text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
When school officials rolled out laptops to lend to every high school freshman in the district in February, students, parents and educators were abuzz about the possibilities.
But it was a late start for the rollout that came at an awkward time in the school year, which kept many teachers from integrating them into their lessons.
Juneau-Douglas High School science teacher Jonathan Smith was particularly excited about the possibilities. He wants to use electronic probes that can feed data from lab work straight to the laptops and anticipates they will become a valuable resource - next year.
"I can talk all day about how I'll use them next year," Smith said.
Freshman Peter Peel said he was excited about having a laptop in class the first few weeks, but his interest fizzled because he wasn't using it much and he prefers not to lug it around.
He and his classmates were using the laptops Monday in Ali McKenna's ninth grade English class to create music videos that paired a theme from a song with photos and a literary theme from their reading.
Watching the kids actually work with the laptops and software in class feels a bit like being in an Apple infomercial. Their faces and desks are aglow with the undulating soft white light coming off the Apple logos and all the software names seem to have that trendy lowercase 'i' as a prefix: iPhoto, iWeb, iMovie.
"I like them, but I don't really have a reason to use them" regularly, said freshman Krista Thomson. And, "If you don't turn in your computer, they'll hunt you down."
Freshman Marlena Sloss said she was sort of indifferent about the laptops, too, but said making a music video on literary themes was definitely more fun than composing an essay.
The laptop initiative began in Juneau during the 2006-2007 school year as a $367,000 pilot program at Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School with promising effects on attendance, attitudes and grades. The school serves about 150 students, typically ones that would drop out of traditional schools because of work, family or other challenging personal circumstances.
This year, the program expanded to serve the entire freshman classes of Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas high schools, about 400 more students. Each freshman is eligible to check out their own personal laptop from their school. Eventually, they'll be allowed to take them home, too, though the particulars of earning that privilege are still being worked out.
The program is funded partially by local money and partially by grants from the Alaska Association of School Boards' Consortium for Digital Learning, which has received $7.5 million from the state Legislature since 2006 to help fund the program around the state. The program covers the actual laptops plus faculty training, beefier network backbones, wireless networks, repairs and technical support.
Steve Nelson, project coordinator for the Consortium on Digital Learning, said 28 of Alaska's 53 school districts have the one-to-one laptop program to some degree, with about 12,000 laptops total at nearly 100 schools.
The consortium has arranged deals with Apple and Dell for the program. It's not done at a charitable rate, Nelson said, though the consortium does get an education discount and a volume discount by acting collectively on behalf of all the participating districts.
The money committed to the initiative over the next three years in Juneau won't cover its expansion beyond Yaakoos and the freshman classes at the two high schools.
JDHS Assistant Principal Dale Staley said he hopes the laptops eventually replace the need and expense of investing in school computer labs. He said this year, teachers have been using the laptops as an alternative to computer lab time. And some students are checking out laptops for their own use everyday.
"The machines are getting used a lot," Staley said.
Juneau Empire ©2013. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:af8d9873-9014-4c8d-8210-32558b4e7017> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://juneauempire.com/stories/050509/loc_436594515.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971682 | 795 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Any first responder on the scene of a drowning tragedy can tell you they will never forget the horrifying heartbreak of families and friends standing next to the river while rescuers try to locate their loved ones.
In many cases, these incidents are easily preventable.
This summer, we expect our local rivers to be running at levels not seen in decades, making an already dangerous situation even more perilous for anyone who goes in these cold and fast-running waters. Tragically, we’ve lost several lives on our rivers in recent years, and with the extreme conditions this summer we’re in serious danger to lose more.
Public education alone is not enough. Despite such local efforts in our community, a study last year on the Cedar River showed that 61 percent of our kids and 98 percent of our teenagers are not wearing PFDs.
That’s why the King County Council now has before it an emergency ordinance to require lifejackets (also known as personal flotation devices, or PFD’s) on King County rivers in unincorporated areas through the end of October this year.
We know that PFDs can save lives: The U.S. Coast Guard reports that between 85 and 90 percent of boating related drowning victims are not wearing life jackets. And a recent study indicates that wearing a PFD may potentially prevent one in two drowning deaths among recreational boaters.
A civil fine backs up this proposed requirement. Ideally, King County would cite very few people. In fact, we would prefer to ticket no one.
What this proposal calls for is for the Sheriff to give a first warning to swimmers and rafters –some of them children on air mattresses and floats designed for swimming pools – who may be unaware of the new requirement and the danger they are posing to themselves and to others who would risk their own lives if rescue were needed.
It is only for the scoff-laws who would swim or raft our swift, cold and dangerous rivers unprotected, after being warned by a uniformed deputy, that a ticket would be issued.
That’s why first responders like Eastside Fire and Rescue, King County Sheriff’s Office Marine Unit, and Mountain View Fire and Rescue Swiftwater Team are overwhelmingly supporting this ordinance. It also has the strong backing of the Seattle Children’s Hospital, River Safety Council, American Red Cross of King and Kitsap Counties, State Parks and Recreation Commission, U.S. Coast Guard, and many more.
Professional, licensed rafting operators are a good alternative for those seeking river recreation. As you might imagine, all of the companies who provide this service insist on their customers wearing life vests.
We urge readers to recognize the merits of a life jacket requirement. Drowning tragedies on our rivers are preventable, and we can make a difference this summer through this common sense proposal that will help us enjoy the river safely.
Sue Rahr, King County Sheriff
Dr. David Fleming, Director, Public Health – Seattle & King County
Christie True, Director, King County Natural Resources and Parks | <urn:uuid:4b315695-eb8e-4a6b-9784-2ba3f690628b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kingcountynews.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/why-public-education-is-not-enough-to-save-lives-on-our-rivers-this-summer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950167 | 634 | 2.453125 | 2 |
José Antonio Pagán Rodríguez (May 5, 1935 – June 7, 2011) was a Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player. Pagán made his major league debut with the San Francisco Giants on August 8, 1959. He played for the Giants until 1965, then was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1973 he played his final career games with the Philadelphia Phillies. Pagán played for a total of 15 years before retiring. His best full season statistically came with the Giants in 1962, when he hit .259 and drove in a career high 57 runs. He had 73 runs scored that year, which also was a career high, while collecting 150 hits for the only time in his career. Despite playing part-time for the Pirates from 1966–1970, Pagán batted in the .260s twice and the .280s twice out of those five years, only hitting under .264 in 1968 when he only had 163 at bats. During that time instead of playing short-stop, he played mostly third base and left field, but also was used as a key “spare part” for the team, playing games at every position in the infield, even one at catcher in 1967 for one inning.
Pagán appeared in two World Series in his career; first at the age of 27 with the Giants, when he was on the losing side of the 1962 World Series against the New York Yankees. Despite the loss, he hit .368 with a home run in the seven-game series. With the Pirates in 1971, after losing the NLCS in 1970, he won his only world series and became a hero of the deciding game. In game seven of the 1971 World Series between the Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles, in the top of the 8th inning, Pagán hit a double which scored Willie Stargell. This proved to be the game’s winning run. After his playing career ended, Pagán was a Pittsburgh Pirates coach from 1974 to 1978. He also managed teams in the Puerto Rican Winter League for several seasons, and lived in Puerto Rico before moving his family to Florida in 1999. Pagán died June 7, 2011, at his home in Sebring, Florida, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 76, and was survived by his wife and two sons. He was held in such esteem by the Pittsburgh organization that a moment of silence was observed before the Pirates game with the Arizona Diamondbacks at PNC Park that night. | <urn:uuid:aac4609d-f5cc-4c02-bdc4-2df30b536749> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boxofoldcards.com/category/3rd-base/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991636 | 505 | 1.539063 | 2 |
How you can help at home: In this math activity your child learns about proportion and ratios while following a recipe.
By Miriam Myers , GreatSchools Staff
Increasing and decreasing amounts for a recipe helps to teach your child about proportion and ratios.
What you'll need
- A recipe and the ingredients to make it
Here's how to do it
Choose a recipe to make with your child. Point out how the recipe is written to yield a certain amount of food. Discuss what you would do if you wanted to increase or decrease the amount of food. Talk about how and why it is important to keep the same ratio of ingredients. Decide if you are going to increase or decrease the recipe. For example, you could decide that you are going to double the recipe. Then have your child recalculate the new amounts for the ingredients. | <urn:uuid:91d6a417-8a51-4155-aadf-deb274d09404> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greatschools.org/students/activities/353-recipe-ratios.gs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952718 | 174 | 3.9375 | 4 |
"People may see these and say, 'Well, I'm supposed to get a refund. Maybe this is it,' " said Internal Revenue Service spokesman Jesse Weller.
"The IRS never sends unsolicited initial e-mails," IRS spokesman Bill Steiner said. Nor does it ever ask for detailed personal and financial information, personal identification numbers, passwords or similar access information for credit cards, banks or other financial accounts, the men said.
These scam e-mails promise a refund, ask for participation in a survey or warn of an investigation, telling potential victims to click on an embedded link or open an attachment for more information. Doing so, however, could result in the victim's identity being stolen, Steiner and Weller said.
"Most e-mail scams involve links to bogus Web sites that are official-looking IRS Web pages in order to trick victims into revealing private personal and financial information over the Internet," Weller said. "Some e-mail contain links and attachments that are really a 'Trojan horse' program that can take over the person's computer hard drive and allow the scammer remote access to the victim's computer."
Recipients of questionable e-mails claiming to come from the IRS should not open any attachments or click on any links,
The IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration work with the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, various Internet service providers and U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Teams to have the phishing sites taken off-line as soon as they're reported, Weller said.
Several variations on the IRS e-mail scam have emerged.
One is directed toward organizations that distribute funds to other organizations or individuals. In an attempt to seem legitimate, this e-mail claims to be sent by, and contains the name and supposed signature of, the director of the IRS Exempt Organizations area.
It asks recipients to click on a link to access a form for a tax refund. But taxpayers claim their tax refunds through filing an annual tax return, not a separate application form.
Another claims to come from the IRS and the Taxpayer Advocate Service (a genuine, independent organization within the IRS which helps taxpayers with unresolved tax problems). The e-mail says the recipient is eligible for a refund and directs them to click on a link leading to a fake IRS Web site.
Another appears to be a solicitation from the IRS and the U.S. government for charitable contributions to victims of the recent Southern California wildfires. In it, a link is provided that sends the recipients to a phony IRS Web site where they're directed to click on a link that opens a donation form. This form asks for personal and financial information which the scammers can use to gain access to the victim's financial accounts. The IRS does not send e-mails to taxpayers soliciting contributions to charitable causes.
One form of the scam tells taxpayers the IRS has calculated their "fiscal activity" and that they're eligible to receive a tax refund of a certain amount. Taxpayers receive a page of, or are sent to, a Web site called "Get Your Tax Refund!" that looks like the IRS's real "Where's My Refund?" interactive page on the genuine IRS Web site. Here, taxpayers are asked to enter their Social Security Number and filing status. However, the phony Web page asks taxpayers to enter their credit card account numbers instead of the exact amount of refund as shown on their tax return, as the real "Where's My Refund?" page does.
There's also an e-mail that "advises" taxpayers they can receive $80 by filling out an online IRS customer satisfaction survey. The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers through e-mail.
Another fake e-mail - a "Tax Avoidance Investigation" - claims to come from the IRS' "Fraud Department." The recipient is asked click on a link and complete an "investigation form." It is believed that clicking on the link may activate a Trojan horse.
A variation that tries to scare recipients purports to be from IRS Criminal Investigation, and says the person is under a criminal probe for submitting a false tax return to the California Franchise Tax Board. The e-mail directs people to click on a link or open an attachment to learn more information about the complaint against them.
Similar variations suggest a customer has filed a complaint against a company and the IRS can act as an arbitrator. This appears aimed at business taxpayers as well as individuals. Still another claims the IRS "anti-fraud commission" is investigating their tax returns.
Another version tells taxpayers the IRS is holding a refund (often $63.80) for them and seeks financial account information.
• E-mail Rachel Raskin- Zrihen at RachelZ@thnewsnet.com or call 553-6824.
Protect yourself from e-scams
Since last year, the IRS has received more than 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers reporting more than 240 separate phishing incidents. Investigations have identified host sites in at least 27 countries and the United States. If you get a suspicious e-mail, the IRS advises:
• Do not open any attachments or click on links in the messages. Doing so could download a Trojan horse that can damage your computer or allow remote access to your hard drive. • If you do click on a link in the e-mail and it takes you to a Web site requesting your personal financial information, do not supply it. Any information you give will likely be used to steal your identity. • If you click on a link or open an attachment, make sure your virus protection is up to date and immediately run a scan. If you have spyware protection, run that, too. • Forward the item to the IRS at email@example.com, so the site can be shut down. • If you believe you have been the victim of a tax scam, contact the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration toll-free at 1-800-366-4484. - Internal Revenue Service | <urn:uuid:af9e3bbf-7f3e-459f-9392-f2608d85b6d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_8108493 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939481 | 1,237 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Pakistan: Walk-in clinics help revive health services after 2011 floods
Nine months ago, in September 2011, devastating floods in southern Pakistan ruined basic infrastructure and key medical facilities in Shaheed Benazirabad District, Sindh Province, leaving thousands of people without health services.
Suleh Bibi, 25, was in the final stretch of her pregnancy, but she was unable to access prenatal services as the floods had damaged the village health centre. Many people in Bibi’s village desperately needed medical attention, as they were suffering from waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and skin problems.
In response, the OCHA-managed Emergency Response Fund gave more than US$146,000 to local NGO Integrated Health System (IHS). With the funding, IHS set up mobile health units in the district, organized walk-in clinics and engaged local health workers to encourage the community to attend the clinics.
During the first day-long clinic, IHS treated some 100 patients in the village, distributed health and hygiene kits, and conducted a health-education session on safe delivery, newborn health, and other critical health and hygiene issues.
“After a medical examination, I received multi-vitamins, folic acid and other necessary medicines,” Bibi said. “I also received items such as gloves, towels and soap for safer delivery, as well as health and hygiene supplies.”
During her delivery day, Bibi had to have a surgical procedure to enable easier delivery. Unfortunately, she developed an infection afterwards but had no money to seek treatment. She had to wait for the next IHS clinic in her village.
“When the IHS doctors came again, they gave me special attention. They treated me and advised me how to maintain good hygiene,” she said.
Two weeks later, the team visited the village again to follow up on Bibi’s case. “I was much better by the time they returned. They gave me more medicine and said I would be fine in a few days. And I was. Now I have fully recovered,” Bibi said with a smile.
The mobile health team also attended to Bibi’s family. “They examined my children and provided them with vitamin drops and other medicines. They also gave us water-treatment tablets,” said the mother of three.
Bibi would like her youngest child to become a doctor and support similar public health-care initiatives in her community.
Reporting by Emergency Response Fund Pakistan
More>> Pakistan Humanitarian Update
Updated Date:31 July 2012 - 12:21pm | <urn:uuid:f073f7c3-e7a2-4a92-bdcf-4c18855b8d26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/pakistan-walk-clinics-help-revive-health-services-after-2011-floods%20%20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982178 | 541 | 2.25 | 2 |
Seconds vanished quickly as a West Brook wide receiver sprinted from one sideline to the other.
With a steady flow of communication circulating from the sideline to the press box and to the players on the field, a lot happens during the 25-second play clock in high school football games.
One West Brook football coach had just used hand motions to signal the play to West Brook players on the field last Friday against Ozen at the Beaumont ISD Thomas Center.
Another coach had signaled a fake play - an attempt to throw off Ozen coaches who stood on the opposite sideline.
The receiver, who hastily found his spot near the sideline, had accidentally read the wrong coach's signal.
"Once you get the signal a couple people might not get lined up in the right place," West Brook junior quarterback Devin Padia said. "You have to get it set up, and by then it's taken away from the point of it. There were a couple of times when a couple people, I had to move them from the right spot."
That's the amount of time West Brook head coach Kevin Flanigan wants to come off the play clock when his team snaps the ball.
It varies from team to team. Central and Vidor, for instance, usually let more than 20 seconds run off the clock before running a play. They leave only two or three seconds on the clock.
The play clock begins when an official places the ball on the field.
In West Brook's quick-paced, no-huddle offense, Flanigan, who is in his first season with the Bruins, is quickly calling both a formation and a play from his spot on the sideline. After talking into his headset, one of his assistant coaches signals the formation and play to the players while another coach signals a dummy play.
The coaches calling those signals can change from week to week - or even from quarter to quarter or series to series.
West Brook's players, meanwhile, constantly run to the football at the end of each play.
"You always have to look to the sideline to get the play," junior offensive lineman Marquise Brown said. "You always have to be set. You always have to be looking for the signal."
Vidor coach Jeff Mathews has tried deciphering signals from coaches at District 20-4A rival Port Neches-Groves, a team that runs a similar no-huddle offense to West Brook.
But that has been tougher than a guessing game.
"Last year I was able to scout them at a game and I was looking and trying to figure it out," Mathews said. "I couldn't come close to figuring it out."
Much more time elapses when Vidor sets up its offense.
Offensive coordinator Dwayne Dubois usually knows what he wants to do two or three plays before he gets there. One the time arrives, Mathews communicates from the sideline to Dubois, who is in the press box. Dubois then tells the play to assistant coach David Wallace on the sideline. And Wallace communicates the play to a wide receiver, who runs the play to the huddle on the field.
"We try to make the game shorter and keep the opponent's defense on the field," Mathews said. "We'll use all 25 seconds every time. If we can go two plays a minute, if you have an eight-minute drive you've taken four minutes off the clock. We try to milk the clock for everything we can."
Mathews likes to have the play to the huddle before the play clock reaches 15 seconds.
Central runs a similar pace. Plays are organized by numbers on quarterback Robert Mitchell's wrist band. And a receiver relays the play from offensive coordinator Tony Cox to Mitchell. The Jaguars tried signaling plays at the beginning of last week's 23-20 loss to Port Arthur Memorial. But the first few plays were run incorrectly, leading to the slower pace of sending a receiver to Mitchell in the huddle.
During every offensive play at Vidor, Mathews and assistant coach Dan Welch watch both team's lines from the sideline. Dubois watches the ball. Another assistant coach, R.C. Wilson, keeps an eye on play-side blocking from his spot in the press box. And Jeremy Gray watches defensive backs.
All of what they see can quickly alter a play call.
"Each of us has our own assignment that we're watching," Mathews said. "If the linebacker floats we'll come back and run a certain play. If linebackers are reading guards we'll come back and do something off of that."
West Brook players and coaches, meanwhile, say the team is beginning to catch on to the fast-paced play-calling. The Bruins scored 22 of their 29 points in the second half after running three plays before having to punt on their first three possessions of the game.
Padia remembers the first day of practice being tough as he tried transferring the signals to his teammates and getting them lined up correctly.
That frustration has faded.
"There were a couple times when we'd pick up a first down and get it real fast and (the Panthers) weren't even set," Padia said. "They were looking at their sideline when we snapped the ball. It was working." | <urn:uuid:1afac3ce-8237-47b4-abc4-5818a10201cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/sports/hs/article/Play-calling-in-football-is-a-race-against-time-3848499.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977152 | 1,081 | 1.648438 | 2 |
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida today unveiled the state’s most powerful supercomputer, a machine that will help researchers find life-saving drugs, make decades-long weather forecasts and improve armor for troops.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida is the first university to fully connect to the Internet2 Innovation Platform’s three components, an achievement that will transform research at UF and provide a national model for research computing.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Mobiquity, a leading professional services firm, has selected Gainesville as the site for its expansion and will add 260 jobs over the next three years. Driven by significant company growth and industry demand for its mobile app development expertise, Mobiquity selected Gainesville as the perfect location to expand, leveraging the engineering talent at the University of Florida and in the broader community.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator took top honors worldwide this week when it was named the 2013 Incubator of the Year by the National Business Incubation Association.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida has activated an ultra-high-speed connection to the Internet2 Innovation Platform, expanding computing power 10-fold and offering a computing network found in only three other places in the United States.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Innovation Hub at UF has launched “The Hatchery,” a new incubator program to help aspiring entrepreneurs fine-tune concepts for technology-based businesses and turn these ideas into startup companies.
VILLE, Fla. — The hot new field of technology startups faces a distressing problem: Women are so underrepresented in these companies’ leadership ranks that less than 10 percent of venture-backed startups are headed by women.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Innovation Hub at UF, a business super incubator located halfway between the University of Florida campus and downtown Gainesville, created 85 jobs and secured $7.2 million in private investment after less than a year in operation, figures show. | <urn:uuid:47d68fce-a3d7-45e7-bd04-0d9b1ba69567> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.ufl.edu/technology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926525 | 441 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Casualties on 20mph roads up by quarter in 2011
The number of people injured or killed on Britain's roads in 20mph zones rose by 24% in 2011, it has emerged.
Councils were given powers to designate the zones to improve safety in 2009.
Some 2,262 people were road casualties in the zones last year - 1,966 of them minor injuries - according to the Department for Transport figures.
But this is only a fraction of the number of casualties on 30mph roads where more than 125,000 were reported in 2011, a drop of 1% on 2010.
Safety campaigners have suggested lower speed limits make crashes less likely and less severe when they do happen but the figures have triggered a debate on how useful the restrictions are.
Local transport minister Norman Baker said: "It's vital that speed limits are suitable for local conditions and councils are best placed to determine what these limits are, based on local knowledge and the views of the community," he said.'Jury out'
Neil Greig, director of policy at the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said evidence on 20mph areas "now seems very mixed and contradictory".
"The IAM has always expressed concern that such areas were being seen as a magic bullet to stop all accidents when this had never been clearly proven...
"In our view the main benefits of 20mph zones are health and environmental improvements. The jury is still out on their wider road safety success."
Figures released in July show that in 2010-11, 1,901 people were killed on Britain's roads. That is 51 more than the year before and the first rise since 2003.
According to the figures, there were seven deaths in 20mph zones last year, a 17% rise on 2010 while there were 636 deaths in 30mph zones, up 13%.
There were 289 serious injuries in 20mph zones last year, a 39% rise year-on-year.
However, the Department for Transport could not give figures for how many 20mph zones existed in 2011 compared with 2010, which could put the rise in casualties in more context.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said the increase in 20mph casualties was "worrying" but represented small numbers compared with accidents on 30mph roads where 13,168 people were seriously injured in 2010.
Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at the society, said: "Road deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads as a whole increased in 2011 after consistently falling for many years.
"We need to understand why and to ensure that sufficient resources are devoted to road safety to make sure that one year's increase does not turn into a long term trend."
Update 17 August 2012: This story has been amended to clarify that there are no official figures showing if the number of 20mph zones has increased significantly. | <urn:uuid:29cc3798-7ce2-4900-969b-54cc37fd2e57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19226144 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977209 | 578 | 2.125 | 2 |
It’s not often when a phone rings in the newsroom, that you pick it up and find yourself speaking to a senior US State Department official from Washington, asking for ‘their version’ to be included in a story you released just a few minutes earlier. You then remember that this isn’t just any newsroom. It’s Al Jazeera’s. You also realise it is no great surprise that the biggest power on the planet would be keeping tabs on a website that threatens the West’s monopoly on news flow.
It was March 2003. Ours was a fledgling website. The US had invaded Iraq a few days earlier. Mind you, I use the word ‘invaded’ instead of describing it as a ‘war’, the word most Western wire services preferred. But in the Al Jazeera newsroom, we outvoted ‘war’ in favour of ‘invasion’ because that was what it was.
In the tumultuous, chaotic and oftentimes charged atmosphere of the newsroom in the initial days of the English language website, we, a small multicultural, transnational group of journalists, grappled with the challenge of providing an alternative perspective to the breathtaking events in the Arab world. Not that anyone had to overtly insist on an Arab perspective. It was understood. A given. Though, as a professional journalist, one knew about the biases enmeshed in western news agency reports of events in the Arab world, the Al Jazeera perspective opened our eyes to the extent of such prejudices that the rest of the world viewed as normal and objective.
For journalists from elsewhere, events in the Arab world are merely stories they need to cover in the most professional way possible. In the Al Jazeera website newsroom in Doha (since moved to the main HQ), where journalists from the English and Arabic sections worked side-by-side, you saw that for your Arab colleagues the events were not merely stories, but something that directly impacted their friends and families. Every now and then, you heard how a blast in Iraq killed or injured a friend, uncle, cousin or a relative. When the US fighters rained bombs on Baghdad, tense Iraqi colleagues had their fingers crossed, wondering how their families were coping. It was always necessary for a call from home to reassure them all was well. There were Palestinians who remembered how their families were displaced from what is now Israel, Sudanese who insisted that the western news agencies had got it all wrong on their differentiating of “Arabs and Africans” when describing the conflict in their country and the Somalis who were as bewildered as anyone else with the anarchy at home.
The Doha newsroom was then a place where the stark realities of the region played out informally in cafeteria conversations over cups of coffee besides idle, but politically-laced chatter in the smokers’ corner. So when events were reported and written in English and then turned into stories that had never before been seen from the perspective of the region, it was just another day at the office for the Arabs. For the rest of the world, a sock on the jaw or a warm hug depending on whose side you were on.
We at Outlookindia.com welcome feedback and your comments, including scathing criticism
1. Scathing, passionate, even angry critiques are welcome, but please do not indulge in abuse and invective. Our Primary concern is to keep the debate civil. We urge our users to try and express their disagreements without being disagreeable. Personal attacks are not welcome. No ad hominem please.
2. Please do not post the same message again and again in the same or different threads
3. Please keep your responses confined to the subject matter of the article you are responding to. Please note that our comments section is not a general free-for-all but for feedback to articles/blogs posted on the site
4. Our endeavour is to keep these forums unmoderated and unexpurgated. But if any of the above three conditions are violated, we reserve the right to delete any comment that we deem objectionable and also to withdraw posting privileges from the abuser. Please also note that hate-speech is punishable by law and in extreme circumstances, we may be forced to take legal action by tracing the IP addresses of the poster.
5. If someone is being abusive or personal, or generally being a troll or a flame-baiter, please do not descend to their level. The best response to such posters is to ignore them and send us a message at Mail AT outlookindia DOT com with the subject header COMPLAINT
6. Please do not copy and paste copyrighted material. If you do think that an article elsewhere has relevance to the point you wish to make, please only quote what is considered fair-use and provide a link to the article under question.
7. There is no particular outlookindia.com line on any subject. The views expressed in our opinion section are those of the author concerned and not that of all of outlookindia.com or all its authors.
8. Please also note that you are solely responsible for the comments posted by you on the site. The comments could be deleted or edited entirely at our discretion if we find them objectionable. However, the mere fact of their existence on our site does not mean that we necessarily approve of their contents. In short, the onus of responsibility for the comments remains solely with the authors thereof. Outlookindia.com or any of its group publications, may, however, retains the right to publish any of these comments, with or without editing, in any medium whatsoever. It is therefore in your own interest to be careful before posting.
9.Outlookindia.com is not responsible in any manner whatsoever for how any search engine -- such as Google, Bing etc -- caches or displays these comments. Please note that you are solely responsible for posting these comments and it is a privilege being granted to our registered users which can be withdrawn in case of abuse. To reiterate:
a. Comments once posted can only be deleted at the discretion of outlookindia.com
b. The comments reflect the views of the authors and not of outlookindia.com
c. outlookindia.com is not responsible in any manner whatsoever for the way search engines cache or display these comments
d. Please therefore take due caution before you post any comments as your words could potentially be used against you
10. We have an online thread for our comments policy:
You are welcome to post your suggestions here or in case you have a specific issue, to directly email us at Mail AT outlookindia DOT com with the subject header COMPLAINT | <urn:uuid:ee2da7dc-08c1-47a3-931a-65f649cdd3b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280786 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960661 | 1,371 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Blogging has been a little light recently (apologies!), but here are a few pieces that have caught our eye this week.
First up, the Columbia Journalism Review has a two-parter on journalistic coverage of climate change inspired by comments from Jeff Huggins on the Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog. The key issues CJR addresses are familiar ones to readers here: how to communicate mainstream science in a way that doesn’t distort the reality of the consensus on many issues in favour of controversy on more cutting-edge topics. Definitely worth a read, and proof (if such were needed) that commenting on blogs can make a difference to coverage.
Next, the role of CO2 as a long-term climate forcing. The old CO2 lead/lag issue keeps making the rounds as a contrarian talking point (and made a brief resurgence here in comments this week) despite the fact that the existence of impact of climate on the carbon cycle in no way invalidates the impact of CO2 (as a greenhouse gas) on climate. However, there is a nice paper in Nature this week (Lunt et al, 2008) which looks at the various proposed triggers for the onset of the quaternary glaciations at the end of the Pliocene (~3 million years ago). These triggers involve, permanent El Nino events, the closing of the Isthmus of Panama, changes in orbital forcing, tectonic uplift of the Rocky mountains – and long-term decreases in CO2 as a function of very slow variations in sea floor spreading and chemical weathering. Lunt et al find that only the change in CO2 (400 ppm to 280 ppm) can explain the changes in the ice sheet. None of the other ideas come even close.
Thus, it looks very much like the climate changed radically due to this externally forced drift in CO2 (and tectonic is external for climate purposes on this timescale). As a corollary, this is an expansion of the idea we discussed a few months back, that the long term changes in the Earth system due to external forcings might be well be larger than the classical (Charney) sensitivity we often talk about.
Third. There has been a lot of discussion on energy futures in the comments – Nature had a good rundown of the scientific constraints on the different prospects. But this video is a quite entertaining discussion of why we just can’t get our heads around the issue from Dan Gilbert (h/t GH). | <urn:uuid:d69ca3fb-1fc3-4bda-8b48-45e8dc40e509> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/08/?wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950637 | 511 | 2.140625 | 2 |
heparin - injection
GENERIC NAME: HEPARIN - INJECTION (HEP-uh-rin)
USES: This medication is used to prevent and treat blood clots. It may be used to treat blood clots in the lungs/legs. It may also be used to prevent blood clots after surgery, during dialysis, when collecting blood samples, or when a person is unable to move for a long time. Heparin helps to keep blood flowing smoothly by making a certain natural substance in your body (anti-clotting protein) work better. It is known as an anticoagulant.
HOW TO USE: This medication is given by injection into a vein or under the skin (subcutaneously) as directed by your doctor. Do not inject this medication into a muscle. Dosage is based on your medical condition, weight, and response to treatment.Heparin comes in many strengths. Serious (sometimes fatal) errors have occurred when the wrong strength was used. Check that you are using the correct strength and dose before injecting this medication.If you are giving this medication to yourself at home, learn all preparation and usage instructions from your health care professional. Before using, check this product visually for particles or discoloration. If either is present, do not use the liquid. Learn how to store and discard medical supplies safely.For products given under the skin, clean the injection site with rubbing alcohol before injecting each dose. It is important to change the location of the injection site daily to avoid problem areas under the skin.Use this medication regularly in order to get the most benefit from it. To help you remember, use it at the same times each day. It is important to continue using this medication even if you feel well. Do not suddenly stop taking this medication without consulting your doctor.Your doctor may direct you to switch to an anticoagulant taken by mouth (e.g., warfarin). Use this medication and any new medication exactly as directed by your doctor.Tell your doctor if your condition persists or worsens.
Back to Medications Index
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:2daf82e1-97fc-41b0-8f40-a38d5911538a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/heparin-injection/article.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937939 | 448 | 1.84375 | 2 |
When World War II just broke out, the Germans didn’t expect at all their enemy would resist so much. Their soldiers, brave, initiative and dedicated, faced the great endurance and incredible strength of the Russians. But not only these qualities helped the latter win the war….
Here’s what German soldiers said about their enemies.
“Russian troops have always fought bravely and sometimes made incredible sacrifices.”
/ Field Marshal Erich von Manstein /
“The Russians held themselves with unexpected firmness and perseverance, even when they were bypassed and surrounded. In this way they won more time and drew up more and more new reserves for the counter-attacks from the depths of the country, which by the way were stronger than anticipated… The enemy has shown an absolutely incredible ability to resist.”
/ General Kurt von Tippelskirch /
“The Russian remains a good soldier everywhere and in all circumstances…
Field kitchen, almost sacred in the eyes of the soldiers of other armies, is just a pleasant surprise for the Russians, and they can spend days and weeks without it. The Russian soldier is completely satisfied with a handful of millet or rice adding to it what nature gives him. The soldier of the Russian army is an unsurpassed master of disguise, self-entrenching and field fortifications… The strength of the Russian soldier is due to his extreme closeness to nature. For him, there are simply no natural barriers: in heavy forest, swamps and marshes, in roadless steppe – he feels like home everywhere. He crosses a wide river using the most elementary improvised means and can pave a road everywhere. It takes few days for the Russians to build a many-kilometer causeway through an impassable swamp.”
/ Major-General von Mellenthin /
“Widely and skillfully conceived operations of the Red Army led to numerous encirclements of the German units and destruction of those who resisted.”
/ General Otto von Lasch /
“Their commanders instantly learned the lessons of the first defeats and in a short time began to operate surprisingly effectively.”
/ Field Marshal General Georg von Kleist /
“The fact that the Red Army soldiers continued to fight in the most hopeless situations, totally unconcerned about their own lives, can be largely attributed to the brave behavior of commissioners.
The difference between the Russian Imperial Army during World War I and the Red Army in the days of the German invasion was simply colossal. During the last war the Russian army was more like an amorphous mass, physical inactive and devoid of individuality. This time, the spiritual uplift caused by the ideas of communism already started to affect them in the summer of 1941.”
/ General Eric Rouse /
“Many of our leaders greatly underestimated the new enemy. This happened partly because they knew nothing either of the Russian people, or even the Russian soldiers. Some of our commanders were always on the Western Front during World War I, and never fought in the East, so they had no idea about the geographical features of Russia and the persistence of the Russian army. At the same time they ignored the repeated warnings of prominent military experts on Russia…
The behavior of Russian troops, even in this first battle (for Minsk), is strikingly different from that of the Poles and the troops of the Western Allies in defeat. Even being surrounded, the Russians did not depart from their borders.”
/ General Günther Blumentritt /
“When I remember that Frederick the Great confronted the enemy possessing the twelvefold superiority in strength, I seem just a simpleton to myself. At this time we do have the superiority in strength! Is not that a shame?”
/ Hitler (recorded on 28.1 1942) / | <urn:uuid:cb4f24a6-9b51-4cb3-91eb-bb0431d2e15f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://englishrussia.com/2011/05/17/soviet-soldiers-as-nazis-saw-them/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956864 | 789 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Population Estimates Unit
Telephone: +44 (0) 1329 444661
Frequency of release: Annually
Geographical coverage: UK
Geographical breakdown: Local Authority and County
Mid 2008 population estimates are available at national level by single year of age and sex and subnationally (local authority/health area) by five year age group and sex. These include additional selected age groups and broad components of population change. The Population Estimates reflect the local authority administrative boundaries that were in place on 30 June of the reference year of the tables. Definition of resident population: The estimated resident population of an area includes all people who usually live there, whatever their nationality. Members of UK and non-UK armed forces stationed in the UK are included and UK forces stationed outside the UK are excluded. Students are taken to be resident at their term time address.
Population Estimates for England and Wales at national level for Mid-2002 to Mid-2010 have been revised in light of the 2011 Census. The revised estimates were published on 13 December 2012 and supersede the estimates in these tables. The revised estimates are available on our website. Details of planned revision dates for sub national and UK level estimates can be found on the UK Statistics Authority Release Calendar.
These National Statistics are produced to high professional standards and released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority. | <urn:uuid:41b9231c-e942-4014-b205-e3fa90deec40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-uk--england-and-wales--scotland-and-northern-ireland/2008/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942076 | 274 | 2.671875 | 3 |
You are talking about a Document Management System. Typically these systems allow users to save documents and delegate read/write access on a user or group level. They also allow for auditing of when users access documents. Some may also restrict editing and copying or even printing of a document (in addition to auditing all such actions).
There is simple to complicated. Some use a basic NAS with AD Group Policies. Others add a layer of encryption (Full Disk encryption, TrueCrypt, something else).
Finally you have the 'Enterprisey' systems. These have workflow and publishing management, complex ACLs and options on securing the documents and logging all activity.
Xeros sells a system called DocuShare (http://docushare.xerox.com/ though now marketed more as CMS) which I know several UN Organizations use. There is also KnowledgeTree (https://www.knowledgetree.com/)
These are just two of many. YMMV depending on actual business needs. Hope this helped. | <urn:uuid:6244531b-3cc7-407f-b98d-101218858ab3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/16530/where-do-organizations-store-their-sensitive-documents-how-do-they-protect-them | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916271 | 208 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I would like to know what the origin of hapless is. For example,
He is a hapless person
He is an unfortunate person.
Has it got anything to do with the fact that hapless people live their lives with no good things hap-pening to them? Was there hapful or a similar word back in the times? | <urn:uuid:9bcb65c4-65d0-45e3-b6a5-eea4f6f926b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/36883/origin-and-evolution-of-hapless?answertab=oldest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965523 | 73 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Early Reading First Program is Off to a Successful Start
Last fall, RCOE was awarded a $3.3 million federal Early Reading First (ERF) grant to address literacy development at our Arlanza, Bryant Park, Collett, and Rosemary Kennedy Head Start Centers in the Riverside area. The goal of the ERF program is to develop children’s speaking and writing skills to prepare preschoolers for Kindergarten.
Riverside County’s children are performing better than children in other ERF programs across the country. When compared with most other ERF programs nationwide, RCOE is serving twice as many children; 216 children served through our RCOE program as compared to an average of about 100 children in other programs. Our other distinction is that over two-thirds of the children in our program are second language learners, a much higher population than most other ERF programs.
Preliminary assessment results for the first year of implementation show that all children enrolled at these centers have made significant gains in vocabulary and letter-recognition. In the area of oral language as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test IV (PPVT-IV), RCOE preschoolers increased their skill level by 9 standard scores from a beginning level of 78 to over 87, and RCOE preschoolers scored higher than other more established ERF programs across the country on vocabulary. Moreover, on the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) for letter recognition, children increased 16 letters. There was an unusual trend with the letter recognition: RCOE children were able to identify more lower case than upper case letters, a trend much different than other ERF programs. Overall, children were able to identify 18 upper case and 19 lower case letters. Letter recognition is a strong predictor of success in Kindergarten. Our motto for next year is 26!
The assessment results reflect about six months of intentional literacy teaching and learning since the pre-tests were administered in November and the post-tests in May. It appears that we have exceeded all the established federal benchmarks. Congratulations to the ERF children for their amazing success. | <urn:uuid:3f07368a-e2d7-46e6-8d5b-32f9ea9d71b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rcoe.us/report2009_fall/early_reading.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960745 | 438 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Troy and Gina Bundy of West Linn constructed the 1,100 square foot pool without a permit in October 2009 after then-mayor Patti Galle assured them they could out work the "formalities" later, according to court filings.
Too bad the city council felt differently and denied the Bundy's application for a Water Resources Area permit.
To date, the couple has spent $50,000 on attorney's fees, $2,500 on restoring a wetland behind their house, and paying a $3,000 fine from the Department of State Lands.
And they might spend even more. This month, the West Linn Police Department issued a $2,000/day retroactive citation for every day the pool is on the property, plus reimbursement for staff and legal fees.
The Bundy's case underscores the importance of researching a property before building on it. Though the Bundy's said they got an OK, they would have done better going one step further to research local pool regulations online.
Perhaps then they would have found out that the pool's foundation needed to be a minimum distance from the government property line, and that the government had permanent access to the land.
And clearly, the couple should have applied for the building permit before constructing the pool. Whether a pool is above or below ground, all pool's require a permit, with some requiring an additional electrical permit depending on whether there's lighting and a pump. | <urn:uuid:aaaaedcf-af60-4f0e-84c5-28178bef6839> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/oregon-family-faces-pool-fine-2012-6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950209 | 292 | 1.773438 | 2 |
chownah wrote:I think there is a gap in the information here about the recently discovered something that came from nothing. Scientists have a a very complicated theory that explains the tiny bits of stuff that make up bigger bits of stuff that make up our world...they actually have more than one theory but the popular and presently most successful one at predicting what will happen when certain conditions exist at that very very small scale is called quantum science. The theory itself is a thicket of mathematical equations which have evolved over time and their evolution is driven by the need to accout for the results of experiments conducted at that very very small scale. Something that surprises non-scientists is that when you have such a complicated set of equations which explains things that you have seen you can take those equations and see consequences of their structure which allows you to predict things that should happen if the equations are indeed correct in modeling the behavior....so....scientists analyse various aspects of these equations looking for something they can predict and then they construct new experiments trying to find what their analysis of the equations has predicted. This is basically the driving force in particle physics today and will almost assuredly be for the forseeable future.
This is the part I think that applies essentially to the Buddha's advisement. It's a futile thing really because the fundamental scientific measurements of reality are always going to bring up questions. Quantum mechanics proves
, that the closer you get to scientifically observing reality, the less intuitive it becomes, the more absurd it becomes and the more nonsensical. Notwithstanding, a small portion of what people call metaphysics--but that relies on meditation and wisdom--actually makes sense of it. On the other hand, it takes a vast entanglement of mathematical abstraction to explain it as well. That's why mind and form are separate that way.
Anyway....some scientists looked at the equations and said that if they are to hold true then there need to be particles spontaneously arising in pairs out of space where no particles were before. I know this seems like gibberish but that is what they predicted. The problem is that these particles recombine so fast and existed in such a small space that there was no known way to detect them.....until recently when an experiment was constructed for the purpose of detecting them. The theoretical idea behind the experiment was that a device was made so that if there were no spontaneous particles present then one thing should happen but if a certain kind of particle was present (and which would not be present unless it spontaneously arose) then something else would happen.......when they tried it the "something else" happened and this is taken as a confirmation of the existence of the particle and the only way that particle could have been there was by spontaneously arising.
My theory is, it's not a particle per say (in the usual sense) but rather a "connection," that spontaneously arises. And I think this culminates in the contact of form and consciousness. Because even the four great elementary qualities conduct quantum mechanics, from which form builds in the kama sphere. In the rupa sphere there is no matter, but there's form. What I'm saying is, consciousness has contact with the form elements and it generates a "connectivity" presence in the quantum space. This connectivity creates space particles, wind, fire, water and earth particles, and this earth particle I speculate might be the thing which generates mass, thus allowing atoms or alternative building blocks to pop out (of invisible hyperspace). The elemental qualities conduct these particles and allow subatomic particles and atoms to coerce. This is clear when we take the elemental qualities into the context of the behavior of subatomic particles.
I have hence babbled.
So.....since scientists have alway conceived of empty space as being...well...EMPTY...and by empty they meant that there was nothing at all there of any kind....then for a particle to emerge from this nothingness of the present view of empty space this means that something came out of nothing. Now it could be that scientists will re-evaluate their ideas of "empty space" so that it is not empty but that there are things there that have not been detected. After all the concept of "dark matter" and "dark energy" are relatively new and while there is alot of evidence to support their existence neither has been directly detected as existing in any particular region of space so I suppose (my views) it is possible that they pervade all of space but are simply not detected and these spontaneously arising pairs of virtual particles might turn out to be the first evidence of a way to directly interact with dark matter or dark energy....I guess....but I don't know for sure.....I'm just a rice farmer....I have a much better understanding about how to grow rice or cow peas.....
My thinking is that there is a static energy that fills emptiness[this is very scientific reasoning only], and consciousness causes cohesion of this static to the elemental qualities, in other words, form. Which demonstrates that the mechanics
by which consciousness meets form to produce contact, is based on static cohesion to the elements--scientifically legitimizing that the four elements are indeed fundamentally basic, and that these mechanics (ergo quantum mechanics
) are based on elements, and also ensue from consciousness. Static energy isn't measurable, it isn't permanent or solid, and herein I have supplanted it to consciousness--a fundamental element, along with space which is the element of derivation.
This is my thinking of quantum mechanics as explained through energy, consciousness, and the elements according to Buddhism. I also think this explains a lot of incoherent concepts that have cropped up in Buddhism throughout Sarvastavadan, Mahayanic and Vajrayanic as well as other traditions descending from Buddha's teaching.
David N. Snyder wrote:
chownah wrote:Now it could be that scientists will re-evaluate their ideas of "empty space" so that it is not empty but that there are things there that have not been detected.
Yes, I agree too. It reminds me of one of my college professors who warned us about the need for using the correct measuring device (when doing a scientific study). If a fisherman catches fish with a large, wide net (with large holes) it will only catch fish that are 8" or larger as the small ones pass through. It would be wrong for the fisherman to conclude that there are "no small fish in that body of water." Another fisherman could come by with a finer net/web and catch several small fish.
Indeed, furthermore the man with the airtight "net" will actually catch the water itself and hold it within the bag. Therefore space itself is substantial, elemental.
son of Dhamma.
A seed sleeps in soil.
It's cold and alone, hopeless.
Until it blooms above. | <urn:uuid:bad1c58e-50a7-4086-9937-fc6d54639347> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?p=169657 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965425 | 1,389 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Nine Tailed Demon Fox
Names: Nine-tailed Demon Fox.
Creature type: Kitsune (Fox)
Host: Naruto Uzumaki
Unique traits: Near-limitless chakra, incredible strength.
Status: Active, sealed in host.
The nine-tailed demon fox is a truly powerful beast; a single swipe of one of its nine tails can raise tsunamis and flatten mountains. After the demon fox attacked Konohagakure, the Fourth Hokage sealed it into the newborn Naruto by using the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, sacrificing his own life to do so.
The demon fox is a beast of almost pure malevolence. It is intelligent, and has a scathing and sadistic personality. However, it has a sense of honor, and seems to possess a respect (if merely a loathing one) for Naruto and the Fourth Hokage. Additionally, it has a distinct sense of pride and became rather angry and scornful at Naruto when he rejected its chakra when facing Sasuke in Part II, though this might have merely been anger over missing an opportunity to partially usurp control over Naruto's body.
As the demon fox's host, Naruto has accelerated healing, almost unrivaled stamina, and access to the demon fox's immense amount of chakra. The near-limitless chakra allows Naruto to perform his signature jutsu, Shadow Clone Technique, seemingly without limit. He is even able to summon Gamabunta the "Toad Boss", a normally Kage-level feat requiring an amount of chakra proportionate to the size of the summoned creature.
Naruto typically accesses this prodigious supply of chakra from the demon fox during extreme emotional states or life-threatening situations. When he first accessed it, the demon fox's innate rage took over Naruto's mind, causing him to strike out at whatever was near him at the time. Afterwards, Naruto learned to exercise more control over the chakra, and he can now retain his mental state when drawing upon small amounts of the demon fox's chakra. After Jiraiya's training, Naruto learns to summon a small degree of the demon fox's power at will. To do this, Naruto travels into his own mind (depicted as a sewer) and demands that the demon fox give him its chakra. He calls it "rent". The demon fox seems to comply simply because it is amused by Naruto's bravery.
The demon fox's chakra is not without its drawbacks, however. As Naruto draws on more of the demon fox's chakra, his own personality becomes supplanted by the fox's. The degree to which this occurs is proportionate to how much chakra Naruto draws upon. The effect on Naruto's personality becomes significant once he begins accessing his "tailed" transformation states. The tailed transformations appear as fox-shaped auras of red chakra surrounding him. The number of "chakra tails" that extend from the aura indicate its power level, and its effect on his personality. In the one-tailed to three-tailed states, Naruto's personality remains dominant, but he acquires some animalistic behaviors, such as standing on all fours, fighting mercilessly, and a distinct bloodlust.
In his four-tailed state (the highest seen so far), the demon fox's personality becomes dominant. Naruto becomes immensely powerful and destructive in this state, enough so to overwhelm even Jiraiya and Orochimaru. Unfortunately, this state also leaves him unable to distinguish between friend and foe which was shown when he attacked Sakura. Such a large amount of chakra requires stability, so it densely molds around him. As Yamato stated, his body is just a "skeleton" for the chakra. The intense aura created from it both shields and harms him, burning off all his exposed skin and causing him to bleed from every pore. This, combined with the accelerated cell regeneration, weakens Naruto and shortens his lifespan.
In the event of the demon fox manifesting, Naruto's sensei, Jiraiya, prescribes a special written seal that is to be placed on Naruto's body. This seal suppresses the demon fox's chakra and restores Naruto to his normal self. In addition, Yamato has demonstrated a technique that will reverse Naruto's demon fox transformation, enhanced greatly by the First Hokage's necklace that Naruto wears.
The Third Hokage and Kakashi Hatake allude that if Naruto loses all control of the demon fox's chakra, the seal will break and the demon fox will be freed. Though the seal is unlikely to break on its own, the chances of it happening increase as Naruto draws upon the fox's chakra. Soon after the start of Part II, Jiraiya mentions that the seal may be becoming weaker over time. This is evident in Naruto's transformations, which occur much quicker and with greater intensity than they did in the first part of the series, often against his own will. As has been seen during Naruto's training sessions, even the slightest amount of frustration on Naruto's part allows the demon fox's chakra to leak out in excess, and Naruto rapidly progresses to a four-tailed state.
Near the end of the Sasuke and Sai arc, it is revealed that the demon fox is familiar with the Uchiha clan. The precise relationship between the clan and the fox is unclear as of now, but the fox mentions a Madara Uchiha, who possessed chakra more evil ("cursed", as described by demon fox) than the demon fox's own, a trait which Sasuke seems to share. Sasuke also demonstrates the ability to forcefully suppress the demon fox's chakra.
The nine tails of the demon fox is a reference to the belief that a fox may possess as many as nine tails. Generally, an older and more powerful fox will possess a greater number of tails, and some sources say that a fox will only grow additional tails after they have lived for a thousand years. After that period of time, the number increases based on age and wisdom. Foxes that appear in Japanese folktales almost always possess one, five, or nine tails, and not any other number. | <urn:uuid:b5535b3f-6f03-4c8d-a7bb-8ed18d34c361> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.narutocommunity.net/tailed-beast-guide/nine-tailed-demon-fox | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963439 | 1,261 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Newt Gingrich on Technology
Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House
Nanotechnology allows us to “grow” materials by literally adding the right atoms and molecules to one another--a material technology breakthrough that changes the way we build things and how much they weigh. One example is that nanotechnology makes possible molecular “helpers” which could hunt cancer cells or clean clogged arteries.
The information revolution (computers and communications) impacts this technology in exponential ways, giving us better capabilities to deal with the nanoworld and with biology. It is the synergistic effect of these three systems together--nanotechnology multiplied by biology multiplied by information--that will lead to an explosion of new knowledge and new capabilities.
Space exploration has also been the most successful vehicle for translating the need to invest in science and discovery to the American people. It is a visible, tangible, results-oriented program that instills national pride and helps us quickly understand why research is important. There is something magical about space exploration that microscopes and lab coats cannot convey.
The NASA community is aware of how incredibly important it is to continue to push the boundaries of our knowledge and its benefits to our society, starting of course with the astronauts themselves.
It is almost certainly those in poor neighborhoods who get undercounted. The liberal Democrats have been proposing that we eliminate the present system altogether and substitute for it something they call “statistical adjustment.” Under this system, the census would count only 90% of the people. Then a statistical adjustment would be made to get to 100%. Republicans are committed to what the Constitution says. A statistical adjustment would be unconstitutional. In addition, we are convinced that “statistical” adjustment will inevitably lead to “political” adjustment. The incentive to corrupt the census adjustment process would be virtually beyond limit.
|Other candidates on Technology:||Newt Gingrich on other issues:|
GOP: Sen.John McCain
GOP V.P.: Gov.Sarah Palin
Democrat: Sen.Barack Obama
Dem.V.P.: Sen.Joe Biden
Constitution: Chuck Baldwin
Libertarian: Rep.Bob Barr
Constitution: Amb.Alan Keyes
Liberation: Gloria La Riva
Green: Rep.Cynthia McKinney
Socialist: Brian Moore
Independent: Ralph Nader | <urn:uuid:571944dc-346b-4169-b2ec-d77610bb6080> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ontheissues.org/2008/Newt_Gingrich_Technology.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905489 | 487 | 2.453125 | 2 |
In 2008, Kent Couch flew from Bend, Ore. to an Idaho farm field, riding a lawn chair rigged with more than 150 giant party balloons. He plans to fly again July 14, this time with a friend.
Four years ago, Kent Couch made headlines by floating through the clouds in a lawn chair hoisted by party balloons from Oregon to Idaho. He's going to fly again, this time with a buddy sitting on a second lawn chair at his side.
They are planning to take off July 14 from the parking lot of Couch's gas station and convenience store in Bend, Ore., the way he did in 2008 when he floated 235 miles to an Idaho farm field.
Iraqi adventurer and skydiver Fareed Lafta, who read about Couch's exploit, will be going along for the ride so he could add lawn-chair ballooning to his bucket list.
"We can't hit above 18,000 feet (because of federal flight restrictions), but we can make a good run at, I imagine, 400 miles or plus" in distance, which should put them in southwestern Montana after an overnight flight, Couch said.
The flight will be a warm-up for another one planned for this fall in Iraq. The men had to scrub a tandem flight last year after Iraqi officials said they couldn't provide security for the liftoff from a Baghdad soccer stadium.
Couch has wanted to fly like a cloud all his life, trying bungee jumping, sky diving, and hang gliding — everything short of getting an actual pilot's license. Then he saw a TV show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles by truck driver Larry Walters, who gained urban myth immortality.
"It looked plenty easy," he said. "I saw this as the easiest way for me to fly."
His first time up was in 2006, when he got only 99 miles before the helium balloons started popping and he had to bail out. In 2007, he flew 193 miles before running low on helium and landing in the sagebrush near Union, Ore.
In 2008, things went much more smoothly. After lifting off at dawn July 5 with the help of scores of volunteers, he floated at 35 mph across the high desert, reaching his goal of crossing the Idaho border. That's when he pulled out his trusty Red Ryder BB rifle to shoot out enough balloons to come to earth just in a pasture outside the tiny farming community of Cambridge, Idaho.
Couch is waiting for his favorite anti-gravity style of lawn chairs to go on sale before putting his latest flying rig together with parts he buys at the local hardware store. The others were bought by a museum.
He will need more than 350 5-foot-diameter balloons filled with helium to lift the two of them, plus 800 pounds of Ballast — red Kool-Aid in 40-gallon barrels.
"If you look up in the sky and see a single cloud up there — if you can imagine floating on that cloud — that's it," Couch said of the thrill that draws him back to lawn-chair ballooning again and again. "I wish people could feel what I feel when I'm up there." | <urn:uuid:82e03a39-5538-493c-9986-13e029a8b36d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/weird/NATL-Lawn-Chair-Balloonist-to-Ride-Again-159285365.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971284 | 650 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
“That’s the whole stigma-of-eating-disorders thing. The more you keep the secret the more you keep the stigma attached to it.”
In the spring of 2005, writer Harriet Brown’s then 14-year-old daughter, nicknamed “Kitty,” became anorexic. It marked the beginning of a horrific year for Brown and her family, in which they battled what she calls “the demon” that took over her child’s mind and body, threatening to starve the girl to death.
The experience was not only heart-wrenching and exhausting, but mind-boggling, too, as so much of the information Brown was handed about anorexia, as well as the standard medical approaches to it, just didn’t make sense to her. To her mind, her family didn’t mirror the typical dysfunctions that many in the field insist “cause” eating disorders. And the idea of sending her daughter away to a special program where she’d bunk with a bunch of other girls hell-bent on starving themselves–and where anorectics often learn additional self-destructive tricks from one another–was simply out of the question.
Brown became determined to do her own research. She learned about Maudsley Family Based Therapy, initiated in England in the mid-1980s, which involves re-feeding at home, and intimate family involvement–an approach that flies in the face of conventional treatment, which has always held fast to the belief that parents and siblings can only hurt, not help. And she came across studies strongly suggesting that eating disorders are not borne of emotional and social factors alone; rather, they’re also rooted in neurobiology and genetics.
That heralded a different kind beginning for Brown, in which she became something of a firebrand, questioning many of the established notions and assumptions about eating disorders–first in an article for The New York Times Magazine, then on her blog, and finally in a new memoir inspired by the Times magazine article, Brave Girl Eating, coming out on August 24. The book is equal parts memoir and journalistic exposé, bound seamlessly together with Brown’s poetic prose.
Brown chatted with me by phone, from her office at Syracuse University, where she teaches journalism.Did your daughter, Kitty, know you were writing this book?
She didn’t know at first, when she was very sick. Later, she gave me her blessing, although kind of reluctantly, to The New York Times Magazine article, and then the book. Are you ever concerned about having exposed her in this way? Not long ago I ghostwrote a memoir in which the author reveals that one of her sons had anorexia. People were so angry that my client revealed this, even though the kid gave his blessing. They said, “He’s fourteen years old! How can he make that decision for himself at this age? Now it will always be known.”
And so the fuck what?! That’s the whole stigma-of-eating-disorders thing. The more you keep the secret the more you keep the stigma attached to it. In the book you talk about how if you have diabetes, you aren’t judged for it, but when it’s an eating disorder, which now appears to have biological, genetic roots, you’re horribly stigmatized. And you don’t judge your daughter. You’re very compassionate toward her. You blame “the demon” and the part of her that you call “Not-Kitty,” but you don’t blame Kitty herself. Do you ever worry that some day Kitty will turn around and say to you, “How could you have done that to me?”
Yes, I do. Actually, I’m assuming that will happen at some point. There will be a time when she’s really angry about it. I’m hoping we will get through that. There was a moment about a year-and-a-half ago when she was sliding into a relapse, and the words she used were, “I’m relapsing because of this book you’re writing.” And I said to her, “If this book is going to be an impediment to our relationship, I’ll just drop it.” And then she said, “No, I don’t want you to do that, it’ll make you upset.” And I said, “No, I don’t want to lose my relationship with you over this.” We talked about it a lot for many months. She kind of grudgingly gave her blessing and said, “No, you can do it, even though I’m upset about it.” Lately she says she thinks it can do a lot of good. But she is also a very private person.
Did you change your daughters’ names?
Yes, and they don’t share my last name. I also changed a few physical descriptors in the book. I mean, anyone who knows me will know it’s them, but it’s not as if you can google Kitty Brown, and find her.
You write a lot about food and weight–on your blog, in the science pages of The New York Times and elsewhere–often presenting information that challenges what everyone assumes. Was this an area of interest for you before Kitty got sick, or something you always wanted to pursue?
It’s definitely been a huge theme in my life and something I’ve always been interested in. It took me a long time to sort out my own issues with food. I went to see a therapist when I was 35 about food stuff, not because I had an eating disorder, but because I had a lot of anxiety and baggage around food. It was Kitty’s illness that radicalized me in a lot of ways, around eating disorders, and sensitized me to the kind of interchanges we have all the time about appearance and body image and food. So in a way, her illness was a catalyst for me.
One of the notions you try to dispel is that dysfunction in the family–around many things, including food–necessarily causes eating disorders. I struggled with an eating disorder in my teens and early twenties, and I come from a family where there is a lot of dysfunction around food, so that always made sense to me. But in the book, you talk a lot about the biology that seems to be behind it, and that just blew my mind. Do you think it could be a combination of factors?
What we know now is that there is a very strong biological and genetic component that makes some people more predisposed toward it. We know that because we can look in the brain through functional MRI scans, we can see what parts of the brain light up when we’re thinking and talking about certain things, and we can measure hormones. They haven’t identified a specific gene, but they’ve identified a chromosome where they think that stuff lives. I think where nurture comes in is to trigger this stuff.
How prevalent are eating disorders these days?
Well, you just told me you had an eating disorder. A photographer was just in here from a local paper who said she had anorexia when she was younger. I feel like everyone I talk to says either they had an eating disorder, or their sister or their best friend did. Yet, the statistics, at the very most generous estimates, say only two percent of the population has anorexia. I’m kind of baffled by that. It seems to me there’s some underreporting. My daughter was never diagnosed with anorexia by her psychiatrist. She called it Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, or EDNOS, although my daughter met all the criteria.
There seems to be a pretty broad spectrum people can fall into.
I think a lot of people fall in to a trap of “disordered eating.” They keep track of everything they eat, or they keep a very strict exercise regimen, where they feel they have to sort of “purge” off extra food. It’s pretty widespread, but you wouldn’t say they have diagnosable eating disorders.
Our culture is just really dysfunctional around food. I grew up in a Jewish family that was obsessed with food and weight. Anytime people see each other, the first thing they say is, “Oh, you look great–you lost some weight.” With a daughter with anorexia, I had to train and retrain them.
I grew up with a compulsive over-eater who was always alternatively starving and dropping a lot of weight. And then that person would also criticize my body, and tell me I was getting fat, and if you look back at pictures–no, I wasn’t. I can’t imagine that didn’t affect me. But you’re saying I must have also had the genetic, biological predisposition?
What happened there in your family didn’t cause you to have an eating disorder. Do things like that affect you? Sure, families affect each other. But I don’t think it can make you have an eating disorder. Actually, I’m pretty sure. Otherwise I would have had an eating disorder from the time I was five. And I don’t think I ever did, even though I had a lot of confusing feelings about food. If you don’t have the genetics for this stuff then you stand a better chance.
Some of the assumptions about eating disorders always made sense to me. I didn’t like that I was developing, physically. I feel like I was trying to arrest that. And I felt like I had control issues with my parents. All the “classic” stuff.
People in the field look at eating disorders as multi-factorial. It’s like cancer–you can’t point to one thing and say that causes it. But you can be sure that biology is in the mix. The best estimate we have is 80 percent. What does that mean? Are 80 percent of cases biological? I don’t’ know what that means.
Where it becomes important, though, is we have abysmal treatment and recovery rates, and many ineffective treatments. We may never be able to answer the question of what causes an eating disorder or what caused this eating disorder, but I think we can do much better in terms of helping people recover from them. Clearly what we’re doing now doesn’t work all that well.
What are some of the factors in making someone genetically predisposed?
There is a big correlation between eating disorders and anxiety disorders. If you look back into your family, you will probably be able to see that there are also anxiety issues. There is also a big correlation between OCD and eating disorders.
There’s also some evidence to suggest that some OCD begins with strep throat. There’s a lot of new information about PANDAS–Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococci. The scientific community hasn’t entirely pooh-poohed it, which makes me think there’s something to it. Your screwed-up family dynamics don’t cause an eating disorder. They can trigger it, and they can make it harder for you, creating a culture where it’s hard to recover.
You say it’s also passed genetically. Did other people in your family have eating disorders?
My mother’s sister was bulimic for like fifty years. I never put that word on it. I knew it from the time I was five or six. After every meal, it was like, oh, there goes Selma, into the bathroom, running the water. We knew what she was doing.
You also challenge the notion of anorexia being a disease limited to upper middle-class girls. You say that’s not true–that anorexia doesn’t discriminate.
Every expert I’ve spoken to says you find it across the board. I suspect that it is diagnosed more in richer families and treated more.
On your blog, you are also challenging a lot of accepted notions about the so-called childhood obesity epidemic, which you say is over-blown.
Becoming sensitized and radicalized and delving into the science of metabolism and eating disorders because of my daughter’s illness led me to reading a lot and researching about the other end of the spectrum. I thought of myself as a fat kid. But when I look back at pictures, I wasn’t fat at all–I was perfectly normal. I know a lot about the stigma that can come from being called fat. I just think our whole culture is like, drunk. They’ve all drunk the Kool-Aid on “Thin Is Always Better.” Someone like the first lady, who definitely has good intentions, and loves children, seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid.
There’s a lot of moralizing around weight and food. People get to feel very good about themselves because they skipped snack today, and here you are telling them, maybe they’re not so good. And maybe restricting themselves—and their kids—like that is actually bad. And they don’t want to hear it.
Why is it a moral issue? I think of all [because of] this moral value around being “heart healthy.” But when it comes right down to it, it’s just about your plumbing. Either your plumbing is clogged and it needs some Drain-O, or it’s not.
I’ve lost friends over this whole eating thing. With one in particular, we stopped being friends because we couldn’t talk about this stuff. She didn’t want to know more about it. She just wanted to have her prejudices and opinions and not have to learn anything else.
In the epilogue you mention Kitty’s relapse. There’s not this big happy ending where she’s perfectly recovered. But you remain determined to continue with the Maudsley Family Based Therapy, and also seem somewhat optimistic.
One of the myths I want to dispel is that it has to be true that anorexia never goes away. I believe some people can recover from this and walk away and not be consumed on any level by it. My deepest wish is that Kitty can recover and walk away from this. On the other hand, we all have our demons that we carry around.
And finally, Harriet Brown, what’s your Six-Word Memoir?
I write so I’m not alone.
BUY Brave Girl Eating.
VISIT Harriet Brown’s website.
FOLLOW Brown on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:aadb2671-2edf-41cb-8b0c-99dc7be47ace> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2010/08/17/interview-harriet-brown-author-of-brave-girl-eating/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978995 | 3,155 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Watermarks are commonly used by photographers these days to protect their work from unauthorized use and distribution. However, they’re not very popular among photo viewers, since they do a lot to detract from the content of the photographs. Photographer Kip Praslowicz was thinking about this earlier this week, and writes,
[...] it seems like many amateur [photographers] spend more time putting elaborate watermarks on their images than they do making images worth stealing [...] I don’t really recall ever seeing the photographs of famous art photographers with a gaudy watermark.
He then decided to see what famous photographs would look like if the photographers behind them had slapped obnoxious watermarks onto them. | <urn:uuid:c22cfc12-1f38-4be3-b3af-4975f8ae700c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://petapixel.com/tag/obnoxious/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972639 | 142 | 1.5 | 2 |
Tennessee's unemployment rate jumped another 0.8 percent in May to 10.7 percent, its highest point since late 1983.
"We are continuing to outpace the national unemployment rate,” said Labor Commissioner James Neeley. “Our goods-producing sector, which includes manufacturing and construction, only makes up about 16 percent of Tennessee’s economy. Those industries, however, have seen more than half of the total job losses in the past year.”
The jobless rate in Tennessee was 6.2 percent in May 2008 and hit 9 percent as recently as February. During May, the seasonal leisure/hospitality sector and administrative, support and service companies added about 10,000 jobs combined, but that wasn't anywhere near enough to stop the state's jobless rate from rising well above the national number.
To read the state's release, click here. | <urn:uuid:72345a57-3808-435f-a2a1-9be2d55d145f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nashvillepost.com/news/2009/6/18/state_jobless_rate_hurdles_10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975357 | 181 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Oncology Drug Shortage Rising
Rumors of an impending shortage also may cause stockpiling (ie, providers buy drugs in excess of current patient demand) before supplies diminish. Or, generic drugs may be discontinued in favor of producing more profitable cancer drugs. The FDA does not have the authority to require a company to continue manufacturing generic drugs. Some of the oncology-related drugs reported to be currently in shortest supply include bleomycin, cisplatin, doxorubicin, etoposide and leucovorin. For additional information and a full list of drug shortages, see the FDA and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Web sites.
Impacts of the Shortage
Negative effects of the chemotherapy drug shortage tend to vary by facility type, with infusion centers and small hospitals suffering more than health systems and hospitals with large volumes. Smaller infusion centers typically have less buying power and lack the advantage of sharing resources across multiple sites. Oncology practitioners have faced a range of challenges in dealing with the chemotherapy drug shortage, including:
- Lack of suitable alternative drugs—Although alternative drugs can be used during a shortage, alternative drugs are not always available. In a 2010 survey by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), 80% of respondents reported difficulty obtaining a suitable alternative product.
- Higher cost of alternative drugs—Alternative drugs are often more expensive than their generic alternatives, but reimbursement levels do not always reflect cost. For instance, the alternative for leucovorin, Fusilev™, may cost a medical oncology practice 10 times more, yet Medicare reimbursement is only 65% of this cost. In many cases, practices have absorbed the additional cost, although this is not a sustainable practice.
- Higher rates of errors and adverse outcomes—Alternative drug use can increase the potential for medical and dosing errors. In the ISMP survey, 1 in 4 respondents reported medication or dosing errors, 1 in 5 reported adverse patient outcomes and 1 in 3 reported near misses in the past year due to the current drug shortage.
- Drug administration to patients based on clinical need and/or outcome—Dr Michael Neuss, former chair of the ASCO, says it is not uncommon for patients to be prioritized based on whether or not administration of a chemotherapy drug could be curative. He says providers make such decisions every day based on the available drugs.
- Delayed patient treatments—As a result of the shortage, some patients at affected organizations have had to delay or change their treatment protocols based on available drugs.
- Primary Care Docs Average More Hospital Revenue Than Specialists
- 69% of Employers Plan to Offer Healthcare Coverage After 2014
- Building a Better Healthcare Board
- How Chargemaster Data May Affect Hospital Revenue
- Q&A: Catholic Health Initiatives' New Senior VP for Capital Finance
- Hospital Pricing Irks Nurses; More Jobs, Less Pay
- CMS Seeks to 'Rapidly Reduce' Medicare Spending with $1B in Grants
- Quiet ORs Better for Patient Safety
- CMS Releases Hospital Pricing Data
- ED Physicians Key to Half of Hospital Admissions | <urn:uuid:e4f60f36-5203-4e11-9113-7874fb23eca7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/page-2/HOM-262817/Oncology-Drug-Shortage-Rising | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920046 | 653 | 2.03125 | 2 |
The Phorm storm in Britain has made the headlines a couple of times. The question on whether the system is even legal has gotten FIPR demanding the Home Office to retract certain comments they made where they suggest Phorm is actually legal. FIPR has made a detailed legal analysis that suggests quite the contrary.
Last month, we here at ZeroPaid reported on the developments over Phorm. We followed up the report with another report earlier this month which points to Richard Clayton saying that Phorm is illegal, yet despite the comments, Phorm continued to be tested in the market. The, what seemed to be, cold shoulder from regulators didn’t deter an additional commentary and call from the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) which suggests that the Home Office is misleadingly suggesting that Phorm is legal and didn’t violate the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 (or RIPA).
The Open Rights Group points us to a copy of the in-depth legal analysis sent to the Home Office recently. Among other things, the analysis states that such technology could develope quite a rap sheet in Britain:
“This paper concludes that deployment by an ISP of the Phorm architecture will
involve the following illegalities (for which ISPs will be primarily liable and for
which Phorm Inc will be liable as an inciter):
- interception of communications, an offence contrary to section 1 of the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
- fraud, an offence contrary to section 1 of the Fraud Act 2006
- unlawful processing of sensitive personal data, contrary to the Data
Protection Act 1998
- risks of committing civil wrongs actionable at the suit of website owners
such as the Bank of England.”
It might be quite obvious, but probably one of the last things any company wants to do is open oneself up to litigation by a major bank – especially when the whole issue revolves around privacy. Here’s some more highlights:
Phorm’s public announcements go to great length to emphasise the anonymity it claims for its processes. These processes are embodied in software which is not open to inspection, either by the public or by the ISPs who will run the software, and
Phorm can in any case change the software whenever it wishes without anyone’s knowledge. Phorm’s claims cannot therefore be verified, and rest entirely on placing trust in Phorm.
Common sense apart, RIPA s16 happens to put the matter beyond doubt. It
deals with bulk interception authorised by the Secretary of State by warrant. In such cases, for the protection of those whose communications are caught up in bulk interception, it is laid down that only part of the material, as specified by a separate certificate, may actually be inspected. (It is assumed to be filtered from the bulk by technical means.) RIPA s16 deals with this by requiring that “the intercepted material is read, looked at or listened to by the persons to whom it becomes available by virtue of the warrant to the extent only that” certain conditions are satisfied. Material is thus treated as having been intercepted, and as having been made available to its interceptors, before any processing is applied to
determine whether it is in fact to be inspected by any individual. From this it is perfectly clear that in the Phorm system, the pages that it scans have been made available, and have been intercepted, before they are subsequently discarded.
The process in all cases is as described in Clayton at 46 onwards. In the case of searches, the search terms sent by the user to a search engine are intercepted and analysed by the ISP using the Phorm system. This requires the consent of the provider of the search engine. Search engine providers derive revenue from advertisements based on their users’ searches and on their users’ selection from among search results, and they are in competition with Phorm for advertising revenues based on their customers’ activities. There is not the slightest basis for supposing that they consent to the interception of their customers’ communications with them, expressly or by implication, nor has any such basis
been suggested. (The HO Note entirely overlooks this significant point.)
There are a number of other significant points being made in this piece including a case where there was actually a complaint against Phorm. When the matter was referred to the Home Office, the Home Office actually responded saying that the matter wasn’t their responsibility (paragraph 9). Basically, the entire paper shoots down Home Office’s insinuation that Phorm is legal on just about every front. One might find the Home Office to be funny by the time they are done reading the analysis.
The original note by the Home Office was posted in full last month. Among other things, the Home Office said:
18. It is arguable that a targeted online advertising service can be “connected with the provision or operation of [the ISP] service”. The RIPA explanatory notes for section 3(3) state: “Subsection (3) authorises interception where it takes place for the purposes of providing or operating a postal or telecommunications service, or where any enactment relating to the use of a service is to be enforced. This might occur, for example, where the postal provider needs to open a postal item to determine the address of the sender because the recipient’s address is unknown.”
19. Examples of section 3(3) interception, very relevant to the provision of internet services, would include the examination of e-mail messages for the purposes of filtering or blocking spam, or filtering web pages which provide a service tailored to a specific cultural or religious market, and which takes place with user’s consent whereby the user consents not to receive the filtered or blocked spam or consents (actively seeks) a service blocking
culturally inappropriate material. The provision of targeted online advertising with the user’s consent where the user is seeking an enhanced experience and the targeted advertising service provides that.
Of course, anyone would consider an extra layer of ads sent from their ISP that they pay in the first place to be an “enhanced experience” much like e-mail filters. This is just like anti-spam filters which, if our memory serves us correctly, blocks unsolicited advertisements in the first place. Sarcasm aside, here’s a few more highlights from the Home Office e-mail:
21. Where targeted online advertising is determined and delivered to a user’s browser as a consequence of a proxy server monitoring a communication to download a web page, there may be monitoring of a communication in the course of its transmission. Consent of the ISPs’ user and web page host would make that interception clearly lawful. The ISPs’ users’ consent can be obtained expressly by acceptance of suitable terms and conditions for the ISP service. The implied consent of a web page host (as indicated in paragraph 15 above) may stand in the absence of any specific express
22. Targeted online advertising undertaken with the highest regard to the respect for the privacy of ISPs’ users and the protection of their personal data, and with the ISPs’ users consent, expressed appropriately, is a legitimate business activity. The purpose of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of RIPA is not to inhibit legitimate business practice particularly in the telecommunications sector. Where advertising services meet those high
standards, it would not be in the public interest to criminalise such services or for their provision to be interpreted as criminal conduct. The section 1 offence is not something that should inhibit the development and provision of legitimate business activity to provide targeted online advertising to the users of ISP services.
One may wonder how scary this can be when an organization like this says right on their home page, “Working together to protect the public”
The original Richard Clayton analysis can be found here. The Open Rights Group notes:
FIPR want the Home Office to withdraw informal advice they issued in February, which FIPR say wrongly concluded the system is lawful, creating “an obstacle to the just enforcement of the law”. At the public meeting attended by Phorm and their critics last week, Simon Davies of 80/20 Thinking Ltd identified the legality of Phorm under RIPA as a legitimate issue, but urged participants not to get bogged down in a question which, in the end, can only be decided in a court of law. Hopefully, FIPR’s legal analysis will bring UK citizens one step closer to an answer to the question “Is Phorm legal?”. As Richard Clayton observes:
The Home Office’s superficial analysis said that the system would be lawful. Given their batting average at the High Court, relying upon their opinion was always unwise
digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/FIPR_Phones_Home_to_Say_that_Phorm_is_Actually_Illegal’; | <urn:uuid:dfd26635-bd17-45fe-9375-93856f866e21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9431/britain__fipr_phones_home_to_say_that_phorm_is_actually_illegal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954197 | 1,846 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Describing Ann Coulter as an “enemy” to the pursuit of an intellectual brand of conservatism, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George F. Will delivered an impassioned defense of the right in America Thursday afternoon.
Sponsored by the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program, the talk was titled “Up From Liberalism, Yet Again” and drew hearty applause from the audience, which included roughly 150 students, professors and community members in Linsly-Chittenden Hall. Will, whose biweekly column runs in The Washington Post and is syndicated in about 400 publications throughout the country, argued for conservative ideology and sought to inspire young conservatives in the audience. During his talk, Will advocated for a rational brand of conservatism founded in federalist virtues dating to the country’s founding.
“American politics today is very much a continuation of the argument that the founders had,” Will said. “The story of American politics today is the rivalry of two Princetonians.”
Will framed the major tension in American politics as one between James Madison, the Federalist president and a Princeton alumnus, who sought to prevent majority tyranny by ensuring government is made up of an unstable amalgamation of minority parties, and Woodrow Wilson, the progressive president and former leader of Princeton University, who laid the foundation for modern progressivism through his belief in a more unified government for a more unified society.
The nation is embroiled in a debate over whether “government exists with limited powers to secure our rights” or whether it has huge powers “to metastasize and intervene in every facet of life,” Will said.
“When you hear it said that government is dysfunctional, the system that Madison designed is working,” Will said. “The American system is designed to make people wait until concurrent majorities [exist] because we want a government safe in securing our rights.”
Often described as the poet laureate of the conservative movement, Will pushed his audience to consider the role government plays in shaping the habits, customs and dispositions of its citizens.
The advent of new technology, from the telegraph to the television and Internet, has drastically changed the game of politics, Will said. Arguing that academia and the media are on the side of the liberals, Will expressed confidence that conservatives will be able to limit government because of the “arithmetic,” or the lack of fiscal sustainability of government programs like Social Security.
But Will did not shirk from the challenges facing the conservative movement, including appealing to a wider subset of voters.
Students interviewed said they enjoyed Will’s talk and found his message resonant.
Konrad Coutinho ’13 said he appreciated that Will shared his belief that the country’s founders intended Washington to encounter its modern dysfunction, adding that such arguments are generally unpopular on campus.
Carolyn Hansen ’16, a Buckley Program fellow, said she thinks Will’s rational ideals appeal to Yale’s conservatives.
“He is an example of what most conservatives at Yale are striving for,” she said.
Will has been syndicated since 1974. | <urn:uuid:4c98bb73-ebf0-4d62-81d3-a19d24adb7a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/01/18/george-will-advocates-for-rational-conservatism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958155 | 652 | 1.992188 | 2 |
The Greentown Grapevine – 2006-08, 13:08 - Page 1
|Previous||1 of 16||Next|
Celebrating Our 13th Year? Volume 13, Issue 8 uawf; lrthepex&? fi August 2006 School Days-, School Days, the Way It Really Was With historical representa-tions on television, movies, books, and living history museums, the question may sometimes arise, “ Was it really like that, or have we romanticized the past to the point that it is hard to separate fact from fantasy?” This is where original objects, photographs, and documents bring us face to face with the past and bring us closer to experiencing what our parents, grandparents, and beyond might have experienced. The Greentown Historical Society currently has an exhibit in the History Center at 103 East Main Street which will open a window to the visitor into the lives of students of Jackson, Union, Greentown, and Eastern schools. They will also learn of the many one-room schools which pre- date the township schools. The exhibit, Readin ’, ‘ Ritin ’, ‘ Rithmetic - And Beyond: History ofEducation in Eastern Howard County, contains school and class pictures, yearbooks, commencement announcements, trophies, a t h l e t i c p i c t u r e s a n d memorabilia, senior sweaters, jackets and cords, an orchestra cape, cheerleader megaphone, and much more. There is a photo taken in Jackson School showing a stove in the middle of the room. One photo which is particularly interesting is of the 1910 Greentown High School Commencement, May 6, 1910, at the Majestic Opera House in Greentown. The exhibit consists of artifacts donated to the G. H. S. as well as items on loan. The visitor to the exhibit is introdbced to the exhibit theme with a short account of the earliest schools in 1845 in what was known as Green Township, later to be divided in 1853 into Liberty, Jackson and Union Townships. These subscription scho- ols were held for a few short winterweeks in the homes of the early settlers: in the Union Twp. home of Mrs. Charles P. Baldwin; in Liberty Twp., with Miss Lillis Cook; and in Jackson Twp., in the log cabin of William Braden. In 1853 when Green Twp. was divided into 3 different townships, each township was permitted by law to levy a special school tax to build public schools, known for many years as common schools, to serve the children of township patrons. Each school served 4 square miles. The eastern part of Howard County was generously sprinkled with many so- called one- room schools, some of which lasted into the early part of the twentieth century. While the evidence of most of these first public schools has disappeared, their locations are evident on maps of the times. The official ledger of Liberty Township Board of Trustees which begins its records in the spring of 1853 contains detailed descriptions of the specifications and the builders of their schools. This exhibit will be open to the public through Dec. 17 from I : 00 to 4: OO p. m. on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, and extended summer open hours on Monday until 7: OO p. m. First Day of School for Eastern Students Wednesday August 16 “ Senior Cords” were a tradition for many high school seniors during the 1950’ s and 1960’ s and perhaps longer. The painted cords above were Bonnie Schaaf‘ s, Pam Powell’s and Gerald Cheek’s. I photo by Rachel Jenkins Grapevine Loses a Founder - Greentown Loses a Fine Citizen Tom Manderfield 1947- 2006 When the first meetings were which led to the formation of ield which led to the formation the Greentown Historical ) f the Greentown Area Society, Tom was there. He tesidential Association, which became a Charter member and iltimately began publishing the served on the Board of Trustees ; reentown Grapevine, Tom until his death, at which time he vlanderfield was there. When was Secretary. He was always t was suggested that the an eager volunteer for any task ; rapevine include a section of which needed doing. eprints of news from past Tom became a Greentown sues of the Howard County Lion. As with all his other ( ews, Tom volunteered to do endeavors, he always did his he research and submit the share and more. He could be : opy. He was the one who gave found during the fair doing duty h at page t h e n am e, on parking, night security, and ‘ Flashbacks”. He wrote the in the food building. He : lashbacks for several years. worked at all the other Lioris de remained an officer of the projects as wel! and attended all ; reentown Area Residential meetings possible. issociation. Greentown has lost a good citizen and many have lost a : xploratory meeting was held valued friend. Likewise, when the first Eastern School Registration Dates and Times Thursday, August 3 8: 30 a. m. - 11: 30 a. m. & 1: OO p. m. - 3: OO p. m. Friday, August 4 8: 30 a. m. - 11: 30 a. m. & 1: 00 p. m. - 3: OO p. m. Monday, August 7 12: OO Noon - 6: OO p. m. Eastern Elementary Book Fees 2006 - 2007 Kindergarten $ 37.00 1st Grade $ 95.00 2nd Grade $ 87.00 3rd Grade $ 95.00 4th Grade $ 95.00 5th Grade $ 99.00 6th Grade $ 92.00 Jr/ Sr High School Fees will be determined by the course selection of each student.
|Title||The Greentown Grapevine – 2006-08, 13:08|
|Subject, Local||Greentown, Howard County (Ind.)|
|Technical Metadata||Digital images captured by Imaging Office Systems 2008|
|Local Item ID||Greentown History Center – newspaper collection|
|Usage Statement||The Greentown Area Residential Association has granted permission to the Kokomo-Howard County Public Library and the Greentown Historical Society to copy any and all issues of the Greentown Grapevine. Permission granted to view and print items from this digital collection for personal use, study, research, or classroom teaching.|
|Publisher||Greentown Area Residential Association, 1993-|
Local News depicting eastern Howard County in Indiana.
Headlines: School Days, School Days, the Way It Really Was; Grapevine Loses Founder-Greentown Loses a Fine Citizen
|Contributors||Kokomo-Howard County Public Library; Greentown Historical Society|
|Source||Original newspaper: The Greentown Grapevine, August 2006, Volume 13, Issue 08|
|Transcript||[PDFs are fully searchable]| | <urn:uuid:f61dcef4-31ab-4a79-bd86-454408f670cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cdm16066.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p1819coll9/id/3219/rec/17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953224 | 1,478 | 1.765625 | 2 |
of extensive data has led eminent climatologists such as Dr. James
Hansen of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration to state
that 2010 is set to become the hottest year in recorded history.
around the world are reflecting this same movement, with recent
prolonged droughts and excessive heat in China and India, along with
more recent record-setting highs in Ukraine and Belarus.
where peat and forest fires continue to burn, the head of the Russian
Meteorological Center stated that the country is enduring its longest
heat wave in a millennium.
Meanwhile, high temperatures in
Japan’s Tokyo Bay were found to have caused the death of up to 80% of
its baby-neck clams, as human lives were also lost in the USA’s Midwest
and South during early August, where the National Climatic Data Center
reported more than 200 record temperatures in the state of Mississippi
Experts warn that warmer waters resulting from these heat
waves may also increase hurricanes. Professor Michael Mann, a noted
climatologist at Pennsylvania State University in the USA, has explained
that such global warming-induced temperatures would become ever more
damaging over time, leading to widespread chaos as nations suffer from
the upheaval caused by their damaging effects.
Dr. Hansen, Professor Mann and all other scientists and officials
working to increase our understanding of the perilous tolls of climate
Let us quickly step in unison toward actions that restore
the safety of our shared planetary home. During an October 2009
videoconference in Indonesia, Supreme Master Ching Hai addressed the
increasing urgency of human-caused global warming, describing at the
same time the most effective measure to counteract its dangers.
Supreme Master Ching Hai:
The atmospheric temperatures are rising so steeply that we do not have
much time left to change. And that is just what has been predicted up to
date. http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2010/08/04/Heat-wave-kills-clams-crabs-in-Japan/UPI-65761280934293/http://abcnews.go.com/WN/deadly-heat-wave-sweeping-midwest-southeast-bringing-triple/story?id=11326471http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/04/weather.heat/index.html#fbid=yEdbQYgywkT&wom=falsehttp://www.examiner.com/x-5181-Jackson-Weather-Examiner~y2010m8d9-Recent-heat-wave-breaks-or-ties-hundreds-of-temperature-records-from-morning-lows-to-afternoon-highshttp://theweek.com/article/index/205871/the-2010-heat-wave-5-excruciating-climate-records http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/heat-wave-to-grip-u-s-midwest-states-through-the-weekend-forecasters-say.htmlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/hi/uk_reviews/newsid_8879000/8879074.stm
The effects of climate change can be seen in so many
ways, with increased flooding, droughts, fires and even earthquakes
everywhere in the world. How do we stop these alarming changes ?
greenhouse gases released from the animals, from their waste,
agricultural runoff, and the activities related to these massive
operations have been identified as the primary, the number one cause of
We have to halt the meat consumption and the
livestock raising. Instead, we should choose to buy organic vegetable
and fruit products to save our lives and those of our families, save the
animals and the planet. | <urn:uuid:7a3fdf59-58d4-4ce1-9128-5a9435e44d62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://suprememastertv.com/pt/extreme-weather/?wr_id=2057&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903262 | 838 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Mumbai, India (CNN) -- Misogyny is so deeply rooted in India's collective psychology that even the president's son -- in this case, Congress Parliament member Abhijit Mukherjee -- could entangle himself with a remark against women protesting gang rape.
He called them "dented and painted women" who go to discos, have little connection with ground realities and are making candlelight vigils fashionable.
After an enormous backlash, he apologized and retracted his comments, but many are not satisfied and want his resignation
Misogyny has long permeated our textbooks, our pedagogy and our parenting. In fact, it runs so deep that it reflects itself even in our linguistics. The Hindi phrase most commonly used to describe sexual violence or rape against women is "izzat lootna," which means "to steal the honor of." Another Hindi word used for rape, "balatkar" (or "bad act"), is considered so erudite and technical that it's barely ever used. (Its English equivalent would be "coitus" instead of "sex.")
So, for the most part, we're stuck with "izzat lootna" -- and the necessary question: Why should a rapist be given so much credit? Rape is a criminal act of force and perverse subjugation. When a woman is raped, her most fundamental rights as a human being are violated.
Yet, she is just as honorable as she ever was. Honor cannot be stolen. It can only be surrendered. Surely in the act of rape, it is the perpetrator, not the victim, who surrenders honor.
The brave girl from Delhi died with her honor intact. Her rapists will live in ignominy.
Unfortunately, in India rape is inextricably linked by men -- and women -- to shame: the ultimate desecration. Many victims are murdered by their rapists or choose to commit suicide. It is also not uncommon for the parents of rape victims to kill themselves. Thus, most victims don't speak up about what happened to them, lest their families be ostracized, lest they never find a husband or be shunned by their friends.
About 10 months ago, I was offered a role of a young, urban woman who gets gang raped. The film explores how she chooses to deal with what happens to her. It is a very powerful script, and most of me wanted to accept the role immediately. But a gnawing part of me worried about how I'd be perceived by the general public were I to perform this role.
Female sexuality in Hindi cinema is extremely fraught, especially because audiences seem unable to comprehend the distinction between what a role demands from an actor and that person's conduct offscreen.
In the script the woman is attractive, confident and self aware; she'd had several consensual relationships with men and enjoyed her sexuality. Truth be told, her character is not far from me in real life. Still, in patriarchal, judgmental, misogynistic Indian society, these are labels most women are afraid to carry publicly. On top of this, the character gets raped.
I was afraid to accept the role. Afraid of whether audiences and the media would think I was promiscuous, desecrated. Embarrassed at the prospect of saying I'm doing a film in which I get raped, lest aspersions be cast on my character.
There lay, in my own mind, the seeds of the same misogyny that makes Mr. Mukherjee's remarks in the wake of the student's gang rape so deplorable. Seeds I had to uproot at once. I accepted the role.
At the time I was offered the film, rape wasn't getting the sort of national attention it is getting right now. It was still a topic that made most people uncomfortable, a topic that women and men alike were not able to freely express their opinions on.
That India's young public is today demanding so vocally the need to address the way we view sexuality and gender equality is empowering. People are sharing their own experiences of sexual violence on blogs and social media. Men and women are collaborating to seek legal reform, to challenge the societal perceptions they have been force-fed.
We now understand that to remain silent bystanders of a crime is to collude with the criminal. It is clear to me that as actors, filmmakers, artists, journalists, activists -- people who use a medium that has the potential to reach so many minds -- it is our responsibility to educate and mobilize, while we entertain.
For the last 10 months, as we have been rehearsing and shooting, the subject of rape has been my foremost preoccupation. Two points have struck me in particular: First, the director, who is also the scriptwriter, is male. His co-writer, the music composer, is also male. These two artists, Tarun Chopra and Daboo Malik, chose to champion a cause that almost always gets packaged as a women's issue.
In India, sexual violence is perpetrated almost entirely by men. Rapists are male. Should men not feel responsible then to prevent the occurrence of this crime? Shouldn't men be disturbed that their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters constantly feel unsafe or feel they have to dress and behave in a particular way to avoid getting raped? Isn't it time men educated other men about consent?
Secondly, and this point took me longer to acknowledge, women are as guilty as men for the mindset that breeds the crime. We kill our own infant daughters, we immolate our sons' wives if they bear female children, we disapprove of women who make an effort to be attractive -- and doubt their character. We still look at marriage as if it's the purpose for which we were born.
But misogyny is no longer misogyny when expressed by a woman. It's self-loathing.
And while it is easy -- and justified -- for women to point fingers at men for the chauvinism in our society, don't we owe it to ourselves to look within?
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Leeza Mangaldas. | <urn:uuid:b1d37b35-c7a5-4cb6-8390-ab6407263b48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.co.uk/2012/12/30/world/asia/misogyny-india/index.html?iid=article_sidebar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973044 | 1,272 | 2.171875 | 2 |
|Scientology Video Channel||
WHAT IS THE FOUNDATION FOR A DRUG-FREE WORLD?
The Foundation for a Drug-Free World is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to the eradication of illicit drugs, their abuse and their attendant criminality. The Drug-Free World campaign is predicated on the statistically proven fact that wherever young people are presented with the unvarnished “truth about drugs,” illicit usage drops. Accordingly, the Drug-Free World information and prevention campaign features thirteen Truth About Drugs booklets—one for each of the most commonly abused substances. Campaign materials also include an Educator’s Kit to provide teachers, law enforcement and community groups effective tools to help young people make the right decision. Incisive public service announcements and documentary videos complement The Truth About Drugs series—ninety minutes on every drug of choice from those who have been there.
To date, more than 700 million have heard or seen The Truth About Drugs message and wherever campaign materials have saturated populations, usage rates have dramatically dropped. | <urn:uuid:4af032e6-a8dd-4bab-b937-80fc67ac5fc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-in-society/foundation-for-a-drug-free-world.html?org=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910207 | 217 | 1.710938 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- After skirting the controversy for weeks, President Barack Obama is weighing in forcefully on the mosque near ground zero, saying a nation built on religious freedom must allow it.
"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," Obama told an intently listening crowd gathered at the White House Friday evening to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."
The White House had not previously taken a stand on the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic community center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Press secretary Robert Gibbs had insisted it was a local matter.
It was already much more than that, sparking debate around the country as top Republicans including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich announced their opposition. So did the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group.
Obama elevated it to a presidential issue Friday without equivocation.
While insisting that the place where the twin towers once stood was indeed "hallowed ground," Obama said that the proper way to honor it was to apply American values.
Harkening back to earlier times when the building of synagogues or Catholic churches also met with opposition, Obama said: "Time and again, the American people have demonstrated that we can work through these issues, and stay true to our core values and emerge stronger for it. So it must be and will be today."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has been a strong supporter of the mosque, welcomed Obama's words as a "clarion defense of the freedom of religion."
But some Republicans were quick to pounce.
"President Obama is wrong," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. "It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero."
Entering the highly charged election-year debate, Obama surely knew that his words would not only make headlines in the U.S. but be heard by Muslims worldwide. The president has made it a point to reach out to the global Muslim community, and the over 100 guests at Friday's dinner in the State Dining Room included ambassadors and officials from numerous nations where Islam is observed, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
While his pronouncement concerning the mosque might find favor in the Muslim world, Obama's stance runs counter to the opinions of the majority of Americans, according to polls. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week found that nearly 70 percent of Americans opposed the mosque plan while just 29 percent approved. A number of Democratic politicians have shied away from the controversy.
Opponents, including some Sept. 11 victims' relatives, see the prospect of a mosque so near the destroyed trade center as an insult to the memory of those killed by Islamic terrorists in the 2001 attacks. | <urn:uuid:e04680d8-9c12-479b-96c8-ad5ba8d7ac3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/13/obama-backs-mosque-near-ground-zero/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970999 | 649 | 1.859375 | 2 |
About Chief State School Officers
Chief State School Officers (CSSOs) lead statewide public education systems. Major leverage points include:
- Make improvements in the education workforce and promote teacher effectiveness to enhance quality in the classroom.
- Rather than just extract information, help states provide schools with meaningful information to help drive and guide improvement.
- Streamline common standards for what every child should be able to do upon graduation and common assessments that award demonstration of learning rather than fact-based.
- Engage education at different levels in the state, especially regarding transformation and turnaround of schools that historically have struggled.
- Leverage new types of funds and assets and use them collectively and strategically.
- In many states CSSOs are elected or appointed by state boards or governors, so electoral cycles heavily influence and impact CSSOs.
- From the most recent electoral cycle, there are currently 20 new CSSOs. Likewise, the political element to the positions causes high amounts and rates of turnover—the average CSSO tenure is less than three years.
Strategies to Engage Chief State School Officers
- To successfully engage CSSOs, networks must leverage their strengths. For example, networks frequently utilize new types of assets to do their work, which are often aligned to the vision and agenda of the CSSOs.
It is important for networks to know the political context of how CSSOs are chosen because this can determine their professional agenda and whom they are accountable to. By understanding the political context, networks can be more proactive about aligning their work with CSSO goals. | <urn:uuid:84b6e013-4caf-4856-8697-adff67a3956d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.statewideafterschoolnetworks.net/content/chief-state-school-officers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946141 | 315 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Switzerland's four nuclear power stations are fit to withstand a major earthquake and pose no threat to the population and the environment, inspectors said on Monday.
"The nuclear power stations can withstand an earthquake of the kind that occurs a maximum of every 10,000 years," said Georg Schwarz from the Federal Inspectorate for Nuclear Safety (IFSN) in a statement.
The central cooling system and the cooling of combustible element stocks would be guaranteed in the event of a quake, the body said, who assessed demonstrations carried out by station operators.
Operators have come under pressure from Swiss authorities to check their ability to cope with quakes following the Japanese Fukushima disaster.
A meltdown at the core of three of the plant's six reactors occurred after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and ensuing massive tsunami shut off the power supply and cooling system.
The Swiss parliament approved a phased exit from nuclear energy six months after what was the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Under current plans the country's five reactors will be put out of action by 2034.
Explore further: Solar and lithium ion car race winners announced | <urn:uuid:df39b6ae-0b2f-43c4-b663-d5213775d0eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news/2012-07-swiss-nuclear-safety-watchdog-stations.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949341 | 228 | 3.265625 | 3 |
PHILADELPHIA Hemispherx Biopharma announced Thursday that it filed a new drug application to market its treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports.
The company filed the application with the Food and Drug Administration for its experimental therapeutic called Ampligen. Hemispherx’s submission to the FDA includes clinical trial data involving more than 1,200 subjects and about 90,000 dose administrations.
The company said it has been developing the drug for more than 30 years, and was considered a potential treatment for AIDS and cancer before chronic fatigue. Initially, the drug was discovered and developed at Johns Hopkins University and it was later licensed to Hemispherx.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, CFS affects more than 1 million people in the United States. | <urn:uuid:12f35ce8-872b-4c8c-a45d-25e0fe8290f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugstorenews.com/print/21056 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963427 | 162 | 1.976563 | 2 |
In the Netherlands there are about 15.000 what we call ‘Private Initiatives’. People who, in most cases, have travelled to or did volunteer work in development countries and who started an NGO (Non-governmental organization) when they came back from their trip. The reason for doing this was that they saw with their own eyes that with small solutions often great things were possible. At the same time friends, family, neighbours and colleagues were willing to give a donations to the projects they started together with their partners in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
Me, myself; (Hi, my name is Margreet van der Pijl and I am the project manager at the 1%CLUB) I was also involved in a private initiative in Ghana. A couple of years ago we were extremely enthusiastic about the project we were planning to implement. We were building a factory where the local inhabitants of the village in which we were working could process cassava into “Gari” a local product used in many different dishes. We gathered money, hired a local contractor and started the project. After a couple of months the building was finished and the factory was ready to be used. In the beginning many cassavas were processed and many bags of Gari produced. But after a while the problem of distribution occurred: there was no system of profit sharing. As a result of this the farmers who were donating their cassava stopped doing this and the factory closed on a temporary notice.
Obviously we forgot to contribute to what is called “knowledge building of the local community”, a common point of critique towards “Private Initiatives” . The project collapsed as a result of this mistake as soon as we left the project location. The lack of local knowledge building and many other points of critique are mentioned in several research reports (Schulpen (2007), Kinsbergen(2010)). Issues on sustainability, a good project team and effectiveness are crucial for the success of a project. Organizing a project which include all these factors and which was thought through from different perspectives is what we understand as a project with high quality.
Who are we alone (as ‘experts’) to judge what the quality of a project is? Many people together know more than one (collective intelligence). That is why we invite the whole world to watch with us and together help innovative ideas to become successful. Welcome to the 1%CROWD.
In the next blogs I will share more with you on the subject of small-scale projects, quality standards and improvement of long-term results of these projects.
Picture by: Bernard Uyttendaele | <urn:uuid:49d98478-dd4a-4003-8554-9ed5d5613a71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onepercentblog.com/quality-improvement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98186 | 543 | 1.679688 | 2 |
So why does Sony deserve the higher score? Speaking to Edge Online, Greenpeace's toxics campaigner Iza Kruszewska cites a number of reasons, including high marks for "chemical management and take-back initiatives." Sony is the first company to introduce a take-back recycling program for all their products in the US, according to Kruszewska.
But what about all those reports which indicate each PS3 uses as much power as a fridge? Kruszewska admits they are true, but reminds us that "there is a wider picture to look at than just the power consumption of a console." He offers this in the PS3's defense: "If you look at the graphics processor that your PS3 or 360 will have, it's hard to put them into exactly the same category [as the Wii]. I mean, the PS3 is being used by universities globally when they have lots of number crunching to do because it's that powerful. We're talking about a 9-core processor here."
Well, there you have it, environmentally-conscious boys and girls -- now you know the PS3 is Mother Earth's console of choice. | <urn:uuid:308e34c1-2c54-4de3-be8d-1e58689c5ad0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/greenpeace-sony-is-significantly-greener-than-microsoft-or-ni/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958978 | 237 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Jan 17 2013
A battery beneath the cockpit of the Boeing 787 forced to make an emergency landing in Japan was swollen from overheating, a safety official said, as India joined the US and Japan in grounding the aircraft because of fire risk.
US officials and a Boeing engineer are due in Japan on Friday to assist with Tokyo's investigation into the All Nippon Airways 787 that landed in western Japan after a cockpit message showed battery problems and a burning smell was detected in the cockpit and cabin.
The main battery in an electrical room beneath the cockpit was swollen and had leaked electrolyte, safety inspector Hideyo Kosugi said on Japanese broadcaster NHK. Investigators found burn marks around the battery, though it was not thought to have caught fire.
The 787, known as the Dreamliner, is Boeing's newest jet, and the company is counting heavily on its success. Since its launch after delays of more than three years, the plane has been plagued by a series of problems including a battery fire and fuel leaks.
GS Yuasa, the maker of the lithium ion batteries used in the 787, said it was helping with the investigation but that the cause of the problem was unclear. "We still don't know if the problem is with the battery, the power source or the electronics system," said Yasushi Yamamoto, a spokesman for the company which is based in Kyoto, Japan. Thales, which makes the battery charging system, has not commented so far.
Air India's decision today to ground its fleet of six Boeing 787s, under orders from its aviation authorities, means that 36 of the 50 jets in use around the world are out of action. Japan's ANA, which has 17 787s and Japan Airlines, which has seven, voluntarily halted flights on Wednesday after the emergency landing but aviation authorities have made the grounding an official directive. Yasuo Ishii, an official with the aviation safety division of Japan's transport ministry, said Japan Airlines and ANA had been directed not to fly their 787s until questions over safety of the aircraft are resolved.
In Washington, the Federal Aviation Administration required US carriers to stop flying 787s until the batteries are demonstrated to be safe. United Airlines has six of the jets and is the only US carrier flying the model. Aviation authorities in other countries usually follow the lead of the country where the manufacturer is based.
Boeing said it was working round the clock with investigators. "We are confident the 787 is safe, and we stand behind its overall integrity," Jim McNerney, company chairman, president and chief executive said in a statement.
Japan's transport ministry described Wednesday's problem as a "serious incident" that could have led to an accident. It is unclear how long the Dreamliners will be grounded. ANA and JAL cancelled some flights or switched aircraft. Other airlines with 787s in their fleets include Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, LAN Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines.
Japan's transport ministry had already started a separate inspection on Monday of a 787 operated by Japan Airlines that leaked fuel in Tokyo and Boston, where the flight originated. A fire ignited on January 7 in the battery pack of an auxiliary power unit of an empty Japan Airlines 787 on the tarmac in Boston. It took firefighters 40 minutes to put out the blaze. A computer problem, a minor fuel leak and a cracked windscreen in a cockpit were also reported on a 787 in Japan this month. | <urn:uuid:825976ca-7ad7-40c5-96c6-fed770db8896> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.formbytimes.co.uk/news/formby-breaking-news/2013/01/17/787-battery-was-swollen-with-heat-66401-32621104/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972349 | 705 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Presented as a poster at InfoVis 2004, IEEE's annual conference for data visualization, this is a custom information browser for viewing a growing body of research about natural resource systems. Each reference, contributed by students at Stanford University, is represented by a square and connected to one or more resource systems. Clicking a resource system text label reveals references to which it is connected.
Line weight conveys strength of relationship. A heavy line indicates that a reference features a system. A medium weight line indicates that a reference includes a system. Finally, a thin line indicates that a reference merely mentions its connected resource system. References that feature a system are additionally treated with overlay text in orange.
When lines have been turned on for multiple systems, references belonging to the intersection of sets are highlighted. Resource system labels can also be dragged, allowing for a malleable composition. And finally, hovering over any orange overlay text will reveal meta information (title, URL, author, publication date, submitter, submitter comments) about the active reference. Clicking will open the reference in a new browser window.
Through a novel visual language, this responsive software offers an elegant, explorative way to see intersection and union relationships within data sets. This language can be seen as an alternative to Venn diagrams, with enhancements. | <urn:uuid:baf3e4d0-cbb2-4e98-bcf0-83d96263ac52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?id=526&index=526&domain= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916862 | 264 | 2.296875 | 2 |
|site search by freefind|
Whites Directory for Stratford in 1848
Stratford History index
History of Stratford in1848
Stratford, or Stratford Langthorne, 3 miles E by N of Whitechapel, is a populous and rapidly improving village, on the east side of the river Lea, opposite Bow, or Stratford le Bow, on the Middlesex side of the river, which is sometimes called Bow creek, and is navigable for barges etc. Stratford is the most populous of the three wards of West Ham parish, though it comprises only about 700 acres of land, exclusive of the building sites, roads etc. it is the first station in Essex on the eastern Counties Railway, from which several branches diverge here, as afterwards noticed. The celebrated Bow Bridge, which here crossed the river Lea by three arches, was said to have been the first arched stone bridge erected in this part of the country, but it has given place to a handsome bridge of one oblate arch, erected in 1838 -39 at the cost of £11,000. The ancient bridge had been so often repaired, that it was impossible to ascertain how much of the original structure remained. Stowe, Leland and other writers, are agreed in attributing its first erection to Matilda, or Maud, Queen of Henry I, who observing the ford to be dangerous, and being herself “well washed” in crossing it, caused this and another bridge, over a branch of the same river, to be erected, and also raised the highway with gravel between the two bridges, for the reparation of which she gave “Wiggen Mill” and certain manors to the abbess of barking. In 1135, Wm de Montfichet founded Stratford Abbey, and endowed it with the manor of West ham, etc, and procured for it a royal grant of the mill and manors, which had been given to the Barking Abbey for the reparation of the Bow Bridge, this abbey for Cistercian monks, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and All Saints and stood in the marshes, on a branch of the Leas, about three furlongs south west of West Ham church. Being much injured by the floods, the monks are said to have removed to a cell at Burgesteded, near Billericay till Richard I or II took the ground and abbey into his protection, and re-edifying it, brought the monks again to Stratford, “where amonge the marshes they re-inhabyted”, In 1307, the abbott was summoned to parliament; and in 1335, the Earl of Hereford & Essex was buried in the Abbey. At the dissolution, its revenues were valued at £652 3s 1d per annum, and its possessions were granted by Henry VIII, to Sir Peter Mewtis, or Meautis, who had been ambassador to the court of France. Henry Meautis Esq, a descendant of Sir Peter, alienated the site of the abbey, the abbey mills, and 240 acres of land, to Sir John Nulls, in 1663. Since that period, they have passed to various owners. Margaret, the unfortunate Countess of Salisbury, whom the remorseless Henry VIII caused to be beheaded in her old age, on the charge of high treason, appears to have resided in the abbey about the time of its suppression. The site of the abbey and precincts was moated and contained about 16 acres of land, now partly occupied by the extensive silk printing works of J Tucker esq. A brick gateway, and all the other remains of the monastic buildings, were taken down some years ago, except part of a boundary wall, When digging up most of the foundations, in the latter part of the last century, a small onyx seal, with the impression of a griffin, set in silver, was found. It was inscribed with the legend “Nuncio vobis guadium et salutem”, and was, perhaps, the priory seal of one of the abbots. The lords of the manors and the principal land owners in the parish of West Ham, are noticed at page 233. On the forest side of Stratford are the hamlets of Maryland Point and Sand Pits.
Stratford church (St John the Evangelist) is a large and handsome white brick structure, which was erected in 1833-4 at the cost of about £18,000, raised by subscriptions, and a loan advanced on the security of the rates, except £5,000 granted by the church commissioners. It is a district church for this populous ward of West Ham parish, and is in the style of architecture which prevailed in the 13th century, having a lofty nave with north and south aisles, and a chancel. Lighted by narrow pointed windows, and a tower at the west end, surmounted by a spire. In 1847, £600 was raised by subscription, and expended in the purchase of an organ; the erection of a richly carved recedos of Caen stone, extending the whole width of the chancel; in beautifying the altar window with painted glass, at the expense of the Misses Kilner, of Maryland Point, and Mrs Mann, of the Green. These, and other decorations in painted glass, were executed by Mr C Clutterbuck, a resident artist, and are much admired. The benefice is a perpetual curacy, now valued at £310 per annum, and in the patronage of the Bishop of London, and incumbency of the Rev Charles Nicoll MA. The church has many free sittings, and the pew rents, which amount to about £300 per annum, are subject to the payment of £20 a year to the church clerk, as well as to £10 a year to the clerk of Plaistow church. The Roman Catholic Chapel, at Stratford, was built in 1797, at the cost of £3750, and was repaired in 1847. It is a large cemented building, and will seat 1500 bearers. Attached to it are three schools, two in Stratford, and one at Wall-end. The Rev M H Smith is the priest. There is a Baptist chapel, in Chapel Street, erected in 1842, at a cost of £300; and another at Maryland Point, built in 1832. the Wesleyans have a chapel near Bow Bridge, built in 1840; and also a smaller one, lately purchased of the Unitarians/ In Great North Street are large National schools, built by subscription, in 1842, and attended by about 110 boys and 140 girls. The British school where about 160 boys are educated for 1d or 2d each per week, was built in 1836, at the cost of £900, raised by subscription, except £350 granted by government. Here is also an Infant school, superintended by a committee of ladies, and attended by 60 infants. There is a small National school at Forest gate, at which place, and at Stratford Marsh, small chapels of ease are about to be erected. Stratford Church Visiting Society, established about four years ago, is a charitable institution, which searches out the abodes of the destitute and ignorant, for the purpose of administering temporal relief and spiritual instruction. The district now comprises a population of about 5500 souls. A Mechanics Institution was established here in 1846, and was dissolved at the close of the same year; but efforts are now making for the establishment of a similar institution, with a reading room etc, in Rokeby House, which was once a large boarding school, and is now partly occupied by the assistant overseer of West Ham parish. The savings bank for this parish and neighbourhood is in the Broadway, and in November, 1847, it had deposits amounting to £16,417, belonging to 740 individuals, and 13 friendly 7 charitable societies. It is open on Monday evenings, from 8 to 10 o’clock, and Mr Septs Morriss in the actuary. The Gas & Water Works are noted at page 232. Before 1846, Stratford was supplied with gas from works at Old Ford, on the Middlesex side of the river Lea. Stratford has a share of the numerous charities of West ham parish, noticed at pages 234 to 236.
Improvements, Railways etc – The altered appearance of various parts of the country, produced by the formation of the railways, is nowhere more striking than in the neighbourhood of Stratford and West Ham, where buildings to the value of nearly half a million of money have been erected during the last three years. The Eastern Counties Railway Company built a new station at Stratford, in 1847, and adjacent to it they have just completed an extensive factory for making and repairing locomotive engines and carriages. This factory cost about £100,000 and occupies with its various yards about 20 acres; the engine room alone covering 1.25 acres. At this gigantic factory about 1000 men and boys are employed, and near it the company are now erecting the new “Hudson Town”, where they have already completed about 100 dwellings, and intend building 150 more, for the accommodation of their workmen and servants. The Eastern Counties Railway, which extends from London to Colchester, and the North eastern Line, which branches from it at Stratford, have been completed about six years. The “ Stratford. Eastern Counties, and Thames Junction Railway” which has recently been completed, extends southward to the Thames, and is two miles and five furlongs in length. It was projected by Mr G D Bidder, the engineer, who saw that the great public advantage would arise from the transmission of coals from the river Thames to Stratford, and thence by the above named railways into Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and various parts of Essex. The act for making this line was obtained in 1844, and passing over a flat district of marshes, it was made at much less expense than most other lines. It commences at Stratford Bridge Station, and terminates at a Pier, on the north bank of the Thames, near the mouth of the river Lea, where immense quantities of coal are taken from the vessels by machinery, worked by steam power. Near a large platform from whence the coal is screened and emptied into the railway carriages, are extensive coke ovens, where coke is prepared for the several lines and branches belonging to the Eastern Counties Railway Company. Barking Road Station, on this line, about half a mile north of the pier, and near the river Lea, is in Plaistow ward, and around it a new town, called Canning Town, is now being formed; the streets being laid out, and about 200 houses already erected. The neat cottages erected here have each a garden back and front, an entrance porch, a sitting room, kitchen, and wash house, fitted up with oven, biler etc; and three chambers, fitted up with handsome painted bedsteads. They possess that grand desideratum for the working classes, the maximum of comfort with the minimum of expense. Fro Barking Road Station, a railway has recently been extended along the marshes on the north side of the river Thames, eastward to North Woolwich, a distance of 2 ¾ miles, as noticed at page 229; and another line, called the Thames Junction Branch Railway, is now extended from it westward to the London Docks, crossing the river Lea, near the iron bridge, on the London and barking road. The formation of these branch railways has greatly increased the value of the marshes in West Ham parish, and in a few years, most of the land near the rivers and the rails, will be occupied by dwellings, manufactories etc. Already several large manufactories have been erected near Barking Road.
At the mouth of the creek of the Lea, or Bow Creek, is the Ship Building yard of Messrs C J Mare & Co, and their new and extensive iron works. The yard occupies about 4 acres of land, which a few years ago was waste marsh, but has now become, by means of draining and piling, one of the most valuable shipyards in or near London. The arrangement of the wood ship building ( for the former of which Messrs Mare & Co stand pre eminent), is admirable; whilst the intersecting of the spacious yard in various directions by railways, communicating with the several wharf cranes on a quay of 1050 feet, offers every facility for the landing and delivery of iron, timber, coals, stores etc, or for loading vessels and barges with the products of the works. At the present time (April 1848), there is upon the stocks a splendid Iron Steam Frigate of 1800 tons burthen, building for the Admiralty. It will be fitted up with a screw propeller. In the open yard are various building ships, capable of receiving the largest vessels; and among the buildings is an iron foundry, with four blast furnaces, capable of producing the larger description of castings. Here are also puddling and scrap iron furnaces, tilt and forging hammers, bar iron rollers, powerful bending and straightening rollers, punching presses, shearing machines, rivet presses, riveting machines etc, of the greatest power, worked by various steam engines. On the Middlesex side of the creek, the same spirited proprietors have another large yard, occupying 2 ¼ acres, and used principally for the construction of wooden vessels. This is well known as the Orchard Yard, and adjoining it the same firm has another yard, with the repairing dock and timber wharf, fronting the Thames. During the last eight years, Messrs Mare & Co have built more iron vessels than any other firm in the kingdom. The average number of hands employed by them is about 1200, but they have sometimes as many as 2000 at work. During the last eight years, they have built about 300 vessels, nearly all of them iron. They also have a large establishment in Wales, employed in building the celebrated tubular bridge across the Menai Straits, for the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company.
The Gutta Percha Works, at Stratford, were commenced in 1845 by the Messsrs Charles and Walter Hancock, of Brompton, the former of whom obtained several patents for manufacturing the novel material into various articles. In the following year, they commenced large works in Wharf road, City road, London, and soon afterwards a Company was formed for carrying on both establishments. At both establishments several powerful steam engines are in operation, and about 250 men are employed at the City road works, and 80 at Stratford. Gutta Percha, which is now extensively manufactures into lathe bands, shoe soles and heels, and into a great variety of articles both for use and ornament, was discovered by Dr Mongomerie, in 1842, at Singapore, where the trees from which it is extracted is principally prized by the natives for a fruit it bears, from which concrete oil is taken and used for food. The gutta percha tree is found also in Borneo and the Malay Peninsula. It is sometimes found six feet in diameter, but the average size is from three to four. The timber is useless for building purposes, and the gutta percha is not taken till the tree is cut down, when, fter lacerating the bark, it exudes from the surface of a milky whiteness, but on exposure to the atmosphere, it immediately coagulates into a hard substance, which the Malays use for handles of knives, forks etc, in preference to horn or wood. The articles into which it is and may be manufactured are of endless variety, and it is capable of being rolled out into fin sheets, which are used for lining ladies dresses, instead of oiled silk; but unless it can be extracted, like caoutchouc, without destroying the trees, the supply will be exhausted after the lapse of a few years. The Silk Print Woks at Stratford Abbey, belonging to J Tucker esq, occupy about ten acres, and give employment to about 500 men, women and boys. On the banks of the river Lea are also several large chemical works, distilleries, corn mills etc.
Best Broadband Providers in the UK - tested in October 2010.A very strong recommendation for a Gas Safe engineer in Essex is N R Heating who fixed several gas leaks in my home today. The work was very professional, totally committed to safety and quality; plus the price was very competitive. New boiler installation was also another brilliant service. A very high class recommendation for a Gas Safe Engineer in Hornchurch. And Last updated on: Wednesday, 29-Jul-2009 18:01:04 BST | <urn:uuid:dadd1b94-5de2-4e4c-bc68-6653abde437e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historyofstratford.co.uk/StratfordHistory/Stratford-1848.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976431 | 3,515 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Ericsson highlights technology's role in reshaping global community
- United Arab Emirates: Saturday, March 09 - 2013 at 11:17
- PRESS RELEASE
Ericsson recently took part in the BOLDtalks conference in Dubai, where the company's Networked Society expert Erik Kruse used the event as a platform to highlight connectivity technology's potential to solve the world's most pressing issues concerning society, economy and education.
Kruse highlighted the essential role of ICT as a powerful global force to tackle global challenges related to a growing global population and the expansion of the world's cities.
Kruse went on to showcase how connectivity has changed communities, with a number of examples ranging from a small business owner in Rwanda, Africa - who expanded his reach to new customers and markets using mobile-broadband technology - to a teenager in Sweden who interacts with four media devices simultaneously to fulfill his media-consumption needs.
According to Kruse, the applications people use in different parts of the world vary, but the broad range on offer opens up new opportunities for everybody to be creative, establish new business models and reach out to more people.
"Today's digital natives have very high expectations, and an increased demand to be connected everywhere and at all times. Innovation and open minds will fuel the path to a Networked Society and the benefits it will bring to all of us," said Kruse. "People are using connectivity to create new services that my generation didn't think of," Kruse added.
The importance of mobile connectivity was further emphasized by Refugees United Co-founder Christopher Mikkelsen, who was also a speaker at the event.
"What we have been able to achieve as an organization through the power of connectivity is remarkable," Mikkelsen said. "In four short years we have been able to unite many people with displaced loved ones, and it's a perfect example of innovation, the human spirit and technology coming together to solve a critical humanitarian issue," Mikkelsen added.
Refugees United is an independent organization that has developed a mobile platform that helps displaced people reconnect with their families. Using connectivity, and with the help of partners such as Ericsson, this platform allows people to find with missing loved ones using mobile phones.
Articles in this section are primarily provided directly by the companies appearing or PR agencies which are solely responsible for the content. The companies concerned may use the above content on their respective web sites provided they link back to http://www.ameinfo.com
Any opinions, advice, statements, offers or other information expressed in this section of the AMEinfo.com Web site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of AME Info FZ LLC / 4C. AME Info FZ LLC / 4C is not responsible or liable for the content, accuracy or reliability of any material, advice, opinion or statement in this section of the AMEinfo.com Web site. | <urn:uuid:5036fe0d-2caf-4a25-b91c-4ed932a71a9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ameinfo.com/ericsson-highlights-technologys-role-reshaping-global-332591 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951698 | 599 | 1.601563 | 2 |
It took twenty years and $19 billion. But at 4pm today, I’m told, the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board will announce its recommendation to go ahead with “full rate production” of the once star-crossed, accident-prone Osprey V-22 tiltrotor craft.
The fate of the hybrid aircraft has been very much in question, ever since a pair of Ospreys crashed in 2000, killing 23. This decision “gets the program off probation. It can’t be summarily cancelled now,” a source close to the program says.
It’s not exactly clear how many of the hybrid aircraft will eventually be manufactured. The President proposed budget calls for 458 Ospreys to be built into the next decade, starting with 13 next fiscal year. The Marines are ultimately scheduled to get 360 aircraft, Special Operations Command are supposed to have 50, and the Navy is slated to have 48. “Pentagon budget documents show the cost of V-22s at about $100 million each,” the Star-Telegram notes. Osprey makers Bell Helicopter say the figure is more like “$72 million and headed down.“
Those prices and those plans could change in the years to come, of course. But this much is set: A squadron of pilots starts training on the V-22 next week. And an operational squadron of nine Ospreys will be ready to fly out of North Carolina’s Marine Corps Air Station New River by 2007.
THERE’S MORE: Inside Defense has the report from the Pentagon’s testing office, which gave the thumbs-up to the V-22.
AND MORE: The watchdogs at the Project on Government Oversight still aren’t convinced. “It cant autorotate to a safe landing, has no defensive gun, lacks the ability to perform quick evasive combat maneuvers under fire, and cant descend too quickly or it will go into a dangerous roll,” they say.
AND MORE: The Osprey’s final two crashes were due to a mysterious aeronautical phenomenon known as “vortex ring state.” after re-reading Wired’s Osprey story, I can’t say I feel too good about how that’s been dealt with.
Lead test pilot Tom MacDonald of Boeing was assigned the VRS problem. “It was this mystery area,” he says. “So little research had been done on it. People wondered: Would it swallow planes alive?“
MacDonald and the engineers worked out a system. He’d take the plane to 10,000 feet, putting enough air between him and the ground so he’d be able to recover if he got into trouble. Then he’d pull the nacelles back until they were almost vertical, in helicopter conformation, slow his forward airspeed, and try to induce VRS.
“We’d fly all day long,” says Gross, copilot on a few of the test runs. “We’d fall 2,000 or 3,000 feet and recover. We’d fly back up to 10,000 feet, repeat the exercise at 1,000 feet per minute, then 1,500, then 2,000, all the way up to 5,000 feet per minute. Then we’d do it again, this time changing our airspeed.” (A typical rate of descent for a 747 passenger jet on runway approach is 700 to 800 feet per minute.) In the process MacDonald, a former Marine pilot, quadrupled the published knowledge base on VRS.
What he found was that vortex ring state is surprisingly hard to induce. He had to fly slower than 40 knots while keeping the plane in a steady position for at least five seconds, and then descend at a hot 2,200 feet per minute. He also found that in an Osprey, he could recover from the condition relatively easily, provided he had 2,000 feet of altitude to play with. In the end, the team didn’t alter the aircraft. Solution: Install a simple warning system. When a pilot pushes an Osprey toward VRS, a light flashes in the cockpit and a voice cautions, “Sink rate.” And Osprey pilots now know to pay attention to those warnings. | <urn:uuid:b96d3037-82d0-4e20-b0cb-834d3931e285> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://defensetech.org/2005/09/28/osprey-okd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956944 | 925 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Canon Cat -- what's it really like?
eric at brouhaha.com
Mon Mar 7 04:43:38 CST 2005
> My recollection is that the Apple II motherboard pre-decodes address
> ranges on behalf of the cards and does _not_ present A0-A15 raw to the
A0-A15 are on pins 2-17 of the slot connector. They are buffered, both
to increase the drive capability and because the standard 6502 didn't
provide a way to disable the on-chip address drivers, which is necessary
to support DMA.
Most cards don't need to use A12 through A15 because of the available
decode lines, but they're certainly available.
More information about the cctalk | <urn:uuid:b2631bca-7e9c-4b7e-b783-504772ef1cc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2005-March/001188.html | 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 | 0.917371 | 163 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Come January, Japan will take new steps to chip away at China’s position as the country’s premier supplier of much-coveted rare earth minerals.
Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp. cut the ribbon on a new plant in Kazakhstan on Friday that will begin extracting the rare earth metals, which are crucial to manufacturing a range of cutting-edge products, including smartphones and hybrid cars. The rare earth metals will be imported to Japan from as early as January 2013.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in 2011 sparked broad debate on radiation, health and safety. Fukushima Watch contributes to that debate, with sharp, easy-to-understand commentary on things nuclear and energy-related in Japan.
Japan Real Time is a newsy, concise guide to what works, what doesn’t and why in the one-time poster child for Asian development, as it struggles to keep pace with faster-growing neighbors while competing with Europe for Michelin-rated restaurants. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, the site provides an inside track on business, politics and lifestyle in Japan as it comes to terms with being overtaken by China as the world’s second-biggest economy. You can contact the editors at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:37438b39-ab40-4b58-bab9-7d384cb64c9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/tag/kazakhstan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937236 | 268 | 2.203125 | 2 |
James Baldwin's novel gets a fine adaptation in this condensed treatment. It begins in 1935, although a series of flashbacks take the story to other eras. Winfield is a young Southerner who runs north and assumes the role of a Baptist lay preacher. He has to work as a day laborer to make
ends meet, while trying to raise his status in the church. He marries Cole, and they have two sons (Bond and Wimberly). But Winfield becomes an angry man and takes it out on those closest to him. The acting is all first-rate, with a special nod to Winfield in an unsympathetic role, Cole as his
longsuffering wife, and Woodard as a steamy siren. | <urn:uuid:16d77b59-1030-45a8-ac07-4dbef0987da4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://movies.tvguide.com/go-tell-it-on-the-mountain/124673 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976099 | 153 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Effect of multivitamin and multimineral supplements on morbidity from infections in older people (MAVIS trial): pragmatic, randomised double blind, placebo controlled trial BMJ Volume 331, pp 324-7
Multivitamin and mineral supplements don't appear to prevent infections in older people living at home, finds a study in this week's BMJ.
At least 10% of older people have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, which can lead to poor immunity and increased risk of infection. At least a quarter of older people in the UK take nutritional supplements, but it is unclear whether they have any influence on infections.
Researchers at Aberdeen University identified 910 men and women aged 65 or over who did not take vitamins or minerals. Participants were randomised to a daily multivitamin and multimineral supplement or a dummy (placebo) tablet for one year.
During this time, participants were asked to record contacts with primary care for infection, number of days with infection and quality of life. Numbers of antibiotic prescriptions and hospital admissions were also taken into account.
Supplementation did not seem to affect contacts with primary care, days with infection or overall quality of life. These results are consistent with several other studies on this issue.
Regular use of commonly available multivitamin and multimineral supplements is unlikely to reduce the number of self-reported infections or associated use of health services for people living at home, say the authors. It remains to be seen whether those at higher risk of infections, such as older people living in care, would benefit from supplementation.
Source: Eurekalert & othersLast reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Feb 2009
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
-- Oscar Wilde | <urn:uuid:fe3ec28f-eb56-48e6-837d-92a7f398ba2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2005-08/bmj-mdp080305.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95282 | 385 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Hunting Gays in Iraq
Hunting Gays In Iraq:
How the Death Squads Work
by Doug Ireland; October 23, 2006 - DIRELAND
"Every gay and lesbian here lives in fear, just pure fear, of being beaten or killed," says Ahmad, a 34-year-old gay man, via telephone from his home in Baghdad. "Homosexuality is seen here as imported from the West and as the work of the devil."
Ahmad is masculine and "straight-acting," he says. "I can go out without being harassed or followed." But that's not the case for his more effeminate gay friends. "They just cannot go outside, period," he says. "If they did, they would be killed." To help them survive, Ahmad has been bringing food and other necessities to their homes. "The situation for us gay people here is beyond bad and dangerous," he says.
Life for gay and lesbian citizens in war-torn Iraq has become grave and is getting worse every day. While President Bush hails a new, "democratic" society, thousands of civilians are dying in a low-level civil war -- and gays are being targeted just for being gay. The Badr Corps -- the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI for short), the country's most powerful Shiite political group -- has launched a campaign of "sexual cleansing," marshaling death squads to exterminate homosexuality.
When Iraq's chief Shiite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, removed a fatwa calling for death to gay men from his Web site (http://www.sistani.org/html/ara/main/index-istifta.php?page=...)
earlier this year -- it wasn't removed for lesbians -- some observers thought the antigay reign of terror might end. But the fatwa still remains in effect; indeed, persecution of gay Iraqis has only escalated.
"In the last two months the situation has gotten worse and worse," says Ali Hili, a gay Iraqi living in London, who founded and coordinates the group Iraqi LGBT. "Just last month there were three raids by the Interior Ministry on two of the safe houses we maintain in Basra and Najaf. They were looking for specific names and people, and some of them were killed on the spot." The Interior Ministry is heavily infiltrated by SCIRI operatives and troops who carry out the Sistani fatwa.
Hili's group, some 30 gay Iraqi exiles who came together last fall in London in the wake of Sistani's death-to-gays fatwa, has a network of informants and supporters throughout Iraq. With anguish in his voice, he recalls two of them, lesbians who ran a safe house in Najaf that harbored young kids who'd been trapped in the commercial sex trade. "They were accused of running a brothel," he says. "They were slain in the safe house with their throats cut. This was only weeks ago.
"Every day we hear from our network inside Iraq of new horrors happening to our gay and lesbian people -- it's overwhelming, we just can't cope," Hili continues. "Look, we're only a little volunteer organization, and nobody helps us -- not the American occupier, not the U.N., not Amnesty International, nobody. We're desperate for help."
Through a translator, several gay Iraqis spoke to me about the dire circumstances for gay people in their country. None wanted their last names printed for fear of reprisals, and all had horrific stories to tell.
Hussein, 32, is a gay man living with his married brother's family in Baghdad. "I've been living in a state of fear for the last year since Ayatollah Sistani issued that fatwa, in which he even encouraged families to kill their sons and brothers if they do not change their gay behavior," he says. "My brother, who has been under pressure and threats from Sistani's followers about me, has threatened to harm me himself, or even kill me, if I show any signs of gayness."
Hussein already lost his job in a photo lab because the shop owner did not want people to think that he was supporting a gay man. "Now I'm very self-conscious about my look and the way I dress -- I try to play it safe," says Hussein, who is slightly effeminate. "Several times I was followed in the street and beaten just because I had a nice, cool haircut that looked feminine to them. Now I just shave my head."
Indeed, even the way one dresses is enough to get a gay Iraqi killed. "Just the fact of looking neat and clean, let alone looking elegant and well groomed, is very dangerous for a gay person," Hussein says. "So now I don't wear nice clothes, so that no one would even suspect that I'm gay. I now only leave home if I want to get food."
One of Hussein's best friends, Haydar, was recently found shot in the back of the head at a deserted ranch outside the city. "Some say he was shot by a family member in an act of honor killing; some say he was shot by those so-called death squads," Hussein says. "Everyone says it's easy these days to get away with killing gays, since there is no law and order here."
All Hussein thinks about is getting out of Iraq. "Things were bad under Saddam for gays," he says, "but not as bad as now. Then, no one feared for their lives. Now, you can be gotten rid of at any time."
But even fleeing from Iraq to a democratic Western nation is no guarantee of safety. The case of Ibaa Al-alawi, a well-educated 28-year-old gay Iraqi who fled from Baghdad to London last fall and is facing deportation, is sadly typical. "I am a victim of this religious, homophobic ideology imported from Iran by SCIRI and the Badr Corps," says Al-alawi, who was born to a secular family and speaks perfect English, via telephone from London. "The Badr Corps is very well-organized -- they control two floors of the Iraqi Interior Ministry [in London] and they wear police uniforms."
Al-alawi worked for two years for the British embassy in Baghdad, running a technical scholarship program for students who wanted to study in the United Kingdom. "But my family began getting threats about me from the Badr Corps," he says. "They threatened my brother, telling him, 'If you can't get your brother to change and stop his gay ways, we'll kill him.' They threw a stone, with a threatening letter fastened around it, into the garden of our house -- it quoted passages from the Koran, and then it said, in very illiterate terms, 'Your son is sinful, and if he doesn't change from being gay, in three days he will be dead.' "
The incident frightened Al-alawi so much that he quit his job at the embassy and holed up at his Baghdad home for two months. "One day I ventured out to shop with my mother, and while we were out a pickup truck came to our house, carrying hooded men in uniforms who smashed down our front door and threw a hand grenade into our home," he recalls. "If my mother and I had been there, we would have been killed. The neighbors who witnessed this attack told us it was the Badr Corps."
The next day he bought a plane ticket for London, where he applied for asylum on arrival. But his request was refused by the Home Office, which handles immigration in the United Kingdom. "They told me, 'We believe that you face discrimination in Iraq, but we don't believe you are persecuted.' I even showed them a photo of me next to Tony Blair from when I worked at their embassy, but it didn't help."
In the first week of August, Al-alawi's administrative appeal against the Home Office's deportation order was denied. At press time he was in court, seeking to stop the Blair government from sending him back to Iraq. "My life is in serious danger if I'm sent back to Iraq," he says. "You know, I have a master's degree in English literature -- to think that a cheap bullet from the Badr Corps could end it all -- what a waste of an education."
Mohammed, a gay Iraqi in his 20s from Basra, fled to Jordan on July 17 after the Badr Corps assassinated his partner. "I don't know how they found out about my partner, but they killed him by a bullet to the back of his head, so I knew that the danger was so close to me," he says via e-mail. "I don't know how I can live without this relationship."
The death of his partner marked the culmination of years of persecution for Mohammed, starting with his own family. "I've been gay since childhood," he says, but "my family are Shia and don't permit this [homosexuality]. I think they would kill us before the Badr Corps could if they knew about us."
The Badr Corps' murderous campaign is not limited to street executions -- it includes Internet entrapment and intimidation backed by violence. Networks of neighborhood informers -- SCIRI militants and sympathizers -- track suspected gays and report them for targeting by the terror campaign. "One day on the Internet I entered a site for gays in Iraq, and specifically in Basra," Mohammed recalls. "While on this site I met a new guy who gave me his name and e-mail. But God's mercy saved me from him -- I saw abnormal movement in that site where I met this guy and got out of it rapidly. Later I discovered that he worked secretly with the Badr militia to find and kill gays."
After discovering them online, SCIRI supporters will sometimes instigate beatings of suspected gays in the street, says Ahmad. People from the neighborhoods and even passersby will join in. "If you are gay, you can't trust anyone you meet unless they are old friends from within your circle of acquaintances," Ahmad says. "You can't date or meet new people because you wouldn't know what their motives are."
Every new encounter is fraught with danger. "There have been cases where some gay guys meet some men they thought were gay too, but it turned out they just wanted to use them sexually and then blackmail them for money by threatening to inform on them" to the Badr Corps, Ahmad says. Or a new friend could turn out to be an undercover agent.
"We are desperate to end this state of fear and horror in which we have been living," Ahmad says. "Many of us want to leave."
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP IRAQI GAYS, the immediate urgent priority is to donate money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to communicate information about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world. Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of "honor killing" with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses and food), and assist efforts to help them seek asylum abroad.
Iraqi LGBT UK -- there is no comparable group in the U.S. -- does not yet have a bank account. They are working closely with the LGBT human rights group OutRage! in London. Donations to help Iraqi LGBT UK and the group's vital work in Iraq should be made payable to "OutRage!", with a cover note marked "For Iraqi LGBT", and sent to: OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT, England, UK.
And, you can visit the Iraqi LGBT UK website by clicking here: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/
Doug Ireland, a longtime radical journalist and media critic, runs the blog DIRELAND, where this article appeared Oct. 21, 2006. The article was originally written for The Advocate -- the national magazine for lesbians and gays. | <urn:uuid:440da650-3eb3-435f-9a9b-5c964143b050> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mostlywater.org/node/12504 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982959 | 2,499 | 1.539063 | 2 |
This post is by Adam Martin, a post-doctoral fellow at DRI.
On July 1 the Department of Defense rolled out two notable new projects that will undoubtedly inaugurate a new era of peace and safety for the streets of Gotham international community. Even the world’s greatest detective could not have seen this coming.
Like their caped crusader namesakes, the DoD versions of BaTMAN and RoBIN are shrouded in mystery, their real identities cleverly disguised. BaTMAN is:
Biochronicity and Temporal Mechanisms Arising in Nature (BaTMAN) could develop an understanding of the relationship between biological systems and the spatial-temporal universe through the application of advanced principles from the physical sciences… Topic areas that may be of interest include, but are not limited to: quantum biology and molecular clocks; resetting and synchronization of biological clocks and rhythms; microscale recapitulation in macroscale; evolutionary pressure and time; physiological signal processing and clocks; timing and cognition; and robustness of clocks in development.
His faithful sidekick RoBIN:
Robustness of Biologically-Inspired Networks (RoBIN), seeks to apply the critical control features of biological networks to build unique models for adaptable networks, and create a dynamic biologically-inspired network of scientists and other experts for crisis response and complex decision support.
What does any of this have to do with foreign aid? Most prominently, it serves of a reminder of just how bad an idea it is to ask the military to be more involved in aid. Despite the distilled frenzy of a few prominent voices in the air, the defense establishment is more likely to lead us into a funhouse maze than solve the riddle of development.
But it’s not just military involvement itself that should resisted. The BaTMAN and RoBIN projects are perfect examples of the obfuscating language and flagrant non-accountability that accompanies bloated bureaucracies. These megalomaniacal ideas work great at keeping the funding flowing but achieve little else. The dynamic duo of massive government budgets and weak feedback mechanisms are a source of mischief in military and non-military organizations alike.
Editor’s note: BaTMAN and RoBIN sound almost too outlandish to be real. We did call Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to confirm that we were not being had, and the conversation went like this:
Me: Hi, I work at New York University and write for a blog called Aid Watch.
Me: I am wondering if you could confirm that Biochronicity and Temporal Mechanisms Arising in Nature and Robustness of Biologically-Inspired Networks are in fact DARPA programs.
DARPA: Uhmmm…you want to try that in English? (laughs)
Me: Your language, not mine! The acronyms are BaTMAN and RoBIN…
DARPA: (Looks up the programs on his screen…) Well, what we issued was a Request for Information so they are not technically programs per se….They are potential new DARPA programs.
Me: So you can confirm that they are real potential DARPA programs.
There you have it, BaTMAN and RoBIN are not a spoof. | <urn:uuid:0f8286bb-51cb-4ba1-8aa0-c36849fb18b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aidwatchers.com/2010/07/holy-bureaucratic-gibberish-batman/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934266 | 673 | 1.96875 | 2 |
1. I'm happy with DVD. Why should I care about high-definition discs?
While both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc offer a number of improvements over DVD, the most obvious one is picture quality. DVD was a huge leap in both convenience and performance over VHS, but its 480i resolution is well below the 720p, 1080i, and 1080p images both high-def disc formats can produce. And a DVD-Video disc just doesn't have the capacity to hold a full-length movie in high-def.
Both Blu-ray and HD DVD use blue lasers, which have a much shorter wavelength than the red lasers used by DVD and CD players. (For more on the technology behind the two new formats, see "Inside Blu-ray & HD DVD.") The shorter wavelengths of these new lasers allow data to be packed more densely on the disc's surface, so the disc can remain the same size as a DVD while holding a lot more information. Even single-layer high-def discs can hold three to five times more MPEG-2 video content than a standard DVD. And you can get even more onto a Blu-ray disc or HD DVD by using either MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264) or VC1 (based on Microsoft's Windows Video 9) encoding.
The new discs and players also feature things like high-rez multichannel sound, advanced interactive features, networking capability, and Internet connectivity.
2. What are the key differences between HD DVD & Blu-ray?
The most obvious difference is Blu-ray's greater capacity. A single-layer HD DVD can hold 15 gigabytes of data and a dual-layer HD DVD can hold 30 GB, but Blu-ray discs boast capacities of 25 GB and 50 GB, respectively. The HD DVD camp hopes to soon offer 45-GB discs, while Blu-ray is working on discs that can hold 100 GB or more.
But there are several differences beyond capacity. For example, HD DVD's interactive features are driven by software called iHD that was developed by Microsoft, Disney, and the DVD Forum, while Blu-ray uses a specialized version of Sun Microsystems' Java software called BD-Java. And although both formats employ the same copy-protection scheme, Blu-ray imposes two additional layers of protection called BD+ and ROM Mark.
3. Why are there two formats, instead of one, like with DVD?
That's a million-dollar question with a ten-cent answer: The primary backers of the formats couldn't agree on a compromise. Despite some early hope that common sense would prevail, as it did with DVD, unification talks between the two sides eventually broke down over an inability to agree on the disc's physical format. The Blu-ray camp was adamant that their disc's greater capacity was essential, while HD DVD's advocates argued that their format's similarity to DVD made it the easier, less expensive transition to high-def discs. When you add other issues into the equation, from potential licensing and royalty revenues to the egos of some of the executives involved, it's not really surprising that we're faced with a choice between two incompatible high-def formats.
4. So which companies are supporting which format?
The allegiances are shifting like sands in the desert, but here's where they stood at press time. HD DVD was backed by Toshiba, Sanyo, Microsoft, NEC, HBO, New Line, Paramount/DreamWorks, Universal, and Warner Bros. The laundry list of Blu-ray backers includes Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Pioneer, and LG, as well as Dell, HP, Apple, Electronic Arts, Sony Pictures/Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Disney. But Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, LG, and HP now plan to support both formats. (Even Blu-ray stalwart Disney is reportedly considering HD DVD releases.) Both LG and Samsung have said the uncertainty over how the formats will fare is leading them to develop players that can play both types of discs.
5. When can I buy a player and discs, and what will they cost?
Toshiba's $799 HD-XA1 and $499 HD-A1 are scheduled to debut April 18. An RCA player, which is essentially the $499 Toshiba player, is expected soon after that. Toshiba's Qosmio G30 laptop ($2,400, due by summer) will be the first notebook to include an HD DVD drive. While these early HD DVD players won't provide 1080p output, later models will.
The first Blu-ray player - Samsung's $1,000 BD-P1000 - is due May 23, to be followed in June by the Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 ($1,800). You can preorder Sony's BDP-S1 player ($1,000, July) at Amazon.com and Best Buy, and Vaio PCs equipped with Blu-ray drives will be available mid-year. But it now looks like Sony's Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3, which was supposed to be out this spring, will launch in November instead. Panasonic and Philips both expect to have players available by late summer. Philips plans to offer its SPD700 recordable BD-R/RW computer drive in the second half of this year.
One issue could be the number of movies available when each format rolls out. Two weeks before the original March 28 launch date for the Toshiba HD DVD players, Warner Bros. said its titles might not be available for several weeks. (The HD DVD introduction was subsequently moved to April 18.) And while Paramount and Universal have announced HD DVDs, as we went to press neither studio had firm release dates or pricing. But HD DVDs are expected to be priced similarly to Blu-ray discs, which will be $35 to $40 for new releases and $25 to $30 for catalog titles. Sony, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox all plan to have titles ready for the Blu-ray's May 23 launch. (See the listing of releases.)
Copyright © 2013 Bonnier Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. | <urn:uuid:3c738ae3-3c94-4702-8853-a5e2ca9b5413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article/top-10-questions-about-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949723 | 1,274 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Resources » Articles/Knowledge Sharing » Computer & Technology
How to clean and maintain your printer for better performance?
This article describes how to clean and maintain your printer properly so that it serves your purpose for a long time. Certain important processes like cleaning of the print heads, the deep cleaning process, manual alignment of the print heads, cleaning of the bottom plates and the print rollers, configuring the printing setting etc. are covered well in this article.
Like any of your other computer accessories printers too deserves a special attention of yours. Many people prefer ink-jet printers first because they come in a cheap price and secondly because they give out good prints on paper. But what counts most when it comes about maintaining your printer for a long time is to follow proper maintenance procedures. Well, you must be thinking now how you may look after your printer so that it serves your purpose of printing for a long time? Your printer maintenance steps should include cleaning your printer properly to overcome printout that are hazy or blurred. It should also include proper arrangement of print heads so that the colors reach the printer paper accordingly. However, it is always a good idea to have some generic knowledge on how the different parts of a printer works mechanically before you start any printing and cleaning process by yourself.
How to maintain your printer for better performance
It is important to be aware of the ways to clean your printer. Not only it would help your works go smoother and easier but it would also help to extend the life time of your printer. Given below are some of the important steps to clean and maintain your printer:
Print out a test page of the printer to check out
First open the properties box of your printer from the control panel. For this, click on the start button and then on the control panel. In the category view of the control pane, click on printers and other hardware and then on printers and faxes. Alternatively, you may click on the classic view simply double click on printers and faxes. Then you will see an icon symbolizing your printer. As soon as you right click on it you will get a pop-up menu, and you need to select properties from it. Before doing any changes, go to the general tab and click on print test page. The page you will get from the print out would reveal if the color and black inks are functioning properly.
The cleaning process of the print head of the printer
Suppose, if the print out is not up to the mark then it would only reveal two things. First, it could be because of the colors not properly lined up and secondly, because of the ink being smudged. The technique that I am going to describe here is same for all the printers except for some technical names which may differ. Click the maintenance tab in the printer properties and you will discover a button called cleaning. This will start the cleaning process of the print heads. Next click on OK followed by the nozzle check button as soon as the cleaning is done. Now to check the printer outputs make sure to print out a page with a grid pattern and color bars. For this the print check pattern button should be clicked followed by OK.
Repeat the print head cleaning process
Now if the print out is of poor quality or reveals any other problems you may have to repeat the print head cleaning process. For this, you will find in the nozzle check box the cleaning button and you need to click on that. Now click the print check pattern process one more time after repeat clean process is complete. Find out if things have improved then before and if not then that may signal clogged print heads of the printer.
The deep cleaning process of your printer
If the print outs have not improved after the repeat cleaning process (mentioned above) then in the pattern check box click exit. Now click on the deep cleaning button and you will get the warning that displays- deep cleaning consumes more ink. Ignore this and click on execute and then on OK. After the process gets complete print out another page and see if there is any improvement. The problem of blocked print heads could be solved with one deep clean but sometimes it needs to be done twice.
Find out if the print head is properly aligned
After being through with the basic cleaning and the print head maintenance process it is time now to find out if the print head is properly aligned. First click on the print head alignment button on the maintenance tab and when the print out is done with click on YES followed by OK to carry on. More cleaning is required if nothing gets printed out.
Manually align the print head
Take the print out and align it manually. You need to compare the print out with the image that displayed on the screen side by side. You need to select the numbers with the arrow keys between -3 and seven 7 for columns A to E and columns F to K. Some printers does this automatically for you. Then click on the OK button twice. You may also check the manual button of your printer.
Clean the bottom plate
The quality printing outputs of a printer does not depend solely on the cleaning of print heads. Things can go worse if the roller of the printer, and the bottom plates are not clean. For cleaning the bottom plate you need to first click on the bottom plate cleaning button and then follow the written instructions one after the other. What you need to do is to take a sheet of plane paper and then fold it into half. Then unfold it and feed it into the feeder of the printer. When you click the execute button the paper will move into the printer. In this process it will collect any extra ink which has accumulated inside. Then you need to click OK when the process is complete.
Clean the print rollers
This can be done in two steps and you need to first remove all the papers from the feeder of the printer. Click the roller cleaning button and then click OK. The print rollers will start moving and after sometime it will stop. Then again you need to click on the OK button. A message on the screen will display asking you to load three sheets of paper into the sheet feeder. After doing so click on OK.. When all the papers are loaded click on OK and then again OK. This will ensure that the roller cleaning is done.
Increase the page drying time through the custom settings
When printing more pages on the printer the printout may get worse if the ink on the print out does not dry out. The printer tray needs to be dry so that other pages could be feed or this could lead to getting smudgy pages of print. Many printers have the option to customize page drying time. You need to click the custom setting button and adjust the slider and then click on send to save the setting permanently.
Ensure that the ink does not finish in between your work
To ensure that the ink does not finish in between your work you need to notice the ink level. You can do so by clicking the view printer status which will display two icons to show the level of ink in it. When you put a new cartridge this message is automatically reset. But if it is not so then you can do it manually by clicking on the ink counter reset button and then checking the box to show which cartridge has been replaced and finally click the execute button.
Indicate the printer to be used in the control panel
If more than one printer is attached to a computer then it will be better to set the printer that is going to be used mostly. This would save you from the headache and time of doing it manually every time. For this, open the printer section in the control panel and right click on the printer used most often and set it as a default printer.
Configure the printing setting
You may configure the printing setting used mostly to save yourself from the headache of doing it every time manually. Right click the icon resembling your printer in the printers control panel and select the printing preference option. Go to the page set up type and select the paper size. You also have to select landscape or portrait. The go tot the main tab and click the media type drop down menu to select the type of paper to be used.
Configure the default print quality setting
You can also configure the default print quality settings and choose colors. You can adjust the color setting according to your requirement. If you want to print in black and white then you need to tick the gray scale box. First, you need to click the set button to configure manually the setting if there is the custom setting.
To wrap up
Now if you click the print option it will print accordingly to your preferred setting. However, you may go for other options or settings whenever you need to do so. If you need to print on different sized paper then from any program you need to click on the file menu and then select print. From here you can get printer preferences and can change the print settings for each prints. One of the good advantage of this method is that you can print several copies without pressing print every time.
Read related articles: Clean printer
Did you like this resource? Share it with your friends and show your love!
No responses found. Be the first to respond... | <urn:uuid:3a4dc6bd-7e16-4859-a2a6-f6acf4f26858> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/155652-How-clean-maintain-your-printer-better-performance.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910135 | 1,869 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Being Consumed (3) Libido dominandi
Continuing William Cavanaugh’s discussion of Being Consumed: economics and Christian Desire
If there is no such thing as the free autonomous individual and there is no objective good, in a free-market what we really have is sheer arbitrary power, one will against the other. This is what Augustine called libido dominandi – the lust for power.
Cavanaugh explores what this power struggle looks like in a free-market economy, particularly through the lens of the marketing industry.
On the one hand, advertising communicates information about products to consumers to enable them to make rational choices. Here the consumer is treated as free, autonomous and sovereign.
On the other hand, marketing manipulates the consumer to create desire while simultaneously hiding the fact that it is doing so.
Most advertising has long abandoned the link between mere information and a rational consumer choice. Instead, via memorable images, ideas and themes it links the product with deeper human desires – love, sex, friendship, beauty, self-esteem, success, happiness etc. And this questions the self-acceptability of the consumer.
This is what has been called the ‘organized creation of dissatisfaction.’
Any good examples come to mind?
This all brings to mind what Marva Dawn talked about when in Dublin with us – ‘we technologize our intimacy and itimacize our technology’ (not sure about how to spell those words!)
And this is very deliberate and highly researched. Companies (generally) don’t spend billions on stuff that doesn’t work (unless you are Anglo-Irish Bank). Cavanaugh quotes Marketing News, it is about,
“creating mythologies about their brands by humanizing them and giving them distinct personalities and cultural sensibilities.’
Ah, we may think, “I see through this nonsense. I know a car isn’t going to make me irresistible to the opposite sex. Most of this is, (to link back to a recent post) bullshit.” And so you have a whole genre of anti-advertising advertising that knowingly exposes the game of advertising and invites you, the consumer, to join with the anti-establishment movement connected with the product. For an example see this post on the consumer as freedom fighter.
But back to Cavanaugh’s main point – in our intensely commodified culture is an inbuilt imbalance of power in favour of the marketer. And we are hopelessly naive if we think that we are not deeply shaped and influenced by such power. Here are some examples:
- Companies withhold information about products to consumers that may be damaging to consumer confidence. Battles over transparent food labelling come to my mind here – feel welcome to add any examples of your own.
- The power of surveillance: companies gather vast amounts of detailed data about individual consumers and target those consumers using that ‘disequilibrium of knowledge’. Cavanaugh references Erik Larson’s famous 1992 book The Naked Consumer: How our Private Lives Become Public Commodities. What he describes – how purchasing patterns, births, deaths, political views, educational levels, credit histories, pet ownership, hobbies, illnesses and so on – are harvested from various sources, can only have increased exponentially in reach and sophistication since the arrival of Google and the Web.
- Companies saturate the social space of consumers with a torrent of images and messages. Everyone of us swims in this torrent every day and hardly notice. It represents ‘an almost total takeover of the domestic informational system for the purposes of selling goods and services.’ (Herbert Schiller)
- Concentration of power in enormous transnational corporations. In numerous industries, a few huge corporations dominate production and consumption – Cavanaugh lists meat production in the USA (4 companies have 80% of the market). Smaller producers are put out of business, or are powerless to challenge the power of these corporations. Supermarkets like Tesco come to mind in the UK and Ireland.
- Increasing disparity of power between employer and employee: and here we are right into current hot issues of executive pay especially in banks that have helped wreck the economy. In 1980 says Cavanaugh, the average CEO made 42 times more than the average production worker. In 1999 that had risen to 475 to 1 and continued to rise. This represents increasing power of the ‘owners’ of capital.
And (rant alert) how the convenient naivety of the free-market about human-nature led to the wild excesses that led to the current Credit Crunch. Those with power and the access to capital misused that power for their own ends. Christians shouldn’t be surprised at this but it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be outraged at the abuse of power either. And outraged at the seeming invincibility of the powerful from prosecution and conviction. Ireland, with her deeply authoritarian, paternalistic and enclosed ruling class is one of the worst places in the West for such justice to be done in my opinion.
But the vast power of corporations also means deep insecurity and powerlessness for the employee. Ask former Dell factory workers in Limerick or countless other examples. If you know that your company can up-sticks and move to India (or wherever) and pay employees desperate to work for anything there a fraction of what they pay you, you are in a fatally weakened position. This is ‘free trade’. The only ‘end’ is the profit of the company. You are expendable and decidedly ‘unfree’.
Cavanaugh doesn’t go into this – but to take an example of a famous US multi-national in Leixlip in Ireland that makes computer chips – it also puts employees in an uncertain and competitive ‘market’ with each other within the company. You are constantly measured against your peers and if you are in the bottom x% of a bell curve of productivity you probably won’t last, even though you are doing your job. This is a ruthless use of power to increase productivity.
But in this ‘free-market’, many companies will say they have no choice but to act this way. If they don’t, their opposition will. They ‘have’ to search for cheap labour because if they don’t the company may not survive. Consumers want and expect the lowest price.
“In a world of consumption without ends, it is assumed that the consumer will want to maximize his or her own power at the expense of the labourer, and the manager does not feel free to resist this logic, lest his or her own corporation fall victim to competition from other corporations that are better positioned to take advantage of cheap labor.” (22)
But underpinning, and more important than, consumer demand for low prices is stockholder expectation of profit. Huge investment funds demand a return from corporations and put seemingly irresistible pressure on executives to deliver. If they don’t they are out – see the recent story of UK Tesco boss being forced to resign after 26 yrs of working there after a shock profit warning wiped £5 billion off the company’s share price . And those executives have added reason to maximize profit – they will gain personally from significant stock options.
6. Political power and the free-market. Cavanaugh unravels here the fascinating, and apparently contradictory, link between authoritarian regimes like China and free-market economics. How can Communism co-exist so comfortably with Capitalism?
The answer lies in a disciplined labour force which is highly attractive to business. The ‘employee’ is a small and powerless cog in the state machine. Political power is used to serve business, the individual is expendable. Lack of employee rights and muffling of free speech sits very well within a free-market economy. Cavanaugh quotes Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano speaking of the military dictatorships in Latin America of the 1970s and 80s,
“People were in prison so that prices could be free.”
Comments, as ever, welcome. | <urn:uuid:24b40ff3-8519-4716-9b92-843cef883894> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://faithinireland.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/being-consumed-3-libido-dominandi/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944125 | 1,668 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Sept. 21, 2011
Take some time this fall and see majestic returning salmon during ‘Salmon SEEson’
With summer on the wane and fall fast approaching, it’s time for native salmon to begin the final journey from the open ocean to their place of birth, where they will spawn and continue the lifecycle – the streams and rivers in King County and elsewhere along Puget Sound.
While salmon returns this year are generally smaller than forecast, there will still be a bounty of salmon-viewing opportunities available in the coming months throughout the Lake Washington/Cedar/ Sammamish Watershed, where chinook, sockeye, coho and chum are nearing the end of their epic migration.
Salmon can soon be spotted at parks, from along trails and at other locations at events sponsored by a variety of partners around the watershed. In many cases, naturalists are available to help visitors spot the fish and learn about the salmon’s lifecycle. These naturalists are experts in helping visitors spot camouflaged salmon and can enhance the viewing experience during years with lower returns.
For more information on any or all of the sites listed below, visit www.kingcounty.gov/salmon and click on Salmon SEEson, or call 206-296-8016. The website features links to information about how you can protect salmon and their habitats.
This program is sponsored by the WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council as part of its effort to recover salmon in the Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish Watershed.
See salmon on these dates at these locations:
Daily through October – call for details
Locations along the Sammamish River Trail in Redmond
For more info: 425-556-2845 or email@example.com
Sponsored by the City of Redmond
Every Saturday through Nov. 5, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
Issaquah Salmon Hatchery on Issaquah Creek, 125 W. Sunset Way, Issaquah
For more info: 425-392-8025 or www.issaquahfish.org
Sponsored by Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (FISH)
Late September to mid-November; every day (weather dependent) during business hours (self guided)
Bear Creek in Redmond, 12526 Avondale Rd. NE (behind Classic Nursery)
For more info: Linda at 425-882-1846 or firstname.lastname@example.org
Sponsored by ROSE (Redmond Organization of Shared Environments)
Daily through October (self guided)
Mercer Slough fish ladder on Kelsey Creek in Bellevue
Call or email first: 425-452-5200 or email@example.com
Sponsored by City of Bellevue
October 15, 16, 22, 23, 29 and 30 (11 a.m.-4 p.m. each day)
Five locations along the Cedar River near Renton
For more info: 206-245-0143 or www.cedarriver.org
Sponsored by Friends of the Cedar River Watershed
On weekends from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11 (11 a.m. - 2 p.m. each day) and Nov. 25 with special activities, 11 a.m. -1 p.m.
Piper’s Creek in Seattle’s Carkeek Park
For more info: 206-684-5999 or www.seattle.gov/parks/environment/carkeek.htm
Sponsored by the City of Seattle
Early November through late January - new! See kokanee salmon (self guided)
Ebright Creek at the East Lake Sammamish Trail, Sammamish and Lewis Creek at 185th Place Southeast, Issaquah.
Call 206-263-3661 first to make sure fish are visible.
Sponsored by the City of Sammamish, City of Issaquah and King County
# # #
Salmon and trout topics
King County Water and Land Resources | <urn:uuid:9fc55525-68f4-46b0-97cd-e71854e2bc8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/dnrp/newsroom/newsreleases/2011/september/0921Salmon-SEEson.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903842 | 855 | 2 | 2 |
Erickson: We have in front of us this beautiful mace that you made. Would you tell us how that came to be?
Helmkamp: I should hold it up, I guess.
Erickson: Yes, so the camera can get a good picture.
Helmkamp: They were having processions at graduation and somebody just mentioned that most processions are associated with a mace. Whoever is leading the procession is carrying some device, and we just had a discussion. I think it was in the associate deans meeting when someone proposed … "shouldn't we have a mace and how do we get one made?"
Erickson: Um hmm.
Helmkamp: There was the one idiot who volunteered (to try to make the mace).
Since I did wood work, I decided I would try to make the mace.
Erickson: So did that mean that you designed it also?
Helmkamp: Designed it, yes. We decided as a group about some features that should be involved. We decided on the California bear. And the Great Seal, whichever is the Great Seal. This is the University of California seal, I guess, and in the back it's the Great Seal of California.
Erickson: Oh, I see. I didn't see that one before.
Helmkamp: It turned out that the chancellor's office had this Great Seal and the Seal of California, and so all we had to do was find somebody to do the bear.
The last thing we wanted to do … we wanted to have something representative of the Citrus Experiment Station. We wanted to have a gold orange, …
Helmkamp: and the people who made the bear could not make the orange. It kept collapsing. So we just put a semi-orange piece on the bottom. That's as close as they could come in wood …
Helmkamp: to represent that.
Erickson: Did somebody make a mold of the bear? Is that what you mean?
Helmkamp: Yes, um hmm.
Erickson: Well, tell us about the wood in there that you used.
Helmkamp: Most of the wood is koa from Hawaii, which I happened to have in my shop. The dark wood is desert ironwood, which comes from our local deserts.
Erickson: It's very pretty.
Helmkamp: So all the dark wood is desert ironwood.
Erickson: And the orange is also the ironwood?
Helmkamp: No, the orange … I don't even know what it is any more.
Erickson: It's so pretty. (pause) When did you become interested in working with wood?
Helmkamp: Oh, when I was about eight.
Erickson: Oh, no kidding. Was your father good, too … good with wood?
Helmkamp: He didn't do anything like that. | <urn:uuid:accbafcb-14d5-4e77-8042-938d49a04b95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucrhistory.ucr.edu/helmkamp.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976358 | 620 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This series reports research activities or interim findings and aim to share ideas and elicit feedback. Future Agricultures publishes approximately six to ten Working Papers per year.
We also support a series of LDPI Working Papers through our involvement in the Land Deal Politics Initiative.
Full title: Governing REDD+: global framings versus practical evidence from the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project, Kenya
STEPS Centre Working Paper 55
by Joanes Atela
This paper explores the governance and feasibility of globally-linked REDD+ projects in local African settings, focusing on the Kasigau project in Kenya, Africa’s first REDD+ project accredited under internationally accepted standards. The project is a commercial venture and during the last five years it has unfolded in a relatively vulnerable Kenyan setting. A policy process analysis, interactive fieldwork and document review has explored its interrelationship with local livelihood assets and state institutional capabilities.
The paper reveals that while REDD+ institutions are globally standardised through negotiations interlocked with political and development interests, projects are faced with state and local resource histories and perceptions, and in responding to such settings, these projects become highly contextual. Locally, the Kasigau project links carbon benefits to specific and significant local vulnerabilities such as low ‘value’ dryland, water scarcity and illiteracy. This has yielded an apparently uncontested acceptance and favourable perception of the project among the Kasigau people, appearing to reverse long histories of exclusion from their resources by centralised state-based resource management regimes. Yet the negative perception of state institutions that the Kasigau people have built up over time raises questions as to whether the state can ably oversee a successful REDD+ process, as is assumed by the international community. If resource management is not factually decentralised in particular countries, greater capture of local resource rights in REDD+ could result from state regimes than from private-commercial regimes. As such, international gains in safeguarding local communities in REDD+ could be seriously compromised. Kenya recently initiated land reforms as part of resource decentralisation, but the resulting regimes remain fuzzy, subordinate to powerful centralised interests, focused on individual title, and inadequately adapted to particular local contexts. Such reforms potentially re-shuffle the local engagement of the Kasigau project which draws its apparent success partly from a communalised land tenure system.
This paper concludes that communal systems, if well-defined, may provide a better basis for the governance of REDD+ projects, enabling inclusivity, collective action and societal benefits. If projects can genuinely enable local people to manage and benefit from their forest resources, REDD+ promises to be a multi-governance programme that bridges the gap between global and local institutions and interests in the sustainable use of forests.
Colin Poulton and Karuti Kanyinga
Working Paper 59
This paper tests the ‘systems of innovation’ hypothesis for a selection of crops in Ghana and Burkina Faso that have shown significant growth in production over an approximately 20-year period. The question is whether such growth can only occur if supported by a system of innovation. Using two indicators (a common understanding on objectives and priorities, and a high level of interactivity) we find little evidence for the existence of anything that might be considered a high functioning system of innovation.
This paper begins highlights some key features that shape agrarian labour relations in Zimbabwe, illustrated through the setting of Goromonzi district. The new agrarian structure that forms the basis of the reconfigured agricultural production systems and labour relations is then analysed. This allows for the examination of the labour mobilisation patterns among the different classes of producers resulting from agrarian restructuring. The assessment of the material conditions that farm labourers derive from selling labour in various ways and their responses to the challenges they face precede the conclusions.
The new agrarian labour relations are explored using empirical research in Goromonzi district. Research undertaken by the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS) since 2002, including a baseline survey in 2006 of 695 landholders and 173 farm workers in Goromonzi is used to illustrate the outcomes prior to economic stabilisation in 2009.iii The analysis draws from the results of the survey reported in Moyo et al. (2009) and the data referenced as AIAS (2007). Qualitative surveys in Goromonzi in 2012 are used to trace the dynamic changes to agrarian labour relations as further land redistribution occurred and the macro-economic context and agrarian policies shifted. Data was collected through interviews and observations from farm labourers, landholders, farm compounds, traditional authorities and state officials.
Full title: Making Sense of Gender, Climate Change and Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: Creating Gender-Responsive Climate Adaptation Policy
Christine Okali and Lars Otto Naess
Attention to gender and climate change has increased steadily over the last decade. Much of the emerging policy-focused literature resembles to a considerable degree the gender and environment literature from the 1990s, with the nature of women’s work being used to justify placing women at the centre of climate change policy. However, in contrast with the portrayal of women in earlier literature as knowledgeable guardians of the environment, the women at the centre of gender and climate change policy are typically portrayed as vulnerable, weak, poor, and socially isolated. Arguably, this is a reflection of the politics of gender rather than the reality of the men and women who regularly experience and deal with changes of various kinds.
We argue for a more realistic and nuanced framing of gender that is built on an acknowledgement of social complexity, and an understanding of social, including gender relations, in specific local settings. Such a framing would provide a more valuable starting point for understanding the way in which both women and men, together and separately in their different, and changing roles, shape the outcomes of external interventions. This shift does not mean that targeting vulnerable women to meet short term needs is not valuable. Rather, the intention is principally, to minimise the risks of policy failure resulting from the adoption of often erroneous but popular assumptions about the different roles that women and men play, and must continue to play, to achieve food security in the face of climate change.
FAC Working Paper 55
There is uncertainty and no small controversy surrounding the potential impacts of commercial agricultural developments that are being proposed for sub-Saharan Africa by domestic governments and foreign investors. Much of the debate concerns how Africa’s rural poor could be affected. One response is to look back and review what the outcomes have been from earlier such developments. This should include consideration of the institutional setting to help us understand how institutions influence the character and outcome of commercial agricultural schemes.
This working paper assesses the historical experience of three farming models that have figured in recent investments in sub-Saharan Africa: plantations, contract farming and commercial farming areas. Based on a literature review, the paper concentrates on the involvement of, and effects on, rural societies in and around the area where the schemes were located. It looks mainly at sub-Saharan Africa but also considers case studies from Latin America and Asia.
This paper was produced as part of the Land and Agricultural Commercialisation in Africa (LACA) project.
FAC Working Paper 54
Kojo Sebastian Amanor
This paper examines how liberal economic reforms that permeated and transformed economies during the 1980s and 1990s, both in the emerging BRICS powers themselves as well as in Africa, mediate and influence the relationships between emergent powers and African nations. It investigates the impact of South-South relations on the nature of development and technical cooperation, aid and investment, as well as in the configuration of relations between states, farmers and the private sector. It then examines the extent to which the experiences of China and Brazil in developing their agriculture result in qualitatively new paradigms for agricultural development which create opportunities for a redefinition of the development of policy and practice.
Alternatively, it looks at how South-South development cooperation may merely reinforce the drive to capital accumulation unleashed by global economic liberalisation, and reflect strategies by emergent powers to acquire new markets for agricultural technology, inputs, services and new sources of raw materials. Finally, the paper questions the extent to which alternative paradigms can be created within the institutional framework created by neoliberal reform.
FAC Working Paper 53
Current debate is still largely centred on China’s engagement with African agriculture as either a threat or an opportunity. Such debate will not be resolved without a broader body of empirical evidence on the nature and impacts of the diversity of Chinese agriculture engagements in specific African contexts. This paper explores Chinese narratives on: China’s own agriculture and development success; African agriculture challenges and opportunities; and the nature of China-Africa cooperation, to ask how to best engage with China-African agriculture cooperation to improve the outcomes for African agriculture.
The paper first reviews current literature on China-Africa cooperation for agriculture development and identifies gaps that this paper attempts to fill and methods used in this research. Then a very brief overview is given of the institutional arrangements for China-Africa agriculture cooperation, presenting available data on the nature and scale of these engagements. The following sections present narratives from policy papers, media, statements by officials, literature, and informant interviews on this cooperation towards an exploration of the underlying patterns, justifications, relationships and styles of Chinese agriculture engagements in Africa. In the latter section, challenges to the dominant discourse and potential alternative models are explored. Finally, the conclusion brings forward preliminary assessments of these narratives and suggestions for further research.
FAC Working Paper 51
Lídia Cabral and Alex Shankland
This paper summarises the findings of a scoping study on Brazilian development cooperation in agriculture in Africa. The study comprised, in the first instance, a review of the relevant literature and interviews with key informants in Brazil, undertaken between October 2011 and March 2012. This was complemented by an international seminar on the topic held in Brasília on May 2012, which brought together experts and practitioners from Brazil, Africa, China and Europe to discuss Brazilian agricultural cooperation in the context of South-South engagements with Africa. The seminar represented a unique opportunity to gather and contrast experiences and viewpoints on the subject across a wide range of state and non-state actors.
The paper is structured into five sections. This brief introduction is followed by an overview of the general features of Brazilian cooperation, including its drivers, principles, modalities and institutional setting. Section 2 describes cooperation with the African continent, with particular focus on its agriculture component and its growing significance. The fourth section offers some preliminary observations and hypotheses for further investigation. Section 5 concludes with some suggestions for the subsequent stage of the research.
FAC Working Paper 49
Sérgio Chichava, Jimena Duran, Lídia Cabral, Alex Shankland, Lila Buckley, Tang Lixia and Zhang Yue
The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the policies, narratives, operational modalities and underlying motivations of Brazilian and Chinese development cooperation in Mozambique. It is particularly interested in understanding how the engagements are perceived and talked about, what drives them and what formal and informal relations are emerging at the level of particular exchanges.
The paper draws on three experiences representing a variety of engagements and suggesting the increasingly blurred motivations shaping cooperation encounters: (i) ProSavana, Brazil’s current flagship programme in Mozambique, which aims to transform the country’s savannah land spreading along the Nacala corridor, drawing on Brazil’s own experience in the Cerrado; (ii) the Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre (ATDC) in the outskirts of the Mozambican capital; (iii) a private Chinese rice investment project in the Xai-Xai irrigation scheme, which builds on a technical cooperation initiative. The conclusion discusses the extent to which observed dynamics on the ground suggest the emergence of distinctive patterns of cooperation and identities issues for further research on Brazilian and Chinese engagements in Mozambique. | <urn:uuid:be3bc595-0b25-4920-9438-36b908832c3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.future-agricultures.org/publications/research-and-analysis/working-papers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91626 | 2,458 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Leukemia cells, like most cancers, are addicted to glucose to generate their energy, but new research shows for the first time that these cells also rely on fatty acid metabolism to grow and to evade cell death.
Inhibiting fatty acid oxidation makes leukemia cells vulnerable to drugs that force them to commit suicide, scientists from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Medical School at Houston report in the January edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
"These findings translate to a potentially transformational approach to controlling leukemia and cancer cell metabolism by therapeutically targeting fatty acid oxidation," said co-senior author Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy.
"Cancer metabolism has attracted renewed, cutting-edge research interest," Andreeff said. "Here we have first identified a metabolic target and our first in vivo results are promising, but there is much more work that needs to be done."
Andreeff and co-senior author Heinrich Taegtmeyer, M.D., D.Phil., professor in the University of Texas Medical School Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, are collaborating to develop drugs based on their research results.
"The leukemia cells' appetite for fat seems to be formidable," Taegtmeyer said. "More importantly, fat oxidation seems to promote leukemia cell survival. Conversely, shutting off fat oxidation makes the cells vulnerable to self-destruction. If these initial results hold up, inhibitors of fat oxidation may become a new way to treat leukemia patients."
In normal cells, the processing of fatty acids in the cell's power-generating mitochondria leads to production of ATP, a molecule that serves as the major source of energy for the cell. The researchers showed that fatty acid oxidation in leukemia cell mitochondria drives cellular oxygen consumption and inhibits the activity of proteins that are vital to apoptosis, the programmed death of defective cells that begins in the mitochondria.
For energy generation, leukemia cells rely on glycolysis, the processing of a glucose molecule in the cellular cytoplasm that produces two molecules of ATP and two of pyruvate. Pyruvate, in turn, is converted to energy by the Krebs Cycle, a series of chemical reactions inside the mitochondria.
In a series of lab experiments, the researchers demonstrated that etomoxir, a drug used to treat heart failure, inhibits the growth of leukemia cells in culture in a dose-dependent manner. They also found that etomoxir sensitizes leukemia cells to drugs that cause apoptosis. The fatty acid synthase/lipase inhibitor orlistat also sensitized leukemia cells to programmed cell death.
Etomoxir treats heart failure by switching the heart's energy supply from fatty acids to pyruvate, which is more efficiently converted to energy by the mitochondria.
Mouse model experiments showed that combining etomoxir with the apoptosis-inducing drug ABT-737 or with cytarabine, a frontline drug for acute myeloid leukemia, reduced the leukemia burden and increased median survival time by 33 percent and 67 percent respectively compared to control group mice.
Additionally, etomoxir was found to decrease the number of quiescent leukemia progenitor cells in half of blood samples taken from acute myeloid leukemia patients. These quiescent cells are important, the researchers note, because they are capable of initiating leukemia and are highly resistant to traditional chemotherapy.
"Our findings suggest that mitochondrial function and resistance to apoptosis in leukemia cells are intimately linked with the entry of fatty acids into mitochondria," said first author Ismael Samudio, M.D., a fellow in Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. "For many years it has been apparent that leukemia cells are addicted to glucose for the generation of cellular energy (ATP). Now our results suggest that leukemia cells are addicted to fatty acids for the function of the Krebs cycle and the prevention of cell death." | <urn:uuid:820056a2-1bfa-4c2f-8905-85ceafbfef8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/01/27/researchers_find_leukemia_cells_metabolize_fat_to_avoid_cell_death.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925608 | 834 | 2.65625 | 3 |
THOMAS GORMAN, FORMER G.R. MAN, DIES IN WEST
THOMAS GORMAN, a resident of Grand Rapids for more than 70 years, died Thursday at the home of his daughter, MRS. C.C. BERRY, in Los Angeles. He came to Grand Rapids about 1850 from his birthplace in Canada, and was engaged in the lumbering business in northern Michigan. He served three years in the Civil war.
Surviving are three daughters, MRS. BERRY, MRS. F.C. HUBBARD and MISS ANNA GORMAN; five sisters, MRS. ISABELL RONAN, MRS. ALICE GOODRICH, MRS. KATHERINE McGOVERN, MRS. CLYDE BACHMAN and MRS. D.T. WILSON, and two brothers, DANIEL J. GORMAN and JOHN R. GORMAN of Grand Rapids.
THE GRAND RAPIDS HERALD, Grand Rapids, Mich., Wed. Sept. 22, 1926, Pg. 3, Col. 3, Art. 4
NOTE: It is not currently known where Thomas is buried. | <urn:uuid:3c4ce80a-38d3-4a67-8694-7c2a58a1b641> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.northam.usa.states.california.counties.losangeles/19013/mb.ashx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935727 | 254 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Spain has a pigeon problem, and some cities are recruiting private pigeon catchers to trap the rats-with-wings using special net catapult devices.
The technique involves two people and a catapult-sprung net device. One person feeds the pigeons to make sure that they are gathered neatly into a small space, while the other angles the net catapult. Once the birds are in place, the net is released over the birds to trap them before they can fly away.
Barcelona city council has declared pigeons to be a “plague” and has issued a tender to catch and cull 65,000 of them over the next 18 months -- 25% of the pigeon population. This represents a significant mark-up from last year’s already-impressive cull of 40,000 pigeons.
The birds have been singled out for spreading diseases and for causing damage to buildings thanks to their highly corrosive droppings which can damage stone architecture. Most culling methods involve nets and cage traps in the busiest areas and then asphyxiation with carbon dioxide.
Some cities, such as Zamora, employ less aggressive forms of pigeon-removal. Zamora distributes large cages in strategic points in the city filled with wheat to attract the animals. Once caught, the pigeons are subjected to a health check. Sick birds are slaughtered, while healthy ones are moved out of the city. This technique has helped reduce the pigeon population by 80% since 2004.
Over in the UK, we are similarly hostile towards urban pigeons. Ken Livingston declared war on the pigeons when he became Mayor of London in 2000 and passed a bylaw making it illegal to feed them.
Trafalgar Square was once famous for hosting the best-fed pigeons in the land, but repairing the damage to Nelson’s Column and the square caused by pigeon droppings costs £140,000 per year. Hawks have been occasionally introduced to the square to scare them away. | <urn:uuid:fc61432c-2129-456c-ba7a-01309cd853d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/16/pigeon-trapping | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959781 | 400 | 3.09375 | 3 |
With the first Presidential Debate set for tonight at 9PM (EST) we thought it would be fun to point out the major differences between the candidates on issues involving finances. Information was compiled by the Sacramento Bee and ProCon.org.
The main focus tonight is on domestic policy and will be divided into six segments of approximately 15 minutes.
Which financial issues are most important to you?
OBAMA: Fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits projected. Won approval to raise debt limit to avoid default. Calls for tackling the debt with a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases. Central to Obama’s plan is to let Bush-era tax cuts expire for couples making more than $250,000.
ROMNEY: Defended 2008 bailout of financial institutions as necessary step to avoid the system’s collapse and opposed the auto bailout. Plans to cap federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product by end of 1st term (down from 23.5 percent currently) with spending cuts. Favors constitutional balanced budget amendment.
OBAMA: Term marked by high unemployment, a deep recession that began in previous administration and gradual recovery. Responded to recession with $800 billion stimulus plan. Continued implementation of Wall Street and auto industry bailouts begun under George W. Bush. Proposes tax breaks for U.S. manufacturers producing domestically or repatriating jobs from abroad, and tax penalties for U.S. companies outsourcing jobs.
ROMNEY:Lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budget, more trade deals to spur growth. Replace jobless benefits with unemployment savings accounts. Proposes repeal of the law toughening financial-industry regulations after the meltdown in that sector, and the law tightening accounting regulations in response to corporate scandals.
OBAMA: No comprehensive plan to address Social Security’s long-term financial problems. In 2011, proposed a new measure of inflation to reduce annual increases in Social Security benefits. The proposal would reduce the long-term financing shortfall by about 25 percent, according to the Social Security actuaries.
ROMNEY:Protect the status quo for people 55+. For the next generation of retirees, raise the retirement age for full benefits by one or two years and reduce inflation increases in benefits for wealthier recipients.
OBAMA: Wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and ensure they pay 30 percent of their income at minimum. Supports extending Bush-era tax cuts for everyone making under $200,000, or $250,000 for couples. But in 2010, agreed to a two-year extension of lower rates for all. Wants to let the top two tax rates go back up 3 to 4 percentage points to 39.6 percent and 36 percent, and raise rates on capital gains and dividends for the wealthy. Health care law provides for tax on highest-value health insurance plans. Together with Congress, built a first-term record of significant tax cuts, some temporary.
ROMNEY: Keep Bush-era tax cuts for all incomes and drop all tax rates further, by 20 percent, bringing the top rate, for example, down to 28 percent from 35 percent and the lowest rate to 8 percent instead of 10 percent. Curtail deductions, credits and exemptions for the wealthiest. End Alternative Minimum Tax for individuals, eliminate capital gains tax for families making below $200,000 and cut corporate tax to 25 percent from 35 percent. | <urn:uuid:3f2ab075-40cf-419c-803e-4ee93b367f9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wolfbridgefinancial.com/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930726 | 681 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Just Listen is the memoir of a young girl, Jenna Young who lives with her father and his girlfriend, Shelly. Shelly has three children of her own and together, the four young children try to survive an extremely volatile atmosphere at home. Jenna’s father and his thirty eight year old partner are thoroughly inebriated most of the time. When Shelly gets into one of her alcoholic rages she wrecks havoc, destroying furniture and trying to physically harm Jenna’s father. Jenna then has no option but to dial 911 and seek shelter with the police. This only serves to further enrage her father and his partner. To make matters worse, Jenna’s father sodomises her on a regular basis. A terrified Jenna is too scared to say anything. She tries her colossal best to ward off her father during these night time rituals but he placates her with, “I made you. You are part of me.” Her cries for help go unheard. Is it any wonder then that this young girl’s life is so messed up! With no one to turn to, Jenna learns to cope the only way she can. She takes to slashing her wrists repeatedly in an effort to blanket one pain with another. Becoming anorexic is another result of the tumultuous conditions she lives in.
One day, Jenna tortured and confused, meets with a road accident and is taken to the Accident and Emergency room at a local hospital. There a nurse on duty sees the slashes on her arm. Jenna is admitted for psychiatric treatment and thus begins another journey. It is a slow and painful recovery process which takes her eight horrendous years in and out of the psychiatry wards but at last she begins to realise that she is the victim and not the perpetrator of all that has happened to her. She begins to deal with depression, a borderline personality disorder and her severe post traumatic stress disorder by writing her thoughts down. These take the form of journal entries or poems.
Just Listen is book about realization. It is not only the story of a young woman’s struggle with herself and her environment but also a cathartic process where the very act of putting down the words on paper appears to cleanse the soul of this young woman. The author takes her reader through corridors of sheer pain; sometimes there is light visible at the end of a light, but more often, it just dissolves into more pain and heartache; but in the end, this woman survives and comes out a winner. She reaches out to hundreds of other people who are going through similar pain and implores them to speak out. For the rest of us out there, she just wants us to listen.
This 248 page book is an interesting read. It requires some professional editing and proof reading which I think would vastly improve the quality and thereby the sales. The work is available as an ebook on Kindle through Amazon. I am happy to recommend this e book.
Author : Jenna Young
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 255 KB
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services | <urn:uuid:45d1c9dc-30f5-4db2-a509-488b0b936a7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=7434&id=56857 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967963 | 624 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Interest Rate Hike Responsible For Spiralling Debt Amongst Homeowners After the recent increase in the Bank of England base rate, homeowners are taking on increasing debt in order to meet repayments, a new industry survey reveals.
News-Antique.com - Oct 15,2007 - Norwich, UK 10 July 2007 ( NewsAntique ) - - With the continuing hike in interest rates, homeowners nationwide are feeling the heat. Increasing numbers of homeowners are turning to borrowing to survive - news that many industry analysts find alarming.
As more and more homeowners increase their debt burden, further interest rate increases could have a severe impact on the economy, and could lead to an increase in bankruptcies and debt problems without careful budgeting and financial planning. David Bruce of Bluestar Finance( http://www.bluestarfinance.co.uk ) suggests that although increased borrowing can ease the problem, it is important to make sure you borrow within your limits. "When times get tough many people naturally turn to lending institutions, and I would recommend this as a suitable option. However, it's important to make sure you receive up-to-date, sound advice on your options, and the legal ramifications of any lending decision you do make to ensure your borrowing is within your means and right for your circumstances."
The Bank of England base rate currently stands at 5.75%, having a direct impact on the majority of mortgages and homeowner loans( http://www.bluestarfinance.co.uk/loans/homeowner_loans.php ) nationwide.
Bluestar Finance are a Norwich-based finance company, involved in brokering secured homeowner mortgages and personal and bad credit loans( http://www.bluestarfinance.co.uk/loans/bad_credit_loans.php ), as well as advising clients on the current borrowing climate.
Central Capital Ltd
3rd Floor Austin House,
St Crispins Road,
Tel: 0845 257 9286 | <urn:uuid:03f2b7f6-82a1-4b56-ad08-19c00640ab38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news-antique.com/?id=783053&keys=home-loans-secured-loans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944225 | 407 | 1.90625 | 2 |
A grasshopper's change in diet to high-energy carbohydrates while being hunted by spiders may affect the way soil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to Yale and Hebrew University researchers in Science.
Grasshoppers like to munch on nitrogen-rich grass because it stimulates their growth and reproduction. But when spiders enter the picture, grasshoppers cope with the stress from fear of predation by shifting to carbohydrate-rich plants, setting in motion dynamic changes to the ecosystem they inhabit.
"Under stressful conditions they go to different parts of the grocery store and choose different foods, changing the makeup of the plant community," said Oswald Schmitz, a co-author of the study,"Fear of Predation Slows Plant-Litter Decomposition," and Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES).
The high-energy, carbohydrate diet also tilts a grasshopper's body chemistry toward carbon at the expense of nitrogen. So when a grasshopper dies, its carcass breaks down more slowly, thus depriving the soil of high-quality fertilizer and slowing the decomposition of uneaten plants. Microbes in the soil require a lot of nitrogen to function and to produce the enzymes that break down organic matter.
"It only takes a slight change in the chemical composition of that animal biomass to fundamentally alter how much carbon dioxide the microbial pool is releasing to the atmosphere while it is decomposing plant organic matter," said Schmitz. "So this shows that animals could potentially have huge effects on the global carbon balance because they're changing the way microbes respire organic matter."
The researchers found that the rate at which the organic matter of leaves decomposed increased between 60 percent and 200 percent in stress-free conditions relative to stressed conditions, which they consider "huge." "Climate and litter quality are considered the main controls on organic-matter decomposition, but we show that aboveground predators change how soil microbes break down organic matter," said Mark Bradford, a co-author of the study and assistant professor of terrestrial ecosystem ecology at F&ES.
Schmitz added: "What it means is that we're not paying enough attention to the control that animals have over what we view as a classically important process in ecosystem functioning."
The researchers took soil from the field, put it in test tubes and ground up grasshopper carcasses obtained either from predation or predation-free environments. They then sprinkled the powder atop the soil, where the microbes digested it. When the grasshopper carcasses were completely decomposed, the researchers added leaf litter and then measured the rate of leaf-litter decomposition. The experiment was then replicated in the field at Yale Myers Forest in northeastern Connecticut.
"It was a two-stage process where the grasshoppers were used to prime the soil, and then we measured the consequences of that priming," said Schmitz.
Schmitz said that the effect of animals on ecosystems is disproportionately larger than their biomass would suggest. "Traditionally people have thought animals had no important role in recycling of organic matter, because their biomass is relatively small to all of that plant material that's entering ecosystems," he said. "We need to pay more attention to the role of animals because in an era of biodiversity loss we're losing many top predators and larger herbivores from ecosystems."
Explore further: Studying soil to predict the future of earth's atmosphere
More information: "Fear of Predation Slows Plant-Litter Decomposition," by D. Hawlena, Science, 2012. | <urn:uuid:8b43d491-792f-4328-a001-7eb72c5711c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news/2012-06-predators-outsized-habitats.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948973 | 741 | 3.625 | 4 |
Over the course of her career, Ellen Schmidt has seen a shift in how people think about childhood safety and injury and violence prevention. “We didn’t have bicycle helmets, seat belts, car seats, conflict resolution, or bullying prevention growing up,” she says. “Now many people see injury and violence prevention and protection as a way of life.”
Schmidt is senior project director at EDC and an assistant director of the Children’s Safety Network (CSN) National Resource Center for Injury and Violence Prevention. CSN works with state, territorial, and community Maternal & Child Health and Injury & Violence prevention programs to create safe, healthy environments for children, youth, and families.
Schmidt has witnessed positive environmental and behavioral changes, such as the widespread use of smoke detectors and seatbelts. Policymakers and practitioners, she says, have a greater understanding that “injury and violence prevention can be treated with a public health approach, which protects and improves the health of communities through preventive medicine, health education, and safety regulations.”
Prior to joining EDC in 1997, Schmidt worked for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH).
How did you move from working as an occupational therapist to violence and injury prevention?
Occupational therapy (OT) helps people learn the skills to live as independently as possible, whether that person is a car crash survivor recovering from a head injury or an elderly person learning how to use a wheelchair.
I practiced OT in a variety of settings—hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and finally with the DHMH. It was there that I was offered an opportunity to look at ways to prevent falls and reduce hip fractures among the elderly. That’s when I had an “aha!” moment: I could work to prevent the injuries I had been treating. I remained at the DHMH for 10 years, during which time I created the first comprehensive injury prevention and control program. I was also a founding member and president of the State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association, which is now the Safe States Alliance.
While working at the state level, where did you feel you had the most impact?
Public health has made huge gains in defeating childhood diseases with immunizations. But the data now show that injuries are the leading cause of death among people under age 44. The number one cause of death of young children is car crashes. This data made child passenger safety in cars a priority. The DHMH also took action to reduce injuries from bicycle crashes by supporting the passage of a helmet law in Maryland. It took a few years, but a law was passed to protect people under age 17 by mandating the use of bicycle helmets. We saw a 41 percent increase in helmet use.
What are you working on with the Children’s Safety Network?
One area of interest is preventing bullying. EDC has created the Bullying Prevention and Research Institute, which is helping us to collaborate across the organization to address this important issue. We believe if we can teach a child early on what’s acceptable and what’s not, and how to respect and treat others, then we’ll have a safer and much more civil and violence-free society. The more we make bullying an unacceptable behavior at home, at school, and in the community, the more likely we are to help students do better in school and reduce stress and other forms of violence.
How can you raise public awareness enough to bring about real change?
Bullying prevention has been a focus of educators, researchers, and public health providers for many years. There have been programs developed, and trainings and research conducted, and the federal government has paid attention to this issue. With these resources behind us, when the media started to attend to incidents of bullying, the public became more aware and more interested in prevention. CNN recently aired a program about bullying, and Sesame Street is focusing on bullying.
It took Michelle Obama to bring national attention to childhood obesity, which isn’t a new problem. The Susan G. Komen organization’s efforts have raised breast cancer awareness, and now you see pink ribbons everywhere. There’s still a very big challenge with educating decision-makers at the level of state legislators and Congress about the toll of injury and violence and the ways that prevention can preserve and improve the quality of life for children and adults.
CSN works well as the convener of state health agencies to bring people of like minds together. We pull together people who have an interest in the field of injury and violence prevention and try to create those “aha!” moments for them. | <urn:uuid:6882fdb7-019e-4b52-9d70-b8701c06a9a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edc.org/about/staff_spotlight/ellen_schmidt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972475 | 970 | 2.203125 | 2 |
|Proceedings Home Page
Working Group Reports:
Group members: Deborah Hayes, Barry Meyers-Rice, Al Cofrancesco, Stanley Jones, Elizabeth Kane, Ken Lakin, Susan McCarthy, Laurie Neville, Alex Petkov, Ron Stinner, Sterling White
All of the other working groups stated that an aggressive public outreach component was essential to the success of the National Early Warning System for Invasive Plants. Outreach can help the public become knowledgeable and willing to participate in detecting and reporting new occurrences of invasive species. It also fosters public support for providing needed resources to deal with new invasive species in a timely manner.
The specific charge to the Public Outreach and Information Access Working Group was to conceptualize an interagency system to encourage public involvement and support for detecting and reporting potential new invasive species or expanding ranges of established invaders, through the training of appropriate individuals in observing, collecting, reporting, assessing, eradicating, and controlling plant invasions. A number of special issues were suggested for group consideration, including:
The discussion was focused on education and outreach of the public, rather than a program to reach the professionals that would be dealing with the scientific and regulatory actions of early detection, rapid assessment, and rapid response. There is a great need to draw the public into the concept of early detection and rapid response so they can be a dynamic and contributing part of the effort - part of the solution, not part of the problem.
The Public Outreach Group operated under the following assumptions:
1. Establish a strategy for the empowerment and involvement of key partners.
Such a strategy should identify target audiences and utilize the appropriate partner to reach that specific group. Specific issues to be addressed include: On what level should the initial alert be broadcast: local, state or regional? What communication media would best supply information quickly to the appropriate recipients? How will information be transferred into the professional network for verification and archiving? What measures will best measure outcomes and how they will be evaluated.
2. Establish a national task group to foster collaboration with similar state task groups that will, in turn, work with local task groups. This hierarchical network would involve all stakeholders interested in participating as a partner. The stratification of an educational/public outreach program would facilitate outreach at whatever level is appropriate for the particular invasive species outbreak. For example, Asian Longhorn Beetle would be considered a regional problem and outreach would be at that level. Whereas, glassy wing sharpshooter was a southern California situation initially and would be coordinated on a multi-county level. The national task group should include all levels of government, tribes, NGO’s, academia, industry and trade groups, environmental groups, and appropriate international groups.
3. Develop educational resources and establish a web-based central information clearinghouse. New educational materials should be developed, both on the general topic of early detection of invasive species, as well as timely materials dealing with the latest alert.
One way of increasing availability of existing materials is through a virtual central catalog. Any group producing educational materials could provide information on content, cost, production runs, and distribution/shipping information to the catalog, and interested groups could order them directly from the supplier. The catalog could cover any type of media, from compact disks, tape cassettes, and videos to printed materials including handbooks, flyers, etc. Training materials such as keys, fact sheets, survey forms, and etc., could also be posted.
A short turnaround time for releasing information on new introductions could be achieved by developing web-based templates that would have standardized format and content. These would be easily adapted to insert the information needed for the invasive species and locale in question and would be accessible for any group to use. Templates could be also developed for wanted posters, flyers, fact sheets, brochures, etc.
Other ideas not specifically linked to early detection were explored. Many other educational materials could be developed and made available through a Virtual Catalog, for instance, quizzes, games and teaching modules for K-12. A web-based course on invasive species for teachers could used for continuing education credits. Canned talks on specific species or invasive species or topics could be downloaded, and a national /state speakers bureau could be established.
4. Establish a communication network for rapid exchange and distribution of early detection information.
Early detection is only valuable if the information is distributed rapid and efficiently, while there is still time to take action. Plans for distribution should already be in place at all levels, nationally, regionally and locally, when an invasive species is first verified.
On a national basis, it would be easiest to work though entities that can forward on information to many other groups. Certainly web-based distribution will be essential, with alerts being posted on national level websites and mailing lists. However, horticultural retailers such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Catalog nurseries, could also be helpful in informing their customers about new invasive species.
On a regional basis, state and regional land management centers (e.g., Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Materials Centers) could carry messages for visitors to their lands. Many of these same visitors would carry the message back to other states. Universities and professional societies could issue alerts through their channels.
A local distribution network might be composed of posting flyers in grocery stores,
Library branches, and Garden centers. Many groups have already been successful in working with local newspapers to develop inserts. A group in California was able to get a line on the local ,
5. Target the media is as a fulltime communication network.
Media relations can be critical in communicating directly to the public, and in establishing the credibility of the information. At the national level, electronic news bureaus such as the Associated Press can be invaluable in disseminating information. To foster a knowledgeable media, seminars for journalists could be held to provide information on invasive species issues as well as the need for immediate response to new reports of invasions.
Local cable TV distributors often have a channel reserved for local information, both both for new shows and talk show formats. Community service information distributors, such as libraries and museums should be contacted. Other regional/local media, such as the environmental newspapers, freelance writers, local newspapers, etc., should also be included in developing news on local, regional and national impacts of invasive species. All interagency committee or coordinators dealing with invasive species should become adept at pulling together relevant information press packages as well as in determining when and how to issue appropriate press releases. Video clips of stock footage should be made available to new organizations as attachments to press releases.
In addition to a characterization of invasive species alerts as appropriate news flashes, there is also the option of taking out paid advertising. In planning a national media blitz for the general topic, it would probably be prudent to work with a professional marketing agency. Many local groups have been successful at engaging the public by paying for local inserts on their current weed problems. Public service announcements (PSAs) should be developed and made available for local news/media outlets, and should be kept current.
Documentaries of invasive species impacts can be very effective in laying out the problem before the public. Film from these documentaries can be used in shorter educational videos, or even made available as stock footage to the media or used for PSAs.
6. Develop efficient ways to facilitate information exchange between messengers and recipients.
A "World-Wide Weed Web" (WWWW) would be extremely useful, and far reaching in addressing early alerts. The initiation of such a project would be challenging. The challenge would be in screening the participant websites for accuracy and credibility of information posted. For this reason, the backbone of such a undertaking would have to be the government agencies, NGO’s , industry, academic and scientific institutions. For example: state and local government, extension agents, farm bureaus, libraries, and schools at all levels could develop websites relevant to their own issues; but there would still have to be an organizing force at the national and international level.
A WWWW would be useful in posting not only early alerts, but also training materials, templates for information brochures and other educational materials. When a new alert is issued, a taxonomic key could be posted to help volunteers distinguish a new invasive species from related or look-a-like organisms.
7. Develop mechanisms for the public to become involved.
Volunteer programs for early detection of invasive species can be quite powerful. Not only would they serve to get hundreds of thousands of new eyes looking for new invasions, but they would also reinforce the information received through other outlets. Several concepts underlie a successful volunteer program for early detection: 1) The partnerships should be developed early, before there is a new invasion; 2) the volunteers should be duly recognized in a public manner for their contributions; 3) there should be adequate feedback to the volunteers that their efforts have been successful and useful.
There are a number of options for developing such a national program, but one of the best models would be the "Master" programs, such as Master Gardeners and Master Loggers, often are taught through universities and their extension programs. Volunteers trained in these programs could become the local spotters on a county basis. They could also serve as the local educators in working with youth groups, such as Girl and Boy Scouts, 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA). They could also work with schools to sponsor science fair projects dealing with invasive species. These volunteers would be the local links to State Weed Coordinator. There are also professional groups that provide additional information in the course of their normal duties, such as the Crop Consultants of America, or Highway Department personnel.
Two specific volunteer projects that were mentioned were highway cleanup teams and a national invasive species inventory. The highway cleanup teams would work in a manner similar to the Adopt-a-Highway program, i.e., a local volunteer group would periodically walk a highway corridor to inventory and identify invasive species. The group could go a step further to eradicate or control invasive species where safe methods are available. The national invasive species inventory would work in a manner similar to the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, especially in sensitive areas considered vulnerable to invasive species, or in perimeter areas of infestations. A well trained volunteer force could functionally augment the professional cadre in carrying out important inventories. | <urn:uuid:a0e4e338-e6f8-4330-9a77-89855c096253> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fws.gov/ficmnew/proceedings%20on%20the%20web/public_outreach.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947996 | 2,130 | 2.8125 | 3 |
US worried by Russia ‘foreign agent’ bill for NGOs
The US says it has been worried by a Russian bill that would force non-governmental organizations (NGOs) financed by other states to register as “foreign agents.”
“The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to be heard and have a voice in government. That’s why we’ve raised our concerns about the potential passage of this new NGO legislation,” said Patrick Ventrell, a spokesman for the US Department of State.
The comments came after Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has passed the bill in its first reading.
The bill, if passed in the second reading of the state Duma on Friday, would force the NGOs to publish a report of their activities twice a year and carry out an annual financial audit.
The founders of the non-governmental organizations would face four-year jail sentences and/or fines of up to 300,000 rubles (USD 9,200) if they failed to comply with the law.
The legislation is expected to be reviewed by the Federation Council upper house on July 18.
The use of the term of “foreign agents” in the law was equivalent with “spying and treason” in the Soviet era.
Disputes over who has been funding Russian NGOs have increased after some controversial remarks made by the US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul who said in April that the Obama administration would like to set up a ‘civil society fund’ in Russia.
Rejecting reports about US involvement in anti-government protests that hit Moscow during the country’s presidential elections, McFaul said the US government funds no organization in Russia except independent NGOs. | <urn:uuid:d23a2759-7cb7-4e42-8898-e141d52204f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/us-worried-by-russia-foreign-agent-bill-for-ngos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968642 | 364 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Google has recently taken some flak for its "real names" policy on Google+ -- a number of users have had their Google+ accounts (and, sometimes, all related accounts) suspended for failing to use their real names.
Google's Senior Vice President of Social, Vic Gundotra, says this policy is to set a positive tone, "like when a restaurant doesn't allow people who aren't wearing shirts to enter."
Gundotra, reportedly speaking to tech blogger Robert Scoble, says the policy isn't about real and legal names -- it's about people who spell their names in weird ways (with upside down characters, for example), or use obviously fake pseudonyms, such as "God, or worse."
I understand the argument for a "real names" policy -- that it keeps people accountable for what they say, and that it promotes a professional, business-like environment. Letting people use pseudonyms on social networks inevitably leads to a little chaos and less credibility.
But if we don't have anonymity on the Internet, we've got nothing.
There are plenty of valid reasons out there for preserving online anonymity. For example, there are people who want to change the world via social and political activism, but who also don't want to be killed for voicing their views. There are people who want to keep what semblance of privacy they have left in the modern-day world. There are people who want to be able to surf the Web without being harassed, bullied, or stalked.
But this is the most valid reason of all: the Internet never forgets.
It's easy to argue for accountability and a "real names" policy when you're bumping up against the limits of the human brain. But online, we're not limited by that -- we're limited by billions of Petabytes, which is not a limit at all.
Think of it this way: it's true; in real life you can't (really) say mean things to people anonymously. So in real life, you probably have to own up to the mean things you say. But there are a lot of limits on how much those things you say really affect your life: people forgive, people forget, people move far away and never look back.
On the Internet, it's not quite the same. If you say something mean and it's in any way linked to your real name, everyone you meet for the next 60 years will just be a click away from knowing what a horrible, awful person you are. Time does not heal on the Internet -- time doesn't even exist on the Internet.
So people who think that getting rid of anonymity on the Internet is in any way a good thing need to take a good, long look at the Internet, and how it's totally different from the human brain. | <urn:uuid:b075706a-f179-4081-b447-742ba05c5ebd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/3293552/in-defense-of-online-anonymity-the-google-policy-is-wrong/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965279 | 575 | 2.171875 | 2 |
This degree provides you with a broad set of skills and knowledge that are needed to support modern organisations. You'll begin to specialise after your first year, choosing from a wide range of modules designed to stretch and challenge you and equip you with the skills you need to start a successful career or to serve as a basis for further study.
In your first year, we build on the maths you did at school, introducing techniques and approaches that help organisations to plan and make better decisions. You will learn to think statistically and analyse data. You'll learn how to make forecasts and how to use data to understand complex behaviour and be introduced to the operations and strategic business contexts in which these ideas can be applied. You will also take a 'live' module, working in small teams to deliver a project for a client in the Lancaster area.
You can choose to specialise at the end of the first year, selecting a main track from Business Analytics; Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Management; Project Management; and Information Systems. You can also take modules from other tracks alongside modules in your main track to widen your knowledge and skill set.
The Business Analytics track provides you with the mathematical tools that develop practical, numerate and computer-based modelling skills.
The Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Management track includes: Supply Chain Management, Purchasing, Forecasting, Inventory Planning, Risk Analysis and many other relevant topics aimed at developing your understanding of specific business problems faced by operations managers.
The Project Management track develops the project management and consultancy skills to implement ideas in practice, encouraging all employees to participate in change.
On the Information Systems track, you'll learn more about designing and managing the computer-based systems on which most organisations depend upon in the digital economy. | <urn:uuid:84c6883b-8b41-48d9-91d2-ca6855289f9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lancs.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/business-analytics-and-consultancy-bsc-hons-n2n1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929764 | 356 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Nusa Dua (Bali), Nov 19 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Australian counterpart Julia Gillard met here Saturday for a brief interaction to take forward discussions on selling uranium to India and also to review their strategic partnership.
The unscheduled pull aside, on the sidelines of the India-Asean and East Asia summits, saw the two leaders interacting for seven-eight minutes.
“Prime Minister Gillard apprised on the steps she’s planning to take on selling uranium to India,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash told journalists.
“I am taking the change of policy to my party conference in December,” the Australian prime minister was quoted as telling journalists after her meeting with the Indian prime minister.
The issue of Indian students also came up at the interaction here Saturday with Manmohan Singh appreciating how the issue was handled.
There had been a spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia in 2009-10 but the problem was curtailed due to a series of measures announced by the Australian government.
Manmohan Singh and Gillard had spoken on the phone, a day after the Australian prime minister had signalled the plan to lift a long standing ban on uranium sales to India and pushed her Labour Party to change its stance, citing New Delhi’s growing economy and its ambitious atomic energy plans.
She had also written to him, citing three points for the proposal – India’s growing energy needs, its impeccable non-proliferation record and the strategic partnership between the two countries.
The final decision rests with Gillard’s Labour party, which will meet next month.
Gillard will be under pressure to get her party to agree to her proposal even though India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
India had quickly hailed Gillard’s move, announced Nov 15.
“We must, of course, expect of India the same standards we do of all countries for uranium export – strict adherence to International Atomic Energy Agency arrangements and strong bilateral and transparency measures which will provide assurances our uranium will be used only for peaceful purposes,” Gillard had written in the Sydney Morning Herald.
For the past four years, the Labour government has linked uranium exports to India signing the 1970 NPT.
Gillard also held a press conference in Melbourne and pushed her Labour Party colleagues to change their stand on selling uranium to India.
She argued that selling uranium to India “will be good for the Australian economy and good for Australian jobs”.
Gillard went on to add that India plans to increase the share of nuclear power from its current three percent of electricity generation to 40 percent by 2050 – a fact that should benefit Australia, the world’s third largest supplier of uranium.
Secondly, she said the uranium sale will be “another step forward” in Australia’s relationship with India, the world’s largest democracy and a rising economic giant.
Thirdly, she argued that the US-India civil nuclear agreement has effectively lifted the de-facto international ban on cooperation with India in this area and added that in view of changed global circumstances, “for us to refuse to budge is all pain with no gain and I believe that our national platform should recognise that reality”. | <urn:uuid:dbaf7647-be07-4499-bb74-4bbe905c8ee3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sarkaritel.com/pm-and-gillard-meet-discuss-sale-of-uranium/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953781 | 692 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Discovery of Radioactivity
Natural radioactivity was first observed in 1896 by A. H. Becquerel, who discovered that when salts of uranium are brought into the vicinity of an unexposed photographic plate carefully protected from light, the plate becomes exposed. The radiation from uranium salts also causes a charged electroscope to discharge. In addition, the salts exhibit phosphorescence and are able to produce fluorescence. Since these effects are produced both by salts and by pure uranium, radioactivity must be a property of the element and not of the salt. In 1899 E. Rutherford discovered and named alpha and beta radiation, and in 1900 P. Villard identified gamma radiation. Marie and Pierre Curie extended the work on radioactivity, demonstrating the radioactive properties of thorium and discovering the highly radioactive element radium in 1898. Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie discovered the first example of artificial radioactivity in 1934 by bombarding nonradioactive elements with alpha particles.
Sections in this article: | <urn:uuid:86003787-dd84-40d9-90f7-4191fb29221d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/science/radioactivity-discovery-radioactivity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902104 | 207 | 3.71875 | 4 |
At one time, grapes were nearly as big a crop in the Santa Clara Valley as prunes. This blog is a brief account of the early wine industry in Valley. It is condensed from my new local history book, The Last of the Prune Pickers: A Pre-Silicon Valley Story.
The grapes grown at Mission Santa Clara were not of a quality to produce commercial wine, but many settlers who came later brought their choice vines with them. As with fruit trees, nearly countless varieties of grapes were tried.
Elisha Stevens (of Steven’s Creek fame), who in 1844 led one of the first wagon trains into California, planted a vineyard in the foothills of what is now Cupertino. Stevens had come to California seeking for gold—before it was discovered. He was apparently trained in prospecting, and after leaving off his party, went into the Sierras looking for gold. He did not find what he was looking for, so he came back to the Santa Clara Valley and planted his vineyard near today's Blackberry Farms golf course.
An interesting note: Stevens had been in many of the right places in the Sierras to find gold—even up the Feather River Canyon where some of the richest surface deposits were later found just lying in the river.
Stevens may have missed the gold, but he got the location right for his vineyard. The hill country of the Santa Clara Valley, especially on the west and south sides, was ideal for growing grapes. Many other settlers followed Stevens and planted vineyards in the area. Almost all of them were Europeans who had brought their own stock from their mother countries and were well-versed in wine-making.
One of the earliest was Pierre Mirassou, who established the Mirassou Winery in what is today’s Evergreen District of San Jose. Charles Lefranc, another experienced wine maker from France, established Almaden Vineyards in 1852 along the southern hills. After Lefranc’s death, his partner and son-in-law, Paul Masson, went out on his own and started his winery in Saratoga. Masson’s specialty was champagne, which his winery produced in Saratoga until the early 1970s. One of his original buildings still stands today. It is located off of Pierce Road and is now used for social gatherings.
Virtually all the grapes produced in the Santa Clara Valley were for wine making, and many varieties proved successful. Grapes for raisins were (and still are) grown in the Central Valley where it is hotter and more conducive to growing raisin grapes.
It is not so easy to just pick up a vine or a fruit tree, take it outside of its natural habitat, and plant it. Many things can, and do, go wrong. Just as many of the native peoples in the Americas died from European diseases because they lacked immunity to them, so it can be with plants. A case where something did go horribly wrong was when someone took cuttings from wild grapes in California and carried them off to Europe to experiment with them. A tiny insect called Phylloxera came along for the ride, to which the European vineyards had no resistance. So the European wine industry took a big hit.
And the California wine industry got off the ground.
The California wine industry became huge, but the boom in the Santa Clara Valley was over by 1890. As more and more vineyards were planted and started bearing, the necessary infrastructure—cellars, presses, cooperage, bottle works, etc.—did not keep pace. The grape growers in the Valley were stuck with a lot of grapes that they could not process. Vintners in other areas did put in the needed infrastructure, and because wine grapes cannot be transported very far, the San Joaquin Valley and the Napa/Sonoma area became California’s wine country.
In the western and southern foothills of the Santa Clara Valley, many farmers tore out their vineyards and planted prunes and apricots.
The Villa Montalvo property in Saratoga (now a cultural center) was purchased by Senator James Phelan in 1912 and had been almost entirely vineyards. Phelan tore out the vineyards and built his estate and gardens.
But the vineyards made a comeback beginning in the 1980s, and today there are many small vineyards in the western and southern hills of the Valley. Although most of the newer vineyards are not self-sustaining commercial enterprises, who is not glad to see them there? How pleasant is a vineyard!
Other than these reminders of the past, all that remains of the early grape growing era in the Valley are a few street names.
The Last of the Prune Pickers is available at www.2timothypublishing.com | <urn:uuid:92e05582-5300-429a-824f-fde33db3148b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://losgatos.patch.com/groups/tim-stanleys-blog/p/bp--early-local-vineyards | 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 | 0.986329 | 1,005 | 2.765625 | 3 |
An IRA usually has a beneficiary designation. When the IRA owner dies, the beneficiary designation controls the disposition. For example, your mother's IRA may say that all or part of the IRA should be paid to her child(ren). Because the IRA passes directly to the beneficiaries, the estate would not include them in income. Each beneficiary is responsible for including the IRA in their income when distributed.
If IRAs are her only assets, then there is no need for probate as the assets pass through designation. Because probate costs money, you could avoid this expense by not opening an estate proceeding unless other assets are involved. If there are other assets or probate, then it would be appropriate to apply for a tax identification number on Form SS-4. You should also complete and file Form 56.
The primary duties of a personal representative are to collect all the decedent's assets, pay the creditors, and distribute the remaining assets to the heirs or other beneficiaries. While this sounds simple, it can get complicated, so I highly recommend you hire a good CPA and attorney to help you through the probate process.
Ask the adviserTo ask a question on Tax Talk, go to the "Ask the Experts" page and select "Taxes" as the topic. Read more Tax Talk columns.
To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any U.S. federal tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein. Taxpayers should seek professional advice based on their particular circumstances. | <urn:uuid:472152f0-3b83-401e-b2d7-9df00a79324c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/executor-of-will-owes-money-irs.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939379 | 355 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS
- Henry V. Before God, I am exceeding weary.
- Edward Poins. Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not
attach'd one of so high blood.
- Henry V. Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion
my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me
desire small beer?
- Edward Poins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to
remember so weak a composition.
- Henry V. Belike then my appetite was not-princely got; for, by
troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But
indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with
greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name,
to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of
stockings thou hast—viz., these, and those that were thy
peach-colour'd ones—or to bear the inventory of thy shirts-
one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the
tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb
linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou
not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries
have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows
those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit
kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the
whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily
- Edward Poins. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you
should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes
do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?
- Henry V. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
- Edward Poins. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
- Henry V. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than
- Edward Poins. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will
- Henry V. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad,
my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee—as to one it
pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend—I could
sad and sad indeed too.
- Henry V. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's
as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the
try the man. But I tell thee my heart bleeds inwardly that my
father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art
in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
- Henry V. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?
- Henry V. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed
fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man's thought in
world keeps the road-way better than thine. Every man would
me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful
thought to think so?
- Edward Poins. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed
- Edward Poins. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with
own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a
brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those
things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes
Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE
- Henry V. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. 'A had him from me
Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform'd
- Henry V. And yours, most noble Bardolph!
- Edward Poins. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be
blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly
are you become! Is't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's
- Page. 'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and
could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I
spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the
alewife's new petticoat, and so peep'd through.
- Bardolph. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
- Page. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!
- Henry V. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
- Page. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a
firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.
- Henry V. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There 'tis,
[Giving a crown]
- Edward Poins. O that this blossom could be kept from cankers!
Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
- Bardolph. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the
shall have wrong.
- Henry V. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
- Bardolph. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming to
There's a letter for you.
- Edward Poins. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,
- Edward Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that
not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.
- Henry V. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my
and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.
- Edward Poins. [Reads] 'John Falstaff, knight'—Every man must know
as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those
are kin to the King; for they never prick their finger but
say 'There's some of the King's blood spilt.' 'How comes
says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as
ready as a borrower's cap: 'I am the King's poor cousin,
- Henry V. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from
Japhet. But the letter: [Reads] 'Sir John Falstaff, knight,
the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of
- Henry V. Peace! [Reads] 'I will imitate the honourable Romans
- Edward Poins. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
- Henry V. [Reads] 'I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I
leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses
favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister
Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell.
Thine, by yea and no—which is as much as to say as
thou usest him—JACK FALSTAFF with my familiars,
JOHN with my brothers and sisters, and SIR JOHN with
- Edward Poins. My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat
- Henry V. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you
me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?
- Edward Poins. God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said
- Henry V. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master
- Henry V. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
- Bardolph. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
- Page. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
- Page. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll
- Henry V. What pagan may that be?
- Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my
- Henry V. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
- Henry V. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master
I am yet come to town. There's for your silence.
- Page. And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
- Henry V. Fare you well; go. Exeunt BARDOLPH and PAGE
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
- Edward Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans
- Henry V. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in
true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
- Edward Poins. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon
his table as drawers.
- Henry V. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove's
case. From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That
shall be mine; for in everything the purpose must weigh with
folly. Follow me, Ned. | <urn:uuid:a4bba845-e13f-45ad-b8fc-5d5e9ec7f7f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=henry4p2&Act=2&Scene=2&Scope=scene&LineHighlight=1046 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935087 | 2,014 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Step 4: Make the top ring assembly
There is a central ring that is made from aluminum but it could also be made from plastic and painted silver. It's held on with some thin copper wire and a few dabs of glue from a glue gun.
The last bit is a coil of coper wire that has been formed into a ring. I used wire that was coated red- you could use a marker to color the wire. The wire was wound around a drill bit, formed into a circle and then glued together with a glue gun. The coil ring is then placed around the bolts. | <urn:uuid:435bd6e0-8bc6-49b6-9561-4b64c0bdf7b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-Iron-Man-Arc-Reactor/step4/Make-the-top-ring-assembly/CV9SE1OGANOQXSU | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989772 | 121 | 1.914063 | 2 |
For statement two,
"It will take 6 minutes to type the first half of the letter at an average speed of 40 words per minute"
In the back of the book you wrote the equation w/2 = 40(6)
How do we know that half of the letter is exactly half of the words? Common sense tells me when someone is typing they don't stop exactly at the end of a word. Usually they stop at the end of a sentence or at the end of a paragraph. If there were 4 paragraphs in the letter, half of the letter should be the end of the second paragraph. How do we know word is the delimiter, and not letters, sentences or paragraphs? | <urn:uuid:2c1a17de-c16e-4e94-8e9c-c0f6d47e05cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.veritasprep.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=18065 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956534 | 142 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Make a safe environment for your cat by cat proofing your home.
Things we may never think about that are always around our home can create dangerous situations for our cats. After reading 25 Ways to Cat-Proofing Your Home in CatFancy magazine July Issue, I thought I would share the top 10 which in my opinion of a surprise and never thought of. Please keep in mind these are only a few of the 25 ways to keep your cat safe in your home which one can obtain by purchasing either a subscription to CatFancy magazine or purchasing the PDF version of the complete article.
- Large appliances: Washers, dryers, and dishwashers can be a fun and adventurous place for cats to go. They love climbing into places that we may not think of. So remember to always keep lids shut.
- Hot Surfaces: Our cats are notorious for climbing on kitchen appliances and stove tops. Unlike dogs they are more agile and can climb on to the stove without making a sound. So make sure everything has cooled off before letting your furry felines into the kitchen, or near space heaters.
- Kitchen Counters: Onions and chocolate are harmful to cats, leaving unattended food could get your cat sick. Always dispose of bones and trash properly and not leave them lying around for your curious cat to find. Even leaving baby bottles on the kitchen counter can become hazardous for cats that love milk. They may try to break the bottle open.
- Detergents and cleaners: like baby proofing, keeping detergents and cleaners in child proof level doors is always a great idea.
- Rodent and insect repellents: Sometimes when we see unwanted rodents and insects we instantly get the bug killing spray and rat traps out. Please remember that our cats can get trapped by the rat traps and can get sick from bug spray.
- Furniture: Folding furniture can trap cats. Always check for cats before returning furniture to their normal positions.
- Cords and wires: Phone, TV, and Internet cords are examples for wires that entice cats to come play. Keep cords bond to prevent our furry friends from getting tangled or shocked.
- Flames: Candles create a soothing environment and warms a room, but candles can also burn paws and singe whiskers. Never leave your candles unattended.
- Blinds, Drapes, and Curtains: Try to keep drapes and curtains out of reach of young cats, otherwise they will be trying to climb up them. Also try and shorten your blind cords to prevent accidental strangulation.
- Plants and Flowers: Some plants are deadly to cats; always check to make sure that the plants being brought into the house are feline friendly.
It is our intention to provide you with helpful articles on everything related to your pet as we find and deemed them worthwhile. | <urn:uuid:9a8fc91a-981d-4cdb-8eb8-068697963fbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.4petsusa.com/category/safety/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940899 | 584 | 2.015625 | 2 |
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service administers the Federal Pesticide Recordkeeping Program, which requires all certified private pesticide applicators to keep records of their use of federally restricted use pesticides (RUP) for a period of 2 years.
The Federal Pesticide Recordkeeping Program was authorized by the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990, commonly referred to as the 1990 Farm Bill. Under this law, all certified private pesticide applicators who have no requirement through State regulations to maintain RUP records must comply with the Federal pesticide recordkeeping regulations. Certified private pesticide applicators who are required to maintain records of RUP applications whose State regulations have been determined comparable to the Federal regulations will continue to keep the records as required by the State. Regulations of the Department of Agriculture pertaining to pesticide recordkeeping are found in the Code of Federal Regulations Title 7 Part 110.
The pesticide recordkeeping regulations require the certified private pesticide applicator to record the following for each restricted use pesticide application, within 14 days of the application:
- The Brand or Product Name; that is, trademark name of the pesticide being used.
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Registration Number. The registration number is not the same as the EPA Establishment Number which is also located on the label.
- The total quantity of the pesticide applied in common units of measure. Such as pints, quarts, gallons, etc. of concentrated pesticide. Amount does not refer to the percent of active ingredient (a.i.).
- The date of the pesticide application, including month, day, and year.
- The location of the restricted use pesticide application. Not the address of the farm or business. Options are by: a) County, range, township, or section, b) Identification system established by USDA, such as plat IDs used by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) or the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), c) Legal property description, as listed on the deed of trust or county/city records, or d) An applicator generated identification system that accurately identifies the location of the application.
- Crop, Commodity, Stored Product, or Site being treated.
- Size of area treated. Record this information in the unit of measure (such as acres, linear feet, bushel, cubic feet, number of animals, etc.) which is normally expressed on the label in reference to the application being made.
- The name of the certified private applicator performing and/or supervising the application.
- The certification number of the private applicator. If the name of the certified private applicator and the certification number are kept together, this information only has to be listed once. Note: the name and certification number may be recorded at the front of a record book if the same applicator is making the application.
Spot Treatment Requirements
Spot treatments are especially useful in the control of noxious weeds if you apply restricted use pesticides on the same day in a total area of less than 1/10 of an acre, you are required to record the following:
- Date of application including month, day, and year.
- Total amount of pesticide applied.
- Location of the pesticide application, designated as "Spot application" and short description. (The spot treatment provision excludes greenhouse and nursery applications.)
No standard Federal form is required, so that pesticide recordkeeping can be integrated into the applicator's current recordkeeping systems. Go to Pesticide Recordkeeping Forms
All certified commercial pesticide applicators will continue to maintain the records they currently keep under State, Tribal, or Federal regulations.
- The Federal pesticide recordkeeping regulations require all commercial applicators, both agricultural and non-agricultural, to furnish a copy of the data elements required by this regulation, to the customer within 30 days of the restricted use pesticide application.
Access to RUP Records
- Certified/licensed health care professionals, or those acting under their direction, may have access to your record information when treating an individual who may have been exposed to restricted use pesticides. In the case of a medical emergency, record information must be made available immediately.
- State pesticide regulatory representatives. | <urn:uuid:10bc407d-1245-4ab8-bff0-ac10a07fdec2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateN&navID=PRPBrochuresPageNav2Link2&rightNav1=PRPBrochuresPageNav2Link2&topNav=&leftNav=&page=PRPFacts&resultType=Detail&acct=pestcdreckpprg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924118 | 851 | 2 | 2 |
December 27, 2011
The Government of Canada announced new sanctions on Syria's Assad regime in response to its ongoing and escalating repression of Syrians.
The measures prohibit all imports, with the exception of food, from Syria; all new investment in Syria; and the export to Syria of equipment, including software, for the monitoring of telephone and Internet communications. Canada is also imposing an assets freeze and prohibiting economic dealings with additional individuals and entities associated with the Assad regime.
"Canada stands with the Syrian people in their efforts to secure for themselves a brighter future. We look forward to a new Syria that respects the rights of its people and lives in peace with its neighbours" said Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. "Sanctions imposed by like-minded partners, including the United States and the European Union, and recently by the Arab League are having an impact in isolating the regime."
For more information, please visit Regulations Amending the Special Economic Measures (Syria) Regulations. | <urn:uuid:e40c325e-0e36-48cb-b742-3a5481c79f04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.affiliated.ca/NewsDetails.aspx?lang=en-CA&id=5903 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962181 | 194 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Non-IT graduates may be put off from IT jobs due to a lack of technical qualifications, but the area of software testing is a plausible option, because they can offer a different yet complementary approach, particularly if the apps are meant for everyday, regular users.
Jeff Findlay, a senior solution architect, Asia-Pacific and Japan at Micro Focus, is one who said a lack of formal IT qualifications does not have to be a deterrent in considering software testing jobs. Findlay himself has a degree in architecture and worked in the construction industry for many years before moving to the IT field.
"The answer to whether software testing is a viable career for non-IT graduates is definitely yes," he said. "Many successful testers come to IT with diverse backgrounds, myself included. I moved to IT using my [architecture] graduate skills in organization, process and design to underpin the complex functions associated with software development lifecycle (SDLC) and testing."
According to Findlay, having a general degree provides a broader mindset for testers to draw upon when doing testing. At the same time, they are able to clearly and solely focus on the testing activities, rather than worry about why and how a bug got introduced or what the best solution to an issue might be.
Two attributes are critical for good testers regardless of academic background, which non-IT persons can develop and receive training, he pointed out.
The first is domain knowledge, which is what separates good software testers from the rest, the Micro Focus executive said. The tester must know the business that surrounds the application under test and its various intricacies--which depend on what business and industry the employer is in, Findlay explained.
In the same vein, the tester must also understand the SDLC processes or models for the app as used by their employer, such as agile, iterative or waterfall, he said.
Peter Noblet, senior regional director of recruitment company Hays Information Technology, said non-IT testers do not have preconceived ideas about the functionality and technical capabilities of an application. This fresh approach means they might be able to give a more accurate view of issues that do impact the user experience when interacting with the software.
On the flipside, because of their lack of technical knowledge, non-IT testers do not understand the limitations of the app, and may have unrealistic expectations of what the software can do, he pointed out.
Derek Ang, CEO of Morces, said since more software, such as mobile apps, today is used by normal, everyday people, "it makes no sense why non-IT grads cannot be good software testers". Singapore-based Morces specializes in providing a platform for businesses to build their existing Web site into a mobile one without technical skills.
"As a developer, sometimes we are too technically-wired that we forget our software is to be used by everyday people, and overlook some things that my team mates will have to notify me of," he said.
For Ang, the ideal software testing team should comprise of IT and non-IT individuals. The IT individuals test technical aspects, while their non-IT peers test other areas such as human-computer interaction (HCI) and flow.
Bryan Wong, chief operating officer of Morces, added non-IT grads would "probably do a better job" in system testing as they can look at the overall functionality of an application without the need to know the internal source code. IT grads, on the other hand, are ideal for unit testing since it involves a programmer to work on the actual code, testing and inspecting individual components to find the actual root cause of error.
Gibson Tang, manager of Azukisoft, which develops mobile apps and games, said some of the best software testers he has worked were non-technical people, who have an eye for detail as well as an "unconventional knack in breaking software while it is still in the development phase".
"As their nature is not IT-based, their feedback on what makes a good feature [of an app] would be more effective since my software products cater to a wide general audience, including non-IT users," he explained.
Tang said he actually prefers testers to be non-IT grads, but added he will also want to train them to handle more IT tasks along the way.
Not for everyone
Hays' Noblet emphasized that ultimately, it is not a question of whether software testing is the best or easiest area for non-IT grads to go into. Technical concepts of the job role will have to be learnt sooner or later, and that could turn out to be a difficult struggle for a non-IT grad, although a degree in engineering and mathematics might give better success, he noted.
His advice to non-IT grads interested in forging a career in IT is to start with entry-level support roles. "For some support roles, the focus is more on securing graduates with the appropriate customer service skills rather than technical skills, which will be trained. As time progresses, candidates will then be expected to show that they are grasping the technical requirements of the role." | <urn:uuid:d2a09eec-913f-4798-904d-a7584a9d4a56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zdnet.com/software-testing-could-use-non-it-grads-fresh-perspective-7000005385/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958719 | 1,050 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, new genetic data indicate
Findings based on analysis of largest set of genetic markers ever studied
By Stuart Wolpert March 17, 2010 Category: Research
Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, not Asia or Europe, according to a new genetic analysis by an international team of scientists led by UCLA biologists. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Searle Scholars Program, appears March 17 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature.
"Dogs seem to share more genetic similarity with Middle Eastern gray wolves than with any other wolf population worldwide," said Robert Wayne, UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author of the Nature paper. "Genome-wide analysis now directly suggests a Middle East origin for modern dogs. We have found that a dominant proportion of modern dogs' ancestry derives from Middle Eastern wolves, and this finding is consistent with the hypothesis that dogs originated in the Middle East.
"This is the same area where domestic cats and many of our livestock originated and where agriculture first developed," Wayne noted.
Previous genetic research suggested an East Asian origin for dogs, "which was unexpected," Wayne said, "because there was never a hint in the archaeological record that dogs evolved there."
"We were able to study a broader sampling of wolves globally than has ever been done before, including Middle Eastern wolves," said the paper's lead author, Bridgett vonHoldt, a UCLA graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology in Wayne's laboratory who studies the genetics of dog domestication. "In our analysis of the entire genome, we found that dogs share more unique markers with Middle Eastern wolves than with East Asian wolves. We used a genome-wide approach, which avoids the bias of single genome region."
The biologists report genetic data from more than 900 dogs from 85 breeds (including all the major ones) and more than 200 wild gray wolves (the ancestor of domestic dogs) worldwide, including populations from North America, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. They used molecular genetic techniques to analyze more than 48,000 genetic markers. No previous study has ever analyzed anywhere near that many markers.
The biologists have samples from Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran — but they have not pinpointed a specific location in the Middle East where dogs originated.
"This study is unique in using a particular technology called a single nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP, genotyping chip; these chips interrogate the nucleotides at 48,000 locations in the genome," said John Novembre, UCLA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a member of UCLA's Interdepartmental Program in Bioinformatics. "We are able to compare dogs looking at not just one small part of the genome, but at 48,000 different locations. That gives us the fine-scale resolution to analyze how these breeds are related to one another and how they are related to wolves."
Previous genetic research had suggested an East Asian origin based on the higher diversity of mitochondrial sequences in East Asia and China than anywhere else in the world. (Mitochondria are tiny cellular structures outside the nucleus that produce energy and have their own small genome.) However, that research was based on only one sequence, a small part of the mitochondrial genome, Wayne noted.
"That research made extrapolations about how the domestic dog has evolved from examination of one region in the mitochondrial genome," Wayne said. "This new Nature paper is a much more comprehensive analysis because we have analyzed 48,000 markers distributed throughout the nuclear genome to try to conclude where the most likely ancestral population is.
"What we found is much more consistent with the archaeological record," he said. "We found strong kinship to Middle Eastern gray wolves and, to some extent, European gray wolves — but much less so to any wolves from East Asia. Our findings strongly contradict the conclusions based on earlier mitochondrial DNA sequence data."
Eighty percent of dog breeds are modern breeds that evolved in the last few hundred years, Wayne said. But some dog breeds have ancient histories that go back thousands of years.
"We sampled both groups, the modern explosion of dog breeds and some of the ancient lineages," he said. "Our data were aimed at resolving questions about the origin of domestic dogs, the evolution of dog breeds, and the history of dog breeds and relationships to their closest wild progenitor, the gray wolf."
The first dogs that appeared in the Middle Eastern archaeological record date back some 12,000 to 13,000 years, Wayne said. Wolves have been in the Old World for hundreds of thousands of years. The oldest dogs from the archaeological record come from Europe and Western Russia. A dog from Belgium dates back 31,000 years, and a group of dogs from Western Russia is approximately 15,000 years old, Wayne said.
"We know that dogs from the Middle East were closely associated with humans because they were found in ancient human burial sites," Wayne said. "In one case, a puppy is curled up in the arms of a buried human."
Some very old strains of dogs, with a history dating back more than several thousand years, may be mixed with modern breeds, enhancing their diversity in certain areas such as East Asia, Wayne said, interpreting the higher mitochondrial DNA diversity in that area of the globe.
There is one small set of East Asian breeds that does not indicate a strong Middle East origin, showing instead a high level of genetic sharing with Chinese wolves. This finding suggests there was some intermixing between East Asian dog breeds and East Asian wolves; the data do not make clear how long ago this occurred.
"However, the vast majority of dogs that we studied show significant levels of sharing with Middle Eastern wolves," said Novembre, a population geneticist who studies genetic diversity and the lessons that can be learned from it.
Co-authors on the Nature paper include a group of researchers from the National Institutes of Health/National Human Genome Research Institute led by Elaine Ostrander; a group led by Carlos Bustamante, formerly of the Cornell University Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology and now a professor of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine; and scientists from China, Israel, Australia, Europe and Canada.
UCLA co-authors include Eunjung Han, a UCLA graduate student of Novembre's in biostatistics; John Pollinger, director of UCLA's Conservation Genetics Resource Center and associate director of the Center for Tropical Research at UCLA's Institute of the Environment; and James Knowles, a graduate student from Canada's University of Alberta working in Wayne's laboratory. Wayne and Novembre's research is federally funded by the National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov). Novembre's research is also funded by the Searle Scholars Program (www.searlescholars.net).
"By analyzing a sea of scientific data, Bob Wayne and John Novembre are at the forefront of the 'new life sciences' — which represents new ways to make discovery," said Victoria Sork, dean of the UCLA Division of Life Sciences. "Their integration of genomic data with bioinformatic approaches illustrates how integration has enhanced our ability to analyze biological systems. Integration of knowledge is changing how we think about how life works. We are no longer limited to studying just one piece of a puzzle."
Toy dogs and an evolutionary framework for dog domestication
The biologists have also found that when one looks at a relationship tree of modern and ancient dog breeds, there is surprising structure to it, and the structure mimics the classifications of dogs by breeders into herding dogs, retrievers, sight hounds, small terriers and others.
"We found there is a surprising genetic structure that accords with functional classifications — suggesting that new breeds are developed from crosses within specific breed groups that share particular traits," Wayne said. "If they want a new sight hound, they tend to cross sight hounds with each other, and the same with herding dogs and retrieving dogs. That may not seem so surprising, but we had no reason to think beforehand that these groups would be strongly genealogical.
"There are some notable exceptions, such as 'toy dogs.' In this grouping, there are many different kinds of lineages represented, including traces of herding dogs and retrievers. When it comes to miniaturizing a dog, breeders start with a larger breed and cross that with a miniature dog to make a dwarfed breed on a new genetic background, causing the mixing of various lineages. It's a mix-and-match approach for some of these breed groupings. But in other cases, new breeds have been based on combinations of breeds that have specific traits."
New insights into the evolution of dogs have emerged from this Nature paper and several other recent studies by biologists, including Wayne and his colleagues.
"A framework about dog evolution is emerging," Wayne said. "Even though dogs have an almost infinite variety of forms, geneticists have been discovering that much of this diversity has a simple genetic basis. Short-legged dogs — there are at least 19 such breeds, including dachshunds, corgis and basset hounds — have short legs due to the appearance of just one unique gene, a mutant growth-factor gene."
Recent research by Wayne and his colleagues has identified genes responsible for short legs, small size, different fur types and different coat patterns and colors.
"It seems that in dogs, unlike other domesticated species, many of these different phenotypes distill to just a handful of genes," Wayne said. "These genes have been mixed with retrievers, herding dogs and sight hounds to create new breeds."
In humans, by contrast, most differences in height and weight involve many genes, each of which has only a small effect; most of the genes account for only about 1 or 2 percent of variability. Even in agricultural plants, most genes have only a small influence on a single trait.
In dogs, however, one gene that is responsible for differences in size accounts for more than 50 percent of the variation in body size, Wayne said. A small number of genes, he said, have been moved around in dogs to create the appearance of amazing diversity.
"Because we analyzed 48,000 locations in the genome, we can ask which regions are the most different between dogs and wolves," said Novembre, whose research group investigated whether specific regions of the genome have changed under domestication. "We identified a few regions that are exceptionally different between dogs and wolves; these might be places in the genome where some of the changes occurred that make dogs and wolves different from each other today. These are good candidate regions for follow-up research."
In a separate paper, Melissa Gray, who earned her Ph.D. from UCLA in Wayne's laboratory, reported in February, along with Wayne and colleagues, on an important gene known as IGF1, which is responsible for small size in dogs, and analyzed which wolf populations are closest evolutionarily to this gene. The findings, published in the journal BMC Biology show that the gene appears to have arisen in Middle Eastern wolves, giving further support to the major claim in the new Nature paper.
UCLA is California's largest university, with an enrollment of nearly 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university's 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer more than 323 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Five alumni and five faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize. | <urn:uuid:8799889d-b791-47cc-b62b-49cf96fd7774> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/dogs-likely-originated-in-the-155101.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958114 | 2,388 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Staggering cost of repairs allows sewage to foul N.J. waterways
When superstorm Sandy knocked out North Jersey’s largest sewage treatment plant, billions of gallons of raw or partially treated sewage poured into rivers and bays, setting off alarms from health and environmental officials. But while the event was dramatic, it was not unique.
More than 23 billion gallons of raw sewage and other pollutants pour into New Jersey’s rivers and bays each year because aging sewer systems are overwhelmed during heavy rains. The raw sewage and toxic waste — enough to fill the Oradell Reservoir nearly seven times over — spill from 217 outfall pipes into the Passaic, Hackensack, Hudson and other rivers and bays, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The overflows occur dozens of times each year, whenever there’s a significant rainfall.
The sewage puts human health and the environment at risk — particularly at a time when more people are discovering North Jersey’s rivers for recreation and the state’s beaches remain a vital economic engine.
Federal law had called for such spills to be eliminated by 1985, but the sewage continues to flow because local governments say they can’t afford to repair the systems. In Ridgefield Park, such a project could cost as much as $100 million. The price is estimated at $1 billion in Paterson. Federal and state money to address the problem has been made available over the years, but environmentalists and politicians alike said it has not been nearly enough. Even less costly stopgap measures, such as adequately identifying the outfall pipes with signs, have not been properly addressed, environmentalists argue.
For the increasing numbers of people who use the rivers, the sewage can cause illnesses such as gastroenteritis — a stomach inflammation that causes vomiting and diarrhea — as well as hepatitis and skin, respiratory and ear infections. The sewage also can inflict economic pain, such as lost revenue from beach closures, fish kills and closed shellfish beds.
“The release of large quantities of raw sewage into New Jersey waters is a serious problem that needs to be solved sooner rather than later,” said Judith Enck, regional administrator of the EPA. “It has dragged on for too long.”
The outfall pipes are part of older systems in Ridgefield Park, Hackensack, Paterson and other communities that rely on sewage lines to handle both sewage and storm-water runoff from roadways and parking lots. Normally, the lines carry the sewage and storm water to wastewater treatment plants. But when heavy rains hit, these systems can’t handle the deluge. The excess is dumped out of the system through outfall pipes, called combined sewer overflows, which empty into local waterways.
North Jersey’s annual sewage overflow runs into the billions of gallons, but varies year to year based on the number of storms and amount of rainfall.
Along with the untreated sewage, the overflow pipes dump other pollutants into the rivers. The runoff from a rainstorm carries everything that has dripped onto roadways — grease, oil and benzene from cars and paint and chemicals people may have poured down storm drains. It also carries fertilizer runoff, including phosphorous and nitrates that cause algae blooms, spawning fish kills.
Monthly water sampling along the Hudson, including several locations where the river borders Bergen County, often shows dramatic increases of enterococcus — a bacterial component of sewage — in the days following a heavy rainfall, with rates often in violation of federal standards.
When superstorm Sandy crippled the state’s largest sewage treatment plant, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s facility could no longer accept the 250 million gallons of sewage it normally handles each day. Raw sewage backed up in the lines, and for several days 840 million gallons of it poured — untreated — into local waters, much of it into the Passaic River.
Coliform is a bacteria associated with human waste. Even a week after the storm, federal officials measured coliform levels at the mouth of the Passaic as high as 1,500 units — the acceptable level is considered 14 units. During the three weeks after Sandy, as the facility was brought back into service, an estimated 4.4 billion gallons of partially treated sewage was released into New York Harbor, said Mike DeFrancisci, the commission’s executive director.
“The discharge of raw sewage and other contaminants into water bodies is one of the most serious threats to water quality facing the state of New Jersey,” Enck said in a letter last year to New Jersey environmental officials.
The concern comes as North Jersey’s rivers are generally getting cleaner as industry leaves the region and sewage treatment facilities — though not sewer systems — have improved. That improving water quality has drawn more people to the rivers to canoe, kayak, boat or participate on crew teams. But while much of the remaining industrial pollution is trapped in the sediment of the rivers, it is the bacteria in the water from the sewage that can cause the most immediate harm to residents.
Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, said people don’t seem to know about the dangers posed by the sewer outfall pipes. “I’ve got dozens of pictures of people in canoes who jumped out, people using Jet Skis who fell off or waded into the river to cool off,” Sheehan said. At Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus, he saw a family set out blankets on the riverbank. “The kids had water toys and they’d dive off the dock and swim, unaware of the potential health danger,” he said.
“I bring up the issue and people always look at me with a blank stare or say, ‘I thought they fixed that problem years ago,’Ÿ” he said.
Many people who suffer cases of swimmer’s ear or gastrointestinal illness after swimming in polluted water at beaches or in rivers may never make the connection, so numerous cases go unreported, environmental groups said. The EPA has said the likely range of illness attributable to sewage contamination at the nation’s beaches is between 1.8 million and 3.5 million cases. And a growing number of academic studies have linked human illness to storm runoff.
For instance, a University of California, Irvine study that looked at rates of gastrointestinal illness among surfers at Southern California beaches between 2008 and 2010 found higher occurrences shortly after storms than during dry conditions. And a look at cases of gastroenteritis and diarrhea at a children’s hospital in Wisconsin from 2002 to 2007 found an 11 percent increase after rainstorms.
Officials at the state Department of Environmental Protection agree the overflows need to stop. “It’s not acceptable to have untreated sewage going into our water bodies,” said Michelle Siekerka, the DEP’s assistant commissioner for water management.
But the state hasn’t ordered communities to remove the outfalls and install separate lines to handle sewage and storm water because of the cost, she said. “Many community governments are cash-strapped right now and local sewer authorities have not set aside money for capital improvements,” Siekerka said.
Environmental advocacy groups have grown impatient — and have taken the state to court to force the state into action. The DEP “has developed a catalog of excuses instead of water protection measures,” the environmental groups said in court documents. The groups say the DEP does not require public notice about overflows and that in some cases there aren’t even any signs to let the public know that raw sewage was coming out of the pipes.
Siekerka said the DEP requires signs at outfall pipes, but acknowledged they are often small and the print is hard to read. The state is considering new rules about the minimum size of the print for signs, she said. The DEP is also assessing how to provide timely public notification when overflows occur, through a reverse-911 system or posting notices on the Web, she said.
While they haven’t been able to remove the pipes, Siekerka said the DEP has made progress on the overflow problem by requiring the installation of netting or other devices at outfall pipes to prevent solids and floatables — cans, bottles and other debris — from flowing into the rivers.
“We’ve been successful in getting nets installed on 91 percent of combined sewer overflows. That’s huge,” Siekerka said.
Ridgefield Park has six combined sewer outfalls and averages 48 overflows each year — which dump 2.2 million gallons of sewage and storm water into the Hackensack. In 1999, the town spent $1.5 million to install nets at each outfall pipe, along with giant concrete chambers that hold the nets in place and the winch mechanisms needed to lift them for cleaning.
The nets have captured everything from plastic bottles to dead rats — 21 tons of debris a year, said Alan O’Grady, the village public works superintendent. Ridgefield goes through about 100 nets — at $140 each — annually because they get torn by the flow of water and trapped debris, he said.
But the nets don’t keep raw sewage out of the waterways,” said Debbie Mans, the NY/NJ Baykeeper. “The DEP has required the towns to install netting to catch floatables, but they haven’t dealt with the bacteria side of things,” she said.
To end the overflows from Ridgefield Park’s six combined sewer pipes would cost between $31 million and $100 million, depending on the chosen remedy, O’Grady said. Options include building small facilities at each outfall to treat the water before it enters the river, which would cost up to $50 million. A tunnel running 4,900 feet along the river’s edge to temporarily hold the storm runoff would cost $74 million. The most complete option would be adding a separate storm-water line so there would be one dedicated solely to sewage and one for storm water. That would cost up to $100 million.
“Either way it’s going to be a lot of money,” O’Grady said. “It’s not like we’re trying to duck the problem. We’d love to have the use of the river again. But we need guidance — and some financial help.”
Hackensack is in the midst of rehabilitating a section of Main Street and plans include separating sewer lines there. “It won’t eliminate our combined sewer overflow discharges but will significantly reduce what’s going into the river,” said City Manager Stephen Lo Iocono.
The cost of other work has proved to be overwhelming. The city studied separating a 10-square-block section of line in 2006 and found that it would cost $30 million, he said. “The numbers are so overwhelming,” Lo Iocono said. “The financial burden is just too great.”
Paterson, which has 26 sewer outfall pipes along the Passaic River, budgets $1.2 million in capital projects each year for sewer work. Over the past few years, the city has turned several thousand feet of combined lines into separate lines, said Christopher Coke, Paterson’s director of public works.
But to separate all the lines would cost in excess of $1 billion, he said. “It will be a long process.”
In 2000, the EPA estimated that nationally, it would cost more than $50 billion to fix the combined sewer problem. Some federal money has been made available over the years — through 2006, states funneled about $5.3 billion in federal money as loans to combined sewer projects, but a 2009 congressional report conceded that “federal assistance has been small relative to the overall needs.”
The 2009 economic stimulus bill included $30 million for eight New Jersey combined sewer projects.
To spur local governments to tackle the issue, the Christie administration plans to make partial loan forgiveness available. “We are looking to incentivize right conduct rather than mandate it,” Siekerka said.
State Sen. Bob Smith, D-Piscataway, has introduced a bill that would create a $5 million fund to help pay for the work. Another bill would create a more permanent source of money by letting communities create storm-water utilities, which could charge fees to facilities that generate the most storm-water runoff — office parks and shopping malls, for instance.
The Legislature passed a similar measure last term to help reduce pollution in Barnegat Bay, but Governor Christie vetoed it, arguing that it was another tax.
“He’s not wrong,” Smith said. “But there’s no free lunch.” | <urn:uuid:d23c877b-e312-477b-b370-ca059e13236d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northjersey.com/news/environment/Raw_sewage_pouring_into_NJ_waterways.html?page=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949693 | 2,676 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Super-comet or super-dud? We'll see
A new comet superstar named C/2012 S1 (ISON) is heading for the spotlight starting in November 2013 — but will it perform as some hope it will, or will it be a dud of cosmic proportions?
"This is one to watch, definitely," said Karl Battams, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory who monitors comets for the NASA-supported Sungrazer Comet Project. "But the astronomy community in general tries not to overhype these things. Potentially it will be amazing. Potentially it will be a huge dud."
Comet ISON quickly rose to the top of the charts after its discovery, which was based on imagery collected on Friday by the International Scientific Optical Network's 16-inch (0.4-meter) Santel reflecting telescope in Russia. The comet, which was described in an IAU circular on Monday, takes its common name from the network's acronym. Since the discovery, astronomers have gone back through their files to find "pre-discovery" images and calculate the comet's orbit.
That orbit is due to bring Comet ISON incredibly close to the sun — within just 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) in late November of next year. As a result, current projections suggest it could get very bright. How bright? Various estimates have set the brightest magnitude at -10 to -16. That suggests the comet could become brighter than the full moon — which led Astronomy Magazine's Michael E. Bakich to say it "probably will become the brightest comet anyone alive has ever seen." | <urn:uuid:d9b84d30-d4cb-4cf3-8c2e-7752d9865ea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1108095-ccmet-ison-the-great-comet-of-2013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953591 | 334 | 2.5 | 2 |
You should automatically delete browsing history in IE and other browsers. Internet privacy is important. There are steps you can take to conceal your tracks in IE and Firefox so others can’t easily see the sites you have been visiting. There are two ways to protect your privacy online: The first is by controlling third-party cookies. The second is by controlling how your browser history is stored. All modern browsers will have ways to automatically delete your browsing history. Internet Explorer and Firefox, for example, give you many different ways to browse privately by not storing cookies in special browsing sessions, or by removing your browser history when you shut down the browser.
In Internet Explorer, you can use their InPrivate browsing option, which allows you to surf the Web without saving cookies or your History. To access InPrivate browsing, either hit CTRL+Shift+P or just open IE and click the Safety option in the menu. You will see a link for InPrivate browsing. Once you click that, a new Window will open and you will see the InPrivate icon located to the left of the address bar. To exit InPrivate browsing, simply close the Window. In Firefox, you can enter private browsing mode by also hitting CTRL+Shift+P or by navigating to Tools, then Start Private Browsing.
Automatically Delete Browsing History in IE
You can automatically delete browsing history in IE by going to Tools, Internet Options and under the General tab, tick the box that says “delete browsing hsitory on exit.” This will clear your web browsing history each time you close out of Internet Explorer.
If you use Firefox, you can also have your history automatically deleted by going to Tools, then Options, then click on the Privacy tab. You will drop-down options for how Firefox handles your history. Where it says “Firefox will:” select “Never remember history” and each time you close out, your history will be deleted.
Delete Browsing History in IE At Workplace
Properly managing your history is important, especially at the workplace or if you have a laptop that could be lost. Before you delete your history, be sure to write down any website you frequent because if you are removing them from your history, you probably do not have them bookmarked, either.
Web browsers frequent change. If you have a questions on how to delete browsing history in IE or any other browser, join our free forums and ask. | <urn:uuid:df76752e-3fdd-4329-b26c-3bf4525844be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pctechbytes.com/security/automatically-delete-browsing-history-and-firefox/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902241 | 503 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Would you rather ride a bike that accelerated from 0-100mph in 9.7 seconds or one that takes nearly half a minute? The Michigan State Police know the answer to that question. Last month they performed comprehensive, independent performance testing on four potential police bikes: The BMW R1200RTP, Kawasaki Concours 14 and the Harley Road King and Electra Glide. Guess which two bikes lost?
Update: Los Angeles County is getting in on the Harley bashing.
In order to provide accountability to taxpayers for its purchases and provide its officers with the best possible equipment, the Michigan State Police conducts yearly performance evaluations of new police models. While most of the testing focusses on cars, reflecting the shear numbers of four wheelers versus two in the department (Jalopnik covered the police car testing), peformance testing on the motorcycles includes everything from acceleration and braking times and forces to outright lap speeds around a road course.
Update: the PDF embedded above comes from Los Angeles county, who completed a police bike performance evaluation this month. It draws similar conclusions to the Michigan report with the exception of some notable peformance differences. Where bikes like the Honda ST1300 are comfortably able to reach 100mph from a standing start in under 10 seconds, the Harleys weren’t even able to reach that speed at all given the space provided.
In an interesting twist over normal performance figures, the performance evaluations are conducted by real world police officers, the same ones that will have to use these bikes in the wild, not tame racers. While that means they achieve somewhat lower numbers than would otherwise be recorded, it does give these tests a welcome dose of real world rider ability; if a bike is exceptionally difficult to use, it will suffer here and vice versa, an easy-to-use bike will benefit even if its outright performance capability is somewhat lower.
This year, there’s a new competitor in the BMW/Harley police bike continuum: the Kawasakai Concours 14 Police. Equipped with a detuned version of the ZX14’s 1,400cc inline four, the Concours makes 153bhp and 100lb/ft which is enough to motivate its prodigious 661lbs, in our hands, up to an indicated 150mph. The police achieved a somewhat lower number, we can only assume they got scared riding that fast in their open face helmets, jodphurs and button down shirts (we’re kidding, they had a short track).
The first and probably most immediately telling results are the straight-forward acceleration and top speed numbers. Note that the long wheelbase and low center of gravity on the two Harleys allows them to initially pull ahead away from the line, keeping that advantage up to about 30 or 40mph at which point the BMW and Kawasaki simply start running away from them. Remember the part about ease of use? Harley’s are dead easy to launch. By 60mph the difference is pronounced while, by 100mph, the Kawasaki’s 100lb/ft of torque are starting to give it a huge advantage even over the BMW. Top speeds seem a bit on the low side, we can only assume they were measured using limited distance.
Next up are braking numbers, measured in maximum rate of deceleration and outright braking distances from 60mph. Again, these numbers seem a little conservative likely indicating testing restrictions, but because they’re same day/same riders/same conditions, they do serve as an accurate comparison. At 650lbs, the lightest bike here is the BMW R1200RTP, while the heaviest is the Harley Electra Glide at 864lbs before police equipment.
60-0 is sort of an odd measurement of braking ability. Presumably arrived at as the mirror image of the equally outdated 0-60mph ubiquitous performance yardstick, it places rider reaction time and surface conditions, not mechanical performance, as the two largest variables. It just isn’t a good indicator of the ability of a braking system to slow a vehicle down repeatedly from high speed. To give you an idea how odd 60-0 numbers can be, Edmunds measured a Porsche 911 Turbo at a 104-foot stopping distance, while a Cayenne SUV took only five feet more. Which vehicle would you want to be driving if you had to panic brake from 100+?
This last set of numbers, lap times, is probably most illustrative of the performance differences between the four bikes. Measured on Michigan’s Grattan Raceway, a narrow, challenging road course with plenty of elevation change, these times appear to be the total of five laps on the circuit. Note that four different officers rode each bike, then the times for each bike were averaged to remove any rider preference.
A 31-second difference between first and last place sounds pretty significant.
So what’s the takeaway from all this? Well, we all probably already knew that Harleys were slow, but objective, Government testing like this is the first step to putting motorcycle police officers nationwide on safer, better-suited bikes for their dangerous jobs. If objective evaluation like this can convince other police departments to stop being blinded by “patriotic” purchasing and start equipping their officers with the best possible equipment then it might be a first step in forcing Harley-Davidson to stop falling back on its American heritage and actually innovate. Motorcycling in this country would be stronger if they did. | <urn:uuid:2275d3bb-730e-47b7-ba7b-e458e50f8b63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rideapart.com/2010/10/michigan-state-police-objectively-prove-harleys-suck/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944776 | 1,120 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Sorry you cannot buy land in Himachal
August 7, 2006
By: HEMA D
First thing first. Non-Himachalis, cannot buy land in Himachal. Sorry friends, who thought or were very happy that the Himachal government recently, opened up land in the state to outsiders, would be for a rude shock that the government hasn’t. But, there is still hope as you can buy a flat. But, I repeat, not land.
There was too much of confusion and debate around this topic. So Him Vani thought of getting the air cleared. And so we went ahead and talked to Mr Tara Chand Thakur, Administrative Officer, Himachal Urban Development Authority (HIMUDA) and got the following details:
So first thing first. Why was the world going hung-ho about this all?
- Land has been opened up only for one, industries and two for private builders, and that too only in selected areas in Himachal. And that too, the land would not be in an individual’s name but in the company’s name, only after strict environmental norms and other regulations. In Himachal, the government is giving special consideration for alloting land in areas like Baddi, Parwanoo, Nalagarh and Barotiwala in Solan district; Kala Amb and Paonta Sahib in Sirmour district; Amb and Gagret in district Una; Sansarpur Terrace in district Kangra, for setting up industries, tourism projects and hydel projects (most of them at self identified spots of the companies). So the matter rests here.
- However, there is no “known” upper or lower limt restriction as such set by the government for buying land for the puposes mentioned above.
- But you still have some hope. If you are a non-Himachali, you can buy (mind you) a flat by applying to Himachal Urban Development Authority (HIMUDA). But according to their norms, one family can buy only one flat. (e.g. A husband and wife will be alloted only one flat.)
Now let’s get into a bit of history and know more about the rules and regulations.
- Before the year 1966, there was no bar on non-Himachalis for buying land in Himachal Pradesh. At that time, there was less money in circulation in the economy of Himachal Pradesh. The two basic source of income at that time were government jobs or agriculture and most of the land was being purchased by outsiders. It was during the regime of the then Chief Minister Dr. Y.S. Parmar that ban on land sale to people from outside the state was implemented.
- According to the rules, all those (non-Himachalis) who have settled in Himachal before 1972, do not have to take permission from the government for buying land for residential purpose. But for commercial purposes, like hotel, industry or hydel projects, both non-Himachalis – those staying here before 1972 or thereafter can only get land after their case is approved by the cabinet.
- Every non-Himachali’s case for buying land in Himachal is sent to the cabinet for approval. So real tough to get through.
- In most of the cases it has been seen that the decision to allot land, totally depends upon the discretion of the government. In rare cases, like if a person is serving as a government employee in the state for long, is s/he allowed to buy land.
- Agricultural land can only be sold to a Himcahali agriculturist (strictly). So forget that. But considering the shortage of land in Shimla, there is a proposal for conversion of agricultural land on the outskirts of Shimla for commercial or housing purposes (but decision is still awaited).
For most of these proposals, non-Himachalis can either avail more information from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Shimla or HIMUDA. | <urn:uuid:0a2092a7-9fe7-4f6b-b90b-4b0527d47cde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.himvani.com/news/2006/08/07/sorry-you-cannot-buy-land-in-himachal/273 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957092 | 853 | 1.664063 | 2 |
WOULD GOD BLESS AMERICA
By Lynn Stuter
December 18, 2007
As the carol intones, ‘Tis the season to be jolly …’
And jolly we are, running to and fro, hither and yon, day after day, buying one present after another to put under that tree on ‘the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse’ ; buying, buying, buying to the detriment of bank and credit card balances.
All caution is thrown to the wind, the stores are packed, the streets are packed with harried drivers trying to negotiate traffic without becoming entangled with another driver in the same pursuit, all the while rushing from one store to the next.
The ads on the telly entreat us to buy, buy, buy for all those little children and adults whom we must endeavor to make happy, happy, happy.
Lights, lights, everywhere lights, Santa and his reindeer, elves, snowmen, Christmas trees and other assorted vestiges light up the night sky as the measure of one’s enthusiasm for this ‘Holiday season.’ Parties abound. Hope and Good Cheer, the Holiday Season is HERE!
And in all the pageantry, all the show, all the buying, all the hustle and bustle, where is there reverence for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, “born on Christmas day?"
A survey of the American people in 2001 showed that 80% of the American people claim to be Christians . So, it must be the 20% who are pagans who make the month of December the largest retail month of the year? Doubtful. So why, if our nation is truly 80% Christian, are the Christians buying into what amounts to the blasphemy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?
And we cry, “God Bless America.” Why should He?
And as Americans blithely go their way, day after day, they send their children off, every morning for nine months of the year, to the local government schools, where their children are subjected to nothing less than brainwashing, refined by the humanist institutions of psychology and psychiatry — the ultimate in mind science in the United States.
Humanism is a religion, so says the U.S. Supreme Court in Torcaso v Watkins. The religion of humanism — one tenet of which is evolution (Darwinism) — cannot be taught in the government schools, says the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, unless ALL other religions are also taught, without exception. Yet the only religion barred from study and practice in the government schools is Christianity.
With 80% of Americans claiming to be Christians, the majority of these same Christians send their children off, day after day, to be brainwashed in the government schools teaching the state-established and state-recognized religion of humanism. In 1939, Hitler stated,
Some Christian parents make no excuse for their actions even though their actions are in direct disobedience of, among others, Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Other parents make the claim that their child serves as a witness to others in the government school while they are being subjected, day after day, to the same type brainwashing techniques used to break prisoners of war psychologically. In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the fate of those who would harm His children is made plain (sic): it would be better that they have a stone tied about their neck and they be cast into the deepest sea .
Yet Americans calling themselves Christian continue to send their children to the humanist government schools in direct violation of God’s commandment to them.
And we raise our voices to Heaven, “God Bless America.” Why would He?
While Americans blithely go their way, day after day, a nationwide organization exists engaging in child prostitution, pornography and pedophilia tied to not only a cadre of powerful elite within the United States government but also to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as well as many state, county and local government and law enforcement agencies. Young innocent children, abducted off the streets of this nation, some given or sold into bondage by their parents, are used, abused, and sexually exploited by adults with sick, depraved, deviant minds; most then murdered and dumped like garbage, never to be seen or heard from again.
This nation of ours, claiming to be 80% Christian, has done, is doing exactly what to address this unspeakable, unthinkable blight on our nation?
And we raise our voices in harmony, “God Bless America.” Why would He?
Kept from the public eye, under the cause of “national security,” Nazi war criminals were brought into this country following World War II via Operation Paperclip. By some accounts, thousands of them, making the Nuremburg trials the greatest farce of the 20th century. These Nazis went to work in American institutions of higher learning, behavioral science labs, mental health organizations, the CIA, even NASA (Wernher von Braun, head of NASA, was a Nazi war criminal).
And no better example of the Nazi ideology exists than the CIA mind control programs, such as MK Ultra, MK Search, CoIntelPro, Projects Artichoke and Bluebird, using American citizens—men, women and children—as guinea pigs to fine-tune mind control technology using mind altering drugs, physical, sexual, verbal and psychological abuse; experiments no less heinous than those of the Nazi regime on concentration camp prisoners; gruesome, heinous, inhumane acts of barbarism.
Other CIA experiments in mind control seek to remotely control the mind electronically as well as electronically harass a person from afar.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, there are people in our society who have been and continue to be victims of CIA mind control programs. Many of these people are victims against their will, chosen at random to be the guinea pigs of CIA technology or targeted because they have exposed or threaten to expose corruption within government. These people have been and are subjected to day-in and day-in remote electronic harassment as well as elements of gang stalking to intimidate them, psychologically, into silence, by death if necessary.
When incidents such as Columbine, the Virginia Tech killings, or the more recent mall shooting in Omaha, Nebraska and killings at religious facilities in Colorado happen, the American people shake their heads and cry, “how can this be?” Each of these incidents has the markings of a Manchurian Candidate profile resulting from CIA mind control programs. Yet the American people haven’t a clue, allowing the media to guide their thinking, quickly blaming the availability of guns as the root cause.
True to form, the American people neither know about nor care about the connection between CIA mind control programs and the brainwashing their children are being subjected to in the government schools under education reform, a.k.a. systems education. They also ignore the fact that the incidence of shootings in government schools directly correlates to the implementation of education reform nationwide and the corresponding increase in the prescription drugging of children nationwide via mind altering drugs.
When a child or adult, subjected to brainwashing and mind control, goes off the deep end, people don’t look for the root cause; they allow the media to, once again, guide their thinking in the emotional realm instead of the cognitive realm. Why these killers are “different”, why now versus twenty years ago, the people neither know nor care to find out.
When people make the claim that they are being electronically/electromagnetically harassed or gang stalked, people scoff and call them paranoid schizophrenics, weird, crazy, and/or mentally unstable. They neither know nor care to find out the truth.
And we raise our voices pleading, “God Bless America.” Why would He?
With the move afoot to transform America, a nation claiming to be 80% Christian, Christians stand idly by or welcome the implementation in their church of social gospel: feel-good gospel in which the word of God is not taught, right and wrong become situational, and values clarification obliterates morals, standards and values; in which participants dialogue away their individuality and principles in the interests of communal acceptance. Rick Warren, the guru of the “Purpose Driven” movement, runs about the country spouting his social gospel that replaces God’s will with “my purpose” and advocates the church unification movement (one-world church) in which “all paths lead to god by whatever name called.”
And we raise our voices to proclaim, “God Bless America.” Why would He?
These are but a few of the transgressions of a nation claiming to be 80% Christian; there are many more, not the least of which is the CIA selling of dope on the streets of America and the illegal and unconstitutional invasion of Iraq. We are told, time and again, that our young men and women are in Iraq fighting for our freedom; the great banner of “freedom” intended to obscure from sight the truth. Our young men and women are fighting in Iraq, not in the name of our freedom, but in the name of 1) American imperial expansionism; 2) establishing an American presence in the Middle East forever, thus the building of the largest embassy compound in the world in the Green Zone in Baghdad; 3) securing the Iraqi oil fields for the benefit and profit of large international oil conglomerates with ties to the world elite. Our young men and women, fighting and dying in Iraq, are but fodder in the grist mills of the global elite intent on destroying this nation and establishing a new world order in which the elite rule supreme and the “unwashed masses” are but fodder in the grist mills of the feudal state.
And we cry out to Heaven, “God Bless America.” Why would He?
John Adams wrote in 1787,
This nation, claiming to be 80% Christian, flaunts the very word of God, the very teachings of God, yet expects that God will brook no punishment?
This Christmas may we as Christians celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, by turning away from the pagan ritualism that profanes God. And as the New Year approaches may we resolve to return our nation to the Christian foundations upon which it was founded.
From the carol, Deck the Halls.
© 2007 Lynn M. Stuter - All Rights Reserved
Mother and wife, Stuter has spent the past fifteen years researching systems theory with a particular emphasis on education. She home schooled two daughters, now grown and on their own. She has worked with legislators, both state and federal, on issues pertaining to systems governance and education reform. She networks nationwide with other researchers and citizens concerned with the transformation of our nation. She has traveled the United States and lived overseas.
Web site: www.learn-usa.com
And as Americans blithely go their way, day after day, they send their children off, every morning for nine months of the year, to the local government schools, where their children are subjected to nothing less than brainwashing... | <urn:uuid:198b809e-75b2-464d-b3ae-17727b74afee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter115.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946763 | 2,367 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Vaccinating Teens | VideoAmy Fox | 3/19/2013
While state law requires adolescents, 11-19 years old, to have a series of vaccinations to go to school, some parents are not keeping their teens up-to-date on the state`s recommended shots.
First District Health Unit in Minot says parents don`t understand the importance of the vaccines, are worried about the safety and side effects, or don`t finish the series. During the next 4-5 months, First District Health may be contacting you about your teen`s immunization record.
"We`ll send out a year at a time and it will just be a reminder, according to the North Dakota state registry, that you might be missing one or more of the recommended vaccinations. And, to call us, the pediatrics or their doctor, just to get up-to-date,” said First District Health Vaccine Coordinator Melissa Fettig.
For a complete list of recommended and required vaccines, go to www.ndhealth.gov. | <urn:uuid:ec1e7f8d-fc7c-49e6-8161-828440dd48ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kmot.com/News_Stories.asp?news=62727 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914121 | 217 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Skip to Main Content
This paper has reported a microwave imaging system employing a monopulse radar technique to eliminate adverse effects of strong reflection from the air-imaged body interface. This technique is realized using a newly constructed ultra wideband twoelement probe antenna fed by a 180° hybrid. The validity of the proposed system has been verified via full-wave EM simulations. Using the signal data obtained from the outof-phase fed UWB probe and by applying a confocal image reconstruction algorithm, the presence of a 9mm-diameter cylindrical target inside the 100mm diameter container filled with vegetable oil has been detected by just visual inspection of the produced image.
Date of Conference: 11-17 July 2010 | <urn:uuid:91a595e7-a042-4cd1-8084-630f90e58f27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=5562349&contentType=Conference+Publications | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922476 | 143 | 1.8125 | 2 |
TOPIC:“Building a Bridge of Prayer”
by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made know unto God.”
I am fully persuaded of two important truths regarding prayer. They are: Prayer is the greatest power in the universe. Prayer is the greatest need in the life of the believer. As someone has written:
“There's a holy high vocation
Needing workers everywhere;
It's the highest form of service
It's the ministry of prayer.”
The tragic thing is that there are multitudes of believers who have not really grown in this ministry. How to make it a real part of everyday living.
These messages are being given with the desire to help believers know what prayer is, how to do it, and how to make it an integral part of one's daily life. So let's begin together to build a bridge of prayer.
To begin with, let's look at what I want to call the PATH of prayer. In order to build a bridge of prayer we must first of all know something of the background of prayer itself.
Prayer is the most natural and instinctive exercise of every person on this planet. Untold millions of people pray throughout the world. It is a universal habit. I grant you, many of these people may not pray to the God of the Bible through Jesus Christ His Son, but the fact remains that people of all ages pray. Prayer becomes intensified in times of trouble, and given an emergency serious enough, I do not know a person on the face of the earth who would not bow their knees in prayer.
We find in the Bible that people prayed to God from the earliest days of Enoch. We read in Genesis 4:26 these words: “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” It is extremely interesting to notice that in the lives of the patriarchs prayer took the form of a DIALOGUE. It was a two way conversation between them and God. They talked to each other. We read these words about prayer in the life of Abraham: “And God said unto Abraham” . . . | <urn:uuid:7fa35c9e-1b7f-465c-a8e3-a1faa085596a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sermonseeker.com/sermons/Series/Preaching%20on%20Prayer/Building%20a%20Bridge%20of%20Prayer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954805 | 465 | 2.1875 | 2 |
- Caffeine is not an energy provider. It is a central nervous system stimulant drug that produces mild positive mood changes. Caffeine elevates the level of certain hormones – adrenaline, cortisol (stress hormone), adenosine and dopamine. This gives a temporary boost, but after the caffeine wears off, the body can feel fatigued and feelings of mild depression can set in.
- Sleep: Caffeine can affect your sleep by keeping you awake longer, thereby shortening the amount of sleep you get, and giving you less time in the restorative stages of sleep, which takes a toll on your level of alertness the next day and overall health.
- Weight: Many experts believe that increased levels of cortisol lead to stronger cravings for fat and carbohydrates, and cause the body to store fat in the abdomen.
- Dependence: At doses of around 100mg daily (2 cups of coffee) caffeine has been shown to produce physical dependence characterised by lethargy and headache on cessation of intake.
- Nutrient Leeching: Caffeine leeches nutrients from the body. For instance caffeine leeches B vitamins, which are energy-releasers. Orbana contains high concentrations of energy-releasing B vitamins, so it would not be desirable to have caffeine in Orbana, as the caffeine would negate the benefits of the B vitamins. This also brings into question the wisdom having B vitamins in caffeinated beverages.
- Iron: Caffeine consumption has been shown to reduce the body’s ability to absorb iron.
So the overall message here is that caffeine can enhance physical performance in the short term and can be effective if used sparingly in this instance. However, the long term implications of consuming high levels of caffeine can be very damaging.
Our philosophy is to promote long term good health and thereby would boost performance both immediately and over a period of time. We feel that this would be best achieved by avoiding caffeine and artificial sweeteners and preservatives in energy drinks entirely.
This is not to say that caffeine cannot be beneficial. The question is more about quantity and other lifestyle factors.
The guidelines to caffeine intake are:
- Limit your caffeine intake to less than 60mg a day (about 1 cup of coffee)
- Try to avoid caffeine after 2pm. Caffeine stays in your system for 8 hours and disrupts sleep, so if you take it after 2pm it will more than likely disrupt sleep patterns
- If you are stressed already and thus already have high levels cortisol it is best to avoid caffeine – which further increases cortisol levels and will have a detrimental effect on sleep and mood.
So if you are not stressed and you don’t have a high caffeine intake otherwise, you could gain benefit by taking a smallish amount of caffeine before exercise. We think most people lead stressful lives and often rely on caffeine to get them through their day and therefore is best avoided in energy drinks.
Share your comments and questions about caffeine in sports and energy drinks below! | <urn:uuid:0abe4756-5332-489d-8c82-37598da7b005> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orbana.com/all-articles/how-does-caffeine-affect-the-body-and-athletic-performance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925522 | 616 | 2.734375 | 3 |
In an interview with 13WMAZ's Frank Malloy, two experts gave outside opinions on the Lauren Giddings murder case.
SLIDESHOW: Stephen McDaniel August 3rd Hearing
Dr. Jack Levin, a criminologist and Professor at Northeastern University, says he's heard of cases like this one before.
"The murder itself sounds rather typical, not unlike many others," Dr. Levin says.
Levin says most murderers have a motive and says many times, that's jealousy or revenge.
"Typically, these kinds of murders, which are really manslaughter, by the way, are committed in the heat of the moment without premeditation," he says. "Of course, I don't know about this particular case, but in general, that's true."
But what drives someone to kill and take it to level of dismembering someone?
"One of the most obvious purposes is to make sure that the whole body isn't found, maybe it's a convenient way to carry it downstairs, getting it into a car, but I think there's another possible explanation," says Dr. Levin, "That is, it could've been a sexual assault. And the DNA evidence may be in the lower part of the torso, and that's why the killer took great pains to make sure that the police didn't find that part and didn't care that much about the upper torso."
Anthropologist and Assistant Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, Dr. Heather Walsh Haney, says despite the five-day window between the last time Giddings was seen and when she was reported missing, investigators should still be able to determine when she was killed.
"Estimating time since death is not only going to involve looking at the degree of skeletization or changes of the soft tissue, but also the types of insects that are present," says Dr. Haney. "A Forensic Entomologist, or insect expert, can look at the insect larva--their eggs, and estimate time since death based upon that evidence."
Dr. Haney also says the search should continue for the Mercer Law graduate.
"The more pieces we find, the clearer the picture of the death scenario. So, the searchers need to keep looking, so as the pieces come together, they'll find an answer," Haney says.
Neither Dr. Haney nor Dr. Levin are involved in the Lauren Giddings investigation. | <urn:uuid:a85272ee-cb2d-4b04-b96e-b0b53fa086ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=138509 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978845 | 498 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Only eight months after “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted, President Barack Obama has announced that he personally endorses gay marriage. The president’s “coming out” as a supporter of gay marriage, has come after a longstanding opposition that the President described as an evolving stance.
Obama’s public support of gay marriage comes at an interesting time. While many social conservatives and evangelical Americans are vocally resisting the idea of gay marriage, the GOP is beginning to recognize that being queer isn’t so queer after all.
A GOP memo that dropped last week stated the following: “Support for same sex marriage has been growing and in the last few years support has grown at an accelerated rate with no sign of slowing down.” The memo also cites that public support for same sex marriage currently outweighs the opposition by almost 10 percent.
The memo goes on, suggesting different spins for GOP representatives who want to begin changing their stance. The memo recommends a statement reflecting the following attitude:
“People who believe in equality under the law as a fundamental principle, as I do, will agree that this principle extends to gay and lesbian couples; gay and lesbian couples should not face discrimination and their relationship should be protected under the law. People who disagree on the fundamental nature of marriage can agree, at the same time, that gays and lesbians should receive essential rights and protections such as hospital visitation, adoption rights, and health and death benefits.”
The memo was written by Jan van Lohuizen, former pollster for George W. Bush. The statement does not endorse gay marriage, but takes an incredible stride in acknowledging that equality is a basic right for all Americans and also touches on the humanitarian issues that many same sex couples face without state-approved civil unions or domestic partnerships.
When Rick Santorum visited Northwest Arkansas last week, he said that President Obama handed Mitt Romney “a very powerful tool” by announcing his support for gay marriage; and others agree that Obama’s stance on gay marriage is exactly what the GOP candidate will need to galvanize the evangelical voting base.
It seems, however, that Romney is not yet interested in exploiting his opponent’s liberal stance. In a press conference, Romney reacted to Obama’s announcement by reiterating his “preference” for marriage as defined between a man and a woman. If the GOP follows Lohuizen’s advice — and if the public continues to support civil equality — we could see a shift in the party’s attitude in respect to the gay community. However, they would most likely step into the role of moderate supporters, attempting to find a middle ground between legally recognized unions and the traditional sanction of marriage.
But the fight is far from over. A few last ditch efforts to maintain the federal stronghold of the Defense of Marriage Act paired with the upcoming decision on California’s Proposition 8 will keep the momentum of the movement taught. The issue is evolving from recognizing that the LGBT community deserves basic rights to exploring how those rights will be recognized on a state and federal level. | <urn:uuid:2eaae0ab-8590-4572-9a47-26886b10c4f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freeweekly.com/2012/05/17/change-and-love-is-in-the-air/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965517 | 641 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Rash, Age 12 and Older
Healthy skin provides a barrier between the inside of the body and the outside environment. A rash means some change has affected the skin.
Rashes are generally caused by skin irritation, which can have many causes. A rash is generally a minor problem that may go away with home treatment. In some cases a rash does not go away or the skin may become so irritated that medical care is needed.
In adults and older children, rashes are often caused by contact with a substance that irritates the skin (Reference contact dermatitis Opens New Window Reference Opens New Window). The rash usually starts within 48 hours after contact with the irritating substance. Contact dermatitis may cause mild redness of the skin or a rash of small red bumps. A more severe reaction may cause swelling, redness, and larger blisters. The location of the rash may give you a clue about the cause.
Contact dermatitis does not always occur the first time you are in contact with the irritating substance (Reference allergen Opens New Window). After you have had a reaction to the substance, a rash can occur in response to even very small amounts of the substance. Contact dermatitis is not serious, but it is often very itchy. Common causes of contact dermatitis include:
- Poisonous plants, such as Reference poison ivy, oak, or sumac Opens New Window.
- Soaps, detergents, shampoos, perfumes, cosmetics, or lotions.
- Jewelry or fabrics.
- New tools, toys, appliances, or other objects.
- Reference Latex. Allergy to natural rubber latex affects people who are exposed to rubber products on a regular basis, especially health care workers, rubber industry workers, and people who have had multiple surgeries. Latex allergies can cause a severe reaction.
Rashes may occur with viral infections, such as Reference herpes zoster Opens New Window; fungal infections, such as a yeast infection (Candida albicans); bacterial infections, such as Reference impetigo; Opens New Window and Reference sexually transmitted infections (STIs) Opens New Window. Rashes may also occur as a symptom of a more serious disease, such as liver disease, kidney disease, or some types of cancer.
Rashes may also appear after exposure to an insect or a parasite, such as the Reference scabies Opens New Window mite. You may develop a rash when you travel to a rural area or go hiking or camping in the woods.
A rash may be a sign of a chronic skin problem, such as Reference acne Opens New Window, Reference eczema Opens New Window, Reference psoriasis Opens New Window, or Reference seborrheic dermatitis Opens New Window. Other causes of rash include dry, cold weather; extremely hot weather (heat rash); and emotional stress. Emotions such as frustration or embarrassment may lead to an itchy rash.
Some Reference medicines can cause a rash as a side effect. A very rare and serious type of generalized red rash called toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) may occur after using sulfa drugs. TEN can cause the skin to peel away, leaving large areas of tissue that weep or ooze fluid like a severe burn. TEN may occur after the use of some medicines. If this type of rash occurs, you need to see a doctor.
The need for medical treatment often depends on what other symptoms are present. A rash that occurs with other symptoms, such as shortness of breath or fever, may mean another problem, such as a serious Reference allergic reaction Opens New Window or infection.
Reference Check your symptoms to decide if and when you should see a doctor.
|By:||Reference Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: Reference February 21, 2012|
|Medical Review:||Reference William H. Blahd, Jr., MD, FACEP - Emergency Medicine
Reference H. Michael O'Connor, MD - Emergency Medicine | <urn:uuid:31bd4461-277a-40ac-91f2-bb543ae58c9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pamf.org/health/healthinfo/?A=C&type=info&hwid=rsh11§ion=hw80304 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92499 | 830 | 4.0625 | 4 |
Editor's note: A group of Israeli rabbis recently published an open letter forbidding Jews in Israel from renting or selling homes to Arabs. In response, the New Israel Fund sent a letter to those rabbis condemning their decision — a letter signed by almost a thousand rabbis of every denomination from around the world. One of the signatories, Rabbi Ben Greenberg, the Orthodox Jewish chaplain of Harvard University, explains his reasoning below.
Judaism is a religion concerned with the work of justice. The Biblical narrative is a protest against the world that is and a struggle for the world that ought to be. Abraham himself risks his future by posing a question of supreme chutzpah to God, challenging God to hold Himself accountable to His own system of justice. “Shall the judge of the whole earth deal unjustly?” (Gen. 18:25)
The Hebrew Bible, from Exodus through Deuteronomy, extols the nascent nation of Israel to remember their origin in Egyptian slavery and to therefore accord dignity and respect to the Other in their society: “The stranger you shall not oppress for you know the spirit of the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt.” (Ex. 23:9) “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as a native among you and you shall love him as yourself... “(Lev. 19:34) “Love the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt.” (Deut. 10:19)
It is deeply and profoundly troubling that a group of Israeli municipal rabbis recently issued a proclamation forbidding the rental or sale of homes to non-Jews in the State of Israel. These rabbis are civil servants and are meant to represent both the values of democratic Israel and of Judaism. The Jewish tradition spans three millennia and throughout the centuries has developed a long and at times seemingly contradictory legal tradition. Any rabbi charged with determining the application of Jewish law to the realities of the modern era must take into consideration a full array of factors, including socio-economic, political, and ethical values. The ruling by these municipal rabbis is nothing more than thinly guised political maneuverings and a perversion of the cherished processes of Jewish law.
As an American Orthodox rabbi I am very hesitant to interject my opinion into the fray of internal Israeli policy making. Oftentimes, the choices being deliberated involve existential questions for the State of Israel, and as a Cambridge resident, my life will not be directly affected by most decisions. This situation, though, is markedly different. I bear a moral imperative to speak out when the religion I cherish is misrepresented in the global public square. If this ruling would be implemented, the perception of Judaism by people the world over would be irreparably damaged.
For these reasons, I added my name to a letter organized by the New Israel Fund. I am not an avid petition-signer since the very nature of a petition does not allow for a full presentation of the complexities of any situation. Yet this matter requires an immediate and deliberate response with little room for nuance. Approximately one thousand rabbis from across the world stand together with the New Israel Fund in declaring that “The attempt to root discriminatory policies based on religion or ethnicity in Torah is a painful distortion of our tradition.”
I pray that the addition of my signature to the collective voice of more than a thousand rabbis from every corner of the globe, representing the broad diversity of the Jewish people, along with the support of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli rabbinate, will be a source of strength and encouragement to Israel's political leadership to swiftly and decisively respond to this disturbing edict. Then we will all stand and affirm the statement in the Talmud that “the whole Torah is for the sake of the ways of peace.”
Rabbi Ben Greenberg is the Orthodox Jewish chaplain of Harvard University, Orthodox rabbi of Harvard Hillel and Director of the Orthodox Union's Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Harvard. | <urn:uuid:ab4dc0f4-1959-447f-9756-9eec78ab8e9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/blogs/the_angle/2010/12/affirming_justi.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946886 | 819 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Six hours after Burger King's Twitter account was hacked Monday the company remained silent on the social media channel.
However, the hacker didn't. In what has been described as a "whopper of a mess" and the work of a "hamburglar," the Twitter account of Burger King was invaded Monday by an as-yet unidentified hacker who changed the site's branding to McDonald's and announced in a tweet: "We just got sold to McDonalds!"
The hacking garnered the fast-food chain more online buzz than its own social media efforts, adding more than 30,000 new Twitter followers to the brand's account and pushing Burger King to the top of global Twitter trends.
The real McDonald's restaurant didn't join in the mocking of Burger King but instead offered some empathy to its competition.
"We empathize with our @ burgerking counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking," McDonald's tweeted from its own Twitter account.
More than six hours after the initial hack, Burger King didn't appear to have control of the account and the hacker was back, quickly attracting more than 50,000 Twitter followers to an account entitled @ BurgerKing that included the string of earlier profane and, at times, graphic - as in the case of a photo of someone shooting up in a washroom - tweets.
It could be a company's worst social media nightmare. But Peter Chow-White, communication professor at Simon Fraser University, said such breaches shouldn't scare companies away from social media.
"This is one of the risks of being in social media," he said. "I'm not sure there is a way to stop these hacks from happening; hacking is a party of everyday life on the Internet.
"But the risk of not being online far outweighs the risk of engaging in social media. This is where people are, this is how brands are built, how sentiment is measured.
"Not being on social media can make one almost invisible in the marketplace."
While it may not be possible to entirely eliminate the risk of being hacked, there are measures a company can take to reduce the risk. And there are actions you can take if your brand is hacked.
The first rule if your brand's Twitter profile has been hacked: Act quickly.
"The response is important," said Chow-White. "You can use the same mode of communication to let people know there has been a breach - you can say we're sorry about this but we're on it.'" It doesn't appear that Burger King is on it at all - the company's press relations department hadn't called back by the deadline for this story.
Darren Barefoot, founder of Capulet Communications, a Canadian web marketing agency and co-author of Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook, sympathizes with Burger King's plight but he also points out the company has been slow to react.
"As soon as possible, on all your channels, you should announce that you've been hacked," he said. "There is a little bit of shame in it but it's not the end of the world; it happens to a lot of people and companies and you need to communicate as much as possible as soon as possible.
"That's the best damage control."
Safeguarding social media passwords is key and while Barefoot said he knows of some companies, including national brands, that use a single password that's shared among all the staff who are tweeting from a corporate account, that's not good practice.
A social media management tool like HootSuite lets your company manage passwords and permission levels on social media accounts.
"You can use HootSuite, or any number of enterprise tools can do that," said Barefoot. "For example, HootSuite has permission profiles so you can have a writer profile, an administrator profile. You can manage permissions so if somebody is fired, if you're a responsible IT department you can make sure you disable their accounts."
HMV learned that lesson the hard way recently when the company laid off its social media manager in a job cutting sweep. It was only after the then-ex-employee started livetweeting the job cuts from the corporate account that the company realized she was the person who had the Twitter password. | <urn:uuid:509c5c72-57b1-45b5-b0a8-5bb17b1b72fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vancouversun.com/Business/asia-pacific/Twitter+hacking+whopper+mess/7983756/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967732 | 877 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Mending With the Devil’s Darning Needles: The Pain Relieving Properties of Clematis
Common Name: Virgin’s Bower, Traveler’s Joy, Love Vine, Lady’s Bower, Sugar Bowls, Devil’s Darning Needles, Pepper Vine, Leather Flower, Vasevine
Botanical Name: C. neomexican, C. chinensis, C. virginiana and other related species.
Botanical Family: Ranunculaceae
Botanical Description: Generally semi-woody climbing vines with opposite leaves, trifoliate. Dioecious flowers with four sepals, no petals and numerous stamen. Achene fruits that look like long, narrow feathers.
Flavor: Spicy/pungent, salty
Energetics: Hot, dry
Actions: Vascular tonic (vasodilator), relaxant nervine, anti-spasmodic, anti-inflammatory
Specific indications: Arthritis worsened by cold, damp conditions or weather. Migraines from vascular atony. Anxiety, fear and weepiness with concurrent feelings of ungroundedness and a sense of disconnection from reality. Uterine and overian cramping pain with a sense of coldness.
The sprawling, tangly lianas of Wild Clematis climbing Juniper, Oak and even Alder trees are a familiar and sweet sight here in the Gila. Their vibrant light green foliage wraps itself around tree and stone. I’m always amazed by how its long, winding roots can manage to grow a tight grip into even narrow rock crevices and hard, dry soil. With ivory to bright white flowers, they stand out against the blue-green shade of the Oak woodlands, and their feather-tailed seeds are a distinctive mark of this prolific and abundant vine of the mountain Southwest and beyond. Sometimes given innocent and romantic sounding names such as Virgin’s Bower or The Lady’s Vine, Clematis has also been known as Devil’s Darning Needles. While I surely don’t care for the value judgement imposed upon the plant by such a title, I do agree that this powerful herb can do an excellent job of mending the pain and discomfort of a wide variety of ailments.
Clematis was at one time a very large genus, containing about 300 species. It has recently been broken down into several smaller subgenera, but Clematis itself is retained and the species most typical of it botanically are still included under that name. I have listed some of the species above I know to be medicinally active, but to my understanding and experience, any species that demonstrates a significantly acrid (as in, it burns the shit out of your mouth) taste will work just fine. I have no idea if this extends to any of the hybridized or domesticated cultivars as I’ve worked exclusively with wild Clematis at this point.
Strongly active Clematis will be acrid and burn your mouth quite noticeably. Young leaves are by far the best and I try to harvest it when the leaves are not quite grown and at least a month before flowering. Not to say it won’t work later, but it will be stronger and have more relaxant (both nervine and anti-spasmodic) effects if it is harvested while still very acrid.
In Western herbal practice, the arial parts of leaf and stem are most often used, while in Chinese medicine the root bark is often utilized as well. If you’ve ever tasted the spicy bite of Clematis leaves, you still haven’t tasted anything until you’ve taken a nibble of the root bark. This innocuous looking root is acrid enough to make your eyes water and burn when you chop the root bark and certainly more than strong enough to make most of us spit the offending piece of burning matter right back out of our mouths. This is fairly typical of many members of the Ranunculaceae, most of whom certainly tends toward the acrid taste in general. This is exactly why so many of them make excellent anti-spasmodics, a quality directly associated with the acrid taste by many systems of traditional medicine.
Clematis has some overlap in actions and effect with the famed Pulsatilla (now Anemone). This is not surprising considering they share some important constituents. I first learned from Southwestern herbalist Mimi Kamp that Clematis can act as a nervine in ways similar to Anemone. It’s certainly not exactly the same medicine, but close enough to be very useful.
As with its cousin Anemone, this herb is most indicated for those who experiencing cold signs, with or without symptoms of dampness as well. These individuals will likely have a pale tongue, a middling to slow pulse, pale skin, an overall sense of tiredness and an aversion to cold weather. These people are often easily upset or disoriented, and may be referred to as “spacey”. They often have difficulty remaining ungrounded, especially when feeling strongly emotional.
Also similar to Anemone, Clematis has a marked affinity for the reproductive system. I especially like it wherever there is a tendency to spasmodic uterine or ovarian pain of a cold nature, typified by dull but insistent aching and often accompanied by sadness, despondency and joint pain. From King’s American Dispensatory:
“Clematis virginiana has been highly spoken of as a nervine in uterine diseases.… Clematis recta, being particularly useful in nervous insomnia, neuralgic and rheumatic headache, toothache, reflex neuroses of women from ovarian or urinary irritation, neuroses of men with pain in testicles and bladder, cystitis, urethritis, gonorrhoea, orchitis, and swellings of the inguinal glands.”
Clematis has a history in traditional medicine in the treatment of cold, sometimes damp, arthritis, muscle spasms (including leg cramps) and similar afflictions. I find it most effective when formulated with other appropriate herbs which may include Black Cohosh, Ginger or Turmeric. I have even found it to have some significant use in the treatment of joint pain in fibromyalgia, especially when combined with Ashwagandha.
This plant is almost always recommended for migraines by herbalists in the US. Clematis is indeed an excellent and effective vasodilator that can be extremely helpful for those experiencing migraines, especially when other typical treatments have failed to have an effect. I learned from Michael Moore that Clematis is:
“…a useful treatment for headaches in general and migraine and cluster headaches specifically… Most effective in classic migraines where there are head flushes or visual disturbances in advance of the actual headache and most effective then, when drunk at the first sign of these presymptoms. Some folks find the tea works better, some find the tincture more effective. Try both.”
I have mostly worked with the fresh plant tincture, but the tea is indeed effective as well and I usually keep a bit on hand to try for folks not responding to the alcoholic extract. While I find a fresh plant tincture made with significantly acrid leaves and root bark and high proof alcohol to be the strongest and most active preparation, I’ve also seen a 5 year old tincture made with brandy and wilted flowers and leaves that had little acrid taste be effective in the treatment of migraines and arthritis when used in somewhat larger than usual doses.
Considerations & Contra-indications: Not generally an appropriate herb for those with heat signs. Caution should be used when using over a long period of time, especially as a simple and not for people with dominant deficiency in anything more than acute situations. I tend to think it’s best as a short term approach or buffered by an well thought out formula. Nevertheless, I find reports of the plant’s toxicity to be somewhat overstated, as long as it is used appropriately and with due respect for its strength. Strongly acrid species can be moderated by always using the dried plant and by briefly frying it in a hot pan, especially the root bark.
Dosage: 5-60 drops of fresh plant tincture, depending on the intensity of the plant and the constitution of the individual. Otherwise, a tsp of dried plant in 1 cup of just boiled water.
References & Resources
King’s American Dispensatory
Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West by Michael Moore
Recorded Lecture by Mimi Kamp
Recorded Lectures & Written Notes by David Winston
All Photos © 2010 Jesse Wolf Hardin | <urn:uuid:3cf142f2-3575-4674-8397-9ec4e3c15fa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bearmedicineherbals.com/clematis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940295 | 1,841 | 2 | 2 |
To enable you to get a better understanding of what may be encountered on an Adventure Consultants trip we have developed a grading system that quantifies the technical nature and physical output level of each trip.
Terrain guidelines and technical requirements
1 - Scrambling on low angled terrain of a low technical nature, on snow or rock. Ropes may occasionally be used. Climbers do not need previous experience but do need an ability to move over rough ground.
2 - Short steep sections that will require a rope. Basic snow/ice/rock climbing. We recommend that climbers are familiar with ice axe and crampon techniques and/or basic rock climbing techniques although this can often be taught during the trip.
3 - Steep terrain that requires moderate level climbing skills on snow/ice/rock. Emphasis on good cramponing skills. Will need experience with rope techniques including rappelling/abseiling and snow camping techniques.
4 - Extensive steep terrain. Climber to be capable of following multi pitch climbs and have rope management skills, belay techniques, climbing calls, rappelling/abseiling skills and alpine bivouac and snow camping techniques.
5 - Extreme terrain. Climber will have extensive experience on rock or ice and a complete understanding of anchors and protection techniques and a high degree of comfort following longer difficult sections of ice and/or rock in alpine gear with a pack.
Fitness and stamina
A - A level of fitness sufficient to carry a light pack (10kg/22lb) and be capable of moving for several hours at a stretch with short stops every hour. Training would include regular walking on hills and gym work to develop strength: light running, swimming and biking.
B - Defined as one who exercises regularly although not necessarily to a really high level, capable of carrying a pack weighing 18kg/40lb for several hours. Regular cardiovascular exercise (3-4 times a week gym/bike/stairs) and include pack carrying on rough ground once a week.
C - A high standard of fitness. Capable of climbing with a heavy pack (25kg/55lb) for extended periods in mountain conditions. High level of training specific to climbing that would include heavy pack carrying over rough terrain and other preparation such as regular gym/pool/bike training.
D - Excellent level of fitness from participants who would have an ongoing commitment to training and maintaining fitness specific to climbing. Expect long days in extreme conditions. Preparation would include heavy pack carrying, specific conditioning through rock and/or ice climbing and habitual cardio vascular exercise.
Read about Climbing Grade Comparisons internationally. | <urn:uuid:5448fcc9-4b4c-4914-9c4f-390571c5658c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adventureconsultants.com/adventure/DifficultyRatings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928068 | 536 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Last spring, during one of the open student hours I hold (weekly whenever possible, less often as Carleton travel dictates), a second-year student arrived at my office eager to tell me the story of a friend who had just visited him. The friend was an undergraduate at another university, a university whose name would be recognized around the globe. The Carleton student’s story was brief and telling: His friend was stunned by how much significant, substantive, weighty conversation took place in the lounges of Carleton’s residence halls. More surprising still, the visitor related, was how much of this conversation concerned issues raised in courses in history, physics, and math. Such conversations, apparently, occurred rarely at our visitor’s home university.
The Carleton student’s story delighted me—though after my wife Teresa’s and my nearly six years at Carleton, the narrative no longer surprises us. It is precisely this engagement that I think most characterizes Carleton students. Our students’ engagement—with issues that matter, in conversation with others—comes centrally from the habits of the College as shaped by generations of students, whose habits in turn were shaped by the Carleton teachers to whom we all owe so much. Such lively engagement has led me to rename Carleton, if descriptively accurate names are sought, Intellectual Curiosity College or Life of the Mind U.
Note, please, that the narrative that begins this column took place in a Carleton residence hall. This is as it should be, since the promise of a residential liberal arts college includes that of sustained deliberations, long after class times, throughout our residence halls. What is not as it should be is the situation with which we have lived now for several decades, that of stretching our capacity beyond what is ideal and preferred for residential housing. For long years now, we have had insufficient room on campus to house our students and we have crowded too many students into our residence halls, so that too many lounges (the site of the conversation behind the student’s visit to my student hour) have long since been converted into bedrooms. While the size of Carleton’s student body has not increased significantly in recent years, approximately 400 more students are enrolled now than were enrolled in April 1967 when Watson Hall, the most recently constructed full-scale residence facility on campus, opened.
Hence, a significant goal of our current Breaking Barriers, Creating Connections campaign is to return many students to campus by building two new residence halls, to be located south of and facing the Language and Dining Center, such that the residence halls will shape with the LDC and Nourse Hall and Myers Hall a new quadrangle, a sort of mini Bald Spot. One of these halls will be named Cassat Hall because of a visionary and generous gift from Pat and George Cassat, both members of the Class of ’46, and we will begin construction by summer 2008.
We aim to fulfill the promise of a residential college. We aim to ensure that stories like the one related to me by a current student continue in the years ahead. The only way to meet these goals is to plan and construct first-rate residence halls to house more Carleton students than we are able to accommodate now. Our work in building our first new residence halls in many years begins soon. Watch the Voice for updates on this and other construction projects. | <urn:uuid:6e636dfc-a911-479f-aa88-a6b319c13970> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/president/news/?story_id=400178&textonly=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974664 | 696 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The National Laboratory That Soars Above
As America celebrates National Lab Day on May 12, astronauts are helping scientists expand and execute research on the only National Laboratory in microgravity -- the International Space Station.
As the nation's newest national laboratory, the station will further strengthen relationships among NASA, other federal entities and private-sector leaders in the pursuit of national priorities for the advancement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
For years, NASA has helped connect students and astronauts in orbit through interactive events and video downlinks. The station’s National Laboratory education activities are opening new paths for student exploration, and using the station’s resources to inspire, engage and educate students and teachers. A number of programs are providing access for students already:
- The InSPIRE (ISS SPHERES Integrated Research Experiments) Program includes a grand challenge competition where high school students design software to control the on orbit SPHERES hardware, which looks at improving automatic spacecraft docking technology. The Pathfinder ZERO Robotics competition ran in December 2009 with 2 schools successfully executing SPHERES control software on the station. SPHERES is a NASA/Massachusetts Institute of Technology partnership.
- The Commercial Generic Bio-processing Apparatus (CGBA) Science Inserts (CSI) project includes a kit in which plants, spiders, and caterpillars/butterfly experiments have flown from 2006 through 2009. This activity is a partnership with CGBA payload developer Bioserve. Educational materials that enable students to conduct ground based control groups following flight experiment studies are available though Orion’s Quest educational non-profit organization. Website: www.orionsquest.org
- The Kids in Micro-g! Challenge is a nation-wide competition for grades 5-8 students to design microgravity experiments or demonstrations. Selected winners’ experiments will be tried on the station through the latter half of the 2009/2010 academic school year.
- The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) project helps connect students in elementary, middle and high schools, and universities with astronauts in space using a worldwide network of amateur radio satellite ground stations. ARISSat is a deployable payload developed in partnership with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corp. (AMSAT) that will carry university level experiments with data transmission via amateur radio downlink.
- The High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH) project lets students in middle and high schools get hands-on experience designing and building flight and training hardware for the station in 8 states in at least 31 schools. In addition, HUNCH students also are editing videos for NASA use.
- Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM) is an educational outreach program that allows middle school students to take pictures of Earth from a digital camera on board the International Space Station. The images are used to support student research projects in their classrooms.
- The Education Payload Operations project allows demonstration items to be flown to the station for astronauts to use while conducting microgravity demonstrations for K-12 students and educators.
- Microsoft Bliink is a collaboration between NASA and Microsoft on education competitions. The initial agreement is for the Bliink competition targeted for Texas high school students to design web pages addressing station-related subjects.
The station is becoming a novel resource for education, strengthening the future workforces of NASA and the nation, attracting and retaining students in core disciplines and engaging Americans in NASA’s mission. Experience has shown that NASA’s compelling mission inspires the next generation in a unique and powerful way, and the station is an invaluable educational investment.
For more information about NASA’s National Lab activities, visit:
For more information about National Lab Day, visit: | <urn:uuid:582ed910-a22d-4af2-879c-fa090d53c5d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/national_lab_day.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901597 | 758 | 3.40625 | 3 |
While Washington debates climate change, coal mining in the West gets a pass
For the past month, the klieg lights have been squarely focused on attempts inside the Beltway to cobble together compromise legislation to address global climate change (AKA the Waxman-Markey bill), and President Obama's commitment at the G-8 summit to keep the planet from heating up more than two degrees celsius.
Meanwhile, out here in the West, it's CO2-emitting business as usual, with the federal Bureau of Land Management this month proposing to lock in long term federal coal leases to giant mining firms. And not small amounts of coal either.
Specifically, at the same time the Obama administration is supporting targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by huge amounts over the next few decades, the BLM is proposing to extend the life of four coal mines in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. The "Wright Area coal lease applications" will approve leases granting mining companies permission to mine an additional 2.5 billion to 3.4 billion tons of coal over a 5-10 year period. When all that coal is combusted (and what else do you do with coal?), it will produce around 6 - 7 billion tons of CO2, or approximately the same amount as produced by all the commerical power plants in the US in a year.
And while coal-fired power plants aren't going away any time soon, why does this administration have to go out of its way to make life easier for them?
Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. BLM could say "no" to the coal lease applications expansions. It could approve smaller expansions. It could require the coal mines to mitigate the significant impacts of future greenhouse gas emissions by buying carbon offsets. Or buying land to help wildlife cope with the impacts of climate change.
But BLM is not thinking about any of those things. In fact, its environmental impact statement on the lease applications is a paragon of studied ignorance: BLM refuses to even estimate the CO2 emissions from the coal that will inevitably be burned after BLM permits it to be mined. It's as if the agency is afraid to admit the tremendous global warming impacts its decisions are making possible.
Trying to gloss over the huge global warming impacts of locking in years of additional coal mining and coal burning won't make the problem go away. If this administration wants to make a real dent in America's contribution to climate change, it will have to take a hard, honest look at how the government itself is part of the problem. It's not doing that in Wyoming. Yet.
To learn more about the Wright Area Coal lease Application draft environmental impact statement, go to www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/info/NEPA/HighPlains/Wright-Coal.html. To ask BLM to disclose the greenhouse gas emissions form burning coal mined in the lease applications, and to consider ways to mitigate the global warming impacts of such emissions, email Sarah Bucklin, Wyoming BLM at firstname.lastname@example.org before August 25. | <urn:uuid:b0ce2234-3974-4b63-9363-dca3a8210606> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://earthjustice.org/blog/2009-july/locking-coal-locking-out-facts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940599 | 628 | 2.40625 | 2 |
The crazy weather continues.
People in Europe are freezing to death in one of the coldest winters on record. It snowed on Monday in Libya. Libya! That is a country better known, weather-wise, for suffering the highest temperature recorded on earth in modern times (136 degrees Fahrenheit, in 1922).
Meanwhile, the United States is enjoying a bizarrely mild winter, in stark contrast to last year’s. At a parade Tuesday for the New York Giants, some people walked around Manhattan in short sleeves. I was in Oklahoma last week, and daytime temperatures were topping out in the 60s.
But don’t count on any kind of consistency — in this country or anywhere else. People in Colorado were enjoying a balmy winter, too, until last weekend. Now they are digging out of several feet of snow.
We have written about the weather extremes of recent years here and here, and about the difficulty climate science has making sense of it all here. Now comes a new synopsis of the science of weather extremes from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado that many readers may find interesting.
This extensive, meticulous online package takes readers through what scientists can and cannot say about the relationship between recent climate extremes and global warming. The linkage between human activity and recent extremes of heat and precipitation is fairly clear, the center says, but it is much less clear that hurricanes and tornadoes, for instance, have been worsened by climate change.
The most interesting part to me was a write-up by a television weatherman, Dan Satterfield, calling on fellow broadcasters to do a better job of talking about climate change and its influence on people’s daily lives. As we have reported in the past, many weather forecasters are contrarians on the issue of climate change, but the heat is being turned up on them, so to speak, by a public campaign to get them to “Forecast the Facts.”
The big question, of course, is whether a clearer understanding of the science of extremes would prompt the public to demand more action on climate change from politicians in Washington. Are we, just possibly, reaching the point where people can look out their back doors and know they are seeing climate change in action? | <urn:uuid:9a1c593a-5d13-40b1-80b3-b765ed35c633> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/a-fresh-take-on-chaotic-weather/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961652 | 458 | 2.453125 | 2 |