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Eczema is a term for a group of medical conditions that cause the skin to become inflamed or irritated. The most common type of eczema is known as atopic dermatitis, or atopic eczema. Atopic refers to a group of diseases with an often inherited tendency to develop other allergic conditions, such as asthma and hay fever.
Eczema affects about 10% to 20% of infants and about 3% of adults and children in the U.S. Most infants who develop the condition outgrow it by their tenth birthday, while some people continue to have symptoms on and off throughout life. With proper treatment, the disease often can be controlled.
No matter which part of the skin is affected, eczema is almost always itchy. Sometimes the itching will start before the rash appears, but when it does, the rash most commonly appears on the face, back of the knees, wrists, hands, or feet. It may also affect other areas as well.
Affected areas usually appear very dry, thickened, or scaly. In fair-skinned people, these areas may initially appear reddish and then turn brown. Among darker-skinned people, eczema can affect pigmentation, making the affected area lighter or darker.
In infants, the itchy rash can produce an oozing, crusting condition that happens mainly on the face and scalp, but patches may appear anywhere.
What Causes Eczema?
The exact cause of eczema is unknown, but it's thought to be linked to an overactive response by the body's immune system to an irritant. It is this response that causes the symptoms of eczema.
In addition, eczema is commonly found in families with a history of other allergies or asthma. Also, defects in the skin barrier could allow moisture out and germs in.
Some people may have "flare-ups" of the itchy rash in response to certain substances or conditions. For some, coming into contact with rough or coarse materials may cause the skin to become itchy. For others, feeling too hot or too cold, exposure to certain household products like soap or detergent, or coming into contact with animal dander may cause an outbreak. Upper respiratory infections or colds may also be triggers. Stress may cause the condition to worsen.
Although there is no cure, most people can effectively manage their disease with medical treatment and by avoiding irritants. The condition is not contagious and can't be spread from person to person.
How Is Eczema Diagnosed?
A pediatrician, dermatologist, or your primary care provider can make a diagnosis of eczema. While there are no tests to determine eczema, most often your doctor can tell if it's eczema by looking at your skin and by asking a few questions.
Since many people with eczema also have allergies, your doctor may perform allergy tests to determine possible irritants or triggers. Children with eczema are especially likely to be tested for allergies. | <urn:uuid:cd7de88a-6932-4cb0-9cb8-635b1bfcf46c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/atopic-dermatitis-eczema | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9613 | 623 | 4.125 | 4 |
Our Sri Lankan Identity: Another Case of ‘Being Nobody, Going Nowhere’?
(AP Photo/Manish Swarup, from JDS)
The 2011 MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture delivered by Kumar Sangakkara was indeed a very thoughtful, courageous and passionate one. Much has been written about the lecture, and it is not necessary to repeat how inspiring it was. But there is that poignant final paragraph in Sangakkara’s lecture which has contributed in numerous ways to a resurgence of an old debate concerning our Sri Lankan identity and what it ought to mean in our contemporary post-war Sri Lanka. The relevant paragraph is as follows:
“Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.”
The above words did, undoubtedly, touch and move many people. But it needs to be acknowledged, that the above words are that of a cricketer who represents the Sri Lankan cricket team. It is obvious then that Sangakkara had to stress the obvious: that in representing Sri Lanka he is Sri Lankan, today, always, proudly. That sense of being Sri Lankan is a feeling that all of us who are proud Sri Lankans share and feel when supporting our cricket team. So while Sangakkara’s words were indeed inspiring, they meant something we all understand, something quite obvious.
Yet, when it comes to the issue of addressing problems affecting diverse ethnic groups within that very same multi-ethnic country, adopting a Sri Lankan approach or approaching the problems as Sri Lankans would indeed sound noble and laudable but mean very little in practical political terms.
Now, this popular demand – think like Sri Lankans, act like Sri Lankans, adopt a Sri Lankan approach when resolving Sri Lankan problems – can be one which stems from a genuine and honest idealism, and it needs to be acknowledged that there are numerous good-intentioned individuals who make that demand. And the efforts made by such individuals and the idealism that drives them to adopt such a position should be appreciated. But this demand can be made with different motives in mind and for different reasons too, especially by a government faced with mounting criticism on various fronts internationally. It could also well be a demand which comes not because of any genuine concern for the people, but very simply because of the hidden frustration of having to address demands which are made, and have been made over decades, by a particular ethnic group.
There are a number of questions that arise here. For example: what is so unique about approaching problems from a more Sri Lankan-oriented perspective?; is this a meaningful demand or suggestion given the complexity of the problems inherent especially in a multi-ethnic State (as opposed to a mono-ethnic State)?; is this Sri Lankan identity an all-embracing multi-ethnic identity which overcomes problems posed by other more narrow ethnic-based identities, and are there any specific and distinct solutions one who is adopting such a special Sri Lankan identity can offer?; who interprets or defines this Sri Lankan identity and what that identity-holder should advocate or stand for in the realm of politics?
A number of factors need to be borne in mind.
Firstly, it is incorrect to suggest (if indeed this suggestion is sought to be made by any one) that you inherited your Sri Lankan identity before any other ethnic, religious or linguistic identity. Those who do tend to make this claim, and it is a very rhetorical one, never explain how exactly this happens, especially at the moment of birth.
Secondly, it needs to be realized that one cannot claim that one particular ‘identity’ is good, and another ‘identity’ is essentially bad or dangerous. Deep attachment, pride and glorification of any identity can lead to much suffering, and there is absolutely no guarantee that a Sri Lankan identity is far more peace-loving than a Sinhala or Tamil identity, and vice-versa, unless they all are based on a moral and ethical foundation that promotes peace and tolerance. Importantly, much depends on what you make of whatever identity you espouse.
And all identities are defined and formulated according to one’s own political predilections, and one cannot in all seriousness expect any objectivity in engaging in that exercise of definition or formulation. As Prof. Michael Roberts once pithily observed: “there is no such thing as hundred percent objectivity” (Michael Roberts (ed.), Sri Lanka. Collective Identities Revisited, Vol II, p. xiv) – but what this assertion should help one realize is that even one percent of subjectivity can make all the difference concerning how one approaches and attempts to resolve a problem. As many would know, this is also an observation that naturally flows from the teachings of the Buddha. As the Buddha noted: “Led by one’s own wishes (chanda) and established on one’s own likes (ruci), how can one go beyond one’s own views? Acting upon what one has perfected, as one knows, so one speaks.” (quoted in David J. Kalupahana, The Buddha and the Concept of Peace, 1999, p. 99). So if the argument is that a problematic identity should be replaced by another, we need to quickly realize that by attempting to create a new identity what we are doing is actually the recreation of those very same problems of subjectivity we wish to resolve.
This is quite obvious, when one takes note of the manner in which various people have defined what it means to be Sri Lankan over the past decades and in relation to the current conflict. For some Sri Lankans, there should be no talk about the need to accommodate different ‘nations’ within the Sri Lankan nation-state, because some genuinely fear that such talk would only polarize the people. There are those Sri Lankans who are extremely skeptical about devolution, and within that broad category there are those who believe, while advocating democracy, equality and human rights, that if devolution is indeed necessary, it should be realized by fully preserving Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (see for example, CG Weeramantry, A Call for national Reawakening, p. 144). Furthermore, there are those who favour a federal solution and they too are indeed Sri Lankans. The difference here being that for those who advocate federalism, their understanding of what that Sri Lankan identity ought to mean necessarily involves a reference to, inter alia, the sharing of power in the form of federalism. And within that broad category of federalists, there are the numerous sub-categories as well, such as liberal federalists and those who might be called social democratic federalists or confederalists (see for instance Rohan Edrisinha, ‘Federalism: Myths and Realities’ in Rohan Edrisinha/ Asanga Welikala (eds.), Essays on Federalism in Sri Lanka, 2008, p. 106).
Hence, the varied interpretations of being Sri Lankan or what that ought to mean. So what then does one mean by being truly Sri Lankan and approaching problems as Sri Lankans? What happens if one wants to be considered a Sri Lankan Sinhalese, or a Sri Lankan Tamil?
Thirdly, it is well to realize that while there are problems common to all peoples belonging to a State, there are critical problems affecting specific peoples within a State too. A broad, all embracing, vague and abstract Sri Lankan identity which does not attempt to address critical ethnic problems is, unfortunately, a somewhat useless identity, because the moment someone tosses the simple question – how do you resolve the issue of devolution? – you inevitably fall back on an essentially ethnic problem. And the problem here is that the ethnic problem is within the State, and the ethnic groups are, indeed, Sri Lankan. And the answer – let’s approach the problem as Sri Lankans and resolve it as Sri Lankans – does not, unfortunately, mean anything substantive or useful, since you can do the same by approaching the problem as a Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim if necessary.
Consider for instance the approach adopted by the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, who, when interviewed once by the NHK in September 2004 stated the following:
“I am first and foremost a citizen of Sri Lanka. I don’t carry labels of race or religion, or any other label. I would say quite simply that I have grown up with the philosophy that I am probably, kind of a citizen of the world. I don’t subscribe to any particular philosophy; I have no fanaticism; I have no communism. I am not impressed by any body’s claim to the race… I believe there should be a united Sri Lanka. I believe that all our peoples can live together, they did live together. I think they must in future learn to live together after this trauma is over.”
Now, here was a ‘quintessential Sri Lankan’. But what was his approach to the ethnic demand for power-sharing? His Sri Lankan identity did not lead him to argue that there was no ethnic problem, or that there was no ethnic-demand for political power-sharing in Sri Lanka (while he was opposed to the use of the term ‘civil-war’ which was employed to describe the armed conflict). He never evaded the question hiding behind his Sri Lankan identity. His position was very clear. While he believed that there should be a “just, fair and equitable” solution and that “it is the establishment or re-establishment of democracy with the participation of the people that is ultimately the best guarantee of all against secession or separation”, he had argued quite forcefully, before pointing out why the 13th Amendment failed (because it was “not allowed to work” and was “not being implemented in any meaningful sense”), that:
“If true democracy is re-established there and the people are given the autonomy, which they deserve and which is common now in so many parts of the world, they will respect it. They would be grateful for that. They will work for it” (See speech made in Parliament during the tabling of the Constitutional amendment proposal on 8th August 2000).
My argument here is that you can think the way the late Lakshman Kadirgamar thought about it (and arrive at a pro-devolution based solution), or you can think from the perspective of a Sinhalese or Tamil who thinks power-sharing is absolutely essential – and still arrive at the same conclusion!
So, that demand exists and it’s a demand which has to be addressed, and it doesn’t matter to the people whether one calls himself a Sri Lankan first, or a Sri Lankan Tamil, or a Tamil Sri Lankan or a Sinhala-Buddhist, as long as a solution is provided because that is what the people expect.
Without digressing too much, it should also be noted here that interestingly, Lakshman Kadirgamar was the most favoured politician of some who have been opposed to the idea of devolution, but it is rather strange that some of them completely ignore how Kadirgamar approached the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. While it is necessary to recognize the concerns of those who are genuinely skeptical about devolution, it is well to realize that the genuine advocacy of devolution of powers is certainly not a ‘Tamil Eelamist’ position to take: unless of course one argues that Kadirgamar was a Tamil Eelamist too.
Fourthly, and finally, I believe what is necessary is not some vague and idealistic Sri Lankan identity (even though there is great potential in idealism and we all are driven by some form of idealism), but rather a more rational and critical Sri Lankan identity, if it is indeed a truly Sri Lankan identity that is sought to be created and is thought to be necessary to resolve problems in post-war Sri Lanka. No identity or label should retard one’s ability to think beyond that label when and where necessary. Even when treading the political ‘middle path’, such labels should not hinder a person’s ability to critique rationally the injustices meted out to people belonging to any single ethnic group. Protecting national sovereignty is necessary, and that is considered by some to be the defining characteristic of a Sri Lankan identity; but it needs to be realized that protecting sovereignty can be done in numerous ways and that there cannot be any suffering caused to the people in the process of protecting and safeguarding sovereignty.
No identity or label that is defined and imposed by others should stifle an individual’s voice where it is seen that grave harm is caused to another who, as Jesus Christ would have taught, should be treated as your brother. This is especially so concerning the specific and serious problems affecting the people in the North. It is deplorable in this respect if any attempts are being made by this regime or responsible individuals representing it, to belittle the seriousness of the attacks directed at Tamil politicians and the Tamil people in particular who have, for decades, undergone enough suffering due to an armed conflict. It is not only action but also words which can go a long way in recreating the wheel of violence which should be avoided.
Furthermore, it is perhaps important to remember that any Sri Lankan identity should fundamentally be one which celebrates the diversity of opinions, views and ideas that people genuinely and ardently hold on to in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural polity. Whether one is comfortable with a view or not, it needs to be recognised that no progress of any kind will take place unless the people are guaranteed the freedom to raise their voice and opinion on what they believe to be the ideal political solution to the conflict within a united Sri Lanka, whether or not that opinion is popular within the State and among its people. Unless and until that happens, our much proclaimed Sri Lankan identity will be a classic case of ‘being nobody, going nowhere’, meaningless, useless. We will be card-carrying Sri Lankans, with our freedom and ability to think critically, rationally and logically sucked out; in short, a Sri Lankan who is not worth the card he is carrying. | <urn:uuid:8477ae16-96ce-4dcd-90c1-acd944864226> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://groundviews.org/2011/07/17/our-sri-lankan-identity-another-case-of-%E2%80%98being-nobody-going-nowhere%E2%80%99/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965092 | 3,075 | 1.757813 | 2 |
You have now seen all the evidence and extracts from this learning module relevant to examination of the change from domestic to factory production.
You have seen something of how peoples’ lives were transformed by technological development. Can you think of similar examples from other periods or places?
There are various ways in which you can continue this study of these immense changes.
We must beware of idealising the world of the domestic system, where great poverty and suffering could take place. However, the new world of the factory involved concentrations of long hours and dangerous conditions. Factories increasingly used the more easily trained labour force of children until they were in such numbers that demands grew to restrict child labour. As factories were increasingly powered by steam rather than water, they became concentrated in towns. Child labour became more obvious, and social commentators began to take issue with the increasingly unhealthy urban lifestyle, as seen in the following story.
SCENE: Cottonopolis: A wonder of the age
Such industrial expansion drew in people from the surrounding countryside and led to growing concentrations of people in places such as Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Further reading around the development of the textile industries can be found in a number of related modules. You can read more about the location of the textile industries, the industry at its peak, and its decline in the inter-war years. | <urn:uuid:a64740fa-78a7-4e8f-bb93-4b6b08a81f10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/history/01.TU.01/?section=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972291 | 273 | 3.796875 | 4 |
New UAHuntsville class will teach students applications from weather, climate modeling
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (January 20, 2012) - A class offered for the first time this spring will offer answers to a math-related question that many students start asking about the time they hit algebra: How will I ever use this?
In this case, the new class in the Atmospheric Science Department at The University of Alabama in Huntsville will answer that question as it relates to the complex and mathematically intensive world of atmospheric modeling - the mathematical tools that scientists use to understand and predict the weather, and to study climate change.
"These models are also tools with a variety of practical applications," said Udaysankar Nair, the assistant professor who will teach the class. "This class will have a real world orientation, focusing on how we use research and modeling tools to help people make more informed decisions.
"The class will show students tools that they can use to help them understand the complexity of numerical models. More importantly, we will follow specific examples of projects from their research origins through the modeling process to the place where they become products that provide useful information to the public or to decision makers."
The course builds on the experience of scientists in the Atmospheric Science Department and UAHuntsville's Earth System Science Center who are involved in transitioning research to applications. UAH scientists are developing applications to assist in decision making related to forestry planned burns, oil spill impacts, aviation
and farm planning.
"But these ideas are just scratching the surface," Nair said. "There is a tremendous potential for applications, both for government agencies and the private sector."
While the class is initially being offered only to students in the atmospheric science program, in the future it might broaden to include students with other numerical modeling skills learned elsewhere on campus.
"In the future we would like to evolve into more interdisciplinary work," Nair said. "There are so many possible uses for this type of modeling: Mapping ecological environments, biology, engineering, supply chain management. We want to expand into those areas.
"We train students to develop one set of skills within their discipline," he said. "There are a lot of opportunities out there, but they frequently require a different or additional set of skills. We want to open a new channel so our students can tackle these types of challenges."
"Numerical Modeling Applications" is being offered as a special topics (ATS 690) class this spring semester.
A new master's degree program in Earth system science should be in place for classes starting in August. This program will teach students who want to take research into public policy and decision-making areas. This new graduate program will focus on using and integrating geographical information systems, remote sensing technology, and numerical modeling.
For more information,
contact Ray Garner
- Hits: 1281 | <urn:uuid:3f6778f8-b6cc-4dab-bef8-9fc34cf7fcda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uah.edu/news/campus/996-new-uahuntsville-class-will-teach-students-applications-from-weather-climate-modeling-new-uahuntsville-class-will-teach-students-applications-from-weather-climate-modeling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941564 | 586 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Staying Healthy on “the Other Side of 50″
by Sandy Tankoos
Approximately five years ago, I sold my business and retired. I was certain I would enjoy spending my time traveling and volunteering for organizations that were important to me; I was invited to be on several boards, signed up for interesting classes, and was reasonably happy for a few months. However, I soon found that I missed the familial type of daily contact I had enjoyed with my employees, as well as the daily routine and interaction with clients that my business had afforded me. I began to think about changing course and finding a more fulfilling way to spend my days. Each day, I searched the Internet trying to find a website that would be both entertaining and informative, but I just couldn’t find what I was looking for. I thought, “OMG! Could I create such a site myself? Would that be possible?” And that, indeed, is what I did.
TOS50 stands for “The Other Side of 50.” The site has 11 different sections, each dealing with a subject matter I believed would appeal to my target audience by presenting information on health and other topics they would find interesting and helpful. In generating content for the website, I’ve had the opportunity to focus on a number of subjects related to health and wellness, a constant reminder of the many ways we can and should focus on our general well-being – especially on the other side of 50. For example:
- We baby boomers and older seniors know how much time we spend worrying about what we’re eating, when we’re eating, exercising, medications, trying to stay healthy and young, et cetera. With those concerns in mind, I created a nutrition section and a health and wellness section of the website, allowing me the pleasure of interviewing doctors, nutritionists, and exercise specialists – including Richard Simmons – among others, which has been great fun and very informative for both me and my viewers.
- Videos and posts cater to those who are interested in hearing aids, concerned about menopause, and thinking about cosmetic surgery, among other topics.
- Many seniors suffer from diabetes, so a certified nutritionist and diabetic specialist provides diabetes-related health tips on a regular basis.
- Because improving our environment is essential to maintaining good health, my daughter, an environmental scientist, contributes greening and gardening stories.
Of course, we seniors are concerned about the health and wellbeing of others, too, especially because many of us are parents and grandparents. Statistics show that 1 out of every 90 children is born on the “Autism Spectrum” – and out of a group of approximately 25 people who are part of my Saturday morning minyan group at Temple Sinai of Roslyn, L.I., four of us have autistic grandchildren. My autistic granddaughter is almost 12; her education and her wellbeing are a constant concern for me. Consequently, I have interviewed several autism specialists on the website and have tried to keep up with current information on new treatments as they become available. TOS50’s e-store also carries a line of autism awareness products, the profits of which are donated to programs for special needs children.
TOS50’s volunteerism and philanthropy section has allowed me to create awareness and financially assist many organizations working toward a cure for various diseases. We’ve worked hard to raise awareness of amyloidosis, a rare disease that, at this point, has no cure. Because it mimics other more common ailments, it often goes undiagnosed until it is too late for available treatments that might help put patients into remission. Additionally, as a breast cancer survivor myself, I am extraordinarily interested in working toward a cure, and I make an effort to publicize events that bring attention to what I call “the epidemic” of breast cancer.
Like everyone else, seniors are also interested in being entertained and having fun. Arts, entertainment, style, and beauty matter! Checking out Checking out the latest styles and interviewing Michael Brown about classic Corvettes and the Le Mans competition in France are more than frivolities. After all, enjoying life is part of staying young at heart – and healthy.
Being retired doesn’t mean being bored. Starting a website has given me the opportunity to help others – and, in turn, to help myself. I love being able to contribute in this way. For seniors, being able to do what makes us feel good enables us to remain mentally and physically healthy and alert!
Sandy Tankoos is the president and founder of TOS50, a website for baby boomers and older seniors. Sandy is a past president of Temple Sinai of Roslyn, and is a board member of URJ, ARZA, and the American Zionist Movement. She also serves on the board of LI-CAN (Long Island Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods), a community organization working on improving home health care for seniors living on Long Island. | <urn:uuid:e801ba56-6b1c-408f-967c-70de3871ad18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.rj.org/blog/2012/10/05/staying-healthy-on-the-other-side-of-50/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rjblog+%28RJ+Blog%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969177 | 1,028 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Imagine liquid nitrogen smoke emerging from a blender and filling the room like an eerie mist. Enveloping your fare in air-tight containers only to then submerge them in a precisely-calculated bath. And finally, adding substance-altering hydrocolloids to change the texture of even the simplest of ingredients: orange juice. Not normally what goes on in your kitchen, I’m sure, but these are some of the newest and most awe-inspiring cooking techniques emerging in the culinary world. And I got a first-hand look at a cooking class that teaches these cool tricks to every day cooks, or wannabe cooks, like you and me. | <urn:uuid:a883bcce-edc2-4b23-88a0-8f43423c2277> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://joonbug.com/tag/cooking+classes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910755 | 136 | 1.5 | 2 |
Dec 16, 2006
FoEI member groups from 51 countries met from 28 - 29 September 2006 to discuss alternative energy futures.
Resolution of FoEI Conference on Climate Change
Abuja declaration resolution of FoEI International Conference on Climate Change
September 28-29, 2006
Another energy future is necessary - alternatives exist! Stop oil and gas exploration now!
Member groups of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI ) from 51 countries including Nigeria's Environmental Rights Action (ERA) and other national and international civil society groups, representatives of Niger Delta Communities and journalists gathered for the International Conference on Climate Change in Abuja from 28th - 29th September 2006. The conference with the theme: 'Minimizing Climate Change Impact and Curbing Global Energy Chaos'; is one of the activities of the Biennial General Meeting of the Friends of the Earth International.
Following presentations and robust discussions at the conference, participants observed that:
- All struggles, whether social, economic or environmental are interlinked with political struggles. Therefore, there is the need to link the different messages from around the world and adopt broad strategies that clearly address the issues of Climate Change and Energy Sovereignty, since it is the flawed and exploitative international economic system that drives the climate change phenomenon.
- There is the need to synchronize the various energy struggles around the world by adopting a global strategy for resisting environmental degradation, destruction of local livelihoods, and rights abuses associated with corporate controlled energy sourcing and consumption globally.
- There exist attempts by corporations to promote other sources of energy primarily nuclear as an alternative. Nuclear expansion must be resisted it has inherent and irreversible negative impacts.
- Alternative energy production must not lead to further impoverishment of peoples.
- The extraction of crude oil has led to unprecedented human rights abuse, environmental problems, fostering political and social conflicts in the Niger Delta and in other communities globally, which have been responded to by the militarization of community lands and sovereign states. In this militarized condition, women in particular have been victims.
Arising from the observations, participants resolved that:
Another energy future is necessary based upon:
- Abandoning the belief in export led growth in favour of servicing local (basic) needs;
- Restructuring the price and production of energy
- A new approach to restructuring ownership of the energy regimes; and
- Abandoning the mistaken dichotomy between development and environment.
- Endeavor to work with and support community struggles towards energy sovereignty and democratic control of natural resources that will be the basis for alternative fair and just trade regimes that link producers with consumers eliminating corporate led control of our energy systems. It is essential that women are fully involved in all negotiations over energy production and allocation of natural resources.
- Call for fair trade and just direct deals between producers and consumers, built upon energy sovereignty and the transition to alternative energy that cut out the oil middlemen, oil companies and oil speculators. These direct deals in oil can involve barter (as in Venezuela with Cuba, Argentina, and Uruguay) thereby avoiding the use of the US Dollar.
- Call on Governments across the world to declare a global moratorium on new oil and gas exploration and development until full eco-restoration and reparations is implemented in communities already impacted by extractive industries.
- Call on Governments in both South and North to focus more on responsible energy consumption and the development of decentralized democratically controlled technology for easy utilization of clean energy like wind and solar energy.
- Call on Governments of the South to develop gender responsive and clear policies toward attaining energy sovereignty. Such policy should promote sustainable energy, local community control of energy along with the protection of the environment and local livelihoods from corporate and state abuse.
- Recognize the alliance between the Nigerian and other governments and the oil multinationals in the form of Joint Venture Agreements that negate communities' interests. The terms of these JVA must be made public and repudiated. These JVA must be replaced with democratically controlled government and local community agreements.
- The Niger Delta crisis should be resolved through dialogue and democratic/political interventions. Such interventions must include communal control of communal resources, protection of local political interests and strict enforcement of environmental standards and codes.
- Neo-liberal trade agreements and economic policies that have the effect of stripping people of their entitlements to basic resources for a just and human existence and increase the impoverishment of peoples’ must be terminated; finally
- The super profits of the oil multinationals must be redirected towards clean-up reparations, and the transition to safe energy alternatives under democratic control.
Chair, Friends of the Earth, International
Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria | <urn:uuid:854c7f2a-b3d4-457b-9be1-caf4a345bc2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/climate-and-energy/latest-news/2006/12?set_language=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910515 | 957 | 1.976563 | 2 |
|Reviewed by Louisa Dobbins
|We who are called to serve must be
willing to bend, less we break or
die. Then we are placed in a hollow
grave and soon forgotten.
|Reviewed by m j hollingshead
|Reviewed by Dawn Anderson
|Excellent and well thought out tribute!|
|Reviewed by Rose Rideout
|A wonderful tribute to a man so well deserving. Thank you for sharing Edward.
Newfie Hugs, Rose
|Reviewed by Karen Vanderlaan
|a very well written tribute to a great leader of men|
|Reviewed by Susan de Vegter
I sure appreciate your heritage and I love the idea that you're standing next to me. Jefferson Davis's life was 9one of pure genuis. he was an awesome inventor and arcitect, He designed the dome of our White House in Washington, D.C. but that remains quiet so as not to make him a noted man...other than the War of Northern Aggression. I am rooted in the heritage of a grand tradition. I guess the Yanks must love us too as many are moving down here. The new Sun City is Valdosta, georgia instead of Florida now.
Keep up that march, kind gentleman. I nee you to help me out.
|Reviewed by E T Waldron
|Ed, this is a fine poem. Though we can never forget the Civil war, most of us don't remember the facts of that time as well as others.
This helps us remember,and that's a good thing!
|Reviewed by Jerry Bolton (Reader)
|You might get some harsh words here, but I assume you are aware of that. Yes, he was a man of honor. I agree completely. It must have been a awful time for him, no matter which side he chose.|
|Reviewed by larry linville
|This was helpful to me. My great-grandfather was born during hte Civil War and was named Jefferson Davis Linville. I doubt they knew what you have shared but it's helpful to me.
|Reviewed by Rafiriio Daniels
|Well I didn't know much about him but you enlightened me this morning!!!! Great job!| | <urn:uuid:c04b3a7c-74c1-4d64-912d-1ca86b2fbf3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewpoetry.asp?catid=17&id=212688 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972512 | 468 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Medicare cuts to the elderly will not be seen before November 2012, even though they were originally scheduled to hit before that time, because the Obama administration, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has delayed those cuts so they do not hit until after the presidential election in 2012.
Obamacare requires a $500 billion cut in Medicare funding.
On July 18, 2012, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee spoke on the Senate floor about the pending Defense cuts under Sequestration. During his speech he said that the Obama administration is “leaning on” industry to delay pink slips that are required by law.
Via Senator Inhofe's website:
WATCH FLOOR SPEECH HERE and HERE.
“I have every reason to believe, because I’ve heard from people in industry, that the President of the United States is trying to get them to avoid sending pink slips out until after the November 7 election,” said Inhofe. “I would remind him that we have something called the Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the WARN Act. It requires these companies to give 60 days’ notice of pending layoffs.“Since Sequestration will take place on January 2nd, these workers must be notified of their pink slip by November 2nd. This is what I’d like to remind those companies: they don’t have to wait. If they want to notify workers today, they can do that. I think it is imperative that the workers who are going to be laid off work as a result of the Obama Sequestration be notified in advance of the November election. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that happens.”Under the federal WARN Act, employers must give employees 60 days’ notice of layoffs. That means employees must be notified of sequestration cuts by Nov. 2, 2012 — just days before this year’s election. In some cases, state law requires 90 days’ notice, meaning that some will get the news on Oct. 2.The Oklahoman reported on a study that shows Oklahoma stands to lose 16,000 jobs under Sequestration. When factoring in potential cuts in military personnel, the number of lost jobs in Oklahoma increases to over 20,000.In additional remarks prepared for delivery, Inhofe said, “The answer from Senate Democrats to this threat to our national security: use the cuts as leverage against Republicans to raise taxes on small business because they see no political downside in delaying action on the implementation of cuts. Yesterday, an Ernst & Young study showed that such a tax increase would cost our economy 700,000 additional jobs. Under the Obama economy, our nation has endured more than 41 months with at or over 8 percent unemployment.
“So, the options President Obama and the Democrats are giving this nation with this radical approach is fewer jobs on one hand, or fewer jobs on the other hand. We need more jobs – not fewer jobs and we must keep our national security strong. We need a permanent fix now, or at least a temporary fix that removes sequestration from the current political environment.”
Barack Obama is attempting, at every level, to delay the direct effects of his policies so they will not influence voters against him in November 2012.
H/T Hot Air | <urn:uuid:8e4824b4-7e6f-4555-b195-796d91cec3b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2012/07/inhofe-obama-leaning-on-industry-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965595 | 703 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The independent data monitoring committee for a Phase III study evaluating Roche’s Tarceva (erlotinib) in a population of patients with newly diagnosed EGFR mutation-positive advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has recommended stopping the trial early because it met its primary endpoint. The Eurtac study compared the EGFR inhibitor Tarceva with platinum-based chemotherapy, specifically in Western patients with NSCLC that expressed EGFR-activating mutations. It found that comapred with the chemo regimen, Tarceva therapy significantly extended progression-free survival.
Tarceva is being developed and commercialized by OSI in partnership with Roche’s Genentech in the U.S., Chugai in Japan, and Roche in the rest of the world. As a result of the latest Eurtac data, OSI and Genentech plan to initiate similar label-extension discussions with FDA, while Roche and OSI will work together on submissions to other health authorities.
The Eurtac study was designed and sponsored by the Spanish Lung Cancer Group and conducted by Roche in collaboration with investigators in France and Italy. Roche says the Eurtac study was the first at Phase III to evaluate Tarceva in a Western population with this distinct form of lung cancer.
Roche applied to the European regulatory authorities in June 2010 for a Tarceva label extension covering its use as first-line therapy in people with advanced NSCLC whose tumors express EGFR-activating mutations. The firm is also working with OSI to develop a PCR-based companion diagnostic to identify patients with NSCLC harboring EGFR-activating mutations.
Roche suggests about 10% of lung cancer patients in a Western population, and as many as 30% of Asian NSCLC patients, have tumors with EGFR-activating mutations. Tarceva is currently approved in markets including Europe and the U.S. as first-line maintenance therapy for NSCLC patients and as a second-line treatment for advanced or metastatic NSCLC, irrespective of EGFR mutation status. | <urn:uuid:bdba7a89-b151-4a3b-b32e-c9894cc3d6dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/phase-iii-shows-tarceva-extends-pfs-in-nsclc-with-egfr-activating-mutations/81244608/?kwrd=Non-Small-Cell%20Lung%20Cancer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940892 | 434 | 1.585938 | 2 |
March 23, 2007
Horse 738 - I Don't Know Jack Crapp
Jack Crapp (1912-1981) was the captain of Gloucestershire between 1936 and 1953; a dependable batsman and a fine fieldsman, who early in his career was thought of as a potential Test batsman. However when the shadow of the Second World War loomed long, it cut through what should have been the peak of his cricket career.
When Australia toured in 1948 with the resumption of sporting events, he was called up for England in a particularly dismal series when the Australians (who would later be called the Invincibles) beat them 4-0 in the test series and never lost once on tour. The English team was captained by Norman Yardley.
He would be remembered for facing a fiendish delivery from Keith Miller which struck him on the head. Barely conscious he struggled on and saw a great line of the English tail fall away without score before he himself would also succumb.
On the England tour of South Africa for the summer of 1948/49 his form wasn't brilliant and Crapp was dropped from the Test side in 1949. He continued to perform well for Gloucestershire, becoming their first professional captain in 1953. In 1955 he handed over the role to George Emmett.
He finished with a first-class record of 35.03 having scored over 23,000 first-class runs. He played in 7 Test Matches and after his playing career was over, he became an umpire and presided over numerous County and Test Matches.
It's true that I don't know Jack Crapp, but I know about Jack Crapp.
Posted by Rollo at 11:58 | <urn:uuid:0d1b5289-891b-4631-8436-86e14d9b893e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rollo75.blogspot.com/2007/03/horse-738-i-dont-know-jack-crapp.html | 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 | 0.987744 | 354 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Game situation information in video-based perceptual decision making : the influence of criticality of decisions
Spittle, Michael, Kremer, Peter and McNeil, Dominic G. 2010, Game situation information in video-based perceptual decision making : the influence of criticality of decisions, Facta universitatis. Series physical education and sport, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 37-46.
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This study examined the effects of game situation information, manipulated in terms of time and score, on decisions made in a video-based perceptual test in basketball. The participants were undergraduate university students (n=159) who viewed 21 offensive basketball plays, under two test conditions (low decision criticality; high decision criticality). To manipulate the conditions, prior to each clip, the participants were presented with a description of the remaining time and score differential. High decision criticality situations were characterised by a remaining time of 60 seconds or less and score differentials of 2 points or less. Low decision criticality situations were characterised by remaining time of 5 minutes or more and score differentials of 5 points or more. The participants indicated their decision (pass, shoot, dribble) after the visual display had been occluded for each clip. The results indicated that decision profiles differed under the low and high decision criticality conditions. More pass decisions were made under high decision criticality situations and more shoot decisions under low decision criticality situations. These variations differed according to the type of main sport played but not for the basketball competition level. It was concluded that game situation information does influence decision making and should be considered in video-based testing and training.
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Field of Research
170114 Sport and Exercise Psychology
Socio Economic Objective
970117 Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in Deakin Research Online is owned by the author, with all rights reserved.
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO.
If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:2b965205-54b9-41df-96b3-ad925bffc38d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30029519 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950523 | 501 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Winter is finally over and it's time to celebrate!Learn the basic tasks that will help prepare you and your garden for spring.
Presented by Beth Warren - Cornell Master Gardener / Henrietta Garden Club
March 10: Pesticides Man-made and Natural
Learn what defines a pesticide, and why and how they are used. Examples of both synthetic and natural pesticides available to the homeowner will be given.Presented by Beth Warren
March 17: Soap Making with Herbs
Presented by Beth Byrne - Member of Board of Directors at Hand Crafted Soap Makers Guild, Past President of Henrietta Garden Club
April 14: Turning Waste To Compost
Join Kathleen Rick, Co-President of the Henrietta Garden Club and Master Gardener with Monroe County Cornell Cooperative Extension to learn about the benefits of composting. You will also learn how to build a compost bin: quick, easy and cheap!
May 12: Migrating Birds In Our Area
Local Author and member of the Rochester Birding Association, Randi Minetor will discuss the spring migration. Program begins with a trail walk at 9AM, rain or shine! Dress appropriately and don't forget your binoculars.
May 19: Plant Propagation by Cuttings
Cornell Master Gardener and member of the Henrietta Garden Club, John Colagrosso, will demonstrate the techniques of making softwood cuttings from hardy and tender perennials. Why buy plants when you can make them yourself!
Programs run from 10am until noon unless otherwise stated.
Programs are free, space is limited. Please call 359-7044 to reserve a seat. | <urn:uuid:a0b482a5-9ec3-4990-91a1-caf4b894c2b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tinkernaturepark.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914621 | 341 | 2.59375 | 3 |
An earthquake, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale, strikes off near the west coast of Sumatra Island in Indonesia, killing at least one person.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake took place at 0030 GMT on Wednesday, and was centered 34 kilometers northwest of Sinabang in Indonesia, at a depth of 22 kilometers.
"People were crying, grabbing their belongings and rushing out of their homes …….There is no electrical power in some areas and I can see cracks in the walls of homes around me," AFP quoted a reporter in Indonesia as saying.
"A man on Simeulue died of shock. He had a history of high blood pressure and was rushing out of his home when he collapsed and died," National Disaster official, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.
The recent tremor in Indonesia posed no tsunami risk in Australia, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology announced on Wednesday.
Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity. | <urn:uuid:203d7cc5-f7ee-4836-82c9-320f9df6ddd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://presstv.com/detail/2012/07/25/252700/64magnitude-quake-shakes-indonesia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967372 | 218 | 2.15625 | 2 |
How Much Exercise Do You Need? by Dana Angelo White in Healthy Tips, September 25, 2011
- Comments (28)
Do you spend countless hours at the gym each day or is the thought of a 20-minute workout too much for you to handle? Tackling a regular exercise routine can be daunting and might cause you to give up on working out all together. Use these tips to make the most of your exercise time.
According to the American College of Sports Medicine and the CDC, you should shoot for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity per week. You can break up this time in a variety of ways. Feel the burn for 30 minutes, 5 days a week or try a split of 30 and 60-minute workouts over the course of 3 days. Even if 150 minutes is more than you’re ready for, every little bit helps. The American Heart Association reports that every hour of walking may increase your life expectancy by two hours.
Your body is best served by a combination of both cardiovascular and resistance exercise. So combinations of walking, running or biking (just to name a few options) along with some weight training, pull ups and sits ups, or yoga will cover all your bases.
Tips for Success
If the desire to exercise doesn’t come naturally to you, don’t give up! These tips can help keep you on track:
- Find something you enjoy – forcing something you hate won’t stick long term.
- Start slow and work your way up – doing too much at first can lead to injury and then you can’t exercise at all!
- Enlist a friend or family member to help stay motivated.
- Diversify! Change up the workouts to keep things interesting.
- Fuel your workouts properly to make sure you are energized.
- Make a day off part of your plan. It’s a good way to find balance and you’ll reduce your risk of injury.
Is the gym not your thing? Check our our top suggestions for Getting More Exercise Without Knowing It
Tell Us: How much time do you dedicate to exercise?
Dana Angelo White, MS, RD, ATC, is a registered dietitian, certified athletic trainer and owner of Dana White Nutrition, Inc., which specializes in culinary and sports nutrition. See Dana’s full bio »
You May Also Like: | <urn:uuid:0904b7fd-9d3c-41c6-8ec9-9172bca8f5f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2011/09/25/how-much-exercise-do-you-need/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918924 | 491 | 1.953125 | 2 |
One day Yao-shan Wei-yen (750-834), one of the well-known Chinese Ch'an master, was asked by the host of the monastery to give his sermon to the assembly who for a long while was expecting his teaching. Yao-shan said: "Strike the bell."
TOPIC: OH AND WHY DO YOU SIT ON A JURY IN A CAPITAL MURDER CASE?
Posted on Feb.20.2007 @ 10:34AM EDTbystephen
We are instructed not to kill. Yet there are killers. I have a friend who was accused of murder and was released when it was deemed justifiable homicide. His defense was essentially that he happen to be around when someone needed killing. Is that possible? MU
There is, of course, self-defense. And there is the defense of others. But to justifiably take another life requires an imminent threat. Vengence is not justice. It just perpetuated more need for this 'justice'.
Did you sit on the jury which rejected the charge of murder and accepted your friend's plea? Intellectual and philosophical justification for killing/murder - reminiscent of Raskalnikov (means someone cut off from the whole, a man out of communion), who believed himself to be extraordinary (there is always someone ordinary around who needs killing). Did your friend need a defense as an abdication of responsibility in order to escape an external punishment? | <urn:uuid:7b21b8f0-7500-4627-84c2-a652e797ce11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zenguide.com/forum/view.cfm?topicid=4441 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973608 | 299 | 2.3125 | 2 |
"Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord" (Hag 1:13).
With the above verse before us, it is no profound statement to say that speaking for God requires preparing both the man and the message. The character of the speaker as well as the content and communication of the message are all important.
- Public service for God requires godliness of character. It is a character profession. A school teacher, a construction worker, a brain surgeon or an air traffic controller can be immoral or covetous or intemperate and still function well and properly in his chosen profession. But if a believer tries to serve God and does not have a godly character, not only is he acting hypocritically but he is unable to properly discharge his responsibilities. This service would seem to come under the heading of "deacon work," and those who do it should be marked by, and striving to fulfill, the qualifications outlined in I Timothy 3. The deacon's ability to speak authoritatively for God is intimately related to his course in life, a life-long desire to please and serve God.
- Public service for God requires God-given gift. "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth " (I Pet 4.11).
- Public service for Cod requires grace to properly use that gift, to do so humbly and without self-reference or self-seeking. The aim of all service is "that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever Amen."
A messenger without a message is an anomaly The prophets in the O.T often spoke about the "burden of the Lord." Theirs was a message the Lord had laid upon their hearts, and they were to deliver it in the fear of God. Extemporaneous speaking, "off-the-cuff" messages that have not been thought out in the presence of God should certainly not be the custom. If your name is Spurgeon or Whitefield you might get away with it. Otherwise, we should stick to the tried and proven method of waiting before God to know what He would have us say. John Bunyan quaintly said, "I preached what I smartingly did feel."
A. Methods of Preaching
There are numerous ways to approach the responsibility of communicating truth from God. A few of them are:
- The Topical: tracing a theme or topic in a number of passages. This can be a very effective means of presenting the gospel if the speaker has organized his thoughts and presents his points in a proper sequence. In Acts 13, the Apostle Paul speaks first of Israel's failure and sin, the rejection of the Lord Jesus, His death and resurrection, the offer of forgiveness and the danger of failing to hear the Word of Cod. While this order is not ironclad, it would seem strange to attempt to preach by speaking first of the coming of the Lord and following that with reference to His resurrection, His sufferings on the cross, God's love for all mankind and then finish with a word about man's total depravity. One danger to be avoided is the linking together of unrelated verses and subjects, simply because a similar word or phrase occurs in all of them.
- The Textual: This is perhaps the most common, and likely the easiest for an audience to follow. This involves taking a text and presenting truth from what is stated in that verse. Isaiah 45:22, for instance, lends itself to the easily remembered consideration of the greatest blessing ("salvation"), the simplest method ("look"), the widest scope ("all the ends of the earth"), and the highest authority ("I am God"). The use of' alliteration is a commonly employed practice for fastening thoughts in the minds of speakers and hearers, but it has the opposite effect if it appears contrived or forced. Sometimes it is wiser to conceal the alliteration, if it is being used, and allow it to be merely a tool to aid the speaker in recalling his points.
- The Expositional: This involves explaining a passage of scripture and developing its meaning based on its context. The gospel preacher might take up Romans chapter 3 and explain its setting first, and then deal with its detailed teaching about human guilt and depravity.
B. The Model of Preaching
Studying the Savior's preaching and His gracious approach to men and women will prove beneficial to any who wish to win souls for Christ.
In John 3, the Lord Jesus:
- States a truth: "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
- Illustrates a truth: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up."
- Applies a truth: "Ye must be born again."
Could any gospel preacher do better than seeking to emulate the Master?
- Stating truth: Allowing an audience to know exactly what we are trying to say is a great aid to obtaining and holding its attention. It is possible to be so nebulous in our opening comments, so abstruse in our introductions, that we lose an audience before we even begin. If you wish to present the seriousness of sin, the imminence of death, the importance of salvation or the value of the blood, say so! With a whole Bible to back us up, we can then range over its limitless arsenal for fresh help in assaulting the faulty thinking of ruined mankind. Quoting a verse from God's Word, at the proper time, can be like a sharp arrow skillfully aimed at a target. "How forcible are right words!" (Job 6:25). "The preacher sought to find out acceptable words... The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies" (Eccl 12:10, 11). The proper use of scripture to prove what we are saying is indispensable because it is not our word but His that is "living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword."
- Illustrating truth: C. H. Spurgeon said, "Illustrations are like windows; they let in the light." If that is the case, then Biblical illustrations, such as the Lord employed in John 3:14,15, are like skylights, admitting illumination directly from above. What rich veins of truth the Bible contains, supplying the preacher with invaluable material to embellish his message and hold a congregation's attention! Crystal-clear parables, mighty miracles, events in the lives of Biblical characters, all these and many other things can be powerful tools to drive home a scriptural truth. Since the Lord Jesus, as well as the apostles, drew illustrations from their surroundings, we are certainly wise to do the same. Think of the Savior saying, "A sower went forth to sow His seed," "There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen," "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves." The Apostle Paul made reference to the things he saw in the city of Athens and freely quoted from one of the Athenians' own pagan poets. An apt illustration or incident can rivet a truth in people's minds. But an illustration stretched to fit where it does not belong or an anecdote told just for the sake of the story or for mere emotional effect is worse than no illustration at all. Mark Twain said: "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." What is true about words is certainly true about anecdotes as well.
- Applying truth: There was no doubt in Nicodemus' mind that the Lord Jesus was speaking about him. He did not leave under the false assumption that the Savior meant the "pagan" world or merely irreverent Israelites. It is the application of truth that most often awakens the conscience and leads either to repentance or rejection. The apostles so mightily applied their preaching that the listeners cried out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" So unmistakably clear was the message in Acts 5 that the leaders said, "Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man's blood upon us." Stephen's martyrdom was not the result of a mumbled message to sleepy souls! John Wesley came to America to "serve God." But when the truths he was trying to preach began to take hold of him he realized that he was lost. He wrote, "I came to America to convert the Indians. But who shall convert me!" Truth that is never applied, however cleverly or masterfully prepared, is like a sumptuous feast that never gets from the kitchen to the dining room.
The gospel preacher, whether preparing his heart or his message, must never forget that it is only the light of divine truth in the hand of the Spirit of God that can illuminate the darkened natural mind. How else should the gospel be preached but prayerfully fervently and in humble dependence on God? | <urn:uuid:caf00afa-3432-4433-a008-b55a8ccb7933> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.truthandtidings.com/issues/1998/t19980304.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960221 | 1,893 | 1.90625 | 2 |
G11.2-0.3: A supernova remnant with a central pulsar, located in the constellation of Sagittarius.
Caption: Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have pinpointed the exact location of the pulsar within the supernova remnant G11.2-0.3. This provides new evidence that this pulsar and the surrounding remnant are the byproducts of a massive star that exploded in 386 AD that was witnessed by Chinese astronomers. If confirmed, this will be only the second pulsar to be clearly associated with a historic event. This result may have important implications for the births of pulsars, and, therefore, for the population as a whole.
Scale: Image is 5.8 x 5.4 arcmin on a side.
Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Image | <urn:uuid:3ad74c64-f263-44c3-818e-2d8f8199312f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2001/1227/1227_hand.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920443 | 169 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Hale Ethics Series, 2007-08
Sponsored by the Hale Chair in Applied Ethics
Thursday, September 20th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
The Social Movement of A2K
Eddan Katz (Yale)
Access to Knowledge, or as it has become popularly known by its acronym A2K, is beginning to understand itself as a social movement. Building from a policy agenda created by a group of developing countries and public interest organizations working in Geneva, it has developed as a draft treaty, a set of policy proposals, and as a theoretical framework more generally. In its brief history since 2004, A2K has emerged as a broad coalition of interest groups finding common cause such as AIDS activists working on Access to Medicines, computer programmers working on open source projects, college students frustrated with copyright law coalescing around the notion of Free Culture, librarians promoting access to information, farmers rights advocates in developing countries protesting seed patents, and others still. This diverse set of transnational activists, scholars, policymakers, and private sector innovators have converged upon a unique identity in a collective critique of propertization and control over information in the prominent industries of the knowledge economy.
Access to knowledge -- as a theory, as a movement, and as a set of policy proposals – is focused on the implications of ownership of and control over the layers of information in those tools that are at heart of the knowledge economy. It is about the intersection of innovation and development and how open infrastructures of innovation can facilitate serving essential needs and how proprietary control over this layer can create obstacles for sustainable development. As a theoretical framework, access to knowledge bridges debates about law and technology with information and communication technologies (ICTs) projects for development upon a foundation of human rights and human development. It reframes the discussions about intellectual property, telecommunications, and related legal regimes affecting the information society within the context of social justice and the public interest. Access to Knowledge supports the emergence of alternatives for innovation such as open infrastructures and collaborative production alongside propertization as incentive for invention and creativity. It reveals the patterns of control over information in industries varying from software and digital media to pharmaceuticals and agri-biotech that erect obstacles to access. Access to Knowledge is currently oriented towards developing countries and the urgency of global problems concerning distribution of food, health, education, and other basic needs, but it is not geographically confined. It emphasizes the values of openness and sharing to maximize the potential of technology to improve the lives of people and enable them to participate meaningfully in the information society.
Thursday, October 4th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
Ethics and Truth
John Capps (Philosophy, RIT)
Many people believe that moral claims are neither true nor false but are instead either prescriptions, expressions of emotions, or ways of signaling that one accepts a certain system of norms. On this view a moral claim such as “lying is wrong” may mean the same as “you shouldn’t lie” or “I don’t like liars” but there is no real fact of the matter as to whether lying is wrong. This view is plausible because it is difficult to say what would make a moral claim true in the same way that a claim about physical fact is true. However, this would also mean that our moral claims are less than they appear and cannot make any claim to ultimate truth. I will argue that moral claims are indeed capable of being true or false, though this requires re-examining the concept of truth and its connection to facts. Moreover, approaching the concept of truth from the perspective of moral claims pays dividends when we then consider the truth of non-moral claims.
Thursday, October 25th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
How to Use Economics to Shape a Universal Health Insurance Program
Charles Phelps (University of Rochester)
Life – and universal health insurance programs – require tradeoffs. Economics can assist social planners, ethicists, clinicians, politicians, and whomever else stirs the political pot to design a universal health insurance plan. This talk will assess the major aspects of any universal insurance plan and show how economic analysis and data and inform the discussion.
· Who is covered? Does “universal” mean “everybody in the country” or “taxpaying citizens” or what?
· What is covered? What services? Hospital care? Emergency room? Physician services? Sure. Nursing home care? Podiatry? Cosmetic surgery? Viagra?
These questions focus on the tradeoff between risk spreading and natural tendency of people to use more health care when it is insured (“moral hazard”)
· Where should the insurance plan reside? Federal or state?
Britain has a federal system; Canada has a “state” system (provinces). How do these choices matter economically and politically?
· Why should we have universal insurance?
Surprisingly to some, economists have debated this issue for decades, centering around such topics as asymmetric information (market failure), free riding, administrative costs, and yes, the ethics of the distribution of wealth
· How should it be financed?
Any mechanism for raising government revenues to support a universal insurance plan introduces economic distortions and attendant inefficiences in the economy. Economists can provide guidance about the relative intensities of such distortions and help planners trade them off against other goals (such as redistribution of wealth)
What are the gains and costs of having a single payer model?
Thursday, November 1st, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
Truth’s Value and Self-Identity
Jesús Aquilar (Philosophy, RIT)
By using a thought experiment inspired on R. Nozick’s “experience machine”, in this paper I examine the question concerning truth’s value. After rejecting some traditional strategies to answer this question, I argue in favor of the proposal that truth acquires its value in the form of true beliefs and their fundamental role within an agent’s mental life. In order to deal with a potentially serious objection to this proposal, I then explore the connection between our valuing truth and the process of self-identity formation. That is, I explore the possibility that truth’s value ultimately depends on the process whereby agents acquire their own identity.
Thursday, December 6th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
Clinical Ethics in Germany and the US: Why Consultation Matters
Gerd Richter (University Medical Center Marburg, Germany)
In this talk I will explain what “clinical ethics” and “ethics consultation” are, how and why they emerged differently in the German and American contexts, and why they are needed in the health care arena. I will provide an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of various models of “ethics consultation,” focusing especially on the “ethics liaison service” recently established at the University Medical Center Marburg. As a result, I will analyze the difficulties—institutional, professional, cultural, and ethical—of implementing an appropriate model in both the American and German contexts. The talk will conclude with an analysis of the further implications that arise—for ethics itself and for thinking about a good health care system more generally—as a result of the “ethics liaison service” model.
Thursday, January 10th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
The True Benefits of Falsity
David Suits (Philosophy, RIT)
People have a tendency to extol the virtues of truth in the realm of ethics, but we ought not to forget the many commendable uses of falsity. Here are only a few: (1) Knowledge of falsity is necessary for moral discourse, because counterfactuals are required for moral discourse, and counterfactuals require knowledge of falsity. (2) “Ought” implies not only “can be true” but also “can be false”. (3) It can be a moral requirement to tell a lie. (4) Moral rules, like positive laws, are short cuts, which claim to cover instances which really ought to be exceptions; we know the claims are overgeneralizations (i.e., false), but we rely on them anyway.
Thursday, January 17th, 4-5:30, Xerox Auditorium
Jointly sponsored by the College of Engineering
Peering Into the Brain: Social Implications of New Neurotechnologies
Kenneth R. Foster (Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania)
New techniques of brain imaging are giving scientists -- and increasingly lawyers, advertising executives, and criminal investigators -- unprecedented access to the thoughts and inclinations of individuals. Studies have shown that functional magnetic resonance imaging can identify sexual preference (including tendencies towards pedophilia), detect lying or racial prejudice, and predict buying behavior of an individual. Companies are being formed to use brain imaging for socially important purposes including lie detection and neuromarketing. This rush to practical application of these powerful technologies raises important questions apart from the obvious privacy issues. I illustrate by considering one application, the use of brain imaging for lie detection. Should evidence gained from brain imaging be admitted as evidence in legal proceedings or used to screen individuals to identify terrorists -- and what happens if the judgments based on brain imaging are wrong? (See "Emerging Neurotechnologies for Lie-Detection: Promises and Perils," by Paul Root Wolpe, Kenneth R. Foster, Daniel D. Langleben, American Journal of Bioethics 5(2):39 (2005) and subsequent commentaries on that article. www.bioethics.upenn.edu/pdf/wolpe_liedetection.pdf)
Thursday, February 14th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
Panel discussion on Ethics, Truth, and Falsehood
with Jesús Aquilar, John Capps, David Suits, and Wade Robison as moderator
Thursday, March 20th, 4-5:30, Xerox Auditorium (09-2580)
Truth and trust
Wade L. Robison (Hale Chair in Applied Ethics, RIT)
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver visits a country where the inhabitants refer to someone who has lied as having "said the thing that is not." We can readily find examples, especially among politicans, of those who say "the thing that is not." Bush said the day before the election in 2006 that Rumsfeld would stay until the end of Bush's term in 2009; Rumfeld left the day after the election, something we discovered later had been in the works for months. It is hard to trust anyone who says "the thing that is not" when you know that that person knew that what he was saying is false. It is equally difficult to trust someone who does not exactly say "the thing that is not," but implies it. Romney said that he is a lifetime member of the NRA and has hunted since he was a child. The impression that gives is misleading, to say the least: he purchased a lifetime membership last fall and has hunted twice, once when he was a child and once last summer.
But by focussing on what individuals say, we may lose sight of an essential way in which individuals say "the thing that is not." When residents of the trailers FEMA supplied for Katrina victims complained of formaldehyde, FEMA ordered tests from an independent contractor which showed no problems. Only later did we learn that FEMA had required that the tests be conducted with the windows open and fans and air conditioner going full blast. When former Ambassador Wilson wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times questioning whether Niger had supplied Iraq with uranium, the administration's response was to attack his credentials -- and not do anything to determine whether what he said was "the thing that is." What is common to these two examples is that procedures for determining the truth were not followed. We thus lose trust in the statements that result from those procedures and in the people and bodies that have failed, intentionally, to follow procedures that do generally produce truth.
Thursday, April 3rd, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
The Assumption of Individual Moral Responsibility in Group Military Action
John Protevi (French Studies, Louisiana State University)
I explore the role of affect (rages and panics) and pre-cognitive reflexes in enabling killing in infantry combat. I examine Vietnam-era infantry training, which constructed a practical agent of killing which operated at an emergent group level, using the trained reflexes of individual soldiers as its components. I show that individual soldiers sometimes retrospectively took guilt upon themselves (a responsibility that is traditionally reserved for acts of individual conscious intention) even though the practical agent was the group activating the non-subjective reflexes of the individual soldiers. To explain this phenomenon, I explore proto-empathetic identification, which produces psychological trauma at the sight of the blood and guts of the killed enemy, despite the common practice of dehumanization of the enemy. I also examine cutting-edge digital and video simulator training for urban warfare of the “shoot / no shoot” type, which produces a very quick decision upon recognition of key traits of the situation – an act that is close to reflexive, but a bit more cognitively sophisticated. The same proto-empathetic identification and individual guilt assumption is in play in this training regime, even as the use of real-time communication technology forms ever more distributed group cognition.
Thursday, April 10th, 4-5:30, Xerox Auditorium (09-2580)
Responses to Vulnerability: Medicine, Politics and the Body in Descartes and Spinoza (with a dash of Hobbes)
Amy M. Schmitter (Philosophy, University of Alberta)
In Part IV of his Ethics, Spinoza declares that any thing in nature is always susceptible to the power of other natural things. This is because all things in nature are finite, and it is in the nature of a finitude that there will always be something else that is bigger and more powerful. Spinoza is unusually explicit on this point, but he was not the first to make the connection between nature, finitude and vulnerability. Hobbes also did, and so – in a rather different way – did Descartes. Descartes takes all bodies to be divisible by their very nature, and for that reason to be inherently finite entities (however “indefinite” their divisibility or extension might be). And just as in Spinoza, the distinction between the finite and the infinite marks two radically different orders of explanation and being.
This is grand metaphysics, but it is a grand metaphysics that generates practical concerns of the nearest and dearest kind for both philosophers. For we are clearly finite creatures in at least some sense, and that means that we and all our works are vulnerable to change, dissolution and destruction. Both Descartes and Spinoza (and indeed Hobbes) recommend various strategies for coping with this vulnerability. Nonetheless, because they concentrate on slightly different (albeit perfectly consistent) aspects of finitude, they understand the sort of vulnerability involved somewhat differently. And so, I argue that they adopt rather different strategies for dealing with our own vulnerability: political in the case of Spinoza, and medical, in the case of Descartes.
Thursday, April 17th, 4-5:30, Xerox Auditorium (09-2580)
Education for "Sustainable Development": A Philosophical Assessment of UNESCO's DESD
Randall Curren (Philosophy, University of Rochester)
The paper examines the rationale and conceptualization of UNESCO's conception of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), beginning with the concept of "sustainable development" itself. It offers a philosophical defense of ESD, and outlines the most important kinds of reorientation of educational programs that problems of sustainability call for.
Tuesday, April 22nd, 4-5:30, Xerox Auditorium (09-2580)
Minimal marriage: what does the principle of neutrality imply for marriage law?
Elizabeth Brake (Philosophy, University of Calgary; currently at the Murphy Institute, Center for Ethics and Public Affairs, Tulane University)
The principle of liberal neutrality requires that a liberal state not justify law or policy by appealing to a contested conception of the good, such as a particular religious or moral view. Some philosophers have recently argued that neutrality requires that liberal states recognize same-sex marriages, others have argued that neutrality requires recognizing polygamous marriages, while still others have argued that it requires privatizing or abolishing marriage. I argue, instead, that neutrality implies ‘minimal marriage’: a law of personal relationships which recognizes and supports adult care networks such as urban tribes as well as ‘traditional’ marriages.
Response: Larry Torcello (Philosophy, RIT)
Jointly sponsored by the Departments of English and Philosophy of the College of Liberal Arts,
College of Liberal Arts Honors Program, and William A. Kern Professorship in Communications
Thursday, April 24th, 4-5:30, Carlson Auditorium (76-1125)
Patriotism and Morality
Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez (Philosophy, Youngstown State University)
For many people, patriotism is an important value. It is characteristic of them to have an identification with and attachment to a particular group, tribe, or nation, as well as loyalty to a state or love of country. Such attachment and loyalty provide reasons for preferring, giving priority to their compatriots. Is this preference morally defensible? Are there moral claims which require us to favor noncompatriots (i.e., members of other groups, nations, or states). I shall argue there are such claims – that under present global conditions of poverty and hunger we are morally required to prefer the poor and hungry of the world over members of our own group, nation, or state.
These presentations are free
and open to all.
If you need interpreting services, contact Cassandra
Shellman as early as you can at 585.475.2057 or via e-mail.
Presentations for previous years | <urn:uuid:567c8bf4-62e4-4edc-954a-641d9b96cb99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rit.edu/cla/ethics/Hale08.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94179 | 3,842 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Adoptions up, deaths down at animal services after changeover
Published: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 1:37 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 1:37 p.m.
A year after the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office assumed control of the Animal Services Unit, animal intake numbers and adoption rates have increased, while euthanasia rates have dropped – changes officials attribute partly to an expanded outdoor play yard and the implementation of weekend shelter hours.
"When a person is interested in an animal, they can come visit on a Saturday and take the animal outside and interact with it," said Capt. Ken Sarvis, commander of the county's Support Services Division, which includes Animal Services. "The main goal of the sheriff was to increase adoptions, and this has helped adoptions tremendously."
From March 1 to Dec. 31 last year, officials at Animal Services helped 770 animals – 456 dogs and 314 cats – find permanent homes. That number reflects a 24 percent increase from the same period in 2011, when the shelter, then under the health department umbrella, saw 622 animals – 390 dogs and 232 cats – adopted.
"Our push on social media has certainly also helped those numbers," Sarvis said. "We had 18,000 hits on our Facebook page last week, which I couldn't believe."
The organization's Facebook page, maintained by a volunteer, features professional photos of all adoptable animals at the shelter, as well as albums of photos of animals that have found homes. As the photos are shared from page to page, the animals are viewed by an audience beyond just residents of New Hanover County. In one case, a photo of a puggle puppy found its way to a woman in New York, who promptly drove to Wilmington to fill out adoption paperwork.
"We get people from some other areas – Onslow County, Cumberland County – and we've had people here on vacation who have come in and found an animal, but never something like that," said Nancy Ryan, the shelter supervisor. "That was a great story."
Since the sheriff's office assumed control of the unit, euthanasia rates have also decreased, from 1,654 animals in 2011 to 1,525 in 2012, or a decline of 7.8 percent. In 2012, shelter staff put down 919 cats and 606 dogs, but the majority of those were feral felines or dog breeds, including pit bulls and chows, that are required under county ordinances to be euthanized rather than adopted out.
"We wish we didn't have to. You don't work here if you don't love animals," Sarvis said. "But we are a full-service shelter, and we have to do it all."
That includes administrative and financial decisions, like allocating funding to install a new cooling system in the dog holding area, and replacing the worn flooring in the cat room. Those types of budgetary decisions can be difficult, but in a shelter environment are typically fairly easy to prioritize, Ryan said.
"You have to run this place like a business because you have a budget, but this place is not a business, because you're dealing with lives every day," she said. "The animals are always first. Everything else is second."
Of course, that focus comes with its own set of occupational hazards. Chief among them, Sarvis said, is resisting the impulse to take home a new animal every week.
"After the first week we were here, someone brought in a 3-month-old German Shepherd," Sarvis said. "It was all I could do not to take him home."
But the division commander caved eventually.
"After a few months," he said, "I did end up adopting a cat and a dog."
Kate Elizabeth Queram: 343-2217
On Twitter: @kate_goes_bleu
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:88fafbd7-681d-43ff-9859-cdc1a0262f4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20130315/articles/130319754 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970402 | 838 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Taxes Now, or Taxes Later
Your best friend says you’d be crazy not to use a Roth IRA. Your Uncle Jack says the smartest investors use Traditional IRAs. And up to this point, you haven’t been able to figure out what is best for you so you haven’t opened either. It’s time to get off the fence and determine which IRA option is best for you. The choice may be clearer than you expect.
Roth IRAs and Traditional IRAs differ in one important way—the government taxes money in a Roth IRA as it goes into the account, and the government taxes money in a Traditional IRA as it comes out of the account. As an investor who is saving for retirement, understanding this difference should be your primary concern when evaluating your IRA choices.
The question you need to ask yourself is, “Am I going to be in a higher tax bracket during retirement than I am now?” If you’re just coming out of school and are just starting your career, chances are good you are in a lower tax bracket than you will be in retirement. If you are well established in your career and only have 10 or 15 years until retirement, your tax-bracket outlook is murkier.
Many people heading for retirement believe they will be in a lower tax bracket than they are now because they won’t be earning as much. While this may be true, you need to be aware of two important caveats. First, if you have all of your retirement savings in 401(k)s and Traditional IRAs, you will have to pay taxes on any money you withdraw. And if you withdraw enough each year to maintain your current standard of living, you may stay in the same tax bracket. Second, the finicky government may choose to raise taxes in the future.
While nobody can predict the future—one of the most frustrating aspects of life—you probably have a descent sense of where your career is going and where you plan to be at retirement. Here’s a rule of thumb you can use when making your decision. If you think you’re going to be in the same, or a lower, tax bracket during retirement, use a Traditional IRA. If you think you’re going to be in a higher tax bracket during retirement, use a Roth IRA. | <urn:uuid:5b707cb8-ac0c-46a4-99b6-0faa59ee3612> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nasdaq.com/personal-finance/taxes-now-taxes-later.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954649 | 483 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Updating Competitive Strategy Theory in Healthcare
By Robert James Cimasi; MHA ASA FRICs MCBA AVA CM&AA
By Todd A. Zigrang; MBA MHA ASA FACHE
By Anne P. Sharamitaro; Esq.
Michael Porter[i] is considered by many to be one of the world’s leading authorities on competitive strategy and international competitiveness. In 1980, he published Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors,[ii] in which he argues that all businesses must respond to five competitive forces.
(1) The Threat of New Market Entrants
This force may be defined as the risk of a similar company entering the marketplace and winning business. There are many barriers to entry of new market entrants in healthcare including: the high cost of equipment, licensure, requirement for physicians and other highly trained technicians, development of physician referral networks and provider contracts, and other significant regulatory requirements.
Certificate of Need (CON) laws, which require governmental approval for new healthcare facilities, equipment, and services have been in place since they were federally mandated in 1974. State CON laws create a regulatory barrier to entry. New medical provider entrants commonly face substantial political opposition by established interests, which is manifested in the CON review process.
(2) The Bargaining Power of Suppliers
A supplier can be defined as any business relationship upon which a business relies to deliver a product, service, or outcome. Healthcare equipment is a highly technical product produced by a limited number of manufacturers. This reduces the range of choices for providers and can increase costs.
(3) Threats from Substitute Products or Services
Substitute products or services are those that are sufficiently equivalent in function or utility to offer consumers an alternate choice of product or service. An illustration of this in healthcare would be diagnostic imaging as a substitute for surgery, which is often a more costly and risky option for patients. The threat of less invasive or less expensive diagnostic tests other than diagnostic imaging is relatively small for the near term future.
(4) The Bargaining Power of Buyers
This force is the degree of negotiating leverage of an industry’s buyers or customers. The buyers of healthcare services are ultimately the patients. However, the competitive force of buyers is manifested through healthcare insurers including the U.S. and state governments through the Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and other programs; managed care payors (e.g., Blue Cross/Blue Shield affiliates); workers’ compensation insurers; and, others. In addition to the government, many of these healthcare insurers are large, national companies, often publicly traded, commanding significant bargaining power over healthcare provider reimbursement.
(5) Rivalry Amongst Existing Firms
This is ongoing competition between existing firms without consideration of the other competitive forces which define industries. Healthcare providers face pressure from other existing providers to obtain favorable provider contracts; maintain the latest technology; increase efficiencies; and, lower prices.
[i] A professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, Michael Porter serves as an advisor to heads of state, governors, mayors, and CEOs throughout the world. The recipient of the Wells Prize in Economics, the Adam Smith Award, three McKinsey Awards, and honorary doctorates from the Stockholm School of Economics and six other universities, Porter is the author of fourteen books, among them Competitive Advantage, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, and Cases in Competitive Strategy.
[ii] Porter, M.E. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. The Free Press, 1980.
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Physician Advisors: www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org | <urn:uuid:18caa739-f626-42d3-a97a-50b3abe4fbac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicalexecutivepost.com/2012/11/30/understanding-modern-healthcare-market-competition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923828 | 962 | 1.726563 | 2 |
LatinaLista — As the nation held parades in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday and paid homage to his legacy, it was somewhat ironic that a group of dairy workers are battling for basic rights like getting lunch and water breaks, drinking clean water and getting paid what they’re owed.
Fired dairy farm worker Jose Miranda, right, hands Tom Tracy, general counsel for Northwest Farm Credit Services, a petition with 30,000 signatures protesting the agricultural lender’s support of Ruby Ridge Dairy in Pasco, Wash., which has been accused of unfair labor practices.
(Photo: Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman Review)
The whole situation started when some of the workers fed up with working conditions went to their boss and demanded things improve. It’s reported that the boss, Dick Bengan, met their demands by carrying around a gun in plain sight.
So, the workers met with local UFW officials to see about starting a union and that’s when several found themselves without a job. Bengan denies he fired the workers because of the union talk but rather because of “poor performance.”
The workers have tried to hold the dairy employers accountable and recently presented over 30,000 signatures to a local credit services agency that had lent nearly $13 million to the dairy. The workers’ contention is that because the dairy is violating state labor laws the Northwest Farm Credit Services agency should hold the dairy accountable for its actions.
According to the UFW:
In a January 11 article in The Spokesman Review, Tom Tracy, executive vice president and general counsel for Northwest Farm Credit, said it was up to the courts and state regulatory agencies, not Northwest Farm Credit Services, to determine whether Ruby Ridge dairy is in violation of state laws, and so far that has not happened.
On January 13, Tracy told The Capitol Press, “They’re very good customers of ours,” he said. “The issue is really between Ruby Ridge and the employees.”
This response doesn’t please the UFW which claims that the company’s “own mortgage language specifically prohibits illegal behavior such as the workers say is happening at Ruby Ridge.”
While it’s understandable that Northwest Farm Credit wants to preserve its business relationship with Ruby Ridge Dairy, it is a blatant example of putting profits over the well-being of workers.
It’s a lesson that was thought to have been learned from the crash of Enron to Wall Street — people/workers have to come first. Unfortunately, it’s a lesson the financial and agricultural industries have yet to learn. | <urn:uuid:34692f39-cedc-450e-bdf4-11cac03185e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latinalista.com/2011/01/dairy_workers_fight_to_get_paid_their_wa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963158 | 549 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Over brunch with a college friend, the Soprano in the Real World, we chatted a bit about changing family structures in America. An interesting point came up: American society in general is not particularly aware of how much we've lost as a culture with the loss of the extended multigenerational family and the enshrining of the nuclear family as the archetype. Specifically we spoke of the loss of support structures for young people and particularly young parents, and how our culture strangely treats the 1950's-era nuclear family archetype as if it were something deeply traditional, when it isn't at all. Yet there's very little general awareness that this significant cultural change even occurred, certainly far less than that of other contemporary changes such as women entering the workforce in large numbers.
Also, there's a really strange disconnect at work, where youth are expected to be more or less socially independent of their parents at the age of 18, while it is acceptable for them to remain economically dependent until their mid-20's at least. I mean, which 26-year-old does our society consider more respectable? The auto mechanic who lives with his folks because he's still single and thus has no particular reason not to, or the grad student who is entering his eighth year of spending other peoples' money? Living with one's parents in adulthood is often interpreted as a sign of hopeless immaturity, and yet our society doesn't seem to expect financial independence much before the age of 30. This is almost a reversal of the situation that would have been the norm a century ago, where an 18-year-old might quickly be expected to become a productive member of society (and indeed likely be engaged in productive work much earlier), but would not be expected to move out of his parents' home until he married. | <urn:uuid:f7b76baf-5ec9-4e31-845b-4babfe56c747> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bicolouredpythonrocksnake.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-moms-basement.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981518 | 361 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Welcome to Sunrise Ridge Algae, Inc.
We are a private Texas corporation engaged in research, development and commercialization of aquatic biomass technology for reduction of water and greenhouse gas pollutants and production of renewable fuel feed stocks.
Sunrise Ridge has more than 5 years experience in algae and other next-generation biofuels systems, and operates a biomass farm and pilot scale conversion facilities near Katy, Texas.
To develop and commercialize algae production systems that are economically successful at commodity scale.
We are targeting large potential markets, including crude petroleum, chemical feedstocks, waste water cleanup (nitrogen, phosphorus) and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Our strategy is to focus on production system scaling and cost reduction while managing the aquatic ecology to enhance the productivity of naturally-occurring aquatic biomass species.
Sunrise Ridge focuses its development activities in two major areas:
Demonstration Farm Operations
Sunrise Ridge Algae has leased a former fish farm facility near Katy, Texas to develop its lemna production technology. The facility includes both indoor and outdoor tanks, and multiple large ponds. Various growth, harvesting and drying technologies are under development at the facility.
Previous Pilot Test Operations
Sunrise Ridge Algae operated a pilot test facility for more than two years at the City of Austin's Hornsby Bend Biosolids Management Plant. Sunrise Ridge funded and built the facility, and used it to test multiple generations of closed algae production, harvesting and wastewater treatment facilities. The City provided space, utilities and feed stocks, including waste water and carbon dioxide.
The work at the pilot plant facility was completed in February 2010, and the equipment was removed to make way for an expansion of the sewage treatment works.
Mr. Norman Whitton is the CEO of Sunrise Ridge Algae Inc. His 26 year career includes more than a decade of experience in the downstream petroleum and chemical industry while at Conoco Inc. and EI Du Pont, followed by more than a decade of experience at management consultancy Arthur D. Little, where he led the Energy Industry practice in Asia. In recent years, Mr. Whitton has collaborated with a major Malaysian investor to develop startups in bitumen refining, oil and gas production, and palm-based biofuels. Mr. Whitton's extensive experience in strategy and operations in the oil industry has provided unique insights for research in key elements required for commercial production of commodity fuels.
Dr. Robert Weber is the Chief Technology Officer of Sunrise Ridge Algae
Inc. Previously, Dr. Weber was a director at TIAX LLC, before which he was
a principal at Arthur D. Little, Inc. and a member of the chemical
engineering faculties at the
Dr. Jerry Brand is Technical Advisor to Sunrise Ridge Algae Inc. His 32 year career includes extensive research into photosynthesis, culturing and characterization of algae. Currently, Dr. Brand is Director of the UTEX algae culture collection at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection is one of the largest in the world, with more than 3,000 species under continuous cultivation or cryo-preserved.
Dr. Brand supervises ongoing research sponsored by Sunrise Ridge for algae species selection in his laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. David Griffith is EVP, Ventures and Licensing, for Sunrise Ridge Algae Inc. In his 35 year career at ConocoPhillips, Mr. Griffith was responsible for major project development and negotiation. He concluded landmark project deals, including the world's first major petroleum coke to electricity venture; one of the major Orinoco tar upgrader projects in Venezuela; and a 400,000 bpd joint venture refinery in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Griffith also managed Conoco Inc.'s technology licensing program, and was responsible for marketing the company's gasification technology suite.
Contact InformationPlease click here to contact us. | <urn:uuid:90f13d02-77bb-466e-ade0-578811b6126e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunrise-ridge.com/old-index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941346 | 779 | 1.625 | 2 |
Automatic Evaluation of Musical Sound Separation Quality
This paper addresses the problem of evaluating effectiveness of musical sound separation algorithms. The standardized procedure for evaluating separation quality does not exist. The most convincing and typical way to do this is by carrying out subjective listening tests. However, subjective tests need a solid statistical validation, which means that many experts should take part in such tests, the room characteristics should be adequate, and what is also important, such tests are time consuming. Thus this paper attempts to show that it is possible to carry out the evaluation tests in an automatic way, by employing an Artificial Network System (ANN), which is further justified by experts’ opinion.
Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!
This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers. | <urn:uuid:0bbe3d4d-e08a-4f2b-a024-b961164d087d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=13353 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94978 | 211 | 1.875 | 2 |
Are you concerned about the economy? If you aren’t, then you are a rare person indeed! While rampant inflation isn’t a problem right now, many people fear it is just around the corner. Currently the Federal Government is paying for everything by continuously printing unbacked paper currency. It is only a matter of time before the chicken’s come home to roost.
If rampant inflation returns, are you prepared for it? Knowledgeable coin collectors are aware of ways to deal with inflation; bullion coins! As the dollar continues to decline in value, precious metals such as silver, gold, and platinum tend to increase in value as people seek hedges against inflation and a devaluing currency.
Bullion coins were introduced in the U.S. in 1986 in gold and silver forms. A couple of other series have been added over the years, but the primary U.S. bullion coins are the American Eagle series. From a design perspective this series is probably the least interesting of bullion coins to collect.
The obverse side of these coins displays a design from the past, Adolph Weinman’s Walking Liberty design on the silver Eagles and the Saint-Gaudins gold $20 design on the gold Eagles. On the reverse side of the silver coins, John Mercanti’s facing eagle with spread wings and a shield on its chest is displayed.
On the reverse of the gold Eagles is displayed a family of eagles which is comprised of an eagle with spread wings coming in for a landing to its nest containing two eagle chicks and the other parent eagle.
The platinum American Eagle circulation-strike bullion coins feature a John Mercanti design of the Statue of Liberty on the obverse side of the coin. The obverse side displays a flying eagle. The flying eagle was designed by Thomas D. Rogers Sr.
The prices for the American Eagle bullion coins is based upon the precious metal content of the bullion coin. As such the $1 silver Eagles are the cheapest of this series to collect. With some exceptions silver Eagles should be available to collect for a small premium over the bullion value of the coin. Most mintages of the silver Eagles are high and there should be enough of them available to satisfy the collector interest in silver bullion coins.
In 2006, a special type of uncirculated bullion coin has been made available directly to consumers from the U.S. Mint. These uncirculated special silver Eagles are called “uncirculated-burnished,” which is a term that describes the specialized process used to mint these bullion coins.
Although the uncirculated-burnished bullion coins appear to be similar to the regular silver Eagles, they can be distinguished by the addition of a mintmark [W for West Point] and by the use of burnished coin blanks used to mint the uncirculated-burnished silver Eagles.
Grading shouldn’t be a concern in collecting any of the Eagle series of bullion coins. Unless the coin has been improperly stored and sustained damage it should grade at least an MS-68. Don’t pay a premium to collect so called investment-grade bullion coins.
The American Eagle gold bullion coins come in uncirculated or proof forms and they are minted in four different sizes and denominations. The denominations are essentially meaningless, as bullion coins are not intended to be spent as are normal coins. The Mint has to establish some denomination value for any coin they issue whether the coin is intended as “legal tender” or a collectible coin such as bullion coins.
The four sizes are tenth ounce, quarter ounce, half ounce, and one ounce, which are also repeated with the platinum bullion coins. For the gold coins the denominations are $5, $10, $25, and $50, respectively. The corresponding platinum denominations are $10, $25, $50, and $100.
Another U.S. bullion collectible coin series is the First Spouse series. This is a series that began in 2007 and consists of bullion coins featuring the wives of the Presidents of the U.S. Of course some presidents were not married and for those Presidents, the obverse side features the version of Liberty on coins of that period. Each First Spouse coin features a face denomination value of $10 and each bullion coin contains a half ounce of 24-karat gold.
Buying bullion coins is a way to build a supply of precious metals as a hedge against inflation. Of course this isn’t the only reason to collect bullion coins. Many of these coins are attractive in their own right. You could treat these coins much as you would other series in circulated form. | <urn:uuid:ebf17335-5463-4c90-92a3-17f3ca463721> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art66851.asp | 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 | 0.951212 | 976 | 1.546875 | 2 |
These points may be illustrated with some meditation techniques that are currently popular in the West: In a "mental noting" practice, mindfulness is a matter of remembering to keep up the noting, alertness means seeing whatever phenomena arise to be noted, and ardency is a matter of sticking with the noting relentlessly and being ever more quick and precise in one's alertness. In terms of the factors constituting jhāna practice, the mindfulness and alertness here would be related to directed thought, ardency to singleness of preoccupation, while alertness aimed at evaluating the results of the noting — and ardency in keeping the "pressure" of the noting just right — would be related to evaluation. If this practice is then conducted in line with the texts, it should reach a stage where the mind settles down into the singleness of the first jhāna.
Of course, that is not an accurate characterization of the Mahasi method.retrofuturist wrote:Mechanical labelling weakens both awareness and
understanding of the mental processes. We don’t really need
labelling to explain anything to ourselves; we only need labels
to explain things to other people. When we use labelling, the
mind will get involved with all the meanings and associations
connected to that label. By using labelling we also target a
particular aspect of our experience and therefore cannot
see the whole picture.
tiltbillings wrote:Of course, that is not an accurate characterization of the Mahasi method.
mikenz66 wrote:U Tejaniya instructed him to watch and notice if he was using any "meditation technique", and stop doing it.
mikenz66 wrote:"Access to Insight" isn't Ven Thanissaro's website, it is John Bullitt's website:
Of course, it does have a lot of Ven Thanissaro's material, but also a lot of BPS and other material.
Registered users: anando, Ben, Bing [Bot], Dan74, Doshin, Exabot [Bot], Feathers, gavesako, Google [Bot], Majestic-12 [Bot], mettafuture, Mindstar, Modus.Ponens, palchi, porpoise, Sam Vara, Sekha, upekha | <urn:uuid:9774d182-2b90-4974-a4b3-14a615b08783> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=13674&start=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928432 | 481 | 2.25 | 2 |
When selecting candles to be used for aromatherapy, one should initial confirm if the candles are manufactured from the acceptable reasonably wax. Beeswax and soy wax candles are good for aromatherapy use. Soy may be a soft wax, whereas beeswax may be a bit firmer in composition. You’ll be wanting to remain far from paraffin wax candles, as a result of paraffin may be a petroleum byproduct and doesn’t have the natural ingredients that are needed for aromatherapy use.
Candles that are used for holistic aromatherapy can have labels that emphasize their 100%-natural ingredients. you may still got to exercise caution, however, since some candles on the market with labels that say “aromatherapy” aren’t truly created with ingredients that are entirely natural. An oversized variety of candles are created with artificial oils, which implies that in spite of how pleasant the fragrance smells, you will still be in danger for inhaling toxins throughout aromatherapy sessions.
When you are trying to get aromatherapy candles, you will need to rigorously browse every label. The makers of candles that are 100% all-natural can typically have this info stated clearly on the packaging. Also, pay special attention to that varieties of wax that the candle contains. you must hunt for candles that contain no fragrance oils, don’t have any artificial ingredients, are paraffin wax-free, and are created entirely with soy wax or beeswax.
If each ingredient isn’t specifically listed on a candle label, this can be one indicator that the candle isn’t approved for aromatherapy use. When makers don’t wish shoppers to understand that their candles contain artificial ingredients, they’ll typically have misleading info printed on their product labels. For instance, a candle label that features the phrase “Made With Essential Oils” isn’t essentially composed of 100 percent all-natural ingredients. The candle might contain some essential oils, however different oils is also artificial. to make sure that your candles are designed for aromatherapy, purchase solely people who don’t have ambiguous labels.
see also about fish oil benefits | <urn:uuid:c3597b40-1505-4164-aed3-3a22949b414e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tiszaivandor.com/selecting-candles-aromatherapy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929461 | 454 | 2.0625 | 2 |
I'm thinking about bees and how they've lived for thousands of years without us, and, thinking that a tree hive offers a few things, but, I don't know details and haven't done research much. Seems a bee hive in a tree has a low hole, and no vent at the top. Trees vary in thickness and cold prevention, etc, based on wood density, quality, and thickness. No idea if bees prefer a thick wood or if they just pick something that is about big enough inside and deal with variances in heat due to trunk thickness.
A few observations-summers are cool as leaves shade. Winters get sun because leaves are gone. Low hole allows ventilation out during winter, but condensation can happen in the top of the hive? Other than that, it's live and let live.
I have a first year TBH and it all worked fine, low entrance holes on one end, one high hole on the far other end for ventilation, but, haven't been thru a winter yet and I've been scared at the whole humidity talk people mention, contradicting my earlier statements about a log hive.
So, asking for input... | <urn:uuid:eb8587ca-91bc-452f-9e72-5c9ef2044fd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?276257-Much-ado-about-nothing-spoken-by-a-first-year-beekeeper&p=872657 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965457 | 238 | 2.484375 | 2 |
With a surge in complaints of fake profile and defamation cases being filed with the cyber cell, in which victims as well as culprits were mostly schoolchildren, the Delhi Police has launched a cyber awareness and safety programme for school students.
The initiative was launched with a focus on creating awareness about risks of uninhibited exchange of information on internet, especially among minors. Dharmendra Kumar, special CP (crime), said, “Over 245 complaints of fake profile and 51 complaints of defamation were received in the cyber cell of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in 2012. Many of these victims were minors in the age group of 14-18.”
Investigation into the complaints revealed a complete lack of awareness about the pitfalls involved in internet usage. An inherent need was also felt to identify and create awareness in the vulnerable group.
SD Mishra, additional DCP (EOW), said they had a three-hour interactive session with students of class 9 and 10 of ASN Senior Secondary School at Mayur Vihar on Tuesday.
“A concerted beginning has been made at schools targeting the focussed groups of teachers, parents as well as children. We are also considering launching an exclusive helpline number for children that can be used in case of distress or emergency,” Mishra said adding they will cover most of the Delhi schools by April.
“The program will spread awareness among school administration and teachers so that they can ingrain safe habits in children. We will also appoint internet safety officers in schools by training designated teachers,” he added. | <urn:uuid:f30f69ec-1a50-4a08-8b2c-520308f9d458> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/newdelhi/Police-start-cyber-safety-programme-for-school-kids/Article1-1014076.aspx | 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 | 0.979446 | 320 | 2.09375 | 2 |
1912 - 1924
The first Wilton Cycle Co. was set up in 1895 by 14 year old Charles Frederick Halsall. He started making bicycles, followed by experiments with motorcycles and a tricar. In 1912 he showed his first cyclecar, powered by a 9hp air-cooled V-twin JAP engine under a bonnet of Siddeley-Deasy shape, with 3-speed gearbox and shaft drive. An 8/10hp 4-cylinder water cooled engine was also available and this proved to be more popular in the long run. A new model was launched in 1916 with 1319cc 4-cylinder engine which they claimed was their own make, though it is more likely to have been a bought-in unit.
A new Wilton was announced in 1919, powered by a 1496cc Meadows engine, with a worm-drive rear axle. In 1920 they turned to a 1820cc Peters engine, replaced by a 1490cc Dorman 4MW from mid 1922. Wilton took 21 of these engines. The company was listed as car makers up to 1924, but production may have ended one or two years earlier.
Source: Nick Georgano / The Beaulieu Encyclopaedia of the Automobile | <urn:uuid:896b70e6-f59e-4a85-9661-e994f5b87def> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motorbase.com/manufacturer/by-id/1620960556 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980555 | 259 | 2.828125 | 3 |
When a high-profile bill dies quietly at the State Capitol, it never happens on the Senate or Assembly floor. It happens in committee hearings - most frequently, the Appropriations Committee, which can kill a bill in mere seconds. Hearings in each chamber dealt with all sorts of measures, and here are some of the bills that are done for the year:
- A ban on certain gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, such as pro sports tickets or spa treatments.
- The expansion of a ban on guns with detachable ammunition magazines.
- A bill that would allow sports betting in California.
- And a measure that would let an employee take unpaid time off to treat extended family members as well as immediate family.
Many other bills escaped their committee votes, including a hotly-contested bill that would ban dog hunts of bears and bobcats and a measure that would allow voter registration on Election Day.
Juveniles Could Get Shot at Parole After Key Legislative Vote
A controversial bill that's been stuck for more than a year has squeaked out of the California Assembly. The measure would give juveniles sentenced to life without parole the chance to request a parole hearing.
Six Democrats joined every Republican in opposing the bill … including GOP Assemblyman Donald Wagner:
Wagner: "This is breaking faith with every relative of a murdered victim who was told, don't worry, the killer will never see the light of day again."
Democrat Tom Ammiano disagrees:
Ammiano: "Over and over again, I see where where people are thrown away and left in the gutter because 'Once a criminal, always a criminal.' What happened to the idea of redemption?"
The measure passed the Assembly Thursday by a single vote. It faces one last vote in the Senate before it could head to Governor Jerry Brown. | <urn:uuid:4032b63d-f620-4a8c-8bc7-fda07f93ccfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive2.capradio.org/176557 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959269 | 371 | 1.5625 | 2 |
"Everyman's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers." Hans Christian Anderson
OLD ACADEMICS never die, they just lose their faculties
OLD ACCOUNTANTS never die, they just lose their balance
OLD ACCOUNTS never die, they are deleted
OLD ACTORS never die, they just drop a part
OLD ALCAHOLICS/DRUG ADDICTS never die, they just get wasted
OLD ANTHROPOLOGISTS never die, they just become history
OLD ARCHERS never die, they just bow and quiver
OLD ARCHITECTS never die, they just lose their structures
OLD ASSETS never die, they just depreciate
OLD ASTRONAUTS never die, they just go to another world
OLD ATOMS never die, they just decay
OLD BANKERS never die, they just lose interest
OLD BANKERS never die, they just want to be a loan
OLD BASEBALL PLAYERS never die, they just go batty
OLD BASEBALL PLAYERS never die, they just run their last lap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A story I'll tell of a burglar bold
Who started to rob a house;
He opened the window, and then crept in
As quiet as a mouse.
He looked around for a place to hide,
'Till the folks were all asleep,
Then said he, "With their money
I'll take a quiet sneak."
So under the bed the burglar crept;
He crept up close to the wall;
He didn't know it was an old maid's room
Or he wouldn't have had the gall.
He thought of the money that he would steal,
As under the bed he lay;
But at nine o'clock he saw a sight
That made his hair turn gray.
At nine o'clock the old maid came in;
"I am so tired," she said;
She thought that all was well that night
So she didn't look under the bed.
She took out her teeth and her big glass eye,
And the hair from off her head;
The burglar, he had forty fits
As he watched from under the bed.
From under the bed the burglar crept,
He was a total wreck;
The old maid wasn't asleep at all
And she grabbed him by the neck.
She didn't holler, or shout or call,
She was as cool as a clam;
She only said, "The Saints be praised,
At last I've got a man!"
From under the pillow a gun she drew,
And to the burglar she said,
"Young man, if you don't marry me,
I'll blow off the top of your head!"
She held him firmly by the neck,
He hadn't a chance to scoot;
He looked at the teeth and the big glass eye,
And said, "Madam, for Pete's sake, shoot!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Pondering old age
How do I know that my youth is all spent?
Well, my get up and go has got up and went.
But in spite of it all I am able to grin
when I recall where my get up has been.
Old age is golden-so I've heard it said-
but sometimes I wonder when I get into bed,
with my ears in a drawer and my teeth in a cup,
my eyes on the table until I wake up.
Ere sleep dims my eyes I say to myself,
"Is there anything else I should lay on the shelf?"
And I'm happy to say as I close my door,
my friends are the same, perhaps even more.
When I was young, my slippers were red,
I could pick up my heels right over my head.
When I grew older, my slippers were blue,
but still I could dance the whole night through.
But now I am old, my slippers are black,
I walk to the store and puff my way back.
The reason I know my youth is all spent,
my get up and go has got up and went.
But I really don't mind when I think, with a grin,
of all the grand places my get up has been.
Since I have retired from life's competition,
I accommodate myself with complete repetition.
I get up each morning, and dust off my wits,
pick up my paper and read the "obits".
If my name is missing, I know I'm not dead,
so I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed
Good morning everyboomie.
Welcome to the weekend!
I'm off today, ergo I'm hoppy OOPS
Hoppy is for Easter.
I guess you could say I'm ho ho happy though.
After all, here it is the Saturday before Christmas, we're going to be sunny and 65 degrees, I'm off, and I get to go dig all day, and put my back out, hopefully to find some Easter eggs OOPS
Easter eggs are for......................you know.
I guess I should get to bed. The Easter Bunny may not come if I'm not asleep.
Have a happy day everyone. | <urn:uuid:2dba9a1b-2900-4481-82ea-8344d9ed9d72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/858125/Re_Simply_Saturday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966803 | 1,114 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Sunday, August 15, 2010
On August 3, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg standing on Governor’s Island departed from his usual style which is more suited to his technocrat image, and delivered the most heartfelt speech of his life. He was defending the right of the people who wants to build the Muslim community center near ground zero. He began citing from history, “We've come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that more than 250 years later would greet millions of immigrants in this harbor. And we come here to state as strongly as ever; this is the freest city in the world. That's what makes New York special and different and strong.”
It was a long speech, and a visibly emotional mayor got choked up at one point. The mayor was accompanied by Council Speaker Christine Quinn and 10 religious leaders, among them three Jewish leaders— Rabbi Bob Kaplan from the Jewish Community Council, Rabbi Irwin Kula from the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and Cara Berkowitz from the UJA Federation.
It is remarkable that despite the general perception among Muslims that Jews are their arch enemies, they find, when chips are down; it is the leaders from the Jewish communities who stand by their side. And I say, there is a lesson to be learned in that.
It appears to me that at this time the most insensitive people, when it comes to religion, come from my fellow Muslims. Take for instance this very matter of ground zero mosque, when 70% American people are against it, why pursue this? The memory of loss of their loved ones is still fresh in many people’s minds. At least, why not defer the project till people are more receptive to it?
(First Published on Technorati) | <urn:uuid:30fbc840-5ec4-4477-8603-cf8cbf1b0396> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onegod-mohit.blogspot.com/2010_08_15_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980005 | 388 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Dengue Cases Rise Sharply in Puerto Rico
Cases of painful dengue fever are occurring at above-average levels in Puerto Rico, according to the territory's Health Secretary, Lorenzo Gonzalez.
He said that 111 cases of the mosquito-borne disease were reported the first week of June, and 117 cases the prior week. Eight people have come down with the more severe hemorrhagic form of dengue, although no one has died, the Associated Press reported.
According to Gonzalez, improvements in educating doctors to spot dengue fever may account for the rise in cases, which usually peak in Puerto Rico in early October.
Dengue causes fever, severe headaches and sometimes excruciating joint and muscle pain. An epidemic of the disease killed a record 31 people in Puerto Rico in 2010, the AP said.
WHO Probing Mystery Illness Killing Cambodian Children
It's unclear whether a mystery illness that's causing the deaths of Cambodian children is a new entity or a mixture of known diseases, an expert with the World Health Organization (WHO) told the Associated Press Thursday.
So far, the disease has proven fatal to 61 of 62 children hospitalized since April, but it does not seem to be contagious. The illness, which strikes mostly children under 7 years of age, typically involves high fever that is followed by severe respiratory symptoms that quickly become worse. Some children also have neurological symptoms, the AP said.
The WHO's Dr. Nima Asgari, based in Phnom Penh, said health workers are examining the children's records to try and get clues to the nature of the disease.
Copyright © 2013 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
HealthDayNews articles are derived from various sources and do not reflect federal policy. healthfinder.gov does not endorse opinions, products, or services that may appear in news stories. For more information on health topics in the news, visit Health News on healthfinder.gov. | <urn:uuid:83175d65-ce98-4ee0-87df-d607c8624c36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/printnewsstory.aspx?docID=666414 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950337 | 418 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Ajnata Kaundinya (Sanskrit: अज्ञात कौण्डिन्य, Ājñātakauṇḍinya, Pali: Añña Kondañña) was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant. He lived during the 6th century BCE in what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RafHT1Sq0Do
********Kaundinya: The First Arahant Bhikkhu
[From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]
Kaundinya was a brahmin who first came to prominence as a youth due to his mastery of the vedas and was later appointed as a royal court scholar of King Suddhodana of the Sakyas in Kapilavastu. There Kaundinya was the only scholar who unequivocally predicted upon the birth of Prince Siddhartha that the prince would become an enlightened Buddha, and vowed to become his disciple.
When Siddhartha was aged 29, he renounced the world to become an ascetic. Kaundinya, along with Bhaddiya,Wappa, Mahanama and Assaji, followed him into the ascetic life, with the approval of Suddhodarna who was worried about Siddhartha's safety. They were known as the Pancavaggiya (The group of Five) . After Siddhartha had mastered all the teachings of Alara Kalama then Uddaka Ramaputta, he left and began practicing self mortification along with Kaundinya and his four colleagues at Uruvela. Kaundinya and his colleagues attended to Siddhartha in the hope that he would become enlightened through self mortification. These involved self-deprivation of food and water, and exposing themselves to the elements to near-death for six years, at which point Siddhartha rejected self-mortification. Kaundinya and his colleagues became disillusioned, believing Siddhartha to have become a glutton and moved away to Isipatana, near Varanasi to continue their practices.
After Siddhartha became the enlightened Gautama Buddha, he sought to find his former teachers Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta in order to teach them. Realising that they had died, the Buddha decided to find Kaundinya and his colleagues to share his teachings. Kaundinya and his companions were skeptical of Gautama Buddha after his abandonment of asceticism, and initially refused to acknowledge his presence, except to offer a seat on the ground. However, the ascetics were soon won over when they sensed that the Buddha had changed since they left him. Gautama Buddha preached the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which deals with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the core pillars of Buddhist teaching regarding the intrinsic suffering of existence and how to deal with it. Kaundinya reached the Sotapatti stage of arahanthood upon hearing this, becoming the first human to comprehend the teachings. Five days later, hearing the subsequent Anattalakkhana Sutta regarding no-self or soul-lessness(Anatta), Kaundinya gained full arahantship. Kaundinya thus became first arahant. Having realised arahanthood, he requested the Buddha for permission to be a bhikkhu, which was granted with the words "ehi bhikkhu". Kaundinya thus became the first bhikkhu (monk) in the Buddha's dispensation, known as the sangha. Later, the Buddha declared him to be the foremost among the first bhikkhus and the disciples of long standing.
Following the emergence of the sangha, Kaundinya and the other monks travelled with the Buddha by foot through the Gangetic plains area of what is now Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to spread the dharma. Kaundinya helped to convert many followers to the Buddha's teaching, the foremost being his nephew Punna, born to his sister Mantani. This occurred while the Buddha was at Rajagaha, where he had immediately gone after first communicating his Realisation in order to honour his promise to show his teachings to King Bimbisara. In the meantime, Kaundinya returned to his home town of Kapilavastu and ordained Punna. Punna attained arahantship and 500 of his clansmen become monks. Punna was later acknowledged by the Buddha as the foremost of the disciples in preaching skills.
After a period within the sangha, Kaundinya retired to the Himalayas for the last twelve years of his life. This is attributed to two reasons in Buddhist literature. The first reason was that Kaundinya considered his presence to be a source of inconvenience for Sariputra and Moggallana, the two chief disciples of The Buddha. As the seniormost member of the sangha, Kaundinya lead the monks on the alms-round, but during dharma talks, the two chief disciples sat on either side of the Buddha and Kaundinya behind them. The two chief disciples were uncomfortable sitting in front of Kaundinya, so he decided to solve the problem by absenting himself. The other reason to which Kaundinya's leave is attributed was to spend more quiet time in religious practice, which was rendered difficult due to the attention that the sangha gained from the public.
According to the Samyutta Nikaya, Kaundinya retired to the banks of the Mandakini Lake in the Chaddanta forest, said to be the abode of the paccekabuddhas. Kaundinya only left once, to farewell Gautama Buddha. Kaundinya kissed the Buddha's feet and stroked them with his hands. He advised his disciples not to mourn him before returning to the forest to pass away the following morning. He was cremated on a large sandalwood pyre which was constructed with the help of the elephants, and the ceremony was presided over by Anuruddha, one of the ten chief disciples and five hundred other monks. The ashes were later taken to Veluvana, where they were enshrined in a silver stupa. Previous births
This is a common theme among the leading disciples, all of whom had many encounters with the future Gautama Buddha in previous lives, and is consistent with the Buddhist concepts of cause and effect and karma. In Pali language Theravada literature, Kaundinya is said to have begun striving for enlightenment in the time of Padumuttara Buddha, the 13th Buddha. The son of a wealthy householder at Hamsavati, Kaundinya saw the monk who was the first disciple of Padmuttara Buddha. Kaundinya's previous rebirth bestowed on the Buddha and the sangha and wished that he was to be the first disciple of a future Buddha. Padumuttara is said to have prophesied the fulfilment of this in the era of Gautama Buddha, 1000 aeons into the future. After the passing of Padmuttara Buddha, Kaundinya constructed a jewelled chamber inside the cetiya in which the relics were stored and also made an offering of jewel festoons.
During the time of Vipassi Buddha, Kaundinya was a householder named Mahakala who offered the Buddha the first fruits of his field in their nine stages of production.
The Mahavastu asserts that he was a potter at Rajagaha in a previous existence. A Paccekabuddha who was suffering from biliousness sought shelter in the potter's hut and was cured. In time, several more Paccekabuddhas came to visit the hut to inquire about their colleagues health status. The potter asked which of them had realised the dharma first, to which the patient answered in the affirmative. Thereupon the potter made his vow:
"By the merit I have acquired by doing this service of attending on you, may I be the first of all to realise the dharma when proclaimed by an Exalted One. May I not crave for gain and honour. May I wish only for a solitary bed and begging bowl. May I lay aside my body among the cascades and forest glades, dying all alone."
The Mahavastu cites a previous birth in which Kaundinya was a seafaring merchant who had lost all his wealth after a mid-ocean shipwreck. Kaundinya then went in search of the king of Kosala, who had a widely known reputation for philanthropy. However the Kosalan monarch had left his kingdom and surrendered his kingdom to the neighbouring Kasi king. The king of Kosala had done so to avert bloodshed, since the Kasi king had threatened to invade. Nevertheless, the Kasi king wanted to capture the Kosalan king and decreed a large reward for it. The Kosalan king (Gautama Buddha is a previous rebirth) tied himself and asked the merchant to deliver him to Kasi so that the merchant would no longer be in poverty. However, when the Kasi king heard this, he withdrew his army and restored the Kosalan monarchy. The Kosalan king subsequently bestowed wealth on the merchant. Gautama Buddha cited this occurrence to illustrate how the ties between living beings extended into their previous existences.
In another rebirth described in the Mahavastu, Kaundinya and his four colleagues who were to become the first bhikkhus were seafaring merchants under the command of the future Gautama Buddha. The future Buddha sacrificed himself to save them from an ocean death.
Love Buddha's dhamma, | <urn:uuid:ef628ccd-563b-461a-9c2d-3aa1c9f4c107> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=12828&p=193688 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97799 | 2,065 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Book Description: Since its publication in 2000, Strategies That Work has become an indispensable resource for teachers who want to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. In this revised and expanded edition, Stephanie and Anne have added twenty completely new comprehension lessons, extending the scope of the book and exploring the central role that activating background knowledge plays in understanding. Another major addition is the inclusion of a section on content literacy which describes how to apply comprehension strategies flexibly across the curriculum. The new edition is organized around four sections: Part I highlights what comprehension is and how to teach it, including the principles that guide practice, a review of recent research, and a new section on assessment. A new chapter, Tools for Active Literacy: The Nuts and Bolts of Comprehension Instruction, describes ways to engage students in purposeful talk through interactive read alouds, guided discussion and written response.Part II contains lessons and practices for teaching comprehension. A new first chapter emphasizes the importance of teaching students to monitor their understanding before focusing on specific strategies. Five lessons on monitoring provide a sound basis for launching comprehension instruction. At the end of each strategy chapter, the authors outline learning goals and ways to assess students' thinking, sharing examples of student work, and offering suggestions for differentiating instruction.Part III, Comprehension Across the Curriculum, is new. Comprehension strategies are essential for content-area reading, where information can be challenging, and presented in unfamiliar formats. This section includes chapters on social studies and science reading, topic study research, textbook reading and the genre of test reading.Part IV shows that kids need books they can sink their teeth into and the updated appendix section recommends a rich diet of fiction and nonfiction, short text, kid's magazines, websites and journals that will assist teachers as they plan and design comprehension instruction Through its focus on instruction that is responsive to kids' interests and learning needs, the first edition of Strategies That Work helped transform comprehension instruction for teachers across the country. For them, this new edition will be a welcome extension of that work. Those coming to it for the first time will find a current and essential resource. When readers use these strategies, they enjoy a more complete, thoughtful reading experience. Engagement is the goal. When kids are engaged in their reading they enhance their understanding, acquire knowledge, and learn from and remember what they read. And best yet, they will want to read more! | <urn:uuid:4bb71941-1885-4ab2-a691-4eba4d8726bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.campusbooks.com/books/childrens-books/reference-nonfiction/language-arts/9781571104816_Harvey-Stephanie-Harvey-Anne-Goudvis-Anne-Stephanie-Goud.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92502 | 494 | 3.859375 | 4 |
has better reserves...
There is scarcely a place in the world where Genuine BMW batteries have not had to prove their worth. Whether in the Arctic Circle or the desert, we demand absolute optimum performance of a BMW battery - every time. Only then do we consider it suitable for daily use.
Your battery has the most difficult job to accomplish, especially in winter, because then it has to make available 50% more power than in summer, in spite of its performance being reduced at low temperatures by up to 40%.
Genuine BMW batteries overcome this difference effortlessly; because they have a “hidden reserve” – from the moment they leave the factory their capacity exceeds standard performance requirements by 15%.
Genuine BMW batteries are available as standard hybrid batteries, or maintenance-free calcium batteries, which start from cold at temperatures as low as -25ºC. Both meet our very highest quality requirements in terms of functionality, life and performance. Their robust and impact resistant Polypropylene casing is also resistant to acids, benzene, oil and seawater and is 100% recyclable.
Water loss is very slight due to optimum heat insulation and reduced performance or wear and tear due to low acid levels is avoided from the outset, as the acid reservoir is two times bigger than average.
Genuine BMW batteries:
• Have a hidden power reserve (15% greater performance than required)
• Larger than average acid reserves (reducing wear & tear) | <urn:uuid:14c14cb3-3fc8-4d4c-9165-a7b89d2c91aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bmw.co.nz/com/en/owners/genuineparts/Batteries.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959116 | 296 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Teacher Letters Are in the Mail and the Mailboxes
Students compare notes on what to expect.
After weeks of waiting, the "teacher letters" have arrived for most elementary students in South Orange and Maplewood. Letters addressed to students and their guardians indicate the name of the teacher for the 2012-13 school year and often include a list of required supplies. Younger students are likely to receive a letter from the teacher, as well.
Then the phone calls and, increasingly, texts and e-mails begin. While the youngest children in the district may find their parents asking questions, students as young as second grade make their own phone calls. Jason, a rising South Orange second grader, found out the name of his teacher and asked his brother what to expect from her. Then he called friends to find out their class assignments. "It seems pretty much okay," he told Patch. "I heard she's [the teacher] is pretty nice."
Erica, who lives in Maplewood told Patch, "I want to know who's in my class before I get there." To find out, she and a friend made calls and lists, trying to determine which fourth grade girls are in what class. This is a technique she learned from an older sister, she explains.
Middle school students check lists posted on the school doors. From that information, they may try to determine whether they're on Team A or Team B. Schedules are distributed on the first day of school.
Columbia High School students receive schedules in the mail, and some admit to comparing classes and finding out about teachers online.
With several teachers on the schedule, and dozens of classmates to consider, middle and high school students have a lot to ponder at this time of year. It may, at least in memory, seem simpler to be younger. Fifth grader Ian of South Orange received his assignment and had only one question. "When does school start again?" he asked. Reassured that he is expected at Jefferson on Thursday, he's ready for school to begin. | <urn:uuid:0d6536fa-a5eb-4708-b27d-3b6423c635f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southorange.patch.com/articles/teacher-letters-have-arrived-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984129 | 417 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Teens Call For the Ban of Photoshopping Models in Magazines [VIDEO]
Teen girls are very impressionable and when magazines, television and movies push a certain image of them it can sometimes turn dangerous. When girls want to look like the models in fashion magazines or on the runways and in other media they tend to turn to starvation or bulimia to make themselves more desirable.
Two young girls are calling out the magazines and fashion industry to make their models more “real”. We all know that airbrushing and Photoshopping is standard procedure in the model business these days but teens these days are apparently fed up with the standards and want changes made. I think this is about the most incredible thing I’ve heard in a long time.
Emma Stydahar, Carina Cruz and a group of teens known as the “Spark Summit/Team” are holding their own runway show in front of magazine headquarters to make their point;they don’t want these magazines altering the appearances of their models with Photoshop or airbrushing because it gives “real” teens a false impression of what they should look like.
It’s about time, I think this should be the case in all fashion magazines. If you ask me none of them should use Photoshop, no one is perfect and that includes models and celebrities. It’s been shown that these stick skinny, perfect looking women lead, not only to their own eating and health problems, but to those of the public as well.
Hopefully, if you have a teen girl she has a good head on her shoulders and doesn’t believe all she sees or reads in these magazines. Teens (boys & girls) have pressures these days that none of us had as kids and I wish that they could grow up as we did; with less concerns about image and fitting in with the crowd. They should just be kids, with no worries, there’s plenty of time for that when they grow up.
Do you agree with these young girls and their quest for more “realness” in magazines? Do you agree that the magazines are using “healthy” girls that aren’t too skinny? | <urn:uuid:333ec904-ed50-400f-b998-13fa842be00f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://keanradio.com/teens-call-for-the-ban-of-photoshopping-models-in-magazines-video/ | 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 | 0.966873 | 458 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Whether or not they’d be comfortable with the title, I have no idea, but Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari are real world heroes to hundreds of kids. Dave is an author and publisher and Ninive an educator, and together they founded 826 National, a non profit dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18 with their writing skills and helping teachers get their students excited about the writing. Each one of their seven chapters offers drop-in tutoring, field trips, workshops, and in-schools programs all free of charge for children, classes, and schools with particular interests or special needs.
“Our services are structured around our belief that
great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention and that
strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.”
One of the ways the individual chapters financially sustain themselves is with a unique retail storefront and corresponding online shop. Hands down they are some of the most imaginative and creatively executed fundraising ventures I have ever seen. My current favorite and one perfect to share with Little Hero readers is the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. which supports 826 NYC in Brooklyn, New York.
Now it goes without saying that Little Hero Capes and gear are hands down the finest available to any junior caped crusader, but what if you need, say, a jug of Antigravity or an all-purpose compact transmogrifying Matter Transformer? This is where BSSCo steps in.
All manner of canned and bottled superhero attributes are available. And for perfect accompaniments to your Little Hero Cape, you might consider a flight tilt indicator, tights or boots (seen below). Where else can you support an amazing non-profit and buy an invisible plane? I ask you. | <urn:uuid:6b92618c-785e-4724-b5a5-63c7e87542e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.littleherocapes.com/blog/tag/826-national/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926976 | 361 | 1.765625 | 2 |
LONDON, Oct. 10 -- Electricite de France (EDF), the partially state-owned French utility, plans to boost its gas presence in northwest Europe by building an LNG regasification terminal in northern France, taking capacity at the Gate LNG project in the Netherlands, and increasing its gas pipeline capacity through the Netherlands and Belgium. The plans are significant, considering EDF's previous focus on electricity within France and Europe.
Over the next 3 years EDF will investigate building and operating a 13.14 million-tonne/year LNG regasification terminal at Dunkirk Port in northern France. If the project proves feasible, EDF will start terminal operations by 2011.
EDF said the terminal's capacity under the first phase will be 4.38 million tonnes/year; it plans to expand this to 8.76 million tonnes/year in the second phase.
An EDF spokeswoman told OGJ that the terminal's regasified LNG under the first phase would go to France, the UK, Germany, and Belgium. "The EDF Group is looking to secure supplies for north Europe," she added.
The Dunkirk Port Authority, which focuses on the North Sea, is France's third largest third port, handling 6,300 ships a year and annual cargo traffic of more than 53.44 million tons. EDF beat four other candidates to win the LNG tender from the Dunkirk Port Authority.
EDF has also agreed with Gasunie, the Dutch gas transport network operator, to take a 10% capital stake in its Gate LNG regasification terminal in Rotterdam, which will become operational from 2010. Royal Vopak, the Dutch terminal tank operator, will reserve for EDF 2.19 million tonnes/year of regasification capacity at Gate LNG.
Gasunie subsidiary GTS and Belgian transporter Fluxys have also agreed to reserve 3 billion cu m of long-term gas capacity for EDF through the Netherlands and Belgium. "These positions are in addition to the 2 billion cu m transport capacity already acquired by the group on the interconnection between mainland Europe and the United Kingdom," EDF said.
The company said all of the additional gas supplies were important for its subsidiaries in Great Britain, Germany, and the Benelux countries where EDF and the Dutch company Delta are developing an 870 Mw combined-cycle gas turbine power plant in southwest Netherlands by 2009.
Contact Uchenna Izundu at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:0668307f-79e8-4eb4-9c23-8ec97f5781f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ogj.com/articles/2006/10/electricite-de-france-plans-lng-terminal._printArticle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944664 | 515 | 1.710938 | 2 |
A new Apple support doc advises that "Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.
To turn off the scheduling feature, tap Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb and switch Scheduled to Off."
iOS 6 added new calling features to your iPhone. Now when you decline an incoming call, you can instantly reply with a text message or set a callback reminder. And when things are just too hectic, turn on Do Not Disturb and you won't be bothered by anyone - except can't-miss contacts like your boss or your better half. The feature works to suppress all incoming calls and notifications and can be enabled manually or scheduled at a recurring time. | <urn:uuid:6a896718-b44a-44be-aed0-11b42693b2a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geeks.broadwayworld.com/article/Apples-New-Years-2013-Do-Not-Disturb-Bug-to-Self-Resolve-on-January-7-20130102 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908576 | 160 | 1.617188 | 2 |
SQL Server 2008 moves on, wants to stay friends
It’s not you, it’s the BI and database engine
The options for what to include in a stack are many and direct comparisons are difficult. Although it is tempting to deploy the Express edition of SQL Server 2008 on cost grounds - it's free - the Web edition is optimized for web-based scenarios. But, and here's the catch: it isn't free.
Engine of change
So what's new in the database engine itself? The resource governor is all-new. This tool lets you allocate available resources into pools. This allows jobs to be grouped depending on their importance and allocated to a resource pool, which in turn enables jobs that need to be completed rapidly (like loading data) to be given more resources than less time-critical tasks. The resource governor is also a useful aid to monitoring resource usage.
Data compression is also a new and welcome addition in these days of burgeoning data volume. Row and page compression are both supported: row compression stores fields using a variable width format thus reducing the bytes needed to store compressible data, and page compression is similar except that it compresses the rows on a page. There is inevitably a performance hit during compression when writing and de-compression when reading, but Microsoft said the reduced disk I/O counterbalances the compression times and even improves query performance.
Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is another new feature and can be implemented at the engine level, meaning you can protect an entire database without having to change anything in the applications.
SQL Server's database mirroring abilities have been enhanced to make them faster and easier to use. Mirroring transfers log files between servers in order to improve fail-over times when the standby server is called into play. The ability is further improved by log stream compression (another newbie) that speeds up the mirroring process.
The implementation of a new spatial data type is significant because it allows geographical data to be handled and manipulated elegantly. Using this data type it is possible to find, for instance, how many contacts are within a 50-mile radius of your offices - and much more.
All new: gauge control displays data in a range of flavors
I have written extensively in Project Watch about making use of this feature to plot locations on a map.
The backup system has been rewritten and now delivers a huge improvement in performance, linear scalability and the ability to handle an analysis services database of more than a terabyte. The new backup can usefully replace raw file system copying so that the ability to run in parallel with other operations, amongst other benefits, can be felt. Equally good news is that backup compression is supported in 2008.
Next page: New reporting rules | <urn:uuid:5b6c4e9c-2a83-4f93-a040-b6960616dd33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/07/sql_server_2008_review/page2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926391 | 562 | 1.75 | 2 |
but i'm not sure how to do the same in a midlet, what's happening here is a background thread is attempting to push a screen from a thread other than the main event thread which handles the ui. as it's modal it's blocking which is why the blackberry os doesn't like it; a background thread blocking the ui thread. to get around this on a native app without using invokeLater we'd use Status.shopw("message"); instead of Dialog.inform("message"); or similar, again, not sure on how to do it in a midlet but hope this helps.
new job doesn't allow a public profile - please do not contact this user with questions, you will not get a response. good luck!
I take it that this is happening when displyaing an Alert? You should be able to use the callSerially() method of the MIDP Display class to run code on the event thread. This will require adding some code similar to jon's example - showing the Alert from within a Runnable object and passing an instance to Display.callSerially() | <urn:uuid:6d54102d-72a6-43db-9d41-6d8b49d0519b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blackberryforums.com/developer-forum/74465-midlet-throws-pushmodalscreen-called-non-event-thread.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917241 | 231 | 1.53125 | 2 |
This American Life
Summary: Official free, weekly podcast of the award-winning radio show "This American Life." First-person stories and short fiction pieces that are touching, funny, and surprising. Hosted by Ira Glass, from WBEZ Chicago Public Media, and distributed by Public Radio International. In mp3 and updated Mondays.
Stories about kids being mean to each other... including a mysterious handbook for bullies, a surprising experiment conducted by a teacher who wants to make kids be nice, and a story of youthful backstabbing told by David Sedaris.
It's spring, so we're opening windows and going places. This week we have stories of people who, for reasons that they can't always explain, feel compelled to get out and go somewhere. Including the story of one man who decides to take a trip from Philadelphia to San Francisco — by foot.
We pick up where we left off last week in our second hour from Harper High School in Chicago. We find out if a shooting in the neighborhood will derail the school's Homecoming game and dance. We hear the origin story of one of Harper's gangs. And we ask a group of teenagers: where do you get your guns? Harper has set up a donation page here.
We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances. We found so many incredible and surprising stories, this show is a two-parter; you can listen to Part Two here. | <urn:uuid:911a284d-e6d0-4ae4-975c-dc8abe3fdd49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalpodcast.com/feeds/18162-this-american-life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951856 | 344 | 1.578125 | 2 |
BANGLADESH: Community radio role in disaster preparedness
DHAKA, 4 January 2013 (IRIN) - Kurem Sulla is well aware of the importance of the media when it comes to early warnings of a natural disaster.
“I’ve lived through a cyclone. I’ve seen its destruction,” the 35-year-old labourer, clutching a transistor radio to his ear, told IRIN outside his home in the town of Mohadapur, a community of farmers and casual labourers north of the port city of Chittagong.
On 30 April 1991 Cyclone Marian left more than 100,000 dead along the southeastern coast of Bangladesh.
“We need to be prepared,” explained the father-of-two, who now listens to Radio Sari Giri, one of 16 community radio stations recently established in Bangladesh and which broadcasts in the local Bengali dialect.
More than a third of the country’s population (some 50 million people) live in coastal areas. Many are in rural areas where radio is the main medium of information.
“Broadcasting in the local dialect of Bengali is particularly effective,” Bazlur Rahman, head of the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
, comprising 150 local NGOs, said, describing the outreach potential as huge.
“It allows us to reach communities with timely information where and when they need it most,” said Mohammad Abdul Wazed, additional secretary of the Bangladesh Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief
Dhaka first adopted a policy on community radio in 2008 following years of grassroots efforts, effectively opening up the country’s radio spectrum to other players apart from the 18 national commercial radio stations. Community radio caters best for local interests and broadcasts programming specific to local needs.
This policy was followed by a national strategy
on community radio in 2011, with a pledge for limited government funding in the future - though this has yet to materialize.
The government has issued licences to 16 community stations, including eight in cyclone-prone coastal areas (Khulna, Satkhira, Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong, Bhola, Hatiya, and two in Barguna), and by the end of 2013 BNNRC hopes to see 60 community stations established, with some 400 nationwide by 2021.
Although still in its infancy, community radio (broadcasting on FM in a number of dialects) offers more than 120 programming hours a day including weather forecasts, news, entertainment, and community talk shows.
A radio presenter at Radio Sari Giri
“Disaster preparedness is now an important part of our programming,” said Shah Sultan Shamim, station manager for Radio Sagor Giri in the town of Muradpur in Chittagong District, adding that the station has increased its audience in 2012 and now has more than 100,000 listeners tuning in at some point during the five hours per day the station is on air.
Community radio programmes typically cover environmental and climate change issues but also provide practical tips on what to do if a cyclone approaches, he explained.
Many listeners participate in the programmes through SMS text messages or phone calls; some radio stations report receiving an average of 500 SMS messages a day.
According to BNNRC, about 50 percent of radio listeners in Bangladesh listen on their mobile phones.
“Nowadays most people in Bangladesh have a mobile phone and listen to radio that way,” Radio Sagor Giri’s Shamim said.
Community radio funding, however, remains a challenge.
Most stations are funded by local NGOs; a smaller number by development partners and the government. Of the 536 young people working in community radio stations most are volunteers.
Nearly all stations need better equipment, including computers and voice recorders, and training.
And with power outages common in Bangladesh, broadcasts can often be suspended for extended periods as the cost of fuel to run a generator can prove prohibitively high.
“It’s a huge cost and some community radio stations don’t have a generator at all,” said BNNRC’s Rahman. “This [equipment and training] is where international assistance would be greatly appreciated.” | <urn:uuid:0ac180f2-a555-484f-86db-1dc0f8c98529> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.irinnews.org/Report/97171/BANGLADESH-Community-radio-role-in-disaster-preparedness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944423 | 897 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Commenting on the significance of Christian Aid Week, which comes to a climax this weekend, and the UK-based development agency's policy and advocacy work, Simon Barrow, co-director of the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia, said:
"Supporting Christian Aid, financially and through its innovative advocacy campaigns, is a real investment in hope.
"Ekklesia is delighted to be able to cooperate with and utilise the important policy and research work through which Christian Aid influences key debates about development, poverty and global justice.
"Religion often gets a bad press for being narrow, sectarian, self-preoccupied and divisive. Christian Aid shows a completely different face to religiously-grounded and motivated conviction, inviting people of all faiths and simply 'good faith' to share the vision of a just, peaceful, generous and hospitable way of living.
"This ethos, as much as what an NGO is able to say and do, makes a huge difference. It is something very much worth celebrating and donating towards in Christian Aid Week."
* The full CA Week report is available here (*.PDF Adobe Acrobat file): http://www.christianaid.org.uk/images/hungry-for-justice.pdf
* Ekklesia's aggregator of news, features, comment and research from Christian Aid: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/christianaid | <urn:uuid:d3a0a3b0-a68f-46c5-9711-7b5161107502> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/print/14802 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943258 | 296 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Closing the book on Facebook?
Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it's slowly but surely helped itself -- and its advertising and business partners -- to more and more of its users' information, while limiting the users' options to control their own information. -- More.
This is another example of a regular theme at this blog: People are tiring of all the noise. They are turning down the volume. And they are returning to simplier, less cluttered ways of getting information. | <urn:uuid:b5438d55-cf79-42bc-9180-87cacc2b09bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.knoxnews.com/silence/archives/2010/04/closing_the_boo.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959994 | 135 | 1.984375 | 2 |
When airsoft guns are mistaken for real firearms then havoc can occur. This can cause chaos with police forces, schools, and other situations and lead to danger when the guns are mistaken for the real thing. If you come across a situation someone thinks your gun is real you might create unneeded fear.
There have been extremely unfortunate events occur when children have had airsoft guns on them and been shot dead for the realistic look of the guns. It can happen at night when a gun is seen being held inside a car at night. It has happened where people have been shot because they were holding an airsoft gun in any situation.
When kids bring airsoft guns to school then they can create a serious panic situation and have the school entirely locked down. Although a student might know that the gun is only an airsoft it looks too real for people to know the difference. Without looking at an airsoft gun from up close you cannot tell the difference from a real gun. There have been many circumstances of school lock downs and parental panic because of an airsoft gun being brought to school.
Airsoft guns are popular because they look exactly like the real thing. They are fun to play military games out on the field that is setup to give you the real feeling of being a soldier. They are not designed to use for play or to walk around with. When a gun is displayed in public, people panic. There is no reason for someone to have a gun on them unless it is secured in a holster and the law allows it. Most states require you to have a gun in public locked up securely in a case. The ammunition should be kept away from the guns and they should not be accessible by unauthorized people.
The biggest distinction between airsoft guns is the shape of the magazine feed area. This is because it contains a round opening for the pellets to pass through. With a real gun, the area will be big enough for an actual bullet to pass through. When you pull out a magazine of an airsoft gun you can clearly see the distinction.
Most airsoft guns include an orange tip on the end of them. These provide solid evidence the gun is not a real gun. This allows for anyone who sees the orange tip to be clear the gun is a pellet gun. However, most people like the realistic look of a pellet gun and they often pull the orange tip off of the gun. When this is done it is hard to differentiate the airsoft gun from a real one.
Airsoft guns can create extremely dangerous situations when they are mistaken for a real gun and people have died because of the threat a gun creates. You should always keep your gun locked up so no one can access it and you should be smart about when you have your gun out. Your gun should never be displayed in public for any reason.
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The second regional Peer Mentors training will take place on Sunday, Oct. 23, starting at 1 p.m. at the Mason Center in Durango.
This program trains high school students who live with challenging health conditions to build communication and leadership skills so that they can be available to meet with other youth in the region with a similar diagnosis.
This year’s peer mentor group includes youth with diabetes, epilepsy, hearing loss, cancer, paralysis, ADHD, Asbergers and organ transplant.These survivors have experiences and strengths to share.
If you know a teen who might be interested in mentoring, or a youth in the region who would like a visit from a mentor, call Liza Tregillus at 749-9607. She is the regional social worker for HCP (Health Care Program for Children with Special Health Needs), which serves Archuleta, La Plata, San Juan, Dolores and Montezuma counties.
Donations are needed to help with the continuation of this pilot program, so feel free to call about that as well. | <urn:uuid:9ffe53c8-7a1d-4b36-bddc-7d89c512c850> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pagosasun.com/archives/2011/10October/102011/peermentors.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936645 | 219 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Okay, here's the fourth post in the series...
...that was supposed to be the *third* post in the series. But then, I had to go and split the rebuttal section into two parts.
Anyway...here is a list of gender-variant/-transgressive characters in the Bible.
Adam (Gen 1:26--2:20)
The text here, it should be noted, does *not* require that Adam be exclusively male. In fact, verse 1:26 carefully states, "male and female he created *them.*" (Emphasis mine.) This seems to present Adam, at least at this early point, as an androgynous joined-at-the-hip two-person creature. The removal of a "rib" from Adam would then actually be a splitting off of Eve from Adam. This reading seems to receive some support from Jewish tradition, which interprets the passage more-or-less in this fashion.
Zipporah (Exodus 4:25)
She functioned in this passage as basically a mohel, which was an exclusively male occupation.
Deborah (Judges 4:14)
She commanded a male general in combat.
Jael (Judges 4:21)
She killed an enemy general; that said, she seems to have done so while obeying the law against women using things (like weapons) which were considered proper to men. The tool she used to undo Sisera was not considered a "male occupation tool."
The worthy wife of the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs, chapter 31)
She is identified as a breadwinner in v. 16. She also is called "mighty," which is a term with military (i.e., male) connotations.
Ebed-melech (Jeremiah 38:1-23)
This was the eunuch who rescued Jeremiah.
Hathach (Esther 4:5-9)
This eunuch acted as a go-between for Queen Esther and Mordecai.
Harbona (Esther 7:9)
This eunuch informed the king that Haman had a facility for hanging Mordecai. This facility ended up being used on Haman, instead.
A Roman centurion, his lover, and Jesus (Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10)
In Matthew, the term pais is translated as servant. It actually was a term used to refer to a man's male lover. Note Jesus' response in v. 10.
A male water carrier and the Last Supper (Mt 26:17-19; Mk 14:12-16; Lk 22:7-13)
The carrying of water was considered "womens' work" in that day.
Eunuchs in the Bible generally:
1. We can *not* say definitively that they were LGBT.
2. Eunuchs *were* considered gender-variant (or if you prefer, gender-transgressive) and effeminate.
3. They were often given such jobs as: cupbearer, chamberlain, chief eunuch, supervisor of womens' quarters, one who gave access to the king, and a few were even generals
In my final post, I'll put in some verses about the surprisingly exalted things the Bible says about Christians in general. That should give some encouragement to transgendered Christians. | <urn:uuid:20d9c947-6ec4-4e26-883d-e86e848296ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showpost.php?p=77263&postcount=16 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977167 | 718 | 1.914063 | 2 |
ABS figures reveal unexpected fall in unemployment
Australia’s national unemployment rate fell 0.1% to 5.2% in November, contrary to expectations, with Victoria and NSW experiencing the biggest falls in jobless numbers.
The increase in employment was driven by increased female part-time employment, up 18,100 people to 3,414,200, and was offset by decreased fulltime employment, down 4,200 people to 8,132,200.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate decrease of 0.1% to 65.1% in November.
According to ANZ, employment has now reached an average gain of 13,600 in the past three months, although trend employment growth remains softer at 5,800 per month.
Across the states, the biggest driver in November was a gain of 28,000 in Queensland employment, while in NSW and Victoria employment fell by 18,000 and 13,800 respectively.
“We would caution into reading too much into these figures however as they are very volatile on a monthly basis,” ANZ said.
“In trend terms, employment growth per month has been only slightly positive or slightly negative for all major states, although is slightly stronger in WA.”
Overall, ANZ said the stronger-than-expected data is at odds with the downward trend in more timely indicators of labour demand such as job advertisements.
“At this stage, and given the volatility in monthly labour force figures, they do not appear at odds with Reserve Bank projections for the unemployment rate to edge up,” it said.
“Today’s figures should give the RBA more space to assess whether the 125 basis points of cuts through 2012 are starting to stimulate economic activity.
“That said, with little evidence that key areas of demand are picking up to fill the expected growth hole when mining investment peaks in mid to late 2013, the RBA will retain an easing bias into next year and every meeting remains live.” | <urn:uuid:4631cf5e-5426-4b85-bd2f-9c1d931b5358> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.startupsmart.com.au/recruitment/abs-figures-reveal-unexpected-fall-in-unemployment/201212068406.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957013 | 417 | 1.632813 | 2 |
|Article||Science & Speculation|
|Episode Appearances|| "The Runaway"|
"Now You See Me" (mentioned)
Nykoraptors are fictional dinosaurs in Terra Nova.
In Terra NovaEdit
One reappears in "Bylaw", attacking a soldier after being trapped inside a communications post. Having swallowed the soldier's tag, it then became the target of Commander Taylor's forces. However, it was not killed, but its stomach contents were removed while it was sedated and it was then patched up by Washington.
In "Bylaw", Nykoraptor was said to have three sets of incisors (front teeth) in its jaws, rather like a shark's multiple rows of teeth, and it was said to attack most anything it can catch. Its favored prey, according to Malcolm Wallace, are the gallusaurs, although it will also prey on the unhatched eggs of Ankylosaurus.
In "Nightfall", a pair of Nykoraptors pass beneath Maddy and Mark Reynolds, as they hide up in a tree. They are listed among various dinosaurs Reynolds says are repelled by a smelly mud-and-leaves combination as well as slasher dung. This suggests that they may be preyed on by slashers.
- This is the only creature to appear in "The Runaway".
- Nykoraptors have longer feathers on their arms, neck, and the end of their tail.
- Although difficult to see in many shots, Nykoraptors do have the enlarged "sickle claw" on their feet which is characteristic of dromaeosaurs, visible in the two shots below:
- In some shots like the ones below, Nykoraptors appear to have a dark section on the end of their tails, different in color from the rest of the tail and also from the feathers sticking out sideways from the back section of the tail. It's unclear whether this is differently-colored skin, differently-colored feathers, or possibly some kind of tail blade similar to that found in Acceraptor. | <urn:uuid:eb117bd2-e02d-46e2-9b92-c695e9507508> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://terranova.wikia.com/wiki/Nykoraptor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961557 | 439 | 2.0625 | 2 |
SME Public Relations
The joint resources of The Automation Federation and the SME Education Foundation will help promote advanced manufacturing careers to young people – careers in automation; and the expansion of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) in high schools. RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N. C., DEARBORN, Mich., March 21, 2011 — The Automation Federation (AF) announced that, earlier this month, the SME Education Foundation has become one of the newest members of AF. As an association of member organizations providing awareness, programs and services that continually advance all facets of the automation profession, AF serves as the Voice of Automation by providing advocacy and industry-wide strategic analysis and coordination through its member organizations. One of the messages AF spreads on behalf of its member organizations is the importance of the automation profession and the need to develop the next generation of automation professionals. To build momentum and support for its workforce development initiatives—including the promotion of K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and the Automation Competency Model—AF is working to bring like-minded organizations together to create a stronger Voice. The SME Education Foundation is committed to the educational needs of American youth and inspiring them to excel in STEM education; providing access to rigorous educational opportunities through financial support with awards and scholarships; and funding project-based curricula and activities designed to motivate learning. Over its 30-year history, the SME Education Foundation has invested $5.3 million in youth programs, helping nearly 20,000 to explore career opportunities in STEM education; granted/funded over $4.7 million in scholarships to students pursuing manufacturing-related careers; and invested $8.5 million in grants to 35 colleges and universities to develop industry-driven curricula. The SME Education Foundation joined AF as part of their major initiative to change public perception of manufacturing. In todays economy, in-demand jobs are increasingly high-tech and require STEM skill sets. Everything is dependent on making engineering visible and relevant in the eyes of K-12 students, teachers, counselors and parents. Nelson Ninin, 2011 Automation Federation chair, said, I am pleased that the SME Education Foundation has joined the Automation Federation. Our two organizations share a common goal to reach out to our youth about the importance of STEM for their futures. I look forward to the opportunities we can pursue together to achieve this goal. Says Khalil Taraman, president, SME Education Foundation, The SME Education Foundation is aligning itself with organizations that share its vision for advanced manufacturing careers and the demanding STEM-based education these careers require. AF and SME Education Foundations joint resources will help AF promote careers in automation, as well as support the SME Education Foundations interest in expanding Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) centers now being established in high schools across the country. For more information about AF, the Automation Competency Model and other workforce development initiatives, or about your organization becoming an AF member, visit www.automationfederation.org or contact Mike Marlowe, Automation Federation managing director, at email@example.com.
About the Automation FederationThe Automation Federation is a global umbrella organization under which member associations and societies engaged in manufacturing and process automation activities can work more effectively to fulfill their missions, advance the science and engineering of automation technologies and applications, and develop the workforce needed to capitalize on the benefits of automation. The Automation Federation is working to become the Voice of Automation. For more information about the Automation Federation, visit www.automationfederation.org.
About the SME Education FoundationThe SME Education Foundation is committed to inspiring, supporting and preparing the next generation of manufacturing engineers and technologies for the advancement of manufacturing education. Created by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) in 1979, the SME Education Foundation has provided more than $31 million since 1980 in grants, scholarships and awards through its partnerships with corporations, organizations, foundations and individual donors. Visit the SME Education Foundation at www.smeef.org. Also visit www.CareerMe.org for information on advanced manufacturing careers, and www.ManufacturingisCool.com, our award-winning website for young people. Questions or comments may be directed to the SME Education Foundation by phone 313.425.3300, or email at firstname.lastname@example.org.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact SME Public Relations at 313.425.3000, email email@example.com or fax: 313.425.3403. | <urn:uuid:65bead41-8e7d-4bcd-b0e6-e4f80123b8f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sme.org/Tertiary.aspx?id=17895 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93237 | 939 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Practicum: Public Interest Law
- Cynthia A Wilson - 312/503-2924 - Levy Mayer 124
- Rubloff Bldg, Rare Book Room - Tu 4:00PM - 5:50PM
- The goal of this Practicum is to provide students with a theoretical and practical understanding of public interest law practice, broadly defined. The assigned readings cover a variety of topics related to public interest law. Topics may include ethical issues faced by public interest lawyers, theories and models of public interest law practice, addressing the legal needs of the poor with limited resources, and the role of pro bono work in public interest law. Students participate in a weekly seminar where they discuss the readings and their work at the placement agency.
In addition, students spend 12 hours per week in a field placement or externship with a non-profit public interest organization. There are a significant number of non-profit legal agencies in the Chicago area, covering a wide range of clients and subject matters. Students should work with the professor to arrange field placements and identify supervisors in their area of interest before the course begins.
Students maintain a reflective journal on an ongoing basis about their field placement experience, the readings, class discussion, and responses to assigned questions relating to the week's topic. Students submit two installments of their journal, and each installment accounts for one-sixth of the course grade. Class participation also counts for one-third of the course grade. A reflective paper addressing some aspect of the field placement experience is also required, and it counts for one-third of the course grade.
- All second and third year students are eligible to participate in the Public Interest Practicum. Enrollment takes place through the Law Bidding process for course selection. Students in the course should begin searching for an appropriate placement at least one month before the semester begins and are expected to have secured a specific externship by the start of class. The professor teaching the course will assist students in finding externships responsive to the student's interests. Each placement must be approved by the professor teaching the course in the semester for which the placement is secured.
- Class participationDiscussionField workGuest speakersOther: see below
ReadingsSeminarEach student must successfully complete the externship portion of the class, which provides many opportunities for learning.
- AttendanceClass participationOther: see below
Paper, final: Students must prepare a reflective paper, which counts for one-third of their grade.
Students must submit two installments of a reflective journal. Each installment counts for one-sixth of the student's final grade.
- Course materials on Blackboard.
- Requires Practicum Placement
Constitutional Law or Procedure an element
Professional Skills Course
Civil Litigation & Dispute Resolution
Procedure Practice Area present in course
Overview of class
Class Materials (Required)
Current as of 05/03/13 12:51:50 PM | <urn:uuid:dd355aa7-6011-437e-9a04-6f496b974d56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northwestern.edu/class-descriptions/4440/LAW/CONPUB/638/17597.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911855 | 598 | 1.515625 | 2 |
When it comes to climate change misinformation, arguably no single person has done more to spread false information to confuse the public than Rupert Murdoch. With his vast media empire that spans the globe, Murdoch has helped misdirect the public, as well as to openly advocate against government policies that would curtail carbon emissions or impose other environmental safeguards.
And while most American media outlets saw a decline in their coverage of climate change-related stories, Murdoch’s overseas newspapers actually increased their coverage of such stories – though not in a helpful way. The story that got the most attention involved a government policy in Australia that put a price on carbon pollution. Here is an analysis of Murdoch’s coverage, via Think Progress :
The range of findings show a clear political bias against the carbon pricing policy moving through parliament in 2011:
The claims by many single sources about the likely impact of the carbon policy were not tested against the views of other sources. Only 42% of the rest of the articles included more than two sources.
Fossil fuel lobby and other big business sources opposed to the policy were very strongly represented, often without any critique or second source.
Business sources (23%) receive more coverage than all Australian civil society sources together including unions, NGOS, think tanks, activists, members of the public, religious spokespeople, scientists and academics (17%).
Business sources quoted 4 or more times over the 6-month period were quoted being negative towards the policy in almost 80% of occasions. Many Australian readers would have been left with the impression that the nearly the entire business community was opposed to the carbon price policy. In fact this was far from the truth.
Academics and scientists were also poorly represented.
ThinkProgress also provided this chart, detailing numerous Murdoch papers and their respective positive/negative coverage of the carbon price in Australia:
The top six newspapers - all owned by Rupert Murdoch - are most negative about the Australian government’s carbon policy.
Murdoch’s media outlets have also led to an unhealthy lack of knowledge on climate change-related issues in the United States, as we pointed out here and here .
Murdoch and his outlets have an agenda. There’s no question about that. The problem is that so many people remain ignorant of this agenda, and soak up his employees’ reporting as gospel truth. | <urn:uuid:0b0a17fc-8111-4f68-a7aa-cbef1b43d791> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desmogblog.com/print/5965 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974742 | 483 | 2.265625 | 2 |
We heard a lot about safe driving initiatives during the CTIA keynote and now AT&T has launched their DriveMode service. What started life as an idea submitted to them, AT&T DriveMode was voted one of the top ideas and as such became a reality thanks to the AT&T Innovation Center. So what exactly is DriveMode?
AT&T DriveMode when enabled provides the option to send calls directly to voicemail, and to send an auto-reply to incoming emails. When the app is turned off, user can view the calls, messages and e-mails as they normally would.
DriveMode users can then pick 5 people which can be included on the "Allowed list" to send and receive calls while the app is running. 911 calls can be made and Music and Navigation settings allow one music and one navigation app to run while AT&T DriveMode is enabled.
The ultimate goal here is reduce distractions when driving therefore keeping drivers and pedestrians safe as possible. No message is important enough to lose a life over so if you find yourself tempted -- grab the app from the Android Market. You'll find the full press release and download link past the break.
AT&T DriveMode Update
Dallas, Texas, October 12, 2011
Did you know texting takes your eyes off the road for an average of 5 seconds? At 55 mph, that’s like driving the length of a football field completely blind.*
To reduce the temptation to text while driving, AT&T offers a simple – and free – mobile application, AT&T DriveMode – now available for its Android™ and BlackBerry® customers.
When downloaded and activated, AT&T DriveMode automatically sends a customizable reply to incoming texts – notifying the sender that the user is driving and unable to respond. The auto-response is similar to an “out-of-office” email alert.**
The app is now available at no charge to download through the Android Market, BlackBerry App World™ and AT&T AppCenter, with more supporting operating systems planned in the coming months.
AT&T’s anti-texting-while-driving mobile solution is part of the company’s broader “It Can Wait” campaign that aims to stigmatize texting while driving.
The AT&T DriveMode app stemmed from an idea that was originally submitted to The Innovation Pipeline (TIP), AT&T’s unique online crowd-sourcing tool that harnesses the creative talent of AT&T employees. Participants submit their ideas through an online platform, get feedback from others and secure funding for development of the program. AT&T DriveMode was voted one of the top ideas and was subsequently developed into today’s application.
HOW THE APP WORKS:
Once downloaded, customers can manually enable the app prior to driving, activating the auto-reply feature.
The app also provides the option to send calls directly to voicemail, and to send an auto-reply to incoming emails. When the app is turned off, user can view the calls, messages and e-mails as they normally would.
AT&T DriveMode also offers additional safety and convenience features, including:
- The “Allow List” lets users select up to five contact numbers – such as roadside assistance and family members – to send and receive calls while the app is running.
- 911 is always accessible with just a touch of a button, regardless of whether the app is turned on.
- Music and Navigation settings allow one music and one navigation app to run while AT&T DriveMode is enabled.
- By downloading the app, customers are also automatically taking AT&T’s “It Can Wait” pledge, joining the thousands who have made the commitment to not text while driving.
- For more information and downloadable educational tools related to AT&T’s “It Can Wait” campaign, please visit: www.att.com/textingcanwait.
*Virginia Tech Transportation Institute Research: www.vtti.vt.edu
**Data and text messaging charges may apply for download and app usage. Standard messaging rates apply to auto-reply messages. AT&T DriveMode is free to AT&T customers only. Compatible device required.
The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited.
- Filed under: | <urn:uuid:a0f701ad-fad4-4587-9c5a-a5c14779d477> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.androidcentral.com/att-drivemode-now-available-android | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932478 | 912 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Gates in £10bn Google bid talks
31 October 2003
MICROSOFT boss Bill Gates wants to merge with Google in a deal worth £10bn or more. The marriage between the world's biggest computer software manufacturer and the world's biggest search engine could create a massive new operation which would cement Gates's domination of the computer business.
The news emerged today when the New York Times reported that Google is engaged in meetings to explore a partnership or even merger with Microsoft.
Google - which has experienced astonishing success to dominate the iIternet search engine market - is also considering floating for the first time, with a radical plan to sell shares in itself over the Net.
Gates in £10bn Google bid talks
House prices 'on the rise again'
Market report: Friday close
Wall Street: Friday open
Putin's pledge buoys Moscow
Northern Electric calls in receivers
Beyond the Footsie: Friday's close
Goshawk kicked out by Lloyd's
AngloGold lifted by Ashanti deal
Heywood Williams cracks after crisis
Google bosses are said to be most interested in this plan but Microsoft is unlikely to be put off and may continue to pursue the company after the flotation, according to one executive briefed on the discussions.
But any moves by Microsoft to merge with Google would be closely watched by US anti-trust authorities which launched a massive legal action against Microsoft over its war with the search engine Netscape. Microsoft has been increasingly desperate to get into the search engine business which attracts millions of users and hundreds of millions of hits a day for Google, the most popular search site on the web.
The software company's overtures show how much it regards the search engine as a real competitive threat to its presence in the internet.
Microsoft is pushing further into Internet-related services and is integrating its software more closely.
Silicon Valley insiders are comparing Microsoft's current obsession with search engines to its fight with Netscape in the Nineties.
Netscape launched the first popular browser, triggering a frenzy of competition from Microsoft which mobilised its vast resources to produce a rival browser that it tied into its other software.
It eventually overtook Netscape and virtually killed the company. It was partly this episode that prompted a massive anti-trust suit by the government against Microsoft. This ended just two years ago.
Today, Microsoft in London would only say the company did not comment on ?rumour and speculation‘.
Google has already begun the process of talking to investment banks in order to choose which ones will handle its shares offer.
Wall Street analysts says the share issue could value the company at between $15bn (£8.8bn) and $20bn.
Google executives agree with this rough valuation, although they plan to issue only 10 to 15% of its shares, raising about $2bn.
Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, are believed to favour a ?Dutch auction‘, in which shares would be offered direct to the public rather than through the usual system by Wall Street banks.
This would, among other things, give the company some distance from the increasingly scandal-plagued financial services sector.
Microsoft Google, sounds alright actually | <urn:uuid:76e5c572-f09e-4e89-b70e-66ba5c120b95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?21755-Bill-Gates-wants-Google | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949276 | 668 | 1.59375 | 2 |
New Nuclear Project Distracts From Existing Safety (Read: Seismic) Issues
"The vastly ambitious CMRR project has greatly detracted from the attention needed to solve existing nuclear safety problems at LANL," writes Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) in its latest newsletter. LANL, of course, is the Los Alamos National Laoratory, one of the United States' two nuclear weapons-design laboratories. The CMRR, about which I've often written about in conjunction with LASG's attempts to retard its progress, is the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility, intended to expand production of plutonium pits (where the chain reaction occurs in a nuclear weapons).
In a cruel joke at a time of supposed disarmament, the CMRR promises to be the most expensive construction project in the history of Los Alamos. As for those safety problems, Mello writes, "LANL harbors many buildings which do not meet even the optimistic seismic hazard assessment of 1995."
In a press release, the LANL admits as much, announcing
. . . that it has self-reported to the National Nuclear Security Administration a new preliminary analysis of structural load capacities at [PF-4 plutonium processing facility]. That analysis, which incorporated new geological data and sophisticated computer modeling, showed that a large earthquake that might occur in north-central New Mexico every 2,500 years could cause significant damage to some parts of the facility.
In response, LANL's associate director for nuclear and high hazard operations, Bob McQuinn said, "While the latest calculations revealed some new areas to improve, we will quickly incorporate those into our ongoing facility improvement activities."
But Greg Mello says:
On 3/25/11 I spoke with a senior NNSA official in DC who offered the opinion that PF-4 would "never" meet modern seismic and safety requirements. It is not clear to me that any large-scale plutonium processing facility can be built at LANL, for any reasonable price, which does meet those standards.
Hey, look at the bright side. At least there's no danger that Los Alamos, on a plateau in the middle of desert country, will be overcome by a tsunami. | <urn:uuid:145d2b96-14f0-441b-8589-aa6b12d36e7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fpif.org/blog/new_los_alamos_nuclear_project_distracts_from_existing_safety_read_earthquake_issues?q=Tag%3AMagnitsky+Act | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938797 | 462 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Members of the Teamwork and Social Cognition Laboratory conduct research on teamwork from the perspective of social cognition. Student researchers, both graduate students and undergraduates, are integral to this process.
We investigate how emergent cognitive properties develop in work teams across time. We therefore conduct longitudinal experiments on team development and investigate ways to enhance the development of these emergent cognitive properties.
- Team mental models are the cognitive representations (conceptualizations/ schemas) of teamwork processes that are shared among team members. They include mental models of team roles, tasks, communication patterns, tools, norms, etc. Research shows that team members having shared mental models (SMMs) increases team performance; we therefore investigate how SMMs develop, as well ways to facilitate their development.
- Transactive memory in a team has also been shown to increase team performance. Transactive memory refers to “who know what” on a team. A transactive memory system (TMS) is this knowledge of team member expertise distributed across the team members.
- Entitativity refers to the extent to which team members consider their team to be a unified entity. Perceptions of entitativity in a team impact team members’ perceived team efficacy.
- Group identification is the extent to which team members perceive team goals to be their own goals and conceived of their team as an important part of their self-concept. Team members with higher levels of team identification typically are more loyal to the group and persistent with respect to team tasks.
- Situation awareness (SA) refers to the ability of team members to “see the big picture” and understand the needs of the team as a whole and members as individuals. Team members with situation awareness are better able to coordinate their activities with those of other team members. | <urn:uuid:05d8f100-d6b7-4b11-9455-8c5fb2f02b17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uah.edu/la/departments/psychology/research/labs/81-main/liberal-arts/psychology/1963-social-cognition-and-teamwork | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96012 | 361 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Whooping cough cases increase in N.D.A recent surge in cases of whooping cough has state and local health officials reminding people to protect themselves and others with vaccination. As of Friday, 90 cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, had been reported in North Dakota so far this year — up from the 70 cases reported during the entirety of 2011.
By: Kari Lucin, The Jamestown Sun
A recent surge in cases of whooping cough has state and local health officials reminding people to protect themselves and others with vaccination.
As of Friday, 90 cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, had been reported in North Dakota so far this year — up from the 70 cases reported during the entirety of 2011.
Only one case has been reported in Stutsman County so far, and three in Barnes County.
“Pertussis is a cyclical illness, so … about every five years, you see an up-rise, and you see more cases of pertussis,” said Abbi Pierce, immunization surveillance coordinator with the North Dakota Department of Health.
The numbers are worse in Minnesota, with 1,881 cases reported so far — nearly three times the 661 cases reported throughout 2011.
Whooping cough is a contagious disease caused by bacteria, according to information from the North Dakota Department of Health, and it is particularly serious in young infants.
Its symptoms begin much like a cold or flu, with runny nose, sneezing, mild fever and a cough that worsens over time.
During the second stage of pertussis, victims experience uncontrolled coughing spells and often, a characteristic “whoop” noise that occurs as the person tries to suck in air. Coughing spells can be so bad they cause the sufferer to gag, vomit or turn blue from lack of air. Infants might suffer from apnea — failure to breathe — or develop a blue tint.
That can last six weeks or even more, and the final stage, when symptoms gradually improve, can also last weeks or even months.
Because of its similarity to colds and influenza, whooping cough is often misdiagnosed, Pierce said.
And not everyone who has whooping cough makes the “whoop” noise.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 to 50 million cases of pertussis occur worldwide each year, with about 300,000 deaths.
“Everyone is at risk for pertussis, but infants and unvaccinated children are at the highest risk for developing severe complications from pertussis,” the North Dakota Department of Health information sheet says.
More than half of infants younger than 1 year old who get whooping cough are hospitalized, according to the CDC.
It is important for parents to have their children follow the vaccination schedule, said Robin Iszler, unit administrator with Central Valley Health District.
That includes pertussis vaccinations at 2, 4 and 6 months, as well as another booster between 18 and 24 months and a booster between age 4 and 6, prior to entering school. Children entering middle school also receive a booster shot that includes a pertussis vaccine.
It is also recommended that adults receive a Tdap booster — protecting against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis — once in place of the Td boosters recommended every 10 years, said Marcia Bollingberg, director of nursing at Central Valley Health District.
“The recommendations are for adults to be vaccinated, especially if you’re a caregiver of an infant child,” Iszler said. People age 65 and older should also be sure to get a Tdap booster.
Central Valley offers vaccines from 4 to 6 p.m. every Wednesday through August. Local clinics also offer the vaccine.
“Anybody can come,” Bollingberg said. “For all children up to age 18, we do have (the vaccine). For adults, they may have to pay for it privately.”
No children are denied immunizations due to inability to pay, Iszler said.
For an uninsured adult, the cost for a Tdap booster would be $55 at Central Valley, but vaccines are typically covered by insurance.
Vaccines are critical in the efforts to stem the tide of whooping cough, but they aren’t the only precaution people can take. They can also practice positive health habits, such as hand-washing and staying home when sick.
“Kids shouldn’t have to be subjected to (pertussis),” Iszler said.
Sun reporter Kari Lucin
can be reached at
701-952-8453 or by email at | <urn:uuid:8b448568-b528-457e-9b94-a8d975300bb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/166102/publisher_ID/10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953444 | 987 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Energy drinks are supposed to do just what the name implies -- give you an extra burst of energy. As it turns out, most of that "energy" comes from two main ingredients: sugar and caffeine. A typical energy drink can contain up to 80 milligrams of caffeine (about the same amount as a cup of coffee). By comparison, a 2006 study found that the average 12-ounce soda contains 18 to 48 mg of caffeine.
Other than caffeine levels, how do energy drinks differ from sodas and sports drinks? Soft drinks are mainly water, sugar and flavoring. They don't do anything for your body; they're just supposed to taste good. Sports drinks are designed to replenish fluids lost during activity. They typically contain water, electrolytes and sugar. Energy drinks have added caffeine and other ingredients that their manufacturers say increase stamina and "boost" performance. They're designed for students, athletes and anyone else who wants an extra energy kick.
Energy drinks became popular in Asia long before they reached the United States. In 1962, Japanese pharmaceutical company, Taisho, released its Lipovitan D drink. It was designed to help employees work hard well into the night. Lipovitan D contains taurine, the same ingredient found in many of today's energy drinks.
The very first "
energy" drink to reach the United States wasn't really an energy drink at all -- it was more of a hyped-up soft drink called Jolt Cola. The "jolt" in the cola was a lot of added sugar and caffeine. Introduced in the 1980s, Jolt Cola quickly became a staple of college campuses.
An Austrian businessman named Dietrich Mateschitz picked up on the cash potential of energy drinks while on a business trip to Asia. Along with two Thai business partners, Mateschitz started the company Red Bull GmbH, with the idea of marketing the drink to young Europeans. Many clubs on the American West Coast caught wind of the Red Bull phenomenon and began importing it to sell as a cocktail mixer.
Red Bull began distributing its drink in the United States in 1997. According to its manufacturer, revenues doubled each year, reaching more than $1 billion in 2000. Although Red Bull has consistently been the leader in the energy drink market, several other companies have launched their own energy drink lines. Many of them are endorsed by celebrities.
Here are some of the ingredients you may find in popular energy drinks and what they do in the body:
- Ephedrine - A stimulant that works on the central nervous system. It is a common ingredient in weight-loss products and decongestants, but there have been concerns about its effects on the heart.
- Taurine - A natural amino acid produced by the body that helps regulate heart beat and muscle contractions. Many health experts aren't sure what effect it has as a drink additive (and the rumor that taurine comes from bull testicles is false).
- Ginseng - A root believed by some to have several medicinal properties, including reducing stress and boosting energy levels.
- B-vitamins - A group of vitamins that can convert sugar to energy and improve muscle tone.
- Guarana seed - A stimulant that comes from a small shrub native to Venezuela and Brazil.
- Carnitine - An amino acid that plays a role in fatty acid metabolism.
- Creatine - An organic acid that helps supply energy for muscle contractions.
- Inositol - A member of the vitamin B complex (not a vitamin itself, because the human body can synthesize it) that helps relay messages within cells in the body.
- Ginkgo biloba - Made from the seeds of the ginkgo biloba tree, thought to enhance memory.
Looking at the ingredients, energy drinks appear to be part soft drink and part nutritional supplement. According to reviewers, the taste falls within the same range. People who have tried energy drinks have described the taste as ranging from "medicinal" to "molten Sweet Tart."
Although the manufacturers claim that energy drinks can improve your endurance and performance, many health experts disagree. Any boost you get from drinking them, they say, is solely from the sugar and caffeine.
Caffeine works by blocking the effects of adenosine, a brain chemical involved in sleep. When caffeine blocks adenosine, it causes neurons in the brain to fire. Thinking the body is in an emergency, the pituitary gland initiates the body's "fight or flight" response by releasing adrenaline. This hormone makes the heart beat faster and the eyes dilate. It also causes the liver to release extra sugar into the bloodstream for energy. Caffeine affects the levels of dopamine, a chemical in the brain's pleasure center. All of these physical responses make you feel as though you have more energy.
Energy drinks are generally safe, but like most things, you should drink them in moderation. Because caffeine is a stimulant -- consuming a lot of it can lead to heart palpitations, anxiety and insomnia -- it also can make you feel jittery and irritable. Over time, caffeine can become addictive. It is also a diuretic -- it causes the kidneys to remove extra fluid into the urine. That leaves less fluid in the body. so drinking an energy drink while you're exercising can be particularly dangerous. The combination of the diuretic effect and sweating can severely dehydrate you.
Many people mix energy drinks with vodka or other alcohol to make a high-energy cocktail. Since alcohol is a depressant, it has a tranquilizing effect on the body that can make you unaware of how much you're drinking. One study found that men who combined energy drinks with alcohol felt alert and sober, even though they were actually drunk. And since both alcohol and energy drinks dehydrate you, when combined they can cause your body's fluids to drop to dangerous levels. In 1991, two people in Sweden who drank alcohol with an energy drink reportedly died of dehydration, although it was never conclusively proved that the energy drink led to their deaths.
Other ingredients can also be problematic. For example, the stimulant ephedrine, an ingredient in many decongestants, can cause heart problems. In 2001, two California high school students fainted after ingesting energy drinks containing ephedrine. Because very little research has been done on the long-term health effects of consuming excess amounts of taurine and other ingredients in energy drinks, many health experts advise pregnant women and young children to avoid them. | <urn:uuid:4e20d10a-c0da-4173-a63c-163245c504a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/energy-drink.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955369 | 1,345 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Tue, 31 Jul 2012 07:45:44 CDT
Shenandoah National Park, Va . - American eels are declining across their range but are showing indications of a population revival following the removal of a large dam in Virginia. The removal of Embrey Dam on the Rappahannock River increased American eel numbers in headwater streams nearly 100 miles away, according to research just published by U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service researchers. American eels undergo long-distance migrations from their ocean spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea to freshwater streams along the Atlantic coast from northern South America to Greenland. Dams may slow or even stop upstream eel migrations. However, prior to this research, little was known about American eel responses to dam removal. The new study evaluated eel abundances in Shenandoah National Park streams before and after the removal of the large dam in 2004. The researchers found significant increases in eel numbers beginning 2 years after dam removal and continued increases nearly every year since. The rebounding eel populations in Shenandoah National Park present a stark contrast to decreasing numbers elsewhere throughout their range. "Our study shows that the benefits of dam removal can extend far upstream," said Dr. Nathaniel Hitt, a USGS biologist and lead author of the study. "American eels have been in decline for decades and so we're delighted to see them begin to return in abundance to their native streams." The American eel is currently being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Migration barriers such as dams have been recognized as a contributing cause to range-wide decreases over the last 50 years. The authors hypothesize that dam removal could have long-term benefits for eel conservation by increasing the reproductive success of females, which are typically found in headwater streams. "This research shows the direct benefits of dam removal for American eel populations and demonstrates the importance of continued stream restoration work for east coast rivers," said Sheila Eyler, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and co-author of the study. American eel recovery in Shenandoah National Park also represents an important achievement for management of Park resources. Additional fish population surveys from Shenandoah National Park in 2012 provide further support for the findings of the study. "Eel populations in the Park continue to show recovery," said Jeb Wofford, a biologist at Shenandoah National Park and co-author of the study. "This research highlights the fact that ecosystems in the Park extend far outside Park boundaries and that downstream conservation can have important upstream benefits." Embrey Dam was built in 1910 on the Rappahannock River near the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The dam measured 22 feet high by nearly 800 feet wide. Until the 1960s, the dam provided hydroelectric power for Fredericksburg. Recognizing the hazards presented by the dam and the potential for fish restoration, a coalition of state, federal, and non-governmental partners coordinated the removal of the dam in 2004. "This study demonstrates that multiple benefits can be realized by removing obsolete dams such as Embrey," said Alan Weaver, fish passage coordinator for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "Shad, herring and striped bass are also using reopened habitat on the Rappahannock River, so it's exciting to see a growing number of species benefitting from dam removal in Virginia." The USGS, working with partners across the country, has been studying how dam decommissioning affects the physical and biological condition of streams and rivers. USGS's multi-disciplinary science helps decision makers answer fundamental questions about the effects of dams and whether restoration targets are being achieved with dam removal. Study citation: N.P. Hitt, Eyler, S., and J.E.B. Wofford. 2012. Dam removal increases American eel abundance in distant headwater streams. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 141:1171-1179. A digital copy of the study is available from firstname.lastname@example.org . About the American eel ( Anguilla rostrata ): The American eel is the only native species of freshwater eel found in North America. American eels begin their lives in the warm waters of the Sargasso Sea and return there at the end of their life cycle to spawn. People have fished and farmed eels for thousands of years. American eels have been greatly reduced in portions of their freshwater habitats over the last 100 years. Eels can absorb oxygen through their skin and gills allowing them to travel overland for short distances. Additional information on Dr. Hitt's research.
Read full article at: usgs.gov | <urn:uuid:4854a222-c5b6-4755-8ec0-568ad79f2b19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energydigger.com/articles/2012-07-31/american-eels-return-to-mountain-streams-after-dam-removal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945193 | 980 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Q. Sometimes there is just not enough cash for everything the business needs. Can I delay paying my workers?
A. "Everything the business needs" could mean many things. Much money is needed to build a business, and credit is not always easy to obtain. Using suppliers and workers as a source of loans is definitely improper. Everyone understands (grudgingly) that if you don't have any money they are not going to get paid, but if you do have money you must pay your debts first. The Talmud declares that "Paying a creditor is a mitzvah [commandment]." (1)
In some cases workers or creditors are willing to extend credit in order to help ensure the continued thriving of their customer or employer, but this kind of arrangement should always be made through fair negotiation.
Beyond the general commandment to pay debts on time, the Torah places a special emphasis on paying workers on time. In the book of Leviticus (19:13) we read: "Do not [unjustly] withhold that which is due your neighbor. Do not let a worker's wages remain with you overnight until morning." This commandment applies specifically to wages of a worker.
Again in the book of Deuteronomy (24:14-15), we find:
Do not withhold the wages due to your poor or destitute hired hand, whether he is one of your brethren or a proselyte living in a settlement in your land. You must give him his wage on the day it is due, and not let the sun set with him waiting for it. Since he is a poor man, and his life depends on it, do not let him call out to God, causing you to have a sin.
First the Torah prohibits withholding wages altogether. Even though stealing has already been forbidden, there is a need to add a specific prohibition regarding wages because of the extra severity. The Torah further prohibits even delaying the payment. It also gives the reason: "His life depends on it". A more literal translation is "he bears his soul on it." This could mean that his soul, that is, his life depends on it -- he needs it for sustenance. Another understanding, the one mentioned in Rashi's commentary, is that he risks his life for it if the job is dangerous. Perhaps the plain meaning of the words is best captured by the commentary of Chizkuni, who explains that the worker is longing for his pay.
While most parties to a transaction take a more or less businesslike approach to their cash flow, the worker is an exception. He put his heart and soul into the work, all in expectation of getting his wage on time. His disappointment is far greater than that of the average creditor.
Another question is how you got into this situation. Any debtor is forbidden to take a loan and spend the money wastefully or recklessly in a way which endangers his ability to repay. (2) But regarding a worker, there is a special additional requirement to plan cash flow to avoid problems. The Sefer HaChinukh (588), a commentary on the commandments, writes:
The Scriptures didn't obligate him unless he has the money or is able to pay, but if he is unable to pay without suffering a large loss the Scripture did NOT obligate him. Even so, any thinking person should make sure he will have the money at hand before he hires workers.
The bottom line is as follows: All creditors should be paid promptly when possible, and it is wrong to turn suppliers or employees into lenders without their informed consent. Likewise, if there is no money then obviously everyone can't be paid. But there are still several advantages a worker has over other creditors. The Torah has a specific commandment to pay them on time, and a prohibition to delay; there is a greater requirement to worry in advance that the money will be available; and the Torah reminds us of the pain and disappointment caused by delayed pay, so that our sense of empathy should also spur us to find all means to pay workers promptly.
SOURCES: (1) Babylonian Talmud Ketubot 86a (2) Shulchan Arukh Choshen Mishpat 97d.
Torah translations are from "The Living Torah". | <urn:uuid:d6406940-9be6-4100-a239-7ca1949a848c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aish.com/ci/be/96546549.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974961 | 877 | 2 | 2 |
Situated in the Pacific Ocean some 1,000 km from the South American continent, these 19 islands and the surrounding marine reserve have been called a unique ‘living museum and showcase of evolution’. Located at the confluence of three ocean currents, the Galápagos are a ‘melting pot’ of marine species. Ongoing seismic and volcanic activity reflects the processes that formed the islands. These processes, together with the extreme isolation of the islands, led to the development of unusual animal life – such as the land iguana, the giant tortoise and the many types of finch – that inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection following his visit in 1835.
RESTRICTED. For inquiries about how to get authorization to reuse this material or to obtain a disk copy of it, please contact the publisher or the author directly. For further information refer to our FAQs 6 to 9 | <urn:uuid:57a10cae-4c34-45ac-891b-5d93a3319a85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unesco.org/archives/multimedia/index.php?s=films_details&id_page=33&id=871 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931723 | 189 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Today's news brings us the story of a company trying to build a marketplace for second-hand sales of digital games. There are all sorts of technical challenges regarding tracking those digital games (like the invasive system-scanning software they propose) and issues with disentangling specific games from accounts (see: Steam). But I think these are small issues compared to the fundamental issue of re-selling "goods."
Just what are "goods" anyways? When I think of second-hand sales of books, I think of the value of trading the physical object rather than the content. A specific edition, for example, is valuable for being a rare physical object and is owned for being a thing, not for being read. The reason collectors buy more than one copy of a book isn't to re-read it, but to collect those editions. If someone simply wants to read a book, they don't spend gobs of cash on an exclusive and rare original.
In contrast, when I think of games, I think of the act of reading a book. It doesn't matter where you get that book: from a store, from a library, from a friend. You may not even keep the book after you read it, but you still want to read it, to experience it.
When most people pay for games, they're paying for the experience, not the object. This is especially so with digital games.
Arguably, when games were delivered on physical media there was a similar value to second-hand sales as there was for books: games would go out of print, the disks or boxes or manuals would become valuable for themselves. But digital games don't share this property. In theory, they never go out of print, continually available from digital distribution stores. There is no need for a second-hand market for collectors.
The only reason people would want to buy a second-hand digitally distributed game is to pay less. At that point, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to pirate the game rather than buy it second-hand. Furthermore, in either case, the developer is getting no money. Why should it be any more legal for a second-hand seller to get your money than no one at all?
Economics of Game Markets
The real source of the problem is price inflexibility in the current digital marketplace. In economics terms, a games company has a monopoly: they alone can sell their game, thus they alone set the price of the game. while it could be argued that similar games are in competition with one another and are substitute goods, most gamers recognize that the differences between games make them non-interchangeable.
This puts games in "weak" competition with each other. Buying one game does not obviate the desire to buy another. A gamer may go into a game store and buy multiple similar games. The price of a game is usually a secondary concern when buying a game and often does not greatly impact the choice between games (eg: people probably don't turn away from Diablo 3 in favour of Torchlight 2, despite the significant price difference).
In other words, the price people are willing to pay for your game is rarely influenced by the price of its competitors, but rather their quality. So, to continue the example, people are willing to pay less for Torchlight 2 not because of Diablo 3's price, but because of Diablo 3's quality.
[note: I use the term "quality" here very broadly to encompass everything from aesthetics to brand recognition]
This means each game's price is weakly linked to the price of other games. This is why we see so many different games today at so many different prices, from "AAA" games ranging from $40 to $80 down to 99cent titles or free to play games.
But it wasn't always that way. Wide price ranges are bad for sellers because they're inconsistent. And consistency builds complacency: when people see the same price everywhere on everything, they stop thinking about the price and just pay it. This is one of the reasons for price fixing in markets and why the $60 blockbuster reigned for so long: if everyone plays along and sells their game at the same price, all the consumers will internalize that price as the "normal" price to pay.
Death of the Blockbuster
Of course, the $60 blockbuster wouldn’t work in every market. Some markets would pay less, some more, and to maximize profits in each market you’ll want a different price in each. This leads to price discrimination: trying to find the best price to sell in each market. Of course, then people try to circumvent price discrimination by importing goods between regional markets, leading to all sorts of lawsuits.
The other problem with price discrimination is that it leads to deadweight loss. Deadweight loss is the loss of money from crude discrimination. If you over-generalize a market, you undercharge people who might be willing to pay more and completely lose out on people only willing to pay less. The opposite ideal is unit-discrimination: charge each and every customer a different price in the hopes of maximizing that price for that customer.
Unit-discrimination is the principle behind negotiating, bargaining, and haggling: the idea that each transaction was unique and based on the conditions of that transaction. It’s a practice that’s been lost in modern economies of scale, but one that’s potentially revivable with intelligent computing.
Steam has gone a long way to combating price inflexibility with regular sales and deals. But take it a step further: imagine if Steam introduced a negotiation system, where users can state how much they'd pay for a game and a window in which they'd be willing to pay that price. Publishers can either accept or refuse the offer, or make a counter-offer. This would, in a sense, restore the negotiating power to both consumers and publishers.
Second-hand sales are another way to restore consumer negotiating power: if you have an inflexible initial purchase price but a flexible re-sale price, you can navigate the difference as an ultimate cost for the good. It makes a lot of sense that, in the absence of flexible prices from publishers, people would seek alternative means of regaining that negotiation space. The problem here is that publishers are losing out on any of the revenue from secondary sales. Which makes the fact that they’re not engaging in unit-price-discrimination all the more confusing. Who would buy a secondhand game when they could buy a brand new one for less?
Digital Marketplace Confusion
All this could only reasonably happen in the digital marketplace, where marginal costs are zero. Broad price discrimination and secondhand sales make sense in physical markets, where you’re limited by estimates for the production of goods and the grace of storefronts that will shelve those goods.
The simple fact is that traditional publishers just don’t seem to understand the nuances of a non-traditional supply market.
That they still spend money fighting piracy instead of selling games to pirates is a major indicator of this ignorance.
No one likes being told "my way or the highway." No one likes having their voice taken away. What piracy and secondhand sales both have in common is that they are ways gamers have to retaking their voice, of reasserting their worth and their power.
Of course, there are no real examples to point to in terms of massive economic success stories with empowered customers, aside from the limited successes of "pay what you want" bundles. Successful, to be sure, but not in the market ranges the big publishers normally deal with. Off by two or three orders of magnitude.
Maybe companies just have to try something new. Change the digital marketplace around to a different model. Instead of selling games, sell "admit one" tickets to play a game as much as you want. Instead of fixed prices, negotiate with customers (or, rather, build computer systems that negotiate for you). The company that does so will eliminate deadweight loss, secondhand sales, and piracy, all in one masterful stroke. | <urn:uuid:39fe707b-4f10-4c33-ba1b-2b1e4540bff0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gamasutra.com/blogs/SimonLudgate/20121031/90913/Secondhand_Deadweight_Pirates.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967135 | 1,667 | 1.75 | 2 |
I have just installed and configured Apache, MySQL, PHP and phpMyAdmin on my Macbook in order to have a local development environment. But after I moved one of my projects over to the local server I get a weird MySQL error from one of my calls to mysql_query():
Access denied for user '_securityagent'@'localhost' (using password: NO)
First of all, the query I'm sending to MySQL is all valid, and I've even testet it through phpMyAdmin with perfect result. Secondly, the error message only happens here while I have at least 4 other mysql connections and queries per page. This call to mysql_query() happens at the end of a really long function that handles data for newly created or modified articles. This basically what it does:
- Collect all the data from article form (title, content, dates, etc..)
- Validate collected data
- Connect to database
- Dynamically build SQL query based on validated article data
- Send query to database before closing the connection
Pretty basic, I know. I did not recognize the username "_securityagent" so after a quick search I came across this from an article at Apple's Developer Connection talking about some random bug:
Mac OS X's security infrastructure gets around this problem by running its GUI code as a special user, "_securityagent".
So as suggested by Frank in the comments I put a var_dump() on all variables used in the mysql_connect() call, and every time it returns the correct values (where username is not "_securityagent" of course). Thus I'm wondering if anyone has any idea why 'securityagent' is trying to connect to my database - and how I can keep this error from occurring when I call mysql_query(). | <urn:uuid:a62b827a-8a7e-4692-a25e-f0b39e9e7e2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://facebook.stackoverflow.com/questions/1203253/php-mysql-on-mac-os-x-access-denied-for-gui-user | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90078 | 365 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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The goal of our website is to educate the public on the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. As nanotech products become more and more popular worldwide, it is important that the consumer understands what they are buying. This is our purpose. By teaching people about nanotechnology, we believe that they will be able to make safer, smarter choices.
19 & under
Science & Technology > Technology | <urn:uuid:bb78f6d6-25bc-4147-ab13-46bf6983a3f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkquest.org/pls/html/f?p=52300:100:3748189505266792::::P100_TEAM_ID:501583935 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928513 | 107 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Bay Area Air Quality Management District - Geospatial Components Integration With Mobile Field App
- Bay Area Air Quality Management District
- Web Applications
- Property Review
- GIS/IT Integration
- Geodatabase Design
- GPS Field Data Collection
- Google Maps
- SQL Server
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (“BAAQMD”) is responsible for maintaining air quality standards within the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. BAAQMD maintains several applications, integrated with a single backend for managing all of its daily operations. These applications aid compliance of air standards and include permitting, engineering, and enforcement apps. BAAQMD needed to develop and integrate geospatial functionality into these applications as well as build and integrate a mobile application into their system to support inspectors in the field.
Selected Screenshots & Videos
Farallon developed and integrated geospatial functionality into several web applications for the District. Farallon built and integrated a map interface for the District’s customer facing permitting application that allows users to define their permitted facility’s location and associate it to a parcel. Farallon also built and integrated mapping interfaces into the District’s internal SharePoint portal, including an interface to assign inspectors to manage areas and facilities, an interface to flag schools nearby a permitted site for notification, an interface for viewing and assigning citizens’ air quality complaint locations, and a map interface for viewing all of the District’s geospatial data.
Farallon developed an Android-based mobile application and integrated it into the District’s production system to support coordination between inspectors in the field and managers in the District’s office. Inspectors using the application are able to accept or reject assigned work, as well as complete the work with an all-digital workflow. The application also transmits the locations and statuses of inspectors in real-time. Managers can track inspector location and status can via a complimentary web application. Inspector locations are also used to automatically assign them work that needs to be completed based on their location.
Farallon also assisted the District in loading various required spatial datasets into their production system SQL Server database and creating stored procedures in order to support their enterprise system. Farallon is providing ongoing application support, training and maintenance. | <urn:uuid:0a36508e-e570-4826-bee8-ed33a33c6c64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fargeo.com/case-studies/bay-area-air-quality-management-district-geospatial-components-integration/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914423 | 472 | 1.8125 | 2 |
is a grass
The Poaceae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of flowering plants. Members of this family are commonly called grasses, although the term "grass" is also applied to plants that are not in the Poaceae lineage, including the rushes and sedges...
native to eastern Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
throughout most of China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, and Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
It is a herbaceous
A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...
growing to 0.8–2 m (rarely 4 m) tall, forming dense clumps from an underground rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...
. The leaves
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are 18–75 cm tall and 0.3–2 cm broad. The flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s are purplish, held above the foliage.
It is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant
Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...
in temperate regions around the world.
It has become an invasive species
"Invasive species", or invasive exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions....
in parts of North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. However, it is possible to reduce the likelihood of escape or hybridization with extant wild M. sinensis
populations with breeding and proper management.
A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s have been selected, including Stricta
with narrow growth habit, Variegata
with white margins, and Zebrina
with horizontal yellow and green stripes across the leaves.
- Miscanthus sinensis 'Border Bandit'
- M. sinensis 'Dronning Ingrid'
- M. sinensis 'Gracillimus'
- M. sinensis 'Malepartus'
- M. sinensis 'Morning Light'
- M. sinensis 'Variegatus'
- M. sinensis 'Zebrinus'
is a candidate for bioenergy
Bioenergy is renewable energy made available from materials derived from biological sources. Biomass is any organic material which has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy. As a fuel it may include wood, wood waste, straw, manure, sugarcane, and many other byproducts from a variety of...
production in the United States due to its high yield, even in high stress environments, easy propagation, effective nutrient cycling, and high genetic variation. | <urn:uuid:b12bf283-f8ff-4151-8fbb-bad7808ab2ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Miscanthus_sinensis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938887 | 1,100 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Shell Acquitted of Most Nigeria Pollution Charges
The case involved five allegations of oil spills in Nigeria, four of which were quashed by the court
By Fiona Harvey
Shell was acquitted in a Dutch court on Wednesday morning of most of the charges against it for pollution in Nigeria, where disputed oil spills have been a long-running source of contention between the oil company, local people and environmental campaigners.
Photo by Jenn Farr
The case involved five allegations of spills in Nigeria, and four of these were quashed by the court. On the fifth count, Shell was ordered to pay compensation, of an amount yet to be decided.
The case was brought in the Netherlands because of Shell's dual headquartership, being both Dutch and British, and was brought by four Nigerian farmers co-sponsored by the international green campaigning group Friends of the Earth.
In a statement, Friends of the Earth Netherlands said: "This verdict is great news for the people in lkot Ada Udo who started this case together with Milieudefensie [Friends of the Earth Netherlands]. But the verdict also offers hope to other victims of environmental pollution caused by multinationals. At the same time, the verdict is a bitter disappointment for the people in the villages of Oruma and Goi – where the court did not rule to hold Shell liable for the damage. Fortunately, this can still change in an appeal."
Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty International's Africa programme director, said: "Clearly it's good news that one of the plaintiffs in this case managed to clamber over all the obstacles to something approaching justice. However, the fact that the other plaintiffs' claims were dismissed underscores the very serious obstacles people from the Niger Delta face in accessing justice when their lives have been destroyed by oil pollution."
Shell's subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, said the main cause of oil spills in the country was from people taking oil for illegal refineries. Mutiu Sunmonu, managing director of SPDC said: "We welcome the court's ruling that all spill cases were caused by criminal activity. Oil pollution is a problem in Nigeria, affecting the daily lives of people in the Niger Delta. However, the vast majority of oil pollution is caused by oil thieves and illegal refiners. This causes major environmental and economic damage, and is the real tragedy of the Niger Delta."
He added: "SPDC has made great efforts to raise awareness of the issue with the government of Nigeria, international bodies like the UN, the media and NGOs. We will continue to be at the forefront of discussions to find solutions. For SPDC no oil spill is acceptable and we are working hard to improve our performance on operational spills. In the past years we have seen a decline in operational spill volumes. These spills, however, were caused by sabotage and the court has, quite rightly, largely dismissed the claims."
The case turned on whether Shell was responsible for the spills, through negligence and a failure to invest in proper safety systems of the kind that are required in developed countries, as the campaigners alleged, or whether – as Shell argued – the spills were mainly the result of local people attempting to steal oil from pipelines.
It is understood that the court took the view that four of the spills were caused by sabotage, as people tried to extract oil for their own purposes. In the case of the fifth, the finding was that Shell had been negligent in failing to prevent such sabotage.
But the farmers and green campaigners are expected to appeal against the verdict to a higher court.
Shell is accused of widespread spills across the regions of Nigeria where it operates, but the allegations in question concerned incidents in Goi, Ogoniland, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom.
"There is an atmosphere of celebration here — the community feels that some justice has been done," said Ken Henshaw, a Niger Delta activist from campaign group Social Action which has closely followed the case. "A precedent has been set, it has been made known that Shell can be liable for damages and loss of livelihood."
"We didn't win all the cases, but we won one, and that one is a precedent," Henshaw added. "We are prepared to appeal the other ones. Shell tries to give the impression that the oil spills are caused by sabotage, but we are convinced that it was not sabotage. It is the result of equipment failure and neglect on the part of Shell."
"We are emboldened by this victory, we feel confident that we will definitely succeed on appeal. This is a major threshold, now that we have crossed it, we can bring more claims. The communities who have had their lives ruined by oil companies now feel galvanized to take action."
Plantiffs from Ikot Ada Udo, Akwa Ibom State, whose case was successful, said they were now looking forward to compensation for their loss of livelihood.
"We were successful today, and I am happy, I know that the judgment has been divinely directed," said Elder Friday Akpan, 55, from the Ikot Abasi area of Akwa ibom state, whose 47 catfish farms were destroyed following pollution from an oil spill, a claim which the court upheld as caused by a breach of Shell Nigeria's duty of care.
"The fishes died completely. I was confused because it left me completely empty," Akpan added. "I did not have some money to pay school fees for my twelve children, and nothing to allow me to earn my livelihood again. Debts I had borrowed I could not repay. There was nothing for me. I was finished."
One lawyer involved in the case said that it was right to see it as a victory.
"There are positives and negatives from this case," said Prince Chima Williams, head the legal affairs department at the Environmental Rights Action group. "It is positive in the sense that the court has found Shell liable for the environmental destruction in Akwa Ibom State. It is positive because it means that Nigerian citizens can now drag Shell to court in Holland for its actions and inactions in their communities."
"The negative aspect is that the court refused to agree with us Shell's negligence caused the other oil spills. Because we disagree with the court on that position, and that is why our first priority now is going to be to appeal the judgment," Williams added.
The case has cast a spotlight on the power which Shell wields in Nigeria, amidst allegations that the Nigerian authorities would not have enforced the judgment had the case been brought in local courts.
"Shell do not admit mistakes," said Akpan. They would not obey a judgment in a Nigerian court. When they know that the judgment is in Holland it's better."
"We considered all the options and the history of litigation in Nigeria before deciding to take the case to Holland," said Williams. "We could not have confidence in the judiciary in Nigeria because, coming from our experience, when the judiciary gives a judgment, the enforcement of that judgment by the executive becomes a problem."
"Shell is a very stubborn company, and in Nigeria, in some situations, it is more powerful than the Nigerian government," Williams added.
Activists believe that the case will have a longer-term effect on attitudes within communities affected by oil spills in Nigeria.
"In the long run a case like this will promote self-help among communities, because they know that if they know they can go to court in Holland, they can obtain a judgment that will be complied with, from which they can reap the benefits" said Williams.
The level of damages is yet to be determined. "In the case itself we didn't make specific demands for an amount, so the next step will be for the community to assist the court with an assessment of the actual loss that should be compensated," said Williams. | <urn:uuid:4f1861eb-ed6e-4ac7-8f68-df2b36b83196> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/shell_acquitted_of_nigeria_pollution_charges | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981361 | 1,597 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Who Pays For a Home InspectionA Home Inspection is the service a professional home inspector performs when he or she is hired to scrutinize the home for any possible structural defects. May also be done in order to check for the presence of toxic substances, such as leaded paint or water, asbestos, radon, or pests, including termites. Report When Buying A Home if the report is then used by a subsequent buyer and that buyer benefits from its use?
Q: As a short sale buyer, I paid for the well and septic inspections on a home. During the walk through, the seller casually disclosed the well water had potentially harmful contaminants (arsenic and sulfates).
When the seller disclosed the issue, I only had three days left on the contract’s ten day inspection period. After trying to arrange and obtain samples for arsenic and sulfate tests, we realized the test results would take longer than the inspection period and would significantly extend the closing date. As such, I backed out of the contract.
When the next buyers closed, they used the well and septic inspection reports that we paid for and refused to reimburse us. The listingA Listing is a property that a broker agrees to list for sale in return for a commission. agentAn Agent is an individual who acts on behalf of a consumer. A real estate agent represents a buyer or a seller in the purchase or sale of a home. Licensed by the state, a real estate agent must work for a broker or a brokerage firm. An insurance agent helps a consumer purchase an insurance policy. Insurance agents are also licensed by the state. informed us this happens a lot and the second buyers do not have to reimburse us for the inspections. Are the second buyers obligated to reimburse us for the inspections?
A: The short answer to your question is that the second buyers are not obligated to reimburse you for information or inspection reports that they happen to see or obtain through the real estateReal Estate is land and anything permanently attached to it, such as buildings and improvements. brokers or other parties.
Your question does raise a couple of interesting questions and issues that buyers may go through when buying a home. In many parts of the country real estate contracts may contain a provision allowing a buyer time to have a home professionally inspected. If the buyer performs that inspection and does not like what he sees, then the buyer is allowed to walk from the deal.
There are times that buyers forget or don’t know that certain inspections may take time and that time may cause them to go beyond the dates for the inspection in the contract. These other useful and necessary inspections may be for radon gas, water testing or lead in the soil or water of a home. If you’re buying a home, you may want to schedule these tests early in the process and make sure that you have ample time to obtain the results. You want as much knowledge about the condition of the home to make an informed decision about whether to proceed with the home purchase.
When you order inspections (that are outside the usual course of a home inspector going to the home and taking a look around), you need to know how long you need to wait before getting the inspection reports. Some tests and reports may take up to five or so days to get back.
You may have made a wise decision not moving forward on your deal on the basis of the information your seller told you about contaminants in the water for your home, but you probably should have been planning to test the well water for your prospective home earlier in the process. It’s not unusual for home buyers to test the source of their future water when that water comes from a well. In some parts of the country, sellers may be required to deliver copies of recent well water test reports (though it appears your seller may not have been required to deliver those test reports to you).
We’re not sure of the process you took in deciding to cancel the purchase of your home. But it appears that you may have ordered the water tests and canceled the deal before you received the test results. If that was the case and you ordered the test results, those test results should have gone to you. Then it would have been up to you to disclose those results to the seller or not.
If you did disclose the results to the seller, the seller would have had the report and could have delivered it to the buyer. It’s rather hard for you to protect the information you received once that information was given to the seller. However, if the information was ordered by you and delivered to your real estate agentA Real Estate Agent is an individual licensed by the state, who acts on behalf of the seller or buyer. For his or her services, the agent receives a commission, which is usually expressed as a percentage of the sales price of a home and is split with his or her real estate firm. A real estate agent must either be a real estate broker or work for one., your real estate agent ordinarily should not deliver information you may have ordered and give it to the sellers.
Finally, in many parts of the country, sellers are required to disclose known defects in a home. It would seem that the contaminants in the water may fall within that category if the levels are high enough and the seller disclosure form should have detailed that problem for you to see. If your state has a seller disclosure form and you received it, take a look and see if the water issue was disclosed. If it was disclosed, you were put on notice.
If the water issue wasn’t disclosed to you and should have been disclosed, your seller disclosure laws may provide that you may be entitled to some reimbursement for some of your costs from the seller. The laws of each state differ and you may have little recourse with your seller, but you may want to check it out or talk to a real estate attorneyA Real Estate Attorney is an attorney who specializes in the purchase and sale of real estate. further about your options.
However, given that the seller was selling you the home in a short sale, it’s unlikely that the seller has much money to even pay for the report you ordered even if he or she might otherwise be obligated to you for that cost.
Sometimes, you just have to move on and buy the home that is right for you even if circumstances might have benefited others that came after you. | <urn:uuid:122091d2-63bf-4e52-87cf-26782e556017> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkglink.com/2012/03/08/pays-home-inspection-report-buying-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973428 | 1,298 | 1.632813 | 2 |
“[T]hen the Lord God formed man of clay from the ground, and breathed into his face thebreath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). The process of iconography imitates the words of Sacred Scripture, and the initial stages are taken directly from Genesis. The craft is called “writing” as opposed to “painting” because while the artist relies on creativity, the writer relies more humbly on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is in many ways like the task of the theologian, but expressed visually.
Before the retreat, I had already come to appreciate the rich meaning of iconography in one of my graduate classes where I investigated the writings of St. John of Damascus, the Doctor of the Church who defended the veneration of sacred images against the iconoclasts. My wife and I each wrote an icon of Christ the Child, Emmanuel. Our Lord holds a scroll bearing the opening words of the Gospel of St. John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
At first the icon is a simple white board – like the cosmos before Creation, a blank slate. The first step is to etch onto the board the outline of the image, definitively making a mark as God did onto the cosmos. The bright white of the board also symbolizes the Lord’s first creation: Lux sit (Gen. 1:3). Following the etching, the iconographer applies red clay to what will be the halo. Once dried, he then breathes into the clay and immediately gilds it. The symbolism is powerful: as God created the form of man from lifeless clay, He then transfigured man by breathing life into him. The red clay is transformed into radiant gold. In this same way, each stroke of the iconographer’s brush resonates with theological meaning.
For me this experience fulfills what the, fathers of the Second Vatican Council ultimately envisioned for the laity: first, a thoughtful investigation of the patrimony of the Church that has come down to us through the ages; and second, a growing awareness of the profound unity shared by Catholic and Orthodox believers through common expressions of our faith – in a sense, an authentic ecumenism.
Catholic Studies graduate student Michael Adkins and his wife, Cynthia, attended a retreat hosted by the Prosopon School of Iconography at the Abbey of St. Walburga in Virginia Dale, Colo. The retreat consisted of six days of theological study and reflectionas well as the creation of an authentic icon in the Russian Orthodox style. | <urn:uuid:6e9ae24b-174c-432d-9184-9782b261d639> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stthomas.edu/news/2009/05/15/windows-into-the-divine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956289 | 547 | 2.5625 | 3 |
STEPS Symposium 2013: Credibility across cultures - expertise, uncertainty and the global politics of scientific advice
University of Sussex Conference Centre
Professor Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission is giving a free, public lecture on 6 February as part of the IDS-based STEPS Centre’s annual Symposium.
During her lecture, entitled 'What is the right balance between respecting evidence and living in the real world?', Professor Glover will talk about the politics of scientific advice just over a year after she was appointed as the European Commission’s first ever Chief Scientific Advisor.
The address is the keynote event of the Symposium, whose theme is ‘Credibility Across Cultures: expertise, uncertainty and the global politics of scientific advice’. Professor Glover’s lecture is free to attend, begins at 17.45 in the Jubilee Lecture Theatre on the University of Sussex campus, and will be followed by a drinks reception.
Scientific advice has never been in greater demand; nor has it been more contested. From climate change to cyber-security, poverty to pandemics, food technologies to fracking, the questions being asked of experts by policy makers, the media and the public continue to multiply.
At the same time, in the wake of the global financial crisis and controversies such as ‘Climategate’, the authority and legitimacy of experts is under greater scrutiny. And the explosion of social media opens up new channels for debate, enabling, and at times forcing, experts to engage directly with more diverse audiences.
Worldwide, we see novel structures for scientific advice being put in place: both through new institutions like the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES); and the appointment of a UK-style ‘chief scientific adviser’ at the European Commission.
These issues were also magnified in the run-up to the Rio+20 Earth Summit and in debates over what should succeed the Millennium Development Goals. Following Rio+20 in June 2012, there has also been a renewed push to ensure that the latest research and evidence informs international policy discussions, with new initiatives such as Future Earth and the UNESCO science advisory board.
Tackling the sustainability and development challenges of the 21st century will undoubtedly require the 'best available' scientific advice: to measure progress; to predict impacts; to identify solutions; and to evaluate options and pathways for decision-making. But what is 'best advice' – and how might this idea need to be re-thought – amidst the inherent complexities, uncertainties and contestations of knowledge and value that pervade so many of today’s challenges?
Many questions persist about how to build and maintain robust, open and accountable processes of expert advice that can operate effectively across disciplines, sectors, social contexts and national boundaries. This critical task – of maintaining credibility across cultures – will be the focus of the 2013 STEPS Centre Annual Symposium.
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Anemia Related to the Immune System in Dogs
In acute cases, IMHA can be life-threatening condition requiring emergency treatment. In such cases your dog will be hospitalized. The primary treatment concern will be to stop the destruction of further RBCs and stabilize the patient. Blood transfusions may be required in cases where extensive bleeding or profound anemia is present. Fluid therapy is used to correct and maintain the body's fluid levels. In those cases that do not respond to medical treatment, your veterinarian may decide to remove the spleen to protect your dog from further complications. Your dog's progress will be monitored and emergency treatment continued until it is completely out of danger.
Living and Management
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Extreme loss of blood
A condition in which the skin becomes yellow in color as do the mucous membranes; this is due to excess amounts of bilirubin.
An in-depth examination of the properties of urine; used to determine the presence or absence of illness
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By Trevor Timpson
Work is under way to recreate Lord Grenville's house and park
For the prime minister who piloted the law abolishing the slave trade, creating the Dropmore estate was a lifelong labour of love. It came close to destruction in recent years, but is now being recreated.
North of Burnham in Buckinghamshire, the crowded M4 corridor gives way quickly to rolling wooded hills, barn conversions and "Keep Hunting" posters.
Hidden from the roads, craftsmen work to recreate a remarkable house, in the middle of a still more remarkable park.
Lord Grenville - the prime minister who pushed through the law abolishing the slave trade - bought the core of the Buckinghamshire estate in 1792 when it was occupied by a labourer's cottage.
He knew the spot from rambles during his time at Eton, and prized its distant views of his old school and of Windsor castle. On his first day in occupation, he planted two cedar trees.
In his old age he was pushed around the gardens in a wheelchair, and was read to in his library as his eyesight failed. And here he died.
The house he had built by architects Samuel Wyatt and Charles Tatham - and the grounds with their extraordinary garden buildings and matchless collection of conifers - were for Grenville a refuge from politics.
He praised it as "deep sheltered from the world's tempestuous strife" - but here also some of the meetings were held by which politics were conducted in the age of powdered wigs and great men's shifting alliances.
Rebuilding involves combining the new brickwork with what survived
Here he kept his books. "All the rooms along the south front, the gallery, the anteroom, even the drawing room were all lined with books. It was an extremely important book collection," says council conservation officer John Brushe.
Since Grenville's death the house has had a variety of occupants - including the Army, a newspaper magnate, an American university and an Arab ambassador. In 1972 it appeared in a Doctor Who adventure called Day of the Daleks.
But in 1990, one of the two wings of Wyatt's original design was gutted and had to be demolished. Another fire in 1997 destroyed much of the rest.
Grenville's house and park were left ruined, prey to vandals, thieves, vegetation, muntjac deer and rabbits.
Mary Trevallion, who lives opposite the gates to the site, tells of encounters with people entering Dropmore and making off with stone, ironwork and fittings.
"We spiked the back of the gates so that you couldn't open them - but we did that because otherwise it was open house," she says.
The ways through the pinetum are blocked by undergrowth; the garden aviary and Greek temples built of trellis are shabby and neglected.
Now, the house and surrounding buildings have been acquired by property company Corporate Estates and are being reconstructed as luxury dwellings, under the severe conditions that apply to a Grade I listed building.
A conservation plan is also being developed to restore the gardens and grounds.
Much of Dropmore's south front must be rebuilt from scratch
By the time Grenville died in 1834, his pinetum contained the biggest collection of conifer species in Britain - the plan is to use what survives as the basis for a collection of some 200 species.
The plan, extending 15 years and more into the future, also includes restoration of the formal flower beds, Italian garden, woodlands, lawns, vistas, roads, bridges and gates.
A key element is "the renovation of garden structures such as pavilions, a stunning Chinese aviary, the massive framework of trelliswork and pergolas," says Lionel Fanshawe of landscape architects Terra Firma.
Within the house, rebuilding has brought a series of discoveries, says George Kalopedis, architect on the Dropmore project.
With the help of council conservation officer John Brushe, "we've been able to find drawings of the original layout - when we stripped out the more recent alterations we found the original footings. We're able to now rebuild the original rooms as Lord Grenville intended".
Restoring Dropmore's garden buildings will be a key element
One example was Grenville's study - an octagonal double-height room that had disappeared in the later conversions.
During the rebuilding, the foundations of this room were found - now it will be reconstructed as part of the Grenville Suite, one of the most prestigious apartments.
Mr Brushe keeps a benevolent but strict eye on the rebuilding work, with the authority the Grade I listed status gives him.
He hunts for breeze blocks where reconstruction should be in bricks like those of the original, orders windows removed from the roof when they are in the wrong place, and seeks out pictures of rooms in existing houses similar to those Grenville had.
Of Dropmore, he says "It's one of the most important buildings in south Bucks, and I very much love it too. I want it to be a project that everyone is going to feel proud of."
Mr Kalopedis adds: "It's very, very rewarding for the entire consultant team and the directors of Corporate Estates. It's not just a job; it's more than that."
William Wilberforce wrote to Grenville that success over abolition was mainly due to "yourself, and the tone you have taken and the exertions you have made".
For his memorial, on the anniversary of abolition, Grenville would undoubtedly have chosen Dropmore. | <urn:uuid:3b80e05c-6d9e-4786-8013-7801bcd37f21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6433573.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977209 | 1,156 | 2.34375 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama this week ordered his much-publicized Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group back to work. He created it last April to get to the bottom of soaring gasoline and oil prices.
His own administration claims, however, that the panel never stopped working, which makes the White House announcement that he's ordering it back into action somewhat curious. It comes at a time of growing political pressure on Obama to curb financial speculation in energy markets, which many analysts blame for accelerating the recent oil and gasoline price spike.
During his first press conference of 2012, Obama on Tuesday fended off questions about whether he shared blame in the steep and worrisome climb in gasoline prices. He rattled off a number of accomplishments in domestic production, blamed much of the price rise on mounting tensions with Iran, then added that he was making sure Attorney General Eric Holder was "paying attention" to speculation in the oil markets.
"I've asked him to reconstitute a task force that's examining that," Obama said.
Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, repeated the assertion during his daily press briefing on Thursday, noting that the president "has asked the attorney general to reconstitute that working group for the same reason, which is, he wants the Justice Department to make sure that there are no cases of fraud taking place when it comes to the rising price of gasoline."
A growing number of former regulators, lawmakers and financial analysts blame excessive speculation for driving up energy prices. They aren't alleging fraud, however. What the speculators are doing is perfectly legal.
The problem is that financial speculators now make up 65 percent or more of the purchasers of contracts for the future delivery of oil. Historically speculators controlled only about 30 percent of such contracts. They're making big profits and driving up oil prices by bidding up contract prices, riding the market's "fear premium" about possible Persian Gulf violence over Iran and inflating it.
Analysts from Wall Street, Washington lawmakers and consumer groups are calling for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to impose limits on how many such contracts any purchaser can buy in order to curb speculation, but financial lobbies have tied up the CFTC's effort in federal court. Obama has never mentioned any need for the CFTC to act, to the growing frustration of many Democrats in Congress.
Pressed by McClatchy for details on how an active working group would be reconstituted, Carney said simply that rising prices are a worry now.
"What we are seeing now in the last several weeks and months is a new surge in the price of oil for a variety of reasons that have to do with the global oil market," he said. "We are seeing then the concurrent spike in the price of gasoline that Americans pay at the pump, and the president believes that it's important to be sure that there's no fraudulent speculation involved in that — in those spikes in the price."
As to why restart a working group if it didn't find anything last year and went dormant, Carney offered that, "you don't know until you investigate what you might find. And whatever they found or didn't find a year ago is not dispositive towards what they might find or might not find as they investigate going forward."
Just days earlier, McClatchy asked in a March 1 report what the task force had done over the past 10 months; the answer was, very little. Administration sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to say such embarrasing truths acknowledged that the working group had met only five times last year, three of those soon after the April 21 formation of the inter-agency task force. The working group now has met seven times in all, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Last week, the Justice Department insisted to McClatchy that the task force had remained active despite a lack of full meetings, and said the working group had created important communication between agencies with overlapping responsibilities for policing oil and gasoline price gouging and uncompetitive behavior.
An official at another federal agency cooperating on the working group confirmed to McClatchy on Thursday that the working group had not been shut down, though it had not met in quite a while.
"At the president's direction, the attorney general_ through the Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group_ is aggressively focused on identifying civil or criminal violations in the oil and gasoline markets, and ensuring that American consumers are not harmed by unlawful conduct, which remains an important priority," Adora Andy, a Justice spokeswoman, said Thursday in a statement. "With the recent increase of gasoline prices, the working group is monitoring the situation, and if we find any evidence of criminal behavior or other misconduct, we will respond immediately."
A Justice Department official, demanding anonymity in order to speak freely, said Thursday that Attorney General Holder has directed the full Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group to meet Friday.
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Barry Murphy, Contributor
I write about eDiscovery and information governance
Information is arguably the most important fuel businesses run on. Intellectual property such as patents, institutional knowledge collected and stored by employees, sentiment gleaned from millions of social media posts, and consumer insights from the analysis of myriad online transactions are just a few examples of information assets companies leverage today.
In the Big Data era, where companies are able to quickly make sense of larger quantities of data than ever, information is finally recognized as a critical business asset.
But too many companies are on the “Big Data Bandwagon” without even a thought of how it could affect eDiscovery costs or risks.
For more than a decade, eDiscovery existed in relative obscurity. While a select few recognized the skyrocketing costs and growing risks that digital information represent in eDiscovery, the topic did not achieve mainstream recognition until at least 2008. And even then, as now, eDiscovery – and information governance in general – does not get the respect it deserves.
Today, the all-too-pervasive attitude is that storage is cheap and we can churn through information more quickly with technology. Companies need to wake up to the reality that information governance is more important in the era of Big Data than it was beforehand.
New Big Data tools leveraging technology such as Apache Hadoop can process and analyze high volumes of data at reasonable costs, creating business intelligence that companies can use for competitive advantage.
Sears recently invested in a Big Data program to improve customer loyalty and regain some of the ground the company has lost to Amazon. According to Phil Shelley, Sears’ executive VP and CTO, “With Hadoop we can keep everything, which is crucial because we don’t want to archive or delete meaningful data.” The key phrase here is: meaningful data. How does a company know what data is meaningful?
Business Intelligence (BI) programs can make sense of structured data, giving companies a good – or even exact – sense of what data is meaningful. But, what percentage of a company’s information volume consists of structured data? Most would be surprised to learn that the percentage is fairly small.
A large insurance company engaged me in a consulting project five years ago. The company wanted to create a database archive for its operational data systems as it was filling up its storage capacity. An analysis of the storage volume revealed that almost 90% of the information stored was from messaging systems (mostly email), document imaging systems (storing scanned contracts and claims), and report management systems. The volume of structured data was relatively low, meaning that database archiving would not reduce the storage footprint by much.
The moral of this story is that information hoarding in order to leverage Big Data tools may work in the structured data world, but will not work in the broader information world that includes unstructured content (the Word file, PowerPoint presentations, CAD files, audio files, and other large data types that dominate corporate information stores).
The risk inherent in keeping unnecessary information – such as paying to process and review it in the event of litigation – is rarely a consideration at all. When eDJ Group and ViaLumina, Ltd. conducted an information governance (IG) survey recently, less than 30% of respondents indicated that Big Data Governance was in the plans within the next year.
In order to satisfy both masters – the businesspeople that need BI for better decision-making and those that recognize the need to control IG costs and risks – companies need lose the hoarding mindset and embrace defensible deletion. This is especially true with regard to unstructured content, most of which is duplicate information or unnecessary (think of all the junk and transitory email).
Defensible deletion sounds good in theory, but the question becomes: how do we know what to delete? Current methods of information classification are inconsistent and do not scale well.
In addition, defensible deletion is not yet a mature practice. In the IG survey, respondents indicated that most information is not being actively deleted.
The most deleted content? Email – just over 50% of respondents are actively expiring email content. The problem with the current state of deletion of this type of content is that most of it is time-based deletion, meaning that companies delete email after a certain amount of time. That could lead to deleting valuable information.
What is needed is a way to analyze information automatically (or at least semi-automatically, with some human review) to judge its business value. While BI has gained mainstream traction in the structured data world, content analytics have not yet in the unstructured content world. There are certain processes in which content analytics have proven useful – early case assessment, predictive coding – but not for automatic classification just yet. eDJ Group is currently conducting a survey to go deeper into attitudes on defensible deletion and will summarize the results in this blog.
What companies must understand is that Big Data and the intelligence it can deliver is good and worthy of embracing. But, the governance aspect needs to be embraced in parallel or eDiscovery nightmares will crop up down the road and bring with them huge costs and potential sanctions. | <urn:uuid:690a862e-8942-4983-99d7-737bf3477dee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/barrymurphy/2012/11/07/information-governance-even-more-important-in-the-era-of-big-data/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950944 | 1,059 | 1.546875 | 2 |
This study reveals an interaction between the genetic variants in CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4and smoking cessation pharmacotherapy in relation to smoking cessation. Smokers with the high-risk genetic variants have a three-fold increased likelihood of responding to pharmacologic cessation treatments, compared to smokers with the low-risk genetic variants.
In addition to the interaction effect, this study showed that the genetic variants in the chromosome 15q25 region that predict heavy smoking and nicotine dependence also predict a later age of smoking cessation in a large community-based sample. Those with the high-risk genetic variants quit later than those at low genetic risk, manifested as a two-year delay in median quit age. Recruitment for the ARIC sample began in the late 1980′s when the population utilization of nicotine replacement therapy was quite low (36
), so most ARIC subjects quit smoking without any pharmacologic treatment, thus representing a “natural history” of smoking cessation. The observed association between haplotype status and quitting latency was no longer significant once smoking heaviness was taken into account. This suggests that the targeted risk haplotypes confer heightened risk of heavy smoking and that this, in turn, constitutes an obstacle to successful quitting.
The large smoking cessation trial offers a distinct, complementary test of the association between haplotype status and cessation. In this study, the genetic associations with smoking cessation are manifested in the placebo group, which is consistent with the results obtained in the ARIC “natural history” sample. In contrast, these genetic variants do not predict abstinence across active treatment conditions, and this reduced genetic effect in the context of active pharmacological treatments suggests that cessation treatments differ in effectiveness across the haplotypes and mitigate the genetic risks for cessation difficulty. Pharmacological cessation treatment significantly increased the likelihood of abstinence in individuals with the high-risk haplotype H3, but exerted little effect in individuals with the low-risk haplotype H1.
These findings may explain discrepancies in prior studies of these genetic variants and smoking cessation. Some previous studies indicate that the chromosome 15q25 region is associated with smoking cessation (16
), whereas other studies do not (21
). Given our findings, we believe that genetic risk varies by pharmacologic intervention and weaker (or even no) genetic effect will be seen in pharmacologic trials if an interaction effect with treatment (active treatment versus placebo) is not included. We believe that the effect of this genetic locus will be seen most clearly in placebo arms, or in a sample where pharmacotherapy use is rare. For example, Sarginson et al reported very little association between CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4
variants and cessation during the pharmacologic treatment phase of the trial, but the association increased at the 1-year follow-up after a maintenance phase with no medication. Our present findings suggest that a genetic risk by environmental interaction might account for such inconsistency because the targeted genetic effects are most strongly expressed in environments that provide little support for cessation (e.g., no effective pharmacotherapy). None of the previous studies has reported this interaction, which could potentially explain the apparently inconsistent results in this area. Such interactions between genetic variants and treatment can serve as the basis for personalized medicine. The TAG consortium examined a different cessation phenotype (former vs. current smoker) and reported a modest association with CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4
The results of this study should be interpreted in the context of several limitations. First, there was relatively little power to compare the magnitude of the targeted genetic effects among different active treatment conditions. The genetic risk for cessation was similar across the different pharmacotherapy conditions, indicating that multiple cessation interventions have the potential to be effective with such high-risk individuals. It is unclear if pharmacotherapy mitigates particular biological processes that lead to cessation failure, or if the genetic effect is more likely expressed at high overall levels of quitting difficulty. Second, the placebo group in the cessation trial is fairly small, which adds to the importance of future replication. However, reported associations between these genetic variants and cessation in multiple samples suggest a valid relation between these variants and cessation in some environmental contexts. Third, the smoking reports in the ARIC sample were not supported by biochemical confirmation. However, such confirmation was obtained in the UW-TTURC trial, and research shows that self-report is a valid indicant of current smoking, especially when there are no strong incentives to deceive (38
). In addition, this work only studies one genetic locus and it is clear that multiple genes contribute to smoking cessation success. Future research should explore whether greater accuracy in predicting treatment response can be attained by the addition of other genetic variants implicated in differential treatment effects (39
). Finally, this study only included subjects of European descent while the frequency and effects of these genetic variants differ by ancestry.
These results suggest that the biological effects of these haplotypes affect both smoking heaviness and a decreased ability to quit and that the interaction suggests that pharmacologic treatments are more effective for individuals who are biologically predisposed to have difficulty quitting. However, it is unclear whether the haplotypes are linked to both outcomes via the same mechanisms. In the ARIC sample, the effects of the targeted haplotypes on smoking heaviness mediated the influence of the haplotypes on cessation. Such a meditational role was not found in the UW-TTURC trial, indicating that more research is needed to clarify the causal paths from the haplotypes to cessation success. However, regardless of the specific causal paths that are ultimately determined, if the CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4 haplotypes are indeed meaningfully related to both heaviness of smoking and cessation, it underscores their important role in the development and expression of nicotine dependence.
While acknowledging the limitations of our study, we note that this work complements and builds upon previous research on treatment and genetic effects on smoking cessation. Using diverse methods, this work underscores the relation between the targeted haplotypes and smoking cessation, shows a significant interaction between these haplotypes and treatment on cessation success, and reveals that cessation treatment effectiveness is modulated by the haplotypes.
In summary, our findings strengthen the case for the development and rigorous testing of treatments that target patients with different genetic risk profiles based on the chromosome 15q25 region that includes CHRNA5-CHRNA3-CHRNB4
. Those with the high/intermediate-risk haplotypes appear more biologically predisposed to have difficulty quitting without treatment, but this risk may be ameliorated by effective pharmacological treatment. Further research that identifies genes related to responsiveness to treatment for nicotine addiction may lead to treatment algorithms that further the promise of personalized medicine(40 | <urn:uuid:ed470780-1ca6-4a53-a6bb-a53f3ec032db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC3433845/?lang=en-ca | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944449 | 1,354 | 1.554688 | 2 |
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Home / Browse / Rector, Henry Massie
Henry Massie Rector was the state’s sixth governor. He was part of Arkansas’s political dynasty during the antebellum period, but he was not always comfortable in that role and played a part in its downfall.
Henry Rector was born on May 1, 1816, at Fontaine’s Ferry near Louisville, Kentucky, to Elias Rector and Fannie Bardell Thruston. He was the only one of their children to survive to maturity. Elias Rector, one of the numerous Rectors who worked as deputy surveyors under William Rector, the surveyor-general for Illinois and Missouri, served in the Missouri legislature in 1820 and as postmaster of St. Louis, Missouri. He also surveyed in Arkansas and acquired, among other speculations, a claim to the site of the hot springs in the Ouachita Mountains prior to his death in 1822.
Rector received the rudiments of an education from his mother, but his formal schooling was limited to two years spent at Francis Goddard’s school in Louisville. His mother remarried after his father’s death, and from age thirteen to nineteen, Rector spent an obviously unhappy childhood at the salt-works of his stepfather, Stephen Trigg, cutting and hauling wood. Trigg was also the executor of Elias’s estate, and one lawsuit, Postmaster-General of U.S. v. Trigg [36 US 173 (1837)], reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1834. At stake was a judgment of $1,595.53, an enormous sum at the time.
In 1835, at age nineteen, Rector left for Arkansas to try to salvage his inheritance. The move placed him in a position to assume prominence, in part because of his land holdings but also because of his relationship to the first and fifth governors, James and Elias Conway. Ann Rector Conway, their mother, was Rector’s aunt. In addition, he had two cousins, Wharton Rector and Elias Rector, who were prominent in the affairs of the territory. He tried to secure title to his father’s claim to the famous Hot Springs (Garland County), but in 1876, after decades of litigation, the government confirmed individual claims to land around the springs but reserved the springs for public use.
In October 1838, Rector married Jane Elizabeth Field of Louisville, a niece to former territorial governor, John Pope. They had four sons, Frank N., William, Henry J., and Elias W., and four daughters, Ann Baylor, Julia Sevier, Fanny Thruston, and Ada E. His wife died in 1857, and he married Ernestine Flora Linke three years later. They had one child, Ernestine Flora.
It was doubtless largely due to William Field, a nephew to Governor Pope and a major stockholder in the Real Estate Bank, that the young and inexperienced Rector was appointed teller in the State Bank at Little Rock in 1839. In 1841, the bank having failed under his tellership, Rector moved to a plantation near Collegeville (Saline County) to farm and study law. In 1842, in obviously desperate straits, he accepted appointment from President John Tyler as U.S. marshal for the district of Arkansas, a position he held throughout Tyler’s term. (No one serious about a political future took a job under Tyler, but it was highly and briefly profitable since Arkansas generated a huge legal business, and marshals were paid by the fee system.) In 1848, he was elected to the Arkansas Senate, representing Perry and Saline counties. In his two terms, he devoted considerable attention to problems at the state penitentiary and acquired a reputation as a skilled debater. In 1852, he was chosen a Democratic presidential elector.
From 1853 to 1857, Rector served as U.S. surveyor general for Arkansas. In 1854, he moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where he practiced law and carried on extensive farming operations along the Arkansas River. He was elected in 1854 to a term in the Tenth General Assembly, representing Pulaski County in the House of Representatives. In 1859, he was elected to the state Supreme Court, where his rulings were singularly inept.
Despite his considerable kinship connection with that politically powerful dynasty known as the “Family” (made up of the Johnson, Conway, and Sevier families), Rector seems to have managed to offend most of his kin, even to the point of suing them and publicly differing from them on key political issues. The Family dominated state politics in the antebellum period, having established itself as the friend of the common man. Until the 1850s, the Family had neutralized competition in the Democratic Party.
However, the enormous growth of population severely challenged the Family’s dominance. A young Mississippi firebrand, Thomas Carmichael Hindman, forced his way into Congress and then launched a campaign to capture a seat in the U.S. Senate. Following Hindman’s moves closely, Rector saw his opportunity in 1860 to wrest the office of governor away from the regular Democratic Party nominee, Richard Mentor Johnson, the brother of U.S. Senator Robert Ward Johnson. Family strategists had forced the selection of Richard H. Johnson as the party’s gubernatorial nominee and essentially wrote the party platform and secured six of their members as delegates to the national convention.
As the election season of 1860 got underway, no one seemed poised to challenge Johnson in the governor’s race until Rector announced as an Independent Democrat. The exact connection between Hindman and Rector was not clear at the time. Hindman had suffered a major setback when it had been proved that he wrote his own “puffs” and when he had failed to show up for a duel with Robert Ward Johnson. But Hindman either loaned or sold his newspaper, The Old-Line Democrat, to Rector, along with his hired editor, Thomas C. Peek, who subsequently married one of Rector’s nieces. (Later, in 1862, Peek edited the short-lived Daily State Journal, one of the few pro-Rector papers in the state.)
In the campaign that followed, Rector had three advantages. First, there was built up resentment over the long years of Family control. Rector ran, despite all his genealogy, as an outsider, or in Peek’s words, “a poor honest farmer of Saline County, who toils at the plow handles to provide bread, meat and raiment for his wife and children.” Although Rector managed mostly to make a good deal of noise, Johnson was such a poor speaker that he usually cost himself votes. Rector managed to come up with an implausible plan for state aid for railroads by “giving” the lines the state debt; at first he was for public education, but when it was pointed out that schools cost money, he reversed himself and supported a tax cut. Confused voters in the end made Rector the sixth governor with 31,518 votes to Johnson’s 28,662.
Rector’s inauguration, during which a noisy crowd went to his home and “liquored,” coincided with the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as president. Lincoln’s views on slavery were unacceptable to all candidates in Arkansas, and he was not even on the ballot, but otherwise Lincoln’s election was strictly constitutional. Rector, in his first address to the legislature, claimed that the North had no right to elect a Northerner and hence, the Union now being dissolved, Arkansas was independent. Silence greeted this eccentric theory. The gubernatorial election had not focused on slavery or secession, primarily because Johnson and Rector mostly agreed on the topic. Not until it was apparent that South Carolina would act independently did Arkansas’s Southern nationalists organize. This group included such disparate and previously hostile men as Thomas C. Hindman, Albert Pike, and the Johnsons, but it did not include Rector. His one contribution to the movement came when he approved the General Assembly’s provision for a special election on February 18, 1861, to elect delegates to a convention to decide whether to secede. This bill had been kept hidden until the very end of the session, after many of the legislators had departed for home. In late January, a rumor circulated that Federal reinforcements were headed for Little Rock and that Governor Rector wanted volunteers to come stop them and take the Federal arsenal. The call for troops had come out of Rector’s office, but the governor claimed he was innocent of planning to start the Civil War in Little Rock. The Federal commander, native son Captain James Totten, did agree to evacuate, but the onslaught of negative publicity helped ensure defeat for secessionist candidates at the February 18 election. Voters approved summoning a convention by a narrow margin, but they elected a majority of anti–immediate secessionists to it. The convention assembled on March 4, 1861, and chose David Walker as chairman. The anti-secessionists blocked a move to secede immediately but approved calling for an election on August 5, 1861, to allow a vote of the people. This amounted to a compromise, for extreme secessionists from the southern counties were threatening to secede from the state.
Arkansas remained in the Union, albeit tenuously, until the firing on Fort Sumter forced the issue. When Lincoln called for volunteers after the fall of Fort Sumter, Rector refused: “The people of this commonwealth are freemen, not slaves,” he said with unconscious irony, “and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives and property against Northern mendacity and usurpation.” In the post-war glow that overcame the South, historian Josiah H. Shinn wrote of these words: “No stronger State paper has ever been issued from the executive department at Little Rock, nor, for that matter, from any State department in all the world.” It was Rector’s greatest moment.
Walker reconvened the Secession Convention in Little Rock on May 6, 1861, and it voted to secede from the Union. Rector presided over the mobilization of the state but lost control of the process as the Family and its conservative allies flexed their muscles. A note in Rector’s hand read: “Col. Webb says that when the convention meets they will try to declare my office vacant. Oh Hell.” Fearing the damage Rector might do as commander in chief, instead they created a state military board to rein in the governor. The convention even debated deposing Rector but instead hoped that the creation of the board and a new constitution (that of 1861) that scheduled a gubernatorial election in 1862, would be adequate.
Conservatives hoped to transfer the Arkansas army directly into the Confederacy, but B. C. Totten, a states’-rights Democrat, surprised everyone by siding with Rector, thus enabling the governor to frustrate much of the transfer. Throughout the remainder of his term, Rector embraced state’s rights and denigrated Confederate authority from Richmond. By fall of 1861, the Arkansas army for the most part had gone home, leaving the state undefended even as many Union supporters joined an anti-war group called the Peace Society. The first Confederate general in the state to have problems with Rector, William J. Hardee, took his enlistees across the Mississippi River into Tennessee; the second general, Earl Van Dorn, who also quarreled with Rector, followed up his defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge by embarking his troops for Shiloh, although he arrived too late to take part in that battle. Rector’s response, printed on May 8, 1862, was a proclamation promising to “build a new ark and launch it upon new waters” if the Confederacy did not respond to Arkansas’s abandonment in the face of a Federal invasion into northeast Arkansas.
Secession from secession did not play well, and when Thomas C. Hindman, now a major general, arrived, things changed quickly. A proponent of total war, Hindman would not brook any states’-rights arguments. Indeed, his military tyranny during the summer of 1862 exceeded anything on either side. Left in the shadows, Rector discovered that his enemies wanted the election promised in the Constitution of 1861. The state Supreme Court agreed, and Rector, all the while cursing one and all, ran again only to be defeated on October 6, 1862, by Harris Flanagin, a former Whig but one with ties to the Family. Flanagin’s campaign consisted of staying with his regiment in Tennessee; Rector tried to justify his record and denounced Flanagin for being an Irishman (which he was not). The vote, 18,187 to 7,419, was a decisive defeat for the governor. When the General Assembly met on November 3, 1862, Rector resigned. After his application for a commission in the Confederate army was rejected, he volunteered in the state reserve corps for the rest of the war.
At the war’s end, only the pillars to the gate were left of his once-fine plantation outside of Little Rock. He then returned to farming and hauled cotton in wagons from his plantations in Hempstead, Garland, and Pulaski counties to Little Rock. He waged many court battles over his Hot Springs claims but did not win the big prize of securing fully his father’s claim. Augustus H. Garland, Robert Ward Johnson, and Albert Pike were among his many attorneys. Rector lost, both in the Court of Claims and on an appeal [Hot Springs Cases, 92 U.S. (2 Otto) 698 (1876)] but did salvage most of the land not in the government reservation. His latter days were spent in Hot Springs, and he seems to have used a shotgun to assist him in collecting his rents. Part of the town’s later folklore was to attribute to Rector’s ghost any unexplained explosion.
Rector was a delegate from Garland County to the constitutional convention in 1874 but played little role in either the overthrow of the Republicans or the triumph of the Redeemers. He did make an appearance in an Opie Read story after that author had written that the accidental firing of the old cannon at the state house had killed Bradley Bunch. Rector invited Read to his home and there confronted him with the living Bunch. The three celebrated the event with well-aged whiskey.
Rector died on August 12, 1899, in Little Rock and is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery. He was, in the sagacious judgment of William Minor Quesenbury, “a violent man who fights people.” Not only did his two years in office reflect this, but he also pistol-whipped his sons’ schoolteacher because the man had disciplined one of his children. Calling the man a “damned stinking Yankee,” he added, “You strike my son like I would a negro, you god damned miserable Yankee dog.” In retrospect, some would say his greatest moment came in defying Lincoln’s call for troops. But in unifying a largely frontier state for the first modern war, he proved to be seriously lacking.
For additional information:Brown, Walter L. “The Henry M. Rector Claim to the Hot Springs of Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 15 (Winter 1956): 281–292.
Donovan, Timothy P., Willard B. Gatewood Jr., and Jeannie M. Whayne, eds. The Governors of
Arkansas : Essays in Political Biography. 2d ed. Fayetteville:
Arkansas Press, 1995.
Dougan, Michael B. Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976.
Kie Oldham Papers. Arkansas History Commission and State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Shinn, Josiah H. Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas. Chicago: Genealogical and Historical Publishing Company, 1908.
Yearns, W. Buck, ed. The Confederate Governors. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.
Jeannie WhayneUniversity of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Michael B. DouganJonesboro, Arkansas
Waddy W. MooreConway, Arkansas
This entry, originally published in The Governors of Arkansas, appears in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture in an altered form. The Governors of Arkansas is available from the University of Arkansas Press.
Last Updated 9/6/2012
About this Entry: Contact the Encyclopedia / Submit a Comment / Submit a Narrative | <urn:uuid:f3dfb713-a0cd-4527-923d-3ff1cf8d696d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=119 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977588 | 3,518 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Coincidence: I saw in a trade journal today that Epsom have been experimenting with conductive printing ink & have made a *fourteen layer* :shock: pcb, with alternating insulating ink layers!!
I hate to think how much a cc of THAT ink will cost :x
I think I'll still be using stripboard for a while yet.. I can imagine conductive printed PCBs being great for high impedance SMT work, though.
I wonder if it is possible to get powdered metal to stick to a photocopied trace on paper or cardboard? If you had metal powder spread on a surface, and put a photocopy or laser print face down & ironed hot enough to melt the toner, then the metal powder would stick to it!
Hope nobody has patented that! GO FOR IT :lol: MAD SCIENTISTS
hint: think nickel powder, most other metals have oxides on their surfaces or other problems. | <urn:uuid:560f973f-3d8f-4605-81b3-3cf81465b8c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=18400.msg190447 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948139 | 197 | 2.125 | 2 |
March 18, 2013
Long-Term Economic Trends
Total Factor Productivity Growth in Historical Perspective: Working Paper 2013-01
This paper reviews the broad contours of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in the U.S. economy since 1870, highlighting the contribution of various technological innovations to the growth of different sectors of the economy. The paper also notes the correlation between TFP growth and improvements in general health and well-being as reflected in changes in life expectancy. Finally, the paper discusses the potential for continued growth in TFP in the future. | <urn:uuid:1d9f250d-cb4b-459b-b477-5ef543dcfa9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbo.gov/latest/economy/long-term-economic-trends | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903309 | 113 | 1.734375 | 2 |
We all know that public servants such as police officers, firefighters and teachers make Florida a better place to live and raise a family. It's time to add the employees from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to that list.
DEP has made a concentrated effort to develop a more effective method to protect the diverse ecosystems spread throughout our great state. The employees at DEP are undertaking this mission by actually doing more with less, despite skeptics fearing that new and innovative protection methods could have a negative impact on our state forests, rivers and beaches.
We have thrived. In the closing months of 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the most comprehensive set of water-quality criteria this state has ever seen, rules which were developed by DEP's own scientists in our own labs.
These rules are designed to address the most common problem in our freshwater resources — an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus. To counter these excessive nutrients, we are developing action-driven restoration plans that set forth management strategies with tangible, goal-oriented processes.
DEP continues to improve its emphasis on protection for Orlando area waters. For example, DEP has set a restoration goal and is working with the St. Johns River Water Management District to improve Silver Springs, and Gov. Rick Scott along with the Cabinet also took the bold step of converting the Silver Springs attraction into a Florida state park. The kickoff meeting for restoring the Upper Wakulla River was held Jan. 18, which will go along with the announcement in the coming months of a suite of projects to improve the health of the Wekiva River system.
DEP was also able to secure a conservation easement over Seven Runs Creek as part of a $10 million recovery effort from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including more than 2,300 acres of land and $5 million in stormwater-treatment projects. Our agency is using a targeted approach to land acquisition so that the emphasis is only on land that aids in improving water quality, quantity, military buffering and springs protection.
In addition, DEP and its water-management-district partners are looking for ways to reward communities that invest in water conservation, thus implementing a philosophy of preventing environmental harm rather than simply reacting to it.
Moreover, by increasing our focus on properly educating air, waste and water-processing facilities about state rules and regulations, 2012 was the best year for statewide environmental compliance in the past five years. These are all examples of the diverse range of efforts put forth by DEP employees to better protect Florida's environment.
My family and I spent part of this past weekend on the beautiful St. Johns River. It was a picture-perfect day, and the river was teeming with wildlife. The fishing reports were good, and we spotted a bald eagle, in addition to several white pelicans. I couldn't have asked for a better day with my family, and I happened to notice quite a few fellow Floridians enjoying their day as well.
The health of the St. Johns River is improving, but like many other water bodies in our state, there is more work to be done.
The issues that Florida's natural resources face have been compounding over decades and cannot be pinned on a single group of offenders. DEP employees venture every day into our ecosystem to address these problems so that Florida's ecosystem can thrive into the future.
It may be popular in some circles to criticize the 4,000 DEP employees or the 3,000 employees from the water-management districts, but if you've enjoyed one of our beautiful rivers, beaches or state parks on this or any other weekend, I would prefer that you thank them.
Herschel T. Vinyard Jr. is the secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Read the other views
Intro: Is Scott's administration green?
Bob Graham and Nathaniel Reed: Bad policies pose historic threats to Fla. environment | <urn:uuid:e1d05ef4-5a36-4a7d-967a-dc02694ea41d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-01-30/news/os-ed-front-burner-environmental-policy-pro-20130129_1_dep-employees-water-conservation-water-quality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962211 | 795 | 1.773438 | 2 |
By Dan Williams, Constable, School Resource Officer Unit, Edmonton Police Service, Canada
As a result of unfortunate deaths related to bullying incidents in Victoria and Halifax, parents demanded new legislation governing bullying. On March 11, 2003, the Edmonton Public Places Bylaw was amended to include bullying behavior as an offence. It was passed by a majority vote by Edmonton City Council and is believed to be the first of its kind in North America. The law is administered by police officers only, carries a fine of $250, and applies to the bullying of persons under 18 years of age. It came into effect May 1, 2003.
The bylaws define bullying as "repeated intimidation of others by the real or threatened infliction of physical, verbal, written, electronically transmitted, or emotional abuse."
Bullying can start at a very young age and can include playground teasing and name-calling. It continues into the teenage years where sexual harassment, dating violence, and gang attacks emerge. It continues then into adulthood where marital violence, child abuse, and workplace harassment are some of the side effects.
Antibullying programs only work at a child's early stage of development. At a later stage, the programs must be supported by legislation, for bullies do not grow out of it; rather, they grow into criminals.
The impact of bullying extends beyond the range of the bully and the victim to the peer group, school, and community. Society cannot depend solely on schools to deal with bullying issues, for it is a community problem.
Edmonton's school resource officers estimate that between 50 percent and 70 percent of the complaints in schools are related to bullying. Some victims of bullying are so afraid that they refuse to return to school. Others have even talked about suicide. Obviously, students have the right to attend school without being harassed or subjected to intimidation.
Bullying is not innocent child's play. Repeated bullying can cause psychological distress and many related difficulties. It can trigger anxiety and depression in children, significantly damage their self-esteem, cause lifelong emotional pain, and lead to suicide. Even when victims of bullying are not driven to these extremes, they often experience significant psychological harm that interferes with their social, academic, and emotional development. Victims become withdrawn, isolated, and depressed. This has adverse consequences on their education and very often their health. When taken to an extreme, those who bully may actually kill their victim. If not addressed, those being bullied may finally react in an extreme fashion. History of school violence has shown that what comes out of someone's mouth can be just as deadly as a weapon. The scars are forever. No one should have to commit suicide or resort to violence to resolve problems brought about by bullying.
An informal evaluation was conducted with all school resource officers in Edmonton senior high schools. Since the implementation of the bullying bylaw, the incidences of bullying have been declining, although to date only four charges have to be made under the new bylaw. With the new law in place, school resource officers are being proactive in issuing warnings to students of the possible consequences should their behavior continue. Students who are being bullied are reassured that they themselves do not need to resort to violence to deal with the problems brought about by bullying. In Edmonton, the school resource officers feel that with the new bylaw they have an effective tool to protect students' rights and combat bullying. | <urn:uuid:01888481-9403-4dd2-92eb-fc4a3c651f9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=290&issue_id=52004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972483 | 685 | 3.546875 | 4 |
LIFE Behind the Picture: The Photo That Changed the Face of AIDS
In November 1990 LIFE magazine published a photograph of a young man named David Kirby — his body wasted by AIDS, his gaze locked on something beyond this world — surrounded by anguished family members as he took his last breaths. The haunting image of Kirby on his death bed, taken by a journalism student named Therese Frare, quickly became the one photograph most powerfully identified with the HIV/AIDS epidemic that, by then, had seen millions of people infected (many of them unknowingly) around the globe.
More than two decades later, LIFE.com shares the deeply moving story behind that picture, along with Frare’s own memories of those harrowing, transformative years.
“I started grad school at Ohio University in Athens in January 1990,” Frare told LIFE.com. “Right away, I began volunteering at the Pater Noster House, an AIDS hospice in Columbus. In March I started taking photos there and got to know the staff — and one volunteer, in particular, named Peta — who were caring for David and the other patients.”
David Kirby was born and raised in a small town in Ohio. A gay activist in the 1980s, he learned in the late Eighties — while he was living in California and estranged from his family — that he had contracted HIV. He got in touch with his parents and asked if he could come home; he wanted, he said, to die with his family around him. The Kirbys welcomed their son back.
Peta, for his part, was an extraordinary (and sometimes extraordinarily difficult) character. Born Patrick Church, Peta was “half-Native American and half-White,” Frare says, “a caregiver and a client at Pater Noster, a person who rode the line between genders and one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
“On the day David died, I was visiting Peta,” Frare, who today lives and works in Seattle, told LIFE. “Some of the staff came in to get Peta so he could be with David, and he took me with him. I stayed outside David’s room, minding my own business, when David’s mom came out and told me that the family wanted me to photograph people saying their final goodbyes. I went in and stood quietly in the corner, barely moving, watching and photographing the scene. Afterwards I knew, I absolutely knew, that something truly incredible had unfolded in that room, right in front of me.”
“Early on,” Frare says of her time at Pater Noster House, “I asked David if he minded me taking pictures, and he said, ‘That’s fine, as long as it’s not for personal profit.’ To this day I don’t take any money for the picture. But David was an activist, and he wanted to get the word out there about how devastating AIDS was to families and communities. Honestly, I think he was a lot more in tune with how important these photos might become.”
Frare pauses, and laughs. “At the time, I was like, Besides, who’s going to see these pictures, anyway?“
Over the past 20 years, by some estimates, as many as one billion people have seen the now-iconic Frare photograph that appeared in LIFE, as it was reproduced in hundreds of newspaper, magazine and TV stories — all over the world — focusing on the photo itself and (increasingly) on the controversies that surrounded it.
Frare’s photograph of David’s family comforting him in the hour of his death earned accolades, including a World Press Photo Award, when published in LIFE, but it became positively notorious two years later when Benetton used a colorized version of the photo in a provocative ad campaign. Individuals and groups ranging from Roman Catholics (who felt the picture mocked classical imagery of Mary cradling Christ after his crucifixion) to AIDS activists (furious at what they saw as corporate exploitation of death in order to sell T-shirts) voiced outrage. England’s high-profile AIDS charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, called for a ban of the ad, labeling it offensive and unethical, while powerhouse fashion magazines like Elle, Vogue and Marie Claire refused to run it. Calling for a boycott of Benetton, London’s Sunday Times argued that “the only way to stop this madness is to vote with our cash.”
“We never had any reservations about allowing Benetton to use Therese’s photograph in that ad,” David Kirby’s mother, Kay, told LIFE.com. “What I objected to was everybody who put their two cents in about how outrageous they thought it was, when nobody knew anything about us, or about David. My son more or less starved to death at the end,” she said, bluntly, describing one of the grisly side effects of the disease. “We just felt it was time that people saw the truth about AIDS, and if Benetton could help in that effort, fine. That ad was the last chance for people to see David — a marker, to show that he was once here, among us.”
David Kirby passed away in April 1990, at the age of 32, not long after Frare began shooting at the hospice. But in an odd and ultimately revelatory twist, it turned out that she spent much more time with Peta, who himself was HIV-positive while caring for David, than she did with David himself. She gained renown for her devastating, compassionate picture of one young man dying of AIDS, but the photographs she made after David Kirby’s death revealed an even more complex and compelling tale.
Frare photographed Peta over the course of two years, until he, too, died of AIDS in the fall of 1992.
“Peta was an incredible person,” Frare says. Twenty years on, the affection in her voice is palpable. “He was dealing with all sorts of dualities in his life — he was half-Native American and half-White, a caregiver and a client at Pater Noster, a person who rode the line between genders, all of that — but he was also very, very strong.”
As Peta’s health deteriorated in early 1992 — as his HIV-positive status transitioned to AIDS — the Kirbys began to care for him, in much the same way that Peta had cared for their son in the final months of his life. Peta had comforted David; spoken to him; held him; tried to relieve his pain and loneliness through simple human contact — and the Kirbys resolved to do the same for Peta, to be there for him as his strength and his vitality faded.
Kay Kirby told LIFE.com that she “made up my mind when David was dying and Peta was helping to care for him, that when Peta’s time came — and we all knew it would come — that we would care for him. There was never any question. We were going to take care of Peta. That was that.
“For a while there,” Kay remembers, “I took care of Peta as often as I could. It was hard, because we couldn’t afford to be there all the time. But Bill would come in on weekends and we did the best we could in the short time we had.”
Kay describes Peta, as his condition worsened in late 1991 and 1992, as a “very difficult patient. He was very clear and vocal about what he wanted, and when he wanted it. But during all the time we cared for him, I can only recall once when he yelled at me. I yelled right back at him — he knew I was not going to let him get away with that sort of behavior — and we went on from there.”
Bill and Kay Kirby were, in effect, the house parents for the home where Peta spent his last months.
“My husband and I were hurt by the way David was treated in the small country hospital near our home where he spent time after coming back to Ohio,” Kay Kirby said. “Doctors and nurses wore gloves and gowns whenever they were around him, and even the person who handed out menus refused to let David hold one. She would read out the meals to him from the doorway. We told ourselves that we would help other people with AIDS avoid all that, and we tried to make sure that Peta never went through it.”
“I had worked for newspapers for about 12 years already when I went to grad school,” Therese Frare says, “and was very interested in covering AIDS by the time I got to Columbus. Of course, it was difficult to find a community of people with HIV and AIDS willing to be photographed back then, but when I was given the okay to take pictures at Pater Noster I knew I was doing something that was important — important to me, at least. I never believed that it would lead to being published in LIFE, or winning awards, or being involved in anything controversial — certainly nothing as epic as the Benetton controversy. In the end, the picture of David became the one image that was seen around the world, but there was so much more that I had tried to document with Peta, and the Kirbys and the other people at Pater Noster. And all of that sort of got lost, and forgotten.”
Lost and forgotten — or, at the very least, utterly overshadowed — until LIFE.com contacted Frare, and asked her where the photo of David Kirby came from.
“You know, at the time the Benetton ad was running, and the controversy over their use of my picture of David was really raging, I was falling apart,” Frare says. “I was falling to pieces. But Bill Kirby told me something I never forgot. He said, ‘Listen, Therese. Benetton didn’t use us, or exploit us. We used them. Because of them, your photo was seen all over the world, and that’s exactly what David wanted.’ And I just held on to that.”
After the Benetton controversy finally subsided, Therese Frare went on to other work, other photography, freelancing from Seattle for the New York Times, major magazines and other outlets. While the world has become more familiar with HIV and AIDS in the intervening years, Frare’s photograph went a long way toward dispelling some of the fear and willful ignorance that had accompanied any mention of the disease. Barb Cordle, the volunteer director at Pater Noster when David Kirby was there, once said that Frare’s photo of David “has done more to soften people’s hearts on the AIDS issue than any other I have ever seen. You can’t look at that picture and hate a person with AIDS. You just can’t.”
— Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com
NOTE: This story originally appeared, in different form, on an earlier incarnation of LIFE.com. | <urn:uuid:7b340ab0-b035-45b5-97f0-d5ec993b52c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://life.time.com/history/the-story-behind-the-photo-that-changed-the-face-of-aids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987179 | 2,386 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Life and work
Fernando Fader was born in Bordeaux, France in 1882. His father, of Prussian descent, relocated the family to Argentina in 1884, settling in the western city of Mendoza before returning to France a few years later. Graduating from secondary school, Fader returned to Mendoza in 1898, where he first practiced his skill as an artist painting urban landscapes. Fader relocated to Munich in 1900, where he enrolled at a local vocational school. This training allowed him enrollment at the prestigious Munich Academy of Fine Arts, where he was mentored by Heinrich von Zügel, prominent in Europe's Naturalist Barbizon School.
He returned briefly to Buenos Aires, where his work was first exhibited at the Costa Salon in 1906. His landscapes quickly established him as a Post-impressionist painter at a time when local critics were still partial to Impressionism, however, and this motivated Fader to join other artists similarly out of favor with conservative Argentine audiences, such as Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós, the sculptor Rogelio Yrurtia and Martín Malharro (whose earlier, Impressionist work had - ironically - established the genre locally in 1902).
Their Nexus group struggled until around 1910, when Malharro's atelier became the most influential in Argentina shortly before his sudden passing. Fader settled in Buenos Aires in 1914, where he obtained a first prize at the Fourth National Art Bienale. He toured art galleries in Spain and Germany and earned a gold medal at the Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, in 1915. An onset of tuberculosis, however, forced him to relocate to the drier climates of the Argentine Andes foothills.
His stay in Córdoba refocused his work along more Impressionistic lines, employing a greater use of sunlight contrasts. His new surroundings also gave him ample bucolic inspiration, and he created many of his most well-known works during this period, many of which romantically portrayed farm life. This productive period was cut short by a sudden worsening of Fader's breathing difficulties around 1921, which by then had become chronic asthma and precluded outdoor work. This led Fader to turn to still life, nudes and self-portraits, resulting in a third, distinct period in the artist's prolific body of work.
Though forced into reclusion by ill health, Fader never lost the following he had acquired during his heyday around 1915, and the National Academy of Fine Arts organized a retrospective of his work in 1924. The Buenos Aires community of art galleries organized a 1932 retrospective of 119 works in honor of Fader's 50 th birthday, by which time he was too ill to attend.
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This page is available in 1 language | <urn:uuid:a50183c0-cf61-4bc3-9100-5ab10f2b551e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Fader | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979529 | 577 | 2.46875 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — The athlete with the blue Cookie Monster cap snatches the disc as it cuts the icy air. He pivots and passes toward a teammate in the end zone. It’s a score – and maybe one step closer to making it to the pros.
“DC Breeeeeze!” Tom Johnson shouts from the sidelines of a field in Southeast Washington. He’s overseeing tryouts for a new team in Ultimate, a sport that many know as Frisbee.
In April, the DC Breeze will compete in the 12-team American Ultimate Disc League. In its second season, the league is attempting to succeed in something that many leagues before have found to be exceptionally tough: convincing Americans to tune in to – and turn out for – a new sport.
“Most leagues fail. The four major sports are too dominant,” says Michael Dobbs, an assistant professor of management at the Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. He’s researched the births of leagues and has seen the deaths of many, from football leagues that tried to compete with the National Football League to women’s soccer and women’s basketball leagues.
“It’s like in the grocery store. Even if you have a really good product, space is limited, especially on major networks,” Dobbs says.
According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a trade organization, nearly 5 million people play Ultimate in the United States, often in high school, college or recreational leagues, or simply with friends in parks.
But establishing a professional league isn’t only about lifestyle and college players, it’s also about sponsors, TV networks and spectators.
In its inaugural season, the Ultimate league got some highlights on ESPN SportsCenter’s “Top 10 Plays.” But in the stadiums, the games attracted only 500 fans, on average, and the money most players got was to cover their expenses: food, jerseys, travel.
Nevertheless, this year the American Ultimate Disc League has some competition. The Philadelphia Spinners, the team that won last year’s league championship, is building a competing league this year, called Major League Ultimate, with eight teams from both coasts.
High school students invented Ultimate 45 years ago. Its national governing body, USA Ultimate, based in Boulder, Colo., isn’t connected to the two professional leagues. It holds some 300 tournaments and related events per year, including national championships.
“Ultimate is often seen as one of the fastest-growing team sports in the country, together with rugby and lacrosse,” USA Ultimate CEO Tom Crawford says.
Players just need to have a disc and follow some simple principles that have been taken from major sports. As in basketball, they must move constantly. As in soccer, they must pass. As in football, they aim to score in the end zone, and usually manage it without collisions or concussions. And when players have the discs in their hands, they aren’t allowed to run.
“Once we get our sport out there, people really fall in love with it,” Johnson says.
On this Saturday in early February, when the temperature is just 44, Johnson is watching the second round of tryouts. Standing next to him, coach Tom Coffin has a specific picture in his mind for players.
“I’m looking for someone who has a lot of speed, a lot of agility and lots of handling skills,” Coffin says.
So his would-be players run toward orange pylons, jump over red mini-hurdles and throw, catch and throw again.
“I used to play other sports, but it never felt fun,” says Jacob Nuxoll, a 26-year-old teacher from Virginia.
“It’s an interesting time to be a Frisbee player, and it would be a neat thing to be part of the team,” he adds.
Player Brodie Smith is already a part of professional Ultimate, and he’s a YouTube star. His trick shot videos have been viewed more than 35 million times, and he sells shirts with his name on them and teaches at Ultimate camps to make a living. He’ll play for the Windy City Wildfire in Chicago this year, moving from the Indianapolis AlleyCats.“This year I’m hoping for 4,000 spectators,” he says in a phone interview.
More digital marketing and use of social media should help the league, Commissioner Steve Gordon says. His ambition is for the games to be on television within the next two years.
Dobbs, the professor from Illinois, says that might not be enough for the league to succeed, however: “The base of people playing needs to be bigger than 5 million. They should go into schools and provide the kids with discs.”
The second league has another approach, Major League Ultimate publicist Antoine Johnson says. He got his players on the WTXF-FOX 29 News show “Good Day Philadelphia.”
“We want to make the sport more mainstream. We have more athletes who are willing to go public and bring in personality,” he says. The new league already has raised $1 million from private investors.
Dobbs agrees that the sport has potential.
“It is a great spectator sport, and there are no big switching costs. A baseball fan just needs a ticket to become an Ultimate fan,” Dobbs says. “The game is much more intuitive than American football.”
Greg Greenhalgh of the Center for Sport Leadership at the Virginia Commonwealth University has found that non-mainstream sports don’t necessarily need to become that big to attract sponsors.
“The demographics are more important,” he says. “Non-mainstream sports should invest in market research to find out what their fan base exactly looks like.”
Tom Johnson says he’s seen a lot of talent, but he tries to be realistic about the American Ultimate Disc League’s ambitions.
“Are we going to be the NFL? Probably not,” he says. The sport is still early in its development. “There are no Frisbee moms yet,” he says.
He joins the players as they gather at the middle of the field, put their hands on one big tower and shout, “DC Breeeeeeze!”
“The game is just too fun to go away,” Nuxoll says. | <urn:uuid:a5875210-3fd9-4805-b1d3-5315d166785c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/04/184776/will-it-fly-american-ultimate.html | 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 | 0.966401 | 1,371 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Problem of universe is a step into the unknown. Imagination works where Nature is the medium. Between mind and reality it builds a bridge.
Mind compresses and focuses on a specific problem at any time; memory of a smell rides piggyback on Now to the past.
When we look at past with rose-tinted glass we are less harsh as from a wider experience in life; mind can focus only one idea at a time.
Nothing new under the sun; a free-masonry of ideas at the unconscious end and you fit idea rationally to time-space. Mind is a state of awareness.
Here is one to round this post off. Positive intelligence permeates everything from Time-Space framework. If in imagination I make an image and call it God how can you prove me wrong? It merely bridges through evidences I glean in nature. God being Time and Space (Eternal God and Omnipresent) does not need imagination whereas I would need it to serve any given purpose on hand.
Mind as I defined is an awareness and it is called Cosmic Mind. Thus Nebuchadnezzar may dream and Daniel can interpret it to him because the medium is common. The unconscious part of the human brain is the seat of will. We follow our desires and will, and find reasons to justify our actions rationally. In the post of Number Game I mentioned the extra-ordinary way in which late Srinivasa Ramanujan wrote down mathematical functions that came to him in dreams before his death. You find what you seek. His knock on the door of mathematical problems was heard. That is all.
How do we limit our life experience to insignificant level when we dismiss what our conscious mind cannot digest! Instead we should use both parts of our brain to get the best out of life.
I wish you a Happy New Year to you all. | <urn:uuid:9056aa8d-9235-4dc7-af3c-0effe4b41b59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bennythomas.wordpress.com/tag/imagination/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941359 | 383 | 2.25 | 2 |
Saturn's small moon Daphnis is caught in the act of raising waves on the edges of the Keeler gap. Waves like these allow scientists to locate small moons in gaps and measure their masses.
For more on Daphnis (5 miles, 8 kilometers across) and the Keeler gap, see PIA11655 and PIA06238.
This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 13 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 14, 2012.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 484,000 miles (778,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 4 degrees. Image scale is 3 miles (4 kilometers) per pixel. The F ring has been brightened by a factor of 1.5 relative to the main rings to enhance visibility.
The Cassini Solstice Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. | <urn:uuid:565b1be0-e544-4fc2-b75b-5e3915566495> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ciclops.org/view/7336/Small_Moon_Makes_Big_Waves | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922337 | 304 | 3.890625 | 4 |
Title: MELZERIA HORNI GREEN (HEMIPTERA: COCCOIDEA: ERIOCOCCIDAE): REDESCRIPTION OF A POORLY KNOWN FELT SCALE.
Williams, Douglas - DEPT.ENT.,NHM, LONDON
Submitted to: Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: December 24, 1997
Publication Date: N/A
Interpretive Summary: Scale insects are important pests in agricultural systems particularly on fruit trees, woody ornamentals, and in greenhouses. A major research thrust is underway to provide the correct names for all 7,000 species of scales so that published information can be easily retrieved and used to control them. The scale insect melzeria horni has not been included in any of the catalogs on scale insects because its identity has been confused or unknown. The purpose of this research is to describe and illustrate the species, and demonstrate that it should be placed in the family with other felt scales. These results allow the authors to include this species in a database called ScaleNet, which is currently available on the World Wide Web. ScaleNet is particularly useful to state and regularly organizations such as APHIS/PPQ interested in controlling and preventing the spread of pest scales.
The genus Melzeria and the only included species, M. horni Green, were described in 1930, but the appropriate family assignment was questionable. Since that time, no one has studied the species and it has not been included in any of the recent catalogs. The objective of this paper is to redescribe and provide evidence that supports its placement in the family Eriococcidae. | <urn:uuid:311e3aa2-fe07-47c4-abcc-3bc797bdd8be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=85467 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944462 | 360 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Halifax, 1863. A young woman, Miss Lewly, comes to Halifax to search for Lt Pinson, with whom she is madly in love. Actually, she is Adèle Hugo, the second daughter of the great French literary figure and statesman. The Lt Pinson does not answer to her love and makes her understand it is hopeless. But as her obsession grows she keeps chasing and harassing him. This film about passionate yet obsessive love and self-destruction is based upon the real diary of Adèle Hugo. Written by
Did You Know?
Gitlis (as the hypnotist) dismisses his Chinese assistant so he can discuss in private with Adele. He allegedly talks to her in Chinese, but actually tells her in Hebrew to get lost. See more
The hypnotist has a plant in the audience pretending to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which was not set up until a decade after the story's setting of 1863 See more | <urn:uuid:03266ed5-9d0c-46ea-aaae-e4e4b02f5b90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073114/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969281 | 200 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation or CASL (formerly known as the Electronic Commerce Protection Act and the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act) was passed in December 2010. It is is awaiting proclamation and should come into force shortly. CASL was supposed to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by ensuring that nobody will be able to send you marketing/promotions emails, unless you clearly agreed to receive them. The subject cannot be misleading and email marketers must identify themselves etc.
Really?? Is the new law about phone telemarketers (the DO NOT CALL list) providing tangible results? According to my phone log, that law is a serious FAIL.
The new Anti-Spam law is aggressive, which is good since most of the time there are tricks to get around such laws and offenders walk away without any repercussions. The thing that makes me laugh is HOW they will proceed to catch the offenders. Will there be a team of experts for that? (A team means more than 4 people.)
What about the usual answers: “It’s not us, it’s our marketing firm that sends email for us…” I even heard once “I don’t know these guys, but they’re promoting our website, how nice!”? Are these answers going to let companies get away with this?
My feeds capture millions of emails daily. There is spam on every level both international and local. One local guy could be proclaimed “Spammer of the Year” for his disrespect of almost everything! He has a misleading “From” section, missing or wrong company information, non-working unsubscribe link etc.
Eloise Gratton, a lawyer specialized in new media and privacy issues who is a technology counsel at McMillan LLP in Montreal wrote this very nice paper on CASL and an existing law since 1993 called “Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector”, a law that is barely respected.
I think CASL is very good, but I have serious doubts about the enforcement.
Trackback from your site. | <urn:uuid:e558eb86-20bc-4e93-bea8-bef16b7e9fd5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vircom.com/security/my-answer-to-the-new-casl-canadian-law-ha-ha-ha/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965972 | 440 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Aragorn (disguised as Thorongil) serves in Rohan and Gondor
Event Type: General
Age: 3rd Age - The Stewards
Years: 2957 ~ 2980
2957—80 Aragorn undertakes his great journeys and errantries. As Thorongil he serves in disguise both Thengel of Rohan and Ecthelion II of Gondor.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix B, The Tale of Years: The Third Age
Ecthelion II. […] Aragorn of the North serves as a soldier in his forces.
The Peoples of Middle-Earth, HoME Vol 12, Part 1, Ch 7, The Heirs of Elendil: The Ruling Stewards of Gondor
[Aragorn’s] ways were hard and long, and he became somewhat grim to look upon, unless he chanced to smile; and yet he seemed to Men worthy of honour, as a king that is in exile, when he did not hide his true shape. For he went in many guises, and won renown under many names. He rode in the host of the Rohirrim, and fought for the Lord of Gondor by land and by sea…
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Here Follows a Part of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen
Ecthelion II […] encouraged all men of worth from near or far to enter his service, and to those who proved trustworthy he gave rank and reward. In much that he did he had the aid and advice of a great captain whom he loved above all. Thorongil men called him in Gondor, the Eagle of the Star, for he was swift and keen-eyed, and wore a silver star upon his cloak; but no one knew his true name nor in what land he was born. He came to Ecthelion from Rohan, where he had served the King Thengel, but he was not one of the Rohirrim. He was a great leader of men, by land or by sea, but he departed into the shadows whence he came, before the days of Ecthelion were ended.
Thorongil often counselled Ecthelion that the strength of the rebels in Umbar was a great peril to Gondor, and a threat to the fiefs of the south that would prove deadly, if Sauron moved to open war. At last he got leave of the Steward and gathered a small fleet, and he came to Umbar unlooked-for by night, and there burned a great part of the ships of the Corsairs. He himself overthrew the Captain of the Haven in battle upon the quays, and then he withdrew his fleet with small loss. But when they came back to Pelargir, to men's grief and wonder, he would not return to Minas Tirith, where great honour awaited him.
He sent a message of farewell to Ecthelion, saying: "Other tasks now call me, lord, and much time and many perils must pass, ere I come again to Gondor, if that be my fate." Though none could guess what those tasks might be, nor what summons he had received, it was known whither he went. For he took boat and crossed over Anduin, and there he said farewell to his companions and went on alone; and when he was last seen his face was towards the Mountains of Shadow.
There was dismay in the City at the departure of Thorongil, and to all men it seemed a great loss, unless it were to Denethor, the son of Ecthelion […]
Indeed [Denethor] was as like to Thorongil as to one of nearest kin, and yet was ever placed second to the stranger in the hearts of men and the esteem of his father. At the time many thought that Thorongil had departed before his rival became his master, though indeed Thorongil had never himself vied with Denethor, nor held himself higher than the servant of his father. And in one matter only were their counsels to the Steward at variance: Thorongil often warned Ecthelion not to put trust in Saruman the White in Isengard, but to welcome rather Gandalf the Grey. But there was little love between Denethor and Gandalf; and after the days of Ecthelion there was less welcome for the Grey Pilgrim in Minas Tirith. Therefore later, when all was made clear, many believed that Denethor, who was subtle in mind and looked further and deeper than other men of his day, had discovered who this stranger Thorongil in truth was, and suspected that he and Mithrandir designed to supplant him.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion: The Stewards | <urn:uuid:f92e14f1-1a0c-4de6-9a82-a0bdac3b6b67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.henneth-annun.net/resources/events_view.cfm?EVID=833 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988418 | 1,049 | 2 | 2 |
The leading lights of the Off-Off-Broadway movement, with their varying standards of professionalism and their willingness to embrace camp sensibility, are often regarded as the Chicago Seven of the theater world; but they've seldom, if ever, been handled with the critical seriousness accorded their uptown brethren. Even the term "Off-Off-Broadway," coined in 1960 by the Village Voice, is a reductio ad absurdum. If Broadway productions were the sheep of dramatic enterprise and Off-Broadway the goats, then Off-Off-Broadway, with its catch-as-catch-can performances in cafés and church basements, was -- in the eyes of the mainstream -- beyond the theatrical pale.
With the appearance of two noteworthy volumes that treat the Off-Off-Broadway movement respectfully and, at times, with reverence, the tide of historical disdain appears to be turning. Late last year, Back Stage Books issued David Crespy's lively précis Off-Off Broadway Explosion: How Provocative Playwrights of the 1960s Ignited a New American Theater. Crespy regards the downtown theatrical aesthetic of mid-century Manhattan as the beginning of an avant-garde that flourishes still in places such as the New York International Fringe Festival. He caps his slim but stimulating volume with a self-help chapter dedicated to "readers who would like to be actively connected with theater, particularly a stage devoted to experimental work." Crespy has a Panglossian outlook that's likely to make more sober historians cringe; but any reader he persuades with his arguments will be heartened by the book's prognosis for English-speaking theater.
Stephen J. Bottoms' Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement, just published by the University of Michigan Press, offers a more complex perspective and is likely to set the agenda for discussion of this subject throughout the next few years. Like Crespy in Off-Off Broadway Explosion, Bottoms profiles the major players and recounts the movement's most significant moments. Here we read of Julie Bovasso; Jean-Claude van Itallie; Maria Irene Fornes; Lanford Wilson; Joe Cino and his eponymous Caffe on Cornelia Street; Julian Beck and Judith Malina, leaders of the nomadic Living Theater; Joseph Chaikin, whose Open Theater was a reaction to what he believed was missing in the work of the Living Theater; Ellen Stewart, founder of La MaMa; the Rev. Al Carmines, Robert Nichols and Lawrence Kornfeld and their Judson Poets' Theatre; Ralph Cook of Theater Genesis; Ron Tavel and John Vacarro of the Playhouse of the Ridiculous; and Charles Ludlum, whose Ridiculous Theater Company may be the best remembered organization of the era. But the account in Playing Underground is far more ambitious than Crespy's; and Bottoms, a Britisher currently teaching at the University of Glasgow, uses the foreigner's fresh eye to locate Off-Off-Broadway in the larger literary, social, and political context of mid-century America.
Bottoms' meaty analysis covers downtown theater from 1954, when Bovasso introduced Jean Genet's The Maids to a select audience of New Yorkers, to the summer when President Nixon resigned and a little beyond. By that time, Robert Patrick's drama Kennedy's Children had premiered Off-Broadway (it would subsequently land on Broadway after finding success in London), and Bottoms interprets it as a moving public lamentation over the passing of the moral conviction and aesthetic passion that characterized the Off-Off-Broadway scene. "With the end of 'the sixties," writes Bottoms, "came the end of the 'free theater' ethos that had animated the underground -- free of charge; free of creative interference from backers; freewheeling, reciprocal collaboration between artists."
Playing Underground focuses on four companies -- Caffe Cino, The Judson Poets' Theater, LaMaMa and Theatre Genesis -- that the author considers "the core of an identifiable, alternative theater movement." In prose that's notable for its clarity and striking in its lack of performance-studies jargon, Bottoms evokes the varied styles and preoccupations of these groups and reconstructs the personal dynamics of their membership. From critical accounts of the period and his own interviews with eyewitnesses, he also manages to conjure the sensations of theatrical performances that most of his readers will not have seen and that, in many cases, have been documented only haphazardly before this. The result is an assessment of Off-Off-Broadway that is more thorough and authoritative than any previous attempt and, not insignificantly, more vivid and entertaining.
In Bottoms' judgment, Off-Off-Broadway was not avant-garde in the sense in which that term is used now. Its companies were never in with any in-group or patronized by the kind of trendsetters who currently follow the buzz to BAM in search of the Next Wave. Off-Off-Broadway was, instead, an "underground" movement consisting of artists who hailed from "all social backgrounds and classes" and who supported no uniform social, political, or cultural agenda. As such, it was genuinely antiestablishment. This distinction between the avant-garde and the underground, which Bottoms adapts from the ruminations of the novelist Ronald Sukenick, may be arguable, but it allows the author to contrast what he perceives as imaginative exuberance among Off-Off-Broadway artists with a certain posturing in the contemporary aesthetic vanguard.
Bottoms believes that, for the most part, Off-Off-Broadway was a function of the fact that Broadway's job market was shrinking and that Off-Broadway's professional standards were becoming more and more stringent even as the fare it offered became less and less adventurous. He surmises that, rather than being self-consciously rebellious, most of Off-Off-Broadway's artists and technicians would have preferred remunerative jobs in mainstream theater; he notes that many of them headed there as soon as an opportunity presented itself. This is not to deny that Off-Off-Broadway artists were genuinely engaged with political issues; but their engagement, in Bottoms' view, was a function of the Cold War era and, in many cases, of their status as sexual outsiders. They would likely have been focused on politics no matter where they worked -- and, in fact, as impatience intensified throughout American society with the lingering Vietnam War and the legacy of conventionality left by the Eisenhower era, the mainstream theater became increasingly politically engaged, as well.
Bottoms isn't as sanguine as Crespy about current American theater or its prospects but, like Crespy, he has faith in the lasting legacy of Off-Off Broadway. "[The] movement may have run its course by the early 1970s," writes Bottoms, "but...its independent, underground spirit did not die out. Having mutated over the years, like an adaptable, resilient virus, it continues to survive in a variety of contexts. Perhaps, when the conditions exist once again for its contagion to spread, it will resurface to 'plague' us once again." | <urn:uuid:66f79e19-5901-4de7-b3ad-5d6adcfd5ed8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/10-2004/off-off-broadway-way-back-when_5191.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963397 | 1,510 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Uterine fibroids are growths within the uterus that can result in pain and discomfort. Fibroids are also called leiomyomas and are made are made up of muscle and connective tissue; they may range in size from being microscopic to being larger than a grapefruit. One important fact about fibroids is that they are almost always noncancerous, but still may need to be removed surgically in order to treat symptoms. The rate at which they grow is unpredictable, and a woman may have more than one fibroid at a time.
Symptoms and Diagnosis of Uterine Fibroids
A woman with uterine fibroids may suffer from:
- Bleeding outside of her periods
- Longer lasting menstrual periods than normal
- Pain during sex
- Back pain
- A need to urinate frequently
Fibroids may be asymptomatic and discovered only during a pelvic examination. The pelvic exam may detect changes in the shape of the woman’s uterus. If the patient’s uterus is abnormally large, is distended or has an irregular shape, a doctor may be concerned about fibroid growths and order tests to confirm their suspicion. Those tests will often consist of an trans-vaginal ultrasound or MRI, along with a pap smear, a pregnancy test and a test of the endometrium to check for endometrial cancer or pregnancy.
Types of Fibroids
- Submucosal fibroids grow in the uterine lining and may cause heavier than normal menstrual bleeding.
- Subserosal fibroids grow outwards from the outer covering of the uterus and may create pressure on the bladder resulting in incontinence and the constant urge to urinate.
- Intramural fibroids grow within the muscular wall of the uterus.
- Pedunculated fibroids have a stalk attaching them to the uterus and may grow either on the outside of the uterus or inside it.
What Causes Fibroid Growths?
The cause is unknown, but the hormone estrogen has been shown to have some connection to it. Fibroids are rare in women who are under the age of 20 and usually stop growing after a woman starts menopause. They are known to grow at points when a woman’s estrogen levels are high, like during pregnancy. Other factors in fibroid growth include genetics. Women of African-American descent are more likely to get uterine fibroids by a factor of three.
About Fibroid Therapy
In most cases, fibroids are only be treated if they are causing symptoms, with the most common procedure for removing them being hysterectomy. They are the most common reasons for hysterectomies. A hysterectomy eliminates the potential for recurrence of fibroids, but also eliminates the possibility of a woman getting pregnant in the future. Women who want retain the option of bearing children can choose to have a myomectomy done instead of a hysterectomy. A myomectomy involves the surgical removal of the individual fibroids, rather than the whole uterus.
About Fibroid Medications
None of the drug therapies for uterine fibroids get rid of them entirely. Some of the drugs work by lowering estrogen and placing the woman in a state similar to menopause. The lowered estrogen may shrink the fibroids and relieve symptoms. Other methods of treatment, such as using contraceptive pills, have been shown to control excessive menstrual bleeding, but do not affect the size of the fibroid.
Fibroids are a common condition that while potentially painful, are treatable and are not likely to cause long-lasting harm. Women who exhibit symptoms of having fibroids should see their healthcare provider as soon as possible to get treatment.
For more information about Halt Medical’s new Acessa system, please click here to download our patient brochure. To learn about physicians near you who use the Acessa system, please call us at 877.412.3828. | <urn:uuid:685aee8f-0d00-4ab4-a469-62ea4b716e29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haltmedical.com/about-fibroids | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949078 | 838 | 3.34375 | 3 |
300-Pound Orchid Gets a New Basket (Video)
Repotting a normal sized plant is a hassle in its own right. But what if that plant weighs nearly 300 pounds and hangs over a three-foot deep pool? This past June, BBG Aquatic House curator David Horak decided that the tiger orchid (Grammatophyllum speciosum) needed a new basket. The suspended wooden basket had begun to deteriorate and Horak worried that the plant might drop into the pool below. Watch the video that details the unwieldy repotting process that turned out to be a great success:
BBG’s Grammatophyllum speciosum has only blossomed twice since coming to the Garden; blooming requires a tremendous amount of light and heat that isn’t always easy to replicate given Brooklyn’s winters, even in a glasshouse. The short day length and lower light intensity of this latitude makes blooming an uncommon event here; the last time it flowered was in 2008.
To learn more about the tiger orchid, read the photo essay "Repotting the Tiger Orchid." | <urn:uuid:41b0941a-29f3-45b4-9073-b8f5cded8616> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbg.org/news/repotting_orchid_video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901538 | 240 | 2.1875 | 2 |
The aftermath of superstorm Sandy in the land of opportunity
November 20, 2012By Jonathan Zimmerman
Did superstorm Sandy help President Obama to victory? Did it hurt Chris Christie's standing in the Republican party? The bigger question is what Washington can do to help the neediest Americans, when a hurricane blows through – and when it doesn't.
In 1972, as Congress debated legislation to assist the victims of Hurricane Agnes, then Rep. Ed Koch (D) of New York rose to ask his colleagues why they didn't extend the same generosity to "the ghettos of Harlem" and other poverty-stricken parts of America. "Do we need the intervention of God before we address ourselves to the problems that man has created?" the future New York City mayor wondered. "I would like to know why it is we distinguish between natural disasters and those made by man."
Consider the news coverage of hurricane Sandy prior to the elections, which devolved into a duel of vapid prognostication. Would the hurricane-turned-superstorm help President Obama by allowing him to appear, well, "presidential?" Or would the post-hurricane damage actually make him look worse, giving an eleventh-hour boost to Mitt Romney?
Meanwhile, a minor debate broke out in the blogosphere over what was seen as Mr. Romney's pledge – during a GOP primary debate – to close the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction," Romney said last June, in a quote highlighted by the Huffington Post.
Spokespersons for Romney quickly sought to quell the controversy, insisting that he had been misinterpreted. Yes, they said, Gov. Romney still thinks states should take the lead in addressing disasters. But no, he wouldn't shutter FEMA.
And that raises the more interesting question: Why not? Even as Romney and the GOP condemn government spending, why does federal emergency relief remain a sacred cow for conservatives and liberals alike?
When Herbert Hoover made his famous trip to flood-ravaged Mississippi in 1927, as secretary of Commerce, he called on state governments and charities – not Uncle Sam – to provide emergency assistance. Even after he ascended to the White House, facing the worst economic crisis in US history, Hoover continued to reject federal relief to struggling localities and individuals. The stopgap measures he implemented late in his term were considered by many – especially voters – to be too little, too late.
After Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Hoover, his New Deal unleashed massive federal spending for public works, farm aid, and much else. Not surprisingly, then, Roosevelt also presided over the first coordinated federal disaster relief. In 1935, he sent thousands of unemployed World War I veterans to Florida to help clean up after a hurricane; more than 200 of them died while doing so.
But direct assistance to affected individuals came much more slowly. In 1950, Congress passed a measure allowing presidents to authorize disaster-related spending on pubic facilities. Yet individuals couldn't apply for federal aid until the 1969 Disaster Relief Act, passed in the wake of hurricane Camille, which offered temporary housing, unemployment compensation, and small business loans to victims of the tragedy.
Alas, Camille's most impoverished victims rarely received such aid. Applicants for housing trailers had to show they owned a property lot, while loan seekers needed to put up collateral. Meanwhile, complicated paperwork rules made it nearly impossible for African-Americans – the poorest and least-educated hurricane victims – to receive aid. Of 617 small-business loans issued after Camille in Mississippi, which had the highest percentage of black citizens of any state, just 21 went to non-whites.
Similar reports led President Jimmy Carter to press for the creation of FEMA, which Congress established in 1979. But under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the agency became "a dumping ground for political hacks," as a House committee reported in 1993. To direct it, Bush had appointed a close friend of his chief of staff with no direct experience in emergency relief.
The next Bush president put FEMA in the hands of Michael D. Brown, whose main "qualification" seemed to be his prior directorship of the International Arabian Horse Association. George W. Bush's tribute to him during hurricane Katrina – "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" – would become one of the administration's signal embarrassments, given Mr. Brown's notoriously incompetent handling of the disaster.
In the storm's aftermath we've had a chance to judge Mr. Obama's own FEMA team. Their has been praise and criticism of his actions. But almost nobody – has stepped forward to suggest that we do away with the agency altogether.
And that brings us back to Ed Koch's question. Ted Steinberg aptly summarizes it in his book "Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America": "If Congress was so willing to offer assistance to the victims of natural disaster...why was it so reluctant to offer similar relief to the sufferers of man-mad calamities, people injured by an economic system that deprived them of decent housing and jobs?"
The answer, ironically, lies in the comforting myth that many Americans continue to cling to: Anyone can make it here. Never mind that economic mobility now occurs less commonly in the US than in most other Western democracies, as several recent studies have shown. You can do anything you want, many still insist, if you put your mind to it; and if you fail, well, you're probably just not trying hard enough.
But lawmakers carve out an exception for natural disasters, which helps reinforce this larger narrative about American success. That's why we call them "Acts of God," after all; their victims aren't at fault. So we offer them a helping hand, however ineptly, and declare the American dream once more open to all.
If Washington really wants to preserve the land of opportunity, lawmakers must consider new ways to help our neediest citizens – and not just after a hurricane. The real issue isn't what we do when the winds start blowing. It's what to do when they stop.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory” (Yale University Press). | <urn:uuid:106c7d76-3938-482d-942f-b6dfe64c5d59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/47069 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968409 | 1,313 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Crazy Cardio Workout on the Track with Proper Warm Up
Below is a sprint-based workout on the track. But before we get into it, we're going to show you a good warm-up to perform before you do some explosive running and agility.
Ever get injured in a practice, or doing a sprint, or doing a squat? Odds are it was because you didn't warm up your muscles properly before you performed an explosive activity. Warming up is very important to get the blood flowing. However, warming up is more that mere stretching. Instead, you need to implement systematic movement that target the key muscles used for running and agility. Learn this 15 minute warm up used by professional athletes like Vincent Jackson and Ben Roethlisberger to warm up before practices or games.
Here is a hellish sprint-based cardio workout that you will perform on a track for agility, explosiveness, speed, and fat loss:
10 x 40 yard sprints
8 x 60 yard sprint
6 x 80 yard sprints
4 x 100 yard sprints
2 x 200 yard sprints
1 x 400 yard sprint
Marathon runners almost look sickly. It's because long-distance running eats at your muscle and your joints, whereas sprinting actually is beneficial for your muscles and puts much less strain on your joints because you aren't pounding on your knees for as long a period of time. Intensity is the most efficient way to burn fat, because it elevates your metabolism so much that you burn fat long after the exercise is done; whereas when you run at a steady pace, your body burns calories to perform the task but the fat burning process is over when the running is over. I don't know about you but I like to burn fat while I'm on the couch too. The reason these sprinters are in such top shape even though they don't burn as many calories in their workouts as marathon runners, is because of the high intense nature it takes to run a full-out sprint. Running 10- 100 meter sprints in a practice session as opposed to 6 miles (96-100 meter segments) in a practice session is because to do a sprint your body needs to incorporate slow twitch, intermediary twitch, fast fatigue resistant twitch, and fast oxidative-glycolytic muscle fibers in order to perform the sprint. When you run 6 miles you just incorporate slow twitch muscle fibers. Your body needs an extraordinary amount of energy to not only perform the sprint but also to recover from it. By incorporating all of the muscle fibers that the long-distance running doesn't, you burn much more calories during the actual 100 yard sprint than the 100 yard steady paced sprinting, even though you are covering the same amount of distance. Just think about how much more energy it requires within your body to bring in 4 sets of muscle fibers as opposed to one set. High intensity training is the most efficient form of burning fat and you can do the workout in a quarter of the time it takes to run 6 miles.
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Date Published : 2012-10-10 11:47:07
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