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With Doc Watson goes a piece of Americana.
The folk-music legend, blind since infancy and known for his mastery of the acoustic guitar, died today at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. He was 89.
Watson was hospitalized last week and underwent abdominal surgery after a fall at his home in Deep Gap, where he was born Arthel Lane Watson and given the nickname "Doc" during an appearance on a local radio show when he was in his teens.
The eventual flat-picking legend bought himself his first guitar when he was a kid with $10 his father gave him for farm work.
"He put me to work, and that made me feel useful," Watson, the sixth of nine children, told Fret magazine in 1979. "A lot of blind people weren't ever put to work." He entered the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh when he was 10, and that's where the youngster—who already had a background in church music and was adept at harmonica and banjo—first listened to classical music, big-band jazz and guitar players like Django Reinhardt.
"I couldn't figure out what the devil he was doing, he went so fast on most of it, but I loved it," Watson said of Reinhardt's playing, according to Steve Kaufman's The Legacy of Doc Watson.
Watson was a skilled fingerpicker, but it was his flatpicking guitar style that influenced so many others. He first made a name for himself on the folk circuit, particularly with his performances at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 and '64, but ultimately was a force in country, bluegrass and gospel, as well.
"There may not be a serious, committed Baby Boomer alive who didn't at some point in his or her youth try to spend a few minutes at least trying to learn to pick a guitar like Doc Watson," President Bill Clinton said when presenting the artist with a National Medal of the Arts in 1997.
"He is single-handedly responsible for the extraordinary increase in acoustic flat-picking and finger-picking performance," wrote folk musicologist Ralph Rinzler. "His flat-picking style has no precedent in early country music history,"
On the strength of his 1972 live recording of "Tennessee Stud," Watson started touring in the mid-1970s with his son Merle and T. Michael Coleman on bass. The trio recorded 15 albums before 1985, when Merle died in a tractor accident. The annual Merle Watson Memorial Festival (or MerleFest) in Wilkesboro, N.C., celebrates his memory.
Watson's many accolades also included eight Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004) and the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship in 1988.
His first Gallagher guitar is on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. A life-size statue of Watson, dedicated last year, stands in Boone, N.C. At his request, the inscription read, simply, "Just One of the People."
In 1970, Watson told Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, "When I play a song, be it on the guitar or banjo, I live that song, whether it is a happy song or a sad song. Music, as a whole, expresses many things to me—everything from beautiful scenery to the tragedies and joys of life...whether I'm playing for myself or for an enthusiastic audience, I can get the same emotions I had when I found that Dad had seen to it that Santa Claus brought exactly what I wanted for Christmas.
"A true entertainer, I think, doesn't ever lose that feeling."
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http://www.eonline.com/news/319287/doc-watson-folk-music-legend-dead-at-89
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Thanks to impeccable design, the Nest automated thermostat was one of the first commercial hits in this area, though others had tried integrating automation into existing home gadgets before. This year, smartphones will be on a bit of a power trip, getting apps to control home security, unlock doors, conserve energy and tinker with lighting.
Cars get smarter and go online
Auto companies will have a larger presence at CES this year, with Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, Audi and others showing off technology to make cars smarter. There will be self-driving and assisted-driving cars, which use a combination of mounted cameras, sensors and GPS to can take the wheel completely or just help a driver into a tight parking spot.
Vehicles are connecting to the Internet to improve navigation, better monitor a car's performance and alert the driver to maintenance needs. They are also taking a cue from (and synching with) smartphones. Cars will continue to integrate apps, voice control and entertainment into the dash, some even running on the Android operating system.
The hot smartphone size is 5 inches
Mobile device unveilings probably will be at a minimum this year, since the major companies are saving their big announcements for the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona next month. There will be a few smartphones making their debut next week, though, and for the most part, they will have nearly identical specs: Android, 5-inch 1080p display, quad-core processor, 13-megapixel camera. A few entries could mix it up, including a rumored 6.1-inch Ascend Mate device from Huawei and the company's first Windows Phone 8 handset, the Ascend W2. Smartphone accessories will flood the floor, with the usual glut of headphones, cases and stands.
Touchscreen computers and cheap tablets
Last year's hot computer was the super-thin ultrabook laptop, but that category has cooled down significantly. This year, the spotlight will be on tablet/laptop hybrids running Windows 8. The new Windows operating system is built for touchscreen computers, and manufacturers seem to be having some fun with the form factor. (Check out the Asus Taichi and Lenovo Yoga.)
Cheap, sub-$100 7-inch Android tablets will still abound, but like smartphones, there won't be much in the way of innovation as companies hold back until February.
Room for smaller, innovative companies
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http://www.wapt.com/news/money/technology/Six-gadget-trends-to-look-for-at-CES/-/9156702/18010650/-/item/1/-/7lu5uiz/-/index.html
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In the next several months, the president and members of Congress will decide whether to continue the funding and authorities associated with Project BioShield, which seeks to expand the U.S. stockpile of medical countermeasures for potential chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) attacks. Congress established Project BioShield in 2004 and provided it with 10 years of guaranteed funding. Two years later, it created the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to oversee BioShield’s advanced development and procurement efforts. To date, BioShield has developed and procured more than 50 million doses of vaccines and drugs against several CBRN threats, and its investments have provided ancillary benefits as well. Renewing Project BioShield funding and authorities would enable continued research, development and procurement of many promising treatments, which could prove critical if the United States were ever attacked with CBRN weapons.
When President George W. Bush signed the Project BioShield Act on July 2, 2004, he declared that it would “help America purchase, develop and deploy cutting-edge defenses against catastrophic attack.” The act authorized the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct and support research, development and procurement activities for medical countermeasures (MCMs) “to treat, identify, or prevent harm from any biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) agent that may cause a public health emergency affecting national security.” It provided an advance appropriation of $5.593 billion over 10 years, from Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 to FY 2013, in order to create a guaranteed market incentive for pharmaceutical companies to produce CBRN MCMs for which there is no commercial demand.
To date, eight MCMs against anthrax, smallpox, botulinum toxin and radiological threats have been procured. Eighty other candidate MCMs are undergoing advanced development. Unless Congress acts, the authorities and funds contained in the Project BioShield Act will expire at the end of FY 2013. The legislative experiment of BioShield is now subject to evaluation and reconsideration in the House and the Senate, which have both passed versions of reauthorization legislation.
In order to help inform this decision, this policy brief examines the history of Project BioShield. It starts by highlighting the CBRN risks that motivate the U.S. government’s preparedness efforts, providing a historical context for America’s CBRN MCM efforts and highlighting congressional legislation that has complemented or facilitated Project BioShield implementation. The brief also describes the types of MCMs that HHS has invested in and purchased for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and highlights other significant benefits of BioShield funding.
Download the full policy brief
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I was labeled as having CFS/ME, and found out that all my symptoms were caused by two prescribed meds, an antibiotic and antimalarial. I have been ill for 14 years with life threatening, serious health conditions. Often, we take an off the counter med or a prescribed med, suffer symptoms, wax and wane, cycling symptoms for many years. Sometimes, we can suffer from an immediate reaction or delayed reaction to those prescribed meds and not make the connection.
It took many years of research and communicating with other suffering the same symptoms that I found thousands like me. Roaccutane is another nasty drug, as are corticoseroids. Meds attaches to DNA adducts, cause mitochondrial dysfunction and a host of other diseases states encompassing multisystems. The meds I took, including contrast dye show it can cause damage to the thyroid and cause hypo, hyper, Hashimoto's, adrenals, cardiovascular, autonomic and more health problems.
I learnt a lot, and the cause of all my health probs can be traced back to those two prescribed meds I took 14 years ago!!
These are three quite bad sources of information linked above. CDC definition is so broad as to be useless and include many other disease. Familydoctor recommends exercise for a serious mitochondrial problem and keeps calling it "fatigue". And mayoclinic thinks ME/CFS is psychosomatic and tries to talk patients into committing themselves to their psych facilities after paying thousands of dollars for tests.
Alkalizing your body, proper supplementation (especially multi-vitamins and multi-minerals), transfer factors, eating some sort of raw food with every meal. Probiotics are good, too. Take the load off of the digestive system so your energy can be optimized.
The physician at this is believes that neurotoxins from either bacterial infections, fungal infections, or mold (i.e. lyme disease, pfiesteria, ciquetera, candida albicans etc...) and subsequent immune response is the underlying cause for chronic fatigue.
Based on my personal experience and the research I have conducted makes me believe that his model is highly accurate.
This is a case where chronic serotonin syndrome was misdiagnosed as chronic fatigue. Apparently if there is too much serotonin in your brain you can have debilitating pain. Another thing I have just read is that osteoperosis is supposedly caused by too much serotonin in the stomach ??? This became a popular thing as beer reduces the serotonin in the stomach and beer drinkings were all talkin about it. So I looked it up. As I am having a bone desity test and it says something in the beer can reverse osteoperosis. I am not going to drink beer but if it turns out I have a problem I will look up the bit that is in the beer and see where ele I can get it bananas is one source I recall.
I was one of the early diagnosed people of ME, and then CFS and then SBS, and I found that once I removed myself away from overhead power lines, telecommunications equipment my symptoms vanished, until now. You can't get away from EMR and EMF and that is what I believe is the causation factor of ME, CFS, SBS, FBS, IBS and BMS. The same stuff also causes extreme Tinnitus.
like you, I've had CFS for about 7 years now. I've been regaining my muscle mass over the past four months after trying unsuccessfully to do so over a period of 6 months prior - the key was supplementing with some bodybuilding products.
In the process of researching this stuff I found several key components of bodybuilding supplements (glucose, L-glutamine, BCAA's and others) have an impact on CFS.
At any rate, I've now regained 3 kg of muscle mass, and feel better than I've felt in years. It's all down to (a) a graduated exercise program and (b) supplementing.
I've presented my findings to the Hamilton (New Zealand) CFS/ME society and they were quite impressed. I've compiled my findings into the following document hoping that other people can find this useful:
hi, been diagnosed previously with CFS since "nothing" was really found back then, things have changed since. But in short, nothing really helps me, stimulants do, but its not sustainable. But for me muscle relaxers make me way worse....
There is a strong correlation with people who complain about CFS symptoms and those with both sleep disorders and things like Myastenia Gravis. I was diagnosed this last year with Narcolepsy through a MSLT sleep study (all naps were positive for short REM). As for the fatigue, I have also developed more alarmign symptoms I am under evaluation for MG, waiting on blood results. I found that stimulants help me to keep it together a little (used for the narcolepsy), but I am still struggling with the fatigue otherwise, because the stimulants keep me up for a period of time, but it cant be sustained, so I crash and crash really hard into severe fatigue. I also found that I am reacting negatively to muscle relaxers to where I get my weakest.
I recommend getting a sleep study and going to a neuromuscular specialist, as MG is fleeting and not so easily diagnosed. There are blood tests that can detect abnormal antibodies in people, but is not always telling, as there are people who are sero negative. Get tested for acetylcholine receptor antibodies and anti-MUSK anti-body at least and when you are in the worst fatigue, go to a doc who can do an EMG on you then, because MG changes rapidly, also take a picture of your face or have someone do it and show it to your doc.
Overall, sometimes people have overlapping conditions that produce the total CFS picture, but they are not always correctly and expediently diagnosed. So you never really know if its CFS. All you know is what improves or makes it worse.
CFS is difficult, because the only way to really? diagnose it correctly, would require genetic testing, and there is still alot of information being discovered about this illness and what the clear indications are for diagnosis, especially as it pertains to diagnostic testing (if that even exists). Good luck.
Chronic fatigue symptoms of CFS, though they may overlap the symptoms of many other ailments, taken as a whole, can lead to proper diagnosis and treatment. The primary chronic fatigue symptoms that should be considered with a diagnosis of CFS include these eight âdefiningâ symptoms:
*Cognitive dysfunction, including impaired memory or concentration
*Postexertional malaise lasting more than 24 hours (exhaustion and increased symptoms) following physical or mental exercise
*Joint pain (without redness or swelling)
*Persistent muscle pain
*Headaches of a new type or severity
*Tender cervical or axillary lymph nodes
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<urn:uuid:67bbefd0-ef1a-4630-92d6-6015f4d3f89c>
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Use the back button to select a different record.
Miller, Barbara Simmons
Birth Year : 1909
Death Year : 2000
Barbara Simmons Miller, born in Louisville, KY, was the first African American to graduate with a library degree in Kentucky, from Nazareth College (now Spalding University); she specialized in children's librarianship. Miller was a librarian with the Louisville Free Public Library and served on the faculty of several Kentucky institutions. She was a delegate to the USSR and went abroad to study library services to children. She was known as the "Storytelling Lady" on the television show T-Bar V Ranch on Louisville television. Miller was the second African American president of the Kentucky Library Association. The Barbara S. Miller Multicultural Children's Literature Collection is in the University of Louisville Library. For more see Who's Who Among American Women, 8th-10th ed.; and In Black and White. A guide to magazine articles, newspaper articles, and books concerning Black individuals and groups, 3rd ed., Supp., ed by M. M. Spradling. Additional information provided by Fannie Cox.
See photo image and additional information about Barbara S. Miller at the University of Louisville Ekstrom Library website.
Subjects: Education and Educators, Librarians, Library Collections, Libraries, Television
Geographic Region: Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://nkaa.uky.edu/record.php?note_id=773
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| 0.93844
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The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (DOJ) today issued a joint report, “Antitrust Enforcement and Intellectual Property Rights: Promoting Innovation and Competition,” to inform consumers, businesses, and intellectual property rights holders about the agencies’ competition views with respect to a wide range of activities involving intellectual property.
The report discusses issues including: refusals to license patents, collaborative standard setting, patent pooling, intellectual property licensing, the tying and bundling of intellectual property rights, and methods of extending market power conferred by a patent beyond the patent’s expiration.
“Our nation’s antitrust and intellectual property laws share the goal of promoting innovation, which in turn greatly benefits our consumers,” said FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. “The FTC takes seriously our responsibility to tackle the difficult issues that can arise when the antitrust laws are applied to IP, often in settings where business practices are rapidly evolving. We endeavor to adopt policies that permit competition and innovation to thrive, and this report explains our current policy thinking.”
The report follows a series of hearings jointly conducted by the agencies in 2002, entitled “Competition and Intellectual Property Law and Policy in the Knowledge-Based Economy.” During 24 days of hearings spanning over 10 months, the agencies received submissions and heard testimony from more than 300 commentators who offered diverse perspectives and represented a wide range of interests, including those of the biotechnology, computer hardware and software, Internet, and pharmaceutical industries; independent inventors; and leading scholars and practitioners learned in antitrust law, intellectual property law, and economics.
“Intellectual property is a key driver of the U.S. economy and sound competition policy works to maintain a robust marketplace so that new products and services can flourish,” said Thomas O. Barnett, Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust
Division. “The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that consumers benefit from both competitive markets and strong intellectual property rights protection and enforcement necessary to facilitate innovation.”
The agencies’ analysis of intellectual property focuses on preserving competition and incentives for creativity and innovation. The report indicates that the FTC and DOJ will analyze the vast majority of conduct involving intellectual property rights using a flexible rule of reason approach that considers both the efficiencies of a particular activity as well as any anticompetitive effects it may create. With the agencies’ improved understanding of intellectual property, the agencies can better ensure that intellectual property and antitrust laws continue to achieve their common goals of “encouraging innovation, industry and competition,” according to the report. The report’s conclusions include the following:
The Commission vote to issue the report was 5-0.
Copies of the report can be found on the FTC Web site at http://www.ftc.gov/reports/index.shtm. The Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/bc/0558.pdf. Transcripts and written submissions from the 2002 intellectual property hearings are available at http://www.ftc.gov/opp/intellect/index.shtm. The FTC’s Bureau of Competition, in conjunction with the Bureau of Economics, seeks to prevent business practices that restrain competition. The Bureau carries out its mission by investigating alleged law violations and, when appropriate, recommending that the Commission take formal enforcement action. To notify the Bureau concerning particular business practices, call or write the Office of Policy and Coordination, Room 394, Bureau of Competition, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W., Washington, DC 20580, Electronic Mail: email@example.com; Telephone (202) 326-3300. For more information on the laws that the Bureau enforces, the Commission has published “Promoting Competition, Protecting Consumers: A Plain English Guide to Antitrust Laws,” which can be accessed at http://www.ftc.gov/bc/compguide/index.htm.
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http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/04/ipreport.shtm
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en
| 0.909208
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2013 is tipped, if not as the Year of the Dragon, then as the Year of UKIP, which onlygoes to show how disoriented and dysfunctional the UK political system has now become. Their philosophy – the country’s going down the drain, immigration and gay marriage show how far it’s been torn from its solid traditions, and the real answer is complete exit from the EU (a non-sequitur if ever there was one) – illustrates how far the national debate has been capsized by marginalities that distract from the real fundamentals. Those centre round the catastrophic collapse of the West’s business model and the unwillingness of any political parties to face up to the hard imperative of implementing an alternative that works.
How do you regulate the casino? The Tories and the Orange Liberals around Clegg have no intention whatsoever of doing any such thing – they exist after all to defend it and in return are funded by it. But is Labour up to the radical reform of the banks that is needed? Not on its showing so far, and admittedly it is a very challenging objective. Thatcher’s marketisation of finance went far further than merely Big Bang in 1986. Its abolition of exchange controls in 1979brought about a vast outflow of capital from pension funds and insurance firms, whilst also expanding the hedge funds and private equity that promoted short-term investments to maximise ‘shareholder value’. Big Bang pushed the banking sector into stock markets, leading to the growth of speculative high-risk investment arms in the big retail banks.
The 1980s Tories also de-mutualised the building societies, transforming them into retail banks able to borrow on the wholesale markets with disastrous consequences (Northern Rock). The culture of banks changed radically, with a focus for banks and ex-mutuals on short-term profitability epitomised by the ever-shorter duration of equity holdings (from 5 years in the 1960s to 7 months by 2007) and the churning of portfolios with huge bonuses for fund managers but little value to UK industry.
This is power structure that has done huge long-term damage to Britain. It needs to be reversed by a 4-part programme for the City:
1 Build a publicly owned banking sector (and re-built mutual sector) to switch the balance of investment steadily towards infrastructure and industrial re-industrialisation,
2 Use regulation and taxes to drive down the speculative excesses of the City, especially in offshoring and tax havens, and to generate revenue instead for public investment in the UK, particularly via a Financial Transactions Tax,
3 Reform pension funds to make them transparent and accountable to scheme members and direct their investments to promote the UK national interest, not overseas speculation,
4 Use capital and exchange controls where necessary, but no more than necessary, to counter de-stabilisation of the economy by the finance sector.
This is no more than is strictly necessary to reverse the enormous damage inflicted on the British economy by 3 decades of reckless and self-interested neoliberal markets. Is Labour up for it?
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<urn:uuid:e0dbfef6-b09d-4e58-848c-7b8ec93a9b05>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2013/01/is-labour-up-to-reform-of-the-banks/
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| 0.94453
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GRP-138 Pharmaceutical Interventions in the Setting of Lipids in Paediatric Parenteral Nutrition
- C Alarcon-Payer,
- J Pérez Morales,
- C Valencia Soto,
- P Vallecillo Capilla,
- E Puerta Garcia,
- MA Calleja Hernández
Background The preparation of paediatric parenteral nutrition (PPN) is subject to a great deal of variability in clinical practise. Standardization in the process is indispensable to ensure stability and improve patient safety. The pharmacist plays an essential role in the proper preparation of all-in-one PPN, and in interventions to avoid problems associated with instability.
Purpose The 2008 Spanish consensus on the preparation of parenteral nutrient mixtures established a minimum lipid percentage of 1.5%. The aim of this study was to detect PPN prescriptions with a lipid percentage below 1.5%, considered the safe limit for lipid emulsion stability in ternary mixtures.
Materials and Methods Observational retrospective descriptive study of PPN requirements in a tertiary level hospital. It was conducted between September 2011 and June 2012. Prescriptions in which the lipid composition of the PPN was less than 1.5% of the mixture were reviewed. In all cases, the intervention involved having the pharmacist contact the prescribing physician. Proposed alternatives to preserve the stability were: a) increase the proportion of lipid; b) exclude lipids from the mixture; or c) decrease the mixture volume.
Results A total of 107 interventions were made during this period. 100% of the physicians contacted accepted the intervention. In 81.3% of cases they agreed to increase the weight of lipids by an average of 1 g; the median was 0.8 g. The 18.7% remaining cases chose to exclude lipids from the mixture during the first few days, and add lipids gradually thereafter. In these cases the initial average of lipids was 1.1 g, and the median 0.8 g. In no case was the total volume changed.
Conclusions The results support the role of the pharmacist in the proper management of paediatric PNN, and in ensuring the quality and safety of the mixture. The results also support the importance of pharmacist-physician collaboration.
No conflict of interest.
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Any crypto is limited in scope to technically-oriented people. Most people host their data with others.
DNSSEC appeals to me because we already have to trust the domain name system. If your domain is deregistered for any reason, your communication fails whether you have secured your domain or not.
The only third party you need to trust is your TLD (which you have to trust anyway, see above). For people under .com I understand your concerns but there are other TLDs and trust is not delegated between them except for the root, and it is impractical to deregister the TLD when a few individual domains is questionable.
The important thing here is that a mischevious registrar can only sabotage domains registered with them, whereas a trusted CA is normally completely trusted to sign anything in the global root. That difference alone is worth it, in my opinion.
That also sums up my criticism against Marlinspike's article. He concludes that DNSSEC is not impervious to attacks, which should be trivially true, but ignores the fact that it is lightyears ahead of what be have today.
What is mean that proving identity is hard is only that as far as I know only governments have succeeded doing in on the large scale required here. That most transactions are anonymous may be true but does not help us when we need to do secure transactions. Private CAs has proven to be a failure so far. Our choices are then between a large intergovernmental CA system (in effect delegating trust along the country TLDs) or to put our trust in DNSSEC. I would prefer the latter.
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http://lwn.net/Articles/449278/
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Sample Interactive Modules from the Open University
A commended entry for our 2003 Electronic Resource Award was a team from the Open University (Chris Downs, Neil Costello, Martin Higginson, Judith Metha and Heldey Stone) for their interactive materials to support the DD202 introductory economics module. These tutorials combine spoken and written text, diagrams and interactive quizzes to teach "Economics and Economic Change". We are grateful to the team and to Dave Morris for allowing us to host a sample of their work on our site. Copyright remains with the original authors and any further reproduction requires their permission.
The tutorials were delivered on CD-ROM with accompanying booklet, enabling large multimedia files to be delivered to distance learning students. The only software required is a web browser with the Shockwave plug-in and Java, which most modern browsers will have by default. The sample material includes 35-minute tutorials on Investigating perfect competition and Game Theory, as well as a 12-question interactive test on basic microeconomics.
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http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/ou/
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Natalia Jardon was born in Mexico City and grew up in Paris. She was an intern at the New York Times European Headquarters before moving to London to study Human Genetics at UCL. There she worked with Marcus du Sautoy for the BBC’s and the Open University’s four-part documentary on Maths, as well as researching for TimeOut. She was also engaged in mentoring, advisory and teaching schemes for both UCL and the Institute of Education. After graduating she went on to complete a Masters in Science Media Production from Imperial College. As Head Coordinator for the development of school and learning materials for the 100 Visions 100 Women project for female scientists she was heavily involved in making their exhibitions child-friendly. In 2008 she won the Emerging Talent Award of the Wellcome Trust. Passionate about theatre, she was part of the National Theatre's student team for four years and a long term volunteer at Shakespeare's Globe. She was editor for Ciudad de las Ideas, taking part in the launch of their new website and coordinating their social media campaign. She currently teaches Digital Journalism at the UDLA and is focused on communicating the value of Mexican science and innovation to the public. She curated and produced the Mexico y la Ciencia (Mexico and Science) exhibition shown at Palacio de Minería last October with support of the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología del Distrito Federal. She is also writing a book on Mexican science and works as an independant bilingual consultant in publishing and editing.
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Iran’s vital seaborne trade is suffering from escalating sanctions pressure as shipping companies scale down activities or pull out, with the Islamic Republic facing more hurdles in transporting its oil, trade and shipping sources say.
The European Union tightened its sanctions against Tehran on Thursday and laid out plans for a possible embargo on Iranian oil in response to mounting concerns in the West over the OPEC producer’s nuclear work.
Last week the United States, Canada and Britain announced measures against Iran's energy and financial sectors.
“The further sanctions imposed by U.S., UK and Canada will make it even more difficult for Iranian companies to do business because their options to use the international banking system will be reduced,” said Jakob Larsen, maritime security officer with BIMCO, the world's largest private shipowners’ association.
“Obviously this will also affect an international trade such as shipping.”
Much of Iran’s imported needs including food and consumer goods are transported by sea via container ships. Oil tankers are used to ferry the country’s crude oil exports.
“Most (shipping) transactions used to be done in dollars but they can’t trade in dollars which is a difficulty in itself. The chances are that banks involved in trade finance will have large scale U.S. operations which is yet another restriction,” a shipping source said. “It’s getting tougher and tougher for them now.”
One of the biggest problems facing shipping companies is how to identify parties with whom it is still permissible to trade without breaching international sanctions.
“The EU and the U.S. in particular have provided little guidance as to how their regulations should be interpreted,” said Michelle Linderman, a partner with law firm Ince & Co LLP.
Jens Martin Jensen, chief executive of Frontline, the world's largest independent tanker operator, said it did not have any dealings with Iran at the moment.
“We are not even allowed to pay agents in Iran, so that is something we definitely don't do,” he told Reuters.
The latest sanctions aim to step up heat on Iran over its nuclear program which it says is for peaceful purposes.
In June, the United States blacklisted major Iranian port operator Tidewater Middle East Co, which operates seven terminals in Iran including Bandar Abbas.
“From an Iranian point of view, Bandar Abbas is very important because it will be the main point of entry for container cargoes,” said Jan Tiedemann, shipping analyst with consultancy Alphaliner.
The U.S. move led the world's top container player Maersk Line to suspend operations at several Iranian ports including Bandar Abbas.
German container shipping group Hapag-Lloyd said it did not accept cargo for Bandar Abbas nor any consignments for other Tidewater-run ports. It said the smaller container port of Bushehr, some 900 km north of Bandar Abbas, was not managed by Tidewater.
“We have moved only a few containers through Bushehr by feeder vessels which are not our own vessels. We do not have an own service calling there,” a spokeswoman said.
Hapag-Lloyd’s previous Bandar Abbas service had been jointly operated with South Korea's Hyundai Merchant Marine. A source familiar with the matter said Hyundai had reduced its shipping service to Iran and was closely monitoring the situation.
“Hyundai’s vessels, however, en route via Bandar Abbas do not contain any refinery or nuclear-related products since those items are blacklisted,” the source said.
CMA CGM, the world's third-largest container shipping group, stopped exports from Iran in July and since September has been scanning all containers bound for Iran from the UAE.
Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk , which owns Maersk Line, said it was still engaged in business with Iran including the transport of provisions, natural gas and crude oil as well as bunker fuel supply to Maersk-related vessels, in compliance with sanctions.
“The group has and continues to update a comprehensive compliance program involving all relevant foreign trade controls,” it said.
There was growing worry that Iran's shipping trade with Dubai was also being squeezed.
“Exports and imports via ports in the UAE have been vital to maintaining trade links to the outside world. Sanctions targeting the Iranian shipping industry have taken their toll however,” said Alan Fraser with security firm AKE.
Iranian shipping companies have also found themselves in the firing line especially the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), which has faced targeted sanctions for several months. IRISL has denied it was engaged in any illegal activity.
Separately, Iran’s biggest tanker operator NITC said in June it had secured ship insurance cover mainly in Asia and also in Iran after European providers pulled out due to sanctions. The group has not been targeted by sanctions. An NITC official declined to comment when contacted.
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Stephens, M. & Cheetham, W. (2012). “Benefits and results of Learning 2.0: a case study of CityLibrariesLearning – discover*play*connect.” Australian Library Journal, 61(1), 6-15.
Both the pre- and post-programme survey utilised the question ‘Which of the following topics/tools are familiar to you?’ Staff selected from a scale ranging from ‘have only heard the [...]
Note from Michael: I worked with Janette on the CAVAL Visiting Scholar Project. We had a wonderful afternoon visiting the good folks at the Yarra Plenty Library while I was in Melbourne. Congrats Janette!
Famous for being a place to expand your mind and change your life, State Library of Queensland will welcome its [...]
I have an article up at InfoToday Europe on the CAVAL Australian research:
Results of the research project have been presented at conferences in Australia and the United States as well as in published articles. Here is a breakdown of some of the major findings of the research:
Better awareness of new technologies and [...]
We just sent the revised draft to the New Review of Academic Librarianship. Here is the abstract:
Replicated across the globe, the Learning 2.0 program – also known as “23 Things” – has been touted as a means to not only educate staff about emerging social technologies but as a means of moving the participating [...]
Caval 2009, originally uploaded by Lester Public Library.
Dr Michael Stephens delivered the Dr Laurel Anne Clyde Memorial Keynote Address at the ASLA XXI Biennial Conference, held in Perth, Western Australia, from 29 September to 2 October 2009.
Reprinted with permission from the Australian School Library Association Inc. (ASLA) Access 2010 24(1): 5.
The evolving Web is an open and social place. The [...]
Our presentation at VALA2010 is Thursday morning (Wednesday night for me).
We’re utilizing this conference to launch a new Web site dedicated to the Learning 2.0 Research we’re doing for CAVAL:
And you can follow along!
Here’s an updated draft of our slides:
The impact and benefits of Learning 2.0 programs in [...]
I was honored to do an interview with Finding Education‘s Shannon Firth last week. We talked a lot about the Australian research project as well as other topics. The post is now up:
Here’s a bit of the piece:
fE: How important is branding to libraries? And what do things like blogs and wikis [...]
This year has been most magical. I traveled a bit, had some wonderful students in my classes, and learned so much from everyone I encountered. I also spent much of the summer with our new dog Cooper in Traverse City hiking and sitting by the fire.
One of the most magical and life changing [...]
A few days after I delivered my keynote at the Australian School Library Association, I received a wonderful email from Lyn Walsh. She asked permission to adapt the presentation for her work with the Amata Anangu School. Because my talks are all CC licensed I told her [...]
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South Carolina, the Palmetto state and one of the original thirteen colonies, is well known for its wide ranging historic, cultural, and natural attractions and activities. This state consistently offers a pleasant climate, friendly residents, and great real estate and homes for sale. The offshore islands and coastal area of South Carolina are filled with beautiful beaches in addition to the historic town of Charleston. The rivers and lakes region of South Carolina, located further inland, is home to the Old 96 District, the Olde English District, and Lake Murray. Whitewater rafting is a popular pastime for both residents and visitors, while the scenic waterfalls of South Carolina are a great destination for photographers, nature lovers, and families.
South Carolina also boasts a rich cultural and historic legacy, offering both mementos of the American Revolution and the Civil War in addition to the old plantation lifestyle. Several important battles were fought in this state during these two wars, and the African American legacy of the south remains strong in South Carolina. Reenactments and other displays of pride are commonplace here, and there are many museums and exhibits which bring the past to life. Golfing aficionados will not be disappointed by what South Carolina has to offer, and there are many destinations and attractions which are geared specifically towards the younger generation. Birding, fishing, and sightseeing are also popular pastimes, and the food in South Carolina is as excellent as its location in the southern United States suggests. When traveling to South Carolina consider staying in a Myrtle Beach vacation rental.
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Today in 1986, Irish singer, songwriter and bassist Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy died of heart failure and pneumonia after being in a coma for eight days following a drug overdose. Lynott was a dynamic frontman and singer who's unique husky voice contributed to Thin Lizzy's immediate recognizability and appeal. In 2005, a life-size bronze statue of Lynott was unveiled on Harry Street, off Grafton Street in Dublin.
Also, Today In:
1957 - Fats Domino recorded "I'm Walking" in New Orleans. The single would eventually make to it to #4 on the pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart.
1977 - The Sex Pistols shocked passengers and airline staff at Heathrow Airport when they spat and vomited boarding a plane to Amsterdam.
2006 - The house where Johnny Cash lived for 35 years was bought by Bee Gees singer Barry Gibb.
Beth GIbbons, singer for Portishead, is 48 today.
Robin Guthrie, co-founder of Cocteau Twins, is 51 today.
Michael Stipe is 53 today.
Wilco's Nels Cline is 57 today.
Bernard Sumner, vocalist of New Order and formerly of Joy Division, is 57 today.
comments powered by Disqus
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Breathe the Easter Island atmosphere by hiking! The trails are all completed in 1 day, but are of varying difficulty.
Walk up the volcano of Rano Kau, at the top of which Orongo is located. The trail starts in the area called Mataveri. Having the entrance to Conaf to your right the road will continue to the left. Go straight ahead instead, into the forest. The trail will be on your left side. There is only 1 trail and it is clearly visible.
You will walk through forests and meadows, constantly uphills, with panoramic views of the island. The trail ends at the top of the volcano Rano Kau.
You might arrange for someone to pick up, or you will simply have to walk down again, which is considerably faster and easier.
This trail leads to the top of the 500 m high Maunga Terevaka ("Terevaka hill") which is the highest point of Easter Island.
Get a ride along the road that leads to Anakena, until you reach the area of Vaitea. The dirt road that leads inland into the forest is where the hiking trail starts. The trail will lead you a few km towards the top and then vanish. Simply walk towards the highest spot to reach your destination.
When at the top, you will have a few different options:
|Length uphill:||4.5 km|
|Length downhill (to Ahu Akivi):||3.5 km|
|Length downhill (to town center):||10 km|
Explore the untouched north coast. There are no roads here and you couldn't even cross it with a bike for all the stones at some areas. Archaeology has been left here since the ancient Rapa Nui people moved out.
Walk or get a ride to Ahu Tepeu from the town (5 km). This is where the road continues inland towards Ahu Akivi and you will have to continue by foot.
Simply follow the coast. There is no way of getting lost, since you'll always have the sea to your left.
Eventually you will reach Anakena. Bring your beachwear for a rewarding bath in the ocean! Here are usually many cars, so if you haven't arranged for someone to pick up you up, finding a ride shouldn't be a problem.
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Monterey Bay Aquarium member Tom Powers was enjoying a beautiful day of freediving off the Channel Islands near Ventura, California, when he came across “the largest lobster I’ve ever seen”—weighing an astounding 11 pounds. He wrestled the California spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus) out of its cave—losing a few inches of his Kevlar glove in the process—and took it home, intending to give it pride of place on his dinner table.
But the more he reflected on the “magnificent beast” he had caught, the more he realized that it deserved a different destiny. He placed a call to the Aquarium to see if we would be interested in putting the enormous lobster—estimated to be more than 50 years old—on exhibit. Aquarist Kevin Lewand and the rest of the husbandry staff happily accepted, and the lobster is currently ensconced in a rocky cave in the Enchanted Kelp Forest section of the Splash Zone.
Old man of the sea
California spiny lobsters are estimated to gain 1.5 pounds every 7-8 years, according to Lewand. But that formula is an approximation, and there are other factors that could make this specimen as old as 80 or 90! (For instance, growth seems to slow with age, and also varies according to the available food supply.) Regardless, it seems likely that this particular lobster was shuffling across the ocean floor before Eisenhower was president.
The California spiny lobster is a “huge keystone species,” says Lewand. “They’re important for a healthy kelp forest.” In the absence of a vibrant lobster population (especially large ones), sea urchin “barrens” can take over and denude the kelp forest, which is home to myriad other species. The California lobster fishery is closed from March through September to protect egg-carrying and molting female lobsters. At other times of the year, the commercial trap fishery is restricted, and recreational divers can take a maximum of seven lobsters per day, using only their hands to retrieve them.
Still, according to the California Department of Fish and Game, “trophy-size lobster of both sexes…are becoming more scarce.” Marine Protected Areas—the so-called “Yosemites of the Sea” where human activities are restricted—may provide a critical boost to the species, allowing them to recover and thrive.
And just maybe, Marine Protected Areas could provide a safe haven for more “big bugs” like the one now on exhibit at the Aquarium.
“I love to hunt and eat lobster,” said Powers. “But giving this lobster to the Aquarium was by far the most gratifying experience I've ever had in all of my years hunting.”
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NATO Troops to Support Bosnia Elections
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12, 1996 Warring parties have separated. Troops and heavy weapons are back in cantonment areas. The next step in the Bosnia peace process is for elections to be held. NATO's peace implementation force, the IFOR, is there to help.
IFOR will help ensure free elections are held Sept. 14, said British Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Walker, commander of NATO land forces in Bosnia. Providing a secure environment for the elections and ensuring people are allowed to vote is part of the force's mission, he said during a press briefing in Bijeljina Aug. 7.
"We are here to deliver the security necessary for democracy to occur, so police can enforce the laws, courts can interpret the laws and the citizens of Bosnia can begin to lead decent, productive lives," Walker said.
IFOR troops may help deliver ballot boxes, voting lists and other documents to about 4,000 polling stations, the commander said. "The important bit is the security of the ballot box once it's full of the voting papers from its polling station to its counting house," he said.
Conducting the elections will take the combined efforts of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and IFOR, Walker said. People are being allowed to vote in the place where they used to live, which may now be part of a different political entity. The international organizations will help ensure people are allowed to go where they wish to vote, he said.
Possible unrest during the elections concerns the military commander, who said he is taking a preventive approach to deal with the issue. Plans are being made to deal with possible public disorder and to prevent crowds from gathering.
Walker said he is urging local officials to make a grassroots push for open and free elections throughout the country. Officials need to simply follow the election rules and "let the voters vote," he said.
"These elections are a true watershed and an opportunity that shouldn't be wasted," he said. "The last thing the world wants to see are angry, unruly mobs trying to stop people from going to their rightful place of voting and casting that vote."
IFOR will not become the police, Walker stressed. Local police are responsible for providing basic public safety and law and order. It is "the force of last resort, not to be used lightly or inappropriately," he said.
"The troops of IFOR have opened democracy's door here in Bosnia," Walker said. "I've been telling local officials I sense a willingness at their level to see that the voting goes smoothly and to allow every legitimate voter to come into their communities and cast a ballot, no matter who or which party or ethnic entity they belong to."
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Connect to share and comment
An electrical relay device installed at the Superdome to help prevent blackouts failed and caused the power outage that shut down the Super Bowl, the suppliers said on Friday.
Lights went out in the stadium early in the third quarter of the National Football League's championship spectacle last Sunday, halting the game for 35 minutes while more than 100 million people watched on American television.
After the power was restored and the lights shined once more, the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 in Super Bowl 47, which attracted the third-largest US TV audience ever after the 2010 and 2011 Super Bowls.
The device had been put in place at the stadium in the event of a cable failure between electrical switch boxes and the stadium and had worked properly at three prior American football games before the Super Bowl.
Entergy New Orleans, the electricity supplier for the area, said in a statement that the relay device mistakenly caused a switch to open where the power cables from a nearby substation meet the stadium, causing the outage.
The device was removed and the Superdome is back to normal, but a decision regarding replacement equipment is being evaluated, the company said.
"While some further analysis remains, we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state," Entergy New Orleans president Charles Rice said.
The game was meant to showcase how far New Orleans had come in rebuilding since Hurriance Katrina devastated the region in 2005, but instead the blackout in the first Super Bowl in the city since the storm struck left many in New Orleans fearful it might harm the chances of the big game ever returning.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that despite the first interruption of a Super Bowl contest, New Orleans would remain in the league's plans as a potential future Super Bowl host. City officials say they plan to bid for the 2018 Super Bowl.
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Leonid of Optina
Our venerable father Leonid (Nagolkin) of Optina, also Leo of Optina, was a Hieroschemamonk among the group of monastics of Optina Monastery in the nineteenth century who were known as the Optina Elders. The Elder Moses is venerated on October 11 and with all the Optina Elders on October 11.
The future St. Leonid was born Leo Danilevich Nagolkin in Karachev in the Orlov Province in 1768 of a family of ordinary parents. He worked for a merchant during his early years, making frequent trips as part of his employer's business, thus he gained experience dealing with different people. As a mature young man, Leo decided to enter a monastic life.
In 1797, Leo entered Optina Monastery as it was being re-born. After two years he left to enter White Bluff monastery in the Orlov eparchy, where Hieromonk Basil (Kiskin) was igumen. Under Fr. Basil, Leo underwent training in monastic virtues of obedience, patience, and various external endeavors. In 1801, Fr. Basil tonsured Leo a monk giving him the name Leonid. Later in the year Fr. Leonid was ordained a deacon on December 22 and then a priest on December 24.
Earnestly fulfilled his obediences, Fr. Leonid set an example to the other monastics. This attracted the notice of his superiors. Fr. Leonid also spent some time at Cholnsk monastery where he met Schemamonk Theodore, a disciple of St. Paisius Velichkovsky. Fr. Theodore, who was about ten years older than Fr. Leonid, was also from Karachev. Under his direction, Fr. Leonid learned a great deal about spiritual struggles and how to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit.
In 1804, after only five years at White Bluff, he was appointed by Bishop Dorotheus of Orlov and Svensk to succeed Fr. Basil as igumen. The following year Fr. Theodore also came to White Bluff Monastery and Fr. Leonid once again shared conversations that inspired him to even greater progress in the spiritual life. Fr. Theodore, longing for solitude, received permission to establish his cell, with his disciple Cleopas, about a mile from the monastery. There, Fr. Leonid joined Fr. Theodore in 1808 after resigning as igumen and became a schema-monk with the name of Leo.
The fame of the three ascetics, however, brought many visitors and distractions from their spiritual struggles, causing them to look else where. In 1809, Fr. Theodore moved, first, to New Lake Monastery, then, on to the Palei Island Hermitage, where he remained for three years before again moving, in 1812, to the All Saints Skete of Valaam Monastery. There, he was reunited with Frs. Leonid and Cleopas who had also moved there in 1812. In 1816, Hieroschemamonk Cleopas died, and Fr. Leonid and Fr. Theodore moved to the St. Alexander of Svir monastery.
Fr. Theodore reposed on Bright Friday, April 7, 1822. With Fr. Theodore's death, Fr. Leonid looked to a more secluded place. In his search Fr. Leonid and his disciples came to Ploschansky Hermitage where he met Fr. Macarius. A few years later, Fr. Leonid accepted the invitation of Fr. Moses to come to Optina Monastery. He arrived at Optina in April 1829 with six of his disciples. They were given cells in the Skete, Fr. Leonid near the apiary and his disciples elsewhere in the Skete.
The arrival of Fr. Leonid marked a new chapter in the history of Optina, as it was Fr. Leonid who introduced eldership at the monastery. Guidance by an Elder had been recognized as a sure and reliable path to salvation. It spread from the deserts of Egypt and Palestine to Mount Athos, and later to Russia. Fr. Leonid received this teaching from Fr. Theodore, the disciple of St. Paisius Velichkovsky. Through Fr. Leonid and his disciple St. Macarius , who had followed him to Optina in1834, eldership was established at Optina Monastery.
Fr. Leonid's wisdom and spiritual counsels made him known outside of Optina. People of all social classes flocked to Optina seeking his help. He treated their spiritual afflictions with the knowledge and experience he had gained after thirty years of living in asceticism. During the times from 1835 to 1836 some monks who did not understand the concept of eldership complained to the bishop about Fr. Leonid. They were unhappy of the many visitors who came to him and that his actions disrupted the peaceful routine of the monastery. In 1841, he also came entangled in jealousies among the nuns over his spiritual counsel that resulted in the expulsion of Mother Anthia and one of the other sisters from the convent based on erroneous opinions. It was with the intervention of Metropolitan Philaret (Amphiteatrov) of Kiev that the expelled sisters were received back into the convent on October 4, 1841.
In September 1841, Fr. Leonid's health began to decline. He received Holy Unction on September 15, and from that time he began to prepare for death. He received Holy Communion on September 28 and, taking no food and little water, he was strengthened only by the life-giving Mysteries of Christ. During the evening of October 11, 1841, he closed his eyes and surrendered his soul to God.
On October 13, Fr. Moses served the funeral with all the hieromonks and the hierodeacons who were present. Fr. Leonid was buried near the main church of the Entrance of the Theotokos, opposite the chapel of St. Nicholas.
Elder Leonid of Optina was glorified with all the Elders of Optina by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1990. The feast day for St. Leonid of Optina is October 11.
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Before multibeam technology was invented, surveys of sea mounts were made by simple echo sounders. The sound signal was strong enough, however, that it could penetrate the sea floor, showing some of the structure. In this image from the Deep Sea Drilling Reports, you can see Nashville Seamount and the surrounding sea floor. In this image, horizontal distance is measured in hours that it took the ship to pass over the area, and the vertical measure is the seconds it took the sound to travel back to the ship. At this scale, Nashville seamount is seen rising from the abyssal plain. Actually, the sediment of the abyssal plain has been deposited in the 85 million years since Nashville Seamount was an active volcano.
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Dr. Willard M. Aldrich passed away due to natural causes on November 27, 2009. He was 100 years old, and served as President Emeritus at Multnomah University.
Dr. Aldrich founded Multnomah School of the Bible with Dr. B.B. Sutcliffe and Dr. John Mitchell in 1936. He served as Multnomah's first registrar, and married the dean of women, Doris Coffin. They had nine children, including future Multnomah president Dr. Joseph Aldrich. After Doris died, he married Multnomah alumna Mildred "Mimi" Boukaert in 1959. Dr. Aldrich and Mimi were married 47 years until her death in 2007.
Dr. Aldrich became president in 1943 at Dr. Sutcliffe's retirement. During his service as president, Multnomah relocated to a new campus and became a degree-granting college. As Multnomah's second president, Dr. Aldrich served for 35 years until his retirement in 1978. He subsequently served on the board of trustees until his retirement in 2004 and was an Honorary Life Member.
"As the second president of Multnomah School of the Bible, Dr. Willard assumed leadership during its fragile beginnings," Dr. Dave Funk said. "From its start during depression years, through low enrollments during World War II, the boom of materialism and the free spirit of the hippie years, Multnomah's survival depended on a man committed to the long haul and to the vision he shared with co-founder, Dr. John G. Mitchell. As a co-founder, Dr. Aldrich shared the commitment to biblical values and ministry emphasis that characterized Multnomah's position in the Bible college movement.
"Describing Multnomah's emphasis he coined the slogan, ‘If it's Bible you, then you want Multnomah.' Personally Dr. Willard exemplified both priorities, theological and pastoral."
Education, Pastorship, and Authorship
Dr. Aldrich held a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College (1931) and a Th.M. (1934) and Th.D. (1936) from Dallas Theological Seminary. He pastored a church in Washington and served on the Board of Reference for several mission societies. He wrote and published the monthly, "The Doorstep Evangel," used in door-to-door and leaflet evangelism, authored several books, including "When God Was Taken Captive," and was an early founder and later president of the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges.
Dr. Aldrich's Legacy
Known for his graciousness, faithfulness, and friendliness, Dr. Aldrich was greatly loved in the Multnomah Community. He influenced many people for Christ, both at Multnomah and throughout his life. The Willard M. Aldrich Hall was dedicated in February, 2000, in his honor. Today, both North and South Aldrich Hall buildings are used as a college men's residence hall.
A memorial service will be held at Bethel Community Church in Washougal on December 12, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.
Multnomah University is a fully accredited, private, non-denominational, Christian institution of higher education, located in Portland, Oregon. Made up of an undergraduate Bible college, a biblical seminary, graduate programs, an adult degree completion program, and an online distance-learning program, Multnomah issues bachelor's and master's degrees, and professional certifications and endorsements.
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Jetavana, 2 Definition(s)
1. Jetavana - A park in Savatthi, in which was built the Anathapindikarama. When the Buddha accepted Anathapindikas invitation to visit Savatthi the latter, seeking a suitable place for the Buddhas residence, discovered this park belonging to Jetakumara (MA.i.471 says it was in the south of Savatthi). When he asked to be allowed to buy it, Jetas reply was: Not even if you could cover the whole place with money. Anathapindika said that he would buy it at that price, and when Jeta answered that he had had no intention of making a bargain, the matter was taken before the Lords of Justice, who decided that if the price mentioned were paid, Anathapindika had the right of purchase. Anathapindika had gold brought down in carts and covered Jetavana with pieces laid side by side. (This incident is illustrated in a bas relief at the Bharhut Tope; see Cunningham - the Stupa of Bharhut, Pl.lvii., pp.84-6). The money brought in the first journey was found insufficient to cover one small spot near the gateway. So Anathapindika sent his servants back for more, but Jeta, inspired by Anathapindikas earnestness, asked to be allowed to give this spot. Anathapindika agreed and Jeta erected there a gateway, with a room over it. Anathapindika built in the grounds dwelling rooms, retiring rooms, store rooms and service halls, halls with fireplaces, closets, cloisters, halls for exercise, wells, bathrooms, ponds, open and roofed sheds, etc. (Vin.ii.158f).
It is said (MA.i.50; UdA.56f) that Anathapindika paid eighteen crores for the purchase of the site, all of which Jeta spent in the construction of the gateway gifted by him. (The gateway was evidently an imposing structure; see J.ii.216).
Jeta gave, besides, many valuable trees for timber. Anathapindika himself spent fifty four crores in connection with the purchase of the park and the buildings erected in it.
The ceremony of dedication was one of great splendour. Not only Anathapindika himself, but his whole family took part: his son with five hundred other youths, his wife with five hundred other noble women, and his daughters Maha Subhadda and Cula Subhadda with five hundred other maidens. Anathapindika was attended by five hundred bankers. The festivities in connection with the dedication lasted for nine months (J.i.92ff).
Some of the chief buildings attached to the Jetavana are mentioned in the books by special names, viz., Mahagandhakuti, Kaverimandalamala, Kosambakuti and Candanamala. SNA.ii.403. Other buildings are also mentioned - e.g., the Ambalakotthaka asanasala (J.ii.246). According to Tibetan sources the vihara was built according to a plan sent by the devas of Tusita and contained sixty large halls and sixty small. The Dulva also gives details of the decorative scheme of the vihara (Rockhill: op. cit.48 and n.2).
- FIND THE MEANING OF THIS ITEM IN OTHER TEXT:Search found: 204 related definition(s) for 'Jetavana'.
Below are the 15 most popular ones:
|· Ananda Sutta||1. Ananda Sutta - Preached by Ananda to Vangisa. Once as the...||1 desc.|
|· Sundari||1. Sundari. An aggasavika of Anomadassi Buddha. J.i.36; Bu...||1 desc.|
|· Yasoja||He was born outside the gates of Savatthi in a fishing vil...||1 desc.|
|· Maccharikosiya||1. Maccharikosiya. A setthi, worth eighty crores, of Sakkhar...||1 desc.|
|· Nandaka||1. Nandaka (v.l. Nanda) Thera A householder of Savatthi. (T...||1 desc.|
|· Pasura||Pasura A Paribbajaka. He was a great debater who wandered ...||1 desc.|
|· Rajakarama||A monastery in Savatthi, near Jetavana, built by Pasenadi (J...||1 desc.|
|· Ramaneyyaka||Ramaneyyaka Thera An arahant. He belonged to a wealthy fami...||1 desc.|
|· Savatthi||Savatthi in Pali, Sravasti in Sanskrit. The capital of the a...||2 desc.|
|· Salalagara||Salalagara, Salalaghara. A building in Jetavana. Once when...||1 desc.|
|· Akankheyya Sutta||1. Akankheyya Sutta - The sixth sutta of the Majjhima Nika...||1 desc.|
|· Suhanu Jataka||The Bodhisatta was minister to the king of Benares. The ki...||1 desc.|
|· Jeta||1. Jeta - A prince. Owner of Jetavana, which he sold to An...||1 desc.|
|· Kotisanthara||In the Jatakas mention is made (E.g., J.iii.18; 375, 397; ...||1 desc.|
|· Cakkhupala||An arahant. He was the son of a landowner, Maha Suvanna of...||1 desc.|
Below are the most relevant:
» Click here to see all 51 search results in a detailed overview.
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Dr. Schiffman received his B.S. degree with High Honors in biology from Hobart College in 1976. He then moved to Chicago where he studied biochemistry at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. He attended Rush Medical College where he received his M.D. degree in 1982 and was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He completed his Internal Medicine internship and residency at the University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Shiel received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Notre Dame. There he was involved in research in radiation biology and received the Huisking Scholarship. After graduating from St. Louis University School of Medicine, he completed his Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology fellowship at the University of California, Irvine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is comprised primarily of three related conditions,
chronic asthma, and
emphysema. In each condition there is chronic obstruction of the
air flow through the airways and out of the lungs, and the obstruction generally is permanent and may
progress over time.
While asthma features obstruction to the flow of air out of the lungs, usually, the obstruction is reversible. Between "attacks" of asthma the flow of air through the airways typically is normal. These patients do not have COPD. However, if asthma is left untreated, the chronic inflammation associated with this disease can cause the airway obstruction to become fixed. That is, between attacks, the asthmatic patient may then have abnormal air flow. This process is referred to as lung remodeling. These asthma patients with a fixed component of airway obstruction are also considered to have COPD.
Patients with COPD are often classified by the symptoms they are experiencing at the time of an increase of the symptoms of the disease. For example, if a patient is experiencing primarily shortness of breath, they may be referred to as a patient with emphysema. If the patient is primarily experiencing a cough and mucus production, he or she is referred to as having chronic bronchitis. Actually, it is preferable to refer to these patients as having COPD, since they can experience a variety of lung symptoms.
Reviewed by William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR on 5/13/2013
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - SymptomsQuestion: The symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can vary greatly from patient to patient. What were your symptoms at the onset of your disease?
Medical Author: George Schiffman, MD, FCCP
Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR
Symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in smokers include chronic cough, shortness of breath, and frequent respiratory
infections. In patients with emphysema shortness of breath is the primary symptom. In patients with
bronchitis and bronchiectasis, symptoms include chronic cough and sputum production.
Advanced COPD symptoms include cyanosis, headaches, weight loss, pulmonary hypertension, and coughing up blood.
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If we keeping spending our health care dollars disproportionately on the elderly, we will have little left to spend on children. That makes for an upside-down society that cannot thrive for long.
I happen to think the entire column is worth reading, but if your time (and patience) are short, focus on the grafs in which my brother, a Boston kidney doc, talks about dialysis for the elderly who are already dying:
If resources are limited (and they are), the nation needs to make choices – some more painful than others. My brother, Kevin, a Boston physician who treats kidney disease, talks about the Medicare program that pays for dialysis for anyone with failing kidneys — including the terminally ill. Started in the 1970s to help adults still in the workforce, its fastest-growing population is now over 65, he said. And it costs tens of billions a year.
“It may not be the best use of resources for the frail and infirm elderly, and it also forces many elderly patients to spend their last days in the hospital, rather than at home,” a more comfortable setting, Kevin told me.
Yet, many patients, even octogenarians who don’t expect to recover, find it difficult to turn down the treatment. “And physicians resist having a conversation with patients that recommends they forego dialysis because it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have. It’s easier just to recommend the treatment,” he said.
But those are exactly the adult conversations we ought to be having.
Those will undoubtedly be very painful conversations. But we simply don’t have the money to spend to prolong the life of a terminally ill 87-year-old for a few weeks.
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5 Ways to Be Mindful and Reduce Stress
Mindfulness, a form of focused awareness, has a positive effect on lowering the stress response and rejuvenating enthusiasm for your tasks at hand.
Studies have shown that mindfulness, a form of meditation in which you disengage yourself from strong beliefs, thoughts, and emotions, has a positive effect on brain function, lowering the stress response and increasing feelings of relaxation and well-being. It involves being truly present, even during those simple, mundane activities like washing dishes. It can remind you of the "reality of impermanence," Kabat-Zinn writes in his bestselling book Full Catastrophe Living. "Here you are doing the dishes again. How many times have you done the dishes? How many more times will you do them in your life? What is this activity we call doing the dishes? Who is doing them? Why?"
Mindfulness researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn explains how to live in the moment 5 Ways to Be Mindful and Achieve Optimal Health.
1. Consider what's right with you. Every day, take a moment to thank your eyes for seeing, your liver for functioning, your feet for carrying you from place to place. Heck, thank those mitochondria within your cells for pumping out the energy you need to get you out of bed in the morning.
2. Love yourself unconditionally. Hate yourself for being 40 pounds overweight? Rather than setting a weight-loss goal and promising to love yourself once you get there, Kabat-Zinn says you need to make an effort to love yourself "all the way," whether you're 300 pounds or 150. If you decide to eat smaller portions or give up chips for carrot sticks, simply tell yourself, "This is just the way I'm eating now as a way to live better."
3. Live in the present moment. Don't think about what you ate yesterday or make promises to exercise tomorrow. "Every moment gives you the ability to learn, grow, and change," explains Kabat-Zinn. "If you can take a moment and live as if it really mattered, you can take a step back and see those impulses that may be negative to your health.
4. When life gets tough, don't take it personally. When faced with job loss, a foreclosure, or an impending divorce, it's really hard not to place the blame squarely on your own shoulders and get stuck in the "if only" mind-set. That sort of rumination sets you up for full-blown depression. While it's important to accept responsibility for your actions, the best way to do that is by looking to the present rather than the past. What are you going to do that's different right now, at this moment, to move forward?
5. Put the "being" back in human. If you fill every moment with frenetic activity—work, text messaging, household chores, computer games—you never give yourself a chance to simply be. As corny as it sounds, just sitting for a moment to contemplate the clouds, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the pattern of stalled cars winding around the freeway, is what separates us from the nut-gathering squirrels. And science shows it's a great stress reliever, to boot.
Learn more about the author, David Ebaugh.
Comment on this article
- time management
- personal development
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It’s been said that this world is a tough place to live.
And parts of it are really tough. Places like Antarctica with it’s frigid cold; the top of mountains with their thin air; desserts with their lack of water and vegetation; the oceans with their tidal waves, hurricanes, etc. – places like these are pretty inhospitable to humans.
But it’s not just these sorts of extreme places that are hard to live in. The regular parts of the world are tough too. We learn this as children. We start learn to walk and right way what happens? We trip and fall down on the sidewalk and skin our knees and bump our heads on rocks! We bang up against things and it hurts! Ouch! : )
Yet, God created this world and God said it was good when S/He created the oceans and the land, and all the rocks and creatures in it and God hopes we’ll love it and think it’s good too!
But what God didn’t create and what God doesn’t love is the ways that we tend to run our societies. God doesn’t love it that we’ve created a world where we live by the law of the jungle, where “might makes right,” where we compete and hoard, where powers and domination systems place the overwhelming majority of humanity into abject poverty and misery.
The first major, massive scale, instance of this kind of human created system of power and might was the world’s first territorial empire, the Roman empire. Rome conquered many nations through the means of military, political, economic, and ideological exploitation and domination.
They imposed a Pax Romana – a “Roman peace” – which meant that there was peace unless a nation dared to resist them – and then they’d be brutally squashed back into submission.
When Octavian defeated Anthony and Cleopatra, he changed his name to “Augustus” and the Roman empire took things to an even higher level than ever before. The Romans had just gone through 20 years of civil war and Augustus ended it. He brought peace – 40 years of peace! The people responded, “Thank God! Praise Augustus! He must be Divine!”
And then the Roman “Emperor Cult” was born which was the heart and soul of the Roman Empire. It created a unifying ideology which asserted that Caesar was God, that he was Son of God, that he was Savior, Redeemer, and Lord! And Rome expected all of it’s subject nations to call him those things too.
Well, God had quite enough of that! So when the next Ceasar was in power, a certain Yeshua of Nazareth arrived on the scene. And this Yeshua, this Jesus, from a podunk town in a backwater province on the eastern fringe of the Roman Empire, had the gall to take on and defy that arrogant Roman ideology!
Some of all of this is bit like the story line in the movie The Matrix. In The Matrix,humankind has been relegated to serving as cogs in a machine that they’re powerless to do anything about, as nourishment for a world run by machines. And yet there was a prophesy that a messiah would come along to liberate humanity from their oppressed state.
That savior came in the form of Neo, “the One”, Neo Anderson (meaning “Son of Man”). And it’s no accident that that’s the same title that Jesus referred to Himself as being. But unlike Neo, Jesus’ way wasn’t about fighting back and becoming even better at wielding deadly martial arts and the ways of the world than anyone else.
Instead, the way that Jesus taught was that of out-right defiance and rejection of any powers that be, any powers or principalities that dare to usurp God’s power in God’s world!
Those false powers were the ones who really had the gall! -the gall to create systems which put all of the property and farms into the hands of a few and oppressed the masses by turning them into tenant farmers or share croppers who ended up beholden to debt collectors; the gall to create a system where women had no voice or legal standing but were instead treated as the property of men; the gall to create a system where humans enslaved other humans; the gall to justify oppressing and exploiting the poor, and force young people to fight in wars of expansion; the gall to say worldly leaders and worldly powers are gods instead of God Him/Herself!
But Jesus’ way was a nonviolent way. He didn’t use the world’s ways against the world, He simply said that the worldly powers are impotent – they have no power, that the real power is with God and in the Kingdom of God!
And then Jesus demonstrated that power by reaching out to the people who society had rejected; and He invited people to repent and to change their way of thinking and living so that they could break free from ways which collaborated with the empire so that they could start living freely and abundantly in deep community and communion with one another – sharing all that they have and turning away from the domination system which sought to oppress them!
And then He went into the belly of the beast – right into the Temple in Jerusalem which had been collaborating with Roman dominance and said NO! He condemned the corrupted Temple system which had been blessing the unjust status quo and cooperating with the Roman Empire. He knocked over the tables in the courtyard and boldly confronted the powers and exposed them as frauds. He took back that house for God’s purposes – not Rome’s!
And then…, the “empire struck back”… The domination system conspired against Him and they meted out the worst they could do – they had Him arrested, beaten, and executed. One thing the powers that be can’t tolerate is being rejected and so they rejected Him! They killed Him. As they say in Communist China, “the nail that rises up gets hammered back down.” Take that! End of story… And with that, Jesus’ disciples (at least the men) hid away in fear.
But then, something extraordinary happened. God said, “Uh, No. That isn’t the end of the story!” And though He was indeed good and dead, God amazingly and graciously resurrected Jesus – back to life! Jesus of Nazareth who had been delivered up by the chief priests and executed by Romans under Pontius Pilate, was alive again!
The guards who’d been posted at the tomb ran to tell the chief priests what had happened. Their lives were at stake for failing to prevent the tomb from being opened. To break the Roman seal that had been placed at the entrance to the tomb was against the emperor’s law and punishable by death. So Jesus’ resurrection was an act of civil disobedience. God was breaking Roman law! : )
And then Jesus showed Himself (in a way that I can’t fully explain) to those disciples of His who had run away in fear and when they saw Him and recognized the nail marks on His hands, they came out of hiding! Until they saw Jesus, they viewed the world the way others did. The central reality of their lives had been the power of the system and their own powerlessness in it.
But when they saw Him risen and alive, they unlocked the doors, came out, and began turning the world upside down! At last, they were finally converted! They knew another reality that was bolder, truer, and stronger than the powers that had been paralyzing them with fear. Jesus had risen! And Jesus was Lord – not Caesar!
They saw that all that their rabbi had been teaching them about the Kingdom of God and how it’s ways are better than the world’s ways is true! And that no matter what, even if the worldly powers dish-out the worst they can, even if they end up getting killed too, that even death has lost its sting! Even death can’t stop the truth of God in God’s world!
They took to the streets and started preaching the Gospel of the Grace and Good News of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ!
Yes, the Empire tried hard to stifle their efforts – and thousands of Christians ended up on crosses or being eaten by lions or killed by gladiators in Roman coliseums. But the more they were persecuted, the more their movement spread. And it spread like wildfire! Until, eventually, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire, and the empire itself was dissolved!
Today, the living resurrected Jesus stands before us. He knows us and He knows our fears. We’re afraid of economic hardship, we’re afraid of debt, we’re afraid of diminishing resources and environ-mental destruction. We’re afraid of racial tensions and the growing gulf between the rich and the poor. We’re afraid of the hurt between men and women, between people of different nations, and we’re afraid of a drift toward endless war. We fear for ourselves and our loved ones.
Like those first disciples, we’re afraid of the power of the systems of the world with their armies, their courts, their prisons, their threats. Like them, we fear our own powerlessness, weakness, and sense of inadequacy. We’re insecure, frightened by our emotions, and wary of trusting one another. We feel both the guilt of our sin and the vulnerability of our broken places. Above all, we fear pain, suffering and death.
We too are hiding behind locked doors and are afraid to come out. Jesus knows our fear and wants us to know His resurrection. He says, “Go, tell my disciples that I have risen and that I’m going before them!” He tells us not to doubt but to believe!
Jesus lived and died to liberate us from our sins, our doubts, our fears, and the addictions we use to medicate and numb ourselves. God raised Him from the grave to show us His victory over them and to set us free from their power. And now, Jesus calls us to boldly pick up our crosses and follow Him! Yeah, that’s right! He wants us to follow Him into harm’s way! But He wants us to do so knowing that no matter what, God’ll make things right in the end!
So, what about you and me today? Do we still doubt that Jesus’ way of love, that His “way of the cross” makes much sense in this modern, competitive, dog eat dog world? Do we think that that kind of “suffering servanthood” can make a difference or transform our world of new empires and huge and powerful systems and institutions?
Well, those early disciples felt overwhelmed by the powers and forces that ruled their day, but they were converted! They had become people of the resurrection! They began living lives filled with the fruits of conversion. Friends, we too can know the power of Christ’s resurrection!
Like those first disciples, we need to come out of hiding and see the risen Lord! Seeing is believing, and believing is knowing that we must turn and follow Jesus. The resurrection exposes bogus powers and restores us to right community and to who we really are! I’m not “Roger: a slave to the system!” I’m Roger – free in Christ! Liberated to advocate for justice and to serve God’s people and meet their needs – and nothing’s gonna stop me! And the same is true for you!
Every time we act upon Jesus’ lordship, every time we follow His teachings, we’re demonstrating His victory! Every time we refuse to be controlled by a political or economic system; every time we deny the absolute authority of the state; every time we claim Christ’s freedom over our fear; tear down the walls of race, class, and sex; love our enemies; stand with the poor; forgive those who’ve wronged us, or resist the violence of the nations by acting for peace, we’re demonstrating the victory of Christ in the world!
His victory is present wherever it is claimed and acted upon. Friends, let’s dedicate the rest of our lives to claiming and acting upon this victory! Jesus Christ is risen today!Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.
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Q: We suspect our son has a food allergy to wheat gluten. If this turns out to be the case, what will this mean for his type 1 diabetes management? What kinds of healthy allergen-free meals and snacks would make sense for a child with type 1?
A: On the surface, treating food allergies in kids with type 1 diabetes is really no different than helping any other child avoid foods and ingredients that trigger allergic responses. Eliminating wheat gluten from a child's diet can be tricky, but with the newfound popularity of gluten-free foods, it's easier than ever to find child-friendly choices that a gluten-intolerant child with diabetes can safely eat -- and actually like!
Because your child has diabetes, the extra step that is required of you will be to check the carbohydrate counts of any new allergen-free foods swapped in for old standbys. For example, compared to a serving of your usual brand of boxed macaroni and cheese, most brands of gluten-free mac-n-cheese have higher carbohydrate counts, due to the use of rice flour (versus wheat flour) and other alternative ingredients.
There is one other specific issue that should be addressed: Your child may simply be intolerant to gluten, but it's important to rule out the possibility of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that damages the lining of the small intestine as a reaction to eating gluten. The reason for the concern? While medical science continues to investigate the relationship between celiac disease and type 1 (which is also an autoimmune disease), varying sources report that between 5 and 8 percent of the type 1 diabetes population also has celiac.
To get to the bottom of what's going on with your child's health, the first step is to talk to your diabetes care team. At the children's hospital where I work, all children with type 1 are screened annually for celiac disease via a simple blood test. Many of the children who test positive for celiac antibodies previously displayed sensitivity to wheat-containing foods, but we also see children test positive for antibodies who showed no symptoms. In all cases, further GI testing is needed before an actual diagnosis of celiac disease can be made.
If it does turn out that your child has celiac disease, the solution is to avoid all foods containing gluten, which includes wheat gluten, but also gluten from barley, rye, and oats. You may notice some food products are labeled as "wheat-free." These might be okay foods for a child with a wheat gluten allergy, but celiac disease requires you to carefully check to make sure foods are indeed free of all types of gluten (wheat-free and gluten-free are not one and the same).
The dietitian on your care team will be able to help you make the transition -- and can also provide tips on what foods to avoid and include for your child's overall digestive health and nutrition. It may take some time to master how to spot foods that are hidden sources of gluten, but just like the learning curve you went through to care for your child's type 1, before you know it, you'll be the neighborhood gluten-free expert.
--Megan T. Robinson, M.S., R.D., C.D.E., L.D.N., is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Disclaimer: The information in these articles is not intended as medical advice. Families should check with their healthcare professionals regarding individual care.
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Where a dad of two great kids (one on the autism spectrum) muses about life.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Wizards and a More Colorful Kansas
In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy is transported to a strange place, where every thing is the same, but different. This place is exciting and colorful, but also somewhat scary to her. She wants to get back home (to normalcy-represented by a dreary black and white Kansas) but doesn't know how to get there. In her quest to get back home, she is directed to a wizard, who doesn't initially think she has any way of getting back to Kansas, but he doesn't want to disappoint her.
The wizard puts on a big pyrotechnics display to show how great he is, gets angry at Dorothy when she questions him at all, and promises her if she just does X (get the wicked witch's broom) then Y (getting to go back to normalcy) will happen. Wanting desperately to go home, Dorothy does as the wizard says.
While it's not a perfect analogy, I often think of autism in terms of this movie. When parents first find out that there kid is "different", they don't stop to look at all the wonderful ways that that difference can be good. They don't look at all the ways that their child is essentially the same as all other kids, just different. And so they focus on a quest to "get back to normalcy". In doing so they are guided by a lot of wizards who give false hope to them. These wizards may or may not believe in their false magic, but promise parents that if "they only do X" then they will get back to their precious normalcy.
When the magic doesn't work, they are scorned if they question the wizard. If they do get back to some sense of normalcy, then the magic was obviously responsible.
But once in a while a good witch comes along. One who can show you that you had the capacity to "go back home" all along. All you had to do was look inside yourself to find the person you were, and look at your child and see the person they are. The good witch helps you to see that Kansas doesn't necessarily have to be a dreary black and white place. Kansas can be colorful. There's room in Kansas for all types of people, and if you had looked hard before, you would have seen some of them.
Kevin Leitch is one of those people that have helped to show me that Kansas can be a colorful place, and that we are all the better for it. He has provided a place for all types of people to congregate, and has helped to show that acceptance and inclusion are the keys to a better society for all of us. And I will always be grateful to him for what he has done.
And all the flying monkeys in the world can't change my mind.
Me- Joe, husband of a great wife, and dad to two great kids, who were both adopted at birth.
Liz- My ever understanding wife, who manages to wear many hats (mom, advocate, therapist, teacher) for our kids.
Buddy Boy- Born in 2000. Funny, intelligent, inventive, and autistic. Loves machines.
Sweet Pea- Born in 2002. Typical little sister. Competitive, outgoing, and smart. Loves anything pink.
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Patrick Most, MD
Research and Clinical Interests
In light of this therapeutic dilemma, our research efforts are targeted toward innovative treatments emerging from the investigation of the physiological role, pathophysiological relevance and therapeutic potential of S100 proteins in cardiac and vascular disease.
In the last decade, our group pioneered research focusing on the role of S100 proteins in cardiovascular physiology and disease. In particular, we characterized S100A1, being the cardiac specific S100 isoform, as a novel calcium-dependent inotrope with anti-arrhythmic and anti-apoptotic properties. S100A1 unique inotropic actions in the heart are independent and additive to beta-adrenergic stimulation and cAMP-PKA dependent signaling.
Our work shows that loss of S100A1 in diseased myocardium is a critical factor in heart failure development and progression. Based on these results, we have successfully developed viral- and peptide-based therapeutic approaches to restore S100A1 protein function that can rescue heart failure in different experimental cardiac disease models. Our gene therapy approaches are currently tested in a large animal heart failure model in order to enter clinical testing.
An exciting new option stems from our recent insight into therapeutic options of S100A1 derived peptides. Given the unresolved biological concerns regarding viral-based approaches, S100A1 derived peptides with the identical therapeutical profile than the native protein enable novel and exciting therapeutic options that are currently tested in cellular and small animal HF models
In addition, we have extended our research focus into S100A1 function in endothelial cells and pertinent regulation of vascular function and blood pressure. Although expressed at significantly lower levels than in cardiomyoctes, our lab most recently provided evidence for a crucial role of endothelial S100A1 in endothelial cell NO-homeostasis and RR regulation.
Given the world-wide significance of hypertensive disease, our translational efforts are directed towards development of novel S100A1-based anti-hypertensive therapeutic strategies.
Due to known extracellular S100 functions, we have most recently identified S100A1 as a novel cardiac alarmin being released upon ischemic damage from cardiomyocytes in the extracellular environment and circulation. S100A1 participates in MI infarct healing through modulation of post-MI inflammation and recruitment of stem cells to the site of cardiac injury.
Our efforts are directed towards therapeutic use and manipulation of MI-released S100A1 to improve post-MI healing and regeneration.
Most Recent Peer-reviewed Publications
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Leprosy comes down in East Godavari: DC
Kakinada, Jan 30 : East Godavari District Collector Neethu Kumary today said the case of Leprosy had come down drastically owing to the effective implementation of Multi drug therapy programme.
Inaugurating the Leprosy control programme coinciding with the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi at Gandhi park here today, she said, Bapuji showed special affection towards lepers and proved to the society by his actions that no social stigma needed to be attached to them.
"There are eight to nine cases for every 10,000 population and only 109 new cases were reported last year. Multi drug therapy is the best to treat the lepers preventing deformity The disease could be cured if detected early," she added.
The Leprosy control programme advisor Dr Akshay Kumar said a programme to prevent deformity among lepers was taken up in the district as a three year pilot project which is to conclude by this year end.
Additional District Medical and Health Officer Dr M Pavan Kumar said the multi drug therapy was started during 1987 and by its effective implementation, the incidence of Leprosy was brought down from 118 cases for every 10,000 population to 0-6 cases.
There are 17 leprosy colonies in the district, where 490 lepers are residing, he said.
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World's Columbian Exposition: Idea, Experience, Aftermath
Illustrated history of the World's Columbian exposition in Chicago (1893), including a virtual tour of the fair and suggestions for further reading. Provides an extensive, well-illustrated, and scholarly examination, with detailed descriptions, an interesting narrative, and historical analysis. A highlight of the presentation is an essay on contemporary reactions--official and unofficial--to the White City, the Midway, and the messages of the fair.
Interactive Guide to the World's Columbian Exposition
History of the World's Columbian Exposition, with illustrations, links, and a bibliography. The text is from Hubert Howe Bancroft's The Book of the Fair (1893).
Ida B. Wells, A Passion for Justice
A brief biography of Wells with several questions, an image, and other relevant links.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Passion for Justice
A brief biography of Wells with a bibliography for further study and a link to Lynch Law in Georgia, by Ida B. Wells-Barnett, in the American Memory Collection of the National Digital Library.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Crossing Boundaries, Making Connections
A brief biography of Wells with several of her writings, including Lynch Law in America, Lynch Law in Georgia, and A Letter To the Members of the Anti-Lynching Bureau.
IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT (1862-1931)
A brief biography of Wells with an image in a Profile of African Americans in Tennessee History.
Ida B. Wells on Lynching
A quote from Ida B. Wells, on Lynching, 1909 with an image.
Ida B. Wells (Barnett), Co-founder of the NAACP
A brief biography of Wells.
African American Odyssey
A presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition, The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, which highlights parts of the Library's large African American collection. Both the exhibition and the Library include rare books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.
"Reading Aright": White Slavery, Black Referents, and The Strategy of Histotextuality in Iola Leroy
This paper appears in the Yale Journal of Criticism (Fall 1997). The paper describes the goal of the New England Female Moral Reform Society as to protect innocent women from corrupt men as well as to reform "fallen" women who had lost respectability because of those unprincipled men. The author connects this goal with the argument of many African-Americans at the end of the nineteenth century, including Ida B. Wells, that powerful white men acted as the destroyers of the virtue of African-American women. She argues that African-American women hoped that the shared analysis of male power would help them align with white feminists.
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You’re always asking us for new kids’ apps and here’s our latest picks. My four-year-old was like a duck to water when we got our iPad and he’s been furtively trying out the latest batch.
The standout favourite was the interactive story book Slice of Bread goes to the Beach by Glenn Melenhorst. As you may already know, I have a fondness for a quality app with Australian accents and content. My son really enjoys them in particular, seeming to prefer the familiar accent.
Slice of Bread goes to the Beach is about just that! He’s quite an endearing bit of bread and he has a few hiccups along the way. You can choose for the story to be told, or use it like a traditional story book where you do the reading.
The app has some quirky features that your child can access while the text is read so make sure to tap around the screen to see what happens. My boy loves this aspect of the app, but I won’t let on what they are so you too can be surprised! It’s $2.99 from the App Store and will suit children of all ages, depending on how it’s used.
Next up is Ani’mots which suits older children up to about age eight who have basic, emerging and sound literacy skills. It’s a cute crossword app with lots of different puzzles of varying animal name difficulty (there’s a koala in there!) and is a great way to introduce your child to an absorbing hobby. Features include audio to check letter and word sounds and customisable functions.
Games for Kids is a really attractively presented app with appealing graphics and six games (see above) that kids love. You get used to the rather overt American accent in no time and the games are engaging for both older and younger children thanks to the three levels of difficulty.
This app facilitates opportunity for interaction between an adult and child, or an older sibling and younger child as strategies can be discussed and help with reading can be provided if the audio for doing this is not selected. The games can be played in six languages so if you have a bilingual (or more) household, you will find this very useful!
Games for Kids is 99 cents from the App Store.
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|Born||Barton Michael Biggs
November 26, 1932
|Died||July 14, 2012(aged 79)|
|Alma mater||Yale University
New York University
|Known for||Founder of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Predictor of dot-com bubble|
Barton Michael Biggs (November 26, 1932 – July 14, 2012) was a money manager whose attention to emerging markets marked him as one of the world's first and foremost global investment strategists, a position he held—after inventing it in 1985—at Morgan Stanley, where he worked as a partner for over 30 years. Following his retirement in 2003, he founded Traxis Partners, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, based in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is best known for accurately predicting the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s.
Early life and education
Biggs was born on November 26, 1932, in New York City, named for his maternal grandmother, whose last name was Barton. He grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and in Washington, D.C. His paternal grandfather, Hermann M. Biggs, was the top public-health official in New York and instituted measures that contributed to the eradication of tuberculosis. Biggs' father was the chief investment officer of Bank of New York, working at the company from 1931 until his death in 1974. He also renegotiated defense contracts for the U.S. government during World War II and was executive committee chairman of the Brookings Institution.
Biggs enrolled at Yale University, his father's alma mater. He studied under poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren as an English major and was a member of the Elihu secret society. After graduating in 1955, Biggs served in the U.S. Marines for three years, taught English at the Landon School, a prep school in Bethesda, Maryland, played semiprofessional soccer, and tried his hand at creative writing.
At age 18, Biggs was given a portfolio of 15 stocks worth about $150,000, but he showed little interest in finance and investing in his youth. He ended up choosing that career path after feeling left out from conversations between his father and younger brother, Jeremy, who worked at a pension fund. He took his father's advice and read Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, first published in 1934. He graduated from NYU Stern School of Business with distinction.
Biggs joined E. F. Hutton upon graduation in 1961, with a starting salary of $7,200 a year. In 1965, Biggs co-founded one of the industry's first hedge funds, Fairfield Partners. During his eight-year tenure there, the fund returned 133 percent; whereas the S&P 500 returned a mere 19 percent.
Biggs joined Morgan Stanley as a managing director and general partner in May 1973. As the firm's first research director, he established Morgan Stanley Investment Management in 1975. Biggs served on the bank's board until 1996 and retired from the company in 2003 at age 70. He claimed to have left Morgan Stanley partly because his job had evolved into managing people rather than formulating strategy.
After leaving Morgan Stanley in 2003, Biggs founded hedge fund Traxis Partners, where he remained until his death. According to Madhav Dhar, Biggs' partner, he enjoyed the intellectual challenge of running a fund.
Financial predictions
Dot-com bubble
He "sealed his fame" as an investor when he correctly predicted the dot-com bubble at a time the Dow Jones Industrial Average was posting annual gains that had averaged 25 percent from 1995 to 1999. In a July 1999 interview in Bloomberg Television, Biggs called the U.S. stock market “the biggest bubble in the history of the world”, a view that was dismissed by the industry until March 2000, when the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 78 percent.
2007-2012 global financial crisis
Barton Biggs was blindsided by the 2007–2012 global financial crisis:
Barton Biggs's Traxis Fund LP tumbled 10 percent in the first half of the year, hurt by bets that U.S. shares would appreciate. As recently as May, Biggs, 75, said the U.S. economy will grow in the second half of 2008, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index may climb to a record and commodity prices will retreat as much as 30 percent.
However, he correctly called the bottom in U.S. stocks in March 2009, and that year Traxis’s flagship fund returned three times the industry average.
Other predictions
He had predicted the bull market in U.S. stocks that began in 1982. He also predicted the bearish market in Japanese stocks in 1989, when the Nikkei 225 stock index was approaching its peak, from which it tumbled more than 77 percent. On the other hand, he was incorrectly bullish on Mexico shortly before the peso crashed in 1994. In March 2003, Biggs predicted that U.S.stocks would rise up to 50 percent, and more for emerging markets; the former climbed as much as 88 percent, while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose more than fourfold.
Awards and accolades
His influence could be seen when, in 1996, some traders were surprised that India funds suddenly became popular. "Barton Biggs is there, having a look around", one trader said. "Do you need to know more?" Biggs was named by Institutional Investor magazine to its "All-America Research Team" ten times, and was voted the top global strategist and first in global asset allocation from 1996 to 2000 by the magazine's "Investor Global Research Team" poll. 'SmartMoney' magazine once called him "the ultimate big-picture man ... the premier prognosticator on the international scene and a mover of markets from Argentina to Hong Kong. It wouldn't be a stretch to say Biggs wrote the book on emerging-market investing".
Personal life
Biggs and his wife, Judith Anne Lund had three children; the marriage ended in divorce. At the time of his death, Biggs lived in Connecticut. He died from complications arising from a bacterial infection.
Biggs was the author of Hedgehogging, which came from a journal kept by the former creative writing major at Yale and chronicles some of the indignities of being in the hedge fund business as well as its "very brilliant and often eccentric and obsessive people". He wrote about quirks of hedge fund culture; he noted that golf was very popular, perhaps due to its "measurable" nature similar to investing. "Or", he wrote, "maybe it's because hedge-fund guys are so competitive and have such massive egos".
Biggs was also author of the 2008 book Wealth, War and Wisdom. He had a gloomy outlook for the economic future, and suggests that investors take survivalist measures, such as looking into "polar cities" as safe refuges for future survivors of global warming. Biggs recommended that his readers should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure”. He went so far as to recommend planning adaptation strategies now and setting up survival retreats: “Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food”, Mr. Biggs wrote. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”
- Stanton, Elizabeth (16 July 2012). "Traxis Partners Founder Barton Biggs Dies At Age 79". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
- "Hedge Funds," article by Lawrence C. Strauss, SmartMoney.com Web site, June 1, 2006, accessed August 18, 2006
- "Morgan Stanley's Biggs Shares Pain of Top Hedge-Fund Players," a review of Biggs' book Hedgehogging by Jeffrey Burke at Bloomberg News Web site, January 6, 2006, accessed August 18, 2006
- News release from Morgan Stanley, January 17, 2006, "Barton Biggs to Become a Consultant to Morgan Stanley after 30 Years with the Firm; Will Advise Morgan Stanley Hedge Fund as Founder of New Firm," accessed August 18, 2006
- "Barton Biggs Shines a Light on Hedge Funds" by Jim Zarroli, National Public Radio Morning Edition, February 20, 2006, accessed August 18, 2006.
- "Soros Successors Thiel, Howard Prove Global Bears Rule Markets," by Katherine Burton at Bloomberg News Web site, J August 1, 2008
- Web page titled "Pundit Watch: Barton Biggs" at the Web site of Smart Money magazine, no date, accessed August 18, 2006
- 308 pages; Wiley; 2006; ISBN 0-471-77191-0
- 358 pages; Wiley; January 2008; ISBN 978-0-470-22307-9
- Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism - New York Times
- Wiley (December 28, 2010), ISBN 978-0-470-60454-0
- Barton Biggs on Charlie Rose
- Works by or about Barton Biggs in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Collected news coverage at Bloomberg
- Collected news coverage at San Francisco Chronicle
- "Barton Biggs’s Hedge-Fund Heroes Pile Up Zeroes in Gilded Fable," (Review of Biggs' novel A Hedge Fund Tale), Bloomberg, January 17, 2011
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and Indians' Advocate
Wednesday, March 31, 1830
Vol. II, no. 50
Page 2, col. 2a
In a short debate that occurred in the House of Representatives a few days since, respecting the disposal of a Report from the committee on Indian Affairs, the feeling that has been excited in the public mind respecting the removal of the Indians was said to be founded on misapprehension.- Mr. Buchanan and others stated that it was commonly believed that the Indians were to be removed from the Southern States, by force. The prevalence of this belief was said to be evident from the Memorials that had been presented.
We must be permitted to doubt the correctness of these remarks of the honorable gentleman. We have read what the newspapers have said on the subject with come care, and have attentively examined the published accounts of the proceedings of "Indian meetings;" and neither in these nor in the memorials that we have seen, nor yet in our personal intercourse with individuals deeply interested in the matter, have we ever discovered the least trace of the alleged misapprehension. For our own part, we have published official documents disclaiming any such intention, and have more than once stated editorially that no such outrage was intended. Nay, we have published an article from the pen of a Cherokee, shewing (sic) that even the Indians have no such apprehensions of forcible measures, as Mr. Buchanan speaks of. Nothing more is apprehended, we presume, by the memorialists generally, than what they find recommended or sanctioned by official documents. They fear only,
1. That the Indian territory will be occupied by a military force. [See Col. M'Kenney's Report, in Documents accompanying the Report of the Secretary of War, page 165]
2. That attempts will be made to bribe the Chiefs to sell their country. [See instructions from the Secretary of War to Generals Carroll and Coffee, ib. p. 178]
3. That the Indians will be deprived of the right of self-government--[See law of Georgia, of Dec. 20th, 1828. Sec. 8; and the Message of the President of the U. S. of Dec. 8, 1829.]
4. That they will be deprived of all their lands except those which they have already "improved by their industry." [See Message as above.]
5. That the Indians will be disfranchised-made subject to the laws of states, in which they will not be admitted to the rights of citizenship.- [See Law of Georgia, as above, section 9, and President's Message, as above.
6. That, therefore, should avowed policy of our National Executive be pursued, the Indians must either remove, or suffer, in the home of their fathers; the most oppressive and intolerable wrong.
7. That all this will be done by a violation, on the part of the United States, of the most sacred obligations [See Indian treaties, passim.-Chancellor Kent, Johnson's Reports, Vol. XX.-U. S. Sup. Court, Cranch's Reports, Vol. VI and Wheaton's Reports, Vol. VIII.]
This is all!!!- except that they generally agree with the Indians in believing that a removal to the West would be their destruction.
Jour. of Hu.
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NEW YORK — Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimates Superstorm Sandy caused a whopping $19 billion in losses in New York City. He’s asking federal lawmakers to put up nearly $10 billion to reimburse both government agencies and private businesses.
The mayor’s request Monday would come on top of a projected $5.4 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Bloomberg says that money, and private insurance, won’t cover all the public and private expenses from the storm. They could range from rebuilding roads to reimbursing a restaurant for lost business while power was out.
States typically get 75 percent FEMA reimbursement for disaster recovery. Congress sometimes authorizes additional aid.
The request comes as Congress and the White House face a Dec. 31 deadline to craft a sweeping deficit-reduction plan and avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
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Since it expired in September, Congress has not advanced a comprehensive farm bill, but that could be changing soon if Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow of Michigan has her way.
Without a five-year ag bill, some dairy farmers have been among the hardest hit as a safety net programs have expired and cattle farmers struggled over the summer without a drought relief program. Other important benefactors of the legislation, however, have yet to notice its expiration. Farmers needing crop insurance have been able to access it and food assistance programs have continued to be paid for through other funding channels.
Not to mention, Washington's been a little preoccupied with how to stop nearly $1.2 trillion in automatic funding cuts from taking hold in January.
Yet as the fiscal cliff takes center stage in Congress, Stabenow has used the opportunity to remind her colleagues the five-year farm bill, which is stalled in the House, could be the solution to help lawmakers veer away from the fiscal cliff.
The Senate version of the bill, which passed with bipartisan support in June saves $23 billion with cuts to nutritional assistance programs and farm subsidies over 10 years. The House version of the bill could potentially save $35 billion and passed out of committee, but has yet to come to the floor for a vote.
"The farm bill is one of the only bills that provides substantial deficit reduction that passed the Senate this year," Stabenow says. "It only makes sense that this deficit reduction bill would be included in a larger deficit reduction agreement."
Stabenow's counterpart, House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas of Oklahoma has also signaled a willingness to move the farm bill forward on the fiscal cliff's coattails.
"Whether it is the 23 billion from the Senate bill or the 35 billion in entitlement reform and savings in the House version, [and] if there is indeed some kind of big agreement worked out to address the national debt," the farm bill is a good place to start, he said during an interview on AgriTalk radio.
Agriculture groups, desperate to see a farm bill pass before the end of the year, say they are doing all they can to pressure lawmakers to wrap the farm bill into a fiscal cliff bargain
The National Farmer's Union is among the growing chorus asking President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to include the farm bill in their deficit reduction plan.
"There is a simple way to avoid the proverbial fiscal cliff and that is to pass what many can agree on now: raise additional revenues but also reduce expenditures. Besides increasing some taxes, strategic cuts should be made to government spending, and among them should be the inclusion of a five-year farm bill," says Roger Johnson, the president of the National Farmers Union.
For many groups, getting a farm bill passed before the first of the year remains their top priority. And with time running out, the fiscal cliff looks to be the last way it could happen before the 113th Congress is sworn in and Congress must start from scratch.
"This is a no brainier for White House and House Republicans to grab it. It is a package deal," says Jess Peterson, vice president of the National Cattlemen's Association.
Any savings found in the farm bill, however, will merely be a small step toward deficit reduction.
House Republicans initial offer to avoid the fiscal cliff called for $2.2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years while the House version of the Farm bill would only contribute $35 billion and the Senate version would only turn over $23 billion in savings over the next decade.
- Capitol Christmas Tree Blessed in Secret Ceremony
- 5 Reasons Why Prohibition Was Awesome
- Texas Nationalists: Membership Has Soared 400 Percent
Lauren Fox is a political reporter for U.S. News & World Report. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org or you can follow her on Twitter @foxreports.
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|calendar>>February 4. 2013 Juch 102|
Poem "For My Only Motherland" Popular among DPRK People
| Pyongyang, February 4 (KCNA) -- Poem "For My Only Motherland", composed by Hero of the Republic Ri Su Bok, is avidly recited by people, especially youths, in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
In the period of the Fatherland Liberation War (June 1950-July 1953) Ri Su Bok silenced a firing enemy pillbox with his body at the age of 18 to open a route of charge for his military unit.
The poem says in part, "Nothing is more glorious than to dedicate my life to my one and only motherland."
Kim Ho Chol, an officer of the Korean People's Army, told KCNA:
"Now when the anti-DPRK moves of the United States and other hostile forces have reached a danger line, the poem fans up ardent patriotism among servicepersons.
To us, Supreme Commander Marshal Kim Jong Un represents our motherland and so there is no more valuable life than to devotedly defend him even at the cost of life.
All servicepersons are fully ready to risk their lives in an all-out action for defending the nation's sovereignty as Ri Su Bok did."
Ri Song Ho, a student of Pyongyang University of Architecture who recently volunteered for military service, said:
"Hero Ri Su Bok's poem is well known to all the Korean youths in the Songun (military-first) era.
Since the spirit of the hero remains alive in the hearts of millions of local young people, the DPRK will emerge victorious in a showdown with the U.S."
With the poem kept in their mind, graduates of secondary schools across the country are now volunteering to join the KPA, determined to defend their motherland at the cost of their lives.
Copyright (C) KOREA NEWS SERVICE(KNS) All Rights Reserved.
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Mabry-Hazen House Birthday Celebration for Miss Evelyn
October 14, 2012 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
The Mabry-Hazen House invites you to Miss Evelyn Hazen’s Birthday Celebration on Sunday, October 14 from 2 to 5 p.m. Each year we explore another part of Miss Hazen’s family history. This year author Jack Neely will give a talk on Joseph Mabry, Miss Hazen’s grandfather and builder of the historic home.
Afterwards, visitors will enjoy a selection of birthday cakes, as well as a guided tour of the museum. Tickets costs are $10 per person with no cost to members. The purchase of a Membership is encouraged.
Tickets and Memberships may be purchased in advance by visiting www.mabryhazen.com or calling 865-522-8661. Please RSVP by October 12.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Local author Jack Neely is the Associate Editor for the Metro Pulse and a monthly humor columnist for Knoxville Magazine. His Metro Pulse column, Secret History, has entertained readers since 1992. He has lectured on journalism, history, architecture, music, and literature at UT, Maryville College, and other institutions. His book “Market Square: A History of the Most Democratic Place on Earth” explores Knoxville’s well-known marketplace, which was co-donated by Joseph Mabry in 1853.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Built in 1858, The Mabry-Hazen House is strategically located on the highest hill east of downtown Knoxville with spacious views in all directions. The home was occupied and defended by both armies during the Civil War. It housed three generations of the same family for 130 years; the museum showcases one of the largest original family collections in America. Your attendance will help support the museum’s mission to preserve and educate the public about an important part of East Tennessee history. Please call 865-522-8661 or visit www.mabryhazen.com for more information.
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You may think your boss is a bit of a blowhard, but when was the last time you threatened suicide over the way s/he treats you? Well, that's exactly what 300 employees of Foxconn, the Taiwan-based contract manufacturing partner to many of the world's tech giants including Microsoft and Apple, did on Jan. 2.
The employees were protesting the working conditions of Foxconn in China after the company failed to make good on promised compensation. In lieu of the raise, the workers were told they could quit with compensation or retain their jobs without a pay increase. Most quit and never saw a dime.
The factory was shut down, and production on the likes of the Xbox 360 slowed.
You'd think Foxconn would learn, since this isn't exactly a new experience for the company: in 2010, nine employees committed suicide during a five-month period, which led to much news coverage (and, following the media coverage, higher worker salaries).
Of course, even with that media coverage, Xbox and iPod sales didn't decrease.
Yesterday, Microsoft and Foxconn claimed the worker unrest has been quelled and agreements have been reached (refusing, of course, comment on the whole mass suicide threat part of it).
Ironically, and a little sadly, this was all happening during the Consumer Electronics Show, which offers many gadgets folks at Foxconn and similar companies are making.
Considering the frequency of these problems, it would be pretty surprising if there weren't more problems this year, but for now the companies claim it's been resolved.
There were no causalities (a pretty damn sad statement to have when discussing a protest), but not all the workers stayed on with the company, according to the New York Times.
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- Jim van Os, professor of psychiatric epidemiology1,
- Robin M Murray, professor of psychiatric research2
- 1Maastricht University Medical Centre, South Limburg Mental Health Research and Teaching Network, EURON, Maastricht, Netherlands
- 2King’s Health Partners, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK
In a linked meta-analysis, Stafford and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.f185) provide evidence that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) may show some modest benefits in preventing transition to psychosis at 12 months’ follow-up in patients at high risk.1 In doing so, they summarise a huge amount of work on interventions to prevent psychosis. However, this approach assumes that a discrete state of high risk for psychosis exists, an assumption that has increasingly been challenged.
Traditionally, phenomena such as delusions and hallucinations (hereafter, psychosis) were thought to be diagnostic indicators of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. However, psychotic symptoms are more common than was previously realised. They are present—at various degrees of severity—in about 5% of the general population who are not seeking help; in about 25% of people with (non-psychotic) common mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression; and in around 80% of patients with psychotic disorders.2
Low grade psychotic phenomena in those not seeking help are associated with an increased relative risk—albeit low absolute risk—of later psychotic disorder, and, more surprisingly, also of non-psychotic mental disorder.3 Furthermore, low grade psychotic symptoms in people with common mental disorders predict a poorer prognosis, similar …
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I've long been obsessed by the notion of Antarctica. Back when I was 20 I decided to write an action thriller set in Antarctica. I'm not sure why, it's not really my genre, and I don't really write. Pity I didn't get round to doing it though, now Matthew Reilly has been there and done that, and my ideas would just seem derivative.
I always do enjoy tales of people journeying to Antarctica, so of course was keen to get my hands on Alison Lester's latest book, Sophie Scott Goes South. I saw Alison Lester speak at the CBCA Conference in Adelaide in May.
Sophie Scott Goes South is somewhat of a collaborative effort. In 2005 Alison Lester made the long journey south herself on the Aurora Australis from Hobart (5475km each way!). She sent daily emails to schools and families around the world. Children often drew responses to her emails and sent their artworks to Alison Lester. She then created the Kids Antarctic Art Project. There are lots of amazing resources, articles and images about this project online. Alison often manipulated or compiled the children's images to make them her own. She describes that process here. There has been a touring exhibition of those artworks for several years, although I haven't been lucky enough to see it.
Sophie Scott is a 9 year old girl whose father is the captain of the Aurora Australia. She goes with him for a 5 week supply journey to Antarctica. Presented in diary format Sophie tells the story of her voyage- her anticipation, the cramped sleeping arrangements in the cabin she shares with her Dad, the astonishing journey with massive seas and seasickness. The voyage south is exhilarating despite the extremes of weather. Icebergs. Penguins. Seals and whales.
Fully illustrated by the beautiful pictures from the Kids Antarctic Project and also by photographs that Alison Lester took on her trip. Sophie Scott Goes South conveys a lot of information as well as telling a story. Antarctic explorers. Icebergs. The amazing weather at the bottom of the world, and glimpses into how people survive there.
Yet all written with a view to kids.
We threw lolly-coloured streamers to the people waving and held on until the streamers snapped and the water between us got wider and wider.
Antarctica is an important place. One that needs to be protected for future generations, and for itself. I hope I get to visit myself one day, and make my own Antarctic diary just like Sophie.
An Illustrated Year is hosted by An Abundance of Books.
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A dose of inspiration for caregiving professionals and the millions of souls who help care for family and friends
Over 54 million people in America help care for ailing or recovering family members and friends and millions more give of themselves to others through day care, eldercare, emergency and community service.
While rewarding, care giving requires tremendous emotional, physical and spiritual stamina. Chicken Soup for the Caregiver's Soul offers a respite to those who give care through inspiring and uplifting stories about the work they do and its power to transform lives.
Through awe-inspiring glimpses of real-life experiences of others, readers will find the motivation to overcome a challenging day, welcome recognition for their selfless contributions, and the encouragement to continue making a positive difference in others' lives.
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On a trip on the Tokyo subway last year, almost everyone ignored the young man talking on one wireless phone, messaging with another and juggling a third.
Such cell phone overload would almost certainly get noticed in the US, which lags the rest of the developed world in wireless use.
An estimated 57 percent of the US population chats on wireless phones -- not much greater than the percentage of wireless phone users in much poorer Jamaica, where 54 percent of the people have mobile phones, according to the International Telecommunications Union.
By comparison, in Hong Kong there are 105.75 mobile subscribers for every 100 inhabitants. In Taiwan, there are 110.
Sprint Corp's US$35 billion deal this week to buy Nextel Communications Inc is likely to spark another round of price wars and handset giveaways in the US, but it will take more than industry consolidation and aggressive marketing to increase use.
Why? The reasons range from credit checks to network quality to coverage areas.
Wireless networks elsewhere are simply better than those in the US, said Albert Lin, an analyst at American Technology Research.
"For a long time, the US had way too many networks being supported by not enough investment," he said. "The quality of US networks is only now coming close to the quality you would see in major European and Asian markets."
Not that the European model was perfect: Companies there paid US$125 billion for licenses to operate "third-generation" mobile networks that enable European users to zap videos and data by phone. The result: Mountains of debt, but a chance to sell phones packed with features James Bond would love. That hasn't been the case in the US.
Wireless companies were the No. 2 sector for complaints to Better Business Bureaus last year, trailing only car dealers. They were the second-lowest ranked industry in the University of Michigan's customer satisfaction index, second only to the hated cable companies.
One reason US consumers are miffed is what Forrester Research analyst Lisa Pierce calls "big holes in rural coverage." In the Tampa, Florida, area where she lives, her wireless calls start breaking up one mile south of her home. Her husband uses a different carrier; his calls break up one mile north.
Another reason for lower cell phone use in the US is how service is sold. The largest carriers sell phones by subscription, requiring a credit check and a commitment of at least one year.
"We have tapped out the prime-credit segment in the US," said Roger Entner, a Yankee Group analyst. "Everyone who wants to have a wireless phone and can pass a credit check has one. Everyone who can pass a credit check and doesn't have one -- after ten years of a continuous barrage [of advertising], they're not going to cave."
If the industry wants more users, it will have to change its business model to embrace people with iffy credit who are willing to buy prepaid phones, he said.
Companies are hesitant to do that because it doesn't help them with Wall Street analysts, who score wireless companies' stock by the number of subscribers added to their networks, the average revenue per user and the rate customers drop their service, a figure known in the industry as "churn."
Prepaid customers won't help average revenue per user, so the largest mobile companies aren't interested, Entner said.
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Competition is good. Interesting because for the last few days I have been home in the USA and the general sentiment has been a bit shocking. I’m sure it’s a combination of things but probably most importantly due to the fact that next year is an election year, the unemployment rate is hovering around 9% and the gradual erosion of real income/wages has persisted for longer than most of us are willing to admit.
The focus is on jobs. Growing the economy by putting people back to work. And the idea I’m seeing expressed is the push for manufacturing to return to the USA. The best supporting argument I have heard so far is that every manufacturing job creates an average of three (3) jobs within the economy, while a service job (on average) creates only 1.5 other jobs.
So obviously the first step is to start setting up factories in the United States, manufacturing products and subsequently deciding whether to export or use the supply to quench domestic demand. This means that companies who mainly design products & manage brands while leaving the manufacturing to China may look to cut back some overseas manufacturing and bring a substantial amount back to the USA for the sake of growing the economy. In addition, I’m sure the good press from buying locally wouldn’t hurt the company’s brand.
But will they start buying everything from the states? Will this lead to direct competition between Chinese & American manufacturers? Who will eventually benefit from this?
Buy everything from the States? Just as it took time for the manufacturing sector of the American economy to slow down, it will take time to re-gain momentum. Manufacturers will have to find competitive ways to buy raw materials, put in place the processes/machinery to produce the desired product(s), manage logistics, etc. It can happen with time, but just as with anything, proficiency will come with trial & error. Thus, I think companies will move some of their manufacturing to domestic facilities & leave some in China.
Will this lead to direct competition? I don’t really think so. There is a LOT to go around on this level. By engaging the international marketplace, I think the idea is more to find a niche area where you have specialization of trade. This simply means that you have specialized in an area to the point where you can call yourself an expert.
In our company, we manufacture & export promotional goods. These could be for anything from a new movie to a new product launch. The items are usually relatively inexpensive & usually metal, plastic or knit wear. For these “trinkets” I just don’t think a country as developed as the USA will be able to compete with a developing country like China. There are still many, many places in China where the average salary is less than USD 200 per month. True, the average salary is increasing in China but increasing fairly slowly.
But I do think the USA will be extremely competitive when dealing in more “high technology” items or products that involve design/creative development in conjunction with manufacturing. I recently read that Mars (the company that makes Snickers, Mars bars, etc) is bringing a large factory back to the USA. I have heard of others as well and I don’t think it will lead to direct competition. Sure, there will be some overlap but the areas of specialty and strength are different for the two countries & there is enough room for the two to co-exist. There are certainly people/businesses around the world that need these American & Chinese made products.
Who will benefit? Everyone! As I said in the beginning, competition is good. With competition companies will be held to a strict standard on pricing because there will be many alternatives. This is good for consumers. Manufacturers will attain increased efficiency in the area of specialization & gain the core competencies that allow them to eventually own more of their value chain (i.e. produce raw materials, find better ways to train employees, etc). Both economies will benefit because we are so interdependent. This progress will help our Sino-American relationship in many ways.
I’m looking forward to seeing the next few years as the manufacturing sector in the USA matures. Their progress will naturally take the form of the natural resources in the area, the creativity of the individuals & the kinds of companies involved (i.e. cell phones, automobiles, solar technology, food/beverage, hospitality). There will be companies that push the envelope with their ability to find ways to navigate through tough environments. With this innovation, some will fail but those who succeed will define the American form of manufacturing. More important than direct competition is getting into the game. Get started and get some momentum going. This will propel the economy into a direction where people can reasonably expect to get a job and control their own future.
By relying too heavily on service-based jobs, any country would lose the core competencies involved in manufacturing. So move back! Make manufacturing a priority. Give tax incentives for manufacturing domestically. Reward productivity and innovation. And most of all develop students interested in supporting the manufacturing sector.
With this formula, no country can lose in the long run. Innovation and manufacturing together will lead in the direction of controlling more of your products and thus controlling more of your destiny…
This is true globalization… Good luck to all involved!
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Living Up To The Truth
|by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb|
Third Revised Edition
Originally Transcribed by Joshua Hermelin
Explanation of these symbols
Table of Contents
- The Relevance of Religion
- Religion: Pragmatism or Truth?
- Belief and Action: Criteria for Responsible Decision
- True Predictions
- Revelation and Miracles - the Kuzari Principle
- Jewish Survival - the Fact and its Implications
- Summary and Conclusion
The following text is being provided to you by Ohr Somayach Institutions, Jerusalem. You may view it, download it, print it, and distribute it. However, the material is Copyright © 1997 by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb. The text may not be used for commercial purposes or published in ANY form without the express written permission of the author.
Rabbi Dr. Gottlieb is a former professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, is an internationally acclaimed lecturer and author of several books. He is presently a senior lecturer at Ohr Somayach Institutions in Jerusalem.
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'Contento Ernesto?' he asked. 'Muy contento.' 'So am I,' he said. 'You saw how he [the bull] was? You saw everything about him?' 'I think so,' I said. 'Let's eat at Fraga.' 'Good.' 'Be careful on the road.' 'see you in Fraga,' I said." Thus the great matador Antonio Ordonez in conversation with Papa Hemingway after a brilliant performance in Barcelona. Hemingway fanticos may relish such moments of self-parody (there are many others) in this account of the duel, over the summer of 1959, between Ordonez and Luis Mignel Dominguin; few others will. The text is a whittled-down version (45,000 words from 70,000) of an article commissioned by the old Life. It has a long, loving introduction by James Michener (who calls The Old Man and the Sea an "incandescent miracle") and a glossary of bullfight terms taken from Death in the Afternoon (1932). The Hemingway we find here is old, tired, and writing from mechanical instinct. He befriends Ordonez, whom he passionately admires (though they call one another socio to minimalize sticky emotions), and whose ultimate victory over Dominguin he can't help savoring. The air is as thick with machismo as a sweaty locker room. Bullfighting, Papa says, is "worthless without rivalry." He is indignant over shaving the bull's horns and other danger-lessening gimmicks. He describes all the cornadas Antonio and Luis Miguel receive, with grim fascination. He shoots lighted cigarettes out of Antonio's mouth with a .22 rifle. He warns against bringing one's wife to Pamplona: "You'll probably lose her to a better man than you." Though he professes to be still enraptured by the corridas, his accounts of them grind monotonously. By contrast, his feel for the Spanish landscape is sometimes acute, although by now it evokes no political memories. With another byline, this would be readable if self-indulgent stuff; with Hemingway's, just further evidence of artistic and personal exhaustion.
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Australia 'rock solid' in WikiLeaks cables
Australia is described as a "rock solid" but uninfluential US ally in secret US government documents made public by the controversial whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks.
A small number of the 250,000 cables have been released, leaving the US government in damage control and warning the release of the top-secret documents could endanger lives.
About 930 of the WikiLeaks documents were written by US officials in Australia, but it is not yet clear what information they contain and the WikiLeaks website was struggling under the massive amount of traffic.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland says he has established a taskforce to deal with any fallout from the new leaks, which he describes as of a "real concern" to the Government.
Mr McClelland says the Australian Federal Police is assessing if any Australian laws had been broken.
One confidential document from the US Embassy in Harare, seen by ABC News Online, describes Australia as a "rock solid" ally of the US.
The cable, with the subject line "The End is Nigh", was classified by Ambassador Christopher W Dell, who describes president Robert Mugabe as "more clever and more ruthless than any other politician in Zimbabwe".
"To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactitian [sic] and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalise the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda," he wrote.
"The regime has become so used to calling the shots and dictating the pace that the merest stumble panics them. Many local observers have noted that Mugabe is panicked and desperate about hyperinflation at the moment, and hence he's making mistakes. Possibly fatal mistakes.
"We need to keep the pressure on in order to keep Mugabe off his game and on his back foot, relying on his own shortcomings to do him in."
Mr Dell goes on to describe the UK as "ham-strung by its colonial past and domestic politics" and says the EU is "divided between the hard north and its soft southern underbelly.
"Rock-solid partners like Australia don't pack enough punch to step out front and the United Nations is a non-player," he adds.
Wider probe needed
Defence has already established a taskforce after the previous two releases by WikiLeaks of information surrounding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Mr McClelland says a "whole-of-government" investigation is needed.
"The documentation, in so far as suggested, could be related to issues broader than simply our Defence strategy," he said.
Mr McClelland has met with US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich, but has not been provided with copies of the cables thought to have been obtained by WikiLeaks.
He says he is waiting for advice from the US about what action should be taken against the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.
"It's not customary to talk about law enforcement actions that would be taken, but certainly the US authorities are looking at law enforcement actions as the lead country and we're providing every assistance," Mr McClelland said.
Also among the leaked documents is an outline of what was going on behind the scenes at the 2007 APEC meeting in Sydney.
The previously classified secret documents outline discussions between the US and China about an arms shipment headed to Iran that was passing through Beijing on its way to the Middle East.
The document, classified secret, sends an order for "urgent action" on North Korea sending arms to Iran via Beijing.
"In September, during their meeting at the APEC summit in Sydney, Australia, President Bush discussed with Chinese President Hu [his] strong concerns relating to the ongoing trans-shipment via Beijing of key ballistic missile parts from North Korea to Iran's missile program," the cable reports.
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Why Kids Need Supplements
Kids who eat a regular, well-balanced diet should get all the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. If you check out our Vitamins and Minerals guide, you’ll see that all they require can be found in various foods and drink. But if children don’t like the taste of, say, liver, broccoli, spinach, even milk (and let’s face it, many kids don’t), then they will miss out on those vital vitamins and magic minerals. That’s when Vit Heroes children’s supplements come in real handy, as a simple, affordable way of providing those essential nutrients.
To help you decide whether Vit Heroes vitamin supplements might be a good idea, they are usually recommended for children who are:
- Not eating regular balanced meals
- Very fussy and don’t eat enough
- On vegetarian or dairy-free diets
- Highly active and need extra energy
- Eat a lot of processed and fast foods
- Drinking fizzy drinks that displace calcium
- Not getting their five fruit and veg a day
- Often eating meals outside the home
- Not getting enough natural sunlight
- Not drinking milk or fluoridated water
If kids fall into any or most of these categories, then daily Vit Heroes supplementation could well be worthwhile.
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NY Times Archive, Weblogs and RSS
Monday, June 16, 2003 by Dave Winer.
As news organizations like the San Jose Mercury News or the New York Times publish on the Web, they accumulate an archive of stories from the past, last week, last month, last year, etc. The Mercury and the Times were two of the first news organizations to publish on the Web, so their early issues, dating back to the mid-90s form a history of the Web. But there's one important difference, the Mercury archive is long gone and the Times archive is largely intact. One news organization burns their archive, the other hires curators to care for the archive. One sells news and ads, the other strives to be the paper of record (and sells news and ads).
Archives are one of the greatest things about the Web, they accumulate our history, and if lots of sources archive reliably, we get to view the history from many perspectives. As more information shows up on the Web, more of the past will be documented. Today, there are people in their teens who can read about events that happened in their infancy, on the Web. I think that's very cool. As that generation grows up, they will expect to find things on the Web.
Of course news archives are not a new idea. When I grew up I read about the Great War and World War II on the NY Times microfilm archive available at the New York public library. I didn't pay to access this archive. To a child who loved history, there was something special about reading of famous events in the words of people who were there when they happened. Their point of view is preserved; even if they are dead, their thoughts and ideas live on.
Before moving on to the story of the New York Times archive, three notes.
1. Brewster Kahle's archive.org is doing a wonderful job of preserving the Web. Kahle became a mega-millionaire when he sold his company to AOL in the early days of the dotcom boom. It's great to see him put his money to such good use. Bravo.
2. The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper of the university where I have a fellowship, has a Web archive that goes back to 1900. That may be the deepest free and open archive on the Internet. If there are others I certainly would like to hear about them.
3. Other organizations that claim near-perfect archives: the BBC and Guardian in the UK. The BBC is funded by public money, an important consideration; the Guardian is the beneficiary of the Scott Trust.
The New York Times Company is a publicly-held company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It is not government funded, as the BBC is. It's a for-profit corporation.
On their corporate Web page, they say "The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment." That's certainly consistent with what we know about the Times, but it's also necessary to add that the Times exists to create value for shareholders.
So, while they wish to be the paper of record, their first purpose is ROI for their shareholders. Given a choice between serving the public good and serving the interests of their shareholders, they must choose the latter. This isn't wrong, it's the nature of what they are, a public, for-profit corporation.
If you browse the Times website, www.nytimes.com, you must be logged on with a username and password, which is available at no charge. The term for this is "Free subscription required." You'll often see this disclaimer next to links to Times articles from weblogs. It's such a well-known policy that many sites leave it out, assuming the reader knows that the username and password will be requested.
There's a little-known exception to this rule. If you're browsing from a site that has a previously-established relationship with the Times, the free-subscription requirement is waived. The company I founded, UserLand Software, has such a relationship with the Times, so when I point to a Times article from my weblog, I don't have to say "Free subscription required," because it is not required. You can click through even if you're not logged onto the Time site.
Now I'm going to try to explain, as simply as possible, how the Web archive of the Times works.
First, they charge $2.95 per article to access articles that are over seven days old. I have been told, and accept at face value that the archive is a profitable business for the Times, it's an important part of their business model.
However, if you point to an article in the Times archive from a weblog, if you use a URL that comes from one of the Times's RSS feeds, provided in partnership with UserLand, there is no access fee for your readers. This works for any kind of weblog, not just ones created with UserLand's weblog tools, as long as you use a URL from the RSS feeds.
This method is a compromise, it's certainly not the best we could wish for, but imho, it's good enough. I can point to Times articles, and so can everyone else, and our archives will continue to work over time. You probably have to use an aggregator to read the Times, if you run a weblog and want to point to Times articles, but imho, if you're serious about weblogs and news, you're probably already doing it this way. The Times business model is protected, and we may have established a template for other publications to continue to charge for access to their archive, yet remain open to weblog writers.
I've started a new page for pointers to the Times RSS feeds, notes and answers to questions that come up.
PS: ROI stands for Return On Investment.
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Mike Rowe gets dirty at Oasis Camel Dairy
Ever consider being a camel farmer? On a visit to Ramona, Mike Rowe of television’s Dirty Jobs fame got to try milking these towering beasts, and a filming of the popular Discovery Channel series landed the crew at Ramona’s Oasis Camel Dairy.
Gil and Nancy Riegler, owners and caretakers of these benevolent animals, have spent the past 20 years developing and operating the first camel dairy in the United States.
The Rieglers have a mutual interest in exotic pets. Gil trained exotic animals to become therapeutic pets “back in the nineties,” and Nancy trained exotic birds for the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. The couple moved to Ramona and began with eight camels, originally taking exotic creatures to several venues across the country.
From nativity scenes and company business parties to camel races and talk shows, Ramona’s camels have been providing unique services and entertainment that are becoming increasingly popular each year. They are regulars at the annual San Diego County Fair and recently were on Larry King Live with Rowe.
“When you tell people we milk camels, they have the idea that it’s dirty and gross, but they are such clean animals,” said Nancy.
The public will be able to see for themselves on the Dirty Jobs episode on Oct. 27. Producer and star of the show Mike Rowe will get down and dirty with the camels. Just how dirty has yet to be seen.
With the newest addition to the herd in September, the 34-acre dairy is home to 22 camels, with three babies on the way, and numerous other animals. In the beginning, the couple raised the camels—and other animals and exotic birds—to be taken to fairs and shows along the West Coast. After reading about the benefits of camel milk on the Internet, the Rieglers decided to add a camel dairy to the growing repertoire of animal productions.
Milking camels “took a long time,” to get used to, admitted Gil. Because camels need their baby present to lactate, the milking occurs only after breeding. According to the Rieglers, camels only produce milk for about 90 seconds for each feeding. The average produced is six to seven liters during each milking.
As groups gather at the dairy, young and old alike are treated to grunts of curiosity from the gentle giants. Far from being the spitting desert dwellers of television fame, the camels are loving and sensitive animals, the Rieglers agree.
“Camels are incredibly affectionate,” said Nancy.
Public and private tours are offered at the dairy. Groups are invited for an hour at a time. The animals are milked and petted, and discussions are held to teach about their behavior.
While the Rieglers currently don’t sell milk to the public, they do sell soap made with 25 percent camel’s milk. They sell the soaps on the Internet, at fairs and during tours.
Oasis Camel Dairy is at 26757 Highway 78 in Ramona on the way to Santa Ysabel. The next public “Meet the camels” tours will be on Nov. 8 and 22 at 1 p.m. Reservations may be made but are not usually necessary. (Keep in mind, however, these next dates follow the airing of the camels on Dirty Jobs!)
For tour cost and more information, visit www.cameldairy.com or call 760-787-0983.
The Dirty Jobs episode at the camel dairy is scheduled to air on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel.
- Camel racing, belly dancing add punch to Intermountain benefit
- Mike Studley is varsity water polo team’s MVP
- Take precautions with pets during heatwave, advises county
- Hot Spots will be ‘Rockin’ the Kasbah’
- County reports first rabid bats of 2009
Short URL: http://www.ramonasentinel.com/?p=3424
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Working to improve the health of the population and the quality of life of the people we serve.
Asthma is a common disease of the lower airways that affects approximately 10-15% of Canadian children and 5% of adults. Although at this time there is no cure for asthma, today there are better treatments available to control asthma symptoms. Asthma is a serious disease that can severely affect one's health and well being, but with proper management, a good quality of life can be maintained.
Asthma is a condition that affects the airways in the lungs. Just as some people have very sensitive skin, persons with asthma have overly sensitive or "twitchy airways". This means the airways react to certain things called triggers. These triggers cause the airways to become narrowed and make it difficult to get air in and out of his or her lungs.
The airways become narrowed in three different ways:
Is your asthma under control? Take the 30 second asthma test. Visit www.asthmaincanada.com.
The links below will take you to a services directory listing, which includes descriptions, contact details and related documents for our services.
Can't find what you're looking for? Email us at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Blog by Domini Sowa (Amnesty International Scotland, Volunteer)
Dr Binayak Sen does not look like a man for whom the term ‘seditious’ would be applicable. Yet the 62 year old public health practitioner, activist and prisoner of conscience has been battling the charge of sedition since 2007. India’s most famous political prisoner came to Edinburgh to speak at a public meeting on Thursday the 14th hosted by the University of Edinburgh.
The talk took place on the occasion of Dr Sen’s trip to the UK to receive the Gandhi Foundation International Peace award for his tireless work in public health in one of India’s poorest states, Chhattisgarh. Dr Sen was joined by his wife, the activist and social worker Ilina Sen, Amnesty Scotland’s Shabnum Mustapha and the politician and former doctor, Richard Simpson MSP. Speaking to a packed room of activists, supporters and interested members of the public, the Sen’s spoke about their experiences in the wider context of inequity and dispossession of the deprived and indigenous people of India.
Dr Sen has worked assiduously for over three decades with the poor, indigenous and other marginalised people in Chhattisgarh on issues of basic livelihood, health services and social justice. As an office-bearer of the national civil liberties organisation, the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) Dr. Sen is also a prominent defender of human rights in India. In many ways, his roles as a doctor and activist informed one another and became entwined.
Due to his vocal criticism of the inequitable policies and unconstitutional police and paramilitary action carried out by the right-wing Chhattisgarh government, Dr Sen was arrested under draconian anti-terror legislation in 2007. The charges brought against him were widely believed to have been trumped up and the campaign to release Dr Binayak Sen grew quickly to include wide public support and patronage from key figures, including Richard Simpson MSP who sat on the panel.
At the talk Dr Sen did not dwell on his legal battle but rather on the social issues affecting the most destitute in India. He spoke movingly about the cases of the minority groups being forced off their land and communal holdings that have for years managed to just about sustain them. Focusing on the problem of famine, Dr Sen challenged the audience’s preconceptions of chronic food shortage to raise the point that under technical definitions, based upon percentages of the population under BMI 18.5, large regions of India have been suffering famine for years. Shedding light on the "rising" nation of India, Dr Sen stressed the extent of social inequality in the Indian subcontinent and the dire nutritional conditions that affect large swathes of the population.
Ilina Sen, wife of Dr Binayak Sen spoke next about the extent to which the Indian government is contributing to the problems affecting the nation in their desire for ‘development’. Although populations are campaigning against moves to build nuclear power stations in tsunami prone regions and destruction of land following the creation of hydro-electrical dams, resistance to the clearances is being silenced and people are being accused with sedition. This is the same crime for which Dr Bianayak Sen faces life imprisonment which was first introduced by the British Imperial authorities to suppress dissent to its rule. According to Ilina Sen, "human security is the basis of national security" and so in the interest of national security, it is necessary to safeguard the livelihood of the Indian population. This is something that the Indian government and state governments like Chhattisgarh are failing to do and the couple have long been campaigning for.
Amensty International actively supported the release of Dr Binayak Sen and the Scottish branch of the campaign gained momentum in spring 2008 around the first anniversary of his imprisonment. Ilina Sen informed the audience that her latest visit to Edinburgh was the first since 2008 during the height of the campaign. She acknowledged the significant support that her husband received from the international community and attributed the success of Dr Binayak Sen’s bail in April 2011 to the many campaigns backing him.
Dr Binayak Sen is still fighting for freedom and although it is a huge step that he was granted bail by the Indian Supreme Court, he is still not free in the fullest sense of the word. The couple’s first-hand experience of the inequality and corruption that affects India has not left them disheartened at the possibility of a positive change in the relationship between the government, the public and development. Speaking to the audience in response to a question about the future of India she said, "It is possible with imagination and political will, to do things differently"
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Concerned lest history
overlook their triumphs, veterans of the Army of the Cumberland had them writ large -- on a canvas five hundred feet long.
of the Cumberland had them writ large—on a canvas
five hundred feet long
The Army of the Cumberland was one of the principal Union armies in the Civil War, and it was about as good an army as this country ever had. Its soldiers thought very well of themselves, which is one way of saying that it was a high-morale outfit, and they also thought very well of their generals, especially of the one who led them through a couple of the worst battles any army ever had: Major General William S. Rosecrans, a red-faced, excitable, hard-fighting man who was known to his troops as “Old Rosy.” Rosecrans was a good man but unlucky.Read more »
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Coalhouse Walker Jr.
In the novel Ragtime, the character Coalhouse Walker Jr. turns to a life of violence after an incident procured by a bunch of racist volunteer firefighters. The Emerald Isle volunteer firefighter staff vandalized Coalhouse’s car, when they detained him in order to make him pay a toll for passage on their road. Coalhouse is a black pianist, who in general was a very humble and obedient man, until that incident made him out to be a depraved killer. His change from a calm man into a violent one was also furthered by the death of his fiancée Sarah, who was killed by the Vice-President’s bodyguards. The combination of events, both the loss of his future wife and the vandalizing of his custom-made car made Coalhouse turn to violence as a solution to his problems. The author the novel, E.L. Doctorow uses this incident to
This occurrence is a harsh reminder of how the black people were persecuted in earlier times. point out the extreme racial discrimination and ignorance of the white populace in the early 1900"tms. There are some people who agree with the idea that violence as a political tool is right and there are others who acknowledge the fact that it is an incorrect way to solve problems. I think that when a solution is sought in a manner as such, it usually forces an unnatural, and unwanted resolution, which never is as compromising as one without the use force. " The same idea can be seen in an editorial written about the killings, ""Coalhouse should accept the principle that any man who takes the law into his own hands"defames the same justice he seeks to enforce" (201). I believe that when violence is used to try to solve something it is a bad way to go about the correction of that problem. In situations as such, the use of force is a more acceptable, but still not the best, solution. This repetition shows to the reader that it is an important belief of Coalhouse"tms to seek compensation, and in anyway necessary. Doctorow also tries to balance the attitude towards Coalhouse"tms actions by offering other perspectives, if only a few, to the destruction of the firehouses. to generalize this sentiment, and also in a way justifies the reactions of Coalhouse. The small viewpoint of condemnation in the book shows to us that Doctorow believes Coalhouse acted correctly. After the occasion at the firehouse, Doctorow repeats the fact that Coalhouse is a very dignified and persistent man by having him go on about his desire to have reparations made, and to seek the justice of Willie Conklin. Doctorow applies the character of Coalhouse Walker Jr.
Some topics in this essay:
Willie Conklin, Emerald Isle, Walker Jr, EL Doctorow, , character coalhouse walker, Coalhouse Walker, walker jr, coalhouse walker jr, political tool, character coalhouse, coalhouse walker, el doctorow,
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An Ill Wind Blowing
Driving across country in the dead of winter is not for wusses or wimps. Even with clear skies overhead, fierce winds out of the south and west blow unabated across miles and miles of fallow fields in Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas. Winds of 25-50 mph are common, 50-60 mph not uncommon and gusts around 80 mph are no strangers to this landscape. Snow that has already fallen and should be earthbound takes to the air again as it’s aroused and freshly provoked. The wind’s velocity whips it into a reincarnated blizzard. Once again visibility approaches zero and highways become ice glazed within the time it takes to travel between exits.
Old snow, wearing itself out in Nebraska
There’s long been a saying on the Plains that: “Snow around here doesn’t so much melt as it wears itself out.” You don’t want to be on the road while it’s exercising itself to exhaustion.
As you leave America’s bread basket (Is this term still operative? Or is it an anachronism now that we’ve shifted our subsidies to the growing of corn for ethanol?) via I –80 in west Nebraska you enter Wyoming. Here the hazard of flatlands snow and ice is anted up in spades. By the time you reach Cheyenne, which is located just inside the extreme southeast corner of the state, you’ve already climbed to 6ooo feet. The rest of the trip across the state takes you up to 9ooo feet and back down to 6000 feet multiple times as you climb and descend through a series of mountain passes that transport you across the Continental Divide. The danger of ice slicked roads on top of the world is a fact apparently lost on the would-be ice road truckers who have to settle for ice-glazed highways to live their dreams. Many are underpowered and drop to 20 mph (or slower) in order to make it up grade, and then – in order to conserve fuel – barrel down the declines at breakneck speed. It’s an unusual winter trip where you won’t see several jackknifed trailers strewn along the trail.
There are few cities or towns along the entire length of the Interstate that traverses Wyoming east to west, and you best plan accordingly because this is fool’s territory. There are still places where your cell phone is silent, and even satellite radio has trouble broadcasting with all the rocks.
To be sure, we have been fools in the past. We’ve been making this trek, in one direction or another, 4 times a year for over a decade. We gradually learned how to access the most reliable weather forecasts (NOAA – so don’t say I’ve never said anything nice about the federal government). Then we learned that its equally if not more important to check for wind forecasts along with precipitation. And finally we learned, late one April as the highway closed behind when we stopped for the night, that the high, dry dessert gets the majority of it’s snowfall in March and April. Easter is perhaps not the best time to travel. Even armed with all this information, it’s still a crap shoot. The vagaries of weather over the span of a 3 day cross country hike make planning somewhat irrelevant, but the one constant you can count on in Wyoming is wind.
So it’s not the least bit surprising that several of the largest U.S. wind farm projects are in Wyoming.
Wind Farms located in Wyoming
The winds along the Rocky Mountain ranges in the Cowboy State are some of the strongest and most reliable in the country, so you’ll see ample evidence from the highway of these corporate wind “farmers” “harvesting” all that “free, green” energy. In an affront to both physics and aesthetics, these mindless monsters sprout from the mountain tops like perpetual steel geysers top-mounted with 747 fuselages and rotors 46 feet long. They rise like a temple to modern man’s ability to built things with erector sets. An artifact of the age of matter over mind.
They are pretty big suckers: height of 126 feet, with a rotor radius of 46 feet. This illustrates one of the Foote Creek models. They come much larger: some are 400 feet tall, with 130 foot blades.
Foote Creek wind farm in WY Rockies: a triumph of might over right
Never mind that these monsters fail to perform their appointed rounds much of the time – due to machinery malfunction or lack of adequate wind (although in fairness, that’s less likely in Wyoming than in some locations that have fallen for windmills’ clean energy charm). And never mind that Wyoming is filled with reserves of oil and natural gas that – in terms of thermodynamics – “delivers more bang for the buck.”
Windmills just make us feel good because we’re told they’re green. And renewable.
Some find them lovely to look at: I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But for environmentalists, so offended by the sight of gas wells, it’s hard to imagine how they justify the landscape pollution of these monstrosities. In addition to thrusting themselves into the air 400 feet, they make an awful lot of noise, kill a lot of birds and bats,
and – if operating improperly, which is apparently not that rare – throw off huge ice sheets that can cause tremendous damage to buildings and people. And while not one life has ever been lost due to a malfunction in a nuclear reactor in the U.S., the wind turbine industry – darling of clean, green safe energy – suffers dozens of deaths each year, primarily as a result of falls during assembly and maintenance. Because, as you can see, their working parts are really a long, long way off the ground.
Never mind that from a thermo-dynamic stand point, wind generated electricity is not very efficient even if the fuel source is “free.” The upfront cost of building the turbine generator is 80% higher than for conventional electricity generation facilities. And since the power generated is not storable and unlikely to be generated anywhere near a location that needs the electricity, it requires massive capital to build electric grid transmission lines and/or astronomically expensive and inefficient batteries for storage.
Nobody here but us truckers
Add to that the fact that any market relying on wind generated electricity also needs to arrange for reliable, alternate sourced generation capacity because nature is fickle and we don’t always know which way the wind blows.
Nor is wind energy as clean and simple as the Greens would have you believe. Although the technology for wind turbine generated power is not anywhere near as complex as (horrors!) a coal fired generation facility or a nuclear plant, crap still happens:
‘A faulty sensor on a giant wind turbine is being blamed for huge shards of ice flying off its blades and crashing into nearby homes and gardens.’Despite assurances from the American Wind Industry that turbines shut off when there is any ice build up on the blades, all you need to do to disprove this is a search on YouTube for “Wind Turbine Ice Throw.” Here’s one example. Other problems can be found under Wind Turbine Explosion or Wind Turbine Fire.
In a fair and balanced nutshell, from America’s Economic Report – Daily, the current status of alternative energy sources:
There is nothing wrong with solar and wind energy. They are clean, renewable, and spur domestic investment. However, they are also disproportionately costly, and they take up a lot of space. Wind and solar power offer weak comparisons to old-school oil, gas, and coal, which have large infrastructures already in place and are the “tried and true” means of producing electricity.
While Wyoming, and nearly every other state that can claim any wind at all, is being littered with turbines, proven gas and oil reserves in many parts of the nation are untapped for a variety of reasons, but not insignificantly due to Federal regulatory restrictions. The Gulf of Mexico drilling ban is just the tip of the iceberg.
Obama’s Interior Department last December removed 250 million acres of federally owned land from gas and oil production by “deeming” it to be a “wilderness study area” area. 70% of the Green River Formation reserve in Utah and Wyoming are now off limits to production due to this land grab by “unelected central planning ‘experts’ in the Obama Administration.” This formation just happens to contain the largest reserves of shale gas in the world ( 1.5 trillion, yes, trillion, barrels of oil equivalent). In the bureaucratic sweep of the Interior Czar’s hand, the boom that Wyoming has been enjoying in the middle of a very, very bad recession is about to come to a screeching halt.
A good number of the jobs created as a fallout of drilling activity in this state are about to dry up like the parched landscape here and blow away with the tumbleweeds.
Allow me, as a drive-by observer of the landscape, to document my evidence of how “trickle down” economics actually work in the real world – removed from the input of our intellectual betters dwelling in Washington and universities across the country.
Fueled by a previously healthy gas and oil drilling industry in the state of Wyoming, many other jobs emerged. Here are my observations:
- Huge stock piles of timber logs gathered around the rail yards outside Cheyenne. One might initially assume that it’s surplus lumber due to the virtual death of the new home market, but no…
- As you travel further you’ll notice that what was once a completely empty and barren landscape but for the occasional herd of grazing cows is now being strung with miles and miles of new electric lines: hence the purpose of the log poles. Someone logged and transported them. And someone else installed them and someone else hooked them up to an electricity grid.
- Keep looking and you’ll see the purpose for all these new lines in the middle of nowhere: operating wells. Natural gas wells. To produce some of Wyoming’s vast reserves of shale gas (“unconventional gas”) that can now be brought to market with a relatively new technology called hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling. (To those concerned about environmentalists’ objections to fracking allow Bernard Weinstein to put your mind at ease.) All of this activity requires a lot of engineering work and drilling rig construction, which requires roustabouts and other well operators, including senior engineers and supervisors.
- Further along you’ll notice construction off in the distance. From the looks of all the stockpiles of cast iron and PVC pipe dotting the landscape from time to time, it appears that gathering and transmission lines are being built in order to move the natural gas to market or possibly new storage facilities – which also require a lot of workers to build and then maintain. There are pumping stations required all along the line as well. More jobs.
- In the past couple of years, and despite trends to the contrary in nearly every other local we’ve visited in the past few years, there is a definite building boom going on in Wyoming. Most visible along the I-80 route outside Cheyenne, Rock Springs and Green River. Not mini-mansions, but hundreds of multi and single family structures springing up new every six months as we pass through. All these new workers need a place to live.
- And they need services too. Everything from groceries to restaurants, barbers,dentists and doctors. Increase one segment, and you increase many. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Just ask anyone back in Michigan.
So once again, kudos to Obama and the Liberals. They’ll soon have another state contributing to the country’s unemployment rate.
Or maybe they’re planning to re-deploy them all into the windmill business? After all, it is free, clean and green!
Winds, wearing the snow out, on I-80 outside Vedauwoo, WY
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Camisas Columbia para damasWednesday, October 24, 2012 | 9:51 pm
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(posted in Uncategorized)
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|Mon May 20 2013 05:21:14||UA Law | Events | Ninth Circuit Conference | The College of Law|
|The College of Law
The James E. Rogers College of Law is the oldest law school in Arizona and one of the first in the West. Located at the University of Arizona, one of the country's leading research institutions, in a vibrant southwestern city that straddles multiple cultural borders, the Rogers College of law has become a leader in legal education. Since 1915, more than 7,800 J.D. and LL.M. students have graduated well equipped with the knowledge, skills, and ethical framework to serve their clients and the law. Our graduates hold positions of leadership in the legal, corporate and political arenas in Arizona, across the nation, and throughout the world.
Our core values -- justice, professional integrity, public leadership, and community service -- lay the foundation for a collegial community of about 500 students, fostering close interaction among them, and between students and distinguished faculty. We draw from the University of Arizona's strengths to offer a wide variety of dual-degree programs as well as multidisciplinary programs and enrichment opportunities.
The College has significant J.D. course offerings, which expand on a rigorous traditional curriculum and expose students to emerging legal issues. Focused areas of study include environmental law, science and policy; indigenous peoples law and policy; criminal law and process; and international and comparative law, including international trade law. Within each of these areas, internationally known faculty work with students in classroom settings, scholarly research, and applied learning projects. At the post -J.D. level, the College of Law awards both LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees in international trade law and indigenous peoples law and policy. Broad clinical offerings and an award- winning trial advocacy program are critical and growing aspects of the curriculum.
The College, its alumni and its students have also created an intellectual community, with a large array of lectures, seminars, and special events each year. A Community Service Board, along with more than 20 active student organizations, further helps to identify law-related and community-based opportunities for giving. In recent years, the student body has generated national attention for its departing class gifts, which outpace almost all other gifts of their kind in the country.
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|The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, P.O. Box 210176, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0176, Tel: (520) 621-1373.
All contents Copyright © 2006. The Arizona Board of Regents. For web site related questions and comments please contact the webmaster.
This web page follows WAI Content Accessibility Guidelines and US Government Section 508 Accessibility Guidelines. UA Web Policies.
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Unemployment in the Capital Region hit 8.0 percent of the workforce in July, another two-decade high, up from 7.2 percent a year ago.
The number of people employed, by place of residence, fell to 414,700 from 415,200 in July 2011, while the number of unemployed — those actively looking for work — jumped by nearly 4,000 to 36,200 from 32,300 a year earlier.
Unemployment in Schoharie County, which is still recovering from Tropical Storm Irene a year ago, limbed to 10.1 percent from 8.8 percent a year ago, the highest of the metropolitan area’s five counties. Saratoga County’s 7.2 percent rate, up from 6.3 percent a year ago, was the lowest.
Unemployment in Albany County climbed to 8.1 percent from 7.3 percent, while it was up to 8.4 percent from 7.6 percent in Schenectady County and 8.5 percent from 7.7 percent in Rensselaer County.
A separate jobs report last Thursday had shown the number of jobs by place of work at 439,600, up from 437,500 a year earlier, but still about 10,000 below its all-time peak for July.
The figures are based in part on the results of a monthly federal survey of households statewide, according to the state Labor Department.
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Yearly Cook Inlet Beluga Count Wraps Up
The annual summer effort to determine the number of endangered whales that exist in Cook Inlet is underway with one count completed in June and another finished this month. Christy Sims, a biologist with NOAA has been involved with the annual whale census for more than a decade. The flagging numbers of the belugas makes the count important. As Sims heads across the tarmac for an afternoon aerial survey of Cook Inlet, she says the August count is focused on calves and after several days of capturing video, the real work starts.
“It can take anywhere from three to five months to count it depending on how many groups we encounter. How many passes of video we were able to collect on those groups, based on weather conditions, glare, sun and then some of the video passes have to be dropped due to white caps or glare,” Sims said.
The quarters in the twin engine plane are tight for three scientists and all their camera gear.
The bubble shaped windows on the aircraft aid in the visual count that is compared later to video. The effort to meticulously count the whales is part of the work of documenting their overall status.
Marine biologists and others who have studied the endangered whales are stymied by the declining numbers. Why haven’t the belugas bounced back?
“That’s the $64,000 question. We really don’t know.” Dr. Leslie Cornick said.
Dr. Leslie Cornick is an associate professor of marine biology at Alaska Pacific University. She has researched both Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet belugas. Dr. Cornick studies how the animals sustain themselves in the ocean. She says the prey range of Cook Inlet belugas has contracted to the North.
“Unfortunately for Cook Inlet Beluga whales, really the primary thing that drives where animals choose to be is where their prey is. And for Cook Inlet beluga whales in the summer and fall, their prey is in the upper reaches of Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm, where those really yummy delicious salmon and eulachon runs are,” Cornick said.
This is also where there is more human and industrial activity. The Cook Inlet beluga numbers have hovered around 300 for several years. Lloyd Lowry worked as a marine biologist for the state of Alaska for 25 years. He wonders why a nearby population of Bristol Bay Belugas is doing well while the Cook Inlet belugas continue to suffer.
“It just doesn’t make sense that this many years later there hasn’t been a bounce back in the number of beluga whales. It just doesn’t really make sense,” Lowry said.
He says the Bristol Bay population is thriving at around 2000 whales, and growing at a 5 percent rate per year. He says obvious impacts like ship strikes don’t explain what is happening.
“So that leads you to conclude there are some cryptic things going on, that have to do with the quality of the habitat, the availability of food, the impact of predators and disease, potentially impact of contaminants, disturbance. Those kinds of things that are operating at a much more subtle level are an important part of the picture, it’s not just the obvious mortality that you can quantify,” Lowry said.
Because there has been no subsistence harvest of Cook Inlet beluga since 2005 and that harvest was tightly regulated in 1999, biologists expected the population to increase, but that hasn’t happened. Now potential suspects in Cook Inlet range from low availability of food to industrialization, contaminants from city street run off, airport de-icer and Anchorage’s exemption for secondary treatment of sewage.
Lowry says, so far there hasn’t been high concentrations of contaminants, but tests can’t be taken now. Leslie Cornick agrees that past tests have found the Cook Inlet belugas quite clean of contaminants. But she says changing ocean conditions are key.
“I really like the term global weirding, as opposed to global warming. It’s not about everything just getting warmer, it’s just about everything becoming more chaotic and unpredictable. What does climate change have to do with Cook Inlet Beluga whales? It could have a lot to do with Cook Inlet Beluga whales because it has a lot to do with the health of the ocean. And it’s the health of the ocean, overall, that is really the culprit,” Cornick said.
She says top predators throughout the North Pacific and the Gulf of Alaska are in trouble and they are the canary in the coal mine. Cornick says using the oceans for dumping pits as humans have for thousands of years is taking its toll and for Cook Inlet belugas there isn’t much time.
“That’s actually the thing that worries me, because when you’re dealing with a population that’s only about 300 or so animals, you don’t really have decades and it does concern me that we could see the extinction of this population in my lifetime,” Cornick said.
Tomorrow we’ll look at efforts aimed at helping the belugas recover and the problems that stem from that work.
Listen for the full story
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“Renewed economic contraction has started to show up in the
reporting of major economic series. Headline June retail sales declined by
0.5% versus May, in the context of earlier monthly contractions…
“The general outlook remains unchanged …. Official
reporting shows a plunge in economic activity from fourth-quarter 2007 to
second-quarter 2009, with an ensuing upturn in activity that led to a full
recovery as of third-quarter 2011. In contrast, I contend the economy began
turning down in 2006, plunging in 2008 into 2009 and subsequently
stagnating—bottom-bouncing—at a low level of activity ever since.
There has been no recovery, and the economic downturn is intensifying anew.
“The official recovery simply is a statistical illusion
created by the government’s use of understated inflation in deflating
the GDP. Use of understated inflation in such a manner results in overstated
“The long-term fiscal solvency issues of the United
States—where GAAP-based accounting shows annual deficits running in the
$5 trillion range—are not being addressed…
“Neither economic nor systemic-solvency issues have been
resolved by U.S. government or Federal Reserve actions. With the economy weak
enough to provide cover for further Fed accommodation to the still-struggling
banking system, the next easing by the Fed likely will trigger a massive
dollar selling crisis and begin the process of a rapid upturn in domestic
consumer inflation…” (emphasis
“Commentary #455: June Retail Sales,”
John Williams, www.shadowstats.com, 07/16/2012
Unreliable Official Statistics and poor
or just flat inaccurate Mainstream Media reporting leaves many Investors in a
quite vulnerable position. Investors are thus so disadvantaged by having to
rely on such lousy data (or lack of any data) that it is arguably tantamount
to financial abuse.
Indeed, Key Mainstream Financial and
other Media generally have done such an abysmally poor job of reporting
lately (indeed, at times distorting or apparently even censoring the most
important Developments) that we thought it would be useful to summarize
Important Recent Developments because this knowledge is essential to help
Investors Profit and Protect.
The following Real News is from sources
which we have generally found to be reliable. Fortunately, much of the Real
News is Good News, but much is Negative.
In any event, perhaps most important is
the Mainstream Media and Mainstream Financial Media refusal to report on the
ongoing suppression of Precious Metal Prices. Knowing the Real News is
essential to profiting and protecting wealth.
Notwithstanding The Cartel’s (Note
1) attempt to demoralize Precious Metals Partisans with their repeated Price
Takedowns, one should consider the following Good News which indicates Gold
and Silver are setting up to Rally in spite of ongoing Cartel Price
— Japan has
recently ceased exporting Gold.
Gold Imports have Increased dramatically even though China is now the
World’s largest Producer.
Takedowns of The Gold and Silver Price are regularly getting bought by
Heavyweight Buyers (mainly from Asia) in the $1570s for Gold and in the $27
range for Silver. China apparently has put a floor under this market (but
N.B. this would not prevent The Cartel from temporarily running the
stops down to say $1530s for Gold and $25 for Silver).
— Another Dose
of Overt QE is likely sometime this year – a Dose that would surely
launch Gold and Silver Prices upward.
— For the first
time in a long time, Swaps Dealers (Big Banks and Large Traders) are net long
the Gold Markets. They have Strong Hands.
— The Cartel
has increasingly been unable to sustain its Takedowns for very
But the News is not all positive. Even
so, knowing the Negatives is essential to Profitable Investing and Wealth
— For example,
as John Williams of shadowstats.com points out, there is no economic recovery
and “the economic downturn is intensifying anew.”
inflation is already Threshold Hyperinflationary (e.g. 9.3% in the U.S.) per
shadowstats.com (Note 2).
— The weakening
Economy is reflected in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s recent
report stating that fully half the stock market returns of the past decade
resulted from Fed Actions’. Of course, this means the ostensible
Economic Recovery is built on the Quicksand of Fiat Currency Creation, and Overindebtedness. Regarding Profiting and Protecting
Wealth from Inflation and other Negatives, see Notes 3 and 4 below.
— The LIBOR
Fixing Scandal has only just begun. Literally Trillions in loans around the
Planet have been pegged ultimately to LIBOR or a LIBOR Pegged Rate. The
lawsuits and scandals only just began. And they will shake the Banking System
to its core (and thus be Gold and Silver Bullish).
— Legal and
Illegal Mass Immigration generates immense Net Costs to the
U.S., (and probably to European Nations). For example in the U.S., a
majority of households headed by a
Illegal Immigrants are collecting welfare. According to a recent study, 8
major welfare programs cost the U.S. Government (Taxpayers) over $517
Billion/yr. Mass Immigration imposes similar net costs for Healthcare
and Education. President Obama’s recent Illegal Alien Amnesty granted
work permits to 1.4 million (former) Illegals. This not only depresses Wages
but also increases Job competition for some 25 Million Unemployed Americans.
Except for highly skilled Immigrants, Mass Immigration typically imposes Net
Economic losses for the Host Country, not to mention stressing social and
— The Bilateral
Currency Swap arrangements China is establishing with Australia, Chile, Japan,
Russia, Iran, India, and Brazil spell doom for the $US Dollar as the
World’s Reserve Currency in the next few months or very few years. Be
prepared for devastating consequences for the U.S. Economy (but this
Development too is Gold and Silver Bullish).
— Those who
believe they are Owners of Physical Gold and Silver stored in Allocated and
Segregated storage in Bank Vaults, are increasingly disappointed.
numbers of Investors are finding it difficult to obtain actual Delivery of
the Physical they supposedly own. Or when they actually get Delivery
they find the bars were smelted long after they supposedly purchased and
stored them in ostensibly Segregated and Allocated Accounts.
Deepcaster agrees with
Von Greyerz and Buckler: Get Gold, Physical Gold.
“But in spite of all the adversity that gold has encountered in
the last 12 years, the yellow metal has still appreciated over 6 times since
“So why is gold likely to erupt in the next few weeks? After a
strong move into late August 2011 we have had a correction/consolidation for
almost 11 months. During this time, every single fundamental factor in the
world economy has deteriorated. The Eurozone countries are in a complete mess
and can never recover. The UK economy is in a terrible state but they are
just lucky that they can print money which Eurozone countries can’t do.
The same is the case with the US. Debts are increasing at an exponential rate
and there is no attempt by government to stop the spending of money the
country doesn’t have. Total debts and exposure in the US is approaching
$500 trillion. This includes unfunded liabilities and derivatives. The latter
are likely to become worthless when counterparty fails, something which is
very likely to be the case. Most economic figures are deteriorating in the
US. The US has had the fortune of all the focus being on Europe but that will
“Japan has massive debts and the economy is extremely weak. And
China with its major credit explosion will also suffer badly when the whole world
stops buying their goods.
“…Governments will continue to apply the only method they
know (with the blessing of economists like Paul Krugman
and Martin Wolf) which is issuing unlimited amounts of worthless paper that
they call money. This is of course no solution and only adding insult to
“A concerted (ECB, FED, IMF etc) money
printing bonanza is likely to start in 2012. This will lead to all currencies
collapsing in real terms. Collapsing currencies will lead to a hyperinflationary
depression. But many assets will deflate in real terms, especially the ones
that were inflated by the credit bubble. This includes stocks, property and
bonds as well as debt which have all been in a massive bubble for at least
four decades. Gold will be a major beneficiary.
“Gold will also appreciate because there is a total distrust in
governments’ ability to govern. The more governments fail, the more
they will want to control the system and the citizens and the more regulation
they introduce. There is also distrust in the financial system. Lehman, MF
Global and PFG amongst others are only the very beginning of a serial
collapse of banks and finance houses.
“There is also distrust in a system that prints money with the
beneficiaries primarily being bankers and the financial system. Bankers and
banks keep failing and keep on being rewarded more for each time they fail.
No banker is ever penalised for losing billions
which the tax payers ultimately are responsible for.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Could never hold gold down, Amen!”
Egon von Greyerz,
“Asia is accumulating Gold. Russia is accumulating Gold.
(Supposedly) backward nations all over the world are accumulating Gold, on
both an individual and a government level. While the (supposedly) developed
world has developed an idea of monetary safety which turns all history on its
head, the rest of the world is not going along with them. We will leave it to
you to decide which are the credulous and which are not.”
Bill Buckler, editor of The Privateer Australia, 7/2012
July 21, 2012
*Shadowstats.com calculates Key Statistics the way they were calculated in
the 1980s and 1990s before Official Data Manipulation began in earnest.
Bogus Official Numbers vs. Real
Numbers (per Shadowstats.com)
Annual U.S. Consumer Price Inflation reported January 19, 2012
2.96% / 10.57% (annualized December, 2011 Rate)
U.S. Unemployment reported February 3, 2012
8.3% / 22.5%
U.S. GDP Annual Growth/Decline reported January 27, 2012
1.56% / -2.70%
U.S. M3 reported February 13, 2012 (Month of December, Y.O.Y.)
No Official Report / 3.87%
And Official Source Disinformation
continues, consider Shadowstats comments on the
January 6, 2012 release of U.S. Employment data:
reported seasonally-adjusted 200,000 jobs surge in December 2011 payrolls
included a false, seasonally-adjusted gain of roughly 42,000 in the
“Couriers and Messengers” category. That gain was an artifact of
the seasonal-adjustment process and will remove itself in the January 2012
problem is that this 42,000 gain is part of a seasonal pattern that fully
reverses itself each January…”
Payroll Seasonal-Adjustment Problem”
John Williams, 1/6/12
Note 2: Deepcaster addresses the questions of Profit and
Protection in light of Fiat Currency Purchasing Power Destruction and
provides Guidelines in his article – “Essentials for Wealth
Acquisition Acceleration” found in ‘Articles by Deepcaster’ Cache.
Using such Guidelines facilitated Deepcaster’s
making buy and sell recommendations resulting in remarkable profits recently
if acquired and liquidated when we recommended, approximately*:
45% Profit on
Platinum ETF on February 8, 2012 after just 42 days (i.e., about 390% annualized!)
40% Profit on March 2012 $55 Dollar GDX
Calls on January 27, 2012 after just 23 days (i.e., about 635% annualized!)
34% Profit on Gold Royalty Streaming Company on December 5, 2011 after just 166
days (i.e., about 74% annualized!)
42% Profit on Volatility Index Futures ETN on October 3, 2011 after just 292
days (i.e. about 52% annualized!)
36% Profit on Double Short Euro ETF on September 7, 2011 after just 43 days
(i.e. about 300% annualized!)
35% Profit on Double Long Gold ETN on August 23, 2011 after just 41 days
(i.e. about 280% annualized!)
26% Profit on Double Long Gold ETN on August 17, 2011 after just 35 days
(i.e. about 260% annualized!)
25% Profit on Gold Stock on August 8, 2011 after just 201 days (i.e. about
150% Profit on Gold Stock Calls on July 13, 2011 after just 56 days (i.e.
about 975% annualized!)
*Past Profitable Performance is no assurance of future Profitable
Great Opportunity and A Dangerous Trap; Forecasts: Gold, Silver, Equities,
Crude Oil, U.S. Dollar, U.S. T-Notes, T- Bonds, & Interest Rates”
– February Letter
Fed doesn’t have a clue about markets or economics. They are dangerous
Printing money is not good for the world and will lead to more problems for
“What the Federal Reserve is doing now is ruining an entire class of
Jim Rogers, Bloomberg Interview, 6/29/11
We are not so Negative about the Near-Term Prospects for Nominal
Asset Price Growth in Certain Sectors as we were six months or
a year ago.
That is mainly because the E.U., Mega-Banks, and the Fed, have already de
facto launched a Massive Quantitative Easing 3, with more likely to come.
This QE will serve as a Major Force impelling (but not necessarily
successfully) Nominal Asset Prices UP in certain Sectors, for example,
But before one becomes too enthusiastic about the Prospects one should
consider the implications of our Forecast for Nominal Assets Prices Strength
in certain Sectors.
The practice of issuing Bogus (U.S. and other Key official) Inflation figures
obscures the Fact that Monetary Inflation (generated mainly by reckless Q.E.)
is very rapidly depreciating the purchasing Power of most Fiat Currencies
– by about 11% per year in the U.S. e.g. (per shadowstats.com).
Yield Portfolio is aimed at achieving Total Return in excess of Real
Inflation. Stocks in that Portfolio with Recent Yields of 18.5%, 8.6%, 10.6%,
26%, 6.7%, 8%, 10.6%, 10% and 15.6% when they were added to the Portfolio.
important to note is that, while massive Q.E. is a Major Inflationary Force
tending to pump up Prices in certain sectors, there are Powerful Deflationary
forces operating as well – the depreciating Housing Markets in the U.S.
and China come to mind. Real Estate in some areas in China is down over 25%,
but Food prices are up 9% year over year.
The key to identifying The Great Opportunities (and Great Potential Losses) is knowing which Sectors will likely have Inflating
Asset Prices and which will have Deflating ones.
Investors failing to Evaluate Inflation/Deflation Prospects on a Sector by
Sector Basis will have missed Great Opportunities and fallen into a
Deepcaster’s Letter --“A Great
Opportunity and A Dangerous Trap; Forecasts: Gold, Silver, Equities, Crude
Oil, U.S. Dollar, U.S. T-Notes, T- Bonds, & Interest Rates; February
Letter” -- posted in the ‘Latest Letter & Archives’
Cache at www.deepcaster.com, identifies
which Sectors will likely be helped (albeit temporarily) by this Massive QE3
and which will likely be hurt, and provides Forecasts for all. And in his
March Letter, “The Pause Before The Great Bull; 3 Buy Recos! Forecasts: Gold, Silver, Equities, Crude Oil, U.S.
Dollar/Euro, U.S. T-Notes, T- Bonds, & Interest Rates, March
Letter”, Deepcaster makes 3 Buy
Recommendations designed for Protection and Profit.
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Spanish scientists have come up with a new hypothesis on to explain the rate of expansion of the universe: time is - literally - slowing down!
A decade ago, astronomers noticed that distant supernovae - exploding stars on the very fringes of the universe - seemed to be moving faster than those nearer to the centre, suggesting that they were accelerating as they shot through space.
Dark energy was suggested as a possible means of powering this acceleration of the expansion of the cosmos.
The problem is that no-one has any idea what dark energy is or where it comes from, and theoreticians around the world have been scrambling to find out what it is, or get rid of it.
The team's proposal, which will be published in the journal Physical Review D, does away altogether with dark energy. Instead, Prof Senovilla says, the appearance of acceleration is caused by time itself gradually slowing down, like a clock that needs winding.
"We do not say that the expansion of the universe itself is an illusion," he explains. "What we say it may be an illusion is the acceleration of this expansion - that is, the possibility that the expansion is, and has been, increasing its rate."
Instead, if time gradually slows "but we naively kept using our equations to derive the changes of the expansion with respect of 'a standard flow of time', then the simple models that we have constructed in our paper show that an "effective accelerated rate of the expansion" takes place."
As if that's not mind-boggling enough, another scientist had proposed that time is actually two-dimensional:
Time is no longer a simple line from the past to the future, in a four dimensional world consisting of three dimensions of space and one of time. Instead, the physicist envisages the passage of history as curves embedded in a six dimensions, with four of space and two of time.
"There isn't just one dimension of time," Itzhak Bars of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles tells New Scientist. "There are two. One whole dimension of time and another of space have until now gone entirely unnoticed by us."
Bars claims his theory of "two time physics", which he has developed over more than a decade, can help solve problems with current theories of the cosmos and, crucially, has true predictive power that can be tested in a forthcoming particle physics experiment.
If it is confirmed, it could point the way to a "theory of everything" that unites all the physical laws of the universe into one, notably general relativity that governs gravity and the large scale structure of the universe, and quantum theory that rules the subatomic world.
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A London photographer was in the right place at the right time during the London 2012 Olympics when he caught a photo he calls the 'Full Moon Rise at Tower Bridge' through the Olympic rings. The photo was captured by Luke MacGregor, a professional photographer from the south-east of England who has been taking pictures as a career since 1998. He currently shoots for the Reuters picture agency and for global news.
MacGregor just happened to be close to the Tower Bridge in London the other day when a bright orange/red moon was rising just underneath the Olympic rings. The rings are suspended below the iconic bridge and when perfectly timed, the moon created some interesting photographs that appear to blend perfectly with the colorful circles. The rising full moon helped create an upside down pyramid shape and fitted perfectly into the top black ring.
Olympic Lunar Captures
660 clicks in 40 w
More Stats +/-
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What is a T1 or E1?
T1 and E1 refer to telephone trunks that carry digitized voice in Time Domain Multiplexed (TDM) channels. T1 based interfaces are pre-dominantly used in USA. Each T1 has 24 voice ports.
E1 based interfaces are pre-dominantly used in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Each E1 has 30 voice ports.
One voice port equates to one phone call.
What is an ISDN PRI?
T1 ISDN PRI refers to a T1 based trunk that uses 23 bearer time slots and 1 signaling time slot. It is also popularly referred to as 23B + D.
E1 ISDN PRI refers to an E1 based trunk that uses 30 bearer time slots and 1 signaling time slot. It is also popularly referred to as 30B + D.
What is a VoIP/SIP trunk?
Voice over IP refers to carriage of voice calls over the Internet. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol that is used for setting up VoIP connections. The VoIP/SIP trunk operates over a standard Ethernet interface.
What interfaces does USN support?
USN supports the following TDM interfaces:
- T1 ISDN PRI
- T1 E&M Wink Start (CAS)
- E1 ISDN PRI
- E1 R2MF
USN supports the following Voice over IP interface:
- VoIP/SIP over Ethernet.
- H.323 over Ethernet
What is the capacity of a USN
A USN can handle up to 16 T1 or E1 trunks per chassis. That equates to 384/480 voice channels. The available voice channels can enter/exit the system either over T1/E1 lines or over VoIP Ethernet interface or shared between the two. For example, following configurations are possible:
- 384 T1 TDM ports and 0 VoIP ports
- 480 E1 TDM ports and 0 VoIP ports
- 0 TDM ports and 480 VoIP ports
- 240 E1TDM ports and 240 VoIP ports
What is the incremental capacity of a system?
- For systems equipped with T1 and VoIP interfaces, the port capacity can be increased from 24 to 384 in increments of 24. This applies to both TDM and VoIP capacity.
- For systems equipped with E1 and VoIP interfaces, the port capacity can be increased from 30 to 480 in increments of 30. This applies to both TDM and VoIP capacity.
We use legacy TDM based PBX system. What do we need to interface with a USN?
You will need to equip the PBX with additional T1/E1 CAS or ISDN cards to connect one or more T1/E1s between the PBX and the USN.
How should the trunking be set up between the PBX and the USN?
You will need a bi-directional Tie trunk between the PBX and the USN.
Inbound to USN: Set up a hunt group with number of channels equal to number of ports on the USN. For example, for a 48 port system set up a hunt group with 48 channels.
Outbound from USN: Calls originating from USN will be received by the PBX which in turn will route them to either internal extensions or to external PSTN numbers.
What is the default configuration of a CAS T1 trunk on the USN?
The default configuration is: E&M, Wink Start, DTMF, DNIS and No ANI.
What is the default configuration of an ISDN T1 trunk on USN?
The default configuration is: NI-2, User Side, DNIS and ANI.
We use an IP PBX system. What interfaces do we need on the USN?
In an all IP environment the USN will interface with the IP PBX over a VoIP/SIP Trunk. The USN will send/receive voice calls towards/from the IP PBX over this interface.
How should the VoIP trunk be configured between the PBX and the USN?
You will need a bi-directional SIP based Tie trunk between the PBX and the USN.
Inbound to USN: Set up a hunt group with number of channels equal to number of VoIP ports on the USN. For example, for a 48 VoIP port system set up a hunt group with 48 channels.
Outbound from USN: Calls originating from USN will be received by the IP PBX which in turn will route them to either internal extensions or to external PSTN numbers. The external connectivity to the PSTN can be via a TDM based T1 trunk or via a VoIP carrier.
What if the power is knocked out at our location?
XOP Networks recommends that the equipment be deployed with a minimum of 1000 VA UPS. That will keep the unit running for 1 hour in case of loss of power.
In case of mission critical applications, our customers deploy two geographically redundant systems. The system’s software keeps both sides synchronized 100% of the times using real time data base replication. In case of extended power outage, the surviving system can be used for handing emergency situations.
As a further back up, XOP Networks can keep a copy of customer’s database on its customer care servers and allow use of that server during emergency situations. Please contact XOP Networks Customer Support department if that is required.
How do I know that my USN system is up and running?
If you dial the main bridge number and hear a prompt requesting you to enter a PIN, the system’s voice application is in operational state.
If you can log into the system that means all networking aspects between your computer and the USN server are operational.
Can I place my company’s logo on the Web Portal?
A customer can upload their own logo in place of XOP Networks logo via the System Configuration page on the admin interface.
Does the system generate any reports automatically?
The system automatically generates a usage and system health report every midnight. It captures previous day’s usage data. The report also tabulates month to date and year to date reports. These reports give sufficient information to the administrator so that he/she can determine if additional capacity is needed. In addition to the usage report, data is provided on the status of various components of the system such as Hard disk drives, Operating system etc.
What type of reports can I generate as an administrator?
A system administrator can set up various queries to determine usage by individual moderators, by service type etc.
How do I know when I need to add ports?
Different businesses have peaks at different times. The administrator can watch all calls on the Real View link. Visually, he/she will be able to tell if the system is running close to its maximum capacity or not. With Release 5.0, the USN will also provide a histogram that displays number of ports in use by the hour.
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New Plutonium Center - Once Again On Western Shoshone Land
Nevada Test Site Being Considered For New Consolidated Plutonium Center
By Launce Rake
Las Vegas Sun, November 26, 2006
The federal government will head to Las Vegas this week to discuss its proposed top-to-bottom makeover of the nation's nuclear weapons system, an archipelago of research and production sites across two-thirds of the country.
One of the proposed changes could result in plutonium being manufactured at Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Test Site is one of the eight sites in the national research and production system.
The 1,400-square-mile Test Site has been home to 40 years of above- and below-ground nuclear explosions and other nuclear weapons research. The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration wants to modernize and ensure the reliability of the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons, consolidate operations and reduce the number of warheads in the national stockpile.
The proposal, which could cost billions of dollars, is intended to result in a safer and more reliable system that is cheaper to run.
One element of the proposal calls for a new manufacturing site for plutonium, the explosive metal at the heart of nuclear weapons. Nevada Test Site is one of five sites considered for the new consolidated plutonium center. The department closed its former manufacturing site, the Rocky Flats Plant outside Denver, in 1989.
Among the benefits of using the Test Site is its relative isolation and existing security systems.
Opposition is coming from former leaders of some of the affected sites and from public-policy advocacy groups. The Union of Concerned Scientists is urging people to raise concerns about the proposed changes to the nuclear weapons infrastructure at a government meeting on the environmental issues Tuesday at Cashman Center, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North. Sessions are planned from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Robert Nelson, a senior scientist with the group, said the nuclear weapons in the stockpile of about 10,000 warheads are already reliable, negating the need for much of the proposed effort.
"The core nuclear warhead components the Energy Department wants to redesign and replace are already determined by the nuclear weapons labs themselves to be essentially 100 percent reliable," Nelson said. "The misplaced obsession with warhead reliability and the rationale for continuing to maintain thousands of nuclear weapons on high alert are part of an outdated U.S. nuclear weapons policy."
In a statement released Friday, the group, which has opposed other weapons-related proposals from the Bush administration, quoted former administrators criticizing the proposed changes.
"What is the urgency for spending large amounts of money for a new production complex without evidence of degradation in the nuclear explosive package?" said Bob Peurifoy, former vice president and director of weapons development at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
John Duncan, retired Sandia senior manager, echoed the concerns.
"My knowledge of science and over 40 years of experience tells me you can't do what the DOE says it is going to do," Duncan said. "The old DOE realized that quality, speed of manufacturing and cost were trade-offs. You can do two but the third will be sacrificed. The new DOE thinks better, faster, cheaper is possible. The labs know better, but no one has the courage to speak up."
Thomas D'Agostino, deputy administrator for defense programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in April that the Test Site and its seven sister sites "routinely conduct operations with substantial quantities of plutonium, or highly enriched uranium, or both. As such these are some of the most sensitive facilities in the United States."
The other candidate sites are outside Amarillo, Texas; Los Alamos, N.M; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Aiken, S.C.
FRENCH IN QUEBEC
Comments From GoJoTV
RE: Mohawk Iron Workers Mourned 99 Years Later
1. This is a great blog article. My grandmother, Marguerite, lived in the town of St. David on the south shore of Québec City. She remembers being in the kitchen when the bridge fell. She described the sound as loud and frightening. She said she could see the hole where the middle piece fell. She would have been six years old at the time, but had vivid memories of that terrible day.
Please continue posting articles about native history, because those who lived it are disappearing, and these stories need to be told.
Here's an idea: What do the words of "Ani Koni" mean? It's a Mohawk or Huron song I learned in Kindergarten. In Québec, you can't find a French person under 50 who doesn't know "Ani Koni", but I'm not sure if I remember the meaning.
I seem to remember it being a lullaby.To hear the song I'm referring to, click here http://www.gojotv.com/anikoni.wav
Thank-you for your work with this blog.
Posted by GoJoTV to Native Unity at 11/26/2006 04:36:07 AM
2. Know this is a highly political blog, and this may not seem relevant, but the disappearance of native languages is...
And why, if the French in Québec have a notion of native culture and languages, don't other North Americans learn some, too?
Posted by GoJoTV to Native Unity at 11/26/2006 04:43:12 AM
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE or OPINION PIECE to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
Visit Vietnam Vet. Larry Mitchell at http://www.potawatomivet.com and click on his blog at the site.
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Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.
Sunning on a root and leafs next to small stream.
Agreed, definitely a Nerodia of some flavor
This is definitely not a Copperhead, which have triangular-shaped heads and pronounced hourglass-shaped bands. It's hard to tell from the photo, but I'm guessing it's either a Banded or Northern Water Snake.
Lat: 35.73, Long: -78.78
Spotted on Mar 13, 2011 Submitted on Mar 13, 2011
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In 1925, Frank Noyes, violinist and music instructor at Hastings College, organized the Hastings Symphony Orchestra with 25 members. The first concert was presented on May 26, 1926 at the First Presbyterian Church in Hastings. Under Mr. Noyes' 11 years as director, the orchestra developed into a full symphonic ensemble with 75 members.
The Hastings Symphony Orchestra is one of the oldest continuous orchestral groups in this country. In its second year, it was decided to charge 10 cents for admission to concerts and it became known as the Hastings "Dime" Symphony. This received much state and national publicity which included a picture and write-up in Life magazine in 1954. Later, the 10-cent admission was dropped and the concerts were free to the public. In 1986, a plan was introduced and implemented whereby a charge for season tickets and single admissions was made.
Although at one time the membership of the orchestra dropped to 40 members, today's membership fluctuates between 70 to 80. Many members have been a part of the orchestra for a long period of time. A large number of players are from the Hastings community and Hastings College. However, the present orchestra includes musicians from Grand Island, Kearney, Wymore, Lincoln, Ord, Aurora and Omaha. For some members, music is a vocation-for others it is an avocation.
Funding each year for the orchestra has come from the contributing membership, ticket holders, Nebraska Arts Council grants, corporate donations, private foundations and trusts, program ads, and fundraising activities.
The Young Artist Auditions were started in 1959. Today, these auditions alternate between high school students from Nebraska and Hastings College students. The young artists are presented at a Symphony concert generally in the spring of each year. This program provides an outstanding opportunity for young musicians.
In addition, the Brown Bag Pops concerts and matinee concerts for school children in Hastings, Grand Island and Kearney have been presented. Special evening concerts in neighboring communities such as Minden, Holdrege, Red Cloud, Aurora, Ord and Geneva have also been a part of the concert year. In 1995, an annual, free Concert in the Park was established. The Symphony is frequently called upon by various Hastings groups or organizations to supply music for special functions. Generally small groups from within the orchestra and individuals meet these special requests.
Seventeen men have served as conductors of the Hastings Symphony, including the late Dr. James Johnson who served from 1980 until his death in April 2001. Dr. Byron Jensen was named Conductor and Artistic Director in May, 2004.
The orchestra is governed and supported by a Board of at least fifteen members drawn from the community who meet on a regular basis. A Symphony Guild functioned from 1989 through 2000 to assist the Board with fundraising projects as well as community awareness and education. In 2001 the board established "SYMPHONY FRIENDS" to assist committees of the Board in carrying out their responsibilities.
The Hastings Symphony marked its 80th Anniversary during the 2005 - 2006 Season.
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I do not understand the President’s logic on the Renamed Infectious Disease of Some Concern. Here is his answer last night when asked if we were ever going to get around to closing the border with Mexico:
I have consulted with our public health officials extensively…. At this point they have not recommended a border closing…. It would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out because we already have cases here in the United States.
Earlier in the day, though, this is what he said about closing schools.
The president also strongly urged — upon the recommendation of public health officials — for schools to take an active role in stopping the spread of the virus.
“Schools with confirmed or suspected cases of H1N1 should strongly consider temporarily closing so that we can be as safe as possible,” he emphasized.
Mr. Obama said if more extensive steps need to be taken and should their local schools temporarily close, then parents should start thinking about contingency plans now for their children. Obama said that a plan to send kids to day care as an alternative is “not a good solution.”
The same conditions apply, do they not? The “barn door is already open” with infected schools as well, so why close them?
As it turns out, the President gave the right answer about schools. When you close the school, you reduce the chance that healthy students will come in contact with someone who is infected. Since there is usually a delay between visible signs of symptoms and a diagnosis, closing schools makes sense because that delay time means the infected person can infect more people before we even know they have the flu. If you already have one confirmed case, you can safely assume there are other students who have the flu and can spread it but haven’t shown any symptoms. It makes sense to shut down the school for a while.
His reasoning, though, falls down completely when it comes to the border. We already know that Mexico is, for lack of a better term, a hot zone. We can reasonably assume that someone coming from there is either infected or has been exposed. Screening doesn’t do much good because it relies on voluntary answers. People do lie, believe it or not, and unless the person we’re screening is blowing phlegm like a surfaced humpback whale, we wouldn’t know the truth.
Now I suppose we could quarantine everyone coming in from Mexico for 48 hours to see if they show any symptoms and test the ones who do, but that still means we’re closing our border with Mexico.
In either case, we would do with Mexico what the President rightly said we should do with schools – limit contact between the infected and non-infected
The problem is, closing the Mexican border could be interpreted in a hurtful way by idiots who know little about diseases and a lot about the grievance culture and it is to those people our President and Secretary of Homeland Security are playing.
Shrugging your shoulders and saying “Well, folks, the bug’s already here. What can we do?” isn’t actually a policy. It’s a cop-out, especially when dozens, hundreds, or even thousands more infected people are coming here every day. To extend the President’s analogy, even though the barn door is open a little bit, it would be stupid for us to throw it open all the way then set it on fire.
That just not bad health policy, it’s negligence. Maybe there’s a good reason we don’t want to close our borders. Maybe can have better screening processes in place than a heat sensor to tell if someone’s running a fever and a quick “You feeling okay?” We don’t know because all the President’s done is to blow off the question and ask us for yet more money.
I think it’s about time he based his actions on something more than a fear of enraging the perpetually enraged. Otherwise, this minor outbreak could become something much worse.
UPDATE: Stacy McCain says the President is playing to his “women, old people, and neurasthenic wussie-boys” constituency.
UPDATE 2: In this administration, it’s “just Joe being Joe”. If this had happened a year ago, it would be “that Chimptastic Idiot”.
UPDATE 3: Dr. Melissa Clouthier made the same point a couple of days ago. Today, she wants us to know that we will all die, but it won’t be Generic Panic flu #43775 that gets us.
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Path: About the Region
In 1991 the City District Prague - Modrany became an independent Prague district with all powers. After the municipal elections in November 1994 it became District Prague 12. At present this district incorporates parts of municipalities Cholupice, Kamyk, Komorany, Modrany a Tocna.
The area along the river was always attractive fot people to settle. Towards Zbraslav town, "Na zavisti", the remains of vast fortification, the center of celtic empire from 200 b. Ch., are still visible.
The oldest written remark of Modrany dates back to 1178, when Bohemian Duke Sobeslav II. dedicated "the area at Modrany town on two ploughs with a vineyard" to the Vysehrad Abbey. The name of Modrany probably comes from blue color of grapes. Modrany have been an agricultural village for a long time. The sugar refinery, which belongs to the oldest in Europe, was the first industrial factory.
Within a rapid development of Prague in the end of the last century, Modrany developed too. lt became an attractive place for building villas. So in thirties some remarkable funcionalistic villas appeared here. In 1936 Modrany became a markettown and in 1967 it was proclaimed to be a town. The keys of Vysehrad Abbey and a sugar loaf became an emblem of the town. However in the same year Modrany joined Prague.
Mode No graphics is currently switched on. Therefore you see the web page with no decorative graphics as well as any advanced formatting. If your browser supports CSS2, you can switch a graphic mode on.
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Keeping IT on the cutting edge
Technology updates give Kettering students an edge in the job market and so they don't wind up "in some museum."
Dr. Petros Gheresus doesn't claim to be a historian. But he does know that without the latest technology available for student use in Kettering's Rockwell Automation Applied Control Systems Design Laboratory, he and his students could one day end up "in some museum."
This exaggeration has some basis of truth. In today's highly technologically advanced manufacturing environments, engineering students on the cusp of graduating from college require in-depth, practical experience with state-of-the-art technology used by industry. The reason is simple: companies need talented, skilled and highly educated engineers to make an immediate contribution once they are hired into an organization. But in a global marketplace where jobs are becoming scarcer, competition for these positions is more challenging than ever before.
Gheresus, a professor of Industrial Engineering and instructor of IME 412: Applied Systems Design at Kettering, clearly understands this situation. Through this course and associated work in the Rockwell Automation Applied Control Systems Design Laboratory, students receive important educational instruction and hands-on laboratory experiences in control systems design using modern hardware and software resources utilized by many small and large companies in their manufacturing, processing and engineering facilities today. In his course, Gheresus introduces students to Visual Basic programming for human machine interface (HMI), relay logic circuits wiring to solve various problems, and instructs students on how to write, debug and download several ladder logic programs to address real applications. For Gheresus and his Graduate Teaching Assistant Aravind Melatur, who hails from Chennai, India, offering this high caliber course that incorporates state-of-the-art hardware and software resources at the undergraduate level could mean the difference between securing a high and low paying position. With an initial contribution of hardware and software valued at more than $300,000 from Rockwell Automation, the lab opened in 2001. Over the past several years, companies have expressed a growing need to employ engineers with experience in applied control systems and the Rockwell lab provides students a unique opportunity to engage in writing and testing several controls programs that are applicable for industrial consumption.
"Before you build a manufacturing facility you can actually simulate the processes, visualize the flow and show how things are assembled," Gheresus said. "It enables engineers to change some elements to project values, collect data and interpret the results before the entire system is built giving one an idea how the system will work. Once the system is built, the control system is used to collect data that is then converted into information and disseminated to the appropriate locations."
With the new IT improvements, students find the work to be even more rewarding and challenging, because they are using resources that leading corporations rely on today. The laboratory enhancements include
- Eleven new Toshiba lap top computers running Pentium IV, 3.0 GHZ processors;
- Rockwell's RS Logix 500 and 5000 software for programming activities;
- RSView32 software for HMI;
- Visual Basic .NET for HMI; and
- Rockwell's SLC 500 and Control Logix 5000 series PLCs.
According to Gheresus, these improvements provide greater flexibility in programming, increased speed and greater productivity. A number of students have worked on projects using the new resources. For example, during the spring 2005 term, students wrote and tested several programs that included simulation of a multi-stage operation car wash, two-way traffic controls, and data acquisition and processing. Senior Electrical Engineering major Landon Back of Greenville, S.C., feels the lab enhancements make the class work very important because they "replicate what's actually used at my co-op assignment," he said.
His project partner, senior Industrial Engineering major Chrystal Brylewski from Warren, Mich., agrees. "It's a new experience for me," she said. "It's nice to use other applications like this, because it expands your skill set." Students from any major are eligible to take IME 412: Applied Control Systems Design as a free elective, which allows them to write, debug and test various controls programs using state-of-the-art resources, thus providing them an edge in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
"This lab is critical for students to stay abreast of the latest industry trends," Gheresus said. "In an uncertain job market where jobs are being shipped overseas, engineers need to have multiple skill sets in order to retain current positions and move up the corporate ladder. This lab helps provide those skills to students majoring in a variety of engineering fields."
Written by Gary J. Erwin, with additional material courtesy of Dawn Hibbard
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Conventional bills, bonds, and notes which pay interest are unacceptable from an Islamic perspective.
Tradable financial instruments using Islamic structures were introduced in Pakistan in 1980 and Malaysia in 1990.
The defining characteristic of sukuk is their asset backing.
There remains much controversy over sukuk structures, especially among shariah scholars.
There is growing worldwide interest in sukuk, including from the Treasury in the United Kingdom.
Incompatibility of Conventional Financial Market Instruments with Shariah Law
Islamic capital markets are made up of two components, stock markets and bond markets. This contribution is primarily concerned with the latter rather than shariah-compliant stock determination. In particular it is sukuk that have become the accepted Islamic alternative to conventional bills, bonds, and notes, and hence are the major focus here.
Conventional capital market instruments such as treasury bills, bonds, and notes are unacceptable from a shariah Islamic legal perspective as they involve interest payments and receipts. Interest is equated with riba, an unjust addition to the principal of a debt, and is seen as potentially exploitative. Islamic economists prefer equity to debt financing because of the risk-sharing characteristics of the former, which is viewed as fairer to all parties. They are also concerned about the injustices that often arise with excessive indebtedness, as in the case of developing country debt, or simply the higher interest charges often faced by those with no collateral to offer and the poor more generally.
Nevertheless, government and corporate borrowing is unavoidable, and can indeed be beneficial if the finance is used productively for investment that can contribute to employment and prosperity. Bank lending, however, commits assets on a long-term basis and reduces liquidity. The advantage of using capital market instruments to raise finance is that investors can exit at any time rather than wait for assets to mature. Furthermore, the investment banks that arrange the issuances earn fees and do not have to commit their own resources, unless the bill, bond, or note issue is not taken up, in which case, as underwriters, they will have to purchase the issuance.
The Introduction of Islamic Capital Market Instruments
There are no shariah objections to financial markets, only to the interest-based instruments which are traded in the markets. Therefore, the first attempt to develop shariah-compliant debt instruments involved securitizing traditional Islamic financing instruments, as with the mudaraba certificates issued in Pakistan from 1980 onward after a law was passed giving legal recognition to the certificates. Mudaraba involves the establishment of partnership companies with investors, and the company managers share in the profits, but the financiers alone bear any losses. In 2008 the original law was amended to bring the mudaraba companies under the regulatory supervision of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, the aim being to ensure better investor protection.
In Malaysia, where Islamic banking started in 1983, a natural innovation was to securitize the debt instruments used, mainly murabaha financing, where a bank would purchase a commodity on behalf of a client and resell it to the client for a markup, with settlement through deferred payments. The first instrument was issued by the Shell oil company’s Sarawak subsidiary in 1990, with Bank Islam Malaysia as the arranger. By attracting third-party investors interested in benefiting from these deferred payments, the bank could use its capital for further financing rather than having it committed on a long-term basis. This debt trading, known as bai al-dayn, is permitted by the Malaysian interpretation of the Shafii School of Islamic jurisprudence which prevails in Malaysia and Indonesia, but is not permitted in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf. Scholars of Islamic jurisprudence in the Gulf believe that debtors should know who they are indebted to, rather than having their debt obligations traded in an impersonal market.
Given the concerns with bai al-dayn, it became clear that an alternative approach was needed to the securitization of debt instruments, and it was this that resulted in the emergence of sukuk. The defining characteristic of sukuk is that they are asset-backed, which implies that when they are traded the investors are buying and selling the rights to an underlying real asset, usually a piece of real estate or a movable asset such as equipment or vehicles. It is this that makes the transaction legitimate, as under sura 2.275 in the Qur’an, it states that “God hath permitted trade but forbidden riba.”
The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) has stated that for “sukuk, to be tradable, [they] must be owned by sukuk holders, with all the rights and obligations of ownership in real assets.”1
Again, it was Malaysia that took the lead in sukuk issuance, the first being for Malaysian Newsprint Industries in 2000, with an eight-year maturity. It was, however, the Malaysian government’s global sukuk in June 2002 that brought international attention, this being the first ever sovereign sukuk, with maturity after five years, the sum raised being $US 600 million. State-owned land provided the asset backing, and an ijara structure was used, with the government selling the land to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and leasing it back, and the investors in the SPV receiving a rental income as indirect owners rather than interest payments. The returns were, however, benchmarked to the London Interbank OfferedRate (LIBOR), the return being LIBOR + 0.95%, which meant the sukuk had similar financial characteristics to a floating rate note. HSBC Amanah, the Islamic finance affiliate of HSBC, acted as arranger.
Since 2002 sukuk issuance has risen remarkably, with sukuk issuance peaking at $US 46.6 billion in 2007, representing 205 issuances. The subprime crisis in asset-backed securities had a negative impact on sukuk issuance from August 2007 onward, demonstrating that Islamic finance was not immune from global financial developments. However, it mainly affected dollar-denominated issuance, as issuers who were asked to pay much more for their financing decided to postpone or abandon planned sukuk. Hence, US dollar-denominated issuance fell to just over $US 1 billion over the September 2007 to September 2008 period. Sukuk issuance in other currencies was less affected, however, with the equivalent of $US 15.4 billion issued in Malaysian ringgit over the same period, and $US 6.6 billion in UAE dirhams, even though the latter currency is pegged to the dollar. The need for funds for project finance continues to propel sukuk issuance in the Gulf, with the Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corporation, the region’s leading petrochemical producer, issuing sukuk worth $US 1.3 billion in May 2008, with the sukuk being riyal-denominated and paying SAIBOR (Saudi Arabia Interbank Offered Rate) plus 48 basis points over a 20-year period.
AAOIFI has identified 14 types of sukuk with different risk and return characteristics. Salam sukuk, for example, are a short-term substitute for conventional bills, as they yield a fixed return, usually over a 90-day period, and are regarded as very low-risk instruments, not least because the issuers are usually sovereign governments rather than corporate clients. The major limitation of salam sukuk, however, is that they cannot be traded, unlike treasury bills, as the investors are paying in advance for the delivery of an asset in 90 days. Under shariah investors can only trade assets that they own, and not those that they hope to own at a future date.
With the ijara sukuk cited above there is a return risk, as payments are usually linked to LIBOR which varies, and typically the issuance is for three to five years, which increases the possibility of default risk. Ijara sukuk can, however, be traded as the investors have a title to the underlying assets. This also applies in the case of mudaraba sukuk, which in some respects are less risky than their ijara equivalents as they pay a fixed return.
Unresolved Shariah Concerns with Sukuk
Despite the success of sukuk there remain fundamental questions about their legitimacy from a shariah perspective, as the current structures have been devised by lawyers and investment bankers and are not shariah-based, and as the contracts in traditional Islamic jurisprudence, fiqh, are significantly different. The sukuk are shariah-compliant in the sense that they have been approved by the shariah boards of the institutions undertaking their arrangement, but the shariah scholars serving on the boards have not been involved in the structuring of the financial instruments.
The first concern is overpricing, as although with mudaraba sukuk the returns are profit shares and with ijara sukuk they are rents, the benchmarks used, whether LIBOR or SAIBOR, are interest rate proxies. These are used so that the returns to sukuk investors are competitive with those on comparable conventional bonds and bills, but this is driven by market considerations and not by shariah. The second concern is that the returns to Islamic investors are supposed to be justified by risk-sharing, the notion of taking on each other’s burden. With sukuk, however, the main risk for the investors is of default, and in such circumstances the investors can be expected to instigate legal proceedings against the issuer to try to reclaim as much of their investment as possible. Most sukuk are rated, and the rating reflects the probability of default risk, which in turn is reflected in the pricing. For sovereign sukuk, for example, Pakistan has to pay a higher return than Qatar or Malaysia, reflecting country risk perceptions, yet it is the Government of Pakistan that can least afford the debt servicing.
Sheikh Taqi Usmani, a leading shariah scholar who specializes in Islamic finance, alleged in a speech in November 2007 that most sukuk were not shariah-compliant, as the investors expected to get the nominal value of their capital returned on maturity, avoiding exposure to market risk. In the case of mudaraba and musharaka sukuk, he believed that the amount the investor gets returned on maturity should reflect the terminal market value of the asset backing the sukuk and not simply its initial nominal value. The asset used as backing for the sukuk should have real financial significance and not simply be used as a legal proxy to justify sukuk trading.
Unlike equity investors, sukuk investors do not want market exposure. There may be justifiable reasons for this. First, investors may want a balanced portfolio and may be willing to risk a proportion of their capital for a potentially higher return, but they may not be willing to take excessive risk. Second, Islamic takaful insurance operators hold significant amounts of sukuk in their asset portfolios in the same way as conventional insurance companies hold bonds and notes. If their capital diminished, they would be unable to meet the claims of their members. If asset values are at risk this may also distort the type of sukuk which can be offered. The first Saudi Arabian sukuk was by HANCO, a car rental company, with the vehicles used as the underlying asset. If the original vehicles had been revalued on maturity after three years, they would have been worth less, and the investors would have lost some of their capital. Where real estate is used investors may gain, but those wanting exposure to the real estate market will invest directly, rather than through sukuk.
The Globalization of Sukuk
Despite controversies over the structuring and characteristics of sukuk, they have become an established asset class of interest to conventional as well as Islamic financial institutions. In the United Kingdom, HM Treasury published a consultation document on sukuk in November 2007 declaring that such an issuance could “deliver greater opportunities to British Muslims—and also entrench London as a leading centre for Islamic finance.”2 Following responses to the consultation, another document was published in June 2008 indicating that the Treasury was planning a series of sukuk bills issues, probably starting in 2009, which would provide a benchmark against which sterling corporate sukuk could be priced.
There have been sukuk issues already in other Western countries, with the German state of Saxony–Anhalt issuing a Euro-denominated ijara sukuk in July 2004 and the East Cameron Gas Company issuing a sukuk in the United States in June 2006. The major potential is in the Islamic world, however, and it is notable that in the most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, interest in sukuk is increasing, with Metrodata Electronics issuing an ijara sukuk in April 2008 to fund its expansion in telecommunications. Qatar has been particularly active in sukuk issuances, with major sovereign sukuk issued in September 2003 and January 2008, and 12 corporate sukuk, including by leading Doha-based real estate and transportation companies. In the years ahead the Qatar Financial Centre may well become a major center for sukuk trading, contributing to the country’s diversification into financial services.
The temporary pause in dollar-denominated sukuk issuance provides an opportunity for reviewing sukuk structures, and in this context the debate that followed Sheikh Taqi Usmani’s remarks is timely. There can be no doubt that once the market in conventional asset-backed securities revives internationally, dollar-denominated sukuk issuance will revive. The weakness over the 2000–07 period, however, was that although there was much new sukuk issuance, trading was limited, apart from in Kuala Lumpur in ringgit-denominated sukuk. The investment banks and regulators of financial centers in the Gulf, and indeed London, will have to consider how more active trading can be facilitated, as until this occurs sukuk will not fulfill their potential in providing long-term financing while maintaining investor liquidity.
1 Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions shari’ah board statement. Bahrain, February 13 and 14, 2008; p. 1. Online at: www.aaoifi.com/aaoifi_sb_sukuk_Feb2008_Eng.pdf
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Spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata) encircled within a tuna purse-seine net in the eastern tropical Pacific. Fishermen use the association of tunas, dolphins and seabirds to locate large yellowfin tuna schools. The dolphins and tuna are both captured in the net. Massive incidental mortality of dolphins in the early years of this fishery led to population declines and designation of this stock as depleted. Mortality is now much lower, but federal scientists said it is unclear to what extent the dolphin populations have recovered.
/ Southwest Fisheries Science Center/National Marine Fisheries Service
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Who is at risk
Fanconi anaemia (FA) occurs in all racial and ethnic groups and affects men and women equally.
In the United States, about 1 out of every 181 people is an FA carrier. This carrier rate leads to about 1 in 130,000 people being born with FA.
Two ethnic groups, Ashkenazi Jews and Afrikaners, are more likely than any other groups to have FA or be FA carriers.
Ashkenazi Jews are people who are descended from the Jewish population of Eastern Europe. Afrikaners are White natives of South Africa who speak a language called Afrikaans. This ethnic group is descended from early Dutch, French, and German settlers.
In the United States, 1 out of 90 Ashkenazi Jews is an FA carrier, and 1 out of 30,000 is born with FA. In South Africa, Afrikaners have a carrier rate of 1 in 77, and 1 out of every 22,000 Afrikaners is born with FA.
FA is an inherited disease; it’s passed from parents to children through genes. At least 15 faulty genes are associated with FA. FA occurs if both parents pass the same faulty FA gene to their child.
Children born into families with histories of FA are at risk of inheriting the disorder. Children whose mothers and fathers both have family histories of FA are at even greater risk of inheriting FA. A family history of FA means that it’s possible that a parent carries a faulty gene associated with the disorder. Even if these children aren’t born with FA, they’re still at risk of being FA carriers.
Children who have only one parent who carries a faulty FA gene also are at risk of being carriers. However, they’re not at risk of having FA.
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http://fanconi.co.za/who-is-at-risk/
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We trust the American people. Decisions made at the national level are rarely as good as decisions made at the local level by the people they affect. We believe in returning decision making to a level as local as practical. This will increase the quality of these decisions, and the accountability of those making them. The ultimate governance question is “Who Decides?” We believe that the answer is… YOU.
Through Pollution Dilution.
It is commonly stated dictum in the environmental sciences that, “The solution to pollution is dilution.” This simple rule can be effectively applied to the current political situation in our country. When concentrated, materials that are normally non-hazardous can become hazardous. This principle was known to the Founders of our country and was applied to the design of our political system. The Founders understood that the concentration of power was dangerous to the citizens, and that power must be diluted or dispersed among the people.
Today, power has become more and more concentrated in Washington DC, and in the state capitols. Thousands upon thousands of decisions that were once in the hands of individual citizens or their local governments are now in the hands of politicians or bureaucrats who are hundreds or thousands of miles away from the citizens they affect. This has had a toxic effect on the governance of our country.
The belief that our government is “toxic” to the citizens is non-partisan. Ask citizens in San Francisco or Berkeley, California if the federal government is representative of their beliefs and you will hear a resounding “NO.” Ask the more generally conservative people in College Station, Texas the same question and you will hear the same response.
The more decisions become centralized, the worse those decisions tend to be in regard to the vast majority of citizens they affect. At a scale like the entire country, it is rare that decisions actually reflect the beliefs of the majority of those they will affect. 6% of people think that Congress is doing a “fair” or “good” job. Yet roughly 70% of Americans have faith in their local governments. Dispersed power, close to the people, is healthier for communities.
Over the last two and a half centuries, power has become centralized in Washington, DC, and even in state capitals. Power, when concentrated, is a pollutant to good government. It is time for “Dilution of the Pollution. It is time to trust the people to govern themselves. Whether the community is in Berkeley, California, or in College Station, Texas, the citizens who make up Citizens for Self Governance trust the people to govern themselves. Do you?
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A study published in the Journal of Periodontology found that current and past users of the contraceptive depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) had increased markers of poor periodontal health compared to women who have never used it.
CHICAGO—February 6, 2012—Injectable progesterone contraceptives may be associated with poor periodontal health, according to research in the Journal of Periodontology. The study found that women who are currently taking depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) injectable contraceptive, or have taken DMPA in the past, are more likely to have indicators of poor periodontal health, including gingivitis and periodontitis, than women who have never taken the injectable contraceptive. DMPA is a long-lasting progestin-only injectable contraceptive administered intermuscularly every three months.
Periodontal disease is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the gum tissue and bone that supports the teeth. Gingivitis, the mildest form of gum disease, causes the gums to become red, swollen, and bleed easily. Periodontitis is the most severe form of gum disease and can lead to tooth loss. Additionally, research has associated gum disease with other chronic inflammatory diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and rheumatoid arthritis.
The data for this study were obtained from the NHANES 1999-2004 public use datasets. The participants chosen were non-pregnant, premenopausal women aged 15-44 who had provided complete DMPA usage data, indicating current usage of DMPA, past usage of DMPA, or no usage of DMPA at all. All participants received a dental examination that noted clinical attachment (CA) loss, periodontal pocket assessment at two or three sites per tooth, and presence of gingival bleeding.
After adjusting for age, race, education, poverty income level, and smoking status, the study found that current and past DMPA users had significantly increased periodontal pockets, gingival bleeding, and CA loss than women who have never used DMPA. Current DMPA users were more likely to have gingivitis, while past DMPA users were more likely to have periodontitis.
According to Dr. Pamela McClain, President of the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) and a practicing periodontist in Aurora, Colorado, women currently taking DMPA or that have used DMPA in the past should pay careful attention to their teeth and gums. “Hormones can play a role in woman’s periodontal health. These findings suggest that women that use, or have used, a hormone-based injectable contraception such as DMPA may have increased odds of poor periodontal health. I would encourage women that use or previously used this form of contraception to maintain excellent oral care, and to be sure to see a dental professional for a comprehensive periodontal evaluation on an annual basis.”
Taichman, L. S., Sohn, W, Kolenic, G. & Sowers, M. (in press). Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate Use and Periodontal Health in United States Women Ages 15-44. Abstracts of Journal of Periodontology articles are available to the public online. Full-text of studies may be accessed by AAP members and Journal subscribers or purchased online.
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There is no public transportation in the Yankton area. Limited taxicab service is available (605/665-2777 or 605/665-4551).
Did You Know?
The "Yellow Stone," a steamboat belonging the John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, was the first steamship to ascend the "Big Muddy" into what would become the Dakota Territory and eventually the present-day Dakotas and Montana. More...
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It’s important for fathers and kids to spend time together. If you don’t stay home with the kids during the week, then you might find that you are missing out. An engaged dad who participates with his family helps make a stronger family unit – according to many studies and sources, a dad’s participation can make for happier, healthier children who perform better in school and are more socially assured.
So what’s a dad to do? Here are some general tips for dads getting involved with your family.
Dads and moms alike tend to think of parent organizations like the PTA as moms’ groups. But if dads are simply asked to participate, this conception may change. When someone at the school asks for dads’ participation, then dads begin to realize they are needed. They do not necessarily intuit that need, so direct asking is probably best.
Give Him a Task
Attending meetings with no noticeable goal or purpose does not tend to motivate dads. But having a particular task to perform or job to do can inspire dads to get involved. Try giving Dad something specific he can do, such as a household project, that can include the kids. For example, painting a door or fence could be a good family project for the weekend, or helping with a science project.
The Proper Mindset
Sometimes, it helps just to get the right mindset about spending time with your family. For instance, you might want to schedule in the time with family rather than just waiting for it to happen. Maybe the weekends (or one day of the weekend) could be considered family time. Then you will plan your activities accordingly. Evenings or whatever time you have off from work can be dedicated to family activities, at least in part.
Look for Opportunities
As you go about your day and week, you will probably hear about school projects, events, upcoming holidays, and so forth. Think of ways you can get in on the event, whether it’s helping with a project, meeting with a teacher, or taking your kids shopping for gifts for others.
You Don’t Have to be Perfect
Sometimes, dads can feel awkward or uncertain about family involvement, so they stay away or lie low. But no one is perfect, and ultimately your kids will benefit from your “imperfect” interaction far more than they will from your lack of it. It’s okay to make some mistakes, but fathers and kids should make the most of their time together!
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Spain is becoming one of Europe’s highest-taxed countries, with a top marginal tax rate of 52 percent, near that of Sweden at 56 percent.
It isn’t going to work. (Felt like saying “ain’t” but want to set a good example.)
Such a high tax rate is more feasible in Sweden (or less unfeasible) because the rule of law is much stronger there – perhaps the strongest in the world. There’s something about Sweden’s culture such that people comply with the law to a much greater extent than anywhere else. Although to be sure, even Swedes can have trouble paying that much. One of my sports heroes, Swedish ski racing legend Ingemar Stenmark, moved to Monaco. Why? According to Wikipedia, for tax reasons. Tennis star Bjorn Borg moved to Monaco too, as did lots of other Swedish millionaires.
Generally, the farther south you go in Europe, the less strong is the rule of law. People flout the law to a greater extent. Greece is a prime example. They kept jacking up the tax rates on the rich, but many rich don’t pay. And they can get away with it due to a weaker rule of law.
It’s a similar culture in Spain. I haven’t been there, but I’ve been to other southern European countries - Italy and Greece. Just from a country’s “curb appeal”, you get sense of how orderly things are there. How well drivers obey the traffic rules. How well pedestrians wait for the walk signal before they cross the street. How clean the streets are. How well things are maintained. The more orderly things look in a particular country, it’s a good bet that the more people comply with paying their taxes, too.
So if Spaniards see Sweden with a 56 percent tax rate and wonder why they can’t have the same thing in Spain, there’s good reason why they can’t. You’re not going to raise the same kinds of revenues that you would in Sweden. Tax evasion will be rampant.
(It’s a similar situation with the United States. Lefties here look upon Sweden’s and Germany’s tax rates with wistful eyes, but those rates aren’t going to work here. Ever seen a German at a crosswalk and refuse to budge when the don’t walk sign is flashing, even though there are no cars around? Happens a lot. The rule of law is stronger there than here. In America, if there are no cars, hell, why stand there – walk!… And in Mexico, I’ve noticed that if you’re in your car at a red light and there are no cars around, then drive! Like I said I haven’t been to Spain, but maybe it’s a similar situation there. If you know, then let me know.)
So until Spain gets out of its debt predicament mainly by cutting spending rather than by raising taxes, it’s going to remain mired in debt and stagnation.
That’s confirmed by a study, referred to in a previous post. After analyzing the experiences of dozens of countries in attempting to reduce their debt-to-GDP ratios, the researchers found that the instances of failure mainly relied on large tax increases and only modest spending decreases, if any. Instances that succeeded mainly relied on large spending decreases and only modest tax increases, if any.
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Let's find out what happens behind the scenes when your email program fetches mail in a POP account. First, it needs to connect to the server.
Hi, It's Me
Usually the POP server listens to port 110 for incoming connections. Upon connection from a POP client (your email program) it will hopefully respond with +OK pop.philo.org ready or something similar. The +OK indicates that everything is â OK. Its negative equivalent is -ERR, which means something has gone wrong. Maybe your email client has already shown you one of these negative server replies.
Now that the server has greeted us, we need to log on using our username (let's suppose the user name is "platoon"; what the server says is printed in italics):
+OK pop.philo.org ready
Since a user with this name does exist, the POP server responds with +OK and maybe some gibberish we don't really care about. Were there no such user at the server, it would of course make us panic with -ERR user unknown.
To make the authentication complete we also need to give our password. This is done with the "pass" command:
+OK send your password
If we type the password correctly, the server responds with +OK great password or whatever the programmer of the POP server had in mind. The important part again is the +OK. Unfortunately, passwords can also be wrong. The server notes this with a dry -ERR username and password don't match (as if you'd use your user name as your password).
If everything went okay, though, we are connected to the server and it knows who we are, thus we're ready to peek the newly arrived mail.
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|NATIONAL PARKS QUICKLINKS|
At first glance, the 6,863-foot summit of Mount Sanitas may seem modest compared to the 8,000-foot peaks dotting the ridgeline west of Boulder, but this 3.4-mile hike (or trail run) packs plenty of punch for a short outing.
Start at the west end of Mapleton Avenue and hike northwest along a brief, 0.2-mile flat stretch up the Sanitas Valley Trail. From here, you'll navigate a steep obstacle course of log steps, rock slabs, and giant boulders (and climb 1,100 feet in one mile) past overlooks of both the foothills and mountain canyons to the west. At Sanitas' small summit, take in expansive views of Boulder and the eastern plains before tackling an equally steep and rocky descent of the mountain's eastern slopes. Two miles into the hike, the route merges onto the Dakota Ridge Trail for an easy walk back to Mapleton Avenue.
-Mapped by Kim Phillips
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Daily Topic for June 19, 2011
There is only one mediator between God and mankind, the man Jesus Christ. He is calling many of His followers to introduce the lost to the mediator! The Mel, the Kroal, the T’moan, and other Pearic tribes still need to meet this mediator. But someone needs to be willing to go.
Pray for willing vessels to go and introduce the Mel tribe to Jesus, the only mediator between God and man.
The Khmer businessman looked the cow over carefully. After deeming it worthy of his investment, he asked the tribesman how much he wanted for the animal. The tribesman stared blankly at him before turning to the Mel man standing beside him. The Mel translated the question, listened to the answer, and then told the businessman the price. At that point the bargaining began in earnest. The Mel man acted as a go-between until they came to an agreement.
This is precisely where the Mel people find themselves today: in between two cultures. Even as the 3000 people in this group are being assimilated into Khmer society, they continue to act as representatives for the more remote Pearic tribes such as the Kroal and T’moan, helping them to buy and sell livestock and goods.
Although historically animistic, the Mel have now adopted Buddhism, as their lives have been increasingly impacted by modern culture. Perhaps, if the Mel could hear about Jesus, they would turn their lives over to Him. They could continue to act as mediators between the more remote animistic Pearic tribes of Cambodia and the Buddhist Khmer peoples; and, perhaps, they could be the key to drawing members of both peoples into a relationship with Christ.Learn more at joshuaproject.net
Pray for the salvation of members of this small, but strategically located tribe. Ask the Lord to use them to bring reconciliation between the people groups of Cambodia and their Creator.
Next day: Tampuan People
Previous day: Kuy People
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Disappearing Dinosaur Heat Change Mug
A hot cup of coffee turns these prehistoric beasts into fossils!
Add a hot beverage to the Disappearing Dinosaur Mug and watch as a trio of prehistoric dinos turn to fossils.
In a matter of seconds, a lush, primordial scene transforms into a museum setting ripe with skeletal displays, columns, and name plates.
The microwave safe, 12-ounce mug is the perfect gift for anyone still fascinated by earth's most amazing predators.
Features & specs:
- Dimensions: 3.5" x 3.75" diameter (5.25" with handle)
- Capacity: 12 oz (355 mL)
- Microwave safe
- Hand wash only
- FDA approved
- California Prop. 65 compliant
Watch our Disappearing Dino Mug video
Eons pass in seconds!
At Vat19.com, we have a serious infatuation with dinosaurs. Next to owning a life-size Voltron, seeing a T-Rex brought back from extinction via some crazy Jurassic Park-esque "science" would be just about the coolest thing ever.
Thus, the Disappearing Dinosaur Mug pretty much had us at "Yo," (check out this heat change mug). Simply add some hot coffee and within a few seconds the dinosaurs on this mug transform into fossils. Sweet.
See it in action!
In the short video below, you can see just how quickly hot water turns the mug's lush prehistoric setting into skeletal remains.
Colorful artwork morphs into fossil remains
The Disappearing Dinosaur Mug features three dinos. In addition to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, there's a sauropod (Brachiosaurus), and a Deinonychus (from the same family as the Velociraptor). Add a hot liquid and the prehistoric landscape disappears and morphs into a museum exhibit.
High-quality ceramic mug
The Disappearing Dinosaur Mug features thick ceramic (roughly 0.375"), a curved lip (for easy sipping), and perfectly smooth (bubble-free) glazing. Point being, they didn't skimp out on the rest of the mug in order to create the awesome heat-change effect.
Safe for the microwave
Although the special, heat-sensitive glaze requires you to hand wash this awesome mug, there is no problem using it in the microwave.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Can you drink tea with it?
Question: Shouldn't the Deinonychus be shown with feathers?
Answer: Yeah, we read that Wikipedia article, too. There is no definitive answer, but it is likely that it had feathers. Perhaps it lost them all due to the utter shock of having a 40-foot-long T. rex ready to rip its head off.
Question: So... hot beverages made the dinosaurs go extinct?
Answer: Sure! It's as good of a theory as any, right?
Question: Is it dishwasher safe?
Answer: No. The high temperatures of the dishwasher could damage the heat-sensitive glaze.
Question: Is there a downloadable user manual for this mug?
Answer: Not currently, but here are some tips for operating your Disappearing Dinosaur Mug. Take your hand and place it on top of the mug. Press firmly. If you are able to work your hand inside the mug, then this is the end into which you should pour your refreshment.
Question: How long does it take for the dinosaurs to go "extinct"?
Answer: That depends on the temperature of the liquid. Near-boiling water can cause the image to turn in as little as 15-20 seconds. Hot, yet still sippable beverages, will take 45-50 seconds to transform the image. Once the heated liquid is removed, it can take about 5 minutes for the image to revert to its original form.
Burning Questions: You ask and we answer!
Want to ask your own Burning Question?
Now, if there is something that you need to know about this product that we've omitted, please send us an anonymous question and we promise to answer it within 1 business day.
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Providence -- Rhode Island U.S. Rep. James Langevin toured a coastal community hard hit by Superstorm Sandy on Monday and vowed to push for federal assistance that could help rebuild dunes to protect businesses and homes from tidal floods.
Langevin said federal assistance could help Westerly’s Misquamicut Beach if Congress approves additional funding for the Army Corps of Engineers in the next round of federal storm assistance. The House is set to vote on the aid package next week.
Westerly is seeking several million dollars in assistance for repairs following Sandy, which washed away Misquamicut’s dunes and left the area vulnerable to flooding at high-tide even as beachfront business owners seek to rebuild before the summer tourist season.
“Without those dunes acting as barriers to the surf, everything they’re working on just gets washed away,” said Langevin, a Democrat, following his tour.
Congress has already signed off on $9.7 billion in Sandy-related aid. But the House has yet to vote on another $51 billion in help to states impacted by the October storm. It remains to be seen how much of that money would go to Rhode Island.
While Sandy damaged areas along all of Rhode Island’s southern coast, Westerly was perhaps hardest hit, with scores of beachfront homes flooded, coastal roads washed out and tons of golden sand carried away.
At Misquamicut Beach the storm washed away hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand, leaving beachfront businesses without a line of protective dunes. Flooding at high tide is threatening to undermine recovery efforts, Langevin said.
Much of the sand carried away by Sandy ended up in coastal streets and neighborhoods. Crews moved an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 cubic yards of sand to the Misquamicut State Beach parking lot. Officials hope to move the sand back to the beach, but first must remove nails, glass, wood and other debris.
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2010 had its fair share of intense tragedy, as well as a few spy scandals. But it has definitely not been all bad, with the world's biggest nuclear powers making a New START and Russia netting the 2018 World Cup – a crowning moment.
2010 was a year filled with leaks and laughter, tears and tragedies.
It got off to a good start for Russia – signs of a steady economic recovery, no gas crisis with Ukraine or Belarus, as in previous years, and a relatively bearable winter.
But that changed in March when terror struck.
Twin blasts rocked Moscow’s Metro during morning rush hour, killing 40 and injuring over a hundred.
Two women suicide bombers blew themselves up on a central line – one of them just meters from RT headquarters.
“We will find all of those who are guilty and we will punish them,” was Russian President Medvedev’s reaction to the event.
Doku Umarov from Chechnya, who is on the International Most Wanted List and has links to Al-Qaeda, is the suspected mastermind behind the attack.
In a chain of special operations, several terrorist involved in the suicide bombings were taken out by Russian Special Forces.
Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama signed the new START treaty in the spring, setting targets to slash both countries' strategic nuclear stockpiles by a third.
“This is the most significant arms control agreement in nearly two decades,” President Obama said.
Congress only approved the pact just before Christmas and the Russian Duma is expected to follow suit after months of waiting for their counterparts on Capitol Hill to get through their partisan wrangling.
There were fears the pact would be amended or blocked by Senate Republicans over unrelated domestic issues.
Both the Kremlin and the White House see sealing the deal as a cornerstone in the much-hyped “reset” between Russia and the US.
April 10 was a day which shocked the world with a tragedy that will echo in history.
Polish President Lech Kaczynski and most of the country’s political elite were killed when their TU-154 crashed near Smolensk.
The delegation was preparing to mark 70 years since 20,000 Polish officers were massacred at Katyn by Soviet Secret Police.
Just days before the accident, a joint commemoration at Katyn was seen as a tremendous step forward in Russian-Polish relations.
“Over the past few days we have held remembrance ceremonies mourning the victims of totalitarianism. Lech Kaczynski was coming to Russia to pay tribute to the killed Polish officers. All Russians share in your grief and sorrow,” President Medvedev said at the time.
Russian-Polish ties continued to warm as the two nations mourned together.
In 2010 Russia marked 65 years since defeating Nazi Germany in what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.
An elaborate Parade was held on Red Square as heads of state looked on to commemorate the some 27 million Soviet lives lost during WWII.
It was the first time in history when countries that made up the allied forces took part in the tradition.
2010 also saw the return of Cold War spy scandals, sending redheaded Russian bombshell Anna Chapman into the headlines for weeks.
“Nothing inspires me more than the amount and quality of people I met in New York. It’s the strongest, largest and the most solid community in the world,” Anna Chapman said in a previously-recorded video.
But she did not get to stay there for long. “Femme fatale” Anna Chapman was just one of ten alleged Russian spies exchanged in Vienna for four American spies serving sentences in Russia.
The scandal, worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, broke just weeks after Obama and Medvedev had dished out politics over burgers in Virginia.
The media frenzy was a lot hotter than tempers in the US, and Russia that ignored the hype with cool co-operation.
Record heat wreaked havoc in Russia, with summer temperatures in 2010 lingering at around 40 degrees Celsius for over a month.
Hundreds of wildfires ravaged the country, killing over 50 people and leaving thousands homeless.
The flames left the capital covered in a blanket of toxic smog for weeks while Moscow’s mayor, Yury Luzhkov, stayed on vacation in the Alps.
Luzhkov was sacked the following month, with President Medvedev saying he lacked confidence in the mayor. Sergey Sobyanin became Moscow’s top man soon afterwards.
Officially a first in the Middle East, Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant was launched and loaded, and is set to be connected to the country’s electricity grid within months, saving Iran 11 million barrels of oil a year.
The plant is operated by specialists from Russia, which also provides the nuclear fuel and deals with the waste.
Iran considers the launch a victory, and proof of their peaceful atomic program, despite criticism form the US and Israel.
He never made it off the shortlist as Time’s “Person of the Year”, but for many he is the man of 2010.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange exposed hundreds of thousands of Iraq War documents and American diplomatic cables to name just a few.
But the US accuses him of espionage, and in Sweden he faces allegations of rape.
Assange was arrested in the UK, where he was seeking refuge.
Later granted bail after a legal wrangle, Assange now has to wait to find out whether he will be extradited to Sweden.
“Clearing my name is not the highest task I have. The highest task I have is to continue on with my work,” Julian Assange said.
His whistleblower website continues to leak into the New Year.
Fallen Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of laundering over US$25 billion worth of oil and sentenced to 13.5 years in Jail.
He has nearly served out an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud, and faces another six years behind bars.
Russia has been criticized for politicizing the case, but Vladimir Putin says compared to Bernie Madoff’s 150 years, 14 years is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
And last but not least – the 2018 World Cup will be organized in Russia!
It was a nail-biting wait for the announcement, with Russia and England going head to head till the very end.
Little “Sasha” secured the bid with his big dreams of football and England secured headlines by dubbing Russia’s win “a fix”.
Prime Minister Putin only went to the scene of the vote, Zurich, after the announcement, saying he had not wanted to pressure FIFA – while British PM David Cameron, David Beckham and Prince William were not enough star power to bring the World Cup home to England.
“From the bottom of my heart – thank you!” Vladimir Putin later said.
Russia did not let the sore-losing rain on its parade. Winning the right to host the World Cup certainly goes down as one of the most enjoyable moments of an eventful year.
By posting your comment, you agree to abide by our Posting rules
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As many of you heard, Mattel had allowed internet voting to get help in choosing Barbie’s next career. The choice was announced: the girls wanted Barbie to be a news anchor. But that’s not the end of the story…
Consumers loudly campaigned for another Barbie® career. The winner of the popular vote is Computer Engineer. Computer Engineer Barbie®, debuting in Winter 2010, inspires a new generation of girls to explore this important high-tech industry, which continues to grow and need future female leaders.
“All the girls who imagine their futures through Barbie will learn that engineers — like girls — are free to explore inï¬nite possibilities, limited only by their imagination,†says Nora Lin, President, Society of Women Engineers. “As a computer engineer, Barbie will show girls that women can turn their ideas into realities that have a direct and positive impact on people’s everyday lives in this exciting and rewarding career.â€
(That’s from the official press release)
You can take a look at Computer Engineer Barbie’s fact sheet on their press release site, or check out coverage elsewhere. There are more pictures on the Barbie media site, although apparently you have to click to download the high-res ones if you want more than a head and shoulders view.
It’s neat that they asked some actual women engineers about what clothes and accessories Computer Engineer Barbie should have. Although I’d have traded those leggings for blue jeans, I know plenty of geeky women who’d wear a binary shirt. It is interminably weird to imagine Barbie as a potential coworker, though!
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The first time I bought a car on my own, I got ripped off. I traded in my car for less than it was worth, bought a clunker for more than I should have, and got talked into a $950 warranty to cover rust as I was finalizing the paperwork. The salesman saw me coming and pulled out every trick in the book – from saying my credit wasn’t good enough to tacking on “mandatory charges” during the final sale.
If you’re in the market for a new car, Money Talks News founder Stacy Johnson warns about car dealer tricks of the trade and traps to avoid.
By focusing on payments and not total price, it is easy to trick the consumer into thinking they’re getting a good deal. Steer the conversation to the total price – let the payments take care of themselves.
Step one in buying anything requiring a loan is securing financing. Never head to the lot without first shopping, and getting pre-approved for, a loan. Check out the auto loan rates search tool on the Money Talks News rates page. Or visit a local credit union – they’re usually a good spot for low-interest car loans.
But don’t just shop rates. Actually apply and get approved. This serves two functions – you won’t get ripped off with dealer financing, and you’ll be ready to pull the trigger when you find the perfect ride.
Car dealerships are notorious for should-have-read-the-fine-print promotions. Take the example given in the video; you see a great price on a certain model of car so you go to the dealership. Once there, you find out the advertisement was only for one specific car, which is now sold. And if you want a different car, maybe in a different color or with different features, you’ll have to pay more.
Read the fine print before you go to the dealership. If you’re not sure, call ahead.
Solution? Don’t bite. If you feel uncomfortable or unsure of any decision, ask to speak to someone else or just walk away. Keep looking until you find someone you can work with.
Don’t let the dealer pressure you into a pricey service you don’t need. Know what you want before you sit down in the dealer’s office. And if it’s an extra you need, shop for it elsewhere. There are very few things offered by car dealers you can’t find from other sources, often for less.
Use one of these sites to determine the value of your car:
An even better way to determine your car’s value is to find ones like it selling nearby on eBay. eBay is good because it shows actual prices being paid by retail shoppers in your area. Plus, you can visit cars for sale and compare their condition to yours.
When trading in, don’t expect any dealer to offer your car’s retail value. They make money by buying at wholesale and selling at retail. Want max dollars for your car? Sell it yourself.
What matters isn’t what the manufacturer suggests, it’s what true market value of the car is – how much people in your area are actually paying for similar cars.
You can find true market value at sites like Edmunds or Kelley Blue Book. Find it out and use it to negotiate a better price.
And, of course, if you find your scores are low, improve them before you apply. For more, see 18 Tips to Give Your Credit Score a Boost.
You can get your credit scores (for a fee) from the credit bureaus’ sites or from myfico.com.
Dealers discourage negotiating. Buying a car isn’t one big transaction; it is actually three separate ones: pricing the trade-in, buying the new car, and financing. I made this mistake when I went to the dealership alone for the first time. Rather than look at each piece, I looked at the total cost overall, thought, “OK, I can afford this,” and signed on the dotted line.
Don’t be like me. Negotiate every step of the way, and you’ll get the best deal. Start by making sure the dealer is giving you a fair price for your trade-in. Then make sure you’re getting a close-to-TMV price on the car you want to buy. Finally, look for a good interest rate.
Don’t take the dealer’s word for the condition of a used car. Never buy any car from any source without first taking it to an independent mechanic for an unbiased inspection.
Subscribe to the Money Talks News newsletter
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Police pay tribute to 243 who died on duty
They were ordinary men and women who gave a "priceless service", and today the 243 NSW police officers who have died on duty were honoured on National Police Remembrance Day.
Serving police officers marched through central Sydney, paying tribute to their fallen colleagues at the Wall of Remembrance in the Domain.
One name was added to the wall this year - that of 27-year-old Constable Shelley Davis, who died in June after her patrol car crashed at Goulburn.
The officers then marched to St Mary's Cathedral for a service with family and friends.
Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, led the service with a minute's silence to remember serving and retired police who have passed away.
Addressing the service, NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said the 243 officers who have died on duty since 1862 had given a "priceless service" to the community.
"Whilst occasions such as this are understandably tinged with sadness, they are also an opportunity to reflect on the bravery, courage and commitment of each of the colleagues we honour here today," Mr Moroney said.
"These heroes and heroines ... (are) ordinary men and women.
"What makes them extraordinary is not how they died but how they lived - doing an often dangerous and at times, a thankless job."
In the early days of policing, officers were frequently shot by bushrangers, drowned or thrown from horses.
Most police killed on duty are now victims of traffic accidents or offenders they were trying to apprehend, but the demands of the job have also taken their toll on officers' mental and physical health.
Detective Sergeant Mark Speechley, from the Forensic Services Group, suffered a heart attack while on duty last September.
Today his widow, Barbara, and five-year-old son, Brendon, laid a wreath in his honour at the altar of St Mary's.
Mrs Speechley said: "I look at Brendon at times and I just feel so sad knowing that he is going to grow up without his dad."
Today was an important opportunity for the community to remember the sacrifices officers made, she said, and a significant day for the children of officers who have died.
"It shows them their parent had a special job protecting people in the community," Mrs Speechley said.
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Wave - ONLINE EDITION
Overcoming life's troubles
How to promote resilience in school-age kids
Winnipeg Health Region
Wave, September / October 2012
Being a kid can be a lot of fun.
Kids don't have the responsibilities of adults - they can spend more time having fun with their friends and they have loads of energy. Generally speaking, kids do have a lot of fun, but they can have their troubles too; that's part of growing up.
The ability to bounce back from life's ups and downs is called resilience. Parents and caregivers all want their children to be resilient and to be able to handle problems and challenges when they happen. But how do adults help young people to build resilience?
This is a topic that is gaining attention, especially when it comes to the debate on how much children should be protected and how much we should let them experience life in order to gain skills that will give them the ability to handle challenges in the future. With kids now back in school and with all the new routines and experiences, it's a good time to think about how we can help build resilience in the young people around us.
If we want young people to be resilient we need to think about what they already have, and what they may need.
For example, resilient youth tend to have more supportive relationships. Family plays a huge role, but extended family, teachers, coaches and other adults can have a big impact, too. Young people need to know that others care about them, and being acknowledged and encouraged by adults is important. A simple "Hi, how's it going?" from a teacher or coach acknowledges a kid who otherwise may feel invisible to the world. Adolescents can sometimes give the message that they don't care, but they do. Being supportive can simply mean being friendly, accepting and encouraging. Noticing a young person's strengths and talents can be a huge boost to confidence, especially when it comes from someone outside of their immediate family.
The ability to identify emotions and talk about feelings is another critical skill. When we can talk about how we feel, we provide an outlet for our emotions. Emotions that get bottled up can be overwhelming and can interfere with school work and other responsibilities. Again, children often learn this skill by seeing it in action. Instead of slamming around the pots and pans as you cook supper after a bad day at work, why not just say, "Wow, that was a frustrating day I had. I am really in need of some time to unwind." Encourage children to say how they are feeling too, and then listen without judgment.
The ability to manage emotions is also a big part of resilience. When school-age children and youth can talk about how they feel and find healthy ways to express and handle strong emotions, they are in a better position to deal with struggles along life's way. We can help them develop this skill by role-modelling healthy ways to manage emotions. This could mean going for a walk to "cool down" when we are angry or listening to soothing music when we are anxious. Showing respect for their feelings is also very important. Strong emotions are just a part of adolescence and, while we can help them to gain perspective on these emotions, we don't want to belittle their feelings in any way.
Resilient youth tend to have an optimistic outlook and generally feel self-confident. Self-confidence is gained by being able to do things for yourself and having opportunities to make decisions that affect your life. These two factors go hand in hand. For example, a young person who learns how to use the bus, or make a sandwich for themselves will gain skills and autonomy that can boost their selfconfidence and their belief in their ability to manage things in life. Skills such as these are built slowly over time as they grow and develop maturity.
Adults play an important role in seeing when children are ready to take the next step in doing things for themselves. An overprotective parent can deny a child the opportunity to develop these skills and "bubble-wrap" their kid. On the other hand, expecting a young person to take on more than what they can handle can be a problem, too. A caregiver who spends time with their child will be able to notice when they are ready to take on a little more responsibility, and will be in a position to encourage and guide that process. This can get harder as children grow into adolescents and they have their own schedules. Find new ways to connect that are fun for them such as going for a walk or out for lunch, shooting some hoops, or catching a ball game.
Resilience is not only an individual asset - we need to have resilient families and communities as well. We are all connected to one another through school, work and other social settings, and how well we support one another and have a positive influence on each other is also a big part of resilience. We can't do it alone. If a child is upset about losing a family pet, for example, their ability to cope with this event will be affected by how their family and friends react and how they are supported through this loss. Resilient communities are very important in helping build children's resilience, particularly in a time when things can change very rapidly. We all need a network of support to help us through tough times but also to share good times as well. Get your family involved in responding to the needs of others. Find ways for your family to be neighbourly by offering to rake a neighbour's leaves if they can't or getting involved in a neighbourhood clean-up.
Resilience is something we can all continue to work on. With support, children and adolescents can find ways to bounce back from life's challenges. Having resilience means they will have the strength and courage needed to strive for and to reach their personal goals and aspirations. The sky's the limit!
Laurie McPherson is a mental health promotion co-ordinator with the Winnipeg Health Region.
Tips for building family resilience
Doing fun things together will strengthen your connection. Toss a ball, play a board game or cards; when times are tough it will be easier to talk and support one another.
Be a positive role model
Make sure the young people in your life see and hear that you are capable of handling problems in life. Show them how you demonstrate empathy, caring, and generosity.
Encourage a "can do" attitude
Teach young people simple problem-solving skills, and support their efforts when they try something new.
Focus on strengths
Everyone has strengths they can build on; help young people to see their strengths and capabilities.
Give the message that there are many ways to do things. Be open to supporting your child's own way of doing things and learning from it - it's part of the process.
Make healthy choices most of the time
Be physically healthy together, eat well and get enough sleep. Being healthy helps everyone to manage life's challenges.
Simple steps to effective problem-solving
State the problem
Be specific about the problem.
Think of all possible solutions
Make a list of possible solutions without judging them. What are your options? Be creative.
Evaluate each option
What are the things that affect your decision? How will it affect other people? What are the consequences of each option?
Choose a solution
Think about which solution makes the most sense in this particular situation. Do it.
Evaluate the outcome
How did it go? What did you learn? What would you like to do differently next time?
Have you found an error, or know of something we’ve missed in one of our stories? Please use the form below and let us know.
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Earth & Environment - Posted by Jordan Reese-Penn on Monday, November 9, 2009 14:28 - 3 Comments
North Carolina sea level rises at faster pace
U. PENN (US)—An international team of environmental scientists has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. The increase during the 20th century is three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years.
In addition, this jump appears to occur between 1879 and 1915, a time of industrial change that may provide a direct link to human-induced climate change. The results of the research led by the University of Pennsylvania appear in the current issue of the journal Geology.
The rate of relative sea-level rise, or RSLR, during the 20th century was 3 to 3.3 millimeters per year, higher than the usual rate of one per year. The acceleration appears consistent with other studies from the Atlantic coast, though the magnitude of the acceleration in North Carolina is larger than at sites farther north along the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic coast and may be indicative of a latitudinal trend related to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
Understanding the timing and magnitude of this possible acceleration in the rate of RSLR is critical for testing models of global climate change and for providing a context for 21st-century predictions.
“Tide gauge records are largely inadequate for accurately recognizing the onset of any acceleration of relative sea-level rise occurring before the 18th century, mainly because too few records exist as a comparison,” says Andrew Kemp, the paper’s lead author. “Accurate estimates of sea-level rise in the pre-satellite era are needed to provide an appropriate context for 21st-century projections and to validate geophysical and climate models.”
The research team studied two North Carolina salt marshes that form continuous accumulations of organic sediment, a natural archive that provides scientists with an accurate way to reconstruct relative sea levels using radiometric isotopes and stratigraphic age markers.
The research provided a record of relative sea-level change since the year 1500 at the Sand Point and Tump Point salt marshes in the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system of North Carolina. The two marshes provided an ideal setting for producing high-resolution records because thick sequences of high marsh sediment are present and the estuarine system is microtidal, which reduces the vertical uncertainty of paleosea-level estimates. The study provides for the first time replicated sea-level reconstructions from two nearby sites.
In addition, comparison with 20th-century tide-gauge records validates the use of this approach and suggests that salt-marsh records with decadal and decimeter resolution can supplement tide-gauge records by extending record length and compensating for the strong spatial bias in the global distribution of longer instrumental records.
The study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coastal Ocean Program, North Carolina Coastal Geology Cooperative Program, U.S. Geological Survey, and National Science Foundation.
Researchers from East Carolina University, Vrije Universiteit, the University of Plymouth, Florida International University and University College Dublin contributed to the study.
University of Pennsylvania news: www.upenn.edu/pennnews/
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"(P)rior to my transition, getting a job was nothing," said Chavez. "After my transition, a huge segment of Atlanta in the auto service world knew about me, so I was blackballed from all the auto dealerships."
More than 300 applications later, she landed a full-time, commission-based technician job at Pep Boys, where her potential annual earnings are around $35,000 -- half of what she previously made. As a result, she has barely been able to hold on to her home.
Many transgender individuals aren't able to afford a home at all. Homelessness among this group is estimated to be double the national rate, according to the NCTE study. Respondents were also nearly four times more likely to have annual household incomes of less than $10,000, and 16 percent said they resorted to sex work or drug dealing for income -- a percentage that nearly doubled for the unemployed and skyrocketed to 53 percent for black respondents.
Medical bills can also be a problem. Tim Chevalier, a 32-year-old transsexual man from California, has a high-paying job as a software engineer at Mozilla. But he's still struggling to make ends meet after racking up $50,000 in medical bills from his reconstructive surgery and related medical costs that insurance wouldn't cover.
Help for the unemployed
A growing number of programs are being launched to help the transgender community.
The LGBT Community Center in San Francisco assists transgender job seekers with decisions like which name to include on a resume -- the one from their previous sex or their new name -- whether to bring up their transition to a potential employer or to come out to past employers in case they are called as a reference.
It also started offering a computer coding class late last year -- a skill in high demand. The first class of 15 people is in its second semester, and the center will try to connect them with companies in the area like Twitter and Google upon graduation.
The Chicago House, a facility for people with HIV/AIDS in Chicago, is launching transgender-specific housing and a four-week employment program offering job search advice, career counseling and even help with makeup and clothing before job interviews.
Programs like this are especially important in the aftermath of the economic downturn, since transgender people were often the first to be laid off and last to be hired, said Mottet.
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I know some of you are praying you’ll make it through Christmas — just make it through — not anticipating anything good will come from gathering with extended family and friends. It has become a cliche — right next to the article on what second-graders are excited about for Christmas is the article on the rise in depression during this last month of the year.
You know the sadness is real. While you change the diaper of a teenager, or administer complicated medications, or prevent your non-verbal ten-year-old from hurting himself again, or explain yet again the complicated life of your five-year-old without a diagnosis for her disability, your nieces and nephews and young friends are playing and running and eating, happily talking about the toys they want or travel they’re excited about or things they are doing in school. They easily do things your child will never do, no matter how many therapies or medications or prayers are offered.
Or maybe the disability in your family member means you can’t gather with other loved ones, and the heartache is almost more than you can stand.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15, italics added)
More than that, he endured and is victorious!
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2, italics added)
And there are some of you who can’t see it. There is still hope!
From Pastor John’s book, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy,
It is utterly crucial that in our darkness we affirm the wise, strong hand of God to hold us, even when we have no strength to hold him. This is the way Paul thought of his own strivings. He said, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). The key thing to see in this verse is that all Paul’s efforts to grasp the fullness of joy in Christ are secured by Christ’s grasp of him. Never forget that your security rests on Christ’s faithfulness first.
Our faith rises and falls. It has degrees. But our security does not rise and fall. It has no degrees. We must persevere in faith. That’s true. But there are times when our faith is the size of a mustard seed and barely visible. In fact, the darkest experience for the child of God is when his faith sinks out of his own sight. Not out of God’s sight, but his. Yes, it is possible to be so overwhelmed with darkness that you do not know if you are a Christian — and yet still be one. (216, italics added)
Jesus understands. Jesus is victorious. Jesus is the answer. May you find him, and in finding him, find hope and peace in these hard days.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
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Red arteries spread like roots over the paper – is this an anatomical sketch? A vision of vessels branching from the heart? Yet the page from Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Arundel notebook in the Treasures gallery of the British Library is not – or not directly – a study of human anatomy. It is a map: a geographical plan, a piece of the world reduced to a flat depiction. It shows the riverbed of the Arno near Florence and was made in about 1504 for a practical purpose. Florence, at war with its neighbour Pisa, had hatched a plan to divert the Arno and so deprive the enemy city of its lifeblood. Leonardo was surveying the river to work out how it could be turned from its course.
And yet, if it is practical in purpose, and scrupulous in method – Leonardo has walked the riverbed, surveyed it – this little sketch map is cosmic in scope. It is a vision of the world, touched into life in a few strokes of red chalk. It expresses, magically, an entire philosophy. For it is no coincidence, still less a poetic flourish, that all the bloody strands of the riverbed make you think of anatomy. Leonardo and his contemporaries conceived the earth as a living creature, a macrocosmic mirror of our own inner life. As he put it:
Man has been called by the ancients a little world, and certainly the name is well given, for if a man is made of earth, water, air and fire, so is this body of the earth; if man has in him a lake of blood, where the lungs increase and decrease in breathing, the body of the earth has its ocean which similarly rises and falls . . .
When Leonardo drew his map of the Arno, the shape of the entire earth was changing. Just three or so years later, the Lorraine map-maker Martin Waldseemüller would publish what is arguably the most influential map in history: not only does it accurately depict the shape of Africa, but a thin sliver of land in the western sea is named, for the first time, "America". The maps of the age of discovery boggle the mind with their intellectual conquest of space. In the mid-15th century, a state-of-the-art map created by the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro had seen the world as a huge disc, with south at the top, Africa just a vague shape, and nothing to the west of the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries). Not just the knowledge of world geography but the very conceptualisation of space in this late medieval map looks to us remote and arcane. It seems an incredible leap that just over a century later maps of the world looked much as they do today – the same continents, their coastlines instantly recognisable, planned out on paper in a mathematically consistent manner.
The period from 1500 to 1700 is the golden age of maps. Scientific achievement is central to that story – or is it? For Leonardo's little sketch of the Arno reveals that maps still had something about them of the fabulous and the mythical. They were works of imagination as well as calculation. This is why the maps of these centuries still give us a warm glow of pleasure, why they are treasured by collectors and daydreamers – because this was still a time when monsters haunted the oceans, even on the most forward-looking charts. The world was being discovered, its shape analysed, but it was imagined – Leonardo shows us – as an organic and mysterious entity. Rivers were arteries, the seas lungs. Nature was a synthesis of the four elements, fire, earth, air and water: maps were records of its marvels.
Nothing could convey the wondrous and strange nature of geographical knowledge more spectacularly than the Klencke Atlas, which stars in an ambitious exhibition, Magnificent Maps, at the British Library, as well as in the accompanying BBC4 series The Beauty of Maps, featuring the exhibition's curator, Peter Barber. This book is taller than a man: bound in leather and closed with huge metal clasps, it opens to reveal a succession of printed maps each of which is more than 2m wide. This is the biggest atlas in the world, according to Guinness World Records – the macrocosm to the microcosm of Leonardo's Arno sketch. In November 1660 the diarist John Evelyn saw it in Charles II's cabinet of curiosities, together with portrait miniatures, precious stones and "a curious Ship model": it was a present fit for a king, presented to the new and restored monarch on his coronation by a group of Amsterdam merchants.
At that moment Amsterdam was the world centre of map-making. Maps were engraved and printed there not just for monarchs but for merchants and their families. The virtue of the atlas conceived by Johannes Klencke was, through sheer extravagance, to ennoble something that was actually increasingly universal. The maps in the great book are the same printed maps you see in Vermeer's paintings of Dutch merchant houses: in his Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, painted almost contemporaneously with the Klencke Atlas in the early 1660s, a young woman stands in the pale light from a window, her eyes fixed on the message she's reading. The light shines on her blue silken tunic and blue-upholstered chairs, which might suggest a lover far away across the blue sea. Behind her, dominating the whitewashed wall, is a printed map, mounted on wooden poles and hung like a painting to decorate the chamber. It is on the same big scale as the prints in the Klencke volume. It shows fractured peninsulas and islands separated by water, a Dutch geography of vulnerability that matches the woman's mood.
Big printed wall maps appear in many of Vermeer's paintings, as well as in such contemporary scenes as Pieter de Hooch's A Woman Drinking with Two Men (1658) in the National Gallery. These views of everyday life bear witness to an almost totemic cult of maps. What, exactly, was the appeal of a huge woodcut map hanging on your wall? As much as we want to read simple emotional messages into Vermeer's paintings, the wrinkled, breeze-touched, black and white paper maps he depicts also attest to a fascination with maps as such, with what they are – and this, for him, is enigmatic.
Magnificent Maps leads us deep into the mentality of awe and wonder his pictures of maps communicate. It tells the story of mural maps – geographical statements that were hung on walls or even painted into the very plaster of palaces as frescoes. It argues that maps in early-modern Europe were as likely to decorate a room as paintings or tapestries were – and so puts a new twist on the truth that maps can be works of art in their own right.
No one who has walked along the seemingly endless Galleria delle Carte Geografiche in the Vatican Museums would doubt this. This hypnotic corridor is today walked by streams of tourists heading for the Sistine Chapel, punctuated along its straight-as-a-ruler marble funnel by souvenir stalls. But it is a bizarrely memorable walk that grips your imagination and stays with you as one of the sights of Rome – for the entire corridor is frescoed with mammoth maps of Italy's regions and cities. Painted by Ignazio Danti in the mid-16th century, these epic cartographies create a terrestrial theatre that in its way rivals the heavenly theatre of the Sistine Chapel itself. The maps are realistic, detailed and on a colossal scale – but were they ever any use to anyone? It is hard to picture a Renaissance pope standing on a stepladder to study a detail of Volterra or Venice to decide some political move. There were manuscript maps in the Vatican Library that could be spread out on a table for real strategic meetings. These painted maps are images of power, designed to amaze and to stupefy. As you progress further along the corridor, the cavalcade of city plans becomes repetitive, narcotic and sublime. It is a spectacle as deliberately excessive as the Klencke Atlas, a majestic display of ownership and control of space. The architecture of the long gallery is itself a daunting demonstration of spatial majesty – an unfurling of absurdly generous proportions – and the maps mirror its grandeur.
The British Library exhibition can't, obviously, bring the Vatican frescoes to London – although it includes large-scale photographs of this and other cartographic interiors – but does have the Klencke Atlas and a range of maps made in the same spirit of daunting excess. Jacopo de' Barbari's bird's-eye view of Venice, created in 1500, is on a scale that would fit quite easily among the city plans in the Vatican: nearly 3m wide. But de' Barbari's map is a woodcut, black ink on paper, that sent the image of Venice around the world to hang in foreign palaces as evidence of the Most Serene Republic's power.
What a map. It seems for all the world to have been surveyed from the air. The incline of the earth as de' Barbari looks down on Venice, seeing the exact shape of its islands in the ethereal setting of the lagoon, uncannily resembles an aerial photograph. But obviously he did not have a flying machine. He projected this image in his imagination, tilted up towards us at just such an angle as to reveal the overall shape of Venice while also allowing the eye to zoom in and see, as in a topographic painting, the scene on St Mark's Square. Ships teem around the Arsenale while a colossal triton rides a sea monster at the mouth of the Grand Canal – the real marries the fabulous as Venice is wedded to the sea.
The artistic glory of Renaissance maps lies in the ambiguity of their nature, for it is impossible to decide if this a map in the modern sense or a landscape picture. It hovers magically between the two. A straightforward plan of Venice would reveal the contours of the city and the layout of the canals, but would not capture the living reality of city life; while a painting at street level, such as Carpaccio's Miracle at the Rialto, though it conveys the forest of chimneys and the intimacy of bridges, can give no sense of the city's overall design. There is a genius and a freedom to de' Barbari's bird's-eye view that gives him both perspectives simultaneously – near and far. In the 21st century, a user of Google Maps can explore similar variations in perspective – moving from a city plan to a more detailed map of a neighbourhood to photographs taken on the street. This masterpiece gives all of that in one rich image.
In fact, a map such as this is so close to landscape art that it urges us to ask – do early-modern maps ape landscape pictures, or is it the other way around? Mapping and landscape art evolved together in the Renaissance, and this exhibition reveals something quite shocking to conventional art history: that maps were displayed as works of art before landscape paintings were similarly valued.
One of the earliest exhibits in the show is a facsimile of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, created like other medieval maps to stand alone and be studied like a painting or a stained glass window. The curators also attempt to reconstruct the world map that is known to have hung in Henry III's bedchamber in Westminster Palace in the 1230s. That is centuries before landscape art was valued in its own right. The first dated landscape drawing in European history – meaning a landscape that is not a background, but a theme in itself – is currently on view in the British Museum's exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings: it was done on 5 August 1473 by Leonardo da Vinci. While its mountainous foreground is a fantasia of landscape, the plain in the distance rolling away towards the sea resembles a map in its outlines of fields.
Just like Jacopo de' Barbari – but in a uniquely sustained and complex way – Leonardo saw landscape art and map-making as intimately related. His drawings and paintings navigate an intricate course between the viewpoint of a landscape artist and a geographer. Unlike de' Barbari he actually did try to build a flying machine and hoped to use it for skyborne observation – he writes in a notebook of "surveying" the land from his "great bird". But he probably never did get his machine off the ground. Instead his bird's-eye views are feats of imagination, like de' Barbari's woodcut of Venice. Leonardo experimented with every point of view for map-making: his maps range from views of mountains in deep relief, the earth tilted up for our pleasure, to straightforward plans, to unique hybrids of the two. The vertiginous landscape of his painting The Virgin and Child with St Anne in the Louvre is itself as satisfying as a geographic atlas: the detailed rocks in the foreground stretch away to a blue vista of alpine mountains that has the sweep and scope of a map.
Leonardo was a pioneer of landscape but his landscapes are legitimated, as artistic subjects, by religious narratives – there is no pure landscape painting by him. One of the first such paintings is by Albrecht Altdorfer and portrays a bridge and a castle in a forest (it's in the National Gallery): this is almost an anti-map, as it tells us nothing of where the place is, or its wider geographical context. But when painters started successfully to sell landscapes in the 17th century they took their cue from Leonardo's cartographic approach, and their paintings aspired to the status of maps.
In 17th-century Europe maps were honoured and admired. The fresco maps of the Vatican and of other Italian palaces – Danti, who painted the Vatican maps, cut his teeth creating a fabulous room of maps in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence – were emulated across the continent. Printed maps, often hand-coloured, were designed to be displayed, as Dutch paintings show them to have been. If maps were hung like paintings, cartography also produced a new genre of sculpture – the globe. The exhibition has a pair of globes – terrestrial and celestial – created by Emery Molyneux in London at the end of the 16th century, that were the most renowned such objects in Elizabethan England.
Maps of this age provided extraordinary density of information. Jacques Callot's map of the siege of Breda (1628-29) is not just a geographical but a historical image. It shows the battle for the Dutch town of Breda in complex detail, bearing witness to atrocities as well as recording the victory of Spain, and combining the human detail of a history painting with the spatial information of a map. It is a work of art in its own right and its topographic details also feature in the eerie vista of Velázquez's masterpiece of history painting, The Surrender of Breda.
Landscape painters looked hard at such maps and their popularity. The landscapes of Ruysdael and Cuyp in the Netherlands, of Poussin and Claude in Italy and France, aspire to be maps. If you look at these paintings they all, in different ways, relate intensely to mapmaking. Dutch landscape artists go flat on the land, exploring its details: their paintings are like maps turned on their sides. In accuracy and detail they strongly resemble the printed maps streaming out of Amsterdam.
The French landscape artists who worked in 17th-century Rome may seem less obviously geographical, but to look at their paintings is to look at pictures that sum up the world as encyclopedically as Leonardo does: again and again these paintings aspire to include every kind of scenery in one view – woodlands, rocks, sea, mountains – so that a painting has the satisfying completeness of a map of the world. Not until the 19th century would painters rebel against this tendency for each landscape to be a kind of world map – a summary of the nature of landscape as such. A beguiling example of such paintings is Francisque Millet's Mountain Landscape with Lightning (1675). Here it is not just a variety of scenery that is encompassed: every one of the four elements is on view. The Leonardesque view of the Alps encloses a rich anthology of natural and human terrains, a world map in one glorious vista.
Even so, it is no more compelling, as a work of art, than the maps of the age. Only when geography became truly rationalist, when maps were purified into utilitarian tools, did landscape art rule the gallery alone – and that transformation around 1700 was a loss to the imagination. Art and science both lost blood when monsters vanished from the maps.
Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art opens at the British Library, London (01937 546060) on 30 April. www.bl.uk
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Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) is a common form of chronic arthritis in children. It is a long-term autoimmune condition characterized by stiffness and swelling in the joints.
Most cases of JRA are mild, but severe cases may result in joint damage. JRA is different from adult rheumatoid arthritis, and the exact causes of this condition are unknown.
Knowing the signs and symptoms of JRA is important for getting medical treatment before the condition progresses.
The bones meet at joints, which help make movement easy. If you have JRA, movements are often painful because your joints don’t move as they should. According to KidsHealth, JRA affects children under 16 years old. (Kids Health).
Although you may have occasional joint pain, you probably do not have JRA unless you experience joint pain and swelling for a minimum of six weeks at a time.
The most common symptoms of this condition include:
- joint pain
- reduced rang of motion
- warm and swollen joints
- redness in the affected area
- swollen lymph nodes
- recurrent fevers
Untreated JRA can lead to further complications. In some cases, the disorder can cause eye problems, such as pain and changes in vision. Other complications may arise, including:
- long-term, recurring pain
- joint destruction
- stunted growth
- uneven limbs
- heart swelling
A physical exam can help your doctor properly diagnose JRA in its early stages. Common signs of the condition may include inflammation, eye problems, and rashes.
In addition, your doctor will order blood tests, such as C-reactive protein tests, to measure inflammation in the body and to look for rheumatoid factor, which is an antibody found in the blood of adults who have arthritis. X-rays and bone scans are also used to help your doctor get a better look at the affected areas.
There are three types of JRA:
- pauciarticular JRA (four or fewer joints are affected)
- polyarticular JRA (five or more are affected)
- systemic onset JRA (affects both the joints and internal organs)
The type of arthritis you’re diagnosed with depends on the progression of your condition, with systemic onset JRA being the most severe. According to the Arthritis Foundation, over 50 percent of JRA patients are diagnosed with pauciarticular JRA. (Arthritis Foundation).
Doctors utilize a variety of treatment measures to control JRA. First, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are used to reduce inflammation and swelling. Over-the-counter ibuprofen is commonly used, although prescription strengths are also available for severe pain. Aspirin may be recommended, but this is rare because of the medication’s possible adverse side effects in children. Never use aspirin without your doctor’s consent.
Other prescription medications are used to help decrease the body’s rheumatic responses. Such immune system suppressants generally take several months to work. Your doctor may also only prescribe these for a short period of time to reduce potential side effects, such as osteoporosis (bone weakening).
In severe cases, surgery may be used to replace the joints altogether. Fluids may also be extracted from your tissues to reduce inflammation.
Diet and exercise are important for everyone, but making healthy changes is especially helpful in dealing with JRA. Weight changes are common in patients with JRA for a few reasons. First, medications may decrease your appetite, causing rapid weight loss. In such cases, you may need to healthfully increase your daily calorie intake to get your weight back up.
On the flip side, lack of mobility can cause weight gain. It is important to lose the weight not only to stay healthy, but also to ease the extra pressure on your joints.
Regular exercise can also strengthen your muscles and make dealing with JRA easier in the long run. Discuss any new workout regimens with your doctor before beginning. Low-impact exercises, such as swimming, walking, and biking, are usually best. A physical therapist may also help you learn how to use your muscles and joints after treatment.
JRA is a long-term condition that tends to produce occasional flare-ups. The fewer joints that are affected, the easier it is to recover. A child may expect to have stiffness and a loss of appetite.
It is possible for a child to go into remission with JRA, but it depends on how seriously the child is affected. This is why early treatment is so crucial to prevent more joints from succumbing to this condition.
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What was it like being young and gay during the closeted 1950s, the exuberant beginnings of the modern gay rights movement in the 1970s, or the frightening outbreak of HIV and AIDS in the 1980s? In this unique history, Nancy Garden uses both fact and fiction to explore just what it has meant to be young and gay in America during the last fifty years. For each decade from the 1950s on, she discusses in an essay the social and political events that shaped the lives of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people during that era. Then, in two short stories, she explores the emotional experiences of young gay people coming of age during those times, giving vivid insight into what it really felt like. Hear Us Out! is a comprehensive and rich account of gay life, both public and private, from one of the pioneers of young adult lesbian and gay literature.
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He was antisocial and difficult to work with at first. He'd clearly been abused by his father as evidenced by the deep, round scab near his shoulder. He hadn't been eating well.
And he was so skittish that the slightest noise or motion set him off. But Army veteran Jeff Wilson needed a new dog, and this pound puppy -- a border collie-German shepherd mix -- was it.
He named him Lobo, and it wasn't long before Wilson, 44, realized they had the same issues.
"We were kind of kindred spirits," he said. "I think it really helped deepen our connection because he wasn't just helping me; I was helping him. I was helping him get past the same obstacles that I had. I had to recognize it in myself and get past that to help him."
Wilson is a former tank commander and flight engineer who isn't at liberty to speak about his time in Iraq other than to say he manned a machine gun while hanging out of the door of a helicopter. He can also say that he was often "exposed to very dangerous situations" during his 14 years in the service.
He has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety from post-traumatic stress disorder, and he's not alone. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 11% to 20% of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are suffering from PTSD.
Wilson said his depression turned him into a hermit. He would "curl up and not talk to anybody," and his anxiety made it difficult to go into public.
If he did leave the house, he was hypervigilant. If someone walked up behind him or dropped something that emitted a clatter, it triggered the "fight or flight" mechanism he'd groomed in the military.
The anxiety was so bad that before he was diagnosed with PTSD, he went to the emergency room four times because he thought he was having a heart attack. He "self-medicated" so heavily with booze that it strained the relationship between him and his now-wife of two years.
"I was having to drink to numb all my senses and be quasi-normal," he said.
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If you drive down Wilshire Boulevard with regularity, you may have noticed the construction activity just a few paces east of Urban Light. The spine of the steps that lead from the plaza level of LACMA East to street level is now covered with what appears to be a giant, second set of steps. The steps aren’t for our long-legged visitors. Instead, the concrete blocks will serve as pedestals for objects in our reinstalled B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden, set to open this spring. More on the sculpture garden next month.
Also in the vicinity, the Wilshire and Ogden traffic intersection (similarly scheduled to open this spring) will be reopened, including the addition of a new, signalized crosswalk. (Ogden is the street that was closed to make way for the BP Grand Entrance and other construction on campus.)
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22 He replied to them, "Go and report to John the things you have seen and heard: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them.
22 So he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
|Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. (Holman Christian Standard Bible Online)
||Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide. (New International Version Bible Online)
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By Mike Roberts
ST. LOUIS (KSDK) - So much of what you do if you're in your car when a tornado threatens is a judgment call on your part, but you should try your best not to be here in the first place.
Take the severe thunderstorm watches and tornado watches seriously and if a line of severe storms is moving in, and don't go out.
If you are in your car when a tornado strikes and you can very clearly see what direction the tornado is going, drive at a right angle away from it but, remember, it won't be easy.
If you decide you're going to stay in your car, pull safely off the roadway and get below the window level (after all this is just glass), buckle your safety belt, and cover your head.
If you decide to leave the car, know that an overpass is not an option; it will only help the winds go faster.
If an overpass is not an option, where should you go? Get below the level of the roadway. There may be hail or flying debris, so you want to get as low as possible.
A tunnel could also be an option because it will provide protection, but be aware that it may flood.
You should also crouch down as far as possible and cover your head.
Most importantly, you must always remember, no matter what kind of severe weather you're dealing with, if you're going to be safe, you must participate in your own survival.
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While the number of men who died in the Civil War is estimated at around 640,00, more than twice that number, or a million and a half horses and mules, died during the same period. And while it cost the Federal the equivalent of $475,000 to outfit a regiment, the bill for horses alone nearly broke treasury.
Monument to the 1.5 million horses and mules that died during the Civil War erected outside the Virginia History Society in Richmond.
In September 1861 the Army of the Potomac needed 40,000 horses for cavalry and transportation purposes. At an average cost of $120, or $2800 by today's standards, it was six times as expensive to purchase a horse as opposed to equipping one soldier. By the summer of 1862 the cost to the government had risen by $30 per horse, with an average of 1500 horses a week being supplied to George McClellan's huge army, and that, of course, wasn't even factoring in the costs of feeding.
The demand for horses grew so great that it led to a shortage throughout the north and forays were made into Canada for the purchase of large herds. That shortage not only drove the price up to $175 per horse, or the equivalent of $4100 per, but the seemingly insatiable need for horses became a matter of angst for Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs. During the first three quarters of 1864, the cavalry alone drew 500 horses a day just to keep even with the number being lost to service.
Perceiving that misuse and abuse of their mounts by the cavalry was the primary cause, Meigs tore off this angry letter to Major General William S. Rosecrans of the Army of the Cumberland:
Compel your cavalry officers to see that their horses are properly groomed. Put them in some place where they can get forage near the railroad or send them to your rear for grass and ear corn. When in good order start them 1,000 at a time, for the rebel communications, with orders never to move off a walk unless they see enemy before or between them; to travel only so far in a day as not to fatigue their horse; never to camp in the place in which sunset finds them; and to rest in a good pasture during the heat of the day. [Also] to keep some of their eyes open night and day, and never to pass a bridge without burning it, a horse without stealing or shooting it, a guerilla without capturing him, or a negro without explaining the President's proclamation.
Operate on their communications. Strike every detached post. Rely more upon infantry than upon cavalry, which in the whole war has not decided the fate of a single battle rising above a skirmish, which taxes the Treasury and exhausts the resouces of the country, and of which we now have afoot a larger nominal strength than any nation on earth. We have over 125 regiments of cavalry, and they have killed ten times as many horses for us as for the enemy.
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Free Encyclopedia of Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, Repair
Ask a Question or Search InspectAPedia
BUILDING DAMAGE ASSESSMENT & REPAIR
ALLERGEN TESTS for BUILDINGS
ASBESTOS IDENTIFICATION IN BUILDINGS
BIOLOGICAL POLLUTANTS in the HOME - EPA
BLACK MOLD, HARMLESS COSMETIC
BLACK MOLD, TOXIC & ALLERGENIC
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DIRECTORY of MOLD / ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERTS
DISASTERS: BUILDING INSPECTION & REPAIR
Disinfecting Buildings with Bleach
DUST SAMPLING PROCEDURE
EFFLORESCENCE, Salts & White / Brown Deposits
FLOOR & SUBFLOOR MOLD, HIDDEN
FLOOR TILE ASBESTOS IDENTIFICATION
FREEZE-PROOF A BUILDING
GAS EXPOSURE EFFECTS, TOXIC
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HOME INSPECTOR DIRECTORY
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MOISTURE CONTROL in BUILDINGS
MOLD ACTION GUIDE - WHAT TO DO ABOUT MOLD
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MOLD ODORS, MUSTY SMELLS
MOLD TEST METHODS, ACCURACY
MOLD TEST PROCEDURES
MVOCs & MOLDY MUSTY ODORS
ODORS GASES SMELLS, DIAGNOSIS & CURE
OIL TANKS INSPECT LEAK TEST ABANDON REGS
OZONE for MOLD OR ODORS
PAINTS & COATINGS ODORS IN BUILDINGS
Particulates & Allergens Indoors
RENTERS & TENANTS GUIDE TO INDOOR HAZARDS
ROT, TIMBER ASSESSMENT
SAFETY FOR SEPTIC INSPECTORS
SEPTIC BACKUP REPAIR
SEPTIC METHANE GAS
SEPTIC & CESSPOOL SAFETY
SINKHOLES, WARNING SIGNS
STAIN DIAGNOSIS on BUILDING EXTERIORS
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VENTILATION in BUILDINGS
Volatile Organic Compounds VOCs
VOLTS / AMPS MEASUREMENT EQUIP
WATER BARRIERS, EXTERIOR BUILDING
WATER PUMPS, TANKS, TESTS, WELLS, REPAIRS
WELLS CISTERNS & SPRINGS
WINTERIZE A BUILDING
How to Obtain Financial Assistance for Building Cleaning & Repairs after earthquake, hurricane, flood or storm & wind damage to a building. This article series gives action & repair priorities if your building has been flooded, or damaged by another disaster in an easy to understand guide. We describe procedures for for flood damage assessment, setting priorities of action, safe entry procedures for damaged buildings, first steps to protect a building from further damage, how to dry out the building, how to return the utilities to operation, how to clean up a flooded or damaged basement or building, how to rebuild a damaged building, and how to prepare to minimize danger and damage hazards from future disasters. We also provide special information about avoiding or minimizing mold damage in wet or flooded basements or buildings. Adapted and expanded from Repairing your Flooded Home, American Red Cross & FEMA & from additional expert sources. NOTICE: neither the ARC nor FEMA have yet approved the additions & expansions we have made to the original document.
Green links show where you are. © Copyright 2013 InspectAPedia.com, All Rights Reserved. Author Daniel Friedman.
Step 7: How to Obtain Financial Assistance for Building Cleaning & Repairs After a Building Has Been Flooded or Damaged by Earthquake, Hurricane, or other Disaster
Check on Financial Assistance
How much you rebuild and replace depends on what you can afford. Four sources of financial assistance can help you through recovery: insurance, government disaster programs, voluntary agencies, and businesses. If you are fully insured (80 percent of the replacement cost of your home), you may only have to pay the deductible and your flood insurance policy will pay for professional cleaning and reconstruction. Even if you are insured, the other sources of assistance can help with expenses that your insurance policy doesn’t cover.
Voluntary Agencies Providing Finaancial Aid to Disaster Victims
Private voluntary agencies such as the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, and church groups are usually on the scene during or right after a flood. These groups usually provide for immediate needs such as clothing, groceries, shelter, medical aid, and counseling.
Some private organizations can help you restore your home. They may offer supplies or sometimes volunteers to help you clean up and rebuild. The services are usually provided free of charge regardless of a person’s eligibility for government aid. The services are usually provided free of charge regardless of a person’s eligibility for government aid.
The American Red Cross provides emergency assistance to people affected by disasters, whether or not the affect area has been declared a disaster area by a governor or the President. All Red Cross disaster assistance is free and is provided as a gift of the American people. The Red Cross does not receive funding form the government to provide this assistance.
The American Red Cross can help by providing you with a voucher to purchase new clothing, groceries, essential medications, rent, bedding, essential furnishings, and other items to meet emergency needs. The Red Cross can also provide you with a cleanup kit: mop, broom, bucket, and cleaning supplies. Listen to news reports to find out where to go for this assistance, or look up American Red Cross in the telephone book and call. You can also find your local Red Cross chapter by doing a search through the Red Cross site on the Internet’s Wide World Web at http://www.redcross.org.
Businesses Providing Financial Aid to Disaster Victims
Your local TV, radio and newspapers will usually publicize how businesses are contributing to the recovery process. Some businesses may offer reduced prices, but be wary of “flood sales” that are selling flood damaged items.
Some insurance companies and lenders may let you delay your monthly payments. Sometimes banks will make lower interest loans available for reconstruction. While these may seem easier to obtain than government disaster loans, their interest rates are usually higher.
Be careful about out-of-towners offering “special deals,” especially repair contractors. Sometimes the local builders’ association will offer advice on reconstruction or advice on choosing contractors. (See Step 8 on dealing with repair contractors.)
How to Make Flood Insurance Claims
You may have as many as three separate insurance policies:
This section covers the procedures for handling a flood insurance claim. Claims for non-flood damage will be handled in a similar manner.
You should call your flood insurance agent to report your damage as soon as possible after the flood. Your agent will arrange for an adjuster to visit your home so that your claim can be settled. Be sure you leave phone numbers where you can be reached.
If you are unable to contact the local agent, call the National Flood Insurance Program at 1800-638-6620.
Under ideal conditions, the adjuster should contact you to set up an appointment to visit your home within a few days after you call your agent. But if flood damage is widespread in your area, it may take longer for the adjuster to visit, and it make take time for your claim to be settled. If flooding is extensive, the adjusters will schedule their visits to review the most severe damage first. The adjuster cannot estimate your damage until floodwaters are away from the building.
In the meantime, protect your home and its contents from additional damage, but do not make repairs that make it impossible for the adjuster to see the damage. Step 2, “Give Your Home First Aid,” discusses how to protect your home from further damage.
While you are waiting for the adjuster, the following suggestions will help you organize the information that you will need:
Take photos or videotape the damage to both the inside and outside of the building and the contents. . Separate your damaged and undamaged belongings and store them for the adjuster to examine. . Find receipts, canceled checks, or proofs of purchase for high cost items such as major appliances, if possible. The adjuster will need the manufacturer’s name; serial and model numbers; price; location and date of purchase; and a description of the items.
The claims adjuster’s job is to collect information that is sent to a central office for processing. The insured (you) must file a Proof of Loss form within 60 days of the flooding. In most cases, the adjuster will file this form for you. The form states the amount of your loss and is signed by both the insured and the adjuster. An important point to remember is that you will not be reimbursed for expenses not authorized by the adjuster.
You can ask the adjuster for an advance or partial payment for your building or contents loss,
Some Points on Settling Flood Damage Insurance Claims
Flood Damage Insurance Payout May be Limited for Basement Apartments
Watch out: when deciding to restore & rebuild a basement-level apartment (also referred to as "garden apartments") be aware that flood insurance policies for below-grade-level spaces in buildings cover only damage to the mechanical systems (boilers, water heaters, electrical panels).
Following Hurricane Sandy in 2012, by January 2013 The New York Times reported that in some areas such as Hoboken NJ, in order to even attempt to obtain financial aid and despite buildings being covered by required flood insurance under NFIP, owners of basement-level or garden apartments must apply for grants to receive a portion of storm damage aid approved by the U.S. Congress. Further, even if some grants are approved the levels will not be sufficient to cover the total costs of cleaning and repairs to these flooded dwelling areas.
OPINION: While some building owners and local leaders may argue for changes in the federally-sponsored National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to include coverage basement dwelling spaces, to avoid bankrupting the NFIP it may be more reasonable for NFIP to reduce or even eliminate flood protection insurance for buildings constructed or re-constructed in locations that can be expected to suffer repeated flood or storm damage unless the structure has been designed to withstand those conditions.
OPINION: Failure to recognize the costs of providing federally-sponsored flood insurance protection for buildings that are virtually guaranteed to suffer costly damage at an increasing frequency means that other homeowners living in other more protected areas will be making NFIP premium payments that are basically subsidizing those who insist on building vacation or permanent housing in high-risk areas that should be aovided.
Tax Assistance for Flood Damage Losses
Hurricane, wildfire, floor or earthquake damage losses may be eligible receive some tax relief as well, subject to the following limitations:
Disaster Assistance Center DAC Visit Checklist
Before you got to a DAC or phone the toll-free number, do your best to get together the following information and documents. If you don’t have all of them, don’t worry; gather what you have and start your disaster assistance application process.
The check to settle your flood insurance building claim will most likely be in your name as well as the name of your mortgage holder. Some insurance companies may send the payment to your mortgage holder. Talk to your mortgage company ahead of time to make sure there won’t be a delay in getting your claim payment to you.
Disaster Assistance Providing Financial Aid to Disaster Victims
If the flooding was widespread and caused a lot of damage, your community might be eligible for state or federal aid. To receive such assistance, your community must be declared a disaster area by your Governor, a federal agency director, or the President. Local newspaper, radio and TV will keep you informed about disaster declarations and where to get information about any programs that might be available to you.
If the flood were severe enough for your area to be declared a disaster area by the federal government, the Federal Emergency Management Agency may open “teleregistration”, which provides a
toll-free number for you to call to request assistance. Or, it may open one or more Disaster Application Centers (DAC). These centers will give information and take applications for assistance and are usually located in a nearby school or other public building. They will be open during the day and early evening for several days to give people time to come in. Check local newspapers, TV and radio reports for the location and hours.
Federal disaster assistance may be available in some cases to deal with uninsured losses and needs. People who are not insured should go to a DAC first. If possible, those with insurance should file their Proof of Loss form before visiting a DAC. If there is a long wait, you can make an appointment for a later day, or use the toll-free number. (Look at FEMA’s site on the World Wide Web for more information: http://www.fema.gov).
When you go to a DAC or apply for disaster assistance, take the items listed below: The first person you will talk to at a DAC will be a receptionist. He or she will review your damage and needs, and identify which programs are most appropriate for you. You will receive a checklist of programs that can help you. You can then talk to representatives of these programs at tables in the DAC.
There are six types of federal or state disaster assistance. Except as noted, the following are available only if the President issues a disaster declaration for your area.
Disaster Housing Assistance
This program may provide a safe place to live until repairs to damaged homes are completed. Rent assistance or mobile homes may be provided to those without insurance. If repairs can be done quickly to make your house liveable, the program may provide funds to make those repairs.
Home and business owners, farmers, and others with real or personal property losses may be eligible for low interest loans. These loans are administered by the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA). SBA and FmHA can provide loans even if there is no Presidential disaster declaration.
Eligibility and loan interest rates vary according to the income and financial condition of the applicant. Check your local paper or TV or radio station for the type of loans available for replacing your personal property and for repairing your house.
Individual and family grants
This program may provide funds for necessary expenses and serious needs. Grants can cover immediate expenses such as medical treatment, transportation, home repair, replacement of essential personal items, and the cost of protecting your property from the flood. Applicants must not have other financial resources or be able to qualify for an SBA disaster loan.
Income tax deductions
If a federal disaster declaration was made, you might quality to file an amended tax return for the past year and get a partial refund for your uninsured casualty losses. Even if no federal declaration is made, you can often deduct your uninsured losses on your next income tax return. Ask the Internal Revenue Service for Publication 547, Non-Business Disasters, Casualties, and Theft to get more information.
Restoring a building to its pre- flood condition used to be the focus of government disaster programs. Now, some programs encourage “floodproofing,”—that is, modifying the structure to help it withstand damage from the next flood. (See Step 8.) The SBA’s Disaster Loan program can loan additional money to cover certain floodproofing costs—ask SBA about it. Other programs will vary from state to state.
A variety of programs give advice on recovering from a disaster. These include help with unemployment, food stamps, income taxes, insurance claims, legal issues, veterans benefits, and crisis counseling. Crisis counseling can be especially helpful in coping with problems as you recover from the flood before they get out of hand. Be sure to ask the Red Cross about “Disaster Mental Health” information.
Continue reading at Step 8. Rebuild and Floodproof - separate article - Take your time to rebuild correctly and make improvements that will protect your building from damage by the next flood.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Questions & answers or comments about how to clean up, repair & restore a building following damage by earthquake, flooding, hurricane, fire, storm or other disaster.
Ask a Question or Enter Search Terms in the InspectApedia search box just below.
Technical Reviewers & References
Related Topics, found near the top of this page suggest articles closely related to this one.
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.91989
| 3,639
| 2.40625
| 2
|