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warc | 201704 | New and refurbished coal-fired power plants will not be eligible for funding unless they emit less than 550 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour (gCO2/kW), the EIB said on Wednesday, which could be met either by a combined heat and power plant or one that also burns biomass.
“Adoption of the new lending criteria represents an important step forward in the European Investment Bank’s commitment to energy investment that supports EU policy and reflects the urgent investment challenges currently facing the energy sector,” Mihai Tanasescu, EIB vice president responsible for energy lending, said in a statement.
The EU lender also said it could tighten the emissions standard in the future to ensure its lending criteria are consistent with EU climate policy and create jobs across Europe. | 814 | 488 | 0.002098 |
warc | 201704 | Most everyone loves cookies, but it’s the flavor and texture that really divides people. Some love chewy, soft cookies; others, thin and crispy. Some want chunks of chocolate, fruit or nuts in their cookies; others love a plain and simple cookie. There’s heated debate over whether sugar cookies should be frosted or unfrosted, and whether oatmeal cookies need raisins or chocolate chips in them or nothing added at all.
And then there’s the chocolate chip cookie.
I think it’s safe to say the chocolate chip cookie receives the most banter over what makes it perfect. Should it be crunchy, chewy, crispy or cakey? Then follows even more questions: How sweet should it be? How big? How many chocolate chips?
There may never be consensus, but I think it’s safe to say that only a few recipes have come close to what many would consider the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
To me, perfection in the chocolate chip cookie is found in a few simple, yet important variables:
What ingredients are used, how they are prepared and how the cookies are baked. After a few rounds of trial and error (and lots and lots of taste testing), I think I’ve stumbled upon the best, most foolproof recipe for the perfect chocolate chip cookie!
Here are my best tips:
High-quality ingredients = High-quality cookies
Even before you make your cookie dough, you can impact the quality of your chocolate chip cookies. It’s all about the best ingredients. I don’t mean you need to go out and buy all the top-of-the-line, expensive stuff but using the correct ingredients for your recipe will take you far into fail-proof territory.
Start with good butter. I prefer to use unsalted butter for my chocolate chip cookies so I can control how much salt goes into the recipe (there’s nothing worse than an over-salted cookie). Use the right chocolate chips. Semi-sweet, or any chips with at least 60% cacao content work best. That slight earthiness and bitterness to the chocolate really enhances its flavor when it’s baked into a cookie. Make sure your baking soda is fresh. Old baking soda loses its oomph, leaving you with flat cookies.
The right preparation
There are a few ways to get the perfect prep for the perfect cookie.
First, make sure the butter is at the correct consistency. When it comes to baking cookies it’s best if the butter has the same softness as the soft part of your shoulder. So – yep – push lightly on your shoulder, then push lightly into the butter. They should feel similar, and that’s when you know it’s soft enough.
Second, be sure not to overmix the dough; overmixing it can cause the end result to be more cakey and airy than we want. If you mix the dough with a stand mixer, just take care not to overdo it; otherwise, it’s best to mix the dough with a wooden spoon.
Third, refrigerate the dough. You can let it chill overnight, but I found that a full 24 hours or even up to 36 hours is best for flavor rendering. The cookies end up with a deeper, more caramelized flavor than the ones that are baked right away.
Bake it best
The keys to baking the best-looking, best-tasting cookies are all in how you mound the dough onto the baking sheet, what temperature you bake them and how long you bake them.
I use a 1/4-cup spring-loaded ice cream scoop to shape my dough mounds, and place them at least 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. I also add a few extra chocolate chips to the top of the mounds so the cookies look nicer when baked.
As for the temperature, I bake them at a higher heat than is normal for most cookie recipes (400 degrees F vs. 350 degrees F). It seems to bake the cookies just right for me – so they’re golden brown and crispy on the outside but soft and chewy in the center.
There you have it – just a few simple tips and tricks to the “perfect” chocolate chip cookie. Here’s a recipe that I know you’ll love. Happy baking!
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yields: About 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, plus more for topping
Directions:
In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; stir to combine. In a separate large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture; stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough overnight or up to 36 hours. When ready to bake, heat oven to 400°F. Lightly spray two baking sheets with cooking spray. Scoop dough into 1/4-cup mounds and place about 2 inches apart on baking sheets (you may have to do multiple batches). Place a few extra chocolate chips on top of each mound. Bake cookies 10 minutes until golden brown on the edges and just lightly golden in the center. Let cookies cool 2 minutes on baking sheets, then transfer with a spatula to cooling racks to cool completely. | 5,179 | 2,320 | 0.000445 |
warc | 201704 | Because I'm determined to get the most happiness bang for my buck, whenever I have a decision to make I try to gauge whether a certain choice is going to bring me more joy. That requires thinking through different aspects of happiness and which ingredients might matter more, depending on the decision at hand. We've all made pro-and-con lists and had endless discussions with friends, colleagues, and family. Sometimes, though, it helps to have another way to look at a tough decision. Here are six questions I ask myself when making one.
1. Will this strengthen my relationships? They're one crucial key to happiness, so decisions that help me build or strengthen ties are the best choices. Yes, it's a bit of a hassle and expense to go to a friend's wedding, but being part of important events in someone else's life is a way to show how much you value the relationship. The payoff is a stronger bond, shared memories — a well of good feelings. 2. Will it provide challenge and novelty? Research shows that these two elements make people happier — even unadventurous, cautious ones like me — because they provide opportunities for mastery. But these things can also make us feel insecure, intimidated, frustrated, and stupid. To get past that hurdle, I try to keep in mind that in the end, I usually get a big shot of happiness from new, challenging endeavors. When I considered adding video to my blog, for example, I reminded myself that mastering the process would likely make me happier by broadening my definition of what I was capable of and leading to new relationships (see question 1). I confess that I still feel kind of goofy talking into the camera, but the reward has definitely been worth the effort. 3. What is the opportunity cost? Energy, time, and money are limited, so even if a decision would make you happy, it might not be worth it if it would mean you'd have to give up other activities you love. For example, I could learn to play a musical instrument or speak French, but pursuing either activity would require me to direct resources away from other things I'd rather do. 4. Will this decision help me stay true to myself? You're happiest when your life reflects your temperament, interests, and values. Ask yourself: Am I making this decision to impress others, pretend I'm different from the person I actually am, or deny a truth about myself? If you answer yes, move on. 5. When I consider this action, how do I feel? This question is often a quick and reliable barometer of whether to do something or not. If you feel a surge of energy, that's usually a good sign. If not…you get the idea. 6. Will this option help me to "choose the bigger life"? What is "the bigger life"? That's the beauty of this question: Everyone's definition is different. Consider a very work-driven person who is offered a big job promotion, but also has a dream of moving to Italy for a year. By asking herself this question, she might gain new insights about what is really important to her. There's no right or wrong answer — only what's true for you. | 3,093 | 1,578 | 0.00064 |
warc | 201704 | Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today provided advice to New Yorkers on what to do if they suffered property damage from Hurricane Irene.
"The days following a natural disaster can be confusing and stressful, but it is important for those who have suffered property damage to file an insurance claim as quickly as possible to help protect their financial future," Governor Cuomo said.
Benjamin Lawsky, Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services, who oversees the State Insurance Department, said, "We will do everything we can to help people who suffered damage from the storm recover and get their lives back on track as quickly as possible. The purpose of insurance is to help people rebuild and we will be working to see that process does as smoothly as possible."
Governor Cuomo and Superintendent Lawsky suggested the following measures for New Yorkers with property losses:
The first step to getting your home restored is to contact your insurance company and/or agent with your policy number and other relevant information. Be aware that your policy might require that you make this notification within a certain time frame. Take photographs or video of the damage before clean-up or repairs. After you've documented the damage, make repairs necessary to prevent further damage to your property, such as covering broken windows, leaking roofs and damaged walls. DO NOT have permanent repairs made until your insurance company has inspected the property and you have reached an agreement on the cost of repairs. Be prepared to provide the claims adjuster with records of any improvements you made prior to the damage. Save all receipts, including those from the temporary repairs. If your home is damaged to the extent that you cannot live there, ask your insurance company or insurance agent if you have coverage for additional living expenses. Ask what documents, forms and data you will need to file the claim. Keep a diary of all conversations you have with the insurance company and your insurance agent, including names, times and dates of the calls or visits and contact details. Be certain to give your insurance company all the information they need. Incorrect or incomplete information may cause a delay in processing your claim. If the first offer made by the insurance company does not meet your expectations, be prepared to negotiate. If there is a disagreement about the claim, ask the company for the specific language in the policy in question and determine why you and the company interpret your policy differently. If you believe you are being treated unfairly, contact the Insurance Department at www.ins.state.ny.us. You can file a complaint about an insurance company at http://www.ins.state.ny.us/complhow.htm. Consumers should contact their insurance company, agent or broker to get answers to specific questions about their policies. Consumers who need further help should feel free to contact the New York State Insurance Departments Consumer Services Bureau at 800-342-3736 which operates from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Disaster related calls only should go to the Departments disaster hotline at 800-339-1759, which will be open starting Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for as long as needed
Governor Cuomo and Superintendent Lawsky have also mobilized the State Insurance Department to help New Yorkers with their claims. The Department has:
Opened the Departments disaster hotline at 800-339-1759, which will be open starting Monday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for as long as needed. Put all companies that sell homeowners and auto insurance on alert to be prepared to handle claims. Sent staff to join other state and local agencies at the state and at local emergency operations centers. Initiated the Insurance Emergency Operations Center. Is sending the Departments mobile unit to hard hit locations to provide on the spot assistance for consumers. In addition, health insurance companies have been instructed to accommodate consumers who had to evacuate their homes and as a result have to seek care from out-of-network doctors or other health providers.
The Insurance Departments online Homeowners Resource Center offers detailed information and a number of useful tools consumers may find helpful. It can be found at the following location on the Insurance Departments website, http://www.ins.state.ny.us/hmonindx.htm. | 4,387 | 1,926 | 0.000521 |
warc | 201704 | Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today launched his Central New York Regional Economic Development Council, which will redesign the relationship between the state government and businesses to stimulate regional economic development and create jobs statewide. The Governor was joined by Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy, local officials, business leaders, and community members to launch the Regional Council at the Convention Center at OnCenter in Syracuse.
The Central New York Regional Council will be led by Nancy Cantor, the Chancellor of Syracuse University, and Rob M. Simpson, President of CenterState CEO, who will both serve as Regional Co-Chairs. The Regional Council will coordinate the economic development of Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga, Oswego counties. A complete list of members of the Central New York Regional Council is included below.
"For too long, Albany has imposed one-size-fits-all economic development plans across the state, ignoring the unique assets and challenges of each region," Governor Cuomo said. "Today, we are taking a new approach. With the Regional Councils, we will empower individual areas like Central New York to chart their own course for job creation and growth and we will send a clear message that New York is open for business."
The Regional Councils represent a fundamental shift in the state's approach to economic development, from a top-down development model to a community-based approach that emphasizes regions' unique assets, harnesses local expertise, and empowers each region to set plans and priorities.
Currently, New York State's economic development efforts are managed through dozens of separate state and local agencies. The Regional Councils will now bring together stakeholders in every region of the state to serve as a coordinated point of contact for economic development. Each Regional Council will be chaired by Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy and will be led by two Regional Co-Chairs from the business and academic community. Additional membership is comprised of local leaders from business, academia, labor, agriculture, nonprofits, and community-based organizations.
Each Regional Council will develop a plan for the development of their region. The state will work with the Regional Councils to align state resources and policies, eliminate unnecessary barriers to growth and prosperity, and streamline the delivery of government services and programs to help the Regional Councils carry out their plans for development.
Governor Cuomo has already made historic changes to the state's economic development grant application process to support the Regional Councils. Through a new Consolidated Funding Application that combines resources from dozens of existing programs, the Regional Councils can now apply for $1 billion in state funding for projects they determine to be part of their regional strategy.
Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy said, "Governor Cuomo's groundbreaking economic development strategy will put our state back on the right path. Only by focusing on what our regions actually need can we take full advantage of our resources and keep businesses and jobs here in New York. The Regional Councils will enable every section of the state to prepare individualized economic plans and will make the regions the drivers of their own success."
Empire State Development President, CEO & Commissioner Kenneth Adams said, "New York can no longer afford to have the worst business climate in the nation. The economic development strategies of Albany's past have failed to solve the challenges we face today. Governor Cuomo's Regional Councils create a more efficient business model that empowers individual regions to determine what is best for their own communities and incentivizes thoughtful economic policies through competition. I am excited to work with every region to maximize their potential and bring investment and jobs to New York State."
Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Syracuse University and Co-Chair of the Central New York Regional Council, said, "Governor Cuomo's regional approach is exactly what we need to jumpstart growth and create jobs. Our Regional Economic Development Council will take cross-sector collaboration to a whole new level by leveraging the expansive array of public-private partnerships we've been forging throughout the region and tapping Central New York's strengths. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Rob Simpson and all the exceptional community and business leaders who are already collaborating in unprecedented ways to remake our regional economy."
Rob M. Simpson, President of CenterState CEO and Co-Chair of the Central New York Regional Council, said, "Governor Cuomo's regional plan recognizes that New York's economy is as diverse as its citizens and too complex for Albany to take on alone. The challenges and opportunities facing Central New York are unique and require more than one-size fits all investments by the state. By engaging our region's business, academic and public sector partners, the Governor will get the best from Central New York and we will be a vibrant contributor to New York's overall economic health. I applaud the Governor's leadership on this and look forward to working together to forge a more business-friendly Empire State."
The ten Regional Councils cover the Capital Region, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Long Island, Mid-Hudson, Mohawk Valley, New York City, North Country, Southern Tier, and Western New York.
To learn more about the Regional Councils, please visit www.nyopenforbusiness.com
Central New York Regional Council Members
Regional Co-Chairs Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Syracuse UniversityRob M. Simpson, President of CenterState CEO
General Members
Carl Bannar, Vice President & General Manager, Lockheed Martin Corporation Kevin LaMontagne, CFO, Fulton Companies Kathryn H. Ruscitto, President & CEO, St. Joseph's Hospital Jim Carrick, Chairman, GIS Information Systems d/b/a Polaris Library Systems Tony Baird, President, Tony Baird Electronics Ann Marie Taliercio, President, UNITE HERE Local 150 AFL-CIO Cornelius B. "Neil" Murphy, Jr., President, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Dr. Rueben Cowart, President & CEO, Syracuse Community Health Center Rita Paniagua, Executive Director, Spanish Action League Jack H. Webb, Chairman & CEO, Alliance Bank Michael Johnson, General Manager, Johnson Brothers Lumber Company L. Michael Treadwell, Area Industrial Director, Operation Oswego County, Inc. Garry VanGorder, Executive Director, Cortland County Business Development Corporation Fred Pestello, President, Le Moyne College Andrew Fish, Executive Director, Cayuga County Chamber Randall Wolken, President, Manufacturers Association of Central New York Heather Erickson, President, MedTech Nancy Weber, President Oswego County Farm Bureau/Owner of Mexican Pride Farm in Mexico, NY Margaret Morin, President, 4-M Precision
Elected Officials
Onondaga County Executive Chairman of Cayuga County Legislature Chairman of Cortland County Legislature Chairman of Oswego County Legislature Chairman of Madison Board of Supervisors
Mayor of Syracuse
Mayor of Auburn Mayor of Cortland
Elected officials will serve in an ex-officio basis and will participate in discussions and the planning process. In regions composed of more than two counties (except for the New York City region), members will include:
the chief executive or supervisor of each county; and the chief executive or supervisor of the three municipalities with the largest population (limited to one municipal representative per county)
10 Regional Economic Development Councils
Capital Region (Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Warren, Washington) Central New York (Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga, Oswego) Finger Lakes (Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, Wayne, Wyoming, Yates) Long Island (Nassau, Suffolk) Mid-Hudson (Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, Westchester) Mohawk Valley (Fulton, Herkimer, Montgomery, Oneida, Otsego, Schoharie) New York City (Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond) North Country (Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence,) Southern Tier (Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins) Western New York (Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Niagara) | 8,424 | 3,633 | 0.000277 |
warc | 201704 | I’ve mentioned before that I like vegan “loaf” recipes. The first one I ever made was meant to mimic meatloaf, as are most of the others I’ve encountered since then. But sometimes you hit on a recipe that isn’t trying to be a vegan version of a meat meal, and I’ve found those types of recipes to be surprisingly good.
Experimental food doesn’t always work out, of course. Take the amaranth I bought at the co-op a while back. As usual, it was something I tried because it was on sale and I’d never had it before. Unfortunately, unlike most foods I’ve been introduced to this way, I didn’t wind up liking it very much. I found the texture to be gritty and unpleasant straight up, and since then I’ve been looking for ways to use it that mask that texture and have good flavor.
Enter this not-meaty vegan loaf from 1,000 Vegan Recipes, pictured here with some maple baby carrots from Appetite For Reduction. This loaf has a whole lot going for it. Millet and amaranth make up the base, and once they’re cooked you mix in sauteed onions, zucchini and peas along with some seasonings. It doesn’t look like meatloaf, it doesn’t smell like meatloaf and it doesn’t taste like meatloaf…but I think it may be my new favorite loaf recipe. Since the grains pretty much cook themselves, it was easy to make ahead. All I had to do was pop it in the oven when dinnertime rolled around, giving me more time to focus on sides.
I was going to cook up some of the frozen Swiss chard from our garden, but since the loaf already had a lot of green, I went with the baby carrots instead. I’d never seen this recipe in AFR before, probably because I never think of carrots as a side dish! I normally just use them in salads or full recipes. But the maple idea was great. All it involved was a simple maple glaze and a little roasting time, which was easy to coordinate with the cooking of the loaf.
I also made some garlic-herb mashed potatoes, inspired by recipes from both the cookbooks I was already using. One of them suggested boiling garlic cloves along with the potatoes and mashing them right in…definitely worth trying if you like seasoned potatoes! I mashed them along with a little thyme, marjoram and vegetable broth like I do when I make caulipots, and boy were they tasty.
I’ll admit I was a little worried about the texture of the millet amaranth loaf when I first put it in to cook. One thing I’ve noticed about amaranth is that it seems to add a gelatinous texture to anything it’s cooked in, and this was no exception. The whole loaf was kind of sticky going into the pan, and I wasn’t sure how well it would firm up, or if it would firm up at all. Happily, it not only firmed up, but also came out of the pan in neat wedges, much neater than other vegan loaves I’ve made. My mom and I ate it with ketchup, but gravy would be great, too. Mushroom gravy, perhaps, or one of the “no beef” gravies from the Happy Herbivore Cookbook.
Having a vegan loaf that wasn’t trying to be meatloaf was a neat change of pace. I even liked the different color. This particular loaf reheated very well too, which is a big plus since my mom is always looking for quick lunches and I like having things on hand to pair up with salads for a complete meal. So if you want something a little different, this is the loaf for you.
What’s your favorite off-beat vegan “meat” recipe that doesn’t actually mimic meat?
MAR
2012 | 3,557 | 1,715 | 0.000611 |
warc | 201704 | After the Slovenian government too approved the state guarantee on 6 December, the parliament vote is the last step needed for the EIB to disburse the money. The management of the bank is now expected to make a final decision on the disbursement. However, the EIB also has to take into account that there is an ongoing OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) investigation into allegations of corruption against the management of the new block.
The new block at Sostanj is estimated to cost 1.3 billion euros, and could not be constructed without the 550 million euros promised by the EIB (110 million have been paid already) and an additional 200 million euros expected to come via the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
“Under no circumstances should the EIB disburse the remaining 440 million Euros to Sostanj - this is one of the worst investments to support from European public sources,” comments Barbara Kvac from Slovenian NGO Focus.
“The emissions from the 600 MW lignite block would prevent Slovenia from meeting its 2050 climate targets, and the corruption investigation concerning the management of the project has still not been completed by OLAF,” adds Kvac. “Disbursing money before the conclusion of this ongoing investigation is not only highly risky for the bank but it could also make the EIB breach its own internal policies and thus be seen as an improper use of EIB funds.”
“Additionally, the economic viability of the project is highly questionable. The Slovenian government has failed to make sure its own recommendations for energy investments are met; moreover, it is clear that the project as it is right now will never bring profit if the EU decarbonisation roadmap is respected,” adds Nina Stros from Greenpeace in Slovenia. “If we also consider the extreme social costs that burning lignite causes, it is hard to see any reason for the bank to support this project.”
The European Investment Bank, the EU house bank, has this autumn launched a process of reviewing its energy lending policy in order to align it better with EU climate goals.
“Climate science says it loud and clear that we cannot be investing any more in fossil fuel infrastructure as of today,” comments Pippa Gallop from CEE Bankwatch Network. “Putting this money into Sostanj right now, as the EIB is revising its loans in the energy sector, is a slap in the face for people who believe that the EIB is engaging in an honest process to clean up its lending. Financing such a damaging project is inadmissible behavior coming from a public bank.”
Notes for the editors:
1. Read an independent assessment of the economic viability of the new plant, showing Sostanj is not a solid investment: http://bankwatch.org/sites/default/files/Sostanj-TES6-economics.pdf
And an analysis of the conditions posed by the Slovenian authorities on the constructors (unlikely to be met): http://bankwatch.org/news-media/blog/financial-alchemy-slovenias-energy-sector-still-results-lignite-not-gold
2. Slovenian state commission for the prevention of corruption says conditions for corruption were present in the awarding of the equipment contract for the new plant to Alstom and says works should not go ahead until allegations are cleared: http://bankwatch.org/sites/default/files/StateCommissionReport-corruption-TES6-23Feb2012.pdf
3. OLAF opens investigation into the allegations of corruption: http://bankwatch.org/sites/default/files/Slovenia%20Investigation.pdf
4. Operating TEŠ6 will result in emissions of 3.4 mt CO2 per year, which is equivalent to almost all of Slovenia’s emissions in 2050 (if it cuts emissions by 80 percent – a minimum according to the European targets of 80-95 percent).
5. The European Investment Bank, the EU house bank, has a mandate to further EU objectives, including when it comes to climate change policies. www.eib.org
For more information, contact:
Barbara Kvac
Focus Slovenia +386 40 722 149
Nina Stros
Greenpeace CEE in Slovenia +38640871530
Pippa Gallop
CEE Bankwatch Network +385997559787 | 4,134 | 1,976 | 0.00052 |
warc | 201704 | Use of laptops and notebooks has grown tremendously over time. With a vast array of brands to choose from over different price ranges, the further cut of laptop prices compared to a few years ago has encouraged desktop users to purchase laptops which are far more convenient and handy. As people switch more and more towards the compact version of the computer these days, users must understand that this miniature form is more prone to damage and is more vulnerable than the bulkier desktops that were prominent back in the day. With everything crammed into a limited carbon fiber casing and closely connected, malfunction or impairment of a single component could lead to damage of unexpected extent costing you dear on repairs. Today, we shall look at a few tips and some do’s and don’ts for proper maintenance of your laptop.
Food and Beverages
Your laptop depends merely on electricity for energy and not on coke or coffee, so avoid eating in front of your laptop. Unlike the desktop which has individual parts such as keyboard and mouse which come in contact to food the most, the entire computer is at risk in case of laptops. Solid food particles might get inside your keyboard and give you a tough time typing but greater risk is posed by liquids which seep into your motherboard through the keyboard in no time. Despite spill resistive technology available for keyboards, there is always room for error and uncertainty, and the underside of your laptop which has a clear opening to the motherboard is not spill-resistant. Besides the stains that the foodstuff and liquid will leave behind, worse, you’ll fry your entire system with your favorite drink.
Protective Layers
It is always best to add a keyboard guard. Not only does it prevent crumbs from getting in, it also reduces the wearing of keys overtime. In addition, due to the indirect contact on the keys, the buttons remain stainless and have a longer life as pressure exerted by the keys while typing is reduced. Likewise, use of a screen cover or a clean plastic film can be of great resistance to scratches and other stains. Also, decent LCD protection films that are glued to your screen increases your LCD strength preventing breakage and increasing impact suppression. A word of advice for users is to check for any sharp edges or irregular objects lying on your keyboard such as pins, pencils, or even small earphones before covering the lid as they may cause harm to your display.
Carrying Around
Laptops, due to their ultralight weight and limited dimensions, are easy to carry around. They easily fit in a bag or even briefcases, but very few people care about using the right kind of casing or bag— use a bag/carrier/case of suitable size and proper padding. Unlike your textbook, your laptop is vulnerable to shock and impact. Therefore, your bag must contain a proper padding all around the laptop compartment. Make sure the strap is fastened to prevent your laptop from wobbling around while moving. Since many instances of drops have been recorded as a result of bag breakage, a proper laptop bag is recommended. Aside from the draping, make sure the adapter cable is not very tightly rolled as it might cause loose wires or expanded ones. Similarly, make sure you lift the laptop from its base and not from its monitor when the lid is open.
Cleaning
It is necessary to keep your notebook clean. Abstain from cleaning and not only does it look old and filthy, but you will soon experience compromisedusability with sticky keys and non-responsive touchpads. In order to clean there are a few basic steps. Step 1: Do NOT use water. Water is not the ideal solvent to use for cleaning gadgets and devices. Instead use a cleaning agent recommended in computer stores. Apart from their cleaning ability, these agents are of volatile nature which makes them easy to vaporise quickly after the work is done. For cleaning your LCDs, and keyboards and also the framework of your laptop, such cleaning agents are highly encouraged for use. While using these detergents, make sure to use a microfiber cloth over regular cotton or any other material as it prevents scratches and absorbs the remaining detergent from the surface. You can also prepare your own cleaning solution using a mixture of vinegar and distilled water. As far as removing the crumbs from your keyboard, you can use a blower or a can of compressed air on an inverted laptop to blow off the dirt and food particles. Blowing air from mouth contains moisture and hence is not advised. Make sure you perform all cleaning tasks after shutting down your system.
Proper Surface
The lap isn’t the ideal surface for your laptop and neither is your bed. The mantra is flat. A cool insulating surface like your desk works best. Using your laptop on uneven surfaces can hit hard on your laptops causing internal damage as devices placed at certain angles do not perform at optimum efficiency. Further, there is also a case of blocking air flow and most importantly, the bed feeds in a lot of debris which will eventually clog your CPU fan.
The Air Vent & Cooling
Computers, especially laptops, are very picky regarding their operating temperatures. You can lose out a lot on your processing simply if your PC is too hot. Similarly, exposing your laptop to rapidly fluctuating temperatures can also be equally detrimental. In terms of air flow, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. Make sure that the room or at least the surrounding of your laptop has proper air flow. Make sure the air vent is not blocked or exposed to heat. To curb the problem of air circulation and substantial amount of air flow, use of an external cooling pad is equally recommended. Not only does it provide the flat base recommended for using your laptop, but it helps equally in regulating your PC temperature by creating a proper airflow system. It is a very good practice to open the casing of the underside and properly blow off all the dust and dirt once a year to maximise performance and increase your laptop’s life. In you are unable to do this on your own, seek the help of a technician.
You May Also Like This Post Happy Blogging :) Source: The Kathmandu Post | 6,234 | 2,923 | 0.000345 |
warc | 201704 | It will respond to emerging challenges and serve our Network by building on our strengths in building and sharing knowledge; facilitating policy development processes; building institutional capacity; working in partnership with key sectoral players; and promoting investments in institutions, information, and infrastructure.
Our three strategic goals of catalysing change in policy and practice, sharing knowledge, and strengthening partnerships will focus our activities. We will establish a number of new programmes within the six thematic areas addressing the links between water security and key development concerns. Each of the GWP regions will develop work programmes to address their regional priorities within the framework of the GWP Strategy.
Delivering on our strategic goals will require us to pay close attention to social equity issues linked to water, particularly those affecting women and young people; strengthening network capacity; monitoring and evaluation; and securing financial resources. | 1,019 | 545 | 0.001842 |
warc | 201704 | Reviewed by Fredy González (Yale University) Published on H-LatAm (February, 2012) Commissioned by Dennis R. Hidalgo Moving across the Transnational Commercial Orbit
Robert Chao Romero’s
The Chinese in Mexico, the first English-language monograph on the subject, makes an important contribution to the existing literature on the topic of immigration and race in Mexican history. Previous work on the Mexican Chinese has mostly highlighted the 1930s anti-Chinese violence in the northern part of the country. Romero departs from this historiography by focusing instead on the economic links that the Chinese in Mexico maintained with other regions of the Americas as well with home communities in Guangzhou. In addition, he offers a substantive social history of the pre-1940 Chinese community in Mexico. His work argues that the Chinese in Mexico were not passive victims of anti-Chinese violence and instead possessed a greater amount of agency than previously acknowledged. In both the United States and Mexico, the Chinese took concrete steps to resist and adapt to anti-Chinese movements and legislation.
Central to Romero’s work is the transnational commercial orbit, an economic network created by the Chinese on both sides of the Pacific and extended to Mexico after the passage of the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. It allowed the Chinese to smuggle and recruit migrant labor, collect capital for investment, and import goods for sale to Chinese businesses, all “in resistance, and adaptation, to the Chinese exclusion laws” (p. 5). The transnational commercial orbit helps explain why, after the Chinese Exclusion Act, Mexico would become an important nexus in the Chinese migrant networks of North America and the Caribbean. One aspect of this was the practice of substitution, in which Chinese workers who landed at U.S. ports of entry and obtained a transit visa en route to Cuba or Mexico switched places with Chinese merchants already based in the United States. By exchanging an undocumented Chinese migrant for a documented one, Chinese workers circumvented immigration restrictions under the Exclusion Act. The practice required coordination between Chinese communities across the Americas. In his discussion, Romero makes a case for the significance of the Chinese community in Mexico to other Asian migrations to the Americas.
Romero’s attention to the transnational commercial orbit requires his work to shift between places as distant as Tai Shan and Hermosillo, San Francisco and Havana.
The Chinese in Mexico moves gracefully between communities across the Pacific and North America. He traces the path that migrants took from communities of origin in Guangzhou to northern Mexico, suggesting that migration to Mexico had as much to do with international developments outside China and Mexico as with “push” and “pull” factors prominent in earlier migration studies, and that Chinese Mexicans were not isolated from the larger Chinese diaspora. Chapter 3 sheds light on the mechanisms that facilitated migration to Mexico, including labor recruitment and smuggling as well as family- and clan-based chain migration, while separately analyzing the different parts of the country in which the Chinese settled. Romero subsequently provides an in-depth portrait of the Chinese community in Mexico, and gives us an idea of how Mexicans reacted to the influx of Chinese immigrants. An examination of gender and relationships between Chinese women and Mexican men, as well as the reaction of nativists to these relationships and their offspring is followed by a study of the commercial and business practices that allowed Chinese migrants to prosper in Mexico. Chapter 6 examines the resulting anti-Chinese movement as a movement that “sought to end the Chinese commercial monopoly and eliminate the Chinese small businessman, with whom Mexican merchants could not effectively compete” (p. 188). With many forced to flee their homes and businesses, the Chinese population in Mexico declined substantially during the 1930s.
Romero’s sources provide ample support for his argument. Part of his contribution to the history of the Chinese in Mexico is the incorporation of two sets of sources, the Chinese Exclusion Act case files of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the 1930 Mexican municipal census manuscripts. Romero has helped fill a lacunae in Mexican sources on the Chinese community through the clever use of U.S. sources, not only the INS files but also U.S. consular reports, which allow us to further understand the Chinese community and the Chinese immigrants from their own perspective. The Chinese Exclusion Act case files, presumably data on those who sought to use the merchant exception and other legal means to enter the United States, provide individual histories of members of the Chinese community in Mexico. Interviews conducted by INS agents provide Chinese voices in Mexican history, which has been rare up to now. Census manuscripts allowed Romero to look closely at representative Mexican municipalities in Sonora and Chihuahua with significant Chinese populations. Where other studies have used Mexican census records to give an idea of what states and territories were destinations for Chinese immigrants, Romero goes into greater depth, looking at the industries where the Chinese worked, the means by which they started and operated businesses, and migrants who were able to send for their relatives. The sources support Romero’s assertion that Chinese merchants were more than simply petit bourgeois merchants and included a number of landless workers.
In contrast to previous works on the Chinese in Mexico, Romero explores the migrants’ potential for assimilation and acculturation. He argues that they “experienced much higher levels of acculturation to mainstream Mexican society than their diasporic counterparts in the United States during this same time period” (p. 115). In addition to participation in Mexican civil and military institutions and associations, Romero sees marrying Mexican women and naturalizing as Mexican citizens as evidence of assimilation. In the United States they were legally barred from doing both. Merchants became Mexican citizens at higher rates than urban and rural workers, a fact that leads to the conclusion that the former had a higher rate of assimilation. Romero’s argument challenges earlier scholarship that argues that the anti-Chinese movements occurred partially because the Chinese were socially isolated from their Mexican neighbors and unwilling to assimilate into Mexican culture. Merchants had other reasons to seek Mexican citizenship, however, such as the belief that it might shelter them from the effects of the Mexican labor law of 1931. The sources that Romero has at his disposal make it difficult for him to find further evidence of assimilation, which is unfortunate since the issue of assimilation is an important one, central to the Asian Latino identity that Romero alludes to in his conclusion.
This minor point, however, does not detract from the substantial contribution the author has made to the historiography of immigration to Mexico. The book provides a clear and straightforward picture of the Chinese community in Mexico. Chapter 4, “Gender, Interracial Marriage, and Transnational Families,” would fit particularly well in a course on race and ethnicity in Mexico. The book as a whole would be a valuable resource for an undergraduate course on Mexican history or Asian American studies.
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If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-latam.
Citation: Fredy González. Review of Romero, Robert Chao, The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940.H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews.February, 2012. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32185
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. | 8,187 | 3,567 | 0.000285 |
warc | 201704 | Netanyahu Ahead of Trump Phone Call: I Am Willing to Give Palestinians a 'State-minus'
The wind ruffles the leaves of the date sapling in its planter, and Dr. Elaine Soloway quickly shields it. "There's only one plant like this in the world, and I'm still worried about it," she says. Methuselah - that is the sapling's name - is indeed unique. In 2005, Soloway, from Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava, germinated it from a 2,000-year-old date seed found at Masada.
For the past two millennia, since approximately the time of the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans, in 66-73 C.E., the seed lay dormant, until Soloway and her team breathed life into it, making it the oldest seed ever to germinate.
For two years, the seed was kept in isolation in a plant nursery to protect it from the modern diseases to which it would have been vulnerable. Now that it is stronger, Soloway is planning on transplanting it. "I think it has a future," she says.
Last week, Methuselah underwent chronological testing, using the radioactive isotope Carbon-14, which confirmed that the tree grew from a seed that lived when the Romans ruled the land.
If the sapling continues to flourish, Soloway believes they will be able to renew a species of date that grew in the Kingdom of Judea at that time. Soloway says the type of date grown by ancient Judeans disappeared in the centuries following the repression of the revolt.
Dates presently grown in Israel were brought here from other countries in the Middle East, particularly Iraq, and do not derive from ancient stock.
"People tell me the tree I'm raising looks like a typical palm you might see in your dentist's waiting room," says Soloway, who teaches at Ketura's Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. "But that's not true." Soloway says the first leaves that have sprouted are extraordinarily long. "We don't know yet if it's a male or a female, but if it's a female, in another two or three years we'll be able to know how dates tasted in Judea in ancient times."
According to historical sources, that taste was splendid. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who lived in the first century C.E., wrote that Judea's dates were known for their succulence and sweetness.
The date was identified so closely with Judea that Roman coins minted after the end of the Great Revolt depicted among its symbols a palm tree, together with the words "Judea Capta."
The seed from which Methuselah sprouted was found in a jar into which the inhabitants of Masada threw the pit of the dates they ate. Together with dozens of other seeds, it was found during excavations in the 1970s conducted by Professor Ehud Netzer.
The idea of germinating the seed came from Dr. Sarah Salon, of the Natural Medicine Research Unit of Hadassah Hospital, Ein Karem.
Soloway said that to resuscitate Methuselah, she soaked the pit in warm water and fertilizers. She then planted it "on Tu Bishvat, for luck." Soloway says she did not believe the seed still had life in it. But then, six weeks later, "the bed cracked, and two weeks after that, the first leaf came out. It was like a miracle, but the plant was still at risk. It had a strange color, a kind of marble-white. Apparently there was something wrong with the nutritional components in the seed, Soloway recalls. "In any case, when the seedling started to grow roots, after a few months, it didn't keep it from growing."
Soloway, 54, who comes from a California farming family, has been living at Ketura for more than 30 years. She deals mainly with medicinal plants at the Arava Institute, which trains people for environmental leadership roles. "To bring back the date palm of Judea to the world is not only a symbol, but is also useful to agriculture," she says. "But we are also trying to bring back other plants from the biblical period."
Soloway is also growing frankincense and myrrh, plants mentioned in the Bible, in her hothouse. She is now trying to acclimate the plants, which were brought from Somalia and Yemen. "Incense was made from these plants in the days of the Bible, but they apparently have characteristics that can make them very useful to modern medicine - especially as anti-inflammatories," Soloway says.
Want to enjoy 'Zen' reading - with no ads and just the article? Subscribe todaySubscribe now | 4,334 | 2,176 | 0.000464 |
warc | 201704 | Faster Hair Growth With Bee Pollen
News outlets have recently been promoting information regarding faster hair growth with bee pollen and propolis.
Considered one of nature’s most completely nourishing foods, bee pollen contains nearly all nutrients required by humans.
It’s rich in proteins, free amino acids, and vitamins, including B-complex and folic acid.
Bee Pollen Thought To Encourage Faster Hair Growth Due To Rich Ingredients
Hair and beauty experts believe all the rich ingredients in bee pollen encourage faster hair growth.
At the very least it’s thought to encourage healthy hair.
One of the most interesting facts about bee pollen is that it cannot be synthesized in a laboratory.
Besides being believed to offer faster hair growth, bee pollen has been touted by herbalists as a treatment for a variety of medical conditions.
Even with all the great reports on bee pollen benefits, there is no current conclusive scientific evidence to show it is has any measurable hair growth or related health benefits.
Inconclusive Bee Pollen And Hair Growth Evidence
Like honey and propolis, other well-known honey bee products are gathered rather than secreted (i.e., in contrast to royal jelly and beeswax).
The exact chemical composition may be unpredictable.
Why? It depends on the plants the worker bees gather the pollen from, and can vary from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, colony to colony, even in the same apiary, with no two samples of bee pollen exactly identical.
The inconsistency of the bee products means that the results may not be the same for all people with various hair growth or hair loss reversal needs.
Possible Side Effects Of Bee Pollen
Bee pollen is safe for short term use, but side effects include allergic reaction (shortness of breath, hives, swelling, and anaphylaxis).
Experts also warn that bee pollen is not safe for pregnant women and should not be used during breastfeeding.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against the use of some bee pollen products because they are adulterated with unapproved drugs including sibutramine and phenolphthalein.
Propolis
Also in the quest to speed up hair growth and stop hair loss, scientists are reporting that propolis, the substance from honeybee hives might contain clues for developing a potential new hair growth therapy.
Lab test results indicated that propolis encouraged hair growth in mice. The study tied to hair growth potential appears in
ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Propolis is a resinous mixture honey bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources and use as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive.
Summary – Faster Hair Growth With Bee Pollen
Bee pollen has proven to be very beneficial in treating infertility and allergies, supporting weight control, and creating longevity, to name a few.
It’s also been suggested bee pollen as well as propolis could trigger accelerated hair growth and potentially stop or minimize hair loss.
Is it really true? Only time will tell. | 3,096 | 1,510 | 0.000675 |
warc | 201704 | Managing creativity
A notoriously tricky aspect of managing creative workers, where output can be subjective and not necessarily tied to rigid KPIs, is performance management. Does Parcell feel there are significant differences in how these employees are assessed? “The challenge is to remember that while you’re taking people through a career path in an organisation and they’re doing a job, that you’re tying that as much as you can to the individual and not creating a rigid HR process structure – or box checking process – for each person.”
Parcell says that it’s not just restricted to employees with a creative bent. She finds the same principles apply to technically skilled employees such as ninemsn’s data mining experts, for example. “They have very different perspective on the world as well,” she says. “So our frame of reference is more around having individual conversations with people rather than one holistic framework. Each role and each function will be different, and that means a level of agility is required by the HR team in order to cope with that. There also needs to be the overlay of some form of consistency so there are no equity issues across the business.”
Change agent
In a young and dynamic industry, quick reactions and constant change are expected. Parcell says her life has been nothing but change – “I’ve almost stopped talking about change, but rather I frame it as a constant adaptation to what’s happening environmentally and organisationally”.
She cites one recent example: an overhaul of the company values, which were changed due to the realisation that the existing company values did not resonate with employees in a meaningful way. After consultation with employees and brainstorming sessions amongst executives, the company has moved away from “corporate speak” values to several that are simple and concise: being brave, smart, humble, and giving a sh*t about what people do every day. “That last one is very un-PC for a P&C department,” Parcell laughs. “But it resonates really well with how we approach work, everyone gets what it means, it’s different and we live and breathe it every day.”
HR’s future
Looking to the future, Parcell believes there will be two significant shifts in her profession. The first revolves around L&D: “I believe there will be a shift in looking more towards harnessing employee strengths rather than always focusing on deficits from the development perspective. I often see talent plans that have the development area clearly marked rather than focusing on some of the strengths people have and how they can utilise those strengths in a variety of ways, rather than perhaps using it in the traditional manner,” she says.
Secondly, she believes HR will increasingly have more meaningful relationships with their CEOs. “Mark sees the culture and the people piece as both of us working together. We own that together. From my perspective that means that while I’m responsible for ensuring the nuts and bolts of HR tick over, I will have absolute support from the CEO to implement things, to change things, and to shape things with himself and the executive team.”
Her tips for working more effectively with the CEO? “You’ve got to listen, sit back and really understand where the CEO wants to take the business; understand what it is you’re trying to create. Secondly, HRDs need to do their due diligence on their CEOs before they start to work for them. Understand what’s important to the CEO. Is the people piece important, and how do their values match with yours? If you have a misalignment in values there will be a clash and it will be hard work.” | 3,821 | 1,842 | 0.000571 |
warc | 201704 | Kidney Cancer Overview Symptoms of Kidney Cancer Risk Factors for Kidney Cancer Diagnosis of Kidney Cancer Treatment of Kidney Cancer Overview
About 30,000 cases of kidney cancer are diagnosed in the US each year. Men are affected somewhat more often than women and most cases are seen between 50 and 70 years of age. Majority of kidney cancers (about 85%) originate in the tiny tubules of the kidney and are known as renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Less common kidney cancers are transitional cell carcinoma (renal pelvic tumor), sarcomas and collecting duct tumors. The outcome is good in more than 75% cases that are detected early. However, many people with kidney cancer get diagnosed only when there cancer has advanced.
Symptoms of Kidney CancerKidney cancer may not produce any symptoms in the initial stages. Fortunately, some people get diagnosed in the course of imaging studies such as ultrasound, CAT scan, or MRI done for some unrelated complaint. As the tumor grows, some symptoms that may be noticed are:
Blood in your urine (hematuria) A lump in your side or abdomen A persistent pain in your flanks Rapid, unexplained weight loss Fever for several weeks with no apparent cause Persistent fatigue Anemia Hypertension Swelling in the legs or ankles Risk Factors for Kidney CancerThe causes of kidney cancer are not very well understood. Some gene mutations that seem to play an important role are being actively studied by researchers. Some other risk factors associated with the disease are:
Smoking or tobacco use in any form Chronic kidney failure Being on dialysis Polycystic kidney disease von Hippel Lindau disease Family history of kidney cancer Obesity Low Vitamin E intake Hypertension African ethnicity Exposure to asbestos, cadmium, and organic solvents Diagnosis of Kidney Cancer Urologists mostly make the diagnosis of kidney cancer from imaging studies such as an ultrasound, CT scan or a combination of both. The appearance is typical and biopsy is rarely needed to confirm the diagnosis. More investigations such as an abdominal CT scan, MRI, chest X-ray, blood tests or bone scans are done to determine if the cancer has spread beyond the kidney. Treatment of Kidney Cancer Cancer Limited to the Kidney Surgery:Surgical removal of a part or whole of the kidney is the primary treatment in most cases. Radical nephrectomy removes the entire kidney while partial nephrectomy removes just the affected area to preserve as much normal tissue as possible. Radical nephrectomy can Tumor Ablation:It’s a process in which the tumor is not removed, but destroyed using techniques such as cryotherapy, interstitial radiofrequency ablation, high-intensity focused ultrasound, microwave thermotherapy and laser coagulation. It is less invasive than surgery, but the effectiveness of this technique in the long-run is currently not known. Embolization:This technique involves killing the tumor cells by cutting off their blood supply. It is typically considered for patients who are not fit for more aggressive forms of therapy or as an added step with kidney removal. Cancer that has Spread beyond the Kidney Immunotherapy: Immunotherapy agents prompt the body’s immune system to destroy the cancer cells. Common immunotherapy agents used are interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon. Surgical Therapy: Surgery in combination with other treatments may be of value in selected cases. Radiation Therapy: It is generally used to relieve pain caused by the spread of cancer or in patients who are unfit for surgery. Targeted Therapy:Targeted therapy involves the use of agents that preferentially work against cancer cells and spare normal cells. Some examples are anti-angiogenic agents that inhibit blood supply within the tumor, multikinase inhibitors and tyrosine kinase inhibitors that block an enzyme involved in tumor growth, and m-TOR inhibitors that interfere with blood supply to the tumor. | 3,924 | 1,844 | 0.000545 |
warc | 201704 | Suggest treatment to improve muscle mass and tone
User rating for this question
Question
Posted Mon, 3 Feb 2014 in General Health
Answered by Dr. Michelle Gibson James 3 hours later
Brief Answer: increase your protein intake Detailed Answer: HI, thanks for using healthcare magic Muscle is made up primarily of protein. This is the reason that body builders and individuals trying to increase muscle mass, tend to use more protein. If you have no history of kidney disease,then increasing your protein intake will improve your muscle mass and tone. This can be through animal (meats, fish, eggs, milk, cheese) or plant protein (if you are a vegetarian). There are also protein supplements. In addition , as you increase your protein use, you can decrease your carbohydrate use. Carbohydrates stimulate the body to release insulin. Insulin, in addition to reducing blood sugars , also stops the body from breaking down fat. If you reduce your carbohydrate intake ,there is less insulin released and more fat will break down. This means a reduction in sodas/fruit drinks/rice/pasta/breads/biscuits/potatoes Meals would mainly be the protein and vegetables /salads. You should replace any sodas and fruit drinks with a lot of water. I hope this helps, feel free to ask any other questions
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warc | 201704 | How to Make a ‘You’ve Got This’ Video:
• Be a YouTube member. In order to upload your video, you must have or create a valid YouTube account (we can help you set this up).
• Make sure the sound on your video is clear. If no one can hear you, no one will watch it. Make sure to shoot in quiet environments and to project.
• Don't backlight. Make sure light is on your face and not behind you (i.e. don't sit in front of a bright window).
• Title your video. Use the title “You’ve Got This” and include your name and location (ex: “You’ve Got This: Tracy from Michigan”).
• Tag your video. Use tags to describe your video so that other people can find it (ex: “Living with bipolar” or “Bipolar woman from Florida”).
• Keep it short. Three minutes max.
Talking Points:
1) Keep it positive! The main goal of your video should be to inspire hope and provide useful advice to the recently diagnosed.
2) Be yourself. Speak from the heart.
3) How did you feel when you were first diagnosed? Were some of your fears unreasonable? What helped you learn to cope?
4) What is the best advice you could give to someone that was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder? What do you wish you had known when you first found out?
Avoid discussing:
The goal of this campaign is to provide POSITIVE and INSPIRING stories to those recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Because of this, we want to make sure your video stays relevant to the topic and provides encouragement to others.
Avoid discussing:
1) Other mental disorders (OCD, ADHD, PTSD, etc.)
2) Related topics that are not uplifting to the viewer (Suicide, Death, Overdose).
Terms:
Healthline may discontinue or decline to share video or written content submissions for reasons including, but not limited to:
• the video contains offensive, vulgar, or violent content
• the video contains incorrect medical information
• the quality of the video is poor
• must be 18 years or older to submit a video
• you cannot host advertisements on your video
If Healthline has discontinued or declined to share your video, yet you feel that doing so was inconsistent with the policy set forth above, please contact Healthline at submissions@healthline.com with an explanation as to why you believe Healthline acted in error. Any such communications will be evaluated by Healthline and addressed promptly.
Hi, I’m Natasha Tracy. I’m a mental health speaker and writer and I want you to know if you’ve been newly diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, you’ve got this. Bipolar Disorder does not have to define you and it does not have to define your life. You can move forward and you can achieve the goals that you want to in your lifetime. And I think that you should listen, you should learn, and you should share.
So, you need to listen to yourself and you need to listen to others. Specifically, you need to listen to what your symptoms are, what your personality is, what the side effects are, what the medication is. You need to learn how to differentiate these feelings inside of yourself because you are not your illness. It may feel all jumbled up like a bowl of spaghetti right now, but really it’s not like that and by listening to yourself, you’ll learn to differentiate.
And then learn. It is very difficult to have a lifelong debilitating disorder, but it is even more difficult to have a lifelong disorder that you don’t understand. So, it’s critical that you learn that you learn about Bipolar Disorder. Go to quality sources of information and learn what you can when you can. Ask questions of your doctor. Learn, learn;because knowledge is power and knowledge will dispel so many of the fears that you have about this disorder.
And finally, share. Share what you’ve learned;share what you’ve heard with your loved ones. You don’t have to tell them all at once, but pick someone who you know loves you who you know will support you and start to tell them about what’s going on for you. Because you need those supports to get through this difficult time in your life. And you, of course, also need to be completely open and share with your healthcare professionals. They can’t help you if you don’t give them the right information.
Finally, remember that this is not the end. Bipolar Disorder is not the end of your life. This is just a new beginning. I’m Natasha Tracy.
Hi everyone. I’m Nicole and I am the creator of the BipolarStateofBeing blog and also the BipolarStateofBeing channel on YouTube. I created both of those close to four years ago when I was officially diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I have struggled with bipolar symptoms for almost as long back as I can remember, even to my early teen years, but I did not receive an official diagnosis until I was 27 when I had a severe manic episode and I was hospitalized. After that, I really began the journey towards learning about Bipolar because, even though for years I had suspected that I had Bipolar, I didn’t really know much about it other than it was depression and mania and mood swings and that sort of thing. I didn’t really know what it entailed and so after I first was diagnosed, it was really a confusing time because I didn’t want to be seen as the “crazy girl” but that’s not what Bipolar is. Just because you have Bipolar, does not make you a crazy person at all. It’s a disorder and lots of people have it and lots of people are able to live full and happy and successful lives even with Bipolar Disorder. So, that is something that I have learned along my journey these last few years and I really think there are a few pivotal things that you can do for yourself if you have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and you are finding yourself in that same boat that I was in;confused, and lost, and not knowing what to do.
I think the biggest thing that you can do for yourself is learn everything you can about it because you are your best advocate. The more you learn about Bipolar, the more you learn about yourself, about your triggers, about how everything in your life affects you, about how Bipolar affects your life, the better off you will be. That, I think, is the single most important thing because knowledge is power. It is empowering to learn all of these things to better your life situation rather than just throwing up your hands and saying ‘This is my lot in life’ because it’s not. You can make it better. You don’t have to just accept that things will be bad because they won’t necessarily be bad. Yes, it will be difficult and you’re going to have ups and downs, that’s just part of the disorder, but like I say, you can live a successful and happy life and, going along with learning, you really need a good support system. That is definitely key. Wherever it may be that you find that support, whether its friends, family, counselors, psychiatrists, online groups, support groups within your community, whatever means that you find, which I’ve used all of those at some point in time, it’s really important to have people that have your back, too;that you know that can support you through those ups and downs and that aren’t going to judge you and that are going to be understanding of you.
So, I think those are the two most important things you can do. Empower yourself, learn about it, be your best advocate that you can and do the best you can in life because you can, you have the power, and you’ve got this.
Hi. My name is Karl and I live with Bipolar Disorder. I’ve been living with Bipolar Disorder for about 33 years and, you know, it’s been very interesting during this time. When I was first diagnosed, one of the main problems I had was I was using drugs and alcohol, so that was causing a lot of problems for me. I was lacking a lot of insight and acceptance into my disease. I didn’t know, really, what the problem was, I didn’t know why things were happening the way they were, and I didn’t make any real connection between the two. So, for me, the first many years, it was just finding out what I needed to do in order to maintain my recovery. I always wanted to get better but I didn’t know how. And, so I had to rely on a lot of the people that I was around to help me, I did go through counseling, I eventually got into 12 step fellowship work and as a result of stopping my using, that certainly helped my ability to learn more about my disease and to learn more about what it took to stay healthy.
When that happened, it’s very difficult;I eventually learned a few things to help myself stay healthy, kind of like exercise, taking medication, getting proper rest. All these things are pertinent elements of my recovery program, so when it comes down to it, if I had known then what I know now about staying healthy. Fortunately, even though I did go through a number of years of bouncing around from institutions and hospitals, I eventually was able to stabilize myself. My last hospitalization was actually in 1995, so it’s been a good while since I’ve had any trouble.
So, the main thing to understand is that it is possible to recover from Bipolar Disorder and it’s not like you’ll be cured, but if anything, it is a disease that can be managed and it is possible to have a successful and productive life. I’ve met other people who have the same illness and they’ve done the same thing, but of course, it takes a lot of work and it takes some effort to figure out what works for you. There are some common denominators that people use to stay healthy, but the main thing is to find out what works for you and to stick with it. For instance, if you take medication, certainly don’t stop taking it on your own. Work with your psychiatrist, work with someone that can help you with that. If you’re having difficulty with side effects, whatever, sometimes those things just need to be adjusted, they need to be tweaked. I had to learn that, also, the hard way. For myself, it’s been a matter of being about to discover what works, what doesn’t, and believing that there is hope. That’s one of the things that I had to learn is that it is possible to recover from this disease and maintain some sense of stability. My support system is very valuable. Having someone to talk to, having someone there who can help me, that’s also been valuable. The main thing to remember is that there is always hope. If you can believe that you can do this, you can. If you make the effort to do what you need to do, it certainly is possible, so stay positive, stay healthy, and thanks for watching.
When people look at me, they see this young guy who’s outgoing, has an amazing supportive girlfriend, has an amazing family, has all these things, and my life seems totally perfect. But what they don’t know is that I have Type II Bipolar Disorder and the reason that is is because I never wear a mask and I seem happy on the outside and the reason that I reached the happiness is due to a mixture of talk therapy, medications, and also just accepting my disorder. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to accept it because if you start denying it, it’s just going to get harder and harder and harder. But once you reach that step of acceptance, it’s like everything changes, everything gets better, everything starts getting more positive, you start feeling better, you don’t seem down anymore, it seems like nothing can bring you down. Because us people that are mentally ill, I consider us to be the most strongest people on this earth because it takes a lot for us to overcome but we always do. We have the heart of a lion. We are the strongest humans on earth. Now, I’ve overcome so much and I’m sure you guys can overcome even more because deep down here, we are strong. Always remember that, you are strong. No matter what anybody tells you because not many people can handle this. But we can. We have overcome. Now, if I can do it, I know you can, too. You know why? Because I know you’ve got this. I’ve got this. You’ve got this.
Hi, this is Jon Press. I’m a blogger with BP magazine for Bipolar and I’m here to tell you you’ve got this. Twenty-five years ago when I was first diagnosed, I went into a psychiatrist’s office. I was having difficulty even putting complete sentences together. I was staying up all night long, spending all my money, and then I would sleep all day long missing classes and causing my grades to suffer. At that time, the psychiatrist that I was seeing gave me two prescriptions and a diagnosis and sent me on my way. I didn’t know who to ask for information, there was no coaching available, and there was no internet.
With the right treatment, medications, and support I’m able to live without crippling depression, I’m able to think clearly, I’m able to have deep and meaningful relationships, I’m able to hold down a job and live a life that I never imagined that I would be able to.
I really encourage you to educate yourself. There are great online resources, there are forums, there are groups you can join;there are lots of books by authors that are candid about their experience. I would also encourage you to get connected. There are great local groups all over the country, connecting with organizations through the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, the National Alliance of Mental Illness, and faith-based groups like Fresh Hope. Also, I would encourage you to make friendships with other folks who are living well with Bipolar Disorder. I would encourage you to stick with your treatment protocol. Getting the right balance of medication is not an exact science and it can take some time. You need to become a fierce advocate for yourself, keep going back and telling the doctor if you are experiencing side effects and be encouraged knowing that there are new treatments just around the corner.
A few years ago, after stopping my medication, yet again, and denying my diagnosis, I found myself committed to a mental hospital. It was the scariest experience of my life and probably the most painful. Part of that pain was seeing the look of fear and confusion on my children’s faces. So, after that experience, I became fiercely committed to my own recovery journey. This time, not only for myself but also for my family because it costs them as well.
I never would have guessed that just a few years later, I would be a mental health advocate and I would be blogging for a magazine like BP. I would encourage you to selectively share your story with others who can support you and you’ll often find that when you take the first step, someone else will say, ‘Hey, me too,’ or ‘I have a loved one with that diagnosis’. I never thought I would share my story, but I’m doing so because I want to tell you that you’re not alone, that you can feel better, you’ve got this.
Hello, I’m Charlie Roberts. I’m 43 years old and I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Bipolar Disorder isn’t a fun disorder to have. It’s got debilitating lows and euphoric highs. The euphoric highs do the most damage, yet the debilitating lows do the worst damage. You have to get through them both to the happy medium again and you know that when you come out of low, you’re going to go into a high and when you come out of a high, you’re going to go into a low. So, if you start a course of medication, persevere, stick with it. You might have to change a little bit;there are some accommodations to medications. So persevere with that. Some medications will make you look like a solid dodger, some will make you look like you leaner than a sparrow’s knee-cap, but it’s the head that matters. You can work on the body afterwards. Easy for me to say, I’m leaner than a sparrow’s knee-cap.
As for love, bipolar love. It ain’t no ordinary love, so hopefully you have a partner that understands and is well-educated on how Bipolar affects people and relationships. All in all, Bipolar, would I wish I never had it? No, if I had the choice, would I want it or not? Now I’ve got it, yeah, thank you, I’m keeping it. For the creativity side of it, you’re the life and soul of the party, it’s got its fantastic points, but life is a balance. It also has it’s really bad points as well.
I just want to say well done, congratulations, for being here, to watch this video, and you’ve got this. So, as I say, you’ve got this.
Hi. My name is Amanda and I have been diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder. I was diagnosed almost two and a half years ago. When I was diagnosed, I felt surreal, like it wasn’t really happening. I felt scared, I felt alone, I felt confused, I didn’t know what to make of any of it. However, I decided that I was going to try and figure it out, so I created a YouTube channel called MoodDisorderedMind where I decided to just talk about my experience and what I was going through so I could try to figure things out for myself. And I did a lot of research on the topic, different aspects of the topic, and I learned a lot about the disorder and myself. And for me, learning about the disorder, learning about myself, talking about it, just those things alone really helped me be able to cope with having this disorder.
I would tell anyone who has been recently diagnosed not to focus on the name;it doesn’t really matter what it’s called. The important thing is that you recognize your symptoms, you recognize triggers, you recognize anything that has to do with this disorder and how it affects you. You learn how to deal with the symptoms, how to manage the symptoms, or even how to stop the symptoms from coming on, especially through triggers. Because in the end, that is what is important is learning how to cope and manage and live your life with this disorder.
So, I would just say learn as much as you can and don’t dwell on having Bipolar Disorder. Focus on getting the treatment and help that you need and learning how to deal with it, whether it’s through a support group, counseling, reading books, whatever. Because you are the only one that can decide what’s best for you, if you know what you’re doing, if you know what you’re talking about, if you understand yourself, then it makes it that much easier to live with this disorder.
Alright, I hope that was helpful and just know that you are not alone. There are many of us out here. You’ve got this. We’ve all got this.
Hi. My name is Ray. I live in Amsterdam. I have Bipolar II Disorder. I originally got diagnosed with depression in 2004. In 2012, it turned out that the diagnosis was not correct. But when I got diagnosed with Bipolar, I didn’t get much information other than Bipolar II, rapid cycling, go home. I was terrified. I felt my life was over, that I was crazy. I knew how to be depressed very well, but I didn’t know what Bipolar was. What I wish I knew then was you get better, which it did. It took me months to find the right medication, the right dosages , everyday getting out of bed without help. But the months passed by and I slowly realized I was getting better. I read books, blogs, and forums. I spoke to others with this same disorder. I asked questions. This was the most important thing, to find out as much as I could about the disorder and my fears gradually went away. I’m writing a book of my own now to share this knowledge I found to hopefully make others feel less afraid.
It’s been almost two years. I am medicated, I’ve completed therapy, and I feel good. I have accepted this disorder, this is the card that I have been dealt in life and I’m going to play it as well as I can. I no longer spend sleepless nights or need 45 minutes to put on socks. My emotions have not been flattened. I feel happiness and I feel sadness, but now when I feel them, they make sense.
Best advice that I can give you: listen to your doctors, take the medications you’ve been prescribed, do not self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. It will seriously mess up whatever prescriptions you’ve been given. If you get side effects, let your doctor know. If you’re medication is not working, let your doctor know. If you’re not feeling well, if you’re gaining too much weight, if it makes you depressed, let your doctor know. And if you’re doctor ignores what you tell them, change your doctor. You are your own best advocate when it comes to your mental health. Keep yourself as the most important person in your life. Be kind to yourself. Fight for your interests. And remember, you’re not crazy, you’re just bipolar.
I spent most of my life wishing I could be like everybody else. I didn’t understand how come everybody else could live their lives so normal and I couldn’t. I thought I’m not doing something well enough. I need to work harder or be even nicer to people, or whatever else it was, I wasn’t doing it well. But it turns out, I wasn’t feeling normal because I wasn’t normal, I was bipolar. This discovery has relieved me so much. I’m not like everybody else. I’m special and so are you. We are not average and we will never be, but have you ever heard of an actor getting an award for being the most average person in the movie. This is the card we got, let’s play it really well. Between you and me, you’ve got this.
Hi, my name is Rebecca Moore and I am the author of More Storms: A Guide for the Bipolar Parent. I wrote that book two years ago, about a year after I had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. When I was diagnosed, I was pregnant with our seventh child and they put me on medication, I was scared, and I was confused, and I was lost. But, I listened to my doctor, I took my medication like I was supposed to, I talked about everything that I had going on in my head in therapy, and I made sure I was getting enough sleep and I was eating right.
By doing all of those things and writing a book and putting my life in that book, I reached out to help other people and by doing so, I was able to heal from the inside out. And you’ll be able to, too, because you’ve just got to follow this strict routine. You’ve got it. You’ll be okay.
So, the point of this is to just encourage you. One, stay positive. This isn’t something that can be fixed overnight. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not abnormal because you’re feeling these things. It’s not your fault.
Two, allow people to love you. I know it’s hard, especially when you’re in your downs. You don’t feel love or worthy or any of those things, but you are.
Three, remember that you are loved and that there are so many people who care about you and who want to see you overcome this and succeed and do great things with your life because you were made for great things. Now, I know you’re thinking, ‘Who is this kid? He doesn’t know what I’m going through. He doesn’t know these things?’
I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder not too long ago actually. And everything started making sense why sometimes I was doing okay and sometimes I wasn’t. And then I started getting help and I realized I’m not alone and that there are other people who are going through the exact same thing that I am and even if they’re not going through what I’m going through, they’re trying to understand because they love me.
Four, don’t you dare give up. I’ve given up so many times in my life and all it did was destroy me. Giving up isn’t an option. But know that you can overcome this. Bipolar is-it’s just a thing.
The last thing I’m going to tell you is what I wish someone would have told me when I was first diagnosed. It’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort and it’s not easy, but it’s really, really important to have supporters right behind you that can encourage you along the way and let you know that you can do this. So, stay hopeful and take it one day at a time. Sometimes I have to take it minute by minute, second by second, but right now I’m at a point where I can take it week by week and I’ve come a long way. There is hope. Don’t give up. You’ve got this.
You’ve got this. Bipolar Disorder. My name is Hailey. I may not have bipolar disorder, but I do have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re a helpless passenger on your emotional rollercoaster. We are little boats tossed about at sea, fighting every day just to stay afloat. Do you know what that makes us?
Brave, Powerful, Courageous, Strong, Survivors, Fierce, Resilient, Tough, Amazing, Inspiring, Incredible, Stunning, Fighters
Please visit www.twloha.com for support, help, love, and light. You are not alone.
Hi my name is Andrea, also known as Bipolar Babe in the community and online as well from bipolarbabe.com. So, I’ve been asked by my friend, Natasha Tracy, to do a little video to talk about living with Bipolar Disorder and maybe any tips or advice that I may have.
Well, having been diagnosed 11 years ago, I know a lot about living with Bipolar Disorder and first, for me, comes an entourage. A psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse, a counselor;and to have these people around me when things are rough but also when things are good so I have that security net in place and if I were to ever fall, I’d be caught. As well, I take medications faithfully, which is very important to me. At the same time every day and every night. Granted, a lot of people may not agree with medications, but I do because they really help keep me well and I’ve noticed that I haven’t had a major, major breakdown since I started taking medication 11 years ago.
As well, drinking lots of water is very important for your mental health, as nutrition and of course exercise, that feel good chemical that just keeps you going and makes you feel invigorated and healthy. It’s really, really important.
So, one thing I do as well, to finish off, is I learn about my illness. I go online and I go to good sources, like natashatracy.com is a great source for Bipolar information to know what it is and how it affects you and how you can treat it and how you can take care of yourself because that is possible. So, thank you. This is my little chat and I hope that I somehow helped in a little way. Thank you so much. Take care.
Hey guys, my name is Dallas and I’m part of the To Write Love On Her Arms street team. I just wanted to shoot you guys a word of encouragement today because I know we all face really hard things and sometimes we don’t understand what’s going on or why things happen. That’s okay. Just know that people love you and people are there for you and we just want to encourage you that even though it all doesn’t make sense right now, that there is purpose for everything that happens, that you are not alone, there are people who love you and who are there for you and who want to help you and care for you. We just want o let you know that you’ve got this;that you’re not defeated, that you can do this. We love you and we’re here for you.
Hi guys. My name is Isabel [0:05 Inaudible] I am 17 years old and I am from Mexico. I heard that you have been diagnosed with BD and you may think it really sucks. I haven’t been diagnosed with that issue but I’m pretty sure of two things, okay. Just listen to me for a little bit. First, everyone has fears, the whole humanity has fears. And mine are [:49 Inaudible] No, I’m not joking. But, truly, we also have dreams and if someone wants something, that’s why it’s called a dream, he or she will fight for it. What I’m trying to say is that you are real strong. You are fighters and you are strong and you will make it. Okay? Don’t forget it.
Second part is more difficult. I know you think that this like, ‘Oh shit’. You’ve been diagnosed and someone is telling you that you are different and you’re like, “Holy shit! I’ve been diagnosed.” And you think you’re not worth it, you may think I don’t know how you think or how you feel, but I want you to take this as a bad to you but as a good one. Let me explain this okay.
There are people out there that they don’t know about themselves, they don’t know why they are feeling like that, why they are reacting like that. And then there is you that they just told you what was going on with you, so once you [2:27 Inaudible] to take that knowledge as an advantage because one of the most important things ever is to know yourself. And I know you won’t listen to me if I tell you that the world is magic and the world is perfect. No, I know it’s not like that. And I know you’re going through a bad moment. It’s a moment where you have to accept yourself. It takes time, I know that for other reasons. But it’s not the end of the world. You must be pretty sure of that. And I want you to look to the positive side of all the things, not only this. I want you to look at the positive side of life. I’m not telling you everything is okay. I’ve been talking and saying that, but I want to tell you that you are not alone. I want you to know that;that hope and love will always be there even though you feel hopeless;that you are strong and you can make it, not because you’ve been diagnosed with BD, not because of that. You don’t serve other things. So, that is you, it’s not got to define you, not 100% of this.
As I said, take that knowledge as an advantage, okay. You can make it. Bye. I don’t know what to say. Sorry for my mistakes with no English. It’s not usual in my country and I don’t usually talk, I usually write or read, I don’t talk.
Hi. This video is about Bipolar Disorder. My name is Kelsey and I’m here to tell you that it gets better. I am 19 years old and when I was about 16 or 17, I was diagnosed with depression and that was one of the hardest days of my life. I sat in my car in front of my high school and cried for about an hour before I could even go inside. But it felt like a weight was lifted off me. Depression was just a label on me but I could take it off if I wanted. I could kind of set it down somewhere else for a while and that’s what being diagnosed can be like.
I just want to let you know that you’re not alone. There are tons of people that struggle with mental illness, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, everything. And there are people that are here for you. There are days when I struggle and there will be days when you struggle, too, but it gets better and it’s okay sometimes to not be okay;to just break down and cry just because you need to take time to do that.
So, keep your chin up and be brave because, hey, you’ve got this.
The title of this video is You’ve Got This. I just want you to know when I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Depression, it totally blew me off of my feet because I thought that was only for crazy people and there was no way that I was crazy. I just want you to know those years that I spent in denial, if I would have just followed the advice of the people around me, those years would have been so much easier and I would’ve had this.
But, in retrospect, I’ve learned a lot. One of the key things I did was educate myself. Educate, educate, educate. Knowledge is power and the more you understand your mental illness, the more better you’re going to be able to manage your day to day life. Get over what people think. Don’t be ashamed at the fact that you’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness because it’s no different than if you were a diabetic, if you had cancer, you would still have to manage those diseases. There is no shame in mental illness and that’s why people like us have to stand up and stop the stigma.
Also, my advice would be to educate those around you, your friends and your family, because when you’ve got this, then they get this. So, I just want you to know there is life in recovery with mental illness. I’m a perfect example of that, I was diagnosed back in 2006 and I am doing really, really great, my medications are doing great, I take a holistic approach. But I just want you to know if I’ve got this, then you’ve got this. Thanks for listening.
Hi, my name is Brad. I’m a Pastor, I’m a husband, I’m a dad, I’m an uncle, I’m a grandfather, I’ve got lots of friends and I have a full, rich life in spite of having Bipolar Disorder. I was diagnosed in 1995 and, in the last 10 or 11 years, I’ve not really had any complications or symptoms. My doctor says it’s, basically, I’m living in remission, so I want to tell you straight up, no matter what your diagnosis is, you can have a full and rich life in spite of it. For those who have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, I say welcome to the world of some of the most creative people that have ever lived. You know, there’s a list of all kinds of famous people that have Bipolar Disorder.
First of all, don’t shame yourself about this. It’s not your fault. You’re not inferior, it’s not a character flaw, nor is it a moral failure, or even a faith issue. It’s just genetic and it’s something wrong with your brain and your mind can’t function properly if your brain’s not working right. Your mind is what the brain does and sometimes, if the brain is not functioning right, it takes medicine. Just like it does with heart disease or anything else. And you just have to have that attitude. Not everybody’s going to get it, so hang around the people who get it and find them to be helpful, and those that are slow at getting it, they’ll get it sooner or later.
I kind of believe that if you and I decide this is the sickest we’re going to be, then it’s the sickest that you need to be. And just make a decision you’re going to tell your doctors as much as you can, that you’re going to get over the hump and get on top of it, and that you’re not going to let this thing consume your life. You just have to decide, ‘Hey, life has kicked me. There could be worse things, but since life has kicked me, I’m going to make sure I’m pointed in the direction I need to go.’ Be sure to keep on those medicines, do what the doctor says, tell the doctor everything, give your family access to the doctor. The more you do that, the better off you’re going to be. The reality is don’t use street drugs, watch the alcohol. Sooner or later, the side effects go away and you start feeling normal. I can honestly say my life has never been better. Sometimes, there are bumps and you have to push through, you have to keep going, you have to work at it, just like anybody that else that might have diabetes or anything like that.
Years ago, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and they told her, ‘Hey, if you will have a good attitude, you will have a better outcome.’ And I believe the same is true about mental health. Push through with a good attitude, you can do this. I know it.
Hi, my name is Esther. I’m a writer, a mom, and I have Bipolar Type I and PTSD. I also have mixed [:14 Inaudible] rapid cycle and I’m capable of manic and depressive at the same time, so that’s that. I was-I’ve been Bipolar since I was a kid, I’m pretty sure, but I was diagnosed about six years ago, so it’s been a constant struggle for me. My biggest thing that I struggled with is actually parenting with Bipolar. I have joint custody with my ex-husband and my daughter, I get her half the year on the weekends and on her breaks, so when I do see my daughter, I try to be as even and upbeat as possible. And she has never, ever really seen me in a full-on manic state and I try to keep it that way, but she has definitely seen me depressed and she is such a great girl. She comes into the room and she draws pictures and she brings me things to eat to cheer me up whenever I’m depressed and she knows exactly what Bipolar is. She’s almost seven years old and she really understands. She’s very precocious. She’s a really, really smart girl. My biggest fear is that she has the gene. But I’m not really going to worry about it. I’m just going to focus on raising her and being a good mother and I know that if you have children and you’re watching this and maybe you’re worrying about that, too. Just keep raising your child and keep living and wait it out and just educate them and just live your life as healthy as possible and you’ll find out later on, that they’ll know what to do based upon how you’ve lived your life.
The best part about being Bipolar, yes there is a good part. Some people may disagree, but I think the good part of being Bipolar is the creativity. I have always been a creative person. I write, I’ve always been very into acting. My whole life, I’ve always wanted to be on stage. In high school, I was always on stage, in grammar school, even in college I was on stage a little bit. And empathy, oh my gosh, because of the extreme, extreme euphoric highs and the deep, deep, deep down lows we feel, we know how it feels to just, you know, to just be at our worst, so we can reach out to other people and we can reach out to other people and let them know that we understand whenever they’re at their worst. So we can just use our gifts for good and help other people and my advice to you, is when you’re not doing well, go to the hospital and seek help. The psych ward is not a scary place;it’s not at all like in the movies with the scary, creepy, dead girl crawling around, killing people. It’s not like that. Just seek help. Usually whenever you go to the psych ward, it’s med changes, they usually monitor you for a couple days and they let you go, and maybe they advise you to go to a day program for cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy, that is one major thing that will help you out throughout your life;talking things out and just really just getting things off your chest. That is a really big thing.
And building a support system. I don’t know if you have family or friends and the internet, facebook, Google plus, they have lots of groups online where you can talk to people, just reach out and and blossom as a person. This diagnosis is a chance for you to learn a lot about yourself and to learn a lot about people in general, the world. People are going to say mean things, they are going to be horrible. They are going to call you crazy, bipolar person, they’re going to call you psycho, insane, but eventually, after a while, the stinging of those words, they’re just going to roll off of you and you’re just going to start worrying about your well-being and you’re just going to go on with your life and you’re just going to live. So, don’t worry about this because you’ve got it. Bye.
Hi. My name is Karen Tyrrell. Australian, award-winning, mental health author and survivor of Bipolar Disorder. At first, Bipolar Disorder took over my life. I experienced screaming night terrors, pitch black manic dreams, mania, and psychosis. How did I reclaim my life?
I learned everything about Bipolar and I learned to accept my diagnosis and my treatment plan. I found out that Bipolar is really like any other illness. It has symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Yes, you can recover from Bipolar Disorder. I did.
I developed my own personal wellness plan with coping skills. I learned how to sleep better, to stress less, and to keep myself resilient. And, another thing, I enlisted a support system with people that I cared about and cared about me. My doctor, my therapist, my family, and my friends all watched over me.
I am so happy that I have recovered. Another thing that I did was that I wrote in my journal every day, reflecting on how to stay well. I started writing. I wrote my first book,
Me & Her: A Memoir of Madness, winning two awards. It was my journey into Bipolar and out through the other side into recovery and resilience. Then, I wrote my second book, the sequel, Me & Him: A Guide to Recovery, 30 Steps to Keep Well. And it was written, the Him in the story is my husband and my carer who helped me to recover. If I, Karen Tyrrell, can recover from Bipolar Disorder, so can you. Never, ever give up. Never. Thank you.
Hi everybody. My name is Debra and I have got Bipolar. I’ve been living with Bipolar for most of my life and I run a channel on YouTube called BipolarLife. What can I tell you about Bipolar? Well, as a seasoned veteran with Bipolar, I can tell you, first of all, don’t ever, ever give up. You’re going to have days where you feel, ‘Oh man, it’ just not worth it.’ But it is worth it and that’s very normal for this condition to feel like that, but don’t ever, ever give up. Because the good days outweigh the bad and when you have those good days, man, they’re brilliant. And the thing about Bipolar people is that we’re such fun, we have such a sense of fun about us. We do things that other people don’t do. We’re, we kind of go where angels fear to tread, and that’s not a bad thing, because we have courage. And with our courage, we allow others o have courage;we have compassion and with our compassion, we allow others to have compassion;and we understand, we seem to have a built in understanding of what other people are feeling or thinking, probably because, as a result of how we suffer and that allows other people to feel they’re not alone if they are in our company.
One thing I can say to you is avoid toxic people at all costs. And when I say toxic people, I mean all toxic people. Those are people who will not understand your condition;who decide that you’re either making it up or you’re feeling sorry for yourself, or whatever they might say;anything negative, you need to avoid them. Your condition is real;it’s not bad, it’s okay. You can live a perfectly normal life. And, in fact, having Bipolar and living with Bipolar means you are really courageous. You are the bravest of the brave. Having come to where you’ve come to and having lived with what you’ve got, you’re a really, really fabulous person and don’t ever, ever forget that. Don’t ever forget how special you are, how much fun you are, how creative you are, how intelligent you, and remember, you’ve got this.
My name is Patti and I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder ten years ago. When I was first diagnosed, I was pretty scared. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to have a normal life, that people would always see me as my disorder instead of Patti, I was scared I would never have a good, full-time job, graduate from college, hopes and dreams. But, I was able to graduate. I was able to hold a fulfilling full-time job. I was able to get my art into galleries. It was a wonderful feeling that just because somebody says there is something wrong upstairs, didn’t stop me. I think anybody with support and determination can do anything they want. I don’t think you should have to change, I don’t think it should have to stop you. Times might be tough, it happens to everybody, you’re not alone.
My advice is to know what your triggers are and learn what works for you as far as handling your triggers, productively. Everybody is going to stay stick with your medication, make sure you stay with and follow up with your doctors, that’s a given. Of course you have to. This isn’t a cold, this is something that is going to stay with you, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, nothing at all. Some of the best people I know in my life have some sort of mental disorder and a few of them have Bipolar Disorder. They are some of the smartest, most creative, kindest people I know. I love that.
So, if you need help, in anyway, talk to someone, your therapist, family, friends, even going online to a support group can help immensely. You’re not alone. None of us are. You wouldn’t believe the kind of support you can receive. You’ve got this.
Hi. I’m Leah and I’m Tish. And we just want to let you know that you are not alone. We’ve been fighting our demons for quite a while now. And we know how things can get.
Yeah, so the first things are: don’t panic and get help. Mental illness is not something to be ashamed of. And it won’t go away as time goes by or you suppress your emotions and feelings.
Yeah and the second thing is, you’re a person. You are not a mental disorder. Do not let it define you. Don’t be afraid to talk about it. Please take care of yourself. I wish someone had told us that.
Yeah, so [:44 Inaudible] now that you know that you have this mental illness, rewrite your story;rewrite your soul. Instead of considering yourself a broken house with cracks on the walls. Reconsider. Write confidence. Write hope. Write love.
Hello everyone. My name is Keith O’Neil and I have Bipolar Disorder. I’m a former NFL player and Superbowl champion and here I am out in the desert as you can see, in Arizona, getting ready to go climb those mountains over there. I just wanted to tell you that I know that you’re in a very tough spot right now with Bipolar Disorder. I know that you have just been diagnosed and I want to let you know that I’ve been there before and I know how difficult it can be. It was just about three years ago when I went through and 18 month bipolar depression and it was very difficult for me to get out of bed. And here I am out running these mountains and this beautiful scenery.
So, I just want to let you know that you’ve got this. I promise that you can do this. I know that it’s difficult right now. It doesn’t seem like you can do anything but what I did is I went through a lot of talk therapy with my therapist, I went to my doctors frequently, and eventually I found the right medication along with exercise and my faith. And I got through it. So, just remember that you’ve got this and I’m rooting for you.
My name is Julie Craft and I have Bipolar II Disorder and so I’m just going to shoot from the hip and share about my journey. Whether it’s to offer the inside scoop on my experience with being Bipolar or to offer hope. But life can absolutely be great.
Going back in time, if I had to describe my childhood, it was great. I was extremely creative. I was even that crazy kid that organized school classes during summer holidays. I could never understand why none of the kids wanted to come to my extensive math class on a beautiful sunny day. Unfortunately, through grades 11 and 12, I was bullied and teased mercilessly every day. So, that was really hard for me. I lost all confidence and became anxious about everything. And then out of university, I was married within a year and within a year of that, I became a mom.
My anxiety continued and every day was a struggle. The simplest things: getting out my front door, getting gas, doing groceries, going to church, taking my daughter to the park and working up the nerve to speak to other moms. Being invited over to friend’s houses for dinner, it was just all overwhelming and all I could do to just get through every day with a smile on my face. The toll that wearing a mask everyday took. I would get home every night, walk in my door, and just unload and spew my venom all over my husband and my kids. I wasn’t coping, I wasn’t able to control myself or my moods, and then I would have my manic episodes and I would be so obsessed and excited about all these projects that I didn’t want to cook dinner, I didn’t want to clean, I didn’t want to spend time with my kids because I was so hyper-focused on all of these exciting ideas. And so all of that…….
It finally blew up in May of 2010, my husband finally reached his limit and gave me an ultimatum. So, it finally took the fear of losing my family to get me to place to be willing to get over myself, get over my pride, and go and see a doctor. And my diagnosis was Bipolar II. The advice of both my doctor and the psychiatrist was to get on medication to just level me out and bring my moods into check. I didn’t like the thought of medication, either. Number one: I felt like a failure. How could I be made broken and need to be on medication in order to function like the rest of the world? So, I really beat myself up for that. I was also worried that it would make me a zombie and I would start to have drool coming out of the corners of my mouth. Of course, there were parts of my bipolarity that I loved: my manic, creative crazy episodes where I would write and paint and decorate things, so I didn’t want to give that up. I was afraid that if I did get on medication that that positive side would disappear and I would just be left living this sort of ‘blah’ existence.
Had I had high cholesterol or high blood pressure or a heart condition, I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to take medication that was prescribed, but I think because mental illness is hidden away inside your head and its unseen, it was a real stumbling block for me, but I got over it and it really has helped. Just a quick side note: if you’re ever thinking that you don’t need it or you’re feeling overly confident, whatever you do, do not taper off or tinker with your medication on your own without a doctor’s help or supervision. I learned that the hard way. I was arrogant and overly confident and decided that I could handle just a slow tapering of my meds. I, basically, spiraled out of control in a hotel room. I was throwing things and acting like a wild animal. And I mean that, literally. I think the important thing to realize is that nobody is perfect. Everybody has good days and bad days, so one of my biggest pet peeves is that if I am having a bad day, that’s completely understandable, if someone’s cut me off in traffic and I get a little heated, it really is frustrating if someone looks at me and goes, ‘Did you miss a pill? Are you off your medication?’ Because I think everybody has their moments.
I got online and I started googling and I just wanted to find out if there were any other well-known people that had bipolar or had struggled with mental illness. The list of people that popped up blew me away. To discover that I was keeping such great company, to be in the same category as people that had made such incredible contributions to society and the world, whether it be in art or writing or leadership or music, was really cool. So, I wouldn’t trade it in if you asked me to or paid me to.
My manic episodes still come. I still have creative, rocket-fueled bursts of energy where I can harness all of that for good and accomplish some amazing goals. I think the trick for any of us is to make the most of the best parts and manage the worst. And I think that’s all that any of us can do in our lives. And don’t think for a moment that Jill up the street has her act together or Bob down the road is A-OK because, chances are, they’ve got their own issues and their own struggles.
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You’ve Got This’ supports the Bipolar community. View the videos from Bipolar sufferers encouraging those with Bipolar to know they are not alone and that they’ve 'got this’. | 52,397 | 19,656 | 0.000053 |
warc | 201704 | Bikini Ready Weight Loss Diet
Getting bikini swimsuit season ready
& thinking about
weight loss diets but don't want to exercise to lose the weight? While we
recommend exercise (after a diet) this is the ideal no exercise diet
that helps you shed fat related weight! A No Exercise Diet
Whether it's for a vacation south to the beaches, the cottage, out to the
park or just to feel better about yourself, getting swimsuit ready
doesn't have to be difficult which is why we offer the
Ideal Protein diet. While it's a
no exercise diet, we do suggest you incorporate daily walks into your
schedule! Call for details! Be Bikini Ready With The Ideal Diet
The bikini ready weight loss diet is a nutritionist supervised weight loss program
using the
Ideal Protein
protocol that helps you
burn fat related weight.
You can safely lose the weight you don’t want without exercise. By the way, there is a very good reason for the exercise ban
which we can explain, for
those who just can't go a without some formal exercise, we can modify your
diet protocol to help you avoid lean tissue loss.
As a medically based protocol that really does
recommend no exercise during the
short weight loss phases of the diet, it's perfect if you have less than
about 20 pounds or so to lose. It is also very effective for those with
bigger goals and the Ideal Protein Diet includes
lifestyle education so you'll better understand the causes
of weight gain which can help you make better decisions on weight
maintenance. There are 3 primary elements to this program with us: A carefully calibrated short term medically based weight loss diet Thorough nutrition & lifestyle education to address weight maintenance Professional nutritionist coaching
By the way,
we've helped lots of people achieve their goals with
this program so don't be put off by the bikini ready diet title.
This program is for anyone wanting to safely lose "fat" related weight,
protect lean tissue and learn how
food and lifestyle choices affect their weight! After this no exercise weight loss diet, you may enjoy much better exercise results! This program is a
doctor developed, medically based,
nutritionist supervised protocol originally designed for professional athletes to
help them address unwanted fat related weight while protecting lean tissues
(muscles).
Even professional athletes have to significantly moderate their exercise intensity during the short term weight loss phase of this diet to avoid muscle loss.
Once the unwanted fat related weight is gone, you
should
experience
better results with your exercise & sports activities.
If you don't exercise, we recommend you adopt an activity you can enjoy after you've completed the program. Daily walking is always encouraged.
An ideal bikini diet with nutrition education
The diet itself is intended as a short-term method to reduce fat related weight. The part many women feel is the real bonus of the program is the strong focus on nutrition and lifestyle education designed to support weight maintenance.
When you understand what leads to weight gain and learn about food alternatives, you can make informed choices that support weight maintenance. With a registered nutritionist as your coach, you get the Ideal Protein weight loss protocol, on-going personal support and professional nutrition and lifestyle education.
Give us a call, we'll answer your questions! | 3,435 | 1,539 | 0.000661 |
warc | 201704 | A delegation of American congressmen is flying into Brussels this week to dispel mounting trade tensions between the US and Europe over hedge funds.
Worries centre on the European Commission’s directive on alternative investment fund managers. The hedge fund industry claims that if it is enacted according to the current draft, it could cost European pensioners up to €25bn a year by shutting out American and other non-EU based investment vehicles. That would result in a major reduction of choice for large investors, who as a consequence would suffer increased costs and lower returns. | 602 | 376 | 0.002718 |
warc | 201704 | The objective of this test is to monitor the development of the athlete's ability to maintain a state of equilibrium (balance) in a static position.
Required Resources of Standing Stork Balance Test
To undertake this test you will require:
Warm dry location - gym Stop watch Assistant. How to Conduct The Standing Stork Balance Test Stand comfortable on both feet Hands on your hip Lift one leg and place the toes of that foot against the knee of the other leg On command from the assistant, raise the heel and stand on your toes Assistant starts the stop watch Balance for as long as possible without letting either the heel touch the ground or the other foot move away from the knee. Coach records the time you were able to maintain the balance. Repeat the test for the other leg. AnalysisAnalysis of the result is by comparing it with the results of previous tests. It is expected that, with appropriate training between each test, the analysis would indicate an improvement. Normative data for The Standing Stork Balance TestThe following are national norms for 16 to 19 year olds.
Gender
Excellent
Above average
Average
Below Average
Poor
Male
>50 secs
50-41 secs
40-31 secs
30-20 secs
<20 font="" secs="">20>
female
>30 secs
30-23 secs
22-16 secs
15-10 secs
<10 font="" secs="">10>
Table reference: Arnot R and Gaines C, Sports Talent,7984 Target groupThis test is suitable for active individuals but not for those where the test would be contraindicated. ReliabilityReliability would depend upon how strict the test is conducted and the individual's level of motivation to perform the test. ValidityThere are published tables to relate results to potential level of fitness and the correlation is high. Reference
Mackenzie, Brian. 2005.
101 Performance Evalution Test.Electric World Plc. London. | 1,836 | 975 | 0.001045 |
warc | 201704 | Stock brokers who are lured to new firms with signing bonuses of at least $100,000 will be required to inform clients under a rule approved by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Bloomberg News reports that Finra’s board of governors passed the proposal Friday, Wall Street’s self-regulator said in a statement. Brokers would have to tell their customers how much they received before persuading them to bring their accounts to the new firm, the regulator said. The plan must be reviewed and approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Finra said.
Brokerages from Morgan Stanley to Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch poach salesmen from one another, offering bonuses based on how much revenue they produce. The brokers typically must repay the bonuses if they don’t bring in as much business as promised, a situation that Finra said may create a conflict of interest as they strive to reach their targets.
'It will have an impact', said Michael King, a recruiter in New York who helps brokers switch firms. 'It’s going to make brokers think more carefully about how they’re going to broach it with clients'.
Hit the link below to access the complete Bloomberg article: | 1,223 | 694 | 0.001485 |
warc | 201704 | This is the third in a series of anticipated posts closely reading the Constitution of the United States for homeland security implications. Readers are encouraged to use the comment function to add background, analysis, exegesis or exposition related to the text highlighted.
–+–
THE PREAMBLE
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
–+–
Several of the Framers would have been able to quote various classical sources on justice. In the
Republic Plato argued, “Everyone ought to perform the one function in the community for which his nature best suits him. I believe that principle, or some form of it, is justice.” This Greek notion seeming very similar to the mishpat of the Jewish scriptures, a favorite of Puritan preaching (especially when mishpat dances with tsedeq).
Cicero was even better known than Plato among the Latin-reading (less often Greek-reading) men of the mid-to-late 18th Century. His Stoic conception of justice was similar, “Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.” What was due certainly might be culturally framed, but Cicero claimed, “justice must be observed even to the lowest.” From most of their ancient texts, Founders and Framers received an idea of justice that exalts in the dignity of each individual. (At least if the individual is white, male, and Protestant, but a case can also be made that this idea — seeded with care in the 18th Century — just had a very long germination period.)
Of the fifty-five delegates at the Philadelphia Convention thirty-five were lawyers, most of whom had read William Blackstone’s
Commentaries on the Laws of England. Consistent with the Greek, Roman, and Judeo-Christian understanding of justice (especially when consonant with the Protestant revolution), Blackstone addresses the rights of the individual (I apologize for this very long passage, but Blackstone is tough to quote both accurately and succinctly. The bold second paragraph would be easy to misunderstand outside the context of the first paragraph, and even here, Blackstone has much more to say). By the absolute rights of individuals, we mean those which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it. But with regard to the absolute duties, which man is bound to perform considered as a mere individual, it is not to be expected that any human municipal law should at all explain or enforce them. For the end and intent of such laws being only to regulate the behaviour of mankind, as they are members of society, and stand in various relations to each other, they have consequently no concern with any other but social or relative duties. Let a man therefore be ever so abandoned in his principles, or vicious in his practice, provided he keeps his wickedness to himself, and does not offend against the rules of public decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect himself, (as drunkenness, or the like,) then they become, by the bad example they set, of pernicious effects to society; and therefore it is then the business of human laws to correct them. Here the circumstance of publication is what alters the nature of the case. Public sobriety is a relative duty, and therefore enjoined by our laws; private sobriety is an absolute duty, which, whether it be performed or not, human tribunals can never know; and therefore they can never enforce it by any civil sanction. But, with respect to rights, the case is different Human laws define and enforce as well those rights which belong to a man considered as an individual, as those which belong to him considered as related to others. For the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature, but which could not be preserved in peace without that mutual assistance and intercourse which is gained by the institution of friendly and social communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals.
The justice to be established is much more than procedural (though that too) and even the notion of equity under law is not sufficiently expansive. Justice involves honoring the particular potential of each individual within a society that seeks to optimize the potential of all.
–+–
Implications for homeland security
Well… while certainly easier said than done, sounds like about the best possible long-term counter-terrorism strategy. | 5,057 | 2,396 | 0.000425 |
warc | 201704 | Above: Photograph by Manu Brabo (AP) of an arrest in San Salvador from the Executioners of El Salvador in The New Yorker.
Until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the United States did not attempt to control immigration as a matter of policy. Other late 19th Century restrictions attempted to limit entry by Japanese, lunatics, anarchists, and carriers of infectious diseases. From 1921 to 1965 various laws and Executive actions served to set an upper limit on total immigration and set quotas for the national origin of immigrants.
The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, and the 1990 Immigration Act put in place the basic architecture of contemporary immigration policy. Since 9/11 there have been several attempts to significantly revise immigration laws, most of these efforts have failed.
Each year roughly 700,000 legal immigrants enter the United States. Illegal immigration is tough to track, but net inflows — number entering minus number returning — are credibly estimated to have plunged below 100,000 since the Great Recession (2007). According to the Pew Research Center, since 2012 it is possible that more Mexicans living in the United States have returned to Mexico than have crossed north.
If so, this would restore a long-time pattern of Mexican and Central American migration. According to Madeline Zavodny with the American Enterprise Institute:
It is worth noting that historically many unauthorized immigrants did not settle permanently in the United States. Instead, they worked here temporarily, saved some money and returned home; many repeated this on a seasonal basis for years but ultimately retired at home, where their family members had remained. Since the 1980s, however, there has been a gradual shift toward unauthorized immigrants settling in the United States and reuniting with family members here. One reason for this was the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) legalization program, which enabled some 2.7 million unauthorized immigrants to receive permanent legal status. Another reason is the increased difficulty in crossing the U.S.-Mexico border due to tighter border security. As it has become harder to re-enter the United States, unauthorized immigrants have increased their length of stay here.
Increased economic opportunity in Mexico — strongly tied to a declining birth-rate — is one of several factors that have shifted migration patterns. “The immigration debate seems to be stuck around the year 2006, and before then,” says Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Japan or New Zealand can conceivably manage their immigration policy with a border strategy. Most large, affluent, culturally diverse nations (or regions, ala the European Union) will find a border strategy to be about as effective as the Maginot Line. To be effective much more attention is required to shape the strategic context for migration… as distant from the border as possible.
For example, last week Refugees International released a new report on violence in El Salvador. In the last six months, there have been over 3000 murders in this nation of 6 million. According to the report:
More children are killed in El Salvador per capita than in any other country. Two gangs are largely responsible for this increasing violence. These gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 (18th Street) originated in Los Angeles, but after 1996, thousands were deported to El Salvador in a process that has been described as “unintentional state-sponsored gang migration.” By 2005, El Salvador had 10,000 active gang members, and this number has only grown in the intervening years. Currently, there are 70,000 members of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs operating in El Salvador…
Does this situation present a potential immigration challenge to the United States? Last summer we had a dramatic example of the possibility. Since then the situation in Central America has only gotten worse. Does the strength of Central American gangs and their contacts with US and international criminal/terrorist organizations present a potential threat beyond immigration? Is the US national interest our only concern in this context? Should it be?
Where would you prefer to engage the potential threat? How would you prefer to reduce the potential threat? When is the right time to engage? The Refugees International Report offers some answers. | 4,524 | 2,159 | 0.00047 |
warc | 201704 | There are thousands of cuisines in the world and they are many cuisine specialized restaurants on them. It means various prices and also various menu types. Menu is an important part of restaurant concept and it needs to be basic and easy to choose for customers. It’s sure that a menu of fine-dining restaurant and fast food restaurant is not same. Also there are some restaurants needed to change the food list always and they need flexible menus. How many restaurant food menu types are there? Static menu is the standard and what you can see in many restaurants. They will be used for many people so it’s mostly possible to see them laminated or hung on wall. Restaurants like fast-food restaurants, delis, dinners and restaurant chains mostly use static menu. Restaurant part the static many to subparts like appetizers, entrees, salads and soups and desserts. Static menu gives increased familiarity to costumers and it’s in the same arrangement in each country. But when restaurant added seasonal ingredients or similar, it’s looking bad on the menu. À la carte menu is known as a restaurant menu type but it’s originally a pricing system. This type menu is preparing on how the customer orders. Main dishes are not listed in the same category and when a customer wanted meal and vegetable, she pays them separately. It’s a simple way restaurants use for earning more profit from side items which are not ordering frequently like potatoes. A la carte pricing scheme was very popular in 30s and today many restaurants are still using it.
Prix-Fixe Menu offers a fixed price for some items together. In a French restaurant, when customer wanted amuses bouche, salad, intermezzo, meat, salad and dessert, if the restaurant is using Prix-Fixe menu, they will want one price for all. In many restaurants, Prix-Fixe menus are more expensive than others but they also provide food from different categories in one.
In a chef-driven and fine-dining restaurant, Prix-Fixe menu changes weekly or daily. Restaurant mostly adds seasonal ingredients into menu. Some restaurants name this menu as “chef’s tasting menu” or “degustation menu” Du Jour Menu is mostly possible in rural areas of Europe. Du Jour means “of the day” and restaurants mostly use it as “Soup du Jour” Du Jour menu changes daily and Chef adds new seasonal ingredients into it. When a restaurant prepared Du Jour menu, it means customers can eat freshest food in here. Many restaurants prepare every item as special on their Du Jour menu. Also in Du Jour menus or chalkboard menus, customers can see good and fresh combinations like fresh fish, seasonal vegetables and daily dessert. Cycle menu is mostly possible in industry areas. It means there’s a meal cycle weekly or monthly and restaurant is following it. Also school cafeterias and some institutional facilities use this type of menu. “Secret menu” is also a type of restaurant menu which is not written. When especially chain restaurants don’t want to advertise some meals, they don’t write it to their menu. It’s only possible to learn this menu by word of mouth. Restaurants prepare many variations of meals and they want to sell the more profitable one. But when there are some loyal customers like a classic menu, they have to ask to it waiter first. There are many restaurants using this system especially in America. Chipotle Mexican Grill is one of them. They offer only five types of meal in their menu but they fry also single tacos and quesadillas. Also famous In-N-Out Burger has a secret menu for “animal style” hamburgers. | 3,682 | 1,644 | 0.000629 |
warc | 201704 | Post submitted by Hyacinth Alvaran, HRC Diversity Program Manager
Last Friday, the OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates held its Annual National Convention in Washington, D.C. At the convention, the OCA hosted a discussion among 70 Asian American middle and high school students and a panel of safe school advocates.
The panel discussion was called “No More Standing on the Sidelines,” and focused on giving the students the knowledge and tools that they need to be advocates for safer schools in their communities and increase their awareness of different ways to respond to bullying in their own schools.
Panelists included Kisha Webster, the Director of Education and Community Engagement for Welcoming Schools for the Human Rights Campaign; Hyacinth Alvaran, Diversity Program Manager for the Human Rights Campaign; Tiffani Sykhammountry, intern for the D.C. office of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN); and Amrita Singh, Legal & Legislative Affairs Associate for the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The discussion was moderated by Monica Thammarath, Senior Liaison for the National Education Association.
The panel discussion touched on themes of bullying based on religion, race, sexual orientation, gender identity & expression, and other forms of bullying. Singh educated the students about the Sikh community, and how Sikh boys are especially bullied because of their long hair and turban. Long hair is an important article of faith for the Sikh community, and being bullied can put pressure on Sikh youth to choose between their peers and their religion.
Sykhammountry spoke about her experience being bullied as gay in high school, and how the experience empowered her to seek help from a teacher and join her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. It also sparked her advocacy work to create safer schools, and work for GLSEN as an intern after she graduated from high school.
Alvaran shared her story of bullying as learned behavior. She was gender-stereotyped as a child in the Philippines: receiving messages from society that it was not appropriate for girls to be tomboyish, and therefore, she learned to display gender-stereotyping behavior towards other children. She also spoke about her experiences of having been a bystander to bullying behavior in her grade-school years in New York, and how as she grew into her high school years in Oregon, she became more aware of other people’s suffering and of her own power to choose, so she started to choose to be an ally to and befriend students who were made fun of.
This power to choose was demonstrated through an activity, facilitated by Webster, called “Making Decisions: Ally or Bystander.” Through this exercise, Webster announced a particular situation of bullying or name-calling, and the students chose to walk to a part of the room with signs that reflected their answer: to either walk away and ignore the situation, talk privately to the person who committed the bullying or name-calling behavior, seek help from an adult, intervene to stop or mediate the situation, or do something else. She then invited students to share their reasons for their chosen action, and facilitated a deeper dialogue around these reasons. When asked to raise their hands if they appreciated the activity, most did, because it encouraged them to think about their own behaviors in response to situations of commonplace bullying or name-calling, and how they can choose to make different decisions if they want to and if doing so is safe for them.
With programs and resources geared towards creating safer schools and communities, the Human Rights Campaign is a strong advocate for youth. In particular, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Welcoming Schools program gives educators and other school community members tools and resources to learn how to embrace family diversity, avoid gender stereotyping, and end bullying and name-calling in K-5 learning environments.
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s report, Growing Up LGBT in America, paints a vivid picture of the issues that LGBT youth face, including non-accepting families, bullying, and fear of being out or open with their sexual orientation or gender identity.
HRC also advocates for better protections for LGBT students by backing the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act. Respectively, these pieces of federal legislation would prohibit schools from discriminating against LGBT students and promote school safety by providing funding for schools that adopt codes of conduct specifically prohibiting bullying and harassment on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and religion.
For more on HRC's groundbreaking report on LGBT youth, visit www.hrc.org/youth. | 4,863 | 2,208 | 0.000458 |
warc | 201704 | In a world where red hair shades are becoming more and more popular (just look at the dye-at-home products on supermarket shelves), many flame-heads are still sensitive about being called 'ginger' as opposed to 'redhead'.
Why so touchy?
Whether they choose to embrace it or not, redheads will be called 'ginger' at some point in their lives (or lots of points in their lives, more likely).
Copper, auburn, chestnut-red, golden, strawberry blonde; it doesn't matter. They all come under the same umbrella. You are a ginger. But you are also a redhead.
While the term 'redhead' conjures thoughts of genetic mystery and glamour, 'ginger' hits a nerve and can emit a negative vibe. Society has a heavy hand to play in this. From the playground to mainstream media, our attitude towards the nickname goes back to the way 'ginger' is used and the power we allow the word to have over us.
A lot of the time, it's no wonder it hits a sore spot. 'Ginger' is often used as an insult or joke at the redhead's expense because society allows it. From the earliest age, particularly in the UK, children grow up thinking that it's appropriate to make fun of redheads, and that 'ginger' is a fair term to use.
But because this insult relates to hair colour, rather than disability, sexuality or race, it is swiftly dismissed as a form of discrimination, and thus society continues to embed this idea that it's socially acceptable to tease redheads for their hair shade.
Where does the term 'ginger' come from?
A lot of speculation has simply put the 'ginger' nickname down to ginger root, used in cooking to give it a bit of a kick. Some think this is because redheads are believed to have a fiery temper and can pack a punch (not always literally).
Another theory follows ginger-flavoured food, which tend to show a warm, reddish tinge: ginger cake, gingerbread, and ginger snaps.
American TV has also been cited as an influencing factor towards redheads' (sometimes) reluctant nickname. Sixties' sitcom 'Gilligan's Island' followed two single attractive females: Mary Ann and Ginger. Ginger, of course, had red hair and pale skin, while Mary Ann donned a brunette mop.
But, others still believe that 'ginger' originated much earlier. In fact, it could be more than 200 years old, with 18th and 19th century references, according to OED online. During this time, Britain occupied parts of Malaysia, home to the Red Ginger plant, which could be the original namesake.
Whatever the origination, redheads must accept the nickname as a description, and instead of fearing its connotations, should embrace its individuality and genetic rarity.
Reclaiming 'ginger' as our own
Within the past few months, there has been discussion of avoiding use of the word 'ginger' in popular press, for fear of offending those who are sensitive to it. But this would only reaffirm the power that the word has over redheads when used as an insult. It would turn 'ginger' into a taboo word, and in turn, become more offensive.
Not only would this likely cause more torment, but the work that all ginger promoters, celebrities and anti-bullying organisations put in to change people's attitudes towards red hair would all be for nothing.
Instead, interchangeably using the words 'ginger' and 'redhead' is the only way that those with red hair can reclaim 'ginger' as their own.
Yes, 'ginger' can be used in hurtful ways, but instead of using it to instil fear and isolation, it should be celebrated by redheads; shouted loud and proud to empower and encourage individuality.
People will always be singled out for what makes them different. But this should be seen as a positive thing, and we should be proud of our copper-coloured locks and the individuality it gives us.
After all, being called 'ginger' is a mere observation, to which you can simply reply, "Congratulations. You have eyes".
ALSO ON HUFFPOST UK: Emma Kelly is the Founder and Editor of Ginger Parrot (www.gingerparrot.co.uk), a website for redheads, delivering news and features on topics specific to those with ginger hair, including General News, Fashion, Music, Beauty, Film, Health and more.
The site also sells hair products, clothing and gifts for redheads and redhead lovers alike. | 4,243 | 2,111 | 0.000477 |
warc | 201704 | Do You Know How Wireless Internet Works?
November 8, 2013
•IADT General, Information Technology
• 0 Comments
What is wireless internet?
Like their wired counterparts, wireless networks deliver data from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to your computer. But wireless networks have the clear and obvious advantage of not needing wires to keep users connected.
When most people think of a wireless network, they often think of Wi-Fi networks delivered through wireless routers. However, a genuine wireless network works a bit differently from the average Wi-Fi network. Like a Wi-Fi network, this network also relies on radio frequencies to transmit information from the ISP to the user. These wireless signals travel along the same frequencies as cordless phones (2.4 GHz, 5.2 GHz, etc.)
How Does it Work?
The Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) sends out a radio signal via radio transmitter from its base station, which is then relayed through a series of towers. These towers help amplify the signal so that it remains strong enough to work effectively. These relays are required due to line-of-sight issues that make it difficult for radio waves to effectively navigate past buildings and other obstacles.
Once the signal reaches a tower close to your location, your wireless receiver will be able to pick up the signal. The receiver then sends this signal via RJ45 networking cable to a modulator/demodulator, otherwise known as a modem. This device takes that wireless signal and translates it into the binary code language your computer understands. In many cases, your receiver and modem are housed in the same body, simplifying your networking setup.
From the modem, the information goes through a router, which in turn routes the information to your computer through a RJ45 networking cable or through a wireless signal produced by the router itself - your computer’s internal or external wireless network interface card (NIC) picks up the router’s wireless signal. In some cases, the modem and router are also housed as one unit, further simplifying your networking setup.
Different Types of Wireless Internet
WiMAX and LTE are two common types of wireless Internet used by WISPs. Both are candidate standards for fourth generation (4G) wireless communications and both deliver information to mobile devices ranging from laptops to cell phones. However, LTE offers faster data speeds and lower latency, qualities that offer a faster and more usable Internet experience.
Are you using wireless internet now? What type are you using? Now you have the knowledge to fully appreciate this complex technology. | 2,657 | 1,256 | 0.000807 |
warc | 201704 | India's central bank said it will withdraw all bank notes printed before 2005, as the country looks to rein in on its black money and fake currency market that is estimated at 50% of its gross domestic product (GDP).
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said it will withdraw the banknotes starting from 31 March.
"The Reserve Bank of India has today advised that after March 31, 2014, it will completely withdraw from circulation all banknotes issued prior to 2005," the central bank said in a statement.
"From April 1, 2014, the public will be required to approach banks for exchanging these notes."
All the banks in the country will provide exchange facility for these notes until further communication from the RBI. The banks are required to exchange the notes for their customers and non-customers.
Nevertheless, non-customers will have to furnish proof of identity and residence to exchange more than 10 pieces of 500 and 1,000 notes, which are the highest denominations in the country.
The RBI added that the public can easily identify the notes to be withdrawn, as those printed before 2005 do not have the printing year on the reverse side.
The central banks also said that the notes issued before 2005 will continue to be legal tender. It asked the public not to panic and requested the people to actively participate in the withdrawal process.
Black Money and Fake Notes
The RBI did not give any reason for the withdrawal in its official statement. However, the move is expected to unearth black money held in cash
In addition, the country is looking to curb the distribution of fake currencies there. India has added new security features to the notes printed after 2005making them difficult to fake.
The amount held by public is 12tn rupees ($194bn, £118bn, €143bn) as of 27 December 2013, according to RBI data. It is expected that 10-15% of notes in circulation in India are fake notes.
At present, rupee notes are issued in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000. | 2,014 | 1,012 | 0.001002 |
warc | 201704 | A preliminary reading of the purchasing managers’ index, or PMI, released by HSBC-Markit on Thursday showed activity in China’s manufacturing sector accelerated to a seven-month high in October, to hit 50.9 from 50.2 in September, and beating expectations of a 50.5 reading.
The expansion was fuelled by a faster rate of output, and new orders from the domestic and export markets. However, employment in the manufacturing sector declined but at a slower rate compared to September, even as output and input prices increased.
“October’s HSBC Flash China Manufacturing PMI rose to a seven month high of 50.9 on the back of broad-based modest improvements,” Hongbin Qu, a senior economist at HSBC, said in a statement.
“This implies that China’s growth recovery is becoming consolidated into 4Q following the bottoming out in 3Q. This momentum is likely to continue in the coming months, creating favorable conditions for speeding up structural reforms.” | 997 | 586 | 0.001787 |
warc | 201704 | BY JEFF BOLES
As discussed in part one of this three-part series (see “What is cloud-based storage?” at infostor.com), at the heart of cloud-based computing is a loosely coupled infrastructure that is self-healing, geographically dispersed, and instantaneously scalable in response to business demands. Cloud-based computing virtualizes the location, connectivity, and resources behind loosely coupled application components in order to be elastic—able to move and shift computing and storage resources, and rapidly deploy new systems or applications, in response to any demand. Moreover, cloud-based computing promises to make infrastructure, applications, and storage easier to manage, and much easier to integrate with other applications or changing business processes.
What does this mean to you as an end user, application developer, or IT manager who may be considering where to store data? Cloud-based storage today can let you store and manipulate any type of data on higher-performance, more scalable, more accessible, and cheaper storage. Moreover, it can free you from the costly management overhead that surrounds data storage by serving up file storage in a self-managed, easy-to-access manner. Cloud-based storage lets users not only provision and manage storage themselves, but also store data in XML files, text files, or many other data formats. Meanwhile, cloud-based storage solution provide users with database-like data manipulation through innovative file-filtering mechanisms, metadata tagging, and the virtual presentation of files in many places at once.
Cloud-based storage has evolved from continuing attempts to de-couple storage from applications so that each resource can be optimally scaled and managed.
Cloud-based storage has evolved from continuing attempts to de-couple storage from applications so that each resource can be optimally scaled and managed.
These solutions are available today. Some users have moved entire application sets to API-accessible storage services such as Amazon S3, and in turn, have access to a dynamically scaling infrastructure. Some businesses are currently shopping for, or building, similar solutions within their own corporate networks, to harness the flexibility of such an infrastructure while reducing their storage infrastructure cost of ownership by enabling user self-service.
But for many other users, cloud-based storage is a fuzzy new technology, with neither clearly defined capabilities nor benefits.
In this second part of our series, we’ll look at a set of five core capabilities that are important to end users looking to store data in either private clouds or the public Internet cloud. These capabilities and the associated benefits will shed light on how cloud-based storage may be beneficial to you.
Cloud-based storage is amorphous today, with neither a clearly defined set of capabilities nor any single architecture. Choices abound, with many traditional hosted or managed service providers (MSPs) offering block or file storage, usually alongside traditional remote access protocols or virtual or physical server hosting. Other solutions have emerged, typified by the Amazon S3 service, that resembles flat data-bases designed to store large objects.
The Taneja Group defines cloud-based storage as a specific category within the larger field of “storage-in-the-cloud” solutions. Storage in the cloud encompasses traditional hosted storage, including offerings accessed by FTP, WebDAV, NFS/CIFS, or block protocols either remotely or from within a hosted environment. Cloud-based storage is an evolution of this hosted storage technology that wraps more sophisticated APIs, namespaces, file or data location virtualization, and management tools, around storage.
Regardless of whether you are building a multi-tenancy hosted application, or you want to move your enterprise applications to the cloud, there is a core set of capabilities that are common to emerging cloud-based storage solutions, and how well a specific solution delivers on these capabilities will be key to determining how well you can 1) integrate stored data with different applications and systems in versatile ways; 2) harness cloud-based storage performance, scalability, and distribution to increase your infrastructure flexibility, responsiveness, and availability; and 3) reduce your cost of owning and managing storage.
API-accessible. Today, businesses are surrounded by a world of Web services, scripting, lightweight development frameworks, mash-ups, and various other dynamic, easily integrated Web technologies. Access to stored data through a sophisticated API makes cloud-based storage extremely versatile, and in fact re-invents how stored data can be leveraged for the support of applications and business processes. Moreover, APIs can be tuned for general storage management and allow administrators to overlay nearly any management, reporting, or governance process on storage. A few potential usage cases for API-accessible storage include APIs will let administrators wrap storage management with nearly any business process, including customized automation of provisioning, snapshots, file versioning, etc.Web services APIs may be easily discovered and integrated so that they remove the hurdles associated with management protocols of the past; APIs will let developers create, store, access, and re-use complex sets of data more easily. This will encourage lighter-weight, more flexible application architectures, easier data re-use, and rapid application development, at lower cost and effort; APIs will also allow administrators and/or developers to empower user self-service by creating portals or applications where users can manage, protect, and control their own storage. This will drive down the cost of ownership for storage; APIs will make storage extensible, and data more portable. For example, an open API could be used to create a gateway that mimics yesterday’s protocols or interfaces with today’s protocols such as XAM; and Storage vendors are developing APIs on top of flexible infrastructures that will make Web-service-based access to storage commonplace. Innovators will make their storage even more extensible through the use of APIs, which will enable integration with other applications for data tiering, classification, control, conversion, or other file manipulation. Some examples include Ibrix’s Cirrus API, which provides access to user management, data sharing, etc., and Omneon’s Media Services Framework, which provides API access to video transcoding and QoS-like storage optimization. Cloud-based storage cannot grow to the scale necessary without flexible management, organization, and presentation of storage that removes cumbersome semantics such as hostnames, directories, and permissions. When users turn to cloud-based storage, they will recognize enormous savings in the time and effort associated with administration of storage and data management. And developers can store and integrate data faster and with less administrative overhead. Innovative in organization and management.
Cloud-based storage providers will enable self-service storage provisioning and management of data that is not only API-enabled, but also breaks with current conventions. Innovative providers will not only cover basic storage management operations, but also provide data presentation that can mimic some of the capabilities of file virtualization through virtual views or containers for data that are completely abstracted from the on-disk location of data. Users will be able to place data into different virtual views that are accessible by different users. Such organization through virtual views and lightweight tags, coupled with self-service management of storage, may change how the industry approaches traditional file storage as well.
Users of cloud-based storage should assess the responsiveness, availability, and scalability of their hosting service. Vendor innovation will drive new levels of these features that will surpass even the best enterprise systems. Users should minimize their risks through SLAs focused on performance, responsiveness, and scalability, but also through an awareness of their service provider’s storage capabilities. While visibility into provider capabilities will likely always be opaque, cloud-based storage should demonstrate the ability to transparently move data across locations and potentially service providers, self-heal, and scale up in performance and capacity to meet rapidly changing customer demands. Also, users should match service provider capabilities in these areas with current and anticipated future needs, and do so while being attentive to their planned application architecture. Users with many small, separate I/O streams may be able to easily distribute their demands and work with any, or many, provider(s), regardless of the provider’s ability to move or distribute data. Responsive and scalable. Today, cloud-based storage is too new for standardization, and recent attempts at standardization have been slow or have left a sour taste in the mouths of many users, both within the storage industry and across the IT field in general. This leads ambivalent users to anticipate wading through a bog of APIs with excessive overhead and incompatibilities, with no hope of moving data between systems without starting from scratch. We believe concerns about standardization and portability for cloud-based storage are largely unwarranted, and that cloud-based storage will in fact remedy many of the standardization issues we have today. That is because cloud-based storage is centered on lightweight APIs and access frameworks such as HTTP-based REST that are already well-established. But users should pay attention to what these frameworks give them, and whether the frameworks are served up on top of the right underlying storage. Open, well-documented, portable.
In our view, users of cloud-based storage will be best-served by innovative storage vendors who develop deeply integrated, full-featured APIs on top of their next-gen storage systems. This creates a turnkey system that can deliver advanced storage features, such as snapshots or file versioning, while assuring both the service provider and the customer that the solution will work without incompatibilities or multi-vendor finger-pointing. Providers that turn to these solutions and APIs will be able to deploy cloud-based storage services quickly and cost-effectively.
More importantly, while we believe the lightweight and simplified nature of REST-based APIs will make application and data porting simple, out-of-the-box solutions will drive standardization. Since cloud-based storage will only be possible on top of a relatively small number of systems that can scale to huge amounts of performance and capacity, there will be a relatively small number of solution vendors and APIs in the market. Since storage Web services APIs will support similar basic operations (even if they also support more advanced operations), developers can quickly map APIs between solutions to mask differences and enable better portability.
Flexible presentation of storage as traditional file/block, remote storage, or API-accessible storage will open the doors to versatile use cases for cloud-based storage. It was not long after Amazon S3 sprung up that users were trying, and demanding, hosting of entire virtual machine computing environments. This enabled more uses for Amazon’s storage cloud and let users collocate complex compute resources alongside rich Web-integrated data. Today, users can perform complex content creation and/or business logic processing while using generated data within a loosely coupled and widely distributed Web application architecture. Many users will find value in combining multiple computing approaches when cloud-based storage can be accessed as traditional file/block storage in a hosted infrastructure. Ready for versatile usage cases.
This will be an ideal use case for the next generation of cloud-based storage. It is easy to imagine large hosting providers with unique speed and data differentiation that could take advantage of a Web services overlay for their data. As one example, a solution at a service provider like XASAX—a provider that is collocating HPC-like infrastructure and financial applications next to high-speed financial data feeds for market data analysis—may enable a new generation of dynamic Web-based data reporting/analysis and mash-up applications for financial customers.
Challenges for cloud-based storage
Users initially consider cloud-based storage for its potential cost savings and improvements in storage scalability and availability. While such savings are compelling, users shouldn’t overlook holding up the fundamental capabilities of cloud-based storage to a measuring stick that considers future strategic IT and business needs. The fundamental capabilities of cloud-based storage take center stage when considering strategic business needs, and will differentiate providers.
In the next article in this series, we’ll look at cloud-based storage capabilities that are key considerations for service providers.
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst and director of validation services at the Taneja Group research and consulting firm (www.tanejagroup.com). Challenges for cloud-based storage
Users should be aware of the potential downsides to cloud-based storage. These include issues of portability or vendor lock-in, regulatory compliance issues, and the availability of cloud-based storage when one vendor’s solution is unique in architecture or APIs.
First, there are currently no standards for cloud-based storage or computing. This can make porting an infrastructure from one vendor to another dicey at best, and may mean you’re subject to the whims of an infrastructure provider. This is a key issue that emerging cloud-based storage solutions will address, but nonetheless is a major challenge today. Once solutions are available from major vendors, more services with common APIs will become available, and developers will come up with mappings between other popular APIs (such as Amazon S3, and perhaps even XAM).
Second, cloud-based storage solutions still fall short of meeting all IT storage needs. The biggest gap is where databases are concerned. While Amazon S3 started life looking very much like a widely distributed, extremely flat database, it has never been capable of meeting traditional enterprise database needs: It is not relational in the traditional sense, it lacks DBMS tools, and because it is designed to support loosely coupled applications, it does not support high loads of guaranteed, consistent transactions expected in traditional database environments. More importantly, without a distributable database, the cloud looks like a poor place for databases—applications that depend on access to single instances of databases in the cloud will never be able to benefit from load-balancing, scalability, and improved availability, all of which may imply the use of multiple copies of data or stateless redirection of data connections. This is an area of critical importance in which next-generation cloud-based storage vendors must begin to innovate. Meanwhile, legacy architectures or users relying on traditional databases face a quandary and must decide whether to re-architect their application for the cloud and/or deal with sticky issues around transactional consistency and other features that are often tied to concrete business requirements, or choose another path.
Third, users need to be sensitive to where they store their data in the face of ever-changing regulations (SOX, HIPAA, PCI, etc.). Many regulations dictate that users will be able to identify and control the location of their data, which isn’t feasible when that data is virtualized across a cloud.
Finally, because of availability risks in a shared environment that is not fully under their control, users often remain hesitant to turn to cloud-based storage for anything more important than testing and development, or infrequently accessed data storage. Until cloud-based storage is highly available, users will be unable to host mission-critical data on it. Increased availability will come on two fronts: 1) the entry of enterprise-class storage systems into the cloud storage market; and 2) ubiquitous and compatible multi-provider solutions that deliver availability through data dispersal and flexible delta-based replication. Delivering more availability in the cloud may be largely a matter of dispersal—spreading partial or complete copies of data across the cloud can keep it available even during dramatic failures. Vendors such as Cleversafe have come up with innovative and unique algorithms for this, and other technologies exist that have not yet come to market. But this requires widespread cloud-based storage, which will come from service providers ramping up cloud services built on top of out-of-the-box offerings—foregoing the intensive and drawn-out development cycles that created today’s cloud-based storage offerings. Selecting a vendor that is using a commonly available out-of-the-box platform, rather than a custom-developed one, may put you in a position to make use of multiple service providers for increased availability sooner rather than later. | 17,535 | 6,668 | 0.000151 |
warc | 201704 | Somewhere between freshmen and senior year, teens are expected to start acting — somewhat — like adults. As adolescents transition into adulthood, there is added pressure to meet adult expectations in many areas. One such area is speech.
A new study by a Michigan State University researcher asserts that teens are pressured to speak ‘properly,’ and that college and post-high school ambition play a huge role in teens’ speech progression.
Suzanna Evans Wagner, assistant professor of linguistics in the College of Arts and Letter, has reportedly “proven for the first time that language changes with age in addition to community pressures.”
It seems as if in high school, students who want to go to a good college are the ones who early on begin to dial back their use of nonstandard language,” Wagner said. “And the ones who have no aspirations to leave their local community, or who have no particular aspirations to raise their social class, are the people who have no obvious social incentives to change the way they speak.”
Wagner’s study was published in the journal
Language Variation and Change and is based on the language trends of a group of teenaged females, ages 16-19 years old. Wagner measured how often they used “ing” vs. “in” in words such as “runnin” vs. “running” from their high school senior year into their college freshman year.
Wagner found the students who attended or planned to attend a national research institution increased their use of the more socially acceptable “ing” pronunciation — rather than “in” — the most. Those who attended a community college, a liberal arts college or a regional small school showed only a slight increase in the use of “ing,” if at all.
The researcher believes that students who attend major research institutions are more likely to find a speech pattern that is socially acceptable. They want their speech to fit in with others, rather than stand out as a regional dialect. However, notes Wagner, in a regional or a two-year college, most students are drawn from the local area and “often feel pressured to sound, and remain, local.”
“When you track people across their lives - even if it’s only a short space in between — as long as that time frame involves a lot of upheaval, it seems you really can see linguistic change,” she said.
When you moved away from home did your speech change? | 2,530 | 1,206 | 0.000891 |
warc | 201704 | Gold’s continuing uptrend boosts gold mining shares, says Junior Gold’s Damaskos
Angelos Damaskos, CEO Sector Investment Managers and fund adviser for the Junior Gold fund, says that generally speaking the ongoing global macro uncertainty is good for gold mining companies.
Gold shares have rebounded from extremely oversold levels in the last few days. The gold price seems to have disconnected from the price action of other commodities, notably copper and oil, which are primarily influenced by macroeconomic prospects.
Stubbornly high unemployment levels in the US and Europe, as well as a potential slow-down in Chinese economic growth, have impacted investors’ sentiment, depressing both industrial commodities and global equity markets. Gold, nevertheless, has risen sharply in early June. This indicates that it is beginning to regain its safe-haven status, not surprising given the dramatic socio-economic situation in the eurozone. Capital flight from the beleaguered banks in Europe is increasing the likelihood that alternative stores of value, such as gold, will be sought.
The continuation of gold’s eleven-year uptrend is good news for gold mining shares. Their cashflow and profits have been expanding and producers’ balance sheets have never been stronger. Junior companies, however, need to manage their capital conservatively. Financing windows are brief and equity offerings completed at greater share dilution. Development-stage companies with weak balance sheets and large exploration programmes may find it difficult to raise the required financing. They are likely to be acquisition targets of larger producing companies, many of which are finding their cash positions growing even stronger on the back of the high gold price. | 1,781 | 945 | 0.001077 |
warc | 201704 | Cantillon Will phone magnate follow role models?
Has Denis O’Brien dropped a hint as to what might be his long-term goal in life?
In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters on his interest in Haiti, published yesterday, O’Brien referenced two other developing world mobile billionaires – Sudanese-born British rich man Mo Ibrahim, founder of Celtel, an Africa-wide cellphone network, and India-based Sunil Mittal, founder of Bharti Airtel.
O’Brien models himself on the two men who he claims, “proved the concept that you can have people with very little disposable income in real terms, but who want a phone and they’ll pay you for it, and you can afford to build up quite a large network”. It is a concept that O’Brien has applied with gusto in Haiti, which remains Digicel’s largest market and where the company is on the verge of introducing smartphones .
Ibrahim sold Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion and now runs the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, while Mittal also runs his own foundation, the article noted.
This raises the intriguing prospect of O’Brien chucking it all in and cashing out of Digicel to devote himself to further good works.
A foundation to encourage better governance in Ireland per chance?
Consumers have enough on their plate
The discovery of horse meat in some of Ireland’s processed burgers has provoked not only outrage, but also a great deal of equine humour, much of it relating to having “a horse outside” a la The Rubberbandits. It’s all pretty funny, unless perhaps you’re a responsible executive in one of the implicated companies or, even worse, a consumer who cannot now be sure what precisely they have consumed.
Horses hold a position of great affection in Irish society, with the idea of cooking up a Black Beauty casserole about as appetising to most as chopping up and roasting the kitchen table. It is simply not done.
This is not, however, the most important aspect of the revelations of recent days.
Not wanting to eat horsemeat is one thing; not being able to safely rely on food labelling is an entirely different and more serious one. It is in this sense that the equine content of “beef burgers” is (to mix foodstuffs) something of a red herring.
Tesco’s Everyday Value beef burgers were found by the Food Safety Authority to contain just shy of 30 per cent horse meat. This was presumably a secret to almost all involved until the FSA conducted its tests.
Taking this to its extension, it is a mere hop and a skip to the conclusion that absolutely anything could be included in an Irish burger (or another processed meat) as long as it doesn’t interfere with the flavour.
Sawdust nuggets, anybody?
This leads to a fundamental loss of trust in any kind of meat that is processed through a factory and comes out the other end in a different form.
Consumers deserve better, as do the retailers that have little choice but to place their confidence in meat factories.
This brings us to the Government, which has not to date been conducting DNA tests in meat plants.
In an ideal world, this is not something that would have to happen, but this week’s events unfortunately prove it is now urgently needed.
In its absence, it is hard to dismiss the notion that horse meat could just be the start of something much bigger.
Kallakis case closes to AIB’s certain relief
AIB must be hoping that the conviction in London of Achilleas Kallakis and Alexander Williams will draw a veil over what has been an excruciating episode for the bank.
The verdict confirms that the bank was the victim of a very elaborate £740 million fraud, but at the same time it was the architect of its own downfall to a significant extent.
In a parting shot yesterday, George Carter-Stephenson QC accused AIB of “contributory negligence” and having a sloppy attitude to paperwork.
He said this had been “brought about by what may appear to be the rather cavalier attitude of banks towards the lending of vast sums of money”.
This of course will come as no surprise to anyone on this side of the water, although things are much better at the bank now we are told.
What we have not been told is why AIB did what it did with the Kallakis properties once it seized them in 2008.
The portfolio was sold to Green Property on very attractive terms but at what seemed at the time to be a very good price given the state of the London property market and the state of the global credit markets.
The deal left the bank open to accusations that it was trying to avoid having to take a big writedown on the value of a portfolio at what could not have been a worst time. Like every other bank, AIB was trying desperately to convince everyone – including itself – that it was solvent.
Time has found the bank out in that regard and it has also rendered the questions surrounding the Green deal somewhat moot as the performance of London commercial property has confounded most of the predictions made in 2008.
The bank has always declined to discuss the transaction and how it made financial sense for the bank on the basis that there was an ongoing legal action involving Kallakis.
Now the issue is resolved chief executive David Duffy (above) is in a position to clear things up if he so chooses.
Today
The CSO will release December inflation figures and the High Court will hear an update on the Director of Corporate Enforcement’s investigation into the former Anglo Irish Bank.
Online irishtimes.com/business
for the latest headlines
facebook.com/IrishTimesBizfor blog posts and reader polls | 5,712 | 2,826 | 0.000366 |
warc | 201704 | Think of the end at the beginning Last month Google announced it was sunsetting its GoolgeReader
It’s not usually worth anybody's time to pay too much attention to whatever wave of indignation is rippling across the internet on any given day - knee-jerk fits of pique are best avoided, in my experience - but perhaps it's worth noting how the demise of a beloved online product prompted a particularly visceral reaction.
Last month, when Google announced they were “sunsetting” Google Reader, their RSS feed reader with a relatively small but devoted base of power users, the online reaction was a blend of furious and resentful. And count me in that furious, resentful camp.
It might never have been a Gmail-level success, but Google Reader was one of Mountainview's best-designed products, allowing users to keep up with a vast array of news sources and blogs in an extremely efficient inbox format.
All those journalists and bloggers and news mavens and information addicts who relied on Google Reader to keep up with the internet's torrent of fresh content were suddenly left adrift. And Google didn't seem to care in the least - for all the talk of "organising the world's information", Google Reader apparently got in the way of the company's need to "focus". This from the company developing the self-driving car and computer goggles.
Google Reader's demise has quickly become the internet's pre-eminent case study in how not to end a product, and has brought into sharp relief the way online services die. It's not an exaggeration to say that for some users, the reaction bordered on grief. In the age of relentless innovation and the understandable focus on inventing the next big thing, the technology community is ill-equipped to deal with the end of the "old".
This very topic was the subject of a fascinating talk by the American technologist Christina Xu at last week's Brio conference, a two-day gathering of young technology thinkers who met to discuss the future of being entrepreneurial.
Xu's subject was the importance of considering how to end things - products, services, projects - even as you begin to build them.
The overwhelming emphasis of "start-up" culture is, needless to say, the starting. But citing her experience in the charity and NGO sector as well as in technology firms, Xu enumerated the advantages of considering how to conclude your endeavours while building them - the messy finale that meets most start-ups need not be so messy if the project is designed with both a beginning and an ending rather than as an ostensibly never-ending story.
"For most technology companies, the two goals are either being acquired or an IPO - and there are hardly any IPOs anymore," she told me. "But being acquired usually marks the end of the project, so from the beginning you are planning the end of your company, without actually admitting it. Being aware of how to wrap things up can be one of the most liberating and important aspects of creating a start-up."
Furthermore, with an end goal in sight, you can feel a sense of accomplishment when it's done, rather than a sense of failure when things drift and don't go according to plan.
The reaction at Brio to Xu's talk was enthusiastic - it resonated with the earned experience of so many young entrepreneurs. Renowned entrepreneur and blogger Andy Baio suggested that there should be some sort of recognised best practice in how to finish products and services, so people know what to expect when it does happen. Brio co-founder Paul Campbell discussed how he wrapped up the successful Funconf series of conferences after three years and felt liberated at its conclusion. Another invoked the risk of "jumping the shark", that well-known fate of so many TV shows that drag on past their sell-by date - perhaps technology firms can jump the shark too.
The idea is what one might call "finite by design" - embarking on new endeavours with the awareness that they will be time-limited tends to focus the mind. It's a counter-intuitive approach, but just as we are loathe to contemplate our mortality until reality intervenes, most entrepreneurs are disinclined to consider the failure of their projects. Indeed, as Xu made explicit, there are some pertinent analogies with end-of-life care in contemplating the problem.
While obviously not applicable across the board, there is something attractive about the idea. Companies, of course, can't really be designed to have an expiration date, but "finite by design" shifts the emphasis from building companies to building cool products and services - it separates one from the other.
In that sense, "finite by design" can be seen as a spur to innovation, by lifting the unrealistic burden of building perpetual money-making ventures and instead allowing creators to focus on discrete projects.
But just a few hours after Xu's talk, another entrepreneur, Boaz Sender, discussed almost the opposite thesis - how best to build sustainable, multigenerational companies. Instead of looking at the four-year horizon, what about the 40-year horizon, or the 400-year horizon? A different kind of focus is demanded by such a timeframe, obviously, but discussions agreed that the two notions were surprisingly complementary.
And for lovers of Google Reader, it would have been a blessed relief had Google considered either approach in building their products. | 5,427 | 2,600 | 0.000388 |
warc | 201704 | Grain bin workers exposed to sweep augers
A company in Nebraska that allowed workers to enter grain bins while sweep augers were operating has been cited by OSHA for three safety violations.
CPI-Lansing LLC, a grain storage facility in Red Cloud, was inspected in May under OSHA’s grain handling local emphasis program. Proposed penalties total $144,400.
"CPI-Lansing allowed workers to enter grain bins to loosen or sweep grain into the operating sweep auger. This is a dangerous practice that has been associated with serious injury and death," said Charles E. Adkins, OSHA's regional administrator in Kansas City, Mo. Two willful violations address hazards associated with failing to lock out the energy sources of mechanical equipment during bin entry and to ensure workers are using a body harness and lanyard while working in grain bins and provide rescue equipment for workers entering bins. The serious violation involves hazards associated with the use of a deficient handrail on a stairway. OSHA's grain bin local emphasis program addresses specific recognized hazards in grain handling, such as falls, electrocution, engulfment, auger entanglement, "struck by" dangers and combustible dust explosions. More safety and health information on grain handling facilities is available at www.osha.gov/SLTC/grainhandling/index.html. The CPI-Lansing facility provides storage and drying of grains, such as corn, beans and milo, and is a subsidiary of Cooperative Producers Inc., which is based in Hastings. The company operates 40 grain-handling facilities around the state. | 1,591 | 833 | 0.001211 |
warc | 201704 | Your foliage plants will grow best receiving bright indirect light and temperatures between 60°F and 85°F. Humidity inside houses is usually too low and should be increased by misting around the plants and over the moss two or more times per day. This is especially important if household temperatures exceed 75°.
From spring to autumn, the soil should be kept evenly moist with only the top surface of the soil drying between watering, but never allow the soil to dry out completely. Apply water thoroughly until it flows out the drain holes. To prevent the soil from becoming soggy, after watering, pour out any excess water that collects in the plastic liner.
Prune any overly tall or long branches to keep your plants compact and to encourage branching.
Apply a general house plant food at half recommended strength every two weeks from March to August. Fertilize only when the soil is moist.
Pests that may attack foliage plants are spider mites, mealy bug, and aphids. High humidity and frequently washing off the leaves of your plant will discourage insect problems. If insects do become a problem, thoroughly spray your plants, including lower leaf surfaces, with a house plant insecticide, following label directions.
Plant material such as this product should not be eaten. While most plants are harmless,some contain toxins. | 1,357 | 738 | 0.001377 |
warc | 201704 | The results are in, and Texas and New York are welcoming hundreds of new attorneys into their respective Bars. Earlier this week, both states’ bar associations released the results of their February exam, and the results are an improvement over the previous year’s pass rate.
The February bar exam traditionally has lower passage rates than the July exam, as those taking the July exam are usually first-time takers fresh out of law school. (The third year of law school typically concludes in the spring months of April, May, and June.) Are large portion of those taking the bar exam in February are typically foreign-born attorneys or retaking the test after an unsuccessful July exam.
Reuters reports that approximately half of the 4,152 candidates that sat for 2013’s February exam in New York passed the test, and that the total number of test takers was the largest that has ever sat for the February exam. The 50 percent overall passing rate is an improvement over last year’s 44 percent. Reuters also reports that 39 percent of those taking the test were foreign-educated, and had a passing rate of 30 percent. 64 percent of the first-time test takers passed.
In Texas, Texas Lawyer reports that 85% of the Texas law school graduates who sat for the Texas bar exam for the first time in February passed, which is another improvement over the last year’s pass rate for the same types of students, which was 76.5%. | 1,450 | 697 | 0.001465 |
warc | 201704 | The requested news item does not exist. Please return to News
2012-06-06T05:00:00Z
• European real estate indicators for retail, office and industrial property help predict Euros football match results• Eventual 2012 winners likely to come from “group of death” - but not favourites Germany or Netherlands
Portugal, currently ranked 5th in world by FIFA, are predicted to win the forthcoming European football championship, according to property research from Jones Lang LaSalle. Despite being in Group B, the notorious “group of death” alongside Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, analysis of European property metrics at the time of past tournaments indicate Portugal has a strong chance of performing well in the 2012 tournament, and may ultimately win the competition, with a narrow victory over Croatia in the final. Based on assorted property market fundamentals that include investment returns, rental values and vacancy rates, perennial underperformers England are expected to survive until the semi-finals, alongside Russia. Surprisingly, reigning European and World Cup champions Spain and tournament specialists Germany, both fancied to win the tournament, are not expected to survive past the group stage, and will be eliminated by outsiders who possess different property fundamentals.Home advantage is also not predicted to be helpful this year. Co-hosts Poland and Ukraine, the lowest-ranked teams in the competition according to FIFA at 65th and 50th respectively, are not expected to survive the initial group stage.Robert Stassen, Head of EMEA Capital Markets Research, Jones Lang LaSalle said: “Whilst all eyes across the world will be on the football superstars like Ronaldo, Rooney and Robben, a closer look at property fundamentals in each country reveals some interesting patterns in past tournament results. This means we can translate property performance and forecast who will perform on the pitch. It might be pure fantasy football but it could help those trying to predict the results, and also demonstrates the importance in understanding real estate performance.”Jones Lang LaSalle Euro 2012 predictions: Group A - Historically, countries which have higher yields across industrial and logistics buildings have performed better and survived to make the knockout competition. With double digit prime yields for industrial property in Russia and increases in prime yields in Greece over the last 12 months, we expect Poland and the Czech Republic will lose out at this stage. Group B - During recent European Championship tournaments, countries with higher office building vacancy rates have topped the group stages. Based on this trend with robust development pipelines and low levels of leasing transactions, Portugal and The Netherlands are expected to triumph over Denmark and Germany with vacancy rates of 12% and 17%, respectively compared with 10% in Denmark and 8% in Germany. Group C - Looking back, countries with strong office capital values and rents, have performed best on the pitch. If this trend is maintained in 2012, Spain, currently top of FIFA’s world ranking would fail to qualify from their group. Croatia would top the group, with Italy taking second place despite recent match-fixing rumours circulating their national leagues and knocking out Ireland.Group D - Interestingly, countries with weaker performance across retail real estate returns have performed well on the pitch. The sustained austerity impact across much of Europe has been squeezing consumers, impacting on retail performance. Sweden’s positive consumer environment suggests they could lose out to England and France, where retail returns are forecast to be more subdued. Ukraine would also lose out to England and France. Knock-out stage predictionQuarter Finals: The first knock-out stage has previously been determined by industrial capital value growth. Countries with the strongest growth have made it through to the semi-finals. A growing industrial sector in Central & Eastern Europe sees Russia and Croatia knocking out the Netherlands and France, who have more mature markets. Despite England’s lacklustre forecast of 0% growth, this will be enough to pass through to the semis as Italy’s industrial capital values decline. The match between Portugal and Greece will be tight, but Portugal are forecast to progress. Semi Finals: Prime office rents have been the decider in this round during previous tournaments, with more tenant favourable markets making it through to the final stage. A lack of supply has put pressure on rents in Central London, which suggests England with prime rents of over €1,200 per sq m p.a., will lose to Portugal, where prime rents are one sixth, at €200 per sq m p.a. While substantial rental growth outperformance in Moscow in 2011, indicates a Croatia final debut as they knock out Russia.Final: As for Group D, based on past results, retail performance has indicated the overall winner. However, this time it’s the country with better performing high streets and more expensive prime rents that have triumphed and become the ultimate champions. This suggests that the final will be a closely fought match as high street retail prime rents in Croatia and Portugal are €1,020 and €1,080 per sq m per annum, respectively. Portugal will therefore snatch victory in a close fought contest and go one better than their runner-up position back in 2004. Robert Stassen, Head of EMEA Capital Markets Research, Jones Lang LaSalle said: “Despite a struggling economy with negative GDP growth forecast for the next few years, Portugal has a heritage of performing well in European tournaments. They reached the quarter finals in 2008, runners-up in 2004 and semi-finalists in 2000. We expect they may go one better this time around.It’s interesting to see how the real estate analysis generates some surprising results. Forecast poor performance from reigning European and world champions Spain and tournament specialists Germany, ranked 1st and 2nd by FIFA accordingly throws the form book out of the window. This goes to show, that the world of real estate, like football, really is a game of two halves.”– ends –Notes to the Editor
Supporting wall chart attached. Charts available on request
Results explanationJones Lang LaSalle 2012 European Championship football tournament fixture predictions are based on objective assessment of match results in previous European Championship tournaments benchmarked against Jones Lang LaSalle long-term data of economic and investment indicators for office, retail and industrial property in the relevant country. Property data relates to the relevant capital city for each country, for example, London represents England, Lisbon represents Portugal.
Lauren Joselyn
+44 (0)207 852 4091
lauren.joselyn@eu.jll.com
Robert Stassen
+44 (0)203 147 1117
robert.stassen@eu.jll.com | 6,990 | 3,027 | 0.000336 |
warc | 201704 | This article outlines steps web designers can take to implement effective alt-text.
One of the first things anyone learns about accessible web design is the importance of the alt attribute on images. Writing alt text is easy, but writing it well enough for it to be a help rather than a hindrance can take some thought.
ALT means ALTernative
The alt attribute is meant as an
alternative to the image; if the image is displayed, the alt attribute should not be (unfortunately Internet Explorer gets this wrong by displaying alt attributes as a tooltip, a function better served by the title attribute). When writing alt text, it is important to ask yourself what information the image is conveying. For decorative images, leave it blank
Most sites contain a large number of images which are there for purely decorative purposes: things like spacer gifs, images forming the corner of a pretty drop shadow effect, floral patterns attached to item headers. All of these should have their alt attributes left empty. They add no extra information to the content, so as far as a screen reader or text browser is concerned they do not exist.
If an image contains text, replicate the text in full
Images containing text are frequently used when a non-standard typeface is required by a site design. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this technique from an accessibility point of view,
provided the alt text exactly replicates the text on the image. There are no exceptions to this rule: if an image contains text, the alt text must be the same. This is particularly important when images are used for navigation elements that also act as links. For charts and graphs, try to summarize the trend
Charts and graphs are one of the harder image types to make accessible. The phrase "a picture speaks a thousand words" definitely applies here. Often though, a chart will be being used to highlight a specific trend. The alt text can therefore be used to summarize that trend, for example "unemployment rates rose from 5% in January to 7% in March". The longdesc attribute may become useful here (more on that below).
For custom bullets, use CSS
If an image is being used as a custom bullet point for a list, consider using CSS instead. CSS provides an easy way of replacing the bullet points in an HTML list with a custom image, and doing so will reduce the size of your markup while making things more accessible as well. If for some reason this is not an option (you need to serve up a pixel-perfect design to users of outdated browsers such as Netscape 4) then it is acceptable to use a single asterisk instead: this will at least serve text browsers such as Lynx
For everything else, be imaginative!
The above advice covers the most common easy cases; for images that are there for a purpose and are not covered above you really need to use your imagination. What information is the image conveying? For example, a photograph of your Uncle may be served by "My Uncle, standing in our living room, holding our black and white cat". Writing suitable alt attributes for photographs is particularly difficult. There are no hard and fast guidelines, so it is up to you to make the best of a tricky situation.
courtesy of: gawds.org. | 3,244 | 1,593 | 0.000632 |
warc | 201704 | In my previous posts I’ve been making the point that the physical aspects of performance that science tells us are most likely to need our attention as we age are aerobic capacity (VO2max), muscle mass and body weight. I’ve already discussed the last one here. Let’s move on to how your aerobic capacity and muscle mass may be maintained or even increased. I’ll discuss the first one in this post and then tell you what I’ve learned about muscle mass later on. I’ll also get into what can be done to avoid age-related training interruptions due to injury since aerobic capacity training and muscle development may increase your risk.
The research on aging in experienced endurance athletes tells us that in order to reduce the decline in aerobic capacity with advancing age, training must be intense. That typically means just below, at or above the lactate threshold (anaerobic threshold, functional threshold, etc) based on heart rate, pace, speed, power or perceived exertion. For experienced endurance athletes, an exercise regimen based solely on long, slow distance will do little to improve or even maintain your aerobic fitness status over the years.
Of course, you simply may not be able to improve it, especially if you’ve been training intensely for many years. Even with such focused training there is still the age-related performance decay that research has repeatedly shown us is inevitable. Your current age and history of exercise consistency has a lot to do with how great the gains may be in the future. If your training has been inconsistent and you are in your 50s you’re more physiologically capable of significantly reversing the downward performance spiral through training than if you are in your 70s. That doesn’t mean a 70-year-old can’t make performance gains after a few years of slacking off. It’s just somewhat harder to accomplish due to physiological changes that occur with advancing age such as reduced hormone production.
There is also the matter of genetics. Some people apparently won the genetic lottery. They are endowed with a great capacity for hard workouts with little risk of breakdown. They can do high-intensity training and experience a quick and positive response. Others of the same age can do the same workouts over the same time and see little or no performance change. Life just isn’t fair.
There’s little doubt that intense training is risky. As workouts become more challenging, the chances of injury, illness and overtraining increase. Intense training needs to be modulated in regards to your current level of fitness and personal age-related limits. Those limits may have become magnified by the absence of high-intensity training in recent years. If that’s the case, you need to be extra conservative with training changes as you ease into what I’m going to propose below.
If high-intensity training is something you haven’t done for a long time or never before then there are several things you must consider. These include the type of hard workouts, the frequency of hard workouts, short-term recovery from hard workouts and nutrition relative to hard workouts. I’ll cover these last few points in future posts. But for now let’s look at high-intensity training for aerobic capacity.
The most effective and efficient use of your time and energy to increase training intensity is by doing some type of interval training.
When doing intervals the absolute intensity, duration of the repetitions, number of repetitions and the durations of recoveries between them must be only slightly more challenging than your estimated current capacity for physical stress. Because this type of workout can be quite stressful, an interval session should be preceded by a gradually progressing warm-up and should end when a reasonable workout goal is attained, when it is apparent that high-end performance is declining or when effort feels unusually high for the output (pace, speed, power).
If you have been diagnosed with coronary heart disease, have concerns about your heart health or be on statins or other medications that alter heart rate then you should consult with your doctor before starting an interval-training program. Fortunately, the risk of heart attack among apparently healthy athletes as they age is quite low (Mengelkoch).
If you’ve previously done intervals throughout your sport career but have had a gap in recent years then you know how to get started again. But if long, slow distance training has been your only training method then you may need some guidelines for interval training. That’s what follows.
A typical first session for someone who has not done interval training recently may be something such as…
a.
Warm-up
10-30 minutes gradually ratcheting intensity up to zone 3. It’s common for
older athletes to need more warm-up than young athletes. Warm-up may also vary
by sport. For example, it is typically longer for cycling than for running.
Swimming generally falls between these two.
b.
Do 3 x
3-minute reps with each rep in zone 4 and 3 minutes of recovery in zone 1
between them. Rep intensity may be based on heart rate, pace, speed, power
or perceived exertion. Some of these are better than others depending on the
sport. Heart rate-based intensity is perhaps the worst way to gauge how hard to
work with intervals as heart rate rises slowly. It may take several minutes to
achieve zone 4 during which time you are left guessing how hard to work. Most
athletes err on the side of starting intervals too fast to force heart rate up
and then slow down later as zone 4 heart rate is finally achieved. This is just
the opposite of what should be done which is to finish each rep with a slightly
higher intensity than it was started.
c.
Cool
down with several minutes of easy exercise in zone 1. As with the warm-up,
the duration of the cool down depends on the sport with cycling typically long
and running relatively short.
At first such a workout may only be done once in a week, but over time the number of such weekly sessions may be increased to two. It’s uncommon for senior athletes to be capable of doing more than two in a week. I’ve coached some who can but they are rare and more likely in their 50s rather than their 70s.
An indication of improving fitness is that the speed or power of the reps increases relative to heart rate. To determine this you can divide the combined, average speed or Normalized Power for the reps by the combined, average heart rates for the reps. As this ratio increases your fitness is improving. TrainingPeaks calls this “Efficiency Factor (EF).”
As
the EF for your interval sessions rises, increase the number of reps. As the
longer-rep sessions become tolerable begin to gradually increase the duration
of the reps. When you can easily manage about 20 minutes total combined rep
time (such 4 reps of 5 minutes each at zone 4) with recoveries about 1/4
th
as long time-wise as the preceding interval (75 seconds for a 5-minute rep) in a single workout then you are
ready to move onto slightly more intense intervals. Start again
with 3 x 3 minutes with 3-minute recoveries, only this time just above lactate threshold.
Over
several weeks as the intensity moves up to zone 5b heart rate or pace (see my
Cyclist’s Training Bible
or Triathlete’s Training Bible for details on zones) or zone 5 power (see
my Power Meter Handbook), restrict the rep durations to 2-4 minutes with recovery durations
of the same length. And restrict the total combined interval time to no more
than about 15 minutes. At this intensity most older athletes generally should
not do more than one such session per week while perhaps continuing to also do
one of the zone 4 sessions in a week. The time gap between such weekly sessions
should be at least two days, three is usually better. Some athletes will not be
able to handle two interval sessions in a week. That’s not unusual. If unsure,
do only one per week.
Once you become fully accustomed to doing intervals you can modify the components of the session by changing such elements as the duration progression of the reps, terrain for the reps, number of reps, total combined time of the reps and durations of the recoveries. You can also combine various types of interval and steady-state sessions into a single workout. But be patient with such advances. Don’t rush into them or you greatly increase your risk of injury. Patience is the key to training consistency as you get older. If in doubt, leave it out.
All of this brings us to the peripheral training adjustments that are usually necessary for older athletes to avoid injury. I’ll get to that after discussing aging and muscle mass in my next post.
References
Mengelkoch LJ, Pollock ML, Limacher MC, et al. 1997. Effects of age, physical training, and
physical fitness on coronary heart disease risk factors in older track athletes
at twenty-year follow-up.
J Am Geriatr Soc 45(12):1446-53. | 9,128 | 3,939 | 0.00026 |
warc | 201704 | The U.S. Small Business Administration created an online course intended to help women small business owners learn how to identify and take advantage of federal contracts.
Winning Federal Contracts: A Guide for Women Entrepreneurs teaches them about the federal procurement process and prepares them to compete for contracting opportunities. The self-paced guide uses audio and text to provide information about contract rules, how to sell to the government, and where to find contracts.
The course is available on the SBA’s Web site at sba.gov/fedcontractingtraining. It is indexed by subject matter, and includes direct links to additional contracting resources. | 673 | 409 | 0.002478 |
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Pumpkin and holiday, both are in season. We love our pumpkin pies, pumpkin spice milk and above all pumpkin juice (all the Harry Potter fans, let’s reunite and have a pumpkin juice party) but this holiday season, instead of celebrating the traditional way, how about being a little rebel. Being a rebellious person, I have always been trying to bring a twist in the traditional recipes and methods. I don’t change a whole lot, but just a little works fine with me. This way I get the best of both the worlds, modern and traditional. So how about changing the pumpkin pie into a pumpkin cupcake? Hey, we are still serving pumpkin just the shape, size and type have changed, right? Sharing this awesome recipe of pumpkin pie muffins, enjoy them warm enjoy them cool, the choice is yours, but if you love pumpkin, you will surely love this recipe.
Ingredients
For the Muffins
1 and 1/2 of cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1and 1/4th of cups palm sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
For the Topping
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Method
Preheat oven to 180-degree centigrade.
Line a large 6-cup muffin tin with 6 paper liners and spray each liner with a nonstick spray. You can also use a standard 12-cup muffin tin, but you’ll get about 10 muffins.
In a medium-sized bowl sift together the flour, spice, ginger powder brown sugar, baking soda, salt and the baking powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl whisk together the wet ingredients i.e. pumpkin, oil, and eggs. Whisk until smooth.
Add the mixed dry ingredients until combined. Do not over-mix.
In a small bowl mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the cinnamon-sugar on top of each muffin.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Cool for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack.
Garnish with dusting some cinnamon-sugar on top of each muffin.
Enjoy!
Health Benefits
Whole Grain Flour: It is a rich source of dietary fibres, carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, minerals, and antioxidants. Unlike refined flour, the rich nutrients and minerals are not stripped down from this flour. It is an important part of our daily food. To know more about whole grain flour, click here.
Pumpkin puree: Pumpkin is very rich in dietary fiber, thus it makes you feel fuller. It regulates sleep, lowers blood pressure and helps to prevent from other heart diseases. Being rich in Vitamin A, it improves your vision.
Vegetable Oil: It is believed that oil is bad for our health, which is not true. Excessive oil is bad for our health. Using a good quality vegetable oil in limited quantity is always beneficial for health. It improves metabolism, decreases the risks related to heart and breast cancer. It also contains omega-3 fatty acids. To know more about vegetable oils, click here.
Eggs: Eggs are a rich source of high-quality protein. They are incredibly nutritious as they are a rich source of Vitamin A, folate, Vitamin B2, B5, B12, phosphorus, etc. Eggs raise the HDL or the good cholesterol in the body and they contain choline. It also reduces heart-related risks.
Palm Sugar: It has low Glycemic Index. It doesn’t shoot up the blood sugar level, it consumes the energy from the body to burn the carbs. To know more about palm sugar, click here.
Cinnamon Powder: Rich in antioxidants hence helps to detoxify the body. Boosts metabolism, aids digestion. To know more benefits of this wonder spice, click here.
This holiday season surprise your family, friends and guests with this awesome rendition of pumpkin and see their reactions.
All blog comments are checked prior to publishing | 5,008 | 2,485 | 0.000411 |
warc | 201704 | None of the AIA exceptions would permit you to enjoin the IRS from action, or force the Service to act. The exceptions are all based upon direct injuries concerning wrongful levies, and you are not directly injured here -- because you have not been able to prove that the Service must collect the tax.
Regardless, the
Sebelius
case shows that the AIA can be avoided entirely, if the activities complained about do not prevent the IRS from lawfully collecting taxes. To me, that would permit a lawsuit against the IRS for a writ of mandamus
, so as to force it to do its job, and collect taxes lawfully owed.
This would also, in my opinion, avoid the issue of whether or not the IRS must investigate your whistleblower complaint -- because it's pretty obvious that if there is a lot of tax money at issue, then the IRS is plainly not doing its job by refusing to collect that tax money.
Note: I am not going to comment on the validity of your underlying legal theory, re health care providers and insurers/health care plans. But, I can see how the AIA could be avoided, assuming you can prove to the district court that taxes are due from some taxpayer or class of taxpayers, and the IRS is refusing to collect those taxes, for no rational purpose.
Hope this helps. | 1,273 | 671 | 0.001501 |
warc | 201704 | We all battle with Father Time every day of our lives. As much as we want to do this and that, face it, we don’t have 48 hours in a day to accomplish everything. For the typical Singaporean, most of our week days are occupied by our jobs and by the time we knock off, we are dead tired. This leaves us just two days of the weekend to attempt to do some sort of exercise which honestly isn’t quite enough to burn off what we have consumed throughout the week.
What we need are quick and effective ways to keep our bodies fit and healthy, be it through our diet or exercise. Here are five ways you can achieve your ideal body. You can thank me later.
1. Get into the right frame of mind
You may think this isn’t important but it’s probably the most required step before anything else. If you have noticed, those who plunge into a workout or diet regime without a proper mindset to succeed usually don’t. As corny as it may sound, you need to do the Rocky Balboa and psyched yourself to do what you need to do to get the body you desire. However, please don’t lie to yourself and set goals that are too high in too short a time. Be realistic and be persistent.
2. Eat right
Before any exercise can be of use, you need to consume foods that are good for your body. Think fresh green leafy vegetables, fruits, and lots of grains. Of course you are allowed to switch up your diet every once in awhile (everyone needs a boost every now and then), but keep to the main healthy food groups and eat clean. Your body will detox and you will feel lighter and healthier, not to mention your mind will also be more alert and you won’t feel sleepy after lunch!
3. Exercise, exercise, exercise
You don’t have to overdo it but having an exercise routine of about three to four times a week at about half an hour to 45 minutes each time is good enough. Whether you choose to jog or do cardio exercises like Zumba or Pilates, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are moving and burning those calories. As long as you are exercising well and eating right, the combination will definitely see your body transforming into the one you have always wanted.
4. Now, keep it up
Achieving your desired body isn’t something you see happening overnight. Once you have gotten what you set out to do, you need to maintain it to ensure longevity of your success. The easiest way to do so? Make your diet and exercise regime a habit. You ever heard the saying “old habits die hard”? Exactly.
5. Give yourself a treat now and then
You don’t have to punish yourself just because you want to continue being healthy and fit. Everyone needs some kind of motivation every once in awhile to keep going. If you have done well for yourself, have a cheat meal to get you back on track. You ever see those in diet and fitness regimes who deflate after two weeks? Pushing yourself is one thing. Doing it while having nothing to look forward to is another. So don’t ill-treat your body and have that glass of wine or that piece of cheese in moderation! Thank your body for bringing you through all those trying times and coming out victorious. | 3,193 | 1,576 | 0.000651 |
warc | 201704 | As Green Bay Packers’ coach Vince Lombardi once said: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” Today, neurologists can explain exactly what the coach was on to.
When you practice learning something new – playing the piano, dribbling a basketball or using your computer mouse with your opposite hand – you’re building new neural pathways in your brain. The more intense the practice, the stronger and more functional those neural pathways, and the better you can play the piano or the more likely you are to make a three-pointer with your non-dominant hand.
Fortunately, old dogs CAN learn new tricks, and as you get older your brain can continue to build new pathways and get stronger, even if it’s at a slower pace than when you were a kid. To make sure your brain stays toned and ready to fire, the thought for the day? Aerobics. You can protect prefrontal and temporal gray matter volume and forge new neural pathways with daily activity. (Our suggestion for all ages: walking 100 steps a minute for 10 to 15 minutes, followed by 2.5 minutes of intense walking: 130 steps a minute. Repeat at least once sometime during your day.)
Happily, this brain-building technique also can help folks who develop a neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson’s, in which old pathways are lost and new ones are hard to develop. At Dr. Mike’s Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, intense exercise improves symptoms for more than 30 percent of people with Parkinson’s.
Now, can you remember how to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
Ghost poop? Here’s the scoop
The Ghostbusters were out to vanquish green goop; but if you have ghost poop (we’re not kidding), it takes more than an ectoplasmic slime-buster to get your bowels moving smoothly. Ghost poop happens because you – and the rest of us – live a stuck-in-a-meeting, riding-in-the-car, nowhere-near-a-bathroom life. And when your body sends you the message that you gotta go, you can’t always take the time or find a place to make a pit stop.
That makes your guts unhappy, because your fecal matter lingers too long and loses moisture, getting hard and pellet-like. That clogs up the area above a trap door that opens so your waste can move. Then when you feel like you have to go and you finally make it to the bathroom, there’s nothing there. Ghost poop.
This isn’t good for your digestion, and chronic bowel troubles may be linked to immune system problems, weight gain and hemorrhoids.
Your body knows what you need to do and when you need to do it. But we also know that isn’t always possible. So if you find that you are having to hold it in, make sure you drink plenty of fluid all day long to help keep the poop soft enough to make a graceful exit when the time comes. Busted!
Real men eat broccoli
Broccoli and a shopping cart full of fruits and other veggies are packed with flavonoids (phytonutrients that reduce inflammation and prevent and repair cellular damage). And guys who eat flavonoid-packing foods slash their risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer by 25 percent.
About 11 percent of diagnosed cases of prostate cancer are aggressive, but until recently it was difficult to be sure if you had a wait-and-watch form of the disease or one that called for surgery. There’s now a blood test that can pick out biomarkers for aggressive forms of the disease early enough to make treatment more effective. But the best situation is to stop prostate cancer before it starts!
How? Walk 10,000 steps a day; meditate in the morning and at night; avoid all tobacco; and chow down on a smorgasbord of fruits and veggies. The guys who benefited the most in the study favored cooked greens, citrus fruits and juices such as oranges and grapefruits, and grapes, strawberries and onions. Other good sources of phytonutrients include apples (the flavonoids are in the skin), blueberries, cabbage, capers, dark chocolate, all kinds of tea and, of course, broccoli.
The tomato surprise
For a long time we’ve told you that tomatoes (loaded with lycopene) boost heart health, help protect your vision, may lower the risk of some cancers and offer protection against brittle bones and the harmful effects of the sun. Now we can add a nice surprise to that list: confirmation that tomatoes and their stores of lycopene lower the risk of all arterial diseases, especially stroke. Seems they reduce bad LDL cholesterol (a half-cup serving of tomato sauce every day can lower LDL as much as statins) and slash overall inflammation.
For more benefit, have your tomatoes cooked. That increases the amount of bioavailable lycopene and makes it easier for your body to absorb it. When tomatoes bubble up, they double down on goodness.
Other food sources of lycopene: papaya, watermelon, pink grapefruit and guava. So have a glass of pink grapefruit juice with a fruit salad of guava, papaya and watermelon, followed by a thick marinara sauce over 100 percent whole-grain pasta, and watch your RealAge get a whole lot younger.
How to cut your risk for PHPT
While dairy can deliver a lot of calcium, there are other ways to get your daily dose. And that’s especially important for postmenopausal women, who are at the greatest risk for primary hyperparathyroidism, or PHPT. There are 100,000 new cases in the U.S. every year. Most are women over 75, but PHPT is an equal-opportunity ailment if you’re younger.
PHPT triggers the release of excess parathyroid hormone from the parathyroid gland (behind the thyroid) in your neck. That leaches calcium from your bones and into your bloodstream. (Parathyroid hormone controls calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D levels in your blood and bones.) The result: osteoporosis, kidney stones and cardiovascular problems.
So start now to increase your calcium intake. In one study, women with the most calcium-rich diet were 44 percent less likely to get PHPT. Salmon and sardines, almonds, sunflower seeds, collard greens, kale, arugula, okra, broccoli rabe and dried beans are all calcium-packed. And consider a calcium supplement – women who took 500 milligrams a day slashed their risk of PHPT by 59 percent. We think you should aim for 1,200 milligrams a day, half of it from food. Plus: Vitamin D-3 (1,000 IU a day; 1,200 for those over 60) and magnesium (400 to 500 milligrams) from food or supplements to build strong bones. | 6,492 | 3,136 | 0.000326 |
warc | 201704 | In furtherance of its ongoing efforts to promote energy efficiency, California has implemented a new requirement that owners or operators of non-residential buildings disclose a building’s past energy use data to prospective buyers, lessees or lenders of the building before the sale, lease, financing or refinancing of the property.
The framework for these disclosures has been in place since 2007, when California enacted Section 25402.10 of the Public Resources Code, which provides for collaboration between electric and gas utilities and building owners in order to document and disclose the energy consumption of non-residential buildings. Since 2009, electric and gas utilities in California have been required to maintain records of the energy consumption data of all non-residential buildings that they serve in a format that is compatible for uploading to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and property owners have had the ability to authorize the utility to upload their building’s energy consumption data to the Energy Star Portfolio Manager website. Once a building owner has had its building’s energy consumption data uploaded, Section 25402.10 requires the owner or operator of a non-residential building, on a schedule to be developed by the California Energy Commission, to disclose the Energy Star Portfolio Manager’s benchmarking data and ratings for the most recent 12-month period to a prospective buyer, lessee of the entire building or lender financing the entire building.
On July 11, 2012, the California Energy Commission adopted regulations setting down the schedule according to which non-residential building owners must begin making the following disclosures mandated by Section 25402.10:
Property owners and operators should immediately begin familiarizing themselves with the Energy Star Portfolio Manager website, as the regulations require that the property owner’s account on the website be opened at least 30 days before a disclosure must be made. Section 25402.10 requires that disclosures be made “as soon as practicable” before the execution of a sales contract or lease or the submittal of the loan application, the practical effect of which is that these disclosures will need to be made at the outset of any discussions with potential purchasers, tenants and lenders.
The specific disclosures that the owner must provide for the building are:
Each of the required disclosure documents is generated on the Energy Star Portfolio Manager website. The owner must also access the California Energy Commission’s compliance website, download a disclosure summary sheet and submit a compliance report to the California Energy Commission.
The disclosures must be made only to prospective purchasers, tenants or financiers of the entire building and do not apply to residential buildings. Presumably, owners of multi-tenant buildings will not need to make the disclosures to tenants of individual demised spaces; nor will individual owners of commercial condominium units on the sale or financing of such individual units.
While the statute makes these energy usage disclosures mandatory, it also provides that the disclosure requirement does not increase or decrease the duties of a property owner, operator or its agent or broker to disclose the existence of a material fact affecting the real property that it would otherwise be obligated to disclose. It is clear that these disclosures are to be made in addition to, and not in lieu of, any other disclosures that a property owner needs to make regarding the property.
Neither Section 25402.10 nor the newly issued regulations set forth any penalties for a failure to comply with the disclosure requirement. However, the regulations do provide a safe harbor to the extent that information is missing in a disclosure. As long as the owner has made a reasonable effort to ascertain the missing information, it may use an approximation of the missing information, but it must identify the information as being an approximation and the approximation:
Court decisions will be needed to determine whether prospective buyers, tenants or lenders can back out of a transaction if the disclosures are not made or if there are other non-compliance penalties.
While the regulations do not prescribe a format for disclosure and do not require that the disclosures be contained in any purchase and sale agreement, loan agreement or lease, sellers, lenders and landlords should consider including in a purchase and sale agreement, loan agreement or lease, as applicable, an acknowledgment that such disclosures have been made in accordance with Section 25402.10. | 4,725 | 1,908 | 0.000531 |
warc | 201704 | An independent certification programme for the third-party verification of sustainable building development and not of products, although the individual products do contribute to the building’s overall assessment.
The LEED system incorporates the entire production process, from planning to actual construction, as well as all parts of the building by taking its overall sustainability into consideration. A planner/architect gains points to increase the value of a building or to achieve higher/better certification.
The LEED certification is structured as follows:
1) Certified 26-32 points 2) Silver 33-38 points 3) Gold 39-51 points 4) Platinum 52-69 points
KEMPEROL 2K PUR solvent-free liquid waterproofing.
In the www.greenbuildingproducts.eu database
a. 3-7 points are possible
b. We definitely have 3 points c. We can receive an additional 4 points. However, the decision is at the discretion of the certification authority.
Recycled content (1-2 points) Use of products with a content of recycled materials 1) 1 point -> 10% recycled content of the total materials value of the project 2) 2 points -> 20% recycled content of the total materials value of the project Regional materials (1-2 points) Use of products which are manufactured within an 800km radius of the project site and raw materials which were sourced, harvested or recycled within 800km. 3) 1 point -> 10% regional content 4) 2 points -> 20% regional content
Refer to the Green Building Products database at www.greenbuildingproducts.eu
Here, the certifier can find all the necessary information to incorporate KEMPEROL 2K-PUR in the certification programme and to validate the product. | 1,678 | 823 | 0.001228 |
warc | 201704 | In August 2009, a federal 3-judge panel ordered California to cap its prison population at 137.5% of capacity by releasing nearly 43,000 inmates. That threshold was met in January 2015, when the state reported that the institutional population had been reduced to 113,463 inmates.
Much of the credit for that record reduction has been directed to 2011’s Public Safety Realignment legislation, and Proposition 47 which was affirmed by voters in 2014. Public Safety Realignment transferred responsibility for supervising certain kinds of felony offenders and state prison parolees from state prisons and state parole agents to county jails and probation officers. Proposition 47 reduced certain drug possession felonies to misdemeanors. Starting January 1, 2015, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) began a new early parole determination process, evaluating “nonviolent second-strikers” for parole once they have served only 50 percent of their sentence or are within 12 months of having served 50 percent of their actual sentence. The following fake “non-violent” offenders were released under this program. This begs the question: Who is left to release under Proposition 57 if it passes in November? The answer is not pretty. Xiong, Yeng: Xiong is a self-admitted member of a criminal street gang who has previously committed a violent felony – a well-planned armed take-over bank robbery – with his fellow gang members in 2008. Despite being on parole for that armed bank robbery, Xiong absconded in 2013, and when located by parole agents, was found to be in possession of a semi-automatic handgun as well as MDMA. Such conduct demonstrates not just an extreme risk to public safety, but shows that Xiong has no interest in complying with the rules and regulations of parole or in becoming a productive, law-abiding member of society. District Attorney’s Letter Opposing Early Release York, Travis Coleman: York has a history of serious felony convictions, including vehicle theft, larceny from a person, weapons possession, and first degree burglary. Furthermore, in the incident that led to his most recent incarceration, York while committing yet another first degree burglary, attempted to punch the homeowner who chased him from the home. A search of the trunk of the vehicle York used to get to the burglary, revealed a loaded shotgun. When York was arrested on the felony burglary warrant, he resisted arrest and was found in the possession of a weapon along with indicia of drug sales. His behavior in prison is less than exemplary as well. A review of York’s criminal history reveals a history of disciplinary actions involving serious violations, including; refusing to undergo drug testing in November of 2013, possession of a cellular phone and charger in November of 2013, and falsification of prison documents in October of 2014. District Attorney’s Letter Opposing Early Release Young, Charles James: In January 2002, Young was convicted of misdemeanor assault and was placed on informal probation. Less than 2-months later Young was convicted of felony possession of narcotics for sale. He violated his probation in September 2005, after receiving another conviction for possession of narcotics for sale. Young was found in violation of his probation in January 2008, July 2008, and March 2009. In July 2011, he was arrested for residential burglary of an ex girlfriend’s house. The victim reported that he broke into her house and stole her property. She further stated that she was fearful of the, as he is a G-Mobb gang member who had previously threatened her and her family. Young was convicted of residential burglary and received two years in prison and paroled in November 2012. On October 29, 2013 Young was the passenger in a car being driven by another gang member, which was involved in a short police pursuit. At the end of the chase Young foot bailed from the car, dropping a loaded Tec-9 handgun on the ground. After his arrest, he acknowledged that he was a G-Mobb gang member. At the time of this offense Young was also a parolee at large. District Attorney’s Letter Opposing Early Release Young, Daniel Jerome: Young has made a career of victimizing others. He has been a menace to the community since the age of 19 when he began committing misdemeanor burglaries. From 1984 until the present, Young has committed a vast array of crimes that include: burglary (numerous), grand theft person, petty theft with a prior, narcotics possession, assault with a knife (two separate occasions) , check fraud, trespassing, vandalism (numerous), and possession of a knife. Young has spent a large portion of his adult life in and out of both County Jail and Prison because of his many arrests and subsequent convictions. Young has proven time and again that he will not change his behavior and become a productive member of society. Young has picked up either a substantive offense or violated his parole in the following years: 1984, 1985, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011, and 2015. Young was in and out of prison from 1994 until his discharge in 2000 and again from 2011 until 2013. District Attorney’s Letter Opposing Early Release Zamarron, Anthony: In April 2008, Zamarran identified himself as a gang member and then proceeded to smash a glass bottle over the victims head causing him to lose consciousness. Zamarran immediately began choking his unconscious victim. When the victim’s female friend attempted to intervene and stop the attack, Zamarran began striking her in the face and head. Zamarran was sentenced to two years in prison for this brutal assault—which he would not fully serve. In the early morning hours of September 18th, 2009, Zamarron and a friend knocked on the door of an acquaintance with whom they had been doing cocaine in the preceding hours. The unsuspecting victim answered the door under the impression that Zamarron had forgotten a cell phone inside his residence. However, once the door was opened, the two men rushed the victim, bound him with duct tape, and demanded he give them $6,000 that they knew he had in his possession. Since he was unwilling to surrender the money, Zamarron grabbed a hammer and began striking the helpless man in the back and head. Fortunately for the victim, he was able to reach into his back pocket and dial 9-1-1, allowing the emergency operator to hear the ordeal as it occurred. Officers arrived and the victim was saved from any more serious injury than had already been inflicted. District Attorney’s Letter Opposing Early Release | 6,680 | 3,028 | 0.000334 |
warc | 201704 | Insect numbers have been declining in recent years. Research by Utrecht Univ. has found a link between the ‘super insecticide’ imidacloprid and a decline in abundance of insects and other invertebrates in surface-water. Scientists are ringing international alarm bells. “Stricter standards alone are not enough. This insecticide is so harmful — and remains in the environment for so long — that an international ban is definitely warranted.”
Insecticide impacts on surface waters
In just over ten years, imidacloprid has become the most widely used insecticide in the world. Some 20,000 tons are produced annually and used on agricultural land and gardens to combat pests and insects that transmit plant diseases. However, the insecticide is used so widely, leaches so easily and is so poisonous and broad-acting that its lethal effect is not restricted to pests in fields and gardens. Research by Utrecht Univ.’s Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development has found the use of imidacloprid to have a highly adverse impact on insect abundance in and around surface waters.
Smartly combining monitoring data
Utrecht Univ. scientists were the first to combine two long-term sets of monitoring data in a smart way to study the impact of imidacloprid on aquatic life in Dutch surface-water. As Jeroen van der Sluijs explains, “We see a strong link between situations in which imidacloprid levels in surface water exceed the standards and reduced abundance of aquatic insects such as dragonflies, mayflies, nonbiting midges, dipteran insects, and of snails and crustaceans. We were surprised to find, however, that there was one species that seemed to benefit from the poison: the higher the imidacloprid concentration, the more water mites there are.”
Fewer invertebrates
The pesticide was found to have adverse effects on surface-water ecosystems. The concentration of imidacloprid in the water was too high in almost half the sites monitored in the Netherlands in the past eight years. “On average we found three times less invertebrates in these locations than in water that meets the standard.”
25,000 times above the standard
In order to protect the environment, the government has established environmental quality standards that set risk limits for substances in surface water. The Utrecht study found these standards to have been grossly exceeded for many years. Some monitoring data showed the imidacloprid concentration in surface water to be 25,000 times above the standard. “That ditch water contained so much insecticide that it could actually be used directly as a lice-control pesticide. A bee or bumblebee drinking that water would die within a day.”Standards were found to have been exceeded in large parts of the Netherlands, based on the maximum permissible risk (MPR). However, even the MPR standard for imidacloprid (13 nanogram per liter) provides too little protection for insect larvae with a long aquatic stage, such as mayflies. The scientists found that even below the limit of 13 nanogram per liter, imidacloprid still adversely affected aquatic insect life. The substance has been used too widely and as a result the present standards have not been met for many years. As Van der Sluijs says, “Better enforcement or stricter standards alone are not enough. This insecticide is so toxic and remains in the environment for so long that its use needs to be cut back drastically. An international phase out is definitely warranted.”
International ban
The ecological impacts of imidacloprid have led to wide-ranging debates in many other European countries, as well as in the U.S. and Japan, where a possible ban on neonicotiniode insecticides is being discussed. Europe decided earlier this week to restrict its use in crops attractive to bees. As Van der Sluijs explains, “We hope that the clear and convincing evidence that our study provides promotes the insight that this far too broad-acting poison is severely affecting our planet’s insect wealth. We are risking far too much to combat a few insect pests that might threaten agriculture.”
The paper written by Tessa van Dijk, Marja van Staalduinen and van der Sluijs on their research has been published in PLOS ONE. The research was financed by a grant from the Triodos Foundation, which has set up a special fund for independent research on this controversial group of insecticides. | 4,469 | 1,988 | 0.000515 |
warc | 201704 | Regional ratepayers will have to stump up as co-investors in hundreds of towns and communities to subsidise improved broadband access, Labour’s ICT spokesperson Clare Curran said today.
“Despite calling for expressions of interest in March from all local authorities to access a new pool of funding to improve substandard internet connections, the government last week quietly changed the rules for how the money will be allocated.
“Councils will now have to stump up as co-investors alongside traditional internet providers to qualify for funding and the higher the amount of co-investment the more likely they will be to access government funding. Councils that can stump up will be at a real advantage when it comes to getting future-proofed.
“It’s our poorest regions that will suffer. This immediately disadvantages councils which are already struggling to deliver for their ratepayers. These regions are also likely to be in most need of improved investment in their broadband.
“Once again the government is neglecting regional New Zealand. Amy Adams is cementing the rural/urban digital divide that so concerns small town communities.
“Amy Adams is making it up as she goes along. This isn’t good enough for rural New Zealand,” says Clare Curran. | 1,305 | 671 | 0.001552 |
warc | 201704 | Adult Guardianship Laws Locate a Local Finance Lawyer What is “Adult Guardianship”?
Adult guardianship refers to the body of laws that governs a person’s ability to manage their own affairs or their own estate. If a court determines that an adult is totally incapacitated and no longer capable of managing their own affairs, they may appoint an “adult guardian” who will help the incapacitated person in managing personal affairs. If an incapacitated adult still wants to retain some control, they can opt for a guardian advocate, which is a less-involved alternative to a full guardian.
A person can also appoint their own adult guardian ahead of time, usually through a document known as an advance directive. The directive will list which person will assume the duties of adult guardian, and under what circumstances they are granted such authority.
Guardianships are sometimes known as “conservatorships”. The most common reasons for appointing an adult guardian include incapacity due to injury or due to aging. Adult guardianship is different from family law guardianship. Adult guardianship has to do with a person’s health and estate matters, while guardianship in family law usually refers to the care of a minor.
What are the Duties of an Adult Guardian?
There are three basic types of adult guardians: Guardian of the Person; Guardian of the Estate or Property; and Plenary Guardianship. Each is associated with different duties and responsibilities:
Guardian of the Person: This type of guardian assists with issues the incapacitated person’s health or medical condition. They are responsible for such issues as, making hospital appointments, coordinating with assisted living, paying medical bills, and securing medical coverage and insurance for the person. A guardian of the person is typically named in a document known as an advance medical directive. Guardian of the Estateor Guardian of the Property: This type of guardian is charged with general responsibility over the person’s estate, property, and assets. Duties may include filing taxes, inventorying and distributing property items, managing bank accounts, and investing property in a reasonable and prudent manner. Plenary Guardian: This is a general guardianship that combines the duties of a guardian of the person and the duties of a guardian of the estate. In other words, a plenary guardian is legally in charge of handling both the person’s medical matters as well as personal property matters.
The duties of an adult guardian may also be specifically indicated in the advance directive created by the estate holder. The adult guardianship usually begins once the estate holder has been found to be incapacitated or unable to manage their own personal affairs.
Can an Adult Guardian be held Liable for Injuries or Losses?
The duties of an adult guardian are legally enforceable if the advance directive satisfies the requirements of a valid contract document. Or, if a court has issued an order in relation to the guardianship, the guardian will be bound by the terms of the court order.
Thus, if an adult guardian fails to abide by the requirements of the directive or the court order, they can sometimes be held liable for injuries or financial losses caused by their conduct. For example, if they fail to invest the person’s assets in a reasonable manner, they could be held liable for the resulting losses. Or, if they act outside the scope of their duties listed in the directive, it could also lead to liability.
Adult guardian liability can also be based on a negligence theory. Negligence occurs where the guardian fails to act according to their duty of care as a guardian. If the breach of their duty was the definite cause of loss or injury to the estate holder, it could form the basis for a civil negligence lawsuit.
Finally, if a person breaks the law in the course of fulfilling adult guardianship responsibilities, they may be held liable for their illegal conduct.
Do I Need a Lawyer for Adult Guardianship Issues?
Adult guardianship is a very important part of planning for the future. If you need help with adult guardianship laws or with an advance directive, you may wish to speak to a family law lawyer for advice. Your attorney can help you draft your directive so that your intentions are clearly indicated. Also, if you have a dispute involving adult guardianship, your lawyer can represent you in court if necessary.
Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 09-17-2015 03:15 PM PDT Link to this page | 4,601 | 1,903 | 0.000535 |
warc | 201704 | BoE has published a consultation paper from the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) on the framework for the systemic risk buffer (SRB). The SRB will be applied to ring-fenced banks and large building societies holding more than £25 billion of household and SME deposits. The consultation sets out:
the methodology for assessing and scoring systemic importance; a proposed threshold of £175 billion of total assets at which firms are considered to be systemically important – there will be no SRB for firms below this threshold; the calibration of the SRB for firms exceeding the threshold – on current analysis, the FPC expects the largest bank to have an SRB of 2.5% (3% is the maximum permitted SRB); and an overview of FPC’s current approach on the application of the additional leverage ratio buffer to ring-fenced banks.
Consultation closes on 22 April. (Source: BoE Consults on FPC’s Systemic Risk Buffer Framework) | 953 | 543 | 0.00191 |
warc | 201704 | In this post I am writing about the court's approach to a new business tenancy where the parties cannot agree on the terms of a renewal lease with a landlord's break right. The court will need to consider the existing lease and will also need to weigh up allowing the landlord to redevelop the premises and the tenant's security of tenure.
By way of background, a tenant of a business lease has a statutory right to a new lease at the end of the contractual term, if it satisfies certain criteria under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (the 1954 Act). It is open to the parties to agree the terms of the renewal lease but if the parties cannot reach agreement, either the landlord or tenant must apply to court, and the court will determine the terms of the new lease.
The focus of this piece is a scenario in which the tenant's existing lease does not contain a landlord's break clause, but the landlord needs one in the renewal lease so that he has the option to redevelop during the term of the new lease. The question is whether the courts would order a landlord's break clause in these circumstances.
Where the tenant's existing lease does not contain a landlord's break clause, the Court is not obligated to order that its renewal lease contains one. That said, the intention of the 1954 Act is not for the redevelopment of commercial premises to be prevented by the tenant's rights in relation to its new lease. Provided that the landlord can convince a court that there is a real possibility that redevelopment of the premises will occur at some point during the term of the new lease, and there is no major factor pointing to the contrary, case law has held that the court will probably include a redevelopment break clause in the renewal lease or alternatively it will grant a short-term lease to the tenant. The landlord does not have to prove to the court that he will be carrying out the reconstruction works himself, or that the works will take place in the near future – although of course his case will be strengthened if he is able to evidence these points. The stage at which the landlord will need to prove that he has a fixed intention to redevelop will instead be once the renewal lease has been granted and the time comes for the landlord to exercise his break clause. Given that the renewal lease once ordered will be 1954 Act protected too, the landlord will need to go through the statutory termination process prescribed by the 1954 Act as well as triggering the break in the lease itself in order to terminate the lease.
In considering what term should be granted to the tenant, the approach taken by the court is to strike a balance between giving the tenant a reasonable period in which it can remain in the premises with the protection afforded by the 1954 Act and also giving the landlord the ability to reconstruct his commercial property. The result is that landlords often have to wait some time before being able to get their premises back from their 1954 Act protected tenants (though not so long as to stifle their development plans). Thus albeit the landlord may convince the court that a landlord's redevelopment break should be incorporated into a tenant's renewal lease, the court may push back the date from which the break is to operate as part of the balancing exercise. | 3,325 | 1,403 | 0.000715 |
warc | 201704 | Introduction
Under French law, put and call options commonly refer to unilateral undertakings to sell or purchase securities pursuant to predetermined terms and conditions. Such options are undoubtedly key points in M&A transactions – for instance, in the legal architecture of management packages (ie, good and bad leaver mechanisms) or in the context of liquidity contractual arrangements (eg, tag-along and drag-along clauses).
Nevertheless, the actual enforcement of such options has long been questioned by tribunals and even Supreme Court jurisprudence, and practitioners and legal scholars alike have lamented on the legal risks associated with this jurisprudence for some years. Addressing such criticism in the context of the recent general reform of contract law (scheduled to enter into force on October 1 2016), the legislature has replaced the binding force of contracts at the centre of transactions and proposed to strengthen the enforceability of put and call options.
In 1993 the Supreme Court ruled that if a promisor withdraws the option granted to the beneficiary before the exercise of the option by the latter, tribunals cannot impose the completion of the underlying transaction. The court first decided that the revocation of the option had prevented the agreement from entering into force, and that options are obligations that are strictly punished by the award of damages (Article 1142 of the Civil Code).
Practioners therefore developed various mechanisms in order to balance the negative consequences implied by such jurisprudence, either by:
providing for a fixed indemnity, even though in such cases judges were entitled to reduce the amount if manifestly excessive (Article 1152 of the Civil Code); or obtaining from the promisor a waiver of any and all rights under Article 1142 of the Civil Code.
However, despite these clauses, there was no guarantee that put or call options could be enforced in the event of a withdrawal by the promisor. In light of this, the legislature has amended the legal regime in order to provide more clarity and safety for the transactions.
The new Article 1124 of the Civil Code departs from the Supreme Court's jurisprudence. It states that "the revocation of the option before its exercise by the beneficiary does not prevent the formation of the promised contract". Thus, the irrevocable and binding character of the promisor's undertaking to sell or purchase, as the case may be, is strongly enshrined.
Such praiseworthy reform of the legal regime for put and call options puts contractual freedom back in its rightful place as a valuable component of business transactions under French law. It also epitomises the ambition of the general reform that will take effect from October 1 2016, which was to simplify and liberate contract law.
For further information please contact Alain Levy or Gwenaëlle de Kerviler at AyacheSalama by telephone (+33 1 58 05 38 05) or email ( a.levy@ayachesalama.com or g.dekerviler@ayachesalama.com). The AyacheSalama website can be accessed at www.ayachesalama.com. This article was first published by the International Law Office, a premium online legal update service for major companies and law firms worldwide. Register for a free subscription . | 3,272 | 1,578 | 0.000638 |
warc | 201704 | Today, the participating provinces and territory in the
Cooperative Capital Markets Regulatory System achieved an important milestone towards implementation of the system by publishing a revised consultation draft of the uniform provincial and territorial capital markets act (now known as the Capital Markets Act), along with the drafts of the initial regulations proposed for adoption by the participating provinces and territory under the draft uniform act. These materials have been published for a 120-day public comment period.
Still to come are:
provisions dealing with the interface mechanism with non-participating jurisdictions; proposed initial regulations relating to prospectus exemptions and relating to fees; proposed legislation to establish jointly the Capital Markets Regulatory Authority; and proposed implementation legislation to ensure a smooth transition to the new regime and to integrate the new regime into the general laws of each participating province and territory.
Revisions to the complementary federal act (known as the
Capital Markets Stability Act) are also expected to be made public at a later date.
For background information on the system and key developments to date,
. click here | 1,229 | 596 | 0.00169 |
warc | 201704 | Being walked all over is a horrible feeling, nobody likes being treated like a doormat. Of course, there are times when a friend or family member might need to lean on you a little heavier than usual in a time of need. But if you notice consistent patterns of people taking advantage of your kind
A glass of icy cold water can be refreshing, rehydrating and invigorating. But did you know that drinking warm water can actually increase its health benefits, in the following ways? 1. Your metabolism will be boosted. Drinking warm water first thing in the morning increases your body temperature. This increase in body temperature kick-starts your
They say that you learn the most important life skills outside of the classroom. School can be great for learning maths and English, but children need much more than that to become happy and successful adults. These life skills are crucial for every individual, and it’s a great idea to teach them from an early | 967 | 556 | 0.001815 |
warc | 201704 | 5 Adjustments You Must Make When Parenting A Child With ADHD8:08 AM
I don't claim to be an expert in parenting. There is no fancy degree in child psychology behind my name. I have been perfectly imperfect as a parent for the last 11 years and I learn as I go. However, I do have my experience as a mother of a child who has ADHD and ODD to go on, and this is what I have learned. When you parent a child with this condition, there are adjustments and allowance that must be made if you want things to run a little smoother.
1. Accept That They Don't Mean Everything They Say
If your child has ADHD, you likely know what I mean, although it is the Oppositional Defiant Disorder that generally leads to the hurtful words in our case. When my son gets angry, I can expect to hear things like "I hate you," "You don't love me," "My life sucks," or most recently "This is the worst birthday ever."
These words all have the ability to be completely hurtful and devastating to any parent. What a parent of a child with ADHD must realize though, is that the child does not mean these things. One of their ways of venting the frustration they feel inside is through words. Does it make it right for them to say these things? No, and while there can be consequences for them or talks about how they should be choosing wiser methods of venting, you must know that the words are not truly meant.
2. Do Not React
Children with ADHD will often try to draw a parent into an argument when they are upset or something is not going their way. For instance, if Joshua does not get the plate he wants at lunch, he will say he is not eating and leave the table. If we say fine and nothing else, he will start yelling and creating a spectacle trying to get us to react to his actions. If we feed into it, and believe me sometimes it is tempting, the situation can quickly turn into a full fledged argument that gets blown way out of proportion.
We have learned to hold out tongues no matter how hard it may be. The behavior generally stops rather quickly and Joshua is able to calm down. Once he is calm, we can then take the measures that need to be taken for the actions that occurred.
3. It is Okay to Parent Them Differently Than Your Other Children
I felt guilty for parenting Joshua a bit differently than the others at first. In truth, things had been out of control for so very long, that when he first was diagnosed and started on medication, he could do no wrong. It took a period of adjustment for us to start seeing the negative behaviors again, because we were used to things being so bad that the improvement was a million times better.
However, I have learned that although it may not always seem fair from the outside, it is necessary on the inside to parent Joshua differently. For instance, if Joshua runs his mouth and gets into an argument at some point, but then he realizes the actions he is taking and stops, he may only be sent to his room for a fraction of the time initially assigned. If we tell him during the argument that he will go to his room for the rest of the day, but he is able to stop himself and change the way he is acting, then he is slightly rewarded for that progressive step. He may only have to go to his room for a few hours instead. This teaches him the benefit of finding different ways to control his behavior.
4. Patience is an Invaluable Tool
Patience and a calm demeanor is an invaluable tool when parenting a child with ADHD. Everything about the condition begs you to argue, to yell, to demand your right to be right as a parent. However, acting like that only fuels the fire and can make everyday miserable. Learning how to remain calm even if you are screaming inside is the key to diffusing many of the behaviors and keeping the day on track.
5. Schedules and Routines Are a Must
Scheduling and routines are your greatest tool. Children with ADHD thrive with routine and can quickly get out of hand when rushed or when they feel there are no rules or guidelines to the day. I have found that trying to rush is the worst mistake that can be made some days. Keeping the days as balanced and uniform as possible help them stay focused and on task. During the school year, I wake up early to give Joshua his medicine a half hour before anyone else wakes up. Why? Because if I don't there will be screaming and fighting and arguing all morning long.
Additional Thoughts
There are many other changes and adjustments that must be made when your child has ADHD. The ones above have proven to be the most important in our home though. Above all else, you must love your child and let them know that they are loved and wanted. Children with ADHD often think they are "bad" or "worthless," they are not. They simply have a condition that does not allow them to think or react as one normally would.
It is a very misunderstood label to have placed upon you at a young age. Joshua is one of the sweetest children I know when the real him is allowed to shine through. It is important to bring out the best in your children and find ways to deal with the undesirable condition that sometimes hides that from your view. | 5,168 | 2,436 | 0.000413 |
warc | 201704 | The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian).
Summary
Analysis
On his first day of high school, Junior is particularly excited about his first geometry class, confessing that isosceles triangles make him feel “hormonal.” Of course, women and their curves make him hormonal too. Junior confesses frankly that he can spend hours masturbating, and is not just unashamed, but proud to say he’s good at it “because EVERYBODY does it. And EVERYBODY likes it. And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs.”
Part of coming of age is exploring sexual desire and learning to be comfortable with it. Junior’s frank discussion of masturbation is not only funny, but also important, as a confession that establishes intimacy and trust between him and the reader.
Still, Junior is “much more in love with the right angles of buildings” than with any imaginary woman. As a child, he used to love to sleep in corners, and spent a few years sleeping in his bedroom closet until his older sister Mary ruined it by telling him he was just trying to find his way back into his mother’s womb.
Junior is beginning to have adult desires, but he hasn’t yet left his childhood behind. This passage shows the process of growing up, establishing Junior as halfway between childhood and adulthood, withMary’s “ruining” the closet as one of the disillusionments involved in growing up.
Junior says Mary is “good at ruining things.” Although Mary is beautiful, strong, and funny, she shut down after she finished high school for reasons no one in the family understands, and has been living alone in the family’s basement for the past seven years. Junior’s drawing of her shows her looking tough, “like Jennifer Lopez (if J. Lo was smarter)” and wearing clothes that have all been shoplifted or stolen. She is nicknamed “Mary Runs Away” because she is so unpredictable. Junior, in contrast, is “steady” and “excited about life.”
Like Rowdy, Mary is another one of the people against whom Junior defines himself. She is tough, but also downwardly mobile, two traits that Junior sees as opposite to himself. Junior loves, admires, and pities Mary at the same time. His cartoon of her doesn’t show her dreams, but her real self, which could suggest he doesn’t believe any dreams are possible for her anymore.
In particular, Junior is excited about school, particularly playing basketball with Rowdy on the high school team. They were the best players on their eighth-grade team last year. Because Rowdy is so much bigger and stronger, Junior is a little scared that Rowdy will outshine him, leave him behind to hang out with the older guys, and start to hate Junior as much as everyone else does. Still, Junior is happy about starting high school and doesn’t care that the other kids will make fun of him.
Junior’s identity is still closely tied to Rowdy’s. While he’s excited about school for its own sake, Junior can’t picture himself excelling there on his own. His worries foreshadow the rivalry he and Rowdy will later have as star players on opposing teams—Junior will leave Rowdy behind, and Rowdy will indeed start to hate him.
The geometry teacher, Mr. P, is old and absentminded—so much so that he sometimes forgets to come to school. When he arrives and passes out books, Junior notices that his book has his mom’s maiden name inscribed in it—meaning the book is at least thirty years older than he is. The fact that the reservation school hasn’t had the money to buy new geometry books in thirty years makes Junior feel that “the world has declared nuclear war” on him, his tribe, and his dreams.
The reservation school’s limited resources—including a less-than-competent teacher who should probably retire, and outdated textbooks—are another example of how poverty hurts the Indian community and stands in the way of students’ dreams. Junior knows that having a substandard education will make it much harder for him to get off the rez.
His reaction is shown in a cartoon: he stands up in a rage and throws the book across the room, accidentally hitting Mr. P in the face.
Junior’s feelings are so strong that he can’t put them into words. As he’s said before, his drawings express his feelings more accurately and completely. At the same time, drawings are often reserved for Junior’s dreams, so it’s not immediately clear that throwing the book really happened—he did act, but he acted without thinking. Junior’s desire for revenge against the impersonal force of poverty also has an unintended victim: Mr. P. This is the novel’s first example of why revenge doesn’t work. | 4,881 | 2,289 | 0.000464 |
warc | 201704 | The art of scoring in basketball starts with learning how to properly position your hands on the ball before shooting. Correct finger placement is essential for accuracy and can help you become a consistent scorer. The most conventional way of shooting a basketball is by using an one-handed set shot. Though the name of the shot may suggest otherwise, both of your hands are involved in a one-handed set shot.
Shooting Hand
Your shooting hand is, for most people, your dominant hand: Your shooting hand should be your right hand if you are right-handed. The shooting hand does the majority of the work in shooting a basketball and is positioned behind and slightly underneath the ball. Each finger, from the tips down to approximately the second joint, should make contact with the ball when engaging in a shot. Ensure your thumb remains set relatively close to the index finger. It should not be pointing sideways. Your palm does not need to touch the ball. The ball should rest lightly on top of your fingers. Your wrist must be rotated backward to hold up the ball. As you hold the ball, your index and middle fingers should be directly in front of your face.
Guiding Hand
The guiding hand is, for most people, their non-dominant hand. The guiding hand lightly cups the ball at its side. Its role is to steady the ball as you go through the shooting motion with your shooting hand. All five fingers should make gentle contact with the side of the ball. Keep the fingers spread on the ball at a moderate distance. Don't wrap your thumb around the back of the basketball. When you hold the ball, you should not be able to see the back of your guiding hand, but rather its profile.
Shooting Motion
Once your hands are properly positioned on the basketball, you can engage in your shooting motion. Your guiding hand should in no way influence the shot. It merely allows you to release the ball in a straight line. While a proper basketball shooting motion involves the entire body, your shooting hand simply snaps forward, by bending the wrist. Your fingers push the ball into the air during your wrist motion. The middle finger should be the last finger to touch the ball as it is released to help apply backspin. Ultimately, you must decide if this technique feels right to you and suits your shooting style.
Layups
Layups are technically considered a type of basketball shot, and finger placement plays a major role in the effectiveness of a layup. In contrast to a one-handed set shot, a layup is made with one hand cupping the ball from underneath. As you drive toward the basket, your shooting arm extends upward and your wrist unhinges backward to remain parallel to the ground. This way, the basketball remains cupped in your hand. The ball then rolls off of your fingertips as you lay the ball into the basket or against the backboard. | 2,854 | 1,265 | 0.000793 |
warc | 201704 | Statistics released Wednesday showed Japan recorded better-than-expected economic growth numbers in Q-1 of the year. However, economists said the real picture may not be as rosy as it looks to be based on preliminary statistics.
The reform plans championed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, known as Abenomics, are not likely to lift Japan out of sluggish growth, they said, citing the persistent deflationary risks and weak investment growth.
Abenomics, featuring aggressive monetary easing including the unprecedented and controversial negative interest rates, started off with much fanfare and pushed inflation into positive territory despite weak Crude Oil prices.
Then confidence in it failed dramatically over the last year or so.
Data released by the Cabinet Office showed that Japan’s real economic growth was 0.4% Q-Q in the 1st 3 months of the year, translating into an annualized growth of 1.7%.
That enabled Japan to barely escape a technical recession, defined as 2 consecutive Quarters of Q-Q contraction.
In particular, domestic personal consumption, accounting for around 60% of GDP, rose 0.5% Q-Q in real terms, an apparent improvement from the previous Quarter’s decline of 0.8%.
Things are not as good as they appear. In nominal terms, domestic personal consumption in Q-1 fell by 0.1% from the previous Quarter, indicating ongoing weak consumer confidence.
This is also confirmed by a Q-Q decline of 0.9% in the consumer confidence index in the month of April. The latest statistics showed that enterprises were not willing to increase their investment, which the government had hoped would function as the leading driver of an envisaged economic recovery.
In Q-1 of this year, investment by Japanese enterprises dropped 1.4% from the previous Quarter.
Economists said the initial signs of success of Abenomics may have been partly due to a weak Yen as the USD had been rising at that time. However, Japanese exporters have faced strong headwinds recently as the USD had been largely weak.
Abenomics failed to lift Japan out of deflationary risks, too. The central bank had repeatedly postponed the date for fulfilling the target of pushing the inflation rate up to 2%.
Abenomics has been used to galvanize corporate investment at the cost of domestic consumers as the Yen weakened Vs foreign currencies.
The Japanese government’s gamble of aggressive monetary easing has not been successful so far.
Even large enterprises were unwilling to increase their investments, partly due to their lack of confidence in Japan’s economic growth as the Yen is not expected to be persistently weak against the USD.
Statistics showed that they are sitting on cash.
The cash held by large Japanese enterprises in Y 2015 rose by 32.4% from 10 years ago, whereas their fixed asset investments increased by only 16.3%.
Japanese consumer confidence was affected by the weak Yen.
Abenomics consists of 3 pillars (arrows):
monetary easing fiscal stimulus structural reforms.
But economists say Japan has relied too much on monetary easing and less on fiscal measures and structural reforms. The extremely aggressive monetary easing has prompted other economies to voice their concerns over the potential spillover from such moves.
By Han Yang
Paul Ebeling, Editor
Paul Ebeling Latest posts by Paul Ebeling (see all) Medical Marijuana: Germany’s Lawmakers Backs Patient Rx’s - January 23, 2017 Medical Marijuana Update - January 23, 2017 Box Office: ‘Split’ Tops ‘xXx: Xander Cage’ With $40.2-M - January 22, 2017 | 3,583 | 1,690 | 0.000604 |
warc | 201704 | The retail Loss Prevention / Asset Protection field offers a wide spectrum of career options and a tremendous potential for professional growth that makes this profession one of the hidden treasures of the occupational market place. Many are attracted to the profession by the excitement of investigations while having an active role in executing the company’s initiatives and fulfilling its goals.
The responsibilities of today’s loss prevention professional goes well beyond the expected physical security, internal theft resolution, shoplifting and shrink, to now include safety & risk, organized retail crime, fraud, data protection, crisis management, business continuity, supply chain integrity, mobile technology, e-commerce, and workplace violence to name a few.
Today’s loss prevention professional has the ability to impact millions of dollars in bottom line profitability of the world's largest retailers while mentoring, guiding and developing tomorrow’s leaders. The LP/AP professional can drive ideas and influence the business while establishing new programs, monitoring compliance and managing the loss prevention function in the ever changing landscape of the retail industry.
Sample LP/AP Career Paths | 1,244 | 679 | 0.001503 |
warc | 201704 | As a nascent beer writer, and a lover of beer in general, the master is, of course, Michael Jackson. So, I love going back through his library of articles and reading what he had to say. As I was perusing the list, one title jumped out at me: "The Glass of '93 Blossoms Early." Based on the title, I had no idea what it would be about, but I graduated high school in 1993, so I thought I'd click through (funny how the mind works, eh?).
What I discovered is what may be the first article ever written about what we now call "Fresh Hop" beers and what Mr. Jackson called "Green Hop" beers. I wanted to point some things out that I thought were interesting, 15 years later.
"Their farm, with medieval looking buildings, is hidden behind hawthorn hedges at Risbury, north of Hereford and west of Worcester, England. They grow Goldings, a classically English variety of hop, and they also cultivate some extremely traditional sub-strains."
Knowing how the article ends, I think it is awesome that these fresh-hop beers were made with Goldings. The Golding is a mild, traditional hop with an Alpha Acid somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5% to 5.0. Brewers today couldn't be bothered.
"Trevor Holmes, head brewer at Wadworth, of Devizes in Wiltshire, was inspecting the harvest a year or two ago when he began to wonder how beer would taste if it were aromatised with hops fresh off the vine. Most working brewers love hops, and would use far more in their beer if they, or their marketing colleagues, were not worried about frightening the drinker with the flower's assertive aromas and flavours."
I love that brewers were concerned about frightening drinkers with too much hops. But there's another point here too - the Golding is so mild all they really considered was its "aromatizing" impact; there doesn't appear to be
anyconcern for the bittering that it would impart! "Because hops are a condiment, less than a pound of them are used in a barrel of beer."
Pay attention folks. Hops are a condiment. Less than one pound in a barrel of beer. Ha! Americans, for our IPAs, use over
seven poundsper barrel. "I can think of only one other brewery that has tried making such a 'biere nouvelle,' and that is in the far West of the United States."
This would be Sierra Nevada. I love the "biere nouvelle" - literally "new beer" or "young beer" - the Fresh Hop style, at least as made by this particular English brewery, also used malts made from winter barley which would first be available in late summer.
"The possibility of hazy beer is only one of the difficulties encountered when working with newly harvested barley and hops."
This is something that modern brewers don't seem terribly concerned about. Some at MBR HQ call this beer with "floaty bits" and it almost seems like a badge of authenticity - of rusticness. But in 1993 haziness was very definitely not a desirable trait.
"There was the lightest touch of malty sweetness to start; then a surge of cleansing, refreshing, resiny, almost orange-zest flavours; and, finally, an astonishingly late, long finish of fresh, appetite-arousing bitterness."
Or, in the case of American Fresh Hop beers: "bitter; very, very bitter; seems to be lacking any malt at all actually - faint sweetness pokes out, but the peppery bitterness is overwhelming; after the first shock, some of the citrus juiciness pokes through and provides a pleasant diversion from the mouthpuckering tartness."
By the way, where the English green hop ale was a paltry 4.5% ABV, the Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale kicks in at 6.5% ABV. | 3,596 | 1,852 | 0.000547 |
warc | 201704 | Advertisements
Finance according to a recent survey has been proven to be the leading cause of stress in a relationship this makes the
Money Talk a serious one. So if you are married or in a serious relationship then avoiding the Money Talk is the wrong move because it can lead to a lot of friction in your relationship or worst it can end your relationship.
So if you are among those couple who is modern and contemporary and you haven’t had the money talk then it time you take charge and do what is best for your relationship which is having the Money Talk. Here are the things you should consider before you merge your finances with your partners;
Talk About The Past
Your partner had a life before you met him, so talking about any past financial trouble or debt helps you to get perspective into the kind of person he is financially.
Discuss Your Earning Expectations
There are so many questions to ask when you have to discuss your earning expectation because this is supposed to give you an insight to the future so ask questions like, what are his goals for the next 5 to 10 years? Is working his way up the corporate ladder and reaping the steady benefits of regular raises and a pension part of his plan or does he plan to leave and start up his own venture? Questions that relate to your future prospects would help you configure a projected cash flow for the future so you would know what is coming in and what to expect.
Discuss Your Spending Priorities/Accounting
Examples are if you want your kids in a private or public school? if regular vacations are included? if there are certain amounts that you have to ask each other without spending etc. This should help you figure out the type of book keeping you need i n the family or else get the help of professionals.
Talk About Your End Goal
This means asking questions like; How much do you need to live a comfortable life? What retirement plan you prefer and desire? Where to invest your finances to live a good retirement life? This would enable you to be able to strategize how to get there.
Have you had the Money Talk with your partner? How did you start the conversation? Is there anything you wished you had discussed? Share with us in the comment box below.
If you have got an amazing style game and you want to showcase it to the world. Send us an email at [email protected] Who knows? We might just feature you!
This article was brought to you by the awesome Madivas Team!
Comments
[mashshare] | 2,494 | 1,247 | 0.000809 |
warc | 201704 | Have you ever felt yourself as being super lazy and tired in the morning, regardless of the fact that you have simply managed to sleep a lot during the night? Would you like to sleep less than you do know, but on the other side of the story, to feel as doing numerous things, all at once? Well, believe it or not, we all crave for more time – for everything that we would like to achieve in our lives. Most people say that time is the most dangerous tool that we have, actually our best enemy. Well, if you want to turn it into your best friend, you know what you have to do! These being said, in case you are looking forward to knowing more concerning the subject, make sure to stick with us and keep an eye onto the following lines to discover some eating disorders that make you feel unproductive at work, or at home – to avoid!
Eating Late in the Night
Having a healthy way of life requires a lot of scheduling and good food prepared. When being at work and being all hectic about everything you need to do, something like this is rather impossible to be done – and we all know that, pretty well. In order to maintain at least half of the equilibrum, we reccomend you not to eat late in the night, because your organism can not process the entire food while you sleep and your entire body is stagnant. Instead, just take a break and leave yourself breath for a night. You will see, once you do this two or three times, it will slowly becomes a habit.
Going for Sweets
So, you feel as if you need something sweet to chew? Would you like to have your desk filled with chips or chocolate? Yes, who would not… I am sure that money is not necessarily the problem, but let me tell you that things are not that lovely when you see your body filled and rounded with so many calories and sugar. In addition, your blood might not be rushing in the same correct way if these things were to be happening. Instead, make sure to go for a healthier way of life and explain yourself why you must not eat some things that you will regret, sooner or later, throughout your life. | 2,090 | 1,075 | 0.000942 |
warc | 201704 | Beijing, Dec 1 (IANS) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided to include the Chinese currency, the yuan, in its Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket, a media report said on Tuesday.
During a meeting on Monday on the regular five-yearly review of the SDR basket, the IMF executive board, which represents the fund’s 188 members, decided that the yuan “met all existing criteria”, the Global Times reported.
Effective from October 1, 2016, the yuan will be included in the SDR basket as the fifth currency, along with the US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound.
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde described the decision as “an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system”.
“It is also a recognition of the progress that the Chinese authorities have made in the past years in reforming China’s monetary and financial systems,” she said.
The yuan will have a weightage of 10.92 percent in the new SDR basket, while respective weightings of other currencies in the basket are 41.73 percent for the US dollar, 30.93 percent for the euro, 8.33 percent for the Japanese yen and 8.09 percent for the British pound.
Created by the IMF in 1969, the SDR is an international reserve asset to supplement its members’ official reserves. It can be exchanged among governments for freely usable currencies in times of need.
The long-awaited outcome came as China has been pushing its currency to wider use on the global stage.
The yuan became the world’s No.2 currency for global trade finance in 2013, and overtook the yen to become the fourth most-used world payment currency in August, only after the US dollar, the euro and the sterling, according to the global transaction services organisation SWIFT.
To meet the IMF’s “freely usable” criteria, Chinese authorities undertook a series of reforms in recent months, such as improving its foreign exchange rate formation system, opening up its interbank bond and forex markets, and improving data transparency by subscribing to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).
China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), announced on Tuesday that it welcomes the IMF’s decision and said that the move shows the IMF’s recognition of China’s economic development and reform achievements.
“The joining of RMB in the SDR basket means the international community has greater expectations on China to play an active role in the world economic and financial arena,” the PBOC said in a statement.
Offshore yuan strengthened sharply on Monday ahead of the decision, with the currency rising 0.4 percent against the US dollar during the trading, marking the biggest gain in a month.
In a muted reaction to the inclusion news, the central parity rate of the yuan weakened on Tuesday by 11 basis points to 6.3973 against the US dollar, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System. | 3,038 | 1,474 | 0.000706 |
warc | 201704 | China's shipbuilding tonnage is expected to reach a record high of more than 12.5 million in 2005. This represents 17 per cent of the global shipbuilding market, up from 14.3 per cent in 2004. Growth of China's shipbuilding tonnage will account for most of the global growth, which will increase to 71.2 from 61.4 million in 2004, according to Zhu Rujing, an analyst with Beijing-based China Shipbuilding Economy Research Centre.
Despite the rapid growth, China will continue to be the world's third biggest shipbuilding country following Japan and South Korea. Both Japan and South Korea now control more than 30 per cent of global shipbuilding market, while many Chinese shipyards appear short of capacity to satisfy the world's strong demand for new ships. However, there is a danger of overcapacity starting from the second half of 2008 because Chinese shipyards are developing on a massive scale, and growth of global ship demand will slow down. The analyst estimated that total shipbuilding capacity in China would exceed 30 million tons by 2010, up from nearly 14 million at present.
Shipbuilding giants from South Korea and Japan are accelerating penetration into China, with some hoping to gain controlling stakes in Chinese shipyards, and even build wholly-owned shipyards. But it is expected that China might ban foreign shipbuilding groups from doing this, with an anticipated new policy on the shipbuilding sector. | 1,431 | 710 | 0.001412 |
warc | 201704 | It was surprising how nonchalantly Marion school board approved cutting a high school sport Monday night. It seems like cutting golf was the right decision, however. I say this despite golf being the only sport I played all four years of high school (although you wouldn’t guess it if you saw me swing a club today).
On a per-athlete basis, it has to be the most expensive sport for the district, especially with participation declining. It takes two coaches for a handful of athletes, because the golfers get so spread out on a course. And then there are fees paid to Marion Country Club for the team to practice and compete.
Superintendent Lee Leiker said it well. If enrollment is going to decrease to the size of a 2A school — which seems likely in the next few years — Marion needs to be ready to have staffing and programs that match that size. One appropriate place to cut is sports, and golf had the least participation of spring sports.
Other sports, like football and track, have higher total expenses, but reach more students. Benefit to students should be the main criterion for judging school expenses. Other sports also attract more community involvement.
Golf is one of the few sports that students can participate in without significant organization. Runners can run, whenever and wherever, and golfers can hit the links whenever they can get a tee time. But it is tough to find 22 people for a pickup football game, or 18 people for impromptu softball.
The cut isn’t set in stone. Leiker said the district could seek to share a team with Peabody-Burns if there is interest and the districts could reach an agreement. Peabody-Burns currently practices at a Newton golf course.
I hope the cut doesn’t mean the end of the Marion County Invitational. The invitational has been a unique feature on the sports landscape, a golf tournament as much about endurance — golfers play 18 holes in Marion and 18 in Hillsboro in a single day — as pure skill. That is a lot of walking, and a lot of swings of a golf club. Even the professionals don’t play 36 holes in a day, and they have caddies to carry their clubs.
— ADAM STEWART | 2,188 | 1,132 | 0.000906 |
warc | 201704 | US futures are trading lower on Tuesday but are expected to remain volatile ahead of the open, in keeping with what we’ve seen already in Europe this morning.
European indices had rebounded a little following another rough start to the day but the underlying concerns remain which could continue to weigh in the short-term. We continue to see weakness in commodity markets which is showing little sign of abating, despite oil finding some relief so earlier today. Silver has also found some stability following its surge on Monday as it continues to show signs of being one of the outperformers in the commodity space in the coming weeks and months.
Another concern for investors continues to be the European banking sector as negative interest rates and rising non-performing loans put increasing pressure on profit margins and banks’ ability to meet capital requirements. With the banking crisis of recent years still fresh in the memory, there are real fears that the banks face big challenges this year. Moreover, the eurozone recovery – what little we are actually seeing – could be threatened by any renewed weakening in the banking sector and drying up of credit. This is just the latest in a long list of global economic headwinds that have weighed heavily on markets this year.
It’s going to be another relatively quiet day on the data side today, with US JOLTS job openings the standout release given the ongoing focus on the labour market. This is expected to remain at recent highs despite falling back very slightly from 5.431 million to 5.4 million. Investors will also have one eye on Janet Yellen’s testimonies in the coming days before the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee.
The Fed’s decision to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade in December has been criticised by some, especially in light of how the markets have behaved since. The Fed had previously hinted at a further four rate hikes this year, something that seems very unlikely at this stage. It will be interesting to see in the coming days whether Yellen sticks with these original forecasts or whether recent conditions have changed the central banks’ plans.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar.
This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds. | 2,683 | 1,378 | 0.00074 |
warc | 201704 | TEMPE, Ariz. (CBS.MW) - The manufacturing sector grew in June for a fifth straight month, following 18 months of declines, the Institute for Supply Management said Monday.
The ISM index rose to 56.2 percent from 55.7 percent in May, the highest reading since February 2000. Read the full release.
New orders fell back to 60.8 percent from 63.1 percent. Production rose to 61.4 percent from 58.5 percent in May, the highest since June 1999.
Employment nearly reached the 50 percent level that would indicate hiring in the sector, rising to 49.7 percent from 47.3 percent.
Prices paid jumped to 65.5 percent from 63.0 percent.
Readings over 50 percent indicate growth or increases in activity.
"This report shows the manufacturing sector continues to recover, reducing the chances of a double-dip recession," said Corey Redfield, chief fixed income strategist at USB Piper Jaffray.
"The ISM data continue to be considerably more positive than other reports about factory conditions, perhaps reflecting their diffusion nature," said John Youngdahl, economist at Goldman Sachs.
Economists were looking for the ISM index to be about flat in June. The consensus called for a small increase to about 56.1 percent. See Economic Calendar.
"June was a good month for manufacturing," said Norbert Ore, chairman of the ISM survey committee. Fifteen of 20 industries reported improvements.
"Manufacturing recovery is gaining momentum, but business is not as strong when looking at year-over-year performance," the ISM said.
Manufacturers noted that the weakening dollar was opening export markets. Export orders rose to 54.5 percent from 53.3 percent.
Steel products were the only commodities in short supply. "The tariffs are moving prices higher and extending deliveries in the industry," ISM said.
"Inventory restocking has put increased pressure on factory capacity," said Youngdahl.
Meanwhile, in a separate report, the Commerce Department said construction spending fell 0.7 percent in May after a revised 0.4 percent gain in April. Non-residential construction fell about 3 percent, while residential building was unchanged.
Public spending on construction increased about 2 percent. | 2,206 | 1,141 | 0.000888 |
warc | 201704 | Posted in Finance, Accounting and Economics Terms, Total Reads: 454
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Definition: Shariah compliant Funds
Shariah compliant funds are investment funds that follow all the requirements and conditions of Sharia Law (Islamic Law) and principal of Islamic Finance. They have to follow various guidelines such as investing only in Shariah compliant stocks, executing a Shariah audit and purifying them by donating some part forbidden type of income to charity. They are not restricted to people of any particular religion.
Shariah principles prohibit interest based transactions, investing in unethical products like alcohol, tobacco or gambling. Hence Shariah compliant funds are constructed such that they do not have involvement is such sectors.
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One can build a diversified portfolio using Shariah compliant stocks and these portfolios offer good returns. Portfolio managers attract Muslim investors who did not invest previously and investors of other religions who don’t like to invest in companies producing alcohol, tobacco products or doing other unethical or harmful activities. | 1,634 | 810 | 0.001244 |
warc | 201704 | A stress hormone in the sea lamprey has been identified by researchers at Michigan State University, using the 500 million-year-old species as a model to understand the evolution of the endocrine system.
Advertisement
Corticosteroid hormones control stress response in animals with backbones, including humans. While scientists have learned quite a bit about these so-called stress hormones in most modern animals, little was known about the hormones' earliest forms in prehistoric creatures such as lamprey.
AdvertisementWeiming Li, professor of fisheries and wildlife who helped lead the project, said: "By identifying 11-deoxycortisol as a stress hormone in lamprey, it allows us to better understand how the endocrine system in vertebrates evolved into the complex systems we see in humans today."
The hormone is the only one the researchers have found so far in the lamprey and Li said the researchers are hypothesizing that it may be the only corticosteroid hormone in the lamprey. Humans, in contrast, have more than 30 corticosteroid hormones.
Native to the Atlantic Ocean, sea lampreys are invasive species in the Great Lakes. They stay alive by attaching themselves to other fish, like salmon and trout, and then suck out the fish's body fluids. One sea lamprey can kill 40 or more pounds of fish.
Li led the groundbreaking research that identified the pheromone male lampreys use to attract females to their nests to mate. He has made a synthetic version of the pheromone and is testing its effectiveness as a control for the destructive parasites. While the identification of 11-deoxycortisol likely won't directly help his lamprey control work, Li said this new discovery will bolster understanding on how the fish has successfully adapted since the Paleozoic Era.
Li said: "Most jawless animals similar to the lamprey didn't survive into the modern era, so they're not available for us to use as we strive to learn more about how human systems developed. The sea lamprey, a survivor, gives us a snapshot of what happened as vertebrates evolved into the animals we know today."
The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: ANI
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warc | 201704 | A new study published in today's issue of the journal Nature says that a team of Australian researchers led by Jane Visvader, of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne have successfully isolated a stem cell from the breast pads in female mice that could hold the key to future breast cancer treatments and reconstructive surgery.
AdvertisementThe Australian research says that recurrences of breast cancer are triggered by a group of "rogue mammary stem cells" that escape chemotherapy and lie dormant. After a while, these viable stem cells reseed tumors so that a relapse occurs. The authors say that this could prove to be a valuable insight into the treatment of breast cancer if these findings applied to human breast tissue as well. In such a scenario, it could be possible to grow new breast tissue using these stem cells and could prove to be a blessing to women who undergo mastectomy or complete breast removal for their tumors. Researchers postulate that these mammary stem cells could also trigger the development of certain types of breast cancers if they have genetic errors. Stem cells which do carry cancer causing mutations are resistant to chemotherapy, which targets rapidly cells. "The ultimate objective is to create a drug that will, in effect, switch off breast cancer cells," Dr Visvader commented. "To do this, the exact make-up of genes expressed by normal and rogue stem cells will need to be determined. Then a drug will be designed to engage with and neutralize the faulty feature of the stem cell." Her team is now examining human breast tissue to see if there are any shared characteristics with the mouse model.
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warc | 201704 | * This is the Professional Version. *
Acute Peripheral Arterial Occlusion
Patient Education
Peripheral arteries may be acutely occluded by a thrombus, an embolus, aortic dissection, or acute compartment syndrome.
Acute peripheral arterial occlusion may result from:
Rupture and thrombosis of an atherosclerotic plaque
Embolus from the heart or thoracic or abdominal aorta
Aortic dissection
Acute compartment syndrome (see Compartment Syndrome)
Symptoms and signs are sudden onset in an extremity of the 5 P’s: severe
pain, polar sensation (coldness), paresthesias (or anesthesias), pallor, and pulselessness. The occlusion can be roughly localized to the arterial bifurcation just distal to the last palpable pulse (eg, at the common femoral bifurcation when the femoral pulse is palpable; at the popliteal bifurcation when the popliteal pulse is palpable). Severe cases may cause loss of motor function. After 6 to 8 h, muscles may be tender when palpated.
Diagnosis is clinical. Immediate angiography is required to confirm location of the occlusion, identify collateral flow, and guide therapy.
Treatment consists of embolectomy (catheter or surgical), thrombolysis, or bypass surgery. The decision to do surgical thromboembolectomy vs thrombolysis is based on the severity of ischemia, the extent or location of the thrombus, and the general medical condition of the patient.
A thrombolytic (fibrinolytic) drug, especially when given by regional catheter infusion, is most effective for patients with acute arterial occlusions of <2 wk and intact motor and sensory limb function. Tissue plasminogen activator and urokinase are most commonly used. A catheter is threaded to the occluded area, and the thrombolytic drug is given at a rate appropriate for the patient’s size and the extent of thrombosis. Treatment is usually continued for 4 to 24 h, depending on severity of ischemia and signs of thrombolysis (relief of symptoms and return of pulses or improved blood flow shown by Doppler ultrasonography). About 20 to 30% of patients with acute arterial occlusion require amputation within the first 30 days.
* This is the Professional Version. * | 2,177 | 1,051 | 0.000963 |
warc | 201704 | About Leadership Programs
At Messiah College, students have unique opportunities not only to serve in leadership positions, but to also receive leadership development as they grow in Christian
, clarify their character and cultivate the calling necessary to be faithful leaders in church and society. Getting involved in a leadership role in one or more of the many student-run organizations or as a Resident Assistant (RA) through the Office of Residence Life is the best way to experience this intentional development. competencies Our Leadership Development Model
We are committed to preparing students for Christ-like leadership. This type of leadership—best defined as
mission-minded or purposeful influence—includes service, as we seek to care for others as Jesus cares for us. We are to share ourselves as Jesus shared Himself. We are to lead others with compassion, respect and love as Jesus, by example, leads us. As such, our leadership development model focuses on three particular dimensions— character, calling and competencies. Three Dimensions of Leadership Development Character (“Who Am I?”) We desire to develop students who believe that lasting positive influence depends on the kind of person they are becoming. The goal of character development is to shape the intention of the heart and mind and for students to become like Christ in their actions. Calling (“Where Am I Going?”) We desire for all Messiah students to have a vision and passion for the practice of Christ-like leadership. Central to understanding leadership as calling is the belief that Christ-like leadership is possible for ordinary human beings through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Competencies (“How Do I Get There?”) We intend to develop students who will successfully lead in a complex global world. Leadership competencies are knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that are observable and measurable. Leadership competencies are not all-inclusive or job or task specific, but rather they are more general and transcend context and role.
To learn more about Messiah College's leadership development model, click here (coming soon). | 2,209 | 1,073 | 0.000954 |
warc | 201704 | The most viewed articles worldwide in 2016 covered topics including pensions, student loans, value-based payments—and Pokemon Go. There were also pieces on Solvency II, encounter data standards, and managed care regulations. The top 15 global articles and reports for the year are below.
15
Financial analysis of ACA health plan issuers, By Daniel J. Perlman and David M. Liner
A summary of 2014 risk mitigation estimates with actual amounts published by the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
14
Telemedicine and the long-tail problem in healthcare, By Jeremy Kush and Susan Philip
A potential solution to access barriers can be telemedicine.
Healthcare Access: Illustration of the Long-Tail Problem
13
Public Pension Funding Study, By Rebecca A. Sielman
The Milliman Public Pension Funding Study annually explores the funded status of the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans, and we report the plan sponsor’s own assessment of how well funded a plan is.
12
Life insurance risks: Observations on Solvency II and the modeling of capital needs, By Stephen H. Conwill
There has been an explosive growth in potential applications of data analytics, predictive algorithms, and behavioral modeling to challenges related to insurance risk. This paper describes several key ideas that serve as building blocks for a new analytical framework.
11
Encounter data standards: Implications for state Medicaid agencies and managed care entities from final Medicaid managed care rule, By Jeremy Cunningham, Maureen Tressel Lewis, and Paul R. Houchens
Relative to other sources of data that may be used in developing capitation rates—summarized managed care entity (MCE) utilization and cost experience, fee-for-service data, statutory financial statements, etc.—encounter data provides the most transparent view of an MCE’s provision of healthcare services.
10
Student loan debt update: A look at a possible future, By Katherine A. Pipkorn and Michael A. Henk
Student loan debt is a key concern underlying the country’s economic stability.
9
Institution for Mental Disease (IMD) as an "in lieu of" service, By Mat DeLillo
Institutions for Mental Disease will continue to be a topic of interest to state policy makers as they bolster the continuum of behavioral health and substance use disorder services.
8
Pokémon Go and augmented reality: Not all fun and games, By Michael A. Henk
Pokémon Go may generate extreme levels of distractedness while posing a new front for cyber risk.
7
DFS Moneyball: Beating daily fantasy sports with predictive analytics, By Michael A. Henk and Nicholas Blaubach
Daily fantasy sports contests continue to sweep the globe despite well documented and yet to be resolved concerns regarding legality.
6
Next Generation ACO Model: Should we take the plunge?, By Charlie Mills, Cory Gusland, and Noah Champagne
Five key considerations that all accountable care organizations (ACOs) should closely review before deciding whether or not to use the Next Generation ACO Model.
5
Pass-through payment guidance in final Medicaid managed care regulations: Transitioning to value-based payments, By Andrew Gaffner, Carmen Laudenschlager, and Christine M. Mytelka
An overview of pass-through payment provisions in the new Medicaid managed care regulations, including the rationale and phase-out timing of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
4
Pension Funding Study, By Alan H. Perry, Charles J. Clark, John W. Ehrhardt, and Zorast Wadia
In a tumultuous year that buffeted pension plans with volatile markets and interest rate movement, the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans made little progress in 2015.
3
Pension Funding Index, By John W. Ehrhardt and Zorast Wadia
Monthly reports on the funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans as measured by the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index.
2
G100 Discount Rates, By Craig McCulloch and Danny L. Quant
The paper assesses whether the Australian corporate bond market meets the requirements as outlined in Australian Accounting Standard 119 and determines a methodology to derive a full discount rate curve allowing for possible limitations in available market data.
1
Milliman Medical Index, By Christopher S. Girod, Scott A. Weltz, and Susan K. Hart
In 2016, the cost of healthcare for a typical American family of four covered by an average employer-sponsored preferred provider organization plan is $25,826, according to the Milliman Medical Index. | 4,572 | 2,263 | 0.000451 |
warc | 201704 | Morning Buzz Recap
Editor's note: For those Minyans not on the Buzz and Banter, below is a recap of this morning's buzz pertaining to the economic data released.
Greg Collins (8:30) Beeks... Unemployment rate for March came in at 5.2% vs 5.3% exp. Average hourly earnings m/m for March came in at 0.3% vs 0.2% exp; Average hourly earnings y/y for March came in at 2.6% vs 2.5% exp. Change in non-farm payrolls for March came in at 110k vs 220k exp; Change in manufacturing payrolls for March came in at -8k vs 8k exp. Average weekly hours for March came in at 33.7vs 33.7 exp.
John Succo (8:43)
A prominant "financial journalist" just called the employment numbers "very healthy" on TV. This should be a comedy show if it weren't so sad.
Last month's employment number was adjusted downward, manufacturing jobs were low, and this month's employment number was simply a big miss. This month's birth/death model adjustment was a high +179,000, so the actual number could have been negative. The economy is "muddling" along at best. To call these numbers "very healthy" is pure fiction.
Scott Reamer (8:45)
110k? Zoiks. Wasn't it the omnipotent Fed that was worried on March 22nd about inflation. Given how important wage inflation is to overall inflation, I can't help but wonder aloud what they were thinking. Perhaps they are as erroneously worried about inflation now as they were in Q1 and Q2 of 2000 when CPI peaked and declined 270 basis points (a 70% decline) into 2002. Deflation?
John Succo (8:49)
Scott, the Fed should be worried about inflation. Inflation in commodity prices, ala a weaker and weaker dollar. But they need to worry about deflation too? Yes, deflation in wages and income growth. How do you battle this? Any ideas, write the Fed.
Scott Reamer (8:55)
I imagine all the carry trade addicts are simply salivating as Fed Funds futures decline after this AM's NFP number. Heck if we can't produce enough jobs, why don't we just give every unemployed person a tax rebate and let them use the money to play the carry trade? Almost certainly one of the reasons stock futures spiked up so violently was the increased probability that liquidity - Fed supplied - can once again save the day.
John Succo (9:17) Risk is rising...
Japan and Europe are teetering on recession, if they haven't already slipped. Both are experiening wage-consumption based deflationary pressures. This is reflected in the U.S.'s weak employment numbers as well.
The markets this morning are bidding up bond and stock prices as it sees less need for the Fed to tighten in the future.
But the Fed has been easy all along, but as Scott points out, may have to take that to another level to battle these deflationary pressures. But that will drive commodity prices higher and the dollar lower.
As the Fed struggles with this "box" they will drive risk higher: current imbalances will be exacerbated.
1 The information on this website solely reflects the analysis of or opinion about the performance of securities and financial markets by the writers whose articles appear on the site. The views expressed by the writers are not necessarily the views of Minyanville Media, Inc. or members of its management. Nothing contained on the website is intended to constitute a recommendation or advice addressed to an individual investor or category of investors to purchase, sell or hold any security, or to take any action with respect to the prospective movement of the securities markets or to solicit the purchase or sale of any security. Any investment decisions must be made by the reader either individually or in consultation with his or her investment professional. Minyanville writers and staff may trade or hold positions in securities that are discussed in articles appearing on the website. Writers of articles are required to disclose whether they have a position in any stock or fund discussed in an article, but are not permitted to disclose the size or direction of the position. Nothing on this website is intended to solicit business of any kind for a writer's business or fund. Minyanville management and staff as well as contributing writers will not respond to emails or other communications requesting investment advice. Copyright 2011 Minyanville Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Daily Recap Newsletter | 4,335 | 2,093 | 0.000481 |
warc | 201704 | Rare Earths Rebound as Crisis Intensifies
Demand for rare earths is soaring in the face of a serious shortage; it's an exciting time for people positioned to profit from promising stocks. Editor's Note: Read more from Jeb Handwerger at Gold Stock Trades.
Not too long ago in our national history, mining for rare earths (
Market Vectors Rare Earth/Strategic Metals(REMX)) was an American enterprise. As in so many other areas, such as nuclear power, automobiles and technolgoy, it was decided that the US would shut down industries and farm the work out. The Chinese took the lead and became the world's supplier of over 97% of these crucial rare earth elements. Now it is the Americans coming, hat in hand, to petition Beijing a la Oliver Twist with a "Please… may I have some more?"
Consequently, it is an exciting time for people positioned to profit from the most promising stocks in the rare earth market. Demand is soaring skyward in the face of a serious shortage. An immediate global call for action and solution is required. It's already too late.
The prices of rare earths are reaching new heights. This swift ascension is all the more notable as China increasingly curtails the exports of these rare ores. Now Beijing has revised downward by 50% what they would allow for sale abroad, in the January to June 2011 period. China has also raised taxes and has cut down on illegal smugglers. It is a game of chess and China is forcing the West to make the next call. Will the West develop their rare earth assets? If the West doesn't, I expect the Chinese will make an acquisition. Already
Molycorp(MCP) is on the record that China may import certain heavy rare earths and may look for targets abroad. China would be making a strong case that even they are strapped for critical heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and neodymium.
Such regulation of this critical area continues to stoke profitable activity in this sector. It is well known that rare earths are essential to this vital modern industrial nation. For example, Japan, the world's third-largest economy, depends on rare earths, especially their top-notch automobile maker such as
Honda(HMC) and Toyota(TM). Lanthanum is used in their batteries, cerium is in the windshields, dysprosium and neodymium are used in the hybrid engines. These hybrid vehicles are large users of rare earths. Car companies are increasing the amount of rare earths used to raise the fuel efficiency of the newer designs.
Recently China claimed that they had to place quotas to protect their own industries and environment. China professes they had to exercise self-protection and were not being draconian. In essence, they advised other nations to expedite their own mining permitting processes so that new prospects could be brought to fast-track fruition.
These actions are not without repercussions. Several US senators threaten to bar Chinese miners from the United States unless they can increase rare earth supplies abroad. Importantly, the World Trade Organization is mobilizing to exert pressure on China to increase their exports through trade sanctions. There is also legislation pending to require the American military to stockpile rare earths. Concerted global action is required that goes beyond protectionism. Governments must accelerate the entire permitting and financing process. Such a combined effort is immediately called for.
Many of my rare earth recommendations have huge potential and should be followed as I expect many of these heavy rare assets to gain significantly. Last week, I sent out a report showing increased institutional interest in rare earth stocks as the crisis intensifies in Washington and Beijing. Recently rare earths moved from a rapidly rising market at the end of 2010 to a sideways consolidation so far in 2011. Some fear the US will retaliate against China by forcing the WTO to threaten trade sanctions. The profit-taking appears to be coming to an end and there is a lot of money flowing back into this space.
I sent out last week an update on the break of the 50 day moving average and falling wedge to the upside in Molycorp. Molycorp is the leading light rare earth developer in the Western Hemisphere and I believe that this enthusiasm will spread to the other rare earths as this sector looks ready to take off again. This appears to have similar characteristics as the breakout in December where the rare earth sector soared on export cuts from the Chinese. Right before the December breakout many of the rare earths showed similar technical characteristics with a break of the 50-day moving average followed by a reversal higher.
The fact remains that both the US and China realize that they need each other. The US has provided China with a large market and China has afforded the US cheap labor and cheap rare earth commodities, which is crucial to the latest and most innovative technology products.
Recently, China and the US had a special dinner announcing a myriad of deals across several industries. The theme of the deals was that China would help devalue the dollar to keep up the equity markets if the country could have access to North American resources and financial companies. China needs to hedge their large positions in the US dollar (
PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish(UUP)) and long-term US debt ( iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treas Bond(TLT)). China has opened an office in Toronto to look for acquisitions and is encouraging investments in commodities to supply the rapidly developing Chinese market. Molycorp recently announced that China may be looking for rare earth targets and may be an importer by 2015.
China announced yesterday that a rare earth tax will be imposed. This will significantly elevate production costs for companies operating in China. There is significant pressure being put on lawmakers in Washington on developing a domestic supply of rare earths.
The rare earth sector is experiencing an explosion of investment interest as China continues to place restrictions and raise taxes on Rare Earth Oxides (REO), causing soaring prices. Sojitz, a major Japanese trading giant, has already made a deal with Lynas and
Hitachi(HIT) and Sumimoto(SMFG) has signed agreements with Molycorp, the only near-term producer outside China. Japan and South Korea invested $1.8 billion in a Brazilian mining group a few weeks ago that is the largest producer of niobium. (Niobium is used to make a hard, lightweight steel that is increasingly being used to make vehicles that are lighter and more fuel-efficient.)
I believe as the crisis intensifies there may be more strategic acquisitions for assets whose projects will come online further down the road. Companies in North America with the crucial heavy rare earth assets should be followed. Many do not realize that even China may make bids in 2011 on heavy rare earth assets. Stay tuned.
Lasting through April 15, 100% of the donations made to The Ruby Peck Foundation for Children's Education will be channeled to the children of Japan as they attempt to find their footing following this natural disaster; and to kick off this drive, we'll pledge $5000 to get it started. Please do what you can , as it will add up, and thanks. 1 The information on this website solely reflects the analysis of or opinion about the performance of securities and financial markets by the writers whose articles appear on the site. The views expressed by the writers are not necessarily the views of Minyanville Media, Inc. or members of its management. Nothing contained on the website is intended to constitute a recommendation or advice addressed to an individual investor or category of investors to purchase, sell or hold any security, or to take any action with respect to the prospective movement of the securities markets or to solicit the purchase or sale of any security. Any investment decisions must be made by the reader either individually or in consultation with his or her investment professional. Minyanville writers and staff may trade or hold positions in securities that are discussed in articles appearing on the website. Writers of articles are required to disclose whether they have a position in any stock or fund discussed in an article, but are not permitted to disclose the size or direction of the position. Nothing on this website is intended to solicit business of any kind for a writer's business or fund. Minyanville management and staff as well as contributing writers will not respond to emails or other communications requesting investment advice. Copyright 2011 Minyanville Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Daily Recap Newsletter | 8,666 | 3,992 | 0.000251 |
warc | 201704 | Balochistan, a resource-rich region, divided between Pakistan and Iran and home to a strong nationalist movement, is also Pakistan’s least developed and insurgency-hit province. Since the 1970s, Balochistan has seen thousands of their people go missing, allegedly, abducted by Pakistan’s military or other associated actors, in order to subdue the nationalist movement.
The International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (IVBMP), an association for peaceful protest formed by some of the families of those missing, began in October 2013 a 2200 km march from Quetta to Islamabad, in an effort to draw attention to this humanitarian crisis. About 20 families of persons believed abducted and killed, mostly women, are taking part in the march that is expected to end in February 2014.
Some of the participants state that the march has received unfortunately very low coverage from media; some think that this could be due to fears of reprisal.
Although Pakistani authorities deny their involvement in abducting or killing Baloch, the Balochistan provincial government has recently highlighted the issue of Baloch missing persons. Early this month Dr. Abdul Malik, Chief Minister of Balochistan, admitted that his government had failed to solve the issue of disappearances and announced that the recovery of missing persons was top priority of his government.
The provincial government has given its own figures of those missing, but the IVBMP’s chairman said that the officials were deliberately showing less number of missing persons. In fact, the IVBMP, formed in 2009, would have coordinators in various districts in Balochistan, who record abductions and murders. According to the IVBMP numbers, up to 18,000 Baloch are currently unaccounted for; other sources claim that around 6,000 persons have gone missing after being arrested.
Although the abductions started in the 1970s, things would have gotten worse after 2001 with a stronger policy against Baloch activists by the authorities of Pakistan. Uniformed men, or in civil clothing, are reported by witnesses to pick up boys from colleges and schools. Doctors, thinkers, lawyers, professors, and especially journalists have been reportedly the target of abductions and often torture.
For more information: http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/balochistans-missing-persons/ | 2,346 | 1,189 | 0.000849 |
warc | 201704 | In short, the GAO managed to get several fake products certified under the EnergyStar program (including a space heater with a feather duster taped to it) and register several fake companies as EnergyStar partners — one was called “Tropical Thunder Appliance.” (It’s nice to know our government investigators have a sense of humor.)
In response to the investigation, EnergyStar said it would institute a “more rigorous screening process” that actually, you know, tests the products.
So, should we start eschewing EnergyStar appliances and just buy whatever suits our fancy?
In my opinion, no. While the GAO probe is alarming, an EnergyStar rating is better than no rating at all. The rating does include standards and guidelines for energy efficiency and — perhaps I’m being naive here — my guess is most manufacturers actually adhere to the guidelines.
The bottom line is: while an EnergyStar rating can no longer guarantee energy efficiency (and that is a shame), not having the rating does guarantee an inefficient product.
To me, the more important thing to know about the EnergyStar label is that it means different things for different types of the same appliance:
For instance, this side-by-side refrigerator is EnergyStar rated, with an estimated yearly electricity use of 578 kilowatts. While this, more basic refrigerator, is notEnergyStar rated, yet only uses 480 kilowatts per year.
This same phenomenon holds true across all appliance and electronics. An EnergyStar-rated plasma screen TV is actually less efficient than an unrated LCD TV, and an EnergyStar-rated desktop computer is less efficient than an unrated laptop, etc.
If the government really wanted to fix the EnergyStar label, it would apply a single standard across an entire appliance sector and use a bronze, silver, gold, platinum, titanium, kryptonite-type rating system to identify the most efficient types of appliances. So, the side-by-side fridge could still be EnergyStar rated, but at a “bronze” level and a more efficient standard fridge could qualify for the higher “gold” standard.
But hey, that’s just one man’s opinion. I couldn’t be as smart as the federal government, right?
—
Text by Dave Connell , Cool Green Science Blog | 2,314 | 1,131 | 0.000923 |
warc | 201704 | Arctic sea ice: Patrick Kelley | USGS
This week the extent of Arctic sea ice dipped below the extent for 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). As you may remember, the 2007 season holds the record for lowest Arctic sea-ice extent in recorded history.
National Snow and Ice Data Center
Walt Meier at NSIDC tells me the melt is accelerating, notably in the Bering Sea, where higher than normal winter ice hung around two to four weeks longer than average. But it's thawing fast now.
Arctic Ocean, 14 June 2012, sea ice opening at Beaufort and Laptev seas: NASA
The Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and Canada and the Laptev Sea north of Siberia are also melting quickly. "We don't normally see ice opening so fast in those areas," says Meier. "This is an indication that the ice there is pretty thin."
As you can see from the satellite mosaic of the Arctic for today, 14 June (above), the rapidly melting Laptev Sea lies at the downstream end of the mighty Lena River in Siberia. The Beaufort Sea lies at the downstream end of Canada's mightiest river, the MacKenzie River (delta not visible)—where May temperatures rose well above the 20th-century average (see last image, below).
Arctic sea ice thickness derived from the 2012 Operation IceBridge between 14 March and 02 April 2012: S. Farrell and N. Kurtz, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.Ice thickness data (above) show the Beaufort's sea ice to be thin—3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters). That's the signature of first-year ice. Which means it will be prone to melting completely this summer. Sorry, polar bears, bearded seals, ringed seals, and walruses.
Global temperature anomalies, May 2012: NOAA
Overlay the current sea ice melt map onto this map of May 2012 temperature anomalies. You can see how warm it was in the Beaufort Sea (upper left). The Laptev Sea / Lena River region is not visible in this view.
To put things in a bigger perspective, the global temperature average in May 2012 was the second warmest in history. Records date back to 1880.
May 2012 also marks the
36th consecutive May and the 327th consecutive month—that's more than 27 years—with a global temperature above the 20th century average, reports NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory. | 2,281 | 1,171 | 0.000868 |
warc | 201704 | Portland, Maine found itself in the national spotlight on the morning of October 17. The
Good Morning America picked up the story, with anchor Diane Sawyer first professing shock at the young ages involved, but then echoing the proponents' justification: Children “are caught in the changing worlds of early puberty and sexual messages everywhere.”
That's the line that rings in the ear. ABC is addressing a social problem: how to deal with middle-schoolers wanting to have sex because they're inundated with sexual messages in ads, in music videos, with sexual themes endlessly discussed and dramatized on television? Sawyer invited on talk show host Glenn Beck and “sexologist” Logan Levkoff (promoted by fans as the “Get It On Guru”) to debate it. Sawyer asked Levkoff “Would you draw the line anywhere? What if it were grade school?” Amazingly, she replied: “I don't necessarily draw the line, because we're in a world where we get so many sexual messages.”
Levkoff lives in a parallel universe. We are talking about little boys and little girls, 11 years old.
The lesson from the anything-goes crowd is so illogical it borders on the obscene. In order to “protect the youth” from unsavory sexual messages, we should provide them with all the technology so they can have “safe sex” – even at age 11. But who is responsible for this bombardment of sexual messaging in our culture that's fueling this fire? ABC and all the other networks, along with many of their advertisers, need look no further than the mirror. More than any other element in our society, it is they who are responsible for the deluge, primarily – thought not exclusively – through their entertainment products.
It's bad enough that they refuse to take any responsibility for their own sleazy product. But what's unconscionable is that TV dramatists are now portraying those who want to keep children free and safe from premature sexual activity as mentally disturbed, even as a social menace.
The swaggering shysters of ABC's
Boston Legal went to court on October 9 on behalf of a high-school girl who contracted the HIV virus from “unprotected” sex with a boy. The girl in this script sued not the infecting boy, not the boy's parents – but the high school which taught abstinence-only sex education.
The school's crime was its failure to advance the righteousness of the Almighty Condom, which the
Boston Legal lawyer ridiculously claimed was “arguably, the single most important invention of the past 2,000 years.” Resistance to pop culture and peer pressure is futile, he argued. “They're simply going to do it! We all do it. Birds do it, bees do it, educated fleas do it. One time unprotected sex can kill you. A condom can save you.” With a flourish, the lawyer concluded his sermon: “We should be in criminal court this very moment trying this obscenely duplicitous school for conspiracy to commit murder.”
ABC only suggested murder as a rhetorical device. CBS took it to the next level. On its drama
Cold Case, abstinence advocates are presented as killers. In the September 30 episode, detectives were investigating a 1998 murder, only to discover the devoutly Christian teens in the “Hearts Wait” abstinence club turned out to be sexually active hypocrites who murdered one of their own members to keep their sins secret. When the victim tried to convince her club mates that there teenage lust was understandable, they responded by denouncing her as “dirty,” a “whore,” a “slut,” and the B-word before stoning her to death, while citing the Old Testament. Their leader, a youth minister, had one student confess her teenage lust for him with her back turned, so he could pleasure himself as she spoke.
The idea that Christian teenagers stone people to death could only come from a fevered brain in Tinseltown. In terms of cultural politics, this is simply mudslinging – a vile smear that requires no troublesome facts as it points an accusatory finger.
The get-it-on gurus who push “protection” are really encouraging sex between children. Like
Meanwhile, the
L. Brent Bozell III is President of the | 4,285 | 2,186 | 0.00048 |
warc | 201704 | Multifamily building owners and managers aren't just spending money on technology to make their buildings more appealing for renters. They're also making significant investments in automation to improve efficiency of maintaining and operating these properties.
Contrast these developments with 10 years ago, when every employee needed to work from a company location, phone service featured voice mail or telephone answering machines at best, and apartment pricing decisions were made on a uniform basis, without factoring in current market trends, availability levels or other variables.
Ambling Management Co. of Atlanta is in the process of deploying an increasingly popular technology called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) that can be used to carry voice calls over the same network that's used to transmit data. It's commonly touted as a cost-saving technology, and Ambling's experience supports that notion.
Many Ambling home-office employees have traditionally had both high-speed Internet access and separate phone lines. With the introduction of VOIP, their voice and data transmissions will both go over the high-speed Internet connection.
“They'll plug into that network and [there will] be another device on the network to make voice and fax calls,” says Ken Miller, Ambling's CIO. Through factors including the elimination of dedicated voice lines, Ambling will achieve a payback on its VOIP system in 19 months, Miller adds.
At Denver-based Archstone-Smith, the company has invested in inventory management software that it uses to scientifically price apartments in real time, based on a variety of factors. That's a significant improvement over having community managers make manual pricing decisions on a site-wide basis. “Because of this product, we can offer a variety of lease terms from two to 12 months, each with a unique price,” says Heather Campbell, assistant vice president, corporate communications. The system has helped Archstone-Smith maintain occupancy rates at 95 percent or so during the economic downturn.
The system positively impacts revenue and profitability. “We also like the customer aspect,” Campbell says. “It provides them with a level of flexibility that consistently has not been present in the apartment industry.” | 2,314 | 1,200 | 0.000851 |
warc | 201704 | Blue Mountain Coffee and Organo Gold
by Shereeda Cespedes
(Jamaica)
Royal Brewed - Blue Mountain Coffee
The Partnership
Blue Mountain Coffee now infused with Ganoderma.
Blue Mountain has partnered with Organo Gold and thus introducing Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee with Ganoderma. Premium Gourmet Royal Brewed Coffee.
It’s the same great tasting Blue mountain coffee, now infused with one of nature’s most powerful antioxidants, the most celebrated of all Chinese herbs and one of the most tested product on earth. 100% Organic Ganoderma Luciduim.
By infusing our very own gourmet coffee with the power of the Ganoderma Lucidum herb, Organo Gold has scientifically developed a healthier Blue Mountain Coffee that not only tastes great but makes people feel great.
This partnership has not only created a healthier Blue Mountain coffee but also a business opportunity for Jamaicans and individuals worldwide who are desirous of creating their own financial freedom and capitalizing on the financial benefits there to be derived.
The Miracle of Ganoderma
Once it was so rare, so hard to find and therefore so expensive, that only kings and emperors could afford it. The places where it could be found were closely guarded secrets, and stumbling acrossone was ancient equivalent of winning the lottery.
Today, virtually abyone can enjoy its benefits as they sip their Organo Gold coffee. We’re reffering of course to Ganoderma Lucidum, the “King of Herbs”.
Known as red reishi in Japan and lingzhi in China, Ganoderma is species of mushroom with a shiny red skin. In the wild, Ganoderma grows at the base3 and stumps of deciduous trees especially maple. Out of 10,000 such trees, only two or three will have a Ganoderma growth.
For Centuries, attempts were made to cultivate Ganoderma. But it wasn’t until 1071 that researchers at Kyoto University made the breakthrough
discovery that led to commercial cultivation. For centuries, Asian herbal doctors have documented the health benefits of Ganoderma.
Ancient’s texts, which are still the foundation of herbal medicine, identified Ganoderma as the most powerful of herbs and class it as “superior” meaning that it can be safely consumed in large quantities. Volumes of anecdotal evidence have been gathered regarding the remarkable range of benefits attributed to Ganoderma.
What gives Ganoderma its remarkable properties? Analysis reveals that the mushrooms are composed of complex carbohydrates called polysaccharides, protein and amino acids. Ganoderma Lucidum also produces a specific group of triterpenoids, called ganoderic acids. A significant molecular weight polysaccharides and free radicals antioxidants are found in ganoderma extracts.
As word about Ganoderma’s health benefits has spread around the world, so has demand for it grown. As demands has grown, so has tendency among some producers to “cheat” the growing process, to produce more Ganoderma but of less quality.
That is NOT the case with Ganoderma producers who have partnered with Organo Gold.
To best of our knowledge, Organo Gold is ONLY company in the world that uses nothing but 100% Certified Organic Ganoderma. While other producers grow it in plastic bags, with artificial methods, our Ganoderma is grown on logs and in the right environment, high in Wuyi Mountains in China, on a site surrounded by virgin rain forrest that creates a pollution-free environment ideal for cultivation.
Others may talk of the wonders of “Red Reishi”, but only Organo Gold distributors can deliver the benefits of Ganoderma in its purest, most potent form.
To learn more of the Business Opportunity. Please call or Shereeda Cespedes at 876-830-9153/og_healthycoffee@yahoo.com
Submit Your Own Business here
or See other Jamaican businesses
. | 3,846 | 1,853 | 0.000554 |
warc | 201704 | Canseco: I'll stand my ground on deficit Published 9:14 pm, Thursday, November 15, 2012
WASHINGTON — Outgoing Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco says he will oppose any attempt to raise taxes to head off the looming fiscal cliff despite urgings by GOP leaders to compromise.
“I believe I was sent here to do a job, and I'm still doing it despite the fact that I'm the lame duck,” Canseco, R-San Antonio, said in his first interview since his election defeat last week.
Canseco promises to stand against a White House proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy, part of the budget battle that has been mired in partisan gridlock.
“The government takes too much money,” Canseco said, adding that Congress and the administration must abandon the notion that “we need to fund everything in creation.”
“It's not going to get things going in the right way,” Canseco said.
Even though he has only six weeks left in office after losing to Alpine Democrat Pete Gallego, Canseco said he would continue to vote for conservative fiscal policies favored by the tea party and would not be swayed to abandon his beliefs.
President Barack Obama has proposed extending tax cuts for the middle class, but ending the benefit for households earning more than $250,000 per year.
Canseco argued that not extending the tax cut for the wealthiest would cripple families who own small businesses in San Antonio, like restaurants and other storefronts that provide services.
“What you are going to be doing is freezing the ability to grow the economy,” Canseco said.
Opposition by House Republicans to end the tax cut for the wealthy has been met with alternative proposals that include the closing of loopholes in the tax code on investment dividends and mortgage interest.
Failure to reach an agreement could push the country over a “fiscal cliff,” prompting sequester — or across-the-board cuts — to military and domestic programs.
Texas could lose 159,000 military and defense contracting jobs, program cuts due to a $1.4 billion budget reduction to NASA and scaled-down border and immigration enforcement, according to the Office of Management and Budget and private studies.
Rep. Lamar Smith, a House Republican leader, said that instead of focusing on the tax rate, negotiations should center on closing special-interest loopholes and deductions.
“And instead of making massive cuts to defense spending, we should reform the entitlement programs that are the primary drivers of our debt crisis,” said Smith, R-San Antonio.
Any deal that can pass the House would have to include the swing vote of “Blue Dog” fiscal conservative Democrats.
The Blue Dog Coalition, consisting of about two dozen Democratic lawmakers, previously voted with Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels.
One Blue Dog member, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he would vote to eliminate a tax cut extension for incomes of more than $250,000 — but only if it is part of a larger plan that includes cuts in spending and other measures to raise revenue.
Standing alone, Cuellar said he could not vote to eliminate the tax cut for the wealthy. “It has to be part of a grand plan, a grand deal,” he said.
“The military has to have cuts, too,” Cuellar said. “Everybody has to have a little skin in the game.”
A week after losing re-election, Canseco said he would not budge from long-held beliefs and blamed Obama's coattails, as well as a Republican-led redistricting, not a rejection of his conservative ideals, for Gallego's victory.
He said redistricting, which was intended to shore up support for Canseco, may have instead removed potential voters in south San Antonio where he is better known than Gallego, despite the fact that the precincts are heavily Democrat.
“I lost a hunk of south San Antonio, and I did pick up a lot of people in El Paso who didn't know me from Adam,” Canseco said.
The Laredo native still claims there is evidence of voter fraud, but he declined to offer up specifics, saying generally that things are done differently on the border “and leave it at that.” | 4,240 | 2,072 | 0.000505 |
warc | 201704 | Crystal Bowersox
American Idol contestant Crystal Bowersox has focused attention once again on the ancient art of locking, perhaps causing many Americans to look at the hairstyle with fresh eyes.
“I’ve had these for about four and a half years now,” Bowersox told AccessHollywood.com in March. “I do wash my hair— just so everyone knows. There’s a lot of myths out there about dreadlocks, but they’re very clean and well-kept.”
A story about Bowersox’s hair on Stylelist.com attracted comments ranging from compliments (”they fit her perfectly”) to critical (”disgusting and distracting,” “horrible” and “[she] looks like a pothead”). One poster summed up voter expectations this way: “You keep those dreadlocks and be happy, but you won’t win ‘American Idol’ with that look—do you really think [fourth season winner] Carrie Underwood would have won if she looked like Crystal?”
With the renewed attention on locs, we thought it was a good time to present a primer on this hairstyle.
The Roots of Locs
Not long ago the main places you would see locs (sometimes called dread locks) was in Africa or the Caribbean, particular Jamaica. For the Rastafarians of Jamaica, the Shaivas (devotees to Shiva) and Vaishnavas (devotees to Vishnu) of India and numerous clans in Africa including the Turkana, Massai, Samburu of Kenya, Himba of Namibia, Fulani of Senegal and the Baye Fall (Black Muslims) locked hair is not a hairstyle, it is a reflection of a way of life, grounded by culture, tradition and most of all spirituality. Just as many different cultures have hair locking traditions so too does this distinctive way of wearing the hair have diverse names including Natty Dreads (Rastafarians); Ndiagne (strong hair) and Jatta (gurus of India).
Many people of Jamaican and African heritage have migrated and now live on the East Coast in and around New York City. It is in New York that locked hair took a hold on popular culture, transcending its traditional connection to spirituality and faith to become a cultural statement with all people. Acclaimed author Alice Walker has worn locs for many years and so have other artists including Bob Marley and Whoopi Goldberg.
In the beautifully illustrated book "Dreads," Francesco Mastalia and Alfonse Pagano (Artisan: NY; 1999) interviewed people from around the world about why their hair is worn in what they call 'dread locks.' (Today, most people reject the combination of terms 'dread' 'lock' because it has negative connotations, particularly because of the word dread, which evokes fear.) As might be expected there was a wide range of reasons, from strong faith-based cultural tradition, to easy grooming, attraction to the style and everything in between.
Decisions, Decisions
Since this web site is devoted to those with naturally curly hair regardless of ethnicity or cultural orientation, this article is focused on care and the spiritual cultivation of locs along with some of the issues that arise from taking on a hairstyle with such a rich and sometimes controversial history.
There are various schools of thought within the curly topped community. Some folk long for straight hair and lean towards the tools, chemicals and techniques that will give the desired affect. Others absolutely adore their curly locks and wouldn't have their hair any other way. These folks seek out products and techniques that will accentuate their curls or leave their hair to do what it will. Still others like their naturally curly hair but wish for an easier grooming regimen. For those individuals looking for relatively easy grooming and a natural look that is a throw back to Africa or seeking connection to earth-based spiritual wisdom from around the world, locs are an ideal choice.
Many people, including myself, enjoy naturally curly hair but find a variety of challenges with maintenance of curly locks. Issues include the expense of products that promise to manage, enhance or accentuate curly hair but often fall short. Curly hair, particularly of the densely coiled nature of African-descended people, is very resistant to change. While there are many excellent products on the market, many of which are discussed on this website, African curls tend to have a mind of their own. Our curls naturally coil around each another, producing tangles. We don't have a hold on this phenomena because people of various ethnicities have tightly curled or even wiry hair.
Many of us spend hours and indeed years as well as thousands of dollars to manage or prevent tangles. If we keep our hair short it is lovely and generally manageable. This is an ideal situation for tightly curled hair. The tangles of shorter hair are easier to manage but they can become quite a bit more challenging with longer hair. The battle of the tangles, or as we typically call them, naps, leads to breakage. Long nappy hair that is tightly curled often becomes uneven, damaged and ultimately frustrating. For individuals with tightly curled hair that tends to tangle, snarl or nap up, locs are an ideal choice, particularly if you also desire longer hair.
Another type of person (and some of these people have straight hair) admire the look of locs and its strong cultural ties to traditions India, Africa and the Caribbean. I mention the straight-haired folks because quite an industry has developed around giving folks with straighter hair locs. According to interviews featured in "Dreads," some Japanese people who have incredibly straight hair spend thousand of dollars and many hours, even subjecting their hair to power tools, to quickly achieve locked hairs. I have also spotted a plethora of websites online dispensing advice for transforming straight hair into locs. Many of these methods are dubious and may include a wide array of junky materials including toothpaste, rubber bands, beeswax, thick hair pomades and various types of glue. In "Dreads" there are all types of locs including a striking blond woman from New Zealand and a glamorous woman who appears to be bi-racial or of African descent, with waves close to her scalp that cascade down her back in zigzagging fall of locs. There is another man who is fair-haired and fair-skinned, who describes himself as being a Viennese Jew, who found that his hair locked naturally. He is featured sporting long, mature locks in the photo montage. Certain groups of Indians devoted to the goddess Ganga as manifested by the Ganges River have naturally straight hair. Their cultural tradition has included the cultivation of locs and this has been their tradition for thousands of years. While the majority of those who wear locs have thick, tightly coiled hair, it is certainly feasible and indeed traditional for people with various hair types to enjoy locks without resorting to extremes.
One thing for everyone to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to lock the hair is that once locs are mature (about two years old), the hair stays locked. With few exceptions, the hair has to be cut to change it although it can be color treated for a cosmetic change or curled for variety .
Grooming with Spirit, Purpose and Patience
Patience is another issue that arises even for those with ideal hair for locs, which would be hair that is tightly curled without any chemical straighteners. For these individuals locs can take at least six months to become permanent for those with looser curls or wavy hair it could take two years. If you can be mindful and focus on the end result this time will be a part of a larger metamorphosis, a change within that allows change to occur at its own rate. For more on that type of personal transformation, I recommend the books by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, especially, "The Miracle of Mindfulness" (Beacon Books, MA; 1999) or the ancient text "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tsu (Vintage, NY; 1989). Some people will find yoga and meditation especially helpful as well because it encourages a focus within rather than on outward appearance. There are several African-American women writers who combine African wisdom with health and spiritual awareness that would be useful in this journey, they include "Heal Thyself for Health and Longevity" and "Sacred Woman" by Queen Afua; "Jambalaya: the Natural Women's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals" by Leisah Teish and my own magical guide that will be released this June (see bio).
Social and Psychological Implications
The appearance of locked hair evokes a wide variety of responses. Some people find locs suggestive of the counter-culture or to be radically different from their personal orientation. If these people exert control over your life perhaps your parents, administrators, advisors or a boss at work, you will need to enter a meaningful conversation during your transformation. Sometimes there are so many issues that go much deeper than hair that a conversation may have been long overdue. Talking can help strengthen and develop stronger ties. You will need to weigh your priorities and if it turns out that your priority is the locked hair and those around you strongly reject the idea, you will need to evaluate how to proceed. For some people the idea of confrontation is so overwhelming that they will decide not to loc their hair to avoid it. Still others will let their hair loc knowing that there may be negative consequences. This is a personal choice and it should be considered carefully, particularly if definite consequences of a negative type are anticipated. On the one hand, it would seem foolish to loc the hair knowing that it will also lead to unemployment or some other form of tangible rejection. If however the urge is so strong perhaps more elements of your life than just your hair needs to be changed dramatically, for example seeking employment elsewhere where the hair wouldn't be problematic, finding alternative sources of employment or developing new relationship that fit into your lifestyle.
The Nitty-Gritty Essential Tools: A rat-tailed comb to part the hair and roll the hair A light, clear shampoo such as Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo or a salon brand containing essential oils like lavender or chamomile A natural conditioner, either homemade or from a manufacturer that promotes natural essential oils, for example Aveda™ or African Root Stimulator™ A water-based gel, (that obviously does not contain heavy waxes or oils); Try Natural Root Stimulator Lock and Twisting Gel; or create your own, simply use pure aloe vera gel, applied in dime-sized portions. Patience, Patience, Patience — remember it's not the destiny, even with locs, but the journey itself that can lead to personal transformation
Once you decide to loc your hair you will, of course, need more than anything to be patient. I started my locs; or rather they started themselves, approximately a year ago. They are still not all the way locked because my curls are loose. I twist them regularly but not fanatically and I see a loctian when possible. A good loctian is indispensable especially early on in the process when the locs are being established. She will clean your scalp well, condition your hair, re-part your hair and carefully twist or roll the hair. Having a skilled loctian is a great way of keeping a very neat look.
One of the most highly recommended technical books for those trying to establish locs is "Plaited Glory: For Colored Girls Who've Considered Braids, Locks and Twists" by Lonnice Brittenum Bonner (Three Rivers Press, NY; 1996). In another popular book, "No More Lye: The African American Woman's Guide to Natural Haircare," Tulani Kinard gives practical advice for beginning locs naturally. Kinard advises readers to part the hair evenly in small pieces of about ½" and to either palm roll, twist or braid each segment tightly. These twists or braids should be left alone for at least one month. After this time period the hair can be washed, with an emphasis on cleansing the scalp, rather than the hair itself. Some people cleanse their scalp with natural herbs like a witch hazel tincture in between shampoos to feel fresher. After about one month the hair is shampooed re-rolled or twisted, held down with hair clips and dried under a hair dryer or naturally in sunlight. This is repeated for many months until the hair is permanently locked. According to Kinard the ideal method is for a hollow core to form at the center of each loc and for the hair to be encouraged to curl around this core. This allows light and airy locs, that move freely and have a natural sheen that are also easy to clean. The problem with the quick and easy method, particularly those promoted for use on straighter hair is that the hair gets irreparably dirty and by using grease or wax the locs actually become dirt magnets. Moreover there is not a natural, light and airy hollow core to the hair, it is simply clumped together and can be quite unattractive.
I am a do-it-yourself type. I had been wearing two-stranded twists for about three years and when they started to lock up I embraced the possibility of physical transformation. Eventually, I did seek out the expertise of several loctians and I was grateful to have some of the messy areas sorted out. You can find a loctian in most major cities and typically they advertise as Natural Haircare Salons. There are numerous products available to help manage your locs though it is a personal choice, just like the decision whether or not to consult a loctian. Generally, less is more with locs. My loctian who is an Ibo person from Nigeria, even warns against naturally oily ingredients like shea butter or lanolin for loc maintenance because they weigh down the locs and attract dirt.
About the Author: Stephanie Rose Bird (BFA, MFA) is an herbalist and aromatherapist based in the Chicago area. She is also the author of several books including “Big Book of Soul: the Ultimate Guide to the African American Spirit” and “A Healing Grove: African Tree Remedies and Rituals for Body and Spirit”. | 14,175 | 6,496 | 0.000156 |
warc | 201704 | Insulation Impossible: Fiscal Spillovers in a Monetary Union
This paper studies fiscal spillovers in a monetary union. The focus of the analysis is on the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the central monetary authority. When capital markets are integrated, the fiscal policy of one country will influence equilibrium wages and interest rates. Thus there are fiscal spillovers within a federation. The magnitude and direction of these spillovers, in particular the presence of a crowding out effect, can be influenced by the choice of monetary policy rules. We find that there does not exist a monetary policy rule which completely insulates agents in one region from fiscal policy in another. Some familiar policy rules, such as pegging an interest rate, can provide partial insulation.
This paper was revised on December 5, 2011
Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w15176
Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded these: | 978 | 546 | 0.001843 |
warc | 201704 | On September 4, 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 The legislation required the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to develop a new national data collection on the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault within correctional facilities. The final rule was published in the federal register on June 20, 2012, and became effective on August 20, 2012.
The DOCR has implemented a written policy mandating zero tolerance toward all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment and outlining the agency’s approach to preventing, detecting, and responding to such conduct. The standard that governs external audits provides that the first audit cycle begins on August 20, 2013, and, to be in compliance, that jurisdictions must have at least one third of their facilities audited within the subsequent 12-month period ending August 20, 2014. The DOCR is committed to PREA compliance while providing a sexually safe environment for all adults and juveniles in our care and custody. The results of these audits will be posted on this website.
The DOCR will accept third party reports of sexual abuse and sexual harassment on behalf of inmates and juveniles within DOCR facilities. The contact information for third-party reporting can be found on the links below.
Every reported incident of sexual harassment or sexuial abuse will be investigated and documented. All PREA incidents will be documented in the following manner. 1) Substantiated; 2) Unsubstantiated; or 3) Unfounded and posted on the DOCR website. The results are listed on the links below.
North Dakota Division of Adult Services North Dakota Division of Juvenile Services North Dakota DOCR PREA Policy | 1,722 | 878 | 0.001146 |
warc | 201704 | Cotton has long been a commercial success story for Texas. It formed the western border of the cotton belt prior to World War I and today is the leading producer of cotton in the United States. It's no wonder that the Texas Legislature chose to honor cotton as the official fiber and fabric of the state. What's remarkable is that it wasn't done until 1997.
Though, if we return to 1901 when the bluebonnet was adopted as the official flower of the State of Texas, we find that a certain Texas legislator attempted the feat.
The open cotton boll was promoted by Legislator Phil Clement of Mills, Texas. Cotton was king in Texas in 1901 and he referred to his nomination as the "white rose of commerce." Though cotton was big business, the cotton boll as state flower didn't receive big support in the Legislature.
Cotton finally did win a place among the numerous official state symbols of Texas, though not as the state flower. Cotton became the official fabric and fiber of the State of Texas when Governor George W. Bush signed House Concurrent Resolution No. 228 on June 18. 1997.
Texas is the first, and only, state to recognize an official fiber and fabric. It will be interesting to see if any other state will decide to compete with the Lonestar State in this endeavor.
H.C.R No. 228
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Whereas, The Lone Star State is world renowned for the abundance, variety, and excellence of its agricultural output, and throughout the state's history cotton has been a mainstay of the Texas economy and culture; and
Whereas, The state's largest cash crop, cotton is planted on more acres than any other agricultural product in Texas, and the preeminence of the United States in world cotton production is due largely to the quantity produced within the state's borders; the magnitude of this contribution is reflected in the fact that, if Texas were an independent country, it would rank sixth among the world's cotton producers; and
Whereas, Through the years, cotton had become closely identified with Texas in the popular mind; countless works of art, music, literature, and history have reaffirmed the importance of cotton to the development of the state, and the tradition of Texas producing the nation's first bale of cotton each year aptly symbolizes this deep connection; and
Whereas, Cotton is deservedly one of the worlds most popular fabrics, combining durability, versatility, and remarkable comfort; particularly well suited to the Lone Star State's unique range of climatic conditions, cotton clothing is a typically Texan tradition, and its many virtues underscore the fiber's importance to the state; and
Whereas, Cotton is universally acknowledged as an essential element of the Lone Star State's history and heritage, and it is indeed fitting that this close relationship be recognized at this time; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the 75th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby designate cotton the Official State Fiber and Fabric of Texas.
In 2009, Governor Rick Perry signed House Concurrent Resolution No. 71 naming the Burton Cotton Gin & Museum the official cotton gin museum of the State of Texas.
Because cotton was adopted as the official state fiber and fabric by concurrent resolution, it is not listed in the Texas Statutes.
Only a small number of Texas' myriad symbols have been actually adopted by an act of the legislature and written into the Texas Statutes.
"House Concurrent Resolution No. 228." The Texas Legislature Online. The State of Texas, 2011. Web. 16 Nov 2011. <http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/billsearch/BillDetails.cfm?legSession=75-0&billTypeDetail=HCR&billnumberDetail=228>.
"Texas State Flower." Netstate.com. Netstate.com, September 28, 2007. Web. 16 Nov 2011. <http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/flowers/tx_bluebonnet.htm>. "Crops: Cotton (Ranked by 2004 cash receipts)." StuffAboutStates.com. StuffAboutStates.com, January 5, 2011. Web. 16 Nov 2011. <http://www.stuffaboutstates.com/agriculture/crops/cotton.htm>. Shearer, Benjamin F. and Barbara S. State Names, Seals, Flags and Symbols: A Historical Guide Third Edition, Revised and Expanded. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 3 Sub edition, 2001.
Cotton Culture: The Texas State Historical Association: The Texas Handbook Online.
Fun Facts: Texas A&M University Cotton Program.
World of Cotton: Article from the website of the National Cotton Council of America.
How Cotton Fabric is Made: How Products Are Made explains and details the manufacturing process of cotton. The site provides step by step descriptions of the assembly and the manufacturing process (complemented with illustrations and diagrams).
Texas Organic Cotton Cooperative: Official website.
The Texas Cotton Association: Official website.
More symbols & emblems: Complete list of official Texas state symbols.
Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber, by Stephen Yafa. 416 pages. Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 27, 2006) In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky's Cod and Salt, this endlessly revealing book reminds us that the fiber we think of as ordinary is the world's most powerful cash crop, and that it has shaped the destiny of nations. Ranging from its domestication 5,500 years ago to its influence in creating Calvin Klein's empire and the Gap, Stephen Yafa's Cotton gives us an intimate look at the plant that fooled Columbus into thinking he'd reached India, that helped start the Industrial Revolution as well as the American Civil War, and that made at least one bug—the boll weevil—world famous. A sweeping chronicle of ingenuity, greed, conflict, and opportunism, Cotton offers "a barrage of fascinating information" (Los Angeles Times).
Cotton, by Beverly Lemire. 192 pages. Publisher: Berg Publishers (April 15, 2011) This book explores the fascinating history and present-day practices associated with cotton. This is a story of commercial and cultural enterprise, of the ties and tensions between East and West, of technological and industrial revolution, social modernization, colonialism and slavery. Cotton's history mirrors profound global transformations. And cotton remains one of the most significant mass commodities today.
Cotton's track record on labor conditions in factories and plantations has tarnished its history and reputation, even as cotton clothes became the hallmark of modern industrialized society. Cotton expressed popular fashions and popular politics in dynamic ways. Yet cottons also take other cultural forms and are part of vibrant craft traditions in many parts of the world. This book explores the history, impact and ongoing life of this hugely influential textile. | 6,682 | 3,160 | 0.000319 |
warc | 201704 | Training table to bargaining table? Former Northwestern University quarterback Kain Colter, who advocates union representation for college athletes, has completed a Hail Mary.
National Labor Relations Board regional director Peter Sung shook up the sports world last week with a stunning decision that concluded college athletes are employees of the institutions where they play.
The decision, which sparked wide comment and debate, will be a surefire conversation starter for a few weeks. Then it will disappear into the ether, which is another way of describing the legal bureaucracy — first the NLRB itself and then the federal courts — where appeals will be pursued ad nauseum.
When a final resolution will be determined and what the consequences will be are impossible to predict.
But there's no doubt that director Sung's ruling has roiled the status quo, giving a significant boost to the common-sense notion that college athletes participating in sports that draw hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue deserve more than they currently receive.
The mind positively reels in the aftermath of a decision that raises far more questions than it answers.
In this specific case, the NLRB has made a very preliminary decision that Northwestern University football players are employees of their academic institution by virtue of the significant time commitment they devote to their jobs. As a result, the NLRB ruled that Northwestern gridders have the legal right to hold an election to determine if they wish to be represented in negotiations with management by a union.
If the ruling is sustained, does it also mean that male and female athletes in non-revenue sports — the programs supported by men's football and men's basketball — also are entitled to union representation? Will the benefits negotiated vary from school to school based on the negotiating prowess of individual team's negotiators. Will Harvard — a private school with an eye-popping endowment — suddenly be able to compete with Alabama based on the benefits it can afford to confer?
The questions range from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the answers are elusive. People will just have to wait to see how it plays out.
But one thing's for certain — the times are changing. So it would behoove the NCAA and big-time college sports conferences and institutions to try to get ahead of the curve by revising their Neanderthal approach toward athletic benefits.
If coaches, administrators, academic institutions and television networks can profit from the big business of college athletics, there's no compelling reason the stars of the show — the athletes who make it happen — should not.
It's long been obnoxious to watch college athletes — some of whom come from impoverished backgrounds — get by on little when others higher up the food chain thrive. Academic scholarships, generous though they may be, do not cover the costs of a college education. What's wrong with a generous stipend, more complete health insurance benefits and expanded academic opportunities for those who put their bodies on the line for a school's bank account?
Some may cling to the antiquated notion of amateur athletics. But the rancid realities of some college sports programs should long ago have slayed that myth.
It's not 1920 any more. It wasn't even 1920 when it was 1920 for some institutions determined to find a way to win.
It's certainly not clear that college athletes are employees in the traditional sense of the word. The NLRB's initial finding to the contrary is nothing less than revolutionary and is, at best, on shaky legal ground. But athletes in major college sports deserve a better deal than they're getting now. If the NLRB ruling provides an incentive to reach that goal, it'll be all to the good. | 3,848 | 1,855 | 0.000549 |
warc | 201704 | Learner drivers can try and make the most out of their driving lessons in Singapore. The average drivers simply turn up for driving lessons, learn, and then switch off after the lessons. Their learning process only takes place during the driving lessons. There are more things that can be done to value add to the driving lessons.
For instance, one can watch driving tutorial videos during their leisure time via the internet on sources such as YouTube. With that additional knowledge, they can test out new things learned from the videos during their actual lessons. This will speed up their learning curve. In addition, if they see driving techniques which they have practiced, their driving knowledge and skills will be reinforced. If they see anything that they do not understand, they can ask their driving instructors during the lessons for clarifications. Again, this will speed up their learning curve.
Another good thing to do is to ask your driving instructor for feedback after every lesson. He should be able to tell you the things that you did well during the lessons. Moreover, he should be able to tell you your strengths and weaknesses, and how to go about improving your weaknesses.
For private learner drivers, you can also give feedback about your instructor to the driving match up agencies like Sglearntodrive – http://sglearntodrive.com. These driving match up agencies will routinely review the performances of the private driving instructors. Their mission is to provide the market with good quality private driving instructor. Though this may not necessarily benefit the learner driver providing the feedback, it will definitely benefit the future learner drivers as it will directly affect the private driving instructors they will get in the future.
Of course, there may be other ways to value add your driving lessons in Singapore. The list above is not exhaustive. It all begins with the mindset to improve your driving journey actively.
Many learner drivers in Singapore do not know how to find private driving instructors in Singapore. I’m going to teach you just how to do that in this post.
Before I get started in detailing the ways to get a private driving instructor in Singapore, do note that you may have to test out different driving instructors to get the right one for you. Every person interacts and loves different types of people. You will need to choose the right one for yourself. Furthermore, please watch the video below.
Don’t you hope that you will not get lousy driving instructors like the ones shown in the comedy video? Alright, fun aside, let’s drill down on the methods to get a private driving instructor in Singapore.
Firstly, learner drivers can contact driving match up agencies like SGLEARNTODRIVE to match them up with private driving instructors. Click here to connect to SGLEARNTODRIVE – https://plus.google.com/+Sglearntodriveofficial. There will be no hassle for the learner drivers at all. The driving match up agencies will take care of all the work and provide the learner drivers with the private driving instructors’ contact numbers within a short period of time. Usually, the time taken is less than 2 days.
Secondly, learner drivers can also call up driving instructors themselves using the information contained inside the Traffic Police’s website. The Singapore Traffic Police publishes the private driving instructors’ contact details on their websites. However, only some instructors chose to publish their contact numbers.
As mentioned previously, even if you manage to contact and take lessons with a private driving instructor, you may want to switch to another one if you feel that he is not good enough. It is really up to your preferences. Things like this will take some time.
The final test before getting your Singapore driving license: Singapore driving practical test.
This is also the driving test that most people are most stressed about. No doubt, most people finds the Singapore driving practical test the most difficult test out of all. I agree completely with this. The theory tests are peanuts compared to the practical test. I would think that the practical test will get the lowest passing rate out of all the tests.
Even though the test is difficult, learner drivers can take steps to improve their chances of passing the test. It all comes down to the amount of preparation the learners take. Generally, the more preparation one takes, the higher the chances of achieving the goal.
In my opinion, I think there are 3 things learner drivers must do in order to be adequately prepared for their upcoming practical test.
1. Take the local driving lessons seriously. Treat every lesson as if they are the practical tests. When you are focused in learning and try to excel, you will be able to learn much faster. You will take more notice of your mistakes and try harder not to make them again. This is because you will realize that the same mistakes will cost you demerit points in your practical test. If you hit 20 demerit points, you will fail the practical test.
2. Rest adequately before each driving lesson and the practical test. Learner drivers must be physically and mentally prepared for the practical test. If one feels fatigue, he will be more prone to making mistakes. Fatigue will cause one to lose focus or forget some important driving techniques when the driving test. So, be sure to avoid putting yourself in this situation.
3. Run through the practical test in your mind before the actual test. I always do this for any kinds of practical test. This kind of practicing in your mind will make you recap all the techniques you will need to know and apply during the practical test. Moreover, it will increase your confidence level during the actual test. Testers can sense the test candidates’ confidence level during the test. It is very important to let them feel that you are confident in the test. Testers generally wants to pass confident people.
I thought I should create a post on the Singapore driving license as this blog is talking about private driving instructors and driving lessons. The Singapore driving license being the end goal for all the driving lessons is highly relevant to this blog.
So here it goes, some factors about the Singapore driving license:
1. Singapore driving license can only be obtained if people learn driving here in Singapore. This applies to Singaporeans and foreigners who have foreign driving licenses. Everyone needs to take the practical test administrated by the Singapore Traffic Police to obtain the Singapore driving license.2. The minimum age requirement to obtain the Singapore driving license is 18 years old.3. There are certain medical requirements to pass before one can obtain the Singapore driving license too. This pertains to the eye and body fitness conditions. This is crucial as the Singapore Traffic Police wants to ensure that everyone is fit to drive vehicles in Singapore. This is to ensure overall road safety for all road users.4. Once people earn the Singapore driving license, it will be valid for life, except in the situation where more than 24 demerit points are given to the license holder within a 1 year period. Take note that not more than 12 demerit points must be given to the license holder within a year from the license start date. By doing so, the Singapore Traffic Police will revoke the person’s driving license.5. There are no costs needed to maintain the driving license in Singapore. There are only costs to maintain vehicles if the driving license holder decides to own a vehicle in Singapore.6. There are no regulations and restrictions to force driving license holders to drive vehicles on a regular interval to maintain their driving skills.7. A Singapore driving license can be used to earn international driving license which can be used to drive abroad. This international driving license is recognized in many countries around the world. This is especially useful if you wish to conduct road trips overseas during your holidays.
While most private driving instructors teach well and command respect from the learner drivers, not all private driving instructors are good. In every industry, there will be some black sheep lurking around. As learner drivers, we seek for the best driving instructors to guide us. Do not settle for the mediocre instructors. Below are some factors learner drivers should consider when choosing their private driving instructors.
1. SkillsOne of the top factors learner drivers need to look out for in private driving instructors is their skills. Is the private driving instructor good at driving? Is the private driving instructor good at teaching? How well have he taught other learner drivers? Be sure to answer all these questions to ascertain his skills. You will want a capable private driving instructor to teach you. If he cannot communicate or teach you well, then you should look for another driving instructor. One of the ways learner drivers can find out if the private driving instructors are skillful is by looking at the first time passing rates of learner drivers taught by the private driving instructors. The higher the passing rate, the more skillful the private driving instructors appear to be. Moreover, learner drivers can try to seek out other learner drivers who learnt from the private driving instructors and get their honest feedback. Learn from others’ experiences.
2. PersonalityIs the private driving instructor outgoing and friendly? Is he co-operative and willing to impart knowledge to you? Do you feel comfortable around him? These are all human factors. Learner drivers will need to feel that they are benefiting from the driving lessons. They will need to feel that they are learning something new at each driving lesson. They will need to feel that they are improving at each driving lesson. If the private driving instructor gets irritated very easily and lashes out at learner drivers, the driving lesson will be impacted. Some learner drivers may be able to take the lashing but others may not be able to take it. Hence, it also depends on the personality suitability between the private driving instructor and the learner. Some learner drivers may be able to learn well under a certain teaching style while other learner drivers prefer a different style. It varies widely across different learner drivers. Learner drivers should be able to feel and understand this themselves after a lesson with the private driving instructor.
With good skills and suited personality, the private driving instructor is well poised to conduct great driving lessons for the learner drivers. | 10,732 | 4,035 | 0.00025 |
warc | 201704 | Your take on labor justice is likely all about where you started from. My perspective starts with the old slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” There is probably no need to explain that expression of solidarity, but the question of unity and sharing is about with whom you practice it and how generous you want to be.
I practice vigorous, joyful solidarity with my union brothers and sisters at UC Irvine, including members of units represented by the Union of Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE), the United Autoworkers (UAW), the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). AFSCME’s green-T-shirted members recently rallied in response to Governor Schwarzenegger’s threat to limit their work and, yes, their pay, in the face of spending cuts. Despite the current funding crisis – not to mention the next one and the one after that – my union comrades have power and strength because they have each other. They have a labor contract and the federally protected privilege of being represented in their (our) workplace by a union. I proceed because other workers are increasingly organizing to join unions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports nearly 500,000 new members in a year. Why? Because workers’ lives are demonstrably better, benefits are stronger, pay is higher and political and work lives are more meaningfully represented by the workers themselves rather than by management. So I advance the position that our collective lives and work at UCI would all be improved if unrepresented employees, including Senate faculty (professors), were unionized. They are still encumbered with a medieval system of workplace decision-making, which benefits management by allowing some workers to cut special salary deals with their employer, a classic divide and conquer strategy. Therefore, I support efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Before taking office, in an interview with the Washington Post, President Obama said, “I think the basic principal of making it easier and fairer for workers who want to join a union is important. And the basic outline of the Employee Fair Choice is ones that I agree with.” “Yes, we can” was Obama’s engaging campaign slogan. In Spanish, it means “Si, se puede,” which has been for decades the rallying cry of the United Farmworkers Union (UFW), the agricultural workers led by Cesar Chavez. It’s not clear to me that all supporters of the new president’s reformist-seeming agenda of hope and change understood that he’d embraced a militant pro-worker slogan against growers, but I am absolutely sure that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce knew. This gesture of solidarity worried the nation’s other representatives of business interests. In English and in Spanish, business means employers and bosses, not employees who, if given a fair chance, would join their fellow workers in a union — if they could. The EFCA would make it simpler and easier for unrepresented workers to unionize. It would eliminate a pro-employer obstacle to workplace organizing by simply requiring workers to sign a card expressing their desire to collectively represent themselves. It would strengthen workplace protections and mandate binding arbitration, replacing a system which forces a secret ballot system that can be easily manipulated by employers. A secret ballot is hardly secret when your boss knows who’s pro-union. It’s ironic that the business community uses its commitment to democracy as a way to prevent workers from organizing democratic workplace unions. Last week’s signing by President Obama of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act might have been seen by everybody, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – not just women and workers – as the correction of an obvious injustice. Yet, only a handful of Republicans voted for it, most siding instead with the conservative Supreme Court’s ruling against the act. Ledbetter was a factory manager discriminated against by her employer because she was a woman. I am a man, a unionist and a higher education worker. Yet watching this cheerful and brave person stand with the new president after 20 years of struggle, I saw an ally, and in her victory, my own victory — a victory for all. Be prepared for a massive media campaign against the passage of the EFCA, funded by corporate business lobbyists. These are the same interests who opposed Lilly Ledbetter and Cesar Chavez and voted against passing every piece of legislation that benefits workers and unions. Write President Obama and Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and encourage them to remember the “we” in “Yes we can” and “Si, se puede,” and to vote for Employee Free Choice and solidarity.
Andrew Tonkovich is a lecturer in the Department of English and president of the union local, which represents librarians and lecturers, University Council – American Federation of Teachers. | 5,081 | 2,425 | 0.000427 |
warc | 201704 | Never thought I’d have a chance to write that headline. We continue here with our blogging of the stimulus legislation, a.k.a. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, plunging now deep into the appropriation weeds.
Title I of Division A, the less-than-explosive opening of our narrative, which covers about eleven pages, is entitled “Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies.” By my math, it contains provisions for about $17 billion in new stimulus spending.
By far the largest single appropriation is $11.5 billion for the Rural Housing Insurance Fund Program Account for “unsubsidized guaranteed loans” under Section 502 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. From what I can determine, this is a Great Society-era rural-housing-loan-and-assistance program that provides government-supported financing for single-family homes, farms, and rural communities. The provisions of the original law that I could find online seem designed to exclude lending to corporate farms or extravagant projects. Whether it operates this way in practice, I have no idea, but on its face, this seems a worthy and timely allocation. The stimulus bill specifically directs that “modifying loans” is an acceptable use of the appropriated money—shoring up rural households that need to restructure mortgages is certainly an important goal.
The second largest appropriation, under the heading “distance learning, telemedicine, and broadband program,” is $2.5 billion for “the cost of broadband loans and loan guarantees…and for grants.”
A quick issue summary: The U.S. has shamefully low broadband penetration in comparison to other industrialized economies—we currently rank about sixteenth. An expansion of broadband investment and use is essential and should be a high priority for national policy. Generally, federal policy has relied, as it should, on private capital and decision-making, but the policy failures of incentive and federal support for backbone infrastructure are many—thus our pathetic global ranking. One problem is that private capital, it turns out, is mainly attracted to the dense populations in cities. In theory, as with rural electrification, the federal government could constructively support broadband expansion in less-profitable rural areas.
The money allocated in Title I can be used for “broadband infrastructure” anywhere in the United States, as long as seventy-five per cent of the area served is designated by the Secretary of Agriculture as a rural area deprived of sufficient broadband service. The authorizing language is so detailed here that it reeks of intensive lobbying. In fact, a flurry of lobbying shaped the broadband provisions of the stimulus bill, as described by the Los Angeles
Times.
This led, among other things, to a splitting of broadband investment provisions in the stimulus bill, with the Department of Agriculture assigned to handle the rural policy. In addition to its mathematical definition of rural areas, Title I contains nine other provisos that narrow the acceptable use of this $2.5 billion to such an extent that it is hard to imagine how, exactly, anyone could come up with a permissible plan. Fortunately, that is not our problem—the last of these provisos requires the Secretary of Agriculture, who is Tom Vilsack, the former Democratic Governor of Iowa (and onetime ardent Hillary Clinton supporter) to report to the House Committee on Appropriations within ninety days on “planned spending and actual obligations describing the use of these funds.” Stay tuned— we’ll see what Vilsack recommends.
Some other provisions in Title I—all seemingly laudable, given the economic crisis and the role of the federal government as a shock absorber and temporary job creator—include: $500 million for emergency expansions of the school-lunch and other food-assistance programs for the poor; $176 million for work on Agriculture Department buildings and facilities, provided that “such funds shall be given to critical deferred maintenance, to projects that can completed, and to activities that can commence promptly”; and $50 million for “watershed rehabilitation programs.”
There is also a $290 million allocation for “watershed and flood prevention operations,” of which $145 million is allocated to “purchase and restore floodplain easements.” This seems to be money that will be used to buy land rights—not exactly a job-creating activity. I have an e-mail in to the House Appropriations Committee asking for clarification; I will report what I learn.
The last section of the title is a lengthy recitation of “general provisions,” which concerns eligibility for the emergency food aid and formulas for allocations to the states. There also appear to be amendments to a number of farm-support laws involving crop insurance, farm loans, compensation to farmers for losses due to rising fertilizer and other “input” prices during 2008, and grants for “aquaculture producers.” These latter provisions, although not heavily funded in the context of the overall bill, nonetheless involve tens of millions of dollars. They may involve attempts to get credit flowing to rural areas—it’s hard to tell—but they also have a whiff of opportunism about them, suggesting tireless work in the stimulus-bill lobbying trenches by the architects and constituents of the federal government’s absurd and overbuilt farm-subsidy and price-support system. I’ve also asked the House Appropriations Committee for explanatory help on this, and will report back. Qualified commentary from elsewhere is welcome, as ever, coll@newamerica.net.
Next up: Title II, “Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.” Not exactly “Godfather II,” I know, but we will carry on. | 6,001 | 2,833 | 0.000369 |
warc | 201704 | By Emily Gurnon
Frequent use of social media leads to more stress — but only when it increases awareness of difficult events in others’ lives.
That’s true especially for women, and it's been dubbed the “cost of caring,” according to a report issued this month by the Pew Research Center.
Who of us hasn’t logged on to Facebook to find distressing news about a child’s scary diagnosis, an unexpected death or the loss of a relative’s job? There is no “Don’t Like” button.
“This finding about the ‘cost of caring’ adds to the evidence that stress is contagious,” the report says.
Assessing Stress
Pew surveyed more than 1,800 adults in fall 2013, asking how stressful their lives were. The measures were based on answers to questions that assessed whether they felt their lives were overloaded, unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Simply using social media, it turns out, does
not make people more stressed. We might expect it would, especially when we see Facebook pictures of vacations we can’t afford, for instance.
In fact, it’s the opposite. Previous research from the Pew center found that people who used social media and were active on Facebook had more close friends, trusted others more, felt greater support and were more involved politically than non-users and those less active on Facebook.
That may be because the “social benefit” of using social media cancels out the potential negatives of feeling left out or unable to keep up with others, the research says.
It is the connection to other people’s pain that seems to burden us — especially women.
Women Feel More Stressed
The report says there are two reasons for this: “First, women report higher levels of stress to begin with, and second, women are aware of more stressful events in the lives of their friends and family.”
As an example, women who learned that someone close to them had experienced the death of a child, spouse or partner scored 14 percent higher on the stress scale, the report says.
Facebook, not surprisingly, is the most popular social media site, according to another Pew survey from late 2014. Sixty-three percent of all Internet users 50 to 64 years of age use it, and that number has been growing.
“While the little sips of information sent through social media may not seem like much, they can add up to a big gulp,” the report says. Knowledge of bad things happening to our friends and relatives can hike our stress level, “and with it, higher risk for the physical and psychological problems that often accompany stress.”
Stress overload can contribute to memory problems, poor judgment, depression, loss of sex drive and pain, according to Helpguide.org.
'Joy of Missing Out'
In an interesting twist to the results, women who learned of the death of a child or spouse of an
acquaintance — as opposed to a close friend — actually experienced lower stress levels. Pew called it the "joy of missing out."
“At first glance, this finding might be interpreted as somewhat uncaring,” but is more likely an extension of the cost of caring, the report says.
“When women see more-distant acquaintances struggling with stressful events, it might have the effect of inducing relief that this particular event has not happened to someone closer to them,” according to the report.
Which we might unscientifically call the “hug-your-child-closer” effect.
Helpguide.org suggests combatting stress by spending time in nature, taking a long bath, getting enough sleep, listening to music, gardening, playing with a pet or watching a comedy.
Show Comments | 3,735 | 1,808 | 0.000585 |
warc | 201704 | Fully revised and extensively updated by two of the world's leading experts in the field, taking into account current UK, EU, and USA water-quality standards and treatment technologies. This fourth edition of a best-selling text provides comprehensive contemporary practical guidance and remains the definitive reference for all those involved in water-treatment systems. The book focuses on the issues of most interest to practising engineers, summarizing the key issues and criteria in short and accessible sections, but with additional theory to explain and support the treatment processes considered.
The new edition includes two new chapters on private water supplies and water safety plans; new content on requirement for risk assessments in England and Wales and water re-use (legislation, present and future, treatment). Also included is expanded coverage of algae, clostridium, solids recirculation clarifiers and alternative dewatering systems.
Preface to the fourth edition
Foreword 1: Introduction 2: Quality of water 3: Overview of water treatment 4: Preliminary treatment 5: Coagulation and flocculation 6: Coagulants and coagulant aids 7: Theory and principles of clarification 8: Types of clarifiers 9: Filtration 10: Membrane processes 11: Other processes 12: Disinfection 13: Waterworks wastes and sludge 14: Private water supplies 15: Water safety plans 16: Water demand and use Appendices: 1: Sample calculations 2: Comparison of different drinking water-quality standards 3: Glossary 4: SI units and basic conversion factors References Index
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warc | 201704 | 377 pages, b/w photos, b/w illustrations, tables
This is the first book to collate and synthesize the recent burgeoning primary research literature on dog behaviour, evolution, and cognition. The author presents a new ecological approach to the understanding of dog behaviour, demonstrating how dogs can be the subject of rigorous and productive scientific study without the need to confine them to a laboratory environment.
This second, fully updated edition of Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition starts with an overview of the conceptual and methodological issues associated with the study of the dog, followed by a brief description of their role in human society. An evolutionary perspective is then introduced with a summary of current research into the process of domestication. The central part of Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition is devoted to issues relating to the cognitive aspects of behaviour which have received particular attention in recent years from both psychologists and ethologists. Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition's final chapters introduce the reader to many novel approaches to dog behaviour, set in the context of behavioural development and genetics. This second edition recognises and discusses the fact that dogs are increasingly being used as model organisms for studying aspects of human biology, such as genetic diseases and ageing. Specific attention is also given in this edition to attachment behaviour which emerges between humans and dogs, the importance of inter-specific communication in the success of dogs in human communities and the broad aspects of social cognition and how this may contribute to human-dog cooperation Directions for future research are highlighted throughout the text which also incorporates links to human and primate research by drawing on homologies and analogies in both evolution and behaviour. Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition will therefore be of relevance and use to anyone with an interest in behavioural ecology including graduate students of animal behaviour and cognition, as well as a more general audience of dog enthusiasts, biologists, psychologists, veterinarians, and sociologists.
1: Dogs in historical perspective
2: Concepts in the study of dog behaviour 3: Methodological issues in the behavioural study of the dog 4: Dogs in anthropogenic environments: family and society 5: Comparative overview of Canis 6: The story of domestication: Archaeological and phylogenetic evidence 7: The emergence of phenotypic novelty 8: Intra-specific social organization in dogs and related forms 9: The perceptual world of the dog 10: Physical-ecological problem solving 11: Affiliative and agonistic social relationships 12: Communication, play and collaboration 13: Social learning and social problem solving 14: Change of behaviour in time: From birth to death 15: The organisation of individual behaviour 16: The genetic contribution to behaviour
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warc | 201704 | With each passing day, the line between traditional linear TV and digital programming continues to blur. And it’s important to consider the degree to which the proliferation of new technologies influence different markets. Washington, D.C. and tech-savvy markets such as San Francisco and Seattle top the list for many technologies. However, in the past 18 months, cities like Detroit, Miami and Pittsburgh achieved high single- or double-digit gains in smartphone, subscription video on-demand (SVOD) and/or tablet penetration.
Despite the cross-country explosion of devices, live TV remains the primary medium to consume video. According to the latest third-quarter Total Audience Report, Americans spend four hours and seven minutes per day watching live TV and another 28 minutes watching time-shifted TV. And moving into this year's presidential election, live TV remains Americans’ first choice when it comes to must-see events, such as political debates and political news coverage.
In this edition of the Local Watch Report, we turn our focus to young voters. Millennial voters represent over a quarter of all U.S. registered voters, so understanding their media touchpoints, lifestyles and voting habits is key to optimizing advertising potential and capturing their attention.
Today’s Millennial voters are multicultural, single and work white collar jobs. And while young voters tend to be early adopters of new technologies and social media, they are not as elusive as we may think. On average, 78% of young voters view broadcast TV weekly, and nearly half of them watch local news. | 1,614 | 905 | 0.001119 |
warc | 201704 | Both restaurants and the consumers they serve have yet to feel the economic recovery many had expected, according to data and analysis from the research firm Technomic Inc., which presented new research Wednesday at its 2011 Trends & Directions conference in Chicago.
Holding restaurants back is increased costs, while consumers are faced with negative economic indicators from housing to unemployment figures and gas prices. According to Technomic surveys this spring, fewer consumers | 488 | 310 | 0.003246 |
warc | 201704 | The world’s biggest drama is not found in Europe or the Middle East or North America—the world’s biggest challenges and dramas are found in Africa…. The way it is now in Africa cannot continue because at the moment we are getting more new crises faster than we are solving old crises.
—Jan Egeland, United Nations emergency relief coordinator, May 10, 2005
1.
Philip Caputo’s recent novel
Acts of Faith, now published in paperback, is an ambitious tale of adventure, commerce, and love pursued in a setting of unrelenting violence. The action alternates between northern Kenya and the mountainous Nuba region in southern Sudan, where, in the late 1990s, Sudan’s long-running civil war has been raging. The suffering generated by this war is, to be cold about it, something that outsiders can exploit, and the main characters in the novel have come from far away to do so, each in his or her own way. There are four main characters, three Americans (two men, one woman) and a Kenyan, Fitzhugh Martin, a self-described “Man of All Races” (born in the Seychelles, he has French, Chinese, Irish, African, Arab, and Indian blood). All four are involved in supplying aid of one kind or another.
The four characters are connected with one another through Knight Air Services, a private airline that flies humanitarian aid into rebel-held areas in southern Sudan, with or without the permission of the Khartoum government. The supporting characters are a mixed lot of evangelists, crooked Sudanese officials, maverick Catholic priests, guerrillas of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and members of the government-sponsored Islamic militias. Throughout the novel, the moral question of aggressive humanitarianism—its perils and temptations—is explored with genuine drama.
This is natural territory for Philip Caputo, the distinguished and widely traveled journalist, author of a classic memoir of the Vietnam War (
A Rumor of War) and of four previous novels, the best known of which is Horn of Africa, which concerns a rebellion in an imagined province in Ethiopia. Acts of Faith is a topical work, in which the baffling and conflicted status of the aid industry in Africa is sharply portrayed. 2. Acts of Faith begins in the late Nineties, when the Sudanese civil war—Islamic north against largely Christian and animist and black south—has taken a brutal turn. The central government in Khartoum, in addition to employing its regular ground and air forces against the insurgency in the south, has created and equipped Arab militias, mujahideen cavalry units of nomadic Baggara tribesmen, offering them the franchise to pillage, massacre, rape, and enslave the people in the south, largely in the interest of ethnic cleansing. The Baggara are a southern tribe with a previous history of rough but workable coexistence with their non-Muslim neighbors—but no longer. There is oil in the south, and control of this resource is fiercely contested by both sides in the civil war.… This article is available to online subscribers only. Please choose from one of the options below to access this article:
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warc | 201704 | WHAT’S the quickest way to a man’s heart? No, not through the chest wall with a knife.
According to Mom wisdom, it’s a cozy meal, in a penumbra of pleasure that mingles the fragrant food with the cook. If men are anything like common fruit flies — and who’s to say they’re not at times; heaven knows women are — Mom was right.
Anyway, that’s the romantic ploy of female fruit flies, for whom a dinner date is the ultimate rush. And rush it literally is, since they live only about 25 days and can’t afford to be shy. Still, the males need to be in the right mood, and the females are surprisingly picky and manipulative, given their short careers. Did I mention that some fruit flies have come-hither eyes? I don’t mean the dozens of mosaic facets, so evocative of hippie sunglasses, but the zingy psychedelic eye colors lab folk like to breed into them, the better to study mutant genes. As a Cornell grad student, I often stopped by the fetid biology lab to admire the eggplant-blackness of the abdomens, the spiky hairs, the gaudy prisms of the eyes — some apricot, some teal, some purple, some the brick-red of Ming vases.
A favorite of biologists, fruit flies have it all — they’re prowling for mates within 12 hours of birth, they’re easy to raise and they can lay 100 eggs a day. Plus, they share most of our genes, including about 70 percent of those we’ve linked to such diseases as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Because fruit flies thrive in sultry 80-degree weather, the lab in my graduate student days offered a warm den during those numbing upstate winters when ice clotted in beards and mittens, co-eds exhaled stark white clouds, and the walkways looked like a toboggan run. I don’t recall what experiments were unfolding, only the tiny haunting eyes of the fruit flies, like the captive souls of past lab assistants, and the swooping melody of their Latin name: Drosophila melanogaster, which translates poetically as “dark-bellied dew sipper.”
During fruit fly courtship, the male, lured by a full larder, extends one mandolin-like wing and serenades the female, then engages in a style of oral sexual foreplay many humans enjoy. Then he mounts her and copulates for 20 minutes or so. Here’s the sly part. The last male she has sex with will sire most of her many offspring, and she chooses the father only after lots of romps in the orchard or lab, based on his flair for courtship.
As with most animals, from squirrels to spiders, the males pursue but the females choose, and even the lowly fruit fly can be choosy.
Why the dinner date? Because Live Fast and Die is their mantra, and they need a handy food supply if their large new brood is to survive.
I first noticed a similar meal plan among the annual hordes of Japanese beetles that tat rose leaves into doilies. Gardeners often spy the iridescent scarabs perched atop favorite flowers, dining and mating simultaneously. “I don’t mind if you have sex on the roses,” I tell them peevishly. “Really. Knock yourselves out ... I just wish you wouldn’t eat at the same time!”
Of course, the ancient Greeks and Romans, who coined the word “orgy,” and found that dining lying down leveled the playing field, enjoyed blending sensory delights with equal gusto — banquets of music, food, dancing, alcohol and sex. Why should fruit flies be any different?
We may respond to the same honeyed aromas that make fruit flies amorous, so chemists include them in perfumes. Many a medieval troubadour used a mandolin to serenade his lady, with whom he’d dine and mate. And remember that sexy tavern scene in “Tom Jones,” in which the hero and a buxom wench devour a carcass with carnal abandon?
So, is the human dinner date really just courtship feeding after all, a custom we share with fruit flies, robins and chimpanzees? Yes. But what’s the harm in that? As Cole Porter once put it: “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it ...”Continue reading the main story | 4,124 | 2,144 | 0.000489 |
warc | 201704 | Group says Historic Places Act covers sites.
Archaeologists are the latest group to weigh into a controversial iwi consultation rule, saying most of the thousands of affected sites have not been evaluated.
The New Zealand Archaeological Association says the rule requiring owners to obtain a cultural impact assessment from iwi to work on their land will impose considerable costs and erode public support for archaeology.
The association recognises the cultural importance of Maori archaeological sites to mana whenua and believes mana whenua should be involved in the management of these sites.
But in a submission on the draft Unitary Plan, signed by association president Simon Bickler, the association has serious concerns, saying most of the 3661 sites of significance and value to mana whenua have not been assessed, many have limited archaeological significance, many have already been destroyed and protection rules already exist under the Historic Places Act.
It wants the rule dropped and replaced by a "non-statutory" alert layer of recorded archaeological sites to trigger requests for archaeological and cultural impact statements.
The rule is polarising interested groups and politicians, with the council, Maori Statutory Board and Maori Party pushing for its inclusion in the Unitary Plan.
New Zealand First, Labour Maori Affairs spokesman Shane Jones and others want the rule scrapped.
Iwi consultation For * Auckland Council * Independent Maori Statutory Board * Ngati Whatua * Maori Party Against * New Zealand First * Labour Maori Affairs spokesman Shane Jones * Law Professor Ken Palmer * New Zealand Archaeological Association * Employers and Manufacturers Association On sidelines * National. | 1,728 | 832 | 0.00121 |
warc | 201704 | Bank of America Corp. on Monday said it will pay Freddie Mac $404 million to settle remaining claims over soured home loans the bank sold to the mortgage giant, marking the bank's latest attempt to put its mortgage woes behind it.
The Charlotte-based bank said the agreement resolves all requests to buy back defective mortgages sold to Freddie from Jan. 1, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2009. Bank of America said the cost of the settlement is covered by the bank's existing reserves.
It's the latest settlement Bank of America has reached with government-controlled Freddie, which like its sister institution, Fannie Mae, buys home loans from lenders and packages them into mortgage-backed securities.
In the aftermath of the housing crash, Fannie and Freddie, which were taken over by the U.S. government in 2008, have asked banks to buy back or reimburse losses related to mortgages that went bad or did not meet agreed-upon requirements.
Bank of America has reached a previous agreement with Freddie over loans sold by Countrywide Financial Corp. through 2008 and forged two settlements with Fannie over Countrywide and Bank of America loans sold through 2008. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008.
Cognizant will add 10,000 jobs
A major information technology outsourcing company is relocating its U.S. operations hub from New Jersey to Texas and expects to add 10,000 jobs nationwide over the next three years.
Cognizant is headquartered in Teaneck, N.J. But President Gordon Coburn said Monday the company is relocating to the college town of College Station in part to draw potential employees from Texas A& M University.
Cognizant employs about 166,000 people worldwide, and already has 2,000 in Texas.
Construction spending increases
U.S. developers boosted construction spending in October at the fastest pace in more than four years, propelled by a surge in government projects. The increase suggests the 16-day partial government shutdown had little impact on public projects.
Construction spending increased 0.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $908.4 billion, the Labor Department said Monday. That's up from September, when spending fell 0.3 percent.
The October pace was the best since May 2009. It was driven by a 3.9 percent surge in public projects. Federal spending increased 10.9 percent, despite the shutdown. Spending on state and local government construction also rose.
One troubling sign: Home construction fell 0.6 percent in October from September.
But spending on home construction has surged 17.8 percent in the past 12 months, the fastest year-over-year pace since the peak of the 2008 financial crisis. And a recent jump in permits to build apartments indicates that will continue.
Manufacturing pace accelerates
Manufacturing unexpectedly sped up in November at the fastest pace in more than two years, pointing to a pickup in business spending that will help propel the U.S. economy in early 2014.
The Institute for Supply Management's index increased to 57.3, the highest since April 2011, from 56.4 a month earlier, the Tempe, Ariz.-based group's report showed today. Readings above 50 indicate growth. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists was 55.1.
Orders, production and employment strengthened. | 3,296 | 1,586 | 0.000634 |
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