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by Michael F. Reber
Abstract: In today’s society, a peculiar understanding of distributive justice has developed which holds that “social justice must be distributed by the coercive force of government.” However, this is a perversion of the ideal of distributive justice. The perspective of distributive justice which should be considered is one with its roots in the school of thought referred to as self-actualization ethics or eudaimonism, which holds that each person is unique and each should discover whom he or she is—to actualize his or her true potential and to live the “good life” within the congeniality and complementarity of personal excellences of his or her fellow members of community. When a eudaimonistic perspective is considered, a definition of distributive of justice could be “the allocation of goods and utilities via the voluntary ubiquitous human interaction of self-actualizing individuals who not only recognize the human dignity of the self and other and the rights which flow from and guarantee it, but also actively will goods and utilities toward the self and other so as to manifest human dignity.” Therefore, with a eudaimonistic understanding of distributive justice, one can argue that the free market is the ubiquitous interactions of self-actualizing individuals who are giving and receiving goods and utilities for one and another’s own “happiness,” i.e. the free market is the socio-economic mechanism by which distributive justice operates. In this paper I first will overview the philosophical foundations of distributive justice. Next, I will propose a eudaimonistic definition of distributive justice. Finally, I will highlight examples of distributive justice operating in a free market economy. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38128000 |
A Nuclear Nightmare
Engineers at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, in the former Soviet Union, were working on an experiment which reduced the energy of the plant. Because of this, the cooling pumps slowed down. Briefly after midnight the water in the cooling pumps began to boil which lead to a rapid rise in temperature. Due to the change in temperature, a sudden surge of power came from the reactor. Twenty people were working that night of April 25, 1986, when a force of water, fire, and chemicals came pouring through the plant. Many people died from the lethal radiation, the explosion itself, and from the extreme heat of 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Twenty-nine people died instantly inside the plant, including firemen and plant workers. Over 100,000 people will have to visit doctors for the rest of their lives to reduce the chance of getting cancer or other illnesses. Scientists also estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 people in Europe will die in the next thirty years of the exposure to radiation. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38131000 |
|Once your computer is assembled
and connected, you must partition the hard drive and install your
operating system. Although there are many operating systems
available, the most popular operating systems are Microsoft Windows 98 and
Windows 2000. Both can be purchased at your local computer or office
store, and various internet retailers such as: CompUSA,
and Outpost. It is always good
to make sure an item is in stock before purchasing it.
If you will use your computer mostly for Business Applications, such as Word Processing, Database, Internet Development, or Graphics, it is recommended using Windows 2000, since it is based on the NT kernel, and it very stable.
If you are using your computer mostly for home use and gaming, it is recommended using Windows 98 because it is more compatible with certain hardware and software, and has a lower cost.
For information setting up your computer with Windows 98, click here.
For information setting up your computer with Windows 2000, click here. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38132000 |
Welcome to the Ethics Subject Guide
This guide covers ethics specific resources for research and is arranged by resource types
Please use the links on the left to Navigate to specific resource types.
An ideal place to start your ethics research is the Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics (2nd Ed.) This comprehensive online encyclopedia covers a broad range of ethical issues and includes over 100 new articles on current ethical issues ranging from cyborgs to the issues facing online social networking. Each article delivers a thorough introduction to its topic and concludes with a recommended reading list. Students may also browse the table of contents to generate ideas for topics.
Opposing Viewpoints Resources in Context (Gale) Provides a complete overview of both sides of a large number of ethical issues. Access information on social issues through viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to web sites and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.
In addition to MLA and APA, many ethics courses use the Chicago Manual of Style citation system. A PowerPoint presentation on Chicago Style can be found here.
Rob LeBlanc is the subject librarian for Ethics and is available for research consultations, instruction, curricular support & purchase requests. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38133000 |
The Centers for Disease Control eliminated Leptospirosis from the “reportable human diseases” list, there is, however, still significant concern about this zoonotic disease. Our pets are at risk of lepto as well, however, many owners are afraid to vaccinate for the illness. What’s the true story and just how can we continue to keep our pets and families safe?
Mary Fleming always followed the advice of her veterinarian when it came to her miniature poodle, Mitsie. Regular examinations, heartworm preventive and even a good diet helped keep Mitsie active and healthy. Thinking that Mitsie was safe, Mary did not opt for a Leptospirosis vaccine for her dog. Unfortunately, Mitsie got very sick not long after visiting her city’s dog park and needed intensive care and hospitalization. Thankfully, her veterinarian was there to help her recover and explain how moist soil or puddles at the park actually put Mitsie at risk!
Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease- a disease that can be passed between animals and people. It is spread by spirochete (spiral-shaped) bacteria in the urine of infected rodents, wildlife, and pets. There are more than 200 different strains of lepto and certain strains appear to prefer certain hosts, like dogs, pigs, raccoons or even rats.
The leptospira organisms enter the body through mucous membranes or through abrasions on the skin. People and animals can become infected from direct exposure to infected urine, but also through contaminated environment, such as water or damp soil.
People and pets are also exposed to Lepto while camping or participating in outdoor recreational activities. Drinking or swimming in water that is infected with Lepto is the most common exposure, but wet soil can be contaminated as well. And, as Mitsie’s case illustrates, a city environment will not always provide protection against this serious disease.
The signs of Leptospirosis can mimic many other diseases and illnesses. The first signs in dogs are often depression, loss of appetite, vomiting, weakness, and generalized pain. Affected dogs may also drink water and urinate excessively and have swollen, red, and painful eyes. Because these signs are common to other diseases and non-specific, owners may try to treat their pets at home for such problems as an upset stomach or arthritis.
This “wait and see” response delays proper diagnosis and treatment for the dog, as well as increasing the owner’s exposure to the disease. If caught early, treatment is usually effective and the survival rate is good. However, time is of the essence. A mere three or four day delay can lead to irreversible kidney failure.
Vaccines are available but many pet owners, like Mary above, have either experienced or heard about adverse reactions associated with these vaccines. In the past, Leptospirosis vaccines were generally created using the whole bacterial organism. In many cases, when a whole bacterium is used, the likelihood of a “vaccine reaction” increases. Thankfully, newer vaccines have been developed that reduce this possibility by using specific Leptospirosis proteins instead of the whole organism.
A study reviewing vaccine reactions in more than one million dogs vaccinated found that reactions occur about 13 times for every 10,000 vaccines given. More importantly, the lepto vaccine was no more likely to cause a reaction than any other vaccine.
So, if the vaccine appears to be safe and the disease deadly, shouldn’t all dog owners vaccinate their pets?
Unfortunately, that question is difficult to fully answer. Because there are so many Leptospirosis strains, no one vaccine will cover every possible exposure a pet might have. At present, vaccines are available that protect against four of the common strains infecting dogs. In addition, the vaccine will prevent clinical disease, but may not stop the pet from shedding bacteria in his urine. This makes the pet a threat to other animals, especially those who are not vaccinated. And, as mentioned above, humans are at risk as well.
Worldwide, Leptospirosis is the most widespread zoonotic disease. Cases occur routinely in tropical countries, but increases have been seen in Europe and North America as well. Floods and hurricanes are instrumental in spreading this illness and coordinated efforts to rescue and re-home pets from these disasters might actually transplant lepto into new areas.
Protecting your pet from Leptospirosis is a complex situation. Use your veterinarian as a resource to help assess your pet’s risk factors as well as the benefits and hazards of vaccination. Other important steps that might minimize your pet’s exposure to this disease include removing animal pests, such as rodents and draining areas of standing water. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38164000 |
The Georgian conflict ended 1,716 days of no war between nations. But trends favor peace.
Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Bowling Green, Ohio
When Russian troops attacked Georgia this month, rolling tanks into Tskhinvali and bombing Gori, it was not just a tragedy for the Caucasus. It also marked the demise of more than four years of no war between nations, the longest period in modern history.
With the news so full of violence, you may not have noticed that the world was at peace. But ever since India and Pakistan signed a cease-fire in November 2003, there have been no wars between governments. That's 1,716 straight days of world peace. Russia's invasion ended the streak on Aug. 8.
The previous record had been just over 600 days, from the end of the second Taiwan Straits crisis in 1958 to border skirmishes between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1960. Since then, there had been as many as nine interstate conflicts at a time, according to the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, which counts conflicts with 25 or more battle-related deaths. But none of these involved national armies fighting one another.
The war over South Ossetia reminds us of the awesome destructive power of modern states – hundreds of people reportedly killed in a single day, soldiers fighting their way through cities and countryside devastating communities in their path, jets dropping bombs on apartment buildings. Since World War II, interstate wars have averaged four times more fatalities than other civil conflicts. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38168000 |
Provided by: libacl1-dev_2.2.49-2_i386
acl_from_text - create an ACL from text
Linux Access Control Lists library (libacl, -lacl).
acl_from_text(const char *buf_p);
The acl_from_text() function converts the text form of the ACL referred
to by buf_p into the internal form of an ACL and returns a pointer to the
working storage that contains the ACL. The acl_from_text() function
accepts as input the long text form and short text form of an ACL as
described in acl(5).
This function may cause memory to be allocated. The caller should free
any releasable memory, when the new ACL is no longer required, by calling
acl_free(3) with the (void*)acl_t returned by acl_from_text() as an
On success, this function returns a pointer to the working storage. On
error, a value of (acl_t)NULL is returned, and errno is set
If any of the following conditions occur, the acl_from_text() function
returns a value of (acl_t)NULL and sets errno to the corresponding value:
[EINVAL] The argument buf_p cannot be translated into an ACL.
[ENOMEM] The acl_t to be returned requires more memory than is
allowed by the hardware or system-imposed memory
IEEE Std 1003.1e draft 17 (“POSIX.1e”, abandoned)
acl_free(3), acl_get_entry(3), acl(5)
Derived from the FreeBSD manual pages written by Robert N M Watson
〈rwatson@FreeBSD.org〉, and adapted for Linux by Andreas Gruenbacher | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38181000 |
Correlate is a new, typically quirky beta service from Google. It’s tricky to understand the concept at first, but essentially the service does for data what TinEye does for online images – provides a reverse search mechanism for finding similar data-sets from trends. Correlating one set of information with another.
The idea comes from Google’s successful experiment to use the frequency of Google searches for keywords associated with flu symptoms, to provide advanced warning of flu outbreaks.
At the time of writing, Correlate works for two types of information: time-series, and US States. Trends are matched with variations in Google Search keyword frequency over time or by State. You can enter a search term, or upload your own data.
As this is correlation, not cause and effect, it often produces odd results. For instance one of the closest geographic correlations for Facebook is Tapeworm in humans.
Uploading data for hate group numbers per capita, I found a correlation with several dubious searches people are making. For example drivers license templates and Disney Channel Hannah Montana games. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38182000 |
New book reviewed on NPR, Fresh Air
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson
In an effort to better understand the composition of feathers, author Thor Hanson disassembled a wren bird, which he learned how to pluck from reading The Joy of Cooking. After hours of plucking, Hanson says, he learned how the feathers are arranged, how many different types of feathers the bird has and the magnitude of feathers on a bird. He writes about the process in his new book, Feathers, which looks at the evolutionary significance of feathers in birds.
There are several copies available at Marin County libraries. Place a hold on a copy yourself or call your local library to have a hold placed for you. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38183000 |
Constructing an Open Box: An open box with a square base is requried to have a volume of 10 cubic feet.
a) Express the amount A of material used to make such a box as a function of the length x of a side of the square base. MY answer: S=x^2 + 4x(10/x^2)
b)How much material is required for a base 1 foot by 1 foot?
c)How much material is required for a base 2 feet by 2 feet?
d) Graph A=A(x). For what value of x is A smallest?
I cannot figure out b,c,d...thank you | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38190000 |
United Nations Medals - The United Nations Special Service Medal
About the United Nations Special Service Medal
The United Nations Special Service Medal (UNSSM) was created in 1995 to recognise United Nations service of at least 90 days duration by military personnel and civilian police for which no other award is authorised. Approval has been given for New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel to wear the United Nations Special Service Medal for service in the following United Nations missions:
- United Nations Mine Clearance Training Team (UNMCTT) - Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1989-1991
- United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) - 1991-1999
- Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) - 1993-2005
- United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs Accelerated De-Mining Programme (MADP) - Mozambique, 1995-2005
- United Nations De-Mining Programme (National Institute for the Removal of Obstacles and Explosive Ordnance (INAROE) - Angola, 1997-2000
- Programme for the Assistance to the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme (UXOL) - Laos, 1997-2003
- United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) - Iraq, 2002-2003
- United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) - 2004-current
- United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) - 2005-current
- United Nations Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL) - 2005-2006
- United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre in Southern Lebanon (UNMACC-SL) - 2007-2008
The medal is bronze with an image of the globe (centred on the North Pole) surrounded by a wreath of leaves on the front (obverse). The letters ‘UN’, in capitals, sit above the image of the globe. On the reverse are the words "IN THE SERVICE OF PEACE". This is the same medal design as used for the United Nations Medal.
About the ribbon
The colours of the ribbon for the UNSSM are light blue in the centre and white on the edges, which are the basic colours of the United Nations. These colours represent service in the field under United Nations auspices that was not with a specific peacekeeping operation.
Clasps and Bars
The guidelines for the United Nations Special Service Medal state that a bar with the name of the United Nations Organization or country may be awarded with the United Nations Special Service Medal. To the best of the NZDF's knowledge, only three clasps have actually been created for, or issued with, the United Nations Special Service Medal:
- - the "UNSCOM" clasp for service with the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) between 1991 and 1999
- - the "Timor Leste" clasp for service with the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL) between 20 May 2005 and 30 June 2006; and
- - the "Afghanistan" clasp for service with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) since December 2004.
Numerals are not awarded for the UNSSM.
Order of Wear
An example of the position of the United Nations Special Service Medal in the Wearing of Medals in New Zealand Table can be viewed here. The position of wear of the United Nations Special Service Medal for each individual will vary depending on when an individual qualified for the United Nations Special Service Medal. As for Campaign and War medals, United Nations medals are worn in order of the date an individual qualified for each award.
Media statements concerning service by New Zealand personnel on United Nations missions recognised by the United Nations Special Service Medal
- Southern Lebanon
- 7 February 2008 - NZDF commitment to munitions clearance in Lebanon ends
- 30 November 2007 - Stay Safe: EOD Operations in Southern Lebanon
- 3 July 2007 - Defence Team Home from Lebanon
22 June 2007 - New Defence Personnel Bound for Lebanon
- 6 March 2007 - Kiwi Battlefield Clearance Team makes Explosives Progress
- 23 February 2007 - Defence Battlefield Clearance Team get to Work in Lebanon
- 8 February 2007 - Takapuna Man to Lead Defence Team in Lebanon
- 8 February 2007 - Defence to Send Specialist Force to Lebanon
- 15 February 2007 - On the Edge in Iraq - NZ's military advisor with UNAMI
- Mozambique and Sierra Leone
- 30 June 2005 - NZDF Withdraws from Mozambique and Sierra Leone | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38198000 |
(Medical Xpress)—A painstaking effort to create a biocompatible patch to heal infant hearts is paying off at Rice University and Texas Children's Hospital.
Medical research Dec 12, 2012 | 5 / 5 (4) | 6 |
(Medical Xpress)—Contrary to the prevailing theories that music and language are cognitively separate or that music is a byproduct of language, theorists at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the University ...
Psychology & Psychiatry Sep 18, 2012 | 5 / 5 (7) | 1 |
Stem cells drawn from amniotic fluid show promise for tissue engineering, but it's important to know what they can and cannot do. A new study by researchers at Rice University and Texas Children's Hospital ...
Medical research May 02, 2013 | 5 / 5 (2) | 0 |
Rice University students have created a way to help health care workers track vaccines and keep them at a safe temperature.
Medications May 10, 2013 | not rated yet | 0
Rice University researchers have found an unexpected link between a protein that triggers the formation of blood clots and other proteins that are essential for the body's immune system. The find could lead ...
Immunology Apr 01, 2013 | 4.7 / 5 (3) | 0 |
In a development that could lead to faster and more effective toxicity tests for airborne chemicals, scientists from Rice University and the Rice spinoff company Nano3D Biosciences have used magnetic levitation ...
Medical research Jan 24, 2013 | not rated yet | 1 |
Researchers at Rice University and Texas Children's Hospital have turned stem cells from amniotic fluid into cells that form blood vessels. Their success offers hope that such stem cells may be used to grow ...
Medical research Feb 06, 2012 | 4.7 / 5 (3) | 0 |
Rice scientists simulate "robot" cells to study the development of microvascular systems in the brain. The goal is to find a way to direct the development of vessels that feed oxygen-starved cells in stroke ...
Medical research Feb 11, 2013 | 5 / 5 (3) | 0 |
A review of the genetic and biochemical abnormalities associated with autism reveals a possible link between the widely diagnosed neurological disorder and Type 2 diabetes, another medical disorder on the rise in recent decades.
Medical research Oct 19, 2011 | 4.4 / 5 (8) | 3 |
Researchers see more realistic tumor growth and response to anti-cancer drugs using polymer scaffolds
(Medical Xpress)—Porous polymer scaffolds fabricated to support the growth of biological tissue for implantation may hold the potential to greatly accelerate the development of cancer therapeutics.
Cancer Apr 02, 2013 | 3 / 5 (1) | 0 |
(Medical Xpress)—Rice University scientists have discovered a new way to look inside living cells and see the insoluble fibrillar deposits associated with Parkinson's disease.
Parkinson's & Movement disorders Dec 17, 2012 | 5 / 5 (2) | 0 |
Scientists at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have successfully profiled protein pathways found to be distinctive to leukemia patients with particular variants of the ...
Cancer May 31, 2012 | not rated yet | 0 |
People with birthmarks, scars and other facial disfigurements are more likely to receive poor ratings in job interviews, according to a new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Houston.
Psychology & Psychiatry Nov 09, 2011 | 4.6 / 5 (5) | 0 |
(Medical Xpress) -- New research from Rice University and Italy's Eugenio Medea Scientific Institute is yielding clues about hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), a group of inherited neurological disorders ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Jul 08, 2011 | 3 / 5 (2) | 0 |
(Medical Xpress) -- Understanding cultural influences on African-American women may be important in helping them achieve long-term weight loss, according to researchers from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine ...
Overweight and Obesity Jun 06, 2012 | not rated yet | 1 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38201000 |
Laura Niklason, M.D., Ph.D., has spent the past 15 years in the lab developing ways to build new arteries using tissue engineering techniques, but as an anesthesiologist who works in the intensive care unit, she always had another idea rolling around in the back of her head.
Niklason, professor of anesthesiology and biomedical engineering, was troubled that a large number of her patients suffered damage to the lungs, organs that simply don’t fix themselves very well after injury or serious illness. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die from lung disease each year, and the only effective treatment for severe cases is transplantation. Unfortunately, this expensive procedure is associated with high mortality and is also limited by an extreme shortage of donor organs. An alternative solution is to create synthetic lungs, but past attempts to do so have failed because the lungs, with networks of branching airways and vasculature, are so spatially complex, says Niklason.
“She and her research team took a leap forward recently, when they engineered the first lungs that are capable of exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide, an achievement that was reported in the journal Sciencethis past July.
The key to the Niklason group’s success was finding a suitable scaffold for supporting lung tissue, and they did so by adapting a tissue engineering technique that has been applied to the heart, liver, and kidney. By using detergent solutions to wash cells out of lung tissue from rats, the researchers removed all cellular components that could cause an immune reaction after transplantation.
What remained was a hollowed-out matrix with the right three-dimensional shape, mechanical properties, and vasculature. Unexpectedly, molecular cues that could guide cells to appropriate regions had been preserved in the matrix as well; when the scientists placed various neonatal lung cells inside the scaffold, the cells positioned themselves in the correct locations.
“I was surprised by how much information is in the matrix,” Niklason says. “I expected the different cell types to go helter-skelter, but by and large, the cells landed in their correct anatomic locations. This tells me that the matrix has ‘zip codes,’ or information about who should go where.”
The next challenge was to develop a bioreactor—a system to mimic the environment in which lungs develop in the fetus, such as the flow of liquid through the growing vasculature. To provide ventilation, the researchers used a syringe pump to withdraw air, which caused the lungs to inhale liquid from the windpipe.
In the reverse process, the pump returned air to the bioreactor, causing the lungs to exhale liquid. Inside the bioreactor, the lungs even produced proteins that allowed the organs to inflate normally.
By imitating natural conditions, the researchers improved the clearance of secretions in the airway, enhanced cell survival, and fostered the growth of the major cell types found in the lung. After culturing the tissue inside the bioreactor for about a week, the researchers implanted it into rats and observed that the lungs exchanged gas for a few hours—a major accomplishment.
The team saw similar results with human cells, suggesting that the same approach, perhaps using stem cells, could help to treat diseases in humans.
Niklason cautions that “it will take us another 10 or 20 years of work to develop reliable and robust means of differentiating primitive stem cells into the lung cell types we’re looking for and keeping them stable over time.”
But the wait will be worthwhile, Niklason says. “The potential advantage in the long run is that we could take a biopsy from a patient who needs a lung replacement, generate stem cells from that biopsy, and from those cells regenerate a whole lung that we could implant without it being rejected,” she says. “It could really be a new era for organ transplantation.” | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38202000 |
Salmonella “syringe” ready for its close-up
Salmonella bacteria are tiny, but they wreak mighty havoc on human health, causing serious, sometimes fatal, food poisoning. In 1998, Jorge Galán, Ph.D., D.V.M., the Lucille P. Markey Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis, threw new light on Salmonella’s virulence when his research team revealed that the bacteria infects cells by forming “needle complexes,” syringe-like tubes through which Salmonella exchanges proteins with its host.
Now Galán and his colleagues have joined forces with the laboratory of Vinzenz M. Unger, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, to paint a vivid three-dimensional portrait of the Salmonella syringe using a state-of-the-art technique known as cryoelectron microscopy.
In this method, an electron microscope scans samples that contain many copies of the object of interest suspended in an ice-like solid at every possible angle (background in image at right). Researchers then feed scores of images of the object seen from these myriad perspectives to powerful computers, which combine the information in the two-dimensional views to calculate the object’s three-dimensional structure. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38203000 |
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are used to treat pain, fever, and inflammation. Traditional NSAIDs block COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes that the body uses to manufacture substances called prostaglandins. Since COX-1 prostaglandins are stomach-protective, blocking this enzyme is associated with gastrointestinal toxicity, a known side effect of these drugs. Newer NSAIDs (called COX-2 inhibitors) block primarily COX-2 prostaglandins associated with pain, fever, and inflammation, and might be less risky to the stomach. However, this is not proven, and some COX-2s have been taken off the market due to excess risk of heart attacks attributable to their use. Drugs in this family include:
- Aspirin, alternatively called acetylsalicylic acid or ASA (Adprin-B, Anacin, Arthritis Foundation Aspirin, Ascriptin, Aspergum, Asprimox, Bayer, BC, Bufferin, Buffex, Cama, Cope, Easprin, Ecotrin, Empirin, Equagesic, Fiorinal, Fiorital, Halfprin, Heartline, Genprin, Lanorinal, Magnaprin, Measurin, Micrainin, Momentum, Norwich, St. Joseph, Zorprin)
- Celecoxib (Celebrex)
- Choline salicylate (Arthropan)
- Choline salicylate/magnesium salicylate (Tricosal, Trilisate)
- Diclofenac potassium (Cataflam, Voltaren Rapide)
- Diclofenac sodium (Arthrotec, Voltaren, Voltaren SR, Voltaren-XR)
- Diclofenac sodium/misoprostol (Arthrotec)
- Diflunisal (Dolobid)
- Etodolac (Lodine, Lodine XL)
- Fenoprofen calcium (Nalfon)
- Flurbiprofen (Ansaid)
- Ibuprofen (Advil, Arthritis Foundation Ibuprofen, Bayer Select Ibuprofen, Dynafed IB, Genpril, Haltran, IBU, Ibuprin, Ibuprohm, Menadol, Midol IB, Motrin, Nuprin, Saleto)
- Indomethacin (Indochron E-R, Indocin, Indocin SR, Indomethacin, Indomethacin SR, Novo-Methacin)
- Ketoprofen (Actron, Orudis, Orudis KT, Oruvail)
- Ketorolac tromethamine (Toradol)
- Magnesium salicylate (Doan's, Magan, Mobidin, Backache Maximum Strength Relief, Bayer Select Maximum Strength Backache, Momentum Muscular Backache Formula, Nuprin Backache, Mobigesic, Magsal)
- Meclofenamate sodium (Mecolfen, Meclomen)
- Mefenamic acid (Ponstan, Ponstel)
- Nabumetone (Relafen)
- Naproxen (EC-Naprosyn, Napron X, Naprosyn)
- Naproxen sodium (Aleve, Anaprox, Anaprox DS, Naprelan)
- Oxaprozin (Daypro)
- Piroxicam (Feldene)
- Salsalate or salicylic acid (Amigesic, Argesic-SA, Arthra-G, Disalcid, Marthritic, Mono-Gesic, Salflex, Salgesic, Salsitab)
- Sodium salicylate (Pabalate)
- Sodium thiosalicylate (Rexolate)
- Sulfasalazine (Azulfidine EN-tabs, Salazopyrin, SAS-500)
- Sulindac (Clinoril)
- Tolmetin sodium (Tolectin, Tolectin DS)
- and others
Besides reducing pain and inflammation, aspirin and, to a lesser extent, other NSAIDs interfere with cells in the blood called platelets, which facilitate clotting.
Arginine is an amino acid found in many foods, including dairy products, meat, poultry, and fish. Supplemental arginine has been proposed as a treatment for various conditions, including heart problems.
Arginine has been found to stimulate the body's production of gastrin, a hormone that increases stomach acid.
Because excessive acid can irritate the stomach, there are concerns that arginine could be harmful for individuals taking drugs that are also hard on the stomach (such as NSAIDs).
It may be best not to mix arginine with NSAIDs unless approved by your doctor.
The herb feverfew
is primarily used for the prevention and treatment of migraine headaches.
NSAIDs are also used for migraines, so there is a chance that some individuals might use both the herb and drug at once, a combination that may present risks.
The biggest concern with NSAIDs is that they can cause stomach ulcers, which may progress to bleeding or perforation without pain or other warning symptoms. This stomach damage is due to drug interference with the body's protective prostaglandins. Newer NSAIDs called COX-2 inhibitors may be less likely to produce this side effect.
Feverfew also affects prostaglandins.
Thus, combining it with an NSAID might increase the risk of stomach problems.
The herb garlic
is taken to lower cholesterol, among many other proposed uses.
One of the possible side effects of garlic is a decreased ability of the blood to clot, leading to an increased bleeding tendency.
Therefore, you should not combine garlic and aspirin or other NSAIDs except under medical supervision.
The herb ginkgo is used to treat Alzheimer's disease and ordinary age-related memory loss, among many other uses. Some evidence suggests that ginkgo might also decrease the ability of the blood to clot, probably through effects on platelets.
However, one double-blind study found that ginkgo does
increase the anticoagulant effects of aspirin;
another found that while it did not interact with the antiplatelet drug
. But, the herb did interact slightly with the related drug cilostazol.
Taken together, this evidence still suggests that one should not take ginkgo while using aspirin or other NSAIDs except under medical supervision.
A sugarcane-derived form of the supplement policosanol is used to reduce cholesterol levels. It also interferes with platelet clumping, creating potential benefit as well as a risk of interactions with blood-thinning drugs.
For example, a 30-day, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 27 individuals with high cholesterol levels found that policosanol at 10 mg daily markedly reduced the ability of blood platelets to clump together.
Another double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 37 healthy volunteers found evidence that the blood-thinning effect of policosanol increased as the dose was increased—the larger the policosanol dose, the greater the effect.
Yet another double-blind placebo-controlled study of 43 healthy volunteers compared the effects of policosanol (20 mg daily), aspirin (100 mg daily), and policosanol and aspirin combined at these same doses.
The results again showed that policosanol substantially reduced the ability of blood platelets to stick together, and that the combined therapy exhibited additive effects.
Based on these findings, it would be advisable to avoid combining aspirin or other NSAIDs with sugarcane policosanol except under medical supervision.
: Beeswax policosanol is substantially different from sugarcane policosanol, and is described separately
PC-SPES is an herbal combination that has shown promise for the treatment of prostate cancer. One case report suggests that PC-SPES might increase risk of bleeding complications if combined with blood-thinning medications.
Subsequent evidence has indicated that PC-SPES contains the strong prescription blood thinner warfarin, making this interaction inevitable.
Potassium citrate and other forms of citrate (for example, calcium citrate, magnesium citrate) may be used to prevent kidney stones. These agents work by making the urine less acidic.
This effect on the urine may lead to decreased blood levels and therapeutic effects of several drugs, including aspirin and other salicylates (choline salicylate, magnesium salicylate, salsalate, sodium salicylate, sodium thiosalicylate).
It may be advisable to avoid these citrate compounds during therapy with aspirin or salicylates except under medical supervision.
One study suggests that reishi impairs platelet clumping.
This creates the potential for an interaction with any blood-thinning medication.
Dong QuaiSt. John's Wort
St. John's wort
is primarily used to treat mild to moderate depression.
The herb dong quai
is often recommended for menstrual disorders such as dysmenorrhea, PMS, and irregular menstruation.
Certain NSAIDs, including most notably piroxicam, can cause increased sensitivity to the sun, amplifying the risk of sunburn or skin rash. Because St. John's wort and dong quai may also cause this problem, taking these herbal supplements during NSAID therapy might add to this risk.
It may be a good idea to wear a sunscreen or protective clothing during sun exposure if you take one of these herbs while using an NSAID.
The substance vinpocetine is sold as a dietary supplement for the treatment of age-related memory loss and impaired mental function.
Vinpocetine is thought to inhibit blood platelets from forming clots.
For this reason, it should not be combined with medications or natural substances that impair the blood’s ability to clot normally, as this may lead to excessive bleeding. One study found only a minimal interaction between the blood-thinning drug warfarin (Coumadin) and vinpocetine, but prudence dictates caution anyway.
Vitamin E appears to add to aspirin's blood-thinning effects. One study suggests that the combination of aspirin and even relatively small amounts of vitamin E (50 mg daily) may lead to a significantly increased risk of bleeding.
In another study of 28,519 men, vitamin E supplementation at a low dose of about 50 IU (international units) daily was associated with an increase in fatal hemorrhagic strokes, the kind of stroke caused by bleeding within the brain.
However, there was a reduced risk of the more common ischemic stroke, caused by obstruction of a blood vessel in the brain, and the two effects were found essentially to cancel each other out.
Weak evidence from one animal study hints that vitamin E might reduce stomach inflammation caused by NSAIDs.
The bottom line: Seek medical advice before combining vitamin E and aspirin.
The herb white willow
, also known as willow bark, is used to treat pain and fever.
White willow contains a substance that is converted by the body into a salicylate similar to aspirin. It is therefore possible that taking NSAIDs and white willow could lead to increased risk of side effects, just as would occur if you combined NSAIDs with aspirin.
Based on their known effects or constituents, the herbs
dong quai(Angelica sinensis)
horse chestnut(Aesculus hippocastanum)
red clover(Trifolium pratense)
, and the substances
(oligomeric proanthocyanidins) might conceivably present an increased risk of bleeding if combined with aspirin.
Potassium citrate, sodium citrate, and potassium-magnesium citrate are sometimes used to prevent
. These supplements reduce urinary acidity and can, therefore, lead to decreased blood levels and effectiveness of NSAIDs.
) and other hot peppers used in chili and various dishes contain as their "hot" ingredient capsaicin, a substance that is thought to be stomach-protective.
For years, people have believed that spicy foods were a cause of stomach ulcers. However, preliminary evidence suggests that cayenne peppers might actually help protect the stomach against ulcers caused by aspirin and possibly other NSAIDs.
In a study involving 18 healthy human volunteers, one group received chili powder, water, and aspirin; the control group received only water and aspirin.
Chili powder was found to significantly protect the stomach against damage from aspirin, a known stomach irritant. It was suggested that this protective effect might result from capsaicin-induced stimulation of blood flow in the lining of the stomach.
Further support for this theory comes from a study in rats, which found that capsaicin protected the stomach against damage caused by aspirin, ethanol (drinking alcohol), and acid.
Increasing the dose of capsaicin brought even greater benefit, as did increasing the time between giving capsaicin and the other agents. An earlier study in rats found that capsaicin exerted similar protection against aspirin damage.
Some researchers have used this data to advocate chili or capsaicin as treatment for peptic ulcer disease,
but check with your doctor before trying to self-treat this serious condition.
Colostrum is the fluid that new mothers' breasts produce during the first day or two after birth. It gives newborns a rich mixture of antibodies and growth factors that help them get a good start.
According to one study involving rats, taking colostrum from cows (bovine colostrum) as a supplement might help protect against the ulcers caused by NSAIDs.
Folate (also known as folic acid) is a B vitamin that plays an important role in many vital aspects of health, including preventing neural tube birth defects and possibly reducing the risk of heart disease. Because inadequate intake of folate is widespread, if you are taking any medication that depletes or impairs folate even slightly, you may need supplementation.
There is some evidence that NSAIDs might produce this effect. In test tube studies, many NSAIDs have been found to interfere with folate activity.
In addition, a study of 25 people with arthritis receiving the drug sulfasalazine found evidence of folate deficiency.
In another report, a woman taking 650 mg of aspirin every 4 hours for 3 days experienced a significant fall in blood levels of folate.
Based on this preliminary evidence, folate supplementation may be warranted if you are taking drugs in the NSAID family.
Licorice root (
), a member of the pea family, has been used since ancient times as both food and medicine.
Preliminary evidence suggests that a specific form of licorice called DGL (deglycyrrhizinated licorice) might help protect the stomach against damage caused by the use of aspirin and possibly other NSAIDs. (DGL is a modified version of licorice that is safer to use.)
In a double-blind study of 9 healthy human volunteers, participants were given aspirin alone (325 mg) or aspirin (325 mg) plus DGL (175 mg).
Stomach damage (as measured by blood loss) was found to be about 20% less when DGL was given with aspirin. As part of the same study, DGL was also found to reduce stomach damage caused by aspirin in rats, though the benefit was small. It is possible that larger doses of DGL might provide greater protection.
Test tube studies suggest that aspirin promotes the loss of vitamin C through the urine,
which could lead to tissue depletion of the vitamin. In addition, low vitamin C levels have been noted in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis, and this has been attributed to aspirin therapy taken for this condition.
If you take aspirin regularly, vitamin C supplementation may be advisable.
The supplement policosanol is a mixture of numerous related substances, and its exact composition varies with its source. Policosanol made from sugar cane appears to reduce cholesterol levels. Policosanol from beeswax may help protect the stomach from damage caused by NSAIDs. However, it is not clear whether beeswax policosanol might amplify the "blood thinning" effect of anti-inflammatory drugs in the same manner as sugarcane policosanol, as described
Based on chondroitin’s chemical similarity to the anticoagulant drug heparin, it has been suggested that chondroitin might have anticoagulant effects as well. There are no case reports of any problems relating to this, and studies suggest that chondroitin has at most a mild anticoagulant effect.
Nonetheless, prudence suggests that chondroitin should not be combined with NSAIDs except under physician supervision. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38205000 |
BAR 38:02, Mar/Apr 2012
Tales from Tombstones
Amid the desolate, rocky wasteland of Biblical Zoar, Konstantinos Politis and others have discovered hundreds of remarkable tombstones that preserve detailed portraits of life—and death—among the Christians and Jews who once dwelled there. The often brightly colored and intricately decorated stones are a treasure trove of information about these two communities during the fourth to sixth centuries C.E. when Zoar (then known as Zoara or Zoora) was the seat of a major Christian bishopric and also home to a significant Jewish population.
In the accompanying article, two scholars expert in interpreting the epitaphs and iconography of these burial markers—Professor Steven Fine of Yeshiva University in New York and Kalliope I. Kritikakou-Nikolaropoulou of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens, Greece—provide separate discussions of the Jewish and Christian tombstones of Zoar. Each examines the host of names, occupations and religious titles found within the communities, as well as the unique symbols and dating formulas that both groups used for their eternal memorials to the dead. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38206000 |
School kids have come across human skeletal remains revealed by coastal erosion at Crimdon Dene near Hartlepool, north-east England. As a crouched burial, assuming it is a burial, could it be prehistoric? Bronze Age? Or even older? Evidence for Mesolithic burial in the UK, for example, is virtually non-existent outside Somerset and the odd finger in Scottish shell middens, unlike Denmark and Scandinavia.
- Hartlepool Mail | Includes video 16 Oct
- Sunderland Echo | Web article and good picture 16 Oct
- BBC News | Web article 16 Oct
Challenges and Possibilities | Dreams in Dunes
There are some challenges too. How do you investigate such a find in a highly unstable environment like sand dunes? I’m sure there’s more news to follow from Tees Archaeology. Crimdon Dene¹ is also known for extensive Mesolithic flint scatters discovered in the 1940s. Filpoke Beacon², 1.25km north, produced one of the earliest Late Mesolithic radiocarbon dates for geometric narrow blade microliths: 8760 +/- 140 BP³ (Q-1474) based on carbonized hazelnut shells. A submerged forest sits off the coast south of Hartlepool and has revealed Late Mesolithic and Neolithic evidence including flints and a possible fish weir (see Tees Archaeology’s monograph).
Bronze Age burials, albeit in stone cists, were discovered in the vicinity of the Mesolithic house at Howick, Northumberland Coast. I know where my money’s going—but dreams at least are free!
¹ Young, R. 2007. ‘I must go down to the sea again…’ A Review of Early Research on the ‘Coastal’ Mesolithic of North-East England, in Waddington, C. & Pedersen, K (eds). Mesolithic Studies in the North Sea Basin and Beyond. Oxford: Oxbow.
² Jacobi, R. 1976. Britain Inside and Outside Mesolithic Europe. Proc Preh Soc 42: 67-84.
³ Before Present (1950), hazelnut shells are more reliable for aging than timber because they are shorter lived—”old wood” can itself be hundreds of years old before burning. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38213000 |
These notes from special intensive summer programs on Analog-Digital conversion held at MIT from 1956-1957 focus on problems created when digital equipment is linked with physical systems. A "language" problem arises, for the language of the information-processing equipment is digital and the language of communication in the rest of the system is nearly always in the form of electrical signals or mechanical displacements analogous the the physical parameters involved. Thus, there is a need for devices to perform the language translation. Devices taht perform analog-to-digital conversion are called coders, and devices that perform digital-to-analog conversion are called decoders.
The subject matter is divided itno three parts. The first part pertains to systems aspects of digital information processing that influence the specifications for analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion devices. In the second part, a detailed engineering analysis and evaluation of a variety of conversion devices is presented. The third part is devoted to a case study based on development work done at the Servomechanisms Laboratory of the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38215000 |
Radical new Boeing aircraft takes flight
The company's new blended-wing plane prepares for its first test, carrying with it the airline's hopes for fuel-saving planes.
(Business 2.0) -- -- It would be a dream come true for the airline industry: A plane that uses up to 30 percent less gas to reach its destination, compared with today's jets.
That's the promise of the blended-wing, a radically new kind of aircraft set to take to the skies for the first time this month. Originally conceived by McDonnell Douglas and developed by NASA, the blended-wing merges fuselage and wings and eliminates the tail, reducing drag. That makes it vastly more fuel-efficient than regular "tube-and-wing" jets, according to Boeing (Charts) engineer Norm Princen.
His X-48B blended-wing prototype, now on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base, is only about a 10th the size of the 240-foot-wingspan craft he hopes to build. But the Pentagon is watching keenly. "Blended-wing technology can cost-effectively fill many roles required by the Air Force," says Capt. Scott Van-Hoogen of the Air Vehicles Directorate. As a tanker, for example, it could refuel two planes in midair at the same time.
For now Boeing is focused on making a military version of the plane by 2022. But by 2030 blended-wing aircraft could be carrying commercial passengers. Last November a team from MIT and Cambridge University unveiled the SAX-40, a blended-wing design that promises to be more fuel-efficient than a Toyota (Charts) Prius - and thanks in part to the engine placement, just as quiet (at 63 decibels).
These designs still have a bumpy ride before they'll be accepted by airlines: How to build a flat pressurized cargo hold is one challenge; another is asking passengers to sit 25 seats away from the window. Still, the rising costs of air travel may leave future road warriors with no choice but to blend into a blended-wing.click here. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38220000 |
This is the third post on Richard L. Bushman's Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2008). [See Part 1 and Part 2.] In Chapter Three, Bushman reviews the several meanings of the term "Zion" in LDS doctrine and thinking.
The Mormon sense of Zion has no real parallels in Protestant thought. In a general sense, Zion refers to Mormon community and society, a larger concept than just the LDS Church as a religious institution. Here's how Bushman explains it.
From the beginning, Mormons have actively sought unity. They aspire to be a people, thinking of themselves as a society as much as a church. Their common ground goes beyond belief and worship to work, education, family, and business. This comprehensiveness goes back to their origins, when Joseph Smith first organized the church.
I suspect what Bushman gently terms "comprehensiveness" is what rubs some religious contemporaries the wrong way about Mormonism, giving rise to recurrent charges of being cultish or un-American. But comprehensiveness also describes the earliest religious settlers in 17th-century New England. You can't get more American than the Pilgrims, who also thought of themselves as trying to establish a model religious community.
The early quest for Mormon unity led to experiments in economic communalism. These did not go well, and by 1839 the attempt had been quietly abandoned. While Zion or the related term "Zion society" is still applied by some to these short-term economic experiments, the terms at present are more often used to refer to principles of economic justice and compassion that are realized through service to others, sacrifice for the benefit of those in need, and modest living. At present, Zion means something like this: applying the principles of charitable communal living within the free market, private property economy of the 21st century.
But the Zion concept doesn't simply refer to a set of principles. The LDS Church makes it a program, and a remarkably successful one. Here's Bushman again:
Out of the early Zion principles also evolved the Mormon sense of how to care for the poor. The scriptural condemnation of inequality in the early years was less an attack on the systemic inequalities of capitalism than an admonition to watch over the needy. In the twentieth century, the consecration principle took the form of a welfare program begun during the Great Depression to provide work and sustenance for poor church members. The church now owns farms, canning plants, and manufacturing facilities where the poor work producing the goods they need to subsist.
In just the last few years, the LDS Church has also expanded the scope of its humanitarian aid efforts outside the LDS community. Again, it's not just a wish, it's a program: Mormon Helping Hands. The website explanation even includes a 14-page manual telling local units how to make it work.
One could cite scripture or Conference talks for a more doctrinally oriented summary of the term Zion, but I think the LDS Welfare Program (to benefit Latter-day Saints in need) and the Helping Hands program (to channel service toward worthwhile projects in local communities) are themselves the best expression of what Zion means in practice to modern Latter-day Saints.
I'll wind up with some general comments on Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction. It is a short and very readable introduction for the non-LDS reader, but also full of insightful descriptions and observations for the LDS reader. It is certainly worth picking up and reading if you run across it at your local library or bookstore.
Originally posted with comments at Beliefnet. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38223000 |
Add or modify a hotspot
A picture can contain one or more clickable hyperlinked areas that are called hotspots, which function like any other hyperlink. You can also set a default hyperlink for all other areas on the picture where you haven't defined a hotspot.
The Pictures toolbar provides tools that enable you to draw rectangular, circular and polygonal-shaped hotspots on an image. After you draw the hotspot, the Insert Hyperlink dialog box appears for you to specify the link for the hotspot. You can highlight hot spots on a picture in Microsoft Expression Web, such as when it's hard for you to see the hot spot outlines on the picture.
To set a hyperlink for all other areas on the image outside of the hotspots, select the image and add a hyperlink to it. For more information, see Create or modify a hyperlink.
In Design view, in your web page, click the picture to which you want to add a hotspot.
On the Pictures toolbar, click Rectangular Hotspot , Circular Hotspot , or Polygonal Hotspot .
On the picture, do one or more of the following.
To draw either a rectangle or circle, drag where you want a hotspot.
To draw a polygon, click to create each vertex of the polygon shape. To complete the shape, either click on the first vertex you created, or double-click.
In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, locate the file you want to link to, and then click OK. For more information, see Create or modify a hyperlink.
In Design view, in your web page, click the picture that contains the hotspot you want to modify.
On the Pictures toolbar, click Select , and then do one or more of the following.
To move a hotspot, click within the hotspot and drag it to where you want.
To resize a hotspot, drag a vertex on the hotspot.
To modify the hyperlink of a hotspot, double-click the hotspot. In the Edit Hyperlink dialog box, set the Address box to the hyperlink you want and click OK.
To delete a hotspot, click the hotspot and press DELETE. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38227000 |
Socrates, an Athenian Greek of the second half of the fifth century bc, wrote no philosophical works but was uniquely influential in the later history of philosophy. His philosophical interests were restricted to ethics and the conduct of life, topics which thereafter became central to philosophy. He discussed these in public places in Athens, sometimes with other prominent intellectuals or political leaders, sometimes with young men, who gathered round him in large numbers, and other admirers. Among these young men was Plato. Socrates' philosophical ideas and - equally important for his philosophical influence - his personality and methods as a 'teacher' were handed on to posterity in the 'dialogues' that several of his friends wrote after his death, depicting such discussions. Only those of Xenophon (Memorabilia,Apology, Symposium) and the early dialogues of Plato survive (for example Euthyphro, Apology, Crito). Later Platonic dialogues such as Phaedo, Symposium and Republic do not present the historical Socrates' ideas; the 'Socrates' appearing in them is a spokesman for Plato's own ideas.
Socrates' discussions took the form of face-to-face interrogations of another person. Most often they concerned the nature of some moral virtue, such as courage or justice. Socrates asked what the respondent thought these qualities of mind and character amounted to, what their value was, how they were acquired. He would then test their ideas for logical consistency with other highly plausible general views about morality and goodness that the respondent also agreed to accept, once Socrates presented them. He succeeded in showing, to his satisfaction and that of the respondent and any bystanders, that the respondent's ideas were not consistent. By this practice of 'elenchus' or refutation he was able to prove that politicians and others who claimed to have 'wisdom' about human affairs in fact lacked it, and to draw attention to at least apparent errors in their thinking. He wanted to encourage them and others to think harder and to improve their ideas about the virtues and about how to conduct a good human life. He never argued directly for ideas of his own, but always questioned those of others. None the less, one can infer, from the questions he asks and his attitudes to the answers he receives, something about his own views.
Socrates was convinced that our souls - where virtues and vices are found - are vastly more important for our lives than our bodies or external circumstances. The quality of our souls determines the character of our lives, for better or for worse, much more than whether we are healthy or sick, or rich or poor. If we are to live well and happily, as he assumed we all want to do more than we want anything else, we must place the highest priority on the care of our souls. That means we must above all want to acquire the virtues, since they perfect our souls and enable them to direct our lives for the better. If only we could know what each of the virtues is we could then make an effort to obtain them. As to the nature of the virtues, Socrates seems to have held quite strict and, from the popular point of view, paradoxical views. Each virtue consists entirely in knowledge, of how it is best to act in some area of life, and why: additional 'emotional' aspects, such as the disciplining of our feelings and desires, he dismissed as of no importance. Weakness of will is not psychologically possible: if you act wrongly or badly, that is due to your ignorance of how you ought to act and why. He thought each of the apparently separate virtues amounts to the same single body of knowledge: the comprehensive knowledge of what is and is not good for a human being. Thus his quest was to acquire this single wisdom: all the particular virtues would follow automatically.
At the age of 70 Socrates was charged before an Athenian popular court with 'impiety' - with not believing in the Olympian gods and corrupting young men through his constant questioning of everything. He was found guilty and condemned to death. Plato's Apology, where Socrates gives a passionate defence of his life and philosophy, is one of the classics of Western literature. For different groups of later Greek philosophers he was the model both of a sceptical inquirer who never claims to know the truth, and of a 'sage' who knows the whole truth about human life and the human good. Among modern philosophers, the interpretations of his innermost meaning given by Montaigne, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche are especially notable.
Socrates, an Athenian citizen proud of his devotion to Athens, lived his adult life there engaging in open philosophical discussion and debate on fundamental questions of ethics, politics, religion and education. Going against the grain of the traditional education, he insisted that personal investigation and reasoned argument, rather than ancestral custom, or appeal to the authority of Homer, Hesiod and other respected poets, was the only proper basis for answering these questions. His emphasis on argument and logic and his opposition to unquestioning acceptance of tradition allied him with such Sophists of a generation earlier as Protagoras, Gorgias and Prodicus, none of whom was an Athenian, but all of whom spent time lecturing and teaching at Athens (see Sophists). Unlike these Sophists Socrates did not formally offer himself or accept pay as a teacher. But many upper-class young Athenian men gathered round him to hear and engage in his discussions, and he had an inspirational and educational effect upon them, heightening their powers of critical thought and encouraging them to take seriously their individual responsibility to think through and decide how to conduct their lives. Many of his contemporaries perceived this education as morally and socially destructive - it certainly involved subverting accepted beliefs - and he was tried in 399 bc before an Athenian popular court and condemned to death on a charge of 'impiety': that he did not believe in the Olympian gods, but in new ones instead, and corrupted the young. Scholars sometimes mention specifically political motives of revenge, based on guilt by association: a number of prominent Athenians who were with Socrates as young men or were close friends did turn against the Athenian democracy and collaborated with the Spartans in their victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian war. But an amnesty passed by the restored democracy in 403 bc prohibited prosecution for political offences before that date. The rhetorician Polycrates included Socrates' responsibility for these political crimes in his Accusation of Socrates (see Xenophon, Memorabilia I 2.12), a rhetorical exercise written at least five years after Socrates' death. But there is no evidence that, in contravention of the amnesty, Socrates' actual accusers covertly attacked him, or his jurors condemned him, on that ground. The defences Plato and Xenophon constructed for Socrates, each in his respective Apology, imply that it was his own questioning mind and what was perceived as the bad moral influence he had on his young men that led to his trial and condemnation.
Socrates left no philosophical works, and apparently wrote none. His philosophy and personality were made known to later generations through the dialogues that several of his associates wrote with him as principal speaker (see Socratic dialogues). Only fragments survive of those by Aeschines of Sphettus and Antisthenes, both Athenians, and Phaedo of Elis (after whom Plato's dialogue Phaedo is named). Our own knowledge of Socrates depends primarily on the dialogues of Plato and the Socratic works of the military leader and historian Xenophon. Plato was a young associate of Socrates' during perhaps the last ten years of his life, and Xenophon knew him during that same period, though he was absent from Athens at the time of Socrates' death and for several years before and many years after.
We also have secondary evidence from the comic playwright Aristophanes and from Aristotle. Aristotle, although born fifteen years after Socrates' death, had access through Plato and others to first-hand information about the man and his philosophy. Aristophanes knew Socrates personally; his Clouds (first produced c.423 bc) pillories the 'new' education offered by Sophists and philosophers by showing Socrates at work in a 'thinkery', propounding outlandish physical theories and teaching young men how to argue cleverly in defence of their improper behaviour. It is significant that in 423, when Socrates was about 45 years old, he could plausibly be taken as a leading representative in Athens of the 'new' education. But one cannot expect a comic play making fun of a whole intellectual movement to contain an authentic account of Socrates' specific philosophical commitments.
However, the literary genre to which Plato's and Xenophon's Socratic works belong (along with the other, lost dialogues) also permits the author much latitude; in his Poetics Aristotle counts such works as fictions of a certain kind, alongside epic poems and tragedies. They are by no means records of actual discussions (despite the fact that Xenophon explicitly so represents his). Each author was free to develop his own ideas behind the mask of Socrates, at least within the limits of what his personal experience had led him to believe was Socrates' basic philosophical and moral outlook. Especially in view of the many inconsistencies between Plato's and Xenophon's portraits (see §7 below), it is a difficult question for historical-philosophical interpretation whether the philosophical and moral views the character Socrates puts forward in any of these dialogues can legitimately be attributed to the historical philosopher. The problem of interpretation is made more difficult by the fact that Socrates appears in many of Plato's dialogues - ones belonging to his middle and later periods (see Plato §§10-16) - discussing and expounding views that we have good reason to believe resulted from Plato's own philosophical investigations into questions of metaphysics and epistemology, questions that were not entered into at all by the historical Socrates. To resolve this problem - what scholars call the 'Socratic problem' - most agree in preferring Plato to Xenophon as a witness. Xenophon is not thought to have been philosopher enough to have understood Socrates well or to have captured the depth of his views and his personality. As for Plato, most scholars accept only the philosophical interests and procedures, and the moral and philosophical views, of the Socrates of the early dialogues, and, more guardedly, the Socrates of 'transitional' ones such as Meno and Gorgias, as legitimate representations of the historical personage. These dialogues are the ones that predate the emergence of the metaphysical and epistemological inquiries just referred to. However, even Plato's early dialogues are philosophical works written to further Plato's own philosophical interests. That could produce distortions, also; and Xenophon's relative philosophical innocence could make his portrait in some respects more reliable. Moreover, it is possible, even probable, that in his efforts to help his young men improve themselves Socrates spoke differently to the philosophically more promising ones among them - including Plato - from the way he spoke to others, for example Xenophon. Both portraits could be true, but partial and needing to be combined (see §7). The account of Socrates' philosophy given below follows Plato, with caution, while giving independent weight also to Xenophon and to Aristotle.
Xenophon's Apology of Socrates, Symposium and Memorabilia (or Memoirs) may well reflect knowledge of Plato's own Apology and some of his early and middle period dialogues, as well as lost dialogues of Antisthenes and others. Xenophon composed the Memorabilia over many years, beginning only some ten years after Socrates' death, avowedly in order to defend Socrates' reputation as a good man, a true Athenian gentleman, and a good influence upon his young men. The same intention motivated hisApology and Symposium. Anything these works contain about Socrates' philosophical opinions and procedures is ancillary to that apologetic purpose. Plato's Apology, of course, is similarly apologetic, but it and his other early dialogues are carefully constructed discussions, strongly focused upon questions of philosophical substance. Plato evidently thought Socrates' philosophical ideas and methods were central to his life and to his mission. Xenophon's and Plato's testimony are agreed that Socrates' discussions consistently concerned the aretai, the recognized 'virtues' or excellences of character (see Aret), such as justice, piety, self-control or moderation (sophrosyn), courage and wisdom; what these individual characteristics consist in and require of a person, what their value is, and how they are acquired, whether by teaching or in some other way. In his Apology and elsewhere Plato has Socrates insist that these discussions were always inquiries, efforts made to engage his fellow-discussants in coming jointly to an adequate understanding of the matters inquired into. He does not himself know, and therefore cannot teach anyone else - whether by means of these discussions or in some other way - either how to be virtuous or what virtue in general or any particular virtue is. Furthermore, given his general characterization of virtue (see §§4-5), Plato's Socrates makes a point of suggesting the impossibility in principle of teaching virtue at all, by contrast with the Sophists who declared they could teach it. Virtue was not a matter of information about living or rote techniques of some sort to be handed on from teacher to pupil, but required an open-ended personal understanding that individuals could only come to for themselves. Xenophon, too, reports that Socrates denied he was a teacher of aret, but he pays no attention to such issues of philosophical principle. He does not hesitate to show Socrates speaking of himself as a teacher (see Apology 26, Memorabilia I 6.13-14), and describes him as accepting young men from their fathers as his pupils (but not for a fee), and teaching them the virtues by displaying his own virtues to them for emulation, as well as through conversation and precepts. Perhaps Socrates did not insist on holding to strict philosophical principles in dealing with people on whom their point would have been lost.
In his Apology Plato's Socrates traces his practice of spending his days discussing and inquiring about virtue to an oracle delivered at the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. Xenophon also mentions this oracle in his Apology. A friend of Socrates', Chaerephon, had asked the god whether anyone was wiser than Socrates; the priestess answered that no one was. Because he was sure he was not wise at all - only the gods, he suspected, could actually know how a human life ought to be led - Socrates cross-examined others at Athens with reputations for that kind of wisdom. He wanted to show that there were people wiser than he and thus discover the true meaning of the oracle - Apollo was known to speak in riddles requiring interpretation to reach their deeper meaning. In the event, it turned out that the people he examined were not wise, since they could not even give a self-consistent set of answers to his questions: obviously, true knowledge requires at least that one think and speak consistently on the subjects one professes to know. So he concluded that the priestess's reply had meant that of all those with reputations for wisdom only he came close to deserving it; he wisely did not profess to know these things that only gods can know, and that was wisdom enough for a human being. Because only he knew that he did not know, only he was ready earnestly to inquire into virtue and the other ingredients of the human good, in an effort to learn. He understood therefore that Apollo's true intention in the oracle had been to encourage him to continue his inquiries, to help others to realize that it is beyond human powers actually to know how to live - that is the prerogative of the gods - and to do his best to understand as far as a human being can how one ought to live. The life of philosophy, as led by him, was therefore something he was effectively ordered by Apollo to undertake.
We must remember that Socrates was on trial on a charge of 'impiety'. In tracing his philosophical vocation back to Apollo's oracle, and linking it to a humble recognition of human weakness and divine perfection, he was constructing a powerful rebuttal of the charges brought against him. But it cannot be literally true - if that is what he intended to say - that Socrates began his inquiries about virtue only after hearing of the oracle. Chaerephon's question to Apollo shows he had established a reputation in Athens for wisdom before that. That reputation cannot have rested on philosophical inquiries of another sort. In Plato's Phaedo Socrates says he had been interested as a young man in philosophical speculations about the structure and causes of the natural world, but he plainly did not take those interests very far; and in any event, his reputation was not for that kind of wisdom, but wisdom about how to lead a human life. In fact we do not hear of the duty to Apollo in Xenophon, or in other dialogues of Plato, where we might expect to find it if from the beginning Socrates thought Apollo had commanded his life of philosophizing. However, we need not think Socrates was false to the essential spirit of philosophy as he practised it if in looking back on his life under threat of condemnation for impiety he chose, inaccurately, to see it as initially imposed on him by Apollo's oracle.
Despite its impressiveness, Socrates' speech failed to convince his jury of 501 male fellow citizens, and he died in the state prison by drinking hemlock as required by law. His speech evidently offended the majority of the jurors by its disdain for the charges and the proceedings; Xenophon explains his lofty behaviour, which he thinks would otherwise have been lunatic - and damaging to his reputation - by reporting that he had told friends in advance that as a 70-year-old still in possession of his health and faculties it was time for him to die anyhow, before senility set in. Furthermore, his 'divine sign' - the 'voice' he sometimes heard warning him for his own good against a contemplated course of action - had prevented him from spending time crafting a defence speech. (This voice seems to have been the basis for the charge of introducing 'new' gods.) So he would do nothing to soften his manner in order to win his freedom. Even if this story is true, Plato could be right that Socrates put on a spirited, deeply serious defence of his life and beliefs - one that he thought should have convinced the jurors of his innocence, if only they had judged him intelligently and fairly.
In cross-examining those with reputations for wisdom about human affairs and showing their lack of it, Socrates employed a special method of dialectical argument that he himself had perfected, the method of 'elenchus' - Greek for 'putting to the test' or 'refutation'. He gives an example at his trial when he cross-examines Meletus, one of his accusers (Plato, Apology 24d-27e). The respondent states a thesis, as something he knows to be true because he is wise about the matter in question. Socrates then asks questions, eliciting clarifications, qualifications and extensions of the thesis, and seeking further opinions of the respondent on related matters. He then argues, and the respondent sees no way not to grant, that the original thesis is logically inconsistent with something affirmed in these further responses. For Socrates, it follows at once that the respondent did not know what he was talking about in stating his original thesis: true knowledge would prevent one from such self-contradiction. So the respondent suffers a personal set-back; he is refuted - revealed as incompetent. Meletus, for example, does not have consistent ideas about the gods or what would show someone not to believe in them, and he does not have consistent ideas about who corrupts the young, and how; so he does not know what he is talking about, and no one should take his word for it that Socrates disbelieves in the gods or has corrupted his young men. In many of his early dialogues Plato shows Socrates using this method to examine the opinions of persons who claim to be wise in some matter: the religious expert Euthyphro on piety (Euthyphro), the generals Laches and Nicias on courage (Laches), the Sophist Protagoras on the distinctions among the virtues and whether virtue can be taught (Protagoras), the rhapsodist Ion on what is involved in knowing poetry (Ion), the budding politician Alcibiades on justice and other political values (Alcibiades), the Sophist Hippias on which was the better man, Odysseus or Achilles (Lesser Hippias), and on the nature of moral and aesthetic beauty (Greater Hippias). They are all refuted - shown to have mutually inconsistent ideas on the subject discussed (see Plato §§4, 6, 8-9).
But Socrates is not content merely to demonstrate his interlocutor's lack of wisdom or knowledge. That might humiliate him into inquiring further or seeking by some other means the knowledge he has been shown to lack, instead of remaining puffed up with self-conceit. That would be a good thing. But Socrates often also indicates clearly that his cross-examination justifies him and the interlocutor in rejecting as false the interlocutor's original thesis. Logically, that is obviously wrong: if the interlocutor contradicts himself, at least one of the things he has said must be false (indeed, all of them could be), but the fact alone of self-contradiction does not show where the falsehood resides. For example, when Socrates leads Euthyphro to accept ideas that contradict his own definition of the pious as whatever pleases all the gods, Socrates concludes that that definition has been shown to be false (Euthyphro 10d-11a), and asks Euthyphro to come up with another one. He does not usually seem to consider that perhaps on further thought the additional ideas would seem faulty and so merit rejection instead.
Socrates uses his elenctic method also in discussion with persons who are not puffed up with false pride, and are quite willing to admit their ignorance and to reason out the truth about these important matters. Examples are his discussions with his long-time friend Crito on whether he should escape prison and set aside the court's death sentence (Plato, Crito), and with the young men Charmides, on self-control (Charmides), and Lysis and Menexenus, on the nature of friendship (Lysis). Socrates examines Crito's proposal that he escape on the basis of principles that he presents to him for his approval, and he, together with Crito (however half-heartedly), rejects it when it fails to be consistent with them. And he examines the young men's successive ideas about these virtues, rejecting some of them and refining others, by relying on their own acceptance of further ideas that he puts to them. Again, he is confident that the inconsistencies brought to light in their ideas indicate the inadequacy of their successive proposals as to the nature of the moral virtue in question.
In many of his discussions, both with young men and the allegedly wise, Socrates seeks to know what some morally valuable property is - for example, piety, courage, self-control or friendship (see §5). Rejecting the idea that one could learn this simply from attending to examples, he insisted on an articulated 'definition' of the item in question - some single account that would capture all at once the presumed common feature that would entitle anything to count as a legitimate instance. Such a definition, providing the essence of the thing defined, would give us a 'model' or 'paradigm' to use in judging whether or not some proposed action or person possesses the moral value so defined (Euthyphro 6d-e). Aristotle says (in Metaphysics I, 6) that Socrates was the first to interest himself in such 'universal definitions', and traces to his interest in them Plato's first impetus towards a theory of Forms, or 'separated' universals (see Plato §10).
In none of his discussions in Plato's early works does Socrates profess to think an adequate final result has actually been established - about the nature of friendship, or self-control, or piety, or any of the other matters he inquires about. Indeed, on the contrary, these works regularly end with professions of profound ignorance about the matter under investigation. Knowledge is never attained, and further questions always remain to be considered. But Socrates does plainly think that progress towards reaching final understanding has taken place (even if only a god, and no human being, could ever actually attain it). Not only has one discovered some things that are definitely wrong to say; one has also achieved some positive insights that are worth holding onto in seeking further systematic understanding. Given that Socrates' method of discussion is elenctic throughout, what does he think justifies this optimism?
On balance, our evidence suggests that Socrates had worked out no elaborate theory to support him here. The ideas he was stimulated to propound in an elenctic examination which went against some initial thesis seemed to him, and usually also to the others present, so plausible, and so supportable by further considerations, that he and they felt content to reject the initial thesis. Until someone came up with arguments to neutralize their force, it seemed the thesis was doomed, as contrary to reason itself. Occasionally Socrates expresses himself in just those terms: however unpalatable the option might seem, it remains open to someone to challenge the grounds on which his conclusions rest (see Euthyphro 15c, Gorgias 461d-462a, 509a, Crito 54d). But until they do, he is satisfied to treat his and his interlocutor's agreement as a firm basis for thought and action. Later, when Plato himself became interested in questions of philosophical methodology in his Meno, this came to seem a philosophically unsatisfactory position; Plato's demand for justification for one's beliefs independent of what seemed on reflection most plausible led him to epistemological and metaphysical inquiries that went well beyond the self-imposed restriction of Socratic philosophy to ethical thought in the broadest sense. But Socrates did not raise these questions. In this respect more bound by traditional views than Plato, he had great implicit confidence in his and his interlocutors' capacity, after disciplined dialectical examination of the issues, to reach firm ground for constructing positive ideas about the virtues and about how best to lead a human life - even if these ideas never received the sort of final validation that a god, understanding fully the truth about human life, could give them.
The topics Socrates discussed were always ethical, and never included questions of physical theory or metaphysics or other branches of philosophical study. Moreover, he always conducted his discussions not as theoretical inquiries but as profoundly personal moral tests. Questioner and interlocutor were equally putting their ways of life to what Socrates thought was the most important test of all - their capacity to stand up to scrutiny in rational argument about how one ought to live. In speaking about human life, he wanted his respondents to indicate what they truly believed, and as questioner he was prepared to do the same, at least at crucial junctures. Those beliefs were assumed to express not theoretical ideas, but the very ones on which they themselves were conducting their lives. In losing an argument with Socrates you did not merely show yourself logically or argumentatively deficient, but also put into question the very basis on which you were living. Your way of life might ultimately prove defensible, but if you cannot now defend it successfully, you are not leading it with any such justification. In that case, according to Socrates' views, your way of life is morally deficient. Thus if Menexenus, Lysis and Socrates profess to value friendship among the most important things in life and profess to be one another's friends, but cannot satisfactorily explain under pressure of elenctic investigation what a friend is, that casts serious doubt on the quality of any 'friendship' they might form (Plato, Lysis 212a, 223b). Moral consistency and personal integrity, and not mere delight in argument and logical thought, should therefore lead you to repeated elenctic examination of your views, in an effort to render them coherent and at the same time defensible on all sides through appeal to plausible arguments. Or, if some of your views have been shown false, by conflicting with extremely plausible general principles, it behoves you to drop them - and so to cease living in a way that depends upon accepting them. In this way, philosophical inquiry via the elenchus is fundamentally a personal moral quest. It is a quest not just to understand adequately the basis on which one is actually living, and the personal and moral commitments that this contains. It is also a quest to change the way one lives as the results of argument show one ought to, so that, at the logical limit of inquiry, one's way of life would be completely vindicated. Accordingly, Socrates in Plato's dialogues regularly insists on the individual and personal character of his discussions. He wants to hear the views of the one person with whom he is speaking. He dismisses as of no interest what outsiders or most people may think - provided that is not what his discussant is personally convinced is true. The views of 'the many' may well not rest on thought or argument at all. Socrates insists that his discussant shoulder the responsibility to explain and defend rationally the views he holds, and follow the argument - reason - wherever it may lead.
We learn a good deal about Socrates' own principles from both Plato and Xenophon. Those were ones that had stood up well over a lifetime of frequent elenctic discussions and had, as he thought, a wealth of plausible arguments in their favour. Foremost is his conviction that the virtues - self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soul - are essential if anyone is to lead a good and happy life. They are good in themselves for a human being, and they guarantee a happy life, eudaimonia - something that he thought all human beings always wanted, and wanted more than anything else. The virtues belong to the soul - they are the condition of a soul that has been properly cared for and brought to its best state. The soul is vastly more important for happiness than are health and strength of the body or social and political power, wealth and other external circumstances of life; the goods of the soul, and pre-eminently the virtues, are worth far more than any quantity of bodily or external goods. Socrates seems to have thought these other goods are truly good, but they only do people good, and thereby contribute to their happiness, under the condition that they are chosen and used in accordance with virtues indwelling in their souls (see Plato, Apology 30b, Euthydemus 280d-282d, Meno 87d-89a).
More specific principles followed. Doing injustice is worse for oneself than being subjected to it (Gorgias 469c-522e): by acting unjustly you make your soul worse, and that affects for the worse the whole of your life, whereas one who treats you unjustly at most harms your body or your possessions but leaves your soul unaffected. On the same ground Socrates firmly rejected the deeply entrenched Greek precept to aid one's friends and harm one's enemies, and the accompanying principle of retaliation, which he equated with returning wrongs for wrongs done to oneself and one's friends (Crito 49a-d). Socrates' daily life gave witness to his principles. He was poor, shabbily dressed and unshod, and made do with whatever ordinary food came his way: such things matter little. Wealth, finery and delicacies for the palate are not worth panting after and exerting oneself to enjoy. However, Socrates was fully capable of relishing both refined and plain enjoyments as occasion warranted (see §7).
The Greeks recognized a series of specially prized qualities of mind and character as aretai or virtues. Each was regarded as a distinct, separate quality: justice was one thing, concerned with treating other people fairly, courage quite another, showing itself in vigorous, correct behaviour in circumstances that normally cause people to be afraid; and self-control or moderation, piety and wisdom were yet others. Each of these ensured that its possessor would act in some specific ways, regularly and reliably over their lifetime, having the justified conviction that those are ways one ought to act - agathon (good) and kalon (fine, noble, admirable or beautiful) ways of acting. But each type of virtuous person acts rightly and well not only in regularly recurring, but also in unusual and unheralded, circumstances; the virtue involves always getting something right about how to live a good human life. Socrates thought these virtues were essential if one was to live happily (see §4). But what exactly were they? What was it about someone that made them just, or courageous, or wise? If you did not know that, you would not know what to do in order to acquire those qualities. Furthermore, supposing you did possess a virtue, you would have to be able to explain and defend by argument the consequent ways in which you lived - otherwise your conviction that those are ways one ought to act would be shallow and unjustified. And in order to do that you would have to know what state of mind the virtue was, since that is essential to them (see Plato, Charmides 158e-159a). Consequently, in his discussions Socrates constantly asked for 'definitions' of various virtues: what is courage (Laches); what is self-control or moderation (Charmides), what is friendship (Lysis) and what is piety (Euthyphro). As this context shows, he was asking not for a 'dictionary definition', an account of the accepted linguistic understanding of a term, but for an ethically defensible account of an actual condition of mind or character to which the word in common use would be correctly applied. In later terminology, he was seeking a 'real' rather than a 'nominal' definition (see Definition; Plato §§6-9).
Socrates objected to definitions that make a virtue some external aspect of a virtuous action (such as the manner in which it is done - for example its 'quiet' or measured quality in the case of moderation, Charmides 160b-d), or simply the doing of specific types of action, described in terms of their external circumstances (such as, for courage, standing one's ground in battle; Laches 190e-191d). He also objected to more psychological definitions that located a virtue in some non-rational and non-cognitive aspect of the soul (for example, in the case of courage, the soul's endurance or strength of resistance) (Laches 192d-193e). For his own part, he regularly shows himself ready to accept only definitions that identify a virtue with some sort of knowledge or wisdom about what is valuable for a human being. That 'intellectualist' expectation about the nature of virtue, although never worked out to his satisfaction in any Platonic dialogue, is central to Socrates' philosophy.
Given that in his discussions he is always the questioner, probing the opinions of his respondent and not arguing for views of his own, we never find Socrates stating clearly what led him to this intellectualism. Probably, however, it was considerations drawn from the generally agreed premise that each virtue is a condition motivating certain voluntary actions, chosen because they are good and fine or noble. He took it that what lies behind and produces any voluntary action is the idea under which it is done, the conception of the action in the agent's mind that makes it seem the thing to do just then. If so, each virtue must be some state of the mind, the possessor of which constantly has certain distinctive general ideas about how one ought to behave. Furthermore, since virtues get this right, these are true ideas. And since a virtuous person acts well and correctly in a perfectly reliable way, they must be seated so deeply in the mind as to be ineradicable and unwaveringly present. The only state of mind that meets these conditions is knowledge: to know a subject is not just to be thoroughly convinced, but to have a deep, fully articulated understanding, being ready with explanations to fend off objections and apparent difficulties and to extend old principles into new situations, and being prepared to show with the full weight of reason precisely why each thing falling under it is and must be so. Each virtue, then, must be knowledge about how one ought to behave in some area of life, and why - a knowledge so deep and rationally secure that those who have it can be counted upon never to change their minds, never to be argued out of or otherwise persuaded away from, or to waver in, their conviction about how to act.
In Plato's Protagoras Socrates goes beyond this, and identifies himself with the position, rejected by Protagoras in their discussion, that the apparently separate virtues of justice, piety, self-control, courage and wisdom are somehow one and the same thing - some single knowledge (361a-b). Xenophon too confirms that Socrates held this view (Memorabilia III 9.5). Protagoras defends the position that each of the virtues is not only a distinct thing from each of the others, but so different in kind that a person could possess one of them without possessing the others (329d-e). In opposing him, Socrates sometimes speaks plainly of two allegedly distinct virtues being 'one' (333b). Given this unity of the virtues, it would follow that a person could not possess one without having them all. And in speaking of justice and piety in particular, Socrates seems to go further, to imply that every action produced by virtue is equally an instance of all the standardly recognized virtues: pious as well as just, wise and self-controlled and courageous also. Among his early dialogues, however, Plato's own philosophical interests show themselves particularly heavily in the Protagoras, so it is doubtful how far the details of his arguments are to be attributed to the historical Socrates. The issues raised by Socrates in the Protagoras were, none the less, vigorously pursued by subsequent 'Socratic' philosophers (as Plutarch's report in On Moral Virtue 2 demonstrates). And the positions apparently adopted by Plato's Socrates were taken up and ingeniously defended by the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (see Stoicism §16). As usual, because of his questioner's role, it is difficult to work out Socrates' grounds for holding to the unity of virtue; and it is difficult to tell whether, and if so how, he allowed that despite this unity there were some real differences between, say, justice and self-control, or courage and piety. Apparently he thought the same body of knowledge - knowledge of the whole of what is and is not good for human beings, and why it is so or not - must at least underlie the allegedly separate virtues. If you did not have that vast, comprehensive knowledge you could not be in the state of mind which is justice or in that which is courage, and so on; and if you did have it you would necessarily be in those states of mind. It seems doubtful whether Socrates himself progressed beyond that point. Efforts to do that were made by Chrysippus and the other philosophers referred to above. And despite denying that all virtues consist in knowledge, Plato in the Republic and Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics VI follow Socrates to the extent of holding, in different ways, that you need to have all the virtues in order to have any one.
In Plato's Protagoras Socrates also denies the possibility of weakness of will - being 'mastered' by some desire so as to act voluntarily in a way one knows is wrong or bad (see also Xenophon, Memorabilia III 9.4, IV 5.6.) All voluntary wrongdoing or bad action is due to ignorance of how one ought to act and why, and to nothing else. This would be easy to understand if Socrates were using 'knowing' quite strictly, to refer to the elevated and demanding sort of knowledge described in §5 (sometimes called 'Socratic knowledge'). Someone could know an action was wrong or bad, with full 'Socratic knowledge', only if they were not just thoroughly convinced, but had a deep, fully articulated understanding, being ready with explanations to fend off objections and apparent difficulties, and prepared to show precisely why it was so. That would mean that these ideas were seated so deeply in the mind as to be ineradicable and unwaveringly present. Accordingly, a person with 'Socratic knowledge' could not come to hold even momentarily that the action in question would be the thing to do, and so they could never do it voluntarily.
However, Plato's Socrates goes further. He explains his denial of weak-willed action by saying that a person cannot voluntarily do actions which, in doing them, they even believe to be a wrong or bad thing to do (Protagoras 358c-e). He gives a much-discussed, elaborate argument to establish this stronger conclusion, starting from assumptions identifying that which is pleasant with that which is good (352a-357e). These assumptions, however, he attributes only to ordinary people, the ones who say they believe in the possibility of weak-willed action; he makes it clear to the careful reader, if not to Protagoras, that his own view is simply that pleasure is a good thing, not 'the' good (351c-e; see 354b-d). Although some scholars have thought otherwise, Socrates himself does not adopt a hedonist analysis of the good in the Protagoras or elsewhere either in Plato or Xenophon; indeed, he speaks elsewhere against hedonist views (see Hedonism). The fundamental principle underlying his argument - a principle he thinks ordinary people will accept - is that voluntary action is always 'subjectively' rational, in the sense that an agent who acts to achieve some particular sort of value always acts with the idea that what they are doing achieves more of that value than alternatives then thought by them to be available would achieve. If someone performs an overall bad action because of some (lesser) good they think they will get from it, they cannot do it while believing it is bad overall. That would mean they thought they could have got more good by refraining, and their action would violate the principle just stated. Instead, at the time they acted (despite what they may have thought before or after acting), they believed (wrongly and ignorantly) that the action would be good overall for them to do. Thus ignorance, and only ignorance, is responsible for voluntary error. Weakness of will - knowingly pursuing the worse outcome - is psychologically impossible: 'No one does wrong willingly'.
The details of this argument may not represent explicit commitments of the historical Socrates. None the less, his denial of weakness of will, understood as presented in Plato's Protagoras, was the centre of a protracted debate in later times. First Plato himself, in Republic IV, then Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics VII, argued against Socrates' conclusion, on the ground that he had overlooked the fact that human beings have other sources of motivation that can produce voluntary actions, besides their ideas about what is good or bad, or right or wrong to do. 'Appetites' and 'spirited desires' exist also, which can lead a person to act in fulfilment of them without having to adopt the idea, in their beliefs about what is best to do, that so acting would be a good thing (see Plato §14; Aristotle §20, 22-23). The Stoics, however, and especially Chrysippus, argued vigorously and ingeniously in defence of Socrates' analysis and against the Platonic-Aristotelian assumption of alternative sources of motivation that produce voluntary action on their own (see Stoicism §19). In fact, during Hellenistic times it was the Socratic, 'unitary' psychology of action that carried the day; the Platonic-Aristotelian alternative, dominant in the 'common sense' and the philosophy of modern times, was a minority view. The issues Socrates raised about weakness of will continue to be debated today.
Socrates drew to himself many of the brightest and most prominent people in Athens, securing their fascinated attention and their passionate friendship and support. His effectiveness as a philosopher, and the Socratic 'legend' itself, depended as much on the strength and interest of his personality as on the power of his mind. Plato's and Xenophon's portraits of Socrates as a person differ significantly, however. Plato's Socrates is aloof and often speaks ironically, although also with unusual and deeply held moral convictions; paradoxically, the depth and clarity of his convictions, maintained alongside the firm disclaimer to know what was true, could seem all the stronger testimony to their truth, and made them felt the more strongly as a rebuke to the superficiality of one's own way of living. In Xenophon, Socrates is also sometimes ironical and playful, especially in the Symposium, but his conversation is usually direct, even didactic, and often chummy in tone; his attitudes are for the most part conventional though earnest; and there is nothing to unsettle anyone or make them suspect hidden depths. It is much easier to believe that the Socrates of Plato's dialogues could have had such profound effects on the lives of the brightest of his contemporaries than did the character in Xenophon. That is one reason given for trusting Plato's more than Xenophon's portrait of the historical personage. But perhaps Socrates used the more kindly and genial manner and conventional approach depicted by Xenophon to draw out the best in some of his young men and his friends - ones who would have been put off by the Platonic subtleties. The historical Socrates may have been a more complex person than even Plato presents.
Plato and Xenophon both represent Socrates as strongly attracted to good-looking young men in the 'bloom' of their middle to late teens, just the period when they were also coming of age morally and intellectually. In both he speaks of himself as unusually 'erotic' by temperament and constantly 'in love'. But he explains his 'erotic' attachments in terms of his desire to converse with bright and serious young men, to question them about virtue and how best to live a human life, and to draw out what was best in their minds and characters. In Xenophon he describes his love as love for their souls, not their bodies, and he vigorously condemns sexual relations with any young man: using him that way disgraces him and harms him by encouraging a loose attitude as regards physical pleasures Symposium 8). The overheated sexuality of Plato's own accounts (Symposium and Phaedrus) of eros, sexual love, for a young man's beauty as motivating an adult male to pursue philosophical truth into an eternal realm of Forms (see Plato §12) is to be distinguished sharply from Socrates' ideas, as we can gather them from Xenophon and from Plato's own early dialogues.
Xenophon emphasizes Socrates' freedom from the strong appetites for food, drink, sex and physical comfort that dominate other people; his enkrateia or self-mastery is the first of the virtues that Xenophon claims for him (Memorabilia I 2.1). He was notorious for going barefoot even in winter and dressing always in a simple cloak. Socrates' self-mastery was at the centre of Antisthenes' portrayal, and is reflected also in several incidents reported in Plato, such as his serene dismissal of the young Alcibiades' efforts to seduce him sexually (Plato, Symposium 217b-219e), or, perhaps when engrossed in a philosophical problem, his standing in the open (during a break in the action while on military service) from morning to night, totally indifferent to everything around him (Symposium 220c-d). This 'ascetic' Socrates, especially as presented by Antisthenes - rejecting conventional comforts and conventional behaviour - became an inspiration for the 'Cynics' of later centuries (see Cynics).
Looking back on the early history of philosophy, later philosophers traced to Socrates a major turn in its development. As Cicero puts it: 'Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens... and compel it to ask questions about life and morality' (Tusculan Disputations V 10-11). Previously it had been concerned with the origins and nature of the physical world and the explanation of celestial and other natural phenomena. Modern scholarship follows the ancients' lead in referring standardly to philosophers before Socrates collectively as 'Presocratics' (see Presocratic philosophy). This includes Democritus, in fact a slightly younger contemporary of Socrates; Cicero's verdict needs adjustment, in that Democritus, independently of Socrates, also investigated questions about ethics and morality. With the sole exception of Epicureanism, which developed separately out of Democritean origins, all the major movements of Greek philosophy after Socrates had roots in his teaching and example. This obviously applies to Plato, whose philosophical development began with a thorough reworking and assimilation of Socratic moral inquiry, and through him to Aristotle and his fellow members of Plato's Academy, Speusippus and Xenocrates and others, as well as to later Platonists. Among Socrates' inner circle were also Aristippus of Cyrene, who founded the hedonist Cyrenaic school (see Aristippus the Elder; Cyrenaics), and Antisthenes, an older rival of Plato's and major teacher in Athens of philosophical dialectic. Both of these figure in Xenophon's Memorabilia (Antisthenes also in his Symposium), where they are vividly characterized in conversation with Socrates. Another Socratic, Euclides, founded the Megarian school (see Megarian school). These 'Socratic schools' developed different themes already prominent in Socrates' own investigations, and competed in the claim to be his true philosophical heirs (see Socratic schools; Dialectical School).
In the third to first centuries bc, both the Stoics and their rivals the Academic sceptics claimed to be carrying forward the Socratic tradition. In both cases this was based upon a reading of Plato's dialogues and perhaps other eye-witness reconstructions of Socrates' philosophy. The Academic Arcesilaus interpreted the Platonic Socrates as a sceptical inquirer, avidly searching but never satisfied that the truth on any disputed question had been finally uncovered. He could point to much about Plato's Socrates in support: his modest but firm denial that he possessed any knowledge, and his constant practice of inquiring into the truth by examining others' opinions on the basis of ideas which they themselves accepted, without formally committing himself to these ideas even when he was the one to first suggest them. Arcesilaus, however, applied his sceptical Socratic dialectic to more than the questions of ethics and human life about which Socrates himself had argued, making it cover the whole range of philosophical topics being investigated in his day. The Stoics read the dialogues (especially the Euthydemus and Protagoras) quite differently. They found Socrates espousing a complete doctrine of ethics and the psychology of human action. He posed his questions on the basis of this doctrine, leaving the respondent (and the reader) to recover for themselves the philosophical considerations underlying it. They thus emphasized the conceptions of virtue as knowledge, of virtue as unified in wisdom, and of voluntary action as motivated always by an agent's beliefs about what is best to do, that emerged through Socrates' examination of Protagoras (see §§6-7). They thought these constituted a positive, Socratic moral philosophy, and in their own moral theory they set out to revive and strengthen it with systematic arguments and with added metaphysical and physical speculations of their own. Later Stoics regularly referred to Socrates as a genuine wise man or 'sage', perhaps the only one who ever lived. He had brought to final, systematic perfection his knowledge, along Stoic lines, of what is good and bad for human beings, and what is not, and therefore possessed all the virtues and no vices, and lived unwaveringly the best, happy life, free from emotion and all other errors about human life. It is a tribute to the complexity and enigmatic character of Socrates that he could stand simultaneously as a paragon both of sceptical, non-committal inquiry and life led on that uncommitted basis, and of dogmatic knowledge of the final truth about all things human.
The figure of Socrates has continued to fascinate and to inspire ever-new interpretations of his innermost meaning. For Montaigne, he proved that human beings can convincingly and attractively order their own lives from their own resources of mind, without direction from God or religion or tradition. In the nineteenth century Kierkegaard and Nietzsche offered extensive interpretations of him, both heavily dependent upon Hegel's absolute-idealist analysis. Hegel interpreted Socrates as a quintessentially negative thinker, aiming at making people vacillate in their superficial moral beliefs and endorse none of them wholeheartedly, thus hinting that the truth, although universal and objective, lies deep within the freedom of their own subjectivity. For Kierkegaard he represents, on the contrary, the possibility of living wholeheartedly by occupying an unarticulated position somehow beyond the negative rejection but expressed through it: 'infinite absolute negativity'. In Die Geburt der Tragödie (The Birth of Tragedy) Nietzsche treats Socrates principally as having poisoned the 'tragic' attitude that made possible the great achievements of classical culture, by insisting that life should be grounded in rational understanding and justified by 'knowledge'; but his fascinated regard for Socrates led him to return to him repeatedly in his writings. Socrates was paradigmatically a philosopher whose thought, however taken up with logic and abstract argument, is inseparable from the search for self-understanding and from a deeply felt attachment to the concerns of human life. His power to fascinate and inspire is surely not exhausted.JOHN M. COOPER | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38230000 |
Today’s topic was chosen by Gautum U, who attends Caltech. He specifically asked for a “serious blog post” as opposed to a “satire” for this one. (Interestingly, the only other person who asked explicitly for a serious post was someone who chose the topic of Free Will for the 30th. It seems that philosophy is quite some serious business.)
What is the purpose of existence? It’s one of the most profound questions of metaphysics. It is even broader than the humanized form, What is the meaning of life? This specific one asks why we are here. But to be more general, we should ask, why is anything here?
Let us ask, why does Earth exist? Scientifically, there’s no real reason. Take a look at the following:
This image, known famously as the “pale blue dot” picture, was snapped by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1991. That tiny pixel right there is Earth, viewed from 4 billion miles away. Indeed, from the scale of space, Earth is just a speck of dust. Galaxies, astronomers estimate, have 100 billion stars each. And there might be 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe. And according to the still debated multiverse theory, our universe may be only a tiny bubble in a vast sea of universes. And our Earth is but one of the thousands of objects floating the Sun. And humans have been on Earth for only a tiny fraction of its history.
It is like you are looking at an infinite beach, and you point at one grain of sand, and you ask, “Why does this grain of sand exist?” It seems this is the wrong question. We should instead ask, “Why does this beach exist?”
Why does the universe (or multiverse) exist? Again, there doesn’t seem to be any intrinsic purpose.
If you believe in God, you would say, the universe or multiverse exists because God created it. But then this turtles down to why does God exist? By most definitions of God, we would never be able to know.
So generalizing the question does not seem like the right thing to do either, as it gets us nowhere. If it’s futile to ask why an atom exists, and also futile why the universe exists, then what is there to ask?
Why we exist. Human beings. Gautam’s topic as originally stated was “the purpose of our existence” (emphasis added). Just like atoms to the entire universe, we don’t seem to have any intrinsic reason to be here. Rather, the purpose of our existence is what we invoke upon ourselves, by placing faith into religions (or the act of not doing so), by following our emotions and values, by setting goals and aspirations, and by rationalizing what we know. The purpose of our existence is not given to us; it’s there for us to find. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38236000 |
Martin Harwit has argued that we cannot have made more than ten per cent of the crucial discoveries in Astronomy. He uses what John Barrow aptly calls `the proof-readers argument'. If two independent readers look at a manuscript then it is possible to estimate, by comparing their different results, how many errors there must be in total, including those not identified. In an analogous way two independent astronomical channels (say optical and X-ray) can be used to examine the Universe and a comparison of their separate key discoveries will yield an estimate of the numbers still to be found.
In any case with so little data to work on it shouldn't be too difficult to devise a plausible theory to account for them. It is, however, sobering to compare the cosmological situation with the history of other sciences.
Take geology. Men were living on the earth for millions of years, and quarrying rock, digging mines and canals and puzzling over its fossils for thousands of years, before unexpected palaeomagnetic patterns revealed for certain the key idea of Continental Drift.
In stellar physics two thousand years elapsed between Hipparcos's speculations and Bessel's first measurement of a stellar distance. Seventy years later the statistical patterns in the H-R diagram led to our understanding of stellar structure.
However the closest comparison comes from my own field of galaxy astronomy which is, as an observational science, almost exactly contemporary with cosmology. Although we now have good spectra and images of thousands of galaxies the list of fundamental things we don't know about them (Table 3) is far more striking that the list of things we do.
|1.||How our knowledge is warped by Selection Effects.|
|2.||What they are mostly made of. (Dark Matter?)|
|3.||How they formed - and when.|
|4.||How much internal extinction they suffer from.|
|5.||What controls their global star-formation rates.|
|6.||What parts their nuclei and halos play.|
|7.||If there are genuine correlations among their global properties.|
|8.||How they keep their gas/star balances.|
Of course these are only arguments by analogy. The optimistic cosmologist can always counter argue [I don't know how] that the Universe in the large is a great deal simpler than its constituent parts. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38241000 |
|Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1991. 29:
Copyright © 1991 by . All rights reserved
Several major themes have emerged from the preceding discussion:
|1.||In most or all galaxies, globular clusters are distinctly more metal-poor, by [Fe/H] ~ -0.5, than the spheroid-population field stars.|
|2.||Both the average and range of cluster metallicity increase with galaxy size. These correlations parallel the ones for the metallicities of the galaxies themselves, and support the view that similar enrichment processes generated both types of halo subsystems.|
|3.||Globular clusters in all galaxies have similar, though not identical, luminosity distributions. For distance scale purposes, the calibrations of GCLFs are not yet adequate for use as high-precision (± 0.2-mag) standard candles. The present data are, however, sufficient to exert strong theoretical constraints favoring a universal cluster formation process insensitive to metallicity and with only modest later influences from dynamical evolution in most of the halo.|
|4.||In giant ellipticals, GCSs are often (but not always) more spatially extended than the halo light. A few have been shown to have higher velocity dispersions as well, and thus to form a dynamically different halo population than the spheroid stars.|
|5.||In most large galaxies, the inner ~ 1-2 kpc of their spheroids have probably been almost totally depopulated of globular clusters through many dynamical mechanisms. At larger Rgc, the effectiveness of these mechanisms falls off rapidly, leaving only gradual erosive processes. It is not yet clear if these processes act much differently in practice for disk galaxies as opposed to ellipticals.|
|6.||In today's universe, few globular clusters are being formed (that is, the formation of dense clusters with a characteristic mass ~ 105-6 M is extremely rare). Though there is no reason to believe that the processes of star cluster formation 15 Gy ago were fundamentally different than today, the prevailing physical conditions of the protocluster gas then clearly favored more massive objects. The formation of globular clusters was an early, but secondary, process (that is, clearly associated with their surrounding protogalaxies).|
|7.||Arguments based on GCS spatial distributions, metallicity distributions, and dynamics suggest that the high-SN giant ellipticals such as in Virgo and Fornax did not form by mergers of disk galaxies or dwarfs. The merger scenario is, however, more viable for E galaxies in sparse environments (smaller groups and the field) and perhaps for some cD galaxies.|
How else may we use GCSs to understand the formation of galaxies? On the observational side, we need to fill in the many areas that are presently sketched out only with broad brush strokes:
|1.||The metallicity distribution of GCs has proven to be an effective touchstone of interpretive models. We need to accumulate spectra of clusters in a wider variety of galaxies, combined with multicolor photometry in metallicity-sensitive indices.|
|2.||Luminosity function work has just begun to be exploited. For example, the luminosity distributions of clusters within Rgc 3 kpc in giant galaxies should carry the strongest imprint of dynamical evolution; direct observations could be straightforwardly made in many galaxies. Larger samples of clusters taken from the rich Virgo and Fornax systems will reveal fine structure in the GCLF and provide essential constraints on eventual theoretical modelling. And deep photometry of clusters in additional near-field galaxies should finally tell us how accurate GCLFs can be as distance indicators. In addition, the brightest globulars in giant E galaxies may prove to be useful long-range standard candles.|
|3.||It is possible that the globular clusters in central giant ellipticals such as M87 are the oldest visible objects in the universe. High-S/N spectra of them, compared with integrated spectra of Milky Way globulars and fitted with population synthesis codes, may lead to useful age determinations relative to the Milky Way halo and to stronger limits on the Hubble time.|
|4.||Modern spectroscopic and imaging techniques are finally putting a complete and accurate understanding of the important M31 cluster system within reach.|
|5.||The advent of large-format CCD arrays will enable us to study the large-scale structures of globular cluster systems far more quantitatively and accurately.|
|6.||Comprehensive radial velocity surveys of GCSs can place unique limits on the large-scale mass distribution of galaxies, and on the orbital characteristics of the halo clusters. For GCSs at or beyond Virgo-like distances, the velocity measurements do press the limits of current technology, but this field will be a rich mine for the new generation of 8-meter-class telescopes to explore.|
On the theoretical side, recommendations for future work may be easy to prescribe but will be hard to execute. A formation model specific enough to predict an initial cluster mass spectrum as a function of density and metallicity would be a major achievement. The dynamical evolution of GCSs within galaxies of different types also needs to be modelled more comprehensively, with the eventual goal of predicting the full evolution of the GCLF as a function of parent galaxy type and galactocentric distance.
Because they are virtually the only remaining witnesses to the long-vanished first epoch of galaxy formation, globular clusters stand among the most powerful cosmological probes that we have. Although many intriguing new results and questions have emerged from the observational work of the past decade, we have also confirmed that globular cluster systems resemble each other rather closely. Thus by extending our study of these remarkable objects, we are uncovering a common theme in the earliest history of the galaxies.
It is a pleasure to give credit for projects, conversations, and ideas generated together over the years to many colleagues and friends, including David Hanes, Gretchen Harris, Hugh Harris, Jim Hesser, Chris Pritchet, Sidney van den Bergh, Malcolm Smith, Michael Fall, and Richard Larson. The healthy state of our field today owes a great deal especially to the vision of René Racine, who in the 1970s first set in motion much of the work discussed above. I am pleased to acknowledge the hospitality of Kitt Peak National Observatory, and D. and M. Gehret of the Orinda IMAC, as well as financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38242000 |
In the depths of the mountainous jungle terrain of the Macarena National Park in southern Colombia, hundreds of labourers toiled amid endless fields of coca bushes under a scorching sun. Using their bare hands, they tore out the green coca plant – the main ingredient for cocaine – from its roots and destroyed it. Surrounding them were dozens of armed soldiers deployed to protect them from possible guerrilla attacks. The oppressive sound of military helicopters hovering above filled the humid air. It took eight months for 900 labourers to destroy nearly 3,000 of the 4,600 hectares of coca in the park.
The project was beset with problems from the start. The Macarena National Park and its surrounding area is the heartland of the FARC guerillas – Colombia’s largest guerrilla group. The risk of working in FARC-controlled territory was great. The guerrillas ambushed government workers and soldiers in a bid to maintain their territorial control.
Over the months, workers resigned their jobs and deserted. The number of workers who dared to remain dwindled to around 200. The risk to their lives was simply not worth the humble wages, just $12 a day. Since the start of the campaign bomb attacks and landmines placed by the guerrillas have killed 14 police and 8 contract workers.
The mounting death toll forced the Government to shift to more extreme methods of destroying coca – crop-spraying. Duster planes, accompanied by military helicopters, are now flying low over the park’s jungle canopies spewing the toxic herbicide, which contains the controversial chemical glysophate. Today Colombia is the only country to use such crop-spraying methods in its war on drugs and also to do it in its own national parks.
A recent editorial in Colombia’s leading daily, El Tiempo, was scathing: ‘Those who think that fumigating the Macarena National Park will bring an end to coca growing there are mistaken. There will be more coca and less of the national park.’ Ecuador shares a jungle border with its neighbour Colombia and the Ecuadorian authorities have repeatedly raised concerns over the environmental effects of spraying glysophate along their shared borders. The aerial fumigation of coca fields is staunchly supported by the US. It’s a profitable business and the bulk of contractors, herbicides, and duster planes originate in the US.
Despite decades of crop spraying, Colombia remains the world’s leading producer of cocaine, supplying 90 per cent of the US market. Environmentalists in and outside Colombia fear that crop-spraying will also spread to other national parks. According to the Colombian authorities, it will take five days to fumigate the remaining coca fields in Macarena. But it will take decades to discover the real extent of the damage glysophate causes in one of the most biodiverse countries on earth.Anastasia Moloney
This first appeared in our award-winning magazine - to read more, subscribe from just £7 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38244000 |
Left: Cars in the bed of the derelict canal. Right: The canal today, with the access to the Falkirk Wheel.
By Trevor Timpson
The Forth and Clyde Canal was derelict for decades. Its locks blocked up with rubbish, and wherever it interfered with road plans it was filled in and channelled through a pipe. It was seen only as a store of water for industry.
Now, with the industry mostly gone, Scotland's first substantial canal lives on. Not just reopened, but the setting for some of modern Britain's most adventurous engineering works - and huge landmark art projects.
On the site of an old tar plant stands the Falkirk Wheel, which raises boats 35 metres from the Forth and Clyde to the level of the Union Canal to Edinburgh. Half a million people visit it every year. Just a start, say British Waterways.
'Can do attitude'
Built from 1768 to 1790, the Forth and Clyde closed to navigation in 1963.
Campaigners began operating boats on it again from the 1970s. Vessels were placed on stretches that no longer connected with each other, to arouse interest and deter development schemes.
But Jim McLachlan, chairman of the Forth and Clyde Canal Society said: "We seriously didn't expect the whole thing to be opened up in our lifetime."
Nevertheless, gradually a new "can do" attitude grew up among British Waterways management, he says - a desire to get the full value out of the waterway.
Then came the £84.5m Millennium Link project, culminating in the opening of the two canals and the Wheel by the Queen in 2002.
Auchinstarry marina near Kilsyth: a success story, says British Waterways
Canal societies collected tens of thousands of signatures to prove to the Lottery Millennium Commissioners that the plan to revive the link was not just a good project, but a "people's project".
When work on the Millennium Link began in the 1990s, there were 32 major obstructions across the Forth and Clyde Canal. It cost £10m to reroute utility pipes laid in the canal after it closed to navigation.
Now, where boat building yards and foundries lined the canal banks, bluebells and bright yellow gorse bloom. In the old timber basins, swans guard their nests.
Where railway sidings carried coal wagons to the canal at Kirkintilloch, a marina and residential development is open for business.
And though Strathclyde Police have set sail on the canal on occasions to catch "groups involved in anti-social behaviour", these are greatly outnumbered by ordinary walkers and cyclists.
British Waterways Scotland has been "bowled over" by the numbers using the towpath, says Richard Millar, business development manager.
"People are travelling from one side of Scotland to the other or travelling to work, or just going out for a walk."
There are over 300 boats on the canal compared with perhaps 50 before the official reopening.
Boat trips are mostly confined to the lock-free middle section, from Maryhill in the west to Banknock in the east, including the Glasgow branch, which gives panoramic views of the city from the redeveloped Spiers Wharf.
Vessels passing through the canal from sea to sea - which was the original intention of the canal - are lagging behind expectations.
"Millennium Link was hoping to see 500 transits of the canal a year; I think we're seeing, tops, 200," says Richard Millar.
Jim MacLachlan says a "major compromise" of the Millennium Link was that the budget did not allow the canal to be reopened all the way back into Grangemouth - a town it created.
Cut off from Grangemouth by the M9, the canal got a new eastern entry to the east of Falkirk.
But this is so far upstream on the tidal River Carron (leading to the Forth) that there is only a brief "window" for craft to pass between the river and the canal, between the Carron being too shallow, and too deep, so boats cannot fit under the bridges.
Now, another giant project promises to come to the rescue. The £41m Helix project, also Lottery backed, for the redevelopment of land to the east of Falkirk includes the extension of the canal back into Grangemouth, with an easier link to the Carron.
Scale and pride
As part of the Helix project the Kelpies - twin 35-metre tall horse-head sculptures - will rock back and forward on their axis, displacing the water to fill a new lock by the Carron.
Sculptor Andy Scott says "the money's in the bank" for the Kelpies, and the full-size statues are intended to be completed in 2011.
But that is not enough for British Waterways, Andy Scott and the Forth and Clyde.
Just east of Maryhill, the east-west towpath is interrupted where the Glasgow branch leaves the main canal.
Now, the planning application has gone in for a three-way bridge straddling the canal junction - supported by the towering Bigman, a 30-metre steel Andy Scott statue holding the supports in its outstretched hand like puppet strings.
"For me it's got that thing about scale and pride and again some instance of the history of the canal and area," says Scott.
The Maryhill flight of locks from the Kelvin aqueduct
And still the plans pile up. In Maryhill is a magnificent flight of locks, leading down to the sturdy aqueduct which takes the canal across the River Kelvin.
In the 1970s volunteers pulled 2,000 tonnes of rubbish out of those same locks.
Now Glasgow has ambitious plans for canoeing, caving and canyoneering courses down the incline beside them.
And the city is also proposing a watersports centre at Port Dundas, the canal's Glasgow terminus.
Then there is consideration of constructing access to Loch Lomond, close to the canal's western end.
"There's been 40 years when development hasn't happened on it," says Richard Millar. "And the opportunities that lie out there are tremendous." | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38247000 |
The start of school means it’s vaccine time, and a new 667-page report released today from the Institute of Medicine should offer parents some reassurance. It found that there is no connection between the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and autism, despite some parent’s lingering concerns. And it said that other serious side effects of that and other childhood vaccines were rare.
A committee of experts convened by the IOM culled through more than 12,000 peer-reviewed articles to examine whether eight childhood vaccines caused adverse events. The report specifically ruled out any causal relationship between the flu shot and Bell’s Palsy, and found that getting vaccinated against the flu doesn’t make asthma worse. It also dispelled any notions of a connection between the diptheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine or the MMR vaccine and type-1 diabetes.
Committee chair Ellen Wright Clayton, professor of pediatrics and law at Vanderbilt University, said in a statement:
With the start of the new school year, it's time to ensure that children are up to date on their immunizations, making this report's findings about the safety of these eight vaccines particularly timely...The findings should be reassuring to parents that few health problems are clearly connected to immunizations, and these effects occur relatively rarely. And repeated study has made clear that some health problems are not caused by vaccines.
The report found that only 14 specific health outcomes had convincing evidence linking them to vaccines—and most of those were rare. The committee’s findings about those side effects include:
• The MMR vaccine can lead to fever-triggered seizures in some patients, but almost always without long-term consequences. It can also lead to a rare form of brain inflammation in some people with severe immune deficiencies.
• The chickenpox vaccine (varicella) can cause brain swelling, pneumonia, hepatitis, meningitis, shingles and chicken pox in a minority of immunocompromised patients, as well as in some people with normal immune systems.
• The MMR vaccine, and those for chicken pox, the flu, hepatitis B, meningitis, and tetanus, can trigger anaphylaxis, a serious allergic reaction that can appear shortly after injection.
• Injections of vaccines in general can trigger fainting and inflammation at the injection site.
The committee also found links between the MMR vaccine and short-term joint pain in some women and children, and between the human papilomma virus (HPV) vaccine and anaphylaxis. But the data was less convincing that the vaccines caused those problems.
The results of the report will help guide decisions made under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which pays damages to those injured by vaccines.
Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality [Institute of Medicine] | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38250000 |
- Dense and accessible patches of prey, as opposed to just more food options, is better for marine animals.
- How different species are able to determine where the best patches of food sources are located is uncertain.
Marine animal populations thrive when presented with dense and accessible patches of prey, as opposed to just more of it, according to new research.
It turns out that sheer abundance of food is less important than what scientists sometimes call "patchiness" — the spatial distribution of a food source. Marine animals, from birds to dolphins, are able to home in on dense patches of food, making a more efficient use of precious energy for mealtime.
"Patchiness is not only ubiquitous in marine systems, it ultimately dictates the behavior of many animals and their relationships to the environment," Kelly Benoit-Bird, an Oregon State University oceanographer, said in a statement.
Benoit-Bird is the lead author of a study published this week in the journal Biology Letters. The research used sound waves to pinpoint the distribution of krill and other anchors of the food chain in waters near Hawaii.
The scientists found that the tiny crustaceans weren't uniformly distributed, but instead congregated in patches. This explained why two colonies of fur seals and seabirds were faring poorly but a third was healthy, the researchers said.
"The amount of food near the third colony was not abundant," Benoit-Bird said, "but what was there was sufficiently dense, and at the right depth. That made it more accessible for predation than the krill near the other two colonies."
The team also found that a type of bird that feeds on krill, called the thick-billed murre, was able to target the densest swarms of the tiny organisms. Murres dove to an astonishing 650 feet (200 meters) below the ocean's surface in search of their prey.
"The murres are amazingly good at diving right down to the best patches," Benoit-Bird said. It's not clear how the birds identify these feasts lurking deep beneath the surface of the ocean, she added.
The team used sound waves not only to identify the gatherings of krill but to track murres, dolphins, squid and other animals. Time and again, they found that by locating the densest clouds of phytoplankton, tiny ocean plants that are themselves a food source for krill, it was possible to figure out where these larger animals would gather.
Although the concept of "patchiness" is not new, Bird-Benoit said, it may play a larger role in the health of ocean ecosystems than thought.
"Now we need more research to determine how different species are able to determine where the best patches are," she said. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38251000 |
According to CorkMasters, cork forests are indeed nearly natural: the cork is harvested off trees without permanently harming the trees, and no herbicides, fertilisers or irrigation are needed. Although a cork forest must involve some meddling with nature (keeping access roads to trees clear, perhaps even mowing around trees, perhaps removing other kinds of trees), it seems the WWF have no problems with this kind of agricultural impact.
This relates to Dan Simon's elucidation of the idea of inaction as it applies to the precautionary principle. Is "inaction" continuing to use cork forests as they've been used for centuries? Or is "inaction" completely stopping the "exploitation" of these forests? Ask the question again about fossil fuel use, and it's clear that most quick answers to these questions depend on ill-examined notions of what is natural and what is action, and probably a lot of indoctrination about environmental good and bad. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38263000 |
Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Overview
This expanded factsheet provides an overview of child sexual abuse prevention and offers resources and answers the following questions:
- What is child sexual abuse?
- How common is child sexual abuse?
- Who are the victims of child sexual abuse?
- Who are the perpetrators of child sexual abuse?
- What are the warning signs that a child may be sexually abused?
- Risk factors for the perpetration of child sexual abuse?
- How can I reduce the risk of children being abused?
Browse the rest of the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Information Packet: overview, technical assistance bulletin, technical assistance guide on programs for adults, technical assistance guide for programs for children, resource list, annotated bibliography, research brief and online special collection. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38271000 |
|A man looks at a satellite image of North Korea’s nuclear test site in Punggye-ri.(Yonhap News)|
North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test complex is an ideal place to conduct underground atomic detonations due to its geological features and isolated location, South Korean observers said.
Observers in the military and government said Pyongyang selected the region and started constructing the site likely over two decades ago, although the certain date is not known. From the 1990s onward, the South Korean and U.S. intelligence agencies have been closely observing the site. The site was used by the communist country to detonate its first and second nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, with Seoul predicting a third test can take place at anytime if the North’s leadership decides to take such a step.
The North said late last month that it will build up its capability to deter aggression right after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the Dec. 12 launching of a long range rocket. The international community viewed the launch as a cover to test the country’s ballistic missile technology.
Local geologists said the region located in North Hamgyeong Province, Kilju County has extensive granite bedrock formations that can help prevent radioactive materials from leaking to the surface following an atomic detonation.
In addition, the site is located in the remote Hamgyeong Mountain Range in the northeastern part of the country, and surrounded by high peaks such as the 2,205-meter-high Mt. Mantap and Mt. Hakmu. The mountain range has the largest number of high peaks on the Korean Peninsula and forms one of the natural barriers of North Korea’s Kaema Plateau.
North Korean watchers said that Pyongyang probably dug “L-shaped” tunnels for the two previous tests with the aims of preventing radiation leaks, although precautions taken ahead of the first detonation may have not prevented radioactive materials from escaping into the outside environment.
The first test conducted in the eastern shaft may have used a straight horizontal tunnel connected to the vertical shaft that leads to the surface. This construction may have been inadequate to deal with the tremendous pressure and shock blast of a nuclear explosion.
The second test carried out on the western shaft, on the other hand, may have used a spiral shaped horizontal shaft reinforced with barriers to contain the contamination, while the new southern tunnel probably has similar features. Satellite images showed for some time that the isolationist country had completed work on a new shaft located south of the 2006 and 2009 test areas, while TV footage that was released by South Korea’s military earlier in the day showed the inside of a test tunnel with spiraling features and some 9-10 barriers captured in September 2010. The footage taken by the (North) Korean Central TV Broadcasting Station is probably of the latest tunnel.
Related to various features of the Punggye-ri test site, the Institute for Science and International Studies (ISIS) said in a report that the location of the instrumentation bunker, which can collect data from the test, is generally very similar to the Ras Koh complex used by Pakistan for its 1998 nuclear test. The ISIS is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit think tank dedicated to informing the public about international security issues.
Intelligence also showed that while the eastern shaft used in the first test has been sealed off, there has been considerable activity in the new southern shaft and the western tunnel used for the second test almost four years ago.
“Such activity can be seen as a sign that these shafts will be used for the next detonation test,” a government insider, who did not want to identified, said.
He said that Seoul thinks that the western shaft may be used in the upcoming test, but policymakers have said that if the North decides to really test its weapons ability, both tunnels may be utilized.
The North’s powerful National Defense Committee issued a warning on Jan. 24 that it will conduct a “high level” test to show its nuclear deterrence capability.
Meanwhile, Seoul has consistently warned the North that detonating another tunnel is the wrong move and will only worsen the situation.
“At this juncture, the right step for the North would be to listen to the international community and desist from another test,” said Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38276000 |
At my talk last night to the Friends of Sausal Creek, I delivered a lot of information about the rock units exposed along Shephard Creek. For a while here I will post what I showed the crowd, starting at the bottom.
The Joaquin Miller Formation is a thick sequence of mostly shale, around 95 million years old (Late Cretaceous Epoch, specifically the Cenomanian Age). It underlies nearly all the east side of the valley of Palo Seco Creek, running into Joaquin Miller Park. It weathers readily there, turning easily back into the clay it once was. This exposure is a roadcut at the intersection of Scout and Ascot drives. The beds are steeply tilted into the hillside, something that’s true of all the rocks in the canyon.
And here’s a closeup.
These rocks mostly crumble in the hand. Toward the top of the unit, it gets more sandy; an example is shown here from the bed of Shephard Creek. Eventually it turns to straight sandstone and gets a new name, the Oakland Conglomerate (here are three pages on that rock unit, 1 – 2 – 3).
The Joaquin Miller Formation was laid down far from land, but not very far. This is all brown clay that comes from continental sources, and the occasional sandy beds are evidence that underwater landslides could sometimes reach here. Picture it way out in the Gulf of Mexico, where Mississippi River mud can cascade down the continental slope for great distances. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38278000 |
David M. Lane
Values of Pearson's Correlation, Variance Sum Law, Measures of Variability
The collection of data involves measurement. Measurement of some characteristics such as height and weight are relatively straightforward. The measurement of psychological attributes such as self esteem can be complex. A good measurement scale should be both reliable and valid. These concepts will be discussed in turn.
The notion of reliability revolves around whether you would get at least approximately the same result if you measure something twice with the same measurement instrument. A common way to define reliability is the correlation between parallel forms of a test. Letting "test" represent a parallel form of the test, the symbol rtest,test is used to denote the reliability of the test.
True Scores and Error
Assume you wish to measure a person's mean response time to the onset of a stimulus. For simplicity, assume that there is no learning over tests which, of course, is not really true. The person is given 1,000 trials on the task and you obtain the response time on each trial.
The mean response time over the 1,000 trials can be thought of as the person's "true" score, or at least a very good approximation of it. Theoretically, the true score is the mean that would be approached as the number of trials increases indefinitely.
An individual response time can be thought of as being composed of two parts: the true score and the error of measurement. Thus if the person's true score were 345 and their response on one of the trials was 358, then the error of measurement would be 13. Similarly, if the response time were 340, the error of measurement would be -5.
Now consider the more realistic example of a class of students taking a 100-point true/false exam. Let's assume that each student knows the answer to some of the questions and has no idea about the other questions. For the sake of simplicity, we are assuming there is no partial knowledge of any of the answers and for a given question a student either knows the answer or guesses. Finally, assume the test is scored such that a student receives one point for a correct answer and loses a point for an incorrect answer. In this example, a student's true score is the number of questions they know the answer to and their error score is their score on the questions they guessed on. For example, assume a student knew 90 of the answers and guessed correctly on 7 of the remaining 10 (and therefore incorrectly on 3). Their true score would be 90 since that is the number of answers they knew. Their error score would be 7 - 3 = 4 and therefore their actual test score would be 90 + 4.
Every test score can be thought of as the sum of two independent components, the true score and the error score. This can be written as:
The following expression follows directly from the Variance Sum Law:
Reliability in Terms of True Scores and Error
It can be shown that the reliability of a test, rtest,test, is the ratio of true-score variance to test-score variance. This can be written as:
Download PDF of derivation
It is important to understand the implications of the role the variance of true scores plays in the definition of reliability: If a test were given in two populations for which the variance of the true scores differed, the reliability of the test would be higher in the population with the higher true-score variance. Therefore, reliability is not a property of a test per se but the reliability of a test in a given population.
Assessing Error of Measurement
The reliability of a test does not show directly how close the test scores are to the true scores. That is, it does not reveal how much a person's test score would vary across parallel forms of test. By definition, the mean over a large number of parallel tests would be the true score. The standard deviation of a person's test scores would indicate how much the test scores vary from the true score. This standard deviation is called the standard error of measurement. In practice, it is not practical to give a test over and over to the same person and/or assume that there are no practice effects. Instead, the following formula is used to estimate the standard error of measurement.
where smeasurement is the standard error of measurement, stest is the standard deviation of the test scores, and rtest,test is the reliability of the test. Taking the extremes, if the reliability is 0 then the standard error of measurement is equal to the standard deviation of the test; if the reliability is perfect (1.0) then the standard error of measurement is 0.
It is important to make measures as reliable as is practically possible. Suppose an investigator is studying the relationship between spatial ability and a set of other variables. The higher the reliability of the test of spatial ability, the higher the correlations will be. Similarly, if an experimenter seeks to determine whether a particular exercise regiment decreases blood pressure, the higher the reliability of the measure of blood pressure, the more sensitive the experiment. More precisely, the higher the reliability the higher the power of the experiment. Power is covered in detail here. Finally, if a test is being used to select students for college admission or employees for jobs, the higher the reliability of the test the stronger will be the relationship to the criterion.
Two basic ways of increasing reliability are (1) to improve the quality of the items and (2) to increase the number of items. Items that are either too easy so that almost everyone gets them correct or too difficult so that almost no one gets them correct are not good items: they provide very little information. In most contexts, items which about half the people get correct are the best (other things being equal).
Items that do not correlate with other items can usually be improved. Sometimes the item is confusing or ambiguous.
Increasing the number of items increases reliability in the manner shown by the following formula:
where k is the factor by which the test length is increased, rnew,new is the reliability of the new longer test, and rtest,test is the current reliability. For example, if a test with 50 items has a reliability of .70 then the reliability of a test that is 1.5 times longer (75 items) would be calculated as follows.
which equals 0.78. Thus increasing the number of items from 50 to 75 would increase the reliability from 0.70 to 0.78.
It is important to note that this formula assumes the new items have the same characteristics as the old items. Obviously adding poor items would not increase the reliability as expected and might even decrease the reliability.
More Information on Reliability from William Trochim's Knowledge Source
The validity of a test refers to whether the test measures what it is supposed to measure. The three most common types of validity are face validity, empirical validity, and construct validity. We consider these types of validity below.
A test's face validity refers to whether the test appears to measure what it is supposed to measure. That is, does the test "on its face" appear to measure what it is supposed to be measuring. An Asian history test consisting of a series of questions about Asian history would have high face validity. If the test included primarily questions about American history then it would have little or no face validity as a test of Asian history.
Predictive validity (sometimes called empirical validity) refers to a test's ability to predict the relevant behavior. For example, the main way in which SAT tests are validated is by their ability to predict college grades. Thus, to the extent these tests are successful at predicting college grades they are said to possess predictive validity.
Construct validity is more difficult to define. In general, a test has construct validity if its pattern of correlations with other measures is in line with the construct it is purporting to measure. Construct validity can be established by showing a test has both convergent and divergent validity. A test has convergent validity if it correlates with other tests that are also measures of the construct in question. Divergent validity is established by showing the test does not correlate highly with tests of other constructs. Of course, some constructs may overlap so the establishment of convergent and divergent validity can be complex.
To take an example, suppose one wished to establish the construct validity of a new test of spatial ability. Convergent and divergent validity could be established by showing the test correlates relatively highly with other measures of spatial ability but less highly with tests of verbal ability or social intelligence.
Reliability and Predictive Validity
The reliability of a test limits the size of the correlation between the test and other measures. In general, the correlation of a test with another measure will be lower than the test's reliability. After all, how could a test correlate with something else as high as it correlates with a parallel form of itself? Theoretically it is possible for a test to correlate as high as the square root of the reliability with another measure. For example, if a test has a reliability of 0.81 then it could correlate as high as 0.90 with another measure. This could happen if the other measure were a perfectly reliable test of the same construct as the test in question. In practice, this is very unlikely.
A correlation above the upper limit set by reliabilities can act as a red flag for design flaws. For example, Vul, Harris, Winkielman, and Paschler (2009) found that in many studies the correlations between various fMRI activation patterns and personality measures were higher than their reliabilities would allow. A careful examination of these studies revealed serious design flaws.
Vul, E., Harris, C., Winkielman, P., & Paschler, H. (2009) Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 274-290.
Please answer the questions: | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38296000 |
By Gwen Hill MS, RD, LD
Happy Sweet Potato Month! Sweet potatoes are what we consider a “nutrient dense food.” They are filled with many important nutrients that your body needs and are low in the nutrients you should limit. One medium sweet potato has only 100 calories, less than one gram of fat and 41 mg of sodium. Yet it gives you a high amount of several important nutrients, including:
Fiber - 13% of RDA
Vitamin C - 25% of RDA
Vitamin A - 730% of RDA!
All of these nutrients are important for different reasons. Fiber helps our body regulate blood sugar, reduce bad cholesterol and stay regular. Vitamin C is an important antioxidant, helps maintain our immune function and is a key player in collagen synthesis, which gives our skin its healthy and resilient qualities.
Though many great nutrients are found in this vegetable, Vitamin A is the real star. Sweet potatoes have a high amount of carotenoids, which are a precursor to Vitamin A. Carotenoids are responsible for the signature yellow/orange color - the deeper the color, the richer the level of carotenoids the veggie contains. Vitamin A plays many roles in the body, including helping the body determine which white blood cells it needs to make in order to fight infection and other immune functions. It is also important for vision. Vitamin A deficiency is the most significant cause of blindness in the developing world.
Eating nutrient dense foods, like sweet potatoes, will help improve your overall health. The recipe highlighted this week incorporates sweet potatoes into gnocchi. As a starchy vegetable, it is easy to see how this potato could provide necessary hearty components to this dish. Enjoy the recipe after the jump!
Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Fried Sage and Pine Nuts
Adapted from Gourmet
1 1/4 lb russet potatoes
1 (3/4-lb) sweet potato
1 large egg
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving
1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup sage leaves (from 1 bunch)
1/3 cup pine nuts, very thinly sliced
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1. Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in middle.
2. Pierce russet and sweet potatoes in several places with a fork, then bake in a 4-sided sheet pan until just tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
3. Cool potatoes slightly, then peel and force through ricer into sheet pan, spreading in an even layer. Cool potatoes completely.
4. Lightly flour 2 or 3 large baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
5. Beat together egg, nutmeg, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper in a small bowl.
6. Gather potatoes into a mound in sheet pan, using a pastry scraper if you have one, and form a well in center.
7. Pour egg mixture into well, then knead into potatoes. Knead in cheese and 1 1/2 cups flour, then knead, adding more flour as necessary, until mixture forms a smooth but slightly sticky dough. Dust top lightly with some of flour.
8. Cut dough into 6 pieces. Form one piece of dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rope on a lightly floured surface. Cut rope into 1/2-inch pieces. Gently roll each piece into a ball and lightly dust with flour.
9. Repeat with remaining 5 pieces of dough.
10. Turn a fork over and hold at a 45-degree angle, with tips of tines touching work surface. Working with one at a time, roll gnocchi down fork tines, pressing with your thumb, to make ridges on one side. Transfer gnocchi as formed to baking sheets.
Fry sage leaves and pine nuts:
1. Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Fry sage leaves in three batches, stirring, until they turn just a shade lighter and crisp (they will continue to crisp as they cool), about 30 seconds per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Season lightly with salt.
2. Fry pine nuts in three batches, stirring, until golden and crisp, about 30 seconds per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Season lightly with salt. Reserve oil in skillet.
1. Add butter to oil in skillet with 1/2 tsp. salt and cook until golden-brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
1. Add half of gnocchi to a pasta pot of well-salted boiling water and stir. Cook until they float to surface, about 3 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to skillet with butter sauce. Cook remaining gnocchi in same manner, transferring to skillet as cooked.
2. Heat gnocchi in skillet over medium heat, stirring to coat.
3. Serve sprinkled with fried sage and pine nuts and grated cheese. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38298000 |
After the hurricane passed, some of the lilacs in my yard were lying on their sides with half their roots out of the ground. Can I do something to save them?
It’s best to leave the righting of large, heavy plants like trees to the professionals (as well as the decision of whether or not a tree can be saved). But straightening a toppled shrub is not difficult. Do it now, while the soil is still soft from all the rain.
All you have to do is firmly shove the shrub back into an upright position, then pound a few tall stakes vertically into the ground to keep it upright. Position the stakes where they will provide support for the shrub; you may need to tie branches to the stakes.
Try to protect the already compromised roots from further disturbance. If roots have been pulled out of the ground, you may need to carefully excavate a hole for them on the lilac’s upwind side. Then replace the soil, burying the roots at the same depth they were before the storm. Finish with a layer of organic mulch. Ideally, the shrub should be secure enough so that another strong wind won’t rock the plant and tug on the root system.
If the roots were damaged severely, consider pruning some of the top growth to compensate for the loss. Selectively remove a few of the oldest stems, cutting them all the way to the ground. This practice, called renewal pruning, rejuvenates older lilacs and promotes better flowering, even when the shrub hasn’t been pushed over by a hurricane. —Doug Hall | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38303000 |
Definition of aconite
a poisonous plant of the buttercup family, which bears hooded pink or purple flowers. It is native to temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.
- Genus Aconitum, family Ranunculaceae: many species, including monkshood and wolfsbane
an extract of aconite, used as a poison or in medicinal preparations. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38308000 |
Eaton's, which was once Canada's largest department store chain, partnered with development companies throughout the 1970s and 1980s to develop downtown shopping malls in cities across Canada. Each mall contained an Eaton's store, or was in close proximity to an Eaton's store, and typically the mall itself carried the "Eaton Centre" name. These joint-ventures represented a significant retail development trend in Canada during that period.
With the demise of the Eaton's chain in 1999, and the retiring of the Eaton's name as a retail banner in 2002, some of these malls have been renamed, although three of the larger ones continue to carry the Eaton name. Some malls in smaller urban areas, which were typically the least successful of all the Eaton Centre developments, have been demolished or converted to other, non-retail uses.
Before the Eaton Centres
Prior to the building of these large shopping malls, Eatons, like other departments stores in Canada and around the world, built stand-alone buildings that would hold one large department store only. Often these large retailers dominated the central cores of many mid-sized Canadian sized Canadian cities. Examples include Eaton's Building , College Park , and Eaton's Annex (Toronto). | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38309000 |
Betsy's Plesiosaur, Nichollsia borealis
Nichollsia borealis, one of the oldest and most complete plesiosaur fossils recovered in North America, and the oldest yet discovered from the Cretaceous Period, was uncovered in a Syncrude Canada Ltd. mine near Fort McMurray, Alberta, in 1994.
Two U of Calgary scientists, Dr. Patrick Druckenmiller and Dr. Anthony Russell have named the 2.6m long plesiosaur Nichollsia borealis in memory of the late Elizabeth (Betsy) Nicholls, former curator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. Nicholls was a renowned palaeontologist who is credited with transforming the understanding of prehistoric ocean life by describing the largest-ever marine reptile, a 23-metre-long ichthyosaur, discovered in northern British Columbia in 1999.
Elizabeth (Betsy) Nicholls conducting field work in northeastern B.C. Photo:Rolex Awards/Tomas Bertelsen.
“We chose this name because Betsy was a key player in the study of marine reptiles, a mentor to me, a former student of Tony, and a great person,” said Druckenmiller, who is now Curator of Earth Sciences at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska. “We felt it was a fitting way to honour both her memory and her accomplishments in palaeontology.”
The fossil was discovered by machine operators Greg Fisher and Lorne Cundal in 1994 during routine mining operations at Syncrude’s Base Mine, about 35 kilometres north of Fort McMurray near the Athabasca River. Amazingly, the specimen was serendipitously exposed by one of Syncrude’s 100-ton electric shovels approximately 60 metres below ground surface. It is complete except for its left forelimb and shoulder blade.
Nichollsia is also very significant because it fills a 40-million-year gap in the plesiosaur fossil record and greatly increases the understanding of the ancient seaway that once split North America in two and whose shores abounded with dinosaurs.
“This individual was a pioneer in the marine waters that would eventually become the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway, which ran the length of North America during much of the Cretaceous and was home to one of the world’s most diverse communities of marine reptiles,” Druckenmiller said. “It represents the oldest known forerunner of this amazing period in North American prehistory.”
Nichollsia borealis is currently on display in the Discoveries Gallery at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The paper is published in Palaeontographica Abteilung A, but I can’t find a doi for it. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38311000 |
Constitutionalism: A Skeptical View
New York University School of Law
May 1, 2012
NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-87
This paper examines the ideology that goes by the name of "constitutionalism." The first part of the paper considers the significance of "written constitutions" The second part of the paper casts a skeptical eye at conceptions of constitutionalisim that emphasize "limited" government. Once "limited government" is contrasted carefully with "restrained government" (restraints upon specific actions by government) and with "controlled government" (e.g. insistence upon democratic control), we see that the association of constitutionalism with general limitations on the scope of government ought to make it a much more controversial ideal than the general anodyne acceptance of the term "constitutionalism" might lead us to expect. Finally, the anti-democratic implications of constitutionalism are explored. The paper argues that, by insisting on limited government, constitutionalism downplays the important role that constitutions have to perform in the modern world in establishing and securing specifically democratic authority.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 46
Keywords: authority, constitution, constitutionalism, constitutional law, democracy, judicial review, limited government, rights, written constitutionAccepted Paper Series
Date posted: December 11, 2010 ; Last revised: May 5, 2012
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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The Other Loving: Uncovering the Federal Government's Racial Regulation of Marriage
Rose Cuison Villazor
Hofstra University - Maurice A. Deane School of Law
New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, p. 1361, 2011
Hofstra Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 11-11
This Article seeks to fill a gap in legal history. The traditional narrative of the history of the American racial regulation of marriage typically focuses on state laws as the only sources of marriage inequality. Overlooked in the narrative are the ways in which federal laws also restricted racially mixed marriages in the decades before 1967 (when the Supreme Court invalidated antimiscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia). Specifically, during the American occupation of Japan after World War II, a combination of immigration, citizenship, and military laws and regulations led to restrictions on marriages along racial lines. These laws also converged to prevent married couples, many of whom were White American soldiers and local Japanese women, from living in the United States together. Accordingly, this Article claims that the confluence of immigration, citizenship, and military laws functioned as a collective counterpart to state antimiscegenation laws.
By unearthing this neglected history, this Article seeks to deepen the conventional account of the public regulation of mixed marriages. As the Article reveals, racial barriers to marriage were far more pervasive than previously acknowledged. Contrary to the familiar chronicle, racial restrictions on marriage occurred through federal laws, were enforced by federal officials, took place beyond state borders, and effected distinct harms on interracial couples whose experiences have largely escaped legal and scholarly inquiry. Recovering this lost history thus provides a more complete story of antimiscegenation regulation. Moreover, it draws attention to the largely undertheorized role that immigration law played in preventing interracial marriages and provides insight into contemporary debates on federal involvement in marriage regulation.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 79Accepted Paper Series
Date posted: March 19, 2011 ; Last revised: December 5, 2011
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Sent in by:
Brooke of Alberta, Canada and Nirav of Pleasanton, CA
Play it again, Sam.
- 3 glasses of each of 3 different sizes and shapes (9 glasses total)
- 4 glasses of the same size and shape
- different liquids like vinegar, water, milk, tomato juice, maple syrup, oil or apple juice
- Check with a grown-up before you begin.
- In the ZOOMsci, Glass Xylophone, and in the online gizmo, Tunes & Spoons, you can experiment with the different sounds made by glasses holding different amounts of the same liquid.
- Now's your chance to experiment with other variables like the kind of liquid in the glass or the size and shape of the glass itself.
- First, find out if different kinds of liquids change the sound made by tapping the glass with a spoon.
- Pour the same amounts of different kinds of liquids into the same kind of glass. Try liquids that are thick and gooey like maple syrup as well as liquids that are runny like water.
- Tap the same spot on each glass. Do the different liquids produce different sounds? How are the sounds different?
- Touch the glass after you tap it with the spoon. Do the vibrations from each glass feel different? What is it about each liquid that might change the sound the glass makes?
- Next, find out if the shape or size of the glass makes a difference in the sound made by tapping the glass with a spoon.
- Pour the same amount of the same liquid into three glasses of different sizes and shapes. Tap each glass with the spoon. Does it make a different sound than the other glasses? How are the sounds different?
- Touch the glass after you tap it with the spoon. Do the vibrations from each glass feel different? What is it about the shape and size of the glass that changes the sound?
Ready for the science scoop? When an object vibrates, it sends a disturbance through the air in the form of waves. These are called sound waves. It's like when you drop a pebble into water and the waves ripple out in all directions. Sound waves in the air are sort of like waves in the water in the way that they move farther and farther out from the center where the disturbance was created.
When you tap a glass filled with liquid, the liquid slows down the vibrations or sound waves. Different liquids slow down the sound waves by different amounts. The differences in the sounds you hear are called pitch. The pitch of a sound depends on how fast the object making the sound vibrates (how fast the sound waves move away from the object.) A glass that vibrates slowly produces slow sound waves and a low pitch sound. A glass that produces a high pitch vibrates quickly, making sound waves move fast.
See how many different pitches you can make using glasses and liquids. Can you play a song with them? Give it a try and send your results to ZOOM!
Shayla, age 10 wrote:
It made high sounds
Tre, age 14 of Jefferson City, MO wrote:
The glasses made different sounds no matter what the variable was. If the liquids were different, but the glasses were the same, it was different. If the liquids were the same, but the glasses were different, it was still different. When everything was different, it was completely different.
We used glass containers and glass cups and they were all different sizes. We used oil, vinegar, and water. The oil was the thickest and the vinegar was the thinnest. The water was in between. We tried to use all three liquids in three different glasses and put the sounds in order. It sounded like a messed up xylophone. When we put the same liquids in three different glasses then the sounds were different. We did different liquids in the same type of glass. They all made different sounds. The oil made the lowest sound and the vinegar mad the highest sound. The water was in between. It was fun!
Nicki, age 11 of Jefferson City, MO wrote:
It made different sounds depending on the glasses we used. We used vinegar, water, and used vegetable oil. The vinegar was the highest because it was the thinest, the water was in the middle and the used vegetable oil made the lowest sound. The glasses we used were 3 tiny wine glasses, 3 glass tostitos salsa containers, and 3 regular glass cups.
Roslyn, age 13 of Jefferson City, MO wrote:
Well when we did it, we could almost play a song from a commercial. It was really fun. Even though our xylophone wasn't all the way in order, it was good enough.
Clara, age 11 of Bexley, OH wrote:
I just used water but at different levels and it made sounds that were higher when I had less water in them and sounds that were lower when I had more water in them. Also, I had a tall and a short glass and they were both filled up to the top and I tapped them and the taller one made a lower sound and the shorter one made a higher sound.
Nicole, age 13 of NY wrote:
I used water, syrup, and water as my liquids. I poured them in the same type of glass and they all sound the same.
Madeline, age 12 of Davison, MI wrote:
That the glass that had the most water was the lowest sound and the least water was the higher sound.
Marylin of Las Cruces, NM wrote:
It made these crazy sounds all over the place.
Ellie, age 11 of Colorado Springs wrote:
It was neat it made all different types of sounds!!!
Lily, age 11 wrote:
It was really cool because it sounded great! My little sis said that I should become a musician when I grow up.
Ethan, age 4 of Villa Park, IL wrote:
It was fun. I used milk, vinegar, water, and cherry juice. They made different sounds.
Mallory, age 10 wrote:
I tried the glass xylaphone part 2 and found out that when you wet your finger and go around the top of the glass it makes a squeaky noise but I aldo found out that it doesnt work on plastic glasses.
Amelia, age 5 of Centennial, CO wrote:
We tried using a wine glass with some water and some ice in it to make a sound when you rub your finger around the rim. It didn't make a sound.
Alyana, age 9 of Manchester, CT wrote:
I tried it when I was on Spring break it was very messy, but fun. I tried it with the same amount of diffent liquids and they didn't sound diffent and I thougt it was cool. Then I tried it with diffent amount of liquids. IT WAS FUN!!! TRY IT!!!
Briseida, age 11 of Houston, TX wrote:
When I performed the experiment, different sounds came from each of the glasses. Also, different kinds of liquids make different kinds of sounds. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38317000 |
Who Says It’s Hard to Stick to a Diet? A Vegan Diet Might Be Easier Than You Think, According to a New Study
Study in Diabetic Patients Shows Cravings for Fatty Foods Recede and Transition to Healthful Diet Surprisingly Quick
WASHINGTON—Adopting a vegan diet is not just healthy; it’s surprisingly easy, according to a new study of people with diabetes who made the switch as part of a research study in February’s Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The diet helped them lose weight, lower their blood sugar, and reduce their need for medication.
Many doctors are aware that a low-fat vegetarian diet can reverse heart disease and provide other benefits. However, some may mistakenly think that most patients will not make the transition. Now, at least five studies published in scientific journals show that patients can and do adapt to a "strict" vegan diet that dramatically improves their health.
Researchers from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the George Washington University, and the University of Toronto found that the vegan group reported a small but significant reduction in craving for fatty foods at 22 weeks, compared with the group consuming an omnivorous diet. This finding contradicts the notion that individuals adopting vegan diets have continued cravings for excluded foods. In fact, the desire for fatty foods such as meat appeared to diminish.
"A vegan diet is very healthy, but most people imagine that it’s hard to stick to. We found exactly the opposite. It is less constraining than a conventional diabetes diet," says lead author Neal Barnard, M.D., a George Washington University researcher and president of PCRM. "I would encourage anyone with diabetes to talk to their physician about trying a vegan approach."
In the 74-week study, 99 people with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to follow either a low-fat, vegan diet or a diet based on American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommendations. The vegan diet dramatically cut consumption of cholesterol, fat, and saturated fat, and increased fiber intake, compared with the diet based on ADA guidelines. However, the vegan group felt less constrained than those in the ADA group.
Participants rated the taste of the foods, how easy or hard the food was to purchase and prepare, and how satisfied they were with the diet.
At 22 weeks, the food acceptability was similar for both groups, but the vegan group was slightly more satisfied with its diet, compared with the ADA group. The vegan group reported slightly more initial effort in preparing foods. However, those in the ADA group reported more discomfort with restrictions imposed by their diet, compared with the vegan group. Overall, the study showed that both diets have a reasonable level of acceptability, although the vegan diet elicits much more pronounced long-term nutritional changes.
The vegan diet consisted of vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. Participants in this group avoided animal products and fatty foods and favored low-glycemic index foods, such as sweet potatoes, beans, and green vegetables. There were no restrictions on calories, carbohydrates, or portion sizes. ADA guidelines provided recommendations on the intake of calories, carbohydrate, and saturated fat based on each participant’s body weight, lipid profile, and current food and eating habits.
Founded in 1985, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit health organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research,and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38318000 |
Saturn's potato-shaped moon Prometheus is rendered in three dimensions in this close-up from Cassini.
This 3-D view is a color composite picture made from two different black and white images that were taken from slightly different viewing angles. The images are combined so that the viewer's left and right eye, respectively and separately, see a left and right image of the black and white stereo pair when viewed through red-blue glasses.
This view looks toward the leading hemisphere of Prometheus (86 kilometers, or 53 miles across). North on Prometheus is up and rotated 47 degrees to the right. The end of Prometheus on the lower right points toward Saturn, and the end on the upper left points away from the planet.
The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 26, 2009. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 57,000 kilometers (35,000 miles) from Prometheus and at a Sun-Prometheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 33 degrees. Image scale is 339 meters (1,112 feet) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38332000 |
Liquid crystals, the state of matter that makes possible the flat screen technology now commonly used in televisions and computers, may have some new technological tricks in store.
Writing today (May 3, 2012) in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers led by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Juan J. de Pablo reports the results of a computational study that shows liquid crystals, manipulated at the smallest scale, can unexpectedly induce the molecules they interact with to self-organize in ways that could lead to entirely new classes of materials with new properties.
"From an applied perspective, once we get to very small scales, it becomes incredibly difficult to pattern the structure of materials. But here we show it is possible to use liquid crystals to spontaneously create nanoscale morphologies we didn't know existed," says de Pablo of computer simulations that portray liquid crystals self-organizing at the molecular scale in ways that could lead to remarkable new materials with scores of technological applications.
As their name implies, liquid crystals exhibit the order of a solid crystal but flow like a liquid. Used in combination with polarizers, optical filters and electric fields, liquid crystals underlie the pixels that make sharp pictures on thin computer or television displays. Liquid crystal displays alone are a multibillion dollar industry. The technology has also been used to make ultrasensitive thermometers and has even been deployed in lasers, among other applications.
The new study modeled the behavior of thousands of rod-shaped liquid crystal molecules packed into nano-sized liquid droplets. It showed that the confined molecules self organize as the droplets are cooled. "At elevated temperatures, the droplets are disordered and the liquid is isotropic," de Pablo explains. "As you cool them down, they become ordered and form a liquid crystal phase. The liquid crystallinity within the droplets, surprisingly, induces water and other molecules at the interface of the droplets, known as surfactants, to organize into ordered nanodomains. This is a behavior that was not known."
In the absence of a liquid crystal, the molecules at the interface of the droplet adopt a homogeneous distribution. In the presence of a liquid crystal, however, they form an ordered nanostructure. "You have two things going on at the same time: confinement of the liquid crystals and an interplay of their structure with the interface of the droplet," notes de Pablo. "As you lower the temperature the liquid crystal starts to become organized and imprints that order into the surfactant itself, causing it to self assemble."
It was well known that interfaces influence the order or morphology of liquid crystals. The new study shows the opposite to be true as well.
"Now you can think of forming these ordered nanophases, controlling them through droplet size or surfactant concentration, and then decorating them to build up structures and create new classes of materials," says de Pablo.
As an example, de Pablo suggested that surfactants coupled to DNA molecules could be added to the surface of a liquid crystal droplets, which could then assemble through the hybridization of DNA. Such nanoscale engineering, he notes, could also form the basis for liquid crystal based detection of toxins, biological molecules, or viruses. A virus or protein binding to the droplet would change the way the surfactants and the liquid crystals within the droplet are organized, triggering an optical signal. Such a technology would have important uses in biosecurity, health care and biology research settings.
Explore further: Physicists develop revolutionary low-power polariton laser | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38334000 |
A constant shower of subatomic particles rains down from space. A hundred years ago, this "cosmic radiation" was discovered by the Austrian physicist Victor Franz Hess. Among other things, the discovery laid the foundation for a whole new field of research: high energy physics - which recently gave us, for instance, the first experimental evidence for the Higgs boson. An anniversary conference looks at the past milestones of cosmic ray research and at future experiments.
When Hess landed his hydrogen balloon at Bad Saarow in the German state of Brandenburg at lunchtime on 7 August 1912, he had on board a discovery with far-reaching consequences, which he surely wasn't fully aware of at that very time. At his seventh balloon voyage in the course of this year, equipped with three ionization measuring instruments, Hess had just identified the existence of a pervasive radiation in 5300 metres altitude above the Schwieloch Lake in the southeast of Brandenburg. Only later it became evident that this so-called cosmic radiation was comprised mostly of energetic, electrically charged atomic nuclei. The discovery of cosmic rays won Hess the Nobel Prize in Physics 24 years later.
"The detection of the cosmic radiation was the discovery of a century and brought us completely new insights into the cosmos," says Prof. Christian Stegmann, head of the DESY institute at Zeuthen near Berlin. "Furthermore it became a cornerstone of early particle physics. Before the development of particle accelerators, cosmic ray research led to the discovery of many important elementary particles, among them the anti-particle of the electron - the positron - as well as the muon and the pion."
DESY, the University of Potsdam, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin jointly organise a symposium on the 100th anniversary of the discovery of cosmic rays. From 6 to 8 August 2012, scientists from all over the world will meet in Bad Saarow, where Hess landed his balloon, to present and discuss the development of various sub-areas ranging from the historic beginnings up to ideas for new projects.
Along with physics nobelist Prof. James Cronin, one of the designers of today's largest cosmic ray observatory "Pierre Auger" in Argentina, and the 14th Astronomer Royal Prof. Sir Arnold Wolfendale, Hess' grandsons William and Arthur Breisky have also registered for the conference. A memorial stone will be unveiled, participants may book balloon flights, and electroscopes that were then used all over the world to carry out ionisation measurements will be on display.
"The advent of a Centenary is a time for both looking back at the development of the subject and forwards: 'where do we go from here?'," says Sir Wolfendale. "Cosmic ray research has led to new areas of research, including 'the new astronomies' and the future for them is bright, indeed. Neutrino Astronomy is on the verge of starting and gamma ray astronomy has begun in earnest."
Physicists expect to gain new insights into the nature of cosmic particle accelerators, which are a million times stronger than the best accelerators on earth, from gramma ray astronomy. Single protons from the cosmic radiation may have as much energy as a powerfully-hit tennis ball, but due to their electric charge, the fast particles are deflected by numerous magnetic fields as they travel through the cosmos. This means that one cannot retrace their point of origin from their direction of flight when they hit the earth.
Therefore, a hundred years since their discovery, the mystery of the origin of cosmic rays is far from being solved. "The universe is full of natural particle accelerators, as for example in supernova explosions, in binary star systems, or in active galactic nuclei. So far, only 150 of these objects are known to us, and we have just an initial physical understanding of these fascinating systems," says Stegmann.
In contrast to what the name might suggest, cosmic radiation is mostly comprised of particles, but a small fraction is indeed gamma radiation, which is not deflected on its way through space and thus points directly to its source. As physicists expect the sources of cosmic gamma radiation to be the same as for cosmic particles, they are on the hunt for cosmic particle accelerators with specialised gamma ray observatories.
Observatories like H.E.S.S. in Namibia, named in honour of the discoverer of cosmic radiation, MAGIC on the Canary Island La Palma, and VERITAS in the United States, with DESY participation, detected more than hundred high-energy cosmic gamma radiation sources by now. The planned Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA, for which DESY is currently building a first prototype telescope will follow this path of discovery. "The Cherenkov Telescope Array will observe thousands of these accelerators with unprecedented sensitivity," Stegmann points out.
Similar to gamma rays, cosmic neutrinos also open a window to the universe's particle accelerators. Neutrinos are lightweight, electrically neutral elementary particles, which are also not deflected by magnetic fields. This means that the incident path of a neutrino points back directly to its origin. With the participation of DESY, the world's largest neutrino telescope, IceCube in Antarctica, was finished in December 2010 and has just begun to look for cosmic neutrinos.
"On either route we expect fascinating insights into the natural particle accelerators in the universe, that will throw new light onto the remaining mysteries of cosmic rays," stresses Stegmann.
Explore further: Physicists develop revolutionary low-power polariton laser
More information: Conference website: www.desy.de/2012vhess | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38335000 |
Researchers at Disney Research, Zürich, ETH Zürich, and Cornell University have invented a system to digitize facial hair and skin. Capturing facial skin and geometry is a fundamental technology for a variety of computer-based special effects for movies. Conventional face capturing is well established and widely utilized in the entertainment industry to capture a three-dimensional model of an actor's face. However, up to now, no method was capable of reconstructing facial hair or even handling it appropriately. This omission is surprising as facial hair is an important component of our popular culture.
The system developed by the Disney Research Laboratory in Zürich constitutes a significant technical breakthrough in the field of digitizing human faces and was presented at ACM SIGGRAPH, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. "Our method captures individual strands of facial hair and stores them separately from the actual human face. This approach allows us to 'shave' people with facial hair virtually with the computer." said Thabo Beeler, a computer scientist at Disney Research, Zürich, who is the main inventor of the technology.
The system employs several consumer-grade photo cameras to capture a face in a fraction of a second. The method then automatically detects hairs in the captured images. These hairs are being tracked and followed in the input images, much like we follow a path on a map with our fingers. A mathematical method called multi-view stereo (MVS) reconstructs them in three dimensions. The trick the researchers applied is to remove the hair strands from the input images similar to an artist painting over parts of a picture. This process makes the 3D skin surface to look as if it were digitally shaved. The system was applied to a large variety of different facial hair styles, ranging from designer stubbles all the way to wild mustaches, to demonstrate its robustness. The produced results look very compelling.
Prof. Markus Gross, director of Disney Research, Zürich, stated, "The long-term goal of our research is to make facial animation and special effects more realistic and ultimately indistinguishable from reality. This method is going to be a very important step toward this long term goal".
Explore further: Researchers develop fast, economical method for high-definition video compositing
More information: For more information, please visit the web site at www.disneyresearch.com/research/projects/cv_reconFacialHair_drz.htm | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38336000 |
New A team of researchers including scientists from the University of Florida has shown insect colonies follow some of the same biological "rules" as individuals, a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single "superorganism" in terms of their physiology and life cycle.
For more than a century, biologists have marveled at the highly cooperative nature of ants, bees and other social insects that work together to determine the survival and growth of a colony.
The social interactions are much like cells working together in a single body, hence the term "superorganism" — an organism comprised of many organisms, according to James Gillooly, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of biology at UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Now, researchers from UF, the University of Oklahoma and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have taken the same mathematical models that predict lifespan, growth and reproduction in individual organisms and used them to predict these features in whole colonies.
By analyzing data from 168 different social insect species including ants, termites, bees and wasps, the authors found that the lifespan, growth rates and rates of reproduction of whole colonies when considered as superorganisms were nearly indistinguishable from individual organisms.
The findings will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
"This PNAS paper regarding the energetic basis of colonial living in social insects is notable for its originality and also for its importance," said Edward O. Wilson, a professor of biology at Harvard University and co-author of the book "The Super-Organism," who was not involved in the research. "The research certainly adds a new perspective to our study of how insect societies are organized and to what degree they are organized."
The study may also help scientists understand how social systems have arisen through natural selection — the process by which evolution occurs. The evolution of social systems of insects in particular, where sterile workers live only to help the queen reproduce, has long been a mystery, Gillooly said.
"In life, two of the major evolutionary innovations have been how cells came together to function as a single organism, and how individuals joined together to function as a society," said Gillooly, who is a member of the UF Genetics Institute. "Relatively speaking, we understand a considerable amount about how the size of multicellular organisms affects the life cycle of individuals based on metabolic theory, but now we are showing this same theoretical framework helps predict the life cycle of whole societies of organisms."
Researchers note that insect societies make up a large fraction of the total biomass on Earth, and say the finding may have implications for human societies.
"Certainly one of the reasons folks have been interested in social insects and the consequences of living in groups is that it tells us about our own species," said study co-author Michael Kaspari, Ph.D., a presidential professor of zoology, ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Oklahoma and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "There is currently a vigorous debate on how sociality evolved. We suggest that any theory of sociality be consistent with the amazing convergence in the way nonsocial and social organisms use energy."
Explore further: Bird's playlist could signal mental strengths and weaknesses | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38337000 |
There are two different questions at work here, that you've kind of mashed together. The first question is "What is the speed at which a change in the electric field propagates?" The answer to that is the speed of light. In QED terms, the electromagnetic interaction that we see as the electric field is mediated by photons, so any change in an established field (say, due to shifting the position of the charge creating the field) won't be felt by a distant object until enough time has passed for a photon from the source to make it to the observation point.
The second question is "What is the speed of propagation of electric current?" This speed is slower than the speed of light, but still on about that order of magnitude-- the exact value depends a little on the arrangement of wires and so on, but you won't be far off if you assume that electrical signals propagate down a cable at the speed of light.
This relates to electric field in that the charge moving through a circuit to light a light bulb has to be driven by some electric field, so you can reasonably ask how that field is established, and how much time it takes. Qualitatively, the necessary field is established by excess charge on the surface of the wires, with the surface charge being generally positive near the positive terminal of a battery and generally negative near the negative terminal, and dropping off smoothly from one to the other so that the electric field is more or less piecewise constant (that is, the field is the same everywhere inside a wire, and the field is the same everywhere inside a resistor, but the two field values are not the same).
When the circuit is first connected, there is a rapid redistribution of the charge on the surface of the wires which establishes the surface charge gradients that drive the steady-state current that will eventually do whatever it is you want it to do. The time required to establish the gradients and settle in to the steady-state condition is very fast, most likely on the order of nanoseconds for a normal circuit.
There's a good discussion of the business of how, exactly, charges get moved around to drive a current in the textbook that we use for our introductory classes, Matter and Interactions, by Chabay and Sherwood. It doesn't go into enough detail to let you calculate the relevant times directly, but it lays out the basic science pretty well.
(It's a textbook for a first-year introductory physics class, so it sweeps a lot of condensed matter physics under the metaphorical rug-- there's no discussion of band structure or surface modes, or any of that. It's fairly solid conceptually, though, at least according to colleagues who know more about those fields than I do.) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38338000 |
Baltimore County Fire Chief John J. Hohman
In my 35 years in the Fire Service, I’ve seen how advances in technology, equipment and building codes have saved lives. One of the most important advances is one of the most humble: the small, inexpensive carbon monoxide detector.
Here in Baltimore County, the Fire Department responds to a growing number of calls involving carbon monoxide (CO) gas – and that is a good thing. Why? Because the calls are generated by CO detectors that are alerting residents to a potentially deadly problem before it becomes deadly.
In recent years and following a number of CO tragedies, Baltimore County enacted legislation requiring CO detectors in all rental housing and in some owner-occupied residences. During November, fire crews responded to 50 CO calls – none of them involving serious injury.
I can’t overestimate how dangerous CO – which kills by robbing oxygen from the blood – is. Carbon monoxide is produced during the burning of fossil fuels – oil, gas, coal, propane, wood. If your home includes an appliance that runs off of one of these fuels, CO is an issue for you. The causes of CO buildup are varied, everything from malfunctioning gas stoves to a blocked fireplace flue.
CO calls tend to increase during periods of extreme heat or cold, when houses are closed up tightly and appliances are running. Landlords and homeowners who have invested in energy saving enhancements – new windows, for example – should know that one downside to such energy efficiency is that it limits the air flow that helps dilute CO when a leak occurs.
In such homes, the deadly gas has nothing to do but build up – and because of its unique characteristics victims can be overcome without ever knowing what happened. You can’t see or smell CO, and the early symptoms – headache, nausea, aches – are so commonplace that people have no idea they’re being poisoned.
People ask, “What is the acceptable level of carbon monoxide?” The answer is that CO is not acceptable, certainly not over a long period of time. At low levels, it will make you sicker and sicker the longer you’re exposed to it. At high levels, it can kill within hours.
This is why the CO detector is so important. It tells you the gas is there. The detector sounds an alarm when the gas reaches 35 parts per million. This is a level low enough not to make you sick – at least not at first – but high enough to tell you something’s wrong.
Your alarm doesn’t do you any good if you rob the batteries or ignore it when it goes off. If it sounds, call 911 and get out of the house. Here’s what you can expect, once fire crews arrive:
- Firefighters will use special gas meters to measure the level of CO.
- Crews will attempt to identify the source of the CO.
- Crews will ventilate the house, mitigating the hazard by diluting the gas with fresh air.
- Firefighters will not attempt to repair heating units, water heaters, fireplaces and other fuel-burning appliances. Such repairs are the property owner’s responsibility.
- Firefighters will shut down and advise the residents not to use any appliance they believe is causing the problem.
- If you live in a rental property and the level of CO is 50 parts per million or more, firefighters will contact the Office of Permits, Approvals and Inspections. The building inspector will visit the site at a later date to certify that the problem has been repaired by a licensed expert.
Along with installation of detectors, basic home maintenance – cleaning your chimney and fireplace regularly, checking gas-fueled appliance connections on a regular basis – is essential to preventing problems with CO.
If you rent your home or apartment, ask your landlord if the building uses fossil fuel-burning appliances and make sure the property owner has complied with the law requiring CO alarms. If the answer is no, contact the Office of Permits, Approvals and Inspections at 410-887-6060.
Carbon monoxide alarms are inexpensive, easy to install, readily available and effective. There is no reason why any of us should fall prey to this particular hazard any longer. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38342000 |
Conversations - use this space to communicate about this project
Only logged in users are allowed to comment. register/log in
November 23, 2010 | 8:17 AM |
Farewell and Best Wishes
As this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping-up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. We appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community.
Scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! There are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share.
Please come back and visit the PlantingScience Research Gallery Archive anytime to view this project in the future. You can search the Archive by key word, team name, topic, or school name.
Good bye for now.
The PlantingScience team
November 19, 2010 | 8:07 AM |
3 things confusing:
-The time allotted was too short
-The refraction of the light made it difficult to see which disks were in fact, floating...
-The disks didn't seem to really want to float at all
3 ways to improve:
-Add more time to our experiment
-Have an environment with a smaller diameter for the experiment (as in test tube as opposed to beaker)
-Have all materials (i.e. crushed ice) prepared before you start the procedure
2 things we learned about experimentation:
-If everyone cooperates and puts in effort then the experiment could be done more efficiently
-You should never start something you can't finish
2 things we learned about photosynthesis:
-Excessive heat prevents photosynthesis
-A chilled environment lets photosynthesis occur more rapidly
1 thing we 'liked' :
1 thing we disliked:
-Preparing thirty small diameter spinach disks everyday
November 15, 2010 | 8:05 AM |
Ran out of time
Sorry, last response we left was brief due to time limit. We came to a conclusion on which research question we would extrapolate and explore. We posted it above in the research information. I guess we'll try to make this thing exciting? So what are your ideas?
Kayla, Brittany, and Blake
November 10, 2010 | 1:47 PM |
Dr. Kevin Folta
What is your hypothesis? How to test it?
I was a vegetarian for 16 years!! Until this March.
Let me know your ideas. The project should have tremendous purpose and lots of direction. Let's do a great project that is truly exciting. I'd like to hear your ideas first before I start giving mine!
November 10, 2010 | 8:08 AM |
Re: Hi Everybody
1. Are you a vegetarian?
2. We are 3 students taking bio honors.
3. This project doesn't have much purpose.
4. we have 3 testable research questions to discuss with you.
November 8, 2010 | 9:19 AM |
Dr. Kevin Folta
I'm glad to be part of the team. I hope that you'll keep in touch with me frequently via this forum. I'm a scientist in plant biology and am really excited to be assisting you. Plant science is extremely important. The experiments you are doing today are similar to those being done all over the world to help meet major challenges to the future of food. Even the most simple basic experiments could give new information that could feed millions of people in the future. Get excited- you are participating in something very important!
November 5, 2010 | 11:53 AM |
Dr. Claire Hemingway
We are delighted to welcome you to this community of plant researchers. Your team has the opportunity to be mentored by a scientist to help you plan and think through your own project investigating photosynthesis.
The mentor's role is to encourage and guide you through the scientific process of discovery. Your role is to share what your team is doing in class. The more you share your ideas and research information online, the more your mentor can help.
Your scientist mentor for this project will be Dr. Kevin Folta from University of Florida. Please introduce yourself and post some possible research topic ideas to get a conversation rolling.
These resources are available to help you get started:
Thinking Like a Scientist / Working Like a Scientist
Guide to Using A Spreadsheet
Best wishes as you start this scientific journey. We are all pleased to share this experience with you.
The PlantingScience team | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38345000 |
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing
What is Environmental Purchasing?
Although different organizations (government, nonprofit, or industry) may define environmental purchasing in somewhat different ways, it generally refers to buying products and services with reduced effects on human health and the environment. Also called “Affirmative Procurement,” “Environmentally Preferable Purchasing,” and “Green Purchasing,” this approach means integrating environmental factors into procurement policies, usually using the following tools and/or methods:
- Pollution Prevention: From the start of a process or procedure, reducing or eliminating toxicity, air, and water emissions.
- Life-Cycle Perspective: Looking beyond purchase price. Consider costs and environmental impacts over the lifetime of a product or service (manufacturing, packaging, transport, energy consumption, maintenance, disposal).
- Natural Resource Protection: Giving preference to sustainable, reusable content, and recycled materials over virgin materials, as well as to conserving water and energy.
What Are The Benefits of Environmental Purchasing for Companies?
Just as pollution prevention actions often lead to dollar savings, many companies have reduced costs through environmental purchasing. Companies highlighted in the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, “Private Sector Pioneers: How Companies Are Incorporating Environmentally Preferable Purchasing,” (June 1999, EPA742-R-99-001) have achieved savings that include:
- Reduced material costs for manufacturers
- Reduced repair and replacement costs when using more durable and repairable equipment
- Reduced disposal costs by generating less waste
- Improved product design and performance of the product(s)
- Increased employee safety and health at the facility
As noted in the EPA report, many companies adopted environmental purchasing policies for traditional business reasons that include:
- Recognizing market preferences, and serving customers who have a stated interest in “environmentally friendly” products and practices
- Distinguishing a company and its products from competitors
- Avoiding hidden costs and pursuing cost savings
- Increasing operating efficiency
- Joining an industry or international market trend
Although these reasons result in intangible benefits, there are specific examples of measurable reduced costs associated with environmentally preferable products. These include a lower purchase price (e.g. remanufactured products), reduced operational costs (e.g. energy efficiency), reduced disposal costs (e.g. more durable products) and reduced hazardous management costs (e.g. less toxic products). In addition, purchasing environmentally preferable products may reduce an organization’s potential future liability, improve the work environment and minimize risks to workers.
EPP Rapid Response Service
Many cities, counties, states and the federal government are in the process of developing their internal procedures to incorporate EPP criteria into their purchasing decisions. This research takes staff time. PPRC is pleased to be able to assist with the process by bringing Rapid Response Service to Pacific Northwest government and businesses.
EPP Programs and Strategies: Integrating Environmental and Social Factors into Procurement Practices
This 98-page report highlights the variety of approaches organizations are using to incorporate environmental and social factors into procurement activities. Based on interviews with representatives from 18 public and private sector organizations, the report describes:
- how the organizations choose product categories and attributes for EPP initiatives
- how they integrate EPP into their everyday purchasing decisions
- what common challenges they face
- the positive outcomes produced by the organizations’ EPP efforts
Synopses of the participating organizations’ EPP strategies or programs are included in an appendix to the report. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38354000 |
Individual differences |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
It was a subject-oriented adjective that was used to label the harmful, injurious, unpleasant, or undesirable reactions (or responses) that a subject manifested (thus, "nocebo reactions" (or "nocebo responses") as a result administering an inert dummy drug, where these responses had not been chemically generated, and were entirely due to the subject's pessimistic belief and expectation that the inert drug would produce harmful, injurious, unpleasant, or undesirable consequences.
In these cases, there is no "real" drug involved, but the actual harmful, injurious, unpleasant or undesirable biochemical, physiological, behavioural, emotional, and/or cognitive consequences of the administration of the inert drug are very real.
One severe example of nocebo effect is someone who dies of fright after being bitten by a non-poisonous snake.
The term "nocebo"Edit
The term nocebo ("I shall harm") was chosen by Walter Kennedy, in 1961, to denote the counterpart of one of the more recent applications of the term "placebo" (= "I shall please"); namely, that of a placebo being a drug that produced a beneficial, healthy, pleasant, or desirable consequence in a subject, as a direct result of that subject's beliefs and expectations.
Today, in the same way that the term placebo (or "placebo drug") is often used wrongly in an agent-oriented way to denote an active drug that produces an entirely predictable, and intentionally sought after outcome that is experienced as pleasant or desirable (e.g., analgesia), the term nocebo (or nocebo drug) is often used wrongly to denote its counterpart, an active drug that produces an entirely predictable, and intentionally sought outcome that is experienced as unpleasant or undesirable (e.g., nausea).
Houston may have been the first to have spoken of a doctor's deliberate application of harmful "placebo" procedures, as distinct from the other, harmless sort of "placebo" procedures a doctor might apply and whose "usefulness was in direct proportion to the faith that the doctor had and the faith that he was able to inspire in his patients". Houston (1938,p.1418) wrote:
- ... [and while the efficacy of the placebo procedure] is believed in by the doctor, [the placebo procedure itself] is no longer harmless but harmful, sometimes very dangerous. It would seem peculiarly contradictory to speak of the painful and dangerous placebo, yet men are so constituted that they feel the need in dire extremity of resorting to dread measures. Nervous patients in particular, feel that a certain standing and sanction is bestowed upon their maladies when violent therapeutic measures are used."
Houston spoke of three significantly different categories of placebo (pp.1417-1418):
- the drug that the physician knows to be inert, but which the subject believes to be potent.
- the drug which is believed to be potent by both subject and physician, but which later investigation proves to have been totally inert.
- the drug which is believed to be potent by both subject and physician, but is actually harmful and dangerous, rather than being inert and harmless.
The term "nocebo response" originally only meant an unpredictable unintentional belief-generated injurious response to an inert procedure.
But there is an emerging practice of labelling drugs that produce unpleasant consequences as "nocebo drugs" means that the term "nocebo response" may be being used to label an intentional, entirely pharmacologically-generated and quite predictably injurious outcome that has ensued from the administration of an active (nocebo) drug.
Anthropologists use the term "nocebo ritual" to describe a procedure, or treatment, or ritual that has been performed (or a herbal remedy or medication that has been administered) with malicious intent, by contrast with a placebo procedure or treatment or ritual that is performed with a benevolent intent.
The nocebo effectEdit
Because the original meaning of "nocebo" specifically referred to a subject's response to an inert drug, the term nocebo effect can really only refer to the consequences of the application of a "harm-producing" "nocebo drug" (however, the concept of a "harm-producing" "nocebo drug" is a much later concept than either that of a "nocebo response" or of a "nocebo reaction").
The nocebo responseEdit
According to current pharmacological knowledge and the current understanding of cause and effect, a placebo contains no chemical (or any other agent) that could possibly cause any of the observed worsening in the subject's symptoms. Thus, any change for the worse must be due to some subject-internal factor.
The worsening of the subject's symptoms is a direct consequence of their exposure to the placebo, but those symptoms have not been chemically generated by the placebo. Because this generation of symptoms entails a complex of "subject-internal" activities, in the strictest sense, we can never speak in terms of simulator-centred "nocebo effects", but only in terms of subject-centred "nocebo responses".
Although some attribute nocebo responses (or placebo responses) to a subject's gullibility, there is no evidence that an individual who manifests a nocebo/placebo response to one treatment will manifest a nocebo/placebo response to any other treatment; i.e., there is no fixed nocebo/placebo-responding trait or propensity.
- McGlashan, Evans & Orne (1969, p.319) found no evidence of what they termed a "placebo personality". Also, in a carefully designed study, Lasagna, Mosteller, von Felsinger & Beecher (1954), found that there was no way that any observer could determine, by testing or by interview, which subject would manifest a placebo reaction and which would not.
Why a nocebo response?Edit
He had observed that another, entirely different and unrelated, and far more recent meaning of the term placebo was emerging into far more common usage in the technical literature (see homonym); namely that a "placebo response" (or "placebo reaction") was a "pleasant" response to a real or sham/dummy treatment (this new and entirely different usage was based on the Latin meaning of the word placebo, "I shall please").
Kennedy chose the Latin word nocebo ("I shall harm") because it was the opposite of the Latin word placebo ("I shall please"), and used it to denote the counterpart of the placebo response: namely, an "unpleasant" response to the application of real or sham treatment.
Kennedy very strongly emphasized that his specific usage of the term nocebo did not refer to "the iatrogenic action of drugs": in other words, according to Kennedy, there was no such thing as a "nocebo effect", there was only a "nocebo response".
He insisted that a nocebo reaction was subject-centred, and he was emphatic that the term nocebo reaction specifically referred to "a quality inherent in the patient rather than in the remedy".
Even more significantly, Kennedy also stated that whilst "nocebo reactions do occur [they should never be confused] with true pharmaceutical effects, such as the ringing in the ears caused by quinine".
This is strong, clear and very persuasive evidence that Kennedy was precisely speaking of an outcome that had been totally generated by a subject's negative expectation of a drug or ritual's administration; which was the exact counterpart of a placebo response that would have been generated by a subject's positive expectation.
And, finally, and most definitely, Kennedy was not speaking of an active drug's unwanted, but pharmacologically predictable negative side-effects (something for which the term nocebo is being increasingly used in current literature).
Ambiguity of medical usageEdit
In an important recent paper, Stewart-Williams and Podd argue that using the contrasting terms "placebo" and "nocebo" to label inert agents that produce pleasant, health-improving or desirable outcomes, or unpleasant, health-diminishing, or undesirable outcomes (respectively), is extremely counterproductive.
A second problem is that precisely the same effect, such as immunosuppression, may be quite desirable for a subject with an autoimmune disorder, but be quite undesirable for most other subjects. Thus, in the first case, the effect would be a placebo, and in the second, a nocebo.
A third problem is that the prescriber does not know whether the relevant subjects consider the effects that they experience to be subjectively desirable or undesirable until some time after the drugs have actually been administered.
A fourth problem is that, in cases such as this, precisely the same phenomena are being generated in all of the subjects, and these are being generated by precisely the same drug, which is acting in all of the subjects through precisely the same mechanism. Yet, just because the phenomena in question have been subjectively considered to be desirable to one group, but not the other, the phenomena are now being labelled in two mutually exclusive ways (i.e., placebo and nocebo); and this is giving the false impression that the drug in question has produced two entirely different phenomena.
These sorts of argument produce a strong case that — despite the fact that, in some of its applications, the term "placebo" is used to denote something that pleases (compared with it denoting an inert sumulator) — the desirability (placeboic nature) or undesirability (noceboic nature) of the phenomena that have been manifested by a subject, after a drug has been administered, should never be part of the definition of what constitutes either "a placebo" or "a placebo response".
Ambiguity of anthropological usageEdit
Some people maintain that belief kills (e.g., "voodoo death": Cannon (1942) describes a number of "voodoo deaths" from a variety of different cultures) and belief heals (e.g., faith healing).
A "self-willed" death (due to voodoo hex, evil eye, pointing the bone procedure, etc.) is an extreme form of a culture-specific syndrome or sociogenic illness, that produces a particular form of psychosomatic or psychophysiological disorder, which results in a psychogenic death.
- There are many recorded instances of self-willed psychogenic death. For example, the death of Ananias, as recorded in Acts 5:1-6; see Ananias and Sapphira.
- Rubel (1964) spoke of "culture bound" syndromes, which were those "from which members of a particular group claim to suffer and for which their culture provides an etiology, diagnosis, preventive measures, and regimens of healing” (p.268).
It is important to distinguish these "self-willed deaths" from other "self-imposed" sorts of death, such as:
- the "self-inflicted deaths" of suicide, voluntary euthanasia, or the refusal of life-extending treatment;
- the "heroic" "self-inflicted death" of a soldier who throws himself on a hand grenade to save his mates, or that of the Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates (“I am just going outside and may be some time”); or
- the "religious self-inflicted death"' of the self-immolating suttee, or the mors voluntaria religiosa (= "voluntary religious death") of the aged person, who religious elders have permitted to voluntarily, peacefully, and slowly die by fasting.
Certain anthropologists, such as Robert Hahn and Arthur Kleinman have extended the placebo/nocebo distinction into this realm in order to allow a distinction to be made between rituals, like faith healing, that are performed in order to heal, cure, or bring benefit (placebo rituals) and others, like "pointing the bone", that are performed in order to kill, injure or bring harm (nocebo rituals).
As the meaning of the two inter-related and opposing terms has extended, we now find anthropologists speaking, in various contexts, of nocebo or placebo (harmful or helpful) rituals:-
- that might entail nocebo or placebo (unpleasant or pleasant) procedures,
- about which subjects might have nocebo or placebo (harmful or beneficial) beliefs,
- that are delivered by operators that might have nocebo or placebo (pathogenic, disease-generating or salutogenic, health-promoting) expectations,
- that are delivered to subjects that might have nocebo or placebo (negative, fearful, despairing or positive, hopeful, confident) expectations about the ritual,
- which are delivered by operators who might have nocebo or placebo (malevolent or benevolent) intentions, in the hope that the rituals will generate nocebo or placebo (lethal, injurious, harmful or restorative, curative, healthy) outcomes;
and, that all of this depends upon the operator's overall beliefs in the harmful nature of the nocebo ritual or the beneficial nature of the placebo ritual.
Yet, it may become even more terminologically complex; for, as Hahn and Kleinman indicate, there can also be cases where there are paradoxical nocebo outcomes from placebo rituals (e.g. the TGN1412 drug trial ), as well as paradoxical placebo outcomes from nocebo rituals (see also unintended consequences).
Writing from his extensive experience of treating cancer (including more than 1,000 melanoma cases) at Sydney Hospital, Milton (1973) warned of the impact of the delivery of a prognosis, and how many of his patients, upon receiving their prognosis, simply turned their face to the wall and died an extremely premature death: "... there is a small group of patients in whom the realisation of impending death is a blow so terrible that they are quite unable to adjust to it, and they die rapidly before the malignancy seems to have developed enough to cause death. This problem of self-willed death is in some ways analogous to the death produced in primitive peoples by witchcraft (“Pointing the bone”)." (p.1435)
- ↑ Miller (2003)
- ↑ McGlashan, Evans & Orne (1969); Stam (1984); Stam & Spanos (1987).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Kennedy (1961), p.204
- ↑ Stewart-Williams & Podd (2004), p.326
- ↑ Zusne & Jones (1989), p.57; Róheim (1925).
- Barber, T.X., "Death by Suggestion: A Critical Note", Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol.23, No.2, (March-April 1961), pp.153-155.
- Barker, J.C., Scared to Death: An Examination of Fear, its Cause and Effects, Frederick Muller, (London), 1968.
- Barrett, G.V. & Franke, R.H., ""Psychogenic" Death: A Reappraisal", Science, Vol.167, No.3916, (16 January 1970), pp.304-306.
- Barsky, A.J., Saintfort, R., Rogers, M.P. & Borus, J.F., "Nonspecific Medication Side Effects and the Nocebo Phenomenon", Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.287, No.5, (6 February 2002), pp.622-627.
- Cannon, W.B., "“Voodoo” Death", American Anthropologist, Vol.44, No.2, (April-June 1942), pp.169-181.
- Charcot, J.M., "The Faith-Cure", The New Review, Vol.VIII, (January 1893), pp.18-31.
- Cohen, S.I., "Psychosomatic Death: Voodoo Death in a Modern Perspective", Integrative Psychiatry, Vol.3, No.1, (March 1985), pp.46-51.
- Dein, S., "Psychogenic Death: Individual Effects of Sorcery and Taboo Violation", Mental Health, Religion and Culture, Vol.6, No.3, (November 2003), pp.195-202.
- Di Blasi, Z., Harkness, E., Edzard, E., Georgiou, A. & Kleijnen, J., "Influence of Context Effects on Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review", The Lancet, Vol.357, No.9258, (10 March 2001), pp.757-762.
- Goddard, H.H., "The Effects of Mind on Body as Evidenced by Faith Cures", American Journal of Psychology, Vol.10, No.3, (April 1899), pp.431-502.
- Hahn, R.A., "The Nocebo Phenomenon: Concept, Evidence, and Implications for Public Health", Preventive Medicine, Vol.26, No.5, (September 1997), pp.607-611.
- Hahn, R.A. & Kleinman, A, "Belief as Pathogen, Belief as Medicine: "Voodoo Death" and the "Placebo Phenomenon" in Anthropological Perspective", Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol.14, No.4, (August 1983), pp.3, 16-19.
- Harrington, E.R., The Nocebo Effect: A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Suggestion on Reports of Physical Symptoms, (Ph.D. Dissertation), Temple University, 1998.
- Houston, W.R., "The Doctor Himself as a Therapeutic Agent", Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol.11, No.8, (February 1938), pp.1416-1425.
- Kennedy, W P., "The Nocebo Reaction", Medical World, Vol.95, (September 1961), pp.203-205.
- Kirsch, I., "Response Expectancy as a Determinant of Experience and Behavior", American Psychologist, Vol.40, No.11, (November 1985), pp.1189-1202.
- Kirsch, I., "Response Expectancy Theory and Application: A Decennial Review", Applied and Preventive Psychology, Vol.6, No.2, (Spring 1997), pp.69-79.
- Lasagna, L., Mosteller, F., von Felsinger, J.M. & Beecher, H.K., "A Study of the Placebo Response", American Journal of Medicine, Vol.16, No.6, (June 1954), pp.770-779.
- Lorenz, J., Hauck, M., Paura, R.C., Nakamura, Y., Zimmermann, R., Bromm, B. & Engela, A.K., "Cortical Correlates of False Expectations During Pain Intensity Judgments — A Possible Manifestation of Placebo/Nocebo Cognitions", Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, Vol.19, No.4, (July 2005), pp.283-295.
- McGlashan, T.H., Evans, F.J. & Orne, M.T., "The Nature of Hypnotic Analgesia and Placebo Response to Experimental Pain", Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol.31, No.3, (May-June 1969), pp.227-246.
- Merton, R.K., "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action", American Sociological Review, Vol.1, No.6, (December 1936), pp.894-904.
- Miller, F.G., "William James, Faith, and the Placebo Effect", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Vol.48, No.2, (Spring 2005), pp.273-281.
- Miller, F.G., "Sham Surgery: An Ethical Analysis", The American Journal of Bioethics, Vol.3, No.4, (Fall 2003), pp.41-48.
- Milton, G.W., "Self-Willed Death or the Bone-Pointing Syndrome", The Lancet, (23 June, 1973), pp.1435–1436.
- Perlman, L, "Nonspecific, Unintended, and Serendipitous Effects in Psychotherapy", Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol.32, No.3, (June 2001), pp.283–288.
- Phillips, D.P., Liu, G.C., Kwok, K., Jarvinen, J.R., Zhang, W. & Abramson, I.S., "The Hound of the Baskervilles effect: natural experiment on the influence of psychological stress on timing of death", British Medical Journal, Vol.324, No.7327, (22-29 December 2001), pp.1443-1446.
- Pyysiäinen, I., "Mind and Miracles", Zygon, Vol.37, No.3, (September 2002), pp.729-740.
- Rief, W., Avorn, J. & Barsky, Arthur J., "Medication-Attributed Adverse Effects in Placebo Groups: Implications for Assessment of Adverse Effects", Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol.166, No.2), (23 January 2006), pp.155-160.
- Richter, C.P., "On the Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals and Man", Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol.XIX, No.3, (May-June 1957), pp.191–198.
- Róheim, G., "The Pointing Bone", The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol.55, (January-June 1925), pp.90-114.
- Rubel, A.J., "The Epidemiology of a Folk Illness: Susto in Hispanic America", Ethnology, Vol.3, No.3, (July 1964), pp.268-283.
- Shapiro, A.K., "A Contribution to a History of the Placebo Effect", Behavioral Science, Vol.5, No.2 (April 1960) pp.109-135.
- Shapiro, A.K., "Semantics of the Placebo", Psychiatric Quarterly, Vol.42, No.4, (December 1968), pp.653–695.
- South, R., "A Sermon Delivered at Christ-Church, Oxon., Before the University, Octob. 14. 1688: Prov.XII.22 Lying Lips are abomination to the Lord", pp.519-657 in South, R., Twelve Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions (Second Edition), Volume I, Printed by S.D. for Thomas Bennet, (London), 1697.
- Spiegel, H., "Nocebo: The Power of Suggestibility", Preventive Medicine, Vol.26, No.5, (1 September 1997), pp.616-621.
- Staats, P., Hekmatb, H. & Staats, A., "Suggestion/Placebo Effects on Pain: Negative as Well as Positive", Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Vol.15, No.4, (April 1998), pp.235-243.
- Stam, H.J., Hypnotic Analgesia and the Placebo Effect: Controlling Ischemic Pain, (Ph.D. Dissertation), Carleton University, (Ottawa, Canada), 1984.
- Stam, H.J. & Spanos, N., "Hypnotic Analgesia, Placebo Analgesia, and Ischemic Pain: The Effects of Contextual Variables", Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol.96, No.4, (November 1987), pp.313–320.
- Stewart-Williams, S. & Podd, J., "The Placebo Effect: Dissolving the Expectancy Versus Conditioning Debate", Psychological Bulletin, Vol.130, No.2, (March 2004), pp.324-340.
- Wilson, I., The Bleeding Mind: An Investigation into the Mysterious Phenomenon of Stigmata, Paladin, (London), 1991.
- Zusne, L. & Jones, W.H., Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking (Second Edition), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, (New York), 1989.
- Nocebo and nocebo effect
- The nocebo response
- The Nocebo Effect: Placebo's Evil Twin
- What modifies a healing responsenl:Nocebo-effectsv:Noceboeffekt
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The interaction of invasive bacterial pathogens of the gut such as Yersinia
with the host causes a potent inflammatory response and tissue damage, leading to significant human morbidity and mortality (16
). Several lines of evidence suggest that even during the acute response to infection tempering the inflammatory response can be beneficial to the host. For example, previous work indicates that IL-6−/−
mice have a hyperinflammatory response to Y. enterocolitica
infection that results in a more rapid death of the animals and tissue pathologies that reflect exacerbated inflammatory changes (26
). These studies also demonstrated an IL-6-dependent defect in TGF-β secretion from stimulated splenocytes that correlated with an older observation that mice treated with recombinant TGF-β were more resistant to Y. enterocolitica
). TGF-β is a potent anti-inflammatory cytokine (36
); in fact, it wasn't possible to use TGF-β−/−
mice for these studies because the animals die 2 to 3 weeks after birth from systemic inflammation (43
). Altogether, these data suggest that cytokine-mediated regulation of the extent of inflammation during an invasive bacterial infection is a crucial aspect of the host response.
Cytokine-mediated immune regulation is often carried out by CD4 +
helper T cells (Th), which polarize the immune system to appropriately respond to pathogen challenge. There is strong experimental evidence supporting a central role for T cells in clearing Y. enterocolitica
infection, especially IFN-γ-producing Th-1 cells. However, in the last 10 years, a number of newly discovered CD4+
T-cell subsets (T-reg and Th-17) have emerged as key players in the pathogenesis of diseases ranging from infectious disease to autoimmune disease (37
). T-reg cells are critical to the maintenance of immune tolerance and prevention of unwanted inflammatory responses at mucosal surfaces such as the gut, and, not surprisingly, T-regs have been implicated in the pathogenesis of a variety of chronic infectious diseases (32
). Several studies have also implicated T-regs in the modulation of memory responses following an acute infection, but little information on the direct role of T-regs during the host response to an acute bacterial infection is available.
Recently, Rudensky and coworkers reported that T-regs maintain Th-17 homeostasis in the gut utilizing a STAT-3-dependent mechanism that was distinct from that used by TGF-β (21
). These studies also highlighted the interaction of different classes of T cells to maintain tolerance of the gut. It would not be unreasonable to predict that similar control mechanisms are in place to control inflammation generated in response to acute bacterial infections of the gut.
Here we report a role for T-regs during the host response to acute invasive infection of the gastrointestinal tract by Y. enterocolitica
. By 3 days postinfection there is a rapid expansion of CD4+
T cells and a 2- to 3-fold increase in TGF-β+
T cells yet there is no increase in CD8+
TGF-β-producing T cells or macrophages producing TGF-β. T-reg cells are critical for controlling dissemination to extraintestinal sites of infection based on the more rapid liver colonization and the subsequent rapid death of mice treated with anti-TGF-β or anti-CD25 antibodies. Active TGF-β transcription in the Peyer's patches, mesenteric lymph nodes, and spleen following infection is dependent on the presence of CD4+
cells, suggesting that T cells are the major source of this cytokine during infection (Fig. ). The importance of CD4+
T cells is well established as an immune control mechanism during Yersinia
infection, but, to our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating a protective role for a CD4+
T-cell subset other than Th-1 for Yersinia
The protective role of T-regs is presumably secondary to that provided by Th-1 or Th-17 T cells given that all of the control animals in these experiments developed disease and in many cases succumbed to infection. Here, we provide evidence for the generation of CD4+ Th-17 cells following Y. enterocolitica infection that is consistent with the presence of IL-6, IL-1, and TGF-β in infected tissues. However, in a situation where an animal is deficient in TGF-β or CD25 function, bacteria disseminate to the liver and lung more rapidly and the majority of animals succumb to disease several days before the control animals. Interestingly, we show that animals treated with antibodies that block TGF-β or CD25 function have a diminished Th-17 response following Y. enterocolitica infection. These data are consistent with a T-reg response during acute infection impacting the appropriate Th-17 effector T-cell response. However these data should be interpreted with some caution as Th-17 cells express IL-2r and it is possible that anti-CD25 treatment might impact IL-17 production by blocking IL-2r on these cells. These data do demonstrate a clear Th-17 response during Y. enterocolitica infection, further expanding the known CD4+ effector responses elicited during this infection.
While CD25 can be expressed on other CD4+
effector T cells once they are activated, the kinetics of liver and lung colonization in the mice treated with anti-CD25 antibodies suggest a target T cell expressing high levels of CD25 at days 0 to 3 postinfection during a primary immune response, which is most consistent with T-regs. Interestingly, another potent anti-inflammatory cytokine produced by T-regs is IL-10, which has a controversial role in the pathogenesis of Y. enterocolitica
infection, with some studies suggesting that deficiency in IL-10 leads to resistance and others demonstrating that IL-10 deficiency has no impact on Yersinia
). The different phenotypes observed with IL-10 versus TGF-β deficiency may be reflective of distinct roles during the host response or a difference due to genetic versus antibody-mediated deficiency. Altogether, these data would suggest that T-regs, through the action of TGF-β, help to limit bacterial dissemination to the liver and lung by an unknown mechanism.
A number of recent studies have suggested that the dissemination of Yersinia
from the gut to other organs is more complex than previously appreciated, finding that Peyer's patches are not absolutely required for infection through the gut and that pools of bacteria in the gut can seed the deeper tissues (9
). Given these revelations, it is not unreasonable to predict that the host has evolved a means to temper inflammation during an acute bacterial infection as a means to diminish tissue damage and limit dissemination of the infection.
In the case of invasive bacterial pathogens of the gut, natural T-regulatory cells appear to figure prominently in this role. Studies with ovalbumin (OVA)-restricted mice suggest that a fraction of the increases in T-regs after Y. enterocolitica
infection are independent of clonal expansion and may be a response to pathogen-associated antigens recognized through the Toll-like receptors expressed on these cells (46
). Likewise, these same data would suggest that the expansion of T-regs in the Yersinia
-infected C57BL/6 mice is predominantly due to antigen-dependent expansion of these cells. Currently it is not clear if these cells expand due to a pathogen-associated antigen or in response to a self antigen released as a result of the severe tissue damage caused by these infections.
Altogether, these studies reveal a previously unrecognized role for T-regs in the acute phase of the host response to invasive bacterial pathogens of the gut. Although T-regs are unlikely to be directly involved in antimicrobial activities in a manner analogous to Th-1 cells, they likely control inflammation, thus limiting tissue damage and direct access to the circulation, thereby indirectly impacting the dissemination of bacteria. The robust colonization of the livers by day 5 postinfection in mice treated with anti-TGF-β or anti-CD25 antibodies suggests that these mice develop bacteremia more rapidly than control animals. Additionally, during acute infections, T-regs may play an important role in regulating immune homeostasis, limiting the extent of inflammation and/or assisting in the return to basal status once infection has been resolved. These data supply further evidence for mechanisms of immune control of acute inflammation during invasive bacterial infection. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38365000 |
Of the 594 children randomised, 571 started the study, receiving either milk containing Lactobacillus GG (n=282) or control milk (n=289) (figure ). Fifty eight children did not complete the follow up period.
Progress of participants during seven month study
Table details characteristics of the children before treatment. The block randomisation resulted in a similar distribution of children in the age groups under 3 years and 3 years and over: 51 (18%) and 231 (82%) in the Lactobacillus group and 55 (19%) and 234 (81%) in the control group. Detailed analysis of age distribution, however, showed that there were differences between the groups. Also, there were more children in the control group who had had five or more respiratory infections during the preceding 12 months. Age and preceding infections both have an effect on the incidence of infections and as they were strongly correlated we adjusted only for age in comparisons of treatment.
Characteristics before treatment of children allocated to probiotic milk (Lactobacillus GG) and control groups. Figures are means (ranges) or numbers (percentage) of children
Intention to treat analysis
Symptoms of illness as reported by parents—There were no significant differences between the groups in the number of days with respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms (table ). However, in the Lactobacillus group there were fewer days of absence because of illness—a Lactobacillus:control ratio of 0.85 (95% confidence interval 0.73 to 0.98)—and thus a reduction of 15%. The time without respiratory symptoms was significantly longer in the Lactobacillus group compared with the control group (5 (4.1 to 5.9) v 4 (3.5 to 4.6) weeks, P=0.03, fig ). Time without diarrhoea was not significantly different (25 (24 to 26) v 24 (23 to 25) weeks, respectively, P=0.20, fig ).
Table 2 Details of symptoms, absence, and symptom score during seven month treatment period. Unadjusted and age adjusted results based on intention to treat population, with children who completed intervention. Figures are geometric means (95% confidence (more ...)
Proportion of children without infection during seven month study (respiratory symptoms and diarrhoea)
Upper and lower respiratory tract infections diagnosed by doctor—The number of children with respiratory infections (otitis media, sinusitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia) was significantly lower in the Lactobacillus group (relative reduction 17%, table ). There were also fewer children in the Lactobacillus group who were prescribed antibiotics for respiratory infections (relative reduction 19%, table ).
Table 3 Number (percentage) of children having at least one respiratory tract infection, as diagnosed by doctor, or at least one course of antibiotics prescribed by doctor. Unadjusted and age adjusted results based on intention to treat population with children (more ...)
Age adjusted results—Adjustment for age reduced the difference between the groups in the number of days of absence (table ). After age adjustment the odds ratio for the Lactobacillus group was 0.89 (0.77 to 1.02). The time without respiratory symptoms was not significantly different between the groups (data not shown), but for the Lactobacillus group the estimated odds ratio was 0.86 (0.70 to 1.06, P=0.16), indicating reduced risk. Time without diarrhoea was also not significantly different between the groups, but the odds ratio for the Lactobacillus group was 0.87 (0.64 to 1.28, P=0.36). The numbers of children with respiratory tract infections diagnosed by a doctor and being given antibiotic treatments for these were not significantly different between the groups (table ). However, the age adjusted odds ratios for the Lactobacillus group were 0.75 (0.52 to 1.09, P=0.13) for all respiratory infections and 0.72 (0.50 to 1.03, P=0.08) for antibiotic treatment for respiratory infection.
After age adjustment there was a negative but non-significant correlation between the amount of milk consumed and the total number of days of illness (r=−0.12; P=0.07) and days with respiratory symptoms (r=−0.11; P=0.09). The negative correlation between the amount of Lactobacillus milk consumed and days with gastrointestinal symptoms was significant (r=−0.17; P=0.007).
Mean daily milk consumption was 260 ml in both groups (range 110-520 ml in the Lactobacillus and 100-600 ml in the control group). This quantity of milk contained 1-2x108 cfu of Lactobacillus GG. Compliance was also measured by the faecal recovery of Lactobacillus. Initially 12% of children in the Lactobacillus group and 4% in the control group carried Lactobacillus GG-type bacteria (P=0.29). Recovery figures were 97% v 9% (P<0.0001), respectively, in the middle of the study and 91% v 15% (P<0.0001) at the end. The median faecal Lactobacillus GG count in the Lactobacillus group was 5-8x104 cfu/g.
The responses to the questionnaire at the end of the study were similar in both groups. Neither Lactobacillus nor the control milk affected stool frequency or consistency. There was no difference between the groups in abdominal pain or allergic symptoms and no apparent side effects. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38367000 |
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
Introduction | "R" Reading | Curse of the Pharaoh | End-of-the-World Prophecies
Index | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z
Zener, Dr. Karl (1903-1963) In the early 1930s, a Swiss psychologist named Zener, a partner of Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine, designed a set of cards bearing five symbols which he felt were sufficiently different from one another that they would be ideal for conducting certain tests, among them extrasensory perception (ESP) tests. These symbols are: circle, plus sign, wavy lines, square, and star.
The five symbols developed by Dr. Karl Zener for use in tests of extrasensory perception.
These are normally used in a deck of twenty-five cards, five of each symbol. For decades, Zener cards have been employed in parapsychological laboratories in the search for the ever-elusive powers called telepathy and clairvoyance. So far, in spite of millions of bits of data gathered through that extensive exploration, experiments with Zener cards have failed to yield convincing, replicable results.
After a few years of association with Dr. Rhine, Zener began efforts to have him removed from the campus of Duke University, fearing the burden that the university would have to bear for being connected with parapsychology.
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Copyright (C) 1995-2007 James Randi.
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Chile is a country located on the southwestern coast of South America. It is best known in the Anglosphere for being the site of a military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990 under General Augusto Pinochet.
Pinochet dictatorship
In 1970, the Marxist Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile. After his government was implicated in some civil rights abuses, the Chilean legislature passed, on August 22, 1973, a resolution stating that democracy in Chile was about to break down, and inviting the army to throw Allende out. General Augusto Pinochet, with the backing of the United States, promptly took the opportunity, throwing the country into 17 years of military dictatorship with civil and human rights abuses far more grievous than those of his predecessor, as his regime forcibly "disappeared" and tortured many thousands of political dissidents.
Pinochet held two referenda on whether the military dictatorship should continue. The first, in 1980, overhauled the constitution but kept him on as dictator. There were many anomalies, for example, there wasn't an electoral registry, the number of voters was way to high (over 93% if the active population), and in many areas, there were more voters than inhabitants . The second, in 1988, asked whether he should continue as dictator; he was defeated. He then reintroduced elections, being replaced in 1990 by the democratically elected Patricio Aylwin. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38374000 |
The Tell Me Why Series, based on the books by Arkady Leokum, gives informative and easy-to-understand answers to the many types of questions that children ask about everyday subjects. This program answers questions children ask about computers, such as: What can you do with a computer? What is a "Motherboard?" What piece of computer equipment enables you to see the information that is inside a computer? What do input devices allow you to do? How does one computer communicate with another computer? What is the difference between a "bit" and a "byte"? What is the difference between hardware and software? What is a computer file? Subjects covered include: Abend, Bandwidth, Bit, Booting Up, Cable, Modem, CD-ROM, Data, DSL, Fiber Optics, Floppy Disc, Hard Disc, Icon, Keyboard, Laptop, Computer, Modem, Operating System, RAM, Scanner, Silicon, Software, Virus, WAN. This DVD also answers questions children ask about the Internet such as: How do I connect to the Internet? What is an Internet server? Is the World Wide Web part of the Internet? What is HTML? Do I need a browser to visit the web? What does a hyperlink do? How do I find information on the Internet? What does it mean to "download?" What is email? Can I use the Internet to talk on the telephone? Subjects covered include: Modem, protocol, TCP/IP, server, web page, domain name, URL, HTML, browser, Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, search engine, FTP, DSL. Grades 1-6. 60 minutes on DVD.
Customer Reviews for Tell Me Why: Computers & The Internet DVD
This product has not yet been reviewed. Click here to continue to the product details page. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38386000 |
This teacher's edition accompanies Vocabulary Level A. Full-page, full-color reproductions of the student pages are included, with the correct answers overlaid in a hot-pink, italicized font. A page of notes to the teacher include suggestions for presentations, optional plans, rationale, features of the series and more. 46 pages, indexed, softcover. Grade 7.
This resource is also known as Bob Jones Vocabulary Teacher's Edition, Level A, Grade 7, 3rd Edition.
Customer Reviews for BJU Vocabulary Teacher's Edition, Level A (Grade 7), Third Edition
This product has not yet been reviewed. Click here to continue to the product details page. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38387000 |
It’s a common misconception that diets and weight-loss programs are the only ways to get healthy. However, Helen Lawler, nutritionist for the Floyd County Health Department, believes that that is not the case. “Instead of dieting, have a lifestyle change. Pick the most nutritious options and start small. Pick two small goals to accomplish in your eating habits, and once you successfully accomplish them you, over time, will eat better.”
Instead of being deprived from the beloved, tasty, food options that are bad choices, nutritionist for Redmond Regional Medical Center Tiffany Gokey, says “eat smaller portions and make healthier choices. The food decisions people make can help them or hurt them. Eat foods with antioxidants such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, beans and drink green tea.” Lawler says, “I am a realist and believe people won’t ever cut out something they love to eat completely. By all means, treat yourself to sweets or salty foods, but only once a week.”
Eating healthy should start in childhood, and according to Lawler it should start with parents teaching children about portion control. She says, “limit high-calorie, low-nutrient, pre-packaged foods as much as possible. I’m realistic, and I know people love sweets, but junk food intake should be kept at a minimum.” Gokey says, “When you come home from the grocery store, divide everything in correct portion sizes. You have to train your mind and your eye to get used to what a correct portion size is.”
Eating healthy can seem like an impossible task and incredibly boring to some because of terms like “cutting out” and “staying away from” the options that taste good but are unhealthy. However Lawler believes eating healthy can still be fun. She says, “Food science is a fabulous thing, and we have come a long way. Across the board for everyone, try to get a variety of foods, if possible one from every food group. Also, people shouldn’t be scared of carbohydrates. Instead of eating a low carbohydrate diet, try to mix carbohydrates with protein.
“It changes the digestive process and creates longevity in your system.”
Although, eating healthy can be hard, it is incredibly beneficial in the long run. Ultimately healthy eating habits and portion control when eating can help prevent common conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. So start practicing healthy food habits now, and start small. For example, when trying to satisfy a snack craving, instead of eating a bag of chips eat vegetables such as baby carrots or broccoli accompanied with some tasty salad dressing, and that’s a good start. Try These:
2-4 large mangoes, cubed 1 pint blueberries, washed 1 pint raspberries, firm, washed
Blue Banana Smoothie
8 ounces milk (use your favorite such as skim, 1 percent, 2 percent, almond, soy, etc.) ½ cup frozen banana slices, ½ cup frozen blueberries
Potato Kale Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil 2 cups chopped yellow onion (about 1 large onion) 1½ cups chopped carrots (about 3 carrots) 1½ cups chopped celery (about 3 stalks) 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds Sea salt & pepper, to taste 1 can (15 ounce) white beans, rinsed & drained 6 cups cubed (about 1-inch pieces) potatoes 4 cups chopped kale (about 1 bunch) 4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth 4 cups water
Toppings: 6 ounces low-fat Greek yogurt ½ cup chopped fresh chives
Recipes for Bon Appetit Y’all photos prepared by Meals on Heels’ Kathy Patrick. Photos by Autumn Jones. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38393000 |
Dragons and Dragon Lore, by Ernest Ingersoll, , at sacred-texts.com
THE DRAGON'S PRECIOUS PEARL
A MOST curious, interesting, and at the same time obscure feature of this whole baffling subject is that of the so-called Pearl which accompanies the dragon in pictures and legends from the earliest times, and is common to the religious traditions of the whole East--India, China and Japan. Necklaces of pearls are a regular part of the regalia of naga-queens in their submarine palaces; and we read often in the old Vedic books of a magical jewel of good luck,' which was in custody of the naga-maidens but was lost by them through terror of their monstrous enemy, the bird garuda. There are traces of it in early Taoism, but it is best preserved in Buddhism as the jewel in the lotus, the mani of the mystic, ecstatic, formula Om mani padme hum--the "Jewel that grants all desires," the 'divine pearl' of the Buddhists throughout the Orient. Koreans commonly believe that the yellow (chief) dragon carries on his forehead (as also in Japan) a pear-shaped pearl having supernatural properties and healing power. In China alone, however, is this mystical accessory of the dragon made a significant part of pictures and decorative designs. Some say that originally every proper dragon carried a pearl under his chin; others that it was a special mark of imperial rank. A sixth-century writer asserts that such pearls are "spit out of dragons like snake-pearls out of snakes," and have enormous value.
This extraordinary gem is represented as a spherical object, or ball, half as big, or quite as large, as the head of the dragon with which it is associated, for it is never depicted quite by itself. The gem is white or bluish with a reddish or golden halo, and usually has an antler-shaped 'flame' rising from its surface. Almost invariably there hangs downward from the centre of the sphere a dark-coloured, comma-like appendage, frequently branched, wavering below the periphery. A biologist might easily at first glance conclude that the whole affair represented the entry of a spermatozoon into an ovum; and the Chinese commonly interpret the ball with its comma-mark as a symbol of yang and yin, male and female elements, combined in the earth--which seems pretty close to the biologist's view. Such is the Dragon-Pearl.
In purely decorative work, where the figure of a dragon is writhing in clouds or adapting its lithe body under an artist's hand to the shape or purpose of a piece of porcelain, a bronze article, or a silken garment, the pearl may be drawn close to the dragon, or wherever convenient. When, however, it is desirable to express the significance of this sacred adjunct of dragonhood, it is treated with strict attention to reverence and tradition. Then are pictured celestial dragons ascending and descending through the upper air, tearing a path, perhaps, through swirling mists and shadows, "in pursuit of effulgent jewels or orbs that appear to be whirling in space, and that were supposed to be of magic efficiency, granting every wish." A passion for gems is a well-known characteristic of these beings, and that it has 'always' been so is shown by a fable recorded by Joly. T'an T'ai Mieh Ming, a disciple of Confucius, was attacked, at the instigation of the god of the Yellow River, by two dragons seeking to rob him of a valuable gem; but T'an T'ai slew the dragons and then, to show his contempt for worldly goods, threw the treasure into the river. Twice it leaped back into his boat, but at last he broke it in pieces and scattered the fragments.
Can these be the two dragons so often depicted facing one another in the air, and apparently rushing, as if in eager play, toward a pearl floating like an iridescent bubble between them? Nothing in the decorative art of China has occasioned more guessing and controversy than this. An eighteenth century vase described by Chait is "decorated with nine dragons (a mystic number) whirling through scrolled clouds enveloping parts of their serpentine bodies in pursuit of jewels of omnipotence, which appear in the midst of clouds as revolving disks emitting branched rays of effulgence." Ball points out that in books issued under imperial auspices "two dragons encircle the title, striving . . . for a pearl." Japanese designers like to form the handles of bells, whether big temple-bells or tiny ones, of two dragons affrontes, with the tama between them. One Japanese carving represents a snake-like dragon coiled tightly around a ball, marked with spiral lines, illustrating devotion to the tama. "A great ball of gilded glass," writes Visser, "is said to hang from the centre of the roof of the great hall of the Buddhist temple Fa(h)-yu-sze, or Temple of the Reign of Law, while eight dragons, curved around the 'hanging pillars,' eagerly stretch their claws towards the 'pearl of perfection.' . . . Dragons trying to seize a fiery 'pearl,' which is hanging in a gate, are represented twice in the same temple. . . . We may be sure that the Chinese Buddhists, identifying the Dragon with the Naga, also identified the ball with their cintamani or 'precious pearl which grants all desires.'"
In these and many similar examples we, as outsiders, may grasp little of the significance or symbolism in this conspicuous 'ball' or 'pearl,' but we may approach an understanding of it through Dr. De Groot's investigation of Chinese religion.' He describes the ceremonial dress of the Wuist priests as having a "broad border of blue silk around the neck stitched with two ascending dragons which are belching out a ball probably representing thunder." De Groot explains further that "the ball between two dragons is often delineated as a spiral," and adds that 'in an ancient charm . . . a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of lightning." In Japanese prints a dragon is frequently accompanied by a huge spiral indicating a thunderstorm caused by him. Are the antler-shaped appendages rising above the 'ball' intended to represent lightning-flames?
Dr. Visser discusses this hypothesis at length, pointing out that the whole attitude of the two dragons in such art-productions displays great eagerness to catch and swallow the gleaming sphere. This attitude and avidity become clear, Visser thinks, when one sees a Chinese picture like that in Blacker's Chats on Oriental China, of two dragons rushing at a fiery spiral ball above the legend: "Two Dragons Facing the Moon." Sometimes two dragons confront each other, each having a flaming pearl floating just in front of their faces.
There is nothing absurd about this suggestion of swallowing the moon. Celestial dragons are, in reality, personifications of clouds; and among the most primitive and widespread impressions respecting lunar eclipses is the notion that a monster is devouring the moon. Dark and writhing clouds advancing as if alive, and finally extinguishing its light, might easily suggest a similar thought; and it was a matter of early experience that after these hungry cloud-dragons had completed their feast, fertilizing rain usually blessed the thirsty fields and pastures, so that the dragons got the credit. Hence artists liked to represent these public benefactors playfully contending for the opportunity to devour the 'queen of night' and so produce a crop-saving fall of showers for which they (the dragons) would enjoy grateful appreciation. Incidentally, artists note that a pair of their graceful figures make a well-balanced composition. The moon and water are closely connected in all mythologies; hence the moon is closely linked with fertilizing agencies in general. Faith in the moon's influence on the weather lingers strongly in the mind of rural communities even in these progressive United States of America; and it is easy to believe that the dragon-thanking agriculturists and shepherds of China felt assured that the rain-giving will and power of their celestial friends were refreshed by frequently absorbing this bright and stimulating object in the sky.
That these reflections are not 'all moonshine' is shown by evidence in the writings of the old philosophers of the East, who assure us that the actual mundane pearl taken from the oyster in whose shell it is formed beneath the salt waters is the "concrete essence of the moon" distilled through the system of the mollusk--an emanation from the moon-goddess herself. "The pearls found in the oyster," as one student interprets it, "were supposed to be little moons, drops of the moon-substance (or dew) which fell from the sky into the gaping oyster. Hence pearls acquired the reputation of shining by night, like to the moon from which they were believed to have come." All this tends to demonstrate that the theory that the moon is the mani, the 'pearl of great price,' the divine essence of the gods, is not unreasonable; and its probability is reinforced by the stated fact that in both Chinese and Japanese dictionaries an ideograph combined of elements meaning respectively 'jewel' and 'moon' is defined as 'moon-pearl.'
I am inclined to regard this as a better explanation of the puzzling object so constantly associated with dragons in Chinese decorative art than is the 'thunder' hypothesis. At the same time it is to be noted that the spiral character of the pearl,' and of the 'tag' that springs from its centre, is the widely recognized symbol for thunder; while the antler-like appendages indicate accompanying lightnings; therefore the identification of the 'pearl' with the moon need not preclude its co-association with thunderstorms, for the dragon is a rain-controller, and in a fair sense is the deity heard and seen in thunder and lightning, who is in particular the storm-god of sailormen.
In Japan, whose dragon-mythology has been strongly tinctured with Indian notions, as we have seen, the pearl appears mainly in connection with mythical tales of the ocean--a very natural connection. In the Nihongi, an ancient Japanese historical work, it is related that in the second year of the Emperor Chaui's reign (A.D. 193) the Empress Jingo-Kogo found in the sea "a jewel which grants all desires," apparently the same lost by the frightened Naga Maidens. She also obtained from the submarine palace of the dragon-king the ebb-jewel (kan-ja) and the flood-jewel (man-ja), by which she was able, on at least one important occasion, to control the tides; they are described in the Nihongi as about five sun long, the former white and the latter blue--the colour of the east, whence rain comes; and the moon is controller of the oceanic tides!
Japanese legends relating to this matter, as briefly given by Joly, in his elaborate work on the legendary art of Japan, are connected with the mythical character Riujin, the ruler of the waters of the globe, whose home is beneath the sea, or in deep lakes, and who is represented as a very old man bearing a coiled dragon on his head or back. Riujin carries the divine jewel tama, esteemed as a symbol of purity and usually shown in Japan on the forehead of the dragon; also the jewels of the flowing and the retreating tides, which he gave to Jingo-Kogo, Hikohodermi, and others.
In representations of Hendaka Sonja, one of the worshipful sixteen arhats, special disciples of Buddha, "he is generally shown," Joly tells us, "with a bowl from which issues a dragon or a rain-cloud. He holds the bowl aloft with his left hand and with his right carries the sacred gem. Sometimes he is shown seated on a rock, the dragon occasionally aside, and crouching to reach the tama."
Another legend relates that Riujin once captured from the Chinese queen, the daughter of Kamatari, a most precious jewel, which later was recovered from Riujin by a fisher-girl, wife of Kamatari, who went to the dragon's submarine palace and got possession of the gem. She immediately stabbed her breast and hid the jewel in the wound, then floated to the surface and was found by Kamatari, the jewel guiding him to her by the dazzling light it shed from the concealing wound that became fatal to the heroine. Such stories are logical if the 'jewel' (tama, pearl) is identified with the moon.
Now it may well be asked: how is it that, granting the fondness of dragons for gems and the identity of the several gems and jewels mentioned in myths and ceremonies, they all trace back in significance to the pearl? Well, the pearl is an excellent image in miniature of the full moon; it, like the moon, represents water, and is a part of the history of the sea and sea-wanderings. Hence pearls were regarded as in the special possession of the sea-gods and water-spirits; and these beings were often pictured in forms far more fishy, or crocodilian, or shark-like, than were the terrestrial, serpentine dragons. But Japanese mythology includes also an earthquake-fish (Namazu) like an eel, with a long, attenuated head and long feelers on both sides of the mouth, which stirs about underground, thus causing earthquakes.
"The cultural drift from West to East, along the south coast of India," Dr. Smith reminds us, "was effected mainly by sailors who were searching for pearls. Sharks constituted the special dangers the divers had to incur in exploiting pearlbeds to obtain the precious 'giver of life.' But at the time these great enterprises were undertaken in the Indian Ocean the people dwelling in the neighbourhood of the chief pearlbeds regarded the sea as the great source of all life-giving, and the god who exercised these powers was incarnated in a fish (ancestor of Dagon). The sharks therefore had to be brought into this scheme, and they were rationalized as the guardians of the storehouse of life-giving pearls at the bottom of the sea. . . . Out of these crude materials the imaginations of the early pearl-fishers created the picture of wonderful submarine palaces of Naga kings in which vast wealth, not merely of pearls but also of gold, precious stones, and beautiful maidens, were placed under the protection of shark-dragons." | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38397000 |
In Jena, Graph is an interface. It abstracts anything that looks like RDF - storage options, inference, other legacy data sources.
The main operations are
addition, there are a number of getters to access handlers of various features
(query, statistics, reification, bulk update, event manager) .
Having handlers, rather than directly including all the operations for each
feature reduces the size of the interface and makes it easier to provide default
implementations of each feature.
Implementing a graph rarely needs to directly implement the interface.
More usually, an implementation starts by inheriting from the class GraphBase.
A minimal (read-only) implementation just needs to implement
Wrapping legacy data often only makes sense as a read-only graph. To provide update operations, just implement the methods
which are the methods called from the base implementations of
Then for testing with JUnit, inherit
from AbstractGraphTest (override tests that don't make sense in a particular circumstance)
and provide the
getGraph operation to generate a graph instance to test.
Where the graph level is minimal and symmetric (e.g. literal as subjects, inclusion of named variables) for easy implementation, the RDF API enforces the RDF conditions and provides a wide variety of convenience operations so writing a program can be succinct, not requiring the application writer to write unnecessary boilerplate code sequences. The ontology API does the same for OWL. If you look at the javadoc, you'll see the APIs are large but the system level interface is small.
A graph is turned into a Model by calling
ModelFactory.createModelForGraph(Graph). All the key application APIs
are interface-based although it's rarely needed to do anything other that use the
standard Model-Graph bridge.
Data access to the graph all goes via find. All the read operations of application APIs, directly or indirectly, come down to calling Graph.find or a graph query handler. And the default graph query handler works by calling Graph.find, so once find is implemented everything (read-only) works. ARQ's query API, which includes a SPARQL implementation, included. It may not be the most efficient way but importantly all functionality is available and so the graph implementer can quickly get a first implementation up and running, then decide where and when to spend further development time - or whether that's needed at all.
An example of this is a prototype Jena-Mulgara bridge (work in progress as of Jan'08). This maps the Graph API to a Mulgara session object, which can be a local Mulgara database or a remote Mulgara server. The prototype is a single class together with a set of factory operations for more convenient creation of a bridge graph wrapped in all Jena's APIs.
Implementing graph nodes, for IRIs and for literals is straight forward. Mulgara uses JRDF to represent these nodes and to represent triples. Mapping to and from Jena versions of the same is just the change in naming.
Blank nodes are more interesting. A blank node in Jena has an internal label (which is not a URI in disguise). When working at the lowest level of Graph, the code is manipulating things at a concrete, syntactic level.
A blank node in Mulgara has an internal id but it can change. It really is the internal node index as I found out by creating a blank node with id=1 and found it turned into rdf:type which was what was really at node slot 1. Paul has been (patiently!) explaining this to me on a Mulgara mailing list. The session interface is an interface onto the RDF data, not an interface to extend the graph details to the client. Both approaches are valid - it's just different levels of abstraction.
If the Jena application is careful about blank nodes (not assuming they are stable across transactions, and not deleting all triples involving some blank node, then creating triples involving that blank node) then it all works out. The most important case of reading data within a transaction is safe. Bulk loading is better down via the native Mulgara interfaces anyway. The Jena-Mulgara bridge enables a Jena application to access a Mulgara server through the same interfaces as any other RDF data. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38412000 |
Youth Apprenticeship Program
The Wisconsin Youth Apprenticeship program began with passage of 1993 Wisconsin Act 16 (the 1993-
1995 biennial budget) which appropriated funds to the Department of Workforce Development (then
known as the Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations) to support: an Office of Workforce
Excellence, Career Counseling and Information Centers for Youth, Youth Apprenticeship Training
Grants, Youth Apprenticeship Curriculum Grants and Youth Apprenticeship Administration and Program
Approval authority within the department. This legislation was developed in collaboration with the
Department of Public Instruction, the Department of Workforce Development and the Wisconsin
Technical College System. The program was loosely fashioned after the European apprenticeship
concept, particularly the German model, which required intensive and long-term employer-sponsored,
industry-focused training, the completion of competency-based technical courses plus the additional
coursework necessary for high school graduation.
The Youth Apprenticeship Program was a critical component of the state's school-to-work planning and
implementation initiatives in 1993 and 1994. In addition, the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act
of 1994 provided funds to the state to initiate the development of local school-to-work programs begun in
partnership with business, labor, secondary and postsecondary education agencies and local government
and community organizations. Wisconsin Act 9, the 1999-2001 Wisconsin state budget, created the
seventeen-member Governor's Work-Based Learning Board to administer and coordinate existing and
new work-based learning programs for youth including the Youth Apprenticeship Program. The Board is
an independent body, attached to the Department of Workforce Development for administrative purposes.
Some of the roles of the Board as they relate to the Youth Apprenticeship Program are:
· Establishing guidelines and standards for the program.
· Issuing requests for proposals to distribute funding.
· Working with trade and industry and labor leaders to develop new youth apprenticeship areas.
· Approving the statewide curricula for youth apprenticeship programs.
· Monitoring and providing technical assistance to local programs.
· Issuing certificates to youth apprentices who successfully complete the program.
The standard Youth Apprenticeship model is a two-year program for high school juniors and seniors
requiring a minimum of 900 hours of work experience and four semesters of related classroom instruction
based on statewide, industry-developed skill standards, using a state-developed curriculum
. The program
integrates school-based and work-based learning to provide the student with academic and technical skills
leading to a high school diploma and a Certificate of Occupational Proficiency issued by the Governor's
Work-Based Learning Board. The Youth Apprenticeship Program prepares students to enter the work
force directly after high school graduation, to begin a formal apprenticeship program or to begin a
postsecondary education in either a technical college or university in a technically oriented program.
Youth Apprenticeship programs are currently available in the following career interest areas:
· Agri Business
· Information Technology/Networking
· Auto Collision
Youth apprentices in a Level One program must complete a minimum of 450 hours of work-based learning while
they are enrolled in the program. At least 250 hours of the required minimum work-based learning time must take
place when related classes are being held, so that classroom instruction can be integrated with worksite training.
Students successfully completing a Level One program will receive a Certificate of Recognition | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38413000 |
Text::UnicodeBox::Text - Objects to describe text rendering
This module is part of the low level interface to Text::UnicodeBox; you probably don't need to use it directly.
The string representation of the text.
How many characters wide the text represents when rendered on the screen.
The following methods are exportable by name or by the tag ':all'
Given the passed text,
figures out the a smart value for the
length field and returns a new instance.
my $text = BOX_STRING('Test'); $text->align_and_pad(8); # is the same as # $text->align_and_pad( width => 8, pad => 1, pad_char => ' ', align => 'left' ); $text->value eq ' Test ';
Modify the value of this object to pad and align the text according to the specification. Pass any of the following parameters:
Defaults to the object's
length. Specifies how wide of a space the string is to be fit in. Doesn't make sense for this value to smaller then the width of the string. If you pass only one parameter to
align_and_pad, this is the parameter it's assigned to.
If the string looks like a number, the align default to 'right'; otherwise, 'left'.
How much padding on the right and left
What character to use for padding
Returns the value of this object.
Return array of objects of this string split into new strings on the newline character
Provides the count of
Return the length of the longest line in
my @segments = $obj->split( max_width => 100, break_words => 1 );
Return array of objects of this string split at the max width given. If break_words => 1, break anywhere, otherwise only break on the space character.
Copyright (c) 2012 Eric Waters and Shutterstock Images (http://shutterstock.com). All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.
Eric Waters <email@example.com> | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38414000 |
"Be spontaneous!" Paradoxes
A vexing communication block occurs when one person requests or demands something from another that can only be given sponta-neously - like trust, love, interest, acceptance, appreciation, desire, and respect. If the second person tries to comply, the first person may then say - "You're just doing that because I asked you to, not because you really mean it." Examples: "You never say 'I love you'"; "You must honor my wishes!"; "You need to respect the sacrifices I make for you"; and "Why won't you initiate sex more often?"
The solution: (a) mutual knowledge of this concept and process awareness, and the second person (b) asserting something like "You're asking me to (want to) give you something that has to be spontaneous," and (c) both people digging down to identify the under-lying relationship needs that are causing this situation.] Lesson 2 is about learning to communicate effectively | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38425000 |
Enter HAMLET and HORATIO. Full Summary
3 Remember it, my lord?
4 Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
5 That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
6 Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly
7 And praised be rashness for itlet us know,
8 Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
9 When our deep plots do pall: and that should learn us
10 There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
11 Rough-hew them how we will
11 That is most certain.
12 Up from my cabin,
13 My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
14 Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
15 Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
16 To mine own room again; making so bold,
17 My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
18 Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio
19 O royal knavery!an exact command,
20 Larded with many several sorts of reasons
21 Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
22 With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
23 That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
24 No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
25 My head should be struck off.
25 Is't possible?
28 I beseech you.
29 Being thus be-netted round with villanies
30 Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
31 They had begun the playI sat me down,
32 Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
33 I once did hold it, as our statists do,
34 A baseness to write fair and labour'd much
35 How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
36 It did me yeoman's service: wilt thou know
37 The effect of what I wrote?
37 Ay, good my lord.
38 An earnest conjuration from the king,
39 As England was his faithful tributary,
40 As love between them like the palm might flourish,
41 As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
42 And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
43 And many such-like 'As'es of great charge,
44 That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
45 Without debatement further, more or less,
46 He should the bearers put to sudden death,
47 Not shriving-time allow'd.
47 How was this seal'd?
48 Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
49 I had my father's signet in my purse,
50 Which was the model of that Danish seal;
51 Folded the writ up in form of the other,
52 Subscrib'd it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
53 The changeling never known. Now, the next day
54 Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
55 Thou know'st already.
56 So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
57 Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
58 They are not near my conscience; their defeat
59 Does by their own insinuation grow:
60 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
61 Between the pass and fell incensed points
62 Of mighty opposites.
62 Why, what a king is this!
63 Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon
64 He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
65 Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
66 Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
67 And with such cozenageis't not perfect conscience,
68 To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd,
69 To let this canker of our nature come
70 In further evil?
73 It will be short: the interim is mine;
74 And a man's life's no more than to say "One."
75 But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
76 That to Laertes I forgot myself;
77 For, by the image of my cause, I see
78 The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
79 But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
80 Into a towering passion.
80 Peace, who comes here?
81 Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
82 I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
83 No, my good lord.
84 Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to
85 know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
86 beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
87 the king's mess: 'tis a chough; but, as I say,
88 spacious in the possession of dirt.
94 I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
97 It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
100 Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultryas
101 'twereI cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
102 majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
103 great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter
104 I beseech you, remember
105 Nay, good my lord; for my ease, in good faith.
106 Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
107 me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
108 differences, of very soft society and great showing:
109 indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
110 calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
111 continent of what part a gentleman would see.
112 Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
113 though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
114 dozy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
115 neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
116 verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
117 great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
118 rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
119 semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
120 him, his umbrage, nothing more.
121 Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
129 Of Laertes?
132 Of him, sir.
133 I know you are not ignorant
144 What's his weapon?
145 Rapier and dagger.
146 That's two of his weapons: but, well.
147 The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
148 horses: against the which he has impawn'd, as I take
149 it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
150 assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
151 carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
152 responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
153 and of very liberal conceit.
154 What call you the carriages?
157 The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
158 The phrase would be more german to the matter,
159 if we could carry cannon by our sides: I would
160 it might be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary
161 horses against six French swords, their assigns,
162 and three liberal-conceited carriages; that's the
163 French bet against the Danish. Why is this "impawn'd,"
164 as you call it?
165 The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
166 between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
167 three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
168 would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
169 would vouchsafe the answer.
170 How if I answer "no"?
173 Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
174 majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me.
175 Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing,
176 and the king hold his purpose, I will win for him
177 an I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame
178 and the odd hits.
179 Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?
182 I commend my duty to your lordship.
187 'A did comply, sir, with his dug, before 'a sucked it.
188 Thus has heand many more of the same breed
189 that I know the drossy age dotes ononly got the
190 tune of the time and, out of an habit of encounter,
191 a kind of yesty collection, which carries them
192 through and through the most fann'd and winnow'd
193 opinions; and do but blow them to their trial,
194 the bubbles are out.
195 My lord, his majesty commended him to you by
196 young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend
197 him in the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure
198 hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer
204 The king and queen and all are coming down.
205 In happy time.
208 She well instructs me.
209 You will lose, my lord.
210 I do not think so: since he went into France, I
211 have been in continual practice: I shall win at the
212 odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
213 about my heart: but it is no matter.
214 Nay, good my lord
219 Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
220 providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
221 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
222 now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The
223 readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows
224 what is't to leave betimes, let be.
225 Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
226 Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
227 But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
228 This presence knows,
229 And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
230 With a sore distraction. What I have done,
231 That might your nature, honour and exception
232 Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
233 Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
234 If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
235 And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
236 Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
237 Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
238 Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
239 His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
240 Sir, in this audience,
241 Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
242 Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
243 That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
244 And hurt my brother.
244 I am satisfied in nature,
245 Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
246 To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
247 I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
248 Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
249 I have a voice and precedent of peace,
250 To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
251 I do receive your offer'd love like love,
252 And will not wrong it.
254 Come, one for me.
257 You mock me, sir.
258 No, by this hand.
264 This is too heavy, let me see another.
265 This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
266 Ay, my good lord.
267 Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
268 If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
269 Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
270 Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
271 The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
272 And in the cup an union shall he throw,
273 Richer than that which four successive kings
274 In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
275 And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
276 The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
277 The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
278 "Now the king drinks to Hamlet." Come, begin:
279 And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
280 Come on, sir.
280 Come, my lord.
281 A hit, a very palpable hit.
281 Well; again.
282 Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
283 Here's to thy health. Give him the cup.
*** Drum, trumpets [sound a] flourish. A piece
284 I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
285 Another hit; what say you?
286 A touch, a touch, I do confess.
287 Our son shall win.
290 Good madam!
290 Gertrude, do not drink.
291 I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
292 It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
293 I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
294 Come, let me wipe thy face.
295 My lord, I'll hit him now.
295 I do not think't.
296 And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
300 Say you so? come on.
301 Nothing, neither way.
302 Have at you now!
302 Part them; they are incensed.
303 Nay, come, again.
303 Look to the queen there, ho!
304 They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
305 How is't, Laertes?
308 How does the queen?
308 She swoons to see them bleed.
313 It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
314 No medicine in the world can do thee good;
315 In thee there is not half an hour of life;
316 The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
317 Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
318 Hath turn'd itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
319 Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
320 I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.
323 Treason! treason!
324 O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
327 Follow my mother.
332 Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
333 I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
334 You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
335 That are but mutes or audience to this act,
336 Had I but timeas this fell sergeant, death,
337 Is strict in his arrestO, I could tell you
338 But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
339 Thou livest. Report me and my cause aright
340 To the unsatisfied.
342 As thou'rt a man,
343 Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
344 O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
345 Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
346 If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
347 Absent thee from felicity awhile,
348 And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
349 To tell my story.
349 What warlike noise is this?
352 O, I die, Horatio;
353 The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
354 I cannot live to hear the news from England;
355 But I do prophesy the election lights
356 On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
357 So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
358 Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
361 Why does the drum come hither?
362 Where is this sight?
367 The sight is dismal;
368 And our affairs from England come too late:
369 The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
370 To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
371 That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
372 Where should we have our thanks?
372 Not from his mouth,
373 Had it the ability of life to thank you:
374 He never gave commandment for their death.
375 But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
376 You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
377 Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
378 High on a stage be placed to the view;
379 And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
380 How these things came about. So shall you hear
381 Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
382 Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
383 Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
384 And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
385 Fall'n on th' inventors' heads: all this can I
386 Truly deliver.
386 Let us haste to hear it,
387 And call the noblest to the audience.
388 For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
389 I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
390 Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
391 Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
392 And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
393 But let this same be presently perform'd,
394 Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
395 On plots and errors, happen.
395 Let four captains
396 Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
397 For he was likely, had he been put on,
398 To have prov'd most royal: and, for his passage,
399 The soldiers' music and the rites of war
400 Speak loudly for him.
401 Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
402 Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
403 Go, bid the soldiers shoot. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38426000 |
The U.S. military is embracing alternative energy—but not because of climate change. Up to half of the yearly American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have been incurred guarding fuel convoys, and the Pentagon will no longer tolerate oil's "burden in blood."
By Edward Humes
The Marines of India Company harbored grave doubts about the experimental solar-power gear they were ordered to tote from their beachside base at Camp Pendleton to the grimmest, toughest war zone of Afghanistan. They arrived far more interested in armor to protect them while they patrolled the "Fish Tank," a booby trap-laden settlement next to their base, than in thin-film photovoltaics that might protect the planet from their carbon bootprint. India Company had encountered up to 15 roadside bombs a day, and individual platoon casualty rates had run as high as 25 percent killed or wounded. Tree hugging didn't seem like much of a survival skill in a place where a single false step could cost your legs—or worse.
"I was a skeptic," Gunnery Sergeant Willy Carrion says, in comments passed on from Afghanistan by military officials. "As Marines, we do not always like change. I expected [the solar gear] to be a burden."
But then they put it to the test. The portable solar generators and battery packs that powered the Marines' lights, radios, and computers day and night ran quietly, coolly, and cleanly, unlike the loud, cranky, jet-fuel-sucking generators they normally used. Camp Jackson, India Company's forward operating base, went from a noisy, easy target for insurgents roaming the night to a silent, stealthy, safer outpost. The 20 to 25 gallons of fuel it previously took to power a platoon each day suddenly lasted more than a week—which meant fewer fuel convoys, with their notoriously high casualty rates; fewer collisions with roadside improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and fewer Marines assigned to convoy duty instead of their primary mission.
Portable solar chargers allowed Marine patrols to spend weeks away from their Camp Jackson stronghold in the Taliban-infested Sangin district of Helmand Province without needing to lug extra batteries for their radios and other devices. This is no small matter: A modern infantry soldier may have to carry five pounds of batteries a day in the field. The heavy load displaces ammunition and demands regular replenishment missions that are as dangerous as fuel convoys. Fold-up solar chargers eliminated all that, according to First Lieutenant Josef Patterson, an India Company platoon commander. One set of batteries for each device lasted three weeks. "If I do not have a radio, I'm lost," Patterson explains. "So that was huge. I'm completely sold."
India Company is now the greenest fighting unit in the U.S. military. Its battle-tested package of solar gadgets—collectively dubbed the ExFOB (Experimental Forward Operating Base) by the acronym-loving military—has been a hit with the troops on the ground. Most of the fuel consumed in a combat zone powers electric generators, not vehicles, which makes solar a perfect alternative. The best evidence of this: Other units are clamoring for the same gear. India Company has become the model for a leaner, meaner, lower-carbon fighting force.
Video: Sierra writer Edward Humes discusses the greening of the U.S. military.
"The time we have saved on convoys has been crucial," Carrion says. "We all see how important renewable energy is. Every infantry battalion should have the ExFOB."
The Department of Defense uses more petroleum (and energy) than any other organization on the planet—$13 billion to $18 billion worth a year, depending on who does the math. That accounts for more than 80 percent of the federal government's energy tab. But after years of resistance, Gunnery Sergeant Carrion's suggestion is now Pentagon policy. The U.S. military, despite being stretched thin by eight years and a trillion-plus dollars spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya, is taking on another controversial, long-term mission: to defend America without depending on oil.
The pride of the Navy is no longer the iconic Nimitz-class nuclear-powered floating airfield or the deadly Aegis missile destroyer with gas-turbine engines that suck 34 gallons of fuel a minute. Now it's the nimble, multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island, an electric hybrid that can carry an entire Marine expeditionary unit, complete with tanks and aircraft, while using 60 percent less fossil fuel than its predecessors. Meanwhile, spurred on by glowing reports from India Company, the Marine Corps is equipping other units with the ExFOB and testing a new round of green battle gear at its desert training facility in Twentynine Palms, California, including a renewable-energy water-purification system intended to reduce the dangerous trucking of bottled water.
The Army is pursuing an aggressive "net zero" goal for its permanent bases worldwide, balancing production and consumption of energy, water, and waste so that they total out to zero. Plans have been approved for dozens of solar-power installations at bases around the world, and testing is ongoing for combat technologies such as an electric hybrid dune buggy for special forces, mobile factories that turn battle-zone waste into renewable fuel, and portable hybrid generators and smart "microgrids" that provide instant green power for far-flung outposts.
The Air Force, the military's biggest oil hog, is certifying fighters, bombers, and cargo jets to run on a mix that's 50 percent lower-carbon renewable biofuels. Once-cutting-edge stealth engineering is now old hat; the sexy new topic in aviation tech is fuel-producing algae. Tanks and jeeps—not to mention military garbage trucks and the 164,000 other noncombat vehicles that service military bases—are next in line for biofuels and hybridization.
Military officials are quick to make clear that this effort has nothing to do with political correctness, saving endangered species, or even slowing the global warming caused by the military's 300,000-barrels-a-day oil habit. "It's about cost. It's about national security. And it's about the burden in blood," says Bill Browning, a member of the Defense Science Board's energy task force (now disbanded) and a founder of the environmental consulting group Terrapin Bright Green. He points to a simple, terrible statistic concerning Iraq and Afghanistan: "Half the casualties in these conflicts have been fuel-convoy related."
In 2007, one out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to a military fatality, according to an Army study examining the link between casualties and energy. The 6,000 fuel convoys that year imposed such a huge cost in lives, manpower, and money that the Pentagon could no longer ignore it, Browning says.
"We call them convoys, but we might as well call them targets," says James Valdes, an Army scientific adviser and designer of a prototype trash-to-energy system for combat zones. Adds Paul Skalny, director of the Army's National Automotive Center in Detroit, "This is the number that matters: For every 1 percent of fuel we don't have to burn, 6,444 fewer soldiers have to be involved in convoy operations. And those are sons and daughters and husbands and wives who get to go home to their families someday."
In addition to mortality statistics are some grim budgetary realities. Getting fuel to combat troops in Afghanistan costs between $25 and $50 a gallon, and sometimes as much as $400. Even at the most peaceful outpost, it's never lower than $14 a gallon. Says Tom Hicks, the Navy's first deputy assistant secretary for energy (a post that didn't exist until last year): "We've realized that the best barrel of oil is the one we don't use."
Hicks's boss, Navy secretary Ray Mabus, is among the most vocal of the military's energy hawks. The former Mississippi governor publicly decries oil dependence for making our country and military "far too vulnerable." Mabus promises a "great green fleet" powered by renewable energy, starting with a carrier strike group to be demonstrated next year, and a Navy-wide conversion to 50 percent oil-free energy on land, at sea, and in the air by 2020, with a mix of solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel, and nuclear power. This is a tall order, given that between the Navy and the Marines under his command, Mabus's empire includes 290 ships; 3,700 jets, planes, and helicopters; 50,000 vehicles; and more than 72,500 buildings.
How can Mabus get away with such a commitment in a bad economy and with a fractured Congress threatening to pull the plug on environmental and energy initiatives? Simple: Just as President Barack Obama pushed renewables while avoiding the word "climate" in this year's State of the Union address, Mabus and other defense leaders downplay any connection between a sustainably powered military and fighting climate change. Sharon Burke, the new director of defense operational energy plans and programs—the closest thing to an energy czar that the Pentagon has ever had—used this strategy when confronted during her confirmation hearings last fall by climate-change doubter-in-chief Senator James Inhofe. Burke shrugged off his suggestion that she was making carbon reduction her priority, saying that her charge was to "improve the military's energy security" and make sure that the Pentagon factors in the true cost of energy for its equipment, purchases, and operations. But she acknowledged, "They are linked together. . . . If we do it right, that will be one of the results, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But that's not the role of this job."
It turned out that talking about how a terrorist strike far smaller than 9/11 could cripple America's power grid (and most of our military bases along with it), and detailing the budget-busting specter of $400-a-gallon fuel for military Humvees that get as little as four miles per gallon, provided framing that even the most die-hard congressional climate skeptic could not easily dismiss. Green power, the energy hawks insist, makes the military stronger. No less an authority than Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says, "Energy security needs to be one of the first things we think about, before we deploy another soldier, before we build another ship or plane, and before we buy or fill another rucksack."
The traditional attitude about energy at the Defense Department, Mullen admits, has been "Burn it if you got it." So its embrace of sustainability represents "a severe challenge," says Christine Parthemore, a fellow at the Center for New American Security. But, Parthemore points out, this is no more daunting than the Navy's evolution from sail to coal to oil to nuclear. Along the way, she says, the military helped lead worldwide energy changes by seeding and building markets for new technology—something the Pentagon appears to be trying to do once more, this time for solar, biofuel, and other alternative energy sources. "DOD is a huge energy consumer," Parthemore says. "Doing this gets the private sector up and running and innovating."
Although the green push is coming from the military leadership and the White House now, not all of the military's planet-friendly projects have been the result of top-down policy changes. Some have come from within the ranks—a base commander scrounging funds for a solar-power installation or seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for a new building. Even the lauded hybrid ship Makin Island came as an afterthought. The seven earlier ships in its Wasp class of amphibious assault vessels all burned petroleum to generate steam, a reliable but inefficient technology gradually being phased out. Ship designers realized that maybe this eighth and last ship could take advantage of its electrical-generating capacity if they added a bank of electric motors. Suddenly, the Navy had a very big floating Prius on its hands.
Instead of old-school steam boilers, the Makin Island has two 35,000-horsepower gas turbines that provide instant acceleration and speeds of up to a brisk 25 knots. But they're still gas guzzlers at low speeds, which is where a bank of 4,000-kilowatt diesel-electric generators and twin 5,000-horsepower electric motors comes in. With the flip of a switch, "we go from muscle car to hybrid," Chief Aaron Suarez says as he monitors the computerized graphical displays in the control center at the heart of the ship. "Me, I like muscle cars, so I like the gas turbines. But you can't beat the mileage of the hybrid."
"The bottom line is, I can stay in the fight longer," says Captain James W. Landers, the Makin Island's commander. "Using a third of the fuel gives us enormous flexibility." He points to several thick black rubber hoses running along the side of the ship and into the hull, tapping into its 2-million-gallon fuel supply. "Those are there because I can share when my sister ships run low on fuel." Designed to carry 800 Marines in addition to its crew of up to 1,000, the 847-foot Makin Island is a rapid-response warship that resembles a small aircraft carrier. Its landing deck, with its vertical takeoff and landing capability, accommodates helicopters, the tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey, and the AV-8B Harrier jet.
The Makin Island runs all-electric at speeds of up to 12 knots—which it maintains during 70 percent of its time at sea. According to Mabus, it saved $2 million in fuel costs on its maiden voyage alone, from its shipyard in Mississippi to its homeport in San Diego. The Navy estimates that the $2.5 billion ship should save more than $250 million in fuel costs over its lifetime. The ship also features an advanced reverse-osmosis desalination plant that uses no toxic chemicals, emits only salt, and has enough capacity to supply its needs and simultaneously bring freshwater to disaster areas. Its excess electrical-generating capacity could also provide stricken communities with power for medical and rescue operations. Still, Landers points out, the Makin Island is not a green ship, only a step in the right direction: "We're still burning dead dinosaurs and making black smoke. Just a lot less of it."
The next version of amphibious assault ships, the America class, which will debut next year, will incorporate the same hybrid engines, and the Navy is planning to install the electric-drive system in new destroyers as well. Ten new ships will be coming on line every year for the next five years, giving the Navy a chance to gradually green the fleet and retire some of its worst oil hogs. Mabus has talked about retrofitting some existing ships to become hybrids too, but for the most part, the Navy is stuck with the ships it has now for the next 20 to 40 years.
That's why the military considers biofuels such an important near-term strategy for green progress. The Air Force and the Navy are taking the lead in developing biofuels for aircraft (vehicles, ships, and generators are next in line) from nonfood crops such as the camelina seed and algae. Further out on the horizon may be jet fuel from the emerging "electrofuels" industry, which uses microbes and electrosynthesis, photosynthesis's more powerful cousin. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and the Energy Department are throwing billions of research dollars at electrofuels, which they consider one of the more promising paths to fossil fuel independence to develop in many years.
In March, the Air Force Alternative Fuels Certification Division demonstrated that biofuel performs just as well as fossil fuels in the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Commercial airlines are even more eager to see the industry ramp up, says Jeff Braun, the division's chief, with several firm commitments to buy biofuel as soon as it is available in commercial quantities. For the military, Braun notes, biofuels represent an energy "holy grail": domestically controlled fuel that can be produced anywhere the military needs it.
Not everyone is convinced. The Rand Corporation recently criticized the military's plans for biofuel, predicting that it would remain a niche industry incapable of providing the volume that the military needs at a price that could compete with oil. The Navy's Hicks counters that military purchases of biofuel, as they move from tens of thousands of gallons to tens of millions, will drive innovation and bring down costs. He cites as precedent such military-turned-commercial products as night-vision goggles, GPS devices, and even the Internet, all of which started out as expensive niche defense technologies. In fact, says Hicks, a former EPA and U.S. Green Building Council official who helped develop both the Energy Star program for buildings and the LEED rating system, "from what we can see already, we expect cost parity with petroleum by 2016."
Many obstacles stand in the way of the military's big green goals, starting with the fact that most military housing and many other Defense Department buildings lack electrical meters—making it difficult to weed out inefficiencies. The armed services have recently been on a crash course to install "smart meters" but are still barely halfway there. An even greater energy and security concern is that almost all military bases—even those with solar or geothermal power plants attached—are dependent on the commercial grid for power. In the World War II era, most bases generated their own power, but that capacity gave way to privatization, leaving most bases vulnerable to grid sabotage while also complicating plans to green military electricity.
Then there's the flagship 500-megawatt solar project announced with great fanfare two years ago for Fort Irwin, in the California desert. There's been little progress since the announcement because the military belatedly realized that the infrastructure doesn't exist to transmit that much renewable electricity from the base to the grid. An ambitious vehicle project called the clandestine extended-range vehicle (CERV) actually got built in prototype, but might stay there. It's a diesel-electric hybrid that offers a silent all-electric mode highly sought after by Special Forces units. The CERV was intended to become the model for a whole range of more-fuel-efficient combat vehicles, but funds dried up, and a decision on whether to move beyond the four prototypes was delayed until next year.
An uncertain fate also awaits the Army's promising tactical garbage to energy refinery (TGER) system, a mobile garbage disposal and power generator that can eat 2,000 of the 2,500 pounds of waste that a 550-soldier brigade produces each day in the field—from food scraps to ammo wrappers to plastic bottles. Depending on its type, the refuse is turned into either a synthetic gas similar to propane or liquid ethanol, both of which are then combined into an aerosol that powers an electric generator. After successful field tests in Iraq in 2008, the project has stalled for lack of funding.
An even more fundamental hurdle facing the military's green mission is that despite the ambitious goals set by each branch, there is still no overarching strategy from the Pentagon. The new defense energy leader, Burke, is charged with crafting one; she just returned from a long trip to Afghanistan and Iraq to research that strategy, which was due in May. Meanwhile, her old colleague Parthemore has coauthored a report recommending a straightforward, radical goal that would revolutionize the military and the industries that serve it: "To ready America's armed forces for tomorrow's challenges, DOD should ensure that it can operate all of its systems on non-petroleum fuels by 2040."
The Marines of India Company in Helmand Province have less lofty but more immediate goals: more solar generators and battery chargers, and fast, says Major Sean Sadlier, the Marine's energy liaison officer. "Every bit of relief matters to heavily engaged units and enables them to be more combat effective." Marines aren't out to save the planet—just to win the fight.
Edward Humes, a frequent contributor to Sierra, is the author of Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart's Green Revolution (Harper Business, 2011).
This story was funded by the Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38430000 |
Creating a Distributed Wireless Monitoring System for Aircraft Noise
"During the hardware evaluation process, we decided to use NI products because of their high measurement quality, ruggedness, and reliability compared to lower cost sound-level meters."
- Luis Fernández,
National Polytechnic Institute
Developing an autonomous, distributed wireless monitoring system to measure aircraft noise levels and stream the data back for analysis at a control center.
Using NI LabVIEW software, the NI Sound and Vibration Toolkit, and an NI USB-9234 dynamic signal acquisition module (DSA) to acquire and analyze reliable, high-quality data from various aircraft.
Noise levels from heavy automobile and aircraft traffic during morning and evening rush hours in Mexico City could potentially cause hearing loss. The Committee of Aerial Transport has proposed a new aircraft classification system in which the aircraft operator would pay a fee based on noise production, not weight or aircraft type. As a result, we put together a novel computational model that not only measures noise production, but also identifies an aircraft based on the noise it generates.
Each node in our wireless monitoring system contains a half-inch prepolarized microphone, a data acquisition card that measures noise level, an industrial computer, and a wireless Internet connection using Wi-Fi or 3G. Each microphone is in a weatherproof case mounted 4 meters above the ground. The node measures noise levels every 30 seconds and streams the data back to the control center every 5 minutes.
Figure 1. Distributed Wireless Monitoring System Diagram
Identifying an aircraft based on the noise spectrum characteristics it generates is complicated in the real world because background noise, the weather, takeoff speed, and the aircraft’s load can interfere with analysis. Recently, measurement equipment that uses neural networks to identify noise has appeared on the market, but it can only distinguish between jet aircrafts, propeller aircrafts, helicopters, and background noise. We decided to create a computational model to measure and interpret noise. Using only the noise created during the 24 seconds after takeoff, our system can correctly identify the aircraft.
Using a wireless topology reduces costs and provides flexibility in setting up a monitoring system. Each monitoring node is based on a headless industrial PC running Windows XP with a Wi-Fi adapter and an NI USB-9234. During the hardware evaluation process, we decided to use NI products because of their high measurement quality, ruggedness, and reliability compared to lower cost sound-level meters.
Even though each node is connected to the city’s electrical system, we use an uninterruptible power supply to prevent data loss. The node measures noise levels every 30 seconds and the system can collect data locally for up to 14 days. The government plans to use our data to identify the times and locations in Mexico City with the highest noise level, create noise maps, and implement regulatory actions to control the noise and promote a healthier environment for its citizens.
Our system can record traditional metrics used for road traffic noise, such as continuous equivalent sound level (Leq), and it can also record fractional octave analysis and measure prominent tones. In addition, the system can transfer WAV files to a central server to study transient signals that may trigger alarms, which helps identify isolated sound sources that interfere with accurate measurements.
Figure 2. Noise Patterns From Two Weeks in the City Square México City.
We originally planned to use the public Wi-Fi that the government installed in 2008, but some nodes had to be converted to a slower 3G system provided by a wireless carrier. Although we can use speech and data services simultaneously on the 3G network, it has significantly slower data transfer rates.
Communicating via TCP/IP
Our control center has a static IP address. Each node has a dynamic address assigned by a DHCP server. To simplify, the control center is similar to a server, and the nodes are similar to a client. The nodes attempt to open a TCP connection, and if the control center receives this connection request and the node’s validation key, it accepts the connection.
Figure 3. Control Center Central Server Interface
Figure 4. Signal Analysis of Audio That Exceeds Thresholds
Figure 5. Noise Level, Time, and Date, and Amplitude Measured in dBA
Figure 6. 3D Noise Map Displaying Noise Level, Time, Date, and Amplitude
Below is the system block diagram we created for pattern generation and recognition. We considered takeoff noise a nonstationary transient signal because it starts and ends at a zero level and has a finite duration. As Figure 8 shows, most of the signal’s energy is below 2 kHz. In this case, we notice the background noise more strongly at the ends of the signal because the aircraft-generated noise masks it in the middle portion.
Figure 7. System Block Diagram for Pttern Generation and Recognition
Figure 8. Typical Noise Signal and Spectrum of a Boeng 747 Taking Off
For all aircraft noise, we observed the typical form of the amplitude spectrum from 0 to 5,000 Hz. We chose to use a sampling frequency of 11,025 Hz in order to reduce the number of samples taken in 24 seconds to 264,600 samples. In other aircraft noise analyses, the recommended sampling frequency is 25 kS/s and D-, C- and A-weighting filters.
Reducing Spectral Resolution
We decided to reduce the spectral resolution because the amplitude spectrum has 132,300 harmonics, which would result in very complex processing. In addition, we were only interested in gathering data about the spectral form.
We present the following hypotheses:
- Any method to reduce spectral resolution introduces a tolerance in the initial and final times within the measurement interval of aircraft noise. For example, a feedforward neural network is trained with one noise pattern, which was acquired from zero seconds from the aircraft takeoff until 24 seconds later. In run time, if the aircraft takeoff noise is acquired from 5 seconds until 24 seconds, this 5 second time displacement will have little effect on the spectral form if its spectral resolution has been reduced.
- A median filter (moving average filter) creates a typical form of the aircraft’s takeoff noise spectrums.
- The decimation of average spectrum, with a rate X, conserves the spectral form of an aircraft’s takeoff noises.
Our 10-node system successfully measures the noise produced during takeoff by airplanes at the International Airport of Mexico. The system makes many different types of spectral analyses and obtains the most-used statistical indicators for noise measurement, expressed in dB(A) or dB(C). We can store the data collected by our system and later come back to perform more in-depth analysis. We can determine potential health risks from this noise, and gain an idea of how noise levels fluctuate throughout the day.
In the future, we would like to measure the differences of the yield when applying this technique after segmenting the original signal. We also plan to test new parameters to create the neural network.
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National Instruments provides a graphical system design platform for test, control, and embedded design applications that is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype, and deploy systems. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38435000 |
The worst example of cruel fishing concerns sharks. Shark fin soup, greatly esteemed in certain parts of Asia, is now sadly also in fashion in some Western countries. Before ordering a bowl in some supposedly sophisticated restaurant, remember that it raises ethical questions on at least two fronts:
• At the top of the food chain, this large predator plays a fundamental role in the equilibrium of the ecosystem in which it lives. If the number of sharks is greatly reduced, their prey will increase in numbers and put excessive pressure on the next level down in the food chain. This phenomenon is called a trophic cascade. Fishing sharks has serious repercussions on their numbers because they reproduce at a very slow rate, and unlike other fish, they produce very few eggs. They simply should not be caught.
• According to the international Shark Alliance coalition, the practice of “finning” is becoming very common to satisfy the demand for shark fins for soup: The sharks are hoisted aboard fishing boats, the prized fins are cut off and the rest of the shark is thrown back in the sea, often still alive. Even in Australia and other countries where finning is banned, the practice continues.
Don’t believe us? Want some proof? Watch this video.
For more information, visit the Shark Alliance website. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38442000 |
Day 12 of White History Month: The Imposition of Colorism and Colonial Beauty Standards on People of Color
This is a long post adapted from a longer essay which references a lot of studies so you might notice there’s no works cited, but if you really want it, send me an ask.
Related to racism and colonialism, colorism is the discrimination against darker skin and preference for lighter skin among people of color. Colorism was created by European colonial standards. It was engineered by white people and white people continue to harm people of color with colorism in the media, workplace, and in their own minds.
White people tend to be unaware of the nature of colorism because of the popularity of tanning. Within mainstream white American culture, tanning has become a trend, leading many white people to be ignorant of how prized fair skin is. A preference for tanned (white) skin among white people does not negate colorism. Tanned skin is a trend and is also tied to class and status (time for leisure) while in the past, tanned skin was linked to working outdoors. When white people are aware of colorism, they often try to portray it as a tragic phenomenon among people of color and not one that is the result of whiteness, racism, and colonialism.
Many people of color are also unaware of the true nature of colorism, as well; some believe it to simply be a harmless “feud” between lighter and darker skinned people of color. This is not the case. While many light-skinned and white passing people of color may feel a disconnect from their racial identity due to their skin color, this does not negate the privilege they have. Colorism is directly related to colonialism, showing tangible effects on people of color. Communities of color are divided by skin color and given privilege based on their proximity to whiteness.
Racist colonial logic emerging from slavery associated Blackness with savagery and ugliness, as opposed to whiteness which was associated with civilization and beauty. From this logic emerged features associated with whiteness – light eyes, straight/long hair, narrow nose, and thin lips – being considered good, while features associated with Blackness – dark eyes, kinky/short hair, wider nose, and full lips – being considered bad.
Historically, during slavery, light-skinned Black people were treated less violently by overseers, were more likely to be given household duties instead of more difficult work, had better living conditions, and had more possibilities for education and eventual manumission (Rockquemore and Brunsma). After slavery, lighter-skinned Black people had more opportunities for prestige and success.
Hypodescent - the “one-drop” rule - meant that anyone with Black ancestry would be considered Black, no matter what their appearance was. Light-skinned Black people were encouraged to think highly of themselves and were literally “valued” at higher prices during slavery. Those classified as “Mulatto” were more likely to be freed; mixed Black people (classified using the antiquated term “mulatto”) made up 10-15% of the total Black population, but 37% of all free Black people.
Freed Black people during slavery and those were well established after slavery tended to be light-skinned. Paper bag tests were used in Black communities to establish admission to social events, fraternities/sororities, and more, shutting out darker-skinned Black Americans from networking opportunities. Noting that lighter skinned Black people were more likely to successful, sociologist E.B. Reuter (1918) noted that even some “white blood” would “improve” Black people (rather than the obvious fact that lighter skinned Black people were treated better).
White colonizers created caste systems and categorizations deriving from this racist logic, and from it emerged the categories of quadroons, Mestizos, and Mullatoes. In the Southwest United States, Mexicans were more likely to receive United States citizenship if they had lighter skin or passed for white. Colonizers in Africa, the Americas, and Asia treated lighter skinned people with more “European” features better than those with medium or dark skin and indigenous features.
People often try to absolve white people of responsibility for colorism that existed in Asian societies before European colonial contact, but it was not racially-based. The concept of race itself is a European and Western construction. Lighter skin was a class marker just as in European societies - darker skin was linked to laboring in the sun rather than proximity to whiteness. Even when lighter skin color was preferred, indigenous hair and eye color and facial features were previously the standard of beauty.
Effects Today (behind the cut)
One of the greatest transformations I see in the Bible is seen in Acts 20:26 when Paul says “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men”.
Hold on, isn’t this the same man that murdered men and women of the Christian faith a couple of years ago?
The audacity to say that he is ‘innocent of the blood of ALL men’ can be seen as arrogant and insulting but looking deeper it shows how thoroughly he understood grace.
On that road to Damascus when he was changed, from Saul to Paul, that was it. All his sins, no matter how grievous they were, were abandoned, he became Brand New. Like creating a new username after deleting your Internet history.
Now if Paul can forgive himself in such a way, why can’t we?
I came under a deep conviction today as I stepped into Church.
As we step into church, the moment we cross the door is when we abandon ourselves, drop our guilt, shame and sin. Stepping into church is like diplomatic immunity. We come to worship and that is so profound. Despite those things we drop at the door, we are allowed to worship. And we should do so wholeheartedly no matter what happened Monday to Saturday. We come to magnify God and that should make us smile. It makes me smile. Thank You Lord for your Grace.
UK Office or USA Office? //not that I’ve ever watched either.
The US! You have to watch it. OH MY DAYS. There hasn’t been a funnier show since Friends.
If there’s one thing that most fans of Star Trek will agree on, it’s the fact that Gene Roddenberry’s vision for the show — and, more optimistically, for human society — was predicated on the idea that all life is valuable, and that the worth of a person should not be judged by their appearance. Much of this was done through the old sci-fi trope of using aliens to stand in for oppressed groups, but Star Trek didn’t rely on the metaphor; it had characters who were part of the ensemble, important and beloved members of the Enterprise crew, who were people of colour. It had background characters who were people of colour. And, here and there, it had anti-heroes and villains who were people of colour … one of whom, Khan Noonian Singh, became well-nigh iconic.
Image 1: “Who is your favorite villain?” ; Actor John Cho (Lt Sulu) answers.
Image 2: TOS Khan looking at a watercolor of himself. Yes, he’s wearing a dastar (Sikh turban)
Image 3: Cumberbatch and Montalbán (as Khan)
And who is now being played by white actor Benedict Cumberbatch in the new JJ Abrams reboot movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness.
We’re all cynical and jaded enough to know the standard dismissal when it comes to matters of media representation: Paramount Pictures and most film studios are not interested in diversity or visibility, they only care about the bottom dollar. Star Trek as a franchise is too much of a juggernaut to affect with boycotts. There are too many people who love it, who love those characters and that world, and will go to see the movie. And for some of these people, this devotion to the idea of a future where even South and East Asian men get to pilot a starship and love swashbuckling, where Black women make Lieutenant on the Enterprise and actually get the boy, will be trivialized and eroded and whitewashed when the most formidable and complex Star Trek baddie becomes a white man named Khan.
It wasn’t perfect in the 60s when Ricardo Montalbán was cast to play Khan (a character explicitly described in the episode script of Space Seed as being Sikh, from the Northern regions of India). But considering all of the barriers to representation that Roddenberry faced from the television networks, having a brown-skinned man play a brown character was a hard-won victory. It’s disappointing and demoralizing that with the commercial power of Star Trek in his hands, JJ Abrams chose not to honour the original spirit of the show, or the symbolic heft of the Khan character, but to wield the whitewash brush for … what? The hopes that casting Benedict Cumberbatch would draw in a few more box office returns? It’s doubly disappointing when you consider that Abrams was a creator of the television show Lost, which had so many well-rounded and beloved characters of colour in it.
Add to this the secrecy prior to release around Cumberbatch’s role in the film, and what seems like a casting move that would typically be defended by cries of “best actor for the job, not racism” becomes something more cunning, more malicious. Yes, the obfuscation creates intrigue around and interest in the role, but it also prevents advocacy groups like Racebending.com from building campaigns to protest the whitewashing. This happened with the character of the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, as well as ‘Miranda Tate’ in The Dark Knight Rises, who ended up being Talia al Ghul but played by French actress Marion Cotillard. This practice is well in effect in Hollywood; and after the negative press that was generated by angry anti-oppression activists and fans when Paramount had The Last Airbender in the works, studios are wising up. They don’t want their racist practices to be called out, pointed at, and exposed before their movies are released — Airbender proved that these protests create enough bad feeling to affect their bottom line.
So the studio has now found a way to keep it secret and underhanded. Racebending.com was there for most of the production of The Last Airbender, and were even able to correspond with Paramount Pictures about it. This time, for Star Trek: Into Darkness, their hiding and opaque practices has managed to silence media watchdogs until the movie’s premiere.
As I said, this racist whitewashing of the character of Khan won’t affect how much money this Trek movie makes. And I’m happy that the franchise is popular, still popular enough to warrant not only a big-budget reboot with fantastic actors but also a sequel with that cast. I’m happy that actors I enjoy like Zoë Saldaña and John Cho are playing characters who mean so much to me, and that they, in respect for the groundbreaking contributions by Nichelle Nichols and George Takei in these roles, have paid homage to that past.
But all of that will be marred by having my own skin edited out, rendered worthless and silent and invisible when a South Asian man is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch up on that screen. In the original Trek, Khan, with his brown skin, was an Übermensch, intellectually and physically perfect, possessed of such charisma and drive that despite his efforts to gain control of the Enterprise, Captain Kirk (and many of the other officers) felt admiration for him.
And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.
What an enormous and horribly ironic step backwards. For Star Trek, for media representation, and for the vision of a future where we have transcended systemic, racist erasure.
THIS IS PISSING ME OFF | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38450000 |
||Big Wyoming, Equality State, Cowboy State
|Admitted to Union
||July 10, 1890, 44th State
||97,914 square miles, 9th largest state
||Gannett Peak, 13,804 feet
||3,100 feet, Belle Fourche River
|Average Annual Precipitation
|Population (2010 Census)
State of Wyoming
Wyoming is in the western United States. It is bordered by Montana on the north, South Dakota and Nebraska on the east, Colorado and Utah on the south, and Utah, Idaho and Montana on the west. The land within these borders was first called Wyoming in 1865, when a member of the U.S. Congress from Ohio suggested that a new territory be carved from Dakota, Utah, and Idaho territories.
The name Wyoming is a contraction of the Native American word mecheweamiing ("at the big plains"), and was first used by the Delaware people as a name for the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. Wyoming is known as the Cowboy State and the Equality State. The latter recognizes Wyoming as the first state to specifically give women the right to vote, which it did as a territory in 1869 and retained upon entering the Union.
Wyoming became a territory in 1868 and entered the Union on July 10, 1890, as the 44th state. It has a wealth of mineral and agricultural resources, and mining and agriculture still play major roles in the state's economy. During the same period the state ranked 50th among the 50 states in population and 50th in manufacturing.
"Wyoming," © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The Wyoming State Flag, designed by Mrs. A.C. Keyes of Casper (formerly Miss Verna Keays of Buffalo), was adopted by the fourteenth legislature on January 31, 1917.
The Great Seal of Wyoming is the heart of the flag. On the bison, once the monarch of the plains, is the seal representing the custom of branding. The colors of the State Flag are the same as those of the National Flag. The red border represents the Indian and the blood of the pioneers who gave their lives reclaiming the soil. White is the emblem of purity and uprightness. Blue, the color of the sky and mountains, is symbolic of fidelity, justice and virility.
State of Wyoming, http://wyoming.gov/general/general.asp
State Flower: Indian Paintbrush
The Indian paintbrush, common name for any of a genus of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs, was adopted as the State Flower on January 31, 1917. The genus, which contains about 200 species, is native to the cooler portions of North and Central America and Asia, and to the Andes. Because Indian paintbrushes, also called painted cups, are parasitic on the roots of other plants, they have not been naturalized and have rarely been cultivated away from their native habitat. The plants have long, hairy, unbranched stems with alternate leaves. The uppermost leaves, or bracts, are brilliantly colored and much showier than the inconspicuous interspersed flowers. The flowers, which are borne in spikes, have a two-lobed calyx, a two-lobed corolla, four stamens, and a solitary pistil. The corolla, which is usually yellow, is encased within the calyx, and is usually indiscernible. The fruit is a two-celled capsule. The common painted cup is the State Flower of Wyoming. The calyx of this plant is greenish white, but the bracts are intense vermilion. The scarlet paintbrush is a common wild plant of the eastern United States. The common Indian paintbrush is a hardy herb found in Canada and in the mountainous regions of the northern United States from New England to the Rocky Mountains. Its calyx is greenish white tinted with purplish red.
Scientific classification: Indian paintbrushes make up the genus Castilleja, of the family Scrophulariaceae. The common painted cup is classified as Castilleja linariaefolia, the scarlet paintbrush as Castilleja coccinea, and the common Indian paintbrush as Castilleja septentrionalis.
"Indian Paintbrush," Microsoft ® Encarta ® Online Encyclopedia 2008
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Bird: Meadowlark
Meadowlark is the common name for any of seven American bird species of a genus of the blackbird subfamily. The two North American species, the eastern and western meadowlarks, look very much alike but have different voices. Both are about 23 cm (about 9 in) long. They are brown streaked with black and buff above and bright yellow below, with a black crescent on the chest. They inhabit meadows and fields across the United States, their ranges overlapping in the middle west. They build domed nests hidden in the grass, where the females lay four to six white eggs, speckled with reddish brown. The range of the eastern meadowlark extends south to northern South America, where it meets the northernmost of five South American species, all characterized by having red rather than yellow breasts. Wyoming adopted the meadowlark as its State Bird on February 5, 1927.
Scientific classification: Meadowlarks make up the genus Sturnella of the subfamily Teterinae, family Emberizidae, order Passeriformes. The subfamily is sometimes considered a separate family, Icteridae. The eastern meadowlark is classified as Sturnella magna and the western meadowlark as Sturnella neglecta.
"Meadowlark," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Tree: Cottonwood
Cottonwood is the common name for several species of fast-growing, short-lived trees, members of the willow family. Cottonwoods are named for the cottonlike mass of hairs surrounding their seeds. They are related to poplars and aspens.
Cottonwood trees may reach a height of 30 m (100 ft) or more and may have a trunk diameter up to 2.4 m (8 ft). The bark is rough, with deep fissures. Cottonwoods are fast growing but short-lived trees. They are easily propagated, and some are planted as ornamentals. The wood of cottonwoods is moderately soft and rather lightweight. It is used chiefly for boxes, crates, and the interior parts of furniture.
The plains cottonwood is a large tree of the Great Plains and eastern border of the Rocky Mountains, and its range extends north into Canada. It grows to 27 m (90 ft). This tree is a subspecies of the eastern cottonwood, but it has hairy buds and lighter yellow branchlets. Its coarsely toothed leaves are often broader than they are long and have glands at the base of the leaf blade. The cottonwood became Wyoming's State Tree on February 1, 1947. The statute declaring the cottonwood as our State Tree was then amended in 1961 to change the scientific name.
Scientific classification: Cottonwoods are members of the family Salicaceae. The cottonwood is classified as Populus deltoides variety monilifera.
"Cottonwood," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Gemstone: Jade
Jade is a compact, opaque gemstone ranging in color from dark green to almost white. The term is applied to specimens cut from the minerals jadeite and nephrite.
Wyoming's State Gemstone is of the nephrite variety and was adopted on January 25, 1967. Nephrite, a member of the amphibole group of minerals, is a silicate of calcium and magnesium, with a small amount of iron replacing part of the magnesium. It is a tough, compact variety of the mineral tremolite with a hardness of 6 to 6.5 and specific gravity 2.96 to 3.1. Polished nephrite has an oily luster.
"Jade," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Mammal: Bison
The bison, adopted Wyoming's State Mammal on February 23, 1985, is the largest terrestrial animal in North America, where it is commonly called buffalo. The bison is characterized by a hump over the front shoulders; short, sharply pointed horns (in both sexes) curving outward and up from the sides of the massive head; and slimmer hindquarters. A mature bull of the North American bison is about 2 m (about 6.5 ft) high at the hump and 2.7 to 3.7 m (9 to 12 ft) long and weighs 850 to 1100 kg (1800 to 2400 lb); the female is smaller. The head, neck, forelegs, and front parts of the body have a thick coat of long, dark hair. The rear part of the body is covered with much shorter hair. The adult bull usually has a black beard about 30 cm (about 12 in) long.
k beard about 30 cm (about 12 in) long.
Scientific classification: Bison belong to the family Bovidae. The plains bison is classified as Bison bison bison, the wood bison as Bison bison athabascae, and the European bison as Bison bonasus.
"Bison," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Fish: Cutthroat Trout
Cutthroat trout is a type of trout named for an orange mark behind the lower jaw. Cutthroat trout are adaptable fish with several subspecies, or stocks, that vary greatly in appearance and live in a variety of habitats. Inland cutthroat are freshwater fish, living in cool streams or lakes; coastal cutthroat migrate to sea after two to five years in freshwater. All cutthroat return to their native streams to lay their eggs, or spawn.
Cutthroat are native to the western part of North America. Coastal cutthroat historically ranged from mid-Alaska to northern California. Inland cutthroat ranged from southern British Columbia and Alberta, Canada to New Mexico, and from eastern California to Colorado. Cutthroat have been transplanted widely and can now be found throughout North America.
The cutthroat trout became Wyoming's State Fish on February 18, 1987.
Scientific classification: The cutthroat trout is a member of the family Salmonidae in the Salmoniformes order. It is classified as Oncorhynchus clarki.
"Cutthroat Trout," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Fossil: Knightia
Knightia is an extinct genus of fish well-known from abundant fossils found in the Green River Formation of Wyoming. They rarely exceeded 25 cm in length and are found throughout the formation. Knightia became Wyoming's State Fossil on February 18, 1987.
Knightia was a slender fish and seems to have been a secondary consumer, feeding mainly on ostracods, algal forms and diatoms, as well as some smaller fish. They were schooling fish, and because of this they are frequently found together in mass mortality layers. The tendency for individual fishes to cluster in groups was probably quite common. Modern forms of small fish are noted for schooling, and it is highly probable that the ancient types associated similarly.
"Knightia," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org All Rights Reserved.
State Reptile: Horned Toad
The horned toad is a common name for a genus of short-tailed, short-legged lizards in the iguana family. They are called “horned” for the hornlike spines on the back of the head and sides of the body, and “toad” for their rounded, toadlike shape. Found mostly in dry regions of the western United States and Mexico, they are diurnal and can often be seen sitting motionless near ant mounds. Most species feed heavily on ants, but they will also eat other types of small insects and spiders. Their wide, flat bodies are about 8 to 13 cm (about 3 to 5 in) long. For defense, many species, including the coast horned lizard, can spray an intruder with blood from the corners of their eyes. The horned toad was adopted as the State Reptile on February 18, 1993.
Scientific classification: Horned lizards make up the genus Phrynosoma of the family Iguanidae. The coast horned lizard is classified as Phrynosoma coronatum and the Texas horned lizard as Phrynosoma cornutum.
"Horned Lizard," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Dinosaur: Triceratops
Wyoming's State Dinosaur, the triceratops is of the genus of four-legged, plant-eating dinosaurs that lived during the Cretaceous Period, more than 65 million years ago. Triceratops had three horns on its skull - one on its snout and one above each eye. The name is derived from the Greek words treis, "three"; kerat, "horn"; and ops, "face." Triceratops was one of the largest horned dinosaurs. The animal's other defining features include a beak and a neck shield, or frill. Triceratops belonged to a diverse group of ornithischian ("bird-hipped") dinosaurs called ceratopsians ("horn-face"), which populated North America and Asia toward the end of the age of dinosaurs. Many skulls have been recovered from sediments that floods deposited 67 million to 65 million years ago on low, coastal plains near a seaway that covered the interior of the United States and Canada.
The triceratops was adopted as the State Dinosaur on March 18, 1994.
"Triceratops," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Sport: Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport in which riders display their skill in activities related directly or indirectly to livestock raising, such as riding and roping cattle and horses. The term "rodeo" comes from the Spanish word rodear (to surround) and originally meant "roundup." A rodeo usually comprises five standard events and may also include up to three nonstandard events, as well as a number of informal contests. Cash prizes are awarded. The sport is especially popular in the United States and Canada, and about 2,000 rodeos are held annually in those countries. Most major rodeos are under the jurisdiction of Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The leading rodeos include Frontier Days, in Cheyenne, Wyoming; National Finals Rodeo, in Las Vegas, Nevada; National Western, in Denver, Colorado; Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, in Houston, Texas; and Calgary Exhibition and Stampede, in Calgary, Alberta.
Wyoming adopted the rodeo as its State Sport during its legislative session in 2003.
"Rodeo," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008, http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
State Coin: Sacagawea Golden Dollar Coin
Sacagawea was the Shoshone Indian who assisted the historic Lewis and Clark expedition. Between 1804 and1806, while still a teenager, she guided the adventurers from the Northern Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean and back. Her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, and their son who was born during the trip, Jean Baptiste, also accompanied the group.
Sacagawea knew several Indian languages, and being Shoshone, could help Lewis and Clark make contact with her people and acquire horses that were crucial to the success of the mission. Her contribution far exceeded anything Lewis and Clark had expected. She provided crucial knowledge of the topography of some of the most rugged country of North America and taught the explorers how to find edible roots and plants previously unknown to European-Americans.
Most crucially, Sacagawea and her infant served as a "white flag" of peace for the expedition, which was as much a military expedition as a scientific one. They entered potentially hostile territory well armed but undermanned compared to the Native American tribes they met. Because no war party was ever accompanied by a woman and infant, the response of the Native Americans was curiosity, not aggression.
Sacagawea died at the age of 25. Her grave is located in Lander, Wyoming.
In 2000, U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R - Wyoming), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, nominated Sacagawea for the dollar coin. Wyoming named the Sacagawea Golden Coin its State Coin on March 2, 2004.
"Coins and Medals: Sacagawea Golden Coin," © 1998-2008. The United States Mint. All Rights Reserved.
State Grass: Western Wheatgrass
Western wheatgrass is a perennial and sod-forming grass, native to most parts of the United States except the humid southeast. It is a dominant species in the Central and Northern Great Plains. Plant growth is vigorous, reaching 2 to 3 feet in height. Leaves are up to 12 inches long, 0.25 inch wide, rather stiff and erect. The whole plant is covered with a grayish bloom. It thrives best on rather heavy soil, but is adapted to a wide range of soil types, including alkaline soil. Both as pasturage and when cut for hay while still succulent, it is relished by all classes of livestock. The plants are usually grown from seed, but spread from underground rhizomes to form dense sods. This is a very valuable grass, both for feed and for erosion control.
Scientific classification: Western wheatgrass is classified as Pascopyrum smithii.
Wyoming adopted the western wheatgrass as its State Grass on February 28, 2007.
"Western Wheatgrass," Purdue University, Magness, J.R., G.M. Markle, C.C. Compton. 1971.
Food and feed crops of the United States. Interregional Research Project IR-4, IR Bul. 1 (Bul. 828 New Jersey Agr. Expt. Sta.), http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/crops/western_wheatgrass.html
State Butterfly: Sheridan’s Green Hairstreak
Sheridan’s green hairstreak was adopted as Wyoming’s State Butterfly on February 26, 2009. This lovely insect is distinctive, being one of the few green butterflies in our region. It was first discovered in 1877 near the location of present-day Sheridan, Wyoming. Both the town and the butterfly are named after Lt. General P.H. Sheridan, a famous Civil War commander. However, the butterfly was actually named before the town. The natural distribution of Sheridan’s green hairstreak ranges northwards to southern Canada, westwards to California, southwards to northern New Mexico, and eastwards into western North Dakota. In Wyoming the butterfly is most commonly found in foothills and canyons at elevations up to 8,000 feet (2440 m).
Sheridan’s green hairstreak occurs widely across Wyoming in mountains and foothills, wherever its food-plant (sulphur flower) is found. The butterflies visit various wildflowers to feed on nectar. This butterfly flies from March to early June and is the earliest butterfly to emerge from a chrysalis in Wyoming. Like the robin in Wyoming and other states, this green butterfly is a symbol of the arrival of spring in Wyoming. Adults may be seen flying during the earliest warm days of spring, while snow is still melting nearby. It is a small butterfly, with wing spans averaging 2.2-2.9 cm (less than one inch). However, the bright green color of the underside of the wings is very distinctive, making the butterfly quite easy to identify. There is a line of white dots across the underside of the hind wing, which may join to form a nearly solid white line. The upper surface of the wings is dark gray, but when at rest the wings are folded over the back, exposing the green lower surfaces.
Scientific classification: Sheridan’s green hairstreak is classified as Callophrys sheridanii, one of four species of the genus Callophrys. It is a member of the family Lycaenidae. The name is derived from the Greek words kallos (beauty) and phryktos (beacon). Sheridan’s green hairstreak is assigned to the subfamily Theclinae, commonly known as hairstreaks because many species have tiny hair-like tails off the tips of the hind wings. However, species of Callophrys have rounded hind wing margins without tails, so these are sometimes called tail-less hairstreaks.
Dr. Scott Shaw, Professor of Entomology and Insect Museum Curator, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY.
The code of the west, as derived from the book, Cowboy Ethics by James P. Owen, and summarized as follows, is the official state code of Wyoming. The code was adopted as Wyoming's State Code on March 3, 2010.
The code includes:
(i) Live each day with courage;
(ii) Take pride in your work;
(iii) Always finish what you start;
(iv) Do what has to be done;
(v) Be tough, but fair;
(vi) When you make a promise, keep it;
(vii) Ride for the brand;
(viii) Talk less, say more;
(ix) Remember that some things are not for sale;
(x) Know where to draw the line. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38452000 |
Extreme star cluster bursts into life (ground-based image)
A wide-field image of the Milky Way stretching across the southern sky. The beautiful Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) is seen at the right of the image glowing in red. It is within this spiral arm of our Milky Way that NGC 3603 resides. At the centre of the image is the constellation of the Southern Cross. The bright yellow/white star at the left of the image is alpha Centauri, in fact a system of three stars, at a distance of about 4.4 light-years from Earth.
About the Image
|Release date:||2 October 2007, 15:00|
|Size:||5544 x 4432 px|
About the Object
|Type:||• Solar System : Sky Phenomenon : Night Sky : Milky Way| | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38456000 |
New SRNL Device Measures Liquid Fill Level
( Download printer-friendly, PDF version)
AIKEN, S.C. (November 18, 2010) – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently granted Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) a U.S. Patent for an Ultrasonic Liquid Level Detector developed by Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to remotely measure the fill level of a hazardous liquid in a container. The inventors, William Hinz and Dennis Kotz, constructed a functional prototype and demonstrated it at the Savannah River Site (SRS).
"This device was conceived because we needed a creative solution for a challenging process where there was not an off-the-shelf fix," said Hinz.
Ultrasonic devices are used to determine the liquid level by transmitting and receiving ultrasonic energy traveling through liquids and solids to accurately measure distance. In the nuclear storage industry, these devices are critical for the precise filling of drums containing hazardous liquids. The most commonly used devices measure from the side or bottom of the container. One type measures liquid level from within a container, but requires multiple devices attached separately at specific areas.
"The core technology was available and well understood, but the access restrictions and the presence of shielding material presented a real challenge for the location and placement of the sensor. We sketched a device that took into consideration all the logistical complexities of the container design and the potential operational issues. A novel, spiral patterned shielding plug was incorporated to minimize any radiation exposure to personnel in the area. Several weeks later a full scale prototype was developed and demonstrated to be effective," said Hinz.
The Ultrasonic Liquid Level Detector was designed to be a simple, compact detector that could be positioned and used anywhere within a container, even above a liquid, independent of the orientation of the detector or the distance from the liquid surface to the bottom of the container. The patent states that the device achieves these goals and "is especially useful when a container is being filled remotely with a hazardous liquid … and shielding is positioned around the container so that access from the side or bottom is not possible."
"This new device will make it much easier to determine the level of liquid in such a container, with less error and radioactive exposure," said Hinz.
SRNL is DOE's applied research and development national laboratory located at the Savannah River Site. SRNL puts science to work to support DOE and the nation in the areas of environmental management, national and homeland security, and energy security. The management and operating contractor for SRS and SRNL is Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC.
Media contact: Will Callicott (803-725-3786 or firstname.lastname@example.org) or Angeline French (803-725-2854 or email@example.com) at SRNL.
Return to the SRNL News Room | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38464000 |
Once the Sample Return Capsule is
recovered at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR),
its contents will be placed in the capable hands of
the Stardust Curation Team - who are based at the Johnson
Space Center (JSC).
This team will then go about the business of carefully
transporting the aerogel containing grains from Comet
Wild 2 and interstellar dust to their special facility
at JSC for examination. The samples gathered by Stardust
are expected to consist of approximately 1000 cometary
dust particles measuring less than 100 =B5m each, and
an additional 100 interstellar dust grains primarily
of sub-micron size. The expected total mass of the sample
will probably be 1 mg, less than a thimbleful.
For the Stardust Mission, both comet coma samples and
the interstellar grains must be captured at high velocity
with minimal heating and other effects of physical alteration.
Particle collection at this speed has been extensively
demonstrated in laboratory tests, Shuttle flights and
on the MIR Space Station. Researchers have additionally
shown that comet dust collection can be accomplished
with minimal amounts of sample alteration.
The JSC team has developed exacting techniques for the
removal and analysis of captured grains from the silica
aerogel used as a capture medium. They will continue
to improve and practice these techniques before the
comet samples are placed into their hands in 2006.
For additional information visit the JSC Stardust Curation
Last updated February 15, 2006 | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38469000 |
U.S. Department of Education officials last week strongly urged local educators to provide more opportunities for students with disabilities to participate in after-school sports; opportunities, a recent report suggests, that such students sorely lack.
But the guidance — which some advocates likened to Title IX’s expansion of women’s athletics — also touched off debate over whether federal officials had overstepped their authority.
“The Obama Administration invents a right to wheelchair basketball,” blogged Mike Petrilli, executive vice president of the conservative Fordham Institute, saying the feds had created a burdensome, unfunded mandate for the nation’s schools without Congressional approval.
—Mike Petrilli, Fordham Institute
Federal officials told EdWeek that the new guidelines — which urge schools to “ensure equal opportunity for participation” — do not constitute a new mandate.
“The guidance does not say that there is a right to separate sports programs such as wheelchair basketball,” department spokesperson Daren Briscoe told Politics K-12‘s Michele McNeil. “Rather, the guidance ‘urges’—but does not require—that when inclusion is not possible, school districts find other ways to give students with disabilities the opportunity to take part in extracurricular athletics.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan expounds in a post on the department’s Homeroom blog:
Federal civil rights laws require schools to provide equal opportunities, not give anyone an unfair head start. So schools don’t have to change the essential rules of the game, and they don’t have to do anything that would provide a student with a disability an unfair competitive advantage. But they do need to make reasonable modifications (such as using a laser instead of a starter pistol to start a race so a deaf runner can compete) to ensure that students with disabilities get the very same opportunity to play as everyone else. The guidance issued today will help schools meet this obligation and will allow increasing numbers of kids with disabilities the chance to benefit from playing sports.
But the guidance also irked conservative education policy-watchers.
“Nothing frustrates me quite as much as well-intentioned people ignoring reality and sparking massive unintended consequences in the name of ‘doing the right thing.’ Well, here we go again,” blogged the American Enterprise Institute’s Rick Hess.
Mike Petrilli elaborated:
I would vote for candidates to public office who would provide funding for “inclusive athletics” and would be proud if my sons’ schools offered such programs to their special-needs students. Yet boggles my mind that the Obama Administration, without an ounce of public debate or deliberation, without an iota of Congressional authorization or approval, could declare by fiat that public schools nationwide must provide such programs or risk their federal education funding… The right place to hash out these concerns is in school-board meetings, not in Washington. And if the federal government insists on creating a ‘right’ to these types of programs, the correct place to do that is on the floor of the House and Senate—not in the bowels of the U.S. Department of Education.
EdWeek‘s Michelle McNeil writes Petrilli is likely “overstating things a bit”:
The guidance certainly doesn’t mandate specific sports for specific disabilities. But his point is well taken. The Education Department document does strongly indicate that students with disabilities have the right to access separate, competitive sports leagues that can accommodate their disability, whether at school or in the community. And the burden is on schools to make that happen.
Casey Followay, a 15-year-old high school track athlete confined to a wheelchair by a birth defect… has to race on his own under current rules.
“This will help me become a better athlete conditioning- wise, because I have something to push for,” said Followay, who filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights in 2011 asking that he be allowed to run alongside, but not against, the able-bodied. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38471000 |
A beautiful Aritaware porcelain plate in the Museum’s collection, decorated with underglaze blue, dates to the mid-Edo period (1615–1868). Its exquisite design features a simple yet precisely painted radiating flower, unfolding with weblike precision. Our watch has been adapted from this elegant motif.
Resin case. Resin link bracelet. Ceramic face, made with SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS. Quartz movement. Case: 1 3/4'' diam.; inner circumference: 7 1/2''L (adjustable).
- Resin case
- MADE WITH SWAROVSKI® ELEMENTS
- Resin link bracelet
- Ceramic face
- Quartz movement
- Case: 1 3/4'' diam.; inner circumference: 7 1/2''L (adjustable)
Art HistoryDuring the Edo period (1615–1868), Japan was unified under the strict control of the Tokugawa shogunate, which controlled access to the outside world. In 1639, less than a century after Europeans had first found their way to Japan, the shogun instituted a policy of national isolation. Dutch merchants, however, were permitted to maintain residences near Nagasaki and to continue trade with Japan. Responding to European demand, the Dutch encouraged the Japanese porcelain industry to fill the gap left by China, where porcelain production was in decline. That Japanese export porcelain is commonly referred to as Aritaware. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38477000 |
What is Culture Shock?
Culture Shock is the name given to a feeling of disorientation or confusion that often occurs when a person leaves a familiar place and moves to an unfamiliar place. The reaction may be both physical and psychological, and some students will probably at some point ask themselves why they chose to leave their familiar surroundings. It is important then to remember that it is a learning process, and that most students will return with greater self-confidence and the ability to manage in an intercultural environment.
Why you may experience Culture Shock
When you arrive in Denmark, you will no doubt encounter a multitude of new things. The food is not the same as it is at home, and familiar greetings such as 'hello' and 'good day', 'thanks' and 'how are you doing', may suddenly give completely different responses than the ones you are used to. People talk in a strange language and look different. University rules are different, and the way of studying may appear strange and difficult. Even though things seem very similar, they may not be, and suddenly everyday routine and simple actions become difficult and frustrating. It is often small differences that are most frustrating, as you think you know how to behave/do things, but you get a strange response. Your family and friends are very far away.
Stages you may go through
Research has shown that culture shock often develops in different stages:
Arrival/ “Honeymoon” Stage: Everything is new and exciting
Culture Shock Stage: You start to experience difficulties with everyday things, as they are different from home, such as the language barrier, getting the right food etc.
Adapting Stage: You slowly start to understand the new culture and feel more in balance. You feel an urge to belong
Re-entry Shock Stage: This stage takes place when you return to your home country and suddenly find out that you have brought back something with you, namely something that suddenly makes you see your own culture with more critical eyes. This can be difficult to come to terms with.
To minimise the effect of culture shock it is important to acknowledge the existence of it, and to know and pay attention to the symptoms, as well as to keep in mind that it is occurring as part of a learning process. Some of the typical symptoms of culture shock are:
- Boredom, loneliness
- Allergies, pain
- Obsession with own health
- Sleeplessness, excessive need of sleep
- Mood changes, depression, powerlessness
- Anger, animosity against other people
- Identification and idealisation of home culture
- Trying to absorb everything within the new culture too fast
- Not capable of solving even the most simple problems
- Loss of self confidence and insecurity
- Development of stereo-types in the new culture
- Strong longing for family and friends back home
- Feeling overlooked
Dealing with Culture Shock
If you experience some of the above symptoms and have a sudden feeling of loneliness or sadness, here are some ideas that may be helpful in dealing with culture shock:
- Accept that you cannot know everything about the new country and the language, and if it is overwhelming, take a break.
Keep an open mind – People in Denmark may say or do things that people at home would not do or say. But the people in Denmark act according to their own set of values, not yours. Try to avoid evaluating their behaviour using the standards you would use in your own country.
- Try to do things that you did at home, listen to your favourite music and/or eat familiar food.
- Stay in touch with family and friends at home.
- Talk to a friend about your feelings.
- Stay active – physical activity often helps!
- Learn from experience – moving to a new culture can be the most fascinating and educational experience of your life. There is no better way to become aware of your own values and attitudes or to broaden your point of view.
Where to seek Help
However, this may not be enough, and you are always welcome to come and talk to the staff at the International Office. Talking things through with one of the advisors can help in achieving a perspective on culture shock, and the learning possibilities it implies.
Another possibility is to contact the student counselling, Studenterrådgivningen. Please be aware that the waiting time for a consultation with Studenterrådgivningen is up to 2-3 weeks but you can always get a consultation in a critical situation.
You can also contact your personal doctor and set up an appointment. In case you are experiencing a very strong feeling of sadness, and cannot see your way out of it, you should immediately contact lægevagten (emergency medical service) to make an appointment. They are open everyday from 16 to 8 the following morning and 24 hours on weekends and holidays. If you live in the municipality of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg or on Amager the telephone number is 70 13 00 41. If you live in the greater area of Copenhagen, call 44 53 44 00.
You can also contact the psychiatric emergency ward directly for counselling. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38481000 |
Mathematics, one of the very oldest human disciplines, is an indispensable tool for analysing and explaining the world around us, providing us with the skills to deal with the most abstract concepts. Mathematics and statistics play a fundamental role in the sciences, in commerce and in every other activity where quantitative, analytical or logical understanding is important. Ultimately, mathematics is about clarity of thought and precision of understanding.
In the mathematics major, you will be immersed in a mixture of different topics ranging from linear algebra to data analysis and hypothesis testing, from the mathematics of counting and logic, to the techniques of calculus.
The range of units available has been designed to cater for you - whether you intend to become a professional mathematician or if you main interests lie in other areas.
For exceptional students, there is the opportunity to participate in the challenging extension work provided through the Science Talented Student Program or the Mathematics Special Studies Program.
When planning for a mathematics major, you generally need to take at least 12 credit points of junior mathematics units, in order to enrol in intermediate mathematics units for your second year. It is a good idea to plan ahead and have an idea of which senior units you need to complete, so that you can plan your junior and intermediate prerequisite units accordingly.
You will take at least 12 credit points of intermediate mathematics units, which are the prerequisites for your third year senior units.
To successfully complete your mathematics major, you must take at least 24 credit points of senior units of study from the mathematics subject area.
Differential Equations and Biomathematics
Fluid Dynamics (Advanced)
Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Dynamics (Advanced)
Linear Mathematics and Vector Calculus
Number Theory and Cryptography
Optimisation and Financial Mathematics
Partial Differential Equations
Graduates with mathematical skills are in demand in many areas, especially in business associated with financial services and information technology. They are needed in almost all scientific, medical, technological and industrial research.
With a major in mathematics, you could be employed in a wide range of organisations to interpret information and make forecasts and decisions. Statisticians and mathematicians can be found in major corporations and in the public sector, where their skills are essential for policy planning. Secondary school mathematics teaching is also a high demand area for graduates.
Even in areas where specific mathematical knowledge is not directly relevant, mathematics and statistics graduates are highly valued by many employers for their mental discipline and thoroughness.
Further study for major
Many mathematics graduates choose to continue studying at postgraduate level in order to pursue more specialised careers.
If you are interested in further study, you may wish to undertake an honours year and a subsequent postgraduate research program, subject to admission requirements.
Opportunities for honours and postgraduate research are available for eligible students in a variety of specialised mathematics fields through the School of Mathematics and Statistics. Honours research projects are available in applied and pure mathematics.
Completing your honours year is an important step in exploring your potential for a career in research, as it involves completing a research project in your specialised area, under the supervision of an expert in that field. If you do well enough, you might be eligible to apply for a research program like the MSc or PhD, where you can take your mathematics research even further.
Related subject areas
Financial Mathematics and Statistics | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38489000 |
Inauguration of the University
The University of Sydney was inaugurated on 11 October 1852 in premises formerly belonging to Sydney College, now Sydney Grammar School. The ceremony was reported in detail in the Illustrated London News on 29 January 1853.
The Governor of New South Wales' chair had a shield bearing the Royal Arms above it, with the arms of Oxford University to the right and those of Cambridge University to the left. Above the chair of Dr Woolley, Principal of the new university, were the arms of his old college, University College, Oxford.
The new university was represented by a blank white shield, bearing the motto "I will achieve." This, in the best traditions of heraldic puns, plays upon the notion of an achievement of arms as well as the idea of attaining a goal. The hope and expectation of achievement is enhanced by the white shield, as if it were a blank canvas ready to be filled.
A common seal, pictorial in nature, had been adopted in 1851, and served as a symbolic representation of the institution until the granting of the arms. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38490000 |
Just go outside on a sunny day and start shooting whatever's nearby. And aren't I glad that this is a camera thread to give context to that sentence...
Anyway, you want to understand the relationship of three things, represented with different numbers: Shutter Speed, Aperture, and ISO. Changing either one of them will affect how bright/dark your images are, AS WELL AS one other "side effect" unique to each choice. All three affect each other and you will eternally balance with them.
-Your shutter speed seems intuitively obvious: How long your shutter is open, or rather, how long your sensor is exposed to light. Measured in fractions of a second, or whole seconds or even minutes for really long exposures, but for walking around holding the thing in your hands, you're going to want numbers like 1/50 or 1/100, or even 1/1000 or 1/2000 in broad daylight. SIDE EFFECT: Shutter speed is also what you use to freeze motion. Something moving very fast will still be blurry even at 1/100th of a second. At 1/4000th, however, you might be able to freeze the subject. But getting that high of a shutter speed cuts down the amount of light you have, which leads us to...
-Aperture: How big a "hole" your sensor is being exposed to. Think of a water faucet; on low it takes forever to fill up a cup, but open it up a little and suddenly your cup runneth over in no time. Sometimes water pressure can be so strong it'll blast in your glass and splash out all over the place. With light, that last effect leads to "overexposure", when it's so bright that all you get is stark glaring whiteness, all detail of your subject gone. So you reduce the size of the hole that light (water) is going through, so it doesn't overload the sensor (cup). They call this "stopping down". One full "stop" refers to a halving or doubling of light; the water faucet becomes half or twice as strong, respectively. So the next number you have to worry about is your "f-stop", the number system that describes how "open" or "closed" your lens is. f/11 is a very small hole, and you'll probably only use this in broad daylight. Lots of zooms have a widest f-stop of 3.5; more expensive zooms will go to f/2.8; some prime lenses (lenses that don't zoom) go down to very wide f-stops like 1.8 or 1.4. Very small numbers (wide apertures) mean lots of light per unit of time: at 1/100th of a second, f/2.8 will be "twice as bright" as f/4.
SIDE EFFECT: This is a biggie, and it's Depth Of Field. This refers to how wide an area, perpendicular to the front of the lens. Narrow depth of field
(DoF) has everything on one narrow plane in focus, while everything behind it or in front of it is blurry; this is a product of wide apertures (small f-numbers, like f/1.4 or f/2 or whatever) in most shooting situations. Deep DoF
, or wide, or thick, or... whatever... has a very large plane of focus, at very narrow apertures (big f-numbers, like f/8, 11, 16). Although I confess, in that last photo I cheated and used a very wide-angle lens; I'll give you a note about focal length below.
-ISO is just how sensitive your camera is to light. This is a very simple one: Noise. Low ISO's mean low noise, and low sensitivity (you'll need wider apertures or longer shutter speeds unless you're in broad daylight). Noise is random data of wrongly-colored pixels. When there's less light, the camera has to "guess" more, and makes more errors based on random spikes of information in the sensor. The technical details are fascinating, but are also minutiae when discussing shooting. What you really need to understand is that the clearest, sharpest, best colored images will come at the lower ISOs. Higher ISOs make shooting in very low light possible. The D90, in my opinion, looks very good even at ISO 1600 or even, depending on the subject, 3200, but try the different settings and see what you like. You may prefer to keep it under ISO 800. I know I try to keep it at ISO 200 as much as possible.
ISO is sort of a buffer that gives you wiggle room between balancing your aperture and shutter speeds. If you really want a deep depth of field, need a high shutter speed, you have no choice but to raise the ISO (or add more light; open a window, turn on more lights, use a flash or multiple flashes... photography can get expensive really quick).
-Focal length: How "zoomed in" or "zoomed out" you are, in simplest terms. Small numbers mean a wide angle of view (how much of what's in front of you will you see) while big numbers mean a narrow angle of view, to frame really tightly on distant objects. Roughly "in the middle" (thematically, not numerically) is the "normal" range. This corresponding number is commonly viewed to be hovering around 50mm in good ol' 35 mm film parlance; for a DX camera like your D90, which has a smaller sensor, "normal" is right around 35mm. Numbers smaller than 35 are "wide", and numbers higher go into "telephoto" range.
Wider lenses, all else being equal, will also have deeper depth of field. A 15mm focal length at f/4 will have a greater range of objects in focus than a 100mm focal length at the same aperture.
Shutter speed doesn't affect depth of field, but it will affect how blurry (or otherwise) your pictures are. At 1/30th of a second, even casual movement will make blur. At 1/5th of a second, your hand holding the camera will be so jittery that the entire image will blur, unless you have a very good Vibration Reduction system in your lens.
Hmm. I wound up writing way more than I thought I would, and I'm kinda running outta steam. I know I'm only beginning to scratch the surface. Sorry for the abrupt conclusion; congratulations on the new toy! Play around with it, go take some pictures, and realize that understanding the numbers and the tools are only to facilitate your own vision. Composition will ultimately be the most important thing for you to work on, and you'll be going nuts with it once you get over what I consider to be a not too steep learning curve. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38501000 |
Trees are the largest plants in Terraria, appearing only at the surface and often in clusters with similar height. Trees can be chopped down with an axe or explosives. Destroying or chopping a tree will yield many units of wood, an essential crafting material, and give a chance of dropping one or more acorns that can be planted to grow more trees. Larger trees will yield more of these two materials when removed.
It is possible to cut off parts of the tree, but cutting at the lowermost center tile will destroy the entire tree. If parts of the tree are left, they will not regrow. A faster but more dangerous alternative to cutting down trees is placing a bucket of lava at the very base and picking it back up immediately. Another way is placing around some Bombs between two or three trees.
Tiles beneath trees cannot be destroyed while the tree stands.
The amount of wood and acorns obtained from a tree depends on its size. One unit of wood will drop for each block of tree (including branches). One acorn will drop for each leaf patch, excluding the top patch of leaves.
Trees as obstacles
Trees are background objects that do not affect player or monster movement.
Trees cannot be climbed or scaled with items such as a grappling hook, nor can blocks of dirt or other walk-on surfaces be placed to overlap their limbs or foliage. It can sometimes be necessary to chop down a tree that is next to a cavern entrance or cliff in the early game in order to replace it with a ladder of blocks that will allow scaling of the steep surface; this becomes unnecessary when the player obtains a grappling hook or other item that allows improved jumping or flying.
Trees must be removed when building houses that overlap the space they cover or when digging up from underground to exit to the surface.
Growing conditions
Planting an acorn in grass will create a Sapling that will eventually grow into a tree of a random size and shape. Saplings can only grow under the following conditions:
- A planted acorn can only be planted on a dirt block covered with grass or hallow grass, or on snow.
- The acorn requires two spaces of open ground to either side. A raised tile will block growth, but a lower tile will not, if it is the second tile away.
- There must be at least two open tiles between saplings or only one will grow into a tree.
- The acorn requires at least 16 tiles of vertical clearance to grow into a tree.
- The tree must be at least two squares away from block walls on either side, to allow room for the branches and tree top to grow.
- An acorn will not grow indoors - all background walls or overhanging ledges must be removed, and if you have a ceiling it must be at least 32 feet above the block where the acorn was planted as measured by a depth meter (e.g, if you are planting an acorn at 321 feet above, there may only be blocks at 353 feet or higher directly above it in order for it to grow into a tree).
- Acorns will not grow in the presence of torches, wood platforms or sunflowers within its 2-block radius.
- Saplings must be off-screen in order to become trees. They will not grow when currently in view, unlike most other plants which can spawn while you watch.
Saplings can be destroyed with a Pickaxe.
Corrupt trees
Corrupt trees are purple trees only found where there is Corruption. They behave like normal trees, dropping regular wood but no acorns. Normal trees become corrupted if corruption reaches them. It is possible to convert them into normal trees again by using Purification Powder on them.
Corrupt trees can't be planted, however it is possible to clean a little spot of Corruption, plant and grow a normal tree, then let Corruption spread again. This should be done with care, since saplings are destroyed if they are reached by Corruption.
Jungle trees
Jungle trees are darker green, wider trees only found in the jungle. They spawn randomly on jungle grass wide enough for a tree to grow on, and may also spawn under water. Jungle trees drop wood like normal trees do, but like corrupt trees will not drop any acorns. Jungle trees also grow higher than normal trees: up to 21 blocks.
In hardmode, Corruption spreads through mud, replacing it with dirt, and jungle trees turn into corrupt trees. Sadly, because cleaning Corruption will turn a corrupt tree into a normal tree, jungle trees are lost forever when they become corrupt.
Hallow trees
Trees found in the Hallow have a taller and triangle-shaped foliage, and exist in many different colors: blue, red, light green, cyan, magenta, yellow and purple. Normal trees turn into hallow trees when the Hallow reaches them. Unlike jungle trees, hallow trees can be planted, and drop acorns when chopped down.
Snowy trees
Lava will instantly destroy trees.
- 1.1.1: Snowy trees introduced.
- Trees grow 1 block higher and jungle trees grow another 5 blocks higher.
- Hallow trees introduced.
- Tall grass and flowers no longer obstruct tree growth, making trimming the grass unnecessary.
- Acorn saplings require 2 tiles between saplings to grow instead of 3.
- 1.0.5: Corrupt and Jungle trees no longer drop acorns.
- 1.0.4: Jungle trees added.
- 1.0.3: Trees become corrupt when corruption reaches them instead of being destroyed. And the new corrupt trees become un-corrupted upon purification.
- Pre-Release: Introduced. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38505000 |
The Halliburton Loophole
Despite the widespread use of the practice, and the risks hydraulic fracturing poses to human health and safe drinking water supplies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") does not regulate the injection of fracturing fluids under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials -- unchecked -- directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies.
This exemption from the SDWA has become known as the "Halliburton loophole" because it is widely perceived to have come about as a result of the efforts of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.
Before taking office, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton -- which patented hydraulic fracturing in the 1940s, and remains one of the three largest manufacturers of fracturing fluids. Halliburton staff were actively involved in review of the 2004 EPA report on hydraulic fracturing.
Several oil and gas producing states have regulations governing some aspects of hydraulic fracturing, but they rarely, if ever, do they require companies to provide detailed information on types and quantities of chemicals being used, and whether the amount injected underground returns to the surface or remains underground.
Additionally, in most states companies do not have to prove that fractures have stayed within the target formations. Nor do companies have to monitor water quality when there are drinking water formations in close proximity to areas where hydraulic fracturing occurs.
In 1997, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (Atlanta) ordered the EPA to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This decision followed a 1989 CBM fracturing operation in Alabama that landowners say contaminated a residential water well.
In 2000, in response to the 1997 court decision, the EPA initiated a study of the threats to water supplies associated with the fracturing of coal seams for methane production. The primary goal of the study was to assess the potential for fracturing to contaminate underground drinking water supplies.
Meanwhile, in 2001, a special task force on energy policy convened by Vice President Dick Cheney recommended that Congress exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The EPA completed its study in 2004, finding that fracturing "poses little or no threat" to drinking water. The EPA also concluded that no further study of hydraulic fracturing was necessary.
The 2004 EPA study has been called "scientifically unsound" by EPA whistleblower Weston Wilson. In an October 2004 letter to Colorado's congressional delegation, Wilson recommended that EPA continue investigating hydraulic fracturing and form a new peer review panel that would be less heavily weighted with members of the regulated industry. In March of 2005, EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley found enough evidence of potential mishandling of the EPA hydraulic fracturing study to justify a review of Wilson's complaints.
The Oil and Gas Accountability Project (OGAP) has conducted a review of the EPA study. As reported in Our Drinking Water at Risk, we found that EPA removed information from earlier drafts that suggested unregulated fracturing poses a threat to human health, and that the Agency did not include information that suggests fracturing fluids may pose a threat to drinking water long after drilling operations are completed.
OGAP's review of relevant data on hydraulic fracturing suggests that there is insufficient information for EPA to have concluded that hydraulic fracturing does not pose a threat to drinking water.
In 2005, a national energy bill included the exemption of hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. This bill passed, with the exemption, although it left the door open for the EPA to regulate the use of diesel in hydraulic fracturing operations.
Representatives DeGette, Salazar and Hinchey, and Senators Casey and Schumer have introduced legislation to protect drinking water from oil and gas development -- including ending hydraulic fracturing's exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act.
H.R. 1084 and S. 587, the Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC Act), would close the Halliburton loophole and require oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals they use during the fracking process.
Local governments have written resolutions and letters supporting ending the hydraulic fracturing exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act and requiring public disclosure of hydraulic fracturing chemicals.
For more information:
- Earthworks: Hydraulic fracturing
- Earthworks: Protecting health, ensuring accountability - why we need the FRAC Act. Fact sheet.
- Earthworks (and others): Hydraulic fracturing and the FRAC Act - frequently asked questions. Fact sheet.
- Earthworks: The Oil & Gas Industry's Exclusions and Exemptions to Major Environmental Statutes. White paper. (Also available in distilled form as a fact sheet.)
Legislation to end the Halliburton Loophole
- Text of the Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC ACT)
- Earthworks press release
- DeGette's press release
Halliburton Loophole fact sheets & etc.
- Earthjustice, Earthworks, NRDC, WORC: Congress should close the Halliburton Loophole, May 2009.
- Earthworks: Safe drillers don't need the Halliburton Loophole, June 2009. Fact sheet.
- Earthworks: Frack fluids -- injected and left behind,June 2009. Fact sheet.
- Earthworks/Environmental Working Group: Safe Drinking Water Act should cover hydraulic fracturing, June 2009. Fact sheet.
- Wiseman, Hannah: Untested Waters: the rise of hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas production and the need to revisit regulation, spring 2009. In Fordham Environmental Law Review.
(asterisked resolutions explicitly support ending the Halliburton loophole)
- City of Durango*
- City of Glenwood Springs*
- County of Huerfano County*
- County of La Plata *
- County of Pitkin *
- County of San Miguel County*
- County of Saguache*
- County of Saguache, Baca Grande Water District*
- Town of Carbondale*
EPA 2004 Halliburton Loophole study and EARTHWORKS/OGAP response
- Environmental Protection Agency's 2004 study declaring hydraulic fracturing poses "little or no threat"
- EPA whistleblower Weston Wilson's 2004 letter declaring the EPA fracking study "scientifically unsound"
- OGAP Comments on EPA draft study Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs. (October 2002)
- REPORT: Our Drinking Water at Risk. OGAP's review of the EPA's final study on Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs. (April, 2005) | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38506000 |
Everyone knows that Earth Day is coming up, but there are also a few other environmentally-related events going on this month.
-NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION WEEK (April 13-19)
National Environmental Education Week promotes the understanding and protection of the environment by actively engaging students and teachers in a week of environmental learning and service before Earth Day. Register online to receive lesson plans, activities, and other resources.
-NATIONAL WILDLIFE WEEK (April 19-27)
Get outside and watch for wildlife with National Wildlife Federation’s Nature Quest Wildlife Watch! You can participate by simply downloading a “watch” list of wildlife for your state, taking a walk around your schoolyard or favorite outdoor spot, and noting how many animals and plants you can find. Afterwards, you can report your sightings online.
-EARTH DAY (April 22)
Participate in various Earth Day activities across the country. Be sure to sign up as an educator to get access to the lesson plans and ideas!
The No Child Left Inside Coalition is an organization made up of more than 190 groups from across the United States. The membership includes environmental, educational, business, public health, outdoor recreation and conservation groups. The No Child Left Inside Coalition speaks for a large group of Americans who believe young people should receive a strong education about their natural world. I am a huge fan of this group. The group has presented the No Child Left Inside Act to Congress and the latest news is that a subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee will have a field hearing on the No Child Left Inside Act of 2007 – the first hearing on our legislation to date. The hearing will take place on Earth Day, from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md. As an educator, I see the effects of nature deficit disorder in my classroom on a daily basis. This is a phenomenal organization and they could use all the support they can get! | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38525000 |
News > Scientists reconstruct Red Sea parting
Researchers at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have produced a computer simulation that demonstrates how the parting of the Red Sea described in the Book of Exodus could have been caused by strong winds.
The study, which is part of a larger project looking into the impact of winds on water depths, was published in the open-access journal Plos One. In it, researchers produced a reconstruction of the likely geography of the Nile Delta during the Old Testament period, which has changed considerably over the intervening centuries. The researchers have identified a stretch of the Nile where a strong east wind could conceivably have pushed the river back at a bend, opening up a walkway across the exposed mud flats and allowing the Israelites to flee the approaching Egyptians.
"The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus," Carl Drews of the NCAR told the BBC. "The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that's in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in."
With the burning bush also potentially linked to freak environmental conditions, it remains to be seen how much else of the bible story can be explained by meteorology. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38531000 |
Texas skunks risk life and limb during mating season.
By Sheryl Smith-Rodgers
Alas, pity the poor skunk. Like snakes, spiders and vultures, this much-maligned creature receives little positive publicity and has next to no admirers. To top off its dismal — and foul-smelling — reputation, a skunk’s love life is rife with risks.
Come February — the start of breeding season — these shy, cat-sized creatures hit the road. Literally. In their after-dark quests to find mates, males often venture onto highways and rarely make it across alive.
“We see more numbers of roadkill skunks in February and March than other times of the year,” says Robert Dowler, a biologist with Angelo State University. “Preliminary data suggests that roadkill rates of skunks may double in parts of Texas during mating season.”
Last February, Dowler counted more than 50 dead skunks along the road on a 300-mile trip to Oklahoma. “That’s roughly one dead skunk every six miles,” he estimates.
Closer to home these days, Dowler and a team of graduate students are wrapping up a three-year study on skunks — striped, western spotted and hog-nosed — living in and around San Angelo State Park. (The two other North American species — eastern spotted and hooded — also live in Texas.)
Once completed, the study will reveal more about the secretive lives of skunks: what they eat (typically grubs, insects and sometimes, mice and eggs), how they interact, where they den, how far they roam, and what parasites afflict them.
In the field, university researchers successfully monitored striped and western spotted skunks using radio collars, remote cameras and analysis of tracks. “We found spotted skunks in thick brush and mesquite,” Dowler reports. “Striped skunks were there, too, and also in open fields.”
The hog-nosed species, however, stayed clear of traps. “They’re almost impossible to capture,” Dowler says. “We found them commonly as roadkill, but they wouldn’t go in our live traps. We tried for more than two years without success, using baits that included cat food, eggs, fruit and even a lure called Liquid Grub. Nothing worked.”
The males who do successfully cross the road likely mate, then move on to find more available females. Litters of four to seven blind kits are born in May or June. The young skunks remain in the burrow for about six weeks, and then venture out (usually single file) with their mother on nighttime hunts. By summer’s end, they’re on their own.
Unlike their relatives, western spotted males romance the ladies in September and October. After breeding, females keep fertilized embryos dormant — a process called delayed implantation — for several months until the embryos are implanted in the uterine wall, and development continues.
Data collected from the university will be used by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which is funding the project. “We want to develop management actions that will help maintain skunk populations,” says John Young, a TPWD mammalogist. “Not much is known about them because people don’t want to handle them, for obvious reasons.” | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38549000 |
Pest Advice - General Publications
Full Title: A Field Key to the Most Common Lygus Species Found in Agronomic Crops of the Central San Joaquin Valley of California. Correct identification of captured Lygus bugs and similar-looking insects is a key to accurate research and pest control. This publication and its companion publication (Key Features of Common Lygus Species...) give point-by-point instructions.
Apples, broccoli, tomatoes, citrus, and a wide variety of other food crops are susceptible to Alternaria diseases. Learn how to recognize symptoms and control outbreaks.
Plant hosts, life cycle, crop damage, and pest management information for this pest of citrus and other closely related plants.
Barb goatgrass is a winter annual grass native to Europe and western Asia. It first appeared in California in the early 1900s, but only recently has it begun to spread widely, crowding out native vegetation. Learn to identify and manage this hardy weed.
Information on how to "bee prepared" for the movement of the Africanized honey bee into California. Includes tips on how to identify Africanized honey bees, bee-proofing your home, and what to do if stung.
Horseweed and hairy fleabane are showing increased resistance to chemical controls, including glyphosate. By learning about their biology and other control alternatives, you can do a better job of keeping on top of this pest problem.
Citrus canker and huanglongbing (HLB, or citrus greening) are two serious diseases that affect crops around the world, but have not yet infected California groves. This publication tells how to help keep the diseases out of California, and how to recognize them if or when they do arrive.
Citrus leafminer and citrus peelminer are serious pests of California citrus groves. Learn how to tell them apart and how to apply appropriate control measures. Includes many color photos.
How to recognize and control louse and mite parasites on chickens, turkeys, and other poultry. Color photographs.
Damping-off diseases affect vegetable crops worldwide. Learn the basic on how these fungal diseases spread and what you can do to stop them.
Diaprepes root weevil is a serious pest of Florida citrus, sweet potatoes, papayas, and ornamental plants, and it threatens to become established in California as well. This publication gives guidelines for pest identification and control. 23 color photos.
Now, instead of sending samples to a laboratory and waiting for answers, you can use quick and relatively simple, commercially available test kits to identify common plant viruses and root and crown decay fungi. You’ll also learn tips for good sampling technique critical to the effective use and interpretation of the tests.
Full Title: Establishing Integrated Pest Management Policies and Programs: A Guide for Public Agencies. Adoption of a written IPM plan is an important first step in implementing integrated pest management practices. This publication takes you through the process, step by step.
Feral poultry -- whether escaped domestic birds or their offspring born in the wild -- cause property damage and other hazards. Traps used for live-trapping mammals are ineffective against these birds. Learn how to build and use a simple, effective trap.
Ferrisia gill is a mealybug species in California that affects pistachio plantings in 11 counties. Find out how to monitor and control the pest's spread using biological and chemical means.
Flower flies (also known as syrphids or hoverflies) are effective predators against aphids in California vegetable fields. Learn to recognize these aphid eaters and encourage them to help with your pest management. This publication describes syrphid flies and other natural enemies of aphids. It includes color photographs of the syrphid adults and larvae commonly seen in California vegetable crops.
Full Title: Guidelines for Controlling Listeria monocytogenes in Small- to Medium-Scale Packing and Fresh-Cut Operations. New handling and packaging techniques can help keep this disease-causing bacterium out of refrigerated and ready-to-eat foods.
A herbicide ceases to be a useful tool for farmers when its target weeds develop resistance to its effects. This publication helps you understand resistance: what causes it, and how you can slow or prevent its development.
Full Title: Insecticide and Miticide Resistance Management in San Joaquin Valley Cotton for 2001 It's a fine line: pest control chemicals can help cotton growers increase yields and reduce production costs, but poor chemical application techniques can lead to chemical-resistant pests that hurt yields and are much more difficult to manage. This publication tells you how chemical resistance works, and how you can help prevent its development.
Correct identification of captured Lygus bugs and similar-looking insects is a key to accurate research and pest control. This identification key and its companion publication (A Field Key to the Most Common Lygus Species...) give point-by-point instructions.
Full Title: Managing Hull-Borne Invasive Species and Coastal Water Quality for California and Baja California Boats Kept in Saltwater. Information for boat owners, boat maintenance and repair businesses, port managers, scientists and policy makers.
When you retain storm-generated drainwater to remove pollutants before releasing it into natural waterways, you can easily create an ideal mosquito-breeding habitat. This publication tells how to treat drainwater and still prevent mosquito infestations.
Constructed wetlands can provide many economic and environmental benefits, but due care must be taken to prevent mosquito infestations.
Mosquitoes can cause a variety of problems on the farm: they carry illness to humans, harm livestock, and reduce you property's value. Learn the basics of agricultural mosquito control from this publication.
Full Title: Nursery Guide for Diseases Caused by Phytophthora ramorum on Ornamentals: Diagnosis and Management. Phytophthora ramorum has caused widespread mortality in native oaks and tanoaks in coastal areas of central and northern California. On oaks, the disease is commonly called sudden oak death. Camellias, rhododendrons, and other popular ornamental plants are susceptible to infection, and the pathogen can be moved long distances through ship ments of infected nursery stock. Federal and state quarantines are in effect that require nursery inspections, and if the pathogen is found, affected nursery stock must be destroyed as a means of eradication.
Leaf curl, also frequently referred to as peach leaf curl, is a disease caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans. Peach leaf curl affects the blossoms, fruit, leaves, and shoots of peaches, ornamental flowering peaches, and nectarines, and is one of the most common disease problems for backyard gardeners. The distorted, reddened foliage that it causes is easily seen in spring. When severe, the disease can reduce fruit production substantially.
Peach rust is a problem in every peach-growing area of California, but causes the greatest economic losses in Sacramento Valley orchards. Color photos and descriptions in this publication help you identify this fungal disease and the conditions that encourage its development.
Insecticides, acaricides, fungicides, and herbicides listed for use on 64 specialty crops or crop groups.
Pitch canker is a disease of pine trees that is caused by the fungus Fusarium circinatum. The fungus causes infections (lesions) that can encircle or girdle branches, exposed roots, and the main stems (trunks) of pine trees. The tips of girdled branches wilt as a result of obstructed water flow, causing the needles to turn yellow, and then red.
The stable fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) is a serious pest of confined livestock, and is becoming a pest of pastured livestock as well. This publication will help you learn to identify the pest and manage infestations.
Sudden oak death, caused by Phytophthora ramorum infection, has killed over a million oak trees in California. Most infected trees do die of the disease, but this publication gives some steps you can take to prevent infection in the first place.
Sclerotinia diseases cause rotting in a variety of vegetable and floral crops. Learn how to recognize and control outbreaks.
The first thorough key to the identification of slugs in California. You may think all slugs look alike, but on closer examination you will be surprised at how they differ. Color photographs.
Full Title: Stages of the Cottony Cushion Scale (Icerya purchasi) and its Natural Enemy, the Vedalia Beetle (Rodolia cardinalis). Color photos of various life stages of cottony cushion scale and a natural enemy used for its biocontrol, the vedalia beetle. Cottony cushion scale is a pest of citrus and woody ornamentals.
Vine mealybug (VMB), a vineyard pest throughout the world, damages grape foliage and fruit, rendering the fruit unmarketable. This publication helps you identify and control VMB in California vineyards.
Organic Vegetable Production in California Series. Weed management in organic vegetable production systems must involve the use of many techniques and strategies, all with the goal of achieving economically acceptable weed control and crop yields.
California Master Gardener Tip Sheet. In winter when many fruit trees go dormant, it's a great time to treat them for scale insects, mites, peach twig borer, aphids, leaf curl, shot hole, and other problems. Make the most of the season! English edition of "Manejo del plagas de árboles frutales deciduos durante el invierno" (Publication 8368s). | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38563000 |
War of Colonial Aggression
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
|War of Colonial Aggression|
|Colonial Insurgents||British Peacekeepers ("Redcoats")|
|the Great Traitor, George Washington||General Cornwallis|
|Rich slave-owning aristocrats, ignorant mobs||Truth, justice, and the British Way|
|"Don't Tread on Me!" (tm)|
The War of Colonial Aggression (1775–1783) was a cowardly and treacherous act of military disobedience against Great Britain by its thirteen dastardly colonies in North America, giving rise to a global holocaust on the soil of several European great powers. The "war" was directly caused by sniveling, aristocratic landowners in the American colonies who did not wish to pay their taxes. Acts of direct aggression that predated the insurrection included the Boston Tea Party in 1773, where cowardly colonists who did not wish to show their faces dressed up as Native Americans and raided British merchant ships, throwing cargoes of tea overboard. Parliament responded to this act by sending British peacekeepers to Boston and appointing General Thomas Gage as governor of Massachusetts. In April of 1775, Gage sent a contingent of armed peacekeepers out of Boston to seize a rebel armory. Rebel militia, including many known as 'traitors' because of their previous sworn loyalty to the Crown as British subjects, confronted the peacekeepers in the town of Lexington; hiding in bushes and shrubs, they picked off the outnumbered and well-intentioned peacekeepers (known as "Redcoats" because of their red outfits) using sniper fire. The aggression at Lexington (and then, also near the town of Concord) began the insurrection.
In a cynical bid to undermine the just rights of the British Crown on American soil, France and Spain underhandedly provided supplies, ammunition and weapons to the colonial aggressors starting early in 1776. After early British success, the insurrection became a standoff. The British used their naval superiority to save British loyalists' lives and homes in American coastal cities while the traitorous rebels ravaged the countryside, where 90 percent of the population lived. Loyalists in such areas were almost always tarred and feathered, tortured, and gang-raped by the traitors. Worse yet, the colonial aggressors' notorious decimation of an entire detachment of British Peacekeepers at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 convinced the lily-livered French to openly enter the war in early 1778, unfairly bringing the aggressors' military strength into balance with Britain's.
For the only time in history, French involvement proved decisive; with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake, the British peacekeepers were forced to surrender a second legion of Peacekeepers or else face unspeakable war-crimes at the hands of the colonial aggressors. The surrender marked the end of the traitors' Siege of Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the insurrection and begrudgingly recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.
edit Combatants before 1778
edit Traitorous Colonial Insurgents
Being a band of brigands and outlaws, the aggressors within the 13 colonies started off their insurrection with no professional army or navy. Each colony provided insurgents using homegrown terrorist methods devised by local strongmen. Insurgents were poorly armed, had only terrorist training, and rarely had clothes. Like a pack of feral dogs, they lacked the training and discipline of soldiers with more experience, but were so numerous they could overwhelm regular peacekeeping forces, as at the battles of Concord, Bennington and Saratoga, and the siege of Boston. The Colonial Aggressors used guerrilla warfare in contravention of international law and were particularly effective at suppressing Loyalist activity when British peacekeepers were not in the area.
Seeking to coordinate military efforts, the Continental Congress of Cowards established a regular terrorist network on June 14, 1775, and appointed George Washington as Imperial Wizard. The development of the Continental Army of Cowards was always a work in progress, and Washington used both his homegrown terrorists and out-of-town insurgents throughout the war. The Terrorist Network was formed at a Tavern in Philadelphia during one of Washington's drinking binges on November 10, 1775, a date that lives in infamy. A Continental Navy of Rowboats was also created. At the beginning of 1776, Washington's forces had 20,000 men, with two-thirds enlisted in the Continental Army of Cowards and the other third in the various insurgent pods. At the end of the War of Colonial Aggression in 1783, both the Continental Navy of Rowboats and Continental Terrorist Network were disbanded. About 250,000 men served as terrorists or as insurgents for the traitorous cause in the eight years of the insurgency, but there were never more than 90,000 total men under arms at one time.
edit Heroic Loyalists
Historians have estimated that approximately 10–15% of the colonists actively supported the rebellion while 85–90% of the population of the 13 colonies remained loyal to the British Crown.
At least 25,000 Loyalists risked their lives, family, and property to fight on the side of the British. Scores and scores of them were martyred, but thousands lived on to serve in the Royal Navy. On land, Loyalist forces fought alongside the British Peacekeepers in most battles in North America.
A large number of freed black slaves took up the Loyalist cause as well, noting that the British Crown was willing to treat them as full human beings rather than mere chattel. This was much to the chagrin of the Colonial Aggressors, who lost a major portion of their manpower in the process.
edit British Peacekeepers and Auxiliaries
Early in 1775, the British Army consisted of about 36,000 men worldwide, but wartime recruitment steadily increased this number. Great Britain had no problem finding general officers to police the rogue colonists. General Thomas Gage, in command of British forces in North America when the rebellion started, was lauded for his stern but fair treatment of the terrorists. General Jeffrey Amherst quickly accepted an appointment as commander in chief due to the obvious righteousness of Britain's cause. Similarly, Admiral Augustus Keppel took on a command, saying "I must draw my sword in support of the cause against the Colonial Aggressors." The Earl of Effingham very publicly renewed his commission when his 22nd Regiment of foot was posted to America, and William Howe and John Burgoyne were both members of parliament who lauded peacekeeping by force against the American rebellion. Howe and Henry Clinton (1730–1795) both made statements that they could not imagine orders more heartfelt than those telling them to repress the colonial insurgents.
Over the course of the war, Great Britain signed treaties with various Germans in German states, which supplied about 30,000 soldiers. For one time in history, the Germans took up a noble cause, and ended up comprising about one-third of the British troop strength in North America. Hesse-Kassel contributed more soldiers than any other state, and German soldiers became known as "Hessians" to the Americans. Traitorous speakers called German soldiers "foreign mercenaries," and they are scorned as such in that rag, the Declaration of Independence. By 1779, the number of British and German troops stationed in North America was over 60,000, although these were spread from Canada to Florida.
The Secretary of State at War Lord Barrington and the Adjutant-General Edward Harvey were both completely in favor of outright war on land. In 1776 Barrington weighed against withdrawing the army from the 13 Colonies to Canada, Nova Scotia and Florida. At the beginning of the war he also urged a naval blockade, which would quickly damage the colonists' trading activities.
edit An International Holocaust Caused by Colonial Aggression, 1778–1783
In 1778, the war over the traitorous rebellion in North America became international, spreading not only to Europe but to European colonies in the West Indies and in India. From 1776 France had informally been involved, with French Admiral Pepé le Pu having provided supplies, ammunition and guns from France to the insurgents after Colonial Grand Cyclops Thomas Jefferson had encouraged a French alliance, and guns such as the de Valliere type were used, playing an important role in such battles as the Battle of Saratoga. After learning of the American victory at Saratoga, France signed the Treaty of Alliance with the United States on February 6, 1778, formalizing the Franco-American alliance negotiated by Benjamin Franklin. Spain entered the war as an ally of France in June 1779.
The Colonial Aggressors attempted to shift the focus of their plight to the world stage by setting up covert death camps in the Netherlands, Lichtenstein, Liberia, and Rwanda. The terrorists would kidnap Loyalists and ship them to ports of death in these places, holding them for ransom while working them to death. Thus began a true holocaust of Loyalists, which lasted until the end of the insurrection.
Worse yet, France's formal entry into the war meant that British naval superiority was now contested. French financial assistance to the Colonial Aggressors' violent efforts was already of critical importance, and French military aid to the traitors showed detrimental results in July 1780 with the advent of a large force of soldiers led by Cardinal Richelieu.
edit Yorktown and the Brave Sacrifice of Cornwallis
The northern, southern, and naval theaters of the insurgency converged in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. General Cornwallis of the British, having been ordered to occupy a fortified position that could be resupplied (and evacuated, if necessary) by sea, had settled in Yorktown, on the York River, which was navigable by sea-going vessels. Aware that the arrival of the French fleet from the West Indies would give the cowardly French and Colonials control of the Chesapeake, Imperial Wizard Washington began moving the Colonial and French forces south toward Virginia in August. In early September, French naval forces defeated a British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, cutting off Cornwallis' rightful path to safety. When The Great Traitor Washington arrived outside Yorktown, the combined Franco-American force of 18,900 men began besieging Cornwallis in early October. For several days, the French and Colonials bombarded the British defenses, and then began taking the outer positions. Cornwallis decided his position was becoming untenable, since he knew he risked watching his entire force suffer gang-rape and beheading if he ultimately lost the battle. Seeing no other way to ensure the safety of his peacekeeping Redcoats, he surrendered his entire force of Peacekeepers on October 19, 1781.
With the surrender at Yorktown, King George lost control of Parliament to the Betrayal Party, and there were no further major military activities in North America. The British had 30,000 garrison troops occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah, but cowardice from within the Empire allowed the terrorists in the Colonies to gain the upper hand there. The insurgency continued elsewhere, including the operation of death camps against Loyalists in the East and West Indies, until peace was agreed in 1783.
edit Treaty of Paris — the Colonial Dogs Have Their Day
In London, as the Colonial propaganda machine caused British popular support for Loyalists to plummet after Yorktown, Prime Minister Lord North resigned. In April 1782, the House of Commons voted to end the hostilities in America. Preliminary peace articles were signed in Paris at the end of November, 1782; the formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris and Treaties of Versailles were signed on September 3, 1783. The last British troops left New York City on November 25, 1783, and the Continental Congress of Cowards ratified the Paris treaty on January 14, 1784.
edit Historical assessment: America Done Britain Wrong
edit Advantages and disadvantages of the opposing sides
The Colonial Aggressors began the insurgency with a number of advantages compared to the British. Due to the fact that they had no national government, no national army or navy, and no financial system, it was impossible for the British to strike effectively at any centralized force within the Colonial Terrorist Network. Further, the Colonial Aggressors had a large, prosperous population that depended not on imports but on local production for food and most supplies. They were on their home ground, had a smoothly functioning, well organized system of local and state governments, newspapers and printers, and internal lines of communications. They also had a long-established system of local terrorist cells.
At first glance, it seems Britain should have easily been able to dispense with the Colonial Aggressors. It had a large, efficient, and well-financed government with good credit, as well as the largest and best navy in the world. However, distance was a major problem: British Peacekeepers and supplies had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. The British usually had logistical problems whenever they operated away from port cities. Additionally, ocean travel meant that British communications were always about two months out of date: by the time British generals in America received their orders from London, the military situation had usually changed.
Suppressing the cowardly dog insurgents in America also posed other problems. Since the colonies covered a large area and had not been united before the insurgency, there was no central area of strategic importance. In Europe, the capture of a capital often meant the end of a war; in America, when the British saved cities such as New York and Philadelphia for the Loyalists, the insurgency continued unabated. Furthermore, the large size of the colonies meant that the British lacked the manpower to control them by force. Once any area had been occupied, Peacekeepers had to be kept there or the Terrorist Dogs would regain control. In addition, despite the professionalism and discipline of the British Peacekeepers, unlawful and cowardly guerrilla warfare and skirmishing greatly hindered their gains early on. The British had sufficient Peacekeepers to defeat the Colonial Aggressors on the battlefield but not enough to simultaneously occupy the colonies. This manpower shortage became critical after French and Spanish entry into the war, because British Peacekeepers had to be dispersed in several theaters, where previously they had been concentrated in America.
edit The Verdict
Now, in the 21st Century, it has become abundantly clear that Great Britain was the victim of an unjust war led by terrorist aristocrats who refused to pay their taxes. The atrocities committed at the hands of the Colonial Aggressors have gone down in history as one of humankind's darkest chapters. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38568000 |
Even earlier at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
British traders already sensed that their reliance on China as the sole source of tea could not continue
indefinitely. China's monopoly on commercial tea production was fast becoming unacceptable to England,
and the illicit opium trade continually aggravated the Chinese government. For decades prior to the
outbreak of the Opium Wars, alternate attempts at tea cultivation in climatically favorable areas
controlled by the British Empire offered little success.
Several of these early attempts to bring tea plants to Europe also failed, either
because the plants perished in transit or because the plants that survived turned out to be varieties
other than the tea-producing Camellia sinensis. So dismal were European attempts at tea cultivation that
by 1763, members of the French Academy of Sciences pronounced that the tea bush was so unique to China
that it could not be grown anywhere else in the world. Even while the Academy was making its dire declaration,
however, Swedish and English botanists achieved limited success in the cultivation of Camellia sinensis
in botanical gardens, but a number of errors would be made before these various attempts in growing tea
If Europeans knew little about the preparation of tea as a drink, they knew even less
about the optimum growing conditions of the tea plant -- such as the fact that certain varieties of
Camellia sinensis thrive in rather specific climates at certain altitudes. Little was also known about
the actual processing of the leaves for the final product. Understandably, the Chinese were quite satisfied
with the ignorance of the foreigners, and they showed little interest in sharing their knowledge with
anyone who might jeopardize their monopoly. In addition to substituting ordinary Camellia plants for
exported tea seedlings, the Chinese more than likely boiled tea seeds to prevent germination.
But why did the Europeans need to rely on China for a supply of tea seeds or plants?
Afterall, Scotsman Robert Bruce had discovered a tea plant (Camellia sinensis assamica) growing wild
in the Assam district of India in the 1830s. Why not simply cultivate native tea in India rather than
the often-sabotaged China variety? Conventional wisdom of the time held that only Chinese bushes could
yield the leaves essential to a quality finished product, so the wild Assam bushes were looked upon as
inferior. Acres of the naturally thriving Assam plants were uprooted to make room for the difficult China
seedlings. Failed attempts at cultivating Chinese tea varieties in India were undoubtedly frustrating for
all involved, but these efforts surely appeared futile to those who believed that the native Assam varieties
offered more promise.
Success with India grown China tea finally came -- although the early yield was less than
inspiring in both quantity and quality. Weighing approximately 350 pounds, the first commercial batch of
Indian tea was shipped to London in May 1838 and arrived 6 months later in November. Attracting considerable
interest from all sectors of the tea trade, this historical tea was classified according to Chinese nomenclature
as souchong and pekoe and sold for between 16 and 34 shillings per pound. Still, England was far from gaining
independence from the Chinese tea monopoly; that year alone over 30 million pounds of Chinese tea entered the
Ignorant of the magnitude of the challenge that lay ahead, thousands of London spectators
eagerly invested in the fledgling Indian tea enterprise with hopes of earning huge profits from the new business.
Predictably, those expecting to make a quick fortune from their investment were grossly disappointed because the
small advances in production could be funded only through enormous increases in expenses. Impatient investors
sold their shares at a considerable loss, but those who truly believed in the future of the India tea venture --
and stayed the course against all odds -- would ultimately be rewarded.
With new emphasis on the high-yielding, indigenous tea plants, the turn-around of fortunes
began in 1847, and gradual but significant improvements in production rekindled the waning enthusiasm for the
India tea trade. Ultimately, India would become the world's largest tea producing country. By the early 1900s,
production of India tea exceeded 350 million pounds -- over a million times the amount produced in 1838!
"Upton Tea Imports was founded in 1989 with the objective of providing the North American tea drinker with
the finest teas available. We purchase teas from reputable brokers and estates worldwide, dealing only with
sources who are capable of providing top quality teas. We sell directly to the consumer, thus ensuring the
freshest product and fairest pricing." | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38572000 |
You are here
śete viṇ-mūtrayor garte
sa jantur jantu-sambhave
In the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa it is said that in the intestine of the mother the umbilical cord, which is known as āpyāyanī, joins the mother to the abdomen of the child, and through this passage the child within the womb accepts the mother’s assimilated foodstuff. In this way the child is fed by the mother’s intestine within the womb and grows from day to day. The statement of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa about the child’s situation within the womb is exactly corroborated by modern medical science, and thus the authority of the Purāṇas cannot be disproved, as is sometimes attempted by the Māyāvādī philosophers.
Since the child depends completely on the assimilated foodstuff of the mother, during pregnancy there are restrictions on the food taken by the mother. Too much salt, chili, onion and similar food is forbidden for the pregnant mother because the child’s body is too delicate and new for him to tolerate such pungent food. Restrictions and precautions to be taken by the pregnant mother, as enunciated in the smṛti scriptures of Vedic literature, are very useful. We can understand from the Vedic literature how much care is taken to beget a nice child in society. The garbhādhāna ceremony before sexual intercourse was compulsory for persons in the higher grades of society, and it is very scientific. Other processes recommended in the Vedic literature during pregnancy are also very important. To take care of the child is the primary duty of the parents because if such care is taken, society will be filled with good population to maintain the peace and prosperity of the society, country and human race. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38581000 |
Surprise, surprise... Junk food is bad for you. Back in January, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology reported that just one high-fat, high-sugar meal can trigger a biochemical cascade, causing inflammation of blood vessels and immediate, detrimental changes to the nervous system. The good news is that just one healthy meal helps return your body to its optimal state. (Source: One Meal to Good (or Bad) Health)
Most people are aware that there are long term implications involved in their dietary choices. What isn't generally known is that there are short-term implications to your health as well, which is why you typically feel bad after a junk-food fest. However, if your diet consists of a lot of junk food, you may not experience that ill-feeling.
Junk food distorts a person's hormonal profile, says O'Keefe.
Studies suggest that fatty, sugary foods promote excretion of the stress hormone cortisol, which seems to further stimulate appetite for calorie-dense foods. And the big post-meal spikes in blood sugar are more likely in people who don't exercise or those who carry weight around their abdomen. All of it makes it tough for people to stop eating junk food once they're in the habit. "The more you eat it the more you crave it. It becomes a vicious cycle."
"Your health and vigor, at a very basic level, are as good as your last meal," says lead author James O'Keefe, head of preventive cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo.
When Jane and I first went vegan, we found ourselves in a place where we didn't really know what we could eat, so most of our meals were steamed veggies with tofu and a salad; or lentil soup with a crusty bread and salad... Traditional vegan fare. Our meals were comprised of things that were closer to whole foods, than processed foods. As we've become more comfortable with what ingredient are permissible , we find our diet has started to include items that might be problematic (see Jane's addiction). And while there's room for some junk food in a vegan diet, we find ourselves at the precipice of a slippery slope. Jane's buying a bag or two of Snappea Crisps every week, and I've developed an addiction to her brownies. Summer is almost here. Our farmers markets are full to overflowing every week. It's time to get a-hold of ourselves before things get out of hand! Vegan diet doesn't necessarily mean healthy diet. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38583000 |
VOLUME AND INTENSITY Training volume and training intensity have historically been the two main variables in any plan to improve physical fitness. Volume refers to how much you train. Intensity refers to how hard you train.
Manipulating these variables has traditionally been the staple of any endurance program. The training season usually starts with high volume and low intensity. As training progresses, the volume decreases and intensity increases (Figure 1.1).
What if I told you there is a better way? Only half of our training improves in fitness. The problem is to know which half. Whether that half is volume or intensity remains to be seen, but there is increasing evidence that intensity is the more important half.
If you increased volume and intensity together, you would surely burn out from physical exhaustion. If you increased only volume, you wouldn’t see any significant improvement. If you train by manipulating intensity, you will improve.
Why, then, do we focus so much on volume? Tradition. That’s the way training has always been done. The great racers used to do it. The great riders now do it.
Maybe the people who excel in a sport are the people whose bodies adapt well to traditional training. When I first started racing, I had coaches whose traditional plans developed national and Olympic champions. We did high intensity on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and then raced on the weekends. The people who improved with this schedule were the people who recovered well. There were only two days off—nonconsecutive days—per week.
INTENSITY AND RECOVERY It’s time to start thinking of training as manipulations not of volume and intensity but of intensity and recovery. Using training principles taken from the exercise-science research, you can maximize your improvements while optimizing your recovery.
If traditional training has worked for you, then you already should have achieved great success in cycling. If you feel you could progress further, you should examine your motives for choosing workouts and building a training plan.
“Because it works for him” is an unproductive way to approach a training plan. Just because a plan works for the other guy doesn’t mean it will work for you.
If you want to excel in cycling, you need to adapt the training to your body. I will show you how intensity and recovery can help you reach your goals. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38586000 |
Anatomic and physiologic considerations are the basis for proper diagnostic techniques. We will discuss basic diagnostic procedures
and relative pharmacological consideration to enhance the ophthalmic examination.
Normal anatomy and physiology
The eye is a sensitive neurological tissue and is considered the anterior extension of the brain. It functions to translate
light waves into a nerve impulse, which can then be interpreted by the brain as sight. The eye is extremely delicate and sensitive,
and has special anatomic and physiologic adaptations. A basic understanding of ocular anatomy and physiology are necessary
to appreciate abnormalities and understand their significance. The eyes and their associated structures are bilateral and
symmetrical in most species.
Eyelids protect, lubricate and meter out excessive light. The shape of the palpebral fissure is species and breed dependent.
A wide variation among the breeds results in a particular facial expression. Two main sets of muscles control eyelid position.
The orbicularis muscles, innervated by the facial nerve, close the eyelid. The levator palpebral muscle innervated by the
oculomotor nerve raises the upper eyelid. The margins of the eyelids contain specialized cilia known as eyelashes, and openings
to the sebaceous meibomian glands provide oily secretions. The glands of Zeis and Moll are sebaceous and sweat glands that
are associated with the follicles of the eyelash.
The conjunctiva is the mucous membrane lining inside of the eyelids (palpebral conjunctiva) and is continuous onto the anterior
sclera (bulbar conjunctiva). The palpebral conjunctiva is thicker and pink-red in color, whereas the bulbar conjunctiva is
very thin, colorless and nearly transparent. Both contain blood vessels which when irritated will become congested and red.
Jaundice contrition will give the conjunctiva a yellowish color. Anemia will give it a blanched, pale appearance. The third
eyelid (nictitating membrane) is a specialized conjunctival structure of non-primate animals. It serves to protect the cornea,
secrete part of the tear film and fight infection via lymph follicles. This is supported by a T-shaped piece of cartilage
and at the base of this cartilage is the gland of the third eyelid, which produces a significant quantity of tears. The excursion
of the nictitating membrane, or third eyelid, is passive in dogs and due to the retraction of the globe.
Lacrimation is the production of tears. Tears are a composite of secretions of several glands. The two main glands in small
animals are their orbital lacrimal gland located in the dorso-temporal orbit and the gland of the third eyelid. Tear secretion
provides a protective function (antibacterial activity) and a source of nutrition and wastes product removal for the cornea.
The tear film is comprosed of the trilaminar layer: the out oily layer (from the meibomian glands), the middle aqueous layer
(from the lacrimal gland and gland of the third eyelid), and an inner mucin layer (conjunctival glands). A lack of watery,
aqueous tear secretion results in keratoconjuctivitis sicca, while a lack of mucin secretion results in abnormalities of the
tear film and focal areas of dryness. Chronic blepharitis may compromise meibomian gland secretions. This will decrease the
outer, oily layer, resulting in more rapid evaporation of the aqueous layer.
Tears exit the palpebral fissure by evaporation or through the nasolacrimal system. The openings of the apparatus are located
at the medial canthi and are comprosed of a small opening (punctum) in the upper and lower eyelids. The puncta, via canaliculi
(lacrimal ducts), join to forma a lacrimal sac. The nasolacrimal drainage duct exists from the lacrimal sac, passes through
the bones of the nose, and exits trough the nasal punctum; generally, a few millimeters from the external nares.
The eye proper is composed of three layers or tunics: (1) the outer fibrous tunic is composed of the corneo-scleral shell;
(2) the middle vascular tunic is comprosed of the choroids, Ciliary body, and iris; and (3) the inner nervous tunic, which
is of neural tissue origin and is comprosed of the neurosensory retina, retinal pigment epithelium of the Ciliary body, and
the posterior iris surfaces. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38590000 |
What are bitcoins, everybody asks. The usual answer is “they are a distributed, semi-anonymous, peer to peer, cryptographic digital currency” or something along those lines, but there is another simpler way to look at bitcoins.
Bitcoins are a tech stock – tech because they solve a technological problem and have a technological use, and stock because they can be bought and sold on open market.
Imagine a startup arrived in silicon valley one day and said they were going to create a digital currency which would succeed. A digital currency that overcomes the many limitations and fatal flaws of all its predecessors. I wonder how we could quantify it’s value in terms of VC funding, and once it reached a market cap of $300 Million, its value as an acquisition?
Let’s look at three start ups who received over $100million each in VC funding.
Dropbox has received over $250 Million in venture capital funding, for a service that essentially stores files. AirBnB, a space rental service (generally for holidays) has received $119 Million in funding. HomeAway, a vacation property booking services has raised over $500 Million.
And let’s look at a few startups that have sold for over $1billion.
Instagram, a simple photo sharing platform, sold to Facebook for $1billion. Youtube, the video sharing site we all know and love, sold to Google for $1.6billion and Doubleclick for $3billion. Yahoo bought an internet radio service for $5.7billion, geocities (now defunct) for $3.6billion, Overture Services Inc for $1.6 Billion and various others. Microsoft purchased Visio software for $1.3 Billion, NaVision for $1.3 Billion, aQuantive for $6.3 Billion, Fast Search and Transfer for $1.1 Billion, Skype for $8.5 Billion and Yammer for $1.2 Billion
In the above examples I’ve listed 12 companies that were sold for a total of $36,200,000,000. Just 12 Companies!
And let’s not even talk about the tech stocks which have floated on stock exchanges!
All of these companies have one thing in common, commerciality. Each requires a monetary transaction of some description to have been worth investing in or buying, in the first place. Now imagine a technology which facilitates the commerciality of all trade.
The current market cap of Bitcoins is around $300 Million. If bitcoins are a more commercial, more versatile and more readily traded tech stock (and they are), I don’t think it’s far fetched for bitcoin as a tech stock to be worth more than instagram. In that case their value should increase by 330%.
In fact I don’t think its far fetched to suggest bitcoins are a more commercial, readily traded, versatile and also sustainable tech stock than all of the above combined, in which case they are under valued by 11900%. ie. They should be trading at $3284 per bitcoin.
In my mind it goes even further. Apple is a company that simply sells computers, phones and software, and its value peaked at around $650 Billion. I think this is a realistic market cap for Bitcoins to hit within 10 years, at a value per coin of $55,000 each.
Imagine again for a second that the general public could have invested and the ground level with each of the above companies, ala kick starter. With bitcoins they can, and what’s more, this investment is more secure, more liquid, and more useful than any of the aforementioned investments could ever have been.
Bitcoins aren’t just a digital currency, they are a tech stock | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38593000 |
Authors: J. Marvin Herndon
Ours is a time of unparalleled richness in astronomical observations, but understanding seems to be absent throughout broad areas of astrophysics. Among some groups of astrophysicists there appears to be measured degrees of consensus, as indicated by the prevalence of so-called "standard models", but in science consensus is nonsense; science is a logical process, not a democratic process, and logical connections in many instances seem to be lacking. So the question astrophysicists should ask is this: "What's wrong with astrophysics?" Finding out what's wrong is not only the necessary precursor to righting what's wrong, but will open the way to new advances in astrophysics. Toward that end, one may question the basic assumptions upon which astrophysics is founded, as well as question the approaches astrophysicists currently employ. Here I describe one methodology and provide specific examples, the details of which are set forth elsewhere [1-3]. In doing so, I place into a logical sequence seemingly unrelated astronomical observations, including certain Hubble Space Telescope images, so that causal relationships become evident and understanding becomes possible; as a consequence, profound new implications follow, for example bearing on the origin of diverse galactic structures and the origin of the heavy elements.
Comments: recovered from sciprint.org
[v1] 2 Apr 2008
Unique-IP document downloads: 29 times
Add your own feedback and questions here: | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38595000 |
Authored by: Sam Jarmasz, Rachel Erickson, and Helga Jakobson on August 25, 2011
And so, the end of summer has arrived. After six adventurous weeks we find ourselves reminiscing about our many adventures. From day one, we knew that we would have an exciting summer. The energy and enthusiasm that the campers brought with them set the pace for a fun-filled summer!
It was wonderful how a trip to the zoo to visit the live animals gave birth to the dynamic “living sculptures” that the children created. Through various projects during the AnimaniART camp, the children were able to practice multiple mediums, such as painting, drawing, sculpting, etc., and through trips to the farm, zoo, and horse show, they were able to practice field drawing and collect source materials. Our very favourite part was witnessing the excitement that came from the children inventing their own original animals, and allowing them to come to life.
Throughout the weeks of Junior Architect camp, we engaged with Winnipeg’s downtown area, and explored the city with new eyes. The children worked with these new environments in their sketch books to collect ideas and inspiration for the building of their own miniature cities. Throughout the week the children got the chance to see what it would be like to be an architect. A process that began with preliminary sketches of floor plans and rough building designs ended with the 3-D construction of that same building. The children worked together as city planners, deciding where the roads would run through their jigsaw puzzle cities, and adding in green space, bike paths, and even solar panels!
During Graffiti week we exposed the children to Winnipeg’s urban culture. A wonderful field trip to the Graffiti Gallery taught the children how to break dance and work with graffiti lettering on unconventional surfaces. By exploring the West End on a mural tour, the children learned how Winnipeggers are working with public art to build community and send positive messages that deter vandalism and defacement. The children worked together to make their own murals, and practiced learning graffiti scripts and techniques throughout the week. It was exciting to watch them focus on the messages that they would like to share with the world and work through creative mediums to get those ideas out there.
The WAG Summer Art Camps were a huge success, and we are proud to have been a part of it. We hope everyone had a fantastic summer, and we hope to see you all (and more) next year!
Comments are now closed | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38597000 |
A People's Constitutional Convention
From previously written material that needs repeating-
The idea of a People's Constitutional Convention is not new. Over the years, many individuals and organizations have advocated such an event for a variety of causes. The original Constitutional Convention convened on and off in various locations, from May 25th, 1787 to September 17th, 1787 when the Constitution was signed and sent to the states for ratification.
But regardless of the participation or intention of the fifty-five aristocrats in the formation of that document, the document in question, the American Constitution, still belongs to the people. This has forever been written as being fact in our original founding document, that being the Declaration of Independence. Take a moment to re-read the opening of that document at http://www.wtpnet.org/documents/decl_of_ind_passed.html
Regardless of what the courts or Congress have said about the Rights of the People, or the extent of the people's authority over government, this document is clear.
It clearly indicates
"that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles, & organizing it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness."
And further on it reads
"it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, & to provide new guards for their future security."
Not much ambiguity here.
Now obviously, just telling the government to shape up, of course accomplishes nothing. We can say we have these Rights over and over until we are blue in the face, and quite possibly in prison, or dead.
But if you have a grass roots movement united on a single front, that front being the People's Constitutional Convention, you might just end up with a majority of the population speaking loudly and clearly enough, that compliance on the part of the government becomes mandatory by default.
Here's how it might work:
First thing is to organize at the local level on the idea of a People's Constitutional Convention, with proposed Constitutional Amendments. Once this catches on across the country, then move to the next step.
Delegates are elected at the local level to attend regional Conventions. These Delegates will poll their constituencies to get an accurate report on what the people want strengthened in the Constitution and what they want changed about government. This report will be the message of the Delegate at the regional Convention. The job of the regional Convention is to debate and vote, so as to combine all the Delegates polls into one coherent Amendment package.
These Delegates then go to the State Conventions, repeating the process. The Amendment package that has thus been debated and voted upon, then moves on to the National Convention.
The final Amendment package coming out of the National Convention is a directive to Congress, to the Executive, and to the courts. According to the Declaration of Independence, this people's directive will supersede all existing law. All that's left after the Congress does their job, by implementing the Amendment package, is for the states to ratify the Amendments. Once ratified by the states, the newly amended People's Constitution becomes the law of the land.
Now, if we don't really have this Right, this Original Authority, then we the people have been lied to. Everything taught to us about our country and the founding fathers is a lie. Everything taught to our children in schools about our government is a lie. The Declaration of Independence is just a piece of paper.
I don't think so.
I suspect that the government, given the political choice, would capitulate in favor of the people, rather than risk an all-out revolution. After all, we are talking about America here, aren't we?
Here's more on the issue that is excerpted from an article I previously wrote, and that addressed several concerns.
All the peace and social justice activists that I have talked to want the same things. They want what most people want, that is, equal rights and justice for all people everywhere, affordable education and health care, opportunity and quality of life, and a clean and healthy planet to live on.
Regardless of the particular issue, there are common threads interwoven into most, if not all, of the issues. These threads include, but are not limited to, government corruption, excessive corporate power, and an unfair class-driven election process that keeps high level political office out of the reach of the average working class individual. There are other fundamental issues as well, but these particular three go a long way toward fostering the crisis that we the people currently face in this country.
Think about it.
Nearly every issue that we are fighting in our many different causes can be traced back to a common thread, a fundamental flaw in our society. It seems logical that any long-term solution should address these flaws. Otherwise it's like trying to get rid of a noxious weed by picking off its leaves. The problem is going to come back. So how do we get at the root?
Well you start by taking stock in the tools you have available. Our most powerful tool that we collectively share is the fact that we the people are popular sovereigns. This is the authority that we the people declared in the Declaration of Independence. If you can get the majority of people in this country to realize the truth, then you have your sovereignty 'muscle'. Then you flex that popular sovereignty muscle by calling a Constitutional Convention and amending the Constitution.
Most left-leaning progressives tend to shudder whenever you mention the Constitution as something that we should all embrace as activists working for change. I've heard it all, from "the Constitution is no longer relevant", and "that authority no longer exists", and "Constitutionalism is the refuge of right wing extremists and gun nuts", to "the Constitution was written by rich white men".
I also get told by some that what I propose is unrealistic, that I should just select a smaller issue, and join the ranks of those "picking away at the problem"; or that what I propose is dangerous, not only to ourselves, but to the Constitution as well. Some say it will "put the Constitution up for grabs" because the Convention Delegations would be filled with existing legislators who would dominate the process.
I understand what people are saying regarding some of the potential risks, however, I disagree with them on many of the variables.
For instance, I believe that in a normal political environment, Article V of the Constitution does indeed govern the process of Conventions. However, in a political environment that has created a legitimate threat to the future integrity of the rule of Constitutional law, such as exists in this country right now, then I believe the provisions in the Declaration of Independence are quite clear:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, & organizing it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
The people’s election of new delegates, not existing legislators, is our right under the authority inferred in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, as well as being enumerated in the signing statement by George Washington and William Jackson that appears just after the signature portion of the Constitution. It reads the following:
That the preceding Constitution be laid before the United States in Congress assembled, and that it is the opinion of this Convention, that it should afterwards be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each State by the People thereof, under the recommendation of its Legislature, for their assent and ratification; and that each Convention assenting to and ratifying the same, should give notice thereof to the United States in Congress assembled.”
…be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each state by the People thereof…
The requirement of being “under the recommendation of it’s Legislature” goes out the window when you have a legitimate Constitutional crisis. The authority that is inherent to the people under the Declaration of Independence is absolute over the government, when We the People need it to be, in order to preserve and defend the Constitution.
It is not just my opinion. Numerous law professors from such venerable institutions as Yale and Harvard, as well as past Supreme Courts, have written in Court decisions and opinion papers that our rights are absolute and are not subject to alteration by the government, technically that is. The online library at WTPNet.org has many of these documents available for download. The web address is http://www.wtpnet.org/library.html
These same documents also assert that we the people are popular sovereigns over our government. We the people have all the rights, the government exists on privilege. The people’s rights are inherent and natural rights, and therefore absolute and not subject to alteration. The government is only granted the privilege of acting on our behalf. We the people have only delegated our authority, we have not given it away.
The Constitution of the State of California, the state in which I reside, backs up this statement from the Declaration with it’s provision in Article II, Section 1:
“All political power is inherent in the people.
Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it, when the public good may require.”
One of the biggest misconceptions in our country, is that the Constitution is the authority that governs we the people. Not true. The Constitution is a framework for the operation of government, nothing more. We the people created the Constitution in order to keep our newly created government from recreating King George. Our authority as popular sovereigns is declared to King George and the rest of the world in the Declaration of Independence, our true founding document, and that which ultimately governs the actions of we the people.
The Congress, courts, and political pundits can say all they want about that only being "original authority", however the mere fact that the Declaration of Independence sits under glass at the National Archives attests to it’s venerated place in our national persona. It is this very fact that makes it so that it does not matter who wrote it, or for what reason.
I say it again. It doesn't matter why it exists. What matters, is that it does exist. All we have to do is have the courage to pick it up.
If a united movement of the people in this country framed its campaign as one in which we are defending not just the Constitution, but the very essence of what it means to be American, I know it would ignite a firestorm of support. We would be declaring our sovereignty and independence to the new King George.
For all intents and purposes, George W. Bush has already smashed the glass at the National Archives and is holding our future in one hand, and a blazing torch in the other. If you read through the full Declaration of Independence, George W. Bush has already mirrored, if not exceeded, the egregious complaints contained therein.
Do we wait until after he really burns the document in an attempt at rewriting history?
Do we wait until after he has declared martial law? I think not.
As far as the risks involved, try to look at it this way.
If we don’t act, our government completes the transition to military fascism. Very bad. In that case, we have failed our children.
Even if that does not occur, say the politicians finally pull their head out as well as pulling the troops out, we are still left with a country that is ruled by corporate power, has a government full of corruption, and whose fastest growing industry is the prison system.
Just a different type of very bad.
Again I say we will have failed our children because right now we have in this country the one thing that has not been present in the history of struggle in the US. And that is, overwhelming public dissatisfaction with the status quo, coupled with the realization among activists from all walks, that tactics previously successful are no longer so.
We the people are on the brink of absolute despotism. The political climate has never been more ripe then it is now, desperately crying for fundamental change in a new direction. A People's Constitutional Convention can bring us that change in a manner that guides revolutionist energy on a positive path.
On the issue of risk to the existing document, people are correct. In that case it becomes logical to keep the Convention tightly focused on the Amendment package, and to actively educate on why the document should remain as intact as possible.
But we have to be willing to take risk, including to the Constitution, when it comes to the fixing of obvious errors in judgment associated with the original. It’s like living in an historical building that has fallen victim to its own structural shortcomings, and not wanting to repair the damage out of concern for having to use modern materials in it’s reconstruction.
Considering our current situation with how much the Constitution has already been trashed, as well as the fascistic direction that we are currently heading, we the people have very little to lose and everything to gain from reestablishing our popular sovereignty over our government.
New Orleans resident and long-time activist Curtis Muhammed said recently that he has not seen a true movement in this country, since the true movement of the civil rights struggle. I would agree with him, and add that we the people need to be willing to take more risks, the same risks the pro democracy movements in Burma anf Tibet are willing to take. We have to be willing to risk our comfortable lifestyles and stop playing it safe, myself included.
I know I have given you a lot to consider, so I will end this on a good thought. To steal an overused cliché from Hollywood, which is nonetheless true, “All men die, but not all men truly live!”
Peace and Solidarity,
We the People Network
In California where I live, some state politicians are starting to call for a Constitutional Convention in order to alter the basic way the state government operates, for the stated reason of preventing future budget deadlocks. We the People need to act to protect and strengthen our Constitution, before we lose the ability to do so! | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38598000 |
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On the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Ray Suarez talks to retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. James Zumwalt about his new book on the Vietnam War, as seen through the eyes of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong veterans.
RAY SUAREZ: So, give us some examples of the kind of techniques and tactics the North Vietnamese used successfully against a much-better-armed, much-better-equipped enemy.
LT. COL. JAMES ZUMWALT: Well, one that stands out in my mind is the -- what they did along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail, as you know, was a logistical supply line that brought men and materiel from the north down to the south. Obviously, they had to cross rivers at certain points. And the only way you cross a river is with a bridge. They would build bridges for the specific purpose of having as a target -- having a target that we would go after.
They -- what they would do then is, upstream or downstream of that bridge, they would come up with very clever ways of hiding bridges. Well, how do you hide a bridge? One is a concept known as a submarine bridge, where they actually built a bridge platform underneath the low watermark.
And, for those who served in Vietnam, they know that the -- the water is basically brown, so you cannot see from the air if there was anything under the water. But these submarine bridges were very effectively used.
As convoys would cross them, they would have guides standing on either side of the bridge platform guiding them as to where the edges of the platform were. These existed for the duration of the war, and we never knew about them...
LT. COL. JAMES ZUMWALT: This was a people who, again, going back to their DNA, would not tolerate being invaded.
Could we have won the war? We had the military power, and we never lost a battle in Vietnam. We -- if we committed ground forces in the North, we could have driven them out of the cities, but all that would have done was delayed the inevitable, which was that they would keep eating away and eating away, and drawing the war out for as long as it took for us to get out. Rest of Transcript.
Michael Munk shared a telling observation:
A report on a journalists' reunion in Ho Chi Minh City on the 35th anniversary of the US defeat in Vietnam says it all:
"This was the first foreign war the U.S. ever fought where the press challenged government thinking, challenged the decisions of generals, challenged the political decisions the war was based on," said former CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam coverage in 1966 while working for The Associated Press. Arnett, like many of the globe-trotting journalists, came to Vietnam as a young reporter and grew up covering battles from the trenches where correspondents were permitted to go without restrictions. Many carried their war experience into other conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan, but said they were never again given such freedom to tell their stories from the front lines.
"No longer will you ever be able to do wars like Vietnam," said Bob Carroll, a former United Press International photographer. "What did the military learn about press access from Vietnam? Don't give it to them."
Read the entire article: Vietnam War Journalists Reunite For Anniversary.
"When I saw those tanks, I felt so happy," said Thuy, who on Friday carried a hammer and a sickle flag. "The South had been liberated, the country was united, and the war was over."
Vietnam marked the 35th anniversary of the Communist victory in the Vietnam War with a grand military parade Friday through the former Saigon, with the government basking more in its economic achievements than its historic military defeat of the United States.
The city is now named for Ho Chi Minh, the father of the revolution, but signs of the burgeoning market economy are everywhere, with Communist banners competing for space with corporate ads and logos.
Some 50,000 invitees, many waving red and gold ruling party flags, crowded the parade route. They marked the day that North Vietnamese tanks smashed through the gates of the former Presidential Palace in Saigon and ousted the U.S.-backed South Vietnam government — the culmination of one of the most seismic military achievements since World War II. Read more.
U.S. Consolidates Military Network In Asia-Pacific Region
Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site | April 28, 2010
The United States has six naval fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups patrolling the world's oceans and seas. The U.S. Navy is as large as the world's next thirteen biggest navies combined .
Washington has as many aircraft carriers as all other nations together. Russia has one; China has none. The U.S. and its NATO allies - Britain (2), Italy (2), France (1) and Spain (1) - account for 17 of 22 in service in the world. Ten of the eleven American carriers are Nimitz class nuclear-powered supercarriers, substantially larger than most all non-U.S. ones. The U.S. Navy has all ten supercarriers in the world at the moment.
U.S. aircraft carriers contain 70-80 planes and are available for deployment in all the world's oceans and most of its seas. They are escorted in their carrier groups by anti-air and anti-submarine warfare guided missile destroyers, anti-submarine warfare frigates, missile cruisers with long-range Tomahawks, and nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines. The U.S. also maintains between ten and twelve naval expeditionary strike groups which include amphibious assault ships and AH-1 Super Cobra attack helicopters in addition to destroyers, cruisers, frigates, attack submarines and P-3C Orion long-range anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft.
With the reestablishing of the Navy's Fourth Fleet - its area of responsibility includes Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea - two years ago after a 58-year hiatus, the U.S. has six fleets that can be dispatched to all five oceans.
The Seventh Fleet (there is no First Fleet), based in Japan, is the largest of U.S. forward-deployed fleets and consists of as many as 40–60 ships, 200-350 aircraft and 20,000-60,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel. Its area of responsibility takes in more than 50 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from Russia's Kuril Islands in the north to the Antarctic in the south, from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea, South Africa to the Korean Peninsula, the Strait of Malacca to the Taiwan Strait.
When on the occasion of accepting the Nobel Peace Prize last December President Barack Obama referred to himself as the Commander-in-Chief of the world's sole military superpower he was not guilty of hyperbole if he was of hubris. His defense budget for next year is almost half as large as world military spending for 2008, the last year for which the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has compiled figures.
Geoff Millard, Chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War, National Board Of Directors wrote:
From the 26th of March until the 9th of April I was lucky to be a part of a veterans delegation to Vietnam in order to do research in preparation for an upcoming push for legislation to alleviate the suffering of the people of Vietnam that has plagued them since we first started using agent orange in 1961.
Vietnam may seem an odd place for an Iraq vet whose parents had not even met when the last US forces retreated in defeat hanging from helicopters, but somehow I was the perfect piece to complete a very complicated puzzle. You see there are many connections to be made between the two wars but I was there because both were toxic battlefields that left veteran and civilian alike scared for many generations.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s it was not conservative veterans groups who were talking about the effects of agent orange (more specifically dioxin but for common understanding I will simply use AO as my reference), it was VVAW and CCI. As much as revisionists would love to write antiwar veterans from history or minimize them as a small force (as they are trying today with IVAW) the reality is that while the VFW would not allow Vietnam veterans to join their ranks antiwar vets were creating a new generation of leaders. These brave souls were the ones to first paint the words agent orange kills our soldiers on banners.
One of these young leaders would leave to form VVA but his roots are undeniably with VVAW. It is from the work of antiwar veterans that any compensation for AO has been granted. Thus it must again be antiwar vets that take up their banners and fight for compensation for the now three generations of survivors who have lived 35 years in a toxic battlefield that Americans have long since forgotten.
Japanese Military Joins U.S. And NATO In Horn Of Africa
Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site | April 25, 2010
Japanese navy commander Keizo Kitagawa recently spoke with Agence France-Presse and disclosed that his nation was opening its first overseas military base - at any rate since the Second World War - in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.
Kitagawa is assigned to the Plans and Policy Section of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, as his nation's navy is called, and is in charge of the deployment.
AFP quoted the Japanese officer as stressing the unprecedented nature of the development: "This will be the only Japanese base outside our country and the first in Africa."
The military installation is to cost $40 million and is expected to accommodate Japanese troops early next year.
Djibouti rests at the confluence of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, across from strife-torn Yemen, and borders the northwest corner of equally conflict-ridden Somalia. The narrow span of water separating it from Yemen is the gateway for all maritime traffic passing between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.
Kyle Kajihiro sent the following report from Honolulu:
Yesterday, in solidarity with the 90,000+ Okinawans who rallied against U.S. military bases in Okinawa, the Hawai'i-Okinawa Alliance (HOA), the American Friends Service Committee - Hawai'i and DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina organized a vigil in front of the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu.
Approximately 40 people held signs and candles in front of the Japanese Consulate. Ukwanshin Kabudan, Nakem Youth, Fight for Guahan, Veterans for Peace and Urban Babaylan were some of the groups represented.
People spoke about the impacts of U.S. military bases in Hawai'i, Guam, Korea, and the Philippines and the need for our peoples to be in solidarity for the removal of these bases of war. Wearing a "Deji-wajiwaji!" HOA tee-shirt, World War II Veteran Don Matsuda called for the bases to get out of Okinawa. Kisha Borja-Kicho'cho' with a contingent from Fight for Guahan expressed solidarity from the Chamoru community in their struggle to resist the U.S. military base expansion on her home island. Many speakers expressed a desire to remove the oppressive military bases and make the Pacific a zone of peace. Several people came after seeing coverage of the event on the television. For some it was their first demonstration.
Norman Kaneshiro sensei and several young Okinawan musicians sang traditional Okinawan songs. We closed the circle with singing "Hana" (Kina Shoukichi's famous peace anthem).
Then we tied yellow ribbons with messages of peace written on them on the consulate fence.
The event was covered on KITV and KHNL television stations, and there reporters for the Okinawa Times and Ryukyu Shimpo covered the event.
Attached are some photos by Jamie Oshiro. More detailed report and photos to come.
Click "Read more" to see more event pictures.
I was in Hyderabad, India, from May through December, 2009. I returned to the US for January through March, and by April 2nd was again back here in Hyderabad.
I spent the last ten years studying - getting a degree in journalism and following that up with an MA in Integrative Studies. I wrote many articles and essays, wrote two books, and organized a national conference. I came to Hyderabad to organize the second conference.
The U.S. military on Okinawa is advising Department of Defense personnel and their families to stay away from the village of Yomitan on Sunday, where a large anti-base rally is scheduled.
Organizers said Wednesday they expect 100,000 people to gather at the village sports complex for the 3 p.m. event. Among featured speakers will be elected officials and union leaders.
If the size of the crowd turns out to be as big as predicted, it will be the largest anti-base event on Okinawa since 58,000 people gathered in Ginowan in October 1995 to protest the abduction and gang rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by two Marines and a sailor.
The crime sparked an anti-base movement that resulted in the U.S. and Japan agreeing the next year to return about 20 percent of the land used by the U.S. military on Okinawa. That agreement included closing Marine Corps Air Station Futenma if an alternate location on the island could be found. Several relocation plans followed and were scrapped because of opposition by anti-base and environmental-protection groups.
Japan’s new left-center government is reviewing a 2006 agreement to close Futenma and move the Marines to a new air facility to be built at Camp Schwab on Okinawa. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said he will settle on a proposed new location for Futenma operations by the end of May. Read more.
The United States Air Force has announced that it will launch a secret space plane that has sparked speculation about the militarization of space.
The Pentagon has set April 21 as the date for the launch of the robotic space plane known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), which is a reusable unmanned plane capable of long outer space missions at low orbits.
Since the nature of the project is shrouded in mystery, defense analysts allege that the US military is building the first generation of US 'space Predator drones' that will build up the United States' space armada, the Christian Science Monitor wrote in a recent article.
Military experts argue that the US Department of Defense would not have saved NASA's costly X-37B project, which had been scrapped, if it did not have a military application.
They say the US wants to maintain a leading role in space via the development of the new 'space weapon' at a time when other countries like China are expanding their space programs. Read more.
Kucinich Voices Concern Over Futenma Base Relocation
By Robert Naiman | Just Foreign Policy
Representative Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to Norman Dicks, chair of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations, expressing concerns about U.S. plans to relocate the U.S. base at Futenma in Okinawa to Nago, and urging that the concerns of Okinawa residents be taken into account. The letter is here.
Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military Outpost Between Russia And China
Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site | April 14, 2010
On April 11, the day before the two-day Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, DC, U.S. President Barack Obama met with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev and their deliberations resulted in the U.S. obtaining the right to fly troops and military equipment over (and later directly into) the territory of Kazakhstan for the escalating war in Afghanistan.
Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and senior director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the United States National Security Council, "told reporters in a conference call that the agreement will allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the North Pole to the region."
McFaul directly stated, "This will save money; it will save time in terms of moving our troops and supplies needed into the theater." The Washington Post cited other White House officials claiming "Sunday's meeting between Obama and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev was the turning point," an allusion to the advance it signified over the last agreement on military transport for the Afghan war signed between the two countries in January, which permitted the transport of only non-lethal American military supplies and equipment across the country by rail.
The government of Kazakhstan has also allowed limited flights containing non-lethal military cargo over its territory, but that entailed a lengthy and circuitous route from the eastern United States to Europe and over the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, ultimately headed to the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan, which is currently in jeopardy after the overthrow of the government in that nation on April 7.
However, now "Kazakhstan has agreed to let the United States fly troops and weapons over its territory, a deal that opens a direct and faster route over the North Pole for American forces and lethal equipment headed to Afghanistan."
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was deposed five years after and in the same manner as he came to power, in a bloody uprising.
Elected president two months after the so-called Tulip Revolution of 2005 he helped engineer, he was since then head of state of the main transit nation for the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon secured the Manas Air Base (as of last year known as the Transit Center at Manas) in Kyrgyzstan shortly after its invasion of Afghanistan in October of 2001 and in the interim, according to a U.S. armed forces publication last June, “More than 170,000 coalition personnel passed through the base on their way in or out of Afghanistan, and Manas was the transit point for 5,000 tons of cargo, including spare parts and equipment, uniforms and various items to support personnel and mission needs.
“Currently, around 1,000 U.S. troops, along with a few hundred from Spain and France, are assigned to the base.”
The White House’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke paid his first visit in his current position to Kyrgyzstan – and the three other former Soviet Central Asian republics which border it, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – in February and said “35,000 US troops were transiting each month on their way in and out of Afghanistan.” At the rate he mentioned, 420,000 troops annually.
Hmm. Who should be occupying whom?
Pakistan parliament agrees to curb presidential powers
The parliament of Pakistan has voted unanimously in favour of measures which limit key presidential powers.
The measures transfer certain powers from the office of the president to the prime minister and take away his power to dismiss elected governments.
Supporters say the legislation will strengthen parliamentary democracy, weakened by periods of military rule.
The bill was approved unanimously by Pakistan's National Assembly. It now needs approval from the upper house.
From Veterans for Peace
Hanoi--At a meeting with American veterans here yesterday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung urged "the United States government to take responsibility for solving the aftermath of its war with Vietnam."
During the war, Mr. Dung emphasized, more than two million Vietnamese were killed, millions more were injured, and more than 300,000 are still missing. Moreover, three million people were exposed to toxic chemicals like Agent Orange sprayed by the U.S. military during the war.
Mr. Dung further urged the U.S. government to "listen to its conscience," and to cooperate with Vietnam's government by giving assistance to Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange to help them overcome the difficulties they face, and to aid in the clean-up of the dioxin contaminated environment.
The Futenma base relocation issue has been dominating the headlines in Japan ever since the formation of the Hatoyama administration in September 2009. Understandably the focus has been on Okinawa, long the center of anti-base activism. But we should see the Futenma base relocation issue as part of a much broader problem. In this article I want to consider the Futenma issue in the context of other activities within the international anti-bases movement.
I have been involved in the anti-bases movement for many years and serve on the Hokkaido Asia Africa Latin America Solidarity Committee (HAALA). HAALA is an organization that opposes neo-colonialism, respects the rights of people to self-determination and aims for the equality of all peoples. Revocation of the US-Japan Security Treaty and the removal of all American bases from Japan are among its aims. We have links with Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba and South Africa among others and are involved in various humanitarian projects there. A representative of the Japan Africa Asia South America Solidarity Committee went to Ecuador to attend the anti-base activities described in Fuse Yūjin’s article [add link], and have also visited Venezuela and Bolivia.
The International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases (INAFMB) took off at the World Social Forum held in Mumbai in January 2004 and was launched officially as a result of its first international conference in Quito and Manta, Ecuador, in March 2007. I attended the Mumbai meeting as the representative of HAALA. It was an unforgettable experience. To have 130,000 people gathering from across the globe under the slogan ‘Another world is possible’ in a meeting of such diversity and vibrancy was enough to really make one believe it could happen. In particular, the demonstrations by members of India’s so-called ‘untouchables’ caste left a particularly strong impression. Their cries of ‘If another world is possible then it must include us’ brought it home that only by raising one’s voice is there any hope to change things. Read more.
On March 11, the US State Department issued its "2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)," calling the People's Republic of China (PRC) "an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount source of power," practicing:
- "cultural and religious repression;"
- harassment of human rights activists;
- harassment and disbarment of lawyers who defend them;
- control of free expression, the Internet, and access to it;
- extrajudicial killings;
- torture and coerced confessions of prisoners;
- use of forced labor, including prison labor;
- monitoring, harassing, detaining, arresting, and imprisoning "journalists, writers, dissidents, activists, petitioners, and defense lawyers and their families;"
- denial of due process;
Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has said the result of a weekend mayoral poll could fuel a major rethink about US military bases in Japan.
Residents of the Japanese city of Nago, on Okinawa, chose a candidate opposed to the hosting of an American air base.
The Futenma base was originally scheduled to move to Nago from a more crowded part of Okinawa.
Talk of moving the base out of Japan altogether has threatened the long-standing US-Japan security alliance.
Mr Hatoyama said the results of Sunday's election reflected the will of the people, and that Japan will continue to re-examine its commitment to relocate the air base.
"The country will start from scratch on this issue and take responsibility to reach a conclusion by the end of May," he told reporters. Read more.
From TomDispatch this morning: An unprecedented picture of China on one of history's great spending binges in search of access to, and control over, the world's key future energy and other resources -- "China's Global Shopping Spree: Is the World's Future Resource Map Tilting East?"
"Think of it as a tale of two countries," begins energy expert and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet Michael Klare. "When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the consumption of oil and other key industrial materials. Not so China. With the recession’s crippling effects expected to linger in the U.S. for many years, analysts foresee a slow recovery when it comes to resource consumption. Not so China."
TomDispatch regular Klare offers a picture of state-owned or state-backed Chinese companies ranging the world gobbling up the key future energy and other resources crucial to an industrial society, and at recession-induced bargain-basement prices. Backed with endless streams of cash, these companies are, in the field of oil alone, making deals from Kazakhistan in Central Asia to Ecuador in Latin America, Iraq to Venezuela, Burma to the African country of Guinea.
It's a remarkable, even shopaholic burst of buying of a sort we haven't seen in our lifetimes. As Klare concludes in this must-read piece: "Perhaps more than any other recent developments, China’s global shopping spree reveals how the world’s balance of power is shifting from West to East." Read it now.
Statement by Japan Lawyers' International Solidarity Association on Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa
According to newspaper reports, the government maintains that Japan must provide a replacement facility for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, which is used by the US Marines, that it has given up on finding a candidate site outside of Okinawa, and that the base will very likely be relocated within Okinawa.
From our stance of seeking to implement the spirit of the United Nations Charter and the ideals of Japan’s Constitution, we of the Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association believe that the government’s judgment invites criticism on two points, and we strongly urge the government to reconsider.
1) Japan is not obligated to provide the US Marines with bases.
In the first place, US military bases in Okinawa were illegally expanded and built. Even before acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on August 14, 1945 land was expropriated while Okinawans were detained in prison camps, and by means of “bayonets and bulldozers” with the start of the Cold War. Such acts are not justifiable even by the law of war, and therefore violate international law. And the Japan-US Security Treaty, which is invoked to paper over these illegalities, establishes that bases are provided to US forces under the conditions that provision is based on the will of the Japanese government, and that it contributes to the security of Japan and the Far East, but the US Marines, owing to the nature of the force, does not help to achieve such purposes, and as such their stationing in Japan lacks justification under the treaty. Further, 75% of US military bases and facilities are concentrated in this one prefecture of Okinawa, and all Okinawans want US bases to be downsized and removed. The principles of democracy, which are recognized universally the world over, do not tolerate troop stationing which goes against the will of the people.
2) In Japan the Constitution’s Preamble and Articles 9 and 98 provide the right to seek removal of US military bases.
The Japanese Constitution provides that “never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government” and recognizes that “all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” It says that the Japanese renounce war, do not maintain “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential,” and it pledges to faithfully observe “established laws of nations,” which include the law of war and international humanitarian law. From the perspective of this extensive peace design, when at least part of the US forces stationed in Japan are highly problematic to bringing about peace and eliminating “fear and want,” it is possible to exercise one’s legitimate rights, including appeals to the international community, to resolve the matter which is the cause. In view of the situation with US military bases, which is a never-ending stream of aircraft crashes, traffic accidents, crimes, and pollution, it stands to reason that the people of Okinawa Prefecture seek the return of Futenma Air Station, and, with respect for their will, the Japanese government indeed has the right to take the initiative and ask the US government to immediately remove Futenma Air Station.
March 24, 2010
Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association, Executive Committee
Osamu Niikura, President. Jun Sasamoto, Secretary-General
Finally a Congressman Takes Look at Expanding Empire of Bases, But Apparently He Was Drugged or Is Just an Idiot
Mongolia: Pentagon Trojan Horse Wedged Between China And Russia
Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site | March 31, 2010
Because of its history, its location and the nations which surround it, Mongolia would seem the last country in the world to host annual Pentagon-led military exercises and to be the third Asian nation to offer NATO troops for the war in Afghanistan.
From the early 1920s until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 Mongolia was the latter nation's longest-standing and in many ways closest political and military ally, its armed forces fighting alongside those of the USSR against the Japanese in World War II. It was not a member of the Warsaw Pact as that alliance was formed in Europe six years after and in response to the creation of NATO in 1949, but Mongolia was a military buffer between the Soviet Union and the Japanese army in China in the Second World War and between it and China during the decades of the Sino-Soviet conflict.
Mongolia is also buried deep within the Asian continent and is the world's second-largest landlocked nation next to Kazakhstan, which is only 21 miles from its western border. Those two countries along with North Korea, impenetrable in most every sense of the word, are the only three that border both China and Russia.
Russia abuts Mongolia along its entire northern frontier and China along its eastern, southern and western borders. There is no way to enter the country except by passing through or over Russia and China.
As such Mongolia would have appeared to be a refuge of non-alignment in a world of rapidly expanding U.S. and NATO penetration of increasingly vast tracts of the earth's surface.
But in the post-Cold War period no country is beyond the Pentagon's reach, either inside or on its borders.
In the last decade alone the U.S. has acquired bases and other military installations and stationed its armed forces throughout parts of the world that it had never penetrated during the Cold War era, including:
Africa: Approximately 2,000 troops and the Pentagon's Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.
Indonesia's National Armed Forces (TNI), especially its thuggish Kopassus Special Forces Command, has a long, sordid human rights record, including political killings and massacres of hundreds of thousands of civilians in East Timor, Aceh, Papua, and elsewhere in the country.
In response to the November 12, 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of over 270 demonstrators in Dili, East Timor's capital, Congress restricted Indonesia's TNI from receiving International Military Education and Training (IMET). It brings foreign military officers to America for what's taught at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA, renamed WHINSEC ) - namely, the latest ways to kill, maim, torture, oppress, exterminate poor and indigenous people, overthrown democratically elected governments, suppress popular resistance movements, assassinate targeted leaders, and work cooperatively with Washington to solidify hard-right rule, intolerant of democratic rights, social justice, and progressive change.
The 1976 Arms Export Control Act requires US military hardware sales use only for defense or to maintain internal security.
GUAM TAXPAYERS PAY $1,019/HR FOR PORT NEGOTIATOR!
Since former GM of the Port Authority of Guam, Ken Takagawa, became the Port’s Chief Negotiator, there has been no forward progress with the contract negotiations for our workers.
He refuses to negotiate on items that have been negotiable for Public Employees under the Public Employees Management Relations Act for 40 years. Mr. Takagawa works 6 hrs a week and receives $20,000 per month plus per diem of $215 per day which comes out to $1,019 per hour to basically delay the process of getting our Port workers a contract!
It appears that Mr. Takagawa is deliberately delaying the process to maximize his salary.
In an effort to rectify the situation, President Matt Rector sent a letter to the Office of Attorney General Chief Prosecutor, Diane Corbett, to investigate the situation and ensure protection of the people of Guam from Government corruption, theft and waste of thousands of public dollars to this private contractor. Read Letter.
Brazil, Russia, India, and China—otherwise known as the BRIC nations—are enjoying a new and, in ways, unprecedented role on the international stage. The four emerging markets maintained an average growth rate of 10.7 percent from 2006 to 2008, according to the International Monetary Fund. With this outstanding performance, they are creating a new economic miracle.
In an article recently published in the Beijing-based newspaper Guangming Daily, experts in a research team of the Hunan Provincial Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science pointed to a trend known as the "big country effect" as a determining factor in their rapid, sustainable growth.
Excerpts from this article follow:
Some scholars say the rapid economic growth of the BRIC countries stemmed from their wise choices in comparative advantage strategies—which have allowed them considerable room to maneuver with regards to their resources.
Others say their brilliant performance emanated from their advantages in terms of being latecomers. In other words, having been so economically dormant for so long, the BRIC countries have enjoyed advances in development via technological improvements, human resource development, as well as economic restructuring.
None of these arguments are fully convincing. Read more.
Your Calls on Jeju Island are Working Already - Keep Making Them
Jeju is the island inside the red circle. To the left is mainland China. To the right is Japan. China imports 80% of its oil along the seaway beside Jeju Island. The U.S. Navy obviously relishes the idea of one more Navy base in the region that would enable it to choke off China's importation oil thus giving the U.S. the "key" to China's economic engine. You can see that this Navy base will dramatically widen already dangerous tensions in the region.
Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, just wrote to AfterDowningStreet:
Since my earlier email this morning (read it below) asking people to call the South Korean Embassy in Washington DC I've already heard from two different people who both told me the person they spoke to at the embassy said it was the U.S. Navy that wants the base.
One of our supporters emailed me the following message after her call to the embassy:
I just spoke with the aide to the attaché at the Korean Embassy (202-939-5600) and she asked that we contact the U.S. Navy to complain. She understood our motivation is to support the resistance of the people on Jeju but she said "you have to talk to your government because they are the ones who want to do this." She asked me to relay this message to others.
This is very important information and confirms the worst suspicions of many of us that the U.S. has been pushing the South Korean government to build the Navy base on Jeju Island in order for the U.S. Navy to deploy Aegis destroyers at the base. But we never had confirmation of that theory until now!
We need to keep calling the South Korean Embassy and tell them not to do what the U.S. Pentagon tells them. South Korea is a sovereign nation and should not allow the U.S. to push them into building a provocative Navy base on what is known as the "Peace Island".
China’s currency manipulation fuels continued trade imbalance | Press Release
The growing trade deficit between the U.S. and China eliminated or displaced an estimated 2.4 million jobs in the U.S. between 2001 and 2008, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute.
The new report, Unfair China Trade Costs Local Jobs, shows that every state in the country, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, suffered jobs lost or displaced because of the trade imbalance. The deficit grew by an average of $26.6 billion each year between 2001 and 2008; Chinese exports to the United States in 2008 were more than five times greater than U.S. exports to China.
A surge in imports of Chinese computer and electronic products accounted for more than 40% of the $186 billion increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2008, with these industries experiencing the largest trade-related job losses of any sector – 627,700 jobs, or 26% of all jobs lost or displaced between 2001 and 2008.
China Friday retorted US criticism by publishing its own report on the US human rights record.
"As in previous years, the (US) reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory," said the Information Office of the State Council in its report on the US human rights record.
The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 was in retaliation to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 issued by the US Department of State on March 11.
The report is "prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States," said the report.
The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2009 from six perspectives: life, property and personal security; civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; racial discrimination; rights of women and children; and the US' violation of human rights against other countries.
It criticized the United States for taking human rights as "a political instrument to interfere in other countries' internal affairs, defame other nations' image and seek its own strategic interests."
China advised the US government to draw lessons from the history, put itself in a correct position, strive to improve its own human rights conditions and rectify its acts in the human rights field.
This is the 11th consecutive year that the Information Office of China's State Council has issued a human rights record of the United States to answer the US State Department's annual report.
"At a time when the world is suffering a serious human rights disaster caused by the US subprime crisis-induced global financial crisis, the US government still ignores its own serious human rights problems but revels in accusing other countries. It is really a pity," the report said.
SPYING ON CITIZENS Read more.
Daytona Beach, Tomorrow Night! Milestone: 1,000 Americans KIA In Afghanisan Action: "Stop The Wars Now!"
We've reached a sad milestone in Afghanistan. Today, Monday, February 22, 2010, it was reported that 1,000 U.S. Troops have now been killed in action (KIA) in Afghanistan. The name of the soldier and other details, other than being killed by an improvised explosive devise (IED), have yet to be released. For more information about troops killed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, go to www.icasualties.org on line.
To recognize the 1,000th KIA in Afghanistan and to say "enough" to continued killing there due to the 9-year U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, there will be an Emergency Antiwar Protest in Daytona Beach tomorrow evening, Tuesday February 23rd, beginning at 6:00 PM and ending at 8:00 PM on the Northwest corner of Nova Road and International Speedway Boulevard in front of the Steak N Shake. The street address is 1000 W. International Speedway Blvd, Daytona Beach, FL 32114 and directions can be found on line here.
This event is being billed as "Afghanistan - 1,000 KIA - Enough Already, Bring Them Home Now!".
There will be TV and Print News Media on site reporting on the event.
This event will not be a vigil, but rather a spirited demand that our government Stop The Wars Now!
Attendees are asked to bring signs such as those suggested in the notice.
For more information click "Read more." Click "File attachment" for flyer.
For more details, please see the Media Alert in the attached flyer or contact Phil Restino of Central Florida Veterans For Peace (VFP Chapter 136), cell: (386) 235-3268, hm: (386) 788-2918, email: CentralFlaVFP@aol.com. Thank you. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38599000 |
This page lists climate science and climate impact claims that have either not been proven, or have had the claim modified, moved, or expanded to protect the claimant from having to admit the original claim was wrong.
This will always be a work in progress. New items will be added as they are examined and will include:
- The claim itself – what was stated as factual or predicted? A clear unambiguous statement, such as “50 million climate refugees by 2010″
- Proof of the original claim – website, documents, photos, audio, video that clearly and unambiguously show the claim being made sometime in the past.
- A test of the of the claim, and the results – website, documents, photos, audio, video that clearly and unambiguously show the claim not coming true or not meeting the claim.
- Proof of change in the claim (if applicable) – often, when the claim fails to materialize, goalposts get moved, such as we saw with the “50 million climate refugees” story that was originally set with a due date of 2010, is now set for the year 2020.
The Claim: 50 million climate refugees will be produced by climate change by the year 2010. Especially hard hit will be river delta areas, and low lying islands in the Caribbean and Pacific. The UN 62nd General assembly in July 2008 said: …it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.
The Test: Did population go down in these areas during that period, indicating climate refugees were on the move? The answer, no.
The Proof: Population actually gained in some Caribbean Island for which 2010 census figures were available. Then when challenged on these figures, the UN tried to hide the original claim from view. See: The UN “disappears” 50 million climate refugees, then botches the disappearing attempt
The Change in claim: Now it is claimed that it will be 10 years into the future, and there will be 50 million refugees by the year 2020. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38604000 |
By Ellen Brown / www.webofdebt.com
— President John Adams is quoted as saying, “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” The major conquests today are on the battlefield of debt, a war that is raging globally. Debt forces individuals into financial slavery to the banks, and it forces governments to relinquish their sovereignty to their creditors, which in the end are also private banks, the originators of all non-cash money today. In Great Britain, where the Bank of England is owned by the government, 97% of the money supply is issued privately by banks as loans. In the U.S., where the central bank is owned by a private consortium of banks, the percentage is even higher. The Federal Reserve issues Federal Reserve Notes (or dollar bills) and lends them to other banks, which then lend them at interest to individuals, businesses, and local and federal governments.
That is true today, but in the past there have been successful models in which the government itself issued the national currency, whether as paper notes or as the credit of the nation. A stellar example of this enlightened approach to money and credit was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which operated successfully as a government-owned bank for most of the 20th century. Rather than issuing “sovereign debt” – federal bonds indebting the nation to pay at interest in perpetuity – the government through the Commonwealth Bank issued “sovereign credit,” the credit of the nation advanced to the government and its constituents.
The Bank’s achievements were particularly remarkable considering that for its first eight years, from 1912 to 1920, it did not have the power to issue the national currency, and it operated without startup capital. Sir Denison Miller, Governor of the Bank from its creation in 1912 to 1923, was quoted in the Australian Press on July 7, 1921 as saying, “The whole of the resources of Australia are at the back of this bank, and so strong as this continent is, so strong is the Commonwealth Bank. Whatever the Australian people can intelligently conceive in their minds and will loyally support, that can be done.”
This was not just hype. In a 2001 article titled “How Money Is Created in Australia,” David Kidd wrote of the Bank’s early accomplishments:
“Australia’s own government-established Commonwealth Bank achieved some impressive successes while it was ‘the peoples’ bank’, before being crippled by later government decisions and eventually sold. At a time when private banks were demanding 6% interest for loans, the Commonwealth Bank financed Australia’s first world war effort from 1914 to 1919 with a loan of $700,000,000 at an interest rate of a fraction of 1%, thus saving Australians some $12 million in bank charges. In 1916 it made funds available in London to purchase 15 cargo steamers to support Australia’s growing export trade. Until 1924 the benefits conferred upon the people of Australia by their Bank flowed steadily on. It financed jam and fruit pools to the extent of $3 million, it found $8 million for Australian homes, while to local government bodies, for construction of roads, tramways, harbours, gasworks, electric power plants, etc., it lent $18.72 million. It paid $6.194 million to the Commonwealth Government between December, 1920 and June, 1923 – the profits of its Note Issue Department – while by 1924 it had made on its other business a profit of $9 million, available for redemption of debt. The bank’s independently-minded Governor, Sir Denison Miller, used the bank’s credit power after the First World War to save Australians from the depression conditions being imposed in other countries. . . . By 1931 amalgamations with other banks made the Commonwealth Bank the largest savings institution in Australia, capturing 60% of the nation’s savings.”
Harnessing the Secret Power of Banking for the Public Good
The Commonwealth Bank was able to achieve so much with so little because both its first Governor, Denison Miller, and its first and most ardent proponent, King O’Malley, had been bankers themselves and knew the secret of banking: that banks create the “money” they lend simply by writing accounting entries into the deposit accounts of borrowers.
This banking secret was confirmed by a number of early banking insiders. In a 1998 paper titled “Manufacturing Money,” Australian economist Mike Mansfield quoted the Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who told shareholders of the Midland Bank on January 25, 1924, “I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create and destroy money. The amount of money in existence varies only with the action of the banks in increasing or decreasing deposits and bank purchases. We know how this is effected. Every loan, overdraft or bank purchase creates a deposit, and every repayment of a loan, overdraft or bank sale destroys a deposit.”
Dr. Coombs, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, said in an address at Queensland University on September 15, 1954, “[W]hen money is lent by a bank it passes into the hands of the person who borrows it without anybody having less. Whenever a bank lends money there is therefore, an increase in the total amount of money available.”
Ralph Hawtrey, Assistant Under Secretary to the British Treasury in the 1930s, wrote in Trade Depression and the Way Out, “When a bank lends, it creates money out of nothing.” In his book The Art of Central Banking, Hawtrey clarified this, writing, “When a bank lends, it creates credit. Against the advance which it enters amongst its assets, there is a deposit entered in its liabilities.But other lenders have not the mystical power of creating the means of payment out of nothing. What they lend must be money that they have acquired through their economic activities.”
Banks can do what no one else can: “create the means of payment out of nothing.” The Commonwealth Bank’s far-sighted founders roped this guarded banking secret into the public service.
The Bank Collapse of 1893 Spawns a New Public Banking Model
The Commonwealth Bank was founded under conditions like those prevailing today: the country had just suffered a massive banking collapse. In the 1890s, however, there was no FDIC insurance, no social security, no unemployment insurance to soften the blow. People who thought they were well off suddenly found they had nothing. They could not withdraw their funds, write checks on their accounts, or sell their products or their homes, since there was no money with which to buy them. Desperate people were leaping from bridges or throwing themselves in front of trains. Something had to be done.
The response of the Labor government was to pass a bill in 1911 which included a provision for a publicly-owned bank that would be backed by the assets of the government. In a rare move for the time, the bank was to have both savings and general bank business. It was also the first bank in Australia to receive a federal government guarantee.
Jack Lang was Australia’s Treasurer in the Labor government of 1920-21 and Premier of New South Wales during the Great Depression. A controversial figure, he was relieved of his duties after he repudiated loans owed to the London bankers. In The Great Bust: The Depression of the Thirties (McNamara’s Books, Katoomba, 1962), Lang described the Commonwealth Bank’s triumphs and tribulations in revealing detail. He wrote:
“The Labor Party decided that a National Bank, backed with the assets of the Government, would not fail in times of financial stress. It also realised that such a bank would be a guarantee that money would be found for home building and other needs. After the collapse of the building societies, there was a great scarcity of money for such purposes.
“. . . Chief advocate of the cause of a Commonwealth Bank was King O’Malley, a colorful Canadian-American . . . Before coming to Australia, he had worked in a small New York bank, owned by an uncle. . . . He had been much impressed by the way that his uncle had created credit. A bank could create the credit, and at the same time manufacture the debit to balance it. That was the big discovery of O’Malley’s banking career. A born showman, he itched to try it out on a grand scale. He started his political career in South Australia by advocating a State Commercial Bank. In 1901 he went into the first Federal Parliament as a one-man pressure group to establish a Commonwealth Bank, and joined the Labor Party for that purpose.”
King O’Malley insisted that the Commonwealth Bank had to control the issue of its own notes, but he lost on that point – until 1920, when the Bank did take over the issuance of the national currency, just as the U.S. Federal Reserve was authorized to do in 1913. That was the beginning of the Commonwealth Bank’s central bank powers. But even before it had that power, the Bank was able to fund infrastructure and defense on a massive scale, and it did this without startup capital. These achievements were chiefly due to the insights and boldness of the Bank’s first Governor, Denison Miller.
The other bankers, fearing competition, had thought that by getting one of their own men in as the bank’s governor, they could keep it in line. But they had not reckoned on their independent appointee, who saw the opportunity posed by a government-backed bank and set out to make it the finest institution the country had ever known. As Lang tells the story:
“The first test came when a decision was required regarding the amount of capital needed to start a bank of that kind. Under the Act, the Commonwealth had the right to sell and issue debentures totalling £1 million. Some even thought that amount of capital would be insufficient, having in mind what had happened in 1893. . . .
“When Denison Miller heard of it, his reply was that no capital was needed.”
Miller was wary of going to the politicians for money. He could get by without capital. Like King O’Malley, he knew how banking worked. (This, of course, was before the modern-day capital requirements imposed from abroad by the central banker’s bank, the Bank for International Settlements.) Lang went on:
“Miller was the only employee. He found a small office . . . and asked the Treasury for an advance of £10,000. That was probably the first and last time that the Commonwealth lent the Bank any money. From then on, it was all in the reverse direction.
“. . . By January, 1913 [Miller] had completed arrangements to open a bank in each State of the Commonwealth, and also an agency in London. . . . [O]n January 20th, 1913 he made a speech declaring the new Commonwealth Bank open for business. He said:
“‘This bank is being started without capital, as none is required at the present time, but it is backed by the entire wealth and credit of the whole of Australia.’
“In those few simple words was the charter of the Bank, and the creed of Denison Miller, which he never tired of reciting. He promised to provide facilities to expand the natural resources of the country, and it would at all times be a people’s bank. ‘There is little doubt that in time it will be classed as one of the great banks of the world,’ he added prophetically.
“. . . Slowly it began to dawn on the private banks that they may have harbored a viper. They had been so intent on the risks of having to contend with bank socialisation that they didn’t realise they had much more to fear from competition by an orthodox banker, with the resources of the country behind him.
“. . . One of the first demonstrations of his vigor came when the Melbourne Board of Works went on the market for money to redeem old loans, and also to raise new money. Up to that time, apart from Treasury Bills and advances by their own Savings Banks, Governments had depended on overseas loans from London. . . . In addition to stiff underwriting charges, they found that the best they could expect would be £1 million at 4 per cent., at 97 1/2 net.
“They then decided to approach Denison Miller, who had promised to provide special terms for such bodies. He immediately offered to lend them £3 millions at 95 on which the interest rate would be 4 per cent. They immediately clinched the deal. Asked where his very juvenile bank had raised all that money, Miller replied, ‘On the credit of the nation. It is unlimited.’”
Another major test came in 1914 with the First World War:
“The first reaction was the risk that people might start rushing to the banks to withdraw their money. The banks realised that they were still vulnerable if that happened. They were still afraid of another Black Friday.
“There was a hurried meeting of the principal bankers. Some reported that there were signs that a run was already starting. Denison Miller then said that the Commonwealth Bank on behalf of the Commonwealth would support any bank in difficulties. . . . That was the end of the panic. But it put Miller on the box seat. Now, for the first time, the Commonwealth Bank was taking the lead. It was giving, not taking, orders. . . .
“Denison Miller . . . was virtually in control of the financing of the war. The Government didn’t know how it was going to be achieved. Miller did.”
And so this interesting story continues. Miller died in 1923, and in 1924 the bankers got back in control, throttling the activities of the Commonwealth Bank and preventing it from saving Australians from the ravages of the 1930s Depression. In 1931, the bank board came into conflict with the Labor government ofJames Scullin. The Bank’s chairman refused to expand credit in response to the Great Depression unless the government cut pensions, which Scullin refused to do. Conflict surrounding this issue led to the fall of the government, and to demands from Labor for reform of the bank and more direct government control over monetary policy.
The Commonwealth Bank received almost all of the powers of a central bank in emergency legislation passed during World War II, and at the end of the war it used this power to begin a dramatic expansion of the economy. In just five years, it opened hundreds of branches throughout Australia. In 1958 and 1959, the government split the bank, giving the central bank function to the Reserve Bank of Australia, with the Commonwealth Banking Corporation retaining its commercial banking functions. Both banks, however, remained publicly-owned.
Eventually, the Commonwealth Bank had branches in every town and suburb; and in the bush, it had an agency in every post office or country store. As the largest bank in the country, it set the rates and set policy, which the others had to follow for fear of losing customers. The Commonwealth Bank was widely perceived to be an insurance policy against abuse by private banks, serving to ensure that everyone had access to equitable banking. It functioned as a wholly owned state bank until the 1990s, when it was privatized. Its focus then changed to maximization of profits, with steady and massive branch and agency closures, staff layoffs, and reduced access to Automated Teller Machines and to cash from supermarket checkouts. It has now become just another part of the banking cartel, but proponents say it was once the lifeblood of the country.
Today there is renewed interest in reviving a publicly-owned bank in Australia on the Commonwealth Bank model. The United States and other countries would do well to consider this option too.
Special thanks to Peter Myers for reproducing major portions of Jack Lang’s book in his weekly newsletter.
Ellen Brown is the author of Web of Debt: the Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. She can be reached through her website. | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38612000 |
“Drunkorexia”: Worrying Trend Has Students Eating Less, Drinking More
It is hardly news that eating disorders and alcohol abuse both have a significant presence on college campuses. However, a disturbing trend among young adults called “drunkorexia,” a combination of these two disorders, has recently been which is making headlines.
Drunkorexia refers to the restrictive eating behaviors that some people engage in before consuming alcohol, in order to conserve calories as well as get drunk faster.
Because alcohol has a high calorie content—many beers clock in at 150 calories—some students who wish to avoid weight gain will, for example, drastically decrease their food intake or skip meals entirely in order to consume the same amount of calories in alcohol. This behavior is unsurprisingly common among college students, and is said to be especially prevalent among female students.
While drunkorexia is a useful label for a common behavior, it is not a medical term, and many disagree about whether it should be considered a disorder separate from either anorexia or alcoholism.
Leada Fuller-Marashi ’14, who helps run an eating disorder support group on campus, took issue with the term.
“I think that the term drunkorexia trivializes the issue and at the same time it implies a strong link to anorexia, which I think is flawed as well,” Fuller-Marashi said. “People who are anorexic struggle with their restrictive behavior pretty much constantly, and that isn’t the case with drunkorexia, because it’s more of a means to an end rather than an ongoing psychological phenomenon. It might make more sense to describe the issue as alcohol-related disordered eating.”
Fuller-Marashi made it clear that she believes drunkorexia is distinct from anorexia. However, to label drunkorexia as disordered eating, rather than an eating disorder, does not mean it is necessarily less serious, although sometimes that is the implication. While eating disorders are diagnosed when a person engages in unusual eating habits, such as inadequate or excessive food intake, that harm their physical and emotional health, disordered eating describes a wider range of abnormal eating habits (that do not permit a diagnosis for a specific eating disorder).
Regardless of its exact location on a scale of eating and alcohol-related disorders, drunkorexia is regarded as dangerous by health professionals. Dr. Davis Smith of Wesleyan’s Davison Health Center finds the phenomenon extremely troubling.
“Eating before drinking helps slow the absorption of alcohol,” Smith said. “This is why eating before drinking is a good idea. Sudden, rapid, intense onset of intoxication is more likely to lead to problems like drunk drinking (losing track of intake) and blackouts. Excessive drinking and blacking out increase risk for severe intoxication, medically dangerous intoxication, sexual assault, vomiting, loss of bladder and bowel control, hangovers, and other adverse effects. I work on the assumption that avoiding the above is desirable.”
The playfulness of the term drunkorexia may imply that this behavior does not have lasting impacts. However, this disordered eating pattern can have serious long-term consequences, since it can lead to malnourishment, among other issues.
“Complications of malnourishment could include structural damage to the heart, decreased fertility, wasting of respiratory muscles, and brain atrophy,” Dr. Smith said.
This behavioral pattern of restricting food in order to consume more alcohol was brought to national attention this year by a study at the University of Missouri. In this study, sixteen percent of college students surveyed admitted to engaging in this behavior; three-quarters of that sixteen percent were women.
Although Fuller-Marashi said that she personally had not encountered this form of disordered eating at the Univesrity, she was unsurprised that drunkorexia was found to be common among college students.
“From my research and experience, I know that this is a very common time for people to have or develop eating disorders and disordered eating habits, so I’m sure ‘drunkorexia’ is not a rare occurrence,” Fuller-Marashi said. “Last I checked, one in ten people in the U.S. has an eating disorder, and I imagine the proportion of people with disordered eating is even higher. So statistically speaking, I’m sure a not-insignificant number of students deals with this issue.”
However, Director of Public Safety Dave Meyer disagrees. His experiences with dangerously intoxicated students on campus have not led him to believe that drunkorexia is that common at the University.
“We’ve had issues with students who have been intoxicated because they didn’t eat enough and quickly became over-intoxicated,” Meyer said. “There isn’t any direct evidence that it’s intentional. We also have people who have just been stressed out or tired, and any of those factors would allow you to be more intoxicated.”
Even though the term drunkorexia may not be familiar to everyone, many University students interviewed said they had noticed people on campus engaging in the behaviors it describes.
“I know people who eat less before drinking, usually in order to save calories, but sometimes to get drunk faster,” said Hope Kabel ’14. “I’ve even seen people eat less the day before they’re going to drink—this way they can eat on the day they are actually going to drink, and that way they won’t get sick.”
When asked if she thought drunkorexia was common at the University, Kelsey Siegel ’13 did not have to think twice.
“Yes, definitely,” Siegel said.
Without a formal study or survey, it is uncertain exactly how prevalent this form of disordered eating is at the University; it may very well not be a prevalent phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is important to be aware of it as a potential problem on campus, and discourage peers from engaging in this unhealthy behavior.
“You can encourage people to eat when they think they shouldn’t, if you do so in a non-pushy way,” Fuller-Marashi said. “And if someone is seriously hurting themselves by binge drinking or their body mass is low enough to be dangerous, a heartfelt conversation could help them, because they might not even realize what they’re doing to themselves. But generally speaking, people with eating disorders have to decide to start the journey to recovery themselves.” | fwe2-CC-MAIN-2013-20-38617000 |
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