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|<< Romans 13 >>|
New International Version
Submission to Governing Authorities
1Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
2Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
4For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
7Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Love Fulfills the Law
8Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
9The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”
and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
10Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
The Day Is Near
11And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
12The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
13Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
14Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Romans 13 Online Parallel Bible
Romans 13 Bible Apps | <urn:uuid:8140acc1-5a1f-4eae-bd5c-0b9fca4b37c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biblehub.com/niv/romans/13.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931358 | 596 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The ‘Auld Grey Town' of Kendal, handsomely built in limestone, is the focal hub for shopping and culture in Lakeland.
Historically, Kendal was one of the most important woollen textile centres in the country, producing ‘Kendal Green' and other ‘Kendal cottons' - its numerous yards were once filled with workshops processing cloth,
leather and foodstuffs. Kendal was also a centre for shoe making, carpet and snuff manufacture, and synonymous with the production of Kendal Mint Cake; an essential prerequisite for today's explorers and mountaineers.
Art & culture
Home to the vibrant Brewery Arts Centre, two fine museums and a renowned art gallery.
Experience the views over the Lyth Valley from Scout Scar or take a walk in one of Kendal's many parks.
Take a look at the events on offer in Kendal | <urn:uuid:42489f6a-b8f5-458b-b50d-73e8e50672c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.golakes.co.uk/kendal/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948135 | 187 | 1.5625 | 2 |
An AP investigation has revealed that a prominent Iraq veteran and activist may have fabricated portions of his best-selling account of his road to recovery from the injuries and PTSD he sustained while at war.
The decorated former Army captain, Luis Carlos Montalvan, became an advocate for fellow injured veterans four years ago. He's aired commentary in various prominent news outlets and his experience inspired legislation from Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken instituting a program to provide service dogs to wounded veterans.
Montalvan's own dog, Tuesday, is the subject of his recent memoir from Hyperion, "Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him," which cracked the top 20 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction.
"Literally every combat experience he's had in that book that I'm familiar with is based on a modicum of truth interspersed with incredible embellishments on his part," one of them told the AP.
"Montalvan's embellished story is detrimental and offensive to honest veterans who have sought help for the unseen wounds of war," said another.
Montalvan gave the AP a somewhat vague statement through his attorney: "With respect to the incidents described in my book, whatever comments have been made by others are exactly that--their comments and recollections, not mine. Ironically, the right of others to their own perspectives, positive or negative, is one of the rights I fought to protect during two tours of duty in Iraq."
Hyperion likewise came to its author's defnese, telling the news wire in a statement: "The book speaks for itself. Luis is a war veteran decorated by the U.S. Army and his book, 'Until Tuesday,' is a comfort to many service members."
You can read the AP's full report--including the background on how and why it began probing Montalvan, and details of the allegedly fabricated passages--over at the Huffington Post.
According to his bio, Montalvan, who lives in New York, "is presently a graduate student at Columbia University ... working on a second Master of Science degree in Strategic Communications." | <urn:uuid:ecd90ebd-db46-4005-a64d-a189281de86c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/iraq-vet-accused-faking-parts-best-selling-memoir-175359729.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977508 | 439 | 1.671875 | 2 |
No one likes to pay taxes, and Bentley and the Republicans who control both the state House and Senate are committed to a “no new taxes” policy. Instead the referendum, if passed, would take $146 million from the Alabama Trust Fund each year for the next three years to shore up the General Fund, which funds all state government operations except education. For fiscal year 2013, which takes effect October 1, is currently a $1.67 billion budget.
The Alabama Trust Fund receives the royalty payments from oil and gas leases in the state, and was recently valued at $2.48 billion. Income from the fund goes to the General Fund, cities and counties and Forever Wild, and a portion of the trust fund can be used as a rainy day account.
To bail out the General Fund this year, more money is needed and that’s what this referendum is about.
The consequences of not passing it are mind-boggling.
The General Fund for this year is already in proration, and a number of state employees have already lost their jobs. State Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries John McMillan reminded Talladega Countians Tuesday that his department lost a fourth of its workforce — going from about 400 to 300 employees — in one fell swoop, and it could get worse.
We’re told state prison budgets could be cut to the point where prisoners would have to be released, and since Medicaid is about as big a part of the state budget as education, the impact on health care providers and nursing homes could be devastating. In a worst case scenario the state could see hospital closures and nursing home patients discharged. Other state agencies could also see very serious cuts in funding.
Tax collections are actually up this year statewide, but over the past few years taxes only accounted for about 37 percent of state revenue. More than half of Alabama’s revenue came from grants and contributions, almost all of it from the federal government, and that’s not filling the gaps as much as it has in the past.
The September referendum appears to be a stop-gap measure, but one that is very serious and deserves voters’ attention this year. A long-term solution is needed, and there doesn’t seem to be any easy answers, or pleasant ones on the horizon.
At this point, a “Yes” vote in September looks like the best we can hope for in the short term. | <urn:uuid:d3da8608-8682-4688-a855-d84a3d4afcb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyhome.com/view/full_story/19056639/article-Bentley-begins-campaign-on-referendum?instance=home_opinion_bullet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971606 | 499 | 1.609375 | 2 |
When the next Oregon Legislature meets, it’s likely to slash state support for an array of services, among them mental health, medical services for the poor, and in-home assistance for seniors. And the cuts will be deep. There will also be deep cuts in juvenile corrections as well as parole and probation for Lincoln County’s 600 paroled felons who must have supervision as part of the deal to let them out of prison.
These and other sorrowful predictions were given by the Lincoln County Commission Wednesday evening during their annual joint meeting with the Toledo City Council. Commission Chairman Bill Hall also predicted deep cuts in state support for the Lincoln County Jail. Cuts to Health and Human services programs that help needy and troubled families. He predicted the possible loss of a number of federally subsidized programs due to the lack of state matching grants that by law must team-up with federal dollars. So when the state cuts a dollar, Lincoln County will lose up to $9 on vital health and welfare programs. And with the predicted demise of Oregon’s Project Independence, the state will be throwing away a program that saved a dollar for every five cents spent on keeping frail seniors in their own homes.
He said there will also be terrible damage done to efforts at keeping needy children in school. Hall and his fellow commissioners said it will leave many students without any medical care because the county’s two walk-in clinics may be shuttered as well.
Hall also predicted possible substantial layoffs of Oregon State Police troopers who Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputies rely on for “back up” when responding solo to dangerous or potentially dangerous situations.
Hall said the state must close a $3.2 billion dollar gap between revenues and expenditures for the next two year budget. Hall predicted more bad news at the end of the week when the next official state revenue forecast is given in Salem.
Moving onto other topics, the commissioners informed the Toledo City Council that the county is ready to hand over a number of county-owned roads that lie inside the city limits of Toledo. The county has owned the roads for decades based on the assumption that the county was in a better financial position to maintain them. But now that the county is being hammered financially, it’s best that Toledo take them over. The roads include Butler Bridge Road, Arcadia Drive, Burgess, Olson, Rum Bottom and others. The oldest street was built in 1924, the most recent in 1967.
An additional change on the horizon is the sharing of county employees with local cities like Toledo. Toledo desperately needs a code enforcement officer to handle complaints on everything from weed control to unsafe living conditions. It was agreed that Toledo and the county should explore ways to share staff in this and other capacities to get the public’s work done in the difficult times ahead.
On another issue, Toledo City Councilor Mark Camara asked the county commissioners to help Toledo convince ODOT that something must be done to make the intersection of Highways 20 and 229 safer. Referring to this week’s fatal crash between a log truck trailer and a pickup, Camara said the intersection has gotten a lot busier over the last five years and it’s getting worse. Camara suggested that ODOT put rumble strips in the pavement to alert motorists that they’re approaching a challenging intersection and to stay alert. Commissioner Terry Thompson said he too has seen a marked increase in traffic flows and that it will only get worse with the completion of the Highway 20 improvements between Toledo and the valley. He said “They ought to really complete the project by doing something about that intersection.” Commissioner Don Lindly suggested that these and possibly other ideas be presented to a future meeting of the local transportation advisory committee which recommends road and highway fixes to the State Transportation Commission in Salem.Share on Facebook | <urn:uuid:7c31efad-95fe-47c3-8198-047410095850> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newslincolncounty.com/archives/9006 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957075 | 780 | 1.507813 | 2 |
What Money Can’t Buy: The Massive Shift of Hours from Families to Work
posted by Maxine Eichner
At the beginning of the month, I posted on issues raised by Michael Sandel in his new book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, and said that I’d post a follow-up. A death in my family held that post up. Here it is now:
According to Michael Sandel, “The most fateful change that unfolded during the past three decades was not an increase in greed. It was the expansion of markets, and of market values, into spheres of life where they don’t belong.” As I said in my earlier post, the most thought-provoking parts of Sandel’s discussion come when he broaches the issue of what happens to a society as citizens increasingly come to see the world through the lens of economics. As Sandel puts it: “A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor. It’s a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.” In it, citizens no longer see their dealings with others in terms of morality or justice, but in terms of satisfying preferences and getting the best deal they can.
In this post, I want to consider the spread of market logic when it comes to an important change in the United States that hasn’t received nearly enough attention: the massive increase during the past few decades in the number of hours that adults in families spend in paid work. It’s not that individual workers are working longer hours; rather the movement of women into the workplace since the 1970s without a corresponding reduction in men’s work hours has resulted in a large-scale transfer of hours to the paid workplace when you take families as units. The result is that the adults in American families now spend far more total hours working for pay than they used to spend.
This transfer of hours means that families have fewer hours then they used to to engage in pursuits besides paid work, like housework, caring for sick children, socializing with friends, volunteering at children’s schools, keeping their spouse company – you name it. American visitors to Europe are often struck by how, after 5 pm, workplaces clear out and bars and cafes fill up with people socializing; in the U.S., far more energy is channeled into work.
Although we accept it without much scrutiny, it should be puzzling that U.S. citizens are willing to spend so much of their lives in the paid workplace. Certainly there are workers in impoverished countries who work more hours than Americans out of necessity to survive. The American situation, though, is exceptional for the fact that citizens work so many hours despite the high level of GDP per capita.
In comparison to other wealthy countries, the average American worker works roughly ten more weeks a year of work than Swedish workers. And we work far more even than other wealthy countries whose citizens are comparatively high on the hours-at-work scale: for example, in both Canada and the United Kingdom, employees work roughly the equivalent of six fewer weeks a year than their American counterparts.
It used to be largely men in the United States who worked these long hours. Beginning in the 1970s, though, women began to join them. In 1965, married mothers with children worked an average of six paid hours per week; by 2000, they worked 23.8 hours a week. As a consequence, the total paid workload of families has increased significantly. In two-parent families it has risen from 53.8 hours to 66.3 hours. In other words, more than 12 hours every week has been transferred from the lives of families to employers’ work time.
What role might the permeation of neoclassical economic concepts and the marketization of Americans’ lives play in the phenomenon of more and more time devoted to work? To start, as more goods become sold for cash in our society, which Sandel shows us has been the pattern in U.S. society for decades, money comes to matter more. It used to be that you needed time to wait in line for the Empire State Building; now you can pay to cut the line. This gives citizens more incentives to work than to engage in leisure or other non-work activities.
Neoclassical economic views have also helped to produce the minimal labor and employment protections we have for employees in the United States, at the same time they have made it more acceptable for employers to engage in “sharp bargaining” with employees over wages, benefits, and job security. The result of weakened legal protections for workers and a culture that makes it more acceptable to bargain hard against employees with respect to pay is to decrease wages (particularly at the low end of the wage spectrum where workers have fewer skills to bargain with), decrease the number of “good jobs” that give sustainable wages along with benefits, and increase the insecurity of workers as employers have shifted to employment models in which workers are hired as temporary employees. In turn, the decrease or stagnation of the real wages of most employees since the 1970s has led many mothers into the paid workforce so that their families can retain their living standards.
As labor economist Richard Freeman argues, the growing gap between good jobs and bad jobs in the United States, combined with increasing economic inequality and insecurity, create both a carrot and stick that pushes Americans to work long and hard: The carrot is that Americans who work hard have a chance of being promoted, moving up in the wide distribution of earnings, and experiencing substantial earnings increases. The stick is that Americans who lose their jobs suffer greatly because the United States has a minimal safety net for the unemployed. This creates a culture in the United States where work is paramount.
The culture of work this engenders creates problematic results for both families’ caretaking needs and for their general wellbeing. It causes Americans to take less time off for sickness, maternity, and other personal issues even when this leave is available to them. American workers have significantly less vacation time than in other advanced countries: on average two weeks, compared to 4 to 6 weeks in other advanced countries. Yet a 2010 survey showed that only 57% of American workers took all of their available leave. As Richard Freeman notes, “the more job insecurity the respondent reported, the fewer days of vacation that person took.”
Finally, this culture of wealth and work is facilitated by the messages to buy that barrage citizens in our marketized society. In contrast to the public squares of Europe, the privatization of America means that its citizens have fewer public spaces in which to congregate; Americans therefore spend more leisure time in commercial places like shopping malls, which surround them with consumerist messages, and which fuel citizens’ focus on material goods. Even when citizens visit public spaces like ball fields and auditoriums, they are bombarded by ads that push citizens to buy, and buy more. The subtle and not-so-subtle encouragement to see the good life as connected with a consumerist vision of Pottery Barn duvets fuels more emphasis on earning money to support this vision of the good life. This means that citizens are not only working more, they are spending their nonworking time shopping rather than in other pursuits. And the next generation is being prepared for more of the same, as even young children are inundate by marketing messages from early in the morning to late in the evening.
This is my last post for this stint as guest blogger. I thank Solangel Maldonado and Dan Solove for the opportunity. | <urn:uuid:c08cf514-5e89-4417-be26-eefab37b85b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2012/11/what-money-cant-buy-the-massive-shift-of-hours-from-families-to-work.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970779 | 1,563 | 1.773438 | 2 |
By Kemp Minifie, Gourmet
Ever since sugar snap peas hit the marketplace in the early 80′s, they've become the favorite pea, more popular than English (shelling) peas or snow peas. Are we surprised? Sugar snaps are the essence of a no-waste, no-fuss vegetable that has everything going for it: A giant reward of flavor for minimal work.
English peas, in contrast, require time and patience for shelling-that is, if you are using fresh ones in the pod, and not already shelled and frozen-and the pile of pods you're left with is substantial.
Snow peas are all about pod and no pea, so it's easy to feel you're missing something. According to Leslie Land, a cookbook and gardening author, if snow peas are allowed to grow and mature, the peas inside "taste dreadful."
See more: 19 Sweet and Savory Ways to Eat Ice Cream
Will The Real Sugar Snap Pea Please Come Forward: The sweetest, best-tasting sugar snap is the original sugar snap pea, claims Land. It was developed by Dr. Carl Lamborn of the University of Idaho in a cross between an unusual English pea he found with an extra thick pod and the snow pea. "You won't get it at the supermarket or the farmers market," she explained, "because it's not a commercially suitable variety. It's a tall fussbudget you have to grow yourself." Shorter varieties with names like Sugar Daddy and Super Sugar Snap are easier to grow, but don't deliver quite the same knockout flavor.
There Are Always Strings Attached: OK, so sugar snaps are almost fuss-free. Before eating you do need to string them. The toughest string runs down the straight edge of the pod, so with a knife, begin to cut off the tip, starting on the edge opposite the straight edge, but stop before cutting all the way through, and pull the string off. There's a thinner string on the opposite edge that you can attempt to snag, too, at either end, but it's often barely there.
Don't Blanch at Blanching: Sure, you can eat sugar snaps raw, and we do it all the time, but if you are putting together a crudité platter, the sugar snaps will be a brighter green and more alluring if you blanch them first in boiling water for about 5 to 10 seconds, then shock them in some ice water. This way, they'll still retain their addictive crunch.
See more: Inside the Playboy Mansion's Kitchen
The Etiquette of Consumption: Contrary to how they're most often served, a whole sugar snap pea is just too big a mouthful. If you are dunking it in a dip, it's long enough to tempt you into double dipping, which you already know is a big no-no!
The photo above shows two different ways to cut your sugar snaps: Cut in thirds crosswise, or halve lengthwise on a long diagonal. If you are steaming them, you can cut them before or after. But if you are boiling them, realize that the tumbling action in the water will free the peas from their pods, so keep them whole while boiling and cut them afterwards.
Snap, Crackle and Crunch: It's right there in the name: Sugar snap peas are all about texture and sweetness. Thy don't take long to cook, 1 to 2 minutes max. And remember, a limp sugar snap pea is a sad thing.
Shopping Tips: Look for shiny, dark green pods. If they're pale and lackluster, don't buy them. The pods should be full and rounded, but if you can see the individual bumps of each pea outlined on the pod, they're over the hill and will likely be starchy.
More from Gourmet:
Gourmet's 12 Best Burgers of All Time
15 Perfect Pasta Dishes
Gourmet's Classic Comfort Foods
The Best Sandwiches Around the World | <urn:uuid:5b8628a7-6d64-4a1d-bc2f-f8511b76769d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/six-things-didnt-know-snap-peas-155000298.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933965 | 832 | 1.539063 | 2 |
President Bush Honors Human Service Alliance
Members of the Human Service Alliance (HSA) of North Carolina in the southern USA were delighted to receive an August 10th letter from President George Bush recognizing them as his 532nd "Daily Point of Light." In fulfillment of his 1988 campaign slogan calling for "A thousand points of light" to rejuvenate America, the president has been locating and identifying individuals and organizations "voluntarily taking direct and consequential action to solve drug abuse, illiteracy, inadequate education, homelessness, hunger, AIDS or other serious social problems in their own community," according to a White House press release.
A February, 1991, article in HINDUISM TODAY on the HSA profiled their remarkable program of volunteer work with the terminally ill, mediation project and respite care program, as well as explored their philosophical roots in eastern belief. HSA spiritual leader Derwyn Lackey draws upon his own extensive background of study and exposure to Hinduism and specifically the works of Alice Bailey (in the line of theosophy) to guide the group. The HSA main center has a Siva temple for its members.
President Bush's letter to HSA states. "I was delighted to learn of your outstanding work in behalf of your community. I have urged all Americans to make community service central to their lives and work. Judging by your active engagement in helping others, it is clear that you understand this obligation. We must not allow ourselves to be measured by the sum of our possessions or the size of our bank accounts. The true measure of any individual is found in the way he or she treats others - and the person who regards others with love, respect and charity holds a priceless treasure in his heart. Your efforts provide a shining example of this standard."
The naming as a "Point of Light" carries no direct monetary reward. But it is of enormous value in gaining community recognition and respect, as well as favorable response from foundations and other donors. For further information on - or nominations to - the program contact: The Office of National Service (The White House Points of Light Office), The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500.
Article copyright Himalayan Academy.
The comments are owned by the author. We aren't responsible for their content. | <urn:uuid:186d3dcd-a6ec-4b89-b455-321c190f7f13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=869 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964836 | 463 | 1.734375 | 2 |
U.S. war dead
- Woman who buried mother, cashed her Social Security checks is sentenced to 30 days
- 16 arrested in heroin-trafficking investigation
- Authorities step up enforcement, education for motorcylists
- Madison County crash kills one
- Police called on South Side death
- Judge sentences man to 8 years for deadly robbery
- Stolen truck crashes on I-70
- Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, Mount Carmel Health announce affiliation
- Injuries mount for distracted pedestrians using cellphones
- Ohio State’s training of teachers shines in national grading of programs
- Neighbors in Bexley upset at Capital University’s plans for night games
- Licking County deputy loses job over deer skull
US & World
Soldier whom the U.S. Defense Department identified in the past week as having died in a foreign country:
• Army Sgt. Aaron X.
Wittman, 28, Chester, Va.
Includes combat and noncombat military deaths:
• In Afghanistan, 2,096 have died since military operations began Oct. 7, 2001.
Note: The toll includes deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan or other countries during Operation Enduring Freedom.
The toll also includes those who died from their wounds after returning to
the United States or Germany.
Sources: Defense Department, | <urn:uuid:d14c5e8d-7ca2-45dc-8fa0-0bea3d51d6a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/01/13/war-deaths-0113-gfol67gr-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934374 | 283 | 1.671875 | 2 |
There are two approaches for inside corner trim:
The first is to mitre the corners. Since corners are rarely exactly 90 degrees, take two pieces of scrap and try different angles until you find the perfect angle. Make sure you always use the same angle on both pieces or they'll never mate right. Also, make sure the scraps are reasonably long. Walls usually aren't perfectly flat and that variation can cause very short pieces to fit together at a different angle than longer ones.
The second approach, which can take a bit more time, is to 'cope' the corners. With this approach, you'd run one piece straight into the corner, with maybe a small back-bevel to allow it to fit into a corner that's less than 90 degrees. You then 'cope' the other piece so that end of the piece has the same profile as the face of the other piece. A picture's worth a thousand words, so try this link:
Mitreing inside corners is the approach that's usually taken by less experienced folks because it's a little easier, but it rarely looks as good as coping, especially after a few seasons of expansion/contraction with humidity changes. Coping also makes you feel like a true craftsman and will impress your friends and neighbors. | <urn:uuid:57c91bb9-5041-468e-8d99-1f29089910a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?9478-Chair-Moulding&p=54951&viewfull=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966898 | 261 | 1.75 | 2 |
PATERSON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) – The oldest member of the U.S. Senate made one thing clear: He’s not going anywhere yet.
New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg spoke in his hometown of Paterson on Friday, one day after announcing he would not seek re-election next year.
At the start of his speech, someone in the crowd yelled “We love you Frank!” as others held signs declaring him a legend.
“I am not announcing a retirement,” Lautenberg said. “I am announcing today I will be continuing on my mission to do the right thing wherever I can.”
The 89-year-old said he’ll fight for gun control, against global warming and press to ensure working families are not left behind.
“I want to work with all of you to build a better Paterson, a better New Jersey and a better America for the children who are here today,” he said.
The speech was nostalgic as Lautenberg reminisced about growing up poor in the city.
“You can take the kid out of Paterson but you can’t take Paterson out of the kid,” he said.
He recounted how his father worked in a silk factory.
“One of the machines that he operated is in the museum here,” he said.
He credited the G.I. Bill with helping him go to college after World War II. Lautenberg got into politics after building a fortune as a founder of Automatic Data Processing, a payroll processor.
He was first elected to the Senate in 1982 and served five terms, retiring in 2000. Two years later, he was elected again and re-elected in 2008. Lautenberg is the last World War II veteran in the Senate.
He will be 90 when his term ends in 2015.
Please share your thoughts below…
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) | <urn:uuid:1de23f53-9abd-4a45-8ef8-8b44d7297139> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/02/15/nj-sen-frank-lautenberg-says-hell-keep-working-until-term-ends/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96375 | 468 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Chapter 17: Peacock Ladies at the Café Gertrude Stein.
The Stitch and Bitch Club decides to make a huge number of piñatas to sell in Tucson as a fundraiser for the campaign against Black Mountain. In mid- December, Codi and Emelina accompany the ladies to the city. The fund- raiser is a huge success, and they sell a truckload of birds in a single day. They decide to come back in ten days with 500 peacocks, each accompanied by a written piece about Grace and its plight, which they designate Codi to write. Emelina and Codi stay the weekend with Carlo in Tucson. While Codi and Carlo are up late talking, they see the "Peacock ladies" on television. Carlo invites Codi to move to Denver or to Aspen with him, and she considers it, because it would involve few risks. On the way back to Grace, Codi and Emelina visit Colossal Cave and talk about Loyd. When the guide turns off all of the lights in the cave, Codi realizes that her recurring nightmare of losing her vision and her fear of the dark are connected to a larger fear of losing any idea of where she is in the world.
Chapter 18: Ground Orientation
Working non-stop and using every scrap of blue material in the town, the Stitch and Bitch club, Codi, and a great many of others, is able to make more than 250 peacocks in ten days. Twice as many people as the first time travel to Tucson to sell them, but Codi goes with Loyd to spend Christmas on the reservation.
On the way to the reservation, Loyd tells Codi he has given over the cockfighting business to his friend Collie Bluestone, who moved them to another Reservation. When Codi asks how he'll feel if they don't stay together, Loyd chides her that he didn't give up the cockfighting for her per se, but because he realized that he agreed with her objections. They talk about Loyd's twin brother, Leander. In Pueblo tradition, twins are bad luck. The two boys, nicknamed Twice as Bad, lived as if they were a single person, he says. As he tells Codi about Leander's death, he also tells her about how Jack escaped when his father drowned the rest of the litter. When they were fifteen, Loyd and his brother moved to Whiteriver to be with their father and become men. Leander was killed in a fight in a bar of puncture wounds and internal hemorrhaging.
They drive down into the valley at the bottom of the Navajo tribal land, and sleep in the truck to wake up right in front of Spider Rock. Loyd explains that it's named after Spider Woman, who exists in both Pueblo and Navajo stories. As they hike around, Loyd asks Codi if she ever thinks about having children. She almost tells him about their child. They talk about Loyd's family. In describing his parents and aunts, he gives Codi a lesson in Native American history, explaining the difference between Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache, as well as the matrilineal system. Codi is impressed by Loyd's deep care for and understanding of the land and its products. They drive further, still talking about their respective childhoods. Loyd's aunt Sonia has a pecan and a peach orchard in Grace that he worked on as a teenager; he will inherit the peach orchard as soon as he has children. Codi lists for Loyd her strange job history and tells him stories about her time in Crete, sharing more with him than she does even with Emelina because somehow he never makes her feel like an outsider. Loyd takes her into the Jemez Mountains and then leads her on a hike through the snow to a natural hotspring. As they swim, Codi asks Loyd if he was ever in love with Hallie. Loyd barely remembers Hallie.
On Christmas Eve, Codi opens the last of Hallie's most recent letters. In it, Hallie admonishes Codi for thinking she is not good enough and for expecting there to be some perfect, divine answer in the world about what she should do with her life. The letter makes Codi cry, and think, "I'd spent a long time circling above the clouds, looking for life, while Hallie was living it."
Chapter 19: The Bread Girl
Santa Rosalia Pueblo blends in so perfectly with the landscape that Codi doesn't notice they are approaching it until they arrive. At Loyd's mother's house, his sister greets them, speaking with Loyd in Keresan. His sisters, aunts and his mother Inez greet Codi warmly, but she feels very out of place. That night, more relatives join them for the enormous feast Inez and the other women have prepared. Of the over twenty dishes, Codi recognizes only the lime Jell-O. She enjoys it all, especially the bread of which she eats so much that the family nicknames her the Bread Girl.
Christmas in Santa Rosalia brings a whole day of dances. Codi and Loyd sit on the roof of his mother's house to watch. Codi asks Loyd about his father. Loyd also reveals that although is mother was aware that his father fought cocks, she did not approve and never knew Loyd had followed in his father's footsteps. If his renunciation of cockfighting was for anyone, Codi realizes, it was for his mother. Codi thinks about Hallie's letter and her own inability to commit to loving and settling down with anyone. She does not trust that anyone she loves will stay with her, indicating that she has been marked so deeply by the deaths of her mother and of her child. Looking around the town, Codi comments on some of the older houses that look like they are falling apart. In a value system that does not privilege material possessions, Loyd explains, it is important only to build a house that can be reintegrated into the land when you are done with it and to be able to build another. Codi tries to interpret this as supporting her practice of always moving on, but Loyd qualifies, "It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else." As they watch the dances, Loyd explains the Pueblo belief system to Codi in more detail, especially in terms of humans' relationships with the earth; she compares it to Anglo belief systems and finds the Pueblo to make much more sense. In the midst of all of the dancing, the man dressed as Koshari, the fertility kachina or fertility god, comes over to Loyd and Codi to dance and tease about an upcoming marriage for them.
In addition to their support of violent measures, the women of the Stitch and Bitch club make use of their craft making talents to save the river. The peacock piñatas are a symbol of Grace. As she is recruited to write the note detailing their cause that accompanies the peacocks, Codi's role in her community is emphasized. She utilizes precisely the skills that she learned outside of Grace—biology, chemistry, and writing skills—for the service of the community. In this action, Codi is established as the perfect prodigal daughter, who left her home, learned in the world, and came back to protect her own family with her newly acquired knowledge. Neither college education nor local craftsmanship is given higher value, as they must be combined to save Grace. The use of the peacocks to raise money also shows that the women of the Stitch and Bitch Club are able to use the prejudices of the outside world, which see Grace as nothing but a quaint town in the middle of nowhere, to their own benefit. Rather than fighting against the prejudice, they simply cash in on it. Using their profits to save Grace, they demonstrate that it is in fact a vital community and one that has developed unique traditions. Also, by integrating elements such as the jackets of an encyclopedia as the materials for the piñatas, the women show that their art is not simply folklore, but a blend of tradition and modernity.
Although Loyd and Codi share an ever-deepening relationship, they both have a primary connection with a sibling. However, both Loyd's twin brother Leander and Codi's sister Hallie are not present in their lives. Leander was killed in a bar brawl, and although Codi doesn't know it yet, over Christmas Hallie is abducted by the Contras. The parallels between their two lives allow them to share on a much deeper level. Also, While Codi and Hallie tried to save a litter of coyote pups from a flood, Loyd rescued a half-coyote puppy from drowning at his father's hands. Loyd is the first person Codi has talked with who has experienced a loss that seems as great as hers. Leander died of the very same wounds that kill the birds in cockfights—hemorrhaging and puncture wounds. As Codi learns of this and of Loyd's mother's disapproval of the cockfights, she realizes that her objections were not the reason he gave up cockfighting.
Loyd is a fertile character, in large part connected to his status as a Native American. Thanks to his understanding of Native American cosmology and to his being raised on the Reservation, Loyd has a profound understanding of how to carefully cultivate the fertile land. The land, as it is often called mother earth, is a metaphor for the mother. The man who knows how to cultivate the earth then metaphorically knows how to bear and raise children. The primary figure described at the Christmas Day dance at Santa Rosalia Pueblo is the Koshari kachina, who is a fertility god. Native American religion generally then, and Loyd as the embodiment of it, are directly linked to fertility. In addition, Koshari dances around the house Loyd and Codi sit on together, blessing them as a fertile couple. Through her reconnection with her community and her association with Loyd, Codi is able to become fertile not only in terms of an ability to bear children, but also in terms of an ability to care for the earth and the community.
Readers' Notes allow users to add their own analysis and insights to our SparkNotes—and to discuss those ideas with one another. Have a novel take or think we left something out? Add a Readers' Note! | <urn:uuid:7bd31811-5956-4156-a816-7d51ca7d69fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animaldreams/section8.rhtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980796 | 2,195 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Sitting at her laptop hunting for a part-time job, UC Davis student Isra Sebiaa spotted an "office help" ad that sounded incredibly appealing.
Posted by an "international business consultant" in Davis, the would-be employer was frequently overseas and needed help running errands, paying bills, mailing packages and doing shopping. The pay: $150 a week for 10 hours of work, plus mileage and expenses.
"It sounded perfect," recalls Sebiaa, a senior majoring in political science. She immediately applied online, sending her résumé, a crisp cover letter and a request for a face-to-face interview.
To Sebiaa's delight, she was "hired" instantly. And that's when the job description suddenly became something very different.
Her unseen boss, supposedly in Sweden meeting clients, emailed Sebiaa's first assignment: She'd receive a $1,100 check, to be deposited into her own account. After deducting $150 as the first week's "pay," she was to wire the remainder to an address in the Philippines.
"As soon as she told me that, I knew it was like things I've read about Craigslist scams," said the 21-year-old. "It smelled really fishy."
Officially known as a "payment-transfer" or Nigerian check scheme, it's a familiar scam that's seduced many adult job seekers for years. Now it's trickling down to college kids.
"We've had about 10 this fall alone," said Marci Kirk Holland, manager of the UC Davis Internship and Career Center.
At California State University, Sacramento, a "handful" of phony ads have popped up in recent years, said CSUS Career Center Director Beth Merritt Miller.
The ruses vary. In some cases, students are told they're hired, then informed that the "boss" has taken ill on vacation and needs funds wired to his account. The students are assured that they'll be reimbursed, plus expenses.
In most cases, students get suspicious and refuse to participate. But not always.
Just this week, another student reported to UC Davis authorities that she'd lost $2,000, after her "employer" supposedly stricken with a heart attack asked her to deposit two money orders and send the proceeds to a Philippines address. The money orders proved fraudulent, and now she's on the hook to pay back the bank.
The student, a Southern California transfer in her first month in Davis, answered an online ad, supposedly from a Davis real estate company, Holland said. The student could not be reached for comment.
At a time when college costs are accelerating and part-time hiring is stuck, this type of online scam is particularly troubling.
"Students are having a hard enough time finding a job and are among the last who should be victimized. It's a tragedy when anyone trying to find a job becomes a victim," said Sylvia Kundig, an attorney in the Federal Trade Commission's San Francisco office.
Last year, foreign money and counterfeit check scams were among the FTC's top 12 consumer complaints. "It's a perennial scam," said FTC spokeswoman Monica Vaca.
The phony job ads come as college graduate hiring by genuine companies appears healthier. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, job offers for U.S. college graduates this June are expected to be up 13 percent from a year ago.
That's why these job scams are doubly harmful, said Holland. "The crime is it reduces students' confidence in applying for jobs. And it hurts legitimate companies trying to hire students for legitimate jobs."
Even more deceptive, the ads appear on the universities' own job-recruiting websites, lending them a credibility that makes many students feel it's safe to apply.
Campus career officials at UC Davis and CSUS say they work hard to vet the hundreds of ads that appear daily on their websites. The bad ones, they note, represent a very small slice of the daily postings; fewer than a dozen among 3,000 current listings at UC Davis, for instance.
Most of the ads that slip through, they say, are those sent via NACElink, an online job-posting service that provides access to national companies that want to reach students on multiple college campuses. Efforts to reach a NACElink representative were unsuccessful.
After a few phony ads first appeared on the CSUS online job board, Miller said, her staff ramped up its vetting process of the site's 500 to 1,000 daily postings. If something doesn't add up, they check business licenses or ask the employer to provide verification.
In addition, she said, CSU career centers statewide alert each other to suspicious posts.
On the UC Davis Aggie Links job site, the phony ads are left up with a warning notice. "We want students to see these ads are fraudulent," said Holland.
That may not be the case everywhere. A week ago, Casey Long of Sacramento, a sophomore at the University of California, Santa Barbara, encountered a phony job listing on his university's website.
Long, the son of Sacramento Bee Executive Editor Joyce Terhaar, answered an ad seeking a "front desk assistant" by a company that billed itself as a "virtual online tradeshow" of buyers and sellers. He checked out the company's website, which seemed legitimate, and filled out an online application. Within a day, a FedEx package arrived with a $1,640 check. The emailed instructions were to deposit the check, keep 10 percent as his fee, then wire the rest to the Philippines.
In the words of the 19-year-old, the whole scenario was "sketch."
"The premise was a bit odd and anything to do with putting checks in one's own bank account screams 'scam,' " he said in an email.
Like Sebiaa, he turned the check over to UC Santa Barbara campus authorities, who said they alerted police.
The FTC and others say the online perpetrators are hard to trace and shut down.
How to avoid getting scammed? When an unseen, online employer makes a tantalizing job offer, use common sense and do some Internet digging.
It's easy for a con artist's company to have a website, or even be incorporated. "That's not a badge of legitimacy," said the FTC's Kundig. "You have to dig below that. Google (the company and person's name) and look for complaints. Do some research."
Anyone who's encountered an online job scam, even if no money was lost, should file an online complaint with the FTC (www.ftc.gov). "Filling out that form is our first step in trying to put somebody out of business," said Kundig.
For college-age job seekers like Sebiaa, it's been an eye-opener. Although "really bummed" when her too-good-to-be-true job offer turned out to be fake, Sebiaa said she's learned to trust her instincts.
As for a job, the college senior recently got hired at the Gap clothing store in Davis. She landed her $11-an-hour job by applying directly on the store's website, followed by a face-to-face interview. From now on, she says, unless they first meet in person, "I'm going to avoid communicating through email with employers."
ONLINE JOB SCAMS: TYPICAL RED FLAGS
Work-from-home or virtual job offers often sound tempting, but they could be so-called "payment forwarding" or "payment transfer" scams. That's when a seemingly legitimate company lures job seekers into depositing a check into a personal account, then forwarding the funds to a third party. The checks then bounce, leaving the victim on the financial hook.
Be wary if a job ad:
Requests your bank account, Social Security, PayPal or credit card number.
Asks to "verify your identity" by scanning your driver's license or other ID.
Uses an email address that is not a primary domain (i.e., calls itself "Omega Inc." but has a Yahoo or AOL address).
Includes certain phrases or words, such as "package-forwarding," "money transfers," "wiring funds," "eBay," "PayPal" or "Foreign Agent Agreement."
Contains misspellings and grammatical mistakes.
Job seekers should NEVER:
Give out personal account information to a prospective employer, especially if they've never met in person.
Agree to direct deposit of paychecks until they know their employer.
Forward, transfer or wire money to an employer, no matter how compelling the request may sound.
Source: Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, www.privacyrights.org | <urn:uuid:9254a445-e2b3-415f-91f7-c7018bd9f4b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/21/4925121/personal-finance-scams-masquerade.html?mi_rss=Personal%20Finance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965321 | 1,825 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Cutting Saturday Mail Delivery Only the Beginning for USPS [AUDIO]
The United States Postal Service has been forced by government decree to pre-fund 75 years of employee pensions, leading to enormous financial problems for the organization.
Spokesman for the USPS Pete Nowaki says by October of 2013, the organization may run out of money altogether, and until then he says they will continue paying salaries and suppliers, but if changes aren’t made before then, more drastic measures will be necessary.
Nowaki says 6 years ago, the postal service delivered 213 pieces of mail, while in 2012 it was only 160 billion. He says for all those pieces of mail not being delivered, the post office is not selling stamps, which is the primary source of income for the USPS.
Nowaki says ending Saturday delivery will only save about $2 billion dollars a year, however, he emphasizes the fact that post offices will not close and package delivery will continue.
Montana Senator Max Baucus has criticized the Postal Service for threatening to consolidate smaller post offices, saying the rural post office is a gathering place for many rural communities. Nowaki says the post offices will remain open, but some changes will have to be made.
Nowaki says the Postal Service is increasing its efforts to deliver more packages, taking advantage of the dramatic increase in online purchases, thus benefiting from the internet rather than fighting against it.
In larger cities like Chicago, union leaders are decrying the end of Saturday delivery, saying it’s just a union-busting ploy by the USPS management.
USPS spokesman Pete Nowaki | <urn:uuid:6ea8a764-53d1-4ddd-9ae7-aca42bf4f262> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kyssfm.com/cutting-saturday-mail-delivery-only-the-beginning-for-usps-audio/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94352 | 326 | 1.578125 | 2 |
|Other names||fn Telufinwë (Q, fn); Ambarussa or Umbarto/Ambarto (Q, mn)|
|Affiliation||Oath of Fëanor|
|Birth||during Years of the Trees |
|Death||Y.O.T.T. 1497 |
|House||House of Fëanor|
|Parentage||Fëanor & Nerdanel|
|Siblings||Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin and Amrod (twin)|
He joined his brothers in the Oath of Fëanor, but his mother Nerdanel begged that either he or Amrod be left behind, believing in her heart that one would not return. Fëanor, however, refused her this kindness, and paid for it. Amras was accidentally killed in the swan ships of the Teleri when his father ordered them to be burnt at Losgar. According to the Shibboleth, he claimed (to Amrod) to have felt uncomfortable sleeping on the ground after the Noldor landed on the Lammoth. It was thought later that he wished to return to his mother in the ship, being shocked by his father's deeds. Fëanor was probably aware of his dissention, and this may have been one of the elements of his decision to burn the ships even before all the food and stores had been got out. Yet he was in great dismay when he learned of his son's death, and doubtless remembered the foreboding words of his wife.
Other versions of the Legendarium
Amras' father-name in Quenya was Telufinwë, "Last [of] Finwë", for he was the last of the sons of the House of Finwë and its short form was Telvo. His mother-name was originally Ambarussa ("Top-russet", referring to his hair), the same as his twin Amrod, but Fëanor insisted that the twins ought to have different names and Nerdanel prophetically called him Umbarto, "The Fated" (from umbar = "fate"). His father, disturbed by it, changed it to Ambarto, "Upwards-exalted" (from amba = "upwards, top" and arta = "exalted", "lofty"). Nevertheless both twins called each other Ambarussa.
The name Amras is the Sindarin version of Ambarussa.
In later notes found in The Peoples of Middle-earth, Tolkien mentions that he wished to change the name to Amros because of linguistic issues. While this occured late in life, and there are no known manuscripts written later that contradict this, its canonicity is in dispute.
Other Versions of the Legendarium
There is no trace of the death of Amras at Losgar in the published The Silmarillion, as it was a very late idea by Tolkien, omitted by Christopher Tolkien as he did not at the time see how it could be incorporated into the primary text of The Silmarillion. Where both Amrod and Amras are mentioned in the published text after the landing in Losgar, it should according to Tolkien's later wishes be Amrod alone. The information regarding Amras' naming, especially, comes from The Peoples of Middle-earth.
- The Silmarillion, Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië
- The Silmarillion, Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor
- The Silmarillion, Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor
- The Silmarillion, Of the Flight of the Noldor
- The Silmarillion, Of the Return of the Noldor
- The Silmarillion, Of Beleriand and its Realms
- The Silmarillion, Of the Noldor in Beleriand
- The Silmarillion, Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin
- The Silmarillion, Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad
- The Silmarillion, Of the Ruin of Doriath
- The Silmarillion, Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath
- The Book of Lost Tales Part 2, The Nauglafring
- The Shaping of Middle-earth, The Earliest Annals of Valinor
- The Shaping of Middle-earth, The Earliest Annals of Beleriand
- The Lost Road and Other Writings, The later Annals of Beleriand
- The Lost Road and Other Writings, The later Annals of Valinor
- The Lost Road and Other Writings, Quenta Silmarillion
- The Lost Road and Other Writings, The Etymologies
- Morgoth's Ring, The Annals of Aman
- Morgoth's Ring, The Later Quenta Silmarillion
- The War of the Jewels, The Grey Annals
- The War of the Jewels, The Later Quenta Silmarillion
- The Peoples of Middle-earth, The Shibboleth of Feanor | <urn:uuid:0286f189-212c-43c5-a8dc-09c3208cc093> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tolkiengateway.net/w/index.php?title=Amras&oldid=141663 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935852 | 1,099 | 1.664063 | 2 |
While celebrations are intended to honor life’s more momentous occasions, such as weddings, births, promotions, and graduations, much of real life tends to happen during the in-between times. While moving from one moment in time to the next is seldom considered a significant occurrence, it is during those in-between times that we are in tune with life’s most profound but simple joys. Between birth and death, triumph and sorrow, beginnings and endings, we enjoy many experiences that often happen unnoticed. These times are just as worthy of celebration.
The in-between times are seldom about milestone moments. They are about the simple things of life. How you choose to celebrate them or which moments you choose to celebrate is up to you. You may want to celebrate the simple fact that you are alive and that every day is a chance to spend time with the people you care about or that you are able to do work that you love. You may take a look around, take stock of your life, and find many reasons to celebrate—a beautiful sunrise or sunset, a good book (my best celebration), fresh air, a perfect sandwich, or a beloved pet.
We like to say this is where the magic happens: the in-between times. Our happiness is not just in the big moments. Sometimes we try to have more of the big moments—more fabulous experiences, faster cars, fancier vacations—for we think that these things will bring us big happiness, but truly the magic happens in the in-between times. The ancients knew this when they said that dawn and dusk were magic moments. This was the time between the night and the day when they believed magic can happen if only you had eyes to see. And this is true for us, too: if we have eyes to see, we will find the magic not only in dawn and dusk, but also in all our in-between moments.
Celebrating the in-between times can be as easy as paying attention to them when they do happen, rather than taking them for granted. It’s your focus of attention that can turn an in-between time into a celebration. The in-between times are when life happens to us between the pauses that we take to honor our milestone occasions. Without the in-between times, there would be no big moments to celebrate.
Sometimes we continually race against time, trying to cram too many activities into each day and suffering stress in the process. You can also pay homage to the in-between times by slowing down and allowing yourself time to look around and allow your mind to take in all of your life’s wonders. Far, far too often we let those simple moments pass us by.
One way we can facilitate our celebrations of the in-between times is by tuning into nature’s natural rhythms. Nature has an organizing quality about it; some call it a field of intelligence. The apples always know when it’s time to drop from the tree, the flowers always know when it’s time to bloom, and the tides always know when to rise and fall. The more we spend time out in nature, the more our systems attune to the proper flow of energy in our bodies, for we are part of nature as well. That’s why people feel so good after spending time out in nature and feel so bad when they have spent hours under fluorescent lights and surrounded by concrete. We simply feel better when we have our feet on earth and sun on our faces.
If we start moving to this rhythm, we know when it’s time to stop working and when to rest. Pushing our bodies to work beyond their natural rhythm diminishes our ability to renew and recharge. We need to take a cue from Mother Nature who does all things in the proper time. A walk in nature can also let us attune to her organic rhythm while allowing us to move back into our own rhythm. When we move to our own natural rhythm, we can accomplish all we need to accomplish with less effort.
Allowing ourselves to move as nature moves rather than the artificial movements of a stress-filled world will help us to treasure and eagerly participate in the in-between times that otherwise we may be too stressed to see.
At a recent conference Dr. Norm Shealy, noted holistic physician, said that prior to and just after the turn of the century people averaged 10 hours of sleep a night, and this was sufficient to refresh and repair the body’s systems, especially the nervous system. This was also when people lived more with nature’s rhythms. It is probably unrealistic to expect people to get 10 hours of sleep on a consistent basis this century, but if we could get at least eight hours a night and spend more time in natural settings, it would be easier to make way for the magic in our lives. | <urn:uuid:873f59fa-5554-4ba6-8f82-11d023b98f72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tidewaterwomen.com/columns/connections/celebrating-in-between-times | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967323 | 994 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Our StoryThe Leading Note Foundation was inspired by a phenomenal youth music program in Venezuela that has taken the world by storm, called El Sistema. This program has changed and saved the lives of countless children and is now recognized in the world as a prime model for music programs starting up in Los Angeles, New York City and Glasgow. The main premise is that, if you offer a child the instrument and the education to enrich their life spiritually, they will find the means to feed and clothe themselves - but, most importantly, they will become active contributors to society.
The Leading Note Foundation, made up of professional and freelance musicians in the Ottawa area, felt inspired to bring music to all children in Ottawa, regardless of their socio/economic background, to make music together in a spirited and positive environment.
Please select the menu entries at the left to get a year-by-year view of our story. | <urn:uuid:efb3f968-27c5-4ab7-85bd-3de49dceee7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leadingnotefoundation.org/en/organization/our_story/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963054 | 184 | 1.507813 | 2 |
A9 TV, August 30th, 2012
(Speaking at an inter-governmental summit in Iran, Egyptian President Muhammed Mursi said, “The peoples of Palestine and Syria are fighting for liberty and honor. The Syrian revolution is against a despotic regime. The whole world is responsible for the bloodshed in Syria. Our humanity and faith require us to stand alongside the Syrian people against the despotic Syrian regime.” The Syrian delegation left the hall when Mursi began speaking. President Mursi also stated that they support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy.)
“Peaceful nuclear energy.” They imagine that communists will stand up like they used to in the past and openly say, “I am a communist.” Not so. Communists think they have been very clever indeed, at least in their own eyes. Since the entire world reacts against, and is repelled by the word communist, they have tried to abstain from using the word communist, which is now regarded as an insult. Russia said, “We have destroyed communism.” How? Russia is still communist. Communism is still in power in the Turkic states. Communism is still in power in Azerbaijan, but only because it has been imposed on them, not out of choice. Communism is in power in China. Communism is in power in Iran, and Syria is communist. There was a communist regime in Iraq too, but that collapsed. The present regime in Iraq is uncertain; but there was a very powerful communist structure in Iraq. Ba'athists were everywhere. This mistake therefore stems from people thinking that communism has collapsed.
Communism has simply changed its name and mask. Iran calls itself the Islamic Republic of Iran, but communism is in power there. The state is communist in Iran, and Darwinism is the official ideology. Darwinism is taught by the state. They talk about religion and the way of Islam and the Mahdi, but it is as if they are laughing at them. They say, “We are awaiting the Mahdi (pbuh).” If you ask, “Where is the Mahdi (pbuh)?” they reply, “In people’s houses. In the form of light, can you not see?” They are laughing at people. The president, the prime minister says, “I have heard his voice. He came in the form of light.” “I saw him at the United Nations assembly, he came as light,” he says. They are laughing at people. What light? There is just normal lighting there. When the lights are turned on, of course the place is lit up. “Look, I have seen light, the Mahdi (pbuh) is here,” he says. They foolishly think they are being very cunning for the sake of getting rid of the way of the Mahdi. What is taken seriously in Iran is communism. People are seriously communist. They make no concessions on that. Look, for example, there were the countries of the Warsaw Pact. They changed the name to the Shanghai Group. The Shanghai Group has replaced the Warsaw Pact. They just changed the name because NATO used to follow a ruthless policy of “War against the communist bloc, the countries of the Warsaw Pact.” Secret states within states were even set up. Mafia-type organizations were set up. Nuclear arms production was stepped up. Nuclear subs were built and aircraft careers constructed; in other words, their idea was to do whatever it took to eradicate communism. But they then saw that the communist countries could not stand up to that. So they said, “We have defeated communism. We have done away with the Warsaw Pact.” And what happened? “We have changed the name,” they say. Same restaurant, different table. Iran is also part of the Shanghai Group, a Warsaw Pact country. The Warsaw Pact has not been eliminated. Syria is also part of the Warsaw Pact. Nobody can bring it down because it is a communist country. NATO cannot intervene. They are afraid that the result would be a world war. They are crushing Muslims underfoot there.
(Daily Yeni Asya carried a report titled “The World Sits back and Watches the Slaughter.” It described witness statements of how Syrian army units in Daraya loyal to Damascus martyred 320 people.)
There is a Syria that has been given over to the communists. They are crushing poor Muslims under foot. They are raping young girls. Their advisors and specialists are all Russian communists and Chinese communists; there are Chinese and Russian communists and former guerilla fighters teaching them. Putin would have no power on his own. There has to be a group supporting Putin. Muslim countries must all get involved. A sudden assault there could be successful under those conditions. Putin needs to be proposing a highly intelligent plan, and he needs to shake those horrible people off. But he cannot, because there are people on his back. Highly intelligent maneuvers are required. They managed such intelligent and popular maneuvers in Poland at one time, but Poland has still failed to shake the communists off. Hungary also failed to shake the communists off.
(In a statement, Syrian President Bashar Assad said, “The Turkish government is directly responsible for the bloodshed in Syria. Are we expected to go backward because of the ignorance of some Turkish officials? The Turkish people have been on our side throughout the crisis.”)
What does that mean? There is a communist regime in power. The communist regime has been running the state as a dictatorship for many years. There is no democracy. From father to son, from grandfather to grandson; that is no god. A democratic government must be installed through fair elections. The government the people want in power must assume power. Theirs is a dictatorial and communist regime. The country is part of the communist bloc. The Warsaw Pact changed its name and became the Shanghai Group. Communists reject democracy and elections. They are dictatorial. He says, “The Turkish people support us.” How do you think we support you? Nobody supports you. What we want is for you to espouse Turkish-Islamic Union and Islamic Unity. Let us unite. Let a legitimate government be set up. There must be elections and democracy. The matter must be resolved. | <urn:uuid:d5f4c994-0a86-4e26-8817-5de1b0f7c3e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harunyahya.com/en/Highlights-from-Adnan-Oktars-talk-programs/152335/Highlights-from-Mr-Adnan-Oktars-interview-on-30-August-2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984261 | 1,304 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Bilbo Baggins had always been considered different among the hobbits of the Shire. For one thing, he was part Took, and always ran around with his Took cousins when he was little; for another, no hobbit in the Shire had ever turned up with Bilbo written in delicate cursive on some part of their body.
However, nothing the older hobbits said seemed to bother the fair-haired hobbit, and besides all those qualities Bilbo was a fairly respectable hobbit. He enjoyed smoking his pipe, read books during the day, and never flashed the soul name on his body to any hobbit, ever.
Then thirteen Dwarves showed up at his door one night, and the next day Bilbo was running after them, a giant sign on his door reading GONE ADVENTURING.
Fíli and Kíli, Thorin Oakenshield's nephews, were mischevious lads with their first initials soul-marked on each other's wrists over symbols of one another (a K over an arrow on Fíli's wrist; and an F over a silver bead on his younger brother's). They roared with laughter, teased Ori almost nonstop, and seemed generally fond of the hobbit as a whole.
That didn't mean they didn't drive him crazy, wondering about his own blank wrist, asking about the hobbit way of life, and badgering him to teach them hobbit drinking songs (although most of the Company did, indeed, want to hear hobbit drinking songs).
In return Bilbo mother-henned them, and refused to answer any questions about hobbit soulmate ways. He did, though, teach them the drinking song his cousin Edwin Took made up, 'A Half a Pint, a Whole a Pint'. He only regretted it when they wouldn't stop singing it for an entire week.
They were resting in Rivendall enjoying the warmth of a fire when Ori came of age, a knuckle duster and a very dark, bold D appearing on his wrist, much to the chagrin of his older brothers.
Thorin said nothing against the strings of fate, clapping his best friend on the shoulder once before heading off to who knew where. Dwalin had taken Ori's wrist in his fingers, brushing a very soft kiss against the soulmark, and Nori and Dori stopped complaining.
The two disappeared off into the night, and Bilbo smacked Fíli and Kíli over the head when they started sniggering.
"I have no doubt," He said, glaring at them fiercely. "That you two rushed off to be alone when Kíli came of age, so stop sniggering or Aüle help me I will borrow Bombur's spoon and whack you over the head with it."
The brothers quieted, although Kíli made his puppy dog eyes before sighing and settling back into his brother's arms.
Bilbo frowned at them, and absentmindedly reached over his left shoulder to rub his shoulder blade. Fond he might be of Thorin's nephews, but sometimes they just drove him crazy.
Nori pulled Bilbo aside not two days later, a frown on the professional thief's face and his eyes full of unspoken questions.
"Mister Bilbo," Ori's older brother began, picking at the jacket covering his right wrist with urgency. "I have a rather improper question for you, but I have hope that you will answer it anyway."
The hobbit blinked, startled, but shook himself out of it. "Ah-very well, ask away," He squeaked.
The dwarf nodded, paused, and then shoved his sleeve up abruptly to reveal a pale, unmarked wrist.
"You have no mark on your wrist, either. I thought-"
Bilbo patted his other arm lightly. "Pull down your sleeve, Nori. Surely you've heard tales of other soulmarks that take a while to mature and appear?"
Nori looked crestfallen. "Dori has one, though he's never met them...and now Ori and Dwalin-"
"Sometimes things take time," Bilbo said. "Yours will come."
It was three days hence that Thorin's company stole from Rivendall in the middle of the night, and Bilbo found himself walking behind Fíli and Kíli, with Nori at his back. Thorin (who, Bilbo had learned from Kíli, was directionally challenged), had ordered Balin to lead the way while he conversed with Dwalin.
Oin and Gloin were behind them, and in front of Fíli, Kíli, and Bilbo. Behind Nori, Dori was fussing over his youngest brother, who was blushing and scowling and staring at Dwalin like the lovestruck fool he undoubtedly was.
Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur were bringing up the rear.
Kíli had started singing, for no apparent reason, and his brother joined in. It began to rain.
Bilbo sighed, swearing a hobbit curse as he nearly slipped on the slippery rock.
"Hey, you haven't taught us that one!" Kíli laughed over the thunder. "What's it mean?"
The Halfling had no chance to answer, for Thorin roared, "Stone giants!", and then they were moving.
Fíli screamed his brother's name as they were separated, and Bilbo caught a hold of the Prince's sleeve, also grabbing onto Nori as well as they clung to the stone giant's moving body.
The other half of Dwarves leapt to safety off the stone giant's leg, and Bilbo swore to himself he would tell no soul that Fíli released a sob in a mixture of relief and desperation beside him.
But then the mountain was hurtling towards them, one of the dwarves yelled his name, and the hobbit was clinging to the side of the mountain in a desperate attempt to stay alive.
The dwarves had managed to haul him (and Thorin, who had jumped to his rescue), back up the mountain, and the company had found a cave in which to spend the night.
Thorin's gaze was heavy on his back, and the hobbit rolled his shoulders, touching his left shoulder blade again before shrugging it off.
The dwarves were setting up their bedrolls when Nori suddenly said, "Oh!"
Bilbo turned to look at his new found friend, and was greeted by the sight of a very familiar hat and a...well, cheerful-looking B on the ginger-haired dwarf's previously blank wrist.
As the dwarves began to mutter, the floor of the cave gave out beneath them.
It had been the longest forty-eight hours of his life, and the only things keeping Bilbo upright as they searched for a suitable campsite near the Carrock were adrenaline and Nori, who despite not yet really having a chance to speak with Bofur, was beside the Burglar's side.
"Nori, I'm fine," The hobbit said to his friend. "Go speak with Bofur, he's staring at you longingly."
"You're barely standing up, you look to be in worse shape then Thorin-" The ginger dwarf was cut off by the Dwarven Prince himself declaring their current position to be a suitable place to rest the night.
Bilbo waved his dwarf friend off, taking off his coat. "Go, Nori. I'm going to crash as soon as I hit the ground and Bofur looks absolutely pitiful."
"Aye," Fíli appeared out of nowhere, standing beside them. "Kíli and I will keep watch over the burglar, you go see to your heart's desire."
Nori hesitated for only a second before slinking off towards Bofur, and Bilbo smiled gratefully at Fíli before passing out on the cold, hard ground.
Beorn was a gracious, if not odd host, and Bilbo sunk down into the depths of an honest-to-Aüle bed with a throaty groan that could be mistaken for a completely different noise.
The hobbit stripped his upper clothing off, massaging his left shoulder blade and as far down his back as he could reach. He could still feel his skin vibrating from the contact when Thorin had unexpectedly pulled him into a hug, and it made him shiver lightly as he crawled under the covers.
At least, The hobbit mused, yawning, Fíli and Kíli hadn't badgered him about his blank wrist for quite a few days.
As luck would have it, Kíli brought it up the next morning during breakfast.
"Why are you so keen on knowing?" Bilbo huffed, absentmindedly reaching out to fix a wayward strand of the archer's hair.
"He's a curious little bugger, that's why," Fíli laughed at his brother. The dark-haired dwarf growled, pouting a bit before punching him in the arm. Fíli punched him back, and the two began to tussle.
The hobbit inwardly rolled his eyes. Dwarves had no manners when it came to the eating table, honestly.
The Burglar tore his eyes from the brothers and looked down the table, where Bofur had his arm casually slung around Nori's shoulders. The thief was resting comfortably into the embrace as he teased his younger brother, who was blushing and protesting against whatever Nori was saying, using his hands to articulate his words. The wild gestures left his cardigan slipping down his arms, displaying his soulmark for all to see.
Dwalin's eyes were glued to it, at any rate.
Bilbo hummed as he tore off a manageable piece of his toast to consume. He'd become quite used to seeing each respective dwarf's soulmark. Kíli had explained that, once dwarven soulmates found each other, they left their wrists bare, proclaiming to all of Middle-earth that they were taken.
Everyone back in the Shire would have been scandalized. Bilbo liked the concept, though; if his own soulmark had been similar to the dwarves and on his wrist, he wouldn't have had a problem showing it off.
As it stood, though, the soulmark emblazoned across his shoulder blades was large and damming, so he wouldn't be going around without a shirt on his back any time soon.
Bilbo excused himself from the table, and returned to his room. If he hurried, he could enjoy the sunshine outside by himself for a while, and maybe even take a quick dip in the cool, clear stream nearby.
The sun was warm across his back, in total opposition from what awaited them in the deep dark of Mirkwood's forests. The hobbit rolled his shoulders slowly, stretching as he dipped his toes in the refreshing stream. It was peaceful out here, and no foolish creature would dare attack him while he was on Beorn's land.
Bilbo swung his feet in the water hurriedly. He would tell Thorin after the dwarves had reclaimed Erebor, He decided. He would shown Thorin if he did not believe him. And, if it turned out that Thorin's mark did not match his own, as sometimes happened, he would return to the Shire and there would be no hard feelings.
He did always seem to be the odd hobbit out, anyway.
A large hand-a large, FAMILIAR hand-resting on his shoulders startled Bilbo out of his thoughts, and he froze in horror.
"Bilbo," Thorin Oakenshield said, sounding amused and-pleased? "It appears you have my name on your shoulders."
Bilbo coughed. "Oh, really? I hadn't noticed." He shivered as Thorin began tracing the letters on his back, then dipping down to trace the image of an oak branch below it. "Thorin, I-"
The dwarf Prince huffed a laugh in his ear, cool lips pressing against the T on Bilbo's shoulder blade. "I've got a B on my wrist, along with one of your beloved tea cups, hobbit. You should have told me."
"Oh," The Halfling said, bewildered, twisting around to face the dwarf. Thorin's lips settled across his, and Bilbo sighed into it.
"I'm not walking around without my shirt on, Thorin," He said when they parted, and the dwarf Prince's deep chuckle echoed through the clearing.
"That is probably a good thing, because every time I see it I will, no doubt, want to ravish you."
They tumbled to the ground, kissing, and Bilbo removed the silver bracelet covering Thorin's wrist.
It would not matter if no one could see his soulmark, as long as every dwarf, elf, man and halfling saw the mark on Thorin's wrist declaring his heart was taken. | <urn:uuid:f199269a-f260-41dd-89ca-8deec786f192> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archiveofourown.org/works/635019 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988596 | 2,753 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Administration's wiretapping push could damage cloud security
In another case of unintended consequences, now come warnings that the Obama administration’s call to Internet service providers and other firms to make it easier for the FBI to tap into online communications could damage attempts to tighten security in the cloud.
Security research firm Securosis says that the proposal, which is aimed at denying terrorists and other groups the advantage of encrypted communications, will create “a single point of security failure within organizations and companies that don’t have the best security track record to begin with.”
Big Brother wants to surf the Net with you
Why cybersecurity experts can never rest
Security washes out cloud savings
Who owns data in the cloud? The answer could get tricky.
The administration’s proposal specifically targets peer-to-peer communications, requiring companies that deliver these types of services to redesign them to allow interception. There’s only a limited number of ways to do that, Securosis says, and each of them creates new opportunities for security failures. Those failures are also likely to be detectable by bad guys with some fairly basic techniques, it says.
ReadWriteWeb, which provided the initial link to the Securosis post, points out that means nothing but trouble for cloud providers. Instead of locking the cloud down tighter, this proposal would create an always-open backdoor into the cloud.
Government clouds are mostly behind the firewall now, but at some point they’ll have to connect to public services if they want to make full use of the cloud. If Securosis is right, the administration’s proposal might serve to throttle the use of the cloud by the feds, who are paranoid about its security, at the same time that the White House is trying to promote it.
Posted by Brian Robinson on Sep 29, 2010 at 1:52 PM | <urn:uuid:ff008336-17e8-49b7-a0fc-65e399c9c8e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://defensesystems.com/Blogs/Quick-Study/2010/09/cloud-ISP-wiretapping-Internet-security.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941689 | 381 | 1.742188 | 2 |
7 Things Employers Don't Know About Healthcare Benefits
For 10 years researchers at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife) have conducted an annual survey about employee benefits. While much of the survey focuses on benefits in general, the 80-page report is chock full of information that employers probably don't realize, but should consider as they talk to health plans and employees about their healthcare benefit programs.
The survey results confirm that health benefits are "number one on the minds of employees," says Ronald S. Leopold, MD, vice president and national medical director of MetLife U.S. Business. He adds that as the economy improves, employers are turning the corner in terms of how they view benefits. They’re moving from thinking that employees should be happy just to have a job, to seeing benefits as an important tool for attracting and retaining employees.
Leopold says employee attitudes are also shifting. During the bad economy, employees were focused primarily on salary. Now, he says, they are taking a look at their entire compensation package and benefits are coming into sharper view.
The survey results also reveal that when it comes to benefits, employees maintain a level of distrust toward their employer. Leopold says employers need to work harder to avoid miscommunications about benefits. He points to the finding that 33% of employees think employers plan to reduce benefits while only 10% of employers report that they plan to make that move. To avoid that disconnect "employers need to deliver a clear message to employees about the status of benefits."
- Healthcare Leaders Seek Strategic Sweet Spot
- 3 Reasons Wellness Programs Fail
- CMS Issues Health Insurance Exchange Proposed Rules
- Patients Shoulder Nearly 25% of Medical Bills
- ACOs Widespread, Yet Challenged
- MGMA: Physician Compensation Increasingly Based on Quality Measures
- HFMA: Patient Financial Interaction Guidelines Sharpened
- Data Collaborative Taps Predictive Analytics to Coordinate Care
- HFMA: Revenue Cycle, Reimbursements Share the Spotlight
- Evidence-Based Practice and Nursing Research: Avoiding Confusion | <urn:uuid:ac61fd45-6e40-4178-a541-e16be4554a45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/hep-278822/7-Things-Employers-Dont-Know-About-Healthcare-Benefits | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952114 | 427 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A British serviceman who died during the Falklands War is to be remembered 30 years on from the conflict.
Brian Easton, from Alyth, Perth and Kinross, was a cook on board HMS Glamorgan when it was hit by an Argentinian missile on June 12, 1982.
He died along with 13 other crew members.
Murdo Fraser, Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife, will lay a wreath in Mr Easton's memory at the HMS Glamorgan Memorial in the Falklands.
Mr Fraser will be in the country next week to represent the Scottish branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, as a guest of the Falkland Islands government.
He will attend a number of events to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War.
Mr Fraser said: "I remember the Falklands conflict from when I was still at school.
"The names of battles such as San Carlos, Goose Green and Two Sisters are still very vivid, and it will be a real privilege to be able to visit these battle sites in the Falkland Islands, and remember those who lost their lives.
"It will be a particular honour to be able to commemorate Brian Easton from Alyth, who lost his life on board HMS Glamorgan.
"I have been in contact with Brian's sisters, Gladys Easton, who lives in Birkhill, and Shirley Chapman, who lives in France, who were both keen for me to lay a wreath at the Glamorgan Memorial in his honour.
"Both Gladys and Shirley visited the Falklands last year themselves for the unveiling of the memorial.
"Also lost on the Glamorgan was Brian Malcolm from Fife, and I will be honouring his memory at the same time.
"The Falkland islanders have always been very grateful to the British servicemen who lost their lives, and others who suffered injuries, defending their freedoms.
"I look forward to having the opportunity to pay my own respects in the South Atlantic."
- Submariner proud of role in sinking Argentine warship in Falklands War
- Scotland Tonight: The Falklands | <urn:uuid:243efd5e-3400-4d38-9364-0e7d27f07929> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.stv.tv/scotland/104562-serviceman-who-was-killed-in-the-falklands-conflict-to-be-honoured-by-msp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966723 | 443 | 1.671875 | 2 |
RAPAPORT... Christie's reported sales of $5.7 billion (GBP 3.6 billion) for 2011, which represented a 9 percent year-on-year increase in British pounds. The auction house reports results in pounds so it recorded a jewelry sales increase of 35 percent, but by dollar value that figure rose 41 percent year on year to $600.1 million. Watch sales jumped 21 percent to $116 million, exceeding the $100 million mark for the first time. Strong increases were also recorded for sales of wine and art categories such as 20th Century Decorative Arts, British and Irish Art, Old Masters and 19th Century, Asian Art and Post-War and Contemporary Art. However, sales for Impressionist and Modern Art fell 28 percent.
Christie’s jewelry and watch department observed that the diamond market held strong throughout the year. A perfect heart-shaped diamond of 56.15 carats sold for $10.9 million in Geneva and a pair of cushion-cut diamonds of 23 carats each were sold for $9.3 million in Hong Kong in May. The famous Elizabeth Taylor diamond of 33.19 carats sold for $8.8 million on December in New York.
Colored diamonds also had an excellent year at auction with a pear-shaped diamond of 32.77 carats realizing $6.6 million in New York. During one New York auction, a Burmese ruby of 8.62 carats sold for $4.2 million and an emerald of 23.46 carats was sold for $6.6 million. In Geneva, a Burmese sapphire of 130.50 carats sold for $7.1 million. The famous 16th century Peregrina pearl sold for $11.8 million in New York in December. Another pearl necklace, which Christie’s had sold in New York in 1981 for $72,000, was sold again in Geneva in November for $790,000.
Steven P. Murphy, Christie's chief executive, observed that a global appetite for collecting art and jewelry was reflected in increased buyer activity during 2011. U.S. and European clients accounted for 77 percent of sale registrations, with 13 percent from Greater China, an increase of 2 percent on 2010. Registered clients from Russia and the CIS increased 15 percent. New clients represented 12 percent of the value of global sales.
The website, www.christies.com, welcomed 77 percent more unique visitors than 2010 and 29 percent of Christie’s bidders transacted online. Christie’s LIVE™, the interactive online bidding platform, drew 25 percent more bids than the previous year with two works of art selling across this channel for more than $1 million.
As part of the sales series dedicated to the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor, Christie’s held its first online-only sale, which ran in parallel to the live auctions out of Christie’s New York. The two-week time-based auction resulted in $9.5 million in sales and bidders from 25 countries competed for 973 additional items from Taylor’s personal collection.
''We are operating in an informed market with pricing, curation and presentation key to success,'' said Murphy. ''Christie’s goal is to serve its clients. As we continue to see strong auction sales, we are also responding to the wishes of our clients with private sales growing and accounting for GBP 502 million of our sales total. Collectors also continue to be inspired by the great collections. We saw intense interest in the Gourdon Collection in Paris, the Norton Collection in New York and the Cowdray Collection in London in particular, all attracting a broad audience. The crescendo of the year was the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor which was seen by 58,000 people in an eight-city tour before being sold at auction in New York in December. With bidders from 36 countries, every one of the 1,778 lots found a buyer contributing to total sales of $157 million.
''As we approach the sales over the next fortnight in London, we are optimistic about the market in 2012. We also remain committed to our role as cultural stewards through our auctions, private sales and exhibitions. Christie’s is a unique place where commerce and connoisseurship is the hallmark of the Christie’s team and we look forward to an exciting series of upcoming sales, exhibitions and partnerships,'' he concluded. | <urn:uuid:81f209d4-bcb1-419a-a286-782f4dd79ff4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diamonds.net/news/NewsItem.aspx?tag=Auctions&ArticleID=38858&ArticleTitle=Christies+Jewelry+Sales+%2B41%25 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948888 | 916 | 1.5625 | 2 |
When I arrived in Thailand last October, I immediately became the token American girl of my TEFL course. Simultaneously trying to master British English and Thai was amusing, but I figured that surely it was a fluke 98% of my course were from every other English-speaking country besides my own. And so begun the never-ending search for the Americans.
While I have had sporadic run-ins with American teachers and travelers in Southeast Asia, they are in the minority. Traveling in this part of the world, it’s possible to go weeks without seeing another U.S. citizen.
I can only help but wonder’€¦. where are all of the Americans?
For such a massive population and international presence, we are severely under-represented out here.
I can appreciate the explanations for why this is so: the U.S. is a lot further from Southeast Asia than Australia or Europe. With the standard two-week holiday Americans are allotted, a trip to the Far East is highly impractical. Furthermore, traveling simply is not given the same priority in our country as it is in others.
I’m not the only one who has noticed the American absence. While exchanging the standard small talk in hostel dorms, fellow travelers typically respond in one of two ways when they hear my unmistakable American accent: 1) Wow! You are the only American I’ve met out here! or 2) Why don’t Americans don’t travel more? (as if I have all the answers)
When I explain that many companies only give two-weeks paid vacation, Europeans and Australians alike are appalled that the luxurious 4-8 weeks they have isn’t some type of international standard.
My British friends claim that taking a gap year to travel after university is not only accepted and encouraged in their society, but that if you don’t opt to do so, you’re weird.
Come on Yanks, we are seriously getting gypped. Isn’t there a lot more to life than working?
In American culture, it is engrained in our minds from the get-go that you live to work. There is no period of time dedicated solely for travel.
The vast majority of my college peers jumped right into a cubicle of the corporate world. Nearly a year on the other side of the globe, and I still feel the pressures of American society telling me that I, too, should be saving for my 401k. While many of my friends yearned to prolong the inevitable, the recent graduates and their parents saw no other option in light of their student loan burden.
And so, most immediately changed out of their graduation gown into business attire and joined the rat race: struggling to find a job in a slow-growth economy, moving back in with their parents or living paycheck to paycheck hamstrung by NYC rents and student loan debts.
But, what if I told you that complete financial independence right out of college is achievable?
Many of my TEFL peers came to Asia seeking that exact element they couldn’t find at home: they don’t have to ask mommy and daddy for help. If you choose the right opportunity abroad, it is extremely feasible to simultaneously work, travel and start making a dent on those student loans. Or, if you want to travel but not necessarily work abroad, ask yourself what is really stopping you from quitting your job to travel?
While many U.S. citizens do work to meet basic survival needs, some are just not willing to make the sacrifices (namely, material goods) necessary to travel. When it comes down to real determination, money is only an excuse.
Corporate America isn’t going anywhere — if that’s the life you want, it will be waiting for you after an adventure abroad. Yet, there is only one window of opportunity that you are young and responsibility-free. More money can always be earned. In the big picture, will a short period of travel or living abroad really dampen your career?
The distance and our meager vacation days aren’t changing anytime soon. But one thing that is within our control is transforming travel into a priority.
Work to live ‘€“ not the other way around.
Andrea Eisinberg is a recent Ithaca College graduate who has spent the last 10 months living in Thailand teaching English in an attempt to nurture and fund her travel disease. You can read more of her stories at StoriesFromTheEast.blogspot.com. | <urn:uuid:0e081de7-d04e-4e3c-85a4-12e1a3bbe543> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nyacknewsandviews.com/2012/08/ae_wherearetheamericans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95149 | 940 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Mother's Day is coming up. And while motherhood can be a game of trial and error, here are 10 hard and fast rules that can minimize stress.
Motherhood may seem like a game of guess and check or trial and error, as many moms know with Mother's Day coming up this weekend.
However, there are some universal tips that make motherhood a little easier and less stressful.
Here are ten things every mother should know, as compiled by Redbook magazine.
10. Family feuds happen—Kids are more likely to fight with their siblings than their friends. That sort of unconditional love defines family.
According to journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, authors of NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, sisters and brothers who spend time together but bicker will be closer later than siblings who play separately.
9. Motherhood is not a competitive sport—Look for support and companionship from other moms. Find a group of moms from your office or neighborhood to meet regularly with to share joys, frustrations and a glass of wine with.
8. Don’t feel guilty for working or not working—Child care and maternity leave are meant for you to take advantage of! Make a choice regarding your career that is right for your family and feel good about it.
7. Apology accepted—Saying you’re sorry when you make a mistake is just a small gesture that teaches your kids that no one is perfect. Your kids will learn that everyone makes mistakes and it's better to acknowledge them and move on without the hard feelings.
6. Get over yourself, Pinocchio—If it means that your kids will pick up their toys, or take a nap, or eat broccoli, then it's okay to tell the occasional white lie.
5. Laugh at yourself, a lot—The next time you find a cheerio in your hair and catch yourself eating it, or you talk in a baby voice to thank the cashier at your grocery store, laugh. Motherhood is fun, funny and hard, enjoy it.
4. Plan outfits ahead of time—To make your weekday mornings less hectic, plan out your kids’ outfits the day before. If you’re feeling ambitious, plan out the entire week’s attire on Sunday afternoon--this could spare you some stressful mornings.
3. Let Dad parent too—Valerie Davis Raskin, M.D., a Chicago-based psychiatrist and author of a book about motherhood says, "Kids want to be loved in different ways, and to experience different aspects of love. As long as Dad's ways aren't dangerous, it's a good idea to let it go."
2. Motherhood is a learning curve—It’s all right to make mistakes, learn from them and move on. Not everything is your fault anyway: Just because your child gets on an elevator at a crowded mall and takes a solo ride down to the food court doesn’t mean you’re a negligent mother, unless of course you leave them there.
1. You can raise a healthy eater—Get your kids into the kitchen. A registered dietician explains, "Children feel important when they're asked to pitch in, and because they take pride in the finished product, they're more likely to have an open mind about eating it." Chef hats come in small, too.
To read more of Redbook's article on 10 things every mom should know, click here.
Sign up for Breaking News, Daily Headlines, Severe Weather Alerts & more! | <urn:uuid:f3080ed4-a74b-456d-bcce-0012695e7b49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kjct8.com/news/family/-/194790/16018132/-/me0j0k/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952709 | 736 | 1.507813 | 2 |
DRHOOK- Humility: Why no doctor can know it all
Embarrassing things happen all the time in everyday life. I'm trying to play more tennis, and right now my skills are mediocre at best. Recently I chipped a shot beautifully into the backhand corner against my tennis buddy.
"Wow," I thought to myself, "that was a great shot!" My brief moment of glory ended when my opponent lobbed it back to me. (I hate lobs more than I hate influenza.) I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow I missed the ball during my "Roger Federer overhead smash." The tennis ball hit my forehead. Bonk!
My friend did his best not to laugh– or even smile. I told him he should laugh his head off because at that moment, I was no Venus Williams.
To be humble: a blessing or a curse?
In the academic world, ignorance– and in particular stupidity– are deadly sins. All through college and medical school, I took classes with competitive students who all wanted to be first in the class. One of my classmates used to say (lie), "Wow, I got a 95 on my test, and I didn't even study. What did you get?"
One of my medical school classmates complained he got an A instead of an A+ because that meant his dermatology career was officially over. (Yes, you need all A plusses to cure acne and do microderm abrasion.)
Then one day one of my mentors, who was smarter than Ben Franklin and Isaac Newton rolled into one, taught me something shocking: he didn't know everything. "Holy encyclopedia, Batman!"
He told his patient he didn't know the answer– but he said he would do his best to find out the answer. Although I have never taken a hallucinogen, I think my vision and hearing went on the fritz when I heard him say this.
"Ah, excuse me, but we aren't supposed to never admit we don't know something? Won't the medical board take away our license?"
Sure, we can see clogged coronary arteries and pump them open to reduce the risk of a heart attack. We can remove an inflamed appendix to reduce the risk of death if it bursts. We can give pain medicines to minimize a migraine headache. But there are times we don't know what the problem is and how to fix it. It doesn't mean we won't figure it out, but there might not be an answer right at that moment.
I never take credit for making a diagnosis if someone has seen a previous doctor who "missed it" because medicine involves a lot of trial and error. The adage, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," is very true in the medical field.
Everyone is different and responds differently to medicines and tests. Also, some diseases "blossom" over time, and a diagnosis can be made later. Sometimes a diagnosis can be made only after other things are ruled out. Sometimes the history isn't given completely ("Oh, I forgot to tell you that I drink 24 beers a night") or the doctor doesn't understand things ("Oh, your wife is a man! Okay, now I get it!").
Also let's be real. Not every medical problem out there has a name. Western and eastern medicine don't know all the syndromes and diseases that exist. Sometimes patients kind of have a little of this disease and a little of that disease– but never present the full criteria to make a diagnosis.
Personally, I hate not knowing everything, but it's impossible to know everything. Though I wish I were as smart as Stephen Hawking, I do know how to research things and when to refer.
Now all I have to do is learn not to hit overheads in tennis anymore.
Dr. Hook cracks a joke or two, but he's a renowned physician with a local practice and an interesting website, drjohnhong.com. Email him with your questions. | <urn:uuid:4fb7008d-d12f-456e-b183-d8a0a882eecb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readthehook.com/83818/drhook-humility-why-no-doctor-can-know-it-all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979537 | 830 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A prominent portion of President Obama’s speech last night at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) outlined his energy and conservation policies. To the delight of the partisan crowd, he used the opportunity to mock Mitt Romney’s skepticism regarding climate change.
“More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it,” the president said in his opening remarks. “My plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet. Because climate change is not a hoax.”
Obama’s words are seen as a direct counter to Romney’s speech last week to the Republican National Convention, in which he joked that Obama “has promised to slow the rise of the oceans.” Climate change skeptics loved the jab. Environmentalists were not as pleased.
(SV Poll: Is climate change real?)
Obama also echoed earlier statements from DNC speakers regarding the democrats’ “all-of-the-above” energy stance. He announced plans to increase natural gas and domestic oil exploration; further invest in wind, solar and other alternative energies; cut vehicle carbon emissions; and boost America’s energy independence while cutting pollution.
“After 30 years of inaction, we raised fuel standards so that by the middle of the next decade, cars and trucks will go twice as far on a gallon of gas,” the president said. “We have doubled our use of renewable energy, and thousands of Americans have jobs today building wind turbines and long-lasting batteries. In the last year alone, we cut oil imports by 1 million barrels a day, more than any administration in recent history. And today the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last two decades.”
Obama also promised to protect the environment from oil interests; specifically, he denounced offshore drilling.
“We’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration in the last three years, and we’ll open more,” he said. “But unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies write this country’s energy plan or endanger our coastlines.”
In other news from the DNC, that good ol’ pillar of gun control Dianne Feinstein is back up to her old tricks. While delivering the keynote speech to the California delegates, she promised to reintroduce “an updated assault weapons ban.”
“Weapons of war do not belong on our streets, in our classrooms, in our schools or in our movie theaters,” Feinstein said.
Indeed, The 2012 Democratic Party Platform adopted by the DNC essentially says, “We support the right to bear arms, buuuut … .” Here’s the language:
We recognize that the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans’ Second Amendment right to own and use firearms.
We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation.
We understand the terrible consequences of gun violence; it serves as a reminder that life is fragile, and our time here is limited and precious.
We believe in an honest, open national conversation about firearms. We can focus on effective enforcement of existing laws, especially strengthening our background check system, and we can work together to enact commonsense improvements—like reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole—so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few.
Did you watch the conventions? Who had the strongest message regarding sportsmen’s issues? | <urn:uuid:6eeec1dd-3091-4f98-8591-3e1946917dba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportsmenvote.com/dnc-roundup-obama-talks-energy-conservation-feinstein-proposes-gun-control/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935543 | 770 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Friday, April 09, 2010
Tracking Market Strength With Moving Average Indicators
A useful display in the Barchart site charts the percentage of stocks trading above their 20 day moving averages (top chart) and above their 50-day averages (bottom chart).
In general, we can say that the intermediate-term trend is up when more than 50% of stocks are above their 20- and 50-day averages. The longer-term trend is up when over 50% of stocks are trading above their 200-day moving averages. When all three are above 50%, it has been very difficult to make money on the short side for anything more than short-term trades.
Pullbacks in the number of stocks trading above their 20- and 50-day averages to below 50% with the number of stocks trading above their 200-day averages greater than 50% have marked excellent intermediate-term buying opportunities. When those pullbacks occur at successively higher prices, we have a clear longer-term bull market.
Divergences between price and the number of stocks trading above their 20- and 50-day moving averages have marked recent intermediate-term tops in the market. While we've been seeing those divergences relative to the 20-day benchmark, we recently made a fresh peak in the number of stocks trading above their 50-day averages. Given that momentum--the number of stocks trading above their moving averages--tends to peak ahead of price, we can use the trajectories of these indicators to gauge the likelihood of market moves continuing vs. reversing. | <urn:uuid:451c4994-2a2c-4357-b5f3-1763e3b298a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.traderfeed.blogspot.com/2010/04/tracking-market-strength-with-moving.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940574 | 318 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Privately owned public spaces, or POPS, have been largely ignored by New Yorkers, even as they have reshaped the city over the past 50 years. Plazas, passageways and pocket parks have been carved out of giant new office and apartment buildings in exchange for considerable development bonuses (a few hundred thousand square feet here or there). This has led a band of urban activists to fight for awareness of and activity in POPS across the city.
Thanks to the occupation of Zucotti Park, people have begun to take some notice of at least one such POPS, and the POPSters hope they can turn this into a new awareness of the spaces citywide. But the protests have also angered the landlords responsible for the spaces, and now they are preparing to fight back, possibly placing further restrictions on the city’s POPS.
“Obviously, there needs to be a balance,” Real Estate Board president Stephen Spinola told The Observer earlier this week. “Most of these places are told they need to be open 24 hours a day, which is why the cops are reluctant to push the protestors out. If you ask me, I don’t know what’s wrong with saying the plazas should close at 1 o’clock, so there’s an added degree of security or even maintenance.”
He echoed complaints made my Brookfield Properties, owners of Zuccotti Park, that the space the protestors have dubbed Liberty Square has become dirty and unsafe—which perhaps ignores the near constant police presence and the surprisingly organized efforts of the protestors to operate trash lines and recycling stations. Brookfield points out that the plaza has not been power washed since September 16, the day before the protests began. Then again, when was the last time Central Park was power washed?
Mr. Spinola said his group, which represents many of the city’s most powerful developers and building managers, would consider pushing the Department of City Planning to create new rules for what they see as better regulation of the city’s POPS. One of the notable things about the events at Zuccotti Park was that its rules were indeed loosely defined, allowing the protesters and the police wide leeway in what activity took place there. Were it a city park, provisions against camping and even hours of operation would have been more obvious. Efforts to implement such restrictions retroactively have so far failed.
“It’s a serious issue,” Mr. Spinola said. “It’s open to the public, but it’s owned by a private company, and perhaps it’s better we balance those two sides.”
How easily new restrictions could be implemented is, like so many things concerning POPS, a little murky. Each of the 516 space has its own specific rules and regulations negotiated with the Department of City Planning at the time of the building’s inception. Theoretically, landlords could go back to the department and ask for changes to their POPS regulations where they see fit, but this would require a lengthy and costly public review. These are not uncommon, when a landlord wants to install a café or even a handicap ramp, but if there was a movement for change from most building‘s in the city, it would create gridlock at City Planning.
There is the possibility that the department could institute a citywide amendment to the zoning code, the kind of thing the influential Real Estate Board could well lobby for. But the push back from civil libertarians, parks advocates, community groups and the POPsters seems all but assured if that were the case. They frequently complain that the developers get more than they paid for with their POPS deals—are a few benches and trees really worth a some extra stories on a building that will generate millions of dollars in rent over time?
Or the situation may just continue as it long has, with nobody much noticing the POPS and the landlords getting exactly what they want. | <urn:uuid:02629f81-ba1a-4916-859e-e4355ff875f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://observer.com/2011/10/after-occupy-wall-street-big-real-estate-would-like-to-see-more-restrictions-on-private-parks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972608 | 820 | 1.640625 | 2 |
How to Uninstall an Outlook Add-in
So, after hitting issues left and right, solving them and posting them on various sites including this one. I had gone dry for a while, there were no issues… I thought to myself “This is too good to be true;” sure enough, it was. However, this is only a minor inconvenience, but one that requires solving none the less.
Being in a corporate environment, it is natural that my company requires that I load Anti Virus software on my machine, Symantec Corporate Edition as the company standard. The installation is simple and straightforward, but being that I have come across a newer version than was provided to me, it was required that I remove the outdated installation.
The uninstall left me wanting as it decided to leave behind a nagging Add-in in Outlook 2007. Every time I open Outlook I am prompted with a pop up that tells me to remove that add-in for Symantec Anti Virus that wasn’t uninstalled automatically.
With no reference to this in “Add or Remove Programs”, or any other obvious way to remove this, I started poking around. It seems that Office Add-ins are handled within the application and can be removed from the application. To do so:
- Go to Tools –>Trust Center within Outlook
- Click the Add-Ins option on the left side.
Now here is the confusing part. If you are doing this, you will notice that there is no add-in reference for Symantec. You will have to select the option for “Exchange Client Extensions” in the “Manage” drop down at the bottom of the window.
- Make the selection for “Exchange Client Extensions”
- Click Go
You will get a new window with a bunch of options and check marks.
- Uncheck the option for “Symantec Antivirus”
- Click OK
These instructions apply to other add-ins as well | <urn:uuid:df1f0350-95fe-4ccb-883d-056a8cf929c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://computingondemand.com/uninstall-outlook-add-in/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946998 | 416 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Florida Regional Planning
During the Florida CNU, a lengthy discussion was started on the issues that we face with regional planning in Florida. The regional planning process in Florida is very complicated, and many times the vision is never developed beyond policy. Regional Planning Councils around the State are working hard to develop plans, private developers are creating plans, and local municipalities are creating visions for their growth. All of these plans includes visions and policies that over lap city and county boundaries. Many of these policies are never illustrated, and the vision is left to the imagination of the next planning session. Amazingly enough, when a plan is drawn, these plans are rarely placed on a State wide map with adjoining regional and city plans, or compared to regional transportation or water management needs.
Our two day session left more questions then answers. There is a need to identify the road blocks that are preventing the success and organization of the current process. This blog is my starting point to organize both the current regional planning efforts in the state of Florida. This blog is also my call for a forum to discuss the road blocks to implementing the regional plans across the state.
Write your comments in the box below and share on your Facebook! | <urn:uuid:76382728-ffe5-46b9-afa5-a6e9f0dd09eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnu.org/cnu-salons/2007/01/florida-regional-planning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949593 | 242 | 1.78125 | 2 |
May 4, 2012, 7:26 p.m. ET
How to Live Unhappily Ever After
Augusten Burroughs on the upside of being downbeat, and embracing loss and anger
By AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
"I just want to be happy."
I can't think of another phrase capable of causing more misery and permanent unhappiness. With the possible exception of, "Honey, I'm in love with your youngest sister."
~F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal
In our super-positive society, we have a zero-tolerance policy for negativity. But who feels 'Great!' all the time?
Yet at first glance, it seems so guileless. Children just want to be happy. So do puppies. Happy seems like a healthy, normal desire. Like wanting to breathe fresh air or shop only at Whole Foods.
But "I just want to be happy" is a hole cut out of the floor and covered with a rug. Because once you say it, the implication is that you're not. The "I just want to be happy" bear trap is that until you define precisely, just exactly what "happy" is, you will never feel it. Whatever being happy means to you, it needs to be specific and also possible. When you have a blueprint for what happiness is, lay it over your life and see what you need to change so the images are more aligned.
Still, this recipe of defining happiness and fiddling with your life to get it will work for some peoplebut not for others. I am one of the others. I am not a happy person. There are things that do make me experience joy. But joy is a fleeting emotion, like a very long sneeze. A lot of the time what I feel is, interested. Or I feel melancholy. And I also frequently feel tenderness, annoyance, confusion, fear, hopelessness. It doesn't all add up to anything I would call happiness. But what I'm thinking is, is that so terrible?
I know a physicist who loves his work. People mistake his constant focus and thought with unhappiness. But he's not unhappy. He's busy. I bet when he dies, there will be a book on his chest. Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested, instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy.
The barrier to this, of course, is that in our super-positive society, we have an unspoken zero-tolerance policy for negativity. Beneath the catchall umbrella of negativity is basically everything that isn't super-positive. Seriously, who among us is having a "Great!" day every day? Who feels "Terrific, thanks!" all the time?
Anger and negativity have their uses, too. Instead of trying to alleviate some of the uncomfortable and unpleasant emotions you feel by "trying to be positive," try being negative instead. Seriously, try it sometime. This will help you get in touch with how you actually feel: "I feel hopeless and fat and stupid. And like a failure for feeling this way. And trying to be positive and upbeat makes me feel angry and feeling angry makes me feel like I am broken."
If that's how you feelhowever you feelthen you have a base line, you have established a real solid floor of reference. Sometimes just giving yourself permission to feel any emotion without judgment or censorship can lessen the intensity of those negative emotions. Almost like you're letting them out into the backyard to run around and get rid of some of that energy.
A corollary to the idea that we must all be happy and positive all the time is that we must all be "healed." When I was 32, somebody I loved died on a plastic-covered twin mattress at a Manhattan hospital. His death was not unexpected and I had prepared myself years in advance, as though studying for a degree. When he died, I was as stunned as if he had been killed by a grand piano falling from the top of a building. I was fully unprepared.
I did not know what to do with my physical self. It took me about a year to stop thinking, madly, I might somehow meet him in my sleep. Once I finally believed he was gone, I began the next stage: waiting. Waiting to heal. This lasted several years.
The truth about healing is that heal is a television word. Someone close to you dies? You will never heal. What will happen is, for the first few days, the people around you will touch your shoulder and this will startle you and remind you to breathe. You will feel as though you will soon be dead from natural causes; the weight of the grief will be physical and very nearly unbearable.
Eventually, you will shower and leave the house. Maybe in a year you will see a movie. And one day somebody will say something and it will cause you to laugh. And you will clamp your hand over your mouth because you laughed and that laugh will break your heart, it will feel like a betrayal. How can you laugh?
In time, to your friends, you will appear to have recovered from your loss. All that really happened, you'll think, is that the hole in the center of your life has narrowed just enough to be concealed by a laugh. And yet, you might feel a pressure for it to be true. You might feel that "enough" time has passed now, that the hole at the center of you should not be there at all.
But holes are interesting things. As it happens, we human beings are able to live just fine with many holes of many sizes and shapes. Pleasure, love, compassion, fulfillment; these things do not leak out of holes of any size. So we can be filled with holes and loss and wide expanses of unhealed geographyand we can also be excited by life and in love and content at the exact same moment.
This is among the oldest, deepest, most primal truths: The facts of life may be, at times, unbearably painful. But the core, the bones of life are generous beyond all reason or belief. Those things which ought to kill us do not. This should be taken as encouragement to continue.
The truth about healing is that you don't need to heal to be whole. And by whole, I mean damaged, missing pieces of who you were, your heartmissing what feels like some of your most important parts. And yet, not missing any part of you at all. Being, in truth, larger than you were before.
Human experience weighs more than human tissue.
Adapted from "This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike," by Augusten Burroughs. To be published Tuesday by St. Martin's.
A version of this article appeared May 5, 2012, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: How to Live Unhappily Ever After. | <urn:uuid:3956abec-dc53-49ab-98fd-3d0cc8403f0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.network54.com/Forum/411478/thread/1337702925/1337928535/How+to+Live+Unhappily+Ever+After | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969471 | 1,503 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Internal control is the lynch pin to accurate and reliable financial statements. Reliable financial reporting and investor confidence in the financial reporting process simply cannot exist without an effective system of internal control. This concept is not debatable. What is debatable, however, is how much one should pay for an increase in the reliability of financial reporting, particularly when the value of increased reliability is not amenable to precise measure. Three things are certain.
- First, creating and maintaining an effective internal control system has a cost; it is not a cost-neutral endeavor.
- But, second, this cost cannot be unlimited. The value to shareowners of the increase in reporting reliability must have an appropriate relationship to the costs of providing this value – costs that are also ultimately born by shareowners.
- Third, although at the time that Congress adopted Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and both the SEC and this Board took steps to implement it, an increase in costs was always anticipated, the total costs incurred to date far exceeded expectations. These costs are not sustainable over the long-term.
These three certainties have been clearly and nearly unanimously communicated to this Board over the course of the past 2-1/2 years. I hope that, through our action today, we clearly demonstrate that we have listened. We have listened to the companies who have cited not only out-of-pocket costs, but diversion of resources from other important activities. We have listened to the small business community, which has raised valid concerns regarding both the disproportionate cost impact on small companies with little revenue, as well as the practicalities of implementing the COSO framework in a small and non-complex business environment.
We have also listened to investors who, as I mentioned earlier, bear the ultimate costs and reap the ultimate rewards of effective internal control systems. This sector has unequivocally told us that they expect us to better balance audit costs with benefits, but that we must not achieve this goal by putting greater risk on company owners. Moreover, investors have expressed great concern that the existing auditing standard encourages auditors to focus more on past mistakes in reporting than on preventing future mistakes.
Lastly, we have both listened to and observed the auditing profession. We have watched them absorb both AS2 and subsequent guidance from this Board, and have observed increased efficiencies. We have heard the profession caution against wholesale repudiation of the principles behind AS2, while at the same time point out areas in which AS2 has been perceived as a barrier to even greater efficiency.
During this tremendously helpful period of input, this Board and our staff have also been in the process of challenging ourselves. We tried to ask the hard questions: What is the role of professional auditing standards – should standards represent a floor, below which auditors are subject to discipline, or aspirational best practices? Do standards need to be written with the same tone and style that is familiar to auditors, or should they be written in a way that can be understood by a wider audience, such as CFOs? How does the grant of auditor discretion affect the effectiveness of the PCAOB's inspection program?
Mr. Ray and his colleagues have described very well the changes that this proposal would make to practices under existing AS2, and I won't repeat those here. Rather, I'd like to focus on a few things that this new proposed standard does not do.
- The proposal will not diminish or "water down" any of the existing AS2 principles. Not only will the quality of internal control audits remain high, I believe this new standard will increase the quality by placing greater focus and attention on risk.
- The proposal does not create a different auditing standard for different sizes of companies. Rather, the proposal will explain how the standard's provisions can be applied more efficiently in companies that are smaller and less complex. These provisions, as explained earlier, will be supplemented in the spring with more detailed guidance. Together, auditors should clearly understand how to translate the principles of the proposed standard to the unique circumstances of each company.
- The proposal will not allow auditors to rotate their testing of controls, in that every significant control must be tested annually. Instead, the nature and extent of that testing can be significantly reduced in subsequent years, based on the results of previous years' audits and risk analysis. As mentioned earlier, low risk controls may need to only be tested by a walkthrough, with this test confirming the lack of change affecting the control from the previous year.
- The proposal will not reduce audit costs by X percent for all companies. However, I believe that this proposal will result in significant costs savings across all companies, and even more importantly, better align costs with the significant benefits that good internal control provides to shareowners.
As you can tell from my comments, I am very proud of the way in which my colleagues on both the Board and staff have responded to the criticisms and suggestions that we have received over the course of the past 2 years. However, I am also quite confident that the decisions reflected in this proposal can be improved upon, and I am sincerely looking forward to a robust public comment period. I urge all interested parties – and particularly those from the investor community – to take advantage of this 70-day comment period to analyze the proposal and suggest alternative approaches. This Board has never adopted in final a rule or standard that has not been significantly changed as a result of the comment period, and I am certain that will be the case with this proposal as well. | <urn:uuid:28817071-149f-4f7c-a355-c0503e09a9d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pcaobus.org/News/Speech/Pages/12192006_GillanInternalControl.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968567 | 1,121 | 1.554688 | 2 |
HBM’s eDAQ monitors hull for maximum military success
The latest British military fast landing craft demonstrator has been developed and built by QinetiQ using HBM‘s eDAQ data acquisition system as part of the testing and analysis regime. The Partial Air Cushion Supported CATamaran (PACSCAT) Innovative Solution Demonstrator Craft (ISDC) vessel is intended for use in a variety of military roles and may be suitable for commercial applications.
The PACSCAT ISDC is based on a hovercraft design with twin hulls. Air is blown in between the two catamaran hulls to give lift which reduces drag, increases speed and allows greater beaching capabilities. HBM’s equipment was used as part of an on-board instrumentation system to monitor operational performance in real time.
Ewan Browell, QinetiQ Trials Manager says, “We had used HBM’s equipment in the past on a trimaran project which worked extremely well and we felt that HBM’s equipment would be able to withstand the harsh operational conditions that the craft would encounter.”
Large number of design constraints
To meet the military specifications the craft faced a large number of design constraints since high speed and high payload capacity were needed to ensure maximum military capability in conjunction with low draught and wash characteristics to avoid detection by any enemy. In addition the craft has to be capable of docking in the welldock of supporting Royal Navy ships, such as HMS Albion.
Browell used HBM’s Glyphworks for the initial analysis. He says, “The interface is a visual piece of software and that makes it very easy and instinctive to work with.” Once the initial analysis was complete, Browell was able to easily export the results into Excel which could then be distributed for additional comments. Browell adds, “This is a really effective way of working as I can get the initial analysis done quickly while the rest of the team can work on the results in software that is familiar to them.”
The PACSCAT Catamaran
The aluminum PACSCAT, which is classified by Lloyd's Register, has an overall length of 29.7 m and a beam of 7.7 m. Its operational draft is 1.2 m with a range of 250 nautical miles at 25 knots. The craft is designed to carry a variety of military loads for differing operational requirements. These can vary from five Viking all-terrain vehicles, or 2 to 4 4x4 MAN trucks, to a single Hippo beach armored recovery vehicle, or a single Challenger 2 main battle tank.
The craft is propelled by two MJP 750 water jets each driven by an MTU 400016vM90 engine. Two Yanmar 6LYA engines provide power to the two Witt duplex fans that lift the vessel when in action. The hull was tested for effectiveness against the UK MoD Fast Landing Craft operational requirements.
Real-time monitoring with HBM’s SoMat eDAQ data acquisition units
Instrumentation has been fitted throughout the craft to determine performance and help optimize future vessel design. HBM’s eDAQ data acquisition unit is stowed in the starboard store below the wheelhouse and accessed in the crew room on the port side where the user can monitor real-time information during trials via the GUI.
The eDAQ on-board instrumentation system records 49 strain gages, two hull pressure transducers, three tri-axial accelerometers and two shaft torque transducers. Browell adds, “The equipment has been very good.” One particular aspect was the support provided by HBM. “They were very easy to work with and the products have been really good for the application,” notes Browell.
QinetiQ Defence Solutions
The Decision for HBM
"The equipment has been very good. [HBM] were very easy to work with and the products have been really good for the application."
Ewan Browell, Trials Manager at QinetiQ | <urn:uuid:a57fe883-2ff7-4d22-a2b0-763ccd31f157> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hbm.com/en/menu/applications/test-measurement/application-reports/qinetic/?geoip_cn=76%3Ftx_seminars_pi1%5BshowUid%5D%3D778 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959033 | 841 | 1.625 | 2 |
Crocker, Chester A., Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall (editors). Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided Word (United States Institute of Peace, 2007).
Leashing the Dogs of War assesses the nature and extent of the changes wrought by 9/11 and its aftermath, and explores their wide-ranging implications. For the United States, of course, the changes have been dramatic. It has engaged in a war on terrorism and has become both a third party in certain conflict arenas and a direct party to the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. But these events have also affected other actors, from the United Nations to humanitarian NGOs to collective defense and security organizations such as NATO and the OSCE.
t the same time, some things have not changed. Failed states, economic stagnation, weapons proliferation, nuclear missiles, and identity-based conflicts continue to threaten global security. Looking at the combination of old and new threats, are traditional instruments of negotiation, mediation, peacekeeping and peace enforcement still effective in managing and resolving conflict? How do conflict management efforts and the campaign against terrorism interact in various security environments? Are our institutions--be they states, coalitions of the willing, international organizations, or NGOs--capable of creating and implementing a peacemaking strategy? All these questions are addressed in this new volume.
Fisher, Roger and Daniel Shapiro. Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate (Penguin, 2006).
Let's say you're trying to convince a new employer to sweeten its job offer to you. Or perhaps you're buying or selling a company. Or maybe you're even solving for peace in the Middle East. If any of these scenarios is yours, Roger Fisher, Daniel Shapiro, and their colleagues at the Harvard Negotiation Project have ideas that they would like to share. Fisher's previous book, Getting to Yes, stands today as a seminal work in negotiations theory. Businesspeople in a wide variety of industries have drawn from the book's tips for deal-making and its larger framework for "interest-based negotiation", which focuses on understanding each side's interests and working together to produce proverbial win-win outcomes. In Beyond Reason, Fisher and Shapiro go one step further.
To the authors' credit, they started this new book with a clear understanding of the previous one's chief shortcoming. Though Getting to Yes introduced a powerful paradigm for negotiations, it did not fully address a critical element of most deals: emotions, and the messy human details that can distract from purely rational decision-making. If both negotiators are consistently lucid, fair, and calm, the game has a certain set of rules, but if--as in most situations--the different parties get excited, angry, sad, insulted, and so on, then those rules change. That expanded focus forms the basis for Beyond Reason.
Fisher and Shapiro have structured this latest work around five key emotions which they identify as most critical to productive negotiations. Even though each situation has its own dynamics, they point to appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role as the most important for making each party comfortable enough to grasp the principles of rationality that maximize the chances for a win-win result.
Critics may deride this book as still too simplistic, too black-and-white, and unappreciative of life's shades of gray. The authors' pragmatic bent comes in the book's final two chapters. One takes readers through the overall process for negotiations--not just the parry-and-thrust of conversations with the other party, but also pre-conversation preparation. It's in this preparatory stage, the authors contend, where a thoughtful consideration of potential emotional dynamics can help prevent later problems. To synthesize many of the lessons they impart, Fisher and Shapiro then close their work by inviting guest commentary from the former President of Ecuador, Jamil Mahuad, who explains how he applied interest-based negotiations theory to highly charged negotiations between his country and Peru, on a border dispute in the late 1990s. It's this kind of real-life application of Fisher and Shapiro's theories that continue to give them relevance. (Peter Han for Amazon.com)
Ury, William L. The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop (Penguin, 2000).
According to William Ury, it takes two sides to fight, but a third to stop. Distilling the lessons of two decades of experience in family struggles, labor strikes, and wars, he presents a bold new strategy for stopping fights. He also describes ten practical roles--as managers, teachers, parents, and citizens--that each of us can play every day to prevent destructive conflict.
Fighting isn't an inevitable part of human nature, Ury explains, drawing on his training as an anthropologist and his work among primitive tribes and modern corporations. We have a powerful alternative--The Third Side--which can transform our daily battles into creative conflict and cooperation at home, at work, and in the world. | <urn:uuid:3cf529ba-c50e-4812-883f-eea18a0e7e1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://voiceseducation.org/category/tag/peace-and-negotiation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951843 | 1,027 | 1.742188 | 2 |
I found Barcelona to be a remarkably photogenic city. In fact, I’ve already shared some of my favourite photos of Gaudi’s Barcelona. Today I thought I’d highlight Barcelona’s Gothic quarter.
This is a very windy, largely pedestrianized part of Barcelona’s city centre. The streets are narrow and looming, making for challenging photography conditions, and the whole place just drips in gothic. Bram Stoker would be proud.
When you visit Barcelona, you will end up walking through this area. You’ll also get lost. It’s part of the fun... just don’t forget your camera!
Bicycles are a popular way to get around Barcelona. This one looked like it had seen better days, but it was brightly coloured nonetheless!
Barcelona’s main cathedral, which is the first photo in this post, has a fairly impressive rear end as well. Not to mention its side door, photographed below.
Here’s another of those churches that dots the place. I haven’t the foggiest what this one was called.
And finally, a hobbit hole! Actually, Barcelona doesn’t have a resident hobbit population. This is the original ticket booth for the Palau Musica, a world heritage listed building in Barcelona and well worth visiting for a guided tour.
Those were some photos from Barcelona’s gothic quarter! Have you been to Barcelona? Do you plan to go? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! | <urn:uuid:5bc98395-bd02-4c16-8ee1-23cf0eec2bb2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.findingtheuniverse.com/2012/06/in-photos-barcelonas-gothic-quarter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940551 | 330 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
Thank you Father.I wonder if you are able to bring us more of this or even the complete text.How well this is put and how good it is that we are not spoken down to.I would be interested to hear what arguments are put against this. I suspect that they really come down to dislike of the Latin text and the theology of it. But I would like to know.
He strikes me of being on uncertain ground. At Mass different things are happening: reading, speaking, listening but also silence. In addition we have the refusal to join in reading, speaking and listening for different reasons - illness, mother tending children, fatigue, loss of concentration and so on. How can one possibly prepare a translation with so many different human responses? Why are these priests trying to turn us into seminarians? You make the sacrifice reverend Fathers and please leave us alone!
What a superb commentary.Thanks!
Now everyone's an expert!Only joking. But the more people who start digging into the history of our ancient Roman Rite (both priests and laity) and discovering its rich heritage, the more the Church will be drawn into a better understanding and love of her worship.
Complete text of the new translation of the Order of Mass is at the following website:http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/
Someone had trouble with the video and only got the embed text with the link to Gloria TV. Is anyone else having this problem? (Please say which browser you are using if so.)
Only the embed code; Firefox 3.6.3. Many thanks for all the good work you do, Father!
I'll contact Mgr Harbert to ask if the complete text is available.
Post a Comment | <urn:uuid:c20cc112-7cb6-4caf-ab0d-17ecf2fba99d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/05/mgr-harbert-on-new-icel-translation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95934 | 389 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Double meaning of ‘propose’– as in suggest and literally a proposal of marriage
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Klashnekoff skips ahead an unspecified period of time, in which the love of the two has grown
Get to know this!
Daffodils bloom in spring, a season associated with fertility and new life…relevant later
The River Thames, of course
Meet up, a show is likely to be something more urban than a theatre production, but you never know
What’s going on
If this is what she gave him then he was led on, because it is 5 too few digits for a UK mobile number
Klashnekoff started working the combo — chatting her up, which led to him obtaining her code — phone number.
Got the CONVO(Conversation) on the go
She had rich, beautiful skin which gave off a glow due to use of cocoa butter, often used by black people to prevent dry, cracking skin. The girl looks after herself | <urn:uuid:7f0a3707-8ff7-4bb3-af3b-a83e31d800d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rapgenius.com/annotations/for_profile_page?id=tdotm&page=52&user_id=273 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970455 | 238 | 1.609375 | 2 |
(Black Enterprise) — Over the course of the past decade Tyler Perry has dominated the entertainment industry. His stage plays, motion pictures, DVDs, sitcoms, online talk show and book, based on commentaries from his popular character of Madea, have collectively grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. As the most commercially successful Black filmmaker in history, Perry is quickly making his way to billionaire status not by following the rules but by breaking them. Staying true to his core audience and pushing his message of family values, the media mogul has a lock on a lucrative slice of the African-American market. Whether you love him or you love to hate him, you definitely can’t ignore him. If there’s still any doubt, here are a few reminders of Perry’s influence, decoded.
The Black Theater: Not since the days of Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes has Black theater been as popular and as relevant. When Perry hit the scene in 1998 with his first screenplay, “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” veteran playwright David Talbert had been one of only a handful of theater producers in what was known as the “chitlin circuit,” where theatrical musicals toured smaller venues throughout the south. How Perry flourished was in trademarking his stage plays by recording the performances and later selling them on tape. According toForbes, by 2005 he’d garnered more than $100 million in tickets, $30 million in videos and an additional $20 million in merchandising. | <urn:uuid:8432f3d6-b71e-4627-9f20-f809c837d396> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://madamenoire.com/50826/the-tyler-perry-brand/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9773 | 317 | 1.632813 | 2 |
President Obama, who smoked marijuana often in high school, said recreational pot smoking in states that have legalized the drug isn’t a big concern for his administration.
“We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Mr. Obama said of marijuana smokers in Colorado and Washington, the two states that have approved recreational use. “It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal.”
In an interview with ABC News, the president told Barbara Walters that he regrets smoking pot when he was younger.
“There are a bunch of things I did that I regret when I was a kid,” Mr. Obama said. “My attitude is, substance abuse generally is not good for our kids, not good for our society.”
He said enforcing federal drug laws in Colorado and Washington is a “tough problem” because Congress hasn’t addressed the situation yet.
“I head up the executive branch; we’re supposed to be carrying out laws,” he said. “And so what we’re going to need to have is a conversation about, how do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it’s legal?”
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a speech Wednesday that he would soon announce a policy on the new state laws. Mr. Obama said he does not support legalization of marijuana “at this point.” | <urn:uuid:ed9ffe58-fa8c-42e8-971a-ecbd8e603343> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/dec/14/obama-going-after-marijuana-smokers-not-top-priori/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970872 | 327 | 1.6875 | 2 |
- Station Info
- Featured on 4
Monday, February 11, 2013 - 11:36
(CNN) -- Emergency officials in seven Mississippi counties were dealing Monday with widespread damage after a swarm of storms swept through the area Sunday evening, injuring at least 16 people.
No deaths have been reported.
Two people in Lamar County were critically hurt, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.
A tornado struck Hattiesburg, a southern Mississippi city that straddles Lamar and Forrest counties.
Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree reported major damage to a number of structures. "If there is a good thing about this, it happened on a Sunday when most of these structures were vacant," he said.
Several homes were destroyed in Marion County, and numerous structures -- including businesses and public buildings -- sustained "significant damage," the state emergency management agency said.
As of Monday morning, 4,000 power customers were without electricity, down from the approximately 14,000 who had lost power, Mississippi Power spokesman Mark Davis said.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency for the affected counties. The declaration means state resources and assets can be used to support local response efforts.
Bryant tweeted photos of the storm damage.
In Hattiesburg, the University of Southern Mississippi suffered damage to several buildings, but there were no reports of injuries there.
University police declared a state of emergency and urged those not on campus to stay away until further notice.
Nearby Oak Grove High School also suffered damage. Randy Wright posted photographs to his Twitter account, showing debris strewn on what appeared to be a parking lot and a truck upside down in a baseball diamond.
The Hattiesburg Public School District canceled classes Monday. The university campus will also be closed.
"There's quite a few homes without power at this point," Forrest County Sheriff Billy McGee said. "Quite a few trees on houses, on cars, that type of thing."
Ten to 15 people were hospitalized, but none suffered serious injuries, he said.
It was not clear how those people were hurt.
Sarah Lawrence, a Hattiesburg resident, said that the storm sounded like "stuff being thrown."
"Within seconds, everything changed," she said. "I didn't feel like there was much notice. I heard the sirens and everything looked OK outside, so I started making preparations to go into the bathroom. And then, next thing I know, all the lights went out, and it got dark outside."
CNN's Maggie Schneider, Chandler Friedman, Elwyn Lopez and Janet DiGiacomo contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:68d72c4a-6a62-47b5-b596-037f23a7103f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kdbc.com/news/damage-cleanup-begins-southern-mississippi-after-storms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972696 | 536 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The Medicaid Fraud Unit of the Vermont Attorney General's Office recently got into the movie business. No, it is not something made in Hollywood, but it is a movie about a very serious problem that has been present across the United States for many decades. That problem is the diversion of medications by health care workers who are addicted to the medications and steal the drugs from their patients.
Reportedly, the documentary features 4 former addicts, all health care workers, who have cooperated with the Vermont Attorney General's Office in telling their stories, in exchange for more lenient sentences.
In my many years of experience in drug diversion offenses, health facility crimes make me realize the grip that prescription drug addiction can have on a person. Highly trained, compassionate health care employees, who certainly did not go to college so they could abuse pharmaceuticals, become individuals who can be impaired while in a job that may very well require them to make lifeand- death decisions for their patients.
The ultimate crime, however, is that of substitutionremoving controlled substances from their package or syringe and replacing them with saline or a substitute tablet, and being apparently oblivious to the level of pain that will undoubtedly be incurred by the innocent patient who receives this tampered product.
When I retired from the Cincinnati Police Department's Pharmaceutical Diversion Squad, my investigators were arresting a health professional about every 6 days; most of those were nurses working in health facilities. Approximately 10% of those arrested were engaged in substitution when they were finally caught. This is not to say that nurses are bad people; they just are the largest number of licensed health professionals in any state, and they have a great exposure to controlled substances.
On the positive side of this story, approximately 60% of those we caught eventually successfully completed rehabilitation. That is a high number when compared with the general public's rate of success, and many of these went on to continue in some form of employment in the health care industry.
One of the major stumbling blocks to addressing this problem has been the reluctance of many health facilities to report these crimes and do something besides fire the workers, sending them on to the next facility with no cure for their addiction.
Perhaps, if strict sanctions were imposed on health facilities whose officals fail to report internal drug diversion, then these businesses would get serious about reporting this crime.
The Vermont Attorney General's Office should be applauded for its efforts in directly trying to deal with this problem through awareness and education. Too many health facilities have kept this a secret for too long, causing needless pain and suffering in patients and tragedy for addicted health professionals, who are not given a choice between rehabilitation and possible incarceration.
Some of our best resources to investigate health facility diversion came from the hospital pharmacy or the pharmacy supplying drugs to the nursing home. Oftentimes, the pharmacist reporting the incident was the key to patient safety and the salvaging of a health care worker's careeror life. I urge you to keep that in mind when coming face-to-face with an obvious diversion in a health facility. You may very well be the difference between a successful outcome and a tragedy.
John Burke, commander of the Warren County, Ohio, drug task force and retired commander of the Cincinnati Police Pharmaceutical Diversion Squad, is a 38-year veteran of law enforcement. Cmdr Burke also is the current president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators. For information, he can be reached by e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org, via the Web site www.rxdiversion.com, or by phone at 513-336-0070. | <urn:uuid:45210129-9b38-48ca-af71-ca6c245a8d72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/print.php?url=/publications/issue/2006/2006-12/2006-12-6150 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973103 | 735 | 1.796875 | 2 |
We have just launched a new website which being deploy exactly from our development server. There are constant changes on the source code where our programmer always need to do some debugging stuff which being reported from our users. The problem I face frequently is every time they want to sync the new PHP code, [...]
I have a user which having problem after removing CentOS partition (using partition manager) in a dual boot PC with Windows Vista. The problem rise after that and Windows Vista simply unable to boot due to missing MBR. Since I have no Windows Vista installation disc anymore with me, I need to use some other [...]
We just received a new storage server from DELL which will be used to host web server cluster. We will use Openfiler, a free NAS/SAN operating system to manage our RAID-10 storage.
The problem we have now is our storage server has no optical drive and we do not have any external optical drive available [...]
LVM snapshot is an exact copy of an LVM partition that has all the data from the LVM volume from the time the snapshot was created. The advantages of this is that we can get reliable backup in a small matter of time without suspending the MySQL service. Normal backup using mysqldump or mysqlhotcopy will [...]
MySQL is preferred to be run on XFS file system due to its performance on direct IO. Even though many benchmarks have already come out with the latest Linux default file system Ext4 versus XFS, it still convenience to use this file system for our MySQL data directory.
XFS is not come by default in [...]
Cloud storage nowadays has create a trend on storing and accessing data from any where around the world. 2 most popular cloud storage providers are Dropbox and Box.net. In this post, I am going to show you on how to mount Box.net account inside the Linux box. You are required to have a Box.net account, [...]
I have a situation where there is one critical website under our company server is critically need to be sync to our backup server. Sync means whatever changes happen in master server, it will replicated to slave server. Yes, you can rsync. But, I do not want to schedule the task as cron to sync. [...]
Usually, when we want to replicate or synchronize files between network, we will use rsync, scp or sftp. This kind of replication is one-way replication method, it will sync from master (source) to slave (destination) only. What about if we want to have 2 folders which both are masters? So we need a two-way replication [...]
The best server maintenance practice is to have all software run up-to-date by following the latest stable release. Most of our servers are has been upgraded to CentOS 6 from CentOS 5 (major release), but also need to upgrade from CentOS 6.0 to CentOS 6.2 (minor release) which usually comes by every about 4 to [...]
My developer team requesting me to mount an external FTP account into our web server so they can do file manipulation process between them. To achieve this, I need to mount FTP as file system, so they transparently not realized that they are browsing to an FTP account which has been localized into the server.
In this tutorial, I will show you on how to mount a same partition in different servers. We will use RedHat Cluster Suite which available in CentOS repository, with GFS2 file system. The server architecture will be as below:
The file server is run on Openfiler, and we will use [...]
- iOS 7 likely to be flat ... and black and white? - NBCNews.com 24 May 2013
- A Best-Selling Phone? It's Not Just a Good Phone - New York Times (blog) 24 May 2013
- Microsoft refutes reports about Xbox One used game sales - CNET 24 May 2013
- Why Google's Display Ad Business Drew FTC Antitrust Probe - Forbes 24 May 2013
- Russia's leading social network banned by 'mistake' - Toronto Sun 24 May 2013 | <urn:uuid:54ae99a1-b6bd-44ff-999f-0171e54cbb52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.secaserver.com/category/filesystem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93859 | 835 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Historic Location. Located near the Court Square Fountain in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, the Foundation’s offices occupy the old Central Bank Building (http://www NULL.hmdb NULL.org/marker NULL.asp?marker=35301) at One Dexter Avenue (above). Completed in 1856, this historic building was the first “ironfront” in Alabama. The Bank generously supported the Confederacy but was bankrupt at the end of the Civil War. Other banks occupied the building until jewelers Klein & Son acquired and occupied it from 1923-1983. The building was restored for the Arts Council of Alabama in 1985. The Foundation restored the building again in 2005.
History of the Foundation. The Foundation for Moral Law was established December 2002, with Pastor Phillip Ellen as President, Mr. Randy Stafford as Vice-President and Dr. Mel C. Glenn Sr., as Executive Director. Dr. Rich Hobson was chosen by the board to be president of the Foundation in November 2003, with Pastor Phillip Ellen assuming the office of vice-president of the Foundation. Later, Judge Roy Moore served as President and Dr. Rich Hobson was the Executive Director. In January 2013, due to Judge Moore taking office as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, it was announced that his wife, Kayla Moore, was named President of the Foundation while Joshua Pendergrass was named Executive Director and Chief Counsel. It was also announced that Judge Moore would take the title of President Emeritus of the Foundation for Moral Law.
How Can You Help? Tax-deductible contributions, which can be made through this website by clicking here, allow Foundation attorneys to continue the fight. You may also purchase various Foundation products here. | <urn:uuid:74296c19-158f-4d3e-a754-3fe1ae21a87c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://morallaw.org/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965493 | 507 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Washington — With prospects for diplomatic engagement between the United States and Iran dimming, congressional leaders have set September as the deadline after which harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic will be rolled out.
Jewish groups have made tough sanctions against Iran a top priority and have been urging Congress to take on legislation targeting Iran’s soft spots — its dependence on imported gasoline and on international investment.
The main piece of legislation awaiting approval is the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which would impose sanctions on international oil companies selling refined gasoline and diesel to Iran. Despite its extensive oil production, Iran imports 40% of its refined petroleum products, and blocking these sales would, some experts say, bring the country’s economy to its knees.
At a July 22 Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Howard Berman, made it clear that he intends to push the legislation forward by the fall, unless diplomatic engagement with Iran bears fruit.
“If engagement doesn’t work, then I am prepared to mark up the bill in committee early this fall,” the California Democrat said.
Berman had introduced the legislation in April but immediately put it on hold, in order to allow the Obama administration time to reach out to Tehran with its offer of diplomatic engagement. More than half of the members in both houses of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation.
“It is now late July,” Berman said at the hearing, “close enough to the administration’s time-limit, and to my own, that Iran should be able to hear the clock ticking.”
In recent weeks, Congress has been sending a message to the Obama administration, making it clear that it will not wait past September to take up tough sanctions. In addition to the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, hearings are planned for the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, which would pave the way for divestment of American funds from companies doing business with Iran.
Members of both chambers of Congress have also introduced measures targeting other sectors of Iran’s economy.
The Obama administration has indicated privately and publicly that it set the fall as a deadline for assessment of the effort to reach out to Iran.
September is also a critical juncture in Washington’s efforts to coordinate policy toward Iran with its allies. Two significant international gatherings are scheduled for September: the United Nations General Assembly in New York and the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking at a July 28 press conference in Jerusalem, said the United States would like to receive a response from Iran before these meetings take place. “It is not an open-ended offer,” Gates said.
The organized Jewish community is gearing up for a showdown on Iran in September. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is putting together two high-profile events focused on the need to stop Iran’s nuclear program. The first will take place in Washington September 10 when Jewish leaders from across the country are expected to arrive for an intensive lobbying drive, and the second will be a mass rally outside U.N. headquarters in New York during the visit of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has put the Iran sanctions bills at the top of its legislative priorities list and has been calling on members of Congress to join the sanctions bills as co-sponsors and to push them through the legislative process. Similar messages were conveyed to lawmakers recently by Christian supporters of Israel and by Jewish leaders who met with Democratic senators on July 22.
Yet at least one leading Jewish lawmaker has said he doubts the potential effectiveness of sanctions. Rep. Gary Ackerman, who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, told his colleagues during the July 22 committee hearing that he fears “it may already be too late for sanctions.” Ackerman, a New York Democrat, argued that the Iranian regime is not vulnerable to economic pressure. “This is reality: Iran is marching swiftly towards either a bomb or a latent nuclear capability,” he said.
His position does not reflect the prevailing view among his fellow lawmakers or among Middle East experts. They say that Tehran has shown in the past that it is susceptible to outside pressure, and that the Iranian regime could change course on the nuclear program if it believed it was in danger.
Members of Congress, however, are also bracing for the possibility that come September they will receive a request from the White House to put off sanctions legislation once again, if talks with allies produce an agreement on international sanctions. “I don’t think they will get a free ride from Congress,” said a senior Democratic congressional staff member. “They will have to put on the table something very specific that our allies are willing to give.”
Contact Nathan Guttman at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:4e23ca5b-40e1-4088-87fd-eedce55209ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/111021/congress-gives-obama-deadline-for-dealing-with-ira/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968474 | 999 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Announced as a “world-class thought leadership conference” this year’s annual mobile wireless event is once again making news.
The 2012 GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communication Association) MWC (Mobile World Congress) event took place last week in Barcelona, Spain.
Over 60,000 people from 200 countries attended this event.
Attendees learned about the next generation of mobile technological breakthroughs, the latest wireless mobile apps (program application software), and new social media integrations.
Some of the companies which gave keynote addresses included Google, Nokia, Electronic Arts, and eBay.
Prince Felipe de Bourbon of Spain also spoke at the event.
About 3,000 CEOs and company presidents attended, including those from AT&T Mobility, Vodafone, Ford Motor Company, and China Mobile.
More than 1,400 companies were in Barcelona showcasing their new mobile devices, technology, and accessories.
A recent study released by GSMA said there will be 24 billion mobile phones and smart devices being used worldwide by 2020.
“Today, the connected devices market is dominated by mobile phones, but this will change in the future as a new wave of smartphones, tablets, consumer electronics, and M2M [Machine-to-Machine] devices connect everything from cars to health services and even entire cities,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer of GSMA.
The GSMA predicts, by 2020, the use of mobile devices world-wide will generate $4.5 trillion in revenue streams.
GSMA also believes, by 2020, it will have become routine to have cars and vehicles regularly sending and receiving information from various computing cloud platforms using wireless mobile technology.
Many of us already use wireless mobile applications in our cars, such as a GPS (Global Positioning System) for trip navigation.
“We also see the car as a modern and very capable mobile end device, on which our applications can be used,” said Marc Bechler, who is the expert in charge of BMW’s Micropauses car software applications division.
Yours truly looks forward to the day when I can have the performance and major systems of my car routinely checked (as I drive), using a wireless mobile remote diagnostics app from my local car dealer.
Soon, we will be able to program our cars for wireless mobile access to numerous applications and programs from the cloud, where, of course the “intelligence” resides.
Various cloud-computing platforms will process, update, store, and communicate wirelessly with our automobile’s built-in mobile program applications.
Although we do not have a futuristic Jetsons’ car, we can fly through the clouds; we can have a car on the ground communicating with the clouds.
“Oh, the irony of it all!” exclaims your brought-down-to earth columnist.
By 2020, it is estimated the cloud-connected car will have access to many new mobile-to-cloud connecting service applications; these new revenues alone are projected to be $600 billion.
“The mobile communications industry is creating a ‘Connected Economy’ across the globe, through network investment, job creation, and contributions to public funding,” said Anne Bouverot, director general, GSMA.
GSMA stated that during 2011, global wireless mobile industry revenues were $1.5 trillion.
They predict by 2015, these revenues will grow to almost $2 trillion.
This increase in mobile-related revenues will be supporting an estimated 10 million mobile industry jobs.
During the MWC event, the winners of the 2012 Global Mobile Awards were announced.
Google was chosen as the Best Consumer Mobile Service winner for Google Maps for Android.
Ford Motor Company won the Best Mobile Innovation for Automotive award for their Ford SYNC with Emergency Assistance.
Best Smartphone was awarded to Samsung, for their Samsung Galaxy S II.
The Angry Birds Rio game was the winner of the Best Mobile App for Consumers award.
To no one’s surprise, Apple won Best Mobile Tablet for their iPad 2.
Today’s mobile devices are being used for many other things besides voice calls. It is truly incredible when one thinks about it.
We can read books, magazines, and newspapers using mobile devices.
People are using mobile devices for online learning.
Mobile devices inform us with news and entertain us with games.
We watch movies, sports, and network television on them.
Mobile devices take our pictures and video, which we wirelessly upload to online servers such as Flickr and YouTube. From these online hosts, they are made available to be seen and shared with friends, family, and others throughout the world.
Our mobile devices keep us connected with our family, friends, and the people we do business with via voice, email, texting, instant messaging, and social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.
We create documents using our mobile devices, and upload them to places like WordPress, Blogger, and Google Docs.
We can do online banking using a mobile device app.
Individuals and businesses are using apps on their mobile devices for making and receiving credit card payments.
Mobile telemedicine technology provides real-time monitoring and uploading of patients’ vital signs.
The use of mobile devices worldwide as a political and social reporting tool is now commonplace.
Today’s sleek, lightweight, and powerful wireless mobile devices certainly have come a long way since the original hand-held mobile phone, or “brick,” we talked to each other on back in the day.
The GSMA Mobile World Congress website is at http://www.mobileworldcongress.com. | <urn:uuid:f285c412-de47-46ae-84c3-7ae72aac8940> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://herald-journal.com/archives/2012/columns/mo030512.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937982 | 1,187 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Santi Quattro Coronati is an ancient basilica in Rome, Italy. The church dates back to the 4th (or 5th) century, and is devoted to four anonymous saints and martyrs. The complex of the basilica with its two courtyards, the fortified Cardinal Palace with the St. Silvester chapel, and the Monastery with its cosmatesque cloister is built in a silent and green part of Rome, between the Colosseum and San Giovanni in Laterano, in an out-of-time setting. (Taken from here)
For me my little adventures to Italy are all about finding places off the beaten track, things that spark a fascination and an interest for me. That throw up a nostalgia to childhood fascination with all that is old and tumbled down. The romantic aspect of this old rambling fortified basilica and monastery are for me all part of what I have fallen in love with about Italy.
We spent almost forty, forty-five minutes wandering round this beautiful old building. We were allowed into this magnificent cloister also. Access was given by ringing a doorbell that is in the basilica just off the Knave. It was one of those moments that lingers in the mind, having rung there was a pause and we waited. Initially we thought it wouldn’t be opened but as we turned to walk away the bolts on the other side rattled and the door creaked open. A middle-aged nun greeting us warmly with a smile and stood back to allow us enter the sheltered cloister. We wandered around here for at least twenty minutes enjoying the peace in the middle of Rome. Fixed to the wall were a number of old stone carvings and some small frescoes that had survived.
Then we saw a rather crude sign, indicating the Chapel of Saint Sylvester. It triggered a memory! But I couldn’t quite recall what exactly that was. So we wandered over, curiosity getting the proverbial of us, and were faced with another door and a bell to ring. We rang and a nun dutifully appeared. She indicated no photographs and a donation for restoration was encouraged. I stepped in. And the below images are what I was faced with. The reason there were pictures was because I went out, gave a donation of €20 to the nun and was told by the same startled nun to take as many as I wanted! Obviously the encouraged donations are few and far between!
1. Depicts Christ Enthroned. Surrounded by the Apostles. It depicts the Emperor Constantine falling ill to Leprosy following on from this there are riders sent forth to search for a cure.
2. The first panel depicts the riders arrival to the Pope, Sylvester I. What follows is an illustration of Pope Sylvester instructing the Emperor Constantine in the Christian faith. What can also be seen in this series of panels is the presence of 7 towers which represent the 7 Hills of Rome. This is probably to emphasize the running theme of the ultimate donation of Rome by the Emperor Constantine to the Papacy. What follows in the final panel is the curing of Constantine through the waters of baptism.
3. This depicts the formal donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester of the city of Rome, again here depicted as the 7 towers on the 7 hills of Rome. What is being passed between the two is the Imperial Tiara indicating the Emperors temporal authority being handed over to the Papacy. Constantine’s other hand grasps the reigns of a horse. | <urn:uuid:c8327a80-d766-45c0-963d-07c4435ff13f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shanemcauliffe.com/church-interior/santi-quattro-coronati-rome/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970248 | 729 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Trilateral Afghan-US-India summit is not against Pakistan: Musazai
Mon Jun 18, 3:18 pm
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the US decision on trilateral summit between Afghanistan, India and the United States, saying the summit will be effective for Afghanistan and regional stability.
The US has ensured Pakistan that the tripartite summit wouldn’t be against the interests of Pakistan, but fears exist that Pakistan may extend its support of the insurgency if this tripartite meeting is held.
Recently, the Iranian foreign minister during the conference of Heart of Asia countries had voiced his opposition to the long-term presence of US forces in Afghanistan, saying the continued presence of American soldiers was causing instability in the region.
Responding to these concerns, the spokesman of foreign ministry Janan Musazai told the reporters on Sunday that the presence of ISAF and NATO troops in Afghanistan was vital in the fight against terrorism and important for the country’s economic development.
All the peace plans of Afghanistan’s allies outside the country are in favor of Afghanistan, Musazai said referring to recent discussions of US special envoy, Marc Grossman, on the opening of peace talks with the Taliban outside of Afghanistan.
Musazai said Australia has pledged a $36 million dollar increase in its annual assistance to Afghanistan. Based on this increase, Musazai said, Australia’s annual assistance to Afghanistan will reach to $200 million dollars, with the assistance continuing to the end of 2013. | <urn:uuid:161d12c6-9dc9-4715-9b0d-7c635bd8b115> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ariananews.af/regional/trilateral-afghan-us-india-summit-is-not-against-pakistan-musazai/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941352 | 307 | 1.65625 | 2 |
New Zealand Embassy & Mission to the European Union, Brussels, Belgium
New Zealand extends commitment to IMF
New Zealand has joined other countries in extending its financial commitment to the International Monetary Fund so it has the capacity to deal with any significant disruption to the global economy.
The extra commitment, agreed by Cabinet yesterday, will be made through a US$1 billion (NZ$1.26 billion) standby loan facility, which will be called on if needed. New Zealand will not provide any funds immediately.
The IMF will repay New Zealand any amount it draws down, with interest. The extra resources will be available for all IMF members and will not be earmarked for any particular region.
“This is a significant contribution for New Zealand and represents our strong commitment to supporting international institutions like the IMF, Ambassador Vangelis Vitalis says.
“We are a small, open economy with a significant proportion involved in trade, including with the EU, our third largest trading partner. As such we benefit from a stable and prosperous global economy.
“While we expect that Europe will continue to find solutions to its own problems, the IMF has a role in underpinning global certainty and we are committed to playing our part.”
In April, a number of G20 countries announced additional commitments to support the IMF in making bilateral loans if required. New Zealand was formally approached last week to confirm it would also support this programme. | <urn:uuid:a75a26e4-8d3a-40a2-92d8-f50006f98959> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzembassy.com/belgium/news/new-zealand-extends-commitment-to-imf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94851 | 290 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Too often, many in Utah's congressional delegation, including my representative, Rob Bishop, ignore the importance of protecting public lands in Utah.
Perhaps they've forgotten the legions of Utah hunters and anglers who use these public lands and waters and are passionate about protecting them. We care not only for our own ability to hunt and fish, but also so our children and grandchildren can have the same experience years from now.
Hunters and anglers rely on public land to pursue our passion. Sportsmen (and women) know that undisturbed, protected public lands are the natural habitats that provide ample game and fish. Most of us don't have access to vast tracts of private property for hunting and fishing, so these public "common lands" are our birthright and heritage.
As an avid outdoorsman, I've seen firsthand the havoc to game populations that new roads and development can have on an area that previously had abundant wildlife. Because I love to hunt, I often pack miles into public lands with my horses to find quality hunting ground not impacted by roads and vehicles.
But not everyone has the time or energy to do this. Think of the hunter who grabs his son after work on a Friday night and needs to find a place where he can park his rig and find abundant game nearby. These places are getting harder and harder to find, as more development impacts wildlife habitat.
If more sportsmen knew what was going on in Washington these days, Congress would have an uprising on its hands. For starters, Reps. Bishop and Jason Chaffetz have co-sponsored a bill to completely remove wilderness-like protections from 5.1 million acres of public lands in Utah. This legislation, spearheaded by House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., would open up many prime hunting areas protected by BLM Wilderness Study Areas or Forest Service Roadless Rules to new roads, logging, mining, and other development destructive to wildlife populations.
I'm not saying that every one of those 5.1 million acres is equally deserving of protection, but removing all restrictions, without even a thought about their importance to hunting and fishing, is just shortsighted.
The McCarthy bill is just the start. The proposed 2012 House Interior Appropriations bill has dramatic cuts to key conservation programs that have been hugely beneficial to Utah hunters and anglers. The North American Wetlands Conservation Fund, which has preserved and improved key duck hunting wetlands around the Great Salt Lake, is proposed to be cut by 50 percent. That's after a 21 percent cut last year.
Another program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has opened up access to hunting areas across Utah, is scheduled for a 70 percent cut. Earlier this year, Rep. Bishop supported eliminating these programs.
Another attempt by Congress to poach public land protections would prohibit using funds for new national monuments designated by the president under the Antiquities Act. This law has been used by presidents, both Republican and Democrat, to protect important public lands across our nation, including Giant Sequoia, Vermillion Cliffs, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Upper Missouri River Breaks, and Carrizo Plain. Just think of the combined economic impact of hunting, fishing, and other recreation in those areas alone.
You can see from this picture that an unprecedented attack on public lands protections is under way. I call on my fellow hunters and anglers to be informed and get involved. Let's not let our proud history of standing up for public land and water be forgotten.
John Pollard is co-chair of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. A Summit County resident, he regularly hunts elk on horseback in the Uinta Mountains. | <urn:uuid:ca4c8984-0de5-4820-9035-156d530016d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/52313450-82/public-lands-hunting-anglers.html.csp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956847 | 741 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Vermont slaughterhouse closed amid animal cruelty allegations
A Vermont slaughterhouse ordered closed Friday after video showed calves kicked, shocked and cut while conscious had its operating license suspended three times earlier this year for similar conduct.
U.S. Department of Agriculture records show Bushway Packing Inc. of Grand Isle was shut down for a day in May, again in June and again in July after an inspector cited it for inhumane treatment of animals.
The revelation came Monday as the Humane Society of the United States released more video footage taken with a hidden camera this summer. The video shows days-old male calves culled from dairy herds being dragged, kicked, repeatedly shocked with electric prods and apparently cut while still conscious.
"We found even two calves who appeared to be skinned alive while they were still conscious," said Michael Markarian, the Humane Society's chief operating officer.
The video also appeared to back up a Friday statement in which U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack described the conduct of a USDA inspector at the slaughterhouse as "inexcusable."
It showed an unidentified inspector appearing to coach a plant worker on how to avoid being shut down by another inspector and failing to stop an animal being cut while awake.
A call to the slaughterhouse on Monday was not immediately returned, ane neither was a call to a Ronald Bushway listed in Grand Isle.
USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver said Monday he could not comment on the inspector's conduct because it was a personnel matter.
Markarian said it appeared several calves were abused because they would not or could not stand up to be prepared for slaughter. The slaughterhouse specialized in "bob veal" -- meat from days-old calves that ends up in hot dogs and lunch meats. Meat sold as veal usually come from animals raised to about 4 months old.
Some in the Vermont dairy industry said they worried the revelations would give an enterprise generally viewed as wholesome a black eye. Bushway Packing was certified as an organic processor, raising extra concern in that sector.
"That's not right, that's really nasty," said Paul Stecker, an organic dairy farmer from Cabot, after watching the video on the Humane Society's website. "I wouldn't be in this business if that's the way it was. That's not the norm, I can tell you that."
Stecker said the slaughterhouse's problems also would bring attention to an aspect of dairying most farmers don't like or talk about much: The vast majority of male calves born on dairy farms face very short lives.
"That kind of thing hurts us all, like our industry really needed that," he said.
Dairy farmers nationwide have been struggling as a global milk glut has resulted in dramatically lower prices for their milk.
The Humane Society said it would propose tighter rules for the meatpacking and related industries, including a requirement that male calves born on dairy farms be kept there until they are 10 days old to ensure they are strong enough to travel.
Kelly Loftus, a spokeswoman for the state Agency of Agriculture, said she expected there would be strong opposition to such a measure.
"There are labor costs involved. There are feeding costs involved," she said. With the current crisis in dairy farming, "any extra expense could mean that a farm has to close."
Nicole Dehne of Vermont Organic Farmers, a group that certifies Vermont farms as organic under an agreement with the USDA, said the group's national counterpart is meeting in Washington this week and will discuss humane treatment of farm animals.
Organic rules now are geared mainly toward ensuring meat labeled organic comes from animals raised without hormones or chemicals.
"I think consumers expect organic regulations to cover all aspects of animal welfare, including slaughter and transportation," Dehne said. "If we need to tighten the regulations in regard to processing facilities, and come up with guidelines to address more humane transportation, I think we would respond to the expectations of the organic consumer."
-- Associated Press
Video: Since the Humane Society's video is graphic (you can see it here if you'd like, but don't say we haven't warned you), we elected instead to show you Pinto, a rescued veal calf, enjoying a bottle of milk. Credit: Voltalocke via YouTube | <urn:uuid:c89779da-774f-4323-8580-21fa0d0a17f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2009/11/vermont-slaughterhouse-closed-amid-animal-cruelty-allegations.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973804 | 881 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Brajdić, Davor and Virag, Mišo and Uglešić, Vedran and Aljinović-Ratković, Naranđa and Zajc, Ivan and Macan, Darko (2010) Evaluation of sensitivity of teeth after mandibular fractures. International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, [Epub . ISSN 0901-5027
The sensitivity of teeth anterior to a fracture between the mental and mandibular foramina has been tested and followed up until reinnervation or 3 years has passed. This study assessed the reinnervation period, the number of denervated teeth, and their clinical importance. Fifty patients and 459 teeth were examined. Two hundred and seventy-three teeth were affected and had potentially impaired innervation. Tests after injury showed non-responsive teeth in 81% of affected teeth. Six weeks after injury, 19% of teeth were reinnervated; by 1 year after injury, 92% of initially non-responsive teeth were reinnervated. Most teeth (34%) were reinnervated from 6 weeks to 3 months. All 23/186 initially non-responsive, unaffected, contralateral corresponding teeth were reinnervated within 6 weeks. A year after injury, 95% of incisors, 91% of canines, 94% of premolars, and 82% of molars were reinnervated. Three years after injury, 8% of teeth remain denervated. During the second and third years, no reinnervation occurred, but clinical signs of pulp devitalisation of denervated teeth occurred in 18% or 1% of the initially non-responsive affected teeth. The results revealed the stability of pulp 1 year after injury. Denervated teeth should not be treated if no clinical or radiological signs of devitalisation exist.
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:2cef6672-1522-4e3f-9649-a057afa986a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medlib.mef.hr/941/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953036 | 392 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Over the last year, Netflix has reinvented our client-server interaction model. One of the key building blocks of our platform is Microsoft's open-source Reactive Extensions library (Rx). Netflix is a big believer in the Rx model, because Rx has made it much easier for us to build complex asynchronous programs.
Asynchronous Programming is Hard
Events and AJAX requests are sequences of values that are pushed from the producer to the consumer asynchronously. The consumer reacts to the data as it comes in, which is why asynchronous programming is also called Reactive Programming. Every web application is a reactive program, because code reacts to events like mouse clicks, key presses, and the asynchronous arrival of data from the server.
Asynchronous programming is hard, because logical units of code have to be split across many different callbacks so that they can be resumed after async operations complete. To make matters worse, most programming languages have no facilities for propagating asynchronous errors. Asynchronous errors aren't thrown on the stack, which means that try/catch blocks are useless.
Events are Collections
The Reactive Extensions library models each event as a collection of data rather than a series of callbacks. This is a revolutionary idea, because once you model an event as a collection you can transform events in much the same way you might transform in-memory collections. Rx provides developers with a SQL-like query language that can be used to sequence, filter, and transform events. Rx also makes it possible to propagate and handle asynchronous errors in a manner similar to synchronous error handling.
Reactive Extensions at Netflix
On a very hot day in Brisbane, I gave an interview to Channel 9 during which I discussed Rx use at Netflix in-depth. I also discussed Falkor, a new protocol we've designed for client-server communication at Netflix. Falkor provides developers with a unified model for interacting with both local and remote data, and it's built on top of Rx.
In the coming weeks we'll be blogging more about Reactive Programming, our next generation data platform, and the Falkor protocol. Today Netflix is one of very few technology companies using reactive programming on both the server and the client. If you think this is as exciting as we do, join the team! | <urn:uuid:9d05d864-1dd2-4b98-8cd8-26328b378968> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/01/reactive-programming-at-netflix.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943285 | 459 | 1.75 | 2 |
Fathers-to-be appear to be influenced by their partners' weight gain
The average father-to-be gains a stone (6.35kg) during his partner's pregnancy, a poll has suggested.
A fifth of 5,000 men surveyed said they were given larger meals, and 41% said there were more snacks in the house.
The poll, for marketing company Onepoll, also found 25% of men ate more food to make their partner feel better about her weight gain.
One fathers' group said dads had to be aware their unhealthy behaviour could influence their partners.
Favourite 'male pregnancy' snacks include pizza, chocolate, crisps, and more inappropriately, beer.
The average weight gain equated to men putting on around at least two inches around their waist, and a quarter were forced to buy a "paternity" wardrobe.
A fifth of fathers-to-be said they had only realised they had put on weight when their existing clothes stopped fitting.
But 19% said it was their friends who had felt they needed to make it clear they were fatter than before - via jokes about having a "bun in the oven".
Forty two per cent of couples spent more time visiting pubs and restaurants for dinner in a bid to make the most of their precious time together before the baby was born.
However, only a third joined their partners on a post-pregnancy diet.
'Women can't be blamed'
A spokesman for Onepoll said: ''The average woman puts on about two and a half stone during her pregnancy, and it's not at all uncommon for her to crave more fatty foods and need more regular snacks.
''In fact, women are encouraged to consume an additional 300 calories a day - through eating healthier snacks - to make sure the nutritional needs of the baby are met.
''So if the kitchen cupboards are suddenly brimming with snacks and food, it's no wonder blokes are tempted to tuck in as well."
But he added: "The only problem seems to be that men are choosing to snack on unhealthier options such as sweets and cakes - and I don't think women can be blamed for their partner's drinking more beer!''
A spokesman for the Fatherhood Institute said: "Research shows that fathers' health behaviour during pregnancy is really important, not just for themselves but because of the impact their behaviour has on the mothers' health behaviour - which can of course affect the baby's health.
"This is relevant not just in terms of eating but also smoking, drinking and substance abuse.
"It's vital that health services address dads as well as mums during this vital time, and continue to do so once the baby is born." | <urn:uuid:9f8420f1-7996-47ed-a763-e7d90963e888> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8063004.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987495 | 564 | 1.523438 | 2 |
People of Northwest Public Radio
All Tech Considered
Mon January 7, 2013
Why Is Google Exec Interested In North Korea?
Originally published on Mon January 7, 2013 3:39 pm
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has landed in North Korea. His trip there is a bit of a mystery.
Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has been a vocal proponent of providing people around the world with Internet access and technology. North Korea doesn't even let its citizens access the open Internet, and its population is overwhelmingly poor — so it's not exactly a coveted audience for advertisers.
And Google has rubbed the authoritarian regime of China the wrong way by challenging its "Great Firewall." In 2010, Google pulled its servers out of mainland China, and the company has refused to self-censor its search results there.
But, there is speculation that Schmidt's presence in North Korea could have an upside for Google by positioning him as the company's global ambassador. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, told Wired that Schmidt "seems to be doing an exceptional job at government relations."
Pfeffer noted that Google avoided recent antitrust problems in the U.S., and that Schmidt may be setting himself up as an international man of mystery who can help the company as it faces antitrust regulators in Europe.
North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, also recently gave a speech laying out a series of policy goals for his country that included expanding science and technology as a way to improve the North Korean economy in 2013.
Victor Cha, a director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, told Wired that Schmidt's visit was a "good opportunity for the North Korean leadership to signal to the world that they're serious about going forward."
Cha said that Kim, who was educated in the West, may also be seduced by all the cool new technology. "He's got to be interested in this stuff," Cha said. But, Cha added, "as soon as he allows open access to it, he can kiss his leadership goodbye."
Schmidt is part of a delegation being led by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has made more than a half-dozen trips to North Korea over the past 20 years. Richardson called the trip a private humanitarian mission.
Speaking about Schmidt's presence, Richardson said, "This is not a Google trip, but I'm sure he's interested in some of the economic issues there, the social media aspect. So this is why we are teamed up on this."
Schmidt also brought along his daughter and Jared Cohen, a former U.S. State Department policy and planning adviser who now heads Google's New York-based think tank.
U.S. officials are critical of the four-day trip, which comes less than a month after North Korea launched a satellite into space using a long-range rocket, which Washington considers a test of ballistic missile technology. Officials say the launch is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions barring North Korea from developing its nuclear missile program.
A State Department spokesperson said officials "don't think the timing of the visit is helpful." | <urn:uuid:c5ce2f58-98df-4484-8ddb-48eca2f9af1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwpr.org/post/why-google-exec-interested-north-korea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973293 | 659 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Bossier City, La (KMSS) — Every year, the Bossier City Police Department hopes that their crime statistics will be lower than the previous year, and in 2012, just like the 5 previous years, they accomplished that mission.
In 2012, there were a total of 10,098 crimes reported to police, significantly lower than the 10,534 crimes reported in 2011. Not only were all crimes down from 2011, violent crimes were down as well.
The police department works hard to keep crime in the city down, attributing it to two main things: the hard work of patrol officers, and also the great relationship they have with the public.
The city thinks that people in the city respect the police department and the work that they do, and because of that, many people are willing to give police tips and also let them know when they notice suspicious behavior happening.
For 2013 and every year, the police department would like for crimes to be at zero, but they know that isn't likely, so they'll settle for just having less crime than they had in 2012. | <urn:uuid:955dc104-3c84-4ac6-ac58-f206fb9de509> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kmsstv.com/news/bossier-city-crime-stats-down-6th-year-row | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986843 | 223 | 1.75 | 2 |
Hacktivist attacks grow as governments get in on the action
LAS VEGAS – Denial-of-service attacks are surging all across the Internet.
Individuals and groups have perfected the art of knocking websites offline for hours, days or sometimes much longer.
Such attacks surged nearly 70% in the first six months of 2012 vs. the same period in 2011, according to statistics released exclusively to USA TODAY by Prolexic, a Hollywood, Fla.-based website defense firm.
And it's not just the usual suspects who are responsible. The attacks increasingly have a geopolitical bent.
Two prominent global hacktivist collectives — Anonymous and LulzSec — gained notoriety over the past two years for disrupting the Web presence of scores of corporations and government agencies, then bragging about it on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Their standing motive: Mete out punishment for perceived bad corporate practices and unfair government policies.
The FBI earlier this year coordinated the arrests of LulzSec's alleged ring.
But the new twist on denial-of-service attacks is that they often appear to be carried out by governments bent on squelching online discussions of political corruption and human rights abuses in places such as Burma, North Korea, China, Russia and Africa, say tech-security and Internet experts.
Although the emerging evidence is largely anecdotal, it appears that entrenched governments in political hot spots are rapidly embracing the latest hacktivist techniques. Their endgame: Avoid a repeat of the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in which political reformers rallied supporters primarily over the Internet.
Supporters of established regimes are moving early and often to quash criticism in blogs, online publications and human rights websites with denial-of-service attacks before such discourse gets amplified on Facebook, Twitter and other social-media sites.
"We are seeing nation-states use such techniques as a precursor to physical warfare or as a way of silencing dissent," says Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer at tech security firm Bit9.
This rising tide of denial-of-service attacks — in support of divergent motives — has surfaced as a hot topic at Black Hat security conference being held here this week at Caesars Palace.
In a Bit9 survey in April of 2,000 information technology professionals, 61% of respondents were concerned about their organization becoming the target of a hacktivist attack.
And some 35% of the respondents who participated in a February Arbor Networks survey of 114 Internet service providers globally reported dealing with denial-of-service attacks motivated by political or ideological beliefs.
"We are so networked and reliant on information technology that many more people and organizations can be hit," says Chris Day, chief security architect at Terremark, a provider of IT infrastructure and cloud services.
The brief takedown of Eurovision.tv, the Swiss site supporting a long-running multinational singing contest, is a case in point. Held last year in Azerbaijan, the Eurovision contest finals drew the attention of an anti-gay rights group reportedly with close ties to Iran, says Matthew Prince, chief executive of CloudFlare, a website protection firm.
The group Cyberwarriors For Freedom launched a denial-of-service attack against Eurovision.tv to protest the inclusion of a gay singer in the finals, Prince says.
"Knocking a song contest offline doesn't seem earth-shattering," Prince says. "But the same resources had also been used to attack political organizations advocating for more liberal policies in the Middle East."
Attacks intended to cripple the websites of groups aligned with liberal causes are on the rise and have begun to fall into a predictable pattern, says Thomas Hughes, managing director of VirtualRoad.org, a non-profit website-hosting company for 50 independent news publications and human rights groups in a dozen nations.
Reports of high-ranking officials caught in embarrassing situations as well as news coverage of the anniversaries of events with historical significance to the downtrodden are typical triggers for attacks, Hughes says.
A year ago, a typical denial-of-service attack against an independent news outlet or human rights group might have involved 500 computers sending nuisance requests to a targeted website, disrupting access to the site for a few hours. Now up to 5,000 computers might carry out such an attack, for days at a time, Hughes says.
"The key trend is the scaling up of these attacks, and the degree of sophistication," Hughes says. "The Internet has become the new battleground for freedom of expression."
Tools of the trade
A denial-of-service attacker's tool of choice is a botnet — a network of hundreds or thousands of infected PCs he or she controls that methodically bombards a website with nuisance requests, thereby cutting off public access to the site.
Criminals use botnets to spread viral spam, infect Web pages and search results, steal from online financial accounts, and sell bogus drugs and software.
One in three personal computers is infected with botnet malware, estimates network monitoring firm Damballa. And 22% of the approximately 1 billion PCs connected to the Internet are actively under control of a botnet operator, the firm says.
Gunter Ollmann, Damballa's research director, says that many botnets exist solely to be hired out on an hourly basis to conduct denial-of-service attacks. "In the cybercrime ecosystem, this has become a separate service," Ollmann says.
What's more, Anonymous has popularized the use of a simple new tool that makes it easy for anyone to volunteer his or her PC to participate in an ongoing attack. Tens of thousands of individuals downloaded the simple tool to join the attacks that disrupted the websites of Visa and MasterCard. They were protesting the card companies' decision to cut off services to WikiLeaks, the controversial disclosure website.
"One of the top factors contributing to the escalating threat is the availability of tools used to carry out these attacks," says Carlos Morales, engineering vice president at Arbor Networks.
Anatomy of an attack
Daniel Joseph, an official with the Junta Central Electoral (JCE) — the Dominican Republic federal agency responsible for running elections — knows all too well how much trouble it can be to defend against a well-planned denial-of-service attack.
In early spring, hacktivists referring to themselves as Anonymous Mexico began to call for Dominicans to boycott the nation's May 20 presidential elections, while also vowing to knock down JCE's website, Joseph says. Just a few minutes before the polls opened, the hacktivists began an intense attack to flood the electoral board's website with nuisance requests, says Paul Sop, senior analyst at Prolexic, which helped deflect the assault and keep the agency's website up.
When the flooding technique proved ineffective, the attackers shifted to an attempt to directly penetrate and overwhelm the agency's Web server. The battle ensued throughout Election Day and for 12 hours after the polls closed. "But we were able to stop them," Sop says.
Joseph notes that in addition to helping run elections, JCE's website plays a pivotal role in supplying Dominicans with birth certificates and other important services.
"If Anonymous would have been successful, the impact would have been tremendous," Joseph says. "That's why we decided to keep the website online and very well protected."
Security and Internet experts anticipate that many more companies, non-profits and government agencies globally could be facing similar decisions in the months to come.
"Hacktivism is a chaotic element," observes Tom Cross, research director at network monitoring firm Lancope. "It's hard to predict exactly where it will strike, and there's a wide variety of people with differing motives who could pull off a denial-of-service attack."
Cross believes an Election Day attack in South Korea late last year on a website providing information about polling locations, and similar election-related attacks in Russia and Hong Kong, could be harbingers of things to come.
"I hope that we don't see denial-of-service attacks in association with the U.S. presidential elections, but it's a distinct possibility, and we need to be prepared for it," he says. | <urn:uuid:e23992e0-6ef5-4703-8913-e2f3967801e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-07-19/hactivism-anonymous-attacks/56464792/1?sf5238802=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951595 | 1,682 | 1.820313 | 2 |
For a field experience, our Student Enterprise class went to Sandbox Industries. Sandbox Industries is a foundry that supports start-up businesses. The purpose of our visit was to gain experience by presenting the progress we’ve made on our individual business plans. During the presentations, we discussed the key points of our business: why we created it, what the plan is, and how the business will function. Here is the SlideRocket presentation I used to explain my business, Catalyst Outreach:
From this field experience, I learned a lot from the Q & A with Sandbox Industries employees, including Nick Rosa. We heard helpful advice about work ethic: you should love what you do, don’t go to work only to leave. I thought this advice connected well with our businesses because they are aligned with the Millennium Development goals, so our motivation comes from impacting the world.
After I finished my presentation, I considered what I can do in the future to improve my business plan. Regarding the presentation itself, I can work on communicating my mission in a way that creates an impact in a short time. My business plan will improve when I think of responses to tackle “killer” questions (questions that will signal a significant problem with your plan if you can’t answer it). I also need to think about how I can improve perceived barriers. As I revise my business plan, I’ll be thinking about it from the side of the client. This field experience provided us with memorable advice to finish the year strong. | <urn:uuid:bc271ddd-cf42-4f3a-b78d-b2b08a63f49d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gcevoices.com/ep/2012/05/25/field-experience-at-sandbox/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944834 | 313 | 1.59375 | 2 |
(4 of 4)
One of Game Time's many virtues is that--unlike, say, the last sentence of the preceding paragraph--Angell never for a moment forces the game to carry a meaning, metaphorical or otherwise, that it doesn't ask for. A deep thinker he may be, even an intellectual, but whatever baseball's true meaning, he has the good grace to write around it; he leaves the unutterable unuttered. The lure of the game, what draws the Nobelists and the laureates, may be the elusive but ever present possibility of perfection: the no-hitter, the flawless diamond of a double play, even the ruler-straightness of a well-kept base path. But perfection brooks no summing up, and neither baseball nor its fans need a committee of scribes to stuff it full of meaning. Like Angell, the best baseball writers let the game speak for itself. In "For Openers," an essay on the occasion of Opening Day 1982, Angell meets up with a 92-year-old pitcher named Smokey Joe Wood, a member of the 1912 Red Sox who had been present at the first official game ever played at Fenway Park. Naturally, in the presence of such an oracle, Angell asks him what the game was like, and he has the wisdom to quote the oracle's answer in full. "I have no idea," Smokey Joe replies. "Can't remember a single thing about it. I didn't pitch--that's all I know. Just another ball game." Whitman couldn't have said it better. | <urn:uuid:29d66016-73b9-4e9b-a738-62e263554773> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004852-4,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976539 | 329 | 1.71875 | 2 |
well my question is wich is more risky lv or ideal ?? because i want to overclock to 250mhz-850mhz , and my phone is stable at ideal, but i can't get it under 500 mhz on ideal, so i just want to know if lv is risky ?
lv is less risky. this is because it uses slightly more voltage than ideal. this makes it more stable.
in computers, we often overvolt our cpu/gpu to allow to run more stable at higher overclocks. ie. my radeon 5850 by default runs at 1.08V at 755mhz. when i overvolt it to 1.35V, i can push it to 1100mhz on the core, which makes it one of the fastest single gpu graphics cards floating around at the moment.
if your device is stable at ideal setting you should use tht though, i wish i could but ideal causes my device to reboot.
its strange you cant get it lower than 500 by typing
kernel-config load ideal
kernel-config limits 250 850
as the 3rd line should over write the clock speeds set by default in ideal but keep the same voltage
seems like an issue with his device. mine can maintain 125mhz lower limit at ideal voltage without any issues. perhaps its his device's way of saying it cant handle ideal.
i am using lv to lower the risks a bit, its running great so far, i know this will consume a bit more battery but its good my limits are at 250-850 .
you can set it to 125 or 250 bit it doesn't mean it will use them
yeah, i figured that much after reading jakkiman's guide thoroughly and if i still want to implement the 125 or 250 min frequency im gonna have to use the "avoid frequency" parameters.. | <urn:uuid:5a890fb0-312b-4631-a4f7-8594d51bdefa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://discussions.nokia.com/t5/Maemo-and-MeeGo-Devices/lv-or-ideal/td-p/711555 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930865 | 381 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The most recent controversy to hit gaming concerns Penny Arcade, and a comic concerning the Dickwolf. Check out this link for a very detailed timeline, including links, of this debacle.
I think by the tone of this blog, you may get where I stand on this issue. However, I have been trying to figure out the other side’s argument. I gotta practise what I preach.
Let’s see: A piece of art is accused of promoting rape culture. Accusations of censorship arise.
Wait. I think I have heard this one before.
A piece of art is accused of promoting violence. Accusations of censorship arise.
Is this JT (Jack Thompson, noted anti-gaming activist)all over again? Is this why members of the gaming community have circled the wagons on this one? If this is the reason why some gamers are supporting PennyArcade, here is why the dickwolves-promote-rape-culture controversy is a false equivalent to violence-in-games-make-people murderers controversy.
1. Bringing down the dickwolves t-shirts or even calling for a retraction of rape jokes is not censorship. Calling upon the judicial system to make it harder to purchase games is censorship.
Remember, you or I can’t censor anything. We can make our displeasure known. We can implore others to boycott. But we can’t censor anything: only the government and the lawmakers can censor. The dickwolves controversy is some gamers stating (loudly) that certain actions aren’t okay, in their eyes. There was a business decision in response to stop selling the offending merchandise.
JT bringing an argument before the Florida judicial system is trying to censor games. Not the same thing.
2. One argument stated that the art would cause an individual to act in a reprehensible manner. The other argument stated that the art in question adds to a culture in which reprehensible acts are minimized, such that victims no longer come forward to report crimes, and thus further victimized. The minimization of the act makes it easier for reprehensible people to justify their reprehensible acts.
No one said that the dickwolves joke, or the t-shirt would make a person rape someone. Rape culture is a culture in which rape and sexual violence against women is common, where sexual violence is excused and encouraged. A quote from shakesville on a description of rape culture:
… Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what they wear and how they wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you are in a group, if you are in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you carry something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you are wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what kind of jewellery you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door for the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sounding-machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert, to always pay attention, always watch your back, always be aware of your surroundings, and never let your guard down lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and you didn’t follow these rules it’s your fault.
The argument in a nutshell is that the dickwolves controversy is one of a multitude of things that promote this rape culture, a culture that we all live in, and why promote it if we don’t have to? Art A (plus C, plus D, plus E, etc) leads to a place in which act B is minimized to the point where B is normalized and then brushed aside.
The violence in games argument was such that playing a violent game would make individuals who played that game more predisposed to violent acts. Art A leads to individual performing act B.
Again: these two arguments are not the same.
3. The arguments against the controversy in one case held up the theory as true and on one case did not.
The arguments that were made, that the PA guys were in the right and that there is no such thing as rape culture contributed to rape culture. What did we hear? That rape victims should get over it, thus minimizing the effects of rape. That rape victims weren’t really raped and should provide evidence supporting the fact that they were raped. Strawman arguments from PennyArcade saying that rape culture means that guys will go out and rape a woman if he reads a comic. See- rape culture is idiotic! There were people who sent disgusting emails to rape victims saying that they wished that they would be raped to death. Victimize the victim for speaking out. That feminists should get a sense of humour – deflecting the actual argument by attacking the person making the argument.
On the other hand, when JT was making his arguments, no gamer went out and assaulted him and thus confirmed his theory.
All this to say, sometimes gamers, we are just too sensitive to anyone telling us that our passion is somehow wrong. I get it. We have a supreme court date to decide the fate of mature gaming and all that. However, the way in which we can respond to criticism is telling. Why can we not sit back and think for a minute? Why are we incapable of saying that the criticism is correct and maybe yes- we need to clean up our act. When it comes to sexism and gaming, why do gamers deny that it exists?
There is nobility in self-reflection, contemplation and change, it’s not a weakness. | <urn:uuid:0f3c97a4-279e-47bf-9721-f3984098a399> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yellingatpixels.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/dickwolves-and-false-equivalency/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961031 | 1,292 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Countdown begins for entries to 2013 Interfaith Calendar Competition
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
The clock is ticking for schoolchildren across Hampshire to submit their creative entries for the county's fifth annual Interfaith Calendar Competition.
For 2013, pupils are once again being asked by the 'Hampshire Interfaith Network' with Hampshire County Council to produce a poem, drawing, painting, picture, or a combination of those to represent a religious event or events, in any one given calendar month of the year. For example, entries for April could include the Christian celebration of Palm Sunday or Naw-Ruz (New Year) celebration of the Bahai faith in March. December could include Hanukkah, which is a Jewish festival.
The closing date for entries is Friday 20 July 2012, when 12 winners and 12 runners up will be selected by a judging panel comprising of the Co-Chairs of the Hampshire Interfaith Network; Hampshire County Council Executive Member for Communities and International Relations, Councillor Keith Mans and Dr Jasbir Dulay, plus a representative of Hampshire County Council's Children's Services.
The 'Hampshire Interfaith Network' supports nine faiths, these are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Bahai, Jain and Zoroastrian. The network's aim is to promote interfaith harmony and understanding for the benefit of the people of Hampshire by encouraging and promoting respect, communication and the knowledge of different faiths across the county.
Successful competition entries will be used in the production and publication of the 2013 Calendar. All schools entering the competition, plus the winners and their families will be invited to attend the official launch of the Calendar and an awards ceremony in November, where each winning and runner-up entry will be awarded their prize.
The calendar will go on sale at the beginning of October 2012 and advance orders are welcomed. | <urn:uuid:c4deab4e-31d3-4670-888d-fd9966823856> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www3.hants.gov.uk/hantswebnewslist?d=12&m=5&y=2012&id=535829&stdate=1333686637748&pagetitle=Countdown%20begins%20for%20entries%20to%202013%20Interfaith%20Calendar%20Competition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933441 | 379 | 1.507813 | 2 |
I’m about to make a bold statement. The quality of a design and the monetary cost of producing or procuring that design have absolutely no relationship whatsoever. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, I know. Many of you are crying foul at this very moment, but hear me out. I’ll explain my radical position – and hopefully give you a few pointers about how to more effectively price and position your design business in this brave new, and uncorrelated, world.
original image by Kris
Quality-Price-Ratio (or QPR as it’s commonly referred to) is a concept that is used extensively in the wine trade. In it’s essence it’s nothing more than a measure of perceived value, of the enjoyment you receive weighed against the price you have to pay. Do you feel that the benefit your gained was worth the price you paid? If you don’t, then the product or service has a low QPR. On the other hand, if you feel like you got away with highway robbery then the product or service has a very high QPR. I’ll spare you the metaphysical comparisons between wine and design beyond this one important point: There is no correlation between price and quality when discussing wine or design.
Good design is subjective
While most good design shares many of the same basic characteristics, beyond a certain point the perceived value of all design is subjective. What appeals to me may not appeal to you; in fact, you could go so far as to say that you hate it. But, if you were being honest (and the work in question was in fact well done) you would have to admit that it was, at the very least, well put together.
Good design is cheap
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that good design should be cheap or that it always is cheap. I’m just saying that, these days, good design can be found very inexpensively. Think 99designs, Graphic Leftovers, and even some of the more reputable stock agencies. These services are extraordinarily popular because they bring good design to people on a budget. These services can also be extraordinarily difficult to compete against.
Good design has no correlation with price
From the client’s point of view, the QPR of design falls into four, and only four, categories.
Listed from lowest QPR to highest:
- Bad design that’s expensive. As a client, you do not want to be here – it’s a world of pain.
- Bad design that’s cheap. This type of design, I think we’ll all agree, has a fairly low QPR because, well, it still sucks even though you paid very little for it.
- Good design that’s expensive. This is a tough one. You’ve gotten a great product, but you’ve paid a hefty price. You normally just tell yourself that you did the right thing because everyone knows, “you get what you pay for”.
- Good design that’s cheap. This category has the highest QPR because you are getting a great product for a small price! Who doesn’t want to be here?
Your clients are clearly looking for that magic fourth category, while you’re trying to get them closer to the third. This is what makes selling design so difficult – you’re interests and the clients interests are clearly at odds.
Good design is about attitude
A little attitude and a little cockiness never hurt anyone. I would argue that those two qualities have actually helped more businesses than they’ve harmed. Why? Because being confident in your product or service is infectious. If you believe strongly in the value and the worth of what you’re selling, your clients are going see that – and respond in kind.
Good design is about branding
Brand is all about good will. Having high brand equity is nothing more than having a stockpile of good emotions and good response reactions from consumers. What does this have to do with good design? It doesn’t, other than the fact that consumer will give the benefit of the doubt to a design that has a strong brand behind it. They may not know what good design is, but if they respect your name – chances are they will respect your design.
Let’s face it, deciding how to price your creative services is hard. You are, in essence, trying to attach a discrete number to your creative acumen; which makes it seem very much like you are bragging if you charge a lot or like you have no backbone if you charge too little. But it is imperative that you get beyond these feelings. Design, and good design especially, is a very scarce resource and, as such, should be priced accordingly. But how to go about arriving at a number?
A note about premium services
I once heard about a wedding photographer (who charged average prices) that wanted to work less. So, she figured that if she just began raising her prices there would simply be less interest from clients. First she bumped up to $3,000 a weekend, then $4,000, then $5,000. To her astonishment, she actually began receiving more requests from clients. The clients figured that if she was charging such a high sum, she must be really good. Truth being told, she hadn’t gotten any better, she’d always been a good photographer – but the higher price led her potential clients to believe this and, in the end, they were never disappointed. Finally this photographer raised her prices to $20,000 per weekend, essentially pricing herself above what almost anyone could afford. Her potential clients then began offering to fly her to remote locations around the world just for the chance to have her shoot their exotic weddings.
I think you get my point. The old economic adage that higher price correlates to lower demand doesn’t always hold true, and this is especially true of luxury goods. Design is a premium service. A luxury good. It is certainly not necessary to run a business (just take a look at all the used car dealers of the world for confirmation), but results in a definite advantage to the businesses who value good design. Don’t be surprised to find that design and the pricing of design follows a slightly paradoxical pricing relationship.
This little story also illustrates how important market positioning is to luxury goods. You’d be a fool to try and compete on price with sites like 99designs, so don’t try. Compete on completeness, your creative vision and your customer service.
With our new assumptions and the idea that design is a luxury good, let’s take a look at a few tips to help you formulate a sensible price for your design services.
Don’t charge per hour
Design, or any other creative endeavor, should never be charged hourly. I know, it’s an industry standard method, but I whole-heartedly disagree with it – and here’s why.
original image by Scarleth White
Charging hourly works fantastically for things like stamping exhaust pipes or writing legal briefs – any type of job that is characterized by taking inputs and transforming those inputs using a specific process, it’s easy to see the direct correlation between hours and number of exhaust pipes or legal briefs.
On the other hand; with creative pursuits, and design in particular, there is often no time correlation what-so-ever. Sometimes you get that spark and a project takes 2 hours, sometimes you have to batter yourself for days before you feel that you have something remotely resembling a decent design. Should the client in the first instance have to pay nearly nothing for their design while the client in the second pays through the teeth?
Hourly rates are unfair to both the designer and the client. Well then, I can hear you asking, if not hourly, how are you supposed to figure out how to charge?
The cost of doing business
original image by bradipo
The first step in coming to a fair and reasonable valuation of your services is to take a look at your cost of doing business. Cost of business is simply everything that it takes for you to operate. The cost of your computer, the cost of all the software that you use, if you rent office space, the cost of your office space. Think of every single thing that you use on a daily basis to get your work done and write them all down. This is your cost of doing business (I find it easiest if it’s written in monthly terms), and you should revisit and revise this number at least once a year. To estimate a per project break even figure you can divide your monthly cost of doing business by your average number of projects completed in a month and you will have an average baseline project cost.
Your cost of doing business serves as a baseline to your pricing equation. This, by the way, doesn’t mean that the average baseline project cost is the lowest price you can ever charge for a project, but, it should, instead, serve as a guide post to help you maintain profitability.
The creativity coefficient
Let’s not mince words, creativity is hard work. It’s not rote production, transforming inputs using a standard process. Design, as with all creative pursuits, is all about creating something from nothing; and because of this, creative work demands it’s own pricing methods.
Price = Creativity Coefficient x Cost of doing business
The creativity coefficient is nothing more than a multiplier that you apply to your base cost of doing business. This coefficient (or multiplier) gives the designer a measure of control to help match the prices they charge with the difficulty and involvement of the projects they work on. The creativity coefficient should be based upon three things:
- Difficulty: If the project is difficult or very involved – charge more. This should be clear at this point. If you’re producing one tri-fold brochure your multiplier may be as low as 1.20, on the other hand if you are completely rebranding and redesigning a medium to large company’s image your creativity coefficient may go as high as 10 or 15.
- Brand strength: Simply put, if you have a strong brand behind you – charge more. At first glance this may seem unfair but, in reality, it is the simplest and most effective way to separate potential clients into the two groups that matter. The ones that just want to work with you because of your name – but are going to be a major headache (especially over price), and the ones that recognize the value that your brand brings and are willing to pay for that value.
- Individuality: If the client is coming to you because you specialize in a certain type of design or in a specific medium and there is no one else out there that can competently perform the work – charge more. Niche work is important and there is value in being different, especially in today’s hyper-homogenized world, clients that come looking for something different will be expecting to pay premium prices for something that they cannot get anywhere else.
The creativity coefficient gives designers a simple and effective way to try and wrangle concrete numbers around the value of creativity. And because you are starting with a baseline amount that reflects your actual cost of doing business you are ensuring that your business will stay profitable.
Finding a balance in the way that you price your designs isn’t just about economics and finding the highest number that you can get away with. These guidelines are just that, guidelines. Hopefully they have given you a new, and inspiring, light in which to view your services and the value of those services – but in the end, it comes down to feeling that you are providing a valuable service to your clients and that you are being fairly paid for those services.
- Burns Auto Parts
Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua is a consultant for professional photographers, but much of her work, and her two podcasts on pricing especially, can be generalized to all types of creative work.
- 12 Realities of Pricing Design Services
Good list of points to remember.
- Harvard Business Review on Pricing
Just in case you really want to throw down some money to read one of the most respected business schools in the world talk about pricing. | <urn:uuid:49b14c79-8688-471a-bacd-8a3b0cba507f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/14/quality-price-ratio-in-web-design-pricing-design-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961969 | 2,561 | 1.5 | 2 |
Leaders of a grouping led by Russia and China on Thursday issued a statement opposing military intervention in the Middle East, a day after opposition claims that Syrian forces had killed 100 people.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) also called for a “peaceful resolution of the Syrian problem through political dialogue” in a statement released at the end of a two-day summit in Beijing.
“Member states are against military intervention into this region’s affairs, forcing a ‘handover of power’ or using unilateral sanctions,” it said, referring to the Middle East and North Africa.
The declaration was signed in Beijing by China, Russia and the other four SCO members — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — after the two-day summit, which was also attended by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Moscow and Beijing have consistently opposed international intervention to stop the bloodshed in Syria, but face growing pressure to change their stance after 15 months of conflict in which more than 13,500 people are said to have died.
On Wednesday, the opposition said forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had “massacred” about 100 people including women and children — a claim denied by the regime — as the US demanded a full transfer of power.
The demand by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came hours after China and Russia reaffirmed their strong opposition to regime change or international intervention in Syria and set the stage for a renewed diplomatic stand-off.
Russia and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Assad’s regime, but backed UN/Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s blueprint to end the conflict.
The Annan plan was supposed to begin with a ceasefire from April 12, but doubts have emerged about its effectiveness as violence has raged on despite the deployment of nearly 300 UN observers. AFP | <urn:uuid:80e85dec-5112-40f1-b90b-bcc467846c2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aaj.tv/2012/06/russia-china-oppose-military-intervention-in-mideast-iran/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972969 | 388 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Does It Really Matter?
Origins & Criminal Punishment
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
First, listen to this 6-minute clip:
Launch Player | Download | Full Sermon
Here's the topic for today's discussion:
As you can see, metaphysical questions become practical very quickly. The essential question John brings out is this: What is the non-biblical basis for a universal, transcendent law? If you deny biblical authority, then you deny divine law, which is transcendent and universal (cf. Rom. 2:15, God wrote His law on the heart of every individual). So, here are a few questions for the comment thread:
First, how do naturalists/evolutionists explain the existence of a universal law, a standard that applies to everyone?
Second, if they deny a universal standard, how do naturalists/evolutionists hold anyone accountable for their actions? That is, what allows them to condemn the actions of Marquis de Sade, Hitler, or Ted Bundy?
Third, how do naturalists/evolutionists betray their reliance on God’s law, written in their hearts?
#1 Posted by
Michial Brown | Tuesday, April 13, 2010at
The few evolutionists I have spoken regarding these issues claim the conscience has nothing to do with God but rather social and cultural conditioning. They claim the conscience is a blank slate which is conditioned by parents, authority figures, and other social and cultural influences. There is no universal standard.
Obviously we know otherwise. If these people claim to have no universal consciousness of good vs evil in their conscience it is only a result of their suppression and resistance to it. Many of these people have made shipwreck of their conscience and seared it by resisting Gods law and hardening it to the Spirit's working.
So these people while denying a universal law will nevertheless align themselves with other like minded people in a society and culture(who are also reacting agains the same ..ahem..nonexistent universal law...ahem).. and borrow capital from God's law by seeking a peaceable community in their own terms of course. The Greeks did it. Whatever is good for the society is the rule, but so much of that is borrowed capital from God's universal law, refuting any denials of such a universal law in the conscience of man. None of these men will say murder and betrayal are good because it destroys and harms their neighbor and robs peace from their society. But we can say to them facetiously the evil and rebellion of men are only different traits which bring about the evolutionary process of survival of the fittest. They must view them as good and necessary parts of the process. Seeking to suppress them for the good of others is counter to the darwinian thought. To acknowledge those behaviors are evil is a reality which only comes from the universal God-given consciense of man. They cannot have it both ways.
It is all pick and choose. Wanting the cake and eating it too. THat is how Satan operates. He knows he cannot lure folks to himself with all the darkness and desolation his worldview offers. No he must borrow capital from the universal law of God to coat his evil plans. He wants us to think his ways are beautiful and as appealing and good as an angel of light. So too these so called evolutionists and atheists say they deny the universal law of God but only as it hinders their rebellion to Him, all the while taking what they will of His common grace. But one day will come when there is no common grace. Hades and Gehenna are void of it and the fruition of their rebellion will show itself for what it really is.
#2 Posted by
Fred Butler | Tuesday, April 13, 2010at
The few evolutionists I have spoken regarding these issues claim the conscience has nothing to do with God but rather social and cultural conditioning.
That is why one of the best ways to initiate a gospel encounter with these folk is to press them as to the disconnect of their behavior with the principles of an evolutionary world view. None of them live in such a manner, correct? Why? Well, I would argue because they know better in their heart of hearts because they are created in the image of God. The image is marred with sin, but still exists to convict them of sin, and irrational living.
#3 Posted by
Darla Wormuth | Wednesday, April 14, 2010at
Interesting - social conditioning. I too have heard that as an argument, but I cannot help but to wonder how many parents sat their children down and said, "Son, do not murder. Do not rape. Do not do this, that, and the other" and was able to cover all the do's and don'ts of life. (Thus the 10 Commnadments should be taught).
How many of us have watched a child sneak a cookie, even when they have not been told not to take it.
Ex. You are at a wedding and when you walk into the reception with your son, who is three, he spots the big wedding cake. Nothing is said between the two of you as to whether when he will be able to taste this yummy cake.
Nevertheless, your son sneaks off when he thinks no one is looking and sticks his finger in the icing. Is it not his conscience that is making him sneak around? Of course. There is no "rule" saying you cannot stick your finger in the wedding cake, and I am fairly certain this childs parents did not give him the "wedding rule book" to read prior to the event.
It just seems "naturally" illogical to think such foolishness -- created from nothing! Denying the existence of God as creator is the proof of one being given over to a depraved mind.
#4 Posted by
Paul Neil | Wednesday, April 14, 2010at
If morality is only based on social conditioning we have to then ask, what on earth is happening now? We live in a time were much of the supposed conditioning man had is not held with much esteem nowadays.
We can see that evil is rampant. While evil has always been, in all my life I have never witnessed until this current time that wrong is right, Its unbelievable!! A homosexual would stay in the closet and be ashamed, a stripper would be ashamed and hope that no one she knew found out, an individual getting pregnant out of wedlock would be ashamed and hide themselves and would marry quickly, young people wouldnt use foul language in front of elders, even a few years ago gangster rappers were put down, now they on the front page.
So if the case is that morality is a man made thing, why is it that those same morals are now grossly being ignored? We see shamelessness all around us, so it isnt reasonable to say morality is mans idea.
We do though have a perfect scripture for what we find oursleves in today. Life is how it is because men ignore The Most High God!
II Tim 3:1-4
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
I agree, we must also ask, why would humans even dream up morality, if survival of the fittest is what its about? Its a contradictory and hypocritical.
#5 Posted by
Elaine Bittencourt | Sunday, April 18, 2010at
# 3 - Darla.
Having had 3 children I can understand completely your comparison. It is also interesting that we, as parents, expect our children to not behave in certain ways, having never gone through the "book of do's and don'ts with them.
# 4 - Neil.
Morality, nowadays, it's not absolute anymore, it's relative. Relative to background, culture, ages and times. It is true what you said about people being ashamed when they sinned. But everything is acceptable today in the name of freedom and individual rights.
Not sure why, but I was reminded of a talk I had with a friend of my husband's, who is Hindu (not my husband, his friend). He was telling us that he will be saved according to his good deeds. If he doesn't have enough good deeds during this lifetime, he will have to come back, and whatever good deeds he has now will determine if he will come back as a human or some animal or insect or any other creature. So I asked him what was his standard for "good" deeds, who was it that determines if his good deeds are really good or not. He told me that is relative to each person, whatever he thinks it's good, then it's good, but other hindu can have a different standard for "good" deeds. | <urn:uuid:0d95f3a3-a500-4925-a553-89dbd139158b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gty.org/blog/B100413 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972987 | 1,879 | 1.65625 | 2 |
In this paper we present our experiences teaching EPICS (Engineering Projects In Community Service) at Butler University, a small, private university, from within the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. The EPICS program began at Purdue University in 1995. The idea behind EPICS is to have undergraduate students earn college credit for working on long-term, multi-semester projects to benefit charity and non-profit organizations. The projects are student-driven, under faculty supervision. There are many good reasons for having an EPICS program in an undergraduate computer science major. It is excellent for leveraging knowledge from other areas of computer science such as databases, networks, operating systems, and of course software engineering. The students are highly motivated because the project is real: there are real clients who use the software, making the software lifecycle come to life. Students practice teamwork, project management, professionalism, and communication skills. In our paper, we share feedback from our students on what EPICS means to them. At Butler, EPICS has been a success. Our EPICS program started in the Fall 2001 semester. We now have two ongoing projects: Spanish-In-Action (SIA), with Spanish middle school teachers from Crispus Attuchs Middle School in Indianapolis as clients, and Social Assets and Vulnerabilities Indicators (SAVI), with the POLIS Center at IUPUI as the client. We describe both projects in some detail in our paper. EPICS currently counts towards both the computer science major and the software engineering major as an elective at Butler. Our department has about 50 students and 4 full-time faculty, and each semester we have roughly 15 students enrolled in EPICS. We elaborate on how EPICS fits into our curriculum and provide details on how we deliver this course in our paper.
Sorenson, Jonathan P. and Linos, Panos K., "EPICS: A Service Learning Program at Butler University" (2005). Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS. Paper 99. | <urn:uuid:9fa38bda-30cc-43a4-abef-cc8aac29da0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/99/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939147 | 406 | 1.617188 | 2 |
February 13, 2004
Honorable Nicholas Donohue
Commissioner of Education
New Hampshire Department of Education
101 Pleasant Street
Concord, New Hampshire 03301
Dear Commissioner Donohue:
This letter is in response to email communication received on January 13, 2004 from Lorraine Patusky regarding the use of Section 6111 funds of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Thank you for the information about the efforts you are taking to implement the assessment provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Over the course of several months, you have provided information and had several conversations with both Ron Tomalis, Counselor to the Secretary, and Gene Hickok, Acting Deputy Secretary, about the use of federal money for State assessments. I want to offer clarification on the federal monies made available to New Hampshire for meeting both the standards and assessments requirements and other NCLB goals.
New Hampshire has received approximately $3.9 million in each of fiscal years 2002 and 2003 to assist New Hampshire in developing the standards and assessments required under NCLB. The primary purpose of these assessment funds (Section 6111 of NCLB) is for States to develop their assessments for grades 3-8 and high school in reading/language arts and mathematics (required by 2005-06), and in each of three grade spans for science (required by 2007-08). A State must allocate the maximum amount of Section 6111 needed for the development of the required standards and assessments before using these funds for test administration costs. As we have explained to other States, any funds not needed for development of assessments required by Section 1111(b)(3) may be used to refine or develop new items for existing reading/language arts, mathematics, or science assessments, or other uses as outlined in Section 6111(2). New Hampshire should have a timeline and budget in place explaining how it will meet these targets and how it will spend its federal funds for development purposes. Please send this information to my office as soon as possible.
As you know, federal funds are subject to the statutory provisions outlining the use of those funds, and States and recipients are subject to audit and program review regarding their proper use. This letter addresses only the proper use of funds under Section 6111 of ESEA.
If I can be of any additional assistance, please let me know. | <urn:uuid:e13d65b9-7c0b-482c-a078-83ff5a012fa1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/stateletters/uofnh.html?exp=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937928 | 481 | 1.625 | 2 |
The first of about $10 million in proposed improvements designed to boost Papago Park as a cultural beacon is slated for completion in the fall.
Salt River Project will build three landmark installations at sites along canal trails in Tempe, Scottsdale and Phoenix in or near the 1,600-acre park.
Described as "discovery areas" by SRP project manager Jim Duncan, each 20-by-40-foot site will include a circular rest-stop seating structure providing directional markers and information about the history of the Papago area and local cultural attractions.
The project is part of the the Papago Salado Association’s master plan to add "aesthetic infrastructure’’ to the park, said executive director Debbie Abele.
The association is a joint venture of Tempe, Scottsdale, Phoenix and the utility company. Papago Park stretches across 1,200 acres of Phoenix and 400 acres of Tempe north of Loop 202. Its northeast edge runs along a portion of Scottsdale’s southern boundary. SRP has canals and watertreatment facilities in the park.
The long-range plan calls for gateway features, shade structures, lighting installations, more interpretive installations and recreation facilities, landscaped gardens, public art and pedestrian bridges in and around the park.
The plan includes improvements to an 11-mile loop trail and completion of trail links to attractions in the area, including Tempe Town Lake, the Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix Zoo, Arizona Historical Society Museum and Pueblo Grande archaeological park.
The overall goal is to make the area "not just another park, but a cultural experience," Abele said.
The Papago area is a center of the ancient Hohokam Indian culture as well as some of the earliest American settlements of the Arizona territory.
"It’s the birthplace of civilization in the Valley, and we need to tell its story," she said.
Future funding is in question because of belttightening by all three cities.
Phoenix cut its funding for Papago Salado by 10 percent this year, and Scottsdale has suspended its financial contributions.
"We expect that to be a temporary situation for 2003 and 2004," said Jeff Kulaga, spokesman for the Scottsdale mayor’s office. "Our support (for Papago Park improvements) remains strong."
Economics will present the biggest challenge to the effort.
With the three cities seeking to expand their economies, "there’s always development pressure," Abele said.
Resident groups such as the North Tempe Neighborhood Association have recently expressed concern about proposals that would open parts of Papago Park to private development.
City governments seem to look at the park only as a valuable piece of real estate, said Barbara Sherman, a member of the group.
The association hopes to gather support from nearby Scottsdale and Phoenix neighborhood groups to fight loss of open space in the park, Sherman said.
Abele said she plans to schedule a meeting this month to facilitate more public dialogue on the Papago Salado plan.
Many of the projects could qualify for grants from environmental conservation and historic preservation foundations, Abele said.
The association has received funding for preservation in the past from the Arizona Department of Transportation and the state Heritage Fund.
Design work on the master plan has been funded in part by a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts under a program for community preservation and restoration. | <urn:uuid:6738e719-540a-4f1a-86dd-dc0f63659cdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eastvalleytribune.com/local/article_2a3ec216-6630-5183-9a04-51cc3b7db48a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946665 | 714 | 1.75 | 2 |
Jewish World Review August 12, 2004 / 25 Menachem-Av, 5764
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Swift Boats, Continued
I had an interesting talk with Jim Hurley, the head of Vietnam Veterans for Kerry. Not surprisingly, he disparaged Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whom he called "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush," and urged one and all to look at the military records reproduced on the Kerry for President website.
The most interesting part of the talk concerned the latest account of John Kerry's whereabouts on Christmas Day, 1968. Kerry's account of this list has shifted and changed constantly over the last 35 years. Some versions have him spending the day in Cambodia, dropping off spies. Others have him in a barracks, 55 miles from the Cambodian border, scribbling entries into his diary. Hurley offered a hybrid today, saying Kerry was ordered onto the water Christmas day, made his way to the Cambodian border, endured three separate engagements with the enemy, and returned home. I count at least six distinct versions of Kerry's whereabouts on that day, including this one, released Wednesday by Michael Meehan of the Kerry campaign:
"During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien.
"On December 24, 1968 Lieutenant John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in enemy territory. In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border. There, Kerry and his crew along with two other boats were ambushed, taking fire from both sides of the river, and after the firefight were fired upon again. Later that evening during their night patrol they came under friendly fire.
"It is an acknowledged fact that Swift Boat crews regularly operated along the Cambodian border from Ha Tien on the Gulf of Thailand to the rivers of the Mekong south and west of Saigon. Boats often received fire from enemy taking sanctuary across the border. Kerry's was not the only United States riverboat to respond and inadvertently or responsibly across the border. In fact, it was this reality that lead President Nixon to later invade Cambodia itself in 1970."
Curiouser and curiouser. Stay tuned.
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© 2004, Fox News Channel | <urn:uuid:c6fff336-be8c-4cd8-9b34-d4d81cfd5285> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishworldreview.com/tony/snow081204.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974241 | 567 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Double-Edged Sword of Drug Marketing
August 9, 1999
Web posted at: 12:14 p.m. EDT (1614 GMT)
by Jeffrey P. Kahn, Ph.D., M.P.H.
University of Minnesota
You can't open a newsmagazine these days without finding pages of glitzy ads for prescription drugs. Drug marketing directly to consumers has exploded over the past few years: A reported $1.3 billion was spent on such advertising in 1998, more than double the amount spent in 1996. This may seem logical for a culture that has come to expect overstated claims for products and advertising pitches that rely on sex appeal, but for some it is going too far. Should prescription drugs be marketed like cars, beer and shampoo? Or are they a special kind of product that demands special treatment in the marketplace?
Pharmaceutical advertising combines medical information for the lay public with images of a healthy and carefree lifestyle. There are photos of smiling, vital people and colorful hot air balloons, along with pages of text -- both basic information in normal-sized type as well as paragraphs of medical indications, side effects and disclaimers in microtype.
The information in these ads does a service in addition to encouraging patients to ask doctors about specific drugs. It educates consumers about the latest developments in drugs for particular illnesses and provides information about what patients can expect when receiving certain treatments. This information must be accurate to do its job, however; and the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been reprimanding drug companies for creating ads with misleading and even false information.
The FDA continually identifies violations of federal drug advertising rules, citing everything from benefits yet to be proven for a drug for osteoporosis to contraceptive ads that "virtually ensure that consumers will have trouble fully comprehending any of the information."
Can doctors keep up?
Besides needing to stay as informed as their patients about the latest drugs, doctors must now untangle whatever misconceptions are created by ads or convince a patient that a newly released drug is not the panacea it's claimed to be. Patient education is certainly part of what physicians ought to do, but it is already difficult in an era of shortened patient encounters without the need to undo what Madison Avenue has worked so hard to accomplish.
Created demand meets constrained costs
There is significant pressure on drug companies to promote their products, particularly new drugs that have been brought to market after expensive research and development. These drugs need patients to take them and health plans to pay for them, and the combination is bound to create tension, especially as prescription drugs become the focus of continued increases in health care costs. It used to be that physician expertise was about all that decided how drugs were prescribed, and so drug companies would do what they could to influence a physician's mind. But now better informed and more demanding consumers ask for specific drugs and may refuse to accept generic substitutes. As managed care organizations implement drug formularies that restrict what can be prescribed, both physician and patient demands will be increasingly harder to satisfy.
More information about prescription drugs is a good thing -- it can keep patients better informed and help physicians deliver better care. But information in drug advertisements must be correct, understandable and useful. Our society is so used to ads for everything from chicken soup to attorney services that it seems natural to learn about prescription drugs in the same way. But the stakes are higher with prescription drugs, and so should be the standards by which they are sold.
There has been an explosion of prescription drug marketing directly to consumers over the past few years, with a reported $1.3 billion spent on such advertising in 1998, more than double the amount spent in 1996. Should prescription drugs be marketed just like cars, beer and shampoo, or are they a special kind of product that demands special treatment in the marketplace?
Post your opinion here.
"Ethics Matters" Archive
where you'll find other columns from Jeffrey Kahn
on a wide range of bioethics topics.
"Ethics Matters" is a biweekly feature from the
Center for Bioethics and CNN Interactive.
LATEST HEALTH STORIES:
China SARS numbers pass 5,000
Report: Form of HIV in humans by 1940
Fewer infections for back-sleeping babies
Pneumonia vaccine may help heart, too | <urn:uuid:ecb26cf0-d864-4f71-9e39-0a19489b45b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/bioethics/9908/drug.marketing/index.html?_s=PM:HEALTH | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954079 | 887 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A small rush of Sungrazing Comets! October 21st, SOHO-208 discovered by M.Oates. Very faint. October 22nd, SOHO-209 discovered by M.Boschat. Bright with nice tail. October 24th, SOHO-210 discovered by J.Danaher. Fairly bright. In C3 now!
00:26 UT S East CME in progress. Narrow jet-like event. Much continued outflow. 21:26 UT S East Small blob event during outflow of earlier CME. Continues to outflow afterwards.
02:06 UT NN East Rising loops over limb, slow, small. No emission. 04:26 UT S East Rising loops over limb. Same SE region, slow. Multiple interior cores. | <urn:uuid:065ac5ad-218f-4aa2-a01a-771cd5325908> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/lasco/observations/status/Daily_Observations/archive/2000/obs20001024.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939075 | 166 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Starting Aug. 1, the owners of many for-profit businesses are being forced to pick between violating their beliefs and paying stifling fines as the federal contraception mandate goes into effect.
This initial implementation of the mandate “marks the beginning of the end of religious freedom in our nation,” said Christen Varley, executive director of Conscience Cause, a nonpartisan advocacy organization that works to defend religious freedom and conscience rights.
In a statement released shortly before the mandate was scheduled to go into effect, Varley explained that as of August 1, many employers would be faced with the “unimaginable choice” of denying their faith or paying crippling fines that could put them out of business.
She stressed the need for Americans to “stand up and make our voices heard,” saying that if we do not, “it is only a matter of time before our other liberties come under direct assault.”
The first day of August marks the initial implementation of a controversial federal mandate that requires employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and early abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their religious beliefs.
The mandate has not yet taken effect for non-profit organizations that do not currently provide this coverage due to their religious beliefs. A temporary “safe harbor” has been granted to these groups, delaying the implementation of the mandate for them until Aug. 1, 2013.
Although the federal government has promised an “accommodation” for these religiously-affiliated organizations, this promise has not yet materialized, and various suggestions put forward by the administration have been criticized as being inadequate to fully protect religious freedom.
For-profit private employers, however, do not qualify for the one-year "safe harbor” and are fully subject to the mandate as soon as they begin or renew an insurance plan anytime on or after Aug. 1, 2012. Failure to comply with the mandate results in fines of $100 per day, per employee, which could add up to millions of dollars annually for some companies.
On July 27, a federal judge in Colorado granted a temporary injunction for Hercules Industries, blocking the mandate from being enforced against the Colorado-based manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning units.
Although hailed as an important victory, the injunction is temporary and does not apply to any other companies.
Andy Newland, vice president of Hercules Industries, said that the mandate seemed to contradict the idea of America as “a country that was created for freedom from religious persecution.”
“For anyone who has been asked to compromise their principles, frustration is an understatement,” he said. “We’ve put 50 years into building a company with a sound history and a strong legacy. The government says either we compromise what we believe, or we pay a fine.”
Newland argued that preventing family businesses from running their companies according to their morals and principles is “a dangerous slope to start going down.”
“We’ll end up with businesses operating with no ethical or moral principles at all,” he said.
Hercules Industries is one of more than 50 plaintiffs that have filed lawsuits challenging the mandate.
While these lawsuits will continue to move forward in the courts, proponents of religious liberty warn that the current implementation of the mandate only solidifies the idea that for-profit employers can be forced to act against their religious convictions.
“August 1st will be remembered as the day our most cherished liberty was thrown in a government dumpster and hauled away,” said Matt Smith, president of Catholic Advocate, a non-partisan group that encourages Catholics to be faithful to Church teaching through their political activity.
“While the courts have provided a reprieve for one family business in Colorado, the government will never be able to repair the broken conscience of thousands of others until this mandate is removed,” he said.
Tags: Contraception mandate | <urn:uuid:8a69c94d-ae27-469a-96a6-127a5a8e369b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/contraception-mandate-takes-effect-for-businesses-without-safe-harbor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963842 | 814 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Sometimes I think that the BBC is FOX news the other side of the pond. It is hardly surprising that Putin has begun to react to US and NATO aggressive policy that has surrounded Russia by bases in former satellite countries and also allowed them to join NATO. Imagine if Russia had bases with missiles etc. in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and St. Pierre and Miquelon! It is OK for NATO to put missiles near Russian borders but not OK for Russia to provide Iran air defences against an attack by the US or US plus allies.
Putin's speech: Back to cold war?
By Rob Watson
BBC defence and security correspondent, Munich
Mr Putin said the US "has overstepped its borders"
The Munich security conference was born in the 1960s - the height of the Cold War. Forty years on, there been talk of a new chill.
Given the tone and content of Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the gathered defence ministers, parliamentarians and pundits, it is not, perhaps, hard to see why.
Warming quickly to his task after only the briefest of greetings, President Putin accused the US of establishing, or trying to establish, a "uni-polar" world.
"What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master," he said.
'Formula for disaster'
President Putin continued in a similar vein for some time.
In today's multi-polar world, there is no place for needless confrontation
US Senator John McCain
"The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," he said.
It was a formula that, he said, had led to disaster: "Local and regional wars did not get fewer, the number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no kind of restraint - a hyper-inflated use of force."
The US has gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them", Mr Putin said.
With the new US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and several US congressmen sitting in the audience, he called for the reconsideration of the whole existing architecture of global security.
But he did not win over his audience.
Several delegates did not like his rather brusque brushing off of questions about Russia's own commitment to democracy and his defence of Moscow's decision to sell an air-defence system to Iran.
Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer described President Putin's speech as "disappointing and not helpful". And there was similar reaction from the president of Estonia and others.
But it was left to US Republican senator and presidential hopeful John McCain to lead the retort.
Today's world, he said sternly, was not uni-polar, adding that it was an autocratic Russia that needed to change its behaviour.
"Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions at home and abroad conflict so fundamentally with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies," he said.
"In today's multi-polar world, there is no place for needless confrontation, and I would hope that Russian leaders understand this truth," Senator McCain said.
Spotlight on Moscow
Afterwards in the corridors there were dark mutterings by some about a new Cold War.
Others were less gloomy, dismissing President Putin's performance as one of Russia's periodic bouts of letting off steam at its diminished world status.
But it has made an impression.
For the last few years, as one observer suggested, it was the former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who was the man everybody loved to hate at this conference.
President Putin's performance has single-handedly switched the spotlight from the US to Russia. | <urn:uuid:1bb1fd6f-90aa-4774-a9b0-1a99a943c708> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/2007/02/cold-war-starts-again.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97694 | 812 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The International Journey – Bringing Continents Together Through Kenpo
“On Saturday, August 11, 2001, Chuck Sullivan and I watched the sun rise in the east as we embarked on our four-hour drive to Las Vegas in a rented Lincoln Town Car. Although the car’s seats were comfortable, the car was practically riding on its frame, making the ride feel more like an Old West stagecoach or maybe even a buckboard. The problem was that we had loaded a hundred cases of the recently published The Journey: The Oral Histories of 24 of the Most Proficient american Kenpoists of Today into the car’s trunk, backseat, and onto both floorboards.”
Thus begins the Preface to The International Journey: The Biographies of 28 of the Most Proficient Kenpoist of Today by Tom Bleecker. This is Tom’s second Journey book. This new book includes Honorees from the United States, Europe, and South America. The main purpose of the book is to bring together two Kenpo communities that have been separated for fifty years by the Atlantic Ocean.
The honorees in this book were nominated and selected by a group of Kenpo Seniors from the United States and abroad. The main requirement the Honoree’s had to meet for inclusion in the book was their strong participation in the American Kenpo community which means they “actively supported the camps, seminars, tournaments, and fundraising events of other Kenpo instructors and their associations.”
Many of the Honorees from the original The Journey book were included in the new The International Journey book because they have much more to tell about their Kenpo journey’s. These Honorees also address subjects that are unique to them. Many people from Ireland are included in the book because, “through John McSweeney, Ireland became the mother ship of Kenpo in Europe and South America.”
The ranks of all Honorees in the book are respected, but the author has chosen to minimize the discussion of rank to avoid controversy, as the central purpose of the book is to bring the vast Kenpo communities closer together as family.
The honorees included in this book speak different languages and live in very different cultures, so Mr. Bleecker has chosen to write the narrative of The International Journey in a uniform, single voice. “The content of the profiles are the life experiences and the beliefs of the Honorees”. It is Tom Bleecker’s desire that everyone experience this book as members of a close knit family and therefore people are often refereed to without formal titles. No disrespect is intended.
The International Journey includes the following Honorees, all who have made a significant contribution to American Kenpo and to the American Kenpo community:
United States Honorees
South American Honorees
“Read the stories in the two Journey books. Learn how the Honorees achieved their status and rank in Kenpo. Find the names of people you have only heard about, but may never meet. In this way, you will become truly part of the ‘bigger picture.’ Examine the trials and tribulations that they had to confront. I will wager that the stories of these Honorees are much like your story.” – Sigung Stephen LaBounty | <urn:uuid:cb2593c0-7fab-45e6-bfa5-f58e22cf6680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldwidedojo.com/martial-arts-resources/the-international-journey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949609 | 695 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Rome News-Tribune’s annual Make a Child Smile Ball Drive hopes to remedy that.
In its fifth year, the drive aims to provide a brand new sports ball for every child who visits the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Georgia regularly.
This is done through donations and from schools, businesses and the public.
“These donations make a big difference to the kids,” said Jesse Demonbreun, the club’s South Rome Unit Director. “A long time ago, this organization was able to provide small gifts for the kids but the numbers have outgrown our ability to do that. It’s likely that many of them won’t be getting a lot this Christmas. So through this ball drive, not only can we give them something but it’s something that will encourage them to be active.”
The Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Georgia provides a safe place for children throughout the community to learn and grow after school. Their experience there includes a healthy snack and the opportunity to do homework under the guidance of adult counselors. The children also are able to participate in art and fitness classes as well as character development and community service programs.
“We have a staff and we also have volunteers that come pretty routinely,” Demonbreun said. “The kids can participate in different activities, play in the game room and the gym and we also run some educational programs of our own — for example, dealing with peer pressure, bullying and nutrition.”
Demonbreun said the South Rome Boys and Girls club is visited by about 165 kids each day while the West Rome club averages around 140 each day. There is also a club in Cedartown which averages around 50 kids each day.
The goal of this year’s drive is 400 balls. The Rome News-Tribune is also asking community members to donate unwrapped basketballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, rubber balls, footballs and volleyballs.
There are drop-off locations at the West Rome IGA, Owens Hardware, Citizens First Bank and the Rome News-Tribune. Organizers hope individuals and businesses will help ensure that all the kids who visit the Boys and Girls Club will have a ball this Christmas.
“A lot of these kids don’t typically own any of their own sports equipment,” Demonbreun said. “To be able to give them something of their own that they can claim ownership of is a great thing.”
He added that in the past, the community’s generosity has allowed for a surplus of balls which are distributed to the clubs themselves for use on a daily basis.
The deadline for dropping off donations is Dec. 14. For additional information about the ball drive or to arrange for pickup or large donations, email Cecilia Crow at email@example.com or call 706-290-2296.
“I don’t think people realize what a basketball or a football or a soccer ball means to some of our kids,” Demonbreun said. “Every year we’ve been the recipient of this you can tell those kids who are blown away by it. They say ‘I get to keep this?’ You can tell it makes a difference to them that somebody is thinking about them.”
Rome News Tribune, 305 E. Sixth Ave.
Owens Hardware, 116 E. Second Ave.
West Rome IGA, 610 Shorter Ave.
Citizens First Bank, 701 Broad St. | <urn:uuid:e3b80f65-ec49-47b2-bd49-feaa1d03b56e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.romenews-tribune.com/view/full_story/20860773/article-A-Smile-for-Every-Child--Ball-drive-organizers-hope-to-collect-hundreds-of-sports-balls-and-distribute-them-to-children-at-the-Boys-and-Girls-Club?instance=home_news_lead_story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955618 | 736 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Visit by the Commissioner for Children at San Andrea School
In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly started the United Nations Children's Fund to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries devastated by the Second World War. In 1989 UNICEF started the Convention on the Rights of the Child, legally binding countries to safeguard the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. In 1990 its protection was spread to Maltese children with the ratification of the Convention.
In order to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Convention, the Commissioner for Children in Malta and her staff started a major project called 'Guginu's Tour' in order to explain to the children their rights according to the Convention in a child-friendly manner. On the 25th of November Guginu's Tour visited San Andrea School, giving the students of Early and Middle School the opportunity to learn about their rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Two Senior School students, Jake and Christian, actually formed part of the group that sang the theme song for Guginu's Tour.
The tour consisted of a trailer that was decorated from the inside with pictures depicting different facets of the Convention as well as a video screening, with the theme song running in the background, explaining to the children what the Convention meant. After the video screening the Commissioner answered the questions the students asked, then a team of talented animators further explained the Commissioner's explanation by means of a short play and a number of games, during which the students could interact with the project's mascot, Guginu the lion.
After the first few presentations the Commissioner for Children came to the Senior School where she visited a number of classes. Accompanying her on the tour of the school were Ms Claire Felice Pace (Head of Senior School), Mr Stephen Briffa (Assistant Head of Senior School), Ms Dorothy Lapira (Head of Early and Middle School), Jennifer Attard and myself, Emmanuel Buttigieg (Captain and Vice-Captain of San Andrea Senior School respectively). The Commissioner also visited the Energy Terrace, where Jennifer explained most of the exhibits there, each and every one of them a student's project. Before leaving, Ms Carmen Zammit signed the school's guest book and left a note of praise with the staff.
By Emmanuel Buttigieg, Vice-Captain San Andrea Senior School | <urn:uuid:1bdbe396-d3ae-4cc5-9e89-628ed3457317> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sanandrea.edu.mt/news-details-senior?l=1&id=41 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956435 | 479 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The first e-mail was sent in 1971 and today, 2.8 million are sent every second. How have inventions changed the way we communicate? Check out the infographic below for some fun facts.
Every day, DVICE selects fresh images, videos and more from the wonderful world of technology. See them all by clicking this link. | <urn:uuid:c1bc5240-a65c-4890-a25b-b415db5dc3d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dvice.com/archives/2011/08/infographic-of-9.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936873 | 68 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Hunger Games effect boosts archery's popularity at Olympics
3rd August 2012 - 3:12pm
The popularity of The Hunger Games and its bow and arrow-toting heroine Katniss Everdeen has seen a marked interest in archery at this year's Olympic Games.
Figures from US broadcaster NBC showed that archery was the most popular sport it aired in the first few days of Olympic coverage, with more people tuning in than watched the basketball or beach volleyball.
NBC sports group chairman Mark Lazarus said that a growing number of youngsters are taking an interest in the sport since the big screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins' novel was released earlier this year.
'The numbers for archery have been nothing less than huge," NBC president Alan Wurtzel told The Examiner.
'It delivered an average of 1.5 million cable viewers, the highest rated cable sport, beating out basketball."
'Maybe it's the Hunger Games phenomenon,' he added. 'We're going to have to keep an eye on that.'
In The Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss is particularly skilled with the bow and arrow, first using the weapons to source food for her family and later using them to battle her opponents in the arena. | <urn:uuid:137a5e36-22f2-46a8-aba2-c24a7b261360> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foyles.co.uk/news/hunger-games-effect-boosts-archerys-popularity-at-olympics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967191 | 249 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Were it not for the tens of thousands of dead and wounded, the billions wasted, and the hatred and terrorism inspired, the report The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction would be almost funny. After all, did we really need a $10 million, fourteen-month, 600-plus-page investigation to tell us that the country was taken to war on the basis of a nonexistent threat? What might have been helpful would have been a genuine accounting of how the system was gamed in order to produce phony arguments and suppress the counterevidence. After all, for all his hurt feelings on display before the report was released, does anyone think Colin Powell would have given radically different testimony to the world at his famous February 2003 UN speech if the single drunken defector who was his main source had offered another perspective, one Powell and his bosses didn't want to hear? What if "Curveball" (or as Maureen Dowd aptly termed him, "Goofball") had echoed what Powell originally knew but conveniently forgot--that, as the Secretary explained in Cairo in February 2001, Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." Would anyone in the Administration have cared what this unreliable drunk said? What of the many, many intelligence experts who warned, pre-invasion, that the data were being manipulated by hawks in the Pentagon and the Vice President's office? Did anyone listen to them?
Bush says today that he would have invaded Iraq even if he knew then what he knows today. This investigation is therefore a farce--designed once again to shift responsibility from the people who demanded corrupt intelligence to serve their ideological obsessions to those who were forced to provide it.
Our political process has become so degraded that the commissioners themselves can admit that they were forbidden from examining the one issue that still matters. As commission co-chair Laurence Silberman explained, "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policy makers, and all of us were agreed that was not part of our inquiry." The New York Times's Todd Purdum noted a passage of the report in which its authors come close to admitting that the problem was not with the providers of intelligence but with the consumers: They complain that the President's Daily Brief was understood to require "attention-grabbing headlines" and that a "drumbeat of repetition," says Purdum, quoting the report, "left misleading impressions, and no room for shadings. 'In ways both subtle and not so subtle, the daily reports seemed to be "selling" intelligence,' the commission found, 'in order to keep its customers, or at least the First Customer, interested.'"
This passage reinforces two important lessons about contemporary uses of US intelligence. One: The First Customer requires his information to be provided to him with "no room for shadings" as they may exist in, say, the real world. And two: In order to get Bush to pay attention, the intelligence had to be cooked up to agree with his beliefs. Given this, we might as well ditch our entire intelligence system, because unless it simply regurgitates the President's pre-existing prejudices, the information it contains will be ignored, rewritten or both.
Much of the coverage of the report--which was, perhaps via divine intervention, drowned out by the deaths of Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II--gesticulated in the direction of this fundamental truth before returning to the agreed-upon story line that Bush was very, very angry about the fact that he received bad intelligence that led him to invade a country that presented no threat whatever and made him out to be a liar to the rest of the world. He was so mad, in fact, that the only person deemed to be responsible for this massive failure, former CIA director George Tenet, was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. (Everybody else involved was punished with a promotion and a raise.)
Yet even in the most critical reports of this phony whitewash, one aspect of this shameful episode went by largely forgotten: the media's willingness to publicize, vouch for and frequently hype the dishonest case the Administration put forth. I am not speaking just of Judith Miller's willingness to act as unpaid propagandist for the Pentagon, breaking the Times's own reporting rules on its front page in order to mislead its millions of readers. Rather, just about every bigfoot in the business signed on for this bad-acid trip across Bushland. I refer again to a devastating study by former Des Moines Register editorial page editor Gilbert Cranberg of the immediate reaction of the press to Powell's channeling of Goofball at the United Nations, which should serve as a cautionary example to any reporter who ever again takes this Administration at its word. Despite the fact that Powell cited almost no verifiable sources and included more than forty vague references to "human sources," "an eyewitness," "detainees," "an Al Qaeda source," "a senior defector," "intelligence sources," his words were treated as if the reporters present had personally witnessed God handing him the evidence on tablets atop Mount Sinai. Powell offered up, we were told in our finest newspapers: "a massive array of evidence," "a sober, factual case," "an overwhelming case," "a smoking fusillade...a persuasive case for anyone who is still persuadable," "an accumulation of painstakingly gathered and analyzed evidence," "an ironclad case...incontrovertible evidence," "succinct and damning evidence...the case is closed."
And yes, this is the same press attacked by Bush supporters as too liberal, too cynical and too "elitist" to give a Republican conservative a fair shake. In a more just universe, the right-wingers would stop whining and give reporters the credit they so richly earned. I mean if the guy in charge of providing all this crappy intelligence deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom, don't the people who parroted it back deserve a little lovin' too? | <urn:uuid:7f4c9a39-7b55-4b6e-88ce-7699d6eace52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenation.com/article/case-closed?quicktabs_most_block=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97841 | 1,261 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Waldo Canyon fire is nearing full containment, but the devastating fire continues to rage through the Pikes Peak-area economy. Motels that are normally full have only a few guests, tourist shops have had to lay off workers, and restaurants are seeing little foot traffic.
The fire, which was first reported June 23, destroyed 347 homes, making it the most destructive wildfire in state history. It burned more than 18,000 acres and killed two residents.
Early estimates place the property damage well in excess of $110 million, but experts say the economic impact will be harder to quantify and will likely reverberate for months to come. | <urn:uuid:070d7362-f04d-4dfe-a5b6-1224353e65b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://denverpost.tumblr.com/tagged/Wildfires | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970187 | 129 | 1.75 | 2 |
Reinvigorating primary care—for providers and patients alike
Curbing costs while meeting patient needs is one ideal driving Group Health's expansion of the patient-centered medical home. Published in Health Affairs in May 2010, two-year findings from GHRI's pilot evaluation of the model's implementation at Factoria Medical Center showed continued improvements in patient experience, quality of care, and overall costs.
But these outcomes are only part of the story.
R. Reid, MD, PhD
"The pilot proved that we could improve not only cost, quality, and patient experience, but also the quality of the work environment," explains Associate Investigator Robert Reid, MD, PhD, a Group Health physician and the evaluation's lead researcher.
Among the most compelling findings are reduced burnout among primary care team members and improved recruitment and retention of primary care physicians. Dr. Reid, who assumed a new role in 2011 as Group Health's associate medical director of health services research and knowledge translation, calls it a "decompression of the workforce that allows them to do their best work."
"It's not that Factoria clinicians worked less under the new model," he says. "It's that they were feeling the work was doable and they were dealing with all their patients' care needs."
This transformation has roots in the "access initiative" Group Health launched in 2002, which streamlined care teams and offered patients same-day appointments, open access to specialists, and secure e-mail with providers. The changes boosted patient satisfaction but created unrealistic demands on clinicians, leading to challenges experienced nationwide in primary care: As our population ages and chronic illness increases, more physicians are feeling burnt out, reducing clinical time, or retiring early.
In 2006, Group Health responded with a "proof of concept" test of the patient-centered medical home at Factoria. The pilot's improved provider outcomes stem from features such as longer appointments, fewer patients per physician, increased non-physician clinical staff, and daily "team huddles."
The key question now is whether other clinics will experience the same positive outcomes. Thanks to a federal grant, Dr. Reid and his research team are eagerly continuing their evaluation.
Findings to date continue to make headlines and draw widespread acclaim for Group Health and for Dr. Reid's research—earning him invitations to speak to legislators, government officials, and health care leaders across the country.
But he says all the credit goes to the dedicated people at Group Health who deliver care day in and day out.
"It’s a partnership," he smiles. "The health care teams across Group Health do the hard work. We just study it." | <urn:uuid:0f2ecc1f-baee-4855-ac02-98f25737a26e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grouphealthresearch.org/news-and-events/stories/MedicalHome-ann-rept-2010.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965469 | 541 | 1.703125 | 2 |
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country's voter lists.
Before, members of these groups -- loosely called eunuchs in Indian English -- were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls.
But now, they will have the choice to tick "O" -- for others -- when indicating their gender in voter forms, the Indian election commission said in a statement.
"Enumerators and booth-level officers (BLOs) shall be instructed to indicate the sex of eunuchs/transsexuals etc as 'O' if they so desire, while undertaking any house-to-house enumeration/verification of any application," a statement from election authorities said.
India, home to more than 1 billion people, has 714 million registered voters.
Intersexual people are seen as a marginalized community in India. Many end up begging on the streets, becoming prostitutes or earning their livelihood by dancing at celebrations.
In July, an Indian court delivered a landmark ruling legalizing gay sex between consenting partners in the country.
The July verdict meant the law -- Indian penal code section 377, which had previously criminalized consensual homosexual acts between adults -- was partly struck down but remains in place as far as forced homosexual acts are concerned.
It was not clear whether the ruling -- which was later challenged by an astrologer in India's highest court -- would eventually lead to legalization of gay marriages in the country. | <urn:uuid:293f2bb5-ff56-44c5-9e16-09d4d7ede68c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/12/india.gender.voting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97075 | 310 | 1.789063 | 2 |
As part of the city's ongoing strategic planning process, the City of Wilmington recently completed a survey of its residents. This allows the city to gather information from its residents about their priorities and the how they perceive the quality of city programs and services.
The survey was mailed out to randomly selected Wilmington households earlier this year and results were compared to the survey sent to residents in 2007.
The results improved in 50 of the 82 areas that were compared in both surveys. Some of the notable improvements included:
- the management of traffic flow on City streets (+11%)
- the enforcement of City codes and ordinances (+9%)
- the management of stormwater runoff (+5)
- the quality of parks and recreation programs/facilities (+5%)
The highest levels of satisfaction with city services were:
- the quality of fire services (87%)
- the quality of trash, yard, recycling and yard waste collection services (74%)
- the quality of City parks and recreation programs and facilities (70%)
- the quality of police services (67%)
Areas citizens want to see the most improvement include:
- Safety and crime prevention
- Street and sidewalk maintenance
- Traffic flow on city streets
The full survey report is now complete. Also complete is a benchmarking study, which compares our city's results with other cities.
View a report of the entire Citizen Survey results.
View the Executive Summary report from the survey.
Read the benchmarking study.
Watch the presentation of survey results. | <urn:uuid:9819c326-2bc5-4f91-99e4-83b740ce18d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilmingtonnc.gov/Home/News/tabid/429/ItemID/438/View/Details/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956563 | 309 | 1.523438 | 2 |
SGI ramping up for big Xeon E5 server push
NASA to push Pleiades super to 10 petaflops
Like everybody else in the server racket, Silicon Graphics is waiting somewhat patiently for Intel to get its "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5 processors out the door, so it can launch a whole new generation of machines. Or, in the case of SGI, several different generations.
Still, SGI has managed to sell existing Xeon and Opteron systems even as customers await the new iron, SGI president and CEO Mark Barrenechea confirmed in a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Tuesday, after the markets closed. He said SGI would be ready to ship the latest Xeon E5 systems for revenue in the first quarter of 2012, coinciding with Intel's expected debut of the chips.
"We are focused on the upcoming 'Romley' infrastructure," Barrenechea explained, referring to the code-name of the chipsets and motherboard features that make up the systems using the Xeon E5 chips. "The transition to Intel's Romley architecture has begun for our entire product line – including the next generations of UV, ICE and Rackable. This transition effectively extends our competitive advantage in shared memory and allows us to enter the highest end of the cluster market, to compete against HP, Cray, and IBM and deliver larger and more efficient clouds."
He added that SGI was prepping the widest lineup of dense-packed Rackable machinery in the company's history to coincide with the rollout of the Xeon E5 chips, and said test systems were already in the hands of customers.
SGI also announced that it is working with NASA's Ames Research Center to upgrade its current "Pleiades" Altix ICE cluster with the forthcoming Xeon E5 ICE machines, which are code-named "Carlsbad 3". NASA has committed to expanding the Pleiades cluster in the first quarter of 2012, and the system will also include 56Gb/sec Fourteen Data Rate (FDR) InfiniBand switching - the fastest available on the market today. NASA Ames is the poster customer for the old SGI (like Amazon was for the former Rackable Systems) and has been a big consumer of the shared memory and cluster systems created by the company over the years.
The plan NASA has put together calls for Pleiades to add another 1,700 compute nodes to the cluster, and boost its raw number-crunching performance by around 35 percent. The current Pleiades machine has 1.09 petaflops of aggregate performance. It consists of Altix ICE 8200EX systems using quad-core Xeon 5400 processors and Altix ICE 8400EX systems using quad-core Xeon 5500s and six-core Xeon 5600s, running at or around 3GHz.
The machine has a total of 111,104 cores. Assuming that SGI has sold NASA eight-core Xeon E5s and there are two sockets per node in the ICE "Carlsbad 3" systems, that's another 27,200 cores delivering around 460 teraflops of incremental peak performance. Over the next few years, NASA Ames plans to expand Pleiades to hit 10 petaflops.
Barrenechea was not in a position to spill more beans on the future SGI system designs, since Intel hasn't launched, and he said nothing about how SGI would employ the forthcoming "Interlagos" Opteron 6200 processor from Advanced Micro Devices in any of its future servers. He did point out that SGI was cooking up an in-memory system that would run standard Oracle or SQL Server databases, rather than specialized in-memory databases like Oracle's TimesTen and SAP's HANA.
In the quarter ended in September, SGI had sales of $178.9m, up 58.5 per cent. Product revenues came to $128.8m, with systems accounting for $110.8m and storage accounting for $18m. Services came to $50.1m. In the quarter, the public sector represented 44 per cent of total sales, and cloud service providers accounted for 25 per cent, with manufacturers accounting for 16 per cent. About 90 per cent of SGI's sales were done directly, and 59 per cent came down inside the United States.
In the quarter, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin were big buyers of SGI wares, and online retailing giant Amazon was the biggie, accounting for 18 per cent of SGI's sales in the quarter all by its lonesome, or about $32.2m.
Even with all that, SGI still posted a $2.7m net loss, although it was a lot smaller than the $11.2m loss it had in the year-ago period. SGI is also burning some cash as it ramps up its Xeon E5 systems, but still has $112.5m in the bank.
To help drive towards its mid-term goal of hitting $1bn in annual revenues, Jim Wheat, SGI's CFO, said in the call that the company had filed a shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow it to raise as much as $100m through the sale of equities or debt securities, and added that it was looking for a big bank to give it a $50m credit line. The extra funds will give SGI leverage to chase new business opportunities and do acquisitions.
Looking ahead to fiscal 2012, Barrenechea reaffirmed SGI's guidance, saying it still expected for sales to fall between $740m and $780m and for earnings per share of between 15 and 30 cents. "Our business is showing resiliency in this period of volatility," he said. "While we are being a little more cautious on expenses, we are not changing our outlook for the fiscal year based on the macro environment."
As for the flooding in Thailand and the possibility of disk drive and other component shortages, Barrenechea said that SGI would "be just fine this quarter" and that it was working to build up supplies, and had certified alternative drives on its machinery. If there is a price rise for disks because of shortages, SGI will pass those costs straight through to customers and they have been warned of this. ® | <urn:uuid:c52a5849-a372-4570-95ab-50785980a2f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/09/sgi_xeon_e5_servers_financials/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959165 | 1,313 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The General Synod of the Church of England rejected a proposal to permit women to serve as bishops. In order to pass, a 2/3 majority vote was required in all three houses: the house of bishops, of clergy, and of laity. The measure passed easily in the first two, and was approved 132-74 in the house of laity, falling just 6 votes shy for 64%. (One wonders how the Supreme Governor of the C of E, Queen Elizabeth, feels about this exclusion of women from the episcopacy. I suspect she is not amused.)
Both the outgoing and the incoming Archbishops of Canterbury spoke in favor the measure, along with 72.6% of the synod delegates. Overall, 74% of members of the Church approve women bishops. Strikingly, the house of bishops voted 44-3 in favor (with 2 abstentions.) According to the Guardian, the house of bishops will convene an emergency session to consider ways to rescue the measure.
Arguably, the proposal was flawed. In an attempt to foster passage, a compromise clause was added that would allow parishes who did not wish to be led by a woman bishop to be answerable to a male bishop instead. The Church has ordained women priests since 1994, but traditionalists have been able to basically ignore them, finding more congenial parishes in which to worship, and the “opt-out” provision would allow them to continue to avoid female leadership.
The tradionalists’ concerns include these:
Consecrating (if that is the correct term in that church) women bishops would mean that traditionalists would doubt the validity of the ordination of priests ordained by women bishops, which strikes me as an odd echo of the Donatist controversy.
Anglo-Catholics also worry that having women bishops would endanger reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. Last I knew–and please do correct me if I’m off-base here–Anglican orders are considered invalid, or at best in a limbo-ish state of doubtful validity, by Rome. So, gosh, thanks for trying to play by Roman rules, but the Vatican doesn’t recognize Anglican clergy anyway, male or female. And of course Anglicans who dislike female leadership are always welcome in the Anglican ordinariate, where something like 60 clergy and 900 C of E members have joined up so far.
Some opponents of women bishops argue that they want to know that their bishop agrees with them that women are unworthy to lead. However, the vote in the house of bishops today should reveal to them that they cannot be assured of that now.
And the other side had issues, too: some supporters of women bishops didn’t care for the proposal either, since it seems to make women bishops second-class bishops because of the “opt-out” provision for dissenting parishes, while no male bishops are subject to that provision.
Given the strong support for the measure from church members and all the ordained, it seems possible that today’s defeat will lead to reintroduction of new legislation with less allowance for those who oppose women bishops, not more. After all, lay delegates are elected, and these are clearly out of step with the laity they represent. We’ll see.
And a final thought: some believe that Church unity requires yielding to the voices of the most conservative. In fact, today’s vote reveals that Church unity is a trickier beast. Today the minority against women bishops set themselves against most laity, clergy and bishops in their own church, and reinscribed a division within the worldwide Communion. 23 women are presently serving as bishops in the Anglican Communion worldwide, including Episcopal Church (USA) presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The most recently elected is Bishop Ellina Wamukoa of Swaziland. It is a sad day for those of us who rejoice at women’s leadership in the Christian churches, but I cannot believe that this is the end of the line for the question of women bishops in the Church of England. | <urn:uuid:fe427c68-ee84-46c3-8ff9-564fb72258ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?m=201211 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978571 | 847 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Throughout my career, I’ve been privileged to work for and with organizations that really cared about the communities in which they operated. All of these companies went the extra mile to do the right thing, and to share in their abundance.
When talking about the industry, I often use the phrase “all e-waste companies are not similar,” with regards to capability. After all, no one company does it all, and by that I mean collecting, logistics, refurbishing, selling, dismantling, shredding and manufacturing co-mingled shredded e-waste fractions into pure scrap grades for domestic metal ingot/slab or ready-to-use poly resins.
A non-profit organization in Minnesota recently hosted a meeting to discuss its work with low-income people in the local community and the issue of the “digital divide.” In describing the meeting in a local newspaper article, Steve Cramer, executive director of Project for Pride in Living, Inc., in Minneapolis, wrote that the digital divide is not “an intellectual concept, but a real-world problem for families trying to find employment, manage their finances, stay connected with their children's schooling, find out where to vote, or perform a number of life's necessities now done chiefly, if not exclusively, online.”
If you let the precepts of sustainability influence your holiday giving, you might find your tastes and tolerance have shifted in ways you may not have anticipated. There’s plenty of joy (and fun) to be had in searching for something that can be re-gifted, something from a local thrift store, something from a local business or artist. An “embarrassment of riches” might indeed feel somewhat embarrassing and the carcasses of a lifetime of consumerism chant “’tis the season to give stuff away.”
Once companies discovered that their brand value depends partly on the strength of their relationship with the communities where they operate, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was born, and philanthropy became a mainstream business practice. Good.
At Habitat for Humanity, our experience has been that the vast majority of our 80,000 homeowners across the country are on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. That’s why we are partnering with Redemtech on Serious Good, an initiative to foster corporate donations of refurbished computers to help people cross the Digital Divide. Through Serious Good, our Habitat homeowners will get the digital tools they need for success in school, at work and in the community.
I was shopping last weekend with my daughter in an antique store, looking for things I thought might make good Christmas gifts. This particular store was part jumble-of-junk, part museum, part yard sale. An antique store is a good place to go if you want to marvel at the pace of obsolescence, and reflect on the good ole days.
Through this forum, we hope to raise awareness of the issues and challenges inherent in managing IT equipment to the highest standards of financial, social and environmental responsibility. We welcome you to join the dialogue. Learn more» | <urn:uuid:a252aea9-4ae6-40f3-bc1b-d4d74163302a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.redemtech.com/2010/12/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954526 | 641 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Long before the recession got under way, more and more major SF authors were resorting to small presses. Story collections, according to traditional publishers, are difficult to market because the general public can't face the hideous effort of dealing with new characters every few dozen pages. Reprints are unpopular too, unless you're in the SF Masterworks or Terry Pratchett class. Publishing wisdom is that readers want a shiny new book, not some dusty old palimpsest unearthed from the forgotten twentieth century.
You'd imagine the SF public would be fascinated by the story behind a film as hugely popular and successful as The Prestige, told by the author of the novel it was based on. Big Publishing thought otherwise, though, and Christopher Priest defiantly set up his own small press to produce this book: the enigmatically named GrimGrin Studio.
GrimGrin now offers four Priest titles – in fact four and a bit – all interesting in different ways. The lead title is The Magic, Priest's own take on the making of The Prestige from his novel of the same name. Have you ever wondered what an author thinks about the brutal dismantling and reconstruction needed to transfer a book to the big screen? It's all here, from his first struggle to write the complex story to a detailed analysis of the movie.
Generally, Priest gives the film high marks despite noting a few plot and motivation problems. He even manages not to be bitter about director Christopher Nolan, who became so infected by the novel's central theme – the obsessive secrecy and jealousy of stage magicians – that he kept announcing: "Don't read the novel! It spoils everything!" Just what every novelist wants to hear.
One thing an author expects from his connection with a successful film is to make a few bob from extra book sales. But the important money-spinner, the American tie-in edition, was sabotaged by the film-makers' refusal to allow any movie scene or image on the jacket. (How Gollancz managed to get around this in the UK is a mystery.) Even though they'd drastically changed the ending, and though the novel has been around since 1995, there was this deep-rooted paranoia about spoilers....
The Magic is a good read, full of thoughtful insights. Learn more about this and the others at christopher-priest.co.uk.
Another much-enjoyed GrimGrin book is the cryptically titled "It" Came from Outer Space, collecting 56 assorted pieces of Priest nonfiction published from 1973 to 2008. Section titles: "Fragments of a Life", "Lost friends and colleagues", "Things that come along", "An Enthusiasm for H G Wells", "Some science fiction", "Writings of War", "Books and Writers" and "Distractions and Occasions". An entertaining, niftily written mix of criticism, polemic, autobiography, weirdness and outright fun ... like the laugh-out-loud anecdote about Anne McCaffrey at an SF writers' workshop, which I daren't repeat here.
Real-Time World simply reprints Priest's first SF collection from 1974 – a mixed bag, though with some notable stories including a gory anticipation of reality TV – and Real-Time World +2 is the same book with two extras that somehow weren't included first time around. To buy them both would hardly be sensible.
Personally I wouldn't have had the courage to publish Ersatz Wines, a collection of still earlier material subtitled "instructive short stories". These are Priest's first attempts at fiction, some never before printed. The "instructive" part consists of a long introduction describing the author's roots as a writer, followed by unsparingly critical "Then" and "Now" commentary about each story's good and (mainly) bad points. It's not often that a notable SF author invites us behind the scenes like this. Ersatz Wines teaches more than you might think about the techniques and problems of fiction.
(Nothing to do with GrimGrin, but I can't resist mentioning the how-to-write-serious-fantasy passages in Lin Carter's Imaginary Worlds, which assure readers that his own hero's monicker Thongor "has the ring of clashing steel", while a good name for a wizard is Herpes Zoster. Well, Priest admits that one editor persuaded him to change a character's name from Arstourd because it sounded somehow rude.)
What about that slightly sinister press name, GrimGrin? Christopher Priest, who's very popular in French translation, has guested at many continental SF conventions and been tickled by how they pronounce one famous British author. Brighton Rock, Our Man in Havana, The Power and the Glory ... You know. GrimGrin.
David Langford delivered a new collection of 85 SF essays, reviews and columns to his US publisher: it's called Starcombing. | <urn:uuid:47694ff3-12d2-4386-8c9d-fead048d47e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ansible.co.uk/sfx/sfx184.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963687 | 1,016 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The world seems to be moving at a fast pace and this farm family is definitely in the middle of the rat race. As a mom, I am always struggling with balancing an active household and providing healthy food choices.
Unlike my forefathers, our family is not self-sustaining. We do not grow everything on this farm that I serve on the table. In fact-at no shock to you- bananas do not grow in Illinois. So, like every person I find myself roaming the grocery store aisles trying to select the right food within our budget for my family.
By nature, I tend to be a big people observer and I do take note as people give me strange looks when I stop to read a label. Especially, in the produce aisle I stop and read the label because I want to know who grew my fruit and veggies. I find it a great score of the day if I can get Illinois Produce in a mainstream grocery store.
However, I too get overwhelmed by Food Labels. In this “information in instant” world, it should not be a torture to shop for my food. In addition, it should not be the next big marketing scheme to start using buzz words in competing for my food dollars: Organic, Natural, No Hormones, etc.
The discussion of food labels is not a new hot topic but an ongoing discussion about what information should really be on the food label.
On Thursday, a nationwide discussion about Food was hosted in Town Hall meetings in Indiana, Washington D.C., California, and New York. Consumers, Farmers, and Ranchers were invited to participate in “Food Dialogues” through Live Webcast, Twitter, and Facebook.
Food labels was one item of discussion that the panel in New York tackled with moderator, Chef John Besh.
I could relate with panelist, Sarah Murray - the author of Moveable Feasts and Panelist - as she shows the audience a three year-old Food Label from the United Kingdom.
This UK Food Label quickly demonstrated to her “How difficult the labeling & transparency issue is”
Murray further explains this label in extremely small print contained a symbol with an airplane indicating the product had traveled from Kenya. For those concerned about Carbon Emissions then the airiplane was a quick symbol alerting the miles the product had traveled. This simple airplane sticker ruffled the feathers because the Kenyan farmers’ livelihood depended on the export of their green beans to the UK. As a result, a picture of women farmer-Elizabeth- and her story was added to the top of the label. All these extra information was addition to the other normal information present on labels.
So this begs the question how much information do you really want on your Food Label? As Murray joked you “Can’t go to the supermarket with a magnified glass” or Biochemistry Textbook.
“People shouldn't have to have a PhD in biochemistry to buy healthy food" – added Dr. Silver, Director of the Office of Science and Policy for New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
According to panelist Dr. Silver, in survey of New Yorkers, 80 percent likes labels but only 15 percent use them.
Everyone should have access to nutritional food at a price that is less than the cost of junk food. Labels can contain all the information requested by a consumer but if they cannot afford that item then it will remain on the shelf.
Many times at the grocery store I would wish for an "easy button" that are present at many tourist attractions. At the press of the button, all information about that food product would be revealed.
So, I ask if Your Food label could talk then what information would you want to hear?
Words that do not require a PhD
Place of Origin (where the food item was actual grown-Illinois, California, Mexico, Kenya)? Grow in ___________ but Processed at _____________?
The Use of Labels-Organic, Natural, No Hormone-with USDA inspection
Labels of Agriculture Practices: Free Range, Grass Fed, Grain Fed
I invite you to leave a comment on your ideal Food Label - Let's Start a Food Dialogue. | <urn:uuid:312a99e1-a4ad-46c4-887d-a45ff4baed9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/livestock/beef/blog/a_passionate_voice/?Year=2011&Month=9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942024 | 875 | 1.585938 | 2 |
A condo in a Summit Avenue Tudor gets a renovation that maintains modern sensibilities while lovingly restoring the past.
As David Heide walked from room to room inside a stately brick Tudor on St. Paul's Summit Avenue, he got the feeling that there might be something hidden behind the drywall.
"We've been in enough of these old houses to know that there should be more decorative detail, richness and history than what we were seeing," said the owner of David Heide Design Studio in Minneapolis.
He was right. His crew uncovered a handsome two-toned brick wall behind the drywall and original terra-cotta and green leaf-patterned tile floor beneath the worn pink carpet.
"The discovery of the brick room, which once was a solarium, brought a commitment of the owners to re-create the missing pieces of the room," Heide said. "And the spirit of that extended into other aspects of the project, as well."
The owners are empty-nesters who decided to move from the suburbs to St. Paul to be closer to their children. The Tudor originally was a single-family home built in 1913 by coal magnate Edward Saunders for $37,000. It was divided into three condos in the 1980s. The couple bought the main-floor unit in 2008 and enlisted Heide to design a smooth-flowing floor plan, make over many of the dated rooms and re-create some of the home's rich character that had been removed over the years.
"They bought it with the intention of renovating," Heide said. "They didn't want to put it back to the way it was, but renew it with a historic sensitivity."
When the yearlong condo project was complete, Heide and his team had not only designed a new layout with a centrally located modern kitchen but also rebuilt the solarium, which was embellished with Arts and Crafts-style brickwork and inlaid tile.
"If old houses don't evolve, they become obsolete and threatened," Heide said. "That's the rationale to making changes that allow a house to be viable -- but make changes in a sensitive and sympathetic way."
Update the 3,000-square-foot condo and create new functional spaces for the empty-nester owners and their visiting family.
The graceful Summit Avenue home had been converted into three condos, which included an added bedroom wing to the main-floor unit. Heide described the condo as a "bland sheet-rocked box" that included pink carpet, laminate countertops, outdated fixtures and gaudy floral wallpaper.
What they did
• Gutted the two bedroom wings and created a new master suite, guest room and office. They tore down walls and reconfigured the main living spaces -- moving the kitchen to the center and repurposing the original cavernous living room into a combined dining room and living room.
• Replicated decorative millwork, crown moldings, art glass and other period details from existing rooms, with inspiration from photos in architectural and historical archives. They also rebuilt the original Jacobean plaster relief ceiling in the living room.
• Designed reproductions of antique light fixtures.
• Installed energy-efficient windows in some rooms, which had to comply with rules from the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission because the home is in the Historic Hill District.
• Put in a heated terra-cotta tile floor throughout the home that was inspired by the original solarium floor.
• Built a new brick fountain in the solarium that trickles water into a copper basin. (During demolition, Heide found a pile of broken bricks in a corner and surmised that the solarium once had a fountain.)
The original kitchen, used by servants in the early 1900s, was relegated to the back of the home. Heide's clients love to cook and entertain and wanted to relocate the kitchen to the space of the formal dining room, which was in the center of the floor plan.
"I struggled with that, because at the very core I am a preservationist," Heide said. "It was a grand dining room with a bay window and chandelier."
Heide's new kitchen is elegant, yet functional, with dark mahogany cabinets juxtaposed with a floor-to-ceiling glass cabinet that replicates the dining room's original silver storage.
The kitchen showpiece is a massive, freestanding mahogany center island accented with a raised top and art-glass sliding doors to store appliances.
"It's a gesture to the original butler's pantry," Heide said. "It also screens the view of a kitchen mess from other rooms in the house."
"There's nothing more green than reusing an old building," Heide said.
His team also salvaged and recycled some materials such as the butler's pantry cabinets, a crystal chandelier and hardwood birch floor.
Other green features:
• Energy-efficient appliances.
• High R-value insulation in newly built rooms.
• Water-saving plumbing fixtures.
• Local materials and craftspeople when possible.
Heide's respectful renovation successfully marries the old with the new.
"This house has a steam shower, heated floors, four different kinds of ovens, built-in refrigeration, surround-sound system in the wall," he said. "But when you walk through the front door, the house bows graciously to its 1913 heritage."
Lynn Underwood • 612-673-7619 | <urn:uuid:af167473-8c96-433f-ba65-b11b9c974042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/130881218.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960366 | 1,149 | 1.5625 | 2 |
May 22 2013 Latest news:
Ben McPartland , Reporter
Thursday, September 9, 2010
DOG walkers, kite fliers and picnickers have all made Hampstead Heath their home over the years – but could woolly farm animals join them in the future?
The sight of the grazing sheep munching the Heaths acres of grass disappeared in 1956 but their return has been welcomed this week by Michael Welbank, chairman of Hampstead Heaths management committee.
Bringing sheep back to the Heath is one of the Corporation of Londons aspirational goals included in their strategic management plan and Mr Welbank believes their place on the Heath should not be confined to a baa-gone era.
You could not have a better grass mowing machine than grazing sheep, he said. They would act as a management tool for the land. There is a lot going for it. When the animals stop grazing on the land then you have to do everything yourself, like cutting the grass. Visually it is also very much in tune with the organic way the area is used.
Mr Welbank admits it may take some time to debate all of the issues before sheep come flocking back on the Heath but managing farm animals is not not alien to the Corporation of London bosses.
Ribblesdown Common in Croydon and Burnham Beeches in South Buckinghamshire both owned by the Corporation of London are already home to sheep and cattle.
He said: You can keep sheep in an area inside electric fencing, you would need a stockman and then we would need to work out how to deal with the dogs. Dogs will soon learn if they put their nose up against an electric fence. It wont kill them of course. We would probably have to lock the sheep in at night. There are all sorts of things to consider but its something we have an aspiration to do and we will get round to it.
At a time when Heath bosses are desperately trying to deal with the amount of dog faeces on the land the prospect of bringing a flock of sheep onto the open space, which is visited by thousands each week, might appear strange to some.
But Mr Welbank said the herbivores must not be judged in the same bracket as their carnivorous canine friends.
He said: Sheep droppings are ok. They are not offensive at all compared to the faeces of high protein animals. It is of a completely different character.
The notion of sheep on the Heath is supported by one of Hampsteads most famous nature lovers Bill Oddie, though the broadcaster did have a few words of warning.
Mr Oddie said: I would love to see it. It would be like something out of a time warp. its not a million years ago that the heath would have been farmland. But whether or not it is a safe thing to do from the sheeps point of view, I dont know. I would love to think people who will visit Hampstead Heath never include those who just fancy a leg of mutton but I am afraid that might not be the case. So I would be concerned about the safety issue.
But the Corporation of London might not be able to count on the backing of Anna Farlow from the Friends of Hampstead Heath group. She said: I thought they were worried about faeces on the Heath. I just think it will cause all sorts of complications. | <urn:uuid:ea054732-cc3b-451b-8241-82ad8aa089f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/lamb_stead_heath_are_ewe_ready_for_the_flock_1_638630 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974356 | 698 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Sir Michael Parkinson, the British broadcaster, has reignited Australia’s republicanism debate, saying that it is “only a matter of time” before the country severs ties with the British royal family.
Speaking at the annual Australia Day address in Sydney on Monday night, he said that the period after the Queen either dies or abdicates would be an “acceptable” time for the nation
formally to sever ties with the monarchy.
“Why should Australia not be a republic? It’s its own country, its own man,” Sir Michael said.
“I find it, in a sense, incomprehensible that it’s not that now. My own | <urn:uuid:1513d837-7cf2-4493-ba56-7d704547fdf4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/australia-newzealand/article2887147.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945802 | 146 | 1.664063 | 2 |
This past week has seen the release of several proposals to address the subsidized Stafford loan interest rate increase scheduled to occur on July 1. To easily compare the provisions of these multiple proposals, NASFAA has created a chart that summarizes the basic tenets of each.
The Department of Education (ED) has posted a draft of the 2014-15 paper version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and other related documents (e.g., Paper Student Aid Report). The documents can be found under Forms and Instructions. ED has also included an Enhancements Summary to assist the financial aid community in identifying change […]
Late in March, a task force of 17 NASFAA members forwarded to NASFAA’s Board of Directors an initial list of 61 recommendations for changes to the Higher Education Act via the upcoming reauthorization. The Board accepted most of those recommendations, although it requested that some be further developed. This article is the first in a series highlighting the […]
"In today's competitive, knowledge-based global economy, a college education is one of the most important investments an American student can make to succeed. It can also be one of the most expensive," Sen. Marco Rubio writes in the Orlando Sentinel. | <urn:uuid:7362ca80-6b3b-434a-9c7e-a98fe34e1a4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jimharrisblog.wordpress.com/tag/amy-moser/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956004 | 249 | 1.539063 | 2 |
From the standpoint of inherent fitness and beauty, this Athenian costume is the noblest ever seen by the world. Naturally there are ill-advised creatures who do not share the good taste of their fellows, or who try to deceive the world and themselves as to the ravages of that arch-enemy of the Hellene,—Old Age. Athenian women especially (though the men are not without their follies) are sometimes fond of rouge, false hair, and the like. Auburn hair is especially admired, and many fine dames bleach their tresses in a caustic wash to obtain it. The styles of feminine hair dressing seem to change from decade to decade much more than the arrangements of the garments. Now it is plaited and crimped hair that is in vogue, now the more beautiful "Psyche-knots"; yet even in their worst moods the Athenian women exhibit a sweet reasonableness. They have not yet fallen into the clutches of the Parisian hairdresser.
The poets, of course, ridicule the foibles of the fair sex. Says one:
The golden hair Nikylla wears
Is hers, who would have thought it?
She swears 'tis hers, and true she swears
For I know where she bought it!
You give your cheeks a rosy stain,
With washes dye your hair;
But paint and washes both are vain
To give a youthful air.
An art so fruitless then forsake,
Which, though you much excel in,
You never can contrive to make
Old Hecuba young Helen.
But enough of such scandals! All the best opinion—masculine and feminine—frowns on these follies. Let us think of the simple, dignified, and æsthetically noble costume of the Athenians as not the least of their examples to another age.
Next Chapter : The Slaves
Back to A Day in Old Athens Contents
The Greek Word Library
Reference address : http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/old-athens-costume.asp?pg=7 | <urn:uuid:cbaebb25-b865-401b-b5a7-36d0b36c0321> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/old-athens-costume.asp?pg=7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939127 | 461 | 1.78125 | 2 |
If you'd like an overview of the "best long fast lenses for action photographers" you could do worse than read this article
over at BJP. As interesting, perhaps, were their words regarding the way glass has to be produced in batches and the way that variations in those batches can actually result in design tweaks as each batch of lenses are produced. For example:
In the case of Zeiss, details have been released in the past showing that 100 units of production lenses will be backed up by 10 sets of glass held as repair components. Because the same glass cannot be repeated exactly, these high-end apochromatic telephotos can only be repaired while this stock lasts. | <urn:uuid:b4b199eb-954a-4064-801c-30d00835bdec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=27421&p=234685 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965832 | 137 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Worshipers usually swallow hard and blink back tears while Jonathan von Dobschutz and other Circle of Friends drama group members mime the passion story. Facial expressions and actions—like exchanging black scarves for white scarves or receiving a hug—tell the story.
“To tell you the truth, it feels so real to me. The black scarves make me scared. It’s like playing around with sin and death. The white scarves remind us of the forgiveness of the Lord. God has to forgive me for lots of things.
“The reason I give them a hug is it reminds us of peace and forgiveness. Sometimes I say, ‘Peace be with you,’” says Jonathan von Dobschutz, who plays Jesus. He has Down Syndrome. Some cast members deal with cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments, or speech issues.
“The Circle of Friends visually represents the body of Christ as it should be—including those with and without special needs,” says Barb Newman, an inclusive education specialist in Zeeland, Michigan.
The traveling drama group is just one example of how congregations across North America are learning new ways to include people with disabilities. Instead of simply creating programs that keep some members apart from others, more congregations are focusing on how to use the gifts of all members in worship and ministry.
“Unwrap each person as a gift from God to your community,” Newman advises.
Fellowship Christian Reformed Church in Edmonton, Alberta, has two young adults, Marlow Witten and Dena Ruiter-Koopmans, who are deaf and have mobility challenges. Because Fellowship has always provided a sign language interpreter, Witten and Ruiter-Koopmans sometimes lead parts of the liturgy. They sign and the interpreter speaks. Witten has also designed art work for a youth service.
At Alberta School for the Deaf, Ruiter-Koopmans performed in dramas and acted as mistress of ceremonies. Since graduating as valedictorian, she has volunteered as a storyteller for younger students there. She shares the same gifts in worship.
“I told a story during children’s story time, using a cardboard model of a church building to show the children that the people are the important part of church. Even if the building was gone—and I collapsed the model flat to show this—we could still meet in another place and continue worshiping God,” she says.
“People at Fellowship accept me just the way I am and encourage me to become involved in story time, nursery care, youth group, and so on. Some are curious to learn sign language. Sometimes the minister will ask the interpreter the sign for a particular word and use that as a symbol for his or her topic…or just for fun,” Ruiter-Koopmans adds.
At Centreville United Methodist Church in southern Michigan, pastor Karin Orr says the whole congregation has learned patience along with a woman who had an aneurysm. Though given a five percent chance of survival, the woman moved from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane.
“Her thinking is way beyond what she is able to express verbally. When she has a prayer request, we’ve become prepared to stand there with a microphone for a long time. But give her the time and space, and she can make profound, gut-wrenching contributions by speaking or in writing,” Orr says.
Members of LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, know that Jonathan von Dobschutz can do more than act. He’s read the 23rd Psalm during worship. He also contributes drawings to the church fair, collects visitor registers after church, and serves at luncheons for college students.
The conviction that God gifts every member flows naturally into supporting members in using their gifts. “Fellowship actively seeks involvement from all members in all aspects of worship planning, the worship service, and member care. All members are valued for their contributions, period,” says Linda Ruiter, Dena’s mom.
She and her husband, Dave Koopmans, say their small congregation never questioned the cost of hiring an interpreter or building a ramp to the front of the sanctuary.
How do you discover what a person needs in order to use his or her gifts in worship? The answer is embarrassingly simple.
“Just ask,” advises Jake Heerema, minister of pastoral services at Hope Network, which helps Michigan churches to value and include people with disabilities. He recommends documenting how a person’s disability creates problems, needs, and opportunities. In fact, St. Luke African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is updating each member’s profile—so leaders know which people have which needs.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, also in Grand Rapids, recruits members and college students to mentor parishioners who have disabilities ranging from severe rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson’s disease to ADHD. “One of our members with cerebral palsy recently read a Scripture lesson. We spent time practicing with her, and it was amazing how easy she was to understand when she was relaxed. It was wonderful for all of us,” says Cindy Nawrocki, a St. Andrew’s pastor.
Autistic members of St. Andrew’s usher, help with vacation Bible School, and distribute communion. When a 52-year-old autistic woman wanted to be in children’s choir, the director invited parents to sing alongside kids, so the woman would have other adults singing with her. Another man with autism gives an annual concert by playing his favorite CDs.
Centreville United Methodist has a choir member with Alzheimer’s. His wife confided to the choir director that her husband, conscious of his losses, gets extremely embarrassed when corrected. So the director is flexible with him. “We don’t count on him for solos, because he may be great in rehearsal and then forget to come on Sunday. We are grateful for whatever contribution anyone can make,” Karin Orr says.
Happiness expert David Myers has found that even after a life-changing accident or illness, most people adjust and return to their former level of happiness. And the whole congregation feels good to share worship planning and leading with people who have disabilities.
Living with a disability—or loving and living with someone who has one—adds layers that may enrich life or drive one closer to God. Disability often also involves sorrow, wistfulness, uncertainty, frustration, logistical difficulties, continual energy drain, and financial hardship. Parents grieve the transitions, such as high school, dating, or college, that put children further out of sync with age mates.
“You can’t compartmentalize worship and life,” Karin Orr reminds people. That’s why it’s so important to give those with disabilities, and their caretakers, the chance to tell their stories. It’s also important to offer respite care.
In a talk she gave during a Disability Awareness Sunday at Centreville United Methodist, Michele Cripe said members can be aware of and accept someone’s disability without really understanding it. She explained what she and her husband had learned about how cognitive mental impairment and sensory integration dysfunction affect their young son Alex.
“Alex is a challenge and many days we don’t know how we will get through or—at the end of the day—how we did it. Yet we can’t imagine Alex any other way. He is a gift from God.
“And I do want you to know that he is as close or closer than any of us to God. He is obsessed with the solemn head of Christ pictures in our house and loves making thesign for Jesus. He loves to pray at dinner and at bedtime. After we pray, he says his prayer, which is so simple: ‘Thank you…sign for Jesus…Amen,’” Cripe said.
Orr says going through Stephen Ministries training helps members seek out people who isolate themselves when depression, bipolar disorder, or other mental illnesses worsen. “It’s a ministry of presence, of being there. By your presence and who you are, you are saying, ‘This is who God is, Immanuel, God with us,’” she explains.
Reading what other churches already do may jumpstart your ideas on how to raise awareness, erase barriers, and make it easier for people with disabilities to share their gifts in worship and church life.
Leo Ferguson, deacon at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, uses “worship inclusion boxes” in the church bulletin to raise awareness and make all feel welcome.
Here are two recent examples:
Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan formed a worship inclusion task force to look at what’s in place, set goals, and keep members informed. They have a wheelchair accessible entrance, pews that accommodate wheelchairs, hearing aids, and large print bulletins at each entrance. They’re working toward a transportation ministry and mentor system.
Barb Newman, an inclusive education specialist in Zeeland, Michigan, says focusing on the individual works better than trying to create a special program for specific types of disabilities. “We are ALL a package of unique gifts and needs. Inclusive worship happens when you factor in everyone’s gifts with everyone’s needs.
“Start by delighting in each person. Get to know them. Provide places where they can use their gifts — and provide modifications for their needs.
“Johnny, who has Down Syndrome, may need extra support in the Sunday School class. He may also be gifted in prayer and willing to meet and pray for a list of people each week. Megan, an adult who has autism and difficulty in crowds, may need a separate coffee area in a quiet setting. She may also be gifted in computers and able to create and use a library check-in system that others may only have dreamed about,” Newman says.
In Edmonton, Alberta, Dena Ruiter-Koopmans spent her first eleven months in the hospital. Fellowship Christian Reformed Church provided countless meals for her parents, Dave Koopmans and Linda Ruiter. Fellowship deacons set up the Dena Fund—and invited area churches to contribute—for help with extra expenses associated with health care, medical equipment, and lost work time.
The fund has since been renamed Partners in Disability and is available to Christian Reformed families throughout greater Edmonton. “Our church still holds regular collections for the fund. It certainly meant the world to us when we desperately needed it,” Linda Ruiter says.
Brookside Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, formed a G.L.U.E. team, which stands for Giving Love Encouragement and Understanding. People at church take turns providing care for people with disabilities, giving caretakers and families a much-needed respite, whether for a few hours or a weekend.
Truly getting to know people with disabilities leads naturally to advocacy, according to Jake Heerema, minister of pastoral services at Hope Network in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Many people with disabilities do not have cars or cannot drive so depend on public transportation. That’s why many congregations have joined an ecumenical advocacy group calledFaith in Motion.
After all, paying attention to transportation issues not only shows that your church cares about including everyone. It also may bring new people with disabilities to your church.
Bill Gaventa, an expert on faith and disability, often speaks about how churches move through a progression of how they relate to people with disabilities. “Gaventa’s idea of apart-for-with-by fits with what I’m learning about churches,” Jake Heerema says.
Churches start by keeping the ones with disabilities apart, not really including them in the life of the church and community. Some begin ministry “for the disabled,” which can be paternalistic. Next comes ministry withpeople who have disabilities.
“Moving to ministry by those with disabilities requires a ministry and mission based on deep trust in all God’s people,” Heerema says.
Many congregations haven’t thought much about worship and disability. That’s because, according tonational studies, more than 80 percent of people with disabilities don’t attend church. They worry they won’t be accepted. And they face physical or social barriers to fully participating in church worship, study, service, and leadership.
Gradually, some congregations are wondering what they are missing out on by not including more people with disabilities. Thornapple Evangelical Covenant Church in Cascade Township, Michigan, is building a home next to the church for people with disabilities and profound mobility issues. “They want residents to have ready access to the life of the congregation,” Heerema says.
Steve Datema, pastor of Spring Lake Christian Reformed Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, volunteered at a nearby Hope Network home for adults with developmental delays. He became friends with several, inspired his church to form a Friendship program, and many residents have joined the church.
“True worship is the way the congregation lives together and models being brothers and sisters in Christ,” Heerema says.
Get ideas you can use from Barb Newman’s books: Autism and Your Church: Nurturing the Spiritual Growth of People with Autism Spectrum Disorders (available from Faith Alive Resources), The Easter Book, Helping Kids Include Kids with Disabilities.
Contract with Barb Newman to do an individual education plan (IEP) for special needs children in your church education program. Consult with Judi Warner on how your church can form a support or respite team for people and families that deal with disability. You can reach them both through CLC Network, (616) 245-8388. Or use this Mennonite questionnaire to ask parents how to best include their child in church school or youth group.
Improve your inclusive worship ability by acting on resource lists compiled by Boggs Center on Developmental Disability, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Congregational Resources, Faithability, and the United Church of Christ.
Jim Vanderlaan, a blind pastor and head of Disability Concerns, a Christian Reformed agency, preaches in many churches. His presence reminds worshipers that disability doesn’t disqualify someone from leading worship. Check out audio and Braille versions of Scripture, hymnals, and concordances. Read Rev. Vanderlaan's sermon "People with Disabilities Dine with Jesus" (Luke 14:12-14).
David Myers says it’s easy for churches to use hearing loop technology for those with hearing loss.
Disability Is Natural explains how to look at everyone more inclusively. National Organization on Disabilitypublishes That All May Worship: An Interfaith Welcome to People with Disabilities and sponsors regionalworship conferences.
Consider reviewing relevant books about living with disability for your church library, and include quotes from church members familiar with this disability in your review.
These questions will get members talking:
What is the best way you’ve found to include more people with disabilities in worship—including planning and leading worship? | <urn:uuid:9d93020b-daa4-45f7-bb7d-910a57f25111> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/all-god-s-children-have-gifts-disability-and-worship/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960038 | 3,223 | 1.835938 | 2 |
|Posted by hj on January 19, 1999 at 00:34:18:|
|In response to Re: Price Pfister Shower Problem|
Assuming it was designed as a combination tub/shower valve, then the diverter spout probably needs to be replaced. But if it was originally a tub, or shower, only valve, then it does not have the necessary restrictor installed. In that case there is no solution to the problem.
: I have a Price Pfister faucet and shower installed in a bathtub, and when I turn on the tub faucet, water comes out of the shower head as well. There is little pressure coming out of the shower, but plenty of water runs out. When I pull the diverter, the shower works properly, and water does not come out of the faucet, but when I push the diverter back down, water continues to run from the shower head. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
|Replies to this post|
|There are none.| | <urn:uuid:9ccd76a8-3ab1-4674-9f81-52e9bf49b4fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://terrylove.com/wwwboard/messages/2578.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961316 | 217 | 1.601563 | 2 |
(Screen capture from the movie Dasepo Naughty Girls/다세포소녀. Source: martin francisco)
“Koreans are conformist because of their Confucian heritage…yada yada yada”
Even though I’ve chosen to live in Korea a long time, like most expats I often find it to be a frustrating and exasperating place sometimes. That’s not necessarily a criticism, and indeed this love-hate relationship may even be part of it’s charm — certainly my adopted hometown of Auckland, New Zealand, never aroused such strong emotions in me. On the other hand, it does lead to so many one-liners about the place, endlessly repeated by fresh rotations of expats.
But are they always wrong? Don’t some have a grain of truth? To answer, let me examine one that (frankly) I and probably most readers have made at some point in our stay here, but which I personally wouldn’t have been able to justify before I did my research for this post. And certainly won’t ever be making again.
What I have in mind is your gut reaction to watching the following commercial, about three years old:
(Update, July 2012: Unfortunately, the video has been taken down, and I didn’t save a spare copy back in 2008. Hopefully, the screenshots will still give you the gist of it!)
According to Marmot’s Hole commentator mins0306, to whom I’m very grateful for finding the video, the message the commercial wanted to convey was “What she selects will become a trend. And since she selected a Prugio apartment, Prugio apartments will also become a trend.” Instead, it has inadvertently become of a symbol of Korean people’s conformism, particularly of women’s attitudes to fashion.
But before writing this post, had I been pressed for why so many Korean women seem to so blindly follow the latest trends, be they mini-skirts in winter or getting double-eyelid surgery, I would have mumbled something about Confucianism and the education system discouraging individuality. That is still technically correct, but — let’s face it — most of us blame so much here on Confucianism, but actually know little more about it than what we read in Lonely Planet Korea in the week before we came. But how,exactly, is it to blame? Why?
On the surface, it may not even have anything to do with Confucianism at all. Consider this statement from the 2003 journal article “Neo-Confucian Body Techniques: Women’s Bodies in Korea’s Consumer Society” by Taeyon Kim (details and abstract here; source right — !°jeon ji-hyun):
“For 500 years, Korea adopted Neo-Confucianism as its official ideology and strove to create a Neo-Confucian state by following its precepts as closely as possible. Neo-Confucians believed the body was sacred. Since it was bequeathed by one’s parents, in accordance with filial piety, the body had to be respected and remain unaltered…The Korean aversion to manipulation of the body seems to have been a long-standing cultural principle – only whole-heartedly abandoned in the last few years of proliferating plastic surgeries and various other manipulations of the body. Why has what appears to have been such a strong cultural value been so suddenly and completely abandoned?” (p. 98)
Like I said, I didn’t know that Joseon Dynasty Korea adopted ”Neo-Confucianism” rather than merely “Confucianism” its state ideology either; from now on, I’ll make sure to blame all Korean ills on that instead. But now that she mentions it, yes, I do recall that Confucianism…oops, Neo-Confucianism I mean…did not condone alteration and adornment of the body, which is why it was so dishonourable for men to have their ponytails cut off.
How then, can Korea still be described as “more Confucian than China” when: Korean women adorn fashion and accessories to the point of what Michael Hurt describes as “fetishization;” female friends of mine wear excessive make-up to work upon fear of being fired if they don’t; others think nothing of wearing it to the gym; and Korea leads the world in the number of plastic surgeries made per capita? The notion now sounds absurd.
But Kim goes on to argue that the prescribed Neo-Confucian role of women’s bodies is essentially the same today as it was in the Joseon Dynasty, albeit adapted to and/or warped by democratization and capitalism. I don’t entirely agree with everything she says, but more in degree than in substance, and she certainly does make a decent stab at solving that paradox above.
Because her two-part argument is very long, and I actually have a lot of my own thoughts and ideas to add to her arguments about postwar Korea, I’ve taken the wise (but unusual for me!) decision to split my original 3500 word post on her journal article into two. In the remainder of this first one then, I’ll outline what Kim says about how Neo-Confucianism viewed women’s bodies and their roles, and in the next one I’ll discuss how these adapted and changed to, but ultimately survived, the 20th Century (source. right: natebeaty).
Neo-Confucian Women’s Bodies as Mere Vessels
Before reading the following, bear in mind that only Joseon Dynasty elites – possibly as little as 1% of the population – would have subscribed to the Neo-Confucianism edicts described (Kim does acknowledge this). But the vast majority of Korean women worked on their farms, and were integrral economic parts of the household; indeed, I’ve won arguments with older male students of mine on this point, who thought that “Korean tradition” justified them in literally forbidding their daughters-in-law from working after marriage. I concede though, that they would have remained an ideal.
“To understand the Neo-Confucian body, it is essential to understand the concept of ki. A material force which links the body and mind into one system, ki flows through all things, giving them form and vitality….There is no distinction between the self and the universe. Neo-Confucian men were encouraged to let go of ego and become selfless, that is to have no consciousness of an individual and separate self apart from others….Ki was passed from parent to child throughout the generations, acting as a material link between ancestors and descendants….The family composed a unified body through ki, and the identity of the family and self and family was continuous and undifferentiated.” (p.99, italics in original)
For learners of Korean, this “ki” appears to be “기,” which has a hanja character on p.38 of my Korean vocabularly ‘bible’ that, in addition to “spirit,” also means “air,” “atmosphere,” and “energy.” And for everyone, I admit, at the moment it sounds very similar to a mere family name or bloodline, but those are quite vague concepts at best, whereas ki does sound like a well-thought out — albeit sexist and fundamentally flawed — philosophical concept. Elaborating on it further:
“The force of ki constituted one’s sense of the body and self more than the corporeal body. It followed that the family body, within which flows the same ki,was considered the essential self more than one’s own physical body. The emphasis on non-distinction between self and others produced a sense of self that was non-individuated and fluid, with no boundaries to determine a distinction between one’s family and one’s self.” (p.99)
Hence the Hoju System/호주제, a family registry system, rather than one of individual birth certificates like in Western countries, that was not abolished until as late as this year. Under it, upon marriage, women would be transferred from one family’s certificate to her husband’s family, almost like property. In practice, female divorcees suffered greatly from it because:
Given that it was often required for job applications, it meant that applicants’ marital status was readily apparent to employers. I’ve read, but am not sure how applicable it is now given the high divorce rate, that female divorcees were often discriminated against by employers as a result, ironically at a time when most would have needed employment more than ever.
Custody of children was overwhelmingly awarded to fathers; after all, the women were no longer part of the ki/family.
For those women married to fathers that abandoned their families, divorcing them would mean years of adminstrative problems with children in schools and so forth, as it meant that they were no longer their legal guardians. In Japan, with a similar system, these issues came up with ex-prime minister Koizumi after he divorced in 1982.
Promising to abolish this system was one reason I supported the election of Roh Mu-hyon back in 2002, and while he did prove to be quite a lame duck president, and least this promise was fulfilled. To continue (source, right: theturninggate):
“Neo-Confucian techniques of self-cultivation of the mind and body only applied to men. Women in the Neo-Confucian view were incapable of achieving sagehood and therefore had neither the need nor the ability to strive for transcendence of the self and body. While men produced their selves through the mind (study of the classics) and body (maintenance of the family body through ancestor worship), women were occupied with maintaining and reproducing the family body through the corporeal bodies of the family.” (p. 100)
Koreans are by no means alone in having philosophical or religious beliefs justifying an inferior status of women, but this particular one could lead to some very strange-sounding results. For instance, Kim explains that one study of a villagers in 1990 found that they thought women were inferior to men because they did not carry the ki that men did, meaning that “women were believed to be passive receptacles of the life which men implanted in them; they played no active part in creating life.“
It also meant that beauty and wealth were secondary to possession of the physical traits required to bear sons, and gave rise to an elaborate system of prenatal education known as taegyo/태교 which, rather than the notion of women and child’s health that the word brings to mind today, back then was more the idea of women as bodies rather than subjects or individuals, because “their conduct and thoughts were for the sake of the other abiding in their bodies, and they were valued mostly for the children and labour that their bodies could produce.” Hence, women “were regarded as subjectless bodies.” (pp. 100-101), the consequences, in sum, being that (source, right: simisvetik):
“While [men] aimed to transcend the body, women could never do so – their bodies were too valuable. A man’s mind and ki were considered more valuable than his corporeal limbs while a woman was most valued for her body and its reproductive labour. As a result, efforts were made to maintain sole control over women’s bodies, subjecting them to a protection and concealment that practically rendered their bodies invisible.” (p.101)
Indeed, while the hanbok is much more comfortable to wear and walk around in than a kimono (or so I’ve heard), it’s not exactly a celebration of the female form. Also, this protection and concealment literally meant that elite women’s homes became prisons, as they weren’t allowed to leave: those “traditional see-saws,” for instance, were actually so popular because they allowed elite women rare glimpses of life outside of the walls of their courtyards, and I remember reading somewhere of a woman escaping from her village to Busan during the Korean War, despite all the death and destruction around her actually having an exciting time, as it was the first time she’d left her house in decades!
Next week: Part 2, which will continue the discussion into the postwar period. | <urn:uuid:cc89f957-cf25-4a1f-bd51-10b2fe33c625> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thegrandnarrative.com/2008/03/19/womens-bodies-in-koreas-consumer-society-part-1-their-neo-confucian-heritage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974084 | 2,706 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It's fun to pretend there are supernatural solutions to our problems. Such as:
• Beating the rising cost of gasoline with electric cars that don't carry a lifetime cost higher than the average congressional race, not to mention serious environmental problems in disposing of worn-out batteries.
• Providing affordable health care to everyone in a way that doesn't bankrupt the government, the medical industry, the insurance industry, the consumer, or all of the above.
• Balancing the state budget, without either painful cuts to the social safety net or onerous tax increases that cripple the economy, by returning Maine to the 1990s, when there was plenty of money.
• And raising the standards for honesty and transparency in legislative political campaigns through a system wherein qualified candidates receive taxpayer money to pay for convincing voters to cast ballots for them.
Before any of that happens, I expect to see Santa Claus on my rooftop, free beer during legislative hearings, and Democrats winning all the public offices in Piscataquis County.
Wait, I can hear you saying (I have remarkable hearing ever since making that wish upon a star), those first three ideas may be idle daydreams, but Maine actually has a public financing system, approved by voters back in 1996. Since then, more than two-thirds of all legislative candidates have taken advantage of it, which has resulted in a Legislature filled with devoted public servants of remarkable intelligence and unassailable integrity.
That preceding sentence is true, except for the part between the last comma and the period. For the $23 million this state's taxpayers have spent on the Maine Clean Election Act (also known as the Free Money for Preserving Undeserving and Undistinguished Politicians Act), they've received stretches of mediocre governance, occasionally interrupted by bouts of indifference, ineptness, arrogance, and the naïve belief that fairies were about to wave away our troubles with their wands.
So unacceptable have the representatives and senators who used Clean Election cash proven to be that in 2010, voters threw large numbers of them — mostly Democrats — out of office and replaced them with unicorns. Oops, sorry, I meant Republicans (I was confused by the pointy heads), many of whom, in spite of their aversion to government funding of anything, gladly took the handout because . . . heh, heh. . . they're hypocritical trolls.
Nevertheless, the public continues to support the concept. According to a poll commissioned by Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, an advocacy group for public funding, over 69 percent of the state's citizenry wants to keep on paying pols to run for office. This shows either that the Clean Election law is fulfilling its goals or that the people polled were mostly idiots.
Last month, the GOP-controlled Legislature approved a bill to correct a small problem with the public financing law, namely that the US Supreme Court had found part of it unconstitutional. The justices said giving additional funds to candidates who were being outspent by privately funded opponents violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. So Maine lawmakers stripped that provision from the statute and refused to replace it with some alternative method of allowing extra funding. | <urn:uuid:4b9a5cd2-5981-4eb7-8b04-2548c3a39a87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/136621-magic-money/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964403 | 644 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Madison - The Senate on Tuesday approved a bill backed by many of the state's health care providers that would establish procedures for handling cases of young athletes who have suffered a concussion.
The proposal was approved on a voice vote with no debate and now goes to Gov. Scott Walker.
Amid a packed end-of-session agenda, the Senate also approved a bill to change the makeup of the Milwaukee Area Technical College Board, a move that supporters said would better connect it with businesses and opponents said was a power grab.
The concussion bill would call for the state Department of Public Instruction, in conjunction with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, to develop guidelines and other information to educate coaches and athletes and their parents about the risk of concussions and head injuries in youth athletic activities, including club sports.
"Concussions don't just keep kids out of sports, they can keep them out of the classroom and affect their studies," Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) said in a statement. "This legislation will go a long way in raising awareness and making sure kids' brains get the time they need to heal."
The measure also would require that a person suspected of suffering a concussion or head injury in a youth athletic activity be removed from the field of play immediately. That person would not be able to return to the field of play until he or she has been evaluated by a trained health care provider. The health care provider would have to provide written clearance in order for the athlete to return to play.
Provisions in the bill would protect coaches, officials or volunteers from liability if they fail to remove an athlete from competition, unless there is gross negligence or gross misconduct.
Proponents of the bill, including the WIAA, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, the State Medical Society, the Marshfield Clinic and the Brain Injury Association of Wisconsin, said the bill would save lives. Statistics show that emergency rooms nationwide from 2001 to 2010 treated more than 173,000 traumatic brain injuries involving young athletes, many of them from football and girls soccer.
George Lange, president of the Wisconsin Medical Society, said the bill "not only ensures that youth athletes will receive special attention if a concussion is suspected, but it also will provide vital concussion-related education to coaches, parents and athletes."
The Senate gave initial approval to the MATC bill last week on a 17-16 vote, with all Republicans for it and all Democrats against it, but Democrats blocked a final vote. On Tuesday, the Senate gave the bill final approval in that house on another 17-16 vote and sent it to the Assembly.
The bill ensures that five of the nine MATC board members are business people, but it would not affect the state's other technical college boards.
"There's a feeling that graduates of MATC are not as good as the graduates of some of the surrounding colleges," Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) said in last week's debate.
As he did last week, Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said that 90% of MATC graduates find a job within a year, so there is no need to reshuffle the board.
"This is a bill that stomps on our local control in our community," he said.
If the bill becomes law, the MATC board would consist of one school administrator, one elected official, two at-large members and five people appointed to represent for-profit businesses or nonprofit medical facilities. Seven of the nine members would have to come from Milwaukee County.
The board currently must have one school district administrator, one elected official, three at-large members, two employers and two employees.
A committee of 20-plus school board presidents appoints MATC board members. Under the proposed change, MATC board members would be appointed by a committee of four county officials: the Milwaukee County executive, and the chairmen of the Milwaukee, Ozaukee and Washington county boards of supervisors.
The Senate also debated a bill that would end the requirement that the Department of Transportation do an analysis of whether private consultants are cheaper than state employees when bidding out engineering work. But instead of voting on the bill, leaders sent the bill back to committee.
The Senate also approved on a voice vote a bill to promote visitation between a child in need of protection and the child's siblings. Even if a child receiving protective services is denied visits from his or her parents, the bill would provide that the siblings of the child could have visits with him or her if it's in the best interests of the child and the siblings. | <urn:uuid:a2a1d72a-6dad-4442-a712-9c23cc50c96f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/senate-to-vote-on-concussion-protections-change-in-matc-board-4v4i8e9-142509825.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972536 | 933 | 1.5 | 2 |
Peru is a fantastic country to visit regardless of what you typically expect from your vacation. Rich in culture and offering some of the world’s most beautiful and varied landscapes and scenery, this fascinating country is an ideal location for people who want a little adventure in their lives and are willing to try new things.
On arrival, it is likely that your first experience in Peru will be in the cosmopolitan city of Lima, as there is an international airport situated there. Lima is the capital city of the country and is also the largest city in Peru. Lima offers pre-Columbian temples historic churches, museums, lively night life, spectacular local cuisine and a fantastic shopping experience. This is a wonderful city to begin your journey of exploration in Peru and the surrounding area also has a lot to offer. A short trip along the coast will take you to the world’s driest desert and the wildlife reserves of the Ballestas Islands.
The Peruvian Andes are an absolute must. Not only are they one of the most famous landscape features in Peru, if not the world. They are home to a vast range of plant and animal species that cohabit alongside many human communities. There is also many stone ruins that have been hidden away for centuries that have only in recent years come to light for visitors to the country. This makes the Andes an essential part of a vacation in Peru for trekkers, historians and nature lovers alike. This is a place like no other with a combination of lush forests, volcanic rock, high altitude lakes, grasslands and deserts; some of the most mixed and unusual landscape you will ever come across.
There is yet more for trekkers to enjoy in this astonishing country. No trip to Peru would be complete without completing the Inca Trail. Despite the collapse of the Man Empire after European Colonization, the history of the Incas and the remaining communities are still there to be seen. The Inca Trail will take you to see the historic ruins of Machu Picchu, also known as the Lost City of Peru, which is set high in the Andean Valley in the city of Cuzco. You can also visit the Sacred Valley where you can be dazzled by the ancient Inca sites.
A trip to the world’s highest navigable lake is another necessity during your trip. Lake Titicaca sits at 3820 metres above sea level. The best way to view the lake is by boat. During your visit to the lake you can also visit Taquile Island and Islas Flotantes, the latter of which is built entirely on floating reed. Where else would you come across such a sight? Cruising across the lake will be one of your most relaxing endeavours while visiting Peru and is a great opportunity to take in the surrounding views and is a really special place to visit for lovers of birdlife. It is also possible to cross Lake Titicaca in a catamaran and visit the neighbouring country of Bolivia. | <urn:uuid:df6c3280-6f60-475a-b689-252aefad3607> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newtravelco.com/top-sights-in-peru/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958183 | 606 | 1.679688 | 2 |
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