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It sounds like the title of a really bad horror movie, but it was a for-real curse that happened in 632BC.
There was at that time in Athens a famous Olympic victor called Cylon. Like many famous people to this day, Cylon assumed that fame in one field guaranteed success in another. He should have consulted with a career advisor, because unfortunately his chosen new life plan was to make himself the Tyrant of Athens.
In his defence, it must be said that Cylon was probably encouraged by his father-in-law, who happened to be the tyrant of a city called Megara, just up the road. Sometimes it can be really tough for a guy to impress the wife's family.
It all went horribly pear-shaped when Cylon gathered together his friends and attempted an armed takeover. He seems to have assumed the common people of Athens would flock to his leadership when they saw what was happening. But when the fighting began, the people of Athens were notable by their absence, and Cylon and his followers had to retreat to the temple of Athena atop the Acropolis. (Not the Parthenon. The Parthenon would not be built for another 200 years.)
Then Cylon managed to escape, leaving his hapless friends trapped inside the temple, to face the consequences of his ambition. By the end of the day, Cylon had set a new record for total leadership FAIL.
Now everyone had a problem. As long as the coup plotters stayed inside the temple, they were safe, because all Greek temples had sanctuary. Anyone who harmed a person under the protection of Athena was looking at some serious trouble. (Cylon's friends were neither the first nor last to rely on temple sanctuary for protection; it was perfectly normal for pursued criminals to make a beeline for the nearest altar.)
Negotiations began between the coup plotters and the archons (city officials). The archons convinced the men to come out, in return for a fair trial. I can't imagine what fair trial the plotters thought would result in them surviving, but presumably they planned to argue it was all Cylon's fault.
There are different stories about what happened next. The most dramatic says the plotters emerged, tied to a rope which they'd fastened at the other end to the cult statue of Athena within the temple, to maintain their connection with the Goddess.
Another version says the archons swore before Athena that the plotters would have sanctuary while the law took its course. Either way, everyone agrees the men were under the protection of the Goddess when they emerged to go to the place of trial, which certainly would have been the adjoining rock of the Areopagus.
Among the archons was a man called Megacles, from the genos (family) Alcmaeonidae (ALC-MAY-ON-ID-AY). When the friends of Cylon were out in the open, the archon Megacles and all the men of his family fell upon them and killed them.
No one cared about the dead plotters, but the men of the Alcmaeonidae had just broken the sacred sanctuary, and that was a big deal. A very big deal.
Megacles claimed (in the rope version) that they'd seen the rope break, meaning Athena had repudiated her protection. But that weak excuse didn't wash.
At once a curse fell upon the family - in Greek, a miasma - and not just upon the men who committed the crime, but upon every member of the family. And not just those living, but every man, woman and child to be born into the family forever after.
This crime was so bad that the Alcmaeonidae were, in fact, eternally cursed.
To expiate the sacrilege, and to avoid a furious Athena from destroying her own city, Megacles and the Alcmaeonidae were expelled from Athens.
Then they dug up the remains of dead members of the family and threw them out too.
That's the way things stayed for 40 years, until Solon the Wise allowed the family to return, because Solon was a weak-kneed, bleeding heart, soft-on-crime wimp. Or so the dissenting Athenians thought as the accursed family walked back in the gates. Nevertheless Athens failed to be destroyed by the Alcmaeonid presence, and things settled down.
Now the Alcmaeonidae were destined to become a driving force behind democracy. Note that the crime for which they'd been cursed was the ruthless slaughter of would-be tyrants.
Eighty years later, a tyrant did manage to take Athens, and the Alcmaeonidae had a very uneasy relationship with him. The family head at the time - another Megacles - married his daughter to the tyrant, which kept the peace for a while, but eventually the Alcmaeonidae were instrumental in removing this tyranny too. Supporting freedom was obviously a family tradition.
Then an Alcmaeonid called Cleisthenes introduced the democratic reforms which led to full democracy 50 years later under Ephialtes. When Ephialtes died, he was replaced by Pericles, who was...you guessed it...an Alcmaeonid on his mother's side.
But it didn't matter how successful the Alcmaeonidae became; whenever a member of the family was put in charge of anything, someone was bound to ask, "But what of the curse?" Even the Spartans raised it when they were dealing with Pericles, 200 years after the crime.
It must be pointed out that the curse on the family was eternal. Which means their descendants living today, of which there must surely be some, are in fact, cursed.
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Many of us are hugging our children a little tighter this morning. At an elementary school in Connecticut, a gunman entered the premises and began firing, killing 27 people.
Of those killed this morning, 20 of them were children between the ages of 5-10.
Emotional stories are pouring out from the scene.
Cursing was heard over the intercom when the PA was tripped so that it was heard in the classrooms, coming from the principal’s office, alerting the teachers to lock their doors. The shooting began in the principal’s office with the shooting of the principal. Also killed was the school psychologist. One entire classroom is still unaccounted for. People were running for their kids. “I couldn’t get there fast enough,” one father said in a video by CBS. “I couldn’t wait to see her face, but unfortunately some parents won’t be able to see their child’s face.”
20 families were told that their child was dead.
The question on everyone’s lips is “Why?” Why would someone come into a school of young kids and began shooting? Why would he kill all of these children? What could possibly trigger such an intense rage in him that would cause him to alter the realities of 27 different families in the worst way imaginable?
As parents, it’s hard not to put ourselves in the shoes of those whose children attend the school. Once you have a child, your biggest fears shift from the bad things that can happen to yourself, to what can happen to your child. Our child’s mortality becomes our biggest concern. I can almost feel what every one of those parents felt as they heard what had happened at the school and rushed there to see if their child was ok. I can imagine the frustration and fear as they were held off by yellow tape and were forced to wait until they were reunited with their child amidst a scene of panic and hundreds of other scared parents. And I can imagine the sheer relief once they were reunited with their child, able to hold them again and know that even though their child’s innocence had been tampered with after this gruesome scene, they were still alive.
What I can’t imagine is what the parents of those 20 children are going through. And I don’t want to. In one moment, their whole world changed. There was no warning. There was nothing to prepare them that this was the last time they would ever see their child’s smile, hug them goodbye, or hear the sound of their voice. And it’s grossly unfair that the homes of these 20 children are missing one small child who will never experience another birthday, another Christmas, another sunny day.
20 kids will never grow up.
For that, I hug my kids a little tighter today, grateful that I have them to hold close. And I offer a prayer up for the families in Connecticut whose lives have been forever changed by the fatal choice of one selfish gunman – a man who stole so much in so little time. RIP little ones.
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helitack wrote:How many of those single car accidents involve not wearing a seat belt?
I'll stick with my damn near three ton vehicle thank you very much.
They're mostly rollovers. And that would actually only indicate that SUV and light truck owners are less likely than car drivers to wear seatbelts (which I find believable).
Here's an exerpt from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s report on its research priorities for 2005-2009.
The first priority listed was "Address Incompatibility Between Passenger Cars and Light Trucks." There's a ton of issues that have only recently been acknowledged, but have always been known by car drivers:
The height difference means that the bumpers of SUVs and trucks are much higher than the doors, hoods and bumpers than cars' and so more likely to kill people in a passenger car they hit.
Their headlights are much higher, so more likely to blind car drivers.
Their height also blocks the views of car drivers.
Reducing the hazards associated with vehicle incompatibility is one of the Agency’s top priorities. In 2002, NHTSA identified rollover and vehicle compatibility as two of its highest vehicle safety priorities.
In the last decade, for the first time, more vehicle occupants are being killed in crashes between passenger cars and light trucks than in crashes involving only passenger cars. From 1980 to 2002, fatalities in car-to-car crashes decreased from 6,488 to 3,121, while LTV-to-car crashes increased from 3,718 to 5,590.
Although total occupant fatalities in two-vehicle crashes involving a passenger car and an LTV (pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles [SUVs] and vans) decreased slightly in 2003, the ratio of passenger car occupants killed to LTV occupants killed increased slightly – from 3.97 to 4.06. An analysis of 2001 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data indicates that passenger car drivers are three and one-half times more likely to die than LTV drivers in front-to-front crashes between the two vehicle types, and the fatality rate for drivers of passenger cars struck in the side by LTVs is approximately three and one-half times greater than the fatality rate for drivers of LTVs struck in the side by passenger cars.
The larger mass and size of LTVs, along with significant disparities in stiffness, compared to passenger automobiles, and recent analyses of crash data, have raised a number of issues of concern. In the crash avoidance area, there are problems of glare due to higher mounted headlamps on LTVs. In the crashworthiness area, there is concern that the protection of occupants in smaller vehicles is being compromised when their vehicles collide with the larger and heavier LTVs. As the trend toward greater private passenger use of light trucks continues, the Agency has continued to extend pertinent passenger car standard requirements to LTVs, and it expects to continue to apply new and revised standards to all light vehicles, not just passenger cars.
But all that has nothing to do with fuel efficiency. Sorry for thread drifting.
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Video courtesy Pat Younge, BBC
For us early adapters, this is nothing new.
A few years ago, I bought a Mac Mini and a first generation AppleTV (Apple always punishes the early adapters), and have been running the web through my 54" Sony plasma screens.
But for those who don't want to go through the trouble of doing that (not the mention the sheer aggrivation of dealing with the Crestron system), it would seem that now TV manufacturers are about to unveil TV sets that do this automatically.
This has many implications, but one of the first is probably that it means the death of linear, appointment-related programming.
Once you start to access your 'screen content' online, you will find that you spend less and less time (if any at all), 'watching TV shows'.
This doesn't mean a dimunition of video content - on the contrary, the demand for content is going to spike. What it does mean is that fewer and fewer people will watch a specific network or channel, as opposed to being attracted to the content.
At home we mostly watch movies streamed off Netflix, but I notice what when my younger nephews are here, they ignore the channels immediately and spend hours cruising through Youtube videos that they arlready know about, showing them to one another to their own great amusement. This is real channel surfing.
Another observation I might make as Internet TV makes its official appearance:
Often at dinner parties, in the course of discussion, someone will invariably take out their iPhone and google information that becomes a part of the conversation. When we have dinner parties here, the screen (which pulls away from the wall), is often canted over to the table and 'joins' the dinner. Many evenings end in Karaoke like sing alongs with the contents driven by the almost limitless music videos (we are all children of the 60s and 70s) available on Youtube.
It's still video - but it's not TV.
At least not the way it used to be.
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Here’s a detailed list of what you need to do to start a business. It may seem like a daunting task. You might tell yourself that there are a million things you need to get done. To be frank, there is a lot to get done. But since you can only do one thing at a time, your best approach is to focus on creating a list and timeline and just attack each item one by one.
Assuming you’ve already decided which business to start, here is a checklist you might find very helpful:
1. Business Plan
Before you do anything, create your business plan. In this document, you’ll spell out exactly what you’re planning to do. It will help you think through how much money you’re going to need, who your customer is and how you’re going to get your product or service to your customers (and why she’s going to buy from you as opposed to the business next door). There are software packages that can help you create your own business plan, or you can hire someone to do it for you. If you decide to hire someone, you can find plenty of great candidates on hiring sites such as guru.com.
2. Raise the Money
Most every business requires money to launch and run. How much does it cost to start a small business that you are interested in? If you don’t have enough working capital and start-up capital, you run a very high risk of crashing and burning. Understand that if this is a new venture for you, there are many surprises that lie ahead. Have plenty of cash set aside to help ride out the uncertainty you’re sure to face ahead. So make sure you know how much you need to start your business, and then have more than you need.
Hopefully you won’t need to rent an expensive warehouse or office. Try to start your business with as low expenses as possible. And a great way to save is to have low-cost facilities. Never sign a long-term lease if you are starting a new business. You might have a great plan, but you don’t know how sales are actually going to turn out. As a result, it’s impossible for you to lease a space long-term. Sublet or work out of your home. If you are launching a professional business, find an office that will allow you to rent month-to-month. You are far better served to sacrifice a little on the quality of the office if that’s what it takes to get into an easy month-to-month situation.
4. Licensing and Insurance
It goes without saying that you have to protect yourself when you start your business. Check with your local city government to make sure you have the proper license. While we’re on the subject, check with your accountant. Make sure you are forming the company correctly. For example, if you can qualify for a Professional LLC, there are many reasons to do so. The best way to know how to set up your company is to check with your CPA.
Business insurance is another crucial issue. The last thing you want to do is start your business without the proper coverage. This is something you should look into at the business planning stage, to be frank. One reader told me she was very upset to learn that, after she had a ton of money on setting up her business, she couldn’t open the doors. The liability insurance was way too expensive. Keep in mind that she learned this after she spent a good deal of money. Clearly she would have been far better off had she determined that the cost of insurance was prohibitive from the get-go.
I believe in hiring staff before you absolutely need to do it…but just barely. You are walking a tightrope here. I say this because if you wait too long to hire people, you’ll be giving up opportunity and sales. But if you hire people and all they do is sit there and warm a chair, it’s a huge waste of time and money. Look for opportunities to hire contractors instead of staff, if possible.
This is another area that should have been clarified in your business plan. Now’s the time to implement. You need to market as soon as possible, and don’t let anything stand in your way. Without marketing, your business won’t bring in sales. Without sales, there won’t be enough revenue, and soon you’ll be back at your old job but minus all the money you spent setting up your company.
People take the prior steps but drop the ball when they forget about the all-important confirmation step. This is the point at which you sit down with your accountability partner and go over how things have gone so far. What’s working? What has surprised you? What challenges are you still facing? What are the unforeseen challenges you didn’t expect?
Starting a business is a wonderful journey. I thoroughly enjoy being self-employed. If you take the time and go through each of these steps methodically, I’m sure you’ll feel the same way. If you are self-employed, what other steps would you add?
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The first head of state received by Pope Francis was President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of his native Argentina. The meeting Monday was outwardly warm and relaxed, the two exchanging gifts in front of the cameras before retiring for a private lunch. But the sunny smiles could not obscure the fact that their relationship until now has been a stormy one. In his role as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had reportedly asked Fernández for a meeting 14 times since she became President in 2007. She turned him down each time. She made a point of leaving Buenos Aires every year on Argentina’s Independence Day, July 9, to avoid being present at the traditional Te Deum Mass said by Bergoglio at Buenos Aires Cathedral, a ceremony previous Presidents never failed to attend.
(PHOTOS: The Installation of Pope Francis)
Though Roman Catholicism remains Argentina’s official religion and abortion remains illegal, President Fernández helped legalize gay marriage in 2010 — much to Bergoglio’s anger. She once joked that it was a shame that women couldn’t be Pope because she would run against him for the position. Meanwhile, his homilies indicate that he is opposed to her changing the country’s constitution to seek a third term in office.
His clashes with the Argentine President illuminate his conservative credentials, which do not stray from the doctrines held by the previous Pope and the rest of the Vatican. She championed contraception while he echoed loudly the church’s zero-tolerance policy. “A pregnant woman is not carrying a toothbrush in her womb, or a tumor,” he declared. “Science shows us that the entire genetic code is present from the moment of conception. It’s not therefore a religious issue but scientifically based morality, because we are in the presence of a human being.” He said that many women suffer from guilty consciences after going through abortions. “You need to be in the confession box and listen to those giant dramas because they know they have killed their child.”
In his attacks on the legalization of gay marriage, he was virulent in opposition, writing in a letter to Argentine priests, “Let’s not be naive. It’s not a mere political struggle. It’s a destructive attempt against the plan of God.” He said that gay marriage represents “the envy of the Devil, bringing sin to the world. It’s a clever attempt to destroy the image of God, man and woman, who have received the mandate to prosper, multiply and rule the earth.”
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Ashley Smith: Youth jail file lists punishments, her appeals for help
Explore This Story
Ashley Smith packed for jail like a kid headed to summer camp.
Blue plaid pyjama pants, three pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear, jeans, a few hoodies, sweatpants, one bottle of Pert shampoo, hair mousse, vanilla body wash, a copy of Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, a plush pink pig, a SpongeBob SquarePants address book, a Walkman, headphones, one colouring book and a rhyming dictionary.
The duffle bag was light but she had no reason to think she’d be there three years.
At age 15, she had no reason to think she would spend most days and nights inside an often filthy, sometimes ant-ridden 9-by-6-foot segregation cell where the lights didn’t go off at bed time. She had no reason to think the pink pig would be taken away. But stuffed animals aren’t allowed in solitary confinement.
The full story of what happened to Ashley at the New Brunswick Youth Centre has never been told. The teen landed there after chucking crabapples at a Moncton mail carrier while she was on probation for a string of other nuisance-related offences.
The Toronto Star obtained copies of Ashley’s youth jail records from this time — a file that exceeds 900 pages, including heartbreaking handwritten notes she sent to prison staff, her family and a newspaper; discipline reports; and intergovernmental emails that discussed bringing adult criminal charges against her for offences she committed in the jail. That file documents Ashley’s coming of age behind bars before the superintendent of the New Brunswick Youth Centre had the teen punted prematurely to the adult system.
A coroner’s inquest, finally underway in Toronto six years after Ashley died on the floor of a Kitchener prison cell, will not drill down into her youth jail time and its effect on her mental health.
There’s simply too much ground to cover in the adult system. The jury will begin hearing its third week of evidence on Monday. More than 100 witnesses are expected to testify because Ashley was shuttled between institutions across the country 17 times in a year as an “adult” inmate.
Nov. 2, 2005
“Dear Editor: I’m writing this letter because I believe the community should know. I’m currently at the New Brunswick Youth Centre serving a rather long sentence for petty crimes. When the judge sentenced me, the community went way to go! One less troublemaker on the streets. Do they not realize this place makes youth worse not better? Since I have been here, I’ve become a more angry person. I have learned way more about how to commit crimes and not get caught….”
Ashley Smith, 17
After nearly two years of incarceration, Ashley wrote this note to the Times and Transcript, a newspaper in Moncton.
“From what you and others have told me, she should not have been sent to NBYC,” the brief report states. “She is there to be assessed? Please help me to see where I can help with getting this youth out of our facility and into a place where her needs can be met.” It’s unclear who is asking for help and who is expected to help.
That was May 14, 2003. The New Brunswick Youth Centre’s policy declared that no young person would be segregated for more than five days at a time without the regional director’s permission. It’s not known whether such permission was sought or granted.
A youth jail form shows Ashley was segregated 24 times. Whether this was over the course of a week, a month or a year is unknown. What is known is that other youth were rarely sent there twice in that period.
Bernard Richard, New Brunswick’s former ombudsman and youth advocate, reported that Ashley served two-thirds of her youth custody time in segregation as punishment for bad behaviour: talking out of turn, not following orders, foul language. Staff laid 501 institutional disciplinary charges against her in three years and she was found guilty every time by NBYC’s internal court.
But the more Ashley was segregated — confined to her cell 23 hours a day — the more she seemed to act out. The documents suggest she was punished even when there was a reasonable explanation for her behaviour.
A NBYC program meeting report from December 2004 notes that Ashley “became very belligerent and disrespectful when (name blacked out) said she was going to Male 3 (an all-boys unit).”
When she was admitted, the clothing she brought was replaced by standard-issue socks, T-shirts and pants that she frequently tore up and was made to pay for. Damaging shorts cost her $10. It was $17 for every sweatshirt, $1.70 for socks, $12.31 for every bed sheet. Hundreds of dollars were deducted from her jail account to pay for these items.
While Ashley used some of the ripped material to create ligatures, which she would tie around her neck and other body parts to cut off her blood supply and provoke guards to interact with her; other clothing may have torn because it was just too small — at 5-feet-8 and 260 pounds, elements of the institutional uniform were not always available in her size.
“Can I please talk to you about getting two large pair of panties,” Ashley wrote to her unit manager on Sept. 17, 2005. “(Name blacked out) wore mine and (name blacked out) gave me two new pair but they are way too small! Thanks.”
Two days later, the unit manager wrote back. “Ashley, you may request these items from the staff on the female unit. Should be able to work with you on this issue.”
A month later, Ashley inquired again. “Can you please do something about the small girls on female wearing big clothes when they know there is none for me and I’m stuck with small clothes! Thanks.”
She advocated on behalf of other inmates, asking for fruit and vegetables as snacks instead of muffins (request denied), new communal headphones to replace broken ones (request granted) and newspapers for the female units on the weekend (request to be considered).
She asked the program manager if she could be considered for a house manager position but she was rejected “due to negative behaviour.” Undiscouraged, Smith asked for a ping-pong table for the female unit to “help pass time during the Christmas holidays.” It’s not known whether she got it.
The positivity that Ashley mustered wasn’t enough to keep her from segregation or criminal charges, which added time to her sentence.
From Feb. 23, 2004, until Sept. 19, 2006, staff called Miramichi police into the facility to lay formal external charges against Ashley on 24 occasions. The offences ranged from assaulting correctional officers, which included spitting or throwing toilet water, and activating sprinklers.
Because of these charges, what was originally a month-long sentence in youth jail had, over the years, ballooned into a term of six years, one month and 17 days.
On July 29, 2006, the Superintendent of the New Brunswick Youth Centre filed an application with the court to have her transferred to federal custody even though she was still a youth. The law allows such a transfer if it is considered to be in the best interest of the youth or public.
The prospect of adult custody terrified her.
A few months earlier, she wrote to an official within the institution promising to be a better inmate.
“I’m writting (sic) this letter because I was and still am … trying to get back on track. At shift change tonight I covered my cell window because I was upset. . . At ten o’clock this evening the (unit manager) came over and told me as per you I was moving to T.Q. (therapeutic quiet). I’m very upset that I’m down here. The boys are always rude and the limited time out of my cell is hard. I came down tonight without a struggle because I know things will be better for me . . . I honestly want to get back on track and go back to school.”
Ashley’s family challenged the transfer. Their appeal was denied.
On Oct. 5, 2006, Ashley arrived at Saint John Regional Correctional Centre, a provincial adult jail, where she was Tasered twice within the first few weeks.
On Oct. 31, 2006, she entered the federal system. She was dead within a year.
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Capt. John Oughton absolutely terrorizes the bluefin, yellowfin and bigeye tuna when they migrate anywhere near his home port of Ocean City, Maryland. At the helm of his 50-foot Evans, That's Right, Oughton runs wherever and however long it takes to get on the fish. He's no slacker. And when he's in the action, he and mate Jason Genther strive to be as proficient as possible at catching them.
One key to the team's success is the quick-change ballyhoo rig they use trolling for tuna. Rather than meticulously rigging several dozen baits in advance and layering them on trays in a cooler, Oughton and Genther rely on their quick-change rigs to keep from missing a beat - or a fish. This rig consists of a leader (usually 100- or 130-pound-test fluorocarbon) and a hook (based on the size of the ballyhoo), with a sinker (usually ¼ ounce to 1½ ounces) riding on the leader just in front of the loop to which the hook is attached. They favor weighted skirts ahead of their baits. From there, things become a little different.
Because wahoo are always possible, Oughton uses a few inches of No.10 single-strand wire to form a loop alongside that of the fluorocarbon leader that connects the hook. One strand of the wire, along with the fluorocarbon, goes through the hook eye, and both strands of the wire follow the fluorocarbon through two 1.6 mm sleeves that, when crimped, complete the connection. The goal is for the wire-reinforced loop to prevent wahoo from severing the fluorocarbon leader, providing the fish doesn't hit well above the hook. The other purpose of the wire is to form the pin that rides at a 90-degree angle to the leader, which is run underneath and through both jaws of the ballyhoo to help secure the bait to the rig.
In place of a length of Monel or soft copper wire to secure the bait, Oughton utilizes a No. 32 rubber band affixed to the loop of the leader that holds the hook. This is where the quick-change feature comes into play: Both Oughton and Genther claim they can change out a ballyhoo within seconds by unwrapping the rubber band, removing the damaged bait and, with the same rubber band, rigging a fresh bait to the hook. With practice, this can be accomplished in less time than it takes to get into the cooler, select a ballyhoo, uncoil the leader and change out the damaged rig.
Several of these basic rigs are fabricated in advance with various sizes of hooks and, sometimes, leader strengths. "This gives us the latitude of choosing which size ballyhoo to put in the spread," says Oughton. "We have a tray in a cooler with different sizes of unrigged ballyhoo. We can grab the size we want, secure it to the rig and get it back out behind the boat in no time at all."
Oughton says this particular rig goes into play when the tuna are around and the trolling speed's averaging around 5 or 6 knots. "If we do more conventional trolling at higher speeds," he says, "we'll go with the typical ballyhoo rigs with Monel or soft copper wire, since they handle the trolling stresses much better. But for slower trolling when we are on the fish and not searching for them, this rig is tough to top."
Recipe for Speed
Mate Genther layers the unrigged ballyhoo in a cooler. Some of the baits have the eyes removed (to prevent them from filling with water and bugging) and have been milked of their stomach contents, whereas others remain unprepped. Only after a ballyhoo has been affixed to the rig does Genther crush the backbone, to limber it up, and snap off the beak. The crushing is done with an index finger and thumb by squeezing gently yet firmly along the bait's lateral line. Done correctly, you can hear the slight crunching sound as the backbone compresses.
On the way to the grounds, Genther attaches the prepped baits to their rigs and then dispatches them when the trolling begins. Gunning for bluefins, Genther and Oughton deploy eight baits; for yellowfins, they set 14 baits in the spread. When a bait gets hit and the fish is boated, Genther removes the hook, undoes the rubber band, removes what's left of the bait, puts on a fresh ballyhoo, secures it with the same rubber band and gets that bait back in position within seconds. He'll change out a leader only if it has been chafed or nicked.
The effectiveness of the quick-change rig really comes into play when multiple tunas are hooked or when there's one bite right after another. In system-like fashion, a fish is boated, the hook removed, and the rig rebaited and then redeployed within moments, keeping nearly all the baits fishing during a hot bite. I had the opportunity to spend some time fishing with Oughton and Genther and watched this rig in play. It's fast and effective and keeps bait soak time to a maximum. And best of all, it catches fish!
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This page contains links to all surviving family photographs from the 1920s and earlier. Dad's New Zealand pictures are excluded — there is a separate page for them. However, photographs sent to Dad from his family during his time in New Zealand are included here.
|Jane Daniels, née Suthers, my father's maternal grandmother. She suffered an unhappy fate, described
here. I don't know the date of the photograph. Great-Grandma Daniels died on the last day
of 1880, so my first guess was sometime in the 1870s. However, second cousin Judith Rothwell, who gave me the picture, says this:
[Second cousin] Teresa … gave me the copy. She had the original on glass — hence the crack across the middle. She said she thought it was taken shortly after [Jane] was married in 1859, and she does look quite young. The bonnet is obviously a best one and her hair is so shiny. Apparently it was unusual to have an itinerant photographer take pictures inside the house as the light was usually so poor. It would appear that there is a lamp on the table lighting up the face … I wonder if the crocheted cloth was hers. She looks very like what we have always called a Diamond but it turns out to be a Suthers look.
|Baby picture of Dad.|
|Great-Grandad Perry (i.e. my mother's mother's father). This picture might date from any time between 1890 and 1910, I really don't know. Notice the clay pipe.|
|John Henry Knowles, my mother's father. This must have been taken in the late 1890s or early 1900s.|
|Dad in a school picture. He is the rightmost child on the back row, next to the teacher.|
|Grandma Knowles' sister Leah (seated) and aunt, Lizzie Pickens. Leah begat Auntie Annie, who begat Uncle Fred Littlehales, who married Aunt Muriel. Lizzie Pickens begat a tribe of footballers — not hard to believe from looking at her.|
|The Derbyshire children around 1911: Polly, Cissie, John Robert (my father), and Tom.|
|Elizabeth Derbyshire, my Dad's mother. I have no idea when this was taken, but my best guess is around 1915.|
|My father shortly after enlisting in 1915.|
My father's medals. The one on the left is the British War Medal; the one on the right, the Victory Medal. "K.S.L.I." stands for "King's Shropshire Light Infantry," Dad's regiment. Photograph courtesy of my nephew Robert Derbyshire.
The medals are described as follows on the U.K. National Archives website.
"The British War Medal 1914-1920, authorised in 1919, was awarded to eligible service personnel and civilians alike. Qualification for the award varied slightly according to service. The basic requirement for army personnel and civilians was that they either entered a theatre of war, or rendered approved service overseas between 5 August 1914 and 11 November 1918. Service in Russia in 1919 and 1920 also qualified for the award."
"The Victory Medal 1914-1919 was also authorised in 1919 and was awarded to all eligible personnel who served on the establishment of a unit in an operational theatre."
|My mother with her mother, mid-1920s.|
|This, I am reliably informed, is Cousin Betty (Polly's daughter) in July 1928.|
|My mother with her sister Winifred. Looks like late 1920s.|
|Grandad Derbyshire, with miner's lamp. This could be any time from the 1920s to the 1930s.|
|Elizabeth, a.k.a. "Cissie," my Dad's younger sister.|
|A note on the back of the previous photograph, in Uncle Tommy's handwriting: "Head & shoulders of Cis, but not a very good one."|
|Mum in fancy dress. I'm not sure what she is supposed to be. A milkmaid? On the back it says: "Concert party, Wordsley Hospital 1929."|
|A note on the back of the previous photograph, in Cissie's handwriting: "From Cissie to Bob, with very best love." Bob was my Dad. I suppose this was sent to him when he was abroad.|
|Auntie Cissie under full canvas, around 1930(?).|
|A note on the back of the previous photograph, in Cissie's handwriting: "This was taken in Derry's garden." Fred Derry was the man Cissie married. I suppose they were courting at this point.|
|Uncle Tom and Auntie Cissie at Land's End.|
|A note on the back of the previous photograph, in Cissie's handwriting: "I am sitting on the first and last rock in England, at Land's End, and Tom is with me."|
|Uncle Tommy, Auntie Cissie, and Grandad Derbyshire, at Land's End.|
|Grandma Derbyshire with Auntie Cissie. Is this the same Land's End trip, or later? I think later, perhaps in the 1930s, as Cissie looks somewhat older.|
|Uncle Tommy (center) with Fred Derry, who married Cissie, and I think Fred's father.|
|A note on the back of the previous photograph, in Tommy's handwriting: "Just a souvenir from TOM."|
|Uncle Tommy on the motorbike that killed him.|
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Home insurance may not be at the forefront of your mind when you're shopping for mortgage rates to purchase your dream home, but it deserves prompt attention.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or a veteran homeowner, understanding home insurance is critical for protecting your investment.
Here are 7 things you need to know:
1. Get a CLUE.
"It's important for new homebuyers to think of insurance as part of the home search process and to look at obtaining coverage for the home as far in advance of closing as possible," says Mary Bonelli, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Insurance Institute.
Besides getting a home inspection, request a copy of a C.L.U.E. report. C.L.U.E.--Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange--is a database owned by LexisNexis Risk Solutions that gives insurers access to information on claims that have been filed against the property in the last five years. As a prospective buyer, you can't get a report from the company, but you can ask the homeowner, who can ask LexisNexis, for a copy, Bonelli says. According to LexisNexis, a growing number of buyers are requiring sellers to provide a copy of the report as a contingency for a purchase offer. The loss history will reveal problems that could make insuring the home difficult or expensive. Ask an insurance agent about the home's insurability and for an estimate of the premium.
2. What home insurance does cover.
A standard home insurance policy covers the home and your belongings, as well as your liability for any injuries or property damage you, your family members or pets may cause others. It also provides additional living expenses in case you can't live in the home while it's being repaired after an insured disaster.
Policies are fairly standard among states, except Texas, which has its own policy definitions. Here are the basic types of home insurance in most states:
• HO-1, a bare-bones policy that protects against 10 perils. It has been discontinued in most places.
• HO-2, a broad policy that covers the house and contents against 16 disasters.
• HO-3, the most popular and broadest policy. It covers against all perils except those specifically excluded (earthquake, flood, nuclear accident, neglect, war, government action [such as seizure of the property], power failure, building code laws [it would not cover the cost to bring your house up to code, for instance], losses from faulty construction materials, defective maintenance, and faulty zoning.).
• HO-6, a policy for condominium and co-op owners. The policy provides coverage for liability, personal property and structural parts of the building you own.
• HO-8, a policy designed for older homes whose replacement cost far exceeds the property's value. The policy usually reimburses you for actual value--replacement cost minus depreciation, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Some older homes whose values have depreciated may not qualify for replacement cost coverage.
You need to understand the difference between actual cash value and replacement cost coverage, Bonelli says. Actual cash value coverage pays for the cost of replacement, minus depreciation. If your five-year-old sofa were destroyed, the payout under actual cash value coverage would equal the sofa's value, considering its age. Replacement cost coverage would pay for buying a brand new sofa.
3. What home insurance doesn't cover.
Standard home insurance policies don't cover floods or earthquakes. You must purchase separate policies to get coverage for those disasters. Your lender will require you to buy insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program if you live in a flood-prone area. Also, in some coastal areas, home insurance policies exclude damage from wind; homeowners there need a separate windstorm insurance policy to cover wind damage. Earthquake insurance is optional, but recommended in many areas, such as California.
4. The limits.
Standard policies put dollar limits on valuables, such as jewelry, furs, fine art, and antiques. You may need to buy a "floater" or endorsement to provide extra coverage.
Insurance Information Network of California Spokesman Tully Lehman recommends completing an inventory of your belongings, working closely with your agent and asking lots of questions to make sure you have enough coverage.
"The more detailed you are the more accurate the policy is going to be," he says.
Bonelli says consider purchasing additional liability coverage through an umbrella policy if your home has a pool or spa.
"Certain types of luxuries may end up costing you additional money from an insurance standpoint," she says.
5. Insure the cost to rebuild, not the market value.
After the housing market imploded in 2008, more than 25 percent of the 800 people polled by the Insurance Information Network of California mistakenly thought they should reduce their home insurance because market values had dropped.
Don't fall for that line of thinking. Insure your home for the cost to rebuild it, not its market value. The rebuilding cost doesn't include the value of land. That amount could be more or less the market value, depending on labor and materials costs.
6. The benefits of shopping around.
"Shop around not only for who provides the best coverage at the best price, but who provides the best service," Lehman says. "Insurers are not created equally."
Check the insurance company's financial rating and go to your state's insurance department website to find free data on consumer complaints against the company.
7. You need to update.
Review your insurance needs with your agent every year. Lehman tells of one homeowner who over the years added bedrooms, bathrooms and amenities to a two-bedroom, one-bath house he purchased near Lake Tahoe in the 1970s. Unfortunately, he never upgraded the insurance policy, and the home was destroyed in the Angora Fire in 2007. The policy didn't cover the beautiful home that burned; it provided coverage for the modest house he purchased.
When in doubt about your home insurance coverage, check your policy and talk to your agent. It's better to address questions now than to get caught short after the damage has been done.
Barbara Marquand is a writer with more than 20 years of reporting experience for newspapers, magazines and websites. She writes frequently about insurance and other business topics.
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A baby camel once asked the mother, “Why do we have a hump?” Mother camel replied, “We are desert animals and we need hump to store water.” Curious, the baby asked further, “Why do we have long rounded legs and long eyelashes?” The mother proudly replied, “Long legs help us... Read More »
In one of the podcasts I have, the host tells an interesting story. While sitting on an airplane next to a gardener, she asked him for one gardening tip. The gardener replied, “My #1 gardening tip is: all plants/flower are only meant to live a certain amount of time. Try to make them live... Read More »
This may sound very simple but communication is all about transferring emotion and energy. Words are simply carriers of that emotion. Yes, choice of words matter, but that is not communication. Consider this example. The new sales director was on boarded with a lot of frenzy. In his first... Read More »
Our communication at workplace needs a lot of simplification. Have you seen leaders who throw jargons and so called “hot words” that leave people more confused? When a boss says, “We need to get this done soon”, people are left to wonder what soon actually means. I once observed a... Read More »
A retired weatherman was once questioned by a friend, “What kind of weather is it going to be tomorrow?” “The kind of weather I am going to love,” was the instant response with a gentle smile on his wrinkled face. “How do you know that it will be the weather you will love?” the... Read More »
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Changing mindsets, habits and hence culture requires time and effort. Having led such initiatives and imparted over 200 trainings so far, provide high quality action-oriented training programs in various technical and non-technical areas.
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Provide thought leadership to other blogs/magazines/books as an author/contributor and deliver key notes at leading b-schools, educational institutions and events on various topics.
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Your vote on this answer has already been received
He is an Indian (and a British Citizen), Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a Kashmiri Muslim, born in Bombay (Mumbai) He is a writer of great repute. He wrote Midnight's Children (about Bombay) which was made into a film by Deepa Mehta. He got Booker prize for it.
Then came the bomb. He wrote Satanic Verses, deriding and scoffing at Islam and Qu'ran and the Prophet of Islam Mohammad. This book was banned in India by Rajiv Gandhi.
Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issue a Fatwa against Salman Rushdie and called for killing him. Also there a huge amount promised as award. He took shelter in UK and UK provided in securiy.
He also has a PIO (People of Indian Origin) card and therefore does not need a visa to visit India. He has visited India dozens of times. Only this time there is a controversy.
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This looks like rather flimsy evidence to me, but it's an interesting thought that might put some things in perspective that otherwise don't make much sense.
"This video will mark a turning point in the minds of our public and make it easier for the government to fulfil its commitments toward the (Hague war crimes) tribunal," said Minister for Human Rights Rasim Ljajić, a Muslim.
His words are code here for the arrest of General Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army. He is indicted for genocide in Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica of 8,000 Muslim males.
The most obvious of these concerns the timing of the publication and the arrests. Human rights lawyer Kandić is thought to have dropped the tape off on 23 May. A week later it was shown at The Hague, but with a good number of the faces shown on it identified by first and last names, or in some cases by first names or nicknames only. Was that work done while the tape was in the prosecution's possession? Didn't the prosecution have the obligation to alert the defense to its existence right away? More importantly, how did they manage to put names on faces? It is here that things start getting interesting: just hours after the video airs on Serbian TV, the authorities announce that several of the paramilitaries shown on the tape had been arrested, including one of the executioners. (The numbers are hazy, but most reports put them at seven or eight.)
If, as the defense witness claims during whose testimony at The Hague the tape was shown, the Scorpions were not operating in Bosnia under interior ministry command, how come the government seems to have pretty complete files on these guys, including their current whereabouts? This happened ten years ago, so a good number of them would be retired by now; how does the government have their address? I think there's a fair bit of explaining to be done.
Moreover, there seems to have been some sort of complicity -- perhaps tacit rather than overt -- between Kandić, the prosecution, and the Serbian authorities. Otherwise, action could simply not have been taken so swiftly. I imagine that something like this might have happened: Kandić gets the tape and passes it on to the prosecution. She sits on it while the prosecution, perhaps with her help, is trying to identify the folks on the tape. (Incidentally, nobody seems to have worried too much about identifying the vitcims; Reuters quotes a woman who says she recognizes her son among those executed.) Once they're getting there, she passes it on to the government, perhaps already with names attached. The government is notified by the prosecution that this will be shown at some point during the trial, and the authorities are preparing to make these arrests.
The prosecution and Kandić don't care about the political constellation; their overriding interest is, rightly, to see Mladić in the dock. The Serbian government feels it has to do something to maintain the momentum of the last few months, when droves of indictees "surrendered" to the ICTY, some more and some less voluntarily. Perfect congruence of interests?
[Update, 4 June: a Reuters report (no link available) shed new light on this today. It said, "The video was obtained last December from an unnamed and now protected source by Hague prosecutors and Natasa Kandic, a Serbian human rights activist. They spent months authenticating it and investigating the men it showed. It was shown to Serbian war crimes prosecutors a week ago and its broadcast to a national audience was coordinated with the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica."]
But what I don't get is the broader context. The victims seem too young to have been of any intelligence value. The question then is, were they shipped all the way from Srebrenica to Trnovo or Jahorina (again, the details of where the killings took place are hazy) just to be killled? If they were just to be killed, why not kill them right there, in Srebrenica, as happened to thousands of others? Why were these guys special? Why bother to get special police from Serbia to kill them?
Even thought he footage seems clear enough, this tape is hiding a secret -- whatever it may be.
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Made in China? Police believe some flags may have already been shipped
Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.
The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.
But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper.
The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.
Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.
Thousands of flags had already been packed for shipping.
Police believe that some may already have been sent overseas, and could appear in Hong Kong during the Olympic torch relay there this week.
The authorities have now stepped up the inspection of cars heading to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and onwards to Hong Kong.
The Olympic torch is due to tour Hong Kong on Friday. It will then travel to a series of cities in mainland China before reaching Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games in August.
Its progress around the world has been marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations in several cities - including Paris, London and San Francisco.
Rallies began in the main Tibetan city of Lhasa on 10 March, led by Buddhist monks.
Over the following week protests spread and became violent - particularly in Lhasa, where ethnic Chinese were targeted and shops were burnt down.
Beijing cracked down on the protesters with force, sending in hundreds of troops to regain control of the restive areas.
But it has since agreed to resume talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.
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The Spirit of Christmas
A tale of generosity, love, and faith.
Posted: Thursday, December 13th
Charlotte, NC (December 13, 2007) - Opera Carolina reminds us what the Christmas spirit is truly about in Gian-Carlo Menotti's perennial opera favorite, Amahl & the Night Visitors. In this story of generosity and faith, an impoverished family learns that love alone is enough to build the Christ-child's kingdom. Amahl offers a fresh alternative to the frantic holiday season - a testament to love and charity. Since its first performance on Christmas Eve 1951, Amahl & the Night Visitors has continued to encourage audiences, young and old, to find the meaning of Christmas within their hearts.
Amahl & the Night Visitors
Amahl, a crippled twelve-year-old boy prone to exaggerations and storytelling, learns that generosity and forgiveness are among the greatest gifts ever given or received. One night, three wealthy kings knock on Amahl's door looking for a place to rest from their journey. Although they have little to offer, Amahl and his mother open their small home to the Magi. The kings are following an enormous star that will lead them to a Wondrous Child to whom they bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Hoping that the Child the kings seek is her son, Amahl's mother invites her neighbors to entertain their royal company. That night, distressed by the sight of the kings' wealth and her son's crippling poverty, Amahl's mother steals some of the Magi's gold to help her son. When she is caught by the king's pageboy, Amahl feebly tries to protect his mother from punishment. Finally understanding her motives for stealing, the kings tell Amahl's mother to keep the gold, for the child they seek will not need earthly riches to build his kingdom. Amahl's mother wishes she had something to send along to such a child, but she has little to give. Amahl also has nothing to offer, but he gives his crutch, his only possession, for the kings to present to the Christ Child. Miraculously, as Amahl gives away his crutch his lame leg is healed and decides to leave with the three kings to give thanks to the Child for his immeasurable blessing.
GianCarlo Menotti was born in Cadegliano-Viconago, Italy on July 7, 1911. He gained fame as a composer with Amelia al Ballo (1937), which received performances at the Met. In 1950 and 1955, Menotti was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music from The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street, respectively. In 1984, Menotti was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor for achievements in the arts, and in 1991 he was chosen as Musical America's "Musician of the Year." In 1951, Menotti was commissioned by NBC to create a made-for-TV holiday opera. On Christmas Eve 1951, Amahl & the Night Visitors entered homes across the country and instantly became a holiday favorite. For the next 15 years, Amahl continued to appear on television during the holidays. In 1978, NBC filmed a new production of Amahl in the Holy Land; the only version of Amahl that was ever released on video. He died February 1, 2007 in Mote Carlo, Monaco at the age of 95.
Opera Carolina's Production of Amahl & the Night Visitors
Although Amahl & the Night Visitors has retired from holiday television, the one-act opera is still a favorite on-stage performance for audiences of all ages. Opera Carolina brings Menotti's spirit and music to the Halton Theater at CPCC on December 22, 2007 at 7:00 pm. Tickets are on sale now for $16 (adult) and $10 (child) and available online at operacarolina.org or at the box office at 704.372.1000.
This production of Amahl & the Night Visitors is made possible by Presenting Sponsor Donald Haack Diamonds. Amahl & the Night Visitors is sung in English. Full cast listings and bios are available at: operacarolina.org/operas. To download images of this production please go to: http://www.operacarolina.org/about_media_photos.php.
Founded in 1948 as the Charlotte Opera Association by a small group of volunteers, Opera Carolina today is the largest professional opera company in the Carolinas with an operating budget of over $3.5 million. The mission of Opera Carolina is to inspire the region's diverse community through the presentation of excellent Opera, Operetta, Music Theater, and Education & Outreach programs that elevate the quality of life in the Carolinas. Opera Carolina is a community resource with a commitment to artistic excellence and community service.
Opera Carolina is supported by the Arts & Science Council-Charlotte/Mecklenburg, Inc., The North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of North Carolina, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Opera Carolina is a member of OPERA America.
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Opera Carolina News Archive
Click a year below to view past press releases:
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A group of concerned citizens in Whatcom County, WA has started a grass roots effort to reduce commercial jet noise in our community This website- ReduceJetNoise.wordpress.com is an essential part of this grass roots effort.
An Airport Master Plan Update is currently underway at the Port of Bellingham.
Bellingham International Airport (BLI) is substantially increasing jet traffic
as quickly as they can, by enticing airlines with special offers.
Our community is already experiencing negative impacts from jet noise.
The proposed airport expansion negatively affects our property values, outdoor recreation, and quality of life.
Check out our WHAT YOU CAN DO page. We can make a difference!
Spread the word to your neighbors and friends!
Watch this 30 sec. video.- ‘Birds over Bellingham Bay’
“The audio recording is an accurate representation of how loud it was that day, the cloud cover made it reverberate across a very wide area. I’ve wanted to make a better recording because my recorder was set to manual levels that day and I misjudged just how loud it was going to be, so as you can hear it is distorted at its higher end.
I grew up watching the Jetsons, I now feel I’m living in a space port here in Bellingham as I continually listen to the rumble of the jets. I feel real sadness towards our disappearing natural soundscape and harbor fond memories of a much quieter Puget Sound. And then we have the coal train that on a “good” day can be heard for an hour from down at Squalicum Harbor as it passes along the shoreline.
I grew up down in Fife Washington, a small beautiful agricultural town that has now transformed into a place I no longer recognize. Bellingham is headed down the same disturbing path. Thanks for your efforts to preserve some of what we naturally have.”
Best wishes, Tom
Join us! Add your name to our notification list: email@example.com
Concerned Whatcom Residents Protecting our Community
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Fronting the city of Makassar are a cluster of islands basking in the sun, numbering 55 in all, some large, while others are merely sand bars that disappear at high tide. This cluster of islands is known as the Spermonde Archipelago, but locals know them only by their individual names.
The islands nearest to Makassar, such as Lae-lae and Kayangan, can be reached within 15 minutes by speedboat and are popular weekend getaway resorts, others have fishing villages, while the furthest away such as Kapuposang island, immediately face the deep sea and are therefore ideal for diving and snorkeling.
Best time to visit the islands is during the east-monsoon which is between May through September. This is also the perfect time to go sailing around the islands.
The island of Kayangan is about 2 km from the city facing the harbor and is filled with simple restaurants and has rooms for rent. While Lae-Lae is situated some 1.5 km. from town and is the closest to the city. The island has been extended with a long breakwater at its north side to protect the harbor of Makassar against waves.
Lae-Lae today is densely populated, its inhabitants live from fishery and tourism, renting out boats to take tourists back to Makassar or to other islands. The trip to Lae-Lae takes only 10 to15 minutes.
The island of Samalona, some 7 km. from Makassar lies further away and is therefore quieter. During colonial days the island was open exclusively to the Dutch elite. Indonesians were not allowed to enter the island. Samalona has a beautiful white beach, surrounded by healthy coral reefs, where the reef on its northern side is best for snorkeling. A number of cottages are available for rent, but meals are simple, though pricy.
On the Kodengareng Keke island, some 12 km. from the city, the Dolphin Resort has been built. Here one can go snorkeling and diving, the water is clear and there is a variety of marine life to be enjoyed. Dolphin Resort offers four 2-room bungalows, and meals at extra cost. They also have dive equipment for rent. But for diving arrangements it is best to organize this with one of the many dive operators in Makassar.
For information contact: Dolphin Resort , P.O. Box 1543, Makassar 90000, South Sulawesi – Indonesia. Tel.: +62 411 5063596
Diving with Sharks
Lanyukan and Kapuposang are the furthest islands facing the deep sea.
Located some 37 km. from Makassar, Lanyukan is surrounded by reefs and steep drop offs. Here one finds bigger fish like mantas, barracudas and plenty of sharks. Here, from a 100 meter shelf, the reef suddenly plunges to 600 meters. Therefore, only experienced divers should dive these waters. There is a small village on Lanyukan but there are no overnight facilities.
Further away at some 70 km. from Makassar is the island of Kapuposang. This is a beautiful green island covered with casuarinas trees and coconut palms. Kapuposang is right at the edge of the continental shelf that separates Australia from Asia.
This is shark paradise, where the blue-and-white tip reef shark will be inquisitive but mostly harmless, but the hammerheads are ready to attack. This is deep water, from 300 meters near the island, the reef plunges down to 800 meters. Here you will find giant groupers, schools of tuna, stingray and turtles
There is a resort for divers and non-divers at the south-east point of the island.
Although quite far from Makassar, a speedboat will get you to these outermost islands in 1.5 hours.
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2008-07-09 20:36:14 GMT 2008-07-10 04:36:14 (Beijing Time) Xinhua English
Chinese President Hu Jintao (2nd R), Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (2nd L), Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (1st L) and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (1st R) pose for a photo as they meet at Toyako in Hokkaido, north Japan, on July 9, 2008. (Xinhua Photo)
TOYAKO, Japan, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of the so-called "Bric" countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, pledged here on Wednesday to enhance coordination and strive to play a positive role in international affairs.
The "Bric" countries share common or similar views on many important international and regional issues, said Chinese President Hu Jintao while meeting with the three leaders here.
Enhanced dialogue and cooperation between the four nations are conducive to safeguarding world peace and promoting common development, and in the common interest of the international community, he added.
Hu also called for the four countries to strengthen communication and coordination on some important and pressing issues of common concern, to enable them to play a constructive role in international affairs.
Hu's remarks were welcomed by the three other leaders, who agreed that the four nations should boost high-level contacts and consult each other on major international issues in a bid to play a more positive role in global affairs.
Hu was invited by Fukuda to attend the Outreach Session of the Group of Eight (G8) summit, which discussed pressing international issues such as the world economy, climate change and energy security.
On Wednesday, the Chinese leader met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the outreach session of the G8 summit, held in the northern Japanese resort of Toyako.
Also on Wednesday, the final day of the three-day summit, Hu met briefly with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who came to attend an outreach working session on climate change and energy security.
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"Every so often, people ask me why they should upgrade to Internet Explorer 7, the newest version of the venerable Microsoft web browser. They're happy with Internet Explorer 6—it does what they want it to do and they're comfortable using it. Some are nervous about upgrading because they feel they don't have time to learn a new way of doing things. Others believe that because they only use their computers to check their e‑mail and visit "safe" sites, they don't need to upgrade. (...) For me, the most compelling reason to upgrade is the improved security. The Internet of today is not the Internet of five years ago. There are dangers that simply didn't exist back in 2001, when Internet Explorer 6 was released to the world." (Sandi Hardmeier, Microsoft MVP)
According to HitsLink, Internet Explorer lost about 8% of market share to Firefox and Safari in 2008 and IE6's market share decreased from 32% in January to 20% in December.
There's a big opportunity to provide an alternative to IE6 users and many websites recommend users to update their browsers for a better experience. For example, Gmail showed a message which informed users that Firefox and Chrome load Gmail twice as fast as IE6. "Browsers are getting faster and better at running web applications like Google Mail that use browser technology to its limits. In order to get the best experience possible and make Google Mail run an average of twice as fast, we suggest that you upgrade your browser to one of the fastest Google Mail supported browsers that work on Windows," says a Gmail help page.
Internet Explorer 6 users miss the most important Gmail features launched in 2008: themes and Gmail Labs, while the new version of Gmail has been launched for IE6 in September 2008.
As Matt Cutts says, "Chrome has already encouraged lots more people (both browser makers and website owners) to pay attention to things like browser speed, overall user experience, and cross-platform/validated HTML code that works on most browsers". Firefox attracted Internet Explorer by offering better security, maybe it's time to make performance a good reason to switch.
Top 10 reasons to switch from Internet Explorer 6:
1. Switch to a more secure browser.
2. Get a faster browser.
3. Web pages will look better.
4. Use a browser that it's not closely integrated with your operating system.
5. Try a browser that has native support for Ajax.
6. Open less windows by using tabs.
7. Get a search box without installing toolbars.
8. Get anti-phishing protection.
9. Web developers will thank you.
10. If IE6 is no longer a popular browser, developers will spend more time releasing new features.
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Get involved! Send photos, video, news & views. Text SWINDON NEWS to 80360 or email us
Don't become a burglary victim this Christmas
TODAY marks the start of the final week of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ national burglary campaign.
The final theme focuses on reducing the number of dwelling burglaries across the country.
Wiltshire has seen a steady decline in dwelling burglaries over the last few years.
From July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, there were 1581 dwelling burglaries across the county. In the same period from 2011 to 2012, this figure fell by 17.4 per cent, which equates to 275 fewer offences.
However, Wiltshire Police are keen to further reduce this number and deprive burglars of any opportunities to commit crime over the festive period.
Therefore officers are supporting the ACPO campaign by taking part in a series of proactive activities to target known offenders and provide the public with the advice they need to reduce their chances of becoming a victim of this crime.
These activities will include increased patrols in burglary ‘hotspots’; monitoring known offenders through the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition, stop checks, regular home visits and checks on bail conditions and working with our partners to encourage the public to increase their home security, such as through visits from the Bobby Van.
However, the public also has their part to play. By following simple security advice, it can significantly reduce your chances of becoming a victim of this crime:
• Make sure that you lock all your doors and windows whenever you leave your property, even if you are just popping out for five minutes. A burglar needs very little time to break in to your home and steal your belongings
• Don’t keep large amounts of cash at home and ensure that valuable items are positioned away from windows
• Don’t leave keys near a door or window and never hide a spare set outside
• Consider investing in a burglar alarm and installing external security lighting
• Mark the valuable property in your home and register serial numbers with a property register company such as ‘Immobilise’
• If you see or hear anything suspicious, contact police immediately.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick John, Head of Serious Crime at Wiltshire Police, said: “Burglary is a very distressing crime and we are therefore fully supportive of this national campaign.
“Although Wiltshire does not have a high number of burglaries compared to the national average, we are never complacent and will always pursue ways to further reduce the number of crimes.
“Given that Christmas is fast approaching and people are stocking up on presents, it is particularly important that the public adhere to security advice to prevent their Christmas being ruined.
“I would also like to use this opportunity to thank the public for their continued assistance. We rely on information we receive from the community and I would urge anyone who sees or hears anything suspicious to contact police immediately.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Wiltshire Police on 101. Any crimes in action should always be reported to police via 999.
Alternatively you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 where information may be left anonymously if preferred.
Further security advice is available from Wiltshire Police’s Crime Reduction Officers by calling 101.
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On the face of it, what Silence Do-Good did on that cold November morning was a small thing,but it would have repercussions which would forever echo down the ages.
A shipment of illegal alcohol was being smuggled into Chicago by elements of Johnny Torrio's criminal empire via the docks, there to be dispersed by truck to hundreds of downtown speakeasies. Not only would this continue to fuel the growing war between the Italian Chicago Mob and the Irish North Side Gang, it would also dictate a strong response by Dylan, Michael, and Thomas Callaghan, a.k.a the Quiet Men.
The Callaghan brothers were all WW1 veterans, possessed of typical Irish tempers and a strong Catholic sense of right and wrong. They were among the first to take up arms against the growing wave of crime in their city, using infantry tactics learned in the harsh Mexican Campaign. They used their heritage to their advantage, making their attacks on Torrio's mob seem the work of the North Siders. Unfortunately, the Torrio was tired of these attacks, and alongside the alcohol were large amounts of automatic weapons and ammunition for same. Open warfare was about to break out in the streets of Chicago, and the Callaghan brothers were about to light the fuse.
Side note: The Quiet Men were, despite their lack of powers or costumes, the first "super group" ever to appear in this universe. They wore similar outfits -- World War 1 uniforms with any identifying marks removed, trenchcoats with upturned collars, and fedoras pulled down low. They used code names -- Lieutenant, Sergeant, and Private. They even used different weapons -- Lt. Quiet (Michael Callaghan) carried a Colt .45 pistol in his right hand and a swagger stick in his left; Sgt. Quiet (Dylan Callaghan) used an M1903 Springfield with affixed bayonet; and Pvt Quiet (Thomas Callaghan) used a Thompson SMG* with drum magazine.Silence knew that Torrio's mob could not be allowed to smuggle their contraband into Chicago, but she also knew that any police response would be out-manned and out-gunned. Worse, the Quiet Men knew about the shipment as well, and planned to hit the trucks as they left the docks. Therefore, she did the one thing that would not result in catastrophic loss of life: direct intervention.
Given the similarity of clothing, obvious command structure, and different yet complimentary choice of weapons in lieu of power, they not only set the mold for all future super groups, but also dictated vigilante fashion for decades.
The battle, if you can call it that, was short. Silence waited below ground as the mobsters transferred the contraband from the ship to the docks. Her plan was to have the earth swallow the crates once the ship was unloaded, then appear and take them all into custody. Unfortunately, this plan was foiled almost immediately as the gang members chose to begin loading the crates immediately into the first waiting truck, sending each out as soon as it was loaded.
When the first truck began to leave, Silence sprang into action. She partially liquefied the ground underneath the truck, swallowing it to its axles. The gangsters in the truck, not knowing exactly what was going on but aware that something seriously wrong had occurred, leaped out and sounded the alarm. Immediately the other gangsters pulled out weapons and ceased the unloading of the ship as the crew hastily made to depart. In the confusion, no one noticed the large woman rising from the ground, or saw her grasp the bow line and tie it about her waist. "YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST," she then shouted in a voice which carried like a foghorn. "PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND..."
The rest of her sentence was drowned out by gunshots as Torrio's mobsters opened fire on her with their automatic weapons. None of them seemed to hit her, however, for the concrete of the pier rose up and encased her as she assumed her Golem Form, granting her the strength and durability of the earth itself. This had the added effect of fusing the line to her body and anchoring her to the dock. Then she gave the line a good, solid yank.
|A rare glimpse of Silence in her true Golem form|
Later, one of the gangsters was reported as saying, "First we was shootin' at this big dame in blue. Next she was a statue. I dunno where the boat came from, one minute it was in the water and the next it was landin' almost on toppa us! As we was pickin' ourselves up, the statue-thing rises outta the ground with the biggest dang hammer I ever seen, like a telephone pole with cement foundation bein' held upside-down. I dunno what it said after that, but me'n the rest of the boys figgered it'd won so we all raised our hands and cried uncle."
As a point of interest, Silence's actual words were as follows: "Naughty, naughty, shooting a lady. If you don't surrender right now I shall be forced to spank you." This delivery was made more impressive by the massive war-mallet she had taken from the earth, and that her voice in golem form sounded like an avalanche.
The mobsters weren't the only witnesses to Silence's actions that day. Also in attendance was Max Fairfield, a junior reporter for the Chicago Tribune on the crime beat, who had received an anonymous tip about "something important" happening at the docks, and that he should bring a camera with him. In so doing, he made history, for he was the first journalist to photograph, and then interview, the first Super Hero.
Excerpted from Max Fairfield's Pulitzer-winning article, Silent No More:
I called you here as a witness to history, Mr. Fairfield. It is your job to ensure that my words are heard across this country and throughout history. If you misquote me I shall be quite cross with you.
Know this: A new war is upon, a war against the criminal element, and I shall not sit idly by as this war consumes the country I love. My father created me to defend our nation against all threats, both foreign and domestic, and this I do now.
Also know that just I will not abide criminal behavior, neither shall I tolerate murder in my name. There has been enough killing, and as I stand before you now, it will end. There are those who sought to emulate me and fight for justice, and their thirst for justice does them credit. But violence only multiplies violence.
I say to you now, before God and Country, that these "Mystery Men" cannot exist in America, for our country cannot, will not abide assassination in lieu of law. Let those who wish to follow me do so using my methods! Do not keep to shadows, but instead proclaim yourselves as proud defenders of law and order. Work with the police, and not against them. Do not kill the guilty; defeat them in their crimes and allow our system to put them to trial.
Do as I ask, and I shall see to it that every police force in the country will cooperate with you in your capacity as an anonymous, concerned citizen. But those who murder again in my name shall receive a harsh reproach from me.
Her gamble worked. In the weeks that followed, the mystery men stepped out of the shadows and into costumes -- muted at first, and many based upon military or police uniforms, but gradually becoming more colorful. They reduced the lethality of their attacks, using billy clubs, hand-to-hand techniques, or in some cases adopting more unusual weapons as the bow & arrow or the fencing sword. Those who kept their guns, usually pistols, either left them for use only in emergency situations or became exceptional trick shots.
Silence kept her word. Using her many connections in state and federal government, the "Do-Good Statute" of 1921 made it legal for easily identifiable (i.e. costumed) and known (having a relationship with state, local, or federal law-enforcement) vigilantes to work with the police through an extension of citizen's arrest laws.
As quickly as it had come, the day of the mystery men had set. This was the dawn of the Costumed Crusader.
Next: The Golden Age
*Before anyone says that the Thompson SMG didn't enter military service until 1938, I have only one thing to add: This is Alternate History. The needs of the Mexican Campaign resulted in its early invention.
The character of Silence Do-Good is copyright Erin Palette 2011. All art in these sections is either public domain, or machinima from the City of Heroes MMO. I do not claim any ownership of art.
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Electoral historian and Fox News commentator Michael Barone, having long since made the trek from mainstream liberal to standard-issue conservative, is now endeavoring to pull the whole of American history along with him. In today’s Financial Times, he argues that Franklin Roosevelt never really won majority support for his key New Deal programs. Those programs now stand on the chopping block should Mitt Romney be elected president next Tuesday, Barone writes, and they lack popular support even if Barack Obama should prevail.
If you want to know what’s different about Florida, both in general and in this election cycle, just ask Jose Lopez. The organizer and leader of a laundry workers’ union that’s part of the Service Employees International Union, Lopez has been walking precincts as part of SEIU’s campaign to re-elect President Obama since mid-summer. One day, as he was chatting with an elderly man on his doorstep, his canvassing partner interrupted and asked Lopez, “How much do you know about snakes?” A rather large snake, it seems, had slithered between Lopez’s legs.
The elderly gentleman, who, like hundreds of thousands of new Florida voters, had migrated from Puerto Rico to the Orlando metropolitan area, excused himself, returned carrying a machete and proceeded to hack the snake not entirely to death. “The machete was too dull,” says Lopez, shaking his head. “He ended up just beating that poor snake to death with that thing.”
During Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential race, just out of college and back in my hometown of Los Angeles, I worked at the campaign’s Fairfax Avenue office, which was in the epicenter of L.A.’s Jewish community. Someone there (I don’t remember who) got the idea to print up a leaflet that proclaimed, in bold letters, “Nixon is Treyf”—treyf being the Yiddish word for not kosher, filthy, you shouldn’t eat it. The leaflet then went on to list reasons why President Nixon wasn’t good for the Jews. (We didn’t know at the time that Nixon had ordered a purge of Jewish economists from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or that would have headed the list.)
America has the Koch brothers, and now California has the Munger kids. Unlike the rightwing Koches, Molly Munger and her brother Charles Jr. entered politics from opposite directions—she’s a liberal Democrat and a champion of inner-city schools; he’s an economic right-winger, a social moderate, and a Republican activist. But thanks to the vicissitudes of California politics and the self-absorption that wealth can bring (their father is Charles Munger, a Pasadena attorney and investor who is the longtime vice-chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment consortium), they’ve come together in the past couple of days to attack the most important measure on the California ballot: Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative to raise taxes on the rich so that the state’s schools and colleges won’t take a massive fiscal hit immediately following the election.
The scariest piece in the news this week isn’t about the election or the economy or the threat of terrorism—though it touches on all three. It’s about the latest development in humanity’s ceaseless urge to invent things—subcategory, the ceaseless urge to invent things that let people do things more cheaply than before.
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Bombardier is targeting a production rate of 20 aircraft per month for its CSeries aircraft by 2016 as the airframer readies to enlarge the Mirabel site dedicated to producing the aircaft.
Gary Scott, president of Bombardier commercial aircraft, says the 65,000m2 (700,000ft2) factory that currently supports production of the CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ1000 aircraft will be expanded by just under 92,900m2 to support the CSeries.
The greatly extended Mirabel facility will be able to produce one aircraft every manufacturing day or 20 CSeries aircraft a month by 2016 - three years after the CS100 enters service.
"We're planning, and have all of our suppliers committed to, a day rate," says Scott. "So we will be prepared to go as high as a day rate. Can we go higher? Sure. It'll just take additional investment, but clearly it [the CSeries] is going to need a significant production rate."
Bombardier's ambitious production plans for its new 100- to 125-seat CS100 and 120- to 149-seat CS300 follow similar unprecedented production rate forecasts by Airbus and Boeing to meet customer demand for its next-generation widebodies.
A one-day rate for the CSeries would represent the highest-rate production programme in Bombardier's history. At the height of its production, the CRJ200 reached only a one-and-a-half-day rate or 12-13 a month, and current CRJ production stands at a three-day rate.
Scott says Bombardier plans to build as many as 3000 CSeries aircraft over the next 20 years.
The Mirabel facility will be expanded in phases, the first of which is under way as Bombardier builds the Complete Integrated Aircraft Systems Test Area (CIASTA) for CSeries testing a full year before the first flight of the CS100 in 2012.
The second phase will see construction of supplier support and aircraft integration facilities, says Scott.
Calling the Mirabel expansion a "supersite" is a misnomer, he says, because the globally distributed supply chain will see major portions of the aircraft, such as the wings and centre fuselage, built in Belfast, Ireland and Shenyang, China, respectively.
One such supplier facility will be established by Pratt & Whitney for final engine build-up, enabling delivery of a "fully podded" PW1500G engine along with a Spirit AeroSystems-built pylon from a facility adjacent to Mirabel final assembly, says Scott.
One integration facility will support build-up of the wing box, after it arrives partially integrated from the company's Belfast division. The third phase of the programme will see the construction of the CSeries final assembly line and, later, paint and delivery facilities.
"We have gone all the way from more of a static assembly process," says Scott of Bombardier's current production model. "On many of our current production programmes, we are moving towards a moving line as well, so we embrace the idea of a moving line, but you need to mature your processes and so, initially, CSeries final assembly will be a pulse line, but with the objective of going to a moving line."
The Mirabel growth was first envisioned as a 111,500m2 expansion, but it was later revised downward to less than 93,000m2 by integrating the CSeries infrastructure with the existing regional jet production.
"The expansion is still rather significant," says Scott. "We're going to more than double the Mirabel facility. Essentially, when we first looked at the CSeries, we looked at it more as an adjacent facility to the regional jet facility."
Scott says that as Bombardier "thought through it more", it began to "look for opportunities to integrate it better with the existing regional jet production [at Mirabel]".
Using the existing CRJ administrative facilities as a base to support expansion for CSeries rather than an entirely new administration support building for the new aircraft is "an obvious way to reduce our cost and our footprint", he says.
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The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) latest round of policy salvos aimed at propping up the rupee is a bit like using a water pistol to put out a forest fire. The central bank declared that foreign exchange earners should convert 50% of their holdings in foreign currency accounts to rupee balances. Economists estimate that this will lead to an inflow of $2-3 billion (Rs10,660-15,990 crore today) over the next couple of weeks.
While that is a positive, it is a short-term measure and will have limited impact, considering that the average turnover in the foreign exchange market in India is around $40 billion. Even if one discounts the large non-deliverable forward market, forex transactions in the domestic market average around $10 billion a day.
Secondly, RBI has curbed the intraday open position limit for banks to five times the net overnight open limit. This is a follow-up move to measures it announced late last year to curb speculation, such as disallowing cancellation and rebooking of forward contracts and placing limits on hedging by traders. Ultimately, it will squeeze liquidity in the currency market.
While both these measures could provide some short-term support for the domestic currency, they don’t address the underlying problems responsible for the sharp depreciation of the rupee. That the current account deficit at nearly 4% of the gross domestic product is a problem is well known. But that doesn’t wholly account for the weak performance of the rupee. The Polish zloty and Turkish lira are some of the best performing emerging market currencies this year, despite these countries having much higher current account deficits.
The basic problem remains a waning appetite for the India story among foreign investors. To attract capital inflows, RBI also raised the interest rates on deposits from non-residents, the second time since November. But this might not prove to be very effective as well, going by the lessons from the first round. As the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd put it in a recent note, “Non-residents have already lowered their FX (foreign exchange) deposits from 30.8% of the total deposits (in November) to 26.7%.”
Graphics by Yogesh Kumar/Mint
Direct intervention in the market is also a difficult proposition. The central bank sold a net $20 billion in the second half of the last fiscal year, a period when foreign reserves fell from $316 billion to around $295 billion. These measures also squeezed liquidity in the domestic market.
Moreover, inflation continues to be a problem perpetuated by the falling currency. For instance, in rupee terms, the Indian crude basket has fallen only 2.8% from the average of the last fortnight for April compared with a 5.1% drop in dollars. That gives the central bank less leeway to cut rates further, and thus the liquidity problem will continue to shackle its hands on intervening in the forex market.
In the end, these moves should be interpreted as a signalling mechanism—that RBI will allow the rupee to depreciate, but will take steps to moderate the pace of its decline.
We welcome your comments at firstname.lastname@example.org
Also See | Weaker Path ( PDF )
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For the last time, Paula Townsend, steely, pale, 101, stared up at the circular stained-glass window. “Suffer Little Children To Come Unto Me,” it read.
“Was this the dining room?” she asked. The memories inched back. “We were always hungry, we didn’t care what they gave us . . . I don’t remember what dessert was. Maybe an apple?”
Townsend was still crawling when her father ran away to Hollywood and her mother surrendered her 12 suffering children unto the Home For Little Wanderers. This red-brick Jamaica Plain building, opened in 1915, was the first home she knew. And these many years later, Townsend remembers it with great fondness.
For generations of Boston children, the Home’s Knight Children’s Center on South Huntington Avenue was the stuff of idle threats: Behave yourself or I’ll leave you there, harried parents would scold. For thousands of others, it became a refuge amid turmoil — or at least a reliable certainty. Over the decades, it has hosted children whose parents passed away, or passed the point of caring. It has taken in children whose families could no longer feed them, or were so overwhelmed by their behavioral problems that they could no longer live with them.
On Thursday, the Knight Center sends the last of its charges to a sparkling new facility in Walpole. The Jamaica Plain building will be sold, and probably razed. Townsend agreed to take one last look around the place. Surveying its empty rooms and crumbling ceilings, she recalled a way of life — and of caring for unlucky children — that was gone long before this sprawling building’s demise.
Townsend, who lived at the Knight Center until she was 6, was there longer than any of her siblings save Arnold, the eldest, who “wouldn’t let anybody adopt him.” Dorothy, Helen, and Phillip were put on an orphan train and ended up with three different families in Whitman. The others found permanent homes, too.
Paula was never adopted into a permanent family “because I was ugly,” she joked. Actually, she was a sick child, frequently hospitalized with chronic, severe ear infections. She remembers those who tended to her at the Home as kind, though she had nothing to compare them with.
“I didn’t know what a home was,” Townsend said. “I didn’t know what a mother was.” What she knew was a succession of social workers who seemed to genuinely care for her. They watched over her after she moved into a foster home, then to a Revere boarding school, then into jobs as a mother’s helper and sales clerk, right up to her marriage in her mid-twenties.
“Every social worker I had, I took their first name for my middle name, because I didn’t have one of my own,” Townsend said, surveying a green-walled classroom Monday where teachers were busy filling boxes for the move. “Sylvia, Ethel, Gertrude, Evelyn. I had so many middle names!”
Kids didn’t expect much in those days. They took what they were given: Beds in giant dormitories, whatever was on offer in the dining hall, clothes from a shared closet, and medication after supper each night. In the old third-floor infirmary, with its peeling paint and worn carpet, Townsend tried to remember what the medicine was for. It’s likely she never knew in the first place. This was a time when institutions routinely medicated children to make sure they slept through the night, or stayed docile.
For all of that, the Home was considered state-of-the-art for its time.
“It was one of the first facilities to offer all-around care: Education, adoption, foster care, as well as tending to the well-being of kids who lived there,” said Eileen Crittle, communications director for the Home, and its unofficial historian. Despite its reputation, it was never really an orphanage: The goal was always to care for kids in crisis temporarily, then to move them into new homes, or back to their old ones. In that spirit, the Knight Center’s third floor was turned into a temporary polio ward in 1916. In 1940, it housed children evacuated from London during the Blitz.
Hindsight and disrepair made Townsend’s last tour through these corridors a melancholy affair: Compared with today, her era, when overwhelmed families routinely parted with their sons and daughters, seems barbarous. She was stoic about her childhood, and seemed uncomfortable with sympathy. But those who love her — her son, Allan, who pushed her wheelchair around the building Monday afternoon, and her daughter, Dorothy, who came along — struggled to remain composed.
“I had to turn away when she said she never knew what a mother was,” Allan said.
We don’t care for kids like Townsend the way we once did. Now we have a safety net meant to keep struggling families together. In all but the most extreme cases, we treat children’s mental and behavioral problems in ways that involve their parents. Over the last decade, driven partly by shrinking budgets, the state has pushed hard for community-based care.
That progress is written all over this old building. The Knight Center’s third floor has been unused, and in decline, for a decade or more. The number of kids living at the center has halved over the last five years, to a couple dozen (others visit each day for special education classes, counseling, and family services). Its big dormitories were divided into smaller bedrooms, then converted to offices. The dining hall where Townsend ate her meals became a classroom.
The Walpole center, called Longview Farm, hosts small housing units with their own kitchens. There are many more visiting rooms for families, and more privacy for kids. Set on 165 acres, it has a vegetable garden, a ropes course, and room to run around. Social workers there, like those in the Home’s other programs, work in kids’ homes as well as in the residential center. While parts of the Jamaica Plain facility evoke Dickens, nothing about the new building screams “institution.”
It is a world away from the Knight Center Townsend knew.
The little girl who adopted her social workers’ names grew up and into a full life. She has two engaging, devoted children, two grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. Over the years, she reconnected with her siblings, sometimes through happenstance: She recognized her sister Theodora’s name on a painting for sale at the Boston department store where she worked as a young woman, and ran into her older brother Richard at a visitor center in Nova Scotia. The last of her siblings died in January, on New Year’s Day.
She should have had more as a child. But she won’t yield to regret. The Home for Little Wanderers gave her stability, even a measure of love.
“I’m very grateful that they had this place for me,” she said, before her son wheeled her out for good.
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Anton Koekemoer is a social media strategist, digital marketing consultant and a ORM specialist with an emphasis on Web 2.0 technologies. He specializes in the implementation of strategic brand awareness campaigns, as well as the development of interactive online communities. Anton has also been successful with his mobile marketing strategies, optimizing mobile websites and campaigns. Heavy Chef chatted to him about his areas of focus in the digital space.
Hi Anton. How would you best describe Online Reputation Management?
The internet is public, so everything you post and share online is available for everyone to see. It can only take an update of 140 characters or less to destroy a reputation where everyone can view what was said. If you have a negative reputation online, it can affect your sales and how others view you. Did you know that people might be talking about you or your brand without your participation? If someone posts anything negative about you online, will you be notified of the negative criticism before it turns into a snowball? If you are notified in time, how are you going to respond so that you can minimize the damage?
With the internet growing bigger all the time, and more Web 2.0 channels being launched on a daily basis, it is becoming impossible to manually track everything about your personal or brand name online. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should spend thousands of Rands on a top ORM system to be notified immediately when someone mentions your name online, you should only be aware that everything online is public, and you should have processes in place to protect your reputation.
ORM doesn’t consist of only responding to negative criticism; it is all about how you are viewed online. What is your credibility? What is your physical reputation online? If you build up your reputation online to be positive and professional, then should anyone post a negative comment about you, your positive reputation might outweigh the negative comments. There are many free and paid systems you can use to be notified when you are mentioned online. Some of the free ones include Google Alerts, Social Mention and Twitter search that you can use for monitoring your personal or brand name online.
What key points would you say are essential to follow when dealing with negative information about your brand online?
The most important thing with any negative comment online about you or your brand is to never ignore it. It will not go away and it is public for anyone to see. It is very important that you address the problem immediately before it spreads further. Review the negative comment and if you were wrong, create a solution. Everyone likes a happy ending. If others see that you have taken action on your problems, they will much more likely to see the problem as being fixed, and also what you did to solve the problem.
You specialise in social media marketing as well as digital marketing. Do you think it is possible to do one without the other?
No. Social media and digital marketing works hand in hand and complement each other. Social media marketing cannot survive on its own because it is a part of digital marketing. To explain it more technically, social media is about the medium, and the medium is only a vehicle that amplifies social behaviour. Media is an instrument of communication, like a newspaper or radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication. Social media is a communication vehicle, or instrument, of digital marketing.
In your opinion, what will follow Web 2.0 in the future?
Facebook and Twitter continue to grow with LinkedIn and Google close on their heels. Have you ever heard of the theory, Six degrees of separation? It refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away. Even if you don’t believe in this theory, if you think about it social networking is making this theory a reality. Even though most of the web trends are leaning to a more mobile connected world, I believe social networking is where the web is heading. Not social networking such as Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn, but social networking where everything is connected. Just like what Google is doing by integrating Google plus onto all of their products.
What are the advantages and disadvantages when it comes to working solo?
Working solo is great because you make your own rules and only you are too blame if something fails. It can also bring you down as everything depends on you and you don’t have a pillar to fall back against.
Lastly, if the internet were to crash forever, what would be you last tweet?
I’ve found a way to save the internet #savetheinternet #iwon. And then add a link. Then I’m sure I’ll get thousands of visitors to that blog post.
- How Can You Protect Your Business’ Online Reputation?
- Heavy Chef September: ‘Messages Worth Spreading; Creativity in Communication’
- 5 Twitter Tips for Managing your Online Reputation
- Is 2011 the big year for Social Media in South Africa?
- Despite What Social Media Gurus Say, You Are Still In Control Of Your Brand
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Posted by R. Berg on August 18, 2003
In Reply to: Re: Making A Sissy posted by Bob on August 18, 2003
: : I guess I should have mentioned what it does mean, eh? It is a euphemism for peeing. I'm basically trying to figure out when it was popularly used and where it came from. Thanks.
: : Justin
: : : I know what this one means but can anybody here shed any light on its origins?
: Never heard it. (USA)
I'd guess that it comes from the "sissss" sound of the stream of liquid. (Also USA)
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There’s a saying for politicians and for those of us who cover them: The voters are always right. While we’re bound to be subjected to a round or two of recriminations about who’s to blame for the absolute debacle that was the metro Atlanta T-SPLOST campaign, pay attention to those who show signs of understanding and accepting that saying. They’re the ones who will be most likely to find the way forward from here.
For my part, here’s what I think the voters were saying in their 63-37 defeat of the $7.2 billion tax.
The political class has lost our trust.
If that sounds obvious, consider that it’s also a puzzling situation, given that many of the same people who voted overwhelmingly against the T-SPLOST have been voting in large numbers to elect the same Republican politicians who gave us the T-SPLOST. I think there’s a pretty clear explanation: This is the consequence of having a one-party state.
Georgia has been a one-party state for pretty much 140 years now. The first 130 years, it was a one-party state ruled by Democrats. The past 10 years, it’s been a one-party state ruled by Republicans and Democrats-turned-Republicans. (Note: I am referring here only to the party holding the levers at the state level, not municipal or federal offices.) For most of those 140 years, there has been very little credible, effective opposition from the minority party. I’m sure it was worse for the Republicans at times between Reconstruction and Sonny Perdue’s watershed win in 2002, but the situation is pretty bleak right now for Georgia Democrats. And that means Georgia Republicans feel very little electoral heat, which leads them to act in a very insular way.
That’s played out no more clearly than in their attitude toward ethics: If legislators are wise, they’ll recognize that the lack of public trust on display in the T-SPLOST vote means they can’t very well ignore the support of 87 percent of GOP voters for a lengthening of the proverbial arm separating lobbyists from legislators. If I heard one voter say he thought T-SPLOST was all about rewarding political contributors and allies, I heard it from dozens of voters. Legislators cannot go too far in trying to improve the negative public perception around our lawmaking process.
Geographically, at least as it relates to the T-SPLOST, you can locate the center of that lack of trust along the Ga. 400 corridor. Perdue arguably lost Tuesday’s tax vote two years ago when he reneged on the longstanding promise to end the toll when the original bonds were paid off. An opinion poll conducted for the AJC, published last weekend, showed the 400 toll extension was a factor for 55 percent of voters — and that 64 percent of voters doubted the T-SPLOST would end when promised and be limited to the projects on the list.
Nathan Deal obviously thought he could show some good faith by announcing recently that the tolls would come down by the end of next year, fulfilling one of his campaign promises. But the AJC’s opinion poll showed the maneuver actually made voters less likely to vote for the T-SPLOST by a net 6 percentage points. The reason, in my view, is that it sends a signal that state government decides when and how to make these decisions on purely political considerations. Bad political considerations, it now appears.
There are a couple of ways for elected officials to show they understand this message. First and foremost, they must demonstrate clearly that all available transportation money is being spent as wisely and efficiently as possible.
That means showing transportation spending really is a priority for the state. All revenues from the motor fuel tax should be directed to transportation; currently, part of it goes to the general fund. When the inflation-driven formula for the motor fuel tax dictates that the rate should rise to keep spending level in real terms, state government should let it rise. Where money can be cut from lesser priorities and redirected to transportation infrastructure, it should be cut and redirected.
As for efficiency, the state needs to be much more transparent about which projects are priorities based on pure cost-benefit analysis, and begin spending the money we do have on the highest-rated projects. If that means re-examining the wisdom of balancing spending based on congressional districts — they might be equal in population, but they aren’t necessarily equal in terms of transportation needs — so be it.
The money I’ve talked about so far would probably be skewed toward roads rather than mass transit, if only because a constitutional amendment allowing gas-tax revenues to fund transit looks like a sure loser. Transit should be addressed in a two-step manner: First, create a truly regional (if not state-run) governance structure for mass transit in metro Atlanta that incorporates MARTA and the other transit agencies. Second, allow voters beyond Fulton and DeKalb to vote in a referendum to participate in the system, with specific descriptions of the infrastructure and services that would come with it. If they want to join, let them join the same way Fulton and DeKalb joined MARTA.
If some of that sounds like baby steps, well, that’s because they are. One of these days, the people who run our government — at the local, state and federal levels — are going to realize a little modesty on their part would go a long way toward re-establishing the public trust they’ve clearly lost.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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Court upholds sex offenders' right to social media
A federal appeals court has struck down as unconstitutional an Indiana law that banned sex offenders from joining popular social networks -- such as Facebook.
The 3-0 decision Wednesday from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, found that the law violated the First Amendment because the measure was not narrowly tailored enough and restricted too much protected speech in attempting to protect minors.
At issue in the case, John Doe v. Marion County Prosecutor, was an Indiana law that prohibits sex offenders from using “a social networking web site” or “instant messaging or chat room program” that the offender knows allows access to minors.
John Doe (whose actual name was kept anonymous for the proceedings) was convicted in 2000 of two counts of child exploitation and was required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison in 2003. He filed suit against the law, and the district court accepted the case and allowed it to proceed as a class action representing all Marion County registered sex offenders similarly affected by the law.
Though the district court held that the law did not violate Doe’s First Amendment rights, the circuit court disagreed, deciding to evaluate the law on its face.
“The statute clearly implicates Doe’s First Amendment rights as incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment. It not only precludes expression through the medium of social media, … it also limits his ‘right to receive information and ideas,’” Judge Joel Flaum wrote for the court.
To pass constitutional muster, laws restricting free speech must meet certain criteria. The law is content-neutral, the court said, meaning it does not prohibit expression based on its content, but reasonable “time, place and manner restrictions” must be “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.”
“The state agrees there is nothing dangerous about Doe’s use of social media as long as he does not improperly communicate with minors. Further, there is no disagreement that illicit communication comprises a minuscule subset of the universe of social network activity. As such, the Indiana law targets substantially more activity than the evil it seeks to redress,” Flaum wrote.
While the goal of protecting children is worthy, the court said, a number of other state laws address the issue without restricting other types of speech, so it held this law does not serve a unique purpose.
The court was careful to note that its opinion does not prohibit including Internet restrictions as part of terms of release from prison for other sex offenders.
A similar law in Louisiana was thrown out in February of last year, though the state then passed a revised law requiring sex offenders to disclose their status on social networks, and a Nebraska judge in 2009 blocked parts of a sex offender law that restricted Internet access.
Indiana officials did not know Wednesday whether they would appeal the decision.
“The Indiana Legislature made a policy decision in 2008 that the state’s reasonable interests in protecting children from predators outweighed the interest of allowing convicted sex offenders to troll social media for information. We have worked with county sheriffs and prosecutors in our defense of the legal challenges to these protections of our children, and we will need to review this 7th circuit ruling to determine the state’s next steps,” Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said in a statement.
The ACLU of Indiana did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
UPDATED: (Wednesday, 2:55 p.m.) This post was updated with a comment from the Indiana attorney general.
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Tough economic times are forcing a lot of people to cutback on unnecessary spending, and now it looks like the state is also about to do some belt tightening.
Governor Rick Perry will speak to an audience Wednesday at a luncheon sponsored by the Greater Houston Partnership.
He will deliver his annual “state of the state” speech, and this year he will likely focus on the national economic crisis and its impact on the great state of Texas.
The governor says that overall the state’s economy remains strong.
In a letter sent to state board chairs and state agency leaders on Tuesday, Governor Perry ordered them to submit plans in the next ten days on how they will reduce travel and curtail spending.
Given the uncertainties of the nation’s financial difficulties, Perry also urged them to re-examine their Legislative Appropriations Request for the 2010 – 2011 biennium so that, “they are prepared to continue to put taxpayers first should economic conditions worsen.”
2 on the Beat thinks this is a good news/bad news situation.
The state should do some belt – tightening during these tough times, but it is very likely that funding will be slashed for some really important programs.
We’ll have to keep an eye on what happens.
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This is a rare piece of Mo-par history. Chryslers entry into the low priced field was introduced July 7, 1928 at Madison square garden. The first car driven into the arena by famed Amelia Earhart. This car was initially known as a Chrysler-Plymouth, the only 4 cylinder car in the Chrysler line up replacing the Chrysler model quot;52 quot;, shared many mechanical parts of the new 6 cylinder Desoto. This car was professionally restored frame up, no expense spared. It is absolutely stunning, the black and green body, black fenders and brown beltline contrast perfect with the black top and wide whitewalls. This is a mirror finish car with beautiful brown mohair interior with all show chrome and glass. All the mechanics were completely re-machined including the engine, 302 miles since restored. This is an investment grade collector car. Complete video of this vehicle available for $50, refunded with vehicle purchase, and includes overnight shipping of video. Call our classic car division at 815-385-8408 for video and/or vehicle information.
DISCLAIMER: The information in this ad is provided by the seller and not OldRide.com. The prices, terms, and reliability of the item remains subject to the direct negotiation between the buyer and seller. OldRide.com is not responsible for any damages that may occur during a transaction. For more resources about purchasing a vehicle online visit our help section "Buying a
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Love triangles turned deadly have been around longer than David and Bathsheba and Uriah, and you know the ending of that story (unless you skipped your true crime lessons from Sunday School). In Michigan in the mid-1950s, the last chapter of a classic love triangle was written in a courthouse, as they so often are these days.
But this case was so sensational that the story achieved national prominence ; thousands of articles delved into the details of the tawdry affair ; the press of the crowd seeking admittance at the trial shattered two glass doors to the courtroom ; and the verdict was a shock only to those who believe in strictly codifying human behavior.
The matter aroused so much interest because the participants were all very beautiful and very wealthy but had the habits and bad taste of the lowest sorts. So many people were touched by this not-all-that-long-ago love disaster that it seems appropriate to change the names. There’s no other mention of the case on the internet.
So meet “Madame Bovary.” Let’s call her Emma. The press will call her “an oval-faced brunette.” In 1944, she was caught in a whirlwind romance in Ann Arbor, falling in love with Kevin, a dental school student, on the eve of his graduation from the University of Michigan. He was six feet tall, dark-haired, and very handsome. They married soon thereafter, and he joined the Navy. She became a loyal military wife and they had three sons together.
After his military service honorably ended, Kevin settled his family in Detroit near Emma’s parents, who loved them both and lavished them with thousands of dollars, setting up Kevin’s dental practice and buying them a mansion. They had servants and a nurse to care for the boys. Imagine Emma as Mrs. Cleaver, in dress, heels, and pearls, but without the vacuum cleaner.
It was then that Emma grew restless and dissatisfied with her husband. She would later describe the eighth and ninth year of their marriage as a “clash of ideologies.” She wanted Kevin to be a “bigger man,” but his main interests seemed to lie only in his home, his family, and his work. “It isn’t anything tangible and it’s hard to explain,” she would say about her curious abstractions. “Kevin never gave me credit for decisions and we had a lot of arguments. I never cared for money as money. I felt it was to be used for the things one wanted. For instance, if I wanted a stick of bubble gum and it made me happy, it should make him happy too.”
Then Emma’s father died and she inherited a large amount of money. She took to vacationing without her husband and hanging out with divorcees, and sooner rather than later she met Jack, a wealthy industrialist and New York playboy who hung out at the “21 Club” when he was in town and jet-setted across the country. Emma was introduced to him in Florida, and they had three unforgettable dates. On the night she returned to Detroit, Emma told Kevin she wanted a divorce.
The news transformed Kevin in an instant. He turned to drink for the first time in his life and became alternately abusive and pathetic. He hit her once. He threatened suicide. There were scenes featuring a brandished pistol. He pleaded with her. “Even a dog is entitled to another chance,” he told her. But she locked him out of the bedroom. Kevin threatened to knock it down. She called the police from the bedroom phone.
A few days later, she left for New York to be with Jack. When her husband begged for their marriage, she told him to see a psychiatrist. “He told me I should see one,” she said, “that it was I who was all mixed up.” Meanwhile, Kevin moved to a hotel and immersed himself in self-help books like Wake Up And Live.
After Emma filed for divorce, she had a rendezvous with Jack several hours from Detroit in a summer house in Douglas, Michigan. It was no cottage -- there were servants and gardeners and a stunning view of Lake Michigan sunsets. But Emma began to miss her children, or so she said. She phoned home. Kevin happened to answer. An argument followed – “I thought you were in Chicago!” was in the earful Kevin gave her.
The next thing she knew – as she sat on a couch in the summer home, reading a magazine, the lake’s swells singing in the background -- she heard her husband’s voice at the front door, followed by pistol shots. Kevin had tracked them down and promptly shot Jack twice in the chest.
Kevin was imprisoned in the Allegan County jail and put on trial two months later. The case was an exercise in histrionics. Emma bolted from the room several times while others were testifying. Kevin’s father collapsed and had to be carried out. The judge had to hand out tickets in advance after the crowd smashed the glass doors. Journalists came from hundreds of miles around for this one, and each witness was a spectacle.
Kevin’s money bought a good defense – he argued he was not guilty by reason of insanity. Three psychiatrists testified that he was “definitely insane,” in a “post-psychotic stage,’ at the time he killed Jack. The murder was the result of extraordinary events, one expert said; “it’s like striking a match – once you strike it, you don’t strike it again.”
Kevin himself was on the witness stand for less than ten minutes. “I can’t say what I did. I can’t say what I did. I don’t know.”
When the jury retired to deliberate, Kevin spent the night in his jail cell, praying with his cell mate, rereading the many letters sent to him, the only lights he had in the nightmare. Then in the wee hours of Saturday came word that the verdict had been reached. The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.
At once, the flash bulbs started popping off, and the expression they caught on Kevin’s face is pure relief. His last words in the courthouse: “I never knew people could be so nice.”
Kevin spent three months at Michigan’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane before the pretense was dropped and he was released. Emma divorced him – he didn’t contest it – and their real names are now quite forgotten.
The legal lesson remains -- statutory prohibitions on murder are sometimes trumped by an older, unwritten law.
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Men With Pens
Women have been using pen names to overcome the difficulty in gaining a reputation as a respectable writer. Jill Walker points to a modern example of how one woman found that opportunities presented themselves in greater numbers when she took on the name “James” . She was able to create a successful writing persona, and built a blog on writing and design advice called Men With Pens.
The example is more poignant when one considers how machismo the site is. Walker points the obvious phallic suggestions of the title and title graphic as well as the photo of welding below it, but everything down to the gunmetal background of the banner and the brick background of the body suggests an inflated sense of masculinity.
It worked. The site is one of the most popular writing advice sites, and James was able to keep her identity secret for three years. Perhaps this persona is an appeal to the male fantasy of fulfilling some socially ordained image of success. Either way, her writing is good and her design advice is sound. It’s a shame she had to resort to this to receive the credit she deserves.
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To get to the city pool in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood in the 1970s, a swimmer ran a gantlet.
The pool sat amid factories and workshops, the streets around it crowded with trucks. Sex workers met clients near the gates, on Douglass Street. Still, clutching towels, local residents in need of a dip knew where to go, a block from the noxious canal, past the handball courts to the Douglass and DeGraw Pool, as it is officially known, in the shadow of a park where heroin addicts lounged.
To residents, it was the Double D, or just the Douglass pool, and no one cared if it was pretty. For thousands of the mostly black and Latino residents of the immediate neighborhood — a place bereft of greenery or any other cooling relief in summertime — the pool was an oasis, with an edge.
Karina Fortunato, 31, went to the pool with her friends as a child. Their parents peered out from the windows of the Wyckoff Gardens housing projects a few blocks away and told their children to wave their towels, the sign that they had arrived safely.
“They told us not to pick anything up,” said Ms. Fortunato. She and her friends would sneak back to the pool after midnight and hop the fence for a swim.
Ms. Fortunato still lives in Wyckoff Gardens, and takes her own children to the Double D. On blocks nearby, bars and galleries have moved into some of the old factory buildings, and there are fewer needles on Douglass Street.
These days the pool’s reputation has spread beyond the neighborhood, drawing more children from Park Slope and Carroll Gardens to a respite seen as less crowded than the big city pools in Red Hook or Sunset Park, and easy on parents.
“I’ve seen people from Manhattan,” said Linwood Garrett, 58, who brings his 32 grandchildren to the pool in bunches. Robert Thomson, who teaches English at Touro College, lives in Windsor Terrace and has been coming for years. “It’s a relief valve for parents,” he said. “This area is a desert for pools.”
The swimmers had a scare in recent weeks after the city announced that the pool, which was set to open on June 29, would stay closed this year because of budget cuts. Pool devotees showed up for a protest wearing flippers and masks. A Facebook group to save the pool quickly gained hundreds of fans.
Then last week, the Bloomberg administration announced the pool would stay open; the race to be ready for opening day promptly began. On Saturday morning, workers could be seen steam-cleaning the pool bottom and sweeping the deck. A man in a jumpsuit repainted one of the yellow huts.
The Douglass pool was one of more than a dozen the city built in the early 1970s for children in low-income neighborhoods, adjacent to the small “vest pocket” parks. The Double D was built with only one real flourish: a concrete canopy, near the kiddie pool, that provided shelter from the sun or a summer downpour.
The neighborhood’s old-timers say relief in the summer months meant a choice between a hydrant, Coney Island or the Double D.
Over the years, the pool became one of those rare city spots where class and race differences eased, on the surface at least, or maybe just a little beneath it, and maybe for just a few hours, in the groans of collective frustration at a city pool’s thicket of rules.
Such as: No strollers and no more than 250 people on the deck; everyone had to shower; and everyone had to eat in the picnic area.
Lynn Nottage, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright who lives a few blocks away, said she was shocked to return to the pool as an adult and find that lockers she used as a child had not been replaced.
The edge had hardly softened. Ms. Nottage said she drove by the pool about 10 years ago and saw a car burning on the sidewalk by the gate.
“This was seen as a good block to burn a car,” she said. It was maybe also a good way to keep a secret.
“People are always surprised to learn there’s a pool on that block,” she added. “It’s a neighborhood pool, and that’s what it was meant to be.”
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PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Three months after the Maine Turnpike Authority (MTA) introduced toll increases and a revised Commuter Discount Program, NEWS CENTER looks at the effect it is having on Maine drivers.
Many commuters say the new system is incomprehensible, that it discriminates against people who live in Lewiston-Auburn, York County and other areas, and that it doesn't deliver the promised discounts.
"The numbers don't make sense," says Bob Conklin who commutes from Turner to Portland. He says he's paying anywhere from one and a half to three times more than he paid under the old system.
MTA Director Peter Mills explains the new system, and says he understands why commuters distrust the MTA. He and legislators say under a new law passed last year, the MTA is under much greater scrutiny by the Legistlature, is much more transparent and much more efficient.
For more information on the Maine Turnpike Authority, click here.
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Parsi Saree embroidered Gara
In a bid to bring back the popularity of Gara — the intricately parsi embroidered saree on Chinese silk — the Parsi community has thought of a new method: Help the young learn draping the traditional attire.
The Zoroastrian Youth for Next Generation (ZYNG), the youth wing of Bombay Parsi Punchayet, will hold a day-long workshop to help young Parsi girls drape the intricately embroidered Gara and Tanchoi sarees. The workshop will be conducted on November 21.
For over 100 years, these sarees which may weight up to 750 grams, have been an integral part of Parsi women’s wardrobe and a must-wear attire for them on Navroj and in occasions like marriages. However, with changing times and trends, their usage, at least among the younger ladies, has thinned. Another reason for this is that the young generation who is so used to the fast and easy way of dressing up, find it cumbersome to drape these beautiful pieces of works.
“We have noticed that many girls avoid these sarees because they find it difficult to drape it around themselves,” said Tashan Mistree, member of ZYNG and a part of the ensuing workshop.
“The idea of the workshop germinated when one day I managed to wear a saree in a particular style and a lot of people enquired about it. Since I also wanted to know about the other styles in which I can wear it, we thought of having a workshop around this time when the Parsi wedding season kicks off,” said Zahrina Kohla, another ZYNG member.
The workshop will have someone who can help the participants with different styles of draping the sarees. It will also engage a make-up artist.
“The girls fumble with the pallu and the plates that takes away the charm of the saree as almost all the embroidery is around that area,” said Perinaz Irani, ex-airhostess and grooming instructor at Kingfisher Airlines and a ZYNG member.
“These days Parsis are trying bright colours compared to the off-white and pale ones they wore earlier. The make-up will help them carry themselves according to the saree colour and the event’s timing and type,” said Arshis Javeri, a make-up artist.
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Now I have nothing much against Atheists as a rule. In the final analysis, they have enough trouble justifying much of anything they say. After all, if God or an ultimate reason does not exist behind the physical world, then all we have left is personal opinion, theirs and ours. And who cares what your opinion is anyway? Atheism, in order to justify any action, has to resort to force in order to make their personal opinion worth anything beyond themselves. After all, it is “just their opinion.”
Or as the ultimate Atheist, Chairman Mao said, “Morality comes at the barrel of a gun.” Yep, that’s all that is left for atheism.
Yet the new atheists write books, do lectures and debates in order to convince the world to drop God from their vocabulary and their lives. I don’t read or listen much. “It’s just their opinion.” I also take N.T. Wright’s word on the matter, that the books are just incredibly boring.
Still, life takes some interesting turns. Now the prominent atheist, Richard Dawkins is having second thoughts; maybe not about God, but about the desirability of a culture without God: or at least a certain God among the mix. Says Dawkins, regarding the decreasing influence of Christianity in Europe, and Britain in particular:
There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.
It is really kind of (tragically) funny. For the last few decades, Europe was exactly the kind of culture in which Dawkins would have reveled. Despite having an established church (or perhaps because of it), the laws became increasingly pluralistic and the people became more and more secular and–dare we say it–atheistic.
Yet, this without-God culture was not without a price. Hope, generally a byproduct of a belief in a beneficial Deity, withered. As a consequence, the European existence became more concentrated in the pleasures of the present instead. This left little room for such future oriented pursuits (and present oriented sacrifice) as the creation of families and the propagation and raising of children.
As the columnist Spengler often notes, this leads to a shrinking population, until it can no longer support a substructure. The culture becomes one of death.
A sick cat or dog will crawl into a hole to die. The members of sick cultures do not do anything quite so dramatic, but they cease to have children, dull their senses with alcohol and drugs, become despondent, and too frequently do away with themselves. This is not due to an inborn death-drive, contrary to the odious Freud, but rather a symptom of a culture’s mortal illness.
Therefore, to ward off the death of their society (and to pay for the “social security” of the bulging mass of retirees who did not have enough children to pay for their own pensions), the culture opens itself up to immigration. From where else can the worker base be increased enough to provide the necessary tax base to pay for the nation to sustain itself?
Europe brought in Muslim groups, who in the economies of Europe, found a hope in the future (unlike in their own homelands). With that hope, came children–large numbers of them. So much so that the population shift, unless something changes drastically–such as massive Muslim conversions to Christianity–the trend is inevitable.
As Spengler often quips, “In 200 years, French and German will be spoken exclusively in hell.” As Mark Stein noted in his book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, the demographics of Europe indicate that the Muslims will be the majority group in Europe in 50 years. Already they are a strong influence. Per Stein:
But in the same three decades as Ulster’s “Troubles,” …large Muslim populations settled in parts of Europe that had little or no experience of mass immigration…On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic…Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives(the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America)to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine.
In 2008, when Maclean’s magazine printed the chapter that contained the above quote, they were promptly sued by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
What a difference two years makes. What Stein and Maclean’s were sued for, now Dawkins warns against openly. Europe, having abandoned its Christian roots, became an atheist and pluralistic state. As such, it was helpless before Muslims’ more stalwart (and fertile) population. Now even the Bishop of England declares that Shariah Law in Britain is now “unavoidable.”
The Church in Europe and History may not have been perfect, but now even Hawkins notes that what may replace it will be worse.
Too bad he never said that in his books.
So I expect Hawkins, in order to enhance Europe and the survival of Western Culture will cancel his future debates and speeches. Certainly he will pull his books off the shelves and contribute his past profits to the cathedrals and churches in Europe to help them remain that “bulwark against something worse.”
After all, its only his opinion. Hawkins goes the new atheists one better in that opinion does not carry any weight even with himself.
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(WBNG Binghamton) New York's Attorney General is launching an investigation to make sure your money is actually going to good use when it comes to Superstorm Sandy relief efforts.
The office is looking at the spending of 75 charities as it relates to Sandy relief efforts, including some big names like the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and the Humane Society of the United States.
"Our office commends all of the charities, and their volunteers and donors, who have come to the assistance of New Yorkers after Hurricane Sandy," said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a statement. "In light of the importance of the recovery efforts, and the enormous amount of money raised in such a short period of time, it is critical that donors know where their money is going and that funds are spent responsibly."
Once the investigation is complete, the report will be posted online.
In the meantime, financial reports of charities and more are already available through the Attorney General's office.
You can find them at www.charitiesnys.com .
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Scaling a formidable peak such as Mt. Sunflower requires meticulous planning. Prior to embarking on our expedition, we lined-up sponsors, hired Sherpas to go before us to set-up base camp, and packed away plenty of Diamox to ward off altitude sickness.
After spending as much time as possible at base camp acclimating to the thin air, we launched into our high adventure with all the usual mountaineering accoutrements; balaclavas, avalanche beacons, ropes, crampons, ice axe, and most importantly, bottled oxygen tanks, although we intended to attempt the summit without supplemental oxygen.
One of our biggest fears are the rogue storms that buffet the slopes of Mt. Sunflower on a regular basis, but this day was relatively calm.
Although Everest might have its Hillary Step, Mt. Sunflower has the infamous Jayhawk Traverse that must be negotiated along its Northeast Face before reaching the summit. Here’s a view of the steep canyons as we pressed through the oppressive atmosphere:
One of the many false summits we experienced during the expedition:
After numerous false summits, too many to keep track of, the face of the dreadful peak comes into view, marking our final approach to the summit:
It was at this time that I recalled some sage advice from world famous mountaineer, Ed Viesteurs; "Getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory". This bit of wisdom and guidance was weighing heavily on my mind at this point.
Suffering from extreme exhaustion, hypoxia and Acute Mountain Sickness, the team finally arrives at the 4039-foot summit:
So you may be asking yourself: Why would anyone climb Mt. Sunflower? The only reason I can think of right now in my oxygen-starved mind is simply because it was there.
Mt. Sunflower, the 14th state highpoint we've reached, is located on the far western border of Kansas on the Harold Family Ranch in Wallace County. The most difficult part about reaching the summit for would-be climbers are the 20+ miles of un-paved roads you need to drive on.
Onto Rocky Mountain National Park!
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, hiking gear store, and more.
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250 LDS Missionaries Hit with Flu Like Outbreak at Training Center
PROVO, Utah (AP) — Utah County health officials say an outbreak that sickened about 250 people at Provo’s LDS Missionary Training Center is nearly contained.
Lance Madigan of the health department says about 20 cases of a stomach flu-like sickness were reported on Dec. 31, and the number jumped to nearly 140 the following day. He tells the Deseret News (http://bit.ly/UnHrWS ) the number of people being treated had dropped to about 20 by Thursday night.
Health officials say they suspect an outbreak of norovirus, which is a fast-moving illness with flu-like symptoms that usually last from 24 to 48 hours.
Madigan says the virus can spread especially easily in places like the Missionary Training Center, where students eat and learn together before serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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It there a rule of thumb for how long yarn should be to complete a row of stickinette - like 4 times the lenght of the knitted piece? I'm trying to only attach new balls at the end of rows.
My general rule is about three times the length of the row/round, but that's only if I'm using the typical size needle for the yarn weight. It also depends on your particular tension. No easy answer! When in doubt..swatch (for some reason, that's my last resort).
There is no one rule that will apply, since you may be using different sizes of needles, and your own personal tension, plus the kind of patterning you are using. Sorry....
The best thing to do is just measure how much yarn YOU use in a row/round with that particular yarn and those needles, and that stitch pattern. I measure off an arm's length or a metre or a yard -- whatever you want, and see how far it goes. Do this anytime you are nearing the end of a ball, and that will give you the best guesstimate of how much yarn you will need for one row or round.
I have generally allowed about 3 times the length of a round, but I find there is always a couple of inches to spare. Better to have more than not enough!!
It's usually more then twice the width of the piece and less then 4 times the width of the piece....but closer then that you need to swatch.
I think it's about 2x the length of the piece. When I do stockinette stitch, I join even in the middle of the piece. The ends can be tucked into the purl bumps anywhere and they don't show on the front.
Promoting and inspiring the art of knitting amongst men.
© 2005-2013 Men Who Knit - All Rights Reserved
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The VDT software distribution is an ensemble of distributed computing software that can be installed and configured easily. In our experience, installing distributed computing software from scratch is challenging and time consuming. The goal of the VDT is to make it as easy as possible for users to deploy, maintain, and use distributed computing software. Ideally, you type a single command and you can immediately access distributed resources or provide your resources to others. In reality, it is a bit more work than that, but not much.
The VDT is a product of the Open Science Grid (OSG), which uses the VDT as its software distribution. OSG, and therefore the VDT, are funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
Before OSG was funded, the VDT was a product of the GriPhyN, iVDGL, and PPDG collaborations.
Even if you are not a member of the Open Science Grid, you are welcome to install and use the VDT software.
We are hiring! Check out our open position.
The VDT contains a wide variety of distributed computing software as well as the software that it depends on. For example, the VDT includes common distributed computing software like HTCondor-G ® and Globus ®, and VOMS, and much more. But it also provides supporting software like Apache, Tomcat, and MySQL. There are also many other software components that help run provide computing resources, like software to update CA certificate revocation lists (fetch-crl), software to assist with local authorization policies (GUMS) accounting software, and much more.
Here is a complete list of what is included in VDT 2.0.0, our latest stable release of the VDT.
We have extensive documentation on all released versions of the VDT.
More information about VDT 2.0.0, the current stable release of the VDT.
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I want to crop the video at some position and move the part next to the part that wasn't cropped. (See image, it explains better)
You'll need to use something different, other than VirtualDub. Sony Vegas 8+ comes to my mind.
In Sony Vegas you can put your video, rotate it, crop it and fit the first upper part in the left side of the video. I am assuming that you are going to use a 16:9 aspect ratio video project for this case, so you can use the left side of the canvas in order to put the first part of your video.
In another row in the time line, you can add the same video, rotate it, crop it and fit the right side of the project. This way, you can put the parts of the video in whatever position, rotation, size, zoom, etc. as you wish.
I suggest you to run a search on youtube with the words "Sony Vegas Pan Crop Tutorial" in order to find useful tricks on how to do this. I was about to suggest you some of them but they doesn't cover exactly your need. Nevertheless, learning how to pan/crop a video you can achieve this task.
FFmpeg can do anything :D
The split filter creates two identical versions of the input video (
Unfortunately I can't put a line break in the
Here's a slightly shorter, but less clear version of the above command:
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View Full Version : Strange ESET folders
May 1st, 2012, 07:38 PM
I have a group of computers that connect via VPN to our network. These computers download updates via ERAS once the VPN is established. I've noticed on several of these computers that we keep ending up with some very odd named ESET folders. Opening the folders appear to have partial downloads of update files, but they aren't anywhere near the correct names for the folders (see screen shots below). I'm thinking it might have something to do with the slower connection through the VPN. Anyone seen anything like this before?
These two screenshots are from C:\ProgramData\
This one is from C:\Program Files\ESET\
May 1st, 2012, 08:11 PM
Disk errors of some sort, perhaps?
May 4th, 2012, 02:31 PM
Thanks for the reply. No, there are no disk errors, and this issue has been on multiple computers, all computers that access the network via VPN and slower connections. It doesn't seem to cause any problems andI have scanned the oddly named folders with ESET and nothing is detected. I just stumbled upon the folders while working on several of these computers the other day and found them odd.
May 4th, 2012, 08:55 PM
I can't recall having seen this before. Have you had a chance to physically get your hands on one of the remote computers to take a look at the contents of these directories? It might be revealing to know what their contents are.
May 7th, 2012, 12:54 PM
Here is a screen shot of the folder structure and files in these folders. This computer had quite a few oddly named folders. Inside each of the oddly named folders is a folder named updfiles. Inside that folder there is either a file named lastupd.ver or upd.ver. Every folder was the same, except some contained lastupd.ver and others contained upd.ver.
May 9th, 2012, 06:13 AM
What version of EAV do you have installed? If v4, could you try installing ESET Endpoint Antivirus (v5) on one of those computers to see if it makes a difference?
If you point a problematic computer to update from ESET's servers instead of ERAS, does the issue occur as well?
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Copyright ©2002 - 2013, Wilders Security Forums
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Feliz Dia de Cinco de Mayo! This is one of the most celebrated holidays by non-Mexicans mostly because who doesn’t want to partake in some amazing queso dip and chips, fun Mariachi band and delicious desserts! There is more to our country and to history of Cinco de Mayo but for some that is more than enough. So whether you go all out and celebrate the history or just partake in the food here is a simplified version to the infamous Mexican Tres leches (means 3 milks) cake. You drench this moist cake with: sweet condensed, whole milk, evaporated milk. This creates a spongy moist cake that is topped with icing and fruit.
A little embarrassing story from my childhood, I grew up eating Tres Leches cake at every Quinceañera or any other big Mexican celebration. I enjoyed eating this yumminess. Mi mami would always ask me to bring her a piece of cake from whatever party I was at that she couldn’t attend. I used to think this was weird and a little embarrassing to have to ask the hostess for a piece of cake for my mom. Later in life, when I worked with newly arrived hispanic immigrants and we would have a party or go to when we were invited to, it never failed that a little boy or girl would ask for a piece of cake for their mother. I was relieved to discover that I was not the only one!
Tres Leches Mini Cake, is a recipe I came up with because I love all things simple especially since I have three growing boys running around mi casa! Another of my favorite simplified Cinco de Mayo favorites is this Healthy and Easy Fried Ice cream Balls!
Tres Leches Mini
1 loaf of pound cake or your favorite vanilla cake, cubed
1/2 cp sweet condensed milk
1/2 cp evaporated milk
1/4 cp whole milk/heavy cream/coconut milk ( I would use the coconut milk)
2cps heavy cream
3 tbl of sugar
1tsp of vanilla
2 tsp of lemon zest
1. Place the 3 milks in a bowl and mix until the sweet condensed milk is fully mixed in with the other milks.
2. Place cubed cake pieces in cups and pierce the surface of the cake all over with a toothpick. Slowly drizzle all the milk mixture over the top of the cake, making sure to get around the edges of the cake. Don’t be shy you don’t want to end up with a dry Tres Leches Cake that would be an unpardonable sin .
3. Place strawberries in between.
4. Add another layer of pound cake and repeat steps 1 & 2.
Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture.
Whip 2 cups of the heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar until thick and stiff peaks form. Spread over the top of each layer and top with a strawberry or cherry. Or you can use whip cream instead of the frosting.
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Icons Perceptions Metaphors: Blake, Faine, Neiland
20th August – 16th October 2011 - This exhibition is now closed
New Walk Museum & Art Gallery
An exhibition of silk-screen and digital prints by contemporary British artists Sir Peter Blake, Brendan Neiland and Brad Faine.
Hailed as the Godfather of British Pop Art, Sir Peter Blake has inspired artists such as Damien Hirst, Gavin Turk and Tracey Emin. Blake's work reflects his fascination with all streams of popular culture and the beauty to be found in everyday objects and surroundings. Blake’s works often feature found printed materials such as photographs, comic strips or advertising texts, combined with bold geometric patterns and the use of primary colours. The works capture the effervescent and optimistic ethos of the sixties, but are also strikingly fresh and contemporary.
Brendan Neiland is one of Britain’s foremost contemporary painters and printmakers, his work informed by the practice of photography yet influenced by a sense of the poetics of lights and pictorial structure which can be related to the work of Braque or Magritte, Corot or Vermeer. Neiland’s work is represented in major collections including The V&A, Tate and the Arts Council of Great Britain.
Whilst studying Fine Art (Painting) at Leicester College of Art, Brad Faine developed the first truly playable 3D Chess set, which was exhibited at the ICA, and designed the concept for ‘Inter-play’, one of the two British entries for the 1968 Paris Biennalle. A leading exponent of printmaking, Faine has works in public and private collections in the UK, USA and Japan and has taught at St Martins College of Art and Design, Farnham Art School and the Royal Academy of Art.
Icons Perceptions Metaphors is sponsored by De Montfort University in association with Leicester Arts & Museums Service.
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ATM fees are on the rise at some of the country's biggest banks.
Chase, for example, is testing out $5 fees for non-customers. That means if you stumble upon a Chase on your way to dinner and decide to take out 20 bucks, you'll pay a 25% fee. And that doesn't even include what your own bank charges you for going out of network, which is typically around $3.
82Email Print JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) is currently testing the $5 ATM fee in Illinois and a $4 ATM fee in Texas -- both for non-customers who use its ATMs -- to see if they bring in enough revenue to introduce nationwide, according to sources familiar with the tests. A Chase spokesman declined to comment.
Out of the bank's network of 16,000 ATMs, more than 20% -- or about 3,600 -- are located in these two states. Chase spent an estimated $400 million to build the entire network and pays $200 million a year to run it. So the bank is making non-customers pay a significant amount for the convenience of using this large network.
Meanwhile, HSBC Bank USA (HBC) this month started charging all non-customers a $3 fee for using its ATMs, saying that this pricing is more competitive. Previously, about 60% of its ATMs charged a $3 fee for non-customers, while the remaining 40% charged either $1.75 or $2.50.
While other megabanks like Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citi (C, Fortune 500) haven't made similar changes yet, CardHub.com CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou says they're not far away.
Hate ATM fees? Try these fee-friendly banks
"It's easy to compare debit cards by looking at the monthly fee, so banks are going to try to minimize the monthly fees and load you with fees in different ways -- and ATM fees are going to become one of the most popular ways to do that," said Papadimitriou.
Even some of the banks that CNNMoney once called the least evil -- because they had free checking and zero ATM fees for customers -- are having to reconsider.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/16/pf/a...ex.htm?iid=RNM gee how much do we really need banks - time to think credit unions more and more.
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Less than an hour after the Supreme Court largely upheld the federal health care law, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged Thursday to repeal the cornerstone legislation of President Barack Obama's administration.
In a speech on the Senate floor, McConnell said the court's 5-4 decision "doesn't mark the end of the debate. It marks a fresh start on the road to repeal."
The Kentucky Republican used the court's argument that the mandate to buy health insurance is a tax as fodder to repeal the controversial law.
"They knew that it would never have passed if they said it was a tax," McConnell said of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. "The bill was sold to the American people on a deception."
Other Kentucky Republicans criticized the court's ruling and used the decision to rally support and raise money for Republican candidates.
State Senate President David Williams painted Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear as an ally of Obama, who has low approval ratings in Kentucky.
"The Supreme Court ruling is a victory for President Obama and his cheerleader in Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear," said Williams, R-Burkesville. "By upholding the individual mandate, our employers, especially the small and medium-size ones, face a huge tax increase. Kentucky needs job creators they do not need to be punished."
Beshear said little about the politics of health care Thursday, instead issuing a statement focused on how his administration would implement the law.
He pledged to move forward with an insurance exchange, an online marketplace for health insurance and a key provision of the federal health care law. States are required to have an insurance exchange operating by Jan. 1, 2014, but many Republican governors have refused to take preliminary steps to set up the exchanges.
Beshear could not say whether Kentucky would continue with an expansion of Medicaid that was prompted by the federal legislation. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said states could not be punished financially if they do not expand the federal-state program for the poor and disabled.
Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Bowling Green blasted the court's decision, saying he still thinks the insurance mandate is unconstitutional.
"Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so," Paul said. "The whole thing remains unconstitutional. While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right."
Paul also pledged a Republican overthrow of the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
"This now means we fight every hour, every day until November to elect a new president and a new Senate to repeal Obamacare," Paul said.
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, a Republican who represents much of Eastern Kentucky, called the decision "terrible news for working families and seniors" in his district. "Obamacare taxes hardworking Americans, cuts Medicare, increases health care costs and discourages small businesses from hiring new workers."
U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles, voted against the 2010 legislation. In a statement, Chandler said he still thinks there are problems with the law but was glad the Supreme Court upheld key consumer protections in it that he supports.
"Even though I voted against the bill, there are good parts of the law that helped usher in much-needed reforms, like those that protect Central Kentuckians by preventing insurance companies from dropping people if they get sick, ending lifetime caps on coverage and eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions," Chandler said.
In the November general election, Chandler faces Republican Andy Barr in a re-match of the 2010 race, which Chandler narrowly won. Within hours of the release of the Supreme Court decision, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement urging Chandler's ouster.
"In order to regain control of their health care, Bluegrass State families must replace Ben Chandler," it said.
Barr later released a statement noting that Chandler voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act.
"This decision means that the only way to stop Obamacare is to defeat politicians like Ben Chandler who have voted against repeal of this disaster for working families," he said.
Justin Wedeking, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Kentucky, said he doubted Thursday's decision would affect the outcome of the 6th Congressional District race, which includes Fayette County and much of Central Kentucky. The race promises to be one of the most-watched in the state.
"It likely won't affect Chandler's base support," Wedeking said. "His position is already well staked out."
However, if enough new voters who are disappointed with the Supreme Court ruling turn out in November, that could help Barr, he said.
"Surges in turnout generally help challengers," Wedeking said.
U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, was the only member of Kentucky's federal delegation to vote for the 2010 bill. He praised the ruling Thursday, saying it would mean lower health care costs for all Kentuckians.
"The law lowers costs, strengthens care and once fully implemented will guarantee all Americans access to quality, affordable coverage while creating nearly 6 million new jobs in the health care sector," Yarmuth said.
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Volume 17, Issue 1: Cretan Times
Nebraska Admits Having Nuclear Weapons
OMAHAPresident Bush announced Friday that Pentagon sources have
confirmed that the state of Nebraska houses weapons of mass destruction. "I
feel betrayed," said the President. "I
recently called for the fire of freedom to reach the dark corners of the world,
and now it starts in the dark flats of Nebraska."
Nebraska governor Dave Heineman admitted for the first
time that his state has nuclear weapons. In a public statement Tuesday,
Heineman said, "I've never been asked before
but yes. Offutt AFB, south of Omaha, houses the headquarters of the US
Strategic Command which replaced SAC in 1992, and it oversees 255 active
Minuteman II missiles." The president said he
had heard that sort of rhetoric from North Korea as well.
After recent talks stalled, administration officials began to discuss
the possibility of referring the issue to the U.N. Security Council. Han Sung
a senior North Korean diplomat at the United Nations, urged the
administration to have direct dialogue with Nebraska.
Gov. Heineman said he felt "compelled to suspend participation in
the multi-nation nuclear talks for an indefinite period, at least until after the
wheat harvest." The White House urged resumption of the talks designed to
eliminate Nebraska's nuclear armaments.
"Why us?" Gov. Heineman said. "The administration is attempting
to isolate and stifle the state of Nebraska. Other states have nuclear weapons,
too. Why doesn't he pick on Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, or
On Wednesday, a White House spokesman said this admission was
a huge intelligence advance and that the president would be calling those
FoxNews Responsible for Global Warming
NEW YORKNew studies looking at warming oceans and melting
Arctic ice find FoxNews broadcasts emit really hot television signals, Tim Moore of
the Scripts Institution of Oceanography said.
Speaking at an annual meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, Moore said, "I'm surprised people's eyes
haven't melted inside their heads while watching FoxNews. Other
network news programs emit waves that bring life and health and nutrition to
the world's ecosystems." Moore said the pattern of evidence also suggests
that FoxNews also contributes significantly to poverty, tsunamis, mad cow
disease, low test scores, and the expansion of mean people.
The report was published one day after the United Nations
Kyoto Protocol took effect. "Could a climate system simply do this on its own?
The answer is clearly no," Moore said. "Ocean temperatures
consistently dropped when FoxNews wasn't on
air." Moore's team found no such consistent connections when Fox shows
American Idol or The OC broadcast. "Phew.
Those are my favorite shows," Moore said.
Ruth Kerrie of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found
that "ice is in decline every time FoxNew broadcasts," she said. The last time
that happened, she said, "Europe suffered extremely cold winters,
widespread disease, and existentialism."
House Raises Fines on Cheap TV Tension
WASHINGTON, D.C.The House on Wednesday
overwhelmingly approved a dramatic increase in fines
for cheap plot programming. "No more cop shows. No more hospital
or courtroom shows either. Those extreme contexts produce automatic
drama, cheap tension," said Rep. Joe Bustom, R-Texas, chairman of the Energy
and Commerce Committee that sent the bill to the full House.
Supporters said stiffer penalties are needed to give
deep-pocketed broadcasters more incentive to be
more creative in generating story problems and to help assure parents that their
children won't be exposed to stories that don't recognize the tension and drama
of ordinary life.
The measure, which passed 389-38, boosts the maximum fine from
$32,500to $500,000 for a company and from $11,000 to $500,000 for an individual entertainer who acts the part of a
police officer, lawyer, or doctor.
Opponents of the bill said it will stifle TV homogeneity and disrupt the freedom to be tedious during prime time TV. "Instead of bills like this, I think
we should exercise our rights to view easy plots by using that miracle of
modern technology, the remote control," said Rep. Jerrold Nidder, R-N.Y.
The White House, in a statement, said it strongly supports the
legislation that "will make broadcast television
and radio more suitable for richer family literary and dramatic analysis."
Microsoft Finally Recalls Apple Computers
REDMOND,WAMicrosoft Corporation said Thursday that it was
recalling 204.1 million Apple computers because they can be a choking
hazard. "We've seen too many infants have accidents with Apple computers," said
a Microsoft spokesperson. "They're a fire hazard, too," she added. "Those
things light up like cotton balls."
Microsoft urged consumers to bring their Apple computers to any city
recycling department in the country, and Microsoft officials would be on hand
to accept the recall. Microsoft promised to supply consumers with
replacement computers until the problems with various Apple lines could be fixed.
Microsoft plans to repair the faulty Apples and return them to their owners in
Bill Gates apologized for ever allowing these lines of computers to
see the light of day. "We live and learn,"
he said. "We won't make the Apple mistake again. By the way, our
new downloadable music system is nearly
complete. Children can choke on the iPods, too. Bring those babies back."
An executive at Apple Computer headquarters, Cupertino, CA,
speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted knowing about difficulties but
not the magnitude of the problem. Apple CEO Steve Jobs refused to
comment except to note, "This is an outrage,
but it's the law, and we don't want any child to catch on fire."
NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Starbucks on Saturn Moon
HoustonNASA scientists told a group of space officials at a
press conference Sunday that they have discovered Starbucks
marketing materials on the Saturn moon Titan.
The scientists, Jack Stoker and Lenore Lemke of NASA's
Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, said that evidence drawn from the
European Space Agency's Huygens probe showed evidence of at least fourteen
unstaffed Starbucks coffee shops.
Stoker said that images of Starbucks corrugated hand protectors
stacked neatly on Titan soil might not be direct proof, "but it is certainly worth
more study." Stoker and other researchers have long theorized about subsurface biological organisms, "but we never expected to find traces of biscotti
and those chocolate covered graham crackers." ESA officials
admitted suppressing some anger over the issue. One ESA official noted, "We would
have gladly chosen another moon, if we had known."
Starbucks spokesperson Audrey Lincoln said that the company does
not reveal the details of its international or intergalactic marketing plans, though
it continues to expand its retail operations rapidly and hopes "to leverage
the Starbucks brand wherever sentient beings may or may not appreciate good coffee."
FDA Whistleblower Warns of Knives
WASHINGTON, D.C.Use of metal knives poses risk to millions
of people who eat steak and butter bread, a Food and Drug
Administration whistleblower told a panel reviewing
the safety of the devices on Thursday.
Boxes of steaks knives were pulled off the market Sept. 30
by manufacturers, after a long-term study revealed risks of cuts and gashes.
The typical user of knives is someone between 15 and 80,
with some health problems, Dr. Grane said. That person has a one-in-ten risk of
a range of wounds, he said.
Grane previously complained he was being muzzled by his
agency because "they said, everyone thinks knives are quite handy."
Rep. Linda Knowles (R-CA), outspoken opponent of Dr.
Grane, objected that "if knives are banned, then we'll have an epidemic of
spoon sharpening like in Nazi Germany."
Dentists Protest Hockey Season Cancellation
CHICAGOThe American Dental Association lodged a formal
complaint against the National Hockey League for breach of their Alliance for
"Dentists have a right to teeth,"
said ADA president Dr. Richard Heft. "Winter slows tooth decay. With
the cancellation of the NHL hockey season, numerous metropolitan dental
offices will close, not to mention that themultiple dozens of hockey fans are trying to find the right words to express
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said that "before all these dentists
move back to Canada, they should know we plan to double next year's
season." Bettman noted that current players
have yet to notice the cancellation. "They
still believe it's just a long timeout."
Dentists / e-4
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Planned Parenthood said life begins at fertilization!
December 6, 2011 2 Comments
OK well it was 1951 but still, Planned Parenthood said it! The brochure, titled, “The Gift of Life” was discovered at a Berkeley estate sale by the San Francisco Weekly. On page 21-22 you will read the following; “If one of the new male sperm meets and unites with an egg cell, a new life begins.”
Wow! What a change of heart. Now Planned Parenthood will lie and say anything to sell you that abortion.
To view more illustrations from the brochure click here.
So, why does Planned Parenthood no longer believe in the basic scientific fact that human life begins at fertilization?
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Metaphor boxes and drawings by Birmingham artist Beverly B. Erdreich will be on display in the Samford University Art Gallery Oct. 3-31.
The mixed media artworks reflect the artist's commentary on love, death, violence, memory and religion. The 13 boxes and an equal number of accompanying drawings visually depict political, sociological and emotionally charged concepts.
Erdreich, known primarily as a painter of abstracts, says the Samford show is a departure from her usual body of work.
During her career, she has presented 25 one-woman shows. She currently has pieces on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art and at museums in Dothan and Meridian, Miss. The Dothan native studied art history at Newcomb College, Tulane University, in New Orleans, La.
The Samford gallery is open weekdays 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The public is invited free of charge. For information, call (205) 726-2840.
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And so, finally, I had a chance to play with my Flip Pal Scanner. If you read my last post, you will remember that in Spain we looked a box full of family photos. These photos dated from the 1930s to the 1980s mostly taken in Spain, but some from the 1960s and 70s when my father in law was working at the UN in New York. They had traveled back and forth across the Atlantic over time. My mother in law graciously offered us the chance to take some of them home, back over the Atlantic again to New Hampshire. My husband chose about two dozen nice photos of various subjects, and I knew that I would want to scan these first!
|In Spain, selecting some old family photos|
The first photo I chose was this one. My husband had taken a photo of this photo with his digital camera in Madrid, and had emailed it around to the cousins in the photo while we were still in Spain. Here is his camera version:
|a photo of a photo by camera|
|a Flip Pal scan of the same photo!|
no color correction or cropping
|My mother in law (front) worked at|
Morgan and Morgan publishers
on Fifth Avenue in New York in the 1960s
The third image was a faded color photograph taken at the New York World's Fair in 1964. My father in law was working for the United Nations in Manhattan, and my mother in law was the daughter of a Spanish Guardia Civil officer. When they attended the World's Fair, my husband was only three years old. They all posed with the Guardia Civil staff in the Spanish pavilion for this photograph. Unfortunately, over the years it faded to look like this:
|1964 NY World's Fair image scanned by Flip-Pal|
|the same image after using Restore Color|
from the Flip-Pal tool box
Within half an hour I had learned to scan, stitch, color correct, save the results to my own folders and delete from the SD card. Deleting was important because I kept hitting the green scan button on the side of the scanner when I picked it up to move it around on photos. After the fourth or fifth time I had learned where not to put my hands! Again, live and learn!
Now I am ready to tackle some real holiday projects for the Simple Gifts Genealogy Blog Hop!
Disclaimer - I was chosen by Flip-Pal to participate as a blogger in the Simple Gifts Genealogy Blog Hop event, and I received a Flip-Pal scanner to use and evaluate.
Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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Posted on Mon, Sep. 22, 2008
last updated: November 24, 2010 01:49:37 PM
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When Barack Obama thinks about the road to the White House, he knows he can't get through states such as Virginia with the road map that other Democrats such as Al Gore or John Kerry used.
Each one fell short of cracking the state, then fell short of the White House. No matter how much they thought they could compete in a state that already was growing more open to their party at the state level, there simply weren't enough Democrats to push them over the top in presidential elections.
Now Obama thinks he's found the key — not just to Virginia but to other states that traditionally vote Republican for president, such as North Carolina — that could help him change the political map, turn Republican red states blue and win the presidency.
He's adding more Democrats.
Intensive efforts to register new voters, such as a mid-September rally in this college town with candidate spouses Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, are helping to swell voter rolls with young people, transplants from other states and folks who've never voted before — all people Obama thinks he can win.
They're people such as Julia Duncan, a fourth-year student in history and government at the University of Virginia and an Obama supporter.
She registered to vote in Virginia recently, transferring her registration from California because her vote is needed more in a closely contested state such as Virginia than it is in safely Democratic California. College students legally have the option of voting where they attend school.
"It's such an important state. My vote will count more here," said Duncan, who likes Obama in part because, she said, he'd reshape foreign policy, work more with allies and restore American standing in the world.
"We have a real chance here," she said. "With a surge of support from young people, some of these states are going to be in play that weren't in play in the past."
Virginia has registered a net of 208,798 new voters this year, according to figures that the State Board of Elections released in mid-September.
While Virginia doesn't register voters by party, a majority of the newly registered voters were 35 or younger. Registration did jump in many traditionally Democratic areas.
The Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, which have been trending toward the Democrats, gained more than 38,000 voters. Richmond, the heavily Democratic state capital, gained more than 8,000. Charlottesville, which includes the University of Virginia, gained 1,817 voters.
There are some crucial caveats, however, that should give pause to Obama fans. First, Obama probably will need huge voter turnouts in suburban Washington,
Richmond, Norfolk and Charlottesville to offset Republican votes elsewhere.
"Obama is weak, very weak, really weak, in southwestern and western Virginia," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "There's no question he's weaker there than Gore or Kerry."
The key reason that Obama could get swamped in those rural Appalachian areas, Sabato said, is race.
Second, history offers a warning: Democrats also were excited about a surge of new voters in 2004.
They were people such as Karen Anderson, an Internet-technology consultant and liberal Democrat who moved from Massachusetts to Charlottesville five years ago. She likes Obama because "he's for working people," would raise taxes on the wealthy and would end a "jingoistic" foreign policy that she said had alienated the rest of the world.
She's one of the many people who've changed the demographics of Virginia in recent years and made it much more open to Democrats, at least on the state level. Democrats have won the governor's office in back-to-back elections, took a U.S. Senate seat in 2006 and are widely expected to take the other one this year.
However, even with the addition of 273,000 new voter registrations such as Anderson's in 2004, the state still went to Republican President Bush over Kerry by a margin of 262,000 votes.
"It didn't mean a hill of beans," said Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University. "The added voter registrations are going to work to Obama's advantage. But I'd caution against saying it's a silver bullet."
Registration has risen in Republican areas as well, perhaps not as much as in the Democratic areas, but still enough to hearten Republicans.
In the Hampton Roads region, filled with military veterans and retirees, registration has risen by more than 20,000, for example. The area also has a large African-American population, however, which could be registering for Obama as well.
The new X factor in the state is Republican running mate Sarah Palin, who's excited the party's conservative base and moderate Republicans, too, in places such as vote-rich Fairfax County, just outside Washington.
Jim Stievatter of Herndon, for example, was looking for someone who could change the way government works, someone who might break the partisan gridlock and get things done. A lifelong Republican, he was undecided until the conventions, maybe even leaning toward Obama.
"McCain was a little too old, too entrenched," he said. "But his selection of Palin changed that. Her record in Alaska, of shaking things up, that was a breath of fresh air."
Joe Jackson of Fredericksburg is still skeptical about McCain on immigration, but likes Palin for the prospect that the two of them will challenge special interests. "I'm impressed with what she did standing up to the oil companies, for instance."
Sandee Parrish, who works at a hair salon in Herndon, a Washington suburb, said she already liked McCain, particularly for his record of military service. She likes Palin as well. "She's great. Young. Vivacious. A little more extreme pro-life than I am, but I like her."
Ultimately, there's no doubt the state is in play, offering a real chance that the Democrats could win it for the first time since the Lyndon Johnson landslide in 1964.
Yet with resurgent support for the Republicans, it's still a challenge for Obama to change the map.
Said Sabato: "It's a tossup that is red-tinged."
More from McClatchy:
McClatchy Newspapers 2008
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Maleny is a Sunshine Coast hinterland town, situated on the Obi Obi Creek in the Blackall Ranges, 80 km north of central Brisbane and 25 km inland from Caloundra. The name appears to derive from the village Malleny, Scotland.
The Blackall Ranges were intensively forested by cedar and other valuable timbers, and for several decades timber-cutting and sawmilling were the principal industries. In 1878 the first selector took up farmland, and a small settlement evolved - the Blackall Range School opened in 1886, and a post office was opened four years later, the same year as the name Maleny was adopted. Dairying grew in importance, and by 1904 Maleny's first butter factory had opened for the budding industry. A second factory opened in 1912. Dairy produce was transported by road to the Landsborough railhead. By this time Maleny was served by additional rudimentary civic facilities: an ES&A bank branch opened in 1906, a hotel (1907), Union church (1908), and a school of the arts. Pugh's Almanac of 1912 listed businesses including auctioneer, baker, butcher, blacksmith, contractors, plumber, saddler, and two store keepers. By the 1920s there were additional storekeepers and a hospital (1920). Two sawmillers had active businesses, and the landscape around the town was dotted with huge tree stumps and pockets of regrowth and virgin scrub.
Maleny has become noted for its dairying, together with orchard and nut plantations. A rainforest reserve has been kept in the Mary Cairncross Park, from which there is a good view of the Glass House Mountains. Cairncross married a local parliamentarian and Minister for Agriculture who also helped to establish the Maleny Cooperative Dairy Association.
Maleny continued mostly as a rural township with a showground, a memorial hospital, five churches and State primary and secondary schools (1897, 1987), until the 1980s when middle class retirees discovered the joys of one- and two-acre allotments on which to build ranch-style homes. Since then, Maleny has emerged as something of an 'arts and crafts' centre, benefiting from hinterland tourism, as it is an easy day-trip from both Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. There are aged-care and retirement facilities near the high school. An inflow of new residents, many swapping city life for a rural lifestyle, has brought development pressures in recent years. In 2005 residents doggedly resisted a proposal to develop a Woolworths supermarket. The retailing giant ultimately prevailed, opening the controversial store on the banks of the Obi Obi Creek in April 2006. In 2009 a group of local retailers proposed to print their own currency, the Baroon Dollar, named after the nearby Baroon Dam. It was to be tenable at participating local businesses (not including Woolworths), but by the end of 2009 the initiative was abandoned.
Maleny's census populations have been:
Maleny and District Centenary Committee, By Obi Obi waters: stories and photographs of early settlement in the Maleny district, Blackall Range, south eastern Queensland, Maleny, The Committee, 1978
C. Rees, Recollections of the early days in Maleny, Caloundra, the Shire of Landsborough Historical Society, 1984
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Mayorga: Brewing Profits Even As the Price of Coffee Goes Up
Since 1997, Mayorga Coffeehas taken pride in having stabilized our coffee supply by paying high prices for great coffee from Latin America. We developed fixed priced, multiyear contracts to give farmers a guaranteed level of income for long-term relationships. For years we expanded into new opportunities, including fulfilling market demand by also working with coffees from Africa, Indonesia, and India. We began to distribute syrups, sauces, teas, chocolates, and other items in demand by specialty retailers and foodservice operators.
We offered wholesale programs wherein we loaned equipment to operators that served our coffee. We opened multiple coffee shops to showcase our brand. We were experiencing record growth with sales over $18,000,000 and aspirations to become a $200,000,000 company. Then, in 2010, the coffee marketbegan a remarkable climb that continued through 2011, changing the landscape of the industry and making us look inward through 13 years of incredible growth.
The first thing I realized was that our fixed price contracts were no longer as beneficial to our partners at a $2.50 market as they were in a $1.30 market. We worked with them to move to a differential based on quality with additional support for community projects. Our cost of goods for coffee was immediately impacted—along with costs of fuel, packaging materials, corrugated, milk, flavor sauces, teas, etc. Overall, costs were 40% higher. Instead of raising prices accordingly, we made the decision to slightly increase our wholesale prices and absorb most of the cost increases by looking inward.
In some countries, we were more exposed to the commodities market due to our reliance on brokers and exporters. We also recognized that the lion’s share of the premium from the increased market would go into the pockets of the exporters and financiers (major multinationals), not coffee farmers. We decided to stop buying from those countries and to focus on coffees from Latin America, where we can make the biggest impact through direct trade.
Once our supply decision was made, we looked at distribution. We decided to cut out customers that saw the highly publicized increase in coffee prices as an opportunity to find higher margins. These also proved to be our lowest income-producing customers through constant demands for free equipment, discounted product, promotional funds, and items that most roasters subsidize through inflated prices. Letting those customers go was painful at the time due to a fear in losing market share and a reduction in sales, yet it was one of the smartest things that we have done in years.
The next step was to take a look at our retail stores. There was a major operational difference between the stores that we owned and those operated independently at the airports. In all our growth, we had taken our eye off our own quality and service standards in retail to focus on growing distribution. Our shops were popular and well-located but we were not giving them the proper focus and in turn, they were marginally profitable. We quickly moved to close some locations and partner with great operators for the remaining stores. Service and profitability have improved and our focus on sourcing, roasting, and branding has strengthened.
Through an 18 month period, we saw our overall cost of goods increase 40% and we challenged ourselves to take on the brunt of the impact. We realized that the problem was that we had gotten caught up in operating a commodity business model while selling a specialty product. At $2/lb., the coffee market is at a great level for roasters to purchase Specialty coffee directly at origin and providing farmers a chance to profit from their endeavors.
It is an opportunity to break the model of the poor, struggling Latin American farmer, which has unfortunately been romanticized as the marketing premise of so many coffee companies. At $2/lb, the pressure is on the commodity grade coffee, as it should be. Those of us focusing on quality can still build a respectable business that we can be proud of. We may not reach $200,000,000 in sales, but we will make a difference in coffee growing communities and will continue to put smiles on American consumers’ faces through a rich, smooth cup of fresh coffee.
Watch CNBC’s “Power Lunch,” “Closing Bell,” and “Street Signs” on Friday, April 13th for “Food Fight” special reports on food inflation, focusing on products like beef and milk and the impact of China on the price of food.
Martin Mayorga is the President and Founder of Mayorga Coffee. Since its inception in 1997, Mayorga Coffee has been named one of the fastest-growing Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States by Hispanic Business magazine. The company continues to experience 25% to 40% annual growth. Today, Mayorga Coffee employs over 100 individuals and has a retail presence in the Washington, DC market, as well as wholesale distribution throughout the United States. Mayorga’s wholesale customers range from local cafés and gourmet stores to national chains and foodservice operators, such as Costco Wholesale , JR Cigars, Total Wine and More, Sam’s Club , Bloom, Giant Foods, Marvelous Market, Whole Foods , Balducci’s, Sodexo , Compass Group, Lockheed Martin , and Centerplate. In total, Mayorga Coffee is served or sold in more than 1,700 retail and foodservice locations.
CNBC and YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) have formed an exclusive editorial partnership, consisting of regional “Chief Executive Networks” in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. These “Chief Executives Networks” are made up of a sample of YPO’s unrivaled global network of 19,000 top executives from 110 countries who are on the frontlines of the economy. The opinions of “Chief Executive Network” members are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of YPO as a whole or CNBC.
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Fifth in a series examining presidential candidates' positions on campaign issues
When Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., stood before a small crowd at the Duchossis Center for Advanced Medicine in Chicago this month, the eight-term congressman who easily defeated Barack Obama for a House seat in 2000 had a different victory on his mind: With labored speech, Rush spoke of his five-month battle with a rare form of jaw cancer.
Doctors recently declared Rush cancer-free, but the 61-year-old congressman wonders how he would have fared without his federal health-care insurance. "I am a member of Congress, and I have access to the best medical care in the nation," said Rush. "I can't be satisfied until every American has access to this same kind of care."
For Jake Smith, access to health care isn't the problem. The hardship is paying for it. The 80-year-old retired truck driver from North Carolina recently sold his home of 33 years to settle about $15,000 in medical debt incurred for his late wife's cancer treatment at Duke University.
The couple relied on Medicare as their only source of health insurance. Smith told The Raleigh News and Observer they didn't qualify for Medicaid, but couldn't afford a private plan to cover the gaps left by Medicare. He's paying those out of pocket. From his small, one-bedroom senior housing apartment in downtown Durham, Smith said selling his home was his only option: "I believe in paying what I owe."
In a presidential campaign marked by stark differences, Obama and Sen. John McCain agree on at least one thing: Health care in the United States desperately needs reform. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, some 47 million Americans are uninsured, and many insured Americans can't keep up with the skyrocketing cost of health care.
But when it comes to the how-to of overhauling the system, the candidates differ sharply. Voters sifting through their complex proposals must wrestle with a fundamental question: Which underlying philosophy of government do they agree with most?
For Obama, one goal looms large: quickly reduce the number of uninsured Americans. While the senator says Americans could keep employer-based and private care, he aims for universal health care anchored in a national health-insurance program administered by the federal government.
The candidate says the national health-care program would offer coverage comparable to federal insurance available to members of Congress. He says anyone could enroll in the program regardless of age or preexisting conditions, and premiums would be affordable.
The candidate hasn't given concrete numbers on consumer costs, though he says the average family would save about $2,500 under his plan. Some health-care analysts say it's unclear whether those savings would materialize.
For those struggling to buy coverage, Obama proposes offering federal subsidies to buy into the federal program or purchase private insurance. Those with employer-based or private plans could switch to the federal program as well.
Unlike his Democratic primary challenger, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama wouldn't mandate that all Americans carry health-care insurance. The candidate says health care must be affordable before requiring all to buy it. But Obama would mandate coverage for all children and proposes expanding the SCHIP and Medicaid entitlement programs.
Obama would lay a mandate on all employers as well: Those that don't offer health-care benefits to employees would be required to contribute a percentage of their payroll to the national program. He says small businesses would be exempt, but some small-business owners worry about whether the exemption would apply to them.
Obama says his plan would cost between $50 billion and $65 billion a year, but some health-care analysts estimate the plan could cost taxpayers twice that figure. The candidate says he would pay for his plan by ending the Iraq war and repealing President Bush's tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000. But Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute told WORLD the candidate has promised that same money for any number of spending proposals.
Tanner says he believes Obama rightly wants to cut costs, but he worries about what he calls "a command and control approach-a lot of regulations, a lot of government direction." Tanner adds: "I think Sen. Obama's plan is a recipe for having the government run our health-care system, and so far I don't see any reason to believe that they're capable of that."
When it comes to McCain, another goal looms large: cutting costs. The senator opposes mandating coverage or creating a federally operated health-care system, saying both would swell government spending. Instead, McCain favors a market-based approach aimed at giving individuals affordable options in the private sector.
McCain's plan could represent a radical shift in the health-care system: It encourages a gradual move away from employer-based plans. McCain would eliminate the tax deduction on employer-provided insurance and instead provide tax credits for individuals to purchase their own coverage. The plan calls for a $2,500 credit for individuals and a $5,000 credit for families.
Though workers could keep their employer-provided insurance, McCain says the tax credit would encourage individuals to shop around for a better deal. That would create more competition in the private market, he says, and drive down costs.
Cato's Tanner says moving away from employer-based coverage is an idea many economists embrace: "There's no logical reason your boss should choose your health insurance." It's also an idea some Democrats have embraced: Portable health-care coverage is a key piece of a bipartisan health-care proposal in the House.
Critics say McCain's plan could lead some employers to stop providing coverage. McCain adviser Gail Wilensky says workers shouldn't worry. "I can't imagine most large employers not continuing to offer health-insurance plans for the foreseeable future," she said. "Ten or 20 years down the road-who knows?"
Critics also say the McCain tax credits wouldn't be enough to offset the cost of purchasing private insurance for many individuals and families. Health insurance for a family of four averages $12,000 a year, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. McCain says his plan would drive down costs, but analysts say those changes would come slowly.
Tanner likes McCain's market-based approach to health care, but he points out problems. For instance, McCain's plan to use tax credits could turn into a bidding war in Congress to see who could "be most compassionate by offering the biggest tax credit." That could drive up costs, he says.
But he points out a larger problem: Tanner says McCain hasn't yet streamlined his proposals into a cohesive plan. "It risks being seen as individual pieces . . . rather than a comprehensive whole," he says. "And if you try these reforms piecemeal, you're apt to create more problems than you solve."
Back at the gathering in Chicago earlier this month, Rep. Rush thanked his doctors for his treatment and told the crowd that he favors universal health care. But he also acknowledged something more important in his recovery: With clasped hands, the former Black Panther lifted his head and publicly thanked God.
- Proposes a national health-care system administered by the federal government
- Would mandate health-care coverage for children
- Would require employers that don't provide insurance to contribute a portion of their payroll to the national program
- Supports federal subsidies for families and individuals unable to afford insurance
- Wants to allow the re-importation of prescription drugs from abroad
- Opposes a national health-care system and mandating coverage, favors market-based approach
- Would eliminate the tax deduction on employer-provided coverage and give tax subsides to individuals and families to purchase private plans
- Proposes federal assistance to states to help insurers cover individuals who have been rejected on the open market
- Would expand the benefits of health savings accounts
- Supports the re-importation of prescription drugs
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Brussels, 16 October 2009
Telecoms: Commission urges Ofcom to take stronger action on fixed termination rates
The European Commission has called on the UK regulatory authority for telecommunications, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), to impose appropriate price control and non-discrimination obligations on all communication providers regarding their fixed termination rates (FTRs). FTRs are the wholesale prices which fixed operators charge for terminating calls on their respective networks. Non-discrimination obligations for alternative providers are necessary to ensure that they apply equivalent conditions in equivalent circumstances. In line with the Commission's Recommendation on Termination Rates ( ), an effective price control obligation leading to cost oriented termination rates is the most appropriate way to address the competition problems in this market.
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said, "Non-discrimination and price control for all UK communication providers would ensure lower termination rates and a level playing field for all fixed phone operators to the benefit of competition and consumers in the UK."
Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner said, "In the absence of effective regulation also of smaller fixed network operators, these operators are able to charge high termination rates which translate into higher call prices for the consumers of other fixed and mobile operators wanting to call the subscribers of these smaller networks. For these reasons I trust that Ofcom will consider our advice and bring the regulation of smaller fixed line operators in the UK in line with standard European practice."
Until now, alternative fixed network operators were only obliged to provide termination services on fair and reasonable terms. Ofcom does not intend to price regulate the termination services of communication providers (CPs) other than British Telecom (BT) and Kingston Communications (KCOM) or to impose a non-discrimination obligation. CPs are merely required, in addition to the previous obligation of providing access, to publish their termination charges in order to guarantee transparency. These charges are generally set by way of a "Reciprocity Agreement", whereby termination rates are principally based on BT’s charges. However, there is scope within this agreement for charges to vary based on different network topologies of the CPs and Ofcom only intervenes in setting the termination rates of alternative operators in case of a dispute.
The Commission today highlighted the fact that alternative CPs are monopolists for the termination of calls on their networks and normally have the ability and incentive to raise termination rates above costs and/or to set differentiated charges, thereby placing competitors at a disadvantage. Commercial agreements cannot normally address this potential market failure in the termination markets. Therefore, regulatory authorities in the EU generally also impose a non-discrimination obligation on alternative CPs. In addition, as recalled in the Commission Recommendation 2009/396/EC (see ), price control obligations are considered the most appropriate intervention to address the competition problems in these markets.
The Commission emphasised that dispute resolution procedures, as foreseen by Ofcom, may not be sufficient to remedy a potential market failure in an efficient way.
The Commission also emphasised that termination rates should be set at the level of costs incurred by an efficient operator and therefore should normally be symmetric. Any deviation from a single efficient cost level should be based on objective cost differences outside the control of the operators concerned.
The Commission's letter urges Ofcom to impose an adequate ex ante price control and a non-discrimination obligation on all CPs. It invites Ofcom to implement cost-orientation in an efficient manner, by way of a measure which does not impose an undue procedural burden on alternative CPs but sets efficient cost-based termination rates for all operators to the benefit of competition and consumers.
The Commission's comments to the UK follow the so-called " ", under the Framework Directive of the EU telecoms rules ( ). This procedure allows regulators to achieve effective competition in their national telecoms markets, while ensuring consistency across the EU. To this end, regulators are required to notify the Commission of draft regulations. Where these concern market definitions and analyses of whether operators have significant market power, the Commission can require the regulator to withdraw the measure. Where they concern regulatory remedies – as in the present case – the Commission may make comments of which the regulator must take utmost account.
The Commission's letter to the UK regulator will be published at:
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This is the second installment of an occasional series called, "The Way We live," about housing in Stamford. The first story, published on Feb. 28, was about a couple living in Trump Parc.
STAMFORD -- From the third-floor perch of his new apartment on the corner of Henry and Atlantic streets, Mark Johnson nostalgically recalled the blocks he roamed as a paperboy for The Advocate.
"I delivered a paper to all of these houses," he said, pointing at the block of aging but still pretty row houses on Atlantic Street. His customers also included companies such as Pitney Bowes and Palmer's Electric Motors & Pumps.
"I had the whole route," he said. "And my mom and the neighbors, they all helped me."
Now more than 25 years later, the 47-year old makeup artist has moved back to his old neighborhood -- but to a place far different from the three-story clapboard house he grew up in.
Johnson is one of the residents living at Metro Green Apartments, steps away from the train station and among the first green affordable housing developments to be built in the state. Developed jointly by the Jonathan Rose Cos and Malkin Properties, the $20 million building opened last September.
Having been awarded the gold-level standard of certification by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, Metro Green has become only the second building in Stamford, after the Royal Bank of Scotland office, to reach the gold level.
But in addition to being environmentally conscious, the project is also socially pioneering -- all 50 units are designated for families earning no more than 60 percent of the annual area median household income, or the equivalent of $79,450 for a family of four.
"For this to be affordable?" Johnson said, waving his hand across his 860-square-foot two-bedroom apartment for which he pays about $1,200 a month, plus about $90 for utilities. The features include floor-to-ceiling windows, kitchen countertops made out of recycled banana leaves and energy-saving light fixtures and appliances.
"This is going to make this the place where people want to be."
It is only the beginning.
The 5.2-acre mixed-use project has been approved for a total of 238 units of housing as well as a 17-story office tower. The $28 million second phase is to consist of 50 rental units, of which 40 would be priced as affordable and 10 would be market rate.
For people like Johnson, who witnessed the South End disintegrate from a community where people routinely left their doors unlocked to one plagued with crime and corner drug dealers, Metro Green is part of a larger renaissance that is taking shape before his very eyes.
From his living room window, he can spot Fairway, the 80,000-square-foot supermarket that is set to open sometime this fall as the first retail component of the 80-acre mixed use development called Harbor Point. It is set to bring 4,000 units of housing as well as 400,000 square feet of retail space, office buildings, two hotels, a school, marina and more than 11 acres of parks.
But buildings and infrastructure alone do not make a community. Johnson, who has in the past worked for a community service agency, is spearheading Metro Green's tenant association.
He is, in many ways, a fitting representative. Sixteen years ago, he left Stamford after finding a career and love in Albany, N.Y. Now married to a same-sex partner and having recently become a foster parent, he is trying to establish his family of his own. In his living room, decorated in earth tones, he keeps a book on the coffee table titled, "Love Makes a Family."
Metro Green, he said, is exactly what he remembered the South End as being: diverse and inclusive, a place where "every parent knew everybody's kid."
The tenant group has about 20 members. Since their first meeting in December, they have thrown a pot luck dinner, movie night, and instituted a building watch.
Together, they also help monitor the building's recycling, which is required of everyone. Johnson himself continues to purchase the line of eco-friendly cleaning products that all residents first received as part of a welcome gift bag.
Bonds have already started to form. Downstairs, Hazel Saunders, 63, said that the other day, a neighbor appeared at her door with a tray of food that included fried plaintains, rice and beans.
"It's a whole city unto itself," she said. "Everyone here is so friendly."
Both she and Johnson praised the developers. Officials from Jonathan Rose as well as father and son developers, Peter and Anthony Malkin, have visited the complex and met with residents. Johnson even keeps their phone numbers stored on his cell phone.
"They're coming here and asking us what we want and creating it with their technology," he said. In the backyard, there are plans for a small labyrinth. When the second phase of housing is constructed, there will be a gym shared by all residents.
For Saunders, who is wheelchair-bound and lives alone in a handicapped-accessible unit, the atmosphere has been an exciting change. After moving in with her daughter and grandson in Waterside eight years ago, she found herself retreating from the world. "I went into myself," she said.
It was a far cry from her earlier days as community activist. During the 1990s, she came out on crutches to protest the city's expansion plan for the Hart School.
After growing up in the sheltered community of Southampton, N.Y., she moved to Stamford in 1967 because she "wanted something different." She worked for the company then known as GE Credit Corp. and later Clairol, which has since closed and sold its facility in Stamford.
Now, she has begun what she considers the second part of her life.
"And you know what is so astronomical about this? It's that I get to do it in Metro Green."
-- Staff Writer Elizabeth Kim can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org or 203-964-2265.
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Yes, my disappoinment with the decision made Thursday by FIFA, which stands for something to do with soccer, is enormous.
The Unites States, doggone it, will not be hosting the 2022 World Cup. Qatar will.
Yes, Qatar, which is pronounced – I have no idea how it’s pronounced and judging from all the commentators who have botched the name I don’t think anyone else does, either.
This much I know about Qatar: It’s population is 1.7 million. It is smaller, in size, than Connecticut. It has never even qualified for a World Cup. And everybody in the country owns a Baskin-Robbins store.
Listen, any sport with a governing body whose initials are FIFA is in trouble. I mean, that’s one letter from FIFI, the most popular feline name in the world. Soccer needs an acronym with stronger letters, something like DTXG. No, nobody would ever know what those letters stood for, but does anyone know what FIFA stands for?
Apparently, some people in the USA are wailing in the streets over today’s news. In a country with numerous other issues to deal with, the FIFA snub might be the lowest blow of them all.
But the folks in Qatar are happy. That country’s bid chairman, Sheikh Mohammad bin Hamad Al-Thani (which in English means Joe Smith), had trouble containing his enthusiasm. But before sharing it, he had to get to the bank to cash his $1 billion oil check.
According to the website reasonpad.com, Qatar has the sixth-highest per capita income level in the world at $66,100 per year. The United States, meanwhile, is ranked No. 17 at $47,240 per year. The top five: Monaco, Liechtenstein, Norway, Luxembourg and the Channel Islands. Monaca’s per capital yearly income is $203,900.
So Qatar, which produces more than 1 million barrels of oil daily, has some financial clout. Some U.S. soccer officials think its the money and not the location that won out. Well, duh.
One of the major concerns with holding the World Cup in Qatar is heat. Summer temperatures can soar and if Al Gore is right, imagine what it might be like over there in 12 years. Already, temperatures can approach 120 or 130 degrees.
To battle that, Joe Smith promises air conditioned outdoor stadiums. Now why didn’t I think of that?
Anyway, congratulations to Qatar. Wherever you are.
* I’m eager to get my first in-person look at the Kansas Jayhawks tonight. I really like this KU team, which has an interesting month of December.
After playing UCLA tonight at Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks will head for New York for a game against a very good Memphis team on Tuesday, then play Colorado State (D 11), Southern California (D 18), California (D 22) and Texas-Arlington (D 29) to round out the month. The game against Cal will be played in Berkeley and should be interesting.
I don’t expect UCLA to stay in tonight’s game for long. The Bruins started 3-0 but have lost consecutive games to No. 7-ranked Villanova (82-70) and a very good Virginia Commonwealth (89-85).
UCLA is its second season of rebuilding under Coach Ben Howland after playing in three straight Final Fours from 2006-08. I am looking forward to seeing a pair of 6-foot-8 UCLA sophomores, Reeves Nelson and Tyler Honeycutt. Nelson averages 17.6 points and 10.4 rebounds; Honeycutt 14.6 points and 8.0 rebounds. They’ll be a solid test for the Kansas frontline, which is led by the Morris twins – Marcus and Markieff, who combine for 31.3 points and 15.8 rebounds per game.
Markieff, who I thought before the season would be one of the most improved players in the country, is averaging 12.3 points and 9.5 rebounds while playing only 20 minutes per game.
You think that’s good?
How about sophomore Thomas Robinson, whose 10.7 points and 6.3 rebounds have been accumulated in only 16.3 minutes per game?
Junior point guard Tyshawn Taylor is finally playing the way every KU fan hoped he eventually would. He has 43 assists and only 17 turnovers and, most importantly, isn’t doing the out-of-control things that used to get him into trouble.
A sports writer’s memories
Covering the 1976-77 Heights basketball team will forever be one of the highlights of my career. I probably covered 10-12 of the Falcons’ games that season and went to several of those with my late father, Ray, who became a big fan of that team. He, like everyone who saw them, couldn’t believe the speed, quickness and athleticism that team possessed.
It was an amazing collection of high school players, led by guard Darnell Valentine, one of the most imposing high school players I’ve ever seen. Valentine was truly a man among boys. His calves needed their own zip code. He was joined in the starting lineup by Antoine Carr, James Carr, Calvin Alexander and Adolphus “Doc” Holden.
A little-used player on that team, Wichitan Mark Nale, has released a book at that Heights championship season and he’ll be signing copies Sunday at the Wichita Boathouse from 2-5 p.m.
Nale organized a reunion of the team a few years ago and has periodically produced interesting material on what I think is the greatest high school team in Kansas history, in any sport. Heights rolled through the season with a 23-0 record and handled Kansas City Wyandotte in Class 5A state championship game, 92-52, after jumping out to a 25-0 lead.
Think about that for a moment – a 25-0 lead in a state championship game against probably the most-storied basketball school in the state’s history.
All five Heights starters averaged in double figures, led by Valentine’s 26.1 points per game. He also had an incredible 135 steals. The Falcons averaged 90.1 points per game in an era before the three-point shot.
Thanks to Nale, who’s a really good guy, for keeping this Heights team alive in his writings. I’ve thumbed through his book and would recommend it to everyone who wants to know more about a great era of City League sports and this special team.
Nale tells me he expects Valentine, Alexander and Lafayette Norwood, who coached the Falcons, to be at Sunday’s book signing.
His book, by the way, is named “Acrophobia.” That’s a fear of heights. And trust me, during that season everybody feared Heights.
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Massage classes and courses in Kentucky and Ohio
Work toward a career in one of the oldest healing arts professions in Daymar College’s medical massage therapy school in Kentucky and Ohio. Our massage therapy courses cover a wide range of topics to prepare you to perform various modalities of medical massage therapy, including sports, pre-natal, therapeutic, Swedish, hot stone and hydrotherapy.
Millions of people receive medical massage therapy each year and can attest to its ability to help alleviate the stress and tension that can lead to disease and illness. With the right massage therapy training, you can learn to relieve many ailments, including joint and circulatory problems and chronic conditions.
You can also study Eastern and Western massage therapy history, as well as spa therapies, reflexology and kinesiology. Whether you want to work in Ohio, Kentucky or elsewhere, you can prepare for personal and professional success at Daymar College.
In our massage classes and courses in Kentucky and Ohio, you will have the opportunity to study law, ethics and professionalism, anatomy and physiology, therapeutic and orthopedic massage applications, and much more. Instructors in this program use relevant instructional methods designed to prepare you for state and national massage therapy certification exams.
Licensure is required to practice in the field of massage therapy.
If you have questions or concerns about financial aid, our financial services department can help you discover what forms of aid may be available to you. Contact us today to start working toward your massage therapy diploma in Kentucky and Ohio.
The massage therapy training program is offered at these locations:
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Sunday May 30th, 2010
|Obama: Life Imprisonment Without Trial
posted 05/30/2010, 9:54 AM (The New American)|
[Category: Tyranny/Police State]
President Obama's Guantanamo Review Task Force has “unanimously” concluded that 48 detainees at Guantanamo should be detained indefinitely — in essence, a life sentence — without trial, including lifetime detention for some detainees who, the commission concluded, hadn't committed any crimes that “constitute a chargeable offense in either a federal court or military commission.” The Washington Post revealed May 28 that the Task Force decided to repatriate the majority of the 240 detainees they investigated, while other detainees should be tried in criminal court or by “military commissions” the Obama administration would reconstitute.
Most Guantanamo detainees have already languished in prison for eight years without trial, and the commission — consisting of officials from the intelligence, military, Defense, Homeland Security, State and Justice departments — concluded the following of the 48 detainees who would remain in prison without trial indefinitely:
Generally these detainees cannot be prosecuted because either there is presently insufficient admissible evidence to establish the detainee's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in either a federal court or military commission, or the detainee's conduct does not constitute a chargeable offense in either a federal court or military commission.In other words, the Obama administration officials think the detainees might have committed a crime but can't be sure, or they are sure the detainees didn't commit a crime and want to keep them in prison for life anyway.
The untrammeled power of government to throw people into prison without a trial by jury was a key grievance the Founding Fathers ci... (more)
|The U.N. gun grabber: Global Small Arms Treaty threatens your right to self defense
posted 05/30/2010, 9:54 AM (Washington Times)|
American gun owners might not feel besieged, but they should. This week, the Obama administration announced its support for the United Nations Small Arms Treaty. This international agreement poses real risks for freedom both in the United States and around the world by making it more difficult - if not outright illegal - for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.
The U.N. claims that guns used in armed conflicts cause 300,000 deaths worldwide every year, an inordinate number ... (more)
|Michigan Considers Law to License Journalists
posted 05/30/2010, 9:54 AM (Fox News)|
[Category: Big Brother/Orwellian]
A Michigan lawmaker wants to license reporters to ensure they're credible and vet them for "good moral character."
Senator Bruce Patterson is introducing legislation that will regulate reporters much like the state does with hairdressers, auto mechanics and plumbers. Patterson, who also practices constitutional law, says that the general public is being overwhelmed by an increasing number of media outlets--traditional, online and citizen generated--and an even greater amount mis... (more)
|Bilderberg: The Open Conspiracy
posted 05/30/2010, 9:53 AM (Infowars)|
Now that the agenda for global government and a centralized world economic system is public and out in the open, the importance of the Bilderberg Group's annual conference rests on grooming political candidates. The lion's share of Bilderberg's 2010 agenda has already been announced by its members weeks before -- it will revolve around a potential military strike on Iran as well as the future collapse of the euro.
Trilateral Commission members, who routinely also attend Bil... (more)
|California poised to ban plastic bags
posted 05/30/2010, 9:50 AM (Los Angeles Times)|
Legislation that would ban many California stores from giving away single-use plastic bags has taken a step closer to becoming law. AB 1998 was passed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday and will be voted upon next Friday by the full Assembly. If passed and signed by the governor, the law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2012.
Each year, Californians use 19 billion plastic bags, only 5% of which are recycled, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Boa... (more)
The term 'one use' is hilarious considering most people use them as trash bags. Must be nice to be a trash bag manufacturer right now, the government is about to mandate you getting a ton of business.
|Anti-drugs campaigner Barbara Harris brings crusade to sterilise addicts to UK
posted 05/30/2010, 9:47 AM (The Guardian)|
[Category: Brave New World]
To many people, Barbara Harris is a dangerous woman. A maverick "do-gooder" from California, she has been accused of effectively promoting eugenics via the back door by paying for drug addicts to be sterilised.
Despite being lambasted in the media and condemned by health experts in the UK, Harris is visiting cities around Britain looking to launch pilot projects that will help her achieve her goal of reducing "the number of substance-exposed births to zero".
While H... (more)
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The reservoir end-of-month storage was updated from the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) web site.
The precipitation and temperature data were updated from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Data for the Madrid, NE station (255090) was only available for March and December 2005. Filled daily data based on nearby stations were obtained for the Madrid station from the High Plains Climate Center (HPCC). The annual precipitation of 19.32 inches was obtained by summing the daily values. This value compares favorably with the 1918-2004 mean annual precipitation is 19.78 inches and the 1918-2004 median annual precipitation is 19.56 inches.
The Colorado groundwater data are calculated based on a refinement of the procedure to calculate irrigated acreage. Before, county totals were distributed to individual wells proportional to the appropriated acreage. The revised procedure uses aerial photography to identify irrigated acreage associated with individual wells in combination with field surveys to assign the irrigated acreage for each well.
The Kansas groundwater preprocessor program pumprechv5 has been updated to accommodate a larger range of overlap group numbers. This change does not effect the method of calculating pumping and recharge, but simply adjusts the program to accommodate a larger number of overlap groups. This change is required by the addition of wells that are in Nebraska that pump into Kansas and therefore needed to be added to the Kansas data.
A new accounting post-processor program hc2gr was added to calculate the Nebraska Mound Credits from Harlan County Reservoir to Guide Rock on a monthly basis. This program functions just like the acct accounting program, but summarizes the data on a monthly rather than an annual basis for this specific reach.
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc reported quarterly sales below analysts' expectations on Thursday, as the struggling global economy pressured shoppers not only in the United States, but globally.
The world's largest retailer also said it has opened internal inquiries or investigations into bribery allegations in Brazil, China and India - adding to its original probe in Mexico.
Wal-Mart shares fell 3.8 percent to $68.62 in morning trading as sales at its U.S. discount stores and Sam's Club unit came in below expectations, fewer customers shopped at its stores in China, and the weak economy hurt results in Japan.
"Whether you're in the U.K. or you're in Argentina, Mexico or China or the U.S. or Canada, I think that all consumers are starting to be under some kind of pressure," Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley said on a conference call with reporters.
Still, the company said sales so far this month were better than expected in the United States as its low-price strategy has drawn consumers worried about their jobs and the costs or gasoline, energy and food.
Total sales rose 3.4 percent to $113.20 billion for the third quarter ended October 31. Analysts, on average, looked for $114.96 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, sales would have been $114.9 billion, the company said.
Sales at Walmart U.S. stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, rose 1.5 percent. The company had forecast an increase of 1 percent to 3 percent, and analysts, on average, looked for a 1.8 percent gain as management expressed optimism during a recent meeting with analysts.
In contrast, rival Target Corp reported a quarterly profit that beat analysts' expectations, luring shoppers with a wider variety of food products and 5 percent discounts for its cardholders.
Lower prices for some food and electronics pressured Walmart U.S. sales. At the same time, while shoppers put millions of dollars of merchandise on layaway, those sales are not registered until the items are paid in full. That typically occurs in the fourth quarter, closer to the end of the holiday season.
"The slight deceleration in growth reflects the underlying pressures facing U.S. consumers," said Natalie Berg, director of global research at Planet Retail. "Having made significant improvements to price perception, Walmart today is actually well placed to cater to budget-conscious shoppers. But at the end of the day, consumers are still very wary about parting with their hard-earned cash."
Traffic at the U.S. stores rose only 0.1 percent as shoppers consolidated trips due to higher gasoline prices.
The Walmart U.S. unit forecast a 1 percent to 3 percent increase in same-store sales for the fourth quarter, when it will be helped by customers' final payments and pick-ups of third-quarter layaway items.
Sam's Club results also disappointed, with same-store sales rising 2.7 percent, excluding gasoline sales, compared with a 5.7 percent increase a year earlier.
Club members, who pay a fee to shop there, bought cheaper items and traffic from business customers slowed.
The results were especially disconcerting to Wall Street since Sam's Club has outperformed Wal-Mart's discount stores.
"When you see a slowdown in sales and then pressure in traffic, that causes investors to be cautious," Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough, said.
Overall, the world's largest retailer earned $3.64 billion, or $1.08 per share, in the third quarter ended October 31, up from $3.34 billion, or 97 cents per share, a year earlier.
Analysts, on average, targeted $1.07 a share.
International sales rose 2.4 percent to $33.16 billion, and would have risen 7.6 percent without currency fluctuations, the company said. Operating profit rose 4.8 percent.
Traffic declined 7.6 percent at its stores in China, and it is facing challenges in Japan due to the economy. Sales there fell 1.8 percent and traffic declined 1.7 percent.
Wal-Mart's international operations remained under scrutiny following a New York Times article in April about alleged bribery at its Mexican unit.
The company said it has spent tens of millions of dollars on advisers reviewing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) matters and spend $48 million in the third quarter on the review, more than it initially planned.
The company said on Thursday it is looking into allegations of potential FCPA violations in a number of countries, including but not limited to Brazil, China and India. Holley declined to give more details about the investigations.
(Additional reporting by Jessica Wohl in Cincinnati; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jeffrey Benkoe)
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A British man signed a legally binding document to ring church bells when he bought and made a church into his home, but now the town is complaining.
Twenty years ago, David Aveyard signed a covenant to keep the village clock ticking and its bells chiming the hour as they had done since 1888.
However, local officials say they've had a complaint about the bells ringing at night, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Aveyard faces a noise abatement order and a possible fine of almost $9,000.
"It's flaming stupid," said the former chauffeur. "Twenty years ago, if someone complained about the noise of the bells, the council would have laughed."
Aveyard's lawyer said the homeowner could face proceedings from the Church of England if he breaches the contract to keep the clock in good working order.
Local government officials say they have a statutory duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to investigate noise complaints -- even if the noise has been going for many years.
DISCUSS AND COMMENT ON THIS STORY Reality TV World now offers Facebook Comments on our stories. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then 'Add' your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the 'X' in the upper right corner of the comment box.
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May 25, 2013
Asking for Their Votes
Posted on Jun 4, 2008
By Marie Cocco
WASHINGTON—Now that Barack Obama has secured the Democratic presidential nomination, I am thinking a lot about Bob Dole. Admittedly, this is one heck of a free association.
It seems impossible for the mind’s eye to conjure up the image of the stodgy, former Senate Republican leader and consummate Washington insider while watching the young, charismatic outsider Obama bring his audiences to an emotional frenzy, as he did on Tuesday night when he clinched the 2008 nomination.
My thoughts turn to Dole not because he and Obama have much in common, though both served in the U.S. Senate and both have Kansas roots. My mind wanders because one of Dole’s most likable qualities was his habit on the campaign trail of closing each and every speech the same way: “I ask for your vote.” This was the punch line to a story Dole would tell about a woman he’d known for years who revealed in a casual conversation that she’d not cast her ballot for him in one of his early campaigns. And why not? Because, the woman told Dole, he didn’t ask.
The question for Obama now is not whether he will ask for the votes of Democrats who failed to support him in the primaries—that is, roughly half the 35 million people who cast ballots. I am assuming he will. The puzzlement is whether he understands that one reason these voters remain so cool to his candidacy is that as yet, he has never really asked for their votes—and at times has been downright dismissive of them.
Since the Iowa caucuses and more strikingly, since the New Hampshire primary, the clarity of Obama’s problem attracting white, working-class voters has been apparent. It glared out from the exit polls before anyone had ever accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of playing racial politics; before the media narrative had taken hold that whites who voted for Clinton did so because of race; before Americans had ever heard about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The pattern was evident long before Obama was caught describing these voters as “bitter,” and therefore clinging to guns, religion and an antipathy to people unlike themselves.
But now Obama confronts this problem: These voters will have the final word on who will be elected president in November. “If you track blue-collar whites basically since 1980, they bounce all over the place,” says Mike Lux, a longtime Democratic strategist who supports Obama. “They’re the biggest swing group in the electorate.”
It is true in congressional elections as well as in presidential years. When voters who lack a college degree—a rough definition of the working class—vote Democratic, Democrats tend to win. When they don’t do so in great enough numbers, Democrats lose.
Obama still does not seem to speak their language, nor, toward the tail end of the primary season, did he seek to speak with them at all. His campaign plane barely touched down in West Virginia and Kentucky, where he ceded both states to Clinton. Why the snub? On Tuesday night, Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, was touting the emergence of a changing Democratic Party chock-full of new voters. But why convey, even inadvertently, such dismissiveness toward the old?
This is the sort of slight Clinton may have had in mind when she riffed on Tuesday night about “what does Hillary want?” One of the items on her list: “I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.”
Obama’s own election-night speech was beautiful in its cadence, mesmerizing as political theater. Bob Dole, you can be certain, could never have delivered it. Still, the blue-collar and middle-class voters Obama needs to lift him to the White House aren’t much interested in joining a movement. They want their meat-and-potatoes concerns to be met.
Obama now must earn their votes. He also needs to steal Dole’s best line—and finally ask for them.
Previous item: Obama Strikes a Chord With a Disaffected Republican
Next item: The Running Mate Dilemma
New and Improved Comments
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I am Terrell Garren and I am searching for documents, photographs and other information pertaining to Confederate soldiers known as Junior Reserves. In the last year of the American Civil War seventeen year olds were drafted and sent to the Confederate Army. Many were captured before being officially assigned to regiments. Those not captured became part of what was known as the First Regiment North Carolina Junior Reserves. There were at least two hundred such boys from our area.
I am also searching for letters, military records, old newspaper accounts or any other information on Confederate soldiers from WNC who were in Union prisons during the Civil War.
Finally, I am seeking names and information on Union soldiers from WNC. Most of these men were in the Confederate Army first. Most went over to the Union Army very late in the War. There names may appear in both Union and Confederate records. Photographs of these men are rare and important if you happen to have one.
The state of North Carolina is also researching these same groups. Any important information I collect will also be sent to the North Carolina Office of Archives and History in Raleigh.
Terrell T. Garren
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Leaving aside the tons of NoSQL Twitter applications — and if that is not enough here are more NoSQL-based Twitter apps and even more, Twitter seems to be having a lot of fun (nb read work and innovation) in the NoSQL space.
It all started with the problem of handling big data in real-time. Nick Kallen’s (@nk) slides below are explaining the problems faced and the way Twitter tackled them:
Then it was the time to consider Cassandra at Twitter:
We have a lot of data, the growth factor in that data is huge and the rate of growth is accelerating. We have a system in place based on shared mysql + memcache but its quickly becoming prohibitively costly (in terms of manpower) to operate. We need a system that can grow in a more automated fashion and be highly available
and scale Twitter with Cassandra (Ryan King (@rk) presentation):
But storing data is not enough and Twitter had to put the NoSQL data to work . For that Twitter is using Hadoop, Pig and HBase as “Cassandra is OLTP and HBase is OLAP“. Kevin Weil (@kevilweil) slides, presented at nosql:eu and Dmitriy Ryaboy (@squarecog) are giving a lot of details about the HBase, Hadoop and Pig usage:
That’s a ton to learn from NoSQL at Twitter!
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The president argued that plan should involve additional tax revenue. He proposed eliminating certain tax loopholes, meaning additional revenue while, in a technical sense, not increasing tax rates.
"I still believe we can and must replace these cuts with a balanced approach -- one that combines smart spending cuts with entitlement reform and changes to our tax code that make it more fair for families and businesses without raising anyone's tax rates," he said. "That's how we can reduce our deficit without laying off workers, or forcing parents and students to pay the price."
But Republicans oppose that route.
"We can't let Washington continue spending money it doesn't have, especially when it's taking that money straight from your wallets," McMorris Rodgers said. "The problem here isn't a lack of taxes. ... Spending is the problem, which means cutting spending is the solution. It's that simple."
House Republicans have put forward plans with targeted cuts, as opposed to the broad cuts of the sequester. Some have compared the difference to a scalpel and meat cleaver.
"In the last year, the House of Representatives has passed two proposals to replace the president's sequester with smarter spending cuts. Our plans cut government waste and make long-term reforms that put us on a path to a balanced budget," McMorris Rodgers said. "In addition, we are looking at ways to close tax loopholes and clean up our tax code so we can lower rates and help create jobs. These ideas get government out of the way so we can bring jobs home and preserve the American Dream."
Regardless of their rhetoric, the cuts are taking effect and no deal appears to be on the horizon to enact cuts more palatable to both sides of the aisle.
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Sierra Leone: Ban lauds peaceful conduct of polls and high voter turnout
|Publisher||UN News Service|
|Publication Date||18 November 2012|
|Cite as||UN News Service, Sierra Leone: Ban lauds peaceful conduct of polls and high voter turnout, 18 November 2012, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50ab5a5a2.html [accessed 19 May 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday congratulated the people of Sierra Leone for the peaceful and orderly elections held yesterday, the first to be run entirely by the Government since the end of the West African nation's brutal civil war 10 years ago.
The voter turnout was reportedly high for the four elections – presidential, parliamentary, local council and mayoral – held on Saturday, the results of which will not be known for about 10 days.
“The high voter turnout and the remarkable calm displayed by the country's citizens as they cast their votes are a clear manifestation of their desire for peace, democracy and development,” said a statement issued by Mr. Ban's spokesperson.
“As the country awaits the announcement of final results, the Secretary-General calls on Sierra Leone's political leaders, parties and their supporters to accept the will of the people and to put their country above any other interests so as not to jeopardize Sierra Leone's hard-won peace,” it added.
Mr. Ban also urged all sides to work together and uphold their commitment to the people of Sierra Leone to bolster stability and unity.
The elections will be the country's third since the end of its civil war, and the second since the withdrawal of the peacekeeping operation known as the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in December 2005. That mission was replaced by various other UN offices, most recently the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office (UNIPSIL), which focuses on political and development activities.
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O' Christmas tree, o' Christmas tree — to compost you are heading?
Not to sound all Scrooge-ish or anything, but as much as you enjoy looking at that Christmas tree and all those beautifully decorated packages in your living room, the simple fact is around this time next week, you'll be looking for ways to be rid of the things.
As they do annually at this time of year, Big Spring city officials have announced plans for helping local residents dispose of all the extra trash that accumulates in Christmas season.
The biggest of those soon-to-be trash items are live Christmas trees, and there's only one place you can take them — to the city's compost facility, adjacent to the landfill. There, they'll be ground into compost and recycled.
The service is free of charge, and all the city wants in return is for residents to follow a few guidelines:
• Do not put the trees in trash dumpsters. This will avoid potentially serious problems for city trash crews and potential fines for you.
• Make sure all the ornaments and lights are off the tree.
• Trees wrapped in plastic or other material won't be accepted.
• And make sure the tree stand has been removed as well.
As for all the other trash, particularly large boxes that will accumulate this season, the city will set large dumpsters at four locations beginning Saturday. Those sites are Coronado Plaza, Virginia and FM 700, College Park Shopping Center and the 700 block of N. Gregg.
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|
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There are many places to get help with your retirement planning. If you're a do-it-yourself kind of person, or you're just looking for some basic guidance, you can check out online resources to learn the basics (you're off to a good start!), and enter some of your numbers into some online calculators to see where you stand.
If you have a retirement plan through your employer, they might offer some free seminars or classes on retirement planning that you should take advantage of. Check with your human resources department. Many 401(k) plans also offer varying types of advice and guidance, ranging from tools and calculators to help you plan, to target-date funds or managed accounts - if you'd rather not make your own investment choices. In some cases, you might also have access to a financial adviser. Fees can vary widely for managed accounts and advice, so make sure to ask before you sign up.
If you feel you really need some one-on-one help, or you have substantial assets that you feel require professional management, you might want to consider hiring a financial planner.
The most important thing to remember is that you need to save as much as possible for your retirement - and you should start as soon as possible. Don't get paralyzed by fear or indecision. Just use the resources available to you, save early and save often!
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|
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I recognize that there are many people out there who simply don't understand the appeal of Twitter. Every time we mention the service, we get comments from people saying things like "why would I want to know what some random person had for lunch." Of course, the answer to that is that if all you're getting out of Twitter is what people you don't care about are having for lunch, you're not following the right people. Twitter really is what you make of it, and for many people, it's a really useful communication tool. I use it in a variety of ways, including to keep up with news, but also as a way to stay in contact with friends and family. It's also -- somewhat surprisingly -- enabled new friendships and even business opportunities, by allowing me to build stronger relationships with people I'd probably not communicate with otherwise.
However, there are certain moments when you realize just how powerful Twitter can be as a communication platform, and those tend to be cases when previously impenetrable walls are broken down. I've told the story in the past about how the first time I realized Twitter was powerful was during the Iowa Presidential caucuses in early 2008, when I started following a user who was aggregating tweets directly from within caucus rooms about what was happening in those rooms. What became fascinating to me was that the information that was coming out got me detailed (and extraordinarily accurate) information well before (as in hours
) mainstream media had the results. In fact, in comparing the Twitter results with CNN's reporting, what became clear was that if you were watching Twitter you would have a much better understanding of what was happening in Iowa.
I'm getting a similar feeling after reading about Newark Mayor Cory Booker's use of Twitter in response to the big blizzard
that hit the northeast this past weekend. He's been tweeting up a storm
, as he travels around Newark helping to plow streets and dig out cars and help people in trouble. As you look down the thread, he's specifically responding to different people calling out for help -- either sending people to help or showing up himself, such as the case of the woman who was stuck in her home and needed diapers, which the mayor brought himself
In another, somewhat epic, stream of tweets, one guy complained
that he was stuck. Mayor Booker responded, asking for the guy's phone number
, and shortly thereafter tweeted that he was there to help
. At the same time, though, the original tweeter was complaining
on Twitter with curses, and wondering if the mayor would really show up. In response, Mayor Booker called him out
Wow u shud b ashamed of yourself. U tweet vulgarities & then I come out here to help & its ur mom & sis digging. Where r u?
Eventually, the guy came out and apparently they talked and worked it out, with the mayor thanking him
and the guy apologizing
Now, I'm sure that there are cynical people out there who will mock all of this as just a publicity stunt. And, to some extent, it is
a publicity stunt, but it's an incredibly effective one. Paying attention to his account, you realize that even if he knows he's getting attention for all of this, he really is using Twitter to find out where there are problems and responding quickly. Some will, of course, point out that all of this provides cover for the fact that the city didn't seem to do a good job plowing
in the first place -- but the storm was not an ordinary storm. Also, a key characteristic of what makes a leader is how they respond when things go wrong, and this reaction is quite interesting.
But what's more telling to me, is how this is yet another case of barriers being broken down. Traditionally, folks who were stuck in certain areas of Newark might -- at best -- call some government agency where they'd probably get a run around. The likelihood of them actually being able to contact the mayor directly and have him respond and do something was nil.
The famous saying, of course, is that all politics is local
, but this story shows how Mayor Booker took that to another level, and really opened a channel for direct communication in a time when it really mattered.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.techdirt.com/blog/articles/?tag=local
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|
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|
Build a castle. Dig for buried treasure, No matter how ambitious the project, the world's most eco-groovy sand play set always leaves a light footprint. Our Sand Play Set is made from 100% Recycled Milk Jugs and is Made by Green Toys in the USA. It is non-toxic and safe and waterproof and colorful and fun! Includes a sturdy bucket, rake, shovel, and sand castle mold. Take a set on your vacation or turn your back yard into a construction site!
These are made of safe plastics - nothing yucky will leach out of them.
We use recycled milk containers as the main ingredient in creating our toys. Yes, the exact plastic milk jugs that you and your family drink from every day. When you finish your milk and toss the container in the recycling bin, these milk containers are collected at your curb by a local recycling company, who then sorts them from all the other types of plastic. Next, the milk containers are reprocessed into super clean fresh plastic. For you plastic geeks, the plastic material we use is called high-density polyethylene (or HDPE). This material is considered one of the safest, cleanest plastics around.
Toy Safety and Testing
Green Toys products are tested by nationally recognized, independent, third-party labs (located, yes, in the USA.) They contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA. They are also designed without any external coatings, eliminating the fear of lead paint.
Green Toys environmental mission even extends to our packaging. We strive to minimize packaging, and all of our boxes use as little material as possible. All Green Toys products are packaged in recycled corrugated boxes with no plastics, cellophane or twist-ties, and are 100% recyclable. So, not only are they earth-friendly and ready for your recycling bin, they are really easy to open for those little fingers just itching to get at the toys!!
"I honestly wasn't sure what I would think about the Sand Castle Set since we already own several pail and shovel sets that we use in our sandbox at home. After playing with it though, I'm ready to throw all of the others away and just use this set. Other sand toys crack and the handles snap off and they just aren't as sturdy and nice as this set, not to mention I'm sure the other ones we have are not a safe plastic nor in the slightest bit environmentally conscious. I much prefer my children play with something I know is safe and responsibly made. This is a fun set that I know will last for quite some time." by Christy at www.onelittlewordsheknew.blogspot.com on 9/9/09
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Introductory talk and training materials provided. All residents participate in both a survey of experiences and attitudes towards cultural competency and patient-centered communication, and have the opportunity to participate in a Meyers Briggs personality assessment.
Noon conferences, Grand Rounds, Round Tables and lunches and other creative programming provide a didactic and interactive opportunity to cover a broad curriculum related to cultural competency.
We seek to embed learning opportunities around cultural competency into daily clinical practice and the environment. An innovative program in which residents are observed by a psychologist and given directed feedback and evaluation around communication skills, cultural competency and patient centered care is ongoing in the medicine clinic.
Work with faculty and chief residents to support cultural competency training opportunities across the curriculum through workshops, independent learning plans and other opportunities.
Develop partnerships with community-based organizations to provide new learning opportunities for residents to experience as well as to bring community resources directly to the patients we serve in the clinical setting.
Elective Rotations and Projects:
Offer residents the opportunity to focus on this area through elective rotations and individual projects as well as embed issues of cultural competency in ongoing projects and initiatives.
Work to support an institutional culture conducive to culturally competent, patient centered care.
ACGME Competency Based Education:
Support achievement of ACGME competencies for residents.
Dr. Dina Lieser
|
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.nyhq.org/oth/Page.asp?PageID=OTH001096
|
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|
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St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians 4:4-9
BRETHREN, rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you. Gospel Reading
John 12:1-18 Palm Sunday
Six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazaros was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazaros was one of those at table with him. Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. Jesus said, "Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."
When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazaros, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazaros also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" And Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it; as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!" His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazaros out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.bulletin.goarch.org/ChurchBulletins/165/040812/readings.html
|
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|
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President Obama, reacting to lousy jobs figures and a shaky stock market, this week gave each American an important new assignment. Our job is to “not panic.”
That’s his latest plan? Is it just us, or is that kind of scary?
It has echoes of FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”
That was a great line, delivered during the Great Depression in FDR’s first inaugural address. But Mr. Obama is well past that point in his own presidency. And just from looking around, it seems to many Americans that there are a number of tangible economic threats that are worth being concerned about.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/opinionzone/tag/fdr/
|
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|
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| 0.981233
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by Clare M. Lopez Originally published by the Gatestone Institute April 29, 2013
One of the more striking—and worrisome—aspects of the April 2013 Boston Marathon terror attack and the cross-border al-Qa'eda/Iran plot to bomb a passenger railway that runs between New York City and Toronto, Canada is the realization that all four suspects so far identified in the two plots had entered legally into the United States and Canada, respectively. Crossing legally into Western countries targeted for terror attacks, entering immigrant and refugee streams without drawing attention from security services, and blending into existing multicultural communities while establishing personas indistinguishable from those of tens of thousands of other new arrivals, appears to be a tried and true modus operandi for Islamic jihadis. It definitely worked for the fifteen of nineteen 9/11 hijackers who were Saudis.
Given the reality of that threat, brought home yet again to North America with these two latest plots, now is probably not the best time for the current administration to revive the visa program that allowed the Saudi government to help screen visa applicants for fast-track entry into the U.S. And yet, that is exactly what just happened: an agreement between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was reached in January 2013 that would accept Saudi applicants into the Global Entry Trusted Traveler program.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://tuw-ga.com/
|
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en
| 0.953465
| 270
| 1.539063
| 2
|
CHICAGO – April 10, 2010. Governor Pat Quinn issued the following statement of condolence regarding the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski:
“On behalf of the people of Illinois, I want to express my deep condolences to the people of Poland, and to Polish-Americans, on the loss of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, who died in today’s tragic plane crash in western Russia.
President Kaczynski was a courageous and dedicated champion of his nation and a defender of freedom.’
Throughout his life he fought for the working men and women of Poland and served as an inspiration to the Polish-Americans living throughout our country, the state of Illinois and the Chicago-area.’
I also want to express condolences to the friends and families of the other passengers who died in this terrible accident.’
The thoughts and prayers of the people of Illinois are with the people of Poland, and Polish-Americans, during this difficult time.”
(For background: Polish President Kaczynski was expected to be in Chicago in late April with Governor Quinn to help commemorate Polish Constitution Day, which is May 3.)
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www3.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=8360
|
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|
en
| 0.980515
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|
Capitalism vs. Socialism – Understanding Premises, Part 10 (Healthcare-Part 3)
(If you’re just joining this series, feel free to read the previous installments.)
Check Your Health Care Premises (Part 3)
Over the first two articles, we’ve come to two conclusions:
- 1. Our once magnificent healthcare system is broken.
- 2. Government is the one that broke it (and, amazingly enough, is being asked by the multitude to fix it).
So, now let’s look at the solution of Universal Healthcare. Basically, this means that Americans would be taxed even more than they currently are, however, at least everyone would have coverage and access to “free*” health care.
Except that what I just said is not completely true. In fact, it’s far from true. Note the italicized word, “access” (I cover the “free*” part at the end of the article). Actually, what people will have is access to a waiting list. They will have access to having a bureaucrat who doesn’t know or love them deciding if the ill they (or their children) are suffering rates a visit to the doctor, an operation or treatment of any kind. There is nothing “conspiracy theory-ish” about this. We know it’s true because we see it regularly within those countries that already have Universal Health Care.
There is a huge difference between access to a list and access to actual health care!
In a column in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon wrote:
Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them. Britain’s Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that “access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare.”
Interestingly enough, in Canada, where by law they cannot pay for private medical treatment, the only option for those who either must have an operation or die is often to travel to America.
Of course, once our system is as socialistic as is theirs, that will no longer be an option for them.
Regarding our friends and neighbors to the north, a very key point is that Canada is currently looking at massive changes in their system because, while citizens affected by the long waiting lists are in an uproar, the costs of the system are completely out of control.
Question: is this really what we want? Are we so anxious to blame a not-guilty party – The Free Enterprise System – that we will actually throw away still another freedom; the freedom to care for ourselves and our loved ones the way we see fit; not the way some faceless bureaucrat sees fit? Do we want our children getting the same expert and loving medical care as did our wounded vets at Walter Reed and similar government-run hospitals?
And, would we really rather see everyone suffer through Universal Healthcare (except the politicians and politically well-connected, of course – they’ll never have to wait on some list) instead of helping everyone by getting the market driven (and very healthy) health care system back? (Remember, we covered caring for the less fortunate in the previous article.)
In the final part of this series, we’ll look at the natural and most practical solution to our Healthcare System woes.
*The word, “free” was in quotation marks because nothing is free; you’ll actually be paying more for your own healthcare as well as for others’. Yes, more for your own because it will be run in the typical governmental fashion of high waste, where approximately 70-75 percent out of every dollar will go to administer the system rather than to health care itself. This percentage of waste is within the norm for all government programs.
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http://www.burg.com/2009/06/capitalism-vs-socialism-understanding-premises-part-10-healthcare-part-3/
|
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|
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SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Hannaford Bros. here uses a scorecard system to track the performance of its distribution centers across a variety of metrics, including finances, productivity, employee safety, accuracy, maintenance and sanitation.
The scorecard “stimulates conversations and action planning around what is important,” said Gerry Greenleaf, vice president, distribution, Hannaford Bros., earlier this month at the Supply Chain Conference, sponsored by the FMI-GMA Trading Partner Alliance.
In the employee safety category, the company looks at workers' compensation costs (as a percentage of sales), safety audits and two measures used by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — OHSA DART rate and OSHA DAFWII rate.
The OSHA DAFWII rate represents the number of cases that involve days away from work due to injury and illness per 100 full-time employees. The OSHA DART rate is a measure of the number of injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time employees that resulted in days away from work, restricted work activity and/or job transfer.
In one sample scorecard shown by Greenleaf, all of the safety measures were better than the targeted levels except for the OSHA DART rate. “I don't know if [the OSHA Dart score] is a function of more injuries or the fact that we educate folks to report injuries,” said Greenleaf. Unreported injuries, he noted, can end up becoming more costly.
A more proactive approach to injuries is “an example of a conversation with our operations team” that resulted from the scorecard analysis, he said.
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Hartford – Even family members of Newtown victims couldn’t agree at the legislature’s gun violence prevention subcommittee meeting on Monday.
“I believe in simple, few gun laws. We have enough on the books,” said Mark Mattioli, the father of 6-year-old James Mattioli, who was killed during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting Dec. 14.
About half of the audience, many of whom were wearing “another responsible gun owner” stickers, stood and applauded Mattioli.
Shortly afterward, Neil Heslin, the father of 6-year-old Newtown victim Jesse Lewis came forward with a framed photograph of himself and his son when Jesse Lewis was 6-months-old. Heslin said he dropped Jesse off at 9:04 a.m. at Sandy Hook Elementary.
“He gave me a hug and a kiss, and I gave him a kiss back, and he said goodbye, he said I love you, he said I love mom, too,” Heslin said. “We were supposed to go back and make gingerbread houses that day; we never made it. Twenty minutes after that my son was dead. There is no reason for it.”
Background checks for everyone who purchases a weapon, even if it is a resale, would be a place for gun legislation to start, Heslin said. A ban on high-capacity magazines and assault-type weapons also needs to be in place, he said.
Toward the end of his speech Heslin looked around the room and asked whether anyone there could explain why a person needs an assault-style weapon or high-capacity clips. The room was quite at first until one audience member said they weren’t allowed to respond. Then a handful of audience members said the second amendment was reason enough.
State Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, quieted down the audience.
“I respect their opinions and thoughts, but I wish they would respect mine and give it a little bit of thought,” Heslin said.
A third parent of a Newtown victim spoke at the meeting.
“Noah was our 6-year-old force of nature,” said Veronique Pozner, mother of Noah Samuel Pozner. … “Never again will he feel the sunlight on his face and the companionship of a family who loves him.”
Pozner said she was lucky to have four surviving children.
“My two youngest made it out of Sandy Hook Elementary School that day,” she said.
Pozner said her daughter Sophia who is in second grade, told her that the number 14 will always be “unlucky” for her, so unlucky that Sophia is afraid of turning 14 years old.
She and her husband would like to see a comprehensive ban on assault weapons, no grandfathering of banned weapons, high-capacity magazine limits and firearm registration, she said.
“This is not about the right to bear arms, it is about the right to bear weapons with the capacity for mass destruction, speed kills …” Pozner said.
Carlos Soto, brother of Newtown victim and teacher Victoria Soto was supposed to speak at the subcommittee meeting, but was too nervous to come into the room, said Laura Asher a disaster relief chaplain assigned to Newtown families.
Asher read 15-year-old Soto’s testimony.
“She was getting ready to make gingerbread houses with students, but before they could start there that day it was interrupted for three minutes, and in those three minutes 20 kids and six adults lives were cut short by a Bushmaster assault rifle,” Asher read. “The second amendment gives us the right to bear arms, but in 1791 the writers of the Constitution weren’t thinking of assault rifles, but now the time has come to think about these issues.”
Asher continued to read Soto's testimony, "I am only 15 and so I can't speak for an adult, but from my generation we want change."
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Moo-ving people toward compassionate living
From Rebecca Norris – 23 Jan 2004
Hello, my name is Rebecca Norris, I am a 15 year old girl deeply devoted to animals and I hate to see them in the state that you have published on your web site. Although the images are very disturbing, it gives people an insight into what happens to the meat they eat. I am not yet a vegetarian, but after seeing how the animals are killed, I think I will be from now on.
I think you should put a petition on this web site for people to sign, so that you could then send it off to the government for them to see just how many people think this is wrong. I have nothing against the killing of animals, as long as while they are alive they are kept in good, clean, friendly natural environments, where they can interact with others and know that they are loved. Then when they come to be killed, the are killed quickly so that they feel no pain and don't know anything about it. It should be done out of the way of any other animals if it is too be done at all, but I'd rather every one [was] stopped altogether. Also, only the needed number of animals should be killed, to stop wasting and the dumping of bodies.
The people that work in slaughterhouses should be hung up how they hang the innocent animals, and have done to them what they do to the animals and let the queue of people awaiting there turn watch and worry just like the animals do. Then [they] should be killed slowly and painfully so that they know how the animals felt before they died a horrible pointless death. Only then can people begin to realize that what they are doing is wrong and that all animals should be treated friendly, not like people, because that is just as cruel, but to be natural as if they were in the wild.
I feel that your web site is a very good idea to help people along the lines of caring for animals. Keep it up. I think another category you can put on the site could be the suffering of donkeys in India and Pakistan, dying in the deserts, having no water and food, carrying heavy loads for miles, and worked until the drop down dead on the spot.
Please, please, please email me back as to what you think of my suggestions.
Thank you ever so much.
Reply by Frank L. Hoffman
Thank you very much for your email, compliments and expressions of compassion.
Unfortunately, humane slaughter is a myth. It won't happen commercially because of the cost. Your decision to go vegetarian (vegan) is the only answer to stopping the pain and suffering. The more we spread the truth to others, the sooner people will demand an end to animal suffering.
We'll see how we can work in a petition. Thanks for the suggestion.
In the Love of the Lord,
Return to Visitors' Comments
| Animal Exploitation Photo Gallery |
The calf photo in the masthead of these pages is from Farm Sanctuary with our thanks.
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Thank you for visiting all-creatures.org.
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The Real.Est List
Bedbugged! The fine line between educating and babbling incoherently
Bedbugged! is a weekly column by journalist and bed bug survivor Theresa Braine. For more, click here.
Over the months that my apartment was afflicted with bed bugs, I found myself talking about them incessantly. This was understandable from one standpoint, since for a time bed bugs was all that was happening to me.
It’s also not the worst idea in the world, since the experience of those who’ve battled them is invaluable to those who have not. Everyone should know about these things and how to prevent them, and we so-called survivors are on the front lines in this war.
However, there is a definite way to go about it. You can’t just barrel into the topic. Introducing it requires planning.
When it comes to bed-bug discussions, you as the sufferer/imparter of information most definitely set the tone: Too emotional, and you’ll weird out your listeners. Too graphic, and you’ll have them scratching and sidling away. Too garbled, and you’ll lose them.
Remaining matter-of-fact is key. It is also important to set a goal. What is your reason for talking about the situation? Are you looking for moral support and sympathy, or are you attempting to educate? Either way, it’s essential to keep your cool.
A great example of how to talk about bed bugs was given on Bedbugger.com a couple of years ago by a fellow who called himself “Munched.” First of all, as an experiment, he said, he told everyone in his orbit: family, friends, boss, condo property manager and “random people” he met at parties.
I took a similar approach during my ordeal, and like Munched, I learned a bit along the way. From the people who don’t know that bed bugs exist to the person who is terrified of running into them and wants avoidance advice, they all had similar reactions to my tale and my attempts at education. For the most part, they were interested, or at least fascinated the way one would be by a train wreck. If I were talking about the ordeal itself rather than the bugs, it usually made them feel better about their own lives—even a friend who had had eye surgery a year earlier and told me, "I'll take my torn retina."
What set Munched apart when it came to talking about bed bugs is that he anticipated every psychological reaction and forestalled each one. He noted in his post that a surprising number of people don’t know these pests exist; that others will start to wonder whether they can get them from you, and that either type of listener is bound to start scratching during the conversation.
“Point this out to them!” he wrote, emphasizing with italics. “Thinking about bugs of any kind will cause your mind to be hyper-aware of sensations on your skin. Most people do not know about this psychosomatic effect. It is your job to ease this fear by pointing out to them that everyone does this.
"I usually say something like: ‘Oh man! See how you’re scratching yourself? It's really interesting how just talking about bugs causes you to start noticing the movement of every hair follicle on your body. I swear, every person I tell about this starts scratching right away.’ ”
Another thing to keep in mind, said Munched, who had gotten bed bugs after borrowing a baseball cap (and, inadvertently, a harborage, under the rim) that had been hanging near a friend’s bed, is that “people will tend to mirror your current emotional state as you describe the bugs.”
For instance, “If you get all worked up and agitated telling your story, they will get worked up and agitated,” he wrote. “You do not want this.”
Even if you tell the person you are freaking out, “the delivery says, ‘I have this under control so you don't really have to worry,’ ” Munched said in his post.
His full post is well worth reading, but here are the highlights of his four-point plan:
• Introduce the topic
• Allay fears
• Recount your tale
“It's hard going at first,” he noted. “Start with a close friend and branch out as you become more comfortable. Dealing with bed bugs is horrible, but it can be a lot less so with some public awareness.”
This can be easier said than done. I find it difficult to organize cohesive answers to the barrage of questions that comes flying at me when people hear the term bed bug and try to fill their knowledge gaps with what amounts to sound bites. In one recent such conversation, I fielded some of the usual questions, and a few new ones.
“Does it hurt?” one person asked me.
“Just your wallet,” I replied.
“What do they do?” she said.
I explained how bed bugs build up, unbeknownst to the non-reactor, until they overrun all your stuff. She started scratching. “That’s common,” I told her.
Soon after, she changed the subject. I had done what I could, though, doling out yet another snippet of information to the world at large—and, I hoped, cutting the potential bed bug population by at least a few.
Next week: Bed bugs and traveling
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I'm in the midst of working on the second chapter of my book, in which I am proposing what Scripture is and what it is not. Part of this process is deconstructing the problem with literalist readings of every passage, as well as the inconsistency of groups that propose literalist interpretation---those that believe women should not teach in church, for instance, but yet do not feel that they should still cover their hair, even though both verses appear in the same epistle. But as I work through the problem with rampant literalism, I confront the problem of the other extreme as well. Purely metaphorical interpretations miss the grounding of certain claims that Scripture seems imperative, such as St. Paul's repeated insistence that if Christ was not literally, historically, bodily resurrected from dead, our Faith doesn't mean anything.
(Notice, though, that the Apostle does not say you have to believe in a six day creation---which I do---or that you have to believe the book of Job happened as a historical event---which I also do. I bring this up to point out that what Christians sometimes call essential the early Christians did not. Christ's literal resurrection from the dead? Absolutely. All the Bible being word for word historical fact? No.)
In frustration, I texted a friend: I think the subtitle to this book should be "Or, stop saying stupid s--- about Scripture."
The reply was telling: About had enough of the priesthood of all believers myself.
It seems like every day I spend on the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, in religious circles in my daily life, there comes a moment where I want to throw up my hands and become Roman Catholic, to find the safety of systematised theology---in as much as the catechism offers---and be done with the mindless dribble that is put out in the name of God more often than not.
A Facebook status before an exam: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Regardless of whether you bothered to study beforehand or not.)
A tweet about the upcoming election: God says here in Scripture ________________, therefore, vote _______________. (Because God cares more about what happens in America than Uganda.)
A blog post about use of the word "religion" or "nakedness" or any other word study of any kind that uses either the NIV or The Message or, generally, presumes that English somehow communicates in full the nuance of Hebrew and Greek words. (Because expressions and idioms never have cultural or historical significance.)
The Reformation did several very good things, one of which was to put the Scripture into everyone's hands, or at least to support the idea of putting the Scripture into them. But it is possible that our easy access to the Text has made us lazy students of its words. We do not ask why something is phrased the way it is or where it comes from or is it possible that 1st century Palestine was facing seriously different concerns than America today. (For instance, try as they might, we have yet to have a President claim to be a god by virtue of the office, which is what Caesar was claiming on that coin Jesus held up and said render to Caesar what is his.)
Instead, like the commonness of sliced bread, our over-accessibility has made us treat the Word of God with a kind of casual ambiguity. We like it when it proves our point or makes us feel good, but we're not necessarily concerned when it comes to convicting us of our wrongs.
Moreover, we do to it what every literature class has always told us never to do: we strip it of context outright and believe that whatever presuppositions we bring to it are inherently true and therefore the Scripture shall bend naturally to our worldview.
True, not everyone can learn Hebrew or Greek. True, not everyone knows history. True, I would even argue that unique insight between a person and the Holy Spirit in private devotion happens all the time and is part of Scripture's amazing ability to shape our daily lives.
But when these personal experiences are translated into huge, sweeping statements about the way things are or the way things should be, perhaps pause is needed. Perhaps some time spent meditating on the historical and theological context is prudent. Perhaps, if the text is from the Old Testament, some Jewish perspective would be helpful---and would be to Mark Driscoll during this whole Esther nonsense.
At the end of the day, I love the priesthood of all believers, but I admit in this rambling rant this cold Scottish morning that at times it leaves me infuriated.
We have been given such a wondrous gift in Scripture. Why on earth do we treat it like this?
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I cut apart a Kleenex box and applied gesso to the panels, leaving a few of their design elements showing.
Making a book using a tissue box, coffee bags, anything recycled has many benefits. First, how can you screw up a Kleenex box? No fine art standards in this project. It also stimulates creativity by thinking outside the box (OK, that was BAD), and there is one less item in the trash/recycling bin.
I chose a limited number of colors - green, red, blue, brown and yellow, no blending or mixing.
I loved prepping the pages so much that I almost felt 'finished' but then decided to make it a found-word mini-journal. And realized that the fun had just begun.
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puppy....lump on back
I have a 17 week old pitbull. He had his last shots about 2 weeks ago so he is up to date until a year now.
He has been scratching behind his shoulder for a while know and i finally found a lump where he's been scratching.
I've also noticed that he has been urinating everywhere and he can't get enough water. The flow of urine is constant but he can "pee" about 3 or 4 times in a half an hour, sometimes even while he's walking. He normally goes to the door but it seems like he can't hold it now.
He sleeps all night long(7 or 8 hrs) and doesn't have any problems. I would like some advice please about these problems.
The lump your pup is scratching at is probably residual irritation from having his vaccinations. Many puppies have a 'knot' or lump at the site of the needle itself, and it can stay there for several weeks, even months sometimes. If he seems to be really irritated by this though, you could try some Benadryl (check with your vet first to get the correct dosage for your pups weight), it may help to damp down the reaction.
As for the urination, that doesn't sound as though it's related, although as I'm not a veterinarian, that is only a personal opinion.
Frequent urination can be caused by a urinary tract infection, however as he seems to be able to control his urination overnight, that may indicate otherwise.
When an increase in urination is accompanied by increased thirst, it's possible that another condition (such as Diabetes or a kidney problem) is responsible.
I would strongly recommend that you take your pup to the veterinarian for a check up. That way your vet can run some tests if he feels it necessary and get the correct diagnosis. If treatment is needed, the sooner you get it started the better.
Best of luck, hope your pup is doing better soon.
Click here to post comments.
Return to Puppy Questions.
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On June 7, 2008, I had the opportunity to discuss the commercialization of American children with Josh Golin, the Associate Director of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood.
Josh’s two-part interview was sponsored by—no one. Isn’t this total lack of commercial sponsorship a pleasant change of pace?
People who warn about the commercialization of our children sound quaint or even shrill to most other Americans. After all, how could it possibly be a bad thing to buy lots and lots of things for our children, to “spoil” them?
As Josh indicates in this interview, there is now scientific data substantiating that buying children more things is harming them. More stuff (and the anticipation of yet more stuff) leads to a warped set of attitudes and priorities, as well as obesity and attention disorders.
I enjoy talking with Josh because he makes his case clearly and enthusiastically. You can see this for yourself by clicking on the two videos of his interview. What CCFC offers in place of a chokingly endless stream of products is common sense: children can thrive without owning the toys hawked by merchandisers. Instead of more toys, children need more creative play and more time developing real life relationships with other children and adults in their communities.
Part I – Interview of Josh Golin
We all know that American middle class children don’t need most of possessions they have (they are a lot like their parents in this regard). Because there is a limited number of hours in a child’s life, giving children more of what they don’t need leaves them with less time and energy for the sorts of things they do need, such as physical fitness, healthy relationships and creative play.
As you can see from the topics I raised in this two-part interview, marketers have done such a superb job of characterizing wants as needs that parents (and their kids) are now doing the dirty work of marketing unnecessary products and services to you and your child. Those who don’t yet have children might doubt this claim. From personal experience, though, I can attest that it is almost impossible to spend significant time with another parent without someone earnestly suggesting that a child “needs” to purchase something that is unnecessary.
Part II – Interview of Josh Golin
It would be a rare day when you spot an anti-commercialism discussion like these on television, even on PBS (where commercials appear in the form of “sponsorship announcements”). Why not? Because acknowledging the toxic environment caused by the rampant marketing aimed at children would destroy the advertising revenue on which most “children’s” shows depend.
For more on the damage excessive advertising does to children, take a look at this image-laden trailer from the Media Education Foundation video, Consuming Kids:
For related posts at Dangerous Intersection see here.
About the Author (Author Profile)Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on consumer law litigation and appellate practice. He is also a working musician and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich and his wife, Anne Jay, live in the Shaw Neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, where they are raising their two extraordinary daughters.
Sites That Link to this Post
- Alison Blogs Here : I Hate All Kinds of Marketing. . . | June 18, 2008
- How businesses invade the minds of children: they trick people into thinking there is a problem. | Dangerous Intersection | May 24, 2009
- Hypocrisy award goes to "children advocacy" Center | Dangerous Intersection | March 11, 2010
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- (Photo: Joyce Frost)
A Washington State branch of a megachurch will be soon moving to a historic church building due to its growing numbers.
The Seattle Downtown branch of Mars Hill Church plans to relocate from a former Tabella nightclub to the historic building for First United Methodist Church of Seattle, which for the past five years has served as an entertainment hall.
Pastor Tim Gaydos of Mars Hill Church Downtown Seattle told The Christian Post about how the building, constructed in 1906, had for years been considered for demolition.
"This building faced an almost 25-year battle to see it preserved, and it faced a wrecking ball to be replaced by a large tower five years ago. A developer and preservationist came in, bought it, and turned it into a concert hall," said Gaydos.
"We developed a good relationship with him and started talking about what it would look like to repurpose it and return the space to its original intent as a church, what it was built for over 100 years ago."
According to the Seattle Times, the former home of First United Methodist Church of Seattle once served as the congregation of notable Seattle "founding families" when it was completed in 1906. However with time the congregation decreased in numbers and eventually First UMC ended up selling the building in 2007.
Dr. Sandy Brown, senior pastor of First UMC, told The Christian Post that the sale of the historic First UMC building was part of a growth strategy for the 500-member congregation.
"The 2007 sale of our historic property at Fifth and Marion was part of our long range strategic plan to replant ourselves in a more residential neighborhood of downtown Seattle," said Brown.
"We achieved that goal with our property purchase and building project at Second and Denny, where we have 10,000 condo and apartment-dwelling residents within a 1.5-mile radius of our building."
According to Brown, outside of "the memories created in that sacred space," First UMC has no current connections to the historic facility or Mars Hill, having "deconsecrated" the space on Easter Sunday 2008.
"In doing so, we relinquished our ties to the building and closed it as a place of worship. We are glad for Daniels Development that they were able to find tenants to occupy this beautiful building," said Brown.
"Our relocation has contributed to the renewed vitality of our historic congregation."
Mars Hill Church was founded in 1996 and is headed by Pastor Mark Driscoll. It has 14 locations in four states with an average weekly attendance of 14,000. According to Pastor Gaydos, the Downtown Seattle branch of Mars Hill has a 1,500 regular attendance divided into five worship services.
"Based on the incredible and miraculous growth rate that we've been on, if that continues, and we believe that Jesus is really doing a miraculous thing building his church in urban Seattle, then we would love to see God allow us to outgrow this space in the next five years," said Gaydos.
"At that point, we'd likely have to look at Key Arena!"
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Articles written by: Helena Malikyar & Tanya Goudsouzian
Wednesday, 28 Mar, 2012
In the wake of the US soldier civilian shooting in Kandahar, many notable American pundits have called for an accelerated pullout of their troops in anticipation of reprisals or worse, a descent into full-fledged war with the local community. But if any lessons are to be gleaned from the failures of imperialists of yore, whose visions of world domination began to fade after drawn-out battles lost in Afghanistan, a premature withdrawal is precisely the move that America must avert at all cost...
Read more »
Wednesday, 14 Mar, 2012
When in October 1879 General Fredrick Roberts, commander of the occupying British army, delivered a condescending imperialist speech and ordered the public summary executions of Afghan rebels in front of the Bala Hissar Fortress in Kabul, he was employing a time-tested colonial tactic that had proved successful in neighboring India. But those public hangings, which were meant to quash the Afghan rebellion, only served to embolden the resistance, and as such, triggered the outbreak of the sec...
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PICKENS — Having a problem painting those faces? Can’t get that nose to look just right? Join award winning artist Dale Cochran for his workshop “Watercolor Portraits” on Oct. 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Liz Smith-Cox Educational Studio.
During this workshop, Dale will share his approach to painting watercolor portraits. This class will concentrate on proportions, structure, light and shadow. There will be a one-on-one instruction as you work on your piece.
Students are asked to do a preliminary drawing on watercolor paper prior to this class to maximize the time for painting and individual instruction. Students are asked to bring a reference photo and supplies. There is no need to purchase new supplies. A “Supply List” will be provided prior to the class. During the brown bag lunch hour, Dale will be doing a painting demonstration.
Inspired by his father who moonlighted as a sign painter, Dale began his 28-year art career as an illustrator, penning and sketching cartoons, caricatures and line drawings for newspapers and other mediums. Although he received formal art training at Anderson College and Winthrop University, it was only after taking a class at the Anderson Arts Center that he found his true artistic calling: watercolor.
“With watercolor, experience is fluid … not just in the brush strokes themselves, but in the interpretation of feeling and experience, of emotion and connection,” says Dale.
Dale currently is on the board of the Southern Watercolor Society and holds the position of senior creative director in the department of creative services at Clemson University. His award winning creative works are part of public and private collections and have been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications.
Pre-Registration is required. The workshop is open to student ages 16 and up and is limited to a Minimum of 5 and Maximum of 10 students on a first come, first serve basis. Tuition for the workshop is $85.00 ($75.00 for museum members), payable to the Pickens County Museum or student may use their charge card by calling museum. Tuition is not refundable after Oct. 2. Dale’s detailed supply list will be furnished after pre-registration. Lunch not included, so, plan to bring your bag lunch and enjoy the day. This class will fill quickly so register today by calling the museum at 864.898.5963.
This class is part of the museum’s continuing effort to provide a variety of entertaining and educational programming for the community. The Pickens County Museum of Art & History is funded in part by Pickens County, members and friends of the museum and a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Located at the corner of Hwy. 178 at 307 Johnson Street in Pickens SC, the museum is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., Thursdays from 9 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcomed. For more information or to register for this class call the museum at 864.898.5963.
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Independence Day has one of my most favorite hero duos of all time: Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. Brawn and brains, flyboy and nerd, working together to take out the baddies. It all comes down to one flash of insight on behalf of a drunk Goldblum after being chastised by his father. Cliché eureka! moments like Goldblum’s realization that he can give the mothership a “cold” are great until you realize one thing: if Goldblum hadn’t been as smart as he was, the movie would have ended much differently. No one in the film was even close to figuring out how to defeat the aliens. Will Smith was in a distant second place and he had only discovered that they are vulnerable to face punches. The hillbilly who flew his jet fighter into the alien destruct-o-beam doesn’t count, because he needed a force-field-free spaceship for his trick to work. If Jeff Goldblum hadn’t been a super-genius, humanity would have been annihilated.
Every apocalyptic film seems to trade on the idea that there will be some lone super-genius to figure out the problem. In The Day The Earth Stood Still (both versions) Professor Barnhardt manages to convince Klaatu to give humanity a second look. Cleese’s version of the character had a particularly moving “this is our moment” speech. Though it’s eventually the love between a mother and child that triggers Klaatu’s mercy, Barnhardt is the one who opens Klaatu to the possibility. Over and over we see the lone super-genius helping to save the world.
Shouldn’t we want, oh, I don’t know, at least more than one super-genius per global catastrophe? I’d like to think so. And where might we get some more geniuses? you may ask. We make them.
In his essay, “The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis”, philosopher David Chalmers notes that there is a very real chance that if machines become self-aware and start improving themselves, we’re going to have a problem (*cough* Skynet *cough* Liquid T-1000 *cough, cough*). One of his potential solutions is to enhance ourselves to keep up:
This might be done genetically, pharmacologically, surgically, or even educationally. It might be done through implantation of new computational mechanisms in the brain, either replacing or extending existing brain mechanisms. Or it might be done simply by embedding the brain in an ever more sophisticated environment, producing an “extended mind” whose capacities far exceed that of an unextended brain.
Does any of that sound familiar? Perhaps a little film called Gattaca may ring some bells? Chalmers is arguing enhancement may be necessary to prevent extinction. Why not extrapolate that logic to other existential risks. Alien invasion? Superhumans would probably put up a better fight. Skynet goes live? An army of hackers with a collective IQ of 200+ and neuro-integrated interfaces would clean that up in a jiffy. But what about our current problems? Although heavy-handed, the message in both versions of The Day the Earth Stood Still is that humanity’s greatest existential threat is itself. War, suffering, poverty, and environmental destruction all seem like problems that would merit allowing our best and brightest to become even better and brighter for the sake of everyone.
A common fear is that the super-intelligent would just step on us normals, creating second-class citizens. Enhancement doesn’t just mean the ability to do complex equations and create new molecular compounds; raw intellectual horsepower is just one among many possibilities. We know that some people have moral problems caused by damage to specific parts of their brain. As neuroscience progresses, there is a very real possibility we’ll be able to improve those specific parts of the moral brain. I don’t mean we’d have a society of lock-step rule followers, but instead people who were genuinely better at being moral than most of us. Can you imagine a world where politicians had improved ethical scruples? Or, to put it simply, where the most brilliant minds were also the most caring?
Which brings me back to Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day. Not only does he come up with the solution, but he selflessly gets in the nuke-strapped UFO with Will Smith to fly into the middle of the enemy mothership. Same for professor Barnhardt, who is as good at moral philosophy as it seems he is math, attempting to show Klaatu the best of our species.
In science fiction, when humanity is faced with existential crises, we turn to great minds attached to great hearts. While we aren’t under alien attack or facing sentient machines, our world has its own share of problems. Human cognitive enhancement might just be the solution from which all other solutions are born; or maybe it brings too many risks of its own.
ID4 Promotional Image via Wikipedia under fair use
Links to this Post
- Giants’ Shoulders #29: Esoteric Science Special « Heterodoxology | November 16, 2010
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Ratings agency Standard & Poor's affirmed India's sovereign rating at "BBB-minus" with a "negative" outlook, reiterating there was a one-in-three chance of a ratings downgrade over the next 12 months, a statement said on Friday. Full Article
Confused while buying stocks? Get buy, sell or hold recommendations from VantageTrade. Full Coverage
Millions of Hindus take to the Ganges at Maha Kumbh Mela
ALLAHABAD, India |
ALLAHABAD, India (Reuters) - Upwards of a million elated Hindu holy men and pilgrims took a bracing plunge in India's sacred Ganges river to wash away lifetimes of sins on Monday, in a raucous start to an ever-growing religious gathering that is already the world's largest.
Once every 12 years, tens of millions of pilgrims stream to Allahabad from across India for the Maha Kumbh Mela at the point where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet with a third, mythical river.
Officials believe that over the next two months as many as 100 million people will pass through the temporary city that covers an area larger than Athens on a wide sandy river bank. That would make it larger even than previous festivals.
After a slow start, police chief Alok Sharma said 1.5 million people had gathered by 8 a.m. (0230 GMT) on Monday, with more on their way.
Two dreadlocked men riding horses emerged from thick camp smoke before dawn, followed by a crowd of ash-smeared and naked holy men, or sadhus, one incongruously wearing a suit jacket. At exactly five minutes past six (0035 GMT), they yelled and dashed dancing into the river.
That the ancient festival grows in size each time it is held partly reflects India's expanding population, but is also seen as evidence that spiritual life is thriving alongside the new-found affluence of a growing middle class.
The ritual "Royal Bath" was timed to match an auspicious planetary alignment, when believers say spiritual energy flows to earth.
"I wash away all my sins, from this life and before," said wandering ascetic Swami Shankranand Saraswati, 77, shivering naked in the cold. He said he gave up a career as a senior civil servant 40 years ago to become a holy man, travelled on foot and for decades ate only nuts and fruit.
The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested from demons a golden pot containing the nectar of immortality.
In a 12-day fight for possession, four drops fell to earth, in the cities of Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik. Every three years a Kumbh Mela is held at one of these spots, with the festival at Allahabad the holiest of them all.
More than 2,000 years old, the festival is a meeting point for the Hindu sadhus, some who live in forests or Himalayan caves, and who belong to dozens of inter-related congregations. The sects have their own administration and elect leaders, but are also known for violent clashes with each other.
Some naked, some wrapped in saffron or leopard-print cloth and smoking cannabis pipes, the holy men hold court by fire pits in sprawling camps decorated with coloured neon lights, where they are visited by pilgrims who proffer alms and get blessings.
Despite their asceticism, the sects, known as akharas, are moving with the times. Swami Avdheshanand Giri Ji, who leads one of the main groups, has a Facebook page. Some gurus advertise on billboards and posters to attract followers, others drive trucks and chat on cellphones.
At the riverbank, men with dreadlocked beards to their feet vied for media attention with yogis supporting heavy weights with their genitals, while others holding golden umbrellas, flags and swords rubbed sand on their bodies after the dip.
"I feel pleasure," grinned Digambar Navraman Giri," who said he had not sat down for a year, even sleeping on foot. "This is why I became a sadhu," he said, steam rising from his body in the cold air and wearing nothing but two rings on his fingers.
Baba Ram Puri was given to his guru by his parents when he was barely one year old. At 31, he is now a young spiritual leader himself and says Indians with disposable income want to support traditional holy men.
"They earn a lot of money but they don't get peace, so they turn to spirituality," he said, sitting on cushions by a smoking fire. "That's why we continue to grow in strength."
Jim Mallinson, a Sanskrit scholar and expert on sadhus, says that, while exact numbers are hard to come by, it appears the sects are growing in strength and size, and the fair is becoming more religious.
"I suspect it is because the emerging middle classes are more than happy to spend their surplus cash on sustaining the sadhu tradition," he said.
Mobile phones and better roads also make the festival more accessible, while a thriving Indian media make the festival well known all across the country. There is even a smartphone app to guide pilgrims around the site.
"I won't become a sadhu, I want to be a cricketer," said Gaurav Vashisht, 21, a business student from New Delhi, whose family gives money to support one of the sects. "It's very important that this should survive, it's a great Indian tradition and has been going on for so many years."
The festival attracts global followers too, with a number of foreigners ordained in the hierarchy of sadhus, including Baba Mangalannand, who is also a popular trance music DJ under the name Goa Gil. He first came to the festival in 1971.
To cope with the flow of people, authorities in Uttar Pradesh have installed 35,000 toilets, laid 550 km (340 miles) of water pipes and 155 km (95 miles) of temporary roads at the riverbank site.
Mostly, though, the festival's spirit does not change. Pilgrims make their way there without advertising, announcements or buying tickets. The sadhus show off yogic feats, catch up with old friends and discuss scripture, just as they always have.
"The Indian people don't change their attitude to spirituality overnight, we're not like the West," Ram Puri said, laughing. "That's why in India the spirit is strong." (Additional reporting by Sharat Pradhan; Editing by John Chalmers and Paul Tait)
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Loyal readers will know that DrRich has long believed that passage of healthcare reform was inevitable – but not because the President wanted it, or because Democrats controlled Congress, or because the people wanted it. It was inevitable because the American health insurance industry absolutely needed it.
Health insurance companies find themselves at the place in their industry’s life cycle where, for the very first time, they have to try to make a profit by actually taking care of sick people. They have never done that successfully, and never will. They have tried every underhanded trick imaginable to avoid paying benefits to their subscribers, and have already raised insurance premiums to the very breaking point. But patients are getting older and sicker, and expensive drugs and medical devices and other technologies keep coming on line. The insurance industry’s profit margins (already small) are rapidly eroding. Its business model is irreparably broken. What the health insurers need more than anything else is a graceful exit strategy – whether it’s a buyout from the government, or a conversion to a public utility. And the only way they’re going to get such an exit strategy is through a fundamental reform of the American healthcare system. Hence, this is what they must have.
It is already difficult to remember how remote the possibility of healthcare reform seemed only two months ago, immediately after the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Conventional wisdom at that time was that the kind of sweeping reforms the President wanted (and that we’ve now received) had become impossible. And the President himself seemed to confirm that opinion in his State of the Union message, in which he gave healthcare reform only a few, almost wistful paragraphs, and only after talking for 20 minutes about more pressing concerns. NPR’s take was, “Obama Treads Lightly On Health In State Of The Union,” and reported that the President seemed now “willing to reopen the discussion to accommodate better ideas on how to remake the nation’s health system.”
DrRich believes he was the first to point out, on February 18, that the health insurance companies, faced with a broken business model and in imminent crisis, would not allow healthcare reform to die, and must necessarily act in some dramatic way to resurrect it, and indeed – with the announcement of a 39% premium increase by Anthem Blue Cross in California – had just done so. While other, more mainstream pundits entirely missed its significance, DrRich patiently explained to his readers that Anthem’s ostensibly ill-timed announcement was actually a purposeful strategy, carefully calculated to inject new life into healthcare reform. And of course, it worked.
Now, belatedly (i.e., on March 20), lesser pundits (such as those who work for the New York Times) have come around to DrRich’s way of thinking, and have pointed to the Anthem announcement as a major turning point in the healthcare reform saga. Indeed, some reporters (who, admittedly, are even more on the fringe than DrRich) claim to have uncovered a conspiracy, in which Angela Braly (the CEO of Wellpoint, parent company of Anthem) is claimed to have actively conspired with the Obama administration to save healthcare reform.
This is an interesting allegation, but DrRich generally does not believe in conspiracies, at least, not in conspiracies which are larger than those necessary to cheat at bridge. The fact is, one does not need to invoke any kind of conspiracy here. Anthem/Wellpoint was merely acting in its own corporate best interests. If their announced rate hike proved insufficient, we would have heard of even more astounding rate hikes by other insurance companies. Whatever it took.
DrRich has been saying since 2007 that the health insurance industry, more than any other player in the healthcare system or in the government, absolutely needed healthcare reform, and needed it now, and for that reason alone, in one way or another, we would get healthcare reform.
And that’s exactly what happened.
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We are surrounded by myriads of voices each demanding our immediate attention. Some within, most without. Some with sound, others consist of data, image, and fonts of various sizes and shapes all competing to communicate their version of truth with each tap of the finger upon the keypad. We are a culture that is proving more dysfunctional and anti-relational in the midst of the greatest advance in networking and social media structures designed to help us converse and “stay connected”. We are multitasking ourselves into sickness as though there were seven of us instead of one.
Mary of Magdala knew about voices. Raging accusations against light, goodness, holiness, health. She had seven ghoulish quarrels battling for dominance at any given moment of the day. Each of them despising her frame, scorning her worth, terrorizing her soul with the reality-she let them in. Seven, until the day she encountered the power of silence with just one word from The Christ.
Mat 8:16 And when even was come, they brought unto him many possessed with demons: and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all that were sick:
She went from the cacophony of blasphemy to the holy hush of new birth. I wonder who had the vision to see her whole? Who brought her to him? Or, did she run like the demoniac from the Gatarrenes who at the very hope of the name of Jesus upon his shore, fought the legion of darkness to fall at the feet of Christ?
Luk 8:1-2 And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God, and with him the twelve, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out-
Seven. Gone. Silence. What did it feel like to hear the sound of her own voice again? To be whole in her intentions, motives, conversations? What was it like for the Creator of the Universe to say her name?
Is it any wonder we find her here in Luke, attending to the needs of her Savior? In the company of the one who opened her prison, and shone his light into darkness and declared: “Let her be…” Is it any wonder that angelic presences straight from the throne room of God could not persuade her from her mission of finding Him at the tomb, this one who was her world of peace, was missing. Nothing but Him would satisfy no matter how glorious. She had come to dedicate her life to mourning, to perhaps pray away the fear that without the presence of his name the voices would return. In her agony she couldn’t see, she looked toward her savior and saw a gardener- In a sense He was. The Second Adam come to the garden of mankind’s heart, to tend and to till. He came first to this garden.
Joh 20:16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and said unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni;
Her name, upon his lips. That familiar sound of the Master setting her free. The one true voice in a myriad of noise. Her name spoken with resurrected life. It was he, and that is all that mattered.
Lord say my name. Silence is the beginning of sound. Speak your truth through me, that resurrected life would be my portion.
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For Immediate Release
Women's Health Rights Being Slowly Taken Away
The past week has been unfortunate for women's rights and reproductive health. On Friday night the super strict abortion law passed by the Virginia Legislature took effect. The new regulations mean that the 22 clinics that perform abortions now must comply with building codes that may require medical facilities to be rebuilt, renovated, or moved. It’s a thinly-veiled attempt by anti-choice activists to shut down clinics that don’t have the funds to meet these new regulations.
These new laws are a kind of financial asphyxiation of women's health care resources in the state of Virginia. Since anti-choice advocates can't overturn Roe and voters are focused on jobs and the economy, activists are working quietly behind the scenes to slowly bankrupt anyone providing women's health and push them out of business.
The same law that Virginia passed and is now enforcing was also passed in Kansas earlier this summer. It would have closed all but one abortion clinic, but a judge blocked Kansas from enforcing those regulations – a move that kept the state’s facilities open.
And this is just the latest in a series of anti-choice, anti-woman regulations in Kansas. The state legislature recently passed a bill prohibiting any private insurance company from providing coverage for elective or necessary abortion procedures. Women requiring these services would have to obtain an insurance rider under the new law – but it’s easier said than done. According to the lawsuit filed by the Kansas ACLU a woman asked her insurance company for the rider, and she was informed that an insurance rider doesn't exist. The law also doesn’t provide an exemption for the life and health of the mother, nor does it provide any coverage for women who are the victims of rape or incest.
The Kansas ACLU is suing the Insurance Commissioner on the grounds these practices are discriminatory to women.
An op-ed in the New York Times explains the ACLU's argument:
"The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Federal District Court in Kansas, argues persuasively that the law is unconstitutional because it essentially levies a tax on a constitutionally protected procedure. It also charges that the ban on abortion coverage amounts to sex discrimination because it prevents women from buying plans covering all of their health care needs while imposing no limitations on men’s medical needs.
Kari Ann Rinker, state coordinator for the Kansas chapter of the National Organization for Women, testified against the bill last year before the House Insurance Committee. Rinker said:
"Quite simply, this bill inserts the belief systems of some into bad health insurance policy for all. It reaches beyond the recent national debate surrounding health care, abortion and insurance. If people morally oppose insurance policies that cover abortion, let them select one that does not. Let them take their complaint to their agent. Let the private market sort out these issues, rather than enacting a state mandate to address it. This is a matter of private money and private business. Once this door of government infringement is opened, it may very well prove difficult to shut."
Kansas is no stranger to fighting back against attacks on women’s reproductive rights. In 2009 late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was gunned down by a right-wing terrorist affiliated with the anti-choice movement. And the outrage over his death hasn’t stopped anti-choice activists from continuing the War on Women.
What’s happening in Kansas and other states across the country shows just how important our work is. We know that the best way to stop these kinds of laws in their tracks is by putting more pro-choice, Democratic women in office. EMILY’s List’s Political Opportunity Program is training candidates and staff in 19 states this cycle – and with your help, we can do more to fight back against the War on Women.
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This past Friday May 11th 2012, 50 Cent was with City Harvest and Feeding America to provide food to those in need in NYC.
To combat the growing problem in the United States, SMS Audio and Feeding America have teamed up to engage the nation in the fight to end hunger with the new line of SMS Audio headphones from 50 Cent. A natural evolution from 50’s efforts with Street King, his energy drink which funds one meal to children abroad through the World Food Programme per purchase, the SMS Audio and Feeding America partnership brings the relief efforts to the home front.
The leading domestic hunger-relief charity in the U.S., Feeding America provides food to 37 million of the nearly 49 million Americans who don’t always know from where they will get their next meal. The organization feeds hungry Americans through a nationwide network of member food banks serving virtually every county in the U.S., the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Feeding America's work secures and distributes three billion pounds of donated food products annually.
In many ways, America is the land of plenty. But for 1 in 6 Americans, hunger is a reality. Many people believe that the problems associated with hunger are confined to small pockets of society, certain areas of the country, or certain neighborhoods, but the reality is much different.
Right now, millions of Americans are struggling with hunger. These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days.
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Originally Posted by CLoft239
Not really... each person chooses the candidate/party which supports the same "liberties" as they do. The division is caused by what each person considers "liberty".
The constitution, regardless of how simple and clear it's worded, is similar to the bible in the aspect that each party (D)/(R) can both read the exact same writing, and have different interpretations of what it means.
Sent from the Titanic. I named my phone "The Titanic" so when I plug it into the computer it says "The Titanic is syncing".
The constitution was not developed with only two parties in mind. Nor were our economic system, national foreign policies, or anything else currently manifested under the umbrella of the federal government.
To claim that libertarians are any less valid than democrats or republican is simple arrogance.
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|Rebecca S. Burton, PhD|
Dept. of Biology
I really enjoy designing learning experiences that help students to
teach themselves, with me as a guide rather than a lecturer. My goal is
to help my students go beyond mastering certain concepts, to developing
strategies for analyzing and solving problems in any area. As a member
of the Problem Solving Competence Department, I have an
to work on this with colleagues from many disciplines.
My involvement with the Alverno Latin American Studies Initiative allowed me to travel to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay in the summer of 2004. In 2005, I was fortunate to China with my colleagues from the Alverno Asian Studies Initiative. In 2006 I travelled to Costa Rica with colleagues and students. These projects and my own travels to Russia, Tanzania, and Rwanda have helped me to infuse my courses with a more international perspective.
During my postdoctoral fellowship I studied seasonal changes in body mass, metabolism, and immunocompetence of dusky-footed woodrats (N. fuscipes) at Sedgwick Reserve. Some of my colleagues at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis extended this research and analyzed den characteristics and use patterns. This has enabled us to make recommendations about placement of artificial dens during relocation efforts involving endangered subspecies of dusky-footed woodrats (N. fuscipes riparia). I also also conducted a survey of the mammals of Sedgwick.
In addition, I was part of a team that was experimenting with management strategies to encourage native plants found on California's serpentine refuges to reinvade the alluvial soil, which is now covered with introduced grasses. These days I'm developing our own prairie site here on the Alverno campus.
Of my research papers, my favorite was based on an experiment to examine the effect of immune challenge on hibernation in Turkish hamsters (Mesocricetus brandti). It appears that the hamsters spend more time in torpor if they are exposed to a novel antigen during the hibernation season. This mechanism may allow them to defend themselves against pathogens, which can't proliferate at low temperatures.
I'm currently researching factors that influence undergraduate students' ability to learn from biology textbooks. Is it the use of technical terms? Is it the length of words and sentences, as many reading indices assume? Are the factors different for college biology than for other kinds of reading material? These are the questions that really interest me right now.
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By Mel Morris
From Stuxnet to Sony, a number of cyberattacks emerged in 2011 that experts have predicted for quite some time. I predict 2012 will be even more pivotal, thrusting cybersecurity into the spotlight. These are my top seven forecasts for the year ahead:
1) Targeted, zero-day attacks will be the norm.
Looking back over the past year, an increasing number of breaches were the result of custom malware and exploits targeting specific enterprises. I predict 2012 will be the year of targeted attacks, which have slowly evolved from large-scale threats to unique attacks designed to infect a handful of very specific people. Traditional blacklist and signature approaches have already become ineffective; once a virus is spotted, malware writers simply create a new one. As targeted, zero-day attacks intensify, more security vendors will realize the pressing need to analyze threats and behavior more holistically.
2) 2012 will be the start of a revolution.
For the last several years, the security industry and cybercriminals have had a symbiotic relationship that has kept the market in balance. The “good guys” have done just enough to thwart attacks – and the bad guys haven’t needed to dramatically evolve as they’re still making money doing exactly what they’re doing. I predict the scales will tip in the coming year. More innovative and effective security technology will drive a revolution and we’ll see a heated battle emerge between security companies and cybercriminals. It’s survival of the fittest. As soon as cloud-based technology and behavioral protection strengthen their foothold in the antimalware sector, hackers and cyber mafias will up the ante and scope out new vulnerabilities.
3) Cyber threats will gain political traction.
The Stuxnet worm is an example of something we detected long ago, and its impact has now taken on a whole new meaning. The virus’s sophisticated ability to infiltrate government systems, silently gather information, and disable nuclear power plants has prompted a wakeup call, driving leaders to reassess federal technology standards and regulations. Stuxnet gives us a very real and very scary glimpse of what’s to come.
4) Masses will migrate to cloud platforms.
Now that Cloud has an “i” front of it, the cloud will truly hit the mainstream. The appeal of file sharing and remote access will be a major draw for an increasingly tech savvy population that connects to the Internet from tablets, smartphones, and multiple PCs. This will not only drive widespread adoption of cloud-based tools and applications amongst consumers, but it will dramatically accelerate migration in the business world. Many companies are already on board with cloud platforms and applications, but the power of the masses will act as a tipping point, pushing the vast majority of IT professionals to shun old-school, on-premise approaches and look to the cloud for infrastructure and data solutions.
5) Your smartphone will be a target. Security companies have done a fairly good job of stopping attacks at the endpoint, and this will lead cybercriminals to focus their efforts more heavily on mobile devices, which are still quite vulnerable in today’s environment. We will see an increase in Android and iPhone attacks: rogue apps, malicious links, and spyware targeted at smartphones and tablets. It’s all about data, and business users and consumers alike store an abundance of highly sensitive and poorly guarded information on their mobile devices.
6) Legitimate applications will be used for illegitimate activities.
Rogue Android apps are just the tip of the iceberg. We load our mobile devices with applications that are designed to simplify our lives, yet we don’t stop to consider what else they are capable of – or what someone is capable of manipulating them to do. Even legitimate apps can grab information and use it without our permission. A simple glance at an application like Plane Finder illustrates the vast amount of data that is at anyone’s fingertips. And that’s not to mention the many other opportunities roaming devices present; a criminal could leverage a mobile device to pick up data from a nearby network, or hack into a plane’s WiFi connection and send signals to devices left in improper flight mode.
7) Our weakest link will be strengthened.
When it comes to security, the weakest link has always been people. In 2012, indifference toward security will diminish. Businesses will invest in security and strengthen duty of care measures. Employees and consumers will see the ramifications of breaches and begin incorporating smart Internet practices into their everyday behaviors.
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July 4, 2009
NEW — 6 a.m. July 4, 2009
In 2008, there were 518 fires in the state caused by fireworks over the Independence Day holiday.
People using fireworks must remember that there are legal consequences to damages caused by the irresponsible use of fireworks.
Consequences range from being charged with malicious mischief to assault or a gross misdemeanor for possession of illegal explosive devices such as fireworks that have been tampered with or altered.
A gross misdemeanor can bring a fine of up to $5,000 and/or one year in prison. Possession of illegal explosive devices, such as M-80s, M-100s and larger, altered fireworks, and public display mortars, is a federal offense.
July 3, 2009
NEW — 11:35 a.m. July 3, 2009
Through annexations and influxes of new residents to Talus and the Issaquah Highlands, Issaquah grew by 139 percent since 2000. Between April 2000 and April 2009, the city swelled to nearly 27,000 residents. The population explosion made the city the fifth fastest growing in Washington.
Issaquah added 15,678 residents due to annexations and growth in the hillside urban villages. State figures show the April 2009 population at 26,890.
Figures released Monday by the state Office of Financial Management showed Issaquah trailing four smaller cities on the list of fastest-growing cities. Snoqualmie — the fastest growing — ballooned by 8,099 residents to 9,730 people.
July 2, 2009
NEW — 12:23 p.m. July 2, 2009
City development commissioners raised questions Wednesday night about a pair of high-profile projects — a medical building along Interstate 90 and Eastside Fire & Rescue Station 72.
Before developers can begin work on the proposed medical building, designers must soften the “fortresslike” facade and ensure easy access to the site, city development commissioners said.
July 1, 2009
The Fourth of July is right around the corner and so are the festivities.
From the Heritage Day Parade to Providence Point’s annual barbecue, you can stay busy in Issaquah all day long.
But remember, when it comes to private events, you need a city permit to use or possess fireworks, since they are banned within city limits. Issaquah’s fireworks ban includes things like sparklers, cones, fountains and roman candles. Anyone caught in possession of or caught using fireworks will be cited. The city passed the ban in 1993.
June 30, 2009
Portraits of Issaquah’s mayors can be found in a display case on the stairwell leading to the second floor of City Hall. The photos tell a great deal about the people and times of the fledgling city.
Some of the city’s early mayors were doctors, including Issaquah’s first mayor, Frank Harrell. During the Great Depression, Stella May Alexander was elected the first woman mayor, campaigning on the Taxpayers’ Ticket.
She was elected to a two-year term, defeating the Progressive ticket candidate, M.H. Clark. Ninety-three percent of the city’s registered voters cast ballots and Alexander won 195-136. She lost in a recall election the following year.
In the last half of the 20th century, mayors such as Bill Flintoft and A.J. Culver had to grapple with the emerging growth of the quiet little burg on Lake Sammamish into a thriving bedroom community to Seattle.
Harrell came to the area as the surgeon of the Seattle Coal and Iron Co. He was elected mayor of Gilman without a dissenting vote in 1892. Seven years later, the town was renamed Issaquah, after the original Indian name Is-qu-ah. Read more
June 30, 2009
State transportation officials urged Eastside commuters to consider bikes, buses or telecommutes ahead of the July 5 shutdown of the westbound Interstate 90 floating bridge. DOT officials believe fewer drivers on the road will mean a less congested commute when the bridge shuts down for two weeks.
Travel times between Issaquah and Seattle could balloon beyond 60 minutes during the shutdown. During the morning commute, all westbound traffic will be funneled to the express lanes — reducing the number of available lanes from five to two. The westbound afternoon commute will be cut from three lanes to two.
Engineers predict the worst traffic will be from 6-11 a.m. and 3-7 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. on weekends.
DOT officials encouraged commuters to plan ahead for the closure. With the shutdown only a few days away, transportation officials suggested employees and supervisors talk about working alternate schedules or telecommuting to avoid peak travel times. King County Metro and DOT officials also advised for commuters to consider mass transit and car- and vanpools as options.
Though the westbound mainline will be closed for around-the-clock construction until July 20, cyclists and pedestrians will be able to use the bridge. Crews constructed two temporary bridges at each end of the floating bridge. Cyclists will have to dismount and walk across the temporary bridges.
“If we had to close the bike lane, that would only put more people on the roads,” DOT spokesman Jeff Switzer said.
Switzer urged commuters to check a DOT project Web site for frequent updates.
DOT officials initially said the shutdown would last three weeks, but the agency paid about $500,000 to the project contractor as an incentive to finish the $8.5 million project in two weeks. The contractor, General Construction Co., of Poulsbo, completed work on the bridge in May ahead of schedule.
Switzer said lessons learned during the May shutdown allowed DOT officials and the contractor to negotiate a compressed schedule for the July closure.
In May, during the first phase of construction, commute times from Issaquah to Seattle doubled from the usual 30 minutes during peak times.
About 71,000 vehicles cross the bridge each day. Officials warned drivers that congestion would be severe during the shutdown. Expect bad weather and accidents to swell commute times as well.
During the shutdown, crews will install a pair of new expansion joints weighing 65 tons each. Joints — some of the largest in the world — allow the bridge to bend with traffic, weather and the water level in Lake Washington.
When the westbound span is closed to vehicles, four 12-person demolition crews will work 10-hour shifts to remove the existing, cracked joints and install new joints. Crews are already cutting into the concrete roadway to prepare for the project. The westbound span will be reduced to a single lane nightly from 11:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. through July 2.
Other construction preparations will cause daytime lane closures. Crews will close the express lanes from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. through July 2. The northern express lane will also be closed from 3-10 p.m. through July 2 near East Mercer Way.
During the full-fledged shutdown, two temporary bridges will allow cyclists and pedestrians to bypass the construction zones at the eastern and western ends of the roadway.
Cascade Bicycle Club launched the Bridging with Bikes initiative to educate commuters about getting across the bridge by bike. John Mauro, director of commute programs for the organization, said the shutdown presents a chance to get more commuters out of gridlock.
“Cascade’s Bridging with Bikes program is about making the physical connection for people during the construction to avoid major gridlock,” Mauro said. “But it’s also about making a longer-term and healthy lifestyle connection to the bicycle. Programs like Bridging with Bikes help us all stay fit and save money while building a stronger sense of community and having a lasting impact on the region.
“And it starts with a simple decision,” he added. “Begin the morning with a smile on a bike — and beat traffic on the bridge.”
Reach Reporter Warren Kagarise at 392-6434, ext. 234, or firstname.lastname@example.org. Comment on this story at www.issaquahpress.com.
June 30, 2009
Whenever her Issaquah Highlands neighbors reported a black bear sighting or bear activity last year, Cathy Macchio marked a highlands map with a paw print. She recorded 15 bear sightings last year.
Macchio works to make sure humans and bears stay safe — no small feat in a sprawling neighborhood with nearly 7,000 residents. Bears, after all, are attracted to everything from garbage to backyard bird feeders.
“We’re creating these big buffet tables in our own backyards,” she said.
As part of the effort to protect bears and her neighbors, Macchio leads Neighborhood Wildlife Stewards. The group discusses wildlife sightings in the highlands and works to educate residents about how to share habitats with four-legged neighbors.
State wildlife officials estimate the black bear population in Washington ranges between 25,000 and 30,000 animals. Agents receive hundreds of black bear complaints each year. The calls range from sightings to property damage to livestock attacks. A few calls each year come as a result of confrontations between humans and bears.
Macchio said the best bet is to call wildlife agents about nuisance bears instead of local law enforcement agencies.
Humans moving into black bear habitat complicate the contact between the species. Bears use a keen sense of smell to track down food. Bears are omnivores, and they consume a variety of plants — berries and grasses, for instance — and insects, such as ants and grubs. But they also have a taste for garbage, pet food and the contents of bird feeders. After bears discover food, chances are they will return. The animals have excellent memories.
Problems arise when bears become “food-conditioned” and associate humans with food rewards. As a result, bears can become unafraid of humans. Emboldened bears can be a danger to humans, and these bears could become aggressive as they search for food.
State Wildlife Officer Bruce Richards said bears are active from late spring until early fall. Most reports of human contact with bears come during the summer months, he said.
Issaquah residents have reported several bear sightings during the past few weeks. At about noon June 3, a black bear was spotted on Issaquah-Fall City Road near Endeavour Elementary School. Over Memorial Day weekend, wildlife agents captured and released a black bear found roaming through an Issaquah neighborhood. Lat Sunday a bear was reported in the Four Lakes neighborhood south of Issaquah.
Richards and his colleagues have specialized training and equipment to deal with bears.
Officers respond to bear sightings when the animal poses a threat to public safety. A sighting alone does not constitute a threat, and wildlife agents would not typically respond to reports of a sighting.
Nuisance bears can be trapped by wildlife agents and relocated. But bears with a taste for garbage are likely to seek out other sources. If relocation fails, a nuisance bear may have to be destroyed.
Richards works with Mishka, the first Karelian bear dog in the nation used for wildlife enforcement. Richards and Mishka track nuisance bears. Mishka also assists in “hard releases” — a process to make bears fear humans again. During a hard release, wildlife officers fire rubber bullets and create loud noises to frighten a nuisance bear. Richards estimates the procedure was successful in 80 percent of the black bear hard releases last spring and summer.
Mindful that nuisance bears often return or seek other sources of garbage, Macchio posted signs with bear safety tips at community mailboxes throughout the highlands. Moreover, she said another bear would often move in to fill the vacuum after wildlife agents relocate a nuisance animal.
Macchio checks out the neighborhood for signs of bear activity. On her rounds, she also passes out fliers to residents on streets where bears dumped garbage bins. Her goal is to remind people how bears can become a threat once they lose their fear of humans.
Macchio recently began working with Heather Swift, principal and owner of Cohabitats, a Seattle company that developers and planners use to identify conservation areas and educate residents to prevent conflicts between humans and wildlife.
“Instead of increasing alarm, we want to increase harmony across species,” Swift said.
June 30, 2009
If you could give someone sight, how far would you go to do it?
Joining with the Himalayan Cataract Project, Dr. Janet Barrall, an ophthalmologist for Virginia Mason in Issaquah, traveled nearly 7,000 miles to give the gift of sight to 158 people in need.
“It’s profoundly deep and completely life-changing to give sight,” she said. “It is so necessary to their way of life.”
Today, there are 37 million blind people throughout the world, according to the World Health Organization. Many suffer from cataracts. Read more
June 30, 2009
Hundreds of bike enthusiasts ride under an Issaquah overpass June 28 during Children’s Ride 14, a fundraising ride for Seattle Children’s Hospital. The long line of bikes was escorted by Washington State Patrol troopers from Safeco Field to Emerald Downs for an afternoon of horse racing and barbecuing. By Michael Johnson/New Era Photography
June 30, 2009
Geraldine Boyce, of Issaquah, died June 23, 2009, in Renton. She was 83. Read more
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