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A record number of Americans signed up to take Social Security benefits last year -- 75 percent of them are younger than full retirement age, which is 66.
The huge number of first-time filers combined with the reduction in contributions because of high unemployment has resulted in Social Security taking in less than it paid out for the first time ever.
Democratic Sen. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, told the Associated Press that it's easy to understand why so many people are tapping Social Security early. "They're not working. They've been laid off. Their plant closed."
But who can live on reduced Social Security? It's lousy retirement planning.
You lose one-half of 1 percent for each month you start your Social Security before your full retirement age. For example, if your full retirement age is 66 and you sign up for Social Security when you are 62, you would only get 75 percent of your full benefit.
Social Security offers this illustration: A $1,000 benefit payable at 66 would be reduced to $750 if the recipient opted to take it at 62, and the spousal benefit, which would be $500 at 66, is reduced to $350 at 62.
Not only do people who file early take a permanent haircut on their benefits, but also if they work plus collect Social Security and earn more than $14,160, they lose $1 in benefits for every $2 they make.
Once they reach full retirement age, they can earn whatever they want, and their Social Security benefit will not be reduced.
Unemployment is tough. I see a lot of it here in the Detroit area where I live. But I also see an increasing number of opportunities for people who are capable to get training for new kinds of employment. And I see plenty of available service jobs that aren't high skill. The work is clearly not a thrill a minute, but the financial reward seems worth it.
It's simple math: The longer you work, the more likely it is that you won't live in poverty in retirement. Why people who aren't wealthy or sick quit early baffles me.
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- You are plants. Your survival depends on you collecting all of the cards.
- You will need to choose 3 people from the class to be drought, lack of nutrients and a seed eating bird! They could wear coloured sports tops so they stand out.
- Get a member of the class to scatter the cards.
- You have three minutes to run around and collect up the cards. If drought, lack of nutrients or the bird tags you, then you have to throw your cards down and start again.
- The survivors are those who have picked up one of each card.
The survival game - an outdoor, running around game!Make six sets of the following cards. Decorate with pictures and laminate.
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Stored Grain Pests Probed in WA Research03 May 2012
AUSTRALIA - Western Australian research investigating the ecology of major pests of stored grain is expected to result in improved management practices and minimise the development of resistance to fumigants.
The Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) and bulk handler the CBH Group are collaborating in the research which will help ensure Australian cereal grain continues to meet market requirements, including nil tolerance to live insects in export grain.
The study is part of a bigger insect ecology project within the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCNPB), of which the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is a partner.
Led by Greg Daglish of the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF), it involves research in the GRDC’s northern, southern and western regions.
Gimme Walter from The University of Queensland is providing ecological expertise and access to population genetics skills and resources.
The insect ‘ecology’ being studied under the project refers to the broad biological issues associated with the pests – including emigration, immigration, reproduction rates, timing of flight and other issues.
The WA component of the project, which started in 2011, is studying the insect ecology of two beetle species - the lesser grain borer (LGB) (Rhyzopertha dominica) and the rust red flour beetle (RFB) (Tribolium castaneum).
Both these insects are impediments to market access and are capable of developing resistance to phosphine, commonly used for insect control.
In the study, the researchers are looking at ‘gene flow’, which refers to the way in which distinct strains of the insects (which could include phosphine-resistant strains) spread, and where they go.
DAFWA senior entomologist Rob Emery, who is leading the WA insect ecology project with Ern Kostas, of the CBH Group, said the WA study provided an opportunity to investigate gene flow on a large geographical scale.
Mr Emery said he hoped the results of the study would assist fumigation practices, including timing of applications.
“Information about insect movements and behaviour, generated through trapping work, could help us conduct better timed fumigation of stored grain and avoid unnecessary fumigations which increase the risk of resistance developing,” he said.
Mr Emery said traps baited with species-specific pheromone lures were being used to monitor flight activity at 12 sites at CBH storage facilities throughout the WA grainbelt.
He said it was important to investigate gene flow in the species to help determine how closely related different insect populations were, and therefore whether resistance was spreading between sites, or developing independently.
"Unlike the eastern states where phosphine resistance is more widespread, strong resistance has only been found in five WA locations in the last five years, including three sites closely located on farms near Beacon," Mr Emery said.
“So far it is unknown whether the three strongly resistant populations near Beacon have developed independently – due to similar management practices – or from movement of resistant insects between the farms."
“The insect ecology project will provide us with more information about how resistance develops and spreads.”
Mr Emery said the research would also reveal whether resistant populations of insects could spread from a farm to bushland, and then reinfest other farms.
“If the insects prove to be very mobile and capable of surviving in bushland and reinfesting grain on nearby properties, this threatens the WA grain industry’s ability to maintain a ‘clean pipeline’ of insect-free grain,” he said.TheCropSite News Desk
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Community is a important part of any new growth market. Cloud On A String is a mastermind group that allows technology leaders, marketing managers, and software developers to come together on neutral ground. This is the forum to discuss advantages and disadvantages of platforms. Compare platforms based not only on features, but on support, and cost and difficulty of implementation.
We believe that the advancement of all platforms happens through the interaction of community and providers. Because Cloud On A String has solicited members from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, to participate in the discussion on this forum, not only will you advance your understanding of cloud technologies, but you contribute to the advancement of these platform providers.
What Will Be Discussed:
Theory of cloud computing, managing developers in a cloud environment, work flow, test methodologies, Quality of Service / Quality of Experience and other programming related topics.
Enterprise Resource Planning for cloud and hybrid environments, right scaling, infinite scale architecture and other scalability topics.
Terminology, vocabulary and messaging for marketing, management, and administrators as a way to market, gain buy-in, or distribute information about cloud computing.
What Won’t Be Discussed:
Code level issues, specific syntax of applications, solutions to bugs. This isn’t to say that we won’t solve problems, but these should be at the architecture level, not at the code level. The goal of this group is to address the kinds of issues that are not discussed on StackOverflow. Not because those aren’t important, but there are places to do that already.
Who Should Join:
CTO’s, PM’s, IT Admins, Enterprise Marketing Execs, Students, VC’s, Cloud App Developers, anyone who wants to understand cloud in the big picture.
Who Should Not Join:
People looking to have their code debugged, and spammers. Spammers should also note that there is a “Marketer” tier. If you spam the list and you didn’t sign up for the Marketer tier you will be sent a bill for using that tier with out authorization. Read that section carefully.
Standard: This is what you want in most cases. Participate in discussions, join conference calls, attend events.
Student / Educator: This is only for people with a .edu email address who are current students or educator. (if you are a student outside the US and don’t have a .edu contact us to prove your status)
Organization / Unlimited: If you have a team of 6 or more, this is for you. You can have as many members as you have employees in your organization.
Marketer: This for people who want to market to the list, not marketing people who want to contribute. For example with the standard membership as a CMO or PM you could ask, “Which is more important to you SLA, or Support Response time”. With this tier you could send “We have the best SLA and Response time Buy Our products”. If you spam the list and you aren’t a member at this tier you will be responsible for the difference in cost between your membership level and this one.
Standard + Support: You get the standard membership, but you can also receive email support from www.blackwaterops.com about architecture and best practices. Generally with in 24 hours, but always within 1.5 business days.
Cloud On A String is a BlackWaterOps community project. We have been building communities around technology for over 15 years. We believe that through moderation of groups such as this one we can help advance the state of the industry and help shape the way providers and users interact. Providing a neutral ground we hope that competitors can agree to speak the same metrics even if they don’t agree on philosophy. We hope that developers can share vital information that will help others reach their goals on time and under budget. We hope to find friends and colleagues who will help each other along the way.
We are always looking for people to host meet ups, be presenters, and generally facilitate community building. If you want to help out contact us. email@example.com
Copyright CloudOnAString.com, 2012 Read our Terms of Service
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In 1702, settles from Newark purchased a tract of land,
which encompassed the areas known today as Caldwell, Livingston and West Essex.
Because the tract resembled the shape of a horse’s neck, the area was named
“horse neck”. A major controversy immediately arose over the ownership of
the land. The settlers claimed that the land belonged to them since they had
negotiated with the Indians for it, while the Proprietors of the Eastern
Division of New Jersey, backed by the English Crown, claimed the region as
theirs under the royal title. Riots broke out and the bitterness continued until
1776, when the issue was finally settled during the American Revolution.
In 1811, seven hamlets got together and petitioned the legislature for the
formation of a new township. On February 5,1813, the legislature adopted the
formation of the township of Livingston, which included the small villages of
Centerville, Cheapside, Morehousetown, Northfield, Squiretown, Teedtown, and
Washington Place. The new Township was named in honor of William Livingston, the
first Governor of New Jersey, who had supported the settler’s claims during
the House neck riots.
Farming & lumbering were the main sources of income for the Township,
although shoemaking was a major industry in the area during the civil War.
The dairy business became Livingston’s leading industry after the civil
War and remained so well into the 20th century. Milk delivery wagons
from Livingston made daily rounds in Orange and Newark.
The Township was linked to the market in Orange and Newark by roads, which today
are still the town’s main arteries. Northfield Road, which is an extension of
the Indian Minisink Trail, is thought to be the oldest thoroughfare. In 1806,
the Newark and Mt. Pleasant Turnpike, now known as Route 10, became one of New
Jersey’s first turnpikes.
Because it was located between primary rail lines and was also on the wrong side
of the mountains, Livingston’s population grew slowly. From 1813 to 1920, the
population had only grown from 1,000 to 1,500.
The area changed into a commuter’s suburb following the construction of
hard-surfaced highways. Housing developments began in the 1920’s and by 1930;
Livingston’s population had doubled. Today, Livingston is a developed
community, which has nearly reached its targeted population of 35,000.
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Adam Zoll: For Morningstar, I'm Adam Zoll. Financial fraud costs older Americans billions of dollars a year, and even those with financial smarts can become victims. Here to talk with me today via Skype is Doug Shadel. Doug is director of AARP Washington and author of the book, Outsmarting the Scam Artists. Doug, thanks for being here today.
Doug Shadel: My pleasure.
Zoll: Doug, when most people think of people who might become victimized by a financial scam artist, they probably think of someone who maybe is not terribly financially literate, someone who maybe is even gullible about financial matters, but your research has found that, that's not necessarily the case.
Shadel: That's right. We did a study with the FINRA Foundation several years ago, and what we did was we surveyed known victims of investment fraud and compared their responses with just the general public. We had operated on the assumption that victims of fraud would be less financially literate if they would have less money. We found just the opposite to be the case, that actually victims of investment fraud are more financially literate than the general public. They tend to have higher levels of income, more assets, all the things that seem counterintuitive to the victim population.
In subsequent studies, we have found that while the victims may be more financially literate, they're less persuasion literate. We can get into that if you want to, but we've done a lot of research on this whole business of how con men persuade. And I think that's part of the secret to why people who you'd think would not fall for it do fall for it.
Zoll: Let's talk about that for a moment. When you say "persuasion literate," what exactly do you mean?
Shadel: Well, we did a series of studies. The law enforcement gave us 500 undercover fraud tapes of various scam artists. What they do is when an older person in particular gets called by scam artists, if they fall once, they get hundreds of calls. What the investigators would do is have those calls forwarded to the investigator's desk, and when the phone rang the next time the scam artists would call, the investigators would pretend to be the elderly victim and tape record all the calls. Well, they gave us hundreds of these calls, and we transcribed them and coded them to see whether there are common persuasion tactics that are true for all of these different types of investment scams. And we found in fact that they were.
The next step was to, say, expose victims to those and see whether they're more interested in them than the nonvictims, and that's what we found. So, for example, one of the persuasion tactics we call "phantom fixation." A phantom is something that you want, but you can't have and this is the most common tactic we found in all the fraud tapes, where they will dangle a 10-to-1 return or 5-to-1 risk-free return. Well, when we use those same statements and expose the victims, people we knew who have lost money to fraud, to those same persuasion tactics--the phantom claim--they show increased interest beyond what the general public would show even after they've been taken. So, this has given rise to us going out and doing a lot of talks where we say, "Here is the persuasion tactics that people use. If you see that coming from a distance, beware."Read Full Transcript
Zoll: When you talk about these phantom persuasion tactics, are there certain types of investments that are particularly popular among scam artists for use? For example, gold has done phenomenally well recently. Is that something that might be subject to this phantom persuasion tactic?
Shadel: Yes. I think gold uses fear, which I'll get to in a minute. They use phantom and fear, but the one that comes to my mind is oil and gas. "You can get a 10-to-1 return. We're doing more domestic production than ever." All of which is true. The best scam always has an element of truth to it.
I've seen victim lists. When you think about an oil-and-gas scam, and people roll their eyes and say, "Who would fall for that?" So they drill a shallow well, then you give them $50,000, and they never find anything. But when you look at the list of victims of these types of scams, it meets like a Who's Who of American business: presidents of companies, heads of big law firms. And we suspect that part of the reason they fall for this is they're willing to delegate to somebody else, because they're very busy themselves, but they're also sort of really vulnerable to those emotional appeals.
When we interviewed con men--one of the big myths, I think is that women are more emotional than men--the con men say just the opposite. Men can get on this big roller coaster, they're insecure, and they fall for greed a lot, which is the phantom fixation thing. And so, believe it or not, [oil and gas] is one that uses phantom the most.
The gold coin scam is one that we're particularly worried about with our seniors though right now because any time there is a downturn in the economy, the sale of precious metals is the number-one scam out there, and these past three years have been no exception. You get bad guys who are advertising on radio stations that say, "You can't trust the stock market. What can you trust during periods of economic instability? You can trust precious metals." And then people will call in; sometimes they'll advertise on Christian radio stations. People will call in, and they'll already be in a state of fear, and then the people on the phone will just ramp up that fear by saying "You should invest all your money in gold."
The particular genius of the scam, and there's a lot of companies doing this right now, is that you might buy say $10,000 worth of gold coins over the phone. You never see them, but you're in this state of fear, and so you do it anyway. And then you get these coins, and the con men say, "What are you going to do with them? You should put them in a safety deposit box in the bank and forget about them for five years."
The problem is that they're marking them up 300%-500%, but you don't really know their value, and so you put these coins away and don't even know you've been taken. You received coins, so you don't think that you've been taken, but that's a huge scam that's out there right now.
And the antidote to it, of course, is if you're interested in investing in precious metals, go to a local coin dealer, where you can actually go to a storefront and evaluate these things and touch and feel them.
Zoll: You mentioned particular susceptibility of older Americans. What are some of the other factors? Does cognitive decline play a role in their susceptibility for these kinds of scams, as well?
Shadel: Yeah. I think cognitive decline does play a role for some people in these scams. There was a recent study out of UCLA by a woman named Shelley Taylor, one of the top health psychologists in the country, in which she showed older and younger people images of trustworthy and untrustworthy faces. And they've done this a lot down there. So they have actual data that shows if you take the general public, this type of face people are going to say is untrustworthy and this type of face is trustworthy.
The younger people were able to spot the trustworthy and the untrustworthy consistent with the general population, but the older people were not. They could spot a trustworthy face, but what others thought was untrustworthy, they thought was trustworthy. Then they put these same people into a scanner and tried to identify what was going on in the brain when they made these evaluations, and the part of the brain that is connected or implicated with this trust simply didn't light up in the older people. This is some of the first physiological neural scientific evidence we have that there might be actual physiological factors at play here for why people fall for fraud, which is pretty interesting.
Zoll: Doug, let's talk about ways that people can defend themselves from financial fraud and to be on guard for it. Are there certain words, approaches, or techniques that should be an immediate red flag for somebody who is approached about an investment opportunity and maybe is not on the up and up?
Shadel: Yes, there absolutely is. The whole premise of our prevention program is if you can see malicious persuasion attempts coming from a distance, you're much better able to defend against it. And because these scammers change the way they operate all the time, that's precisely why we did the tape analysis I was describing earlier where we analyzed what are the tactics that are common for all of these scams.
I mentioned phantom fixation, dangling wealth that everybody wants but can't have. But another one is source credibility. So you might get a lot of claims saying," Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are the people who are investing in this the most." They make mention of the names of big banks. Con men want to wrap a cloak of legitimacy around your operation, especially if it's not legitimate, to make it more believable.
Another tactic that we found that's common in these scam operations is something called social proof, where you'll have claims that everybody's doing it, that there's a line around the block. Remember the old Charles Ponzi clippings from The Boston Globe, back 80 years ago now, where there was a line around the block. Well that was a Ponzi scheme. That was one the first Ponzi schemes. We have this automatic thing in our head that says, "If everybody's doing something, then it must be good."
A lot of these persuasion tactics that we've identified are true in all advertising. So the question becomes, how do you sort out legitimate use of these persuasion tactics from illegitimate use? We've done these partnerships with FINRA, the SEC, and local state regulators, and they all say the same thing: Before you make an investment, regardless of the claim you're hearing, you have to do two things.
The first thing you have to do is ask for their registration number. In order to sell investments, in any state, you have to be registered with the state's securities division, and you have to be registered with FINRA. So they have to have a registration number. The second thing you have to make sure of is that the investment that they're selling is also registered. So both the broker calling you and the investment itself have to be registered.
And the second piece of advice is you have to check. Don't just take their word for it. I interviewed a con man, who's in the book, Outsmarting the Scam Artists, that we published last year, and he said, "All the time people would say, 'Are you registered with the SEC?' And I would always have the same response, which is of course, 'I'm registered with the SEC and the minute you get off this phone I want you to call the SEC and verify that I'm registered. Here's my full name and everything.'"
I said to him, "Well, but you weren't registered because you're a con man." And he says, "98% of the time they're not going to check. They just want to hear me say that I'm registered." People don't check. He had this whole litany of how victims are different than nonvictims.
Victims don't ask a lot of questions, they answer a lot of questions. Victims don't look for why the offer is a scam, they look for why it's legitimate, and the most important thing he said was, victims--I guess he called them buyers, that's what he means--victims aren't readers, and readers aren't victims. But what does he mean by that? They don't read the paperwork. They want you to tell them what it says. Well that's another big clue about how you're going to avoid these scams: Be a reader, so that you won't be a victim.
Zoll: What about financial fraud that takes place between people who're familiar with each other; maybe close friends, even relatives? How can people be on guard for something like that? That's obviously a very touchy subject.
Shadel: Well it really is, and it reminds me of one of the central things that the con men have said in the past, is they want to get people under the ether. They understand that older people in particular are more susceptible. They wear their emotions on their sleeve, more closer to the surface.
I think this is why a lot of the scams that involve relatives are so hard to stop because it's embroiled in all of that emotion from a lifetime of growing up together and so forth. You don't want to say, "Gee, you can't trust anyone, you can't even trust your son or daughter who might be trying to steal from you," But it is worth noting that over half of the victimization that goes on in the financial-exploitation arena is done by somebody who has some kind of a fiduciary relationship to you or some kind of a familiar relationship. If you don't have that kind of familiar relationship, the broker will try and get it.
I remember working on a case, we did a video about a guy who lost everything he had to his broker, and he had this broker for 25 years. This broker had gone to his daughter's wedding, and her high school graduation. He knew this guy for a long period of time. What had happened is that the recession hit and all of a sudden this broker who had been trustworthy, started selling away. That is, he started selling bogus investments that would pay him a higher commission and the guy didn't check. This brings us back to the prevention tip, right. Yes, your broker is registered, you trust him, but are the investments he's bringing to you also registered? If [this investor had] just done that one step, you wouldn't have been taken.
Zoll: In the age of Bernie Madoff, and other scandals that we've seen, maybe people are a little bit more aware of the bad things that can happen even in a trusting relationship these days.
Shadel: I think that's right, and in the Bernie Madoff case there were an awful lot of people who invested in that completely blind based on their familiar relationships with others who had invested in it. And all they had to do was really ask one question beyond the registration question, which is: "What are you investing in? It gives you exactly a 12% return every month. What is it you're investing in?" A lot of people couldn't answer that question. So that's another important thing about investing: understanding what you're investing in or having a trusted broker who can explain it to you.
Zoll: Well, I think that's good advice for anyone to take. Doug, thanks for taking the time today to talk to us about financial fraud of the elderly.
Shadel: My pleasure.
Zoll: For Morningstar, I'm Adam Zoll.
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Cheerful yellows and bright oranges, flaming reds and pretty pinks, deep maroons and aging browns .. that sneak up on you, haul you by the collar and bonk you on the head everywhere you go. And it’s not just the trees that turn color. What sets the New England fall apart is the ivy that falls in step with the season, and changes colors as well. Dull grey buildings and brownstones covered in suits of green during summer, looking all serious and stuffy. But fall arrives, and out come the masks and party hats, as they the join in the revelry and merrymaking.
Of course the rest of nature doesn’t like to be left behind, so it comes together to provide a backdrop to the leaves — impeccable blue skies, vibrant green pine trees, orchard grounds dotted with bushels of shiny red apples, chrysanthemums of a dozen colors blooming at every corner, and farms with hundreds of roly-poly cheerful pumpkins piled high, all waiting to happily tumble-tumble down.
But fall isn’t about color alone. It announces its arrival with a myriad of sounds, as well. Babbling brooks that tinkle at the first signs of frost. Rustling branches trying to shed the last of their leaves. Fallen leaves whooshing around in mini-tornadoes. The creak of the metal of an abandoned railroad track, one of the first to recognize the arrival of the cold. The rhythmic thuds of apples in a quiet orchard. The crunch of dried leaves under your feet as you walk on a cobblestone path. The squelch of old leaves in a puddle, as you step into it off the curb. Every single sound an instrument in the symphony of the season.
Fall is about touch too. The soft feel of a carpet of freshly fallen leaves. The kind that cover the ground so completely that you cannot tell what’s below. Bare ground, green grass, grey stone and charcoal pavement all painted over with reds and oranges, making everything seem equally friendly, equally warm and welcoming. Or a rough bale of hay beneath you during a hayride. Or the hard bumps of orphaned pine cones against your fingers as you collect them from beneath trees that have unthinkingly rejected them. Or the squishy feel of the insides of a pumpkin as you sit with your hands buried to your elbows in one, while a giggling three-year old makes you carve it.
And what is fall without the cornucopia of familiar smells and tastes? Of hot cider with a hint of cinnamon, nutmeg, orange and cloves. Of the smell of butter and sugar from freshly baked tarts, tempting you into the local bakery. Of the crunch of piping-hot cooked apples basted in brown sugar, waiting to go into a pie. Of memories of golden maple syrup as you drive by a sugar bush. Of the smell of fresh carved pumpkins greeting you at people’s doorsteps. Of the lingering smell of pine trees in the air, even when you cannot see any nearby. Of Halloween candy that leaves you on a permanent sugar high. Of moist earth as layers of leaves are raked away. Of leaves slowly growing old.
It’s the season of change, when the skirts get longer, jackets are pulled around tighter, and walking becomes more purposeful as people hurry indoors. When cheeks turn pink as familiar faces burst into smiles. A season of lingering tight hugs, of quick kisses shared on park benches, of hands held a little longer. Of sipping on big mugs of coffee clasped tightly with both hands. Of watching your breath fog up and making pretend smoke puffs. Of sneaking up on a squirrel while it ruminates on what berry to eat, and having it look up and pose for you as you gleefully click.
Fiery yet melancholic, bold yet tender, quiet like an aging monarch, romantic like a new lover, sprightly like a child .. fall has many a persona, playing many a role. And as it concludes its performance, takes a bow and exits gracefully, it seems the perfect time to applaud the season. A season that makes your senses come alive. A season that makes your senses dance.
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Self-taught engineering genius wows MIT
What makes a prodigy?
Aside from having a great mental ability, studies suggest that child prodigies would require a good learning environment and useful resources to hone their gifts. Surprisingly, one genius African teen needs none of those to be exceptional.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology met Sierra Leone prodigy, 13-year-old Kelvin Doe, who uses his neighbors' broken electronic scraps to create machines.
Doe's inventions were inspired both by necessity and the urge to help his community that suffers from constant power outages.
"I made my own battery to power lights in people's houses," Doe explained. With his improvised electronic devices, Doe was able to put up a community FM station under the name "DJ Focus". There, he plays pop music and entertains the whole neighborhood.
"They call me DJ Focus because I believe if you focus, you can do an invention perfectly," he said.
In his YouTube video, Doe bound soda, acid, and metal together to make his first prototype battery. To keep his radio station running, he built a custom generator out of old voltage stabilizer, runs the station with a repaired music mixer, a recycled CD player, and set up an antenna for his avid listeners. He also recruited friends and schoolmates to help him.
Doe impressed MIT experts after he improvised batteries and generators from trash. He is the youngest ever to participate in MIT's Visiting Practitioner's Program –a chance to go to the US, share his innovative ideas, meet with technology experts, and bring home electronic components that will improve his inventions.
"Whatever things I've learned here, I will share it with my friends, colleagues and loved ones," he said. His incredible story, featured on THNKR’s Prodigies series, has already racked up more than 3.1 million views.
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Will the real 2007 farm bill stand up? House Agriculture Committee members were expected to consider two versions of the 2007 farm bill when they held a mark-up session for the new law that is expected to guide farm policy for the next five years.
Chairman Collin Peterson said the first version would be a bill that would deal with Congress' Pay-Go requirements; that is, any increases in farm program spending in the new law will have to be offset with increased revenue or cuts in expenditures.
The second would rely on the $20 billion reserve fund that was created by the House in its fiscal 2008 budget resolution for increased spending. The second bill would take effect only if Congress was able to use the reserve fund at a later date, according to the Minnesota Democrat.
Peterson's proposal, which was scheduled to be taken up during committee meetings on Capitol Hill July 17-19, has drawn the support of major farm organizations, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation and the USA Rice Federation and U.S. Rice Producers Association — and sharp criticism from environmental groups.
“This is where I've been all along,” Peterson said. “We need a bill that continues the strengths of the current programs because of the budget situation we find ourselves in.”
Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman said the Peterson proposal or chairman's mark provides a strong safety net for producers while providing funding for critical conservation, rural development, nutrition and energy programs.
“Farm Bureau, like Congress, must balance the interests of all sectors of American agriculture,” he said. “Farm Bureau is cognizant of that fact, and it thinks the chairman's mark represents the largest measure of fairness to various interests represented in the bill.”
The proposal, which the AFBF's board of directors has voted to support, maintains baseline funding for both the commodity and conservation titles, reauthorizing each of the three safety net components (direct payments, counter-cyclical payments and loan payments) and increasing funding for conservation programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
When Congress passed the 2002 law, the federal government was coming off record expenditures for farm programs because of low commodity prices and yield-reducing weather patterns.
Since then, the increasing demand for ethanol and biodiesel have pushed corn and soybean prices sharply higher, reducing government outlays for counter-cyclical payments and loan deficiency payments for those crops and for wheat.
Last year, USDA made $17 billion in such payments, a decrease of more than $10 billion from the 2000 fiscal year, and is projected to reduce annual outlays for commodity programs even further over the life of the new farm bill.
The projected decline has created some problems for farm-state congressmen, reducing the baseline for farm program spending by $62 billion over the next 10 years, according to calculations by the Congressional Budget Office.
Peterson and other lawmakers have said the baseline reductions mean Congress should continue the current programs, extending the commodity title of the farm bill for five years. Other government officials and Washington ag policy wonks have disagreed, calling for an overhaul of the farm bill.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has issued a number of suggestions for the new farm bill, including initiating a revenue-based counter-cyclical program that would compensate farmers when yields and prices fall and a new adjusted gross income limit or means test for farmers receiving farm program payments. The General Farm Commodities Subcommittee rejected those.
Reps. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., meanwhile, have introduced legislation that would do away with much of the current commodity title and replace it with savings accounts growers could use to cover losses when crop prices or yields are down.
Although the House General Farm Commodities Subcommittee voted not to include the Kind-Flake legislation in the new farm bill, Kind is expected to introduce the proposal as an amendment when the House ag committee reports its farm bill on the House floor.
The first Peterson bill does include a number of proposals aimed at making U.S. cotton and the U.S. textile industry more competitive in world markets. The National Cotton Council and other cotton interest groups helped draft the proposals.
“When it comes to policies impacting cotton, protecting the safety net provisions contained in the current commodity title is of primary importance,” says Plains Cotton Growers Executive Vice President Steve Verett.
Verett said the General Farm Commodities Subcommittee's unanimous vote to extend the provisions of the 2002 farm bill was a strong signal to farm bill opponents in Congress and the Bush administration that U.S. agriculture strongly supports the provisions of current farm law.
“The issues driving this debate are largely centered around the budget and there not being enough guaranteed money available to do all the things we would want to extend and improve on the current program,” concludes Verett.
But organizations such as American Farmland Trust have issued statements highly critical of the Peterson approach, saying it would “extend the outdated, broken system of the past.”
“The House ag committee proposal is moving policy in the wrong direction and making bad policy worse.” said Ralph Grossi, president of AFT and a third generation farmer. “We must create policies that provide producers with a safety net while also ensuring that farm and food policy keeps current with a changing world.”
AFT and other groups contend large numbers of producers were left out of the safety net system in the 2002 farm bill and received little or no protection in times of need.
“Farming is a risky business and the government should provide a safety net and tools to help producers manage risk — but extending the existing counter cyclical programs will not do that,” Grossi said. “The current system in which Congress sets support prices will encourage overproduction of certain crops, distort the marketplace and continue to leave many farmers unprotected when they face declines in yield.”
Instead of following this “disastrous” path, the House should follow the lead of USDA, American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Corn Growers Association and American Farmland Trust who have called for new safety net programs based on revenue protection, he said.
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“Change” seems to be all the hype right now. Even the presidential campaign was won with this slogan. There seems to be so much people don’t like and want to change (or have changed for them) that simply using ‘change’ as a buzz word will get attention.
Now mostly change is not really what we want. Maybe we have something in mind that is so far beyond everything we can imagine, that simple an end of the current situation looks appealing. But, in my own experience, the universe has a strange kind of humor. It tries to comply but if the goal of the change is not clearly specified we will get a change but the new situation might not be what we really had in mind – hidden back there in the crevices, afraid to verbalize.
Let’s take a look at politics right now – we will have a president that will implement change – he did not say what the change will be so this is a pretty smart move as now everybody has a very own version of that change he or she envisions in mind and thinks that’s what will come. And if that’s not what will get implemented then it becomes obvious why not – because it was never even promised. And something is always changed, so the promise is kept.
If we want a situation to be different we have to be specific in what we want the outcome of the change to be otherwise the change itself will be the outcome and this is certainly not what we want. It reminds me of the sign at the bar stating “Tomorrow free Beer” – obviously attractive so that patrons return, but of no consequence and cost for the proprietor – he is keeping his promise.
In other words – change is not what we want and we have to be honest with what we actually want, take away the attention from what is and see the outcome now. Remember Mahatma Gandhi’s quote “You must be the change you want to see in the world” with the stress on BE.
Change has become an emotionally loaded word and the following video is definitely a prime example. It made me cry (in a positive way, I might add)…
This is from Playing for Change, a project to ‘bring change’ through music. I can imagine that this project could benefit from clearly stating what the outcome will be after the change is accomplished.
Other videos on this foundation’s web site do show what the change will be – eduction, building, improving situations through music, etc, so the outcome is stated and the video with it’s emotion caused me to look, so I guess it all worked out OK.
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Exhibition | 19.may.2010
NEW EXHIBITION. Lindsay Seers in x-rummet
A young woman looses her memory in a traffic accident; a year later she goes missing without trace. Artist Lindsay Seers is the stepsister of this woman - Christine Parkes. Seers retraces journeys made by her sister in an attempt to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. Wearing a soldier’s uniform dating from the Colonial era she travels to Ghana where she rolls back the story of her parents’ time as diamond smugglers in Western Africa as well as the post-colonial history of what was originally known as the Swedish and then Danish Gold Coast: Welcome to the video installation It has to be this way² at x-rummet at the National Gallery of Denmark.
It has to be this way²
22 May – 26 September 2010
Psycho-geographic search for lost sister
It has to be this way² marks the continuation of the artist Lindsay Seer’s filmic, photographic, and psycho-geographic search for her lost half-sister Christine Parkes. Christine suffered amnesia after a scooter accident in Rome and subsequently disappeared. Now, Seers attempts to place herself in her sister’s shoes by following in her footsteps. She dives into their shared archive of photos and selects nine pictures based on a principle of chance. Those pictures determine the outline of her ongoing journey and structure the narrative of the work.
The Swedish/Danish Gold Coast at x-rummet
In the work, the story, set in the part of West Africa – originally known as the Swedish and the Danish Gold Coast (1650- 1755) – is rolled back in a mirroring of Seers’ own family history. Wearing a soldier’s uniform from the renaissance period with a camera built into the uniform cap, she restages and records several layers of history simultaneously. At x-rummet, a recreated colonial building constitutes the architectural framework for our experience of Seers’ universe.
Audiences become involved in her creative process, as the act of observing and understanding shifts through sliding points of view. In Seers’ work, no fixed significance is attached to photographs, films or texts. Her explorations constantly rewrite history and hold an endless potential for different outcomes, all of them inscribed in each other.
The exhibition coincides with the publication of the novella It Has To Be This Way² written by M. Anthony Penwill. Here, research notes, letters, journals and photographs give testimony to Christine Parkes’ story as shown in Lindsay Seers’ two most recent works It has to be this way 1 + 2. The publication is free to visitors throughout the exhibition. (ISBN 978-0-907623-70-0).
Lindsay Seers (b.1966) lives and works in London. Seers has attracted considerable attention internationally with her combination of video, photography, and performance. The exhibition at x-rummet marks the first presentation of Lindsay Seers’ work in Denmark.
Main sponsor x-rummet:
Press photos are available for download from:
For yderligere oplysninger:
Peter Kirkhoff Eriksen
T +45 3374 8423
M +45 2559 7807
T +45 3374 8535
- By: Webmaster
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The Obama presidency represents a major milestone in black history and the struggle for political, economic and cultural equality in the United States. But how--if at all--has the first black presidency helped move things forward for people of color? Has it delivered the "change we can believe in" and "deepening of democracy" that communities of color organized around? How has the reality and image of a black First Family impacted American culture? What lessons from past struggles can be applied to this unique historical moment to advance multicultural democracy in the U.S.?
Starting the exploration of these questions with the voices of past civil rights and black power activists held in the historic Pacifica Radio Archives, BBC journalist Joanne Griffith traveled the country to interview black intellectuals, leaders and activists.
The result is a rich and wide-ranging exploration of the hot-button issues facing African Americans today, from religion, law and media to education and the economy, to the ever-shifting meaning of Obama's contribution and impact. Both timely and rich in personal wisdom, Redefining Black Power connects the dots between past civil rights struggles and the future of black civic and cultural life in the United States.
Featuring Van Jones, Michelle Alexander, Julianne Malveaux, Vincent Harding, Ramona Africa, Esther Armah and Linn Washington Jr.
Foreword by Pacifica Radio Archives director Brian DeShazor.
Praise for Redefining Black Power:
"Redefining Black Power is an important, historical rumination on race, class, power and politics in the Age of Obama. The conversations with such figures as Van Jones, Michelle Alexander and civil rights icon Dr. Vincent Harding are thoughtful, probing, nuanced insights into the state of African-American political power at this historic moment. The book raises challenging questions, but rather than offer definitive answers, it provokes the reader to personally define 'Black power' and inspires all of us to continue the work of 'deepening the meaning of democracy.'" – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
"I agree with economist Julianne Malveaux, who says the notion that Obama's election made America 'post racial' is utter nonsense, when you look at current rates of poverty, income and unemployment among black people. Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar at the White House, intrigued me when he claims that the youth who believe that electing a black president changes nothing were right. Joanne Griffith, of the Pacifica Radio Archives, interviews these and other long distance runners for justice to provide a lively array of conflicting, complex and critical attitudes the first black U.S. president has evoked, to answer the question of whether it's time to redefine Black Power." -- Kathleen Cleaver
Praise for Joanne Griffith:
"Joanne Griffith is a superb journalist! She writes, speaks, and interviews with great skill, sincerity, and sensitivity to those she covers. Joanne has made it in a tough journalism world -- one where the white males, working for wealthy news organizations, have the advantages. Her writings and insights are a lesson to all. She reflects President Obama's spirited call of 'fired up, ready to go!'"
--Connie Lawn, Senior White House Correspondent (since 1968)
"Joanne Griffth's journalism gets to the story behind the story. President Obama, are you hearing me?"
--Dotun Adebayo; Broadcaster and Columnist with the Voice Newspaper(UK)
"Joanne is the consummate professional, who, when she researches something, leaves nothing left to the imagination, no stone unturned."
--Tony Cox, public radio talk show host
"Joanne Griffith is a journalist who brings a wealth of vision, a global world view, a traveller's spirit for curiosity, meticulous detail and a talent for excellence to her work. Through her powerful and informative projects, Joanne maintains persistently high standards and reminds us of the power of great journalism to offer fresh insight, wrap language in a unique world view and open our eyes to fresh possibility."
--Esther Armah, host 'Wake Up Call', WBAI, New York
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Black Hat SEO: Is this the future of search?
How hackers got interested in search engine rankings
By Scott Berinato | CSO | Published: 12:50, 28 July 2010
Still, clever types who've studied how the search engines behave can approximate what pleases the algorithms and then alter a site in ways that improve the site's ranking. Some alterations are as simple as adding verbiage to match the kinds of words people type into search engines. Change the phrase "cell phone rings" on your page to "ring tones," for example, and your traffic goes up, because while virtually no one searches on the former term, many type in the latter. Other techniques are complicated linking schemes that involve getting other sites to link back to your own site.
The hundreds of techniques like these, that used to boost a site's ranking, comprise SEO.
In ancient Rome, prior to important events, a college of priests called augurs would "take the auspices," meaning they would study the flight patterns of birds to understand the will of the gods. SEO is not so different from that.
In the hands of a good SEO, optimisation works outrageously well. Naylor likens it to turning on a tap. He remembers a mattress company in England that hired him to get the top ranking for searches about beds. Naylor knew the company wouldn't be able to handle the bump in traffic he would provide, but the owner sloughed off his concerns. So Naylor delivered the number one ranking, and about 25,000 new visitors per day. The company's 15 trucks and meager customer service collapsed under the demand.
SEO is flourishing also because many companies shifted revenue strategies to their websites without understanding that websites that don't get noticed by search engines don't get noticed. They underestimated search's dominion over their success, a grievous miscalculation. In order to reach their often aggressive revenue goals, companies found themselves in the awkward position of having to worship search algorithms that they neither understood nor controlled.
Desperate, they turned to SEOs and paid immoderate fortunes for their help. One SEO, Eric Ward, charges $1,000 for two one-hour phone conversations and a written report that details what your site needs to do to get juice - SEO slang for any tactic that boosts page rankings. Jeremy Schoemaker, known in the search marketing world as Shoemoney, hosts the Elite Retreat, an invitation-only weekend of SEO and marketing consulting. Neil Patel was making six figures as an SEO consultant by the time he enrolled in college, and he says his company, Advanced Consulting Services, cleared $1 million in revenue last year. His clients include HP and Samsung. "If I wanted to," Patel says with typical bravado, "I could go give a car dealership an hour of SEO advice in exchange for a free, leased car."
A whole community of upstart entrepreneurs has emerged. Guys like Michael Gray, QuadsZilla, Naylor, Ward, Patel, Shoemoney and Aaron Wall, among others. They are the augurs, priests interpreting the will of the search engines, and they're cashing in. On his blog, Shoemoney posted a photo of himself, with one of his SEO cheques splayed across his face, leaving only two things to see - his eyes and the cheque's sum: $132,994.97.
Patel, meanwhile, has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and is also a regular conference speaker. Last year at BlogWorld Expo, after he gave a presentation on SEO and search marketing, someone said to him, "I can't believe you can look at yourself in the mirror in the morning."
The grey business of gaming the system
It turns out that in ancient Rome, those augurs' divinations weren't always divine. The will of the gods sometimes depended on earthly influences like political favors and bribery.
SEO is not so different from this, either. Pay the right price, and SEOs can game the system for you by telling the algorithms little digital fibs, or sometimes deceiving them outright. This is black-hat SEO, which is a misnomer. In general, these practices aren't illegal, just dishonest, as Naylor notes when distinguishing between black-hat hacking and black-hat SEO. (Some SEOs do call this gray-hat SEO; the nomenclature is muddied.)
Black hat SEO is based on a simple fact: No matter how clever one makes an algorithm, it's still just a narrow set of rules. Like all binary machines, it struggles to intuit even basic human intent. Software struggles to detect duplicity. In a way, the algorithms are like robotic consumers, who are incapable of being skeptical about aggressive, deceptive marketing practices.
Black hat SEO techniques include misleading forms of link bait - for example, fabricating a salacious news story ("Britney Spears Dead!") that spurs prurient curiosity traffic. It's clearly a ruse to generate clickthroughs, but the algorithms see a popular link that deserves juice. Also there's blogspam: links planted in the comments fields of blogs despite the fact they have nothing to do with the blog's content or the present conversation. The algorithms once counted up those links and gave juice to the site they linked to. Automation of this process allowed an SEO to plant thousands of links a day and vault to the top of the search rankings.
Another favourite technique of black hat SEOs is cloaking - making the search spiders see content that the public can't see, thus tricking the algorithm into giving too much juice. Cloaking is like saying one million people read this story because that's how many people were in the stores that sold the magazine that the story appeared in.
Black hat SEO is even more wildly effective than the more legitimate forms of SEO because it is not restrained by truthfulness. If you're willing to bend or break the search companies' terms of service, you can get serious juice unavailable to someone who plays by the rules. The bartender who skims the till always makes more than the one who doesn't. (Unless, of course, he gets caught.)
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Direct bank aid would be EU game changer
Despite Berlin's opposition to the proposal, concerns about Spain may force a change of mindset, writes ARTHUR BEESLEYin Brussels
THE WORSENING financial crisis in Spain has led the European Commission to raise the prospect of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) bailout fund directly rescuing banks. Any such move would create a precedent for Ireland. It remains the case, however, that it is easier to propose something than to execute it.
Germany remains opposed to this notion, and the history of Europe’s debt emergency shows that fellow creditor countries such as the Netherlands, Finland and Austria tend to line up behind Berlin in matters like this.
Still, it is a fair measure of the acute tension in the euro zone right now that commission president José Manuel Barroso sees fit to publicly advocate the creation of a “banking union”. This is still cast as a long-term initiative but there is no doubting the extent of the concern over the situation in Madrid.
Although its finances are racked by rampant unemployment, spendthrift autonomous regions and a rapidly growing banking crisis, Spain continues to insist it will not need an EU-IMF bailout. Few serious observers believe it can hold out indefinitely. As external auditors carry out an intensive examination of its wayward banks, concern mounts daily that Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy will not be able to foot the rescue bill.
Spain’s borrowing costs are skirting new records this week as the country struggles to find €19 billion to prop up the stricken Bankia group of savings banks.
The fear is that this is only the beginning and that the government simply won’t have the cash or debt-raising capacity to do the deed. Hence growing talk of an international bailout – and consequent pressure on Italy, whose borrowing costs are also rising.
The snag this presents is that Spain, Europe’s fourth largest economy, might overwhelm the EU’s bailout funds if it is taken out of bond markets fully. This would be doubly so – most likely – if the rot spread to Italy. Add into the equation the febrile electoral scene in Greece and it is clear that the euro zone is approaching yet another pivotal moment.
What to do? To lessen the load on Spain and make it easier for it raise money for regular expenditure, attention is increasingly centred on giving the ESM fund the power to rescue banks directly, with the money deployed not going onto the national debt. Rajoy wants this badly, newly elected French president François Hollande has backed him up and Taoiseach Enda Kenny readily declares his interest in any such departure.
Although Dublin still insists it is ardently attached to its campaign to refinance the Anglo Irish Bank promissory note scheme, it is fair to conclude that talk of new ESM powers is more frequent these days than any reference to the dreaded Anglo IOUs.
This has potential to be a game changer for the Irish rescue. In the commission’s own language, it would break the link between banks and the sovereign state. But we are still in the realm of proposal-making. This is embryonic in political real-time – and most of the other radical solutions proposed to tame the crisis ran into a German brick wall.
It would mark a huge political departure for any EU bailout fund to assume the burden of member states’ banking debt. If underwriting the sovereign liabilities of other people has proved contentious for the AAA countries, doing the same for bust banks would prove no less so.
Still, the ease with which top European officials discuss this idea points to considerable technical work in the background. That is not to say Berlin is ready to budge. Far from it, it seems, although German chancellor Angela Merkel tends not to move until the very last moment.
EU economics commissioner Olli Rehn, when asked about the possibility of ESM aid for Spain’s banks, said “direct disbursements to banks are not foreseen in the treaty” that underpins its work. It follows that the ESM treaty would have to be changed, but this is a treaty which has yet to be enacted by most member states.
More than that, however, there would have to be a fundamental change of mindset in relation to banking debts. As Europe surveys the wreckage of Spain’s bombed-out lenders, that time might soon be upon us.
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Googus and Gallant first appeared in 1936, in a magazine called Children's Activities that was created and written by Garry Myers. When Myers left that magazine (he was fired) he founded Highlights. Securing the rights to Goofus and Gallant took a couple years of legal wrangling, but Goofus and Gallant finally made their debut in Highlights magazine in 1948. (Thanks to Dial B reader Patrick Cox for this info!)
The feature, drawn by Anni Matsick, stars the ill-mannered Goofus and the prissy do-gooder Gallant.
Created by child psychologist Garry Cleveland Myers, editor of Highlights magazine, the cartoon series shows how each boy acts in the same situation. Goofus invariably chooses a selfish or irresponsible path, while Gallant always responds with kindness and generosity. The aim of the strip is to teach young children positive social interaction skills.
"We couldn't have Gallant without Goofus," said Highlights Editor Kent Brown, "Without Goofus, Gallant would be bland and no one would pay attention. But kids see parts of themselves in both characters. No one is as good as Gallant, and no one is as bad as Goofus. But being more like Gallant is something to strive for." Brown, a grandson of the magazine’s founders, claims he was the inspiration for Goofus.
The Goofus and Gallant feature never offers direct lessons or shows consequences. "It simply shows a wrong way and a right way of doing things, that's all," said Highlights CEO Garry Cleveland Myers III, also a grandson of the founders. Myers denies the family legend that he was the inspiration for Gallant.
OK, enough talk, let’s get down to business. From the pages of and copyright Highlights For Children magazine, here are... Goofus and Gallant!
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A shareholder in a joint-stock company; one who owns actions (see action, 12) or shares of stock. Also called actionist.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Com.), obsolete A shareholder in joint-stock company.
- Compare French actionnaire. (Wiktionary)
“The HSBC PMI has lagged behind actionary territory since July, giving weaker readings than its competitor PMI released by the Chinese government.”
“If allowed to continue the situation could lead to all sorts of political self-promoting elements to take us back a slippery and re-actionary situation with no clarity as to which direction our country is taking.”
“And we know well that the interests of the miners, of the peasants, and of the students are identified with the struggle against re actionary, fascist plots; that the interests of the”
“With him it is nothing but dramatic relationship, the actionary tendency of the facts themselves, in nature.”
“Today it would be almost impossible to find, in the old re-actionary sense of the word, a Conservative.”
“It will take the Afro-American people fully a century to recover what they lost of civil and political equality under the law in the Southern States, as a result of the re-actionary and bloody movement begun in the”
“They had no arguments to oppose him with, for it was a subject they had never reflected upon; so they complained that he was illiberal, re-actionary, and lacked faith in human nature.”
“There were three parties, -- a re-actionary party under _Lycurgus_, a progressive party led by”
“They were not ripe, therefore, for action when we acted, and although many of the young and ardent, who had imbibed the re-actionary spirit in favor of”
Our cause in harmony with the purposes of God in Christ Jesus : a sermon preached in Christ Church, Savannah, on Thursday, September 18th, 1862, being the day set forth by the President of the Confederate States, as a day of prayer and thanksgiving, for our manifold victories, and especially for the fields of Manassas and Richmond, Ky.,
“It resembled in its character the re-actionary and tyrannical edicts so frequently employed in absolute governments, and was unsuited to the temper, ran counter to the judgment, and proved offensive to the conscience, of the American people.”
‘actionary’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
Looking for tweets for actionary.
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You don’t have to make up elaborate excuses (like blaming the dog) for flatulence after meals. And you don’t have to avoid eating those foods known for their musical properties. Beans can be giant culprit when it comes to flatulence (gas) because they are broken down into a certain sugar in your intestines that bacteria love to eat. When certain bacteria feast on this bean sugar, the waste is methane (sulfur dioxide gas) and nitrogen gas. Other culprits include veggies like cabbage and Brussels sprouts. The natural sulfur in eggs can also be an offender, as can milk and dairy products.
But many natural remedies can minimize that volatile combustion of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide gas in your system.
What Causes Gas?
Flatulence comes from a combination of ingested air (from eating and swallowing) and gas produced in the digestive tract. Intestinal gases arise from an overabundance of bad bacteria in your gut. This overabundance and lack of bacterial balance is usually caused by poor eating habits or eating certain foods. When not enough good bacteria are present in your gut, the waste in your system becomes a gas feeding ground for the bad bacteria. What creates bad bacteria or kills off the good bacteria?
- Tap water, full of chlorine and fluoride
- Antibiotics and certain medications
- A diet rich in fermented foods and beverages (wine, beer, cheese, vinegar, dried fruit, risen breads, baking powder, and pickled foods)
- Too much blood sugar, which can give rise to bacteria that cause constipation and gas
Chronic gas may also be a symptom of a larger problem, such as diabetes, thyroid imbalance, poor liver health, or intestinal disorders.
For quick relief, try acidophilus, bifidophilus and the probiotics cited in Digestion. Antibiotics are known for killing good bacteria, so if you’ve taken them, be sure to take probiotics for one month to reintroduce your system to the good bacteria.
In the Eastern Indian culture, people eat a yogurt cucumber dish and other yogurt recipes, which are high in acidophilus and other exotic probiotic cultures. Another piece of Ayurvedic advice is to eat fennel and anise seeds after a meal to stop flatulence. They are chewy, taste great, and also freshen your breath. Besides probiotic cultures, you can also try these cures:
- Take digestive enzymes such as papain, bromelain, and protease.
- Gas associated with acid indigestion can be minimized or cured with carbon tablets.
- Put a couple of drops of peppermint or anise oil in a glass of water and drink before meals.
- Naturopaths also recommend kelp for flatulence. Along with relieving gas and bloating, the iodine in kelp can help you maintain a healthy weight by keeping your thyroid gland functioning normally.
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Honors - Alumni Profiles
- Stanley Falkow
A college education ideally provides you with the intellectual tools you need to begin your life's work. It is also the place where many people learn to become independent in their ideas. Maine provided me with a wonderful undergraduate education taught by thoughtful, caring people.
- Charles Stanhope
At the University of Maine, Charles Stanhope learned the value of public education. Since retiring from the Library of Congress, he has dedicated himself to giving back.
- Bruce Stanton
University of Maine alumnus Dr. Bruce Stanton of Dartmouth Medical School will deliver the 2011 Distinguished Honors Graduate Lecture on Feb. 23: “Arsenic: A Global Health Crisis. How Safe Is Our Water and Food?” We asked him to profile his career, which includes pioneering research in the cure for cystic fibrosis.
- Sarah Bigney
It all started with a few cups of coffee.
Four years ago, Sarah Adams Bigney was a student worker at the Oakes Room Café in the University of Maine’s Fogler Library, drinking down almost as many lattes as she was serving up, when she started to wonder about all that coffee she was handling.
- Kristen Gwinn
Historian Kristen Gwinn is drawn to the lives of these women who were ahead of their time. In her own way, Gwinn was too.
- Bettina Boxall
The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners in explanatory reporting are UMaine alumna Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times for their five-part series, “Big Burn,” exploring the growth and cost of wildfires.
Back to Honors
The University of Maine
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In 1937 Japan launched a many pronged invasion of China . Inflicted immense damage to China , Japanese occupied China's east coast ,the Nationalist government relocated in Chongqing ,Sichuan ,with some ministries and industries moving to Yunnan . To keep supplies coming into western China the Nationalists has a road constructed from Kunming to Dehong , the famous Burma Road ,using mostly labour conscripted from tribes along the route. The road followed the old Southeast Silk Route as far as Baoshan and continued to Wanding,Dehong,Goods and war material continued to come from British Burma over the bridge at Wanding until the Japanese overran Burma in 1942 and closed the route .
By that time the Americans were involved in the Pacific War as much as the British . New supply routes were organised out of British India . One was by land from the eastern Himalayan town of Kalimpong . From here pony and mule caravans traveled up through eastern Tibet ,then into Yunnan at Deqen , down to Zhongdian , Lijiang and Xiaguan. From there fresh caravans carried the goods to Kunming and from the capital to Sichuan or other parts of China .
The other route was by air ,over that section of the eastern Himalayas called the Hump , and famous as one of the most hazardous air routes in the entire world . Volunteer pilots of Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers , who had a base in Kunming and whose boss was a strategic advisor to General Chiang Kai-Shek . Chennault kept telling Chiang that his air unit could defend western China against any Japanese advance . The implication was that Chiang needn't deploy his own forces intact for the Communists . This attitude infuriated General Joseph Stillwell ,the American responsible for the Sino-Allied defence against the Japanese .
Yet no one could deny that Chennault's Flying Tigers were men of great courage . An uncomfortably large number of transport planes crashed when buffeted by the unpredictable winds and storms of the Hump . Even in recent years Yunnanese farmers have discovered the remains of planes in various mountain locations in the west . and the older folks still remember the sacrifices made by American and British pilots in the war ,reflected in the very friendly and favourable attitude they have nowadays towards tourist from these two countries .
In April, 1937, Claire L. Chennault, then a captain in the United States Army Air Corps, retired from active duty and accepted an offer form Madame Chiang Kai-shek for a three month mission to China to make a confidential survey of the Chinese Air Force. At that time China and Japan were on the verge of war and the fledgling Chinese Air Force was beset by internal problems and torn between American and Italian influence. Madame Chiang Kai-shek took over leadership of the Aeronautical Commission in order to reorganize the Chinese Air Force. This was the beginning of Chennault's stay in China which did not terminate until 1945 at the close of World War II. Chennault's combat and other experiences between 1937 and 1941 in China are another story, but it was these experiences together with the knowledge he attained of combat tactics and the operations of Japanese Air Force over China that laid the ground work for the organization of the American Volunteer Group in 1941.
The official status of Claire L. Chennault in China prior to 1942 was always a subject of speculation. Chennault himself states that he was a civilian advisor to the Secretary of the Commission for Aeronautical Affairs, first Madame Chiang and later T.V. Soong. Until he returned to active duty with the United States Army in the spring of 1942, four months after Pearl Harbor, he had no legal status as a belligerent and held no rank other than retired captain in the United States Army. Even while he commanded the American Volunteer Group in combat, his official job was adviser to the Central Bank of China, and his passport listed his occupation as a farmer.
In the summer of 1938 Chennault went to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in Western China, to forge, at the request of Madame Chiang, a new Chinese Air Force from an American mold.
SELF IMPOSED EXILE
It was during these years of self-imposed exile in the Chinese hinterland, that Chennault laid the foundation for the unique American air operations that featured the final three years of the Japanese war in China. In addition to his solid relations with Chinese of both high and low estate, these operations were based on clusters of strategically located air fields and an air-raid warning system that covered Free China. Without those three solid supports American air power could hardly have functioned in China.
"All over Free China these human ant heaps rose to turn mud, rocks, lime and sweat into 5,000 foot runways to nest planes not yet built in Los Angels and Buffalo factories"
Describing the Chinese air-raid warning net, Chennault states:
"The Chinese air-raid warning system was a vast spidernet of people, radios, telephones, and telegraph lines that covered all of Free China accessible to enemy aircraft. In addition to continuous intelligence of enemy attacks, the net served to locate and guide lost friendly planes, direct aid to friendly pilots who had crashed or bailed out, and helped guide our technical intelligence experts to wrecks of crashed enemy aircraft."
"Most efficient sector of the net was developed in Yunnan as a dire necessity. It was the Yunnan net that was a key to the early A.V.G. successes and the defense of Chinese terminals on this side of the Hump against fantastic numerical odds."
Early in 1939 the Japanese began their tremendous effort to break the back of Chinese resistance by sustained bombing of every major population center in Free China. It was the virtually unopposed and continuous bombing of the major centers of Free China by Japanese Air Force that directly led to the organization of the American Volunteer Group. In the fall of 1940 the Generalissimo instructed Chennault to go to the United States for the purpose of obtaining American planes and American pilots to end the Japanese bombing.
Chennault's original plans called for the injection of a rejuvenated Chinese Air Force spearheaded by American volunteers to upset the Pacific stalemate.
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Skip First Level Navigation | Skip All Navigation
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Bureau of Financial Institutions
OTHER PFR AGENCIES
Maine.gov > PFR Home > Bureau of Financial Institutions > All Press Releases > Bureau of Financial Institutions Promotes Advantages of Free and Low-Cost Accounts for the ‘Unbanked’ at Maine Banks and Credit Unions
Bureau of Financial Institutions Promotes Advantages of Free and Low-Cost Accounts for the ‘Unbanked’ at Maine Banks and Credit Unions
January 9, 2012
Bureau of Financial Institutions Superintendent Lloyd P. LaFountain III announced this week that his agency is encouraging the ‘unbanked’ to protect their money in the New Year by looking into the advantages of low or no-cost accounts at Maine banks and credit unions. This is the second annual effort by the Bureau to highlight the benefits of low and no-cost accounts for those unfamiliar with saving and checking accounts. The Bureau launched this initiative in 2010, in collaboration with a working group established by the Maine Legislature.
“The unbanked are individuals without an account at a credit union or bank, who may be unaware of the security and benefits that come from such accounts,” LaFountain commented. “Many people pay expensive charges for check cashing and other services from storefront operations. While those businesses serve a purpose, the unbanked can often save a substantial amount of money each year through more traditional services offered at Maine banks and credit unions.”
The Bureau of Financial Institutions and members of the Legislature worked together in 2010 to develop a plan of action to help the unbanked. LaFountain outlined three actions to assist people who are unfamiliar with the safety and benefits of accounts at financial institutions:
Save and Protect Your Money Brochure: A tri-fold publication is available in paper copy or online. It encourages people to learn why a low or no-cost account could help them to save and safeguard their money. The brochure explains what’s needed to open an account; defines “over-draft” and other important terms; and provides a check-list of questions to be asked by someone interested in opening an account to ensure that it will provide needed protections and services. The brochure is available by calling the Bureau of Financial Institutions toll-free in Maine at 1-800-965-5235 or 207-624-8570. It’s also available under “Featured” Bureau publications on the agency’s homepage (www.maine.gov/pfr/financialinstitutions).
Online Consumer Library: The Bureau has developed an extensive online consumer library with resources for individuals who have never dealt with a financial institution, as well as for anyone seeking information about various topics, including foreclosure, credit cards, borrowing, credit reports and financial scams. The library can be accessed through the “Consumer Tools” menu on the Bureau’s homepage at www.maine.gov/pfr/financialinstitutions.
Personal Assistance: The Bureau has a Consumer Outreach Specialist available during business hours of 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, to personally assist anyone who has questions about opening a low or no-cost account. The Specialist can walk interested consumers through the process of opening an account. The specialist is also available to assist people with other issues related to banks and credit unions by calling toll-free 1-800-965-5235.
Last Updated: January 9, 2012 11:35 AM
|Copyright © 2006 All rights reserved.|
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By Robert Sullivan – Exclusive to Gas Investing News
Though gas still plays second fiddle to oil in the energy markets, the discovery in recent years of massive gas deposits and a rising demand for a cleaner, cheaper alternative to crude oil, has potentially put the gas industry in a position to eventually take over as the primary provider of energy across the globe.
One of the most significant factors behind this promising outlook is the emergence of shale gas, which is thought to exist in vast quantities in certain regions, but until recently has been neither technically possible to recover, nor commercially viable to extract.
With technological advances, however, shale gas has already been dubbed a ‘game changer’ for US energy markets, and commercial production is currently underway at major deposits such as the Marcellus and Barnett shales.
To get a better idea of where the next big shale plays might surface, here is a brief look at three exploration hotspots in China, Argentina and Mexico.
Of the estimated 6,622 trillion cubic feet (tct) of global shale gas reserves, 1,275 tcf are in China, which are 400 tcf more than total US shale deposits. Gas currently makes up only around 3 percent of energy used in China, but the government’s current five-year economic plan for 2011-2015 has targeted shale gas as a priority for energy development and investment, with hopes to boost consumption of gas to 10 percent by 2030. To that end, Chinese state-owned energy companies have been investing in North American shale gas projects in order to gain access to the technology and methods required to drill shale wells, and the Ministry of Land Resources will also auction off the rights to at least 8 onshore exploration blocks this year, covering more than 18,000 square kilometers in Sichuan, Chongqing, Hebei and Guizhou.
Up to now, Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (LON:RDSA) is the only major foreign firm to have carried out significant shale gas exploration in China, with current operations in the Changbei field in Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, as well as the Fushun field in Sichuan. Among Chinese companies, PetroChina Co. Ltd. (NYSE:PTR) stands to gain the most from the push for shale gas. As the listed branch of China National Petroleum Corp., Petrochina dominates the country’s gas industry, producing 80 percent of the total output.
A relatively modest producer of oil and gas, Argentina is believed to be home to the third largest reserves of shale gas in the world at 774 tcf. The bulk of these deposits are in the Southern Patagonian region where a majority of oil and gas operations are already located. Some of the largest discoveries have been in the Vaca Muerta and Los Molles shales of the Neuquen Basin, which are thought to contain 250 tcf of gas. YPF (NYSE:YPF), an Argentinian company owned by Repsol YPF (PINK:REPYY) of Spain, is one of the main operators in the Neuquen, and is involved in partnerships with most of the foreign firms currently carrying out explorations in the basin, which include American giants Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) and Total (NYSE:TOT) of France, as well as smaller companies such as American Petrogas Inc. (TSXV:BOE) and Apache Corp. (NYSE:APA).
A further promising factor for shale prospects in Argentina is the nature of the rock formations under exploration. Barclay Hambrook, CEO of American Petrogas has stated that “the shales are 2 or 3 times as thick as in North America, which can mean greater production volumes.”
Mexico also possesses significant deposits of shale gas, lying at the southern end of the large fields that stretch across Texas. Shale reserves in Mexico are estimated at 681 tcf, and are located in the North of the country as well as ringing the country’s Gulf coast. State-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), which enjoys a monopoly on all oil and gas operations in Mexico, recently announced its first production from the Eagle Ford shale formation in the Coahuila region close to the US border. Pemex is now looking into two other Coahuila formations, the La Pena and Glenrose shales, and should these also prove fruitful, further exploration is expected in the Chihuahua and Burgos regions in the North and in Tampico-Misantla and Veracruz along the Eastern coast.
The problem as always with Mexico, however, is access to the oil and gas sector dominated by state-owned Pemex, who have been the sole operator in the country since the nationalization of the petroleum industry in 1938. President Felipe Calderon has reaffirmed that Pemex will not be going public anytime soon, but a court ruling in December of last year now permits Pemex to enter into partnerships with foreign companies – Gulf of Mexico regulars Exxon Mobil and BP (NYSE:BP) (LON:BP) are believed to be interested, as is Repsol.
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For the founders of Volcanica Coffee, it all started with frequent trips back to their homeland in Costa Rica. For some reason, coffee in Costa Rica had tremendous flavor and aroma. When we returned back to the United States, we faced the usual tasteless and bitter cups of coffee. For some reason, the coffee in Costa Rica tasted so much better with an incredible flavor and aroma. Here was a developing country with the best coffee in the world yet the U. S., with its wealth, seemed satisfied with bland and lifeless coffee.
During a trip to Hawaii they were impressed with Kona Coffee then experienced the same with Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. These coffees along with coffee from Costa Rica all had a similar and outstanding robust flavor. They then realized the common thread between these great coffees; they were all grown in rich volcanic mountain regions.
It's no coincidence that the volcanic regions are also home to some of the greatest tropical rain forests of the world. Periodic volcanic eruptions bring lava and ash up from the earth's center. This lava and ash eventually becomes some of the world's most highly fertile and rich soil and produces the best coffee in the world.
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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Pearly nautilus
|←Pearl Harbor||Collier's New Encyclopedia
|Pearson, Sir Arthur→|
|disclaimer.Edition of 1921;|
PEARLY NAUTILUS, the Nautilus pompilius; common in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, especially toward the Moluccas. It is believed to inhabit both deep and shallow water. Its fine mother-of-pearl is much in request with cabinet makers and jewelers. The smallest and most excavated partitions are used to make pendants for the ear. By removing the external layer of the shell which is not nacreous, drinking vessels of great brilliancy are made in the East, as they formerly were also in Europe.
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The OB/GYNs are in Cange and have been in touch with Physicians for Peace because they've volunteered with the organization in the past, Sconyers said.
Water is a concern, she said.
"Cange is worried that they don't have enough fuel for the generator. The dam is down, there is no power so everything is running off the generator. The water purification system requires electricity to work. And there is only so much fuel. I have offered to scrub, hold retractors, donate blood, help in post op," she wrote.
Physicians for Peace provides medical education and training, rather than relief work, and has been working Haiti for years, particularly in rehabilitating trauma victims through its Walking Free program, Sconyers said.
To help the nation devastated by Tuesday's earthquake, Physicians for Peace has set up a fund. Donations can be made on the organization's Web site, physiciansforpeace.org.
Donations will go to two groups Physicians for Peace works with in Port-au-Prince — Healing Hands for Haiti and St. Vincent's School for Handicapped Children, Sconyers said.
Contributions will provide immediate trauma relief as well as longer term assistance for amputees. Sconyers imagines there will be a lot of work to do with trauma and amputee victims in the wake of the quake.
"We won't be going down there immediately," Sconyers said. "But we're positioning ourselves to go down there after the first responders."
Go to physiciansforpeace.org to donate or read updates on disaster-relief efforts from Physician for Peace partners in Haiti.
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Thursday, August 27, 2009
Fr. Paul Marx, OSB: founder of Human Life International...
This is 89-year-old Fr. Paul Marx who was ordained priest in this same chapel in 1947 at the Benedictine Abbey of St. John's in Collegeville, Minnesota. With great joy Fr. Marx spoke of the day of his ordination.
Fr. Marx is the founder of Human Life International (HLI) and the "international" pro-life movement. Faithful for Life is the name of his 1990s autobiography.
As a pioneer in the pro-life and pro-family movement Fr. Marx made the teaching of NFP to young couples a cornerstone of his ministry. Fr. Marx, who had traveled the world and studied the menace of abortion always said that "Abortion starts with contraception."
Fr. Marx is an American saint and it was a great honor to have lunch with him at the Abbey and look forward to seeing him again tomorrow!
Link here: http://www.hli.org/.
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Friday, July 20, 2012
The Rural Blog: Agriculture secretary warns
drought will worsen and raise food prices
By Ivy Brashear
The Rural Blog
The worst drought in decades is getting worse and will mean higher food prices for consumers, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a briefing in the White House Press Room yesterday. He also said the suggestion of waivers from ethanol mandates on oil companies isn’t necessary because it’s not affecting the price of corn, as some farmers have suggested.
Vilsack said an additional 39 counties have been designated as primary natural disaster areas, raising the total to 1,297 in 29 states. Here is the list. Russ Blinch of Reuters reports. Vilsack urged Congress to work with the administration to improve aid to farmers, something the new Farm Bill could do. The House has stalled on voting on its version of the bill. Peter Baker of The New York Times reports. Vilsack said more than three-quarters of U.S. corn and soybean crops are in drought-affected areas, and more than one third of those are now rated poor to very poor.
Corn prices have risen to almost $8 a bushel, making it difficult for livestock producers to buy animal feed. This will likely cause the price of beef, poultry and pork to rise late this year or early next. Iowa Pork Producers Association President Bill Tentinger told The Gazette in Cedar Rapids that high corn prices would force many pork producers out of business, and the new Farm Bill would only help crop farmers, not livestock producers. Analysts predicted a 4 to 6 percent increase in beef prices pre-drought, but Hibah Yousuf of CNNMoney reports consumers could see 10 percent increases if the drought and high corn prices continue.
This story was republished from The Rural Blog, a digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky. The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues is an extension program for rural journalists and news outlets. It takes no positions on issues, and advocates only for strong news coverage, responsible commentary and things that make them possible, such as open-government laws. For more information see www.RuralJournalism.org.
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The dictionary defines the word justify as "To declare guiltless or blameless". This word as it is used in a Biblical way, "To regard and treat as righteous on the ground of Christ's mediatorial work".
The Apostle Paul said in Romans Chapter 5, verse 1, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ". He continued his message to the people in Rome by stating in Romans Chapter 6, verses 17 and 18, "But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness".
Sin is the only thing that will separate man from God. Romans Chapter 3, verses 23 through 26, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus".
When a person comes to realize he is a sinner and is separated from God as the result of sin, he is in the position to look for the way to be justified with God or to have sins forgiven in order to be regarded as righteous on the ground of Christ's mediatorial work.
The writer of the Roman letter, the inspired apostle, stated clearly that being justified by faith and making peace with God will be realized when our faith is great enough to cause us to obey from the heart the form of doctrine delivered. (Romans Chapter 6, verses 17-18)
The doctrine delivered is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. In I Corinthians Chapter 15, verses 1 through 5, "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand; By which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what', I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first ol' all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures".
The doctrine was the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. One cannot obey the facts of the gospel, but one can obey a form of his death, burial and resurrection. When one has come to believe that Jesus is God's son and the saviour of man from his sins, he being moved by faith to repent of his sins, that is, he determines to discontinue to live in sin, he being willing to confess that faith in Christ as beina God's son is a proper subject to be buried in baptism for the remission of sins, then raised a new creature.
In Acts Chapter 2, the Apostle Peter talking to the ones in sin told them they had crucified the Son of God. They were concerned about their condition, thereby showing faith. They asked in Acts Chapter 2, verse 37, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?". In verse 38, "Then Peter said unto them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost"'. In Acts Chapter 2, verse 41, it states, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized". And in verse 47, we see the blessing received. It says they were "praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved".
Their being saved is equivalent to being justified with God as to be justified means to be declared guiltless or blameless or to be regarded as righteous on the ground of Christ's mediatorial work.
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Bio: Joseph Conrad was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in Russian-occupied Poland on December 3, 1857. His parents were aristocrats and intensely nationalistic political activists who were exiled to Vologda, northeast of Moscow, for their opposition to tsarist rule. Józef's mother, Ewa, died in 1865 of tuberculosis, and his father, Apollo, succumbed to the same disease four years later. Józef was cared for by his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski until the young man acted on a long-expressed desire to go to sea. In 1874 he left for Marseilles, where he began sailing for the French merchant service.
In 1878, in money difficulties and no longer able to sail on French vessels because he had not secured an exemption from military service in Russia, Conrad attempted suicide. After his recovery, he left Marseilles on a British ship and went to England, where he worked the route between Lowestoft and Newcastle. He arrived in England virtually without qualifications and with very little English, but he was able in a few years to earn his master's certificate in the British merchant marine and became a British national. Conrad traveled to Mauritius and Constantinople, worked on wool clippers from London to Australia, and sailed the waters of the Far East. These voyages were punctuated by long periods when he could not find suitable positions because of the decline in sail-powered transport in the age of the steamship.
Conrad began writing in English, which became his language of choice after his native Polish and French, although he complained of difficulties with English grammar and syntax. His voyages provided the background for much of his fiction. 'Youth' and 'Typhoon' draw on Conrad's personal experience with disasters at sea. In 1881, he became second mate on the Palestine, a ship that was rammed, caught in tempestuous gales in the English Channel, had its cargo of coal catch fire, and sank off Sumatra. His captaincy of the Otago from Bangkok in 1888 informs The Shadow-Line (1917) and the stories 'Falk' and 'The Secret Sharer.' Heart of Darkness (1899) is drawn from an expedition to the Belgian Congo in 1890. He was already working on a novel when he traveled to the Congo, where he expected to take command of a river steamer. The assignment failed to materialize, and Conrad fell dangerously ill. On his return to England, he was forced to find work as a ship's mate. He was able during this period of intermittent employment to devote more time to his writing, and in 1894 he submitted the novel Almayer's Folly to the publisher Fisher Unwin. Unwin published it in 1895 under the anglicized version of Conrad's Polish name.
Conrad was encouraged to continue to write by Unwin's reader Edward Garnett, although he went on applying for posts as a ship's captain. He finished The Outcast of the Islands in 1895 and in 1896 married Jessie George. They had two sons, Borys and John, born in 1898 and 1906. Constantly in need of more money, Conrad produced short stories and serialized his novels. Although plagued by physical illness and psychological problems, he established one of the most formidable bodies of work in the English language. His longer works include The Nigger of the 'Narcissus (1897), Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911), and Victory (1915). Nostromo, set in the imaginary South American republic of Costaguana, is considered by many critics to be Conrad's best work and by some to be the finest novel of the twentieth century.
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These are incredibly exciting times for space exploration. NASA currently operates more than 50 robotic spacecraft that are studying Earth and reaching throughout the solar system, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond. Another 40 unmanned NASA missions are in development, and space agencies in Europe, Russia, Japan, India and China are running or building their own robotic craft. With such an armada at our disposal, delivering a stream of scientific data from so many distant ports, you might think that researchers like me who are involved in robotic space exploration would dismiss astronaut missions as costly and unnecessary. To the contrary: many of us embrace human exploration as a worthy goal in its own right and as a critically important part of space science in the 21st century.
Although astronaut missions are much more expensive and risky than robotic craft, they are absolutely critical to the success of our exploration program. Why? Because space exploration is an adventure—a human adventure—that has historically enjoyed broad public support precisely because of the pride we take from it. President John F. Kennedy committed the U.S. to sending astronauts to the moon to make a statement about the power of democracy and freedom, not to do science. As a by-product, some outstanding lunar science was done, leading ultimately to an understanding of the moon’s origin. What is more, the Apollo moon program trained and inspired an entire generation of researchers and engineers, who made the breakthroughs that paved the way for robotic missions, as well as much of the technology that we take for granted today.
Letting the Apollo program end prematurely was a phenomenal mistake. NASA’s subsequent strategy for human exploration, focused on space shuttle missions and orbital space stations, turned out to be uninspiring and tragically flawed. The recent successes of the Mars rovers, the Cassini probe to Saturn and other robotic missions may signal a renaissance, but the situation is still precarious. Indeed, the post-Apollo decline in public interest in space exploration reverberates today in the debates over NASA’s budget and the general skepticism about the agency’s future relevance, especially among the generation now entering the workforce. Further triumphs of the robotic missions will be possible only if public and political interest is rebuilt and sustained by a reinvigorated program of human exploration.
What is more, human brains will be vitally needed in many future missions. Although robots have proved their worth in documenting and measuring the characteristics of distant places, they fall far short of humans when it comes to making judgments, incorporating broader contexts into decision making and learning from their experiences. Some of these capabilities can be programmed, and so-called machine learning has advanced considerably in the past few decades. But the neural complexity that is so often needed to make discoveries—the same combination of logic, experience and gut instinct required to solve a mystery—cannot easily be distilled to a series of “if-then” statements in a computer algorithm. Robotic brains will lag far behind in these kinds of abilities for a long time to come, perhaps forever, thus placing severe constraints on the science they can do on other planets.
Robotic craft have worked well for the first age of space exploration, when simply flying a probe past a planet or landing on an alien terrain was enough to make dramatic discoveries. That era, however, is coming to an end. Now we are entering a new age of space exploration in which we must look more carefully at such planetary landscapes, as well as at what lies underneath them—analyzing the rocks, soils and gases of distant worlds in greater detail to flesh out the history of our solar system. This kind of science absolutely requires human explorers. In this new era, we will need brave people with brains to boldly go where no robot can take us.
This article was originally published with the title Have Brain, Must Travel.
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The single-storey house is built on the site of the owner's childhood home.
The new building comprises twelve rooms arranged around nine courtyards, constructed around the existing trees on the site.
Each room has a high, pitched ceiling with a skylight at the apex; the roofs slope down to admit light into each of the courtyards.
Aluminium-zinc tiles were used to clad the roof and walls.
Here's some more information from the architects:
PARR HOUSE, CHIGUAYANTE, CHILE, 2008
This is both a huge and a small house. It doesn’t have extended rooms but instead a series of rooms that repeat themselves and some functions that are doubled according to the traditional Chilean country life.
The house is located in a small farm where, until not long ago, stood the owner’s old house where his childhood was spent. It’s a setting filled with memories. The witnesses of those moments are different kinds of fruit trees (from cherry tress to walnut trees) and native tress (from palm trees to araucarias).
Beyond this suburban site there isn’t much; at least nothing visually attractive. Hence, the program extends horizontally in order to, besides occupying the depth of these gardens, conquer a sort of interior introspection and invisibility of its external presence.
The irregular structure, somewhat labyrinthine, together with establishing a series of variations responding to the size and proximity among rooms, contains nine patios open to the sky. Something similar to nine openings that control the density of the plan.
The floor has no variation of levels. If the roominess of some spaces was made possible by elevating the ceilings to the equivalent of two floors, this decision couldn’t affect the patios by casting a shade over them.
We therefore established two inclinations: that of the roofs, that always descends towards the patios (allowing only the shade cast by the vertical walls); and that of the ceilings, whose vertex sliced by natural light openings is located depending on the furniture of each room.
The weight of a tile mantle (that in some aspect resembles that of the
old wooden house) hangs from these fourteen truncated prisms.
Having small metal pieces is the only way of eliminating the seams at the edge (as if it were one of Burri´s collages) and through them of noticing the industrial yet crafted nature embodied in its surfaces.
Architects: Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ellrichshausen
Project: Parr House
Location: Galvarino street nº 1983, Chiguayante, Chile
Project date: 2006
Construction date: 2007-2008
Plot area: 2.835 m2
Built area: 532 m2
Budget: Not disclosed
Models: Juan Mellado, Carolina Merino, Maria Paz Palma
Structure: Claudio Sepúlveda
Construction: Claudio Bravo
Sanitary project: Marcelo Valenzuela
Electrical project: Juan Aroca
Hitting project: Mauricio Comas
Constructive system: Reinforced concrete, wooden beams
Exterior finishing: Aluminium-zinc tiles HD 20/40, PVC window frames
Interior finishing: Painted plaster, wooden and stone floors
Model photography: Ana Crovetto
Architecture photography: Cristobal Palma
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lip lit: Stepping into the Sunshine
Writing is often seen, and used, as a healing process for people who have endured traumatic experiences in their lives. By expressing what they have been through on paper, it has been found that this enables people to process what has happened to them and start to move forward. Stepping into the Sunshine is a collection of poetry which reveals the traumatic experiences of poet Grace Greenwood. Greenwood shares her journey through two successive abusive relationships, the aftermath and her first tentative steps to finding herself again. She holds nothing back, sharing her darkest moments with the reader.
Greenwood blatantly acknowledges in one of the poems that she found her voice through her writing, and that writing is the catalyst for her taking her first steps towards recovery. I like Greenwood’s openness and honestly in this collection, and her willingness to share so much of herself with the reader. However, for me, this is also one of the collection’s weaknesses. In poetry, there is so much said in what is left unsaid, and Greenwood leaves very little unsaid. She is so eager for the reader to know precisely what she went through, that her poetry focuses on constructing complete pictures of the specific incidents she chooses to retell. While it is clear that her intention is to show the reader exactly what she went through, it feels overdone for the poetry genre. Poems are supposed to construct a moment using only as much language as necessary, leading the reader space to fill in the gas for themselves.
Even so, there are a few diamonds scattered throughout the collection, and these shine through in Greenwood’s shorter poems. In the poem “Sanctuary”, Greenwood constructs a wonderful moment in only four lines, telling as much of a story as she does with some of her two page poems. Each word carries its weight to construct a single, devastating moment, allowing the reader to read between the lines and unravel the meaning for themselves.
Yet nothing can take away from the insight Greenwood gives her reader into the vicious cycle of abusive relationships. It is a confronting read. I am fortunate enough to never have experienced such a relationship, and while reading, I found myself gaining more understanding as to why she couldn’t simply leave the relationship at the first sign of trouble. It is more complicated than “just leaving”, and with the wisdom of hindsight, Greenwood indicates that now she can clearly see the signs she refused to see back then.
Greenwood’s courage is undeniable. She is not afraid to stand up to her partner, to a certain point, despite knowing what the consequences will be, and she fights and fights to try and protect her children and shelter them from the violence. And, when she finally realises she needs to leave, if not for her own sake then for her children’s, she does. Despite the horrible abuse Greenwood is victim to, she ultimately removes herself and her children from their perilous predicament and proceeds to get their lives back on track.
The collection shows just how difficult and painful it is to recover from something as demeaning and demoralising as an abusive relationship. There are times when Greenwood feels like she isn’t worth the ground she walks on and seriously considers ending it all, yet each time, something stops her from going that far. The poems recount good days and bad days, slowly turning from hopelessness and despair to glimmers of hope and excitement for the future.
Stepping into the Sunshine shares the story of one woman’s journey from the dark days of abuse to her first shaky steps towards a brighter future. While many of the poems felt wordy and overwritten, there are some wonderful, shorter pieces scattered throughout the collection. Yet this book is more about the story as a whole than each individual poem. Greenwood beautifully orchestrates her life journey through her poetry, allowing the reader a sneak peek into her trials and triumphs, through the days when seeing the sunshine is impossible, to embracing and celebrating herself, and the sunny days which are yet to come.
Stepping into the Sunshine is published by Footsteps Press.
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The number of individuals constituting a population is called population size. Over time population size does not remain constant, it fluctuates to different extent over generations because of several internal and external factors. Populations with violent fluctuation in population size are called unstable and are more prone to extinction as they hit lower population sizes frequently. And once a population in extinct, it is gone for ever. Thus it would be interesting to investigate how population stability evolves.
I guess you meant the population size stability.
It is considered that the biosystems will increase their capacity of adaptation when evolving in very fluctuating environments. I believe the population stability is embedded in the adaptability of individuals.
There is a measurement about it, evolvability, when the environment changes, the faster the population adapted to the new environment, the higher evolvability it has. This means that if the population has higher evolvability then the population may be more stable to environmental variation.
Even so, there might be plenty of underlying mechanisms to enable a certain population stability. I recently read a paper about two mechanism: phenotypic switching and sensing machinery, which are common in bacteria and fungi. Please refer to Edo Kussell and Stanislas Leibler's science paper (2005).
As the organism increase its complexity, biosystems invented many more tools to make the individual survival from disasters. Such as human's intelligence. Well it would be an endless issue.
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For instance, Rembrandt knew the ostensible truth of local color to be less important than getting its changing tones as it passed through variations of light and shade; that way, color itself became organic. Compositions like “The Night Watch,” he gambled, would come alive not through an accumulation of posed portraits but through their atmospheric integration into an irregularly lit drama. The nineteenth-century painter Eugène Fromentin could not have been more mistaken when he wrote, “The country, the place, the moment, the subject, the men, the objects have disappeared in the stormy phantasmagoria of his palette.” It was precisely because, in defiance of any precedent, Rembrandt whipped up that storm that the Amsterdam harquebusiers march from “The Night Watch” toward us, from their time to ours, with undiminished élan.
In the nineteen-sixties, after a thirty-year absence, Rembrandt came calling again, as Cohen points out, entering Picasso’s increasingly morbid meditations on his own place in the pantheon. Picasso had undergone surgery for (depending on your sources) either his prostate or his bowel, but, in any case, a procedure that he thought had made him impotent. It’s a commonplace that the artist who liked to masquerade as bull or Minotaur equated sexual and creative potency. (Indeed, one of the Vollard prints depicts a blind Minotaur in exactly the same attitude as the blind Tobit groping across a room in Rembrandt’s etching.) If Picasso had made a variation of Rembrandt’s “Bathsheba” (in the Louvre) back in the thirties, he might have incorporated himself into the painter’s-eye view, which is also King David’s as he spies on the perfect nude’s ablutions, watching her read his summons to the royal presence and bed. But in his post-op satirical mood Picasso gave Bathsheba the features of his wife, Jacqueline, while making himself, grotesquely, the grinning maidservant washing her mistress’s feet in preparation for the royal rape.
Depicting himself as a dwarfish voyeur unmanned by the proximity of imperious nudes, Picasso had even greater need of his fantasy Rembrandt, the artist enacting his virility with his brush. Rembrandt’s startling portrait of himself as the Prodigal Son, unsubtly hoisting aloft a long, cylindrical goblet of wine, while Saskia, in the guise of a plump tavern whore, perches on his lap, became in Picasso’s etched version a piece of ornamental pornography. His Saskia wears high heels, tart’s lipstick, and a lurid grin, and, thanks to the Cubist convention of simultaneous front and rear depiction, can flash all her graphically detailed pudenda.
Picasso had become the emasculated onlooker in a perversely imagined Rembrandtian theatre of the senses; others would have to do his strutting and rutting for him. First, improbably, was the central figure in “The Night Watch,” the well-named, for Picasso’s purposes, Captain Frans Banning Cocq. Sometimes Picasso would project a slide of the painting on his studio wall, and from the uproar of that scene Captain Banning Cocq would stride into his drawings, paintings, and prints as the Musketeer, gripping his officer’s cane, especially when confronted by a mighty nude. In one strangely beautiful aquatint, the Musketeer marches, hand on cane, not across an Amsterdam bridge but toward another stockinged woman offering herself, thighs splayed, from within a curtained bed.
Picasso’s recruitment of Rembrandt as the sponsor for his own immortalization culminated, three years before his death, in a sacrilegious borrowing from Rembrandt’s most theatrical etching, “Ecce Homo,” Pilate’s display of Christ before the people. In the Rembrandt etching, the Saviour is brought out as if for a curtain call, hands bound, on a high stage; spectators look out from lead-paned windows, an ill-assorted crowd (in the first five states of the etching) jostling below. Picasso borrowed the proscenium stage show but replaced the mocked Jesus with himself, turbaned, but pathetically reduced in stature: the impotent potentate. Gathered around him, onstage, in the stalls, peering down from the gods, is the teeming cast of characters who have populated his life and work: nudes on and off horses; incarnations of himself as diapered baby-Pablo; Pierrot-Pablo; and, in imitation of the Musketeer, spear-bearing Pablo. In place of the jeering crowd calling for the crucifixion of Jesus there is, predictably, his seraglio, etched in as many styles as he had had lovers and wives.
Self-mockery (just about) saves this “Theatre of Picasso,” as he called it, from egomania. Picasso probably knew of Rembrandt’s disturbing final self-portrait, in which he posed as the Greek artist Zeuxis dying of a fit of bilious cackles as he laughed at the old woman whose portrait he was painting. Among the spectators smiling down at Picasso’s final act are the bulb-nosed faces of the Rembrandt-Picasso the painter fantasized he had become.
Rembrandt had the life force in his hands, right to the end. That’s why Picasso adamantly refused to think of him—or his other mentor-masters—as belonging to “the past.” “To me there is no past or future in art,” he said in the early nineteen-twenties. “The art of the great painters who lived in other times is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.” Timelessness is not always an empty cliché; sometimes, as the ninety-year-old Picasso knew when he reached toward Rembrandt as a tonic against extinction, it is full of sustaining truth. ♦
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Norway is currently facing major challenges. Outlying districts are being depopulated while the country’s oil will one day be exhausted. We need new solutions to provide versatile industrial foundations and sustainable future development.
The project “Ardent Spirits” explores idealism and creativity, focusing on individuals with a passion for their ideas and initiatives as the bedrock of sustainable development. We have selected twenty-five such idealists from around Norway. All combine innovation and profitability with a strong desire to contribute to a new, green and sustainable future.
Farmer and engineer Svein Lilleengen from Ørland municipality in Sør- Trøndelag produces biogas from cattle manure. The biogas facility can supply cars and ferries with fuel, greenhouses with CO2, and agriculture and forestry with ecological fertilizer that simultaneously protect the harvest against pests.
For us, idealists such as Lilleengen are a vital prerequisite for sustainable local development. In the experimental regional plan for Brekstad, the community closest to Lilleengen’s farm, we used the local biogas manufacturer as a catalyst enterprise. Svein Lilleengen’s farm is transformed into the hub for a network of existing resources and structures. Local operators, politicians, businesses, organisations and consultants all contribute to a creative collaboration. In this way, local idealists and their projects are able to guide the community towards sustainable solutions and contribute to positive economic development in the area.
This exhibition is not the conclusion of a project. “Ardent spirits” is an ongoing process and only the beginning of a local development aimed at the future.
Team: Reinhard Kropf, Alex Sandulescu, Elise Junge
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Insuring Your Home During Remodeling
If you're adding an extra room or making some other improvement to your home, you will probably need to update your homeowners insurance policy to cover the addition or improvement. You should also protect yourself from liability by ensuring that the workers performing the renovations have proper insurance coverage.
Notify your insurance agent about your remodeling plans
Contact your insurance agent before construction begins in order to increase your coverage to reflect the new changes in your home. He or she can help you determine how much additional property coverage you'll need and can also help you obtain extended liability or other insurance. Keep your agent informed about the progress of the remodeling in case your plans change and a different level of coverage is needed.
Increase the amount of your coverage
Although some homeowners policies are comprehensive enough to cover most home additions and improvements, other policies make it necessary for you to increase your coverage amount. Remember that your home's value will increase with the improvements, so you'll soon have more to protect. Don't make the mistake of waiting until the remodeling is completed to increase the amount of your homeowners insurance coverage. You should do this before the work starts. If you don't, and the improvement is damaged or destroyed before it's completed, you'll probably have to pay for the loss out of your own pocket--turning your remodeling plan into a very expensive job. Of course, when you purchase more insurance, your premiums will increase.
What your homeowners insurance should cover
If you're adding a new room or other structure to your house, you would be wise to specifically name the new addition as a covered item on your homeowners policy. Otherwise, if the new structure is damaged, the insurance company might not cover your loss. However, a new roof or modern stormproof windows do not necessarily need to be named as covered items in your policy. In most cases, these improvements will increase the overall value of your house, and you should simply increase your total coverage amount to reflect your home's greater value. Talk to your agent for details. Keep in mind that you may also need to buy increased coverage for any new furniture or other personal property you purchase.
While your remodeling is being done, you also need to consider protection for the building supplies that your contractor uses to complete the job. If supplies such as carpeting, tiles, or lumber are stolen, your homeowners insurance or the contractor's business insurance should cover the theft. The time to find out, though, is before a supplier starts delivering these items to your house.
Make sure your contractor is properly insured
When you hire a contractor to work on your house, you run the risk of a lawsuit if the contractor or an employee gets injured on the job. You need to protect yourself from this potential liability by verifying that the contractor carries adequate workers' compensation coverage. Ask to see proof; have the contractor's insurance agent mail or fax you a copy directly. The contractor should be able to present an active certificate of coverage. Make sure the certificate's active dates reflect the current period. You would be wise to call your contractor's insurance carrier for confirmation.
Your contractor should also have a certificate for contractor's liability coverage. This type of insurance covers any damage the contractor does to your property unrelated to the renovation. In addition, find out if the contractor's policy covers uninstalled finished products, such as chandeliers or ceiling fans. If not, consider adding such coverage to your homeowners policy.
Don't forget subcontractors
If you are having major remodeling done to your house, such as the addition of a new room, your general contractor may delegate some of the work to subcontractors. For instance, he or she may bring in an electrician, plumber, painter, or other specialist to handle a particular area of the job. In this case, examine each subcontractor's certificate of coverage for workers' compensation insurance yourself. Do this even though the general contractor will generally take responsibility for confirming such coverage. You may want to call the insurance carriers for verification. If the amount of coverage is inadequate, contact your agent about extending the limits of the liability portion of your homeowners policy. This is also the case if you plan to act as the general contractor yourself. Subcontractors are separate workers and need to be covered separately.
What if your family or friends help with the work?
Suppose you're doing most of the renovation yourself, with a little help from a relative or close friend; no one is being paid. You still need to make sure your helper is adequately protected in the event of injury. Generally, the liability coverage of your homeowners insurance will pay the medical bills, just as it would for any other guest at your home. Under some circumstances, though, your helper's health insurance might pick up a portion of the medical costs before your homeowners policy kicks in. If you have any questions about coverage, ask your insurance agent.
Finally, it is important to obtain proper inspections to make sure that the addition/renovations meet local code. Without this, a loss might not be covered. For example, if an electrical fire started in the uninspected room that you added on, you may have a problem.
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VIRGINIA MARINE RESOURCES COMMISSION
"WETLANDS MITIGATION-COMPENSATION POLICY AND SUPPLEMENTAL GUIDELINES"
REGULATION 4 VAC 20-390-10 ET SEQ.
4 VAC 20-390-10. DEFINITIONS
The following words, when used in these guidelines, shall have the following meaning unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
"Compensation" means actions taken which have the effect of substituting some form of wetland resource for those lost or significantly disturbed due to a permitted development activity; generally habitat creation or restoration. Compensation is a form of mitigation.
"Mitigation" means all actions, both taken and not taken, which eliminate or materially reduce the adverse effects of a proposed activity on the living and nonliving components of a wetland system or their ability to interact.
4 VAC 20-390-20. POLICY
In spite of the passage of the Virginia Wetlands Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1972, the pressures to use or develop tidal wetlands along Virginia's shoreline, have continued to accelerate as evidenced by the increasing number of permit applications being submitted. While losses are controlled by existing permit programs, data compiled by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) over the last 11 years (1993 - 2004) has shown a total permitted loss of 132 acres of tidal wetlands. Of these losses, most are associated with shoreline stabilization projects where each individual project may account for only a few hundred square feet of impact. Compensation for these losses has not usually been required. In fact, during the same period only 20.3 acres of mitigation have been required. Research, however has demonstrated that certain wetlands can be established or re-established in areas where wetlands are not presently found. As such, compensation for permitted wetland losses is viewed as a means of offsetting impacts of necessary projects.
The Commission, through this policy, intends to encourage, where appropriate, the compensation of all permitted tidal wetland losses especially vegetated losses provided all mitigative measures have been considered to avoid any impact. This should include compensation on-site, compensation within the watershed, compensation through the use of a mitigation bank as authorized by § 28.2-1308 of the code of Virginia or
through acceptance of an applicant's offer of payment to an in-lieu fee account established at the local, regional or state level and dedicated to wetland creation and restoration.
The need to compensate for all permitted wetland losses is further emphasized by the Commonwealth's commitment to the Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. In 2000, Virginia, as a Chesapeake Bay Program partner committed to "achieve a no-net loss of existing wetlands acreage and function in the signatories' regulatory programs." If Virginia is to meet this goal, wetland losses permitted through the tidal wetland regulatory program, no matter how small, must be replaced.
4 VAC 20-390-30. GENERAL CRITERIA
It shall remain the policy of the Commonwealth to mitigate or minimize the loss of wetlands and the adverse ecological effects of all permitted activities through the implementation of the principles set forth in the existing Wetlands Guidelines promulgated by the Commission. To determine whether compensation is warranted and permissible a two-tiered mechanism will be implemented. This dual approach will consist first of an evaluation of necessity for the proposed wetlands loss (See Specific Criteria below). If the proposal passes this evaluation, compensation will be required and implemented as set forth in the second phase, the Supplemental Guidelines of this policy.
The primary thrust of combining the existing Wetlands Guidelines with the two-tiered compensation criteria is to preserve the wetlands in their natural state as much as possible, and to consider appropriate requirements for compensation only after it has been proven that the loss of the natural resource is unavoidable and that the project will have the highest public and private benefit.
A reading of the original Wetlands Act clearly indicates that the General Assembly intended for the Commonwealth's wetland resources to be preserved in their "natural state," and emphasized through its declaration of policy, the importance of an overall ecological approach to wetlands management.
"The Commonwealth of Virginia hereby recognizes the unique character of the wetlands, an irreplaceable natural resource which, in its natural state, is essential to the ecological systems of the tidal rivers, bays and estuaries of the Commonwealth." (Emphasis added)
The General Assembly has also originally stated that where economic development in the wetlands is clearly necessary and justified it will be accommodated while preserving the wetlands resource.
".... it is declared to be the public policy of this Commonwealth to preserve the wetlands and to prevent their despoliation and destruction and to accommodate necessary economic development in a manner consistent with wetlands preservation." (Originally adopted under § 62.1-13.1 of the Code of Virginia, now under Powers and Duties of the Commission pursuant to § 28.2-1301 of the Code of Virginia) (Emphasis added)
In § 28.2-1308 of the Code of Virginia the General Assembly mandated the preservation of the ecological systems within wetlands of primary ecological significance and then stated:
"Development in Tidewater, Virginia, to the maximum extent practical, shall be concentrated in wetlands of lesser ecological significance, in vegetated wetlands which have been irreversibly disturbed before July 1, 1972, in nonvegetated wetlands which have been irreversibly disturbed prior to January 1, 1983, and in areas of Tidewater, Virginia, outside of wetlands."
The General Assembly has clearly spelled out that "necessary economic development" is to be accommodated in Tidewater, Virginia, but that the emphasis is on wetlands preservation in their natural state.
Since use and development of tidal wetlands are regulated through the Wetlands Zoning Ordinance, commitments to preserve other existing tidal wetlands are not ordinarily an acceptable form of compensation.
4 VAC 20-390-40. SPECIFIC CRITERIA
In order for a proposal to be authorized to destroy wetlands and compensate for the wetland loss in some prescribed manner, the three criteria listed below must be met. If the proposal cannot meet one or more of these criteria, the activity shall be denied, or must occur in areas apart from the wetlands. Should it satisfy all three criteria, however, compensation for the wetlands lost is required. Since the proposed activity should stand on its own merits in the permit approval process, compensation should not be used to justify permit issuance.
1. All reasonable mitigative actions, including alternate siting, which would eliminate or minimize wetlands loss or disturbance must be incorporated in the proposal.
2. The proposal must clearly be water-dependent in nature.
3. The proposal must demonstrate clearly its need to be in the wetlands and its overwhelming public and private benefits.
4 VAC 20-390-50. SUPPLEMENTAL GUIDELINES
If compensation is required, then the following guidelines should be given due consideration and, if appropriate, may be included as conditions of the permit. In any case, on-site compensation at the project site is the preferred location alternative with off-site, in the same watershed, as a consideration when on-site is not feasible. Locating a compensation site outside the river basin of the project is not acceptable unless it is done as part of a state-coordinated program of ecological enhancement. The sequence of acceptable mitigation options should be as follows: On-site, off-site within the same watershed or mitigation bank in the watershed, or through a proffered payment of an in-lieu fee if on-site and off-site compensation are shown by the applicant to be impractical considering the project location.
1. Use of on-site and off-site Compensation - When on-site or off-site compensation is required as a condition of permit approval the following items should be considered. The Commission or wetlands board may wish to condition any approval on the receipt of an acceptable compensation plan before issuance of the final permit for an approved project.
A. A detailed plan, including a scaled plan view drawing, should be submitted describing the objectives of the wetland compensation, the type of wetland to be created, the mean tide range at the site, the proposed elevations relative to a tidal datum, the exact location, the areal extent, the method of marsh establishment and the exact time frame from initial work to completion. The plan should also include plans for replanting areas where vegetation fails to grow.
B. Once the grading is completed at the planting site, it should be inspected by a competent authority to insure that the elevations are appropriate for the vegetation to be planted and that the surface drainage is effective.
C. The compensation plan and its implementation should be accomplished by experienced professionals knowledgeable of the general and site-specific requirements for wetland establishment and long-term survival.
D. A performance bond or letter of credit should be required and remain in force until the new wetland is successfully established; a minimum of two growing seasons and a required planting success rate established by the Commission or wetlands board has been achieved.
E. The compensation marsh should be designed to replace as nearly as possible, the functional values of the lost resource on an equal or greater basis. In general this means creating a marsh of similar plant structure to that being lost. This may not be the case where a lesser value marsh is involved (i.e. Group 4 or 5 wetlands). A minimum 1:1 area exchange should be required in all case. The ratio of required compensation to approved loss should be specified by the Commission or wetlands board and may be based on the use of the Function Specific Credit Calculation Method established by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and contained in the Guidelines for the Establishment, Use and Operation of Tidal Wetland Mitigation Banks in Virginia
F. The compensation should be accomplished prior to, or concurrently with, the construction of the proposed project. Before any activity under the permit may begin, the permittee should own all interests in the mitigation site, which are needed to carry out the mitigation.
G. All reasonable steps should be taken to avoid or minimize any adverse environmental effects associated with the compensation activities themselves.
H. In selecting a compensation site, one aquatic community should not be sacrificed to "create" another. In cases where dredged material must be placed overboard, the area may be used to create marsh, oyster rock or improve the resource value of the bottom.
I. The type of plant community proposed as compensation should have a demonstrated history of successful establishment in order to be acceptable.
J. Manipulating the plant species composition of an existing marsh community, as a form of compensation, is unacceptable.
K. Nonvegetated wetlands should be treated on an equal basis with vegetated wetlands with regard to compensation and mitigation, unless site-specific information indicates one is more valuable than the other.
L. Both short-term and long-term monitoring of compensation sites should be considered on a case-by-case basis. For unproven types of compensation the applicant will be responsible for funding such monitoring as is deemed necessary.
M. Conservation or other easements to be held in perpetuity should be required for the compensation marsh. Easements accepted by the Commission will be processed in accordance with the provisions of § 28.2-1301 of the Code of Virginia.
2. Use of Mitigation Banks - Pursuant to § 28.2-1308 of the Code of Virginia, when any activity involving the loss of tidal wetlands authorized by the Commission or a wetlands board is conditioned upon compensatory mitigation the applicant may be permitted to satisfy all or part of such mitigation requirements by the purchase or use of credits from any approved wetlands mitigation bank. Guidelines for the Establishment, Use and Operation of Tidal Wetland Mitigation Banks in Virginia have been promulgated by the Commission. Unless the applicant can demonstrate compliance with specific criteria contained in § 28.2-1308 for use of a compensatory mitigation bank outside the watershed where a permitted project is located the use of a mitigation bank for permitted activities requiring compensation must be in the same U.S.G. S cataloging unit or adjacent U.S.G. S cataloging unit in the same watershed. When approving the use of a compensatory mitigation bank the ratio of required compensation to approved loss must be specified by the Commission or wetlands board and should incorporate the use of Function Specific Credit Calculation Method established by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and contained in the Guidelines for the Establishment, Use and Operation of Tidal Wetland Mitigation Banks in Virginia.
REGULATION 4 VAC 20-390-10 ET SEQ.
3. Use of in-lieu fees - The use of in-lieu fees should be the last form of mitigation used to offset permitted wetland losses and must be the result of an agreed upon permit condition between the applicant and the Commission or wetlands board provided the applicant can demonstrate that on-site or off-site compensation options are not practical and no compensatory mitigation banks have been established in the project watershed. Localities are encouraged to establish a fund, for such payments, that is dedicated to tidal wetlands restoration and creation. At the local level this could be the same fund established for the receipt of Civil Charges or Civil Penalties. Administration of such a fund should include an ability to trace the contribution of in-lieu fees to eventual use in actual wetland restoration or creation projects. If payments are made to other dedicated wetland restoration funds this should be recognized in the permit issued by the board. In no case should an in-lieu fee amount be accepted for less than the cost of necessary compensation acreage or the purchase of necessary credits in an approved bank. This is intended to prevent the avoidance of use of on-site or off-site compensation, or compensatory mitigation bank for a cheaper alternative that would not be able to fund the same level of wetland restoration or creation required by on-site or off site compensation or through use of a compensatory mitigation bank. Use of the fund could be for actual tidal wetland creation or restoration projects in the locality or for the purchase of credits in an approved compensatory mitigation bank that is authorized subsequent to the receipt of any in-lieu fee. Localities are encouraged to combine any in-lieu fee with other potential or available funds for wetland restoration or creation projects.
Statutory Authority: §28.2-103
and Chapter 13 (§28.2-1300 et seq.) of Title 28.2 of the Code of
Historical Notes: Derived from VR450-01-0051 §5; eff. August 2, 1989.
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The sorting hat says that I belong in Slytherinr!
Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those whose ancestry is purest."
Slytherin students are typically cunning and hungry for power. Important members include Draco Malfoy (Harry's nemesis), Professor Severus Snape (head of Slytherin), and Lord Voldemort.
Get Sorted Now!
“Sing in me muse, and through tell me a story!”
Opening line of epic poem “The Odyssey” by Homer
“Two houses, both a like in dignity… From ancient grudge break to new mutiny…” He lifted a finger and traced her cheekbone, a short burst of laughter resounding from his chest. “A rose by any other name would not smell as sweet.”
“Steal my soul away with a kiss,” he breathed, and slowly – tantalizingly – he leaned forward, lightly brushing his lips against hers.
His lips were still so close and but still refused to meet hers one more time. Almost as if he were… waiting? With a small smile, she whispered back, “Then have my lips the sin they have took.”
She heard a small laugh escape from him. “Then give me back my soul.”
“Yours is the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium.”
“ You drive me manic, you know… you’re my star, “ he said. “ You’re my manic star. “
The stars are in your eyes, I’d like to look at them forever” .
“ Please, “ Draco began, almost choking.
She shook her head and started walking again.
“ Take care of it?” Draco’s voice finally said, it sounded tired and defeated.
She looked at him. “ Take care of what? “ she asked.
“ My heart, I gave it to you freely- maybe you’ll love someone else later on- but- just- for now? Take care of it? It’s the last thing I was willing to give away, and I gave it up for you. “
Hermione felt her self-possession plummet to the cold ground. Her hands began to tremble again. And she no longer felt the biting air on her exposed flesh. All she saw was Draco and that narrow path that separated them from each other. She was too hurt. She knew it. She felt it, despite all the apologies, the words that could have melted any girl right then and there, the efforts, collaborations with her two best friends just to fix what had happened- it was all for her- but somehow, the pain lingered. She didn’t say anything. Instead she felt tears drop on her cheeks. They fell on the snow, they fell on her hand. She was falling for it all over again, wasn’t she?
“ Please- please don’t cry- “ Draco began, his voice sounding broken this time.
“ I- I can’t help it- “ she stammered. “ Excuse me. Please don’t follow me? “
And Draco stood there once more, watching her walk away with his heart. And somehow he knew- his heart felt broken, broken inside of her.-Manic Star by Perfect Circle
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Top executives from three of the country's largest coal companies will testify before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on Wednesday, where they will address, among other things, what they think about climate change.
Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and Rio Tinto have significantly different takes on climate legislation. Rio Tinto is a member of the US Climate Action Partnership, which advocates for putting a price on carbon. Peabody and Arch, however, both oppose climate legislation.
The committee doesn't oversee mine safety policy, and Massey Energy won't be among the witnesses, but it's inevitable that the hearing will cover the recent tragedy in West Virginia that led to the deaths of 29 miners. The House Education and Labor Committee is also expected to look more closely at the disaster, and senators have pledged to examine it as well.
With concerns mounting about both safety issues and carbon pollution, the coal industry is coming under heavy fire. The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued tough new guidelines on the controversial practice of mountaintop removal mining. And it's not so long since the the coal industry's front group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, found itself mired in scandal after it hired a contractor that forged letters from citizens' groups protesting the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill and sent them to members of Congress.
Wednesday's hearing aims to delve deeper into all these questions about the industry's future. "Whether it's climate science, the viability of 'clean coal,' or safety concerns, I believe Congress requires answers from the coal industry on their ability to be a part of our clean energy future," said committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
I'll have more from the hearing this week.
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- Category: Technology
08 Mar 2013
- Published on Friday, 08 March 2013 09:16
- Hits (941)
Researchers from the University of Connecticut have developed nanosized antennas that could allow a solar cell to harvest and convert more solar energy from sunlight.
Scientists have long theorized that small nanosized antenna arrays could harvest and convert more than 70 percent of the sun’s electromagnetic radiation; a vast improvement over current silicon solar panels which collect only about 20 percent.
The nanoantennas known as rectennas are also capable of automatically converting the sunlight into energy.
Rectennas are extremely difficult to construct. They must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart.
UConn engineering professor Brian Willis developed and patented a novel fabrication technique called selective area atomic layer deposition that enabled the fabrication of a working rectenna device.
In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, and the tip of that electrode must hold within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode.
Previous attempts using lithographic fabrication techniques failed to get the proper spacing between the electrodes. Through atomic layer deposition, Mr. Willis was able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers was achieved.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. Because of these tunnels, rectennas can also covert solar radiation in the infrared region.
Silicon solar panels have a single band gap which allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectanna doesn’t rely on a band gap and devices using it may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum.
“This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels,” said Mr. Willis. “This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought.”
The Federal government has taken notice of the work and Mr. Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona, along with private research and development company SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., have received a $650,000 three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for new ways to maximize their performance. – EcoSeed Staff
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I just got sent a link from Weird Asia News on the “baglehead” body modification trend in Japan. I must say, it’s pretty unattractive.
Apparently the “baglehead” body modification requires a saline solution drip that is used to cause inflammation and swelling in various parts of the body. The results speak for themselves.
Horrifyingly horrible certainly comes to mind.
Why would anyone want to do this? The only exploitation I can imagine is that it looks like the person in imitating certain Japanese Oni folklore style making themselves look like an ogre or troll.
It apparently wears off in 24 hours.
Inflating facts from The Vine:
- The professional body piercer will use a saline bag, tube and needle. It works in a similar way to a hospital drip, so the bag needs to be raised above the body part picked for puffing.
- Body inflator’s never make their own saline solution and steer clear of tap water, due to the risk of infection.
- The needle is placed under the skin but not in a vein – or the build-up of pressure could mean exploding blood vessels.
- While it’s not that dangerous, some people who’ve done it regularly have found their skin has permanently expanded.
- The most interesting place to inflate is the forehead, as the taut skin means the effects are extremely obvious.
- Inflatees can prod the inflated lumps to make them look more interesting.
And since that completely terrifies me; to relax, here are some cat/bagel pictures.
So what do you think? Completely crazy?
Leave a Reply
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- About Us
- Jenner Investigators
- Research Programmes
- Graduate Applications
- Core Facilities
- Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are an essential part of vaccine development. They are categorised as "Phase I" trials taking place in the UK, and "Phase II" field trials taking place in an endemic country.
The majority of the Institute's Phase 1 trials take place at the Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine, Churchill Hospital, Oxford.
If you would like to become involved in a clinical trial as a volunteer, please follow the below links for further information on current trials and to register your interest.
Healthy Volunteer Database:
If you are interested in joining the Oxford Vaccine Centre Healthy Volunteer Database, please follow this link for further information.
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Fort Southwest Point
In 1796 two important events impacted military operations in Tennessee. So, on June 1, 1796 Tennessee was admitted as a state and the U. S. legislature, passed “An Act to -Regulate Trade and intercourse with the Indian Tribes and Preserve Peace on the Frontier.” Combined with the substantial reduction of hostilities between the white settlers and the Cherokee Nation, these events led to the U. S. Government assuming more of a protectionist role in preserving Indians’ rights. By protecting the Cherokee’s rights, the military was able to preserve peace on the frontier. This task dramatically increased the number of federal troops stationed In Tennessee.
Fort Southwest point was constructed in 1797 to accommodate the increased number of troops. It was located approximately 1/2 mile downstream from the 1792 blockhouse. Over 400 troops were stationed at Fort Southwest Point at Its peak. It became the headquarters for federal troops In Tennessee under the command of Colonel David Henley, as agent of war. The U. S. government shift to a more protectionist role with the Cherokee was seen in how the troops carried out their role as peace keepers. Their escort service across Cherokee territory became less to protect the travelers from attack by the Cherokee and more to ensure the travelers did not illegally settle on Cherokee owned lands. In addition, the troops began to further protect Cherokee rights by forcibly removing white settlers who had illegally settled on Cherokee lands.
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Sherlock Holmes in the Ice Palace
The Sherlock Holmes Society of London will make a pilgrimage to the Bernese Oberland in September 2012. Last week, British artist John Doubleday created a Sherlock Holmes statue on the Jungfraujoch.
Last week, John Doubleday worked 15-hour days in the Ice Palace on the Jungfraujoch and created a work of art. He transformed a block of ice over two metres high into a sculpture of Sherlock Holmes. The master detective, complete with hat and pipe, is now immortalized in ice at over 3500 metres above sea level.
Born in 1947, sculptor John Doubleday has worked in many countries including China, India and South Africa. He uses mostly bronze for his sculptures but in his career has also created works in wax, plaster, wood, clay and ice.
The ice sculpture launches a project by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, which has organized regular pilgrimages to Switzerland since 1968. This year, the Sherlock Holmes pilgrimage will take place from 9 to 16 September and take in Interlaken, the Jungfraujoch and the Haslital valley. Up to 70 members of the society will join in the “Immortal Sherlock Holmes Pilgrimage”. Each member will embody a character from a Sherlock Holmes novel and wear an appropriate 19th century costume. On arrival in Interlaken, the group will parade through the town. During the stay in the Jungfrau Region, society members will also visit the Sherlock Holmes ice sculpture on the Jungfraujoch and accompany the Jungfrau Railway centenary celebrations. The last day of the trip will be dedicated to the famous death struggle between Holmes and his arch-rival James Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in the Haslital valley.
Switzerland Tourism, Interlaken Tourism, Haslital Tourism and Jungfrau Railways are sponsoring this year’s pilgrimage by the Sherlock Holmes Society as official partners.erstellt 14.03.2012
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The four letters which appear on the four corners of a dreidel alude to the miracle of Hanukkah. They spell out: Nes (N-miracle), Gadol (G-great), Haya (H-happened) and Sham (S-there, meaning in Israel).
To begin the game, each player should have about 20 Peppermint Candy Drops. Each person puts one piece of candy in the middle of the table. Then each person takes a turn at spinning the dreidel. When only one piece of candy or no candy is left in the middle each player adds another piece of candy. When a player has all the candy, that person wins!
For those of you who don't want to use candy for the game, we have also added "Points" to this game. You can grab a piece of paper and keep track of how many points you get! Who ever reaches 100 points first wins!
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Chad: Civilians flee as government targets critics
|Publisher||Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)|
|Publication Date||20 March 2008|
|Cite as||Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), Chad: Civilians flee as government targets critics, 20 March 2008, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/47ea1fcf3.html [accessed 22 May 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
"Detainees should be released immediately or charged with a crime and accorded all their rights, including immediate access to a lawyer and a hearing before an impartial judge to determine the lawfulness of their detention," Human Rights Watch (HRW)'s Africa Director Georgette Gagnon said in a statement issued on 20 March.
"At least eight individuals, and possibly many more, remain in custody," she said.
The head of a local Chad human rights group Human Rights Without Borders (DHSF), Deuzoumbe Daniel Passalet, said the number of detainees is at least 20 and that many members of the opposition as well as apolitical citizens have fled the country out of fear of being arrested.
"The situation has deteriorated markedly since February," Passalet told IRIN from Cameroon, where he had recently fled.
"Certainly the authorities were aggressive before the rebel attack in February," he said. "But after February they became vengeful. Anyone who was suspected of supporting the rebels was arrested and sometimes their houses were demolished."
"I fled the country after police came to my house to try to arrest me," he added.
HRW said it had received numerous reports of arbitrary arrests from credible sources in Chad and Cameroon, but that some of the reports could not be verified, "often because former detainees, family members and eyewitnesses declined to be interviewed for fear of government persecution".
It also has evidence of soldiers torturing and ill-treating those taken into custody, including one case in which, "soldiers beat the detainee with electrical cables that left open wounds, which were examined by Human Rights Watch".
"The Chadian government is using the recent coup attempt as a pretext to arbitrarily arrest people who have no apparent connection to the insurgency," HRW said.
Eleven of the 15 cases of apparent arbitrary detention documented by the group are members of the Goran ethnic group, "raising concerns that the government is targeting people for arrest at least in part on account of their ethnicity."
The Goran predominate in the Chadian rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development, (UFDD) which led the attack in February.
HRW said that members of Chad's Tama ethnic group were subject to arbitrary arrest and detention in the wake of an April 2006 attack on N'djamena by the predominantly Tama rebel United Front for Change (FUC).
Chad has also been widely condemned for detaining three opposition leaders. Two have been released, while a third, Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, is still unaccounted for.
Passalet of DHSF said it is generally believed that he died in custody. HRW said that Chadian authorities must be made "fully accountable" for his whereabouts.
Rights groups also accuse the security forces of committing other abuses in February while conducting house-to-house searches for rebels and goods that were looted during the February coup attempt. "Soldiers searched homes without warrants and stole and extorted money and other valuables during these searches," HRW said, adding that it "documented the rape of two women by soldiers".
The Chadian government says it has set up a commission of inquiry to look into the events that occurred during and after the rebel attack. HRW said that the commission "is not in line with international standards" because it lacks independence and credibility and is headed by the president of the Chadian National Assembly, a close ally of President [Idriss] Déby.
HRW called on France, the United States, China, and the European Union to press the Chadian government to release or charge all of those subjected to arbitrary detention.
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Faced with choice between a light rail system serving north Mecklenburg or none, you’d probably climb aboard, right? And if I asked you for a donation to help build it? I’m guessing your response would be somewhere between “let me get back to you” and “bless your heart.”
But rail lines cost money-boxcars full of money. In fact, the latest estimates put the Red Line project from Charlotte to Mooresville at around $350 million. That number isn’t likely to decrease given the number of towns, consultants and governmental agencies involved. I’m betting the final tally will approach Joint Strike Fighter-like escalation.
Now in these days of steroidal deficits, can we justify tacking on another $350 mil? Well, there’s a glossy report you paid for that says if we wager millions of your tax dollars building the Red Line, other folks are going to construct $6 billion worth of stuff alongside it. It must be a really, really nice train.
Great return, right? Except, uh, three short years ago a developer was willing to pony up $70 million for roads for the privilege of plowing another half a billion into Cornelius. Anybody remember Augustalee? Apparently the notion that developers should help alleviate the public burdens they cause gets derailed when it comes to the train.
Okay, building the Red Line will entice developers to develop. Any other benefits? Will it actually carry people? Of course, but so few not even the federal government wants to ante up. That’s right- ridership estimates are so low the project doesn’t qualify for federal funding. (You’d think that would’ve lowered a crossing gate somewhere.) If they don’t take the train, how are people going to get to $6 billion worth of buildings? Most likely they’ll drive – on Interstate 77.
So let’s compare the Red Line to adding a lane on I-77 up to Catawba Avenue. First, how much would third lane cost? Rough estimates put the number around $30-50 million. That’s dropping a zero off the Red Line price tag. Second, will a third lane carry traffic? Duh. I cram into one of two lanes with 80,000-plus of my closest friends every day. You’ve probably seen me- I’m the one with the scowl on my face.
As an ace-in-the-hole, rail proponents like to play the environmental card. Trains are supposed to be cleaner, right? No argument here. A train requires about a third the fuel a truck does to move the same amount of cargo. Problem is, “cargo” in this case would be people. Remember the ridership estimates? The folks from the Peninsula aren’t going to leave their beemers at the Park and Ride all day. But if those beemers (and lesser vehicles) were moving in three lanes instead of idling in two, we’d save around three million gallons of gas and keep 30,000 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year. (If you don’t believe me I’ll send you the spreadsheet.)
Three million gallons of gas equates to $10 million a year in our pockets. Instead of going up in a cloud of ozone, we could be spending that cash on local businesses. That’s like finding money. How’s that for a return on investment?
To be fair, the train and the lane don’t compete directly for funding. But they do compete for our elected officials’ attention, and right now the train is pretty far down the track: Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville have donated some of your tax dollars to stoke the coals. They hold meetings. They’ve brought in consultants. They’ve created a task force. Heck, they even have a website.
And I-77? I scoured the towns’ websites. If any town is advocating a third lane, they’ve buried the memo so deep I don’t think Wikileaks could find it.
So why do you think our elected officials remain fixated on light rail? Probably because nobody was ever remembered for laying down asphalt, but every civic leader likes to point to a shiny new train. All aboard!
– Kurt Naas
Naas serves on the Cornelius Transportation Advisory Board. He’s forming a grass roots organization to widen I-77 through the Lake Norman area. You can e-mail him at email@example.com.
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January / December 1996
by Catherine Hanssens
The ADA offers new hope of preserving coverage
If there is one issue people with HIC are virtually guaranteed to encounter, it is the issue of health care insurance and access. HIV can be a severe barrier to getting and maintaining health coverage, a problem that typically worsens with the advancement of the disease. The volatility of the issue recently was illustrated when New Jersey announced its plan to adopt regulations allowing insurers to test new applicants for HIV and to deny coverage to those who test positive or who refuse the test. The move provoked an uproar among state medical experts and consumer advocates, causing the insurance commissioner to extend her study of the regulations and delay possible implementation.
There are a number of hotly contested legal issues which can arise for a person with HIV who is seeking, or trying to keep, private insurance. However, an important development in changes to HIV-specific benefit exclusions is currently being battled out in the courts, with employers and insurance companies seeking to limit the Americans With Disabilities Act’s (ADA) protections against insurance-related discrimination.
Before the ADA, advocates failed in their attempts to attack one of the more egregious examples of discrimination—the capping or exclusion of benefits for persons with AIDS who had been covered under an employee benefit plan for years, but found themselves without coverage after submitting an AIDS-related claim. A well-known and horrifying example of this is McGann v. H&H Music. In that case, Houston’s H&H Music replaced its group health insurance plan offering $1,000,000 lifetime benefits after a long-time employee, Jack McGann, submitted AIDS-related treatment claims. H&H changed to a plan which maintained this level of benefits for everyone except those with AIDS-related claims, which had a $5,000 lifetime limit under the new plan. The federal appeals court decided that the cap on AIDS benefits did not violate ERISA, the applicable federal law which at least in theory prohibits discrimination intended to deprive a plan beneficiary of benefits.
The ADA may prove to be an antidote for the McGann brand of insurance discrimination against people with HIV. The ADA’s provisions on disability-related employment discrimination, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) guidelines, seem clear that employer-provided health benefits are among the “terms, conditions and privileges of employment” in which employers cannot single out people with HIV for different treatment. A little over two years ago a New York City federal trial judge, in Mason Tenders District Council Welfare Fund v. Donaghey, concluded that a union health plan’s exclusion of AIDS-related claims violates the ADA. Since the ADA’s adoption, the EEOC has pursued, and successfully settled, a number of cases attacking employer-provided health benefits plans with AIDS caps. These settlements, however, leave a shortage of law defining the extent of the ADA’s application.
The ADA also allows advocated to argue that plans which exclude benefits only for AIDS care violate the ADA’s protection against discrimination in public accommodations. The heart of the battle here is whether the “public accommodations” access governed by the ADA is limited to actual physical structures, or whether it also forbids interference with a disabled individual’s equal enjoyment of goods and services when the individual’s purchase or inquiry occurs outside the place of business. A federal appeals court in New England decided late last year that the ADA’s public accommodations protections are not limited to actual physical structures, a conclusion echoed by an Illinois federal court in late September, 1995 in Baker v. Hartford Life Insurance Co.. In the past year, however, federal courts in Ohio and Tennessee have come to the opposite conclusion.
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Alicia Raimundo has been a mental health advocate since she was 13, after she experienced serious bouts of suicidal ideation as the result of her depression and anxiety. In this TEDxTalk she speaks about mental health and how we can all be intentional super heroes and help those who are struggling with mental health concerns. Watch the video and tell us what will you do to help those suffering with mental health issues.
A lovely young lady sent in this wonderful card for our youth to cheer them up. Our thanks to her for this masterpiece!
On this day I was working as an intake worker, undergoing the procedure of intaking a new youth to Shelter. My second intake was a first timer to Covenant House Vancouver. She sat down in the office hunched over, wide-eyed and clearly uncomfortable. She had severe anxiety from living on the street, and literally had nothing but the clothes on her back. She had lost all of her identification and was suffering from some pressing medical concerns. Luckily, someone had referred her to Covenant House.
It felt amazing to be the person to tell her that she was in a safe place, and that the staff were all here to help her. When reviewing the behaviour expectations of Covenant House, such as being respectful to staff, she looked at me surprised and said “you’re being so nice and helping me, why wouldn’t I be respectful?” The youth took a shower, had dinner, and got to relax and watch some television. At the end of my shift, I walked out of the shelter and the youth was standing out front. She gave me a huge smile and wave good-bye, behaviour that was already a drastic difference from the terrified girl I had intaken a few hours earlier. Days like this are the reason I’ve chosen to do this work, there is no better feeling than that of helping someone in need.
Wishing everyone a fun & safe long weekend!
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In my weekly “Ask Manny” post, I answer questions from actual parents seeking advice on challenging issues and topics. Last time, I talked about yelling. If you have parenting paradox of your own that you would like Manny to weigh in on, write to me here. This week, an anonymous reader asks about for help with her stepson’s problem behavior:
My stepson and husband love video games. For hubby it is one of many hobbies, but for his son it is an obsession, staying up all night playing and sneaking out of bed to play on the TV or computers. It has gotten to the point that he stole a credit card and charged $200 for games on his DS. He also eats everything, like 1lb bags of pretzels, cans of peanut butter, cokes and takes things that we ask him not to. He is 10 and does what we ask him to (cleaning, etc) and is generally a good kid. He did not seem fazed by the punishment (grounded) or by what he did. His father says rules won’t matter, I think he needs boundaries. Where do I start?
Since you asked where to start, I’m going to cut right to the chase: the first step is that you and your husband need to get on the same page about how to manage Junior’s behavior.
You are absolutely right that he needs rules and boundaries, and you can tell hubby I said so. Not only do kids need boundaries, they like them. They crave order and structure. Out loud, they’ll deny it up and down, but inside, that’s what their developing minds and bodies truly need.
Today I’m going to flip the script on you. Instead of “Ask Manny,” today I’m going to ask my readers a question that I need advice on and we’ll see if we can crowd source our way to solution. First, a little back story.
Two days ago, I arrived at Yoshi’s summer camp at a local elementary school to pick him up for the day. He had to leave early, so all his peers were still in a story circle, and they saluted him with a group “Goodbye!” as he left.
On his way out the door, Yoshi turned to respond. He singled out on child in the group by pointing and said, “I’m not gonna say goodbye to you!” Then he waved to the whole class, and out we went.
Behavior 101 is an ongoing series about the principles underlying human behavior, and how to apply those to changing problem behavior in children, teaching children skills and maintaining positive behaviors. This installment: functions of behavior.
Have you ever watched someone — child or adult — do something very strange and then wonder to yourself, “why on Earth did he do that?”
(That sound is every parent of every 2-year-old ever, all nodding in unison.)
In the realm of behavior, the term for the answer to that question of “why” is the function of the behavior. Function is the motivation for our actions, the reason we do the things we do and act the way we act.
Because we think of human behavior as being so complex, this idea of function seems at first like it would be terribly complicated. When you get down to it, though, people really only do anything for one of two reasons:
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Monday, December 10, 2012
One of the ad industry's main arguments against tougher privacy
regulation has often been the claim that they are not really
targeting people but the devices they use.
The argument goes that a user profile is based on a cookie
placed in a particular browser - and therefore the ads you see are
not so much personal to you, but to the browser, and by extension
the device you are using to access the web. Therefore if the
same device is used by different people - it is an aggregate
This has long been a weak argument, not least because many users
on shared computers have separate login identities, which creates
unique browser profiles for each person. Now, the emergence
of a new business claiming to be able to connect profiles across
devices has really destroyed it.
Drawbridge is a US based company which says
it has developed the ability to pair up a tracking profile
collected from a mobile device with one built up on a desktop,
using unique cookie-based identifiers, without the use of any
additional personally identifiable information (PII) - like a name,
address or email.
Central to their business model is giving advertisers the
ability to reliably target an individual across either device they
might be using.
This is highly invasive, not least because it suddenly becomes
much harder for ordinary people to prevent this kind of
tracking. Once two (or more) devices have been paired for the
first time, it becomes relatively easy to create mechanisms to
circumvent user privacy actions like deleting the cookies on one of
There is no suggestion that Drawbridge is doing this, and they
go so far as to state that they can honour a Do Not Track request on both connected
devices. However, once that kind of cross-device connection
has been made - it may be technologically possible for someone else
to do it. And even if no-one is doing that now - it is likely
to be only a matter of time.
So if you can target someone with a particular advert, across
any number of internet devices they may have - that profile may not
technically be deemed personal data in the eyes of the law, but the
experience will seem very personal indeed. I for one would
not like it to be happening to me without being able to have some
control over the collection and use of such data.
At least some EU regulators agree on this score. One proposed
version of the new EU Data Protection Regulation that I have seen
includes defining the kind of unique cookie identifier that makes
this possible as personal data, which would therefore require
explicit user consent.
There are other interests arguing that unique identifiers are
not personal data, because they contain no information about the
individual. However, what this new approach to tracking
demonstrates very clearly is that it is possible to use identifiers
to connect data together from multiple sources. When you do
that, you can collect ever more data, and it becomes more
If it is not only possible, but probable that this will happen,
then surely the individual identifier itself, which is the only bit
of the data chain that the end user could be in control of, should
also be classified as personal data.
Given that technology always moves faster than regulation, and
that EU regulators are trying to create legislation that will have
a long life span, it would seem important for any new legislation
to draw some kind of line in the sand about this now, otherwise new
technology developments could leave consumer's online privacy no
better protected than under the current rules, which are widely
acknowledged to be out of date.
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PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE AMATEUR SPORT ACT TO ADVANCE ATHLETE WELFARE AND SAFETY
by Katherine Starr
Unlike athletes and students in schools and colleges who are protected by Title IX’s sexual harassment and abuse provisions, athletes in open amateur sports are currently unprotected from coach or sport leader misconduct except by criminal law. While the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has promulgated recommended policies, it does not require its national sport governing bodies (NGBs) nor the local organizations and coaches who are members of these championship conducting entities, to have such protections in place. Thus, children and adult participants in non-school youth sports programs nationwide are vulnerable to pedophiles and unethical coaches who use parent and athlete respect for their positions to manipulate their athletes to engage in inappropriate relationships and sexual exploitation.
Can you remember the days when you left your car parked at the curb as you walked into the airport to meet your loved one at the gate? We just walked right on in and could go anywhere we wanted with no questions asked – no ID, no X-ray machines, shoes on.
By now all of have heard about Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and his non- action in response to the Sandusky incident (an assistant coach caught in a sexual act with a young boy). I would describe Paterno as playing the role of a “bystander”. According to Merriam-Webster a bystander can be described as one present but not taking part in a situation or event ; a chance spectator.
I got to thinking about this bystander behavior as I read about the Mission Viejo Nadadores swim club officials who were purported to have been aware of a coach-athlete sexual relationship with a sixteen year old girl as far back as 2006, but who did nothing. At first glance one could argue that we should address the policy issue that no coach should be in a relationship with an athlete regardless of consent or age, which we should be the case, no question there. However , the deeper issue here is the question of knowledge of the situation and why neither club officials, coaches nor parents responded to it responsibly?
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Avid is self-aware.
And while not in the Skynet sort of way, Avid is aware of it’s own. Commonly this is found in a shared user environment (Unity, ISIS). However, it can also be found in terms of raw media.
A little known feature within Avid is the concept of a Fast Import. This complicated term does exactly what is says – it imports media into your Avid faster than a traditional import. However, lately I’ve been frequently asked, “well, why not use AMA? No importing is needed!” Let’s address this before we jump into Fast Importing.
AMA in Media Composer 5 (or as I called it: AMA v 2.0) and above introduced a new feature to the previous incarnation of AMA: The ability to use QuickTime files in your Avid project WITHOUT having to transcode during import. While this is fantastic for instant gratification, it can cause problems during creative edit. Newer, highly compressed codecs (See: RED, 5D / 7D, etc) commonly cannot play in real time inside Avid. This can also lead to problems later – exporting and Digital Cuts are somewhat limited by AMA files.
Best practice is to convert all media into an Avid codec – for HD, it’s a flavor of DNxHD – during import. Avid is then dealing with their own codec. Aside from the excellent quality of their codecs, they also do not break down during post due to renders. So, for several reasons, working in an Avid codec – natively – is an excellent choice.
Back to smelling one’s own.
The straight import process into Avid can be a long one. Not only does the conversion of the file into an Avid codec take a while, it also effectively kills your use of the Avid. The Avid is unusable as the progress bar creeps across the screen. But, if we create a file that is ALREADY in the Avid DNxHD codec, Avid will recognize it as such and skip the transcode process.
Avid will still need to wrap the file into the proper MXF shell to be used effectively – however, this is usually 70% – 80% faster than a traditional straight import.
Geek Sidebar: Avid has always had excellent media management. Maintaining this requires Avid to separate a QuickTime file’s audio and video into separate files, wrapping them appropriately, and placing them inside the ‘Avid MediaFiles’ folder. This process takes time, hence the ‘only’ 80% savings in time.
/end Geek Sidebar
Wunderbar! How do I get my grubby paws on this technique?
- Download the Avid codec onto the machine which will do the encode (or as I call it, pre-encode). It’s free! http://www.avid.com/dnxhd
- On the same machine, open up your encoding software du jour. I am a fan boy of Telestream’s Episode Family (Episode Engine, using multiple computers – Nice!) Other solutions may be Apple’s Compressor, Sorenson Squeeze, etc.
- Choose to encode into a QuickTime Movie (.mov) Typically there is an ‘Options’ or ‘Advanced’ button, which will allow you to dig into the particular settings of the Encoder. You want to choose “Avid DNxHD Codec” from the list.
- You can force FPS, but I typically leave it at ‘Best’. If you want better quality you can select “Multi-Pass” (if your software allows the choice). “Single-Pass” works fine for most applications, and is faster.
- As far as Compressor Depth: 9 times out of 10, this should be at “Millions of Colors”, NOT “Millions of Colors +”. Why? The + allows for an alpha channel, which the Avid DNxHD codec now supports. Unless you desire an Avid DNxHD file which has an alpha channel, disregard this. The Alpha channel will cause a longer encode and a larger file size and is typically not used on media that is camera generated. This also goes hand-in-hand with the option below “Alpha”. Select “None”.
- This one is so important, it gets it’s own number in my list. Color Levels: 709 not RGB. Why?
Rec. 601 and Rec. 709 are color spaces for SD and HD video, respectively. These values translate into Avid in an Y’CbCr color space, which Avid plays nicely with.
- Resolutions: This is where things get hairy. Avid, in an attempt to not confuse people, created DNxHD Codec ‘families” to aid in ease of encoding. Unfortunately, it causes confusion when you get past the topical discussion about it.
Avid has 3 DNxHD Codec Families: DNxHD 36, DNxHD 145, and DNxHD 220. These numbers correspond to the data rates of the family (Mb/sec). However, what may not be obvious is that these data rates vary according to frame rate (23.976, 29.97, etc), however the family remains the same. Thus, 23.976 fps in DNxHD 36 at is indeed 36Mb/s, but 29.97 fps at DNxHD 36 is 45Mb/s.
Avid has gotten better at this, and as you look at the chart below, you’ll see the new numbers reflect the correct data rate. Read for yourself: http://www.avid.com/static/resources/es/documents/dnxhd.pdf.
Here are some (of my) good rules of thumb for each family:
- DNxHD36: Offline quality, not fit for broadcast.
- DNxHD145: Threshold of broadcast quality.
- DNxHD220 or 220x: best quality possible
/end Geek Sidecar
- Start the encode!
- Next, we must start an Avid project (or change the project) to be in the correct format to accurately use the imported files. Click your “Format” Tab and ensure your “Color Space” is set to YCbCr709. It already is? You’re a quick one.
File – Import – Options. Click the Image tab. Make sure that “File Pixel to Video Mapping’ reflects the aforementioned “601 SD or 709 HD” Setting.
- Select the “OMFI / AAF” tab. Make sure the OMFI / AAF options are set to “use the source file’s resolution’. This will ensure Avid doesn’t attempt to cross convert your file! Also, choose what drive the media will be copied and stored to.
- Select your file and Go!
You’re waiting less now, I hope!
I find the speed benefit to be about 80% faster (trials done on a Dual Quad Core 2.93 GHz ‘Nehalem’ MacPro, a Mid 2007 Intel Core Duo 2.4 GHz ‘Merom’ MacBook Pro, and a HP Z800 Dual Quad Core 2.93 GHz PC)
I do want to make one point clear: This speeds up the import into Avid. You still have to wait for the initial encode to be done. Depending on your encoding software, it could be faster (or slower!), but it DOES free up your Avid to work while the file is encoded elsewhere. Also, the concept of “pay now or pay later” comes into play. Would you rather wait at the front end of a project for the import (less stress), or wait until the END of the project (more stress) – with deadlines – and deal with the transcode / render / mixdown then? Also, think about how the creative edit will be impacted when things don’t play in real-time.
As always, feedback is welcome.
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In case you ever wanted to know how to pronounce my name, now you can hear me describe it! Aren't you excited?! Teaching Books.net contacted me recently and asked me to create a recording for students and teachers to use with a little bit of information about my name. If you browse around their website, you can listen to some other authors pronounce their names as well. I recommend listening to Lois Lowry's pronunciation. Interesting!
So, here's mine.
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Private Health Industry Stats and Data10 June 2011
The AHIA provides its members with analysis and summary reports of private health insurance industry statisics on a regular basis. These Report are based on the the PHIAC Statistics Reports and give an overview of key areas of interest to Fund Members.
The AHIA Private Health Insurance Industry Statistics Quarterly Reports for March 2011 has just been released and provides information including:
- Membership and Coverage - This section provides information on the number of insured persons with hospital cover and the number of insured persons with general cover as well as the proportion of the Australian population who have private health insurance.
- Benefits paid - This section provides information on the total benefits paid by private health insurance funds for all types of hospital and general treatment services and is broken down by category type, state and age of the member receiving the benefit.
- Episodes and services – This provides an overview of the services provided to privately insured patients in hospitals as episodes of care. It provides analysis of the type of hospital in which the service was provided. Information on broader health cover programs and general treament services by category type is also included in this section.
- Utilisation - Each episode of service is associated with costs such as accomodation and medical services. Utilisation focuses on the lenght of stay per service and the average benefit paid per service for hospital and general treatments.
Note: AHIA does not produce any Private Health Insurance statistics on a regional or postcode basis.
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The biggest part of my carbon footprint is the food part, mostly because I eat a lot of meat. It is not good, but I do it anyway…
Does someone have a piece of advice for me to improve this? Because I really do not want it to be “of the table”…
- My Posts
- Learned Posts
- My Discussions
- Joined Discussions
- Favorite Members
- Curated Posts
(I apoligize if my text contains grammar and/or spelling mistakes. I try my best but I am still not very good at English)
As it is today, new things are almost old the moment you buy them, because technology etc develops really fast. Always having the latest version of a cellphone, for example, is therefore really difficult.
I think that many rich countries have become “slit-och-slängsamhällen” wich is a Swedish expression that almost means “use-and-throw-away-society”. Things are not made to last long anymore, you are supposed to buy new things after a few years wich makes things that could last for fifty years back in the days only last a few years, such as saucepans and kettles, for example. Needs become more needs because lots of things aren’t made with quality anymore.
I have two things that is “off the table” for me. First up is my laptop. i use it in school for different projects and hand-ins, and much of our school’s subject- and test information requires a computer to read. Second is my video games. They make up a lot of my free time, so I don’t want to give them up. Also, they’re fun.
I have a small food garden at home where we grow different vegetables during summer. It is a lot cheaper than having to buy vegetables from the store. Also the vegetables at the stores might have been raised with vermin toxins and such. So, I think that it is at least a little climate-friendly to eat locally grown food.
Obviously public transportation is a fantastic way to reduce carbon in our environment!
But people like myself would much rather use personal transportation such as a car/scooter to get wherever you want whenever you want.
I only take bus to school now because I CAN´T take my scooter due to that I live in Sweden and there´s snow here.
Also I´m often late to school only because that the busses are late or doesn´t even show up!
A local/global improvement on this would be welcome.
If I ran my household things I would do to reduce my family’s carbon footprint are paying bills online, eat more homemade meals, and even small things like cleaning out the lint filter in my dryer. The reason I chose that I would want to pay bills online is because according to http://paysimple.com/blog/2008/03/26/lighten-your-carbon-footprint-paperless-invoicing-and-homegrown-tomatoes-2/ “If every household in the US paid their bills online then we would save 18.5 million trees each year, or the amount of lumber needed for 216,054 typical single-family homes.” I would choose to feed my family with more homemade meals, as opposed to frozen boxed meals, because, although frozen boxed meals are convient, it costs more to keep the boxed meals frozen through the process of shipping. Cleaning out the lint filter in your dryer allows the dryer to use less energy which also makes your electricity bill lower. You can find some more neat ways to lower your carbon footprint at http://www.squidoo.com/Carbon-Footprint-2.
My family has considered having a garden in our backyard for awhile now. I think that have a backyard garden is a great idea! It lowers your carbon footprint, is healthier for you and tastes better. The reason a backyard garden lowers your carbon footprint is because the transportation of the produce takes alot of energy. It’s a lot easier just to walk to your back yard to get your fruits and vegetables than to make an extra trip to the grocery store. Also when you’re growing your own produce you know what is being used on them, and you can prevent the use of pesticides. Even though it’s great for reducing your carbon footprint it is labor intensive and you must keep good care of it.
Want and need are misused words nowadays. You can want new clothes, the latest iPhone, the coolest car, but someone only really needs things like food, water, and medical help. I think that people are supporting the fact that cell phones and such are necessary but buying a new cell phone every year is not. Having these types of things is a privilege that only requires a new version if maybe the old version is harming the Earth or it is broken. Even so, it’s shows that you may not really respect the gift of a cell phone. There are many times where I’ve wanted to beg my parents for a new iPod or phone, but I’ve been working hard to stop myself ever since I calculated my carbon footprint. If you’re really desperate for a new phone and still want to be good to the environment, check out the eco-friendly phones in the URL below. The many of the phones are made up of recycled material, chemical free, or easy to recycle. As long as you’re conscious of the Earth while still spoiling yourself a bit, it wouldn’t be that bad.
There are so many green products available for us to buy. Even Crayola has started using recycled plastic when making their markers, but why are there still so many products being sold in stores that aren’t eco-friendly? Below is a website where you can by green products. You can purchase anything from flooring and office supplies to clothing and furniture.
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Radiometer and Laser Light
I would like to know if a radiometer will spin if exposed to laser
light. Why? Why not?
I do not have the resources to test this out, but I cannot think of
any reason why laser light would not cause a radiometer to spin. The black
faces of the vanes will absorb laser light just like any other light,
and become warmer than the bright faces. And it is that difference in
temperature that makes the radiometer spin (please see answer to #628).
Of course, if the laser beam is kept trained on just one of the vanes,
it will probably take longer for rotation to begin than if, say, sunlight
is used (I would be interested to know how long, if any, delay there is!)
Of course, you also have to consider the total energy deposited on
the radiometer vane. Remember that a laser has a high energy for a specific
wavelength but NO energy anywhere else in the spectrum. Light from the
sun has low energy at all wavelengths. The net result is you may be
putting a lot more energy onto the radiaometer vanes with a 50 Watt light
bulb than with a 100 mW He-Ne laser. A 50 Watt laser would work better
than a 50 W bulb but would cost 10's of thousands of dollars.
gregory r bradburn
Click here to return to the Physics Archives
Update: June 2012
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Peggy Lyman Hayes: How I teach Graham
Though cross-training has become a necessity for aspiring dancers, it wasn’t always common for modern dance companies to embrace classical ballet training. “There was a big change in the ’70s when my generation joined the company, and we came in with ballet training,” says Peggy Lyman Hayes, former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company who is now a master teacher at the school. “The basis of the technique didn’t change, but the bodies that performed it were different; more elongated with nice feet and turnout. Martha was thrilled—she loved having our legs up in the air.”
Today, the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance offers both ballet and Pilates classes, in addition to Graham technique. Lyman Hayes also travels the globe as régisseur for the company, setting Graham’s work on professional ballet companies and university dance programs—many don’t offer Graham training. And while she sees the increase of cross-training as an advantage for performers’ versatility and artistry, her primary goal is to preserve both the integrity of Graham’s complex technique and the discipline it’s famous for.
“In other classes, students may wear their hair down or multiple layers of clothing,” she says. “But Graham is different, from the way you dress to the way you stand when a teacher enters the room. And you never marked in rehearsals with Martha.” Lyman Hayes is a stickler for purity, and when leading classes she often reminds dancers to keep movements precise and close to how she learned them from Graham during her time with the company. “One of my pet peeves is that the technique can get very decorated and affected,” she says. “You have to trust that the physical work is enough, without adding anything. Let your arms move as naturally as possible.”
Here, Lyman Hayes teaches a pitch turn, a step found in almost every Graham work from Clytemnestra to Appalachian Spring. While the shape looks similar to a penchée arabesque in ballet terminology, the contraction, release and spiral of its execution is indisputably Graham.
An Ohio native, Peggy Lyman Hayes joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1973, and before retiring as principal dancer in 1988, she performed many of the leading roles and solos of Graham’s repertoire, including the pas de deux of Acts of Light, Lamentation and Frontier. She has choreographed her own work for the Peggy Lyman Dance Company and in 1994 helped found the dance division of The Hartt School in Connecticut, where she was director from 2001 to 2004. Today, Lyman Hayes continues to work closely with the MGDC, traveling internationally as régisseur and teaching Graham technique and pedagogy at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. She received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the University of Hartford in 2011.
Lucy Postell is an apprentice with the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Photo by Matthew Murphy
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Stories have been going around that a botnet was being spread by the HTC Magic on Vodafone. Specifically, it was Panda Security that sounded the alarm after they plugged in said Android phone and had all kinds of alarms go off. However, it turns out it was an infected memory card that was the culprit, and not a bad batch of phones, as original post author Pedro Bustamante later points out in the comments.
It’s the memory card for sure, not the actual Android filesystem. It could be a malicious employee, a bad batch, provided by the manufacturer, lack of QA or a returned and refurbished unit. But as you said, either way Vodafone needs to better QA these before shipping out to customers.
Pedro's right, there should be better Q&A to keep this from happening. But there also should be a little more discretion used before we see headlines such as "Vodafone distributes Mariposa botnet." (And the post itself hasn't been updated?) An infected memory card is bad, but one bad apple does not an outbreak make. The sky's not falling, folks.
- Filed under:
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Tesoro's highest gas margin is at Hawai'i refinery
Tesoro Petroleum Corp. said its Hawai'i refinery delivered more dollars per barrel than its other refineries in the first quarter.
The Hawaiii refinery had a gross margin, or dollars per barrel produced, of $3.83, that compared to $3.45 at its Alaska and Washington state refineries and $3.04 at its Utah and North Dakota refineries.
Tesoro reported the numbers for the three months ended March 31 in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Hawai'i had the highest margin because the Washington and Utah refineries were unable to produce more profitable lighter petroleum products during part of the quarter, reducing their margins, said Susan Lerette, vice president for communications at Tesoro headquarters in San Antonio.
The Washington refinery was undergoing maintenance for part of the quarter and the Utah refinery had a fire caused by a power surge, she said.
"Historically the Washington margin had been higher," said Lerette.
The Hawai'i Legislature passed a price cap for gasoline this month in part because of the perception that oil firms were charging consumers more for gasoline in Hawai'i than on the Mainland and earning higher profit margins.
Tesoro, operator of one of Hawai'i's two refineries, and BHP Hawaii paid $15 million in 1999 to settle a lawsuit with the state that alleged that seven oil companies cooperated to keep gasoline prices high. The other five companies agreed earlier this year to pay $20 million to settle. The oil firms denied the allegations.
Tesoro said its Hawai'i refinery accounted for 26 percent of the company's refinery output in the first quarter. The Hawai'i refinery produced 82,000 barrels per day, second only to the 84,800 barrels per day at the Washington state facility.
Earlier this month, Tesoro reported a $55.6 million loss, or $1.15 per share, in the first quarter because of higher costs and less demand for fuel. That compared with earnings of $21.7 million, or 52 cents a share, a year earlier.
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News & Events
Tropical Birds and Army Ants at Next Clarkson University Science Cafe Wednesday
[A photograph for media use is available at http://www.clarkson.edu/news/photos/swilson.jpg]
Bizarre life forms of the tropics will be discussed by St. Lawrence University Professor of Biology Susan Willson at the next Science Cafe at Jack & Wezzie’s Coffee House in Potsdam this Wednesday, October 21, at 7:30 p.m.
Willson’s presentation is titled "Why are There Such Bizarre Life Forms in the Tropics? A Look at the Specialized World of Army Ants and Obligate Ant-Following Birds."
In describing it, Willson says, "The tropics are home to an amazing diversity of life forms that are not found anywhere else. In this Science Cafe we will focus on the ecology and evolution of one such group- the carnivorous swarm-raiding army ants, and the few bird species whose lives are so intertwined with the army ants, that they cannot live without them."
Join Willson in a lively discussion of the fascinating ecology of army ants and ant-following birds, based on her years of work with these specialized animals in one of the most remote and pristine rainforests of the Amazon basin.
Science Cafes bring together engineers, scientists and townspeople in a relaxed, informal setting, such as coffeehouses and pubs. The speaker makes a short presentation about a topic in his or her field, and then opens up the floor to discussion.
Be sure to arrive early to get a good seat, or to place your food or drink order.
Find out more about Clarkson’s Science Cafe at http://www.clarkson.edu/sciencecafe.
E-mail Daniel ben-Avraham at ScienceCafe@clarkson.edu with any questions or suggestions for future Science Cafe topics.
Clarkson University launches leaders into the global economy. One in six alumni already leads as a CEO, VP or equivalent senior executive of a company. Located just outside the Adirondack Park in Potsdam, N.Y., Clarkson is a nationally recognized research university for undergraduates with select graduate programs in signature areas of academic excellence directed toward the world’s pressing issues. Through 50 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, arts, sciences and health sciences, the entire learning-living community spans boundaries across disciplines, nations and cultures to build powers of observation, challenge the status quo, and connect discovery and engineering innovation with enterprise.
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Time To Move Our Country Off the Export Cliff
Dec 20, 2012
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
You shouldn’t compare apples and oranges. Everyone knows that.
So does is makes sense to measure apple exports by counting oranges? Of course not. And yet this is precisely how the United States measures and is reporting its progress in trade policy.
That’s because we compute the value of our trade in dollars, when the most important measurement should be volume; the actual amount of products we sell to others.
Fixing our calculations will serve our long-term interests in trade, and possibly even help us avoid the fiscal cliffs in our future.
The United States hasn’t enjoyed very many economic success stories recently. Joblessness remains high, growth is stagnant, and now our President and Congress are engaged in a high-stakes game of political chicken over taxes and spending.
Amid all the gloom, farm exports have been a bright spot. The Department of Agriculture recently predicted that they would reach $145 billion this year, which is more than $9 billion above last year’s total. Even more impressive is the fact that it’s an all-time record.
So that’s good news. Except that even here, looks can be deceiving. In October, U.S. exports plummeted, not just in agriculture but across every major category of trade. They declined by 3.6 percent in the largest month-to-month drop since January 2009.
That month was significant because it marked the beginning of President Obama’s administration. A year later, as he and the rest of us struggled through America’s ongoing slump, he made an important promise in his State of the Union address: In five years, he said, U.S. exports would double.
This pledge involved an interesting measurement "trick": For a baseline, he chose a year in which exports had hit rock bottom, following the global economic downturn. The regular turnings of the business cycle all but guaranteed a rebound. For a couple of years, it looked like President Obama might make good on his export pledge. A goal that all of us want him to achieve.
This year, however, trade leveled off. We’ll be lucky if it comes anywhere close to doubling by 2015.
To complicate matters, we’re measuring in dollars rather than by volume. Dollars are a good way to evaluate exports, but not the best way. Currency valuations can mask the true story. For a better sense of our export health, we have to examine export volume.
And here, the data are more troubling. The total volume of farm exports will be about 108 million metric tons this year. This is well below recent levels. The drought explains some of this but not all of it. Even with corn exports falling by almost half, we’re still shipping out fewer major commodities. We certainly aren’t on track to double anything.
One of the best ways to improve export volume is through policy: rules at home that allow farmers and businesses to thrive, and trade agreements with partners that allow goods and services to move free from artificial barriers. Success requires sensible regulations that protect consumers rather than onerous ones that hobble economic activity, plus an aggressive agenda of trade diplomacy.
These are long-term strategies. Adopting them now won’t save us from the oncoming fiscal cliff—it’s too late for that—but it will help our economy in the future.
A central dispute between the White House and Congress in their fiscal-cliff standoff involves spending. President Obama would like a new round of stimulus spending, even though it would add to the federal debt.
Properly understood, exports can serve the same purpose—but without the debt. Rather than creating programs and sending the bill to taxpayers, officials should push for new trade agreements that allow Americans to export goods and services abroad. They approved deals last year with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, but only after letting them languish for years. So far, the Obama administration has talked about expanding trade opportunities but it has not negotiated a single trade pact on its own.
More trade will create jobs and economic growth at no cost to the public treasury—especially if we strive to boost not just our sales value but also our sales volume.
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa. Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
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More than a million Kiwis have already protected themselves against the flu by immunising. Our first video in a series about getting protected against the flu features Mark McIlroy, whose wife Catherine died from the flu last year.
Welcome to the New Zealand Ministry of Health
The Government's principal advisor on health and disability: improving, promoting and protecting the health of all New Zealanders
The Government has introduced a new policy, effective from 1 October 2013, which will fund some disabled people to pay a family member to provide personal care and household management. Read more
The Government announced its intention to introduce new controls to manage the health and safety risks from high-power laser pointers. Read more
Social bonds are an innovative way for governments to contract to achieve specific social sector outcomes. The Ministry of Health is leading cross-government work to investigate the value of piloting a social bond in New Zealand. Read more
New Zealand is currently experiencing an outbreak of whooping cough with more than 6700 cases reported since the outbreak began in August last year. Read more
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Social responsibility conference
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Anti-bullying activist Jamie Nabozny, State Sen. John Marty and apartheid scholar Mary West will headline the Oct. 3-6 Global Social Responsibility Conference at Atwood Memorial Center.
In addition, other speakers will address subjects such as famine in the Horn of Africa, Ojibwe treaty rights at Mille Lacs Lake and the use of toxic weapons in warfare.
Conference organizers will screen documentary films about topics such as war, human trafficking, free trade, the media’s effect on society and the environment.
Free parking is available on the street adjacent to campus. Parking in the 4th Avenue Parking Ramp is a dollar per hour.
The 39-minute film examines his 1996 landmark federal lawsuit against the Ashland, Wis., school system. Nabozny was tormented and beaten, at one point requiring hospitalization and surgery after being repeatedly kicked in the stomach. Nabozny's appearance is sponsored by University Program Board, the university's student-run entertainment and education organization.
Marty, a longtime Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislator from Roseville, will speak 2 p.m. Monday in Atwood Theater about the Minnesota implications of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the national debt crisis, health care policies and poverty.
Author and lecturer Mary West will speak on white identity in post-apartheid South Africa. She teaches at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, St. Cloud State's sister university in Port Elizabeth. Her book "White Women Writing White: A Study of Identity and Representation in South African Literatures" is expected in March.
West speaks 2 p.m. Thursday in Atwood Theater.
View a video welcome to conference participants featuring Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).
Two women from the Minnesota chapter of Veterans for Peace will discuss the costs of war. Chante Wolfe and Layne Beckmann will speak 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in Atwood Theater. Wolf served 12 years in the U.S. Air Force. Beckmann served a combined 16 years in the active and reserve U.S. Army.
Documentary films by Extending the Link, a student group at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University, will also be screened. View the trailer for "Pragati Nepal," a 22-minute film about the trafficking of Nepali women to India and elsewhere.
St. Cloud State's master's in social responsibility program sponsors and organizes the Global Social Responsibility Conference. The program's students and graduates have won numerous university and community awards for scholarship and social justice work.
The 2011 conference honors the memory of Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, an environmental and political activist from Kenya who died Sept. 25. A documentary about her, "Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai," screens 5 p.m. Monday in Atwood Theater. A reception follows at 6 p.m. in the lounge adjacent to the theater.
The conference is also sponsored by these campus entities: Department of Environmental and Technological Studies, Department of Theatre & Film Studies, the Global Studies Program, Department of Human Relations & Multicultural Education, Department of Mass Communications, Multicultural Resource Center, Social Responsibility Student Organization, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the Women’s Center and Department of Ethnic & Women’s Studies.
Off-campus sponsors include Anna Marie’s Alliance, Mille Lacs Area Human Rights Commission, Extending the Link and League of Women Voters.
For more information, email firstname.lastname@example.org or phone 320-308-3124.
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The VP debate matters this time
CLEVELAND -- Tightening polls after last week's first presidential debate could make tonight's showdown between John Edwards and Dick Cheney a historic first: a vice presidential debate that plays a pivotal role in who becomes president.
Edwards, a North Carolina senator, arrived here Monday, and Vice President Cheney is due today for final preparations for a 90-minute confrontation that appears to have much larger stakes than first thought.
Aides say Edwards will try to follow running mate John Kerry's example from last week's debate with President Bush by drawing stark differences with the administration's policy in Iraq and on key domestic issues. "There's a wonderful opportunity to continue the contrast," says Mike McCurry, a senior Kerry adviser.
Another likely Edwards strategy: Challenge Cheney's assertions that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that he hadn't seen "any strong, hard evidence" of such ties.
Cheney, his handlers say, believes he can bolster his ticket's standing by charging that Kerry and Edwards lack the constancy to lead the war on terrorism. Cheney "won't be fancy or funny or gimmicky," says campaign adviser Mary Matalin. Cheney's goal will be to show "why these first post-Cold War, post-9/11 policies will make us safer."
Both men share a new responsibility in a transformed race. "The vice presidential debate may be especially important this year -- the one moment when the two most important advocates for the presidential candidates will share the same stage," says Jonathan Sallet, who ran Sen. Joe Lieberman's preparations for his 2000 debate with Cheney.
Past vice presidential debates, despite memorable moments such as Sen. Lloyd Bentsen's withering remark to Vice President Quayle in 1988 that "You're no Jack Kennedy," have seldom had much impact.
This year could be different, says vice presidential expert Timothy Walch. "This may be the most important vice presidential debate in modern history," says Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. "More people will tune in because last week's debate created a buzz of publicity."
Voters are almost evenly split on which vice presidential candidate they expect to do best in tonight's debate, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. The survey found 42% think Edwards will do better, while 40% favor Cheney and 15% had no opinion. The poll's margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points.
Democrats hope Edwards, 51, can use his youth, camera-friendly looks and background as a successful trial lawyer to present an appealing persona that will continue the Kerry campaign's apparent resurgence.
Edwards conducted his debate preparations at a Chautauqua, N.Y., resort with Washington lawyer Robert Barnett playing Cheney in mock debates.
Aides to Cheney, 63, say he's determined to calm jittery nerves among Bush supporters with a steady performance. Cheney's debate camp took place at his home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., with Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, playing Edwards.
Moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS will question Edwards and Cheney on domestic and foreign issues while the two men are seated at a table.
Contributing: Martin Kasindorf in Cleveland and Judy Keen in Washington
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There are three management disciplines which, while not new, have a heightened level of importance for success in the 21st century: Leveraging technology, networking and building strategic alliances.
No doubt you’ve become more proficient with the tech stuff. And who isn’t a better networker today than 10 years ago? But can you say you’ve nailed the partnering thing?
When small businesses come to the end of their resources of people, assets, technology, cash and credit, they have to do something as primordial as when Og asked Gog to hold the chisel while he carved out his new stone invention that looked a lot like a donut. They have to seek alliances.
Answer these questions: Is your business growth hampered by a lack of people, capital or other assets? Would you like to bid on a request-for-proposal (RFP) that has specifications beyond your company’s ability to perform? Are you reluctant to ask a large customer about their future plans for fear that your organization may not be able to step up to the answer? ___(Your lament here)___.
If any of these – or variations thereof – are way too familiar, consider one or more of these three alliance examples, in descending order of formality.
A partner relationship is more formal and typically longer term. Regardless of how it’s structured, in general, all partners have a vested interest in the success of the entire enterprise. Think of two business owners buying a commercial duplex and sharing the space because neither has the cash or credit to swing the deal alone. Most partnerships are best organized with the help of an attorney.
By definition, a sub-contractor becomes a contractual participant you bring in to help fulfill a larger project for which you are the lead vendor. Unlike a partner, a sub expects to get paid for delivery of work or products regardless of how the project turns out.
Here’s an informal strategic alliance example. Let’s say a jeweler, florist and photographer join forces to produce a marketing/advertising campaign for brides that represents all three brands. After the campaign is executed and paid for, the participants may have no further connection.
Before giving up on a project because you don’t have the in-house resources, look around for ways to create alliances that could allow you to take advantage of that opportunity.
If Og the caveman can create an alliance, you can too.
I talked more about the 21st century business practice of creating alliances this morning on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Take a few minutes to listen and leave your best practices on creating strategic alliances.
How good are you at building strategic alliances? with Jim Blasingame
For more information on building alliances to grow your business, click here: Strategic Alliances.
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Minecraft designer Markus 'Notch' Persson has revealed Mojang's latest project, 0x10C, a Sci-Fi themed universe set billions of years in the future that allows gamers to code and share their own computer software. Notch plans a similar development path as Minecraft, with heaps of user-created content, although not in an …
Sounds exactly like Eve Online
but with a built in 16 bit emulator.
May I possibly be the first to say...
Core War in space?
Yip that would be cool, and indeed about as old school as you can get with assembler, beyond double entry code which would be doable with this.
Also this is not the first space game to have a inbuilt computer you can play with. Was one for the Atari ST though atm the name escapes me and was some form of basic it could be programed in.
This game will perhaps be more akin to BOTS in space. Funny as most MMO's try to prevent bots, this activly encourages it with this aspect.
"not the first space game to have a inbuilt computer you can play with"
You're probably thinking about "Federation Of Free Traders" game... Spent a few weeks on this one back in '89... I feel old :(
Re: "not the first space game to have a inbuilt computer you can play with"
That's it - thank you.
I love the endian-swap-based plot premise :)
I wonder how long before LLVM supports DCPU-16?
*start working on a C compiler*
long before the mal-ware boys are coding a trojan for it
It must be said
This is either going to be the most awesome game in a long time or the lamest.
If you need me, I'll be over here brushing up on 16 bit assembly programming. (there's something I never thought I'd be saying)
Re: It must be said
Regarding, "If you need me, I'll be over here brushing up on 16 bit assembly programming. (there's something I never thought I'd be saying)"
Indeed! Just when I was convinced I'd never again have the urge to implement another Forth interpreter...!
So what is this like?
In some ways this sounds a lot like Second Life. The big similarity is the dependence on user-created content.
Second Life has its own scripting language, relatively high-level, and few people can use it well.
Just the idea of an emulation of a 16-bit computer being a vital component for game success is scaring me. I once wrote something in Assembler, for an early microcomputer which used the Z80 processor, but it was a long time ago, and in another country. Add the potential for "griefers", and I think I shall give this oine a miss.
It's a game for an intellectual elite of coders. I cannot see how it can be made to pay.
Re: So what is this like?
It won't take long before there are interpreters and compilers for higher level languages so that less elite programmers can get involved, nor will it take long for open code to start appearing around the net for non-coders to copy and use. It won't remain the exclusive playground of the intellectually elite for long if the rest of the game is any good at all.
Re: So what is this like?
Someone I know is already 90% through coding a Pseudo C compiler for DCPU.
The fun thing here is that (from the information currently available) the coder doesn't need to start with coding for an entire ship. People can "crew up" and work together so a person can specialise in for instance optimizing drive controls or weapons guidance systems.
Trading for generic "operating systems" will probably start fairly quickly with a few main contestants forming a defacto "standard" just like the real world.
It'll be interesting to see how things develop. This could either be awesome or totally uncool.
Beer, because it's Friday.
Hey! I already wrote this game!
Not on purpose; I just wrote an Elite clone and needed a scripting language, so I threw a z80 emulator that I already had written in, being one of the 300,000 people to have written a Spectrum emulator at some point. I'm aware this was an absurd way to write such a thing, but it was just a personal hobby for fun.
Anyway, the way I had things set up left every individual world entity with its own little 64kb address space and a personal z80. I then had some fun scripting them myself, then got bored and put it all away, being aware that games in which you program things are ten a penny, Elite clones aren't exactly rare and there was no reason anyone should care about yet another.
I'm sure Notch's effort will be top drawer though, and should be fun because it'll attract a whole bunch of other talented people.
The real question is
Is 64k enough to implement minecraft in assembler? Obviously the world size will have to be limited a bit, but otherwise might it be doable?
Because online multiplayer makes everything better...
I already play the single-player version of this game every day. Therefore I will *really* have a lot of fun playing it online with a bunch of 13 year olds teabagging me. Right?
This is just taking the "user created content frees the developer from having to spend money on any of the things that make a game fun" maxim to its logical conclusion. I guess.
Re: Because online multiplayer makes everything better...
Teabagged by much older kids, how sad for you.
I'm thinking that his will do better than R-Pi for getting the kids into coding.
How long before someone releases it has hardware? Oooh! Big Trac with DCPU interface ?!?
Yes. I've been saying since RPi announced their goal of getting kids coding - "where's the killer app for that - currently the nerdy ones are all into Minecraft". Maybe this is it.
Loving the C64-style colour scheme and boot message
And if you squint, the assembly language isn't that far removed from 6510 assembly either. Well, the JSR, addressing modes and limited range of registers look similar anyway. The 16-bit opcodes look a bit bloated and strange though--definitely not like a C64. Then again, A9 30 only stores an 8-bit value there.
Off to read more about the instruction set.
Billions of years into the future
They promised me a matrioshka brain and all I got was a lousy 16 bits.
Do I at least get a hologram for company?
I like the way this guy thinks.
That brought back memoeries...
of coding Sweet-16 on the Apple ][. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWEET16
The kids will find probably it fun but I'm well over writing Assembly now.
- Review Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Proof the pen is mightier?
- Nuke plants to rely on PDP-11 code UNTIL 2050!
- Spin doctors brazenly fiddle with tiny bits in front of the neighbours
- Game Theory Out with a bang: The Last of Us lets PS3 exit with head held high
- That Microsoft-Nokia merger you've been predicting? It's no go
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|ACH Announces Heart Screening Program for Hillsborough County High School Students|
Coach Tony Dungy Supports Program that Saves Young Lives through Education and Awareness
All Children's Specialty Physicians, in collaboration with The Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes (CAS) Foundation and Hillsborough County Public Schools today unveiled The SafeBeat Initiative. The Initiative will begin an awareness campaign to provide heart screenings to all Hillsborough County high school students beginning March 2010, at no charge to the student, parent, or school district.
“The SafeBeat Initiative will offer heart screening services to more than 60,000 Hillsborough County high school students beginning now and lasting through the 2011-2012 school year,” said Gwen Luney, Hillsborough County Public Schools Assistant Superintendent for Student Services & Federal Programs. “This is a voluntary, opt-in program that requires parental consent. The results will be private and reported only to the parent.”
“As immediate past School Board Chair, I was honored to spearhead this project that has the potential to literally save the lives of our students in the Tampa Bay area,” said Carol Kurdell, member of the Hillsborough County School Board. “Our board voted unanimously to host the first free heart screening program ever conducted in Florida and we are excited to begin this process today.”
Each year more than 7,000 children and adolescents in the United States die from Sudden Cardiac Arrest. In fact, 4 out of 5 victims of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) appeared healthy and had no symptoms prior to death. Without symptoms, an EKG (electrocardiogram) based heart screening is the best way to detect the potential life threatening condition.
“A doctor's code of ethics requires us to do all that we can do to preserve life and I strongly believe that the SafeBeat Initiative does exactly that,” said Gul Dadlani, M.D., Medical Director of Pediatric Cardiology at All Children's Hospital. “The total research data that is collected through the Initiative will be invaluable and the first of its kind in this field. Not only will the initiative save lives, it will provide unique statistics to benefit our children and their children.”
“I have done a lot of work with young people all my life,” said Tony Dungy, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach. “There are too many incredibly sad stories of young players dying on the athletic field due to undetected heart problems. “Heart screenings saves lives and I applaud the SafeBeat Initiative in creating awareness and education here in Florida,” continued Dungy, who attended the Initiative's unveiling.
The heart screening program includes four components; Education, Emergency Action Plans, Heart Screening Services and Follow-up Care. Students will have a risk factor assessment, CPR and AED training, blood pressure, body mass index and electrocardiogram (ECG) tests conducted, and expedited appointments through All Children's Specialty Physicians including those who are under or un-insured. No student will be denied follow-up care based on their ability to pay.
“I lost my son Marc due to a cardiac abnormality, said Jayne Vining, who started the CAS Foundation in Marc's memory. “No parent should ever go through this, especially when measures are readily available to prevent sudden death in our children and grandchildren.”
“The SafeBeat Initiative has brought together the medical and education community in order to provide this life saving test,” said Michelle Shimberg, President of the Plant High School Parent Teacher Student Association. “It is important that we as parents become involved by serving as advocates and getting our kids signed up for screening – there is no excuse not to do it today.”
Plant High School, where the first of seven local high school screenings will take place, begins Monday, March 29 through Friday, April 2. Each high school will screen for a full week and during the school day. The remaining schools include Robinson (April 5-9), Steinbrenner (April 19-23), Middleton (April 26-30), Alonso (May 3-7), King (May 17-21) and Leto (May 24-28). Parents or guardians are encouraged to go to www.SafeBeat.org to register their high school student to get tested.
“We are excited to have seven Hillsborough County high schools scheduled for onsite screenings this school year,” said Bill Hogan, Florida Director of the SafeBeat Initiative. “We look forward to scheduling the remaining Hillsborough County high schools for their screenings beginning in the new school year and will be back again at Plant and all of the high schools in the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years. It is our goal to start screening in other local county high schools within the All Children's Hospital services area over the next year as well."
Attendees and media were also shown a demonstration of the heart screening process by Pete Grasso, Florida Operation's Manager of the SafeBeat Initiative, Casey Yanson, EKG Technician, the SafeBeat Initiative, and Connor Shimberg, a senior at Plant High School.
About The Cardiac Arrhythmia Syndromes (CAS) Foundation
About The SafeBeat Initiative
About Hillsborough County Public Schools
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Mass etiquette: Obey rubrics, be charitable
By Nissa LaPoint
Photo by James Baca/DCR
It’s likely a familiar scene to Mass-goers.
Across the pew, one man strikes his breast to the words of the Penitential Act while a tardy couple with a baby apologetically stumbles past him. The majority prays on bended knees, but at the consecration, one woman slips out to answer a vibrating Blackberry. One sniffling parishioner clasps hands with another during the Lord’s Prayer. Others pray with folded hands.
Many Catholic faithful have fallen victim to and grappled with such liturgical conundrums and church faux pas.
As the one-year anniversary of the revised Roman Missal approaches, local priests and Mass experts discussed continued education and adoption of not only the new responses but its prescribed liturgical gestures with some added tips on Mass etiquette.
“I think the beauty of the new missal is a rediscovery of those practices, prayers and gestures that unite and that’s the whole point,” said Deacon Chuck Parker, director of the Denver Archdiocese’s Office of Liturgy. “There’s no real ‘individual’ when we come together for Mass. We gather together as the body of Christ. So gestures are meant to unite us, not divide us.”
The General Instruction of the missal—also known as “rubrics”—outlines the gestures and bodily postures of participants to make the Mass a beautiful and reverential experience, rather than a mishmash of private inclinations or arbitrary choices.
Its importance, Deacon Parker said, is traced to the ancient Latin phase “lex orandi, lex credendi,” usually translated as “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” The way Catholics pray, he explained, “Says a lot about what we believe.”
Acts of hospitality
Ask nearly any priest in the Archdiocese about the new missal, and he’ll report a “wonderful springtime” in the Church and a sincere embrace by his congregation.
Ask about unity of pious gestures and Church manners, and the answer varies.
“I think it’s caught on for a lot of people, but we still have a jumble here and there,” said Father Steven Voss of St. Joseph Parish in Fort Collins.
Punctuality to Mass is a struggle for some.
At St. Mary Parish in Aspen, Father John Hilton recommends adopting the old adage, “The priest should be the last one in and the first one out of Mass.”
Liturgy experts add that some have an acceptable reason for a late arrival or early departure. Deacon Parker said exercising charity and hospitality can minimize a latecomer’s offense.
These virtues should be taken to the pews.
“As C.S. Lewis said, ‘Next to the Blessed Sacrament, the holiest thing is the person seated next to you,’” Deacon Parker noted. “If we would view everyone as holy—as our brother and sister in Christ—we wouldn’t mind moving over a little bit to let someone in (the pew).”
At All Souls Church in Englewood, Father Bob Fisher said that to avoid commotion by latecomers, “The hospitable thing to do is to sit as far forward in the church as you can and sit in the center.”
There are some—perhaps the elderly and those with small children—who prefer the end of the pew. After Masses at St. Louis Parish in Louisville, Father Tim Gaines heard reports of elderly parishioner’s sore toes due to repeated trampling by those squeezing past them.
“We have addressed it in the parish and said, ‘Please be careful of the elderly sitting on the end of the pews,’” he said.
Parishioners may also show respect to others and uphold the sacredness of the Mass by dressing appropriately.
Father Andrew Kemberling saw a woman at St. Thomas More Parish in Centennial wearing a bathing suit and cover-up.
“I kid you not,” he said. “Instead of complaining about it, I wanted to compliment people for dressing nicely.”
He started “Dress-up Sundays” to encourage better wardrobe choices. If someone looks like they “just weeded the garden,” he said, he approaches a well-dressed person within earshot and gives them praise.
Old habits and renewed tradition
Just as poor Sunday dress codes take time to change, gestures take time to evolve, Father Kemberling said.
The Penitential Act is one example.
Former rubrics of the Mass—before Vatican II—had instructed faithful to cross themselves during the act, formerly called the Confiteor. This has been dropped in the ordinary form. But faithful have always been instructed to strike their breast to the words “through my fault.”
“The Holy See’s clarification said that striking one’s breast either once or three times is the acceptable practice,” said John Miller, associate director of the Office of Liturgy.
Genuflecting has also been modified.
Today, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops instructs participants to bow during the Nicene Creed to the words, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” Genuflection is observed at Christmas Mass and the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.
Before receiving the Eucharist, a bow is also recommended over a genuflection, although both are allowed, Miller said.
Mass rubrics don’t instruct U.S. Catholics to join hands, much less make any gesture during the prayer. Its origin is unknown.
“There is nothing in the rubrics to indicate that holding hands is mandatory. The adage has been if people want to hold hands, they can. But we should be respectful of those who do not wish to,” Miller said. “It’s not a practice that is encouraged.”
Last year, Bishop James Conley, auxiliary bishop of Denver, offered that ordinarily “the faithful fold their hands, in a traditional posture of petitioning, to signify the humility of our congregation before God. Other gestures, such as extending arms or holding hands, are not found in the norms of the Mass. That our gestures are different does not mean that one role is more important than another—rather it points to a diversity of parts to the body of Christ.”
Other parts of the Mass are not addressed in the rubrics, including when to sit down after Communion. It should be a time of quiet prayer. Practices vary between dioceses: some faithful settle in their pew after they’re done praying and others remain kneeling until the priest sits. In Denver, faithful tend to the latter, experts said.
However, the purpose of kneeling is to adore the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Father Hilton advises, “as long as the Blessed Sacrament is upon the altar or being distributed, my preference is people should be kneeling.”
Consideration of those still kneeling in the pews is advised.
In all matters not specified by the Church, Father Michael Warren, O.M.V., of Holy Ghost Parish in Denver said it’s important not to cling to unimportant habits unless there’s good reason.
“We have to set proper priorities” and observe the “weightier matters of the law,” he said, referring to a passage in the Gospel of Matthew.
With all considerations of Mass gestures and church etiquette, Deacon Parker suggests the following: “Let’s follow what the Church asks. Let’s have openness to where the Church gives us freedom, and let’s have charity with one another in all things.”
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In response to many emails, an option for a more contemporary approach to snare, bass and tenor scoring has been added. This idea of bass, tenor and snare coming together in a more orchestrated way is what Doug Stronach used for Toronto Police Pipe Band's contentious Variation's on a Theme of Good Intentions Medley in 2008. You can view and listen to the drum corps perform this type of arrangement here.
Pipe band scoring has traditionally been built in layers, starting with the snare score as a musically full and finished piece in its own right, then on top of that bass and tenor parts added, often by someone other than the creator of the snare score. This method places emphasis on the snare drum as being the main sound of all pipe band arrangements which over time can perhaps become predictable and boring, even when taking into account the fantastic rudimental prowess and sound of a pipe band drum corps.
A different and more contemporary approach incorporates all parts of the drum corps as equals with each sound getting the opportunity to become the main focus at different times within the framework of the melody. This idea uses uses three main points of reference for contrast in the musical arrangement. With them you can produce a full-bodied sound that can entertain and excite your audience. The three main musical contrasts used in this type of arrangement are:
1. DYNAMIC CONTRAST: varying degrees of dynamics are used to produce musical effects within a pipe band drum corps. This is not that unusual as most traditional scores written today have dynamic markings in them. However, this was not always the case. Dynamics have been a musical tool that pipe band drummers have capitalized on only in the last 20-30 years of competition to the point where a grade 1 corps today who play without any obvious dynamic variance would not do very well in competition. A performance from the early 1980s or before would have very little in the way of structured dynamics. Some of the first corps' to use structured dynamics were Boghall and Bathgate led by the great Tom Brown. Two-bar roll phrases in strathspey time were often played from pp to ff with amazing musical effect. Jim King with the Dysart and Dundonald Pipe Band was also musically advanced in this department. Today, most competitive corps will have many kinds of purposely structured dynamics within each piece of music the play.
2. RHYTHMIC CONTRAST: the idea of playing varying rhythms from simple to complex within the same time signature and tempo is not something that most pipe band drummers like to do. In the competition world of 'extreme drumming', the more notes you play, the faster you play them, and with as many players as possible, can often give the competitive edge over other bands. However, in contemporary music, rhythmic contrast is an important and highly valued tool. Complex rhythms will appear more exciting and interesting when combined with simpler rhythms. Also, playing rhythms from whole notes to 1/32nds, allows for much more rhythmic variety in a composition. Playing complex rhythms all of the time, is indeed no more interesting than playing simple rhythms all of the time. Combining the two together in a musically meaningful way is what creates variety and limitless musical interest.
3. TONAL CONTRAST: varying the dominant tone between the snares, bass and tenor drums is again not something traditional pipe band scoring allows for. When the snare score is written, it generally fills in every part and beat of the pipe tune and for all intents and purposes works as both a band and solo snare drum piece. It is a finished part in its own right, similar to the way a traditional pipe tune would be in that tunes are written to be complete in their own right and not intended to be part of a larger arrangement. Tonal Contrast is the idea of sharing the dominant sound of a pipe band drum corps (the snare drums) with the tenors and bass. For this to happen, the snares have to either rest completely, or simplify their rhythms while the tenors, bass or any combination continue to play. This ties in nicely with the rhythmic contrast talked about above. When the snares stop or play less, another instrument automatically comes to the forefront for the listener to hear and be engaged by. It could be the pipes, or it could be a tenor or bass part. It could also be any combination of these instruments allowing great freedom in creating the arrangement. The loudest and most complex part will always win attention, so its important also to combine this idea with the pipes or they will end up dominating the entire arrangement. It is not a bad idea musically to have the drums be the lead instrument for a brief period within an arrangement. Many other styles of music including jazz and orchestral allow rhythm to become the focus instead of melody.
This type of arrangement is written on a 3 line stave with snare, tenor and bass parts together. No voicing of tenor parts is included (only rhythms) as the number of tenor drummers available in bands often varies.
Two parts of any time signature (from traditional or contemporary melodies) can be composed, typeset and recorded in MP3 format for any skill level. Simply email a copy of the written pipe music with recording to firstname.lastname@example.org or mail to 2119 Lake Shore Blvd. West, Apt 911, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M8V4E8. Please include as much information as you can on the type of scores needed and skill level of the players. Feel free to email first to discuss your needs.
Discounts are applied for 5 or more two parted tunes. Turn around time is approximately one month from payment. The finished scores and MP3 recordings are downloaded by you via a private web address and password. Please note that you will have to indicate a four or six-parted tune, or multiple two-parted tunes by adding up the number of two-parted tunes to be composed and adding that number to the quantity box. For example, a six-parted march would have a '3' in the quantity box.
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Regulators Expected to Penalize JPMorgan Over Lehman Collapse
When Lehman Brothers collapsed at the height of the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase was at the center of the storm. The bank was a major lender to the firm, which filed the biggest bankruptcy in United States history.
Now, more than three years later, regulators are set to penalize JPMorgan for actions tied to Lehman’s demise, according to people briefed on the matter. It will be the first federal enforcement case to stem from Lehman’s downfall.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected this week to file a civil case against JPMorgan. The bank is expected to settle the Lehman matter and pay a fine of approximately $20 million. While the penalty is significant for the agency, the sum is little more than a rounding error for a bank as large as JPMorgan.
The Lehman action stems from the questionable treatment of customer money — an issue that has been at the forefront of the recent outcry over MF Global. JPMorgan was also intimately involved in the final days of that brokerage firm.
The trading commission is expected to accuse JPMorgan of overextending credit to Lehman for two years leading up to its bankruptcy in 2008, the people briefed on the matter said.
JPMorgan extended the credit using an inaccurate evaluation of Lehman’s worth, improperly counting Lehman’s customer money as belonging to the firm. Under federal law, firms are not allowed to use customer money to secure or extend credit.
The arrangement worked well for both parties, according to the people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was not yet public. Lehman wanted a larger loan, and suggested counting money from the customer account to justify it. JPMorgan complied, counting the money as part of Lehman’s coffers.
It is unclear whether JPMorgan knew the money belonged to clients. But in the view of regulators, it should have — the customer funds were kept at a JPMorgan account. The funds belonged to investors trading in the futures market.
The agency is also set to accuse JPMorgan of withholding separate Lehman customer funds for nearly two weeks, rather than turning them over to authorities, the people said. In the course of resolving that matter, regulators became aware of JPMorgan’s questionable credit to Lehman, one of the people briefed on the matter said.
JPMorgan declined to comment. The bank is expected to neither admit nor deny wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
In some ways, the commission’s case echoes MF Global, which is the biggest financial collapse since Lehman. In the case of MF Global, JPMorgan received money belonging to the brokerage firm’s customers, who are still out $1.6 billion. The money vanished in the final week before the firm went under and its disappearance is the subject of a federal investigation. Unlike the MF Global fiasco, however, customer money never went missing from Lehman. JPMorgan is not accused of any wrongdoing in the MF Global case.
In addition to being an investment bank, JPMorgan and Bank of New York Mellon are the two big institutions that process transactions for most other Wall Street firms. As a result, JPMorgan is often at the center of financial maelstroms. So-called clearing banks have a great deal of leverage over the firms they serve, because they play central roles in their financial solvency.
This role is particularly important when a company is under duress. In the case of Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan grew nervous as questions about Lehman’s capital and real estate holdings mounted in the late summer and fall of 2008. The bank asked Lehman to post more than $8 billion in collateral to continue clearing its trades, a condition that if not met might have expedited Lehman’s collapse.
Those collateral calls — issued in the week before the firm collapsed — drained Lehman of money it could have used to stay afloat. And that money is the subject of a 2010 lawsuit that Lehman’s estate has filed against JPMorgan that accuses the bank of hastening its demise.
State and private lawsuits have emerged after Lehman’s bankruptcy, including a New York attorney general lawsuit against Lehman’s auditor, Ernst & Young. But federal regulators have not previously filed Lehman-related actions — even though its collapse was at the center of the financial crisis.
The trading commission’s action against JPMorgan is the latest prominent action filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which once had a reputation as a sleepy regulator. On Monday, the agency sued the Royal Bank of Canada, accusing it of operating a major trading scheme that it used to reap lucrative tax benefits.
The agency’s enforcement division has experienced a makeover under its current chief, David Meister, a former federal prosecutor. The division filed a record 99 enforcement actions last fiscal year, 74 percent more than the previous year.
The MF Global case presents a bigger test for the agency. In the firm’s final days, MF Global tapped $175 million in customer money to patch an overdrawn firm account at JPMorgan.
The bank, suspicious about the origin of the money, sought assurances from MF Global that the money did not belong to customers. In testimony before Congress last week, a JPMorgan official said that MF Global never signed a letter verifying that the transfer was legitimate.
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Created by New York City-based artist Mara G. Haseltine, the eighty foot long, ten foot high sculpture depicts a subcellular protein factory called a ribosome caught in the act of producing the BLyS protein, which stimulates the production of infection-fighting antibodies in the body.
“I am delighted that Waltz of the Polypeptides has such a distinguished home,” said Haseltine, whose works incorporate her interest in natural sciences, psychology, and the environment. “Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is the birthplace of much of modern biology. Scientists there have laid the foundation for a lot of what we know about individual genes, the genetic code, and how the information stored in the genome is used to make the proteins of life.”
The new artwork adds to CSHL’s rich collection of paintings and sculptures on its 117 acre campus. The Laboratory has long endorsed the idea, championed by Chancellor and Nobel Laureate, Dr. James D. Watson, that scientists surrounded by creativity in art and culture will be more creative in their science.
Says Dr. Bruce Stillman, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, “The art on campus inspires our 400 resident scientists and the more than 8,000 researchers that visit CSHL each year to push the boundaries of molecular biology and genetics, relieve human suffering, and improve the quality of life for generations to come.”
The sculpture is comprised of seven structures, each of which is derived from that of the actual biological forms, observed using scanning electron microscopy, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallography.
The complete work rests in a carefully landscaped setting that is an integral part of the work. It occupies a prominent site on the CSHL campus, adjacent to Dolan Hall, a residence center for visiting scientists, and the Beckman research building.
The arrival of the Haseltine work coincides with the announcement of CSHL’s $200 million capital and endowment campaign to speed the translation of genetic discoveries into diagnostics and therapeutic treatments. Investments in the development of young scientific minds and new technologies will continue to propel CSHL scientists to discoveries in cancer, neuroscience, and human genetics.
Donated by Human Genome Sciences Inc. -- a biotechnology company founded by the artist’s father, William Haseltine -- Waltz of the Polypeptides enables viewers to tour the birth of a single protein. More about Waltz of the Polypeptides and other works by this artist is at http://www.calamara.com
About Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, 501(c)3-designated non-profit institution dedicated to research and education that advances the understanding and application of molecular biology and genetics. CSHL research areas include cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, and bioinformatics. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is one of the top rated National Cancer Institute-designated basic cancer research centers in the U.S. and is ranked 10th of 4000 charities for fiscal responsibility by Charity Navigator.
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Quite often things you read are just wrong.
For instance, take Denver Post columnist Bob Ewegen. (Please!)
In his column today, he wrote about the recent "adverse possession" ruling from a Boulder Court that allowed one rich couple to take title of some property from another rich couple - for no compensation.
Ewegen says that "there really won't be much the legislature can do about it, beyond fine-tuning the archaic 'adverse possession' laws dating back to medieval England."
He is wrong.
The legislature, if it is so inclined, can abolish the doctrine of adverse possession altogether.
It would be simple. The legislature could pass a statute that reads "Colorado no longer recognizes the common law doctrine of adverse possession."
Fine tuning? They can take a sledge hammer to the entire piano.
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Little Rock may not be a likely terrorism target or a gang crime hotspot, but the Arkansas capital is following the example of high-security cities by expanding electronic surveillance of its streets.
A police car with a device that photographs license plates moves through the city and scans the traffic on the streets, relaying the data it collects to a computer for sifting. Police say the surveillance helps identify stolen cars and drivers with outstanding arrest warrants.
It also allows authorities to monitor where average citizens might be at any particular time. That bothers some residents, as well as groups that oppose public intrusions into individual privacy. The groups are becoming more alarmed about license plate tracking as a growing number of police departments acquire the technology.
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John C. Houbolt, Eldon E. Kordes
An analysis is made of the structural response to gusts of an airplane having the degrees of freedom of vertical motion and wing bending flexibility and basic parameters are established. A convenient and accurate numerical solution of the response equations is developed for the case of discrete-gust encounter, an exact solution is made for the simpler case of continuous-sinusoidal-gust encounter, and the procedure is outlined for treating the more realistic condition of continuous random atmospheric turbulence, based on the methods of generalized harmonic analysis. Correlation studies between flight and calculated results are then given to evaluate the influence of wing bending flexibility on the structural response to gusts of two twin-engine transports and one four-engine bomber. It is shown that calculated results obtained by means of a discrete-gust approach reveal the general nature of the flexibility effects and lead to qualitative correlation with flight results. In contrast, calculations by means of the continuous-turbulence approach show good quantitative correlation with flight results and indicate a much greater degree of resolution of the flexibility effects.
An Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file of the entire report:
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Some 1970s-era liberals and old-school enviros think massive government spending is the only way to achieve the clean energy transition. They could not be more wrong, as a particularly uninformed post by the otherwise cutting-edge Grist online magazine makes clear.
As a climate bill, Waxman-Markey is at best a B-, but as a clean energy bill, it is a solid A – though both sides of the bill should be improved. Together with Obama’s other climate and clean energy efforts, it would, as I’ll explain, very quickly bring U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries close to the record-smashing levels now being set by the stimulus bill, nearly $100 billion a year.
I have spent two decades trying to accelerate the clean energy transformation of the US (and global) economy, since that is our only hope for averting catastrophic global warming impacts, Hell and High Water. For a number of years in the mid-1990s, I helped run DOE’s billion-dollar Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the largest program in the world (at the time) for working with businesses to develop and deploy the core clean energy technologies.
Over the years, the work of the office has been crucial in maintaining and expanding US leadership in key areas of clean energy. In fact, its investments have the highest documented rate of return of any federal program. The success of the office and its analytic work, especially the 5-Lab study that I initiated, oversaw, and publicized, played a key role in convincing the White House to engage positively in the Kyoto negotations in the face of strong opposition by Clinton’s entire economic team (see “The history of the ‘safety valve’ debate“). You can read an account by Art Rosenfeld [the first article, his autobio] now California Energy Commissioner – then science adviser to the assistant secretary of EERE. Kyoto was not ratified here, of course, but it has ultimately driven many tens of billions of dollars in clean energy investment in Europe and Asia.
What I came to learn in the federal government was that no matter how much money the federal government spent – money that would always be constrained by moderates and conservatives in Congress and the vagaries of presidential elections – it would always pale in comparison to what the private sector must spend in any genuine clean energy transition, by at least a factor of ten or more. Indeed, in the 5-lab study we specifically needed to model a modest CO2 price just to return to 1990 levels of CO2 emissions by 2010 – otherwise, all of the energy efficiency that we were driving the private sector to adopt mainly squeezed out new renewables and high-efficiency gas plants, not the least efficient coal plants.
GRIST FOR THOUGHT – NOT
So I was shocked, needless to say, when Grist magazine published an anachronistic (and falsehood-filled) piece yesterday, “Joe Romm’s strategy to lose the clean energy race.” The amazingly flawed premise of this article is that the only way to win the clean energy race is massive government spending – spending of a kind that is not merely politically infeasible, but suicidal from the perspective of the human race. Indeed, the article actually asserts that because I would like to pass a strengthened version of Waxman-Markey, I am embracing a strategy that would lose the clean energy race.
Who would write such old-school drivel? Let’s call them The Big-government Institute (TBI) or The Bad Idea (TBI). But I’m far less interested taking on the authors, who are stuck in the 1970s, or even Grist, who bizarrely published it, then in addressing the old-think at the core of their argument.
[Truly, being smeared by the disinformers of TBI (The Breakthrough Institute) puts one in very good company -- Al Gore, Barack Obama, Tom Friedman, Al Gore again, Rachel Carson, Henry Waxman, Barack Obama again, Congressional Democrats, Al Gore yet again, hundreds of the country's top scientists, and, of course, the entire environmental movement too many times to count (see "Memo to media: Don't be suckered by bad analyses from TBI").]
All TBI seems to care about is government funding of clean energy. They seem utterly blind to the fact that the government could never plausibly spend even one tenth the amount of money needed to complete the clean energy transition. Consider this paragraph in the Grist article:
In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the United States allocated over $60 billion to be spent over two years building American clean energy industries-an excellent start. Yet the Waxman-Markey bill would slash that level of commitment by two-thirds. Romm is apparently content with letting U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries lapse. The Breakthrough Institute is not.
As readers know, in TBI’s original article that I debunked, TBI refused to even acknowledge the ARRA funding (see “Will America lose the clean-energy race? Only if we listen to the disinformers of The Breakthrough Institute“). And even here they keep trying to lowball what Obama and Congress have done. McKinsey says in a new report on the stimulus that it “appropriates $97 billion in energy-related funding.” That, of course, is nearly two thirds of what Obama promised to deliver over 10 years!
More important, McKinsey adds that ARRA “aims to mobilize roughly $100 billion more in private capital.” This is what The Big-government Institute doesn’t get about the strategy of Obama and the Congressional Democrats – the key is to leverage private sector funding, since the private sector is more than 10 times bigger than the public sector, and, of course, the private sector is the one that actually does all of the clean energy manufacturing and the overwhelming majority of the deployment. So to the extent that ARRA works as planned, it should drive $200 billion dollars in investment – most of it spent over a 2-year period.
You can see TBI’s old-school thinking best in this sentence:
Yet the Waxman-Markey bill would slash that level of commitment by two-thirds. Romm is apparently content with letting U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries lapse. The Breakthrough Institute is not.
The only U.S. investments that TBI can conceive of are government
investments. In fact, the Waxman-Markey bill would dramatically increase U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries – once you realize that the U.S. is much more than just the government.
Let me do a rough calculation to show what I mean. The new McKinsey report says an investment of “$520 billion [is] needed through 2020 for upfront investment in efficiency measures … to reduce end-use energy consumption in 2020 by 9.1 quadrillion BTUs” (which is a bit more than 10% of total energy use today).
According to the EPA analysis (which TBI endorses in its Grist piece), Waxman-Markey lowers demand 7 quads in 2020 compared to business as usual, and 9.4 quads in 2025 and 10.4 quads in 2030 (see “New EPA analysis of Waxman-Markey: Consumer electric bills 7% lower in 2020 thanks to efficiency – plus 22 GW of extra coal retirements and no new dirty plants“). That is similar to what the the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) calculates for the savings from W-M’s efficiency provisions – 5 quads saved in 2020 and 12.3 quads in 2030 (see “The triumph of energy efficiency: Waxman-Markey could save $3,900 per household and create 650,000 jobs by 2030“).
Let’s just keep this back-of-the envelope and say that the energy efficiency provisions of W-M save 9.1 quads in 2025, which, according to McKinsey, requires $520 billion in investment. So, roughly, from 2012 to 2025, W-M will drive on average $40 billion a year in investment in energy efficiency – most of which, clearly, comes from the private sector. Of course, in the early years, the investment is much smaller, and it grows over time as the building standards and appliance standards kick in and the emissions targets start to bite. So by 2025, W-M may well be driving $60 billion in investment.
As an important aside, if you want to fully account for the massive energy efficiency investments being driven by President Obama, then you’d have to calculate the huge amount of investment that the car companies and eventually consumers will be making in fuel-efficient cars to meet the most aggressive increase in fuel economy standards proposed in decades – Obama to raise new car fuel efficiency standard to 39 mpg by 2016 – The biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2. Of course, those investments, as with the W-M investments, will pay for themselves in a few years, yielding pure savings (as well as major oil and climate benefits) for years and years to come.
The Obama administration has estimated the added cost of the new standard will be $1,300 per car, and save drivers $500 per year – if gasoline remains $3 per gallon. Of course, once the global recession ends, we are headed back to $4 gasoline and probably $5 by the middle of next decade if not sooner (see here). Some think the $1300 figure is low (see here) – and, of course, it only includes the extra cost of the vehicle, not the portion of the investment in efficiency that doesn’t add to the cost of the car. So this one act by Obama will likely drive upward of $20 billion a year in U.S. investment in energy efficiency.
Back to Waxman-Markey. It is tougher to figure out how much private sector investment in clean energy other than efficiency the bill would drive, since that depends crucially on things like the price of natural gas. Also, because the stimulus drives so much new renewables into the market and W-M drives so much efficiency into the market, you don’t see a lot of extra low-carbon energy by 2020. That really comes later. Still, the single most important thing needed to stimulate private sector investment in low carbon technologies is raising the price of carbon, which this bill does steadily for decades.
I’ll just do a rough estimate that the bill leads to government spending in renewables, CCS, electric and advanced vehicles, and R&D of about $100 billion from 2012 to 2025 and that is matched by the private sector in research, development, demonstration, and deployment. That’s almost certain a lowball estimate, since the bill also has a green bank in it designed to finance clean energy, and the venture capital community alone is likely to spend more than $10 billion a year once we pass sharply shrinking CO2 caps. Also, since TBI seems wedded to counting promised spending by other countries, it’s only fair to count Obama’s promised increase in clean tech R&D (see Obama: “Our future on this planet depends on our willingness to address the challenge posed by carbon pollution,” vows “we will exceed [R&D] level achieved at the height of the space race”).
So if we enact something like Waxman-Markey (preferably stronger) into law and if Obama is a 2-term president and thus sticks around long enough to fulfill his promises, then I expect by the 2020s, U.S. investments in clean energy technologies and industries would come close to the record-smashing levels now being set by the stimulus bill, roughly $100 billion a year.
Again, the overwhelming majority of those investments will be made by the private sector, which is as it should be, though not as TBI wants.
[Regular readers can skip the rest of this post, but I need to included for completeness sake.]
The most embarrassing thing about the Grist piece is that Grist lets TBI print these outrageous lies:
The Breakthrough Institute believes the gathering clean energy race demands a vigorous and sustained commitment to clean energy technology and industries and has called on Congress to strengthen U.S. climate legislation, boosting clean energy investments from its current level of $10 billion per year to at least $30-$50 billion per year. In contrast, Romm ardently supports weaker legislation that would invest just $10 billion per year in clean energy and energy efficiency, less than one quarter of China’s planned investments. That may be acceptable to Joe Romm-but it is no way to win the clean energy race.
If you follow the link, it’s quite clear that I don’t ardently support W-M, I just think it is infinitely superior to the alternative – the status quo, which is what TBI is primarily pursuing. And, as I’ve shown, W-M coupled with Obama’s other initatives, will drive a staggering amount of investment in clean energy and energy efficiency – ten times what TBI claims with their nar
row Big Government focus. Ironically, while parts of the clean energy side of the bill should be strengthened, particularly the renewable energy standard, it is the climate side of the bill that is the weakest, as I’ve said many times. Yet bizarrely TBI, which cares much more about clean energy than global warming, hates a bill they should love. Nordhaus even admitted on CP, “We have argued for five years now that efforts to build the clean energy economy needed to be centrally defined around energy independence not global warming.” Climate science activists they ain’t.
What is most egregious about the Grist piece is that, as pretty much everybody inside the DC beltway knows, TBI has dedicated the resources of their organization to killing prospects for climate and clean energy action in this Congress and to spreading disinformation about Obama, Gore, Congressional leaders, Waxman and Markey, and anyone else trying to end our status quo energy policies (see “Memo to media: Don’t be suckered by bad analyses from TBI” and “The dynamic duo of disinformation and doubletalk return” and “”Shellenberger and Nordhaus smear Gore by making stuff up“).
TBI is directly lobbying members of Congress to kill the bill. They are directly lobbying the press to trash it. They do NOT want to strengthen U.S. climate legislation. In a press call notification sent to many in the media, TBI stated:
We support a cap and trade policy that:
1) Auctions 100 percent of the pollution allowances;
2) Sets the price for carbon dioxide at between $8 – $12/ton, using safety valves;
3) Does not allow offsetting; and
4) Dedicates all the money from revenues (between $48 bi and $72 bi per year) to technology innovation.
That’s right. TBI supports a policy that would
- Probably get no votes whatsoever in either House of Congress – since it raises energy prices a little across the board but doesn’t give a nickel of it back to consumers, businesses, or low income households.
- Does nothing whatsoever to stop new coal plants – and in fact encourages them by removing from the table a shrinking cap that renders new dirty coal plants unprofitable.
- Does not offer any strategy in the near-, medium, or long-term for beating the 2.5 to 3 cents a kWh cost of existing coal. As I think is rather obvious to anybody but The Breakthrough Institute, all the “breakthroughs” in the world can’t make a new zero carbon power plant cheaper than an existing coal plant (see “Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 3: The breakthrough technology illusion“).
- And fails to mandate targets that would allow international negotiations with other countries as part of either the UNFCCC process at Copenhagen or a bilateral agreement with China.
This proposal is just old-school BIG GOVERNMENT. It is a joke, an insult to genuine climate science advocates and a bigger insult to clean energy advocates. No one advancing it has any business criticizing Waxman-Markey or criticizing anyone trying to pass a strengthened version of W-M.
Let me end with TBI’s final hypocrisy, from the original op-ed piece that started this:
If America does not take immediate action to bridge its energy education gap – and if we fail to make substantially larger investments in our own clean-energy economy – we will effectively cede the clean-energy race to Asia. A decade from now, we may still find the burgeoning clean-energy economy promised by Obama and Democratic leaders. It will simply be headquartered in China.
Seriously. Yes, the TBI piece was partly about an underfunded new energy education initiative, but it was mostly a vehicle for TBI’s standard attacks on clean energy leaders. It opened with a phony apples-to-orange set of comparisons trying to make it look like Obama and Democratic leaders were not keeping their clean energy promises and ended with the absurd implication that if we pass Waxman-Markey those leaders will somehow be giving up the race to China.
Waxman-Markey is far from perfect, as I’ve said many times, but at least it has a serious chance of becoming law, as the House demonstrated, something that could never be said about TBI’s proposal. Indeed, right now, whatever you think about W-M’s climate provisions, one can state with absolute certainty that passing a bill like it is our only politically plausible chance of beating China in the clean energy race.
Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, if we don’t get a climate and clean energy bill, it will be at least in part due to the disinformation spread by TBI. It is time for everyone – including Grist – to see TBI as the opponent of clean energy and climate action that they are.
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Animal cells spin spider silk
A Canadian biotechnology company working with the US Army has successfully inserted spider genes into mammalian cells, taking them one step closer to their aim of manufacturing large quantities of spider silk using transgenic goats.
Spider silk is strong and stretchy, and is sought after for use in medical, military, and industrial applications. But mass production in spider farms has so far failed, and attempts to insert genes into bacteria, yeast and plants have only yielded insoluble silk proteins that clump together inside the cells.
One company, Nexia Biotechnologies has the ultimate goal of transfering spider genes into the mammary cells of goats and and harvesting silk proteins from the milk. Work with goats is still in progress, however researchers from the company together with those from the US Army Soldier Biological Chemical Command, report today that they have spun spider silk from the secretions of genetically modified baby hamster kidney cells and cow mammary cells.
The team, headed by Anthoula Lazaris, reports its findings in this week's issue of Science.
The researchers inserted two sets of silk genes from orb-web weaving spiders into the hamster and cow cells. The cells then secreted water-soluble silk in a manner similar to the spider's silk gland. This enabled the researchers to spin the proteins into fine silk fibres by extruding them through a tiny hole at the end of a syringe into another solution containing methanol.
Natural dragline silk the stuff used by spiders in frames and safety lines of their webs stretches better than nylon and is five times as strong, by weight, as steel.
The recombinant spider silk, trademarked BioSteel, is reported to be as tough and strong as the real thing, although less flexible, possibly because only one of the two proteins spiders use to spin their fibres was used.
A company press release describes the recombinant spider silk as "eco-friendly" because it is biodegradable, being made only of amino acids ("the same building blocks that are used to make skin and hair"), and because producing it will not require harsh solvents such as those used in manufacturing most synthetic fibres.
Nexia has exclusive worldwide rights to broad patents covering spider silks, genes, and proteins, and intends to create large quantities of BioSteel for use in artificial tendons and ligaments, medical sutures, biodegradable high-strength fishing lines, and even bullet-proof clothing - although states in its press release that any future plans are subject to certain "risks and uncertainties" that could cause "actual results to differ from those currently anticipated".
The company plans to use its "proprietary transgenic goat technology" for mass production and reports it has already developed a number of male and female BioSteel founder goats, and that females will begin producing milk later this year.
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The controversial Chinese-backed copper mine in northwestern Burma will continue to operate despite a growing national outcry against the project, local authorities said.
|The copper mine at Monywa in Sagaing Division. Photo: Mizzima|
The governor of Sarlingyi, the township where the copper mine is located, sent a notice to six village heads in the area on Wednesday telling them that the mine would not be halted because it is a “friendship” joint venture between Burma and China, Radio Free Asia reported on Thursday.
The project in the Letpadaung mountains is owned jointly by the Burmese military’s powerful Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd. and Wan Bao Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Chinese arms manufacturer North China Industries Corp. (Norinco).
Villagers – who say that the mine developers have illegally confiscated more than 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) of farmland from 26 villages without providing adequate compensation – had already been given complete compensation, company officials said.
Villagers in Sarlingyi Township near Monywa in Sagaing Division have staged mass demonstrations against the mine over the past few months, backed by locals and rights groups around Burma.
Some 2,000 villagers and supporters held a forum this week near the mine to discuss opposition to the project.
Conference organizers read messages of support sent by groups and activists including the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners, the United Nationalities Alliance, the Kayan New Party, the Kokant Democratic Party, the Burma Communist Party, and writer Dagon Taryar, among others, said the RFA report.
Meanwhile, the Chinese ambassador to Burma said Beijing would stop backing Wan Bao’s development of the mine if the project did not benefit Burma, RFA said.
“If this project brings no benefit to the Myanmar [Burmese] people, the Chinese government will not support or endorse it,” Ambassador Li Junhua said at a press conference on Sunday, according to a press release posted on the Facebook page of the Chinese Embassy in Burma. “Because it not only concerns the image of the Chinese company, but also the image of China and the Chinese government,” he said.
His comments came the same day as an opinion piece in Chinese state media’s Global Times newspaper said Chinese companies need to “attach more importance to grassroots voices” in carrying out investment projects such as the Monywa mine.
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From the left: Michael Junge, Prof. Dr. Richard Bamler, Martin Israel, Dr. Peter Haschberger, Corinna Pregla
Every year, over 100,000 fawns are injured or killed by farming equipment in Germany. Young deer crouch down when danger threatens instead of fleeing, and thus become casualties. The "Flying Wildlife Finder," an application system developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), prevents accidents by detecting animals hidden in tall grass during the hay harvest. At the same time, this animal rescue prevents the contamination of grass cuttings by animal carcasses. For the innovative idea of a "Flying Wildlife Finder," the DLR Remote Sensing Technology Institute was recognized as one of 365 “Featured Locations 2012” in a “Country of Ideas.” The award ceremony took place on 7 November 2012 in Oberpfaffenhofen. This competition is organized by the nation-branding initiative "Germany – A Country with Ideas" in cooperation with Deutsche Bank.
"That we also placed well in the public voting, besides receiving the 'Featured Location' honor, tells us how popular our project is with the general public," commented DLR project leader Martin Israel. The "Flying Wildlife Finder" was selected from over 2,000 entries from all over Germany by a jury composed of scientists, business managers, journalists and politicians. Michael Junge of the business customer department of Deutsche Bank Munich presented the award, emphasizing that, "the ' Flying Wildlife Finder ' is a typical example of the wealth of ideas in this country: always focused on the practical realities of people and nature, creative, and economical." The relevance of the project from the viewpoint of hunters was described by Dr. Ernst Moser in a progress report of the Upper Austrian State Hunting Association and the Bavarian Hunting Association.
Rescue begins aloft
The "Flying Wildlife Finder," a remotely controlled aerial drone equipped with sensors and a GPS link, is sent on a reconnaissance flight before mowing starts. A high resolution thermal imaging camera detects the temperature of animals hidden in the grass, which is higher than the ambient temperature of the field. This information is analyzed by a computer on board the aircraft and transmitted to a ground station, from where a search party is led to the fawn’s resting place with the help of GPS.
From idea to product
The "Flying Wildlife Finder" is a key element of a future practical and marketable wildlife rescue system. It involves electronically marking the fawns detected by the "Flying Wildlife Finder" several days before the mowing is scheduled with the help of a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system, so that they can be reliably found and moved to a safe place in good time just before the mowing operation begins. Uncoupling the search and mowing activities reduces the strain on the search party, which is under high time pressure during spring mowing.
Under a grant from the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, DLR is carrying out this project together with the agricultural technology company CLAAS and Munich Technical University (TUM), under the leadership of ISA Industrieelektronik GmbH.
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There was electricity in the North Carolina air in 1960 when John Kennedy, bronze, lithe, young and handsome, bounded up the steps of the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh.
The young senator carried an aura of excitement with him compared to dull, stolid Vice President Nixon representing the past. Kennedy seemed to embody the limitless possibilities of youth in a nation whose destiny was manifest.
A grade-school child of friends whom I had taken to meet the senator was full of chatter before meeting him but when he leaned down to greet her, she was so dazzled she couldn’t say a word.
I was a passionate supporter, but I was a reporter first, and ethics commanded that I report the news, and the news in early September wasn’t good for Kennedy. I reported that Democrats in the eastern part of the state “were going fishing.” They didn’t think they could support a Catholic.
Then on Sept. 12, Kennedy spoke at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. He told the audience that no pope or bishop could tell a president of the United States what to do.
He reminded the preachers that, “It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom.”
And then he won them with this passage: “And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers did die when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches — when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom — and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died Fuentes, and McCafferty, and Bailey, and Badillo, and Carey — but no one knows whether they were Catholics or not. For there was no religious test there.”
It was those last lines about the Alamo that touched the heart of patriotism, and when they were played over and over on TV in the eastern third of the state, those folks put up their fishing poles and carried North Carolina for Kennedy.
Sixteen years later, once again I felt an urgent connection with the campaign of Jimmy Carter. He had endorsed and joined a New South organization I was leading at the time, no longer a reporter but an advocate.
What Carter represented was an opportunity for the nation to welcome the South home, burdened as the region had been with its sins against its black citizens and its damaged self respect.
It was a time to feel not just welcome but at home in the White House among friends. Much was personally invested in Carter’s success and so sharp then was the pain of his failure.
When he left, the New South ended, too; there was nothing to sustain it and, anyway, nothing can be new forever.
Southern fortunes and my strong feelings about presidential politics revived with the Bill Clinton campaign. We knew each other and Josephine had served on a regional commission with him.
I learned on a flight with him from Washington that he was running, and at the Atlanta airport when Josephine came to pick me up, Bill hopped into the front seat of her Isuzu trooper to wait for his ride. The site of the two of them in a car that resembles German Gen. Rommel’s staff car is an indelible memory.
From Kennedy to Clinton, they and I have shared a common philosophy: In America every person, every person regardless of race, religion, income or station, has a right to dignity, work, basic comforts and a touch of joy in their lives — if it’s just a color television set.
Though Barack Obama is a complete stranger to me and to most of the region, I believe he shares the same philosophy and clearly Bill Clinton believes so, as well.
We had been reasonably convinced by Mitt Romney’s strained attempts to woo the right wing of his party that he did not care for those who were in the 47 percent, whom he wrongly thought did not even want to work for a living.
Then two Wednesday nights ago, Romney took a smart left turn and placed himself in the moderate zone, just to the right of center, philosophically just a few feet away from President Obama.
Romney’s latest reversal in what has been a series of backspins from previous positions has blurred his true character to such an extent that he is unknowable; a vote for him is a leap of blind faith.
But if he intends to campaign through October as a moderate mirror image of the president, there will be few fires of passion lit. A campaign of dramatic choices will have become boring, merely boring.
H. Brandt Ayers is the publisher of The Star and chairman of Consolidated Publishing Co.
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And 51% of women have at least one allergy compared with 37% of men, according to the study.
Allergies appear to be on the rise across the UK although health researchers are still investigating the exact reasons why.
Today's poll of more than 1,000 people, from market analyst Mintel, found that 44% of people have an allergy, with 48% of those suffering from more than one.
Those under 35 were the most likely to have an allergy (48%) compared with 37% of people aged 55 to 64.
Allergy to pollen was the most common (26%), followed by house dust mites (11%) and pets (9%). Other allergies included mould (4%), rubber (2%) and metal (1%).
Dairy (including eggs) and fish or seafood (4%) were the most common food allergies, while 2% of people said they had a nut allergy.
However, fewer than half (49%) of sufferers said their allergy had been diagnosed by a doctor or nurse.
Last year, Allergy UK estimated that four out of 10 people in Britain wuold suffer an allergy at some point in their lives.
Alexandra Richmond, senior health and beauty analyst at Mintel, said: ''An estimated 21 million adults in the UK suffer from at least one allergy, with 10 million suffering from more than one.
''There are only a limited number of NHS allergy clinics in the UK and so waiting lists for testing tend to be long and people are left with little choice but to research their symptoms to identify what they are allergic to.
''A lack of professional opinion may see them wrongly believing that they are allergic to a number of things when in fact they are not.''
The research also found that allergy sufferers changed things in their lives to help them cope with their problem. This included keeping their home really clean (11%) and using special bedding (11%).
Fewer than one in 10 (7%) allergy sufferers did nothing about their allergies.
Most either used allergy remedies or avoided the things which triggered their symptoms. However, 24% of people said nearly everyone claims to be allergic to something nowadays, while 18% described allergies as a modern illness.
According to Mintel, the market for over-the-counter allergy remedies has seen little value growth since 2004 - growing by 5% between 2004 and 2009 to £110 million. It said competition from supermarkets had kept prices low.
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The Society of Our Lady of Lourdes, a national pilgrimage charity, is celebrating a milestone in its history in 2012.
This year marks the centenary of the Society which works to give honour to Our Lady and enable and encourage pilgrims to visit Lourdes by minimising the barriers of cost and disability.
Although originally the principal annual pilgrimage from England to Lourdes, over time, as individual diocesan pilgrimages have formed, the Society’s role has evolved to specialise in the very sick, working to care for those who require the most support to travel. The Society’s annual Lourdes pilgrimage takes place in early summer with the help of experienced helpers who are supported by a professional team of medical staff, who alongside their auxiliaries, provide the pilgrims with 24-hour care.
Despite its age, the Society also works hard to engage with the youth of today and is accompanied every year by over 150 students from three Catholic high schools based in Yorkshire and Watford who offer their enthusiastic help and companionship to the pilgrims. The Society also has its own Twitter and Facebook accounts, blog and YouTube channel, enabling it to keep in touch with the times as well as reach its 1,248 members who live throughout the country and internationally.
Fundraising initiatives have already begun to mark the 100th birthday including the formation of a Centenary Club whose members enter a monthly lottery-style prize draw. Plans for the coming months include an integrated quiz night via video conference for members throughout the country, a sponsored cycle ride and a “Sponsored Push” wheelchair fundraising event. An exhibition documenting the history of the Society will also open in Lourdes in May.
Catherine Casey, a council member of the Society, hopes that the centennial celebrations will help raise awareness of the Society’s work.
She said: “Lourdes is a very sacred and unforgettable experience which provides our pilgrims physical and spiritual nourishment as well as lifelong friendships. From pushing wheelchairs to feeding and cleaning, our helpers are there to assist from the time we meet at the departure airport to the time we bid farewell on our return.”
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The Secrets of Happy Families featured and tested on ABC’s Nightline. Watch the video here.
LEARNING TO BOW has been heralded as one of the funniest, liveliest, and most insightful books ever written about the clash of cultures between America and Japan. With warmth and candor, Bruce Feiler recounts the year he spent as a teacher in a small rural town. Beginning with a ritual outdoor bath and culminating in an all-night trek to the top of Mt. Fuji, Feiler teaches his students about American culture, while they teach him everything from how to properly address an envelope to how to date a Japanese girl.
“A refreshingly original look at Japan . . . this book is a revelation.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A hilarious and revealing book [that] marks the debut of a formidable talent.” —James Fallows, Washington Editor of Atlantic Monthly
“Always fascinating and often funny . . . one of those rare books that shows the Japanese as fully rounded human beings.” —Washington Post
“Mark Salzman fans and other aficionados of things Eastern will love . . . Bruce Feiler’s LEARNING TO BOW.” —Elle
“Gems of insight and understanding.” —Rocky Mountain News
“An engaging book, LEARNING TO BOW earns higher marks than the usual scholarly analysis.” —Business Tokyo
“Filled with rich anecdotes that tell far more than dry, academic tomes on the same subject.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“A charming and incisive close-up of the most important part of the Japanese miracle- the making of a Japanese.” —Robert Elegant, author of Pacific Destiny
“Feiler’s book is warm, intimate, and often very funny, bringing much-needed insight into the Japanese grass-root culture and the role of education in that land.” —Kirkus Reviews
“As fascinating an account of Japanese life as you could find anywhere. . . . Don’t miss this one.” —Grand Rapids Press
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Freedom of the Press 2012 - Morocco
|Publication Date||16 November 2012|
|Cite as||Freedom House, Freedom of the Press 2012 - Morocco, 16 November 2012, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50aa3e44c.html [accessed 18 May 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
Press Status: Not Free
Press Freedom Score: 68
Legal Environment: 25
Political Environment: 25
Economic Environment: 18
Morocco's constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but the press law prohibits criticism of the monarchy and Islam, and effectively bars coverage of taboo subjects, including the royal family and the government's position on the status of Western Sahara. Libel remains a criminal offense that carries potentially exorbitant fines or prison terms, and legal cases are a primary method of repressing critical reporting. In April 2011, Rachid Nini, the editor of the daily Al-Massae, was arrested on charges of disseminating misinformation and attacking state institutions, public figures, and "the security and integrity of the nation and its citizens." Press freedom advocates in Morocco suggested that the charges were politicized and a result of the paper's coverage of corruption cases and investigations of Authenticity and Modernity Party leader Fouad el-Himma. In June, Nini was found guilty, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined 1,000 dirhams ($125). In December 2011, one of Nini's colleagues, journalist Radwan Hifani, was prevented from entering his office at the Assabah newspaper when he returned from vacation, following a dispute with his editor in chief over Hifani's defense of Nini. Other journalists have also been targeted for reporting on corruption. Mohamed al-Dawas, a blogger and anticorruption advocate, was arrested in September on what his lawyer called politically motivated and trumped-up charges of drug trafficking. Al-Dawas was sentenced to 19 months in prison and fined 20,000 dirhams ($2,430).
King Mohamed VI and his government wield considerable control over the editorial content of domestic broadcast media. Oversight includes the authority to appoint the heads of all public radio and television stations, and the president and all four board members of the High Authority for Audio-Visual Communication, which is responsible for issuing broadcast licenses and monitoring content to ensure compliance with licensing requirements.
Physical attacks on journalists are less common than legal actions, though there were sporadic reports of attacks in 2011, particularly in relation to coverage of the country's February 20 protest movement, which grew following the eruption of prodemocracy uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa early in the year. The February 20 movement, led by students and activists, called for the expansion of democratic freedoms. At least five journalists and bloggers were attacked while covering a March protest in Casablanca. Journalists also reported intimidation – including the confiscation of equipment – while covering the protest movement, despite clear indications that they were media workers and not protesters. Progovernment protesters attacked the Casablanca offices of the independent newspaper Akhbar al-Youm in October, cursing its staff and burning copies of the paper.
Self-censorship remains widespread, as many journalists fear heavy fines, prison sentences, or extralegal intimidation and physical violence in retribution for their stories. Nevertheless, some journalists continue to push the boundaries and report on sensitive subjects such as the military, national security, religion, and sexuality.
Foreign publications are widely available in Morocco, but the foreign media are not immune from government repression. In 2010, the government targeted the Qatar-based satellite television network Al-Jazeera, denying accreditation to two of its journalists and accusing it of editorial bias. Authorities rescinded accreditation for all Al-Jazeera journalists working in Morocco in October 2010, effectively suspending the network's reporting in the country. Al-Jazeera remained unable to operate in Morocco in 2011.
According to the constitution, the press in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara is free, but this is not the case in practice. There is little in the way of independent Sahrawi media. Moroccan authorities are sensitive to any reporting that is not in line with the state's official position on Western Sahara, and they continue to expel or detain Sahrawi, Moroccan, and foreign reporters who write critically on the issue. Alternative viewpoints and resources such as online media or independent broadcasts from abroad are not easily accessible to the population.
There are 17 daily and 90 weekly publications in circulation, and it is estimated that more than 70 percent of these are privately owned. Broadcast media are still dominated by the state, and FM radio stations are largely prohibited from airing programs of a political nature. However, residents can access critical reports through pan-Arab and other satellite television channels. The regime uses advertising and subsidies, as well as aggressive financial harassment, to repress critical media coverage.
Approximately 51 percent of the population regularly accessed the internet in 2011, the highest penetration rate in North Africa. There is no official legislation regulating internet content or access, but the government sporadically blocks certain websites and online tools, including Google Earth and the LiveJournal blogging platform. The government monitors blogs and other websites and occasionally cracks down on those who produce critical content. This practice intensified with the rise of the February 20 protest movement. During protests in the southwestern city of Agadir in July, bloggers and online journalists who filmed the unrest were subjected to attacks and intimidation.
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|CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS & RESEARCH MINISTRY||
1 The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:
2 To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
4 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
6 Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
7 But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
9 Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
12 Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.
13 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
14 Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.
15 For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
16 And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.
17 Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
18 For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land.
19 And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.
Return to Bible Online
AND RESEARCH MINISTRY
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"Molecular origami" could become the latest nanotech construction technique, thanks to the first detailed study of how sheets fold.
The study, which was done at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, was inspired by experiments carried out in 2005, in which small flat surfaces were transformed into 3D structures such as spheres simply by shaking them at random.
The shapes were fitted with oppositely charged magnets, which became stuck together, pulling the surfaces into shape. The hope is that a similar process may be possible on the molecular level, using surfaces such as graphene (carbon "chicken wire") with dangling bonds at the edges to hold the 3D shape together.
This self-assembly process might yield simpler ways to make the microscopic components required by the electronics and computing industries. But until now no one has tried to understand the process behind the phenomenon.
The most advanced self-assembly research has focused on how individual particles self-assemble into sheets like lego bricks. But folding sheets could have more potential.
"The previous experiments were more or less trial and error," says Silas Alben, a mathematician at Harvard and one of the authors of the study, "they just tried to think up what would work."
Alben and colleague Michael Brenner are working towards a slicker way of doing it. "We want a way to predict what kind of shapes a given flat sheet will produce," says Alben.
The two mathematicians simulated the 2005 experiments on computer using networks of virtual springs to represent differently shaped sheets. When these were shaken, the flexing of the sheets brought certain points on the edges together, allowing some shapes to form but not others.
Buckling not bending
The simulations show that these changes in shape are caused by sudden buckling rather than gradual bending. "It is like putting too much pressure on a beam," says Alben. "Eventually it will break."
Alben and Brenner also worked on what it is about a sheet that makes it likely to buckle. For example, thicker sheets are more resilient to buckling, while sheets with curved edges focus stress in a way that makes buckling more likely.
"This formula should allow us to design a sheet shape and predict which parts will buckle," says Alben. "That should at least give an idea of the number of possible shapes for a particular sheet."
It is not yet possible to predict exactly which shape a sheet will form, concedes Alben, "but we do know that it has to do with how strain from different areas interact."
Alben now hopes to find ways of biasing a sheet so that it buckles in a particular way.
Natalio Krasnogor works on self-assembly at Nottingham University, UK. "The idea of using origami-style methods is neat," he says, "but it is currently limited to cases where it is easy to predict the type of interactions that will happen and the possible outcomes."
Journal reference: Physical Review Letters (10.1103/PhysRevE.75.056113)
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
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A vaccination against social prejudice
Evolutionary psychologists suspect that prejudice is rooted in survival: Our distant ancestors had to avoid outsiders who might have carried disease. Research still shows that when people feel vulnerable to illness, they exhibit more bias toward stigmatized groups. But a new study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science suggests there might be a modern way to break that link.
We thought if we could alleviate concerns about disease, we could also alleviate the prejudice that arises from them, says Julie Y. Huang of the University of Toronto, about a study she conducted with Alexandra Sedlovskaya of Harvard University; Joshua M. Ackerman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Yale Universitys John A. Bargh. The group found that the sense of security derived through measures such as vaccination and hand washing can reduce bias against out groups, from immigrants to the obese.
The researchers conducted three experiments. The first two (with 135 and 26 participants, respectively) looked at peoples reactions to threats of the flu. In the first, some participants were already vaccinated, others not. Half the subjectsincluding members of both groupsread a cautionary passage about the flu. In experiment 2, all the participants had been vaccinated. They read a similar text, but some of them read one with a section saying the vaccine is effective; the others received only an explanation of how it functions. In both experiments, participants answered questionnaires assessing their level of prejudicein the first, particularly toward immigrants, in the second, toward numerous groups, including crack addicts and obese people.
The findings: In experiment 1, among those who read the textand were thus reminded of the disease threatthe vaccinated showed less anti-immigrant sentiment than the unvaccinated. There was no significant difference among those who didnt read the passage. In experiment 2, those who got assurances of the vaccines effectiveness showed less bias. Even when everyone is actually protected, comments Huang, the perception that they are well protected attenuates prejudice.
In the third experiment, with 26 undergraduate participants, half used a hand wipe to wipe their hands and the keyboard of a computer they were using. The others didnt. The text they read included the statement that anti-bacterial hand wipes help protect against contagion. These students were assessed for their nervousness about germsa signal of feeling vulnerable to diseaseand their feelings toward seven out-groups and two in-groups (undergraduates and their families). As expected, among those who did not wipe their hands, germ aversion correlated positively with aversion to stigmatized groups. But the germ-averse hand-wipers didnt express prejudice. None showed bias toward people like themselves and their loved ones.
The studywhich is unique in uniting evolutionary psychology, social cognitive psychology, and public healthholds promise for reducing physical and social maladies at once. Write the authors, a public health intervention like vaccination or hand washing could be a modern treatment for [an] ancient affliction.
Provided by American Psychiatric Association
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Date: Thu, 22 May 97 09:52:46 CDT
Subject: OZ: Whitewashing "BLACKNESS"/Human Rights Down Under The USA
A Stolen Generation Cries Out
By Michael Perry, Reuter
20 May 1997
SYDNEY, May 20 - Haunting voices of elderly Aborigines tell of babies being
snatched from their mother's breast by police on horseback in Australia's
Black and white film shows rows of Aboriginal children with empty faces,
dressed in striped uniforms reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps, and
others bent over sweeping the dirt with their bare hands.
The Australian Archives exhibition travelling the country titled "Between
Two Worlds" reveals a dark chapter in Australia's past when it attempted to
breed out Aborigines.
Tens of thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their
parents under a government policy of assimilation from the 1880s to the
1960s. Those children are called the "Stolen Generation" or "People of
"It clearly was attempted genocide," Sir Ronald Wilson, president of
Australia's Human Rights Commission, told Reuters. "It was believed that
the Aboriginal people would die out."
STOLEN CHILDREN STILL SUFFERING
Today, thousands of Aborigines face a life of family breakdowns, drug and
alcohol abuse, violence and mental anguish they say is directly linked to
being taken from their parents.
Social Justice Commissioner Mick Dodson has just completed a year-long
national inquiry into the Stolen Generation and he, too, said it was an
attempt at genocide.
Dodson's report is now before the government and is expected to formally
charge Australia with attempted genocide and call for an apology and
compensation, possibly millions of dollars.
"Certainly an apology is a very good beginning in healing what is a real
sore, a real wound in the Australian pysche," said Aboriginal leader
Dodson. "There's this huge scar that we have to perhaps re-open in order to
Joy Williams is a Stolen Generation child. Her mother Dora was taken away
when she was 10 hours old, Joy was taken at seven hours and Joy's daughter
Julie Anne at 10 months. The only reason ever given was the colour of their
"How do you assist a nation of people who are grieving because this policy
affected every Aboriginal community in Australia?" demands Williams, one of
hundreds of Aborigines suing Australia's national and state governments.
"You have a nation in mourning and nothing is being done," Williams said
ABORIGINAL CHILD SLAVES
Many Aboriginal children were raised on government and church missions in
remote, outback locations where life was tough and sexual abuse widespread.
Wilson said Aboriginal children were used as virtual slaves and one in 10
were sexually assaulted. "The children would be stripped naked and tied to
a post in the yard to be flogged for some minor
misdemeanour," he said.
"We have had mothers say to us, 'I'm a rotten mother. I don't know how to
cuddle my baby', and then add, 'The only time I have ever been cuddled was
when I was being raped'."
Australia's churches have apologised for their part in what they say was a
Nazi-style policy of assimilation. They admit their role was was to break
the Aboriginal spirit.
"People believed that if we were going to make good Catholics or Christians
out of the Aboriginal people we had to take them away from what we would
have seen as pagan influences...," said Catholic Bishop Pat Power.
Dodson said Aboriginal Australia is today dysfunctional as a result, with
family breakdowns endemic and drug and aclohol abuse widespread. Aboriginal
juveniles are 30 times more likely to be jailed and also suffer the
country's highest suicide rate.
"Every story is its own little tragedy, that amount to a national
tragedy," Dodson said. "They were told 'your parents are dead, your
mother's a drunk, your mother's a whore, your mother's no good, she doesn't
SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY
Archie Roach, a leading Aboriginal musician, is a Stolen Generation child
who has searched all his life for his identity.
"I don't remember much because I was only three, but I do remember running
with my cousin down to the river and hiding in the bracken and under
sticks," Roach said.
As a child Roach was sent to several white foster homes -- one family forced
him to eat raw potatoes and sleep in the grain shed. He only discovered he
was Aboriginal at 11, and at 14 his lost sister wrote him a letter saying
his mother had died.
"I don't know what my mother looks like," Roach said.
For years Roach lived on the streets searching for his (family). [REUTER]
The above article is posted at:
Copyright ) 1995-97 Infoseek Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Our Youth Ministry invites all teens in grades 6 through 12 of the parish, in both public and parochial schools
, as well as their parents to share in our programs for students.
Classes meet during the months of September through May. Registration for classes is held in the spring or as new parishioners register.
To be a family of Catholic faith made up of people young and old dedicated to developing and maintaining a religious education program that aids parents in the development of the Catholic faith of their children...a living, growing faith which will permeate daily life and lead to lives based on the scriptural teachings of Jesus Christ.
- To assist students in becoming mature Catholics through experiential faith formation, participation in the liturgy and Sacraments, as well as serving those in need. We hope to promote a mature Catholic faith in our teens and in our parish which will foster a closer devotion to Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church.
The goals of this portion of our religious education program are promoted through a continuous curriculum. Our catechists and assistants are parents and other dedicated parishioners who volunteer their time and services. The children meet in a classroom setting and are taught through well-planned lessons, prayer, classroom activities and special programs and projects.
This is a strong family-based program set in Catholic doctrine and tradition. We recognize parents as the children's first and foremost teachers of the faith and therefore expect involvement of parents at all levels of their children's religious education.
Students in Grades 6-8 will meet Sunday evenings in September to May from 4:30-6:00pm. Building on the Religious Education program (grades 1-5), the goal of the junior high program is to provide the students with further understanding of their faith through physical, emotional and cognitive methods. Click on the heading above for more information.
Confirmation Preparation Program
Confirmation classes are held every year beginning in September and ending in April. In the fall they participate in the Sunday evening YM programs while working on homework assignments and in the spring they attend Wednesday evening classes. This program is open to any high school student who has not yet been confirmed. Students must be registered and attend YM classes beginning in his or her 8th grade year to participate in the Confirmation Preparation Program. Click on the heading above for more information.
High School students have the opportunity to meet every Sunday evening starting in September and continuing May (with the option to continue through the summer) at 7:00 to 8:30pm. Our high school program invites the students to reflect on the Catholic faith through a couple of different programs. Click on the heading above for more information.
Fees and Forms
The Youth Ministry Registration Fee is $110 if paid by July 15. After July 15th an additional late fee of $35 is added. For those students enrolling in the Confirmation program the fee is $160. These fees are used to operate the YM Program. However, this modest fee does not cover the entire cost and it is necessary to have some additional fundraising events to help defray expenses.
2013-2014 Youth Ministry Froms
Registration Form CLICK HERE (pdf)
Parent Volunteer Form CLICK HERE (pdf)
Guest Form CLICK HERE (pdf)
YM Calendar (pdf)
Confirmation Calendar (pdf)
Midwest Food Bank:
- MWFB Permission Form 4 - 16 - 13 (pdf)
One Homeless Night:
-OHN Permission Form (pdf)
Staff & Office:
Kim Hayes, Coordinator of Youth Ministry
Youth Ministry Office
1001 N. Towanda Barnes Road
Bloomington, IL 61705
662.7361 ext. 223
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Gay Actors Poll: Homosexual Stars Feel Coming Out Causes Discrimination
While the actor reiterated that he was "really glad that that's the way it all unfolded" it turns out that other homosexual actors do not share Quinto's sentiment.
A recent survey reveals that gay actors still believe that coming out influences the type of roles they are offered. According to The Guardian, only 57% of the gay actors who took the survey felt they could even disclose their sexuality to their agents.
An actor quoted in the trade magazine corroborated these statistics: "A previous agent of mine once told me to keep quiet about my sexuality and though I am out, I do not broadcast it."
Many gay actors explained that fear of being offered stereotypical roles was a major factor in their decision to remain professionally closeted.
One foil to Quinto's optimism, actor Rupert Everett told the Observer in 2011 that coming out was a mistake. "For an actor to be working (at all) is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren't. So it's just silly for a working actor to say, 'Oh, I don't care if anybody knows I'm gay' – especially if you're a leading man."
[via The Guardian]
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I have three things to say about this.
Harmony Public Schools appears to have cracked the code.
The charter school system, with 38 campuses across Texas and more than 23,000 students, regularly produces students who excel at math, science and engineering. And they do it on a shoestring.
Harmony’s five schools in Austin spent $7,923 per student in 2010-11 on operating expenses, almost $1,600 less than the Austin school district and about $800 less than the statewide average.
Harmony’s schools have also consistently beat the rest of the state on standardized test scores even while educating about the same proportion of students considered at risk of dropping out.
Few other charter schools operate as efficiently and effectively as Harmony. But the ability of some charter schools to seemingly do more with less could become a key issue in the mammoth school finance lawsuit that is set for trial in October.
A 2011 study done for the Texas Education Agency found that charter schools spent 15 percent less on operations than did comparable schools in traditional districts. Most of that difference came from hiring less experienced teachers and paying them less.
Lindsay Gustafson of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association said paying teachers less and stripping them of job protections would drive good teachers out of the classroom. Teacher turnover was twice as high in charter schools as in traditional public schools, according to the 2011 TEA study.
“We’re interested in quality, not just what’s cheap,” Gustafson said.
Soner Tarim, Harmony’s chief executive officer, said his schools are methodical about getting the most out of every employee, giving each person multiple jobs to ensure a leaner administrative operation.
One key to Harmony’s low-budget education is hiring teachers — some of whom come from Turkey — with little experience and paying them far less. The pay difference was about $11,000 less than the state average of $48,600 in 2010, though Tarim said teachers have since received a pay raise. Although charter school teachers are not required to be certified by the state, more than 70 percent of Harmony’s teachers are certified.
Harmony’s hiring practices and its ties to Turkey have generated controversy, including an investigation by a committee in the Texas House. House General Investigating Committee Chairman Chuck Hopson, R-Jacksonville, said the investigation has been concluded and its findings turned over to other agencies looking into charter schools.
Tarim said Harmony’s teachers are willing to work for less because of the innovative, safe and supportive environment that produces results. Other savings come from the schools’ minimal spending on athletics, transportation, guidance counseling and social work.
Harmony also must dedicate relatively little to serving students with disabilities and those learning English. Only 6 percent of its program budget went to educating students with disabilities last year compared to 21 percent for the Austin school district. Austin also committed about 17 percent of its dollars to bilingual students while Harmony spent just 1.6 percent.
1. The thought of being able to pay for his tax cuts by slashing teacher salaries is just ambrosia for Dan Patrick, isn’t it? If you listen carefully, you can actually hear him salivate.
2. On a more serious note, while the story doesn’t get into how or why Harmony is successful getting students to perform well, if the secret to their success at doing it efficiently is being able to convince teachers capable of achieving that performance to do so for 25% less than the industry average salary, I don’t know how well that model can be replicated. I can’t think of too many industries where getting above average results for below average pay is a successful long-term strategy. In an era of stagnant wages and a declining middle class, it’s indecent to be talking about it as a way to keep property taxes at artificially low rates.
3. It may be that there isn’t much of anything that can be learned from Harmony’s experience and applied to the public schools. Sometimes it’s just the right combination of people that makes a place special, and you just can’t make it happen the same way anywhere else. By all means, we should study them and the other high-performing charters and try to learn from their experiences, but what works for them may not work for any other school. There’s never just one right way to do something.
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Gedichte von J. W. v. Goethe : Work information
- Hugo (Filipp Jakob) Wolf ( Music, Images,)
- Performed by
- Martin Egel (Baritone), Marisa Borini (Piano)
- Work name
- Gedichte von J. W. v. Goethe
- Work number
- 1887-01-01 02:00:00
- Forlane CI
- Recording date
Hugo (Filipp Jakob) Wolf
Wolf studied piano and violin with his father, a keen amateur. He left his home town of Windisch-Graz to attend school at Graz, leaving after a term to enrol in the seminary at the Carinthian Benedictine monastery of St Paul. He continued his education in Marburg in 1873 and began studying at the Vienna Conservatoire in 1875. Wagner received him during his visit to the city and gave him some words of encouragement, which meant a great deal to the young Wolf; considerably more, indeed, than his tutors at the Conservatoire, who expelled him for impertinence. Returning home in 1877 he quickly bored, and went back to Vienna where he taught privately. There he began writing lieder, setting Goethe, Heine, Lenau and others, and it was in this area that he was to achieve the greatest success.
An 1881 appointment in Salzburg as a chorus master did not end happily, and in 1883 he began as music critic of the Wiener Salonblatt. From this position he was able to espouse his progressive views, vilifying rival critic Hanslick and Brahms, who had not been kind about his compositions. He had great difficulties in obtaining performances of his works; when Richter finally agreed to put on his tone poem Penthesilea, Wolf was greatly displeased with the standard of orchestral playing. In 1887 he resigned as a music critic, writing songs which he believed to be the equal of those of Schubert and Schumann. Many now believe him to be justified in this belief. In 1889 his Morickelieder were published, and subsequent years brought further publication. His Spanisches Liederbuch (1890) and Italianisches Liederbuch (1896) are particularly noteworthy.
Wolf ventured into opera with Der Corregidor (1896), revising the orchestration following its first run. Mahler, who was set to conduct a revival of the work, was less than complimentary, and this tipped Wolf into a nervous breakdown. This is especially tragic since celebrations of Wolf’s work had been organised in Berlin and Vienna, and these did much to raise his standing. Wolf’s breakdown manifested itself with fabricated declarations to his friends that he was to take Mahler’s place as conductor of the Vienna Opera. He was committed to an asylum, but showing an improvement was discharged the following year. However a relapse and attempted suicide led to his reincarceration and an irreversable deterioration in his mental state. He died while in care at the age of 42.
1888 was a remarkably productive year for Wolf. In October, having already largely completed song-cycles set to words by Moricke and Eichendorff, he turned to his biggest challenge yet, a setting of Goethe's poetry. Demanding a period of creativity even more intense than the two previous cycles, the 50 Goethe settings were written in a burst between 27 October and 12 Feburary 1889, with a. 51st joining the set on 21 October 1889. Wolf later made orchestral arrangements of several of the songs between 1890 and 1893.
Combining the lyricism of Schubert with the dramatic declamation of Wagner, Wolf's settings are justly lauded for their moments of profundity. Within the overall set there are mini-cycles, including the ten Wilhelm Meister songs at the beginning, and 15 at the end from West-ostlicher Divan.
Among the songs particularly admired are the expressive Grenzen der Menschheit and the quasi-orchestral accompaniments of the Mignon song (No. 9) Kennst du das Land? Also particularly attractive are the opening Harfenspieler songs, previously famously set by Schubert.
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View Full Version : What if you get ONE wrong?????
04-30-2004, 12:50 AM
hi my name is sally and i have a soon to be 6 year old that i just took out of a montessori school. I have continued to do "at home school work" with keeley while she was in this school. This would be my problem: how do you make your child realize that it is okay to miss one or even two math problems when you got 24 correct!! Keeley loves to see check marks beside the correct problems, but oh boy if she gets one wrong then she totally melts down and says that she is no good or that she cant get anything right! i give tons of praise for everything she does and i have explained 10 different ways that she has still done a wonderful job, even if one was wrong. i have tried to not check any of them and she assumes then that they are all wrong. Has anyone had to deal with this and if so i could use some examples, PLEASE. my child loves to learn and i dont want her to get discouraged for any reason. any and all help welcomed---sallyr in nc
04-30-2004, 05:16 AM
why is a child who can do twenty four problems of the same skill correctly, which is indicative to mastery, continuing to do that many?
Five to ten would be a good indicator AND it is not supposed to be for the check mark that the child does the work. If its correct then put nothing. if its wrong put a dot near the answer. It should remind the child like an eye ball- for them to look at this answer again. the child then returns to correct errors. at the top of the paper you can put a fraction. number correct over total number of equations.
If a child does not get the correct answer but you can indicate where in the process they error, put the dot at that area, or if its subtle, you can put a line underneath.
Just a suggestion, take the same activity that she is doing, make a copy of it and YOU put the answers down as a key and let HER self check.
04-30-2004, 07:12 AM
Boy does this sound familiar!! My dd would break down just at the thought that she might be wrong at anything. She wouldn't answer things in ps because of that slight chance that she was wrong. She would get upset if she had a spelling or math test at ps, because what will happen if I get one wrong. I would say you know all that your dad and I want of you is for you to have tried to do your best. Then I had a brainstorm. I should let her see that I can be wrong to, or need help. I would read to her, stop at a word, and say something like oh this is spelled ******, I just am not sure that I know how to pronounce it, is it ****** or *******. She would look at the word and say I you pronounce it *******. Just to let her know that it is ok to have to stop and figure something out, and maybe be wrong. I would work one of her math problems and get it wrong, have her check it for me. I would say, oh I thought I had that one right, and would erase it and do it over again. Then one day at ps the dreadful thing happened. She had a spelling test in 1st grade and missed a word. I was teaching at the school that day. She came to me at the end of the day and said mommy I missed a word on the spelling test. Of course with tears in her eyes. I said you did, which one? she told me, and I said oh that is ok. She said it is? I said yes it is ok. She said but I know how to spell it, I said I know that, but when you take tests sometimes you can get a little nervous and write something down that may not be right. She said You're not mad mom? Well did you try your best, she said yes. Then I definately am not mad. I asked if Mrs. N was mad at her, she said no, I asked am I mad at you, she said no, I asked did the school fall in because you missed a word? She giggled and said no. I said to her that I am always proud of her, and so is her dad, and that those things do happen. Just do the best you can do and know that it is ok to get something wrong. It was OK. She was OK.(YAY!) I stressed along with her for her "having to be perfect" phase that lasted from k through 2. It did get better. I do think it helped to have her see me be wrong on NUMEROUS occasions. And to get to correct me, and to help me figure out how I got it wrong. It was cute to hear her tell me that it is ok mom, you'll get it next time. I hope it helps to know that you are not in the boat alone:D ! and that this too, shall pass. But boy do I know how stressful it is. She still doesn't like to get things wrong, but now being in 4th grade, and having more opportunity to not be right 100% of the time, she is handling it much better. Hang in there, if you need to talk about it more, feel free to email me at home.:)
04-30-2004, 11:28 AM
Thanks for letting me know that i am not alone in this situation (kimR)!! To answer the question of why is my child doing so many problems when the mastery is there: well for one i feel like it is very important to have a very strong foundation on all levels and by letting her choose to continue practicing simple addition problems until she is comfortable with it is only building self confidence. This would be why i pulled my child out of the montessori school she was in. I felt that the school was moving too fast before making sure that the child had a concrete foundation on the current subject before moving forward. Granted my child knows the concepts of addition,subtraction,and multiplication, but is uncertain of her own knowingness of any of these! Yes she can do work in all of these areas, but until she has the comfortability of knowing what she does i will allow her to keep choosing to do the work she is comfortable with, to better benifit my child. Thanks for all the help, sallyr
04-30-2004, 07:15 PM
Keep in mind there are alot of ways to practice simple addition and subtraction. Multiplying with 2/1 digits and long division are excellent ways. The basic skills are reinforced while mastering more concepts.
ps....I used to post at abcteach as fitmom3
Really trying to mess with our minds, eh Michelle?
I think there is that give and take, when the kids feel what they did isn't good enough. We just have to keep telling them it's ok.
What if after you mark it wrong you let her correct it so that she knows she did 100%. Ds is only doing 1st grade work but, if I see he answered something wrong we usually stop and fix it OR after he is done I will remind him to check his work. So...we really do both approaches.
It's the Oreo cookie effect....you take some good, some bad, some good and you sandwich it all together. :D
I haven't bought the book yet - waiting for payday ;) called Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner. TinaTX actually recommended it to me and I flipped through it at B & N bookstore last week. Neat book worth checking into - your library might have it. Ours didn't. Anyway....online it is $19.96 at B & N or $16.97 at Amazon. Guess where I'm going to buy it? :D
Another book that I'm reviewing is Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children A Resource Guide by Lisa Rivero. Our library did have this one and this is the second time I've checked it out. The first time was last summer when I was first understanding how ds was able to just magically *know*. Anyway...thinking about buying this one, too. B&N online $28.95, Amazon $20.26
If you haven't already you might want to check out http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/
Might help you...might not. It shed some light on why ds is the way he is, for me. So...I could understand that he is *normal* Smart as can be, highly emotional. ahhhhhhh the joys!
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A term which has two meanings. Firstly, it refers to the types of coverage provided by umbrella insurance which are not covered at all under primary insurance policies, such as personal auto insurance. Liabilities which arise under contracts, for example, are not covered at all under the personal liability provisions of personal auto or home insurance policies. Secondly, it refers to a type of coverage which one can purchase when financing or leasing a new car. That type of coverage provides protection for the difference between the amount owing on the vehicle and its market value, if the former is greater than the latter. See guaranteed auto protection.
A provision within an insurance policy limiting coverage to damage or loss which occurs within a specified geographical area. For example, an auto insurance policy might restrict coverage to a particular state, and might have different geographical limitations depending on the type of damage or loss. See also territorial limitation.
A percentage discount given by auto insurance companies to policyholders who meet specified criteria. These criteria vary by insurance company, but they typically include being more than 25 years of age, having no moving violations in the previous three-year period, not being at fault in any car accident causing death or injury in the last three years, having no convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs in the last three years and having a good credit rating. The discount varies by company and by state, but is typically in the range of 10% to 20% of the premium. A ‘good driver’ is also referred to in this context as a ‘preferred risk driver’. See also safe driver plan. Learn about other auto insurance discounts.
Laws which protect people from personal legal liability when they tend to others who are injured. The intention behind Good Samaritan laws is to encourage bystanders to help people who are injured, such as in a car accident, and not to hold back for fear of becoming personally liable if their actions actually make matters worse. Good Samaritan laws do not exist in every state, and those in which they do exist vary considerably. Some jurisdictions provide protection to any person who renders assistance, while others restrict it to qualified personnel such as doctors and paramedics. In some instances the legal principle of ‘imminent peril’ applies, which means that protection is only given if the injured person is in immediate danger of further harm, either as a result of the injury itself or through an additional cause. As a general rule, immunity is not provided to any person who is remunerated for their actions in helping another. Some statutes also include ‘duty of care’ provisions which actually require a person to render assistance, such as those in Vermont and Minnesota.
A percentage discount on the premium rate charged by auto insurance companies for student policyholders who achieve academic results above a specified level. The common eligibility criteria for the discount is that students must be enrolled full-time in a high school or college, be aged between 16 and 24 years of age inclusive, have achieved a B-average prior semester result or a 3.0 grade point average, be on the dean’s list or honor roll, or have achieved a top 20% SAT, ACT or PSAT score. The discount rate is normally in the range of 10% to 15%. Learn about other auto insurance discounts.
Driver’s licenses granted by states whereby driving rights are ceded to new drivers over time, commonly in three stages. These stages comprise a learner’s permit, an intermediate license and a full driver’s license. Graduated driver licensing was first introduced in 1996 in Florida, and has now extended to all states. The purpose of graduated driver licensing is to phase in full driving ‘privileges’ to new (and especially young) drivers, so as to try and minimize the rate of accidents and resulting injuries due to inexperience and exuberance. The learner’s stage usually commences at age 16, and consists of at least 30 hours (or six months) of supervised driving. This is followed by a period in which restrictions apply to the times at which driving can occur, and the passengers who can be transported by the ‘intermediate’ driver. These restrictions normally limit night driving and the carrying of teen passengers, and often apply until the learner driver has attained age 18 years. Learn how to insure a teen driver.
A conscious failure to use reasonable care, in circumstances which are likely to result in serious harm to a person or damage or loss to property. It differs in degree from ordinary negligence, which is simply the failure to use reasonable care, and is made extreme by the proximate danger to life and property caused by the failure. While gross negligence is an extreme form of negligence, it falls short of willful and wanton conduct, which is purposeful conduct which results in injury, loss or damage. The contributory negligence of another party (in states which have adopted that system) can be a defense against gross negligence, but it cannot be a defense against willful and wanton conduct. In addition, gross negligence does not normally result in exemplary damages awards, whereas willful and wanton conduct does.
A stand-alone policy, or an endorsement to an auto insurance policy, which prospectively pays a benefit in the event of a total loss claim on a leased or financed car. The actual cash value of a new car depreciates quickly after purchase, and it often falls below the amount outstanding on the car lease or loan for a period of time. If the car is totaled through damage or theft during this period, then the insurance payable on the car (calculated as the actual cash value of the car immediately prior to the loss) would be insufficient to pay the amount outstanding under the lease or finance contract, leaving the owner a balance to pay. Gap insurance is designed to make up for this shortfall. However, any late lease or loan payments remaining unpaid at the time of loss, plus any skipped payments, would be deducted from any benefit paid.
A fund established in each state and under state law by the state’s insurance commissioner, in order to make good on benefits underwritten in the state by an insurance company which becomes insolvent. The ‘make good’ can entail payments directly to policyholders or to the insolvent company itself. A guaranty fund is funded by each insurance company which is licensed to sell insurance in the state, with a levy calculated as a percentage of the business sold in the state (commonly 1% to 2%). Guaranty funds contribute to a sense of security with consumers, which itself promotes the development of the insurance market in each state.
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Skip to comments.MPís Bill (Canada) will establish new impaired driving law at 0.05% BAC level
Posted on 11/10/2006 6:29:02 PM PST by elkfersupper
A Private Members Bill to set a new 0.05% BAC legal limit for drinking and driving was introduced today by Kelowna British Columbia MP Ron Cannan. MADD Canada supports the MP's initiative because it will 'significantly reduce the numbers of Canadians being killed and injured in impaired driving crashes.' Mr. Cannan's Bill would introduce a new 0.05% BAC offence to complement the existing Criminal Code impaired driving offences. The new measures would differ from the current 0.08% BAC offence in three significant ways. First, the 0.05% BAC offence streamlines procedures and contains ticketing provisions. Second, the proposed offence contains lower penalties than those for the 0.08% BAC. Third, the proposed offence also contains special criminal record provisions.
Robert Solomon, MADD Canada's Legal Director and a professor in the Law Faculty at the University of Western Ontario, states the Bill will help keep impaired drivers off the roads. "We are supportive of Mr. Cannan's legislation because research from around the world indicates such measures will save lives on Canada's roads. His Bill will effectively reduce the amount a person can currently drink and then legally drive."
Professor Solomon is quick to add, "This legislation will not interfere with 'social drinking.' It won't stop people from having a drink or two after work or with a meal. It simply provides police with a further option for getting that person who has had too much to drink off the road and out of harm's way."
The MADD Canada Legal Director explains: "The proposed .05% BAC offence is designed to deter impaired driving without being unduly punitive, or creating greater burdens on the police and the courts. The ticket option of pleading guilty without having to go to court may discourage accused persons from needlessly challenging the charges."
"This is a very reasonable approach to making our roads safer from impaired driving crashes," says Professor Solomon. "A 0.05% BAC level is the appropriate legal limit when considering the risk impaired drivers pose to all motorists who must share the roads with them."
In a November 2005 SES public opinion survey, 73 % of Canadians believe the current legal drinking limits should be reduced. In that survey, when the proposed lower drinking limit was explained, 84% of Canadians felt this level was 'about right' or should be even lower.
In the last Parliament, Senator Marjory LeBreton tabled a similar piece of legislation that would have introduced new impaired driving Criminal Code measures at the legal limit of 0.05% BAC.
For a detailed discussion of the case for a 0.05% Criminal Code offence, MADD Canada has posted on its website a recent submission to Criminal Law Quarterly.
THE ELEMENTS OF A WORKABLE 0.05% BAC CRIMINAL CODE OFFENCE
The proposed 0.05% BAC law is designed to maximize the deterrent impact of the law, minimize the administrative burden on the criminal justice system, and appropriately sanction offenders.
The Criminal Code should be amended to create a new summary conviction offence for driving with a BAC above 0.05%. Given the BAC margin of error currently allowed by our courts, the new 0.05% BAC offence would be enforced at a 0.07% BAC limit. This new offence would bring Canada's federal BAC driving limit into line with the international trend to lower permissible BAC limits.
The new offence would complement the existing Criminal Code impaired driving offences, and be compatible with the current provincial and territorial short-term roadside licence suspension legislation. Similarly, the current Criminal Code provisions relating to demanding breath and blood samples, the consequences of refusing such demands, and the admissibility of the test results would apply to the proposed 0.05% BAC offence.
In addition to the BAC limit itself, the 0.05% BAC offence would differ from the existing 0.08% BAC offence in three significant ways:
-- First, the 0.05% BAC offence would contain ticketing provisions. The ticket would explain the consequences of pleading guilty and the process for contesting a charge. If the accused pleads not guilty, the case would proceed like any other federal summary conviction offence. However, an accused who pleads guilty would not need to make a court appearance. The ticket would explain the obligation to pay the fine and that the driver would be subject to an automatic federal driving prohibition.
-- Second, in keeping with the reduced risks involved, the penalties for the 0.05% offence would be less onerous than those for the 0.08% offence. A first conviction would be punishable by a $300 fine and a 45-day federal driving prohibition. Subsequent offences would be subject to a $600 fine and a 90-day federal driving prohibition.
-- Third, the proposed 0.05% BAC offence would be subject to special criminal record provisions. Offenders who did not have a subsequent Criminal Code impaired driving conviction within two years would be deemed not to have a criminal record for the 0.05% BAC offence and the information relating to it would automatically be destroyed. Consequently, an accused would not have to go to trial simply to avoid having a permanent criminal record.
The proposed 0.05% BAC offence is designed to deter impaired driving without being unduly punitive or creating unacceptable burdens on the police and the courts. Moreover, the option of pleading guilty without having to go to court may discourage accused persons from needlessly challenging the charges.
Coming soon to a location near you.
My favorite quote from the article: "the option of pleading guilty without having to go to court may discourage accused persons from needlessly challenging the charges."
For every one person they pull over and harass with .05, the real problem driver .13 or .14 and above are slipping by. Most of the .05s will probably be discovered when pulled over for something other than driving erratically.
1 drink, not cool ...
That means the real problems start at .03.
You can get that from mashed potatoes stuck in your bridgework.
In most jurisdictions less than 0.006 BAC is sober as a judge.
That would be one real beer or a case of Bud?
Nope, it's getting close to natural alcohol production (or things that can be interpreted as such) for folks with less than perfect dentition and/or metabolism.
At my weight .05 is one drink. It is .08 in CA which is two drinks for me.
I see the complete demise of an American icon the local tavern or perhaps, the beginning of a new cottage industry, the professional designated driver?
Excuses me, I meant Canadian icon. Forgot which country I lived in for a minuet. Same will be true in US before long.
Yet again ... correction
Minuet = minute
It I try enough times, I might get it right.
Eventually, you will be considered legally drunk if you have even a trace amount of alcohol...basically "one sip = legally drunk". I guess they need to bring in new employees for the prison economy.
I saw this story after Radley Balko and DUIblog posted about it. If this doesn't show MADD as a group of neoprohibitionists, then I don't know what will.
"perhaps, the beginning of a new cottage industry, the professional designated driver?"
What a cool, new concept! Maybe give him a cool designation, like "taxi" driver! ;)
I don't know.
2 million arrests per year since 1993. Each of those either impacts or tells another 5 people at least....
I sense a backlash.
Thank God, most of America doesn't have taxis.
This one is an example, but there are others.
To make money, you need a special title
Besides, how may taxi drivers would sit in a bar (and not drink), waiting for their charge to get drunk enough to leave and then escort them home? Aint gana happen. Need a special group, someone willing to wait it out to insure them a ride home.
To answer your next protest call a cab. Ever try to get a cab late a night when you are drunk?
Worked my way though three years of collage as a taxi driver, this is a concept that could work.
Maybe local pub owners (out of a sense of self-preservation) could create what the WWII French Army called "de-ethalyzation rooms", where patrons could lock themselves in, but would have to blow a certain BAC, and pass a hand-eye coordination test, to get out.
Hell. Lets make it: "If you think about drinking and driving you are under arrest!"
It's easy! Taxi company's bread and butter are late-night drunks. I know, I used to own a bar and grill.
Definitely one for the FR Hall of Fame! Now I have to clean up the coke and bits of cheese sandwich I sprayed all over my keyboard. :-(
Keep in mind the entire (supposed) purpose of DUI's. It is to prevent folks from driving poorly.
Now what about old folks who forgot their glasses, Or people with the flu? They are both not driving as good as they can.
So what is the best solution? Pretty simple, actually. In those vans cops have with portable breathalizers, fit them with something else.
A driving simulator. With virtual cones, red lights, green lights, stop signs, whatever.
If anyone is suspected of driving poorly, whether sober or not, put them in it, and if they fail, ticket them.
That includes folks stone cold sober, healthy, with perfect eyesight. I know many who should never be driving.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
The bartender gives him one. The guy from Schlitz says, "Give me 'The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous'."
He gets it. The guy from Guinness sits down and says, "Give me a Coke."
The bartender is a little taken aback, but gives him what he ordered. The other brewery presidents look over at him and ask, "Why aren't you drinking a Guinness?"
The Guinness president replies, "Well, if you guys aren't drinking beer, neither will I."
I don't suppose there's any evidence that driving at .05 is driving impaired? Not that it matters.
Really, the evidence doesn't even establish that the .08 standard was an improvement over .10. The GAO looked at the evidence at the time the federal government was making the change and said so. In fact, DWI deaths increased after the standard was lowered after declining for years.
Actually, anything over .00 has some impairment involved.
If they're really concerned about highway safety they should lower the speed limit to 20mph.
Decreasing the speed to 20 would be extremely dangerous as well, due to closing rates...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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SMOKERS and businesses in Cooma and the Monaro are being encouraged to be aware of new laws on smoke-free outdoor areas that will come into force in NSW on Monday.
The changes increase the number of public places that are smoke-free, including childrens' playgrounds and public swimming pools -a key measure in reducing community exposure to second-hand smoke and the uptake of smoking in NSW.
NSW Health Inspectors are authorised to enforce bans under the new legislation, with penalties of up to $550 for anyone who fails to comply with the law.
Southern NSW Local Health District Health Promotion Coordinator Emma Woolley said it was important that all affected sectors were aware of the changes and prepared for their introduction. Penalties will apply to anyone who fails to comply with the new laws, which were passed by State Parliament in August.
The new laws ban smoking in the following outdoor public places from January 7:
* Within 10 metres of children's play equipment in outdoor public spaces;
* Open areas of public swimming pool complexes;
* Spectator areas at sports grounds or other recreational areas during organised sporting events;
* Public transport stops and stations, including railway platforms, light rail stops, light rail stations, bus stops, taxi ranks and ferry wharves;
* Within four metres of a pedestrian access point to a public building (meaning a non-residential building, or a building that combines residential and commercial uses);
Under the legislation, smoking will also be banned in commercial outdoor dining areas from 2015.
Smoking-related illness accounts for around 5200 deaths and 44,000 hospitalisations per year in NSW and costs about $8 billion annually.
"The Tobacco Legislation Amendment Act 2012 will tighten restrictions on where people can smoke in New South Wales," Mrs Woolley said.
"The laws will affect many in the community, such as sports clubs, hotel owners, cafe and food outlet proprietors, industry groups, and the general public.
"New South Wales is leading the way in combating smoking and this legislation will result in major health benefits for all.
"Not only will it help protect children from tobacco promotion and the harms of passive smoking, but it will also reduce smoking-caused illness, and help people live longer, healthier lives," Mrs Woolley said.
More information on the ban can be found at www.health.nsw.gov.au
(with the Goulburn Post)
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On Religious News Service there was an article drawing out some parallels between the “Gay debate” taking place in the North American church today and the slavery debate that took place 150 years ago.
- One side argues for the plain reading of the Bible while the other argues from a grand narrative of freedom and inclusive love.
- The argument reflects the split visible in the larger culture.
- Denominations split.
- There’s almost no neutrality.
Although such generalities can pack a rhetorical punch, they lack substance.
The particular place where they fall short is that homosexual activity is consistently labeled sinful, or listed with vices to be repented of, throughout the Bible. Thus, the correspondence is not direct, even if a similar hermeneutic might take a person to condemning slavery while endorsing homosexuality. In my estimation, accounting for the fact that homosexual activity is always condemned as sinful when discussed in scripture is a hurdle that must be met directly, and not through appeal to “parallels” such as slavery or women’s ordination.
Also, while the regulating of slavery reflects a perhaps tacit biblical endorsement of the cultural norm, biblical condemnations of homosexual practice are exactly the opposite: a condemnation within the community of something that was generally an acceptable cultural practice (within certain socially approved frameworks). This gives me some pause with the arguments from analogy.
The church appears to have always seen itself as standing against the sexual mores of the surrounding culture, testifying to a particular sort of divinely-appointed alternative. I do often wonder if the pro-homosexuality position carries such weight because the church has forsaken its sexual ethics more generally–and too many of us are baptizing our pasts as divinely approved rather than seeking forgiveness for our missteps?
These two concerns come hand in hand. The arguments I hear in favor of homosexuality, by parallel with issue of freedom and justice, or parallels with those included within Jesus’ ministry, too often lack the category of sin, too often neglect that we are people fully in need of transformation and restoration.
Are homosexuals modern-day lepers? Perhaps–but Jesus included the leper by touching, healing, and removing the leprosy, not simply by embracing him as he was.
Would Jesus tell us to only cast stones if we are without sin? Likely–but then he would also turn to the sinner and bid her go and sin no more.
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Philippines: First Professions - Tamontaka, Maguindanao
Saint William of Rochester
In this section are offered programmes of formation in the Marist charism, experiences of shared formation and some specific programmes for lay people developed by the Provinces. The main thread of the propositions refers to processes centred on the Marist spirit, able to be shared by laity as well as brothers. They do not include programmes already presented in another section relating to the Champagnat Movement.
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Dinosaur Bridge brings Japan traffic up to speed
The 2618-metre bridge will halve journey times. Photo: Bloomberg
TOKYO'S Dinosaur Bridge opens this weekend after 10 years of construction as the world's largest metropolis tackles traffic jams that slow vehicles to half of Japan's average highway speed.
The 2618-metre bridge, whose nickname derives from its shape, will bring 19 billion yen ($A22 million) in economic benefits a year as it almost halves journey times to container terminals in Tokyo Bay. Built at an estimated cost of 113 billion yen, it will carry about 32,000 vehicles a day between eastern Tokyo and a man-made island, where a new container terminal is being built.
The Tokyo Gate Bridge, as it is officially known, will shorten the travel time to the island from the city's Shin-Kiba district to 10 minutes from 19 minutes. The bridge, which weighs 36,000 tons, was built for less than the original estimate of about 140 billion yen, thanks to new techniques and materials, said Koki Hosaka, a civil engineer at Tokyo Ports. It is built to withstand an earthquake directly under Tokyo.
The four-lane bridge will be followed by a ring road and two larger loop lines around Japan's capital. The improvements, spurred by the city's unsuccessful bid to host the 2016 Olympics, are intended to cut traffic jams in and around the city of more than 35 million people.
As migration from the countryside and smaller cities boosts Tokyo's population, the city is increasing use of its waterfront by reclaiming land and building islands in Tokyo Bay.
Tokyo-based Kawada Industries spent two years building the dinosaur-shaped trusses for the bridge. The company used three cranes on boats to lay the bridge on the support columns.
''It hadn't been done for a bridge of this type in Japan for 16 years,'' said Yoshifumi Kodama, a project manager.
''It was very nerve-racking as we had to do it in one shot.''
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The this pointer is used as a pointer to the class object instance by the member function. The address of the class instance is passed as an implicit parameter to the member functions. The sample below, in this c++ Tutorial shows how to use it. It is a common knowledge that C++ keeps only one copy of each member function and the data members are allocated memory for all of their instances. This kind of various instances of data are maintained use this pointer. Look at the sample below, in this c++ Tutorial.
C++ Tutorial - important notes on this pointer:
- this pointer stores the address of the class instance, to enable pointer access of the members to the member functions of the class.
- this pointer is not counted for calculating the size of the object.
- this pointers are not accessible for static member functions.
- this pointers are not modifiable.
Look at the following example to understand how to use the 'this' pointer explained in this C++ Tutorial.
class this_pointer_example // class for explaining C++ tutorial
//Function using this pointer for C++ Tutorial
//Function without using this pointer
void setdata(int newval)
data1 = newval;
Thus, a member function can gain the access of data member by either using this pointer or not.
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Turkey and its Kurds
South by south-east
Pro-Kurdish candidates for election are likely to do well in Turkey’s south-east
LEYLA ZANA, a popular Kurdish politician, once declared: “I no longer believe in the Turkish parliament. I will not run again.” In 1991 she won a seat in the mainly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir, in south-east Turkey. Three years later she was stripped of her parliamentary immunity and sentenced to 15 years in prison for belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group of armed insurgents. Her biggest crime was to accompany her oath with a short speech in Kurdish. No matter that she called for brotherhood between Turks and Kurds; she spent ten years inside.
Now Mrs Zana is running for parliament again. Along with other members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), she is standing as an independent to get round the 10% threshold parties must reach to win seats. Mrs Zana's turnaround reflects changes in Turkey since the days when she was blindfolded, tortured and paraded naked before male prisoners. Now she is free to campaign in Kurdish. She can be interviewed by Turkey's first state-run Kurdish television station, TRT 6, and by private Kurdish television and radio stations, which have mushroomed. Ahmet Turhan, governor of Batman province, concedes that education in Kurdish can be considered and that the state should apologise for past misdeeds. And secret talks continue, if sporadically, between the government and Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader.
This more relaxed attitude owes much to the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party, which shot to power in Turkey in 2002. Riding a wave of robust growth, democratic reforms and international acclaim, AK is expected to win a third term of single-party rule on June 12th. But it is unlikely to repeat the drubbing that it gave the BDP (then known as the DTP) in Kurdish areas in 2007.
There are several reasons for AK's ailing fortunes among the country's 14m Kurds. They are no longer swayed by free coal and talk of Islamic fraternity. AK's “opening”, which was meant to lead to an amnesty for PKK rebels untainted by violence, has been shelved. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, blames the Kurds. He says the PKK provoked Turks in 2009 when fighters returning from Iraq started delivering “victory” speeches.
The government's response was to lock up thousands of Kurdish politicians, including BDP mayors. Selahattin Demirtas, a BDP leader, reels off the figures. At least 2,300 Kurdish activists have been jailed since 2009. Sentences sought by prosecutors in an array of cases against the BDP's 22 parliamentarians, including Mr Demirtas, add up to a staggering 2,350 years.
Egged on by Mr Ocalan, the BDP has raised the bar with a civil-disobedience campaign that has seen a Kurdish female parliamentarian slap a policeman. Kurds are spurning mosques staffed by state-appointed imams in favour of Kurdish-language prayers in fields. Their campaign will not end, they say, until BDP prisoners are released, an amnesty is given to PKK fighters, education in Kurdish is permitted and the 10% threshold is lowered.
The strategy is paying off. Analysts reckon the BDP could win some 30 seats in June's election. AK's case has not been helped by the lacklustre candidates it is fielding in the south-east. This may be a good thing. The more Kurds there are in Ankara, the more comprehensive will be the new constitution Mr Erdogan promises to deliver after the election.
Those who complain about BDP “provocations” ought to remember their own calls for the PKK to end its armed struggle and to let politicians pursue Kurdish goals peacefully. The PKK has extended its unilateral ceasefire until the election. After 12 years of captivity Mr Ocalan is, for now, easing his iron grip on the PKK (and, by extension, the BDP). The BDP looks less like the political wing of the rebels; instead, the PKK now looks like the BDP's armed wing. Yet until the Kurds' demands are met that wing is unlikely to be discarded.
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