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Healing With Basic Nutrition
Healing With Basic Nutrition
Please investigate healing with basic nutrition and all the natural healing and alternative methods, especially including healing foods. Self-healing is possible in fact it is very likely if you apply the different methods that we suggest here. Healing is a multifaceted process. It can be overwhelming when you began. Try one thing at a time and work it. Don't try to do too much at once.
The basic nutrients in our foods are proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and water these nutrients are essential for the building, maintenance and reproduction of our body tissues.
Proteins are the major resource for the structural and functional components of our body. It is only used as energy as a last resort. Amino acids make up the building blocks of a protein. There are 22 different amino acids which in various combinations make up all the proteins found in nature. Only eight of the 22 are essential to us because they cannot be made in human metabolism. These eight must be provided in sufficient quantities in our food in order for us to enjoy good health.
Fats are made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. They are a physiological source of energy and provide structural material for the human body. There are two kinds of fat unsaturated (liquid at room temperature), and saturated (solid at room temperature). Unsaturated fats are found mostly in plant tissues. Saturated fats are found mostly in animal tissues. Most of the fats that we need for good nutrition can be synthesized in the body from carbohydrates as we need them. The ones we can't synthesize are called nonessential because they are not necessary ingredients in our diet. Essential fats must be provided to us in our foods. We get them from a few unsaturated fats.
Carbohydrates provide the most bioavailable source of energy and structural material for our bodies. They are made up of saccharides which are long chain molecules of carbon and hydrogen and oxygen. These complex carbohydrate molecules are commonly referred to as starch.
Green and yellow vegetable are mostly complex carbohydrate. They provide very few calories. The amount of complex carbohydrates may provide the diet small. Fruits, because of the sweet taste, are higher in calorie and are 90% carbohydrate. Sweet tasting forms of carbohydrates provide glucose and fructose. Whole grains and the flours made from them, tubers, legumes, winter squashes all contain high amounts of complex carbohydrates. Potatoes, corn, rice, and other grains store about 80% of their calories as complex carbohydrates. Lentils, peas, and beans are 70% complex carbohydrates.
Starches have enough calories to meet all the energy needs of a normal active person. Starches have enough protein, fiber, minerals, essential fat and vitamin to meet our daily dietary needs.
Once eaten the colon breaks carbohydrate back down into simple sugars. These simple sugars pass easily through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. There they are used by the body as energy.
A byproduct of eating carbohydrates is dietary fiber. These are even longer chains of complex carbohydrates. This makes up the bulk of your stool. Fiber provides no nutrition to the body but is necessary for colin health. Fiber can only be found in plant tissue.
Approximately 60% of our body is water. It provides no energy to our body but yet is essential to life. It is passive solvent in which gases, salts, and compounds interact. Water actively participates in forming the building block cells and is the environment in which cells live. There are many other reasons why water is essential.
Proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and water are called macronutrients because they make up the bulk of our food. Our food is also made up of two micronutrients vitamins, and minerals. This is only a very small amount of our diet.
Vitamins are organic compounds. They are synthesized mainly by plants and bacteria. People can synthesize their own vitamin D with the help of the Sun. Our vitamin supply must come from plants and our own bowels. There are diseases that develop from in adequate supplies of vitamins.
Minerals are inorganic materials that come from the earth. We have to have these in adequate amounts to maintain our health. They are necessary for metabolic reaction to numerous to count in the body. We need them for structural material, enzyme production, etc.
Our foods can also have non nutrients in them, things like chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, cholesterol, and various additives. These non-nutrients may be very small but can have a very large impact on our health. We must try to have the purest food as possible in order to maintain the best health.
Healing With Acai Berry
Heal Yourself with Honey | <urn:uuid:ce021bad-0e78-4a18-a69c-466a9a432c3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.your-healing.com/basicnutritionhealing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955203 | 967 | 3.09375 | 3 |
n. An act or continuing conduct of a professional which does not meet the standard of professional competence and results in provable damages to his/her client or patient. Such an error or omission may be through negligence, ignorance (when the professional should have known), or intentional wrongdoing. However, malpractice does not include the exercise of professional judgment even when the results are detrimental to the client or patient. Except in cases of extremely obvious or intentional wrongs, in order to prove malpractice there must be testimony of an expert as to the acceptable standard of care applied to the specific act or conduct which is claimed to be malpractice and testimony of the expert that the professional did not meet that standard. The defendant then can produce his/her own expert to counter that testimony. Professions which are subject to lawsuits based on claims of malpractice include lawyers, physicians, dentists, hospitals, accountants, architects, engineers and real estate brokers. In some states in order to file an action for malpractice against a medical caregiver, there must be a written demand or notice which gives the physician or hospital a chance to settle the matter before a suit is filed. In actions against attorneys it is mandatory that the plaintiff prove that the error, if any, caused damages. This means that a lawsuit, claim or negotiation the attorney was handling would have resulted in a win or better recovery except for the malpractice. Thus, there is a requirement of proving the original "case within the case" during the trial of the malpractice claim. Contrary to public perception, substantial judgments in malpractice actions are rare, with studies showing that only a small percentage of the claims result in recovery for the allegedly aggrieved client or patient. The principal reason is that most cries of malpractice are unfounded and are based on unhappiness with the result of the original services no matter how well handled, a breakdown in communication between attorney or doctor and client or patient, anger with the professional, retaliation for attempts to collect unpaid fees or greed. | <urn:uuid:47eb884a-f9c5-4870-be7d-54aad417e177> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1200 | 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 | 0.955514 | 402 | 2.296875 | 2 |
The great ethanol scam and how it threatens our cars.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued another one of those announcements read exclusively by government bureaucrats and green policy wonks. The EPA decided to delay a decision to increase the concentration of ethanol legal in gasoline from 10% to 15%. So-called E15 fuel would have to wait for approval until November.
It was a little-read regulatory decision that barely made a splash in the media. But it was also a rock thrown at Washington’s hornets’ nest of food and agricultural lobbyists. “We are disappointed,” warned food giant Archer Daniels Midland. “We find this further delay unacceptable” and a “dereliction of duty,” harrumphed ethanol lobbying group Growth Energy.
By delaying the decision, the EPA punted on a crucial decision. The pressure brought to bear against the agency by the agriculture industry has been incredible. It’s also been applied well; the EPA will most likely still approve E15 fuel in the fall.
That’s bad news for any American who likes to drive. In a country powered by the automobile, E15 is an enormous question mark. Since the 1970s when ethanol was first regulated by the feds, concentrations of alcohol in fuel above 10% have been illegal. But the government, lost in a dream world where cars can run on corn, has tied itself in regulatory knots trying to force ethanol into the fuel supply.
The history of ethanol is a sad torrid affair of crony capitalism and green fantasies. By jumping in bed with the agriculture industry and blindly slapping on new regulations, the government artificially propped up an industry and put itself in a bind from which there may be no return.
From Suing Toyota to Subsidizing E15
Across America, pumps at gas stations are emblazoned with the words, “Contains 10% Ethanol.” That’s no free market innovation. Since the 1970s, the federal government has heavily subsidized the production of “gasohol”—a blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol that reduces tailpipe emissions. For decades, progressive politicians and environmental groups have revered ethanol as a miracle additive that will help purify America’s air. “No country has ever gone to war over ethanol,” reads one sign on the Washington, D.C. Metro subway.
There’s just one problem: Ethanol fuel is wildly inefficient. The amount of corn required to soak the fuel supply is massive. To shift America’s car culture entirely from gasoline to gasohol would require 700,000 square miles of land growing corn exclusively for ethanol production. That would mean converting one-fifth of the United States into a sprawling corn farm.
Then again, the government never found a green boondoggle it didn’t love. For five years now, Congress has been mandating that the fuel supply be diluted with ethanol. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 required 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol in the fuel supply by 2012. A Democratic Congress went a step further in 2007, mandating 9 billion gallons by 2008, 15.2 billion by 2012, and 36 billion by 2022.
Unfortunately, that whole Economics 101, supply-and-demand thing got in the way. The maximum amount of ethanol that can be produced to meet demand, called the “blend wall,” is expected to level out at 15 billion. That will make it impossible to meet the government’s mandates.
The agriculture industry, represented primarily by Archer Daniels Midland and Growth Energy, spied an opportunity. Why not increase the legal gasohol concentration from 10% ethanol to 12% or even 15%? That would immediately ignite ethanol production and allow the government to meet its mandate. More importantly, it would make Big Agriculture some serious money.
The EPA looked ready to raise the limit until science finally intervened. A study surfaced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory from 2008 that found E15 ethanol caused a raft of problems in cars, including a loss of fuel economy and spikes in exhaust temperatures. Meanwhile the higher concentration of ethanol did nothing to reduce tailpipe emissions. The study also found problems when E15 fuel was used in lawn trimmers.
The car industry exploded in outrage. Most car warranties only cover E10, which could leave customers stuck with hefty bills if their engines were damaged. A study done by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers found E15 “made engines run hot, compromised catalytic converters, and even damaged cylinder walls.”
To its credit, the EPA ultimately delayed its decision in order to review the science. But in the meantime they’ll have an army of powerful agricultural lobbyists leaning on them. Even supported by its scaffolding of government subsidies and mandates, the ethanol industry is collapsing. The recession shuttered several ethanol companies. Others were gobbled up by oil giants at bargain prices. Some estimates suggest ethanol producers are losing 10 cents on every gallon of gasoline. This is all despite the fact that 25% of corn grown in the United States goes towards ethanol production.
The agricultural industry needs E15. And if history is any indication, it’ll probably get what it wants.
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
H/T to National Review Online | <urn:uuid:83f2bfc0-bad4-404a-8836-f733f535e2ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spectator.org/archives/2010/08/27/corny-capitalism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941401 | 1,278 | 1.65625 | 2 |
By JANET RALOFF
In recent years, one after another of the world's major fisheries has collapsed or exhibited signs of severe stress. In hopes of saving their industry, fishers have been turning to species and fishing grounds they had formerly ignored.
For instance, some of those who had been plying their trade near shore now travel some 200 kilometers out. There, they harvest stocks along the continental shelves at depths of 300 meters. Others have even begun fishing the continental slopes--at such staggering depths as 1,200 meters.
Commercial fleets are increasingly investing in seabed equipment known as mobile gear. Dragged along the ocean floor at even the greatest of these depths, their trawls and dredges scoop up everything in their path, bringing to the surface whatever doesn't sift through their nets. Those nets inevitably snag some rocks, turning them over and destroying animals attached to them.
Lately, marine ecologists have begun showing up at these fishing grounds with their own, even higher tech gear. Their trawls, sleds, and dredges come equipped with video cameras, sidescan sonar, and computer-driven mechanical shovels that can sample the seabed at the touch of a button.
Their goal is not to catch fish but to haul in hard data documenting trawling's impact on tube worms, sponges, anemones, hydrozoans, urchins, and other denizens of the deep. Ten or even 20 pounds of these animals, which are generally smaller than the target fish, may be caught--and discarded as waste--for every pound of commercial catch. Caught in the roiling waters, some of the sea dwellers remain on the ocean floor, crushed, uprooted, or displaced after chains, bars, or metal doors have plowed through the sediment that had been their home.
Worthless by fishing standards, these critters provide food and habitat for some or all of the commercial fisheries under stress. In fact, argues Elliott A. Norse, director of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Redmond, Wash., trawling's toll on these largely ignored seafloor species may underlie the recent collapse of many commercial groundfish stocks, which include cod, haddock, pollock, and flounder.
"What we've done is destroy the carrying capacity of the habitat to support those [fisheries] by removing the organisms that provide shelter for little fishes," he told Science News. "We're talking about destruction of marine habitat that is, if not equivalent, at least in the ballpark with clear-cutting forests on land."
Not everyone concurs. "There's no question that certain habitats have taken a real pounding," says Andrew A. Rosenberg, northeast regional administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Gloucester, Mass. Though he acknowledges that sharp declines in stocks of exploited fish, such as cod, have been "clearly associated with fishing," he adds, "I don't know that you'd conclude it's due to a clear-cutting type of effect on habitat."
Such a determination would require long-term monitoring of the nontargeted ocean floor communities--which, he notes, is not done today. So while he believes the clear-cutting issue "is a valid and important concern, [Norse's] conclusion may be a little premature."
Hoping to help resolve the issue, a number of research ventures have begun to identify vulnerabilities in the seafloor communities and to study how quickly damaged habitats bounce back. Their findings could influence whether and how fishing regulations might be modified to ensure that critical habitats receive a chance to recover.
A biological oceanographer who studies seafloor habitats, Les Watling of the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center in Walpole has become particularly concerned about fishing fleets moving into what had been inaccessible sites.
Rock-hopper gear, for example, introduced about 10 to 15 years ago, can roll over large seabed obstacles. Ropes that thread through a series of huge balls or rollers drag a net across the floor, often overturning rocks and, Watling says, "grinding to a pulp" any animals cemented to them.
In 1987, he videotaped Outer Falls, then a pristine community some 80 miles offshore in the Gulf of Maine. The boulder-strewn area teemed with ancient sponges, bushlike bryozoans, and other animals that form colonies and anchor themselves permanently onto solid footings.
Studies have shown that the fry of groundfish, such as cod, survive best in the shelter afforded by such structurally complex bottoms--seabeds strewn with cobbles or rocks and dense with organisms growing up from them. Areas like Outer Falls, some 100 meters below the surface, probably served as nurseries for vulnerable yearling fish, Watling says.
He could tell that Outer Falls hadn't yet been trawled 9 years ago, because "its stones were completely covered with animals." Marine fauna were even sandwiched into the crevices between rocks and the sediment. Fearing the area's rocky prominences, which would have ripped apart any nets dragged over them, trawlers had shunned this obviously old and stable community, Watling says.
When he returned to Outer Falls 3 years ago, "it looked like a hurricane had been through." Boulders had been overturned and the area's slow-growing colonial animals, which have no natural predators, had vanished. Judging by size, some of the lost sponges may have been at least 50 years old, Watling says. Because these slow-growing animals also take a long time to reestablish themselves, replacement of such mature communities could take a century.
He now suspects that "the biggest factor behind the decline of fish in the Gulf of Maine is the rock-hopper."
Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans is also concerned about rock-hoppers and associated gear tearing through seafloor communities. So for the past 3 years, its scientists have trawled and examined a small area that is closed to commercial fishing on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
They surveyed the local inhabitants before and after conducting a dozen trawling runs down each of three 13-kilometer-long corridors. This trawling simulates on a local scale a year's commercial fishing. A synthesis of the findings could be completed by early next year, says Donald C. Gordon Jr., an ecologist at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and a coleader of the project.
Preliminary findings from the first 2 years of the study indicate some early warning signs of ecological change, Gordon's team noted last June at a small ecological conference on trawling held at the Darling Center. Sidescan sonar images revealed changes in the floor surface that persisted at least 1 year. Further acoustic studies detected millimeter-scale changes in the structure of the top 4.5 centimeters of sediment, where most animals live.
It looks as if trawling has homogenized the subsurface structure of the sandy sediment, a change that points to the removal or destruction of infauna--sediment-burrowing animals, says Peter Schwinghamer of the Bedford Institute. "Anything that's important to the infauna [here] is important to cod."
The net picked up fewer invertebrates--usually snow crabs, basket stars, and sea urchins--with each of the dozen passes of the trawl. However, what ended up in the trawl's net represents just a fraction of the damage to bottom dwellers. Many shell shards and other pieces of animals were visible on the seafloor.
In tropical waters half a world away, Ian Poiner and his colleagues at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Queensland are completing a 5-year study on the impact of prawn fishing between Australia's coast and the Great Barrier Reef. Like Gordon's team, they conducted a dozen research trawling runs down well-characterized corridors to simulate the intensity of local fishing. On average, Poiner notes, commercial trawls plow through most of these Australian waters at least once--and in many places up to eight times--annually.
With Japanese consumers willing to pay $25 to $35 per pound for tiger prawns, a single ship can earn $1 million in a couple of months of shrimping.
Poiner's findings, also reported at the Darling conference, showed that a single pass of the trawl removes some 5 to 20 percent of the seafloor animals. "So you get total depletion, certainly, by 10 or 12 trawls."
Here, mining the bottom does not appear to be hurting the short-term productivity of the exploited stock. One reason, Poiner suspects, is that across a given area, the trawls remove more predators than prawns.
Simon Thrush of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Hamilton has been working to estimate how quickly the disturbed seafloor communities recover. In one experiment, he kept patches of soft sediment covered with a concrete slab for 1 month. "We expected our plots to recover in 2 to 3 months," he says. However, 9 months later, the 0.2- to 3.2-meter-square test plots still exhibited less species diversity and lower abundances of each species than undisturbed tracts nearby.
In this environment, tube worms--on the menu of fish and birds the world over--normally make mats that cover the seafloor. Just 1 to 2 centimeters long, the worms glue fine sediment into fragile cylindrical homes that extend about 5 centimeters above the seabed. Thrush now suspects that their slow recolonization reflects his compaction of the sediment, which makes it difficult for would-be immigrants to remodel.
Because storms frequently reshape soft, sandy floors in waters less than 70 meters deep, Thrush notes, the conventional wisdom has held that trawling in these areas has minimal impact on sediment dwellers. "Our experiment illustrates that this is an oversimplification," he told Science News.
Major changes in sediment structure could also alter both the chemical form and the release of nutrients, thus affecting the habitability of the entire water column, according to Lawrence Mayer, a biogeochemist at the Darling Center.
Sediments supply about half of the nutrients in waters to depths of perhaps 200 meters, he notes. Studies have shown that a host of environmental factors can affect how bacteria manipulate chemicals in their vicinity. For instance, a sediment's geometry can influence whether bacteria release nitrogen in biologically useful forms that serve as natural fertilizers or in inactive compounds that most animals ignore.
"As we trawl," Mayer notes, "we convert the geometry of the ecosystem from one containing a small number of large burrows to one that contains a large number of small burrows." This reflects the replacement of larger animals by small opportunists.
Will trawling prompt sediments to act as a source or as a sink of fertilizer for continental shelf ecosystems? "I haven't the slightest idea," Mayer says. Too little research has been done on this "terribly complex system" to offer a useful gauge.
Today, fisheries are managed largely in terms of how many animals can be harvested without reducing the vitality of the population. The new trawling studies raise questions about the extent to which commercially fished stocks depend on habitats that are being degraded by seafloor trawling, Rosenberg says. He would like to see long-term monitoring of the ignored seabed communities to establish their role in the productivity of commercial fisheries.
So would Norse. Unfortunately, he says, this topic "has gotten very little attention" to date and even less research funding. Nor should the economic performance of commercial fisheries necessarily be the primary focus of such research, he argues. He would like to see the conservation of biodiversity accorded equal importance.
Toward that end, he advocates the development of marine reserves closed to fishing and other human disturbances.
Gordon, Schwinghamer, and some of their colleagues would also like to see the use of mobile gear in fisheries managed more conservatively, arguing that trawls and dredges should be permitted only in certain regions and be used only during specified periods, depending on the apparent vulnerability of the habitat and its role in the life cycle of other fishes.
Rosenberg would take more of a wait-and-see approach. He says that telling people not to trawl "is not a particularly viable strategy." He would like to see other management options explored through research that looks not only at biology but also at the sociology and economics of fishing.
John Williamson, a fisherman from Kennebunk, Maine, who does not use bottom trawls, worries that the answers to such questions may come too late.
Not long ago, he could motor out to where huge schools of fish congregated and reliably haul in the day's limit. Today, he says, "I'm not going to find a large concentration of fish anywhere"--and the situation is only getting worse. Already, he charges, it's as if fishers have been reduced to hunting down "small patches of fish in the middle of a barren desert." | <urn:uuid:9c473db6-30b5-40d4-be63-0985fbb93605> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arch/10_26_96/bob1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954883 | 2,724 | 3.078125 | 3 |
by Neil Fraser, March 2001
"We're not the first to discover this, but we'd like to confirm, from the crew of Apollo 17, that the world is round." -- Eugene Cernan, Commander
Virtually every picture showing the full Earth derives from one photograph taken in 1972. Yet hardly anybody notices this.
Apollo 17 was NASA's last and most successful manned Moon mission. Within just a few hours of launch the crew were 24,000 km away and could see an entire hemisphere of Earth. The photo they took was labelled AS17-148-22726 and was added to the hundreds of thousands of others in the NASA archives. And there it would have remained, were it not for environmental organisations and famine-relief organisations of the early 1980's. Its prominent depiction of Africa and Antarctica made it perfectly suited as symbols for both causes. Posters started appearing pairing the photo with captions such as "It's the only one we've got".
This initial boost was all that was needed to start a monopoly. From then on, whenever someone was seeking to use a photograph of Earth, naturally it was an example of AS17-148-22726 that one would find first. Television, newspapers, websites, mouse pads and marketing material are all oozing with copies of the photograph. Yet astonishingly few people notice that they are being presented with the same photo over and over.
Looking for photographs of Earth? The best place to look is NASA's Earth from Space or Planetary Photojournal databases. Or if you are impatient, just grab one of the four photos taken by Galileo (1, 2, 3, 4). If you are determined to use the infamous AS17-148-22726 photo, there is the one at the top of this page, or a really big version (1746x1763 pixels, 776k). If Triana is ever launched and starts transmitting a fresh full-Earth photo every 15 minutes, usage of this photo should drop off.
The following examples show how AS17-148-22726 has been used (and abused) over the years.
|Dmoz category logo.|
|Download some wallpaper for your desktop from AMD. Available in all your favourite screen resolutions.|
|Is the U.S. Strategic Command planning to invade Africa? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to use a photograph of North America for the backdrop of a US military organisation's logo?|
|Environmental poster. Earth is mirrored left/right which is topologically impossible. The text at the bottom reads, "Believed to be unique, this magnificent dwelling has been sadly neglected in recent years. Some outstanding features have been lost. However it still offers an exceptional home to those prepared to maintain it with care."|
|Earth Day Network is yet another environmental organisation that uses a mirror image of the Earth photograph.|
|Is there a rule saying that environmental organisations (such as EcoWorld) are required to use the mirror image of the photo?|
|Apple thinks that there are a couple of Internet backbone hubs in Antarctica. Presumably the penguins run Linux.|
|Apparently someone at Protac really likes this photo; they use it all over their site. This is also the first time I've ever seen someone page-curl a planet!|
|Hargreaves Lansdown publishes a newspaper called the Investment Times. The editorial on the front page was long, dry and boring. So they inserted a pretty (but completely unrelated) photo to make it look nicer.|
|The 1995 film Apollo 13 used this photograph of Earth so many times I lost count. Every time the crew looked out the window, there was Africa and Antarctica. Obviously Earth doesn't spin in this movie. Instead of using a photograph taken on Apollo 17, why couldn't they have used one of the photographs actually taken on Apollo 13?|
|Here is the setup wizard for sharing an Internet connection using Microsoft's Windows 98. The sidebar features an edited version of the photo which has been mirrored vertically, resulting in an impossible topology.|
|CORE uses our planet as a letter 'O'.|
|Scientific American needed a photo to help with their planetary dissection.|
|Talicom's superb (but sadly abandoned) HTML Power Tools features this collage on their application's splash page.|
|I have visited Fort William, but I don't remember seeing Earth rising above the mountains. What planet do they think they're on?|
|SimEarth is a computer game from 1993. It contains a cartoon of Earth which tells you how well (or badly) you are doing. An examination of the land masses and the cloud patterns shows that this cartoon is drawn directly from the Apollo 17 photograph.|
|SECUREDox found the African deserts depressing, so transformed them into lush green forests.|
|Several editions of Eon by Greg Bear use the Earth photo on the front cover.|
|According to this book, Nostradamus predicted that we'd all be dead by now. Oh, that explains it, he was living on the mirror-image Earth.|
|This page has won the Golden Web Award!|
Special thanks to Michael Leslie, Cameron Morland, Tommy MacDonald, Mathieu Fenniak and Bruce Shairp for submitting instances of AS17-148-22726. Google has hundreds more examples, just do an image search for "earth".
Daniel Lotspeich points out the existance of AS17-148-22727. It seems that this is a virtual twin of AS17-148-22726, taken a few seconds later. | <urn:uuid:befc0050-ed60-4c14-855f-025686fedee7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neil.fraser.name/writing/earth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950132 | 1,163 | 3.0625 | 3 |
NEGenWeb Project - Civil War
Plattsmouth Journal, April [unclear], 1918
WERE BOTH SEVERELY WOUNDED IN BATTLE OF SHILO
TWO PLATTSMOUTH CITIZENS FOUGHT SIDE BY SIDE IN THE CIVIL WAR.
More Than Fifty Years Have Now Elapsed, but the Recollection is Fresh in Their Minds.
From Monday's Daily.
Yesterday, the writer dropped into the Burlington station just before the afternoon train went east to see what the traveling public was doing, and found two of our dear old friends there telling of the time which has long since passed - of the battles of Pittsburg Landing and of Shiloh, which were fought fifty-six years ago Saturday and yesterday.
These men, now aged as we count life, were then in the prime of their young manhood and filled with enthusiasm for the cause. They are Justus LILLIE and Uncle John (Dad) RENNER. They were both in the battle and each received a wound. The battle, which lasted two days, was not without its effect in the ultimate outcome of the war, and although the northern forces were sorely beaten the first day they rallied on the next and with the aid of reinforcements, were able to carry off the honors. The first day of this battle was the 6th day of April, 1862, and it was on this day that the southern army drove the federal forces back with such rapidity that they nearly pushed them in to river. This was largely due to raw recruits being used in the northern army and the divisions were badly broken up and scattered. A detachment [illegible] - would, however, be detailed in hold back the rebel forces as long as possible while the troops were formed into a semblance of an army again, and thus the fighting continued until nightfall. By the morning of the 7th of April, General Buell had arrived with reinforcements and the result was the battle went against the rebels. Albert Sidney Johnson was in command of the rebels while Generals Grant and Sherman were in command of the union troops. The reinforcements which Buell brought up gave the northern side greater numbers, although the main advantage was in the troops which came to [article torn] being more seasoned fighters. The confederates were driven to Corinth, and the battle won by the Union troops. In the battle the Union troops lost in killed 12,573 men and the losses of the Confederates were 10, 699.
"Dad" RENNER was wounded in the left arm and suffered a slight scratch across his waist line, the bullet cutting the waist band of his trousers as he was standing sidewise to the direction from which the shot came, and passed through his left arm near the elbow.
Justus Lillie was wounded on the top of his left shoulder near the collar bone. The wounds of both these men were so near serious that the excitement was intense, especially when so many men were being killed, dropping on every side.
These two jolly comrades were talking and laughing about the battle yesterday, but then it is now more than fifty years removed from the present day, and the war of the rebellion has been a matter of history for a half century.
Provided by Becky Applegate <email@example.com> | <urn:uuid:cae9b915-4913-447a-a847-d6a4640383d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/topic/military/GAR/NEreun/shilohren.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987462 | 691 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities is considering granting a permit to the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ), to import multiple hard coral specimens (Scleractinia spp.) from various countries under the exceptional circumstances provision (section 303GB) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ), a Queensland statutory authority, has historically received hard coral specimens (CITES Appendix II) from various countries, on an ad hoc basis, for taxonomic identification and subsequent re-export. This institution is considered an expert in coral taxonomy and has provided this service to a number of researchers throughout the world.
Under Section 303GB 1(c) of the EPBC Act, in order to issue an exceptional circumstances permit, the Minister or delegate must be satisfied that:
- the export or import of the specimen, as the case may be, would not be contrary to the objects of this Part; and
- exceptional circumstances exist that justify the proposed export or import of the specimen; and
- the export or import of the specimen, as the case may be, would not adversely affect biodiversity.
Under Section 303GB 1(A) the Minister or delegate must not issue a permit under this section unless the grant of that permit would not be contrary to CITES.
The department is considering this application under the exceptional circumstances provision because:
- the proposed import of the corals would not be contrary to the objectives of Part 13A of the EPBC Act;
- it is believed exceptional circumstances justify the proposed import, being:
- the importer performs a valuable service to the scientific community through providing a better understanding and increased knowledge of hard corals that can assist conservation of coral species and reef ecosystems;
- the corals are imported purely for the purpose of taxonomic identification; and
- the import of the specimens is non-commercial
- the proposed import would not adversely affect biodiversity, as the coral is non-live, consists of very small quantities and must be approved by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) prior to importation into Australia.
- the grant of the permit would not be contrary to CITES.
Should the permit be granted, it is proposed that a condition will be imposed which specifies that during or after the research, the importer must not allow the specimens/s to be used for commercial purposes. In the majority of cases most specimens are exported back to the country of origin.
The public are invited to provide written comments on the proposal to issue this permit. Please include your full name and address in your submission. Any written comments will be considered by the delegate in making the decision.
Please address any comments to:
Wildlife Trade Assessments
Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
GPO Box 787
CANBERRA ACT 2601
Comments must be submitted by 30 September 2010 | <urn:uuid:3de2bf9e-23c0-4b52-9a53-40d9ffe101bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://environment.gov.au/biodiversity/wildlife-trade/invitecomment/hard-coral.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921756 | 610 | 1.914063 | 2 |
With National Dog Bite Prevention Week approaching (May 20-26), it is appropriate to offer some helpful tips on how adults and children can reduce the risk of being bitten by strange or even familiar dogs.
Nationwide statistics underscore the need to educate the public about the problem and means of prevention. On average, 4.7 million Americans suffer from dog bites each year and approximately 885,000 of these incidents require medical attention.
According to the Insurance Information Institute, these bites cost the property/casualty insurance industry $350 million in 2010. State Farm paid out more than $90 million associated with nearly 3,500 dog bite claims. The most surprising facts may be that the majority of dog bites occur within pet owners’ homes, and nearly half involve children being bitten by the family dog.
Conscientious parents can significantly reduce these high incidence rates by learning some basic guidelines that will help their children avoid getting bitten by their own dogs.
Getting bitten by a dog is the fifth most frequent cause of emergency room visits for children.
Safety Tips for Parents
- Under no circumstances should a baby be left alone with a dog.
- Young children should never walk or feed a dog unsupervised.
- Do not allow a small child to discipline a dog.
- Prevent children from pulling on a dog’s collar or other aggressive or rough play.
- As a general rule, children should be taught to never pet a strange dog.
- Children should stay away from dogs that are eating or sleeping, and avoid dogs that have new puppies.
- Dogs that are tied up should never be approached; children should never retrieve a ball from an unfamiliar yard.
- Train the entire family on the communications methods of a dogs’ instinctual “pack” behavior, thus teaching the dog to be submissive through body language and voice control.
Bark Busters has set up the following web site where children can learn
more about dog behavior and safety.
Of course dog bites are not restricted to young children. The top three professions bitten by dogs are U.S. Postal Service letter carriers, policemen and veterinarians.
Everyone should follow safety guidelines when a dog approaches.
Safety Tips to Follow When a Dog Approaches
- Don’t try to make friends with an unfamiliar dog.
- Stand still, stand tall and don’t move a muscle until the dog loses interest in you – don’t try to run away.
- Allow the dog to smell you but don’t put your hand out; let the dog come close to you on its own terms. Dogs may conduct multiple “tests” and it is during these tests that some problems may occur, so remember to stay alert.
- Face the dog at all times but don’t make eye contact with the dog or stare – staring can be perceived as a sign of aggression by the dog.
- As the dog loses interest in you, back away slowly, watching the dog from the corner of your eye.
- If the dog knocks you down, roll up into a fetal position with your arms covering your head and neck and play dead; don’t fight back.
Most companion dogs are not aggressive. Aggression in most cases stems from fear and comes with clear signs that people can look for.
Dog Body Language that Signals Potential Danger:
- Ears flattened against the head
- Tail lowered
- Backward-leaning posture
- Hackles raised on the back of neck
- Teeth bared or mouth shut tight
In these instances, be mindful to always face the dog without staring. A fearful dog almost always attacks from behind. | <urn:uuid:41b1ab63-1275-474c-a591-6dc78ac7e131> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yorktown-somers.patch.com/groups/mark-liebermans-blog/p/bp--dog-bite-prevention | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924586 | 756 | 3.0625 | 3 |
LETTER: A step too far
Whether universal health care is a good thing is not the point for those of us opposed to the individual mandate.
The dictionary defines commerce as “the buying and selling, especially on a large scale as cities or nations; business, trade.” The reason for the commerce clause in the Constitution was to prevent states from setting up tariffs or other restrictions on commerce between the states which at that time were like 13 individual countries.
Now the Obama administration wants to force individuals to buy insurance from a third party, saying not buying insurance is commerce. It was Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, testifying before Congress, who said while she couldn’t foresee the need, it was within the power of the federal government to force individuals to buy broccoli, not some “right wingers trying to frighten gullible people.”
Maintaining that not purchasing a product is commerce means that the government can force the purchase of anything. In fact, in the future some right wing president could force all households to purchase guns to help with national security and law enforcement.
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Recent Activity on Facebook
Ira Fusfeld's blog offers commentary about the newspaper business and whatever else is on his mind.
City Editor Jeremy Schiffres comments about the news of the day and other topics that he finds interesting.
Life Editor Ivan Lajara talks about living in the Hudson Valley, language, the Web, cats and even politics. But he shouldn't.
Sports editor Ron Rosner talks about the local and national sports scene. | <urn:uuid:5970deaa-8e13-4090-bfde-bb6746858eb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2012/04/17/opinion/doc4f8c78379e4e9439370718.txt?viewmode=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936379 | 580 | 2.140625 | 2 |
I am intrigued with the male perspective on feminism, masculinity, and issues in our present culture. What is it to be male today? A year and a half ago the subject came up, unexpectedly, and started me thinking....
What have we lost? We were at the Gene Autry museum for a birthday party and the question seemed to surface repeatedly. As the men stood and watched their children ride faux, life size horses, they looked around discussing the elaborate get-up of the long, lost cowboy. We've lost so much, one man said to me. We looked around and saw how our clothes have changed -spurs on the boots, pistols with inlay, and the hats. Maybe this is why we get so little respect. It was not said with any kind of rancor or bitterness, but with a matter-of-factness, which surprised me. Do men feel this way? Have we lost respect for men?
And what were the women talking about? How they have so little time with their children. How they feel that the mornings are all about the scramble before school - getting dressed, bolting down food, packing the backpacks and lunches - and then having a brief blip of conversation with their children. As one woman talked the other nodded, vehemently agreeing with her every word. In another conversation, a woman blurted out that she was going to stay at home this year with her two children. The woman by her side told her how lucky she was. It seems that we value, secretly or not, the ability and/or desire to stay at home with our children.
And so, what have we lost? It is easy to find the loss. It is here, in the words spoken today. Yet, I like to reflect on what we've gained. We have boys who can see that their dads are capable of gentleness. Boys who are, at 3 and 4, allowed to cry and are not shushed for expressing their feelings. Boys who hug each other, and also know their way around a load of laundry and the kitchen. And the girls? We have girls who have many role models - women who have full lives as single women, the choice to have children or not... Moms who work jobs outside of the home, and the moms who work by staying at home with their children. They have choices. Choices that weren't there for us before.
Maybe we as women and men can reach out to each other and acknowledge the loss of our elusive masculine and feminine selves. But, also face down our animus, and embrace our true souls that have stretched and grown into who we are today. The long lost cowboy is still inside us, as is that prairie woman. Both a bit trail weary, but still innate inside of us. | <urn:uuid:6a4e5525-516c-43f2-9bef-9955e1aace50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://motherscribe.blogspot.com/2009/04/do-men-feel-this-way-have-we-lost.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984332 | 569 | 1.546875 | 2 |
I just invented a new holiday. It's called Negative Christmas. On this day, rather than giving gifts, you can force a family member or friend to discard one item that he or she already owns. The selected item might be a hideous shirt that you consider an abomination, or that pair of bedroom slippers that are an insult to all footwear. The idea is that the unrecipient should be better off without the item you ungift.
For example, let's say you have a single friend who has a collection of Star Wars memorabilia and also complains that he can't get a woman to stay the night. You could help by making him give away the full-sized wookie that he keeps next to his dresser. When the next Negative Christmas rolls around you could go after the collection of light sabers he keeps over his mantle. It might take you a few years to make any difference in his love life, but think of it as a project.
For real Christmas, people often give gifts of clothing or accessories so the recipient will look attractive. For Negative Christmas you could pay a crazy guy with tattoos to punch your friend in his soft tissue every time he eats a Big Mac or skips going to the gym. In the long run it will help your friend more than a new necktie.
During Negative Christmas there will be no need for vacuous greeting cards or festive salutations. For the entire month leading up to Negative Christmas you are expected to avoid eye contact and mumble insults about everyone you encounter. Ask yourself what would make you happier: 1. Getting a cheap greeting card or, 2. Calling someone a trout-faced bastard under your breath.
Negative Christmas would be every June 25th, on the opposite side of the calendar from Christmas. You would celebrate by planting a tree instead of killing one, and saving your money for yourself instead of blowing it on worthless crap for others.
Who's with me? | <urn:uuid:8c1b9468-794a-45d2-8c89-9e6784cb83c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/happy_negative_christmas/?Page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965608 | 396 | 1.875 | 2 |
Welcome to your worst nightmare: You serve a customer at a winery tasting room (or at a party at a winery) who turns out to be younger than 21, and who later gets into an accident or commits a crime like assault where alcohol is a factor and you end up with a felony, which bars you from the wine industry for the foreseeable future. AB 1128 (currently on a fast track to pass through the California legislature) amends Business & Professions (“B&P”) Code Sec. 25658 and ups the potential penalty for sales to a minor (from a misdemeanor to a felony) when the minor causes an injury, death or damage to others.
Civil damages for selling or furnishing alcohol to a minor who gets into an accident or causes harm is already part of the law and the potential consequences of a current incident include license revocation for a licensee (Sections 25602 and 25602.1).
The hidden cost of this statute will be paid by business owners (restaurants, convenience stores and, yes, wineries) who (knowingly or otherwise) serve or sell wine to customers who present false ID or who appear to be over the age of 21. Once an individual has a felony on their record they are pretty much forever after barred from being an alcoholic beverage licensee, or an officer, director or shareholder of a corporate licensee. Proving rehabilitation is possible, but typically not for at least a decade or more afterwards (if then). AB 1128 is more than license suspension or revocation; it’s a death penalty for individual and corporate alcoholic beverage licensees.
And yes, corporations can commit crimes (to quote Mitt Romney “corporations are people, my friend” and the AB 1128 statute applies to “every person”). See also Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). The application of this penalty statute to corporate entities is easy to imagine (does anyone remember Arthur Anderson LLP or Enron Corporation?); especially in a situation where the damage caused by the minor is extraordinary (for example, a few months ago at a Temecula winery, there were reports of a drunken brawl involving a group of young people that resulted in numerous injuries – what if one of the young people had been under 21 and one of them was seriously hurt?).
What really happens today is that the under 21 crowd have really good false identification available and use those fake IDs to drink or buy alcohol at a tasting room or restaurant or to buy alcohol from a liquor store. Then, when they get caught drunk driving or are involved in an accident or another crime, they show their real identification and ditch the fake ID (because using false identification is a crime also). It becomes their word against the word of the server, clerk, winery employee or winery owner serving wine as to whether or not B&P Code Section 25660 (reliance upon bona fide proof of ID) was satisfied. Usually it isn’t satisfied because of a lack of proof, lack of availability of the fake ID or minor differences between the ID and the person presenting it (ID defense cases have been lost over eye and hair color, and minor weight or height differences).
We tried a case like this in 2005 involving a girl who was four months shy of 21 and using her sister’s ID at a well-known establishment in wine country. It was a tragic case. She crashed into a guardrail at 2:30 AM on a foggy night and died. She had had two drinks (the last one at 10 pm); the accident was the result of speed and fog, not alcohol (which we had to prove). We prevailed on behalf of the venue after a very contentious and extended trial but we had to face testimony from the older sister and her parents that the victim couldn’t have been using the false ID: it was a swearing contest against the venue owners and everyone in the establishment on the night in question. If the AB 1128 felony penalty rule had been in place in that case, the matter would have escalated to the Superior Court and the owners could have faced jail time and could have permanently lost their business. It is cases like this that make us shudder at the implications of AB 1128.
Now consider the retailer exception to AB 1128 that requires a retailer to KNOW that the minor is under the age of 21 in order to face a felony penalty. This predicate defense, by the way, is NOT available to wineries, who are not retailers.
Has anyone out there ever given a glass of wine to a 20-year-old, married to someone older? Imagine an accident or an incident later in the day or evening. If AB 1128 passes, conduct that occurs every day in wine country, but on one unlucky day is followed by an accident or an injury, could result in the potential loss of the winery or the business.
And consider further the young person over 21 dating and sharing a bottle of wine with an 18, 19 or 20-year-old; whether in a tasting room, at a restaurant or at home. That young person over 21 would also be liable for a felony in the event of an accident, crime or similar tragedy involving alcohol. The lives that would be ruined would be those caught up in tragic situations; without regard to intent or actual causation. Suddenly we are exposing young people to jail and potentially marking them for life as felons for drinking with their friends anywhere (because this doesn’t just involve venues). These incidents are tragic enough and carry enough consequences without convicting everyone involved in the party of a felony for “furnishing alcohol”.
Is this going to stop those younger than 21 from drinking? No way. This is a really bad bill that should be vigorously opposed by every thinking parent and by every licensee in the state. | <urn:uuid:07755a1c-1f5f-467e-92e5-7287fdb956bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beveragelaw.com/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967485 | 1,201 | 1.539063 | 2 |
connective tissueArticle Free Pass
connective tissue, group of tissues in the body that maintains the form of the body and its organs and provides cohesion and internal support. The connective tissues include several types of fibrous tissue that vary only in their density and cellularity, as well as the more specialized and recognizable variants—bone, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and adipose (fat) tissue.
Some organs are suspended from the wall of a body cavity by thin sheets of connective tissue called mesenteries; others are embedded in adipose tissue, a form of connective tissue in which the cells are specialized for the synthesis and storage of energy-rich reserves of fat, or lipid. The entire body is supported from within by a skeleton composed of bone, a type of connective tissue endowed with great resistance to stress owing to its highly ordered laminated structure and to its hardness, which results from deposition of mineral salts in its fibres and amorphous matrix. The individual bones of the skeleton are held firmly together by ligaments, and muscles are attached to bone by tendons, both of which are examples of dense connective tissue in which many fibre bundles are associated in parallel array to provide great tensile strength. At joints, the articular surfaces of the bones are covered with cartilage, a connective tissue with an abundant intercellular substance that gives it a firm consistency well adapted to permitting smooth gliding movements between the apposed surfaces. The synovial membrane, which lines the margins of the joint cavity and lubricates and nourishes the joint surfaces, is also a form of connective tissue.
Blood vessels, both large and small, course through connective tissue, which is therefore closely associated with the nourishment of tissues and organs throughout the body. All nutrient materials and waste products exchanged between the organs and the blood must traverse perivascular spaces occupied by connective tissue. One of the important functions of the connective-tissue cells is to maintain conditions in the extracellular spaces that favour this exchange.
Components of connective tissue
All forms of connective tissue are composed of (1) extracellular fibres, (2) an amorphous matrix called ground substance, and (3) stationary and migrating cells. The proportions of these components vary from one part of the body to another depending on the local structural requirements. In some areas, the connective tissue is loosely organized and highly cellular; in others, its fibrous components predominate; and in still others, the ground substance may be its most conspicuous feature. The anatomical classification of the various types of connective tissue is based largely upon the relative abundance and arrangement of these components.
What made you want to look up "connective tissue"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:3e42f574-36ba-40e5-a2cb-0169055c4f98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/132995/connective-tissue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963102 | 569 | 3.71875 | 4 |
IMAGE: CHAD CROWE
You get up to 100 miles per gallon, on top of the hipster factor and the feel of the wind in your hair. But there's one imperfection to these sassy little two-wheeled machines: A March 2005 study by the Environmental Protection Agency shows most scooters on the road pollute more than SUVs.
That sounded so counterintuitive that WW decided to test a few scooters, with help from the crew at Esquire Motors in Goose Hollow, which donated its time and emissions-testing equipment.
Then came the hard part.
Telephone calls and emails seeking scooters to test from scooter shops and groups went unanswered; other scooter owners proved willing to talk—until the story's angle was revealed. Finally, however, we persuaded three scooter lovers to volunteer their vehicles.
Patrick Fitzgibbons, co-owner and founder of P-Town Scooters, let us test his vintage scooter, which established just how bad older models are. Although he knew his pride and joy wasn't the cleanest of motorized vehicles, Fitzgibbons was still surprised by the results.
"How bad is it?" he asked.
Pretty bad. His 1968 Piaggio Gran Turismo, with a two-stroke, 150-cc engine, registered 4,900 parts per million of hydrocarbons and 8.6 percent carbon dioxide emissions. That was 29 times the hydrocarbon levels and nearly three times the carbon dioxide rate of another scooter WW tested—a 2006 MotoFino 150T-10D with a four-stroke engine, courtesy of Prestige Motors in Southeast Portland. The MotoFino kicked out 168 ppm of hydrocarbons and 3.1 percent CO2.
Four-strokes tend to burn cleaner than two-stroke engines, which run on a mixture of fuel and oil. One of Fitzgibbons' customers, Shayne Weinstein, offered up for testing his more modern two-stroke, a 2005 Stella also made by Piaggio. Its levels of 1,100 ppm of unburned hydrocarbons and 7.1 percent CO2 fell in between the older two-stroke engine and the four-stroke.
So why do these numbers matter? Unburned hydrocarbons react with nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight and elevated temperatures to form ground-level ozone. The pollutants then cause eye irritation, coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath, and can lead to permanent lung damage. And CO2 is among the main culprits blamed by scientists for global warming.
As for the SUV, we borrowed WW publisher Richard Meeker's 2006 Subaru Tribeca. The six-cylinder engine in Meeker's SUV pumped out less than 10 ppm of hydrocarbons and 1 percent CO2. In other words, the two-stroke scooter WW tested produced about 490 times the hydrocarbons and more than eight times the Co2 of the SUV.
Meeker, who has been disappointed in his car's lower-than-predicted gas mileage (16 mpg combined city/highway) says he's surprised the Tribeca's emissions are so low.
So how do we stick with cool, fun and cheap scooters without stinking up the atmosphere?
Four-stroke engines are a lot cleaner for now. But on the horizon are biodiesel scooters as well as electric and solar-powered prototypes.
Until we reach that harmonic convergence of scooters that are both environmentally astute and chic, two-stroke engine owners should keep their rides in tip-top shape—frequent oil changes, regular tune-ups, the whole spiel. The less funk that accumulates in your engine, the less toxins for everyone to breathe, and there's nothing more hip than that. | <urn:uuid:582aaabf-3dc3-4972-b660-4f47181a4970> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-5931-polluter_scooters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953415 | 780 | 2.265625 | 2 |
The Rise and Fall of the Widely Held Firm - A History of Corporate Ownership in Canada
NBER Working Paper No. 10635
A panel of corporate ownership data, stretching back to 1902, shows that the Canadian corporate sector began the century with a predominance of large pyramidal corporate groups controlled by wealthy families or individuals. By mid-century, widely held firms predominated. But, from the 1970s on, pyramidal groups controlled by wealthy families and individuals resurge, restoring a situation similar to that a century earlier. Institutional factors underlying this resurgence are shown to have antecedents deep in the country's colonial past.
Published: The Rise and Fall of the Widely Held Firm: A History of Corporate Ownership in Canada , Randall Morck, Michael Percy, Gloria Tian, Bernard Yeung, in A History of Corporate Governance around the World: Family Business Groups to Professional Managers (2005), University of Chicago Press | <urn:uuid:7afce416-009d-4a97-94e2-ec0de464e058> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nber.org/papers/w10635 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906397 | 193 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The bird was first seen on Dec. 12, which means he has been in the area for seven weeks now.
If you are looking for shrike this weekend, you might look along Disposal Road between the NJMC Maintenance Garage and the Carillon/Retention Pond Area, as well as in the Lyndhurst Nature Reserve area. It has been frequenting the locales.
The shrike likes to perch high in trees -- when it is visible. He posed for the photo above today, albeit at a bit of a distance.
If you do see it, please e-mail Jim Wright here and he will update the blog first chance.
Be aware that Disposal Road can get some major vehicular traffic, including oblivious drivers who are so busy dodging speed bumps and potholes that they may not to see birders or photographers in the road. Please be careful.
Also be aware that no one should go onto any landfill in search of the shrike or to get better looks at the shrike.
If you see anyone -- from birders to dog-walkers -- trespassing on the Kingsland Landfill (along Disposal Road on the other side of the road from DeKorte Park and the Carillon), don't hesitate to call 201-896-8100 --that's the number for the company that is remediating the former landfill. They will send out security guards.
Similarly, call that number if you hear off-road vehicles on the landfill.
Former landfills in the Meadowlands are off-limits to the public, for all sorts of important reasons, from public safety to on-going remediation work. Thanks. | <urn:uuid:7825f875-fd1a-4a57-a176-28a38086dc54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meadowblog.net/2010/01/no-shrike-update-012910.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956875 | 343 | 1.75 | 2 |
By the term “affordability” we mean more than a person of X income can purchase the home. We are referring to two concepts. First, pairing complementary materials and designs can produce homes that cost less than 30 percent of virtually any family income. Second, over the life of the home our buildings are less expensive to build and maintain. The key is simplicity and quality. Cutting corners in the short term only creates higher costs in the long run.
We are not striving to builds ultra modernist uncomfortable art. Instead our utmost concern is the comfort and well being of the occupants of the home. We achieve this goal through innovative materials and designs, which work in the background, out of the conscience of the occupant.
Would you believe it is possible to build a house that is virtually impervious to insects, rodents, mold, fire, wind and sound, and yet is less expensive to build than standard construction? Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, AAC for short, is part of the equation. While it has a complex name, it is actually a very simple material. AAC is steamed cured concrete with thousands of tiny air pockets. The steam reduces the length of time it takes to reach full strength from one month to less than one day. The air bubbles are created with a simple chemical reaction, which causes the concrete to foam as it cures. Air bubbles make up to 80 percent of the volume of AAC. The trapped air helps insulate the building from heat differences and from sound.
As residential property values rise across the country it is easy for current homeowners to loose sight of the impacts on non-homeowners. Appreciating real estate values make it more expensive to buy and rent. Younger and lower income individuals and families are often unable to accumulate adequate down payments, lack sufficient credit history or are simply priced out the market. The result is that they fall further behind as property values appreciate. Today even traditional middle-income families are finding it more difficult to own their own home.
The challenge is to develop housing affordable to these individuals. In some cities where housing values are rises much faster than the salaries of the middle class, the cities are instituting subsidy programs for teachers, police officers and firefighters so that they are able to live the jurisdictions they serve.
Two main alternative ways to increase affordability include increasing housing density and reducing construction costs. Townhouses and row houses divided into multiple condominiums are simple ways to increase housing density. Increasing density can reduce residents’ comfort due to closer proximity and noise.
Buildings built with AAC walls and integrated concrete floor systems are an effective option for dealing with the inconveniences of increased density. AAC and properly design concrete floors can significantly reduce noise transmission between adjoining dwellings.
AAC reduces costs in several ways. First, it contains only about ¼ to 1/5 as much material as a solid concrete wall because of the tiny air pockets. Second, AAC construction requires only the AAC block and thinset mortar, a stucco coat on the exterior and a plaster coast on the interior. Scheduling conflicts for subcontractors are virtually eliminated, especially if conduit for electrical wiring is placed in the wall during while laying block. In contrast, typical wood construction requires 2x6 studs, exterior sheathing, house wrap, siding, paint, insulation, gypsum board, sheetrock joint compound and tape, more paint, and lots of nails and screws and caulking. An experienced AAC block layer can lay about 200 square feet of block per day. An inexperienced homeowner can lay about 100 square feet per day.
AAC and integrated cement floor construction creates highly fire resistant self-contained dwellings. This allows the elimination of redundant sidewalls between buildings. Economies of scale increase quickly. For example, excluding the cost of land, a single 18x100 feet three-story row house can be built for about $70,000 per unit ($210,000) for the whole building. Alternatively, if three of the buildings just mentioned are built side-by-side, the cost per unit drops to under $60,000.
One route envisioned for meeting this goal would bring 3 or 4 potential homeowners together at the beginning of the process. Each would invest $25,000 to $50,000 up front in a 6 to 8 unit building. Their initial investment would guarantee them the option to buy a unit at the development cost (land, materials, labor, operating overhead) so that they would be able to realize the property value appreciation.
A second goal is to streamline the construction process for future projects, which will improve profitability and finished product quality. Increasing profitability while maintaining high quality standards will allow us to sell the condominiums at lower prices, thus achieving our third goal: affordability.
As discussed in the Concepts section, affordability is one of our primary considerations in choosing materials and architectural styles. Affordability should not equate to poor quality.
Taking houses apart and putting them back together has significantly shaped our design intuition. One of the benefits of remodeling houses is that it forces you confront and solve a variety of challenges related to materials and layout. We remodeled a turn of the century farmhouse twice, first updating and then adding more space. We then turned to remodeling a 1916 Victorian kit house and a 1930’s bungalow. The bungalow with a central stairway efficiently divided private and public parts of the house. The major drawback of the bungalow we remodeled was the size of the bedrooms. The house’s 24 feet width provided functional, but not comfortable bedrooms.
In the summer of 1999 we read about autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) in Fine Homebuilding (#123, pp. 82-87) The article is available at http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/h00002.asp “Building for Affordability and Energy Efficiency,” by Kathleen Jardine and James Cameron). We were intrigued by the material and wanted to test it in the cold South Dakota winters.
Today in rural America it is difficult to sell new houses for more than $75,000 because of the number of older, cheaper houses. While the older houses are not ideal, they can be insulated and painted for less than building from scratch. Our challenge was thus to build a better quality house and still be economically competitive. The house we built in 2000 served as a test bed for AAC and concrete floor construction in South Dakota. In the end the house we built cost significantly more than our goal. Much of the additional cost was due the second story dormer and roof system, and an oversized garage. The lessons learned from that project have been incorporated in the following projects. | <urn:uuid:f86c8ab8-28d9-4802-aa6e-0871f414b413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.staubdesign.com/page/concepts/affordability/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949367 | 1,369 | 2.765625 | 3 |
“He who sings prays twice.” So said St. Augustine — in so many words. In fact, that succinct choice of words is an abridgement of the thought the Church’s most celebrated thinker actually expressed on the matter. But were truer words ever spoken? Watch a child singing a carol or hymn with all his heart and you’ll have your answer.
Music provides a natural conduit for helping children to learn the faith as something far greater than a mere story or idea. Thanks to the soul-stirring wonders of many-part harmony, it can also aid in ushering them into participation in the Church community.
Meanwhile, it’s surprising how effectively the power of melodic tunes can be conveyed through the pages of a book. Check out a few of these titles and see if you can resist not just reading to your children but singing to them, too.
THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE
traditional African-American spiritual
illustrated by E.B. Lewis
Simon & Shuster, 2005
32 pages, $16.95
The lyrics that make up the text of this book have been sung so long and so often, it’s easy to forget that they’re a direct, affirmative response to words spoken by the Lord himself. “[Y]our light must shine before others,” Jesus explains in Matthew 5:16, “that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” The watercolor images suggest some ways to “shine,” as they show a young boy who brings the joy of Christ to others with simple smiles, hugs and helping hands. A delight. Ages 4 to 8.
JESUS WANTS ME FOR A SUNBEAM
illustrated by Hans Wilhelm
20 pages, $5.99
“Jesus wants me for a sunbeam / To shine for Him each day / In every way try to please Him / At home, at school … / at play.” This version of the Vacation Bible School favorite extends the “shine” theme to the natural reaches of the young, impressionable imagination. Bright, happy illustrations designed to stay in the mind’s eye will help kids retain the message. Ages 3 to 8.
HE’S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS
illustrated by Kadir Nelson
32 pages, $16.99
A favorite for generations, this old-time spiritual seems brand new when paired with vibrant, joyful illustrations. Each turn of the page reveals a fresh interpretation of the evocative notion that, gigantic as it is, the entire world — and all its inhabitants — are under God’s control and loving care. Ages 3 to 8.
IF YOU’RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT — JUNGLE EDITION
words adapted from traditional lyrics
illustrated by James Warhola
32 pages, $14.99
Magic happens when a brother and sister visit an animal-themed playground. As the kids sing the perennially popular song of the title, the animal statues spring to life and add verses of their own. Young readers will love to sing, move, clap, roar and jump their way through the song with the rest of jungle crew. Most of the storyline is told through the clever illustrations, which will invite repeated explorations. Ages 4 to 8.
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR
written and illustrated by Kate Toms
Make Believe Ideas Ltd., 2007
24 pages, $7.99
A little mouse looks to the sky and wonders about the vastness above and about. He’d love to lasso a sparkly star and have it all for himself. Revised lyrics add freshness to the familiar tune. (“Twinkle, twinkle, little star / How I wonder what you are / When it’s time to climb the stairs / To brush my teeth and say my prayers / Through my window I can see / That you are smiling down on me.”) Hand-stitched illustrations call forth a folksy charm. Ages 3 to 6.
M IS FOR MELODY: A MUSIC ALPHABET
written by Kathy-Jo Wargin
illustrated by Katherine Larson
Sleeping Bear, 2005
40 pages, $7.95
Covering topics from anthem to zither, this ABC book introduces youth to the world of music. Each alphabetical entry includes a rhyming poem, a blurb with detailed background information and an inviting illustration. Readers will encounter a whole range of references to instruments, composers and style as they make their way through the pages of this information-rich text. A helpful find for aspiring singers and musicians. Ages 8 to 12.
THE EENSY-WEENSY SPIDER
words adapted by Mary Ann Hoberman
illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott
Little, Brown, 2004
32 pages, $6.99
In this expanded version of the popular action verse, an eight-legged neighbor has adventures that go far beyond the waterspout. The tiny arachnid heads out on a spring day and meets many friends along the way. She takes walks, gets new shoes and, at the end of a long day, follows a happy glowworm home to the safety of bed and her mother’s waiting arms. This cheerful book includes bright illustrations, a musical score and directions for hand gestures. Ages 4 to 8.
I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR YOU
written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
illustrated by Karin Littlewood
28 pages, $16.95
Parents and grandparents may remember the words and tune of this popular 1960s hit song. Creatively reinterpreted for a new audience, the book celebrates the special love shared between mother and child. Tasteful, nicely rendered watercolors accompany the lyrics. Together, words and pictures send a positive message about the linking of love, prayer and celebration within the family circle. Ages 4 to 8.
WEE SING BIBLE SONGS
illustrated by Nancy Spence Klein
64 pages, $9.99
Part of the Wee Sing series, this book and CD package features more than 60 songs based on Scripture. Words, music and even some hand motions are included for this mix of spirituals, hymns, choruses and folk songs. The CD accompaniment makes this a good pick for singing along at home or in the car. Ages 4 to 10.
The Crawford sisters write | <urn:uuid:367aae6a-6b4d-4433-9378-f9a927046681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/read_read_a_song/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908512 | 1,378 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Not That Bad After All
Taking your pleasure where you find it, without resorting to over-indulgence, may well be the best bet, because life, after all, is just too short waste on needless worry, so remember that, despite what they say, it ain’t necessarily so
Not That Bad After All
There is, it turns out, some good news at last, and seemingly plenty of reasons why ignoring so-called expert advice, and enjoying the things you truly fancy, in small amounts, actually makes much better sense.
Unprotected sex is certainly never recommended for those not in committed relationships, but if truth be told, research having proved this, that opinion is in some respects quite wrong wrong.
State University of New York surveyed the sex lives of almost 1,000 women, with astounding discoveries which included the finding of women, whose partners used no contraception, being always happier than those that did, there apparently being something in the semen which, in females, seems to counter depression. Tellingly, also, was the finding that the unprotected sex females experienced much more sadness when relationships ended, as if the semen involved had some kind of addictive quality.
University of Adelaide scientists discovered semen exposure leading healthier pregnancies, semen apparently conditioning female immune systems to greater defence of developing foetuses the semen experimentally proved to be far more effective when swallowed by the woman. Another myth that has gained popularity in recent years is the detrimental effect of cell-phones on brain tissue
British Oncology Centre researcher Alan Preece conducted a study of mobile phone radiation, and discovered that frequent users completed certain mental tasks faster, the radiation increasing blood flow to certain brain areas. University of Maryland spokes-person Jodi Flaws claims says that hard evidence shows most smokers to be slimmer than non-smokers, nicotine an appetite suppressant acting as a catalyst for quicker calorie burning, and smokers are much less likely, in later life, to suffer from dementia, nicotine bolstering brain these receptors, and reducing their natural loss.
Alcohol, also, is certainly not completely bad for you. Institute for Preventative Medicine scientist Morton Gronbaek claimed that ethanol reduces tendency to blood-vessel blockages, meaning that drinkers have only half the heart-attack risk of abstainers, alcohol also helping lower blood-pressure, protect against dementia, and increase bone density in elderly people.
Health professionals have for years advised against eating fatty foods, due to possible raised cholesterol levels, but since the body needs certain fats just to operate efficiently, certain poly unsaturated types vital to nerve cell maintenance in pregnant women, so fat, for your good health, is vital as part of your diet. Equally, the hype about the bad effects of salt are overdone, this substance is so important to the human body that complete lack of it would kill you fairly rapidly.
British Dietetic Association researcher Amada Wynne explained that salt ensures the movement of that that body fluids within cells, vital also for the sending of nerve messages electrically Salt matters, to stay healthy, putting paid to yet another of the myths surrounding various everyday things. In reality, enjoying something can be an indication that your body is happy for you to do so, other than with smoking, of course.
The old saying that a little of what you fancy does you good has an element of truth to it, so taking your pleasure where you find it, without resorting to over-indulgence, may well be the best bet, because life, after all, is just too short waste on needless worry, so remember that, despite what they say, it ain’t necessarily so. | <urn:uuid:fe18b46c-1177-4147-be9f-9887026efad3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.wikinut.com/Not-That-Bad-After-All/3op-u3vb/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949534 | 742 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Washington (CNN) – The last U.S. World War I veteran to die will receive an honors burial at Arlington National Ceremony next week, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, announced Friday.
"Allowing our country to pay its respects to Mr. Buckles and all of our courageous World War I veterans is necessary and important. It's a fitting way to say goodbye to our last Doughboy – a man whose life spanned more than 100 years and who was our last living American connection to the Great War," Rockefeller said.
Washington (CNN) - The last living U.S. World War I veteran, who passed away this week, will receive an honors burial at Arlington National Ceremony, but he likely will not be honored in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda as many had hoped.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, had introduced a resolution in the Senate that would authorize the use of the Capitol to honor Frank Buckles. | <urn:uuid:3475ab88-1cf0-42ac-9188-6169880fe65e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/category/frank-buckles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934725 | 200 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Going back to work could be bad for your baby’s waistline, according to a study that found the more years a mother worked over the course of her child's lifetime, the higher the child’s body mass index (BMI) was by 6th grade.
Published in the January/February 2011 issue of the journal Child Development, researchers looked at 900 children in grades 3, 5, and 6 who lived in 10 cities across the country. Comparing BMI and weight gain statistics among kids with working moms, researchers found that the total number of years a mother worked outside the home had a small but steady influence on children's BMI. Among children in 5th and 6th grades, kids with an overweight or obese BMI were likely to have mothers who went back to work shortly after giving birth.
What’s the connection? Surprisingly, time spent unsupervised and time spent watching TV didn't explain the link between a mom’s employment and a child’s BMI. Neither did the time of day moms worked. According to researchers, the problem appears to stem from hurried meals and a lack of healthy, home-cooked meals. Working parents have limited time for grocery shopping and food preparation—leading to eating out more or eating prepared "fast foods," which tend to be high in fat and calories.
More than 70 percent of US mothers with young children work outside the home and more than one-third of all children in the US are considered obese. In light of their findings, researchers are calling for efforts to expand access to affordable, healthy foods and further support to help working parents to provide nutritious meals despite busy schedules.
"Community- and school-based programs offer promise for promoting healthy weight by providing information to children and their families about nutrition and exercise, as well as how to make quick, healthy meals," says Taryn W. Morrissey, assistant professor in public administration and policy at American University, who led the study. | <urn:uuid:08cbbbf2-955c-4a62-8e9a-6ea09adeeb32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babyzone.com/mom/work/working-parent/childhood-obesity-working-moms_70292 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979147 | 398 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Historical Items Showing 3 of 248 View All
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society
Date: circa 1910
Location: Washington; South Portland
Contributed by: Strong Historical Society
Media: Black & white photograph
Farmington's Normal School -- a teacher-training facility -- opened in 1863 and, over the decades, offered academic programs that included such unique features as domestic and child-care training, and extra-curricular activities from athletics to music and theater.
John Warner Grigg Dunn was an accomplished amateur photographer, hunter, fisherman and lover of nature. On his trips to Ragged Lake and environs, he became an early innovator among amateur wildlife photographers. His photography left us with a unique record of the Moosehead Lake region in the late nineteenth century. | <urn:uuid:c0e3fbaf-0721-4135-b51c-65a596b1f3ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mainememory.net/search/?keywords=+trip%0D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930614 | 159 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Iris scan to add layer to Aadhaar authentication
One of the biggest purported flaws of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)'s Aadhaar programme was the risk of deterioration of beneficiaries' fingerprint quality, especially given the country's large farm worker population, among the main target groups.
But, almost in sync with the government's plan of rolling out the ambitious direct benefits transfer (DBT) scheme nationwide, starting with 20 districts from January 1, the UIDAI is finishing work on introducing iris-based authentication in the first quarter of 2013, said a senior UIDAI official.
The iris, a circular structure in the eye, is responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupils. The colours, textures and patterns of each individual's irises are thought to be unique.
This type of authentication would allow UIDAI to not only use iris scans of residents taken during Aadhaar enrolment for de-duplication (eliminating duplicates), it could also utilise these, along with fingerprint scans, to reduce the overall rate of authentication failures.
"There are some huge advantages with iris," the official said. "(For example) a labourer's fingerprints may get worn out, but his iris won't. Iris patterns are much more solid and give a lot more information."
Although the UIDAI came for criticism in 2011, particularly from the home ministry, for the cost of scanning the irises of every resident who enrolled for Aadhaar, the official explained this was a requirement because it would be difficult to ensure accuracy in de-duplication in excess of 99 per cent on the basis of just one biometric measure.
"One fingerprint will give me limited information. Five fingerprints will mean more information and less chances of error. Similarly, if I have the iris (data) also, there is a wider set of information about a person and, therefore, the points of distinctness become much larger. And, the probability that both the iris and the finger will match is exceedingly small," the official said.
Despite its utility, iris-based authentication was previously unfeasible, primarily due to the cost of scanners. "But now, we have seen very low-cost devices, some as low as those used for fingerprint authentication," the official said, adding a clutch of both domestic and international vendors, including Koreans, were being roped in for a proof of concept (PoC), subsequent to which vendors would be empanelled.
"There are no standards in iris authentication available, as of now," the official said. "We will be the first ones in the world who will have iris image and transmission standards, matching algorithms and compression (standards) well-defined."
However, in a PoC conducted last year in Karnataka's Mysore district, the failed authentication rate stood at only 0.79 per cent for single-eye cameras and 0.60 per cent for dual-eye cameras, for about 5,000 residents. "The results clearly demonstrate iris authentication to be viable in the Indian context," the PoC report said.
But the real test for the technology would come if and when it is implemented nationwide from early this year, as DBT expands in its reach and scope.
Photographs: Courtesy, Wikimedia Commons | <urn:uuid:565e52f1-4c83-4723-8d50-cc20b3649899> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rediff.com/money/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-iris-scan-to-add-layer-to-aadhaar-authentication/20130103.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951246 | 673 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Lectures / 12/03/2009 7:00 pmGuest Lecture
The Power of the (Poet’s) Word versus the Apocalypse – Stevan Tontič and the Civil War in Former Yugoslavia
When I was in that hell,” wrote Bosnian poet Stevan Tontič, “poetry became (…) a part of the power that I acquired to my surprise and that brought me healing amidst the helplessness.” He dealt with what transpired in that inferno, the civil war in former Yugoslavia that he personally experienced in besieged Sarajevo, in poems that he wrote while those battles were raging, during his time in exile in Germany (1992-2001) and following the return to his homeland. His writing (poetry, essays, short stories) possesses a revelatory power in its confrontations with all the lies and cruelty, but is nevertheless full of humor and often comes across as ironic or sarcastic. The reading will be followed by a chat with the poet. | <urn:uuid:f3c88dbb-b5f7-4420-980f-d2a6efb732ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kepler-salon.at/en/content/view/full/323 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984002 | 209 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Apart from that there isn't much else to say. The documentation is better, the interpreter has been tested more extensively, the code has been improved somewhat, and there are a few more built-in commands. Oh, and there is a new mailing list I just set up if anyone is interested, at http://groups.google.com/group/catlanguage.
Have fun, and let me know what crazy things you can imagine doing with this kind of language (hint: try imagining all of the domain specific languages you could build).
> > The Mono compilation problem has been identified as > being > > the usage of the .NET Framework 2.0 features, namely > > templates, which are not yet supported by Mono. > > Mono does support generics. The compiler of C# 2.0 is > called gmcs for the time being.
Thanks for pointing that out. I have removed the statement.
Like you, I like Joy, Cat, Forth and Postscript for their concatenative features. And, also like you, I am not very content with the current state-of-the-art programmign languages, and I'm eager to build something better.
However, a programming language is one thing: efficient algorithms to implement the language is another. I feel that the most important data structure is the sequence. In Cat this would be the List structure.
Now consider the following Cat program that has 1 trillion elements with one single reduction: [1 2 3 4 ......... 10000000 10000001 add 10000002 ....... 10000000000] dup !
The previous Cat program would copy the sequence (with complexity O(trillion) ?) and reduce the second (opened) sequence and add two big numbers.
My question to you is: how are you going to maintain the pure functional properties of Cat *and* also scale to big sequences?
> Because everything is purely functional in Cat this means > that any list or data structure in Cat has to maintain its > referentially transparent/immutable properties during > execution. > > Now consider a very big (quoted) program with a million > entries. > My question is: When this program is executed (reduced) > how does Cat make sure it doesn't destroy the previous > (unreduced) version? > > Copying all elements from the old version into the new one > would certainly be an idea. But this would be very > inefficient.
I have a few observations: - In a case like the one you proposed, no part of the program ever uses the unreduced list. A smart compiler could destroty the original list without changing the program semantics - Copying semantics aren't so bad as all that. e.g. C++ programs often run fine - A sequence of consecutive numbers would be better represented using:
def myseq = 1 1000000 init;
which can be easily stored as a generator function internally.
As an interesting node: I have a list class in C# under development which switches between different internal representations based on usage. For example, in some circumstances it uses an array representation, in others a linked list, and in others still it uses a generator function.
Finally, I should ask, are there better alternatives I am not aware of? I am definitely open to suggestions.
/* [Designing] a programming language is one thing: [designing] efficient algorithms to implement the language is another.
Consider a very big (quoted) program with a million entries. My question is: When this program is executed (reduced) how does Cat make sure it doesn't destroy the previous (unreduced) version? */
I didn't have a good answer for this yesterday, and CDiggins has already given a better answer than what I came up with this morning. Even so, I believe if all else failed, Cat can work on chunks of such input. That is, if Cat can determine that certain conditions hold (eg., computations on element 1 do not affect computations on element 2), then the runtime environment can choose an arbitrary number of elements (say 32 or 64) that can be worked on simultaneously. This provides a speedup compared to working on one element at a time.
The answers would have to be stored somewhere other than the original list so that if computation failed halfway through the original list wouldn't be affected. If I understand correctly, Google's MapReduce works like this ( http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce.html ).
> > Because everything is purely functional in Cat this > means > > that any list or data structure in Cat has to maintain I have a few observations: > - In a case like the one you proposed, no part of the > program ever uses the unreduced list. A smart compiler > could destroty the original list without changing the > program semantics OK, how about this ;-)
Surely the quoted [bigprogram] should not be destroyed by the reduced program.
> - Copying semantics aren't so bad as all that. e.g. C++ > programs often run fine
What about the efficient concatenation of big lists A and B (or programs)?Surely you this operation to be fast to, say O(log(size(A) + size(B)) and not O(size(A + B)).
> - A sequence of consecutive numbers would be better > represented using: > > def myseq = 1 1000000 init; > > which can be easily stored as a generator function > internally. Yes, it would be a lazy list ;-)
> > As an interesting node: I have a list class in C# under > development which switches between different internal > representations based on usage. For example, in some > circumstances it uses an array representation, in others a > linked list, and in others still it uses a generator > function. Cool.
> > Finally, I should ask, are there better alternatives I am > not aware of? I am definitely open to suggestions. May be you should look at Chris Okasaki's work on purely functional datastructures. The most recent development is: Finger Trees by Ralf Hinze. I also use Treaps sometimes for fast list implementations. | <urn:uuid:aee011a6-140e-477f-be34-aeed4b0f28ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=106&thread=164930&start=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945311 | 1,290 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Smoked salmon recall hits Colorado, other states
State health officials put out the word Monday on a voluntary recall of smoked salmon at Whole Foods markets, for potential listeria contamination.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said Whole Foods was recalling Whole Catch Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon, the 4-oz. size, for potential listeria. The packages are cold-smoked and sliced salmon.
“The lot code being recalled is 7425A2298B. The lot code is printed on the back of the package, on the upper left side. The UPC code is 0 99482 40880 0,” the state health department said. No illnesses have been reported from the salmon, but the company found a sample of the product had tested positive for listeria.
Listeria is unusual among foodborne illnesses in that it can grow and multiply in relatively cool temperatures like refrigerators, making deli meats and other smoked items particularly vulnerable. While all recalled products should be thrown out or returned to the grocery store, health officials also recommend that especially for pregnant women, young children and the elderly, deli meats should be heated in a microwave or oven before serving in order to help kill any potential bacteria.
The Whole Foods contact line is 512-542-0060, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time. Customers can get a refund for the salmon. | <urn:uuid:6ef9e03d-1e33-486c-a031-7b71d2ae1431> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.denverpost.com/health/2013/01/28/smoked-salmon-recall-hits-colorado-states/2575/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931364 | 296 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Some donors and volunteers enjoy seeing the impact of their philanthropic efforts. They enjoy visiting the organizations they support, meeting the staff and learning more about the beneficiaries of their gift. Usually, donors walk away feeling positive about their contribution and they are encouraged to do more. The connection between giving is strong. For the donors that have the opportunity to see the impact of their work, their stories are shared and shared.
In early December, Drishtipat Chicago hosted an art auction event to raise funds to address child domestic worker (CDW) issues. It is estimated that there are 100,000 CDW in Dhaka and 400,000 in the rest of Bangladesh. The volunteers raised more than $20,000. Some of funds were used to support Child Domestic Worker (CDW) drop-in centers managed by Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK).
At the end of December, Drishtipat members visited the CDW Center in Lalmatia to see the impact of their fundraising efforts. The details of their visit can be found on Unheard Voices blog:
Since these children have to work throughout the day at their employers’ homes its difficult to set a particular time for them to come and take lessons so the drop-in centre remains open from 9AM to 5PM and the kids can come in whenever they get 2 hours of free time within this time-frame. They are also taken out for recreation sometimes. They also have counseling sessions where they can talk about any problems they are facing at the homes where they work.
Unfortunately, for most children working at homes, this is a luxury. Most CDWs (95% girls according to ASK) never get to leave the house, get any education, interact with the outside world or know what basic rights they have. Many are abused, emotionally, physically and sexually, and are not allowed to be in touch with their family. They bear the abuse until something extreme happens and they take up one column of a newspaper.
Photo courtesy of Ikhtiar Kazi Abeer | <urn:uuid:9564bfeb-f8b8-4627-84a2-6febc4089984> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asianphilanthropyforum.org/donors-seeing-the-impact-of-their-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973988 | 416 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The rumored manufacturing plants are expected to focus on building LCD television sets, according to a report published Thursday by hit-or-miss industry publication DigiTimes. Citing "market watchers," the report suggested that the plants will not be used to manufacture Apple products, because the work is "rather complicated.
The rumored expansion of Foxconn to America comes as the company's chairman, Terry Gou, also reportedly said at a public event that his company is planning a training program for U.S.-based engineers. Through a planned partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Foxconn hopes to bring American engineers to Taiwan or China to be involved in product design and manufacturing.
Based in Taiwan, Foxconn has a number of manufacturing plants in China where it assembles devices for a number of large electronics companies, including Apple. But Apple has come under fire from critics who disapprove of Foxconn's use of cheap foreign labor.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook visited a Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, China, earlier this year.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook was asked earlier this year about the possibility of manufacturing his company's products in America. He said he would like for Apple products to be made stateside, but he also noted that critics have placed an "intense focus" on final assembly, while there is a great deal more to creating devices than just that one step.
A report from AppleInsider in July noted that some of Apple's key component suppliers have begun increasing their U.S.-based production. But because those companies frequently assemble components around the world, it's unknown just how much of a device like the iPhone is truly made in America.
Foxconn has begun expanding outside of China and the Far East in recent years, most notably with a new plant in Brazil that manufactures iPads for Apple. | <urn:uuid:749d8809-f599-4174-965c-2fb0e94597f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/154160/rumor-iphone-assembler-foxconn-plans-to-build-manufacturing-plants-in-us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977087 | 367 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Safety Program Codifies Risk of Hospital Violence
Fortunately, awareness is growing. The mainstream media has picked up on the story, thanks to the efforts of groups like the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), which has provided detailed accounts about the frequency of onsite violence against clinicians and other staff. ENA’s alarming 2007 survey in which 86% of respondents reported having experienced workplace violence is frequently cited by news outlets.
Now, when violence occurs in a hospital, media no longer report it simply as an isolated and unpredictable incident, but as part of a larger and disturbing trend of hospital violence that is taking place across the country. And, as more data is compiled about the extent of these attacks, the media will intensify its coverage because it resonates with the public.
This is all good. Acts of violence in places of healing are still occurring at an alarming rate, but most people who are in a position to address the issue no longer are in denial. That is an important first step. An informed and angry public will demand change, and that means that hospital leaders who ignore workplace security do so at their own peril.
If an employee, a patient, or a visitor in your hospital is attacked, be assured your local news media (probably unions, too) will examine previous incidences of violence at your hospital to look for patterns, and demand to know why you took no previous action to address an issue you should have known about. And, they’d be right in asking.
Recently, the Journal of Emergency Nursingreported on an innovative program at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics to address an uptick in violent incidents against staff, patients, and visitors at the Madison, WI-based health system’s emergency department. Working from Centers for Disease Control data which shows that emergency departments are the most frequent location for violence in healthcare, UWHC formed an interdisciplinary team of nurse leaders and front-line staff to address the issue.
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- Hospital Pricing Transparency a Marketing Game Changer | <urn:uuid:2386f652-bc82-4bac-b965-ba2e139830ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/HR-260061/Safety-Program-Codifies-Risk-of-Hospital-Violence.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948979 | 527 | 1.671875 | 2 |
I was introduced to Carl Sagan‘s epic series, Cosmos, a few years ago by a colleague. She had known the series since childhood and gave it a glowing recommendation. “It will change your life”, she told me. As a fan of epic television, I took her advice and took a chance on Cosmos.
Right off the bat, the sweeping esoteric synth music turned me right off. Next the cheesy shots of water crashing against a beach and the classic CGI shooting star flying through space absolutely got under my skin – to the point where I was close to turning it off. I started to question my colleagues taste BIG time!
But once the mood sank in and I continued to listen to Carl Sagan’s poetic ode to the universe, my attitude changed. I became enthralled. I let myself be swept away by the soft music and images – so different from the usual sharp harsh cuts of modern science documentaries. But the real strengths of this documentary are the largeness of the topic and the hope that Sagan inspires for the future of the human race. He is the ultimate nerd and an accomplished scientist, with a tendency toward exaggerated pronunciation. He speaks with earnesty & intelligence, wholly devoid of irony, without ego but also without insecurity. It is so incredibly refreshing.
It is not all flowers and cupcakes though, he warns us repeatedly throughout the series of the dark sides of humanity – the destruction that we so often leave our wake. Remember this series was filmed during the 80s, when the cold war and the threat of nuclear conflict was very real. Throughout the series, he discusses the possibility that human beings will eventually blow themselves up. He postulates that science and logic are our best tools to prevent this from happening. To further his hope, he dedicate himself to communicating and popularizing science throughout his life until he passed away in the 90s.
His main dream for humanity was clear: he wanted to see us travel further into space, to contact other forms of life, to better understand and explore our universe. But Sagan also instructs us, politely but firmly, to respect the world we have – the only home we have ever known.
Take a chance on the Cosmos: | <urn:uuid:26dac207-d2c0-4245-bedc-1a1da06d38e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eavesdroppingmedia.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978123 | 450 | 1.5 | 2 |
Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off," those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae ("law of parsimony" or "law of succinctness"):
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,
which translates to:
entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
This is often paraphrased as "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.
Originally a tenet of the reductionist philosophy of nominalism, it is more often taken today as a heuristic maxim that advises economy, parsimony, or simplicity in scientific theories.
There will be an update to this post, but not a test. Although perhaps a trial. | <urn:uuid:b1f5d62e-dbb3-4d88-a462-368e17f53574> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cycledallas.blogspot.jp/2007_04_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941892 | 268 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Dr. Werner Seidl, about the using of mares milk for the healing from dermatitis, gastritis, increased resorption of nutrients, balance of the intestinal system, diseases of the lungs (asthma, tuberculosis, bronchial problems), diseases of the liver, gall or the pancreas, diseases of the heart or the circulation, diseases of old people, diseases of the immune system, rheumatism, anemia, leukaemia, diseases of the skin (acne, eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis), tumors and many more…
He born 1949 in Vienna, is a general practitioner and a surgeon. He has studied alternative types of medicine for years and in 2002 he got the ÖAK Diploma for complementary medicine and acupuncture. He has also studied “Radiästhesie” (the field of the effects of radiations, that can be emitted from dead or living objects and are “felt” by certain people, so called “Radiästhetics”) and the effects of mare´s milk. He uses mare´s milk in his work both for prophylactic purposes and for the treatment of various illnesses. His special field are diseases of the intestinal system. | <urn:uuid:912e91d6-73a1-4665-84e6-a42dba5b1554> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toechterle.at/anfrage.htm?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938403 | 261 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Tofu, also called bean curd, is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks.
Grilled Tofu with a Mediterranean Chopped Salad
Mild-flavored tofu benefits from this intensely flavored lemon juice-and-garlic-based marinade. If you have the time, marinate the tofu early in the day (up to 8 hours before serving) so it can absorb all the flavors.
Spicy Grilled Tofu and Green Bean Salad
This is a hearty side dish, or when doubled, a fine salad supper.
Gingered Vegetable-Tofu Stir-Fry
Use extra firm tofu for this recipe. It breaks apart less easily than regular or soft tofu .
Tofu : Know Your Label Lingo
And for good reason: Tofu provides a lot of protein ..... with little fat. Tofu , also known as bean curd , is made from soybeans ..... pressed into cakes of tofu . There are two main ..... Like regular tofu , silken tofu , sometimes known as
What Is an “Egg Substitute,” Anyway? — Know Your Label Lingo
for the best results. Other Egg Substitutes Looking for a vegan egg substitute for quiches or scrambled eggs? Try silken tofu , which mimics the texture of eggs wonderfully and comes packed with plenty of protein as well. It can even be successfully
Michelle Obama Wants Your Kid’s Best (Healthy) Recipe
think “roasted baby carrots with grilled tofu and black beans.” Just include all those ..... kid on the panel doesn’t rate grilled tofu and black beans too highly. Just ..... child can figure out how to disguise tofu into something even halfway comparable
How to Make Miso Soup
package instructions; 5 tablespoons of shiro miso; 4 ounces of tofu , diced; 2 small green onions, chopped; and, slivered lemon ..... in it goes. And to that, we'll also going to add in our tofu . So, we want to bring that up to boiling. Let all of thoseaccording to package instructions; 5 tablespoons of shiro miso; 4 ounces of tofu , diced; 2 small green onions, chopped; and, slivered lemon peel is optional. All right, there's something so satisfying about making miso soupit goes. And to that, we'll also going to add in our tofu . So, we want to bring that up to boiling. Let all of those flavors cook through. Oh, it smells like the ocean
Food Blogs We Love
Braised Tofu with Ground Pork
recipe, make sure you buy Firm or Extra Firm Tofu . Anything softer will fall apart in the dish. Chinese Braised Tofu with Ground Pork Recipe Servings ..... this with rice. 1 block firm or extra firm tofu salt and freshly ground black
Tofu with Crab Sauce
cupboard. In Japan, this dish is known as tofu no kani ankake (豆腐のかにあんかけ) and makes for ..... great protein packed snack on its own. Silken tofu when simmered, takes on the texture of ..... flavor without overpowering the delicate tofu .
Take Me to Tofu Town
right at the source of the best tofu in the tri-state area. One ..... This is the factory for Bridge Tofu in Middletown, Connecticut ..... at the impossible volume of bean curd being produced in this tiny ..... curds into the largest slabs of tofu you’ve ever seen, to be cut
Sunrise Tofu Recipe Contest
Make a tofu dish from the list of recipes on the sponsor's site. Take a photo, and enter it in this contest with a brief description of what you thought of the dish. Deadline: March 16, 2011 Prize: Best Buy gift card valued at CDN $300. | <urn:uuid:1008a6c6-de17-4e87-9b19-cb36e974d44d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.recipe.com/topics/tofu.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912661 | 834 | 1.789063 | 2 |
27.01.2006 at 0645 LT in position 11:55.0N - 051:19.0E, off Cape Guardafui, Somalia.You might like to look at the 2005 piracy maps, a couple of examples of which follow (attacks off Somalia and in the Strait of Malacca during 2005):
Five pirates armed with machine guns and rocket launchers in a speedboat fired upon a bulk carrier underway. Master took evasive manoeuvres and activated SSAS; crew mustered and started fire hoses. Pirates continued firing causing damage to bridge windows and accommodation. They restocked ammunition from a nearby wooden fishing boat and resumed firing. Another black steel hulled fishing
boat came close and also fired at the ship. A coalition warship responded to the alert and at 0740 LT a helicopter arrived and pirates ceased firing. At 0810 LT a coalition warship arrived at the scene.
25.01.2006 at 0152 UTC in position 13:27.6N - 042:59.0E, southern Red Sea.
An unlit speedboat chased a container ship underway. Boat increased speed to 35 knots and came within 1.5 nm. Ship altered course and crew directed search lights. Craft reduced speed and aborted chase.
11.01.2006 at 1600 LT in position 04:49N - 005:21E, 8 miles SW of Dodo River, off EA oilfield, Nigeria.
40 persons armed with guns in three canoes boarded a pollution control ship underway. They vandalized ship's equipment and kidnapped four expatriate personnel. The ship was engaged in a security role with 14 naval personnel onboard. So far the pirates have made no demand. Authorities informed.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Latest ICC Commercial Crime Services Weekly Piracy Report here. Highlights: | <urn:uuid:467b36e0-35b0-4287-bd10-e42c2cbb298e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eaglespeak.us/2006/02/latest-icc-commercial-crime-services.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936513 | 371 | 1.554688 | 2 |
"T he government is committed to protect the financial health of public sector banks and financial institutions," said finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, announcing an allocation of Rs 15,888 crore for capitalisation of public sector banks (PSBs), regional rural banks and other financial institutions in his Budget 2012 speech, delivered in March.
This is not the first time taxpayer money has been set aside to beef up banks' capital. Ever since the country accepted the Basel norms of capital adequacy, successive finance ministers have provided money to capitalise banks in their Budgets.
Budget 2012 is no exception. But at Rs 15,888 crore, the amount earmarked side to recapitalise banks in fiscal 2012-13 is more than double the amount set aside last year. It is more than 25 times the amount allocated as the Central Plan Outlay ( Rs 631 crore) for the ministry of statistics and programme implementation - any wonder why we get such appalling statistics? - and about half the amount allocated for the much-acclaimed poverty-alleviation programme MGNREGA (Rs 33,000 crore). It is only a little less than half the amount set aside as revenue expenditure for the police for the current year (Rs 35,000 crore).
Yet, it is only a drop in the ocean compared to what PSBs would need to be complaint with the Basel III norms announced by the RBI last Wednesday. That's when you begin to scratch your head and wonder. There must be something very wrong with our sense of priorities. Why are we shovelling money into PSBs when we don't seem to have money for other far more critical needs: strengthen our badly-stretched police force and our court infrastructure to make the justice delivery system work better, improve our primary health care and primary education systems, beef up our statistical machinery, etc?
But first, why do banks need capital? Under existing norms, banks in India have to maintain a capital adequacy ratio or a ratio of capital - consisting of tier I (equity and reserves) and tier II (long-term subordinated bonds) - to risk-weighted assets of 9%. Further, at little over half the total capital must be tier-I capital (5.5%). Existing rules therefore place a limit on the total risk-weighted loans that a bank can give; about 22 times banks' tier-I capital (equity plus reserves).
Once banks reach this limit fresh loans can be given only when fresh equity is infused or when profits are retained instead of distributed. Increasing net worth or organic growth is a good option. But it is a slow process.
Moreover, higher retention of profits means lower dividend for the government. Therefore, significant and rapid expansion is possible only if fresh equity is brought in. A growing economy will have a large need for funds, especially in a scenario like ours where growth is debt rather than equity funded. Hence the need for periodic infusion of capital.
Consider. In 2010-11, the government set aside Rs 20,157 crore to help banks maintain their tier-I capital at 8% and increase government equity in some banks to 58%. In 2009-10, the amount was less - Rs 6,000 crore - but over the five-year period to 2012-13, the government would have spent over Rs 45,000 crore on recapitalisation of banks. Is this the best use of money for a cash-strapped government?
Remember, what we have spent so far is just the tip of the iceberg. In December 2011, C Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, speaking at the India Finance Conference 2011, estimated PSBs would need capital infusion of Rs 10,000 crore a year if they are to grow their credit portfolio and market share.
The new Basel III guidelines released by the RBI are likely to push that number up further. Rough estimates place the additional capital required over the six-year period to 2018 at approximately 1.5 trillion. Of this a substantial amount would be for PSBs. As long as government remains the majority owner, this money will have to come mostly from government offers (read, taxpayer money).
But are taxpayer funds the only source of additional capital? Not necessarily. PSBs can tap the market for funds. However, since the government is determined to retain a majority share in PSBs, banks cannot issue shares to the public without the government chipping in to retain its position as majority shareholder.
Does it make sense for government to pump in money when its own finances are in such dire straits and it has so many calls on its limited resources? The fiscal deficit is already 5.9% of GDP, government borrowing for the year Rs 5.79 trillion, which is a Rs 60,000 crore increase over the previous year.
The government has perhaps realised this which is why the FM announced in his Budget speech that the government is examining the possibility of creating a financial holding company that will raise resources to meet the capital requirements of PSBs. Though this is infinitely better than government funding PSBs directly, it is only marginally so if public sector entities are forced to subscribe to the holding company.
So what is the answer? Can we make PSBs Basel III compliant without burdening taxpayers? Yes. If only the government would chuck its socialist past and agree to reduce its stake in PSBs to say, 26%, enough to block special resolutions. If that calls for a public debate, so be it.
I doubt anyone, barring Mamata and the Left, of course, would seriously argue that PSBs should be propped up with yet more taxpayer-funded borrowings. | <urn:uuid:f4a4fe57-9ad2-4103-9f80-1e5453854acf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-07/news/31610709_1_risk-weighted-assets-public-sector-banks-tier-i-capital | 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 | 0.950671 | 1,155 | 1.640625 | 2 |
JERUSALEM — Israel did not issue a formal invitation to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze to stop in Jerusalem during an upcoming Middle East tour, apparently to avoid being snubbed by the Kremlin.
Officials in Moscow have announced that Shevardnadze will make a 10-day, five-nation tour of the region, including the first visit ever to Jordan by a Soviet foreign minister. His trip begins Friday in Syria.
In Jerusalem, Israeli diplomats greeted the announcement of the trip with guarded optimism.
They said it was part of a Soviet desire to help broker any future Arab-Israeli peace initiatives, but added that insiders in Israel`s Foreign Ministry do not believe Shevardnadze will be offering a specific peace formula.
That, and the expectation that the Jewish state would likely be snubbed, apparently led Israel Tuesday to stop short of inviting Shevardnadze to add Jerusalem to his itinerary.
``If a foreign minister of the Soviet Union wants to come to Israel, he has only to say the word,`` said Daniel Sheck, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
``He does not need a formal invitation.``
The trip comes during a period of increasingly warm contacts between Jerusalem and Moscow, which severed diplomatic ties in 1967 over the Six-Day War.
Each government has a diplomatic delegation working in the other`s nation, on low-level consular issues, and several steps by Israel in recent months appear to be helping the thaw.
In December, Israel dispatched rescue teams with equipment to Armenia to help search for survivors after an earthquake devastated that region. Earlier, Israeli officials allowed a hijacked Aeroflot cargo plane to land at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, then promptly returned the plane and the hijackers to Soviet authorities.
Both moves have been warmly praised in the Soviet media and by Shevardnadze.
Still, professor Galia Golan of the Soviet Studies Department at Hebrew University said Tuesday it was premature to expect a Soviet official of Shevardnadze`s stature to visit Jerusalem.
``That`s still very much in the future, I think. Relations are obviously improving, and they are improving at a fairly good rate at this point,`` she said. ``But I don`t imagine that you would have an official visit of that type until diplomatic relations were fully resumed. And that`s only going to come when the peace process begins in some sort of genuine way.``
Jerusalem has made the restoration of Soviet-Israeli ties a precondition to any Soviet role in Middle East peace talks.
Officials and analysts in Jerusalem also noted that the Soviet foreign minister`s tour is to include Cairo and Amman, both Western-oriented Arab nations and critical players in any future Arab-Israeli settlement. Shevardnadze also will visit Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq, and Tehran.
Both Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens have said they would permit some form of Soviet involvement in the peace process, provided relations were restored.
Arens and Deputy Premier Shimon Peres, a former foreign minister, have said they personally invited Shevardnadze to visit Israel during private talks in Europe and at the United Nations. | <urn:uuid:82bf31d5-4e81-4ac7-b1b7-8ebd5c23775c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-02-15/news/8903050687_1_shevardnadze-soviet-foreign-minister-soviet-role | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962166 | 673 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Recent Orca timeline
December 24, 2009: Trainer Alexis Martinez is killed at Loro Parque in Tenerife in the Canary Islands by Keto, a captive-born 16 year-old male orca that had been transferred from SeaWorld, along with three other juvenile orcas (Tekoa, Kohana, Skyla) in 2006.
February 24, 2010: Trainer Dawn Brancheau is killed by Tilikum, a wild-caught 27 year-old male orca at SeaWorld Orlando.
April 27, 2010: Congressional oversight hearing on the educational value of public display of marine mammals held by the House Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife. This hearing was held to review and evaluate the educational value of keeping marine mammals in captivity.
June 6, 2010: Taima, a captive born 20 year-old female orca at SeaWorld Orlando dies while giving birth to a full-term stillborn calf. Taima’s calf was fathered by Tilikum, the orca that killed trainer Dawn Brancheau in February.
June 23, 2010: a female orca named Morgan is found alone in the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands and taken into captivity by the Harderwijk Dolfinarium, where she remains. Morgan is the first orca found alive in Dutch coastal waters for more than 60 years.
August 23, 2010: OSHA, the US government Occupational Health and Safety Administration, cites and fines SeaWorld $75,000 for willfully exposing its employees to hazards and risk of injury and death in its orca programs.
September 7, 2010: Sumar, a 12 year-old captive-born male orca dies unexpectedly at SeaWorld San Diego. Sumar’s mother was Taima.
October 5, 2010: Kalina, a 25 year-old captive-born female orca dies unexpectedly at SeaWorld Orlando.
October 9, 2010: Katina, a 34 year-old orca captured from the wild in Iceland in 1978, gives birth to a male calf sired by Tilikum at SeaWorld Orlando. The calf has been named Makaio.
October 13, 2010: Kohana, an eight year-old captive-born female orca, gave birth to a male calf at Loro Parque’s "Orca Ocean" exhibit. Kohana has yet to establish a "maternal bond" with her calf, recently named Adan, forcing trainers to attempt to hand-rear him. As Kohana was separated from her mother at three years of age, she may never have had the chance to learn about maternal care and has spent the last five years of her life surrounded by the three other juvenile orcas at Loro Parque. To this date, only one other captive orca has ever been hand-raised: Halyn, born to Kayla and Keet at Sea World Texas in 2005, who died of acute encephalitis at 2.8 years of age.
August 2010: Lolita, a female southern resident orca that was captured from the Pacific Northwest (Penn Cove, Washington) in 1970, marks her 40th year in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium.
December 2010: Corky, a female orca captured from the northern resident A5 pod in British Columbia in 1969 marks her 41st year in captivity at SeaWorld San Diego.
January 14, 2011: Nami, a 28 year-old female orca captured off the coast of Taiji, Japan in 1985, dies at the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium in Japan. A necropsy found that she had 491 stones weighing 81.4 kilograms (179.5 lbs) stuck in her stomach. She spent 24 years at the Taiji Whale Museum before being transferred to the Nagoya aquarium in June 2010.
February 3, 2011: SeaWorld announces it will debut an all-new killer whale show in the Spring and Summer at its three locations, called “One Ocean”. The show will not involve trainers conducting in-water work with the orcas that will be performing.
February 26th, 2011: SeaWorld announces the reopening of the ‘Dine with Shamu’ show at SeaWorld San Antonio, just a year after the accident that took Ms. Brancheau’s life in the same attraction in Orlando. The company also announced that limited waterwork with the orcas would begin over the next few months.
April 22, 2011: After over a year of isolation, Tilikum returns to performances at SeaWorld. SeaWorld also debuted its new orca show, One Ocean, as a replacement for its Believe show at its Orlando location.
May 25, 2011: SeaWorld files suit against Marineland of Canada to end their breeding loan agreement and bring Ikaika, a 9-year old male orca, back home to SeaWorld over concerns about his physical and psychological health. The court finds in favour of SeaWorld.
August 3, 2011: Netherlands court decides not to allow the immediate transfer of Morgan to the Loro Parque zoo in Tenerife, requested further research be undertaken.
September 12, 2011: Reports surface that various safety measures, instituted and in development by SeaWorld since September of 2010, are untenable and running into complications which may make them unrealistic for trainer protection at SeaWorld locations.
September 19, 2011: Administrative law judge to hear case of SeaWorld versus OSHA (the United States government’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration). SeaWorld is intending to present evidence of safety measures that it has instituted since the citation and fine issued by OSHA in August 2010 and addressing safety violations and hazards relating to its orca attractions and disputing OSHA’s findings. The hearing will be open to the public. | <urn:uuid:24008e67-0c84-4436-b3bc-aaf1d8cf8bc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wdcs.org/stop/captivity/orca_watch/captivity_timeline.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955828 | 1,206 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Pavement Management Program
Purpose of the Study
Municipal Utilities and Engineering Department in conjunction with the department of Innovative Technologies have developed a citywide 2012 Pavement Management Program (PMP). In developing this program, the physical condition of City street surfaces were evaluated, rated, and the projected life cycle determined. The PMP further identifies a schedule for maintenance and reconstruction of City streets at the appropriate time in order to extend their overall life-expectancy in the most efficient and economical manner. In addition, the PMP establishes a comprehensive process to prioritize rehabilitation of the City’s roadway system and will be used as a powerful tool in the decision-making process in order to best utilize the City’s available financial resources.
Other advantages of this program include:
- Improving the quality of the City’s streets in a fiscally responsible manner;
- Implementing a plan that considers both immediate and long-term needs;
- Promoting transparency by educating public on the decision-making process involving selection and utilization of street improvement funds throughout the City.
Pavement Management Program (view below)
C: Appendix B- Matrix Method Criteria Maps
Summary of Findings
The street network within the City includes over 292 street miles or approximately 640 lane miles of Asphalt Concrete paved streets within the City limits.
The Department of Innovative Technology staff utilizes eRoads Pavement technology, or simply “eRoads”, as an automated pavement evaluation system that creates a database of the current inventory of City street conditions, treatment options, and cost estimates for each treatment available. Using this system, staff has confirmed that due to the lack of comprehensive and systematic maintenance of the City’s road systems over a number of years, the City’s average Pavement Condition Index (PCI) has dropped to 53 on a scale of 0 – 100. An average PCI of 53 is considered poor in reference to industry standards and in comparison to the condition of streets in surrounding cities. The condition of a road is affected by several factors including traffic loading and moisture intrusion during its lifecycle.
Various rehabilitation and resurfacing methods are available to maintain the road surface, each with their own benefits and expected service life. The appropriate treatment must be selected for these road conditions, many of which are described in the PMP report.
New pavement deteriorates slowly at first and then at a continually increasing rate. This deterioration can be significantly slowed by use of systematic preventive maintenance starting in the early stages of a pavement’s lifecycle. Examples of different pavement conditions and related PCI values are shown within the report for reference.
Analysis and Recommendations
In the last two years, with the availibility of funds, the City has been maintaining streets that are still in good condition and rehabilitating the streets that are in fair or worse condition in order to improve the City’s average PCI rating. However, a comprehensive multiyear approach was deemed necessary to reduce the rapid deterioration of most streets within the City limits.
PMP identifies two specific methodologies: The “Matrix” method and The “Vehicle Miles Traveled” (VMT) method - to prioritize streets for resurfacing and maintenance treatment. The recommended treatment for every street has also been determined in the eRoad system. The decision to utilize either of the referenced methodologies or a hybrid of the two for prioritizing resurfacing implementation, is directly related to the existing physical condition of each street and availability of funds and resources.
The Matrix Method for prioritization factors in a variety of criteria impacting the general use of streets such as PCI, Average Daily Traffic (ADT), truck routes, vicinity to schools and population density, etc. This methodology takes advantage of an in-depth analysis provided by the eRoad system and usage of advanced GIS technologies. The result is a “big-picture” approach that shows graphically the streets that warrant treatment based on function, location, and the condition of the street surface.
The VMT method is the most efficient engineering approach in prioritizing street repairs. This methodology uses ADT as well as cost of street rehabilitation to queue streets for repairs. Each day there are 814,000 vehicle-miles traveled on the City streets. Using the traffic volumes as a guide for choosing streets for repair leads to the most cost-effective approach in terms of dollar per mile traveled on a daily basis.
Ideally, we strive to use Best Management Practices in the most cost effective and timely manner to achieve an average PCI rating of 66 or better. A street system maintained at this level is considered to be in optimum state. At this level, maintenance costs would remain at a minimum while the street standard would be maintained at a better quality.
This plan is a living document that will be updated when necessary and reported to City Council annually. | <urn:uuid:004bd37b-fc4b-4607-8638-7f9655d5ddbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oorci@cityofredlands.org/pavementmanagement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92776 | 994 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Daniel Russell knows how to find the answers to questions you can't get to with a simple Google query. In his weekly Search Research column, Russell issues a search challenge, then follows up later in the week with his solution—using whatever search technology and methodology fits the bill. This week's challenge: Bats over Austin—where do they go?
In yesterday's challenge I asked a few questions about bats in Austin, TX. How did you do in answering them? Here's what I did.
- What kind of bats are we seeing (at the Congress Avenue bridge)?
This is a pretty easy question. A quick Google search for [bats Congress bridge Austin] will quickly get you to some pages that describe the bats as "Mexican free-tailed bats." If you then dig just one query deeper, say [Mexican free-tailed bat] you'll learn from multiple sources that these are small bats that are known by the scientific name of Tadarida brasiliensis, also known as the Brazilian free-tailed bat. The Congress Avenue bridge is home to a colony of around 1.5 million bats (at the mid-season peak population).
So the answer: Mexican free-tailed bats, aka Brazilian free-tailed bats, aka Tadarida brasiliensis.
- What kind of bat is the most common in Texas?
This is slightly more difficult because there are so many kinds of bats in Texas, and because the Austin population is so well-known and popular, you can imagine that some folks will immediately claim that they're the most populous bat in the state.
So a search like [most common bat Texas] gets to a bunch of resources, including pages about "most common bats in the US" (be careful to NOT read this as the most common bat in Texas!).
But there are also a few pages from the Texas Parks and Wildlife department that assert that the Mexican Free-tailed bat is the most common. That's good, but can we find a biologist who can give population statistics?
One way to do this is to search for the scientific name of the bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) at EDU sites. For instance, the search [site:.EDU Tadarida brasiliensis Texas population] leads us to web pages as universities such as Texas Tech's Natural Science Research Laboratory.
In their description of the "Brazilian Free-tailed bat" (notice that they don't call it the Mexican free-tailed bat), they note: "...bats that inhabit Texas caves during the summer have been estimated at 95-104 million. The largest of the caves, Bracken Cave near San Antonio, is thought to hold between 20 and 40 million bats." So while the population in Austin is big, it's nowhere near the biggest colony in the state!
But a little looking around comparing different species of bats shows that the Mexican free-tailed (aka Brazilian) bat is clearly the most common bat in Texas.
- When these bats migrate, where do they go (we know they go somewhere south into Mexico, but can you tell me which states they visit for the winter?)?
This is a bit trickier-we're trying to figure out the names of places in southern Mexico and Central America. But it's a little hard to search for something when you don't know what it is!
This is the kind of question I'd use Google Scholar to answer. It seems like the kind of research a bat biologist would do. A quick Google Scholar search for [Tadarida brasiliensis migration wintering] led me to: "Seasonal movements of Mexican freetail bats Tadaridabrasiliensis Mexicana banded in the Great Plains" by Bryan P. Glass, Southwestern Naturalist 27(2):127-133 (May, 1982)
Even though this is a partial document for the longer paper, you can still read enough to find out that different bat populations move to different places for the winter. But the short answer is that some go to Sinaloa, Sonora, and Michoacan.
Digging just one-result deeper confirms this finding, as this map (Figure 1 from the paper "Genetic variation and migration in theMexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana)" by A.L. Russell (no relation to me), et al. in the journal Molecular Ecology 14, 2207-2222 (2005) illustrates, the bats pretty clearly end up in central Mexico.
Daniel M. Russell studies the way people search and research—an anthropologist of search, if you will. You can read more from Russell on his SearchReSearch blog, and stay tuned for his weekly challenges (and answers) here on Lifehacker.
Title image remixed from Nazzu (Shutterstock). | <urn:uuid:9bd53727-c4ff-4a87-a782-6325ad5a7d95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifehacker.com/5909212/answer-bats-over-austinwhere-do-they-go?tag=roundup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952361 | 995 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Etymology of the Hebrew and Aramaic term
The noun mohel (mohela in Aramaic) "circumciser", is derived from the same verb stem as milah "circumcision." The noun appeared for the first time in the fourth century as the title of a circumciser (Shabbat 156a).
Origins of circumcision
For Jews, circumcision is mandatory, as it is prescribed in the Torah:
- In the Book of Genesis as a mark of the Covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham: "Throughout all generations, every male shall be circumcised when he is eight days old...This shall be my covenant in your flesh, an eternal covenant. The uncircumcised male whose foreskin has not been circumcised, shall have his soul cut off from his people; he has broken my Covenant"
- In Leviticus: "God spoke to Moses, telling him to speak to the Israelites: When a woman conceives and gives birth to a boy ... on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."
Biblically, the infant's father (avi haben) is commanded to perform the circumcision himself. However, as most fathers are not comfortable or do not have the training, they designate a mohel. The mohel is specially trained in circumcision and the rituals surrounding the procedure. Many mohelim are doctors or rabbis (and some are both) or cantors and are required to receive appropriate training both from the religious and medical fields.
Traditionally, the mohel uses a knife to circumcise the newborn. Today, doctors and some non-Orthodox mohalim use a perforating clamp before they cut the skin. The clamp makes it easier to be precise and shortens recovery time. Orthodox mohalim have rejected perforating clamps, arguing that by crushing and killing the skin it causes a great amount of unnecessary pain to the newborn, cuts off the blood flow completely, which according to Jewish law is dangerous to the child and strictly forbidden, and also renders the orlah (foreskin) as cut prior to the proper ritual cut.
Under Jewish law, a mohel must draw blood from the circumcision wound. Most mohels do it by hand with a suction device, but some Orthodox groups use their mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin.
Women as mohels
All types of Judaism except for Orthodox Judaism allow female mohels, called mohelot (pl. of mohelet, f. of mohel). As the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California states, "...there is no halachic proscription against female mohels, [but] none exist in the Orthodox [Jewish] world, where the preference is that the task be undertaken by a Jewish man."
- Simeon J. Maslin, Central Conference of American Rabbis. Committee on Reform Jewish Practice Gates of Mitzvah: A Guide to the Jewish Life Cycle 1979 Page 70 "The term mohel (ritual circumciser) is derived from milah (circumcision). "
- Abraham P. Bloch The Biblical and historical background of Jewish customs- 1980 -p10 "Beginning with the fourth century, the term mohel (mohela in Aramaic) appeared for the first time as the title of a circumciser (Shabbat 156a). "
- Genesis 17:9-14
- Leviticus 12:1-3
- Rabbi probed for circumcised infants' herpes
- Making the cut | <urn:uuid:575d9046-35ea-4d13-bf7b-e74353f89327> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935935 | 733 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Eighteen journalists from Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe attended the two-week training course, which started on 19 September and ended last Friday.
The course covered a number of topics on HIV/AIDS including the use of the correct language when reporting on the subject, HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, its science, the role of the media to mitigate its effects and the rollout of anti-retroviral drugs in the region.
In their deliberations, the scribes also agreed to personalise the epidemic by not writing stories that tended to distance themselves from HIV/AIDS.
They urged authorities in the region to come up with and implement workable HIV/AIDS policies.
A journalist from the Swaziland Observer, Muzie Yenda said his country did not have a policy to counter the pandemic.
It is sad that in my country there are many cases of HIV/AIDS and people are suffering but we do not have a policy. The governments are sleeping, he said.
Southern Africa is grappling with the world's highest infection and prevalence rates.
According to the AVERT, an international AIDS charity organisation, Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst affected by the pandemic. An estimated 25.4 million people are living with HIV and approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred last year alone.
In 2004 the epidemic claimed the lives of an estimated 2.3 million people in the region, AVERT adds.
Around two million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV and more than 12 million children have been orphaned by AIDS in recent years.
A prominent Zambian medical practitioner, Dr Mannasseh Phiri said political leaders in southern Africa must prioritise programmes to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS.
He said governments must develop strategies to counter HIV/AIDS in the same way they are fighting corruption.
Journalists have a great role to play to remove the stigma and fear associated with the disease and to change peoples' behaviour. They also have a role to play in promoting prevention, treatment and care programmes that are being undertaken in their countries. Use the pen to do so. Politicians too must redouble their efforts into research and investment to find a cure for AIDS. I have seen some governments fighting corruption as if it is the only challenge that the region is facing. Although it needs attention, corruption does not kill about 2 000 people per week in, for example, Zambia or Zimbabwe, yet HIV/AIDS does, said Dr Phiri, one of Zambia's most vocal HIV/AIDS activists.
The course was meant to enhance HIV/AIDS reporting skills among the participants and also to explore the anti-retroviral rollout programmes in the region.
Dr Phiri, who is based in Kitwe, north of Lusaka told the scribes that more than 90 percent of all infections in Africa resulted from unprotected sex adding that the generally poor health delivery systems on the continent contributed significantly to the high transmission of HIV.
He said research and investment to find effective AIDS vaccines was poor in Africa because of lack of funds.
Although South Africa is researching to find a vaccine targeted at the HIV One 'C' virus that is afflicting southern Africa, research elsewhere on the continent is still very poor because of lack of funding and moral considerations. Moral concerns are very important because the research involves, among other things, the deliberate infection of an HIV-negative volunteer with a weaker HIV to find the effectiveness of the vaccines. The fear is that the volunteer could be infected permanently, he explained.
In addition to political paralysis, other factors identified as resulting in constant infections are low condom use high prevalence of sexually transmitted infections, low voluntary counselling and testing and fear.
A South African journalist Hayden Horner who has been living positively with HIV for more than seven years gave an account of how his life and health had changed, since he started taking ARVs two years ago. He urged journalists not to distance themselves from the pandemic since it also affects them.
He said society must not stigmatise or discriminate against people living with HIV/AIDS.
I was diagnosed HIV-positive seven years ago and started taking ARVs two years ago and I am living positively. I do not see myself as someone who is waiting to die I am healthy like everyone else. I think if I had not taken up ARVs I should be dead now.
Participants at the workshop said the ARV rollout schemes in their countries were still in their infancy and as such, have not yet spread to cover all the people in need.
In Zimbabwe for, example, the Government is leading the way in providing free ARVs to the infected.
When they were introduced a few months ago, the ARVs were obtainable at Mpilo and Parirenyatwa central hospitals in Bulawayo and Harare respectively.
However, now, more people can access them since the Government has decentralised their distribution to other public health institutions.
To complement Government programmes, some companies are also providing ARVs to workers.
At least 15 000 patients are on ARVs in the country while about 60 000 are taking the drugs in Zambia and another 61 000 in South Africa.
Botswana was criticised for its programme under which foreigners in that country are unable to access free ARVs.
However, ARVs are not the panacea to counter HIV/AIDS. They must be part of a whole package that involves prevention, awareness, voluntary testing and counselling, treatment of opportunistic infections and home-based care programmes, said Dr Phiri.
Home-based care schemes, he said were important in southern Africa because of the high bed-to-patient ratio, low staffing levels and lack of equipment at most public health institutions in the region.
Journalists attending the workshop were also implored not to use words and phrases borrowed from the military such as fighting the scourge, disaster or catastrophe saying they are disempowering and hastened stigma.
Editors and owners of media houses were also urged to prioritise stories on HIV/AIDS and not to disregard them for monetary gain.
On the ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful and Condom use) approach to alleviate the effects of HIV/AIDS that is used in many SADC countries, Dr Phiri said, the initiatives must be further developed to incorporate drugs for an ABCD method.
Commenting on the challenges that journalists in the SADC region faced in reporting on HIV/AIDS, Ms Natalie Ridgard, a journalism lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa said, the practitioners lacked access to accurate information, resources to discharge their duties and had a generally limited understanding of issues and trends about the disease.
Accuracy of HIV/AIDS information is very important because the subject is a question of life and death. Every detail that you write as journalists must be accurate because institutions and the government rely on the information that you disseminate to develop programmes to counter HIV/AIDS.
(Source: Chronicle 5 October 2005). | <urn:uuid:6f537d90-dade-43cc-9401-bf2726a32664> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hst.org.za/news/political-commitment-vital-fight-against-aids | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965153 | 1,444 | 2.09375 | 2 |
It's brutal out there. Forget the “pretty” resume. To compete, you need an effective resume.
Painful FACT: -
The hiring official at your dream company would rather not read your resume. Don’t take it personally. He’d rather not read anybody’s resume. Unexciting text, pat phraseology, ubiquitous exaggerations; it’s torture. Still, he has to read some of them because it is the only way to get some warm bodies on the interview chair!
But don’t expect him to like it. In fact, expect him to do everything in his power to get rid of your resume as fast as humanly possible. His immediate goal is to eliminate you from further consideration in the placement process. The more applicants he eliminates and the faster he does it, the sooner he can get back to the life he prefers–lambasting his subordinates with the oxymoron of Perform or Perish!
Resumes are for screening
It’s important to understand that the sole purpose of a resume is to get you through the preliminary screening. Those resumes that are able to take their resume past the screening process are effective and the others are not! To make you an EFFECTIVE resume, to make a resume that takes you past the screening process, you must keep the following very important pointers in mind—
1. Keep it short.
The effective resume is preferably one page, two at the most. If you’ve written a novel, tear it apart and cut it down to one/two pages.
2. Use Design That Grabs Attention.
Employers make snap judgments when glancing at your resume. If they see unrelated job titles or skills the likelihood is very high that they will make an immediate assumption that you are not qualified for the job you want. Adding to this problem is the fact that employers don't have the time to read through each of your job descriptions to determine if you have the skills they need.
3. Create Content That Sells.
Resume design should get attention but it's really the content of your resume, the descriptions you include of your skills and abilities, that determine how many interviews you generate--as well as the level of salary offers you receive. Compare the before and after statements from a sample resume shown below:
Maintained records for accounts receivable and accounts payable accounts.
Managed over 1,000 accounts receivable and payable accounts working directly with the Chief Financial Officer.
4. As you are writing, try not to use the same words over and over.
Avoiding repetition will make your resume more exciting. Drop in some of the following action words to jazz things up a bit: http://www.faadooengineers.com/entri...en-more-FaaDoO
5. Analyze Ads and Job Descriptions to Identify Key Words.
Learning how to analyze the key words that employers provide in help wanted ads and job descriptions are a key element in creating powerful resumes.
6. Identify and Solve Employer's Hidden Needs.
In addition to the skills or needs listed in the ad shown above, the employer will have many more needs that one should identify and address in his resume. To beat today's heavy competition for jobs, it's important that you identify and anticipate the full range of needs each employer faces and show how you can solve those needs.
7. Portray yourself as a problem solver.
8. If you have degrees, certifications, or specialized training, note it.
Try to include any related unpaid work that you have done, such as internships. Whatever you do, don't list your hobbies unless they directly apply. Concentrate only on what demonstrates your value; leave everything else out.
9. Quantify your accomplishments with hard numbers whenever possible, but never mention your current or expected salary on the resume.
10. Check, check, check for misspellings.
Don’t ever, ever, ever submit a resume or post it online without doing a spell check. In fact, take it a step further and have one or two friends or colleagues proofread the resume for spelling and grammar problems. Do this because an automated spell check program will not know whether you meant to say "principal" or "principle." Both are spelled correctly but mean totally different things. It will not know that you erred by using a verb in the present tense when referring to a job in the past tense.
None of this may seem that critical to you, but trust us, it’s critical to the hiring official.
Whatever you do, always remember the The 5 C's of Resume Writing-
For Sample Resumes and more tips on Resume Writing, visit-- http://www.faadooengineers.com/forum...es-and-Samples | <urn:uuid:f54cd21d-ed8b-4b6f-8621-725f28983483> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.faadooengineers.com/content/244-ten-pointers-for-writing-the-perfect-resume | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939592 | 1,012 | 1.570313 | 2 |
What is Reflux?
Reflux occurs when stomach contents back up into the esophagus (the tube that connects the mouth to the stomach). Many normal infants have some spitting up or reflux without any risk to their health. Sometimes the esophagus can become raw and irritated by the stomach contents. When the stomach contents back up into the esophagus they may be vomited and aspirated (breathed) into the lungs. When your child has trouble breathing, he/she may become red in the face or even have blue color around the lips. You may also be able to hear and feel "rattling" in the chest and back.
Signs of Reflux:
- Tummy aches
- Frequent vomiting
- Frequent cough
- Coughing fits at night
- Heartburn in older children
- Refusal to eat
- Chest pain
- Fussiness around mealtimes
- Frequent upper respiratory infections (colds)
- Frequent sore throats in AM
Testing for Reflux:
If the doctor feels that your child has significant reflux, he/she may refer your child for a special x-ray called an Upper GI (UGI). A white liquid called barium will be given to your child to drink. Your child will be on a table while x-ray pictures are taken with a large camera that hangs down from the ceiling. The camera will not touch or hurt your child. The pictures will show how barium flows through the esophagus, stomach and first part of the small intestines. Your doctor will explain the results of the test to you.
A Gastric Emptying Scan is sometimes ordered to look at how fast the stomach empties a feeding. This test can also show reflux episodes and rarely aspiration (when food is refluxed up into the lungs).
A pH probe is also a test that is done to see if your child has significant reflux or if the reflux is causing systems such as ‘blue spells’ or coughing. A small tube is placed into your child's esophagus through his nose. If necessary, a wireless probe may be placed during endoscopy. A machine records the amount of acid in your child's esophagus and the doctor can learn how often your child refluxes.
There are a few things you should do after your child goes home to make him/her feel better. These things will also decrease your child's chance of vomiting.
- Play with, bathe, and/or change diapers before feeding.
- Feed smaller amounts but feed more often.
- Feed slowly, holding your baby upright.
- Burp your baby after he/she takes 1 to 2 ounces of formula.
- For breastfed infants, burp after feeding on each side.
- Handle your baby gently after the feeding.
- Hold your infant upright in your arms for 30 minutes after feeding when possible.
- Infants with GER should usually sleep on their backs, as should all infants. Your doctor may also suggest other positions.
- Give medicine as ordered.
- The doctor may instruct you to thicken feedings with rice cereal (1-2 tablespoons for 4 oz).
Older Children and Teenagers:
Avoid foods and drinks that may increase reflux symptoms:
- Greasy, high fat foods
- Spicy foods
- Citrus products, these contain a lot of acid
- Foods or drinks with caffeine or chocolate
- Carbonated drinks
Eat smaller meals more often
Avoid eating 2 to 3 hours before bedtime
Use two or three pillows instead of one when sleeping
When to Call Your Child's Doctor:
- Your child's vomiting seems worse or occurs more often
- The vomited fluid is green or yellow or looks like coffee grounds or blood
- The medicine is vomited two days in a row
- Your infant becomes very fussy
- Your child complains of pain
- Your child has problems breathing during or after feedings
- Your child has trouble swallowing or complains of pain when swallowing
- You notice choking spells
- Your child will not take feedings
- If you have any questions or concerns
This information is not intended to substitute or replace the professional medical advice you receive from your child's physician. The content provided on this page is for informational purposes only, and was not designed to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease. Please consult your child's physician with any questions or concerns you may have regarding a medical condition. | <urn:uuid:13bab0c0-861d-419c-9126-7b4f84a6da52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chkd.org/HealthLibrary/Facts/Content.aspx?pageid=0202 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928405 | 934 | 3.734375 | 4 |
*Explains Sparta's military society and battle tactics.*Includes pictures of important people, places, and events in Spartan history and culture.*Includes a Bibliography for further reading.*Includes a Table of Contents. The walls of Sparta were its young men, and its borders the points of their spears. attributed to King AgesilaosThere have been no shortage of great warrior societies in history, including the Romans, Mongols, Macedonians, and Vikings, the list goes on. Yet one humble city in particular, nestled in a valley near the Eurotas river in the Greek region of the Peloponnese and once ridiculed as little more than a cluster of villages inhabited by uncouth shepherds, produced the most famous warrior elite the world has ever known. The most unique city-state in Ancient Greece was Sparta, which continues to fascinate contemporaneous society. It is not entirely clear why Sparta placed such a great emphasis on having a militaristic society, but the result was that military fitness was a preoccupation from birth. If a Spartan baby did not appear physically fit at birth, it was left to die. Spartan children underwent military training around the age of 7 years old, and every male had to join the army around the age of 18. The Spartans, whose carefully constructed approach to warfare and there is no other word for it Spartan way of life, earned the grudging admiration of all of Greece and succeeded in establishing themselves in the years following the reforms of the semi-legendary ruler Lycurgus as the greatest military force in all of Hellas. Athens might have the mightiest fleet and the greatest cadre of philosophers and dramatists, Thessaly might have had the most vaunted cavalry, and the great city-states of Argos, Thebes and Corinth all had their own claims to fame, but on the battlefield the Spartan phalanx stood without peer. So feared were they in Greece that their very appearance on the battlefield could cause entire enemy armies to flee in terror, and in one of historys most famous battles, 300 hundred Spartan warriors headed a combined Greek force which held off the hundreds of thousands of Persian warriors of Xerxess invading army for three days at Thermopylae, inflicting an estimated 20,000 casualties upon them before dying to the last man rather than retreating. Sparta will forever be known for its military prowess, but the Spartans had lives off the battlefield as well, and their way of life was also unique. For example, Spartan females were formally educated, which was a rarity among the city-states, and the Spartan way of life was entirely dependent on a class of indentured servants known as the helots. Yet the Laws of Lycurgus, which ordered all Spartans to disregard art (with the exception of song, which the Spartans prized, and some forms of music and poetry), to distrust philosophy, and to abhor excess in all things, were designed to create the perfect warrior society, and they did. As a result, the Spartans became notorious for Laconic phrases The Worlds Greatest Civilizations: The History and Culture of Ancient Sparta comprehensively covers the history and culture of the famous Greek city-state, looking at their religious, political, and military past, and examining all their accomplishments. Along with historic artwork depicting important people, places, and events, The History and Culture of Ancient Sparta will bring readers up to speed on Ancient Sparta today. | <urn:uuid:d3503a2c-745e-40fd-acd0-283daf687b5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Worlds-Greatest-Civilizations-The/book-d4IKWc8SZUGVS6ZjEw2O9w/page1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96931 | 702 | 3.484375 | 3 |
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Film Review: Theories on the Origin of Life
The creation-evolution controversy was returning as a hot political and educational issue when this film was made a dozen years ago. Today the issue is hotter yet with creationists demanding "equal time" in the classroom. As a result, this film continues to look tempting to teachers seeking out a competent comparison of theories that would objectively demonstrate the superiority of evolution on the basis of evidence, logic, and theory. I certainly had trouble booking it.
Since most teachers would consider a creationist-produced film suspect because of its prejudiced source and since creationists logically reject many standard scientific presentations on the same grounds, a commercial film might be able to solve the dilemma-or at least satisfy a teacher that it tries to be fair. This film does not.
Striving vaguely to be objective and inoffensive, it succeeds only in being superficial. It clearly favors evolution, but the only reason a viewer would be convinced to agree is because the producers are known to be trustworthy. Divine creation, evolution, spontaneous generation, and cosmogenesis are the four theories examined. Creation is treated in a simple manner by briefly showing Michaelangelo's version and by noting that people have believed it. An outerspace origin of life via "spores" blown to earth or carried by meteors is duly noted as unproven. Evolution is said to be based on fossil evidence (but not explained at all), and 1953 Stanley Miller experiments are shown passing electricity through the chemicals of early earth history to produce amino acids. Only spontaneous generation is treated in detail. Maggots are shown to come from flies, and microorganisms from airborne contamination produce living cultures in a recreation of Pasteur's famous experiment.
Unless one needs to illustrate the weakness of spontaneous generation, this film is of little use. Portentious music and a ponderous narration that sounds like Orson Welles on a bad day further contribute to the film's inadequacy. It is best, therefore, that college and high school teachers seeking to deal effectively with the creation-evolution controversy avoid this item. | <urn:uuid:befcccc5-9c96-44ec-8664-44280dd8be39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ncse.com/cej/2/3/film-review-theories-origin-life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9554 | 427 | 2.390625 | 2 |
The stereotype of an internet addict is a nerdy young guy who spends all his time in front of some kind of online role-playing game.
However, the reality is more diverse, with recent studies showing plenty of young women are also at risk of internet addiction, primarily due to social networking sites like Facebook.
Just about all girls diagnosed with the addiction trace their problems to social networking sites, says Bernd Werner, from the German Foundation for Media and Online Addiction.
"They're always thinking about what's going on right now in the network," he says. They use such sites to chat with others in their clique.
"There's pressure from within the peer group."
The problem is that many parents have not yet tuned in to the addiction danger, warns Werner. They are more prone to sound the alarm when children - primarily boys - show signs of addiction.
The signs parents would note for online addiction are the same for girls on social networking sites as for boys involved in online gaming.
"For one thing, there's a loss of control," says Werner. "I can no longer control how long I stay on the internet."
The second indicator is a change in tolerance levels.
"I consciously tolerate the fact that my behaviour leads to stress with my parents or worsening marks at school."
The most serious sign is when a girl starts to ignore friends, hobbies or basic hygiene.
Statistically, internet addiction is more of a male problem.
One German study showed that 0.7 per cent of people aged 25 to 64 had trouble breaking away from games or social networks. Taking into account the whole population, about 1 per cent of men suffered from addiction, almost double the figure for women, at 0.4 per cent, the federal appointee for addiction issues, Mechthild Dyckmans, reported.
The job of monitoring a child's internet usage is made easier if the computer is not set up in their room.
"Instead, put it somewhere where parents often walk by," recommends Werner.
"It's also not a good idea to allow boys and girls to have their own smartphones too early, regardless of protestations that 'everyone else has one."'
Set computer usage time limits with your children and also take a real interest in what your daughter is doing on Facebook, says Werner.
Such topics can easily be discussed during family meals however Werner warns comments like "I don't like that" are best avoided by parents when it's time to discuss the matter, he says. | <urn:uuid:35395cfa-387d-4a87-8417-b65d4822a9a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health-wellbeing/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501238&objectid=10843659 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962777 | 514 | 2.453125 | 2 |
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Style Weekly's 25th anniversary is a good time to recall what was happening in Richmond back in 1982 and what has happened since. What lessons can we learn from a retrospective of the last quarter-century?
In the early 1980s, metropolitan Richmond was getting larger and more attractive to major out-of-town businesses. The city was still the largest jurisdiction in the area, thanks largely to the sudden infusion of 50,000 people in 1970, when Richmond annexed 23 square miles from Chesterfield County. The effects of that annexation, however, plus the enormous controversy over cross-town busing as a remedy for the city's segregated schools, led to a 13 percent loss of the city's population between 1970 and 1980.
Nevertheless, when Style was born, the city's population exceeded that of both Chesterfield and Henrico counties. Chesterfield's population stood at only 141,000, as compared with its current population of almost 300,000.
Roughly the same time Style debuted, the city became landlocked. Changes in state law enabled Chesterfield and Henrico to acquire permanent immunity from annexation. Together with city-county separation, the city was on its own.
Richmond also slowly began adjusting to new political realities. The once-bitter racial conflict between the white corporate elite and the majority black City Council began to mute. A biracial alliance had emerged that focused on downtown. By the time the alliance became known as "Richmond Renaissance," however, the word renaissance had become a cliché in cities across the country. (Trendsetting was not Richmond's forte.)
Richmond Renaissance focused on downtown. Something had to be done to restore energy there because suburban shopping malls were diverting shoppers to the suburbs. The solution was a new project to inject energy back into the old retail core.
Richmond boosters have long loved projects. Projects constructed the expressways, built the Coliseum, erected new office buildings and opened a new hotel. These projects were spread out over time, but collectively they were all part of a single plan, a plan that was identified, in a burst of creativity, as "Project I."
Sixth Street Marketplace was the project for reinventing downtown. Festival marketplaces were then the fad du jour for cities experiencing downtown decline. Given Richmond's lack of self-confidence and fear of doing something that other cities had never done, it was only natural that the city scouted other places with troubled downtowns and then duplicated what had worked elsewhere. The idea was simple: If something worked in Boston or Baltimore, then it would work here.
The problem was that Richmond was not Boston or Baltimore. As the developers later learned, much to their consternation, Richmond -- how do you put it? was Richmond. Copycat planning didn't solve the problem. The Marketplace was a weak reed in the midst of powerful centrifugal forces that flung shopping, jobs and subdivisions out to the newest suburbs. Consequently, when Richmond built it, they didn't come. The solution itself became a problem. The Marketplace sucked up subsidies faster than it sold kites and pizza. And not long after the opening of Richmond's own "Boston Galleria," the city's two retail anchors, Thalhimers and Miller & Rhoads, closed.
That Renaissance developed the Marketplace meant there was little role for citizens, except, of course, to shop, eat and clap at the right moments when the governor, mayor, members of the General Assembly and City Council, and business executives opened the Marketplace in September 1985. Boosters touted the project as a genuine renaissance in downtown Richmond and symbol of the city's rebirth. The rhetoric in Oz that day would have made the Wizard proud.
Much changed: Routes 295 and 288 opened; city neighborhoods revitalized; biotechnology emerged; Virginia Commonwealth University expanded; Shockoe rocked; the canal was restored; Innsbrook developed; West Creek beckoned; Short Pump exploded.
The counties today burst with newcomers. In Richmond, sizeable numbers of younger professionals and empty-nesters move downtown, to the Slip and along the river. The new arrivals have slowed the city's decline, but haven't stopped it. The city continues to lose families with school-age children largely because of public schools.
Politically, the greatest change occurred when the city replaced its council-manager system of government with a strong-mayor system. Richmond celebrated its new leadership. Richmonders eagerly anticipated that the new mayor, elected by 80 percent of the voters, would launch bold initiatives to address Richmond's, and the region's, most intractable problems. They assumed the new leader would rally the community, forge consensus and work with City Council, the School Board and the business community.
Unfortunately, what may have been the most promising opportunity in modern Richmond history may now be lost and replaced by a time of disillusionment. Unprecedented conflict and gratuitous power plays have crushed expectations.
Amidst these changes are realities that remained fixed and unchangeable the most unfortunate of which is the concentration of poverty. Another constant is the independent city and autonomous county. There remains the inclination to equate revitalization with brick and mortar, and progress with projects. We still defer to outside experts, not trusting the intelligence and creativity of our citizens.
But there are constants that give nobility to this place. Richmonders are good and decent people. They care for each other. They respond to human need. They serve, they build, they teach, they heal.
Richmond remains a beautiful city. Its magnificent river stills flows one generation to another. It still inspires awe and reverence. Its wondrous parks beckon people of all ages. Its magnificent old sanctuaries, cobblestone streets, blood-stained battlefields, and its many stories of tragedy, heroism and freedom all define a city unlike any other. Its melding of difference, its celebration of art and its manifold dimensions of human creativity, its reverence for tradition yet its restlessness and desire to break free, all of these make Richmond a special place with more human talent per capita than any other place in the world.
We need not look to what others have done. It's time for us to see what we can do. SJohn Moeser is professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at VCU, and visiting fellow, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, University of Richmond.
Opinions expressed on the Back Page are those of the writer and not necessarily those of
Style Weekly.Click here for more Forum | <urn:uuid:a59da0d3-a5f5-4523-b735-2470c5233c20> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/trusting-ourselves/Content?oid=1377960 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96858 | 1,337 | 1.90625 | 2 |
One of the pioneers of carbon fiber framebuilding, Craig Calfee got his start in 1987. He invented three different ways of making carbon fiber frames and was the very first to offer them in custom geometry.
Craftsmanship. That’s the word that comes to mind first when people talk about Calfee. Every frame goes through hours and hours of precise measurement, workmanship and finishing. More than 51 million fibers are carefully oriented to put strength and stiffness exactly where you need it. The result is a frame that lives up to your very high expectations as well as its unusually long warranty.
Comfort, fit and real-world conditions are important considerations integral in every frame we build. So, we ask ourselves a lot of questions. How well with the frame withstand high altitude and low temperature in the cargo bay of a plane? How will a cyclist’s hands and shoulders feel on the 20’th lap of a criterium or mile 80 of a century? What’s the optimal frame stiffness for a 6’6”, 250 pound randonneur or a 5’10”, 155 pound ironman?
We also know that if a bike doesn’t fit well, a cyclist can’t ride well. That’s why our frames come in eleven standard sizes. For 80% of our customers, those measurements are a perfect fit. And for the rest, we are happy to build a totally custom frame.
If you would like to explore custom frame geometry, you may choose to consult a convenient shop or studio, publish key measurements from an existing frame, or visit us in Santa Cruz County for a complimentary fitting and factory tour. | <urn:uuid:a4416946-bd47-4956-bd22-7d91274924c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.calfeedesign.com/product/custom-frames/frame-geometry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93242 | 348 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Keep it clean
What to do to make sure your birdbath attracts birds, not fines
Published: June 22, 2012
|Water is one of every living creature’s most critical needs. In summer, people are more likely to provide their backyard birds with water than food. But as communities struggle to protect their citizens from mosquito-borne illnesses, they’re looking for ways to reduce mosquito populations and passing ordinances that ban sources of stagnant and standing water, including birdbaths. |
New York City, where the American outbreak of West Nile virus began in 1999, passed a regulation more than a decade ago that subjects landlords to a fine if stagnant water is found on their property. The rule was amended last year, expanding its scope to include standing water. For the most part, the health department is enforcing the article in cases of poorly maintained swimming pools, stagnant water at construction sites, and similar egregious situations. But according to an April New York Times article, four New Yorkers were fined in the past year for having birdbaths.
A city spokesperson stated that the health department would issue a notice of violation for standing water in a birdbath only if the water was stagnant, not simply for having water in a birdbath. “The decomposed organic matter found in stagnant water is the food for mosquito larvae,” explained the spokesperson. “The department recommends replacing the water in the birdbath every two to three days to prevent mosquito breeding.”
Changing birdbath water on such a schedule is important for birds as well as for us. West Nile virus is far more lethal to many species of birds than it is to humans, and mosquitoes transfer other dangerous pathogens to and among birds as well as humans.
It’s also important to remember that more birds drink from birdbaths than bathe in them, so water should be kept clean enough for drinking. Bathers often leave the water messy, and some birds, such as Common Grackles, seek out birdbaths for disposing of nestlings’ fecal sacs, so birdbaths may need more frequent cleaning. Keeping the water sparkling will benefit our whole community — avian and human.
5 ways to keep your birdbath healthy
Change the water every two or three days. This is less than the time it takes for a newly laid mosquito egg to hatch and develop into an emerging adult.
2. Swipe the bowl with a sturdy scrub brush occasionally when you change the water. If you do this every week, more thorough cleaning will seldom be necessary.
3. If you use soaps or detergents to clean a birdbath, make sure you rinse thoroughly.
4. Bleach is seldom necessary and often causes more harm than good, but if you do use it to disinfect your birdbath, let it air out at least overnight before refilling.
5. Products are sold to kill mosquito larvae in birdbaths. Products whose only active ingredient is Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) may be safe for birds, but it’s safer, more economical, and healthier for birds simply to change the water every two or three days. | <urn:uuid:2cb865e2-1bc9-4f92-9248-0ed4c1a6d598> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/en/Getting%20Started/Attracting%20Birds/2012/06/Keep%20it%20clean.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961831 | 647 | 3.03125 | 3 |
We have probably all seen the interesting dog breeds that are labeled as the hairless breeds. Some would call them disgusting; some would call them strange, but more often than not the reactions are due to a lack of knowledge. What do we really know about the naked dog breeds? For years, scientists have believed that the hairless dog breeds originate from Africa and Asia. However there is not much evidence to back up this theory. One theory states that the Chinese Crested – one of the better known of the hairless breeds- originated in Africa and then moved onto Asia. So how did most of the hairless breeds end up in Latin America? Well scientists believe that all the hairless breeds in Latin America are descendents of the Chinese Crested that were brought to the continent in pre-Columbian times. Their popularity rose, as the Inca’s found that the naked, furless bodies were good for rheumatoid complaints. Much like a hot-water bottle!The hairlessness is due to a dominant gene. It is enough to have even one such gene to be totally naked!! Thus this trait is hard to outwit with human intervention, since it is enough for a dog to pass on only one gene, for the offspring to be hairless. It becomes easier to understand how these breeds can develop in distant areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America under these circumstances. There is only one hairless breed that needs two genes for hairlessness to occur. That is the American Hairless Terrier.
So which are the other 8 dogs that fall under the hairless category? | <urn:uuid:f1073f79-6983-41ac-9081-31ce215484b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.europuppyblog.com/tag/chinese_crested | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976719 | 323 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Free film teaching book - Making Better Movies with Moviestorm, Vol 2
The second volume in Matt Kelland’s series on improving your filmmaking technique with Moviestorm follows on from camerawork and moves onto the set. The first volume was about how your shot selection affects your story-telling; this second volume is about what it is that you film and how to place actors to get the shots that you want.
“The thing you need to realize about films is that what you see isn’t always what you think you see,” explains Matt. “Everything in a movie is carefully constructed to look good on the screen. It’s not real. Even documentaries and reality TV are staged. You can’t just put your actors on the set and tell them to behave normally. You often have to get them to behave in very strange ways or stand in odd positions in order to get the shots you want. It’s quite unnatural, but it’s something you have to get used to doing. More to the point, you have to do it without the audience being aware how artificial it all is. It has to look completely natural, and that’s harder than you might imagine.”
Like the previous volume, the book consists a series of workbook-style exercises. Each illustrated double page spread covers a specific technique or situation, and suggests several different ways to film it. By comparing the different versions, you quickly develop a sense of what works well, and how to translate your ideas into the language of film. Exercises in this volume include walking through doorways, dramatic conversations, deep staging, and using extras.
It’s about trying out different things to see what happens
The exercises aren’t aimed just at Moviestorm users. They’re useful for filmmakers working in any medium: live action, high end animation, or machinima. Moviestorm provides a fast, easy way to try out techniques and experiment with style - it’s like sketching out a movie quickly to see what works. You get the idea down, evaluate it, and try again. You can then take those skills wherever you go.
Film teacher Andrew Segal has already begun using this series to help explain some aspects of filmmaking to animators. “It proved to be useful when I was teaching Maya to a group of professional 2D animators who work on Peppa Pig. There is a marked difference in thinking for 2D animation and 3D shots, especially the use of physical depth. It saved me tearing my remaining hair out when trying to set up and explain the staging and set construction. I usually work backwards in Maya, blocking out the set/camera etc to get rough story shots, so I know how much set to build and how detailed the props and characters need to be. The practicality of learning these techniques in Moviestorm, rather than just the theory, gives you an easier way to fix these concepts in your head. I also like the lack of ‘what buttons do I press’: this gives the reader more control over what they have learned and how it’s implemented, and it makes the volume concise.”
“If someone goes through the book and does the exercises, they’re going to come out a better filmmaker, no question.”
Hugh Hancock, Guerilla Showrunner
“A really good primer for any film student, especially all crammed into 40 pages.”
Andrew Segal, Carshalton College
“An excellent resource for both new and veteran users.”
Shirley Martin, filmmaker
Volumes 1 & 2 are both available now, as a free PDF download directly from Moviestorm. Please feel free to pass them on, and let us know what you think! | <urn:uuid:3fcb5ed5-d0d1-4a0b-9284-dd68b247d8bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moviestormblog.com/index.php/moviestormblog/comments/free_film_teaching_book_-_making_better_movies_with_moviestorm_vol_2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940565 | 796 | 2.25 | 2 |
Heard around the trail
NORTHERN BIRDS - Birds fly south for the winter, but Pennsylvanians who travel north to Ontario and northern states can spot a variety of raptors, finches, waterfowl and gulls, as speakers will explain during a program on Saturday at 2 p.m. at PPL's Montour Environmental Preserve. "Frosty Forests and Frozen Fields" highlights the various far northern specialty bird species. The audience will learn where and when to find the birds during the program that helps birds plan a trip north and will explain why birds sometimes fly far south of their normal range. For information, call 570-437-3131.
OUTDOOR EDUCATORS - Teachers and day-care providers can learn how to interest young children in nature through a workshop called Growing Up WILD on Feb. 6. The session at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center, 151 E. White Bear Drive, Summit Hill, is for adults who teach and care for children 3 to 7.
Participants will learn ways to use music, crafts, language and movement to build on children's innate love of nature. Cost is $35. Call 570-645-8597 to register or learn more.
BEAR SEASON - Wildlife Management Unit 3D that includes the Nescopeck State Park, State Game Lands 187 and portions of Luzerne and Carbon counties east of Hazleton will gain two days in the extended bear season, according to a proposal on the agenda for the board of the Pennsylvania Game Commission on Jan. 29. The plan sets extended bear season for this year to Dec. 2 to 7 in WMU 3D. The extended season for WMU 4C that includes Hazleton and WMU 4E north of Hazleton will run from Dec. 4 to 7, if the board approves. Regular statewide bear season is proposed for Nov. 23 to 27, and the archery bear season would be from Nov. 18 to 22 if the board approves.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. at the commission's headquarters, 2001 Elmerton Ave., Harrisburg. Public comments are welcome on Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. and Jan. 28 at 8:30 a.m. after which the board members will hear reports from their staff members. The commission plans to show a webcast of the staff reports and the board meeting on its website, www.pgc.state.pa.us. Carl Roe, the commission's executive director, is scheduled to appear live on the "PCN Call-In" program at 7 p.m. Jan. 30 to answer questions about the meeting.
TROUT DIED - The Maryland Department of Natural Resources says Superstorm Sandy killed more than 7,000 trout at a Western Maryland trout hatchery in October, 2012.
A state fisheries official told the CumberlandTimes-News on Thursday that a lightning bolt killed 7,000 trout instantly, and 400 died later.
The department says there will be no decrease in the number of trout stocked in western Maryland streams and lakes as a result of the storm.
GUN SHOW PROTEST - Some gun enthusiasts are threatening to boycott what's billed as the state's largest outdoor-sports show to protest a ban on the display and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Event organizer Reed Exhibitions imposed the ban on the military-style semiautomatic weapons at the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show in Harrisburg out of concern they might distract from other aspects of the show in light of last month's deadly Connecticut elementary school shooting and the ongoing gun control debate in Washington, a spokesman told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
"We thought, 'Let's take a break for a year,"' said Ed Several, a senior vice president for the British company's North American operations.
But word of the action drew numerous calls for a boycott from gun enthusiasts on the show's Facebook page and accusations Reed wasn't standing up for their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
The nine-day show is scheduled to open Feb. 2 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex on the outskirts of the state capital.
PHEASANT SURVEY - Volunteers kicked up 51 male pheasants and 79 female pheasants during a flushing survey on Jan. 13 at the Heigins-Gratz Wild Pheasant Recovery Area in Schuylkill and Dauphin counties. Wildlife Biologist Colleen DeLong, who organizes the surveys, plans to report about pheasant monitoring to the board of the Pennsylvania Game Commission during the staff reports session on Jan. 28.
TROUT TANK - High school students in Chambersburg are raising trout for release to the wild in a club that two teachers hope will give the young people incentive to study.
The club gives students an opportunity to put science to practical use in the care of fish. It's also a way to keep students involved in the school.
"Our big thing is you can be part of the club at any point, but if your grades fall below C's, that's our standard," learning support teacher Chris Skultety told the Public Opinion. "It's an incentive for them to get better grades. They start to see the trips we're going on."
This is the first year for such a club at Chambersburg Area High School. The nearly $900 in start-up costs were funded by grants through the CASD Foundation and the NEAFoundation. Trout Unlimited provided brook trout. | <urn:uuid:45752cd5-a035-4598-9f25-48cd083ddaf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://standardspeaker.com/heard-around-the-trail-1.1431724 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935225 | 1,140 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Are you doing all that you can to enhance the productivity of your knowledge workers? It’s a simple question, but one that few senior executives can answer.
Their confusion isn’t for lack of trying. Organizations around the world struggle to crack the code for improving the effectiveness of managers, salespeople, scientists, and others whose jobs consist primarily of interactions—with other employees, customers, and suppliers—and complex decision making based on knowledge and judgment. The stakes are high: raising the productivity of these workers, who constitute a large and growing share of the workforce in developed economies, represents a major opportunity for companies, as well as for countries with low birthrates that hope to maintain GDP growth.
Nonetheless, many executives have a hazy understanding of what it takes to bolster productivity for knowledge workers. This lack of clarity is partly because knowledge work involves more diverse and amorphous tasks than do production or clerical positions, where the relatively clear-cut, predictable activities make jobs easier to automate or streamline. Likewise, performance metrics are hard to come by in knowledge work, making it challenging to manage improvement efforts (which often lack a clear owner in the first place). Against this backdrop, it’s perhaps unsurprising that many companies settle for scattershot investments in training and IT systems.
Since knowledge workers spend half their time on interactions, our research and experience suggest that companies should first explore the productivity barriers that impede these interactions. Armed with a better understanding of the constraints, senior executives can get more bang for their buck by identifying targeted productivity-improvement efforts to increase both the efficiency and effectiveness of the interactions between workers.
Among companies we’ve surveyed (see sidebar, “About the research”), fully half of all interactions are constrained by one of five barriers: physical, technical, social or cultural, contextual, and temporal. While individual companies will encounter some obstacles more than others, our experience suggests that the approaches to overcoming them are widely applicable.
Physical and technical barriers
Physical barriers (including geographic distance and differences in time zones) often go hand in hand with technical barriers because the lack of effective tools for locating the right people and collaborating becomes even more pronounced when they are far away. While these barriers are on the wane at many companies given the arsenal of software tools available, some large, globally dispersed organizations continue to suffer from them.
One remedy implemented by some organizations is to create “communities of practice” for people who could benefit from one another’s advice—as the World Bank has done to help the 100 or so of its planners who focus on urban poverty to facilitate discussions on projects to upgrade slums. The communities feature online tools to help geographically dispersed members search for basic information (say, member roles and the specific challenges they are addressing) and sometimes use the latest social-networking tools to provide more sophisticated information, including whom the members have worked or trained with. By supplementing electronic tools with videoconferences and occasional in-person meetings, communities can bridge physical distances and build relationships.
Social or cultural barriers
Examples of social or cultural barriers include rigid hierarchy or ineffective incentives that don’t spur the right people to engage. To avoid such problems, Petrobras, the Brazil-based oil major, created a series of case studies focused on real events in the company’s past that illuminate its values, processes, and norms. The cases are discussed with new hires in small groups—promoting a better understanding of how the organization works and encouraging a culture of knowledge sharing and collaborative problem solving. (To benefit further from such approaches, companies should include knowledge sharing in performance reviews and ensure that team leaders clearly communicate acceptable response times for information requests. The communities of practice described above can help too: employees are far more likely to give timely and useful responses to people in their network.)
Employees who face contextual barriers struggle to share and translate knowledge obtained from colleagues in different fields. Complex interactions often require contact with people in other departments or divisions, making it hard for workers to assess a colleague’s level of expertise or apply the advice they may receive. Think of the disconnect that often occurs between a company’s sales department and its product-development team over customer data. The two groups frequently struggle to communicate because they think and talk so differently about the subject (sales staff devote attention to customer insights while developers focus on product specifications).
To overcome contextual barriers, organizations can rotate employees across teams and divisions or create forums where specialists in different areas can learn about one another’s work. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for instance, holds a biannual “Masters Forum” to share knowledge across disciplines. About 50 employees from different parts of the agency attend the meetings to hear other NASA colleagues talk about the tools, methods, and skills they use in extremely complex projects. The sessions are lightly moderated and very interactive.
Similarly, managers at Ecopetrol, a Colombian gas and oil company, have found that technical forums not only break down the natural barriers between occupations but also facilitate knowledge sharing across geographic boundaries. Moreover, the forums build trust, which encourages employees to share information more freely.
The barrier of time
The final barrier is time, or rather the perceived lack of it. If valuable interactions are falling victim to time constraints, executives can use job roles and responsibilities to help identify the employees that knowledge workers should be interacting with and on what topics. In some cases, companies may need to clarify decision rights and redefine roles to reduce the interaction burden on some employees while increasing it on others.
Boston-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals, which develops drugs for cancer treatment, did just that. When it found that researchers didn’t have time to share lessons from their experiments, it created a small group of scientists to act as “knowledge intermediaries.” Based on meetings with company scientists as well as presentations, these employees summarize findings and submit them to an internal database. They also act as brokers by sharing knowledge across groups. The company reckons that this practice, combined with other initiatives, has boosted success rates for the company’s research and reduced the time needed to make key decisions. | <urn:uuid:12064046-6398-4fa0-a200-6ab1ce0a9b0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/boosting_the_productivity_of_knowledge_workers | 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 | 0.950541 | 1,271 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Banding the Orange-breasted Falcon in Belize
Yeray Seminario— 17 May 2010 — in Orange-breasted Falcon Project Share
I still don’t understand how some of the places we visit once and again in Belize, are not more popular and better known to the average tourist. In this globalized, fast communicating, social network world, we receive on our backlit screens, the very same pictures taken from millions of different people - the same picture, the same landscape, the same feature time after time. It seems we tend to replicate that mental image, that stereotypic picture, that for some reason has captivated our collective imagination. Thousand Foot Falls or King Vulture Falls in Belize, could easily fit in this category of iconic images, as an example of real wilderness and pristine paradise.
Maybe coincidentally or maybe not, these are probably the two best spots in the world to see the Orange-breasted Falcon. Many birders come to the Mountain Pine Ridge in Belize just to see the falcons, but in doing so, they find themselves in some beautiful and unique scenery, which makes their sighting much more valuable than the simple act of adding another species to their life list.
Today, we are at King Vulture Falls to band the chicks of the Orange-breasted Falcon pair that nests nearby. Banding these falcons is going to give us important insight into the natural history of this species, as we’ll get to learn much more about dispersion of the juveniles, survival and population size.
My co-worker and friend, Angel Muela is the expert climber on our expedition. He is the one who has most of the responsibility in carrying out this task. Marta Curti and I will try to assist him in every way possible so he can get to the nest, band the chicks and get back to the top of the cliff safely. In addition to the usual precautions when rappelling down a cliff, we must be aware and ready for bees. Africanized bees have expanded all over the region in the last decades. They sometimes build their beehives on the same cliffs that the falcons use for nesting, which adds a considerable risk when descending to the falcons’ nest. These bees are extremely defensive of their beehive and will mercilessly attack anything that gets relatively close to it. Angel himself was attacked by these bees a few years ago, and he probably survived thanks to his climbing experience, quickly responding to the attack by rappelling close to the ground, cutting the rope, jumping a considerable distance to the ground and finally running to the river nearby. He was stung more than 100 times and needed medical attention.
With all this in mind, Marta and Angel set ropes and gear on the top of the cliff while I hiked to the top of the King Vulture Falls accompanied by Flavien Daguise, manager of the Hidden Valley Inn, which has been greatly supporting our work in Belize for almost a decade now. From my position across from the cliff, I can see the nest perfectly. Communicating by radio it is my job to tell them where the nest is so they can position the ropes correctly which will guide Angel as he descends. It takes a while until everything is ready.
As he approaches to the nest, there is a little bit of an overhang, so he has to pull himself in to the wall to take his first step on the ledge where the falcons are nesting. I can see he is uncomfortable, but he somehow manages to stand on the ledge. The adult female falcon is not happy. Not even a second passes before she is diving and stooping at Angel, trying to intimidate what she surely thinks is a predator going for her chicks. It’s a stressful time, both for us and for the falcons. We want to be done with it as fast as possible, so the falcons don’t suffer much, but at the same time Angel needs to take his time so everything is done properly and there are no mistakes in the process. He can barely sit on the ledge, exposing most of his right side to the female who is now constantly hitting him with her talons. On one occasion the female grabbed the bee mask that Angel has to wear on top of his head at all times in case of a bee attack, and almost took off with it. While trying to avoid being scratched by the female, Angel got a hold of the chicks, so they would be secure and wouldn’t fall from the ledge. While Angel banded the chicks he relayed the codes to me over the radio so I could write them down. We were almost done.
After setting the chicks back on the nest ledge, Angel made his way slowly back up the cliff. After he was a good distance away from the nest, the female left him in peace to climb the last few feet to the top. I pick up the scope and start to hike up the fall to join them at the top of cliff.
In the end, the banding of the chicks was uneventful. Surely proper planning and experience are key to success. Everything went well and we could celebrate that we had two more banded falcons that we hope have a long, prosperous life in the tropical forests of Belize.
Our Conservation Projects
Species we work with
Where we work
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Q: Why are there only two major parties in the U.S.?
A: The winner-take-all system in the U.S. favors two stable parties.
It seems as though there should be one in the middle, with Democratic views on the economy but Republican views on social issues, or vice versa. Or do the two parties really represent the current divide in the U.S. population?
The U.S. political system is based on what political scientists call a single-member district plurality (SMDP). That’s a fancy way of saying that the U.S. elects representatives from particular districts, with the person who gets the most votes in a district (also called a plurality) winning the seat. Each district is winner-take-all, and votes in one district have no effect on other districts. Presidential elections, though nationwide contests, are likewise really state-by-state races, thanks to the Electoral College, in which every state except Maine and Nebraska awards all of its electoral votes to whichever candidate wins a plurality of the state’s votes.
In the 1950s, the French sociologist Maurice Duverger observed that stable two-party systems often develop spontaneously in places that use single-member district pluralities. Political scientists now refer to this tendency as "Duverger’s Law."
The reasons here are mainly statistical. Third parties may have statistically significant support (maybe 15 percent of voters in every district supports a third party). But in an SMDP system, the third party may well not win any seats. So those voters will likely join with another party and look for a compromise candidate that could represent them. Similarly, suppose that a district has 200,000 conservative voters and 110,000 liberal voters. One would expect a conservative candidate to be elected. But if two conservative parties each run a candidate, then a liberal candidate may well be elected – unless the conservative parties unite behind a single candidate.
– Joe Miller
Duverger, Maurice. "Party Politics and Pressure Groups." New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1972 | <urn:uuid:aebcebee-73fc-4d0c-8936-15f82d3121fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/why-only-two-political-parties/ | 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 | 0.956316 | 427 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Tokugawa YoshimuneArticle Free Pass
Tokugawa Yoshimune, (born Nov. 27, 1684, Kii Province, Japan—died July 12, 1751, Edo), eighth Tokugawa shogun, who is considered one of Japan’s greatest rulers. His far-reaching reforms totally reshaped the central administrative structure and temporarily halted the decline of the shogunate.
Yoshimune was originally the head of Kii, one of the three hereditary Japanese feudal fiefs ruled by descendants of the original Tokugawa ruler not in the main line of succession to the shogunate. A lack of sons in the main branch of the family, however, resulted in Yoshimune’s succession to the position of shogun in 1716. Upon assuming his new office, he tried to institute the program he had used successfully in Kii to alleviate that fief’s monetary problems. He began by reducing the number of hereditary governmental retainers, who were paid fixed governmental stipends. To slow the increase in their numbers, he refused to allow most inheritances past the first generation. He also attempted to set a good example by eliminating court luxuries and returning to the simple and austere life of the Tokugawa founder. At the same time, he tried to improve the quality of the administration and to raise national morale by instituting a vigorous program of education for all his subordinates, designed to improve their literary skill and to imbue them with the old warrior values of discipline and leadership. Finally, he adopted methods designed to combat corruption.
Since the chief source of revenue was the tax on agricultural produce, Yoshimune attempted to increase crop yields by developing new land and popularizing new crops, such as sweet potatoes and sugarcane, that could be grown in soil not used for rice cultivation. In an effort to find other sources of income, he licensed commercial monopolies and attempted to regulate rice prices. But his limitation on trade merely had a depressing effect on the economy. While his reforms did revitalize the government, his reputation as one of the greatest of Japanese reformers has been questioned because his efforts resulted in little more than a temporary respite; following his reign, corruption and inefficiency again became rampant.
There can be no doubt, however, that Yoshimune’s inquiring spirit led to the growth of interest in Western science; he himself had a large globe made, and he also imported a telescope from the Netherlands. He helped develop the first law code of the Tokugawa era (1603–1867). The resulting Kansei Code, not completed until after Yoshimune’s death, laid the basis for a more humane law than had previously been in existence. He retired in 1745 in favour of his son, although he acted as a guardian of shogunal power until his death.
What made you want to look up "Tokugawa Yoshimune"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:6338f245-1695-485d-b2a2-26734eba3fcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/598389/Tokugawa-Yoshimune | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976202 | 612 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Every once in a while, a blip on the radar comes up, letting us know that there’s something not quite right in our little corner of the Mac Universe. This time around, it came in the form of Tweets directed to us, as well as in posting in popular Mac forums.
As it turns out, several other memory vendors—along with some Late 08 MacBook/MacBook Pro users—have laid claim to these machines working with 8GB of RAM. This was contradictory to our testing in December 2009 which quite clearly showed that while these models recognized a full 8GB, if an application addressed more than 6GB, the system would slow down significantly.
The results were exactly the same as in 2009, lending credence to our conclusions, but the sheer number of claims to the contrary led us to continue searching—and the trail ended at Apple.
In late 2009, an EFI Firmware Update was released to address the buzzing noises coming from the optical drive. However, it seems that somewhere along the line, Apple changed this update without notating it anywhere.
Whether any other elements were affected by this change is undetermined, but it did change memory addressing; with the later version of the update installed, you could address a full 8GB in Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, Software Update doesn’t show this version as being different from the previous one, so users wouldn’t be notified if they had already updated their firmware to the older version.
The practical upshot of all this is that if you installed the EFI Update when it first came out, like we did, you would have gotten the old code, which meant your computer would only address 6GB properly. Those who didn’t upgrade until after Apple changed the updater got the newer firmware, which allowed proper addressing of 8GB.
Once we manually installed the “updated” version of the EFI Firmware in our test machines, they were able to address 8GB normally, without any crashing or slowdowns. | <urn:uuid:0e451f21-a98a-4bee-a425-755e2d9c5842> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.macsales.com/tag/8gb-ram | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972599 | 413 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Posted by admin | Posted in Science & News Library | Posted on 17-08-2009
NSD Maps Hailed as Ground Breaking in Dynamic Technology for Mapping Data
Monday, February 16, 2009—Earlier this week, the release of the robust new street data global positioning system by NSD Maps created a buzz of awe from interested onlookers. Boasting the fastest and most accurate map datasets, NSD Maps provides the exact location of new streets with the street layout of every new housing development in the United States and Canada. With the booming growth in the housing industry of new housing construction, companies are buying mapping data to get an accurate picture of neighborhood boundaries to keep their mapping software and databases up to the minute.
Due to the sheer volume of new streets created in the United States and Canada every year, numerous companies are struggling to preserve dated or incomplete map datasets. “Because most newly minted streets resulting from new construction take 3-5 years to index into mapping software, the impracticality of traditional neighborhood polygons and boundary data is immense in a high tech world thriving on real-time data,” notes [insert contact name and position here]. In fact, with unbelievable accuracy, NSD Maps uses geospatial vector images to display the integrated new street data for newly constructed housing developments for the past four years as well as those currently under construction.
By furnishing clients with new street locations, reputation and customer retention increases due to enhanced, authenticated mapping data. “When you consider that there are approximately 7,000 new housing developments constructed a year yielding over 45,000 new streets, it is understandable that clean databases new street data would be complicated, if not impossible, to maintain for a single company,” states [insert contact name and position here]. “Many companies are faced with the decision to supply less than adequate street centerline data or seek a delivery method of quick, reliable new street data that is more equipped to serve their business model.”
NSD Maps gives clients the edge over their competitors by accurately determining the exact location and new housing layouts of address ranges using innovative technology. Through a bi-monthly update of fresh mapping data with detailed GIS information, NSD Maps provides mapping data about new street locations that is never over two weeks old. With data outputs that range from builders name to their email address to the average sizes of the homes in an area, NSD Maps provide the structure and platform of dependable mapping data for many thriving web based mapping technologies.
About NSD Maps
Our up-to-date information makes NSD Maps the first stop for any company that collects geographic datasets for mapping software. Armed with the knowledge of the thousands of unlisted streets across the United States and Canada, NSD Maps will afford companies an advantage of quickly integrating the freshest new street locations in a geographic dataset into their mapping software system.
To see sample mapping datasets and get more information about NSD Maps, visit our website at www.nsdmaps.com. | <urn:uuid:114ecb05-f247-4c83-aee6-37b7741d26bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cubanosenlared.org/category/science-news-library | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929627 | 612 | 2.40625 | 2 |
It seems redundant, doesn’t it? I mean, if you’ve already washed your face before bed, it’s already clean… right? You haven’t been anywhere, seen anyone, even been exposed to the outside. Why would you waste your precious time in the morning doing something you already did last night? So, is it really necessary?
The answer is yes, it is. Here’s why:
It is also important to use a facial cleanser when washing, just splashing water on your face isn’t good enough. You know how your teeth feel “fuzzy” in the morning, even if you’ve brushed before bed? It’s a similar idea. And you wouldn’t normally just splash some water on your teeth to get them clean, would you?
If you are using any AHA’s (glycolic acid) or retinols at night, your skin is more prone to sun damage.
You’re actually causing more damage to your skin by leaving those products on your face and exposing yourself to sunlight. Make sure to cleanse and apply SPF to protect your skin.
Still convinced you can’t squeeze it in to your morning routine? Consider this: it takes 2.5 minutes to wash your face AND apply moisturizer. Surely you could spare two minutes for the sake of beauty
Do you wash your face in the morning? What kind of products do you use? | <urn:uuid:9f09f79c-bd3d-4d44-bd42-1a876999d43c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://peaceloveandglitter.com/2012/09/10/should-you-be-washing-your-face-in-the-morning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945312 | 312 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would hardly recognize America in 2013, the 50th anniversary year of his world-famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The efforts of King and countless others have not only made it possible for Barack Obama to become the first black president of the United States, but also created unprecedented opportunities for the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and virtually anyone who had previously been given a check that has, as King put it, "come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"
I personally cannot think of MLK Day without reflecting on my life as a product of post-civil rights America: I was conceived on the coattails of that movement to a single mother, absent father, horrific poverty, and despair and fear I would not wish upon anyone.
Yet here I am, a direct beneficiary of King's legacy. I do not take the opportunities given to me lightly. Especially since my mother, born in South Carolina in the Jim Crow-era, has sickening memories of the racial oppression back in those days. Her family had no electricity, no indoor running water and no television.
The day that King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, my mother turned 20. "We knew there was colored folks marching in Washington," my mother told me. "We just did not know what for exactly."
The what for had everything to do with democracy, freedom, voting and citizenship rights, for a group longed blocked from the doors of the American dream. It means the only way we could ever come to "a beautiful symphony of brotherhood" that King spoke of is for each of us, no matter our background, to honor and recognize who we are, including very uncomfortable parts of our history, like slavery, which was depicted in recent films like Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" and Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained." We cannot sit at the table of diversity and multiculturalism if we are not even clear what we are bringing to share.
In King's speeches and writings in the last years of his life, he wanted people, including black people, to embrace and appreciate their culture and heritage. But it was never an either or for him. King worked for and loved Black America, and he worked for and loved America.
From 1963 to the present, the United States has changed dramatically. When I attended integrated schools, I remember sitting elbow to elbow with children of different races, something my mother could not have fathomed in her childhood dominated by "Whites Only" and "Coloreds Only" signs everywhere.
But the work is far from over.
I think King would be saddened that the poverty and economic disparities he fought against at the end of his life are still here. He would be outraged by the kind of racism that routinely profiles young black and Latino males and fills our nation's prison system with black and brown bodies. | <urn:uuid:c134f2c3-79bc-4993-b5f7-f002a481d0d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wdsu.com/news/national/Powell-Martin-Luther-King-s-dream-is-alive/-/9853500/18210676/-/108d4kcz/-/index.html | 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 | 0.977569 | 609 | 2.5 | 2 |
In last week’s Montreal Gazette, Janet Bagnall wrote that while women “should make up half of elected officials and not 20 per cent, earn 100 cents for every dollar earned by their male co-workers and not 77 cents, and direct and star in movies about women instead of being the half-dressed sidekick to the male star”, we aren’t quite there yet. Instead, women’s public lives are being undermined in every direction. This is the subject of the documentary Bagnall’s piece reflects on: Miss Representation is a Sundance Festival winner written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom who argues that current media images reinforce that women today must “look like Miss USA, have sex like Samantha on Sex and the City and think like June Cleaver”.
For me International Women’s Day is not about a celebration of how far we have come, although I have recently been reminded by those of generations before mine, that we have come a very long way and that in this current struggle, we mustn’t be ignorant of that, nor see this particular struggle in a vacuum. But for me, International Women’s Day is a call to action, it is a rememberance of this history, and a warning against apathy. It is important for me however that we not just use these days to get angry or rivetted by a cause, but to be propelled to action. Today’s release for example of Invisible Children’s viral KONY 2012 video was made by people who know that actions can be powerful, and who hope that Americans and their allies will act, rather than just simply care. We are too often propelled to care, but not enough to act. My hope for International Women’s Day is that individuals are propelled to act, to change, to carry the passion and momentum forward, and that is why I am excited about Miss Representation. I hope that this is a film, regardless of its weaknesses, that will enlarge our understanding and appreciation of the importance of critical media and of real girls’ empowerment.
It is with this hope too that I have worked on the FemmeToxic campaign started by Breast Cancer Action Montreal. While FemmeToxic is inspired by a women’s health movement, it resonates particularly with me because of its delineation of topics like self-worth, self-esteem, gender-specific media and marketing and body image. FemmeToxic has identified some of these issues as the reason why women and young girls are more susceptiple to the chemicals in our environments. We are marketed to, we consume more, we shop more, we use way more products, and we are at greater risk of chemical exposure because of it. Young girls are particularly susceptible to media messages and marketing of particular products that then lead them to be increasingly vulnerable to the harm of those same products.
This is an issue to get angry about. REALLY angry. Not unlike many of the issues that arise in Miss Representation, this too is one we can not blame on the girls themselves, but we need to look at larger social and systemic issues of what we allow to be in the media, and how we allow women to be represented. We shouldn’t slut-shame or fat-shame, and we shouldn’t criticize the way women in the media present themselves, but shame the companies and media conglomerates that force/ask/inspire them to do it. The issues arising in Miss Representation and by groups like FemmeToxic are ones on which we can take real action and have a real impact. We can choose what products to buy, and we can choose what kinds of media to consume. We can have an affect on policy in our regions and countries. We can ask for change, and hopefully this is a film that will propel people to do so.
I am proud to represent FemmeToxic tomorrow evening at a special International Women’s Day film screening of Miss Representation at Concordia University. I invite you to join us in this screening, and more importantly in a discussion about how we can create change. | <urn:uuid:3bb16770-16fc-4a32-9698-0535bd519762> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thegaily.ca/artsentertainment/film-television/some-thoughts-on-international-womens-day-and-a-film-you-should-see/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966188 | 856 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Everybody's talking about money these days: House prices are going down; more families are facing foreclosure on their mortgages; gas prices, energy prices, and grocery bills are all going up — and uncertainty over when things will take a turn for the better is making everyone tighten their belts.
But how do parents explain this to their fashion-conscious middle-school kids? How about teens with dreams of out-of-state college or a new car?
What to Say
Be honest with your children — but don't tell them more than they need to know. Avoid overloading older kids with too many details or worries that might scare them. Stick to brief explanations and be clear about changes made to the family budget.
Even young kids are brand- and consumer-aware these days, so don't expect them to volunteer to scale back on their treats or activities right away. But if you want to encourage budgeting behavior, offer incentives to get kids on board.
Knowing what you want to say, what changes will be made — and how those changes will affect each child — can help make this a little easier.
Talking to Younger Kids
Ali is 6. Her best friend just got a new doll for her birthday — the expensive kind that you know you can't afford. Ali starts to whine, "I never get anything I want. It's not fair..."
It's hard to keep your cool when you're working hard to keep the family afloat or stressed out because the bank has threatened foreclosure. Take a deep breath and stay calm. If necessary, tell your child that you'll talk about it later, then be sure to set aside time to do so.
Remind yourself that it's OK to reject pleas and set limits. You're not depriving your children — you're teaching them important lessons about delaying gratification, earning treats and rewards, and how family finances work. After all, food and rent come before toys.
When you're ready, tell your child that you cannot buy new toys right now, but perhaps the toys can be put on a wish list for the next birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, or other gift-giving occasion.
If you can afford it, offer a small reward in exchange for good behavior or keeping the bedroom straight. Short-term rewards, such as stickers or tokens, can keep younger kids motivated. Financial incentives can help older kids earn money toward their goals while teaching them valuable lessons about saving.
Catelyn, 11, is going to another birthday party. It's a sleepover and she's given you a list — birthday gift for her friend, new pajamas, and a new sleeping bag. She insists her friends will all laugh at her if she brings the old sleeping bag again — it's so last year. And 12-year-old Brandon wants a new skateboard and those cool new skate shoes. How do you tell them that your family can't afford all of these new things without scaring them?
Kids this age may not be interested in the global economy or why money is tight, but they can be told that there is a limited amount of money in the family budget. Do not cave into their every whim, and instead encourage kids to plan ahead for new purchases. Preteens are old enough to save money from a weekly allowance or earn it by doing chores around the house, raking leaves, or shoveling snow around the neighborhood.
When talking to your kids, let them know that they're not alone in their desires. Say how you feel when you see something that you want, but can't purchase it right away. Explain that everyone in the family has to cut down on spending — including you — and remind them that, if they're motivated, you can work together to help them try to earn money and work toward their goals.
Talking to Teenagers
Jaime, 16, needs a car to drive to school. Or does he? He may roll his eyes when you tell him that you walked or rode a bus to school, but challenging him to find a cost-effective, environmentally friendly way to get around town may appeal to his ambition of living a more "green" lifestyle. Likewise, suggesting that he save up for that big-ticket item — and seeing his goal through — will help him feel more empowered as he moves toward adulthood.
Through part-time jobs or regular babysitting, teens can earn money outside the home and cover many of their own expenses.
Making Rules Stick
Family meetings are a great way to establish these new rules, even if they're temporary until family finances are in better shape.
Explain the new rules and also new opportunities for earning privileges and treats. Make it fun: challenge kids to come up with family-friendly, cost-effective activities that everyone will enjoy.
Once you've had "the talk" with your kids, keep a list posted — perhaps on the refrigerator door — of the new house rules so that everyone knows what is expected of them.
Manage stress levels. Get support — yours is not the only family going through hard times. Try joining a support group or other social network in your area. Support groups are offered through local hospitals, churches, synagogues, libraries, and schools. If you feel that stress or anxiety is really starting to take its toll, tell your doctor, who may be able to put you in touch with counselors or suggest therapeutic strategies — such as relaxation techniques, exercise, or yoga — that can help you feel better and learn to manage your stress.
Learn to say "no." Sometimes parents say "yes" to their kids before figuring out how they'll afford a new expense. Even if you agreed to something, you can explain that you made a mistake and — in order to be a financially responsible family — everyone must forego certain treats for a while.
Explore fun, low-cost activities. Challenge your family to create memories without visiting a mall or a store. Some ideas: bike riding together, going to a park, visiting yard sales, free movie nights, concerts, library events, museums and other local art, cultural, or sporting events.
Get kids involved. Do kids get an allowance they can save up? Can they earn money or points toward back-to-school items? Older kids might look into helping pay for college by saving money or applying for scholarships, loans, or grants.
Encouraging kids to find creative ways to save or make money not only helps them feel empowered — it helps them feel like they're doing their part to help out. | <urn:uuid:e033a3a4-2e28-404f-9556-051915d796d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidshealth.org/PageManager.jsp?dn=NiswongerChildrens_Hospital&lic=362&cat_id=171&article_set=62590&ps=104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969663 | 1,335 | 2.578125 | 3 |
ArtWorks Guest Blogger- Jerome Davis
I’ve been going to the Under the Radar Festival in Manhattan for the last several years. It is organized by and largely run out of the downtown citadel of off-beat theatre, the Public on Lafayette Street and LaMama just a few blocks away. Over the last 8 years I have seen theatre companies from Belarus, Argentina, Japan, Holland and Belgium, England, Italy and even Austin, Texas. I’ve seen theatres from across the 5 boroughs, too. What I haven’t seen, alas, is any representatives from the southeastern United States (sorry, Austin, you don’t count). This has worried me for awhile.
About 40% of the population of our country lives in the southeastern United States. Many of the greatest novelists and visual artists our country has produced were Southerners. Jazz musicians, country singers, even rappers frequently hail from the southeastern United States. So why is it that in the theatre, the southeastern U.S. remains a wasteland, populated only sparingly. And when a theatre does rise to stability in our region, generally speaking, innovation is not a plank in its platform, shall we say. One reason may be that the media is ensconced in the northeastern U.S. The media is there, of course, because the money is largely there. Which means efforts made in the “forest” of the Southeastern US must be made very loudly, indeed, in order to be heard. Another reason is that we have spent decades cultivating the notion that to “make it” in theatre, you have to be in NYC or LA. But, if the value of an artist is in the degree to which he or she touches their audience, then why wouldn’t an audience in Raleigh or Chattanooga or Birmingham be just as valuable as an audience in Manhatten?
I don’t know all the reasons and certainly don’t have an broad answers, but I know that this geographic chauvinism must not continue, for the health of our region, our artists or the art form. In this age of online communications, there is no reason why innovation in an art form should remain confined to one quadrant of this great nation. So, how do we change this? How can the the South and more locally the Triangle push its theater out there?
Burning Coal Theater Company is currently taking one small step forward. We are rounding up some companies working in the Devised Theatre form … putting them under one roof for a couple of weeks … and seeing what sparks fly. All six of the companies are either based in the Southeast or have leadership from our region. Find out more (and buy tickets!) at PoliTheatrics 2012.
I will blog more on this idea, and the concept of “devised theater”, more in the coming months. What ideas do you have have to elevate theater in the Southeast?
Jerome Davis is Artistic Director at Burning Coal Theater Company in Raleigh. | <urn:uuid:9ffaad5d-c5a7-4cb8-b317-b5eeda4ac452> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.triangleartworks.org/2012/06/21/taking-triangle-theater-forward-a-guest-blog-by-jerome-davis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962759 | 626 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Comment 2 of 2, added on March 23rd, 2011 at 4:03 AM.
well, i think Ginsberg wants to talk about his experience as a homosexual.
Thus, he is very proud of what he was doing as a gay and i beleive he is
sad because his asshole is not nice as it was in childhood. So, the poet
wishes that his asshole would be as before. Plus, i think he feels sorry
because people are not homosexual because they are afraid if AIDS.
However, for him he is still eager to be homosexual even if AIDS will lead
to his death.
S. A.M. from Jordan
Comment 1 of 2, added on November 9th, 2006 at 7:00 PM.
I don't know anything about Ginsberg yet. I'll have to read about him, but
it appears he was gay??? If this is autobiographical, then not too bad, ok
I guess, but if he wrote thise outside of himself, then awesome. It seems
to me autobiographical works are easier.
Shelley Fruiterer from United States | <urn:uuid:c13d314f-99ad-4e02-af90-7d803bf5e680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Allen-Ginsberg/3699/comments | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992623 | 233 | 1.804688 | 2 |
3.3 x 6.7cm overall
Besides being a fine example of early Edo period ceramic drinking utensil produced in the Mino kilns (Gifu Prefecture), this Shino ware sake cup holds particular interest for its 'kintsugi' (lit. ‘to patch with gold’) , or repair with gold lacquer. The sake cup shows a stylised wave motif on the repaired area.
Due to its outstanding adhesive quality lacquer has been used to mend ceramics in Japan for many centuries. Since the 16th century, however, this technique has been cultivated to a highly distinctive and fascinating Japanese art form, as craftsmen ennobled the mending by sprinkling the lacquer with gold or silver powder, bringing the broken object thus to new life and adding a whole new level of aesthetic complexity. The appeal of the delicate ‘golden veins’ zigzagging across a coarsely glazed surface of a tea bowl or tea caddy has captured the imagination of renowned tea masters such as Sen no Rikyu and Furuta Oribe, who saw in them the perfect embodiment of the 'wabi' and 'sabi' aesthetics, central to their style of 'chanoyu'. Moreover, Japanese collectors from the 16th centuries onwards were also attracted to the notion of ‘rebirth’ behind the costly restored ceramic pieces. Instead of being discarded when broken or damaged (sometimes due to mistakes that happen during the firing process), the object could gain a better, more unique appearance after being mended with gold or silver lacquer and consequently is more valuable than an intact piece.
Asian Art Department, AGNSW, 2011.
The art of the potter (1989), David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney, 14 Jul 1989–12 Aug 1989. | <urn:uuid:4658d1ec-2561-48e7-8fe9-8ca61e929ce6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/382.2011/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946947 | 372 | 1.875 | 2 |
SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The Town of South Kingstown has requested the Coastal Resources Management Council to reclassify part of the Matunuck shoreline to allow for more protective measures for the eroding road.
The town seeks to reclassify the segment of shoreline south of Matunuck Beach Road to the Ocean Mist Bar from the existing Type 1 “coastal headlands, bluffs and cliffs” designation to Type 2“manmade shorelines” classification. This will affect 11 properties along the road.
The request follows the town’s initial application to erect a 200 foot steel sheet pile wall along Matunuck Beach Road to prevent ongoing erosion. The CRMC is reviewing the application and public comments. The bulkhead wall has been met with opposition from Matunuck bar and homeowners, along with Save The Bay and RI Surfrider Foundation, who propose the use of soft structures and question the bulkhead’s validity under CRMC policy. A public hearing on the application will be held once the town responds to the questions raised and the CRMC develops a staff report.
“It is the town’s posture that this reclassification will accurately reflect the historic character of portions of the Matunuck shoreline, given the preponderance of manmade structures presently and formerly existing along the subject area,” Town Manager Stephen Alfred said.
The shoreline was initially designated as Type 1 in 1983. Type 1 waters include areas that the CRMC finds is unsuitable for structures due to their exposure to severe wave action, flooding and erosion. Type 2 waters are defined as supporting low intensity recreational and residential uses. Under CRMC policy, Type 2 waters allow new structural shoreline protection like the town’s application for a 200 foot sheet pile wall and accommodates residential docks, minor dredged channels and small-scale shoreline protection structures. Currently, the entire southern Rhode Island coastline from Watch Hill to Point Judith is classified as Type 1.
Alfred said the reclassification will provide the necessary administrative vehicle to allow commercial and residential property owners more flexibility in designing protective measures against erosion.
The current CRMC regulatory environment under Type 1 waters does not provide flexibility necessary for the property owners to mitigate erosion, Alfred said.
This concern has been raised several times by those opposing the town’s application to erect a sheet pile wall during the public notification period Nov. 4 to Nov. 18.
In letters to the CRMC, attorneys for the Ocean Mist and Tara Joyce’s Family Pub and Save The Bay’s Executive Director Jonathan Stone argue that the proposed sheet wall violates CRMC policy because the structural shoreline protection is prohibited in Matunuck shoreline with its classification of Type 1.
In its April 20 staff report, the CRMC stated that any reclassification would require creation of a Matunuck Headland Coastal Natural Area. Alfred said the town is requesting that the Matunuck Headland Coastal Natural Area not be so restrictive in permitted uses and designs so to not impact or impeded property owners rights for their land.
Save The Bay and RI Surfrider Foundation have raised concerns that if the CRMC allowed South Kingstown a permit to construct a hardened shoreline structure, it would have to for other Rhode Island communities along the south shoreline. However, Alfred said approval of the application to reclassify the waters will not established precedent for the coastal resources management program.
Alfred agreed with a previous CRMC staff recommendation that the shoreline reclassification change and establishment of the Matunuck Headland Coastal Natural Area be done within the Salt Pond Regional Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) and not within the overall CRMC program, the Red Book.
Alfred said the reclassification will not affect the existing design standards required by the CRMC for the proposed man-made shoreline protection structures. | <urn:uuid:07e18f87-fb14-4550-b101-a53aa49ae0bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ricentral.com/content/sk-applies-reclassify-shoreline?quicktabs_2=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906437 | 824 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Navigating The School System
|There are a number of different resources you should be aware of that can help you successfully advocate for your child’s special needs. Keep advocating until you are satisfied that your child is receiving the help that he or she needs.|
Even though you may have an IPRC and an IEP for your child, every school year can be like beginning all over again. This is also true if the school principal changes. You are faced with coaching the new staff involved with your child with all the nuances and quirks that are unique to them. Kids tend to change over time, so that is why it’s helpful to begin the year with an updated profile of your child (See Creating Your Child’s Profile). Be sure to include as many of your child’s strengths as possible to help school staff build on them.
Often, the best way for you and your school to understand the nature of the difficulties for yourchild is to perform a psychological assessment or psycho-educational assessment (see “Psychological Assessments”, in the Getting Started section). This should be performed ideally every four years while in elementary school. This assessment will help advise the development of the IEP and help you learn more effective ways of dealing with your child’s difficulties. Schools have a limited budget to contract this service for pupils. If you cannot get one provided through the school, you could check with your employer’s benefit package to see if this can be covered by insurance.
Occupational Therapy can be accessed in school. For example, if your child has great difficulty with tasks associated with writing, the therapist can advise the school about strategies that will work with your child in the school and can also be the direct link you need to access technological accommodations, like word prediction software, or voice recognition software to assist with this task. Other areas they can help with are: teaching strategies, sensory recommendations, other assistive technology, etc. Likewise, Speech and Language Pathology can be co-ordinated through the school and services can be provided during the school day. There is often a wait list for these services.
To access assistive technologies or devices that your child requires to learn, you should be aware of SEA (Special Equipment Amount) and what equipment is covered under this funding. For more information visit the Ontario Ministry of Education website: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/funding/1011/2010-11_SEA_Guidelines.pdf
You should also know of the SIP (Special Incidence Portion) funding for high needs. School boards may apply for Special Incidence Portion (SIP) funding for additional staff support. This is to ensure the health and safety both of other people in the school and the student who has extraordinarily high needs related to their disabilities and/or exceptionalities.
Conflicts sometimes arise while dealing with your school. The Ontario Ministry of Education has documents to help you work within their framework and problem-solve. Parents, schools and school board administrations do not always interpret the directives in the same way. It helps to know what you are advocating for when you engage in problem-solving with your school. It also bears mentioning that you need to be realistic and focus on one need at a time, rather than multiple requests or demands.
A “Special Education Tip Sheet” is provided from People For Education in this section. Another tip sheet prepared by the Waterloo Region District School Board entitled “Communicating With Your School” is also provided in this section. Last, but not least, the Ministry’s document entitled “Shared Solutions – A Guide to Preventing and Resolving Conflicts Regarding Programs & Services for Students with Special Education Needs” is also a great tool.
There are a number of useful documents that can be of help to support you in your child’s journey through school on the Ministry of Education’s website. (Please see “The Ontario Ministry of Education- Special Education Resources”).
We have provided a chart of related Ontario Ministry of Education resources by the areas of concern you may be experiencing. This is by no means an exhaustive list. The most current source for Ministry of Education information is at http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/
If you have concerns about:Accommodations / Technology / Assistive Devices• SEA (Special Equipment Amount)
• SIP (Special Incidence Portion) 2010-11Bullying (victim or aggressor)• Bullying: A Guide for Parents of Elementary and Secondary School Students (updated Spring 2011)Conflicts with school or Board• Shared Solutions – A Guide to Preventing and Resolving Conflicts Regarding Programs & Services for Students with Special Education NeedsIdentification, Placement & Review Committee (IPRC)
|If you have concerns about:||Supporting Ontario Ministry of Education
Documentation (under Special Education):
|Bullying (victim or aggressor)||
|Conflicts with school or Board||
|Identification, Placement & Review Committee (IPRC)Individual Education Plan (IEP)||
|Suspensions/voluntary withdrawal from school||
|Transition Planning (+14 years)||
If you are still without resolution to your problem after dealing with the administration at your school, you can also try talking to the school superintendent, or directly to the Board office and speak to the Executive Superintendent of Education. (Refer to the “Communicating With Your School”.
It is important to maintain a paper trail while communicating with all levels of the school, Board Office and aothers..
At any time, you may also contact your elected school board trustee. Trustees can provide information and direction to parents, but they cannot act as a representative of the parent. Check your local school board website for a listing of trustees.
Trustees and representatives of many local parent associations meet monthly during the school year at the school board’s Special Education Advisory Committee meetings. (Please refer to “Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC)” . Each Board in Waterloo Region has a listing available on their websites. The Ontario Ministry of Education site also provides a list of advocacy and support associations under the heading “Advice to Parents”.
If you suspect any of the diagnoses as described in the “WHAT IS” section of this guide, your local parent support group may be able to help you. They may have someone in their membership who has had a similar experience. You may also find someone willing to go along with you to a school meeting to help you with advocacy, or to just to provide moral support or take notes. (Please refer to the links at the bottom of each definition in the “WHAT IS” section for specific support group information, or check the “Website Resource Listing” in the RESOURCE section at the end of the guide). Parents for Children’s Mental Health (PCMH) is an umbrella organization that deals with all of the concerns as they are listed in the “WHAT IS” section. If you cannot find a support group related to your child’s specific needs, PCMH may be the best fit for you.
|Links or Useful Resources for NAVIGATING THE SCHOOL SYSTEM:
Ontario Ministry of Education: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teachers/
SEA Funding in the WRDSB: http://www.wrdsb.ca/programs/special-education/special-equipment-amount-qa | <urn:uuid:3a096c46-30ab-4ed8-a7e9-ee3f0d92d4e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidslinkcares.com/mentalhealth/navigating-the-school-system/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947957 | 1,571 | 2.671875 | 3 |
I HAVE written before about the current state of the construction industry, particularly in our region, and the lasting impact it will have going forward.
Last week, the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) released figures showing that the number of students applying to study architectural courses at university has dropped significantly compared to this time last year.
As of last month, there had been only 26,821 applications to an architectural course, a drop of 12% from last year. Course numbers for building and planning were also down by 22% and 14% respectively, with only four study subject groups faring worse.
There are a number of reasons behind the drop in figures, increasing student fees and the poor state of the job market being two key factors. Training in fields of our industry, such as architecture, can take up to seven years and requires huge financial and time commitment from students.
This, alongside the poor job outlook forecasted by a number of industry bodies, means students are increasingly deterred from entering our industry.
It seems that students are now forced to be a bit wiser with their choice of degree, with youngsters opting for courses that do not cost as much and have better job prospects at the end.
To encourage growth and to move forward, we, as an industry need to do more to encourage the young people of the future to commit. Our industry should be one at the forefront of change and innovation and to do this, we need the creativity and thinking of the young people of today.
Our Generation for Change (G4C) forum, for example, is all about recognising the newcomers to construction and encouraging them to collaborate, develop and promote best practice to promote much needed growth in the sector.
The annual Construction Skills Network report, conducted by CITB-ConstructionSkills in partnership with a number of construction employers from across the UK, recently calculated a five year forecast for the industry which showed that we should begin to see some growth by 2013.
Forecasts like this should be publicised, showing youngsters that the industry will be in a more established place by the time they graduate.
For more information on Constructing Excellence in the North East, please contact chief executive, CatrionaLingwood, on 0191 374 0233 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Catriona Lingwood, chief executive of Constructing Excellence North East | <urn:uuid:8c96d7c3-8aa5-48ca-ad49-b67c7f3edb4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nebusiness.co.uk/business-news/construction-in-north-east/2012/07/20/shortage-of-new-blood-in-north-construction-industry-51140-31432640/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958434 | 488 | 1.53125 | 2 |
I've defined rational tangles but I should set that in a wider context. A knot is essentially a single closed loop embedded in 3D space and a link is a non-intersecting union of a bunch of these. Any tangle, knot or link can be projected down to 2D space so that you get a finite collection of 'over' or 'under' crossings connected by arcs. You might have to jiggle things around a bit to ensure that you don't get any degeneracies like two separate parts of a knot being projected to the same segment of curve in 2D, but this is always possible. Here's an example of such a 2D projection, a knot diagram, for the photograph I posted last week:
Roughly speaking, two knots or links or tangles are equivalent if you can slide the strings about to get from one to the other without passing one string through another. In the case of rational tangles we have the extra constraint that the free ends mustn't move and must always remain 'at infinity' so you can't pass loops over the end. Given two diagrams for rational tangles, the task is to tell when they represent something equivalent. I'll start on this in a future posting, but for now I just want to consider the problem of getting diagrams like that above into machine readable from. (Incidentally, the rigorous mathematical definition of knot equivalence, ambient isotopy, relies on the notion of finding a continuous bijection between the space around the two knots, not the knot itself.)
We don't need anything particularly clever to form our representation as there is a fairly commonplace way to represent connectons between components using monads. If we have some kind of block with inputs a and b and outputs c and d we can represent this as a line of do-notation looking like
(c,d) <- block (a,b)
Examples of such notation are in Matthew Naylor's article on Lava. We could also use arrows but in this case there is no need.
So now we need to break up a diagram of a rational tangle into components and hook them up, working down the diagram from top to bottom. There are four essential components that can be discerned and I'm calling them cups, caps, overs and unders. Here are the corresponding diagrams for each one:
Cups have two inputs but no output and caps have two outputs and no inputs.
Now all we have to do is label the inputs and outputs of each arc, write the corresponding lines as above, and collect them together in a do-block. Here I've redrawn the above diagram marking the cups and caps with red circles and the overs and unders with green circles.
I've also labelled the inputs and outputs. We can now write the following block of code.
> example (a,b) = do
> (c,d) <- over (a,b)
> (e,f) <- cap
> (g,h) <- over (c,e)
> (i,j) <- over (f,d)
> (m,n) <- cap
> (k,l) <- cap
> (q,r) <- over (h,k)
> (s,y) <- over (l,i)
> (o,p) <- over (n,g)
> (t,u) <- under (p,q)
> (v,w) <- under (r,s)
> (x,z) <- over (y,j)
> cup (o,t)
> cup (u,v)
> cup (w,x)
> return (m,z)
Note how this block has a pair of inputs (a,b) and a pair of outputs (m,z) corresponding to the strings at the top and bottom. Clearly knots and links should have no inputs or outputs but rational tangles should have a pair of inputs and a pair of outputs. The precise order shouldn't matter as long as you don't try to use a name that isn't yet in scope.
So what monad should we use? It's easy to imagine some kind of state monad that allows us to generate fresh labels for each of the connections and collects up a graph-like representation of our tangle. But the surprise is this: it turns out we don't need to do anything complicated like this. With suitable definitions of cup, cap, over and under, not only does the vector space monad give us the representation we want, it also does most of our computation for us. But first I need to explain the underlying mathematics in an upcoming installment. | <urn:uuid:71aa1f42-34e5-4d2f-af7b-042a6659df6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.sigfpe.com/2008/08/untangling-with-continued-fractions_16.html?showComment=1219445820000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934911 | 971 | 2.671875 | 3 |
ACT Mobile Apps
for iPhone® and iPod touch® and for Android
ACTPhoto lets users capture and upload a photo of their face to submit to ACT for identification purposes. Beginning in October 2012, students registered to take the ACT are required to submit a photo before they can print their ACT ticket. Students must first create an ACT Web account at www.actstudent.org on a computer so they can log in using their ACT Web User ID and password to upload the photo. On upload, ACTPhoto will verify whether the submitted photo meets ACT’s requirements and notify the user accordingly. Students must accept the Photo Agreement in order to submit their photo. Users can use the mobile app to upload their photo regardless of how they register.
Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc. | <urn:uuid:54180254-75ae-4fa1-a71d-9c7d57f1ebcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.act.org/mobileapps/actphoto/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930695 | 181 | 1.609375 | 2 |
This study uses 2-bromo-LSD, which is LSD stripped of the part that makes it psychoactive. The research aims to find out if the chemical can prevent cluster headaches – a particularly painful and difficult to treat form of head pain.
It is being done with the support of the Beckley Foundation at Hannover Medical School with Professors Matthias Karst and Torsten Passie.
Whilst cluster headaches are classified as vascular headaches, the pain associated with them is caused by a disturbance of the hypothalamus, which irritates one of the nerves that runs through the face. Sufferers have reported getting relief from both LSD and psilocybin.
The results of the study have shown that three doses of Bromo-LSD within a 10 day period either broke the cluster headache cycle or substantially reduced the pain and frequency of attacks. This may prove to be the first step in developing the first effective a treatment for the condition. | <urn:uuid:af2ca267-7f15-4787-a180-f1d34fbf34a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/2010/09/the-treatment-of-cluster-headaches-using-2-bromo-lysergic-acid-diethylamide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947154 | 193 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Moderator: Tibetan Buddhism moderators
Through the enlightened activity of the victorious buddhas,
And the skilful means of their bodhisattva heirs,
May the four schools of buddhist teachings, old and new,
Successfully transmit their perfect methods of awakening!
The authoritative transmission of sutras, the Gendenpa,
The authoritative transmission of mantra, the Nyingmapa,
The authoritative transmission of exposition, the Sakyapa,
And the authoritative transmission of practice, the Kagyüpa.
The Sakyapas are the masters of learning,
The Gendenpas are the masters of discourse,
The Kagyüpas are the masters of realization,
And the Nyingmapas are the masters of spiritual power.
These are the four marvellous transmissions of the teachings:
The Nyingmapas whose view is beyond all extremes,
The Kagyüpas who persevere in meditation,
The Gendenpas with their perfect conduct,
And the Sakyapas with their regular practice of approach and accomplishment.
Although they all possess infinite qualities,
Each one emphasizes a particular practice.
Nyingmapas chant through their noses,
Sakyapas chant with their lips,
Gendenpas create the melodies mainly in their throats,
And Kagyüpas chant strongly from deep down inside.
The Gendenpas maintain the complete path of scriptural study, so they are like the body of the teachings.
The Sakyapas bring together sutra and mantra approaches, so they are like the eyes of the teachings.
The Kagyüpas bring everything together into the single practice of devotion, so they are like the heart of the teachings.
The Nyingmapas possess the profound key instructions of the tantras and sadhanas, so they are like the life-force of the teachings.
Now for a few words in jest:
The Nyingmapas claim they have a path for accomplishing the level of Vajradhara through the practice of clear light Dzogpachenpo, without the need to rely upon an external consort and so on, and yet the lamas say they must take a wife in order to increase their longevity, improve the clarity of their vision, maintain good health, assist in the revelation of termas and accomplish the welfare of beings. They don’t say that in order to benefit the teachings they should teach and practise! That taking a wife could be a way to benefit the teachings and beings, and a substitute for teaching and practice, and at the same time improve clarity of vision and so on, is, I think, incredible!
The Gendenpas claim the antidote to all the pains of existence is the wisdom which realizes selflessness, and yet when they approach the realization of no-self they are so afraid to let go of this sense of identity that they can not sit still upon their cushions. In the past it was said that the attainment of the path of seeing and the clear experience of selflessness that precedes it are marked by special feelings of joy, so I think this must be a symptom of the current degenerate age!
The Sakyapas make the supreme assertion that one should not place too much emphasis on conduct because inner wisdom is the most important thing, and yet when they recite the Lamdü Hevajra sadhana, they maintain the discipline of never leaving their seats, because to do so would transgress their vow. If they ever did need to get up and do something, they would have to drag their seats behind them, such are their rites of purification and liberation based on time and the physical body. I wonder what would happen to them if they did leave their seats!
The Kagyüpas assert that the Great Mudra is the wisdom which pervades all samsara and nirvana, and yet they think of the word ‘mudra’ as referring to one’s hands. I wonder what such an enormous hand would look like!
Ha ha ha! That was all said in jest.
The teachings of the great masters are rich in meaning,
And each school has its own unique vision and key instructions.
Most followers of the Nyingma school shun the taking of life but think that there is no need to give up women. If they are a genuine yogins, I take refuge in them! But in general this ordinary sexual desire is harmful to the Nyingma teachings, so take care, I pray!
Most followers of the Kagyü school dislike classical exposition and logic, preferring the approach that is based purely on mind and meditation. If they are those in whom realization and liberation are simultaneous, I take refuge! But in general this closed-minded attitude is harmful to the Kagyü teachings and must be abandoned!
Most followers of the Genden school do not see any fault in taking life, but their aggression is harmful to the Genden teachings, so take care, I pray!
Most followers of the Sakya school regard as supreme only those empowerments and instructions they themselves have received and the particular branch to which they belong—be it Sakya, Ngor or Tsar—but this strong prejudice and dogmatism is harmful to the Sakya teachings, so it needs to be abandoned!
Generally, even if one has attachment to one’s own tradition it is important to avoid any antipathy towards other traditions. If we consider just our own tradition, since we are all followers of the Buddha, we can consider that we are all closely related. The different systems of teachings began at the time of Khenpo Shantarakshita, Guru Rinpoche and King Trisong Detsen, and, following the noble traditions of the past, all the schools in Tibet accept the four seals which are the hallmark of the buddhist teachings. We are all equal in this respect, and what is more we all assert the great shunyata free from conceptual elaboration. Not only that, we all accept the mantrayana with its inseparable unity of bliss and emptiness. This means that we are exceptionally close in terms of our view and our tenets.
Other traditions, non-buddhist outsiders and philosophical extremists, who differ even in terms of outer signs and dress, are as numerous as the stars in the night sky, and by comparison we buddhists are as rare as stars in broad daylight. Now, when the buddhist teachings are on the verge of extinction, all who seek to ensure their survival must view one another as the closest of allies. Any feelings of hostility will bring only ruin, so instead we must regard each other with joy, like a mother seeing her only child, or a beggar discovering a priceless treasure.
Having become followers of the same teacher,
May all who are students of these same teachings,
Abandon any hostility and prejudiced views,
And work together with a sense of joy!
Whoever practises in accordance with the true meaning of the teachings,
Be they from one’s own or another tradition, may they gain accomplishment,
So that the four great buddhist schools here within the Land of Snows,
Come to blaze in dazzling splendour with a wealth of Dharma teachings,
And gain complete success and universal victory!
Ken1969 wrote:Hi Yeshe,
Thanks for the information; I'm known as Tosh (it's my nickname) on another Buddhist forum and you actually helped me very early on in my Buddhist interest; so thank you! You're very kind. I'll certainly go to Amazon and get a Pabongka Ripoche's Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. Thanks.
Also, if you can, can you stick a link up to your group, so I can have a look at it's website? I may pay them a visit. It would probably be simpler to visit the same Buddhist centre as the course I'm studying (at present I occasionally visit a different Tibetan Buddhist sect).
Ken1969 wrote:Thanks Conebeckham (and pwlc), for your lengthy and considered reply. I'm pleased that the Gelug tradition is keen on Lam Rim, since it seems to be an extremely clever system that I've been trying to practise for some time; and I do like the analytical meditations. .
Tilopa wrote:Ken1969 wrote:Thanks Conebeckham (and pwlc), for your lengthy and considered reply. I'm pleased that the Gelug tradition is keen on Lam Rim, since it seems to be an extremely clever system that I've been trying to practise for some time; and I do like the analytical meditations. .
The lamrim is possibly the easiest, clearest and quickest way to get a good understanding of Buddhism as it's studied, taught and practiced in the Tibetan tradition and it's by no means an exclusively Gelug thing. Whichever way you go familiarity with it will serve you well.
plwk wrote:... and may the venerable Mods pls watch this thread ...
Yeshe wrote: First, the most accessible explanation of Lam Rim I have come across is Pabongka Ripoche's 'Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand'.
Tilopa wrote:Yeshe wrote: First, the most accessible explanation of Lam Rim I have come across is Pabongka Ripoche's 'Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand'.
There's a couple of versions but the one published by Wisdom and translated by Michael Richards is extraordinarily beautiful.
Tsongkhapafan wrote:If you're looking for a great translation of Je Pabongkhapa's lamrim teachings, I thoroughly recommend the three volume set, 'Liberation in Our Hands', translated by Geshe Lobsang Tharchin - it's incomparable.
mudra wrote:However HHDL emphasized that Phabongka's teachings on Lam Rim were excellent, ...
The Foundation of Buddhist Thought is a two-year course which most students study by correspondence. Its special quality is that Geshe Tashi draws upon the depth of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to show how Buddhism can make a real difference to the way we live our lives today. For this reason the course is structured into six four-month modules:
The Four Noble Truths
The Two Truths
Buddhist Psychology and Epistemology
The Mind of Enlightenment (Bodhicitta)
Emptiness According to Prasangika Madhyamaka
An Overview of Tantric Paths and Grounds
The Lamrim Chenmo Correspondence Course is a two and a half-year seven-module course structured in the same way as the Foundation of Buddhist Thought Course (FBT). It is designed especially for students who have completed the Foundation of Buddhist Thought and would like to take their studies further.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest | <urn:uuid:320e7ef0-7226-4c35-9438-84139e0d152c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=28909 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950345 | 2,289 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Serial code prefix: 10P (99-02), 15P or 16P (02 onwards)
The Land Rover Td5 engine was already in development for the Discovery when Land Rover was purchased by BMW also became part of the Defender line. They replaced the 300Tdi due to tigher European emission controls, which was accomplished by controling the engine via an Electronic Control Unit (ECU), essentially making it harder for owners to maintain their own vehicles. Everything relating to the Td5 engine such as temperatures, fuel cut off, fuel injection and the accelerator pedal are controlled electronically, and various additional systems were included such as an extra rear mounted fuel filter and fuel cut off crash detection.
Aside from a few teething problems, the Td5 is a quieter Land Rover engine, performs better at high crusing speeds, and has very similar overall performance. However, Land Rover still retained the 300Tdi for export.
Converting to the Td5 Engine
The Td5 engine has very different mounts than previous engines, although it fits in the bay no problem and is as applicable with other gearboxes as the other engines are. The main difference being that the engine is electronic, so requires a wealth of wiring knowledge to complete.
There is a good article about converting to a Td5 engine at WebRover from a 2.5 TD, but will also be applicable to converting from the 200Tdi and 300Tdi.
Converting from the Td5 Engine
This is a less common conversion, which is ultimately a downgrade, but considered feasible if you will be expeditioning overseas and want the non-electronic reliability/repair factor.
The TD5 is fitted with the R380 Gearbox as standard. | <urn:uuid:4b650380-ad7b-4e28-b8e8-8cba796ba9e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.landroverexpedition.com/engines/td5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971223 | 357 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Here's how the whole family can get organized for the busy year ahead.
Our readers share their strategies for preparing for school year routines.
Back to School: When your student and your whole family get organized, going back to school will be stress free.
Make your child's first day easier by getting organized and staying positive.
A new GreatSchools survey finds that most parents consider shopping to be their number-one back-to-school activity.
The earlier you start preparing, the less crazy your household will be as the first day of school approaches.
From workbooks to school supplies to finding the right teacher, our readers share their ideas for helping kids start the new school year off right.
The last days of school can stretch the family budget and stress the savviest parents. But with a little planning, you can relax and enjoy the season of school plays, class parties and graduations.
When your child starts preschool, she may experience separation anxiety and regressive behavior. Child psychiatrist Joshua Sparrow explains what you can expect.
Back to School: Being organized and planning ahead are the keys to smart school shopping. | <urn:uuid:08f55a4a-e81b-4d21-a3c5-b33599c38c60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greatschools.org/articles/?topics=142&language=EN | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949968 | 231 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Refuge hosts program on moths
Sherburne National Wildlife near Zimmerman will host a program on moths on Saturday, July 30.
An Evening About Moths with Jim Sogaard runs from 8:30-10:30 p.m.
Learn about their lifestyles, behaviors and ecological importance. Participants should bring a headlamp or flashlight as they will be navigating in the darkness for part of the program.
Meet at the refuge headquarters on County Road 9, five miles west of Highway 169.
The program is free. To pre-register, call 763-389-3323 ext. 13. For more information, go to www.fws.gov/midwest/sherburne. | <urn:uuid:bd98e45b-3d60-4d12-ac98-24ab7d64200b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://erstarnews.com/2011/07/25/refuge-hosts-program-on-moths/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911788 | 148 | 1.625 | 2 |
Welcome back to this week’s Challenge Problem! As always, the problem and solution below were written by one of our fantastic instructors. Each challenge problem represents a 700+ level question. If you are up for the challenge, however, set your timer for 2 mins and go!
An ant is clinging to one corner of a box in the shape of a cube. The ant wants to get to the most distant corner of the box by crawling only along the edges of the cube and without ever revisiting a place it has been. How many different paths can the ant take to the most distant corner?
First, draw a picture of the situation.
Now, look for patterns as you construct and count paths that don’t retrace or touch themselves at all. One of the first patterns that is useful to spot has to do with the initial choice about which edge to crawl along. The ant can take any one of three initial paths:
These three initial choices are equivalent, because the cube is symmetric. Thus, we can just consider one of the initial paths, count up the ways from that point forward, then multiply by 3.
Let’s take the middle choice:
First, try to go immediately to the goal. We get two similar paths:
If we stopped at this point, we would get 2 × 3 = 6 total paths. This is in fact the number of shortest paths to the goal. However, we can construct additional “zigzag” paths that also satisfy the constraints of the problem.
There are no more possibilities without the path touching itself, so this initial edge leads to 6 possible paths. Since there are 3 initial edges, the total number of possible paths is 6 × 3 = 18.
Alternatively, we can map the corners by their “distance” away from the starting point, measured in edges:
Taking the leftmost edge to start, we can construct the 6 possible paths leading from that edge:
Again, there are 6 × 3 = 18 possible paths.
The correct answer is (C).
Special Announcement: Manhattan GMAT is now offering you a chance to win prep materials by solving the Challenge Problem. On our website, we will post a new question (without the answer) every week. Submit a solution to the problem, and if we pick your name out of those who answer correctly, you could win free prep material from Manhattan GMAT. To view the current question, simply visit our Challenge Problem Showdown. | <urn:uuid:3e66bc4c-379d-4a1c-bb99-12cd18c8038a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/22/manhattan-gmat-challenge-problem-of-the-week-22-apr-10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946037 | 509 | 2.890625 | 3 |
If you've never before heard about the existence of two wills in God, I recommend reading John Piper's article, "Are There Two Wills in God?" (which is also an appendix in the book The Pleasures of God).
In essence, what the doctrine states is that there are... well... two wills in God. The first will is his will of command (or as Edwards says below, "law"). This is expressed through God's revealed desires for people, desires such as "Thou shalt not kill," or "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
The second will is his will of decree, which is the will by which God brings to pass all that actually happens, whether it accords with his will of command or not. This is also known as his secret will, since what God intends to do in any one event is unknowable to us, except for what he reveals through prophecy.
Here is the entirety of Jonathan Edwards' Miscellanies #7 (reformatted a little by me), which he wrote in defense of this notion of two wills:
The Arminians ridicule our distinction of the secret and revealed will of God, or more properly expressed, our distinction between the decree and law [of God], because we say he may decree one thing and command another; and so they say we hold contrariety and contradiction in God, as if one will of his contradicted and was directly contrary to another.
But however, if they will call this a contradiction of wills, we do certainly and absolutely know there is such a thing, so that it is the greatest absurdity to dispute about it.
- We and they [know it was] God's secret will that Abraham should not sacrifice his son, but yet his command was to do it.
- [We] do certainly know that God willed that Pharaoh's heart should be hardened, and yet that the hardness of his heart was his sin.
- We do know that God willed that [the] Egyptians should hate God's people. Psalms 105:25, "He turned their heart to hate his people and deal subtilely with his servants."
- We do know that it was God's will that Absalom should lie with David's wives. 2 Samuel 12:11–12, "Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbor; and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun."
- We do certainly know that God willed that Jeroboam and the ten tribes should rebel.
The same, we know, may be said of the plunder of the Babylonians; and other instances might be given. The Scripture plainly tells us that God wills to harden some men (Romans 9:18), that Christ should be killed by men, [etc.]. | <urn:uuid:0f14bc82-c2e8-4400-bcb9-434cf75f9e82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/are-there-two-wills-in-god-yes/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978222 | 624 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Three in five Americans would back a global agreement under which all nuclear armed nations would scrap their arsenals, but just 22 percent tell pollster they would have the U.S. unilaterally divest itself of nuclear weapons.
The Reid organization polled public attitudes as President Obama was preparing to fly to Prague and sign a treaty under with the U.S. and Russia will make deep reductions in their nuclear weapons stockpiles.
The conclusion, from 1,005 Americans, brings to mind President Reagan’s three-word formula: Trust, but verify.
More than two-thirds of those surveyed would like to see America pursue elimination (36 percent) or reduction (35 percent) of the world’s nuclear arsenals: Just 12 percent would have the U.S. maintain nuclear deterrents at their present levels, and barely 5 percent would have the country develop new nuclear weapons.
Twenty-five percent of those surveyed said that use of nuclear weapons would be justified in a war, with 24 percent would approve use as a deterrent in the event of a potential attack. A third of Americans flatly oppose use of nukes.
A total of 54 percent say having the U.S. possess nuclear weapons makes them feel safer: The figure among people over 55 rises to 66 percent.
The Hanford Reservation in Eastern Washington was created by the World War II Manhatten Project, and manufactured plutonium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.
But Hanford is no longer in the bomb building business. A pair of its abandoned production reactors are under consideration as National Historic Sites. | <urn:uuid:55414604-127b-4b8e-9a3f-150fd8d020ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2010/04/08/americans-in-poll-no-nukes-but-not-too-fast/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971002 | 325 | 2.453125 | 2 |
|American Writers||British Writers||American Journalists|
James Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on 27th November, 1909. After attending Harvard University he wrote for various magazines including Time, the Nation and the New Masses. A volume of poems, Permit Me Voyage, appeared in 1934.
In 1936 Agee and the photographer, Walker Evans, were commissioned by Fortune Magazine to produce an illustrated article on sharecroppers in Alabama. The article was not published but the material the two men collected appeared in the book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). It only sold 600 copies before being remaindered.
During the Second World War he was a book reviewer for Time Magazine. Later he was film critic for The Nation. After the war he worked mainly as a film scriptwriter. This included The African Queen (1951), The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (1953) and The Night of the Hunter (1955).
James Agee died from a heart-attack in New York City on 16th May, 1955. A novel, A Death in the Family, published posthumously, was adapted for the stage as All the Way Home (1960) and as a film three years later. | <urn:uuid:6ad7490e-0440-41ba-b05a-b849271c207e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAagee.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971201 | 253 | 1.921875 | 2 |
This gene encodes a member of the cysteine-aspartic acid protease (caspase) family. Sequential activation of caspases plays a central role in the execution-phase of cell apoptosis. Caspases exist as inactive proenzymes which undergo proteolytic processing at conserved aspartic residues to produce two subunits, large and small, that dimerize to form the active enzyme. This protein is processed by caspase APAF1; this step is thought to be one of the earliest in the caspase activation cascade. Alternative splicing results in two transcript variants which encode different isoforms. [provided by RefSeq].
EGFR1 Signaling Pathway
MAPK signaling pathway
* Shipping is in business days
* OriGene provides validated application data and protocol, with money back guarantee. | <urn:uuid:ea02514f-1119-49c4-b1a5-60bac1672b10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.origene.com/antibody/TA303420.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900257 | 175 | 2.078125 | 2 |
This example of previous anterior wall M.I. with right bundle branch block is from a 90-year-old man. He survived an anterior-septal M.I. caused by an occlusion of the left anterior descending branch of the LCA. The septum was involved in the damaged area, and the patient was left with a right bundle branch block. The pathological Q waves in Leads V1 through V3 show the location of permanent damage, or necrosis.
In this case, the usual rSR' pattern of right bundle branch block is replaced by qR, indicating loss of the initial r wave due to the M.I.
Review of RBBB criteria: wide QRS, rSR' pattern in V1, and Rs with a slurred s wave in I and V6. These criteria must be present in a SUPRAVENTRICULAR rhythm to diagnose RBBB. | <urn:uuid:ac1fb512-9b11-4f83-987b-7f75ffcc12a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ecgguru.com/ecg/bbb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920325 | 190 | 1.59375 | 2 |
There a few factors that Google (as the main search engine in Ireland) use to determine which site should appear in the results for Irish searchers. They are as follows :
1. Domain name TLD (top level domain e.g .com | .eu | .ie | .co.uk)
2. Physical location of your hosting account.
4. Backlink sources.
5. Webmaster tool settings.
1. Domain Name TLD.
The domain TLD is the last part of your domain name, for example this domain is ‘websitemanagement.ie’ so the TLD for this domain is ‘.ie’; Google takes this into consideration when deciding which country your site is best suited for. Each country has it’s own specific TLD, .ie is for Irish websites whereas the .co.uk is the UK’s TLD.
2. Physical Location Of Your Hosting Account.
Google will look up the location of your hosting account, if your site is hosted in Ireland then Google will give your site preference in the Irish search results.
If you have a website written entirely in Greek, Google will assume that your target audience are Greek speaking people and locate your site accordingly. This isn’t something that should be relied on alone as for instance there are many English, French and Spanish speaking countries which causes some possibility for error.
4. Backlink Sources.
Put simply, if the majority of your backlinks are from South Africa or India but you are targeting an Irish audience this is going to effect how well your site performs. If you are targeting an Irish audience you should attempt to source backlinks from Irish websites.
5. Webmaster Tool Settings
Google’s webmaster tools are a great resource for any website developer, in here there is a section specifically for assigning your site to a specific location. Definitely a feature to not be overlooked.
Multiple Country Targeting – Best Practices
Once a website performing reasonably well in a country, it is only natural that business owners start looking at the option of branching out to other countries that they can target with their services.
There are three recommendations that I have for undertaking such a venture.
1. Register a separate (specific) domain for each country.
2. Set up separate sub domains for each country (e.g http://uk.websitemanagement.ie)
3. Set up sub folders for each country (e.g http://www.websitemanagement.ie/uk)
Each of these options can be registered in Google’s webmaster tools and geo targeted to a specific country.
My personal recommendation would be option 1, the reasons for this are, sourcing back links from that country will be easier. re-assurance for visitors to the website that this is a legitimate company in their country. Separate hosting accounts based in the country being targeted.
Trying to target one root domain to many countries is not recommended and would not only be difficult to manage but could cause issues as the website grows. | <urn:uuid:79024dbe-39ac-4d2e-a804-c3566f72fd15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.websitemanagement.ie/2011/01/google-geo-targeting-for-seo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919129 | 639 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The Better Regulation website sets out the actions taken by the European Commission, other EU institutions as well as those taken by the Member States in the Better Regulation field. It also offers access to the other websites of the Commission and Member States where Better Regulation is addressed.
The Communication on EU Regulatory Fitness (December 2012) takes stock of the progress achieved since the launch of the Commission's Smart Regulation agenda. It also outlines how EU legislation can achieve its objectives even more effectively and efficiently.It is accompanied by two Staff Working Document reporting on the final results of the "Review of the Commission Consultation Policy" and of the "Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the EU"
The Commission' report to the Spring European Council on "Smart Regulation – Responding to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises" (COM(2013)122) adopted on 7 March 2013 takes stock of the measures the Commission has taken to apply the "Think Small First" principle and minimize regulatory burden to SMEs since the last report in November 2011 (COM(2011)803) and sets out future actions.
A Staff Working Document (SWD(2013)60) also adopted on 7 March publishes the results of a public consultation of the "TOP 1O most burdensome legislative acts for SMEs" and introduces a new annual scoreboard which will allow to track the progress in the legislative cycle of proposals where a significant impact on SMEs can be expected. The scoreboard will also show how different approaches to implementation by Member States affect the overall impact on SMEs.
The European Union has, over the years, developed a sophisticated body of legislation which continues to deliver economic development, environmental protection and improvement of social standards, notably through the completion of the internal market. As progress towards these objectives is being achieved, it has also become clear that the way in which we regulate has considerable impact on whether we meet these objectives efficiently.
In the context of the renewed Lisbon Strategy, refocused on growth and jobs, the Commission has launched a comprehensive strategy on better regulation to ensure that the regulatory framework in the EU contributes to achieving growth and jobs, while continuing to take into account the social and environmental objectives and the benefits for citizens and national administrations. The EU's Better Regulation policy aims at simplifying and improving existing regulation, to better design new regulation and to reinforce the respect and the effectiveness of the rules, all this in line with the EU proportionality principle.
Better Regulation strategy is based on three key action lines:
Promoting the design and application of better regulationtools at the EU level, notably simplification, reduction of administrative burdens and impact assessment.
Working more closely with Member States to ensure that better regulation principles are applied consistently throughout the EU by all regulators.
A brochure 'Better Regulation - simply explained' gives a short overview of the Better Regulation strategy. | <urn:uuid:4d4c3c4a-e394-4730-8b61-b6e13b39209e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ec.europa.eu/governance/better_regulation/index_en.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939739 | 575 | 1.53125 | 2 |
What is the best way to understand black political ideology? Just listen to the everyday talk that emerges in public spaces, suggests Melissa Harris-Lacewell. And listen this author has--to black college students talking about the Million Man March and welfare, to Southern, black Baptists discussing homosexuality in the church, to black men in a barbershop early on a Saturday morning, to the voices of hip-hop music and Black Entertainment Television.
Using statistical, experimental, and ethnographic methods Barbershops, Bibles, and B.E.T offers a new perspective on the way public opinion and ideologies are formed at the grassroots level. The book makes an important contribution to our understanding of black politics by shifting the focus from the influence of national elites in opinion formation to the influence of local elites and people in daily interaction with each other. Arguing that African Americans use community dialogue to jointly develop understandings of their collective political interests, Harris-Lacewell identifies four political ideologies that constitute the framework of contemporary black political thought: Black Nationalism, Black Feminism, Black Conservatism and Liberal Integrationism. These ideologies, the book posits, help African Americans to understand persistent social and economic inequality, to identify the significance of race in that inequality, and to devise strategies for overcoming it. | <urn:uuid:545c7578-4f78-4c24-a925-0efc5f54b663> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ebookmall.com/ebook/barbershops-bibles-and-bet/harris-lacewell/9780691126098 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915398 | 263 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Victims of Hurricane Katrina are attempting to recover from the massive storm. American Red Cross volunteers have been deployed to the hardest hit areas of Katrina’s destruction, supplying hundreds of thousands victims left homeless with critical necessities. By making a financial gift to support Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts, the Red Cross can provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Less than a month after Katrina, Hurricane Rita lashed the Gulf coast and left massive devastation in its wake. The American Red Cross will serve the victims of Hurricane Rita as it has done with Hurricane Katrina, but must rely on the ongoing support of the American public. Your financial gift to Hurricane Rita and continued support of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts will help the Red Cross provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those affected by these hurricanes.
Since ValueMD consists of a large community of caring people from the medical profession, we thought that it would be appropriate to help raise awareness for the Hurricane Relief Effort taking place for the many victims of Hurricane Katrina as our latest Charitable project. Please visit our Charity Information Page for more infomation on our other projects.
We realize that some of you are stuggling medical students and don't have much to give. So to provide an incentive, ValueMD decided to match the donations of it's members up to $200 so that your donations could go even further. Therefore, any donations given were be doubled! If you gave $5, it became $10.....If you donated $50, it became $100...and so on.
No amount is too small because there are so many people in great need of our help. But if you prefer to donate your time, perhaps you can inquire about volunteering for the Red Cross. And if both time and money are too limited to give at this time, your thoughts and prayers for these unfortunate victims will go a long way!
As promised, ValueMD contributed funds to both Hurricane Katrina and Rita Relief Efforts via the American Red Cross. If you'd like to see the receipts and email confirmations, please click here.
Together, we can make a difference! | <urn:uuid:246ed917-d166-44a9-8475-0fad1f6d58aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.valuemd.com/hurricane.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956099 | 433 | 1.507813 | 2 |
In the Bahamas, Canada, Mexico, and the United States, a clear-channel station is an AM radio station which is given extraordinary protection from interference to its nighttime signal. Clear-channel stations are sometimes known colloquially as blowtorches.
Ponkan ('Chinese Honey Orange')– is a member of the tangerine family, but its fruits are the size of oranges. The fruit is round and around 7-8 cm wide in size. It was originally introduced to the United States by Reverend Barrington of Melrose, Florida, about 1880. His original grove is still in production, and under the care of Marion Holder near Hawthorne in Putnam county. The fruit is still very popular in the Melrose area, and often sold at roadside stands there. | <urn:uuid:0fa5249a-9eaa-4699-be9d-5c1847ea315f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://likeorhate.com/thing/5166462/Fernando_de_la_Mora%2C_Paraguay | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977552 | 158 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Rule to Change: WAC 220-52-018
Clams — Gear.
It shall be unlawful to take, dig for or possess clams, geoducks, or mussels taken for commercial purposes from any of the tidelands in the state of Washington except with a pick, mattock, fork or shovel operated by hand, except:
. . .
(2) Aquatic farmers may harvest geoducks that are private sector cultured aquatic product by means of water pumps and nozzles.
(3) Persons may harvest nonstate tideland wild geoducks under a nonstate lands commercial wild clam, mussel and oyster trial fishery permit by means of water pumps and nozzles.
New Rule Proposal: I would like to propose that recreational geoduck diggers be allowed to harvest Geoduck on state tidelands or on private tidelands using water pumps and nozzles.
Why the change is needed: Under the current regulations, recreational geoduck diggers use shovels, and occasionally "geoduck cans" to assist them in getting far enough down to reach the clam. The process requires removal of a significant amount of mud, rocks and other materials. My observation is that the holes that are left on the beach are very large and very few diggers actually fill their holes back in as required.
Allowing water pumps and nozzles would be beneficial to the natural tidelands. Water pumps and nozzles displace a minimal amount of material. There is less damage to the beach environment and clam bed.
The only rationale I can think of for not allowing recreational diggers to use water pumps and nozzles, is that the work of getting a geoduck is a bigger challenge and therefore fewer geoduck are actually harvested. I would suggest that the damage to the beach and clam beds from digging with a shovel far outweighs any risk of over harvesting by diggers using water pumps and nozzles.
Names of individuals or groups with whom you have discussed this change: No input given
Describe their support and/or concerns:
No input given
Submitted by: ROVANG, DAVID — PORT ORCHARD, WA
Date submitted: 04/26/2012
WDFW Rule Proposal Recommendation
Not Recommended for further consideration Reference ID: DFW501116
Using commercial gear – in this case high pressure water pumps and nozzles – to recreationally harvest geoducks or any other clam on tidelands is not consistent with recreational clam digging and could result in negative impacts to shellfish beds. The daily limit of geoducks is three per person and can be dug using hand-operated tools.
Online Public Comments(0 comments)
No online public comments submitted for this proposal. | <urn:uuid:696b0c3c-fa1b-4570-a99a-9d4308900de7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/rule_proposals/comments/original.php?id=DFW501116 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923161 | 580 | 1.609375 | 2 |
So it was with pride that the residents gathered Tuesday in this town about 40 miles west of Portland to officially dedicate a school that may be one of the most remarkable in the United States.
When the flooding Nehalem River destroyed Vernonia's high school, middle school and grade school in 2007, the district brought in modular buildings to keep classes going. But that, they knew, was only a temporary fix.
Even in a lousy economy, residents approved a bond issue of nearly $14 million -- adding about $1.90 per $1,000 of assessed valuation to their property taxes. Public agencies, private businesses and donors all chipped in to build a $40 million school for kindergartners through high schoolers that will also serve as a community center.
"A lot of people never thought this day would come," schools Superintendent Kenneth Cox told a crowd that awaited a formal ribbon-cutting. "Naysayers said it's just a dream. Ladies and gentleman, behold the dream."
Plans are underway to have the district apply to the U.S. Green Building Council to have the building certified as the nation's first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design K-12 school.
Beneath the school's gravel play area is a tank holding 50,000 gallons of water, which will be circulated through tubing in the school's concrete floors to cool the building. The school's biomass boiler system will be fueled by 370 tons of wood pellets from six regional sawmills. The building is connected to a high-speed fiber optics system and wireless Internet connections are available in all rooms.
Sharon Bernal, a Vernonia real estate broker who worked on the bond issue, said the power of the celebration goes far beyond opening a state-of-the art building featuring environmentally friendly materials and infrastructure.
Townspeople drove, walked and took shuttle buses to attend a ceremony that was as much about them as it was the school.
It was a day for photographs and hugs. Men in suits and ties stood next to men in jeans and work boots. Women who looked liked grandmothers and needed a helping hand from the car stood next to moms who arrived pushing strollers carrying future students. Neighbors chatted and kids talked about getting ready for the first day of school after Labor Day.
"This is our school," said Deana Pearl, whose daughter will start eighth grade. "We paid for it, and we're proud of what we've accomplished."
Standing next to her was Heather Lewis, who no longer has schoolage children, but still voted to increase her property taxes.
"The school is the hub of the community," she said. "Children are important to all of us. They are the future of our community."
Josette Mitchell, Vernonia's mayor, said the moment is a bittersweet for some residents.
"The old schools that were there for 80 years are being dismantled piece by piece," she said. "For the old- timers, that's their history going away. But we're all looking to better our community. This is for the next generation."
An estimated 600 students are currently enrolled, but the school has the capacity to expand for 1,000 students.
"After the flood we lost maybe 70 students," said Bernal. "Some parents decided to home school or send them to private schools out of town."
Inside the school, teachers and staff were hustling to get the rooms ready for returning students.
"I grew up in Vernonia and I've been at the school for 35 years," said Glenda Delemes, a teacher coordinator and in charge of the elementary library/media center. "This new school is for our grandchildren and the children who will follow them."
Samantha Wallace, a 17-year-old senior and student body president, was one of nearly 75 volunteers -- students, parents and staff -- who wore bright green T-shirts reading "Building a school, saving our town" and passed out information on the school.
"Our senior class will be the first to graduate from this school," she said. "This is the start of something new and good."
-- Tom Hallman Jr. | <urn:uuid:06db1000-51ca-4367-91da-66e8822f8f88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/08/vernonia_celebrates_opening_of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981184 | 855 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The Republic of Kiribati, a small island state of about 110,000 people, spread across a vast marine territory in the Pacific the size of the Unites States, has joined the Pacific wave for One Laptop per Child.
"We believe OLPC has great potential to improve the quality of our basic education," said Kiribati Minister for Education, Hon. Toakai Koririntetaake, this week in a prepared statement. The Minister said Kiribati would deploy OLPC "to improve our national standards in literacy and numeracy, to teach our children new lifelong skills, and boost the long-term economic development of our country."
Kiribati, one of the world's poorest nations, faces severe challenges in population growth, health and sanitation, and climate change, and has embraced OLPC as a catalyst to breaking the cycle of poverty.
The MOE has appointed a senior level OLPC Country Working Committee to oversee the distribution of 2000 XO laptops in primary schools in 2011 and to address key issues such as curriculum integration and teacher training. Kiribati will measure OLPC's impact on basic literacy and numeracy, in line with the AusAID-funded Kiribati Education Improvement Plan (KEIP). In Kiribati, at the class four level in English literacy-43% of children show little or no evidence of achieving the learning outcomes appropriate for that level. For indigenous Kiribati literacy and numeracy, the figures are 25% and 53%, respectively.
Read the full Ministerial Statement here. | <urn:uuid:3763450e-c827-4691-bac9-a5efcfb47a97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.olpcoceania.org/2010/07/kiribati-puts-xo-into-education-plan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924734 | 315 | 2.625 | 3 |
Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, lies on the right bank of the river Tejo, near where the river enters the Atlantic. It is a city of valleys and hills overlooking the river, and grew outwards from the hill on which the ancient castle was built.
Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians founded colonies there, and the Romans consolidated its importance for shipping and fishing; the city became part of the imperial itinerary. Today about three million people live, study and work in the Lisbon region.
Today Lisbon is still a city of many contrasts, a modern and ancient city that fascinates those who visit it. The characteristic quarters of the city are a must-see for their culture, history, architecture and people, who have managed to pass on their traditions down the years. Castelo, Alfama, Mouraria, Bairro Alto, Madragoa, Chiado and Belém recount the history of the city.
Lisbon became one of the major mercantile centres of Europe following the Portuguese discoveries in the 16th century. Ships set sail from the shores of the River Tejo to chart a route to far-off India. In the Ribeira area, houses were built for the spice trade. The square close to the new Royal Palace, together with Rossio, became the political and commercial centre. In 1755, the city was devastated by an earthquake. It was rebuilt under the direction of the Marquis of Pombal and downtown Lisbon still retains its 18th-century character.
Over the centuries, Lisbon has gone through considerable changes, but many traces of the city’s rich past have been retained. It was the European Capital of Culture in 1994. In 1998, Lisbon hosted the last world exhibition of the 20th century, Expo 98, on the theme of the oceans, in view of Portugal’s contribution to the era of great discoveries and sea voyages. At Parque das Nações Europe’s largest aquarium was constructed. Art exhibitions, cinema, theatre and musical events made Lisbon the right place to be. In 2004 it hosted the European Football Championships.
Lisbon is the only European capital with Atlantic beaches, and its coastline is ideal for swimming, surfing, sailing and windsurfing. By taking the train along the north bank of the Tejo estuary it is possible to discover the golden sandy beaches of Costa de Estoril and Cascais and the best surfing waters at the world-famous Guincho, where international championships are often held. Only half an hour south of the city is the 30-km long Costa de Caparica beach. | <urn:uuid:91b59562-fc4d-488d-9edd-3e1e3c104882> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utl.pt/pagina.php?area=134 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96297 | 544 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Shots - Health News
Fri February 22, 2013
The Whole Community Gets A Health Boost From HIV Treatment
Originally published on Fri February 22, 2013 8:51 am
Over the past few decades, one of the most perplexing questions in global health is how to stop HIV.
There have been campaigns involving condoms, abstinence and even the circumcision of all men younger than 46. But one relatively new strategy, called treatment as prevention, is causing quite a buzz.
The idea is to give all HIV-positive people antiretroviral drugs to drive down the levels of virus in their systems so they no longer pose a threat of transmitting the disease.
Sounds good in theory, but how well does it play out in the slums of Nairobi or the townships of Johannesburg?
Two studies published in the journal Science find that, in places where HIV drugs are widely available, the risk for new HIV infections drops dramatically and overall life expectancy increases by more than a decade.
In other words, treatment as prevention isn't just a buzz word floating around health conferences but a promising strategy for stopping HIV — even in a part of the world with one of the most severe AIDS epidemics.
Epidemiologists from Harvard University followed 17,000 HIV-negative South Africans for seven years in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. They found that, when more than 30 percent of HIV-positive people are on powerful anti-HIV drugs, it cuts the risk of contracting the virus by about 38 percent, compared to when less than 10 percent of those infected have treatment.
"The intention of this program [the South African government's antiretroviral drug program] is not treatment as prevention," Till Barnighausen, a health economist who contributed to the study, tells Shots. "The intention of this program is treatment for treatment, to save lives."
A true treatment-as-prevention model, Barnighausen says, would offer antiretroviral therapy to everyone who is HIV positive. But the South African government is providing medications only to the sickest of the sick.
Nevertheless, Barnighausen and his colleagues saw a sharp reduction in new HIV infections when drugs were widely available to the community.
"It is a program with all the failures and challenges of a real-life, public-sector, nurse-led program in southern Africa," Barnighausen says. "And despite these challenges, we see a strong effect of HIV treatment on HIV incidence. And that's extremely encouraging."
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Myron Cohen at the University of North Carolina, who wasn't involved in this study, calls the findings "a home run."
Cohen published a landmark report in 2011 showing that HIV treatment nearly eliminates the chance that an infected person will transmit the virus to a partner.
The current study, Cohen says, demonstrates that treatment as prevention doesn't just work at the individual level but also at the community level. And thus, the findings are hugely important for public health.
"It's teaching us something," he says. "You don't have to treat everybody to see a community benefit."
In a companion article, Barnighausen and his team found that overall life expectancy in KwaZulu-Natal rose more than 11 years since the province scaled up HIV treatment in 2004.
But even when studies like these show the broad benefits of anti-HIV medications, major challenges remain in getting drugs to the millions of Africans who need them, including the issue of who pays for these costly drugs.
Questions also remain about how sustainable these programs will be, especially given that HIV-positive patients are going to need to be on those drugs for the rest of their lives.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. The spread of powerful anti-AIDS drugs has had dramatic effects in South Africa, and not only for people with HIV. Two new studies in the Journal of Science show that where antiretroviral therapy is widely available, the risk for new HIV infections drops dramatically. Not only that - overall life expectancy increases by more than a decade. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: The province of KwaZulu Natal is one of the poorest in South Africa. It also has some of the highest rates of HIV anywhere in the world. In some of the villages tucked in to the rounded hills of this province, more than 30 percent of adults are HIV positive. Nine years ago South Africa started offering anti-AIDS drugs in government clinics in KwaZulu Natal.
Now nurse Futi Mlambo runs an HIV drug treatment program at a small clinic in the town of Eshowe. How many people do you have here on treatment?
FUTI MLAMBO: At the moment I think we've got 1,560. But we still have those who are positive but they're not yet on ARV's. Which is plus or minus 2000.
BEAUBIEN: And this is part of why the results of these new studies are so striking. As Mlambo says, the majority of the people infected with HIV still aren't on drug treatment. In fact, South Africa is only offering universal anti-AIDS drug therapy to the sickest of the sick.
South Africa's been widely criticized for dragging its feet in starting these programs. Yet despite this, Jacob Bor and his colleagues at the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies in South Africa, found that this modest, nurse-run program increased overall life expectancy rates by 11 years.
JACOB BOR: And these are really gains that are at a scale really unprecedented in modern history outside of, you know, world wars and famines. And this is a dramatic public health achievement.
BEAUBIEN: An estimated six Million people in South Africa are HIV positive. The government, with some help from international donors, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to provide anti-AIDS drugs to roughly a third of them. One big question about this program is whether it's worth the money. Bor says his study shows that anti-retroviral therapy is an extremely cost-effective public health intervention.
BOR: It costs about $1,600 for a year of life in this community, and that's - that's cheap.
BEAUBIEN: A second report also being published in Science found that providing drug therapy in KwaZulu Natal offers a level of protection against HIV to the rest of the population. This study followed almost 17,000 HIV negative adults for seven years.
The researchers found that in parts of the province that had the highest level of access to HIV drug treatment - zones where 30 percent or more of those in need of treatment were getting it - the chances of catching the virus dropped nearly 40 percent.
MYRON COHEN: I think these are terrifically important studies.
BEAUBIEN: Professor Myron Cohen at the University of North Carolina wasn't involved in these studies, but he published a landmark report in 2011 on couples where one person is HIV positive and the other negative.
Cohen showed that by getting the person with HIV on to treatment, you nearly eliminated the chance that that person's partner would contract the virus. Cohen says these new studies show a similar pattern with HIV drug treatment providing protection for the broader community.
COHEN: So I think this is a homerun, by any nature, and it's teaching us something. You know, you don't have to treat everybody in order to see a community benefit.
BEAUBIEN: But even when studies like these show the broad benefits of anti-AIDS medications, major challenges remain in getting drugs to the millions of Africans who need them. And questions remain about how sustainable these programs will be, given that HIV positive patients are going to need to be on those drugs for the rest of their lives. Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:dcb62810-7f47-4c78-86c7-e9e2de4cf9ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kasu.org/post/whole-community-gets-health-boost-hiv-treatment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954435 | 1,691 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Mysterious Mars Gullies Likely Carved By Carbon Dioxide
These gullies on a Martian sand dune resemble features on Earth that are carved by water. However, they were likely formed by processes related to the winter buildup of carbon-dioxide frost, according to a new study. The top photo was taken in March 2008 (Martian autumn), the middle one in July 2009 (summer) and the bottom photo in October 2010 (winter). All were taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona [Full Story]
Some of the mysterious gullies on Mars are likely carved by frozen carbon dioxide, not melting water, a new study finds.
Researchers tracked recent changes in sand dune gullies in seven different locations on southern Mars. They found that these changes ? which occurred over the past 15 years or so ? popped up most often in winter, which is consistent with the buildup of carbon dioxide frost, not runoff from melting water. [Photos of Martian gullies.]
"Gullies that look like this on Earth are caused by flowing water, but Mars is a different planet with its own mysteries," said study lead author Serina Diniega of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The timing we see points to carbon dioxide, and if the mechanism is linked to carbon dioxide frost at these dune gullies, the same could be true for other gullies on Mars."
Hunting Mars gullies
Diniega analyzed the gullies while a graduate student at the University of Arizona, before joining NASA at JPL. She and her team studied a set of gullies in southern regions of Mars. The channels range in length from 165 feet (50.3 meters) to more than 2 miles (3.2 km).
The researchers tracked changes in the gullies by comparing photos taken at various times by two different NASA spacecraft: the Mars Global Surveyor, which operated from 1997 to 2006, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling Mars since 2006.
The team spotted changes in 18 different gullies. These alterations occurred primarily in the southern Martian winter, when frozen carbon dioxide would be building up on the dunes.
Photos taken in spring, summer and autumn ? times when water could conceivably be melting and running down dune faces ? showed no new activity, researchers said.
The research is detailed in the November issue of the journal Geology.
Landscape shapers: Water then, carbon dioxide now?
Scientists have suggested various explanations for modern gullies on Mars since they were discovered in 2000. Some of the proposed mechanisms involve water, some carbon dioxide and some neither.
Scientists believe water has covered the surface of Mars at various points in the distant past. Ancient seas, for example, could explain why the planet's northern lowlands hold extensive sedimentary deposits that resemble those seen in the abyssal plains of Earth's ocean floors.
Today, however, the Red Planet is cold and dry. It has deposits of water ice, but scientists haven't confirmed areas with liquid water currently on the surface.
The new results suggest carbon dioxide could be shaping the Martian landscape today ? and they call for further study into how this could be happening, researchers said.
"One possibility is that a pile of carbon dioxide frost accumulating on a dune gets thick enough to avalanche down and drag other material with it," Diniega said. Other suggested mechanisms are that gas from sublimating frost could lubricate a flow of dry sand or erupt in puffs energetic enough to trigger slides, researchers added.
- Gallery: Water on Mars Imagined
- Top 10 Facts About NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Oceans of Ancient Mars May Have Sprung From Slow Leaks
MORE FROM SPACE.com | <urn:uuid:91c150b1-f750-4229-a55c-fd9f5ae94dc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.space.com/9426-mysterious-mars-gullies-carved-carbon-dioxide.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942679 | 786 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Whalers win injunction against Sea Shepherd
Japan's whalers have won an injunction in a United States court against Sea Shepherd, restraining the anti-whaling group from attacking their ships in the Southern Ocean.
The decision by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was described as "somewhat astonishing" by Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson on Tuesday.
It follows an appeal to the court by Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research against the decision of a US District Court judge refusing an injunction earlier this year.
Chief Judge, Tashima Kozinski said in the decision that Sea Shepherd, Mr Watson, and anyone acting for them, were "enjoined from physically attacking any vessel engaged by Plaintiffs the Institute of Cetacean Research, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, Lt., Tomoyuki Ogawa or Toshiyuki Miura in the Southern Ocean."
Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha operates the whaling fleet for the ICR, While Mr Ogawa and Mr Miura are believed to be senior officers.
The order also enjoins any person or vessel from navigating in a manner that is likely to endanger the safe navigation of the whaling fleet.
"In no event shall defendants approach plaintiffs any closer than 500 yards when defendants are navigating on the open sea," it says.
The injunction is to remain in place until the court decides on the merits of the Japanese case opposing Sea Shepherd in Washington State, where the group is headquartered.
Mr Watson said the situation was complex, covering as it did Dutch and Australian registered ships, and an international crew.
"It's somewhat astonishing that a US court can assume jurisdiction over non-US ships in international waters," he said.
He said that despite leaving port and moving around the waters of Japan, it appeared that the Japanese fleet was yet to depart for the Antarctic this year.
"I think just maybe the Japanese fleet was waiting for this order before sailing," he said. "They will find when they arrive that we will stand firm in our defence of the whales." | <urn:uuid:3afd470d-a1b4-4338-aaf6-41f7ee28bed1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/whale-watch/whalers-win-injunction-against-sea-shepherd-20121218-2bkrx.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972164 | 420 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Twenty minutes of daily, vigorous physical activity over just three months can reduce a child's risk of diabetes as well as his total body fat - including dangerous, deep abdominal fat – but 40 minutes works even better, researchers report.
"If exercise is good for you, then more exercise ought to be better for you and that is what we found for most of our outcomes," said Dr Catherine Davis, clinical health psychologist at the Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Health Sciences University.
Paediatric and adult studies have shown the metabolic benefits of aerobic activity but had yet to dissect differences in the dose response, or the amount of activity needed to elicit a given benefit. The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at 222 overweight, previously inactive seven- to 11-year olds in the Augusta, Ga., area and found more is better.
"Obesity is a growing public health crisis that is affecting youth throughout the United States, and we know that obesity can contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes," said Dr Michael Lauer, Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Division of Cardiovascular Sciences of the National Institute of Health.
How the research was done
"This research adds to the body of evidence that physical activity improves children's health, that longer periods of exercise provide a greater benefit and that increased physical activity among overweight and obese children could stave off the onset of type 2 diabetes."
A third of the study participants maintained their typically sedentary lifestyle; a third began a 20-minute heart-rate-raising, after-school exercise routine for three months; and a third exercised for 40 minutes after school. While their primary focus was insulin resistance, a risk factor for diabetes, the researchers also measured total body fat, visceral fat and aerobic fitness over the study's course.
Children who exercised for 40 minutes had a 22% reduction in insulin resistance versus the controls, while the 20-minute group experienced an 18 percent reduction, said Davis, the study's lead author.
The extra 20 minutes also helped the children lose more total body fat and visceral fat while fitness, which appeared driven by intensity rather than duration, gained a similar boost from both time periods. Benefits were gained without restrictive diets and worked equally well in black and white boys and girls.
How the research kept the teams busy
Davis' research team kept both groups moving with running and tag games and modified sports. "Regulation sports tend to have kids standing around a lot waiting for the ball. We had enough balls so everyone was moving all the time," she said. They kept it fun, giving non-food rewards, such as small toys, for children who kept their heart rates high. "It had to be fun or they would not keep coming," said Davis, noting the 94% retention rate of study participants.
She hopes the evidence of the solid health benefits of a fun, vigorous and relatively short exercise routine will be used to design public health interventions for a society in which one-third of elementary school children are overweight.
"It's practical in the sense that we were able to quantify the dose required to make these changes," Davis said. "If you are able to get kids active for 20 minutes every day in school, whether through physical education or taking a running break during lunch, that can make a real difference." She noted that while schools are a great place to start, jam-packed curricula likely mean a 40-minute exercise routine will require after-hours programmes as well.
"You can reach a lot of kids by making changes at school," Davis said. "We don't want this to just be for athletic or coordinated kids but for all kids, especially the ones who are less likely to be on a sports team."
Growing rate of obesity
Childhood obesity rates in the United States have been climbing for more than a decade. While they seem to be plateauing, the unprecedented levels have serious consequences for children's health and longevity, Davis said. A primary example is the emergence of type 2 diabetes, previously considered an adult, lifestyle-related problem with serious implications for cardiovascular health and more.
One of the first indications of trouble is increased insulin resistance, how much insulin the pancreas must produce to enable glucose circulating in the blood to become energy for the cells. In this study, researchers showed a benefit of 40 minutes of daily exercise on the disposition index – the ratio of insulin resistance to the body's ability to secrete insulin – a proven predictor of diabetes development in adults.
"When your body is no longer able to secrete enough insulin to overcome your body's resistance to it, that's when it becomes diabetes," Davis said, noting that in insulin resistance, pancreases must work overtime producing extra insulin to convert excess blood glucose to usable energy. Without sufficient insulin, a vicious cycle results as energy-starved cells increase the appetite and people eat more creating even more glucose to convert.
"Exercise basically gives the pancreas a break and could prevent or delay type 2 diabetes as long as people remain active," Davis said. Longer-term and follow-up studies are needed to find out what happens with these children over time and how to help them sustain a healthy lifestyle.
In 2005, a federal panel, co-chaired by Dr William B. Strong, a paediatric cardiologist and retired Professor at the Medical College of Georgia at GHSU, recommended 60 minutes or more of daily vigorous physical activity for school-age children. The supervised 40-minute exercise sessions in the study likely resulted in a similar amount of cumulative activity, Davis said. "And, unfortunately 40 minutes is a lot more activity than many children are getting these days."
(EurekAlert, September 2012)
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Diabetes and its effects on the family | <urn:uuid:168929fa-3bc5-4c38-a6e5-87584788205e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.health24.com/Parenting/Child/News/Longer-exercise-is-good-for-kids-20130210 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963123 | 1,193 | 3.125 | 3 |
|The farms of Bobbie and Carol Coble Sr. of Stafford and Randy and Jan Mooney of Rogersville will be joining 91 others recognized as century farms in Southwest Missouri. Family representatives will accept fence signs and certificates at a ceremony scheduled for 3 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2009 at the Ozark Empire Fair in the East Hall of the E-Plex.
A display inside of the E-Plex will highlight the history of century farms in Greene County. Other century farms in Southwest Missouri will be announced by the end of August.
The Missouri Century Farm Program annually recognizes Missouri farms that are still productive and have been in the same family for 100 years or more. When the Missouri Centennial Farm program was launched in 1976 there were 2,850 Missouri farm owners recognized. University of Missouri Extension renewed the Century Farm program in 1986 and since that time, nearly 3,000 more farms have been added to the program.
The Coble farm will be honored for 60 acres first purchased and farmed in 1892 by great grandfather, Ed Popejoy. Previous recognition already has been given to another portion of their acreage first farmed in 1872. The Mooneys will be honored for 40 qualifying acres first purchased and farmed in 1850 by their great grandfather M.M. Humble.
How to qualify
To qualify for the Missouri Century Farm designation, farms must have been family owned (direct descendants only) for 100 years or more and have at least 40 acres of the original land still making a financial contribution to the overall farm income.
To learn more about the program go online here. | <urn:uuid:e6cec3fa-1665-4423-8de5-3ca7d927eb6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.joplinindependent.com/display_article.php/d-burton1248711450 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956765 | 327 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Date of publication: November 2012
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: Welsh genealogy is usually inclu
Welsh genealogy is usually included with its English cousin, but there are significant differences between the two. Anyone wishing to trace their Welsh ancestry will encounter peculiarities that are not covered in books on English family history. With separate systems of archive, differences in civil registrations, Nonconformist registers, surnames and place names; there are a variety of factors that make Welsh genealogy a unique subject. This new title from renowned family historian and genealogist Bruce Durie delves into all these subjects, as well as the basics, to provide the ideal book for local and family historians setting out on a journey in Welsh ancestry for the first time.
The most comprehensive and reader friendly guide to Welsh genealogy to date.
Written by one of the most respected authorities on family history and genealogy in the UK.
Showing the distinctive differences between Welsh and English genealogy. | <urn:uuid:6e31eed9-cd8f-48ba-bc4d-26d03d09a053> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/BOOKSHOP/details.aspx?titleId=2917 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950071 | 202 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The progress of women in the last century has dramatically increased the opportunities available to women, yet women's participation in positions of public influence continues to lag behind. Although women account for nearly 50 percent of the workforce, they hold on average just 20.3 percent of seats in the world's national parliaments as of 31 December 2012, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Zonta International believes young women are the key to women's advancement in the field of public service. The Young Women in Public Affairs (YWPA) Awards program recognizes young women for their demonstrated leadership skills and commitment to public service and civic causes and encourages them to continue their participation in public and political life.
Since the program's inception, Zonta has given 637 awards to 565 young women from 50 countries.
Established in 1990 by Past International President Leneen Forde, the Young Women in Public Affairs Award honors young women of age 16 to 19, who demonstrate a commitment to leadership in public policy, government and volunteer organizations. The program operates at the Zonta club, district/region and international levels. Zonta clubs provide awards for club recipients, and district/region and international awards are funded by the Zonta International Foundation. District recipients receive US$1,000, and ten international recipients are selected from the district/region recipients to receive awards of US$4,000 each.
Women of any nationality who are students of age 16-19 on 1 April each year, studying and living, or working in a Zonta district/region and who demonstrate evidence of the following are eligible to apply. Note that applicants from geographic areas where no clubs are located will be considered and also eligible for the District/Region Award.
- Active commitment to volunteerism
- Experience in local or student government
- Volunteer leadership achievements
- Knowledge of Zonta International and its programs
- Advocating in Zonta International's mission of advancing the status of women worldwide
The application must start with a Zonta club. All application materials must be received at a Zonta club by the printed deadline. Zonta clubs select one application to send to the district governor/region representative. A district/region evaluating committee reviews the applications and selects one applicant per district/region to submit to Zonta International Headquarters. The Zonta International YWPA Committee recommends ten international recipients from the district applications to the Zonta International Board. After approval by the Zonta International Board, the Zonta International Foundation provides awards and certificates to the district and international recipients. >>Locate a Zonta Club Near You
Applications for the 2013 Young Women in Public Affairs Award must be received by the assigned deadline that is declared by the applicant's local Zonta club. The 2013 recipients will be chosen by 1 July 2013.
Young Women in Public Affairs Awards are made possible through generous contributions from Zontians, Zonta Clubs and friends of Zonta. | <urn:uuid:7cae1a71-762c-4ca0-93dd-a93bf7fc063a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zonta.org/WhatWeDo/InternationalPrograms/YoungWomeninPublicAffairsAwards.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929501 | 609 | 1.875 | 2 |
February was Black History Month, but March marks the transition into Women’s History Month. If you didn’t catch our displays last month, stop by and see what’s new.
One book in particular that serves as the perfect segue from one theme to the other is Sister Days by Janus Adams. Subtitled “365 Inspired Moments in African American Women’s History,” the book is written in diary style, with short anecdotes for every day of the year. For example, Philippa Schuyler, who was declared a prodigy at age 3, is featured on July 29th, while Era Bell Thompson, who was inducted into the Iowa Hall of Fame, is the woman of the day on April 30th. Personally, I had not heard about either of these remarkable individuals!
Another book that’s received a lot of press lately is the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It’s a true story of a poor woman who died of cervical cancer. Before her death in 1951, a sample of her cancerous tissue was taken, but without her knowledge or consent. Her cells, known as HeLa cells, not only survived in the lab, but thrived, providing scientists with a building block for many medical breakthroughs, starting with the cure for polio.
This is just a small sampling of a wide variety of materials celebrating women of achievement throughout the years. Come check some out! | <urn:uuid:403f10a9-42d0-4338-9d32-1338a6dd3511> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.davenportlibrary.com/reference/2011/03/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973938 | 303 | 2.484375 | 2 |
A&E Custom Manufacturing, Kansas City, Kan., isn't much different from other metal fabricators today. It is looking for the right skilled employees.
"If we could find the people, we would probably add four to five employees," said John Jaixen, A&E's general manager, in December. Specifically, he would bring on talented welders for the second shift and inventory help—if he could find the right people.
Needless to say, A&E isn't alone. In October 2012 the Boston Consulting Group issued a report saying that manufacturing companies had 80,000 to 100,000 open positions for skilled workers. That's dwarfed by the 600,000 openings cited in a 2011 survey from Deloitte Consulting and The Manufacturing Institute. Sure, that's a big disparity, but the fact is that the current manufacturing workforce isn't getting any younger; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average age of manufacturing workers in the U.S. at 56.
A&E, like other manufacturing companies, isn't interested in simply adding warm bodies. They want people who have good character, a strong commitment to do the job, and the competence to be able to execute job functions. Steve Hasty, A&E's president and owner, calls it the three C's.
"If they have the ability, we can train them," Hasty said. "But we are only going to train people that are of good moral repute, good character, and can get along with people."
The company has taken on the training initiative itself. It isn't going to wait for the situation to get better with hopes that key personnel will show up eventually. Like any organization involved in continuous improvement programs, A&E is looking to get the most out of its current employee lineup:
- It regularly asks its machine tool vendors to visit the A&E facility to teach employees how to work with new equipment.
- When employees need extended training on a piece of equipment or on programming software, the company sends them to a class at the machine tool builder's headquarters.
- The company brings in an outside consultant to assist with welding certifications as management looks to beef up its capabilities.
Jaixen said that these training efforts have proven invaluable in helping to maintain productivity levels in the face of more jobs hitting the shop floor. He mentioned one incident in which the welding foreman was injured in a motorcycle crash, and another welder with almost as much welding skill stepped up to assume the leadership position. When the foreman returned to work, his temporary replacement was named the lead welder on the second shift.
The goal is to have people with the right skill level and leadership ability in positions where they can move into key roles. It keeps the fabrications moving through the shop floor, and employees are engaged because they know they are working on a career, not just a metal part.
"It helps the morale. And when people see that employees get opportunities, they understand that is the way that we operate," Jaixen said. | <urn:uuid:cf132799-3052-429c-b8eb-edfa37991439> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.thefabricator.com/?p=3965 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976474 | 626 | 1.546875 | 2 |
At Rajneeshpuram in 1983 something from the beyond entered into me. Since then I have not been the same person anymore. My old goals and desires have faded away. Things which were meaningful to me before, have lost their importance.
But when I talk to people about meditation, silence, and what keeps us away from it, a great new energy and clearness starts rising in me. Every cell of my body becomes alive. I myself become a listener to what is said through me, and I feel grateful and very loving towards the people with whom I can share.
Beloved master, have I become a flute, an instrument for the beyond? Or is my ego playing a horrible joke on me? Please comment.
It certainly has changed your life. You have become a flute to the divine – because if it was a projection of the ego, the ego would not have allowed you to ask the question. And the ego never becomes a vehicle, a medium, a flute. It is not a hollow bamboo. The ego is very solid, does not allow itself to be used by higher forces. It can exist only in the very mundane world. To allow the higher forces means you are entering into the sacred, going beyond the mundane. The ego cannot go outside the mundane world. And its very fabric is to praise itself, to brag about itself even when it is not valid.
For example, poetry descends in you but the ego grabs it and proclaims to the whole world, “I have written it.” No great poetry has been written by any ego; nothing great can come out of it. The great comes only when the ego gives way, when it is not obstructing, when it is absent, on leave.
It is said about Rabindranath that whenever he wrote, he would close his door and inform the house that unless he opens the door, nobody is allowed even to knock on it. It was a big family. Rabindranath’s grandfather was given the title of raja by the British government, although he was not a king – but he was so rich and he had so much land that he could have purchased a few maharajas. His family was very big; almost one hundred members were living in the palace.
And it was a very strange family. Rabindranath has written in his memoirs, “We have seen strangers coming into the family as guests and then never leaving. And my grandfather was such that he would say, ‘It does not matter. He must be some distant relative. Perhaps we have forgotten, he has forgotten, but destiny has brought us together. Let him live here.’”
So the family went on growing. Anybody could come and say, “I am related to you, a far off, distant relation.” And he was received not only as a guest, but once he entered the house it was against the culture to ask him, “When are you going to leave?” It was not asked.
It is not the culture of Mumbai. In Mumbai, the first thing people ask is, “When are you going to leave?” You have not even settled in the chair, your luggage is still in the taxi, and they are asking when you are going to leave – because tickets have to be advance-booked.
Those were different days, and a different kind of people. So nobody ever asked when you were going to leave. And why should one leave? Living in the palace of a king, living like kings, every need was fulfilled. | <urn:uuid:0cb2ac83-dd84-4a38-a1a2-c12ad8d48ca2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://osho.com/library/online-library-living-poetry-leave-1e489a70-f51.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992587 | 745 | 1.71875 | 2 |