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Free time is hard to come by in the Anderson family. Leisurely activities and family vacations don't exist. They haven't since John Anderson, an athletics administrator for the Monrovia School District, founded the Olympias Girls Development League 10 years ago.
The year-round girls' basketball camp, which began at Carson's Victoria Park, has become an Anderson family affair. John Anderson and his wife, Shirley, started the organization in 1983 in order to give inner-city girls a place to play basketball outside of high school.
It has grown so much that girls from around the country have joined the league, which the Andersons run out of their Carson home.
John Anderson coaches, plans tournaments and solicits sponsors. Shirley Anderson, an accountant, handles the finances and does most of the paperwork. Both spend Saturdays running clinics at Narbonne High, Harbor College or Cal State Dominguez Hills.
The couple's 25-year-old son, James, coaches the league's younger girls, and his 16-year-old sister, Adaina, is a participant. James is also the girls' coach at Narbonne and Adaina is a forward on the team.
"We basically have a basketball family," James said. "This is what we do in our spare time."
John Anderson says the idea of starting a girls' league developed when Adaina was born.
"My daughter was born in 1976 and I thought, 'Where is my daughter going to play after high school?' " he said. "I've coached in Slam-N-Jam (a spring and summer basketball development league for boys) and I wanted to do the same for girls."
The Olympias league has about 400 participants a year. In addition to their time in the gym, the girls can take courses to help prepare for college entrance tests.
Anderson hires a teacher each year to conduct an eight-week course in the fall and spring. Every Saturday the girls spend two hours in the classroom before going to the gym for four hours of drills.
Each girl pays $95 to be part of the program year-round, which includes an academic course, a team uniform, 10 basketball games and the Saturday clinics. For participants who can't afford the cost, Anderson picks up the bill because he says that is better than turning down a player.
"Funding is very tough," Anderson said. "It costs $50,000 a year to run OGDL. That includes traveling, uniforms, gym rentals, classroom rentals and hiring teachers.
"We take a loss every year. We've never left a kid behind, but we take a loss. If Monrovia fires me today, we wouldn't have OGDL."
Anderson's goal is to help the girls earn a college scholarship. He says about 350 of the players have earned scholarships and 150 of those signed with Division I schools.
Former Morningside High standout center Lisa Leslie (USC) and her Morningside teammate, guard JoJo Witherspoon (Kansas), attended the program. Former Banning High center Michelle Campbell, who will start her freshman season at USC in the fall, was also a member of the league.
"When a girl says 'I just signed with a college,' that's my satisfaction," Anderson said. "They made it academically, but they happen to play basketball. That's what this is all about."
From June through August, the league is strictly basketball. About 60 girls ages 9 to 17 are chosen to be part of eight traveling teams that compete in various events, including the 80-team Basketball Conference International tournament in Arizona Monday through Friday.
Later this month, the 16-team OGDL National Invitational will be staged at Harbor College and two other Basketball Conference International tournaments will take place in Las Vegas. In August, the league will host a five-day tournament at Harbor and Cal State Dominguez Hills for the Taiwanese Junior National team.
"It's a great league," said Melania Kosanovich, a 17-year-old from Buffalo, N.Y., who is participating in the summer program. "I go to an all-girls private school and basketball is different. The game has a faster pace here and the girls are more competitive."
Valarie Ogawa, a point guard at Narbonne High, says without the Olympias league she would have a limited selection of short-term summer camps.
"There's not many options for girls," Ogawa said. "This is great because you play with so many girls that are so talented and you really excel. It helps me tremendously. I know I wouldn't be playing otherwise."
Anderson says helping girls such as Ogawa motivates him. Many parents volunteer with fund-raising and public relations, he says, but his family is the backbone of the organization.
That's why the Andersons seldom have free time. | <urn:uuid:a5af8fa6-cfa1-4390-8b19-d979fa05e6fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/1993-07-11/sports/sp-12404_1_development-league | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974207 | 1,003 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Image from Poltergeist I am pleased that Jason Blake, who teaches English at the University of Ljubljana, is becoming a regular contributor to this website. As an English speaker living in Slovenia, Jason is particularly sensitive to questions of language. In the following essay he triggers memories for me when he talks about how television, [...]
- Literature is as vital to our lives as food and shelter. Stories and poems help us work through the challenges we face, from everyday irritations to loneliness, heartache, and death. Literature is meant to mix it up with life. This website explores how it does so.
Please feel free to e-mail me [rrbates (at) smcm (dot) edu]. I would be honored to hear your thoughts and questions about literature.
Sign up for weekly newsletter | <urn:uuid:c5a30f24-a8ae-4d64-b954-b0a08af43f6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/?cat=2004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938013 | 169 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The university said in a statement Wednesday that the gathering at the student union began late Tuesday night with about 30 to 40 students, but grew within 20 minutes as word spread. Some students chanted political slogans while others used derogatory racial statements and profanity, the statement said.
The incident comes just after the 50th anniversary of violent rioting that greeted the forced integration of Ole Miss with the enrollment of its first black student, James Meredith.
Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones promised an investigation and said "all of us are ashamed of the few students who have negatively affected the reputations of each of us and of our university."
On Wednesday night, about 700 people held up candles and called for racial harmony outside the administrative building at the university in Oxford, countering Tuesday's protest over Obama's re-election.
Police were initially alerted to Tuesday's uproar by people who saw Twitter posts about it. The students were told to leave, but about 100 came back later. One person was charged with public intoxication and another with failure to comply with police orders. There were no reports of injuries or property damage.
Rumors about the situation were fueled on Twitter after the university's student journalists posted a video referring to the gathering as "riots." The student newspaper posted a video of the crowd, but much of what the students said in it is unintelligible other than the "Hotty Toddy" cheer, which is common at football games and other school gatherings.
One picture that spread rapidly on social media shows people burning an Obama campaign sign, but the university hasn't confirmed that the picture was taken on campus. The chancellor said some photos shared on social media showed things that were not seen by police on campus, but the reports of uncivil language and racial slurs appeared to be accurate.
Some students and teachers used social media to condemn the conflict.
Ellen Meacham, an Ole Miss journalism instructor, posted on Facebook that "anyone who calls that a riot has never read or heard anything about 1962."
She was referring to when Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the university on Oct. 1, 1962. Federal authorities deployed more than 3,000 soldiers and more than 500 law enforcement officers to Oxford during the integration. An angry mob started an uprising that killed two white men. More than 200 people were injured. Ole Miss sponsored lectures and other events this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary.
"Now, 50 years later, about 2 percent of the overall student body goes out to protest when their guy doesn't win the presidency and a portion of that small percentage displays the ugly strain that still infects too many in our student body," Meacham wrote.
In a state with a 37 percent African-American population, Ole Miss now has a black enrollment of about 16.6 percent. The current student body president, Kim Dandridge, is the fourth black person elected to the post.
Jones said the campus was back to normal Wednesday.
The university was planning an event for Wednesday evening called the "We are One Mississippi Candlelight Walk" to condemn the protest, according to Thomas J. "Sparky" Reardon, vice chancellor for student affairs. | <urn:uuid:be49e79b-27a7-4281-bdfd-04aeafd50d5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.romenews-tribune.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Election+protest+at+Ole+Miss+escalates-+2+arrested%20&id=20752871 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975976 | 646 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Since the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) instituted a new whistleblower program in 2006, only one award has been made to a whistleblower, according to Mike Hudson from iWatch News. In yesterday’s article, “Red tape, old guard slow whistleblowing on corporate tax cheats,” Hudson explains why the IRS has been so disinclined to give monetary awards to whistleblowers. The primary reason, it seems, is a bureaucratic avoidance to receive help from whistleblowers in the IRS.
A law passed in 2006 requires the IRS to pay a reward of 15 to 30 percent for whistleblowers who report cases of unpaid taxes totaling at least $2 million. However, the lone person to receive an award under the new program is an “accountant of a Fortune 500 firm.” The only reason we know of this award is because attorney Eric Young issued a press release announcing his client’s award of $4.5 million for reporting approximately $20 million in unpaid taxes. The lack of announcement by the IRS may underscore their reluctance to work with whistleblowers.
However, an aversion to whistleblowers may not be agency-wide. The IRS Whistleblower Office “is widely praised by attorneys representing whistleblowers.” Dean Zerbe, NWC Special Counsel, agreed. “The Whistleblower Office is great,” said Zerbe. “But you obviously have people in the IRS and Treasury who, instead of trying to make this program work, wake up in the morning trying to put sand in the gears.”
Cases can also last “six, seven, eight, ten years” according to Donald Korb, the IRS chief counsel when the new program was required by law to be implemented. Before the new program was created, claims took an average of 7 ½ years to issue a reward, according to a June 2006 inspector general report. As Hudson points out, whistleblowers often get stuck in limbo waiting for a decision. Here, there appears to be an institutional deterrent to whistleblowing. Hudson also tells the stories of attorneys and whistleblowers who have made claims with the IRS but have been kept waiting due to the lengthy process. One whistleblower died of natural causes while waiting for the IRS to close the case, but his case is still ongoing with the whistleblower’s widow, according to the his attorney.
Moreover, though the law was passed with the intention of producing better tips, even those coming from persons involved with the wrongdoing themselves, the IRS has tried to set up institutional road blocks to prevent those reports. The law only “disqualifies from bounties any individuals who ‘planned and initiated’ evasion schemes and are convicted of criminal conduct.” However, the IRS policy manual updated last year goes one step further than “planned and initiated” and may disqualify subordinates even if they are not the principal wrongdoer. This could keep those with the best information of massive evasion schemes from coming forward.
Perhaps Korb best summed up the agency’s reasoning. “The Senate Finance Committee just did it. The IRS didn’t ask for it,” he said. But, maybe Senator Grassley, who was the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee at the time, decided the IRS needed the new program because statistics suggested it was necessary. In approximately one year (2008 to 2009), the IRS paid 110 rewards under its whistleblower rules prior to the 2006 law, totaling $5.9 million. On average, that is about $54,000 per award. That is hardly enough to warrant risking your career and livelihood for reporting a tax cheat. However, the amount the IRS recovered in that time span was $206 million, which means whistleblowers only received 3 percent of the recoveries. Not only did whistleblowers only receive pennies for their claims, but the IRS also chose to not share any of the cake with the starving baker.
*Philip Barrett (NWC Public Interest Fellow) drafted this posting | <urn:uuid:0e206ebf-ba69-428b-9b81-34f479533d62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whistleblowersblog.org/tags/dean-zerbe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971053 | 808 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The application of estimation and control techniques in 2 modes of exercise for the spinal cord injured.
PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
Full text available as:
A spinal cord injury (SCI) can result in a loss of sensory and motor capacity, dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system and also in a number of secondary health conditions including muscular atrophy, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.
The impact of these secondary health conditions may be reduced through exercise which loads the muscles, skeleton and central cardiovascular system. A number of new exercise methods are emerging in the field of rehabilitation.
Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a technique for inducing artificial muscular contractions that has been applied to facilitate cycling amongst adults with a spinal cord injury. Preliminary data has demonstrated the feasibility of FES cycling in the paediatric SCI population. The use of an electric motor to provide torque
assistance where required allows the exercise to continue for longer periods and over a wider range of cadences. In this thesis, a feedback control system is devised whereby the cadence can be automatically controlled to reference levels using such a motor, and tested during FES cycling of children with an SCI.
The use of robot-assisted body weight supported devices is gaining popularity in the rehabilitation world. Their application has thus far been focused on rehabilitation of gait via neural re-learning. However, robot-assisted gait can also elicit a significant cardiovascular response and thus has potential as a tool for exercise training and testing. In this thesis, a method for estimating the work rate contributed by an exercising subject is developed and then incorporated into a feedback control scheme where the objective is to regulate the work rate to reference values. This enables specific work rate profiles to be performed during robot-assisted gait as is often required for standard exercise tests and training.
In addition to controlling the mechanical variables during exercise, it is also possible to control some of the physiological variables. A feedback system whose goal is to control the rate of oxygen uptake rate is developed which also incorporates the work rate control method. This allows a predetermined level of physiological response
to be achieved so that the training is of sufficient intensity to promote improvements in physical capacity and fitness.
This thesis examines the application of estimation and control techniques in two exercise modes for the spinal cord injured. The ultimate aim of the exercise is to reduce the severity of the secondary health conditions that spinal cord injured people face. The estimation and control algorithms allow the exercise to be regulated with respect to speed and intensity and therefore have utility in both training and testing applications.
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:ac8b9fce-b2d6-40e5-81c5-d2655834dce4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/185/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933122 | 527 | 1.679688 | 2 |
More homes in Wales to get faster broadband says BT
Nearly 175,000 homes and businesses in Wales are to get access to 'super-fast'' broadband.
It is part of BT's £2.5bn roll-out of 'fibre' broadband with the upgrades due to be completed by next year.
Places covered by the new investment include Wrexham, Newport, Pontypridd, Prestatyn and parts of Cardiff and Swansea.
Business leaders' body the Institute of Directors Wales said access to fast broadband was vital.
BT said its local network business Openreach is driving forward plans to make super-fast fibre broadband available to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.
It said the investment would boost both for leisure users and smaller businesses.
The plan is to create broadband speeds of between 40 and 100Mbps (megabits per second).
The current average broadband speed in the UK is 6.8Mbps.
What it means for users
- A family can download a movie, watch a TV replay service, surf the net and play games online simultaneously.
- The latest chart hit can be downloaded in around two seconds.
- A CD can be downloaded in 30 seconds.
- A feature length HD film can be downloaded in 10 minutes.
It will use either Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology which takes the fibre optic cable straight into homes or the Fibre-to-the-Cabinet technology (FTTC), which is slower because it uses copper wire to connect the street cabinet to users' homes.
"Super-fast broadband will be welcomed by families throughout the area because it will help improve their quality of life and leisure and open new doors through online learning and fast access to information and services," said Ann Beynon, BT director for Wales.
"At a stroke, small and medium sized firms will have access to big business speeds at much lower costs allowing them to find new markets, boost their competitiveness and create new jobs."
Previously there had been criticism that largely rural areas are being left behind, but Ms Beynon said these areas had not been forgotten.
Areas to be covered
- Abergavenny, Bargoed, Briton Ferry, Caerleon, Llandaff, Mold, Morriston, Newbridge, Newport, Pontypool, Pontypridd, Prestatyn, Roath (Cardiff), Sketty, Tonypandy and Wrexham.
"We have always said they will require a partnership approach with the public sector providing access to the new technology," she said.
Even if fibre broadband is not available the company was testing new technologies to improve speeds, Ms Beynon added.
"It's important that as many homes and business as possible have access to fast broadband and its benefits," she added.
Robert Lloyd Griffiths, executive director of the Institute of Directors Wales, said the faster broadband speeds were vital.
"It gives businesses a competitive edge in today's crowded marketplace and provides access to new markets with the potential of new jobs in challenging economic times." | <urn:uuid:2f92b7a6-03b2-4c7a-b0af-6d9da8d64c78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-16131454 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951178 | 645 | 1.5 | 2 |
eGuardian Gains Momentum
eGuardian Gains Momentum
By Colin Durner
With the ever-present threat of another serious terrorist attack occurring on American soil, law enforcement agencies must remain vigilant and resist complacency. The main advantage for law enforcement personnel now, as opposed to before 9/11, is that there are more tools in place to detect and disrupt such an attack from happening. One such tool, eGuardian, has proven an ideal collaborative solution in bridging the gap that formerly existed in the law enforcement information sharing realm.
Information sharing has been discussed extensively at law enforcement conferences and mentioned by several politicians and law enforcement officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General Eric Holder, and President Barack Obama.1 What exactly is information sharing, though, and how was eGuardian born out of such a vague term?
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, reforms began to take place within the American federal law enforcement community. In 2007, as detailed in the National Strategy for Information Sharing (NSIS), the National Security Council under President George W. Bush directed the FBI to share more information—namely terrorist—with law enforcement agencies.2 In this case, terrorism information includes four main categories: specific threats, actual events that already have occurred, encounters between law enforcement and individuals on a terrorism watch list, and suspicious activity reports (SARs), which document observed behaviors that may indicate the preoperational planning of a terrorist attack.3 As a response to the NSIS, the eGuardian system was created, providing three critical functions that are unprecedented in terms of information sharing.
First, the system allows local law enforcement agencies to put terrorism-related information in a database where it has a direct electronic path to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). The JTTF then can investigate the incidents in conjunction with state and local authorities.
Second, eGuardian allows the FBI to share its unclassified terrorism information with the rest of the domestic law enforcement community. In the past, the FBI put all of its terrorism-related reports that required further assessment into a classified, in-house system called Guardian. The only people who could see them were FBI personnel and law enforcement officials assigned to the JTTF. Although the FBI still inputs most of its terrorism information directly into Guardian, the majority of it now also is passed electronically to eGuardian. This system feature directly resulted from receiving feedback from local law enforcement agencies. In fact, many of eGuardian’s new system enhancements, which constantly are being added, have resulted from suggestions received from police agencies across the United States.
Third, information entered into eGuardian can be seen nationwide by all law enforcement entities with system access. System users also have the ability to add information to all incidents. For instance, this would allow a local officer in New York to attach an old police report involving a person who is the main subject of a new incident entered by a police department in California. This type of collaboration within eGuardian can lead to patterns being established and help connect the ever-elusive “dots” with regard to potential terrorism activity.
|The system has
to actively share
information at an
Having Remarkable Success
The pilot program for eGuardian ended in December 2008, and the system was put to the test during the inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 20, 2009. As eGuardian approaches its third anniversary, its success is evident. Using information received through eGuardian, the FBI has initiated over 106 new terrorism cases and enhanced approximately 388 cases already in existence. The system has allowed federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to actively share and exchange terrorism-related information at an unprecedented level.
For example, a woman in California suspected that her son had become obsessed with jihad after he began voicing support for al Qaeda and stockpiling weapons illegally. Based on the mother’s complaint, the local sheriff’s office could justify entering the information in eGuardian based upon the presence of a potential nexus to terrorism. The information passed through one of California’s state fusion centers and to the JTTF. An investigation subsequently was opened.
In another instance, a man was discovered to be in the possession of extensive explosive-making materials after police responded to a report of fire at his residence. The FBI put the incident into eGuardian while simultaneously opening a JTTF investigation. The subject since has been indicted and currently awaits trial.
In the past, quite possibly, no one outside the JTTF would have been privy to either of these incidents until the story appeared on the evening news. eGuardian has changed all that through its collaborative functions.
Sworn law enforcement officers or persons (e.g., a crime analyst or dispatcher for a police department) working in direct support of a law enforcement agency can use eGuardian. However, they first must obtain a free account from Law Enforcement Online (LEO) at http://www.leo.gov. LEO is a secure, unclassified network that not only hosts eGuardian but also is home to many other useful and free law enforcement services and online tools. LEO prompts all potential users to verify their status within the law enforcement community. This is the first check to ensure that only appropriate law enforcement personnel gain access to the system. Users can register for eGuardian access once their LEO account is established. Their law enforcement credentials will be verified again, and they will be placed in a custom account created for their respective agencies.
Protecting Civil Liberties
Whenever a U.S. government system is used to collect information on American citizens or U.S. persons, scrutiny may arise from both the public and the media with regard to civil liberties.4 From the day eGuardian was envisioned, it was apparent to the FBI that there needed to be a robust system of checks in place to assure that eGuardian would protect the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
All eGuardian users must abide by the system user agreement, which contains language specific to civil liberties protection, in keeping with the U.S. Department of Justice’s privacy policies. In addition, all information entered into eGuardian must pass from the entering agency to a state fusion center (or similar approving agency) where policy checks are conducted. FBI JTTF and FBI headquarters personnel also constantly monitor eGuardian incidents to assure policy compliance. Instruction on eGuardian system usage and policy is provided for users via Web-based training.
The eGuardian system began its official program pilot with fewer than 40 law enforcement agencies. After its pilot ended, 95 incidents had been entered and shared within the system. As of November 2011, eGuardian has a customer base of 4,050 individual users representing 1,227 law enforcement agencies. The system contains 10,435 incidents that can be searched, analyzed, and enhanced by any system user. These incidents now come from three different sources: individual eGuardian agencies and fusion centers, the FBI’s internal Guardian system, and the National SAR Initiative’s (NSI) Shared Space tool, which gathers SARs and other terrorism information from 13 fusion center sites across the country.5
The FBI is an official partner of the NSI, a collaborative effort to promote an effective, standardized SAR sharing process.6 The NSI’s efforts are partially reflected in the Web tutorial, which now mandatory for all eGuardian users, addresses the preservation of civil liberties while using an information system, such as eGuardian.
In the future, eGuardian will continue to develop new features that will incorporate geospatial software and allow for even more advanced incident analysis. This continually upgraded technology will aid in discovering trends and patterns of behavior when identifying terrorist threats.
1 FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, “The Importance of Partnerships” (speech presented at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Orlando, FL, October 25, 2009); Attorney General Eric Holder (speech presented at the Bureau of Justice Assistance National Conference, Washington, DC, December 7, 2010); President Barack Obama, “Classified Information and Controlled Unclassified Information,” memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies, May 27, 2010, Office of the Press Secretary, Washington, DC.
2 White House National Security Council, National Strategy for Information Sharing (Washington, DC, 2007).
3 Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment, Information Sharing Environment,Functional Standard, Suspicious Activity Reporting, Version 1.5 (Washington, DC, 2009).
4 American Civil Liberties Union, “Spy Files: More About Suspicious Activity Reporting,” http://www.aclu.org/spy-files/more-about-suspicious-activity-reporting (accessed June 29, 2010).
5 Nationwide SAR Initiative, “Implementation Map,” http://nsi.ncirc.gov/implementation_map.aspx# (accessed February 10, 2011).
6 Nationwide SAR Initiative, “NSI Overview,” http://nsi.ncirc.gov/documents/NSI_Overview.pdf (accessed February 02, 2011).
Colin Durner, a staff operations specialist in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, prepared this Technology Update.
To learn more about obtaining access to eGuardian, law enforcement personnel can visit http://www.fbi.gov/eGuardian.
The Bulletin staff always is looking for dynamic, law enforcement-related images for possible publication in the magazine. We are interested in those that visually depict the many aspects of the law enforcement profession and illustrate the various tasks law enforcement personnel perform. We can use digital photographs or color prints. It is our policy to credit photographers when their work appears in the magazine. Contributors sending prints should send duplicate copies, not originals, as we do not accept responsibility for damaged or lost prints. Send materials to:
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,
FBI Academy, Quantico, VA 22135 | <urn:uuid:2d651ae2-6834-45d3-911f-636f3a909cdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/january-2012/technology-update | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935324 | 2,072 | 1.710938 | 2 |
CBS has posted the full 60 Minutes interview with Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, including a number of extras that weren’t included in the broadcast piece and the double-length interview promotes Jobs’ authorized biography and this biography already available on iBooks in some parts of the world. In the video clip, Isaacson also talks about Jobs agreeing to meet with Google’s Larry Page, even though Jobs believed Google’s Android ripped off Apple and the clip also gets into Jobs’ and Gates’ long and complicated relationship…………………
CBS has posted videos of the 60 minutes interview with Walter Isaacson, who has written Steve Jobs‘ official biography and Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson will give us an early peak at his book Steve Jobs. Isaacson received the blessing of Jobs to tell as accurate a story of his life as possible and the interview includes taped conversations between Isaacson and Jobs, who can be heard recalling memories from his life. Here’s a script from the 60 minutes episode on Steve Jobs and after that you will find a preview of what Isaacson said about Steve Jobs’ Biography from CBS:
Seven years ago, Steve Jobs asked Walter Isaacson, a former editor of TIME Magazine, if he would write his biography. Isaacson, who has done books about Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, thought the request presumptuous and premature, since Jobs was still a young man. What Isaacson didn’t know at the time, and only a few people did, was that Jobs was about to undergo surgery for pancreatic cancer and was feeling his mortality. It speaks to the secrecy with which Jobs conducted his life and his business, adding mystery to an already compelling figure.
“I’ve asked [Jobs why he didn't get an operation then] and he said, ‘I didn’t want my body to be opened…I didn’t want to be violated in that way,’” Isaacson recalls. So he waited nine months, while his wife and others urged him to do it, before getting the operation, reveals Isaacson. Asked by Kroft how such an intelligent man could make such a seemingly stupid decision, Isaacson replies, “I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don’t want something to exist, you can have magical thinking…we talked about this a lot,” he tells Kroft. “He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it….I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner.”
Isaacson reveals several of the best stories from the biography, including the fact that Jobs had actually met the man who turned out to be his biological father before he knew who he was. He also talks about the discussion he had with Jobs about death and the afterlife, explaining that for Jobs, the odds of there being a God were 50-50, but that he thought about the existence of God much more once he was diagnosed with cancer. Another aspect of Jobs’ character revealed was his disdain for conspicuous consumption. He tells Isaacson in a taped conversation how he saw Apple staffers turn into “bizarro people” by the riches the Apple stock offering created. Isaacson says Jobs vowed never to let his wealth change him.
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Buy Steve Jobs Biography By Walter Isaacson Directly From Amazon | <urn:uuid:6623958b-09ff-4f31-abbd-8e2444a53b68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thetechjournal.com/off-topic/video-of-steve-jobs-and-walter-isaacson-interview.xhtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972846 | 724 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Mobile County 70 (Old Shell / Tanner Willams Roads)
Another east-west route linking west mobile and Mississippi to Interstate 65 and downtown. The designation probably ends at the junction with Mobile County 37 (the city limits until 2008), but most maps indicate that it continues eastward to downtown. Overall Tanner Williams and Old Shell Roads comprise two lanes with periodic passing zones. The intersection with University Boulevard was flood prone during heavy thunderstorms and was often closed. As of Summer 2002, this intersection was completely rebuilt, with new storm water management implemented. At Schillinger Road, the designation switches from Tanner Williams to the west from Old Shell to the east. The road passes by nearby residential subdivisions and the Mobile Coast Guard Base en route to Big Creek Lake. Big Creek Lake is a popular fishing location, and is a man-made reservoir that provides drinking water for the city of Mobile. The construction of the lake cut the original Tanner Williams Road in two, requiring a new southern alignment via a causeway over the southern reaches of the body of water. The old alignments still exist with their original twin slab concrete and still serve various houses and mobile homes. The county route crosses the Mississippi line but maintains the name of Tanner Williams Road west to Mississippi 613 at Harleston.
Widening of Old Shell Road into a four-lane divided highway occurred between University Boulevard and Hillcrest Road in 2004. Widening of the road west from Hillcrest to Schillinger Road was undertaken between late 2009 and spring 2011.
Mobile County 70 East
Nearing the junction with Mobile County 5 (Grand Bay Wilmer Road) south on Mobile County 70 (Tanner Williams Road) east. Photo taken 01/29/10.
Mobile County 5 continues north from Mobile County 70 via Wilmer Road to the west of Big Creek Lake. Photo taken 01/29/10.
A traffic light was added to Tanner Williams Road at Hubert Pierce Road by 2007. Hubert Pierce Road heads north and stair steps to Mobile County 72 (Howells Ferry Road). Photo taken 07/16/07.
Old Shell Road east
Widening of Old Shell Road, completed by spring 2011, realigned the intersections of Alverson Road north and McKinley Avenue south to meet opposite one another. A traffic light was added as well. Both roads provide short cuts to nearby Schillinger Road and Airport Boulevard. Photo taken 09/30/12.
Cody Road travels north to the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds at Zeigler Boulevard and from there to Howells Ferry Road. Southward the three-lane arterial continues from Old Shell Road to become Sollie Road at Cottage Hill Road.
Cody Road once represented the western extent of the Mobile city limits. Photo taken 09/30/12.
Foreman Road leads south from Old Shell Road to Airport Boulevard at Providence Hospital. Traffic lights were added here during the widening of Old Shell Road. Photo taken 09/30/12.
Old Shell Road next meets the north end of Hillcrest Road, a busy arterial leading south to Three Notch Road near Tillman's Corner. Cleverdon Parkway ties in from western reaches of the University of South Alabama campus to the north. Photo taken 09/30/12.
Eastbound Old Shell Road at the intersection with Stadium Boulevard, a divided roadway with angled parking, leading north to USA Circle Drive and Eddie Stanky Field (home of the USA Jaguars baseball team). Photo taken 07/17/07.
Gravel Road and East Drive intersect Old Shell Road at the next eastbound traffic light. Gravel Road connects the arterial with USA South Drive and the Mitchell Center. East Drive comprises a neighborhood street leading south to the Ridgefield subdivision. The Mitchell Center opened in 1999 as the home for Jaguars basketball. The arena doubles as a concert venue. Photo taken 07/17/07.
Widening of Old Shell Road resulted in needed improvements both in capacity and storm water management at the intersection with University Boulevard. University Boulevard straddles eastern reaches of the University on its northward path to U.S. 98 (Moffett Road). Old Shell Road reduces to two lanes after the University Shopping Village. Photo taken 11/22/06.
Old Shell Road enters the leafy Spring Hill community, merges with Bit & Spur Road, and intersects Ridgelawn Drive East at a set of traffic lights. Ridgelawn Drive connects Old Shell with an adjacent residential area. Photo taken 12/17/09.
McGregor Avenue crosses Old Shell Road at the commercial center of Spring Hill. McGregor leads south to Airport Boulevard at Azalea Road and north to Spring Hill Avenue near Langan Park. Photo taken 12/17/09.
Tuthill Lane provides a connection between Old Shell Road and Spring Hill Avenue. The north-south road is laden with speed humps however. Photo taken 12/17/09.
Interstate 65 passes over Old Shell Road without direct access in this eastbound scene. The East and West Interstate 65 Service Roads provide access to Spring Hill Avenue (Exit 5A) and Dauphin Street (Exit 4) for motorists destined for the freeway. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Old Shell Road continues from the Canadian National Illinois Central Railroad underpass to a signalized intersection with Bay Shore Avenue. Bay Shore Avenue begins here and heads north to U.S. 98 (Spring Hill Avenue), Mill Street, and Poplar Street in the Crichton section of Mobile. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Mobile Street flows northward from Dauphin Street to intersect Old Shell Road at this intersection. The street carries two way traffic northward to Fillingham Street and the Crichton community. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Florida Street crosses Old Shell Road between U.S. 98 (Spring Hill Avenue) and Airport Boulevard at Grant Street. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Upham Street connects Old Shell Road with adjacent Dauphin Street to the south. Northward, the street continues to Ashland Place Avenue and U.S. 98 (Spring Hill Avenue). Photo taken 07/16/07.
A mix of 30" Traffic Signal Corporation and Crouse Hinds signals were in use at the time of this photograph between Old Shell Road, Mobile Infirmary Boulevard north and Kenneth Street south. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Catherine Street joins U.S. 45 (St. Stephens Road) with U.S. 90 (Government Street). Use the street north to the USA Springhill Campus Care Center and Lyons Park. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Lafayette Street joins Old Shell Road with U.S. 45 and 90 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue at Bishop State Community College's Central Campus. Note the older Traffic Signal Corporation signals in use here. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Old Shell Road sees its last set of traffic lights above the intersection with Ann Street. Ann Street constitutes a through street north to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and south to Government Street one block east of Michigan Avenue. Photo taken 07/16/07.
Old Shell Road west
Old Shell Road begins from Downtown Mobile at Broad Street. At one point, there used to be a traffic signal on that intersection. Construction to fix the flooding problems along Broad Street in 1976-1977 resulted in a cement divider erected along Broad Street from Church Street to Congress Street. As a result drivers can no longer take a left turn from Broad Street north to Old Shell Road west (or to Church and Conti Streets, for that matter). This change resulted in a dramatic decrease of traffic along Old Shell Road from Broad to Ann Streets. The flashing signal pictured here at Hallett Street replaced the 24" Eagle brand signals during the late-1970s/early 1980s.4 Photo taken 11/03/03.
The first of two signalized intersections with secondary through streets west of downtown Mobile. Here Ann Street intersects Old Shell Road. Ann Street travels southward to Government Street and Michigan Avenue, allowing traffic an access to Interstate 10 via Exit 24. The older signals along the eastern reaches of Old Shell Road were erected in 1976 from Hallett Street to Sage Avenue (with the exception of Louiselle Street-Kenneth Street). Previously, southern one-piece four-way traffic lights used to be erected along Old Shell Road. Hurricane Frederic in September 1979 blew away some of the 24" Eagle brand signals, and more notably the metal sun visors on signals for the north-south streets facing Old Shell Road (see next photo as well).4 These signals were replaced after 2007. Photo taken 11/03/03.
Three blocks to the west is the intersection with Lafayette Street. Again 24" Eagle brand signals with metal sun visors were in place (replaced after 2007). Lafayette Street is a secondary surface artery between U.S. 90/Government Street and Martin Luther King Junior Drive near the Bishop State Community College North campus. Photo taken 11/03/03.
The intersection of Old Shell Road westbound with Catherine Street also receives a traffic signal. One block northward, Catherine Street travels to the USA Springhill Campus Care Center (Old Providence Hospital). The signals here were replaced by 2007 with 36" Eagle brand assemblies. Photo taken 11/03/03.
A skewed intersection exists between Mobile Infirmary Boulevard (formerly Louiselle Street) north and Kenneth Street south on Old Shell Road westbound. 24" Crouse Hinds and Traffic Signal Corporation brand signals remain in use at this intersection through to November 2011. Photo taken 11/03/03.
Old Shell Road at the intersection with Upham Street. This north-south street connects U.S. 98 (Spring Hill Avenue) with Dauphin Street one block to the south. First photo taken 11/03/03. Second photo taken 11/27/11.
The final set of 30" Crouse Hinds signals (since replaced) along Old Shell Road were found at the intersection with Florida Street. This secondary street travels north to U.S. 98 where it concludes. Southward the roadway intersects Dauphin Street in four blocks. Photo taken 11/03/03.
Mobile Street flows north from Dauphin Street by a private school to become a two-way street north of these signals at Old Shell Road to the Toulminville and Neely neighborhoods of the city. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Old Shell Road meets University Boulevard at the southeast corner of the University of Alabama campus. Widening of Old Shell Road occurred by 2004 from this intersection westward to Hillcrest Road. Before construction upgraded the route, the intersection at University Boulevard was subject to flooding during heavy rain events. The north-south arterial otherwise joins the university with Cottage Hill Road and U.S. 90 (Government Boulevard) to the south and U.S. 98 (Moffett Road) and Prichard to the north. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Jaguar Drive provides the first of four intersections serving the adjacent University of South Alabama campus along Old Shell Road west. Jaguar Drive connects the four-lane arterial with USA South Drive. The signals are set to flash during off-times. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Gravel Road south and East Drive north come together just southwest of the USA Mitchell Center. The Mitchell Center hosts the Jaguars basketball games and concert events. Photo taken 01/16/09.
Stadium Boulevard meanders northeast from Old Shell Road to Eddie Stanky Field (home of Jaguars baseball) and USA Circle Drive in the heart of campus.
Mast arm based signals replaced the span-wire assembly by 2011. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Hillcrest Road begins and heads south from Old Shell Road. The four to five lane arterial links the University area with Three Notch-Kroner Road (Mobile County 32) near Tillman's Corner. Cleverdon Parkway joins Hillcrest and Old Shell from the north. The mid 2000s-created road serves a newly built area of campus and associated apartment complexes. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Widening of Old Shell Road into a five-lane arterial included a fully signalized upgrade of the intersection with Foreman Road south. Foreman Road provides a connector to Airport Boulevard at Providence Hospital. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Westbound Old Shell Road at Cody Road (Mobile County 37). Cody Road used to straddle the city line north to Howells Ferry Road and south to Cottage Hill Road, but annexations have pushed the city line westward to Schillinger Road.
Widening of Old Shell Road commenced between Hillcrest and Schillinger Roads in late 2009. Completion of the project occurred by spring 2011. First photo taken 01/16/09. Second photo taken 11/27/11.
Widening of Old Shell Road also realigned McKinley Avenue to directly tie into the intersection with Alverson Road south. A traffic light was added in the process. McKinely provides a short cut to Schillinger Road (CR-31) north while Alverson connects Old Shell Road with Airport Boulevard to the south. Photo taken 11/27/11.
Mobile County 70 West
Westbound Tanner Williams Road at the signalized intersection with Snow Road (Mobile County 25). Snow Road heads north to U.S. 98 (Moffett Road) at Semmes and south to Airport Boulevard at suburban areas of West Mobile. Photo taken 05/23/09.
Looking east at an old section of Tanner Williams Road. The path of the original alignment continued straight east to Big Creek Lake. For the most part, the original concrete is intact, as the highway slowly sinks towards the lake shore. Photo taken 10/20/99.
Entering the community of Tanner Williams, Mobile County 70 meets the Mobile County 5 (Wilmer Road) north. Photo taken 01/29/10.
Mobile County 5 follows Wilmer Road from Tanner Williams to junction U.S. 98 at Wilmer. Photo taken 01/29/10.
One third of a mile west, Mobile County 5 branches south from Mobile County 70 (Tanner Williams Road) along Grand Bay Wilmer Road to Airport Boulevard. Photo taken 01/29/10.
Tanner Williams Road continues Mobile County 70 another 2.5 miles to the Mississippi State line east of Harleston. Photo taken 01/29/10.
1999-10-20 by AARoads. 2003-11-03 by AARoads. 2006-11-22 by AARoads and Justin Cozart. 2007-07-16 by AARoads. 2007-07-17 by AARoads. 2009-01-16 by AARoads. 2009-05-23 by AARoads. 2009-12-17 by AARoads. 2010-01-29 by AARoads. 2011-11-27 by AARoads. 2012-09-30 by AARoads. | <urn:uuid:422c678c-c664-46d4-a300-f54023acf538> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aaroads.com/guide.php?page=c0070mbal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933041 | 3,125 | 1.65625 | 2 |
President Obama attends an interfaith prayer service, a day after his public swearing-in for a second term.
President Obama sought spiritual sustenance for his second term on Tuesday, attending a National Prayer Service in the nation's capital.
A variety of prayers at the interfaith service -- including Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh -- went out to Obama and Vice President Biden, who also attended the event at the National Cathedral in Washington.
FULL COVERAGE: President Obama's second inauguration
"Strengthen their hearts, make them bold, grant them wisdom to discern your will," said one prayer.
Another prayer -- to "keep this nation under your care" -- went out to lawmakers, judges and other public officials.
First lady Michelle Obama also attended the service, as did Biden's wife, Jill. They heard brief sermons, holy readings and music ranging from hymns to the Star Spangled Banner.
The traditional service came a day after Obama's public second-term inauguration ceremony, where he gave an inaugural address in which he called for "collective action" on such issues as debt reduction, immigration, women's and minority rights and climate change.
Obama did not speak at the prayer service. | <urn:uuid:a2862166-4b76-4e8a-865e-9a6a9b14c4b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/01/22/obama-biden-national-prayer-service/1854957/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965901 | 249 | 1.5 | 2 |
Released by Mattel in 1979, Gre-Gory is the ultimate rubber bat, with a transparent chest that allows to see the blood he has drunk running through his body.
In 1981 a radio serial of the Star Wars: A New Hope movie was broadcast by the National Public Radio. It was a 13-part serial that expanded the original story, as it was almost six hours long. It was followed by the adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back in 1983 and The Return of the Jedi in 1996. Some actors of the original trilogy such as Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Anthony Daniels (C3P0) or Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) played their roles in the radio dramatization.
Advertisement of the free version of Attack of the Mutants, board game released by Yaquinto in 1981. At the Central State Tech the professor Applewhite, his robots, his daughter and his son-in-law, among others, have to fight against people mutated by the Big Melt-Down, a nuclear accident occurred in 1993. | <urn:uuid:06353670-caef-4349-bfdd-4b7fd9ff5596> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://80scomicads.tumblr.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977296 | 215 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Pearl River SchoolsPosted by admin
Pearl River Schools
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Popularity: 96% [?] | <urn:uuid:8969fe81-dbb8-401b-826f-a17d1d04335e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mitglied.multimania.de/feciwol/pearl-river-schools.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936687 | 415 | 1.523438 | 2 |
An Unholy Business
Maybe it's time we regard aggressive conversion as a human rights violation
The following article was excerpted from Rajiv Malhotra's speech given at a conference, "Human Rights and Religion," at Cornell University, November 8, 2000, in Ithaca, New York.
Numerous speakers spoke about human rights problems related to White Supremacy groups, but do we have the courage to examine the Christian Supremacy groups, often camouflaged as proselytizers? We heard condemnations of hate speech, but do we exempt hate speech when it is done in the name of God, quoted from a sacred book? The following phrases are commonly used by proselytizers in describing their non-Christian target prospects: "sinners," "condemned," "damned," "heathen," "pagan," etc. If it were not done under the cover of religion, would this not have been declared as hate speech? Does such speech, even if disguised, generate communal tension? Is this responsible for negative episodes in India between Hindus and Christians who coexisted peacefully for centuries before the arrival of the proselytizers? In America's tapestry of pluralistic faiths, Hindus are among one's classmates, neighbors and coworkers. Might this language lead to social problems in the future? Does it violate the UN Human Rights provision that guarantees "dignity" to all people as a basic human right?
Going against proselytizing is not an attack against Christianity, as many Christians do not believe in proselytizing. Throughout its history, proselytizing has been a weapon for imperialism. It has never been friendly to the indigenous, be it in Africa, America, Asia or even Europe itself. Gandhi confirmed: "I consider Western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ's Christianity. I cannot conceive Jesus, if he was living in flesh in our midst, approving of modern Christian organizations, public worship or ministry."
Religions are often becoming commercial "brands" competing for market share, selling both God's love and insurance from hell. Islam, Christianity and the dogma of Marxism have unquenchable thirsts for quantitative expansion, simply because they hanker after political power and materialistic objectives. In North India, the Southern Baptists alone have 4,700 workers, 15,000 career missionaries, 50,000 volunteers, 1,000 new college graduates per year with an average two-year length of service. In total, there are estimated to be 100,000 career Christian missionaries in India, a size several times the sales force of the largest Indian corporations.
While a Hindu may participate in Christian activities or beliefs without violating Hinduism, the reverse is untrue. By joining Christianity under the false expectation that it would not affect his Hindu faith, he gradually begins to get pressured by his newly-adopted Christian faith from keeping his Hindu identity or practices. Eventually, this leads to social and cultural alienation from his roots. Hence, the idea of dual religious affiliation, while fine for a Hindu, is a one-way street, and has become a political ploy for Christians to convert those who wish to retain Hindu practices. For example, in South India, Catholic priests dress up like Hindu swamis, call their organizations ashrams and the preachers "gurus." But they are actively engaged in surreptitious conversion. Their Hindu dress is not to honor Hindu traditions but to make Christianity more familiar. Bharata Natayam dance is being taught in Christian schools in South India, with Christian symbols gradually replacing Hindu ones.
Harmony among the religions of the world is unachievable as long as some of them see others as competitors, even in the holy game of soul saving. Mere tolerance is simply external and fails to address internalized prejudice. What is lacking is respect.
There is no central authority to control people's personal beliefs in Hinduism, which respects many paths. There are many God-Truths, but these are merely representations by different people of a single God-Truth. This has given rise to hundreds of sects and subsects within Hinduism, which have learned to coexist. Hindus never target anyone for conversion, so the motive for hatred is not there. Rather, Hindus are challenging Christian prejudices against Hindus. It is the general Muslim view that Hindus are idolators, polytheists and kafirs and doomed in the eyes of Allah. Hindus have no such doctrines about Islam. Hindu dislike of Christianity and Islam is largely a backlash against efforts to convert them.
In Hinduism, there is no concept similar to Christian martyrdom or Islamic jihad. The most important and revered historical figures of Hinduism were not martyrs. Spirituality is not about fighting someone or some religion. There is no discussion of other religions in Hindu scriptures, no campaigns against "false gods." Comparative religion is not of much interest to Hindus, as they do not see religion through competitive or predatory eyes. Christians, on the other hand, go out of their way to control positions in academics, to research and to teach about Hinduism, as a sort of competitor intelligence gathering which seeks hegemony.
The Dalai Lama recommends a moratorium on proselytizing in order to given cooperative pluralism a chance. Likewise, Gandhi wrote: "If I had the power and could legislate, I would stop all proselytizing." Conversion belongs to the times of colonialism. No society has advanced, spiritually or materially, by converting from one faith to another. It can be proven that the economic progress in Europe happened only when the hold of the Vatican was reduced. When Christianity accepts the right of other people to follow their own beliefs and creeds, then only will Jesus Christ's spirit truly radiate in the world.
Every marketing company, despite its firm belief that it has the "best" or even only "true" product, must comply with norms of fair competition. Organized religion must be accepted as a field of competing worldviews, with economic and political interests. There must exist certain ethics of "marketing" religion, and rules of fair competition. A level playing field with responsibilities would raise standards of religious promotion and reduce social tensions. To formulate these standards, I pose the following questions. Which freedom is more important freedom "from" hatred, or freedom "to" hate?
Rajiv Malhotra, 50,took early retirement from the telecom business to devote time to family, spiritual development and fostering harmony among the diverse peoples of the world. He runs The Educational Council on Indic Traditions, whose main purpose is to upgrade the authenticity of portrayal of India's civilization and heritage in the American education system.
The comments are owned by the author. We aren't responsible for their content. | <urn:uuid:3202bab5-c76c-4f74-9b6d-aebc93c4cc02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=4064 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960249 | 1,380 | 1.773438 | 2 |
A COMMUNITY-BASED ADULT LEARNING CENTRE
Alberta Vocational Centre, Calgary, has opened a community - based Adult Learning Centre in Forest Lawn Public Library in East Calgary. This project is being funded by Alberta Advanced Education and Manpower and is operating in cooperation with Calgary Public Library. The A.L.C. offers an ABE program in reading, writing and arithmetic to the grade 9 equivalency level. Tuition is free, learning materials are provided, attendance is flexible, registration is by drop-in, and there is continuous entry/exit and individualized progress. There is one instructor on site during the hours of operation.
The Adult Learning Centre was fully enrolled on the second day of registration, September 12, 1978. At this writing, 35 are registered and attending on a regular basis. Some students come nearly every afternoon or evening; some two or three times a week. The day is divided into two time slots - 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The peak periods are 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Our original assumption that 10 students at a time would be the maximum number for efficient instruction has been borne out by the experience of the instructional staff at the Centre.
Attendance patterns are still in a state of flux but it appears that eventually we will be able to accommodate additional students in the 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday afternoon time slots. Supply of students is definitely not a problem. We advertised very little commercially in advance of registration (the week of September 11) and we have a handbill ready for posting in the community if it becomes necessary to recruit, additional students.
Most of our students reside in or near the greater Forest Lawn area although there are some exceptional cases where students travel across a large section of the city.
Placement in the program is accomplished by curricular tests geared to the re- source material rather than by standardized test. Initial results show modal placement is in the Level II area (Grade 4-6). The breakdown is as follows:
It has, as expected, been obvious that informality is very important to the operation of the Adult Learning Centre. On arrival, a new student is offered a cup of coffee and is engaged in a discussion of the general program by the instructor. If it appears he can benefit from the program, a return appointment is made for further discussion and preliminary placement activities. On the third visit, the student registers formally and begins work. On the fourth visit, an attendance commitment and schedule are established and a full work program is entered into.
Further orientation to community health care facilities and to opportunities of career planning are carried out by the nurse and counsellor during their visits. The nurse and counsellor are each on site once a week for three hours. The formal workshop concept does not appear to be viable in such an informal setting. It appears that it is going to be better to hold half hour "coffee break" periods where discussion is steered by the counsellor or nurse. During the remainder of the time, they are available for private consultation with interested students. | <urn:uuid:972d9b2f-90dd-48d9-93ff-7cac3973ffb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nald.ca/library/newsletter/literacy/fall78/27.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96775 | 661 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Wesson’s Winter Wonderland Thrills 850 Kids
City Council President Herb Wesson’s annual Winter Wonderland was again a great hit this year for over 1,500 area residents including 850 at-risk kids.
The event, which was hosted at the Council President’s District Office, provided toys for every boy and girl who attended, and featured a snow slide with real snow, lunch and special visit from Santa Claus.
“The holidays are about kids, and it’s always gratifying to do something special for at-risk kids at this time of year,” said Wesson. “We want to keep these kids and their future in mind as we look to confronting the challenges our entire city faces in the coming New Year.”
Wesson’s community partners this year included Community Build, Inc., the 101 Enterprises Foundation, the United Neighborhoods Neighborhood Council, the Pico Neighborhood Council, the SORO Neighborhood Council, Baldwin Hills Elementary School, Clean & Green, and the Los Angeles Conservation Corps. All provided resources that helped make the event a success.
Also key to the success of the event were the many Wesson volunteers, who donated their time and energy to making the holidays special for families in our community who are in need.
“I’m blessed to have such dedicated and generous partners in the community who always step-up to help others,” said Wesson. “That’s what the holidays are about.” | <urn:uuid:12854bee-c278-44f6-be60-82988b0e1ba9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10154:wesson-s-winter-wonderland-thrills-850-kids&catid=80:local&Itemid=170 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955645 | 311 | 1.507813 | 2 |
DARPA Challenge Doesn't Go Viral On Twitter
Agency ends two-week QR-related contest--promoted only through Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks--without anyone finding all 7 posters with special codes.
CLIQR--which stands for Cash for Locating and Identifying Quick Response Codes--challenged people to find seven posters that appeared in U.S. cities bearing the DARPA logo and a quick response code.
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The idea behind the challenge was to get people to respond quickly to simulate how citizens might mobilize for aid and relief during a time of crisis, according to the challenge's website. People had only two weeks to find and submit the codes to DARPA, which like other federal agencies uses challenges to help it perform research and more effectively use and create new technologies.
Although the winner of the $40,000 CLIQR Quest prize took only 18 hours to find three of the seven codes--and all of the codes were eventually found--no one person found all of the posters.
The key to the challenge was that DARPA did not engage in its usual outreach strategy--such as through websites, blogs, or a press release on the agency’s website--the way it has with previous challenges, which were more successful. Instead, it used Twitter to announce the challenge and encouraged participants to use their own social networks as well, such as Facebook, to find the posters.
[ DARPA uses public muscle in other ways. See DARPA Crowdsources Combat Vehicle Design. ]
"With CLIQR Quest, we sought to test the opposite end of the spectrum--zero excitation through public agency announcements," said DARPA Deputy director Kaigham Gabriel in a press statement.
Previous DARPA challenges that were more widely publicized by the agency beyond the social-media realm indeed had more successful outcomes.
For example, the DARPA Network challenge, more commonly known as the "Red Balloon" challenge, was heavily promoted by the agency through traditional online media communications channels.
It took that competition's winner only eight hours and 52 minutes to find eight red weather balloons tethered 100 feet off the ground in undisclosed locations throughout the United States.
The CLIQR challenge's result provides more insight for further research into how information spreads through social media, said DARPA's Jay Schnitzer, director of the Defense Sciences Office, in a press statement. It also suggests that social and more traditional forms of media are not mutually exclusive and can even be paired together for the best outcome.
As federal agencies embrace devices and apps to meet employee demand, the White House seeks one comprehensive mobile strategy. Also in the new Going Mobile issue of InformationWeek Government: Find out how the National Security Agency is developing technologies to make commercial devices suitable for intelligence work. (Free registration required.) | <urn:uuid:a3234728-d05f-4ebb-a007-d121f372656a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.informationweek.com/government/enterprise-applications/darpa-challenge-doesnt-go-viral-on-twitt/232602820 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939461 | 668 | 1.65625 | 2 |
ROCKTON - Scams plague our e-mail inboxes from time to time, but getting a scam e-mail from someone you know doesn't happen as often. However that's exactly what happened to hundreds of supporters of a Stateline youth sports organization. The e-mail appears to have been sent from the president of Illinois Jets Youth Track and Field Club, but he says it's not him.
The e-mail was sent
out to hundreds, plus the Eyewitness News team.
It was sent from the e-mail "firstname.lastname@example.org" and it reads
that our friend DuWayne Jones and his family were mugged in the
A simple response of, 'How can I help?' to the scam artist returned a request and desperate plea for $1,800. But that response was received while interviewing the real DuWayne Jones.
"We are fine, it's not me, it's not my family," said Jones.
Jones is the founder of Illinois Jets Youth Track and Field Club. He received countless e-mails from friends who said they received the e-mail from Jones. Jones claims that the club's e-mail account was hacked and anyone that they've had contact with via e-mail got that e-mail.
"That database has hundreds of e-mail addresses on it - other clubs, organizations involved in track and field," lamented Jones.
Dominic Iasparro, Winnebago County Sheriff's Deputy Chief, says unfortunately groups like Illinois Jets Youth Track and Field can't do much to protect themselves from hackers like these ones.
"Those people that are intent on committing these frauds, this is what they do on a daily basis," said Iasparro.
"They are constantly changing the way they operate and the types of scams that they're committing."
But Iasparro says there are things those who are on the receiving end of the e-mail can do to prevent themselves from getting taken advantage of.
"By and large, the majority of the time if you receive an e-mail or some type of electronic communication asking for money, asking for banking information, asking you to go someplace and meet somebody and deliver something to them - it's a scam," said Iasparro.
Iasparro says anytime someone believes they're the victim of a hack or scam that it's important to contact police because that e-mail could be a missing piece of evidence in an on-going scam investigation. Jones says they've tried contacting everyone affected in their situation, but he says the hacker deleted all of the e-mail addresses attached to the account. | <urn:uuid:56c2194d-482e-40bf-9437-e570996eb636> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mystateline.com/fulltext?nxd_id=379092 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981644 | 549 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Bajaj, Renault abandon India low-cost car plan
INDIAN motorbike maker Bajaj has abandoned plans to develop an ultra-low-cost car with France's Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan, according to a senior executive. The companies announced in 2009 that they hoped to bring a $2,500 (1549 pounds) mini car to market in 2012 but there have been suggestions for months that the project was stalling amid differences among the partners. Bajaj, India's second-largest motorcycle maker by sales, was to have designed and made the car, while Renault and Nissan would have provided the marketing and sales support. The idea was to produce a vehicle to challenge the Indian-made Tata Nano, the world's cheapest car but Bajaj concluded that the project was not viable and says that Renault has agreed. "We don't intend to get into the low-margin (passenger car) business," Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, told journalists. "We don't want to lose all our money," said Bajaj, whose company reported a 21-per cent jump in quarterly net profit to $159.4 million (98 mn pounds) from a year earlier, slightly undershooting market forecasts. Bajaj will instead unveil a low-cost light commercial vehicle that could be used for carrying goods or people at the New Delhi auto show in January. "It will be a four-wheeler and we will be in the commercial space where we are strong," Bajaj said. "Hopefully, they (Renault) will like what they see. They are at liberty to say we like it or turn up their nose," Bajaj said, according to the Business Line newspaper. Bajaj will make the investments in the development and manufacture of the four-wheeler which would debut in Bangladesh and in Sri Lanka before being sold in other global markets, while Renault-Nissan would undertake the branding, marketing and sales of the four-wheeler. Bajaj said it will cost a maximum of $44.5 million (27 mn pounds) to make the commercial vehicle,a tenth of the development cost for a car. The French manufacturer, seeking to counter sliding European sales, has designated India, Brazil and Russia as its top three strategic markets for international expansion. The company last month launched a luxury sedan in the country called the Fluence and aims to sell four more models by the end of 2012. Last year, Renault abandoned its previous attempt to crack the Indian market, an unhappy tie-up with India's top sports utility vehicle maker Mahindra and Mahindra that resulted in the Logan, a dated-looking car that never took off.
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Do you have comments on this? | <urn:uuid:b6154458-020b-4914-b50f-f8d11152f78c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gg2.net/business/india-business/Bajaj%2C+Renault+abandon+India+low-cost+car+plan/964 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971913 | 567 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Melissa Gordon. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York, following a project room show in 2009.
In Structures for Viewing, Gordon takes the printed document as a signifier for a moment in time, using the abstract qualities of printed media to reflect on its material usages.
In the main gallery, Gordon’s large-scale paintings made from using blank silk-screens, wood, squeegees and printed dot matrixes upon their canvases, are constructs derived from actual printed newspapers. Gordon looks to the newspaper, a powerful force in the century of Modernism, as both document and institution, indicative of the phenomenon of how systems of information are framed and perpetuated. The titles of these paintings name the journals and dates of major media moments of the past century that she carefully chooses to ‘present’. Among them are headline stories such as the Pentagon Papers reportage, the Wiki Leaks exposé, and the New York Journal’s instigation of the Spanish-American War. Dispensing with both the text and most imagery, the resulting images are outlines and color blocks, serving as source and surface for Gordon’s paintings. These patterns are left to reveal an understanding of how everyday information is dictated and received, while at the same time they provide a neat overlay of Gordon’s interest in the grid and its core function in abstract painting.
Mining printed books on painting as another point of departure, in the front gallery Gordon shows silk-screened canvases deriving their imagery from blown-up photographs of Mondrian paintings, which reveal significant cracks in their white lead paint, as reproduced meticulously in a Taschen publication from 2005. In these works, the black and white printed reproductions have been re-created, enlarged and re-framed in their cropping; the rosette of the printing matrix becoming apparent. The original color, removed from the painting in the printed book version, is reintroduced by Gordon here by way of three-dimensional objects that stand in front of the silk-screen paintings. Taking their titles from the original Mondrian paintings such as ‘Tableau 3 with Orange-Red, Yellow, Black, Blue and Grey’ in Time and Space, these works point to the condition of time in a reproduction, meanwhile bringing the flatness of painterly illusion, the essentialist drive of De Stijl and modern abstraction, into space.
One small painting stands at the point of entry and exit, based upon a photograph of the floor that Rietveld designed for the UNESCO press layout room at its headquarters in Paris—a quiet reminder of the cutting, collage, and editing involved in both the news and the modernist project of De Stijl’s abstraction.
Gordon’s previous bodies of work have focused on the accumulative nature of cause and effect in press imagery, the transformation of fastidious Norman Rockwell illustrations by blowing up the rosette matrix of their printed form, the overlap between WPA imagery and Abstract Expressionism, and the physical and illusionary relationship of perspective to both painting and media history. Gordon studied at De Ateliers in Amsterdam, and lives and works in London. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Marres Center for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht, and the Aldrich Museum. She will be included in an exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin in March of 2012.
Marianne Boesky Gallery is located at 509 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Our hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm. For further information or images, please contact Annie Rana at 212.680.9889 or email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:58e94d7a-59b5-46ea-b496-b34977f3c146> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artnet.com/galleries/exhibitions.asp?gid=117663&cid=256479 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949508 | 812 | 1.554688 | 2 |
"I assumed all would take care of itself; that I would go to Harvard, get a high-paying job, and everything would be OK. I was completely naive."
It was a shocking revelation, a signal that he was trapped with overwhelming debts that would control how he could live his life. Not only had he barely made a dent in the principal after two years of payments, but he had $42,000 in interest to pay over the next 10 to 15 years.
He never questioned the value of getting his Harvard MBA, and he liked his job managing a business development division for Dell in Austin, Texas. But with debt payments arriving every month, he realized he had lost flexibility in his life. He knew that if he lost his job it could be a disaster. He would have to think twice about rocking the boat at work, balking if he was overlooked for a promotion or taking a job that paid less even if it would allow him "to make a valuable contribution to the world."
"I didn't want a gun to my head every time I thought about this," he said. "I felt trapped."
It's a revelation that few students contemplate as they apply for programs, said Sandy Kreisberg, an MBA admissions consultant. "All they want is to get into a top program."
After acceptance, they might ask about financing, but most, like Mihalic, think an MBA will deliver wealth, and they need not fret about money, Kreisberg said. That tends to be true of top MBA programs, although jobs have been more difficult to get since the 2008 financial crisis.
More top MBA programs are trying to help students with scholarships, and some compete for students with top GMAT scores by offering aid, said John Byrne, editor of Poets & Quants. For example, Mihalic received $54,000 from Harvard.
But with costs of some top MBA programs about $300,000, based on a Poets & Quants analysis that includes living expenses and lost income from quitting a job, debt can be oppressive. And when considering MBA programs, pay attention to the effect of scholarships on cost, plus the job placement rates at each school, when applying, said Byrne.
Levels of debt vary substantially between schools, even those in the top 10 or 20. At Harvard, Byrne said, the average MBA student in 2011 had $77,880 in debt, similar to Stanford at $77,599. The University of Pennsylvania's The Wharton School was highest with $114,339. Sometimes top private colleges can help students more than public ones.
Despite high costs, Byrne said MBA students have the lowest default rates on student loans, about 20 percent. MBA graduates have the advantage of relatively high pay, with base salaries averaging $91,400 in 2011, said Byrne. PayScale Inc. put the median salary in 2012 for MBA graduates at $83,500, but $136,000 for MBA graduates of the country's top 30 business schools as ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek.
A higher salary allows students to take on substantial debt and live within a rule of thumb in education finance. That is: Borrow no more than what your first year of annual pay is likely to be.
In addition, it's wise to stick with federal Perkins and Federal Grad PLUS Loans because they include forgiveness programs, such as limiting debt payments to 10 percent of a person's income and forgiving debt that's left after 20 years.
While those rules can take some pressure off students, Mihalic didn't want to pay loans for 10 years. He put himself on an austere lifestyle. He sold a car, took in two roommates, stopped going to movies, didn't take dates to dinner and skipped trips and friends' weddings. He blogged about it, and in seven months he was debt-free except for his home. Now, he said, he's so used to an austere lifestyle, it's difficult for him to spend money. | <urn:uuid:c4c45fa8-4ae5-4a64-9f8e-7cc73bdc9c3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courant.com/topic/sc-cons-0517-marksjarvis-20120518,0,5014057.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982246 | 817 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Hi Ive spent two years researching knowledge for my book, i have all the information collated to hand
Basically, i am ready to start writing it on the PC using Word (are there better programs)
its about 150 pages, 8 chapters
Any tips before i start realise ive started wrong and have to do it again!
I think, even if you decide to write to your own timeline, the National Novel Writing Month website (www.nanowrimo.org) has some of the best advice for how to get through writing a novel. In particular: get the whole thing out on paper before you ever start editing! Nothing ruins the creative process like nit-picking before you've finished a first draft.
Word is an OK programme to write in. I do all my writing via Google docs just for the mobility - I need to have quick and reliable access to my stories from at least four different computers and carrying around a thumb drive just doesn't do it for me. Be warned, however, that Google docs is not as polished as Word or other packaged products...
As much as I hate the Microsoft user interface, Google docs is not much of an improvement, and I've had some scares with revisions not saving and whatnot.
never heard of Google docs
On my way to look now
Unless you're writing historical fiction or something based in a totally non-fiction world, I don't think you need to worry about the tiny details. If someone off the street can read it and believe it, even for the moment that they read it, it's not too big of a deal. Even crazy scientific fallacies can be overlooked. Hell, look at Dan Brown [not a bash on him. Just that everyone knows him and that his books are slightly off in a historical sense].
Just write till your story is completely finished. Then you can edit as much as you want. Otherwise you lose time with rewriting... And this blocks your creativity...
You can use Word or just plain Notepad, what will matter most is the content. It's great of you to write your own book. Maybe you shouldn't worry much about getting facts completely right as most writers tend to write fiction.
Writing a novel is so much more than doing research and getting facts straight. While those things are important, it is equally important to understand that a great novel comes from character development. The best way for this to happen is to not force your characters to do things nor force the story to follow your original plan or outline. Stories can often take surprising turns that the author never planned on and that usually happens when a character simply takes on a life of it's own. I know that probably sounds crazy but characters are not believable if you don't breathe life into them. The 150 page block is very common to writers, and it usually happens when you are not feeling your story. The best way to feel it is to not force it and getting caught up in minute details about factual information concering this that and the other gets in the way of character development. Once you have completed your tale it is easy enough to check facts during the editing process. Don't get caught up in describing every little thing. (ie one common mistake I see is constant detail about what a character is wearing.
Write on!. . . by Bluedoll
As with anything, choosing a computer program that is right for us will depend on two things. What our needs are and what we are comfortable with. Personally, I’ve been using Microsoft word so long now that I want to continue using it. It suits my needs. There are many programs out there for grammar, spelling, formatting and sentence structure. Things for example, like dictionary, I should be upgrading. Spelling is a weakness for me and I use spell check and it is exclusively American. It should be Canadian (British spelling) for my heritage but I tend to work around that.
If you are willing to research a little sashnburn99 you will find many book creating programs out there but I think using MSWord is just fine. Your last comment “Any tips before I start realize ive started wrong and have to do it again”, does say something that perhaps goes beyond computer software.
Tip: There are several stages to writing, research, outline (a plan varies from writer to writer, it can be anything from well structured or simply sitting in a writers head somewhere ), rough draft and revision, right?
We know as writers we sometimes have to draw the line on the number of rewrites and settle for what we have accomplished at some point. We can use the option to use outside resources for our work but if we do everything from start to finish ourselves, I would say we can not know something is wrong until we actually have done it and then we will need to start a fresh, in order to perfect our craft. | <urn:uuid:d1338104-84cd-453a-846e-4fb48623f4cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frihost.com/forums/vt-102515.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968336 | 997 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Title 12 published on 2012-01-01
no entries appear in the Federal Register after this date.
This is a list of United States Code sections, Statutes at Large, Public Laws, and Presidential Documents, which provide rulemaking authority for this CFR Part.
This list is taken from the Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules provided by GPO [Government Printing Office].
It is not guaranteed to be accurate or up-to-date, though we do refresh the database weekly. More limitations on accuracy are described at the GPO site.
§ 1813 - Definitions
§ 1819 - Corporate powers
§ 1820 - Administration of Corporation
§ 1821 - Insurance Funds
§ 1822 - Corporation as receiver
The following are ALL rules, proposed rules, and notices (chronologically) published in the Federal Register relating to 12 CFR 330 after this date.
The FDIC is proposing to amend its deposit insurance regulations, with respect to deposits payable in branches of United States insured depository institutions (“United States bank” or “bank”) outside of the United States. The proposed rule would clarify that deposits in these foreign branches of United States banks are not FDIC-insured deposits. This would be the case whether or not they are dually payable both at the branch outside the United States and at an office within the United States. As discussed further below, a recent proposal by the United Kingdom's Financial Services Authority (“U.K. FSA”) makes it very likely that large United States banks will be changing their United Kingdom foreign branch deposit agreements to make them payable both in the United Kingdom and the United States. This action has the potential to increase significantly the exposure of the Deposit Insurance Fund (“DIF”) and operational complexities were such deposits to be treated as insured. The purpose of this proposed rule is to preserve confidence in the FDIC deposit insurance system, ensure that the FDIC can effectively carry out its critical deposit insurance functions, and protect the DIF against the uncertain liability that it would otherwise face as a global deposit insurer. Should a United States bank make its foreign deposits dually payable, those deposits would be considered “deposit liabilities” under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act's (“FDI Act”) depositor preference regime, and would therefore be on an equal footing with domestic deposits in the event of the bank's liquidation. | <urn:uuid:93f9083f-9938-4701-938f-e09d593e1d6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/12/330 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951574 | 493 | 1.5 | 2 |
Christmas is a special time of year, especially for young ones. The excitement of the season twinkles in children’s eyes and the joy of the holiday is reflected in their laughter.
Sadly, not every child will have a merry time this Christmas season. Throughout our nation there are at-risk children; some needing basic necessities and others lacking parental love and care.
A few years into our marriage, my husband and I encountered families that took in teenage foster children. We were challenged by their example and it inspired us to become foster parents ourselves. We weren't sure how we were going to do it because we had young children of our own, but we began bringing these teens into our home.
Over the years we have been blessed to be the parents of five biological children and 23 foster children. Being a foster family helped teach our biological children the joy of opening our hearts and sharing our home, while it gave our foster children a picture of an imperfect ‘normal’ family. Time and time again our efforts to help others were actually precious blessings for our own family.
The Christmas season often stirs up that desire to bring joy to others. We give gifts and perform acts of service, sometimes even reaching out to help people we hardly know. And just maybe you know some at-risk children that you can reach out to with a gift. There are many organized efforts like the Marine’s Toys for Tots drive or the Angel Tree program, with donation sites in communities across the country.
Annual giving campaigns are very deserving of our goodwill, but the needs of at-risk children go beyond a Christmas gift. One doesn’t have to look very far to find a variety of ways you can help year-round.
Perhaps your home could provide a safe haven for a foster child. Or, you might take the part of a big brother or sister and spend time with a child who needs the positive influence of a caring mentor. You may be able to tutor a child, teach a Sunday School class, or help equip kids with a skill through a community program.
The challenge of helping at-risk children can seem overwhelming at first. There are so many at-risk children that our best efforts may seem small in comparison, but bringing hope and help to a child starts with a first step.
My husband and I did not set out to have 23 foster children. We simply followed the example of others and that led us into life-changing roles.
Now I hope to challenge you to see how best to use the talents, skills, and resources you’ve been blessed with to improve the life of a child in need.
Republican Michele Bachmann represents Minnesota's 6th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. | <urn:uuid:8830a56f-8fb0-456f-a85c-25b6b08d8bc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/12/21/rep-michele-bachmann-christmas-help-child-greatest-gift/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967641 | 563 | 1.679688 | 2 |
In their new book "Fiscal Fitness," fitness guru Jack LaLanneand investment adviser Matthew J. Rettick team up to offer "8 Steps toWealth and Health" that they believe will help readers live well intotheir retirement while having enough money to enjoy it. According to a statistic in their book, 57 percent of seniorshave assets below $5,000, or less than the cost of one month of nursinghome care. And only 19 percent of elderly people claim assets equal tothree or more years of the average cost of nursing home care."The problems we have in America with obesity and the factthat we're just eating up Medicare and Medicaid with medical expensesbecause we're not in good shape amounts to a national catastrophe,"says Rettick, CEO of Nashville, Tenn.-based Covenant RelianceProducers. "The No. 1 fear used to be dying shortly after retirement.But that's been replaced by the fear of outliving one's assets."Your health and your finances are intertwined, the bookinsists, and lack of physical and fiscal fitness is all about risk.Follow these 8 steps, the authors say, and you'll be ready to leverageyour longevity. Step 1. Eat right: long-term insurance for your bodyOne of every five Americans -- approximately 72 million people-- will be 65 or older by the year 2030. What you do now determines ifyou are physically or fiscally flabby, the authors say. This stepoffers instruction on what to eat, how to prepare it, and what vitaminsand mineral supplements will help insure your health.
"I just bought a new Corvette," says LaLanne. "Would I putwater in the gas tank? How about your human machine? You put the wrongfuel in the human machine, and it's not going to run properly. We havemore fat American people than ever before in our history. Did you everthink about 'FAT?' Fatal. Awful. Trouble." Rettick, 54, has adopted hiscolleague's advice, shedding 20 pounds in the last year and a half."I started thinking, 'I'll just eat smaller amounts,'" saysRettick, "but that didn't work because I still loved the fries andhamburgers." When eating in restaurants, Rettick says, he now asks thewaiter for suggestions for low carb, low fat foods. "If I'm going tocheat a little bit, I have two or three pieces of dark chocolate atnight. Everything in moderation."Step 2. Exercise for life -- building your body'sbank accountBeing fit prevents diseases, says LaLanne, and the dividendsinclude saving on medical expenses and ultimately, long-term carecosts. In Step 2, LaLanne offers common sense, easy head-to-toeexercises and stretches for men and women."Everybody has an excuse: 'I've got a little pain my back, andI can'texercise,'" LaLanne mocks. "There may be 10 exercises you can't do, butthere's 100 you can do. Get in the pool! If your spine is screwed up,you can still work your legs and your arms, can't you? You've got 640muscles in your body, and every one of them is different. I'm not asstrong as I was when I was 21, but I'm going pretty damn good for 93.That's what counts."
Rettick found he couldn't keep hiscommitment to thehealth club, so he installed a small gym in his house, walking thetreadmill 30 minutes every other day, and lifting weights on thealternate days. "Everybody has to find his optimal time to work out.You just have to find out what it is you're willing to do, and make acommitment to follow through. No matter how far down you arephysically, exercise can immediately improve your life." 3. Think positive -- you can reverse theaging processThe most important commitmentto getting your body or your bank accountin shape, the authors say, is to replace the "I can't" mind-set with apositive attitude. In Step 3 LaLanne and Rettick address the defeat ofnegative self-worth and depression, and encourage social connectionsand keeping an active mind. "Our big message is that it's never toolate, no matter what age, to control your health and your wealth,"Rettick says. "We also want to see you get excited about the betterperson you can become, both from the physical side and the financialside. You just have to make small changes." No matter how bad you'redug in financially, he says, you can dig out, as Rettick did in theearly 1990s when he was two mortgage payments behind and saddled withmounting credit card debt. Then he remembered the positive thinkingbooks that inspired him as a young man: "Think and Grow Rich," byNapoleon Hill, "Psycho-Cybernetics," by Maxwell Maltz, and DenisWaitley's tapes on the psychology of winning.
"To maintain good physical health,"LaLanne says, "the correct mental attitude has to go along with it." 4.Plan ahead -- peace of mind and financial security is worth itPeace of mind equals quality of life, saysRettick. "If you don't payattention daily to your body, you won't live long. If you don't payattention to your finances, your money won't last long. And if youdon't do either, you're at the mercy of charity." This step covers thebasics of investing, and points a finger at financial sharks. Rettick became interested in financialservices and retirees after watching his own family struggle in the1980s. First, his maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's,and over the course of seven years lost not only her mental andphysical capacities, but also her finances, and ended up living with arelative. Then in 1986, both of Rettick's paternal grandparents becameill and entered a nursing home. His grandmother lived only two years,but his grandfather, "being a tough old German," spent 12 years inprivate care. "I learned firsthand how without properplanning you lose everything. You become a prisoner of the state,almost. That just really got under my skin, and I developed a passionfor helping people avoid this process. Because with the proper steps,you don't have to go through this. Now I tell people how to avoidpaying unnecessary taxes, how to avoid probate, how to stretch assetsto last an entire lifetime."
5.Insure your future -- for long-term care "In my speeches to seminars or groups,I'll say, 'We depend oninsurance for a lot of things in our life. How many of you have lifeinsurance?'" Rettick says. "A good amount of hands go up. 'How manyhave automobile insurance?' All their hands go up. 'How many of youhave homeowners insurance?' All their hands go up. Then I'll say, 'Allright, how many of you have something will affect one of every two ofyou, which is long-term care insurance?' And only three or four handsgo up. It's interesting how we insure the things that have a lowlikelihood of happening, but don't insure the one thing that has a highlikelihood of happening. People don't want to think about ending upsomewhere like assisted living or a nursing home. But almost half ofthose Americans who are married and reach age 60 will live to age95. "If you buy a long-term care insurancepolicy, you want to get as closeto what the true cost of care is today as you can. And make sure youhave an inflationary rider because the experts say that with inflation,the cost of care today will double in 10 years, and potentially triplein 20 years. I would shoot for the moon and get lifetime coverage, say$140 a day with a 5 percent inflationary rider. That would be ideal."
The best line of defense is to have agood long-term care policy, Rettick says. But according to AARP, about25 percent of all applications from ages 55 and above don't qualifybecause of pre-existing conditions. One possible alternative is amodified endowment contract, or MEC, a life insurance contract that issimilar to an annuity in terms of tax-deferred accumulation of yourinitial premium. However, in an annuity, if the owner passes awayduring the annuity's accumulation stage all deferred income taxes ongrowth become due. MECs can avoid that by including a "rider" designedto pass the entire account value to your beneficiaries income tax-free.6.Annuities -- the path to retirement security
Annuities often get a bad name, if only inthe press, says Rettick,primarily because they're subject to ordinary income taxes, instead oflower capital gain treatment.
"ButAlbert Einstein said the eighth wonder of the world was the miracle ofcompounding interest," Rettick says. "So even after paying taxes,you're going to have more money to spend than if you had that money inthe bank in a CD, where you're paying taxes every year on thatinterest. For money that you don't want at risk, this is an idealaccount." Rettick advocates fixed indexed annuities which are tied to apopular equities index such as the S&P 500.
7.Investment management -- maximum returns, minimal taxes, fees"When you go looking for a financialadviser, you'll find there arelots of different designations out there, some of which are importantand some of which are not especially valid," says Rettick. "Look forsomebody who is insurance and securities licensed. Your normal CFPdoesn't understand Medicaid. If you ask somebody what he specializes inand he says, 'I help anybody age 20 to 100,' then he's a generalist,not a specialist. Find somebody who focuses on the pitfalls ofretirement and the challenges of making sure your money lasts,especially if you have a catastrophic illness. 8.Tap your home's equity -- you've earned it"Reverse mortgages once looked like a fad,but they are now endorsed bythe government," says Rettick. "If you have a house that's worth$200,000 and it's debt free, that's a good thing. The bad part is thatit's not generating any income. If you don't need any additional money,then leave it alone. But if someone needs to pay for long-term care orsupplement his Social Security income, a reverse mortgage company willeither provide a lump sum of 60 (percent) to 70 percent of the housevalue, or a monthly income stream that will last for life. Once thatperson passes away, the house is sold and the company recoups itsinvestment plus interest. The balance goes to the heirs. However, insome situations, you might want to compare an equity line to a reversemortgage, even though the equity line might have a high interest rate." Alanna Nash is a freelance writer based inKentucky.Bankrate.comis the Web's leading aggregator of information on financial productsincluding mortgages, credit cards, new and used automobile loans, moneymarket accounts, certificates of deposit, checking and ATM fees, homeequity loans and online banking fees. Visit Bankrate.comto get the tools and information that can help you make the bestfinancial decisions. | <urn:uuid:4fe5a3e5-a28e-4ec5-b7d0-885159016bbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thirdage.com/retirement/how-to-retire-well-and-well-off?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964453 | 2,383 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
Pharmacy and Medications
My Weight is in Danger
i am sick with myasthenia Gravis and this is my first year with that disease. my real problem is that i should have Cortisone 3 times a day and that may be for a long time. i feel sad that my weight start to increase, my face soon will be like a ball and i am just 17 years old. i wonder if there is anything i could do to control my weight before i become like a ............ help me with any diet or any instructions could help me while i have that Cortisone.
Information from Robert Goetz, PharmD, DABAT
Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease that affects the voluntary muscles. An autoimmune disease is one in which the body attacks itself. In patients with MG, the immune system attacks parts of the nervous system involved in normal muscle activities like walking, standing, and lifting things. This disease goes through periods when it is active and times when it is quiet. The exact trigger for an MG attack is unknown. However, the result is that patients with the disease get muscle weakness and the weakness worsens over time.
Since MG is a disease in which the immune system is overactive, one of the ways that doctors treat it is to reduce the activity of the immune system with medicines. Cortisone is a steroid that the body makes in small amounts every day. Doctors use higher doses of cortisone than the body usually makes to reduce the action of the immune system. This can help to prevent your body from attacking your receptors and decrease muscle weakness.
Unfortunately, these drugs cause many side effects including increased appetite, weight gain, insomnia, nervousness, and Cushing's syndrome. The symptoms of Cushing's syndrome include: fat deposits on the abdomen, upper back (sometimes called buffalo hump), and face (this round or puffy face is sometimes called moon face). It can also cause thin skin, easy bruising, cuts or scratches that take a long time to heal, pink or purple stretch marks, depression, acne, irritability, thicker face and body hair, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and weak, brittle bones.
Your doctor will want to help reduce the severity of these side effects by using the smallest effective dose of steroids for as short a time as possible. This could be as little as 2 months, or it may take your doctor years to find the right dose for you. After a while, your doctor may also have you take your medicine every other day to reduce these side effects.
We cannot provide guidance on the best way to reduce weight gain. However, we are forwarding your request to experts in the diet and nutrition section for further consultation.
Prepared by Anna Alexander, PharmD Candidate at the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy.
Information from Lisa Andrews, MEd, RD, LD
Thanks for your question. While I cannot give you specific diet information online, below are some tips to help you control your weight while taking steroids.
1. Limit sugar from sweetened beverages and dessert. Steroids affect blood sugar metabolism and may cause high blood sugar as well weight gain over time. Limit fruit juice as well as the extra calories may increase weight. Choose whole fruit instead.
2. Cut back on empty calorie snack foods such as chips, pretzels, cake, cookies, pie, etc to help with weight loss.
3. Limit high sodium foods to prevent further swelling in your face and other parts of your body. Cut back on fast food, processed meats, snack crackers/chips/pretzels, frozen meals, canned soup and other high sodium items.
4. Exercise as tolerated. If you are able to do any type of exercise during treatment, this will help maintain muscle mass and reduce further weight gain. Walk, bike, use a treadmill or swim to burn calories and build muscle during treatment.
5. Choose more high fiber food to fill you up. Go for whole wheat bread over white, brown rice, oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, etc to help curb your appetite and manage cravings. Snack on raw vegetables and fruit in place of granola bars, crackers, etc.
6. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. Medication may leave you dehydrated, which can increase appetite. Aim for ~6-8 (8 oz) glasses of plain water daily.
If none of these suggestions help, I suggest you locate a Registered Dietitian to help you individually with your diet. You can locate one through the American Dietetic Associate web site.
Best of luck!
Lisa Cicciarello Andrews, MEd, RD, LD
University of Cincinnati
Robert James Goetz, PharmD, DABAT
Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati | <urn:uuid:c128c3ab-69a3-4078-a437-9fe073bfe043> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netwellness.org/question.cfm/83206.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935263 | 1,035 | 1.773438 | 2 |
What Is BETA?
The Barrington Enlightened Taxpayers Association (BETA) was formed to close the gap between silent governing and an informed public because our busy lives preclude our ability to follow all of the myriad plans and decisions of those we depend on to keep Barrington viable.
We are a group of concerned citizens of the community who chose to be the conduit that informs, through regular monitoring of meetings of such entities as education, library, parks and the like. These are our taxing bodies and the role of BETA is to determine whether the cost/benefit ratio of their decisions is practical or desired and what can be done to meet our needs. We report on how their decisions impact our lives. In essence, we are your eyes and ears on how they spend your tax dollars.
Based on the information gathered and reported from the various meetings and with your input, BETA can provide financial and operational oversight that can have a meaningful impact on the present and future of our community.
We are your voice. Your support is vital to our effectiveness. We urge you to be informed, to be involved and to be aware of the decisions that are made on our behalf. | <urn:uuid:f980dcd8-425b-4745-9d31-f0eff39106fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.betaonline.us/aboutus.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964638 | 238 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah Wymann-Landgraf was born in Columbus, Nebraska near the Platte River on April 11, l948. He was christened: Larry Gene Weinman. He is the elder son of the late Dr. Donald Eugene Weinman, D.V.M., Ph.D. Organic Chemistry, son of Dr. Joseph Ephraim Weinman, D.V.M., Professor Emeritus, and one of the founding fathers of the School of Anatomy in the College of Veterinary Medicine in the University of Missouri.
Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah Wymann-Landgraf is a native son of the United States of America. He was born and christened a Protestant and brought up in the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran traditions. He memorized Luther’s Small Catechism with understanding of its meanings under the tutelage of Pastor Richard Deffner of the Missouri Synod in 1960 at the age of 12.
As for his family background: On his father’s father’s side he is old Bernese Swiss, and several of his forebears served on the Councils that built the Swiss Confederation and fought in the legions that protected it from its many enemies. The Bernese Swiss were the core of the Swiss Confederation, and under their political wisdom and military skill, the Swiss remained undefeated for over 300 years and attained the highest esteem in the eyes of all Europeans. When the Catholic Dukes of Savoy—themselves powerful mountain folk—threatened John Calvin and his community in Geneva with destruction, it was enough to secure the safety of all Geneva that the Bernese Lutherans vouched themselves to be the defenders of Calvin & Geneva. At that time, by the way, Geneva was not part of the Swiss Confederation but was part of the Kingdom of Savoy. Yet the rulers of Savoy lost heart at the thought of the Bernese pikemen, and never attacked Calvin. Thus, Geneva was spared by the mere threat of Bernese arms.
Dr. Abd-Allah is one of the descendents of Lienhard Wymann and his wife Barbara Baumann of Eriswil & Sumiswald, through their 4th eldest son, Uli Wymann, christened in Eriswil on April 3rd 1701. Lienhard in the Swiss dialect means “Lion-hearted.” Dr. Abd-Allah’s great grandfather Andreas Wymann (Andrew Weinman) of Eriswil came to the United States in the second half of the 19th century to find his Bernese Swiss bride with her parents & siblings in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin: Anna Maria Siegenthaler, whom he married in 1871. Anna Maria was an upright Christian woman with a powerful soprano voice. She always sang religious songs. When she raised her operatic voice to its ethereal heights, she could shatter glasses by the mere pitch of the sound. They had 11 children, and Dr. Abd-Allah’s grandfather, Professor Emeritus Dr. Joseph Ephraim Weinman, D.V.M. was their 11th child and 6th son. (The Wymann name was changed to Weinman upon immigration to the States. Weinmann is the High German form of the Swiss German Wymann, and Weinman, with one “n”, is an “Americanized” form of the High German name.)
On his father’s mother’s side, Dr. Abd-Allah is English, being one of the thousands of native American sons and daughters of Robert Ames and Rebecca Blake of the first generation of New England Puritans of the village of Boxford, County of Essex, in the Massachusetts Colony. His descent is through John Ames, their 3rd eldest son, born in Boxford in 1670. John Ames was one of the pioneers of New Hampshire and was also one of the political spokesmen of the New Hampshire settlers. An Indian war party—suspected of having been Algonquin—killed him in 1724. Dr. Umar’s descent from the Ames family is traced through the Wyoming rancher Edward Eugene Freeman-Davis, born March 1866 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, son of Parish Moses Freeman-Parish, born in Upper New York State in 1832. Parish Moses Freeman fought in the Michigan Light Artillery Volunteers in the Civil War. The Michigan Volunteers were made part of the Army of the Potomac under General McClellan and then came under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant.
Parish Moses Freeman fought the entire war and witnessed Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Parish Moses Freeman was a big man from the Michigan back woods, who looked to some more like an Indian than a white man, although few dared tell him that to his face. He held views similar to John Brown’s. In uniform, he wore a black shirt with his Union blues. When he died—after a long full life—he insisted that he be buried in his Union uniform with his black shirt. He told his grandchildren that that was the way he wanted to greet his Lord on Judgment Day. The Freemans had changed their name from Ames to Freeman during the War of 1812. That name change is registered in the appellation of Parish Moses Freeman’s father, Amos Freeman, whose first name stood for the Prophet Amos but also served to remind his grandchildren of the old family name, Ames.
Mother’s father’s side: German. Landgraves of Darmstadt, Hessen, descendents of Henry Landgraf (Heinrich Landgraf von Darmstadt), born in Darmstadt in 1804, and his wife Theresa Maur, through their 3rd eldest son Johann (John Landgraf), born also in Darmstadt Jan. 27, 1840. The Landgrafs came to Wisconsin in 1849 in the wake of the tribulations, disorders, failed revolutions, and subsequent tyrannies of the years 1848-1849. The Landgrafs were Roman Catholics. Dr. Abd-Allah’s mother, Grace Marian Landgraf-Marmon—raised a Methodist—is the daughter of the Kansas rancher, Amel Edward Landgraf-Warnke, born Nov. 18, 1895 in Chepstwo, Kansas.
Mother’s mother’s side: French Huguenot; descendents of the Huguenot Duke Auguste Frédéric Louis de Marmont, who died and was buried in France. This descent is through his son François (Francis Marmon), who came with a band of Huguenots to Northhampton, North Carolina in 1706, over 20 years after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted the Huguenots civil rights in the wake of the long and debilitating French Wars of Religion. On her maternal side, Dr. Abd-Allah’s mother is the granddaughter of Judge Charles L. Marmon-Bragg of Garden City, Kansas, who was superintendent of the prairie schools of Eastern Kansas and Eastern Nebraska and later became one of the best, most-upright, and most respected judges of the Middle West. Judge Charles L. Marmon was born on Feb. 23, 1862 in Lansing, Michigan, which his family from Calvin County in Western Michigan had had some hand in helping to establish.
This information, courtesy of the Ibn Abbas Institute, is correct as of 15 December 2002 | <urn:uuid:e32c0333-d90b-47d3-b788-2122f89ac055> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.themodernreligion.com/profile/sh-Umar-Faruq-Abd-Allah.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96859 | 1,571 | 1.773438 | 2 |
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The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment “Patriot” movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called “sovereign citizens.” Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City’s federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias.
In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.
As we report today (see complete report here), they’re back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. “Paper terrorism” — the use of property liens and citizens’ “courts” to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to “reconquer” the American Southwest.
One federal law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. “This is the most significant growth we’ve seen in 10 to 12 years,” says one. “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence.”
A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama.
At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president’s country of birth.
The latter claims from the so-called “birthers” first gained traction when far-right hard-liners like writer Jerome Corsi, politician Alan Keyes and Watergate felon and radio show host G. Gordon Liddy questioned the validity of the president’s birth certificate. But they have picked up speed thanks to the likes of Lou Dobbs, the CNN and radio host who has repeatedly demanded that Obama “show the documents” proving his citizenship — this despite the fact that the birther claims had been thoroughly debunked by a guest host of Dobbs’ own CNN show and by many others.
As Chip Berlet, an analyst of the radical right at Political Research Associates, said in a recent report: “The current political environment is awash with seemingly absurd but nonetheless influential conspiracy theories, hyperbolic claims and demonized targets. And this creates a milieu where violence is a likely outcome.”
Fifteen years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote then-Attorney General Janet Reno to warn about extremists in the militia movement, saying that the “mixture of armed groups and those who hate” was “a recipe for disaster.” Just six months later, Oklahoma City’s federal building was bombed.
Today, the Patriot movement may not have reached the level of white-hot fury that it did in the 1990s. But the movement clearly is growing again, and Americans, in particular law enforcement officers, need to take the dangers it presents seriously. That is equally true for the politicians, pundits and preachers who, through pandering or ignorance, abet the growth of a movement marked by a proven predilection for violence. | <urn:uuid:69bccda3-711a-45c7-8c4c-e2e1d39c6a9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/08/12/new-splc-report-return-of-the-militias/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956772 | 916 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Interview with Paleontology Author Neal Robbins
Tonight, I would like to talk with Neil Robbins, who specializes in paleontology and related fields. He authored Najimah’s Gifts to Dousares and Ilat. His forthcoming novels include Sand Beneath the Rainbow, Owl’s Topaz, Cyborgs and Greens, and others. Neal moderates World of Paleontology, Eastern Archeology, Babel, National Reptile Association, and other Yahoo forums related to paleontology and archeology. Explore Neal’s world of extinct dinosaurs and fossils, along with his literary works at www.worldofpaleontology.com.
BARBARA: I see you have a strong interest in paleontology and a background in philosophy. Do you write full time?
NEAL: I work on my fiction writing two or three hours in a day. My fiction writing is something that I do four or five days during a week.
BARBARA: I notice more fiction books and movies revolving around paleontology coming out. What do you think about the Jurassic Park series? Was it realistically done?
NEAL: From an overall perspective, the Jurassic Park series was good. There were a few inaccuracies. Tyrannosaurus Rex was not the fast runner that the Jurassic Park movies portrayed it to be. There were some dinosaurs (for example, Troodon and Velociraptor) that could run much faster than Tyrannosaur Rex.
BARBARA: How did you research your background for Najimah’s Gifts to Dousares?
NEAL: I had a strong background in Middle Eastern culture before writing Najimah’s Gifts to Dousares. I had spent time in the Middle East and had taken a lot of coursework in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin. I have a working knowledge of Arabic and Turkish. I have also studied Akkadian, the language of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians. Now I am learning Avesta, which is a form of older Persian.
BARBARA: Tell me about Babel and some of the other forums.
NEAL: Babel is an all purpose intellectual forum. Malcolm Lawrence is the moderator of it. My other groups are more specialized. For example, Marine Paleontology (I am the moderator) is a paleontology group. I also moderate an archeology group called Eastern Archeology.
BARBARA: What advice would you give a new author trying to promote their books?
NEAL: My advice would be this: Use every resource that you can find to promote your books. It’s a battle where no holds are barred. Use the Internet to the fullest extent possible. The more people that you know, the better the chances are that you will be successful with your books.
BARBARA: What did you find most difficult about your works-in-progress?
NEAL: The writing itself is quite easy. The hard part is finding an illustrator. Some artists did illustrations for me in the past, but they don’t have time for it now due to other projects.
BARBARA: What did you enjoy most about the creative process?
NEAL: I enjoy the adventure of the creative process. It’s an adventure to write a novel.
BARBARA: Tell me something about the other books that will be coming out in print.
NEAL: There is one called Cosmic Icicles; it is a futuristic science fiction novel. Another is The Eyes of Lilith’s Serpent. That one has a mythological format and is set in the ancient Middle East. A sky goddess named Naila is in it.
BARBARA: Where do you see yourself five years from now (publishing)?
NEAL: I see myself as being well established as an author five years from now. I’m very optimistic about it.
BARBARA: Where may a reader order copies of your books? Are they available in E-book format?
NEAL: My books can be ordered on Amazon.com. Those are where the sales pages are located. | <urn:uuid:587a9e45-93ea-479d-a785-ff7c24fc7f4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bloodredshadow.com/tag/dinosaurs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954085 | 855 | 1.726563 | 2 |
- About Us
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The Entrepreneurial Spirit
The members of successful family businesses have in common an entrepreneurial spirit. It is evident in their passion for their business and the cohesive effect that it has on their relationships and continuing vision.
The Webster dictionary defines entrepreneur as “one who organizes, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise”. An important part of effectively managing a privately owned business is a carefully crafted succession plan that is fully funded. A succession plan is a documented process that plots the necessary steps for the next generation to take over control of the business. It prepares not only the individuals of both generations but the organization. The funding piece of the plan ensures that the necessary finances are available to implement the plan.
Such a plan ensures that family members will feel secure plus it respects the independence and the right to choose of each family member. Who takes over control of the business after the retirement, disability or death of the present owner is often an issue that is avoided by family members. The son is secretly afraid that his father is never going to retire. Will Dad always want to have a say in the business? The daughter who has faithfully worked in the business since graduating from college is uncertain of what her role will be when her father eventually retires. She has never voiced her expectation that she will be her father’s heir. Their cousin who owns a share in the business is anxious to take a more active role. A key employee, who is the backbone of the company, is near to resigning unless he is given part ownership or other incentives.
Successful succession planning is a process - not an event - that respects the wishes of each family member while at the same time ensuring the ongoing success and therefore the long-term security of the business, the family and their employees. Often the family benefits from working with a financial professional to facilitate the process allowing individuals to express their needs and desires for the company and the future.
There are various elements involved in a succession plan but it begins with the owner(s) having a clear strategic plan for the future of the business. In a business that is closely held by the owner, it is even more important that he or she designates who is their successor and begins the grooming process. The founder also needs to think about what his future financial needs will be.
A wise aim is to create financial security outside of the business through various types of investment vehicles. That is only part of a retirement plan. It often requires considerable emotional adjustment for the entrepreneur, who thinks he will work forever, to plan for his retirement. It is crucial for the owner to consider what portion of his retirement income will originate from the company and when will it begin. Will this money come from the sale of the company or a lump sum upon retirement or installments for a defined period?
There are a number of vital issues to be addressed by the business owner(s). Procrastinating due to being too busy is a poor excuse. Best management practice involves implementing strategies to reduce the risks to the business. A potential danger often overlooked by busy owners is the risk caused by ill health or accident to themselves or key employees. Personal disability insurance coverage and business overhead expense coverage ensure peace of mind plus the premiums may be tax deductible as a business expense. A business overhead expense policy covers expenses such as rent or mortgage, utilities, employee salaries, pension contributions, office supplies, accounting billing and collection fees and even taxes.
A good slogan for succession planning is “Get it all down on paper”. Start with a clear vision for the future, have a Certified Valuation Analyst appraise the value of the business, incorporate a formula valuation and make sure the appropriate insurance policies are in place. There are a number of options for handing over control of your business but if you opt for a buy-sell agreement it is important the business be periodically valued. A pre-determined valuation formula, usually a multiple of earnings, ensures that the amount of the buy-sell agreement keeps pace with the growth in value of the business. Honest, open communication between generations and key managers is essential in designing a succession plan, ensuring a seamless hand-over and moving the business forward to the next stage of its development.
Craig W. Tower CFP® is a Certified Financial Planner with Mueller Financial Services, Inc. with four office locations: Elgin, Chicago, St. Charles and Oakbrook Terrace. He is a registered representative with 1st Global Capital Corp. Securities offered through 1st Global Capital Corp., Member FINRA/SIPC. The views expressed are solely those of the author and may not be those of 1st Global Capital Corp. This is not an offer to buy or sell any security. The preceding information is of a general nature and should not be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice. Please consult an appropriate professional about your specific situation. | <urn:uuid:6d35f6aa-d298-4395-bd52-b9433eecaa7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.muellerfinancialsolutions.com/resources/news-events/entrepreneurial-spirit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963785 | 999 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Despite needing $350,000 to remain fully functional, Rabbi Walter Jacob, president of the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, Germany, is optimistic that the school will weather its current economic crisis.
“We’re not going to close it. That’s a definite,” said Jacob, rabbi emeritus of Rodef Shalom Congregation. “I’m optimistic that we won’t have to face the decision of cutting back either.”
The biggest problem facing the college according to Rabbi Jacob is the upcoming 2009 school year. The current enrollment of 17 rabbinic students and five cantorial students are in need of funds for their academic year — an average year costs around $12,000 to $13,000 per student.
No one anticipated the school financial trouble was this bad when it began its first cantorial program in August, accepting five students.
“When we opened it, the problems in America were not acute,” Jacob said.
He believes the money can be raised, Specifically, he’s relying on the American donors and the German government to pull the college out of its economic situation.
“What we are trying to do with all of this is two things,” he said. “One is that the American support, which remains important, doesn’t erode too much through this economic crisis; secondly that the German government assume more of a responsibility for the college.”
“The sum is not really large,” he said, “Certainly not when you compare it to what the bailouts are costing us.”
Meanwhile, the school is going about things as usual for the 2009 school year. Classes are being scheduled as normal.
But if funds aren’t secured, Jacob warned, there will be severe cutbacks.
“We will keep up the students as long as it’s possible,” he said. “We will eliminate entirely some of the courses which we offer. Which possibly could be made up in later years.”
As for the teachers, Jacob said they already receive little compensation for their work, and they might have to work voluntarily if the money isn’t raised.
“We will simply tell these folks who are teaching, who are not getting significant salaries now anyhow, that we will have to tell them we won’t be able to pay them anything and that they can go voluntarily. Or simply stop those classes.”
Jacob is hoping that the continued support the college has seen from American donors will continue despite harsh economic times.
“I’m counting on my American friends really spread throughout the country, to continue to participate.”
(Mike Zoller can be reached at email@example.com.) | <urn:uuid:5366afd7-cb15-42c1-8850-f4f9fd57ff4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thejewishchronicle.net/view/full_story/333131/article-Abraham-Geiger-College-to-stay-open-despite-economic-woes?instance=news_special_coverage_right_column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972763 | 589 | 1.546875 | 2 |
How should the Georgian crisis have been handled by any
competent administration of either party?
1) Intelligence should have pointed out the Russian troop buildup and provided an analysis of its likely result. The President would have this estimate on his desk three months before the actual conflict.
2) The President should, at that moment, have called Vladimir Putin and asked him to stop the buildup. In that conversation, the President should have held out both vague carrots and sticks.
3) If the buildup persisted, the President should have made a speech calling attention to it, and analyzing for the American and world audiences what that buildup likely portends. Pointed description of South Ossetsia and its conflicted nationalities would be pertinent.
4) If the buildup still persists, the U.S. has to do something. That could range from moving an aircraft carrier attack group to the jujitsu approach, i.e., brokering the handover of South Ossetsia from Georgia to Russia — thus taking the wind out of Georgia’s supposed provocation and leaving nothing to fight for.
How far did actual U.S. policy diverge from this truly “realistic” approach? Let’s not even count the ways.
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy? | <urn:uuid:512a1770-b366-4ea5-aab8-b9e23d8303e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spectator.org/blog/2008/08/13/all-georgians | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943164 | 441 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Thanks to the USNR we have another edition of "Red in Tooth & Claw."
You cannot spin this - this is a clear case of the USNR discriminating on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin.
I'm not going to even go for the low hanging fruit here; the non-value added (D)iversity Industry full-employment act make-work jobs; the lost manhours producing the metrics; or the fact that Nixon's "Hispanic" is the most abused term in this sad Cultural Marxist construct; abused not only by its immaginitive birth, ill-defined to impossible borders, to the outright self-identification fraud it encourages.
We've all seen it, and we've blogg'd about it here; the Flag Officer who had a white-bread suburban upbringing in Maryland but because a grandmother was from the Texas-Mexican border, he claimed to be "Hispanic" and made a side-job out of it. The "if I grew up in FL I would be considered a German American, but because I grew up as a rich kid in San Juan, I'm "Hispanic!"; the blond haired, blue eyed guy whose grandfather came from Spain getting a "Hispanic" scholarship; etc ...etc ... etc.
Everyone involved in the below should be subject to public shaming, as we all know that when it comes to jobs, it is a zero sum game.
I don't like calling people out by name anymore - as most are just following orders; ahem. But Rear Admiral Little, you signed this. Are you prepared to tell someone that they were not selected for a job because YOU need that job to go to Hispanic? Are you ready to explain that one person is getting special treatment - nee preferential treatment - just because they click a box called "Hispanic?" How will you be able to claim fairness, when you are holding leaders "accountable" if they do not meet discrimination quotas ... oh, I'm sorry, goals? You actually have clearly defined a job with the no kidding title, "Command Hispanic Champion."
So, where is the "Command African-American Champion?" The "Command Japanese-American Champion?" The "Command Jewish-American Champion?" The "Command Scandinavian-American Champion?"
This whole subject makes me physically ill with disgust; read it all.
As a side-note, before this scupper-trout came in, for today's DivThu I was going to humor you with an equally migraine producing example of mindless insanity; in this case in Jacksonville, FL where somehow Jeff Foxworthy seems to have met Franz Kafka. Amazing. Click those two links if you have the stomach for it.
UPDATE: Hey! More people are joining the parade at Nixon's folly. Check AP;
The House Press Gallery, an administrative office of Congress that helps media and House officials get the data and background they need, counts 33 Hispanic representatives in the 113th Congress, not including delegates. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with the caucus, puts the number at 31. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials tallies 28.
Trying to clear up the discrepancies, The Associated Press contacted the offices of each of the voting House members who appeared on one or two of the three lists. Delegates were excluded because they can't vote. The AP asked congressional staffers whether the members considered themselves Hispanic, how they identified themselves on the 2010 census and any details of their families' immigration stories.What fools we make of ourselves. I also invite you to take the Kirkorian quiz.
Aides for Republican Rep. Trent Franks and Democratic Rep. John Garamendi told the AP that the lawmakers don't consider themselves Hispanic, although the House Press Gallery lists them as such.
Franks, a six-term congressman from Arizona, was on the Press Gallery's list of Hispanics for this session and the 112th congressional session. But he is not on the list issued by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, which operates several young Latino development programs and holds events for Hispanic members of Congress. Nor is he on the list compiled by NALEO, a bipartisan group that works to increase the number of Hispanics holding public office.
An aide said Franks has been a member of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, a House caucus of Republican Hispanics, since he arrived in Congress in 2003.
"Trent Franks is not Hispanic, but considers the Hispanic community a critically important part of the pro-family, pro-freedom, conservative coalition in America," spokesman Ben Carnes said. He provided no details on Franks' racial or ethnic ancestry. Carnes noted that Franks' wife, Josephine, "is an immigrant and speaks the better part of four languages, one of which is Spanish."
Garamendi considers himself Basque, said Matthew Kravitz, deputy communications director. Garamendi made the House Press Gallery's list, but not the other two lists. Garamendi's paternal grandfather arrived in the U.S. in 1906 from the Basque region, a swatch of northern Spain and southern France. He did not check off Hispanic on the census, Kravitz said.
The Census' American Community Survey for 2011 estimates there are about 53,045 people of Basque origin in the U.S.
Along with Franks and Garamendi, three other House members account for differences in the tallies. Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, along with Republican Reps. David Valadao and Devin Nunes, all from California, are from families that emigrated from Portugal. They are not included in the NALEO tally, but the other two groups include them.
On his census form, Nunes checked "Hispanic, other" and wrote in "Portuguese" to specify his ethnicity, said Jack Langer, communications director. All of Nunes' grandparents are Portuguese immigrants, but Nunes has said the Hispanic label isn't specific enough to truly describe him, Langer said.
"He is not opposed to it if considered Hispanic. In his opinion, Hispanic is too broad ... so he doesn't find a lot of use to the term," Langer said.
Valadao's father emigrated from Portugal's Azores islands in 1969, and his mother in 1972, said Tal Eslick, Valadao's chief of staff. Valadao speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese and considers himself "an American with Portuguese heritage," Eslick said.
"He believes we are all better served by not dividing people into groups based on color of their skin or where their ancestors came from," Eslick said.
Costa considers himself Hispanic, communications director Jessica Kahanek said. "He definitely has that immigrant experience," she said. She directed additional questions to the groups that compiled the lists.
UPDATE II - Electric Boogaloo: Well, well, well. RADM Little, you seem to be in violation of your own instruction, specifically paragraphs 3.a.(3), 4.a.(5), and 4.b.(2), (3), (4), & (5). | <urn:uuid:76bd9d6d-0009-440f-9b22-92fc3b66228a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2013/02/diversity-thursday.html?showComment=1360279390702 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965531 | 1,447 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Apple and Offshore Profits
Apple Computer uses off shore tax havens in Ireland, Netherlands and other countries to substantially reduce their US federal corporate income taxes – taking billions in profits offshore.
Like other high tech and drug companies, they shift patents and intellectual property to subsidiaries in low and no tax haven countries – and transfer profits to these companies to avoid taxes. This little game is sometimes called the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich.”
As if that wasn't bad enough, now Apple is lobbying Congress to pay next-to-no taxes when they bring back to the US their over $12 billion in offshore profits. And they're leading a national lobbying group of global corporations that want the same special treatment for their more than $1.2 trillion in offshore profits.
If Congress passes this “tax holiday,” Apple will avoid over $4 billion in taxes. And global tax dodgers could avoid over $80 billion. Not only is this more than enough to solve every state budget crisis in the country, it's also unfair to individual taxpayers and domestic businesses that have to pick up the slack for tax deadbeats like Apple.
Apple and the other companies lobbying Congress -- including Pfizer, Cisco and Oracle -- claim that a “tax holiday” will bring back billions in investment to the U.S. and help create jobs. This is a lie. Independent studies show that a similar tax holiday in 2004 did little to create jobs. In fact, it mostly went to boost stock prices and CEO pay, and enable companies to buy back stock. Some companies oppose this short term tax holiday and want to create a permanent tax holiday by instituting a “territorial tax system” that would accelerate the use of accounting gymnastics and permanently reward overseas tax dodgers. We oppose both short and long-term tax holidays for profits held off-shore. | <urn:uuid:db2d1f6d-b855-4d38-bfb5-eaf35dc24baa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usuncut.org/targets/apple/offshore | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956842 | 387 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The social protest movement is back. Sparked by the arrest of movement leader Dafni Leef last week in Tel Aviv, 10,000 marchers took to the streets of Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv last Saturday, shouting, “The only solution to privatization is revolution.”
Calling it the “Israeli New Deal”, movement leaders have also drafted a social covenant for Israel that includes important pledges for housing, social welfare and the environmental stewardship. The group hopes the covenant will clarify the group’s agenda and will draw support from Israeli student, business, and government leaders.
Uri Matoki, a spokesperson for the group said, “The protest included a lot of emotion and anger, but we thought we had to put something clear on the table, a document of demands that would include a proposal for fundamentally changing the system in Israel.”
The current proposal includes raising taxes on the highest income workers, better access to social benefits for all Israelis, a call for sustainable economic growth and an end to the privatization of government services and the outsourcing of workers in Israel.
The move from nebulous protests to drafting a clear focused agenda for change may mark a new stage in the group’s development, one that activist Tomer Mintz believes the movement is ready to embrace.
"The tents made a huge impact, above and beyond expectations, but they've maxed out,” he said in September when tents were dismantled. “It's time to continue the struggle by other means.”
Bar-Ilan Professor Noah Efron agrees. He believes the movement must now engage in political dialogue and long term political strategizing.
“If you stop viewing this as we’re going to topple the government and put in something different and you start to look at it in terms of two years from now and four years from now," he said, "I think there’s really good reason to think that we’re already seeing that change is on its way.” | <urn:uuid:154fe32d-a9e3-4cf7-9a78-bee1559085b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jspace.com/news/articles/israeli-social-protestors-draft-new-deal/9693 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964783 | 419 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Dolphin head found on Gulf island
Published: Monday, December 3, 2012 at 7:42 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, December 3, 2012 at 7:42 a.m.
GULFPORT, Miss. — A dolphin's head has washed up on Horn Island and a whole dead dolphin at Gulfport.
Experts will examine both today, said Moby Solangi, director of the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport.
He said both animals were adults, and had been dead a few days. Bird surveyors found the head on Horn Island. The body was found Saturday on the beach.
Solangi could not say whether the deaths are related to those of dolphins found shot, stabbed and mutilated last month in Jackson and Harrison Counties.
"It's a possibility that it could be a connection," he said. "It's very rare that you see just the head of a dolphin."
The institute and Animal Legal Defense Fund are offering $5,000 rewards for information about anyone involved in those incidents.
Tips can be made anonymously by calling DMR's Marine Patrol dispatch at 523-4134 day or night, the IMMS dolphin line at 1-888-767-3657 or NOAA at 1-800-853-1964.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:e060bb76-e17e-4cb8-a9f7-f9a30a36dfc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20121203/WIRE/121209953/1211/news01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955265 | 304 | 1.515625 | 2 |
January 4, 2013
Whenever I meet former broadcasters in the PR business, I get a little jealous. Broadcasters know how to make even complex stories more clear and conversational.
So how can you write like a top broadcaster, such as the BBC, which provides a good example of concise storytelling in the mainstream media? I ran Microsoft Word’s readability statistics on six BBC articles. Benchmark your copy against these averages.
Please log in to MyPRSA to read this article, as well as to view and leave comments.
Learn more about PRSA membership, and join a professional network you can count on. | <urn:uuid:b53ad751-25af-470c-8c51-ee24b5865dc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/Tactics/Articles/view/10026/1071/8_ways_to_increase_readability_for_your_writing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954958 | 128 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Mon March 12, 2012
Jodi Picoult Turns Tough Topics Into Bestsellers
When you think about blockbuster best-sellers, genres like mystery, crime and romance typically come to mind. Ethical or moral fiction? Not so much. But that's how Jodi Picoult, who has 33 million copies of her books currently in circulation, describes her novels. So how did an author who writes about divisive issues get so popular?
The answer can, in part, be found at a recent event at Philadelphia's Free Library, where Picoult promoted her latest book, Lone Wolf. Picoult got members of the audience to howl — literally howl — like wolf pack. The howling outburst was all part of a demonstration that showed just how much she learned about wolves while researching her new book, and vividly demonstrated her special talent for connecting with fans.
Picoult's longtime editor Emily Bestler says the author has had a strong bond with readers since the beginning of her career. Bestler remembers the time, right before she began working with Picoult, when she saw two young women on the subway reading her books.
"I said, 'Oh, how are those? Are those good books?' " Bestler says. "And they both went on for five minutes — complete strangers — about how they worship Jodi Picoult, how they waited breathlessly for every trade paperback. And I thought, 'Wow! That's impressive. That's not what you hear every day.' "
'I Don't Know The Answers'
A long line of fans snakes through the echoing hallways of the Free Library, each reader eager to get a moment with Picoult. It's the end of a long day, but Picoult is unfailingly cheerful as she signs copies of her books.
The subjects Picoult chooses to write about make her popularity somewhat surprising. She has taken on a long list of issues in her novels, including hard topics that many readers would just as well not think about.
"Neonaticide, the death penalty, mercy killing, stem cell research, what it means to believe in God or not believe in God, the right to die, gay rights," Picoult reels off, naming just a few of the big questions she has tackled.
Picoult takes a controversial issue and lets her characters hash out their differences over it, usually in the context of a family facing some kind of crisis. She says she tends to write about subjects that keep her awake at night.
"I think I have sort of gravitated toward issues that I don't know the answers to," Picoult explains, "because that's what's more interesting for me to write. The act of writing ... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately, I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books."
Writing With Wolves
In Lone Wolf, a brother and sister must decide whether to terminate medical care for their father, who is in a vegetative state after a car accident. Cara, the sister, was also in the accident and is determined to keep her father alive. Her brother Edward, who has been estranged from the family, wants to let their father go and donate his organs to someone who needs them. In one scene, Edward thinks the two have resolved their differences:
My sister is glassy-eyed, slack-jawed, almost asleep, but she fixes her gaze directly on mine. "I can't do this," Cara murmurs. "I just want it to be over."
It feels like a plea. It feels as if, for the first time in six years, I might be in a position to help her. I look down at my sister. "I'll take care of it," I promise, knowing how much these words have cost her. "I'll take care of everything."
At the center of this story is their father, Luke, a researcher who was so absorbed by the wolves he studied that at one point he left his family to live with a wolf pack. Picoult says she wanted Luke to be a larger-than-life character.
"I think that's probably the most devastating thing — when someone who is larger than life winds up a shadow of themselves in a hospital bed," Picoult says. "And one day I woke up thinking about wolves. No idea why. I have no affinity for wolves; I know nothing about wolves beyond what most people tend to know. And I started to do a little research, and I began to think, 'What if I created a guy who had lived with a wild pack? Who didn't just study them from afar, but actually lived with them?' "
Picoult is not the kind of writer who just makes things up for her fiction. She does extensive research for her books, delving into medical, scientific and ethical research, visiting hospitals and even prisons if necessary. For background on Lone Wolf, she learned everything she could about wolves and spent time with a researcher who had actually lived with a pack. But for all her interest in research and facts, Picoult still believes she can have the greatest impact on readers through fiction.
"If you read a book that's fiction and you get caught in the characters and the plot, and swept away, really, by the fiction of it — by the nonreality — you sometimes wind up changing your reality as well," says Picoult. "Often, when the last page is turned, it will haunt you. It's a much gentler approach, sometimes, into a controversial subject than nonfiction is."
Fact, Fiction And Fans
Waiting for Picoult to sign their books, Rachel Minnick, Susan Berkelbach and Carrie Dunn say they have been reading Picoult's books for years. This is their second time seeing her in person.
The three friends say they love the way Picoult combines fact with fiction. "I love the fact that she tackles some really tough topics, and her character development is amazing," says Minnick. "You just fall in love with her characters. ... She's an incredible storyteller."
Berkelbach likes how Picoult weaves different ideas into her stories. "They're just so interesting," she says. "They really make you think about things that you haven't normally thought about."
"I like the fact that there's so much research that goes into her books," explains Dunn. "It's not just that she's a good storyteller. ... You learn something every time you read one of her books."
Picoult doesn't take her fans for granted. She gets around 200 emails a day and answers them all. But she doesn't think it's just personal attention bringing readers back to her books year after year.
"I think the reason these readers come back to me is because I represent their points of view," says Picoult. "It may not be my point of view, but that's OK. Everyone still deserves to have their say. I always look at it sort of like the facets of a diamond. You've got to illuminate each one, and then let the reader decide what's the brightest one and why. My job isn't to tell them which is the brightest one. It's just to illuminate every single facet."
Picoult, who also happens to be a mother of three, generally writes a book a year. She finished the first draft of her next book before heading out on this book tour and has already started researching another one. | <urn:uuid:7c4ea139-aa39-4654-bfce-91ffa243f40c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kwit.org/post/jodi-picoult-turns-tough-topics-bestsellers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981275 | 1,545 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Thanks to Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” and Marissa Mayer’s recent changes to Yahoo policies, there’s been a lot in the news about women in business – specifically, moms, and how they balance work and motherhood. As Mother’s Day approaches, Manta polled more than 1,000 female small business owners to get their perspective on topics ranging from biggest challenges to who they turn to for support.
An overwhelming number (95%) of women running small businesses polled on Manta are mothers. Surprisingly, nearly one in four working moms say running a business is more difficult than raising children – although 69 percent say both are equally challenging. The key, these moms point out, is in finding a balance.
Working moms have a lot on their plate and are craving tips for running their small business – 17 percent report their biggest challenge is they need more help on best practices for running a business. The small business community continues to turn to resources like Manta where they can network and promote their business online and do more with less. The challenge for these moms running a business is having to do more with less, since many don’t have the support staff to run a small business.
So, who are these women turning to? 68 percent turn to their families or significant other as their primary support. Over half (52 percent) are indifferent about Sheryl Sandberg’s stance on women in business – that women need to take responsibility for their careers. This could stem from the fact that female small business owners don’t feel support by their female counterparts – only 4 percent say other females in business serve as their biggest supporter.
This Mother’s Day help us thank moms across the country for the inspiration that they are everyday!
Most of us have dreamt of winning the lottery, quitting work and traveling the world. Though, surprisingly, 73 percent of small business owners say they would forgo that kind of luck to see their business succeed. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, we surveyed nearly 1,000 small business owners to evaluate the role of luck in their business.
The study really just validated what we already knew – small business owners don’t rely on luck for their good fortune. In fact, while many people recognize that parts of business success are serendipitous (with Mark Zuckerberg ranked as the luckiest in business), SMBs don’t think luck has much to do with it at all. Below are a few of the highlights from our survey.
Small business owners know what really drives their business. Nearly four in 10 say luck has not played any role in their business success – and ranked it last behind hard-work, networking, good hiring decisions, timing and the economy as the factor that has had the biggest impact on their company.
When asked what time of year is “luckiest” for their business – it was evenly distributed between all four quarters during the year. SMBs are optimists, and realize that they must work hard at all times to experience success throughout the year.
What do small business owners do to improve their “luck” in business? Why, network, of course. Almost one-third of those polled say networking is the best way to improve their luck in business. Instead of a leprechaun or charm, small business owners are using social platforms to bring them luck and business, ranking Facebook and Manta highest.
Hi, we’d like to introduce you to Jay Clouse. Manta has sponsored Jay, a marketing student from The Ohio State University, to attend SXSW Tech Week on the StartUp Bus. Jay is a bright student who has participated in Tech Columbus and StartUp Weekend where his team created an app called ManCard.
If you aren’t familiar with Startup Bus, it is a group that challenges students to build a business from scratch in 72hrs, on the way down from the Midwest to Austin Texas for the South by Southwest conference at which they will be judged in a competition with other StartupBus teams.
This is a really great experience for students, like Jay, to continue the brainstorming of Startup Weekend into a journey on a bus with other like-minded kids. These future hustlers who will in turn go on to build companies, believe in big ideas and serve as inspiration to those they work with and more.
Look out for an interview of Jay soon about his Startup Bus project, “Next Chaptr”, which is a crowdfunding platform for authors, in the next week or so. You can also follow Jay on his journey here @baldingboy
Manta is excited to announce Thank You America campaign Grand Prize Winner, Longview Barber Shop!
Longview Baber Shop is the longest running barbershop in the small community of Clintonville at 93 years. “I think small business is the representation of the America dream,” says Nick a barber at Longview. They have been on the same block since 1919 and really know and love their local community. Knowing their customers and having their customers know one another is what really sets them apart.
Longview Barber Shop will receive a new XPS 13 Ultrabook from Dell and will be featured as a Dell Small Business of the Week.
Connect your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles in just a few seconds to instantly start sharing your business news, offers and tips with your network and millions of potential customers on Manta. Just type your message, select where you want to share it and it’s done.
Efficiently managing your company’s social accounts is important for regularly connecting with your customers. With the new Manta social sharing features you no longer have to remember different passwords or navigate to different websites — use Manta to post everywhere all at once.
We all know it’s important to build quality relationships with your customers. More so than ever, your customers are looking to interact with you online. Keep the conversations going by creating an online presence that entices customers to choose your business.
If you are unsure of what to say or how to interact in the social realm, connect with other businesses on Manta who are giving great advice and providing good examples. This gives you a first-hand look at ideal ways to manage your network. Learn tips on posting updates that control your brand’s message. First impressions stick; learn how to make a great one!
Manta has millions of people to promote your business to. As we develop new features, you can be the first to take advantage of enhanced promotional opportunities. Start by getting your business connected now!
Love is in the air for small business owners, one in four of whom works with a significant other. While some may think this wouldn’t be great for a relationship, a majority of business owners would recommend it. “Not many people have the opportunity to work with their significant other. Because I devote so much time to my business, I feel lucky that I’m able to do it with the person I love and trust the most,” said Tony Lavoie of SAMEDAY CRITICAL, a company that provides medical courier and delivery services based in Dublin, Ohio.
Working with your significant other may help your personal relationships thrive. Sixty percent of the small business owners polled by Manta are married – nearly 10 percent higher than the national average. Moreover, SMBs keep their relationships high on their list of priorities – 87 percent value their personal relationships as much or more than their business and an overwhelming majority (80 percent) rank friends and family as the most important part of their life (above their business).
However, other aspects of their relationships are suffering. SMBs rank their sex life last in the areas of their life that have gotten better with business, saying their business and personal relationships are of higher importance. An upside is that sixty percent of the small business owners polled are married – nearly 10 percent higher than the national average.
Disagreements within married small business owners’ relationships seem to be centered mostly around a good work life balance, which is surprising considering most couples are assumed to argue most over finances.
This Valentine’s Day think of those small business owners when you buy a gift for your sweetie and ask if the their spouse is working there too!
We are thrilled to announce Manta CEO Pam Springer has won the 2012 Tech Columbus Innovation Award for Outstanding Woman in Technology! The award was given to a woman who best demonstrates a commitment and dedication to technology.
Pam Springer has more than 20 years of experience building and growing technology-based companies. As CEO of Manta, she has transformed it into the largest and fastest-growing online community serving the small business community through a keen focus on connecting business owners with customers, prospects and partners. Under her leadership, the Manta community has grown exponentially and now draws more than 30 million unique visitors per month and over 6,000 new members every day. Because of this remarkable growth, Manta has been named in the Top 100 Most Valuable Private Internet Companies by Business Insider for the past three years. Springer was also recently listed as one of the top 13 most powerful women running today’s largest startups by Henry Blodget’s Silicon Alley Insider and is a board member for JobsOhio, an initiative by Gov. John Kasich to pursue job creation and capital investment opportunities for Ohio.
Pam accepted this award Thursday February 2nd at the Innovation Awards Beyond Convention downtown Columbus Ohio.
Efficiently managing your company’s social accounts is important for regularly connecting with your customers. With the new Manta social sharing features you no longer have to remember different passwords or navigate to different websites — use Manta to post everywhere all at once. Connect your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles in just a few seconds and instantly start sharing your business news, offers and tips with your network and millions of potential customers on Manta. Just type your message, select where you want to share it and it’s done.
So make things easy on yourself. Use Manta to start reaching more customers more frequently.
Your Weekly Visibility Update email – Why the changes?
Each week we send you an email with insights into the number of potential customers visiting your Manta company page. Now, we’re proud to offer you even more. More data on the people looking to connect with your business AND more ways to make those meaningful connections!
Here’s what’s new:
Status Updates: Extend your reach and expand your audience by broadcasting your message to Manta’s millions of visitors with status updates. Posting fresh, relevant status updates will put you in front of new potential customers searching for relevant products and services.
Plus, your all new weekly Visibility Update email will track your success by showing you additional views your status updates have created, and the number of shares or comments received. Want more views to your company page? Start posting status updates to stay relevant and top of mind with potential customers.
Number of Followers: Growing your following is a great way to develop more business and connect with existing customers. Each week we’ll tell you the total number of followers your business has on Manta, and how many new followers were added that week.
Your Network Activity: This section provides recent activity from those that you’ve connected with through the Manta network. You can follow other businesses and connect with business contacts to build your network.
Do things look a little sparse right now? As you use Manta’s new features to build a business network, your Visibility Update will become more interesting. We’ll soon be giving you even more ways to quickly build your network, because business is social.
How would you like to say Thank You to America for shopping local? Manta is hosting a video campaign to show America how vital small business is to local markets. From small towns to the biggest metropolises around the nation, we’re encouraging you to share your message of gratitude to those who have supported your business all year long.
Check out Manta’s videos along with other small business’ videos to get an idea of how you want to craft yours. Once your video is complete, upload it to YouTube and share it with all your friends, family and customers. The video that receives the most views by December 31 will win: A Dell UltraBook laptop, a custom video for your business produced by a professional, a free Premium Business Listing for one year and your business will be featured as the Small Business of the Week on Manta.com.
This holiday season say Thank You to America by sharing your video messages to help support small businesses everywhere. | <urn:uuid:be173ae4-cffd-46c6-b1eb-90e710111cec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.manta.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965365 | 2,625 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Portrait Of A Killer: Jack The Ripper -- Case Closed
Jack The Ripper -- Case Closed
Patricia Cornwell leaves no room for doubt...
Now updated with new material that brings the killer's picture into clearer focusMonday, August 6, 1888, was a bank holiday in London. The city
was a carnival of wondrous things to do for as little as pennies
if one could spare a few.
The bells of Windsor’s Parish Church and St. George’s Chapel rang
throughout the day. Ships were dressed in flags, and royal salutes boomed
from cannons to celebrate the Duke of Edinburgh’s forty-fourth birthday.
The Crystal Palace offered a dazzling spectrum of special programs:
organ recitals, military band concerts, a “monster display of fireworks,”
a grand fairy ballet, ventriloquists, and “world famous minstrel performances.”
Madame Tussaud’s featured a special wax model of Frederick
II lying in state and, of course, the ever-popular Chamber of Horrors.
Other delicious horrors awaited those who could afford theater tickets
and were in the mood for a morality play or just a good old-fashioned
fright. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was playing to sold-out houses. The famous
American actor Richard Mansfield was brilliant as Jekyll and Hyde
C H A P T E R O N E
M R . N O B O D Y
at Henry Irving’s Lyceum, and the Opera Comique had its version, too,
although poorly reviewed and in the midst of a scandal because the theater
had adapted Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel without permission.
On this bank holiday there were horse and cattle shows; special
“cheap rates” on trains; and the bazaars in Covent Garden overflowing
with Sheffield plates, gold, jewelry, used military uniforms. If one wanted
to pretend to be a soldier on this relaxed but rowdy day, he could do so
with little expense and no questions asked. Or one could impersonate a
copper by renting an authentic Metropolitan Police uniform from Angel’s
Theatrical Costumes in Camden Town, scarcely a two-mile stroll from
where the handsome Walter Richard Sickert lived.
Twenty-eight-year-old Sickert had given up his obscure acting career
for the higher calling of art. He was a painter, an etcher, a student of
James McNeill Whistler, and a disciple of Edgar Degas. Young Sickert
was himself a work of art: slender, with a strong upper body from swimming,
a perfectly angled nose and jaw, thick wavy blond hair, and blue
eyes that were as inscrutable and penetrating as his secret thoughts and
piercing mind. One might almost have called him pretty, except for his
mouth, which could narrow into a hard, cruel line. His precise height is
unknown, but a friend of his described him as a little above average. Photographs
and several items of clothing donated to the Tate Gallery
Archive in the 1980s suggest he was probably five foot eight or nine.
Sickert was fluent in German, English, French, and Italian. He knew
Latin well enough to teach it to friends, and he was well acquainted with
Danish and Greek and possibly knew a smattering of Spanish and Portuguese.
He was said to read the classics in their original languages, but
he didn’t always finish a book once he started it. It wasn’t uncommon to
find dozens of novels strewn about, opened to the last page that had
snagged his interest. Mostly, Sickert was addicted to newspapers,
tabloids, and journals.
Until his death in 1942, his studios and studies looked like a recycling
center for just about every bit of newsprint to roll off the European
P A T R I C I A C O R N W E L L
[ 2 ]
presses. One might ask how any hard-working person could find time to
go through four, five, six, ten newspapers a day, but Sickert had a
method. He didn’t bother with what didn’t interest him, whether it was
politics, economics, world affairs, wars, or people. Nothing mattered to
Sickert unless it somehow affected Sickert.
He usually preferred to read about the latest entertainment to come
to town, to scrutinize art critiques, to turn quickly to any story about
crime, and to search for his own name if there was any reason it might
be in print on a given day. He was fond of letters to the editor, especially
ones he wrote and signed with a pseudonym. Sickert relished knowing
what other people were doing, especially in the privacy of their own notalways-
so-tidy Victorian lives. “Write, write, write!” he would beg his
friends. “Tell me in detail all sorts of things, things that have amused you
and how and when and where, and all sorts of gossip about every one.”
Sickert despised the upper class, but he was a star stalker. He somehow
managed to hobnob with the major celebrities of the day: Henry Irving
and Ellen Terry, Aubrey Beardsley, Henry James, Max Beerbohm,
Oscar Wilde, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Rodin, André Gide, Édouard Dujardin,
Proust, Members of Parliament. But he did not necessarily know
many of them, and no onefamous or otherwiseever really knew him.
Not even his first wife, Ellen, who would turn forty in less than two
weeks. Sickert may not have given much thought to his wife’s birthday
on this bank holiday, but it was extremely unlikely he had forgotten it.
He was much admired for his amazing memory. Throughout his life
he would amuse dinner guests by performing long passages of musicals
and plays, dressed for the parts, his recitations flawless. Sickert would
not have forgotten that Ellen’s birthday was August 18th and a very easy
occasion to ruin. Maybe he would “forget.” Maybe he would vanish into
one of his secret rented hovels that he called studios. Maybe he would
take Ellen to a romantic café in Soho and leave her alone at the table
while he dashed off to a music hall and then stayed out the rest of the
night. Ellen loved Sickert all her sad life, despite his cold heart, his patho-
P O R T R A I T O F A K I L L E R
[ 3 ]
logical lying, his self-centeredness, and his habit of disappearing for
dayseven weekswithout warning or explanation.
Walter Sickert was an actor by nature more than by virtue of employment.
He lived on the center stage of his secret, fantasy-driven life
and was just as comfortable moving about unnoticed in the deep shadows
of isolated streets as he was in the midst of throbbing crowds. He
had a great range of voice and was a master of greasepaint and wardrobe.
So gifted at disguise was he that as a boy he often went about unrecognized
by his neighbors and family.
Throughout his long and celebrated life, he was notorious for constantly
changing his appearance with a variety of beards and mustaches,
for his bizarre dress that in some cases constituted costumes, for his hairstyles
including shaving his head. He was, wrote French artist and
friend Jacques-Emile Blanche, a “Proteus.” Sickert’s “genius for camouflage
in dress, in the fashion of wearing his hair, and in his manner of
speaking rival Fregoli’s,” Blanche recalled. In a portrait Wilson Steer
painted of Sickert in 1890, Sickert sports a phony-looking mustache that
resembles a squirrel’s tail pasted above his mouth.
He also had a penchant for changing his name. His acting career,
paintings, etchings, drawings, and prolific letters to colleagues, friends,
and newspapers reveal many personas: Mr. Nemo (Latin for “Mr. Nobody”),
An Enthusiast, A Whistlerite, Your Art Critic, An Outsider, Walter
Sickert, Sickert, Walter R. Sickert, Richard Sickert, W. R. Sickert,
W.S., R.S., S., Dick, W. St., Rd. Sickert LL.D., R.St. A.R.A., and RDSt
Sickert did not write his memoirs, keep a diary or calendar, or date
most of his letters or works of art, so it is difficult to know where he was
or what he was doing on or during any given day, week, month, or even
year. I could find no record of his whereabouts or activities on August 6,
1888, but there is no reason to suspect he was not in London. Based on
notes he scribbled on music-hall sketches, he was in London just two days
earlier, on August 4th.
P A T R I C I A C O R N W E L L
[ 4 ]
Whistler would be getting married in London five days later, on August
11th. Although Sickert hadn’t been invited to the small, intimate
wedding, he wasn’t the sort to miss iteven if he had to spy on it.
The great painter James McNeill Whistler had fallen deeply in love
with the “remarkably pretty” Beatrice Godwin, who was to occupy the
most prominent position in his life and entirely change the course of it.
Likewise, Whistler occupied one of the most prominent positions in Sickert’s
life and had entirely changed the course of it. “Nice boy, Walter,”
Whistler used to say in the early 1880s when he was still fond of the aspiring
and extraordinarily gifted young man. By the time of Whistler’s
engagement their friendship had cooled, but Sickert could not have been
prepared for what must have seemed a shockingly unexpected and complete
abandonment by the Master he idolized, envied, and hated.
Whistler and his new bride planned to honeymoon and travel the rest of
the year in France, where they hoped to reside permanently.
The anticipated connubial bliss of the flamboyant artistic genius and
egocentric James McNeill Whistler must have been disconcerting to his
former errand boy–apprentice. One of Sickert’s many roles was the irresistible
womanizer, but offstage he was nothing of the sort. Sickert was
dependent on women and loathed them. They were intellectually inferior
and useless except as caretakers or objects to manipulate, especially for
art or money. Women were a dangerous reminder of an infuriating and
humiliating secret that Sickert carried not only to the grave but beyond
it, because cremated bodies reveal no tales of the flesh, even if they are
exhumed. Sickert was born with a deformity of his penis requiring surgeries
when he was a toddler that would have left him disfigured if not
mutilated. He probably was incapable of an erection. He may not have
had enough of a penis left for penetration, and it is quite possible he had
to squat like a woman to urinate.
“My theory of the crimes is that the criminal has been badly disfigured,”
says an October 4, 1888, letter filed with the Whitechapel Murders
papers at the Corporation of London Records Office, “possibly
P O R T R A I T O F A K I L L E R
[ 5 ]
had his privy member destroyed& he is now revenging himself on the
sex by these atrocities.” The letter is written in purple pencil and enigmatically
signed “Scotus,” which could be the Latin for Scotsman.
“Scotch” can mean a shallow incision or to cut. Scotus could also be a
strange and erudite reference to Johannes Scotus Eriugena, a ninthcentury
theologian and teacher of grammar and dialectics.
For Walter Sickert to imagine Whistler in love and enjoying a sexual
relationship with a woman might well have been the catalyst that made
Sickert one of the most dangerous and confounding killers of all time.
He began to act out what he had scripted most of his life, not only in
thought but in boyhood sketches that depicted women being abducted,
tied up, and stabbed.
The psychology of a violent, remorseless murderer is not defined by
connecting dots. There are no facile explanations or infallible sequences
of cause and effect. But the compass of human nature can point a certain
way, and Sickert’s feelings could only have been inflamed by
Whistler’s marrying the widow of architect and archaeologist Edward
Godwin, the man who had lived with actress Ellen Terry and fathered
The sensuously beautiful Ellen Terry was one of the most famous actresses
of the Victorian era, and Sickert was fixated on her. As a teenager,
he had stalked her and her acting partner, Henry Irving. Now Whistler
had links to not one but both objects of Sickert’s obsessions, and these
three stars in Sickert’s universe formed a constellation that did not include
him. The stars cared nothing about him. He was truly Mr. Nemo.
But in the late summer of 1888 he gave himself a new stage name that
during his life would never be linked to him, a name that soon enough
would be far better known than those of Whistler, Irving, and Terry.
The actualization of Jack the Ripper’s violent fantasies began on the
carefree bank holiday of August 6, 1888, when he slipped out of the
wings to make his debut in a series of ghastly performances that were destined
to become the most celebrated so-called murder mystery in history.
P A T R I C I A C O R N W E L L
[ 6 ]
It is widely and incorrectly believed that his violent spree ended as
abruptly as it began, that he struck out of nowhere and then vanished
from the scene.
Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and his bloody sexual
crimes have become anemic and impotent. They are puzzles, mystery
weekends, games, and “Ripper Walks” that end with pints in the Ten
Bells pub. Saucy Jack, as the Ripper sometimes called himself, has starred
in moody movies featuring famous actors and special effects and spates
of what the Ripper said he craved: blood, blood, blood. His butcheries
no longer inspire fright, rage, or even pity as his victims moulder quietly,
some of them in unmarked graves.
P O R T R A I T O F A K I L L E R
[ 7 ]
Chapter One: MR. NOBODY 1
Chapter Two: THE TOUR 8
Chapter Three: THE UNFORTUNATES 16
Chapter Four: BY SOME PERSON UNKNOWN 31
Chapter Five: A GLORIOUS BOY 41
Chapter Six: WALTER AND THE BOYS 59
Chapter Seven: THE GENTLEMAN SLUMMER 74
Chapter Eight: A BIT OF BROKEN LOOKING GLASS 86
Chapter Nine: THE DARK LANTERN 98
Chapter Ten: MEDICINE OF THE COURTS 107
Chapter Eleven: SUMMER NIGHT 120
Chapter Twelve: THE YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL 130
Chapter Thirteen: HUE AND CRY 141
C O N T E N T S
Chapter Fourteen: CROCHET WORK AND FLOWERS 154
Chapter Fifteen: A PAINTED LETTER 175
Chapter Sixteen: STYGIAN BLACKNESS 193
Chapter Seventeen: THE STREETS UNTIL DAWN 205
Chapter Eighteen: A SHINY BLACK BAG 219
Chapter Nineteen: THESE CHARACTERS ABOUT 229
Chapter Twenty: BEYOND IDENTITY 241
Chapter Twenty-One: A GREAT JOKE 253
Chapter Twenty-Two: BARREN FIELDS AND SLAG-HEAPS 262
Chapter Twenty-Three: THE GUEST BOOK 277
Chapter Twenty-Four: IN A HORSE-BIN 289
Chapter Twenty-Five: THREE KEYS 300
Chapter Twenty-Six: THE DAUGHTERS OF COBDEN 316
Chapter Twenty-Seven: THE DARKEST NIGHT IN THE DAY 331
Chapter Twenty-Eight: FURTHER FROM THE GRAVE 352
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Phone Wars pits good against evil
Jamie Goodwin wonders why so many of the UAE’s cinemagoers have been lured to the Dark Side Discuss this article
In every cinematic narrative, there’s a hero and a villain. You know the hero because he’s the one of sound moral fibre, respectful of his fellow man and of society’s rules. You know the villain because he exists only to frustrate the hero’s attempts to abide by these rules. Often called the antagonist, his entrance is usually announced through the use of theme music, lighting changes or shock techniques. These rigid laws of film happen to exist on both sides of the silver screen.
The last time I visited the cinema, the villain of the piece was a nasty creature indeed. His theme music was a shrill beeping; his weapon of choice a cruel beam of blinding energy, not unlike Darth Vader’s lightsaber. This villain was less than a metre away from me. He was the foil in a particularly scary, hide-your-eyes tale called Put Your Phone Away, The Film Has Started!
It was the story of a regular guy (me) who just wanted to introduce some excitement to his life. Think Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, but swap the craving for a Jedi apprenticeship with a desire for nothing more than a bucket of popcorn and the suspension of his disbelief. Yet this simple pleasure was seemingly too much to bear for the evil Vader in the seat in front of him. Not a scene of the movie would pass without the gruesome Sith lord withdrawing his torturous smartphone device to send an evil text message to an equally wicked friend (the Emperor, presumably).
The Dark Side of the Force then compelled our foe to lean across to his minions to make a booming observation about the film we were all trying to watch, before launching into a shrill cackle that sent a shiver down the spines of everyone in the theatre. And finally, in his most dastardly trick, the powerful cyborg waited until our hero’s eyes had again adjusted to the darkness before cruelly burning his retinas with the Goofs page on his phone’s IMDB app.
Our protagonist had to summon every last ounce of virtue not to tip his righteous bucket of popcorn over the ghastly head of this sinister cinemagoer. Lucky for him, our champion never gave in to the hate of the Dark Side. Although he really wanted to.
Oi, Darth! If you’re reading this: put your phone away – the film has started!By Jamie Goodwin
Time Out Abu Dhabi,
Know your stuff or rent some wheels
Brit trio to play du Arena on Sunday November 3
Superstar DJ says Bieber has the ‘potential’ to become a ‘credible’ artist | <urn:uuid:320bc237-789a-4ffd-b8f8-0e6d5b52e501> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timeoutabudhabi.com/knowledge/features/32433-phone-wars-pits-good-against-evil | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963437 | 582 | 1.625 | 2 |
The Psychology of Happiness
Learning to be grateful for the ordinary things in life.
Everyone talks incessantly about stress now, and how it has changed our lives and made us so unhappy. Less obviously, I think
stress has also changed the quest for happiness itself, making it more aggressive and occupying more of our time. Ever since
antidepressants and sexual-enhancement drugs hit the airwaves and ever since we were told that we had a right to our happiness,
damn it, and that we could ask for it—no, demand it—from our doctors, spouses, friends, or employers, it seems that the desire
for happiness has increasingly become a source of anxiety.
Which is why I have taken a few steps back.
At this point, being happy is about having the space to appreciate the ordinary things that do in fact make me “happy,” though
at first glance they might not be seen that way. An absence of chaos; an absence of phone calls with disturbing news; an absence
of business e-mails that upend your day and demand attention right then and there; no acutely ill parents; no fragile children
calling shakily from college. Being able to sit down with a glass of wine and some really good, tiny little olives with your
husband; having a nice meal with your kids that’s not rushed or fraught. These seem like small things, perhaps like pedestrian
things, but I protect them fiercely, knowing that on the other side of an imaginary wall waits the possibility that all of
them will soon be gone, and that something terrible will replace them.
But I no longer quake in fear. I used to think that happiness was something a person was so lucky to find that, like Lord
Voldemort (a.k.a. He Who Must Not Be Named), it should never actually be mentioned. Now, with happiness taking on a new, modest
cast, the fear of losing it is smaller, too.
You might think: Good God, woman! This isn’t happiness. Happiness has wild colors and flavors; it involves bodies draped across
a bed, or things that come in gift wrap. Or even, once in a while, Carvel. Don’t you want any of that?
Of course I do. But being allowed to enjoy some of the more modest pieces of my life happens right now to be my own personal
Carvel; my own dachshund, gift-wrapped present, snow day, and secret lover. Perhaps for most of us—or anyway at least for
me—happiness has gotten smaller over time, becoming endlessly and exquisitely refined, though somehow never diminished.
Meg Wolitzer’s new novel, The Uncoupling, will be published in April. Her previous books include The Wife, The Position, and The Ten-Year Nap. | <urn:uuid:27c5dcf3-f704-41d2-b600-e460cbb41d60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/inspiration-motivation/the-psychology-of-happiness-00000000050246/page2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963435 | 598 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Ron Wolfson is a visionary Jewish educator whose enthusiasm for bringing Judaism alive in homes and synagogues has shaped his work in the community. His forthcoming book, Relational Judaism, offers a vision and strategies for using the power of relationships to transform the Jewish community. He is the author of Be Like God: God's To-Do List for Kids, The Seven Questions You're Asked in Heaven: Reviewing and Renewing Your Life on Earth, The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation Into a Sacred Community and God's To-Do List: 103 Ways to Be an Angel and Do God's Work on Earth (all books Jewish Lights Publishing). A pioneer in the field of Jewish family education, Ron has authored The Art of Jewish Living series of books (Jewish Lights Publishing): Three of the titles (Shabbat, The Passover, Hanukkah) are designed to enrich the celebration of Jewish holidays, and one (A Time to Mourn, A Time to Comfort) provides a guide to Jewish bereavement and comfort. Ron continues his work in family education as a faculty member of Shevet: Jewish Family Education Exchange.
Ron is currently the Fingerhut Professor of Education at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in Los Angeles where he has been a member of the faculty since 1975. He has also served as Dean of the Fingerhut School of Education, Vice President and Founding Director of the Whizin Center for the Jewish Future and the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life. The book, First Fruit: A Whizin Anthology of Jewish Family Education, which he co-edited with Adrianne Bank, won the 1999 Jewish Book Award.
Ron's interest in synagogues dates back to his involvement in a Conservative congregation, Beth El, in his home town of Omaha, Nebraska. Over the years, he has visited hundreds of synagogues across North America as a consultant, teacher and scholar in residence widely recognized for his passionate, insightful and often humorous presentations. Ron is a co-founder of Synagogue 2000 (with Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman) and currently serves as Co-President of Synagogue 3000, a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of Jewish life. | <urn:uuid:5566d705-56b6-457f-b005-8b4b88f08300> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://urj.org/about/faculty/?syspage=article&item_id=97486 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962433 | 465 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Activities and Accomplishments During Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012
Our activities during Fiscal Year 2011 and 2012 included three major areas: School Internal Funds Audits, Performance Audits, and Responses to Special Requests and Investigations. Our findings and recommendations had a total estimated fiscal impact of over $10 million.
School Internal Funds Audits
During Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012, our office performed annual audits of all schools’ Internal Funds as required by Florida State Board of Education Rules 6A-1.087(2). The District has a total of 175 schools with Internal Funds Accounts as of August 2012; and a separate audit was conducted for each school.
Our findings and recommendations related to these audits had a fiscal impact of $8,664,487, mostly from revenue increases in Afterschool Programs and Facilities Leasing.
Since we started the audits of School Internal Funds in 2004, we are able to streamline the audit process and focus on critical areas that need the most attention.
We released a total of 11 performance audit reports during Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012 that contained recommendations for improvement in control, and operation efficiency and effectiveness. These improvements should result in more effective and cost-efficient delivery of services to our students. The total fiscal impact from our performance audits was $1,159,252, including $735,943 in questioned costs, and $423,309 in cost savings or cost recovery.
Reports in Response to Requests and Investigations
In response to requests, we completed 20 special audits and investigations during Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012. Most of these audits/investigations were primarily related to potential financial irregularities. Conclusions for 14 of these audits/investigations were referred to School Police and Employee Relations Department for further investigation. As a result of the Police/Personnel investigations, eight cases were referred to the State Attorney’s Office for further actions. The total fiscal impact of was $318,423, mostly from identifying monies missing.
Improving Student Performance
Assessments of School District activities were conducted to identify ways to cut costs and improve operational effectiveness and efficiency. These assessments provided recommendations that improved resource utilization, increased productivity, and provided better controls and safeguards against losses due to fraud, theft, errors, and mismanagement. Each improvement worked to maximize resources supporting instruction, thus, benefiting students and aiding student achievement. | <urn:uuid:7b376246-8b6c-4bcb-b86e-253d4b47bee2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.palmbeachschools.org/inspectorgeneral/ | 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 | 0.96315 | 482 | 1.625 | 2 |
$4.03 per gallon of regular unleaded. Ouch.
Just last year, we were all concerned about gas going up to $3.00 per gallon. Now we would give anything to have that back! Everyone was worried about their summer travel plans, airfares going up, home heating costs going up…but now that gas is another $1.00 higher, is anything going to change? Is $4.00 per gallon the new norm and now $5.00 is the new scary price?
We need electric cars asap.
We do not need to exchange oil for corn-based fuels. We do not need to extract hydrogen from water. We need electric cars with a range of a maximum of 250 miles and a top speed of 65 mph…that’s it. Personally, I don’t even need a range of 250 miles or 65 mph where I live. If I could get an electric car that went 40 miles at 45 mph I could go mostly everywhere I could ever need to go. A simple plug in at night could recharge the car in just a few hours, and using grid power would be much cleaner (and cheaper) than using fossil fuels in our individual cars. So why don’t we have these yet?
Because there is a lot of money to be made in $4.00 per gallon gasoline, growing food for fuel, and extracting hydrogen from water, that’s why. And it’s just wrong that the automotive companies, politicians and the oil companies are in cahoots together to extend this fossil fuel run for as long as they can to maximize their profits, while you and I foot the bill and pad their wallets. And while I think it is great that there are some private enterprises building cars like the Tesla electric car, it needs to be done on a grand scale so we can get the price down from $200,000 per vehicle to around $20,000. Show me an electric car that goes freeway speed and can take me a decent amount of miles before needing a charge, and I will be first in line. Bill Gates, care to get involved with electric cars? Al Gore? Richard Branson? Bueller? | <urn:uuid:4cf0651e-a2d8-49b6-a0cc-c9e5484d9b77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thegoodhuman.com/2008/04/17/is-it-time-for-electric-cars/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972064 | 452 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Karnataka begins releasing Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu
- IPL spot-fixing case: Net widens, police watching 3 more players, other bookies
- IPL 2013: Imperious Brad Hodge powers Rajasthan Royals to qualifier
- Sonia Gandhi, PM Manmohan Singh slam BJP for disrupting Parliament, stalling bills
- IPL spot-fixing: 'Bookie' Vindoo was close to BCCI chief's son-in-law, say cops
- Jessica Lall case: Shayan Munshi to face perjury trial
Falling in line with the Supreme Court directive, Karnataka today began releasing Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, setting off a wave of protests against it in the river basin districts.
After repeatedly maintaining that the state itself was in a distress situation, the Karnataka government released water from Krishna Raja Sagar and Kabini dams early today to ensure flow of 9,000 cusecs of water to the neigbhouring state.
"It is inevitable for government to release water to comply with the Supreme Court order. With due respect to the Supreme Court we are releasing water. However,we are committed to protect the interests of farmers", Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar told reporters.
As the decision led to intensified protests,Shettar urged agitators to maintain peace and said government would file a petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a review of its order asking the state to honour the Cauvery River Authority directive to release 9,000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu till Oct 15.
Protests in parts of Mandya, Mysore, Chamarajanagar and Bangalore led to disruption of vehicular movement in the Bangalore-Mysore sector, even as opposition Congress demanded resignation of the BJP government for its "failure" to protect farmers' interests.
Karnataka has already appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also the CRA Chairman, to review its September 19 order and keep it in abeyance till the decision was reviewed.
Water Resources Minister Basavaraj Bommai termed the CRA order as "arbitrary" and said it was passed without assessing the ground realities in the state.
Farmers' outfits and Kannada protagonist organisations defied prohibitory orders and attempted to lay seige to KRS reservoir,which police foiled by taking into custody more than 300 people, including JDS MLA from Melukote C S Puttaraju.
The release of water to Tamil Nadu, over which Karnataka is locked in a decades long Cauvery disupte, comes a day after an all-party meeting decided to request Singh to review the CRA directive, asking Karnataka to release 9000 cusecs of water.
- Paddy shortfall blamed for mystery death of procurement officer
- 'Bookie' Vindoo was close to BCCI chief’s son-in-law: cops
- Net widens, police watching three more players, new set of bookies
- Suspected Islamists behead soldier on London street
- Malegaon 2006 case: NIA names four right wing terror suspects
- BJP invokes 'sarcasm, ridicule' against PM | <urn:uuid:c38e41a0-eaf8-4574-96be-14257f5e9086> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indianexpress.com/news/karnataka-begins-releasing-cauvery-river-water-to-tamil-nadu/1010025/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944111 | 664 | 1.507813 | 2 |
in the Hong Kong taxation
system is Direct tax
and also classified as Income tax
According to Cap.112 Hong Kong Ordinance, Inland Revenue Ordinance (abbreviated to IRO) IRO Section 8, unless otherwise provided, salaries tax is chargeable on income
from any office
for a year of assessment
arising in or derived from Hong Kong
Salaries tax is also charged on the unrealized capital gain of shares or options granted as part of an employee share scheme that are subject to a vesting period. The taxing events in this case are when the vesting period ends or when the employee leaves Hong Kong. Because Hong Kong does not have double tax agreements, this can lead to double taxation
on employees arriving and leaving Hong Kong.
Year of Assessment
The period of assessment is from April 1 to March 31 of the following year.
Income from office
An office holder is a position is independent form any person and be refilled (e.g. company director
.)<br /> The source of income from an office is determined by the location of the office. The key factor is the place of management and control of the office. For example, if the directors hold one of their board meetings in Hong Kong, then the income will be subject to salaries tax fully without time apportionment.
Specify the coverage.(a)
Include Income related to Service render in Hong Kong.(b)
Exclude Income related to Air / Sea Crew and income from all service that is not... Read More | <urn:uuid:8d7b36f6-716a-4ebc-9c6d-d7893787ea16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pages.rediff.com/salaries-tax/713635 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934545 | 316 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Page Revision: 10/2/2012 10:27:26 AM
Executive onboarding is acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating new leaders into the organizational culture and business1
. The best onboarding strategies will provide a fast track to meaningful, productive work and strong employee relationships2
and be tailored specifically to the needs of the individual. Executive onboarding should be strategic, so that it not only prevents executive derailment, but expedites the executive’s contribution to optimize strategic achievement. Getting on Board: A Model for Integrating and Engaging New Employees
is a report created from a study conducted by the Partnership for Public Service (PPS) and Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008. The study states that successfully onboarding employees during their first year of service increases engagement, raises retention by as much as 25 percent, improves performance and hastens the time to full productivity.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recognizes the value of ongoing assimilation into an organization and so includes a year-long orientation process among the five components of its new End-to-End (E2E) Hiring Roadmap. Though not specifically geared toward leadership positions, the E2E Hiring Roadmap can be used to help assure federal agencies recruit and retain the top talent they need to meet the complex challenges of the 21st century.
Onboarding of key executives is even more critical than it is for other employees because of the significantly greater performance expectations leaders face and the greater impace they have on the overall performance of the organization. Some federal agencies like the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) have established very comprehensive onboarding programs for their employees and their executives. Other agencies with executive onboarding programs are the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
Agencies need onboarding solutions that address three types of new SES:
- Those from outside the agency, but still within the government
- External hires from outside the Federal Government
- Those who have grown within the agency
While the terms "onboarding" and "orientation" are sometimes used interchangeably they are notably different. Nevertheless, they are both critical processes in the successul assimilation of new hires. Here are some important distinctions between the two:
Strategic with an impact on bottom-line results
Evolving and progressive
An ongoing process
Used for transferred and promoted employees, as well as new hires
Is most often limited to new employees
Delivers information that is unique and customized to the individual employee and is generally handed out on an as-needed basis
Delivers information that is common to all new hires usually within a classroom setting
Has a long-term focus, and can last up to a year or more
Is a short term program, typically lasting from one day to two weeks
The sooner a new employee experiences the benefits of a comprehensive and well-implemented orientation and onboarding program, the sooner the employee will become a contributing member of that organization.
Solve Problems (What are some resources available to me?)
What are other agencies doing to onboard their executives?
Use the links below to access agency-specific Executive Onboarding Program information. Established best practices from other Government organizations can be shared and tailored to meet your agency's needs.
Office of Personnel Management
Hit the Ground Running: Establishing a Model Executive Onboarding Framework, was designed to provide a consistent model in which to introduce new executives into the SES and to maximize executive effectiveness. It is a flexible framework allowing adjustments that adhere to specific agency rules, policies, procedures and needs.
Department of Veterans Affairs
Department of the Navy
The Department of the Navy has also recently implemented SES 101 and Flash Mentoring workshops, offered at a Senior Executive Seminar at the Washington Navy Yard.
SES 101 was an hour long session designed for executives who have been in the SES less than three years. Topic areas included:
- Description of all executive types (SES, SL, ST, HQE, etc)
- Geographic locations of DON SES
- Executive lifecycle management
- Executive Stats
- Executive Benefits
- Executive Resource Management Governance
- DON Executive Development system
- DON Talent Management Process
- Executive Management Program Office Contacts
Flash Mentoring was a one-hour session that immediately followed SES 101. I thought of the idea of offering flash mentoring after some past conversations with Scott Derrick at DoD (see blog post, Mentoring in a Flash . He developed flash mentoring for members of the Senior Executive Association (information on SEA's website) when he worked there and at another organization he was a part of (13L). I decided to modify the concept for a seminar environment to be more like speed mentoring. Some particulars:
- Three, 20-minute sessions for a total of one hour
- DON senior executives were asked in advance to volunteer to serve as a flash mentor
- Mentees were pulled from those who signed up for the session through the seminar registration site
- We had 10 mentors and 10 mentees
- The mentors committed an hour of their time to meet with 2-3 different executives who were earlier in their executive career
- Mentees were given bios of the mentors and asked to provide their top 3 preferences
- I matched mentors to mentees and created a schedule/schematic of the room
- The room at the seminar was set up with 10 cocktail style tables
- Mentees rotated every 20 minutes and mentors remained at their assigned table
- Mentees and mentors were given a folder at the seminar that included bios of the executives they were meeting with, a tip sheet based on their role, their schedule and an evaluation form; they also received an email in advance of the seminar with the same information
Agencies can also look to the private sector for best practices in executive onboarding. Here are a few examples of innovative practices:
Johnson & Johnson, Canada
New hires from outside the company enter a different onboarding track than those hired from within the company. Internal hires are also onboarded differently according to their key skill gaps, of which the company is already aware, as a result of their performance management process. Other best practices include providing an external onboarding coach who collects and uses business/organizational data anonymously to develop Onboarding development charter that outlines transition leadership priorities, stakeholder relationship map and individualized dashboard;
- Coach provides support to launch new team and then ongoing advice/counsel for six months;
- Assign a senior mentor ‘buddy’ outside direct reporting relationships;
- Schedule networking appointments with key leaders;
- Participation in corporate transition leadership workshop with other new executives to help plan their onboarding; and,
- Feedback on onboarding progress solicited during sixth month of employment to identify transition adjustments.
- Formulates 100-day plan with HR partner, hiring manager and assigned external assimilation coach day one who then continues to support executive through onboarding;
- Individual Development Plan (IDP) for transition is built for executive based on assessment data collected as part of pre-hire, role requirements and career aspirations;
- HR facilitates formal networking meetings/interviews with CEO and members with senior management team; and,
- Planned experiences with various parts of the company.
- At six month milestone:
- Obtains 360° feedback and uses data for further development
- Provides feedback to onboarding process for improvements
- Inclusion in succession panning process to determine future potential
- Participation at annual AMEX New Leaders Orientation Summit
- Leadership ability and organizational fit are determined at the interview stage; Meetings with influential colleagues are set up for the new hire;
- Progress is tracked for first year by outside consultant and HR;
- Onboarding processes tailored based on information gathered about the individual during the hiring process;
- Understanding that even the best candidate will have some development gaps, the company arranges the needed coaching resources to help the new executive shore up any development areas that surfaced during pre-selection assessments and behavioral interviews; and,
- Resources are made available the employee’s first day on the job and are kept in place for several months.
(What can I learn to help me refresh my knowledge base and add value?)
As a result of a collaborative effort with the Senior Executive Associaiton, the Partnership for Public Service and experienced and newer SES members, OPM developed a Governmentwide Executive Onboarding Framework and Executive Onboarding Manual. These documents are tools to assist agencies in creating a business case for and ultimately implementing an executive onboarding program for their new leaders.Please contact Cheryl Ndunguru (email@example.com) for copies of the framework and manual. The framework and manual will be posted shortly.
Discover Helpful Tips and Resources
(What other tools and resources including guides, articles and websites are available to me?)
There are many resources through the internet, webinars, books, training and other media that provide good instruction on developing a comprehensive executive onboarding program. Here are a few:
Executive Onboarding (Navy) Questions and Answers
The following questions were asked of Navy's Executive onboarding program:
- Does your onboarding program begin once a year, at various times throughout the year or as new executives arrive?
- We onboard executives based on their entrance on duty date, so we aren't delaying when an executive begins. We don't have a cohort per se. For clarification, the Department of the Navy (DON) does not have an orientation that new executives come to at specific times. We meet with them 1:1 at the beginning (in addition to what the Command provides) and then check in with them throughout the year. We also see them at the various events and meetings that support executive development.
- How do you onboard each new SES as they come in?
- At the Department of the Navy, we link executive onboarding with selection decisions in the recruiting phase. Once an entrance on duty date is confirmed, we partner with our points of contact in each Command. Our centralized office holds an initial overview (first day/first week) with each executive about their role within the greater department, near-term priorities/actions, services and support for leadership development and engagement. We provide them with a welcome packet, which includes an onboarding guide and plan that is tailored to their position and location. In addition, a soft copy of the onboarding plan is provided to the executive prior to their entrance on duty. The field activity where the executive resides takes care of local responsibilities such as introduction to the organization/staff/stakeholders, badge access, ethics counseling, etc. The bulk of our executive appointments are internal employees, so there has been more of an emphasis on assisting with their position transition and working at the executive level than topics such as benefits (which remain the same).
- Which aspects of the program were most costly? Which were the least costly?
- The onboarding experience is aligned with leadership development, performance management and succession planning processes. That being said, probably one of the most costly aspects is an executive coaching engagement, which includes a 360 assessment (aligned to the DON SES Competency Model) and 12 coaching sessions with an external executive coach (typically over 6 months). We introduce this opportunity to new executives after 90 days and typically recommend it begin within their first year.
- One of the least costly aspects of the program (but impactful) is the face-to-face meetings with new executives throughout their first year. The cost is our time, but it pays dividends in terms of the executive understanding expectations, feeling included/valued, and building relationships with our customer and points of contact.
National Science Foundation
Studies demonstrate the success of incoming executives largely depend on the following:
- Understanding the unique aspects of the organizational culture;
- Understanding the dynamics of the teams the executive is entering (whether as a leader or colleague); and
- The personality, knowledge and leadership skills of the incoming executive.
This is how NSF addresses (or intends to address) this within their executive onboarding program:
- Understanding the unique aspects of the organizational culture
- Our new Executive Leadership Retreat has a heavy and multifaceted approach to addressing org culture.
- We are planning to develop a new executive mentorship program that will also serve in this regard.
- Understanding the dynamics of the teams the executive is entering (whether as a leader or colleague)
- We're piloting a team formation workshop in the Fall to serve this purpose.
- Associate Directors and their deputies, and Division Directors and their Deputies work closely together and inform one another on these dynamics.
- The personality, knowledge and leadership skills of the incoming executive
- 360 assessments and coaching available to new Executives.
- Having all levels of staff (administrative / scientific) interview applicants.
- Personality & leadership skills emphasized in Executive Leadership Retreat.
- Leadership & Problem-Solving Skills course offered multiple times per year.
- We're piloting an "Art & Science of Picking the Right People" workshop this Fall; the workshop will highlight how to select based on these attributes.
Please feel free to share any articles, classes, webinars or best practice events related to executive onboarding on this page.
- Bradt, G., Check, J. A., & Pedraza, J. (2006). The new leader’s 100-day action plan.Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Brodie, J. M. (2006). Getting managers on board. HR Magazine, 51(11), 105-107.
- Concelman, J., & Burns, J. (2006). The perfect storm or just a shower? TD, March, 51-53.
- Friedman, L. (2006). Are you losing potential new hires at hello? Organizations need strong new hire onboarding processes. TD, November, 25-27.
- Pomeroy, A. (2006). Better executive onboarding processes needed. HR Magazine,51(8), 16.
- Taleo, A. S. (2006). Researching onboarding best practice. Strategic HR Review, 5(6),32-35.
- Van Maanen, J., & Schein, E. H. (1979). Toward a theory of organizational socialization.
- Research in Organizational Behavior, 1, 209-264. | <urn:uuid:d1e05ed9-aa71-4089-804e-532967f03022> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opm.gov/WIKI/training/New-Employee-Orientation/History.aspx?Revision=139 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945531 | 2,990 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The Evening Times revealed last month that bosses from Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) want bus lanes to return to the pedestrian-ised part of Argyle Street, to cut journey times. They hope a bus service on the street between Queen Street and Glassford Street, which has been a pedestrian area since the late 1970s, would attract more shoppers.
But shoppers, politicians and business leaders today warned that the plans could put people off visiting retailers and other businesses and may drive custom to out-of-town malls.
There are also calls for improvements to be made to revive the area.
Councillor Shabbar Jaffri, SNP spokesman for jobs and the economy, said: "There is a real need to regenerate Argyle Street, to refresh the streetscape and encourage more people and businesses into the area.
"Driving a bus lane through a pedestrian precinct is no way to do this. I know, from discuss-ions with businesses, that this idea is deeply unpopular. It certainly won't improve the look of the shopping area."
Leanne Sinclair, 30, from Helensburgh, agreed that the bus lane would not help struggling retailers. She said: "A bus lane would cause disrupt-ion to businesses along this stretch of road."
Robert Tombe, 41, a postman, from Milton, said the return of buses would be an "absolute nightmare".
SPT officials say the proposals are not to turn the entire 200-metre pedestrianised section back into a road, but that a single-lane carriageway would be used by buses only.
Business leaders questioned if another bus lane in the city centre would send the message to drivers not to travel in.
Glasgow Chamber of Commerce chief executive Stuart Patrick said: "We do not want to fall into a position where car owners feel as if they are being pushed from the centre.
"The retail sector's main competitors are out of town shopping malls which have an abundance of access for cars, putting pressure on businesses within the city centre.
"Associated with this is the issue of pedestrian-isation, a topic where many different approaches need to be considered, including the shared access proposals suggested by the SPT."
Mr Patrick said the Chamber of Commerce was working with the council through the City Centre Action Plan to discuss how to revive Argyle Street.
He said: "The debate is made more complex as its clear the bottom end of Argyle Street needs some focus to revive its retail offering to a level which is on par with the rest Style Mile."
Fraser Gordon, 25, a business consultant, Kilbarchan, said: "A bus lane would be a pest – a real pain – because I often drive into town."
However, some shoppers said the proposals were a good idea.
Yvonne Keogh, 42, a care worker, from Pollok-shields, said: "It might help reduce congestion.
"Argyle Street can be choc-a-block sometimes."
A £500,000 council plan to build a cafe and carry out improvements to the pedestrianised area of Arygle Street was scrapped in May 2011 because of concerns from retailers and property owners over the project.
The council said it was consulting on different ways to regenerate the area through the action plan.
SPT chairman George Redmond said: "SPT has laid out clear plans to improve the current dwindling bus market and are working with our partners to make that happen.
"A change in city centre traffic management, with bus lanes extending into town, rather than stopping on the outskirts, is one of many solutions being considered.
"It would enable fewer but faster bus services and in turn, encourage more shoppers to come into Glasgow and leave their cars behind." | <urn:uuid:4ddf346f-6254-4e8d-a997-515050affe05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/fears-over-plan-to-put-bus-lane-in-pedestrianised-area-of-argyle-112141n.19871479 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966494 | 782 | 1.679688 | 2 |
How do you tell a blind man he's in the quiet car?
Sometimes I get an email that's worth a blog post all its own. Such a message came from Frank Irizawa of Elkridge. Call me insensitive, but all I could think of when reading this was that it would make a great skit in a Farrelly Brothers (There's Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber) comedy. So who would you cast as the blind man? I was thinking John Cleese.
We had an interesting situation on the Camden 847 this morning, with a blind passenger. It highlighted the need to have all train stops announced each and every time on every train. The conductors on this train very rarely, if ever, announce any stop. It is always a very smooth running train and always arrives early but they do always neglect the announcements.
A blind passenger with a cane boarded at the Greenbelt station. He ended up in the Quiet car because he was having trouble finding an empty seat. There were plenty of empty seats available but he was sticking his cane out too far and hitting the legs of whoever was sitting next to the empty seats, and assuming that the seat was taken. It seemed that he was not familiar with the seating arrangements of the single-story cars commonly used on the Camden line. He starting exclaiming in a very loud voice that "I can't find a seat".
Now the folks who sit in the quiet cars on the Camden line are quite "conditioned" to not speaking at all and refraining from any conversation. There are also quite a few "quiet car Nazis" on the Camden line (and on the Brunswick, from what I hear). So I sensed a general reluctance to be the first person to respond to the blind man. Someone did finally lead him to an empty seat. The blind man, of course, had no idea that it was the quiet car since he could not see the sign.
The blind man declared out loud, perhaps to no one in particular, that he was not familiar with this train because he was "trying out" different trains and stations to see which would ones be better for him. He has very clear, strong voice - perhaps a result of his reliance on verbal communication because of his lack of sight? I could almost "feel" the quiet car riders cringe as he continued to converse in a voice that could be heard quite clearly throughout the whole car. Even the "quiet car Nazis" were reluctant to tell a blind man in need of assistance that he needs to quiet down.
Of course, when he realized that no announcements were being made over the PA he had to start asking what station we were at. Whoever responded to him with the answer, he tried to engage in conversation with him - to their horror, I imagine. That made the other passengers even more reluctant to respond to his questions, and so he had to repeat his questions three or four times before someone would respond. Finally a passenger explained to him that he was on the Quiet car, and that's why people were being reluctant to respond to his questions. He acknowledged it but continued to engage in conversation. I can only speculate that to a blind person, a lack of verbal interaction with those around him could be somewhat unnerving?
By the time we reached the Riverdale station the "quiet car Nazis" did start "shooshing" him but he either didn't hear them or didn't understand them or just ignored him - I don't which. In my experience, people with very loud voices often have poor hearing.
In my opinion, if the MARC conductors had announced every stop, as well as other normally helpful information, it would have gone a long ways to easing the situation described above. On some trains they do exactly that. On other trains they do it a little or sometimes, and on others like the Camden 847, they never do it. Another example of the "inconsistencies" prevalent in the MARC system.
And, yes, Irizawa's correct. The MARC conductors should be calling out every stop. Not just for the blind but for daydreamers and anyone who isn't familiar with the system. Scenes like this belong in lowbrow movies, not on MARC. | <urn:uuid:33964046-7d87-426b-8484-3fe461414822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/traffic/2009/08/how_do_you_tell_a_blind_man_he.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989474 | 870 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Charles Brockman and the Amazing Disappearing Desk of Governor Joseph E. Brown
Sunday May 4, 2008 at 3:30 p.m.
Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Collection
UGA Main Library, 3rd Floor
Among the treasures found in the estate of the late Charles J. Brockman, Jr., were a missing letter book of Georgia’s Civil War governor Joe Brown, diaries of the governor’s wife Elizabeth Grisham Brown, which shed important light on the governor’s character and career, and the journals kept by the governor’s daughter Sallie during her grand tours with Mrs. Brown through Europe and South America.
Join us as Mary Ellen Brooks, director of the Hargrett Library, presents these treasures and discusses with noted historians Emory Thomas, Nash Boney, and Ken Thomas the role of the amateur collector, the significance of these additions to the Hargrett’s collection, and the importance of one of Georgia’s leading governors and his family.
NOTE: Only handicap parking is available near the library. Please park in the North Campus Parking Deck on Jackson Street. | <urn:uuid:328a3f0d-e044-45d6-8163-8bc2ebfa7880> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.libs.uga.edu/blog/?p=622 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947183 | 238 | 1.71875 | 2 |
AAC celebrates National Tutoring Week
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
The Academic Achievement Center (AAC) celebrated the National Tutoring Week during the week of Oct. 4. The celebration concluded on Thursday with a Trick or Treat event at the AAC. Tutors were presented with a small token of appreciation, and students were able to meet the tutors and gather helpful study tips while trick or treating.
JJ Wierenga, one of our ESL/Writing tutors, made balloon animals and hats for those who attended the event.
The AAC mission is to educate, empower, and inspire students to become independent and successful lifelong learners. The AAC offers many services that support this mission. Visit our webpage at http://ltu.edu/aac/ for a complete list of services, which are free to Lawrence Tech students.
AAC tutors are dedicated students and faculty members. They are hired based on their academic excellence, interpersonal skills, and faculty recommendations. Student tutors work between 5-20 hours per week and sometimes tutor up to 10 students in a day.
Research indicates that peer tutoring promotes active learning and benefits the tutor and the tutee. Peer tutoring has a positive effect on students’ long-term retention of information and helps students obtain higher course grades and GPA.
Tutoring is available for key courses in architecture and design, chemistry, computer science, engineering, ESL conversation, mathematics, physics, and writing. Fall hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday. Come on in! You do not need an appointment to see a tutor. Check the most up-to-date tutor schedule at ltu.edu/aac/tutoring.asp?_wds=cs.
National Tutoring Week is celebrated every year during the first week in October. Thank you, tutors, for your service.
– Gladys Avilés, Director, Academic Achievement Center | <urn:uuid:aaa93e1d-33ce-46ac-96ff-810f894fb056> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technews.ltu.edu/index.php/2010/10/23/aac-celebrates-national-tutoring-week-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952834 | 417 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Horror at pet’s snare torture
19 March 2010
A CAT used one of its nine lives to escape from an animal snare this week prompting concerns over the “inhumane torture” traps.
Sweet Pea, a small tabby, had a lucky escape after getting caught in a wire snare near Tow Law, Bishop Auckland. The cat managed to walk home with the snare trapped around her abdomen, it had passed over her neck and got trapped around her rear legs.
The snare, which was designed to catch a rabbit around the neck and choke it, was removed by a vet and left Sweet Pea with lacerations through her fur and skin but otherwise unharmed.
Following her pet’s ordeal Sweet Pea’s owner has warned other animal owners to be alert for snares and says awareness of the traps should be heightened.
The owner, who didn’t wish to be identified, said: “She came home last week muddied, bloodied and exhausted.
She was extremely lucky though, it may have cost her one of her nine lives but she survived.
“I’d never really thought about snares before but after looking into them I’ve found they provide a slow, lingering death for animals.
“I find it strange for a county that professes to be full of animal lovers that snares are still allowed to be used in the countryside. I think part of the problem is because they are covert and hidden people aren’t aware of them, I wasn’t until Sweet Pea had her incident.”
The owner said the indiscriminate nature of snares concerned her as any animal could be trapped. She also urged people to be more aware of the affect a snare has on an animal.
The owner said: “If Sweet Pea’s story shames just one person into thinking about the appalling, inhumane torture the snare delivers then that would be something.”
Ken Elgey, coordinator of the Riverside and Country Group, said snares were a necessary tool in culling pests and that if used properly they shouldn’t pose a risk to other animals.
He said: “The fact a cat has been caught by a snare can only leave me concerned that the person who laid it isn’t experienced in setting them.
“They are legal and are the cheapest way for people to control pests like rabbits. In the hands of professionals and keepers they can be laid safely, I’ve not know of other animals being caught when the traps are laid properly.”
Mr Elgey said the snares were preferred to other methods such as cages because they were cheap and not easily stolen. He also said it was important to cull animals such as rabbits due to the devastation they wreak on livelihoods.
Mr Elgey said: “A lot of damage can be caused not just by rabbits eating crops but also by their digging into banks, under buildings, railway lines and around pipes and services.
“Walls become weak if they are burrowed under. There’s got to be some way of culling them. None of us want to see the last rabbit go but we’ve got to be sensible.”
Source: The Wear Valley Mercury
Location: , England
Case Ref: 343/2010 | <urn:uuid:e891eeee-d8a7-4e0c-a467-eb80f4a81df4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antisnaring.org.uk/news/snares/horror-at-pets-snare-torture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972867 | 714 | 1.8125 | 2 |
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, the keynote speaker at the Urban Land Institute's annual Washington real estate conference, said that means making mixed-use developments centered on transit stops a top priority.
While he noted key projects include the redevelopment of St. Elizabeths Hospital and the MacMillan Reservoir in Northwest, D.C.'s downtown is full of unrealized potential.
"Go stand on 14th Street and look west. What do you see?" he said. "Not very many people because it's largely office buildings where ... it's deserted at the end of the day."
The downtown population surged over the last decade, according to the latest U.S. census counts, he noted.
"We now have 86,000 people living in Ward 2 -- which is principally downtown -- which underscores the fact that that's where people want to live," Gray said.
According to experts, the demand for more housing in the city and other urban areas in the region, such as Rosslyn or Bethesda, will come from young professionals.
Nationally, about 4.4 million 22-year-olds likely will be looking for new housing in the next few months, according to Leanne Lachman, president of research firm Lachman Associates. That number will rise to 4.5 million by 2012 and remain high in next 10 years, she said.
And, according to her research, nearly two-thirds of twentysomethings say that proximity to work is one of their top considerations in looking for a place to live.
The District has seen more than its share of rising demand, noted Grant Montgomery, founder of Delta Associates, who said that D.C.'s rental population increased by more than the national average in 2010. In conjunction with the rise has come a dwindling of new residential buildings in the District as the recession has slowed construction and financing.
The Washington area has one of the lowest apartment vacancy rates in the nation at 3.4 percent as renters now account for more than one-third of households.
"So you're also starting to see a boost in rents," Montgomery said, noting rents increased by nearly 7 percent regionally last year. "And in seven of 10 [suburban] submarkets, rents are up by double digits." | <urn:uuid:5f7dab04-f045-45c4-9a1f-760a9b5f4c99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/more-urban-housing-at-center-of-regions-development-future/article/112814 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972564 | 465 | 1.546875 | 2 |
A collection of news and information related to Environmental Cleanup published by this site and its partners.
Displaying items 1-12 of 13 » View ky3.com items only1 2 Next >
Nov 8 Some 18,000 Connecticut Light and Power customers were still without power midday Tuesday, most in the Simsbury area. About one-third of Simsbury was without electricity, as was a quarter of Avon and Farmington, and many in Granby, Canton,...
In a new round of water testing by the Environmental Protection Agency, half of the 29 Chicago homes visited yielded at least one sample containing more than 15 parts per billion of lead, a level that can trigger regulatory action if detected during...
firstname.lastname@example.orgA longtime paperboard manufacturer in Jefferson County, W.Va., has agreed to pay a $104,850 civil penalty to settle alleged water-pollution violations at its facility in Halltown near Harpers Ferry. Ox Paperboard LLC, formerly Halltown Paperboard, has...
During routine sampling conducted on 10/28/2011, Tetrachoroethene (PCE) has been found in West Lebanon Township Municipal Public Water Supply (PWS) Well #2. PCE was absent during routine sampling by West Lebanon Township conducted during August 2011. ...
For a city whose last Fortune 500 company was about to be acquired by an out-of-town corporation, there was not just consolation but actual excitement over one of the deal sweeteners: Chicago-based Exelon Corp. promised to build a new downtown office...
The Winchester SunThe energy was high in the Fannie Bush Elementary gymnasium Friday afternoon as students heard a message from Earthman about treating the Earth with respect and preventing litter. Earthman, or Lanny Smith, an environmental activist currently based in...
Department of Environmental ProtectionDEP Reminds Pennsylvanians that January is National Radon Action Month January is National Radon Action Month, marking a time of increased public awareness for this serious health hazard. Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas that occurs...
The Associated PressThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation. Only 24...
A decade ago, Connecticut nicknamed its dirtiest power generating plants the “Sooty Six.” Those got cleaned up and by 2010, according to a new federal greenhouse gas report, we were down to a less-than-Fragrant Five big emitters. Now one...
It is Michael Krancer to the rescue, plucking Pennsylvania from the clutches of those nasty feds who are scheming to harm our true-blue patriotic industrialists. By true-blue industrialists, I mean the super-rich heroes of the gas drilling industry,...
Oct 24, 2012 |Story| Hartford Courant
Jan 31, 2012 |Story| Chicago Tribune
Jan 16, 2012 |Story| Herald Mail
Feb 3, 2012 |Story| WPMT-LTV
Feb 4, 2012 |Story| South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Feb 4, 2012 |Story| Baltimore Sun
Feb 3, 2012 |Story| Hampton Roads Daily Press
Jan 28, 2012 |Story| Winchester Sun
Jan 17, 2012 |Story| WPMT-LTV
Jan 7, 2012 |Story| AP Broadcast
Jan 31, 2012 |Story| WTXX-LTV
Jan 14, 2012 |Column| Allentown Morning Call
Original site for Environmental Cleanup topic gallery. | <urn:uuid:86345091-c3c3-4a22-8ffa-62c11c0b9059> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ky3.com/topic/environmental-issues/environmental-cleanup/6013000.topic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931851 | 748 | 1.523438 | 2 |
NHS West Sussex Creates Model Of Change With Capgemini
Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in the UK are being asked to become World Class Commissioners as the National Health Service (NHS) seeks to improve the quality and safety of patient care whilst managing a reduced healthcare budget. Capgemini worked with diverse teams across the PCT to develop a way of accelerating and embedding change known as a 'Hothouse'. This built the skills of PCT staff and gave them the space, time and empowerment to deliver the right solutions to the PCT. The project defined a new approach to delivering change in the PCT. It created a core team of change agents who have a new range of skills that are being used to continually improve systems and processes. | <urn:uuid:6fdede7e-7ad6-4f1f-8862-c9960add9193> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techrepublic.com/whitepapers/nhs-west-sussex-creates-model-of-change-with-capgemini/2874485?scname=change-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944946 | 156 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Although I was unable to attend myself because of business commitments here in Wellington, I’ve been following developments at the Micronesian Regional Women’s Summit being hosting in Palau this week by my colleagues Assistant Secretary Tony Babauta and Ambassador Helen Reed-Rowe. The Assistant Secretary heads our Department of Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, and I have worked with him on issues related to the Pacific Islands.
There is a lot going on at the Summit, but I thought I’d focus on one particular development. Women in Business Development Inc. (WIBDI), about which I have written several times, and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) have committed to explore expansion of WIBDI’s organic coconut oil program to Hawaii and Native Hawaiian family farmers.
“Over the last 16 years, we have worked with small groups of indigenous producers to establish coconut oil processing systems to supply large markets,” said Adi Tafuna’i, Executive Director of WIBDI. “By working together with many small farming families, the Pacific is establishing itself as capable of meeting market demand that would otherwise not be possible for a single family or island in the Pacific.”
WIBDI’s existing coconut oil projects in Samoa involve approximately 80,000 acres tended by more than 700 families. To create the critical mass necessary to compete successfully in international markets, Adi and WIBDI have organized women in Tonga, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, and elsewhere. For her groundbreaking efforts, Adi was recently honored in Washington, DC with Vital Voices’ prestigious Economic Empowerment Award.
Hawaii is a promising location for collaboration. As CNHA President Robin Puanani Danner said, “It is an exciting opportunity worth exploring. Agricultural lands under our land trust established in 1920 by Congress may be a great place to pilot further expansion of coconut oil production. We are committed to exploring the feasibility, identifying homestead families to pilot the process, and working with WIBDI to enter the consortium of Pacific Islanders providing coconut oil on the world market.”
As President Danner said when she addressed delegates at the Summit, “We have more in common than differences among Pacific Island peoples. Ideas and solutions are often inter-changeable or at least have great potential for success when we share experiences and adjust to the uniqueness of each island economy.”
This is exactly the kind of entrepreneurial, people-to-people collaboration that infuses the Obama Administration’s approach to the Pacific, the President’s home region. That’s why we at Embassy Apia have focused on supporting, promoting, and assisting impactful groups such as WIBDI and SROS, and why Assistant Secretary Babauta engages tirelessly with a wide variety of Pacific Island organizations across the region.
CNHA will host a visit to Hawaii by a WIBDI team before the end of the year, and will work to establish a coconut oil pressing and processing pilot project shortly thereafter. In the meantime, CNHA will convene small groups of families to determine interest, model financial projections, analyze feasibility, and discuss project scale.
As you know from my prior posts, WIBDI was founded in 1991 and takes a strategic, diversified approach to economic development by building organically certified agricultural co-ops, seeding micro-finance capabilities, preserving and commercializing Samoan traditional crafts, providing training and mentoring to women and girls, and establishing farmers markets. Adi Tafuna’i was there at the start and continues to be the driving force behind the organization.
CNHA is a national network of Native Hawaiian Organizations committed to enhancing life in Hawaii through the cultural, economic, and community development of Native Hawaiians. It provides assistance in accessing capital and technical resources, and serves as a policy voice on issues important to Native Hawaiian communities.
I look forward to talking with Adi again after the exploratory trip to Hawaii, and I will report back as the Samoa-Hawaii collaboration begins to take shape. | <urn:uuid:1310557a-be59-4845-b33d-2773ada180b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.newzealand.usembassy.gov/ambassador/2012/08/hawaii-samoa-partnership-takes-shape/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952993 | 840 | 1.554688 | 2 |
As if you needed another reason to think twice about your Twitter output, the president of Crime Stoppers International says Canadian cops are tops when it comes to using social media as a crime-fighting tool.
Michael Gordon-Gibson, a 30-year veteran of London's Scotland Yard, had high praise for the country's law enforcement operatives, and singled out Toronto police constable Scott Mills, known informally as the "Lord Voldemort" of social media, for special praise.
"He's passionate about what he does and he makes a difference," Gordon-Gibson said of Mills, who was recently appointed as CSI's new social media advisor, a volunteer position created to network 1,300 Crime Stoppers organizations worldwide.
The three-day conference focused on the growing use of social media outlets — like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — to combat gang violence.
"I think it's fair to say that Canada enjoys a reputation for being enlightened thinkers around the world," he told the crowd, adding that his counterparts at the Canadian branch of Crime Stoppers have used social networking in "very advanced and very effective" ways.
Mills has become somewhat of a pioneer in law enforcement for his fluid ability to incorporate social media into solving crimes.
As one of the Toronto police force's first social media officers, Mills uses Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to appeal for witnesses and track down perpetrators.
He also trains officers on how to use social media strategies to "build bridges through technology" between the police and the greater communities they serve.
Though there are still a number of undefined parameters on how to navigate evolving privacy issues, Gibson-Gordon said he believes social media is crucial when it comes to building relationships with youth.
He pointed out a recent study that said teens are less inclined to feel like they're "snitching" when they pass on a tip using their keyboard.
Recent instances of people identifying rioters in Toronto and Vancouver through video and photos are but one example of this trend.
Mills said he believes social media can be used to thwart everything from schoolyard bullying to terrorist attacks, and hopes his counterparts continue to get on board in using it to fight crime.
"Social media in law enforcement was unheard of even two years ago," he said. "But the more tools we have to reach out and communicate with ourselves and the public, the safer our community will be." | <urn:uuid:31aaf142-5590-4cd3-9199-61cbb42c9b33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/canadian-police-lead-way-fighting-crime-social-media-223254963.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965352 | 489 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Connecting the Mini DisplayPort on a new Mac to an older DVI-based display is easy; a small adapter is all that's needed. However, connecting an older Mac or PC's DVI output to a modern, Apple DisplayPort monitor is harder. The Atlona DP200 interface makes the connection trivial.
If you have a modern Apple MacBook/Pro, Mac Pro or Mac mini with Mini DisplayPort, and you want to connect that port to an older display with a DVI-D connector, all you need is Apple's "Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter" for US$29.00. It supports up to 1920 x 1200 displays @ 60 Hz.
Apple's Mini DisplayPort to DVI-D connector
However, in the reverse situation, if you have an older Mac with just the DVI-D output and want to take advantage of Apple's new 24-inch LED Cinema Display, you'd be out of luck. That's because it's technically more difficult to convert the DVI signal to a more advanced DisplayPort connector and protocols.
Atlona explained: "With the Mini DisplayPort to DVI, the signal is able to pass-though a simple circuit (level-shift) to transfer to the DVI signal. Therefore the solution is very cheap as it requires a very low cost IC (Integrated Circuit). However, with our DVI to Mini DisplayPort adaptor, the DVI signal is not able to transfer to Mini DisplayPort signal though a simple circuit environment. There are two steps to convert to a Mini DisplayPort signal. First, let the DVI signal transfer to TTL. Second, a TTL signal transfer to Mini DisplayPort signal. The ICs for this solution are very expensive, so the price is much higher."
That's exactly what Atlona has done with its "DVI to Mini DisplayPort Converter." I was able to experiment with the product for a few days, and here's what I found.
First, the set up is trivial. Attach the power adapter to the DP200. Then connect your Mac, with the supplied DVI cable to one side of the DP200. Then connect the Apple Cinema Display's DisplayPort connector to the other side. Then press the power button. It takes a few seconds, but then you'll see the Cinema Display light up, and there's your external display.
24-inch LED Cinema Display and PowerBook G4 17-inch
I tried this with an older G4 PowerBook 17-inch, and it worked perfectly. An output resolution of up to 1920 x 1200 is supported.
No issue issues with video playback -- as expected
Because this is a hardware device, I didn't think there'd be any performance issues, but just to be sure, I played a video on the Cinema Display, and it was perfect. No stutters at all. That's what one would expect from pure hardware.
Here's the official features list:
- Compatible with All Mac and PC computers with DVI output
- Supports High Resolutions up to 1920x1200
- HDCP Compatible
- Full EDID management allows storing EDID information on the converter to make sure there is always a connection in between the computer and display
- Re-Clocking technology will insure that signal stays the same quality as it was before entering the converter
- Video Pass-Though, no scaling (EDID and HDCP compliant)
I did find one problem with the short DVI cable that connects the Mac or PC to the DP200. The cable is short and stiff, and the vertical orientation of the DVI connectors is reversed from what I'd like to see. That is, the stiffness of the cable and the orientation of the DVI connector forces the DP200 itself to sit at an odd angle on the desk due to the torque in the cable. I suppose one could forcefully twist the cable to eliminate that effect, but since it was a review unit that gets passed on to the next reviewer, I decided not to try that.
DVI cable (supplied) connected to DP200
The seven page paper manual is short, but covers the essentials. One thing I really liked was on page 3, a documentation of the pinouts. That could help with long term support and troubleshooting. Here's a link to the product data sheet.
Pinouts shown in manual (Hooray!)
The unit itself is about the size of one of those external, bus powered disk drives. It's made of metal and feels sturdy. One side has the power switch and Mini DisplayPort connector. On the other side has the DVI-D connector complete with threaded securing pins. There seems to be plenty of ventilation.
Apple has a long history of befuddling its customers with display connectors, to the delight of PC critics. That's because Apple just won't stand still and works to move its customer base and technology relentlessly forward. In contrast to that, Apple customers do have a tendency to keep their Macs for a long time, sometimes falling behind Apple's ambitions, and this kind of solution is just what the doctor ordered.
It's an expensive solution, to be sure. Even so, those who need a new Apple external display for their pre-unibody Mac Books, G5s, etc. for example, will be pleased that this solution exists. I've seen refurbished Apple Cinema Displays for US$599, so if you go that route and use the DP200, you're still ahead financially.
Also, I've been working with Atlona for some time now, and they have shown me a strong customer focus on their products, taking feedback very seriously. Hopefully, the next step is a longer, more flexible DVI-D cable with the right kind of "twist" so that the DP200 unit lays nicely flat.
Note that this solution isn't limited to Macs. PCs with DVI-D out can also use the device. The DP200 comes with a three year warranty.
Note. In May, I reviewed the Atlona HDPiX which converts USB/video + analog audio to HDMI. | <urn:uuid:ad900c9d-6d97-4268-948d-bd0b80f0d1db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/review/atlona_dp200_dvi_to_displayport_converter | 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 | 0.94495 | 1,262 | 1.671875 | 2 |
An Easter People: A Meditation on the Eucharist
It was Communion Sunday. All the words were said and the baskets filled. And as the choir stood to sing, the congregation readied itself to enter the place of Communion. Expecting an ornate choral selection, the congregation was surprised by what they heard. It was a simple tune with simplistic notions. No large swells or dramatic pauses, plain harmonies. The words paralleled the simple structure. It began "At the table of the Lord bread is broken, At the Table of the Lord, we are fed, We remember now the words that Christ has spoken, this is my body, He said."
When I was growing up, I always thought Communion was fun. It was the one Sunday a month where it was perfectly acceptable to eat in Church, not to mention the fact that my fruit juice of choice was always served. I knew that it was special, but for different reasons than I recognize now.
I grew up in a tradition in which Communion was highly symbolic. As Jesus requested, we did it to remember him. But as I evolved in my own faith, I realized that Communion is hardly just a memorial that we do weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
On a recent planning retreat, my peers and I were eagerly scheduling events for the coming semester. Our advisors jumped in the process with us - as eager to plan as we were. But it was tiring and we all went to bed exhausted. The next morning we students awoke hungry, but our advisors would not allow us to prepare our breakfast. Instead they insisted we wait in the common room. Sleepily, we obliged.
They came into our meeting room with a loaf of bread and cup of juice. That morning, before the craziness of planning and brainstorming, before even the satisfaction of pancakes, we were afforded an even more simplistic satisfaction. We were served the Eucharist. It was the first nourishment we experienced that day - physically and spiritually. We were embraced in the commonality of our beginning and encouraged to acknowledge each other as a beloved child of God.
Communion is so much more than a simple act, a simple memory. It is remembrance of the reason for our life. In taking the bread and wine we are renewed in the most fundamental reality of our Christian lives-that we are an Easter people.
Taking the bread and wine, we are reminded that Jesus did die. He did suffer a horrible death imposed by a ungracious people in a harsh world. As we share the simple feast, we are reminded that we are part of that ungracious people and we are still living in that harsh world.
But in the Eucharist is also the truth that the world did not end on Good Friday. Christ died. But He rose. Communion often entrenches guilt on those who partake of the feast. Breaking the bread and drinking the juice reminds them of the suffering of Christ. Communion is much more than a time of mourning. The Eucharist is a grateful meal - one eaten with respectful remembrance and hopeful joy. Yes, Jesus died. Hear the good news! He rose. The Table of Lord is open to us and we are an Easter People.
Copyright © 2004 by the author | <urn:uuid:5a44f210-753d-43e0-8678-5fa6512aa72d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whosoever.org/v9i5/easter.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984565 | 670 | 1.617188 | 2 |
On Tuesday, Pentagon leaders said they’d prefer to call the rash of “green on blue attacks” – where members of the Afghan security forces kill their U.S. and allied partners – “insider attacks” instead. They detailed a roster of steps they’re taking to clamp down on the betrayals, which not only kill Americans but sow distrust that makes U.S. training of Afghan troops much tougher and less efficient.
Calling them “green on blue” attacks “understates the effect that this is having on the [Afghan National Security Forces] itself,” said Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “You know, they’re suffering casualties from the same trend that we’re suffering from.”
Alas, the suffering continues: on Friday, a freshly-minted Afghan policeman – having just gotten his weapon before beginning target practice – shot and killed a pair of U.S. troops involved in his training. It happened in far western Afghanistan, well away from the violence that has wracked the southern and eastern parts of the country. “I’ve been very concerned about these incidents,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday, “because of the lives lost and because of the potential damage to our partnership efforts.”
There have been seven such attacks across the country in the past two weeks, killing 36 allied troops. The concern inside the Pentagon is this: such attacks rarely happened in the first years of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, but they are now becoming common.
Unfortunately, they constitute a powerful weapon: instead of the anonymous, standoff slaughter of a roadside bomb, insider attacks make clear there are deadly forces growing inside the Afghan security forces U.S. taxpayers have spent $52 billion training and outfitting. There is plainly a slice inside the Afghan security forces willing and able to train – and become “friends” – with U.S. troops while awaiting an opportunity to kill as many as possible. “There’s something different about these kinds of killings,” an Army officer says. “They’re up close and personal.”
Militarily, the attacks are insignificant. Nearly 2,000 U.S. deaths in Afghanistan in 10 years is 200 annually; insider attacks are a tiny fraction of that total. As of Tuesday, Panetta said there had been 31 Afghans involved in such attacks out of a force of 350,000, which works out to 0.009% of the total force. “Our forces continue to partner closely in the field, and they have not let these incidents disrupt those operations,” Panetta said.
A report issued Thursday by the four U.S. inspectors general whose agencies are most involved in Afghanistan didn’t even list such attacks as one of the “challenges and risks” associated with building Afghan security forces. “The major risk areas include requirements, acquisition planning, training, financial management and accountability, and corruption,” the report said. But anything that hampers training will leave a less-prepared Afghan force in charge when the U.S. pulls all of its combat troops from the country by 2015.
But the public-relations potential of the insider attacks – their ability to sour the U.S. military, U.S. politicians, and the American public on the war – is a far greater danger than the attacks’ military impact. That accounts for the evolving U.S. explanation as to why they are happening:
– The attacks stem from personal grievances more than support for the Taliban.
– Many such attacks are carried out by insurgents wearing stolen Afghan security-forces uniforms and not by loyal Afghan troops themselves.
– The U.S.-led military campaign is working so well against the Taliban they they cannot fight the U.S. and its Afghan allies in the traditional ways of war, so they have developed this insidious tactic.
– Well, not really. It’s not the Taliban doing most of the killing. “Our enemies have attempted to undermine the trust between the coalition and Afghan forces, and in particular, they have tried to take credit for a number of so-called green-on-blue or insider attacks that have taken place this fighting season,” Panetta said Tuesday.
They have tried to take credit, suggesting that they’re simply piggybacking on crazed local Afghans.
Yet Panetta gives them credit moments later. “One of the reasons the Taliban is targeting in this manner, we believe, is the success that our Afghan partners are having on the battlefield,” the defense secretary said. “The reality is the Taliban has not been able to regain any territory lost, and so they’re resorting to these kinds of attacks to create havoc.”
Panetta, who had alluded to recent mass shootings in the U.S. earlier in Tuesday’s briefing with reporters, obliquely brought them up again when he was asked what is motivating these attacks. “It’s clear that there’s kind of no one source that is producing these kinds of attacks,” he responded. “Some are individuals who, for one reason or another, are upset and suddenly take it out. We’ve seen that here in the United States oftentimes.”
Taliban leader Mullah Omar took credit for the increased attacks in a statement posted on insurgent websites Thursday and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. “Many Afghans in the rank and files of the enemy have shown a willingness to help the (Taliban) in a shrewd manner,” the statement said. “As a result, the foreign invaders and their allies at their military centers and bases are suffering crushing blows by these heroic soldiers.”
Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, responded to Omar with a quick web statement of his own. “The pride of the Afghan people has been smeared by killers who pose as Soldiers and police, yet they represent the worst of humanity,” he said. “Today, the Afghan Army and National Police are trying to build a better future for the Afghan people, yet Omar wants to stop these efforts. Coalition forces are here to help the people; we have no other reason for being here other than to make Afghanistan a stable country, founded on educated and healthy citizens.”
Allen is taking the following steps to curb such insider attacks, Panetta said:
– “First, to increase the intelligence presence, so that we can try to get better information with regards to these kinds of potential attacks.
– “Also, to increase counterintelligence, to have people trained in counterintelligence to be part of these units so that they can, as well, identify those threats.
– “We have a thorough vetting process. It’s an eight-step process. We’re doing forensics on the particular instances that occur in order to make sure, you know, how that process — that vetting process operated and what we can do to improve it.
– “Implementing a notification process, so that when we get information we can alert people to the threats.
– “Training requirements — we’re not only implementing training requirements with regards to our forces, but the Afghans are doing the same to try to identify these people.
– “We have a guardian angel program which involves identifying one individual who stands to the side so that he can watch people’s backs and hopefully identify people that would be involved in those attacks.”
Allen also is meeting with Afghan village elders. “These are the people who usually vouch for individuals,” Panetta said. “They have to sign something that vouches for the character of individuals. And he is going back to them to ensure that that’s being done properly.”
It’s not like the Afghan troops aren’t being screened. “They’ve discharged hundreds of soldiers who did indicate that some of these young men had the capability to be radicalized, either by virtue of travel back and forth to Pakistan, by literature, by language, by music,” Dempsey said. “There are indicators that we track.”
The threat has become serious enough that Allen is convening a conference of all allied generals and senior enlisted personnel to try to devise new methods of grappling with the insider-attack challenge.
“There’s far more stories about the positive relationship than there is about this particular insider-attack trend,” Dempsey said. “But it is one that we have to remain seized with and focused on.” Such attacks generate positive news, he noted, if in a rancid way: “In one of the recent green-on-blues, which we now try to refer to as insider attacks, it was actually an Afghan special operations forces lieutenant and a sergeant who came to the aid of their American counterparts and lost their lives in the process of coming to their aid.” | <urn:uuid:27884a4c-3bb5-4c05-b576-d7c7f34e984d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nation.time.com/2012/08/17/what-u-s-troops-are-doing-to-curb-insider-attacks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96806 | 1,904 | 1.726563 | 2 |
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The cost of the war against marijuana
It is well known that Americans illegally consume about 31 million pounds of marijuana every year at an estimated retail cost of $3,570 per pound.
That adds up to an expenditure of nearly $111 billion annually, all of it going into an underground economy that remains untaxed by the federal government.
According to the federal Office of Management and Budget: 28.7% of the gross domestic product ends up in the government’s hands as tax revenue.
The underground economic diversion of money into the marijuana market subsequently costs the government, and you and I as tax paying citizens, $31.7 billion annually in tax revenue that should be generated from marijuana related transactions if they were conducted legally.
Marijuana arrests account for 5.54% of all arrests in the United States, which spends $193 billion annually on its criminal justice system. As such, marijuana arrests account for $10.7 billion annually in criminal justice expenses. The average prisoner costs the taxpayers $33,615 a year to imprison and each one on average costs $9,412 just for their health benefits.
The FBI says that marijuana crimes account for 45.6% of all drug arrests.
Add it all up, and marijuana prohibition costs the US roughly $41.8 billion every year according to a 2007 estimate by public policy researcher Jon B. Gettman, Ph.D.
We could forgo the costs of marijuana enforcement and effectively deploy our policing assets elsewhere.
Max Chaiken, a graduating economics major at Brown wrote a senior thesis which finds that “a legally taxed and regulated marijuana market could generate upwards of $200 billion annually in excise tax revenues for the federal government.” The thesis is dated April 17, 2009 and can be reviewed here.
In November of 2009, the U.S. law enforcement made its 20 millionth marijuana arrest since 1965.
20 Million arrests and almost 90 percent of teens today report that pot is “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain, and nearly one out of two graduating high-school seniors admit to having tried it.
Just ask 3 of the most recent Presidents if they have seen or tried it.
Click here to read Part I of this article: Could marijuana and industrial hemp feed our starving economy?
Click here to read Part II of this article: What about industrial hemp and the value it could add to our economic situation?
Click here to read Part III of this article: What about industrial hemp and the value it could add to our economic situation?
Click here to read Part IV of this article: The Economic Case for Legalization and Decriminalization of Marijuana
That's all well and good, but didn't we make this stuff illegal for a good reason in the first place?
The decision of the United States Congress to pass the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was based in part on testimony derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who, some authors stress, had significant financial interests in the forest industry, which manufactured his newsprint.
SOURCES: The US CDC, NORML, Max Chaiken's thesis: Brown University, Social Jewstice (Max Chaiken's Blog), Green Change, "Open For Questions" Town Hall Transcript, The Telegraph, The Independent, WikiPedia
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Help the 1461 spread - invite your friends and family to join the 1461 and learn the truth rather than BS! | <urn:uuid:b53eb1a8-96cc-4dac-8d66-10e1b8ed1f90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://1461days.blogspot.com/2012/05/cost-of-war-against-marijuana-devil.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953184 | 791 | 1.59375 | 2 |
How bad is this global crisis for journalism? When there is less money for the media, does media freedom suffer?
We have to see the crisis in two forms. First of all there certainly isn't a crisis for freedom of expression. Today we have many more opportunities to express ourselves than ever before thanks to the Internet and social networking and access to technology. People can express themselves very effectively.
The problem about it is that we are living in a time in which we are overwhelmed by information and it is very difficult to distinguish what is useful and reliable information. That is why journalism is important.
At the same time as we've had an expansion in our capacity for free expression, we've had a contraction in the opportunities to get access to reliable information. One of the reasons for that is the crisis that is overwhelming the traditional media industry.
Over the last few years we've seen the convergence through digitalization, the convergence of broadcast media, audio, 'vidéothèque' and the introduction of online services. And the impact of this has been to really hit hard at the capacity of news media, particularly newspapers, to remain profitable.
We've seen across much of Europe and North America in particular a very severe reduction in the number of newspapers. There have been hundreds if not thousands of titles that have closed in Europe and in North America over the past five years.
At the same time newspaper companies have introduced very strong cuts in investment in editorial work. This has meant that tens of thousands of journalists have lost their jobs and been moved out from good employment into very precarious employment, because of the introduction of much more freelance and casual labour.
There has been much less investment in training and investigative journalism. As a result of that, there is a very severe crisis of the sort of journalism that is necessary to provide good and reliable information and to make democracy strong.
It's the 'quality' press that suffers.
It's not just the 'quality' press. In fact if anything the major press that have suffered has been the local and regional press. This is where the very strong impact of the crisis has been felt. Of course newspaper circulations are in very steady decline and have been so for many years. So we are in a moment of transition, there's no doubt about that.
But the crisis is not just falling circulation. Advertising is migrating from newspapers to the Internet. As a result of that there's a real question mark over whether or not the private sector can any longer deliver pluralism of information and reliable information that is useful for democracy.
That raises a very serious question because if the private sector can't deliver it and democracy needs it, then the question is: Who is going to deliver it and who is going to pay for it? We have a really profound crisis: more freedom of expression but less reliable journalism. And that is very bad for democracy.
There is a very serious state of affairs and in all of this the quality of journalism has declined. We have less ethical journalism, more sensationalist journalism, journalism that is tending not to explain context and difficult issues, but that is much more superficial reporting of what is going on.
All of this is causing a major headache for people that believe that journalism is at the heart of democracy and people need access to good and reliable journalism.
There is also the fact that part of the media is there to entertain, while another part is there to inform…
Well, that's always been the case. Media provide all sorts of different qualities. They've been educational, informative, entertaining. All of this has always been part of the mix. But in recent years the capacity to inform people has diminished and is still going down. And that's what's really worrying.
Is the press a service to society, which society needs to find ways to encourage? In terms of, I don't know, tax policy or direct aid? I know France pays direct aid to some newspapers, because they are traditional newspapers and that they would simply disappear without such aid.
There's a lot of debate now about whether or not there should be more public funding for media. One way or another there's always been systems of public subsidy for media, even in countries like the United States where they like to think the private sector reigns supreme.
The reality of it has been traditional media have received public subsidies. They very often take the form of tax breaks. They take the form of lower service tax. They take the form of direct subsidies. In the United States, for example, about $1 billion will be given in subsidies to media this year.
So every country does it. In Europe there are many countries which allow media to have a zero rate of VAT or service tax. There are subsidies on paper and distribution costs. In many countries there are direct payments to subsidise niche media and local media, in the Scandinavian countries for example. In many other countries they are looking for innovative ways to support media in the current crisis. As you say in France there is some direct support to media. In the Netherlands and other countries they are also subsidising media jobs.
Now the question is: how can this be done in an open and democratic manner? But also how can it be done without compromising the essential independence that media needs to have?
There are some good examples. Euronews is subsidised by the European Union, which doesn't mean they're biased or they pay lip service to Brussels.
It's true. It's very interesting in some areas we see operations like Euronews that are able to operate even though they are subsidised by the public purse. But that's unusual. Journalists and media are very resistant to the perception that they are being paid from the public purse even though we have a long tradition in Europe of public service broadcasting.
My view is that this attitude of resistance within media and journalism needs to change. We need to recognise that journalism is an essential public good. Being a public good there's nothing wrong with it having public money.
What we need, and we don't have this at the moment, is to create structures that will guarantee the continued editorial independence of media. That will ensure there are open and transparent structures for the distribution of public money to media.
You have been involved in the International Federation of Journalists for many years, since 1987.
For 24 years.
That's a very long time. I would like to ask you what your future plans are.
My future plans are actually to work on these particular issues: the future of journalism, the question of maintaining and reinvigorating ethical standards in journalism. I am intending to advise media and to advise journalistic groups to support programs and projects which will strengthen ethical journalism. And promote the debate about the future of media. Particularly about the need for more public funding of media and how this should be organised.
Do you also target some countries where the media situation appears to be perhaps worse than in others? In the European Union there have been several countries singled out…
Clearly there are many problems within the European Union but particularly I think there are problems in Southeastern and Eastern Europe. Here we still have countries in the process of political transition. There was a big controversy because of changes taking place in Hungary at the beginning of the year.
I think what that controversy revealed is that it's not just a Hungarian problem. I think there are many countries in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans where the relationship between politics and media is not clear enough, and where there are serious problems for journalism that need to be corrected.
There's another development which I think is extremely worrying. In many countries of Europe, and not just Eastern Europe but in Northern and Western Europe as well, there is the rise of a new and intolerant form of politics where more extremist parties exercise influence over power.
There is the promotion of anti-migrant sentiment. Racism and xenophobia are on the rise. Unfortunately media have sometimes been manipulated by unscrupulous politicians in this way.
So there is a real need for media to stand aside and protect itself from undue influence by this sort of politics. It's a major problem in this period. I see a challenge to journalists who avoid sensationalism, who avoid being part of the new wave of racism and xenophobia, which is being generated in Europe.
To try to maintain independence in the 21st Century is very difficult but this is important work and needs to be done.
I am intending to focus on what I can do in terms of using my experience in raising campaigns to improve journalistic quality, to try to help journalists to keep their professional heads above water at this really difficult time.
If there is such a surge of nationalism lately, is it also because the press is weak?
No, I don't think it's because the press is weak. I think the press's weakness has an impact. I think there is a rise of this unacceptable politics because the political structures are weak. Traditional political parties have lost their centre of gravity, their capacity for maintaining values in difficult times, in times of crisis.
I think we are seeing more and more anti-migrant racist and xenophobic politics and ideas creeping into mainstream policies. I think this is what is at the root of the crisis. This isn't a media crisis, it's a political crisis. It seems to me that media have to identify this trend to keep themselves apart from it but do everything they can to ensure that people have access to reliable and useful information. Particularly at this time.
If you look at the Brussels press, which I know you are familiar with, what would you like to improve there?
One of the things about the Brussels is that it is so overwhelmingly dominated by the elephant in the room which are the institutions of the European Union. We've seen a decline in recent years in the numbers of foreign correspondents in Brussels.
That's in line with the diagnosis of crisis which I've outlined. Media are investing less in foreign correspondents and that means less people in Brussels who provide plurality of opinions and views.
So it's very important that the Brussels media do what they can to maintain their independence. The European Union is such an important and accepted information service that it really overwhelms the capacity for independent journalism. I think that is really quite worrying.
There is a role that has to be played by the Brussels-based media, which is to try to create distance between themselves and the European Union. | <urn:uuid:b47c6e71-fb02-4734-81d2-be1a0cc81b22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.euractiv.com/de/zukunft-eu/aidan-white-pressefreiheit-europ-interview-504342 | 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 | 0.975161 | 2,129 | 1.796875 | 2 |
June 2005 > Sports > Boxing
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Lot 1638: Complete Set of Ring Record Books (1941-86)
Nat Fleischer's Ring Record Book was -- and for historical research purposes, still is -- the ultimate boxing bible. It is estimated that Fleischer, who founded The Ring in 1928 and published it until his death in 1972, wrote more than 40 million words on boxing and we believe it, especially if you count the words in this complete set of 45 Ring Record Books (1941-87), which were issued in pretty much the same format expanding Fleisher's original capsule biographies and ring records of every known fighter. Includes the very rare '41 inaugural issue (with Fleischer's photo on the front), bound and in exceptional condition, and the 1951 edition is signed by Fleischer. From '63 on the dust wrappers are present save for the '83 edition, which has a makeshift green cover with writing aping The Ring's style. '86-87 final edition has a soiled dust wrapper. '49 edition has several page tabs. Fleischer's picture also on cover of the '63 edition, and on the back jacket of all others. Most of the cover strikes a unique ring vibe, either from vintage boxing art dating back to the bare-knuckle days, photos from classic fights, or a montage of fighters' faces ('82). A Muhammad Ali fight shot is on the '64 cover and Joe Louis has a special place, appearing on a Louis-Schmeling fight poster on the cover of the '73 and on the '86-87 farewell edition cover. Collection belonged to a writer for The Ring whose stamp is on the 1st page of each book, reading "From the Collection of Robert J. Thornton." Books were clearly well-consulted, with pages turned frequently. Condition averages VG-EX. A virtual boxing archive and a fight-game collectible, all in one.
|The bidding for this lot has ended.| | <urn:uuid:1b3b0b3f-ad38-41bb-a064-f982a3216a89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lelands.com/auction/AuctionDetail/24035/June-2005/Sports/Boxing/Lot1638~Complete-Set-of-Ring-Record-Books-(1941-86) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9459 | 412 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Tin Can has been getting lots of people in a twist lately. Early adopters are tweeting and blogging about it and anyone who’s anyone seems to be dropping it into conversations to prove they’re at the cutting edge of learning technologies. It is certainly doing the rounds as the Next Big Thing. But ask anyone, “What is Tin Can? Explain it to me” and more often than not you’ll just get a shrug of the shoulders and a quizzical look.
This is because Tin Can API is pretty confusing to the newcomer. I can vouch for that because I am a newcomer to it myself. This blog post is my collected notes and thoughts from one day spent learning about Tin Can API. It’s become pretty clear over recent weeks to me that most people understand that Tin Can API is the next version of the SCORM standard, but few people realise that it is still only at the DRAFT stage. There is a high level of vendor ‘early adopter’ activity with technology companies implementing the draft standard but there is also a high level of vendor hype with people like Articulate touting Articulate Online as a “Tin Can API-supported learning management system”. The level of hype makes it sound more real than it is, and the race to innovate seems to have taken the standards definition squad by surprise. While these people are still working on the final revisions to the draft specification, the hype in the vendor market is leading e-learning practitioners to eagerly search out press releases and marketing material that just aren’t ready yet.
So what exactly IS Tin Can API?
We have to start with SCORM. The SCORM standard is all about tracking the status of big and chunky e-learning modules, with the e-learning module and the learner record usually residing in a single LMS or Learning Management System. Tin Can API however, rightly recognises that most learning happens away from the LMS. So the focus has moved away from e-learning modules towards learning activities, be these offline or online, tutor-led or collaborative, real-world or virtual. It doesn’t matter where the activity takes place; what matters is that some remote system with knowledge of that activity can send a simple statement to a central learner record store (LRS) containing some very basic details of what the learner did. That’s why it’s called Tin Can API - the API stands for Application Programming Interface. API’s are used everywhere in IT – they handily provide a common language to allow unrelated systems to talk to each other. For example, a library system could use Tin Can API to send a statement to an LRS to say that a learner borrowed a book or a journal. The statement itself is a very simple one in the form of ‘noun – verb – object‘, for example ‘Mark borrowed Book X’ – it’s as simple as that.
So what can Tin Can API be used for?
Think about the possibilities. You could create Tin Can API services for an almost endless list of tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, event management systems, learning management systems, Slideshare, YouTube, Yammer, library management systems, blogs, social bookmarking tools, all sorts of learning and productivity tools. These would all send small activity records to the LRS such as:
- I watched/uploaded/commented Video A on YouTube
- I borrowed Book B from the library
- I attended Conference C
- I posted Status D to Facebook
- I tweeted Tweet E to Twitter
- I scored 50% in an online quiz
- I completed e-learning F in Moodle
- I bookmarked Website G on Diigo
- I joined Group H on Yammer
- And so on…
There will be plug-ins and apps galore to help learners record their learning – Rustici have already released an ‘I learned this’ browser bookmarklet and a book barcode scanner that both send Tin Can API statements to an LRS. Well, THEIR commercial LRS. But where they have started, many others will follow, hopefully allowing learners and IT administrators to point the statements towards an LRS of their choosing.
It sounds great, so who is behind Tin Can API?
In simple terms, the US Department of Defense is behind Tin Can API. They run the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative, which aims to “standardize and modernize training and education management and delivery”. As guardians of the SCORM standard, ADL have had a huge impact on the e-learning industry, far beyond the confines of the DoD. ADL’s current focus is on personalised, just-in-time learning and part of their vision includes “greater communication between systems and content types and tracking learner activity including non-linear learning experiences and social media interactions.” To this end, the current SCORM standard simply doesn’t cut the mustard any more.
Enter ADL’s new initiative: ‘Training and Learning Architecture‘. This consists of a number of projects including the Experience API (Tin Can API), Project Tin Can and the Learner Record Store (LRS). Forget about Project Tin Can, it is superceded by the Experience API (Tin Can API) project. Those other two projects we already know about. Bizarrely, the API project is very confusingly referred to by two names – Experience API and Tin Can API – heaven knows why but let’s just say no technology standards body has ever got an award for its marketing prowess.
So ADL are behind the draft standard, but they didn’t write it. They actually went to the market and offered funding to define the new standard. To do this they issued a BAA, which is basically an invite to tender for the work. That funding was won by a company called Rustici, who spent a year writing the draft specification. This was then delivered to ADL who put it out to the open community for review and revision. And that’s where it is now, at version 0.95.
Rustici remain closely involved in the process and are providing support to early adopters, particularly authoring tool and LMS vendors who are implementing the draft specification. I spoke to them last week myself and they were exceedingly helpful. They are also providing their own commercial LRS product and TinCan API plug-ins and are therefore investing in marketing effort around these, which has certainly contributed to the buzz and the perception among my colleagues that TinCan API was market ready. Rustici’s overview of Tin Can API – they purchased http://tincanapi.com/ to spread the word - is miles better than the ADL site, so I would recommend that as the best place to get in-depth about Tin Can API in layman’s terms. Rustici’s main commercial website is actually http://scorm.com/ - these folks really love their SCORM! But it’s important to make the distinction that Rustici are a commercial venture involved in SCORM technologies and received funding to draft the Tin Can API standard – which is all completely fine and above board. But it is ADL who are managing the definition or the Standards. This had a few people confused that I spoke to, so it’s important to clarify.
What is the current state of Tin Can API?
So as at Oct 2012 we are currently in the specification review and revision stage.
- Tin Can API is a Draft Specification currently at v0.95.
- ADL should be publishing v0.98 by end of 2012
- ADL should be publishing the final v1 specification by end of Q1, 2013.
A key reason we are hearing so much about the API already is that some vendors are already implementing the Draft Specification. Foolhardy? I don’t think so. These people are betting that Tin Can API is going to be a game changer in learning technologies, and I think they are right. These vendors are very firmly in the ‘early adopter’ category and are undertaking this work on the basis that there will be some movement in the Specification between v0.95 and v1. However, as significant efforts were already made to pull any major changes into v0.95, the hope is that any remaining movement will only be minor refinements.
Tin Can API: “tracking the bejeesus out of everything!”
So that’s the lowdown on Tin Can API as far as I understand it. I invite comment and corrections and will amend my lowdown accordingly so please enlighten me if I missed anything. But before blindly accepting all this as the future of learning technologies, let’s spare a thought for @craigtaylor74 who tweets that he is “Hearing more & more about tracking the bejesus out of everything, wrapped up in the ‘Tin Can’ guise!” The man has a point. You have to ask why we need to track all this data and what use does it serve. ADL are backing it because they think it will lead to a future of personalised, adaptive, just-in-time learning. Others will see a definite big brother angle to all this tracking.
There’s a possibility we are obsessing over the ability to track everything we learn, when what is more important is determining our learning NEEDS. I recently saw a video of work.com, the social performance management tool from Salesforce.com. It was pretty awesome, and totally focused on tracking employee GOALS and rewarding them for meeting those goals. Learning activities were not the focus, there was no ‘Jonny did this’ or ‘Mary did that’. It was all about ‘Mary met her goal’. A manager needs to know that an employee has met their goals and have visibility of failures so that learning needs can be established and met, and THAT’S where the focus on learning activities comes in. It’s not much use a manager knowing about every minor learning activity their team took if they don’t know how they are performing.
There’s a danger of being led by the technology here and that by focusing relentlessly on methods to track learning activities we will go down the wrong path as workplace learning practitioners. We need to make sure we are following best practice, user-centred design principles to stay on the right track when designing these new systems and architectures. When I first saw work.com it was clear that these people totally understood their users and hence their focus on goals not activities. So that’s my next big challenge. We are starting work at Epic already on implementing Tin Can API for GoMoLearning and maybe for Moodle too. So my challenge is to ensure we do this in the right way, led by the needs of our audience rather than just being wowed by the technology. | <urn:uuid:87e2b9cc-93c4-4269-b9c9-b585ecf8785c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.open-thoughts.com/2012/10/understanding-tin-can-api/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963176 | 2,307 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Power transfers in a state capital generally follow a pattern. The incoming governor soaks up public attention and media coverage, with announcements of new appointments and new policies. The outgoing governor quietly packs up the office, keeps a low profile, and looks for a new job.
The current transition in California is exactly the opposite of that.
The departing Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting all the attention, with a steady stream of public events, policy and budget announcements. The arriving Jerry Brown, who will be inaugurated January 3, has stayed quiet and mostly out of view. Brown has announced only a handful of appointments. And his only two public events of note were long seminars on the budget during which he was careful not to commit to any particular course of action on said budget.
These strange dynamics do not indicate any conflict between the two men. To the contrary, relations between the two governors have been described as smooth and cordial, with Brown deciding to keep on Schwarzenegger's budget director as his own.
California's upside-down transition reflects the very different personalities and political needs of these two peculiar men. It also demonstrates how deep and intractable California's troubles are, and how little maneuvering room any governor—be he an Austrian movie star or a Zen retread from the '70s—has in dealing with them.
Schwarzenegger says, in a point that even critics have conceded, that he has had little choice but to continue his full-force public salesmanship in his final months in office. While his name wasn't on the November ballot, several key parts of his record were. Opponents of some of his accomplishments—including climate change legislation, his citizens' commission to draw district lines and a 2009 corporate tax cut—sought to block those policies by ballot initiatives. Schwarzenegger successfully defeated all three measures. Since then, the governor also has been making the case for measures of his own—namely a water bond and a larger rainy day fund for the state—that aren't scheduled to go to voters for ratification until 2012, long after he leaves office.
But Schwarzenegger's busy public schedule hasn't all been about ongoing policy fights. He has picked up awards or cut ribbons at events that helped highlight parts of his record he wants historians to emphasize. Showcasing his climate change and solar energy accomplishments, he has encouraged speculation, so far unfounded, that he could take an energy post in the Obama administration.
Schwarzenegger also has used a series of media interviews to push back against harsh assessments of his legacy by state pundits. (George Skelton of The Los Angeles Times, who has generally been friendly to Schwarzenegger, wrote this week that the state never should have recalled former Gov. Gray Davis in the 2003 election that put Schwarzenegger in office). Most of these criticisms are based on the fact that Schwarzenegger, who pledged to clean up California's fiscal mess, leaves behind a big budget deficit, just as his predecessor left him one. The governor's team argues that much of the deficit is a product of the national recession.
While many governors with approval ratings in the 20s would shuffle quietly out the door, Schwarzenegger argues that the public simply hasn't caught up with his record because he accomplished so much late in his governorship, particularly pension changes and political reforms that were approved only this year. And because the governor was elected in a recall a little less than a year into his predecessor's first term, he only got seven years, not the full eight years in office.
"I always said that I will go and charge through the finish line, that I took the oath to serve as California's chief executive until January 3 and I will serve the people of California until the last second, until the next governor is sworn in," Schwarzenegger told reporters this month. "So there's a lot of work that still can be done, so why would I stop in December or November? It wouldn't make any sense." Schwarzenegger's race-to-the-finish line approach has occasionally seemed desperate. The governor called a special session for December to deal with a $6 billion deficit that had opened in the current year budget. While there was an obvious fiscal need for such a session, convincing a Democratic legislature to deal with a Republican governor on cuts just weeks before a new Democratic governor took office was too much to ask.
The legislature left town. At a press conference making his case for his package of cuts, Schwarzenegger was asked why he'd bothered with the legislature gone. "Maybe they'll come back," he answered, a bit plaintively.
All the attention Schwarzenegger has attracted might have annoyed another politician seeking to succeed a celebrity. But Brown hasn't complained at all. With Schwarzenegger sucking up media attention, Brown has been free to make plans with remarkably little scrutiny. And Brown, over the past year, expressed concern that voters might grow sick of him if they heard too much from him. That's a fear, it seems fair to say, that never much preoccupied Schwarzenegger.
There's been another advantage to Schwarzenegger's blitz: Brown, at least at this point, doesn't seem to have much specific to say about his intentions. He has indicated a willingness to keep on many Schwarzenegger officials. His handful of appointments mainly involves a return of officials from his first governorship, from 1975 to 1983. And Brown's pronouncements on the budget have been almost entirely directed at just how bad things are; "unprecedented" is how he has described the crisis. He hasn't specified solutions, though he and his advisers have hinted that they would push for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. The tax increases would be part of a package that would go to voters for approval.
Strangely, this approach—to warn of terrible cuts and to take reforms or tax increases to the voters at the ballot—is remarkably similar to the strategy of his predecessor. Schwarzenegger often warned of budget "Armageddon" as a way to create more room to maneuver in budget talks. And he called two different special elections to pursue budget reforms, including a 2009 election that asked voters to extend tax increases. Both of those elections failed.
Brown, in repeating this approach, seems to have concluded that the governor failed not because of the strategy— but because of the loud, high profile way the governor did it. So Brown will offers voters a Schwarzenegger-style solution—but pitched at a much, much lower volume.
There's another virtue to this low-key approach. Brown has conceded that he's not quite sure how to fix California's broken budget and governance system. California may be so broken that it's not clear exactly how much a governor can do to solve things. With no good options, the smart politician will keep quiet and hide in the big shadow of a celebrity predecessor for as long as he can. | <urn:uuid:8b03ef9b-a14c-42ec-8e1b-884f5c3fd803> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asp.newamerica.net/node/42357 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984319 | 1,379 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Solidary Foundation and Feed The Children are  charitable organizations working together dedicated to serves the poor, regardless of a person's religion, race, ethnicity, or gender, as a demonstration of God's unconditional love for all people.
Hundreds of people lined up Thursday morning to receive some much-needed boxes of food and other items.
More than 2,800 families traveled to Tropical Park to redeem vouchers that allowed them to claim three boxes of food and household products. This event comes as part of an effort to fight against hunger. Solidary Foundation and The Feed the Children program put on the event. South Florida has a lot of people that are either poor or they're not working or they lost their jobs or they're losing their house, so these are the people we want to give to. said Cecith Londono.
The families in need received a 25-pound box of food, which include water, cereal and canned goods, a 10-pound box of hygiene items and a box of Avon products. The vouchers for the boxes were distributed over the last two weeks at Solidary Family Help Center , churches and community centers in the area.
The need is so great that local state leaders even met in Miami Thursday morning to consider ways to end poverty, but until the need is gone, donations like this one will continue. A lot of people need help. Nowadays, any help is good.
In Florida there are about 700,000 people living in poverty, enough to fill the Sun Life Stadium three times over. | <urn:uuid:2ec62828-fcf8-4733-a72a-203011065762> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.solidary.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=819&Itemid=524 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965269 | 310 | 1.625 | 2 |
Celebrated freeware OS Linux grows up
October 2, 1998
by Alex Lash
SAN JOSE, California (IDG) -- Linus Torvalds is a brand-new father. But his other baby is growing up fast.
The freely distributed Linux operating system he invented almost a decade ago as a University of Helsinki student has evolved from hacker hobby to corporate purchase decision. Oracle, Netscape and many others have announced software that runs on Linux, the Unix clone that can run on PCs.
As reported Friday, Intel, Netscape and two prominent venture capital firms - Benchmark Capital and Greylock - have taken minority stakes in Red Hat, a for-profit distributor of Linux that provides the documentation, customer support and tools that help users install and modify the highly-regarded Unix variant.
Sitting on a panel here yesterday at the ISPCon trade show with the Red Hat CEO, his new investor friends, a local TV anchorwoman and a devoted crowd singing his praises, Torvalds certainly didn't mind the attention, nodding playfully at suggestions that he was approaching "God-like" status among developers.
No one would say how much the four investors actually invested, although Red Hat CEO Bob Young, sitting on Torvalds' left during the panel discussion, downplayed the financial significance.
"This round of financing is mostly strategic for us," he said. "The fact we collected a few dollars is a nice side benefit."
That "benefit" is to meant to give Red Hat the wherewithal to handle corporate customers who demand accountability and around-the-clock service as part of their purchase. Red Hat will build out a customer-service call center in coming months, but the plan to tackle the enterprise is still "in its infancy," according to Red Hat CTO Marc Ewing.
The ever-confident Torvalds told panel moderator Catherine Heenan, an anchorwoman for a San Francisco evening news program, that the sudden spotlight thrust on Linux was not surprising, given its technological merits and the fervor of its acolytes. But in corporate offices, Linux until recently has been considered a hobbyist's OS, not something to help run company networks.
"Nine months ago we wanted to help Linux move forward, but we had to move behind the scenes," said John Paul, Netscape's general manager of server technology. "I'm no longer nervous about talking to enterprise customers about Linux."
Not surprisingly, Intel VP Sean Maloney was less effusive. He repeatedly referred to Linux as one choice among many operating systems in the server space. But he batted down any suggestion that Intel's Red Hat investment was a warning to Microsoft, which wants to win corporate hearts and wallets with its NT operating system running on Intel-based server machines.
"NT has huge momentum [in enterprises]. How far will Linux move into that space?" Maloney asked. "I don't know."
Maloney warned of the danger of spreading Linux "too thin," instead of focusing on what it does best now: run small to medium-sized Internet servers. Torvalds, who keeps control of the Linux kernel, or core functionality, promised that the next version of Linux would run on servers with more than one processor, a big step up in computing power.
Open-source programs across the board - the Apache Web server, the Perl programming language and the GNU development tool set, to name a few - are gaining legitimacy as a business platform. Open-source development relies on a loose-knit federation of programmers who work to improve the software as a labor of love. The programs are available to all to use, manipulate, change and redistribute, without the proprietary interests that normally control software development. With most, you can't sell the code itself. But because the code is freely distributed, there are potentially millions of users who need additional tools, books and applications to enhance the software.
Earlier at the conference, Silicon Graphics gave the open-source community another nod of corporate approval by tapping C2Net as a partner in its Internet service strategy. Oakland, Calif.-based C2Net adds strong cryptography to the open-source Apache Web server and resells it.
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Read our privacy guidelines. | <urn:uuid:2c79c45b-7312-44a8-9871-365f95e65eab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9810/02/linuxgrows.idg/index.html?_s=PM:TECH | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946557 | 897 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Sri Lanka to strike oil, gas soon
Sri Lanka is to strike oil and gas as soon as the report on 3 D
seismic studies are completed within two months. The study would enable
to ascertain how much hydrocarbon deposits are available in the Mannar
Basin. It is expected that the first barrel of oil could be extracted by
2013, said Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Development Minister A.H.M.
Fowzie at a media briefing yesterday.
Cairn Lanka is commencing seismic acquisition in Mannar Basin with an
investment of over US $ 100 million. Bids have been called for the
remaining seven blocks and a Cabinet Paper has been already submitted. A
production sharing agreement has been signed specifying as to how to
share oil, what are the benefits Sri Lanka is to receive and the
procedures to follow. Sri Lanka would receive a ten percent royalty on
“We are optimistic and investing a great deal of money to drill wells
and remain focused on conducting the seismic survey,” said Cairn
Commercial Director, P. Elangoven.
It is important to carry out the work program on competitive rates.
The availability of oil would depend on the data from the survey
subjected to a review and analysis, he said.
Cairn Lanka Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn
India, commenced its 3D seismic survey in the Mannar Basin in Sri Lanka.
The program will fulfill the commitment of 1450 km2 of 3D seismic data
acquisition and will be acquired by CGG Veritas AS using the seismic
vessel ‘SR/V Viking II’. Completion of the data acquisition is expected
by the first quarter of 2010 with data processing scheduled to be
completed by mid 2010. Drilling, based on the interpreted data and
subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to commence in the first
half of 2011. Block SL 2007-01-001 was awarded to Cairn India in the bid
round held in 2008. The block lies offshore Northwest Sri Lanka. For the
Sri Lankan entry, Cairn Lanka (Private) Limited was formed as a wholly
owned subsidiary of Cairn India, which now holds a 100 percent
participating interest in the block.
Cairn’s Forward Plan includes commencing a Met Ocean and Currents
survey in January 2010, complete the 3D seismic acquisition program
before the end of April 2010, initiate fast-track 3D seismic data
processing and complete same within August 2010, complete final 3D
seismic data processing and interpretation by about November 2010,
complete all major drilling services contracting by about August 2010,
finalize the drilling rig contract before December 2010 and commence
exploration drilling (Well # 1) in April 2011. | <urn:uuid:bbacee8b-bb01-4641-bf93-a45a8ec47a89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/12/12/bus01.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947292 | 593 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Twitter, the famous micro-blogging website, has been blocked in Pakistan since today morning i.e. that of 20th May 2012. A similar action was taken against the social networking web site Facebook two years ago, when it was banned by the Lahore High Court.
According to News Agency AFP,
Pakistan blocked Twitter on Sunday, saying the website had refused to remove posts promoting a Facebook competition involving caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
“The website has been banned by the Ministry of Information Technology and the decision was conveyed to us. There was blasphemous material on Twitter,” said Mohammad Younis Khan, spokesman for Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
“Both Facebook and Twitter were involved. We negotiated with both. Facebook has agreed to remove the stuff but Twitter is not responding to us.”
For that reason Twitter had been blocked but Facebook was still available, he said, adding that those responsible for the competition were “trying to hurt Muslim feelings”.
Ironically, #TwitterBan started trending across Pakistan soon after the ban was exposed.\
Responding to a question last night, Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, had denied that ban on social networking sites was in the offing.
“The government of Pakistan’s ban on Twitter is ill advised, counterproductive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, in a press statement. “The right to free speech is nonnegotiable, and if Pakistan is the rights-respecting democracy it claims to be, this ban must be lifted forthwith. Free speech can and should only be countered with free speech.”
“Twitter is a place where fierce opposition to Pakistan’s security agencies is expressed,” said Raza Rumi , a widely read columnist and an adviser at the Jinnah Institute, a public policy center based in Islamabad, while talking to New York Times.
“There is a clear trend,” Mr. Rumi said, “that the Pakistani military and spy agency get a strong critique from Pakistanis themselves, something that does not happen in mainstream media where people are generally shy to express such views.”|
Access to twitter has been allowed again in Pakistan after one day of twitter black out. | <urn:uuid:c7e6f2dc-831c-4c6f-bcc4-5dd98cd415d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pakteahouse.net/2012/05/20/twitter-twitter-where-have-you-gone/ | 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 | 0.968245 | 497 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Reid adviser: Senate majority leader 'in a different place' on gun control
Senate Majority leader has been staunch supporter of gun rights for years
A staunch supporter of gun rights for years, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may be changing his position on the contentious issue in the aftermath of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
The nation's top Democrat in Congress has faced scrutiny in recent weeks for his close ties with the National Rifle Association. On Dec. 30, the Washington Post reported that Reid slipped a provision into the 2010 national health care law that restricts the government from collecting data on gun ownership.
A Democratic source close to the passage of the landmark legislation said the last-minute provision was aimed at avoiding any opposition from the NRA that could have scuttled the entire bill.
"This is what was viewed as a relatively benign way to make sure the NRA didn't get involved with this," the Democratic source told CNN.
However an adviser to Reid, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Reid's feelings on gun control have changed since President Barack Obama signed health care reform into law.
"He's in a different place than he was in 2010," the adviser told CNN.
As Senate majority leader, Reid has great influence to speed or slow the consideration of legislation on Capitol Hill.
In the aftermath of the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., Reid told reporters that "with the schedule we have, we're not going to get into a debate on gun control."
But in the days after the shooting in Newtown, Reid's posture changed. "We need to accept the reality that we are not doing enough to protect our citizens," Reid said on the Senate floor.
Reid aggressively courted the support of gun enthusiasts in a close battle for re-election in 2010. One week after the president signed the health care bill, Reid invited the NRA's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, to the opening of a new gun range in Nevada.
At the event, LaPierre praised Reid's work on gun rights.
"I also want to thank you for your support every day at the federal level for the Second Amendment and for the rights of gun owners," LaPierre told the crowd.
During the fierce debate over the health care law, a few health care advocates who spotted the gun provision, entitled "Protection of Second Amendment Gun Rights," immediately suspected the NRA's involvement.
"It's obviously a testament to the power of the NRA lobby," Ethan Rome, the executive director of Health Care for America Now, said.
Democratic sources say the NRA was not viewed as the only threat to the health care law. Lawmakers were also concerned about conspiracy theories circulating on conservative blogs that falsely accused the Obama administration of seeking to use the health care law to strip gun owners of their firearms.
One firearms advocacy group, Gun Owners of America, insists the law remains a concern.
"It says that all of our medical records are available to be pawed through by bureaucrats somewhere in Washington, looking for a reason to disenfranchise gun owners," the group's president, Larry Pratt, said on a Web radio show last November.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:fd47103e-b9f9-4448-960e-3f60e00019df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmur.com/news/politics/Reid-adviser-Senate-majority-leader-in-a-different-place-on-gun-control/-/9857748/18058464/-/format/rsss_2.0/view/print/-/13uv5z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97026 | 665 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Would you call this a Miracle? Hundreds of Chicagoans did…
March 6, 2009 by lauralodewyck
Laura Lodewyck, NBC5 Street Team
It was an event that captured the attention of the entire country. An image that many thought was the Virgin Mary — and other, a salt stain — appeared under the Fullerton Avenue overpass, prompting hundreds of people to visit the shrine for days on end.
The event provides the inspiration for Teatro Vista’s
latest production, Our Lady of the Underpass
. The play is currently on-stage at the Victory Gardens Greenhouse
through March 29.
The play, written by Tanya Saracho, is a story about men and women from all walks of life who are brought together through the real-life event.
Click here to read the rest of this post on nbcchicago.com. | <urn:uuid:4241dd4d-8971-4871-b7d8-37519f37c359> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nbc5streetteam.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/would-you-call-this-a-miracle-hundreds-of-chicagoans-did/ | 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 | 0.946532 | 184 | 1.53125 | 2 |
JUSTICE SCALIA: ...This Court doesn't like to get involved in -- in racial questions such as this one. It's something that can be left -- left to Congress.
The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a -- in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was -- in the Senate, there -- it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term.
Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it.
And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don't think that's attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It's been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.
I don't think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless -- unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there's a good reason for it.
That's the -- that's the concern that those of us who -- who have some questions about this statute have. It's -- it's a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose -- they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.
Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future? | <urn:uuid:adf4df44-fa8b-444b-b175-4d6bc910b0da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dawgsaloon.com/showthread.php/61465-Here-ya-go-More-taxes?goto=nextnewest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984911 | 472 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, at a press conference earlier this month. The ECB is set to offer a second round of low-cost 3-year loans to European banks Wednesday.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- After unleashing a wave of liquidity earlier this year, the European Central Bank is set to offer European banks another chance to soak up billions of euros in cheap loans.
On Wednesday, the ECB will announce the results of its second Long-Term Refinancing Operation, in which banks will be able to borrow money for 3-years at interest rates as low as 1%.
In December, the ECB allotted nearly €500 billion under the first round of the operation, which went to 523 banks in the eurozone.
Officially, the loans are part of the ECB's effort to prevent a credit crunch in Europe, where banks have been struggling to fund themselves since late last year amid concerns about exposure to bad sovereign debt.
But the program, along with other aggressive moves under ECB president Mario Draghi, has been widely credited with bringing down borrowing costs for Italy and Spain.
Since the first LTRO, yields on 10-year Italian bonds have dropped to about 5%, down from highs above 7% late last year. Spain's borrowing costs have also backed off last year's highs, holding near 5%.
Both nations have drawn strong demand at auctions of short-term bonds this year, easing fears of a full-blown debt contagion in the eurozone.
"It is likely that there will be further support for these bonds over the next month or so," said Garry Jenkins, a credit analyst at Swordfish Research.
The improvement has allowed the ECB to scale back its purchases of government debt under its controversial securities market program.
Investors say the ECB has helped restore confidence in global financial markets by mitigating the risk of a banking crisis and creating some breathing room for euro area governments. But there are questions about how the market will respond to the second round of LTRO financing.
"The ECB's decisive action has helped to stabilize demand for Spanish and Italian bonds, and the 3-year tender will free further cash," said Kim Rupert, a fixed-income analyst at Action Economics. "But it remains to be seen whether the cash will find its way to the bond market."
Banks are under no obligation to use ECB loans to buy government bonds. Given the heavy refinancing needs and more stringent capital requirements European banks are facing this year, many may be tempted to stockpile the cash.
"It will be interesting to see how markets develop and auctions fare after the 3-year tender is out of the way," said Rupert.
In the meantime, the big question is how much money will banks borrow Wednesday?
Estimates have ranged from €300 billion to €500 billion, though some analysts have said banks could take up to €1 trillion.
The estimates reflect expectations that more non-euro area banks will participate, along with automakers and other corporations that can access ECB funds as "monetary financial institutions."
"No one can have a good idea of the demand for cash at this operation, although optimism seems to reign supreme," said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.
Yet some analysts say banks might be reluctant to borrow too much in order to avoid the "stigma" of appearing strapped for cash.
"There is a question whether strong participation will be viewed as signaling increased willingness to buy risky assets, or as a sign of funding weakness," said Steven Englander, currency strategist at CitiFX, in a note to clients.
Englander estimates that €600 billion would be "an unambiguous positive surprise," but he warned that if banks borrow less than €300 billion "there could be a bit of a scramble in markets until it becomes clear what drove the lack of participation."
Beyond the immediate market reaction, there are questions about how effective the program will be in resolving the underlying causes of the debt crisis in the eurozone.
Draghi has said the ECB's goal is to support the banking sector and boost lending to the "real economy." He has stressed that the ECB is legally prohibited from supporting government finances and that the onus is on policy makers to reign in spending.
Guy Mandy, fixed income analyst at Nomura Securities, said in a research report that the LTRO has reduced the possibility of a bank failure due to a liquidity crisis.
But he suggested that a more lasting solution to the debt crisis would involve the ECB committing to buy government bonds directly from banks, a monetary strategy known as quantitative easing.
|Stocks finish higher for fourth straight week|
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|Google says you'll know when Glass is sketchy|
|Overnight Avg Rate||Latest||Change||Last Week|
|30 yr fixed||3.66%||3.58%|
|15 yr fixed||2.79%||2.72%|
|30 yr refi||3.64%||3.57%|
|15 yr refi||2.79%||2.72%|
Today's featured rates: | <urn:uuid:d541637f-2588-4d28-99ee-806dbf8da204> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/28/markets/ecb_ltro/index.htm?section=money_news_economy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950427 | 1,086 | 1.625 | 2 |
Pew’s latest annual report on the state of the news media is out and should be required reading today. It’s on the top of my stack when I get time later today, but for now a few summaries and reactions will have to suffice.
Pew provides their own guide to “key findings” in various areas, from changes in the digital world to the continuing transformation in the economics of news. Among the main points. Advertising revenue is growing, but most is going to the big boys, Google and Facebook. Some trickles down, such as through the Google ads on this blog. But you can’t make a living that way, especially in local markets.
Paywalls are in, with more appearing all the time. The Seattle Times and the Washington Post have both announced they are moving behind a subscription paywall. The movement has reached a critical mass, and the pace of conversion is likely to increase.
From a website called PandoDaily comes this observation:
Consider this sentence from Pew: “A growing list of media outlets, such as Forbes magazine, use technology by a company called Narrative Science to produce content by way of algorithm, no human reporting necessary.” This was only one sentence from Pew’s report, but it is a portentous one. Narrative Science automatically creates stories out of raw data that would otherwise have been written by human hands. More robots producing news means fewer humans needed for the task.
This follows but dramatically extends the idea of outsourcing local news to reporters on the other side of the world who check in by phone or online to get the material they need to write stories about small towns and cities in the U.S. That was bad enough. Now robots? Of course, some of today’s talking heads might as well be robots, I suppose.
And from the Washington Post, “The political media’s declining power.”
When news organizations are pushed out of the information pipeline, voters alone are left to sort through messages that are tested in focus groups and opposition attacks tailored with great specificity. And on the heels of a presidential campaign in which one candidate’s pollster said he refused to let the campaign be dictated by fact-checkers, such a strategy is growing easier to execute.
The facts are these: Campaigns and candidates have more power than ever before to frame both their positive narrative and their opponents’ negative one. And, if the Pew numbers are right, both sides are spending much more time on the negative side of the ledger — at least in 2012.
And so it goes in the world of news. | <urn:uuid:2f3ded67-3157-424a-94e1-28fbccca921c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ilind.net/2013/03/19/put-the-pew-report-on-the-top-of-your-reading-list/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962478 | 546 | 1.8125 | 2 |
End of year weariness setting in? Revive your brain with some of our favourite puzzles, as chosen by our readers and the Plus team!
Bid farewell to 2011 with this puzzle from Plus reader, Paulo Ferro.
Plus reader Aziz Inan has a question for you: Which mathematician is in their prime?
Think you know how to use the numbers 1 to 9? Our colleague James Grime puts your digits to the test.
Try your hand at a puzzle from the Hands-on risk and probability road show: How many socks do you need to grab to find a pair?
Buster the cosmic rabbit is playing ball with the Earth and very large piece of string... A slightly surreal take on a favourite puzzle with a very surprising answer! | <urn:uuid:4e93e97d-f3b0-4dcc-a87c-8e820bb9d505> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plus.maths.org/content/Blog?page=20&destination=Blog&name=jennibytwe&op=Log%20in&form_build_id=form-15be5abfa09b3f712a2fff00f8e0f699&form_id=user_login_block | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950628 | 155 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Who owns your brand?
Are you in control of your brand? Most of us like to believe that we are…
In my first post a few weeks back I wanted to whet your appetite a bit, stimulate a few thoughts on what you’re prepared to pay more for and whether you are influenced by brands.
This time around I wanted to explore a theory I’ve had for some time, and one that was the cause of the first falling out I had with a particular CEO some years back.
I believe that your brand is owned in the first place by your customer, then by your people (or employees) and then, in an uncomfortable third place, by the business.
If you consider brand management in that way then it takes on a whole new meaning and helps those who understand it deliver an amazing experience to their customers.
Let’s explore the thought a little:
A big business may spend a fortune on building the look and feel of its brand, creating products that it believes in. Likewise a smaller business may work really hard to deliver the product or service it considers is right.
The business may dedicate a huge effort to building its reputation, perhaps using PR, or speaking at events that are attended by those it wants to influence. It may use sampling to get to a wider audience. It may sponsor events, sports people, a community facility even.
But why go to all the effort?
Because it’s the customer who builds the reputation of the brand, and the businesses that understand that will do all they can to positively influence their targeted customer groups.
Let’s look at an example.
Probably the only brand in UK financial services that comes close to being loved by its users is First Direct.
When First Direct launched twenty odd years ago it was the talk of the chattering classes, people couldn’t wait to tell others about this new bank they’d started using. It was truly different. But what made it different wasn’t just that it was the first phone bank, it was the fact that it was created by a small group of people who were obsessed with delivering something that gave its customers every reason to talk positively about it, and did all it could to alleviate any situation that would drive negative comments. They understood that the brand is owned by its customers.
Recently First Direct started asking its customers to comment on its innovations, something called the FD Lab. Again, it acknowledges that the reputation of the brand rests with those who are talking about it, and gives those commentators something to talk about.
Another interesting example comes from Coca Cola. Coca Cola has been recognised as the world’s most valuable brand for decades, and so you’d think they were in control at least. But no. When Coca Cola changed its formula and launched New Coke in the mid 80s the customer reaction was so negative that the supposedly new coke was soon dropped, at massive cost. With the communications media we have today that customer reaction would have happened so much faster. Coke was seen as stable, traditional and something to rely on by its drinkers. Change wasn’t welcome, and they were in control.
I’m sure at some stage I’ll write about BA’s tail fin debacle too and the adverse reaction it created when it dropped the union jack from its fins.
I’ll conclude here by imploring you to consider the customer reaction of everything you do. You may be running a business that’s too small to even consider yourself a brand, nonetheless your customer reaction can still make or break you. Get them on side, and when they’re not, find out why and react to it. Putting a complaint right can often create a stronger advocate for your brand than just getting it right every time!
Next up we’ll consider the impact your own people, your staff, can have on your brand.
In the mean time – have a great Christmas! | <urn:uuid:dace4456-d105-4721-8d5b-13a12588eb56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/who-owns-your-brand.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982221 | 821 | 1.5625 | 2 |
2004: Golf needs Olympic boost
If you happen to own a television set, the weeks ahead undoubtedly will be filled with myriad colorful images from the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens, Greece.
You want sports? The Olympics offer all kinds, in all shapes and sizes, both mainstream and obscure. Archery. Badminton. Baseball. Canoe-kayak. Fencing. Handball. Judo. Table tennis. In all, there are 28 different sports comprising 37 disciplines.
So where is golf? Somebody at the International Olympic Committee must have forgotten to make a tee time. Alas, no golf is contested at the Games. (Sure, golf is listed by the IOC as a “recognized” sport, but so, too, are Korfball, Tug of War and Wushu. Seriously.)
In fact, the last time golf was staged as an official sport in the Olympics was in 1904. It’s time to scratch a century-old itch, don’t you think?
If you’re a golfer who couldn’t care less whether golf is in the Olympics, you ought to reconsider. Here’s why: Perhaps here in the United States we don’t need golf in the Olympics to spark new interest and grow the game, but elsewhere, the sport could use the boost. One need only visit the biennial World Amateur Team Championships (which will be played this fall in Puerto Rico) to witness the exuberance and enthusiasm players from Slovenia, Latvia or El Salvador feel for our great game.
In many of these countries, the curiosity and passion to play exist, but there aren’t significant dollars to build any kind of foundation. Getting golf into the Olympics would lend added credibility to the game, and would help open doors to national Olympic committees to lure funding to jumpstart national developmental programs. It’s a ripple effect that would make golf a big winner.
“We have over 100 countries now who are members of the International Golf Federation,” says David Fay, the U.S. Golf Association executive director who also wears a hat as co-secretary of the International Golf Federation, the group trying to get golf into the Olympic program.
“Two years ago,” says Fay, “we had men’s and women’s teams from Iran. Who would think?”
Olympic golf would never supplant the game’s four majors, and there has been great debate whether the competition would be better suited to pros or amateurs. (Some of the top men’s pros have expressed indifference to the prospect of Olympic golf, though most top female pros have shown support.) But getting top players to gather for one week somewhere on the globe – anywhere – clearly would be easier and less disruptive for golf than, say, hockey, which interrupts its NHL season for the Winter Games.
Getting golf into the program in Beijing, China, for 2008 appears to be a longshot at best, though Fay said recently the push isn’t completely dead.
The more realistic goal to get golf into the Olympics appears to be 2012. Next summer, those games will be awarded to either London, Paris, Moscow, Madrid or New York.
Could you imagine Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie representing the United States at the 2012 Games at, say, Bethpage Black? Talk about an electric return to the Games.
Seems a little more exciting than rhythmic gymnastics. | <urn:uuid:dd71f728-a176-40f2-ae0a-ef4158647723> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://golfweek.com/news/2004/oct/05/2004-golf-needs-olympic-boost/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946954 | 727 | 1.671875 | 2 |
New Possibilities in Jewish Sexuality
Judaism may need new categories of sexual relationships in order to adjust to the reality of sex outside marriage.
The following article details an approach to sexual ethics characteristic of the Jewish Renewal movement, in which the author is a leader and teacher. Many—if not most—more conventional Jewish authorities would disagree with its suggestions and conclusions. The following is reprinted with permission of the author from “Down-to-Earth Judaism: Sexuality,” published in Tikkun, March-April 1988 (3:2).
Most Jews reject in their own practice and in theory the traditional adherence to early marriage and the traditional opposition to sexual activity by unmarried people. The two sentiments are connected. Few American Jews believe that early marriages are wise in our complex society, where personalities, careers, and life paths almost never jell in the teens and often not until the mid‑thirties, sometimes come unjelled during the forties and fifties, and usually change again with long‑lived retirements beginning in the sixties or seventies. It is hard enough to make stable lifelong marriages when one partner is changing in this way; when both are changing, it becomes extremely difficult.
There are several different conceivable responses to this situation:
1) Reverse the basic situation and restore the kind of society in which life patterns are set close to the onset of puberty and do not change much. Few American Jews believe this can be, or should be, done. The Hasidic communities, however, may be showing that for a sub-community such a society can be created.
2) Accept the notions that first marriages will occur many years after sexual awakening and that most marriages will end while the partners are sexually active and alert—and practice celibacy for long periods of unmarried time. This is the solution that almost all American Jews have rejected. It is also, however, the solution that they identify as the “official” position of Jewish tradition and religious authority. There are few public assertions by religious authorities or communities that this is not the “correct” Jewish view, and almost no public Jewish way of honoring or celebrating sexual relationships other than marriage exists.
This chasm between the practice and the understanding of the Jewish tradition may be one of the most powerful elements driving most Jews in their pre-married, sexually active years—from sixteen to thirty-one—and in their “post-married” sexually active years away from Jewish life. Who wants to be part of an institution that looks with hostility or contempt on the source of much of one’s most intense pleasure, joy, and fulfillment?
3) Accept the fact that life patterns will change several times in any person’s lifetime and that marriages will change accordingly, and greatly change our expectation of “marriage” so that it carries fewer burdens of financial, emotional, and other involvement. In other words, make it easy for sexually active people from puberty on to enter and leave marriages—make marriage a much “lighter” contract unless children result from it. But to make marriages “light” enough so that sixteen-year‑olds or eighteen‑year‑olds easily could enter them, expecting to exit from them at twenty—and to enter and exit again at twenty‑one, twenty‑five, twenty‑eight, thirty‑two—would make that kind of “marriage” so different from one that provides an adequate context for child‑rearing that it is hard to imagine the two sharing the same name. (Note that many American marriages are dissolving even during the child‑rearing years. Should leaving marriages be “light” then too? Or is the distinction one that most Jews would want to keep?) | <urn:uuid:fa4baae2-bfc2-46fc-8043-c00250128ab6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myjewishlearning.com/life/Sex_and_Sexuality/Premarital_Sex/Modern_Rabbinic_Views/New_Possibilities.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957419 | 772 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Yesterday a key House appropriator chided the Obama Administration for not specifying what budget reductions it was willing to make to other programs to offset the cost of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies wrote to Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew that:
"While acknowledging that substantial cuts will be necessary, the Administration has so far failed to identify a single specific proposal to offset the increase in JWST spending above the levels contained in the President's fiscal year 2012 request. Either no offsets have been proposed because JWST really isn't a top priority, or the Administration is hoping that remaining silent will force Congress to act unilaterally and thereby take sole ownership of the cuts necessitated by the Administration's actions. No matter which explanation is correct, continuing silence is neither fair nor acceptable to the Congress and to members of the scientific community who will be deeply impacted by the ultimate outcome of the JWST debate."
Wolf's subcommittee included no funding for the telescope in its version of the FY 2012 bill funding NASA. The July 20 committee report accompanying its bill explained:
"The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Independent Comprehensive Review Panel revealed chronic and deeply rooted management problems in the JWST project. These issues led to the project cost being underestimated by as much as $1,400,000,000 relative to the most recent baseline, and the budget could continue to rise depending on the final launch date determination. Although JWST is a particularly serious example, significant cost overruns are commonplace at NASA, and the Committee believes that the underlying causes will never be fully addressed if the Congress does not establish clear consequences for failing to meet budget and schedule expectations.
"The Committee recommendation provides no funding for JWST in fiscal year 2012. The Committee believes that this step will ultimately benefit NASA by setting a cost discipline example for other projects and by relieving the enormous pressure that JWST was placing on NASA's ability to pursue other science missions."
A summary of the Review Panel's 47-page report, released in mid-November 2010, and additional background information is available in last year's FYI #116.
The Senate Appropriations Committee took a different approach. The Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), provided more funding than the Administration requested for the telescope in its version of the FY 2012 funding bill. The September 15 Senate report stated:
"The Committee strongly supports completion of the James Webb Space Telescope [JWST]. JWST will be 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope and is poised to rewrite the physics books. Last year, the Committee asked for an independent assessment of JWST. That assessment, led by Dr. John Casani, found that while JWST is technically sound, NASA has never requested adequate resources to fund its development. As with many other projects, budget optimism led to massive ongoing cost overruns because the project did not have adequate reserves or contingency to address the kinds of technical problems that are expected to arise in a complex, cutting edge project. Without funds, the only other way to deal with problems is to allow the schedule to slip. That slip, in turn, makes the project cost even more, when accounting for the technical costs as well as the cost of maintaining a pool of highly skilled technical labor through the completion! of the project.
"In response to the Casani report, NASA has submitted a new baseline for JWST with an overall life cycle cost of $8,700,000,000. NASA has assured the Committee that this new baseline includes adequate reserves to achieve a 2018 launch without further cost overruns. The Committee intends to hold NASA and its contractors to that commitment, and the bill caps the overall development cost for JWST at $8,000,000,000."
About two weeks later Chairman Wolf sent the following September 28 letter to OMB Director Lew, copied to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren:
"Dear Director Lew:
As you are no doubt aware, the House Appropriations Committee's reported fiscal year 2012 bill for Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies contains a proposal to eliminate the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) due to significant management and budgetary problems. Since the unveiling of that bill, the Administration and its supporters in the science community have repeatedly expressed opposition to the House's position. Over the past few months, I have been told many times that JWST's scientific potential must be preserved and that the project is no longer just an astrophysics priority, but a NASA-wide priority.
"In spite of this high level of apparent concern about JWST's status, however, the Administration has been very slow to provide Congress with the information needed to support continued JWST funding. For example, the rebaselining of JWST's budget and schedule was complete for months before it was shared with the Congress, which denied my Subcommittee the opportunity to assess the replan prior to making a fiscal year 2012 funding recommendation for the program.
"With the submission of the baseline, we finally now know that JWST is expected to cost $8.7 billion. That represents an increase of $2.2 billion above the amount calculated by an independent review of the program last year, $3.6 billion above the prior NASA baseline and more than $7 billion above the amount estimated by the decadal survey that first designated JWST as a priority. We also know that implementing this replan without a budget amendment will require substantial cuts in other NASA programs in fiscal year 2012 and the outyears. This fact has not been lost on heliophysics, Earth science and planetary science researchers, who have already begun mobilizing to prevent their own programs from falling victim to JWST's overruns.
"While acknowledging that substantial cuts will be necessary, the Administration has so far failed to identify a single specific proposal to offset the increase in JWST spending above the levels contained in the President's fiscal year 2012 request. Either no offsets have been proposed because JWST really isn't a top priority, or the Administration is hoping that remaining silent will force Congress to act unilaterally and thereby take sole ownership of the cuts necessitated by the Administration's actions. No matter which explanation is correct, continuing silence is neither fair nor acceptable to the Congress and to members of the scientific community who will be deeply impacted by the ultimate outcome of the JWST debate.
"In the coming weeks, the House and Senate will sit down to negotiate final appropriations bills for fiscal year 2012, and the appropriate level of funding for JWST will be one of the most significant issues considered. For us to make a truly informed decision that takes into account both the value of JWST and the value of opportunities that may be precluded by the JWST replan, we must have the offset information. If such information is not provided by the time that conference negotiations begin, I will consider that to be an indication that JWST is no higher in priority than any other existing or planned NASA activity. . . . [Here staff contact information was provided.]
"Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
"Frank R Wolf
House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies"
A decision regarding FY 2012 funding for the telescope will be part of closed-door negotiations by Wolf and Mikulski and other appropriators in what is widely expected to be an omnibus funding bill for most if not all federal programs for the new fiscal year that starts on Saturday. Congressional leaders would like to enact this bill by mid-November, when what will be a series of short term measures are scheduled to expire.
Government Relations Division
American Institute of Physics | <urn:uuid:4a8759a5-e563-4057-acde-1652fb8acd3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=38604 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94049 | 1,604 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The human brain always has fascinated graduate Melissa Herman. In her first year of college, she joined the Tulane University Neuroscience Association (TUNA), a special-interest group. When she was a sophomore, Herman found a way to share enthusiasm about neuroscience with high school students by launching an after-school neuroscience teaching program at the New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School, rotating a half-dozen Tulane students as tutors.
It was a fluke that Michelle Liu, soon to be a graduate of Tulane University, discovered that her passion is elder care. As a first-year student, Liu attended an activities expo on campus and signed up to volunteer at a home for the elderly.
In 2009, Chris Hanuscin entered Tulane University after receiving a full-tuition scholarship from the Posse Foundation. This spring, Hanuscin and 11 other students from public high schools in the Los Angeles area will become the first Posse class to graduate from Tulane.
Her academic pedigree alone speaks for itself; Lapucha is currently pursuing a double major in Chemistry and French, and has maintained a GPA of 3.905 through her three years at Tulane University, earning her three Conference USA Academic Medals and a spot on the Conference USA Honor Roll during her freshman, sophomore and junior years.
Houston businessman Ken Arnold is the 2013 recipient of the Offshore Technology Conference's Distinguished Achievement Award, given for technological, humanitarian, environmental and leadership contributions to the industry.
The Tulane School of Science and Engineering was proud to hold its fifth annual Alumni Awards celebration on April 11th, in the Lavin-Bernick Center – 1834 Club on the university’s Uptown campus. Approximately one-hundred science and engineering alumni, guests, and faculty attended the event to honor the three distinguished science and engineering alumni, who were recognized for their immense and ongoing contributions to their fields of study, as well as the school.
On April 11, the Tulane University School of Science and Engineering held its seventh annual Research Day, recognizing the academic contributions and influential achievements of its faculty and students. Held in the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life, the gathering commenced with a presentation of the Seventh Annual Outstanding Researcher Award to Dr. Lisa Fauci of the Mathematics department, as well as student awards for exceptional research efforts.
Nicholas J. Altiero, dean of the Tulane University School of Science and Engineering, has been elected president-elect of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Kim O'Connor received the 2013 Elmer Gaden Award from Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and presented an award lecture at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Biochemical Technology (BIOT) national meeting on April 8, 2013, entitled, "The heterogeneity of mesenchymal stem cells and its implications for regenerative therapies."
Gisele Calderon ’13, from Baton Rouge, has been awarded a one-year fellowship as part of the 2013 Whitaker International Fellows and Scholars Program.
Benjamin Hall, an assistant professor of cell and molecular biology and neuroscience at Tulane University, has won a $1.8 million grant that will enable him and his research team to explore questions that could eventually lead to new treatments for chronic depression.
Aubrey Kraft, a Biomedical Engineering Senior from Anchorage, AK, has just been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. The program will place her in a classroom in Malaysia to provide assistance to teachers of English to non-native English-speakers. English Teaching Assistants help teach English language while serving as a cultural ambassador for U.S. culture.
In 2006, the School of Science and Engineering (SSE) was established under the post-Katrina “Tulane University Plan for Renewal.” During its first year, 2006-07, a vision for this new school was articulated and a strategic plan was outlined for the achievement of that vision. It was a ten-year plan with clear objectives and with defined metrics to measure progress. We are now entering the final quarter of the 2012-13 fiscal year, the SSE’s seventh year, and by every measure we have exceeded expectations regarding where we would be at this point in the implementation of the plan.
James Mead (E ’81) understands the value of launching a new program at a university. As one of the first graduates of biomedical engineering at Tulane, Mead used the analytical skills he gained as an undergraduate to pursue a highly successful career in investment banking.
For 20 years now, Debby Grimm has made her home among the world-class microscopes, X-ray machines and other devices of SSE's Coordinated Instrumentation Facility, solving problems posed by the latest questions in scientific research and engaging a regional community by serving corporate customers.
The fifth annual New Orleans Entrepreneur Week shined a spotlight on the city’s fast-growing startup scene this week, but the head of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship at Tulane University told attendees that the event also was a testament to the important role Tulane plays in the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
As director of neuroscience at Tulane University, Jeffrey Tasker always looked forward to the Society for Neuroscience’s annual conference each fall. New Orleans was on the group’s three-city rotation, giving his students an opportunity to learn from some of the best minds in the field.
In the February issue of New Phytologist, Tulane University biologists examine why leaf-cutting ants target some plants and avoid others, concluding that high levels of friendly fungi in the leaves of some plants protect them from destruction by ants.
It was a typical winter morning with only the occasional sunbeam breaking through the drizzle, but the occupants of many of the science classrooms and labs at Tulane University were anything but typical. Gone for the weekend were the usual harried undergrads, and in their place were 120 middle school girls, hailing from 39 area schools, here to take part in the inaugural GIST (Girls in STEM at Tulane) program, held on Saturday.
Tulane graduate, Norvin Leroy Pellerin passed away on February 11th.
The School of Science and Engineering welcomed Douglas Chrisey as the new Cornelia and Arthur L. Jung Chair in Materials Engineering during an investiture ceremony inside Freeman Auditorium on Jan. 30.
Children around the world have a new reason to smile thanks to the latest product from Tulane alumnus Arman Sadeghpour, president and CEO of Theodent, a New Orleans-based biotechnology company known for its cocoa-based toothpaste.
“Prevention and Preparedness: Comprehensive School Safety Planning,” a day-long workshop to better prepare New Orleans public school personnel for traumatic events that may occur on their campuses or in the community such as student death, school shooting, natural disaster, neighborhood tragedy, health epidemic or terrorism.
Some courses are suited to a classroom environment, while others are best out in the field, where hands can be dirtied and theories put into practice. Jordan Karubian, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Tulane University, tends to subscribe to the latter school. He will be taking a group of students to Ecuador for an intensive field course this summer.
A successful trip to Cuba in December by a Tulane delegation will expand the university’s ongoing relationship with the University of Havana and other Cuban institutions into public health and scientific arenas.
Tulane graduate and professor, Chester Arthur Peyronnin, Jr. passed away on December 12th, following a distinguished engineering career.
A new era of scientific discovery is under way at Tulane University thanks to the opening of Donna and Paul Flower Hall for Research and Innovation. A dedication ceremony on Tuesday (December 11) commemorated the significance of this historic moment in science and engineering education at Tulane.
Article By John Pope, The Times-Picayune
Tulane University on Tuesday will dedicate a four-story building that is expected to be not only a center of scientific and engineering research but also an incubator for fledgling companies.
The guys from Pelican Ice arrive on campus to blow "snow" onto the Lavin-Bernick Center quad. The event is sponsored by the Science and Engineering Council of Students (the undergraduate student government of the School of Science and Engineering) in conjunction with Fridays at the Quad.
Never had the opportunity to savor the cuisine of Tanzania? Tulane University senior Angela Czesak wants to fix that. She’s bringing the flavor of that East African nation to the rest of the world in her self-published cookbook, Kupikia Tanzania.
Bruce Gibb, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Tulane University, hopes to solve a 120-year-old mystery with the help of a more than $1.1 million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health.
The Materials Research Society awarded Tulane professor John P. Perdew the Materials Theory Award for his “pioneering contributions to the fundamental development and nonempirical approximations in density functional theory” on Wednesday (Nov. 28) at the organization's fall meeting in Boston.
Mead Allison, one of the nation’s leading experts on land-creating sediment in the Mississippi River and Louisiana’s continental shelf, will join Tulane University as a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, effective Fall 2013.
A scientific journey to the Antarctic Peninsula to study the history of ice shelves is one that Tulane professor Brad Rosenheim will not soon forget. Hurricane-like conditions on rolling seas, iceberg-dodging, dogged exhaustion and seasickness for the crew, and of course, science happening in the spectacular glacial landscapes, were all part of the adventures he will share at a public lecture in Freeman Auditorium at 6 p.m. on Tuesday (Nov. 27).
Dr. Cortez has received the 2012 Blackwell-Tapia Prize in recognition of his contributions to the mathematics, as well as for his continued dedication to addressing the under-representation of minorities amongst scientists and students in his field...
Each year, the Distinguished Leadership Council Reception brings together board members, donors, professors, and students to learn about SSE and the impact of their support...
The annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience (SfN) made its return to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, seeping over 25,000 neuroscientists into the city this past October.
Sergey Shevkoplyas, the Ken and Ruth Arnold Early Career Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Tulane University, has received a $2 million National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award to make red blood cell transfusions safer.
The enthusiastic banter of 32 scrubs-wearing high school girls is barely audible over the din of whirring power tools. While using bone models to assess the best methods to repair fractures, the teenagers exchange advice about studying for advanced placement tests in biology.
NIH funds Tulane scientist to show how estrogen therapy for middle-aged women can stave off cognitive decline and dementia.
The Water Institute of the Gulf has hired veteran researcher and Tulane University alumnus Ernst Peebles as director of coastal systems ecology. Peebles has studied coastal ecology and estuaries in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean for more than 30 years.
Carrie Manore, a postdoctoral fellow in the in the Center for Computational Science and Department of Mathematics, at Tulane University, is making waves as a promising early career scientist.
In the last issue of this Newsletter, I reported that the School of Science and Engineering was anticipating a record number of incoming students in Fall 2012 and that it appeared that fiscal year 2011-12 would end with record numbers for the School in research funding and publication/patent activity. I am now pleased to report the results. This Fall, Tulane University welcomed 1651 first time freshmen. Of that number, 476 have declared majors in science or engineering disciplines, more than 34% of the incoming undergraduate students who have declared majors to date. At the graduate level this fall, the number of doctoral students in SSE has increased by 6%, to 320, and the number of masters students by 12%, to 120.
In the summer of 1968, freshmen recruits Bob Marshall from New Orleans and Scott Heape of Dallas walked onto the football practice field at Tulane University, becoming close friends, as they both learned to balance the rigors of football practice with a demanding geology curriculum, ultimately winning Tulane a Liberty Bowl championship in 1970 and then going on to successful careers in the energy industry.
As the first-ever development officer for the newly-formed School of Science and Engineering, Kat Engleman faced the daunting task of building an alumni community out of a disparate group of graduates, some of whom were upset about the changes at their alma mater and others who were unfamiliar with what an integrated school encompassing all of Tulane’s science and engineering curricula was going to involve.
On the coast of Ecuador, along the Pacific Ocean, on the western side of the Andes Mountains, lies the Choco rain forest. Here, Jordan Karubian, his students and local residents, whom he’s enlisted as “environmental ambassadors,” study an endangered species of bird — the long-wattled umbrellabird.
W.T. Godbey, associate professor of chemical and bimolecular engineering, sketches a molecular formula onto McAlister Place on the Tulane uptown campus. Students in Godbey's Applied Biochemistry course requested that class be held outside.
This fall the School of Science and Engineering appointed Douglas Chrisey to the Cornelia and Arthur Jung Chair in Materials Engineering. Chrisey, who also serves as adjunct professor of biomedical engineering, joins the Tulane faculty after teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.
Whip-smart Ian Terry, a 21-year-old Tulane University engineering student, went from reality TV underdog to series champ this summer, winning $500,000 in season 14 of CBS’s “Big Brother.”
Donald P. Gaver is looking for serious science students who possess a penchant for taking entrepreneurial risks. Gaver, the Alden J. “Doc” Laborde professor and chair of biomedical engineering, is directing a new interdisciplinary PhD program in bioinnovation at Tulane University.
School of Science and Engineering, 201 Lindy Boggs Center, New Orleans, LA 70118 504-865-5764 firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:5fe7ade9-ee81-458c-8548-34184c585082> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tulane.edu/sse/news/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947338 | 3,048 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Search in Bible [American Standard Version] for Keyword [yearn], total found time(s).
|GEN:43:30||And Joseph made haste; for his heart yearned over his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. |
|1KG:3:26||Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her heart yearned over her son, and she said, Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, It shall be neither mine nor thine; divide it. |
|ISA:63:15||Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where are thy zeal and thy mighty acts? the yearning of thy heart and thy compassions are restrained toward me. |
|JER:31:20||Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearneth for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith Jehovah. | | <urn:uuid:0269c8fd-b97b-4c91-b295-01958ebad961> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biblicalproportions.com/bible/search/kw/yearn/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964807 | 253 | 1.5 | 2 |
The UK’s New Economics Foundation issued a publication called “The Great Transition” about the transformation of economics. While I’m not impressed with the detailed content, I do like the table of contents, which outlines a list of 7 or so ways we’ll need to reorient our economic thinking and our economic systems to become more sustainable. As I said in Part I, “stimulus”, “green jobs” and a change in political representatives cannot fix the root of the problem: the descent from 5-planets’-worth-of-consumption. The task before us is to ease the suffering of change as we segue and adapt through the descent. Meanwhile, we must remain conscious that we are setting in place the rudiments of what will become the new economy.
NEF presents each of their ideas in terms of government-level policymaking. Given the profound insights of Speth, particularly with regards to the political-economic situation here in the U.S., I think it is highly unlikely that we will see government-level policymaking like NEF advocates for the UK. However I began to view the NEF list quite differently: as a collection of issues we should consider at the local level as we build a more resilient economic system from the ground up.
The NEF list offers a guiding “blueprint” for us shovel‑wielders as we get into action within our local communities.
“The Great Reskilling” and “The Great Localization are already spreading throughout progressive circles. With urban homesteading, Buy Local campaigns, large-scale urban farming such as in Detroit, these ideas are even filtering into mainstream acceptability. The NEF document reminds us that they are essential parts of a much broader panorama of economic solutions.
As we pursue Relocalization, I hope that we won’t neglect some of the ideas from the Mander book:
· the language of the land (Jeanette Armstrong, “Sharing One Skin”) In the Okanagan view so lyrically shared by Armstrong, self and place become intertwined to such extent that it becomes difficult to define self without including place.
· local place-centric education (Norbert-Hodge). Norbert-Hodge questions the current one-size-fits-all concept of what constitutes “education,” advocating instead for training in locally adapted agriculture, architecture, artisan production, and appropriate technologies suited to the specifics of climate and local resources. It sounds a whole lot like Permaculture‑inspired education; Norberg-Hodge proposes this become the curriculum for the mainstream.
“The Great Revaluing” describes necessary shifts in our values -- inner shifts, so that we begin to view things which are good for the environment and good for human survival as economically valuable. This topic heading might include everything from the plentiful ideas in Speth’s “Consumerism” chapter, to the four quadrants of Jackson’s TED talk, to the elegant and meaningful Change In Consciousness of Joanna Macy [page reference].
Within our local communities we can help promote value shifts by using tools like Resilience Indicators (Practical Tool 7, [page reference]) and alternative financial vehicles (Practical Tool 5, [page reference]). We can design Resilience Indicators which encourage resource consciousness, powerdown practices and carbon reduction. We can hold these new Indicators up as a scorecard within our neighborhoods, which can begin to infuse this values shift into the local business community and into the wider population. We can use carefully designed local currencies and time banks to cultivate a Revaluing of the local, and to overcome some of our social injustice issues.
In a very different way, Eisenstein’s gift culture also helps achieve The Great Revaluation. When the goods changing hands are no longer fungible mass-produced objects -- when they are instead infused with meaning by their uniqueness, by the stories and sentimentality they carry with them, and by connection with the giver -- new values are born.
I think The Great Revaluing is much more likely to happen bottom-up, to be generated by grassroots efforts. Let’s return to the useful term "decoupling" (think of a train car disconnecting from the main train), I think it is very possible that in the medium-term we may see a Relocalization‑driven decoupling, where our local economies become much more self-sufficient – to the point of detaching from the overall system. The macro-level economy will probably continue spiraling in upon itself in its internally-rotted form, while local economies “decouple” and begin to redefine themselves in much healthier, wiser, vital new ways.
“THE GREAT REBALANCING” is about the balance between control and freedom. Economists write about it in terms of “market regulation” versus “free-market/laissez-faire.” The NEF document gives a fairly good, plain‑English explanation using sports terminology: We prepare the playing field, the players run out onto the field, and we need clear “rules of the game” to guide whether the game is played fairly.
The problem of course is how to go from here to there: how to achieve the transition from the corporate lobbyists and campaign-favor-driven system we currently have, to that lofty ideal of a fair playing field with clear rules of the game such that corporate profiteering can't overtake democracy. On how we might achieve this journey, NEF is silent.
Without legislation and regulation abilities, we are left high and dry without any enforcement abilities. The Great Rebalancing simply will not occur without changes in the laws that define “the rules of the game.”
In the UK, Hopkins has proposed a Transition Enabling Act. Whether it is timely or appropriate for the UK I cannot judge, but my feeling is that such an Act would probably be far premature here in the U.S. And because of our legal structure, such an Act would be inappropriate at the federal level; it would be most potent at the individual states level. (Why? Because the Dillon Rule could override local attempts.)
At a local level, fragmented baby-step legislation does exist: Arcata, CA declared an end to corporate personhood; several U.S. cities have held out against formula restaurants or chain stores; and the cities of Portland, OR, Ventura, CA, and San Francisco, CA have each officially acknowledged the necessity of peak oil preparedness. Speth dismisses these as “largely symbolic,” and speaking for today, Speth is technically correct. But I believe these local steps hold long-term importance, and Transition initiatives should continue the effort to get appropriate local measures in place.
I see two ways the “new rules of the game” could come about:
1. working within the political system (Speth’s way), or
2. by default via the crumbling of the globalized economy and Relocalization-driven decoupling.
The comments of Speth and his quotations of Barnes leave me with little hope that we will see real, adequate, and meaningful politically generated solutions. In the words of the Transition movement’s Cheerful Disclaimer [page reference], these will likely be “too little, too late.” Thus I regret to say we are left with the “by default” method.
Imagining one potential scenario in which The Great Rebalancing might come about: As the broader economy we know today begins to come apart, our local communities will find all their self-sufficiency and resilience-building prep work pays off as they’re doing quite a bit of fending for themselves. At this point, the once “largely symbolic” local proclamations become quite significant: they become the rules of the new, local game.
“The Great Redistribution” begins with the basic concept that wealth distribution is out of line. Here in the U.S. wealth inequality is worsening, and recent studies demonstrate that most Americans think the distribution should be far more equitable. We yearn for it, yet we are headed in the opposite direction.
The NEF report proposes achieving wealth redistribution by using taxes as the primary vehicle. Here in the U.S. I think that is extremely unlikely to occur due to the stranglehold that the wealthy elite have upon the overall political system. The kind of policy shift that is inherent in this proposal is fairly unrealistic at this point in time. But I believe that considerable Redistribution may happen anyway, without political intervention, in the natural course of things. More on this in a minute.
The NEF report also observes that “a society in which all have a real stake is about much more than financial assets.” It goes on to discuss redistribution of voice, and of work and time. At a grassroots level, the Transition approach offers real, functional solutions to these issues.
Within a Transition community, the dynamic we are creating with Open Space discussions, Council Circles, and other social tools gives many people a voice. (see Transition ingredient “Community Brainstorming Tools”). Tools like these help (in the words of Hopkins) to “unleash the creative genius of communities to respond brilliantly to times of great challenge.” Viewing these “people skills” techniques as an integral part of an economics solution represents a very significant cultural shift!
A different sort of “Great Redistribution” -- different than NEF envisioned -- may occur via the very latest developments among the veteran Transition communities. These newest developments include explorations of Community Supported Agriculture/Farms/Bakeries, community ownership of assets, social enterprise and other forms of Community-based investment (Practical Tool #6, [page reference]). Couple these with Transition community efforts to engage landowners, local businesses, and schools, and the rudiments of a vast shift begin to emerge. These new directions represent a solid foundation for The Great Redistribution.
We cannot be sure exactly how the economic contraction will unfold. I recall a video (perhaps it was “In Transition” although I’m unable to find it right now) which depicted the path of energy descent with a cartoon character in a roller coaster car. His ride was far from the nice smooth descent of Holmgren’s curve. Instead, the path of energy descent included loop-the-loops, wild dips and plunges, and occasional brief ascents.
Is this collapse? Your determination will probably depend upon where you are standing and how much of your personal stake is caught up in the roller coaster plunges. Yet the term “collapse” to me implies unrestrained chaos. The Transition movement is an effort to consciously design our descent from the energy pinnacle. I do believe that the “surge breakers” that the Transition movement works toward – in food supply, water supply, economics, and more -- stand a solid possibility of staving off unrestrained chaos ... if we can get them in place in time.
As all the intricacies of peak oil, climate change, and peak everything unfold, in my opinion we are very likely to see a dramatic shakedown. The few, the wealthy, who currently hold so many assets and so much power, do so within the current system – which is inextricably built upon cheap oil, globalized transactions, and continued growth. Remember how the Crash of 1929 and the Depression of the 1930s caused a massive shakedown and reallocation of wealth: those who entered with money and power in many cases weren’t the ones who afterward emerged with it.
As the cornerstones to the wealth of today’s power elite dissolve to nothingness in their hands, I believe we, the people in the trenches with “shovels” in our hands, hold enormous potential to re-craft things like asset distribution, democratic voice, and lifestyle pace in a vastly different way. Jackson’s TED talk, Speth’s assemblage, Norbert-Hodge’s printed essay, Eisenstein’s non-monetary ideas, and the NEF table of contents offer some fascinating points to fold into our visions as we undertake that re-crafting project. Returning to Jackson’s phrase, it’s up to us to build local resilience through collapse.
83% of Americans say society is not focused on the right priorities;
81% say America is too focused on shopping and spending;
88% say American society is too materialistic;
74% believe excessive materialism is causing harm to the environment.
If these numbers are anywhere near correct, there is a powerful base on which to build.
--James Gustave Speth
Download a table of how the NEF Framework (Great Reskilling, Great Revaluing, etc.) can be brought about by building Economic Resilience (Practical Steps from Part III). Note: GoogleDoc, loads slowly. | <urn:uuid:461d5f6c-d8af-4172-9905-a6271640c8d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://economicresilience.blogspot.com/2011/10/framework-from-new-economics-foundation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936041 | 2,732 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Send elected officials your input instantly on pending legislation.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - On the heels of news that the Detroit River International Trade Crossing will be built and bring thousands of new jobs, the Michigan Chamber Foundation today announced a new economic report which concludes that fixing the rest of the state’s deteriorating roads and bridges would create an additional 11,000 jobs.
The economic report, which was commissioned by the Michigan Chamber Foundation and prepared by Anderson Economic Group (AEG), concludes that the most talked-about funding proposals would provide adequate funding to complete the necessary infrastructure repairs.
“We’re looking to find the most sensible way to fix Michigan’s roads and bridges while creating an environment for economic growth and prosperity here in Michigan,” said Michigan Chamber President & CEO Rich Studley. “While there are several policy options for legislators, doing nothing is clearly a recipe for missed opportunities and lost jobs.”
The report analyzed four possible $1.4 billion funding solutions to fix Michigan’s crumbling roads and bridges. The study estimated the net economic benefit of these scenarios by accounting for both the benefits of infrastructure spending and the costs associated with forgone expenditures by taxpayers.
The Michigan Chamber Foundation study found increased wholesale gas taxes and vehicle registration fees – or some combination of the two – were all very close in terms of the economic boost they would provide to the state.
The report concluded that money invested in roads and bridges has a higher economic multiplier than household spending because some of the money would have otherwise been spent out of state and because road construction work and its related supply chain is based largely in state. The report also notes that job providers benefit from a well-maintained infrastructure.
An earlier 2010 AEG report estimated the state would lose 12,000 jobs if policymakers did nothing, citing lost federal matching transportation dollars, increased vehicle accidents and the necessity of well-maintained infrastructure being a key to Michigan’s leading industries. Doing nothing to fix the deteriorating roads is a net difference of roughly 23,000 less jobs compared to most of the road funding options considered in the report.
The new economic study found that funding for Michigan roads has declined in both real and nominal terms in the past decade – fuel taxes have not been indexed to inflation and those funds do not stretch as far as construction costs have escalated. In fact, the report points out that had gas taxes been increased at inflationary levels since 1955, our state gas tax today would be 55 cents per gallon compared to the current 19 cents. Instead, state fuel taxes have declined 20 percent since 2006 and registration fees have declined 16 percent. | <urn:uuid:9fc345cc-185d-44dd-98f0-b021d800b6b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michamber.com/news/transportation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960364 | 537 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Do you know what your most valuable asset is? Would you insure that asset if it worth more than a million dollars? Most people think it would be a home, a cottage property or maybe a rare piece of art or jewelry. Would you be surprised to know that is you?
You are your most valuable asset
If you are your most valuable asset, then why is it that many self employed people do not insure themselves with any form of insurance. If you earn an average of $5000 per month and you are currently 40 years old, between now and age 65 you would earn $1,500,000.00. (This is without factoring in any inflation). Without you and your ability to earn an income how would the insurance on your home or car be paid? As well; what would you have to live on, how would your medical bills be paid?
The reality is that 1 in 3 Canadians become disabled for at least three months during their working years. Unfortunately some disabled people become our low income earners dependant on government services. If you are self employed it is important for you to see someone to discuss your needs for insurance.
Disability insurance can vary greatly and can be customized to your needs. Often people don’t want to spend money on “another” insurance product. Actually I am one of those people, formerly self employed “without” disability insurance. My thoughts and reasons were I was healthy, took care of myself, was physically fit. My job was low risk, seeing clients in their homes and working from my home office. I did not see the need to spend money on disability insurance.
Imagine my regret when I went on a ski trip with an investment firm, used the rental skis, and had a severe injury when the ski bindings did not release!
Six months later I found myself moving from Ontario to Alberta to recuperate from surgery and staying with my parents. Several months after that I finally gave in to the fact that I was going to have to sell my client base and make a permanent move to Alberta in order to continue healing.
Had I put in place even a small policy for $2000 to $3000 per month I could have stayed on my own and hired some help. Disability insurance is critical in your life plan and should be added into your budget now, not “I will think about it, maybe sometime in the future because right now I have too many bills or I don’t believe in paying for more insurance.”
If you do have a disability policy, do you know what your policy covers you for and where and when you can get injured? There are many companies and many types of disability coverages. If you cannot understand your contract in your policy take it to someone that can explain the coverages and more importantly the key exclusions and the definition of disability. Many clients I ask either have no coverage or have purchased something at their job site, often it is a simple injury only policy with very limited coverage.
Another type of policy many people have is the life and disability at the mortgage company. This type of policy can be very limited and only pays your payment on your mortgage if you qualify under their definition of disability.
If you are injured when away skiing or travelling and can’t work temporarily or worse yet become unable to return to your career what do you have saved to live on? Most people currently live month to month to cover expenses. If you have no disability insurance have you asked your spouse or family if they can pay your cost of living for you should anything happen? The new vehicle that you spend $500 to $1000 per month on plus $80 to $200 per month to insure, is it going to make its own payments when you can’t?
I believe most people, like I used to, think that they don’t have a need for another insurance or believe it won’t be needed. You are the most valuable asset you have, without your ability to bring in money to pay for your lifestyle there will be no lifestyle. | <urn:uuid:89e7b14c-af22-41d4-9f7d-aa921fafb935> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://retirehappy.ca/your-most-valuable-asset/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981171 | 831 | 1.5 | 2 |
You heard the Gospel and God's call penetrated through to your heart. You believed. And immediately you were translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light, but you've been standing around in the foyer of the Kingdom ever since.
The vast majority of Christians have been "loitering" in the foyer, not going further through the many doorways from there leading to the treasure chests God has lying in wait for them. Perhaps many mistakenly feel that the Kingdom Of God awaits them one day when they go on to Heaven.
There's the story of Elisha who was determined to receive double the portion of Elijah's spirit, upon whom the Power of God was manifested. This is what Elisha asked of his master, Elijah, when the latter was about to be taken to Heaven. Elijah agreed.
The day came when Elijah departed in a chariot of fire. Elisha, without any hesitation, "took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of the Jordan...and smote the waters, and said, Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten the waters, they were divided hither and thither, and Elisha went over. And when the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho over against him saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha." (2Kings 2:12-15)
When Elisha tore up his own clothes he signified that he would no longer remain within the bondage of the weakness of darkness over his old life, but would put on the mantle of newness and enter fully into the Kingdom promised to him. He simply was not going to hang around after watching Elijah go up and ponder in the "foyer" and not take up the full Power imputed to him. He went straight through the doors leading from the foyer.
Elisha went on under the anointing resting upon him and was responsible for more works of miracles than Elijah.
Today, as Christians, we have far more than Elisha. Unlike Elisha, we do not have to ask, "Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah?" God is right inside of us in the Spirit of Jesus and the Power of the Holy Spirit. Our old lives were torn up by God and we became new creatures in Christ.
The Power of the Kingdom only rested upon Elisha, whereas the Kingdom of God is within us. We don't have to hang around in the foyer anymore. The mantle of the Holy Spirit is in our hands and we can divide the waters of despair, weakness, sickness, strife, destruction, lack and the attacks of the enemy so that they part "hither and thither" before us. This is what it means to overcome. Overcomers can only overcome from within the Kingdom.
There is a difference between entering the Kingdom - and entering INTO the Kingdom, as expressed by Jesus. The former puts us in the foyer where the nearness of the shadows of the cares and attractions of this world of darkness still beckons us and even at times pulls us right back into a backslidden state. Entering INTO the Kingdom only becomes a reality to us if we approach it with the zeal and determination of Elisha and in full expectation that the promises of God will be received exactly as per His Word.
Like Elisha after Elijah, we are supposed to do "greater works" than Jesus, Who gave us much more than a mantle, but we tend to be like the "sons of the prophets" standing afar off and waiting for others to take up the mantle.
We are the Temple of God and the foundation thereof is Jesus Christ. There is a reward for what we build thereon, provided it is not the world's gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay and stubble, which will be burned, leaving only the works that abide and that cannot be burned. (See 1 Cor. 3:10-16)
Indeed, faith without works is dead - it remains in the foyer. | <urn:uuid:c87dad6b-9d46-4b93-ad0a-7d01f8ded09d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://webspace.webring.com/people/xf/faith2010/vorster.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980561 | 866 | 1.585938 | 2 |
When it comes to finding a new romantic partner, things have changed. In the past relationships were largely developed through chance meetings, setups from friends, or from friendships that flourished into something more. Now, many men and women rely on the internet when it comes to finding a romantic partner.
Are you are interested in becoming one of those individuals? If so, there are a few important things that you should know first.
Perhaps, the most important thing to remember is that internet dating is not deemed one hundred percent safe. Although, it is important to note that no form of dating is. The person that you meet at the local bar could be just as weird or as dangerous as someone who you meet online, but still you are advised to take a few precautionary measures.
These measures may include, but should not be limited to, giving out limited personal information and agreeing to meet an online date in a public location, not at your home. By understanding the importance of these and other precautionary measures, you should have fun using the internet to find a date.
When it comes to finding an online date or romantic partner, there are many individual who flock to online dating websites. Online dating websites are websites that allow you to meet other internet users. You can not only view online pictures of these individuals, but learn more about them by reading their profiles and by making contact.
Depending on the online dating website you are using, you should also be able to use other services and features, should they be offered.
Online dating websites are often referred to, well as, online dating websites. Despite the fact that they have obtained their own unique title, did you know that online dating websites are also considered social networking websites? When it comes to social networking websites, many individuals automatically think of MySpace or something similar. While these websites may not focus specifically on creating relationships, their purpose is the same.
That purpose is to make it easier for internet users to connect with other internet users, especially ones that they share a common bond.
Although most online dating websites will allow you to contact any online member, you are advised to search for those that share the same interests as you. This may help to give you better luck in the love department. In addition to love, it is also possible that you could find an online friend that you have a lot in common with.
This online friendship could be great, especially if the love part didn’t work out as well as you had intended it to.
As previously mentioned, you will want to be cautious when it comes to setting up a first date between you and your online partner. First dates are scary, especially when they are with someone that you have never met before. If you are concerned with your safety, you may want to join an online networking website or dating website that offers safe places for their members to meet.
These places are often held in popular bars or night clubs on specific nights. In addition to parties where you can meet up with your online friend or partner, you can also find dating websites that have speed dating parties. If you are shy about meeting someone online, these types of get-togethers may be just what you need to break the ice.
If you are interested in becoming one of the millions of internet users who use the internet to find love, you will need to find an online dating website or social networking website to join. Most of these websites can be found with a standard internet search. In your search, you will likely see that online dating websites tend to charge monthly fess, whereas traditional social networking websites do not. If you are unsure as to whether or not you should pay the fee to join an online dating website, you are advised to ask for a free trail, if one is not already available.
These free trials may prove helpful in determining whether or not the online dating website you are interested in joining is even worth your time and money.
p>Word Count 706 | <urn:uuid:927dcc61-2108-499e-8633-eccf6faabe29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artidamus.info/?p=224 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965896 | 805 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Hardly a week goes by without a story about a sports parent behaving badly. It matters not what the sport is, the age of the athlete or what part of the country or world it occurs in.
Let's face it...we live in a nation obsessed with sports and, more importantly, winning. At the youth sports level winning is far more difficult to predict than at higher levels. The reason is simple...kids! Kids are still learning the game and, as such their performance levels can vary widely from one day to the next. Therefore for parents to EXPECT a certain level of performance from their athlete or their team is a losing proposition from the onset.
As a coach I see the sports parent - child dynamic up close...and it isn't pretty sometimes. Why parents feel the need to inject themselves into their athlete's games rather than simply spectate is a question that has several answers to it. As a sports parent myself I'll admit that I used to be a borderline "behave badly" kind of dad. Although my daughter may say that I crossed the border all too frequently! Let's look at some of the answers to the question as to "why" parents act the way they do:
Pure Competitiveness. The old athlete in many of us lies dormant until our kid's game day. Some parents inject themselves into the game from a competitor perspective. In other words they see themselves winning or losing the game. And when you hate to lose you take it personally. The fallacy of this type of thinking is that, as a parent, you have no control over the outcome of the game...so to take your athlete or their team's performance "personally" is unproductive and absurd! These type of sports parents are living vicariously through their children; perhaps hoping their kid will be the athlete they were or never were. These sports parents are often found pacing or watching the game from the outfield or parking lot. | <urn:uuid:1e264ca0-c5eb-4e22-9582-8a3ccc4d3031> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://community.active.com/thread/242429 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98031 | 392 | 1.65625 | 2 |
LatinaLista — Whenever the “i” word, and I’m talking influence, is used in association with Latinos, people automatically resort to defining it as political clout.
It’s waved in the air as a defiant threat every time another anti-immigrant legislation is passed and signed into law. Just last week, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials released their projections of the 2012 Latino vote:
Latinos will turnout in record numbers in the next Presidential election, with at least 12.2 million casting ballots, according to projections released today by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. This analysis also reveals that Latinos will account for a significant share of the electorate in several states.
According to NALEO Executive Director Arturo Vargas, “Latinos continue to reshape the nation’s political map, and the Latino electorate will play a decisive role in Election 2012.” The NALEO Educational Fund projects that the Latino vote will increase 26% from 2008, and Latinos will account for at least 8.7% of the country’s voters.
The operative word in this analysis is “projections.”
No one knows for sure how many Latinos will actually show up and vote. According to a post by Joseph P. A. Villescas, founder and owner of Villescas Research, Media & Instruction, LLC, just meeting NALEO’s projection that 12.2 million Latinos would turn out and vote would mean registering at least 15 million.
That is a huge undertaking, and if people continue to be less politically energized, as they were in 2008, it’s going to be a steep hill for any campaign or grassroots efforts.
But all is not lost.
At this stage of Latino-building influence, it’s not how much “potential” political clout that lies in the near future but something far more easier to attain and immediate — having amigos.
A clear example of this is what happened in Texas recently. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had made one issue a priority for him to get passed — banning sanctuary cities. In other words, it would have barred cities from stopping police departments from asking about immigration status of people who are detained or arrested.
Perry and his Texas GOP peers, who hold the majority in the Texas legislature, were ready to pass it, regardless of the fact that Texas’ Latino population is second only to California.
Protests and phone calls by Texas Latinos to their state legislators urging them to not pass this ban fell on deaf ears — until two men stepped up to the plate.
Two powerful Texas businessmen joined the lobbying against the bill, legislative sources told Reuters.
Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and grocery chain magnate Charles E. Butt.
Bob Perry is known as the top Republican donor in Texas. The two businessmen hired a very influential lobbyist in Austin to fight the bill.
It worked. The bill died.
It’s reported that both men said they had problems with the bill but neither has elaborated, and they don’t have to. It’s enough to know that Latinos, whether citizens or not, will not have to suffer the humiliation of being asked their citizenship.
The fact that the only way it was defeated was through the actions of these men should not be ignored by the greater Latino community.
Until the true political strength of Latinos materialize, it’s important that the Latino community make amigos from all sectors, from all political parties and from all walks of life.
As the Greek philosopher Aristotle said: | <urn:uuid:ace4287c-ba6c-41d8-b0c2-14d321b6734a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latinalista.com/2011/07/gauging-latino-influence-has-little-to-do-with-political-clout-at-this-stage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966712 | 753 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Leaders of the Republican Party has expressed confidence that by August 2 will be reached in the limit of U.S. debt, and rejected the possibility of bankruptcy, news agencies reported. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to find out the seriousness of the representatives of their political power to the problem. For their part, Democratic leader Harry Ridam opponents accuse him of lack of "real" commitment to resolving the issue of debt.
Greece calls for immediate radical changes. Its economy has become more viable for stability to occur. The Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece in an interview with Bloomberg, announced on Monday. As a priority of his government, Papandreou said the education reform, tax system and stimulate economic growth through the use of state assets.
We are very close to it for long. This was reported by CNN Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate. We had a very good day yesterday, he said, and stressed that both parties "have made significant progress." "I am very close to recommending to his party members to sign the agreement in the amount of support," said McConnell. In his White House and Republicans are working on a package of measures that will reduce state spending by 3 trillion dollars and reduce costs over the next 10 years. He said he did not plan to raise taxes.
Italy introduces a commitment to the integration of newly arrived immigrants. On the proposal of the Minister of Interior Roberto Maroni and Minister of Labour and Social Policy Maurizio Sacconi, the Council of Ministers adopted a decree on the regulation of "integration agreement between the alien and the state." Normative act provides for a two-year training period to get a basic knowledge of Italian language and organization of institutions of public life in Italy. When collecting 30 points in two years the agreement is fulfilled.
U. S. President Barack Obama said that Republicans and Democrats have reached agreement on a ceiling of U.S. debt and used the occasion to thank them, reports the AP. You can vote in the Senate today. Both sides had to agree to raise the debt ceiling above the current U.S. level of 14.3 trillion. dollars on Tuesday to avoid default. Earlier, in a telephone conversation the President of the House of Representatives Republican leader John Beynar told him about the agreement. Before him, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the outcome of the crisis are already visible, although the debt proposal was rejected.
EU shocked and horrified by the use of tanks against civilians in the Syrian city of Hama. Nevertheless, the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Ashton. Recall that in the offensive yesterday, Bashar al-Assad in different cities of more than 150 people were killed and dozens injured.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh called on to stop street protests during Ramadan and begin a national dialogue. Statement by the President was released in a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia, where he is recovering from severe burns and other wounds. In June, Ali Abdullah Saleh had been injured in an explosion at the presidential palace and went for treatment in Saudi Arabia, where he is at the moment. According to the vice-president of wounds Yemen president was much more serious than they thought.
Border crossings and Barnyak Jarinje in northern Kosovo yesterday, partially open to traffic. KFOR soldiers missing cars and buses. Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic, a Serbian government and Serbian chief negotiator Borislav Stefanovic yesterday arrived in the northern part of Kosovo, where he will meet with the local Serb population, which during the days barikaditePripomnyame, Kosovo Serbs attacked Jarinje checkpoint on the border with Serbia, and it burned. | <urn:uuid:a3025d65-141f-4579-a56b-a3d78133823a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://celebrationofstrength.org/pages/8.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972582 | 746 | 1.640625 | 2 |
(MENAFN - Arab Times) The financial turmoil has put most of the markets and firms across the globe under a test of endurance and buoyancy. The unforeseen crisis hit sectors harder than ever expected and thereby resulted in a deterioration of a majority of global economies. The snow ball effect of the bubble revealed the vulnerabilities in the financial sector, requiring countries to undertake exceptional stabilization measures to prevent its financial systems from crashing and minimize the losses brought about by the downturn.
Consequently, similar to all industries in the GCC region, the Banking Sector witnessed a slump in its performance as a consequence of the deterioration in the banks' investment portfolios and real estate exposure along with impairments of investments. Moreover, in order to mitigate the risk of the crisis' effect on loans, banks have booked massive provisions as preemptive measures against the elevation in non-performing loans during Q3-08 and FY-09, which further weighed down on bottom line results.
Soundness of Banks in the GCC Region
Banks Performance & Profitability
Although the GCC Banking sector is seen currently to be far away from the soaring performance that has seen its total profit grow at a 4-year average of 22.2 per cent, the Sector's profitability was hit hard by the financial crisis during Q4-08 and FY-09.
The Sector remained profitable, liquid and sound even though net profit recorded a contraction of 16.5 per cent and 7.9 per cent during FY-08 and FY-09 respectively, which was mainly due to high provisioning and impairment on investments. However, the foremost worries of the banking sectors performance lies in the great stress in property market and the high volatility in equity investments which would force most banks for further provisioning and impairments.
Triggered by the liquidity squeeze along with prevailing tight conditions in the credit market and deterioration of asset prices, aggregate loan portfolio of the GCC Banking Sector experienced a drop in annual growth rate from a record high of 36.6 per cent in 2007 to 30.3 per cent in 2008 and 3.0 per cent in 2009. This decline has been a direct result of banks' implementation of conservative and stricter lending policies to avoid further provisions and impairments.
GCC Banking Sector's asset quality indicators have seen gradual improvement over the period 2004-2007, yet considerably worsened during 2008 and 2009 with the inevitable increase in non-performing loans. Non- performing loans (NPLs) to gross loans improved from 2.27 per cent in 2006 to 1.91 per cent in 2007, well below the 4-year average of 2.67 per cent, yet worsened to 2.27 per cent and 4.04 per cent at the end of 2008 and 2009
Similarly, the Sector has maintained a high coverage ratio of its non-performing credit facilities (Provisions/Non-performing loans) over the same period with an average of around 119 per cent. However, the NPL coverage ratio decreased to 107 per cent in 2008 and further deteriorated to 82 per cent in 2009 compared to 121 per cent in 2007 as banks were forced to book additional provisioning amid the financial turbulence in the credit market.
Loan Loss Provisions & Impairments
The year 2009 was sturdy on the GCC banks seeing provisions and impairments recording USD 10.9 billion, out of which USD 4.12 billion were booked during Q4-09, while USD 6.76 billion during 9M-09.
Provisions booked by Saudi & Emirati Banks contributed to the bulk of the whole provisions booked by banks in the GCC region; both sectors added
USD 7.03 billion, representing around 65 per cent of total provisions booked during FY-2009. Moreover, provisions booked by Kuwaiti Banks amounted for USD 2.6 billion and represented 23.9 per cent of the total provisions during the same year. It is worth to note that the majority of the provisions were concentrated among few banks in the region as indicated in the table below.
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Emirates NBD lead the pack with provisions booked representing 18.5 per cent of total GCC banks provisions, and around 48.5 per cent of total provisions for UAE Banks. KFH has the third highest provisioning in the region, corresponding to around 6.5 per cent of total GCC provisions. The top ten banks, as segregated by the amount of provisions booked, represent nearly 55.9 per cent of aggregate provisions booked for FY-2009.
Up till recently, Banks and Financial Institutions across the region are in Balance Sheet Repair'' mode, with deleveraging, impairments and massive provisioning taking place everywhere. Banks that are going to not only survive but thrive will need to adopt more stringent risk management policies to improve its asset quality indicators and reduce the effect of any potential risk in the future.
Banks Capital Adequacy Ratios
Moreover, Banks in the GCC are subject to legally-mandated requirements by the Central Banks, intended to help them avoid a liquidity crisis and maintain an adequate capital to risk ratio (CAR) to ensure that Banks can absorb a reasonable amount of loss and are complying with their statutory Capital requirements. In this context, GCC Banking sectors' measure of capital to risk weighted assets as indicated by the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) implies that Banks are well capitalized as they have a CAR above the level specified by its respective Central Banks; Saudi banking sector holds the highest ratio relative to the mandated level by SAMA.
Sectors Liquidity Position
Amid the protracted liquidity bubble, the GCC Banking sector showed no immunity but resistance in weathering the financial crisis. Sector's Liquid assets, which comprise cash and cash equivalents, deposits with banks and other financial institutions, public debt instruments amounted to USD 181 billion as of Dec-09 compared to USD 143 billion in 2008, and represented around 18.2 per cent of Banks' total asset base.
GCC Banks' Liquid assets to total deposits ratio indicates that Banks are well handling the liquidity problem as the ratio stepped up to 24.0 per cent as of Dec-09 after declining to 19.8 per cent in 2008 from a high of 26.9 per cent in 2007. The improvement in GCC banks' liquidity measure assures the strong and healthy position that the sector enjoys given the effect of the financial crisis.
The loan-to-deposit ratio, set by Central Banks in the GCC region, varies among countries and plays a vital role in the lending policy of commercial and Islamic banks; In Abu Dhabi, the loan-to-deposit ratio as of Dec-09 has exceeded the mandated level set by the Central Bank of UAE which is currently at 100 per cent. Loan-to-deposit ratio for the banking sector in Abu Dhabi continued its upward trend over the last 2 years to reach a maximum of 101 per cent as of Dec-09 up from 92 per cent at the end of 2007.
This significant increase in the loan-to-deposit ratio has been fuelled by the growth in credit to finance real estate sector and the infrastructure projects along with the low growth rate in deposits over the same period; the surge in loan-to-deposit ratio during the period is mainly explained by the 38 per cent increase in credit facilities versus a 26 per cent increase in deposit base with banks. Fuelled by the economic boom in the country, Qatari Banks have also exceeded the limit set by the Central Bank of Qatar, which currently stands at 90 per cent, by around 760 bps.
On the other hand, Saudi banks enjoy the lowest loan-to-deposit ratio which recorded 72.1 per cent as of 31 Dec-09 compared to a ceiling of 80 per cent set by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA). This gives the Banking sector in Saudi Arabia an edge to expand its credit portfolio with a room to lend an additional USD 22.4 billion. Moreover, the banking sectors in Dubai and Kuwait both enjoy a room to extend additional credit of USD 9.2 billion and USD 6.3 billion without breaching the limit for loan-to-deposit ratio set by the Central Banks in both countries which stand at 100 per cent (for Dubai) and 85 per cent (for Kuwait) respectively. | <urn:uuid:c5708f78-ca36-4dbb-a19e-aa29e2ec0b34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.menafn.com/menafn/qn_news_story_s.aspx?storyid=1093365333 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948059 | 1,663 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|Barcelona Separatists Gain Popular Support|
|by Tom McGregor||Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 07:11 PM|
On Tuesday, as many as 1.5 million took to the streets of Barcelona in an unprecedented show of popular support for autonomy from Madrid as Barcelonans blame Madrid for Spain’s economic crisis that is dragging their wealthy region down.
The Daily Telegraph of London reports that, “surging unemployment and financial disarray have stoked a fever of separatism in Catalonia, a comparatively prosperous part of Spain whose leaders say their wealth is being sucked dry by the central government.”
Separatists waved red and yellow striped Catalan flags – one of the oldest still in use in Europe – and chanted the Catalan anthem on a National Day marking the conquest of Catalonia by Spain’s King Philip V in 1714 after a 13 month attack on Barcelona.
According to the Telegraph, “the regional government said the crowd was 600,000 strong. Local police gave figures as high as 1.5 million.”
53-years-old Teresa Cabanes, who came from Santa Coloma de Gramamet in the outskirts of Barcelona, attended the march and said, “this is a blow for the government. People like me came from everywhere. I don’t think they were expecting something as big.”
To read the entire article from the Daily Telegraph of London, link here:
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:b8f3f433-b96a-47d8-8119-87621b6c69a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasblog.com/201209111009390/dallas-blog/barcelona-separatists-gain-popular-support.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951318 | 305 | 1.6875 | 2 |
This is a preview of my new book, Global Business: Positioning Ventures Ahead to appear with Taylor and Francis in June of 2010. I will be posting little snippets from the book every once in a while. I encourage you to read, comment, share, and your thoughts to the comment section. And look for the book in June.
Firms expanding into additional global markets must tackle distribution systems, pricing, and address a wide range of ethical issues such as legal systems related to monitoring pollution, maintaining safe work environment, copying of technology or trademarks, and coping with demands for bribes.As the 2008 attacks in Mumbai show, terrorism continues to pose a risk.
Terrorism can be a threat to plants and their people or, more likely, will have an impact on a manufacturing supply chain. A company’s ability to master these challenges will present it with potential for new opportunities with significant rewards.
International marketing is also leading to a shift in corporate processes. It is easier – and more important – than ever to gather, manipulate, analyze, and disseminate information. As a result, products can be produced more quickly, obtained less expensively from sources around the world, distributed at lower costs, and customized for individual customers and clients. Just a decade or so ago, we would have thought it was impossible for a company to produce computer motherboards, monitors, and software in different countries, assemble the computer in yet another nation, and sell it in still other markets. Today, the computer industry depends on this model to survive. | <urn:uuid:6893253d-728f-4629-9468-2587952d4251> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michaelczinkota.blogspot.com/2009/11/adaptation-is-key.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949318 | 310 | 1.671875 | 2 |
“Using Exercise to Move Science” isn’t just a slogan for us; it is our purpose and the reason why the Institute was founded. Teaching and educating healthcare professionals in The Dardzinski Method and the benefits of the program will make the option of recovery much more accessable to thousands of new injuries each year. Together, we can change their lives for the better.
The main goals of the Institute are educating and training Project Walk staff, clients, healthcare professionals, collaborating with healthcare providers, and conducting and publishing research with doctors and researchers worldwide.
The mission of the Institute is to make our program and The Dardzinski Method the standard for spinal cord injury recovery. We will achieve this through teaching, training, research and advocacy. Our goal is to forever change the recovery outcome of a spinal cord injury that is most often perceived as unchangeable. | <urn:uuid:d87f8275-2270-4a95-ae08-e05b26cfdfc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.projectwalk.org/about-the-institute/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952695 | 176 | 1.742188 | 2 |
"[At Cornell] I was able to devote an entire day to a laboratory setting and immerse myself in an experiment or a project, which is unheard of at most colleges and universities."
-- Jason Kolowski '98
Jason Kolowski '98
Jason Kolowski '98 practices real-life CSI as a forensic scientist with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in New York City. Kolowski investigates DNA evidence from crime scenes, and was directly involved with forensic recovery after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
In 2006, Kolowski returned to Cornell for a week as guest lecturer in Forensic Science, a course team-taught by chemistry professors Craig Teague and Charley Liberko. As part of the course, Kolowski accompanied students on a field trip to the State of Iowa's crime laboratory in Ankeny. Kolowski shared his insights into careers in forensic science, and afterward has helped sponsor internship opportunities for several Cornellians at the New York City Medical Examiner's Office.
Kolowski say that Cornell prepared him very well for a rigorous graduate school program at John Jay College for Criminal Justice in New York City.
"The intense focus of the block plan trains students to concentrate on the pertinent materials, issues, and questions, and keeps them focused on these topics long enough to ensure there is retention of the material," he says. "This prepared me beyond measure for graduate school, where it was easy to see that other students without these abilities struggled through much of the coursework.
"Another bonus of the One Course At A Time system was that I was able to devote an entire day to a laboratory setting and immerse myself in an experiment or a project, which is unheard of at most colleges and universities."
Kolowski wrote the textbook Forensics Demystified in 2006. In it he thanked a handful of influential scientists in his life, including several Cornell science professors.
"The quality of the faculty, combined with the small class size and excellent laboratory facilities, should be touted as a hallmark of what science education at the liberal arts level should strive to become at other schools," he says. | <urn:uuid:a84cecdd-1fd0-415d-8a56-a3c9d81017c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cornellcollege.edu/admissions/outcomes/jason-kolowski.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962758 | 439 | 1.710938 | 2 |
U.S. Senate: Democrats Deeply Divided On Climate Bill
Photo courtesy heartsr3.
By Juliet Eilperin
WASHINGTON – The climate change bill that has been moving slowly through the Senate faces a stark political reality when it is read in committee this week: with Democrats deeply divided on the issue, unless some Republican lawmakers risk the backlash for signing on to the climate change legislation, there is almost no hope for passage.
For all the effort of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to keep Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as his most visible GOP ally, key Republicans are making their opposition clear.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee who was initially seen as one of the only Republicans who might consider backing the majority, is now helping lead the opposition.
He wrote Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson twice this summer to ask for a more detailed economic analysis of the House-passed climate bill, and he has joined the other six Republicans on the committee in boycotting the climate bill markup scheduled for Tuesday.
“Why are we trying to jam down this legislation now?” he asked during a hearing last week. “Wouldn’t it be smarter to take our time and do it right?”
Like the bill adopted by the House, the legislation favors a cap-and-trade system that would issue permits for greenhouse gas emissions, gradually lower the amount of emissions allowed, and let companies buy and sell permits to meet their needs.
The bill has deeply divided Democrats. With states in the Midwest, South and Rocky Mountain West dependent on fossil fuels for energy, many senators are worried about the legislation’s impact on industry and consumers.
So Democratic leaders, with the support of the Obama administration, are trying to enlist at least half a dozen Republicans by offering amendments to speed along their top priority – building nuclear power plants.
Graham has suggested provisions on nuclear power and offshore oil drilling could win his support for a cap-and-trade climate bill; Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, has established a bipartisan working group of 17 Senate offices that is close to producing a detailed amendment aimed at speeding the construction of U.S. nuclear reactors.
But it remains unclear if that approach holds currency in the current era of political polarization. One of the top Republicans that Democrats hope to enlist in this effort – Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, whom Graham and Kerry recently buttonholed on the Senate floor – has voiced skepticism about the bill Kerry had authored along with Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
“A tepid nuclear title isn’t enough to get her to support a bad climate bill,” said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Boxer.
Copyright 2009, WP
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Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:0309b24c-9cbd-4e04-a2d0-da1a365074dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skepticsglobalwarming.com/?p=20056 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949699 | 640 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Google and Facebook ramped up federal lobbying spending in the second quarter, as the internet companies chatted up government officials about everything from online advertising and immigration reform to self-driving cars.
Google, the world's No. 1 Web search engine, increased federal lobbying spending by 90 per cent year-on-year, spending $3.92 million in the second quarter to lobby officials with the US Congress, the executive office of the president and various federal agencies.
Google's spending during the second quarter was significantly higher than many other large-cap technology companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. Apple, the world's largest technology company by market cap, spent $470,000 in the second quarter, compared with $790,000 in the second quarter of 2011.
Halfway through 2012, Facebook had already surpassed the $1.35 million that it spent in total on federal lobbying in 2011, filings released on Friday show.
Facebook and Google dominate the fast-growing Web market, which is upending traditional industries as well as long-accepted notions about privacy, freedom of expression and intellectual property, among other issues.
Google, which is being investigated by antitrust regulators in the United States and EU, lobbied officials at the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Commerce. Among the topics listed were "openness and competition in online services," "mobile location privacy issues," and "broadband adoption and deployment."
Google's second-quarter lobbying expenses put it in the same league as telecommunications companies such as Verizon Communications, which spent $3.94 million in federal lobbying.
Facebook boosted the dollars it dedicates to federal lobbying by 200 percent in the second quarter, spending $960,000 on issues including online privacy, patent reform and immigration reform.
The world's largest online social network with 900 million users, Facebook indicated that it lobbied both chambers of Congress about "market structure and IPO issues" during the second quarter.
In May, Facebook became the first US company to go public with a market valuation above $100 billion. But the offering was marred by technological glitches on the Nasdaq exchange and criticism that the IPO was priced too high.
Shares of Facebook, which reports second-quarter financial results on Thursday, remain well below their offering price of $38.
Facebook said in a statement that its "presence and growth in Washington reflect our commitment to explaining how our service works, the actions we take to protect the more than 900 million people who use our service, the importance of preserving an open Internet, and the value of innovation to our economy."
Google was not immediately available for comment. Google, which is developing self-driving cars that it hopes will someday be available on public roads, cited the Department of Transportation in a section on lobbying that included "autonomous vehicle technology." | <urn:uuid:67d81a8f-639d-4935-9e11-87adabe6fc33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telecomlive.com/homepg/innercomt.asp?N_Id=23829 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962668 | 572 | 1.617188 | 2 |
RSA last week revealed that an internet gang is recruiting some 100 botmasters to join a planned Trojan attack spree against 30 US banks.
Brian Krebs has since unmasked the mastermind as a Russian hacker called vorVzakone.
The name translates to "thief-in-law", an elite rank of criminal in the post-Soviet world of organized crime.
RSA reported last week that the "blitzkrieg-like" series of Trojan attacks is planned to launch this fall with the help of some 100 botmasters. The security firm is referring to the project as "the making of the most substantial organized banking-Trojan operation seen to date."
Krebs has posted a professionally translated version of vorVzakone's recruitment post in which the hacker offers to let botmasters in on the deal for a total of $400, unless, that is, they already have a server, bots and accounts ready to go.
The post brags that since 2008, the Trojan has earned one team $5 million in fraudulent bank transfers.
RSA's analysis of the post links it to a little-known, proprietary, Gozi-like Trojan, which RSA has dubbed "Gozi Prinimalka", from the Russian word meaning "to receive".
RSA found that the word “Prinimalka” is used as a folder name in every URL path given by the gang over the years to its crimeware servers.
Underground chatter has led RSA to the conclusion that the gang will deploy the Trojan in man-in-the-middle, manual session-hijacking attacks that result in fraudulent wire transfers.
RSA's analysis found a few features that distinguish this attack from previous Trojan attacks, including phone-flooding that will block a bank's attempts to verify unusual online account transfers:
- A novel virtual-machine-synching module announced by the gang, installed on the botmaster’s machine, will purportedly duplicate the victim’s PC settings, including the victim’s time zone, screen resolution, cookies, browser type and version, and software product IDs. Impersonated victims’ accounts will thus be accessed via a SOCKS proxy connection installed on their infected PCs, enabling the cloned virtual system to take on the genuine IP address when accessing the bank’s website.
- Using VoIP phone-flooding software, the gang plans to prevent victim account holders from receiving the bank’s confirmation call or text message used to verify new or unusual online account transfers.
Beyond political animosity, one reason the attack is aimed at American banks is because two-factor authentication use in the United States is rare, particularly when compared with European banks.
From vorVzakone's post:
"The two factor authentication is not covered since it's rare in USA."
But the question remains: is this guy for real?
Given the alleged fraudster's flamboyant claims, the Underweb isn't sure whether or not he's a trap set by Russian law enforcement, Krebs writes.
If vorVzakone is in fact offering a legitimate service to cybercrooks, he's using an unusual form of recruitment to amass his troops.
Recruiting from underground forums of "mutually distrustful parties" (description courtesy of an analysis [PDF] of the Underweb by University of California/San Diego) is a new wrinkle in the insular world of cybercrime, as noted by RSA's Mor Ahuvia:
"Organized crime in the fraudster underground is normally orchestrated within private circles, and it is almost unheard of for a cyber gang to turn to masses of "UnderWeb" dwellers in order to find recruits for its operations. The move is both risky and peculiar considering recent law enforcement operations in the underground leading to extensive fraudster arrests by the FBI."
Krebs notes that the underground is leery of the deal, given other posts in which vorVzakone has bragged about his criminal resume.
If he's legit, he's cocky as hell. In this video posted to YouTube, the cheerful, potential cyber criminal greets his viewers in front of a Toyota Land Cruiser that fully shows its registration plate, introduces himself as Serega or Vor V Zakone, and gives a tour of what he claims is his home.
As Krebs says, many are finding it hard to take him seriously, given that he appears unconcerned about anonymity or personal safety.
Krebs quotes a Russian expert who, he says, helped to translate vorVzakone’s post:
"This guy’s language and demeanor is that of street corner drug dealer or a night club bouncer, and not of someone who can comprehend what 'backconnect socks' or GeoIP is."
vorVzakone's bravado is certainly not typical of the caginess employed by members of the criminal underground, which points to his perhaps being a boobytrap set by Russian law enforcement, as many in that community fear.
But as Krebs notes, regardless of his legitimacy, the alleged fraudster has served to add yet another reason for US banks to strengthen authentication controls around money transfers.
Two-factor authentication is far from a panacea, as security expert Bruce Schneier has been commenting on for years.
Individuals who promptly report unauthorized bank account activity aren't liable for stolen funds, but small businesses are.
Krebs thinks the best way to bank safe is to simply stop using Windows while conducting your banking, given that it's the platform most targeted by criminals who plant the Trojans that enable transfer fraud and other attack forms.
He suggests switching to a Linux build on a Live CD when online banking, thus protecting a banking session even if the underlying hard drive has been infected.
Would you go that far to avoid being victimized by online banking fraud?Follow @LisaVaas
Chaos image from Shutterstock. | <urn:uuid:36d886db-d410-4a13-86dd-1c9b852b1985> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/10/09/unmasked-alleged-mastermind-of-project-blitzkrieg-online-attack-plot-against-us-banks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942681 | 1,239 | 1.625 | 2 |
Forging relationships with services: The antecedents that have an impact on behavioural outcomes in the life insurance industry
Journal of Financial Services Marketing
The extent to which service quality is linked to satisfaction, value and behavioural outcomes continues to be debated in the literature. This research investigated two models involving the linkages between service quality, satisfaction, perceived value, repurchase intention and willingness to recommend to others. The life insurance industry was chosen as the industry for investigation since it is virtually a pure service with little tangibility and high credence properties. Data were collected in Singapore in response to concerns about broadening understanding of these variables cross-culturally. Results of path analysis indicate that service quality has an indirect relationship with behavioural outcome measures via satisfaction and value. The study found that satisfaction was positively associated with customers' re-purchase intentions but its relationship with customers' willingness to recommend to others was relatively weak. This finding has important marketing implications as word-of-mouth has previously been found to have significant influence on customers' purchase decisions. | <urn:uuid:e0902d46-5ba1-4f6e-ae87-dc4238cd38ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epublications.marquette.edu/market_fac/49/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963307 | 207 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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This page may require you to download plug-ins to view all content. | <urn:uuid:258b982b-2ad2-4d92-8e94-ceb8238d981a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usphs.gov/student/more_opportunities.aspx | 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 | 0.951285 | 492 | 1.71875 | 2 |
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