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U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist & World Cup Soccer Champion Kelly O’Hara Shares her Game Plan for Success at Benson Unified School District
Members of Local Cooperatives Present the Seney-Lohman Trophy
Cub Scout Pack 420 Color Guard presenting Arizona State Senate Proclamation to the BUSD Governing Board
Benson Alumni Band
Benson School District serves the community of Benson as well as other areas across San Pedro Valley. It is our mission to provide a safe and welcoming learning community that prepares students to be competitive and productive citizens.
Benson School District serves 1300 students and has a strong reputation for providing a quality academic program. In addition we offer a wide variety of clubs, extracurricular programs and after school activities. Benson School District has a traditional Primary, Middle and High School as well as a Charter High School and Virtual Academy.
We hope that you browse through our website and see what Benson School District has to offer your student.
Arizona Tax Credit
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Prevent Those Back To School Unwanted Guests!
So the summer holidays are over for another year, much to the relief of many distraught parents and even grandparents, and your children have returned to school. However, with the return comes the perennial problems of head lice and threadworms, especially in under 10 year olds.
It is thought that 1 in 3 children in the UK may get head lice some time during the year.
Head lice are whitish grey/brown insects with the ability to change their colour to match hair colour and are the size of a sesame seed when they are fully grown. They can’t fly, jump or swim and are spread by head to head contact. They simply climb from the hair of an infested person to the hair of someone else. All types of hair can be affected and it has nothing to do with how clean it is. They only affect humans so cannot be passed on by animals.
Head lice will often cause a person’s head to itch. The itching isn’t due to the head lice biting the person’s scalp, but rather an allergy to the head lice as they suck blood.
However, not everybody is allergic so your child could have an infestation without you noticing. Even if your child is allergic to them the itching can take up to 3 months to develop.
Although an itchy scalp is the most obvious sign of head lice in your child’s hair, there are many other reasons that your child could be itchy, such as dandruff or eczema. Itching alone does not mean your child has an infestation.
Head Lice Life Cycle
A female head louse lays eggs by cementing them to hairs, often close to the roots where they are kept warm by he scalp. The eggs are pin head size so difficult to see. After 7-10 days the baby head lice hatch, while the empty eggshells/nits remain in place, glued to the hair.
Head lice eat by piercing the scalp using their mouth parts and feeding on blood. They take 9-10 days to become fully grown. A female head louse may start to lay eggs from 9 days after she hatches. To break the cycle they need to be removed within 9 days of hatching.
Detecting Head Lice
To confirm an active head lice infestation, a live louse must be caught through a reliable, accurate method such as detection combing. You can wet comb with the following steps;
- Wash your child’s hair with ordinary shampoo and apply conditioner. Do not rinse or dry the hair
- Use a wide tooth comb to remove any tangles
- Then switch to a louse detection comb making sure the teeth of the comb slot into the hair at the roots with the bevel edge of the eeth lightly touching the scalp
- Draw the comb down to the ends of the hair with every stroke
- Remove head lice by wiping or rinsing he comb
- Work methodically so the whole head is combed through. This takes about 15 minutes
- Rinse out the conditioner and repeat the procedure in the wet hair
Treating Head Lice
You should only treat people when a live louse has been detected. All members of the family who have been in close contact with the infected person must be treated. Don’t forget Grandma! Sprays and lotions designed to kill head lice can be used but they need to be applied correctly and thoroughly. Our pharmacist can give you advice on which ones are best to use.
Threadworms are tiny parasitic worms that hatch egges in, and infect, the large intestines of humans. They are the most common type of worm infection in the UK, especially in children under 10.
Threadworms are white and look like small pieces of thread. You may notice them around your child’s bottom or in their stools. They spread by laying eggs around an infected person’s anus, usually at night. The worm excretes mucus that causes itching, Then when the infected person scratches the eggs get stuck under their fingernails. They ca then be transferred to their mouth or onto surfaces and clothes. Other people who touch an infected surface can transfer the eggs to their mouth.
Treatment For Threadworm
If you or your child has threadworms then everyone in your house will need to be treated because the risk of infestation spreading is high
For most people treatment will involve taking a single dose of mebendazole to kill the worms. Another dose can be taken after 2 weeks if necessary. During treatment, and for 2 weeks afterwards, it is important to regularly vacuum your home and thoroughly wash your kitchen and bathroom on a regular basis.
- How do head lice spread?
- What causes the itching?
- How long do head lice eggs take to hatch?
- What is the best way of finding head lice?
- How quickly does a female head louse start to lay eggs?
- How common are head lice?
- What are threadworms?
- In which age group are they most common?
- How are they spread?
- How are they treated?
[expand title=”Quiz Answers”]
- By head to head contact. The head lice climb from the hair of an infested person to the hair of someone else
- Allergy to the head lice
- 7-10 days
- Detection combing
- Within 9 days of hatching
- It is thought up to 1 in 3 in the UK may get head lice some time during the year
- They are tiny parasitic worms that hatch eggs in, and infect, the large intestine
- They are particularly common in children under 10
- Underneath people’s fingernails
- With a single dose of mebendazone
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The creator of Creepy, Yiannis Kakavas, calls his application a "geolocation information aggregator." It analyzes a person's tweets, Facebook posts, and Flickr stream to generate a map of where that person is and where he or she goes.
You can enter a Twitter or Flickr username into the software's interface, or use the in-built search utility to find users of interest. When you hit the 'Geolocate Target' button, Creepy goes off and uses the services' APIs to download every photo or tweet they've ever published, analysing each for that critical piece of information: the user's location at the time.Creepy app warns of an end to privacy
While Twitter's geolocation setting is optional, images shared on the service via sites like Twitpic and Yfrog are often taken on a smartphone - which, unbeknownst to the user, records the location information in the EXIF data of the image. Creepy finds these photos, downloads them, and extracts the location data.
When the software finishes its run, it presents you with a map visualising every location that it found - and that's when the hairs on the back of your neck go up. While the location of an individual tweet might not reveal much, visualising a user's history on a map reveals clusters around their home, their workplace, and the areas they hang out. Everything a stalker could need, in other words.
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Charging into the future with EVs
When it comes to gas-powered cars, everyone over the driving age knows how and where to fuel their car. But if you’ve been thinking of making the switch to a battery electric vehicle (BEV) or a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), you need to know how and where to charge it up so you can get out and have some driving fun!
All currently manufactured electric vehicles (EVs) come with the onboard capability to charge at a Level 1 or Level 2 rate, which is the rate the battery takes on power. Level 1 chargers charge at a slower rate, typically 3-5 miles per hour of charging. Level 2 chargers are faster, charging anywhere from 20 to 30 miles per hour of charging.
Also available is DC fast charging, available on a small amount of currently available EVs and the proprietary Tesla supercharger network. These aren’t widely available charging options for most EV owners, though, so we’ll focus on Level 1 and Level 2 charging.
Now that you know how EVs charge, you need to know where to charge. The answer might surprise you. Most EV charging takes place at home, a far cry from needing to hit up the gas station. EVs come with a Level 1 charger that can be plugged into a standard 110v electric outlet and connected to the port on the vehicle. This is the easiest, although slowest, way to charge your vehicle, and doesn’t require any additional parts or purchases.
But let’s say you’re out and about and you need to “top off” your battery, just to get some extra errands complete around town. In many major cities around the country, like Los Angeles and Atlanta, there is quite an impressive network of chargers that can be found. These stations are equipped with Level 2 chargers, fast enough to get up to 30 miles of range in about an hour.
And even more convenient, most of these stations are located at shopping centers where you can grab a bite to eat and shop until you’ve charged up. Making it easier, there are apps available for download that help drivers locate charging stations near their current location and destination.
Level 2 chargers can also be installed at home residences, which requires purchasing a Level 2 charger from one of the many manufacturers. You also need a 240v wall outlet (like the outlet for a home dryer), which needs installation by a professional electrician. Then they plug into the charging port on the vehicle, just like a Level 1.
Should you install a Level 2 charger at home? That depends on your own driving needs.
- Do you only need a commuter car to get you to work and back home, or would you like to charge up and use it in the evening hours?
- What is your daily driving range and how much time will it take to charge your battery back-up to full?
- What is your range anxiety tolerance level?
- What’s the average temperature where most of the driving will take place?
- Are you able to charge your vehicle at work?
These questions also depend on the range of your EV. Currently, the battery range for available cars varies between 151 miles of range for the Nissan Leaf, up to 238 miles of range for the Chevrolet Bolt.
Are you looking to add electric cars to your fleet? The options for EV driving and charging are growing rapidly. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are currently more than 17,000 charging stations throughout the U.S., with plans to increase accessibility throughout the country. And the options for driving electric become more robust with every model year, with with the number of available BEV and PHEV options always on the rise.
The switch to electric can be scary, but it can be exciting too. It takes a lot of knowledge to know what’s next in mobility, and LeasePlan can be your partner. Contact us today so we can discuss your electrification and sustainability fleet goals.
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After a finals-crunch all-nighter, students should try to make it back to their beds rather than crash on the couch for a cat nap.
An alarmingly large portion of consumer couches use foam padding containing flame-retardant chemicals that are considered probable human carcinogens, according to a study conducted by Heather Stapleton, associate professor of environmental chemistry at the Nicholas School of the Environment. Tris—a chemical that was used in infant pajamas in the 1970s but was phased out of usage because of said carcinogenic risks—was among the chemicals found in the couch cushions.
Another chemical found in 17 percent of the 102 couch foam samples studied was pentaBDE, which is a banned substance in 172 countries and 12 U.S. states. Studies have suggested that PentaBDE chemicals can affect brain development and cause problems with endocrine activity, and that early exposure to infants can cause low birth weight, lowered IQ and impaired motor and behavioral development.
Forty-one percent of the couch samples in the study, which was published in Environmental Science and Technology, contained Tris, and Tris and pentaBDE were the only flame retardants found in couches manufactured prior to 2005. More than half contained flame-retardants that are potentially harmful to humans or have not been thoroughly tested for human safety.
Information about the type of flame retardants used can get lost in the production chain by the time the foam reaches the furniture manufacturer, making it difficult to track the exact chemicals used.
If it is any consolation, the couches with flame-retardants are tested to withstand at least 12 seconds of small flame exposure without igniting.
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While COVID-19 cases and mortality surged in spring and summer 2020, the U.S. government seemed to lack the capacity to respond. Mixed messaging and insufficient testing, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and contact tracing raised disturbing questions about the will of the executive and the health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But were these challenges particular to the pandemic? Or, as one author asks in the newest issue of Dædalus, “is the failed pandemic response a symptom of a diseased administrative state?”
Debates surrounding the role, effectiveness, and even constitutionality of the administrative state are not new. Indeed, while presidential advisor Stephen Bannon’s vow in 2016 to pursue the “deconstruction of the administrative state” may have brought the concept to the forefront for many Americans, debates around this so-called fourth branch of government have persisted since its origins in the late nineteenth century: Who controls it? What limits should it face? And is it time for significant change?
The Summer 2021 issue of Dædalus on “The Administrative State in the Twenty-First Century: Deconstruction and/or Reconstruction,” guest edited by Mark Tushnet, features fourteen essays by scholars in the fields of law, political science, public policy, public administration, governance, and ethics on the future of the modern administrative state – the more than two million civilian employees working largely in government agencies and institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency. Three options emerge for the future of the administrative state: deconstruction via regulation and control by the legislature; tweaking, which would modify existing doctrine without making significant changes; and reconstruction, which might involve adopting ever more flexible modes of regulation, including direct citizen participation in making and enforcing regulation.
Peter Strauss and Susan Dudley, in their contributions, provide detailed accounts of the administrative state’s emergence in the United States, situating the ensuing discussion of deconstruction and reconstruction. As the administrative state has grown, with the “alphabet agencies” that were created during the New Deal and a second proliferation of agencies in the 1960s and 1970s, new problems posed by technological, economic, and social change challenge institutions that are ill-adapted to deal with them.
In addition to such challenges, conventional wisdom suggests that party polarization leads to legislative gridlock, disabling congressional oversight of agencies and eroding their legitimacy and accountability. In his essay, however, Sean Farhang complicates, both empirically and normatively, the relationship between Congress and administrative power in the era of divided government. And David Lewis, in his contribution, questions the relationship between the executive and administrative agencies. He examines the Trump administration’s poor pandemic response through a survey of thousands of federal executives, which showed that while many had a low opinion of that administration, years of neglect, culminating in regular and severe administrative failures, are also to blame.
Increasingly, federal agencies employ artificial intelligence (AI) and rely on digital automation powered by machine learning (ML) algorithms. Bernard Bell argues that the opaqueness and nonintuitive nature of AI threaten the core values of administrative law: that persons be judged individually, that administrative regulations reflect means-end rationality, and that decisions be transparent and subject to external review. Yet Cary Coglianese suggests that a highly automated state and the responsible use of ML algorithms could result in more accurate and data-driven decisions. The challenge, however, will be ensuring that the automated state is also an empathic one. In order to take advantage of the power of new technologies for governing, Beth Noveck argues that the federal government will need, first and foremost, to invest in training public servants to work differently to prepare them for the future of work in a new technological age.
So where do we go from here? Aaron Nielson contends that the administrative state should be deconstructed (though not destroyed) and identifies where theory and practice diverge – and offers solutions with realistic chances of adoption. The result, he suggests, should not be the destruction of the administrative state, but rather the development of higher-quality federal policy. Christopher Walker agrees that there is a need for deconstruction, and develops the concept of bureaucracy beyond judicial review, looking to provide safeguards against bureaucratic overreach and abuse. And Avery White and Michael Neblo, in their essay, find that while government administration is necessary in a complex modern society, the existence of such a powerful bureaucracy undermines the legitimacy of American government, and they suggest incorporating deliberative democratic practices.
Despite a long-smoldering debate between progressive defenders and conservative critics of the administrative state, Jeremy Kessler and Charles Sabel argue that neither side has adequately confronted the growth of uncertainty and the spread of guidance. They suggest that in response to deep changes in the circumstances of decision-making, administration has begun to purposefully adapt to, and might well emerge better equipped to meet, the demands of a volatile world. Cass Sunstein, in his contribution, calls the American administrative state a cost-benefit state. But while a cost-benefit state can provide safeguards against decisions based on presumptions, perceived political pressures, and arbitrary decisions, it also needs to focus directly on human welfare. And in her essay, Judge Neomi Rao draws on her experience as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to examine the “constitutional muddle” of how federal agencies operate, arguing that agencies often exist in substantial tension with the Constitution.
The Summer 2021 issue of Dædalus on “The Administrative State in the Twenty-First Century: Deconstruction and/or Reconstruction” features the following essays:
Introduction: The Pasts & Futures of the Administrative State
Mark Tushnet (Academy Member; Harvard University)
How the Administrative State Got to This Challenging Place
Peter L. Strauss (Academy Member; Columbia Law School)
Milestones in the Evolution of the Administrative State
Susan E. Dudley (George Washington University)
Legislative Capacity & Administrative Power Under Divided Polarization
Sean Farhang (University of California, Berkeley)
Is the Failed Pandemic Response a Symptom of a Diseased Administrative State?
David E. Lewis (Vanderbilt University)
Replacing Bureaucrats with Automated Sorcerers?
Bernard W. Bell (Rutgers University)
Administrative Law in the Automated State
Cary Coglianese (University of Pennsylvania)
The Innovative State
Beth Simone Noveck (New York University)
Deconstruction (Not Destruction)
Aaron L. Nielson (Brigham Young University)
Constraining Bureaucracy Beyond Judicial Review
Christopher J. Walker (The Ohio State University; American Bar Association)
Capturing the Public: Beyond Technocracy & Populism in the U.S. Administrative State
Avery White (The Ohio State University) & Michael Neblo (The Ohio State University)
The Uncertain Future of Administrative Law
Jeremy Kessler (Columbia University) & Charles Sabel (Columbia University)
Some Costs & Benefits of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cass R. Sunstein (Academy Member; Harvard University; U.S. Department of Homeland Security)
The Hedgehog & the Fox in Administrative Law
Neomi Rao (U.S. Court of Appeals)
“The Administrative State in the Twenty-First Century: Deconstruction and/or Reconstruction” is available on the Academy’s website at www.amacad.org/daedalus. Dædalus is an open access publication
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The H-1B visa ban introduced by President Donald Trump last year expired on Wednesday, with President Joe Biden allowing the rules to come to an end.
In an update on Thursday, the US Department of State said visa applicants who were previously refused due to Trump's freeze may reapply by submitting a new application. Visa applicants who have not yet been interviewed will have their applications prioritized and processed under the State Department's phased resumption plan.
The Trump administration in June 2020 stopped the government issuing H-1B visas through an an executive order linked to the coronavirus pandemic. In October, Trump then placed new restrictions on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers -- rules that were struck down by a federal judge in December who said the administration failed to show "good cause" for issuing the rules on an emergency basis.
The Trump administration had argued that the new rules, which fell under the departments of Labor and Homeland Security, needed to be issued rapidly because of unemployment caused by COVID-19. The Labor Department rule, which went into effect in October, raised the minimum salaries employers were required to pay H-1B workers. The Homeland Security rule, which was set to take effect in December, would have required foreign workers to have a degree in the "specialty occupation" they apply for -- as opposed to any college degree.
The tech industry relies heavily on H-1B visas, with around three-quarters of each year's 85,000 allotted H-1B visas going to people who work in tech.
The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.
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Days after a Tennessee woman placed an adopted Russian boy on a flight back home alone, word came that Russia was suspending adoptions by Americans.
Local couples who are in the process of trying to adopt Russian orphans now face frustration and fear.
Adoption agencies that have placed hundreds of children in local homes are now uncertain what the future holds.
For 18 years, the Adoption Center of Washington has been pairing local families with orphans from Russia and China. Their wall of Christmas cards attests to so many success stories, but now the uncertainty over whether Russia is suspending adoptions by Americans has caused anxiety for one of its clients, a local couple.
"They are ready to go," said Linda Brownlee, Director of the Adoption Center of Washington. "Their in-laws are in their house and they're very anxious whether or not they are going to be able to get on a plane and go."
"I said, 'I just know I have a lot of love in my heart to give a baby,' and my mother said before she died, 'Then you hold on to that because that's what going to see you through,' and when I went to court in Russia and I told that story, the judge started to cry a little bit," Zupan said.
Zupan wants to adopt another child from a Russian orphanage and realizes that the the American mom who sent her child back has caused consequences. Now Zupan is pleading for the children.
"Russia and U.S., I'm counting on your to work it out," she said. "There are too many babies. Don't punish them for the mistakes the adults made in the process."
The U.S. State Department is sending a representative to Russia to see try to get assurances that American families can continue adopting Russian orphans.
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Too bad GOP policies are undercutting it
The unpleasant truth: When the government keeps slashing its safety net, climbing the economic ladder gets harder.
In making his case for socialized law, Noam Scheiber implies that lawyers for poor and middle class clients don’t do as good a job as lawyers for rich clients.
Inequality has bent American justice. Here's a radical way to fix it.
When a rich person can buy more justice than a normal person, it perverts society. Here's a radical idea for fixing it.
Obama's State of the Union went easy on class rhetoric
Yes, he used the "i" word. But was it that different than all that's come before?
Income inequality is at its highest since 1928. What does this mean for the State of the Union?
We need a whole new framework
"Inequality" is a concept too sweeping and cluttered to lead to useful solutions. Here's how we should actually think about it.
Why is the GOP suddenly talking poverty? Because it's harder to defend capitalism now.
The GOP is finally facing the issue of inequality in America. But why?
Bill Clinton endorsed Bill de Blasio's inequality rhetoric yesterday. That's not what Hillary Clinton told Goldman Sachs a few weeks ago.
It was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines
It was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines—and now it's a cliche with no connection to a great book.
His focus on inequality is New York-centric. Will it be heard farther afield?
The inaugural festivities on New Year’s Day’s for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio felt awfully like an event of national import and impact. In one row next to the podium were two prospective presidential candidates, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ceremonially swearing in de Blasio (who was officially sworn in at midnight the night before) was a former president, Bill Clinton.
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Currently, planet earth has an approximate population of 6 billion human beings. God created each one of us differently. We have black, brown, hazel, chocolate, white, orange, yellow coloured people. I’m not separating on the basis of colour, but I‘m trying to show just how different we are, with a basic clear example.
Inside each one of us, we have different outlooks towards life, different tastes of foods and drinks, different hobbies, different principles, I mean, the list is endless, but the point is, we are so different. This is why we have menus at restaurants, for you to choose what you want, many music genres because we have different tastes, I could go on and on but you do get my point, right? I mean, even identical twins and triplets are so different- character wise, identity, even one could have a slightly different complexion than the other.
Identical Twins. Image Credits: testmedna
Many people try to please other people they perceive as more important to others so that they get some sort of social credit and status. Sad, isn’t it? Lemmie use the jigsaw as an example. A jigsaw has different parts of the puzzle. Every piece is unique from the other in terms of shape, colour, design, etc. If two pieces were identical, then it would be useless. The picture or message that was meant to be conveyed on completion would not come through. This means that as different as the pieces maybe, they all serve a purpose. What I’m trying to say is that being you is key for one’s self-development. It also brings one so much joy and peace when they do what they love and be who God intended them to be. Do not let people and the world make you into something you are not. If you do, you’ll end up a sad bitter person, not understanding what went wrong, where did it all go wrong.
A jigsaw puzzle.
Image Credits: 123rf.com
Being you comes with a task of being able to speak for oneself and stand for what you believe in. Not what the cool kid of the class thinks or what your best friend thinks or what your parents think. And when you stand for what you believe, people will respect and appreciate that and will stop using you or disregarding your presence. People also tend to judge people who try to be like others negatively. Try to be you and do you. Remember, the world needs you to be you than to be like the coolest dudes in your class. So go ahead and be you. The world will be a better place, Trust me.
Image Credits: sippinglemonade
Authored by JJ
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Mary Margaret Penrose, a full time professor of Law with Texas A&M University, has called for the full repeal of the Second Amendment. Utilizing her unquestioned exercise of the First Amendment, the Texas Professor insisted the Constitution was outdated, and needed some substantial re-writing. Penrose was speaking in Connecticut (at a gun-control symposium) when she launched into her misinformed explanation of the Second Amendment; implying that our enumerated right to possess a firearm is largely responsible for the mass shootings that have cropped up in recent years.
Her argument, and blatant contempt for the Constitution (which she admits to describing as an “obsolete” document in her classes) is nothing new among the Left. Among her ramblings about the uselessness of our Constitution she managed to make a “state’s rights” case for the repeal of our Second Amendment right. Penrose argues that States should be able to make their own gun laws, without the burden of complying with that pesky document from the 1700's.
“… Drastic times require drastic measures. I think the Second Amendment is misunderstood and I think it’s time today, in our drastic measures, to repeal and replace that Second Amendment,” Penrose explained, according to the Daily Caller. Well. . . I think she proved her own point about the Amendment being misunderstood. But it got better:
“The beauty of a ‘states’ rights model’ solution is it allows those of you who want to live in a state with strong restrictions to do so and those who want to live in a state with very loose restrictions to do so,” the professor explained.
Right. . . Because right now places like Chicago and New York have such loose restrictions. For the sake of brevity, I guess we can gloss over the very real fact that we already have a state-by-state fluctuation in gun laws. (A point of consternation for law abiding citizens who struggle to remain in compliance with local laws while traveling or moving.)
While I applaud the Leftist’s sudden (if inadequate) grasp of Federalism, she seems wildly unclear on the idea of federally protected individual rights. Our Constitutionally enumerated rights were added to our founding document precisely because our founders feared violation of such rights, if left to local jurisdictions.
By Penrose’s logic, perhaps we should allow states to determine their own “free speech” laws. Would the law professor from A&M be supportive of states determining, on their own, to outlaw or restrict certain religions? What if states mandated allegiance to specific churches? After all, if you didn’t like it you could simply move to another state, according to Penrose. Or what if we allow individual states to determine whether or not women can vote? Name a right (other than gun ownership) and Penrose would likely be opposed to its repeal on a state-by-state basis.
It makes one wonder if she (or for that matter, any of the anti-gun “experts” who spoke at the event in Connecticut) has ever considered what a “gun-free” nation would look like. Perhaps we should send them on a field trip to Mexico’s cartel-plagued cities for an up close and personal view of gun-control in action. In a nation with only one legally operating gun store, and virtually zero tolerance for illegal gun ownership, corruption and crime run rampant. Do you think, for even a moment, Ciudad Juárez’s cartel violence would be tolerated by the well-armed citizens of El-Paso, Texas? Despite the fact that the two towns are separated only by a river, they boast dramatically different gun-violence statistics.
Connecticut’s Governor, Democrat Dannel Malloy, was also on the panel. Malloy jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon by citing past transgressions against the Second Amendment as justification for future transgressions. According to the Daily Caller, Malloy referenced the restriction of fully automatic firearms:
“In the 1930s, machine guns were the weapon of choice for mobsters, and we collectively decided that machine guns should be illegal for private possession in the United States. We don’t see machine guns being used in the U.S. in crimes.”
Well, Malloy. . . First of all, not all “machine guns” are illegal for private ownership. They merely require a $200 tax stamp and some extra scrutiny from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. (The bureau of “All Things Fun.”)
Malloy was referencing the 1934 National Firearms Act, which places restrictions and excise taxes on various types of firearms. It was passed in response to the use of fully automatic firearms in a number of high profile crimes, such as the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago. (That corner of America seems to have always had a serious problem with “gun violence.” Maybe we should outlaw Chicago?)
The 1930’s gun control attempt was largely ineffective at reducing mob violence. It wasn’t until the Feds began to aggressively police the behavior of La Cosa Nostra, later in the century, that much of the violence began to subside. All the Act did in the 1930’s, combined with a secondary ban on automatic firearms passed in the 1980’s, was drive the price of legal automatic firearms through the roof.
The tactic of the 1934 gun control legislation is almost identical to the kinds of racist gun laws that were implemented in the deep-south after the Civil War. Permits, fees and taxes were placed on guns in an effort to price them out of the financial capabilities of average African American families following the Confederate’s defeat. As the Ku Klux Klan rose to power in both the Democrat Party and State Legislatures, gun control became one of their favorite tools to ensure the passivity of minority races.
But details about the 1934 Firearms Act aside, Malloy and Penrose articulated a clear belief that our founding document is outdated and inadequate for today’s world. “Why do we keep such an allegiance to a Constitution that was driven by 18th century concerns?” Penrose opined. I know it’s trite, but it is applicable: According to her logic, the first Amendment is outdated because our founding fathers never foresaw the power of the internet, broadcast or cable television, radio communication, or mass-distribution of printed materials.
Penrose, and the other gun-control advocates on the panel, represent the sizeable portion of Americans who believe crime is the result of inadequate laws. No amount of Constitutional disregard, Second Amendment tinkering, or violation of human rights will suppress all (or even a majority) of violent crime. (Click here for the latest fad among unarmed gang-oriented teenagers.) Penrose is representative of a liberal mentality that the Constitution is merely an obstacle to effective governance, when in reality the Constitution is an obstacle to over-governance.
Repeal the Second Amendment (good luck) and the God-given right to protect, with lethal force, one’s life and property will quickly vanish. The Second Amendment protects more than our right to own hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns; it clearly articulates the people’s right for armed self-defense. It empowers women against aggressors, it protects the innocent from the criminals, and it keeps further violations of our rights largely at bay.
Penrose explained that “drastic times call for drastic measures.” That call for government action sounds eerily similar to the justification used by despots, dictators and Human Rights violators throughout history. A Law professor should be slightly more sensitive to the fact that criminality will exist regardless of our “drastic measures.” Eliminating the rights of the law abiding is little more than an act of oppression.
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This article provides an a list of amino acids and offers you with more comprehensive information on how these chemicals help your body function well.
The importance of amino acids is directly related to the indispensability of proteins in our body. Proteins are what make up your muscles, ligaments, organs, tendons, tissues, glands, nails, hair - almost every part of your body is made up of proteins. In the same way, repair, maintenance of cells and critical bio-chemicals processes in the body are dependent on proteins.
Here is the list of 20 amino acids that your body can not live without:
Amino acids are classified into two general types: essential and non-essential amino acids. Essential amino acids are those that can not be synthesized by the body on its own and thus need to be acquired through your diet. Non-essential amino acids are those that your body can produce, specifically by the liver, without any outside help.
Here is a list of essential amino acids found in your body:
Your body can produce the other half of the twenty amino acids out of other chemicals that are present in your body. Refer to the non-essential amino acids list below:
If you fail to obtain even just one out of the ten essential amino acids, your body's proteins so that obtaining all of them in your daily diet is a must. Also, unlike fats and carbohydrates, your body does not tend to store excess supplies of amino acids for later use - you should get a regular supply of them everyday.
Foods with amino acids include animal and vegetable sources. Most of the animal sources such as meat, eggs and milk are considered to be "complete protein sources" meaning that these contain all the essential amino acids that your body needs. Vegetables are also good amino acid food sources (especially soy, nuts and beans) but most of them do not usually contain all of the ten. For instance, rice is not a good source of lysine and isoleucine.
These days, deficiencies of the amino acids happen more often than you think. Many people, especially those who try weight loss programs and vegetarians, consume insufficient amounts of protein. Thus, supplementation of amino acids has been increasingly necessary.
Amino supplements are very important as they counter the deficiencies (if you have them) and offer therapeutic benefits to your body. For your amino acid supplementation needs, we highly recommend Xtend Life's Total Balance. It contains all the essential and non-essential amino acids that your body requires (in safe proportions), along with amino acid SAMe (rarely used in supplements because of its cost), vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and herbal extracts that assures you of a healthy and disease-protected body. You can read our review of it here
Amino acids provides the cells the building material to maintain their basic structure, helps them to produce the energy body needs and are essential for every metabolic functioning.
There are a total of 20 amino acids found in our body.
There are 9 amino acids that are essential for your diet. We should note that arginine is also an essential amino acids during growth periods.
Arginine is known as a semi-essential or conditinally essential amino acid. If you are at a development stage or growth period, it is considered as an essential amino acid. For example, arginine is essential for infants and growing children.
Histidine was considered as an essenitial amino acids for infants only but further studies have shown that it is essential for both adults and infants.
Amino acids that is required in certain conditions is known as semi essential amino acids. Arginine and histidine are two amino acids that are grouped as semi essential amino acid. (New studies indicate that histidine is essential for adults)
In short, your body can not make essential amino acids. You have to get these amino acids from food sources.
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The couple visited the emergency room in August to receive treatment. The sticker shock comes as Americans continue to battle high health care costs following the introduction of the American Care Act
A couple in North Carolina is speaking out against hospital pricing after receiving a bill for an 18-hour emergency-room stay which they say cost them a whopping $89,000. The Charlotte Observer reports that Eric Ferguson visited a hospital near his home in Mooresville, N.C. over the summer after being bitten by a snake.
The four vials of anti-venom medication Ferguson received reportedly cost about $20,000 each. Ferguson and his wife Laura researched the price of the medicine and found its retail price was between $750 and $12,000 per vial. Medicare, they reportedly found, would have paid about $9,460 for the total treatment
Though their Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance reduced the bill to a little over $20,000, according to the Charlotte Observer, and they only ended up paying about $5,400 to cover their deductible and co-pay, the couple said they were shocked by the price of treatment.
In a 2013 cover story by Steven Brill, Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, TIME explored the often exorbitant prices patients face after hospital stays.The article examined the reasons behind the prices and the damage caused to those on the receiving end of the American health care system as a result
The hospital, Lake Norman Regional, defended their pricing in a statement to the newspaper: “Hospitals only collect a small percentage of our charges, or ‘list prices.’ We are required to give Medicare one level of discount from list price, Medicaid another, and private insurers negotiate for still others. … If we did not start with the list prices we have, we would not end up with enough revenue to remain in operation. … Our costs for providing uncompensated care are partially covered by higher bills for other patients.”
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My research with Maja Djikic and Raymond Mar suggests that reading fiction improves empathy and social intelligence. But do films, TV, and video games bring the same benefits? The answer is yes, they can, but it depends on the subject matter of each work and the intention behind it.
When we talk about intention, we must make a distinction between art and non-art. In our view, non-artistic communication tries to produce some specific emotional response. In a thriller, for instance, the intention is to produce anxiety, which will later be relieved. But in art, the intention is to give people material to create their own thoughts and emotions.
No sharp boundary can be drawn: Fine art can have political implications; advertisements can have artistic aspects. Many fiction films share properties with short stories and novels. Just as in reading, film viewers must create simulated worlds. The camera is in places a person could never be. But there are differences between writing and film: Literary fiction can more easily prompt inner reflection, whereas films juxtapose verbal and visual elements in ways that can be more literal and manipulative.
The second consideration is subject matter. My colleagues and I argue that literary fiction tends to be about problems of understanding selves and others in the social world. But some movies and video games actually seek to obstruct that understanding, particularly in the use of violence. Most violent television programs and games offer experiences of angry vengefulness, but little in the way of suffering or consequences.
In these cases, violent, non-artistic media have the opposite effect of a short story by Anton Chekhov or a novel by Jane Austen. Instead of encouraging understanding of ourselves and others, they limit empathy and social intelligence.
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By Dr Arundhati Hoskeri
Educationalist, Mythologist and Motivational Speaker
Let’s understand the etymological meaning of word Shiva. Sham karotiitishiva, in Sanskrit sham means auspiciousness, Karoti means to create, meaning the one who creates auspiciousness is Shiva. If this is true then why is Shiva called a destroyer or ‘Pralaykarak’? Shiva destroys the world but it is not the physical world that has manifested rather he destroys the internal world to release the soul trapped inside the body.
- Shiva is a greatest of all the ascetics ( he is called Bairagi), he is totally withdrawn from this mundane world, absolutely focussed inwards. This is why we always see Shiva in a meditative pose with his eyes closed and always in eternal bliss.
- His body is naked smeared with ashes. Ash symbolises that once soul leaves the body, the body has to get back to elemental form either in the form of ash when it is burnt or it decomposes and becomes one with the soil if it is buried. Ash on his body may give us a message that Shiva’s connection with us is in elemental form, he looks forward for our Atma (soul) to merge unto him.
- Why is he naked in appearance? Lord Shiva is absolutely away from Samsara –the world and worldly things, he is an absolutely pure and childlike energy and he has shut his eyes and all the senses to perceive the world.
- He wears a snake (Cobra) around his neck that coils his neck thrice. Cobra is deadly poisonous and reminds us of death. Shiva puts it around his neck like an ornament indicating that he is beyond the fear of death. The three coils may represent ‘Trikal’ – past, present and future to show that Shiva has conquered the dimension of time. (There are different stories about snake around Shiva’s neck which will be featured in my next blog)
- He has hosted river Ganga on his head. King Bhagiratha wanted to seek salvation for all his ancestors and the only way he could have done so was by invoking celestial river Ganga to flow from heaven down to earth. He did penances for many years to invoke Ganga. Force and velocity of Ganga was so great and it would have devastated the entire earth. All the gods went to Shiva and requested him to stop such a destruction to humanity. Lord Shiva, personification of compassion, stood up spreading his matted hair and made Ganga halt there and she calmed down. So when she moved towards the earth she was motherly, fertile and benevolent. ( Ganga MahatmyaPuran)
I used to think Shiva’s skin colour is blue or reddish pink as depicted in the pictures until I understood the meaning of a shloka ( verse) that describes Shiva.
Line 1: He is as white and as pure as camphor, he is a personification of compassion.
Line 2: He himself is the essence of the entire universe and who wears a snake like a garland.
Line 3: One who resides forever in the hearts of those whose heart is as pure as Lotus. Lotus is born in the sticky mud and dirt but remains unaffected and maintains its purity, similarly all those who remain unaffected from the mundane matters of the world remain connected to Lord Shiva.
Line 4: I bow to such a lord who is visualised along with Shakti .
But Shiva is also described as Nirakar ( formless), Nirvikar ( without any desires), Nirmohi ( without any attachments), Nirahakari ( without any ego) and he is Anadi-Anant ( without beginning and end)
Lord Shiva is depicted with three eyes ( Trinetra) the two eyes are always closed and he is in constant meditation and his third eye is placed between his brows vertically and when he opens it he looks into space because this eye of his emits fire of his Tapas-his great meditation lights up the fire.
OM NAMAHA SHIVAY
For understanding Shiva in totality one life is not enough, I’m just trying to sip few drops from the large ocean of knowledge and I always believe in sharing what I understand with others.
Right from my childhood I am drawn towards Sanskrit, Hindu culture, Mythology, Vedas and Scriptures. My knowledge in this field is a collection of stories told by elders at home ( my father was a great Sanskrit scholar although lawyer by profession) , listening to Pravachanas and Puranas by learned Brahmins and my own reading cum understanding from various books.
I strongly believe that “Knowledge is for sharing and it is nobody’s protected property. Knowledge is free and is always in circulation” I don’t claim any mastery of what I write nor copyright of what I write in my blogs. These are my understanding of our scriptures and culture. Please share my blogs freely with others and if you can enrich my writing by adding more information, please do so –add it in comment section, I will be happy to learn something more.
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- 0:10 What is Classical Conditioning?
- 2:11 How Classical Conditioning Works
- 3:53 Generalization
- 4:33 Extinction
- 5:09 Conditioning in the Classroom
- 6:31 Lesson Summary
Can you be conditioned to associate something new with something else you naturally respond to? In this lesson, we'll take a look at a famous psychological experiment that tested how brains have the ability to automatically react to new stimuli if it's conditioned correctly.
What is Classical Conditioning?
You are driving down a dark and curvy road when you narrowly miss a collision with a large truck that has edged over into your lane. You experience a rapid pulse, sweating palms, and your stomach begins to churn. After this near miss, you continue driving down the road. A few days later, as you approach the same curve, you begin to experience the same reactions (your heart beats faster, your palms begin to sweat) but there are no other vehicles around. What happened to you in this scenario?
The scenario you encountered can be explained by the research of behaviorists, such as Ivan Pavlov and John Watson. You may recognize the name Pavlov, as he was famous for his conditioning experiments using bells and food. Pavlov observed that when food was presented, a dog would begin to salivate. Pavlov began pairing the food and a bell and after subsequent trials, just the bell was enough to cause salivation of the dog.
Watson's 'Little Albert'
John Watson built on the conditioning work of Pavlov and maintained that emotions may be transferred from an object or an event to another person if the circumstances are right. Watson and his colleagues tested this principle in a well-known experiment referred to as 'Little Albert.'
A young child named Little Albert was presented with a white rat, which would not normally elicit a fear reaction in him. Every time Albert was presented with the rat, a laboratory assistant behind the young boy struck a large steel bar with a hammer, which caused him to jump and cry. This procedure was repeated several times. On the eighth trial, the white rat alone elicited crying and Albert crawling away.
This procedure is known as classical conditioning. Let's discuss this using definitions and terms. Classical conditioning is defined as a form of learning in which a new, involuntary response is acquired as a result of two stimuli being presented at the same time.
How Classical Conditioning Works
Classical conditioning includes two requirements. First, a natural relationship must exist between a stimulus, such as an object or an event, and a reaction. Second, the stimulus that elicits the reaction is paired with a neutral stimulus, typically for several trials. The outcome is that the previously neutral stimulus will, on its own, elicit the fear reaction.
Let's look at a diagram of what happened in the 'Little Albert' experiment:
First, there was a loud noise, which naturally elicits the fear reaction. Second, a loud noise was paired with a white rat, which then elicited the fear reaction. Finally, after multiple trials, the white rat alone was able to elicit the fear reaction.
Let's add some terminology to our diagram.
The loud noise is what we refer to as an unconditioned stimulus (US); this is the stimulus that unconditionally, naturally, and automatically triggers a response. The fear reaction is the unconditioned response (UR). The white rat in this example is our neutral stimulus (NS), meaning in normal situations, it would not trigger an automated response. When the loud noise and the white rat are paired over time, the white rat becomes the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the conditioned response is the fear reaction.
There are other types of reactions in classical conditioning. Through paired associations, negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, and pleasant feelings, such as happiness and nostalgia, may be conditioned to a variety of objects and events.
Behaviorists have described a number of phenomena related to the conditioning processes. Let's talk about two - generalization and extinction.
Generalization occurs when a person learns a response to a particular stimulus and then makes the same response to similar stimuli. For example, if a person was conditioned to fear dogs, generalization might take the form of that person fearing all four-legged animals, such as a horse or a goat. In the classroom, another example of generalization would be a student being embarrassed in one classroom and then generalizing the humiliation to other classrooms as well.
The second phenomenon is extinction. This is the gradual disappearance of an acquired response by the absence of the unconditioned stimulus. For example, Shelli constantly gets out of her seat during class and receives a reprimand each time from her teacher. The reprimand reinforces Shelli's behavior because she gets attention. The teacher decides to start ignoring Shelli when she gets out of her seat. Soon, Shelli's 'out of seat' rate begins to decline as she is not receiving attention for her poor behavior anymore.
Classical Conditioning in the Classroom
Classical conditioning has a strong presence in the classroom. A crucial step in developing a learner's appreciation of subjects such as science, math, and literature, are to ensure the learner's early experiences are associated with pleasant reactions. Unfortunately, if a teacher is unaware of classical conditioning and its concepts, a learner's initial experiences may become associated with negative emotional reactions leading to undesired behaviors in the classroom.
One strategy that teachers can use is to make use of pre-established relationships that normally elicit pleasant reactions. Think about the first day of school. There are already some common established relationships that exist. New, unfamiliar situations, such as the first day of school, elicit the anxiety reaction. If a teacher were to pair a difficult assignment on the first day of school, that child may elicit anxiety reactions for the rest of the school year.
However, consider this: activities such as coloring or drawing normally elicit pleasant feelings or feelings of relaxation. So if a teacher were to allow students to color or draw during their first day of school, it might ease the children into the new situation, and hopefully an association of pleasantness and relaxation would occur with school.
In summary, classical conditioning refers to the pairing of natural stimulus-response situations, with a neutral stimulus in order to develop a new relationship. In the classroom, teachers should be aware of natural and pre-established relationships of their learners in order to associate new experiences with pleasant reactions, as opposed to those new experiences, which would elicit reactions of fear and anxiety.
Chapters in Psychology 101: Intro to Psychology
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Are you a Christian?
WORKS OF ARMINIUS - JUSTIFICATION
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP - FACEBOOK - GR FORUMS - GODRULES ON YOUTUBE
The last article is on justification, about which these are my sentiments: Faith, and faith only, (though there is no faith alone without works,) is imputed for righteousness. By this alone are we justified before God, absolved from our sins, and are accounted, pronounced and declared righteous by God, who delivers his judgment from the throne of grace.
I do not enter into the question be the active and the passive righteousness of Christ, or that of his death and of his life. On this subject, I walk at liberty: I say "Christ has been made of God to me righteousness" -- "he has been made sin for me, that through faith, I may be the righteousness of God in him."
Nor yet do I refuse to confer with my brethren on this question, provided such conference be conducted without bitterness, and without an opinion of necessity, [that the partial view of any one should be generally received,] from which scarcely any other result can ensue than the existence of distraction, and of increased effervescence in the minds of men, especially if this discussion should occur between those who are hot controversialists, and too vehement in their zeal.
But some persons charge me with this as a crime -- that I say the act itself of faith, that is, believing itself, is imputed for righteousness, and that in a proper sense, and not by a metonymy. I acknowledge this charge, as I have the apostle St. Paul, in Romans 4, and in other passages, as my precursor in the use of this phrase. But the conclusion which they draw from this affirmation, namely, "that Christ and his righteousness are excluded from our justification, and that our justification is thus attributed to the worthiness of our faith," I by no means concede it to be possible for them to deduce from my sentiments.
For the word "to impute ," signifies that faith is not righteousness itself, but is graciously accounted for righteousness; by which circumstance all worthiness is taken away from faith, except that which is through the gracious condescending estimation of God. But this gracious condescension and estimation is not without Christ, but in reference to Christ, in Christ, and on account of Christ, whom God hath appointed as the propitiation through faith in his blood.
I affirm, therefore, that faith is imputed to us for righteousness, on account of Christ and his righteousness. In this enunciation, faith is the object of imputation; but Christ and his obedience are the impetratory [procuring] or meritorious cause of justification. Christ and his obedience are the object of our faith, but not the object of justification or divine imputation, as if God imputes Christ and his righteousness to us for righteousness. This cannot possibly be, since the obedience of Christ is righteousness itself, taken according to the most severe rigor of the law. But I do not deny that the obedience of Christ is imputed to us; that is, that it is accounted or reckoned for us and for our benefit, because this very thing -- that God reckons the righteousness of Christ to have been performed for us and for our benefit -- is the cause why God imputes to us for righteousness our faith, which has Christ and his righteousness for its object and foundation, and why he justifies us by faith, from faith, or through faith.
If any one will point out an error in this my opinion, I will gladly own it, because it is possible for me to err, but I am not willing to be a heretic.
The preceding, then, as far as I remember, are the Articles which your excellency mentioned to me, with my explanations of them produced from sincerity of mind; and as thus sincere, I wish them to be accounted by all who see them. This one favour I wish I could obtain from my brethren, who are associated with me in the Lord by the profession of the same religion, that they would at least believe me to have some feeling of conscience towards God. And this favour ought to be easily granted by them, through the charity of Christ, if they be desirous to study his disposition and nature.
Of what service to me can a dissension be which is undertaken merely through a reckless humour of mind, or a schism created in the church of Christ, of which, by the grace of God and Christ, I profess myself to be a member? If my brethren suppose that I am incited to such an enterprise through ambition or avarice, I sincerely declare in the Lord, that they know me not. But I can confess that I am so free from the latter of these vices, as never to have been tickled, on any occasion, with even the most enticing of its snares -- though it might be in my power to excuse or palliate it under some pretext or other. With regard to ambition, I possess it not, except to that honourable kind which impels me to this service -- to inquire with all earnestness in the Holy Scriptures for divine truth, and mildly and without contradiction to declare it when found, without prescribing it to any one, or labouring to extort consent, much less through a desire to "have dominion over the faith of others," but rather for the purpose of my winning some souls for Christ, that I may be a sweet savour to him, and may obtain an approved reputation in the church of the saints. This good name I hope I shall obtain by the grace of Christ, after a long period of patient endurance; though I be now a reproach to my brethren, and "made as the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things" to those who with me worship and invoke one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, in one spirit and with the same faith, and who have the same hope with me of obtaining the heavenly inheritance through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I hope the Lord will grant unto me, that they and I may meekly meet together in his great name, and institute a Christian conference about those things which appertain to religion. O may the light of that sacred and happy day speedily shine upon me. In that assembly, I engage, through the grace of God, to manifest such moderation of mind, and such love for truth and peace, as ought deservedly to be required and expected from a servant of Christ Jesus.
In the mean time [till this assembly can be convened], let my brethren themselves remain quiescent and suffer me to be quiet, that I may be at peace, and neither annoy them, nor create any uneasiness. If they entertain other thoughts concerning me, let them institute an [ecclesiastical] action against me; I will not shun or evade the authority of a competent judge, neither will I forfeit my recognizances by failing to appear.
If it be supposed that the minds of those who hear me are preoccupied in my favour, at a distance, by some politic subtlety which I display, and that the matter is so managed through cunning, as makes my brethren neither to consider it advisable to arraign me before the judges, nor to account it sufficiently safe to commit to my care the youthful students; and therefore, that the black stain which I have deserved ought to be affixed to my reputation, that my pupils and hearers may be frightened away; therefore, lest the result of this should be that the deferring of such a conference be productive of certain danger, behold I now offer myself, that I may, in company with them, address, solicit, and intreat those high personages who are invested with the power of issuing a summons for a convention of this kind, or of granting it, not to suffer us any longer to continue in this anguish and disquietude of mind, but either themselves to apply a speedy remedy, or allow it to be applied by others, but still by their order and under their direction.
I will not refuse to place myself before any assembly whatsoever, whether it be composed of all the ministers in our United Netherlands, or of some to be convoked from each of the seven provinces, or even of all the ministers of Holland and West Friesland, to which province our university at Leyden belongs, or of some ministers to be selected out of these, provided the whole affair be transacted under the cognizance of our lawful magistrates. Nor do I avoid or dread the presence of learned men, who may be invited from other countries, provided they be present at the conference on equitable conditions, and subject to the same laws as those under which I must be placed.
To express the whole matter at once -- let a convention be summoned, consisting of many members or of few, provided some bright hope of success be afforded [to them], a hope, I repeat it, which I shall be able, by sound arguments, to prove destitute of good foundation. Behold me, this day, nay, this very hour, prepared and ready to enter into it. For I am weary of being daily aspersed with the filthy scum of fresh calumnies, and grieved at being burdened with the necessity of clearing myself from them. In this part of my conduct, I am assuredly dissimilar from heretics, who have either avoided ecclesiastical assemblies, or have managed matters so as to be able to confide in the number of their retainers, and to expect a certain victory.
But I have finished. For I have occupied your attention, most honourable sir, a sufficient length of time; and I have made a serious encroachment on those valuable moments which you would have devoted to matters of greater importance. Your excellency will have the condescension to forgive the liberty which I have taken to address this letter to you, as it has been extorted from me by a degree of necessity -- and not to disdain to afford me your patronage and protection, just so far as divine truth and the peace and concord of the Christian church will allow you to vouchsafe.
I pray and beseech Almighty God long to preserve your excellency in safety, to endue you yet more with the spirit of wisdom and prudence, by which you may be enabled to discharge the duties of the embassy which has been imposed upon you, and thus meet the wishes of the most illustrious prince, the Elector Palatine. And, after you have happily discharged those duties, may he benignantly and graciously grant to you a prosperous return to your own country and kindred.
LEYDEN, April 5, 1608
END OF THE LETTER TO HIPPOLYTUS A COLLIBUS
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Our Website uses 'cookies' to distinguish you from other users of our website.
This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our service. On revisiting our website, we will therefore be able to obtain information about your previous visits and about your computer including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual. For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer.
Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive. They help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us to:
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A cookie is a small amount of data or parcels of text that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive if you agree. Generally, such a 'cookie' being a file in your web browser will enable the Website to recognise your computer when you visit the site.
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You can accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or modify your browser to alert you of any new cookies. To clear the stored cookies, you can normally go to the Tools dropdown menu at the top of the browser window.
Certain parts of the Website may not function without technical problems if you have 'disabled' the cookies file in your browser.
You can discover independent information about cookies by researching the Internet or carrying out online searches.
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Extracting Data from HP8753B Network Analyzer with Agilent VEE
HP8753B Network Analyzer.
Export to s2p-file - Program Overview.
Get Frequency Response - Program Overview.
Get Smith Chart - Program Overview.
This document describes how to extract data from a Hewlett Packard 8753B Network Analyzer
with the software Agilent VEE Pro 8.5 running on a PC. IHK has one analyzer in room X2.33.
The following files show how to extract S-parameter data for a two-port network, how to extract a frequency response, and how to extract Smith chart data from the analyzer and how this data can be saved to a file. Also see the example files for plotting the data in Matlab.
1. Connecting to the Analyzer
- Install Agilent IO Libraries from the file »IOLibSuite_15_0_11221.zip«.
(NB: Older version of the libraries will not work with VEE 8.5).
- Install Agilent VEE Pro 8.5 from the file »VEE_PRO_85_eval.zip«.
(NB: A license for IHK students can be obtained from Lars Maack in room X2.53).
- Connect the analyzer with your PC with the USB-GPIB cable permanently connected with the instrument. Your operating system might ask several times to install drivers for the USB-GPIB cable: accept all.
- Download and start one of the VEE example programs from the links above.
2. Running the Program and Saving Data
- Make your preferred settings of the analyzer and run a sweep as usual.
- If you want to change the name of the output text file click the »HP8753B_xxx.txt« button in the »To File« object in VEE and enter a new name.
If the filename does not exist, the checkbox »Clear File At PreRun & Open« should not be checked. If the file already exists, select the checkbox to overwrite the content for each run - otherwise the data is appended to the existing file content.
- When ready to save the data, click the »Start or resume the program (Ctrl+G)« in VEE.
- Afterwards the data file can be found where you chose, or if you did not change the filename, the file is saved in the same folder as the VEE project file or sometimes in the default VEE programs folder (usually Documents/VEE_programs).
- The data file can now be imported into MATLAB for further analysis. See links to example MATLAB files above.
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3D CAMERAS ACQUISITIONS FOR THE DOCUMENTATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
Keywords: spherical photogrammetry, indoor mapping, SLAM, RGB-D data, accuracy comparison
Abstract. Photography has always been considered as a valid tool to acquire information about reality. Nowadays, its versatility, together with the development of new techniques and technologies, allows to use it in different fields of application. Particularly, in the digitization of built heritage, photography not only enables to understand and document historical and architectural artifacts but also to acquire morphological and geometrical data about them with automated digital photogrammetry. Nowadays, photogrammetry enables many tools to give virtual casts of reality by showing it in the way of point cloud. Although they can have metric reliability and visual quality, traditional instruments – such as monoscopic cameras – involve a careful planning of the campaign phase and a long acquisition and processing time. On the contrary, the most recent ones, based on the integration of different sensors and cameras, try to reduce the gap between time and results. The latter include some systems of indoor mapping who, thanks to 360° acquisitions and SLAM technology, reconstruct the original scene in real time in great detail and with a photorealistic rendering. This study is aimed at reporting a research evaluating metric reliability and the level of survey detail with a Matterport Pro2 3D motorized rotating camera, equipped with SLAM technology, whose results have been compared with point clouds obtained by image-based and range-based processes.
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Most people have a false sense of security by believing that they will not be victims of a critical illness like cancer, heart attack or stroke; and if they are, that the healthcare system will look after them. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The reality is, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, that 1 in 4 Canadians will contract some form of heart disease in their lifetime, and one third of stroke victims are under age 65. The Canadian Cancer Society says that approximately 6,500 cancer victims this year will be between the ages of 19 and 39. On top of that, waiting times to get treatment is one of the top concerns of Canadians today.
The financial consequences of surviving a critical illness can be greater than dying. Almost 50% of home foreclosures are due to illness or injury. Some 43% of RRSP withdrawals are due to the same cause, which amounts to over $200 million per year.
Advances in medical technology have greatly increased our chances of surviving a critical illness. Along with survival, however, comes the financial impact of recovering.
It took Darren, 36, almost 3 years and several hundred chemotherapy sessions to beat his cancer. His wife, Jolene, covered most of the bills during his recovery period. He was too weak to return to his old job and had to take a lesser paying position. It has been very stressful for Darren and Jolene to make ends meet on less income and to pay off the debts that piled up while Darren was recovering.
The good news is the opportunity exists for you to prevent the financial drain from happening to you and your family should you become seriously ill. It's called Critical Illness Insurance, which can provide tax-free cash you can use for your recovery.
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There are no restrictions placed on how you use the insurance proceeds. You decide on how best to use the money. If you don't need it for new or unexpected expenses, maybe a vacation will help you recover from your ordeal more quickly. Would not having the burden of mortgage payments for a few years help make your recovery less stressful?
The possibility exists for you to avoid being a burden on others, disrupting your standard of living or jeopardizing your retirement should you be struck with a critical illness. Why not use some of your gratification budget to protect the lifestyle you have worked so hard for with Critical Illness Insurance?
For informational purposes only and not intended to provide specific Critical Illness Insurance advice. Individual insurance needs vary. Work with an insurance professional to determine the type and amount that's right for you and your family.
Mutual Funds and Segregated Funds provided by the Fund Companies are offered through Worldsource Financial Management Inc., Other Products and Services are offered through Dave Gorman Financial Strategies.
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Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006, 03:31 pm
First, does anyone know where I can find blackberry or raspberry plants? My local store has sold out of them.
Second, does anyone know how to find contact information for a specific doctor, if you don't know where in the country he is these days?
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 07:37 pm (UTC)
As for the first, I'm afraid I don't have a good idea, if there's no local store or nursery that might have them.
As for the second, if he's a member of the AMA then their physician finder service
might be useful. Otherwise, maybe he's listed with WebMD or one of the major insurance companies' services?
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 08:19 pm (UTC)
Actually he/she doesn't have to be a member of AMA to be listed there; he/she simply has to be licensed. I've used the physician finder before and have had success with it.
Thu, Jul. 17th, 2008 12:19 pm (UTC)
And he sees one of the major conclusions of the work being that you cant talk any more about the faculty job since it has evolved in so many directions.
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 07:53 pm (UTC)
Quick reality check: do you mean actual blackberries or black raspberries? They taste different and have very different growth habits. Google has turned up a few nurseries with raspberries, this one
looks to have appropriate selections for your climate. The descriptions don't leave me at all sanguine that the raspberries involved are actually worth eating, or that the nursery is actually managed by raspberry lovers. Raspberry and blackberry are plants that want partial shade, and may become invasive if given even marginally appropriate growing conditions. Blackberry is considerably less vigorous under the conditions I'm used to (dense clay soil, south central PA). I'm used to escaped garden cultivars growing wild in the PA woods tho, and I have *no* idea if the varieties have stayed "true" or not. The wild cultivars had better tasting berries than nursery cultivars.
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 07:54 pm (UTC)
Arg. A few weeks ago, Costco was selling blackberry/raspberry/blueberry, um, I'm not sure the technical term, but starters -- maybe 2 ft tall with roots. Don't know if they're still onsale.
Otherwise, I've regularly gotten catalogs for http://www.noursefarms.com/
a nursery which seems to focus on berry bushes...
As for the doctor, yeah, I'd probably start by Googling for him. Is s/he likely to be a published author anywhere? Journal articles often include the author's affiliations and location...
Fri, Oct. 17th, 2008 08:31 am (UTC)
It seems that the author Sara Cone Bryant published several collections containing the tale. STORIES TO TELL TO CHILDREN , EPAMINONDAS AND OTHER STORIES FOR LITTLE ONES , BEST STORIES TO TELL TO CHILDREN , .
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 07:58 pm (UTC)
*Laughs* Fly out here to Western Washington and you can have all the blackberries you want, for free!
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 08:19 pm (UTC)
I was thinking much the same thing. Heck, I'll wrap branches in wet towelling and ship! They'll survive. They survive everything else.
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 08:01 pm (UTC)
Heh. My back yard?
Seriously, my dog rampages through them every few days and gets them stuck to her butt
, sometimes rootball and all.
As a result, they aren't the healthiest things. But I was planning on heading to the garden store this weekend, and could keep an eye out. How many/what kinds are you looking for?
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 08:18 pm (UTC)
I recently bought a blueberry bush from Wayside Gardens
. It was somewhat puny, so I suspect if you got a raspberry plant from them it would not be yielding fruit until next year. (Isn't that how raspberry canes work, though?)
Occasionally they have coupon offers; I know they send one with their catalog if you request it.
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 08:48 pm (UTC)
As for the first, just get on a plane to Seattle and walk to the nearnest vacant lot, and you'll find all the blackberries you'd ever want. But then you know that...maybe someone in the NW could FedEx you some cuttings...
As for the second, another thing you might try is the Dictionary of Medical Specialists, which a big library should have.
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 09:05 pm (UTC)
Teresa, for the love of God, come and get mine! I have blackberry seedlings sprouting EVERYWHERE - I can't get RID of the damned things - you can have them ALL if you want! WIth ribbons on 'em!!
Wed, Apr. 26th, 2006 02:04 am (UTC)
I'll let you borrow my leather gloves to pluck the unloved blackberries. Body armor will be your responsibility. :-)
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 09:11 pm (UTC)
My parents have some award-winning raspberry plants (Won first prize at the montana state fair a few years in a row). Just checked with Dad and I can send you some cuttings if you want, depending what size plants you're looking for. I'm akgmurphy on gmail - drop me your address if you want some.
Tue, Apr. 25th, 2006 10:03 pm (UTC)
Can't help you with the plants, but for the doctor, try Google. If his name is very common, then you'll have to be more specific. What is it about the doctor might be on a page about him? Can you Google his name and his specialty?
Wed, Aug. 30th, 2006 06:24 am (UTC)
rutemple : Re: berries
cane berries like neutralish soil; blueberries like an acidic soil, which I think you may tend towards in Brooklyn, possibly? Tend them with some fir mulch for a little more of that.
Fri, May. 5th, 2006 06:07 pm (UTC)
Excellent advice on trying to find the physician. The only thing I'd add is, if none of the above pan out, trying a) whatever specialty or sub-specialty organization they might be a member of (American College of Surgeons, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and so forth) and b) trying state licensing boards if you have a starting state or states (for example, Illinois has an online license-search function
. So does New York
Tue, May. 9th, 2006 12:52 am (UTC)
Ah! You have an LJ, too. Of course. Check the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for the plants--they often have a surprisingly diverse selection. I went for the Cherry Blossom Festival and don't remember those plants specifically but they had a ton. You might want to simply call before schlepping out there. Also consider the Bronx Botanical Garden and, of course, Home Depot. Home Depot will probably have the worst selection, but they'll be the most willing to order something for you.
Sat, Jun. 10th, 2006 06:35 pm (UTC)
I know I'm late to the party here, but am just catching up on some LJs while I wait for Cass & Beth to arrive for their trip north.
We have blackberries. Lovely blackberries. Canes and canes of them. Come, take some! Please!
(You have partaken of these blackberries and I believe you approve of them.)
Will you be up for either Kate & Ernie's wedding or Readercon?
Wed, Aug. 30th, 2006 06:20 am (UTC)
rutemple : blackberry / raspberry
Just saw this posting now; but since fall is a good time to plant berry canes, I'll answer it now anyhow.
I would go to http://davesgarden.com/
and do a search in the Plant Scout area;
then I would choose among either the varietals listed under rubus idaeus
or just head on out to a (well rated) supplier who had the most different varietals and peruse their website, such as http://www.starkbros.com/index.jsp
Dave's Garden has a small annual nuisance fee, it seems to work well for never having to disemvowel anyone. I think the plant files are open to all, though.
If I had established plants I'd dig up some for you.
Nice to see you and PNH this weekend past; Lise beamed all over at getting her Very Own copy of Making Book
and we had another impromptu Dramatic Reading of the Pastafazool Cycle on Monday night when I got home, with and for friends who were over for dinner and a waltz lesson. Much joy and delight...
Thu, Nov. 2nd, 2006 11:55 pm (UTC)
For top quality fruit plants of all kinds - blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, dwarf fruit trees, rare fruits, etc. - go to raintreenursery.com. We've purchased many plants and trees from them and haven't had a bad one yet. They are all growing well and producing great fruit, the berries all in their first season.
Sun, Jan. 14th, 2007 10:03 pm (UTC)
In some strange roundabout fashion I followed some links hither and thither until I arrived here - and I just wanted to add to all those helpful posts above about "take our blackberries, please" to say ... don't. If people have invasive blackberries taking over their yards (especially here in the Northwest!), chances are it's Himalayan Blackberry, a nasty, invasive non-native pest. Tasty, yes, but you'll NEVER be rid of it once you have it. I would recommend one of the tamer, domestic cultivars, personally. ;) As a bonus, some are even thornless!
I like Gurney's for a lot of stuff, though I've never tried their berry plants.
Wed, May. 16th, 2007 06:26 pm (UTC)
mia_mcdavid : Raspberry plants
I have a stand of Fallgolds; they are the long-season kind; yellow when ripe; I find them delicious. If you haven't scored any plants yet, I have to dig the entire stand to move them and would be happy to share.
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Almost fifty years after ping pong diplomacy paved the way to better relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the United States, Dennis Rodman can be credited for taking a page from its playbook with regards to North Korea.
In 2013, Rodman made his first trip to North Korea as part of basketball delegation organized by VICE News that included three Harlem Globetrotters. The story behind his invitation on the trip is rather convoluted.
Years before the groundbreaking trip, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had gifted a Michael Jordan-signed basketball to then leader Kim Jong-il, which solidified the ruling family’s fandom of the Chicago Bulls. After VICE unsuccessfully reached out to Jordan and Scottie Pippen to come on their trip, they settled on Rodman who had won three NBA titles with the Bulls from 1996-98.
The notoriously-offbeat Rodman unsurprisingly hit it off with Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un, who in late 2011 had taken over as the latest in a line of Kim-family dictators that have ruled North Korea since its founding in 1948.
AS THE WORM TURNS
In the years since that first meeting, Rodman has returned to North Korea four times to hang with the pint-sized authoritarian, and is now proud for the part he played in the thawing relations with the United States after a year’s worth of nuke-brandishing, name-calling bravado by the country’s respective leaders.
PING PONG DIPLOMACY
The template for Rodman’s sports-as-diplomacy efforts was laid in 1971 during a series of meetings between the United States and Chinese table tennis teams. The improved relations led to President Richard Nixon to become the first U.S. President to visit the PRC in 1972.
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Our suffering is directly proportional to our ignorance and unconsciousness.
One day when we were young, very young we arrived at our nursing school, excited we ran to the entrance gate, looking forward to play with our favourite swing. That day we stumbled, we hit the door, we fell to the ground, we got hurt and we cried heartbroken.
Our mother/father (or beloved caretaker) was chatting with other parents and when she heard our cries, immediately ran to rescue us. Our pain invaded her heart and she jumped to criticize someone for not having been there with us, protecting us. How could this happen? Without noticing, she declared herself guilty. Driven by the automatic repair system of her own need for feeling powerless, she did what she learned from her own parents and culture: get angry and blame the outside.
With her body embracing us warmheartedly and her finger pointing to the door she screamed: “Bad/Foolish door! It´s your fault!” That gesture was supposed to have a soothing effect on our pain, this is the reason she checked our grimace. Though that insult did not diminish our pain, sooner than later we learned to comfort ourselves by comforting our restless mother taking her “medicine”: receive the hug and learn to find guilt in something or someone outside.
The door is a material object and as such lacks the ability to defend itself from these absurd accusations, so the “drug” flows freely through our small body, mind and heart. Interestingly enough the accusations against the “door for its wickedness” reassure us. We want to be a good child and so we learn and copy the model: we turn ourselves to the wicked door and shout: “Bad/Foolish Door!”
At a very young age, we learn that if something hurts us, the way to go around it is to polarize good and bad. The door is bad and therefore I am good! That is: I am the victim of someone or something who is guilty for causing me this pain. On top, at that early age our definition of self derives from our main caretakers. We feel we are am mummy´s/daddy´s girl or boy, because we follow their steps, with respect, without questioning what they tell me, if by doing so we sense we may unsettle them. We surrender our inquisitive mind and our freedom and enter into the flow of our “domestication process”.
We grow up not knowing how to deal with our difficult emotions. We have learned to run away from them and declare the outside somehow responsible for what we do not know how to solve.
Today we know that this way of approaching life causes us helplessness and suffering. We know our chances to enjoy happy relationships are slim.
If we want to stop suffering we need to discipline our minds, train them to think in a healthy non-judgemental way, cleanse them form obsolete belief systems that are attached to suffering.
Star performers are not necessarily the richest, most popular and handsome persons, they are the most happy ones, regardless of their circumstances.
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Nothing says “Christian martyr” like a crown of thorns, but did you know that Jefferson Davis had one, too? He did.
Preparing my manuscript on the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) often took me to the Museum of the Confederacy (MOC) in Richmond. In one final trip to search for images with which to illustrate my book, I traveled there in the spring of 2002. At the time, the MOC was hosting a special exhibit of items on loan from the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum in New Orleans, which opened in 1891 and is one of the oldest history museums in the South.
I walked through the exhibit, observing objects from several of the South’s heroes (General P.G.T. Beauregard‘s uniform, for example) and then was stopped in my tracks by the relic of all Lost Cause relics. There before me under plexiglas was a crown of thorns. Without reading the exhibit copy, I instinctively knew it was for Jeff. And, yes, I was right. Here before me rested the ultimate symbol of his martyrdom—a crown of thorns. I could hardly believe my eyes. I saw (but would not touch) the locks of his hair, and now I found myself gazing on his crown of thorns.
The thorny wreath, according to the Confederate Museum that owns it, was “sent to Davis by Pope Pius IX in sympathy for Davis’ post war treatment by the U.S. government while a prisoner at Fortress Monroe.” That seemed like a sacrilegious thing for a pope to do, but the representatives of the museum have yet to waiver from their story. However, the researchers at the Museum of the Confederacy documented their version, which is that his wife Varina Davis made the crown. An inventory of items donated by Varina to the Confederate Museum in New Orleans confirms that she made the crown, but I’ve yet to find out why. (Kevin Levin offers the documentation on his Civil War Memory site.)
This object, this relic of the Lost Cause, makes quite a statement about Davis as a martyr, because not every martyr gets a crown of thorns. Did the white South believe so whole-heartedly that his sacrifices were Christ-like?
I have no doubt that the early members of the UDC were on board with the “Davis as martyr” image, because it was in keeping with the stories written about women of the Confederate generation in the years following the Civil War.
Those “women of the sixties” were frequently compared to Mary and Martha of the Bible, “last at the cross and first at the grave.” Perhaps the UDC saw its role in preserving the image of Jeff Davis as similar in intent.
The crown of thorns, while made by Varina, served its purpose as the pièce de résistance in a much larger campaign by women to resurrect Davis’s image.
Check back for the final installment of Me and Jeff Davis: The Serial when I discuss the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library as well as the financial and political costs of the Lost Cause.
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Portrait History Eleanor Marie D'este Queen Of England XVIII
Beautiful portrait of Marie Eléonore d'Este, is an oil on canvas pasted on wood, shaped medallion, period xviii, framed in original frame. Mary Beatrice éléonore year daisy Isabelle d'Este, Princess of Modena (Maria Beatrice eleonora Anna Margherita Isabella d'Este), born October 5, 1658 in Modena and died May 7, 1718 in Saint Germain en Laye, is a Queen Consort of England, Scotland, Ireland and as second wife Jacques II of England. State: good condition, wood is slightly curved, he played with time. Wear, loss and restoration of part xviii. Dimensions with frame: 38 x 31 cm.
Dimensions without: 29 x 23 cm. Thank you to look at the many pictures above which will also value document. We guarantee good packaging and quality (nine). The item \The seller is \This item can be shipped to the following countries: america, europe, asia, australia.
- Theme: Portrait, Self-Portrait <\/ li>
- Type: Oil <\/ li>
- characteristics: Box <\/ li>
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Information on the Loyalists
Loyalist Directory: Thomas (son of Colonel Isaac Mann, Sr.) Mann (aka Man)
(For a short explanation of each row, click on the row title ex. "surname")
|Surname :||Mann (aka Man)|
|Given name :||Thomas (son of Colonel Isaac Mann, Sr.)|
|Where Resettled :||New Carlisle, Paspebiac, Baie des Chaleurs, Gaspe, Quebec.|
|Status as Loyalist :||No proven descendants|
|Source :||Names inserted on the U.E. List by Order of the Honourable Executive Council shows Edward, William and Thomas.|
|Notes (Expunged, Suspended, Reinstated) :|
|Regiment :||King’s Loyal Americans Regiment (Jessup’s Rangers)|
|Enlistment Date :|
|Date & Place of Birth :||1760. Stillwater, Albany Co., N.Y.|
|Settled before war :|
|Date & Place of Death :||17th August 1831 at New Carlisle.|
|Place of Burial :||New Carlisle, Gaspe, Lower Canada.|
|Wife Name :||Rebecca Perry (dau. of Samuel Perry, U.E.)|
|Children :||Deborah (died young)|
|Biography :||18th of May, 1776, Thomas and John Mann, et al., were brought before the Albany Safety Committee "Captain McAlpin and Lieut. Swords to their lodgings with a sentry at their door." The Manns were dismissed and released. |
After being gaoled by the rebels, he fled and joined the King’s Loyal Americans Regiment (the Loyal Rangers, aka Jessup’s Rangers). He was seconded to other militia units. He was discharged at Quebec in 1783.
(see UELAC website)
|Proven Descendants :|
|Military Info :||King’s Loyalist Rangers commanded by Captain Ebenezer Jessup at Sorel, muster rolls, 1777-1778: 12 documents with dates of October 16, 1778 and May 2, 1779, covering service dates from December 25, 1777 through December 24, 1778 (printed page numbers 83 through 95) contains a petition in favour of Thomas Mann.|
November 6, 1780.
From Nairne at Chamblee to Lernoult
Seeking advice on allowing prisoners recently captured (but forced to join the rebels and actually loyalists) to be enlisted in the royalist corps; requesting an order to procure clothing for the royalist troops; requesting guidance on subsistence for Captain Drummand, Mrs [?] MacLaran, and Ensign Thomas Mann.
Haldimand Papers – Memorials from the Provincial Corps and Loyalists 1778-1785 Vol. 1, B214.
19 Dec., 1781 – Town of Verchères – Thomas Mann
Praying to succeed Ensign Haver. (Page 288) – SN: 214112
|Loyalist Genealogy :|
|Family History :|
|Family Genealogy :|
|Other Info :||In 1784 was appointed Sheriff of Gaspé, by Captain George Lawe and continued in that role until 1829.|
Information provided by David Clark.
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Some years past, my decision to have my DNA tested was finally made. For years [some 50+], the genealogy virus had lead me to what seemed my own JONES family origins. North Wales it was, or at least I thought this was the case. Uncertainty gave way to verification as my DNA haplogroup returned R1b1b2 [now classified as R1b1a2 ]. The following table shows the haplogroups for my JONES surname from 2011 and 2016. They are then compared to haplogroups from North Wales reported in 2011.
Now the following figure shows roughly how this R1b haplogroup got to Wales. [It was drawn when my haplogroup was still R1b1b2] How the genes did flow, from A to R1b some 60,000 years in the making.
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He must be arrested and put on trial!
Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has been invited by the Centre for Global Justice to visit the United States of America for a series of speeches and dialogues. He is to speak at the Washington National Cathedral and possibly Harvard and Virginia universities. He is also to attend a UN meeting in New York and he will hold a press conference there. His upcoming meeting with former US president Jimmy Carter is said to help the two countries to overcome their long term hostility.
Khatami has always been introduced to the world as the smiling and reformist face of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is famous for his ‘dialogue of civilizations’, a term he first used in a speech to the UN general assembly in September 1998.
But reality is far from the general picture the western media draws of Mohammad Khatami. During the eight years of his presidency:
• more than 200 people were executed,
• tenfold of women were sentenced to death by stoning,
• 4 workers from Khatoon Abad (Babak Shahir) were killed for going on strike,
• Students’ demonstration in commemoration of 9 July 2004 was brutally crushed on his orders,
• The organised killings of dissidents famous as the ‘serial murders’ took place when he was in power.
• Women had no rights and were constantly harassed. Any protest against discriminatory laws was answered by whips, arrests, torture, humiliation and imprisonment,
• Many homosexuals were arrested and sentenced to long term imprisonment or execution,
• Thousands of people were arrested and tortured for trying to defend their human rights against the Islamic regime,
• Hundreds of workers’ strikes and demonstrations and students’ and women’s protests and nurses and teachers strikes were savagely attacked and suppressed,
And the list is endless…
Mohammed Khatami and the regime he was its president for eight years have done nothing but organising terror and murder and oppression. Khatami and all other leaders of the Islamic Republic are criminals and must be tried in the international courts for their crimes against humanity.
During the eight years of Khatami’s presidency, the persecution and murder of Iranian people continued non stop. As far as the Iranian people are concerned, inviting Khatami and providing him with platforms to speak and treating him as a respectable politician is condemned. Khatami has, doubtlessly incited violence against people in Iran and his government has helped Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, inviting him as a respectable person for civilized dialogue is despicable and unacceptable.
The Worker-communist Party of Iran is against giving the criminal leaders of the Islamic regime any opportunity to travel around the world and pretend that they are opening civilized dialogues, while at the same time they are murdering and torturing Iranian people and clearly supporting international Islamic terrorism.
We call upon all freedom lovers, individuals and international human rights bodies to make their protest heard and to demand Khatami’s arrest and international trial as a criminal.
Worker-communist Party of Iran- organisation abroad
August 30, 2006
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CCNP SWITCH Tutorial: EtherChannel Fundamentals
An EtherChannel is a logical bundling of two to eight parallel links running between two switches. This bundling of Fast Ethernet, Gig Ethernet, or even 10 Gig Ethernet ports is also called aggregation. We use more of our available bandwidth, we avoid some of that 50-second delay that comes with the MaxAge and Forward Delay timers if a trunk port goes down – what’s not to love?
(To avoid aggravation, ports placed inside an EC should be running at the same speed and have the same duplex settings.)
Even better, STP considers an EtherChannel to be a single link, regardless of how many physical links actually make up the EtherChannel. If one or more of the physical links in the EtherChannel go down, STP will give the link a higher cost due to the lost bandwidth, but the link is still considered up.
In our lab, there are four FastEthernet links between SW2 and SW3, and we know that by default, only one of the trunks will actually be used. Fast 0/21 – 24 are trunking on each switch, with Fast 0/21 on each switch forming a trunk, Fast 0/22 on each switch forming a trunk, and so forth. We’re using multilayer switches in this lab, but we could perform these labs on regular Layer 2 switches, and the commands and results would be the same.
SW2#show spanning vlan 1 Interface Role Sts Cost ------------------- ---- --- ---- Fa0/21 Desg FWD 19 Fa0/22 Desg FWD 19 Fa0/23 Desg FWD 19 Fa0/24 Desg FWD 19
SW3#show spanning vlan 1 Interface Role Sts Cost ------------------- ---- --- ---- Fa0/21 Root FWD 19 Fa0/22 Altn BLK 19 Fa0/23 Altn BLK 19 Fa0/24 Altn BLK 19
As it stands, if Fast 0/21 goes down on SW3, Fast 0/22 will begin the transition from blocking to forwarding. In the meantime, communication between the two switches is lost. This temporary lack of a forwarding port can be avoided with an EtherChannel. By combining the physical ports into a single logical link, not only is the bandwidth of the four links combined, but the failure of a link inside an EtherChannel will not force STP to start bringing another port from blocking to forwarding.
In short, if you lose a link in an Etherchannel, things slow down a bit but don’t come to a screeching halt.
Let’s put fast0/21, 0/22, and 0/23 on both switches into an EtherChannel with the channel-group command. The channel group does not have to match between switches. I’ll use interface range to make things a little quicker.
SW2(config-if-range)#channel-group 1 ? mode EtherChannel Mode of the interface SW2(config-if-range)#channel-group 1 mode ? active Enable LACP unconditionally auto Enable PAgP only if a PAgP device is detected desirable Enable PAgP unconditionally on Enable EtherChannel only passive Enable LACP only if a LACP device is detected SW2(config-if-range)#channel-group 1 mode on %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Port-channel1, changed state to up
SW3(config)#int range fast 0/21 - 23 SW3(config-if-range)#channel-group 5 mode on %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Port-channel5, changed state to up
The interfaces mentioned in the console messages, port-channel1 and port-channel5, are the logical representations of the Etherchannels on the respective switches.
Let’s check out STP on SW3.
SW3#show spanning vlan 1 Interface Role Sts Cost ------------------- ---- --- ---- Fa0/24 Altn BLK 19 Po5 Root FWD 9
Things have changed! The EtherChannel (Po5, short for port-channel 5) is now the connection in use, and with good reason – the path cost for that port is 9, less than half that of a standalone FastEthernet port. SW2 shows the same path cost result.
SW2#show spanning vlan 1 Interface Role Sts Cost ------------------- ---- --- ---- Fa0/24 Desg FWD 19 Po1 Desg FWD 9
Let’s see what happens when one of the links inside the EtherChannel fails. We’ll shut down fast0/21 on R3 and then verify the changes, if any, to the STP costs and ports.
SW3(config)#int fast 0/21 SW3(config-if)#shut SW3#show spanning vlan 1 Interface Role Sts Cost ------------------- ---- --- ---- Fa0/24 Altn BLK 19 Po5 Root FWD 12
SW2#show spanning vlan 1 Interface Role Sts Cost ------------------- ---- --- ---- Fa0/24 Desg FWD 19 Po1 Desg FWD 12
Thanks to our EtherChannel, STP didn’t have to go to the trouble of opening Fast0/24, and communications between the switches stayed open. The downed link in the EtherChannel was detected by STP, and the overall EtherChannel path cost increased, but the EtherChannel remained in forwarding mode and Fast 0/24 stays blocked.
In this lab, we used the on setting with the channel-group command, but we need to be very familiar with those PaGP and LACP options we saw. We’ll do just that in the next installment of this CCNP SWITCH course on Etherchannels.
Give your studies a series boost with my CCNP SWITCH Study Guide, and thank you for making my work a part of your CCNP success!
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1. Deafness and Deaf people are as old as humanity itself but the earliest
recorded history of the communication and education of deaf people was
in the 16th century. Deaf children of very rich parents in Spain were
placed under the care of a monk to be taught how to speak. Speech was
required in order to acquire wealth.
2. This marked the beginning of the oral
vs. Sign Language controversy, which raged on for centuries.
3. The oral method involves teaching or communicating
with Deaf people through the medium of spoken language (speech). This
method was highly developed in Germany and became known as the "German
4. The use of Sign Language was highly developed
and used in schools for the Deaf in France, hence the name "French
5. In 1880 there was an attempt to eradicate
Sign Language from the face of the earth. A conference in Milan (Italy)
which was attended by hearing teachers and educationalists but which excluded
Deaf people, passed a resolution which banned the use of Sign Language
in schools of the Deaf.
6. Sign Language became an underground language.
Deaf children used Sign Language outside the classroom situation and so
it remained a living and natural language.
7. In 1960 a scientific research report on
American Sign Language (ASL) showed that Sign Language was a natural human
language with its own grammar, independent of any spoken language. Sign
Languages could be analyzed at any of the same levels used for spoken
languages in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics
and discourse analysis.
PS: Do you want to learn sign language?
Download SignGenius now.
8. In the 1970s, Simultaneous Communication
(Simcom) or Total Communication (TC) was developed. This is a system adapted
by the oralists in an attempt to represent English visually. Sim-com/TC
involves signing and speaking at the same time. Remember English or any
spoken language has its own grammar, as does Sign Language. When you use
both languages at the same time, you violate the grammar of both languages.
9. The 1980s saw the advent of the bilingual-bicultural
approach. According to this approach Deaf people use Language and written/read/spoken
language e.g. English, Zulu, Afrikaans, etc. It acknowledges that Deaf
people live in two cultures, the one being the majority (hearing) and
the other being their own culture namely Deaf Culture. Hearing people
who come into contact and interact with Deaf people, e.g. parents, siblings,
teachers and society in general also learn to function in two cultures.
10. And in 2003 SignGenius developed the evolutionary Sign Language Software to assist people who wants to Learn Sign Language. It also shows to improve the spelling of Deaf People. SignGenius SASL, for the South African Sign Language, and Signgenius ASL, for the American Sign Language, are currently the most comprehensive Sign Language Software available. Why don't you download a free copy and check it out.
I got it downloaded! It is great! I will play around with the demo version and will most likely order it. I think I will be very happy with it. Is is a one time fee? Thanks so much! Marci***
See more testimonials
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Did External Influences Increase in Indian Politics After Congress Split, 1969
Like, Share, Comment…be the Voice of Free Press
EDITORIAL: By Saeed Naqvi, Copy Edited by Adam Rizvi, TIO: I had no business to forget Badshah Khan’s 130th birthday this February, having been his press secretary when he came on a year’s “healing mission” as guest of both the political camps led by Indira Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan.
The international system is trying to compose itself today. It was dividing itself sharply during the Pashtun leader’s visit. Just as India became salient to regional play then, it will by force of circumstances, become part of the new regional pirouette.
The Indian Independence Act, 18 July 1947, was part of the world order being shaped as part of the Cold War which began in 1945.
Pakistan was incorporated into the Baghdad Pact, CENTO, and such like military alliance as bulwark against the Soviet Union. Also, Industrial production of oil had to be protected in the Persian Gulf. On India was conferred the elaborate task to secure a liberal democratic polity which would keep nefarious ideas like Communism and Marxism at bay. That was the responsibility given to India by the imperial order. And how dutifully New Delhi has fulfilled that role. Demonization of “Urban Naxals” is a crude variant on the theme pursued by the Congress party since its earliest days in power. Remember how Indira Gandhi as Congress President (Nehru was the Prime Minister) had President’s rule imposed to dismiss the world’s first communist government elected by the ballot box in Kerala. The E.M.S. Namboodripad government had been voted in 1957. Mrs. Gandhi sought US Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker’s help to discredit this government by helping organize street protests. This would give the centre an excuse to dismiss the government and impose President’s rule. This operation was revealed by Bunker in a Podcast at Columbia University.
This brings me to Badshah Khan’s visit in 1969 when Indira Gandhi, as Prime Minister, played a hand ideologically quite the opposite of what she did in Kerala a decade earlier. She split the Congress Party, weaning away the party bosses close to capitalists and proceeded to nationalize banks. The correspondent of the Times London, Peter Hazelhurst, summed up Indira Gandhi succinctly: she is a little Left of self interest.
As a matter of fact she had at this stage moved more than a “little” to the Left. Not only did she have in her cabinet a once card carrying member of the Communist Party, Mohan Kumaramanglam educated at Eton and Cambridge where his education coincided more or less with Kim Philby’s innings at Cambridge but he became an influence on her.
He enunciated what came to be known as the Kumaramangalam thesis. President S.A. Dange of CPI joined hands with Indira to make up for the shortfall in numbers in the Lok Sabha. The CPI described it as a policy of “Unity and struggle”. In other words “we struggle” against Congress’s “anti peoples” policies and unite on its socialist programmes.
This leftward lurch reached a climax when Soviet advisers helped New Delhi’s 1971 Bangladesh operations. The high Soviet profile in these operations was the principal reason for Nixon-Kissinger to order the 6th fleet in the Bay of Bengal, as a check.
The fierce East-West competition induced a parallel internal Right-Left competition. As her comfort level with the Left increased, the powerful Congress party satraps, expelled by Indira Gandhi clasped the hands of compulsive anti communists, anti Congress, Hindu nationalist, all on the capitalist page, under the leadership of arch Gandhian, Jayaprakash Narayan. It came to be known as the Bihar movement for “total revolution”. This movement itself had antecedents, both internal, like Gujarat’s Navnirman Samiti agitation and external, like the Grosvenor Square demonstration in London and the barricades in Paris which shook De Gaulle. In fact the cusp of 1968 and the 70 were momentous – Prague Spring, Tet offensive (Vietnam), Martin Luther King’s assassination, Robert Kennedy’s assassination. These traumatic events were chronologically proximate to the Congress split, Navnirman agitation (Gujarat) and, JP movement in Bihar, the state with a powerful communist party which, unlike elsewhere in India, had not split into CPI and CPM following the Sino-Soviet split of 1964.
Although the Bihar movement projected itself as anti corruption, it was primarily aimed at seeking regime change at the centre and the state to give advantage to anti Left forces in Bihar where the communists and a Left inclined Congress – I (I stood for Indira) had retained their power.
It was the thrust of JP movement combined with the Allahabad High Court judgement unseating Indira Gandhi – a double fisted punch which unnerved Indira Gandhi to the extreme. She imposed the Emergency in 1975.
Conspiracy theorists advanced a right wing plot. Indira Gandhi had walked straight into the post emergency elections which colleagues like P.N. Dhar advised her to undertake. These held in 1977 brought to power the Janata Party, consisting of every political formation under JP’s banner including the tallest leaders of what is today the BJP – Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. The Right had got the opening it was eyeing.
During her brief political wilderness, Indira Gandhi spoke at length of the “foreign hand” in Indian politics. This was in continuation of the “foreign hand” chant sustained by her hand picked Congress President, Shankar Dayal Sharma. Sharma’s “foreign hand” inspired Swatantra Party leader, Piloo Mody to come to the Lok Sabha wearing a placard – “I am a CIA agent.”
An Agatha Christie like twist to this tale was my conversation with Chester Bowles in the US. Afflicted by galloping Parkinson’s disease, Bowles used to whisper into a pipe which his secretary decoded. When he heard of allegations in the Lok Sabha about the CIA having placed a device on the Nanda Devi to spy on the Chinese, Bowles sat up from his reclining position. “But Indira had asked me to.”
Indian independence coincided with the Cold war. Continuous interplay between the external and internal was built into the script. And now that world order, unrecognizably smudged during the Trump years, is reshaping itself with Biden’s inauguration, what lies in store for Indian politics which was fractured in two during Badshah Khan’s 1969 visit?
Curated By Humra Kidwai
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Getting over Headaches
Some headaches may not be dangerous but can be very painful and disrupt your old age. Here are some different types of headaches and there solutions:
Tension of the face, scalp and neck muscles can cause irritation in the nerves resulting in headaches. You need to relax your muscles to release the pain. Take a pain killer; you can also relax the muscles by massage or using hot compress to the forehead or the base of the skull. Try to find the reason and ways to eliminate stress. Sometimes sudden exposure to extreme climate also leads to head aches.
Allergies and infections cause swelling in the sinus tissues leading to headaches. If the cause is infection then a course of antibiotics will be required but incase of allergies you can take anti thestamine. Best way to treat any allergy is to avoid the problem substance. You can also check with your doctor about prescription drugs.
Dilation of blood vessels of neck and head can lead to migraine headaches. It is one of the most common types of headache. It can be accompanied by visual disturbances and nausea. Migraines can’t be cured but they can be controlled. There are certain medicines which give temporary relief.
There are two types of headaches- primary and secondary. Primary headaches are not life threatening and resolve quickly.
You can feel better by simple changes in life style. Diet high in caffeine, cheese, chocolates and nuts can also cause headaches in some people. Other reasons could be- dehydration or weak eyesight. However, if there is vomiting, fever or blurring of the vision with headache then you must consult a doctor immediately.
Remember, do not take headaches lightly, especially the ones that lasts for too long. A small head ache could indicate to several problems that as immatures, we do not understand.
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THE FILM ARCHIVE
Although he started the film with the detached perspective of a cultural researcher, he eventually found himself at the centre of a deadly series of events.
Wolffram went to Papua New Guinea to document the music, dance and cultural rituals of the Lak. He was able to do this with great success.
Harvard University anthropologist Michael Jackson noted of the film: “I know of no more successful or ingenious film that draws the viewer into another life-world while keeping faith with the tenor of its traditional narratives and respecting the lived experience of his/her interlocutors.”
However, Wolffram got more than he bargained for. Over the course of his research he uncovered dark secrets looming in the Lak people's history.
When a man goes missing from the village in which Wolffram is filming, the villagers attribute his disappearance to a giant man who lives in the bush, known in local mythology as Song.
Soon Wolffram finds himself questioning the divide between rationality and mysticism.
Filming in New Ireland was challenging. “It was very difficult to film in because it's a rain forest, and it's very wet,” Wolffram said.
“The area I was filming in was particularly difficult to get in and out of, so I had to carry most of the equipment in on my back, on dirt paths, through the bush. All of my equipment had to be recharged via solar panel.”
Wolffram has an ongoing personal commitment to the Lak people. He gives them half of the royalties collected from screenings of his films and makes regular return visits to PNG.
Stori Tumbuna screened at the 2011 Jean Rouch International Film Festival in Paris, and received the Jean Rouch prize from the San Francisco based Society for Visual Anthropology in 2012.
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- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
Feminist ReviewFeeling Backward is a brilliant book that attempts the "impossible" and succeeds. Using Michel Foucault and Eve Sedgwick as theoretical touchstones, and incorporating Raymond Williams's "structures of feeling," Heather Love "feels backward" to reimagine and connect with aspects of a queer past that had been rendered invisible. In doing so--in risking (as she puts it) the fate of Lot's wife in turning back to revisit a painful past--she embraces the ruins, the "fugitive dead," the loneliness and failures and all the "negative affect" that need to be reclaimed as part of that history...Love moves bravely backwards to that murky time, the "queer life before Stonewall," and then crosses the modernist line backwards to feel what has been lost. In doing so she has made a profoundly imaginative and powerful contribution to queer history.
— Rick Taylor
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Sticky protein helps reinforce fragile muscle membranes
... tough layer of extracellular proteins called the basal
Just as a piece of sticky tape can prevent a pin from bursting a balloon, the sturdy basal
lamina reinforces muscle cell membranes and keeps ... but only if the dystroglycan "glue" affixing the basal
lamina to the membrane is working.
"This study ...
Neural cell transplants may help those with Parkinson's disease
... to insufficient levels of dopamine (DA) in the basal
ganglia of the brain, by using primate models to ... to deliver potent trophic factors throughout the basal
Emborg and colleagues report that ... monitoring GDNF-induced functional changes in the basal
ganglia using pharmacological MRI (phMRI) to ...
Sudden Oak Death pathogen is evolving, says new study that reconstructs the epidemic
... all strains were originally derived from three basal
strains that were most prevalent in the samples ... then plotted out which regions were linked to the basal
strains to create a history of the epidemic.
Two sites emerged as the origin of the basal
strains: Bean Creek in Santa Cruz County, located ...
2 new therapies show promise for cancer patients
... Research by Daniel Von Hoff, MD, FACG, focused on basal
cell carcinoma (BCC) and pancreatic cancer. The ... Healthcares Clinical Research Institute.
In the first trial, a novel molecule, GDC-0449, shrinks tumors in basal
cell carcinoma (BCC) while having limited side ...
Possible drug target found for one of the most aggressive breast cancers
... role in the development of an aggressive form of breast cancer known as basal
"Met has already been associated with decreased ... for treatment of patients with one of the worst types of breast cancer basal
breast cancer," said Dr. Daniel D. Von Hoff, Physician-in Chief of the ...
University of Florida study provides insight into evolution of first flowers
... tree Persea americana, which belongs to an older lineage of so-called basal
"What we found is that the flower of Persea is a genetic ... (stamens), petals (typically colorful) and sepals (typically green). basal
angiosperms have three: carpels, stamens and tepals, which are typically ...
February 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights
... at the base of the volcanic pile is required, and lateral variations in basal
friction are critical. Friction decreasing outward from the center of the ... and elongation of the respective quadrants. The most likely origin for the basal
low-friction zone is in a layer of clay sediment, overpressured by pore ...
'Cross fire' from the brain makes patients tremble
... frequency in a specific core region of the brain, in the thalamus and the basal
ganglia, were not completely synchronous.
With a combination of ... fast and easy stimulus transmission. The signals from the thalamus and the basal
ganglia are, however, transmitted to certain loop-like neuron pathways of ...
Massive dinosaur discovered in Antarctica sheds light on life, distribution of sauropodomorphs
... family Massopsondylidae, which may represent a secondary radiation of basal
sauropodomorphs during the Early Jurassic.
Currently, the development and ... evidence to the theory that the earliest sauropods coexisted with their basal
sauropodomorph cousins, including Glacialisaurus hammeri, during the Late ...
Natural compound in broccoli could treat devastating genetic skin disorder
... proteins co-polymerize to form the intermediate filament cytoskeleton in basal
keratinocytes. Since the discovery in 1991 that EBS is a keratin-based ... chemical activator that would induce the production of missing keratins in basal
epidermis. There are 54 conserved keratin proteins in mammals -- meaning ...
Stem cell 'daughters' lead to breast cancer
... high numbers of luminal progenitor cells," she said.
"Further, our gene expression studies have revealed that BRCA1 breast tissue and basal
breast tumors are more similar to normal luminal progenitor cells than any other cell type in the breast. This places the spotlight on errant luminal ...
The right messenger for a healthy immune response
... when a low amount of Beta-Interferon has already been present before the infection occurs. Scientists call this behaviour "priming". A healthy basal
level of Beta-Interferon facilitates a faster immune reaction against microbial and viral threads.
Researchers from the HZI have now managed to ...
Super-sleepers could help super-sizers!
... are believed to remain deeply asleep during the entire period of dormancy. Furthermore, being cold-blooded, they don't have the need to maintain a basal
level of heat production, minimizing their energy needs.
Researchers capture wave of brain activity linked to anticipation
... "executive" center, which plans and orchestrates complex cognitive behaviors. The premotor cortex and its associated systems, which include the basal
ganglia and the cerebellum, is involved in preparing the body to act perhaps to move or to sing.
"These structures are involved in both thinking ...
January GEOLOGY media highlights
... and composition of the deposits show that during flow, vertical percolation of water through the porous ice-particle-water-air mixture generated a basal
zone of high internal pore pressure. This effect is particularly strong when a thick, high-density flow front forms, which races ahead of the tail, ...
AGU journal highlights -- Dec. 31, 2008
... erosion observed above the scarp. They find that the small landslides may trigger deeper landslides within the fractured layers of the scarp's basal
unit, and may also indirectly influence the retreat rate of the polar scarp in various ways.
Seasonally active frost-dust avalanches on a ...
December 2008 Geology and GSA Today media highlights
... Sea offshore Israel, based on high resolution, three-dimensional seismic imaging. This segment is vertically divided into two sequences: basal
sand-rich sequence deposited in a basin floor setting, and an overlying younger mud-rich sequence, characterized by densely spaced seabed and ...
Exercise increases brain growth factor and receptors, prevents stem cell drop in middle age
... neurotrophic factor which, in turn, promotes differentiation and survival of new brain cells in the hippocampus.
Exercise did not change the basal
level of serum corticosterone in middle-aged mice. This suggests that the reduction of neurogenesis during aging is not due to the drop in ...
Salk researchers successfully reprogram keratinocytes attached to a single hair
... form the uppermost layer of skin and produce keratin, a tough protein that is the primary constituent of hair, nails and skin. They originate in the basal
layer of the epidermis, from where they move up through the different layers of the epidermis and are eventually shed.
While scientists have ...
Revealing the evolutionary history of threatened sea turtles
... while another clade is formed by the hawksbill, loggerhead, Kemp's Ridley and Olive Ridley turtles. The leatherback is confirmed as the most basal
of all the sea turtles, and the Eastern Pacific green turtlethought by some to be a separate speciesfalls within the green turtle species. The ...
Genome of simplest animal reveals ancient lineage, confounding array of complex capabilities
... of the Trichoplax adhaerens genome sequencing is so exciting that we are now culturing another 13 placozoan species in order to identify the most basal
placozoan lineage and genome," said Schierwater.
"Trichoplax is an ancient lineagea good representation of the ancestral genome that is shedding ...
Why a common treatment for prostate cancer ultimately fails
... cancer cells, in the prostate. He also found, surprisingly, that the receptor actually acts as a tumor suppressor in epithelial cells known as basal
cells in the prostate.
Then Chang's team knocked out the androgen receptor in specific sets of prostate cells and studied the results. As ...
Imiquimod, an immune response modifier, is dependent on the OGF-OGFr signaling pathway
... (Aldara, R-837, S26308), the best characterized and most widely used, is highly efficacious in the treatment of external genital and anal warts, basal
cell carcinoma, actinic keratoses, Kaposi's sarcoma, chronic hepatitis C infection, and intraepithelial carcinoma. Therefore, the underlying ...
Michael J. Fox Foundation awards $2.4M for validation of therapeutic targets for Parkinson's
... small-molecule compound libraries for molecules that inhibit a certain type of brain receptor called the NR2D-containing NMDA receptor in the basal
ganglia, a part of the brain involved in Parkinson's disease. His new award will allow him to take this work to the next level, testing these ...
News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
... levels and dopamine uptake were similar for mutant and wild-type transporters, the mutant transporter exhibited greater dopamine efflux under both basal
and depolarized conditions, due to a greater sensitivity to intracellular sodium concentration and a higher affinity for intracellular dopamine. A ...
'Early bird' project really gets the worm
... hawks and eagles; and tropicbirds (white, swift-flying ocean birds) are not closely related to pelicans and other waterbirds.
Shorebirds are not a basal
evolutionary group, which refutes the widely held view that shorebirds gave rise to all modern birds.
The other co-authors of this study include ...
Certain anticancer agents could be harmful to patients with heart disease
... implicated in many different types of cancer, and drugs that impede hedgehog signaling are being tested against several of these cancers, including basal
cell carcinoma (a type of skin cancer), prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer and medulloblastoma (a type of brain tumor). These ...
Genetic sequencing of protein from T. rex bone confirms dinosaurs' link to birds
... better with birds than modern reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards."
While scientists have long suspected that birds, and not more basal
reptiles, are dinosaurs' closest living relatives, for years that hypothesis rested largely on morphological similarities in bird and dinosaur ...
AMNH scientists grace Science & Nature covers
... the overlap to reconstruct the family tree. But what Wheeler and colleagues found uprooted parts of the tree of life: sponges, once thought to be basal
(diverging earliest from all others in the group) among animals because of their simple organization and lack of a nervous system, were found in this ...
Promising new drug targets identified for Huntington's disease
Huntington's disease is one of a number of degenerative diseases marked by build up of a malformed proteins in brain cells, mainly in the basal
ganglia and the cerebral cortex. Normally, cells dispose of or recycle their waste material, including unwanted or misfolded proteins, through a ...
Regulation of TATA-less promoters
... colleagues reveal how histone gene expression is differentially regulated during Drosophila development. The researchers demonstrate that different basal
transcription factors drive expression of the histone gene cluster, lending new insight into the regulation of metazoan transcription.
"This study ...
Soft drinks alone do not affect children's weight
... consumed a similar amount of soft drinks to their leaner contemporaries. Importantly, the study used estimates of the subjects energy expenditure and basal
metabolic rate to screen out those who were likely to be under-reporting their intakes.
Writing in the International Journal of Food Sciences ...
Muscle mass: Scientists identify novel mode of transcriptional regulation during myogenesis
... and will be published online ahead of its September 1 print date at www.genesdev.org .
For nearly 30 years, we have assumed that the basal
transcription machinery, particularly the highly conserved TBP and TFIID complex, would be invariant and universal for all cell types in eukaryotes. ...
Rising skin cancer rates are more likely to affect wealthy people, says 12-year review
... showed that the three most common skin cancers - basal
cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and ... and increased levels of malignant melanomas and basal
The team looked at data ... men were 30 per cent more likely to suffer from basal
cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin ...
Selective marker found to indicate aggressive form of breast cancer
... could represent a selective biological marker for basal
epithelial breast tumors, a highly aggressive ... cancer before it has a chance to come back."
epithelial tumors lack important molecular ... means of determining if a breast cancer is a basal
epithelial tumor ?doctors only know for certain ...
Need to pull an all-nighter?
... production in a specific region of the brain ?the basal
forebrain ?is both necessary and sufficient to ... ?they found that nitric oxide production in the basal
forebrain, but not in other parts of the brain, ... renders it inactive.
In contrast, when the basal
forebrain was infused with a nitric oxide "donor" ...
Pleasure and pain: Study shows brain's 'pleasure chemical' is involved in response to pain too
... active in areas of the brain region known as the basal
ganglia, the same region where it has been ... differences emerged in specific sub-areas of the basal
ganglia. For example, the more a person rated the ... dopamine release in two other areas of the basal
ganglia ?the putamen and caudate nucleus ?was ...
Breast stem cells have features similar to 'basal' tumors
... markers. These characteristics also define the basal
subtype of breast cancer, which is more commonly ... very early descendents, are the cells from which basal
tumours arise. Dr Visvader, who led the team ... targets against breast cancer, particularly the basal
subtype." Currently drugs such as Tamoxifen, the ...
Living taste cells produced outside the body
... of undifferentiated precursors known as basal
Understanding of the process of taste ... starting with mature taste cells, they obtained basal
cells from rat taste buds and placed these cells ... and growth factors. In this environment, the basal
cells divided and differentiated into functional ...
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Amid the Illinois state House's looming consideration of a marriage equality bill, some of Chicago's most prominent black religious leaders remain split on the matter of same-sex marriage.
On Friday, a coalition of seven African-American pastors joined Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George to speak out against the "redefinition of marriage," the Chicago Tribune reports. Among the black religious leaders were Pastor James Meeks of the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, Bishop Willie James Campbell of Chicago's Church of God in Christ and Bishop Lance Davis, senior pastor of the New Zion Christian Fellowship Church in suburban Dolton.
"We are biblically, spiritually against it. The Bible is our guide, our road map," Campbell said Friday, according to the Tribune.
George added Friday that he believes legal same-sex marriage would "destabilize" the meaning of the institution of marriage, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Meanwhile, other black religious leaders are taking the opposite position and urging the state legislature to take its one remaining step to bring marriage equality to Illinois. On Thursday, a group of about a dozen African-American faith leaders expressed their support for legal same-sex marriage, ABC Chicago reports.
"The African-American community, first of all, is not a monolithic community on this issue," the Rev. Richard Tolliver of St. Edmunds Church, said Thursday, according to ABC.
With support for marriage equality among the state House rumored to be nearing the number of votes needed for passage, the bill's fate is said to lie, largely, in the hands of black lawmakers.
According to a Tribune report, the state House's 20 black members are being seen as the key swing votes going forward and are being lobbied heavily by both sides on the matter.
Estimates for when the bill will come up for a vote have been pushed back in recent weeks, but LGBT advocacy group Equality Illinois CEO Bernard Cherkasov told the Windy City Times late last month that supporters are "inching toward" the 60 votes they need for success.
As the state Senate and a House committee have already approved the bill, an OK from the full House is the only obstacle remaining for the measure aside from a signature of Gov. Pat Quinn, who supports marriage equality.
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This year marks the 450th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism. This Protestant document was written in Heidelberg in 1563 on behalf of Frederick III, Elector Palatine and spread over the world when it was approved by the Synod of Dort in 1619. A new volume has recently been released to commemorate this important event in church history—Power of Faith: 450 Years of the Heidelberg Catechism, edited by Karla Apperloo-Boersma and Herman J. Selderhuis. See flyer from the German academic publisher, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, here.
In this 454 page hardcover book, respected specialists in their fields present how the Heidelberg Catechism spread and influenced culture, education and ecclesiastical life. In addition to the text, over 700 pictures illustrate the contributions making an attractive volume for display. This work includes the following contribution co-authored by Michael A. G. Haykin and me: “To ‘concenter with the most orthodox divines': Hercules Collins and his An Orthodox Catechism—a slice of the reception history of the Heidelberg Catechism.”
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The ongoing crisis in Ukraine could further increase the semiconductor shortage that the auto industry is currently battling. According to auto consultants and experts, both Russia and Ukraine supply raw materials used in semiconductor chip manufacturing, and with the current geopolitical situation there that sourcing link would be seriously jeopardized. Result: longer waits for vehicles and price hikes as OEMs look for alternative sourcing arrangements.
Said Rohan Kanwar Gupta, VP & sector head ICRA: “The impact (of the war) would emanate from the issues around semiconductor chip production, as Russia and Ukraine are both suppliers of the components used in semiconductor manufacturing. Ukraine is an important source and supplier of raw materials, such as semiconductor-grade neon used in semiconductor manufacturing, and Russia is a key source of palladium which is used in memory and sensor chips. Thus, a long-drawn-out war could impact chip supply and constrain production levels across segments,” he added.
Just how important a sourcing hub are Russia and Ukraine? Said Hemal Thakkar, director, CRISIL Research: “Russia is probably the largest producer of Palladium ( over 40% of global mine production), which is essential for memory and sensor chips along with several other rare-earth metals. Ukraine is a leading producer and exporter of Neon gas that is used for several processes in the manufacturing of semiconductors like etching circuit designs into silicon wafers to create chips.” The immediate hit will be on the US because of the supply dependence. “Ukraine supplies a large part of the US’s semiconductor-grade neon gas which is integral in the chip-making process, while Russia supplies about a third of the US’s palladium supply, a rare metal that can be used to create semiconductors,” said Thakkar. China is the next largest supplier of neon gas.
Nor would the pinch be in petrol and diesel vehicles alone. Said Ravi Bhatia, president, JATO Dynamics: “The automotive sector in some parts of the world is hugely reliant on Ukrainian-provided rare gases like neon, krypton, xenon, and everything from EV battery cells to superconductors are now on an even tighter supply line so and prices will go up.” What’s worse is this comes just when the supply hiccups were easing out. “The automobile industry has been through a series of shocks which were just stablising and while the conflict is isolated in one corner of the world even a small component missing can slow down the supply chain,” added Bhatia.
The auto industry has battled a crippling chip shortage all of calendar 2021 and ICRA had earlier said that it has shaved off half a million units of sales from the passenger vehicles industry. Best-selling models are currently at 1-6 month waitlist and even market leader Maruti is not yet on peak production level though utilisation has improved from 40% in September to 90% in January.
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Calling all animal lovers: We need advocates to promote Just One Day, our campaign for a national No Kill day on June 11, 2012. We are asking animal shelters across the USA to take a pledge not to kill any savable animals on that day. For Just One Day, “Euthanasia Technicians” will put down their syringes and pick up cameras. Instead of injecting animals with lethal doses of sodium pentobarbital, they will photograph them and post them on the Internet, on Facebook, on twitter. On June 11, 2012, they will market their animals to the public, they will reach out to rescue groups, they will host adoption events with discounted rates, they will stay open for extended hours, and they will ask their communities to help them empty the shelter the good way.
Instead of going into body bags in freezers, the animals will go out the front door in the loving arms of families. At the end of the day, the shelters will be emptier than when the day started with no one being killed in order to make that happen. And if they can do it then, they can also do it on June 12 for Just Another Day. . .
All but 10 states are represented by at least one shelter. We need Arkansas, Hawaii, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Maine, Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Vermont to step up to the plate. Help us fill these remaining states on the map!
Learn more: www.justoneday.ws
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It always feels hollow and weird writing about beauty, hair and fashion in the wake of a natural disaster. Maybe people who have been affected really want that escape, that burst of happiness and lighthearted news in the wake of their devastation. Seeing the footage on the news of Hurricane Sandy swept away all the lightheartedness from my spirit.
I spend a fair amount of time back and forth between Chicago and New York, and to see NYC so waterlogged and devastated, is heartbreaking. The scenes from Queens, the Jersey Shore, and the places Sandy hit before coming to the mainland — the DR, Haiti and Jamaica — have been equally devastated. Seeing these images can make you feel helpless. How can you help?
ABC News has a great piece on ways you can help Hurricane Sandy victims. Organizations like the Red Cross don’t need canned goods and blankets — items like that require staff to process them. Right now they need CASH donations. To donate, visit www.redcross.org, call 800-Red-Cross or text the word “Redcross” to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
Blood drives have been cancelled and victims will need donations, so schedule an appointment to donate blood for those in New York and New Jersey if you can.
There are ways you can help, and ABC News has a list of others. Click there to find a charity you’d like to support.
Everyone who has been affected by Hurricane Sandy — please know we are thinking of you and sending you love, strength and solidarity.
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The Red Hat Linux Distribution Computer Science
Red Hat Linux is a distribution which includes the basic Linux operating system with a number of free applications. These include a fully featured office suite as well as graphics and multimedia programs that can satisfy most users. Comparable Microsoft programs cost many hundreds of dollars for each computer.
Linux is fast becoming the major alternative to Microsoft windows. As a server, it includes all the tools that might be needed to configure and administer a wide variety of networks.BASIC COMPONENTS OF LINUX
Linux can be broken down into a number of modules. The modular nature of Linux allows developers to work independently and more efficiently. The six categories of modules associated with Linux are kernel, network, init, daemons, shells, utilities, XWindows.KERNEL
The kernel is the most important part of any Operating System. It allows Linux and any software that you install to communicate with the computer hardware. It does this through dedicated device drivers.NETWORK
Linux computers are most commonly organized in a client/server network. Some computers act as work stations or clients for users; others are servers, which control resources shared by multiple users on different workstations.INIT
When Linux is booted on the computer, the kernel loads and starts init. The init program then mounts your drivers, and starts your terminal program, known as mingetty. When logging in the terminal program starts command line interface shell. After Linux boots the computer, init watches for anything that might shut down the computer such as power failure etc.DAEMONS
A Daemon is a computer program that runs in the background, rather then under the direct control of a user, they are usually initiated as background processes.SHELLS
Shell is a user program or it's environment provided for user interaction. Shell is an command language interpreter that executes commands read from the standard input device (keyboard) or from a file. Shell is not a part of system kernel, but uses the system kernel to execute programs, create files etc.UTILITIES
From a certain point of view, Linux can be seen primarily as a set of utilities bonded together by a common kernel. These utilities form the "toolkit" model that has endeared Unix to programmers, system administrators, and advanced users for over three decades. It is frequently the utilities that attract new users to Unix in the first place.
Linux utilities come in two basic flavors: open source and commercial. Some commercial products, such as RealPlayer, are available for free, while others, such as the BRU tape backup software, are available for a fee. The majority of Linux utilities are free, open-source packages.X WINDOWS
The X-Window-System is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for networked computers, and was initially developed as part of Project Athena. It implements the X display protocol  and provides  windowing  on  raster graphics (bitmap) computer displays and manages keyboard and pointing device control functions. In its standard distribution, it is a complete, albeit simple, display and human interface solution, but also delivers a standard toolkit and protocol stack for building graphical user interfaces on most Unix-like operating systems and OpenVMS, and has been ported to many other contemporary general purpose operating systems. Desktop environments of Unix-like operating systems offer the X Window System.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SOLARIS OPERATING SYSTEM
Solaris is a UNIX based Operating System introduced by Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, in 1992 as the successor to SunOS.
Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, and for originating many innovative features such as DTrace and ZFS. Solaris supports SPARC-based and x86-based workstations and servers from Sun and other vendors, with efforts underway to port to additional platforms.FEATURES OF SOLARISSOLARIS SOURCE COMPATIBILITY
The Solaris OS is built from a single source base and features the same programming interfaces on any supported platforms. This means that applications developed for SPARC systems can be easily recompiled for x86 systems and vice versa.PREDICTIVE SELF HEALING
The Solaris Operating System introduces a new architecture for building and deploying systems and services capable of Predictive Self-Healing. This feature has advanced backgrounds error detection, correction and recovery, which proactively offlines components before system failure.SOLARIS ZFS
The Solaris ZFS file system is designed from the ground up to meet the emerging needs of a general purpose file system that spans the desktop to the data centre. ZFS is a highly scalable and provides excellent performance with end to end data integrity.SOLARIS DTRACE
Designed to be more powerful than any diagnostic tool, DTrace is an excellent dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting your network and turning system performance in real time. DTrace lets you see your entire system in a way that reveals systematic problems that were previously invisible and fixing performance issues that used to go unresolved.ADVANCED SECURITY
The Solaris OS is designed to provide comprehensive, in-depth security, helping to protect the enterprise at multiple levels. Specific features include Solaris containers technology for application isolation, secure by default for system network hardening. Solaris Process rights Management, and an encryption infrastructure that makes it easy for applications to take advantages of high-grade cryptographic algorithms and acceleration hardware.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------MAC OS X
Mac OS X is a uniquely powerful development platform, bringing a 32-bit and 64-bit architecture and multiprocessor capability to the desktop and server arenas. It provides an extremely productive high-level programming environment, Cocoa, combined with the full power of real UNIX®, as well as a host of open source web, scripting, database, and development technologies.FEATURES AND THEIR USAGE:
Mac OS X includes a number of easy-to-use technologies that play a dual role as great applications and system services, allowing developers to enhance their applications with iChat Theater, Time Machine, Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, and VoiceOver.iCHAT THEATER
iChat Theater takes instant messaging far beyond simple text-into the world of multimedia, allowing you to to share audio and video. As a developer, you too can access these features and create applications that intelligently determine who is online, share video, and control iChat through AppleScript.TIME MACHINE
Time Machine is the new file backup and recovery technology on Mac OS X. As a developer, you can take advantage of Time Machine to set the backup policy for files created by your application.SPOTLIGHT
Spotlight is an advanced search technology that is tightly integrated with the file system, ensuring that a file is properly indexed with every access. You can use Spotlight queries from within your application, and if your application uses unique file types, you can provide a Spotlight plug-in that handle your files.DASHBOARD
Automator helps you streamline repetitive everyday manual tasks quickly, efficiently, and easily without programming.VOICEOVER
Mac OS X also includes VoiceOver, the spoken interface designed for those with visual and learning disabilities. For developers, the Accessibility API in Mac OS X helps you build applications that are accessible to assistive technologies, so you can bring your application to as broad an audience as possible.ARCHITECTURE
Mac OS X provides outstanding stability and performance. It starts with a 64-bit, open source UNIX core. Apple integrated the widely-used FreeBSD 5 UNIX distribution with the Mach 3.0 microkernel to deliver key functionality and a solid foundation. Preemptive multitasking, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), and protected memory form the cornerstones of this foundation.GRAPHICS INTERFACE
Mac OS X is built around a powerful, integrated stack of graphics technologies, including OpenGL, Core Animation, and Core Image. These provide a solid foundation for application developers to create great applications. Mac OS X's multithreaded graphics layer handles application windowing, 2D and 3D drawing, animation, and multimedia. Together, the subsystems of the graphics layer provide fast, elegant graphics to the operating system and to your application, making possible cutting-edge user interface features.RUNTIME FLEXIBILITY
Mac OS X provides several runtime environments, all of which integrate under a single desktop environment. Whether you prefer an object-oriented application framework, procedural APIs, a highly-optimized and tightly integrated implementation of Java SE, BSD UNIX APIs and libraries, or X11, you can run it all on the Mac OS X desktop.DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
Mac OS X provides you with a full suite of free developer tools to prototype, compile, debug, analyze, and optimize your applications, speeding up your development cycle. Xcode 3 includes a robust Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for writing applications, libraries, and drivers, and a complete set of developer documentation. Underlying Xcode is GCC 4, an Apple-optimized version of the popular open source compiler, plus the GNU Debugger (GDB). Xcode also includes Interface Builder, an easy-to-use graphical editor for designing and managing your application's user interface. Whether you code in Objective-C, C/C++, or another popular language, Xcode can handle it.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SYMBION OPERATING SYSTEM
Symbian OS is an operating system designed for mobile devices and smartphones, with associated libraries, user interface, frameworks and reference implementations of common tools, originally developed by Symbian Ltd. It was a descendant of Psion's EPOC and runs exclusively on ARM processors, although an unreleased x86 port existed.
Symbian features pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection, like other operating systems (especially those created for use on desktop computers). EPOC's approach to multitasking was inspired by VMS and is based on asynchronous server-based events
Symbian uses a microkernel, has a request and callback approach to services, and maintains separation between user interface and engine. The OS is optimized for low power battery-based devices and for ROM-based systems ( e.g features like XIP and re-entrancy in shared libraries). Applications, and the OS itself, follow an object-oriented design: model view controller(MVC).
Symbian platform is the open source operating system and software platform for mobile devices created by merging and integrating software assets contributed by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Symbian Ltd. (through the Symbian Foundation), including the Symbian OS assets as its core. It is being actively developed by the Symbian Foundation.
Symbian OS has made considerable improvements in security. Symbian OS was subject to a variety of viruses, the best known of which is Cabir. Usually these viruses were transferred through Bluetooth communication between the mobile phones. But so far, none have taken any advantage of any flaws in Symbian OS - instead, they have all asked the user whether they would like to install the software, with somewhat prominent warnings that it cant be trusted.DEVELOPMENT ON SYMBIAN OPERATING SYSTEM
The native language of Symbian is C++, although it is not a standard implementation. There were multiple platforms based upon Symbian OS that provided SDKs for application developers wishing to target Symbian OS devices.
Symbian devices can also be programmed using Python, Java ME, Flash Lite, Ruby, .NET, Web Runtime(WRT) Widgets and Standard C/C++.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98
In nearly 25 years since its initial release in the fall of 1985, Microsoft Windows has established itself as the industry standard graphical environment for personal computers built around Intel microprocessors. Since then several versions of Windows have been released, the latest being Windows 7 released in 2009. But overhere windows 98 will be discussed since major changes took place in windows 98 from its predecessor Windows 95.
After Windows 95 microsoft released Windows 98 and added several new enhancements to this version. The significant in Window's 98 enhancement is the active desktop which merges internet connectivity with the windows 98 desktop. Also Windows 98 includes several features to improve reliability and increase performance.
Windows 98 was the first operating system to use the Windows Driver Model (WDM). This fact was not well published when Windows 98 was released and most hardware producers continued to develop drivers for the older driver standard, VxD. The WDM standard spread years after its release, mostly through Windows 2000 and Windows XP, because these systems are not compatible with the older VxD standard. Today, even if hardware producers are not developing drivers optimized for Windows 98, the drivers written to WDM standards are compatible with Windows 98 based systems.WINDOWS 98 SYSTEM TOOLSScanDiskÂ
System utility used to maintain the file system. It offers a DOS and a GUI version. Used to check the integrity of the file system and files stored within.Disk DefragmenterÂ
Used to counter the negative effects of filesystem fragmentation. It collects fragmented file parts, reconnects them and rearranges all files in optimal order, thus speeding up file access and allowing faster boot times.Scanreg
Used to restore the System registry. It tests the registry's integrity and saves a backup copy each time. The maximum amount of copies could be customized by the user through "scanreg.ini" file. Due to a bug the oldest registry copy available cannot be restored (before restoration, the current configuration is backed up and it erases the oldest registry backup listed). The restoration of a faulty registry can only be done in DOS mode. Important DOS commands: scanreg/opt - optimizes the registry by deleting dead entries; scanreg/fix - repairs registry settings.MsconfigÂ
A system utility used to disable programs and services which are not required to run the computer. It is a very powerful tool that can greatly enhance the system's stability and speed, but is also capable of rendering the system non-functional if used incorrectly.Regedit
Allows manual editing of the registry.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apple Site (internet).
Beginning Red Hat Linux 9 (book)
And Several other sites with little content.__________________________________________________________
Article name: The Red Hat Linux Distribution Computer Science essay, research paper, dissertation
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Sure - I scanned it from the magazine, but they'd probably be interested in knowing too
Generally speaking, a chaloupe is frequently referred to as a boat that is similar to but bigger than a canot. They dont have decks (open), and with the rigging as you can see in the photo (but they can be row boats too). If you say chaloupe 10 times really fast you get sloop. Indeed these little guys in the photo could be fairly well described as open double-masted gaff-rigged sloops, but isn't is much easier to say "petites chaloupes"
I would say it is more of a connotation word than an actual descriptive term, as chaloupe's describe a large number of boat types.
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Evaluation of Prophylactic and Therapeutic Effects of Silymarin on Diazepam-Induced Hepatotoxicity in Cats
Bahman Mosallanejad, Reza Avizeh and Hossien Najafzadeh
DOI : 10.3844/ajassp.2011.848.853
American Journal of Applied Sciences
Volume 8, Issue 9
Problem statement: Diazepam is commonly administered for seizure control and appetite stimulant in cats. Cats may develop acute fatal hepatic necrosis after receiving oral diazepam for several days. The aim of this study was to detect the protective action of silymarin on diazepam-induced hepatotoxicity in cats. Approach: About 25 healthy cats were randomly allotted to five equal groups. Animals in Group A were given diazepam (repeated dose 2.5 mg kg-1, p.o. q 12 h for 4 days); Group B consisted of cats that received silymarin (30 mg kg-1, p.o. q 12 h for 4 days) concurrent with diazepam administration; Group C were received silymarin like Group B, but 24 h after diazepam administration; Group D were received silymarin like Group C, but 48 h after diazepam administration; Group E were received silymarin like Group D, but 72 h after diazepam administration. The serum concentrations of Alanine Amino Transferase (ALT), Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST), Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP), Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) and total and direct bilirubin were measured before diazepam administration and 24, 48, 72 and 96 h later as indices of liver injury. Results: Repeated oral administration of diazepam significantly elevated serum concentrations of ALT, AST, ALP, LDH and total and direct bilirubin in cats of Group A, after 48 h. In both the Groups (B and C) receiving silymarin, levels of serum enzyme activities and total and direct bilirubin remained within the normal values, but the Group D and E which received silymarin 48 h and 72h later, levels of serum enzyme activities and total and direct bilirubin were increased with comparison to before diazepam administration. Conclusion: It was concluded that silymarin can protect liver tissue against oxidative stress in cats with diazepam intoxication particular in the first 24 h after exposure.
© 2011 Bahman Mosallanejad, Reza Avizeh and Hossien Najafzadeh. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Achacon Family History & Genealogy
Achacon family photos, ancestor biographies, and history created by you and the AncientFaces community.
Latest photos on AncientFaces
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Achacon Surname History
Add to this page! This history of the Achacon last name is maintained by the AncientFaces community. We do not have content for the following sections:
- Achacon family history
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- Achacon spelling & pronunciation
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Achacon Country of Origin, Nationality, & Ethnicity
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No content has been submitted about the Achacon country of origin. The following is speculative information about Achacon. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The nationality of Achacon is often complicated to determine because regional boundaries change over time, making the nation of origin a mystery. The original ethnicity of Achacon may be in dispute as result of whether the name came in to being naturally and independently in various locales; e.g. in the case of names that are based on a craft, which can come into being in multiple regions independently (such as the name "Clark" which evolved from the profession of "clerk").
Achacon Meaning & Etymology
No one has submitted information on Achacon meaning and etymology. Add to this section
No content has been submitted about the meaning of Achacon. The following is speculative information about Achacon. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The meaning of Achacon come may come from a craft, such as the name "Fisher" which was given to fishermen. Some of these craft-based family names may be a profession in another language. Because of this it is essential to research the country of origin of a name, and the languages used by its progenitors. Many names like Achacon are inspired by religious texts such as the Bhagavadgītā, the Quran, the Bible, and other related texts. Commonly these names relate to a religious expression such as "From the ash tree".
Achacon Pronunciation & Spelling Variations
No one has added information on Achacon spellings or pronunciations. Add to this section
No content has been submitted about alternate spellings of Achacon. The following is speculative information about Achacon. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
In times when literacy was uncommon, names such as Achacon were transliterated based on how they sounded when people's names were recorded in government records. This could have led to misspellings of Achacon. Researching misspellings and spelling variations of the Achacon surname are important to understanding the history of the name. Family names like Achacon change in their pronunciation and spelling as they travel across villages, family unions, and languages over the years.
Last names similar to AchaconAcha-coppen, Achacoso, Achacquintana, Achad, Achadi, Achadinha, Achado, Achadz, Achaea, Achael, Achaemen, Achaemenid, Achafen, Achaffert, Achag, Acha-gavarai, Achague, Achaguer, Achah, Achahbar
Achacon Family Tree
Here are a few of the Achacon biographies shared by AncientFaces users. Click here to see more Achacons
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Influenza Pandemic Preparedness
Figure. Distribution of responses identifying which goal should be the top priority for pandemic influenza planning and response (n = 107). During the conference, attendees were split into five groups for a breakout session. At the beginning and end of each such session, each attendee was given anonymous questionnaires. Each group had the same first question, in which attendees were asked to choose one of five options for top priority for influenza pandemic planning. This figure shows the frequency distribution of the attendees’ choices.
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Among the most important things bird owners must do to keep their pets happy and healthy is feed their pets a variety of foods. Retailers can lay the foundation by offering an assortment of bird diets, but they should also be prepared to help steer customers in the right direction by arming them with the information they need to make wise decisions for their pet birds.
A high-quality pellet diet made specifically for the species owned, or for the bird group the bird belongs to, can make up the main part of a pet bird’s diet–up to 60 percent or so. When it comes to birds, one diet does not fit all, so deciding on what other types of food should be offered also depends on the species of bird being fed.
In the Wild
The best way to determine what else to feed a pet bird is to look at where the bird originally came from in the wild, since most avian species kept in captivity have not been “domesticated” for as long as our most popular furry pets. Many macaws ingest nuts regularly in their wild diet, for example, and therefore should be given nuts in captivity. Most of the finch species eat lots of seeds and grains in their native habitats, so giving a quality seed mix as part of their diet in captivity is important. This is also true of budgerigars, also known as parakeets, and cockatiels as well. It is difficult to know, however, all the types of food that a bird eats in the wild. That is why it’s important to feed a variety of food items to caged birds to try to cover all their nutritional needs.
Most species of birds eat greens and vegetables in the wild and for some, this can be a large part of their native diet. All caged birds need to be offered fresh, and preferably organic, greens and vegetables in good proportions every day. Most greens and vegetables are safe to feed birds, although giving them darker colored ones are better, as greens such as iceberg lettuce have little nutritional value. Sprouted seed from a caged-bird seed mix is great for birds and more nutritional than straight seed. If the bird owned is a species known for having certain vitamin or mineral deficiencies, then the owner must feed more of those vegetables that have the nutrients needed. For example, African species including the African grey parrot need to get more vitamin A in their diet, so owners should feed them more bright orange and red-colored vegetables, such as carrots, sweet potatoes and red peppers.
Cooked grains can be great for almost all caged birds, and there are many great mixes available on the market–the owner simply needs to add water and cook. Birds enjoy warm food, although owners must be careful as this can sometimes initiate a breeding response that includes all the hormonal challenges that go with it.
Fruit is good for pet birds but should not be given in large quantities for most species. Citrus should be limited, while berries are loaded with nutrients, and birds usually enjoy them thoroughly. Stick with organic fruit when possible if the fruit is not to be peeled. Point out to owners that some fruits, like blueberries, may change the color of the poop, and this is normal.
Almost all fruit is okay to feed birds except avocado. This is poisonous to them and should never be offered. Never offer birds any fruit seeds or pits either.
Birds can get some other types of “people” food on occasion, as long as the food is not salty, greasy (fatty) or sugary. In other words, stick with the healthy food items and avoid the junk food, especially chocolate, as it is also poisonous to birds.
Many birds enjoy whole-wheat dry toast, pasta and healthy cereals. Small amounts of meat can be included. Chicken breast and hard-boiled eggs, for example, can be excellent sources of protein and nutrients, especially for breeding birds. Birds should not be feed any dairy foods, including milk and cheese.
Owners should be informed that birds are a lot like kids when it comes to food. Any new food will be avoided, and just because the bird likes a certain food does not mean it is good for them to eat. They have taste buds like ours in a way and enjoy the junk food, but it should not be fed to them. After all, we can control exactly what they are being offered, but the problem is getting the birds to eat the right kinds of food.
Giving the food warm can be helpful in getting a bird to try something new. Pellets can be moistened a bit and then warmed up to help get the birds going in the right direction, if they are used to eating a seed-only diet. Advise bird owners to slowly start offering more and more of the “good” food and less of the not so great food that they are used to eating. But warn owners not to switch to a new diet quickly as a bird will starve to death before it eats any new, unfamiliar diet.
Getting a bird to eat new vegetables, fruits and other types of healthy “people” food may be difficult but not impossible. Be sure the food is cut into small pieces for smaller birds like finches. Parrots can use their hooked bills to chew off pieces and some are more willing to try a new food, like a piece of broccoli, if it is hung up in a chunk.
Putting the new food in a treat cup can sometimes help. Eating the food in front of the pet bird, especially if it’s a tame parrot, may also inspire it to try something new. Tell owners to try spreading a mix of nutritious food items over a large part of their bird’s main diet so their pet at least has to move the new food to get to their regular diet, which in turn has them tasting the new tidbits.
Remind bird owners to be patient and to be sure to offer the same food item over and over again until the bird is finally eating it. It took almost four months of offering cooked corn every day before my New Zealand parakeet finally started eating it.
Robyn Bright has a master’s degree in parrot biology and more than 35 years of pet retailing experience.
Eating Like a Bird
August 1, 2011
Birds require varied, species-specific diets to be healthy, and retailers can help their bird-owning customers make the best possible food choices for their pets.
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How to Play the Chess OpeningProduct Code: B0039DV
Author: Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
Year of Publication: 1971
Notation Type: Descriptive (DN)
Book DescriptionWith keen appreciation of the amateur's usual limitations, International Grandmaster Eugene Znosko Borovsky explains the importance of rapid development of the pieces, occupation of the center, the relation of the opening to the general plan of the player, and significance of control of the center.
Media Mail Eligible
Media Mail® shipping from the US Postal Service is the cost-effective way to ship Books, Software and DVDs. With shipping rates starting at only 4.00, it's the most affordable shipping method available.
|Publication Date||Jan 1, 1971|
|Notation Type||DN - Descriptive|
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Power4Home.com is a website from John Russell, an electrician who created the Power4Home system to help teach regular people how they can slash their electric bills in half, or more.
Over the past four years, Russell claims that he has helped over 100,000 people learn how to create personal, individual power sources in their very own backyards, and to “get off the grid,” with homemade solar panels and wind turbines.
As a professional electrician, Russell says that commercial solar panels are incredibly expensive considering that the materials needed to make solar panels are actually very cheap.
In fact, he claims that he purchased all the materials needed to make his at home solar panels for under $100.00, and then spent one day in his garage assembling all the pieces until he had his very own professional grade solar panels at a fraction of the cost.
In addition, he says that you can add a small scale wind turbine to your backyard power factory as well, for both similar costs and time investment. And doing this will not just slash your electric bill, but sometimes allow you to store your own energy and even receive money from the electric company.
His step-by-step system includes both videos on how to create your own solar panels and wind turbine, as well as illustrated manuals so that you are walked through the entire process.
Russell also includes bonus gifts, one of which is the package of IRS tax rebate forms you must fill out in order to receive tax credits from the government in reward for switching over to renewable energy sources.
The Power4Home Pro 2.0 system sells for $49.97 and is a Clickbank product, which means that if you have complaints about the materials you receive, you have 60 days to return it and receive your money back, no questions asked, so those afraid of a scam have that reassurance.
If you’re familiar with this system, please leave your Power4Home reviews below.
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Precious, December 2001
Precious, a three year old black Lab mix had been in a Massachusetts animal control facility for two months when North East All Retriever Rescue heard about her. Precious had been taken in as a stray and was named bythe animal shelter staff. Her foster mom told us "In the years I've done lab rescue, I don't think I've ever seen a dog with as excellent a temperament as Precious. She is an extraordinary girl."
LABMED was contacted after Precious had to be rushed to the emergency clinic. She had not been eating for a few days and had developed a swelling in her leg. The vet discovered an abscess on her thigh and determined she was septic. She was on IV all night and monitored.
Precious improved tremendously at the clinic and now her vet and foster mom had to decide if she needed surgery. The surgeon did an ultrasound to find out how many pockets of bacteria were in Precious' body and decided to go ahead with surgery to clean out two abscesses. Shortly after the surgery, Precious was standing again and the swelling on her leg has gone down a lot. Her temperature and blood pressure improved and she started eating and drinking. While she was not "out of the woods" yet, her surgeon was optimistic. Two days after surgery, Precious - now renamed Annie - was able to go home. NEARR had already raised a large amount of funds and LABMED helped with the rest of the bills.
Precious has already found her forever home and was renamed once again. Now Daisy, she is enjoying the care and love of her new family and the occasional play date with her foster brothers.
Copyright � 1996-2011 LABMED
If you have questions or comments, Contact Us.
Give us your Feedback about LABMED.
Web space donated by San Mateo Regional Network
Last Updated: 4/1/2011
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|Protesters in Suez attempt to enter hospital to retrieve body of dead protester, January 26, 2011|
Reuters/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany
There is nothing surprising in the Sisi government’s anticipatory prep work for the five-year anniversary of the revolution. For weeks now, media shills have disseminated a message of terror, assuring viewers of the state’s violence if they dare go out on the streets. More subtle though no less vicious, Hamdeen Sabahy, once an opposition maverick and now one of Sisi’s civilian stooges, was trotted out in an interminable interview to deliver the same warnings. Sisi himself is trying to reclaim the date as a police commemoration, surrounding himself with the families of killed police officers like so many props.
The only surprise is the transparency of the fear gripping Egypt’s rulers. For a military clique hyper-concerned about projecting an image of effortless control, the package of anticipatory measures virtually screams panic and insecurity. This is odd, since Sisi’s government has already updated a law criminalizing public demonstrations; filled prisons with both critics and supporters of the Muslim Brothers; imprisoned the elected president, Dr. Mohamed Morsi, on outlandish charges, with no international censure to speak of; turned the civilian political class into adjuncts of military rule; and shows no compunction about arresting and/or killing peaceful demonstrators and passersby. So why the fear?
It seems to me that the most lasting legacy of Egypt’s revolution is not that it banished fear within the population, or somehow imbued Egyptians with a new consciousness that they didn’t have before. The majority of Egyptians have always been and are acutely aware of the workings of oppression in their lives. Like other subjugated people, they have no illusions about how arbitrarily and violently they’re ruled, they just lack the means to change it. For a brief, wondrous interlude in 2011-2013, a breathtaking historic accident, they outflanked their rulers and made themselves sovereign. One day, they went out to protest police brutality, and in short order, toppled a thirty-year autocrat, threw out some governors and other mini-dictators, bitterly fought over a new constitution, freely elected a parliament and president, and practiced other forms of politics with a gusto and sense of purpose unseen even during Egypt’s other great revolt in spring 1919.
The wonderfully subversive happening that was the 2011 revolution put fears in the hearts of Egypt’s privileged castes: the military generals who basked in unearned assets and a false mystique of professionalism; the business clique that grew out of the illegitimate union between public power and private wealth; and a pathetic, parasitic cultural elite animated by nothing more than hatred for the general population and its ‘primitive,’ ‘traditional’ ways.
Even though they’ve decisively recaptured the summits of state and economy, I don’t think that this generation of military generals, big bureaucrats, crony capitalists, and cultural hacks will ever forget the humiliation and displacement that January 25th meant to them. I think they more than any of us will always remember the concrete, daily details of living through a popular uprising, when ordinary people with no connections and no education (oh the horror!) acted like masters, insolently demanding a full public accounting for every decision, every ordinance, every utterance, every public office from base to summit.
Egypt’s revolution was defeated, its extraordinary details willfully forgotten, its magnitude belittled, its meanings reduced to dumb clichés. But in the traumatized memories of a grasping ruling class, it remains evergreen, a terrifying interlude of mass emancipation.
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Skip to comments.Spending Bills Passed by GOP House Increased Debt $1 Trillion in 10 Months
Posted on 01/11/2012 5:54:58 PM PST by tsowellfan
(CNSNews.com) - Federal spending bills approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have increased the national debt by more than $1 trillion dollars in just 10 months.
Republicans won a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2010 elections and took control of the House on Jan. 5, 2011, when the chamber convened and elected Rep. John Boehner (R.-Ohio) as speaker.
But the Republican-controlled House did not gain a veto power over federal spending until March 4, 2011. That was the expiration date of the continuing resolution (CR) that the lame-duck Democrat-controlled Congress approved in December 2010. After March 4, federal spending has been approved by legislation that needed to be approved in the Republican-controlled House.
On March 1, 2011, the Republican-controlled House passed its first CR to fund the government after March 4. Since then, it has approved a series of CRs to keep the government funded. The Republican House approved its latest CR on December 16. It will keep the government funded until the end of fiscal 2012 on Sept. 30.
Eighty-six House Republicans went against their party leaders and voted against the Dec. 16 CR, which actually garnered more votes from House Democrats (149) than House Republicans (147).
When the Republican-controlled House approved its first CR on March 4, 2011, the national debt was 14,182,627,184,881.03, according to the U.S. Treasury. As of the close of business on Jan. 9, 2012, the national debt was 15,236,506,139,986.86.
That means the debt increased by $1.05 trillion over the past ten months.
That equals approximately $8,964 for each of the 117,572,000 American households estimated by the Census Bureau.
At the current rate, the Republican-controlled House is agreeing to allow the U.S. Treasury to borrow approximately an additional $896 per month American household per month.
Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." Article 1, Section 7 says that every bill shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate
before it become a Law.
John Boehner MUST go!
Tea Party Member Challenges John Boehner in 2012
The conservative states must unite and defend their citizens from the communist run DC liars, thieves, fools and depraved politicians who destroy America both morally and fiscally every day.
DC needs to be flushed away, disbanded and destroyed never to rise again. Federal government is an evil institution of scum and criminals.
If the US debt goes up by $1T every 10 months, and if drastic, painful, politicially suicidal budget cuts of $1T are implemented and spaced out over the next 10 years, then what will our debt be in 2022?
“John Boehner MUST go!”
I agree. Can one imagine Mitt as President, with Boehner the Speaker of the House and McConnell in charge of the Senate. It would be a RINOfest.
The House holds the purse strings. This will leave a mark and is what Crybaby Boehner SHOULD be crying about.
Where's Boehner's pink slip? Never mind...it's Bush's fault that our debt is so high./s
You said it kindred......you said it! May I pull the trigger?..(the toilet trigger that is):). There’s a few people up there that are so outnumbered their desire to straighten things out is a lost cause. :(
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Do you mean the tea party clowns that said, if elected, they would stop the spending and get the debt under control???
They are all worthless. The Tea Party is a joke.
So put your money where your mouth is. Medicare, Social Security, Defense, Unemployment.
Which of these programs are you prepared to completely zero out?
Because that’s what it’s going to take. And the problem is only going to get worse as we go along.
This is why I’m favorable to Ron Paul, he’s the only one that seems to grasp the depth of the problem. Not that I’m pushing him on this thread. Just pointing out that most of the GOP, including Freepers, seem to have their head in the sand about the gravity of the problem.
To balance the budget, we will need to completely zero out two or three entitlements and/or cut defense spending down to Pre WWII levels. Nothing else will do.
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The Facilities Branch in the Division of District Support partners with local school districts to help build a statewide education facility infrastructure that supports student performance by providing an equitable and adequate learning environment for all students.
The branch provides assistance to school districts by reviewing and approving all sites, new buildings, additions, alterations of existing buildings, energy savings projects and hazardous material abatement from initial construction project application through final completion. The branch also reviews and approves property disposal and property lease agreements, and assists districts with construction finance.
A KDE District Facilities Branch Project Manager (DFB Project Manager) is assigned to each school district. These project managers are licensed architects who review and process facility planning and construction project submittals and provide guidance regarding statutes and regulations during the planning and construction processes.
Please address correspondence to the district's assigned DFB Project Manager and Cc: the District Facilities Branch Manager, Greg Dunbar.
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A lot of people wait until the first of year to set goals and make life changes, but I think the change of seasons is a good time to think about these things, especially when it comes to energy use and saving strategies. Heating and cooling account for roughly 43% of an average home's energy use, so as the weather changes, how you use and save much of the energy for your home will obviously change as well.
It's for these reasons that we created the seasonal Energy Savers Web site, which teaches you to stay cool and save money in the spring and summer, and stay warm and save money in the fall and winter.
Since tomorrow is officially the first day of fall, it's time to think about how you'll stay warm and comfortable without spending a lot of money. Even if it still feels like summer where you live, cold weather is on the way for many of us, and it's important to be prepared.
In addition to the first day of fall, the start of Energy Awareness Month in October makes this a great time to really focus on saving energy. DOE's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) has materials that encourage everyone to "Take Aim for Clean Energy."
While FEMP is focusing on promoting energy savings at federal facilities, we at Energy Savers would like to encourage you to think about energy savings where ever you may be—at work, at home, or at school—and consider starting your own energy-saving campaign for Energy Awareness Month. Some of the materials that you can download directly from FEMP's Energy Awareness Month site will help you get started.
Let us know in the comments how you plan to save energy this fall, and how you plan to observe Energy Awareness Month.
E-mail your responses to the Energy Saver team at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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International Organizations Call on Iran to End Persecution and Prosecution of Women’s Rights Activists
(9 April 2009) In a letter to President Ahmadinejad the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition, together with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, called on Iran to release Alieh Eghdamdoust and stop its increasing persecution and prosecution of women human rights defenders.
President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
We, the undersigned members of the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition, submit this statement to express our deepest concerns regarding the imprisonment of Alieh Eghdamdoost, as well as the recent arrest of 12 other human rights defenders in Iran.
Alieh Eghdamdoost, together with dozens of other activists, was arrested at a women’s rights demonstration in Tehran in June 2006. On July 6, 2007, she was sentenced to a prison term of three years and four months, and 20 lashes. On appeal, the prison term was reduced by four months, and the judge overturned the lashings. Her sentence of three years is now being implemented, making her the first woman to have a sentence related to women’s rights activism actually implemented. Eghdamdoost was taken from her home on January 31, and has been held in Evin prison since. The fact that Eghdamdoost has been sentenced to a three-year sentence that she is now forced to serve, while some others arrested on the same day faced no charges, were acquitted, or received suspended sentences, demonstrates the completely arbitrary nature of these judicial proceedings. Her imprisonment also sets a dangerous precedent for all women engaged in human rights activism in Iran.
The implementation of Eghdamdoost’s sentence is taking place against a backdrop of increased repression of all human rights defenders, including women’s rights activists. Reliable sources have reported that on March 26 Iranian security forces detained 12 members of the One Million Signatures Campaign and Mothers for Peace, as they were sitting in their cars on a street corner in Tehran, preparing to make New Year’s visits to the family members of some prisoners of conscience.
The One Million Signatures Campaign, launched in August 2006, is a grassroots movement to raise awareness about gender-based discrimination in the law and to promote gender equality. Mothers for Peace are a diverse coalition of women seeking to promote a culture of peace in Iran and who condemn all forms of military aggression. Both groups employ peaceful methods to promote their message, whether through disseminating petitions, collecting signatures, or organizing and presenting lectures. As such, we consider members of both groups to be human rights defenders.
The twelve individuals arrested on March 26 were: Ali Abdi, Delaram Ali, Bahara Behravan, Farkhondeh Ehtesabian, Shahla Forouzanfar, Arash Nasiri Eghbali, Mahboubeh Karami, Khadijeh Moghaddam, Leila Nazari, Amir Rashidi, Mohammad Shoorab, and Soraya Yousefi.
After three days, ten of them were released on bail, but two activists, Mahboubeh Karami and Khadijeh Moghaddam, were kept in detention.
On April 5, the ten released activists were charged with “disturbing of public opinion,” and “disruption of public order,” charges all ten deny.
The two others, Karami and Moghaddam, who were also due to be arraigned on April 5, did not appear in court on that day. The deputy prosecutor informed their attorneys that they would be brought the following day, but in fact were kept in jail. In the end, Karami was released on April 7, and Moghaddam on April 8. Moghaddam faces charges in connection with a protest Mothers for Peace held on January 11, against Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
We strongly object to the arrest, detention and prosecution of these human rights defenders. The frequent arrest and prosecution of human rights defenders for non-violent exercise of their freedom of expression has been inconsistent with Iran’s obligations under international law.
Even more concerning, based on the facts as we understand them, the persons arrested on March 26 were not engaged in a public activity, but were planning visits to private residences at the start of the New Year, as is customary amongst Iranians. The circumstances of their arrest simply do not even remotely support lodging charges such as “disrupting public order,” or “disturbing public opinion,” and appear as deliberate efforts to silence and intimidate these activists. We note, with great concern, that since the One Million Signatures Campaign has been launched, dozens of its members have been arrested, summoned for interrogation, monitored, banned from travel and prosecuted.
The efforts of these activists to promote gender equality and a culture of peace should be applauded, not hampered. The U.N. Declaration on Human Rights Defenders stipulates that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels.” The actions of the Iranian authorities stand in stark violation of this principle.
We urge the authorities to reverse their ruling on Eghdamdoost’s case and release her from detention.
Furthermore, we call upon the authorities in Iran to drop all charges against all 12 activists arrested on March 26, and further, to cease the repression and prosecution of all peaceful human rights defenders in Iran.
Thank you for your attention to these urgent matters.
Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development
Asian Forum for Human RIghts and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
Baobab for Women’s Human Rights
Front Line, The International Foundation for Human Rights Defenders
Human Rights First
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific
Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
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Introduced society to a whole new thing. Changed the views of how people thought of certain things like, love, social class, social codes, and etc.
Shakespeare’s sonnets were very influential on the readers as it changed their views on the topics he wrote about and broadened their minds.
He influenced us by language and writing
William Shakespeare's sonnets influenced society in a very deep way because they gave the society new philosophies about life and love. As it is a very famous line from his sonnet that all the world is a stage. So that's why they deeply affected society.
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Mary Magdalene and the women at the tomb on Easter morning ... a sketch for an icon of the Resurrection by the Monk Gregory Kroug, iconographer
Sunday 16 April 2017
9 a.m., Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin, Tarbert, Co Kerry.
Readings: Acts 10: 34-43; Psalm 118: 1-2; 14-24; Collosians 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-8.
In the name of + the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
How many of you find it difficult to get up early in the morning?
I used to find it difficult to get up early on two different types of mornings. There were those mornings when I was a schoolboy and I knew I had not done my homework. I found it difficult not so much to wake up as to get up: to face up to my responsibilities, and to take the consequences of not meeting my own responsibilities.
And there were those mornings I found it difficult to get up because I had been allowed to stay up too late the night before. I was not in trouble, but my body sure was.
But, looking back on my childhood, there were mornings when it was not difficult to wake up early in the morning at all. What about you?
● Christmas morning was an easy morning to wake up early. Perhaps looking for Santa’s presents. It was exciting. There was a lot to look forward too.
● Your birthday: birthdays are always full of surprises when you are young and full of life.
● The morning of a big football or hockey match, or a music competition you had entered: and your stomach was full of butterflies.
● There was the morning when we were starting our holidays: when I was at the beginning of an exciting time, setting off on a journey, somewhere wonderful, when I knew it was going to be exciting and I was going to have a great time.
And then there are times of sadness, times when you have slept uneasily because of what lies ahead:
● Being woken up in the dark, fearing what is happening outside, or even in the house inside, those nights when you are unable to get back to sleep, wondering and worrying about what has happened.
● Before going into hospital to have a test or an operation.
● The night before a funeral, especially the funeral of someone you love and who has been close to you.
These are sad times to remember, although years later we are glad those doctors operated, glad to look back with fond memories on members of our family, because long after they have died we still love them and their love for us is still real.
In our Gospel reading this morning, we are told how Mary Magdalene was up while it was still dark, long before morning had broken. It was Passover. But her reasons for being awake while it was still dark and for rising early are not because of any holiday excitement or expectation. She could not sleep the night before because someone very precious – the most important person in her life – had died.
And yet this story moves from one that begins with being one of the saddest reasons for getting up so early, to being one of the most joyful reasons for being up early in the morning.
At the beginning, it is as though she was going through the worst of times in her life.
But then the story suddenly changes. It is as though all her Christmases, all her birthdays and all her holidays have come together, and much, much more.
Jesus has died, died in the most awful way, late on Friday, and he was buried late on Friday evening, just as it was getting dark.
Then, Saturday was a day when no-one in the Jewish world could do anything. You could not open the fridge, turn on the light, cook the dinner. The small group of people who had buried Jesus had to wait until early on Sunday morning to go and sort out things at the grave.
Well, Mary did not get to sort them out. Because it had been such a hurried burial, things would have been in a mess. He would not have been put in a proper shroud. His eyes would not have been set closed ... all those messy things that most of us do not have to even think about these days, thanks to the professionalism of funeral directors.
And Mary went to the tomb, probably bringing with her spices and nice clothes, and things like that … things that remind me of the swaddling clothes that Jesus was wrapped in as a baby, and the spices the Wise Men brought to him as his first birthday presents on that first Christmas.
And when she gets to the grave, there is a greater shock waiting for her. The stone has been rolled away, and the body is missing.
Could someone have been there before her?
So, she runs back and tells Simon Peter and John the Beloved Disciple.
Now, I have to admit, we men are not very good at making deductions – at looking for the whole picture. When these two men look inside the tomb, at first they take everything at face value. They see the neatly-folded linen wrappings and the head cloth in the grave.
We are told that they see and believe. But belief does not lead to faith or action. Instead of looking around to see where Jesus might be, what do they do? They return to their homes.
If we had relied on what they had done after what they had seen, would we have ever realised the significance of that first Easter?
They look inside, they see an empty grave, and then they go home again.
But Mary has come back to the garden, and decides it is worth hanging on to see what has happened. And because she waited, because she wondered, because she questioned, she was there to have first encounter with Jesus as the Risen Lord.
She now realises what it was all about. What those past three years with Jesus were all about. What Jesus was trying to say to them all the time as he preached, as he told them parables, as he healed, as he went fishing, as he had meals with them and as he fed them all.
Can you imagine her excitement? A dark night of waiting has been turned into the most glorious morning. The spices and clothes they were bringing are no longer needed. Instead, here is the most wonderful present possible. Human hate been defeated by God’s love.
She is so excited that she cannot help herself from hugging onto Jesus so tight that he has to tell her, not ‘Do not hold onto me,’ as it is translated so often in an insipid way, but in the original Greek Μή μου ἅπτου, which might be better translated as ‘stop holding onto me,’ or ‘stop clinging onto me.’
Oh that we would all want to cling onto the Risen Christ so tightly. Oh that we were all filled with such joy in Christ, not just on Easter morning, but every morning.
Because nothing can ever be that bad any more. Because God loves ... you.
Easter means that all the fears we have in the middle of the night, all the fears you have early in the morning, are nothing compared to how God wants to take care of you, mind you, love you, to have you cling on to Christ and for Christ to cling onto you.
God has rolled away all the big stones that get in the way between you and him, between me and him, between us and him. We only have to look for ourselves and to believe. And that is why Easter should be better, is better, that all the Christmases and all the birthdays and all the other special treats rolled together.
And so, may all we think, say and so be to the Glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
John 20: 1-18
1 Τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἔρχεται πρωῒ σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου. 2 τρέχει οὖν καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς Σίμωνα Πέτρον καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἄλλον μαθητὴν ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς, Ηραν τὸν κύριον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου, καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. 3 Ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Πέτρος καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητής, καὶ ἤρχοντο εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον. 4 ἔτρεχον δὲ οἱ δύο ὁμοῦ: καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς προέδραμεν τάχιον τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ ἦλθεν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, 5 καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια, οὐ μέντοι εἰσῆλθεν. 6 ἔρχεται οὖν καὶ Σίμων Πέτρος ἀκολουθῶν αὐτῷ, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον: καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα, 7 καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον. 8 τότε οὖν εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς ὁ ἐλθὼν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν: 9 οὐδέπω γὰρ ᾔδεισαν τὴν γραφὴν ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι. 10 ἀπῆλθον οὖν πάλιν πρὸς αὐτοὺς οἱ μαθηταί.
11 Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω κλαίουσα. ὡς οὖν ἔκλαιεν παρέκυψεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, 12 καὶ θεωρεῖ δύο ἀγγέλους ἐν λευκοῖς καθεζομένους, ἕνα πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἕνα πρὸς τοῖς ποσίν, ὅπου ἔκειτο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. 13 καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῇ ἐκεῖνοι, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὅτι Ηραν τὸν κύριόν μου, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. 14 ταῦτα εἰποῦσα ἐστράφη εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, καὶ θεωρεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἑστῶτα, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν. 15 λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; τίνα ζητεῖς; ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν λέγει αὐτῷ, Κύριε, εἰ σὺ ἐβάστασας αὐτόν, εἰπέ μοι ποῦ ἔθηκας αὐτόν, κἀγὼ αὐτὸν ἀρῶ. 16 λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μαριάμ. στραφεῖσα ἐκείνη λέγει αὐτῷ Ἑβραϊστί, Ραββουνι (ὃ λέγεται Διδάσκαλε). 17 λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μή μου ἅπτου, οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα: πορεύου δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου καὶ εἰπὲ αὐτοῖς, Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν. 18 ἔρχεται Μαριὰμ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἀγγέλλουσα τοῖς μαθηταῖς ὅτι Ἑώρακα τὸν κύριον, καὶ ταῦτα εἶπεν αὐτῇ.
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14 When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.15 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16 Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”.’ 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
you have overcome death
and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
Grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The risen Christ came and stood among his disciples and said,
Peace be with you.
Then were they glad when they saw the Lord.
(John 20: 19, 20)
Above all we praise you
for the glorious resurrection of your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord, the true paschal lamb who was sacrificed for us;
by dying he destroyed our death;
by rising he restored our life:
Post Communion Prayer:
for our redemption you gave your only-begotten Son
to the death of the cross,
and by his glorious resurrection
you have delivered us from the power of our enemy.
Grant us so to die daily unto sin,
that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his risen life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God the Father,
by whose glory Christ was raised from the dead,
raise you up to walk with him in the newness of his risen life:
Go in the peace of the Risen Christ. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!
(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Priest-in-Charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes and Canon Precentor in the cathedral chapters of Limerick, Killaloe and Clonfert. This sermon was prepared for Saint Brendan’s Church, Kilnaughtin, Tarbert, Co Kerry, on Easter Day, 16 April 2017.
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At the entrance to not so small Mexican pueblo not far from the where I am doing my fieldwork, a homemade banner waves in the afternoon breeze. It's not really a banner—it's a white sheet that has been spray painted with a message for all passersby. The sign proclaims support for a large scale mega-development that has everyone in the region in an uproar. Some people are against it, since they fear that it will pillage the environment, rob them of fresh water, and turn these desert landscapes into scenic afterthoughts for the eighteenth hole. This is a distinct possibility. Others, however, cry out in support of the project. They want the jobs. And who can blame them? It's not like there are exactly a ton of jobs around here. Nobody is getting rich, so when some large international developer says that they are going to bring in 19,000 new jobs, people listen.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the once verdant wetlands have been completely ground away to carve out the beginnings of a new harbor and marina. Soon, the hotels will be built—and the golf courses. Always golf courses. All of this will require water, which isn't exactly abundant around these parts. Down the road, the conservationists fight to save the region, to make their case for finding a way to keep things as they are—at least to an extent. But the pressure of possibilities—those 19,000 jobs—pushes people apart. Real estate values skyrocket, people make the hard decision to sell their lands. But where does all of this lead? Where can it lead? If this isn't an ecology laden with politics, I don't know what is.
So here I am: the researcher, putting myself in the middle of all this. And the question is this: What am I going to do? Write a nicely worded article that will appear in some handsome and reputable academic journal? Or will I actually do something? Because these political ecologies aren't just here, they are everywhere. The politics of human-environment relationships are undeniably pervasive. See, for example, the ways in which the landscapes of my own home town are also being churned and transformed to make room for 18-holed, water sucking, wetlands-destroying leisure-scapes:
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It is with a heavy heart that we learned yesterday of the death of Dr. Joep Lange, his longtime companion Jacqueline, and many other HIV researchers and advocates in the plane crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. Like others on the plane, Joep was on the way to the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne. We have lost a major advocate and talented researcher for HIV therapy and prevention to this terrorist act. So ironic that people who dedicate their lives to helping others are taken from us in such a senseless way.
Joep was a past president of the IAS, he was the organizer of the HIV Vaccine Conference in Amsterdam and he was an active member of the EAB of the HVTN for many years. I have known and worked with Joep for over 25 years. Joep was best known for his work on the natural history of HIV and the development and implementation of antiviral chemotherapy. He was also a major advocate for HIV prevention and vaccine development. He was one of the original leaders of the Amsterdam cohort, conducted many clinical trials of combination ART, and was a major voice in getting ART therapy into Africa both for treatment of adults, as well as MTCT. He was known for his quiet sardonic wit, his attention to detail, his sharp common sense, and his ability to be forthright in his opinion. He was the best of a scientific advocate; data driven and with a tremendous heart and moral compass. His presence was always felt and he made an enormous impact on the health of people in the world. He will be missed and we must pledge to keep his principles close to our hearts and values.
Dr. Larry Corey
Principal Investigator, HVTN
President and Director Emeritus, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
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Panorama A tour of Prague’s most important cemeteries
At this time of year, Prague’s cemeteries are carpeted with red and yellow leaves, and in this chilly weather, you are quite unlikely to bump into that many other visitors. Prague’s thirty-or-so city maintained cemeteries offer a step back from the hustle and bustle and traffic jams of the metropolis - and provide the visitor with a glimpse into the Czech capital’s history as well.
“So here we are in the Olsany Cemetery, which is the oldest burial ground in Prague outside of the old city walls. It’s also the biggest burial ground in all of the Czech Republic. If I’m not mistaken, I think around 1.5 million people are buried here.”
The graveyard, located on 46 hectares in the Prague 3 area, has a rather colourful history.
“This cemetery was founded when a plague epidemic struck Prague at the end of the 17th century. It was too dangerous to bury plague victims in the middle of the city, beside their local church, as was custom. The king ordered Prague councillors to buy a patch of land outside the city walls. So they bought this ground here in Olsany, which was at the time outside of Prague, and they started to bury plague victims out here. And as time went on and Prague grew bigger, it was no longer just plague victims who were buried out here, but normal inhabitants of the new town as well.”
Olsany Cemetery is so big that it is difficult to find your way around. To combat this, and attract more people into the cemetery, Father Szabo came up with the idea for a series of signs, offering visitors something of a guided tour:
“It was when I was walking around this cemetery and I realised that no one came here. I realised that all of the graves were bare, and that busts and statues were missing; they had been stolen by thieves, precisely because this was a deserted place with no one looking after it. And this is when I discovered that really quite a few famous, or at least remarkable, people were buried here. So it was then that I started to come to this cemetery often, to clean up the graves, note down names, then go hunting for information in various archives etc. The first information board was put up a year and a half ago. And then the idea really took off, and now today we have 24 signs up around the cemetery.”
Perhaps the highest concentration of famous names can be found in the graveyard at Prague’s Vysehrad, built on a rock overlooking the River Vltava and one of the most important places in Czech history and mythology. The author Jan Neruda, composer Antonin Dvorak and opera singer Ema Destinova are among the dozens of important cultural figures buried there. The last resting place of many of them is a pantheon called Slavin.
“There is still one space free in this tomb, but I think burying people in Slavin is a closed chapter now. Because the idea of burying dead people in the place that they worked, or where they lived or near their family, is the one that predominates in society today. It was like that with the Nobel-prize winning poet Jaroslav Seifert; his grave is in Kralupy, just north of Prague, where his parents are buried.”
Mr. Potocek shows me inside the pantheon. It is splendid, with a mosaic ceiling and marble floor. But how does it compare to, say, its namesake in Paris?
“Obviously, you can’t compare Slavin with the Pantheon in Paris or the Wallhalle in Bavaria. They are much bigger in scale and were established for other reasons. There is one particular difference which I think exists between Slavin and them. In Paris, there are all sorts of people buried in the Pantheon, and in Germany, it is predominantly great soldiers who are buried in the Wallhalle. But here, it’s painters, writers, artists. So that’s the difference between our Slavin and these big grand pantheons which you find elsewhere.”
Petr Kovarik is the author of a guide to Prague’s graveyards. I asked him to take me to one of his favourites, and so early on a crisp Tuesday morning, we met outside the gates of the New Jewish Cemetery, back in Prague 3, and not to be confused with the Old Jewish Cemetery in the centre of the city.
I asked him why he liked to visit cemeteries where he had no relatives buried:
“Each cemetery has its own particular charm. In almost every one you will find some sort of work of art. Graveyards are like open-air galleries in a way. People also call the Jewish cemeteries here in Prague gardens. And they really are like gardens in certain respects. They are very often like public parks too. In Prague we don’t have that many big parks, and cemeteries like the one on Olsanske namesti and as well the one we are in now – the New Jewish Cemetery – can be described as public parks. And when you walk around a cemetery, it is like reading a book you have never read before. You learn a lot of things. A cemetery is like an encyclopaedia or dictionary.”
“So here we can see on Franz Kafka’s grave – because not only Jewish people visit this place – that people have left flowers. Some have even left fake flowers, which don’t look right – perhaps they don’t know Jewish traditions. Someone has even planted a Christmas tree on his grave which is decorated every year. This is a decidedly Christian tradition, which is utterly out of place here.”
Meanwhile, over at Vysehrad Cemetery, Jewish traditions are having an impact on the grave of the great Czech poet Karel Hynek Macha. Again, here’s Vaclav Potocek, explaining how a handful of chestnuts have ended up on the poet’s tomb:
“There is a rather interesting story surrounding these chestnuts on his grave. These chestnuts, and the stones. You know that Jewish cemeteries are often covered in these little stones? Well, this goes back to the forty years that the Israelites spent crossing the desert. When someone died during this time, for practical reasons, they covered the body in stones. This was so that wild animals and scavenging birds didn’t tear the body to shreds. And so from this we have the custom of laying stones on Jewish graves, which lasts until today. People have even started to do that here in this Christian cemetery too. And we even find people making Christian symbols, like crosses, out of stones on the graves here. And when stones aren’t available, people use chestnuts.”
When I asked my guides whether they had heard any ghost stories about Prague’s cemeteries, all three replied that I was much more likely to bump into a ghost in Prague’s Old Town than in any of these graveyards. So, maybe don’t go to the cemetery in Prague if you are looking for a scare, but do go if you are looking for a walk which will take you through centuries of Czech history.
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Aristotle: Highest End To All Things Is Aristotle: Highest End To All Things Is Happiness Aristotle argues things people do aims at some end or end. The highest end to all of these things is attaining happiness. I maintain that it is impossible for a human being to be happy according to Aristotle's definition due to the fact that he sets strict conditions of perfect virtue thus happiness. Aristotle suggests that happiness is not a state, but rather we count happiness as an activity.
He argues that happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue. This cannot be true, because if one, at anytime, acts outside of perfect virtue than he has undermined the whole "activity.' Aristotle argues that happiness is not found in amusement for it is too incongruous to end in amusement, and that our efforts and sufferings would be aimed at amusing ourselves. I argue that happiness can be found in amusement. When one is amusing himself he is said to be happy. But this does not agree with Aristotle's theory of perfect virtue. Aristotle contests that the happy life seems to be in accord with virtue, which involves serious actions, not amusing ones.
Thereby Aristotle is saying that things taken seriously provide happiness as opposed to funny things that provide amusement not happiness. I maintain that one cannot act in continuous perfect virtue, consistently take things seriously, and engage in serious action. This would make for an impossible doing by a human being. For one cannot act in perfect virtue all the time. Does this mean he will never attain happiness? Aristotle's definition of happiness is utilitarian. What Aristotle is arguing is theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness for the greatest number, the most virtuous.
To become virtuous, one must do what virtuous people do. Virtuous people do what makes them become virtuous. I maintain that not for a complete life can one act in accord to virtue. I show that one can be in accord with perfect virtue at any given time, but not all the time because human beings live on greed. One has the want for more. It is not that one is not coherent in this greed, because human beings know and can reason.
Therefore, once any greed arises one is acting outside of perfect virtue thus never attaining happiness. I maintain this not to be true. For under no circumstance can a human being never once yearned for more no matter what his disposition is. Happiness is conditioned. It is communal. Happiness is not a precise science.
Aristotle argues that happiness requires both complete virtue and a complete life. Aristotle says this because life entails reversals of fortunes and good and bad. Aristotle speaks of Priam in the Trojan stories in how he had a miserable end so you cannot count him as happy. I disagree in that one cannot say he was not happy up until that point. One cannot discount a man whole life due to one incidence.
One cannot say that Priam was never happy during his lifetime. Again, Aristotle strict conditions of perfect virtue in attaining happiness devour one's chance of ever being happy according to Aristotle. Further qualifying the impossibility as it relates to his definition. I have showed that it is impossible for someone to be happy according to Aristotle's definition due to his strict conditions of perfect virtue and thus happiness. One cannot act in accord to perfect virtue for a complete life. This should not deny a human beings claim of being happy in his lifetime.
Yes, human beings are trying to attain some good or end, but not necessarily as Aristotle views it.
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It’s the brand that defined a generation of executives and started much of the smartphone revolution. Even President Obama, photographed on Air Force One mid-email, made much of his ‘addiction’ to BlackBerry.
Complete details here.
Rejoice Blackberry lovers (currently in minority) your favorite platform will get a shot in the arm soon. Visa has approved the technology which will enable Blackberry users to swipe mobile phones and make the payments. It was announced on Wednesday by RIM that Visa has given the green signal for RIM to develop the technology which will enable this.
“It’s a good sign to see that the hardware providers and the carriers and the financial institutions are becoming increasingly co-ordinated on how they’re gong to go to market on this,” said Doug Macdonald, senior manager at Deloitte Canada. “The more these types of standards being approved the better it is for consumers.”
More than 1600 customers in North America had registered for the program which helps the customers to ease the transition to Blackberry 10 and Blackberry Enterprise Server 10. Customers included more than 60 Fortune 500 companies and top Government organizations. Shares of RIM which fell as low as $6.22 in September, have more than doubled in value since.
RIM’s announcement will likely increase the interest of mobile phone payments in US where the adoption has been low due to security concerns and long standing habits of using credit cards. In Japan and South Korea, people have already been using this from the past decade to pay their transportation costs which was helped in large by the co-operation between carriers and banks.
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7 Kiselv, 5773
Kislev is usually a merry month leading up to the festival of Chanuka, when Jews routed out Syrian Greeks from the Holy Land and our Holy Temple (eventually destroyed by other enemies). But the Code RED Gen is facing the sorrow and violence foisted upon us by another of our millenial-long Jew haters.
Things are a bit more serious
Find out how some of us are nurturing our mental health at Coping as the Code Red Gen http://community.
In Recovery Mode from a medical or mental health situation?
Want to be?
Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter holiday season no matter what's going on: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.
Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.
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May 29, 1879
TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
After mature consideration of the bill entitled “An act making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty, and for other purposes,” I herewith return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections to its approval:
The main purpose of the bill is to appropriate the money required to support, during the next fiscal year, the several civil departments of the Government. The amount appropriated exceeds in the aggregate eighteen millions of dollars.
This money is needed to keep in operation the essential functions of all the great departments of the Government—legislative, executive, and judicial. If the bill contained no other provisions, no objection to its approval would be made. It embraces, however, a number of clauses relating to subjects of great general interest, which are wholly unconnected with the appropriations which it provides for. The objections to the practice of tacking general legislation to appropriation bills, especially when the object is to deprive a coordinate branch of the Government of its right to the free exercise of its own discretion and judgment touching such general legislation, were set forth in the special message in relation to House bill number one, which was returned to the House of Representatives on the 29th of last month. I regret that the objections which were then expressed to this method of legislation have not seemed to Congress of sufficient weight to dissuade from this renewed incorporation of general enactments in an appropriation bill, and that my constitutional duty in respect of the general legislation thus placed before me cannot be discharged without seeming to delay, however briefly, the necessary appropriations by Congress for the support of the Government. Without repeating those objections, I respectfully refer to that message for a statement of my views on the principle maintained in debate by the advocates of this bill, viz., that “to withhold appropriations is a constitutional means for the redress” of what the majority of the House of Representatives may regard as “a grievance.”
The bill contains the following clauses, viz:
“And provided further, that the following sections of the Revised Statutes of the United States, namely, namely, sections two thousand and sixteen two thousand and eighteen, and two thousand and twenty, and all of the succeeding sections of said statutes down to and including section two thousand and twenty-seven, and also section fifty-five hundred and twenty-two, be, and the same are hereby repealed;” *** “and that all the other sections of the Revised Statutes, and all laws and parts of laws authorizing the appointment of chief supervisors of elections, special deputy marshals of elections, or general deputy marshals having any duties to perform in respect to any election and prescribing their duties and powers and allowing them compensation, be, and the same are hereby repealed.”
It also contains clauses amending sections 2017, 2019, 2028, and 2031 of the Revised Statutes.
The sections of the Revised Statutes which the bill, if approved, would repeal or amend, are part of an act approved May 30, 1870, and amended February 28, 1871, entitled “An act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other purposes.” All of the provisions of the above-named acts, which it is proposed in this bill to repeal or modify, relate to the Congressional elections. The remaining portion of the law, which will continue in force after the enactment of this measure, is that which provides for the appointment, by a judge of the circuit court of the United States, of two supervisors of election in each election district, at any Congressional election, on due application of citizens who desire, in the language of the law, “to have such election guarded and scrutinized.”
The duties of the supervisors will be to attend at the polls at all Congressional elections, and to remain after the polls are open until every vote cast has been counted, but they will “have no authority to make arrests, or to perform other duties than to be in the immediate presence of the officers holding the election, and to witness all their proceedings, including the counting of the votes, and the making of a return thereof.” The part of the election law which will be repealed by the approval of this bill, includes those sections which give authority to the supervisors of election “to personally scrutinize, count, and canvas each ballot,” and all the sections which confer authority upon the United States marshals and deputy marshals, in connection with the Congressional elections. The enactment of this bill will also repeal section 5522 of the Criminal Statutes of the United States, which was enacted for the protection of the United States officers engaged in the discharge of their duties at the Congressional elections. This section protects supervisors and marshals in the performance of their duties by making the obstruction or the assaulting of these officers, or any interference with them by bribery or solicitation, or otherwise, crimes against the United States.
The true meaning and effect of the proposed legislation are plain. The supervisors, with the authority to observe and witness the proceedings at the Congressional elections, will be left; but there will be no power to protect them, or to prevent interference with their duties, or to punish any violation of the law from which their powers are derived. If this bill is approved, only the shadow of the authority of the United States at the National elections will remain—the substance will be gone. The supervision of the elections will be reduced to a mere inspection, without authority on the part of the supervisors to do any act whatever to make the election a fair one. All that will be left to the supervisors is the permission to have such oversight of the elections as political parties are in the habit of exercising without any authority of law, in order to prevent their opponents from obtaining unfair advantages. The object of the bill is to destroy any control whatever by the United States over the Congressional elections.
The passage of this bill has been urged upon the ground that the election of members of Congress is a matter which concerns the States alone; that these elections should be controlled exclusively by the States; that there are and can be no such elections as National elections; and that the existing law of the United States regulating the Congressional elections is without warrant in the Constitution.
It is evident, however, that the framers of the Constitution regarded the election of members of Congress in every State and in every district as, in a very important sense, justly a matter of political interest and concern to the whole country. The original provision of the Constitution on this subject is as follows:
Sec. 4 Article 1. “The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.”
A further provision has been since added, which is embraced in the fifteenth amendment. It is as follows:
“Sec. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
“Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Under the general provision of the Constitution, (section 4, article 1,) Congress, in 1866, passed a comprehensive law which prescribed full and detailed regulations for the election of Senators by the Legislatures of the several States. This law has been in force almost thirteen years. In pursuance of it all of the members of the present Senate of the United States hold their seats. Its constitutionality is not called in question. It is confidently believed that no sound argument can be made in support of the constitutionality of National regulation of Senatorial elections which will not show that the elections of members of the House of Representatives may also be constitutionally regulated by the National authority.
The bill before me itself recognizes the principle that the Congressional elections are not State elections, but National elections. It leaves in full force the existing statute under which supervisors are still to be appointed by National authority, to “observe and witness the Congressional elections whenever due application is made by citizens who desire said elections to be “guarded and scrutinized.” If the power to supervise, in any respect whatever, the Congressional elections exists, under section 4, article 1, of the Constitution, it is a power which, like every other power belonging to the Government of the United States, is paramount and supreme, and includes the right to employ the necessary means to carry it into effect.
The statutes of the United States which regulate the election of members of the House of Representatives, an essential part of which it is proposed to repeal by this bill, have been in force about eight years. Four Congressional elections have been held under them, two of which were at the Presidential elections of 1872 and 1876. Numerous prosecutions, trials, and convictions have been had in the courts of the United States in all parts of the Union for violations of these laws. In no reported case has their constitutionality been called in question by any judge of the courts of the United States. The validity of these laws is sustained by the uniform course of judicial action and opinion.
If it is urged that the United States election laws are not necessary, an ample reply is furnished by the history of their origin and of their results. They were especially prompted by the investigation and exposure of the frauds committed in the city and State of New York at the elections of 1868. Committees representing both of the leading political parties of the country have submitted reports to the House of Representatives on the extent of those frauds. A committee of the Fortieth Congress, after a full investigation, reached the conclusion that the number of fraudulent votes cast in the city of New York alone in 1868 was not less than twenty-five thousand. A committee of the Forty-fourth Congress, in their report submitted in 1877, adopted the opinion that for every one hundred actual voters of the city of New York in 1868, one hundred and eight votes were cast; when, in fact, the number of lawful votes cast could not have exceeded eighty-eight per cent, of the actual voters of the city. By this statement the number of fraudulent votes at that election, in the city of New York alone, was between thirty and forty thousand. These frauds completely reversed the result of the election in the State of New York, both as to the choice of Governor and State officers, and as to the choice of electors of President and Vice-President of the United States. They attracted the attention of the whole country. It was plain that if they could be continued and repeated with impunity, free government was impossible. A distinguished Senator, in opposing the passage of the election laws, declared that he had “for a long time believed that our form of Government was a comparative failure in the larger cities.” To meet these evils and to prevent these crimes the United States laws regulating Congressional elections were enacted.
The framers of these laws have not been disappointed in their results. In the large cities, under their provisions, the elections have been comparatively peaceable, orderly, and honest. Even the opponents of these laws have borne testimony to their value and efficiency, and to the necessity for their enactment. The Committee of the Forty-fourth Congress, composed of members a majority of whom were opposed to these laws, in their report on the New York election of 1876, said:
“The committee would commend to other portions of the
country and to other cities this remarkable system, developed through the
agency of both local and Federal authorities, acting in harmony for an honest
purpose. In no portion of the world,
and in no era of time, where there has been an expression of the popular will
through the forms of law, has there been a more complete and thorough illustration
of republican institutions. Whatever
may have been the previous habit of conduct of elections in those cities, or
howsoever they may conduct themselves in the future, this election of 1876 will
stand as a monument of what good faith,
honest endeavor, legal forms, and just authority may do for the protection of
the electoral franchise.”
This bill recognizes the authority and duty of the United States to appoint supervisors to guard and scrutinize the Congressional elections, but it denies to the Government of the United States all power to make its supervision effectual. The great body of the people of all parties want free and fair elections. They do not think that a free election means freedom from the wholesome restraints of law, or that the place of an election should be “a sanctuary for lawlessness and crime.” On the day of an election peace and good order are more necessary than on any other day of the year. On that day the humblest and feeblest citizens, the aged and the infirm, should be, and should have reason to feel that they are, safe in the exercise of their most responsible duty, and their most sacred right as members of society, their duty and their right to vote. The constitutional authority to regulate the Congressional elections which belongs to the Government of the United States, and which it is necessary to exert to secure the right to vote to every citizen possessing the requisite qualifications, ought to be enforced by appropriate legislation. So far from public opinion in any part of the country favoring any relaxation of the authority of the Government in the protection of elections from violence and corruption, I believe it demands greater vigor, both in the enactment and in the execution of laws framed for that purpose. Any oppression, any partisan partiality, which experience may have shown in the working of existing laws, may well engage the careful attention both of Congress and of the Executive, in their respective spheres of duty, for the correction of these mischiefs. As no Congressional elections occur until after the regular session of Congress will have been held, there seems to be no public exigency that would preclude a seasonable consideration at that session of any administrative details that might improve the present methods designed for the protection of all citizens in the complete and equal exercise of the right and power of the suffrage at such elections. But with my views, both of the constitutionality and of the value of the existing laws, I cannot approve any measure for their repeal except in connection with the enactment of other legislation which may reasonably be expected to afford wiser and more efficient safeguards for free and honest Congressional elections.
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It’s estimated that auto manufacturers collectively spend about 35 billion advertising dollars each year in the U.S. alone. Last year, car dealers in the U.S. spent $7.48 billion in marketing. There is no doubt that advertising influences behavior.
But much of auto marketing’s influence may not be limited strictly to buying preferences. Compare these two facts side by side: Reckless driving is one of the leading causes of motor vehicle death in the country. And research has shown that nearly half of U.S. car commercials feature sequences of reckless driving. This means that billions of dollars are being spent promoting behaviors that kill thousands of Americans each year.
Could safer auto marketing practices help to decrease reckless driving? The answer remains to be seen. In the tobacco industry, a correlation was found between advertising bans and a reduction in smoking. The evidence linking car ads to reckless driving is strong, and tighter regulations on advertising could have some effect on driving patterns.
To further explore this question, let’s look at reckless driving, the way it is promoted in car ads, and the prevalence of reckless driving in the U.S. and Pennsylvania. Finally, we will consider several methods that have been implemented nationally and globally to help curb dangerous driving.
What Is the Definition of Reckless Driving?
Reckless driving is generally considered to be driving that puts the lives of other people in danger. This term can include speeding, risky driving, and aggressive driving. The driving actions often associated with reckless driving include:
- Speeding or driving too fast for conditions
- Taking turns too quickly
- Changing lanes without warning
- Running red lights and disregarding traffic signals
- Driving on medians, sidewalks, or other areas not intended for driving
- Abrupt turns, “donuts,” figure eights, swerving, and circling
- Changing speeds suddenly
- Passing where prohibited
If any of these driving behaviors sound familiar to you, there is a good chance you have seen one or more in a car commercial.
How Is Auto Marketing Related to Reckless Driving?
It’s no secret that the United States has a love affair with fast cars. But for the past two decades or more, speeding has been a factor in roughly one-third of all motor vehicles deaths. And recently, a disturbing turn toward faster, more aggressive driving behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic was observed.
It’s not a far stretch to wonder if car ads might be one part of the problem. Research has shown that auto marketing can, in fact, promote acceptance and normalization of reckless driving.
As an experiment, we did a quick Google search of some of the nation’s top auto brands. The language we found was indicative of the image car manufacturers are eager to sell to U.S. consumers. “Tough.” “Thrill-seeker.” “Aggressive.” “Uncompromising power.” “Earthshaking muscle.” “Stability at high speeds.” “Ready to race.” “Take over the road.”
One seasonal ad marketed the power of 797 horses to crush autumn leaves. Another brand encouraged its online audience to “smash that like button.” As a culture, we have come to associate names like Ram, Rogue, Escape, Gladiator, Trailblazer, Charger, Renegade, and other terms suggesting physical aggression with the vehicles we drive to work every day.
And these terms aren’t reserved for sports cars and cargo trucks alone. Power and speed-geared marketing tactics are used regularly on the sedans that spend most of their lives on city streets designed to be travelled at 45 mph or less.
The following behaviors are ones frequently observed in car commercials:
- Racing on narrow roadways and paths intended for much slower driving.
- Maneuvers that result in smoking tires and tire tracks on the road.
- Speeding through the kind of city intersections where thousands of pedestrians are killed annually.
- Multitasking while driving, a behavior known to cause distracted driving accidents.
- Plowing through obstacles in nature, construction zones, or other unsafe areas.
- Highlighting the power of a car to go up to 200 MPH, when it’s illegal to drive over 70 mph in most of the country.
- Driving on narrow, rocky cliff edges and dangerous mountain surfaces.
- Travelling faster than all other vehicles on the road.
How Prevalent Is Reckless Driving in the U.S. and in Pennsylvania?
Reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveal that the U.S. car accident fatality rate is nearly twice that of other countries of similar economic status, such as Canada, Australia, Japan, and nations in Western Europe. One major contributing factor is the amount of time Americans spend on the road in personal vehicles. The second major factor is the abundance of dangerous driving behaviors. A high prevalence of speeding, drunk driving, lack of seat belt use, and pedestrian accidents has led to high rates of fatality.
Our state of Pennsylvania is not immune to these aggressive behind-the-wheel behaviors. Reckless actions like speeding, illegal passing, and distracted driving are among the top five traffic laws broken in Pennsylvania. In the most recent statewide reports, there were 29,640 speeding-related crashes in Pennsylvania which resulted in 415 fatalities in a single year.
What Can Be Done to Reduce Reckless Driving?
If marketing is causing a popular tolerance of unsafe driving, then it may be time to consider placing limitations on what auto marketing agencies can portray in advertisements. The U.S. would not be the first country to crack down on dangerous driving in ads.
In 2018, advertisements from Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, and Nissan were banned in the U.K. for promoting reckless driving. Australia’s Federal Chamber for Automotive Industries Motor Vehicle Advertising Code expressly prohibits advertisements for motor vehicles which portray reckless driving. Other countries in Europe also have similar government or industry-regulated guidelines. While regulations like these would certainly not fix all of our national driving problems, it may be a step in the right direction.
Irresponsible marketing, however, is not the only problem. If true reform is to happen, a more holistic approach needs to be embraced. One method being implemented with some success is referred to as “traffic calming.” The Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE) describes traffic calming as the strategic use of mostly physical measures that help to reduce negative driver behaviors.
Speed bumps, chicanes, tree-lined streets, wider bike lanes, parked police cars, speed cameras, and even creative strategies like optical illusion crosswalks have had a positive impact on encouraging slower, more thoughtful driving. A 2019 study conducted here in Philadelphia even determined that paving streets with asphalt, granite block, and brick materials was an effective traffic calming strategy.
There are other methods that have shown success as well. Some of these include stricter and better enforced traffic laws, the use of PSAs, offering incentives to use public transportation or ridesharing, improved biking pathways, technology to combat drunk driving, and better education on the dangers of reckless driving.
Road safety is important to us. If you have questions about reckless driving, car accident law, or a case in which you were injured, reach out to our office to speak with an attorney. Our legal team at Shrager & Sachs can schedule a free consultation to answer your questions.
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This is NOT a Quranic name, but Muslims can use it since it doesn't have a bad meaning.
Meaning of Aras
Aras is a Kurdish, Persian, Turkish and Urdu name for boys and girls. In Kurdish and Persian it means “equal”, “balanced”. The word Aras commonly refers to the Aras River, which flows through Turkey, Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan. In Kurdish the name is pronounced [(A)fter] + [p(R)ay + s(A)nd + (S)it], in Persian [(A)fter] + [p(R)ay + r(U)n + (S)it]. In Azerbaijani the river is called Araz and pronounced [(A)fter] + [p(R)ay + s(A)nd + (Z)ero].
All of the above pronunciations are acceptable. Choose whichever you like.
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Gallipoli - An All-round Perspective (EIBF Review)
Peter Hart is the Oral Historian at the Imperial War Museum and an internationally recognised expert on Gallipoli - so the packed audience was in for a stimulating hour. Expertly chaired by Sheena McDonald, we were given a fascinating account of why this battle was such a disaster for the Allied Forces.
Peter Hart said that he was clear that the landings at Gallipoli were foolhardy and ill conceived from the start and for this much of the blame must rest with Churchill. He claimed that the local commander, General Hamilton, was not incompetent, nor was he beset by 'bad luck', rather the whole operation was undertaken too casually and the Turkish forces had been badly underestimated. Hamilton was what Peter Hart described as a "can do general" and this may prove dangerous as it did in Gallipoli as he tried to do too much rather than carefully nurturing his forces.
The administration and logistic preparation for the landings were incompetent and the commanders preparations bordered on criminal negligence. For naval battleships to be sent into the invasion with their main armament not having been zeroed is something which no commander should have accepted. The plan was to zero the guns against the Turks! Fisher, as First Sea Lord, was overpowered intellectually by Churchill and failed to stand up to him or demand that his views be listened to by the Cabinet.
But Hart believes that the whole operation should never have been undertaken. He considers that it was a massive waste of men and munitions which would have been much better employed in the fight against the Germans as the main enemy on the Western Front. The invasion failed to knock Turkey out of the war and certainly did nothing to influence the Balkan states who viewed the expedition with incredulity.
Of course the Allies did eventually overcome Germany and they returned to establish themselves in the Gallipoli area for several years but nothing can eradicate the disaster that wasted so many Allied lives.
The book looks fascinating and should prove a splendid read.
Event: Wednesday 17 August 2011, 14:30
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Teachers support for Topics
For help with the structure and delivery of Hamilton’s Topics, see our User Guide to Topics.
Learn about special celebrations in the community and in the wider world. Through a series of exciting activities, discover the different ways we celebrate – and the many different things those celebrations can be about!
Start with the importance of saying thank you for all we are lucky to have, and for the people around us. Learn about festivals that say thank you: Thanksgiving in USA; Harvest Festival in UK and around the world; the Jewish festival Sukkot. Thanking family members (could include Mothering Sunday/Mothers' Day + Fathers’ Day). Choose something or somebody to be grateful for and express your thanks in art - make labels and a gallery; invite an audience in to view the work.
The Topic Overview outlines the outcomes and objectives of the whole topic, with more specific detail, including resources lists, provided in the Block Overview.
This Topic is written for Reception. If you want to use this Topic for a different Key Stage, you will need to consider how to adapt the outcomes, content, delivery methods, resources and differentiation, as well as the relevant National Curriculum objectives.
Children share with class teacher the experience of being thanked; they practice saying thank you during the normal school day and begin to think about what and who they are thankful for.
Learn about the first Pilgrims in North America and the difficulties they faced until helped by indigenous population. Different ways to say Thank You, including British sign language. Turkey craft activities!
Puddles the cat is back to share her experience of Harvest. Children harvest common vegetables & experiment with potato and leaf printing.
Bake bread and cut up vegetables to make soup. ‘Little red hen’ as told by Pie Corbett.
Sammy Spider shares his experience of the Festival of Sukkot. Children help to build a sukkah; make representative Lulav and Etrog to use with poem ‘Sukkot’ by Judith Nicholls.
Incorporate experiences of children’s families and all who we can be grateful for.
Make 2D representation of favourite person or thing to say ‘thank you’ for. Arrange as an Art Gallery and invite an audience to view the work.
Request new password
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New Delhi, Apr 17 (ANI): As part of a five-day-sit-in protest, scores of activists under the umbrella of the Right to Food Campaign protested the proposed National Food Security Act, here on Saturday.
The Union Government is trying to table the Bill in the current session of the Parliament.
Staging a protest in front of the Planning Commission office, activists said the government should not restrict itself to provide just 25 kilograms of grain to families living below the poverty line (BPL).
Earlier, the Supreme Court also directed that BPL families should get 35 kilograms of grain per household.
The Bill proposes to provide 25 kilograms of rice or wheat per month at the rate of Rs. three per kilogram to each family living below poverty line (BPL).
The activists demand at least 50 kilograms of grain for a family of five must be provided every month to families living above and below poverty line.
Kavita Srivastava, an activist with People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said the government must not divide the people on the basis of families living above poverty line (APL) and below the poverty line (BPL).
"When it comes to buying guns, arms, defence...to fight the Pakistanis, to fight the Maoists, that time where does the money come from? When it comes to building nuclear defence programmes, where does the money come from? Here, it is the question of chronic malnutrition, chronic hunger," said Srivastava.
"It is a question of 80 percent of the population, which the National Sample Survey says is living below the calorific value. All of us know it's 2,400 for the nation in rural areas and 2,100 in urban areas; it's 1,800 and 1,900 currently," she added.
The proposed Food Security Bill was almost finalised by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), headed by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee but failed to include vulnerable groups in its purview. (ANI)
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Posts Tagged ‘mobile’
Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
Offline or disconnected mode is one of the most in demand client and potential client requests we receive. And yet the main spatial solution providers have only made small steps in this direction. Chatting with ESRI, offline ArcGIS is on their roadmap, but no major releases are planned in the near future. Our interest is cross-platform solutions. So recent iOS and Android specific announcements from the likes of Google, though very interesting, do not serve our clients well.
It was time for us to look into our own solution. We broke down the problem into manageable chunks, then conferred with Mansour at ESRI on the details. Let’s discuss at a high level these pieces.
Offline versus Online Mode
In code we can detect if a mobile device has online connectivity. If it does reach out over the network for map and server functionality. If offline look locally, to the device itself, for resources.
Mobile devices have varying amounts of local storage. They also come with so called lite databases. In offline mode we take advantage of these local resources.
Offline ArcGIS Visualization – Tile Packages
Let’s imagine we have an ArcGIS Online web map we wish to view on our mobile in disconnected mode. Using ArcGIS 10.1 we can now generate a tile package of the layers used in the web map. These .tpk files vary in size, we need to be careful when generating these packages, particularly thinking about the capacity of the mobile device targeted for the mobile ArcGIS app. But once the tile package has been generated this need be stored on the mobile device. Note, tile packages which include base map tiles will need agreement with ESRI since there are various licensing agreements attached to the source of these base tiles.
Friday, May 11th, 2012
We’ve never been a company which sits on its hands and wonders what is around the corner. Sure we have some key partners, but they don’t limit our reach and exploration. Our goal is to provide the most appropriate solution to our clients. That might be an ESRI solution, Google, MapQuest, technology combination, open source. We are continually working to expand our skills and add more tools to our geospatial toolbox. The more tools we have available, the more effective we are at picking the right tool for the job. (we all know using pliers as a hammer is never ideal.)
In the past we have leaned on the likes of ESRI’s ArcGIS Server (and their various web mapping APIs) as well as some of the more advanced open-source options like GeoServer, OpenLayers, OpenScales, etc. But things are changing. Attend any GIS focused conference and you will notice two things. First, that ESRI now talk about “non GIS users”, and not just in passing; all the time. And second that Google are usually there in one form or other. After chatting with one senior Google geo person we decided to look at their offering in greater depth.
Friday, April 6th, 2012
It seems the blog post we wrote recently entitled “Should we retire the term GIS?” resonated with the geo-community. We thought is worth a follow up post.
First the responses. Below are a few on the comments we received:
“No. I saw this a few months ago (maybe from the same group; maybe not). This came from a location based services firm – so that’s why they want to change it. GIS is still the main term to use, for what I do at least; and folks can still use lots of sub terms if they want.”
“I’ve also heard geospatial technologies (geospatial being duplicative). But GIS includes the concept of analysis, where location does not. Location Based Solutions are applications, while GIS is analysis – how about “Geographic and Location Based Solutions?”)”
“True, I completely agree. GIS is not only a niche term, it is a discipline which occupies the time of people aged 55+ dealing with sub millimeter accuracy, INSPIRE (I prefer to call it EXPIRE), land management and maybe utilities. It has nothing to do with crowd sourcing (OSM), modern technology (mobile apps, SOA, Cloud) or “new” markets (Business GIS, LBS etc.). GIS people are still looking for that “killer app”, but cannot find it. Call it location services, Spatial Business Intelligence or whatever: the people in the industry need to change. We do still need the “55+ sub millimeter” people. Mainly for accuracy and standards.”
“I agree with most of what you have to say except I disagree that the term GIS should be retired. What I’d like to see is the use of specific terms where appropriate (like LBS as you’ve suggested) instead of using GIS as a catch-all for all things spatial. Just my two cents.”
Very interesting. Actually (counter to the first comment above) we have historically been an ESRI focused company. We wrote our first Web based ESRI map viewer (for the US Forest Service) back in 1997. Long, long before the term location based services (LBS) had been coined. Maybe this is at the crux of the discussion. Mobile has made us rethink our mission. We are a company started by geographers. Ok, we have a more diverse group together now, but geography remains at the heart of our work. Our focus is understanding better, and visualizing the space around us.
Geography, space, location, place. With my mobile in hand, I want information about what or who is near me. I want to run analysis based on my current lat/long. Is that handled by a GIS, LBS or other geo-backend? I care little, I just know that my current location is the centre of my focus. Whether I am a public utility worker trying to visualize an underground pipe (layer) and run a network analysis to find the valves which feed the pipe beneath my feet. Or I’m simply trying to see which friends are within a certain distance of my current location. With mobile everything is about location.
We are at the beginning of a geo-sector boom. Its a boom which is driven by mobile, centred on location. Nobody cares about the tags attached to the technology which provides the solutions. Users just want the solutions. And they are location based solutions.
Feel free to let us know your thoughts.
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
ArcGIS Online and the new ArcGIS 10.1 release are about to provide a plethora of online and offline mobile GIS solutions. We launched GeoMobile for ArcGIS nearly a year ago. The goal was to provide a custom mobile ArcGIS app. We include a configuration file so users could add their own map layers; basemaps, dynamic and tiled ArcGIS layers. The mobile app has proved to be very popular. But the need for a single service, which provides all map data, has nagged at us. To the rescue comes ArcGIS Online and web maps. Now users can publish their ArcGIS layers, shapefiles, CSV, GPX, KML ad WMS to a single service. The associated web map can then be consumed by mobile applications like GeoMobile for ArcGIS.
ArcGIS 10.1 is exciting for many reasons. Primarily, in this discussion, because it allows users to generate tile packages for use offline. More on this in a later post. Lets first walk through the steps to publish a web map in ArcGIS Online.
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
We wrote a blog entry a while back called ‘Hot Topics in Mobile GIS’. This was a summary of some of the many client conversations we had in 2011, talking about mobile GIS. Moving away from the use of pen and paper while working in the field, was often mentioned. It remains common for field workers to record data using a pen, notepad and paper map. And to then reassemble their thoughts and notes when back in the office. Inaccuracy and inefficiency seemed a common concern. One client said:
“In our ideal world we would simply give our field workers a mobile device loaded with a mobile GIS app. The worker could then annotate the map on the mobile device, store the annotation on the device and either load it into a GIS application running on their PC when back in the office, or send it to an office based employee to do the same”.
Mobile GIS Flexible Frameworks
Around 6 months ago, we released GeoMobile for ArcGIS; a free mobile app in the iOS, Android and Blackberry app markets. This came from our work writing an article for the Winter edition of ArcUser called ‘Developing a Custom ArcGIS Application for the iPad 2’. GeoMobile for ArcGIS is a flexible cross platform framework written in Mobile Flex. We have found this flexibility to be very useful for extending and customising mobile GIS functionality. Building on this work, we are actually in the process of writing an open source equivalent called GeoMobile for GeoServer.
I digress. Given our clients ‘perfect world’ statement above, we decided to use the GeoMobile for ArcGIS framework to build this ‘perfect’ functionality. The ESRI Flex Viewer for ArcGIS has an advanced drawing widget, which allows users to both annotate an ArcGIS map and save and open the annotation. Perfect. We took this widget and ported it to GeoMobile for ArcGIS; made some adaptations and the results you can see demonstrated in the video link below:
Mobile GIS – Sharing Map Annotation Demo
Now field workers can annotate to their hearts content on their mobile. Add lines, points and polygons. Make notes, right on the map. Pipe broken here. Tree down there. Save this off and open it in the Flex Viewer for ArcGIS on their desktop in the office. And move forward.
We think this could be a mobile solution many organizations could find useful. We plan to build this type of functionality into GeoMobile for GeoServer. We’d be interested in your thoughts; is this mobile GIS functionality you could use within your work flow?
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Mobile GIS in Archaeology and Historical Preservation
Cultural Resource Management relates to archaeology and historical preservation. We had a recent email from somebody working in this area – thanks Stephen – who discussed how mobile applications, particularly those which utilize GIS, would be a huge help.
Stephen sees an important place for mobile GIS apps in the world of archaeology and historical preservation. He writes:
“Even though GPS technology has been readily adopted in the profession, it is still mostly wedded to a system of paper forms and (often) disconnected implementations of ArcGIS based map creation and non-geo-referenced photos”
This reminds us of many other areas where paper and pen remain the field recording equipment of choice. Mobile apps allow users to record data using tablet based forms, and basic geo-referencing. Combine this with GIS and a wide array of tools become available. Stephens cites some examples:
“If one is recording an historic building or archaeological sites, one can take a decent resolution image, complete the form electronically, and consider view shed/buffering without juggling several devices and a handful of forms as well. I can also see value when doing a field inventory for something like a wireless tower where viewsheds and buffers are important. It would also be very useful for situations where one is doing resource monitoring (making sure a client doesn’t impact something).”
Mobile GIS in Natural Resources Management
Another recent conversation we have had revolved around natural resource management:
“We have a diverse natural resources management program going on here, and I can see this used for several of our field activities. Particularly of interest, though, is using this for collecting survey data. We are currently doing things horribly old-fashioned: collecting GPS points and logging attribute data on paper forms in the field, then coming back to the office to download points and enter into a database.”
“We collect a few different types of data during surveys: any threatened or endangered species, all species present for certain transects, and incipient and invasive species. Spatial datasets are then updated as needed. It requires a lot of attention just to make sure data gets organized properly. For years, we’ve talked about getting a nice set of Juniper systems with ArcPad, but it’s a pretty big investment. The proliferation of mobile devices, and new mobile GIS apps, seem like a more cost-effective means of achieving similar functionality.”
Mobile GIS in Civil Engineering
Finally civil engineers are looking for solutions to improve how field workers record and update data:
“We simply want an easy way to update our GIS from the field. To overlay pipeline and manhole layers for example on a basemap, and view on an IPad, would be a big benefit to our field crews. More than that, if we were able then to update a GIS where we see inaccuracies in both the path of the pipeline and attributes of a manhole, that would be simply huge. We would want a sanity check. Whereby any updates were processed first by our GIS administrator before they were committed to the GIS”
Mobile GIS Solutions
With an increasing number of these types of inquiries, we have been looking at the implementation of solutions. The link below is to a video showing an online/offline feature editing solution:
Mobile GIS Editing
We are actively looking at building GeoMobile for Geoserver (we already have released GeoMobile for ArcGIS), an open source mobile GIS viewer. Feature editing as described above will be an important consideration.
Go to our contacts page and let us know the challenges you are facing in the field viewing, editing and adding new data.
Saturday, January 7th, 2012
This is part 2 of a discussion on mobile GIS and feature editing. In part 1 we began the discussion. Here we spoke about saving basemap tiles and shapefiles to the mobile device. How shapefiles can be represented (overlaid) on the map in a number of, less than perfect, ways. We discussed other mobile GIS type apps which load shapefiles. We have actually just created a video which compares a number of these mobile GIS apps, with a focus on shapefile and attribute query. In this article we will take this discussion further and look at possible solutions
Online/Offline Mobile GIS Feature Editing
There are a number of approaches which can be taken when looking at solutions for online and offline feature editing and data recording:
- Using the feature layer in ArcGIS – Discussed in this link from ESRI iOS ArcGIS Feature Editing
- Writing feature changes and attribute updates to local files on the mobile device (shown below)
Mobile GIS Feature Editing Demo & Local Files
The link below shows a demo of a mobile ArcGIS app showing feature editing on a Samsung mobile smartphone.
Mobile GIS Feature Editing
We have discussed in other blog posts how pen and paper are still widely used in the field for recording new and updating existing data respectively. We know ESRI are working on solutions to both viewing layers and editing features in both online and offline modes. The feature layer – ESRI’s equivalent to WFS – approach linked to above is just for the iOS platform. So far we see no cross platform or Android specific mobile ArcGIS solutions. We’ve asked (weeks ago) and still await a reply. The approach allows online/offline feature updating then auto ArcGIS server syncing. We presume the final commit to ArcGIS would be done by a GIS administrator, so no direct update from the field.
But what do you do if you have an old version of ArcGIS server, don’t have feature layers or are using an open source solution?
Solution 2 above, using local files to record data, is a simple and robust solution. This approach is simple, and does not tie you to the latest ArcGIS server release. The video above shows two types of updates. First updating a features geometry. Imagine a pipeline layer which, in sections, is inaccurately represented. Using a markup tool as shown allows users in the field to redraw these sections. This markup is stored in a file and can be loaded by a GIS administrator for a sanity check and GIS update. The markup tool could also be used for adding new features; maybe a new section of pipeline. Second there is updating a features attributes. Loading a locally stored shapefile, editing a features attributes from this shapefile, storing these changes in a local file and sending this to the GIS administrator, again for GIS update.
We are actively looking at building GeoMobile for Geoserver (we already have released GeoMobile for ArcGIS), an open source mobile GIS viewer. Feature editing as described above will be an important consideration.
We’d be interested in any feedback you might have on this article. We have received many inquiries about online and offline data collection and editing functionality. Have you taken one of these approaches, or something different? Is this an area you too are looking for a solution? Tell us more
Monday, January 2nd, 2012
An issue we often get questions about relates to offline GIS and mapping. How do we take our mobile device into an area which lacks WI-FI connectivity and still be able to access base maps and our layers? More than that how do we make edits to or update spatial features and sync these with a central server like ArcGIS? We have been pondering particularly this latter question for a while. Mansour Raad at ESRI, has been a huge help. We adapted some of his code and loaded both base map tiles and a shapefile on a smartphone. More than that we added the ability for users to tap a feature and, eureka, a pop up of the feature attributes appeared. I’ll admit we were jumping up and down in the office when we managed to get all working. Here is are two videos of the app.
Offline Mobile ArcGIS Basemaps and shapefiles
Offline Mobile ArcGIS Feature Editing
But. After testing we did find one problem. The shapefiles loaded very very slowly! Hmmm ….!
Let me digress for a moment. We recently wrote a surprisingly popular blog post reviewing available mobile GIS apps. What did we find? Amongst other things a lack of cross platform apps. Too many are just built for the Apple iOS platform. Also most do not use a spatial server. They are pseudo GIS apps. Meaning they have some GIS functionality but are not driven by a GIS. To us unless ArcGIS or GeoServer are on the server side of the mobile app, call it a clever mapping app. Not GIS. But a number use shapefiles, both loading and rendering and generating. Nice functionality. But none, that we have found, allow feature editing, and centralised storage. The latter is key since collaboration will always be important. Others will want to see and use your updates.
Ok, with that out of the way. Let’s look at the question posed. How does a true GIS mobile app allow non WI-FI connected users to visualize, edit and update layers in ArcGIS? As the videos above shows, base maps tiles loaded onto a mobile device for offline use are no problem. But ArcGIS layers are rendered on the fly. Meaning when online, each zoom or pan requires redrawing of the layer by ArcGIS. How do we store this in offline mode? The obvious choice is a shapefile. So store this spatial layer entity on the device. Load it when required.
Mobile GIS – Querying and Editing Features in a Shapefile
This brings us back to the slow load. In the demo we are using Adobe AIR. The applications takes the geometries in the shapefile and physically draws them. Slow .. you betcha. There are other approaches. Fast layers (again thanks Mansour) in one. Here we can improve the speed of drawing.
Another is not drawing the geometry, but converting the shapefile to a bitmap. Adobe AIR handles bitmaps super fast. So multiple pictures are loaded on the screen. The pictures represent shapefiles. One more potential approach is to convert to svg.
But, click on a feature in, say, a bitmap, maybe a single county in a state, and you are clicking on a picture. How do you relate the point click to the feature? More than that if you want to edit the attributes of that feature, again how do we store this data?
Mobile GIS – Offline Changes Synced with ArcGIS
Lastly, and most importantly, if we want others to have access to these updates how do we upload this data to ArcGIS?
As mentioned we have had requests for this functionality. We feel this relative trickle of emails may become a flood in 2012. So finding a solutions to this conundrum is something we are giving particular attention.
This is part 1 of a two part post. Here we laid out the question. Next we will discuss possible solutions.
Monday, December 5th, 2011
Overall Mobile Trends in 2011
Mobile in 2011 has been very much a case of hurry up and wait. Immature is maybe a better way to put it. The market remains consumer focused. Business’ have largely sat on the sidelines. Mobile software innovation has been somewhat limited, with too many copycat ideas; “I want to build a site like Foursquare”. Games continue to dominate. On the hardware front, things are evolving. Tablets were the most hyped item in 2011. Things have been hit and miss here. Notable misses include: the Blackberry Playbook (great platform but the screen is too small), the various split screen releases, and the lack of 3G on many tablets. The IPad2 and Galaxy stand out as hits. Smartphones have evolved. Releases like the Samsung Infuse with large 4.5″ high resolution screens, have vastly improved the user experience.
To summarise our overall thoughts:
1) Mobile is still a consumer focused market, with social networking etc
2) As in the early days of the Internet, business adoption has been slow.
3) Mobile remains a confusing marketplace; hardware and software/platform wars continue.
4) Key business applications of mobile include improving mobile worker productivity, improved real time decision making, email, inventory/warehouse management, field sales force, asset management.
5) Mobile devices remain physically fragile. Rugged cases and more rugged actual devices will reduce concerns.
6) Overall 2011 usage survey – According to a Guardian survey, 84% of tablet owners play games, ahead of even searching for information (78%), emailing (74%) and reading the news (61%). Tablets are predominantly domestic devices, with 82% of people primarily using their tablets at home, versus 11% who say they are used primarily on the go, and 7% who said at work. 28% of respondents said their tablet is now their primary computer, while 43% said they spend more time using their tablet than they do their desktop or laptop computer. The most popular smartphones apps are games, weather, maps, social networking, music, and news.
Businesses are looking at portions of enterprise apps being mobilized. Much of this is focused on 2012, and a maturing mobile market. B2C enablers will flourish as mobile web continues to gain importance as a channel. B2B will remain challenging.
Mobile GIS, LBS & Map Development Tools in 2011
Adobe have been one of the key development tool providers to get behind the mobile revolution. With their increasing focus on mobile AIR for installed mobile applications, and support for HTML5 for mobile web apps. Adobe are one of the companies leading the mobile charge. Many of the major mapping, spatial and location focused companies have turned their attention to mobile. ESRI have launched a number of mobile products to support their ArcGIS flagship. The free mobile app released to the Apple and Android markets, allows users to leverage ArcGIS online to visualize their spatial data. MapQuest have made some very interesting recent announcements, with a new mobile web release (m.mapquest.com), their MQVibe product (mqvibe.com) and release of their mobile Flash api. They provide a comprehensive array of mobile solutions. In the open source world Openlayers is turning its attention to mobile (http://trac.osgeo.org/openlayers/wiki/mobile). Mobile web tools are proliferating. It will be interesting to to test OpenLayers mobile as an installed application using Phonegap. A number of the newer location based service companies, such as Foursquare and SimpleGeo, have opend their apis. Making it possible, for example, to pass a lat/long or current location, and get back a list of venues nearby.
Mobile Software Trends in 2011
Mobile App Development in 2011 – Many Challenges
For developers there have been both opportunities and challenges. The maturing of HTML5, release of Adobe AIR for mobile, and opening of Android market (considerably reducing the pain of distributing mobile apps) have improved the life of mobile developers. Listing some of the challenges:
1) Project issues – changes in spec/scope creep, incomplete specs, and app complexity,
2) Distribution & update issues – multiple markets (Apple. Android, Blackberry), submission policy too long (particularly Apple’s), painful certificate process (again particularly applicable to Apple), expensive and long distribution.
3) Other issues – security, back-end integration, mobile web is a different beast to PC web must design accordingly (UI/work flow)
How are the Public and Private sectors using Mobiles?
Looking back on our year as a company we have had many mobile application development conversations. Ambitious entrepreneurs have formed at least half of these inquiries. Those with good ideas, and limited budgets, looking to better understand how to make these ideas a reality. We expected more media driven ideas; social media apps for example. Certainly there were plenty, but fewer then we expected. Which was a relief. Our real interest is larger scale enterprise mobile application development. Looking for better ways to improve enterprise efficiency using mobile. Both replacing and extending existing software processes. Long term mobile has the potential to change many of the processes within the enterprise. But, as was the case with the Internet, currently only small steps are being taken. We did notice a trend over the year, with more inquiries from larger enterprises. Many of these conversations were informational. But the trend was encouraging and bodes well for 2012. Key application discussions have been around data collection in the field and linking that to GPS location, dynamic data visualisation (GIS layers, routes, traffic), data editing, local search (what is near me). Below is a list of some of the industries/sectors we were approached by in 2011:
a) Forest service – Looking into use of mobile email and testing for GPS accuracy
b) Political campaigns
e) Facility management
f) Outdoor recreation
g) Medicine – self diagnosis and referral
h) Car dealerships
i) Police & Parking meters officer IT providers
k) Forest management
l) Pipeline, water, transportation
Reflections on WebMapSolutions 2011 Mobile Business Strategy
Just as an aside from general discussions. We thought readers might be interested in how mobile application development companies like ours fared in 2011.
The PC based Web continues to dominate our activities. We’ve put much emphasis on mobile, since we feel this is where much of application development will be focused. But, as we have indicated above, we have found enterprise adoption slower than expected. From a business perspective our mobile strategy has been as follows:
1) Position the company as a mobile application development company focused on location; GIS, maps and location based services (LBS).
2) Write an very active blog on mobile apps and mobile app development.
3) Publish articles. We have has a number of articles published in leading geo and industry specific magazines, in the US and Europe.
4) Build partnerships with key companies – MapQuest, ESRI, Adobe.
5) Write a plethora of demo apps (with supporting videos for marketing) which show the capabilities of online and offline location based mobile apps.
6) Launch GeoMobile for ArcGIS, a free mobile app into the Apple and Android app stores.
7) Provide free application code.
8) Making available free mobile and development planning guides.
It is still hard to gauge the success of this strategy. Our blog has caused a noticeable uptick in Web traffic. Our Web site traffic has changed from 20 daily visits to over 150. Positioning ourselves as a location focused mobile app development company is in may ways redundant. Since most if not all mobile apps will take advantage of GPS and location. But we have had comments from potential clients that they were looking specifically for mobile location app experts. We have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of the free mobile app. The fact it is free and user configurable maybe problematic. But in each mobile store the mobile app gets a 4 star rating which we take a positive. Its purpose was simply to demonstrate the potential capabilities of a cross platform mobile GIS application. The demos have proven very powerful. Every mobile contract we have signed this year has been a direct result of a demo. Our partnerships we see as long term relations. We are particularly excited about our MapQuest and ESRI partnerships. Article writing we hope helps raises our profile as industry experts in mobile application development. We are now writing regular columns in two high circulation magazines.
With a core group, within the company, who can advise and consult with clients on their mobile strategy. And a network of highly skilled developers. We feel well positioned for what we expect to be a busy 2012.
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
Politics revolves around organization. The increasing popularity of mobiles; IPhones, IPads and Android devices will revolutionize political organization and campaigning. It is now possible to provide field workers with mobile applications which will allow better organization and coordination of campaigns. Further, these applications will let users dynamically collect and upload data from the field. Campaigns and unit committees will be able to access this centralized data in real time. Improving both the speed and accuracy of decision making. Data collection and access is one thing, visualizing this data is quite another. The ability to search, query and tabulate this data is huge. But maps provide a very intuitive way to view this type of data. We will discuss in this article the potential uses of mobile applications for political campaigning. And how maps and mobile GIS can be used to better visualize campaign data.
Mobile Apps & Voter Data Management
Much in the world of political campaigning is centered around canvassing, phone banks and walk lists. Walk lists are for campaign field workers, essentially their voter contact list. Mobile applications running on smartphones such as IPhones and Droids are perfect for providing canvassers their walk list. Using application tools provided by the likes of MapQuest, these lists can be presented as markers on a map with optimized, or most efficient, routes. In addition, by using the inbuilt GPS on most smartphones, users can know their current location and collect data at that location. So a voters response can be captured on a smartphone dynamically, tied to that location and uploaded to a centralized database.
Historically, spreadsheets have been the main stay of political campaign organizing. Those days will soon be gone. Data centrally stored, updated from the field dynamically using mobile devices and from campaign headquarters will revolutionize politics. New software applications will become available for use on traditional PC’s and mobile devices which will tap into this data and allow questions to be answered or viewed quickly; the concentrations of likely voters or supporters for more efficient targeting, identifying locations for events, planning and moving collateral, generating and viewing walk-lists, and plotting sign locations. Interactive maps will prove important in visualizing much of this data. Field Directors will be able to almost instantly see the progress of sign placement operations, volunteer recruitment, and literature distribution. They will also be able to see the location of field workers while they are interacting with voters and view responses in real time. Unit and district chairs could use these systems for mass e-mails, the content being related to the voters district or location. Task lists could be created and posted for party or campaign employees, allowing them to record their progress. These updates would be instantly accessible to managers anywhere.
These types of system will dramatically improve efficiency, and reduce or remove redundant processes. They will provide a key edge over opponents. Enabling a dramatic enlargement of membership.
To summarize some of the areas impacted by these new systems which utilize mobile applications:
- Planning – voting lists, election boundaries, location (possible and actual) and relocation of collateral (signs, literature)
- Coordination – unit rosters, party and campaign offices, events
- Canvassing – walk list, data collection
Mobile GIS Maps & Politics
Mobile devices, as we have said, will be increasingly key to political campaigns. Viewing maps, boundaries, and voter locations on a smartphone or mobile tablets will be crucial to field workers. As will recording data while in the field. We have already mentioned a few, but we can imagine a range of different questions we want answered and displayed on a map:
- Show me an optimized route of my walk list
- Display registered voter data on a map by definable region
- Search and display by a set of criteria – Show all 2008 Primary Voters
- Search, filter and display – Show 2008 Primary Voters who voted in the last 3 elections or show only hard democrats
- Spatial query – Selecting a group of voters, by drawing a square on the map, will provide a voter summary. Maybe the number of voters selected, average distance between voters, total number of hard Republicans in this group, and number of perfect voters.
There are a range of options and tools we can use for maps in politics. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) offer tools which will help manage, organize, search, query and display campaign data. MapQuest offer both PC focused and mobile optimized tools ideal for political campaigns.
The Use of GIS in Politics
We have discussed the querying and display of campaign data. Often, at least in a GIS, this would involve either shapefiles or ArcGIS endpoints (ArcGIS from ESRI is the most popular GIS spatial server). These both are spatial data sources which contain features (voters and their point location), and attributes (a voters party allegiance for example). Rendering or displaying a shapefile or ArcGIS endpoint adds a layer to the map. Thus we can add points to the map which represent voters. Click on a point and the attributes of that voter are displayed. Querying is also possible against these spatial data sources; show me all hard Republican voters in a certain zip code.
We can extend this to editing and updating. Thus it is quite possible to update our spatial data sources using a mobile device. Maybe a voter has switched allegiances and is no longer a democrat; update that voters attributes on your smartphone which updates the central data store. Maybe a new area of homes has been built and voters here need adding to the data store. Again this can all be done by field workers using their mobile devices.
ESRI are the largest provider of GIS software in the world. Their flagship ArcGIS product offers a complete GIS solution, both for desktop and networked GIS. Moblie ArcGIS has become increasingly important. WebMapSolutions have been building a sample viewer which demonstrates some of the mobile functionality of ArcGIS. The video below shows the mobile GIS app running on an IPad:
Mobile ArcGIS running on an IPad
MapQuest and Politics
MapQuest are well known for routing and traffic maps, but they offer a plethora of other services. We are in the process of building a new mobile application which demonstrates some of the capabilities of mobile MapQuest. The functionality will include:
- Walk List
- Optimized Walk List Route
- Sign placement and traffic flow
- Data entry using device GPS
- Query – map markers showing voters filtered by specific criteria
A video of this application will be posted here in due course.
Online & Offline Mobile GIS Maps & Politics
Less common in urban areas, but mobile devices may sometimes lack Wi-Fi connectivity. This means data cannot be transferred to and from the device. Maybe downloaded map data showing the location of the next voter on the walk list, or voter interview data uploaded to the central server. It is now possible to store data directly on the device. So complete walk lists routes can be downloaded while still online, and used with or without Wi-Fi connectivity. Similarly a light weight database on the mobile device can be used to store data recorded at a location, for later upload when back in Wi-Fi range. The video below shows online and offline map usage on an Android smartphone. The base map tiles are stored on the device, as is a shapefile of Utah counties. The latter could just as easily be voter points or election boundaries.
Mobile GIS Online and Offline
Existing Political Software Systems and The New Mobile Paradigm
Existing, lets call them legacy, political software systems are slow and clunky. Mapping capabilities are limited. As already mentioned, decisions are still often made with the help of spreadsheets. Field workers rely on printed sheets, phones and notepads for organization and data gathering. In short, current software applications used for political campaigns are inadequate.
Existing systems can be dramatically improved. Mobile applications will be a particularly key component. Centralizing data and extending, maybe rewriting, existing software applications to allow easier management, querying and visualization of this data will be crucial. Mobile applications in politics will provide both access to the data while in the field (no more pens, papers and printed maps), and the ability to edit and add new data. Mobiles provide up to date information dynamically; walk lists, routing, tracking field workers. They also allow much of what was done in the office, to now be done done in the field. So querying by voter attributes using a fixed distance from your current location. And designing your canvassing around these dynamic queries. Applications written for PC’s will provide advanced functionality and management of both the data and ultimately the campaign.
Maps will be ever more important for displaying much of the data both in the office and in the field using mobiles.
Mobile Politics Application Development
So how would you build such a system? There are a number of proprietary and open source content management and constituent relationship management solutions. Joomla and CivicCRM are two excellent open source options. These can serve as the central system, PC based work can utilize the modules available in these types of frameworks. The key mobile and mapping portions of this picture will need custom development. These would be integrated into the central system. So whether it be leveraging the power of MapQuest or a full GIS, these could be integrated into the PC based system, and custom built for mobile.
As a mobile GIS application development company we specialize in these types of integrations. Our focus is Web and mobile application development, with a particular emphasis on location based services (LBS), mobile GIS and maps. Mobile will be very important to the upcoming election cycle. Political campaigns can now leverage mobile to make faster better decisions. We can help build or integrate both mobile and maps into any political campaign.
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There’s no denying that the iPhone is an extremely popular piece of kit. This is thanks to many reasons – not least of which is Apple’s extraordinary talent for marketing and making their products desirable to a huge range of people. Apple also have a reputation for very solid build quality. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that iPhones are invincible – as those with more clumsy grips and experience with software errors will no doubt have realised.
iPhone Repair Issues
Thankfully, the popularity of the iPhone is such that any problem you encounter will have been solved by thousands of users before you. So without any further ado, here are the solutions to a few common iPhone repair problems. For iPhone screen replacement, though, you’ll have to go to a professional.
Replacing the Battery
The iPhone does have something of a reputation for poor battery life, especially amongst older models. But just because your battery is terrible, doesn’t mean that you need a whole new phone. Replacing the battery is fairly cheap and is an easy repair to perform yourself – with other brands it’s as easy as sliding off the back cover, popping out the old battery and inserting a new one.
iPhone Error Message: 13109
One of the most common software errors encountered by iPhone users is number 13109, which gives a message reading: ‘The iPhone cannot be synced. An unknown error has occurred’. Obviously this can be very annoying, especially as no actual reason is given for the failure to sync.
iPhone Error Message: 1618
This error is commonly encountered when trying to initiate a new download whilst one is already in progress. Fortunately, the fix is simple – simply power off and on again. If this does not fix the error, a hard reset may be required. To perform a hard reset, hold the sleep and home buttons simultaneously until the device switches itself off.
Author Peter Smith is a blogger, IT technician and general technology geek.
Main Image Source: leedsjimbo
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Migration took center stage in the Brexit debate and referendum. British voters showed widespread concerns: Too many migrants, taking jobs and places in schools or hospitals. “Take control” – the brilliant slogan of the official campaign to leave the European Union – implied that officials can enforce any rules politicians choose. The Remain campaign left this unchallenged, sticking to benefits of the single market and the value of an open and inclusive society.
This popular vision of migration control is a fantasy, based on decades of false promises by politicians who know they cannot deliver. In democracies, states cannot determine who lives where and what they do: they are constrained by practicalities and other interests. States can obstruct movement of foreigners through visas, permits, border refusals and deportation. But attempts to enforce restrictive rules that ignore realities impose enormous cost to the state – financially, economically and socially. They generate expectations that they then fail to meet.
The U.K.’s international migration is massive; tighter control through enforcement would be very hard: 2015 saw 100 million crossings of the U.K.’s supervised international borders, including 36 million by non-U.K. residents – not including the open land border with Ireland. This is almost entirely “self-enforcing.” Only a tiny fraction – 25,000 people – are made to leave the U.K. each year, and most of these people never got past the port of entry. Enforcement can impose huge costs on individuals affected, but its role in the scale of movements is minor and depends on policy compromise with mass migration.
No one knows this better than Theresa May, now in her sixth year as Britain’s Home Secretary. She makes the rules for immigration of non-E.U. citizens: half of all long-term migrants to the U.K. She repeatedly made the rules more restrictive but this immigration has only fallen 10 percent since she took office.
The Home Office depends on being free to ignore E.U. and EEA (European Economic Area) citizens and their families. They do not need permission to come and go, to visit, study or fill jobs. The Home Office does not need to question them at the port of entry, nor can they “overstay” or need threatening with removal. Apart from the minute proportion that commit serious criminal offenses, or are able to access social welfare despite long-term unemployment, the Home Office has no real work to do to in regard to them.
Leave voters aim to change this, expecting the state to “take control” of all the tens of millions of Europeans who arrive in the U.K. each year. A British border with Ireland may need to be constructed and supervised. Even Irish citizens may be subject to control for the first time ever.
Britain’s current expenditure on immigration is modest. In comparison. The U.K.’s net operating expenditure on immigration and borders was £800 million in the year ending 2015. The spend on immigration enforcement was just £400 million.
Prior to Brexit the government’s stated aim was to make it zero cost to the public purse. The cost involved in just attempting to deliver the promises heard on the Brexit campaign trail is hard to even calculate.
A starting point would be data on the marginal costs of increasing control, for example if a state wants to use enforcement to reduce its irregular resident population by 10 percent, what budget increase does that imply? Would additional enforcement increase costs in a way that is linear, logarithmic or something else?
The British politicians who dominated the debate didn’t even acknowledge these questions or make any attempt to be realistic about whether such a radical change can be delivered. Left, right and center all wanted to be seen as ready to “control” migration: able to deliver whatever rules the public want.
Leaders should have admitted that government rules do not “control migration”. The choices of migrants are, of course, shaped by their understanding of rules and how officials enforce them. But the volume of migration is mainly determined by other factors. Many migrants have free choices: They want to live in a country where they will prosper and feel welcome and safe. But many feel they have few choices: They must live near family, or be fleeing persecution. And when markets cannot find enough labor, they often turn to irregular migrants, those who have entered or are staying in a country without the required documentation, whose position makes them most vulnerable to exploitation.
The world is full of examples of failed attempts at control. The United States is home to 11 million irregular migrants. Europe would be too if national governments did not periodically waive migration rules for long-term irregular residents, as the U.K. did 15 years ago for 300,000 people. When migration policy fits reality, only small numbers evade border control. But attempts to enforce unrealistic policies fail when millions of asylum-seekers hand over billions to smugglers and their corrupt official partners, weakening the rule of law.
For 30 years, Britain’s Home Office has passed the buck to others. Threats of fines mean regular airlines now check people for visas. When this shifted asylum seekers to land routes, the Dublin regime made European Mediterranean countries responsible. They in turn tried to pass responsibility to their neighbors, like Morocco, Libya and Turkey. Yet, for the last three years, numbers arriving across the sea have not fallen, because full enforcement of unrealistic policies is only achievable through massive human rights violations. Already, false promises of control from the Home Office have led to laws creating a “harsh environment” for irregular migrants, trying to make everyone an immigration officer.
Instead of a frank conversation about the limited possibilities of enforcement, Brexit commentators tossed around the term “points-based system”, unaware the U.K. has had one for eight years. Rather than talk about what “control” would mean for Government expenditure on borders, politicians competed over the fake precision of “counting everyone in and out,” the size of an arbitrary numerical cap on numbers or having “points” for different skills and circumstances.
The Brexit was dominated by people with no experience of “migration control.” British people have had free movement throughout the E.U. and EEA for 43 years. Outside these countries, as citizens of a rich state, they rarely experience problems with officials.
Yet Britain has many people with experience of “control.” Millions came to the U.K. as non-E.U. citizens. Many experienced long delays, complex bureaucracy and high fees. Thousands were subjected to humiliating processes intended to obstruct legal migration. Families kept apart by racist officials who refused to believe them, only to be proved right by DNA tests. Thousands of asylum seekers who paid smugglers to reach safety in Britain, only to be locked up and disbelieved by officials under pressure to keep down numbers of approvals. Thousands of people paid high fees to lawyers and other advisers, with many receiving shoddy – or life endangering – advice and service.
Home Office officials could have helped British people understand why their job is hard and often ineffective. Their vans and posters that targeted irregular migrants failed amid high-profile opposition. Their rules are amazingly complex and often impossible to understand. Their decisions are often wrong, with 39 percent of appeals allowed last year. They are a small department charged with meeting impossible expectations.
Instead, the Brexit debate left millions of people with the false impression that “migration control” is easy, and that making it “tougher” will mean more jobs for British people and easier access to public services. Rhetoric from the Leave campaign led to an immediate surge in racist threats and attacks on people who look or sound “foreign.” Rules for E.U. citizens cannot be changed until the U.K. leaves the union, which will take at least two years unless Britain unilaterally breaks its Treaty promises. Without the truth being told to Leave voters about migration policy, their expectations of change in their own lives will be sky-high by the time of any actual Brexit.
Border policy and control cannot deliver the change they want. The soured atmosphere will cause many to leave Britain: more if the economy shrinks as predicted. This fall in net migration may allow politicians to claim that “control works,” but it will not change the lives of Leave voters. Emigrants – British, E.U. and non-E.U. – will be leaving skilled jobs like teaching, nursing and information technology, which can’t be filled by long-term residents at the same salaries. Costs of public and private sector will rise. And the main stressor for public services is not newly arrived migrants, but British citizens and long-settled migrants moving within the U.K. The great danger is that disappointed voters turn to increasingly extreme politicians to deliver the impossible control the main parties had promised.
Despite its failures, the debate gave millions in Britain and across the world a better understanding of the issues. Despite conventional wisdom that voters do not want migration, 48 percent of voters in Britain backed a legal regime of free movement for British and other E.U. citizens. Academics, campaigners and lawyers filled social media with informed, detailed opinions.
Some 60 years ago, Europe was a divided continent. Communist states sought to control every aspect of people’s lives, including where they lived and worked. Western states quietly pursued a different path, in which states do not decide where their citizens may live but respond to their choices. Leaving that system will put the U.K. in the international spotlight on what migration control actually means.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and may not reflect those of Refugees Deeply.
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Narrated ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr:
A person asked Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) . “What (sort of) deeds in or (what qualities of) Islam are good?” He replied, “To feed (the poor) and greet those whom you know and those whom you don’t know.”
Source: Sahih Al Bukhari
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
While we were sitting with The Prophet (may peace be upon him) in the mosque, a man came riding on a camel. He made his camel kneel down in the mosque, tied its foreleg and then said: “Who amongst you is Muhammad?” At that time The Prophet (may peace be upon him) was sitting amongst us (his companions) leaning on his arm. We replied, “This white man reclining on his arm.” The an then addressed him, “O Son of ‘Abdul Muttalib.” The Prophet (may peace be upon him) said, “I am here to answer your questions.” The man said to The Prophet (may peace be upon him), “I want to ask you something and will be hard in questioning. So do not get angry.” The Prophet (may peace be upon him) said, “Ask whatever you want.” The man said, “I ask you by your Lord, and the Lord of those who were before you, has Allah sent you as an Apostle to all the mankind?” The Prophet (may peace be upon him) replied, “By Allah, yes.” The man further said, “I ask you by Allah. Has Allah ordered you to offer five prayers in a day and night (24 hours).? He replied, “By Allah, Yes.” The man further said, “I ask you by Allah! Has Allah ordered you to observe fasts during this month of the year (i.e. Ramadan)?” He replied, “By Allah, Yes.” The man further said, “I ask you by Allah. Has Allah ordered you to take Zakat (obligatory charity) from our rich people and distribute it amongst our poor people?” The Prophet (may peace be upon him) replied, “By Allah, yes.” Thereupon that man said, “I have believed in all that with which you have been sent, and I have been sent by my people as a messenger, and I am Dimam bin Tha’laba from the brothers of Bani Sa’d bin Bakr.”
Source: Sahih Al Bukhari
An idea came to mind today about how to keep this place alive even without new ideas to write on, but I’m going to spare you guys all the juicy details in case I don’t follow through. Just know that hereon- I will be leaning more on the faith side of the blog. So here, the very first hadith in my daily hadith series
Narrated Ibn ‘Umar:
Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Islam is based on (the following) five (principles):
1. To testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him).
2. To offer the (compulsory congregational) prayers dutifully and perfectly.
3. To pay Zakat (i.e. obligatory charity) .
4. To perform Hajj. (i.e. Pilgrimage to Mecca)
5. To observe fast during the month of Ramadan.
Source: Sahih Al Bukhari
This hadith is talking about the five pillars of Islam, we have to uphold all of them to be Muslim!
Peace be with you…
“If you’re tired of starting over, quit quitting” I saw this somewhere and I couldn’t stop laughing, it was almost like the picture was made just for me – crazy right? Not really, considering that I was in the middle of telling someone about my new blog when we saw this, he totally believes that the picture was, made just for me. Do you think so too? You probably do and I can’t even blame you. Anyway, I made a post on my new blog tonight, and just so you know – I am just as lazy at it as I am here so no! I am not quitting the meek chic – no way, I love the meek chic. Continue reading “Quitting”
It’s ‘the’ season again, at least it is beginning to look like it, but I don’t particularly like this season, and the reason is very simple – there isn’t much for me to like about it. Are you shocked? Don’t be, I’ll explain shortly, the first thing one might like about it is the weather, which is normally cool and naturally festive, but sadly in recent years harmattan has refused to come around and all we get is this stale weather that leaves me with a soar throat and a blocked nose in the mornings while the rest of the day is as hot as can be – believe me that’s not very likable. Then there is the noise – Good God! – a lot of noise accompany this season and the most annoying of which are the bangers – cheap fireworks that are all noise and no light – kids play around with it on the streets, sometimes it startles me so much so that it takes a while until I finally remember that it’s just some silly kids, and other times you just might mistake a gunshot for banger and run into trouble – you’ll agree that this is another not very likable thing. One thing most people look forward to around this time is the holidays, but I’m not working yet, and school wasn’t always stressful anyway so it doesn’t make much difference to me.
What’s left? What am I missing? Oh I remember – Christmas, I don’t celebrate Christmas so there’s no reason for me to like it – yeah, you heard right no Christmas wishes coming from here – I’ll make sure to tell you why, but in another post please, and sadly most people leave the city for their hometown around this time – I say sadly, but of course that’s not the case, everyone is happy to go back home after a long year, but our usual buzzling area, which I’m used to by the way, becomes so … How do I put it? Not very likable still. What else is there to not like about this season? I think that’s all I can think of for now, Oh wait there’s one more thing, it’s about the only thing that I like – the entire city has been painted red! And I mean this literally and not figuratively, every house, every corner, the clothes, the cars, everything is just red, and I love red – the color red – in all of its shades, be it blood red, tomato red, maroon, red red or you name it, I love them all. You know, there are some colors that you just get tired of seeing – take the green that has been accompanying the red for instance, the trees are already green, a lot of houses are painted in one shade of green or the other so what exactly is the need to still decorate every where else with green? Personally, I find it exhausting. But it’s a little different with red, because red isn’t quite the color you see a lot on regular days, and I really really like red. People around here tend to associate the color to evil and danger, you know -witches, wizards and the likes, if ever one was to dress all in red on a regular day that person is sure to find at least one person to ask him – are you an oracle or something?Yeah, I know, it’s really crazy, but not surprising at all, until recently my mum didn’t like red much too, wouldn’t let me wear it- it’s a kind of tradition I think – but these days, she doesn’t mind, I can wear red all I want, except that I don’t own a lot of red – sadly so. I guess now you can see now why it pleases so, to see all the red that accompanied this season, I can’t decide which ones I like most if it’s the shoes or the dresses, I think I’m leaning more towards dresses. People can go right ahead and keep all the red year round and I wouldn’t even mind, but I guess they would so I would just enjoy the sight while it lasts.
Peace be with you…
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The Curious Habits of Ants
Meet Atta cephalotes, also known as a fungus culturing ant. You can find many images of her family of leaf cutters and fungus garden builders in the Neal A. Weber Papers in the APS’s Library.
These fungus gardens house the queen and her brood and are the centers of activity. First, the queen digs into the soil and ejects the contents of the infrabuccal (beneath the cheek) pocket as a pellet. This pellet initiates the first growth of the garden, which is made from fresh green leaves that worker ants cut into tiny pieces and form into a pulpy mass by pinching them with their mandibles and adding saliva.
As the cut leaf is brought back to the nest, the smallest ants in the family attach themselves to a section carried by a larger ant, and while riding the leaf, their job is to swab it clean. The nest grows over time and can consist of as many as 2,000 chambers.
Neal A.Weber (1908-2001) was a myrmecologist who traveled extensively over the world to study ant behavior. We find in his papers that ants were not all he encountered, in Cuba he found himself in the midst of the Sergeant’s Revolt led by Fulgencio Batista in 1933, and in British Guiana, now Guyana, he records this in his field notes:
“Found good collecting in the high forest. While I was intent, bent double over an old rotted log, suddenly I heard a terrific roar right back of me…I was extremely startled and jumped up with cutlass in hand and visions of a jaguar or something. The roar broke into the regular bellow of a red howler monkey. I am sure he was in a nearby tree and did this deliberately with me in mind.”
Dr. Weber’s collection includes extensive field notes, correspondence, journals, manuscripts of publications, and lantern slides that not only illustrate his scientific investigations but offer, together with his journal entries, a cultural study of multiple countries.
He is also the 1973 recipient of the APS John Lewis prize for his book, Gardening Ants, the Attines.
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Air Packs Under Scrutiny in Probe of Firefighters' Deaths
Lt. Steven Velasquez (left) and Firefighter Michel Baik (right) (Photo: Bridgeport Fire Department)
Connecticut Post via YellowBrix
July 27, 2010
FAIRFIELD, CT — Dennis Eannotti arrives at the firehouse on Reef Road to start his shift. The first thing he does is go over to the rack and his turnout gear — hat, pants and coat.
He looks them over for any rips or tears and then goes to the truck he’s assigned to, picks up the gear of the firefighter he’s relieving and brings it back to the rack. He swaps out the batteries in his radio and changes the radio number on his “activity tag,” a way of keeping track where everyone is in the chaos of an incident.
Next, he starts to check his air pack.
“Obviously, this is one of the most vital things,” Eannotti said.
Firefighters’ breathing equipment has come under scrutiny as state investigators examine the circumstances of how two Bridgeport firefighters, Lt. Steven Velasquez and Michel Baik, died in a house fire at 41 Elmwood Ave. Saturday.
Smoke inhalation has been ruled the cause of death for the 49-year-old Baik. The state medical examiner’s office also determined he had coronary artery disease that contributed to his death. A preliminary autopsy on the 40-year-old Velasquez was inconclusive, so more tests will be conducted.
Requests to the Bridgeport Fire Department for a review of equipment protocols were declined Monday, but the Fairfield department offered a review of its procedures, stressing that while the process is similar in all departments it is not precisely the same.
“You make sure all your seals are good, that your regulator is good, that there are no tears in the hood,” Eannotti said. “You check the bottle to make sure there’s enough air.”
He puts the air pack, also called the self-contained breathing apparatus, which includes the mask and the bottle of compressed air, on the floor of the station house, checking the bottle and the gauge to make sure the readings are the same.
“We have personnel that takes care of SCBA,” Eannotti said. “They’re very meticulous.”
Eannotti presses a button, the “pass device” that sets off an alarm, used to alert other firefighters if he gets into trouble. “You want to make sure the alarm is working properly in case you go down in a fire,” he said. “It’s pretty loud.”
Another alarm sounds as he leaves the air pack on the ground. “If the pack stops moving, the alarm goes off,” Eannotti said. There’s also a piercing alarm that sounds when the pack is running low on air. There is about 30 to 45 minutes of air in the bottle, depending on the activity in which the firefighter is engaged.
He checks the regulator’s bypass valve and purge valve.
“At that point, what I like to do is put the mask on, take a couple of breaths and make sure I have a good seal,” Eannotti said.
Then, he’ll shut the air pack down and use the air that’s left. That’s when the SCBA regulator starts to vibrate, another safety factor to alert the firefighter to a malfunction or low air.
If everything is in good working order, Eannotti said, he loads it back into the truck, and checks the oxygen tank levels in the truck’s EMS kit. If he’s driving the truck, Eannotti takes a checklist and begins to survey the truck itself. Is any equipment missing? Are the lights working?
“It definitely becomes a routine,” the seven-year department veteran said.
And while individual aspects may vary from department to department, the routine is essentially the same in firehouses across the country, Asst. Chief Christopher Tracy said.
“It’s a standard of the industry,” he said.
By far the leading cause of death for firefighters who die in the line of duty is heart attacks, according to a decade-long study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Between 1990 and 2000, cardiac arrest and heart attack accounted for 43.9 percent of the 1,085 firefighters who died in the line of duty. The next-leading cause of death was listed as trauma, or severe injury, in which 27 percent of firefighters lose their lives. Asphyxiation claimed 11.3 percent of the firefighters in the study, and burns claimed 4.5 percent.
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|Home > Entertainment > Film > Article|
As for the films, some said the post-September 11 world was increasingly prompting filmmakers to confront realities that previously might not have made it to a major festival.
"There is a general move to a new realism," British film critic Derek Malcolm said.
The trend was epitomised by In this World, the British film that won the top prize, the Golden Bear, yesterday. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, it employs a semi-documentary style in following two Afghan refugees attempting to reach a haven in England.
No happy end here: Only one of the two makes it; the other dies on a container ship to Italy.
The film peered behind the wall of anonymity that separates most Europeans from the desperate plight of immigrants seeking refuge in their societies - one of three competition entries that took up the theme of immigration and refugees.
Two premieres of films dealing with genocide underscored this year's message.
Babi Yar, a German production directed by US filmmaker Jeff Kanew, tells of two families trying to escape a 1941 Nazi massacre of more than 33,000 people in the then Soviet Union.
A Birch Tree Meadow stars legendary French actress Anouk Aimee as a Holocaust survivor who returns to Auschwitz, where she befriends a young German photographer whose grandfather was in the Nazi SS.
"It is a film about memory fading," said director Marceline Loridan-Ivens, herself a Holocaust survivor. "There are not so many of us still alive. It was necessary to do this for the future."
Canadian director Atom Egoyan, who headed the prize jury, brought his own film, Ararat. It explores the emotional complexities that arise when descendants of Armenians - like Egoyan - attempt to remember what they view as the genocide of their ancestors by Turkey during World War I.
Staying focused on such realities was on the mind of some of the observers who attended the 10-day festival at Potsdamer Platz square, the high-tech building complex that has arisen in a huge swath of land that opened up after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
"My friends envy me because I get to spend two weeks in Berlin," said Italian film critic Fabio Ferzetti. "But I have to tell them I am not in Berlin, I am in Potsdamer Platz."
The politically charged nature of this year's Berlinale was acknowledged by the award ceremony host, German comedian Anke Engelke, who called it a "festival of peace".
Just hours before the stars paraded down the red carpet at the prize gala, about half a million protesters demonstrated against a war against Iraq on a nearby Berlin boulevard.
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17:23 22nd May, 2012
Indian Woman Divorces Husband For Failing To Change FB Status To "Married"
Reportedly, the social networking giant has been cited in 33% of divorces worldwide.
In what could be one of the first of such instances in our country, a woman from Aurangabad has filed for divorce because her husband did not change his Facebook relationship status from Single to Married. The social network provides options to set the relationship status as Single, Married, or Engaged. The 28-year old woman, who was married two months ago, has approached the family court seeking divorce stating that she cannot trust her husband anymore, as he has failed to announce their marriage on FB. Her husband, on his part, says that he forgot to update his status, because he was apparently so busy with family and business that he had no time to check his profile page or change the status. If Mark Zuckerberg could find time to change his status to Married, I find this a bit hard to believe.
Jokes apart, the husband has since stated that he was now willing to change his status or even de-activate his account, although the woman has said that she is not keen on continuing the relationship any further. I once again fail to understand why he has not followed his words by action. On second thoughts, he can make use of this opportunity to free himself from a seemingly bleak relationship that is governed by trivial reasons such as the one above. A recent report by Divorce-Online has claimed that in the 5000 divorce petitions filed with the firm within the past one year, 33% have mentioned FB to be one of the reasons. Online social networking has been increasingly becoming a part of our lives, and this incident just proves how much of an impact it can have on us. We cannot roll back the advantages and disadvantages of the new digital age, and hence the best way is to be aware of the changes and start living accordingly.
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The federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25/hour since 2009 – the longest period in history without an increase. Will this change in the coming year? Perhaps … but only if Congress acts on legislative initiatives targeting this “stagnant” rate.
In the meantime, minimum wages are expected to rise in many states, counties and cities due to inflation, which impacts businesses of all sizes. Specifically, these rate increases can affect your payroll practices and posting obligations. Learn how to keep current with rising state and local minimum wage rates so you’re fully compliant no matter what the circumstances.
Minimum Wage Rates Continue to Climb in States and Cities
When it comes to minimum wages, it’s important to understand that states have authority to pass laws that are more generous than federal law and, similarly, municipalities can enact laws that surpass state laws. That’s why minimum wages are higher than the federal wage in many states, counties and cities. And when this occurs, affected employers are legally obligated to pay the most beneficial rate to employees.
Minimum wage rates are expected to surge in certain states and cities in 2023 due to inflation or previously scheduled increases.
In 2022, 26 states and 60+ cities have raised their minimum wage, with rates taking effect at various times of the year. The same degree of change is expected in 2023, but with even higher increases for states and cities that tie their minimum wage to inflation. Further still, new legislation in 2023 may also impact these inflation-based increases – a situation our legal experts will watch closely. (For example, Denver will raise the city’s minimum wage to $17.29/hour effective January 1, 2023 – an 8.9% increase, or more than triple a typical inflation-based increase.)
2023 Affected States:
|Connecticut||$15.00 (effective 6/1/23)|
|Florida||$12.00 (effective 9/1/23)|
|Maryland (15 or more employees)||$13.25|
|Minnestoa (annual gross revenue of $500,000+)||$10.59|
|Nevada||$11.25 (effective 7/1/23)|
|New Jersey (six or more employees)||$14.13|
|Ohio (gross revenue $371,000+)||$10.10|
|Oregon||TBA (effective 7/1/23)|
Some 2023 Affected Cities:
|El Cerrito, California||$17.35|
|Hayward, California (large employers)||$16.34|
|Palo Alto, California||$12.75|
|San Carlos, California||$16.32|
|Howard County, Maryland (large employers)||$15.00|
|St. Paul, Minnesota (10,001 or more employees)||$15.19|
These inflation-based increases will impact your business in a few different ways, most notably payroll and postings:
Payroll – When federal, state and local minimum wage laws differ, you’re legally required under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to pay the most generous rate to your hourly, nonexempt workers. Along with paying the highest possible minimum wage, you must provide overtime pay of time-and-a-half for 40+ hours in a workweek. It’s advisable to complete a Payroll/Status Change Notice to document any wage changes with affected employees — and carefully track their hours to protect your business from any disputes.
You may also need to distribute state-specific employee handouts covering wage theft, which is when employers don’t pay their staff what they’re rightfully owed, whether through minimum wage and overtime violations or by expecting employees to work “off the clock” or taking illegal deductions. A handful of states — including California and Minnesota — have passed laws requiring specific notifications.
Postings – If you operate a business in most of the states and cities listed above, you’re at risk of non-compliance if your workplace labor law postings don’t reflect the latest minimum wage increases. Something else to consider: Although 30 states and Washington, D.C. now have higher rates than the current federal rate of $7.25/hour, businesses in these locations must post the federal FLSA poster and all applicable state and local postings.
To ensure complete compliance, follow these pointers:
- Display all postings in every business location — even when federal, state or local minimum wages conflict.
- Check out the Minimum Wage Monitor™ Premium Service for a precise, real-time view of state and local minimum wage rates across the United States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This interactive tool allows you to verify the latest minimum wages, as well as those scheduled to take effect so you can plan for any changes.
- Rely on our dedicated service, Poster Guard® Compliance Protection, for 365 days of guaranteed, hassle-free labor law posting compliance. You’ll receive an up-to-date federal, state and local poster set, along with automatic poster replacements every time a mandatory change (such as minimum wage) occurs.
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From the IndieGoGo fundraiser page for the Healthy Start Program on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
It’s difficult to convey the human challenges that people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota are facing. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths of babies under one year old per 1,000 live births. The IMR on Pine Ridge is 300% higher than the national average – the highest in the US. Moms face racism, poverty and psychological challenges.
WHY I STOPPED FILMING TO RAISE THIS MONEY: After years of research regarding the history and reasons American Indians have the worst health disparities in the US, Kitty Farmer is producing a documentary film, What’s in the Heart – Can’t be Taken. (trailer)
“The statistics on Indian health are heartbreaking – American people have no idea the unimaginable and preventable suffering our American Indian neighbors are enduring. It’s as if we’re talking about a third world country.”
Many of these families don’t even have something as simple as running water in their homes. Can you imagine bringing a child into the world, knowing the chances that your child could die are 300% higher than anywhere else in the country?
The good news is that programs like Healthy Start can turn this around.
The bad news… (the above is beyond awful)…but they’ve lost their facilities. They need funds. Bad. There is less than a day left on this and they are $20,000 away from their goal.
Can you help out? Even $5 is a step toward saving a baby’s life.
And… if you help out, forward your paypal receipt to shilohwalker2011(at)gmail.com (please strike any pertinent personal date-all info is kept confidential and will be deleted, just used for the contest). Everybody who donates gets entered in a drawing for an ARC of WRECKED.
Donate here IndieGoGo fundraiser page
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News Stories relating to "cheating"
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
A new study shows that the business leaders behind our nations' most unsettling corporate scandals have most likely cheated on tests and term papers in college as well.
Researcher Paul Piff says, "Our studies suggest that more positive attitudes toward greed and the pursuit of self-interest among upper-class individuals, in part...
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Here's a secret not everybody knows
: Creative people are more likely to cheat than less creative people, probably because they CAN. Their creativity increases their ability to rationalize their actions.
Psychologist Francesca Gino says, "Greater...
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Researchers have found that when choosing a partner, women believe the lower the man’s voice, the more likely he’s going to cheat. Men think the opposite: that a woman with a higher voice is more likely to be unfaithful. Participants in a recent study were asked to listen to two versions of recorded clips from a male voice and a female...
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Vogelstein was raised in Baltimore and attended a private middle school from which he was often truant, preferring to teach himself by reading at the public library. He received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. Vogelstein then briefly pursued a master’s degree in mathematics but instead proceeded to earn a medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore in 1974. He spent the following two years completing his residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His experiences working with young cancer patients there influenced his decision to join the National Cancer Institute as a research associate (1976–78). In 1978 he was appointed assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University.
Although scientists knew that cancer cells were normal cells transformed into unruly mavericks, the reasons for the transformation were unclear until Vogelstein took on the task of elucidating the life history of a tumour cell. In 1982 Vogelstein set out to apply his laboratory expertise to the study of colon cancer. His goal was to identify the genes that, when damaged or defective, give rise to the disease. Analyzing DNA from the cells of colon tumours, he and colleagues found that a particular gene was present in a mutated form in more than one-half of all the tumours they studied. The gene in question, called K-ras, belongs to the class known as oncogenes (i.e., cancer-inducing genes). In their normal form, as proto-oncogenes, these genes stimulate cells to replicate when necessary. However, when damaged they may signal the cell to divide ceaselessly. Evidence suggested that a single mutated gene could not trigger the development of cancer. Vogelstein suspected that a defect in another class of growth regulators, called tumour-suppressor genes for their role in preventing uncontrolled cell proliferation, might also be involved. By 1988 his lab had located some of the most frequent chromosomal deletions in colorectal tumours. He became a full professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins in 1989.
Again studying DNA from colon cancer cells, Vogelstein eventually identified three tumour-suppressor genes, p53 (1989), DCC (1990), and APC (1991), mutated forms of which were found in the tumour cells. Further research on p53 showed that mutations in this gene were involved not only in colon cancer but in a host of other malignancies; in fact, p53 was implicated in more than 50 percent of all cancerous tumours. Data from Vogelstein’s laboratory also provided evidence of still another class of cancer-causing genes, called mismatch repair (MMR) genes, whose normal function is to identify and repair defective DNA segments. Vogelstein’s research made it clear that tumours develop as a result of the sequential accumulation of mutations in proto-oncogenes, tumour-suppressor genes, and mismatch repair genes. On a practical level, his work led to the development of diagnostic tests for colon cancer that promised to greatly reduce deaths from the disease. He later pioneered the use of anaerobic microbes in the treatment of tumours.
In 1992 Vogelstein was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. That year he also received a joint appointment in molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins. In 1995 he became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and in 1998 was appointed to an additional post in pathology at Johns Hopkins.
In addition to publishing hundreds of articles in professional journals, Vogelstein cowrote The Genetics of Cancer (1997) with American oncologist Kenneth Kinzler, one of his former research assistants and later a full professor at Johns Hopkins. Vogelstein was awarded the 1997 William Beaumont Prize for his work on the genetics of cancer.
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Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement of the 1956 initiated by Rosa Park, a middle age black woman, who had worked all day cleaning white people homes for a living. On a particular evening Rosa had worked all day and walked to the bus stop to catch the bus. Upon getting on the bus and sitting down and resting her tired feet, the white bus drive asked Rosa to get up and go to the back of the bus and let a white man sit down. Rosa had followed all of the Jim Crow laws that perceived blacks as second class citizens; but this day she decided to refuse since she was so tired physically and emotional to being treated different, that she refused to move. This refusal was against the law and a policeman came to arrest her (Pearson Education Inc. 2007).
This incident sparked the community to employ a young civil right leader Dr. Martin Luther King to lead this movement. Although King was only one individual he begins this struggle for justice for all Americans and began to fight for the change values and morals of the South. Dr. King practice non-violence and civil disobedience as a way to change the social structure of equality. Functionalists focused on the individual and how one’s behavior is shaped or moved by social norms and values of the dominant society’s values and norms. These values and norms were the predominant views of the white Southern that practice the implementation and enforcement of Jim Crow laws. These laws were prevalent in the South and part of the legal system of justice within our court system
(Pearson Education Inc. 2007).
Functionalism analyses focus on the individual, and how decisions are derived and how one’s behavior is shaped or move by social norms and values. For example; in the 1950’s it was the predominant norm for blacks to be considered as second class citizens as mention above. These norms and values can be explained by functionalists, since their approach to the civil rights...
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Note: The following discussion applies to CGI, ASP, JSP, Servlets, Web Services, etc. Anything that works with 'the web'.
What people call the WWW (World Wide Web) is just a huge collection of web-servers, which you access via web-clients (or web-browsers).
The process works like this: a person types in some address in the address bar of their web-browser. The address is in the form of a URL, which has both the hostname and the resource name (along with the protocol and possibly a port).
(sample URL with port and resource: http://www.theparticle.com:80/profphreak/profphreak.html - where http is the protocol, www.theparticle.com is the hostname, 80 is the port address on that host [80 is the default for web-servers] and /profphreak/profphreak.html is the resource, an html file in our case.)
The web-browser connects to the host, and requests the resource. The server either returns the resource or an error, and user's web-browser displays whatever the server returned.
Simple? That's all there is. Well, as far as the simple situation is concerned.
Very often however, we are not just dealing with static resources such as a web page, but with programs. In that case, the situation works like this: the web-browser requests a resource, which the web-server determines to be an executable program - in which case, the server executes the program, and returns the output as "the resource".
Common Gateway Interface (or CGI for short), defines the environment in which such programs execute. It defines how these 'web' programs get their parameters, how their input and output is processed (how they talk to the web-server), etc.
CGI is system and language independent, meaning that you can write these web-programs in any language for any system (yes, even UNIX and Windows, and yes, using Perl).
The Request (technical)
All client/server interactions start with a client request. In HTTP, a request is a fairly basic command to the server to fetch some resource. The usual request would look something like this:
GET /somefile.cgi HTTP/1.1
This is a request using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (as you can see from the User-Agent header variable). The URL used is:
Which you can also spot inside the header (the Host has the "host", and the first GET line has the resource.
When the web-server gets such a request, it knows what to GET and what types of content the user's browser is willing to accept (which includes Microsoft Word documents, among other things).
The same URL but requested via the Mozilla 1.1 web-browser produces the request:
GET /somefile.cgi HTTP/1.1
As you can see, even though the requests appear different, they do contain fundamentally the same information (like Host, and GET line). This is how the server can be platform independent (and be able to talk to various web-clients).
GET, POST, etc.
What we've seen so far is a GET request. There are about half a dozen different requests which are standard. Apart from GET, another request types stands out as being very common: the POST.
The POST request is usually used to send form data to the server. It is also different from GET in that it has a body. (GET just had the header; all user data has to be crammed into the few lines of the request header). With POST, we can send a LOT more data (like upload files), and submit forms with a lot of fields.
To test POST, let's create an HTML form, and post data to our URL from the previous section.
Notice that the FORM has a METHOD="POST" (this is the key part). When we post data using this form, the request becomes:
POST /somefile.cgi HTTP/1.1
Notice that the request stars with a POST and not a GET and that now we also have a header argument named Content-Length which has a value of 27.
This 27 represents how much data there is in the body of the request. It is the length of USERNAME=Prof.Phreak&AGE=25 (this is the body; since the request skips a line right before it).
Now let's do the same exact form with a GET:
Which produces a request to our server:
GET /somefile.cgi?USERNAME=Prof.Phreak&AGE=25 HTTP/1.1
Notice that this request (the GET) has no Content-Length, and no request body. All the information is encoded as part of the resource:
So, now we know that if we use GET, our data becomes part of the resource string; and if we use POST it is appended to the request as the request body (and we are given the length).
The Response (technical)
The response is a bit simpler than the request; since now we don't have to worry about various ways of sending data; there is basically one way, and that's in the response body.
An OK response to the web-browser from the web-server looks something like this:
Notice that there is an HTTP header, followed by a blank line, then followed by the HTTP body (the content) of the reply. The header has a Content-Length, which tells us exactly how many types we can read to get the body. (note that the 404 content length is just a coincidence, it has nothing to do with the 404 error).
An error response would look something like this:
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Yep, this is the famous 404 Page Not Found error (how our browser sees it in raw form).
Web programming (or programming for the web - however you want to refer to it), is utilizing the HTTP protocol and the structure we've learned about in these notes.
CGI allows us to define our own recipients of these HTTP messages. We can have our own script that would accept form parameters, process them, and just as easily return results in a form that a browser can understand.
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The 21st century business environment has placed an enormous task on companies to give back to the societies they are operating in through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). ZAKA ABD-KHALIQ writes.
Apart from the fact that 21st century is characterised with technological advancement, it also led to influx of industries who came to provide basic needs of man in the form of products and services across the world.
Different companies emerge to provide solutions to people’s problems, looking for where their respective services are needed and setting up their factories or companies there.
For improved profitability, companies had to site their offices in regions where their products or services are highly in demand.
To this end, multinationals continue to eye developing markets such as Africa and especially, Nigeria, to set up their outfit because of the huge business potentials therein.
Though, these companies were able to create jobs for the indigenes of the communities they are operating from, increases government revenue and enhances economic growth, all these also come with its attendant effects.
In the east, oil spillage has rendered lands useless for farming while water is not safe for drinking as a result of oil exploration by various multinational oil firms in the eastern communities.
In communities where cement production takes place, the villagers had to inhale chemicals, thereby, contributing health hazard to people living in such communities.
The fact is, most manufacturing firms use chemicals that causes air pollution, thus, harmful to those living within these areas.
Despite all these, the society still continue to tolerate the operation of these companies. To reciprocate this gesture, the word Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) emerged in the business cycle.
CSR is defined as a company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment in which it operates, expressed by contributing educational and social programme and by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.
The 2015 Cone Communications/Ebiquity Global CSR Study found that a staggering 91% of global consumers expect businesses to operate responsibly to address social and environmental issues. Furthermore, 84% say they seek out responsible products wherever possible.
As the above statistics show, consumers are increasingly aware of the importance of social responsibility, and actively seek products from businesses that operate ethically. CSR demonstrates that you are a business that takes an interest in wider social issues, rather than just those that impact your profit margins, which will attract customers who share the same values. Therefore, it makes good business sense to operate sustainably.
In Nigeria, sustainability reporting has become a mainstream movement that companies spend billions to support, yet it has its challenges as some stakeholders and Nigerians have become critical of the effect on companies’ profits.
Gains Of CSR
The Chairman of Omolayole & Associates, Dr. Michael Omolayole, while speaking on CSR, said corporate organisations need to understand that they have definite responsibilities towards their many stakeholders.
He listed the major group of stakeholders to include; shareholders, employees, customers/consumers, suppliers, transporters, government authorities/regulators, trade associations and communities in which the companies operate.
According to him, “It is a special responsibility for companies to give back something to those communities. It is a kind of ‘love your neighbour’ in action and this is the essence of corporate social responsibility in the private sector.”
On the other hand, he said, the public sector is entirely set up to carry out actions devoted towards helping all the citizens that make up the nation, through governance procedure
Stressing that social responsibility was the main purpose of government and the public sector, he added that the public sector exists solely to serve the citizens and the society.
“There is something discretionary about the obligations of the private sector towards corporate social responsibility where it is absolutely compulsory in the public sector by laws and statutes. The conventional wisdom in approaching corporate social responsibility in both the private and public sectors is that every organisation must perform very well, its assignment under its mandate,” Omolayole said.
Former governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi said CSR is what is expected from a good corporate citizen, adding that if one is a citizen of any nation, he was expected to contribute to make it work.
According to him, the reverse was the case in Nigeria because majority of the citizens always commend a government that is not doing well rather than drawing attention to areas of needs in a constructive manner.
“As a citizen, the more you can contribute to the economy, the better it will be for all. But unfortunately, in the country, the citizens hardly say the truth. You can hardly see a citizen telling a governor, for instance, that you are not well. I am urging all of us to be involved in the governance of the country so that we can have better economy,” he pointed out.
Executive Director, CSR in Action, Bekeme Masade said the practice of CSR as a standard for firms and businesses to follow has evolved. This evolution, he said, has become necessary due to several problems that we face which have changed the environment under which firms operate. Some factors driving companies to pursue a CSR agenda, according to him, are consistent across the corporate world while some are company or industry-specific.
“CSR is also becoming an important yardstick for investors before putting their resources in organisations because it demonstrates that the company takes keen interest in wider social issues that have no direct impact on profit margins and these issues may be local, national or global,” he emphasised.
However, he said, a concern for the education, health and wellbeing of people and the environment are some of the most important markers that investors consider.
To him, “Some of these criticisms can be levied only in the way it is often interpreted; narrowly, and reduced to a form of risk mitigation, compliance and “egocentric” philanthropy, or at how it gets instrumentalised as a new marketing technique, to build or protect a brand or corporate reputation. It is the result of these corporate scandals which have created lack of trust and because of that shareholders and stakeholders need more transparency.”
IS CSR A Curse?
Some market observers have expressed dissatisfaction with corporate social spending by companies, claiming that CSR is reducing tax payment to government and dividend to shareholders. They also claim that the involvement of companies in CSR is a waste of resources, as not all CSR projects are relevant in some communities.
The Managing Partner at Mazari Enterprises, Iteku Village, Lagos–Badagry Expressway, Lagos, Augustine Mabogunje, who has shares in some Fast Consumer Moving Goods (FCMG) companies said: “CSR is affecting tax to government and shareholders’ dividends, by way of reducing their share dividend. The involvement of companies in CSR is a waste of government revenue, though good, but not all CSR projects are necessary in some communities.”
Babafemi Yusuf, on his part, said CSR would have been a good way to complement government efforts on infrastructural development, but unfortunately this has been defeated. “I keep wondering why there are still many developmental project scattered all around if the companies are doing so much with the big amount quoted on CSR in annual reports,” he said.
Moses Nwaoboshi who withdrew his shareholding from a multinational company because of the free fall of stocks some years back, said the amount sometimes spent by companies on CSR are not commensurate with some projects.
THE WAY FORWARD
While there are many examples of companies using strong CSR performance as a brand-building and product marketing strategy, Tobias Webb, founder and managing director of the Innovation Forum, said, far too many corporate executives still rely on the old financial and hierarchical models of yesteryear as the basis of their own planning.
The biggest and most influential companies, according to him, also tend to be the most reliant on the ‘conventional way’ of doing business.
“What is happening, however, is a broad transition to the adoption of external multi-stakeholder processes – in the form of multi-stakeholder sustainability standards and labels – as a way of outsourcing the stakeholder engagement process, ” he pointed out.
Whether a force for good or an exercise in brand enhancement, experts said, what cannot be denied is that CSR is very much an integral part of the global business landscape, of which Nigeria remains a major player.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from LEADERSHIP Nigeria Newspapers. Contact: email@example.com
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Eduardo Teixeira Coelho – ETC, Martin Sièvre is regarded one of the most eminent Portuguese comics artist. His oeuvre largely consists of historical comics, which often deal with the subject of Vikings, although he also worked on other genres. His first comic was published in Sempre Fixe when he was only seventeen. In 1943, he started his collaboration with the magazine O Mosquito. After the closure of the magazine in 1953, Coelho left Portugal for Brazil, where he spent two years publishing comics, teaching, as well as working with British publishers. In 1955, he moved to France, where he started working for Vaillant. There, he illustrated a number of comics, often in collaboration with scriptwriters Jean Ollivier and Roger Lécureux. His big success in France came with ‘Ragnar Le Viking’, a Viking story published from 1955 to 1969.
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This chapter examines women’s roles, expectations and experiences into two comparable, male-dominated industrial manufacturing companies in Australia. It is based on the findings of a research report undertaken in 2004, the aim of which was to compare the equal opportunity reports of two companies with the actual experience of women workers in those two companies. Both companies were operating within the same legislative and industrial framework and therefore were subject to the same requirements in terms of Australia’s equal opportunity legislation, including its reporting requirements. Both also operated in the same local labour market. Nonetheless, it was found that one company provided what were perceived as ‘good’ jobs for women while the other provided jobs that were seen as ‘bad’ jobs. Clearly, this resulted not from external factors but from a combination of the operational, management and cultural conditions within each company.
Managing Diversity in Australia: Theory and Practice p. 107-119
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UFO Sighting Report - Canada
May 10th 2008 : Southeast Manitoba
Southeast Manitoba Canada Two Horizontally Oriented Rectangles
Date: May 10, 2008
Time: 10:40 p.m.
Location of Sighting: SE Manitoba.
Number of witnesses: 1
Number of Objects: 2
Shape of Objects: Rectangular.
Full Description of Event/Sighting: I was in a campground in southeast Manitoba between the villages of Sundown and Piney, roughly 10 km. from the US border (Minnesota) when I looked to the southeast and saw 2 horizontally oriented rectangles fairly close together, one above the other. They were a bright white with no other colours evident. They appeared to move in unison in a roughly circular fashion; that is, not in a continuous circle, but moving haphazardly in a space in the sky that occupied roughly the size of my outstretched fist. This continued for several minutes. At that time the objects merged and became one. There were no obstructions to my view such as tree branches or leaves...they clearly merged in a split second and became simply one rectangle. After several minutes they split and became 2 again. There was no sound at all and it's impossible to guess their distance from my location, but I'd guess it was more than a few miles at minimum. After 10 to 15 minutes of watching I turned in for the night, but it's something I'll never forget. I've since become a member of MUFON, and posted the sighting on one of their talk forums. I've yet to hear of a similar sighting at any time or any place.
I contacted Chris Rutkowski, Manitoba's go-to guy with regards to UFOs and said a friend had suggested possibly the US government was deploying silent drones near the Canada-US border. Chris said the only drones at that time might have been near the US-Mexico border.
I've been following the subject of UFOs for years, read many a book on the subject and believe I know the difference between what I saw and objects in everyday life. It was NOT the moon, any aircraft known to man nor any star or planet. I don't believe shooting stars, meteors or meteorites exhibit this kind of behavior, nor would any space station or satellite. Have you ever heard of similar sightings from southeast Manitoba or northwest Minnesota, or from anywhere, for that matter?
Thank you to the witness for their sighting report.
HBCC UFO Research, Box 1091 Houston, British Columbia, Canada - VOJ 1ZO
[UFOINFO thanks Brian Vike for passing this report on.]
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semantic gapThe difference between the complex operations performed by high-level language constructs and the simple ones provided by computer instruction sets. It was in an attempt to try to close this gap that computer architects designed increasingly complex instruction set computers.
Last updated: 1994-10-10
A graph consisting of nodes that represent physical or conceptual objects and arcs that describe the relationship between the nodes, resulting in something like a data flow diagram. Semantic nets are an effective way to represent data as they incorporate the inheritance mechanism that prevents duplication of data. That is, the meaning of a concept comes from its relationship to other concepts and the information is stored by interconnecting nodes with labelled arcs.
Last updated: 1999-01-07
The meaning of a string in some language, as opposed to syntax which describes how symbols may be combined independent of their meaning.The semantics of a programming language is a function from programs to answers. A program is a closed term and, in practical languages, an answer is a member of the syntactic category of values. The two main kinds are denotational semantics and operational semantics.
Last updated: 1995-06-21
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President Barack Obama is about to announce his new strategy for Afghanistan, but the success of whatever option he chooses will depend heavily on Pakistan acting to stop its territory being used to attack Western forces next door. And that’s bad news, because the demands of its own domestic counterinsurgency campaign, doubts about the duration of U.S
A month after Osama bin Laden’s death, one of the men tipped to succeed him as leader of al-Qaeda is believed to have been eliminated by a CIA-operated drone strike on Friday. U.S
It took Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw only 14 days to secure his place in Indian history.
Fears are growing for the safety of a well-known Pakistani journalist who has been missing for 39 hours now and, according to an international advocacy group, is believed to be in the custody of the Pakistan’s controversial Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence . Human Rights Watch declared that Saleem Shahzad, a reporter working for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and Adnkronos International, the Italian news agency, could be subject to mistreatment and even torture while in custody.
There was more bad news on Sunday for a Pakistani military already reeling from the fallout of the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden: suspected Islamist militants launched a brazen large-scale attack on a Pakistani naval base in the southern port city of Karachi
Whatever good this week’s visit by Senator John Kerry had done to soothe U.S.-Pakistan tensions was complicated by Tuesday’s firefight between Pakistani troops and a NATO helicopter that had crossed into the country from Afghanistan.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama made two shocking breaches of foreign policy establishment etiquette.
When the U.S.
When President Asif Ali Zardari’s phone rang at 1.15 a.m. on Monday, it was President Barack Obama on the line, with news that a U.S.
Osama bin Laden’s final night began with a group of four helicopters slicing through the night skies over Pakistan, making their way toward Islamabad from a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan
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Posted by Nixx_is_a_girl at ess-p-144-138-202-137.mega.tmns.net.au on March 17, 2003 at 09:21:54:
In Reply to: Indeed, he was. NT posted by Queen of Urban Legend on March 17, 2003 at 09:19:03:
: That's what he is the most famous for doing...but the celebration of St. Patrick's Day originally had more to do with the fact that St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland (it is doubtful that there were ever any snakes in Ireland to begin with). I believe that it is actually a religious holiday in Ireland (rather than just a green beer drinking day)...mayhaps there's some Irish folk on the board who can confirm?
Post a Followup
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What is the theory that underpins our moocs?
By George Siemens
If you’re even casually aware of what is happening in higher education, you’ve likely heard of massive open online courses (MOOCs). They have been covered by NY Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, TV programs, newspapers, and a mess or blogs. While MOOCs have been around since at least 2008, the landscape has changed dramatically over the past 10 months. In this timeframe, close to $100 million has been invested in corporate (Udacity) and university (EDx and Coursera) MOOCs . And hundreds of thousands of students have signed up and taken these online course offerings.
Personally, I’m very pleased to see the development of Coursera and EDx. The learning potential for society (globally) are wonderful. All of the critiques that I’ve read so far ring hollow compared with the tremendous learning opportunities that these MOOCs provide. This hit home for me when I was in India a few months ago. I met with numerous university students and the message was clear: we simply can’t get the quality of instruction from some of our colleges that we get from Coursera. While we debate pedagogical models and the ideologies informing different MOOCs and the corporate interests of open courses, the lives of students in different parts of the world are being changed with these projects. And that should be our real focus.
A secondary focus, for me (and far lower on the scale than the primary one mentioned above), is around the learning theory and pedagogical models that influence different types of MOOCs.
What Lies Beneath: Some Thoughts on MOOCs’ Tech Infrastructure
By Audrey Waters
Much of the mainstream media attention paid to MOOCs lately has involved the content, the credentialing, the cost, the class size. But what about the technology?
…. I don’t want to make too much of the difference between the learner-focused gRSShopper and the community-oriented Lernanta. Sure, there is plenty of difference, but I don’t think Lernanta is quite as demonstrative of P2PU theory as gRSShopper is for connectivism. And too, both these are both open source systems serving OER communities.
There’s another gulf again between these two systems and the new Stanford-model-MOOCs. (Although MITx – and now presumably edX – does say it will open source its MOOC platform (source code link?).) The latter MOOCs have recreated a traditional LMS in many ways for their technology platforms, driving (almost) all course activity onto their own course sites. Udacity does host its videos on YouTube. Otherwise, there’s no RSS. There’s no integration with external student blogs. The social or peer element involves primarily class forums. All work is done on and submitted via the platform….I’m curious to see if learners will bubble out beyond the confines of the tech platform once Coursera offers more humanities and social science classes. Bookmarking, blogging, social media, RSS – will the new MOOCs open to these technologies?
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A survey by the Association of Independent Professional and the Self-Employed found that 84% of people find satisfaction in working for themselves.
Entrepreneurs cite that having control over work, better work-life balance, and increased earning potential are the key reasons behind satisfaction in running their business.
However, to achieve happiness as an entrepreneur, you must understand that true happiness comes from within.
In addition, the welfare of your employees is a critical factor to consider if you want to be happy in running your business.
Start With the Right Insurance
It is reasonable to consider Workers Compensation as an additional expense to your budget.
However, experts at Cerity explain that having proper coverage is a necessary safety net that protects both you and your employees in the event of an accident.
When you purchase Workers Comp, you will benefit from receiving expert advice about insurance plans that matter most to your employees.
You will also get 24/7 support when you need assistance in making payments or claims.
By providing employee coverage, you protect yourself from lawsuits, which are not only costly but also stressful. In fact, offering worker’s compensation is one way of keeping employees happy without raising their salary.
When employees are happy, they become more efficient and productive, which will result in an overall boost of value in the business.
Invest in the Right Talent
Self-employment doesn’t mean you are always handling every task on your own.
Seek help when necessary to ensure you are on the right track.
Consult experts in your industry on matters you do not understand.
Sometimes, trying to figure out things by yourself can lead to stress.
It is better to explain what you don’t know to an expert or even hire the right talent to take full-time responsibility in areas you feel stuck.
Besides, hiring the right talent is essential for success.
It increases your return on investment, prevents loss linked to a bad hire, and the right person gets accustomed to company culture quickly.
Create a Happy Work Environment
Your workspace should be a place you and your employees want to spend time.
When creating a comfortable workspace, consider investing in the right furniture, technology, go green, and add plants to improve air quality.
Designing a pleasant work environment makes your employees happy and healthy.
As a result, this will boost not only your happiness and confidence in your business but the entire team as well.
Being your own boss is a dream worth pursuing.
However, the experience may not be as fulfilling as you think if you are in for the money only.
You should strive to meet customer satisfaction, provide excellent employee experience while maintaining your peace and happiness.
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Alaga syrup a brand of cough syrup popular in black communities, especially in the South.
Anglophile a term applied to someone who has an enormous admiration for and devotion to things British.
asafetida bags small bags often used in folk medicine, filled with a bitter, foul-smelling mixture from the roots of various Asiatic plants and worn around the neck in order to ward off disease.
Betty Grable An American actress and film star (1916–73), she was the most popular pin-up girl of World War II; she co-starred with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in The Gay Divorcee (1934) and later appeared in such films as Moon Over Miami (1941) and The Pin-Up Girl (1944).
Big Mama and Big Papa Claudia and Frieda's grandmother and grandfather.
Black Draught a liquid, over-the-counter laxative; sometimes it is used to combat colds.
CCC camps the Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal jobs program during the 1930s and '40s.
Chittlin' here, a nickname; chitterlings, the small intestines of pigs, are a soul food staple-battered, deep-fat fried, and served with lots of catsup, along with corn sticks and cooked greens.
Christ's love of Mary Magdalene According to the Gospels, Mary of Magdala was cured of seven demons by Christ (Luke 8:2) and was at the foot of the cross when he was crucified (Mark 15:40). According to popular tradition, Mary Magdalene was also the woman who, on two occasions (Luke 7:37–38 and John 12:3), washed and anointed Jesus' feet, drying them with her hair. She has become symbolic of repentant sinners.
Clark Gable an American film actor (1901–1960) who personified his era's notion of the virile, adventurous American male. He won an Academy Award for It Happened One Night (1934) and is best known for his portrayal of Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind (1939).
Claudette Colbert An American stage and film actress (1903–1996) born in Paris, she won an Academy Award for best actress in It Happened One Night.
Dante an Italian poet (1265–1321) best known for his Divine Comedy, which details his vision as he progresses through Hell and Purgatory, escorted by the poet Virgil, and is guided to Paradise by his lifelong idealized love, Beatrice, who leads him to the throne of God.
De Gobineau a French diplomat and social philosopher (1816–1982) whose racial theories became a philosophical justification for Nazi "ethnic cleansing." His most famous work, Essay on the Inequality of Human Races, states that the Aryan race is superior to all other races. His theory of racial superiority has been thoroughly refuted, of course, and is considered worthless by modern anthropologists.
dicty-like black slang for snobbish, or haughty.
Dostoevsky a Russian writer (1821–1881) whose works combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight. He is best known for his Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
drays low, sturdily built carts with detachable sides for carrying oversize loads.
eating bread and butter Butter was a treat not often enjoyed by the poor.
Fels Naphtha a popular cleaning product.
gandy dancers workers on a railroad section gang; they are probably named because of the movements made while using tools from the Gandy Manufacturing Company.
Gibbon Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) is best known for his six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In this work, which covers a time span of thirteen centuries, Gibbon espoused the view that the decline and fall were inevitable because of the withering of the classical tradition of intellectual inquiry. He blamed this trend, in part, on the rise of Christianity. His negative treatment of Christianity and his bitter irony made the work a subject of controversy.
Ginger Rogers Best known for the movie musicals she made as Fred Astaire's dance partner, Rogers (1911–1995) received a 1940 Academy Award for best actress for her role in Kitty Foyle.
Greater and Lesser Antilles The whole of the West Indies, except the Bahamas, is called the Antilles. The Greater Antilles include Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. The Lesser Antilles include the Virgin Islands, Windward Islands, Leeward Islands, the southern group of the Netherlands Antilles, Barbados, Trinidad, and Tobago.
Greta Garbo This Swedish-American actress (1905–1990) began her career in silent films and successfully switched to "talkies" in the 1930s. Her most famous films include Mata Hari, Anna Karenina, and Ninotchka.
Hamlet's abuse of Ophelia Ophelia is in love with Hamlet, who treats her with alternating contempt and tenderness. She is a tragic character, driven mad by unrequited love, and drowns herself after Hamlet mistakenly kills her father.
Hedy Lamarr An American film actress born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna, Austria (1913–2000), she co-starred with Judy Garland in Ziegfield Girl (1941) and later starred in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949).
Henry Ford a car manufacturer; one of America's richest men during the 1940s.
"Imitation of Life" a black-and-white film released in 1934, in which a white woman becomes rich through the pancake recipe of her black servant; meantime, the black servant is deeply saddened when her light-skinned daughter chooses to pass for white. This version of the Fannie Hurst novel starred Claudette Colbert.
incorrigival a youthful mispronunciation of "incorrigible," unable to be corrected, improved, or reformed.
Jane Withers A 1930s-40s tomboy actress with dark eyes and dark hair, she was the antithesis of the Shirley Temple icon.
Jean Harlow Hollywood's prototype for the American blonde bombshell, Harlow (1911–1937) went on to reign supreme in the films of the early 1930s and starred opposite Clark Gable in Red Dust (1932) and China Seas (1935).
Lucky Strike a brand of cigarettes.
Maginot Line a system of heavy fortifications built before World War II on the eastern frontier of France; it failed to prevent invasion by the Nazi forces.
Mason jars glass jars used for canning homegrown fruits and vegetables.
met his Beatrice Beatrice (pronounced Bay-ah-tree-chay) was the ideal woman, beloved by the poet Dante and the symbol of divine and ideal love. She leads Dante through one portion of the Divine Comedy.
Ministratin' a youthful mispronunciation of "menstruating."
misanthrope a person who hates and distrusts people.
Moirai In classical Greek mythology, they are the Fates, the goddesses of birth and death.
muscadine a musky grape grown in the southeast United States; often used for making wine.
Nu Nile Hair Oil a hair product used by black men.
Othello, Desdemona, Iago characters from Shakespeare's Othello. Othello the dark Moor marries the fair, blonde Desdemona and is deceived by the villainous Iago, who falsely accuses Desdemona of being unfaithful. In a fit of jealousy, Othello kills her.
our roomer People sometimes rent rooms within their houses (or even apartments) in order to supplement their incomes.
pomaded with soap lather using soap lather as a hair-grooming product.
sealing wax a combination of resin and turpentine that is used for sealing letters.
Sen-Sen a breath freshener made of aromatic dried particles.
Shet up! a dialectic pronunciation of "Shut up!"
Shirley Temple Adored by everyone, Shirley Temple, with her hallmark dimples, corkscrew golden curls, and twinkling blue eyes, was the highest-paid child actress of the 1930s and early 1940s.
slop jar an indoor container that takes the place of toilets, especially for night use or for people too ill to walk outside to an outhouse.
take holt a dialectic pronunciation of "take hold of."
Vick's salve a widely used medication to treat colds; sometimes it is taken internally, although directions on the jar warn against doing so.
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The solution is named Qtalk Defense, which provides for encrypted voice and data communications with standard smartphones on existing public networks.
The value of the contract and other details were not disclosed but the company said its system will be used by about 120,000 employees of government organizations.
"The geographical situation of Indonesia, a country with more than 17,000 islands, made it essential for the Indonesian government that the secure communications solution is using the existing GSM networks," Qnective said. "Like this, little additional customer costs for new hardware or infrastructure were generated. These challenges were mastered by the design and implementation of Qnective's mobile software solution."
Qtalk Defense is specifically designed for government offices, public organizations or military departments requiring protected communications when using mobile devices or desktop computers.
"Moreover, the customer can request project-specific adaptations like, for example, replacing the encryption algorithms or other security parameters in the product," Qnective said.
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Alternative VPN Choices for You
The following features are available to all users:
- Servers in 12 countries
- Up to three simultaneous connections (more available on request)
- Port forwarding (via web interface or client)
- Multihop VPN
- OpenVPN and L2TP/IPsec VPN protocols
- Warrant canary
- P2P is permitted
Servers are mainly based in Europe, but also in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong.
Multi-hop (double) VPN
This basically allows you to “chain” VPN servers, so that your data is routed between two VPN servers as it travels between you and the internet.
Your PC/device -> VPN server 1 -> VPN server 2 -> Internet
An excellent (and unique) feature of IVPN’s implementation of multihop VPN is that it allows you to double-hop through any two of its servers. Despite the name, though, it is not possible to hop through more than two servers.
Such chaining can provide some security benefits, but will always result in a major loss of speed. As I argue in this article, I think the privacy/security benefits of multihop VPN using the same VPN service are rather limited. But I understand that this is not a view shared by everyone.
Visit IVPN »
Speeds and Performance
All tests were performed on my Virgin Media UK 50 Mbps/3 Mbps fiber connection, using the OpenVPN UDP protocol. The graphs show the highest, lowest and average speeds for each server and location. See our full speed test explanation for more details
As we can see, transatlantic download speeds are very decent, although upload speeds are less so. Those results when connected to nearby servers in Europe, however, are fantastic! They are, in fact, some of the best results I have seen in four years reviewing VPN services.
As we can clearly see here, IVPN uses Google DNS servers. After carefully examining the log files, I can confirm that it proxies the DNS requests so they appear to come from IVPN and not users. I detected no IPv4, DNS, or WebRTC leaks
Please note that Private Use RFC IPs are local IPs only. They cannot be used to identify an individual, and so do not constitute an IP leak. Unfortunately, my ISP (Virgin Media UK) does not support IPv6 connections, so I am unable to test for IPv6 leaks at this time. This is a situation that should change in the near future.
Good news is that this VPN was able to unblock Netflix and BBC iPlayer worked when I connected to suitable servers.
Pricing and Plans
As with many such services, IVPN offers a simple one-size-fits-all VPN package, which starts at $15 per month if paid monthly. Although prices drop to $8.33 per month if paid annually, this does place IVPN firmly at the pricier end of the VPN spectrum.
IVPN offers a three-day free trial, but payment details are required in order to take advantage of this. You will be charged if you do not cancel before the three-day trial is over. In addition to this, IVPN offers a seven-day money back guarantee (from date of payment). A 30-day extended money back guarantee is available for technical issues.
IVPN accepts payment using credit/debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoins (via BitPay). With care, using Bitcoins allows you to pay for the service anonymously, but please always remember that IVPN will know your real IP address anyway.
Privacy and Security
IVPN is incorporated in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory (BOT). Gibraltar has no mandatory data retention laws, which allows IVPN to offer a fully no-logs-at-all VPN service.
“We do not store any connection logs whatsoever. In addition, we do not log bandwidth usage, session data or requests to our DNS servers…. Unlike many service providers, IVPN purposefully does not log any usage data associated with an account as we provide an unlimited and unrestricted quota free service.”
Which is great. A question mark, however, hangs over whether Gibraltar should be classified as a Fourteen Eyes spying alliance country. It is true that the UK has little direct influence over internal Gibraltar affairs, but as a BOT, Gibraltar does still lie under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
It would, therefore, seem safest to assume that the UK can exert pressure on the Gibraltan government and its companies and institutions, should it wish to. Being based in Gibraltar is therefore probably safer than being based in a Fourteen Eyes country, but is not ideal.
It might be worth mentioning that when writing this review, the Windows client EULA contained some references to jurisdiction under US law. IVPN assures me, however, that this is not the case, and that the EULA has now been updated to make clear that IVPN is wholly under Gibraltar jurisdiction.
For OpenVPN encryption, IVPN uses an AES-256 cipher with RSA-4096 handshake and HMAC SHA-1 hash authentication (control and data channels). A Diffie-Hellman exchange (DHE) introduces perfect forward secrecy PFS), with a new encryption key generated every hour.
This is excellent. And the website’s Qualys SSL report scores an A+ with PFS, which is also excellent.
I am a little dubious about the value of having a warrant canary, but am aware that others appreciate them.
The IVPN website uses a smart grey, red and white theme. There is not a huge amount of information available, but what is there is informative, and answered most questions I had.
The website also includes a good introduction and general guides to how VPNs work, and I appreciate the lack of bombastic language falsely claiming that the service provides “anonymity”.
Support is via a ticketed email system (web form available). IVPN promises response with 24 hours, but I generally received a full and knowledgeable answer within a couple of hours.
The website also features a Live Chat option, but it did not work when I tried it. IVPN tells me that “Live chat is an experimental feature we are testing at this time, we do no guarantee the availability of live chat”.
The only personally identifiable information asked for during signup is a valid email address. There is no reason this cannot be a disposable one. Once you have paid, you will receive an introductory email with your username (which can be changed) and a link to IVPN’s setup guides.
The IVPN Windows VPN client
The Windows client is a rather unassuming looking app. The firewall, however, acts as both a kill switch and DNS leak protection, ensuring that internet traffic cannot enter or exit your PC except via the VPN tunnel
An unusual feature is the ability to leave the firewall on even when the VPN client is not running. This can help ensure that you never accidentally connect to the internet without the VPN running
You can change ports from within the client, and select an obsfproxy connection in order to help evade censorship. Obfsproxy is a tool designed to wrap data into an obfuscation layer, which makes it difficult to detect that OpenVPN is being used. It has been adopted by the Tor network, largely as a response to China blocking access to public Tor nodes. It is independent of Tor, however, and can be configured for OpenVPN (as it is here). As already noted, IVPN also allows you to double-hop using any two of its servers.
It might look plain, but the client gets the job done. And the firewall should ensure that you suffer no IP leaks when using the service (see test results below). I did, however, find the client to be very unstable, and suffered numerous crashes while writing this review. On the plus side, this allowed me to confirm that the firewall kill switch works as advertised!
IVPN provides custom clients for Windows, a VPN for Mac OSX, and iOS. It also provides various OpenVPN and L2TP/IPsec setup guides for Windows, Mac OSX, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, DD-WRT routers and more.
Pre-flashed and pre-configured IVPN DD-RT routers are available from Flashrouters
I must say that I am very impressed with IVPN. Although a little short on frills, it offers a no-logs VPN service that has all the most important things covered. It does not leak your IP address in use, and it uses very strong encryption.
It was also, for the most part, insanely fast. I have very rarely recorded results to the UK and to mainland Europe anywhere near as good. Results to the US were not quite as impressive, but are still very acceptable.
So IVPN gets a very strong thumbs up from me. Now, if only that damn Windows client would stop crashing!
Visit IVPN »
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Mega-events like the World Cup and Olympics often present unanticipated challenges for the cities that host them. But, managed well, they can be a force for positive change. Find out more in our selected insights.
Even before the first ball was kicked in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil’s hosting of the event got a bit of a kicking. Yet things could look quite different when the tournament ends. From ‘home advantage’ and a short-term feel good factor to the global showing of the tournament, which importantly, could pave the way for foreign investment. Indeed, our June edition of Global Economy Watch shows a 10% boost to Foreign Direct Investment could translate into an injection of $6.5bn into Brazil’s economy.
Infrastructure investment is helping Brazil to realise its potential
Whatever the outcome for Brazil, this year’s World Cup and readiness for the 2016 Olympics have highlighted the serious challenges mega-events pose for host cities in terms of resources and infrastructure. So what makes a city or a country best placed to host a mega-event? It’s how you play the game explains that cities and regions should first focus on assessing their long-term priorities for development and then bidding on the events that best correlate with those priorities. Ultimately, mega-events can be transformative when planned and financed effectively. And, despite the bad publicity around the World Cup, as a city, Rio has transformed everything from security to transportation to urban regeneration.
Sports aside, and as our new Cities of Opportunity study suggests, cultural appeal, creativity and good old human ingenuity – manifested through technological and artistic innovation, heritage conversation and the embrace of diversity and change – are key to creating successful cities.
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By introducing your little ones to a second language, you are preparing them for a brighter future full of countless professional and job opportunities. Among the 7,000 languages that are believed to exist in the world today, Spanish is one language that is loved and appreciated by many non-native speakers. In the United States only, this is the most popular language to be learned children in various level of education.
According to census reports, Spanish is the second most-spoken language in the world. With 387 million native speakers, more people on earth speak Spanish than English. The opportunities for Spanish speakers across the globe are just endless. This is probably the main reason you should enroll your child in homeschool Spanish lessons.
So, what are the importance of Spani
Learning Spanish at such a young age seems, to the outsider, like it would be extremely difficult. Spanish, however, is actually even easier to learn than English!
English, quite obviously, is still a necessary language to be fluent in inside the U.S. but learning Spanish can work to your advantage as well.
Here are a few major benefits of learning to speak another language:
Thrive in Your Career
It’s amazing how many new career opportunities will open up for you if you are fluent in Spanish. Learning an entirely new language will provide you with a giant step up over your competition. You and a peer might have exactly the same schooling, exactly the same experience, and exactly the same work ethic; but if you are fluent in Spanish and they are not, it’s pretty much guar
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Another term for moloch.
- After mating in September, female thorny devils lay 3-10 eggs in a burrow about 30 cm underground.
- The researchers showed that thorny devils take up water by means of capillary action via these grooves.
- The female thorny devil lays 3 to 10 eggs, usually 8, in November or December.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: thorny devil
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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Are you an avid gamer? If no then welcome to an exciting world of entertainment! There are lots of different video games available across so many different platforms. Keep reading to learn more about different genre and find out which games are right for you.
Game ratings are a great way to figure out what is suitable for your children. Video games have moved past the point of being a kids’ pastime, so don’t assume that a game’s content will be appropriate for all age groups. Games are rated from EC, for Early Childhood, to AO, for Adults Only. If you plan to purchase a game for another person, you should certainly verify that the game is suitable for the age of the individual.
Be sure to use the subtitles. Looking for a way to hear the dialogue much better due to the overwhelming noise of those loud games? Take a look around for the subtitle options. Lots of video games have a section for the audio that is located on the menu. Here, you can find the option to either enable or disable subtitles.
If you are buying a game as a gift, check out the ESRB rating. Ratings will tell you the appropriate age levels for a game. It also helps you refrain from making a bad purchase.
Never hesitate to ask game store associates for their suggestions. It is hard to keep up with the new releases even if you have a favorite genre that you play all the time. You will find that the clerks can offer a variety of recommendations that you can enjoy for many happy gaming hours.
Always hide before reloading. A lot of time people get killed when they are just not controlling their character. Make sure to be a better soldier than that. Find a safe, covered area where you can reload.
For young children, it is best to disable the chat feature on games. There isn’t any good reason why a child of four or five years needs to be able to chat with strangers online. Games which don’t allow you to customize should not be purchased. If you can’t figure it out, search online for more information or talk to the people in the store.
Before allowing your child to play video games on PC or console that have connections to other online players, make sure to set the parental controls that you are comfortable with. Doing so allows you to filter out some of the more unsavory content in favor of age-appropriate games. It also protects them from other unsavory players, too.
Watch out for online games. Sometimes, they are not free. Anytime your children wish to join an online site, be sure you review it in advance. Find out how much the game costs and make sure it is appropriate for your children.
Spend some time with your children and play games with them that you both have fun with. Almost every child loves tonplay them and they can make them smarter too. You can buy games your kids will learn from and get help with hand-eye coordination.
Understand any content settings and parental settings for your gaming consoles. You can likely make adjustments that keep kids from viewing mature content. Many games offer profiles so each person sees different content.
Today, many online games offer players a choice between earning rewards and new content slowly but cheaply (through arduous work) or buying them with real-world money. Consider how much advantage these purchases will actually give you in game. This will keep you from actually progressing in the game by earning these rewards. The flip side is that they can really save you valuable time.
Do not spend more than 2 hours a day playing a video game. Unfortunately, video games are often highly addictive, so take steps to avoid this happening to you. Try to game for no more than three hours daily. If you’re someone who plays long hours, then it’s best to take plenty of breaks during the day.
Instead of a computer, try a regular gaming console system for your kids gaming pleasure. Consoles have more privacy controls, as well as security and content settings that are easily bypassed on a computer. They can have a far more protected experience on a dedicated console system.
Check the game rating before letting your kids play! Some games contain a great deal of violence and are rated for adults. It is not wise to let young children play video games such as these. Violent games can upset kids and give them nightmares.
Limited hours for gaming is suggested. You can become addicted to playing video games, so actively take steps to avoid it. Limit the time you spend playing to just a couple or three hours each day. If you spend more than two hours playing a game, take a rest break.
Even though a PS2 system might be outdated, if you would like to save a few bucks then this gaming console is something to pick up. Not only that, the games on this system go for half the price than the ones on Xbox and PS3. This system has 10 years of previously played games available on the market.
Before you let your children sit in front of any video game, check to see how it is rated. Some video games include graphic violence and are only for adults. Young kids should definitely not be playing these games. Violence in games can potentially harm a child psychologically, so it is always better to play it safe.
If you want a new video game, it is best to order it ahead instead of waiting until the scheduled release date. Sometimes bonuses are offered only to customers who pre-order early. These types of extra bonuses can include insider tips and features that the ordinary public will not have access to.
Drink lots of water when you are playing video games to keep hydrated. Some people become so involved in video games that they do not take breaks often enough. Dehydration can damage your body, so it is important to drink enough fluids when you are playing video games.
When attempting to purchase cheap video games, be on the lookout for local businesses that are about to go out of business. Many video rental establishments are having trouble thriving in the age of digital media. If you look, you might find a video store that is going to close soon and find some fantastic deals on games and accessories. Most likely, the game discs are still in good shape and won’t need to be cleaned.
If you are a parent, then make sure you are setting limits for your children while playing video games in regards to time. A good limit is less than two hours per day. This keeps their priorities straight and prevents eyestrain.
Think about doing a game trial before purchasing the full game. Using the trial version will let you know whether you really like the game. If you find that you like the demo you can purchase the full version.
Have you considered visiting a video arcade lately? Maybe one out of town. Most people are playing on their own consoles at home these days. Going to an arcade in a different locale can facilitate human interaction and socialization.
If you’re looking at purchasing a new video game, you can reserve it before it actually comes out. Many games these days have what is called a “pre-order bonus,” which is an item given to those who order the game early. These bonuses can help you out in the game with things like unique features and cool outfits. You can only get them by buying prior to the release date.
You should have other hobbies besides just playing video games. Too much time spent on video games can be unhealthy. Get up and get moving! Addiction to video games is a disease which affects many today.
If you notice that your child is getting too involved in a video game or is demonstrating signs of aggression or anger during game-play, a time out is in order. Give him a 10-minute warming, and then call an end to the game. Go for a quick walk or ride bikes. Do something that gets their mind off the video game.
If you are usually so intense playing video games that you tend to sit continuously for hours playing one game, set a timer to sound every 30 minutes. Playing video games continuously can cause your eyes and hands to get fatigued and may cause health problems later on. A timer is a reminder to put the game on pause and take some time off.
It can be helpful to play a trial version of a game you are unsure about purchasing. These video game trials are extremely helpful in helping you determine if you want to spend your hard earned cash on a game. If you find that you do enjoy a game’s trial version you can then go purchase it with confidence.
If you love to play video games, there is most likely something special about them that you really like. You should branch out and play different ones! Check out all options to ensure you’re not missing out. You might just find something new you love that you would have otherwise disregarded.
If you thoroughly enjoy video games, then you probably have specific genres that you favor over others. This does not mean to have blinders on to other games. Always try out different kinds of games. You may find that a great game is within a genre you generally wouldn’t look into.
You can find quite a few video games online these days. Whether you’re mainly a PC gamer, console gamer, or mobile gamer, more and more games are available as digital downloads. The convenience is balanced by the inherent risk and expense. Resist the temptation to make impulse gaming purchases, especially of big-ticket new releases. Research the game you want before you buy it.
One nice thing you can do for your children if they play video games is to set aside a specific room (a basement is ideal) for their hobby. Kids can be noisy, so putting them elsewhere can keep your home more comfortable. You may even want to move gaming to a different floor.
Always test the gaming systems and equipment you purchase. Check every single port, accessory, and game. You would hate to want to use a certain feature just to find out too late it doesn’t work.
With sports games, it is best to start out in rookie mode. There is a lot to learn with some sports games and you want to have a chance to learn, and hopefully win. After playing for a while, change the level of difficulty.
When playing a sports video game for the first time, set the difficulty level to rookie. Sports games are often very difficult and take time to learn. Once you have been playing for a few weeks, you can begin to increase the difficulty.
Online forums that present video game reviews are helpful when seeking a new video game. The posters provide great firsthand information. Also, you can get reviews on whether or not the games are good. You can trust these honest reviews.
When a particularly popular game is involved, you might want to purchase add-ons and upgrades once you begin to play. This gets expensive very quickly! Instead, be disciplined with your spending. Before you think about purchasing a new game, explore the games you already have and try all the different modes.
Take advantage of playing your favorite games online. When you are playing against other players you will get more experience in gaming. From different consoles to RPGs, there are lots of differences to select from. If you are able to dominate online, you will be at your best.
The first time you play a game, start out with the single-player mode. You don’t want to move on to the more difficult multi-player and online modes until you have become proficient at single-player mode. When you can’t play the game, trade it in and get something easier. Do not waste your time.
There are a lot of games available, but you need to play good ones to have great experiences. The information you just perused helped you identify the best ways to pick out games, so use them to your advantage. Perhaps you will surprise yourself and have a great time.
Try playing online very frequently. Pitting yourself against the skills of other online players can improve your gaming skills and strategies. Many genres are available online, too. It is very fun to win a game online, give a sense of accomplishment.
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