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Charlotte, North Carolina (CNN) – The Democrats' official platform, released late Monday, omits a clause from the party's 2008 document proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a subject of intense diplomatic scrutiny that Obama's Republican challenger Mitt Romney has put at the center of his position on the Jewish state.
In 2008, Democrats wrote in their platform, "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths."
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The 2012 platform contains no reference to Jerusalem, and maintains support for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinians.
But the platform does read, "The President's consistent support for Israel's right to defend itself and his steadfast opposition to any attempt to delegitimize Israel on the world stage are further evidence of our enduring commitment to Israel's security."
The 2012 platform also omits a reference to Israel as America's "strongest ally in the region," language present in the platform four years ago.
A Democratic National Committee spokesman said that Obama's stance on Jerusalem was consistent with previous presidents.
"The Obama Administration has followed the same policy towards Jerusalem that previous U.S. administrations of both parties have done since 1967," the spokesman wrote. "As the White House said several months ago, the status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in final status negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians – which we also said in the 2008 platform. We will continue to work with the parties to resolve this issue as part of a two state solution that secures the future of Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland of the Jewish people."
Later, the DNC added to their response by calling the attention to the issue "just another attempt by the Romney campaign to turn our support for Israel – which has always been bipartisan – into a partisan wedge issue by playing politics. This is both cynical and counter-productive to Israel’s security.”
The National Jewish Democratic Council president released a statement Tuesday saying, "Jewish Democrats know full well that Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel.
"We - like President George W. Bush before and leaders of both parties for decades - also know that the final status of Jerusalem will have to be formally decided by the parties. This should come as a surprise to nobody," NJDC president David A. Harris wrote. "This Administration has the most pro-Israel record of any on record; the facts speak for themselves. "
The Republicans' platform, released ahead of their convention last week, reads "We support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders; and we envision two democratic states – Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine – living in peace and security." The platform does not make the statement that Jerusalem is currently the capital of Israel.
Romney, in a statement Tuesday, wrote it was "unfortunate that the entire Democratic Party has embraced President Obama's shameful refusal to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel's capital."
"Four years of President Obama's repeated attempts to create distance between the United States and our cherished ally have led the Democratic Party to remove from their platform an unequivocal acknowledgment of a simple reality," the Republican nominee continued. "As president, I will restore our relationship with Israel and stand shoulder to shoulder with our close ally."
In July, Romney said firmly that Jerusalem was Israel's capital in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, saying "A nation has the capacity to choose its own capital city, and Jerusalem is Israel's capital."
American policy has long been intentionally vague on the status of Jerusalem. A U.S. law passed in 1995 designates Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and stipulates the American embassy should move to the city from Tel Aviv. The past three presidents, however, have signed waivers suspending the law, citing security and diplomatic concerns.
Israelis consider Jerusalem the capital of their country, but Palestinians also claim rights to the city as the capital of a future independent state. The status of the city is designated for final negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama waded into the issue of Jerusalem's status, pledging before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."
He later walked back the comment on CNN, telling Fareed Zakaria the remark was a result of "poor phrasing."
"The point we were simply making was, is that we don't want barbed wire running through Jerusalem, similar to the way it was prior to the '67 war, that it is possible for us to create a Jerusalem that is cohesive and coherent," Obama said. "I was not trying to predetermine what are essentially final status issues."
The subject of Israel's capital arose at the White House press briefing earlier this summer.
"What city does this administration consider to be the capital of Israel – Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?" a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
"I haven't had that question in a while. Our position has not changed," Carney answered.
Pressed further for the White House's position on Israel, Carney responded "you know our position" before moving on to other questions.
In a transcript of the briefing emailed later that afternoon, the White House included a paragraph explaining their position.
"The status of Jerusalem is an issue that should be resolved in final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians," the statement read. "We continue to work with the parties to resolve this issue and others in a way that is just and fair, and respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians."
CNN's Dana Bash contributed to this report.
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The dueling sports are widely popular in Rhydin. They provide a venue for warriors to polish their combat skills or to settle disputes among one another in a civilized manner. The tides of political power in Rhydin are often dictated by those who control the various titles of these sports.
When your character engages in a duel with another character, you as the player engage in one of three matrix-based games with the other player. The purpose of these games is to enhance the role-play by guiding the action. They also provide a depth of competition nonexistent in dice-rolling games, and as a player you will feel more engaged in the role-play as you try to anticipate the other player's moves, much like your character will be trying to anticipate the opposing character.
A matrix-based game is a 1-vs-1 game where both players select one move from an established list of moves, and neither player knows which move the other player has selected until both moves are revealed simultaneously. Each move on the list is predetermined to defeat some moves and to lose out to others, and these move interactions stay constant. If you were to draw a grid and list all the moves down one side and list them again across the top, you could fill in each square where two moves intersect with the winning move—this would be the matrix for that game.
Chances are you are already familiar with a matrix-based game called rock-paper-scissors. Both players choose one of the three available moves—rock, paper, or scissors—and compare them simultaneously to see who wins. The matrix for this game would look like this:
|Rock||No Points||Paper Scores||Rock Scores|
|Paper||Paper Scores||No Points||Scissors Scores|
|Scissors||Rock Scores||Scissors Scores||No Score|
Each sport in Rings of Honor has its own list of moves, and each move can be compared to any other move in the list to come up with a score. Like rock beats scissors but not paper, in Duel of Fists the move Jab will beat an Uppercut, but not a Flip.
|Duel of Swords
||Duel of Fists
||Duel of Magic
*Must be earned by gaining rank.
When successful your move earns you either a point or a half-point. In Duel of Fists, you earn "advantages" instead of half-points, which when scored in two consecutive rounds convert into a point. It takes a minimum of five points with a one-point lead to win. During regular hours, duels are limited to 15 rounds, after which a player with a one-point lead or greater is given the win, otherwise the duel ends as a tie. During special events, there is no round limit; duels will go on as long as they have to in order to determine a winner.
To get started, you will need an opponent. Once you've found one, notify the DUEL official on duty, and he or she will soon usher you both to begin. A window will pop up asking you to select your move for round 1. Once you have submitted your move, the official will compare your move to your opponent's and announce the results in the chat room, after which you can send in your move for the next round. You may not use a move twice in a row, with the exception of Disengage in Duel of Swords.
When role-playing out duels, remember the game, its matrix and list of moves are out-of-character constructs. That means your character has no knowledge of it—to them a duel is an intense sporting match. It also means that, just because you choose a High Cut, your character's action isn't limited to a plain old high cut—it can be much more, and can vary signficantly in how its played with each time you use it, so be creative.
For more details on Duel of Swords, Fists, or Magic, click on the Game Guide link under the sport's menu.
You now know all you need to know to start dueling in any sport. Good luck!
The Dueling Zone provides a single-player practice game for Duel of Swords under its Games section, as well as copies of matrices for all three sports under Caller Tools.
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by Bill McBride on 11/16/2012 11:25:00 AM
Friday, November 16, 2012
The following graphs show the percent of loans delinquent by loan type based on the MBA National Delinquency Survey: Prime, Subprime, FHA and VA. First a table comparing the number of loans in Q2 2007 and Q3 2012 so readers can understand the shift in loan types.
Both the number of prime and subprime loans have declined over the last five years; the number of subprime loans is down by about 32%. Meanwhile the number of FHA loans has more than doubled and VA loans have increased sharply.
Note: There are about 41.8 million first-lien loans in the survey, and the MBA survey is about 88% of the total. In the MBA universe, there are under 600 thousand seriously delinquent FHA loans. However, in the entire market, according to the FHA, there are over 700 thousand seriously delinquent FHA loans.
For Prime and Subprime, a majority of the seriously delinquent loans were originated in the 2005 to 2007 period - and these loans are still in the process of being resolved through foreclosure or short sales. However, for the FHA, about 45% of the seriously delinquent loans were originated in 2008 and 2009. That is the period when private capital disappeared, and the FHA share of the market increased sharply.
Luckily the FHA had a small market share in 2005 and 2006; however they did make quite a few bad loans in that period because of seller financed Downpayment Assistance Programs (DAPs). These were programs that allowed the seller to give the buyer the downpayment through a 3rd party "charity" (for a fee of course). The buyer had no money in the house and the default rates were absolutely horrible. (The DAPs were finally eliminated in late 2008).
|MBA National Delinquency Survey Loan Count|
|Q2 2007||Q3 2012||Change||Q3 2012 Seriously Delinquent|
Click on graph for larger image.
First a repeat: This graph shows the percent of loans delinquent by days past due. Loans 30 days delinquent increased to 3.25% from 3.18% in Q2. This is just above 2007 levels and around the long term average.
Delinquent loans in the 60 day bucket decreased to 1.19% in Q3, from 1.22% in Q2.
The 90 day bucket decreased to 2.96% from 3.19%. This is still way above normal (around 0.8% would be normal according to the MBA).
The percent of loans in the foreclosure process decreased to 4.07% from 4.27% and is now at the lowest level since Q1 2009.
Note: Scale changes for each of the following graphs.
The second graph is for all prime loans.
This is the category with the most seriously delinquent loans. Back in early 2007 when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said "the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained", my former co-blogger Tanta responded "We are all subprime!" - she was correct.
Since there are far more prime loans than any other category (see table above), about 47% of the loans seriously delinquent now are prime loans - even though the overall delinquency rate is much lower than other loan types.
This graph is for subprime. This category gets most of the attention - mostly because of all the terrible loans made through the Wall Street "originate-to-distribute" model and sold as Private Label Securities (PLS). Not all PLS was subprime, but the worst of the worst loans were packaged in PLS.
Although the delinquency rate is still very high, the number of subprime loans has declined sharply.
This graph is for FHA loans. It might surprise people, but the percent of FHA delinquent loans (not including in foreclosure) is at the lowest level in a decade. That is because the recently originated loans (2010 through 2012) are performing very well, and the FHA originated a large number of loans in that period.
Of course there are still a large number of loans in the foreclosure process, and the remaining DAPs and the loans originated in 2008 and 2009 are performing poorly.
The last graph is for VA loans. This is a fairly small but growing category (see table above).
The good news is every category is improving. There are still quite a few subprime loans that are in distress, but the real keys going forward are prime loans and FHA loans.
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I have always been a big fan of inter-building bridges, by which I mean bridges that connect two buildings without accessing the ground, even though I have not had the privilege of actually traversing any except one: it was a pedestrian bridge that connected the World Trade Center with the World Financial Center over West Street, and, of course, that one was destroyed by terrorism in 2001.
But I am not a fan of just any inter-building bridge. It has to be old, ornate, and look as though great thought has been put into its construction. There are only a few of those remaining around town.
One such bridge is in an unlikely location: a two-block long alley called Staple Street in Tribeca. It was built uncounted eons ago to connect what was then New York Hospital to an annex across the alley.
And, there is another one in midtown Manhattan. It’s so high up that you might not notice it if you are hustling to a train at Penn Station one block away.
This bridge over East 32nd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues can almost be called a small building in its own right– it’s 3 stories tall.
It has retained an almost Beaux Arts aura, even though it came along at the very beginnings of Art Deco. Possibly the two buildings it connects were more ornamented at one time.
Over 8 decades the copper cladding is magnificently greened and verdigris’ed.
Filigree and decoration like this would be deemed unnecessary, ostentatious and needlessly expensive in ensuing decades. Since 1925, when the overpass was built, inter-building bridges have gotten ever more utilitarian and boring.
But, when Gimbels’ Department Store, Macy’s great rival, decided to bridge West 32nd Street at its 6th Avenue flagship, they hired the Shreve and Lamb architectural firm. A few years later, the same firm designed the Empire State, the King of All Buildings.
I still don’t know what it looks like inside the bridge itself, but it must be something special.
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Cristina Stiller ’12 gets serious, arguing that Cornellians can’t call themselves “the 99%” from atop the Ivy tower in the hierarchy of higher education.
Readers, it’s not often I write you all a serious column. I like to think of my bi-weekly 700 words as a break for your eyes from Judah Bellin’s lengthy (but delightful, to be sure) tomes.
But there is one trend spreading across our lovely, if sometimes misinformed, campus that my good conscience cannot leave alone any longer: Occupy Cornell.
Two weeks ago, a few dozen students and some local Ithacans gathered on Ho Plaza to stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement and demand — well, no one is really sure what OWS is demanding, but Cornellians came to show their support anyway.
I imagine that shouts of, “We are the 99%,” OWS’s famous — if ambiguous — slogan, were the order of the day.
And while that is all well and good for the unshowered masses that have been living in Zuccotti Park for the past month and a half, this catchy phrase is ironic, even hypocritical, when it comes from the mouths of Cornellians.
I understand that the slogan stems from the income gap between the wealthiest 1% of Americans and everyone else. But it seems clear that in addition to this commentary on the wealth gap, “We are the 99%” is also intended to stir up feelings of class struggle against the hierarchy inherent in America’s capitalist structure. This problem extends to all facets of inequality, including disparities in our country’s education system.
Which is why it is so strange that my fellow Ivy Leave classmates would be shouting, “We are the 99%.” I think a little math is in order here.
The Ivy League represents only 59,035 of the 14.4 million undergraduates estimated to be currently enrolled in colleges and universities throughout the United States. Shouldn’t Cornellians instead be shouting, “We are the 0.4%, but we appreciate the 99% as best we can?” It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Of course, I would be unwise to ignore that there are social inequalities — poor home life, under-funded public schools, etc. — that prevent many students from even entertaining the idea of attending an Ivy League school like Cornell.
But there is something to be said for the fact that when you compare yourselves to the people in your life who were afforded many of the same opportunities that you were, there is some reason why you were chosen to come to Cornell and some of them were not.
An idealist might say this is not a fair assessment, but we must keep in mind that the caliber of education we value so highly at Cornell comes with the stipulation that not every applicant can be accepted. At Cornell, that number is capped at around an 18 percent admissions rate. With 36,392 applications in 2011, that leaves over 30,000 applications rejected.
“I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study” comes with the unspoken caveat that while any person should have the opportunity to enter this university, not every person can. By virtue of being at Cornell, you’re an elite member of the educational hierarchy.
I would hope that all of you agree with me when I say that every child born in America should have not only the opportunity, but also the ability to receive a college education. But this sincere hope should not preclude us from the reality that, by virtue of being Cornell students, we are still the 0.4 percent, whether we like it or not.
Cristina Stiller is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She may be reached at email@example.com. Believe You Me appears alternate Mondays this semester.
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Originally Posted by rapidweb
I used to work in the past with Microsoft Front Page, NetObjects, Dreamweaver, and more. That was in the old days were PHP was not known and most pages were HTML static pages. CMS was a term just starting to come out.
Have you done any object-oriented programming? Theme frameworks are similar. There is a parent theme which is extended by the child theme. The parent theme has common methods and properties that can be used by any child theme. The child theme has methods and properties specific to only that child theme. To override the parent theme, you make changes to the child theme.
Animal (parent class)
- Bear (child class) extends Animal (parent)
- Wolf (child class) extends Animal (parent)
- Cat (child class) extends Animal (parent)
- - Tiger (grandchild class) extends Cat
Hope this helps.
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As I have noted, when the Congregation for Divine Worship allowed females to serve the altar, it cited two important problems with it: it is bad for vocations, and it is contrary to the Church's Tradition. To put it another way, having altar girls is bad for sociological reasons, and bad for theological reasons. I've dealt with the sociological issue, the way girls serving the altar undermines vocations to the priesthood, in the last post. The more fundamental issue, which is not totally separate, is what is wrong with it theologically: why the Tradition of the Church is against it. It has never - not even today - been officially recommended or encouraged; up until 1992 it was forbidden. Are there good theological reasons for this?
Servers processing out with the celebrant, Fr John Saward, at SS Gregory & Augustine in Oxford, past the liturgical schola.
The theological problem with girl servers is related to the impossibility of female ordination. In a nutshell, if women can't be ordained, it is innappropriate for them to assist at the altar in the quasi-clerical role of servers. If there are good reasons, as opposed to mere historical contingency, why women can't be ordained, then it would be natural for these reasons to count against female service at the altar.
It is always pointed out in the discussion of female ordination that Christ chose only men to be apostles and, therefore, as priests. Bl Pope John Paul II makes the point with great emphasis that this was a 'sovereign decision', not the result of social convention. To suggest that in a decision like this Our Lord was the slave of social convention is historically absurd (look at his other actions and words), and if true would undermine the whole gospel: if we can reject this decision on these grounds, then what would be left? Nevertheless, it is natural to ask why Our Lord made this decision, and John Paul answers by giving us a theological disourse on the nature and role of the feminine in the economy of salvation. He does this is Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity of Women, 1988), and refers back to this in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994) when he makes explicit the constant (and for that reason infallible) teaching of the Church that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. In short, it is because men and women have different characters and different roles in salvation history and the Church, as ordained by God, that God has established the reality that Holy Orders cannot be given to women.
At the bottom of it there is a connection between Christ's role as Priest and Victim and his masculinity. It would in fact be odd if there were not, since the priestly role, and the sacrifice of self for the community, is conformable with with the male role in human society, which I discussed in the last post. The priest as alter Christus must be a man because he is taking on this role himself. The clergy round the altar, and the altar servers, are also participating in this role, and it for that reason fitting that they be men also.
Boy scouts queing up to assist with the distribution of communion at the Chatres Pilgrimage 2010.
It really does not take a long chain of reasoning to see the application of the teaching about the all-male priesthood to girl servers. It is not possible to ordain women because it is not appropriate to their nature: saying Mass it is not part of their role in the Church. If it is totally impossible for women to say Mass, it is not appropriate for women and girls to assist the priest in the role of server. The server plays the part of a cleric: the laity serve when a cleric is not available. It is a quasi-clerical role, and it is not right that women play a clerical role.
Theology is not mathematics: theological argument does not advance by deductive syllogisms. What we have here is a case of something being, as the Scholastics constantly said, 'inconveniens': inconvient, inappropriate, unfitting. It is simply unfitting for girls to serve, because it runs contrary to the female role. In the same way it would have been unfitting for Our Lord to have been born of a woman not a virgin, for Our Lady's body to have been left in the tomb, and so on. To say that it runs against the symbolic and indeed ontological grain of the economy of salvation and the roles assigned to the sexes by the Creator is enough. It should not be done.
Servers about to process out at Mass at the St Catherine's Trust Summer School 2010.
But don't take my word for it; listen to this brilliant talk by Fr Brian Harrison (MP3), which he gave in the wake of the decision to allow female servers in 1992. His practical points at the end have been overtaken by events, but his theological analysis is acute. As he points out, it is perfectly clear that there is a connection between the desire to have altar girls and the desire to have women priests, nor are the most serious proponents of altar girls blind to this connection. If girls can have the quasi-clerical role of altar servers, this serves to undermine the teaching of the Church that women cannot be ordained.
Bl John Paul II's teaching on the different roles of men and women in the economy of salvation is equally true when Mass is said according to the Ordinary Form or the Extraordinary Form. The significance of this issue for the EF specifically is that the EF is the 'Traditional Mass': the Mass said, as Summorum Pontificum describes it, according to the Church's 'former liturgical traditions'. This is the Mass in which we adhere to the traditions which were current for the whole Church until a very short time ago. These are good traditions, and it is good for the Church that they be preserved. If they are lost in some contexts, it is especially good that they be preserved in others. The very document allowing girls to serve described male altar service as a 'noble tradition', and it is precisely for the preservation of traditions such as these that the 1962 Missal has been presevered - and preserved in its integrity.
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The Clinical Trials Network of Texas received a $25 million grant from the state in 2010, though it had only received about $7 million in taxpayer dollars before running out of money last month. State officials began halting payments after auditors raised questions that included how the network even won funding in the first place.
The clinical trial network, or CTNeT, obtained the largest grant ever awarded by the embattled Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, which now adds this failure to a litany of woes. Those include an ongoing criminal investigation, mass resignations and rebuke from lawmakers and scientists over controversial awards and accusations of political meddling.
A scathing report of the institute released by state auditors this week revealed that Patricia Winger, the chief operations officer of CTNeT, was paid $160,000 in bonuses on top of her base salary. CTNeT also spent more than $116,000 for interior decorations and furniture, which auditors said are expenses "unallowable or questionable" for a research grant under state agency rules.
Dr. Charles Geyer, chief medical officer of CTNetT, told The Associated Press the nonprofit needed to set up offices for its 36 employees.
Attempts to reach Winger through CTNeT and others affiliated with the network were not immediately successful Tuesday.
"I understand the appearance. But I know Ms. Winger, and she did a lot," Geyer said. "She worked basically for three months before she got her first paycheck. ...She made a lot of sacrifices because she was committed to this."
Geyer said he did not know Winger's salary. Thirty employees with CTNet have been laid off, and Geyer said the remaining six are working at minimum wage to finish winding down the initiative.
Geyer said the trial network is folding just as progress was finally being made. Just a week ago, Geyer said, the network was on the verge of enrolling patients in its first clinical trial.
"The real irony is that we were really on the cusp of launching the thing in a very serious way," Geyer said.
Bill Gimson, the former executive director of cancer institute who resigned last month as problems with the state agency mounted, said in an email to the AP that the intent of the network was to provide more opportunities for Texas cancer patients to enroll in clinical trials. Only 3 percent of Texans with cancer are in clinical trials, Gimson said.
"CTNeT was created for Texas to help cancer patients in the State access a higher level of care," GImson said. "It is groundbreaking, imaginative and revolutionary and does not fit the mold of, nor can be judged as, a typical state-funded effort."
The cancer institute was a darling of the scientific community and some of the nation's biggest advocacy groups, including the American Cancer Society, after launching in 2009 as an unprecedented cancer-fighting effort on the state level. The agency oversees the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, next to only the federal National Institutes of Health.
That money is now frozen, with the institute under a moratorium until confidence in the agency is restored. Prior to CTNeT shutting down, most troublesome to the state agency was awarding $11 million to a private biotech firm in Dallas despite never reviewing the company's proposal.
That led to public corruption officers in Travis County and the Texas attorney general's office launched separate investigations. No one has been accused of wrongdoing.
Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pauljweber
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We have exciting news for moms! KRAFT has unveiled a new line of 2% Singles which are now made with no added growth hormones
The new 2% Singles has the same great taste and melt as traditional Singles, but the milk comes from cows untreated with the growth hormone rbST. While there is no significant difference between milk from rbST-treated and untreated cows, KRAFT knows that this is an important issue to many moms, who want to give their children the most wholesome food available. In fact, more than 70% of moms serve reduced-fat or fat-free milk. But only one third do the same with cheese.
KRAFT sent us everything we would need to make our grilled cheese sandwiches this week, giving us the oportunity to sample their new cheese. We all agreed, it tasted just as good as the last version, but it is good to know that KRAFT is aware that moms are looking for products without growth hormones.
Want to make a perfect grilled cheese in your house? Here is my favorite recipe for making grilled cheese really fast for a big group.
Amy’s Favorite Grilled Cheese Sandwich
12 slices bread
12 slices American Cheese (like Kraft)
8 tablespoons butter or margarine
Butter each side of the bread slices with 1 t butter or margarine, and place on a baking sheet.Place cheese on each slice of bread. Top with remaining bread.Bake in preheated oven for 6 to 8 minutes at 450. Flip the sandwiches, and bake an additional 6 to 8 minutes, or until golden brown.
Website for More Details: KRAFT Foods
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The use of a placebo arm remains a highly controversial issue from an ethical point of view and has been addressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. It states that the patients in a study should "be assured of the best proven diagnostic and therapeutic method," even in the control group (2). This clearly implies that a placebo should not be used as a control when superior existing treatment is available. It can be argued that existing studies of combination therapy in acute mania, several published treatment guidelines, and the widespread accepted use of combination treatment among our colleagues support the opinion that a mood stabilizer with an antipsychotic is the best treatment available to date. We, therefore, suggest that it might have been more relevant to omit the placebo group and compare the efficacy of a mood stabilizer in combination with a variety of different antipsychotics. After all, as Hill pointed out in 1963 (3), the key point is how a new treatment compares with existing treatment rather than whether it is better than nothing.
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Thursday morning opened on a very emotional and positive note. Sponsored by Eli Lilly & Company, the Keynote Breakfast and Richard Rubin Keynote Address were attended by nearly all conference participants. Jeff Hitchcock was the first keynote speaker, and he talked about his family's journey with type 1. Marissa, diagnosed at age 2, recently married Adam Town, a familiar face at CWD conferences (Marissa and Adam are both BSN/RNs). Jeff shared photos of Marissa and Adam, ending with photos from their wedding, and noting that "We live life for that smile."
Tom Karlya aka Diabetes Dad was the second keynote speaker, and he very movingly shared his family's story, CWD's FFL story, and his own message of "Don't Do Nothing."
Thursday sessions continued with a wide variety of topics on both a beginners and more advanced level. One room was devoted specifically to science. Sessions included the DRI Research Update (Mitra Zehtab) and the Artificial Pancreas Project (Ed Damiano and Eda Cengiz).
Other sessions focused on the psychosocial aspects of type 1 diabetes. These sessions included It's Not Just a Numbers Game (Joe Solowiejczyk), Overcoming Diabetes Overwhelmus (Richard Rubin), and Learning to Let Go (Moira McCarthy).
There were plenty of "how-to" sessions, ranging from Making Sense of Sensor Data (Gary Scheiner) to DiabEATes and Carbs (Jen Block), and Diabetes and Exercise Management (Rick Philbin). Dr. Alessio Fasano, one of the world's leading experts on Celiac Disease, presented a session called Celiac Update followed by a discussion group where participants were encouraged to ask questions and problem-solve together.
For the college age crowd, Natalie Bellini and Marissa Town facilitated a discussion called College and Diabetes. Chuck Wiedmeyer led additional discussion in his session called So – You Used To Be a CWD Teen. And John Griffin presented information on Navigating the Health Care Maze.
Adults with type 1 had their own track this year, and Friday sessions included It's More Than Just Diabetes (Steve Edelman), and Pregnancy and Momhood (Kerri Sparling and Kelly Close). And the Grandparents/Caregivers sessions featured Grandparents Guidelines and the Common Fears Discussion (Richard Rubin).
The kids had an absolutely fabulous time on Thursday. This year, once again there were so many elementary aged children that they were divided into two age groups, 6/7 year olds, and 8/9 year olds. Lauren Lanning and Michelle Rago were at the helm of the Elementary program, supported by over 20 parent and young adult staff who spent all day Thursday and Friday with the children. These staff included Sierra Abel, Sunshine Abel, Noor Al Ramahi, Lorraine Anderson, Kristen Della Sala, Ralph Della Sala, Katie Doyle, Maryam Elarbi, Lynet Fox, Kim Kaar, Kaitlyn Karlya, Monica Lanning, Sarah Loebner, Carolyn Meredith, Chelsea Meredith, Jesse Nagel, Chris Opdenaker, Kara Podjasek, Caroline Smits, Wendy Smits, Georgia Spiropoulos, Ashley Troisi, Jenny Vandevelde, Cindy Webb, and Kevin Woodward.
The Tween (ages 10-12) day was also jam-packed with fun activities led by Tween Coordinators Justin Abel, Adam Town, Carolyn Billetdeaux, and Kelsey Martin. The kids were in age groups for the morning ice-breakers, with 10s, 11s, 12s each having their own group leaders. In the afternoon, the tweens visited Sports Central and also had their own opportunity to meet in small groups with some of the conference VIPs. Many thanks to Sarah Melendez, Adam Town, and Kenny Rodenheiser who helped check bgs, reassured kids and parents, headed off lows, and made the Tween Experience better in general! The tween staff also included Martyn Carr, Amanda Ferraro, Don Plotts, Melissa Pawlowski, Robert Schmidt, Donna Cope, and Lynn Smits. Great work and many thanks!
Teens had a very busy day on Thursday as well, led by Teen Program Coordinators Natalie Bellini, Jim Vail, and Marissa Town, and a group of seasoned teen staff, including Neil Benchell, Sam Billetdeaux, Galen Horton, Ben Loebner, Jose Lopez, Stacey and Scott Nagel, Adriana and Ken Rodenheiser, Chuck Wiedmeyer, and Chris Tull. Because there were so many teenagers participating this year, they were separated into Younger Teens (ages 13-14) and Older Teens (ages 15-17). This was particularly helpful in the discussion groups and breakout sessions. Teens had sessions about Dealing with Stress, Transitioning to College, Transitioning to High School, and they also learned about Research Updates. They additionally spent time in Girl Talk, Boy Talk, and Sibs Talk discussions. Phil Southerland, Founder of Team Type 1, spent time with the teens, as did many of the athletes in the Sports Central area.
The younger crowd – under 6 – had a wonderful time in childcare this year! A big thank you to Animas Corporation for again sponsoring childcare (this is the 11th year!). There were 4 childcare rooms this year: a K room for 5 year olds, a PreK room for 3's. a PreK room for 4's, and an 'under 3' room for the littlest conference participants. This went extremely well, and the kids were quite happy with their age-appropriate activities (and nap time!). Snacks were provided to the children right by childcare which saved a lot of time with check-in/check-outs. Mary Babin once again coordinated childcare although at the last minute she was not able to join us on site – many thanks to Mary and her clinical staff who provided CDE support in all of the rooms. Also many thanks to the room leaders and staff: Intissar ben Halim, Marisa Fox, Grace Grande-Cassell, Devin Jackson, Pam Loebner, Kara Martin, Midge McBryant, Lisa Pitt, Helen Rodio, Brandy Schmidt, and Sasha Ullman. Kudos to all of the childcare staff for a job well done!
On Thursday evening, the annual CWD Family and Friends Banquet was held with the theme "CWD Beach Party!" and with Tom Karlya presiding over the celebration! Before dinner even started, there was dancing on the light-up dance floor to lots of old beach favorites! Sponsor Novo Nordisk once again outdid themselves with the themed decorations which included lighted palm trees at every table and lots of fun beach toys. Kudos to Stacey Nagel and her team of about 30 volunteers who transformed the Palms Ballroom in record time (under an hour!).
The 2012 Jeff Hitchcock Distinguished Service Award was presented to Dr. Bruce Buckingham for his decades of caring for kids with type 1 diabetes, as well as his continuing research which helps our families lead better and healthier lives.
The 2012 CWD Friend for Life award was presented to Harold Sanco for his decade of teaching the importance of fitness – and making it fun! – to our CWD families.
The 2012 Unexpected Hero Award was presented to the team of teenagers – now young adults – who reached out to a young teen from Australia in 2007 and brought his family into the welcoming arms of Friends for Life. These young people included Kara Podjasek, Jesse Nagel, Maryam Elarbi, Jocelyn Budd, Kenny Rodenheiser, and CWD Dad Nabil Elarbi.
As she does each year, Laura Billetdeaux shared a personal and emotional perspective of CWD via slide show and music. This year's slide show celebrated our CWD kids who are now 'all grown up!' – and moving forward to accomplish their dreams. Laura also somewhat honored Jeff Hitchcock with her presentation of "I'm a Jeff-Head" shirts to the Diabetes Scholars Foundation.
The highlight of the Family and Friends Banquet was the performance by Crystal Bowersox, sponsored by OneTouch. Crystal invited the children to come sit on the dance floor in front of her, and then she sang a half hour set, finishing with questions and answers – and beach ball signing! – in the ballroom. She is definitely a well-loved favorite of our CWD families! Many thanks to OneTouch for bringing her to this year's event! And – additional thanks to Crystal for joining the tween and elementary groups on Friday morning during their sessions. That was a real treat.
The final event of the evening – before the Beach Party officially started – was to have a bit of fun with our sponsors. First, DJ Miles invited Adam and Marissa Town to come on the dance floor and recreate their first dance at their wedding. As they danced to Quando Quando, some of the younger children joined them on the dance floor. Then DJ Miles invited the sponsors to come onto the dance floor as well, and he played a rocking beach set complete with all of the oldie dance steps so many of us remember. Great energy and great fun!
A special word of thanks goes to all of our conference sponsors. We could not do this without you. You all have helped Friends for Life get off the ground and become the very special gathering that it is today, thirteen years after our very first event. This year's sponsors include Novo Nordisk, LifeScan, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly & Company, Abbott Diabetes Care, Animas Corporation, Insulet Corporation, Tandem Diabetes Care, Medtronic Diabetes, the Diabetes Research Institute and Foundation, and JDRF. Quite simply: thank you.
Tom Karlya -- "Diabetes Dad" -- presented the Richard Rubin Keynote Address
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Moira McCarthy helped parents in Learning to Let Go
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A quick bolus and we're on our way
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Siblings are part of FFL -- like Julia, who gave blood for TrialNet (thanks Julia!)
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Dr. Bruce Buckingham receives his award, aided by Jen Block, her son, and Jeff Hitchcock
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It really was a beach party -- with lots of dancing!
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[ Report Intro | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Sponsors
Comments | Photos | Photos on SmugMug | Other Write Ups | Presentations | Event Announcement ]
Last Updated: Sunday July 15, 2012 16:16:25
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other health care professional.
This site is published by Children With Diabetes, Inc, which is responsible for its contents.
© Children with Diabetes, Inc. 1995-2013. Comments and Feedback.
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Re-Licensing Jorum's Resources to be Fully Open 29th June 2011
Jorum is moving forward with a focus on Open Educational Resources (OERs). From the 1st of August 2011, Jorum, JISC's national learning and teaching repository service, will be providing access to content available under Creative Commons (CC) licences only. We plan for content, which had either been made previously available under an Institutional licence (which expires 31 July 2011), or an Education UK licence, which restricts access only to those in the UK, to become available, in time, under CC licences following a process of re-licensing. Jorum has supported different licensing regimes over time, in response to different approaches to sharing, and as IPR awareness and the willingness to share have evolved, Jorum again has adapted . We have now chosen to simplify Jorum to help make its offering to the educational community clearer and to respond to the need to operate in a leaner financial climate. Focusing on open educational content indicates the start of Jorum's future vision. In the coming months, we will be building on this simplified approach to improve the user experience of Jorum, above all in continuing to build and develop the service as a trusted place where the UK OER community can share their resources, as well as find other openly-licensed content. If you do have requirements for us to host content under a more restrictive licence, we would be pleased to hear from you so that we can consider these possibilities as we take Jorum forward.
Please contact email@example.com for more information.
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And there is none that calls on your name, that stirs up himself to take hold of you: for you have hid your face from us, and have consumed us, because of our iniquities.
Treasury of Scripture
Isaiah 50:2 Why, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem?...
Isaiah 59:16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation to him...
Psalm 14:4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not on the LORD.
Ezekiel 22:30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land...
Hosea 7:7,14 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calls to me...
Isaiah 27:5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.
Isaiah 56:4 For thus said the LORD to the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;
Isaiah 57:17 For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth...
Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
Deuteronomy 31:17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them...
Deuteronomy 32:19-25 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters...
Hosea 5:15 I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
consumed. Heb. melted
Jeremiah 9:7 Therefore thus said the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?
Ezekiel 22:18-22 Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the middle of the furnace...
Ezekiel 24:11 Then set it empty on the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn...
because. Heb. by the hand
Job 8:4 If your children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression;
ContextPrayer for Illustration of God's Power
1Oh that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might flow down at your presence, 2As when the melting fire burns, the fire causes the waters to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at your presence! 3When you did terrible things which we looked not for, you came down, the mountains flowed down at your presence. 4For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither has the eye seen, O God, beside you, what he has prepared for him that waits for him. 5You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those that remember you in your ways: behold, you are wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved. 6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7And there is none that calls on your name, that stirs up himself to take hold of you: for you have hid your face from us, and have consumed us, because of our iniquities. 8But now, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we all are the work of your hand. 9Be not wroth very sore, O LORD, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech you, we are all your people. 10Your holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste. 12Will you refrain yourself for these things, O LORD? will you hold your peace, and afflict us very sore?
Parallel VersesAmerican Standard Version
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee; for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us by means of our iniquities.
There is none that calleth upon thy name: that riseth up, and taketh hold of thee: thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us in the hand of our iniquity.
Darby Bible Translation
and there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee; for thou hast hidden thy face from us, and hast caused us to melt away through our iniquities.
King James Bible
And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.
Young's Literal Translation
And there is none calling in Thy name, Stirring up himself to lay hold on Thee, For Thou hast hid Thy face from us, And thou meltest us away by our iniquities.
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Facebook has been quickly gaining on MySpace as the top social networking website. However, MySpace has better luck capitalizing on site traffic while Facebook has struggled to make money through advertising. As a way to reverse their fortunes, Facebook plans to start selling users’ personal information to market researchers.
With this new advertising venture, advertisers will be able to pose questions to a set of specially selected Facebook members. The member may be subject to very personal questions, like marital status and sexual preferences. The benefit to advertisers is that they will be able to build focus groups very quickly without the need to conduct traditional surveys. The polling system was debuted to business owners at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Although advertisers may reap the benefits from this program, Facebook users may get turned off by this intrusion of privacy. The momentum that they have gained on MySpace may be lost as their information is sold for profit.
Read: [The Sydney Morning Herald]
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Subject to sections 123 and 123.1, an employee who believes that one of his rights under this Act or a regulation has been violated may file a complaint in writing with the Commission. Such a complaint may also be filed on behalf of an employee who consents thereto in writing by a non-profit organization dedicated to the defence of employees' rights.
If an employee is subject to a collective agreement or a decree, the complainant must then prove to the Commission that he has exhausted his recourses arising out of that agreement or that decree, unless the complaint concerns a condition of employment prohibited by section 87.1; in the latter case, the complainant must prove to the Commission that he has not exercised such recourses or that, having exercised them, he discontinued proceedings before a final decision was rendered.
1979, c. 45, s. 102; 1982, c. 12, s. 4; 1990, c. 73, s. 45; 1999, c. 85, s. 3.
An employee may file, in writing, a complaint with the Commission. A non-profit organization dedicated to the defence of employees’ rights (such as a union) may also file, in writing, a complaint with the Commission des normes du travail on behalf of the employee who consents thereto in writing.
If an employee is subject to a collective agreement or a decree, he must then show that he has exhausted the recourses arising out of that agreement or decree, namely that a final decision concerning this recourse was rendered. This final decision or decision not subject to appeal is one that is described as such in the Act.
The Court of Appeal in the case of the Campeau Corporation issued three conditions for the requirement of the prior exhaustion of recourses:
If one of these three conditions is absent, the employee does not have to exhaust these recourses, as either the recourse does not exist or he cannot assert rights that are not stipulated in the collective agreement.
The Court of Appeal stipulated in the case of Côté v. Savana that the civil courts declare that they are not competent to hear disputes which, in their substance, are work-related and for which the arbitration procedure was or could have been used.
Moreover, the provision of the collective agreement must deal directly with a standard referred to in the Act respecting labour standards and, by way of a grievance, give rise to the appropriate recourse. For example, the notice of termination of employment stipulated in the Act respecting labour standards could not be exchanged or compensated by another benefit conferred by a collective agreement, such as seniority, right to recall or severance pay.
Hence, the employee is under the obligation to exhaust his recourses (grievance) when the collective agreement contains provisions that are equivalent to or more advantageous than those of the Act.
Moreover, if a collective agreement contains a clause, the effect of which is to replace a provision of the agreement that runs counter to a law by the text of the Act, the appropriate recourse would be a grievance. The same is true when the agreement is amended by a referral to the Act respecting labour standards (Commission des normes du travail v. Les Chantiers Davie ltée).
When section 87.1 ALS (differences in treatment) is alleged in support of a complaint, the employee does not have to exhaust the recourses ensuing from his collective agreement or his decree. Instead, he must show the Commission that he has not used these recourses or if he did use them, that he withdrew before a final decision was rendered.
The provisions of section 102 can only be given application within the context of a claim of a pecuniary nature. This provision would have no impact on a complaint filed according to the provisions related to prohibited practices (s. 123 and 123.1 ALS). An employee who wishes to complain about such a practice can and must complain to the Commission, notwithstanding any other remedial procedure.
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08-26-2012 12:27 PM
As it has been suggested, you need to check if you have an SSN or an ITIN – if you have the latter, I don't know if you can get a CC in the US.
If you do have an SSN, then applying for a (secured) CC at your local bank branch (and getting approved) is probably the best way to get your data sent to the CRAs.
It could be that doing the application face-to-face at your bank may help it bypass some preliminary checks – something which would not be possible with an online application. Once your card is approved, you will be able to start your credit history. Make sure to mention to your bank that this is your first-ever CC, because it may help them understand why they will not be able to pull your reports. You will probably have to bring your SS card and other supporting documentation for your application too.
This is to the best of my understanding. Anybody please chime in if I got something wrong.
08-26-2012 12:28 PM
You may find this thread relevant too: Equifax doesn't have my SSN on file?
05-16-2013 12:57 AM
The problem is not with the databases, but with SSN Randomization. Even before they go to the databases, they run a small program called SSN_validator, which checks that first three digits of your SSN are valid. In June 2011, Social Security changed the algorithm. For example, SSNs starting with 734 to 749 were invalid before June 2011, but are valid now. Unfortunately, nobody bothers to update the SSN_validator, because it only affects immigrants and 2-year old Americans. Be patient, wait a few years, eventually it will be fixed.
myFICO is the consumer division of FICO. Since its introduction 20 years ago, the FICO® Score has become a global standard for measuring credit risk in the banking, mortgage, credit card, auto and retail industries. 90 of the top 100 largest U.S. financial institutions use the FICO Score to make consumer credit decisions.>> About myFICO
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Archive for the ‘Vexta’ Tag
I’m in Sydney, visiting Outpost: Art From the Streets, a street art festival being held on Cockatoo Island (I’ll be participating in a forum on The Politics of Street Art, along with Tom Civil, Mini Graff, and fellow academic Kurt Iveson, who writes the blog Cities and Citizenship).
Outpost, if you can believe the advertising, is the largest festival of street art to date in the southern hemisphere. It’s located on Cockatoo Island, in Sydney Harbour, and certainly this setting is one of the factors that make it a compelling experience. The island is the largest in Sydney’s gorgeous harbour, and has been a prison, a school, a jail, and a shipyard – its most recent incarnation prior to being abandoned as a kind of monument to a bygone age, with empty warehouses, rusting equipment and gigantic cranes dotted about. You can read about the island’s past and recent uses here.
It’s a clever choice as a location for a street art festival. The warehouses, factories, and alleyways provide an urban backdrop for the display of street artworks; street artists have often been drawn to abandoned buildings as sites in which to make art, although the resulting artworks are not easily viewed by members of the public. And in Australia, such locations have a specific history in the world of street art: during the early 2000s in Melbourne, the famous ‘Empty’ shows would take over abandoned or derelict buildings for the creation and temporary display of art.
Although Outpost draws on this rich history, it is, of course, is a world away from it in that it has corporate sponsorship, a merchandising outlet (for souvenir T shirts and caps), a couple of laid-back bars selling pizza and beer, and a well-organised staff who assist visitors in getting their bearings on the island, handing out maps and answering questions about the artists, and who oversee the queues waiting for ferries back to Circular Quay. To that extent, Outpost is definitely a product of a certain ‘mainstreaming’ of street art – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; but visitors should go to see it aware that what’s been created is a somewhat sanitised and domesticated version of what street art can be.
Having said that, Outpost still makes for an extremely interesting and exciting event, and I would say if you can get to Sydney during November, or if you already live here, it’s a must-see.
So what’s there to be seen? Well dozens of artworks and installations, for one thing, many using the buildings and the geography of the island in really satisfying and innovative ways: Vexta’s enormous winged figure; Roa’s monochrome animals; the Everfresh piece mocking anti-graffiti laws; Lister’s giant inflatables painted with his now-signature faces and super-heroes; some cuprocking high above the bluff rising from the centre of the island; artworks lining a long tunnel through the bluff (evoking the tunnels and drains that so many artists have painted over the years, whether that be Melbourne’s Cave Clan or the artists in the Underbelly project in New York City).
Have a look:
One disappointing thing I was struck by is that many artists have been given hoardings to paint on, which are then displayed around the island. There’s a lot of uniformity to the size of these hoardings and in the way they are displayed, and I found myself wishing that there had been a tad more ingenuity in thinking through the question of how artists could display their abilities.
What else? Inside some of the buildings are various exhibits. One displays works from two private collections of street art, which means that you can see examples of work on canvas or print editions by Faile, Adam Neate, Antony Micallef, Swoon, Dolk, Lucy MacClauchlan and, of course, Banksy. There are over two dozen works by Banksy on display, and there’s an undeniable pleasure in seeing them, even though – or perhaps because – they are so well-known….
Other exhibit areas include Pastemodernism 3, a vast collection of examples of paste-ups, curated by Ben Frost:
It’s also nice to see a number of artists being given a lot of space in which to display their (very different work). Junky Projects, for example, has created some very large found-object sculpture:
And there’s a wonderful work by Tom Civil, ‘Let the Lightning Flash and the Thunder Roll’ showcasing his distinctive combination of political sensibility, political engagement, calligraphy, and composition:
But for me, the highlight of a day which had many pleasures was the piece by Kid Zoom. Inside one of the massive abandoned buildings on the island can be found ‘Home’, a work with several components, the most obvious of which is the large model of the house in which Kid Zoom grew up:
If you enter the building at the back, as I did, then you can immediately see that the rear of the house is open. Inside a video plays on a loop, displaying another element of the work, described as ‘the destruction of three Holden Commodores’. On a screen, we see a figure, in slow motion, approach three cars, all parked in a line, and meticulously lay waste to them in various ways: one is set spectacularly on fire; a mallet is used to smash their windscreens, side mirrors are kicked off. (Some of it reminded me of Shaun Gladwell’s amazing works ‘Storm Sequence’ and Stereo Sequences.) A soundtrack accompanies the film, combining industrial noise with slow repeated musical notes. The effect is mesmerising, overwhelming: when the film ended, several audience members who had been watching audibly exhaled…
And then, when the film ended, I walked around to the front of the house to discover that the three Holden cars are parked outside it, end-to-end, just as they appear in the film:
And then you realise that the film was made inside that same building, which brings the violence just watched on the screen into the building itself, and puts you in the position of being a witness to that destruction twice over: once on the screen, and then again as you stand next to the burned out shells of the cars.
It’s an incredibly powerful work, and it utilises the space brilliantly, both in its making and in its display. If there was nothing but Kid Zoom’s ‘Home’ on display at Outpost, it would be worth making the trip to Cockatoo Island for it alone; as it is, it’s the high point of an exhibition that, for good and ill, showcases many of the defining characteristics of the street art world today: its collectability; its proximity to advertising; its proximity to ‘vandalism’; its political nature; its too-often repeated visual tropes but also its sheer, undeniable aesthetic joys.
This is the first of two posts about the opening of the exhibition, Space Invaders, at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.
I’ve just returned from two days there, enjoying the opening festivities.
On Friday night there was a preview of the show prior to its October 30th opening, with a party in the museum’s Gandel Hall and forecourt. I’m told that hundreds of people bought tickets to come to the party (hopefully they also went to see the exhibition). Works from the show were projected on to the museum walls; here’s a selection of some of my favourites:
Meanwhile, upstairs in the Project Gallery, was the exhibition: a number of rooms containing a selection of the National Gallery of Australia’s large collection of street art (it has purchased over 350 works). The works are displayed with imagination and intelligence, organised according to themes such as ‘Neo-Pop’, ‘Connecting Crews’, ‘Politics and the Press’ and ‘The Return of the Hand’. There’s a display of zines (some of which you are able to read, as well as examine others in glass cases), and surfaces for stickering, with many of the visiting artists taking the opportunity to add their stickers to the display.
The works are displayed in a manner which evokes the street, clustering images together and dispersing others more randomly, with some exhibited high up on the wall and others placed at ground level. The evocation of the street isn’t tackily done, thankfully: it would have been easy for the museum to have strained after some embarassing sense of street credibility, but instead it has retained the look and feel of a gallery space at the same time as showing awareness of how the works would originally have been displayed on the streets.
Other events included artist signings for the show catalogue, the Everfresh Blackbook, and Street/ Studio, plus an artists’ talk, with the curator of the exhibition Jaklyn Babington putting questions to Vexta and Neils Oeltjen about their work in the show and their careers on and off the street.
One of Vexta’s best-known works, Welcome to Australia, is featured in the exhibition:
She and the curator talked about how this work was originally a site-specific piece produced for a show several years ago in a warehouse space in Melbourne. The work was destroyed after the show, and has been recreated on paper as a result of the NGA exhibition. This prompted an interesting discussion about how the exhibition functions as a sneak preview of a time capsule: many of the NGA works were made in the heyday of the stencil art boom in Melbourne in 2003-2004, and purchased soon after; since these works have long since been buffed, painted over, gone over, or faded permanently from the streets, the NGA collection represents a significant archive of works that otherwise would exist only in coffee table books and as digital photographs.
The conversation with Niels Oeltjen brought other issues to the fore as well, such as the politics of street art and its role in ‘city-building’. Neils’s work (like that of some others in the show, such as Miso, Meggs, Ghostpatrol and Lister) also points towards some of the more contemporary directions in street art, using drawing, painting, paper cut-outs, and collages to create work for the streets. Neils was invited to create a work specifically for the exhibition, a glorious confection of colour and shape:
Outside, in the museum forecourt, Everfresh spent the day painting a wall, while a happy crowd of friends, fellow artists and interested visitors sat around on the museum grass and watched:
In order to acknowledge the importance of zine culture to street art, the museum had also given over its huge Gandel Hall to a zine fair for the whole of Saturday; plus, a short film made by artist Anthony Lister was also screening continuously at the entry to the gallery. The result was a nicely dispersed and variegated set of locations staged throughout the museum: the Project Gallery displaying the artworks, the Gandel Hall with its zine fair, the gift shop selling its catalogues, T shirts and books on street art, the Lister film on a continuous loop, and the outdoor live painting by Everfresh, meaning that visitors moved from inside to outside and back again, as if traversing from the outdoor spaces of the street into the more rarefied space of the gallery and back again…
To end this post, I’ll simply say that the show is well worth seeing. It’s on in Canberra until late February 2011, and will tour to other cities after that. And there’s a beautifully produced catalogue too (in the interests of complete disclosure, I should let you know that I wrote an essay for the catalogue – I was thrilled and honoured to be asked to do so). More about Space Invaders in a subsequent post…..
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Dive operators, dive guides and seasoned divers may soon have a new “toy” to play with – contributing details of diving hot spots around the world right down to the water conditions and maybe, just maybe to the species of corals and the residents living there.
Rumor has it that Google is brewing an exciting 3D ocean map with the help of marine experts and in selected areas, providing us with high-resolution pictures.
Google’s foray into the ocean comes as no surprise really – with the (Google) Earth and (Google) Sky already covered, it’s probably the next best extension of the project.
I’d say the guys behind Asia Dive Site would definitely have plenty to contribute. So would many, many other websites.
And for those who do not fancy descending 70 feet into the deep blue sea, it’s time to get ready to take a tour underwater – all dry.
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Wildfires rage on in California, destroying 20 homes so far within nearly 4 square miles in rural San Diego. Thirty-mile-an-hour winds have spread the fire across 2,400 acres of desert near the U.S.-Mexico border, forcing a total of 80 homes to be evacuated. Only one main died from the fire in San Diego. He’d refused to evacuate despite orders for everyone in the community to do so. “He felt that he was going to be OK if he stayed,” the local sheriff’s lieutenant said. The cause of these late-summer blazes is still being investigated.
POWERFUL BLAZE David McNew / Getty Images
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An AgResearch-developed wool dyeing technology that bridges the gap between high performance and haute couture is set to shine on a global stage thanks to a worldwide licensing deal.
The revolutionary textile dyeing process is now being commercialised by BGI Development. It enables wool to be dyed two colours at the same time, and graphics and images to be dyed into the fabric. There is no loss of the quality feel of the fabric and the images won’t deteriorate over time.
The technology enables designers to use high performance merino in creative ways never before possible, making merino an excellent choice for fashion active wear. . .
The Dairy Women’s Network will work with hundreds of dairying women across the country in April, helping them to increase the return on their investment on rural professional advice.
Dairy Women’s Network chief executive Sarah Speight said dairy farmers spend an average of $4,000 annually for advice from rural professionals (Reference, Ministry of Primary Industries, Farm Monitoring Report 2012 – Pastoral Monitoring: National Dairy) and the Network wants to help ensure this is money well spent.
“Dairying women and their partners want to get the best return possible on the money and time they are investing in rural professional advice. They want to see a demonstrable return on their operation’s bottom line – whether that’s in the short or long term – or it’s money down the drain. . .
Not for the first time, sheep and beef farmers have called for a single processing and marketing company representing 80% of the red meat industry.
At a meeting in Gore on Monday up to 1000 farmers from Southland and Otago, and as far away as HawkesBay voted overwhelmingly for a consolidated structure. The organisers now intend to promote the concept to other farmer groups throughout the country. But the industry has been down this route before without reaching a satisfactory conclusion. So what is different this time?
In 2006 a group of South Island famers formed the Meat Industry Restructuring Group which called for a merger of the two big cooperatives, Alliance and Silver Fern Farms or PPCS as it then was. In 2008 Alliance Group led an attempt to reach agreement with those companies that made up approximately 80% of the industry which was seen as the minimum level required to achieve critical mass. . .
As farmers across the country grapple with drought recovery plans and dry conditions, Ravensdown’s George Kerse Business Manager Agrochemicals is warning about the impact of insect pests on winter feed.
“As if the lack of moisture was not bad enough, the consistent extremely dry conditions mean insect pests are becoming a real issue for farmers.
The current dry conditions will have already reduced the amount of autumn-saved forage for winter feed, so specialist winter crops are becoming more important ensuring adequate feed for animals to prepare for next season. . .
Data released today by the Real Estate Institute of NZ (“REINZ”) shows there were 28 more farm sales (+8.0%) for the three months ended February 2013 than for the three months ended February 2012. Overall, there were 379 farm sales in the three months to end of February 2013, compared with 399 farm sales in the three months to January 2013, a decrease of 20 sales (-5.0%). 1,445 farms were sold in the year to February 2013, 11.6% more than were sold in the year to February 2012.
The median price per hectare for all farms sold in the three months to February 2013 was $21,951; a 1.43% increase on the $21,641 recorded for three months ended February 2012. The median price per hectare decreased by 8.5% compared to January. . .
Airborne Honey, New Zealand’s longest standing honey brand, is calling on New Zealanders to be sure that the honey they are buying is what it claims to be and of a sufficiently high standard. According to Airborne Honey data, a large amount of honey on the shelves is heat damaged and labelled inaccurately. This includes Clover and Manuka honeys coming in well under the pollen percentage recommended by published research and derived from applying the Codex international standard for honey.
“The horsemeat scandal in Europe is encouraging more people than ever before to make food choices based on traceability and assured quality. Unfortunately, many don’t realise that there can be such discrepancies when it comes to honey,” says Peter Bray, Managing Director of Airborne Honey. . .
Back in 1990 few people had personal computers, the internet was an unknown and the age of the mobile phones was just around the corner. In a very short space of time these three technologies have fundamentally changed the face of business around the world.
Many of today’s leading global companies, Google, Apple and Microsoft, built their business around these three technologies. The services they provided their customers had a dramatic effect on workers’ productivity and levelled the playing field for many small businesses.
The recent release of smartphones has also been a game changer for many. Businesses now take it for granted that emails can be checked, news read, documents signed or video streamed, all while on the morning commute to work. . .
Babich Wines has continued their run of impressive international accolades by winning the Trophy for ‘New Zealand Wine Producer of the Year 2013’ at the China Wine & Spirits Awards Best Value 2013 held in Hong Kong earlier this month.
The Babich Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2012 and Babich The Patriarch 2010 both won a Double Gold Medal. These medals, along with a Silver Medal for the Babich Black Label Sauvignon Blanc 2012 helped clinch the ‘New Zealand Wine Producer of the Year 2013’ trophy. . .
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After the unexpected death of his 26-year-old daughter Jessica last August, Dane Kostin found himself searching for a fitting memorial, a project that would benefit the community and provide an appropriate tribute to a daughter who loved cooking with fresh, seasonal vegetables. Thus was born Jessie's Community Gardens, a nonprofit trying to set up small-scale gardening operations at community facilities throughout the Hartford, Conn. area. This spring, the first garden will be dug on the grounds of the local Jewish federation. Another will be installed at
Kostin's synagogue, Beth El Temple in West Hartford. Kostin also has held discussions with the local Jewish nursing home, assisted living facilities and the two local Jewish day schools, all of which have expressed interest in participating.
As Israel becomes sophisticated gastronomically, consumers are favoring goat's and sheep's milk cheeses over cow's milk varieties. Unlike their bovine counterparts, most goats and sheep are free to roam and graze, antibiotics aren't usually a part of their diet, the cheese and milk contain less lactose and the taste is unmistakably distinct.
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In 1987 Prince released the double album Sign O’ The Times. It covered a wide range of musical and lyrical styles, and some music critics, historians and fans consider the album as one of Prince’s greatest releases. Sign O’ The Times is included on several “Best Album” lists, including the 2003 Rolling Stone Magazine’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and VH1’s 100 Greatest Albums. The album made it to number four on the U.S. Billboard R&B Album chart and number six on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, with the support of songs such as “U Got The Look,” “If I Was Your Girlfriend” and the title track, “Sign O’ The Times,” which topped the Billboard R&B chart and made it to number three on the pop chart. The album also contained hidden gems such as the jazzy tune “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” and the classic ballad “Adore. At the helm was Prince’s audio engineer Susan Rogers, currently an associate professor in the Department Of Music Production & Engineering at Boston’s esteemed Berklee College of Music. She recently took some time to talk with Daddy Rock Star about the recording of the Prince classic.
Daddy Rock Star: Before we get into Sign O’ The Times, tell me a little bit about your background, how you got into audio engineering and how you came to work for Prince.
Susan Rogers: I started in 1978 when there weren’t a lot of women engineers, and there still aren’t, but I wanted to be in the music business, I wanted to make records. I started as a maintenance technician to get my foot in the door. I was the person who repaired consoles and tape machines and I didn’t go to school but I was self taught in electronics. I bought the books and read them. So I began as a maintenance tech and my first job was as a trainee for a company called Audio Industries in Hollywood. After three years there I was a service tech for a company called MCI Console and Tape Machines. From there I went to work for Crosby, Stills and Nash at their studio in Hollywood as their studio maintenance tech. Prince hired me in 1983 because he needed a technician and it turns out that he didn’t really understand–and he didn’t need to understand–the distinction between a maintenance tech and a recording engineer. He figured if you knew the equipment you could use the equipment, which is a really safe assumption, so I became his engineer really out of convenience for him. It worked out great for me of course because that was my first big break. I was his engineer from 1983 until late 1987/early 1988 when I left; that was through Sign O’ The Times and The Black Album, so I started with Purple Rain and the last unofficial record would have been The Black Album. From 1988 until 2000 I was an independent engineer and producer, and after 2000 I left the music industry to earn my PhD in Cognitive Psychology. I specialize in Music Perception and Cognition. Now I’m at Berklee, where I’ve been since 2008, teaching engineering and production and the audio sciences.
DRS: A lot of music critics and Prince fans often call Sign O The Times “Princes greatest post-Purple Rain album.” How would you respond to that statement?
SR: Frankly I think all three–Around The World In A Day, Under The Cherry Moon, and Sign O’ The Times–are equivalent artistically…they’re all different. Sign O’ The Times represented the third record after Purple Rain. As an artist, the first record you ever make is just a point and anything after that is a direction, so follow up records build on what came before. But the interesting thing is when you have a massive hit record you get to start over. This is what artists do. So when you have a record that totally says you’ve arrived, after you arrive, you get to start a new journey. You can think of Purple Rain as being a singular point, the apex of where Prince was. So now that he’s shown the depth of what he can do, that he’s hugely talented and very creative, now he has to show the breadth of it and how far he can go stylistically. So he did Around The World In A Day, which was heavily influenced by rock music, and Under The Cherry Moon, which was very heavily influenced by pop music–a new kind of pop music. It was probably his least R&B/funk-oriented record. Other than Controversy, I think “Sign O’ The Times” was one of his most socially conscious records. Sign O’ The Times represented a departure for him lyrically; he was growing and trying new things lyrically. He had some new textures and new sounds there as well, but definitely the single “Sign O’ The Times” was social commentary, and it was a serious social commentary more so than, for example, “Ronnie Talk To Russia.” It was a serious attempt at social commentary and it was timely, so he was expressing “here’s where I’m going, everybody.”
DRS: When the album came out, I bought it and a group of friends came over and we all listened to it. One of the songs that sparked the most conversation was “If I Was Your Girlfriend.” I’ve heard that you were instrumental in the release of that song as a single, is that true?
SR: Prince asked me what I thought–and that’s not something that he normally did–but he was on the fence as to whether or not it should be a single. I think the record label was saying, “No, don’t do it,” but he wanted to so he asked me what I thought and I offered the opinion which tipped the scales. I told him, “I think you should do it. I’ve never heard a man sing from this perspective before and as a woman I enjoy hearing that. It’s a unique message, it makes you interesting, it’s intriguing. I would do it.” And I think it was a bad call. (laughing) I think ultimately looking back on it, it wasn’t a good choice as a single. It’s a brilliant song but I think with Sign O’ The Times Prince was aware–and he said this often, so I’m not reading into things–that his black audience was drifting away from him. After Around The World In A Day and Under The Cherry Moon, the music was less rooted in R&B and less rooted in funk and even pop styles that Sly Stone had familiarized us with, it had less of that, so Prince was making a conscious effort with Sign O’ The Times to win back some of his original audience. “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” musically and lyrically, may not have been the right choice for winning back that audience. It wouldn’t have been the right choice for winning back a rock and roll audience or pop audience, either. Where it would have been a good choice would have been for winning back the art fans, the music critics and scholars and the art lovers that could recognize that this is a new message. The risk takers musically would be the ones who would respond to that and I didn’t recognize that at the time.
DRS: I remember when that song first came out, that lyrically, the women I knew really dug it and understood where Prince was coming from, but initially, a lot of guys I knew didn’t get it.
SR: I could see where it might turn men off. I could see where they would say, “No guy talks like that,” but it’s what women want to hear. And a woman would look at a man saying that and say, “Yes, thank you for recognizing that I think differently from you and wouldn’t it be nice if just for brief periods of time we could be on the same page and you could be my friend and not my adversary and we could think the same way.” That’s what he’s trying to say. Kate Bush said it–Prince was a big fan of Kate Bush–and she said it in her song with that famous line “come on angel, come on darling, let’s exchange the experience.” It has multiple meanings but what she’s saying is “come on let me be you for a minute and you be me, let’s exchange this.”
DRS: That’s the song “Running Up That Hill” right?
SR: Right, he played that record to death! He loved that record.
DRS: I’ve also read that Prince’s vocal on that song was accidentally distorted during the recording, how did that happen?
SR: That was a blunder. He would record his vocals by himself in the control room. I would set him up and then I would leave him alone and he would work entirely by himself. It was the only way he could get the performance he needed; he needed that privacy. But I made a mistake and I’d inadvertently set the preamp 10db hotter than normal so it was distorted. When he was done he would call me back into the room and have me do a rough mix or set up for something else. So he left the room and I came back in and I’m doing a rough mix and I realize the entire vocal performance is distorted and I thought, ‘oh no, I bet he hasn’t listened back to this in the speakers. He’s probably just listening in the headphones…he’s gonna come back into this room and have me killed!’ (laughing) But he didn’t mind at all and of course he heard it–he’s as sharp as they come. There’s nothing that slips past him, but he heard it but he didn’t mind.
People have assumed that because these records were successful that we took the same degree and care with the technique as we did with the art and that’s completely false. I mean, technically, sonically these records aren’t great. Many, many, many others in which care was actually put into the technique and the craft sound better. Our records sounded alright, their form served the function, but what was great about it and what people were buying was not the sonic qualities. People were buying the art, the musical attributes. In that sense, Prince didn’t care; and any of those old records, if you listen to Sly Stone or James Brown, you’ll hear distortion all over the place but it doesn’t affect the music at all.
DRS: Speaking of recording techniques, when I listen to a lot of music these days, it seems really loud. It’s not just a matter of ‘things have progressed in technology,’ but it just seems like the music is just louder for the sake of being loud. Maybe it’s just another sign I’m getting older (laughing). Am I off base with that? As an engineer who’s been around for years, what do you think?
SR: I know what you’re saying. The technique these days involves hyper-compression where in mastering, and sometimes even before, you squash out all the dynamics. You level the dynamics such that there’s no change in loudness going from the verse to the chorus and the climaxes of the song don’t get any louder than the quiet parts of the song. The trend began in the ‘90s…it originated from radio broadcasters who wanted program levels to be uniformly loud. They didn’t want any quiet moments that might allow a listener to switch to a new station, so record makers started competing in the same way by flattening out the dynamics so that your record would be louder than the next guy’s…and it sounds great when you put your record on and it just comes in hotter than the next person’s. We know, at least here in the Western world, consumers prefer whichever audio source is louder. It can be a fraction of a DB hotter and the consumer will say “yeah, that one sounds better.” But what has happened, by reducing these dynamics we’re actually changing the emotional impact, (I’m arguing this anyway) of musical material because dynamics are what gives a song tension and release…it gives it a payoff. To take away the dynamics, you can listen longer because there’s nothing changing so you can listen for a longer period of time but you’ll probably be less emotionally engaged than you would have been otherwise. Dynamics contribute to emotion, but, that said, we are now writing and producing music such that you don’t need a lot of dynamics. It’s changing the way composers and producers are working. How we think of music nowadays we think of it as being kind of uni-dynamic.
DRS: Was there any particular recording experience that really stands out on the album?
SR: The song “Sign O’ The Times” and the song “The Cross.” “The Cross” was one of what I used to call “Sunday songs.” Some of his deepest, most introspective and most important songs I noticed were recorded on Sundays.
DRS: I like every song on the album. I think “Play In The Sunshine” was a cool song even though it wasn’t released as a single.
SR: That was one of those songs that we knocked off very quickly. Prince did what most people do. When he would conceive of an album there were core songs that were the heart and the skeleton of the album. “Purple Rain” was a core song on the album Purple Rain, and of course “Sign O’ The Times” was one of the fundamental songs for that album. So when we would sequence a record sometimes we’d take our core songs and a few other tracks and we would sequence them together just to hear how the album was going to sound. If there was something missing, if there needed to be a song that would transition between two of the core or the more important songs, Prince would actually write something specifically to serve in the sequence. So in that sense there were the most important songs and then there were the album cuts–the things that were almost interludes on the record. So the songs were never intended to be singles or even have any important message. That’s what “Play In The Sunshine” was; it was just a bridge to get us out of “Sign O’ The Times” and into the rest of the record. “Slow Love” was another one of those…that was an old one from the vault.
DRS: Was that the case with “It’s Gonna’ Be A Beautiful Night?”
SR: I think we considered “Beautiful Night” more important. That was recorded live in France. We were in the south of France and Prince was playing an outdoor event and we had a mobile truck there from Germany and that’s when we recorded the bed track, we overdubbed it later, I think right there in the mobile truck.
|
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|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://daddyrockstar.tumblr.com/post/43885486088/susan-rogers-on-princes-sign-o-the-times-part-1
|
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|
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If I’m driving someone else’s child and the child does not want to wear a safety belt, am I responsible?
Yes, the driver is responsible for all persons under the age of 18 in the vehicle. All persons under age 18 must be properly secured in a child safety seat or with a safety belt no matter where they are sitting in the vehicle.
Can a person be pulled over simply for not wearing a safety belt?
The seat belt law in Virginia is considered a "secondary" offense which means a driver would need to commit another "primary" offense, such as speeding or making an illegal lane change etc. If the driver is unrestrained, then the driver can also be charged with a safety belt violation. Additionally, if front seat passengers are riding unbuckled and are over the age of 18, they too can receive a summons. If persons under age 18 are not properly restrained, then the driver will receive a summons for each individual under 18 years that is not properly restrained.
I’m always in a hurry and putting on a safety belt is such a hassle. Is it really worth it?
Buckling up is the single most effective thing you can do to protect yourself in a crash. During a crash, being buckled up helps keep you safe and secure inside your vehicle, whereas being completely thrown out of a vehicle is almost always deadly. Seat belts are the best defense against impaired, aggressive and distracted drivers.
My safety belt allows me to lean forward enough to adjust my car stereo. How do I know if it will protect me in a crash?
It may seem that your seat belt is not working correctly; however, most safety restraints allow some controlled movement. To ensure your safety, check with your dealer to make sure that the seat belt is properly functioning.
If my safety belts are defective, will the manufacturer repair them at no cost?
In some instances, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) can authorize repairs at no cost. Call the Auto Safety Hotline at (800) 424-9393 for more information.
I drive an older car with only a lap belt. Can I upgrade it to include a shoulder harness?
Some manufacturers provide kits to upgrade lap belts to lap/shoulder belts. Contact the manufacturer or dealership for more information. Lap/shoulder belts provide greater protection than lap belts alone.
Do I need to wear a safety belt in a taxi or on a tour bus?
While not a law in Virginia, safety should always be your number one concern. Take every opportunity to maximize your safety by always wearing a seat belt whenever available regardless of the type of vehicle you are in.
If I’m traveling at slow speeds, won’t I be able to brace myself against the dashboard or steering wheel?
No. The force of the impact will increase your body weight to equal thousands of pounds of moving energy. This force is so great that you won't have the strength to brace against it. In addition, a crash surprises you, thus, you would not be prepared to brace yourself. So, play it safe. Always wear your seat belt.
How do I know if the safety belt fits properly?
The shoulder belt should fit snugly across the center of the chest, never under the arm or behind the back. The lap belt should fit snugly and low across the hips, not across the stomach area.
Is there a way to adjust the shoulder harness so that it’s more comfortable?
Most new cars have a mechanism to adjust the height of the shoulder harness. Check your owner's manual for more information.
How do I know if the buckle is really locked in?
All seat belts operate differently. Check your owner's manual or with your dealership to make sure the buckle operates correctly. Always listen for the "click" when your buckle locks and give the belt a few extra pulls to be sure it's tight.
Is there a law that requires me to wear a belt?
Yes. Virginia law requires drivers and front seat passengers to wear seat belts and to ensure that persons under age 18 are properly restrained.
As a driver, am I responsible for making sure that all passengers are buckled up, even adults?
Each adult passenger (18 and older) is legally responsible for him/herself. However, the driver should strongly urge all passengers to buckle up. As the driver, it is your responsibility to make sure that all persons under age 18 are properly restrained.
I’ve heard that some insurance companies will not cover car crash injuries if safety belts are not worn during a collision.
Many insurance companies are moving in this direction. Check with your insurance company for their policy.
What do I need to do if I have a medical or physical condition that makes it
impractical to wear a seat belt?
While seat belts are the best protection against serious injury in a crash, there may be a medical or physical condition that could be made more serious by wearing a seat belt. If a licensed physician determines that the use of a seat belt system would be impractical by reason of a medical/physical condition, the individual must carry on his/her person or in his/her vehicle a signed written statement of the physician identifying the exempted person and the grounds for exemption.
|
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|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.dmv.state.va.us/safety/programs/seatbelts/faq.asp?%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0Apf=y
|
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|
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(NAPSI)—While the bonds that unite families are usually associated with positive events, such as weddings or holidays, those bonds can be more challenging when entire families are impacted by a hereditary disease. Christie Hardin knows this firsthand. For years, she and more than 30 members of her extended family have lived with hereditary angioedema, or HAE, a rare genetic disorder that can cause severe swelling in various body parts including the hands, feet, face, gastrointestinal tract and airway. But now, on-demand treatments are helping generations of families affected by HAE take more control of their lives.
(NAPSI)—If you or someone you care about is among the estimated 40 million Americans who battle seasonal allergies each year, you know the condition is nothing to sneeze at. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to minimize your discomfort.
(NAPSI)—Shopping for a new baby should be fun and exciting. However, sometimes it can turn into a daunting experience. A targeted baby registry can alleviate the guesswork for friends and family, help you get just what you need and avoid unwanted or duplicate items. To get the most mileage out of your registry, “Do just as much homework as if you were paying the tab yourself,” says Sandra Gordon, one of the nation’s leading baby product experts and author of the new book “Save a Bundle: 50+ Ways to Save Big on Baby Gear.”
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.qchron.com/online_features/health_and_fitness_front/health_videos/
|
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|
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Tighter restrictions on driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol will take effect on Sunday, July 1. New legislation will require everyone convicted of a DUI to have a ignition interlock device placed in their car. The device ensures the driver of the car is sober, by having them blow into a breathalyzer in order to get the car to turn on.
"Since everyone convicted will have to have it this, it will sweep in hundreds and thousands of more people, doubling the number of people effected," explained area attorney Scott Goodman. In the past only those who had already been convicted of a DUI or had blown .15 or higher when arrested were required to have one installed in their car.
Goodman says the new measures come at a high price.
"I know that the prosecutors did not ask for this and privately many prosecutors will tell you its unnecessary for everyone," said Goodman. The device costs around $500 to install and then around $100 each month to maintain.
"This is something that effects lower income people more heavily than those that have the resources to afford this," said Goodman. "If they don't come forward with the money they will be in violation and will be called back to court."
Regardless, legislators say its necessary to keep Virginians safe.
"Everything we do whether at the legislative level or the law enforcement level, it's our job to reduce highway deaths and injuries on the roads," said Lt. Ronnie Roberts, of the Charlottesville Police Department.
Another law extends the amount of time a person has to have their Learner's Permit before taking the Behind-The-Wheel test, in the past it was 30 days, but beginning on July 1, it will be 60 days.
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|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.tv3winchester.com/news/consumernews/headlines/160230455.html
|
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|
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Seeing Things is a biweekly design column by Brooke Hodge, a design writer and curator based in Los Angeles.
Architecture and art come together in the exhibition “Later Layer,” which opens next week at the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles. Johnston Marklee Architects and the artist Walead Beshty have collaborated on a site-specific installation that transforms the IIC’s gallery and public spaces into a microcosm of a much larger project they are involved with for Italy’s Depart Foundation, a new entity dedicated to contemporary art.
Models of buildings designed by Johnston Marklee for Depart projects in Italy and Los Angeles are displayed on a series of nesting, hinged plinths designed together with Beshty and scattered throughout the IIC, inviting visitors to wander as if through an urban landscape. The plinths, some clad in a reflective laminate and others in white, are simultaneously sculpture and furniture and serve as the fulcrum of the exhibition, underlining the serial repetition and the scale shifts (and tension) — between object and space, model and building, proposition and reality — that are critical aspects of the work of the architects and the artist. The physical form of the plinths and their placement in the exhibition references not only the layered aspects of Johnston Marklee’s building designs but also their placement on the site of Depart’s future campus outside of Rome.
While a number of Beshty’s large-scale photographic images from the foundation’s collection hang on the gallery walls, their color palette reverberates throughout the exhibition, with individual colors reflected in the surfaces of the silvery plinths and applied as film to glass doors and walls, as well as the undersides and inner surfaces of the white plinths, creating an atmosphere of dematerialized and shifting hues. As Sharon Johnston explains, “For the installation, we unpacked and repacked the DNA of both our work and Walead’s in the context of an exhibition.”
“Later Layer” is on view at the Italian Cultural Institute Jan. 16 to Feb. 28.
|
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/seeing-things-johnston-marklee-and-walead-beshty/
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|
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On Saturday, August 25th, before Hurricane Isaac arrived on the Louisiana coast, I was on a Southwings sponsored flight piloted by Lance Rydberg. While flying over and around coal terminals in southern Plaquemines Parish, I asked myself what happens when a hurricane comes up the river and slams its winds and storm surge into these huge mountains of dirty coal. I took extensive photos of the Kinder Morgan International Marine Terminal (KM) and its “containment” system but found no comfort in the miniscule internal levees surrounding coal piles the size of small mountains. I had a sinking feeling that something here could go terribly wrong. Then it happened.
In August, the Governor of Mississippi announced the formation of GoCoast2020 – an advisory body to guide the Governor and other state officials on the use of BP fine money coming to the state under the RESTORE Act. They’ll be holding public hearings this week, and GRN and our allies will be there working to make sure that they spend this money on strengthening and restoring Mississippi’s coastal environment and economy – not on unnecessary and harmful pork-barrel projects. Can you make it to one of the public hearings too?
Tuesday, Oct. 2nd from 6-8 pm: Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Fine Arts Auditorium, U.S. 90, Gautier.
Wednesday, Oct. 3rd from 6-8 pm: Long Beach Community Center, 20257 Daugherty Road.
Thursday, Oct. 4th from 6-8 pm: Bay Saint Louis Community Hall, 301 Blaize Ave.
These RESTORE Act funds constitute a once-in-lifetime opportunity for Mississippi to create a legacy for conservation and one of our best chances to restore our fishing and seafood tradition by protecting and improving our coastal ecosystems. Come out next week to tell these decision-makers that the environmental health of Mississippi’s coast and communities should be a central priority. Email me at
if you're planning on attending one of the hearings.
Yesterday, I ventured down to Elmer’s Island (and Grand Isle) to check on current conditions and impacts in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac and the wake of the BP disaster. Elmer's Island Wildlife Refuge, owned and maintained by the state of Louisiana, is a 230-acre tract of barrier beachfront located on the southwestern tip of Jefferson Parish. It is located directly across Caminada Pass from Grand Isle, LA. The state closed the Island to the public in May of 2010 due to heavy oiling from the BP drilling disaster in the Gulf. The state reopened the Island to the public in May of 2011. I have made numerous trips to this island since April 2010 including several flyovers and have reported back on the ongoing impacts, including this post on November 15 of 2011, and this one March 9th, 2012.
Huge thanks everyone who participated in the Defend the Gulf Short Film Showcase competition! We had some great submissions this year covering a number of different Gulf environmental issues – from the Dead Zone to wetlands loss to the BP oil disaster.
Alas, there can only be one winner per category, so without further ado . . .
Short Film Category
Winner -- Vanishing Pearls: The Oystermen of Pointe a la Hache by Perspective Pictures
Runner-Up -- Spill Baby Spill by Bryan Hopkins
Winner -- You’re Welcome: BP Voices from the Gulf by Second City and The Partisans
Runner-Up -- BP Bringing People Together by Second City
Congratulations! Winners and runner-ups, along with other selected submissions, have been included in the Defend the Gulf Short Film Showcase DVD that is being distributed to volunteers across the country who are hosting screenings to help raise awareness and inspire action for a healthy Gulf!
Wow, sounds great. Unfortunately, digging beneath the headlines reveals a less glowing report from Gulf waters.
The most significant increase in Gulf catch comes from the uncontained, uncapped, Gulf menhaden harvest. Going from 900 million pounds on average for the past 10 years, they lept to 1.3 billion pounds in 2011.
Nearly a year and a half after BP proudly and loudly announced they would spend $1 billion to begin the process of restoring the Gulf in the wake of their disaster, do you want to guess how much they've committed to the projects needed to implement that 'early restoration'?
Less than 10%.
That's right in 15 months, and with billions in projects suggested to BP and Gulf and federal leaders, they've agreed to about $60 million in restoration efforts.
View looking south from Mississippi's West Ship Island. Late last month, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant announced the formation of the GoCoast2020 – an advisory body to guide the Governor and other state officials on the use of RESTORE Act funds in Mississippi. GoCoast2020 is made up of over one hundred members, distributed between 8 subcommittees (see the full list here). Most of the members are elected officials from the coast, members of the business community, or state officials. Their mandate is to present the Governor with a final report in January with “recommendations and ideas” on how the RESTORE funds should be disbursed.
With the Presidential race in its final heat, GRN is looking to mobilize our best activists to help keep the stories of the Gulf alive and elevate them to the national discussion. We need your help to inform and inspire your friends, family, and community to take action to protect and restore the Gulf.
Despite the recent victory for the Gulf with the passage of the RESTORE Act to direct BP's fines to Gulf restoration, Hurricane Isaac's aftermath proved that BP's oil is still in the Gulf, and our coastal communities still need action to rebuild the coastal lines of defense that once kept them safe from storms.
You can help protect the Gulf of Mexico by hosting a Defend the Gulf Home Movie Screening! Hosting is easy, and we'll provide the materials and support you need to be successful. You'll work to set up a venue (your living room, for instance) and invite friends and family.
As Louisiana continues to reel from flooding and chemical spills in the wake of Hurricane Isaac, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) is trying to quietly change the rules to make it easier to pollute our waters. Specifically, they are attempting to weaken their “antidegradation” rules, which are required by the Clean Water Act and help ensure clean waters stay clean and polluted waters don’t get dirtier. Tell LDEQ to keep our waters clean:
LDEQ is proposing so-called “minor” revisions to their rules that will significantly weaken pollution protections for Louisiana’s waters. For example, some of Louisiana’s most pristine waters – like the Tchefuncte and Bogue Falaya Rivers - are designated as Outstanding Natural Resources Waters. Under the law, they are supposed to be protected from degradation and new sources of pollution, but LDEQ is actually changing the definition of “degradation” to allow for more pollution discharges into Louisiana’s healthiest rivers, streams, and lakes. They are also failing to establish legally required procedures to determine if adding pollution to clean waters is socially or economically justifiable.
On Monday, I had the privilege to take another flyover to document the environmental consequences in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac. A special thanks is deserved by pilot, Skipper Tornsmeire, and the nonprofit, Southwings, for making this flight possible. This was a joint flight between GRN, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and the Lower Mississippi River Keeper.
|
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://healthygulf.org/blog/Page-9
|
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|
en
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|
I'm writing a Cocoa application and I'm trying to export to the Excel XML format (ISO/IEC 29500-1) which is basically a zip file with a bunch of xml files in it named with a .xlsx extension.
I've tried generating apple script and using NSAppleScript to create the Excel file, which works, but is slow and the user has to have Excel installed on their machine.
I was able to create a simple .xlsx Excel file by writing the xml to files in objective-c and zipping them up and re-naming the zip to .xlsx. Excel could open the file, but Numbers threw an error trying to open the file I created. It seems Excel must have implemented all (or most of) the ISO/IEC spec, while Numbers may only open the Excel flavored version.
Are there any examples of how to do this using cocoa/objective-c or a library that would help simplify this task?
|
<urn:uuid:100aa65f-de08-40bc-88db-f23240c67388>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3587004/is-there-a-library-or-example-for-creating-excel-xlsx-files
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
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Facilities are man-made structures located on planets. If you want to
build a facility you must first build a clean slab on that planetary
square. Lava cannot have a clean slab, and therefore facilities, placed
If you want to build a hidden slab, you will have to pay twice the
amount of credits.
When you move around a facility, it is as if you are in the hallways
of a base or the streets of a city. You may then enter the structure
that you are standing in front of. The Manager of a Facility can
allow/disallow people access to the facility. The current options are to
only people on the crewlist,
only people on the crewlist and members of your faction,
all people enter.
Most facilities require some amount of energy to keep them running.
To ensure that your facilities continue to operate and make an income,
you must ensure that they are powered by a Power Generator.
One of three conditions must be met in order for you to be allowed to
build facilities in any given city:
You must own the city.
You must get permission from the owner of the city.
If the city is NPC-owned, you may build at will, without permission
of any kind.
The number of facilities you can build in a city is only limited to
the number of grid squares inside that city. Each grid square is large
enough to hold one 1 x 1 facility. Larger facilities will need the
equivalent number of grid squares according to their size (e.g. a 3 x 3
facility will need 3 x 3 = 9 grid squares). Each facility needs to be
surrounded by roads on at least two sides.
The following image is an example of what a city might look like in
For more information on cities and terrain grids, visit the
Planetary Grids rules page.
In order to build a new facility (assuming you meet the conditions
above), you must own the datacard for that type of facility. If you do
not meet this condition, you will have to either buy or obtain the
datacard from someone else by any means necessary (robbery, invasion,
Resistance of the hull of a facility, classic A/B system where A
shows the actual state of the hull and the B is the max level.
When hull = 0/B, facility is destroyed. B is depending of the type.
Max number of Player Characters/NPC that can be in a
facility at any given time.
A facility can store as many smaller ships, vehicles and/or raw
materials (if it has the ability to store materials) until one of these numbers is reached by adding up all the
weight/volume numbers of the ships, vehicles and raw materials.
This is depending on whether it has a Docking Bay and/or Hangar.
See Special Characteristics
Listing of all weapons that are mounted on the
Allows the detection of other ships/vehicles/characters in the same
Range = 2* floor(Log()) +1 (in squares)
Available energy on the facility.
List the special features of the facility:
Docking Bay - Ships can land inside facility
Hangar Bay - Vehicles can park inside facility
Unique - Only one of this type can ever be built
List of all required resources to build this type of
This is the strict raw materials price. To know the
total production price of a facility, see the Production Rules.
List of all publicly known factions that own a
datacard to this facility type
This is the cost of the facility on the CP Exchange
Note: only a few facilities are available on the exchange
Facility, Ships and Vehicles now have a room movement system
There are 6 different types of rooms:
normal rooms - nothing special
entrance room - access to outside/inside of facility, first room
when entering an entity
cockpit rooms - access to cockpit
docking bay rooms - access to ships in the docking bay
hangar bay rooms - access to vehicles in the hangar bay
starting room - room where newbies start their adventure
All entities must have at least 1 room being an entrance room,
allowing characters to enter and leave the entity. Rooms can be
customized if a character has the correct privilege e.g. can give it a
name and a description. Also 1 art item can be added to rooms.
|
<urn:uuid:230f4e68-7195-42b2-961e-b8316295f0ab>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.swcombine.com/rules/?Facilities
|
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
| 0.931971
| 934
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| 2
|
TOKYO, March 20 (UPI) -- Japan's Electric Power Development Co. announced plans for a coal plant in China.
The firm said it will work with two Chinese power utilities to build the large-scale coal thermal power plant in the China's Jiangxi province, the Jiji Press English News Service reported.
The power plant will be equipped with two 660,000-kilowatt power generators with a thermal efficiency rate reportedly 40 percent higher than the average rate at Chinese power plants.
Construction, scheduled to begin in April of this year, is estimated at $760 million. The plant is expected to be operational by the end of February 2010.
The Japanese power company said it will hold a 10 percent stake in the operation and it's newly established wholly owned subsidiary in Beijing that will oversee its Chinese power generation operations.
The subsidiary, J-Power Consultant China, will open April 1, the firm said.
|Additional Energy Resources Stories|
NEW YORK, May 24 (UPI) --Shale oil plays in the United States may be more attractive to investors than oil sands in Canada's Alberta province, a financial analyst said.
LEIDEN, Netherlands, May 24 (UPI) --With South Korea edging closer to deciding on a contractor for its $7.3 billion KF-X fighter program a European competitor is dangling a new carrot to its bid.
|
<urn:uuid:001b8f01-c7aa-44c8-a1aa-2c03edd779dd>
|
CC-MAIN-2013-20
|
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2008/03/20/Japan-announces-coal-plant-in-China/UPI-56281206048183/?spt=rcc&or=bn_er
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.934448
| 286
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| 2
|
Lesedi cultural village is set among the rocky hills north of Johannesburg. When we arrive, a man in animal skins and fake fur takes my humiliatingly heavy bag. With a loud grunt, he hoists it onto his bare shoulders and we walk through the bushveld to our room. It adjoins some round concrete huts inhabited by a family that has been imported from a village near South Africa's border with Mozambique. They are "elders, wives, and children, all peacefully living their traditional lives in a traditional homestead," claims the brochure. We are supposed to be welcomed by a "villager" and taken to meet his family. Instead, we are handed a key and left alone in a thatched-roof room, with an African-print bedspread, a bathroom, and a front patio that seems more traditional motor lodge than village.
Sarah, my traveling partner, is a composer and vocalist with an interest in ethnic music and a day job at New York's Museum of Natural History. I'm a Manhattanite who's intoany culture more exotic than my own. So what are we doing here, feeling like two hapless tourists at a tribal buffet?
We are trying to have a cultural experience. We, two of a group that the Travel Industry Association of America claims numbers 65 million travelers every year, have left behind our frenzied lives in search of another world, where the only form of telecommuting is by way of ancestral voices. Yet what we are looking at could not be less authentic. We are surrounded by topless young women in beads and sneakers, children in ceremonial garb, and a busload of tourists. Of course, we knew this place would not be the real thing, given its promotional literature and proximity to Johannesburg. Still, neither of us was prepared for this level of processed tribalism. "Oh my God" is all Sarah can say.
We are shepherded into a theater for a presentation that is primitive only by Disney standards, and that introduces us to the four tribes of people represented at Lesedi—Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu, and Pedi. Performers run around, waving shields and torches. A cow gets up and walks offstage on cue. The German tourists listen to the show through headsets customized with Zulu beadwork. "My friends, you have made an effort to visit us," says the show's host, who wears wire-rimmed glasses and not much else, "and you will be rewarded." A tour follows.
Outside the Xhosa village (Nelson Mandela is a Xhosa), we yell "Uwena!" to let the "chief" know we want to visit. At the Sotho village, a woman makes sorghum beer. Here's a Zulu carrying wood on her head. Here's one pounding millet. Neither is smiling. Would you, if you were carrying wood and pounding millet, things you left your village to forget about, along with dangerous animals, AIDS, flooding, poverty, and malaria?A lively concert follows, then a feast of impala, crocodile, ostrich sausage, and oxtail stew.
The busload of tourists departs. Sarah and I are the only overnight guests, and suddenly it's too quiet. I buy the "cultural host" of Lesedi, Hlon Phisa Chonco, a drink at the bar. He's exhausted, and when I ask if we can go hang out with the other "villagers" to see how they really live, all he tells us is that "they are relaxing." In other words, no. He's been moving tourists around all day. Tomorrow there will be more, and maybe the tips will be decent.
The pay is low at places like Lesedi—maybe a hundred dollars a month. Still, villagers want jobs. "We're helping young people keep their traditions," Chonco says. "Today, people know nothing about their cultures. I like bringing kids here." I'd like to know what the inhabitants of Lesedi do between shows and shifts of washing sheets and dishes. (We find out later they have a TV hut.) But Chonco looks too tired to be asked. After he says good night, a line from the show that he had cheerfully narrated earlier echoes in my head. "Africa," he said, "is a place of great suffering."
It is hard, in fact, to go to Africa these days without feeling fearful—Liberia, Uganda, the Congo are not names to conjure with. South Africa, however, with its solid tourism infrastructure and posh wilderness lodges, seems different somehow. In KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa's northeasternmost province, game preserves and Zulu villages checker the rippling green land that ends at the Indian Ocean. KZN encompasses the Zulu Kingdom, also known as Zululand. About 600,000 of the country's 2.1 million foreign tourists a year come here. Forty-six percent of those visitors head to cultural villages. According tothe region's tourism Web site and a popular book put out by Africa Holiday Publications called Zulu: People of Heaven, Zululand is a dynamic culture steeped in the old ways. What I had read suggested that people still wove baskets and built beehive huts from grass. I pictured drumming, traditional stick fighting, and the kind of choral singing made famous by Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Paul Simon's Graceland. But South Africa, like Polynesia, was colonized early on; the genuine culture of the Zulu nation was suppressed more than 100 years ago by colonial armies and Christianity.
To complicate things further, much of Zulu history (written by Englishmen) describes battles against other tribes or against the Boers and the British. Thus it perpetuates the image of modern Zulus as warlords. "Zulu culture is a difficult thing to describe," says Jerome Dube, a student at the University of Natal in Durban. "In fact, one wonders what it is—military or what?" Whatever it is, Dube has observed a recent upsurge in its promotion. "These days, everybody is selling Zulu culture and dressing for ceremonies," he says. Along with Heritage Day, virginity "testing days" are becoming as popular as they were 50 years ago. And when he co-curated an exhibition about traditional healers (sangomas), the crowds poured in. A significant number of black South Africans use traditional healers. By law, the Zulu language—or one of the nation's 10 other languages—must be taught in schools, along with myths and traditions. And now you're just as likely to hear Zulu on TV as in the streets.
But even before apartheid ended, a tidal wave of Zulu awareness had hit South Africa, in the form of the slick, epic miniseries Shaka Zulu. Based on the diaries of an English naval lieutenant, Shaka Zulu tells the story of the empire-building King Shaka during the turbulent 19th century, when European forces were encroaching on the hunting and agrarian cultures of KZN. As Roots did in the United States, Shaka Zulu galvanized black consciousness in South Africa. Even today, Henry Cele, who played Shaka, is celebrated as if he were a king. While good for black South African self-esteem, Shaka Zulu also threw into relief the country's cultural schizophrenia—tribal on the one hand, Westernized on the other. But it's tribal realism that tourists come to see. To satisfy Zululand visitors, guidebooks, tour promoters, and even a government Web site are suggesting that today's Zulus are far more old-fashioned than they actually are. This problem is not unique to Zululand.
A British organization called Survival for Tribal People warns that referring to cultures, from Canada to Indonesia, as "untouched by time" is "demeaning and quite simply untrue." And an article published by UNESCO in 1999 contends that rather than empowering local communities, "cultural tourism" chips away at cultures by turning people into commodities with reconstructed ethnicities. So, how do you find the real thing?"To identify the authentic," Dube tells me, "you have to see the fakes."
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It’s one of our modern rites of passage, buying your own home. Stepping over the threshold of your new condo, you feel like you’ve stepped over from one phase of your life to another. So it’s natural that you’re anxious to get to that stage, or do what you can to hurry the process along.
How do you know if you’re ready to own your own home? First, you’ll need to have a few pieces of your life firmly in place.
A good, stable job. Having a steady source of income is absolutely essential to getting and maintaining a home. Being a homeowner isn’t cheap, after all: utilities and maintenance can be expensive, and cannot simply be postponed or ignored. If your income fluctuates too badly, you might not have enough income to meet the monthly costs of owning a home.
Your job should also be the kind of employment that keeps you rooted in one place—sure, you might have a high income, but what if you’re likely to be reassigned to another city for several years?
Steady employment also comes in handy in case you need to make a home loan to buy that dream house. To get the banks to help you with making the payments, you’ll need to show that you have been working continuously for the past two years, making a minimum family income that varies from bank to bank. If you’re an employee, you should demonstrate employment at the same place for the past two years; if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll need to show continuous operation for the same period.
A sense of responsibility. Remember those good old days when your Dad footed the bill for repairing the termite-infested wall, or when you had to wait for the landlord to address the dripping faucet in the kitchen? When it’s your name on the title, you call the contractor and you pay for repairs.
Being a home owner means that the buck stops with you: you should fix the problem yourself, or pay a repairman to do the repairs for you. For larger repairs, you may need to take out a personal loan from a bank to get it done—but ultimately, having your own home also means taking responsibility for keeping it in tip-top shape.
A family on the way, or already there. If you and your loved ones plan to have kids, you’re likely planning a good home for the kids too. Having your own home increases the sense of stability so conducive to a happy family, and within the scope of your budget, you can give your growing family plenty of room that your in-law’s place simply can’t provide.
When kids are involved, you’re not just buying real estate—you’re buying a template for their future memories, too. Think back to your own happy childhood years at home, preparing for school, arguing around the dinner table, and making telebabad with your barkada from your room. Finding the right kind of home ensures your kids will have happy memories of their own to build over the next few years.
As the architect Le Corbusier put it, “The home should be the treasure chest of living.” We couldn’t agree more.
Savvy Living asks: Are you ready to buy a house of your own? What are your concerns when it comes to finding and purchasing your own property?
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"I went to the library as a kid," says Judge Frank Lucchino, "… because that's where the girls were."
But Luchhino, a onetime county controller and now a judge in the county's Orphans Court, may be the Carnegie Library system's most important ally.
Lucchino is among the most prominent backers of Our Library, Our Future, which is seeking a property-tax referendum to help the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The tax would be .25 mills -- roughly $1.50 a month on the average Pittsburgh home assessed at $78,000. As this issue goes to press, campaign organizers are set to present petitions with 10,000 signatures in favor of putting a tax hike on the November ballot.
The libraries were established, as we all know, by steel titan Andrew Carnegie. What many of us don't know is that while Carnegie bequeathed the building, he didn't pay to staff or stock it. Being Carnegie, he had a high-minded reason: "If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well-being of the whole," he argued, "it is right also that libraries should be so maintained."
Taxpayers do support the Carnegie libraries, through the county's Regional Asset District 1 percent sales tax. But other sources of support have dried up. City officials, for example, have cut library funding even while helping to finance new sports stadiums. As a result, library branches have scaled back hours, even in communities that need them most.
"The Homewood Library is a great library, but it's closed Fridays and Sundays," Lucchino says. "These are communities with more than their share of crime and poverty. Does it make sense to kick kids out who want to read?" Their parents too benefit from the access: Many job want-ads are published online … where they may otherwise not find them.
This might seem like a bad time to campaign for a library tax. Times are tough, and with Allegheny County's property values being reassessed, no one knows what their homes will be worth next year -- or how much their tax bill will be.
And today's political climate rewards neither those who want to educate themselves, or those who want to raise taxes on anyone else.
Washington and Harrisburg are in the grips of politicians who refuse to increase any tax, anywhere, for anything. Who suffers? Schools, for one: Pennsylvania universities are among those hardest hit in the current state budget, while some 4,000 public-school teachers have been laid off statewide. Libraries are hurting too: State funding for the Carnegie has dropped by more than $1 million over the past two years.
Maybe it's no coincidence that the anti-tax crowd so frequently attacks those who discover and disseminate knowledge: scientists, teachers, "ivory-tower elitist" professors, and of course the media. If you didn't know better -- and someday soon, maybe you won't -- you'd almost think there was a War on Information.
Not that everyone goes to the library to review their congressman's voting record, or to consult the wisdom of the ancients. Many patrons go for the same reason Lucchino once did -- to meet girls (if only on Facebook). Or to read trashy novels. Or just to stay warm.
But libraries don't always elevate our culture: They merely give everyone a chance to share in it. Fewer and fewer institutions play that role. Today's aristocrats, unlike Carnegie, seem unconvinced that even schools should be maintained by the community: School districts are being fragmented by vouchers and charters. Our main streets are shopping malls -- even our sports palaces are designed to keep us from rubbing elbows with the luxury-box set.
Lucchino acknowledges these challenges, but asks, "In these economic times, are you still getting a cup of Starbucks? Because this tax will cost less on a monthly basis than a cup of coffee costs in a day." If the referendum fails, Lucchino says, libraries will limp along on reduced hours. "It would be what already plagues us -- a slow erosion of community assets."
But if nothing else, the library tax campaign gives us an opportunity: a chance to talk about enhancing community assets for a change, rather than bleeding them dry.
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SEO & Your Blog | Pay Attention to the Long Tail
SEO, or search engine optimization, is not a new tool, and certainly not a new topic on Public Relations Blogger, but it can be a new tool for many new bloggers, business owners, and website creators alike. SEO takes some time and effort, but it shortly becomes second nature in your normal blogging or website writing. Search engine optimization is essentially the use of keywords and phrases (hopefully related to your blog or company) that can help increase traffic. When search engines send out "spiders" that crawl the web and record, in a sense, the information on your website, having more keywords and phrases that web users search for can move your website up the search results, in turn brining more traffic to your site.
One vital thing, and perhaps the most effective way of gaining new traffic, is to pay particular attention to the long tail of the keyword curve. Every day, new searches that have never been searched before are made in Google, while simple keywords that are one or two words long are repeated many times. While it may seem illogical to aim for these new searches, it is rather the opposite. When a consumer searches for something like "shoes", there is going to be an endless amount of results, and your website or blog can very easily get lost in the sea of options. In order to differentiate your blog or website, focus on the long tail of the keywords. The graph below from Elliance is a great visual to explain the concept of the long tail.
The chances of your site grabbing the attention of users from the head (or front) of the curve is less likely to occur than capturing those of the long tail. The majority (~74%) of the traffic that comes to this blog comes from search engines. More than 75% of that traffic comes from a term or keyword phrase that was only made once, a single search of a more descriptive phrase that would put them into the long tail. Without much effort, I gather a ton of traffic and potentially new readers by focusing on the long tail searches. Long tail phrases can also bring more than one visitor from search engines. For example, "new public relations tools to benefit your business" has brought more than two dozen visitors in the last two weeks, but it still only accounts for 1.4% of my traffic. In the last month alone, 1,244 searches brought this blog traffic.
Try out different phrases, use Google's keyword tool to get ideas, and experiment; marketing and public relations is all about figuring out what works and what doesn't. If this doesn't work immediately, don't give up; it may take time for the search engines to record your site's data. Keep optimizing, pay attention to the long tail, and offer great content.
Any other tips for SEO and the long tail? Leave a comment!
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industrialist Ravubha Vaghela was a very happy man on Monday after selling his entire 30 acres of land at Khoda and Naranpura villages to Gujarat government. He only hoped Tatas would bring their prestigious Nano project to the chosen site. Vaghela had earmarked this land for expansion of his firm, Raviraj Foils Limited. But the minute he was approached by state government officials, he willingly sold the land for building approach road from Sanand-Viramgam highway to Anand Agriculture University cattle farm that will hopefully be Nanos new home. Vaghela says he sold the land for Rs 15 crore at Rs 1,000 per square metre, despite the going market rate of Rs 2,500 per sq mt. Vaghela says he could have haggled for a better price or even gone to court. "But this would have delayed the process and Nano plant could have gone out of Gujarats hands. I was glad to make the sacrifice. For Tata project I could have given my land for free. I am a proud Rajput today that I will be instrumental in bringing Nano project to Gujarat," said Vaghela, who feels its time for him to repay a debt to Tatas. "During the great famine of 1900 Jamshetji Tata rescued the Kankrej cows being bred at the farm by making a donation of Rs 1,000," he explains, adding that his move symbolises the difference in the outlook of farmers in Gujarat and West Bengal.
Whats more, Vaghela also played a role in convincing other farmers to hand over their land to government. All of them sold their land to government on Monday. Of the nearly 2.05 lakh sq mt private land that Gujarat government has acquired for building the road leading to the site identified for Nano plant, almost two-thirds belong to Vaghela
6 months ago
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A bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra, while referring to a similar move by the court to tackle sexual harassment at work places, said that it had become urgent for it to interfere in public interest and pass directions to curb the menace.
The apex court directed all states and union territories to establish within three months women’s helplines in cities and towns to curb harassment. It also said women police officers in plain clothes should be deployed near public places such as bus and train stations, cinema halls, shopping malls and parks, among others.
The court ordered installation of CCTV cameras in all such public places, which it underlined, would not only help in nabbing offenders but also act as a deterrent.
The bench also said that permits of public carriers would be cancelled if the driver or anyone else in-charge of the vehicle fails to take it to the nearest police station on receiving a complaint about harassment.
“Responsibility is also on the passers-by and on noticing such incident, they should also report the same to the nearest police station or to women’s helpline to save the victims from such crimes,” it added.
The bench asked people in-charge of places such as educational institutions, places of worship and cinema halls to inform the nearest police station or the women’s help centre on receiving a harassment complaint. Suitable signages cautioning against the crime should also be exhibited in all public places.
“The state governments and union territories of India would take adequate and effective measures by issuing suitable instructions to the concerned authorities including the district collectors and the district superintendent of police so as to take effective and proper measures to curb such incidents of eve-teasing,” said the bench.
The court’s directions came while hearing an appeal by the Tamil Nadu police department against an order to re-instate a police officer, who had been dismissed after being found guilty of harassing a woman. The high court had passed the order after the officer had been acquitted by a criminal court.
The apex court reversed the HC’s order saying disciplinary proceedings had rightly held the officer guilty and that he was acquitted by the criminal court not because he was proven innocent but because the witnesses, including the woman complainant, turned hostile.
“Eve-teasing today has become pernicious, horrid and disgusting practice. More and more girl students, women go to educational institutions, work places etc. and their protection is of extreme importance to a civilised and cultured society. The experiences of women and girl children in over-crowded buses, metros, trains etc. are horrendous and a painful ordeal,” the bench said.
“We notice that there is no uniform law in this country to curb eve-teasing effectively. Consequences of not curbing such a menace, needless to say, are at times disastrous. There are many instances where girls of young age are being harassed, which sometimes may lead to serious psychological problems and even committing suicide,” the bench said, adding the crime violated fundamental rights of women.
It said directives from the SC were also required since the proposed Protection of Woman against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, which is intended to protect female workers in workplaces, was “not sufficient to curb eve-teasing.” Moreover, of all the states, only Tamil Nadu had come up with a legislation against harassment after the crime led to the death of a woman in 1998, it said.
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A somewhat informative article in the Guardian tells of the trend of elderly Germans moving away from their homeland to avoid rising costs of living for pensioners. The phenomenon of “oma export” has resulted in many moving to places like Hungary to avoid going broke on room and board and medical care. This is perhaps marginally better than the situation in New York, my home state, where politicians are busy wrecking every one’s chances at affordable living. But that’s for another blog post.
I say the article is only somewhat informative because it’s not long before two things occur; these two things, it seems, must occur in every article about European social problems, especially German ones. The first is the ham-handed but nevertheless de rigueur reference to Nazism and/or the Second World War in general. Here it is:
Such stories have flooded the German media in recent months following the revelations that thousands of Germans are being sent to live in overseas nursing homes. News of the practice has stoked much anger to the extent that comparisons have been drawn with the often brutal expulsion of ethnic Germans from parts of what is now Poland and the Czech Republic after the second world war.
Surely this is among the more illiterate comparisons I’ve ever heard. (You can write the historian R.M. Douglas for a more authoritative opinion on whether it’s true.) Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can get to the second necessity: the quote from the local prestige-press editorialist/labor-party representative peddling one of the West’s favorite cultural tropes: collective guilt. In this case, it comes from Heribert Prantl of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, who writes that “a country that is capable of building the best machines in the world has not yet been able to develop a proper and intelligent care concept when in a generation from now every 15th German will be in need of care.” This quasi-Malthusian horror will continue: “Will we also start exporting our children when the kindergartens become too expensive?”
Both of these necessary tropes, the hyperbole and the moralistic hand-wringing, make sound analysis of European welfare collapse almost impossible. (The same applies a fortiori to the United States, where the only acceptable responses to any political issue are outrage and character assassination.) No attempts are ever made to ask why such tendencies have come about. No solutions beyond the political leitmotif of “more money” are ever offered. No structural analyses of particular welfare programs are discussed. No relatively sane or non-partisan economist or policy expert is ever quoted. No ideas are ever within earshot of the discussion. This might be because politics is the art of preserving the status quo while maintaining the appearance of progress. In politics, therefore, real ideas are dangerous.
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The St. George's Dinghy & Sports Club was founded in 1946 as a result of the amalgamation of several sports clubs by individuals that practiced different sports but wanted to combine and find a club house for social and sport related gatherings. In the beginning there was rugby, football, cricket, golf, tennis, water polo, rowing, and of course sailing. Today the club's most important sport is still sailing. The Bermuda Fitted Dinghy the Victory IV sails under the Club's Flag.
The St. George's Dinghy & Sports Club is a members' owned Club and is owned by the Full members and Senior Members. The Club has numerous facilities for the use of it's members and their guests. There is a sports bar with big screen T.V.s, dart boards, pool table, snooker table, free wireless internet connection, marina with fresh water/ shore power, laundry, showers, full service restaurant, use of barbeques and a balcony with the best views of St. George's Harbor, especially at sunset.
The objectives of the club can be found in the Club's Rule Book under Rule 3. "The objects of the club are the establishment and operation of premises for social activities, and the encouragement and promotion of sailing events and sports". The Club hosts numerous sailing events over the year.
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If Christ is the head and we the body, then were we not broken for the good of ourselves?
"Take and eat, do this in remembrance of Me" - Christ, the picture of sacrifice and humility as we ought to be but cannot without first being broken.
Also, with Christ as the head and we the body, are not the eyes, ears, mouth and mind Christ's and the arms, legs and heart ours? "With the heart man believes" and once believing we are enabled to see, hear, speak and think as Christ Himself resulting in God viewing us as righteous and useable by Him to His Glory through humble sacrifice - the picture of which we now have in our minds, renewed and transformed through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:3 NAS
3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
Romans 12:4-5 NAS
4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,
5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
Luke 22:19 NAS
19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
Romans 10:10 NAS
10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation
Copyright © 2007, Jody R Goode All rights reserved.
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Thanks to my proximity to Fort Bragg, I had the opportunity tonight to catch an early screening of Jake Rademacher’s Brothers at War, a documentary that details Jake’s journey to Iraq to learn more about why his two brothers serve in the military and what their service is like. Because many of the soldiers depicted in the film are stationed at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville proved to be an ideal audience for the film. Other screenings were held this week in Columbus, GA, and Jacksonville, NC, cities near military bases, as well as Chicago and Washington. The screening is part of a larger planned roll-out that will have the film expand to 20 cities next Friday. Rademacher’s film seems to defy the conventions of most Iraq War documentaries. Roger Ebert, for example, comments that he has “been waiting for this film since the early days of the war in Iraq” and credits the film’s honesty and authenticity. Soldiers and spouses in attendance, including several participants in the film, all described the film as a “real” portrait of the war. But I found myself unable to reconcile the narrative of war and military life depicted in Brothers at War with other images, other documentaries I’ve seen, although I think the storiy that Rademacher has told has helped me to understand my fellow citizens here in Fayetteville a little better, and for that, the film deserves a lot of credit.
Because of my place here in Fayetteville, writing about this film presents unique challenges. In fact, I’ve likely seen many of the soldiers depicted in the film here in town, perhaps at a local grocery store or watering hole. They may have held the door open for me as I was entering a convenience store or restaurant. Living here has put a slightly more human face on the war, even as my opposition to the war has deepened. I’m prefacing my response to the film with these comments because I’m still grappling with the material in the film and the conditions of its production.
In many ways, Brothers at War appears to be a relatively straightforward documentary. Jake, the oldest brother, wants to learn more about his two brothers’ military service and becomes embedded with his younger brother Isaac’s unit. The first third of the film gently mocks Jake’s relative softness as compared to his younger brother. We see that the barracks in which Isaac is stationed are surrounded by cement walls nine inches thick, and Jake records footage for about three weeks, goes on a relatively eventless mission, the biggest highlight a mysterious car that appeared briefly, and Jake goes home. Still feeling as if his younger brother, Joe, doesn’t fully respect him, however, Jake returns, and during the second trip, he does witness a brief skirmish in which several soldiers are wounded, including several Iraqi soldiers the unit has been training.
These scenes clearly convey the sacrifices the soldiers are making, and I don’t want to deny that, but this is also a moment that seemed to illustrate a limit, either to the grunts-eye documentary in general or to Brothers at War in particular, in that the film is unable to place the soldiers’ actions inside of any meaningful context other than the ideal of being a soldier. All of the soldiers and family members return to the idea of sacrifice and duty, and yet there is almost no connection to a larger political context. In one barracks shot, a soldier’s “W ’04″ bumper sticker is clearly visible, but that’s about the only “politicized” image we see. This lack of overt political statement prompted Ebert to see the film as not offering a pro-war position, and yet, the meaning the soldiers get from the war, the degree to which they are seen as “becoming men” by serving seems to suggest otherwise. In fact, in writing this review, I am reminded of Chris Hedges’ thesis that war gives us a sense of meaning: “Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our news. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble.”
This contrast between triviality and seriousness is an ongoing theme in the film. Soldiers talk about returning home and going to the local Wal-Mart and feeling offended when customers complain about their cell phone bill or about the quality of the meat at the deli counter. Others mock the gossip rags that obsess over Tom Cruise’s latest antics. All of the soldiers Rademacher interviews argue that war has matured them and given them a sense of purpose. And this is where I began to find Bothers at War to be a little unsettling: we see the sense of meaning that is derived from the war. I think this is where many soldiers complain about documentaries that are more explicitly ambivalent about the war, such as Gunner Palace and Occupation: Dreamland: these films are less willing to find “meaning” in the war and therefore seem to obscure the successes and “good things” accomplished by the soldiers. To be clear, it’s not that I don’t believe that soldiers aren’t doing “good things;” I’m just skeptical of the suggestion, implied in the film, that depicts (as Hedges suggests of previous war narratives) “the ensuing suffering as necessary for a higher good.”
I also struggled a bit with the assertion that Hollywood is unfriendly to pro-war or pro-military narratives. Those of us who opposed the war often see things through the opposite lens, believing that the mainstream media was largely supportive of the war in Iraq until the insurgency made it relatively unpopular. In fact, if anything, the film’s final sequences, complete with the use of downbeat music and perfectly lit soldiers and their families suggested nothing more to me than a cross between Deborah Scranton’s The War Tapes and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. And yet the claim by Rademacher and by the film’s executive producer, Gary Sinise that Hollywood refuses to tell such stories seemed to be taken at face value, allowing the filmmakers to depict the film as “oppositional,” if not to any political institution to the institution of Hollywood itself. Of course, Hollywood is far from a homogeneous culture, and even Sinise admitted that Hollywood’s primary motivation is money.
That being said, Rademacher has powerfully told a story about his family’s experience with the war, about the role of military life for himself, his brothers and sisters, and his parents, and for anyone who wants a better understanding of the sacrifices experienced by military families, this film provides that. Rademacher knows how to tell a story, and his subjects are very candid about their experiences. Despite any political reservations I might have, Brothers at War is an important contribution to our ongoing attempts to doucment the Iraq War and should be seen by a wider audience.
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With Orange County’s flu-related death toll climbing to three this week, pharmacies in Rancho Santa Margarita are beginning to run out of flu shots.
The Walgreens on Santa Margarita Parkway and the CVS on Antonio Parkway are out of shots but plan on having more in stock next week. Pavilions had about 15 shots as of Saturday afternoon, and Rite Aid on Santa Margarita Parkway has shots available by appointment only.
A map of locations where flu shots are available can be found online at Healthmap Vaccine.
“Over the last week, there has been a run on flu shots,” said Cal-Med Pharmacist Ken Anzolar. “For the past five years, the trend has fluctuated.”
Last year, there was no shortage of shots, but in years such as the current flu season or in 2009 during the last severe flu outbreak to hit California, the demand rises.
The most recent fatal victim of the flu was a 45-year-old woman who lived in Santa Ana, according to Nicole Stanfield of the Orange County Health Care Agency. She died during hte past week.
A 55-year-old La Habra man and a 51-year-old Fountain Valley man also died of influenza near the end of December, county health officials said.
The most recent victim, whose name was not released, did not have any other underlying medical issues, according to Stanfield.
She said rumors of a declining supply of flu shots are inaccurate: "We still have plenty of vaccines. We’ve had a huge uptick in the number of people getting vaccinated.”
At the agency's clinic in the 1700 block of West 17th Street in Santa Ana, 4,220 flu shots have been given out between October and Thursday, Stanfield said.
Last year, the clinic gave out 2,456 shots from October through the end of January, Stanfield said. In 2010, the clinic provided 2,972 shots from October through Jan. 25, she said.
During the most recent severe flu season in 2009, 57 people died in Orange County of influenza, Stanfield said.
Vaccines often cost $20-$30; however, they are often covered by insurance.
Flu shots are an inactivated vaccine made from killed virus, which means it’s impossible to get the flu from the vaccine, according to Dr. Angela Rasmussen, an infectious disease expert.
There are currently three flu shots being produced in the U.S.: the regular (intramuscular) seasonal flu shot, a high-dose vaccine for people 65 and older, and an intradermal (injected into the skin) vaccine for people ages 18 to 64.
In addition, a nasal-spray flu vaccine made with live, weakened flu viruses (which also do not cause the flu) is available to healthy people ages 2 to 49 years old, except pregnant women.
The most common side effect from a flu shot is soreness at the injection site.
Even those who think they don't need a flu shot should get one anyway, according to Jack Cantlin, a pharmacist and the divisional vice president of retail clinical services at Walgreens. It's possible to contract the virus and carry it without being sick.
The elderly, young children, pregnant women and nursing home residents are at greater risk for serious complications from the flu. People with chronic medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and chronic lung disease—as well as those who work with them—are also at risk.
- City News Service contributed to this report.
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The explosion in broadband video consumption is creating a significant and growing hairball for broadband Internet Service Providers, content providers, regulators and others. The core problem is that ISPs' networks are getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of video being consumed each day.
ISPs have several ways to address the situation, but unfortunately none are perfect. For example, Comcast's approach until recently has been to use network management tools to block or slow certain kinds of traffic, such as peer-to-peer. P2P is a particular issue for cable ISPs because it uses scarce "upstream" bandwidth. Network management is highly technical, making it hard for policy-makers to understand it, let alone legislate it. So Comcast is now facing a sanction from the FCC over its network management practices (which it says it's moving away from anyway), because the FCC didn't consider them "reasonable" by its own vague definition.
Time Warner Cable is experimenting with another approach: tiers of service carrying bandwidth caps for users. This is a little bit like today's cell phone model - you buy a package of minutes, and if you go over, you pay extra. Though that may sound reasonable, it invites all kinds of confusion for consumers (e.g. "do I watch that show on CBS.com? Maybe I'd better not, I think my kids have watched a lot of YouTube clips this week and I don't want to go over my cap."). Content providers are justifiably concerned about this potential scenario. Separately, for its part, AT&T recently tried to clarify what its users can and cannot expect from their broadband subscriptions.
Yet another route is for broadband ISPs to adopt a much more expansive technical approach to how content is hosted in their networks and delivered to their users. Equipment vendors like Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco believe that ISPs could convert the current bandwidth problem into a full-fledged business opportunity. This would involve ISPs deploying hardware and software that would enable "managed services," each to be delivered at a specified quality level and for a specified price. So rather than a consumer buying a tier, they would buy a specific service offering (e.g. unlimited Hulu, with HD delivery guaranteed).
This wouldn't be a totally unfamiliar concept. Content providers have been buying managed hosting/delivery services for years from CDNs like Akamai, Limelight, Level 3 and others which guarantee certain delivery metrics. But these CDNs' guarantees can't reach into the "last mile" the ISPs' networks serve. So as ever-more bandwidth intensive content is launched such as HD and long-form, content providers should have an increasing motivation to see last mile ISPs offer comparable managed services offerings from ISPs as well.
However, ISP managed services would require fundamental changes in how these companies currently work together, and also invites concerns from "net neutrality" advocates that ISPs could bias in favor of one content provider or another when making their deals. Though compelling in concept, there are many details to sort out in the managed services approach, making it a longer-term option.
All of this just scratches the surface of the growing bandwidth hairball. Layer on the free-speech advocates like Free Press and Public Knowledge and the politicians looking to make hay with constituents and it's evident that the debate over bandwidth is only going to intensify.
What do you think? Post a comment now.
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The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), a self-regulatory body, has asked news channels not to show visuals or details that could "re-traumatise" victims of sexual assault or reveal their identities.
The NBSA, headed by former Supreme Court chief justice JS Verma, issued guidelines for channels while reporting cases of sexual assault.
Justice Verma also heads the panel now looking into laws dealing with crimes against women.
The guidelines come in the aftermath of the brutal rape of 23-year-old woman and interviews with a man who was a witness to the incident.
The NBSA has advised channels to balance the survivor's and the family's right to privacy and with public interest.
"News channels must ensure that no victim of sexual assault, violence, aggression, trauma or a witness to any such acts, is featured in any news report or programme, relating to such victim, without concealing the identity of such person," the NBSA has also said.
"In reporting cases of sexual assault on women, victims of child abuse and juvenile delinquents, to respect their privacy, the name, photograph and other details that may lead to disclosure of their identity or that of the family shall not be broadcast or divulged," the new guidelines stated.
Visuals of the victim must be completely morphed out, the NBSA statement said.
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What To Do When Coming And Going…
WHEN entering the US, visitors and individuals with non-immigrant visas must fill out a white I-94 or green I-94W Arrival-Departure document and retain it during their stay. It must be returned to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) at the time you depart the US. It is important that the I-94 be returned to CBP because it is a record of when you entered and departed the US and verifies that you entered legally and did not overstay the period you were permitted to stay in the US. Being able to prove that you obeyed immigration laws is important when reentering the US in the future or when applying for immigration benefits such as a non-immigrant or immigrant visas.
Depending on the mode of transportation taken to depart the US, the I-94 should be turned in at the time of departure to the airline or ship representative or to the Canadian or Mexican immigration inspector at the land border. If you leave the US without turning in the I-94 to the appropriate authorities, you must take further action to ensure that your departure is properly recorded only if you departed the US by land, private ship, or private plane. You are not required to take any actions if you took a commercial airline or sea carrier because your departure can be independently verified. Travelers who take short trips to Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean islands during their visit to the US can hold on to their I-94s until they depart for their home.
If you did not turn in your I-94 card at the time of departure and did not take a commercial airline or ship, the I-94 must be mailed to the CBP office in Kentucky with other documentation to prove that you left the US and an explanation written in English. Without taking these steps, CBP’s records may indicate that you are overstaying your authorized stay.
Supporting documents that can be submitted as proof of your departure from the US can include items such as original boarding passes that you used to depart another country such as Canada after you crossed the border, or photocopies of bank records, dated pay slips or vouchers from your employer, school records, or credit card receipts that indicate that you were in another country after you left the US Photocopies of entry or departure stamps in your passport that indicate that you entered another country after leaving the US can also be submitted. In such a case, a copy of all passport pages that are not blank should be submitted.
It is important that you also submit an explanation as to why your I-94 was not turned in. An explanation letter alone without supporting documents is not acceptable. Make sure that all copies are legible and that you keep a copy of the documents that you submit as they will not be returned to you.
Your I-94, supporting documentation, and explanation letter should be mailed to the following address:
DHS-CBP SBU, 1084 South Laurel Rd, London, KY 40744
This is the only address where you should send your I-94 and documents. This is the only address that can correct the records. The DHS-CBP office does not provide any confirmation regarding your submission.
The next time you travel to the US, bring a copy of the materials you submitted to DHS-CBP in case there are any questions or if your record has not yet been corrected. If you departed the US on a commercial air or ship and are not required to take the above actions, you should still keep on to your boarding pass and bring it with you the next time you enter the US as this may be helpful.
The above information is given for informational purposes only and should not be taken as legal advice. Please consult with an attorney to discuss the particulars of your own case. Stephen Ure can be contacted at (619) 235-5400, (714) 368-1663 or (909) 574-0713 or email: email@example.com
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(Washington) – United States Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) today expressed outrage over a Wednesday morning seizure by Azerbaijani authorities of the independent Juma Mosque in Baku, where police reportedly beat some worshipers before taking control of the place of worship.
“The government’s forcible eviction of this peaceful Islamic community is an outrage,” said Chairman Smith, “no charges should be brought against the mosque's leadership.” The Juma Mosque community operated freely for nearly 10 years until its leader dared to speak out against the repressive policies of the Azerbaijani Government. “These Soviet-style tactics demonstrate the government is determined to control individuals’ religious beliefs and ignore internationally recognized standards of religious freedom, including OSCE commitments,” Chairman Smith observed.
Agence France Presse reported Wednesday, “Worshippers said they were kicked and punched as police burst in during morning prayers at the Juma mosque in the capital, Baku, one of the country's few mosques to remain outside strict state control.”
“These actions represent a serious breach in Azerbaijan’s human rights commitments and further tarnishes its international reputation,” said Chairman Smith. “Government violence against religious communities harkens back to the darker, Soviet days of Azerbaijan’s history. The government should allow for religious freedom and permit the Juma Mosque congregation to worship and operate free from government control.”
Earlier this year, Baku city authorities successfully sued to oust the Juma Mosque community, reportedly claiming that the community lacked any rental agreement or government registration, and that the 1,000-year-old mosque was an historical site.
Government authorities in 1992 returned the Juma Mosque – which during the Soviet period had been converted into a carpet museum – to this community, and registered it in 1992 and 1993. However, the State Committee for Work with Religious Associations has reportedly refused to re-register the mosque. Before the seizure, Azerbaijani authorities visited the mosque several times in June threatening closure of the worship site. Helsinki Commission Members denounced Azeri Government tactics in March as a “land grab dressed up as a legal proceeding.”
Government actions have not been limited to the mosque. During the raid on Wednesday morning, police aided the unilateral installation of a new imam appointed by the Muslim Board of the Caucasus, a Soviet-era Muftiate close to the government, to replace the community’s leader, Imam Ilgar Ibrahimoglu. Authorities had jailed Imam Ibrahimoglu in December 2003 on charges related to his alleged connection to demonstrations following last October’s flawed presidential elections. He was released in early April after receiving a five-year suspended sentence.
In addition to congressional actions, other governments and NGOs have often expressed concerned. In April, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights, noting that the Azerbaijani Government was threatening to use force to expel the Juma Mosque congregation “in retaliation for the pro-democracy, pro-human rights, and pro-religious freedom activities of its leadership.”
The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.
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What is in this article?:
- What's Wrong Here?
- Find the Answer
Hint: Is this a permitted wiring method in a motor fuel dispensing facility?
Find the Answer
I discovered this violation after filling up my vehicle at a gas station in Cambridge, Mass. As noted in 514.4 of the 2005 NEC, “All electrical equipment and wiring installed in Class I locations as classified in 514.3 shall comply with the applicable provisions of Article 501.” The approved wiring methods for a Class I, Division 1 location are noted in section 501.10. Another reference worth noting is 514.7, which sets forth the requirements for wiring and equipment located above Class I locations.
For a close-up of this picture click here.
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|Pedro Sanchez I, Christ Before Pilate (estimate: $120,000-$160,000)|
But there are a few I wish the museum would retain, especially the devotional triptych of Christ before Pilate by Pedro Sanchez I, a Seville artist active in the second half of the 15th century. That it's survived intact is remarkable enough, but it also appears to be in excellent condition.
I challenge anyone to name a single painting in the Met's European paintings galleries by a Spanish artist before El Greco. Here's a prime example -- it doesn't fit the old-fashioned canon of "progress" in art as exemplified by the Italian Renaissance and Early Netherlandish painting, but it's marvelous.
|Out of the Met's storerooms and onto the walls of Sotheby's|
Text and photos (c) Copyright 2013 Laura Gilbert
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United States Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing Team up in Veteran Hiring Effort
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States Mint (Mint) and Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) have launched a joint initiative to assist service members transitioning to civilian life by providing career counseling and information on job opportunities with the nation's manufacturers of currency and coin.
For 220 years at the Mint and 150 years at the BEP, both bureaus have historically hired men and women returning from service. Today, the two bureaus employ approximately 1,000 veterans. So far this year, more than 50 percent of the Mint's and 28 percent of BEP's new hires are veterans.
"The Mint and BEP have renewed their efforts and are working together to help support service members returning from their deployments overseas." said Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios.
The joint veterans hiring initiative features outreach activities and resources to help veterans who are seeking federal employment. These efforts are aimed at providing information on the unique career opportunities at the U.S. Mint and BEP, as well as ways to navigate the federal hiring process. The two bureaus will engage with veterans at several military transition assistance program events and will develop materials to help veterans match their military experience with civilian careers and their associated job requirements.
In addition, the Mint and BEP have recently engaged with Operation Warfighter (OWF), a Department of Defense program that provides wounded, ill, and injured service members with meaningful activity outside of the hospital environment that promotes wellness and offers a formal means of transition to the civilian workforce or return to military duty.
The Mint, created by Congress in 1792, is the Nation's sole manufacturer of legal tender coinage and is responsible for producing circulating coinage for the Nation to conduct its trade and commerce. The Mint also produces proof, uncirculated and commemorative coins; Congressional Gold Medals; and silver, gold and platinum bullion coins.
The BEP began manufacturing and printing United States currency notes trusted worldwide in 1862. In addition to U.S. currency notes, BEP produces many other security documents issued by the Federal Government.
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New York January 4, 2013--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in India to refrain from pressing charges against a media group that televised an interview with the companion of the Delhi rape victim who died last week. The December 16 case has garnered global attention.
"This is an instance of greatly misplaced priorities. Authorities are hardly protecting the victim's rights by retaliating against news media that are bringing to light details of the horrific crime that claimed her life," said Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator. "Police should immediately drop their misguided plan to file charges."
In an interview with Zee News broadcast today, the man, using an alias, spoke of the brutality of the crime as well as the ineptitude of the police response to the victims, who were dumped by a roadside. Zee's interviewer referred to the man as Abhimanyu, comparing him to the hero from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Police said Zee would still be charged under laws pertaining to disclosure of identity in a rape case, local media reported.
New Delhi police said they would charge the broadcaster under section 228(A) of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with the disclosure of identity of victims of certain crimes, including rape, according to The New York Times. A conviction could carry a penalty of up to two years in jail, local media reported.
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The news gets worst. The fever that Uncle Sam has contracted about 13 months ago has now turned into pneumonia, and now the world has got tuberculosis. The subprime mortgage crises has now evolved into a full scale financial crises with major financial institutions falling, the Leighman brothers, Meryll Lynch and AIG being its latest victims. (Fortunately the Feds intervened in AIG’s case and Merill Lynch had the benefit of having a dashing knight to its rescue. The Feds decided to save insurance giant AIG because it is “too big to fail.” Of course it is, imagine what would happen to their carinsurancelist.com) Experts are now saying that the United States has full entered into a recession while Wall Street is asking who is next.
Amidst the turmoil one cannot anymore avoid trying to understand the complexities of the subprime mortgage crises which undoubtedly is the main source of all of these. As I wrote before in my post entitled “Idiot’s guide to the subprime mortgage crises”, most people in third world countries such as ours, the Philippines, do not care to understand what the subprime mortgage crises is all about considering that they do not see how they will be affected by it.
Now that the problem is affecting economies worldwide with stock market going down and banks and institutional investors affected by the fall of U.S financial giants, people even in third world countries are now asking what the heck is going on. In order to understand the root of the problem, people need to understand the mess that the subprime mortgage crises has created.
My previous post on the subprime mortgage crises as mentioned above will somehow help the layman on what the problem is all about. There is another youtube video I am posting below that I would like to point out that will help the ordinary layman somehow understand the subprime mortgage problem.
Somehow, the stand up comedians in this youtube video has managed to make a joke out of all of these. Their comical and satirical view points with regards to the financial markets somewhat strikes a chord and reveals what is truly going on in our financial system and why the entire world is dragged into this subprime mortgage mess. In this time of economic crises that is being dubbed as the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, there is no other best thing to do but to get a good laugh from all of this. Enjoy the video!
Hi ! my name is Zigfred Diaz, Thanks for visiting my personal blog ! Never miss a post from this blog. Subscribe to my full feeds for free. Click here to subscribe to zdiaz.com by Email
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Grief Soup, Part One
If only grief were simple: sadness, tears, missing that beloved person. If only we could be alone in stillness with the absence (and the startling presence) of that dear person we’ve lost. Maybe then we could simply rest in the plain sorrow of love and let our grief be.
What you get, though, is it not just grief but grief soup – a rich and varied blend of emotions that is as unique as you are.
Grief soup is a mixture of love and sadness, fear and anger, regret and resentment, with a healthy dose of loneliness, most likely, and traces (depending on your own recipe) of hope or despair, relief, shock, shame, courage or self-consciousness. All those ingredients blend together into your particular version of grief soup, which most people simply call “grief.”
With so many emotions, judgments and expectations present, it’s tricky to speak about your grief, much less deal with it in a helpful way.
When I lost Bonnie, I was blessed to experience a grief that was largely unmixed with fear, regret, resentment and anger. Bonnie and I had had two and half months to be together, knowing that she would soon die. Her slipping away was gradual, and at the end she chose to stop taking medicine, rather than extend the misery she was feeling.
Loneliness, though, was a huge and obvious part of my grief after she died. My friends saw I was lonely, and offered their time and their homes to ease me through that empty time. It’s important to notice that such invitations are offered as remedies for loneliness, not for grief. Sometimes people are given well-meant advice like “You should get out more,” or “Why don’t you start dating again.” (I stoutly resented that one, right up to the day I suddenly fell in love with Carol.) If you see these as recommended cures for grief, you may be shocked at your friends’ insensitivity. But this is advice to deal with loneliness, not with grief. And for loneliness, it may be good medicine.
Let’s not be so simplistic with ourselves or with our grieving friends. Let’s not say, “I’m grieving,” or “He’s grieving,” and let it go at that; let’s listen for all the ingredients that are present in our grief soup or someone else’s.
If we pay close attention, we may find that we have ways to deal with the anger, ways to deal with the fear, ways to deal with regret or resentment or loneliness. And when we have noticed that we can deal with all of those, maybe we’ll find that we don’t need to deal with grief itself, that we can simply allow our grief to be, because it is, in its essence, no more or less than love.
Next, Part Two: A practice for grief — naming the ingredients in your grief soup.
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Over the course of the past couple of years DVD ripping techniques have changed dramatically. Newer "one click" programs have made backing up a DVD a fairly simple process... but there is a significant trade-off. The quality that can be attained by even the best of these programs is poor in comparison to original techniques that used Cinemacraft Encoder, HC Encoder, QuEnc, or other top-notch encoders. The reason is simple. When using one of these encoders the picture is rebuilt from scratch and optimized for the resulting bitrate. One-touch transcoders usually drop DCT coefficients or change quantization info in order to lower the bitrate. This can result in pixelation and poor overall picture quality.
But, man, they sure are convenient.
That's where DVD ReBuilder (DVD-RB) comes in. This program was built to bridge
the gap between the incredibly easy but limited "one-click" solutions and the
incredibly complex but high-quality methods of DVD ripping and backup.
Another advantage of DVD-RB when compared to older methods is that it doesn't
require access to an expensive authoring package. DVD-RB includes its own
reauthoring engine that reconstructs the DVD in a way compatible with its
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This year's biggest economic losersFebruary 7, 2013: 9:24 AM ET
Who's going to feel the biggest squeeze? Though they get plenty of attention, it's not the wealthy or the middle class.
By Elizabeth G. Olson
FORTUNE -- Who is going to feel the tightest economic squeeze this year?
The answer is not the wealthy, although some will pay higher taxes than in recent years. The middle-tier worker might not be making huge strides, but it's the bottom 25% of workers whose financial plight is likely to get no better, and perhaps even worse.
The bottom quadrant are not those who can't or won't find or keep a job, but the working families who make enough to clear the official poverty line but still cannot make ends meet. Such families, defined as those who have one adult employed full-time, are not looking at much, if anything, that will give them significant help, such as better job prospects, tax breaks, or even the financial boost of a higher national minimum wage, according to economists.
"There is a lot of suffering out there," says Paul Osterman, professor at MIT and author of Good Jobs America. "Not enough jobs are being created to replace the ones that were lost, let alone new ones."
While more companies are taking on workers -- 157,000 jobs were added in January, according to employment statistics released last Friday -- but the jobless rate, nevertheless, rose slightly, to 7.9%, as weekly unemployment claims rose.
"Overall growth remains too slow to provide work for all who want and need it," says Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, reacting to the jobs data. Some 2.2 million jobs were created in 2011.
Little relief is in sight, with a heavy budget axe poised to fall as early as next month. Over $80 billion in government spending cuts will likely push even more families up against, or over, the economic edge.
Up to 1.4 million jobs could be lost, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, which will add more families to some 47.5 million Americans considered among the working poor. Last year, the official poverty line was $22,811 for a family of four, with two adults and two children.
A new study by the Working Poor Families Project, a foundation-funded endeavor, examined U.S. Census data and concluded that the number of low-income working families continues to rise, with about one-third of all such households currently struggling to pay for their essential living expenses. The project defines working poor families as those earning 200% above the official poverty line, or $45,600.
Last year, the lowest earning one-fifth of families took home less than 5% of all income, according to the analysis. At the same time, the top-earning 20% of all working families took home nearly half, or 48%, of all income.
Other economists point to federal data that the costs of basic necessities, which include mortgage or rent payments, utilities, clothing and transportation, are lower now than they were in the past. In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion column, two conservative economists argued that figures provided by the Bureau of Labor Analysis, part of the U.S. Commerce Department, found that households spend only 32% on basics now compared to 44% in 1970 and a much higher 54% in 1950.
Brandon Roberts, co-author of the Working Poor Families report, says federal data shows it's not a question of frittering away disposable income, but that "too many people are not able to pay for health care or put money away for their children's education. Working families are not doing better than they were several years ago."
And the ranks of the working poor are growing, he says, noting that data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey shows that their numbers grew by 200,000 in 2011. As a result, 10.4 million families -- 32% of all working families -- fit the working poor definition, an increase from 28% in 2007.
The pain is spread geographically, the report found, with every state registering a significant number of low-income working families. However, states in the South, including Mississippi, and the West, including New Mexico, had the highest percentages of working poor.
The unemployment has declined, but it has retreated more slowly than economists predicted, with long-term joblessness at its highest rate ever. About 40% of the country's 12.3 million jobless are viewed as long-term unemployed, a situation that was underscored recently by the decline of the gross national product late last year.
Reductions in defense spending have contributed to that decline, and the upcoming billions in spending cuts are expected to ripple through the economy -- a development that workforce experts like the National Employment Law Project's Owens warn could cause major harm to workers.
"The economy is still suffering from the worst recession in 80 years -- and the degree of continuing pain cannot be overstated," she says.
Low-income working families have added more hours to their workweek, but are receiving the same pay, says Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
During the three decades following 1979, American employees worked 10.7% more annually -- the equivalent of working 4.5 additional weeks every year -- but real annual wages grew only slightly. For middle-wage workers, wages grew 5.3%, with the biggest gains coming in the economically flush late 1990s, according to Mishel, who compiles the data annually in "The State of Working America."
"The situation is stagnating, and workers took another blow when payroll taxes reverted to where they were before," says Mishel, an economist, referring to the expiration of last year's 2% decrease in taxes taken from paychecks.
"The economy is not growing enough to drive down employment," Mishel adds. He is calling for more job training and restoring union rights, noting that workforce data suggests that "Americans started working more paid hours as part of a coping strategy to ensure some income growth despite poor wage performance."
Wages aside, families can find little solace, if any, in talk of tax reform. Some important tax credits -- including one for childcare -- survived the tax deal engineered in January, but Brandon Roberts says he supports breaks for worker sick leave and affordable skills training.
An increase in the federal minimum wage could offer a boost to workers. The rate, at $7.25 per hour, was last changed in 2009. Last month, 10 states raised their hourly wage, but Congress must approve the federal minimum, which could help offset the deeper bite that the restored payroll tax cut is taking in low-income workers' paychecks.
"We're not supporting skills training or a higher minimum wage because they are handouts," says Roberts, "but because they are opportunities."
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When you open the Prehistoric Blackjack you appear in the Stone Age. You see a prehistoric drama. Here it is. Jungle is very dangerous, you know. There are many animals and insects there. They are big and small, repulsive and beautiful. But all of them produce a staggering impression and touch everyone's soul. Bright colors, plenty of plants and exotic animals strike people. It wasn't surprising, that that morning began with an astonishing half-transparent sunrise, which promised a new fresh day. And the day began. The sun was shining, but there was no sound in the forest. Why? There were no cheerful birds, a wild animal disturbed with something didn't growl, all snakes hided, all insects disappeared, but the birds of prey were flying in the sky. What had happened? It was the beginning of an unprecedented drought, it carried death into jungle. There was no water, the plants were drying up; there was no food and the animals were starving. Their life stopped. It was quiet in the village of prehistoric people. Around the village several monkeys were sitting on the trees exhausted from the heat. Suddenly all monkeys started up, because a kid went out of a shack. He had a banana in his hand. The most quick-witted monkey pulled out the banana from the child's hand and ran away. It sat comfortable on the distant tree and opened its mouth to eat, but a gorilla saw it. The gorilla couldn't get to the monkey so it started to roar, it wanted to eat too! That was a very successful day for the monkey. The designers of this game wish you good luck too! Try your fortune as you have everything to do it: a game space with an interesting topic, excellent graphics and simple game rules!
Platform Windows 95/98/ME
Operating Systems Windows 95/98/ME,Windows NT/2000,Windows XP
Date added 9 Feb 2004
Last Updated 24 Jan 2011
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Visions of Auntie Mame : -) and Q's for Anita
Posted by Carolyn B on April 25, 1998 at 08:45:59:
In response to Sidesaddling, written by Anita the guest on April 24, 1998 at 23:31:56
it was thought that women needed an added advantage to keep up with the men in the hunting field (besides the issue of sexuality which is a whole 'nother subject).
I suspect that I know to what you refer but this would probably stray beyond the PG rating of the board to discuss :0
]I would bet money that, assuming the saddle stays on the horse, I could stay with a bucking horse longer than a man on a western saddle
This reminds me of the scene in "Auntie Mame" (Rosalind Russell version) where she survives her ride on a homicidal horse because she gets wedged in her sidesaddle : )
] Normally, if you are in correct form, you should not fall backwards. In fact, it is hard to be unseated at all. If necessary, you can use a crop or whip as an aid.
So do you not use your "seat" (balance/weight, whatever) much to give commands? For example, I learned to canter by using the right leg to put a horse on the left lead (I think I'm getting this right, it's been 5 years). Would you use a tap of the crop to signal instead of the leg or would you shift your seat a smidge??
In most cases, the lady only rode a well trained "ladies mount" that would have been trained for sidesaddle. It would not be proper for a lady to have been out in the field and be fighting with her horse to heed her commands.
I seem to remember that ladies were also supposed to show how they controlled their horses through gentleness rather than strength. (Hands so soft they could steer with cotton threads instead of reins, etc.) Of course the movie cliche is to have the heroine ride the spirited mount who runs off with her!
My big question, of course, regards mounting while in the long habit. Do you require assistance or can you manage on your own?? (without ruining your ladylike deportment ; )
Glad to have someone here who can shed light on these questions!
- Reply + How do I post a pic - never done it before... Anita 12:01:13 4/26/98 (1)
- How to post a pic Caroline 12:12:32 4/26/98 (0)
- Also, P&P2 equitation question for anyone Carolyn B 09:08:02 4/26/98 (0)
Posting followups to old messages is disabled; instead go to the main index and post a new message which mentions this one.
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4 1/2 miles east of Grayson on US 60 at the summit of Star Hill, a dirt road turns off to the right and goes up a steep hill through a new development by Addington. Very near the first peak of the ridge, a large plateau to the right extends toward the inner valley. There you will find three Ellenberg family graves marked with tombstones.
The logger of the property, Billy Stephens found them and brought them to my attention.. He was careful to protect them.
same land was sold to the
family, and now is owned by Addington for home sites. All the timber was cleared away in 2003-2004.
A low fence will protect them as much as remote graves can be protected.
The road is closed now but with the development, it may be open while they are selling lots.
A preservation volunteer is needed for these graves.
A double headstone for Henry Ellenberg age 77
and his wife: Augusta Ellenberg age 72
their baby granddaughter
Vivian M. Ellenberg
From the dates of death, the grandfather died just five days before the baby.
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Serving child victims of abuse and neglect through:
-coordinated interagency investigation
The Mary Abbott Children's House provides forensic interviews and medical assessments to child victims of abuse. As an advocacy center, Abbott House also maintains a robust educational program that teaches adults about the signs of abuse and how to report suspected abuse.
Abbott House provides a victim-centered, child-friendly environment to help children tell their stories after an instance of abuse has occured. Through our coordinated effort with investigators, counselors, and medical professionals, we help to set children on the path to healing.
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Why aren't more women running things in America? It isn't for lack of ambition or life skills or credentials. The real barrier to getting more women to the top is the unsexy but immensely difficult issue of time commitment: Today's top jobs in major organizations demand 60-plus hours of work a week.
In her much-discussed new book, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg tells women with high aspirations that they need to "lean in" at work—that is, assert themselves more. It's fine advice, but it misdiagnoses the problem. It isn't any shortage of drive that leads those phalanxes of female Harvard Business School grads to opt out. It's the assumption that senior roles have to consume their every waking moment. More great women don't "lean in" because they don't like the world they're being asked to lean into.
It doesn't have to be this way. A little organizational imagination bolstered by a commitment from the C-suite can point the path to a saner, more satisfying blend of the things that ambitious women want from work and life. It's time that we put the clock at the heart of this debate.
I know this is doable because I run a growing startup company in which more than half the professionals work fewer than 40 hours a week by choice. They are alumnae of top schools and firms like General Electric and McKinsey, and they are mostly women. The key is that we design jobs to enable people to contribute at varying levels of time commitment while still meeting our overall goals for the company.
This isn't advanced physics, but it does mean thinking through the math of how work in a company adds up. It's also an iterative process; we hardly get it right every time. But for businesses and reformers serious about cracking the real glass ceiling for women—and making their firms magnets for the huge swath of American talent now sitting on the sidelines—here are four ways to start going about it.
Rethink time. Break away from the arbitrary notion that high-level work can be done only by people who work 10 or more hours a day, five or more days a week, 12 months a year. Why not just three days a week, or six hours a day, or 10 months a year?
It sounds simple, but the only thing that matters is quantifying the work that needs to get done and having the right set of resources in place to do it. Senior roles should actually be easier to reimagine in this way because highly paid people have the ability and, often, the desire to give up some income in order to work less. Flexibility and working from home can soften the blow, of course, but they don't solve the overall time problem.
Break work into projects. Once work is quantified, it must be broken up into discrete parts to allow for varying time commitments. Instead of thinking in terms of broad functions like the head of marketing, finance, corporate development or sales, a firm needs to define key roles in terms of specific, measurable tasks.
Once you think of work as a series of projects, it's easy to see how people can tailor how much to take on. The growth of consulting and outsourcing came precisely when firms realized they could carve work into projects that could be done more effectively outside. The next step is to design internal roles in smaller bites, too. An experienced marketer for a pharma company could lead one major drug launch, for example, without having to oversee all drug launches. Instead of managing a portfolio with 10 products, a senior person could manage five. If a client-service executive working five days a week has a quota of 10 deals a month, then one who chooses to work three days a week has a quota of only six. Lower the quota but not the quality of the work or the executive's seniority.
One reason this doesn't happen more is managerial laziness: It's easier to find a "superwoman" to lead marketing (someone who will work as long as humanly possible) than it is to design work around discrete projects. But even superwoman has a limit, and when she hits it, organizations adjust by breaking up jobs and adding staff. Why not do this before people hit the wall?
Availability matters. It's important to differentiate between availability and absolute time commitments. Many professional women would happily agree to check email even seven days a week and jump in, if necessary, for intense project stints—so long as over the course of a year, the time devoted to work is more limited. Managers need to be clear about what's needed: 24/7 availability is not the same thing as a 24/7 workload.
“More great women don't 'lean in' because they don't like the world they're being asked to lean into.”
Quality is the goal, not quantity. Leaders need to create a culture in which talented people are judged not by the quantity of their work, but by the quality of their contributions. This can't be hollow blather. Someone who works 20 hours a week and who delivers exceptional results on a pro rata basis should be eligible for promotions and viewed as a top performer. American corporations need to get rid of the notion that wanting to work less makes someone a "B player."
Promoting this kind of innovation, where companies start to look more like puzzles than pyramids, has to become part of feminism's new agenda. It's the only way to give millions of capable women the ability to recalibrate the time that they devote to work at different stages of their lives.
We have been putting smart women on the couch for 40 years, since psychologist Matina Horner published her famous studies on "fear of success." But the portion of top jobs that go to women is still shockingly low. That's the irony of Ms. Sandberg's cheerleading for women to stay ambitious: She fails to see that her own agenda isn't nearly ambitious enough.
"Leaning in" may help the relative handful of talented women who can live with the way that top jobs are structured today—and if that's their choice, more power to them. But only a small percentage of women will choose this route. Until the rest of us get serious about altering the way work gets done in American corporations, we're destined to howl at the moon over the injustice of it all while changing almost nothing.—Ms. Greenstone Miller is co-founder and chief executive officer of Business Talent Group.
A version of this article appeared March 9, 2013, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Real Women's Issue: Time.
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Dividend-paying stocks are so 2011, right?
The big, stodgy companies that pay dividends to shareholders did well when the markets were sinking last year. Consumer-staples stocks, utilities, telecoms, what have you, all set the pace while investors avoided growth like the plague.
But since someone pushed the “risk-on” button last October, dividend-paying warhorses have lagged the market’s fleet fillies—small-cap stocks and emerging markets. Even so, many dividend-paying stocks trade near their 52-week highs.
Yet there’s still a strong case to be made for these stocks, although I would wait for a market pullback to buy them or add to what you have.
It comes down to yield in a low-return world: The possibility of increasing income, which is unlikely with bonds at this point, as well as relative protection in bear markets, and simply nowhere else to go for most people. And there’s one more compelling reason to own these stocks, which I’ll get to later.
But the most important reason, of course, is yield. Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke has pushed the federal funds rate down to near zero, and will keep it there for at least two more years.
So, savers are earning less than 1% from even the highest paying money market funds. Other accounts pay even less. It’s a joke.
As for bonds, Treasuries yield anywhere from 0.25% on the short end to less than 2% for ten-year notes, and barely 3% for 30-year bonds. And investors have poured nearly $800 billion into taxable bond funds since 2007, so they could suffer capital losses if bonds sell off, as many expect them to.
“There is a desperation on the part of a lot of investors who require cash flow and are not getting it off other investments,” said Charles Carlson, chief executive officer of Horizon Investment Services and editor of DRIP Investor, an investment newsletter that focuses on dividend-paying stocks.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index yields just over 2%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average yields 2.5%. Both yield more than the ten-year Treasury, only the second time that’s happened since 1947. The last time was near the market bottom in 2008-2009.
And the really good news is that companies can always raise dividends…and some do consistently.
Corporations certainly have the wherewithal to boost payouts. Earnings of the S&P 500 have taken off by an amazing 125% since the end of 2009. And though their gains have slowed, analysts and strategists still expect earnings to grow in the mid-single digits.
As I’m sure you know, nonfinancial companies in the S&P 500 hold nearly $2 trillion in cash on their balance sheets; Apple (AAPL) alone has almost $100 billion in cash.
- Read Howard’s piece on the challenges to Apple’s manufacturing supply chain.
That huge cash hoard allows corporations to boost their dividend payouts and stock buybacks, which also help lift share prices. (There’s even speculation about Apple instituting a stock dividend, but I’ll believe it when I see it.)
Dividends paid by S&P 500 companies in 2011 totaled $240 billion, a 16% jump from 2010 and the highest level since 2008, according to DRIP Investor. And in the 12 months ended September 2011, “positive” dividend actions (instituting or raising a dividend) outnumbered “negative” actions (reducing or suspending dividends) by 328-6. (The ratio was a much narrower 1.4:1 in the 12 months ended September 2009, according to S&P.)
In fact, as Carlson points out, the current dividend payout ratio of 28% (the percentage of corporate profits paid out in dividends) is far lower than its 20-year average payout ratio of 40%. So there’s plenty of room for growth there.
And these stocks also may offer higher returns than you’d expect.
In a research note, three fund managers at BlackRock—Robert Shearer, Kathleen Anderson, and David Cassese—wrote: “Dividend payers historically have outperformed non-dividend payers over the long term with lower volatility than the broader stock market.”
In fact, they say dividend-paying stocks have beaten non-dividend-paying stocks in the S&P by three percentage points—20.6% to 17.2%—over all ten bull markets since 1972, according to data from Ned Davis Research. And dividend payers suffer half the losses of non-dividend payers in all the bear markets during that time. What’s not to like?
That brings us to one of the best reasons for investors to own dividend-paying stocks—they’re the least scary equities at a time when people are terrified to be in the market.
Investors pulled $134.5 billion from US equity mutual funds last year—$52 billion since September alone, when the market actually took off again. That’s fear, and can you blame people after everything that’s happened over the last few years?
Psychology may be the single most important factor in investors’ financial decisions. The best strategy in the world won’t work if it doesn’t survive a gut check. And I do think it’s important for everyone to have something invested in equities. So, why not own stocks that let you sleep at night more comfortably?
- Read Howard’s piece on why the US is the best market for investors.
Actually, Intel is one of only four S&P 500 technology stocks that yield more than 3%, and dividend payouts comprise 40% of its free cash flow. Although the stock trades near its 52-week high, it changes hands at only 11 times projected 2012 earnings.
Meanwhile, “Microsoft has done quite well this year—it’s up 15% and hit a new 52-week high this year. We think it’s a pretty good value,” said Carlson. “Investors are looking for cheap tech stocks with growing dividend streams, and that fits it pretty well.”
The stock yields 2.6% after Microsoft hiked its dividend 20% last year. It has free cash flow of more than $20 billion a year, and over $50 billion in cash. It trades at only 11 times 2012 estimated earnings per share, and ten times next year’s forecasted EPS.
If you’re not into individual stocks, Carlson recommends the SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY), an exchange traded fund that tracks the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrat index. That index comprises the highest-yielding stocks in the S&P Composite 1500 Index that have increased dividends every year for at least 25 consecutive years.
I like the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG), which works on a similar concept. Full disclosure: I own its mutual fund cousin, Vanguard Dividend Growth (VDIGX).
As I said, stocks have come a long way in a short time. I’d wait for a correction to buy more. But if you’re looking for yield and equity exposure with less gut-wrenching volatility, dividend-paying stocks are the way to go—even in 2012.
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The Weirdest Patents In The World (PHOTOS)
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The American patent system has long been criticized for being inefficient and for hindering innovation. But, for all its disadvantages, our patent process has, at the very least, created some hilarious would-be products.
"Innovations based on patented inventions or discoveries can take teams of researchers, engineers and marketing experts a decade or more, and tens of millions of dollars, to transfer to the marketplace. And for every bright idea that goes on to become a commercial winner, literally thousands fall by the wayside."
For now, sweeping patent reform doesn't seem to be imminent, which means we're likely to see more wacky and oddly entrepreneurial patent applications like the ones we've compiled below.
Featuring a motorized ice cream cone and something called a "doll urn," this list is certainly not exhaustive. Got a favorite patent or failed invention that you think combines just the right kind of can-do spirit and Rube Goldberg-caliber complexity? Check out our list and click "Participate" to submit your own pick.
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U.S. listed ETFs and ETPs, which traditionally account for the majority of assets, saw inflows of just US$2.7 billion or 20% of global assets October. Globally, ETFs and ETPs providing exposure to North America equities suffered net outflows of $10.1 billion. Investors and investments suffered from growing uncertainty in October over the likely outcome of the US presidential election, the impact of the fiscal cliff in the US, the likely impact of superstorm Sandy and the on-going debt concerns in the Eurozone, according to Deborah Fuhr, Managing Partner at ETFGI.
The majority of concerns and uncertainties focused on the US, and investments in the US, did not negatively impact flows in all regions around the world. Flows into ETFs and ETPs listed in Europe accounted for $4.6 billion or 34% of total assets, and in Asia Pacific (ex Japan), which amassed $4.5 billion or 33.7% of the total. Products listed in Japan, Canada, Middle East and Africa and Latin America accounted for $1.7 billion.
“The source and composition of the fund flows in October shows that ETFs and ETPs are a product set that are increasingly being embraced by investors around the world and are a very good indicator of how investors are tactically and strategically adjusting their allocations to political, economic and other uncertainties that are impacting the markets,” stated Fuhr.
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What Is Puppy Academy?
Tecla’s K-9 Academyʻs Puppy Academy is an innovative daycare program designed for puppies from 9 weeks to 12 months of age. This program was developed by trainer Tecla Walton who is a puppy imprinting specialist and has raised many puppies into award-winning canines. Our program provides for socialization with dogs and people, motivational obedience imprinting/training, crate training, and potty training.
What Are The Benefits Of Puppy Academy?
With the hectic pace of life, many owners are unable to provide their puppies with the time and consistency necessary to help them become wonderful, social adult canines. Tecla’s K-9 Academyʼs Puppy Academy helps you with this process. When you are at work or running necessary household errands, your puppy is with professionals who provide it with the consistency necessary for potty and crate training as well as excellent obedience and monitored socialization. The result: a puppy who is getting the education and experiences necessary to grow up into a wonderful dog that will bring joy to its owner.
How Does Puppy Academy Work?
Puppy Academy runs from 6:30am–7pm daily Monday–Friday (daily and weekly rates are available). From the moment your puppy enters academy for the day it is exposed to a system of motivational training based on operant conditioning. Puppies learn behaviors such as sit, down, and come when called in short one-on-one sessions as well as in groups with the distraction of other puppies. We also use positive means to extinguish behaviors such as jumping and vocalizing in the crate. Additionally, we provide monitored play sessions which provide for proper socialization, teach acceptable play, and offer excellent exercise. We will also have our trainers take your puppy on field trips to veterinary offices, local coffee shops, and pet stores if you would like to take advantage of this option. When you enroll your puppy in Tecla’s K-9 Academyʻs Puppy Academy you are giving him the following gifts:
- He will be provided with all of the above listed experiences at a time when it is most valuable to him (under 12 months of age)
- He will learn an obedience language that he can use to relate to humans for the rest of his life.
To enroll in our Puppy Academy please call our office at (410) 461-DOGS or email us. We will be happy to answer any questions you have and reserve a spot for your puppy.
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The following is from the Associated Press looking at the issue of thousands of people wrongly put on terror lists. You can see the original article at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061007/D8KJHGDO0.html.
Report: Thousands Wrongly on Terror List
By Leslie Miller
October 6, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP)—Thousands of people have been mistakenly linked to names on terror watch lists when they crossed the border, boarded commercial airliners or were stopped for traffic violations, a government report said Friday.
More than 30,000 airline passengers have asked just one agency—the Transportation Security Administration—to have their names cleared from the lists, according to the Government Accountability Office report.
Hundreds of millions of people each year are screened against the lists by Customs and Border Protection, the State Department and state and local law enforcement agencies. The lists include names of people suspected of terrorism or of possibly having links to terrorist activity.
“Misidentifications can lead to delays, intensive questioning and searches, missed flights or denied entry at the border,” the report said. “Whether appropriate relief is being afforded these individuals is still an open question.”
When questions arose about tens of thousands of names between December 2003 and January 2006, the names were sent back to the agencies that put them on the lists, the GAO said. Half of those were found to be misidentified, the report found.
In December 2003, disparate agencies with counterterrorism responsibilities consolidated dozens of watch lists of known or suspected terrorists into the new Terrorist Screening Center run by the FBI.
People are considered “misidentified” if they are matched to the database and then, upon further examination, are found not to match. They are usually misidentified because they have the same name as someone in the database.
People are considered “mistakenly listed” if they were put on the list in error or if they should no longer be included on the list because of subsequent events, the report said.
Problems developed with terrorist watch lists after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer, was detained at New York’s Kennedy Airport in 2002 because Canadian officials had asked that he be placed on a watch list. The U.S. transferred him without court approval to Syria where he was tortured and imprisoned for a year. A Canadian inquiry found that Arar should not have been on the list because he didn’t do anything wrong.
The no-fly list given to airlines to make sure terrorists don’t board airplanes grew exponentially after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The no-fly list is part of the Terrorist Screening Center database.
Young children and well-known Americans like Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., were stopped at airports because their names were the same as those on the no-fly list.
The list has contained the names of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker, according to a report by CBS’ “60 Minutes,” to be broadcast Sunday.
Richard Kopel, acting director of the screening center, said in a statement that Morales and Berri are not on the current no-fly list. He did not address whether they were in the past, noting only that the list changes daily.
Two international flights—in December 2004 and May 2005—were diverted because passenger were misidentified as on the no-fly list.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that watch lists aren’t perfect.
“The watch list was the first stage of building a security net for the aviation system,” Chertoff said.
He said an agreement reached Friday between the U.S. and the European Union would help prevent people from being misidentified.
The agreement calls for airlines to submit 34 pieces of data—including names, addresses and credit card details—about passengers flying from Europe to the United States.
The report said agencies are working to minimize the effect on people who are frequently misidentified.
TSA puts people on a special list of names that have been checked and cleared after they’ve complained to a call center and provided the agency more identification.
Customs annotates its database with a note that certain people shouldn’t be stopped. As of September 2006, Customs annotated more than 10,300 names. Customs also gives preapproved low-risk travelers ID cards that provide expedited processing.
Customs acknowledged to the GAO that it needs to do a better job of providing guidance for their redress procedures for people who believe they’ve been misidentified.
The Justice Department is leading an effort to make sure that all agencies formally document opportunities for redress and that agency responsibilities are clear, the report said.
On the Net:
To see the GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-1031
General Fair Use Notice
This reposted page may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Globalissues.org is making this article available in efforts to advance the understanding of the workings, impact and direction of various global issues. I believe that this constitutes a “fair use” of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond “fair use,” you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
This article is part of the following collection:
- New War on Terror
- Why I Opposed the Resolution to Authorize Force
- Main aid agencies reject US air drops
- Folly of aid and bombs
- Bombing Will Not Make U.S. More Secure
- US attacks raise mixed feelings in Africa
- Killing Them Softly: Starvation and Dollar Bills For Afghan Kids
- Mr. Bush is abusing both the UN and international law
- This is Not a War on Terrorism
- The Empire Wants War, Not Justice
- This War is a Fraud
- Hypocrisy, hatred and the war on terror
- Unjustified means
- World Opinion Opposes the Attack on Afghanistan
- Mass Death of Civilians in Afghanistan
- Congratulations America
- Annotated State of The Union
- Thoughts About America
- Kill the Messenger
- Tech companies chase homeland security
- Buying Trouble: Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror Probe
- The return to Afghanistan: Collateral damage
- Afghan massacre haunts Pentagon
- Why U.S. Intelligence Stumbled
- Afghanistan: Time of transition
- Top White House Anti-Terror Boss Resigns
- This War on Terrorism is Bogus
- Rumsfeld Doubts on Terror War
- Iranian Agent Warned U.S. of Impending al-Qaida Attack
- American Troops Killing and Abusing Afghans
- War Rules and Law Enforcement Rules in Terror War
- Gap Grows Between U.S., World Public Opinion
- Bush Terror War Suffers Body Blow in Spain
- Guantanamo: Maybe None of Them Are Terrorists
- Blix Says Iraq War May Have Worsened Terror Threat
- War on Terrorism Looks Like a Loser
- US plans to 'fight the net' revealed
- America’s War on the Web
- Thousands Wrongly on Terror List
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Once you see it, YWSB, as they say:
You can see from 1967 through 2000 that the ratio of federal spending to private prosperity has been increasing consistently. That's kind of what you'd expect - that as the economy grows, so would federal spending. The spending ratio is pretty darn consistent. That's not to say it's right, but it's expected.
I'm guessing the small bump in the early 90s is probably due to the Clinton administration, with the downtick associated with the GOP congress of the mid-late 90s.
The jump in the early 2000's is obviously due to 9/11 and related spending, but it's still shocking. GWB's detractors were absolutely right about his increasing the size and scope of the federal government. Of course, it was mere child's play for what was to come in 2007 after the Democrat takeover of Congress, then the presidency.
The trend is now going VERTICAL. Worse, it's also going BACKWARDS. Meaning that federal spending is INCREASING even though private prosperity is DECREASING.
In mathematical terms, that's the sort of thing you see when you divide any number by zero. Applied to the chart above, that means that the relationship between the change in total government spending and the typical income earned by an American household from year-to-year is now "undefined."
In practical terms, that means government spending has become completely disconnected from the ability of the typical American household to support it.
Both parties, Republican and Democrat, are at fault - however I think you can draw the conclusion that one party in particular is excessively more so.
Is it any surprise that the Tea Party movement exists, when we see more and more evidence of an out-of-control and disconnected government? With behavior like this, it's easy to see why the popular sentiment today is both A) anti-Democrat as well as B) anti-incumbent (even Republican).
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19th December 2010 Archive
Browse by publication date, or search the site.
As Nvidia may have netted Samsung
Intel sees tablets as a strong route for its Atom processor, into the mobile device market, because of the need for high performance and the similarities to PC functionality. However, the first commercial tablets, such as iPad and Galaxy Tab, have run on ARM-based chips, and indeed, both of these processors come from Intel‘s …
Channel Register 19 Dec 08:30
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Some of the most revered civic structures in Texas are the county court houses that are usually arrange as freestanding structures in a civic square with commercial development surroundings. So, when the city of Frisco decided to construct a new civic center, they located their city hall at the heart of a 147-acre development. During the planning process the library was added to the mix to make for a more lively community structure. The design envisioned a central tower and adjacent colonnade.
Quarry Location: Marble Falls, Texas
Find us on Facebook
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Sampark was registered under the Societies Registration Act in 1991, 18 years ago. Sampark has worked directly with 3000 households in its field work, and has conducted trainings and provided advisory support to NGOs and donor projects influencing microfinance and micro enterprise programmes which work with over 5 lakh households in India, and over 3 lakh households in Thailand, Bangladesh and Nepal. The annual budget is about Rs. 50 lakhs, varies every year, of which the percentage of budget raised from user fees, training fees or community contributions can vary from 10 to 40%.
Sampark's experience with 80G tax exemption came up for renewal earlier this year. The IT department raised many objections. Sampark has had marketing activity to support NGOs and artisans, and even though currently it is at a very small level, they objected to the small money that was earned (Rs. 20,000) last year, saying this was commercial activity. The second objection was raised to the contribution self help groups (SHGs) had made for printing the account books.
The education programme was not considered charitable activity. The tax officer said if the children go to government schools, and we only prepare the women to stop school drop-out, pay for the education materials, and build strong education committees among parents to improve quality of teaching and child monitoring, these are NOT charitable activities! Only if we run schools this would be considered charitable activity. He told me even if Sampark runs a high-fee-charging school, he would have no problems approving it as charity, but not such capacity building and monitoring work.
Similarly, the SHG capacity building activity was not considered charitable activity. Training women is not a charitable activity, he said to me, are you distributing clothes, food? That would be charity.
I visited this tax officer, and refused to leave till he exhausted all his arguments. I told him I would stay there till I was able to convince him what we do is perfectly valid development work. I told him if NGOs set up schools, who would hold the state's schools accountable? NGOs should help to improve the system, not duplicate it.
Similarly, when banks give loans, why should Sampark do so? We help women to have stable groups, this takes time, to have groups that qualify on the grading criteria of banks. We give Sampark funds only for those activities that the banks don't yet fund, such as education of children. We keep the margin on interest rates (6 to 12% per annum) as a risk fund, and never use it for administrative purposes. Our micro credit activity is a 'charitable' and not a commercial activity.
This went on for a while. Then I told him, just think what you will do if you cancel Sampark's 80G. Companies and philanthropists who now donate, who help us to continue our charitable work, will not do so, and we will be under further pressure to become commercial. He still sent some more questions by the next mail. Once he and his staff were convinced that we would neither pay bribe, nor give up the argument, they accepted that we were a charitable organization and renewed 80G for three years. We opted not to use 'influence' or money.. in this case we succeeded.
We have completely wound up the little support we were providing through sales of NGO products. NGOs need to raise grants, but these are uncertain at the best of times. Sampark has always raised some money through research, evaluation studies and advisory services. These latter set of activities ensure that we can make long term commitments on the ground, which we cannot if we are only dependent on donors. We could tide over the difficult period of financial crisis only because we had some funds as reserves, else the field project in 35 villages would have wound up by now.
However, now we have no back-up resources left and will need to raise donations or find consultancies. In the latter case, the tax status will be a problem. We have not changed accounting that has to continue to be transparent and reflective of our operations. In Sampark's discussion with its auditors, we have decided to argue our case every year, with the tax authorities, as needed. The argument here is that it is not important HOW WE EARN our money. The classification of charitable or not is on the basis of HOW WE SPEND this money. If it is spent only on development purposes, and not applied to private profit, then we deserve the tax exemptions. If we can prove that we work only with the poor and disadvantaged, to benefit them and improve their livelihoods, then we deserve the tax exemptions. This is the argument we have decided to take. A note from Sampark's auditor, Mr. K. S. Ravi, analyzing his views on the subject, is enclosed here (www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/emp/cr/res05100901.doc).
I do believe that tax authorities need to distinguish between those who are genuine NGOs and those who set up charitable societies with a commercial motive. This is a distinction they have to draw on the basis of some criteria. Unfortunately the current definition of charitable purposes in the Finance Act, 2008 w.e.f. 01.04.2009, is too narrow, and threatens to throw out the baby with the bath water. Sampark has not yet had the energy to do this alone, but together with other NGOs, I propose that we influence the government to withdraw this definition. However, we must also work together to suggest an alternate formulation. And we need to work together for this. Let us formulate an Action Group after the end of this query.
We would like to answer this query based on our experience in Sampark, an NGO based in Bangalore which works in Koppal North Karnataka. We are coordinating initiatives in women's empowerment through literacy programmes being implementing in 30 villages. Our survey on existing Government adult literacy programmes at grassroots level revealed that these are not properly introduced nor are women being motivated to join as a result no one benefits from these programmes. The facilitators who are supposed to teach women functional literacy have not received their remuneration for over 2 months, their lack of motivation and discouragement finally led to the failure of the programme. The interesting material which was prepared under this programme is currently lying in Gram Panchayat store rooms. In order for such programmes to succeed there is a need to have separate implementing strategies and structures for close monitoring and follow up.
Another point I would like to share is the definition of women's literacy is not learning to sign their names without even learning alphabets. We need to tackle this problem at the roots starting with the girl child. In addition there is a need to be careful in designing these programmes for women, as most women are overloaded with household work as well as in earning a livelihood. Sometimes such programme from the Government or the NGO's are added pressures for these women. To reduce pressure and motivate women towards literacy the programme should be designed to empower and improve livelihoods a basic requirement for women from poor families.
Sampark is pilot testing an initiative by introducing one literacy centre in one village with one facilitator to work on functional literacy for empowerment and improve livelihoods of women. It is still in its initial stages, after a year, we will have a model to show how this strategy would work out at the grassroots.
Chinnamma and Prameela, Sampark, Bengaluru
It is good that Punit has raised this query at a time when the transformation drive is very popular among NGOs to become MFIs. I have spoken to many NGOs who have transformed and MFIs who have bought existing NBFCs. My understanding is as follows:
The triggers are mostly supply led. Donors want financially sustainable MFIs, and so NGOs transform. Few NGOs who do not want to transform can now find support in the MF sector, this is the reality.
The women themselves do not even understand the difference. They are often not consulted either. They say yes to whatever NGOs/MFIs explain to them. Development agencies tell the women what they want them to hear, believe and approve and this is another reality.
NGOs by definition, not for profit organizations can do lending but can not collect the savings. They do not attract donor funds for MF any more.
Section 25 companies - No investor finds this interesting, as they cannot make profits, so finding equity for this is difficult.
Cooperatives - member owned organizations: Again, they cannot take external equity investments, we need to critically evaluate the laws and find ways out that protect the cooperation character of the organization, while at the same time allowing for profit sharing with external investors.
NBFCs, these then are the most popular, as they can be profit making and can attract external equity investment, so that financial investors can make profits and help the finance operations to grow.
Is it surprising that we find a drive towards NGOs transforming into NBFCs? Profits are now mandatory in MFIs, so NBFCs are the most preferred route.
I have seen organizations transform in two ways:
When the organization transforms with all its activities, in this case the non profit making activities reduce or stop, such as capacity building.
The second option is when an NGO takes with it the microcredit portfolio, and leaves behind training, capacity building, research and other grant based activities in the NGO. In either case, I have seen the development oriented staff dejected and worried about their continuing role and importance, and the credit staff elated and delighted about the separation and about a clear focus on financial profits and growth. These divisions are inevitable, whatever be the type of transformation. The recent article on SKS in Forbes magazine only highlights what is happening in many small NGOs that have transformed.
When organizations bring large amounts of funding, they are also in a position to dictate who leads the organization. Venture capitalists (VC) have always influenced management and internal decisions in organizations, this lesson is very common in VC industry, the MF sector is learning it rather painfully, as it has not learnt from the banking industry's experiences and is caught unawares.
As an organization that is helping NGOs transform, Sa-Dhan should do some background work on compiling lessons that mainstream banking and financing has to offer to microfinance, and then you will be able to prepare them better for the corporatization that comes with it.
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Colo., Wash. become first states to legalize recreational use of marijuana
Published: Friday, November 9, 2012
Updated: Friday, November 9, 2012 01:11
The presidential election was one of several notable issues on Colorado’s voting ballots. After Tuesday’s results, Denver, known as the Mile High City, was the capitol of one of two states to be the first to legalize marijuana.
Amendment 64 on Colorado’s ballot passed with 54.82 percent voting “yes” and 45.81 percent voting “no,” according to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.
The amendment makes it legal for carefully regulated retail stores to sell up to one ounce of marijuana to persons 21 years old or older. While possession of the substance is legal, public use is prohibited. Adults will now be allowed to grow up to six marijuana plants in their homes.
The primary threat to Colorado’s resolution is the drug’s continued illegality at the national level.
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor the Drug Enforcement Administration, both of which consider marijuana an illegal drug, have released a statement stating their reaction to the developments in Colorado.
“I like the idea that states can work as laboratories to test out potential national laws,” said Travis Schott, senior mechanical engineering major. “Whether it’s right or wrong, we can see what the effect is of legalizing marijuana.”
The state of Washington also approved an amendment legalizing recreational marijuana use, while Oregon voted down a similar measure. Massachusetts voted for the legal use of medical marijuana while Arkansas rejected it.
Mostafa Selim, senior university studies major and chief student leader of Aggie Cannabis Reform and Education Society, said he is excited about the amendment’s passing in Colorado and Washington.
“This is a historic event, 40 years in the making.” he said. “That brings the total to 20 states with laws and positions in stark contrast with those of the federal government regarding marijuana. Over and over again the states have spoken, and it is time for the federal government to release marijuana from the grasp of prohibition.”
Selim said he is hopeful that recently appointed Supreme Court justices would vote in favor of the legalization of marijuana should the issue be sent to the U.S. Supreme Court. Four of the nine current justices are more than 70 years old, and though they are hired for life, could retire in the near future. A 2006 study in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy found that the average retirement age for justices was 78.7.
“I think the legalization of recreational marijuana is unhealthy and wrong,” said Rebecca Parma, senior economics major. “But I can see why Colorado did it for better regulation and revenue purposes.”
According to The Associated Press, Colorado pledged to put the money accumulated from taxes on marijuana toward school construction. It was estimated between $5 million and $22 million will be raised each year.
“Though I’m not for the legalization of marijuana, I see it as an opportunity for the U.S. to tax it and regulate it as a source of revenue,” said Logan Knowles, senior bioenvironmental science major.
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December 14, 2006 - By Connie Schurr, Design Director
Golden living dreams of visions
And the minds true liberation
In 1976 there was a practicing Sikh living up Cheney named Sid Francis. He taught yoga, slept on an elevated deck outside his main house and had a sheet-fed printing press in his backyard that he used to make prints of the artwork he created. Without Sid the paper would not have been created.
Sid and an artist named Wallace Berman had gotten a bunch of Topanga folks together sometime in 1974 or 1975 with the idea to start up the Topanga newspaper once again. Nico Van den Heuvel was one of them. Nico was a Dutchman who lived up Keller and had worked as an artist in the military during the war in Europe. He painted and made robots among other things. Nico had a bed in his house that could be raised up via rope and pulleys and when it was lifted up, two robots, quietly asleep under the bed, woke up and began having very squeaky sex. Nico delighted in showing his creation to guests.
At the first meeting of what would eventually become the new Topanga newspaper I remember Merrick Davidson, Jim Erickson, Alice Vickers, Nona Weiner, Nico Van den Heuvel, Flavia Potenza, Susie Walczak and Judee McBride. Forgive me if Ive forgotten anyone. We sat in a circle on the hardwood floor in Sids living room while everyone introduced herself or himselfmost of us didnt know each other and had only Merrick as a common link. Sid produced articles and images collected for the issue of the paper that he, Nico, Wallace and a few others had started putting together the prior year along with a sign-up sheet. We each listed our credentials, phone numbers and the duties we were able and willing to perform.
During that meeting Sid became the printer, Judee McBride agreed to advertising sales, Jim Erickson and Alice Vickers signed up for circulation, Nico and Susie for advertising design, Nona for anything needed, Flavia for editor and I signed up for design, layout, paste-up, and retouching negatives.
As I recall, that first meeting was in February or March, and it took many meetings and a lot of networking by Merrick Davidson throughout the spring, summer, and fall to get the full crew assembled. Some meetings were at Elysium. Its owner, Ed Lange was very supportive and offered office space and equipment.
One day while I was working in the Elysium office Flavia called saying she feared the paper was waffling and would never get printed. I suggested we pick a deadline to publish the first issue, even though we didnt have a name yet, and stick to the deadline. A meeting was called and it was agreed that December 1 would be the day we published our first paper and that we would hold a contest to name the paper.
Panic set in.
And then along came Mary. I dont remember Mary from the first meeting at Sids but I do remember Merrick bounding up Neil Shaws stairway one afternoon to tell me that Mary had agreed to help type, proofread and handle the bookkeeping of our meager financessomething between $13 and $33 depending on who you talk to. The most notable thing about Mary was that she was organized and kept her cool, no matter what. She also had a son simply called Boy and lived in a house on Old Canyon that had one corner of its foundation supported by a car jack. Those were the days! Mary typed the first issue of the paper in my bedroom at Neils on an IBM Selectric typewriter. She was the nurturing mother to the paper.
Judee McBrides contribution to the paper was crucial. She went out and sold advertising in a non-existent paper that had no name run by a bunch of hippies no one knew. She convinced Tom DeSpain, then owner of the Fernwood Market, to buy a full-page advertisement on the back cover! She also convinced Tom to feed usfor free. Since he was conveniently located across the street from Neils house, we designated Nona and Jim as runners and were never disappointed in the food and drink he supplied. The paper would not have gotten off the ground without Judee and those first advertising dollars.
Judee lived with Chris Brunt on Colina. Some production of the early issues of the Messenger was done in the living room Judee shared with Chris during the times Neil Shaw and his living room needed a break. Chris Brunt, a British music engineer/producer, knew Colin Penno from England. Colin was living in his faded blue station wagon that he had decorated with plastic grapes. He parked it in various driveways throughout the Canyon and often parked in ours (I say ours because after my trip to India I moved into the guest house next to Chris and Judees pool).
Colin showed up one day shortly before the publication of the first issue and became the photographer by virtue of taking the photo for the front page of the first issue. He ended up learning how to make negatives and printing plates from Sid. The two of them rigged up a darkroom from equipment Sid had and an enlarger, timer and processing trays I had brought from my days working on six community newspapers in Michigan that were owned by Anne Frahm. The negatives and plates were hung on the clothesline to dry. We were in business.
When the deadline for the first issue drew near and we needed a production facility, I confidently offered Neil Shaws living room. I rented from Neil at the time and knew full well he was going skiing that weekend. Unfortunately production took a little longer than we anticipated, and when Neil came home and climbed up the stairs he entered the kind of deadline chaos only newspaper people know and appreciate. I had laid out the paper in printers flats and they were taped to every available window and glass sliding door so they could be proofread without being handled too much. Susie Walczak was frantically rubbing down lettering for headlines, and when we needed something drawn Nico pulled out pen and ink and drew it on the spot. The two of them put together all the ads for the first issue. Lamar Hawkins and Flavia sat in the middle of the room finishing up last minute articles. Remnants of food and drink were everywhere along with scraps of paper, tape, glue, ink and the mess that came with pasting up a paper in the pre-computer age. Neil took it all in with a sense of humor and complimented the printers flats.
We were so late getting the paper pasted up that we had to work through the night to meet our deadline of 8:30 a.m. Presses began rolling around 10 p.m. and we cheered and drank champagne as the first sheet rolled off the press. But the exuberance did not last long. We had so many misfed and over-inked sheets that we soon ran out of ink! Where do you get ink at 2 a.m. in Topanga? Not in Topanga! A phone canvass started until a printer was located in the Valley who would open his doors and sell us ink in the middle of the night. Colin drove to the Valley to pick it up. Once more the press started cranking out what would become the Topanga Messenger .
Sids press did not cut or fold, so every sheet needed to be trimmed, collated and folded. We were exhausted when we finally drove in a convoy to the Post Office to deliver the papers for mailing. It was 8:30 a.m. We made our first deadline.
Jim Erickson had secured some newspaper stands for us and we proudly stacked the paper in the stand outside Everybodys Mother, a restaurant in the Center owned by Cathy and Khaki Hunter. Food was on the house, but more reading than eating was done at that breakfast. Topanga had a newspaper once more!
Connie Schurr, a licensed mediator and private pilot, is a freelance designer, illustrator and animator for major entertainment clients. She also teaches Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and web design. She lives in Malibu with her thoroughbred horse, another ex-Topangan, and an assortment of house pets.
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Eurozone retail sales increased unexpectedly in January after easing for four consecutive months, data from Eurostat showed Monday.
Retail sales grew 0.3 percent month-on-month in January, following a revised 0.5 percent drop in December. Economists had expected sales to dip 0.1 percent.
Sales figures do not hugely dilute concerns that weak consumer spending remains a serious threat to hopes that Eurozone economic activity can return to growth in the first quarter of 2012, IHS Global Insight's European economist Howard Archer said.
Sales of food product increased 0.6 percent, partially offsetting the 0.8 percent drop in December. Likewise, non-food sales grew 0.5 percent, after easing 0.4 percent a month ago.
On a yearly basis, retail sales remained flat compared to December's 1.3 percent decline. Economists were looking for an annual decrease of 1.5 percent.
In the EU27, retail sales increased by 0.4 percent compared to a monthly fall of 0.2 percent in December.
Total retail trade grew in nine member nations and decreased in another nine. Latvia marked the biggest increase of 6.4 percent, followed by 5.5 percent rise in Slovenia, and 3 percent growth in Romania. The largest decreases were seen in Portugal, Denmark and Germany.
High inflation and tight fiscal conditions are likely to dampen consumer spending going forward. Inflation in the 17-nation bloc rose to 2.7 percent from 2.6 percent in February. The unemployment rate reached a record-high 10.7 percent in January.
The European Commission sees a mild recession in the Eurozone. The economy is expected to contract 0.3 percent this year.
At the February G20 meeting, the International Monetary Fund urged euro area to build on recent measures and act decisively on multiple fronts to achieve a successful resolution to the crisis.
by RTT Staff Writer
For comments and feedback: firstname.lastname@example.org
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Brian and Helen wrote:Well if Nick Griffith and the BNP got 18.1% of a vote in the UK there'd be hell to pay.
The media would be going mad demanding that "something be done about it". They'd be asking what had gone wrong in our society that could lead to such an appalling result - reams of self-examination and hand-wringing.
The difference in mainland Europe and the UK we have PR, where as the UK first past the post system does not reflect the voting trends in the country, only in that Constituency on the day of vote. There have been many cases in the UK, where the the Government became the controlling party in the Commons because they attained the most seats .
In 2005 Tony Blair won only 35.2% of the vote, yet even though he lost 47 seats, he remained as Prime Minister with a majority of 355 seats.
At the same election Michael Howard won a 32.4% share of the vote but only won 198 seats, under 3% difference in votes, yet 157 seats lighter.
In mainland Europe it is an all encompassing democracy with PR, allowing all the political parties taking part in the democratic process. Here in France we have political parties ranging from the Trotskystes on left to the Front National on the right all with Senators, MP's Maire's, Conseil Générale, and Regional. All embrace the democratic process and are respected by their opponents, who work with them for the betterment of the French people.
Yet in the UK where the BNP is a legal political party, they are constantly harassed by pressure groups Like the ANL, various other Rag Bag organisations. They are demonized by the media and front bench members from all political parties who should be supporting their political aims.
If the French or any other Mainland European citizens wish to demonstrate, they do in their Hundreds, Thousands or Millions, and the government of the day take notice.
But in the UK and especially England the right to demonstrate is a dirty word and the special powers enacted under the terrorism act are used every way to suppress dissent. You will never attain the freedom of thought and association that is accepted as normal until you stop having your civil rights eroded.They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety
Benjamin Franklin January 17, 1706 -April 17, 1790
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By Quentin Fottrell
The latest trend in gravestones is to change “here lies” to “here links.” Barcodes much like the ones being slapped on advertisements and billboards are being affixed to headstones to provide mourners ways to connect with the dead online. Forget-me-nots and pansies may wilt, but websites live forever.
After scanning or photographing the “QR” code with a cell phone, people can instantly connect with a website tribute page for a loved one, showing all their favorite music, memories, photographs and videos. Some even include playlists of the deceased’s most beloved songs on iTunes. Aaron Sorensen, a chemist and engineer from Salt Lake City, Utah, bought a barcode for his grandparent’s dual gravestone Alva and Virgie Sorensen, and for the benefit of their 21 grandchildren: “It’s a tribute to them to remember the sacrifices they made to give me a better life.”
These “living memorials” are the next step in the so-called Internet footprint that most of us will leave behind. They even made the Doonesbury cartoon strip on October 16. (It says: “Welcome to the Digital Afterlife of Daisy Doonesbury.” Wisely, Daisy has a “monitored” comments page because in life she had a lot of “frenemies.”) But people buy them when they are planning their own funeral, too. Gravestone barcodes allow people to be the editorial director of their own online obituary, long before their corpse is in the hands of a funeral director. There’s also the option to share stories from beyond the grave and provide your family’s genealogy for strangers.
The barcodes were only recently made possible with the marriage of smartphones, QR barcodes and websites. David Quiring, president of Quiring Monuments in Seattle, Wa., charges $65, but says they now come free with any monument. Hudson Gunn, president of Code_It Barcodes in Orem, Utah, is in talks with national cemeteries and war memorials. “Demand has been phenomenal,” he says. He charges $50 for a barcode, which is secured to the gravestone by adhesive, and hosts the tribute page on his own server for free. And if he closes? “Heaven forbid,” he says. “In that case we’ll give families all the information.”
Most demand is national, but companies say they’ve also sold hundreds of barcodes to Asia, Australia and Europe, too. (One man in Ireland just bought six from Gunn.) Sorensen says his grandfather Alva took part in the Normandy landings during World War II when 95% of his platoon died; his grandmother Virgie was one of the longest living patients (28 years) with a kidney transplant. They both died in their 70s in 1999. What would they think? “They were very humble,” he says, “but they were big on family and this keeps the memories of those who have been great influence in our lives alive.”
See more video on living headstones here.
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Just cleaned a few engines tody using something I read about in an FM a few years ago. Dawn Power Disolver. Spray it on, let set 4 or 5 minutes, and brushed it off with an old toothbrush and soapy water. Cleaned off 20_ year old Castor based crud and dirt.
At work, we always filled the US cleaner with water, then put the items or circuit boards to be cleaned in a separate container with usually Isopropyl Alcohol. The cleaner's manual had several warnings against puting ANY flammable liquid direct into the tank. And for best results, the water level had to be at least up to the fill line, to make sure the liquid level was higher than the top of the Tranducer(s).
Caution...Power Dissolve will rust and corrode any iron,steel, parts or any other metal that will rust, it will also corrode your alum9num parts,
I have seen this several times with people that used Power Dissolve, SO make sure you completely take the engine apart, rinse every part well, and then make sure you oil the parts very well before putting the engine back together
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Odds and Sods of
This dit involved the Diving Team at HMS Terror in Singapore in the 1960's. They had pissed into the sword scabbard of the Mine Clearance Diving Officer. Six months later on divisional march-past, the order to draw swords was given. The MCDO was staggering all over the parade ground trying to get his sword out of his scabbard. When he finally did get it drawn the sword was covered in rust and the scabbard looked like a used condom.
Early in 1942 we took five special agents on board P42 (she had not yet been named Unbroken). Their leader was Capt. Peter Churchill, a tall Army officer. We were to land them at Antibes in the south of France where they were to carry out their dangerous work. Churchill was billeted in the Wardroom and there were two in the PO’s mess and two in the Tiffie’s mess. Apart from Churchill the other four were uncommunicative but he used to wander around the boat talking to all and sundry. When I was on the wheel at night he used to come and sit beside me and have a good yarn. When it came near to the time for them to land we used to see them taking labels off their items of clothing as I suppose things like that would have given the game away. Passing the Wardroom at one point I saw bundles of French francs being doled out to them.
Jimmy Bramhall, the Wardroom flunky, saw Churchill drinking from a small flask and asked him what it was. Churchill said it was brandy laced with a potion that would keep them awake for several days. He saw Bramhall was sceptical about this claim and offered him sippers. Bramhall being a greedy sod took gulpers and for a week after whenever we were all turned in our hammocks, he would sit at the mess table playing patience, completely unable to sleep. Churchill was married to Odette the special agent, awarded the George Cross. When they were captured by the Gestapo, the name Churchill saved both her and Peter from execution in the concentration camp they were subsequently held in. (The Pig Bosun's Log by Mick Jones)
It’s not often I write about religion or the good book but during a spell of incarceration on Manoel Island, Malta, the latter gave me great solace. I had a small amount of tobacco, a lighter and a few cigarette papers. The papers ran out after a few days and this is where the ingenuity of the British submariner comes to the fore; the Bible in my cell was printed on very fine thin paper and, although not gummed, it was ideal for rolling ticklers. By the time my sentence was served I had smoked my way through Genesis and half way through Exodus – ‘Holy Smoke’.
Here’s a strange one for all you etymologists and factoids out there; everybody knows about the naval weapon 'torpedo'. But not a lot of people are aware of the connection of this word with the fish world though the torpedo was often called a 'tin-fish', a 'kipper', etc. The word 'torpedo' is a metaphorical transfer from the name in Latin of an electric ray from the family Torpedinidae, which possesses a peculiar organ, enabling it to stun its prey with a massive electric shock. Stick with me kid, it ain’t much fun but it’s educational.
It’s the early 60’s when one of Her Majesties sleek black messengers of death enters Portsmouth dockyard for dry-docking. ‘Deeps’, the Tanky, an able assistant to the Coxswain and oppo of the Leading Chef is instructed to run an errand to Victory Barracks by the XO.
Resplendent in his battery acid honed number 8’s trousers, salt encrusted steaming boots, off-grey submarine roll neck sweater and nicely yellowed cap with bow strategically placed over his left eye, our hero enters Barracks. He strolls across the parade ground contemplating lighting up a cigarette when the strangulated cry of “That creature there!” rent the peace and quiet.
A Chief Gunnery Instructor, testicles tightly bound with black ducting tape to obtain that required high pitch, stands quivering on his mirror like boots with inch thick soles and 200 polished hobnails. ‘Deeps’ thinks, ‘Naargh! Can’t be me I ‘m only a visitor’ and ambles on.
The Chief of the Parade, who, as we all know never runs any where, walks at great speed, pace stick clenched firmly between the cheeks of his arse - well no - under his arm really. When he gets in front of our hero he places the tip of his pace stick on ‘Deeps’ chest to prevent any escape and disdainfully eyes him up and down. ‘Deeps’ having suffered the wrath of various submarine Coxswain’s and Chief Stokers in the past, is totally unfazed by this apparition and calmly awaits the next move.
Chief of the Parade, “There is a bit of s**t on the end of my stick”
Deeps, “Not at my end Chief."
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SYME: The Heart of 1984
Posted Jul 06, 2007 2 comments
This is a foundational text for the Skilluminati Research project. It also had a huge influence on my young mind, so for the first post on our humble site, I wanted to share this passage from 1984, where the doomed protagonist has a talk about language and control with a Newspeak engineer, Symes.
"When the concept of Freedom has been abolished"
'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating.'
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. 'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains it's opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or " doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm. 'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?'
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction.
'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'
'Except-' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the proles,' but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
'The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. ' By 2050 earlier, probably all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron -- they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.
Filed in: Social Control
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When Hansgrohe installed a plastics plating line, it tried to work with the newest and most advanced chemistry on the market; however, it found it couldn't simply take something off-the-shelf and start running. It had to be tailored to its specific products and objectives...
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE (+)
Hand-held shower massagers come in a variety of finishes. All plastic parts are plated without using copper.
The plating sequence at Hansgrohe uses electroless nickel. It has found that an all-nickel system has several advantages over one using copper.
When you buy a new car, you expect it to be equipped with the latest technology: navigational system, power everything, alloy wheels, etc. However, you customize it with options that harmonize with your driving style. This may include leather seats, multiple CD player and a sunroof. You don't simply buy it off-the-shelf as you would a power saw or pack of light bulbs. You want the newest and the best, tailored to your transportation and personal requirements.
So it was at Hansgrohe, Inc. (Alpharetta, GA) when it decided to install a plastics plating line. The 100-year-old German company had ventured in the United States five years earlier, establishing a distribution facility in Georgia for its kitchen and bath fixtures. Gradually the company added assembly and eventually manufacturing as its U.S. business grew. Plating the ABS plastic showerheads molded at the company was a logical step in the company's growth.
Installing the new line was all part of Hansgrohe's plans for better quality control over its products. It started when the company began molding its own plastic components. Not only does it mold the ABS plastic pieces that are plated, but it also molds the internal components. By doing the molding in-house, the company has control over keeping the molds' surface highly polished. This eliminates any flow lines, parting lines, or pores that could affect subsequent plating.
The first finishing operation installed at the company was physical vapor deposition (PVD). This process is applied to both metal and plastic parts. A decorative "polished brass" finish is applied to showerheads and faucets. Parts are loaded into one of two vacuum chambers. A benefit to having two units is that one can be used for metal and the other plastic, as they run at different temperatures. The units are vertical, with the target source in the center. Parts are racked so that they revolve around the target source. Deposition rates are rapid. Film thickness ranges from 300Å to a few mils, depending on specifications.
Even though PVD was available in-house, parts were sent out to job shops for plating. The parts were plated acceptably, but the company wanted more control over the process. That was when it decided to bring plastics plating in-house. The company did not simply purchase plastic plating equipment and chemistry off-the-shelf, however. Kevin Wynschenk, plating manager knew that for Hansgrohe to maintain its reputation for quality and keep growing, it needed the best plastics plating technology on the market.
First he looked to the parent company in Germany to observe its manufacturing and plating methods. However, its plating operations were not the newest and the best for Hansgrohe's operations in the United States...at least as far as Mr. Wynschenk was concerned. He wanted to tweak the plating lines to suit the Alpharetta plant's operations. Also, the chemistry was traditional plating on plastics chemistry, and he knew that there were newer, more efficient products on the market. The plan was to integrate the equipment with a newer plastics plating chemistry.
Although Mr. Wynschenk was comfortable with the ins and outs of decorative nickel chromium plating on metal since he had worked in plating shops for several years, he wasn't as familiar with plating on plastics. He understood the basic technology, but relied on his supplier, Enthone Inc., to ensure that the process fit with the growth and quality image Hansgrohe was establishing in the U.S. Enthone was up for the challenge, particularly since this would be the first U.S. installation using its new Ionogen and Monolith(r) plastics plating technologies.
First, Hansgrohe worked with LPW Equipment to design the new plastics plating line for growth. Even though space was limited, several gaps were left in the U-shaped line in anticipation of additional plating and rinse tanks.
The chemistry integrated into the plating line also allowed for a smaller equipment setup and less investment, since less tanks were needed, even though throughput could be increased up to 15% compared to line running traditional chemistry. Fewer tanks are needed because no hexavalent chromium is used in the activator step. There is no need for a neutralization step to reduce the hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium. Parts are transported directly into the accelerator. Also, no copper is used on the line, eliminating the need for copper plating tanks. Because there are less tanks and fewer plating processes, it naturally follows that throughput is increased.
The crossbar of the U serves as the transfer station on the line. The line is fully automated, with operators simply having to use a touch screen to identify the parts and quantity. The system automatically does the rest, controlling amperage, tank time, current density, solution level and temperature. Some chemical additions are also automated, such as nickel brighteners, carrier and electroless nickel additives.
Special features of the plating equipment include a special rinse station at the end of the product line. The Kavitec rinsing system has bars that cycle up and down with jetties to force water into recessed areas of the parts. The drying system, Boratec, is set up in a similar fashion using hot air. The air jets can be individually programmed to cycle on and off, or pulse, for a programmed period of time. "It makes for much more thorough, spot-free drying," commented Mr. Wynschenk.
But the plastic plating chemistry is what is really unique to Hansgrohe line. "At first we did simply install the supplier's standard technology," stated Mr. Wynschenk. "But we soon found that even the newest and most advanced technology needed to be tweaked to fit our process, products and ideas of how things needed to be done." Once the plating chemistry was "in place," full production began.
A typical cycle begins after parts are molded and cured for 48 hrs. The first step in the plating process is an etchant specially designed for use with ABS plastics. The etchant uses sulfuric and chromic acid and water as well as 10 mg/liter of palladium to prepare the plastic surface for an activator step that follows. The activator also uses sulfuric and chromic acid and palladium and is specifically developed for ABS plastics. Parts processed in the solution acquire a fine dispersion of palladium that is diffused in the etched plastic surface. This palladium catalyzation initiates nickel deposition when the parts enter the subsequent electroless nickel solution.
However, parts do not go directly from this step into the electroless nickel.
There is one more step prior to electroless nickel plating. Parts are first immersed in an accelerator that reduces palladium diffused on the surface. This ensures that the electroless nickel deposition will be fast and uniform.
The electroless nickel was not part of the original "standard" plastic plating system offered. However, the original offering did not work with Hansgrohe's system. After much experimentation and long hours, the suppliers and plating technicians at Hansgrohe came up with the electroless nickel solution. "Using an all nickel system instead of copper has several advantages," noted Mr. Wynschenk. "The biggest advantage is in the waste treatment area. Because our wastewater isn't contaminated with copper, we can separate our streams into one for nickel and one for chromium and recycle it. We also benefit because the finished product has a much harder finish than if we had used copper. We have run a number of performance tests, such as neutral salt spray and wear resistance tests, and the all-nickel process outperforms the copper." The all-nickel system also offers improved thermal shock performance, an important attribute when considering the nature of Hansgrohe's products.
The only disadvantage of note, as Mr. Wynschenk sees it, is that you have to start with a "perfect" part. "Copper has the ability to cover flows lines, pits and other imperfections. But since we have control of the molding process, that isn't really a problem here at Hansgrohe," he noted.
|TABLE I-Plating Processes|
(Udique BL 2010)
1.450 g/cm ³
(Udique BL 2110 MS)
|ambient||3-5||1.016 g/cm ³||
(Udique BL 2210)
|90||3-5||0.947 g/cm ³||
no air/work movement 7-12 fpm
|117||1 µ/min||1.35 g/cm ³||
vert/horz work movement or air
(Elpelyt LS 1)
|140-144||1 µ/min||1.20 g/cm ³||
vert/horz work movement or air
|ambient||40 sec||1.0 g/cm ³||
(Ankor 1120 H)
|105||4.7µ/min||1.125 g/cm ³||
The electroless nickel process deposits a smooth, continuous coating on the activated plastic showerheads and faucets. It is a low-temperature operation, running at about 90F. Electroless nickel plating is followed by the "Monolith" prior to bright nickel plating.
The Elpelyt Monolith electrolytic nickel-plating process for plastics is a multiple-additive nickel process that also serves as a substitute for the copper in the plating process. The nickel deposits are ductile, which is important for these products, considering the subsequent assembly they go through. After the plating process is complete, additional plastic components are added to the interior of the parts, along with hoses and fittings. Also, additional exterior parts are added such as nozzles, sprays and adjustment components, such as those used to reconfigure the spray pattern for normal spray, soft spray or a massage spray.
The next step is bright nickel plating in Elpelyt LS 1. This is a multiple additive bright nickel plating process that provides for excellent chromium receptivity. Following that is a nickel activator prior to chromium plating.
The electrolytic (cathodic) activator replaces activating parts in sulfuric acid, thus preventing milky chromium films and stains that can result from passive bright nickel deposits due to insufficient rinsing or prolonged periods between nickel and chromium plating.
The final plating process is bright chromium plating with Ankor 1120 H. This process is based on a mixed acid chrome electrolyte. It provides excellent coverage over a range of operating current densities. Despite lower concentrations of chrome versus a conventional chrome plating solution, this process offers good tolerance to contaminants while also providing improved throw and coverage.
The bath is followed by the Kavitec rinse cycle and Boratec drying system described previously.
Once plated, parts are sent on for in-house assembly and packaging. Hansgrohe's parts are sold in stores such as Home Depot under the name Monsoon, among others. One of the interesting aspects of the company is that it allows you to try out its high-end products prior to purchase. You can shower at the facility in Alpharetta under a number of different shower panels. There are panels that have hand showers and body showers and temperature controls with integrated thermostats so that when someone starts the washing machine you aren't scalded or left with goose bumps! These are just some of the products Hansgrohe has developed.
The company is constantly developing and broadening its product line. In June the company plans to triple the capacity of its plastics plating line. It will also add another plating line for plating brass faucets with a "brushed nickel finish." "This will bring more of the plating in-house and give us more control over quality," said Mr. Wynschenk. "Of course we will also have to expand our waste treatment facility to handle the expansion. We are currently only using about 4,000 gpd."
What really sets Hansgrohe apart, however, cannot be derived from a list of features, processes or marketing claims. It is the feel of the product that makes the difference. It is a feel of surpassing excellence, of superb fit, finish and function . . . a feel that makes the shower the best part of the day.
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Car sales a drag on December retail sales
Updated: Monday, 28 Jan 2013 12:12
Figures from the Central Statistics Office show the volume of retail sales fell by 0.1% in December compared with November on the back of weak car sales.
The CSO said there was an annual decrease of 1% - the biggest fall in five months.
However, when motor trades are excluded, the volume of retail sales rose by 0.8% in December from November. There was an annual increase of 0.8%.
Department store sales saw increases of 6.3% last month, with bars sales up 4.4% and books, newspapers and stationary sales rising 3.4%.
The sectors which saw the biggest declines were furniture and lighting, which were down 7.1%, and other retail sales, which fell by 3.1%. The CSO noted that car sales were down 22% in December compared to the same time in 2011.
Today's figures also show that there was no change in the value of retail sales last month when compared with November, while there was an annual decrease of 0.7%.
But when motor trades are excluded, there was a monthly rise of 0.3% in the value of retail sales and an annual increase of 1.1%
Merrion economist Alan McQuaid said that although the December numbers were a bit of a let-down, the overall performance in the fourth quarter was positive. He suggested that the fall in personal expenditure in goods and services for 2012 as a whole and the drag on national output will not be as weak as originally thought.
He said that consumers currently remain ''very picky'' and are spending mainly on things that appeal to them.
Despite the economic and fiscal headwinds, retail sales performed relatively strongly in the second half of last year, with core retail sales now in positive territory on an annual basis in both volume and value terms for five successive months, NCB economist Emmet Gaffney noted.
''That the positive underlying trend in core retail sales remained intact in December tallies with positive noises from the industry regarding trading over the Christmas period,'' he added.
''The annual increase in December 2012 against December 2011 is a welcome development especially in a month where a significant proportion of a retailers annual turnover is transacted'', commented Excellent Retail Ireland's David Fitzsimons.
But he said the figure does hide the fact that many retailers entered sale pre-Christmas, thus while turnover were marginally up, margin is most certainly down.
''We are also very concerned for a number of retail sectors which continue to struggle including those reliant on a functioning residential housing market. Retail closures announced in recent weeks prove the distressed nature of the industry and we call on landlords to take a common sense approach to rent levels,'' he added.
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Who Needs an Affidavit of Support?
This form is legally required for many family-based and some employment based immigrants to show they will have adequate means of support after immigration to the U.S. Generally, the following intending immigrants need an Affidavit of Support:
Important Note: For detailed explanation regarding who needs an Affidavit of Support, and who is exempt, see Page 1 of the Instructions for each form: I-864EZ, I-864, I-864A, and Form I-864W. Those who are exempt must complete an I-864W.
The NVC will review the I-864, I-864EZ, I-864W or I-864A for completeness and correctness. If the form(s) is not correct or complete, the NVC will ask the petitioner/sponsor to correct and complete the applicable form. It will explain what is wrong with the previously submitted form. When a corrected I-864, I-864EZ, I-864W or I-864A is accepted by the NVC, it will be sent with the immigrant visa petition to the embassy or consulate where the applicant will apply for a visa. In order to download forms, you must have a recent version of Adobe Reader installed on your computer. If you do not have Adobe Reader, please visit http://www.adobe.com/. There is no charge to download Adobe Reader.
Please note that you may receive a “file corrupted” error message if you are using an older version of Adobe Reader.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): NVC’s role
The NVC provide instructions to the petitioner/sponsor at the appropriate time.
The petitioner/sponsor must complete and sign the appropriate Affidavit of Support form. Incomplete or incorrectly assembled forms will not be accepted. The completed forms and supporting documents must be sent to the National Visa Center.
No, the NVC reviews only Affidavit of Support forms for petitions filed in the United States with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
No. If the post asks for a joint sponsor, the joint sponsor must send the completed I-864 directly to the applicant. The applicant will submit the I-864 to the consular officer for review.
A sponsor must be at least 18 years old and either an American citizen or a lawful permanent resident (LPR). The sponsor must also have a domicile (residence) in the United States.
Domicile is a complex concept and must be evaluated on a case by case basis. To qualify as a sponsor, a petitioner residing abroad must have a principal residence in the U.S. and intend to maintain it indefinitely. Lawful permanent resident (LPR) sponsors must show they are maintaining their LPR status.
Many U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents reside outside the United States on a temporary basis. "Temporary" may cover an extended period of residence abroad. The sponsor living abroad must establish the following in order to be considered domiciled in the United States:
No, the law requires that sponsors be domiciled (live) in any of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any territory or possession of the United States.
No, the petitioner must meet all the requirements to be a sponsor (age, domicile and citizenship), except those related to income, before there can be a joint sponsor.
There may be other circumstances in which a sponsor can show that his or her presence abroad is of a temporary nature, and the sponsor has a domicile in the United States. The sponsor must satisfy the consular officer that he/she has not given up his/her domicile in the United States and established his/her domicile abroad.
When a sponsor has clearly not maintained a domicile in the United States, he/she must re-establish a U.S. domicile to be a sponsor. The aspiring sponsor may take steps, including the examples given below, to show that the United States is his/her principal place of residence
If the sponsor establishes U.S. domicile, it is not necessary for the sponsor to go to the United States before the sponsored family members. However, the sponsor must return to the United States to live before the sponsored immigrant may enter the United States. The sponsored immigrant must enter the U.S. with or after the sponsor.
Federal means tested public benefits are the following:
FAQs: Means Tested Public Benefits
If the sponsored immigrant uses federal means tested public benefits, the sponsor must repay the cost of the benefits.
The following types of assistance are not considered means tested public benefits and do not have to be repaid.
The Poverty Guidelines in effect on the filing date of an Affidavit of Support are used to determine whether the income requirement is met. For example, the effective date of the 2006 Poverty Guidelines was March 1, 2006. So, an I-864 filed on February 1, 2006, was subject to the 2005 Poverty Guidelines.
If the sponsor’s income meets the minimum Federal poverty guideline income requirement other assets generally need not be presented. However, the consular officer may request evidence of assets and liabilities, as necessary to determine eligibility.
Yes, except with form I-864EZ. The sponsor's income is totaled first. Personal assets and/or the income and assets of household members who have signed an I-864A are totaled next. Usually the sponsor must present evidence of location, ownership and value including liens and liabilities for each asset listed. The consular officer must find that the financial value of the asset can be converted to cash within one year to support the sponsored immigrant without undue harm to the sponsor or his/her family.
The total net value of assets, less liens and liabilities against them, must equal five times the difference between the sponsor's income and 125% of the poverty level for the household size
Sponsors of spouses and children of U.S. citizens must only prove assets valued at three times the difference between the poverty guideline and actual household income.
Sponsors of orphans who will acquire citizenship after admission to the United States must only prove assets equal to the difference between the poverty guideline and actual household income.
Assets easily convertible to cash can be savings, stocks, bonds and property.
Can the immigrant visa applicant count assets that he or she owns that are outside the United States, such as real estate or personal property?
Yes, under the following conditions:
Yes, sponsors receiving housing and other benefits in place of salary may count those benefits as income. The sponsor may count both taxable and non-taxable income (such as housing allowance). The sponsor must prove the nature and amount of non-taxable income. Evidence of such income can be a W-2 Form (such as Box 13 for military allowances), Form 1099 or other evidence.
No, the law does not recognize offers of employment in place of the I-864.
A job offer may show ability of the applicant to overcome ineligibility as a public charge, but does not meet any I-864 requirement.
No, consular officers also look at other public charge factors affecting the financial situation of the sponsor and the applicant. Age, health, education, skills, financial resources and family status of the applicant and the sponsor are factors. Consular officers will verify to the extent possible that applicants have adequate financial support to prevent them becoming a public charge.
If the poverty guidelines change between the time the petitioner signed the I-864 and the issuance of an immigrant visa, must the petitioner/sponsor and joint sponsor, if required, submit a new I-864?
No, the I-864 remains valid indefinitely unless evidence of failure to meet the poverty guidelines in effect on the date of I-864 filing arises. The consular officer will determine whether the income claimed by the sponsor and documented with financial evidence meets the poverty guidelines in effect at the time the I-864 was filed. If the income claimed does not meet the poverty guidelines then the consular officer may request that the sponsor submit current year income information.
Detailed Step-by-Step Instructions are Included on Each Form: Each of the Affidavit of Support forms I-864W, I-864EZ, I-864 and I-864A have step-by-step instructions for completion by the sponsor or joint sponsor.The instructions explain which forms are required and how to properly complete them. It is important to carefully follow the instructions included with each form.
Important Note: Use the information in the Frequently Asked Questions below and other information on this website with, not instead of the detailed instructions on the applicable form(s).
Completing the Forms: Affidavit of Support forms should be completed on a computer, typed in CAPITAL letters. After the form is completed it must be printed and mailed. DO NOT attempt to submit the form electronically.
FAQs: Completing the Affidavit of Support
No, the sponsor must only sign the form. However, by signing an Affidavit of Support the sponsor certifies under penalty of perjury that the information and supporting documents provided are true and correct.
The sponsor is required to submit an IRS transcript or photocopy of only the most recent Federal income tax return with the I-864. However, the sponsor may, submit Federal income tax returns for the three most recent years if that helps establish his or her ability to maintain the household income required in the poverty guidelines. The consular officer determines if the income claimed by the sponsor meets the poverty guidelines. If the claimed income does not meet the poverty guidelines then the consular officer may additionally request current year income information. If the sponsor is relying on income from other household members to reach the minimum required income, a copy or IRS transcript of each individual's most recent tax return is also required, and each person must complete a Form I-864A. The consular officer may request additional evidence of income, such as an employment letter.
If you did not have to file a tax return, attach a written explanation and a copy of the instructions from the IRS publication showing you were not obliged to file. For general information on income tax obligations, visit the IRS website.
Failure to file a required income tax return does not excuse the sponsor from submitting tax returns as supporting documents. If a tax return should have been filed, the Affidavit of Support will not be considered sufficient until the sponsor files the delinquent tax return and supplies copies with the Form I-864. If the income requirement is not met, but the sponsor claims to have under-reported his or her income, an amended tax return is required to process the immigrant visa application further.
Consular officers can only accept individual tax returns, since the individual, not the business is sponsoring the applicant.
Yes, the sponsor can limit the number of sponsored immigrants to the number of people who actually intend to immigrate at that time. The principal applicant must be one of the sponsored immigrants. The petitioner can reduce his/her household size by limiting the number of sponsored applicants. This reduces the minimum income requirement. The sponsor can file another Affidavit of Support for the principal applicant's dependents later when the petitioner and the principal applicant have more income. The principal applicant and any of his/her family members who may have already immigrated must be included in the household size for the new Affidavit of Support.
A joint sponsor may submit an Affidavit of Support to sponsor all or some of the family members if the primary sponsor does not meet the income requirements. A maximum of two joint sponsors per petition can be used. Each joint sponsor is only responsible for the applicant(s) listed on that joint sponsor’s Affidavit of Support. Important note: If a joint sponsor is used, the petitioning sponsor must submit Form I-864, not Form I-864EZ.
A divorced parent's dependent children are members of his or her household, even if they live part of the time with the other parent. The child is a member of both parents' households on an Affidavit of Support unless a parent proves that he or she has no legal obligation to support the child.
FAQs: Accompanying Family Members
No, however, dependents immigrating with the principal applicant must have a signed original or a photocopy of the principal applicant's Form I-864, and I-864A if applicable. Copies may only be used by dependents named on the principal applicant's original forms.
Family members who immigrate later (follow-to-join) must have one complete set of the principal applicant's I-864 and supporting documents. Each arriving immigrant must present an I-864 Affidavit of Support with original signatures.
Each family member with a separate visa petition must submit a signed Form I-864 with supporting documents from the petitioner/sponsor and Form I-864As with supporting documents from the joint sponsor(s) if applicable.
Yes, but only under certain circumstances. Two joint sponsors can be used per family unit applying to immigrate under the same petition. If two joint sponsors are used, each joint sponsor is responsible only for the intending immigrant(s) listed on the joint sponsor’s Form I-864. Every joint sponsor must meet the minimum income requirement, citizenship, residence and age requirements.
If the sponsor dies after the principal applicant has immigrated to the United States but before other qualified family members have immigrated, can another sponsor be named?
Yes, if the petitioner or primary sponsor dies before all qualified family members have immigrated, a new sponsor may submit a Form I-864 to become the primary sponsor regardless of the status of the deceased petitioner's estate.
Will the I-864 I submitted expire if my relative's interview is delayed for any reason?
No, the validity of the I-864, I-864 EZ, or I-864A is considered indefinite; beginning from the date the sponsor files it with the National Visa Center, the U.S. embassy or consulate.
If you need more information on the I-864 Affidavit of Support see 9 FAM 42.63 Procedural Notes, 9 FAM 40.41 Procedural Notes and Sections 212(a)(4) and 213A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The complete FAM and INA are available by visiting FOIA on the Department of State website.
Also see How Do I File an Affidavit of Support for a Relative? at http://www.uscis.gov.
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The next hearing of the GOP-led House Immigration Subcommittee will showcase more of House Republicans’ mass deportation “vision” on immigration. The hearing, which is scheduled for tomorrow, is about making E-Verify mandatory for all employers in the United States.
For those of you who don’t know, E-Verify is part of a Republicans’ strategy of expelling 11 million undocumented immigrants and their families from the country. However, if the program worked as Reps. Smith, Gallegly, and King hope, the GOP would essentially be deporting the entire U.S. agriculture industry and send more of our nation’s food supply—and jobs–overseas.
Our nation’s agriculture industry is already facing a labor crisis, and it is heavily reliant on an existing labor force, which is made up mostly of undocumented immigrants. The Republicans’ vision for E-Verify would gut the entire sector. Imagine – this would mean more food rotting in the fields, driving up prices for American consumers, and outsourcing even more of our food supply and food security. All of which, considering the state of our economy, Americans can’t afford.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that for every on-farm job in America, there are about 3.1 “upstream” and “downstream” jobs in the nation. If you do the math, the movement of U.S. agriculture overseas would lead to increased unemployment for Americans.
In other words: expelling hard-working immigrants from jobs would not result in more jobs for Americans. It would result in a dramatic downturn in production and further bleeding of American jobs.
Not to mention, the actual costs of expanding e-verify are staggering. Recently, Bloomberg found that, had a mandatory E-Verify system been in effect in FY2010, it would have cost small businesses $2.6 billion nationwide. A proposal to mandate E-Verify in 2008 was scored by CBO as costing American taxpayers $17 billion in lost revenue.
Beyong the food security and economic consequences of deporting U.S. agriculture, the costs of E-Verify and the House Republicans’ mass deportation fantasies would be staggering to American taxpayers, small businesses, and our entire economy.
By pushing E-Verify without comprehensive immigration reform, Smith and his crew could end up doing real damage to our country’s agricultural industry and economy, while driving more jobs either overseas or underground.
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I am looking for any pointers for enabling me to write a non-blocking socket type of IMAP client. What does JavaMail do? Can that be used for this purpose? Will that be blocking the calls over the connection.. if yes, what could be the workaround for making it non-blocking? I'd like not to implement the IMAP client spec by myself, and reuse the one Sun provides with JavaMail. Any help will be greatly appreciated! thanks!
author and iconoclast
The java.nio package does have support for non-blocking I/O, but I'm not sure what the benefit of using this would be for IMAP, which is a request/response protocol. Perhaps what you're really interested in is having a GUI be responsive during the IMAP interaction? In that case, what you want to do is just spawn a separate Thread in which to do the communications.
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putty knife is a tool used primarily used when working putty around
the edges of single glazed windows. However for automotive applications
they can be used as scrapers for removing stubborn build ups of
dirt, oil and grease from the engine bay or under the car.
Putty knifes come in a wide variety of sizes and styles to suit
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Some theorists, like my friend Roy Baumeister, believe that self-control is a general trait. My experience with weight-loss versus exercise belies this. I have weighed 95 kg for the last twenty years, and I have dieted a dozen times only to return to 95 kg each time, usually after losing about 5 kg. No self-control? Hardly. Eighteen months ago I took up walking, knowing that 10,000 steps per day halves cardiac risk for someone my age and with my profile of risk. I have walked an average of 14,000 steps per day ever since and my New Year's resolution is 5,000,000 steps in 2009. I am well on track to my goal. So self-control is for me highly domain specific. For you?
Martin Seligman is Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He founded the field of positive psychology in 2000 and has published over 20 books and 200 articles on motivation and personality. In 2002 he was named among the 100 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century by the Review of General Psychology.
Return to menu for One Nagging Thing.
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By Ernie Suggs and Nancy Badertscher
In one of the last votes of the 2010 General Assembly session late Thursday, lawmakers eliminated a low-income tax credit for the poor.
Republicans argued that this would only affect people who pay no income taxes. “If you don’t pay taxes, why should you be getting a refund back?” asked Rep. James Mills (R-Gainesville).
Democrats argued that the low income tax credit was put in place in 1988 when the state sales — paid by all Georgians, regardless of income — was raised by one cent. “If we take this away without full debate, we would be hurting the poorest of the poor,” said Rep. DuBose Porter (D-Dublin), a candidate for governor.
The bill passed the House 97 to 62.
Earlier in the evening, it looked like the low-income credit might survive. The Senate scrapped a bill that maintained the refundable portion of the low-income tax credit for people who earn less than $20,000 annually. But less than two hours later, Republicans tacked on an
It seems appropriate that the Senate was at its most quiet when Lorenzo Wallace Sr. stepped to the rostrum to speak.
For 23 legislative sessions, Wallace has served the Senate as a doorman and finally, sergeant at arms. Thursday marked his retirement.
“I am convinced that I am one of the luckiest persons on the face of the earth,” Wallace said.
Wallace, 90, has been the sergeant at arms for five years. During his first 18 years in the senate he worked as a doorman.
In one of his official duties, he announces special guests when they visit the senate chamber. Thursday afternoon for example, he introduced Gov. Sonny Perdue and led him to the rostrum.
As part of his honor, several senators led Wallace to the speaker’s platform.
“He has always been a calming force on this process,” said Sen. Minority Leader Robert Brown (D-Macon). “From time to time, we can get loud in here. People can try to push the rules. Unauthorized people try to get in. He just quietly moves up to people and
No one is sure what Gov. Perdue is going to do after his term of governor is up. Journalism maybe.
At about 9:30 p.m., the governor snuck into the Senate’s press gallery to hang out with members of the print media. He promised to look into expanding the cramped Senate quarters, where they have toiled for the past 40 days.
And, in Perdue fashion, he was the center of attention and the life of the little press party.
“Hey Mullis,” he shouted at Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga). “We need two Cokes and a Diet Coke.”
Mullis retreated to the Senate break room and returned with the treats.
Mullis traditionally provides drinks and snacks for members of the media.
The Senate has a new majority whip.
Republicans in the senate voted unanimously to elect Sen. John Wiles of Kennesaw to the position.
Wiles, who had been acting whip, had been the chief deputy whip for the 2010 Legislative Session.
He rose to power earlier this month with several members of the GOP were ousted from power after voting against the so-called “sick tax,”
That bill, HB 307, imposes a 1.45 percent hospital tax on patient revenue. Former whip, Mitch Seabaugh of Sharpsburg resigned from his position over the controversial vote.
Since then, Wiles had been the acting whip.
“I’m honored and humbled that my colleagues called me to serve the people of Georgia and the Senate in this leadership role. I will continue to serve the people of Georgia, my district and the Republican Caucus with conservative values and integrity,” Wiles said.
The Georgia General Assembly gave final approval late Thursday to legislation that would exempt from the Open Records Act any crime-scene photos showing nude or dismembered bodies. The Senate agreed 48-0 to the House amendment for final passage at 11:14 p.m. Thursday.
The bill was prompted by the murder of graduate student Meredith Emerson and a request by a reporter for Hustler magazine for gruesome crime-scene photos. It would not have protected the release of the Emerson photos, but ones in future cases, its sponsor said.
The reporter ultimately dropped the request.
Last semester, Eli Mohone found himself kicked out of his Morgan County school, depressed and labeled dangerous after accidentally bringing a fishing knife – which he reported to authorities – to school.
Now, he is the namesake of a new Georgia law.
The House voted 156-0 to pass SB 299, a bill authored by Sen. Emanuel Jones that changes the state’s policy on “Zero Tolerance” discipline in schools. Jones has dubbed the bill the Eli Mohone Act. It passed the Senate earlier in the session 47-0. The senate, on Thursday, agreed to the House substitute 49-0.
“I am ecstatic about it. It has been a long-hard fight,” Jones said. “This is a tremendous accomplishment for all the kids of Georgia who were subject to harsh zero tolerance rules.”
Jones’ bill gives principals and school systems more discretion in how they handle disciplinary cases in their schools. Jones said the previous use of zero tolerance criminalized students for minor, accidental, or sometimes insignificant
Low-income Georgians got a break Thursday night.
While approving HB 1198, the senate agreed a conference committee recommendation to strip the bill of a controversial amendment that would have eliminated the refundable portion of the low-income tax credit for people who earn less than $20,000 annually.
Those Georgians – about a million, mostly seniors – would continue to receive the refund. The refund was designed to offset sales taxes that the poor pay to the state.
At question was as much as $26 per person annually.
“I am happy that the conference committee felt that removing the refund would be punitive to lower income Georgians,” said Sen. Steve Henson (D-Tucker).
Gov. Sonny Perdue has just bid farewell to House members. It’s the last day of the last session of his eight-year term in office. Perdue spoke of the challenges that lawmakers faced this session and of the accomplishments of his tenure in office.
He spoke for 15 minutes, applauding lawmakers for passing water conservation, ethics and transportation bills.
“It’s been a great run,” Perdue said.
To lawmakers, he said: “106 days ago, I stood right here and gave a charge to all of us, and I asked you to work to do the hard things now for a better tomorrow. It has been painful in some regards …. You’ve done the job.”
A bill that would prohibit mandatory participation in any federal healthcare system is headed to the desk of Gov. Perdue for his signature. The bill, originally proposed as SB 317, was attached as an amendment to SB 411, the Healthy Georgians Act of 2010.
The amendment was part of language originally crafted by Sen. Judson Hill (R-Marietta). Although SB 317 passed the senate, it got stuck in the House.
He said his amendment would protect Georgians “rights on health care choice.”
“I want to thank the entire General Assembly for helping me protect all Georgians from being compelled to participate in the federal healthcare program,” Hill said. “My original bill intended to shield every person in our state from having their basic rights of choice infringed upon by an unwanted government mandate. With the passage of my measure, we will all continue to enjoy those rights to purchase private or public healthcare, or decline to participate in any healthcare plan at all.”
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Experts weigh in on when the economic recovery will begin.
By Scott Williams
HISPANIC BUSINESS® magazine
With the U.S. recession approaching its one-year anniversary in March, CEOs and consumers are eager for it to end. A consensus of forecasters points to a recovery in the early months of 2002, although experts use different data to back up their projections (see table). “Enough stimulus has been pumped into this economy that …I would expect that, coming into the first quarter, companies will be reporting positive numbers,” says George Rodriguez, senior vice-president for Hispanic-owned brokerage Guzman & Co. According to the Blue Chip Economic Indicators, a survey of 53 leading forecasters, almost 70 percent of the prognosticators believe the recession will end by April 2002. The bullish outlook of Mr. Rodriguez hinges on the effect of the 11 interest rate cuts engineered by the Federal Reserve Board last year. The first came on January 3, 2001, when the Fed cut the federal funds rate from 6.5 percent to 6 percent; the most recent cut occurred on December 11, when the rate dropped from 2 percent to only 1.75 percent. “I think that with interest rates the way they are, the stage is set for recovery,” seconds Sam Ramirez, senior vice-president at Ramirez & Co., the oldest Hispanic-owned investment bank in the nation. But he calls the situation in the Middle East “the X-factor that’s hard to gauge,” and notes that any talk of a recovery presumes no new crises. “I’m hoping things on the political side will calm down and we won’t have any more events to decrease productivity and É hinder production in business in general,” he says. Because manufacturing led the country into the downturn, it could foreshadow a recovery. Once production starts to rise and companies report positive numbers, the turnaround likely will start in earnest, Mr. Rodriguez says, although it won’t affect the entire economy simultaneously. Six to nine months could pass before the $10 trillion U.S. economy begins a sustained, across-the-board recovery. Ken Goldstein, economist for the Conference Board, a nonprofit research group in New York, believes this recession differs from previous ones because of its origin in manufacturing rather than a fall-off in consumer consumption. Manufacturing investment dropped six to eight months before consumption did, while at the same time exports slowed. After double-digit growth in 1999 and 2000, nonresidential fixed business investment, a measure of manufacturing investment, declined 14.6 percent in the second quarter of 2001. As for predicting when the recession will end, Mr. Goldstein looks at employment data. He says it could take as long as 18 months before the economy resembles that of 1998 or 1999. He forecasts that employment -- a key measurement in his view -- may not rebound until late 2002 or early 2003. His colleague at the Conference Board, Research Director Lynn Franco, says “a rebound by mid-2002 is likely.” “We have to get through this period of falling consumer confidence and rising unemployment,” Mr. Goldstein says. “And [we] have to get businesses making money again and see the global economy rise [in growth rate] from 1.5 percent to 2 percent, which is possible by the end of this year.” Economists with the University of California at Los Angeles’ Anderson Forecast peg the end of the recession at “mid-2002.” Forecast Director Edward Leamer believes the economy will turn the corner when three imbalances are corrected: overinvestment in technology by businesses, overspending by consumers, and over-reliance on U.S. investments by portfolio managers. “We are in recession today because of rapid adjustment to the first imbalance,” Mr. Leamer says. “The bottom line: Expect a recovery by mid-year 2002, but a recovery with a relatively modest GDP growth.” Like Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Leamer expects unemployment to continue to rise during 2002.
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Fact sheets summarize current literature into a short (2 page) document intended for distribution. Fact-sheets are extremely useful for academics, professionals or laypeople who are in contact with offenders, victims, corrections or the legal system in any way. Read our Fact-sheets.
Understand the CONTROVERSIES.
Alternatively, sSRead about "controversies" in psychology and law. Each article presents the academic literature pertaining to an issue, and takes one empirically-based side. Should we be tough on crime? Should adolescents be tried as adults? Find out here.
Become a STUDENT.
Find out everything you need to know about becoming a student in psychology and law. We have information on international graduate schools, what it is like to study around the world, and we can offer mentorship for newcomers to the field. Learn more here.
General Information. This call for submissions invites contributions related to the study and application of psychological approaches to crime, criminal and civil law, and the influence of law on behavior.…
Apply for EAPL-S Coventry 2013 awards today! Applications are due July 31st, 2013.
EAPL-S aims to provide students with mobility awards and conference incentives for each psychology and law related conference. The following awards were all generously donated by the EAPL for the 2012-2013 year, and will be awarded at the EAPL Coventry 2013 conference.
You are eligible for these awards if you are.
A member of EAPL
Are registered as a student at a post-secondary institution
Are presenting a poster or paper at the EAPL 2012 conference.
NOTE: To apply for these awards provide proof of conference registration and EAPL membership, and evidence that you have been accepted to present a poster or paper at the conference.
The EAPL-S is encouraging student conference attendance by providing three merit-based paper awards (each worth € 150). You may only receive one (1) of these awards.
To help you find a home for your next manuscript, here is the most recent list of psychology journal impact factors (as reported by the 2011 Journal Citation Reports Social Sciences Edition). Journals with higher impact factors are generally regarded as higher quality journals. I have broken down this list by general psychology journals and journals most relevant to psychology and law. Note that journals that were established since 2011 will not be included in this list since they have not had enough time to obtain a rating. Also, research focusing on psychology and law issues can be published in various other journals that are not listed here, including legal journals, criminology journals, and specialized psychological journals.
For your convenience, the author submission websites for each journal are also linked below.
What is an impact factor?
A journal Impact Factor is the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past two years have been cited in the JCR year.
The Impact Factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the JCR year by the total number of articles published in the two previous years. An Impact Factor of 1.0 means that, on average, the articles published one or two year ago have been cited one time. An Impact Factor of 2.5 means that, on average, the articles published one or two year ago have been cited two and a half times. The citing works may be articles published in the same journal. However, most citing works are from different journals, proceedings, or books indexed by Web of Science.
If you are interested in studying forensic psychology, either as a graduate or post-graduate student, this resource will be perfect for you! This article was written by the EAPL-S representative for Brazil: Josimar Alcantara Mendes.
The consolidation of Psychology in Brazil is very recent. The first experiments of psychology in the judicial system occurred along with the legalization of the profession of psychologist in the 1960s. From this, the inclusion of psychologists in legal settings was occurring gradually and slowly. Psychologists introduced themselves to the judicial system by volunteering. The early work was in the field of criminology, being involved with adult criminal cases and juvenile delinquents. Thereafter, the involvement spread to the prison system in the Brazil.
The 1980s and 1990s were crucial for the consolidation of psychology within the Brazilian legal system. During this time psychologists began to monitor the newly created childcare system in Brazil and also to work in other sectors of justice, especially in family courts.
The EAPL-S is proud to welcome our new representative for Brazil! Josimar A. de Alcântara Mendes is a Masters student at the University of Brasília and is a teacher at the Federal Institute of Brasilia.
I am a psychologist and I'm working as a teacher at the Federal Institute of Brasilia. I am also finishing my Masters in Clinical Psychology and Culture, by University of Brasília - Unb. Since graduation I work with themes related to justice, as child sexual abuse, juvenile delinquents and drug addiction ... In 2009 I did an internship at the Court of Brasilia in a service designed to judicialized families, especially those in custody dispute.
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Switching Into Survival Mode
Planning and preparation should keep you from having an outdoor misadventure. If something does go wrong, switch into survival mode.
Most everyone who treks into the wilderness gets turned around occasionally. How you respond in the early stages often determines if your disorientation becomes a temporary inconvenience or a traumatic ordeal. If you keep a cool head, you’ll usually get your bearings fairly quickly.
Think through recent events to see if you can retrace your path. If you decide you can’t return to your camp or car, commit yourself to spending the night where you are. If you remain in one spot, it’s very likely that you will be found in a few days.
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The fact that a single chicken produces 45 pounds of poop in one year didn’t dull my enthusiasm for starting a small flock. At six chickens, that’s an annual 270 pounds of dooky.
For an urban backyard flock, that’s a serious pile to consider, I suppose. But on Shuddering Squirrel Acres, where fruit trees, vegetable and flower gardens, and outdoor potted plants all need to be fertilized each growing season, it’s a potential heap of gold.
Composted for a year or two with the chickens’ bedding of straw and pine shavings – as well as kitchen food scraps, dead leaves, grass clippings, and a little bit of dirt – chicken manure becomes one of the finest natural fertilizers you can use. Try buying a five- or 10-pound bag at the garden supply shop, and the price will tell you its relative value.
|Our chicks at two weeks, Roxy at center|
Getting chicks and raising them was the first thing I wanted to do when we moved here, but more pressing concerns around the property delayed it for a year. At the end of April, we bought the chicks at the Tractor Supply, dipping them out of a big galvanized stock tank packed with peeping fuzz balls and warmed by a red heat lamp.
We wanted all laying hens, so we chose from the tank labeled “Pullets” – the name for young female chickens. They were all supposed to have been sexed, found to be female, and separated from an adjoining tank labeled “Straight Run” – the term for unsexed, unsorted chicks that may be pullets or may be cockerels (young males).
I chose three red chicks, two blacks, and last, a single yellow chick just like those you see every Easter, given to temporarily interested little kids by unthinking parents who are soon stuck with the problem of how to get rid of them. I don’t much like to think of how they go about that.
The day after we brought the chicks home, we had a Sunday farm breakfast – albeit at 2:30 p.m. – thanks to the serendipitous Saturday. On the way back from Tractor Supply we saw a roadside, handmade sign for farm-fresh eggs, “None of them older than five days,” and met some good people we expect will become friends.
The Givens family is the real deal. There’s the dad, Little Grady, whose own father was Big Grady; the mom, Stacy, a do-it-yourself environmental activist and poultry raiser; and their son, Littlest Grady, who hustles eggs and drives a hard bargain.
Their eggs were in an old refrigerator standing out in the open with a slot mailbox for cash payment of $2 per dozen. Honor system all the way, and as the man who greeted us said, “We don’t really make anything on them, and if somebody’s hungry enough to steal eggs, they need them more than us.” This was Little Grady, current patriarch of a certified Century Farm that has been continuously operated by his family for 100 years or more. (Some of the few remaining members of my mom’s farming family in central Indiana continue to operate their own Century Farm.)
The Givenses also raise beef and pork on their big spread. We chatted awhile about how the meat is raised, its prices in the fall, bought some frozen pork sausage to sample (it was exceptional), enjoyed a generous tour of their chicken houses, sage advice for raising our own, and left with a big blue plastic tub that Stacy said would be perfect for our chicks’ first brood box. In giving it to us, she asked only, “When you decide to get rid of it, promise me you’ll recycle.” We’re dedicated to using local products whenever feasible, and plan to buy a side of beef and various cuts of pork for our freezer in the fall.
Back home in the garage, I set up our brood box complete with clip-on red heat lamp, water and feed dishes, and a thick layer of shaved pine bedding. In went the chicks, and a lifelong desire to have my own source of fresh eggs began. For the record, Vicki adores our chickens, but it was tacitly agreed that this was my idea and the bulk of their care was my responsibility.
From the beginning, the yellow chick was different, and not just because she was the only one of that color. The other chicks tended to gather around her, although she could be a little cranky if crowded. A photo taken on their first day here shows the three reds together and the two blacks together, formed into a circle dance around the yellow. This was a portent we did not recognize.
As the days and weeks went on, each of them began to show her personality. One of the blacks, now Sadie, had a permanent scowl on her face. The other, sweet and always happy to see me, I named Billie – to honor the spectacular heart render, Billie Holiday. The reds were hard to tell apart, so they were temporarily Red, Her Sister Red, and Her Other Sister Red. And the yellow, who quickly whitened, was dubbed Roxy after my wicked stepdaughter, Jamie, said she had the sass and flash for that name.
Roxy’s bright red comb and wattles developed sooner than the others, and Vicki said she looked suspiciously like a rooster. Unhappy about that prospect, I went to the books and found several pictures of adult Leghorn females that looked just like her. Besides, I said, there was no sign of incipient spurs on the back of her legs.
Once they had all their feathers and were old enough to move outside into the rather unusual coop I built for them, Roxy looked and acted suspiciously butch.
All the chickens were making throaty noises, but Roxy seemed to be trying to raise her voice in a familiar declaration of prominence and pride. She had already established herself as the Boss Chicken, sometimes bullying the others or “herding” them to go where she wanted them to go.
Still, I was unwilling to accept that she may be a he, and tried to rationalize away her emerging roosterness. Vicki just kept saying, “Look, that’s a rooster,” but I wasn’t buying it yet.
I went back to the books, and online, and found one acid test that was dismissed as an old wives’ tale by some, but sworn to by others as a reliable method for sexing a young chicken. Pick it up, hold it away from your body, and look at the legs. Hens tend to draw theirs up close to their bodies when aloft like this; roosters let theirs hang loosely.
It took many days to get close enough to Roxy to get my hands on her. While Billie and one of the reds – now named Sweet Red – reluctantly let me pick them up, then lie on one side in my hand, relaxed and enjoying my attention, both Roxy and Sadie kept a chary distance.
Finally, a struggling Roxy in hand, I performed the farmyard test. Those legs were hanging.
I reluctantly changed her name to Rocky, but it seemed to pat. Now our Leghorn rooster’s name is Larry. Why? Have you ever heard of another chicken named Larry?
I must say he is a striking gent, snow white with a tail like a sailing jib (but in this case aft instead of fore), and big bright red comb and wattles. He is the archetypal, historic picture of a barnyard boss.
But it’s disappointing that our Leghorn won’t be laying any eggs. The breed is one of the most prolific of them all, commonly laying 365 or more eggs a year.
Now the question is, do we want or need a rooster?
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Illegal or unsafe SPEED is a leading
contributing factor in Mn. fatal crashes
Grief and the Holiday Season
Brent Richter, MA, LPC
How can we celebrate and enjoy the upcoming holiday season-- is that even possible or conceivable? Is it beyond comprehension? How can we approach this season of celebration, family gatherings, lifelong rituals and holiday traditions and still honor our loved one? I have some suggestions. First, eliminate the “shoulds”; a ‘should’ is a duty or obligation to act or behave in a certain manner--this will be hard as this will be a different season; give yourself permission to ignore the “should” because trying to meet expectations (our own or those of others) based upon previous experiences is not realistic, or even possible given your loss. Second, do what you need to get through the difficult days---give yourself time to settle in, acknowledge, and respond to the myriad of feelings, emotions, and reactions that each new experience brings.
The first year of your loss can be overwhelming as you realize what is lost; and each new experience without your loved one presents new reasons to grieve – the missed birthday, the shared anniversary, the annual vacation, and the missed holidays and family gatherings; each milestone exposes raw emotions just as if it were the first day of the loss. Whether it is making cookies, burning fudge, having dinner, wrapping presents, decorating the house, or writing and addressing holiday cards – every family or relationship has uniquely shared traditions and rituals and perhaps your loved one was the center, instigator, and/or organizer of those traditions. It may be too early for some of you, and that’s understandable--the whirlwind of your loss may have not fully settled in; for others you may just be starting to think of some of these times and holiday rituals; some of you may have muddled through or ‘survived’ that first year of ‘firsts’; and others may well be into years of dealing with the loss and have found ways to integrate your loved ones death into new familial traditions. Others may continue to still struggle.
I don’t believe we ever ‘get over’ our loss, because I don’t see my walk with grief moving toward being cured. Personally, I don’t want to be cured – I want to fondly remember my friends and family that have been lost and to remember those happy times; but unfortunately I think it’s necessary to recognize and gauge the sad memories against those fond or happy memories because they are woven into the fabric of our shared experiences.I’ve learned through my education, training, and the many people I’ve been honored to counsel and chat with, that experiencing a loss and the inevitable grief changes you forever. It I think it’s imperative that you question, search for answers, grieve with others, and share your thoughts, memories, experiences, and feelings about your loss and how your life has changed--do this for yourself and for others because sharing, grieving, and crying gives your family and friends permission to share, grieve, and cry with you.
Grieving during the holidays is especially difficult and it necessitates extra care and attention. Grieving is never something you can do passively – you can try and ‘stuff’ it, but eventually it will surface. It will rise when you are the most vulnerable, at your weakest and when you are in your greatest need for support. When we don’t attend to our grief and loss the cost can be high, we risk an influx of despair, loneliness, and/or sense of being overwhelmed and that can make us feel like what we are experiencing is insurmountable.
When I speak of paying attention to yourself and giving yourself permission to grieve, I’d like you to think of BEING INTENTIONAL ABOUT YOUR GRIEF. What that means is----Open Up! It might be a bit strange for a grief therapist to admit this but, I can’t make it right for you. I can’t take away your pain or the hurt of others, just like you can’t take away the pain of others – but together we can lend a purposeful ear and a caring heart which is really what heals. By sharing your loss, telling the story of your loved one until you don’t need to tell it anymore is what heals, watching as your story is heard, being understood and seeing the concern of others continues the integrative process.
It is especially important as you proceed into the upcoming holiday season that you try and maintain those important traditions and rituals. I suggest you set a place for your loved one, talk openly, and suggest others share stories – inviting the memory of your loved one into your celebration allows you to begin (or continue) the process of accepting what it is, and what it will be like, without them. If it’s too difficult or hard to invite them in, then think about creating a new tradition or holiday ritual – one that may honor what they stood for. It is possible to celebrate the holiday season, but realize that you will be celebrating it differently than previous years, and that’s OK.
Brent Richter, MA is a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in Maple Grove, Minnesota. He specializes in working with emergency responders and survivors of traumatic loss and their families. He is a volunteer speaker and educator working with Minnesota’s for Safe Driving in their Bereavement Support outreach.
Coping with the Holidays
You now face the holidays and someone you love has been killed. At this time of year, intact families are everywhere – on television, in magazine ads, and on holiday cards, joyfully celebrating with each other. You may feel swallowed in grief as you face a very empty chair at your table. The following suggestions may help you cope.
1. Change traditions. Have holiday meals and get-togethers at a different house or a different time this year. The more you try to make it the same as it was before, the more obvious your loved one’s absence will be.
2. Go away if you feel you will be devastated by staying home. But remember that Christmas is celebrated the world over, so you can’t fully escape. You will probably do better by facing your pain and being near the people who love you.
3. Balance solitude with sociability. Solitude can renew strength. Being with people you care about is equally important. Plan to attend some holiday parties, musicals or plays. You may surprise yourself by enjoying it.
4. Relive the happy memories. Pick three special memories of holidays past with your loved one. Think of them often – especially if grief spasms seem to pop up at an inappropriate time.
5. Set aside "letting go" time. Set aside on your calendar special times during the holiday season when you can be alone and grieve. When you know you will have these special times, you can more easily postpone your flow of grief in public.
6. Counter the conspiracy of silence. Because family and friends love you, they will think they're doing you a favor by not mentioning your loved one (so you won't get upset). Break the ice by mentioning your loved one. Openly state it is important for you to talk about your loved one during the holiday season when he/she is so much on your mind.
7. Try not to "awful-size." It is tempting to conclude that life is "awful" during the holidays. Yes, you will have some difficult times - but you can also experience some joy. Experiencing joy in giving and receiving does not mean that you have forgotten your loved one or that you love him or her any less.
8. Find a creative outlet. Write a memorial poem or story about your loved one and share it. Contribute to a group your loved one would have supported. Use the money you would have spent for a gift for your loved one to buy something for someone he or she cared about.
9. Don't forget the rest of your family. Especially try to make it a good holiday for the children. Listen to them. Talk to them. Celebrate with them. If decorating the tree or buying gifts is impossible, ask a friend to do it for you this year.
10. Take Charge. Plan ahead how you will handle issues such as; whether to hang your loved ones holiday stocking, whether or not to attend religious services, who you will depend on for support.
YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE PAST. YOU CAN HOWEVER, TAKE CHARGE OF THE PRESENT.
TOTAL RECOVERY MAY NEVER COME. BUT WHAT YOU KINDLE FROM THE ASHES OF YOUR TRAGEDY IS LARGELY UP TO YOU.
A Christmas Memorial
For Families dealing with a loss
An advent wreath is a traditional part of Christmas in most homes. As you light each candle this year you may create a new ritual which will become a lasting tradition for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
AS WE LIGHT THESE FOUR CANDLES IN HONOR OF YOU, WE LIGHT ONE FOR OUR GRIEF, ONE FOR OUR MEMORIES, ONE FOR OUR COURAGE, AND ONE FOR OUR LOVE.
THIS CANDLE REPRESENTS OUR GRIEF. THE PAIN OF LOSING YOU IS INTENSE. IT REMINDS US OF THE DEPTH OF OUR LOVE FOR YOU.
THIS CANDLE REPRESENTS OUR COURAGE TO CONFRONT OUR SORROW, TO COMFORT EACH OTHER AND TO CHANGE OUR LIVES.
THIS LIGHT IS IN YOUR MEMORY; THE TIMES WE LAUGHED, THE TIMES WE CRIED, THE TIMES WE WERE ANGRY WITH EACH OTHER, THE SILLY THINGS YOU DID AND THE CARING AND JOY YOU GAVE US.
THIS LIGHT IS THE LIGHT OF LOVE. AS WE ENTER THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, DAY BY DAY WE CHERISH THE SPECIAL PLACE IN OUR HEARTS THAT WILL ALWAYS BE RESERVED FOR YOU. WE THANK YOU FOR THE GIFT YOUR LIVING BROUGH TO EACH OF US. WE LOVE YOU.
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Online social networking sites permit you to get together and bond with new friends.The majority of the popular online social networking sites permit users to bond with new friends from across the world. A member connecting to these sites needs to register for membership and to build their profile which will list all of their personal details, as well their likes, dislikes and other hobbies and interests.You can make use of various online social networking sites to get together and keep in touch with like-minded people who share your interests.
One can connect with new and old friends in several different ways. You can look for old and recent friends by doing a name search. You can also look up for your work colleagues, your school and college friends as well. Click for the name of your favorite TV shows, musical groups, books, politics as well as other media stuff, and you will be redirected to their “fan” page segment, where you can connect with other people who share similar interests.
Using social networking sites is a valuable way to build your own friends circle online. In order to sign up for a social networking account such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc, you must type the name of the site into the address bar and do a search. Select the option that tells you to “Sign Up” by providing your personal details such as your full name (so that your friends can find you, with a name search); create your user-name (profile display name) and password (to register and login, birth date, gender, as well as your email address. Additionally you will be asked to fill out an “About Me” segment, as well as choose your own “ Privacy” settings, here you may decide who is allowed to view your profile details as well as how much access is to be allowed, to the information in your profile.
Although social networking is a great platform to meet new people and stay in touch with friends, personal meetings bring an altogether different touch.You should be wary of conducting your whole life through the use of a social networking site – real physical connections with people in the real world are also very important.The key is to divide your time proportionately between your friends in the online virtual world and the real world.
Did you enjoy this article? Consider learning more about social media management from PML Associates.
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The Dalai Lama said, "I am a Marxist monk," and spawned a discussion on socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and Stalinism on E-Sangha (login required). The quote from the Buddhist Channel:
At a gathering at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), [the DL] said: “I am a Marxist monk, a Buddhist Marxist. I belong to the Marxist camp, because unlike capitalism, Marxism is more ethical. Marxism, as an ideology, takes care of the welfare of its employees and believes in distribution of wealth among the people of the state.”
Communist China, the DL says, has a high degree of exploitation among its workers.
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A broad based national coalition of immigrant rights organizations and faith communities has launched a national campaign to mitigate the worst effects of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Secure-Communities Program (S-Comm). I was informed of this group by the Rev. Craig Roshaven, the UUA’s Witness Ministries Director. Craig is based in our Washington, D. C., office.
The name of the campaign is Restoring Trust: Breaking ICE’s Hold on Our Communities. The Campaign’s goal is to establish 20 advocacy teams across the country by the end of the year to change how law enforcement will respond to requests by ICE to hold people who’ve been arrested or detained for an additional 48 hours.
Maria Hinojosa, this year’s Ware Lecturer at our General Assembly, did a PBS Frontline documentary “Lost in Detention,” which focused on the worst effects of S-Comm. If you have not seen this program, you should take a look at it. Restoring Trust offers UUs and our partners a meaningful way to respond to what she reported.
One of the goals of this year’s Justice General Assembly is for our congregations to bring the ongoing work of justice home. The Restoring Trust Campaign offers Unitarian Universalist leaders and congregations a significant opportunity for sustained and meaningful immigrant justice advocacy. The Campaign has significant support from national faith and immigrant rights organizations.
This is definitely worth exploring. More information is available on the Interfaith Immigration Coalition website.
Our commitment to justice, equity and compassion is fundamental to our faith. Working together with interfaith partners and local groups is critical to our success.
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RAMADI, Iraq: Across Iraq’s western desert, thousands of Sunnis block highways, chant and pray in protests against Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that grow more defiant by the day.
Their demands are many, but the old Iraqi flags from Saddam Hussein’s era and Sunni tribal colors fluttering among them are a clear message to Maliki: Enough, our time has come again.
In Iraqi cities like Ramadi and Fallujah, where tribal ties are strong, many Sunnis have harbored a sense of marginalization ever since Saddam’s fall and the subsequent Shiiite majority’s empowerment.
But the pent-up Sunni anger that erupted a month ago has many worried that Iraq is heading for an explosion of Shiite-on-Sunni violence that will divide it along sectarian fault lines.
Already protests are becoming volatile. Iraqi troops shot five people in clashes in Fallujah Friday, illustrating the room for miscalculation with sectarian hard-liners and Islamist insurgents trying to steer unrest into crisis.
Just outside Ramadi, Sunni men sleep in tents and pray along a blockaded highway, wrapping themselves in old three-star Iraqi national flags, chanting slogans and waving migwars, the wooden mace that Iraqis used to fight the British in the 1920s.
Defiant banners hung on tents call out: “No to Maliki’s Justice” and “I will not leave until I get dignity.”
In fiery speeches from clerics and tribal leaders, talk of reforms mixes with calls to topple the Shiite-led government and the more radical demand to split away an autonomous Sunni region in Anbar province along Iraq’s western flank.
“This is just the culmination of years of injustice against us,” said Munim al-Mindeel, a farmer sitting outside a tent decorated with anti-government banners. “Of course this was bound to happen. All pressure brings explosions in the end.”
The turmoil has erupted at a risky time. War in next-door Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are battling President Bashar Assad, is feeding the ambitions of Iraqi Islamists eager to see the rise of a Syrian Sunni regime across Anbar’s border.
Anbar, a vast desert heartland of mostly Iraqi Sunnis where Al-Qaeda once fought American forces, makes up a third of Iraq’s territory, and adjoins Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
A year after the last U.S. troops left, the protests are fast evolving into the most dangerous test yet for Maliki and the OPEC country’s precarious postwar settlement sharing power among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds.
Four suicide bombings in recent weeks delivered a reminder of how AlQaeda and Sunni militants want to inflame tensions. Divisions in Sunni ranks between moderates, Islamists and tribal leaders or sheikhs make ending the crisis even more challenging.
“We are in a state of hyper-volatility, even for Iraqi standards, which invites more chances to miscalculate, overreach, overreact,” said Ramzy Mardini at Beirut’s Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies.
After defeating a vote of no confidence last year, Maliki looked to have shored up his position among the complex alliances of Shiite parties, Kurdish parties and the Sunni-backed Iraqiya party, which are all split into rival factions.
But the Sunni protests have opened up another front for the Shiite leader just as he struggles with a dispute over oil with the autonomous Kurdistan region.
With provincial elections in April seen as a test for the 2014 parliamentary ballot, politicians across the sectarian and ethnic divides all have scope to put pressure on Maliki, lawmakers say.
Maliki has appointed a top Shiite to negotiate, and has freed hundreds of Sunni detainees. But his concessions look to have come too late for protesters who are turning against Sunni politicians seen as having been co-opted by the government, lawmakers and sheikhs say.
In Ramadi, the tribal leaders want reform of laws they see as unfairly targeting Sunnis: Iraq’s Anti-terrorism law and the Justice and Accountability law, which aims to weed out members of Saddam’s outlawed Baath party.
The so-called “de-Baathification” is sensitive for both sects: Shiite leaders want guarantees that senior supporters of Saddam will not return to power, Sunnis say they are being denied benefits and jobs where former Shiite Baathists are left alone.
“What did I do to be deprived of a pension?” said one former Baath party member at the Ramadi protest camp. “Why do I have to be deprived of my dignity for one thing I did?”
Those demands are especially sensitive in Fallujah and Ramadi, where tribal leaders took up arms against American troops after the invasion. Sickened by Al-Qaeda’s tactics, they later turned against insurgents to join with U.S. forces.
The Sunni protests erupted in December after authorities arrested the bodyguards of Sunni Finance Minister Rafaie al-Esawi, a Fallujah native, on terrorism charges. It was a move Sunni leaders believe was part of a campaign against their sect.
“We’ll have no choice but to ask for a new government if they keep on ignoring us,” Sheikh Hameed alShook, an Anbar tribal leader, said in his Ramadi compound, fringed by date palms. “Everything indicates the government wants to cancel out the Sunni identity.”
Anbar’s sheikhs and lawmakers worry that if they are seen to be sidelined, the protests will fall under the control of hard-line clerics and Islamists seeking to promote a more radical agenda, including calls for an autonomous Sunni region.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been a prime mover in a drive to create a Sunni entity along the border with Syria, by force if needed, senior Sunni sources say.
Under the constitution drawn up after the U.S.-led invasion, each province or group of provinces can create a federal region if it wins enough votes in a referendum.
“Radical Islamists want to come to Baghdad, they want to start from scratch, to go back to before 2003,” said one Sunni Iraqiya lawmaker.
Al-Qaeda’s local wing, Islamic State of Iraq, is also regrouping in the deserts of Anbar, and sending some fighters to join Syria’s rebels, Iraqi security officials acknowledge.
While moderates called for calm after Friday’s deadly clashes, in Fallujah, small groups of protesters waved the black jihadist banner of Al-Qaeda. The group had claimed a suicide bombing that killed a top Fallujah lawmaker days earlier.
Maliki, sensitive to Shiite worries about former Baathists and Sunni Islamists, warned about protests being hijacked by “remnants of the former regime and Al-Qaeda and those with a sectarian agenda.”
Increasingly, though, for the Shiite leadership, Syria’s crisis is a key factor in Iraq’s own stability.
Should Assad fall it would weaken the sway of Shiite Iran, Syria’s main regional ally and a key supporter of Shiite Islamist parties in Maliki’s coalition. Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have backed Assad’s foes.
After any Syrian collapse, Iraqi Shiite officials see Islamist fighters turning their weapons back on Baghdad. Their worst case scenario is a Sunni population in revolt against Baghdad and becoming a magnet for jihadists.
“Everyone is asking where are we heading, no one knows,” said one influential Shiite leader. “Our biggest fear is that the regime in Syria collapses, then an Iraqi Sunni region will be announced next day, and fighting will erupt.”
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Our political parties (the active ones at least) seems to be working in auto-pilot self destruct mode. One would be forgiven for thinking that enough has happened in the last 5 years for politicians to realize what aught to be done or said (or not) would have been grasped by now. But this doesn’t seem to be the case even now. They are doing the same mistakes they have done AGAIN! Let’s enumerate the mistakes of the ruling coalition first.
- Appointing discredited people to important positions (ministers, directors etc). Let yesterdays paper be yesterday’s news.
- trying to redo the same thing again (like reverting back to the tourism sunny-side logo again)
- copying the same tactics for different political campaigns. (originality would be better)
Where the yellow shirts are wrong.
- Foul mouthing MNDF and police, because whatever happens they will stay. The party may change or the leadership may change, but institutions like police and military do not change. So its no use to call them names. Former defense minister Ameen Faisal tried many times to raise this point. But his voice doesn’t seem to be audible at the policy level.
- Associating with violence or condoning such behavior. The effects of violence will serve as a powerful reminder of all that was wrong within and will be useful ammo for the yellow shirt’s enemies. Playing it cool with politeness and respectability will win more hearts and minds.
- Appear to benefit from influence. The recent decision by Male City council to award Lonuziyaaraykolhu to MDP’s “journey to justice” campaign was universally despised if Haveeru ( a relatively moderate paper) comments are a good measure of what people thought about it. The yellow shirts shall refrain from being seen as receiving an advantage from its position. The opposition’s chances will be better if they play the victim part.
- Appearing to be secular and aloof from the religious voice. Every party needs religion and religious scholars to show that they care about religion and people’s belief. Even the atheist North Koreans tried to show that heaven was involved when their great leader passed away. So yellow shirts aught to do some soul searching here. Selling the middle of the road brand in religion has been proven not to work in Maldives politics.
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Aokigahara (青木ヶ原). There are over 100 dead bodies found in the Aokigahara in Japan every year. It’s known as the place where most suicides, after the Golden Gate Bridge, take place. You can wander around and suddenly come across rotten bodies, guns, razor blades, suicide letters nailed on trees. A sign at the forests entry tries to hold people back,”mind your children, mind your parents,talk about your pain”,a phone number of a suicide hotline under it. Even children were found dead in the Forest. Old cars are standing in front of the forest, broken bicycles. There are tents with dead bodies, arms, legs, even eyes in them lying around. A haunting, but fascinating Place.
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Wauwatosa - The Milwaukee Institute will spend $1 million to add two petabytes of computer storage capacity - estimated to be enough to hold all of the information in a stack of phone books stretching from Milwaukee to the moon, the nonprofit group's chairman said Thursday.
The institute is working to dramatically expand high-performance computing, high-speed data transport and mass data storage capacity and offer it at little or no cost to help southeastern Wisconsin's academic and industrial researchers.
The biggest users of the additional capacity will be the Medical College of Wisconsin's genomic and systems biology researchers, said John Byrnes, Milwaukee Institute chairman and executive managing di rector at Mason Wells, the largest private equity firm based in the state.
The system expansion also will include 3,400 cores of processing speed, Byrnes said. One core can handle nearly 1 trillion instructions per second.
The institute hopes to have the expansion completed by early 2013. The new equipment will be housed at Midwest Fiber Networks in Milwaukee's Fifth Ward, one of four local technology businesses that are working with the institute.
The others are Paragon Development Systems, Tushaus Computer Services, and Data Holdings, a $36 million data center in Milwaukee's Concordia neighborhood planned by the Potawatomi tribe.
Byrnes provided details about the system expansion in a presentation to about 70 people at a Wisconsin Innovation Network lunch Thursday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Wauwatosa.
Access to high-performance computing is critical for the region to keep pace with current technology, Byrnes said.
Key to the information and space age are electronics, computers, fiber optics, molecular genetics, the Internet and space travel, he said.
"Those are the things that are propelling our economy and this region is not involved in them," said Byrnes, who recently has harshly criticized government and civic leaders' economic development planning efforts.
Business leaders need to be more open to cooperation, and should get more involved in efforts like the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest, Byrnes said. Also, civic organizations should be working on developing industry clusters rather than focusing the losing battle to move existing companies to the region, he said.
Manufacturing has a greater multiplier effect on the economy than any other industry. But the region will not be able to regain many of its losses or compete in advanced manufacturing if it doesn't have a vibrant information technology infrastructure, said Byrnes, who estimates that he has toured more than 1,000 factories during his long private equity career.
The Milwaukee Institute has the only shared high-performance computing system in the region, said Jay Bayne, its executive director.
The institute's growing system allows the region's scientists and engineers to compete globally without paying the much higher usage charges at the nation's handful of high-performance computing centers, Bayne said.
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So I'm thinking about doing my first marathon this year and while I'm not at the point yet in my training where I need to take on fuel during my runs, at some stage I will. I know a lot of people use gels and energy drinks, and I bought some Clifs Shot Bloks a while back for a half marathon I was supposed to do, but never got around to trying as I didn't do the race. I think these will be out of date on the 1st of May as well and my marathon isn't until October, although I can't seem to see if the date is best before or use by.
Anyway, I was wondering if it's possible to do a marathon without taking on gels and sports drinks and instead taking, I guess "normal" food and drink? I was thinking that back in the day, they probably didn't have energy gels and drinks and probably took on "normal" stuff.
Like in my head I was thinking "Why take a gel, just take some jelly babies or something instead?" Or "drink some flat coke or fanta rather than an energy drink?"
Anyway as you can probably tell I don't have much of an idea about race drinks and nutrition. I was just thinking of being able to take something that is easy on the stomach and won't have my shorts around my ankles every 10 minutes begging for forgiveness.
Energy gels and drinks should anyway be easy on the stomach, but you should experiment on your long runs to be sure a particular brand suits you. The mix of complex and simple carbs varies a bit, and some might have extras like caffeine. As for the expiry date on the Clif Shots I wouldn't worry too much if you start using them up now. After all, sugar is used as a preservative in high concentrations like jam.
Some "normal" food would be perfectly OK but other types would be more of a load on your stomach than you want. I'd stay away from fats and proteins and stick to carbs of varying complexity, e.g., cooked potato with a bit of salt on, jelly babies (if you class them as normal food?), fruit, raisins, etc.
Yes, it's perfectly possible to do without entirely - even drinks were not allowed at one time, it's just a matter of where to draw the line. You'll certainly do better if you take on some carbs and water during a mara. Little and often for both rather than big infrequent intakes.
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Runner's World is a publication of Hearst Magazines UK which is the trading name of The National Magazine Company Ltd, 72 Broadwick Street, London, W1F 9EP. Registered in England 112955. All rights reserved.
Website powered by: Immediate Media Company Limited. | © Runner's World 2002-2013 |
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I will here begin to lay out what is happening in aggregate. This is only the first part of a two part series of how our government (both parties) are taking our liberties and defying the constitution over and over and over again. They are giving away our soveriegnty as a nation as well.
The Obama Adminstration, following on the heels of the unconstitutional acts of the Bush Administration, is carrying the ball so much further. Under first Bush and now Obama we have nationalized the banks and manufacturing and are well on our way to nationalizing health care, energy, and the air waves. Now they want the power to control the internet. This is not the America I know. This is literally becoming a socialist government, which defies the Constitution of the United States of America. Please join us for the March on Washington DC on 09/12/2009. The Declaration of the United States of America states:
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are institituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles and organizing it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
The US Constitution and You
The United States Constitution begins with the words, “We the People”. Very simply put that means the we the people hold the only sovereign power to rule ourselves and not the government. We the People have established a set of laws by which the government must abide by and we the people have by these laws authorized the government certain powers as dictated by the Constitution. This set of absolute laws tells the government exactly what it can and what it cannot do. It says government you may go this far and no further. Whenever the government violates any of these absolute laws We the People have the right No the responsibility to totally ignore them. Under a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1828 any laws passed by the Congress that is in direct violation to or which is contrary to the United States Constitution is not a law. This decision is also known as the Marshal decision and is the standing rule of constitutional law. We have got to wake up to the fact that the government no matter what form it might take is not our friend but is in fact our worst enemy. It is the inherent nature of government to seek absolute power over the governed. By its very nature government must have supreme power to rule and to govern. It is for this very reason why our Constitution was written in the way it was. We as individual citizens have the absolute power to decide for ourselves what is constitutional and what isn’t constitutional. We as individual citizens have the absolute power to force the government to prove in a court of law that its actions against us are within the strict limitations of the constitution. Finally we can cast our vote for individuals who will support and defend the Constitution and who will insure that our individual rights are fully protected.
S. 773 -Bill Allows for Government to Shut Down Internet In Time of Crisis
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773, which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency. The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license. “I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.” Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller’s aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.
READ THE BILL: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s773/show
H.R.675 – To amend title 10, United States Code, to provide police officers, criminal investigators, and game law enforcement officers of the Department of Defense with authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms.
In January, without any recognizable corporate media coverage, Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, introduced H.R. 675. The bill would amend title 10 of the United States Code and extend to civilian employees of the Department of Defense the authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms. The bill was referred to the Armed Services Committee on January 26, 2009. Filner’s bill would amend the United States code with the following: “Sec. 1585b. Law enforcement officers of the Department of Defense: authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms… for any offense against the United States.” (Emphasis added.) The Posse Comitatus Act, passed on June 18, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The Act prohibits members of the federal uniformed services from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property within the United States. H.R. 675 sidesteps Posse Comitatus by defining “law enforcement officer of the Department of Defense” as “a civilian employee of the Department of Defense,” including federal police officers, detectives, criminal investigators, special agents, and game law enforcement officers classified by the Office of Personnel Management Occupational Series 0083 (the United States Office of Personnel Management is described as an “independent agency” of the U.S. government that manages the civil service of the federal government).
READ THE BILL: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h675/show
US FEMA CAMPS: a little background
FEMA was created on April 1, 1979 pursuant to President Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12127. It amalgamated the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, the Federal Preparedness Agency and the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration activities formerly carried out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It also took over Civil Defense from the Department of Defense, which was in charge of preparing citizens for military attack. In 1993 Bill Clinton turned the directorship of FEMA into a Cabinet position. In 2003 FEMA became part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate. The stated purpose of FEMA is to “reduce the loss of life and property and protect the Nation from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters, by leading and supporting the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation.”
Readiness Exercise 1984 (REX-84) is an emergency response program involving the implementation of martial law, the movement of civilian populations and the arrest and detainment of segments of the population. …
Operation Garden Plot is a United States Army and National Guard program under control of the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) to provide Federal military support during domestic civil disturbances. ..Executive Order was made to permit the use of the Federal army to uphold domestic laws pursuant to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which places restrictions on the domestic use of the military for law enforcement purposes.
Recently, however, Section 1076 Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007″ (H.R.5122) has amended Posse Comitatus and The Insurrection Act (which also places limits on domestic military deployment) to allow the Federal government to unilaterally take control of state National Guards and position Federal troops anywhere in the country during a ‘public emergency’.Throughout the 1960s numerous Presidential Executive Orders were issued authorizing Federal agencies to take over essential functions in the case of a declared emergency. The powers include, among many others, the authority of the Federal government to take over transportation infrastructure including highways and seaports (10990), food resources and farms (10998) and mobilize citizens into government supervised work brigades (11000).
On May 9, 2007 President George Bush reasserted the role of the Federal government during a declared emergency by issuing Executive Order NSPD 51/ HSPD-20. The Order states that in the event of a ‘catastrophic emergency’ all ‘national essential functions’ may be taken over by the Executive branch of government and the Department of Homeland Security (including FEMA).The United States Federal Emergency Management Agency has numerous detainment camps throughout the United States. Some camps have been recently constructed and / or renovated and are fully staffed. The existence of the camps coupled with Presidential Executive Orders giving the President and Department of Homeland Security (of which FEMA is now part) control over ‘national essential functions’ in the event of ‘catastrophic emergency’ have resulted in concerns that the camps will be used to forcefully detain American citizens for unconstitutional purposes.
ENTER H.R. 645 – National Emergency Centers Establishment Act
HR 645- Congress Acts To Authorize and Legalize FEMA Camps
A new bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645. This bill, if passed into law, will direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers otherwise known as FEMA camp facilities on military installations. This is an incredibly disturbing piece of legislation considering that the powers that be have already set in motion an agenda to setup a nationwide marital law apparatus through U.S. Northern Command and the Department of Homeland Security. Apparently, the fusion centers, militarized police, surveillance cameras and a domestic military command is not enough. Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next. With this in mind, it appears as if these so called national emergency centers will be used in a national emergency but only if the national emergency requires large groups of people to be rounded up and detained. If that isn’t the case, than why have these national emergency facilities built in military installations?
READ THE BILL: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h645/show
HR:1388 – The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act - passed into law 04/21/2009
[ H.R. 1388 ] is one of the most disturbing pieces of legislation I have seen in a long time. The “Serve America Act” is cloaked in feel-good rhetoric and supposedly noble goals, but it is nothing more than another Washington power-grab – this time targeted at non-profits and education – and ultimately at indoctrinating a whole new generation of Obamanistas into forsaking individual liberty and free will for the Statist worldview.
The bill is far too onerous to detail here – and given Republican support for it, it would seem somewhat futile. But, the legislation is far too destructive not to spend some time on, and one of the few remaining patriots in Washington – Jim DeMint (R-SC) – gave an excellent speech yesterday explaining the bill’s misguided approach and his opposition.
And here are just a few of the lowlights in the legislation:
1. The bill will substantially increase the size and reach of an existing federal government program;
2. The bill will burden taxpayers with more than 5 billion tax dollars at a time when we should be cutting back, not spending more;
3. The bill will steer funding and volunteers for public service away from churches, individuals, neighbors, and others who would like to lend a helping hand and toward organizations selected by bureaucrats;
4. The bill is full of vague language and has insufficient safeguards to prevent left-wing special interest groups from using tax dollars to advance their agenda in the name of “community service;”
5. The bill risks politicizing charity and community service by funneling funds and volunteers toward the preferred organizations picked by ideologues;
6. The first 25% of this bill is really education legislation, and should be in an education bill at the state level; and
7. The bill will compound the disincentives created by new limits on federal tax deductions for charitable giving, thereby decreasing the role of families, churches and other local organizations in their communities.
When you look at the details – one realizes that it’s far worse than even that… more along the lines of full-scale indoctrination camps toward Statism. The legislation will, in many circumstances, force our children to participate in charitable activity as part of school – and that activity may well be chosen by or approved by a bureaucrat. The bill causes a federally chartered, Washington-based institution to, essentially, pick priorities and winners and losers in the charitable universe – undoubtedly putting many charities at a significant disadvantage…
None of this even considers the lack of Constitutional basis for such a massive federal intervention into local charities and volunteerism… but when does that ever stop anyone in Washington? And when coupled with the soon-to-be-reduced lower tax deductions for charities, the Obama-Democrat machine is massively shifting the focus of charity from the individual to the State.
H.R. 45 – Blair Holt Firearms Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009
Basically this would make it illegal to own a firearm – any rifle with a clip or ANY pistol unless:
.It is registered
.You are fingerprinted
.You supply a current Driver’s License
.You supply your Social Security #
.You will submit to a physical & mental evaluation at any time of their choosing
.Each update – change or ownership through private or public sale must be reported and costs $25
- Failure to do so you automatically lose the right to own a firearm and are subject up to a year in jail.
.There is a child provision clause on page 16 section 305 stating a child-access provision. Gun must be locked and inaccessible to any child under 18.
The Government would have the right to come and inspect that you are storing your gun safely away from accessibility to children and fine is punishable for up to 5 yrs. in prison.
If you think this is a joke – go to the website and take your pick of many options to read this..
READ THE BILL: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h45/show
HR 3200 America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F6iP9_s9qc (audio) HR3200 deprives you of your civil liberties 7 ways
Bill includes DIRECT access, without notification, to YOUR PERSONAL BANK ACCOUNT by the federal government. The bill is full of items of concern and should be read by every citizen.
READ THE BILL: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/showRead Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )
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As I sat down to write this month’s article, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to write about. As I sat at my computer, I contemplated what aspect of canine training I wanted to discuss. I leaned back in my chair to mull it over, and it was staring me in the face… a bookshelf full of canine books. Don’t get me wrong; there is nothing like being out on the training grounds with your canine and going through various obstacle courses, sniffing out drugs and getting the bite on the decoy, but there is a wealth of information available in books.
The canine books on my shelf vary greatly, such as books on specific breeds, dog health, breeding, kennel management, dog psychology, obedience training, protection training, etc., etc. Think about it, just like when you go to the police academy, when you go to canine training for the first time, there is a ton of information that they must cram into you in a few weeks or months. They can’t teach you everything in that short period of time. New canine officers can greatly benefit from purchasing books about canine training, or any of the topics mentioned above. When you do look to purchase some books, don’t just look at new books (currently in publication), look at used books. You can find good buys on Amazon.com and eBay.com. Just because a book was published 20 plus years ago, doesn’t mean that it is outdated.
There have been many times over the years while training, that a canine just wasn’t getting what I was trying to train it to do. After repeatedly going through drills and getting the same negative results, I went to my bookshelf. I would select a book, found the section that applied, and read through it. After reading the section, I would return to the training and either altering my training method slightly or completely changing it based on what I read and had positive results. Think about it this way, every trainer, no matter how similar their methods are, they are different. Just as every trainer is different, every canine is different as well, and you may not always be able to use the same methods.
I would recommend that any canine handler and trainer have a book about canine psychology. Yes, I know, they taught you in training how to read your canine…but, understanding canine psychology will get you past just understanding what the basic body language of your canine means. A good canine psychology book will be able to give you better insight into your canine and how it is feeling. Being able to thoroughly read your canine can let you know when s/he is sick before other symptoms show. It can also alter your approach to how you train a canine based on the canine itself. Understanding canine psychology can also help you in dealing with canines running loose on the street. Some agencies will dispatch you to deal with loose canines, because their thought is, you work with them and can probably deal with them better than a regular street cop. The thing is, you may know your canine very well, but doesn’t mean you know other canines. Understanding canine psychology can help you understand whether than stray dog is viscous or just showing a defensive front, which could be the difference between it getting shot or not.
Your canine is a big investment for your agency, so the health of your canine is very important. Having a few books on canine health and nutrition should be at the top of your list of to buy. If your canine is showing some weird symptoms or doing something out of the ordinary, it could mean there is something wrong with their health. Being able to quickly look it up in a book and determine whether s/he needs to go to the veterinarian is important. I’m sure your agency won’t want vet bills every time something is a little off with your canine. By having the books that I have, it has saved me several times in vet bills. At a fairly young age, my current canine started having runny stool, so I looked up the symptom and found several things that it could be. Of course with every issue, there usually are several symptoms, so I narrowed it down and found that he had sensitivity to something in his food, which ended up being wheat. We changed his food and everything was better. If I had taken him to the vet, it would have cost money and probably would have prescribed medicine that wouldn’t have solved the problem.
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‘Zero-Energy’ development breaks ground in Devens, MA
On June 6th, MassDevelopment, in cooperation with Transformations, Inc., broke ground on a new sustainable development in Devens, Mass. The overall goal is to provide affordable, yet sustainable housing for residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The development, known as the Devens Green Housing Project, will be comprised of eight homes that will generate as much energy as they use, while refuting the common belief that eco-friendly homes are only exclusive to those with deep pockets.
R. Carter Scott, President of Transformations, Inc., the developers of the subdivision, spoke first at the groundbreaking. He began by saying that the true economic drivers that have fueled the take-off of zero-energy developments were the raising of the tax credit for solar energy from $2,000 to $14,000 and the lowering of the price of PVC cells (otherwise known as solar cells). These two factors were crucial in minimizing the costs so that zero-energy homes are “not just for the exclusive.” Mr. Scott also called upon the whole country, developers and homeowners, to look at this development as an example of what should be done throughout the nation.
Marty Jones, the newly appointed President and CEO of MassDevelopment, also spoke at the ceremony, celebrating the cooperation between local, state, and federal forces, including Governor Deval Patrick’s Solar Energy Committee, to which Mr. Scott contributes. In looking forward, Ms. Jones hopes that the Devens Green Housing Project serves as a model for fellow communities in the northeast to follow. She went on to state that in an economy such as this, creating both homes and jobs is an important task–one which this project executes impressively. She also stated that the overall goal of the project is to bring economic development and sustainable housing to the Devens community and that this process was replicated exponentially in the future. For a glimpse at what was said, please view the video below.
This is the first of hopefully many more Zero-Energy developments developed by MassDevelopment, a state-funded organization that “works with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions, and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth.”
For more information, visit
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No surprise, but journalism ain’t what it used to be, and we’re paying the price for it. Maybe you don’t care, don’t think you should or wonder why it even matters. Thanks to the general apathy of the American public, you’re probably right.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said the American people are the “best entertained and the least informed people in the world,” which results in keeping our elected officials, leading corporations and other matters of public interest way off of the collective consciousness.
The “press,” as we sometimes like to be called, was the only profession mentioned in the United States Constitution. Not lawyers, doctors, preachers or teachers.
It’s a trust that the vast majority of journalists working today — the ones who still have jobs anyway — take so seriously that the word “blog” makes them quiver in their boots. It’s not elitism that causes the shaking, it’s the gravity of the calling.
It was no accident that our Founding Fathers placed this business in the First Amendment’s clause protecting the “freedom of the press” — it was a downright necessity, entirely based on the assumption that journalists and those who operated such outlets would make money doing it. The free market, in essence, would take care of keeping out government and keeping the enterprise honest.
Bad news: It doesn’t work that way anymore.
Take the cutbacks and recent buyouts at The Cincinnati Enquirer, a place I worked beginning in 1998 and off and on, based on other commitments, through 2001. When I started, the paper had more than 125 reporters working in a Tri-County bureau, a Clermont County bureau and the Northern Kentucky office along with its main operation on Elm Street downtown.
You probably heard about Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman’s departure, truly a great loss. But did you hear about Jim Knippenberg, Tony Lang, Margaret McGurk, Joy Kraft, Ann Haas, Ann Hicks, Allen Howard, Sara Pearce, Jennifer Schwertman, Alan Vonderhaar, Marty Eggerding, Bill Weathers and John Wolfe? Some names you’ll likely recognize, others not — but all were experienced, dedicated journalists who made The Enquirer shine in its more glorious days. And now they’re gone.
Left are a plethora of excellent journalists and editors who are very good at what they do. They’ll carry the torch, but they’ll have to carry more than they ever had to before.
Meanwhile, our local issues are more pressing, the world is larger than it’s even been before and we have fewer people to tell us about it. It’s a scary time.
It might not matter in the end. Americans — young ones especially — don’t get their news and information from newspapers as much anymore. Fewer get it off the TV. Many like the Web. Some don’t care at all.
Basically there just aren’t as many curious folks out there. It shows in the lack of coverage at news conferences I’ve attended and in the decisions about which newsworthy event gets covered and what gets a pass.
In the struggle for readers and viewers, those making editorial decisions about what to cover seem to be appealing to the lowest common denominator. Salacious, bloody, eerie, quick, short, uncomplicated and downright weird stories find their way into the top of newscasts and above-the-fold coverage as if they really mattered that much. Two words: Marcus Fiesel. Need I say more?
On Sept. 19, the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists handed out its annual journalism awards. More than 100 local journalists — including many who were laid off when The Post closed in December — won something for their work in 2007.
A former Post editor eulogized the paper and how it contributed to Greater Cincinnati, talking a lot about the dedicated people who had worked there. Three veteran journalists — two living, one dead — were inducted into the Cincinnati Journalism Hall of Fame.
Through most of the event, I couldn’t help pondering how our best days are behind us and what that means not only for people like me who make a living communicating to and with you. I wonder how this community is going to survive without us.
It’s a scary thought that I never think the drafters of the Bill of Rights saw coming. Who could have?
“Press goes out of business” is one headline that would have flown off the racks.
CONTACT JOE WESSELS: firstname.lastname@example.org
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