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‘SECURITY COUNCIL’ LEADERS MUST DISPROVE ‘MAYAN CALENDER’ APPREHENSIONS OF THE WORLD PUBLIC
Non-continuation of Mayan Calender (Long Count Calender) after December 2012 and its linkage to the ending of the world after 21 December 2012 has been gradually becoming point of serious discussion in the media and among the common public every day, in or the other part of the world. The apprehensions being expressed by the common man or even by the erudite around the world can not be so easily wiped out by various atheistic logics or even by the optimistic discussions with analytical knowledge taking place before the media. Whether the ending of the world (Dooms Day) would fall in December 2012 as believed by the Mesoamerican Mayan Calender believers or Dooms Day would occur even much prior to that due to the wrong and impulsive decisions taken by the “Active Global Leaders” (The Big Five of Security Council) in the days to come is to be analysed.
Irrespective to the ‘Mayan’ Calender’s linkage, the impending danger to the very existence of mankind and to the entire living beings is apprant with the ever growing Arms Race and the inimical postures being taken up by the world leaders, ignoring the global peace, welfare of the common public around the world who have nothing to do with the “realistic political games” being played by the world leaders.
The advancement of conventional Massive Ordance Penetrators (GBU-57A/B) by U.S. or deployment or Massive Royal Naval Forces in Meditterrannean Sea by Britain in Fall 2012 or Supplying of Mistral Class Amphibious Assault Ship to Russia by France, or supplying of Advanced Fighter Jets by Russia to Syria, or manufacturing of biggest 071 LPD Naval ship by China, or large scale production of Advanced Misagh 2 man-portable infrared guided surface to Air Missile systems by Iran, or over $63 billion Trade deals struk to Arms Exhibitors for Advanced Tactical, Interceptor, Fighter and Advanced Training Air Crafts equipment at Dubai Air Show 2011 or Advanced Maritime Security equipment being build up and procured by Middle East Countries and etc., clearly shows that preachings or assurance by world leaders on Global Peace initiatives are mere ‘water bags’.
Manufacturing Defense/Security equipment and exhibiting them in the Defense Exhibitions, Air Shows has become a fashion for world leaders to exercise their massive Defense power and simultaneously to spread arms to all nooks and corners of the world to endanger the safety and security and well being of common people around the world. If this being case undettered, the Mayan Calender appreshensions becomes undoubtedly true, as radical inimical postures being taken up by the countries like U.S., China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, against each other along with their allies and towards others, is also contributing to endangerment of the well being and safety of common public around the world.
The inimical postures of the “Active Global Leaders” and their decisions to deployments and counter-deployments of Armed, Air Force, and Naval Forces by world nations in the name of strategic steps is usually going unrecognised by the common public around the world, who are least bothered or equipped with the knowledge that could lead to endangerment of their lives, if wrong decisions are taken up their respective leaders. No cataclysmic astronomical events or smorgasbords are required to end this Globe as thought by Mayan calendar believers. Already existing Nuclear and biological arsenal in the pockets of the world nations are sufficient to destroy the globe 100 times, even if God created it again and again.
So, now the fate of the 'mankind' and 'entire nature' of this earth is in the hands of “Active Global Leaders” and the decisions taken by them in the few months to come in this year 2012. The common people around the world, in any nation, are themselves engaged in fighting with domestic socio-political and economic problems existing in their respective nations. So, the “Active Global Leaders” themselves must understand and initiate steps for the welfare of common public around the world, not with mere providing of some Financial Aids or Loans to the other nations, but by taking bold decisions not to brew up further tensions between the nations by overcoming regional and racial feelings. That could certainly disprove the Mayan Calander Apprehensions by December 2012. By - dchaitanya
Tags: Mayan Calender , Long Count , Dooms Day , Active Global Leaders , Arms Race , Nuclear Arms , Security Council , Destructive Weapons ,
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
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Few could have foreseen
the widespread and poignant impact of these words part of the
lyrics of last year's holiday hit, "The Christmas Shoes."
The country's No. 1 song (topping Billboard's Jan. 6, 2001 Adult
Contemporary Singles chart) recorded by Reunion Records artist NewSong
brought tears to millions of listeners tuning into their local Christian
and mainstream AC, pop and country radio stations.
calling in to their radio stations," recalls NewSong's Eddie Carswell.
"They told stories of how their mothers had sacrificed their lives
and had always made Christmas special with very little. Everyone seemed
to make it their own."
radio personality DC Chymes remembers the first time his nationally
syndicated show, "Steve and DC in the Morning," played the
song: "For six hours after the show, our switchboard was jammed
with listeners calling in," he says. "They were openly weeping
on the air telling their own Christmas stories and what this song meant
accessible on the radio dial, the song that espoused the true meaning
of Christmas to the nation became hard to find in stores as demand for
the recording grew. The surprise hit, written by Carswell and former
group member Leonard Ahlstrom, and sung by veteran member Billy Goodwin,
was a Christmas bonus track on NewSong's October 2000 non-seasonal album,
Shoes" is now also the title cut of NewSong's first Christmas album
in the group's 20-year history. The song was inspired by a Christmas
story Chymes found on the Internet. For the past few years, he and his
on-air partner have read the tale during their show. Repeatedly, the
switchboard lights up, and fills with listeners impacted by the story.
A NewSong fan, Chymes asked Carswell to write a song based on the narrative.
Carswell and Ahlstrom began working on it four years ago.
"We would read
this story, and we knew something was there," Carswell recalls,
"so we kept stabbing at it, kept coming back to it"
When the band was
recording Sheltering Tree last year, Carswell pitched the unfinished
song, but the producer passed on the cut. With the Sheltering Tree
album complete, Carswell played a rough version of "The Christmas
Shoes" for Chymes. His enthusiastic response convinced the two
writers to finish the song and the record label to add it. In a mere
seven days, the second verse and bridge were complete, and "The
Christmas Shoes" was on the album.
The song highly
requested at NewSong concerts gave the five-member group its
first No. 1 mainstream radio hit. This year, Zomba Music Group's Jive
Records plans to re-service the song to Adult Contemporary and Country
radio outlets in October. No doubt, the moving story will again be front
and center on the airwaves this Christmas. Moreover, in October, New
York publisher St. Martin's Press plans to release The ChristmasShoes, a novella by Nashville-based author Donna VanLiere. And
a NewSong Christmas tour is also in the works.
While the success
of "The Christmas Shoes" is somewhat unfathomable to NewSong,
group co-founders Carswell and Goodwin are even more amazed that the
troupe they formed 20 years ago is still making relevant music, traveling
the country hosting their long-running, multi-artist "Jam"
concerts and ushering in child sponsorships for Seattle-based hunger
relief organization, World Vision.
during a NewSong concert is their devotion and commitment to their World
Vision affiliation. Since signing on with the organization in '94, NewSong
has motivated more than 20,000 people to sponsor a needy child. Each
night, the group chronicles its own personal experience, urging concert
attendees to follow suit.
The group that started
out as a nine-man band singing in the members' Morningside Baptist Church
in Valdosta, Ga., gradually branched out to other churches. In 1981,
four of the nine Carswell, Goodwin, Eddie Middleton and the late
Bobby Apon made the life-changing decision to pursue music and
"I don't think
we ever thought we'd be doing this for 20 years," Goodwin comments
on the group's longevity. "The commitment that we made was, 'God,
we'll do this as long as Your hand is on it, as long as we see You working.'
One of the joys in my walk has been learning that God is faithful even
when things look impossible."
It was at a high
school assembly, Goodwin says, when the four sensed the turning point.
"In a real
way, God sort of just showed up there," he recalls. "We just
gave a concert and at the end, by a show of hands, virtually every student
in the place had made a decision for Christ. We asked a coach if we
could ask students to come forward, and suddenly there were 700 kids
walking toward us. The whole community was changed. We knew it wasn't
a question of 'if,' but rather 'when.'" The "when" came
sooner than they thought, as the fledgling group resigned their jobs
May 1, 1981, loaded up Goodwin's '73 Dodge Aspen station wagon and set
out to carry the Gospel nationwide.
has released 12 albums and scored 17 #1 songs, including '97's record-setting
"Miracles," which stayed at the top of The CCM Update's
Adult Contemporary chart for five weeks. The song was named American
Songwriter magazine's '97 Christian Song of the Year. That same
year, NewSong was voted 'Group of the Year' by industry trade journal
Christian Research Report. Among numerous other accolades for
the band, NewSong has garnered six Gospel Music Association Dove Award
nominations throughout their tenure.
the past 20 years have brought several changes for the group. The transitions
have given way to mentoring relationships as the veterans walk face
to face with their younger counterparts. With a strong foundation beneath
them, former NewSong members Russ Lee ('94-'99) and Charles Billingsley
('94) have moved on to successful solo careers.
Matt Butler, one
of the newest additions to the group, reflects on his NewSong experience:
"I have grown a lot in the last year and in my walk with the Lord
as I've watched these guys," he says. "I'm the only single
guy on the road, and I've seen how they live their lives as they're
away from their wives and kids. I see the integrity. That's been the
biggest influence on my life."
Always at the forefront,
echo all five members, is the ministry of expressing their faith through
that exceedingly well via its live shows. For the past six years, the
group has organized and pioneered the Summer Jam and Winter Jam Tours.
Featuring a multi-artist bill and an unusually low-ticket price in the
range of $5 to $7, the events could be called NewSong's signature effort.
The Jam events have galvanized the Christian music industry, as a diverse
lineup of artists such as Rebecca St. James, Audio Adrenaline, Margaret
Becker, Anointed, Clay Crosse and Big Tent Revival, has realized the
benefits of a multi-artist bill. The events consistently draw large
crowds, some as big as 15,000, to major venues like 1999's record-setting
concert in Greenville, S.C.'s Bi-Lo Center. Last year's Winter and Summer
Jams drew a collective total of 116,00 people, catching the attention
of corporate sponsors like Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
No doubt, the group
that has logged more than one million road miles has a passion for reaching
youth. In addition to the Jams, NewSong has hosted winter and summer
Xtreme Youth Conferences since 1995. Each year, they sing in the New
Year with a three-day Xtreme event in Gatlinburg, Tenn., as well as
other winter Xtreme events in Branson, Missouri, and Columbus, Ohio.
The summer always includes Xtreme Youth Conferences in Panama City Beach,
among other locations.
The goal of NewSong's
Jam and Xtreme events, says Carswell, is "to fill audiences with
the message of Jesus Christ." And by the end of each night, that
goal is reached, evidenced in the number of people who come forward
to pray or profess their belief in Jesus Christ during an altar call.
you see it all come together," says Reischl. "There's no way
to describe it. It's just amazing to be on stage and look out and watch
a sea of people stream forward, people who are responding because God
has used us. All the hard work, the nights on the road away from our
families it's all worth it, then."
like God just continues to expand our ministry," Carswell concludes.
"We're still doing this for the right reasons and carrying the
Message we started out with. We'll continue making music and traveling
the world until He decides to do something different with our lives.
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MAUMEE, Ohio — aboutGolf is proud to announce the addition of Jean Jacques Rivet as a new partner in Europe.
Rivet is well known in Europe as a Biomechanist working on swing optimization for several professional golfers and with their coaches (PGA Tour, LPGA and European Tours), including such names as former Masters champion Trevor Immelman and Suzanne Pettersen. Rivet also has an association with renowned golf teacher David Leadbetter and is a consultant to the European Tour.
Not only is Rivet a sportsman, having competed in a variety of sports including golf, he has a degree in engineering and has a great knowledge of biomechanics and body motion. His company, BiomecaSwing, helps golfers attain a new level of game performance by applying a proven scientific approach.
“Rivet’s knowledge of biomechanics and body motion perfectly complements the efforts of aboutGolf,” said Chuck Faust, President & COO of aboutGolf. “Adding him to our list of partners further enables our ability to create golf technology products that will transform and greatly impact the game.”
Rivet will serve as a consultant to aboutGolf (www.aboutgolf.com.) in product development, specifically the performance products, including aG Balance, aG Flix and the future TechCentric suite of products. He’ll join aboutGolf’s other partners, including the University of Michigan, John McPhee at the University of Waterloo and Dr. Martin Brouillette at the University of Sherbrooke.
Rivet’s knowledge will help develop fully integrated performance products that will improve golf games across the world by considering the impact of biomechanics, body motion, and balance and swing mechanics.
“aboutGolf’s dedication to innovative technology is impressive and I am confident that together, we will revolutionize the way we teach and learn the game of golf and coach future generations,” said Rivet. “Making this type of body motion analysis more accessible and more accurate is thrilling.”
Rivet co-founded Team Fanatic, a funboarding organization that went on to win numerous awards in the Professional Boardsailing Association during the 1990s. In 1989, Rivet set a world record in the boardsailing speed category on his slalom production board.
Rivet, however, suffered a serious accident, ending that part of his sports career. During his hospitalization and treatments, he developed, with the help of the Biomechanical Department of Physiotherapy School at the University of Montpellier, applied biomechanical concepts that accelerate an athlete’s return to a sport after injury. He adapts these concepts to the improvement of performance in various sports, notably in golf, which laid the foundation for the birth of Biomecaswing.
On Nov 5, Rivet is opening a Golf Performance enhancement center at the TerreBlanche Golf Club in France that will feature an aboutGolf Simulator and other aboutGolf performance products.
To learn more about Rivet, go to: http://biomecaswing.com/GB/presentation-jean-jacques-rivet.html.
aboutGolf is a 20-year-old Maumee, Ohio-based company that has been dedicated to golf for its entire history. aboutGolf is the world leader in indoor golf simulator technology, producing PGA TOUR Simulators, aboutGolf Performance Products and Henry-Griffitts Custom Fitting. Historically, aboutGolf also produced Microsoft Golf, Greg Norman Ultimate Challenge Golf and World Tours, which is the world’s most-widely-distributed golf simulation. aboutGolf® is a registered trademark of aboutGolf Limited, Maumee, Ohio.
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Charles Ashworth Pipon was not a politician or a celebrity, but the circumstances of his death and funeral were major news events in his hometown of Toronto in the summer of 1906.
I came across his modest gravestone in St. James Cemetery —and this story—a few years ago.
Charles was the Ontario passenger agent for International Mercantile Marine Co. with an office at 41 King Street East in the King Edward Hotel building. Among the many, many assets of J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company was the White Star Line well known six years later for its unsinkable Titanic. In 1906, steamship and rail agencies were concentrated in the King and Yonge area, particularly east of Yonge, and overflowing onto Victoria and Toronto streets.
By all appearances, Charles Pipon was doing well from his association with International Mercantile Marine, and had a comfortable house at 41 Cecil Street for his young family.
Charles and his wife Maud Mary Rutherford were parents of three children—Philip Rutherford (1894), Charles Arthur (1899), and Mary Rozel (1902). He and Maud married in Toronto on June 1, 1892, at her parents’ home on Jarvis Street.
Charles was born in St. Helier in Jersey in about 1856, the son of Philip Gossett Pipon and his wife Sophia. In the summer of 1906, Charles travelled back to visit his family in Jersey and to look after some matters concerning his father’s will.
Well, at least that was the plan…
Charles embarked from New York on June 23 on the American Line steamer New York bound for London. Passengers had the choice of debarking in Plymouth and taking a special express train to Waterloo Station, or travelling on to dock at Southampton for London. The “boat train” from Plymouth was both faster… and the deluxe option: three first class coaches, a powerful engine, a combined buffet and brake van, and a car for luggage.
The New York reached Plymouth at about 9:30 pm on June 30, and 43 of the passengers boarded tenders to take them to the train. Less than two hours later, they were on their way to London.
A non-stop trip. But they were supposed to slow down through Salisbury station.
It was the first time that 40-year-old William J. Robins had driven the boat train but he had 22 years experience with the company. He was, by all accounts, sober, well rested and ready for duty that night.
But he took the train through Salisbury station at more than double the mandated speed of 26 miles per hour.
At 1:57 am on July 1, on a curve at the east end of the station, the engine left the rails, ploughing into a milk train moving the opposite direction on an adjacent line. It also hit a light engine on a siding. The three passenger cars were hurled from the track and destroyed. The brake van and its occupants were preserved by the quick-witted guard who managed to slow the car and keep it upright.
Driver Robins, the fireman Arthur Gadd, the milk train’s fireman Sidney C. Chick and guard G. Chenneour, and 24 passengers were killed. Three of the deceased passengers were from Toronto: prominent lawyer Walter Barwick, Rev. Edward Ley King (36-year-old vicar at St. Thomas’s Church), and our Mr. Pipon.
The accident made news around the world, and particularly in Toronto where it consumed most of the front pages of both the Toronto Daily Star and the Globe. Speculation about why the driver hadn’t slowed was rampant, including rumors of racing between competing rail companies and suggestions that passengers had bribed him to beat the clock. An inquiry was held beginning July 4. It blamed excessive speed but came to no further conclusion about cause.
Rev. King was buried in Salisbury on July 3, but Charles Pipon and Walter Barwick came home to Toronto.
The bodies of Pipon and Barwick, and five other victims, arrived in New York on the American Line steamship Minneapolis on July 16. They were met by relatives and some high-powered friends and travelled to Toronto on a special rail car, courtesy of the New York Central Railway.
The next day, a family service for Charles Pipon was held at his home on Cecil Street, followed by a much larger service at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church. The impressive list of attendees, pallbearers, and floral tributes, are given in great detail in the Globe. The steamship and railway community was well represented, and the White Star line sent a floral flag made of crimson carnations with a star of white roses.
After the service, conducted by Bishop Sweatman and Rev. C. Ensor Sharpe, the cortege made its way to St. James Cemetery, where Charles was buried in the Rutherford family plot.
And that’s where I met him, about 100 years later.
Ontario Marriage Registration for 1892, #14502, as viewed on Ancestry.ca, April 21, 2012.
For more information about the Pipon family of Jersey, see the impressive collection of Pipon documents at the Jersey Archive. The collection is catalogued online at: http://www.jerseyheritagetrust.jeron.je/name.html
The account of the inquiry into the disaster, including testimony from railway employees and passengers is available online here: http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BoT_Salisbury1906.pdf
The names of all those killed are listed on a memorial in Salisbury. A photo by James Cummins can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24483638@N08/2567777436/
Globe, July 18, 1906, p 8.
Rev. Sharpe, an assistant at St. Thomas’s, was later appointed to replace the late Rev. E.L. King.
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Firing calls for delicate explanation
By Andrea Kay
I thought I had heard all the reasons that people get fired from their jobs. Then I wrote about the humiliation of being fired, and dozens of you wrote to tell me your stories.
There's the person from Wisconsin who was fired for wearing improper shoes and taking eight-minute bathroom breaks. The Alabama man who didn't meet his sales quota, the Florida employee who didn't come to work because a hurricane was about to hit, the worker who lost her temper, and the one who blurted out something inappropriate to a boss she calls "a Hitler." The person who refused to do something unethical, the worker accused of flashing another employee, and those of you who were accused of lying on applications or falsifying time sheets.
You may have been at fault or not. You may be sorry for what you did or not. But you all are without a job and frantic about what to tell the next potential employer.
There is not enough room here to answer you all. And there is no pat answer that will work for everyone. You must come up with your own rationale to help an employer understand that you're not going to be a problem child.
But I can give you four guidelines to use when thinking through what you will say in response to the question, "Why did you leave your last job?"
1. Put this in perspective. You are the one worried about "how it's going to look." The employer doesn't have to know how upsetting this was. Relax and realize that getting fired happens to nearly everyone. Most interviewers will understand if you explain without accusing or whining.
2. Don't make negative comments about the company, such as "The company didn't know what it was doing." And don't use the word "fired." Say, "The circumstances that led to my leaving were ... "
3. Respond with artfully chosen words such as: "I like to spend time building relationships. My job required me to move quickly from one sale to the next and focused only on quotas. The company and I both decided it wasn't a good match."
Or, "There was a very specific set of circumstances that led to my leaving. I was with my company four years. It was a good experience. New management came in and I was asked to do a job I wasn't qualified to do. I tried to comply but didn't feel I was serving our customers well and became unhappy. When I discussed it with the new manager, he said it would be best if I left."
4. Learn from what happened. If this has occurred before, something is probably up with you not everyone else. Before you think about what you're going to say, think about how you may need to change. If your explanation is just words you've worked out, as convincing as you are, odds are the next situation won't work out either.
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The ’80′s was the decade of bombast. Everything had to be loud, brash, obvious. Music pummelled you into submission. Music had something to tell you, and it told you with fervour, without respite. Two of the most brash, fervent bands are represented here, along with a third artist who wasn’t exactly shy of making statements in her music.
Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)
U2 – New Year’s Day
Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me)
Following the huge success of “Wuthering Heights”, Kate Bush’s young life was turned upside down. The now-predictable tales of touring, promotion, enormous record company pressures and the like, eventually drove her to becoming something of a recluse. 1982′s “The Dreaming” had not been particularly successful, and three years later, after nothing more had been heard from her, NME ran a “Where Are They Now” feature on her. Somewhat inauspiciously, her new single was played on the radio three days later1.
That new single was “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)”. The song itself wasn’t new; written three years earlier just after “The Dreaming” sessions, her record company had refused to release it under its original title of “A Deal With God”, fearing an unwelcome reaction in religious countries. They should have just gone for it; the song hardly deals in blasphemy. Instead, Bush’s voice demands that God swaps places with her, not so she can be God, but for God to see life from her side. The determination in her voice is frightening; this isn’t the hippy-dippy teenager of her early records, but a steely, confident woman.
The music, all thundering drums and Fairlight stabs, was made without any thought to ever performing live. Multi-tracked vocals, including using her own voice as a rhythm track, synthesised strings from those all-new electronics; the record is, as you’d have expected from her, remarkably futuristic for a chart-topping artist. Although some of the keyboards do sound a little dated, the track as a whole feels minty-fresh.
And, despite the religious concerns, the song doesn’t feel heavy-handed. “If I only could/I’d make a deal with God/And get him to swap places” is a marvellous chorus, defiantly railing at a deity that had forsaken her. Lovely stuff and well worth listening to again.
Years ago, I remember someone asking Tony Wilson (sorry, Anthony H. Wilson) what Joy Division would have ended up like if Ian Curtis hadn’t killed himself. He replied “U2″. As ever, his daft response had a whacking great big element of truth in amongst the crazy talk. Because U2 were at the time a clever blend of Joy Division’s more lively moments mixed with Bruce Springsteen’s stadium savvy, with a huge chunk of Evangelical fervour thrown into the mix. And I use capitalisation deliberately there – never, ever forget that above all else, U2 are a religious band, probably the most successful religious rock band ever.
With this song, Bono threw down the gauntlet to those who’d thought that previous album “October” wasn’t good enough. “War” was everything their growing legion of fans was clamouring for, and filled with the anthems that would go on to reverberate in stadiums throughout the world. One of my first gigs was at Cardiff Arms Park in (I think) 1984 and if there ever was a band to attract a 13-year old boy, it was U2 in the mid-eighties. That yearning! Those spiralling guitar lines! That sense of certainty in what was right and what was wrong! You didn’t get that from The Fall, I can tell you (it goes without saying that I grew out of that stage fairly quickly and moved onto the wonderful and bizarre world of The Fall, New Order and The Smiths).
Back to the song. Kicking off with an ominous piano line, quickly yelled passionately over by our Serious Artist friend Mr Bono, then in come the drums. Unusually for a U2 song, the piano drives the song, rather than being the backing for Mr Edge’s chiming guitar2. And lordy, the band batter you into submission over the song’s four minutes, making you want to pump your fist in the air on numerous occasions. Yes, Mr Bono, I will be with you again. For a pompous tosspot, you have to say he’s got the perfect voice for this kind of thing, and a pitch-perfect ability to write a lyric without quite going over the edge (no pun intended).
For all the stridency and bombast, I’ve quite enjoyed listening to “New Year’s Day” again. Takes me back to my early teenage years in a not entirely unpleasant way. Can’t say the same about Simple Mind’s “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”.
I don’t like swearing in this blog, much. But fucking hell, is this song shit, or what? I’ve had to listen to it quite a few times to make sure, but yep, here is my verdict: It’s Shit. Anyone who says “Yes, but it’s a guilty pleasure and weren’t the Eighties great and blah blah blah” should be given a firm shake. Seriously, it’s songs like this that made the Eighties shit, and it’s songs like this that The Smiths and New Order and the rest saved us from.
Everything about it is just wrong. That awful echo on Jim Kerr’s voice! Those rubbish drums! Oh, sweet Jebus, that keyboard sound! Everything that works well in “New Years Day” goes horribly wrong in “Don’t You (Put The Rest Of The Line In Parenthesis)”. I can hardly bear to write about it any more. I just want it to stop. I hate it so much I’m not even going to post the track; you can watch the video if you really want to give yourself pain. I think I’d rather listen to The Alarm.
So there we go. Three more songs down, only another 351 to go. At this rate I’ll still be doing this in my dotage. Next up, some Great American Noise.
All of my Pitchfork articles are available here.
1 Funnily enough, in 2005 Mark Radcliffe and Mark Riley ran a regular feature on their radio show, trying to track her down, and meet up with her, assuming that she’d completely given up on the whole music thing. Unbeknowst to them, she’d recorded a double album.
2 Every music writer is contractually obliged to use the phrase “chiming” when describing his guitar playing. Like saying Johnny Marr’s guitar is “jangly”. ‘Tis the law.
MP3: New Year’s Day by U2
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By Jessica Hopper
When Helen and Jay Stassen’s 21-year-old son, Benjamin, committed suicide 19 months ago, he did not leave a note.
If it had been 20 years ago, the Stassens might have looked through diaries, letters or other personal items in an attempt to find clues as to why he decided to end his life. These days, however, young people tend not to keep things on paper; instead, their most intimate thoughts are likely to be online – in emails, social media posts and personal blogs.
So that’s where the Stassens went searching. They found themselves engaged in a conflict with Facebook and Google as they hunted for answers about their son’s death and the companies sought to honor their contracts with their users.
“We are reeling with the reality of being parents who not only have our son who has died, but a very difficult death on top of it which is not anything we ever saw coming, which has added to our desire to really want to know why,” said Helen Stassen from her home in Prescott, Wis.
The Stassens say that Benjamin, a college student, had hoped to be an entrepreneur one day and was a health food enthusiast who loved to play the drums and practice yoga. To keep his memory alive, they built a free library at a park near their home and their extended family helped get a bench named for him near the Mississippi River.
“Those have been experiences that have helped and have healed in tiny ways that are a contrast to the fight that we’ve been in,” Helen Stassen said.
Courtesy of the Stassen Family
The Stassen family is one of a growing number of families battling online companies to gain access to a deceased loved one’s digital assets.
Digital assets include email, social media accounts, digital photos and online banking accounts and records. The Stassens think Benjamin’s online life might provide a clue into their son’s last days and as the heirs of his estate, they feel they have a right to get access to his accounts.
“Social media is a major way 21-year-olds interact these days,” Jay Stassen said. “We thought maybe this could bring us some understanding, maybe some peace. We didn’t know, but we felt it was important to try to understand.”
A local judge recently granted the family a court order directing Facebook to give the Stassen family access to their son’s account. The court order says that the Stassens are the heirs to their son’s estate and are entitled to any of his assets, possessions or records, including the contents of his Facebook account.
Emails provided by the family show that Facebook has received the court order and it’s currently in their legal department. Legally, Facebook can appeal the court order or comply with it. When asked about the Stassen family’s court order, a Facebook spokesperson said that the company does not comment on specific cases.
Legal experts said that court orders can trump user agreements. Online companies’ user agreements are contracts with the user that usually guarantee privacy and prohibit or limit account access to others beside the user.
“If Facebook is doing business in a jurisdiction and the court orders them to do something, they pretty much have to do it or face the penalty. If they don’t follow a court order, they can be held in contempt of court,” said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University.
Swire, who served as Chief Counselor for Privacy in President Bill Clinton’s administration and as an adviser to President Barack Obama on privacy issues, said that online companies face a “patchwork of state laws” and are usually cautious when it comes to granting access to a deceased user’s account.
What happens to your Facebook account when you die?
“What happens if a 21-year-old had a safe deposit box at the bank, the answer is the safe deposit box belongs to his estate and whoever controls the estate gets to open the box,” Swire said. “In the physical world, it’s easy to tell if it’s someone’s parents or child who has the safe deposit key, it’s trickier for Facebook and Google. Some evil prankster might pretend that a person is dead and try to take control of the account, so the online companies are understandably careful before they turn over the account to someone who says they run the estate.”
Online companies such as Facebook say they are concerned with honoring their contracts with users which require them to protect their users’ privacy. It is possible that a deceased user may not have intended for his online accounts to be accessed by his loved ones after he died.
“I think it’s a good idea for sites not to have a blanket policy to hand this stuff over to survivors. This information is private and you assume that it’s private, you assume that your Facebook account is private, you assume that your email account is private,” said Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group.
Jeschke said that the problem is that people often don’t know what their deceased loved one’s wanted to happen to their online accounts.
“What's really important is that your survivors know what it is that you want, to say to your spouse and parents, ‘No, you can't read my email after I die or yes, I want you to.’ I don't think I'm the only person that would be uncomfortable with the idea of someone reading my email after I pass,” Jeschke said.
Naomi Cahn,a law professor at George Washington University, said that there is “almost no binding legal precedent out there” when it comes to digital assets.
“It’s a concern of internet service providers being caught between privacy and the meaning of their contracts and being faced with a court order to which there could be quite severe penalties if they don’t comply with it. It’s something that lawyers, state legislatures, hopefully the federal government, hopefully the internet service providers are all starting to think more about as these issues become common,” Cahn said.
Are digital assets part of your estate?
Cahn said that current laws have yet to catch up with the digital age, leaving families like the Stassens in a frustrating limbo.
“When somebody dies, the person who is responsible for taking care of the individual’s asset is supposed to be complying with what the individual wanted and protecting the individual,” Cahn said. “Because so many people have not thought about this, we don’t know what the person actually wanted...we can all imagine what’s in internet accounts. There may certainly be cases where the person who died would not have wanted anyone to get anywhere near the person’s account.”
Only five states currently have estate laws that include digital assets -- Connecticut, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Indiana and Idaho – and the laws vary among them. Some states’ statutes, for instance, just relate to email, with only Oklahoma and Idaho clearly including social networking and blogging as part of an estate.
“Legally it is unclear exactly what you can do in the 45 states -- and Washington, D.C. -- that do not have these laws that address this situation,” Cahn said. “Even in those states where there are laws, we’re still in the process of testing how those laws operate. They don’t cover all Internet accounts and the laws are new enough that they’re just in the process of being worked out.”
Cahn said that most people don’t think about what will happen to their online accounts when they die, but if they did, they would likely feel differently about different sorts of online accounts.
“Some of the ones that we expect to be passed on, like getting access to online bank account statements, doing online bill paying, those probably we would expect others to be able to take control over. Many of us probably think that once we die, our Facebook accounts should either be memorialized [left up for only friends to see] or deleted entirely,” Cahn said.
Internet companies such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook have taken the position that the user probably intended for the contents of his or her account to remain private and crafted user agreements to reflect this, Cahn said.
“They do assume that the user wants privacy, there’s all kinds of advice on passwords and password strength to make sure that there’ s no unauthorized use,” Cahn said. “One of the reasons we have passwords on our accounts, one of the reasons we get so outraged when there’s a hacking is we have certain expectations of privacy when we open accounts.”
There also are liability issues. Some states prohibit internet companies from disclosing information without the permission of the customer. With no clear definition of digital assets in most states, the companies then look to their user agreements and the laws of individual states when a user dies.
“Right now it’s kind of the Wild West in most states. The statutes don’t refer to any kind of digital asset or account,” said attorney Suzanne Walsh, who specializes in wills and estates.
Walsh is a commissioner to the Uniform Law Commission and chairs a committee that’s been formed to consider drafting a uniform law on digital assets that states could adopt.
Gene Hennig, one of Minnesota’s commissioners to the Uniform Law Commission, said that a court order is one of the few options families have in obtaining access to a loved one’s online account.
“You’ve got to hire lawyers. It’s time-consuming. Some people may go to all that trouble and it took forever to get the order and by the time they got it, the stuff had been destroyed. It’s just an unworkable and very inefficient way of doing things,” Hennig said.
Family fighting Facebook: ‘We’ll be patient, but persistent’
The Stassens, an attorney and librarian, are fortunate in that their professional skills are there to help them navigate the terrain of digital assets. In addition, they’ve connected with other families engaged in similar battles and lobbied their congressman for help. In the process, they’ve also obtained two court orders: one directed at Google and another at Facebook.
“Many people don’t have that knowledge, don’t have that experience and unless they have the financial means to hire an attorney to do this for them, they are very likely to feel stuck and not know what to do,” Jay Stassen said.
After submitting a court order to Google in September of last year, they received the contents of Benjamin’s Gmail account, but they are still working to recover access to Benjamin’s Facebook account. In April, they obtained a court order directing Facebook to give them access to Benjamin’s account.
“We’ll be patient, but persistent,” Helen Stassen said.
The Stassen family said that they plan to keep private any information they find from their son’s online accounts.
A spokesperson for Facebook said that their policies do not allow access to a dead user’s account.
“For privacy reasons, we do not allow others to access a deceased user’s account,” a Facebook spokesperson told NBC News. In addition, the spokesperson said, the company's policy prohibits them from commenting on the Stassen family's case or any other specific cases.
Facebook has two options for a dead user’s account, the spokesperson said. The first allows an account to be memorialized, which leaves the profile up so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance, but restricts the profile and associated content to the Facebook "friends" that the deceased had while alive, the spokesperson said. A proof of death must be provided for an account to be memorialized. In some instances, Facebook allows family members to have an account deactivated.
Other companies have different policies regarding a deceased person’s online account. According to Google’s web site, in rare cases, they may provide the content of a deceased person’s account to an authorized representative of the person. Meanwhile, Yahoo says on its site that all accounts are non-transferable and it will delete an account when they receive a death certificate.
Courtesy of Peter Stassen
The Stassen family, though, say they don't want to memorialize or deactivate their son’s Facebook account until they have seen the full contents. The only way they’ve been able to see the public part of their son’s page is because he and his brother, Peter, were friends on Facebook.
Benjamin’s Facebook profile shows a smiling young man with photos showing him skiing with his family and enjoying a beer with his brother, Peter.
Peter Stassen said that it’s been a struggle to watch his parents try to obtain access to Benjamin’s account.
“It’s hard to fully reconcile how I feel about Facebook now,” said Peter Stassen, Benjamin’s brother. “None of the people on the Facebook side seem to have any realization that my parents are people, that they’re dealing with emotions and that they’re not just an account.”
Facebook’s policy prohibits them from commenting on the Stassen family’s case or any other specific cases, the spokesperson said.
“I think Facebook has to understand that when they push sharing of data, open sharing of data, they also have an obligation not only to be fair with the account owner during their lifetime, they have an obligation to be fair with the account owner after they’ve died,” Jay Stassen said.
How you can protect your digital assets
The growing murkiness over digital assets recently prompted the federal government to post a blog encouraging people to create social media wills.
And Professor Cahn said that people should discuss their online accounts with their loved ones and have a frank conversation about what they want to remain online, what they want to be deleted and what they want their loved ones to have access to.
“We’re in an era of uncertainty,” Cahn said. “You can certainly tell your loved ones what you want to have happen. What you have online that’s not private, you can set up a joint account.”
Cahn said couples should consider joint online bank accounts, for example. In addition, she said, people can include digital assets in their wills, but warns that wills eventually become public documents and that if you list passwords on the will, those will become accessible to the public.
A series of companies have also sprouted up, such as Entrustet and Legacy Locker, that allow you to come up with a plan for the life of your online accounts after you’re gone, Cahn said.
“As a society, we value the privacy of our online account and we want internet service providers to protect our privacy and that means not giving others access. If we thought about it, we might think differently after we die,” Cahn said.
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The Bible says: “At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come…. the Holy Spirit …..had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying, ‘Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace…I have seen your salvation’” (Luke 2:325-34). The story of Simeon teaches us three important truths: (1) No matter how long it takes, if you seek the Lord you find Him. Or better still, He will find you and reveal himself to you. (2) God, not you, chooses the time and the manner in which He will come to you. Simeon didn’t live to see Christ’s amazing three and a half years of ministry, he only saw a new born baby in Mary’s arms. But he saw God, and that was enough for him. (3) even though he was very devout Simeon realized that he was ready to die only when he met the Lord and embraced Him. Some of us don’t want to die until we’ve seen the world; Simeon didn’t want to die until he had seen the redeemer of the world. So the question you must answer is – have you met the Lord? Is He your personal Saviour? Only when you have the right answer, are you ready to die.
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For veterans, a day spent in memories, not malls
Photo courtesy of Bob Berry
World War II veteran Robert (Bob) L. Berry of Edgartown says he has never been an enormous devotee of the Veterans Day holiday.
"When it first started, it seemed like such a rudimentary promotion, of stores and shops, and to spend money," Mr. Berry recalls.
A holiday that means little more than another sale at local department stores to some people doesn't really warm his heart, he admitted in a telephone interview with The Times.
"To answer your question, what does Veterans Day mean to me, well, it obviously means that I lost a lot of very close, personal friends in World War II, all by the time they were, what, 23 or 24 years old?" Mr. Berry explained.
For an 89-year-old who once spent time as a twenty-something in charge of a troop ship, Veterans Day brings back mixed memories of wonder, sorrow, and thankfulness.
"I think a lot of World War Two veterans have the same feeling," Mr. Berry said. "I did my bit, I'm glad I did, I profited by it, I lost a lot of friends, I saw a lot of tough-looking stuff. The bottom line to me and the whole capsule of my military career is, I had a great experience in World War Two, and I came out a young man."
Navy genes and Island roots
Mr. Berry was born in Newark, N.J., in 1921 with saltwater in his veins and roots on Martha's Vineyard. His great-grandfather, who was from Kentucky and fought for the south in the Civil War, settled on Martha's Vineyard in a home on Indian Hill. His father grew up on the Island and he spent childhood summers there.
Mr. Berry's father, Robert L. Berry Sr., was a career naval officer who graduated at age 16 from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1900 and served as the skipper of a destroyer in World War I.
As a close, personal friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's, Mr. Berry Sr. attended FDR's presidential inauguration in 1933 with his then 13-year-old son.
"We both sat out in the rain — it poured rain — he caught pneumonia and died within three or four weeks," Mr. Berry said. "My mother had died 10 years before. And that kind of framed my future, because I was sort of a cast-about, going to various public schools, visiting with various relatives, and becoming sort of an orphan of the storm."
Although he hoped to follow in his father's footsteps at the Naval Academy, Mr. Berry wasn't accepted. He attended Yale University instead. With the war going on, he knew he might soon be drafted, so he enlisted in the Navy.
"The Service let me graduate from Yale, which was the biggest thing they could have ever done for me, because it stood me good in later life," Mr. Berry said.
Although a member of the class of 1942, his graduation was moved up by six months because of the war. Mr. Berry graduated with a "plain old B.A., a hurry-up degree," in 1941.
War's reality soon impacted his life. "I lost five members of the class of '42 at Yale, within five months of graduation," he recalled.
Safe in harm's way
Mr. Berry was immediately sent to the U.S. Navy's Northwestern Midshipman School (Tower Hall) in Chicago for four months to complete his naval education. He then became an aide to the rear-admiral that ran the school, who had been his father's classmate.
About eight months later, in April 1943, Mr. Berry married Margaret Wight, his high school sweetheart.
Despite the admiral's attempt to talk him out of it, Mr. Berry said, "Immediately after that I thought it was time to be a hero, so I said I was ready to go to sea."
He was assigned to the fleet that carried all of the troops into the most dangerous battle zones. "Normandy, the Philippines, we did them all, and each one with debilitating results on the people you knew; men all around me getting killed, that's something that's lived with me forever," Mr. Berry said.
Fortunately, he added, although he went to some horrific areas, he remained unharmed.
"My flotilla of ships was in the Philippines just before the war ended, getting ready to invade Sasebo, Japan, the site of the Japanese naval academy — I don't even want to think about how many people would have been killed," Mr. Berry said. "The Japanese homeland — are you kidding me? We would have been blown out of the water. But we went in with a Japanese pilot we picked up and he carried us in there safely through the minefields. I was the exec on an APA, that's a troop carrier, and we carried 12,000 U.S. Marines, waiting to go ashore in Japan. I think about it, and I wonder, I got through that alive? Tell me how."
When the war ended, his discharge was delayed from late 1945 until late 1947, because he was assigned as executive officer of a ship that carried troops home, 10,000 to 15,000 at a time.
Mr. Berry returned to his wife in Newark, and their family grew to six children. He spent a career working for independent oil companies. He and Margaret moved to Martha's Vineyard in 1981, when he retired at age 60. She died in 2007.
Mr. Berry now has 17 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren, with a sixth on the way. Although he never attended the Naval Academy, he is proud that two of his grandsons did. One-hundred years after Mr. Berry's father graduated from the academy, Robert L. Berry IV, his son Jon's son, and Mason, his son Andrew's son, entered its ranks in 2000.
Robert is a civilian but remains in the naval reserves. Mason, a naval lieutenant, currently serves as a flight instructor at the Naval Air Station, Naval Base Coronado, in San Diego. His parents Peyton and Andrew, an interim assistant principal at the regional high school, live in Vineyard Haven.
"My war experience, I've got to tell you, was the greatest thing in the world," Mr. Berry concluded. "What a wonderful disciplinary lesson for me as a young kid, who wasn't worth a damn at age 19 or 20. You know, it's true. It was the making of my generation."
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Helping sex workers like Geeta harness the power of information and community to protect themselves from HIV
Sex work was never a choice for Geeta Makula in India—just something she had to do to survive. Now she has the power of community and the power of information to help her protect herself and other sex workers from HIV.
This video vignette highlights a hallmark of PATH’s work: helping people evaluate their choices, rather than prescribing solutions for them.
Videography and production by Margaret Larson.
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A Mom After God's Own Heart
offers 10 principles to help moms make God an everyday part of their children's lives. Moms will explore how to:
- teach their children God's Word
- train them in God's ways
- talk to children about Jesus
- pray with and for them
Elizabeth George, who has two grown children and six grandchildren, gives practical advice and real-life suggestions for helping children---no matter what their ages---incorporate God into daily life. Her husband, Jim, also provides biblical advice from a dad's perspective.
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This is definitely one of the author's most enjoyable books. It is hard to believe that it was first published nearly twenty years ago. The fact that the book is still selling like hotcakes is testament to the strength of the story storyline. As with many of the author's books, there is definitely a moral to the story, as there usually is when a desire for profit and science are combined.
The premise of the book is fascinating. A wealthy man has a desire to make even more money. He comes up with a concept that be believes will be a sure fire winner. Design a new type of theme amusement part, one that is peppered with dinosaurs. To that end, he buys a remote island for his project and hires the best scientists and engineers that money can buy. They manage to come up with a process for cloning dinosaurs from recovered DNA, which will ensure that their goals are met and Jurassic Park becomes a reality.
There are, however, a couple of little glitches that need to be addressed before opening Jurassic Park to the general public. So, money bags invites a couple of experts, a paleontologist, a botanist, and a mathematician to the island for a dry run, as well as his own grandchildren. When they arrive, having been kept somewhat in the dark as to what to expect and thinking that the island is just some kind of grandiose resort, they are taken aback when they discover what really awaits them. Let the games begin!
This is an exciting tale in which science and non-stop action combine in a way that will rivet the reader to the pages of this book. Well-written and suspenseful, it is a book that keeps the reader in its thrall. Those who like techno-thrillers will derive much enjoyment from this masterfully told tale, which manages to educate and entertain at the same time.
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Last week I wrote an article objecting to an invitation I had received from the Obama campaign to have “some grub with POTUS.” Though I think that particular invitation demeans the presidency more than most dinner-with-the-candidate invitations, my criticism applies to both presidential candidates, since they’re both doing it. Even the local candidates for office here in Oregon are sending out these sorts of invitations.
An apparently sympathetic commenter suggested that I was trying to “turn back the clock” and must therefore be close to his 86 years of age. “Get with it or stand aside,” he urged.
I am happy to report that the octogenarian commenter has a few years on me, but I have nonetheless given serious consideration to his suggestion that I get with it or stand aside. After all, this common-folk behavior on the part of our presidential candidates (and candidates for virtually every public office) is mostly symbolic pretense intended to attract voters presumed to be common folk themselves.
Why not lighten up, go with the flow, join the 21st century? What’s the point of insisting, or just wishing, that those who aspire to be president of the United States act presidential? For that matter, what does it mean to act presidential? Maybe having grub with contributors, cracking jokes on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and hanging out with the stars in Hollywood now counts as presidential.
But that’s what worries me. When a Las Vegas fundraiser takes precedence over conferring with the leader of one of America’s staunchest and most threatened allies, when campaign demands require the president to duck in and out of the United Nations without the traditional meetings with other world leaders, the new presidential starts looking like it’s about more than politics and symbolism. Surely tradition, taste and good manners are about more than some old guy’s nostalgia for days gone by.
Three decades ago social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling proposed a “broken windows” theory of urban crime. Their idea was that vandalism and other types of minor social misbehavior contributed to a culture of expanding and escalating criminal conduct. If so, they theorized, one way to reduce serious crime is to enforce laws against vandalism and other minor offenses. Though still debated among criminologists, New York City’s revival under Mayor Rudy Giuliani convinced many of the validity of the broken windows theory.
Perhaps it’s a leap too far to suggest that bad behavior by presidential candidates leads to bad behavior by presidents, but given that we have a president who has embraced a whatever-it-takes view of his office, I’m not so sure. If you can campaign however you like, why not govern by asserting whatever authority it takes. If the traditional mores of electioneering are old fashioned, well so too might be the constitutional rules of governance.
President Obama is a child of the liberating ’60s and ’70s, decades that brought much positive change to America but left us with a moral relativism that plagues everything from our schools to our governing institutions. As for Mitt Romney, he is clearly trying to follow the advice of his political consultants, though he always seems a little uncomfortable in the skin of a modern presidential candidate (as well he would given his patrician and Mormon upbringing). I fear there is no reforming Obama, but one hopes that if elected Romney would revert to form and bring some old-fashioned refinement to the White House, along with an old-fashioned commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law.
Regrettably it would only be a temporary reprieve for our constitutional republic, if my broken windows theory of presidential electioneering has any validity, and if presidential candidates continue to act like college boys running for fraternity president. So after reflecting on my octogenarian commenter’s suggestion that I stand aside and embrace “grub with POTUS,” I have decided to double down on my objections to tasteless political fundraising. If we old guys stick together and insist on better campaign behavior, maybe we’ll get better behavior from those we elect.
Jim Huffman is the dean emeritus of Lewis & Clark Law School, the co-founder of Northwest Free Press and a member of the Hoover Institution’s De Nault Task Force on Property Rights, Freedom and Prosperity.
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Most Active Stories
Crisis In The Housing Market
Mon October 17, 2011
Housing Recovery At Various Stages Around The U.S.
The housing market may be getting more attractive for buying a home. Foreclosures continue to rise, but prices are stabilizing in some places across the country. Just as communities experienced the housing bubble differently, they are also feeling varying degrees of recovery.
Charlotte: 'Two Chandeliers In The Dining Room'
In Charlotte, N.C., a foreclosed McMansion goes for half the value it was in 2007. Lee Brown, a Realtor in the area, says Charlotte has a community of "starter castles" that were built at the height of the housing boom. They have "really ornate exteriors" with French, German and Swiss influence "all tossed into the same house," she says.
During the boom, she says, many people moved to Charlotte for high-paying jobs in the banking industry, but lost them when banks shut down after the crash.
One of the foreclosure properties sold for $1.275 million in 2007; Brown expects it to now sell for about $650,000.
"And you're talking a beautiful home, and you can see it's got the hardwood floors, and it's got the fancy kitchen," she says. "And you're going to get two chandeliers in the dining room — and who needs two chandeliers in the dining room? But you know, hey, there's something for everybody."
East L.A.: 'Starting From Scratch'
In East Los Angeles, Realtor Felipe Acuna works in a once-glamorous neighborhood that's trying to make a comeback.
"City Terrace is ghetto fabulous. Investors are coming in and taking these properties that are not financeable because of the conditions that they are, and they're improving them dramatically," he says.
In 2004 investors began snatching up City Terrace properties left and right. Houses in awful condition sold for up to a $500,000. Today many of those same homes go for just over $100,000, and efforts to gentrify the neighborhood are starting from scratch.
"The house on Ramboz Place was built I believe in the '30s. You weren't in the city. This was like the edge of the world here, but it was beautiful," Acuna says. "But unfortunately they're not as beautiful as they were back then. You have the freeway you can look at now and count the cars if you wanted."
The City Terrace housing bubble burst in 2007, and Acuna says he saw it coming.
"Even though you were like a gardener or a housekeeper and suddenly you were able to buy a half-million-dollar home that two, three years earlier was only worth $250,000," he says. "Unfortunately I tell people I probably could have increased my business two- to three-fold if I would have took in those people and put them into something they couldn't afford and not worry about it, but I like to sleep at night."
D.C.: Subdued Bidding Wars
In Washington, D.C., things never cooled off that much. The District is considered recession-proof due to the high concentration of government jobs. In some neighborhoods, the market for starter homes is beginning to look a little like the boom period, between 2005 and 2007.
During that time, there were bidding wars, says Valerie Blake, an associate broker with Prudential Carruthers Realtors. One war for a fixer-upper property raised the price to $435,000 from its listing price of $220,000. There were 28 bidders.
"In 2011, we're seeing a lot of first-time buyers reentering the market. Bidding wars have once again returned, they're just not as frenzied as they once were," she says. "You might have two or three people bidding instead of 25. You might have an increase of $10- or $15,000, rather than hundreds of thousands. But they have to be perfect in this market. You cannot just throw anything out there...and expect that there be people lined up at the door."
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Over the coming weeks I hope to add a series of blogs about the participatory approach we took to our JISC funded Learner Experience project, the impact it had on us as researchers, comments from those taking part and also discussions and papers that also allowed some of us, who were working on different projects, to link up and work collaboratively.
“Hello. This is a brief summary of why I think the Learner Experience Participation in the JISC Experience Projects worked so well. It is an overview, really and I have identified three things which I think were important:
The first one was that individual project members actually had quite a lot to do with keeping in touch with people who were participating in their projects, and that was very critical to the success of the individual projects. And, in fact, at the end of the projects I think that the role of these individuals was acknowledged and applauded, really – because, whether they were keeping in touch by email, text, phone or in person, their role could not be underestimated – and they turned out to be key players.
The Thema project, in fact, which used a ‘penpal’ method of keeping in touch by email, is probably a good place to start, to see how that was identified as working particularly well for keeping participants involved in the project. But, as I said, it was also individual personalities that just turned out to be in the right place at the right time – which kept people going.
Second of all, it was quite important to actually know what the learners’ value to enable them to stay on the project, and I think each project knew what had worked previously and what hadn’t worked previously with learners – in other words what was interesting for them. So some people thought that Amazon vouchers weren’t going to work. They used cash. Others found the vouchers worked perfectly well. Then there was a whole range of things over the 2 years that the projects ran, including a Twix bar attached to a survey that turned out to be very popular. But mainly, people were given either cash or vouchers at the completion of their participation, and that was a very important aspect of keeping people on board, because obviously students need money.
Finally, my point of view would be that, because of working in a university environment, many of the participants actually understand the importance of the research. And, actually a number of students probably want to into research themselves if they want to stay on as post-graduates. So, they are willing to participate. I come from further education, so it has been a little bit harder to get people involved in research projects, and I would think that the couple of the projects that were working with FE students, or people who had come from FE, also found that sometimes it was a little harder to get them involved.
Anyway – that is my opinion. Three things: having key people on the team who keep up the relationship with the individual learner participant, actually knowing the learner’s value, and also working within a university where people understand the importance of research probably helped make this very successful.
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Competition and Workplace Privacy
Protect trade secrets. Keep your private information private
Every employee around the globe produces confidential material daily - in every business. That's a lot of private
information. Add to that your customers information and you have a lot of confidential information at stake, including your own
trade secrets. The last thing you want in today's marketplace is for your competitors to have access to sensitive information, like your latest client proposal or annual budget.
Unfortunately, this happens every day in America. US corporations report annual losses of more than $45 billion
from the theft of trade secrets. Many people think of trade secrets being stolen by hackers, or shared with the wrong
through electronic channels. But we are still very much a paper society. We print out documents to proof or sign
and then, not
realizing their value to others, put them in the trash. Or, in an effort to be environmentally friendly, we put
the recycling bin. And that leaves reports, memos and budgets out there for all to see.
A document destruction program ensures that all your corporate information is completely destroyed. And it fulfills your
desire to be environmentally friendly, since all shredded paper is recycled into consumer products.
Shred-it's secure chain of custody ensures that your private materials, and your trade secrets, are protected, and our
locked security consoles keep materials safe from inquiring eyes.
When it comes to trade secrets, the fewer people handling your confidential documents, the better. And the people who
do handle it should be screened, certified professionals who understand how to keep confidential information
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Australian Horse Industry Council (AHIC) President, Dr Roger Lavelle, today said that any decision by the Primary Industries Ministerial Council (PIMC) to allow for voluntary vaccination of horses against Equine Influenza would conflict with the views of the vast majority of the equine industry.
Dr Lavelle called on Primary Industry Ministers to listen and heed the concerns of the broad horse industry, “The clear majority of horse breeders and owners in Australia vigorously oppose voluntary vaccination as they recognise it can only hurt Australia’s horse industry if it was allowed. It is amazing to think that the weight of scientific and veterinary opinion which universally warns that vaccination will mask the presence of EI in infected animals and facilitate the silent spread of disease, could be ignored – yet, this is exactly what a minority sector of the horse industry has asked PIMC to consider”.
“Any decision to allow for vaccination would spell the end of Australia’s reputation as being a country relatively free of disease. It would be an admission of failure that the equine industry and Government authorities haven’t been able to contain and remove EI from Australia. That is plainly wrong,” he said.
Allowing for voluntary vaccination will mean that infected animals will be able to transmit the disease to non-vaccinated animals. The reality of this is that EI will spread over time throughout the country. That will only hurt Australia’s horse industry, from mum’s and dad’s with their weekend ponies right through to the horse racing industry itself as mounting a response would be futile.
Dr Lavelle also said that voluntary vaccination would make a mockery of Australia’s quarantine system, “Australia spent $100 million in response to the Equine Influenza outbreak in 2007 and a further $280 million in financial assistance for the horse industry. Allowing for voluntary vaccination now would make that a massive waste of taxpayer money, not to mention the costs associated with two inquiries and a number of independent reports. Exporters of horses to New Zealand will also be slugged with a hefty quarantine bill and 5- week wait in quarantine when current movement, other than transportation, is free.
The AHIC is united in its belief that the most effective response to any future Equine Influenza outbreak remains comprehensive and effective risk mitigation via strong quarantine protocols rather than a costly and unnecessary vaccination program which will make the costs of eradication last time look minor”. In the 33 months since the first outbreak of EI in Australia, enhanced quarantine controls arising from the Callinan Inquiry’s recommendations have meant that there have been no further EI outbreaks in Australia
“PIMC should reject calls for vaccination and ensure the enhanced quarantine protocols are maintained and support the progress being made toward signing EADRA, before making a decision that could potentially compromise Australia’s horse industry,” he said. The Australian Horse Industry Council is the national representative body serving the Australian horse industry.
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After several years of offering our invention development program in the United States as well as several countries in Asia, we have now made these programs available in Canada. Just as we have seen in other countries around the world, there is great interest among Canadian inventors in collaborating on new inventions with Intellectual Ventures.
Intellectual Ventures launched its invention development program in 2007. We currently have offices in the United States, Australia, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. Each office is currently identifying promising local inventors and working with them to come up with new inventions in key technology areas. We are working with inventors at North American and Asian universities, public and private research institutes, as well as small and large companies.
Intellectual Ventures helps inventors identify valuable areas for new inventing, and when we are excited by a particular invention idea, we provide all necessary financial and administrative support to turn that idea into a patent application. Our invention development programs help bring needed capital to inventors, as well as their universities, research institutes, and companies. This capital can, in turn, be used to fund new and ongoing research or for technology licensing offices (TLOs) operating capital. We offer our large global network of inventors and institutions access to our own in-house experts in science and technology, invention valuation, as well as IP and patent law. Most importantly, our invention development programs help bring more of the world’s inventions to the global marketplace.
Latest News | All Press Releases »
November 06, 2012
The Invention Development Fund of Intellectual Ventures (IV), The University of British Columbia (UBC) and BC Cancer Agency have entered into an agreement to further develop and commercialize a new pelvic fracture technology developed by clinicians and engineers at the BC Cancer Agency and Vancouver General Hospital.
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HAWAII AT WORK
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Melanie Carroll is a certified phlebotomist, which means she is qualified to extract blood from patients for medical testing. Above, Carroll processes blood in preparation for testing. Her employer, Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii, has more than 60 patient service centers statewide.
Win, lose or draw blood
Melanie Carroll performs blood extraction and processing for one of Hawaii's leading medical labs
Melanie Carroll is an aspiring writer who fortunately likes her day job which actually pays the bills. Carroll is the senior laboratory assistant at Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii's patient service center at Pali Momi Tower in Pearlridge, where she works with three other employees in drawing blood from patients and preparing those samples for testing.
Title: Senior laboratory assistant
Job: Draws blood from medical patients and prepares it for testing
She eased her way in to the profession by first working with animals as a veterinary technician, then with humans for a company that conducts medical tests for insurance companies. As a writer, Carroll in January published a children's book, "When Buddy Met Mi," and had so much fun with it that she has gone back to school, to Windward Community College, to learn more about writing and publishing. Carroll, 29, is a graduate of Kalaheo High School and lives with her significant other, Sean Miles, in Kailua.
Question: What exactly do you do at Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii?
Answer: We care for patients as far as blood draw in our satellite and in the doctors' offices.
Q: And what does "blood draw" mean?
A: According to the tests that the doctor orders, we draw the amount of blood that corresponds with the tests.
Q: So you poke people with needles.
A: Yes. (Laughter) Yes. It's called venipuncture.
Q: Does it ever make you squeamish to have to poke people with a needle?
A: No. But sure, in the beginning, when you're learning. In the beginning, it's actually really scary. But it's something you get used to, and something you strive to get good at.
Q: How do you react when you have trouble finding a good vein and the patient is in pain?
A: Generally I just keep the patient calm, and the best thing is, I really take my time. There are strategies that can be taken, such as warming. We have heel warmers that we have for babies. We can apply that to an area on the arm. The warmth increases blood flow. Or we can just induce light pressure taps, which increase blood flow to the area.
Q: Anything else?
A: Mainly just, especially for hard patients, keeping them calm is important, and just taking your time.
Q: How long have you been with Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii?
A: I'll make four years in March
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Melanie Carroll carries a tray of vials filled with blood extracted from patients coming in to the Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii outlet at Pali Momi Tower in Pearlridge.
What were you doing before you joined this company?
A: I worked for EMSI (Examination Management Services Inc.); it was subcontracted to do medical examinations for life insurance companies.
Q: How did you learn extract blood from people?
A: I actually started off, prior to that (working for EMSI), as a veterinary technician, which requires being able to draw blood from animals.
Q: How long did you do that?
A: I did that for five or six years.
Q: About how many blood extractions do you have to do each day?
A: I would say around 20 to 30.
Q: What is the typical reason people are getting their blood drawn for testing?
A: Typical reason, routine for cholesterol, blood sugars ... Some people that are on medication, doctors require them to come in every few months to make sure that the medicines are reacting well with their bodies.
Q: But then you also work on testing the blood, don't you?
A: We actually do the blood processing; it's the step before blood testing.
Q: How much of your time is spent on that?
A: It depends on the particular test that's ordered. The blood itself, for most generalized tests, takes about a half an hour to clot, and then it's spun for about 10 minutes, and then, again, depending on the test that's being done, from that step we look at where is the blood going -- which laboratory, are there any special handling requirements, as far as does it need to be frozen, does it need to be put on ice or refrigerated. It all varies on the particular test and where the test is being done. So just that one tube for routine stuff could take us a minimum of 45 minutes.
Q: What kind of people do you see mostly, as patients?
A: I guess mostly they would be elderly. They frequently have more routine visits to their doctor.
Q: What about young children?
A: Yes, we do get quite a bit of walk-in patients that vary in age -- kids, young adults, but primarily elderly.
What kind of training or certificates did you have to have to get this job?
A: There is a phlebotomy course at Kapiolani Community College that I had taken, and from there you get your certification. The next step after your certification through KCC is you study for the national exam, and then you become nationally certified to practice.
Q: Who issues that certification?
A: The National Accrediting Agency is who I have my certification with.
Q: What do they do?
A: They regulate laboratory standards. They certify phlebotomists who work outside their own state.
Q: Did you always want to be in the medical field?
A: Yes. Something in the medical field, yes.
Q: But you started with animals.
A: Yes. (Laughter)
Q: How did that happen?
A: I'd always love animals since I was a kid, and I was always bringing them home.
Q: What was your first job in the field?
A: In the field of ...?
Q: Well, medical.
A: I was called a paramedical examiner when I was with EMSI.
Q: How long did you work with them?
A: I was with them for about 2 1/2 years.
Q: What kind of precautions do you have to take so as not to catch any diseases or whatever.
A: Your standard PEs (protective equipment) would be your gloves and a lab coat, for the blood draw, and for processing, we do have to have a face shield.
Q: How many other people do you work with?
A: I have actually three other girls in my patient service center.
Q: You're the supervisor then?
A: Yes-- well, they call it the senior of that particular location.
Q: Your location, is it located in the hospital (Kapiolani Medical Center at Pali Momi)?
A: We're in the medical office building (Pali Momi Tower), attached to the hospital. It has a walkway that connects the two.
Q: What is your schedule?
A: I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Q: Four days a week?
Q: But longer than 8 hours?
A: Yes, I work 10-hour days.
Q: Are you happy with your job? Do you plan on staying with it for awhile?
A: Definitely. I've got great girls I work with, really great clients (the physicians and their medical staffs), and fantastic patients that come in that I really look forward to seeing.
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Mitt Romney's trip to London, Israel and Poland will be an off-message distraction for the campaign. Yet some foreign travel for our presidential nominee is the right thing to do.
Campaign professionals know that foreign policy does not drive many votes. Any poll confirms that and 2012 is an election about the economy. Period. Seventy-three percent of voters think that jobs, the economy and the federal budget deficit are the most important issues in the presidential election, compared with only 4 percent who think the same about foreign policy.
But foreign policy and national security issues affect American lives and livelihoods constantly. Also, I can't quantify it, but as a White House veteran and a White House watcher, I think the president of the United States spends more of his time on most days dealing with foreign policy and national security issues than on any other topic. The president's day starts with a national security briefing, and dealing with some aspect of America's place in the world will consume more hours than just about anything else. If our campaigns had to reflect how the president actually spends his time, foreign policy and related issues would be at least half the campaign.
Romney will be criticized for making the trip, and by definition it is off-message for a campaign. But it is useful for American voters to get a glimpse of a potential president on the world stage, and it is useful for foreign leaders to take measure of the man that they could be dealing with on crucial issues, including questions of war and peace.
Given the reality of the importance of these issues to America's safety and future, it is too bad that foreign policy isn't more relevant to our presidential campaigns.
P.S. - The cheap shot ad that President Obama is currently running that features Romney making a valiant effort to sing “America the Beautiful” will backfire. Americans can relate to the limits of Romney's singing ability, and they can appreciate his earnestness in wanting to sing America's favorite patriotic song. Making fun of someone, in this case Romney, making a sincere effort to sing “America the Beautiful” says more about Obama than it does Romney.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A labor group Apple Inc. joined to assess working conditions at three manufacturing plants in China, where its products are made, says conditions are improving. But employees are still working more hours than the country's legal limit.
The Fair Labor Association said Thursday that Apple's largest supplier, Foxconn, has made all recommended improvements to working conditions that were due by the end of December.
The group says there have been "notable increases" in workers' participation in union committees. Foxconn has reduced working hours, though not enough to comply with the Chinese legal limit of 49 hours per week. Foxconn is scheduled to do that by July.
Foxconn is also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Apple joined the Fair Labor Association in January 2012.
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Ageism in travel insurance
A new report has been released examining whether older Australians face age discrimination when purchasing travel insurance.
The report, Ageism in Travel Insurance, summarises the key findings from a survey conducted by National Seniors and COTA Australia regarding members’ views and experiences with travel insurance.
The survey, conducted between May and June, shows those aged 70 years and over are more likely to cite difficulties in obtaining travel insurance or affordable travel insurance as a major reason for ceasing to travel overseas.
Almost a third of respondents (32%) reported they have had to pay higher travel insurance premiums because of their age.
Some of the key findings also included:
- Less than half of the respondents (44%) ‘shopped around’ for the best travel insurance deal.
- More than half of the respondents (53%) received ‘widely differing’ quotes for the cost of travel insurance, with most reporting a difference of between 11 and 50%).
- Almost two-thirds of respondents (63%) have difficulty in understanding how any age restrictions operate after reading through information provided by insurers in Product Disclosure Statements, brochures and websites.
- One in 20 respondents (5%) reported they had a travel insurance claim unexpectedly denied.
Download National Seniors Australia and COTA’s Ageism in Travel Insurance Survey 2012.
Have you experienced ageism when applying for travel insurance? Share your thoughts on this subject by commenting in the box below.
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On September 17, the California State-Fullerton graduate was arrested for not paying her $89 tab at a Malibu-area restaurant. At 12:30, she was released from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's station in Calabasas without her purse, cellphone or automobile, which was impounded. It was later revealed that Richardson was troubled and bi-polar.
"Mitrice’s civil rights were violated when she was arrested and then let go in the middle of the night without money, a phone, or transportation.The roads of Malibu are dark and dangerous at night, and since the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) later concluded that Mitrice appeared to be suffering from bipolar disorder that evening, I believe that the circumstances surrounding her disappearance warrant a thorough, federal investigation.”
This is Waters' second request for federal intervention. Waters' original letter to the FBI can be found HERE.
In the eight months since Richardson's disappearance, searches in canyons, hills and parts of western and southern Los Angeles have yielded no results.
Jasmyne Cannick has been extensively covering Richardson's disappearance and asks the very obvious question: What if Mitrice Richardson were white and from an affluent family or community? " Would the Sheriff’s Department have produced a video showing her exiting the station? Would unmanned drones have been sent in to look her right away instead of seven months later? Would Mitrice’s congressional representative have demanded the FBI get involved in finding her? Probably not."
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We have no open positions at this time.
Recycling Quick Facts
Amazing Recycled melts plastic and whips it into a foam. This foam is spun into fibers. They take the fibers, mix it with cotton and make white T-shirts that are 50% cotton / 50% water bottles.
A one liter water bottle can be recycled and manufactured as a ruler.
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Bryan realized his need for computers in the 2nd grade. The class assignment was to write out the alphabet 10x while his teacher read a book or something. By the time everyone had finished, Bryan had written it only once, but the result was more a perfect typeface than handwriting. He had closed his eyes and imagined a computer finishing the work. At age 11, he didn’t have to imagine a computer saving him anymore (well, future Bryan anyway) when he pooled funds with his brother and purchased a Commodore 64. But let’s get to the important facts. Bryan is a Partner and Senior Software Engineer, served as president of the Nashville .NET User Group, is a Microsoft MVP in C#, founded the Fugitive Art Center, developed software for Cracker Barrel HQ, earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BS in Management Information Systems from Tennessee Tech University, wrote some kind of crazy script for GTE that involved a SWAT team, operated as a consultant for 6 years with a Microsoft partner, and came up with the “Firefly” part of Firefly Logic. Oh, and we know everyone has done this last bit, but Bryan has also dissected a cadaver. We aren’t sure how to connect all of this stuff, but we gather this isn’t his first rodeo – nor his last.
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Share and Share Alike
This is how it works, you're each going to think of 5 interesting questions to ask the other person and the rule is they have to answer. Use your imagination because the questions can be about anything! But there's a catch. You’re also going to be answering every question you ask. And that doesn't mean throwing yourself softballs, use this opportunity to open up and share things that are important to you.
This date is best done in a nice, relaxed setting. Think about somewhere secluded, a place with no distractions where you can be next to each other, look up at the sky, and talk. Maybe lying in a hammock together, putting down a blanket in an empty field, sitting on the couch in front of a fire, going to the beach, or wherever else you feel relaxed and comfortable sharing. Music and a little wine might help you get into the spirit of the date and make it a more entertaining experience!
This should be a low-pressure date, so when it's your turn to answer a question take time to relax for a bit and think of a good answer. Just feel the breeze and enjoy being with your date while you sift through memories for something significant. The questions can be as heavy or light as you like, here are a few ideas:
- When was the first time you kissed someone and what was it like?
- Have you ever had any brushes with death?
- What is the weirdest thing about you or what are your biggest quirks?
- Where would you like to travel and why?
- If you could live in any spot, where would it be and why?
- What is the craziest thing you've done or would like to do?
- What is the most frightened you've ever been and why?
- Do you believe in ghosts and have you ever seen one?
- Do you have any regrets and what is your biggest one?
- What accomplishments are you most proud of?
- Who is your favorite relative and why? (grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin – no parents or siblings)
- What was your favorite pet and why?
- What was your favorite sports moment?
- What's the best concert you've ever seen and why?
- Who has been the most influential person in your life and why?
- What is your favorite meal and why?
- What is your favorite movie and why?
- What instrument would you like to learn how to play and why?
- What is the dumbest thing you've ever done?
- What is the most embarrassing moment of your life?
- Which story do your relatives always tell about you when they get together?
- What is the funniest moment of your life?
- What is your favorite vehicle ever and why? (bike, trike, wagon, car, motorcycle, big wheel, skateboard, scooter)
Copyright © 2009-2012 LivLuv. All Rights Reserved.
TOP DATE IDEAS
TipsGood questions and stories make the date, don't chicken out and ask silly ones.
HAVE A BUTTON!Like our stuff? Feel free to add our button to your blog or site and share us around.
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Where Did Paul Ryan Find Inspiration for 'Reforming' Social Security? A Brutal Military Dictatorship, Naturally
Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
While the Republican Party and its wealthy plutocrat backers have been accused of waging an elitist virtual war against the American majority, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have financial and ideological ties to rich Latin American elites who have waged real wars against average citizens in their countries.
The anti-democratic ethos of today's GOP, displayed in Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's apparent contempt for 47% of U.S. citizens, is reflected in the origins of Mitt Romney's private equity firm Bain Capital, which was founded with money from Central American financiers linked to government-backed death squads in El Salvador. Paul Ryan's budgetary ideas have a similarly dark origin, in the paradigmatic case of what author Naomi Klein has dubbed "The Shock Doctrine".
In August 2012, Republican political consultant Roger Stone made the accusation that the billionaire libertarian Koch Brothers had bought Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as a running mate, by offering to kick in $100 million more for "independent expenditures" in the 2012 presidential election.
While the charge may never be substantiated, Paul Ryan is one of the few elected officials allowed into the inner sanctum of the Koch brothers and their fellow libertarian big money donor circle.
It is also the case that Paul Ryan's Social Security privatization ideas closely track Koch Brother schemes promoted from the Koch-funded libertarian Cato Institute since 1980, over three decades ago - before Ryan had even hit puberty. Cato's website currently features the ringing endorsement of Paul Ryan:
"Ryan is an articulate defender of free enterprise, and he consistently argues not just for the practical advantages of smaller government but also about the moral imperative to cut... if the next administration is Republican, and if it decides it wants to push major reforms, Paul Ryan is uniquely qualified to lead the charge."
In 2005 Congressman Paul Ryan led a failed Republican legislative push for a Social Security privatization plan that also later popped up in Ryan's 2010 "Roadmap For America's Future". This centerpiece of Ryan's budgetary vision traces back to a vicious war on the poor and middle class that was waged over three decades ago by a South American police state.
The conceptual basis of Ryan's Social Security privatization approach was hatched as the Piñera plan that was implemented under the radical right-wing Chilean torture regime of 1973 military coup leader Augusto Pinochet.
The Pinochet regime honed many of the techniques later used at the Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq, was known to dispose of its unwanted citizens by throwing them out helicopters into the sea, and ran a transnational terrorism syndicate that murdered thousands and has been accused of a 1976 car bombing assassination in Washington D.C.
While the Piñera plan sought to eliminate wealth redistribution under the old pre-Pinochet Chilean pension system - by jump-starting a new pension system under which Chileans began investing in private sector pension accounts - by 2006, by broad Chilean public consensus, the original Piñera Plan was considered to be a failure and in 2008 it was substantially modified by new legislation.
A report on the Chilean pension reform from the U.S. Social Security Administration explained, "The cornerstone of the new law sets up a basic universal pension as a supplement to the individual accounts system." As the the New York Times described in an April 2008 story, Chile's new law was a dramatic move away from radical libertarian privatization:
"Chile is undertaking its biggest overhaul ever of its pioneering private pension system, adding sweeping public payouts for the low-income elderly.
The new $2 billion-a-year program will expand public pensions to groups left out by private pensions - the poor and self-employed, homewives, street vendors and farmers who saved little for retirement - granting about a quarter of the nation's work force public pensions by 2012."
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(2000)3Tom WienerIt seems unfair to try to cram a career as rich as George Cukor's into a 90-minute film, but On Cukor does do an admirable job of covering all the highlights. Cukor has long taken a back seat to fellow Golden Age filmmakers John Ford, Howard Hawks, and William Wyler, but this film makes it clear that his achievements compare favorably with theirs. Although there is an abundance of eloquent testimony from both observers of his career and friends and colleagues, it's unfortunate that commentary from the most famous team Cukor worked with, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, is missing. What's more, there isn't enough of a sense of Cukor the man here, which is understandable. Though Cukor was happy to host parties at his home, he was also discreet about his personal life, no doubt aware that any whiff of scandal connected to his homosexuality might jeopardize his career. The film discusses at some length the controversy over his firing from Gone With the Wind, but that incident didn't seem to affect his future in film. Some of his Hollywood friends and colleagues present here try to scratch beneath the surface, but it's clear that Cukor opened himself up to few people during his lifetime. He never wrote a memoir and left few papers that would give us more insight into him. Still, the films are a marvelous legacy.
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News tagged with circumcision
Circumcision drastically alters the microbiome of the penis, changes that could explain why circumcision offers protection against HIV and other viral infections. In a study to be published on April 16 in mBio, the online ...
HIV & AIDS Apr 16, 2013 | 3.4 / 5 (5) | 4 |
South Africa is home to the largest HIV epidemic in the world with a total of 5.6 million people living with HIV. Large-scale clinical trials evaluating combination methods of prevention and treatment are often prohibitively ...
HIV & AIDS Apr 15, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
Thrashing wildly, five-year-old Reta wails as she is hoisted onto a bed during a circumcision ceremony in a school-hall-turned-clinic on Indonesia's island of Java.
Other Mar 24, 2013 | not rated yet | 1
(AP)—German lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday that explicitly permits male infant circumcision, ending months of legal uncertainty after a court ruling that the practice amounts to bodily harm led to ...
Health Dec 12, 2012 | 1 / 5 (1) | 1
(AP)—Left-wing lawmakers in Germany are threatening to oppose government efforts to keep male infant circumcision legal.
Health Nov 12, 2012 | 5 / 5 (1) | 0
Many cases of female genital mutilation likely go unreported in Australia, a state minister said Friday after four people were charged over the alleged circumcision of two girls aged 6 and 7.
Health Sep 14, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
(AP)—The United States' most influential pediatricians group says the health benefits of circumcision in newborn boys outweigh any risks and insurance companies should pay for it.
Health Aug 27, 2012 | 1 / 5 (1) | 1
A senior member of Germany's ethics committee Thursday called for a compromise in a heated debate over religious circumcision after a court ruled the practice was tantamount to grievous bodily harm.
Other Aug 23, 2012 | not rated yet | 4
A team of disease experts and health economists at Johns Hopkins warns that steadily declining rates of U.S. infant male circumcision could add more than $4.4 billion in avoidable health care costs if rates over the next ...
Health Aug 20, 2012 | 1.2 / 5 (17) | 10 |
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe launched the national census Wednesday, saying he hoped the once-a-decade count would measure the extent to which AIDS was affecting the population.
HIV & AIDS Aug 15, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
A Swiss hospital announced Friday that it has lifted a moratorium on religiously-motivated circumcisions imposed in July in the wake of a court ruling in neighbouring Germany.
Other Aug 10, 2012 | 1 / 5 (3) | 2
New findings from South Africa survey show great progress: Nearly one million adults each month are tested for HIV
(Medical Xpress) -- The 3rd South African National HIV Communication Survey (NCS) results released today at the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., revealed new data that show substantial increases in behaviors ...
HIV & AIDS Jul 24, 2012 | 2 / 5 (1) | 0
German doctors are seeking an urgent clarification from the government over religious circumcision after a court ruling calling it a criminal act prompted an international outcry.
Other Jul 15, 2012 | 5 / 5 (2) | 38
An investigation led by UCSF has found that the risk of female-to-male HIV transmission is increased three fold for women with bacterial vaginosis, a common disorder in which the normal balance of bacteria in the vagina is ...
HIV & AIDS Jun 26, 2012 | not rated yet | 0 |
Circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents' religious rights.
Health Jun 26, 2012 | 4.8 / 5 (5) | 4
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin (prepuce) from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin circum (meaning "around") and cædere (meaning "to cut"). Early depictions of circumcision are found in cave paintings and Ancient Egyptian tombs, though some pictures are open to interpretation. Religious male circumcision is considered a commandment from God in Judaism. In Islam, though not discussed in the Qur'an, male circumcision is widely practised and most often considered to be a sunnah. It is also customary in some Christian churches in Africa.
Global estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest that 30 percent of males are circumcised, of whom 68 percent are Muslim. The prevalence of circumcision varies mostly with religious affiliation, and sometimes culture. Most circumcisions are performed during adolescence for cultural or religious reasons; in some countries they are more commonly performed during infancy. Circumcision is also used therapeutically, as one of the treatment options for balanitis xerotica obliterans, paraphimosis, balanitis, posthitis, balanoposthitis and urinary tract infections.
Circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual populations that are at high risk. Evidence among heterosexual men in sub-Saharan Africa shows a decreased risk of between 38 percent and 66 percent over two years and in this population it appears cost effective. Evidence of benefit for women is controversial and evidence of benefit in developed countries and among men who have sex with men is yet to be determined. The WHO currently recommends circumcision as part of a comprehensive program for prevention of HIV transmission in areas with high endemic rates of HIV. Ethical concerns remain regarding the implementation of campaigns to promote circumcision. According to the Royal Dutch Medical Association (2010), no professional association of physicians currently recommends routine circumcision. Some bodies have discussed under what circumstances neonatal circumcision is ethical.
There is controversy regarding circumcision. Arguments that have been raised in opposition to circumcision include that it adversely affects penile function and sexual pleasure, is justified only by medical myths, is extremely painful, and is a violation of human rights. Those raised in favour of circumcision include that it provides important health advantages which outweigh the risks, has no substantial effects on sexual function, has a low complication rate when carried out by an experienced physician, and is best performed during the neonatal period.
For more information about Circumcision, read the full article at
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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Dennis Townsend (b.1933) is one of the most respected of the Rye Potters. He started work at Rye Pottery in 1947, joining David Sharp as a fellow apprentice.
His career with Rye Pottery followed much the same pattern as David Sharp's - he went away to do his National Service when he was twenty-one, at the end of his apprenticeship, but stayed for only three years when he returned. Rye pottery could not afford to support too many fully qualified potters, so he left to form Iden Pottery.
For those of you old enough to remember the BBC TV 'Interlude' footage of a potter's wheel, Dennis's hands were the ones throwing the pot.
|The Potteries of Rye, 1793 onwards by Carol Cashmore|
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BONHAM, TX-- Retired Sgt. Justin Bond is traveling across the country, by Segway, raising awareness about the dramatic increase soldier suicides.
He's spreading the word there is help and hope for our military men and women coming home. Bond was deployed to Iraq in 2004, when his convoy was attacked. He lost his left leg.
"I left the battlefield wounded, I left my brothers and sisters over there fighting and I know when they return home, they're going to need help. I know, I've lost a lot of friends to suicide, in fact just in the past couple of weeks and I'm tired of that."
After Bond realized he wasn't the only one struggling to readjust to civilian life, he started the "Our Heroes' Dreams." A nonprofit organization. It helps grant wishes to veterans and lets them know, they're not alone.
One of Bond's stops on his 3,000 mile adventure was the VA hosptial in Bonham, where Jim Atkins works with the suicide prevention program.
"I think it's important for these kind of guys to come in because the veterans can relate to them in a different way because they both have been in battle," Atkins explained.
Bond's story hit home with, Elgine Clayton, a Viatnam veteran.
"If you know a veteran, you need to talk to them, you need to hug them, you need to tell them you love them, and tell them you care about them and help them be around," Clayton said.
Bond said his goal is to give these veterans a reason to get up in the mornings. To help soldiers find their passion and be able to execute it .
"As Americans, we owe this to our veterans to help them. But it's as simple as helping them find a new mission in life and it's working. We've had a 100% success rate in this mission."
On the Web:
Our Heroes' Dreams
VA Suicide Prevention
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"The fame of Louisa Mühlbach is so firmly established that any book from her pen is sure to meet with a hearty reception by all lovers of historical romance."--Chicago Journal of Com.
he most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the much-loved, the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one. Even while Napoleon won battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the neck of the conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from nations their liberty--while Europe trembling bowed before him, and despite her admiration cursed him--while hatred heaved up the hearts of all nations against him--even then none could refuse admiration to the tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked at his side; none could refuse love to the wife of the conqueror, whose countenance of brass received light and lustre from the beautiful eyes of Josephine, as Memnon's statue from the rays of the sun.
She was not beautiful according to those high and exalted rules of beauty which we admire in the statues of the gods of old, but her whole being was surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine's beauty was believe
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JACKSON, MI -- Someone was cheated, and I know who.
The Who, that's who. I cheated an English rock band out of $50.
Morally, it is wrong to keep money that belongs to other people, even if they are rich celebrities. But moral rules somehow change with computer commerce.
When I learned The Who will perform in Detroit, I rushed to my computer to buy tickets.
First came the shakedown.
Tickets supposedly did not go on sale until July 27, but a “pre-sale” started July 20 for members of The Who Fan Club.
“Hey, I'll join the fan club,” I said, not realizing it ought to be called “The Who Shakedown Club.”
Joining the fan club cost $50 and the only benefit (except a poster) is the chance to buy concert tickets a week before people who do not pay $50.
Knuckling under to this shameless money grab, I joined the fan club and purchased tickets.
Then came the hosing.
Due to computer glitches too boring to explain, the fan club charged my debit card three times, draining my bank account of $150 instead of $50.
To correct this computerized wrong, I sent email demanding a refund of $100.
“Hi Brad,” a return email began. (Side note: Must even business communications begin with “Hi” in email?) “We will take care of the additional charges for you. Thanks, Support.”
Instant commerce is less instant when I receive money instead of paying, but after a week it happened. I was so excited I sent a text message to my wife.
“Honey! The Who put money into my bank account! And guess what! They gave me the whole $150 instead of just $100!”
That was a lot of exclamation points for one text.
Hours passed before I considered the possibility that my good luck is morally wrong.
If a cashier at Polly's mistakenly gave me $50 extra in change, I would not keep it. I would point out the error and give it back.
Yet when a major rock band that once hoped to die before it gets old mistakenly gave me an extra $50, I was delighted.
To explore the morality of my actions, I asked several honest people what they'd do. A total of zero said they would attempt to give back the $50.
Reasons and rationalizations are plentiful, but basically we feel computer commerce is different than dealing with people we meet in the flesh.
Sorry for keeping your $50, The Who. If you want it back, let's do it the old-fashioned way. You can find me in section 121.
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This morning I read two separate articles about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter that painted a completely different picture of who he was as a person. A story in the New York Times described him as a weirdo who doesn’t move his hands when he walks, doesn’t show emotion, and carried a strange black briefcase while making quick escapes out of class. The other article, from NBC News, has interviews of his friends who pointed out that he was smart, into technology, and had parents who pushed him to succeed. How did these stories end up being so different from each other?
The anti-bullying movement has a long way to go when the media continues to publish these bullshit stories that try to pick out what makes someone different and package him up as someone that’s not a part of the rest of society. It's completely irresponsible and I don’t think it’s going to help us figure out how to prevent more of these tragedies from happening in the future.
I have been the weird and awkward person to varying degrees throughout my life. When I was a kid, I had a lot of friends and was very happy and bubbly, but I was different from other boys, got along better with girls and ended up being bullied a lot because of it. When I got to middle school, I put up a wall and became very withdrawn. I spoke to only a handful of people I trusted by the time I was in high school, which made me all the more unsociably, awkward, and weird.
But I did not become a mass killer. In fact, even though I was an outcast in high school, I never had any proclivities towards violence, no impulses that I was withholding, and I never thought about hurting anyone, not even the bullies that I would say made me the way I had become. Today I am still shy, but I embrace my weirdness (most of the time) and I make efforts to spend time with other people. I have a great job with co-workers that I get long with, a great boyfriend who I am engaged to, great friends (albeit a small number... I still prefer to keep my circle small), and overall I am a productive member of society.
What makes these people different is that they became murderers. That’s what we need to focus on. There are people who are even weirder than I have ever been who are not dangerous. And there are kids and young adults who are strange, but they need more people to treat them with compassion and respect, and extend an olive branch, rather than having their idiosyncrasies blown up in the news so clumsily every time something bad happens.
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INDO-PAK TRADE MAY CROSS US $ 500 MILLION THIS FISCAL: KAMAL NATH
Date : 10 Dec 2004
Location : New Delhi
Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, has said that the total trade between India and Pakistan is likely to cross US $ 500 million during 2004-05, given the buoyant trend in bilateral trade during the current fiscal. In reply to a Starred question in the Lok Sabha today, the Minister said that the two-way trade between India and Pakistan during April-July 2004 had almost trebled in four months, rising to US $ 186.36 million as against $ 64.41 million during the corresponding period last fiscal. India-Pakistan trade had increased from US $ 251.01 million during 2002-03 to US $ 344.29 million during 2003-04 showing a positive growth of approximately 40%.
There has also been a visible increase in business to business dialogues through exchange of visits and participation in trade fairs and exhibitions etc. Pakistan and India are signatories to the South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) Agreement which is scheduled to come into effect from 1/1/2006 and it will give a significant boost to economic activities between the two nations. A Joint Study Group at Commerce Secretaries level of India and Pakistan is proposed to be set up to discuss trade related issues between the two countries with a view to sorting these out for mutual benefit, the Minister said.
Shri Kamal Nath participated in the 4th SAARC Commerce Ministers Meeting in Islamabad on November 22-23, 2004. This meeting reviewed the progress in economic cooperation since the 3rd Meeting of the SAARC Commerce Ministers. It noted with satisfaction the significant progress recorded in regional economic cooperation, in particular, the signing of the SAFTA Agreement. On the occasion, Commerce Ministers of India and Pakistan had a separate interaction to lay down a road map for promoting trade between the two countries. They agreed to set up a Joint Study Group at Commerce Secretaries’ level of both the countries for evolving a strategy for boosting trade between India and Pakistan.
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Thee following are thee notes ov a current member ov thee Temple:
Thee aim ov thee Sigil was to overcoum personality traits exhibiting weakness and passivity. E desired thee strength that E knew was within, butter which was hidden. Thee clues as to how to attain this had emerged during earlier work - though they had been unclear at thee time - and in effect amounted to a reclamation ov an earlier state ov being that had been shrouded by years ov continual conditioning. E had been forced to play a role that was not mine. My aim was to reclaim thee power ov my Lion, my sun-sign which E had long rejected. E had thought E was not a Leo.
E began by preparing thee ritual space and gathering objects used in earlier Sigils. Then E set out my intent in words:
Tonight E seek thee root ov my STRENGTH
E draw out that which is there butter hidden
E call on thee Pride and Grace ov thee Lion
Thee King ov thee Jungle that strides forth
in thee knowledge ov its BEAUTY
No more afraid ov its shadow
No more afraid ov thee mouse
No more afraid ov fear
No more afraid ov LIFE
Tonight E call on thee LION
Thee ruler ov my Sun
E call to thee Lion within, asleep no more
E call to thee Lion "Come Forth!"
E command ov thee Lion: "COME FORTH!"
E demand ov thee LION: "COUM OUT!"
Thee room is calm with thee flicker ov candles, and music plays though E notice it not. E adopt a certain posture to restrict movement and work inwardly, calling on thee Lion within, demanding it as ov right, no asking meekly . Facing thee challenge head on, E do not flinch or shirk. E build a burning passion inside and direct it towards my goal. Demanding, urging myself to go on, E rock back and forth to summon thee strength . Deeper and deeper E go, disregarding all else. E will success.
Thee outside is as nothing. E travel to thee plains. E am with thee lions as we hunt and play, kill and eat, and see thee vastness ov thee grasslands, thee sun beating down, thee wind hot to thee face. And we are lords ov our domain. Fearless, without peer. E see through lion eyes, my skull that ov thee beast. E roar inside as thee lion roars, no more asleep, butter awake, prowling; proud and strong.
E force thee issue always, claiming back what is mine . E invoke, and E invoke and E invoke...
And thee call is answered. Thee strength wells up in me and E act with purpose, thee directed force ov will. No more thee passive onlooker, E initiate my action with certainty.
And then E prepare thee Sigil paper, thee record ov what has passed. E begin with a sign ov Leo, butter add in words all thee attributes ov thee Lion that E wish to claim. These words are placed around thee figure ov thee Sun. Thee work is pleasing to me, for it is natural, unforced and has taken on a life ov its own . In thee words, and in my mind, E recall past events: events that might have seemed small butter which E can now see had caused thee lion to sleep so long in its lair. E learn thee reasons for this long sleep, and know that they hold true no more.
Only when E am sure thee paper is coumplete do E anoint it in blood and ov.
E do not always work this way. Sometimes thee preparation is slow, deliberate, thee creation ov a Sigil over several weeks as thee idea grows, takes form inside. And so thee paper becoums a reflection ov many aspects ov my inner self, taking in thee changes, thee intuitive butter not understood thoughts that flit into consciousness. It is a process ov revealing. Only later do thee meanings ov all thee images used becoum clear, especially after the ritual is coumplete. Then E can look back and see thee form ov my weaknesses, thee basis ov my strengths; and use this knowledge to direct my actions. Thus it is that thee unconscious instructs thee conscious, and thee two parts work together in unity ov purpose. With this knowledge E can go about thee practical business ov achieving my goal with an open mind, and eyes that see clearly.
No two Sigils are alike. E change constantly with thee work, so that what seemed unthinkable three months ago is second nature now. And what was important then and difficult, is now passed by or thee way seems so obvious that E can scarcely believe E once viewed it as a problem. More than anything, that is what E have realised: that Sigils release an incredible power for action. If E were not experiencing it E would not believe it possible. Butter it is, and E know that E will never go back to thee safe life ov conditioned acceptance that flickers like thee dying TV screen from one unchanging day to thee next. Now, every day brings new challenge, new risk, new joy. And E meet it all with relish!
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The Starfleet Medal of Honor was an award, one of Starfleet's highest commendations. It recognized valor and bravery in action "above and beyond the call of duty."
Captain James T. Kirk was a recipient of this medal prior to 2267. (TOS: "Court Martial", "This Side of Paradise") Kirk's emotional reaction to seeing the medal, after removing it from the safe in his quarters, seems to have helped him shake off the effect of the Omicron spores.
Lieutenant Commander Data was also a recipient of this medal prior to 2365. (TNG: "The Measure Of A Man")
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To Find a Wonder by Jennifer Carson
Publisher: L&L Dreamspell
Genre: Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short (80 pages)
Recommended Age: 8+
Rating: 4.5 Suns
Review by: Cholla
Mortimer is the best squire in Sir Emberly’s troops, but his liege refuses to recommend him for promotion to knighthood. When Mortimer demands to prove his knight-worthiness, Sir Emberly charges him with an impossible task—finding a wonder in five days. With the help of his faithful mare, a scatterbrained wizard, a frog prince and a very special vegetable, Mortimer creates his own wonder—the first dragon to ever breathe fire! How much trouble could one fire-breathing creature cause anyway? Mortimer certainly finds out and learns along the way that being a knight is more than being talented with a sword.
What would you do to achieve your heart’s desire? That is the question on Mortimer’s mind at the beginning of To Find a Wonder. All he’s ever wanted was to be a knight, but can he really complete the task Sir Emberley has set forth? And in only five days?
Mortimer is a mere squire with dreams of knighthood. While undoubtedly the best squire in the troop, he has something else holding him back – his attitude. In the manner of young boys everywhere, Mortimer sets out on his adventure with a single-minded agenda: to find his wonder and become a knight. However, while along this journey he grows so much internally that he returns a different boy altogether. He gains so much strength of character and a brand new outlook on life. Mortimer begins as a spoiled boy and returns home a true knight.
Written in a fun and exciting style, To Find a Wonder is a treat for any young person or adult. As you travel with Mortimer and his motley band of companions, you’ll laugh out loud and run in fear right alongside them. Enhanced with beautiful illustrations, this novel is highly recommendable to any fan of fantasy or even just a lover of a good laugh.
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Hinchey Questions EIA's Handling of Shale Gas Reserve Estimates
Following several reports in The New York Times, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today sent letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) questioning the manner in which both bodies have handled shale gas reserve estimates. One report revealed that rule changes and oversight problems at SEC may have caused natural gas companies to overestimate their reserves. A separate report detailed the use of data from industry-biased sources and intra-agency disagreements regarding gas reserve estimates at EIA.
"These reports raise serious questions about the economics behind the shale gas rush," said Hinchey. "Now it's up to the SEC and the EIA to get to the bottom of these charges and ensure that the public has accurate and honest information about our country's shale gas reserves. EIA has some serious questions to answer and the SEC needs to investigate whether investors have been intentionally mislead."
In the letter to EIA Administrator Richard Newell, Hinchey questioned the agency's handling of internal disagreements regarding shale gas reserve estimates. Hinchey also questioned EIA's internal rules governing the selection of contractors who may have financial conflicts of interests.
In the letter to SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro, Hinchey urged the SEC to quickly investigate whether investors have been intentionally misled and to consider updating its oil and gas reserve reporting requirements to provide greater disclosure to investors and the public by, for example, requiring third party audits and requiring companies to reveal the methodologies and technologies they use to develop reserve estimates.
Hinchey is a co-author of the FRAC Act, which would mandate disclosure of chemicals used in frack fluid and allow the EPA to regulate fracking activities under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Hinchey also authored the appropriations language that led to the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study on hydraulic fracturing.
The full text Hinchey's letters to SEC and EAI:
June 27, 2011
Mr. Richard G. Newell
U.S. Energy Information Administration
1000 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20585
Dear Administrator Newell:
As you know, over the past several years, I have been working to ensure that our federal energy policies, specifically our natural gas policies, rely on the best available science. In the past I have written to you expressing my concerns regarding estimates of how much natural gas may be economically recoverable in shale plays across the country.
Today, The New York Times has run a front page story outlining serious concerns about the way in which the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates shale gas reserves, and its reliance on private contractors that may have financial conflicts of interest.
The EIA plays an important role in providing the public and policy makers with critical information concerning, among other things, estimates of domestically available oil and gas reserves. The information your agency provides helps drive our nation's energy policy, is used by the private sector to make key investment decisions, supports research at our universities and labs, and more. As such, it is critically important that EIA's data and analysis be above reproach.
Unfortunately, the revelations in the Times story raise questions about EIA's approach to shale gas. From the documents and emails cited in the story, it is clear that there are significant concerns within EIA about the shale gas industry. While differences of opinion within an agency like EIA are to be expected, it is important that when concerns are expressed they are taken seriously and are not papered over.
I am also very concerned about your agency's use of private contractors to develop important EIA documents and publications that affect the shale gas market. According to the Times, some of these contractors also had major clients in the shale gas industry. This raises questions about the independence of their work product, as well as questions about the process EIA uses to select private contractors.
In light of these concerns, I request your prompt attention to the following questions:
• Analysts at EIA raised very serious concerns about shale gas. One analyst is quoted as saying: “Am I just totally crazy, or does it seem like everyone and their mothers are endorsing shale gas without getting a really good understanding of the economics at the business level?” Another senior official says there is an "irrational exuberance" around shale gas. Were you, or your Deputy, aware of these concerns regarding the economics behind shale gas, specifically well production and reserve estimates, prior to the publication of today's Times story? If so, what was your response to these concerns? If you were not aware of these concerns, please detail your response to them and whether they could affect EIA's projections for natural gas use and or supply.
• Two private contractors hired to assist in the preparation of EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2011 apparently also had major clients in the oil and gas sector. Was EIA aware of these financial relationships prior to hiring these contractors? What are EIA's rules governing contractors that may have financial conflicts of interest? Does EIA consider hiring academics or research organizations to assist with its work before considering hiring private contractors? If not, why not?
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your prompt response.
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Posts Tagged ‘Canada’
I am saddened by the damage and loss of life but am truly surprised you are so shocked by the extent and severity.
Haven’t you noticed hurricanes, cyclones and other storms have become more powerful in recent years? And that extreme weather events like record flooding, droughts and heat waves are happening more frequently? In 2012 extreme weather records were broken all over the US. In 2011 there were 14 separate billion-dollar-plus weather disasters in the US including flooding, hurricanes and tornados.
Did you notice my relatives? They’ve been all over the planet. In the past 20 years extreme events have had major impacts on developing countries like Bangladesh, Burma and Honduras that have suffered most in terms of damages and lives lost.
Last year, we displaced 38 million people with climate-related disasters such as the flooding in Pakistan and China.
And all this is happening in part because the air and sea have become warmer over the past 50 years. The world has already warmed 0.8C and will rise to least 1.6 C even if emissions of the hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning coal, oil, and natural gas ended today. (There is a time lag in the climate system. The current global warming is result of CO2 emissions from the 1950s-1970s)
You should bear that reality in mind. There is twice as much warming to come, guaranteed. I’m sorry to say it may be too late to do enough to prevent threefold (3X) or even fourfold (4X) increase in the current warming.
Canada is 1.3 C warmer today than 50 years ago. It will be 4C warmer in a few decades. Temperatures in the US will not be far behind.
You can dial down the thermostat if you really want to.
I was born just over a week ago and more than 100 people have died in the US and Caribbean region as a result. For the rest of today please take care as I will continue to bring strong winds, heavy rains and snowfall from North Carolina to well into Canada. Some of the worst flooding hit Haiti in the hours after I’d passed by.
You should also know there are more superstorms (more properly anthrostorms) like me coming. Not today or next week but in the near future. The climate is now supercharged with extra heat energy. I’ve called it like being on steroids. The climate is 0.8C (1F) warmer. That’s the average increase over the entire planet. Many places are much warmer such as the Arctic where it is 2 to 3C warmer on average now.
In a few decades the entire planet will be 2 to 3C warmer — a 300 percent increase over today. That means an incredible amount of additional heat will be trapped in the atmosphere in order to raise temperatures that much.
Storms and extreme weather are powered by heat energy. I don’t want to think what will be coming.
It doesn’t have to go that way.
Believe it or not, the reality is that humanity is in control of the global thermostat. The increase in temperatures in the air and oceans is mainly due to emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). Those emissions of CO2 come from burning coal, oil, and gas and cutting down most of the world’s forests (trees take CO2 from the air to grow).
The US could shift from energy sources emitting CO2 to 100 percent renewable energy sources by 2030 studies have shown.[Scientific American article] The entire planet could run on 100 percent renewable sources by 2050.
FORBES GREEN TECH | 10/30/2012 @ 3:39PM Copenhagen Shows How Cities Can Become Clean Tech Leaders
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In the areas where people live near or are surrounded by the Gulf waters, documented cases of sickness consistent with chemical poisoning related to crude and dispersants continue to increase.
Read Whole Story
221 years after George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, we now are the guardians of a richly blessed but imperiled land.
Hard-hit yet resilient residents spoke with passion about the impact this spill continues to have on their waters, their livelihoods, and their way of life.
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
The National Oil Spill Commission released its report on last year's BP oil spill this week. The report la...
Over the course of the past six months, the commission has detected a deeply embedded problem that transcends the actions of specific companies: We found systemic regulatory failure to protect the American public's interest.
Get top stories and blogs posts emailed to you each day.
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For the world community of Muslims, known as the "umma," this might be the dawning of the "e-umma."
This week Muxlim.com, an Islam-focused Web portal based in Finland, launched what it calls the world's first virtual Muslim world.
The application, Muxlim Pal, allows users to create avatars or alter egos that interact with other players while following a proper Muslim lifestyle. Users can design their online pal to wear a "hijab" (or head scarf) and choose to pray in their custom-designed room.
"We're giving users an extra channel to express themselves. You have a virtual friend and you can develop that virtual friend," Mohamed El-Fatatry, Muxlim's founder and CEO, told ABC News a day after the application's launch.
Through Muxlim Pal users can have their online persona shop, play sports, go to concerts and socialize around the virtual town. As the pal prays or engages in other religious activities its spirituality meter rises. Elements deemed un-Islamic, like drugs and sexual references, are banned from the virtual world.
Muxlim's basic portal launched in 2006 and calls itself the world's largest Muslim online community, with 1.5 million visitors per month across 190 countries.
Most users are based in the United States and Europe -- less than 15 percent are from the Middle East, said El-Fatatry -- though the application has the potential to bridge a broad swath of Muslim lifestyles.
"One of the benefits of the Internet in the Muslim world, which is a generally closed society, is this ability to interact and connect in a way that isn't improper," said Mahdis Keshavarz of the MAKE Agency, a public relations firm focused on the Middle East.
"It means that people in more secular societies are in contact with the more traditional?planting new ideas in places where that exposure hasn't traditionally existed," she said.
Muxlim Pal has a huge potential user base in the young Middle East, where an estimated 65 percent of the population is younger than 24 years old. Other portals like Mecca.com, likened to an Islamic Facebook, are geared toward the same demographic.
"We're much more connected," Mohamed Kadry, 23, said of fellow Muslims in his generation.
Kadry, who grew up in Detroit and now lives in Dubai, says technology also bridges the gender divide.
"There are a lot of social boundaries we have in our religion. ? You can't just speak to someone of the opposite sex as easily as you can in the West, and technology lets us connect in ways that are still modest and acceptable."
Muxlim's success to date and its hopes for Muxlim Pal rest on what a recent study called the "new age Muslim," whose lifestyle is both religious and modern.
Research published by advertising firm JWT found that the highest percentage of new age Muslims live in the United Arab Emirates. From Muxlim.com to the malls of Dubai, that joins moderate Muslim values and global consumer culture.
"We often try to describe an Islamic or a Muslim consumer as Westernized or not Westernized, which is totally stupid," said Roy Haddad, the chairman of JWT MENA told the National newspaper.
"Yes, we want to be modern. But we are not Western."
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Men Having Babies is ’The New Normal’
When Arthur Halpern and his partner Matt Praet first got together nearly 14 years ago, they knew that one day, they wanted to have a child. After Praet was finished with acupuncturist school and the two were settled, they set about starting their family, attending an expo at New York’s LGBT Community Center. With the help of the group Men Having Babies and a wonderful surrogate mother introduced to them by some friends, they now have a beautiful 15-month-old son.
"The choice we made to go via surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization had to do with my desire to have a biological child," said Halpern. "I’m not sure where that comes from; perhaps it’s a biological imperative. But I’ve wanted a family since I was a kid, and the fact that through science we can now do it is amazing."
Halpern said that they had considered adoption because his partner Praet was adopted and had a good experience. But they were daunted by the fact that for gay men, adoption can be tricky; one often has to present as a single parent in other countries, to avoid problems surrounding being gay. There were also legal risks and medical unknowns that the two men decided they preferred to avoid.
In the spring of 2009, the men met with a New Jersey fertility doctor, who armed them with information, and sent them to Melissa Brisman, a reproductive rights attorney at the CNY Fertility Center. That June, at a 20th college reunion, Halpern ran into a former classmate who raved about their surrogate, noting that the woman was thinking of doing it again.
"We walked away thinking it would be great, but that it would never happen," said Halpern. "Six weeks later, this surrogate Jessica had come up from Tennessee to speak to a small group of men at the Center. We went that night, met her, and it was love at first sight. She picked us out as we walked into the room, and it almost felt like a done deal."
They were officially matched in July 2009, after which they went on a long search for an egg donor. "If there was a rotten egg out there, we found it," said Halpern, who said it took them seven tries before they found an egg donor in October 2010. Their son Asa was born on June 5, 2011.
The Long, Complicated Road to Surrogacy
In the pilot episode of the NBC sitcom "The New Normal," it takes the two men only 28 minutes to decide that they want to start a family, decide upon surrogacy and find a suitable mother for their child. In the real world, it takes quite a bit longer, and there are many more hoops to jump through. Luckily, Men Having Babies can help perspective fathers realize their dream.
"When ’The New Normal’ came about, we realized we had something to say about this, so we started a community page on Facebook where people are commenting about what they have seen in the pilot," said Men Having Babies Executive Director Ron Poole-Dayan, whose twin kids (via surrogacy) are now in the sixth grade. "There’s a lot of be said as far as relationships and the reality of it."
On September 22, Poole-Dayan celebrates their eight annual Men Having Babies Seminar at the Center, bringing gay men who want to be fathers together with surrogates, lawyers, IVF clinics and others who can help them reach their goals. As part of this year’s program, Men Having Babies has announced a financial assistance fund, to help people raise the average $110,000 required to undergo this process.
"We are very excited because one of our goals is to advocate for the benefits of LGBT parenting," said Poole-Dayan. "The other thing is providing detailed info about how much it costs and how to do it. Until we published the Surrogacy Adviser directory and started receiving ratings from our members, we only knew of the big, well-known agencies. But now we have found some others that are successful for much less. And we have raised about $45,000 in sponsorship fees over the past few months, and hope to get some donations from wealthy parents to help other people who need financial assistance."
"I wish it were in place when we started our journey," admitted Halpern, saying that he and his partner did not fit the stereotype of the wealthy gay couple portrayed on TV. "I don’t quite know how we did it. Everything I had we put into having this baby. We couldn’t pay $150,000 outright to have everything taken care of simultaneously, so we went very à la carte. It would be great if it was a little easier."
This was also welcome news to David Milch, the Men With Babies member who referred his surrogate to Halpern and Praet. Although he said the cost wasn’t prohibitive for him and his partner, biology shouldn’t force gay men to go broke paying for what most heterosexual couples could have for free.
"My philosophy is that not only should gay people be allowed to have families when they so choose, but it shouldn’t be harder," said Milch. "Nothing says our family is any less valuable, or should cost more than other families. It becomes a classist situation where there is only access for people who can afford it. But it’s bigger than whether you can afford to pay the clinics. We have to start talking about what kind of structures we’re creating that allow some people to have a family and some to not."
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After a decade of throwing everything in the trash, Ray Gresham took the initiative last month to begin recycling.
After all, beginning in July, Gresham was paying for a countywide trash service that included recycling and he wanted to get his money's worth.
So stacks of newspapers piled up and plastic bottles lined his carport, while he waited for two recycling bins he requested from his new trash provider. And Gresham waited and waited, calling the county about a dozen times for help.
Finally, the Lawrenceville man put his papers and plastic out in a cardboard box marked "recycling," but he said he was discouraged when he watched the garbage men empty the box into their truck then add the contents of his trash bin.
"They just put it in a garbage truck," he said. "I don't mind paying for something, but I'm paying full price and getting half the service."
According to Gwinnett government spokesman Joe Sorenson, even though recycling was one of the main focuses of the county's new trash plan, there have been some kinks in the new service. Many people, he admitted, are still awaiting bins, but placing recyclables out in a clearly marked box should get them to their destination. That is, if people follow the rules on recycling.
"A lot of people are new to recycling," Sorenson said. "(Trash hauling companies) spent a lot of money on gearing up, but they've got to do it right. They can't have contaminated recycling or they can't send it to where it's supposed to go."
If trash haulers can look into a recycling bin and see nonrecyclables inside or other problems, they will put the items in the trash, he said, adding that the county is interested in creating an awareness campaign to solve the problem.
"We're going to have to work on a culture here."
Here are some tips from Gwinnett government officials on making sure recyclables make it to the carpet factory, paper plant or other place where they are converted into new materials.
* Residents can use their own container for recyclables, as long as it is clearly marked "recyclables."
* Trash haulers won't collect recyclables placed in plastic bags because those bags cannot be recycled at the curb.
* Break down large cardboard boxes for recycling.
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RWE and E.On halt UK nuclear plans at Wylfa and Oldbury
There has been a setback to the government's plan to attract investment in new nuclear power stations.
Two key players, RWE Npower and E.On, have announced they will not develop new nuclear power projects in the UK.
The two were planning to invest in new plants in Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn, near Bristol, under a joint venture called Horizon Nuclear Power.
The government says it is disappointed but there remains "considerable interest" in the project.
The firms blamed problems raising finance for power projects and costs associated with decommissioning nuclear power plants in Germany.
They formed Horizon Nuclear Power, based in Gloucester, in 2009.
It was working on plans for new nuclear power stations at Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey and at Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire.
They are two of eight new projects named by the government to replace old power plants which are due to close by the end of the decade, and which make up about a quarter of the UK's generating capacity.
But last May Germany decided to close down its nuclear power stations by 2022, following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear facility.
For RWE and E.On, which own most of Germany's power stations, it was an expensive decision and undermined their enthusiasm to invest in nuclear power elsewhere.Looking for investors
End Quote Charles Hendry Energy Minister
The UK's new nuclear programme is far more than one consortia and there remains considerable interest”
"It's a big deal that they are pulling out," Malcolm Grimston, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank, told BBC News.
"If you look at the utilities in Europe then they are two of the biggest. There aren't that many huge players out there who could take over."
RWE and E.On want to find another company, or consortium, to take over the project.
Volker Beckers, chief executive of RWE Npower, said: "We continue to believe that nuclear power has an important role to play in the UK's future energy mix.
"We are therefore looking to ensure that work on development, including grid connection, can be taken up quickly by other potential investors."
Energy Minister Charles Hendry said: "E.On and RWE's withdrawal is clearly very disappointing, but the partners have clearly explained that this decision was based on pressures elsewhere in their businesses and not any doubts about the role of nuclear in the UK's energy future.
Company sources say there is a make-or-break decision to be made towards the end of the year by ministers on nuclear subsidies”
"The UK's new nuclear programme is far more than one consortia and there remains considerable interest.
"Plans from EDF/Centrica and Nugen are on track and Horizon's sites offer new players an excellent ready-made opportunity to enter the market," he said.
EDF said it was progressing well with plans for two new nuclear units at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
But the French company said its final investment decision hinged on it being a profitable project, and for that government reform was crucial.
"The government's framework for electricity market reform must ensure we have a project which is good for consumers, policy-makers, jobs and investors," said Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF Energy.
Analysts are now questioning whether firms can make money out of nuclear power in the UK.
End Quote Doug Parr Greenpeace
The government's energy strategy is crumbling”
"How commercially viable these plants are is very questionable," Rhys Kealley, lead analyst at Datamonitor, said.
"Even Centrica, who are partnered at the moment with EDF in a similar venture, is reluctant to make a commitment and they will be making a final decision on that some time before the end of the year."
The move by the German firms follows the decision last September by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) to pull out of a deal to develop a new nuclear power station.
The energy company sold its 25% stake in NuGeneration to partners GDF Suez and Iberdrola.
It said it wanted to focus on renewable energy, as do its German rivals.
RWE says it will continue to invest in low carbon technologies. It has also invested £1.6bn in gas-fired power stations in the UK.
E.On says it will concentrate on projects with quicker results than nuclear, which takes 10 years to start generating electricity.'Make-or-break'
End Quote Gary Smith GMB union
Britain is being left as an also-ran in the energy market internationally and the nuclear specifically”
The future of nuclear power may become clearer in May when the government announces its plan to reform the energy market.
Measures will be introduced to encourage investment and create a balanced range of electricity sources.
BBC business editor Robert Peston says sources at the energy companies describe this as "a make-or-break decision" as to whether the government is prepared to abandon its previous position that there won't be any substantial subsidies for nuclear, either from taxpayers or customers.
Labour stressed that nuclear power was vital to "to make us less reliant on volatile fossil fuel prices, increase our energy security, and keep prices down for families".
"RWE and E.On's decision... underscores the importance of the government's electricity market reform delivering a framework that will provide certainty and confidence for other potential investors," said Caroline Flint, shadow energy and climate change secretary.
Greenpeace's policy director Doug Parr said: "The government's energy strategy is crumbling.
"Not even the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money they have offered as incentives to the German and French nuclear industry are enough to make a new generation of power stations economically viable."'A shambles'
Unions have been highly critical of government policy as well.
Gary Smith from the union GMB, which represents workers in the nuclear industry, told the BBC: "I think it is clear, the government's energy policy is in absolute tatters. It's a shambles.
"Britain is being left as an also-ran in the energy market internationally and the nuclear specifically."
According to the union, Unite, the proposed nuclear power station at Wylfa could generate 5,000 jobs on Anglesey and support jobs at the Springfields fuel plant in central Lancashire.
The Prospect union, which represents some of the 120 highly-skilled employees working at Horizon's headquarters in Gloucester, as well as staff at the existing Wylfa site, expressed concern about the broader economic consequences.
"At a time when we face the closure of several large coal-fired power stations between now and the end of 2015, the Horizon venture was to be a major contributor in achieving a new UK fleet of nuclear power stations to provide a secure low-carbon energy supply for the future," said Mike Clancy, general secretary-designate of Prospect.
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Welcome to YouMass, a wiki designed to explore the people, history, and culture of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. When the University was founded as the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863, one of two colleges in the Commonwealth founded under the Morrill Land Grant, a handful of faculty members and students cleared brush, tilled fields, and planted trees to lay out a campus of nearly 1,450 acres. Today, UMass Amherst has a community of over 20,000 undergraduates and nearly 6,000 graduate students working with nearly 1,200 full time faculty.
Intended as a comprehensive online encyclopedia of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, YouMass documents the lives and activities of the campus community, its departments, programs, faculty, staff, and students. At its heart, YouMass is a collaboration between the Du Bois Library's Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) and the campus community, and we encourage members of the community to help us tell your stories, document your organizations, and share information about who you are and what you do.
Built in 1916, Marshall Hall originally served as a state-of-the-art bacteriology laboratory. The building and its annex were demolished prior to the construction of the Integrated Science Building.
Any member of the UMass community is welcome to contribute to YouMass. Since the site employs wiki technology, it can easily be updated by anyone who registers for an account. Once registered, participants are invited to edit a topic that already exists or create a new page for a topic that does not yet exist. Before getting started, we ask that new contributors review our guidelines for using the site.
As YouMass grows, we remind visitors to the site that information found here is supplied by its users. Because the information is generated by many individuals, SCUA cannot guarantee that all of the content is accurate. We will do our best, however, to verify the accuracy of new content as it is added. If you have a question about the site or would like to report a problem, please contact the SCUA archivists.
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Antigua’s position in the West Indies makes it the gateway to the Caribbean. Although passed by the majority of shipping routes, it remains quiet, in part due to the enormous number of beaches to enjoy here; enough that you can spend each day of a year on a different one.
Away from the beach, explore colonial-era sugar mills, Nelson’s Dockyard and Fort James, watch cricket, the national obsession, drink local rum and enjoy the deliciously slow pace of life.
Neighbouring Barbuda is essentially just a single, vast beach. Little more than a sand bar surrounded by coral reef and populated by frigate birds.
Antigua’s English Harbour was developed as a base for the British Navy in the great age of sail, and served as the headquarters of the fleet of the Leeward Islands during the turbulent years of the late 18th century.
Although the dockyard was greatly expanded at that time of Horatio Nelson, it was gradually abandoned in the nineteenth century and was closed in 1889. Today Nelson’s Dockyard has been completely restored, and is now the only Georgian dockyard in the world.
Antigua Sailing week
Antigua Sailing Week takes place in the last week of April each year in the prime weather of the ‘winter’ yachting season. The event has developed over 45 to become one of the world’s premier yacht racing events. Its international status ensures a steady stream of participants (usually more than a hundred) who race anything from state-of-the-art, high-tech racing machines to performance cruisers that range in size from 24 to more than 100 feet.
Plenty of visitors get in on the act by chartering yachts to gain prime viewing positions, party well into the evening and take the opportunity to enjoy their own sailing holiday.
Over the five days of competition crews are challenged with a variety of coastal race courses that encourage the best in seamanship and every year the event features a race from Guadeloupe to Antigua.
Antigua Charter Yacht show
The annual Antigua Charter Yacht Show showcases some of the world’s finest yachts. Vendors, brokers, press and visitors all converge on Nelson’s Dockyard Marina, Falmouth Harbour Marina and Antigua Yacht Club Marina for the annual event in December for week of briefings, yacht visits, short hop sails, dinners, parties and much more.
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A clue to this curiously low-key response may be found in the bustling shopping centres. Despite the mounting cost of the war in Iraq, the economic consequences have remained relatively contained. There have been no signs of a decline in consumer confidence and no uptick in inflation....We should also take into account the nature of the opposition to the war. When people acknowledge that they disapprove of the President's handling of the war, what does that mean? You might answer that way to say you're unhappy that we haven't yet won decisively. If you think Bush ought to be handling things better, moving us along toward victory along a clearer, more well-defined path, do you feel motivated to go out on the street and protest? What would you chant? I know you're in the middle of a difficult task, but would you please try to figure out a more effective way to complete it?
As of Friday military casualties had mounted to 2,313 killed and 17,000 wounded. This is enough to make many Americans question the conflict, but the toll still falls far short of the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam.
A poll for Newsweek magazine at the end of last week showed that just 29 per cent of Americans approve of the president's handling of the war, down from 69 per cent in the months after the conflict began in March 2003. Almost 60 per cent of Americans now feel less confident that the war will come to a successful conclusion, with fears mounting that the country will slide into civil war.
Don't assume that Americans are a bunch of dullards, complacently out shopping. Maybe we intelligently and perceptively understand the situation when we answer the polls like that and still stay away from the public protests.
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Our Royal Wedding Cake History
Classic Celebration Cakes Team is proud about its company's links with the Royal Wedding Cakes
The team's association began in 1963 when Andrew (who was a lot younger then) first worked on Princess Alexandra's Wedding Cake. This particular cake was very intricate piece that stood over 5 foot high and was iced in a traditional Royal Icing.
In 1973 Andrew was involved in presenting his second wedding cake for the marriage of HRH Princess Anne & Mark Phillips, This cake again was an impressive wedding cake which stood over 6 foot tall and again was made from Royal Icing.
In 1981 Andrew was joined by his daughter Elizabeth to present a cake for the wedding of HRH Prince Charles & Lady Diana Spencer. This cake was the first of three cakes Andrew and Elizabeth have worked together on and stood over 6 foot high. The traditional fruit cake was sliced and placed into individual monogrammed boxes which were then placed inside boxes which formed the decorated layers of the cake. The individual cake was finished with sugar paste icing and hand painted.
All the cakes presented to the Royal Family on these occasions were a traditional fruit cake centre although the techniques and methods used have changed very little since the first cake.
Andrew has ensured that the traditions and skills required for this type of work have been passed on to the future generations and todays employees have the same high level of skills and experience.
Below are pictures of these wonderful cakes which were presented for the following occasions: -
- The wedding of HRH Princess Alexandra & Angus Ogilvy (1963)
- The wedding of HRH Princess Anne & Mark Phillips (1973)
- The wedding of HRH Prince Charles & Lady Diana Spencer (1981)
- The wedding of HRH Prince Andrew & Sarah Ferguson (1986)
- The wedding of HRH Prince Edward & Sophie Rhys-Jones (1999)
The pictures below are of the wedding cakes
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10 Most Famous Athlete Quotes
The 10 most famous athlete quotes cover life advice, mathematical calculations, the importance of failure in success, and even social analysis. They are wise, silly, fun, foolish, and embarrassing. Yet reading through the (mostly) sage utterances on this list, it’s easy to doubt the common assumption that athletes are fools.
- "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see." - Muhammad Ali, describing his style in what has become one of the most famous sports quotations, and phrases, of all time.
- “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan, the greatest athlete in modern sports, explains his recipe for success, in one of the most famous athlete quotations.
- “The person that said winning isn't everything, never won anything.” – American great Mia Hamm may be more well known for being one of only two Americans to appear on the FIFA 100 list of the soccer's best athletes, alongside greats like Pelé and Cryuff, but she also rattled off one of the most famous quotations ever to fall from the lips of an athlete.
- “Not Guilty.” – OJ Simpson, when asked how he plead when charged with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Everyone knows this nugget, even the kids who played Dungeons and Dragons rather than football and basketball.
- "Somebody hits me, I'm going to hit him back. Even if it does look like he hasn't eaten in a while." – Sir Charles Barkley, a man who has gifted us countless praise worthy quotations over the years, threw out his most famous zinger when asked about his on-court altercation with an Angolan player during an Olympic game.
- “Baseball is ninety percent mental, and the other half is physical.” – Yogi Berra, on the mathematics of the Great American Pastime.
- "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."- Wayne Gretzky, obviously a more talented mathematician than Yogi Berra, describes how to fail at life in one of the most famous athlete quotes of all time.
- “Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.” – Tiger Woods, explaining how sports and race work in the United States (and interestingly not mentioning anything about Asians, who are 50% of his ethnic blueprint).
- “I was born on the day Lincoln was shot and the Titanic sank.” – Everyone’s favorite suspect history tutorial, and one of the most famous quotes in sports, compliments of baseball great Pete Rose.
- “Do you have any problems, other than that you're unemployed, a moron, and a dork?” – Tennis ace John McEnroe, keeping it very real.
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St. Lawrence University's ski coach from 1941-1956, Otto Schniebs coached some of St. Lawrence's strongest ski teams in the history of the sport.
Prior to coming to SLU, he coached Dartmouth to six national titles. He was the author of three books: "Modern Ski Techniques," "American Skiing," and "Skiing for All".
He developed the Aspen and Whiteface ski areas and was recognized as an outstanding teacher and contributor to the sport.
He passed away in 1971 and is fondly remembered by many as "the Father of American Skiing."
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In a recently archived May 2 webinar, speakers from Cadence and Samsung described a 20nm digital design methodology that can manage challenges such as double patterning, variability, and complexity. The webinar discussed EDA tools, physical IP, and 20nm process technologies, and it highlighted a "proof point" in the form of a 20nm test chip developed in 2011 by Cadence and Samsung.
The webinar was presented by Wei Lii Tan, senior product manager at Cadence, and Dr. Kuang-Kuo Lin, director of foundry design enablement at Samsung. It was the second of a 3-part Cadence 20nm webinar series that also included a 20nm overview by Cadence and ARM as well as a webinar on custom/analog 20nm design by Cadence and IBM.
Few if any products on store shelves right now use 20nm ICs, Tan acknowledged, but he said that within the next few years we will start seeing "much faster, more integrated, and smaller" products resulting from 20nm technology. "We will be able to create more differentiated products in the near future," he said. "Going to a new process node allows us to shift the entire timing/power tradeoff curve down to a more advantageous region."
Challenges and Solutions
Tan identified a number of 20nm technology challenges, including:
- Silicon Manufacturability. More than 400 new advanced layout rules, as well as additional double patterning rules, must be considered in routing to ensure printability.
- Timing Variability. Wires are getting thinner and longer, resulting in increased coupling and signal integrity issues. There are more parasitics in device modeling, and layout dependent effects are becoming more prominent.
- Design Size and Complexity. 20nm designs will be larger and more complex, requiring substantial IP reuse and calling for power management across silicon, package and board.
The rest of the webinar focused on solutions, starting with Samsung 20nm process families and physical IP. Lin showed that Samsung has two 20nm families, the 20LPE and 20LPM. Both use a core Vdd of 0.9V, along with a 90nm logic critical poly pitch. SRAM structures are slightly different. But the main difference is that 20LPE uses a metal pitch of 80nm and uses double dipole lithography, whereas the 20LPM uses a 64nm pitch and employs "true" double patterning using the litho etch, litho etch (LELE) technique.
Samsung 20nm physical IP includes multi-channel and multi-Vt logic libraries, 8 memory compilers, processor optimization packages for the ARM Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15, and interface IP for DDR3 and GPIO.
An RTL-to-GDSII Design Flow
Tan noted that Cadence has a 20nm solution that spans both custom/analog and digital design, but for this webinar, the focus was on digital design using the Cadence Encounter Digital Implementation System. The following slide depicts the Encounter 20nm RTL-to-GDSII methodology.
To illustrate DPT (double patterning) aware placement, Tan provided an example. The layout decomposition process uses two different colors to indicate which layout features go on which mask. If you place two cells close together, and adjoining edges have the same color routes, a DPT violation is likely to occur. One way to resolve it, as shown below, is to insert some dummy space between the cells. Another is to flip one of the cells to its mirror image.
FlexColor DPT routing in the NanoRoute router uses a correct-by-construction approach that obeys new 20nm design rules, including double patterning rules, Tan said. The user doesn't need to ensure that each route is DPT correct. Moreover, the approach improves area efficiency and allows effective ECOs.
Tan talked quite a bit about extraction, and noted how the Cadence QRC extraction engine (available both standalone and through Encounter) has been beefed up for 20nm. QRC can handle new 20nm modeling considerations such as raised source drain with bias and via/local interconnect resistance. It can also take into account capacitance variations that occur with slight mask misalignments during double patterning. These are modeled with multi-valued Standard Parasitic Exchange Format (SPEF) files, which in turn can be read by the Encounter Timing System and Encounter Power System.
Finally, Tan discussed the Cadence Physical Verification System, which can provide a "golden" signoff timing check. The engine is also integrated into the Encounter Digital Implementation System. "We use the same engines in our implementation tools as we use in our signoff tools, so you get no surprises as you go from implementation to signoff," Tan said.
Lin briefly described the "logic test vehicle" that Samsung and Cadence developed in 2011. It included an ARM Cortex-M0 macro and a 32K SRAM macro. "This is how we prove and trail blaze our technology," he said. "In addition, Cadence and Samsung are embarking on collaboration on double patterning, so we're working very closely together."
"Cadence and our industry partners have been investing very heavily in 20nm," Tan said. "We do believe that close partnerships between foundries, IP providers and EDA vendors will pave the way for smoother adoption of advanced process nodes including 20nm."
The archived webinar is available here.
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It’s not often that a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky becomes a national political figure, but Rand Paul has been in the news a lot lately. First, it was for his surprising and convincing (and surprisingly convincing) win in the Republican primary for a Kentucky Senate seat two weeks ago, and then it was for his controversial statements about the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Basically, what Paul said about the Civil Rights Act, first on NPR and then on The Rachel Maddow Show, was that he did not support the Act’s regulation of private business, even though he stands behind the spirit of the bill and supports all the provisions of it that desegregate public institutions and repeal Jim Crow laws. Basically, there are 10 Titles of the Civil Rights Act, and Paul said he didn’t support Title II.
Now, I don’t agree with Paul’s view at all, but it’s not surprising or offensive to me. In fact, it’s perfectly consistent with Paul’s libertarian beliefs: Libertarians do not want the federal government to interfere with private business, and federally mandated desegregation of private businesses constitutes a regulation. Even though I disagree, I initially admired Paul’s intellectual consistency—unfortunately since the media hubbub about his comments, Paul has backed away from that intellectual fidelity. It’s also important to note that Paul did not say he wanted to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or even that he would have voted against the whole Act had he been in Congress at the time—he only said he had legitimate problems with one aspect of the law. Continue reading »
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UPDATED: 6 p.m.:
Dr. Jerry Buss might best be called the accidental owner of one of the greatest franchises in professional sports history.
Having grown up in the Depression-era, coal-mining badlands of Wyoming, he discovered he had a head for numbers and wanted to be a chemistry teacher.
After venturing into the Southern California aerospace industry working on the study of rocket fuel, somehow he got pulled into buying and selling apartment complexes to supplement his income.
How Buss ended up buying the Lakers in 1979 for some $16 million, watching them soar to beyond $1 billion in worth is remarkable enough.
The way he was eventually inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame for combination of starting the “Showtime” era with Magic Johnson’s career and collecting 10 NBA championships in 16 trips to the final over the last 34 years is a journey few could have envisioned in a classic rags-to-riches story.
When Buss died Monday morning at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center from kidney failure after an 18-month bout with cancer at the age of 80, he left the future of the team entrusted in the hands of two of his six children, Jim and Jeanie Buss. But in reality, his personal DNA will remain as part of the franchise’s genetic code for decades to come.
“We not only have lost our cherished father, but a beloved man of our community and a person respected by the world basketball community,” the family said in a statement.
“(He) showed his amazing strength and will to live. It was our father’s often stated desire and expectation that the Lakers remain in the Buss family. The Lakers have been our lives as well and we will honor his wish and do everything in our power to continue his unparalleled legacy.”
Because Buss’ passing came after an extended period, reaction all day Monday from the sports world focused on his legacy of creating one of the most undeniably successful franchises by learning the business and delegating authority, all driven by his desire to win.
Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar may have put it best by saying in a statement:
“When someone as celebrated and charismatic as Jerry Buss dies, we are reminded of two things. First, just how much one person with vision and strength of will can accomplish. Second, how fragile each of us is, regardless of how powerful we were.
“Those two things combine to inspire us to reach for the stars, but also to remain with our feet firmly on the ground among our loved ones. Dr. Buss embodied that compassionate entrepreneurial spirit. He strove to reach greater heights without forgetting his community roots.
During his stewardship, the Lakers exemplified his personal standards of excellence and became one of the dominant teams in the NBA and a force of good within the community. The man may be gone, but he has made us all better people for knowing him.”
Lakers legend Jerry West, Buss’ longtime general manager and architect of the franchise’s roster through the arrival of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, said Buss had an “incredible commitment and desire to build a championship-caliber team that could sustain success over a long period of time has been unmatched.
“With all of his achievements, Jerry was without a doubt one of the most humble men I’ve ever been around. . . . Jerry was an innovator in the sports world and many sports franchises have tried to follow his recipe for success and his vision of making NBA basketball as much about sports as entertainment . . . I was blessed to have the opportunity to work for him and I will miss him dearly.”
In a series of Twitter posts, Magic Johnson, who won five NBA championships with the Lakers as a player and owned a share of the team with Buss through five more, said Buss was like his second father.
“All Dr. Buss ever wanted to do was WIN and he did,” wrote Johnson.
The Dodgers, now part-owned by Johnson, also released a statement acknowledging that Buss “made great contributions to the sporting landscape of Los Angeles and America and was a true champion in every sense of the word.”
Gerald Hatten Buss was born Jan. 27, 1933, but never knew his father, Lydus, who left him after his first birthday. He was raised by his mother, Jesse, often waiting as a 4 year old in food lines, or as a 6 year old collecting telephone books so it could be used to burn in the fireplace to keep his home warm.
One of Buss’ first jobs as a youngster was digging ditches for Cecil Brown, who became his stepfather. Brown owned a plumbing business and Buss woke up at 4:30 a.m. to get the work done before going to school in Kemmerer, Wyo.
Buss found his independence through making his own money, whether it was shining shoes, working on the railroad, or selling stamps.
Growing up in rugged Wyoming, “tens of miles away from any kind of assistance, you learn self-reliance, and self-reliance in any environment is a virtue,” Buss once told the Casper (Wyo.) Journal.
He attended the University of Wyoming on a science scholarship, and graduated in 2 ½ years in 1953. That pursuit led to him heading to USC for a Masters and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry when he was 24 years old.
After college, he worked as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines, then came to California to work at Douglas Aircraft in the propulsion division. He also taught in USC’s chemistry department.
Eventually, he met a fellow worker and poker player, Frank Mariani. The two devised a financial plan to begin investing in real estate.
They decided they needed $1,000 to start with, so each of them put $83.33 aside each month toward that goal. This was at a time when Buss was making about $700 a month and supporting a wife, Joanne, and the first of his children.
In 1959, Buss and Mariani added two partners and put a $4,000 down payment on a 14-unit apartment building in West L.A. The cost was $105,000, and Buss would admit to being “scared” diving into such a risky business proposition. He and Mariani spent weekends doing repairs and painting to save on expenses.
When the Southern California real estate market exploded in the 1970s, it propelled Buss to new heights. He owned hotels in Palm Springs and San Diego, frequented the race track at Del Mar and bought a large luxury boat in Marina del Rey.
Yet Buss’ foray into sports was also a relatively small-game start-up.
At the height of U.S. tennis’ popularity in the 1970s, he bought into the Los Angeles Strings of the World Team Tennis league, starting at the L.A. Sports Arena. He and his attorney, Jerry Fine, put in $25,000 each for the team.
The Strings lost $200,000 in its first year, and $1 million in its second.
“This is going to be my education in sports,” Buss told everyone who asked why he wanted to stick with this red-ink proposition.
The Strings eventually moved into the Inglewood Forum, built by Lakers and Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke.
Buss, who had amassed a couple million dollars by the age of 40, had heard rumors of Cooke considering selling his sports empire. He asked him to give him a shot at buying it.
Cooke called Buss to his Las Vegas home in May, 1979 and asked him if he was ready to do a deal. Cooke’s accelerated desire to get the sale done was a pending divorce, and the future owner of the Los Angeles Daily News wanted to move to Virginia to be closer to his ownership in the NFL’s Washington Redskins.
“There were times when I felt I’d gotten in a little over my head (because Cooke) may have had the toughest will I’ve ever seen,” Buss said in Roland Lazenby’s 2006 book, “The Show: The Inside Story of the Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers.”
Even though the Lakers cost him $16 million, the $67.5 million deal included the addition of Cooke’s Forum ($33 million), his NHL Kings ($8 million) and a large ranch in the Sierra Nevada. Buss had to transfer the rights to his Chrysler Building in New York, as well as other property in other states.
The complicated transaction was then a record for any sports-related deal at the time, one that took dozens of lawyers and accountants to sort out and avoid huge tax liens for either side.
Combined with their real estate company, Buss and Mariani held assets of $350 million when the dust settle.
With his new status, Buss showed two sides to his ownership ways. In the media, he tried to stay under the radar. But for someone who eventually took ownership as of the famed Pickfair mansion in Beverly Hills, he enjoyed appearing at Lakers games in his end-zone luxury box with young women on his arms, this not long after he divorced his wife.
Buss, who chose to remain dressed down in boots and jeans to go along with pull-over sweaters, figured out the Lakers needed the missing Hollywood ingredient if he was going to be able to sell seats.
His idea was to add the Lakers dance team, the in-seat waitresses, live music, and an array of stars sitting courtside seats, starting with Jack Nicholson planted firmly for all the cameras and patrons to see.
Buss was also the first to figure out how to cash in on naming rights, slapping the Forum with the Great Western Bank logo. He sold seats at the arena as he did real estate – it was all about location. He created a year-around seat program for all events in the Forum, called “Senate seats,” which were viewed as condominiums without walls.
It led to the launch of a regional sports network and added TV revenue. In 1985, Buss became partners with Colorado cable TV entrepreneur Bill Daniels, and the two started the Prime Ticket network to show the Lakers and Kings games, home and away, live to Southern California and Hawaii residents.
“I remember when Dad told me he was going to start showing home games on cable,” said Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ head of business operations , before his Basketball Hall of Fame induction in 2010. “I was worried it would ruin our business. He corrected me and said I had to think of it as expanding the capacity at the Forum. Instead of 17,505 to watch a game now we could include all the fans who wanted to see the game but couldn’t get tickets. It was genius.”
That eventually got Buss a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with a logo of a TV set.
Buss had already sold off the Kings before the Lakers and his WNBA Sparks moved from the Forum to Staples Center in 1999. He sold his ownership of the Sparks in 2006. That year, he also became the first owner of an NBA Development League team, the Defenders.
But the Lakers would remain a family property – almost like one he would buy up during family games of Monopoly.
His family ties to USC remains strong as well. In 2008, as an inaugural member of the USC College Board of Councilors, Buss endowed $7.5 million to the school for two endowed chairs in honor of his mentors, friends and former USC chemistry professors, Sidney Benson and David Dows.
While Buss enjoyed getting out and competing in poker tournaments, in recent years he tried to stay more in the background. He relinquished much of the initial decision-making duties to son Jim, but always was in on the discussion.
Although he hasn’t attended a Lakers game all year, he gave the final approval of pushing the Lakers’ payroll over the $100 million mark to add Steve Nash and Dwight Howard this season. He may have feared having to pay more in NBA luxury tax, but a new deal with Time Warner Cable that gave the team another influx of funds for the next 20 years was enough of a guarantee that things could move forward.
Buss also was part of the change in hiring Mike D’Antoni as the new coach instead of rehiring Phil Jackson, now engaged to his daughter Jeanie.
Buss is survived by sons Johnny, Jim, Joey and Jesse, and daughters Jeanie Buss and Janie Drexel, all of Southern California. He has eight grandchildren. He is also survived by former wife JoAnn, living in of Las Vegas, half sister Susan Hall of Phoenix, half brother Micky Brown of Scottsdale and stepbrother Jim Brown of Star Valley, Wyoming.
Services are pending.
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Students say they fear nearby shooting range
Published: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 25, 2013 at 11:20 p.m.
BRADENTON - A proposed sporting clay range would scare them, ruin the tranquility of their nature lab and make them feel unsafe, more than a dozen children from Center Montessori School told a hearing officer Monday afternoon.
Testimony for and against gun club plan for
sporting clay range
Officials from the school and from the nearby Bayside Community Church have cited the sound of gunfire as their chief complaint against the Ancient Oak Gun Club at 16800 State Road 64.
Manatee County hearing officer Lori M. Dorman had said she would likely approve the sporting clay range, which is being developed by Schroeder-Manatee Ranch. Dorman, however, reopened the case and held another hearing Monday in the Manatee County Commission chambers to take more testimony about noise before deciding whether to approve a special use permit.
Dorman declined to comment about her reasons for reopening the case, and now has 21 days to issue her decision.
During the public comment portion of the hearing, three groups of five Center Montessori students told Dorman why they objected to the proposed range, which an attorney representing SMR pointed out was more than 14 football fields away from a wooded acreage used by the school six to eight times a year as a "land lab."
"It does have a negative effect on me," one student said of the gunfire.
"It's scary to know there are people with guns less than a mile away," another said.
"I just don't think it's a good idea to have a shooting range near our land lab, because it's harder to enjoy nature," said a third.
Mara Fulk, the school's administrator, told the hearing officer she was concerned about the effects gunfire would have on her students, because of everything "going on in our world."
"We have to be an advocate for our children," she said.
Fulk did acknowledge that the sound of the gunfire will not exceed the county's 60 decibel limit at the property line of the proposed range.
Byron Nelson, a sound engineer hired by SMR to test the decibel levels at the church and school properties, testified Monday that decibel readings were 43 at the church and 47 at the school's acreage -- a reading that was often drowned out by passing cars.
Nelson had a battery of shotgunners fire at the range while taking his readings Feb. 4.
"They were well within county noise ordinance for the site," he said. "The ordinance requires 60 decibels at the property line. In all cases they were well within that. They're well below 50 when they're allowed 60.
Attorney Caleb Grimes, who represented SMR, said the club was in compliance with every criteria "several times over."
"It's important that we recall this is a land use decision -- use of the land -- not a debate on the recreational benefits of sporting clays," he said. "Our county has determined that sporting clays, skeet and trap are appropriate use of ag-zoned land. This meets the use criteria, and has been carefully located."
Two competitive sporting clay shooters testified in support of the proposed range.
George Mazzarantani, a Sarasota attorney, had just returned from a sporting clay tournament where a 14-year-old girl took a top prize.
"I disagree with comments that the 'pop-pop' of a shotgun inflicts trauma," he said, cautioning the students in the audience that it was important they learn to separate "fear from fiction."
Ed Agrisani, a masters class competitive sporting clay shooter, said, "This is a very clean, well-managed sport -- it's a sport. There are colleges that give scholarships to kids based on their ability at this sport."
This story appeared in print on page BNV1
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
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Facebook has proved to become the first love of a big percentage of youth population. In fact, people of all ages are increasingly becoming more and more active on facebook. People completely trust facebook, however they are unaware of the insecurity they are exposed to! Here is a list of top 10 reasons to delete your facebook account today itself.
10. Completely one-sided Terms of Services:
The Terms of Services of facebook are extremely one-sided and biased. It states that facebook owns are data and also, if the user does not keep his profile up-to-date and accurate, they can even terminate his/her account. You might think that these terms are there to protect the interests of facebook and are not practically enforced. They see their customers as unpaid employees for ad-targeting the data and use the crowd-sourcing in their benefit. You must understand the implications of these terms and delete your account today itself.
9. No real support for Open Web:
The Open graph API is a name given so as to disguise its closed nature. We are fooled by this and often help facebook to collect more data, however all our data is made public. They claim to be the only source of using it; however, it is unfair of them to call it open as it is proprietary to facebook. You cannot use this feature, unless you have an account on facebook. A purely open implementation would work with whichever social network we use.
8. Account is Difficult to Delete:
When you have finally decided to delete your facebook account, it is not all that easy. When you go to your account settings, facebook provides with an option to deactivate your account which is very tricky and not the same as deleting your account. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photographs and be spammed by facebook. They make no claims about deleting your data and the applications you have used may keep your data as well. However, if you log back in, it is like nothing has changed. To actually delete your account, you have to look for a link which is not easily found. You then have to resist to click on the tempting like button that appears on all the web pages and do not log in for another 14 days.
7. Your Privacy can cheat you:
Facebook is a social media where you can make some true friends, but also you are exposed to an equally high risk of being cheated. People often send requests to people who are not very familiar and in no time they would open their hearts out. They would share all the personal information including their photos, videos, personal history. And, the next day you see all those images outsourced to the world. This is absolutely practical. Thousands of people have undergone this. You need to understand that it is not safe and a reasonable reason to delete your facebook account.
6. Applications unsafe to use:
Facebook is full of applications, where you can play games, find out stuff about your own character, find out more about your love and a number of several other things. These applications are very unsafe to use. Applications often ask you to provide access to your personal information. They transfer all your personal information to a third party. Your information might be misused and might not even be secure. Also, a number of viruses are invited into your PCs with these applications, exposing your system to risk.
5. Unethical issues against CEO:
CEO Zuckerbergs is very well known personality for all his unethical deeds. He being the CEO of Facebook, a biggest growing social network sites these days has an annotated history regarding his unethical behaviour. He started this network initially with his unscrupulous behaviour by sharing his personnel achievements by making use of the achievements of various university students. So how could one can be so sure about his data privacy and believe him that his data would not shared with the third party. According to various links it is proved that he always try to use and access user’s personnel data to guess their email password and read mails in order to abase his rivals. It is also a rumour in the market that Zuckerberg actually stolen the idea of Facebook and for this allegation he has paid $65 millions.
4. Pictures can be accessed by all:
The most important security flaw in facebook is this that your pictures can be easily saved by all your friends. While accepting and sending requests, people are least concerned about security. They are always lured by the idea of adding maximum number of friends to their friend list. Now, if someone tags your photo, then all of their facebook friends can see that and can also save the photo on their computers. This pictures can be misused and you may have to regret later to have a facebook account.
3. Facebook Viruses:
Facebook is fully virus oriented social networking sites. Due to its vast network all over the world it has almost become impossible to protect it from unseeing viruses. These viruses are almost expanded along the whole network and corrupting our profiles. They are the main source of shutting us down in front of our friends and relatives by sending C-grade videos from our profiles through messages without being letting us know. This in the blink of an eye shuts our account. If someone tries to download those videos through their laptops these viruses automatically transfer to their laptops and becomes a reason for its corruption. These viruses with the name of actual profile owner post any unethical links or photos.
2. Personal Data doesn’t Remains personal:
Facebook acquires all the information about a person, his phone number, friends, interests, photographs and the entire personal bio data. We happily give all the information trusting the company. However, sadly, facebook doesn’t treat our personal as important as it is. Facebook transfers the personal information of the users to various third parties who perform various surveys and research on their data, without any due permission from the users. All the information is shared with the application developers, many of whom may be incompetent of keeping your data safe or they might be ethically challenged. Thus, a very obvious reason to delete your facebook account today is your data is treated as public, unless you have never used any facebook application.
1. Facebook is an addiction:
Do you understand why you are glued to the computer screen all the time with your facebook logged in? It is because you are addicted! Facebook has severely affected your productivity and you are mind is always occupied with this one word ‘facebook’. You realise how restless you become when you don’t get access to facebook for 2-3 days. The first thing you want to do then, is check out the updates on facebook. You can sit for hours and look at pictures of people you know and you don’t know. You search for all the people in your life and send friend requests to them. If the facebook fever is high on you, it’s the time to delete your facebook account.
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US firm Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft has been instructed to advise on the world's first bond designed to protect London's business districts from large-scale flooding.
The flood bond, which was launched on the capital markets earlier this month, was structured by Swiss Re, which was advised by panel firm Cadwalader, for an arm of German insurance company Allianz.
Allianz issued the $150m (£74.97m) bond in order to transfer potential losses incurred if the City or Canary Wharf flooded, as well as for earthquake damage in Canada and the US.
Lead partner of the Cadwalader team Malcolm Wattman said: "Lots of investors are becoming more heavily involved in catastrophe bonds. This was driven in the US by Hurricane Katrina."
While catastrophe bonds are common in the US, they have only recently become more popular in other jurisdictions, including the UK.
Wattman said: "There are already some key players involved with catastrophe bonds in the UK. Swiss Re and ABN Amro are definitely up there. We've seen a lot of activity in the US and this is something we as a firm are familiar with."
The bonds are designed to take advantage of fully secured instruments in the capital markets rather than tapping the reinsurance market.
Wattman said: "If a city was to flood, is it better to turn to reinsurance or to a special purpose vehicle that's collateralised? I think the capital markets are a viable option in this scenario."
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For immediate release June 24, 1998
ATLANTA FED PRESENTS DESIGN PLANSJack Guynn, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and project architects today presented design plans for the Bank's new headquarters, which will be constructed on a site that the Bank previously purchased at Peachtree and 10th streets in Midtown Atlanta.
FOR NEW HEADQUARTERS
"We are very pleased with the way the design for our new headquarters reflects the Bank's role as a public policy institution and makes a positive contribution to the City of Atlanta and the region," said Guynn. "It addresses the complex business needs of a Federal Reserve Bank, while also providing a classic and timeless building that will complement existing and planned development in the dynamic Midtown Atlanta neighborhood." Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates Inc. of Atlanta, in association with Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York, is the project's architect. Robert Stern is the project's lead designer.
The new building will feature mid- and low-rise components. The Bank's office functions will be housed in a 10-story mid-rise component facing Peachtree Street. This portion of the building will also feature a monetary museum, located off the main lobby, that will be open to the public. The Bank's cash and check operations will be housed in a three-story low-rise component situated behind the mid-rise portion of the building. The building will total approximately 746,000 square feet.
"The design for the new Atlanta Fed headquarters builds upon the Sixth Federal Reserve District's own architectural history, while drawing inspiration from Paul Cret's Federal Reserve Board building in Washington, D.C.," said Stern. "Our design is classical but in a modern way, reflecting an image of stability consistent with the Bank's role as part of the nation's central bank. In the design, we made every effort to create a building that is set apart from a typical office building without sacrificing the Bank's operating efficiency and space-planning flexibility."
In addition to the building's design, architects also presented a site plan that features open, public areas on more than three acres of landscaped green space situated at key areas of the property. The site plan also incorporates pedestrian-friendly streetscapes with extensive lighting, wide sidewalks and tree cover for pedestrian traffic.
As previously announced, Beers Construction Co., in association with C.D. Moody Construction Co., the Integral Group and Torcon Inc., will serve as the project's construction manager. The Atlanta Fed purchased the 12-acre site for its new building in late 1995. The Bank plans to begin construction in early 1999 after the project receives final approval from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Atlanta Fed expects to occupy the building in the summer of 2001.
The new building is being constructed to consolidate into one facility staff and business functions of the Bank's southeastern headquarters. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which encompasses Alabama, Florida and Georgia and sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. As part of the nation's central banking system, the Atlanta Fed takes part in setting national monetary policy, supervises and regulates commercial banks and provides cash and check processing and other payments services to depository institutions and the U.S. government.
Currently, the Atlanta Fed's 1,200-employee staff operate out of three buildings in downtown Atlanta: the main Bank building at 104 Marietta Street, which dates to the early 1960s, two floors in the 55 Park Place building, and six floors in the Equitable Building at 100 Peachtree Street.
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The Biodiversity Reporting Award (BDRA) ceremony took place for the ninth consecutive year in Brazil last week in an informal ceremony at a pizza place in one of the world’s largest metropolises – São Paulo.
Around 300 guests – including the Executive Secretary of the Minister of Environment, Izabella Teixeira – gathered to recognize the work of Brazilian journalists and celebrate the top environmental stories produced over the past year.
Brazilian top model Mariana Weickert was the hostess of the event, which is done in partnership with NGO SOS Mata Atlântica.
This year, the BDRA received 115 news articles from Brazil’s top reporters, producers and editors. The first prize winners were Liana John, from Terra da Gente Magazine, in the print category, and Estevão Ciavatta, from Canal Futura, in the TV category.
The BDRA was created by Conservation International in 1999. Today it is held in 9 countries. CI staff members from headquarters and the Brazilian office attended the ceremony.
For more information, visit: www.premioreportagem.org.br
Marcele Bastos is the Communications Coordinator for Atlantic Forest Program at Conservation International Brazil.
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Two years ago, Navy SEALs dispatched Osama Bin Laden in a spectacular raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The notion at the time was that the jihadists were done for, with Al Qaeda decapitated and its operations soon to be decimated.
But as I argued in my book (released in 2009), bringing Bin Laden to justice was essential but would be far from sufficient to thwart what we call the Islamic totalitarian movement, the cause of those seeking Islamic domination worldwide. The basic reason is that Al Qaeda is just one part of the movement, and Bin Laden was just one leader. If we conceptualize the forces we oppose as just Al Qaeda, or just the Taliban, or just random losers, etc., we fail to recognize that our enemy is moved by ideas and a common goal.
It remains to be seen whether the Boston bombers had contacts with jihadist enablers or groups; perhaps yes, perhaps no. But the fact remains that even without Bin Laden, the pernicious ideas fueling the jihad remain potent and continue to empower attacks against us.
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Q: Back on the farm, what’s an average day like?Click here to read the rest of our interview with Kenneth.
A: There’s never an average day on the farm. Every day is different. But of course we have our rural community here, too. We have local heroes you’ll never see on the sports page or on the national news. But they’ve pulled people up the ladder with them by sharing ideas. Nowadays, some people get up to the top of the ladder and then kick the ladder away.
Like in most places, we’re losing farmers, and when you lose numbers of farmers, you also lose your infrastructure, your parts dealers, etc. Today, to get parts for my tractor, it’s a full day’s trip. When the farm community crumbles, your costs go up, and everyone loses.
Friday, May 27, 2011
This edition of Farmer Hero Friday is an interview we did in 2007 with Kenneth Barber of Stone Arch Farm northwest of Ithaca, New York. The farm produces grapes, peaches, cherries, pastured-raised chickens and eggs, and includes an on-farm bakery, a woodshop, and much more.
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Marketing as a Data Science
Hello world! This is my first blog post, so an introduction is customary. I have worked in the digital marketing, social media, branding and analytics consulting space for product as well as services businesses. As a result, I have had the rare opportunity as a digital marketer to also learn from and advise other businesses on their marketing strategy and analytics.
But as they say, more experience can lead to either more enlightenment or more exasperation. (Don’t ask me who said that, you know who just made it up.)
Truth be told, most of us marketers do not really value our data as much as we claim we do. We might have “Analytics” and “ROI” on our strategy slides and also a painfully constructed data warehouse and reports. But is that all? Is marketing really data-driven or is data still treated as important but used mostly post-mortem? Traditionally data has been used to answer questions like:
- Are we doing enough?
- Are we doing things right?
- How can we improve?
We ran a little promotion in Kentucky retail stores – did it help us go past competition? Should we have gone for better placement as opposed to the price discount? Note the past tense in all these questions. This method of using data and analysis to reach to useful business conclusions is hardly enough in the digital era. Here are some questions I’d love to answer based on data. But how?
- If I invest $5000 on this Facebook app, will it get me 10,000 active and engaged Likes from my target audience?
- If I replace the text content on this particular webpage with a video, how will it affect the average time people spend on the website and in turn will it improve awareness about our products?
- If I move a part of my email marketing budget to banner ads, will it result in revenue improvement? How much should I move?
Sounds much like a Kipling poem, doesn’t it? But the ability to have answers to such questions, in my opinion, would be the epitome of data-driven marketing — the ability to infuse more and more mathematics and logic into a practice largely based on hunches and creative skills. At its most mature form, digital marketing should be a science where one can predict target appropriation, awareness generation and have a constant tab on channel returns. We’d then have very little scope to go wrong then, wouldn’t we?
As a result, my maturity model for data driven marketing has only three levels:
Level 1: Data What?
Here’s the digital marketing practice that represents quintessentially everything wrong in terms of using data – not knowing where the right data is, unable to integrate it, investing time, money and effort with not much method, proof or reason. They haven’t figured out most of the P’s of data driven marketing as listed here.
Level 2: Digging for Gold
The marketing team that sits on a neat and healthy stockpile of (non-explosive) data. They have what they need, know where to go, but are not answering the right questions yet. Campaign analysis, channel performance, web analytics are all set up and handy but not used to answer marketing questions and impact the future course of business. They are yet to realize which is more important for them – more data or more analysis?
Level 3: Excel before Outlook
The “epitome”, as I’ve already called such an environment, leads the way and rides every wave be it Big Data, predictive marketing or Data Activation (I hope you’ve read David Karnstedt’s blog Data Activation & the Future of Digital Marketing). In these teams, the digital marketer is also a data scientist who opens up his Excel worksheet before sending emails in the morning. This team can answer any of the following questions at any time:
- What does or target audience think of us or say about us?
- What kind of information are my users looking for?
- How many leads am I able to generate per $ spent on a channel?
- What is the quality of lead per channel? Quality being assessed by something like (revenue + pipeline)$ per lead
I like to think the future of digital marketing lies in the intelligent use of data and the ability to inspire desired digital behaviour based on an unparalleled understanding of content, channels and the target audience. This maturity model might not be a jump-out-of-the-bath kind of discovery, but it ought to help us assess where we are and what we need to do to be the best.
What am I going to do this week? Analyze differences in user behavior on the website across North America and Europe. Hold on till my next blog!
Parth Mukherjee is a global product marketing manager for Adobe’s technical communication portfolio of products. Parth loves technology and also the use of technology in digital marketing. On this blog, he shares his trials, tribulations, successes, and what he reads, hears or experiences in the world of digital marketing. (Spolier alert: Parth uses the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite and loves it.)
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The amount of college students taking ski and snowboarding trips has jumped 40 percent in the last ten years, according to Steve Smolinski, the founder of Lifestylez.
Lifestylez describes itself as a company that “represents youth, music, culture and physical stimulation” and hosts ski and snowboard travel trips with an action sports twist. Smolinski has been running trips for 22 years to locations all over the world—from Colorado and Montana to Canada and even Switzerland.
This is a pivotal time for the action sports industry as kids are bucking more traditional winter break trips in favor of excursions to destinations where they can test their physical limits in the snow, skiing and snowboarding in less traditional locations like Telluride, Taos, Crested Butte and Copper mountain. They’re opting to explore mountains more known for their unique feel versus going to more popular destinations such as Breckenridge, demonstrating that the student sense of exploration and adventure is growing more and more prevalent. The number of students taking these trips has increased significantly, and this year Smolinski expects it to be bigger than ever before.
The movement—which is continuing to grow—can partially be attributed to the increase in awareness that has gradually been brought to action sports through media outlets and sponsorships. Snowboarding is no longer an elite, exclusive sport; students have seen in on TV, on the Internet, and determined that this is what they want to do. Meanwhile brands like Kellogg, Pepsi and more are spending advertising money on action sports and athletes, meaning more exposure and an ever-increasing interest.
If 2012 weather patterns continue, it should be an even greater year than usual. El Nino makes for huge winters in ski towns, which leads to excitement for core skiers—an energy that trickles down and leads to more traveling college students heading to these snow cities. When it comes to action sports travel, one can be certain that interest is going to continue to grow and the number of college students heading for an adrenaline rush in a cold climate is going to increase.
Study Breaks College Media provides a one-stop solution for small businesses, providing them with big marketing strategies and delivering college students.
Study Breaks magazine is an award-winning line of monthly entertainment magazines for college students with a mission can best be explained through its slogan: We are college life. Published by Shweiki Media Printing Company, it is distributed in five Texas cities (Austin, Houston, San Antonio, San Marcos and Lubbock) and three southeast cities (Athens, GA; Auburn, AL; Columbia, SC). (Studybreaks.com)
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Good day for jobs, sad for panda lovers
For all those who woke up to the sad news that Washington’s loveable giant panda cub would be heading back to China, here’s a bright spot for your Friday:
Job cuts in November were much lower than had been expected and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 10 percent from 10.2 percent.
The stronger-than-expected numbers helped boost the U.S. dollar and global stock prices on hopes for a strong economic recovery.
The jobs figures came one day after President Barack Obama held a jobs summit at the White House and asked the corporate sector to help the administration with its job-creation efforts.
Now on to the sad news. Tai Shan, the first surviving giant panda cub born at Smithsonian’s National Zoo, will be packing his bags soon. He will return to China early next year as promised in an agreement between the zoo and the Chinese government.
Tai Shan’s parents are on loan to the United States but the deal called for any offspring to be sent to China. The Chinese granted an extension to the National Zoo but it will soon expire, the zoo said in a statement.
As a panda cub, Tai Shan became an instant celebrity in Washington. Nicknamed “butter stick” because of his size when he was born in 2005, Tai Shan drew millions of visitors and his image was plastered on souvenirs, stamps and toys.
Those who couldn’t make it to the zoo were able to keep tabs on the playful panda through a panda-cam. Check it out!
Photo credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith (an employment center in San Francisco), Reuters/Meghan Murphy-Smithsonian National Zoo handout (Tai Shan snacks on bamboo in 2008 photo)
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BLANTYRE, Malawi — More than 400 credit union delegates from 21 countries opened the 8th annual World Council of Credit Unions' (WOCCU’s) Africa Congress today with a colorful representation of flags, national attire and cultural dances at Sunbird Mount Soche Hotel in Blantyre, Malawi. Participants from across Africa, parts of Europe and North America are meeting through November 2 for the first time in the African nation to discuss issues around the theme “SACCOs: Mobilizing Savings for Sustainable Community Development.” SACCO, which stands for Savings and Credit Co-operative, is the acronym often used to describe Africa’s credit unions.
For four days, participants will hear from international speakers about challenges and best practices on a host of topics, including not only savings mobilization and community development, but also global credit union development, technology, branding and HIV/AIDS programs.
“The coming of the congress to Malawi has made Malawians realize that the SACCO movement is not just a small thing being promoted in this country, but that it actually belongs to a much larger movement on the continent and throughout the world,” said Sylvester Kadzola, Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives (MUSCCO) chief executive officer and WOCCU board member. “That alone has made people here realize for the first time the significance of the movement.”
The Africa Congress is the first SACCO function in which MUSCCO has had significant Malawian government representation, according to Kadzola. Two ministers of parliament and two deputy ministers attended the opening ceremony, as well as three government officials from Kenya. Both Malawi and Kenya currently have SACCO-specific laws being passed by their parliaments, making the ministers’ attendance especially relevant.
“The mobilization of savings in rural communities creates a safe mechanism for the money to be reinvested in the community for sustainable development,” said Nedson Chikuta, MUSCCO board chair. “SACCOs are about sustainable development, self-help and self reliance.”
According to WOCCU’s 2006 Statistical Report, 24 African countries reported that more than 8,000 credit unions across the continent serve 7% of the entire population. Africa has the fastest growing membership of all regions, the report indicated.
Ken Lipenga, Malawi’s Minister of Industry and Trade, had nothing but praise for the SACCOs, indicating that their work complements government efforts to reduce poverty levels and that savings mobilization is crucial to decreasing the amount of foreign aid flowing into the country.
“The only hope for our people as far as access to financial services is concerned is the SACCO movement,” said Lipenga, who was the Africa Congress guest of honor on behalf of President Bingu wa Mutharika.
New to this year’s Africa Congress is WOCCU’s supplemental Manager Certification Program, a two-year course of study modeled after the Western CUNA Management School for current and aspiring credit union managers. The program offers training on a range of topics, including financial analysis, marketing, savings mobilization and credit administration. The program requires participants to complete a project at their credit union and to successfully pass an exam at the end of each year’s sessions. Thirty Africa Congress participants from five countries enrolled in the Manager Certification course this week.
The Africa Congress is co-sponsored by MUSCCO, WOCCU, the Canadian Co-operative Association, the Irish League of Credit Unions Foundation and the African American Credit Union Coalition.
World Council of Credit Unions is the global trade association and development agency for credit unions. World Council promotes the sustainable development of credit unions and other financial cooperatives around the world to empower people through access to high quality and affordable financial services. World Council advocates on behalf of the global credit union system before international organizations and works with national governments to improve legislation and regulation. Its technical assistance programs introduce new tools and technologies to strengthen credit unions' financial performance and increase their outreach.
World Council has implemented more than 290 technical assistance programs in 71 countries. Worldwide, 51,000 credit unions in 100 countries serve 196 million people. Learn more about World Council's impact around the world at www.woccu.org.
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The Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) is saving millions of pieces of paper and as much as $250,000 yearly through an innovative Document Management Solution.
DHS is one of Illinois' largest agencies, with more than 13,000 employees and an annual budget of over $5 billion. In 1997, Illinois merged several agencies together and created DHS to provide our state's residents with streamlined access to integrated services, especially those who are striving to move from welfare to work and economic independence, and others who face multiple challenges to self-sufficiency.
Today, the department serves more than two million Illinoisans and, as you can imagine, that creates a lot of paperwork. Local offices operated by DHS have for some time had major issues with the production and storage of paper-based case files. Often these case files can contain hundreds of pages and number into the thousands of cases within a single office. Compiling, maintaining and storing files have caused extreme space and security issues as well as resulted in less efficient services to customers.
Harris Building, Springfield
In 2010, the agency estimated that nearly 100 million pieces of paper were stored in manila folders, either at the local offices or warehouses throughout the state. The files took up space and the paper-based processes impeded caseworker focus on customers.
Much of the paper produced, printed and maintained in paper-based case files was as a result of the required eligibility verification for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance to Need Families (TANF) and Medicaid. Federal regulation and State rules required extensive verification and validation of many different eligibility criteria and mandate this information be maintained to document customer eligibility.
The volume and retention periods for this information, along with the increasing caseload size within the DHS offices, continued to increase the costly production, storage and maintenance issues.
DHS hallway in Springfield
The solution, as a first phase of the overall agency document management solution, was to develop a system in which the print stream for these documents could be captured, converted to electronic media (PDF) and ingested into a content management system using a predefined metadata set. Local office staff would then be able through a web interface, recall the documents for review and processing.
In cooperation with IBM and Concurrent, DHS developed a system by which the print stream for the documents generated from the Concurrent system are captured and spooled through K Print. K Print identifies the target documents and directs the target documents to be converted to the Content Manager-based repository. Upon ingestion into the repository, an interface with Content Manger on Demand (CMOD) converts the print stream to PDF. The predefined metadata included on the PDF document is then read using the Content Manager (CM) interface and ingested into the document repository. No physical printing of the documents occurs.
Staff then use a specialized CM Webi interface available on their desktop to retrieve the documents for review and processing.
"We had to find a way to integrate the latest technology to capture metadata and store and manage electronic documents and enable ready access to PDFs of those documents on the caseworker desktops," said DHS Chief Information Officer Doug Kasamis.
Today, approximately 2,000 caseworkers use the system. When a customer contacts the agency, a caseworker goes through a series of questions and inputs the responses into a dynamic Concurrent green-screen form Based on the information provided, the system determines program eligibility and automatically generates the appropriate forms. The resulting documentation can be anywhere from seven to 28 pages long.
At this point, the Document Management solution efficiencies begin. The Concurrent system automatically sends out print streams, which previously went to a local office laser printer. Now, the streams are intercepted and sent through IBM® Content Manager software, which assigns metadata and stores the electronic forms in a central repository for later retrieval. Concurrently, IBM® Content Manager OnDemand software converts the form to PDF format. The resulting document is accessible on the case manager's desktop computer in near real time.
Not having to print documents gives caseworkers more time to dedicate to customers. Many caseworkers do not have a printer near their desks. To complete case processing in the past, the caseworkers had to go to the nearest printer, make sure every page was there and printed correctly, come back and incorporate the forms into the case files. If those files were not at the caseworkers' desks, more time was lost searching the file room to find it.
Now, after inputting new customer data, caseworkers pull up completed forms on their computer screens. Time spent retrieving case history documents have gone from minutes to seconds, improving both caseworker productivity and service to our clients.
DuPage Family Community Resource Center (FCRC)
DHS has saved approximately 600,000 pages of printed material per month. Right now DHS is on track to save the state some seven million pieces of paper annually by digitizing three of 27 forms.
In 2010, the cost for printing in local offices on small laser printers was more than $600,000 per month. The projected annual savings with Phase 1 of the new system exceeds $1 million in consumable printer supply costs. Once DHS fully deploys the IBM solution to include the remaining 24 forms, the agency expects that savings to grow to over 12 million pages annually. The system had a payback of 3 months.
"I am proud that we have made a difference that improves productivity, serves people better, helps the environment, AND saves money!"
Michelle R.B. Saddler, DHS Secretary
Cutting down on Storage
DHS expects to digitize the remaining 24 forms in the next 18 months, helping enable a much more efficient workspace at local community offices. After eliminating paper at the front end, the agency will start retiring document file cabinets and warehouse space every year.
From a records retention perspective, we have to store files for five years. Approximately 20 percent of our files are purged annually. Assuming at least 15 percent of that volume will not be replaced with new paper, DHS expects to be almost paperless within the local offices in a little over five years.
This means major reductions in storage and filing costs and problems. Based on recent figures on lease costs per sq ft provided by CMS, current print volume fills approximately 24 five-drawer filing cabinets per day. Floor space lease cost for these cabinets alone is more than USD750,000 annually. In addition, the agency expects to reclaim space and further reduce expenses by phasing out expensive-to-operate printers, copiers, faxes and scanners.
Streamlining records retention and auditing
When DHS staff members had to locate and search through paper files, gathering information for state and federal audits was arduous. Electronic records allow administrative staff members and caseworkers to quickly retrieve case files without undue disruption to normal work.
In addition, purging records will be much easier. It will no longer be necessary to locate each physical case file and determine when each piece of paper in the file was produced. The Document Management solution streamlines document lifecycle management, with automatic alerts to approvers when a form is scheduled to be retired and immediate desktop access to the electronic copy.
The Document Management Solution is just one of the many ways that DHS is being more efficient and effective with the resources we have.
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Need a quick pick-me-up in the morning? How about a donut? Delivered to your car? It is all about acts of kindness and United Way members aren't holding back.
Thursday morning, thousands of free donuts were passed out all over Grand Island in an effort to show kindness and promote others to "pass it on."
Karla Schwieger-Arnold was part of the hand-out in downtown Grand Island. She said, "People are really receptive of recieving donuts in support of United Way. I really believe it has made their day. Our hope is they will go on and do an act of kindness for someone else."
Members say United Way serves nearly 53,000 people throughout the year. 'Acts of Kindness Week' officially beings October 8th.
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"CAVIAR-Sushi, Fish Sticks, Imitation Crab, surimi all use minced Pollock fish which is infested.
NOTE: The following information is correct. There are others attempting to confuse the facts with their theories.
Sushi, Fish Sticks, Imitation Crab, surimi, all use minced (not ground)Pollock fish which is infested. Caviar (fish eggs) used at Sushi stations also infested. Yellow tail is a type of flounder, also infested.
Lox is from farmed salmon. Lox from wild salmon even if sliced thin is infested.
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Alhambra ranked most dangerous city for senior citizen pedestrians
Three times in the past year, Teresa Luckie narrowly avoided being struck by a car on her daily walk around downtown Alhambra. “It’s changed since I’ve been walking here,” the 71-year-old Luckie, who has lived in the city since 1975, said. “You’ve got to walk defensively.” Her neighbor was not so lucky — a car hit him and he ended up in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Supervisor’s office is still offering $20,000 for leads in the December 2009 hit-and-run death of an elderly wheelchair-bound Alhambra man.
Alhambra is the most dangerous city for pedestrian senior citizens out of 104 cities of similar size in California, up from second place the year before, according to 2009 statistics the state Office of Transportation Safety released this month. The actual numbers for Alhambra are 17 pedestrian accidents of which four were fatal, according to the police department. This may be low in comparison to larger cities, but it worries transportation and planning advocates, the Office of Safety and Transportation, and the Alhambra Police Department.
“It is significant. We realized that three years ago — we have a high pedestrian accident level here in this city,” Alhambra Police Department Captain Debbie Santana said. “The alarming part is why the elderly are at such a higher risk.” For overall pedestrian accidents the city ranked sixteenth and for children under the age of 15 it ranked fifty-fifth in 2009.
Santana said that when the police department became aware of the problem they began researching the causes, including cultural differences among its large immigrant population or a particularly physically active senior citizen population. But no specific indicating factor was found.
A particularly dangerous area for pedestrians, according to the police department, is Valley Boulevard between Garfield and Almansor, an area with many businesses and large thoroughfares. “When we have big, wide corridors such as Valley Boulevard, regardless of the speed limit, people tend to ignore the speed limit and go whatever speed feels comfortable,” said Rhianna Babka, a network coordinator at California Walks, a non-profit organization that focuses on pedestrian safety for children and senior citizens.
Other cities in the area with similar traffic patterns also tend to have high rates of senior citizen pedestrian injuries. Monterey Park ranked fifth out of 104 cities, and San Gabriel, which is in a different size category, ranked fourth out of 98.
Last year, California Walks worked with residents of Scripps Kensington senior housing on Valley Boulevard to address their transportation concerns. “The pedestrian crossing light isn’t on long enough for us to get even halfway across the street,” said Ida Donahue, 82, a former president of the resident council. “These are people with walkers, or scooters, or canes trying to cross Valley which is a four-lane street.” Donahue organized a group of residents to address City Council last fall. As a result, Captain Santana said that the light is now extended to give pedestrians more time to cross, but Donahue said she has not noticed a difference.
James Rojas, an Alhambra resident and urban planner, said he also had his own recent brushes with death on Main Street. “I thought to myself this can’t be happening. This driver clearly sees me. I am right in front of them,” he wrote in a post titled “Perils of walking in Alhambra, My near death experience!” in LA.Streetsblog. “Luckily the van was driving slowly so I was able to stop the van with my hand. The impact of stopping this machine set my adrenaline rushing through my body. I started to bang on the driver side window for at least an apology for her attempt on my life. But she just giggled and drove on!”
Rojas said Alhambra, as a flat city on a manageable scale could be an ideal city for runners and joggers, but to do that driver patterns need to change. “If you want to build a sustainable community, you have to think about pedestrian safety,” said Rojas, a former transit planner for Metro. “The city really needs to do more education, and make streets more multimodal for people to walk and bike.”
Captain Santana said that despite limited resources the police department has been proactive in addressing pedestrian safety with efforts to educate school children, stationing officers in thoroughfares where there have been speeding problems with instructions to educate drivers on the importance to yield the right of way to pedestrians, and asking the 18 school crossing guards to also help seniors.
Santana said these enforcement and education efforts appear to be helping. According to unofficial numbers, she said injuries and fatalities among seniors were down to 10 last year.
But Santana said the Alhambra Police Department suffers from budget cuts and a shortage of officers who speak Chinese. Its traffic bureau consists of a sergeant and four officers. That is twice the number of officers it had in 2008, but a significant drop in officers since when Santana joined the force in 1986. None of the officers speaks Mandarin or Cantonese.
The department applied for a $177,000 grant from the Office of Transportation and Safety last year that would have included money for traffic and pedestrian safety enforcement efforts and education, but did not get the funds. Chris Cochran, a spokesman for the California Office of Traffic Safety, said that most of the money would have gone to addressing drunk-driving problems and there “was not a very large pedestrian proponent especially for enforcement.” In particular, he said, that OTS noted that “one element was for under-aged drinking when in Alhambra in 2008 there was only one injury for DUI under-aged drinking.” Cochran encouraged the city to reapply during a new round of funding in February.
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The Berkeley City Council will consider recommending an analysis on an ordinance that would give landlords in Berkeley the power to ban smoking in their tenancies.
The recommendation, proposed by Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Max Anderson and set to come up at the council’s meeting Tuesday, asks the city’s Community Health Commission and Rent Stabilization Board to analyze the possibility of crafting a smoke free housing ordinance similar to California Senate Bill 332, which went into effect Jan. 1and which gives landlords the right to make their rental properties smoke free.
According to Worthington, if enacted, the Berkeley ordinance would supplement SB 332 in a more Berkeley-specific manner, particularly in relation to older generations.
“People in Berkeley want to make sure that…. we be careful not to cause a lot of problems for elderly tenants who may have smoked all their lives,” Worthington said. “We want to implement it thoughtfully.”
Previous discussion for the smoke-free housing ordinance focused on either a complete ban on smoking for all new tenancies or a ban that would provide a small fraction of tenancies where smoking would be allowed, according to Rent Stabilization Board Executive Director Jay Kelekian.
“A quarter of the housing stock turns over ever year,” said Kelekian. “The process would go relatively quickly.”
Worthington said he hopes the momentum from SB 332’s passage will reignite the push for the city’s smoke-free ordinance.“The Rent Board and Commission have talked about [the ordinance] in previous years but it got stuck,” Worthington said. “I’m hoping to get it unstuck to renew the dialogue.”
The recommendation for the ordinance cites a report from the American Lung Association which assigned Berkeley a ‘D’ for its smoke-free housing options. The ALA assigned the city an overall grade of ‘B’ on its tobacco control policies according to the recommendation.
Councilmember Jesse Arreguin stressed the importance of reducing smoking but said the ordinance would need to be written in a way that would not result in unfair evictions.
“We can craft a law which does restrict smoking and does not create avenues for landlords to unfairly evict tenants,” Arreguin said.
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When making complaints in writing, carefully review your email or letter before sending it. Remove any words that are vulgar or profane. Don't make sweeping accusations: "Your agency is a waste."
Don't attribute motives to people you've had problems with, such as: "The postal clerk refused to help me because he's a drunk." If the person actually appeared to be drunk, then be precise in your description: "As he leaned over the counter I could smell beer on his breath. Behind him, in a waste basket, I saw an empty bottle of Coors beer."
Show how the failure of the official to address your problem reflects badly on the company or agency: "This is not the level of service your ads would lead potential customers to expect."
If necessary, note any regulatory agencies that can make life rough for the company or agency if your complaint isn't resolved. For the phone company, for example, cite the FCC or the PUC. But do this only after you have stated you hope your complaint can be settled amicably and privately within the company.
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A man in St. Louis dropped off his computer for repair at the area Best Buy, but apparently forgot that he was also using it as a bank. “Employees at a Best Buy store in South County discovered about $10,000 cash inside,” writes the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
According to the article, the employees called the police, “who ran a background check on the owner and checked the serial numbers on the bills stashed inside the tower.” Nothing suspicious turned up, so they returned the money.
What kind of person stashes his savings in his computer tower and then forgets about it? The same kind who takes his computer to Best Buy for repair. Hooray! We were wondering how to spin this into something snarky and we managed to do it!
Pete, who sent us the tip, notes that there’s an important lesson here: “Before you take your computer in for repairs, please remove your money.”
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TOP SECRET ANIMAL ATTACK FILES
Special Report filed by AAF Correspondent: Scott Tingley
Great Books about ANIMAL ATTACKS:
|Kangaroo terrorizes Australian
family during three-hour rampage
Wenesday, September 13, 2000
SYDNEY (AP) - A Kangaroo terrorized a family in a northern Australian town for three hours after smashing through their glass front door in the middle of the night, police said Wednesday.
Five children were sleeping in the house in Jabiru, a mining town 200 kilometres west of the Northern Territory capital of Darwin, when the 1.7-metre-tall animal crashed in shortly after midnight, injuring itself.
The children's mother, Lisa Miller, called police.
"There was blood and broken glass everywhere, blood all over the child's bed and up the walls," said Constable Alistair Taylor, one of two officers who came to the scene. Taylor and his partner, Constable Tim Perry, spent two hours trying to coax the crazed and wounded animal out of the house with a curtain rod and a rake.
The ordeal ended when police roped the animal and hustled it into a police car. The kangaroo was put down.
© The Canadian Press, 2000
Tell a Friend about the Animal Attack Files
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2.00 Definition of TermsWhether a fan likes or loathes the play is irrelevant. It appears that what Slappy did is in violation of the rule, but I guess the meaning of "confuses" is up to the umpire.
(a) Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with, obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play. If the umpire declares the batter, batter-runner, or a runner out for interference, all other runners shall return to the last base that was in the judgment of the umpire, legally touched at the time of the interference, unless otherwise provided by these rules.
June 1, 2007
MLB Rules -- 2.00 -- "Interference"
The Globe, among many others, are asking whether Alex Rodriguez's Hah!/Mine! shout was "bush league or brilliant", yet they are not looking at the rule book.
by allan at 3:20 PM
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The notion of a “generation gap” is not new. It was well established in the 1960’s when I was in my youth. Back then it seemed the younger generation was intent on separating itself from all that had gone before. Youth were determined to be free from constraints and expectations put on them by their parents.
Wearing jeans, having long hair and listening to rock music were signs of rebellion by youth, who did so against the wishes of their parents, to prove that the youth could make their own way and not be subverted by parental expectations.
We had the sense back then that prior to our time things had continued with greater continuity from one generation to the next. It seemed to us that a revolution was underway and that children were cutting themselves off from their parents more seriously than ever before.
I don’t know that the perception was completely accurate. But it is easy to believe that a process of increasing separation from previous generations was underway.
Today, however, that sense of disconnect from the previous generation is more acute than ever. We now speak not of the young versus the old, but of there being multiple different cultures in increasingly narrow age bands.
The “baby-boomers”, which accounts for my generation, were different to the “veterans” who went before them, and are quite apart from the Gen X’ers who followed. But while both boomers and X’ers are on the scene Gen Y is already upon us. Supposedly the gap between Gen X and Gen Y is as great as between the Gen X and the boomers. To top it off today’s youngsters are now dubbed Generation Z, or digital natives, who are expected to have yet a different set of values to Generation Y.
It seems that a process of cultural disconnect is accelerating and what may once have been a generation gap is now becoming a gap of multiple generations.
An Anointing Is Needed
With that background take a moment to reflect on the last verses of the Old Testament, in Malachi 4:5,6.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:5,6
A prophetic anointing has been promised by God to do what might today seem impossible: to turn the hearts of parents and children toward each other.
So there is an anointing which God provides that is able to do just that, despite how much more difficult it might seem in today’s situation.
Don’t Be Fooled by Labels
While it may seem intriguing to think of today’s kids as different from youth a hundred years ago don’t be too hasty to swallow the idea.
Remember that God created man thousands of years ago and the heart of man has remained the same ever since. Man’s heart is evil and deceptive, sold under sin. Man is readily seduced by worldly values, especially those that appeal to self gratification, appease our sense of value and feed our pride (the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life – 1John 2:16).
Men, women and youth were categorised by King Solomon, in the height of his benchmark wisdom, into a few basic distinctions, including fools, wise, evil, angry, and so on.
All the labels in the world, created by worldly observers, may trick you into thinking that there is a real and tangible gulf that should exist between you and those of different generations. Yet mankind has not changed. Evil people are still evil people. Fools are still fools. Godly are still godly. And so on.
And people of vast age differences have always been able to relate, despite man’s tendency to be selfish, rebellious and foolish.
Notice that the intergenerational connection promised in Malachi is not one of mind, interests, fashion, joint ventures, playing on the same team, or the like. It is all about the heart. The heart is the heart of the matter.
God, by His Spirit, is ready to create a heart connection between the generations. It is about the heart and a heart bond. It is about compassion, respect, care, bonding, love and relationship.
People of different professions, different ages, different political persuasions, with different tastes, abilities and interests, can love one another and care for one another. That is readily obvious when we see parents care for children who have chosen a vastly different life direction to that which the parent wishes for them.
So God has an anointing which will turn the hearts of the parents toward those children who now seem so hard to understand and so difficult to relate to. And God has an anointing which will turn the heart of those children toward those parents who seem to them to be so out of touch, irrelevant, overbearing, or otherwise disconnected to them.
Don’t Lose Heart
If generational barriers have invaded your home or put a gulf between you and others, don’t lose heart. All is not lost. This is not something that has to be. God has an anointing that will bridge the supposed gaps and turn the hearts toward one another.
If you are struggling with generational gaps let me suggest a prayer for you to offer to the Lord.
“Lord God, You know that my heart is not perfect before You. I am susceptible to the same things that distract others. So I don’t come to You because I deserve anything, but I come to You asking for grace and mercy on me and my family. I ask You to turn my heart toward my children and those around me who I am distanced from. And I ask You to turn their hearts toward me. Give us Your grace so we can love, accept and forgive one another. Turn each of us toward You, so we each come closer to each other. Give me such a heart of compassion that I overlook and even hide a multitude of sins, rather than reacting to them and letting them pollute my heart.
Please send Your anointing into me and my family, and bring about a healing. Remove all the offences, injuries, resentments, distrust, shame, pride, selfishness and other rubbish that has polluted our home and our relationships. And please glorify Yourself in my family. Cause Your name to be exalted by what others see that You have done in me and for me, and in my family. Be glorified by acting gloriously in my situation. I ask this in the lovely and powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
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Hearings begin on assisted death bill
By DAVE GRAM
THE Associated Press | January 30,2013
MONTPELIER — Vermont lawmakers considering legislation that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their own lives heard Tuesday from former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, who said her brother’s death last month only strengthened her belief that a dying patient’s wishes must be paramount.
Kunin, a longtime supporter for assisted suicide legislation, told a state Senate committee that she watched former state Sen. Edgar May slowly slip away last month.
“I was there at his bedside for almost two weeks,” Kunin said. “He told me had made a decision, and he said the words, ‘I want to die.’”
The 83-year-old May “made his wishes very, very clear to the physician” at the Veterans Administration hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where he died, Kunin said.
The remarks of the former governor, who served three two-year terms from 1985 to 1990, came as the Senate Health and Welfare Committee began four days of scheduled hearings on legislation dubbed “death with dignity” by its supporters and “physician-assisted suicide” by its opponents.
Oregon has had such a law in place since 1997, Washington state since 2008. Officials and advocates involved in implementing Oregon’s law were among those scheduled to testify to Vermont lawmakers this week.
On Tuesday evening, more than 200 people packed the House chamber — the largest room in the Statehouse — to argue both for and against the measure.
Guy Page, of Barre, told of a son who is now in his 20s but had been emotionally disturbed and considered suicide as a teenager. Teachers and counselors had told him not even to consider that an option. Then he saw a debate about assisted death legislation.
Page told lawmakers his son called the assisted suicide idea hypocritical, saying he was told death was “never an option” but apparently fine for others.
“I saw the fear in my son’s eyes. I saw how the double standard shook him,” Page said. He urged lawmakers, “Give the Tim Pages of today and tomorrow no reason whatsoever to consider suicide.”
Others spoke of friends and loved ones who experienced prolonged suffering as they died.
Judy Murphy of Bennington described sitting with one terminally ill friend. “She ended her life by starving herself,” she said, adding that it took eight days. “She should have had the choice of death with dignity.”
The bill would allow patients given six months or less to live by at least two doctors to declare their wish to die three times — once in writing — during a 15-day period and then be given a prescription for a lethal dose of barbiturates, which the patient would go home to take.
Sen. Claire Ayer, D-Addison and chairwoman of the Health and Welfare Committee, said she expected to have her committee approve the bill by Friday. From there, it is slated to go the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has already agreed to allow it to get to the Senate floor, but may do so with a recommendation that the full Senate vote against it.
The measure is drawing intense lobbying on both sides, with the group Patient Choices Vermont working for its passage and groups ranging from the Vermont Medical Society to disability-rights organizations opposing it.
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That was a very interesting article! (I hope I'm allowed to post even though this is kind of old. ) I noticed this a long time ago, and with other people's dogs. I work with the trainers at the local shelter a lot and people would come up and say "I exercised him so much, why is he still crazy?"
With Dakota and Alice (More so Dakota, Alice is at the beginning stages.) I have them work for their reward (Throwing the ball, tug, flirt pole, etc) and during play. I'll throw the ball for Dakota and say "Platz!" in the middle on his chase, he downs, "Yes!" he gets the ball and comes back doing his funny happy run that he always does when he does something right. I'll make him heel for a tug, I used his tug to teach him to out on his tug.
I noticed, even in doing a lot of stuff like that I was lacking eye contact/focus. So I started having him give me eye contact for almost everything. When waiting for food in the morning, before I throw the frisbee, before I tug.
When we bike, I have different commands for speed up, slow down, left, right, move over, and when we stop to cross a road I taught him to automatically go to my side and sit until I say "okay" and we move forward.
And I have to say, when they said "Dogs are born to save energy" I couldn't help but think "Have you met a working Malinois?"
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Deflationary Depression in America: The Double Dip Economic RecessionEconomics / Deflation Jun 08, 2011 - 07:33 AM GMT
Wall Street seems to believe the waning recovery in the economy is only temporary and that further recovery is on the way. Such thinking can get you in serious trouble, unless QE3, or its equivalent, is on the way. It is on the way, as we pointed out 13 months ago. The economy cannot live and survive without it otherwise we could be looking at a minus 5% GDP for openers. Incidentally, there are those that believe that unemployment already is as bad as it was during the “Great Depression” years of thep930s. They may be correct, but we believe it was much higher than today’s 22.4% level. If government hadn’t created food stamps, Medicaid, extended unemployment benefits and other benefits, perhaps we could be close to 1930’s levels.
The first quarter of 2011 saw GDP gain 1.8% as a result of at least $1.8 trillion in spending by the Fed and by government. If the economy grows 2% in the second quarter that would be substantial. The big question is what will the last half of the year be like? Government is cutting back, so we cannot expect stimulus 3. That means the Fed has to create $1.6 trillion to purchase Treasury and Agency bonds, notes and bills, because presently only about 20% is being purchased by others. Assumably the Fed will again accomplish that, but what about the remainder of the economy? If the GDP growth rate is to maintain say at plus 1% to 2%, the Fed will have to create money and credit for the economy of an additional $850 billion. Without that the economy would slide to a minus 5% GDP. The flipside is that if the Fed were to perform these feats what would inflation be? John Williams tells us inflation, using previous standards, is 10.2%. Last May 2010 we predicted real inflation by the end of 2011 of 14%. That could turn out to be conservative. That projection was based on the results of QE1 and stimulus 1. Next year we will see inflation caused by QE2 and stimulus 2, which we believe could carry inflation to 25% to 30%, if official interest rates remain the same and we believe they will do just that at the Fed. If we get a version of QE3 for about $2.5 trillion then we believe inflation could rise to 50% creating hyperinflation in 2013. Of course, no one knows for sure what the Fed will do, but this is a likely scenario. If these events do not unfold as presented the economy will spiral into the worst depression in modern history. It is as simple as that. If we get QE3 what can the Fed do for an encore? We won’t attempt an answer for that now, but the prospects are certainly frightening.
All of the insiders who create the inside information, own the Fed, or are connected to those who own the Fed, know exactly what is going on. These are the people who make all the decisions. How do you think the market rallies upward when it should be going down? They know there will be a QE3, because these insiders are making those decisions, and say the market, bonds and the economy are dependent on massive amounts of money and credit is a vast understatement. These elitists tell us the slowdown in economic growth is just temporary. That is true, they know, they planned it that way, although growth will only be 1% to 2%, even with additional spending of $2.5 trillion. If we are correct that means a Fed balance sheet of $5.5 trillion plus. This time if QE3 did not develop the stock market could fall 20% to 30%. That means from the top of 11,800 we could see 9,400 to 8,300. The market is the last visage of wealth along with bonds. If it falls it could send everything tumbling. It should also be noted that this recent so-called recovery has been weakest since WWII, or for 65 years.
If there is to be QE3 it had best be implemented immediately. Recent data shows a struggling job market with unemployment, again headed higher. As a result of this and climbing inflation, people are buying gold and silver related assets. Sales of American Silver Eagle coins reached almost 19 million ounces in the first five months of the year, the highest since 1986. This is not surprising considering initial unemployment claims just won’t fall below 400,000 and only 38,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in May. Most all indexes are pointed downward as production and retail slow. In addition the housing index is at its lowest since 2003, as housing prices continue to plunge 3.6% in the 20 largest US cities in March year-on-year. Countrywide prices fell 5.1%. These are 2002 prices. This continual real estate wipeout has people who have been foreclosed on and some who sold to get what equity out of their homes that they had left. That means more renters and higher rents, which means the CPI inflation index should start heading upward. If you throw in higher food and gas prices it gets very expensive. As this transpires the dollar falls versus other currencies and gold and silver. Consumer confidence is dreadful.
The payroll data from last week was nothing short of awful. On the U3 we are back up to 9.1%. The increase in non-farm payrolls was the worst in nine months. Manufacturing lost another 5,000 jobs in May, as free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing did its nasty work. Congress does absolutely nothing to stop the carnage by imposing tariffs on goods and services. In 11 years we have lost 11 million good paying jobs, and 445,000 companies, all of which can keep their profits offshore tax-free. Everyone in Congress is aware of what is going on, but not one member has proposed legislation to put a stop to this tragedy that is destroying America. That is what happens when you have campaign contributions and lobbying. It ends up with 95% of both chamber members being bought and paid for. We are losing more than one million jobs a year and about 240,000 jobs have been created. The other million went to some foreign country. Over 11 years manufacturing has lost some 7 million jobs. As you can see, service job losses are catching up. Can you imagine what these figures would look like without the $4.2 trillion spent on QE1 & QE2, and stimulus 1 & 2? Unfortunately, all this money has been spent to bailout the financial sector and government, and little has been added to wealth-producing infrastructure. All government and the Fed have done is create an inflationary bubble that in due time will collapse. It can end up no other way.
Optimism is waning and rightly so. Has anyone stopped to think where we would be without all this artificial stimulus and that it can last indefinitely unless, of course, people desire hyperinflation? As the dollar remains weak in the USDX, exports rise, which is a Punic victory. That same weak dollar reflects 10.2% inflation, hardly an equitable trade-off. No matter how much money is thrown at the problem it is protracted and any real possible recovery will be a difficult process. We do not believe there can be any kind of lasting recovery without a purging of the system, which would result in massive bankruptcies and a deflationary depression. We just completed a radio discussion on the air at Northeastern University. All present wanted solutions for jobs and recovery, but none understood that in order for that to happen and be lasting the system has to be purged first. No one simply wants to accept this. This is why we have these stimulus programs – to put off the inevitable. This could have been accomplished in 1990-1992, and again in 2001 to 2003, but adjustment never happened. Wall Street and banking befouled by greed and the quest for world government, bypassed these simple solutions.
Yes, we are already into double dip and if the Fed doesn’t act quickly and continue into QE3 and add $850 billion into the economy we will be looking at big minuses in GDP and fast rising unemployment. In order to explain this result government and Wall Street euphemistically call this a soft patch. Obviously malinvestment and speculation continue unabated and will so as long as the creation of money and credit continues. We guess eventually everyone practically will work for the federal government or subsist on their handouts. How can the Fed and government spend at least $4.2 trillion and get such dreadful results? It is easy; just take care of the financial sector and government, and let the economy and job creation swing in the breeze.
In respect to all this, the Fed and government are silent – no response, as Wall Street, banking and government, in their own particular ways, suck the lifeblood out of the system.
Washington and Wall Street are bastions of systemic excesses. Americans are getting what they asked for. They allowed their Congressmen to become prostitutes for big business and they have allowed the Fed, banking and Wall Street to run amok and in that process to destroy the economy. Profligacy is everywhere, but few seem to care. That has left us in supreme vulnerability and falling confidence as a people and as a nation. Ignoring the problems does not make them go away. There is bias all over the mainline media, which tells us everything is going to be ok, when it isn’t going to be ok. Just ask the long-term unemployed, which stretch back to 1990. We are in trouble and it is time we recognized that.
As we have said repeatedly, quantitative easing, the creation of money and credit, and the stimulus plans, as policies have been a failure, as have zero interest rates. We believe QE3 will be implemented, but as you have seen effectiveness is on the wane and QE3 could be the end of the road.
We wonder if research departments at the big banks and brokerage houses understand that unemployment is 22.4%, that without the birth/death model, about 152,000 jobs were lost in May and that the government is lying, again? These analysts and economists cannot be that dumb. We have been writing about these bogus figures for 15 years. Whatever Washington needs to create, it does so. For those who were unaware, that struggling food purveyor McDonald’s received billions in TARP funds and we have no explanation as to why. This is one of the most successful corporations in the history of the world. It just so happens that McDonald’s added 62,000 new jobs in May, which made up a good part of newly created jobs. This indicates to us cooking the numbers and leads us to believe there will be more severe unemployment problems in the near future. That means, coupled with the falling GDP growth figures, that QE3 has to become reality, or the economy will fall into deflationary depression and there will be a massive liquidation of bad debt and bankruptcies as far as the eye can see. That will include many major banks and brokerage houses worldwide. It will be a sight to behold. This is why you have no more than three month’s operating expenses on deposit at the bank, and no CDs. The government doesn’t have money to cover the FDIC insurance and as a result they will have to print it exacerbating inflation. The general stock market will head downward with the exception of gold and silver shares, which will appreciate as they did in the 1930s and late 1970s. If the market falls to Dow 3,000 all the value in pension funds, cash value life insurance policies and annuities will fall as well. Get out of these investment vehicles now while you still can and switch to gold and silver shares, coins and bullion. For those of you who do not understand, this is what happens in a depression. The only place that is safe is in gold and silver related assets.
Government tells us inflation is 2% when it is 10.2%. Food and gas prices have increased over the past almost two years by more than 50%. Inflation as we predicted in May 2010 will be 14% by the end of the year, and the result of QE2 will put inflation close to 30% by the end of 2012. If more than $2 trillion is spent on QE3 inflation will probably be 50% in 2013, or hyperinflation. Prices for almost everything are higher and they’ll get higher yet. Inflation is 15% in China and wages are rising. That means export prices to the US and Europe are going to increase as well.
The Fed has to continue to create money and credit out of thin air to fund the needs of the US Treasury. China and Japan have been sellers and will continue to be. Between the two they have about $2 trillion in US bills, notes and bonds. What part of that the Fed will have to buy remains to be seen, but it has to be recognized as an overhang on the market. Japan’s problems will force it to sell $200 billion to $500 billion worth of US Treasuries to fund their nuclear cleanup. Our guess is that conservatively the Fed will have to buy some $500 billion in Treasuries over the next year from China and Japan alone, plus 80% of what the Treasury has to issue. The supply of money and credit will go through the roof as it has for the past three years.
We see Congress arguing about the cash debt extension. As we expressed earlier the legislation will probably be passed and we see little in the way of meaningful cuts. Any cuts that come will come in the form of cuts in proposed budget increases. Cutting Social Security and Medicare are still out of the question, although Medicaid, food stamps and extended unemployment benefits could be cut. We find it laughable that they continue to increase defense spending at the same time. People paid for Social Security and Medicare, so they should not be cut. All the other programs should be cut.
The actions dealt with above will all contribute to the collapse of the dollar not only versus other currencies, but also more importantly versus gold and silver. If you do not understand the foregoing and do not act now, you won’t financially survive. This is going to be one nasty affair and you have to be prepared.
Global Research Articles by Bob Chapman
© Copyright Bob Chapman , Global Research, 2011
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.
© 2005-2013 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
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Code Overload Part 2 – Technological Wizards (A continuation of Part 1, a recent post.)
There is a new class of technological wizards who have gone beyond where anyone thought they could in the pursuit of what each considers the eventual easing of doing what once seemed impossible. These innovators are important, but we should learn to control how we use what they create for the sake of preserving the once important individual. Understand that when I say individual, I mean a person true to who they are, rather than a person who wants to take over the world because he/she believes they will make the world a better place. I think of the individual in context as part of the whole but not wanting to dominate or control the world.
Where are we now and why this essay? The problem is that technocrats bear gifts that are very heady and difficult to ignore. Almost no one has the strength to turn away from them or turn them away. Some recent advances in the use of computers and code writing caught my eye. They have not been as widely reported, as they should have been. They worry me because they are extreme. Programmers in a hurry to create something new, now go where at one time we and maybe even they thought were places where no one could ever tread. It means the writers of code are winning. But in this uber-technological age in which we live, most people are unaware of what is going on around them. Are they better off living in ignorance? Perhaps. Then again, if they did know what was taking place, could they do anything about it? That answer is easy – probably not.
Drones in war are now a ubiquitous presence. They have a permanent place in warfare. That role will only grow. Drones are destroyers. They cost money but not American or as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, allied, that is NATO lives. However, their use is not perfect. Missing a target is commonplace. More to the point, those killed at a chosen target are sometimes innocent civilians. Intelligence about the target and the instantaneous choice made by a technician is not always the right choice. This is to a degree due to information overload. More simply put, it is the inability of the drone master to properly guide the weapon to a clean kill because – pause – there was too much information to deal with or two many drones to manipulate. Despite live video images transmitted to the command center from the drone itself and often very good intelligence, it has become increasingly difficult for the technician to sort good from bad information. To some extent, this has to do with multi-tasking.
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New Orleans Seven and a half years have ticked off the calendar since Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At this point it is widely conceded, common knowledge, and general consensus that the heart of the destruction of New Orleans came from the “catastrophic structural failure due to pressure bursts” in the words of Ivor van Heerden, who at the time was deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center and a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) at the main Baton Rouge campus.
Van Heerden made it clear publicly that the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers was categorically wrong in saying that the levee breach was due to “overtopping” from the hurricane surge, which they were saying at the time. He went on to say that that along the Industrial Canal that flooded the lower 9th Ward that the breechings “all show plenty evidence of catastrophic structural failure due to bad engineering or bad design or bad construction or bad foundations.” Subsequent studies by various panels of structural engineers from throughout the United States and internationally have established van Heerden’s early analysis to have been accurate.
In classic “kill the messenger” fashion within months LSU muzzled van Heerden by blocking his ability to speak to the press, pushed him out of his Hurricane Center post, and deep-sixed his contract as a professor at the school. LSU also claimed none of this had to do with him nailing the Corps of Engineers for the levee failure or the fact that LSU received grant money from the Corps. Oh, no, they said. Meanwhile van Heerden was standing on the platform of academic freedom and free speech and showing up on the news everywhere. After being busted out of his job at LSU, he filed suit against the university and the state three years ago, all of which was scheduled to go to trial next week in Baton Rouge on February 19th, but suddenly last week a settlement was reached.
Thanks to the Baton Rouge Advocate it is now clear that the settlement was suddenly and magically reached when the judge ordered that hundreds of emails and other documents would not be excluded from evidence. Now that the documents are part of the court record it is now clear that just as van Heerden alleged, LSU officials and state government officials had indeed moved quickly to silence him for his remarks at the breech at the Industrial Canal where hundreds of low income, African-American residents were drowned.
The emails are shocking and their attack on van Heerden was immediately in response to his report putting the responsibility at the feet of the Corps of Engineers. An official of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources the next day had sent a message to Governor Blanco’s assistant for coastal activities and chairwoman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority suggesting that the LSU president be advised to “get his staff under control.” She had then emailed van Heerden’s boss within 26 minutes saying “This is astounding and must be stopped!!” After van Heerden briefed Governor Blanco for several hours on his analysis of the levee failure, the emails indicate his boss still sucking up Ms. Sidney Coffee on the coastal restoration committee, assured her that van Heerden was not part of the LSU team that had helped the Corps “develop the chief engineer’s report. So, he does not represent the wider coastal science and engineering community.” The head of LSU’s Office of Communications and University Relations put a sock in van Heerden’s mouth, but later had to rescind that order when LSU was overwhelmed by media requests, and then when the Times reported that there were on-campus criticism of van Heerden, he wrote the Times claiming there had been no such effort, taking the pattern of lies yet another couple of miles deeper into the hellish hole that LSU and the State of Louisiana had dug around their toadying to protect their measly grant monies from the feds rather than protecting the safety of residents in the 9th Ward of New Orleans or seeing that they would find justice in the future.
LSU and the State seem to have been particularly galled that van Heerden was a showboat. The judge also ordered last week that van Heerden’s personal financial information, including the fact that he owned a $126,000 personal yacht, be allowed in the court record, which van Heerden had opposed. Van Heerden was probably afraid that the jury would award him less money on the case if they were offended about the fact that he had done well on the grandstand even though given the hard backside boot by LSU and Louisiana.
I am confident that he this unreported settlement was a big payday for van Heerden, and clearly it should have been, since LSU and the state were guilty as charged. The venality of relationships between all sorts of institutions, regardless of their claims of mission and principles, and their donors and constant pursuit of funding is so pervasive that it rarely provokes comment anymore. Everyone seems to simply assume that that is the way it is so perhaps that is the way it should be. Disgusting!
There is no one in the 9th Ward of New Orleans who cares whether van Heerden was a showboat or a working barge. Both roll through the Mississippi River in sight of many of the houses throughout the neighborhood on a daily basis. The riverboats blow their whistles on the calliopes on board. No one minds, as long as they sail and don’t sink. Same for this mess. It’s the message that counts, not the messenger. Who cares if van Heerden was rich or poor, a loudmouth self-aggrandizer or a humble public servant? The point should have always been to come to the truth to correct the problem and protect people in the future, and after billions have now been spent on levee protection around New Orleans some small steps have been taken in the right direction. It seems we still have van Heerden to thank for that and not LSU or some of the commissions and agencies and individuals sworn to protect us, and that’s the worst tragedy here and one that no amount of money will resolve.
[More information available on all of this through Social Policy Press and my book, The Battle for the Ninth Ward: ACORN, Rebuilding New Orleans, and the Lessons of Disaster.]
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Geekspeak: May 14, 2001
Smart phones have been growing smarter for some time, blurring the lines between PDAs and handsets. However, even the brainiest of phones have been closed-box deviceswith the exception of a few, more infuriating ring tones, users havent been able to change the application makeup of their phones.
Motorolas i85s cellular phone changes this. Its the first phone available in North America to feature support for applications written with Suns Java 2 Micro Edition.
Out of the box, the phone that I looked at came with a calculator and expense pad applications, as well as a game from Sega. Nextel, one of the service providers marketing the i85s, provides an area on its Web site from which users can download additional applications. Transferring applications to the phone requires a $29.95 data cable, which is available separately.
Nextel sells the i85s for $199 with a service contract. Check out www.nextel.com for more information.
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View Full Version : ASPX File?
I have some census information which I can't open, they are called ASPX Files. Can anyone tell me what program I can open them with please. They have the notebook icon beside them have files with the same title.
.aspx files are usually Active Server Pages and are used to display data on a web server.
Chances are you have the pages which display the data, but not the data itself as that will reside on a server somewhere....
Thank you. That sounds about right as they are census pages sent through to me.
Thank you again
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March 2012. The attendees of our book club’s book discussion voted for the book that we’ll be discussing on July 2012. The nominees were The Color Purple by Alice Walker, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. These three novels have a common denominator: they are winners of literary awards. I’ve been associated with such books by my friends; hence, I was selected to lead the discussion for the winning book. I’ve already read all three, so I voted for the book that I can barely recall, which is To Kill a Mockingbird.
Harper Lee’s only novel lost by one vote to The Remains of the Day. I was annoyed at first because it hasn’t been a year since I first read it, and I dreaded rereading it because the devastation that it wrought upon me is still fresh. It’s like salting a still open wound, and why would anyone do that unless he is a masochist?
Looking back, I am mighty glad that this book won. Rereading it is a bittersweet experience. In fact, it’s the first book that I ever reread. I even listened to it on audio, so going back and forth through it brought a somehow clearer perspective of what Ishiguro was trying to say. I felt that I had a better understanding of the decisions that Mr Stevens, the butler-protagonist, made that led him to waste his life for the sake of his career.
And yet what precisely is this ‘greatness’? Just where, or in what, does it lie? I am quite aware it would take a far wiser head than mine to answer such a question, but if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it. In comparison, the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their unseemly demonstrativeness.
Mr Stevens, the head butler of Darlington Hall, goes on a motoring trip and muses over the key events of his life and his career. He is an uptight, precise, and dignified gentleman who aspires to be one of the great butlers of his generation. He turns over various thoughts on greatness and dignity, and he does so at length that he sometimes finds himself revising and reshaping his own opinions on the matter. For Mr Stevens, dignity is keeping the professional demeanor demanded from a butler at all times. This belief, which is challenged several times as the events from the past are revealed, is what ultimately led him to what he is at the latter stage of his life.
His beliefs on professional decorum are pushed beyond the end of the spectrum that he ends up hiding and not telling anyone at all what he truly feels. An example of this is the conference of March 1923 at Darlington Hall, an event that sought to alleviate the punishment of Germany as stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles. This, for me, is a critical moment in the novel. This is where the wavelength of the drama surges to one of its peaks. I would find it hard to understand if people are hardly moved by the events that took place during this event hosted by our protagonist’s employer, Lord Darlington. It is indisputable that Mr Stevens, like his father, is working hard to becoming the great butler of his own terms. We describe him as serious, hardworking, and dedicated. He is, in various aspects, a professional.
So when his dilemma of duty versus family started to swell, I could feel the devastation lapping again on the surface. I am amazed that the narrative did not display maudlin sentimentality and that is something inherent in an English butler, a person capable of great temperamental restraint.
It is also at this point where the musings on the greatness and dignity of a butler are synthesized. We may not easily approve of Mr Stevens’s choice of action during that night, but we have to understand that he will make that choice no matter what. He will pay for it in the end. He will make more similar choices which will ultimately resign him to the Darlington cage.
Besides, that is who he is: a person self-trained to strive for what he has set for himself upon starting his profession, taking upon himself the necessary strains and sacrifices. But are these real necessities? Is this not a case of misguided notions of greatness and dignity? Isn’t the late unveiling of this disillusionment an irreparable damage to everything that one has held so dear? Isn’t this, the undevelopment of your beliefs, too harsh a reality?
I cannot try to imagine the magnitude of Mr Stevens’s loss and regret without causing a little hurt in my heart. And I have only illustrated one example. There is still the matter with Miss Kenton, the head housekeeper whom he has loved all his life and yet, whom he never gave a single hint of what he felt. As the narration of Mr Stevens unravels, doubts about the character of his employer and his what-if’s regarding the turning points concerning Miss Kenton blight the illusion he built for himself.
And at the end of the day, at the late years of his life, what does he have? There we see all the sadness engulfing Mr Stevens as he finally admits that his heart is breaking. Oh Mr Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?
This novel filled with well-thought metaphors, nostalgic English rhetoric, delicate handling of giant themes, elegant pacing, subtle building of plot, and unforgettable characters, is an almost perfect one.
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The Painted Veil
Written by Nobuhiro Hosoki
Hollywood has already made two stabs at producing Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel "The Painted Veil." This time around, director John Curran's sumptuous adaptation gives us a fresh take on China's oppressive society, and might have crossover appeal as a result. We are reeled into this film through a glamorous party in England, where Kitty (Naomi Watts), a young spoiled debutante, is suffocating under her rigid and rather conservative parents who hold her to the tradition that once she has become a certain age, she must be a proper lady even if she's not yet married.
Fortunately, she is quickly rescued by the bookish bacteriologist Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton), who makes a hasty proposal. In her yearning to escape, she impulsively accepts. The couple move to Shanghai, a blooming city in the 1920s, where she tries to immerse herself into British colonial society. But she soon realizes that she and her husband have nothing in common. As soon as she is introduced to Charlie (Liev Schreiber). the slick and ambitious English consul, she immediately and recklessly takes on an adulterous affair with a married man.
Just when Walter discovers their indiscretion, he offers her a cruel bargain: either accept his divorce or accompany him to a remote inland region that has been ravaged by a cholera outbreak. Kitty soon learns that Charlie finds it too risky to take her in and put his job in jeopardy, so she has no choice to head for the town of Mei-Tan-Fu.
After the couple has been carried in a sedan chair for days, they are finally thrust into the harsh environment of their new place. They barely tolerate each other's company, then become prisoners of wintry isolation there. Walter vigorously throws himself into trying to stem the spread of cholera. Kitty, out of boredom, finds occasional companionship in Waddington (Toby Jones, recently seen as Truman Capote in "Infamous"), the seedy representative of the deputy commissioner.She eventually comes to an appreciation of her husband once she gets involved with a group of French nuns that are helping the local kids in the classroom. Embraced by the Mother Superior (Diana Rigg), who gives a lesson of grace and human dignity, Kitty and Walter slowly find an unexpected, redemptive love in an isolated country under bizarre circumstances.But their happiness doesn't last long.
Director John Curran transports us into a different time and place, depicting a subtle truth about the behavior of infidelity and discord, allowing two of the finest actors to deliver an incisive performance. He has simply turned a depressing story into an oddly hopeful one, accessible to our generation that is not too keen on reading. A luminously beautiful Naomi proves herself again by exhibiting a straightforward but strong performance of a repressed wife who is acting out. Norton approaches his role as a tough-as-nails with character who carries the greatness of humanity in the core of his heart. Director of photography Stuart Dryburgh takes advantage of actual locations, capturing the beauty of the Chinese countryside. This film demonstrates that life's lessons of spiritual emptiness can be mortal to our lives.
Directed by John Curran
written by Ron Nyswaner
Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham
Director of photography:Stuart Dryburgh
Edited by Alexandre de Franceschi
Music by Alexandre Desplat
Production designer:Tu Juhua
Produced by Sara Colleton, Jean-François Fonlupt,
Bob Yari, Edward Norton and Naomi Watts
Released by Warner Independent Pictures.
Running time: 125 minutes.
Cast: Naomi Watts (Kitty Fane)
Edward Norton (Walter Fane)
Liev Schreiber (Charlie Townsend)
Toby Jones (Waddington),
and Diana Rigg (Mother Superior).
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Mexican Cook's Tools
It is essential to have the proper tools in your kitchen when it comes to Mexican meals, besides giving your kitchen an authentic Mexican look. It is vital to have the right ingredients and tools with which to shape and cook them. Cooking utensils have evolved over centuries and with the combination of modern technology, has given people the best of both worlds: modern and past.
MexGrocer.com proudly brings the best high quality Mexican Cooking Tools right to your kitchen, our goal is to make your cooking easy, fun and safe.
Listed below is some of the authentic Mexican Cooking Equipment you’ll find at MexGrocer.com.
Vitrolero de Plastico – This large plastic water container is ideal for containing the traditional aguas frescas (fresh fruit juice beverages) such as horchata, lemonade, hibiscus water (Jamaica), tamarindo and other fruit flavors. Our plastic vitroleros hold about 5.25 gallons of water. These plastic containers are perfect for parties and restaurants, so you can serve your favorite fruit drinks with style.
Molinillo – There are a variety of ways to prepare and drink chocolate in Mexico, as well as numerous brands that provide the most exquisite chocolate products, such as Abuelita, Ibarra, Don Gustavo and many others. Most commonly, hot chocolate is drunk in a cup with a thick layer of foam. This is a tradition that was inherited to Mexico by the Aztecs and Spaniards. The natives created the foam by pouring chocolate from one cup to another, until the creation of the Molinillo during Colonial times in the 1700s. A Molinillo is made from a single piece of turned wood; that is rotated between two hands; the twisting motion froths the chocolate and creates the foam. Our Molinillos from La Mexicana are excellent tools to make traditional drinks such as atole, champurrado and hot chocolate.
Raspador de Hielo – Is a metallic block ice shaver that is designed to produce soft snow from ice cubes and ice blocks. It is ideal for you to create your favorite slushies, serbets, snow cones and even a delicious chamoyada.
Masher – This simple stainless steel and nylon utensil from La Mexicana is ideal for mashing or crushing refried beans, boiled potatos, vegetables and fruits.
Lime / Lemon Squeezer – Make squeezing lemons and limes a much simpler task with our aluminum lemon and lime squeezers, that are light weight and very easy to use. They are coated in green, yellow or orange to avoid rust, and come in a variety of sizes to suit your needs.
Ladles and Wooden Spoons are essential tools for any kitchen especially for Mexican and Cajun cooking. Wooden spoons are ideal for mixing and serving food. A ladle scoop can be used either to serve aguas frescas from plastic containers (vitroleros) or a variety of soups and beverages. It’s a great utensil to use for Mexican or Cajun dishes (gumbo, jambalaya, etc).
CINSA has a variety of useful and durable kitchen products that are vital for any Mexican cook: enamel cups, spoons and saucepans.
If you want to teach your kids the art of cooking we offer our Curious Chef products that are 8 piece sets for either cutlery or fruit & vegetables. These sets will give your children the chance to help you and learn how to prepare any meal safely. You can work side by side with your kids, as they help you slice, dice, chop and cut all types of food.
Other great cooking tools you’ll find at MexGrocer.com are: Corn Mill, Clean Beanz (cleans beans easily and removes debris with no mess), wooden rolling pin, citrus blaster fruit injector and squeezer, casserole dishes, fiber sponges, salsa bowls and much more.
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Virginia Garcia-Kaiser Permanente Partnership
What does Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest health care systems in the country have in common with Virginia Garcia, a group of safety net clinics in Washington and Yamhill Counties? As it turns out, quite a lot. “Kaiser and Virginia Garcia share the same core values in our commitment to providing health care to underserved populations,” said Tracy Dannen-Grace, Kaiser’s community benefits manager. “About twenty percent of our members live in Washington County and could be well served by Virginia Garcia.”
For the last decade, Kaiser has provided sponsorship, financial and in-kind support to Virginia Garcia. Grants from Kaiser have supported everything from capacity building, to electronic medical records (EMR), to expanded dental services, to ongoing trainings for Virginia Garcia staff. In 2005, Virginia Garcia received capital monies to help establish the dental clinic in Hillsboro, giving Virginia Garcia the capacity and resources to concentrate on oral health for the first time. Four years ago, when Virginia Garcia began the transition from paper to EMR, Kaiser provided grant money for the purchase of hardware and software for EPIC electronic records. In addition, information technology teams from Kaiser worked shoulder to shoulder with Virginia Garcia providers and staff to help smooth the transition to the new system. Last year Kaiser gave Virginia Garcia a grant for the Oral Health Initiative to introduce dental care at its School-based Health Centers (SBHC). Kaiser has also offered project management and medical team leadership trainings for all Virginia Garcia clinics.
What does Kaiser gain in return? “Virginia Garcia has an innovative model,” said Dannen-Grace. “Virginia Garcia is small enough to be nimble in how they put the medical home into practice. The team–based care combined with ancillary services to meet the needs of the population Virginia Garcia serves is something we can all learn from.” Virginia Garcia’s experience working with people of diverse ethnic backgrounds and the use of community health workers and classes has helped inform Kaiser’s approach to working with similar populations, according to Dannen-Grace.
In fact, Kaiser has formalized an ongoing ‘intellectual exchange’ between the two health care systems. In November, Kaiser and Virginia Garcia brought senior leaders in clinical care, finance, operations and wellness and prevention together to share ideas on best practices. “It was the first time we’ve dedicated one of our community service days to an intellectual exchange,” said Dannen-Grace. “Both organizations found it so beneficial that we’ll probably do it again.”
Kaiser and Virginia Garcia are also partners in a Clinical Quality Improvement program. This three year grant supports the hiring of a full time nurse coordinator to develop a program to help manage diabetes care at each Virginia Garcia primary care site. “Our goal is to develop the best practices and protocol in managing our patients with diabetes,” said Ann Turner, Virginia Garcia’s co-medical director.
One of the most innovative Virginia Garcia projects that Kaiser helped launch is the Oral health Initiative. Beginning in the 2011-2012 school year, Virginia Garcia began providing oral health services to students at the two SBHC at Tigard and Forest Grove High Schools. Each week, a dental hygienist from Virginia Garcia provides oral health screenings, cleanings and sealants for students at each SBHC. “After initial screenings, we bring the Virginia Garcia mobile van equipped with dental chairs and services to the schools to see kids who can’t get to our clinics,” said Lisa Bozzetti, Virginia Garcia’s dental director. “These visits give us the opportunity to educate students about oral health and to look for significant oral health issues that need to be referred to the Virginia Garcia dental clinic. Kaiser provided funds that help us purchase equipment and get the Oral Health Initiative off the ground.”
In March, executives from Kaiser visited the Tigard SBHC to see the Oral Health Initiative in action. A video team shot footage of the mobile dental clinic and interviews with dental care experts from Kaiser and Virginia Garcia. “The northwest is the only region in which Kaiser has a focus on oral health care,” said Dannen-Grace. “The introduction of dental care in the SBHC is ground-breaking and we hope to bring national attention to this program.”
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May 4, 2010 > Lord Sainath adorns the throne
Lord Sainath adorns the throne
Submitted By Deepak Chhabra
Fremont Hindu Temple cordially invites all devotees for the auspicious event of Shirdi Sai Baba Pran Pratishta (installation of dieties). A grand five-day event with several religious and vedic ceremonies will be conducted by priests from all over the world. Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 devotees are expected to visit temple. The vibrant idol of Lord Sainath, a very popular saint who is worshipped by people around the world, will adorn the throne, lovingly glancing at the blessed visitors.
Sai Baba of Shirdi, also known as Shirdi Sai Baba, was an Indian guru and yogi who is regarded by his followers as a saint. There are many stories and eyewitness accounts of miracles he performed. He is a well-known figure in many parts of the world, but especially in India, where he is much revered.
Kumbhabhishekam ('Kumbha' means the head and denotes the crown of the Temple). On the appointed day and auspicious time, the 'Kumbha' will be bathed by holy waters. Havans or rituals, especially prevalent in Vedic times, in which ghee, grains, spices and exotic woods will be offered into the fire according to scriptural injunctions while special mantras are chanted. There will be another festival celebration starting Friday, May 21 to Sunday, May 23 May is also a mela in Temple, with booths from various vendors selling different merchandise. Those interested in having a booth please contact Deepak Chhabra at (510) 299-9771 or via e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Shirdi Sai Baba Pran Prathishta and Maha Kumbabhisheka
Wednesday, May 19 - Sunday, May 23
3676 Delaware Drive, Fremont
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TrendingLondon attack | Tim Bosma | Rob Ford | Mike Duffy | Xbox One | NHL Playoffs | Lotto 6/49 results | Andrew Coyne | Christie Blatchford | Oklahoma | Trudeau | Bieber | Mulcair | Jays | North Korea
Why is the Turkish government acting so aggressively against Syria’s Assad regime?
Perhaps Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes that lobbing artillery shells into Syria will help bring a satellite government to power in Damascus. Maybe he expects that sending a Turkish war plane into Syrian air space or forcing down a Syrian civilian plane en route from Russia will win him favour in the West and bring in NATO. Conceivably, it’s all a grand diversion from imminent economic crisis due to borrowing too much.
Erdogan’s actions fit into a context going back a half century. During the Cold War, Ankara stood with Washington as a member of NATO even as Damascus served as Moscow’s Cuba of the Middle East, an arch-reliable client state. Bad Turkish-Syrian relations also had local sources, including a border dispute, disagreement over water resources and Syrian backing of the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group. The two states reached the brink of war in 1998, until the Assad government’s timely capitulation averted armed conflict.
A new era began in November 2002 when Erdogan’s AKP, a clever Islamist party that avoids terrorism or rants about a global caliphate, replaced the center-right and -left parties that long had dominated Ankara. Governing competently and overseeing an unprecedented economic boom, the AKP’s share of the electorate grew from one-third in 2002 to one-half in 2011. It was on track to achieving Erdogan’s presumed goal of undoing Atatürk’s secularist revolution and bringing Sharia to Turkey.
Feeling its oats, the AKP abandoned Washington’s protective umbrella and struck out on an independent neo-Ottoman course, aiming to be a regional power as in centuries past. With regard to Syria, this meant ending decades-old hostilities and winning influence through good trade and other relations, symbolized by joint military exercises, Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad vacationing together and a bevy of their ministers literally raising the barrier that had obstructed their mutual border.
Starting in January 2011, these plans unraveled, as the Syrian people woke from 40 years of Assad despotism and agitated, at first non-violently, then violently, for the overthrow of their tyrant.
Erdogan initially offered constructive political advice to Bashar al-Assad, which the latter rebuffed in favour of violent repression. In response, the Sunni Erdogan emotionally denounced the Alawi Assad and began assisting the largely Sunni rebel force in Syria. As the conflict became more ruthless, sectarian and Islamist, effectively becoming a Sunni-Alawi civil war, with 30,000 dead, many times that injured, and even more displaced, Turkish refuge and aid became indispensible to the rebels.
What initially seemed like a masterstroke has turned into Erdogan’s first major misstep. The outlandish conspiracy theories he had used to jail and cow his own military leadership left him with a less-than-effective fighting force. Unwelcome Syrian refugees crowded into Turkish border towns and beyond.
Turks overwhelmingly oppose the war policy vis-à-vis Syria, with special opposition coming from ‘Alevis, a religious community making up 15%-20% of Turkey’s population, distinct from Syria’s Alawis but sharing a Shiite heritage with them.
Assad took revenge by reviving support for the PKK, whose escalating violence creates a major domestic problem for Erdogan. Indeed, Kurds — who missed their chance when the Middle East was carved up after the First World War — may be the major winners from current hostilities; for the first time, the outlines of a Kurdish state with Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi and even Iranian components can be imagined.
Damascus still has a great power patron in Moscow, where the government of Vladimir Putin offers its assistance via armaments and United Nations vetoes. Plus, Assad benefits from unstinting, brutal Iranian aid, which continues despite the mullah regime’s deep economic problems.
In contrast, Ankara may still belong, formally, to NATO and enjoy the theoretical privilege of its famous Article 5, which promises that a military attack on one member country will lead to “such action as … necessary, including the use of armed force,” but NATO heavyweights show no intention of intervening in Syria.
A decade of success went to Erdogan’s head, tempting him into a Syrian misadventure that could undermine his popularity. He might yet learn from his mistakes and backtrack, but the padishah of Ankara is doubling down on his jihad against the Assad regime, driving hard for its collapse and his salvation.
To answer my opening question: Turkish bellicosity results primarily from one man’s ambition and ego. Western states should stay completely away and let him be hoist with his own petard.
Daniel Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum.
Do you have an opinion to share with other readers? Then send us a letter.
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Artist and programmer Lauren McCarthy is interested in the ways technology can be used to “augment, subvert, alter, mediate, and ultimately deepen social interaction.” She has developed a system using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing service that lets people watch and comment on her date.
With ‘Social Turkers,’ she has livestreamed dates using an iPhone app and asked for real-time feedback on her social interactions. Turk workers were paid to watch the stream, interpret what was happening, and offer feedback about what she should say or do next, which was communicated to McCarthy via texts.
Soon she hopes to offer an easy-to-use app for anyone to start crowdsourcing their own relationships. She told Fast Company:
I was really amazed by how much the workers were able to notice from such low quality audio and video. They picked up on the times when I was nervous, uncomfortable, bored, interested, engaged with stunning accuracy. Sometimes the feedback would tell me to relax or smile and I would read the responses afterward and they’d mention I seemed really nervous. I’d watch the footage and realize they were right.
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This is a series of relaxation techniques that you can do
almost any where and any time. They do not take very long to do. Do not force
yourself to relax - just let it happen . . .
2-Step breath - Fill the bottom of your lungs first, then add the top as
you breathe through your nose. Breath out slowly. Feel the tension flowing
Tighten the muscle that you want to relax. Focus on and feel the
tension where you have tighten. Now let the muscle become loose and limp.
Feel the relaxation flow into the muscle.
With your mind briefly scan every muscle in your body from the tips of your
toes to the top of your head. If you sense a tight muscle, just let it become limp
Do the 2-step breath two times.
With your mind imagine that you are a limp rag doll.
Feel your mind and body become limp and relaxed.
LIMP RAG DOLL:
*** You may use whatever image you like best **
To quiet your mind first, focus on your breathing. As you breathe in
say slowly to yourself "I am" and as you breathe out, say slowly to yourself
"calm." When your mind feels calm you may focus only on your breathing,
with no thoughts at all.
SHOULDERS, ARMS AND HANDS HEAVY AND WARM:
Put your mind into your shoulders, arms and hands - imagine and experience
them becoming heavy, relaxed and warm.
If you would like to learn more about Relaxation, the Counseling Center has a variety
of resources to help you. Call or stop by the Counseling Center to make an
appointment to talk with a counselor. The Counseling Center is located across from
the Lee Drain Building, next to the Farrington Building. The telephone number is (936)
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Nakai, an 11-year-old male orca at SeaWorld is missing a “dinner-plate sized chunk” of skin and flesh just under his mouth. The ghastly gash, first reported by journalist Tim Zimmermann, happened during a nighttime show at the Southern California park on September 20.
It is not clear what caused the horrendous wound. SeaWorld spokesman Dave Koontz told reporters that Nakai “came in contact with a portion of the pool,” but gave no other details.
SeaWorld staff reportedly retrieved the sliced-off piece of Nakai’s chin from the pool bottom.
This would not be the first time that a killer whale was hurt by the glass, steel and concrete confines of an artificial habitat: Three whales at the now-defunct SeaLand of the Pacific – Nootka, Haida and the three-time killer Tilikum – often cut and scraped themselves on the metal edges of their nighttime pen; one whale in San Diego, Ikaika (Ike), recently sustained a nasty gash under his mouth, believed to be caused by a railing; and Kotar, an orca in San Antonio, died when a metal gate crushed his skull. Other cases have been documented.
It is hard to understand, however, exactly what part of the tank at Shamu Stadium could have sliced such a large, clean, portion of flesh deep out of Nakai’s chin. SeaWorld may try to blame the metal safety railings it installed after Tilikum killed Orlando trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. But it doesn’t make sense that those bars, and the small bolts they contain, could have scalloped out such a large piece of flesh.
To many observers, this looks like a bite. According to Zimmerman:
It happened last week during a night show, seemingly during a major altercation involving Nakai, Keet, and Ike. It’s not clear if there was an aggressor or instigator, or if they all suddenly went after each other. In response to the altercation, Nakai split to the back pool. The onstage trainers, not realizing how badly injured he was, continued the show with the other whales. It was only when they called Nakai over later that night that they realized he was seriously hurt.
I have never heard of an orca taking a chunk of tissue from another orca, though I am certain they are capable of doing so. Killer whales have sharp teeth and they are extremely nimble at surgically extracting body parts from prey. Some orcas kill sharks only to excise and eat their livers; others prey on penguins and expertly remove their breast meat, leaving skin, feathers and bone to bob in the water.
Killer whales, like people, also get pissed off at each other. They frequently ram, block, and rake other whales with their teeth, in acts of brute aggression or repeated bouts over dominance. Sometimes these quarrels are deadly: In 1989, during a show witnessed by thousands in San Diego, the female orcas Kandu and Corky collided during an altercation. Kandu severed a major artery in her upper jaw and slowly bled to death in a back pool, spurting red jets of blood from her blowhole as helpless staff – and Kandu’s calf Orkid – looked on.
Orca society is female-dominated, and females at SeaWorld have been known to battle for supremacy of their little artificial hierarchies (where whales from different ecotypes, and even different oceans, are held – and bred).
But this supposed altercation involved three males. Among some orcas in the Pacific Northwest, testosterone-charged bulls burn off excess energy and aggression in periodic “male only social interactions,” or MOSI’s, which are staged apart from the females and calves of their pod.
These ritualized scrimmages help keep the peace among the males. But Nakai, Keet and Ike were all born in captivity (Nakai was the first successful orca birth at SeaWorld resulting from artificial insemination), and would thus know nothing about MOSI’s, because most whale social behavior is learned, and not instinctual.
In fact, these three whales are relatively new to each other. Nakai was born and raised in San Diego, but Keet and Ike were both transferred there earlier this year: Keet from San Antonio, and Ike from Marineland Ontario in Canada. Ike had been on loan to the Canadians but SeaWorld successfully sued to get him back, citing poor conditions at the Ontario park.
Also of note, though perhaps irrelevant, is Nakai’s rather notorious bloodline. His mother is Kasatka, who was involved in several incidents with trainers in San Diego, including the now-famous attack on Ken Peters in 2006 (see video here) and his father is Tilikum, who was involved in the death of a trainer in Canada in 1991, a trespasser in Florida in 1999, and Dawn Brancheau in 2010.
So what happened to Nakai? Was it “contact with a portion of the pool,” as SeaWorld contends? Or was it the pointed, precise teeth of Ike or Keet? We may never know – although a good forensics team could certainly determine the cause.
The truth is, SeaWorld simply does not have a good explanation – it was either the tank, or the tank-mates that wounded poor Nakai.
In the wild, orcas rarely, if ever seriously hurt themselves on “portions” of the ocean like rocks and reefs (their astounding echolocation abilities see to that) although boat propellers can cause awful cuts and gaping gashes.
Likewise, wild orcas rarely, if ever, take giant chunks of flesh from each other. Not only would it be taboo in killer whale society, altercations don’t typically lead to life-threatening injuries. For one, a whale under attack can easily get away from its aggressor in the open sea, but not so at enclosed SeaWorld and other entertainment parks.
Clearly, in either case, SeaWorld only has captivity to blame.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2012
Contact: Megan Sanborn
Maine Students to Cast Their Ballots in Maine’s 2012 Student Mock Election
Secretary of State, Charles E. Summers, Jr. to Host “Rally and Tally” Event in Augusta
WHO: Elementary, middle, and high school students from across the state; First Lady Ann LePage; Secretary of State Charlie Summers; congressional and legislative candidates.
WHAT: Students at over 240 schools are casting ballots in Maine’s Student Mock Election 2012. Students will cast mock ballots for the offices of President, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, and will vote on the five statewide referendum questions appearing on Maine ballots. A “Rally and Tally” event, hosted by the Secretary of State, will give students an opportunity to collect statewide mock election results by phone and via the internet and to report those results throughout the afternoon and evening. The Rally and Tally event will also provide students with an opportunity to hear directly from candidates, to make campaign posters, to make stump speeches, and to vote on special mock election event ballot.
WHERE: Elections are being held at participating schools across the state. The “Rally and Tally” event is being held at the Augusta Armory, Western Avenue, in Augusta.
WHEN: Student voting will occur throughout the day, Tuesday, October 30 with the “Rally and Tally” event will taking place from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
WHY: The mock election program engages students in election-related activities, preparing them for life-long participation in the democratic process.
FMI: For more information, visit: www.maine.gov/sos/kids/mockelection/index.html
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After several decades of complaining about the influence of “Conservative Evangelicals” on the political process, the American Left has been stepping up its campaign in the last year to utilize its own religious allies in the fight over the future of the American Republic. A very significant development in the struggle for the souls of Americans is the decision by President Barack Obama to speak with 1,000 religious leaders in a series of conference calls.
As speculation continues over possibilities of a unilateral attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration is sending a clear signal that it is prepared to work with the victorious factions arising through the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring — including self-avowed “Islamists.” In the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (left), “what parties call themselves is less important to us than what they actually do.”
Almost three decades have passed since the film The Atomic Cafe (1982) offered a cynical, and yet vacuous, denigration of the efforts of American civil-defense experts to prepare the populace for the horrific possibility of nuclear war — and other, more malicious, efforts were also at work to undermine the will of the West to continue the Cold War. As a newly inaugurated President Reagan prepared the American people to begin to more actively counter Soviet aggression, Soviet front groups promoted their agenda through a sham "peace" movement, led by the World Peace Council. A generation of citizens has grown up having been propagandized into the belief that any use of “The Bomb” would mean the end of the world. In the words of Prof. T.J. Nelson’s “Duck and Cover” essay at entropy.brneurosci.org:
Only a few days have passed since President Obama’s return from an expensive overseas jaunt in which he traveled from India to Indonesia praising Islam, but the scandal which his statements on Islam and Jihad evoked did not cause him to shirk what he apparently views as his duty to greet Hajj pilgrims. In a November 15 press release, Obama declared:
As reported by TheNewAmerican.com several months ago, the United States is presently shifting tens of thousands of military personal and family members from bases in Japan to expanded facilities in the U.S. territory of Guam, with the Japanese government paying over a third of the cost of the relocation. A major reason for the redeployment of these troops is the increased tensions between American service personnel and the surrounding communities in Okinawa.
With a population of approximately 178,000 people residing on an island roughly one-seventh the size of Rhode Island, the smallest state in the union, the U.S. territory of Guam rarely captures much attention in the minds of the average American. However, as the government prepares to expand a military base in Guam at a cost of $15 billion, that situation may change.
The Army Times is reporting that a congressional study has once again discovered the obvious: pulling out of Iraq will save money. “A speedier withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan would shave $1.1 trillion off the budget in the next decade, a new congressional budget projection says.”
While Christians around the world await news regarding the fate of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani — a convert from Islam to Christianity whom the government of Iran has sentenced to death for his “apostasy” — influential former Democrat Senator Gary Hart (left) has penned an editorial for HuffingtonPost.com claiming the Nadarkhani case is a warning of the dangers of orthodox Christianity.
Confronting elements of President Obama’s healthcare legislation that are so fundamentally restrictive of religious freedom that Jesus “would not qualify as ‘religious,’” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been engaged in a protracted struggle to defend the integrity of Roman Catholic doctors in the face of a federal government seemingly bent on requiring them to act against their consciences. As a reward for their labors, House Minority Leader — and self-proclaimed “devout Catholic” — Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has belittled the bishops as nothing more than “lobbyists in Washington, D.C.”
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Thursday, 17 January 2013
Flames of War - External Machine Gun Position
Some more musings on WW2 stuff, this time about the positioning of the Machine Gun on the Sherman Turret.
The FOW assembly guide says put it on the hatch which I did. Then when it got to the Commander's Tank I glued the Tank Commander model into the hatch and then realized the Machine Gun wasn't going to work in there as well. This got me thinking about the position of the Machine Gun and how was it possible to fire the thing from the hatch? I also had a memory of a dude standing on the engine compartment behind the Turret firing the Gun from a different mounting position.
I did some investigating and found two references to back up both options.
In the picture below you can see just how awkward it is to fire the Machine Gun from the Hatch.
In this example you can see the soldier firing from the standing position behind the Turret.
So mount them in either position and you should be good to go.
Not sure what piece of useless information I will be thinking of next but stay tuned.
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The seed for the Laguna Beach High School’s Orangewood Club was planted last fall when Laguna Beach resident Mark Powell, a trustee of the Laguna Beach Community Foundation, which promotes local philanthropy, took it upon himself to inspire a new generation of young philanthropists.
He began with students in Mindy Hawkins’ Peer Assisted Leadership (PAL) class, teaching them how to become effectively involved in charitable endeavors beyond the school campus.
The students settled on Santa Ana’s Orangewood Children’s Foundation, established to help victims of abuse, neglect and abandonment who are often placed into foster care. The local students started the Orangewood Club to make a tangible difference in the lives of an often-neglected group, foster teens transitioning to adulthood.
“When they emancipate and turn 18, most foster agencies no longer provide services for them and they are left without support,” said Orangewood’s volunteer manager Kristi Piatkowski.
For the 200 to 250 teens in this predicament each year, Orangewood’s drop-in Resource Center provides a welcoming location with services to smooth the road to independence, such as assistance in writing resumes and seeking housing, career guidance, mentors, the use of phones and computers, laundry facilities, groceries and sundries, and a hot meal.
At an interview with a few of the club members earlier this month, including club president Mia Hayes, Jamie Hendrickson, Perry Nielson, Lola Cant and Anika Larsen, all juniors, they all exuded enthusiasm for their mission. “The Orangewood kids have had tougher lives, but they are still teenagers,” said Lola.
Because of privacy laws protecting minors, teens outside of the program are prohibited from interacting directly with those at an Orangewood facility who are under 18. The exception is the Resource Center’s kitchen where the emancipated kids come for a meal.
Through their research, club members discovered that they could make the most impact by joining the as-yet-incomplete rotation of volunteer groups who provide lunchtime meals to the teens at the Resource Center. They are working out a schedule so that a Laguna group will make a meal at the center at least once a month, to start. In December, they plan to hold a gift drive to solicit donations of things teens “really want,” since most contributors think about smaller children, flooding the teens with dolls and toy cars.
In weekly meetings last year, Powell taught the students to assess charities by holding them up to benchmark standards on how well they fulfill their mission and manage their funding. He and Hawkins challenged the students to settle on an area of concern and to apply their newly learned analytic skills.
Mia said that she, Perry and Jamie got together to vet organizations that help children, including the Orangewood Children’s Foundation. The kids presented their results to the class last year, and over the summer decided they wanted a more sustained level of involvement. “So that’s why we started a club,” Perry said. After a club recruiting day in September, 37 kids signed up, though the girls admit that only 15 are truly active.
Powell helped arrange for six club members to visit Orangewood and meet with Piatkowski and development officer Carlos Leija. If the organization already looked good on paper, the visit sealed the deal. “It’s reassuring how organized they are,” said Anika.
The warm welcome and respectful treatment they received increased their determination to get involved.
And the feeling was mutual. Piatkowski said that while other teens have held fundraisers to support Orangewood, none have matched the long-term commitment of the LBHS club.
“What’s great about this high school group is that they took the time to come to the foundation, and they wanted to learn about it and what the needs were, so that they could help us with exactly what we could use,” said Piatkowski. “These guys have a great model, and I hope its something other schools can recognize and adopt,” she said.
Additionally, the students have committed to raising $1,000 towards a scholarship to help a teen attend college. Through bake sales at home football games and donations, they have so far raised $300, a sum they hope to augment through the sale of Krispy Kreme donuts on campus as well as through a link to Orangewood’s website, so that community members can donate on line by visiting: myorangewood.org/oya2012.
They call themselves Orangewood Young Ambassadors, setting themselves apart from the site’s other affiliated groups, all adults.
“It’s good to know we’re doing something important with our time that makes a difference,” said Mia.
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Updated 06/04/2009 07:01 PM
Monserrate Silent On Gay Marriage Bill
With the fate of the legislation legalizing gay marriage still uncertain, a number of lawmakers, including Queens State Senator Hiram Monserrate, have yet to state their position on the issue. NY1's Vivian Lee filed the following report on voters' reactions in Monserrate's district.
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Many New Yorkers have strong opinions about gay marriage, but State Senator Hiram Monserrate remains silent on whether he is for or against Governor David Paterson's gay marriage bill. That has some of Monserrate's constituents in East Elmhurst, Queens questioning his leadership.
"I believe that as a leader, he needs to represent," said one local who opposes gay marriage. "If you can't make a decision, I can't follow."
"I think he should make a decision, and he should be for gay marriage," said another local.
While Monserrate is waiting to take a position, other legislators are making their positions known and showing that Paterson's gay marriage bill is in jeopardy.
A NY1 survey of the 62 state senators shows a plurality say they would vote against the legislation.
Some wonder if the state senator is preoccupied with other legal matters, as he is fighting charges that he assaulted his girlfriend Karla Giraldo with a broken glass earlier this year.
"I know why he does not state his position, because of what happened with his personal life," said a local.
"I'm sure he has other issues he's worried about personally, but professionally he should support passing the bill," said another.
"That's not good. He's of Latino heritage. We are emotional about every issue that we believe in. He's thinking about it too much," said a third.
On Wednesday, New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage. The other five states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and Iowa.
The state's legislative session ends later this month, and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith previously said that he would not bring the same-sex marriage bill before the State Senate unless he feels there are at least 32 votes in favor of the bill.
The measure passed on May 12 in the State Assembly.
Monserrate declined to comment on the story.
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By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing output bounced back in February in the latest signal of strength in an economy that is showing clear momentum despite the headwind from government austerity.
While other reports on Friday showed a surge in gasoline prices caused a spike in consumer inflation last month and eroded consumer sentiment in early March, the impact on the economy was likely to be limited and temporary.
"It appears that real economic growth is on an upswing," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York.
Factory production increased 0.8 percent last month after falling 0.3 percent in January, the Federal Reserve said. The gain was broad based and double what economists had expected.
The increase combined with a big rise in utilities' output to lead overall industrial production up by 0.7 percent, a good sign for first-quarter economic growth after activity stalled at the end of 2012.
Data ranging from employment to retail sales have suggested a limited hit on the economy from the end of a 2 percent payroll tax cut and higher tax rates for wealthy Americans, which went into effect at the start of the year.
Economists, who had already raised their first-quarter growth forecasts substantially this week, were further encouraged by the rise in factory output.
"It had seemed like the economy was going to be leaning primarily on the consumer and housing. We have another leg to stand on with manufacturing kicking in," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
First-quarter GDP growth estimates currently range as high as a 3.0 percent annual rate. The economy grew at only a 0.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter.
FED TO HOLD POLICY COURSE
Separately, the Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index increased 0.7 percent last month, the largest gain since June 2009, as the cost of gasoline spiked 9.1 percent. The CPI had been flat for the two previous months.
Gasoline accounted for about three quarters of the rise in consumer inflation in February, and so-called core prices, subtracting volatile food and energy costs, advanced just 0.2 percent, leaving the door open for the Federal Reserve to press ahead with its bond-buying stimulus.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected the CPI to advance 0.5 percent. In the 12 months through February, it was up 2 percent, the largest gain since October and an acceleration from January's 1.6 percent.
Core prices also increased 2 percent over the past 12 months, the largest gain since October. However, a separate inflation index the Fed - the U.S. central bank - follows more closely has been falling and hit a nearly two-year low in January.
"The way the data has been playing out, it gives them a free hand to be extremely aggressive to bring down unemployment," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities in Stamford, Connecticut.
Fed officials meet next week to assess the economy and are widely expected to keep purchasing $85 billion in bonds per month to spur even stronger growth.
The dollar dropped from a seven-month high against a basket of currencies <.DXY> as the inflation data reinforced expectations the Fed would continue to pump money into the economy.
U.S. Treasury debt prices rose, while stocks dropped on corporate news, ending the Dow Jones industrial average's <.DJI> longest winning streak since 1996.
CONSUMERS FEELING PINCH
The rise in gasoline prices last month was the largest since June 2009 and snapped four straight months of declines.
The gasoline-driven spurt in inflation eroded household purchasing power, which could hurt spending. Average hourly earnings adjusted for inflation fell 0.6 percent in February, and were up only 0.1 percent compared with a year ago.
But relief is on the way as prices at the pump have declined in the past two weeks.
Expensive gasoline and tighter fiscal policy also weighed on consumer morale early this month. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level since December 2011.
Given the signs of strength in the economy, economists were little disturbed by the drop in sentiment, however.
"This drop in consumer sentiment was quite a surprise. I think these numbers will be revised higher later in the month, but consumer confidence remains fragile," said Terry Sheehan, an economist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in Princeton, New Jersey.
The data on industrial production further bolstered growth expectations.
The gain in manufacturing output reflected a big 1.2 percent jump in the production of long-lasting goods, with auto production up a sharp 3.6 percent after a 4.9 percent plunge in January.
Even though a separate report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank showed its "Empire State" general business conditions index slipped to 9.24 in March from 10.04 in February, economists were not too concerned.
"The Empire index has kicked off March manufacturing surveys on a fairly solid note, suggesting further growth in the manufacturing sector is in store, even if at a slightly less-stellar pace than had been indicated in February," said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New York.
(Additional reporting by Margaret Chadbourn in Washington and Richard Leong, Ellen Freilich and Leah Schnurr in New York; Writing by Lucia Mutikani and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Neil Stempleman and James Dalgleish)
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Water safety promoted
By Kim Saulse
26 December 2009
Rescue organisations have appealed to people to be sensible, especially those who are relaxing near water.
Bad weather resulted in Durban’s beaches being less busy than usual yesterday.
But KwaZulu-Natal authorities are urging people visiting beaches today to register their children with the Beach Buddies system as a precaution.
Water safety is also being promoted in Gauteng after at least 20 drownings so far this month.
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Doingtext.com is an online text collaboration tool that allows multiple users to access the same text editor and make changes and add comments to a document. Registered users can create a document and simply share the URL with others. They can then edit the document without having to login, although the original user can password-protect the document. The editor is based on a line-by-line format, with each line having a number. Comments can be made about each line out to the side, where they do not interfere with the text. A complete history of revisions and comments is kept throughout the life of the document.
A document is called a “Discussion”, and users can easily share the URL of a document, download the document or view the history of a document directly from the text editor. Each line is numbered, and comments to that line have the corresponding number. The history shows who edited the document and when, and shows the comments they added when they edited the document. The site also supports messaging between registered users, and each user has a profile. Mobile support for the text editor is provided as well. Documents can be exported as plain text or as PDF files. The editor is capable of using a simple text formatting language called Textile, which supports bold, underline, insertion of pictures, etc. There are only a few commands to learn in the Textile language.
Germany-based Doingtext.com was launched to the general public in April 2009 by Upstream Agile GmbH. The site has undergone steady growth since launch, and new features are still being added. The site has an Alexa page rank near the 600,00 mark.
Competition to Doingtext comes from TextFlow and DocVerse. TextFlow offers importing and exporting of MS Word format documents as well as text documents. DocVerse is designed specifically for collaboration with Microsoft Office documents, rather than just MS Word. Doing text can import RTF and text documents, and export to formatted text and PDF.
The Doingtext site has a Web 2.0 look and feel. The site is free of clutter, and the user interface is very intuitive. There is a minimum of links shown on each page, and there is a convenient top menu bar for navigation. Links on the navigation bar include Home, Messages, Account, Guides (complete help section), Contact and Log Out. The site is very responsive, with page loads happening almost instantaneously. The text editor is very responsive, much like a dedicated desktop application. File uploads and downloads are quite responsive as well.
Registration is not required to try the text editor on the site, but is required in order to invite collaborators or message others. Registration is free, and the registration process simply asks for username, email address and password. Validation of the email address is required. A free account is limited to 3 private discussions and 2 collaborators.
Several levels of paid memberships are available – Micro, Small, Medium, Large, and Really Large. The number of private discussion for these membership levels ranges from 12 for Micro to 400 for Really Large. The number of collaborators ranges from 4 for Micro to 100 for Really Large. All membership levels allow for an unlimited number of public discussions.
The Doingtext website is recommended to anyone who has a need to collaborate with others on a text document. The site makes online collaboration an easy process, as there is a very minimal learning curve required to use the site. Users requiring import and export of MS Word documents should consider TextFlow or DocVerse.
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Sarah Burke was always an inspiration, from the very first freeski events she showed up to as the only girl in the contest to her most recent halfpipe win at X Games. And while most people knew her as a skier before her tragic death in a halfpipe accident, we know her a lot better now — enough to know that skiing was only one way that Burke stood out from the crowd. She was kind, she was giving and she was adventurous — qualities that inspire as much as her skill on skis.
To keep that inspiration alive, her husband Rory Bushfield and others have created a foundation in her honour, the Sarah Burke Foundation, using the remainder of over $300,000 in funds that were generated by donations to help cover her hospital bills. Sponsors also kicked into the pot and in the long term the fund will benefit from a series of snowflake pendants that were created by Joyce's Fine Jewelry in the likeness of Burke's tattoo; from a line of signature goggles sold by Smith Optics; from t-shirt sales from Trukfit; and from general donations from the public. Some $15,000 raised from Michelle Parker's "Believe in Sarah" stickers will also go into the foundation.
The foundation was launched on Tuesday, Jan. 8 and will begin to accept grant applications from aspiring winter sports athletes in February. As well, the foundation will make contributions to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, a charity that Burke supported in the past and once ran a marathon to support.
"Sarah had too many amazing qualities to list, but two of the most obvious ones were her love of winter sports, and her commitment to helping people in need," said Bushfield in a release. "We are honoured to be able to continue Sarah's practice of giving through the Sarah Burke Foundation and are grateful for the tremendous support we have received."
Other members of the board include Sarah's long-time coach Trennon Paynter, Burke's brother-in-law Tim Scheutz, and Elanor Bushfield, Rory's sister.
The foundation isn't the only long-standing tribute to the skier. The Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP) has named its top overall trophy after Burke, while the people of Midland, Ontario where Burke grew up named a street in her honour. Momentum Ski Camps in Whistler, which Burke attended as a teenager and taught during the summer months, also created a Spirit of Sarah scholarship.
For more on the foundation, visit www.sarahburkefoundation.com. For more on Burke's achievements, visit http://espn.go.com/espnw/more-sports/7984690/freeskier-sarah-burke-leaves-lasting-legacy-women-sports-espn-magazine.
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Sturdy wins West Vancouver-Sea to Sky as Liberals win stunning victory More...
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| 0.975346
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