion, geeky, stats-loving, post-Moneyball general managers are now leading the game. Of the last 10 General Managers hired in MLB, six have been age 40 or under, and not one has played a single pro inning. The July/August issue interviews Texas Ranger GM Jon Daniels, who at age 30 is the youngest GM in baseball, to find out how he and four other 30-something non-athletes are changing the game. Fast Company Contributing Writer Jeff Pearlman is available to discuss the new cohort of MLB executives.
P&G's Failed Chemistry Test, pg. 71
P&G wants to sell $20 billion worth of ecofriendly innovation by 2013, a significant increase to P&G's current $76 billion in annual sales. Their approach: to develop energy-saving products such as Tide Coldwater. But many in the industry, from Clorox to Method, are taking another route -moving to nontoxic, natural cleaning formulas. While P&G's focuses its sustainability initiatives on the reduction of waste and the consumption of energy, the July/August issue asks whether or not P&G is doing enough to eliminate the use of chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment. Fast Company Green Business Columnist Melanie Warner is available to discuss P&G's sustainability initiatives.
The Greening of Housing, pg. 98
As home prices plunge architects Matthew Berman and Andrew Kotchen aren't worried about their business, instead they see this as an opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to jolt Americans to embrace green housing. Residential buildings now account for 21% of national energy consumption, and with green housing predicted to grow from $12 billion this year to somewhere between $40 and $70 billion by 2012, Berman and Kotchen are positioning themselves at the center of what appears to be the one bright spot in the housing industry. The July/August issue asks the question: Will a nation thatequates bigger with better ever be able to embrace smaller and greener? Fast Company Senior Writer Linda Tischler is available to discuss the potential for green housing. | <urn:uuid:d1bcc5c1-fbda-486f-86c6-792fb90d0eb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcompany.com/1791540/featured-july-august-issue-fast-company | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949141 | 1,358 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Join our bloggers as they share their experiences on the challenges and joys of helping children succeed in school.
Last week, I wrote about grades and what they really mean. Do they really reflect actual learning? Teacher Ron Simmons tells a story in his math classes at Hilton Head Prep School. He shares this with his math students when t... Read more
When teaching the value of double-digit numbers in my classroom, I noticed that my students often became confused with 11, 12, and the rest of the -teen numbers. This was a puzzle to me, and I was determined to solve it. Afte... Read more
After visiting a school that has made a concerted effort to change how they evaluate their students, I started thinking about the grades teachers give to students. If a student gets a C at the end of the quarter, what does th... Read more
This month’s words for your child’s word bank involve consonant blends and consonant digraphs. Simply put, consonant blends consist of two or three consonants used together in words, where each letter sound is d... Read more
Many children take medications to help them focus their attention in school. It is a difficult decision to put a child on medications, but it can be extremely helpful for some children. Sometimes students don’t take the... Read more
There is a strategy that teachers use in classrooms to identify various interests in student reading. It’s a concept that parents can easily incorporate at home called a “Reading Survey.”
Teachers use a Read... Read more
Museums are marvelous places to learn about our culture—history, music, art, science, and current events. Many families are making plans for summer trips that will include visits to local museums.
I went recently on a f... Read more
This guest blog post is by Erika Cook, a high school administrator who works directly with parents and students.
When your teen has a problem at school, what should you do? Perhaps your child has a streak of missing assignmen... Read more
In “Help Good Readers Become Good Writers, Part 1,” I explained the “six traits of writing” that many school districts use to teach young authors. This week’s focus is on the three types of writi... Read more
Many schools are focusing on the standardized tests coming up soon. These tests are so important to schools because they stand to lose their accreditation if their students do not perform well enough on them. In addition, man... Read more | <urn:uuid:e5fcb7c1-2f96-4ad6-9290-1a1a6b42d8a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolfamily.com/blog/2012/03/29/school-family-articles/article/801-10-tips-for-middle-school-parents | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969642 | 526 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Born: 1967 Primary Instrument: Guitar, acoustic
El Sultán del Duende
Vicente Amigo is considered both one of flamenco's best-selling and most innovative artists today. Somewhere between poetry and commercial stardom, he represents a new generation of flamenco artists.
Vicente Amigo appears to be enveloped by a charismatic and ethereal air, his gaze seemingly lost in the distance. His guitar constantly stimulates our imagination. This is music to dance to with the spirit... it is so powerful, it is lifted off the sheet music and propelled into space. It is exciting for the connoisseur, but also accessible to everyone. To his masterful and magical use of music we must add his personal charisma, which makes him irresistible on stage. He is a true sultan from Córdoba, and he is ready to conquer the world.
Born in the Spanish town of Guadalcanal near Seville in 1967, flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo is hailed as the “new Paco de Lucia.” Quite a compliment for one so young! Yet, given his formidable talent for innovation and already prodigious career, the comparison seems far from outrageous. Living in Cordoba since the age of five, Vicente Amigo began studying guitar when still very young, and bought his first guitar when eight. At the city's renowned guitar academies, amongst which that of Merengue de Córdoba, he quickly became one of their most outstanding students.
His professional and recording career began as Manolo Sanlucar's apprentice, playing third guitar with the legendary guitarist from Cadiz. Later, he formed a duo with the flamenco singer (or cantaor) El Pele - together they released an album, “Poeta de Esquinas Blandas”, which in many ways opened up new formal avenues in contemporary flamenco. In 1989 he worked with the legendary Camarón de La Isla on the album “Soy Gitano”. That year he won the prestigious Ramón Montoya Award.
In 1991 he shared the stage with Paco de Lucia during the international guitar festival “Leyendas de la Guitarra” in Seville.That same year he also recorded his first solo album, “De Mi Corazón Al Aire,” which received much media acclaim. Soon after that, he performed the “Concierto Flamenco Para un Marinero en Tierra”, dedicated to the poet Rafael Alberti and orchestrated by the great composer Leo Brower.
In “Martinica 92” he shared the stage with Stanley Jordan, and this international collaboration lead him to work with artists such as Milton Nascimento, Wagner Tiso, Al Di Meola, Joáo Bosco and John McLaughlin. In 1995 he released “Vivencias Imaginadas,” his second album, which included a refined joint effort with Paco de Lucia, as a homage to Pat Metheny. Two years later in ’97, his album “Poeta” received the flamenco awards given by the “Premios de la Música” the Spanish Grammys equivalent. His career was unstoppable.
Although originally from Seville and raised in Córdoba, Amigo’s style of playing is above all influenced by that of Cadiz and defined by the highly original sound of his guitar, allowing him to penetrate its melody. The polyrhythmic elements of his work's percussive component call to mind the transformations undergone by Spanish popular music in Latin America and above all in Cuba. An inspired and sensitive accompanying “tocaor” for singers such as El Pele, Carmen Linares, Jose Merce and Remedios Amaya, Vicente Amigo is also a respected and enterprising composer.
He won the 2001 Latin Grammy Award for Flamenco for his record “Ciudad de Las Ideas.” This album, in which we can sense the loneliness of the creative process, captures Vicente's search for spontaneity - he doesn't want his listeners to guess the intricate musical processes behind his sound; instead, he renders his musical web invisible and invites us to immerse ourselves in pure feeling.
After five years of touring and collaborative works with other artists,in 2006 Amigo released his fifth album “Un Momento En El Sonido.”
In May of 2009 Amigo released his sixth album “Paseo de Gracia.” The guitarist from Cordoba considers this work as “a cooperative album.” The record is new collection of songs sung by Rafael de Utrera and Miguel Ortega, with the percussions of Tino di Geraldo and Paquito González. The song 'Autorretrato' the rumba-tango 'Amor de nadie' the buler�-a 'Luz de la sombra' and the tangos 'La estrella' are some of the “songs understood from a flamenco point of view” with which Vicente Amigo widens and consolidates his music world. | <urn:uuid:1910335d-2cd8-483a-b007-8469afaa1fe6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/musician.php?id=16697 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957501 | 1,093 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Welcome to Brustein & Manasevit, PLLC
Established in 1980, Brustein & Manasevit, PLLC is recognized for its federal education regulatory and legislative practice. Located in the historic Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Brustein & Manasevit, PLLC has provided legal advice regarding federal education programs such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (also known as the No Child Left Behind Act), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (CTE) and Workforce Investment Act (WIA), as well as the Higher Education Act. In addition, the firm regularly counsels clients on federal grants management requirements, such as the Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circulars, and the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA). The firm also assists clients in drafting, proposing and reviewing legislation affecting education.
The U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Labor currently allocate significant resources for education and workforce development. Tied to these dollars are several thousand of pages of rules and requirements that States, school districts, charter schools, postsecondary institutions, and local workforce providers must follow. The attorneys at Brustein & Manasevit, PLLC:
* Provide opinions and legal advice to help States, school districts and other entities comply with federal rules and requirements.
* Represent entities in audit resolution.
* Advise federal grant recipients on grants management systems.
* Offer legislative services.
Brustein & Manasevit, PLLC has served as legal counsel to or provided advice and opinions to the following types of educational entities:
* State Departments of Education
* Boards of Education
* State Superintendents of Public Instruction
* School Districts (Local Educational Agencies)
* Charter Schools
* Public and Private Universities and Colleges
* Community and Technical Colleges
* Private Educational Service Providers (Educational Management Organizations; Third Party Providers; and Supplemental Educational Service Providers)
* State Workforce Education Agencies
* Educational Advocacy Organizations
* Accrediting Agencies
* Private Auditing Firms
* Education Associations
* Non-profit agencies | <urn:uuid:3c44506a-d400-4b2a-bb66-0e1869cc55f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bruman.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929608 | 486 | 1.578125 | 2 |
As magic and ephemeral as they may seem, soap bubbles are a magnificent example of precise mathematics, physics and chemistry at work. Part One of this video lesson will explore the science that explains soap bubbles, as well as the application of this knowledge to other areas, such as architecture and biology. We first introduce the concept of surface tension. We then derive how minimal area surfaces correspond to minimal potential energy. This gives the possibility to discuss the meaning of minimum potential energy in physics. With this knowledge, we can understand some properties of the geometry of soap bubbles and verify our findings with our own hands. Prerequisites for this lesson include a familiarity with the concepts of force, potential energy and mechanical work, and the lesson can be completed in a 50-60-minute class period. The following materials are needed: deformable metal wire (e.g. a tin wire); water; bowls; soap solutions with different concentrations of soap; and glycerin. Most of the class activities between the breaks involve dipping different frames in a soap solution and getting different shapes. In this way, the students are guided through the concept of surface tension and area minimization. In Part Two of this video lesson, students will learn where the colors of soap bubbles come from and also learn what soap bubbles and telescopes have in common. The students will first make a connection between light and waves and will then go on to explore various characteristics of waves through a series of classroom activities. Materials needed for Part Two include: a few ropes or latex tubes or slinkies, each a few meters long; a large transparent disk/pan with water; flashlight; transparent jar full of water; soap, water, glycerin or corn syrup or sugar; black coffee mugs or make frames with black cardboard. The second part of the lesson can be completed in one classroom period.
Paola is a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. She is a theoretical astrophysicist, playing with mathematical toy-models that try to explain X-ray observations of accretion disks around compact objects and of clusters of galaxies. In her free time, she contributes to making scientific knowledge publicly accessible.
This site, sponsored by the Fun Science Gallery, presents a series of laboratory experiments that mainly concern surface phenomena and colloidal systems.
This site, sponsored by SciFun.Org, presents an experiment that allows students to examine the properties of soap bubbles closely by floating them on a layer of carbon dioxide.
This site presents a Time Warp Discovery Channel video on Soap Bubbles.
|The Science of Soap Bubbles Part 1 (English, QuickTime)||English||Quicktime||Download|
|The Science of Soap Bubbles Part 2 (English, QuickTime)||English||Quicktime||Download|
|The Science of Soap Bubbles (Portuguese Subtitles, Part 1, mp4)||Portuguese Subtitle 1||MPEG 4||Download|
|The Science of Soap Bubbles (Portuguese Subtitles, Part 2, mp4)||Portuguese Subtitle 2||MPEG 4||Download| | <urn:uuid:7184b4ed-e241-4f37-850b-6c78d0c76918> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blossoms.mit.edu/videos/lessons/science_soap_bubbles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900935 | 634 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Her Majesty the Queen Abdicates Throne; Prince of Orange to Ascend
Her Majesty the Queen announced her abdication today. His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange is the successor to the throne.
The program for the abdication and investiture will take place on April 30, 2013. Her Majesty the Queen will sign the Instrument of Abdication at the Royal Palace, Amsterdam. The investiture of His Majesty the King will then take place at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam.
Rudolf Bekink, Dutch Ambassador to the US, honored the Queen’s service.
“Her Majesty the Queen has served the Netherlands well for more than 30 years,” Bekink said. “A generation of Dutch citizens have known no other Queen, and they will long remember this day as the day their Queen stepped down from the throne.”
When Queen Beatrix abdicates, His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange will become King Willem-Alexander, and Her Royal Highness Princess Máxima of the Netherlands will become Queen Máxima.
They will both be addressed as “Your Majesty.”
After abdicating, Queen Beatrix will be called Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, etc.
King’s Day 2014
Starting next year, King's Day will be celebrated on April 27, the birthday of the Prince of Orange and future King Willem-Alexander.
In 2014, it will be celebrated by the Royal Family in Amstelveen and De Rijp. These municipalities will be able to use the program that has already been developed for the planned celebration of Queen's Day on April 30 this year, which will assume a different character because of the abdication and investiture.
Other members of the Royal Family
As soon as the Prince of Orange ascends the throne, his eldest child, Her Royal Highness Princess Catharina-Amalia, will be the first in line to the throne. She will then become the Princess of Orange (under section 7 of the Membership of the Royal House Act).
The titles and names of the other members of the Royal Family will not change after Queen Beatrix's abdication. The membership of the Royal House and the line of succession will however change under the above Act.
After the abdication, the line of succession will begin with the children of His Majesty the King: Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange, Her Royal Highness Princess Alexia, and Her Royal Highness Princess Ariane. The next in line will be His Royal Highness Prince Constantijn, his children and finally Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet.
After the abdication, the children of Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Professor Pieter van Vollenhoven will no longer be eligible for the throne. They will also cease to be members of the Royal House. | <urn:uuid:07f3b80b-c4d2-489d-92b9-99ea162f425a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miami.the-netherlands.org/news/2013/01/queen-beatrix-abdicates-copy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923614 | 612 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Hip Arthroscopy: Removing Loose Bodies
Pieces of bone or cartilage are loose in your hip joint. They can cause painful joint locking and catching. Your healthcare provider has suggested a procedure called arthroscopy. Using only small incisions and special instruments, arthroscopy can remove the loose bodies from your hip.
In the Operating Room
Just before surgery, you may be asked several times which hip is to be treated. This is a standard safety measure. In the operating room, you will likely receive general anesthesia to make you sleep.
During the Procedure
After you are sedated, your leg is gently pulled to distract, or widen, the hip joint. Next, the surgeon makes a few small incisions called portals. Through these portals, he or she inserts surgical tools, including the arthroscope. The arthroscope sends images of the joint to a video screen. These images allow the surgeon to look inside the joint. The joint is filled with sterile fluid to help the surgeon see more clearly.
Removing Loose Bodies
When the loose bodies in your hip are located, the surgeon will try to remove them using a surgical instrument. But sometimes the loose bodies aren’t small enough to be removed. In this case, the loose bodies are broken into smaller pieces. Then, they are removed. Once the surgeon finishes the procedure, the portals are closed and bandaged. Then you are taken to the recovery room. | <urn:uuid:d12e3aed-5d43-4ac0-8a13-41632bbca8c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fairview.org/healthlibrary/Article/40133 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951932 | 302 | 2.4375 | 2 |
- Black Star Rising - http://rising.blackstar.com -
One Day, Everything Will Be Photographed
Posted By Dennis Dunleavy On March 2, 2008 @ 9:00 pm In Art of Photography | 1 Comment
After reading David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous , I realized that the impact of digital technology on culture is even more far-reaching than previously imagined.
Weinberger explores, for example, how the family picture album has been irrevocably altered by new digital technologies. The picture album or scrapbook — as agents of what gets remembered or forgotten by a family — has been transformed by the potential to produce and store vast quantities of data on a computer.
We’ve been raised as experts at keeping our physical environment well ordered, but our homespun ways of maintaining order are going to break — they’re already breaking — in the digital world.
In the past decade or so, millions of people have moved from collecting prints of family events in albums to storing memories on hard drives and compact disks. Today, Weinberger argues, we think about and organize memories differently than we did just a few years ago. We have now gone from managing a couple of hundred of prints in a shoebox to clogging our computers with thousands of digital files on iPhoto or other photo applications.
Digital photography moves beyond what Pierre Bourdieu called a “festive technology” — recording the events people use to consecrate norms such as holidays, weddings and birthdays — to something more akin to a self-preoccupied technology.
Today, digital photography has intensified the documentation of everyday life on a grand scale. Many of us even place our personal lives on display through the Internet for others to see without giving it all that much thought.
At the same time, we are awash in images and information — so much so that keeping up with everything we create is, if not impossible, at least overwhelming.
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Saturday, May 1, 2010
Early in my process, before any real planning was done, I went to Cleveland to tape a TV show and visited the wonderful Cleveland Art Museum, where I saw an exhibit of Native American art and craft. One of the pieces was this Seminole pieced shirt and it immediately struck me as very similar to Kristin's volcanic color scheme. Its strong geometrics and stripes became an inspiration. As I began playing with sketches I began to see concepts that reminded me of geological earth layers and I thought of how molten lava and magma moves beneath the earth and eventually finds its way to the surface as volcanic activity. I also remembered seeing lava formations called "ropey lava" where the molten material had hardened into sinuous strands. This became inspiration for my quilting design.
I had such a good time with this challenge! It pushed me into a direction I have been thinking about for a long while and taught me things about interpreting concrete images into abstract impressions of those images. I also thought it ironic that my last piece, for the blue/white/black challenge was an actual image of one of our local dormant volcanoes, Mt. Hood. | <urn:uuid:2c10bbd8-d7f3-46fa-9fba-320661c21c97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://twelveby12.blogspot.jp/2010/05/flow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97639 | 240 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Why We Exist
Sport has a unique way of uniting people, igniting friendships, and changing lives. When we met just over a year ago, Patrick had been invited by Glenn to speak at a forum for athletes at the University of Denver. Glenn and Patrick had mutual friends. Brian showed up at the invitation of Glenn, who he’d known while working for the Avalanche and while Glenn was working with GForce Sports. Without much discussion other than hockey small talk, but with a real determination, we began a year-long process to leverage what we know about sports, and what we felt about what is right, into You Can Play.
Along the way, we’ve been able to choose our teammates and they’ve chosen us – men and women to whom we owe tremendous gratitude. Some of their efforts have been great assists, some have been jaw-dropping game changers. We thank them all.
In particular are “the firsts” – those who decided to play based on hearing about a vision. Bobby Clark at the Gill Foundation thought our ideas were interesting because straight athletes could deliver a message that could signal real change. Raising funds is the most difficult aspect of any type of advocacy and without Bobby’s help and the gentle advice of Tim Sweeney and Katherine Peck, we wouldn’t have made it to first base. Yes, there will be more sports metaphors. Their support provided the start for the You Can Play Project.
Tommy Wingels and Andy Miele, friends of Brendan Burke’s from the Miami University hockey team, were rookie players with the San Jose Sharks and Phoenix Coyotes organizations, respectively. They easily could have gone big time and never looked back. Instead, they became the first guys to write checks to You Can Play. The first non-pro athletes to chip in are some of the most important people in Brian’s life, Dr. Steve Ross and Dr. Ryan Antolini.
Miami University head hockey coach Rico Blasi signed on early to the advisory board – and then stood by us to speak at the American Hockey Coaches Association meetings about the importance of every team member performing at capacity. Opinion makers like John Buccigross did the same. We have a diverse bunch of advisors and we’re proud to be associated with them.
Kevin Jennings is an accomplished advocate for equality and he didn’t see You Can Play as just another new project. Instead, he contacted former athletes Jim Rogers at the Colin Higgins Foundation and Terrence Meck at the Palette Fund. It’s our absolute honor to thank Kevin, Jim and Terrence.
The nuts and bolts of putting an organization are ugly, but the work is often pretty. Kristen Wilson, baby in tow, provided the logo work. Blake Struhs, cute fiancé in tow, provided stationery and graphics templates. The legal artistry has come from Brandon Shevin. There aren’t words to describe what Michael Fisher at Blue State Digital was put through and we are truly indebted. His colleagues Thaddeus Kromelis, Alia Hassan, Blaise Nutter and Sarah Tan did things we will never understand but always appreciate. And, thanks to Samantha Papadakis and Thomas Gensemer for their leadership. This is probably also a good place to recognize the artistry of Craig Brownstein, Michael Hartt, Mitzi Emrich, Robert Discher and the crew at Edelman. Publicity is an art and this team is masterful. Additionally, there are organizational leaders who have let us in on their worlds and provide advice:
The FIlm Guys
Yes, on one of the biggest NHL weekends of the year, we asked a bunch of already busy people, including the staff at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, to drop everything and help us film a bunch of hockey all-stars in Ottawa. Rick Mercer made calls across Canada and Trevor Pilling from CBC and his staff pulled it off. In New York and Philadelphia, HBO’s early and important commitment set a major league standard and for that we thank Bentley Weiner, Joe Levin, Brett Janecek and Dennis Williams and their teams. As this is posted, an award-winning group at Zerosun in Denver is animating work and creating a convergence between art, sport and respect.
The Hockey Players and What’s Next
Did we ever doubt we could get one player from each team in the NHL to step up for respect in sports? Maybe, but not for long. In spite of the reality of locker room homophobia, and in spite of mid-season name calling while this project was in play, at heart these are men who care about their teammates. Asked by Brian and Patrick Burke, one by one, the NHL players – captains, Olympians and all-stars among them – stepped in front of cameras. Some spoke of the need for the image of athletes to change. Some showed up unannounced to film in Ottawa. Cal Clutterbuck and Brooks Orpik – the first to volunteer – were filmed before or after skates during team trips to Denver. Their kindness and good humor through these sessions are debts that truly can’t be repaid.
Hey, Teale – thanks for everything. The former University of Denver soccer goalkeeper took on college programming while looking for a job after graduation. His honest assessment of our plans has been extraordinarily helpful. So is that of the men and women to whom we’ve spoken at schools in Colorado, Ohio and Massachusetts. Straight or gay, you’re the reason we do this and the reason we’re confident in our success. Thank you.
And, thank you in advance to the athletes – lacrosse players, rowers, gymnasts, skiers, and others – who are about to step up and challenge athletic stereotypes. You will make a difference.
The Biggest Players
Finally, you don’t always get to choose the players on your team, and sometimes that’s for the best. We didn’t choose our families, but each of us is tremendously fortunate. We may have told our brothers and sisters they couldn’t play, but we didn’t mean it and we adore them. Whether they’ve worn hockey helmets, golf caps or cowboy hats, our dads are our heroes. In Boston, Philadelphia and Albuquerque, we know our moms - the ones who drove us to hockey, swim and soccer practice - love us without reservation.
For all of this, and the chance to do this work, we’re thankful.
Patrick Brian Glen | <urn:uuid:fc88f8b5-0831-4719-aefd-635ea7089c0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://youcanplayproject.org/pages/why-we-exist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961642 | 1,358 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Asian-American grievance-mongers and “diversity” bureaucrats in Atlanta need to justify their existence and their salaries.
They found the perfect opportunity. Cry “yellow!”:
Asian-American activists offended that MARTA re-named the train line into the heart of Atlanta’s Asian community the “yellow line” will take their objections to the transit agency’s chief on Friday.
“Yellow,” as a term for skin color, carries a generally negative, racist connotation among Asians.
MARTA officials were warned by an employee before the name change last October that Atlanta’s burgeoning Asian community would find the term for the line to Doraville offensive.
“Historically, it has had a derogatory intent,” said John Park, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Pan Asian Community Services in Doraville, just down the hill from the Marta station. “It physically paints a very unattractive picture. I don’t consider myself ‘yellow.’”
Park and other Asian activists plan to meet Friday with MARTA CEO Beverly Scott. They hope MARTA will change the line’s name from yellow to gold.
Scott said Monday that she will go into the meeting with an open mind. “There are very few things in this life that are absolute,” she said.
While Scott did not “in any way want to minimize” the concerns, she said that one MARTA employee’s complaint was not indicative of everybody’s feelings. She added that by the time it was raised, MARTA was ending a year-long process to implement the change. “Everything was printed, we were ready to go,” she said.
The ethnic sensitivity police waited a year to start whining. Now, they’ll spare no expense to disrupt the taxpayer-funded project to assuage hurt feelings and indulge a manufactured outrage:
“Anybody who rides MARTA knows that the line going up through that area is heavily Asian,” said Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. “These are always sensitive issues. Anticipation of concern and sensitivity, and the outreach, probably should have been done before.”
Scott said she heard complaints from the employee and a few advocacy group leaders. At a recent community forum, she asked some Asian-Americans if they were offended and said they told her they weren’t. She noted that Asian and American cities that have public transit call some routes yellow lines. However, she stressed that she is ready to listen.
MARTA employs 13 people in its diversity office. They focus on equal opportunity in employment and disadvantaged business and perform some community outreach.
Did you catch that? “13 people in its diversity office.” Color me exasperated.
Flashback: Remember former NAACP leader Rev. Joseph Lowery’s race-based benediction at Obama’s inauguration?
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“We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right,” Lowery said.
April 15, 2013 03:08 PM by Doug Powers
July 11, 2012 01:16 AM by Michelle Malkin
January 15, 2013 10:59 AM by Michelle Malkin
Empire State shooting injures at least 8 in workplace dispute; gunman dead; Bloomberg can’t refrain from gun control politics; some victims may have been shot by NYPD
August 24, 2012 11:17 AM by Michelle Malkin
February 17, 2013 02:58 PM by Doug Powers | <urn:uuid:edb0170f-d236-4a43-8fd1-8fac610d44f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michellemalkin.com/2010/02/09/new-word-you-cant-say-yellow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96976 | 795 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Tucked away behind a line of trees on Dailey Road in Dowagiac, MI, a small community of like-minded individuals lives and studies together with the goal of making the world a better place.
The Institute for International Cooperation and Development, a global non-profit organization houses more than 30 individuals from around the world focused on creating a better world. Through an 18 month program, these activists immerse themselves in an atmosphere of learning and serving, helping solve problems in communities across the continent of Africa and South America.
IICD is a partner to Humana People to People, which allows them to participate in projects that improve education and health across the world. IICD development instructors teach HIV & AIDS prevention, gardening & farming, irrigation & sanitation, among other things to those living in poverty.
IICD’s activists participate in an 18 month program divided into teams. The first six months of the program is dedicated to training, which includes lectures, studying and working together with members of their team. This is followed by six months of service in Africa or South America. The final six months are used for journaling their experience and sharing with others across the United States.
Tuition for the program costs $4,900.00 which covers every expense for an activist during the 18 month program.
While 30 students are currently enrolled in the program, all individuals 18 and older are welcomed and encouraged to join the program. The program can house up to sixty individuals at one time. | <urn:uuid:32a117df-bb2d-41ed-a061-7bd7057ccab3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mygreenface.com/profiles/blogs/develop-the-world-develop-yourself | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947073 | 306 | 2.109375 | 2 |
The Iranian visitor indicated that Tehran expects an Israeli attack within a month. According to Iranian intelligence, Jerusalem will take its green light from President Barack Obama's forced admission after Christmas that his policy of dialogue and stiffer sanctions have failed in the face of Tehran's rejection of the international proposal to send its enriched uranium for overseas processing."The countdown for war is coming close to its end," said Vahidi to the joint defense committee. "And we must get our strategic partnership in shape ahead of time."
NYTimes Reviews a book by David Priestland about Communism and admits more or less that it is dead, but then blames Marxism on the West? patheticLabels: Communism» NYTimes
Notice the orchestrated attack on the West for it's own conflict: "We should beware these inequalities, he writes, and also beware the West’s sometimes “messianic” desire to export its “system — sometimes by force — across the globe.” Communism may be all but dead, and let’s tramp the dirt down, but the injustices and resentments that brought it to life are thriving almost everywhere."
on the contrary it is the West that gives us the idea of goal oriented thought that allows evolving ideas. It is the West that allows us terms of thinking that we can improve things. The better part of Marxism was it's naive faith that the people could better themselves... even though it was expressed in Darwinian terms of inevitability as opposed to a will to improve and do good. It is upsetting to see the idea of Messianisic thought abused. It's like this guy didn't really learn the lesson of history. There is still within Messianic ideas the need for proactivism. While it is true that those with faith are optimists and think things will work out for the "good", on the other hand it still takes a community and cooperation to get there. Perhaps this is the part of Communism that failed more then anything. The idea that things will just fall into place is a 19th century construct of Social Darwinism and it is flawed.
"Mr. Priestland gives far more credit, in terms of bringing down the Soviet Union, to Mr. Gorbachev than to President Ronald Reagan. Communist rule imploded, he writes, “not from pressure from without but as a result of an internal nonviolent revolution, staged by the elite of the Communist party itself.”"
I did however agree with this guys idea that Islam is the new "LEFT" that is totalitarian, but that is kind of obvious at this point. Glad the guy isn't completely oblivious.
Excerpt: ‘Red Flag’ (pdf)
This started to come into view for us when she gave her interview to Barbara Walters and was asked what she thought of Israel’s West Bank settlements. “I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin replied. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”
Her comments ignited something of a kerfuffle on the pro-Israel left, which has long opposed Israel’s settlements. But the formulation by the former Alaska governor struck us as a wonderful statement of an emerging policy. It provides a glimpse of a leader who would respect Israel’s right to establish, democratically, its own strategy in its own sphere and could restore the standing of America’s president in the eyes in the Israelis, among whom it has plunged since President Obama’s speech in Cairo and his out-reach to the non-democratic Arab leaders.
Pam Geller’s new poster vandalized by leftist, so sanctimonious she can’t even see why she was arrestedMona Eltahawy is a darling of the feminist progressive left. She was recently attacked in Egypt's Tahrir square. ...another left win...
well, good! This will allow the public to talk about Islam. The more free conversation on the issue the better. they can't frame the con...
it did work for Obama though. Remember Obama Girl? image from the South Florida Chronicle It_is_not_clear_where_or_how the g...
Answer: At the very least one feminist Secretary of State ( BENGHAZI EMAILS ) This afternoon the White House released 100 pages o...
Liberal multiculturalists insist that Islam is the same as other major world religions. As usual, they are full of shit.. The l...
the night before the Boston bombing (that we now know Obama was warned by the Russians about)... we saw a CNN video about the Oklahoma City ...
Israel Matzav: It's official: Government inquiry finds al-Dura 'killing' was a hoax
Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z Street who filed a lawsuit against the IRS, notes that “the very first hearing in Z STREET...
A local Egyptian delivery company has been smuggling KFC meals through the underground tunnels across the Egypt-Gaza border, the Christi...
http: simonstudio.com/ark ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Carnegie Mellon University" < firstname.lastname@example.org... | <urn:uuid:b0bc1c52-4caa-41b2-bf35-c19fb7641eea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://noah.simonstudio.com/2009_12_10_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96318 | 1,130 | 1.648438 | 2 |
William Jeffs / Jennifer Knotts
Johnson Space Center, Houston
NASA Brings Wonder of Space Station to North Carolina
HOUSTON – Media opportunities are available in Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville, N.C., as NASA shares the accomplishments, promise and opportunities for research aboard the International Space Station in North Carolina.
The agency will showcase its newest station exhibit, “Destination: Station,” a multimedia experience that’s free with admission at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. The exhibit will be open to the public from April 28 through May 19.
There will be a live television event with astronauts aboard the International Space Station on April 25 at Neal Middle School in Durham. During the activities, which begin at 10 a.m. EDT, students will ask Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineer Don Pettit about the progress of their mission. In addition, NASA astronaut Nancy Currie will deliver a presentation on living in space. Currie currently serves as principal engineer for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center and will be available for interviews before the event. Reporters are asked to check in at 9:30 a.m. to pick up media packets and conduct interviews. To participate, contact Jeff Nash at 919-560-2602.
A Twitter Town Hall will be held from 5-7 p.m. April 26 at North Carolina State University. NASA astronaut Bill McArthur will discuss his experience as Expedition 12 commander and International Space Station science officer from September 2005 through April 2006. Currie, who teaches at NC State, will attend as well.
At the Twitter Town Hall, NASA fans and followers can ask questions and receive answers from McArthur and Currie. Audiences may learn about the wonders of the space station and how it improves life on Earth. Use the hash tag #DS_RTP to tweet questions in advance. For information, visit: www.engr.ncsu.edu under "Events."
McArthur and NASA Associate International Space Station Program Scientist Tara Ruttley will discuss scientific experiments that have been conducted aboard the station and how results of those investigations are affecting life on Earth during a panel discussion from 1-4:30 p.m. April 27 at the Archie K. Davis Conference Center/Research Triangle Park Headquarters (12 Davis Drive, RTP, N.C.). To participate, contact Tina Valdecanas at 919-549-8181.
The Durham Bulls host the Indianapolis Indians on April 27, and McArthur will be on hand to throw out the first pitch. The game begins at 7:05 p.m.
McArthur will discuss his time and research aboard the space station April 28 at Duke University. The event will begin at 2 p.m. in Love Auditorium in the Levine Science Research Center on West Campus. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Lindsey Naylor at 919-668-1967.
McArthur will visit soldiers and talk to students during a stop at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville on April 30. This event will be open to the media and those at Fort Bragg, but not to the general public. The event begins at 8:30 a.m.
McArthur will deliver a presentation to students at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics on April 30. The event begins at 4:30 p.m. For more information, contact Aaron Plourde at 919-416-2872.
For more about Destination: Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/destinationstation
For more about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
For biographies of the astronauts, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/
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Biophysical Journal, Volume 83, Issue 1, 1 July 2002, Pages 458-472
David J. Brockwell, Godfrey S. Beddard, John Clarkson, Rebecca C. Zinober, Anthony W. Blake, John Trinick, Peter D. Olmsted, D. Alastair Smith and Sheena E. Radford
It is still unclear whether mechanical unfolding probes the same pathways as chemical denaturation. To address this point, we have constructed a concatamer of five mutant I27 domains (denoted (I27)5*) and used it for mechanical unfolding studies. This protein consists of four copies of the mutant C47S, C63S I27 and a single copy of C63S I27. These mutations severely destabilize I27 (ΔΔGUN=8.7 and 17.9kJ mol−1 for C63S I27 and C47S, C63S I27, respectively). Both mutations maintain the hydrogen bond network between the A′ and G strands postulated to be the major region of mechanical resistance for I27. Measuring the speed dependence of the force required to unfold (I27)5* in triplicate using the atomic force microscope allowed a reliable assessment of the intrinsic unfolding rate constant of the protein to be obtained (2.0×10−3 s−1). The rate constant of unfolding measured by chemical denaturation is over fivefold faster (1.1×10−2 s−1), suggesting that these techniques probe different unfolding pathways. Also, by comparing the parameters obtained from the mechanical unfolding of a wild-type I27 concatamer with that of (I27)5*, we show that although the observed forces are considerably lower, core destabilization has little effect on determining the mechanical sensitivity of this domain.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (323 kb)
Biophysical Journal, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 July 2005, Pages 506-519
David J. Brockwell, Godfrey S. Beddard, Emanuele Paci, Dan K. West, Peter D. Olmsted, D. Alastair Smith and Sheena E. Radford
β-sheet proteins are generally more able to resist mechanical deformation than α-helical proteins. Experiments measuring the mechanical resistance of β-sheet proteins extended by their termini led to the hypothesis that parallel, directly hydrogen-bonded terminal β-strands provide the greatest mechanical strength. Here we test this hypothesis by measuring the mechanical properties of protein L, a domain with a topology predicted to be mechanically strong, but with no known mechanical function. A pentamer of this small, topologically simple protein is resistant to mechanical deformation over a wide range of extension rates. Molecular dynamics simulations show the energy landscape for protein L is highly restricted for mechanical unfolding and that this protein unfolds by the shearing apart of two structural units in a mechanism similar to that proposed for ubiquitin, which belongs to the same structural class as protein L, but unfolds at a significantly higher force. These data suggest that the mechanism of mechanical unfolding is conserved in proteins within the same fold family and demonstrate that although the topology and presence of a hydrogen-bonded clamp are of central importance in determining mechanical strength, hydrophobic interactions also play an important role in modulating the mechanical resistance of these similar proteins.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (433 kb)
Biophysical Journal, Volume 81, Issue 4, 1 October 2001, Pages 2344-2356
Robert B. Best, Bin Li, Annette Steward, Valerie Daggett and Jane Clarke
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments have provided intriguing insights into the mechanical unfolding of proteins such as titin I27 from muscle, but will the same be possible for proteins that are not physiologically required to resist force? We report the results of AFM experiments on the forced unfolding of barnase in a chimeric construct with I27. Both modules are independently folded and stable in this construct and have the same thermodynamic and kinetic properties as the isolated proteins. I27 can be identified in the AFM traces based on its previous characterization, and distinct, irregular low-force peaks are observed for barnase. Molecular dynamics simulations of barnase unfolding also show that it unfolds at lower forces than proteins with mechanical function. The unfolding pathway involves the unraveling of the protein from the termini, with much more native-like secondary and tertiary structure being retained in the transition state than is observed in simulations of thermal unfolding or experimentally, using chemical denaturant. Our results suggest that proteins that are not selected for tensile strength may not resist force in the same way as those that are, and that proteins with similar unfolding rates in solution need not have comparable unfolding properties under force.
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (956 kb)
Copyright © 2008 The Biophysical Society All rights reserved.
Biophysical Journal, Volume 95, Issue 11, 5296-5305, 1 December 2008
* School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa, Japan
† Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
‡ PRESTO of Japan Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho Kawaguchi, Saitama Japan
We investigated the effect of temperature on the mechanical unfolding of I27 from human cardiac titin, employing a custom-built temperature control device for single-molecule atomic force microscopy measurement. A sawtooth pattern was observed in the force curves where each force peak reports on the unfolding of an I27 domain. In early unfolding events, we observed a “hump-like” deviation due to the detachment of β-strand A from each I27 domain. The force at which the humps appear was ∼130 pN and showed no temperature dependence, at least in the temperature range of 2°C–30°C. The hump structure was successfully analyzed with a two-state worm-like chain model, and the Gibbs free energy difference of the detachment reaction was estimated to be 11.6±0.58 kcal/mol and found to be temperature independent. By contrast, upon lowering the temperature, the mean unfolding force from the partly unfolded intermediate state was found to markedly increase and the unfolding force distribution to broaden significantly, suggesting that the distance (xu) between the folded and transition states in the energy landscape along the pulling direction is decreased. These results suggest that the local structure of β-strand A are stabilized by topologically simple local hydrogen-bond network and that the temperature does not affect the detachment reaction thermodynamically and kinetically, whereas the interaction between the β-strands A′ and G, which is a critical region for its mechanical stability, is strongly dependent on the temperature. | <urn:uuid:cb59d2cc-0476-462d-affc-4591ef020914> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(08)78954-9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911993 | 1,424 | 1.703125 | 2 |