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0.995471 | Q: Was an “illegal alien” arrested for starting the wildfires that have ravaged northern California?
A: No. The arrest was not related to the wildfires. |
0.999999 | Go back to a slower-moving era with a walking tour through a replica of a 16th century Mediterranean village, followed by a Mississippi-style river boat cruise.
Go back to a slower-moving era with a walking tour through a replica of a 17th century Mediterranean village, followed by a riverboat cruise.
You’ll travel by air conditioned motor coach to Altos de Chavón, a unique village where artists live, work, and play.
Stroll through the cobblestone streets lined with lanterns, wrought-iron balconies, a few quaint shops and a panoramic view of the river.
Walk by the St. Stanislaus Church and the world-renown School of Design.
Visit the Regional Archaeological Museum, Woven Art Workshop, and the open-air amphitheatre.
You will be taken down to the riverbank by motorcoach where you will board a riverboat. Immerse yourself in the lovely views along the Chavón River, where the movie Apocalypse Now was filmed, while enjoying a complimentary drink and listening to Dominican music.
Complimentary water, soda, and rum drinks are included during riverboat cruise. |
0.999677 | According to the above article, she was on the crosswalk when she was hit by the bus and dragged 30 feet. This just sounds so terrible!
That blows. She was in the crosswalk, too. Chances are that she had a clear crossing, or so she thought, and the bus driver turned without seeing her. The "busy thoroughfare" comment makes it sound like she was reckless, but more likely she was crossing the way many of us have done countless times - I know I've crossed many a "busy thoroughfare" on skates. Just goes to show that even being careful isn't always enough. |
0.997038 | Find a workout buddy to keep you on track during vacation. Drink plenty of water and eat healthy with greens, fruits and vegetables and build muscle with fish, eggs and brown rice. Enjoy outdoor activities with friends and family and also take time to rest and relax. |
0.760654 | How did this girl grow up so fast?
She is saying so many words, imitating, and has her own opinions about things these days.
She also loves Sesame Street and Disney's Frozen.
The two things we watch almost daily.
Words cannot convey the deep love we have for her. |
0.946862 | What is Ankylosing spondylits ?
"Spondyloarthropathies are a group of diseases which affect the vertebral column and Ankylosing spondylitis is one among them. It is one of the rheumatic disease, which is a chronic, inflammatory that causes arthritis of the spine and sacroiliac joint - the joint at the base of the spine where the spinal column joins the pelvis."Ankylosis" means the fusion of verterae to each other. The vertebrae fuse together because of thechronic inflammation and irritation of the spinal joints. Ankylosis is a debilitating condition that can cause decreased range of movement in the spine and loss of spinal mobility and function, thereby, severely impact a person's quality of life. Ankylosis can spread to other joints as well since Ankylosing spondylitis is a systemic rheumatic disease, it can lead to inflammation in other parts of the body such as the joints of the hips, knees, or shoulders. This type of spondylitis may also affect other organs such as the eyes, heart, lungs, and kidneys.
The explanation of Ankylosing spondylitis may seem weird to modern world people but Ayurveda is an ancient healing science utilizing herbs for centuries. According to Ayurveda, Rheumatic pains are due to formation of toxins within the intestines. These toxins are known as "aama" in Ayurvedic terminology. So the concept of treating Ankylosing spondylitis is digesting the " aama" by giving herbs like Turmeric (Curcumin), Ginger, etc. Controlling the vata is also very important, after clearing the "Aama". Vata- the kinetic energy of the body is regulated by regular massage with Ayurvedic oils, internal consumption of medicated Cow's ghee with anti-inflammatory herbal tablets like Sinhnaad Guggul, Swarn Guggul (Guggul with Gold), Kaishore Guggul. Herbal products like Aam vatantak Churna can be used for digestion of "aama" and herbal remedies like Guggul are useful in managing pain and inflammation. Punarnava mandoor tablets are useful in reducing inflammatory edema around the joints sometimes and also helps in rebuilding the strength.There are sometimes very painful condition in Ankylosing spondylitis, that pain and inflammation needs to be tackled quickly. There are very common herbs for painful joint which work insantly. The herbs are very common like Dry Ginger, Turmeric (curcumin), Fenugreek, Ashwagandha, Sallaki (Boswellia), Guggul, and Giloy (Tinospora). The extracts of these herbs are more effective in reducing the pain and inflammation of all types of arthritis and joint pains.
Causes of Ankylosing Spondylitis, according to modern medicine- The exact cause of Ankylosing Spondylitis is not known however, research has demonstrated that this tends to run in families. Although there is evidence for a possible genetic predisposition to this disease is that a specific Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) tissue type called HLA-B27 occurs in about 90% of individuals with Ankylosing Spondylitis. There are a variety of drugs are available to control symptoms of AS including pain, stiffness, and inflammation. Exercise therapy is also considered a very important component in the management of patients with Ankylosis.
AamVaat Antak Churna is a blend of unique herbs for ankylosing spondylitis and other auto-immune disorders like Rheumatism. It is described in Ayurveda as best anti-inflammatory, detoxifying herbs. Aama is considered as root cause of Rheumatoid arthriits in Ayurveda.Various herbs in this herbal powder naturally clear away the toxins i.e. Aama. These rare herbs are nature's answer to moderate to severe forms of inflammation, swelling and pain. This herbal powder contains Ashwagandha, Fenugreeki, Suranjan, Tinospora, Gorakhmundi and Sonth. These herbs act together in a synergistic manner and control acute and chronic pain in joints.
Herbs in Aam-Vaat-Antak Churna : AamVaat Antak Churna is purely a herbal formulation without any chemicals added into it. It contains very effective herbs for Rheumatoid arhtirits and joint pains. The ingredients are frequently used in Ayurvedic system of medicine since 5,000 B.C.It is a very effective herbal remedy for Rheumatoid arthritis and every other form or arthritis without any side effects.
Fenugreek has multiple uses as it not only causes remission in inflammatory and painful joint conditions but also a useful method to control pain due to 'Vata'. Regular use of leaves of this plant also controls blood sugar levels very effectively. It is an effective alternative treatment for ankylosing spondylitis.
Ayurveda utilizes this herb for painful joints swollen due to imbalance in uric acid metabolism. This herb is a source of drug 'Colchicine' used in modern medicine for decreasing uric acid production. This makes it an effective herbal remedy for ankylosing spondylitis.
It is a very effective herb for regularizing the uric acid metabolism. This plant can also help to cure weak vital power, gaseous problems, enlargement of spleen as well as painful joints. Gorakhmundi is an effective herbal cure for ankylosing spondylitis.
This is a twine that wraps around many trees. This miraculous herb is useful in many auto-immune disorders like Rheumatoid Arthritis. It has immunomodulatory effect and improves our immune system and immune response to antigens. It improves body's defense mechanisms. It gives new life to dying brain cells and rejuvenates the whole body. It is best anti-cancer, immunomodulator and memory enhancing herb.Since Ankylosing spondylitis is an auto-immune disorder, this makes Giloy as best herbal remedy for ankylosing spondylitis.
Commonly known as 'Dry Ginger' is a very useful 'ama' removing or detoxifying herb. It is a potent pain killer as well as anti-inflammatory herb. Therefore it's an effective alternative treatment for Ankylosing spondylitis.
Ankylsoing spondylitis is more prevalent among men than in women. Most of the patients are generally young men in the age group of 20 to 35 years and 60 to 70 % patients are generally men.
There are many herbal remedies and natural treatment for ankylosing spondylitis which are described in Ayurveda.. These herbs are useful in all types of other arthritis like osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and other forms of inflammatory joint conditions. Some of them reduce the pain, some reduce inflammation while herbs like Giloy (Tinospora and Ashwagandha ) are helpful in many other autoimmune disorders as well. Many are useful in auto-immune disorders as well.
Vitex negundo is described in Ayurveda as one of the most potent natural anti-arthritic herbs. It is very effective in controlling pain and inflammation particularly in arthritis and sciatica patients.
Boswellia serrata is a very popular natural anti-inflammatory herb used by Ayurveda physicians all over the world. It is commonly known in India as 'Salai Guggul'. The resin obtained from the tree is purified and then used for pain and inflammation.It relieves arthritis pain naturally without causing any side effects.
Commiphora mukul is a known anti-inflammatory agent used by Ayurveda physicians worldwide. The analgesic and anti-inflammatory action is almost immediate. Guggul is also used in weight loss formulas and is effective in reducing weight, thus helping osteoarthritis patients directly and indirectly. It also reduces blood cholesterol levels.
It is commonly known as dry ginger. Dry Ginger is another useful anti-inflammatory herb. It also improves appetite and good for digestive and respiratory system. Dry ginger remarkably reduce markers of inflammation in the blood and is a very potent analgesic.
Ashwagandha is popularly known as Indian ginseng in the west. It has known anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-stress activities. The plant steroids exert anti-inflammatory action where as another active ingredient of this herb root is Withaferin, Which act as a potent stress buster.
Arthritis Support is a blend of unique herbs described in Ayurveda as best anti-inflammatory herbs. These rare herbs are nature's answer to moderate to severe forms of inflammation, swelling and pain. Arthritis Support contains extracts of Nirgundi, Shallaki, Guggul, Ginger, Giloy and Ashwagandha. These herbs act together in a synergistic manner and control acute and chronic inflammatory reactions.
Arthritis Support is purely a herbal formulation without any chemicals added into it. The ingredients are frequently used in Ayurvedic system of medicine since 5,000 B.C. without any side effects.
There are so many other useful herbal remedies for Ankylosing Spondylitis which give excellent results in joint pains and inflammation. These herbal remedies are also effective in many other forms of arthritis.
Commiphora mukul is a very unique and powerful anti-inflammatory herb and is very effective in all types of arthritis. Some of the tablets containing this herb are mentioned below. These herbal tablets are purely classical herbal remedies for arthritis and are used in Ayurveda since ages.
1. Tablets Kaishore Guggul - The main ingredient of these tablets is the herb Commiphora mukul. These are pure herbal tablets and are can be used along with Arthritis Support in cases of severe acute and chronic pain in Ankylosing spondylitis and other forms of joint pains. Kaishore Guggul can be used with AamVaatantak Churna (Herbal powder for Rheumatoid arthritis) even if the HLA B-27 is negative and Ankylsoing spondylitis is diagnosed. These can be consumed along with arthritis support and Kumari Saar. Rheumatoid arthritis also responds very well to this combination of these 3 herbal formulations.
2. Tablet Yograj Guggul - These are herbal tablets useful in chronic inflammation of joints. These can be used for long term arthriits herbal remedy in cases of rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. In cases of Rheumatoid arthritis Yograj Guggul should be combined with arthritis support and Aamvatantak Churna.Curcumin (Turmeric- curcuma longa) is a very useful herb for ankylosing spondylitis.
3.Tablet Lakshadi Guggul- These are herbal tablets contain guggul and are very useful in cases of fractured bones, strains and sprains in muscles, tendons. These tablets hasten the healing in case of muscle rupture, ligament sprain. It is also very useful natural remedy for osteoarthrits and other arthropathies. |
0.953344 | The Votadini (the Wotādīni, or Votādīni) were a people of the Iron Age in Great Britain, and their territory was briefly part of the Roman province Britannia. Their territory was in what is now south-east Scotland and north-east England, extending south of the Firth of Forth and extended from the Stirling area down to the English River Tyne, including at its peak what are now the Falkirk, Lothian and Borders regions of eastern Scotland, and Northumberland in north east England. Their capital was probably the Traprain Law hill fort in East Lothian, until that was abandoned in the early 400s, moving to Din Eidyn (Edinburgh).
The name is recorded as Votadini in classical sources. Their descendants were the early medieval kingdom known in Old Welsh as Guotodin, and in later Welsh as Gododdin .
One of the oldest known pieces of British literature is a poem called 'Y Gododdin', written in Old Welsh, having previously been passed down via the oral traditions of the Brythonic speaking Britons. This poem celebrates the bravery of the soldiers from what was later referred to by the Britons as 'Yr Hen Ogledd' - The Old North; a reference to the fact that this land was lost in battle to an invading force at Catraeth,(modern day Catterick).
The area was settled as early as 3000 BC, and offerings of that period imported from Cumbria and Wales left on the sacred hilltop at Cairnpapple Hill, West Lothian, show that by then there was a link with these areas. By around 1500 BC Traprain Law, East Lothian was already a place of burial, with evidence of occupation and signs of ramparts after 1000 BC. Excavation at Edinburgh Castle found late Bronze Age material from about 850 BC.
Brythonic Celtic culture and language spread into the area at some time after the 8th century BC, possibly through cultural contact rather than mass invasion, and systems of kingdoms developed. Numerous hillforts and settlements support the image of quarrelsome tribes and petty kingdoms recorded by the Romans, though evidence that at times occupants neglected the defences might suggest that symbolic power was sometimes as significant as warfare.
In the 1st century the Romans recorded the Votadini as a British tribe. Between 138-162 they came under direct Roman military rule as occupants of the region between Hadrian's and the Antonine Walls. Then when the Romans drew back to Hadrian's Wall the Votadini became a friendly buffer state, getting the rewards of alliance with Rome without being under its rule, until about 400 when the Romans withdrew from southern Great Britain. Quantities of Roman goods found at Traprain Law, East Lothian might suggest that this proved profitable, though this is open to speculation.
Since the 3rd century Britannia had been divided into four provinces. In a late reorganisation a province called Valentia was created, which may have been a new province, perhaps including the Votadini territory, but is more likely to have been one of the four existing provinces renamed. |
0.940437 | Change the launcher of your android phone and make it more attractive: Android Smartphones usually have a user-friendly UI (user interface). But it does not force its users to use the same interface of it; instead it allows you to get any desired launcher from Google play or other external sources. Some of the android launchers provide a graphical display with animation and extra effects. You can get a launcher for free or can you choose paid launchers of your choice. The best launchers for android Smartphones are nova, apex, action launcher3, EverythingMe Beta, yahoo aviate, Nokia Z and APUS launcher.
Control the electronic devices with your Smartphone: Some of the higher end models of android Smartphones have infrared blasters that allow its users to control the electronic devices which operate using infrared rays. If your Smartphone does not have this feature just download it from Google play and enjoy its usage.
Identify the songs playing on your Smartphone: All Smartphones including apple, android, blackberry and windows allows the users to identify the song playing in the device. The song identification is done by sound hound widget which is usually present in all major Smartphones. It finds the song in a simple tap and displays it on screen. The widget is also available in Google play and other play stores users can download it if they don’t have this feature in the Smartphone.
The android Smartphones can work as a game console: The higher end models of android Smartphones like Samsung and Sony supports MHL which can turn the Smartphone into a gaming console. To enable it, you should connect the MHL cable of your device with smart TV and can view the stored media in a large screen and can even play games. You can control the TV by Bluetooth controllers and can enjoy its usage.
Accelerometer application: All Smartphones have this application in the play store, but apple and blackberry Smartphones have a built-in accelerometer. It allows the users to find the distance level between you and other devices, for example, you can find the level of your cat, television, bed and etc.
Check temperature from your Smartphone: The Samsung Smartphone has a built-in temperature app that finds the Fahrenheit level of your environment and the contact you have with the device. By finding the temperature level, the app will calculate whether the environment is safe and comfort for the user.
Visual voice mail: The voice mail service is available in apple, android and blackberry mobiles, it allows the users to view the voice mails as a menu and plays the mail in just a tap. The voice mails have a stop, rewind and pause buttons, to enable this feature download hullo mail from the app store.
Block the unwanted callers from your contact: The android, apple, and blackberry mobile phones have the option to block a particular caller from the contact list. But unfortunately, this feature is not available in windows handsets; those users can download apps like true caller and etc to enable this feature. |
0.999341 | Learn the basics about the infection caused by the hepatitis C virus.
What is hepatitis C and what harm does it do?
It is a blood-borne virus which can infect and damage the liver, potentially leading to cirrhosis if untreated. In the most severe cases it can lead to liver failure or liver cancer, both of which can be fatal. About 215,000 people in the UK are estimated to have hepatitis C.
It is usually contracted through contact with the blood of an infected person, although it is also present in other body fluids. In the UK, most hepatitis C infections occur in intravenous drug users or people who have injected them in the past. Other common means of infection include through sharing razors or toothbrushes.
Often people have no symptoms or symptoms that are not obviously linked to the virus. They may only become noticeable when the liver has been significantly damaged.
One in five people fight off the infection without treatment, with their own immune system, during the first six months of infection. If this does not happen, treatment typically lasts between 12 and 48 weeks and involves a combination of drugs that stop the virus multiplying inside the body. The success rate of treatment varies for different strains but the majority of people can be successfully treated. |
0.999657 | How to make gravy? There are many methods people choose to make gravy because it is a must to have with meals. Some go for packaged ones or some make them at home. It is easy either ways and you can pick the way you are comfortable with. Here is how you can make a delicious gravy out of packaged ones. While you make them in any way you like, be sure that there are no lumps. To avoid lumps, you have to stir them.
Put in all the ingredients and add a small chopped onion, cook until they are soft. Ad 2 packets of the Gravy Mix you bought and a cup of flour. To make the taste better, add the roasted ground cinnamon and cups of cold water as require. Pour them in the saucepan and stir. There are many flavors available for the packaged ones and you can make them even tastier adding extra ingredients like mushroom.
Step 1: Cook the chicken in a pot the way you always do and it is time to take the fat. Use a fat separator and pour the liquid part in another glass and add the fat in a pan for cooking.
Step 2: Add a spoon of butter and some flour and stir. Keep the heat to low and make sure nothing is sticking to the pan. As you see it is starts to darken pour the liquid part that you separated. Instead of adding the liquid part, you can chicken broth.
Step 3: You need to keep on stirring or whisk it using the egg whisker and make sure the flame is low. After it starts to boil, wait few minutes before you take it off. You need to keep on whisking.
Step 1: You need to start with ground turkey or minced meat and add the spice of your choice and stir in a bowl.
Step 2: Use olive oil and pour in the mixture and let it freeze for six hours.
Step 3: Take them out and add on a hot pan and let them turn into small pieces. Keep on stirring or else they will stick to the pan. Add flour and milk and stir until they are done. |
0.929949 | Rigid fiberglass absorbant panels wrapped in plastic = HEALTHY bass solution?
I would use 4 inch panels of rigid fiberglass in the corners of the room, however I don't want fiberglass ( or mineral wool etc ) exposed to the air due to health concerns. Fabric cover isn't enough in my view to reduce the health risks.
If I wrapped the fiberglass in plastic and made it airtight would the bass still be absorbed effectively?
I understand that the high frequencies wouldn't but I believe I can deal with the higher frequencies with absorbent sheets ( with natural fibers ). |
0.951164 | "Where do these women go?"
Why dokąd idą te kobiety is considered a mistake?
And it won't, because they 'go' generally, not right now.
Ok, and how we supposed to know without any content if they go generally, and not right now? To remove ambiguity you need to specify it in the question; if not all possible translation should be accepted.
I hope that I've understood your question.
Chodzić can be 1) habitual, with a specified direction 2) progressive without a specified direction.
Iść can only be progressive (happening right now).
"The women go" is simple present and therefore correspond to "kobiety chodzą", not "kobiety idą".
The following verbs show the same distinction: biegać/biec, jeździć/jechać, pływać/płynąć, nosić/nieść, wozić/wieźć, latać/lecieć.
i have a question! Russian uses two words for 'where', but Polish only one? in Russian you have где which is 'where' as in Location, and куда as in 'where to', implying motion. Polish uses Gdzie for both instances??
Unfortunately this course doesn't teach "dokąd", but in fact that is the equivalent of куда and should be used for "where to".
"gdzie" in this meaning is colloquial and frankly very common, but it's not exactly the correct way.
Is it wrong to use idą instead of chodzą here? If so, why?
Should 'Gdzie ci kobiety idzią' also be correct?
No. "ci" is for masculine personal, so "ci mężczyźni", but "te kobiety".
"idzią" is not a word, "idą" is what you meant. But as 'iść' implies Continous tense, that can't work in this sentence anyway. "walk" and "go" can be translated as "chodzą" - "idą" will be for "are walking/going".
And finally, while this course unfortunately teaches only "gdzie", the really correct version should be "dokąd". "Gdzie" means "where" and "dokąd" means "where to", it implies direction. But the course went with the colloquial usage of "gdzie" as both "where" and "where to", and now it cannot be changed, "gdzie" must be the default version.
In a case where someone is determining where to place the women (into what category / group, etc.), in English we'd say "Where do they go?", as in "where do they belong" and wouldn't that be the equivalent to idą rather than chodzą? Since it's talking about where they go in this moment?
I have 2 questions: 1. Is "Dokąd te kobiety dojdą? " a good translation? 2. Is it more natural to put the subject before or after the verb? Does it matter?
1) to arrive on foot, to reach [+ do (genitive) = somewhere] Nad ranem w końcu doszliśmy do schroniska. At daybreak, we finally arrived at the mountain hut.
2) to achieve [+ do (genitive) = something] Mój ojciec nigdy do niczego w życiu nie doszedł. My father never achieved anything in his life.
3) (informal) to find out, to arrive at Doszedłeś już, jak to działa? Have you found out how this works yet?
So "Dokąd te kobiety dojdą?" is... "Where will these woman arrive?", I guess. I'd actually translate it as... "end up", maybe? And it's Future Simple.
It's generally more natural to put the subject before the verb, otherwise you emphasize the subject.
Thanks! I did realize that it was dokonany... but later on. Didn't know about definition 4, but it makes sense. :) The word order has always been a question for me. Thanks again. |
0.999767 | Are smart lighting control systems difficult to install?
Today’s smart lighting control systems are designed with ease of use in mind. Most lighting control systems, from switches to timers, offer simple apps you can download in order to access your lights, set timers, and conserve energy.
Installation is usually what daunts users most when changing an existing home system, but take heart: most smart lighting control systems require only simple setup. Smart devices are extremely intuitive, often automatically syncing to the network as soon as they’re activated. Plus, many lighting control systems providers, including Z-Wave, offer installer databases, DIY support videos, informative articles, and detailed FAQ pages. |
0.965661 | In regards to reaching an agreement, I think we're going to shortly reach a point where, unless Dr. Cline changes his mind, we're going to have to agree to disagree.
He believes further that the corollaries to these axiomatic rights can be discovered a priori from the application of logic to a knowledge of these rights, and an an objective system of morality that is valid for all people, everywhere, at all times can be constructed from these rights.
To that I say, and not as flippantly as it sounds, "Welcome to the United Federation of Planets." I mean no insult. Please bear with me as I explain the problems I see in Dr. Cline's philosophy.
Dr. Cline and I have agreed, I think, to at least one fundamental right. That right was described by philosopher Ayn Rand as "A man's right to his own life." Rand also stated that all other rights "are its consequences and corollaries." He and I both agree that this fundamental right is the basic postulate, the self-evident truth, upon which a system of morality should be built. But it's necessary here to reiterate what I stated in Part II: we have to understand the difference between rights and morality, because the two are NOT equivalent.
Your note that rights are not completely interchangeable with morals is at least possibly true.
No, it is absolutely true, as I tried to explain before. Morals are the rules of behavior of a society, what is and what is not acceptable from its population. This is a critical thing to understand: morality can exist independent of any concept of individual rights, and has for the overwhelming majority of the history of man. Rights may exist as logical postulates, but they have had little to no effect upon human history until very, very recently.
A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.
They usually live in the same general geographic area, and they share a common belief system that defines the limits of acceptable behavior - their morality.
Rights may exist independent of society, but morality cannot. Morality is the set of rules by which people interact, whether those people belong to a band of hunter-gatherers, a tribe of farmers, a chiefdom, or a State. Their morality tells them how to deal with each other, and (hopefully) how to deal with "outsiders" - people with different moralities. The purpose behind having a set of rules of behavior is, at its base, survival. An individual, alone in the wild, has no need for morality. His right to his own life is absolute - and dependent entirely on his ability to survive in the wild. Only when confronted by other people does a question of morality arise - how to best survive as part of a group. Groups of people have a survival advantage over individuals, but membership in a group requires acceptance of the rules of that group - and those rules are learned. They're first learned through direct experience, and as the society matures, they are learned through instruction.
Well, I'm not going to argue much against this statement. I do indeed believe that man has innate moral knowledge (I wouldn't say an instinct, but that's a pretty minor problem). I should say rather that I believe that I have innate moral knowledge. I've never been very convinced of the applicability of knowledge about one's self to knowledge about others. So instead let's say that I believe that I have moral knowledge and I suspect that some others do as well.
He and the other Founders may have held those "truths to be self-evident," but for centuries if not millenia before they were neither self-evident nor true. In fact, even today those "self-evident" rights are not acknowledged in much if not most of the world.
Dr. Cline believes that he has a personal "innate moral knowledge" and he "suspect(s) that others do as well," but by stating that I think he admits that such knowledge may not be and probably is not universal. That "innate moral knowledge" is akin to Newton's ability to develop the Calculus by his pure logic, or Einstein's conception of the Theory of Relativity through his. These are talents that are rare in humans, and when such people apply themselves to the questions of morality, we call them "philosophers" - people like Rand, Kant, Popper, and Aristotle, and also Marx, Neitzche, and Kierkegaard. It is important to understand that when humanity is the topic, "irrational" implies much more than "the square-root of 2."
Your claim of the tale of the Maori and the Moriori as evidence of a lack of an objective standard of morality seems false to me. Again, morals are not inviolable. Saying that the fact that not everyone obeys whatever moral rules there might be is evidence for their absence seems to be expecting a little too much of morality. I might wish morality was self-enforcing, but that will not make it so. Anyone can choose to live how he wants; the Maori (at least those involved) made their choices. Your claim that condemnation of them is inappropriate as their behavior was moral according to their society is simply wrong. Any such claim negates entirely the validity of the rights of the individual, subjecting them to a test by opinion poll or ballot. My claim is that the primary position is that of the individual (a thing with both physical form and, more importantly, a mind) and the individual ONLY. Your earlier claim (following Ayn Rand) was that "the whole purpose of morals is to ensure survival, and whatever works to ensure survival is, for that society, 'moral.'" I’m not quite so sure that the source of morality is survival only, but whether or not I agree with that, the survival that Rand was alluding to was NOT survival of society, but rather the survival of the individual.
First, the story of the Maori and Moriori wasn't presented primarily as "evidence of a lack of an objective standard of morality." It was presented as an illustration that there are many moralities, one for each society extant, each based on the experiences learned by the members of that society, and passed on to other members. Dr. Cline states that "Anyone can choose to live how he wants; the Maori (at least those involved) made their choices." If I'm reading this correctly, he's stating that the Maori "made their choices" to not accept his "objective standard of morality."
But how could they choose it? What opportunity did they have? Is this objective moral standard self-evident, or isn't it?
The point I was trying to illustrate was that they had no concept of his objective moral standard, no concept even of individual rights, at least outside their own culture. The Moriori were "others," and as such the Maori attack was moral in accordance with Maori custom. Any attempt to convince the Maori that their behavior was immoral would have been met with a blank stare if not outright hostility. They had no concept of any moral standard other than the one they lived under. They didn't "make their choices" - they had no choices, because man has no moral instinct. They believed and acted on what their culture told them was moral. An agrarian tribal warrior society doesn't support much in the way of a philosopher class, and their morality worked until they met Europeans who could overpower them.
There are at least two bases for morality: survival, and individual rights. For the overwhelming majority of the existence of Man, the morality of any society has been based strictly on survival - anything that worked to ensure survival was, by definition, "moral."
Man has existed for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years, and our social structures have struggled slowly and painfully up from the band, to the tribe, to the chiefdom, to the state over that long time period. Throughout all of it we have done so without an ideal system of morality, just as we did without mathematics, agriculture, metallurgy, chemistry, or physics. We've been too busy just surviving. A theory of individual rights is much like mathematics - something of great value that requires time and resources to explore and develop.
It's not a matter of the Maori (or any other culture) choosing to reject Dr. Cline's objective moral standard. Such a standard is still largely undefined today. And one reason it is still undefined is because, aside from Rand's "one fundamental right," very few rights of the individual are axiomatic. For example, the right to arms isn't an axiom, it's a corollary to "a man's right to his own life." It's the means by which he can defend his life and property. ("IF we know that P implies Q AND we know that P is true THEN we know that Q is true.") It is the work of philosophers to do the logic necessary to "prove" the corollaries, and I don't believe that there were too many Maori Jeffersons, or Poppers, but probably a couple of Neitzches.
Morality is, then, by Dr. Cline's definition, a "science." It's based on hypotheses formed from observation, and it's tested constantly in the laboratory of life. If a particular morality is ever disproved, as the Moriori's was, the society generally fails and is replaced by a new society, often but not always made up of members of the previous society who have learned that their morality was inadequate the hard way, no matter how well it worked previously. The failure may be catastrophic, as it was for the Moriori and uncounted thousands before and after them, or it may be almost unnoticeable culturally, as it has been for America over its history, as our morality has slowly and incrementally morphed from seventeenth-century agrarian state to twenty-first century information-age state.
I have suggested in my previous letters that we can know certain rules of morality (of what is right and what is wrong) such as "murder is wrong" or whatever. However, my main point is rather not that we know specific rules of morality with absolute certainty – at least not without a great deal of work (as even rules as seemingly obvious as "murder is wrong" may contain subtleties as, indeed, "murder is wrong" seems to in regard to the difference between murder and other forms of killing). Rather my main point was that we know, with whatever level of certainty possible in knowledge, that there are such rules. We must accept that such rules exist before we can find them.
But accepting that such rules exist is not the same as knowing what they are. Figuring out what they are is the job of philosophers, and they have yet to reach anything resembling a consensus after at least 5,000 years of considering the questions.
Dr. Cline argues that rights, at least the fundamental ones, are axioms. Acted on with logic, we can determine their corollaries. From these we can build an objective morality.
I agree, mostly, with the primary argument - fundamental rights are axiomatic; unverifiable and (hopefully) self-evident, given the opportunity to consider them. Once you've overcome the problems of day-to-day survival, you might actually have the time to consider them, if you are of a philosophical (and socially benign) bent. Most people are not though, and through most of human history, the problems of day-to-day survival denied the opportunity anyway.
I agree that some corollaries can be discovered a priori through the application of logic, but as with the greatest problems in mathematics, the greatest problems of those corollaries will take long years to wrestle with, and we may never get a "right" answer. But when it comes to morality, we're going to remain stuck in the realm of science: Apply the theorem, test in the laboratory of life, and keep testing until it fails. Learn from the failure, work up a new theorem, and try again. Heinlein's "scientifically verifiable theory of morals" (as he meant it) is nonsense, as science doesn't prove a scientific theorem the way that a mathematician "proves" a mathematical theorem.
Science just tests to destruction.
In the end, the existence of a society must be of (distant) secondary importance to the existence of the individual. The individual does not exist to serve society; the individual exists for his or her own purposes. Society, inasmuch as it exists at all, exists only to further the purposes of the individual. If we grant... that the existence of society is the primary purpose of morality and even existence, we should not be surprised when individual rights are denied, even by those agreeing with us. In any case, whether we regard the individual and its existence as primary (as I do) or the society and its existence as primary (as you seem to), we may (and probably will) have to fight for the continued practice of our rights, but their protection and their existence are not the same things. If we grant society the top spot in existence, we lose the justification we have in our fight.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...for while the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it is not a suicide pact.
Survival, it seems, is still the primary basis of our morality, not individual rights.
I was not endorsing the idea that "man serves society," but recognizing the fact that it has been that way for millennia. Dr. Cline judges these previous societies against his "objective moral standard" based on the rights of individuals and finds them wanting. I judge them against the question "did they work, and for how long?" because I understand that Dr. Cline's "objective moral standard" has yet to be even mostly defined. It may exist, I think it does, but we haven't discovered it all yet.
I repeat: No society currently exists based on that ideal single objective standard, and I honestly think it will be centuries - if ever- before one might. If we do, perhaps then we can build an anarcho-capitalist paradise where coercive governments no longer exist, and we can all live in harmony.
But I severely doubt it.
Until we do, rights will remain what the majority of a society believes and is willing to defend.
The most vital economic resource is people, and that’s the one thing much of the Western world is running out of. The anti-globalists can demonise sovereign states and sovereign companies — the Dells and other multinationals — but we’re entering the age of the sovereign individual, and that will be a lot harder for the anti-glob mob to attack. By 2010, a smart energetic Chinaman or Indian will be able to write his own ticket anywhere he wants.
Read the whole piece, but that quote directly relates to my point that, more and more, society is beginning to serve the individual, and not the other way 'round.
More Idiocy from the Other Side of the Pond.
Anybody from England Want to Weigh in on This? |
0.999998 | Michael Wadleigh, also known as Michael Wadley (September 24, 1942, Akron, Ohio), is an American film director and cinematographer renowned for his groundbreaking documentary of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, Woodstock.
A native of Akron, Ohio, Wadleigh entered films in his early twenties as a cinematographer on independently-produced low-budget films David Holtzman's Diary and I Call First (both 1967), and My Girlfriend's Wedding (1969). Billed as Michael Wadley, he gained notice for his work from critics who followed independent and underground films, but the films, primarily aimed at a specialized and counterculture audience, brought him no financial success.
In 1969, Wadleigh undertook the monumental task of documenting the Woodstock Music Festival. He arrived on the site in Bethel, New York on August 15, with over a thousand reels of film and a crew of several camera operators. The finished product was said to have consisted of about 120 miles of footage which, over the next months, was edited down to 184 minutes. Warner Brothers, the film's primary financial backer, released it on March 26, 1970.
Why does cinema struggle to recreate the music festival? |
0.98298 | What led to the project: Growing up, Rageshree Ramachandran was no stranger to intense competition. This daughter of math and statistics professors at California State University, Sacramento, won the National Spelling Bee in 1988 when she was 13 by spelling the word elegiacal—which refers to a type of poetic meter—correctly.
In high school, Ramachandran turned her attention to science. She decided to join a summer research program for high school students at the University of California, San Diego, in part because she thought living on campus would be fun. Ramachandran told the directors that she was fascinated by chaos theory—the study of dynamic systems, and how small fluctuations can create big changes in outcomes.
So, working at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, she wound up using data from U.C. San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography to design a computer model to simulate the recurring Pacific Ocean weather phenomenon known as El Niño. She showed how temperature changes in the water could affect wind patterns. She entered her project in the 1991 Westinghouse Science Talent Search and was named a finalist (a distinction also later bestowed on her little sister, Sohini in 1998).
The effect on her career: Though she enjoyed her project, Ramachandran ultimately decided that she was more interested in medicine and medical research than in climate science. She attended Stanford University as an undergrad, and then went to Philadelphia to earn a joint MD–PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied cell and molecular biology. Her thesis was on how genes are turned on and off when muscles regrow in mice.
But although she didn't wind up in the field she worked in for her Westinghouse project, the contest nonetheless had a big effect on her romantic life. As she was working on the project at the U.C. San Diego summer program, Ramachandran met and become friends with a young man named Joel Moore. He, too, became a Westinghouse finalist later that school year. Ramachandran placed 10th. Moore was the first runner-up after the top 10, meaning he came in 11th. They would remain close together, getting married in 1999. Ramachandran notes that Moore hasn't held her slightly higher finish against her. "In fact, we each mention our individual ranking on our CVs [curricula vitae]. But somehow whenever it comes up, we can't escape mention of the fact that we had consecutive finishes!"
What she's doing now: Moore became a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001, so Ramachandran decided to take a pathology residency in the Bay Area at the University of California, San Francisco (U.C.S.F.). Though she loved pathology work—analyzing tissue samples and helping surgeons, oncologists and other doctors decide on courses of treatment—she didn't like the fact that she wouldn't meet most of the patients she was helping to diagnose. "The idea of giving up day-to-day patient interaction was one of the biggest decisions I had to make," she says. "But I came to realize that the pathologist plays a very key part in the behind-the-scenes workup." In particular, she loved the challenge of trying to make a difficult diagnosis.
This year, she's on a fellowship in gastrointestinal (GI) pathology at U.C.S.F. "I think one of the things that appealed to me is that all of us at one time or another have had GI pain, but abdominal pain is one of the most difficult diagnoses to work out," she says—something she experienced firsthand when she had her appendix removed in college. "It's something everybody as a patient can relate to," which helps make the "very long road" of an MD–PhD, plus a residency and a fellowship, worthwhile.
She's been winning fans along the way. Ramachandran "is an outstanding young physician," says Linda Ferrell, a professor of surgical pathology at U.C.S.F. "She has already participated successfully in several ongoing clinical research projects"—including her current one, which involves comparing different kinds of liver tumors—"and has also demonstrated her leadership skills in her role last year as one of two chief residents in our department." She adds that "she will no doubt progress to be an outstanding contributor in the field of pathology."
Ramachandran hasn't forgotten her spelling bee roots: She still cringes at spelling errors. "The truth is, I page people using shorthand and abbreviations as well," she says, and she understands the conventions of text messages. "But to me there's a difference between that and an official document, where you should take the extra step to make sure everything's spelled correctly." Sure, we live in an era of spell-check. "But that's no substitute for just proofreading."
Has chaos theory found any useful application in the social sciences?
Does the appendix serve a purpose in any animal? |
0.999993 | How To Buy Good Stocks?
Before investing your hard earned money in the stocks of a Company, you should first analyze the stocks and determine if they are worth buying. There are many factors which help you analyze, whether stocks are worth buying or not.
Following are some of the factors which help you analyze stocks.
Before buying the shares of any company, you should do proper research on the company. You should know the company's profile, its current holdings and its future projections. Avoid buying the stocks of a company which is making losses, because you will lose your money, if you invest in such companies. You should also go through the company's past financial performances.
While investing your money in the stocks of any company, you must analyze the price of the stock. Go through the historical price of the stock and find out the return it has given over a certain time period. You should also see if there are any stock splits.
Study the product and its market response. Knowing this will help you understand, the future performance of the company. You should also know who are the competitors and what is their market share.
Knowing the revenue of the company is very important. The share price of the company will automatically go up, once the revenue of the company increases.
The dividend is a payment made by the Company, to its shareholders. This is additional money you can earn on the shares. If the company is paying a good dividend to its shareholders, it shows that it is a stable company with a good track record of profit.
Earnings per share helps evaluate the profit that you can earn on the shares. Earnings per share is calculated by dividing the net profit of the company per quarter, by the total number of outstanding shareholders.
Market capitalization is the total value of the company. You should opt for a company which has high market capitalization. Companies with large market capitalization remain less affected by small shocks and shares are less volatile. |
0.977321 | As a general rule of thumb, the Institue of Medicine of the National Academies recommends that children and adults consume 14 grams. of dietary fiber for every 1,000 calories of food eaten. Given the summary dietary fiber and calorie information presented above, there would be about 21.57 grams of dietary fiber per 1,000 calories of Babyfood, dinner, vegetables and lamb, junior.
So, based on this information, can we consider Babyfood, dinner, vegetables and lamb, junior to be a high fiber food? The answer is Yes. |
0.957318 | The 21st word of verse (63:10) is a masculine plural active participle and is in the genitive case (مجرور). The active participle's triliteral root is ṣād lām ḥā (ص ل ح).
musoob can not be the khabr of أَكُنْ. Thanks.
Do you mean by "musoob" that الصَّالِحِينَ is "mansoob" accusative? No, it is not accusative but genitive (majroor) because of "min". |
0.996382 | I need to architect a system for my company. My question is specific to logging. Part of the requirement is to log 2 kinds of data.
A1. User events (Ex: UserA clicked on Button1, performed Action#21. Error occurred while performing Action#34, Successfully completed Action#51).
A2. Complete API traffic(request and response payload) logging.
A3. Develop a dashboard to display analytics of user events (from A1 above).
B1. Use an Oracle 11g DB as application's primary data store (User & access management, shopping cart, order management etc.).
B2. Use a MongoDB or other NoSQL DB to log user events (from A1) and log complete API request and response bodies (from A2 above). Reason is, we believe RDBMS(Oracle) will be slow for writing and reading huge payloads in BLOB fields. NoSQL might be better for these write heavy operations.
B3. Use a logging microservice, so that our server app can POST the payload to the microservice and forget about it. The write heavy operations will be handled by this microservice so that our server app does not take the added overhead of logging and remain highly responsive.
B4. Develop our own dashboard to show customized graphs and stats on user events (collected using (A1) step above). But the events table could be huge (millions of records) to query from. So not sure if its the right approach.
Would you all recommend sticking with the above plan or if you suggest doing something different, what would it be?
What I lack knowledge in is "BigData". What exactly is BigData in a nutshell? Can we apply it for our needs? Are there open source solutions for BigData?
Would using BigData or any other solution help with faster analysis/querying of data for our analytics dashboard?
Is there an out of the box open source solution for dashboards(UI) so that we don't have to build it from scratch?
If sticking with NoSQL is a good plan, what NoSQL DB would you recommend? MongoDB? Cassandra?
P.S: We will be purging data older than 6 months from the logging tables.
Estimation: Users: 50k max. Transactions/Requests: 500k per day max. Size of payloads: 25KB per req/res avg.
Please feel free to criticize the entire plan and suggest an entirely new one that you think would be a better solution(using open source tech).
"Would you all recommend sticking with the above plan or if you suggest doing something different, what would it be?"
I would actually try to convince the stakeholders (money payers) that using an enterprise software would be in their best interest 'cause you're describing a very hard problem and you'll likely spend more money developing it than something like New Relic costs.
That said, the implementation totally changes based on what you're currently doing for releases and if you control the application code you're trying to monitor or if it's some 3rd party plugin you want to get data about too. I'm going to guess that the app is your company's and that your might have some CICD but it's not 100%.
If that's close enough, I think it would be easy enough to stand up a Kafka cluster or three and log everything you can get your hands on into them. Maybe one is for RESTFUL calls and one is for app-level errors or whatever you decide. This could stand as your centralized logging system.
Since you control the application code, you can log pretty much anything you like by asking the developers to add more logging, where you want. That's not usually a favorite request but if it makes sense and especially if higher ups back the idea, you can probably get all the logging you want to get. That will tell you about RESTful calls, app errors and things like that but you'll have to go deeper to get latency reporting and info on slow SQL queries and all that. I believe you can get some good info out of some free Nagios logging too. At a minimum, you should be able to get stats about how the hosts are doing; e.g. Memory available, CPU consumed, Disk space, etc.
You can then have something consuming all these messages and tie in some pretty useful automations, based on the state of your system and the actions coming in. "Oh look, everyone is buying all the X-product! Let's make a promotion to capitolize on it!" or "Oh look, all of our apps are throwing 500s! Let's go hide somewhere until this all blows over!"
I'd say you should use something like AWS's SQS because you don't have to worry about managing the Kafka/Zookeeper cluster on top of managing your application(s) code. SQS is pennies for millions of messages but if you're going 100% open source, Kafka is a solid choice, in my humble opinion.
Choosing NoSQL...that one's tough here. I think it's probably the right choice but maybe, if you can, hold off on deciding about that level in your system until you find out how you want to use that data, in other words, make sure the use case fits NoSQL before you commit. Switching and keeping any history would be tricky.
"What I lack knowledge in is "BigData". What exactly is BigData in a nutshell? Can we apply it for our needs? Are there open source solutions for BigData?"
I'm no PHD but I dabble and I work with those teams, daily. With that history, I'll try to explain in my words. Big Data is a blanket term you can use to talk about problems and solutions with, when the problem you're trying to solve has a grip of data tied to it by nature. It's usually not helpful to work from this mentality when your data is still in the GB range but I'm sure there's plenty of use cases where it makes sense.
Anyways, it works like this; Say there's this thing that we all do, like use the internet. Pretend, if you will, that there was some way to collect data about our internet usage, like what sites we visit and what search term we used to get to that site. That's a looooot of data and when you think of it and use it as kind of a resource, you get a lot of insights and benefits out of it but it's also really hard to sift through all that data and reason about it. In this example, the data is all our internet usage. The problem is how to sale crap to us, using google adwords or whatever, and the "Big Data" in this is that we're considering all this data and how we can use it. A big part of "Big Data" is also the infrastructure used to run it. It's not trivial so it usually gets a lot of attention.
There's lots of open source tools you can use for using your data. If your apps were to use any tools, Spark comes to mind. You could set up streaming from your logging message system to modify all the incoming data so that it's easier to use for humans and machines. I guess if you get really ambitious, you could try to implement some machine learning based on all your data. You'll have to come up with the problems you want to solve first, though.
"Would using BigData or any other solution help with faster analysis/querying of data for our analytics dashboard?"
Yes. That's the whole point of it all. The problem is, you have to hire a bunch of expensive people to implement it. Your best bet is to tackle that hurdle when you get to it. If you can create your logging system and the dashboard, you'll be worlds better than you are now. No need to build an F1 car when you just need a tractor, ya know? And if I were to continue the F1 car and tractor metaphor, you can think of it like this -> The tractor that you're going to build now is creating the paved surface for your BigData F1 car to do impressive things with. You'll need all that data your logging system is going to collect before you can use the data to reason about, if that makes sense.
"Is there an out of the box open source solution for dashboards(UI) so that we don't have to build it from scratch?"
I don't know of one but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Building the dashboard can be as big or small a project as you make it. Honestly though, I think this is the easiest part of the work ahead of you. Enjoy, if you build it yourself! It should be fun.
"If sticking with NoSQL is a good plan, what NoSQL DB would you recommend? MongoDB? Cassandra?"
My opinion here is just to use a cloud tool and let them decide the engine. I doubt, from what I'm hearing, that you'll be taxing any graph database on tough queries. Your issue is most likely going to be from reads and writes, so maybe figure out how much you think you'll be pushing into the DB and how you'll be querying that data. It should lead you to whether or not NoSQL is a better fit and during your reading, I bet you'll stumble on some article that makes up your mind on which engine you chose.
It's an interesting problem and it sounds really fun to work on.
Good luck and I hope that helps, at least a little!
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged logging nosql big-data rdbms analytics or ask your own question.
How should I handle measurement logging in my Discrete Event Simulation engine?
Should we reuse web app logs for user behaviour analytics?
Is this Big Data architecture good enough to handle many requests per second? |
0.93615 | Cro-Magnon Man is a name applied to the earliest known European examples of Homo sapiens sapiens, modern human beings. Cro-Magnons lived from about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic period of the Pleistocene epoch. All modern human lineages, Cro-Magnon among them, most likely radiated from East Africa.
For all intents and purposes, the Cro-Magnons were anatomically modern, differing from their modern-day descendants in Europe only by their slightly more robust physiology and larger brain capacity. When the Cro-Magnons appeared in Europe about 40,000 years ago, they brought with them sculpture, engraving, painting, body ornamentation, music, and the painstaking decoration of utilitarian objects.
The geologist Louis Lartet discovered the first five skeletons in March 1868 in Abri Cro-Magnon, the Cro-Magnon rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France. Found during construction, the rock shelter contained a large cavity that protected the fossils. The date of the fossils has been placed at approximately 32,000 years ago to 30,000 years ago, during the uppermost Pleistocene (Kreger 2005, Smithsonian 2007). Located were skeletons of three adult males, one adult female, and one infant. This appears to be a deliberate burial site, with body adornments found with the skeletons, such as pieces of shell and animal tooth in apparent pendants or necklaces (Kreger 2005, Smithsonian 2007).
The type specimen from this find is Cro-Magnon 1, an adult male specimen. Also known as the "Old Man," Cro-Magnon 1 has a complete cranium except for the teeth and mandibular condyles (Kreger 2005). The skeletons showed the same high forehead, upright posture and slender (gracile) skeleton as modern humans. The cranial capacity is estimated at 1,600 cubic centimeters.
Other specimens have since come to light in other parts of Europe and in the Middle East. The European individuals are thought to have probably descended from an East African origin via South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and even North Africa (cromagnoid populations of Mechta El Arbi and Afalou bou Rummel).
From the initial findings, it would appear that these early humans cared for one another to help survive the physical hardships of life. The type specimen shows evidence of a fungal infection, several individuals had fused vertebrate indicative of traumatic injury, and the adult female had survived for some time with a skull fracture (Smithsonian 2007). Given the life threatening nature of these injuries, it is believed that Cro-Magnons exhibited community support and took care of each other's injuries, as well as practiced the ritual of burial (Smithsonian 2007).
Cro-Magnon's are believed to have had a varied and balanced diet, including meat, grain, wild carrots, beets, onion, turnip and other foods.
Surviving Cro-Magnon artifacts include huts, cave paintings, carvings, and antler-tipped spears. The remains of tools suggest that they knew how to make woven clothing. They had huts, constructed of rocks, clay, bones, branches, and animal hide/fur. These early humans used manganese and iron oxides to paint pictures and may have created the first calendar around 15,000 years ago (Whitehouse 2000).
The Cro-Magnons are assumed to have come into contact with the Neanderthals, and are often credited with causing the latter's extinction, although morphologically modern humans seem to have coexisted with Neanderthals for some 60,000 years in the Middle East, near the Mediterranean Sea (Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch 1993), and for more than 10,000 years in France (Gravina 2005).
Cro-Magnons appear to be associated with the "Great Leap Forward." After 50,000 BP, Jared Diamond, author of The Third Chimpanzee, and other anthropologists note that human culture apparently started to change at much greater speed: "modern" humans started to bury their dead carefully, made clothing out of hides, developed sophisticated hunting techniques (such as pitfall traps, or driving animals to fall off cliffs), and made cave paintings. Different populations of humans begin to create novelty in existing technologies. Artifacts such as fish hooks, buttons, and bone needles begin to show signs of variation among different population of humans, something that has not been seen in human cultures prior to 50,000 BP. This speed-up of cultural change seems connected with the arrival of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.
Theoretically, modern human behavior is taken to include four ingredient capabilities: abstract thinking (concepts free from specific examples), planning (taking steps to achieve a farther goal), innovation (finding new solutions), and symbolic behavior (such as images, or rituals). Among concrete examples of modern human behavior, anthropologists include specialization of tools, use of jewelry and images (such as cave drawings), organization of living space, rituals (for example, burials with grave gifts), specialized hunting techniques, exploration of less hospitable geographical areas, and barter trade networks. Debate continues whether there was indeed a "Revolution" leading to modern man ("the big bang of human consciousness"), or a more gradual evolution.
Cro is presumably a dialectal form of creux, meaning "cavity" or "hollow"; such forms as crau, cro, crouè are found in French dialects, and all probably derive, through Vulgar Latin *crosus (not attested), from a Celtic root.
Magnon is almost certainly the augmentative form of the Old French adjective magne, from Latin magnus, meaning "large" or "great" and ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European language root meĝh2 (related to English much).
Thus, the probable original meaning is "great cavity."
According to information on display in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, however, Magnon was simply the name of the proprietor who owned the land on which the cave is located when Lartet made his discovery in 1868.
Bar-Yosef, O. and B. Vandermeersch. 1993. “Modern humans in the Levant.” Scientific American (April 1993): 94-100.
Gravina, B., P. Mellars, and C. Bronk Ramsey. 2005. “Radiocarbon dating of interstratified Neanderthal and early modern human occupations at the Chatelperronian type-site.” Nature 438: 51-56.
Kreger, C. D. 2005. “Homo sapiens: Introduction.” Archaeology.info. Retrieved August 31, 2007.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. 2007. Cro-Magnon 1. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved August 31, 2007.
Whitehouse, D. 2000. “Oldest lunar calendar identified.” BBC (October 16, 2000). Retrieved August 31, 2007. |
0.99368 | Describe about the following points?
1. Describe the duties and responsibilities of own work role.
2. Understand what is required for competence in own work role.
A practitioner of child care provides a comfortable and safe environment for a temporary period in order to engage young children and teach them discipline, personal hygiene and general social skills. In formal surroundings, they provide a structural atmosphere which includes artistic expression, group games and solitary play.
According the type of facility of the worker, the daily responsibilities differ. Those who work in the residence of their clients are known as nannies (Heren and McMillan, 2011). They are responsible to take care personally for the children or the child. Their responsibilities includes bathe, clothe and feeding the children as well as they also conducts outings, manage their play dates and help them in learning their lessons.
Practitioner who controls a service at their own residence necessarily keeps a stimulating clean and safe environment. To help in educating personal hygiene and serving healthy snacks also comes under the duties and responsibilities of a care provider. The age category for them differs in their care and accordingly they have to provide activities and materials. The day care practitioners must keep in mind the requirements of each and every child.
In care centers for children practitioners supervise sectional children who belong to a certain age group. In this case the practitioner has to design plans and implement for daily activities that will be carried out for the whole day. They also have to manage the outdoor and indoor play, teach them in one –on-one basis various skills in order to keep the children engaged (Gestwicki, Bertrand and Gestwicki, 2012). Scouting, field trips and cultural events are also to be conducted by the practitioners.
A diploma and degree in child care practice, along with experience in child care. Majority of centers for child care prefers educational qualification like a degree holder in education for child care. People with degrees in psychology and development are also suitable for the role. Presently all positions for child care needs a basic training of safety and CPR (Taylor, 2010). CPR training is the knowledge on first aid and basic medical treatments. Knowledge on administration and management, customer and personal service also adds as extra qualifications.
The basic skills required for Child care are the personal skills that one must possess within. Traits like concern for others, dependability cooperation, integrity helps in this field. These are general skills that help to treat a child. One also needs to be flexible for adapting the atmosphere and interacting with different kids belonging to same as well as different age groups. The biggest quality that a practitioner of child care needs to acquire is patience and persistence (Burns, 2013). In this job a practitioner often confronts criticism, in which he or she has to act with patience even during situations of high stress. An open to change attitude helps the practitioner to adapt every situation, in cases of nannies where the practitioner has to go to the clients’ house, there the person has to be able to adapt the culture and act likely.
A practitioner of child care is responsible for the upbringing of a child or a group of children. Children’s are the future of a society, so the basic learning should be strong both ethically and morally. A child learns very easily so it is expected that any kind of misconduct should be avoided in front of them.
Burns, C. (2013). Pediatric primary care. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier.
Gestwicki, C., Bertrand, J. and Gestwicki, C. (2012). Essentials of early childhood education. Toronto: Nelson Education.
Heren, L. and McMillan, S. (2011). Nanny in a book. London: Vermillion.
Taylor, C. (2010). A practical guide to caring for children and teenagers with attachment difficulties. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. |
0.87248 | Alexander II was the Emperor of Russia from March 2nd, 1855 until his assassination in 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland.
Alexander was the most successful Russian reformer since Peter the Great. His most important achievement was the emancipation of serfs in 1861, for which he became known as Alexander the Liberator (Russian: Алекса́ндр Освободи́тель, tr. Aleksandr Osvoboditel; IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐsvəbɐˈdʲitʲɪlʲ]). The tsar was responsible for numerous other reforms including reorganizing the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing capital punishment, promoting local self-government through the zemstvo system, imposing universal military service, ending some of the privileges of the nobility, and promoting universities. Despite these reforms, during his reign, his brutal secret police, known as the Third Section, sent thousands of dissidents into exile in Siberia.
In foreign policy, Alexander sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there was another war. He sought peace, moved away from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and Austria in the League of the Three Emperors that stabilized the European situation. Despite his otherwise pacifistic foreign policy, he fought a brief war with Turkey in 1877–78, pursued further expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus, and conquered Turkestan. Although disappointed by the results of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Alexander abided by that agreement. Among his greatest domestic challenges was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which he responded by stripping that land of its separate Constitution and incorporating it directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic movements when he was assassinated in 1881. |
0.999977 | I understand that S3M is a best practices framework and guidance, not a standard.
Yes, although S3M is not a standard, it is fully aligned with the recommendations of the ISO/IEC 14764:2006 processes and offers invaluable information to organizations that set out to comply with ISO9000:2015. It provides the guidance for putting the processes in place to meet the ISO9000 standard in the software maintenance area. |
0.996839 | What is input tax under GST?
Input tax is a tax paid while purchasing goods or availing services by the registered person under GST. In addition to this, it also includes tax paid on a reverse charge basis and integrated tax goods and services tax.
Tax ie. CGST/SGST/UGST paid on input shall be allowed as credit and can be set off against the total tax liability. |
0.939014 | What impact does brain injury have during fetal development?
Because such extraordinarily complex structures develop out of very simple cell groupings, early problems in neuro-development can lead to severe birth defects. For example, spina bifida is linked to defects in the neural tube. In fact, serious problems in the first trimester of pregnancy often lead to miscarriage, such that 80 percent of miscarriages occur in the first trimester. When we consider the enormous lengths the brain must travel in its journey to maturity, it is indeed remarkable that so many human beings are born without brain damage. |
0.94237 | Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" is one of the most paradoxical and confounding aspects of quantum mechanics, but researchers have just demonstrated that it may not be as paradoxical as we thought. In a new study, scientists from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research demonstrated that quantum particles' trajectories are not solely products of the collapse of their wave functions, but have actual trajectories that are nevertheless still affected by "spooky" entanglement, which have now been dubbed "surreal" trajectories.
Larger objects that are subject to the laws of classical physics have "real" trajectories, meaning they travel from one point to another and their paths are unaffected by measurement. On the quantum level, it gets a little more counterintuitive, as the uncertainty principle states that one can never know both the location and the momentum of a particle. So in the classic double-slit experiment, photons that are sent through a screen with two parallel slits will have uncertain locations until we observe them, at which point the system is disturbed and the photons stop in their tracks. This leads to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that observing the photons "causes" the location of the photon after the fact.
According to the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, the photons don't have a "real" trajectory through either slit, but rather have a probabilistic wave function that is collapsed once the photon is observed going through either slit. So we can know the probability of the particle being in any one location at any time, but there is no actual, singular path the photon is taking.
Another interpretation of quantum mechanics, called the De Broglie–Bohm theory, holds that there is a "real" trajectory taken by the particle, even when it's not observed. It claims that the seemingly paradoxical behavior occurs because the particles are controlled by the wave function of a "guiding equation" of a system. The wave function is still probabilistic, but the particles themselves have real trajectories. Aephraim Steinberg and his colleagues apparently demonstrated this phenomenon in 2011, when they experimentally showed that taking the average of "weak" observations of the double-slit experiment, which disturbed the system as little as possible, showed trajectories for the particles that were similar to classical trajectories.
Critics of this experiment claimed that the results were inconsistent with the effects of entanglement; when two quantum particles become entangled with each other, a measurement of one particle affects the other, which leads to incorrect predictions for the trajectories of the particles. They called these unpredictable paths "surreal" trajectories, rather than real ones.
In the new study, the researchers experimentally demonstrated that the "surreality" of quantum particles is the result of nonlocality. A nonlocal theory, like this variation of the De Broglie–Bohm theory, contends that all particles are impacted by the guiding equation of an entire system, allowing for "action at a distance." This is a direct contrast to local theories, which contend that there must be some sort of medium in between two particles that allow them to affect each other. In this particular theory, the distance at which a particle can be impacted by another particle depends only on the boundaries of the system, which could theoretically extend to the entire universe.
When the researchers took nonlocality for granted, the entanglement of photons was perfectly consistent with their theory. When the particles were considered together rather than separately, there were no incorrect predictions and the photons took paths that were similar to classical trajectories.
The researchers are not claiming, however, that the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is incorrect, or that these "surreal" trajectories are what is "actually happening" on the quantum level. Rather, they are claiming that we still have no idea what is happening in the quantum world, because the standard interpretation and the De Broglie–Bohm theory are equally consistent with observational evidence, and are mathematically equivalent.
"I'm less interested in focusing on the philosophical question of what's 'really' out there. I think the fruitful question is more down-to-earth," co-author Steinberg told Phys.org. "Rather than thinking about different metaphysical interpretations, I would phrase it in terms of having different pictures. Different pictures can be useful. They can help shape better intuitions." |
0.994996 | The age factors in Table 1 in Fair (2007) have been updated through 2018 for the "run" category, which is all running events between 5km and the marathon. The updated estimates are based on world single age records for men compiled by ARRS: World Single Age Records. Four road races were pooled---5km, 10km, half marathon, marathon---along with two outdoor track events---5000 meters and 10000 meters. The data are as of June 2, 2017.
The 2018 work began at age 40 rather than 35, and the 2007 age factors above have been normalized to have R40 equal to 1.00. The R's are the age factors at the various ages. The age factors are quite close until about age 90. The updated estimates are more pessimistic about decline rates in the very old ages. There are few observations beyond age 90, and some of the existing records are undoubtedly soft. The estimates beyond about age 90 are thus not trustworthy. More observations at the very old ages are needed before much can be said. Because of this, no extrapolations in the new work were done beyond age 95. The oldest age in the estimation work was 95. |
0.999999 | Rare Bar and Grill: restaurante que sirve desayunos, almuerzos y cenas.
Rare View Rooftop Bar: bar en la azotea en las instalaciones.
Muy buena experiencia, muy cómoda la habitacion, podria haber sido un poco mas grande. El baño excelente y muy amable el personal del hotel. Muy buena ubicación.
The hotel is very well located, but the heater didn't work and had to be repaired several times. The room is not properly cleaned and full of dust mites. Also, the curtains were broken and were not repaired during our stay. In summary, the location of the hotel is excellent, but not worth staying. |
0.999997 | The email message below with the subject "This Email Will Be Closed After," is a fake and scam. The fake email message was NOT sent by Microsoft, but by cyber-criminals, who created the fake email message to steal their potential victims' Microsoft Hotmail, Live, or Outlook user names and passwords. So, recipients of the fake email message should not click on the link or follow the instructions in it. The link in the phishing email message will take recipients who have clicked on it, to a phishing Microsoft Hotmail or Outlook website, where they will be asked to sign-in. Once the potential victims attempt to sign-in, their email account credentials(usernames and passwords) will be sent to the cyber-criminals behind the phishing scam. Once cyber-criminals are in possession of their victims' email account credentials, they will hijack and use their victims' email accounts fraudulently.
If you were tricked into entering your user name and password on the fake or phishing Microsoft Outlook website, please change your password immediately, before your Microsoft account is hijacked and used fraudulently.
to make it even more efficient.
We embrace these changes, and our security updates are intended to reflect the transparency in your customer experience and reinforce our commitment to your security. |
0.99982 | When choosing beer for your food, there are some general guidelines: Strong beer for heavy food and pale beer for light food. It is important to be aware of whether the dish is fat or not if so, a beer is required which can provide some resistance to the food. Strong beer neutralizes the fat by “cleansing” the palate.
Beer is also very suitable for the food preparation: As spices, to neutralize fattiness, to braise, to marinate, as an element in sauces and cooked dishes, to provide bitterness in liquid form and for tenderizing the meat.
Strong dishes: Stronger beer, eg. strong pilsner or luxury beer.
Sweet dishes: sweet beer, eg. porter or stout. |
0.997806 | Blue Mackerel is a sustainable species fished in the waters of western TAS, southern WA and to the east of Bass Strait, mainly by commercial fishers.
Following a data synthesis undertaken to establish management zones in the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery (SPF) [Bulman et al. 2008], Blue Mackerel off southern Australia is currently considered to be comprised of two biological stocks: the Western stock that extends from western Tasmania to southern Western Australia and the Eastern stock, which occurs to the east of Bass Strait [AFMA 2008, 2009]. Blue Mackerel and other target species in the SPF are managed in western and eastern sub-areas [AFMA 2008, 2009], which reflect this stock structure.
The most recent assessment of the Eastern stock of Blue Mackerel was completed in 2018 using fishery data for 2016 [Ward and Grammer 2018] and the results of an application of the daily egg production method in 2014 [Ward et al. 2015]. The primary biological performance indicators are spawning biomass and exploitation rate.
The spawning biomass of Blue Mackerel off eastern Australia in 2014 was estimated to be approximately 83 300 t (95 per cent confidence interval 35 100–165 000 t) [Ward et al 2015]. This estimate is higher than the preliminary estimate of 23 009 t obtained in 2004 [Ward et al. 2009]. Ward et al recommended that the estimate spawning biomass for 2014 be used with caution due to uncertainty in the estimates of adult parameters, especially spawning fraction.
Historically, total annual catches of Blue Mackerel from the eastern stock have typically been less than 1 000 t per annum [Ward and Grammer 2018]. The total annual catch peaked at approximately 3 800 t in 2016 when a factory trawler operated in the SPF. Small catches of Blue Mackerel from the Eastern stock are taken by recreational fishers off Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland.
Recent catches, including the 3 800 t taken in 2016 have been less than 5 per cent of the estimate of spawning biomass in 2014 of 83 300, and well below the sustainable exploitation rate of 23 per cent suggested for this stock [Smith et al 2015].
The above evidence indicates that the biomass of this stock is unlikely to be depleted and that recruitment is unlikely to be impaired. Furthermore, the above evidence indicates that the current level of fishing mortality is unlikely to cause the stock to become recruitment impaired.
On the basis of the evidence provided above, the Eastern biological stock of Blue Mackerel is classified as a sustainable stock.
The most recent assessment of the Western stock of Blue Mackerel was completed in 2018 using fishery data for 2016 [Ward and Grammer 2018] and the results of an application of the daily egg production method in 2005 [Ward et al. 2009]. The primary biological performance indicators are spawning biomass and exploitation rate.
A preliminary application of the daily egg production method to Blue Mackerel off South Australia during 2005 provided an estimated spawning biomass of approximately 56 000 tonnes (t) [Ward et al. 2009]. This estimate of spawning biomass was considered to be conservative as the survey only covered a limited part of the area in which this stock occurs, and there was evidence of spawning activity outside the survey area in the western Great Australian Bight [Ward et al. 2009].
Total annual catches of Blue Mackerel from the Western stock were low in the late-1990s and early-2000s (less than 55 t) but increased to between 1 000 t and 2 000 t in 2008 and 2009. These larger catches were taken mainly by purse-seine vessels operating in the SPF off South Australia. Total annual catches of between 750 t and 1 000 t were taken in the SPF in 2015 and 2016, when a factory trawler operated in the fishery. Commercial fishing for Blue Mackerel by Western Australian licenced vessels was prohibited in 1999. Tasmanian catches of Blue Mackerel over the last decade have been low (< 5 t per annum). Small catches of Blue Mackerel from the western stock are taken by recreational fishers off Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.
Low annual catches of Blue Mackerel from the Western stock reflect low levels of fishing effort rather than low biomass levels [Ward and Grammer 2018]. Recent catches (< 1 000 t) are less than 2 per cent of the estimated spawning biomass in 2005 of ~ 56 000 t [Ward et al. 2009], and well below the sustainable exploitation rate of 23 per cent suggested for this stock [Smith et al. 2015].
On the basis of the evidence provided above, the Western biological stock of Blue Mackerel is classified as a sustainable stock.
Commonwealth – Recreational The Australian Government does not manage recreational fishing in Commonwealth waters. Recreational fishing in Commonwealth waters is managed by the state or territory immediately adjacent to those waters, under its management regulations. Commonwealth data is presented for 2017.
Commonwealth – Indigenous The Australian Government does not manage non-commercial Indigenous fishing in Commonwealth waters, with the exception of the Torres Strait. In general, non-commercial Indigenous fishing in Commonwealth waters is managed by the state or territory immediately adjacent to those waters.
Western Australia – Recreational (Management Methods) a Recreational Fishing from Boat License is required for use of a powered boat to fish or to transport catch or fishing gear to or from a land-based fishing location.
Tasmania – Recreational In Tasmania, a recreational licence is required for fishers using dropline or longline gear, along with nets, such as gillnet or beach seine.
Tasmania – Indigenous (Management Methods) In Tasmania, aborigines engaged in aboriginal fishing activities in marine waters are exempt from holding recreational fishing licences, but must comply with all other fisheries rules as if they were licensed. Additionally, recreational bag and possession limits also apply. If using pots, rings, set lines or gillnets, aborigines must obtain a unique identifying code (UIC). The policy document Recognition of Aboriginal Fishing Activities for issuing a UIC to a person for Aboriginal Fishing activity explains the steps to take in making an application for a UIC.
Australian Fisheries Management Authority 2008, Small Pelagic Fishery harvest strategy (last revised April 2015). AFMA, Canberra.
Australian Fisheries Management Authority 2009, Small Pelagic Fishery management plan 2009, Federal Register of Legislative Instruments F2010L00081, AFMA, Canberra.
Bulman, C, Condie, S, Findlay, J, Ward, B and Young, J 2008, Management zones from small pelagic fish species stock structure in southern Australian waters, Final report to the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and Australian Fisheries Management Authority, FRDC Project No 2006/076, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Hobart.
Smith, ADM, Ward, TM, Hurtado, F, Klaer, N, Fulton, E and Punt, AE 2015, Review and update of harvest strategy settings for the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery: Single species and ecosystem considerations. Final Report of FRDC Project No. 2013/028. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, Hobart.
Stevens, JD, Hausfeld, HF and Davenport, SR 1984, Observations on the biology, distribution and abundance of Trachurus declivis, Sardinops neopilchardus and Scomber australasicus in the Great Australian Bight. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Marine Laboratories, Cronulla.
Ward, TM and Grammer, GL 2018, Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery: Fishery Assessment Report 2017. Report to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (PDF 5.7 MB). South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences), Adelaide. SARDI Publication No. F2010/000270-9. SARDI Research Report Series No. 982. 114pp.
Ward, TM and Rogers, PJ 2007, Development and evaluation of egg-based stock assessment methods for blue mackerel Scomber australasicus in southern Australia. Final report to the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation Project No 2002/061. South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences), Adelaide.
Ward, TM, Grammer, GL, Ivey, AR, Carroll, JR, Keane, JP, Stewart, J and Litherland, L 2015, Egg distribution, reproductive parameters and spawning biomass of Blue Mackerel, Australian Sardine and Tailor off the East Coast during late winter and early spring, FRDC Project No. 2014/033, South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences), Adelaide.
Ward, TM, Rogers, PJ, McLeay, LJ and McGarvey, R 2009, Evaluating the use of the daily egg production method for stock assessment of blue mackerel, Scomber australasicus, Marine and Freshwater Research, 62:112–128. |
0.998461 | The launch of every new console ,brings with itself games that take the onus of showcasing the systems capabilities ,while sony backed resistance fall of man to do this job ,its ultimately Motorstorm that steals the thunder from resistance and becomes the early system showpiece for the PS3.
When sony unveiled the game for the first time at E3 05 jaws dropped after seeing the quality of the amazing footage, sony later clarified that the footage was a cg target video and the final game will look close to this footage .so does the final game live up to the target video standard? Answer to that later.
Motorstorm is an arcade off-road racer that lets you drive one of the 7 different types of vehicles the game provides you. the vehicles include from the light and fast bikes ,buggies to the big but heavy mud pluggers and big rigs. the game takes place in an American wasteland named as the monument valley where a racing festival is being organized.the main mode of the game is the festival mode ,wherein races are broken into different tickets with each ticket having a max of 4 races,you need to end up in the top3 to complete a course and progress to the next race which unlocks more tickets.this unfortunately is the only single player mode available,yes there is no quick race, free run ,time attack ,etc mode available on top of that the game offers only 8 tracks and very little in terms of vehicle customization. Disappointed? Well don’t be.
Firstly although the game has only 8 tracks ,there are multiple routes to complete each them,even after playing them for hours you’ll still be finding the best route to your selected vehicle.to compliment that each track deforms in real time ,meaning that every lap will be different ,terrain gets uneven, environmental damage causing roadblocks ,debris of the other cars. Another aspect that affects gameplay is the amazing AI which is quietly easily the best in a racing game for years not only do they chase you ,they also have their own duels going on,which is entertaining to watch if you are trailing them,beware of the debris though. The game also is very unforgiving in terms of difficulty ,you might be leading a pack and a small mistake not necessary yours might cost you the race, even on the easiest of levels you’ll hardly find a race where you have or win with a 15-20 second lead over a rival.your friend here is the boost system which gives your vehicle the extra fire power to win races , but press it for too long and you’ll end up blowing yourself..
The sound is a mixed bag ,while the engine sounds, crashes and majority of the sound effects are done well ,it’s the background tracks that fail to impress ,a majority of them are mediocre with the rest worse. Btw its all rock ,so if u are a fan of American rock music you might like it more than I do.also the ps3 dosent allow the users to play custom soundtracks as of yet.
Finally the graphics. Simply put Motorstorm looks breathtaking, it’s a game fully enjoyed on a HD screen with the racing camera set to first person. the cars and riders are amazingly detailed ,but it’s the tracks and the environment that really seem special.there are a few rough edges but can be easily overlooked. although the game takes place is a desert region the tracks are varied and don’t seem similar.there is also an amazing physics engine working here which can be fully seen during the game’s amazing crashes. the game also holds up pretty stable ,runs at a very good frame-rate and there is hardly any slowdown .in first person view the looks looks even better with mud forming on your hood, windshield ,debris of cars flying over you and the general mayhem associated with these kind of races,also these wow moments happen quiet frequently,so its not a one off.
So does it match the e3 video? No it doesn’t in terms of looks but is close esp in FP view ,in terms of mayhem shown in the video ,the game is definitely as good if not better .
With the ps3’s slim title catalogue Motorstorm is a game that you simply cannot afford to miss, it’s a game that showcases the ps3’s amazing potential.
cool game, i even liked the soundtrack !!
mmmm..............wonder if MGS4 will get dat??? |
0.983895 | How do you get your creative inspiration? Keeping an open mind is the best way to stay inspired. Sometimes a delicious meal or a great beer is all it takes to make me think creatively. Staying inspired is all about diverse experiences and staying in touch with your senses.
Three words to describe what you do at CenterTable: Unleash creative thinking.
Favorite social media channel: Rapchat, because nothing is better than sending your friends a minute-long rap about what happened on Game of Thrones.
Favorite Denver hangout: Pretty much any of our innumerable craft breweries, but my favorites are Black Project, Crooked Stave, Epic, Joyride and Hogshead. Falling Rock is the best if I can’t decide on a specific brewery. |
0.954185 | What are shadow people? This question has been asked time and time again by people that have experienced them and those that research them.
Some researchers believe that they are extraterrestrials or beings from other dimensions as well as ghost or disincarnate spirits. Stories and experiences in regards to shadow people have been around for years. Those who experience them describe them as "Watchers" that seem to observe the person while he or she is in bed. They are also described as very tall beings usually six-and-a-half feet tall sometimes wearing a hat, coat or nothing at all.
One person I have talked to about their experience calls him "The Hat Man".
The Hat Man is the most common shadow person reportedly witnessed by numerous people during the night. Who or what is The Hat Man? Maybe we will never know. That is why there is still ongoing research into this phenomenon. Two people who have shared their experiences with me say that they have had encounters with the hat man since they were small children and still continue to see him. Another person I spoke with has only had an encounter once as a child and once as an adult. One case I worked on here recently, reported they had only experienced the shadow man while living in the home. One question I have, is why do certain people encounter him more often when some do not? Are the ones who experience him more often more sensitive perhaps to this phenomenon?
Another commonly reported shadow sighting is the hooded shadow, which has the same watching characteristics as the Hat Man, only wearing a hood.
Shadow people fall into different categories.
RoseMary Ellen Guiley has classified the different categories in her Encyclopedia of Ghost and Spirits. Pages 444-445 See below.
Bedroom Watchers: These figures are discovered standing by a bedside or in a corner of the room when a person awakens in the night. They seem to stare at people in bed, even though they have no visible eyes or facial features. Most do not behave in a threatening manner, though their presence is often terrifying. They can remain for long periods of time and when observed, disappear suddenly or melt through walls and ceilings. Some act aggressively toward people, causing choking sensations similar to the "old hag".
Shadows on walls: These figures appear suddenly as dark human outlines on walls, which detach from walls and move about rooms.
Moving Shadows: These figures appear abruptly and move quickly through a room, as thought on a mission. They come through walls and melt into walls. They may seem to pay no attention to people present or else watch them intensely. They may be seen out of the corners of the eyes or in full view.
Background Visitors: These figures usually are not seen, but are captured in photographs. They appear in backgrounds, their forms noticeable on walls, doors, and so forth.
Haunting presences: These figures appear in places known or thought to be haunted. They move about, act with intelligence, and appear and disappear suddenly They may follow people. In some cases, shadow people are associated with bad luck.
Some expierencers that I have interviewed, feel very uneasy when they encounter them, Though they have never been harmed by them they often feel like they are malevolent or negative. Some people even feel as if they are demonic in nature. However, shadow people rarely interact with the eyewitness and claims of harm or injury from them appear to be rare.
Another theory suggests that shadow people are time travelers or visitors from another world/universe. Do they come here to check on us for some reason? Are they simply curious about us? They apparently do spend a lot of time here. Why? Maybe they’re not even here at all. Is it possible that they’re simply “people” that live on another plane of existence? Could we be getting a glimpse into that parallel dimension? Perhaps we also appear as shadow people to them.
As to whether they are interdiminsional beings or ghost I can not say, since I am still collecting stories on them, but if they are ghost I believe the reason they show themselves as shadows is maybe that is the only way they can manifest themselves, like that is all the energy they can collect at that time and show themselves in that form. The reason I say this, is on one occasion my team and I were doing a preliminary of an old abandoned hospital. I was taking random pictures and upon review of my pictures I had photographed a shadow person that looked like a nurse, I did not see this shadow person she only showed up in my picture. Was it a former nurse who could only manifest as a shadow? In my personal opinion I would say yes, I believe that was all the energy she could gather at that time and that is how she appeared in my picture.
Other articles I have read mention seeing shadow people in the woods. One such place is Zombie Road (pictured right )where numerous shadow people or kids have been photographed. You can view this strange incident in the Children of The Grave Documentary. Also shadow people figures have been seen at various alleged haunted locations such as Waverly Hills and Ohio State Reformatory.
So the research into what shadow people are continue to this day and I encourage all researchers to share their theories, findings, and resources about these beings so that we may all have a better understanding as to what they are and what the phenomenon is.
Schizophrenia and Mental Disorders- What you should know.
In the study of the paranormal, one common explaination for ghost sightings and paranormal experiences, that I have heard frequently suggested, is that maybe the person has schizophrenia or some other mental form of delusional disorder.
Because this has been a common and frequently misunderstood assumption for those who have never had a paranormal or suggested haunting experience, many people have kept their experiences a secret, out of the fear of being labeled as psychotic, crazy or schizophrenic.
I think that those who are going to research claims of hauntings and paranormal experiences need to at least have a basic knowledge of what those type diseases are and their symptoms. I think that the majority of people that paranormal researchers interview, are not suffering from mental disorders or schizophrenia. However, the possibility that you could encounter someone with these type claims who does suffer from a mental disorder, is always a possibility. Especially, now that television has saturated the airways with TV shows related to everything from sea monsters, to aliens, to ghost stories and demon possessions. So it is possible that you could encounter someone who truely suffers from these disorders, and may have these fears intertwined within their behaviors. Remember that when you research the paranormal, there are many aspects that have to be considered and understood in order to rule them out. If you are not aware of the true symptoms and behaviors of persons with these disorders, how can you properly evaluate claims of paranormal experiences?
This is a brief overview of common mental diseases and disorders that have been suggested as possible causes, related to paranormal experiences. This should be something that paranormal researchers make themselves familiar with.
Having been in the nursing field for twenty years, I have cared for many patients with mental and schizophrenic type disorders and diagnosis. I have seen many bizzare behaviors and heard many claims of hearing voices or having visual hallucinations, however, not one of them ever claimed to see ghosts or told tales of being haunted. In fact, most of their claims were way more bizarre than that.
The most common symptom I have encountered, has been of a more paranoid nature. One particular example would be a patient that I cared for who was convinced that there was a government conspiracy against him and that he could hear coded messages about terroist acts thru his am radio. He also believed that he had a million dollars in the local bank and that all the nurses were trying to poison him. He frequently would sneak into the nurses station and telephone the bank, demanding his money be brought to him by armed guards. On one occasion, he even called the local police to report a hostage crisis at the nursing facility, which resulted in the SWAT team being deployed and the facility being put on lock down for several hours. He had extreme mood swings, poor personal hygiene. He had difficulty with trusting anyone and had very poor socializing skills. His behaviors were often times erradic, explosive and full of anxiety. Other times, he could be seen in a sureal mood, mumbling or talking to himself, or sitting quietly in almost a trance like state. This type behavior , to me, in my own experience, has been the type behavior and symptoms I have seen the most, with people diagnosed as Schizophrenic.
Another example was a woman who had bizarre hallucinations. On one occasion while having a rather normal conversation with me about her lunch menu, she began to scream histerically because she was convinced that I my back was crawling with black spiders. This same lady also tore her room apart because she claimed that her TV set was sending radiation waves into her brain with subliminal messages in order to control her mind. These behaviors could occur anywhere from a few days or a few moments of each other. These behaviors could occur anywhere at anytime. Unlike typical claims of paranormal experiences which might only occur once in a persons otherwise normal lifetime. Just because a person has an experience or even several unexplained experiences, that they cannot explain, does not make them crazy. To label someone as such without trying to understanding their experience, is shameful in my opinion.
Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality, and relates to others. People with schizophrenia -- the most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses -- often have problems functioning in society, at work, at school, and in relationships. Schizophrenia can leave its sufferer frightened and withdrawn. It is a life-long disease that cannot be cured, but usually can be controlled with proper treatment.
Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not a split personality. Schizophrenia is a psychosis, a type of mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. At times, people with psychotic disorders lose touch with reality. The world may seem like a jumble of confusing thoughts, images, and sounds. The behavior of people with schizophrenia may be very strange and even shocking. A sudden change in personality and behavior, which occurs when people lose touch with reality, is called a psychotic episode.
Schizophrenia varies in severity from person to person. Some people have only one psychotic episode while others have many episodes during a lifetime but lead relatively normal lives between episodes. Schizophrenia symptoms seem to worsen and improve in cycles known as relapses and remissions.
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects some 2.2 million American adults, most often before the age of 30. It interferes with the way a person acts, thinks, and feels and frequently causes difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imaginary. This, in turn makes patients prone to delusional beliefs about themselves or others. Schizophrenia also affects ordered thinking, making it difficult to concentrate, maintain attention span, or develop normal motivation. It can also affect the ability to experience normal emotions in social situations, often causing a person to become unusually unresponsive or withdrawn.Often times leading to severe bouts of depression and even suicidal tendencies.
Psychosis: Psychosis is defined as being out of touch with reality. During this phase, one can experience delusions or prominent hallucinations. People with psychoses are not aware that what they are experiencing or some of the things that they believe are not real. Psychosis is a prominent feature of schizophrenia but is not unique to this illness.
Schizoid: This term is often used to describe a personality disorder characterized by almost complete lack of interest in social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings, making a person with this disorder appear cold and aloof.
Schizotypal: This term defines a more severe personality disorder characterized by acute discomfort with close relationships as well as disturbances of perception and bizarre behaviors, making people with schizophrenia seem odd and eccentric because of unusual mannerisms.
Hallucinations: A person with schizophrenia may have strong sensations of objects or events that are real only to him or her. These may be in the form of things that they believe strongly that they see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Hallucinations have no outside source, and are sometimes described as "the person's mind playing tricks" on him or her.
Illusion: An illusion is a mistaken perception for which there is an actual external stimulus. For example, a visual illusion might be seeing a shadow and misinterpreting it as a person. The words "illusion" and "hallucination" are sometimes confused with each other.
Delusion: A person with a delusion has a strong belief about something despite evidence that the belief is false. For instance, a person may listen to a radio and believe the radio is giving a coded message about an impending alien invasion. All of the other people who listen to the same radio program would hear, for example, a feature story about road repair work taking place in the area.
People with schizophrenia vary widely in their behavior as they struggle with an illness beyond their control. In active stages, those affected may ramble in illogical sentences or react with uncontrolled anger or violence to a perceived threat. People with schizophrenia may also experience relatively passive phases of the illness in which they seem to lack personality, movement, and emotion (also called a flat affect). People with schizophrenia may alternate in these extremes. Their behavior may or may not be predictable.
Positive symptoms -- Hearing voices, suspiciousness, feeling under constant surveillance, delusions, or making up words without a meaning (neologisms).
Paranoid-type schizophrenia is characterized by delusions and auditory hallucinations but relatively normal intellectual functioning and expression of affect. The delusions can often be about being persecuted unfairly or being some other person who is famous. People with paranoid-type schizophrenia can exhibit anger, aloofness, anxiety, and argumentativeness.
Disorganized-type schizophrenia is characterized by speech and behavior that are disorganized or difficult to understand, and flattening or inappropriate emotions. People with disorganized-type schizophrenia may laugh at the changing color of a traffic light or at something not closely related to what they are saying or doing. Their disorganized behavior may disrupt normal activities, such as showering, dressing, and preparing meals.
I found this video to be a very good example of a disorganized type schizophrenia.
Catatonic-type schizophrenia is characterized by disturbances of movement. People with catatonic-type schizophrenia may keep themselves completely immobile or move all over the place. They may not say anything for hours, or they may repeat anything you say or do senselessly. Either way, the behavior is putting these people at high risk because it impairs their ability to take care of themselves.
Undifferentiated-type schizophrenia is characterized by some symptoms seen in all of the above types but not enough of any one of them to define it as another particular type of schizophrenia.
Residual-type schizophrenia is characterized by a past history of at least one episode of schizophrenia, but the person currently has no positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech or behavior). It may represent a transition between a full-blown episode and complete remission, or it may continue for years without any further psychotic episodes.
Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness called a "psychosis" in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue. People with delusional disorder experience non-bizarre delusions, which involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve the misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. In reality, however, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated.
People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner. This is unlike people with other psychotic disorders, who also might have delusions as a symptom of their disorder. In some cases, however, people with delusional disorder might become so preoccupied with their delusions that their lives are disrupted.
Some studies have indicated that delusions may be generated by abnormalities in the limbic system, the portion of the brain on the inner edge of the cerebral cortex that is believed to regulate emotions. The exact source of delusions has not been conclusively found, but potential causes include genetics, neurological abnormalities, and changes in brain chemistry. Delusions are also a known possible side effect of drug use and abuse. As well as alcohol abuse.
Erotomanic: Someone with this type of delusional disorder believes that another person, often someone important or famous, is in love with him or her. The person might attempt to contact the object of the delusion, and stalking behavior is not uncommon.
Grandiose: A person with this type of delusional disorder has an over-inflated sense of worth, power, knowledge, or identity. The person might believe he or she has a great talent or has made an important discovery that either has or has not been properly recognized Or they may believe that they have some sort of social status or are someone famous or of high religious or governmental status .
Jealous: A person with this type of delusional disorder believes that his or her spouse or sexual partner is unfaithful.
Persecutory or Paranoid: People with this type of delusional disorder believe that they (or someone close to them) are being mistreated, or that someone is spying on them or planning to harm them or is out to get them. They frequently believe that they are being cheated, stolen from, stalked and or harrassed. It is not uncommon for people with this type of delusional disorder to make repeated complaints to legal authorities and make numerous court appeals in civil suits.
Somatic: A person with this type of delusional disorder believes that he or she has a physical defect or medical problem.
Referencial: The belief that everyday things in the normal environment, such as advertisements, newscasts, song lyrics, book passages and trade signs are directly addressed to him or have some secret coded meaning.
Mixed: People with this type of delusional disorder have two or more of the types of delusions listed above.
What Are the Symptoms of Delusional Disorder?
Want to dig deeper? Below is an interesting website I stumbled upon which list 176 different diseases and possible causes of delusions.
Patients may experience an extremely broad array of other symptoms that may appear to resemble epilepsy, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, and eating disorders.
It has been theorized that severe sexual, physical, or psychological trauma in childhood predisposes an individual to the development of DID. Most of us have experienced mild dissociation, which is like daydreaming or getting lost in the moment while working on a project. However, dissociative identity disorder is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. Dissociative identity disorder is thought to stem from trauma experienced by the person with the disorder. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism -- the person literally dissociates himself from a situation or experience that's too violent, traumatic, or painful to assimilate with his conscious self.
Other symptoms of dissociative identity disorder may include headache, amnesia, time loss, trances, and "out of body experiences." Some people with dissociative disorders have a tendency toward self-persecution, self-sabotage, and even violence (both self-inflicted and outwardly directed). As an example, someone with dissociative identity disorder may find themselves doing things they wouldn't normally do such as speeding, reckless driving, or stealing money from their employer or friend, yet they feel they are being compelled to do it. Some describe this feeling as being a passenger in their body rather than the driver. In other words, they truly believe they have no choice.
People with bipolar disorder experience unusually intense emotional states that occur in distinct periods called "mood episodes." An overly joyful or overexcited state is called a manic episode, and an extremely sad or hopeless state is called a depressive episode. Sometimes, a mood episode includes symptoms of both mania and depression. This is called a mixed state. People with bipolar disorder also may be explosive and irritable during a mood episode.
Sometimes, a person with severe episodes of mania or depression has psychotic symptoms too, such as hallucinations or delusions. The psychotic symptoms tend to reflect the person's extreme mood. For example, psychotic symptoms for a person having a manic episode may include believing he or she is famous, has a lot of money, or has special powers. In the same way, a person having a depressive episode may believe he or she is ruined and penniless, or has committed a crime. As a result, people with bipolar disorder who have psychotic symptoms are sometimes wrongly diagnosed as having schizophrenia.
Bipolar disorder tends to run in families, so researchers are looking for genes that may increase a person's chance of developing the illness.
Anxiety disorders are mental disorders characterized by extreme, unpleasant, and unwanted feelings of apprehension or fear, sometimes accompanied by physical symptoms.
Delirium is a mental state in which a person suddenly becomes confused and disoriented, perhaps not knowing what day it is or not recognizing a friend. It often accompanies a physical illness and usually goes away when the illness gets better.
Dementia is a gradually worsening loss of mental abilities, including memory, judgment, and abstract thinking. It is more common in older people.
Depressive disorders are mental disorders associated with feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of self-esteem and enjoyment. Significant levels of depression impair a person's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
Eating disorders are mental disorders that lead people to starve themselves or to eat huge amounts of food.
Mental retardation is a condition present since childhood in which the person has significantly below-average intelligence. These individuals may be limited in their ability to learn, work, communicate with others, care for themselves, and live independently.
Neurosis (noo-RO-sis) is a broad term covering many mental disorders that are long-lasting or recurring. People who have a neurosis remain in touch with reality, unlike those who have a psychosis. But the anxiety, depression, and distress common to neurosis can interfere with the quality of life.
Obsessive-compulsive disorderis a mental disorder that causes people to feel trapped by distressing or senseless thoughts and to feel as if they have to repeat actions.
Phobias are mental disorders that lead to a lasting, intense, irrational fear of a particular object, activity, or situation.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental disorder that interferes with everyday living and occurs in people who survive a life-threatening event, such as school violence, car accidents, natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, floods), or military combat.
Separation anxiety is a mental disorder in which children worry excessively about leaving their homes, parents, or caregivers.
Sleep disorders are long-lasting disturbances of sleep. Some sleep disorders have mainly psychological causes, while others have mainly physical causes.
* psychotherapy is treatment for a mental disorder that usually involves talking with a trained therapist to undercover the roots of a person's behavior or to learn new ways of thinking or behaving.
I hope that this post will help clear up any misconceptions you may have had about mental disorders and schizophrenia. I believe that it is imperative that people understand the truth of what these disorders are and how those who are afflicted with them, behave. Below you will find a list of resources that you can refer to if you have any questions related to mental health issues or should you encounter or know someone that you believe might benefit from the information. There are also many interesting case files and examples of persons with these disorders that you can search on YouTube. I found several related to DID to be most interesting.
U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, 6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8184, MSC 9663, Bethesda, MD 20892-9663. NIMH is the government institute that oversees research on mental disorders and provides information for professionals and the public.
American Psychological Asssociation, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. The American Psychological Association publishes books, brochures, and fact sheets about mental health, mental disorders, and psychotherapy. It provides referrals to local psychologists, and its website includes a KidsPsych feature.
American Psychiatric Association, 1400 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005. The American Psychiatric Association publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for doctors, and the Let's Talk Facts About pamphlet series for the public. Its website also posts a Psychiatric Medications fact sheet.
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 200 North Glebe Road, Suite 1015, Arlington, VA 22203-3754. A self-help organization for people with serious mental illness, their families, and their friends.
National Mental Health Association, 1021 Prince Street, Alexandria, VA 22314-2971. A national organization that offers information to the public about various mental disorders and mental health. |
0.999918 | I have $7000 in cash. What should I pay toward first?
I would really love to get rid of my truck payment and play the balance transfer game while contributing towards each 0% card.
Under the circumstances I'd suggest paying off the 3000 dollar card because in March it's interest rate is likely to skyrocket. Keep the rest in reserve for emergencies.
Getting 0% Balance Transfer may not be easy. Most institutions would look at a credit score that is quite high. So you may not be eligible. Plus there would be some hidden terms and conditions. Say if you are already on Balance Transfer on existing cards; you can't opt for Balance Transfer to another company and the cost would then be loaded. As you already have got 0% on a large balance, I am assuming you have done it once. The card companies may not allow it again.
Assuming you are paying off USD 100 per month towards the other cards ... the best way is to pay of USD 3000 towards the 0% March 2019 card as the interest rates may be quite high once it hits March. Paying this off may also improve your credit score.
Keep the balance USD 4000 as emergency funds. By Oct 2019; pay off the balance on the USD 3800 card from the emergency funds; to avoid the higher interest rates and Knock off the USD 5000 card of as much balance as possible. The priority should be to get rid of this balance ASAP. Then rebuild the emergency fund and then pay off the Car Loan with aggressive payments.
To effectively answer this question, we need details on what happens to those credit card interest rates when they rise. Let's assume for now that they all rise to 17%, which is slightly below the national average. Let's also assume you don't pay retroactive interest - that would make paying those debts even more important FWIW.
Those assumptions mean that come March, you can save $3000 x (0.17-0.034)/12 = $34 a month in interest by paying off the $3000 credit card rather than putting $3000 towards your truck loan. Note how I computed that by finding the difference between your two interest rates on the credit card and the car loan. So, unless you can come up with an additional $3000 to pay that March credit card before the APR jumps, best to put $3k towards it now.
Meanwhile, what to do with the remaining $4k in cash you have left over? That entirely depends on how much money you can save before your next credit card APR jumps up. If you use it to pay down your truck loan today, you'll save about ($4000 x .034) x 9/12 = $102 on interest before November (9 months away). BUT come November, if you haven't been able to save more money to pay off that $3800 credit card, you'll start paying ($3800 x .17)/12 = $53.83 per month for that credit card interest. So within two interest payments, you'll have lost all the $102 savings against your truck loan.
These numbers aren't accurate to the decimal place, since the interest payments decrease as you pay off the principal, but they're pretty close. Moral of the story, high interest debt = very very bad. Pay it off ASAP. The credit card debt will be even more of a drag if you have to pay retroactive interest. Potentially MUCH worse.
EDIT: You say "I would really love to get rid of my truck payment", but I would look at it differently, since you're only paying 3.4% interest (relatively low). I would say: "Gee, I'd really love to get rid of my high interest debt and then work on my truck loan!". It's certainly your prerogative to play the balance transfer game, but as my numbers above show, it only takes a slight miss and 1-2 credit card interest payments for that to be a losing strategy. Remember, once you've paid off your high-interest debt, you can then work on your car loan free of worry about any high interest debt, and you won't have paid too much interest in the meantime.
You have $7,000 cash and from comments stated you're paying at least $100 per card while in 0% interest state.
There's a balancing act with debt repayment, you want to minimize interest, but you also don't want to put yourself in jeopardy of missing payments by having too little cash on hand in case of an emergency.
At a minimum per year you can pay ~$3,600 ($100/month * 3 cards), which means if you used all your cash on hand of $7,000 you'd be able to pay $10,600 toward your $11,800 in credit card debt by January 2020.
If you can find a way to up that from $300/month toward credit card debt to $500/month, you could pay off all the cards by Jan 2020 and have $1,200 in cash on hand as a little emergency fund. Then, after Jan 2020 you could roll that $500/month into a larger emergency fund and extra truck payments.
If there's no possible way to put more than the ~$300/month toward the credit cards, then you will need more time on one of the balances and if you can get another 0% transfer with low fee then it will likely make sense to do so, but you should probably pay off the March balance soon and then try for that transfer on the November balance, that should get you enough time to pay them all off without additional transfers after that one. And after they are paid off you can switch over to the extra emergency fund/truck payments as you would have otherwise.
You should keep in mind that once you got rid of a card, its monthly rate will become available for other purposes.
So I think that for now you should keep your money. In March, you should pay off the remaining $2800 of the "March card" (am I right that there are two payments for $100 are still pending there?). This gives you $100 per month as "free" money and $4200 of remaining money.
By January, your "$5000 card" will have been payed off by 12 × $100 and will thus have $3800 of balance. Your cash, which was $2200 in November, will have increased by $400, so you have $2600 now. Paying them leaves you $1200 to pay for your card. If you do so by $300 a month, you are done four months later.
Afterwards, you can put the free $300 a month towards your emergency funds, your car loan or split it up.
This was all to avoid paying "big interest" on these cards. If you can do a balance transfer again, you should do it, but you should not rely on being able to do it once again.
Note that these considerations should only be your starting point. You should consider that this way, you'll have a low emergency funds at some time in-between. But on the other hand, any money that you are supposed to earn additionally in the mean time can either keep your emergency money high or can be used for paying off your car loan, reducing the interest there.
As described, only the car loan is worth paying, and even that if you can't get better return than 3.4% on your money elsewhere. Others are a waste of money: It is always in your best interest to carry an interest free loan until the last day, assuming that you can guarantee you will be able to pay it off.
If you don't have the discipline to set aside money and not spend it, you have to weigh the risk of not being able to repay your credit cards when the time comes. On that note, the first credit card will soon stop being interest free at which point they'll slap you with a late fee and huge (20%?) interest. So if you asked this question 2 months later, the answer would be "forget the truck, pay the credit card". Will you have more money by then to deal with the credit card? If not, maybe start there for now.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged loans debt-reduction repayment or ask your own question.
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0.948431 | What does CYEC now do?
CYEC is an education and youth development charity working to promote and advance educational exchange between people and institutions in different Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth is an association of 54 independent countries, working together to promote the common interests of their citizens and to promote international understanding. |
0.997063 | In this section, we feature different bacterial or fungal strains that either are pathogenic to humans or that are used to produce biologically active compounds.
The selection is focused on pathogenic strains that are of particular concern to health authorities due to the increase in resistance to currently used anti-infectives. Additionally, we feature non-pathogenic micro-organisms from which important new drugs have been isolated, directly or indirectly, or from which novel chemical lead structures were identified. |
0.994264 | Leicester City have struggled with their offensive productivity this season, which was acknowledged by head coach Claude Puel last weekend.
Puel admitted that he will consider signing a new striker in the summer transfer window, especially given the way Jamie Vardy has struggled to adapt under the Frenchman this season and therefore, the Foxes are in desperate need of a long-term replacement for the 32-year-old.
And in this article, we will talk about three attackers Leicester should target this summer.
Former Barcelona speedster Munir El Haddadi has struggled with game-time at his new club Sevilla this season. The 23-year-old joined the Andalusians in January but has since managed only 173 minutes of league action, during which he has scored only one goal.
Therefore, if things remain the same, it will not be a surprise to see the two parting ways in the summer, thus giving Leicester a golden opportunity to pursue this highly talented forward, who can certainly add more flair to their offensive line.
A product of the renowned La Masia academy, Munir is known for his pace as well as his exquisite control on the ball that allows him to take on defenders in the final third.
While he may not be as aggressive or as direct an attacking outlet such as Vardy, the 23-year-old can surely inject more fluidity and guile in the attack, which could allow Leicester to adopt various other modes of attack.
Duvan Zapata has been one of Serie A’s most prolific goalscorers this season, having found the back of the net 16 times in just 23 matches. His fiery form in front of goal has helped his club Atalanta maintain their push for the Champions League places and the Colombian could be in for a big-money move next summer.
Zapata is a physically astute striker, who can not only take on defenders inside the penalty area but also thrives in the air – making him a threat from indirect set-pieces. He is also an aggressive attacker, who likes to put pressure on the defenders, thus making him a tailor-made fit for Puel’s tactical philosophy at Leicester.
However, Zapata could certainly cost a fortune considering his remarkable goalscoring form this season. In fact, West Ham United were recently rebuffed in their attempts to sign the Colombian and the Foxes may have to spend over €50 million if they hope to attain his services next season.
Che Adams has been one of the rising stars in the Championship this season, having scored as many as 16 goals in just 30 games.
As a result, the 22-year-old has been a subject of major transfer speculation, with a host of clubs, including Leicester City interested in his services.
Adams is a dynamic forward, who likes to take on defenders as well as create chances for his teammates in the final third. Much like Iheanacho, the Birmingham star can feature anywhere across the attack and will thus be able to provide Puel with an additional option in the final third.
However, it’s his productivity that makes him an appealing target for Leicester and with Vardy struggling to maintain his scoring form, Adams could be able to provide the bite in the attack.
West Ham United linked with La Liga star: The ideal player to have in their attack?
West Ham United want to sign Serie A goal-machine: Is he worth the fuss? |
0.908451 | The efficiency and simplicity that exponents allow help mathematicians express and manipulate numbers. An exponent, or power, is a shorthand method for indicating repeated multiplication. A number, called the base, represents the value to be multiplied. The exponent, written as a superscript, represents the number of times the base is to be multiplied by itself. Because exponents represent multiplication, many of the laws of exponents deal with the products of two numbers.
To determine the product of two numbers with the same base, you must add the exponents. For example, 7^5 * 7^4 = 7^9. One way to remember this rule is to envision the equation written as a multiplication problem. It would look like this: (7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7) * (7 * 7 * 7 * 7). Since multiplication is associative, meaning that the product is the same regardless of how the numbers are grouped, you can eliminate the parentheses to create an equation that looks like this: 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7 * 7. This is seven multiplied nine times, or 7^9.
Division is the same as multiplying one number by the inverse of another. Therefore, every time you divide, you are finding the product of a whole number and a fraction. A law similar to the multiplication law applies when performing this operation. To find the product of a number with base x and a fraction containing the same base in the denominator, subtract the exponents. For example: 5^6 / 5^3 = 5^6 * 1/5^3, or 5^(6-3), which simplifies to 5^3.
To find the power of a product, you must use the distributive property to apply the exponent to every number. For example, to raise xyz to the second power, you must square x, then square y, then square z. The equation would look like this: (xyz)^2 = x^2 * y^2 * z^2. This also applies to division. The expression (x/y)^2 is the same as x^2/y^2.
When raising a power to a power, you must multiply the exponents. For example, (3^2)^3 is the same as (3 * 3)(3 * 3)(3 * 3), which equals to 3^6. Some students become confused when trying to remember when to multiply the bases of an expression and when to multiply the exponents. A good rule of thumb is to remember that you never do the same thing to the bases and the exponents. If you have to multiply the bases, then add, opposed to multiplying, the exponents. But if you do not have to multiply the bases, as when raising a power to a power, you do multiply the exponents.
Arnold, Kylene. "Laws of Exponents: Powers & Products." Sciencing, https://sciencing.com/laws-exponents-powers-products-8595355.html. 24 April 2017. |
0.947787 | Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychological disorder that consists of an individual displaying both obsessions and compulsions. For many years, this disorder was classified with other disorders that were primarily fueled by anxiety (Anxiety Disorders); however, the American Psychiatric Association in its most recent update of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders has placed the disorder in its own category (Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders).
Commonly depicted in the media and entertainment industry as a rather quirky type of disorder, in reality, obsessive-compulsive disorder is a serious psychological disorder that is often debilitating and can be very difficult to treat. It is a serious psychiatric/psychological disorder that significantly affects the lives of people who have it.
It is important to note that there are two different disorders that are classified as being obsessive-compulsive: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. These two disorders are not the same disorder. The obsessive-compulsive personality disorder shares some features with certain manifestations of OCD, but it is not the same disorder and does not present in the same manner. It is a separate disorder that simply shares the same name. This article discusses the features of OCD and its associations with substance use disorders.
Obsessions: Obsessions are repetitive, intrusive, and/or consistently occurring urges, thoughts, or images that produce extreme anxiety or stress in an individual and result in the person attempting to suppress them by performing some specific action that reduces the stress or anxiety that they induce.
Compulsions: Compulsions consist of the actions designed to reduce the anxiety produced by the obsessions. These can be either mental acts or physical behaviors. The individual repeats them until they experience a significant reduction in their anxiety or stress levels. Once the obsessions begin again, the individual is driven to repeat these compulsive behaviors over and over again.
The compulsions and obsessions must consume a significant amount of the individual’s time (at least one hour or more per day nearly every day), cause significant impairment in the individual’s daily functioning, and cannot be due to some other medical condition (e.g., a traumatic brain injury) or the use of drugs or medications (e.g., chronic use of many stimulant medications may produce similar types of behaviors to those observed in OCD). In addition, the obsessions and compulsions cannot be better explained by the presence of some other mental health disorder in order for an individual to be diagnosed with OCD.
All manifestations of OCD present with obsessions and compulsions. Some people may actually recognize that their behaviors are irrational and disrupt their lives. Others may believe them to be perfectly functional and may actually believe their actions to be useful to them despite suffering serious ramifications from their behavior.
There have been efforts to classify OCD into different typologies based on the obsessions and compulsions certain individuals primarily exhibit. There are several different categorizations of obsessions and compulsions that are most commonly observed in individuals with OCD.
The contamination subtype: This subtype manifests with obsessions regarding cleanliness, being infected, etc. Compulsions can consist of repetitive hand washing, repetitive cleaning, repetitive avoidance of feared “dirty” situations, etc. This is the most common subtype of OCD and certainly one of the most common presentations of OCD presented in the popular media.
The checking subtype: This subtype involves constantly checking or investigating aspects of one’s life that are connected to obsessions regarding being unsafe, leaving the oven on, worry that something will happen when one leaves the home, etc.
The hoarding subtype: This subtype involves being constantly concerned with not disposing of certain types of items or not disposing of anything at all including garbage.
The rumination (intrusive thought) subtype: This subtype involves intrusive thoughts of a religious, mystical, or even violent nature, and performing obsessions associated with these intrusive thoughts.
Certain genetic associations, neurobiological mechanisms, and gender associations (with adult females being diagnosed with OCD at a higher rate than adult males) are identified to be associated with OCD; however, there is no definitive cause of OCD that can be identified.
OCD is a psychological disorder that has high comorbidities with a number of other different psychological disorders (comorbidity is a clinical term that describes a situation when certain disorders occur together). OCD appears to have high comorbidity rates with depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, and ADHD. Any individual diagnosed with nearly any type of formal psychological/psychiatric disorder is at higher risk to also develop a substance use disorder. While there are some factors that affect the comorbidity of OCD and substance use disorders, it is also true that individuals who have been diagnosed with OCD also tend to have higher rates of substance use disorders than individuals in the general population. While any type of substance use disorder can be comorbid with OCD, it appears that alcohol use disorders are among the most common substance use disorders associated with having a diagnosis of OCD.
In many cases, it appears that the symptoms of OCD may have preceded the substance abuse issues and that at least some individuals with OCD appear to address their own substance abuse. Their substance use may have somehow resolved over time without formal treatment (although it is not clear how this occurs from research studies). While this does not suggest that individuals who have OCD and a co-occurring substance use disorder do not need to have their substance abuse treated, it does suggest that in some cases individuals with OCD appear to be able to recognize and curb their substance abuse, whereas they are not able to recognize and curb the symptoms of their OCD. These findings also suggest that recognizing and treating OCD early in its course or presentation may lead to the avoidance of issues with substance use disorders in many individuals.
OCD is most commonly treated by using some form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that assists clients in identifying their irrational thoughts and replacing them with more functional thoughts and beliefs. In addition, CBT helps clients to develop a set of behaviors that are more in line with reality and more functional. One specialized type of therapy that has been used to address OCT is exposure and response prevention therapy.
The premise of exposure and response prevention therapy is quite simple. The therapist exposes the client to the anxiety-provoking obsession and prevents the individual from engaging in the anxiety-reducing response (compulsion). What happens in these therapy sessions is that individuals with OCD will initially become very anxious; however, over time as they are not allowed to engage in their compulsive behavior, their anxiety level will peak and then dissipate.
Anxiety typically is not a longstanding emotion and will dissipate over time. With the help of a therapist who can assist the client to learn to use relaxation and breathing techniques to cope with anxiety and reduce the experience of anxiety while not engaging in compulsive behavior, the client will eventually learn that not engaging in the compulsive behavior does not lead to any traumatic outcome and that the anxiety associated with the obsession is irrational. The client learns to control both obsessions and compulsions, and eventually, the obsessions and compulsions will dissipate.
Therapists who are trained in this intervention will typically start with lower level anxiety-provoking instances that fuel compulsive behavior and then work with the client up the ladder to more intense manifestations of obsessions and compulsions. The repeated success at lower levels helps prepare the client to address the more anxiety-provoking aspects of OCD.
Even though the premise of exposure and response prevention therapy may appear to be rather simplistic, it is a complicated process that can only be effectively implemented by a professionally trained therapist. Individuals without professional training in this technique and who are not licensed professional mental health workers cannot implement these techniques. Moreover, simply reading a book or article about these types of techniques does not induce competence in them. Untrained individuals trying to use these techniques will produce far more harm than good.
Substance abuse treatment for individuals with OCD should be initiated along with the formal therapy for OCD. It is well known that treating one disorder without addressing the other is counterproductive to recovery and treatment progress for either disorder. Individuals who have substance use disorders in addition to OCD need to follow empirically validated treatment protocols for their substance use disorders.
Other important supports as needed, such as vocational counseling, placement services, etc.
There are also a number of pharmacological interventions that can be used to assist in the treatment of OCD; however, these interventions are not long-term solutions. Medications that have been empirically demonstrated to be effective in treating the symptoms of OCD include antidepressant medications (particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and one tricyclic antidepressant medication), anti-anxiety medications (Many of these have a high potential for abuse and the development of physical dependence; therefore, using these in the treatment of OCD requires close monitoring by a psychiatrist.), and other medications that may affect specific symptoms that occur in individuals. In most cases, the use of medications alone to treat OCD or to treat substance abuse is not conducive to developing lifestyle changes that are associated with positive recovery. Medications can complement therapy, but they are not the best long-term solution for the treatment of OCD in the majority of cases. The goal of treatment should be to get the person to be as functional and autonomous as possible, and therapy will help the individual realize these goals.
The treatment of OCD is generally effective; however, like any psychological disorder, there are some potential setbacks. Recovery can be a long and sometimes difficult process. In addition, there are some cases that do not respond to standard treatment. For example, a small subset of individuals is noted to have very severe OCD symptoms that are not responsive to medication or therapy. In these cases, certain types of psychosurgery and deep brain stimulation may be helpful in curbing obsessions and compulsions. |
0.971686 | For this workout partner A will complete 21 thrusters. Then partner B will complete 21 thrusters. Partner A will then complete 21 pullups followed by partner B. They continue to alternate movements for 15 and 9. When they have both completed the round of 9 pullups they begin the entire workout over again.
Score is total reps combined. 1 complete round per person is equal to 180 reps. |
0.999952 | Can Kratom use cause problems with my liver or kidneys?
TOPIC: Can Kratom use cause problems with my liver or kidneys?
Hi Folks - I have been taking Kratom daily for about a month or so - at first I was experimenting with several varieties from a local head shop, then I bought a kilo of Green Malay from Bikkhuk Kratom. I have been experimenting with amount taken, and 2 to 5 grams at a time seems to be about right for pain relief, though I sometimes experience mild symptoms of anxiety. But at the higher dosages, there seems to be a correlation with pain I am experiencing in my lower back, right hand side. It doesn't feel like muscle pain - more like something deeper. Could the Kratom actually be negatively affecting whatever organ is located there? (I've never been strong on anatomy!) Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.
Your kidney is on the lower back, left and right side. Kratom is known to increase urination, so perhaps you have some issue developing with your right kidney caused by previous diet and drug use. Higher doses of kratom may be exacerbating whatever the problem in your kidney. If it were me, this would be a sign telling me not to use the higher doses. I'm not a doctor, but I have been successfully diagnosing and treating my own ailments for about 47 years. There is a OTC product designed for supporting healthy kidney and bladder function, called Super KB, available from American Longevity dot org. You may have a problem developing in that right kidney that you would be wise to fix. Kidney stones, not caused by kratom, are excruciatingly painful for guys.
Over use of just about anything can cause unbalance in both of those organs. For instance, vitamin C is widely excepted as being a safe supplement that is water soluble, and as such, it is a supplement that is very unlikely one would overdose on, however large doses of vitamin C causes oxalates in your kidneys, which can further develop into kidney stones. I would examine your diet and supplement regimen just to be sure that you're not over doing anything and keeping balance.
Here's what I might suspect could be causing issues however: Have you ever had too much coffee, and found that you have some soreness around the kidney area, in your lower back? This is simply caused by the diuretic effect of the coffee in conjunction with not enough water intake putting excess strain on your kidneys. As we know, kratom is also a bit of a diuretic, and it's really important to make sure your taking in more water when you're taking anything with diuretic properties. As Paul said, I am not a doctor, this is just based on what I've learned in my experience and from my own personal research.
I have never heard of such problems pertaining to Kratom use. If you can cite those claims, I would like to read about it.
The only health problems I have heard of is possible respiratory depression with excessive doses, which I do not believe is proven as of yet.
The DEA has spread the myth of respiratory depression caused by kratom. It is a myth, accord to Dr. Edward Boyer, one of the researchers who has studied kratom extensively.
Liver damage is only seen at huge doses in animals. I have read nothing in the medical literature concerning kidney problems in healthy kratom consumers.
I have been burning kratom for daily since 2006. In that time I also had labs being done every few months. There was never a problem with me in ANY area. Everything was normal.
Get something from the health food store called D-Mannose. It will heal you in no time. It's a miracle-type of stuff. Just follow the instructions and drink water with it. Whatever bad is in your kidneys or bladder, it will catch it and you'll flush it out. The bacteria will cling to it. This stuff has been proven to help with either bladder or kidney infections. Many of the bacteria in kidney or bladder infections has a bacteria that is extremely difficult to kill with antibiotics. Some people have recurrent infections that nothing can solve. I know because I was in the hospital once with a bad kidney infection. Wish I had known about D-Mannose at that time.
Since then I have found out, and when I have had an infection starting, I take this stuff. It has stopped my pain within 24 to 48 hours. I first learned about this from Dr. Mercola's website years ago. It really does work. Some people with constant infections that the doctors can't get rid of use this and it stops it.
I bought a kilo of Green Malay from Bikkhuk Kratom. I have been experimenting with amount taken, and 2 to 5 grams at a time seems to be about right for pain relief, though I sometimes experience mild symptoms of anxiety. But at the higher dosages, there seems to be a correlation with pain I am experiencing in my lower back, right hand side. It doesn't feel like muscle pain - more like something deeper. Could the Kratom actually be negatively affecting whatever organ is located there? (I've never been strong on anatomy!) Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer. |
0.997844 | With the entry into force of the Value Added Tax (VAT) – Impuesto al Valor Agregado (IVA) in Spanish -, all services necessary to complete a construction process will increase by having to charge a tax of 13% on the invoices issued.
This is a component of the Ley de Fortalecimiento de las Finanzas Públicas, commonly referred to as the “Reforma Fiscal” (Tax Reform) which will go into force as of July 2019.
At present the necessary services for the construction of a building or project, do not pay the 13% sales tax; for example, fees of a civil engineer, architect, subcontracted labor, surveyor, the subcontracting of a security company during construction, and the insurance corresponding to the development of the work, among others.
According to German Morales, partner of the firm Grant Thornton, it must be taken into account, that as the transfers of real estate and personal property are not subject to VAT, the developer cannot charge VAT to their customers, however, it is forced to pay VAT on the purchase of goods and services where it will be directly reflected in an increase in the cost of the work, without being able to apply for the corresponding tax credit.
This situation leads to two possible situations: an increase in the final price of sale to the buyer, or that the business assumes a reduction in profit. |
0.999999 | In today’s modern world of catering, it’s a mad race to find the one (or two or three) original approaches that will put you ahead of the pack. In this age of constant change, it is less about the food and drink that you serve and more about latching onto the latest trends or – better yet – predicting what the next great trend will be. With that in mind, you should be keeping an eye on the steady rise of the experiential catering trend. Because, in addition to serving your guests the finest culinary options, you now have to incorporate them into an overall experience that will leave a lasting impression on everyone present.
Driven by a sense of exploration, or perhaps a dire fear of missing out, Americans today are always on the lookout for new experiences. Restaurants are offering novel, fun and memorable meals through pop-up venues and entertainment-themed locales. At the same time, while restaurants are offering unique experiences through their food and beverage options, venues that typically place experience over food and drink, such as sporting events and music festivals, are upgrading their menus to complement the experience. In other words, the experiential dining trend is on the rise and caterers have to join the fray or be left behind. |
0.999948 | Tips for staying safe and healthy each time you head outside.
It is no secret that regular exercise is good for the body and the mind, whether you are trying to keep your weight steady after a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, or simply trying to get back into better shape. Not only can working out help to get your body into better health and burn off calories, but it is also a great tool for improving your mood and boosting your energy levels.
However, just like when you begin a new diet or detoxification treatment, it is important to understand that there are certain risk factors and dangers that can come with too much of a good thing.
Most injuries from exercising and working out occur because people do not take the time to equip themselves with proper clothing and equipment. Each sport has a different types of clothing, gear or shoe that works best for that sport, therefore it is important to do some research before you get started. It's also important that you purchase clothes with proper reflective fabric if you plan on heading outdoors for your workout.
If you are planning on starting a regular workout routine for the first time in a while, it is important that you speak to your doctor first. This will help to spot any potential issues or physical problems you may have that might require extra care. By following some of these simple exercise tips, you can ensure that you are working towards a healthy, happy body without any serious risks. |
0.999945 | ETFS Long JPY Short GBP (GBJP) is designed to provide investors with exposure to Japanese Yen ("JPY") relative to Pounds Sterling ("GBP") by tracking the MSFX Long Japanese Yen/GBP Index (TR)(the "Index"), which aims to reflect the performance of a position in forward contracts which are rolled on a daily basis.
GBJP is an exchange traded currency ("ETC"). Its securities can be created and redeemed on demand by authorised participants and traded on exchange just like shares in a company. The ETC obtains exposure to the Index by entering into unfunded swaps with a counterparty. There is no upfront cash payment by the Issuer to the counterparty when an unfunded swap is created.
The Index provides: (i) a 'long' exposure to JPY relative to GBP. For example, if JPY were to rise in value relative to GBP, the Index (tracked by the ETC) would rise in value. Conversely if JPY were to decrease in value relative to GBP, the Index would also decrease in value; and (ii) an interest rate differential reflecting the difference between the JPY and the GBP exchange rates. |
0.999996 | What do you think had the biggest impact on the personality/relationship dynamics/strategic choices of their respective gangs- the Monks adding Dawn to the Scoobies' memories or Angel/W&H deleting Connor from AI's memories?
* Wesley was the most affected by the ‘Connor stuff’ and he eventually got those memories back.
* Connor was overall happier.
* Adding Dawn directly led to the Dark Willow stuff, likely is the cause of Joyce’s brain tumor, is a significant reason why Riley ‘goes dark’ and breaks up with Buffy; Riley’s breaking up with Buffy led to Buffy’s feeling ‘alone’ and feeling she’s lost her ability to love; Buffy’s level of loss results in hers ‘committing suicide’ in “The Gift” (B 5.22).
* Adding Dawn gave Spike a ‘younger sister’ and/or ‘daughter’, which somewhat changes his personality.
* Ultimately, it simply made Angel and Connor ‘closer’ than they otherwise would be. No other relationship dynamics were significantly changed.
* Considerable relationship dynamics are changed after “Buffy vs. Dracula” (B 5.01) because of the inclusion of Dawn.
* Wes and Gunn were going to join Wolfram & Hart no matter what Angel decided. Even without the ‘Connor thing’, Angel likely would have joined Wolfram & Hart. So, probably no strategic choices were changed.
* Dawn’s existence directly results in Buffy’s dying in “The Gift” (B 5.22).
* Regarding BtVS S9, Willow likely would have kept the Magic inside herself if Dawn didn’t need to be saved.
I think adding someone is always a bigger impact than taking someone away. Dawn's addition influenced seasons 5-7 (and the comics beyond). Removing Connor influenced ATS Season 5 taking place at Wolfram & Hart, but little beyond that.
Without Dawn the whole Glory story arc would not have taken place, because Glory would have had no interest in Buffy. Buffy would have had no reason to sacrifice herself and most likely would not have died. In season 6 Buffy would have had even less reason for holding on once she was brought back, because she would not have been responsible for making sure Dawn could stay with her and would be taken care of. Admittedly, season 7 could have played out the way it did even without Dawn.
In AtS Connor's absence really only influences the story line of "Origins" and the group could have gone to take over the law firm even without his removal, if Angel had gotten it into his mind that the fight would be most effective if fought from the inside and had persuaded the others to come along.
Hmmm this is a difficult thing to weigh up and I did find myself swinging one way and then the other as I tried to think it through. But in the end I think the memory deletion has the edge, although they both had massive impacts.
Dawn's insertion into the scoobies lives definitely affected Buffy's relationships. That familial bond obviously had impact on her choices and reactions and had the direct link to her sacrifice at the season finale. Generally, obviously her only child status was thrown out the window and there is no doubt that this affected both her and Joyce in their choices and the way they interacted. The ongoing effect after Joyce's death that Buffy was taking on a parental role is a huge swing in her life and also then passes to the other scoobies too. That Dawn is the target of the big bad makes her have a practical impact on their lives, even without the emotional binds that have been created by giving her human form and a relationship/history with them. Of course because Dawn has an ongoing active presence in their lives these are meaningful and permanent changes, but I don't think her insertion created an actively negative effect and resulted in decisions that may have been hugely, meaningfully different in the way that I think the deletion of the Connor memories did.
Firstly, it has to be acknowledged though that without knowing what they replaced the memories with, how the gaps were filled, and how different from the truth they resulted in being, it is hard to say for sure how much of an impact the memory deletion had. But I think that Angel's choice to join W&H did affect the others in the group and, of course, he gave a false presentation of his reason for doing it and I think that is one of the two biggest negative aspects. The other is that the (assumed) removal of the break up of the gang, all the myriad of events and issues surrounding Wes taking Connor, distrusting them all and going all lone wolf over it, Angel's attack on him, the group's ostracisation of Wes and then his help and tentative return are massive things to change or remove from their history. Only Wes gains his memories back and by then he is pretty broken and depressed and I don't think that his ongoing response to that can be seen as not being intrinsically affected by the original removal of his memories and his decision to join W&H anyway. Angel not really entering the deal for the reason of fighting from the inside was obviously where he then took it with the plan to destroy the circle at the end of the season, but, as you know, I don't see NFA as a positive act at all, and it was surrounded by more lying about taking on Sebassis when he could have been fighting alongside Gunn or Wes and the injuries/death may have been avoided.
So, on the assumption that the memory deletion created meaningful changes from their actual shared past, deleting everyone's memories stripped away context for them in their choice to join W&H and from their history with Angel and with each other, and consequently all their ongoing decisions. Two of the gang died, Gunn was mortally injured, Lorne was totally disillusioned and the kamikaze plan created hell LA. The context of the memory removal hangs over all of that and because of the negativity I feel exists in stripping their history like that, I think it had more impact as the choices may not have been the same/similar if it hadn't been done.
Adding Dawn changed the show on nearly every level. I think you could make an argument it altered reality kinda like the Wishverse considering Buffy's spell showed that Dawn's stuff wasn't there, she wasn't in physical pictures, etc. You can only guess what would or wouldn't have happened. It's possible Riley could have died since it was Dawn that found his heartbeat was weird.
With Connor and the deletion... Unlike Dawn, initially nothing would change. The gang (less Angel) was already being pulled into W&H, so they might have joined anyway. Angel probably wouldn't have, which means no amulet. Of course this is directly tied to Dawn, too, since Buffy doesn't die, isn't brought back and the First has no loophole to act on.
* Dawn’s being created is greatly implied to have caused Joyce’s brain problems. The treat of Glory greatly enhances Willow’s magic use and the importance of Willow’s magic use. Buffy dies partly to save Dawn.
Dawn essentially is directly responsible for the eventual Buffy/Spike romantic and sexual relationship, Dark Willow and Willow’s power in BtVS S7, the First Evil’s arrival in BtVS S7, and Spike’s death and the Empowerment Spell that results in the Season 8 and Season 9 stuff.
* The Connor memory deletion had ZERO impact on any of the Fang Gang’s joining Wolfram and Hart. Wesley was already going to join. Gunn was already going to join. Fred joined mostly because the others joined. Angel himself would probably have joined even if Wolfram and Hart couldn’t delete the memories of the Fang Gang.
The Fang Gang’s roles in Wolfram and Hart weren’t significantly changed because the ‘memory wipes’.
Wesley would have continued helping Illyria even if the ‘memory wipe’ never happened.
* If Angel wouldn’t refuse the amulet; Wolfram and Hart would have given it to him even if he decided not to join. |
0.937666 | An angler in a float tube plays a pike.
Offshore boat fishing, sometimes called deep sea or open water fishing, is fishing in deep water (more than 30 metres) and at some distance from land. It is dangerous compared to shallow water or lake fishing. More knowledge is needed about weather patterns, navigation and safety precautions, and this is not an activity for beginners.
Offshore boats are generally much larger than inshore boats, and may need to be moored in a marina. They are sturdily constructed so they can brave the weather and water conditions encountered in open waters. Though they differ in design and purpose and prices vary widely they are generally expensive to build and maintain. Most offshore recreational fishermen charter boats rather than own them. It is often a pastime of the affluent, and there is a demand for charter boats equipped and catered to luxurious excess.
Offshore game fish, like marlin and tuna, can be very large and heavy tackle is needed. Fishing is usually done with sea rods, such as downtide rods, with lines of 30 to 50 pounds and multiplier reels. Baits are the same as for inshore fishing and include squid and whole mackerel as well as artificial lures such as perks. Fishing takes place over reefs and wrecks for very large cod, ling and congers. |
0.999999 | Quite some time ago, I signed up for Quora. It was an impulse thing because I got an invite from a friend. Every so often, I scan through my emails from them and look for questions that interest me, or things that friends have written. Up until today, I’ve never felt the impulse to sit down and type out an answer.
When I bought my bookstore more than 13 years ago, it was tiny. The whole store fit in less than 500 square feet, yet the previous owners had made room for two well-worn but comfortable armchairs. Over the years that I’ve owned the store, the amount of seating has ebbed and flowed: couches have come and gone, we’ve had wicker chairs, benches, and stools. Today, we still have those two threadbare armchairs.
The reason is simple: if people can sit down and look through the books, they will stay in the store longer and they will buy more books. Why do people shop in physical bookstores in 2014? Because they want to interact with physical books and talk to book lovers. They want to heft the books. They want to compare similar books to decide which one(s) they want. And every study says that the longer they shop, the more they buy.
As Drew mentioned in his answer, stores want to be the “third place” in your life after home and work. That’s why we have a tea bar and many other bookstores have coffee shops. That’s why we have game nights. That’s why bookstores love to host book clubs. That’s why bookstores bring in authors for signings and talks. We want to offer something that a website can’t offer, and we want to provide a comfortable place to do it.
The optimum amount of space is a fluid thing. If our seating areas are all filled all the time, we add more. If there are empty chairs around the store all day, we replace them with tables or shelves filled with products. I don’t think there’s a single answer to that part of the question.
Free riders? In the years I’ve owned the store, I doubt if there has been a single person that’s read an entire book in my store without buying it. In contrast, quite a few people have picked up a book, spent an hour browsing it, and ended up buying that book. And then coming back for another book by that author. And another. And another.
TL,DR version of the answer: we offer reading space because it makes our customers happy and helps us to sell books.
Sometimes, people just want to get out of the house for a while. We hope they’ll want to do it in our store.
Having our giant teddy bear Pookie on the couch makes people more likely to sit there. Kids love to sit in his lap and read.
For author talks and readings, you’ll typically need to add some extra chairs, but having a defined seating area gives you room for small in-store events.
If you have a bookstore cat like Benjamin, he’ll greatly appreciate comfy places to sit, and even help to show off books. But you’ll need to clean off the fur on a regular basis! |
0.999897 | I am Gleek! I love the show, and I am anxiously awaiting the next season. I also am an aspiring actress/singer. I have always loved to sing, dance and perform. However, for a long time I always put other things ahead of this true passion. Just last year I decided I was tired of waiting for something to happen to me. If I want to be actress or singer, I knew I needed to do something about it. So I signed up for an acting class. I was instantly in love and signed up for another immediately.
One day in late December I was at Mr. Maxwell's (Josh) house. I was watching my all time favorite show, Snapped, which is about women that kill their husbands. (Don't judge me...I like bad tv!) Anyway, that is when an add for an all new competition series aired during the commercial break. The Glee Project was a series looking for a new cast member for the Fox Show Glee...I could hardly believe me eyes or ears. Contestants could enter via Myspace or come to two different casting calls: one in Chicago or the on in Fort Worth. It was too late for both the Myspace entry or the Chicago casting call. However, the Fort Worth one was three weeks away.
I knew I had to at least try...I would regret it if I didn't... plus it was fate that I saw the ad for the show in the first place. All of cosmic stars were aligned in my favor: 1. My best friend Robley just so happens to live in Fort Worth. 2. I had enough miles for a free flight. 3. I just wanted to do it!
For the next three weeks, after picking my song from the provided song list, I ate, drank, and slept The Glee Project. I practiced my song choices for my mom, Josh, and all of my friends. The night before I left I even put on a half time performance during the Cotton Bowl.
On a chilly (and VERY early) Saturday morning in DC I boarded my flight to Houston. From there I was catching a connecting flight to Dallas. (Yes I know there are direct flights to Dallas...but this was a free flight people!) After a slight crisis and a flight delay, I made it to and even chillier Dallas. I got my lil Red Rental car and hit the road to Fort Worth, singing the whole way there. Robley and I had a fun evening of chatting, getting frozen daquries at the drive through, and eating Mexican food. We made a pallet in the living room, and I fell asleep while she watched "The Craigslist Killer" on Lifetime.
That next morning, I woke up bright and early (4am to be exact) to get ready. The doors to the competition weren't opening until 7am, but I have seen American Idol and I had a feeling people would be lining up. As I looked out the window, I noticed that it was POURING down rain. So much for a good hair day. Robley checked the weather report and it was close to freezing. So after putting on tons of layers, a tank, sweater, sweatshirt, and coat to be exact, I got in my car and headed to the contest. Sure enough, there was already a line around the block. I quickly got in line and started visiting with my competition. After making a few friends (who were all 18-haha) and waiting for an hour or so, the line started moving. THEY WERE LETTING PEOPLE IN. I guess they decided that the freezing temperatures and frigid rain were a good reason to start things a bit earlier.
After about another 45 minutes of shuffling I finally made it into the building and was given a number. We were then all put in a room where we sat in sequential order in lines of about 50. This was the holding room till the competition started. It was fun and lively. I met people from all over the U.S. and from all walks of life. The environment room reminded me a lot of a high school pep rally. People were singing and chanting...everyone was pumped.
Finally, the competition started, and in groups of 50 people were led to other rooms to begin. From the groups of 50, people were split into smaller groups of 4 and sent in to the judging rooms. I was so nervous. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty. The judges gave us directions on how to proceed, and then it was my turn. I sang my song, Gives You Hell, and felt confident. Then the next three contestants went. The judges announced two numbers that were moving on to the next round and one of them was me!!! I was so excited. I was given a bright orange wrist band and sent into another holding room.
This is where things get really exciting. After about an hour in this room a group of us were told that we were going to go directly to Glee's Casting Director, Robert Ulrich. I could hardly contain my excitement. Only a select few of us were chosen to perform for him. After calming my nerves, I practiced my song while I waited for my turn. As I walked in to the darkened audition room, all I saw was Mr. Ulrich and the camera man. Robert told me to begin when I was ready. I took a deep breath and sang like I have never sang before. I mean it...I could feel everything I was saying. When I finished, I felt on top of the world. "You have a very unique sound and I love your voice." he told me. "Thank you" I said. I left the room and waited.
I was so proud! Robert Ulrich liked me! He really liked me. After about 15 minutes an assistant came out and told me...that I would not be moving on. However, Mr. Ulrich wanted to keep my information for future projects. Apparently they had already decided what direction they were wanting to take the show, and I just didn't fit the part.
I couldn't have cared less! Haha! I was still elated that Mr. Ulrich thought I had a unique sound. (Earlier someone had told me that too...and I think it was because I sang an All American Rejects song with a country twang.) Trying out for the show had given me a high like nothing I had ever felt, and I knew I had to do it again. I walked outside, in the now snowy weather, positive that I had to do more.
Moral of this story: Go for your dreams...no matter how crazy they might seem to others!
Checkout The Glee Project on Oxygen every Sunday night 9pm Eastern time. |
0.964767 | How to unlock and lock a Land Rover with a dead battery, broken key fob.
Open up your key on the key fob.
On the driver side of the vehicle, locate the door handle.
Insert the key fully into the hole located on the bottom of the door handle cover.
insert the key and turn clockwise to unlock and counter clockwise to lock.
The lock mechanism may feel a little “squishy”, this is normal.
To lock and unlock the other doors you will need to operate the manual lock on the inside of the door or use the central locking buttons. |
0.929801 | Road Trip & Restaurant Review: Iowa Bound + Winneshiek Bar & Grill on the Mississippi River | The Food Hussy!
I love heading home to Iowa. The drive - while not that exciting is always pretty. Plus - on the other side - I have great friends to spend time with.
One sight I love is passing through the windmill zone. I'm always so fascinated by these - I can't imagine if one was on my property - I'd probably just sit there and watch it spin all day long! The colors are so pretty - just blue sky and green fields. Ahhhhhh.
We stopped along the way for lunch and I had to run across the street to the soybean field for a stupid "Food Hussy" pic. Beans!!!!
When I arrived home - it was just after my birthday - and my bestie's sister had a surprise waiting for me! Angie is quite the dessert queen back home - so I was really excited to see what was waiting for me. There was also a note to be sure to check out the inside. Hard to see from here - but it was a zebra cake with lots of colors inside. I wish I had a piece of that right now.
While in town - we stopped at the airport to see the Commemorative Air Force AirPower History Tour. We were about to see some crazy old planes - but first - got to see the Back to the Future car. I'm not even sure Tanner knows what Back to the Future is - but he was interested nonetheless.
It was pretty neat - a little slow - but if you're a historic plane buff - you'd love it. They were in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago. For a (hefty) price - you could even go up and fly in the plane with the pilots.
And most importantly for the trip - we went boatin!!!! That's the #1 activity for the weekend.
Nick took us up on the Mississippi for a change - we headed all the way to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin! I loved these tiny houses on the river. I was pretty much convinced that I should just move here and call it a day. I could live in one of these and just make friends with all the boaters!
We stopped at the Winneshiek Bar & Grill for a bite to eat. It's a big two story bar & grill with an ample patio. It was early so it wasn't too busy and we got a primo seat! They don't really have a web presence of any kind so I figure I'll add the menu pics here in case anybody tries to look them up.
Winnie Chips ($3.99) - these are house-made potato chips and boy was I right to pick these. They were the twirly kind that you can usually only get at fairs and festivals!!! They were just as good as I remembered - salty, crispy and some were a little underdone and bendy - love those!!!!
I also got a Pork Tenderloin ($5.99) - I knew it wouldn't be the normally large crazy amazing ones - but I had to get one when I could. It was good and definitely took care of the desire. Well until I saw the pic - now I just want another one again.
The other must-have - especially since we were in Wisconsin - CHEESE CURDS ($6.99)! They were definitely homemade - which I loved - lightly breaded and served with GOOD ranch - these were perfect!!! I'm not sure why Cincinnati isn't on the Cheese Curd bandwagon - but they need to catch up!
Amy got Beef Super Nachos ($7.99) - they looked fairly standard but she was happy with them.
Larry got Pulled Pork Sliders ($5.99) and he was happy with them as well. The pulled pork seemed homemade - which is always a good sign.
After lunch, we headed back to the boat and found a sandbar to park our behinds on for a couple of hours. It was hotter than Hades - so we weren't out too long - but it was still a fun day. And something miraculous happened...something Larry swore would never happen!
He put his feet in the Mississippi River!!!!! Pretty amazing happening!!!
So that's part of my trip home - there are more food stops to come - but let's just enjoy the beauty for a minute more. |
0.999926 | Compare a house in Calgary which pays $2,500 in property tax a year with an equivalent house in Winnipeg that pays $6,000 annually. The level of investment required to generate the $3,500 difference will vary with interest rates. At a rate of 10%, the difference is worth $35,000 to the Calgary homeowner. This is the amount of capital at that interest rate required to generate the difference (i.e. $35,000 X 10% = $3,500). The capital required to generate the difference increases dramatically as interest rates fall. At a rate of 4%, the difference is worth $87,500 (i.e. $87,500 X 4% = $3,500). Thus, (other factors excluded) the same house in Calgary is worth nearly $90,000 more due to the property tax differential. Or, more simply, the house in Winnipeg would be worth nearly $90,000 more if property taxes were more in line with other jurisdictions. |
0.999999 | Introduction speeches can be classified into 3 types, i.e., the ones used to introduce yourself, to introduce a guest, and to starting off an event. The importance of these speeches and how one should prepare for each of these, is given next.
Introduction speeches are to grab the attention of the audience for an event or discussions that are going to follow. A good introduction creates a stable platform for the speakers and the audience to interact. Talk about the topics of discussion and the key points about a person or an event in brief, to keep your audience attentive in what you want to say.
These speeches are used by people in various aspects of their lives such as interviews, group discussions, felicitations, joining a new company, etc.
• Start by stating your name and valid titles so that the audience is clear about your identity.
• Provide important details about your current situation. This can include pertinent information on both your professional and personal life.
• You can talk about your various accomplishments and the recognition and awards you have received for the same.
• Discuss your personal background, such as where and how you were brought up, or some interesting experience that can be relevant to the audience.
• Talk about the things you are passionate about; these could include issues that are occurring at a local or global level.
• Talk about your hobbies and activities that you undertake for relaxation.
• Finish with your goals and vision for the future, and give some facts about how you and your audience are ultimately similar and working towards the same things.
Introducing a guest speaker to the audience in a conference or gathering is a task of responsibility.
The quality of your speech can make it easier or tougher for the speaker to connect with his/her audience, who, more often than not, is thinking about various unrelated things while entering the venue. Your speech should enable all the people of the audience to come together as a group and focus on the speaker and the topic he/she is going to talk about.
It should also ignite interest in the audience, help them relax, and create an atmosphere that makes it conducive for them to listen to the speaker with their full attention. Now, let's look at a few tips which will help, in case you have to prepare for such an occasion.
• These speeches should combine some information about the topic, the audience, and the speaker effectively. For this, you will have to know what the audience expects from the session, and what the speaker wants you to emphasize on.
• If the speaker has an extensive curriculum vitae, you do not need to read out all of it; instead choose only those points that are relevant to the setting.
• Identify yourself; the speaker has to know who you are as well.
• It does not matter how knowledgeable you are about the subject; make sure that your speech is only a support to the speaker, and not the main program itself.
• Try to keep it short; four minutes should be your maximum. Remember: shorter is better.
• Practice is extremely essential. Errors on details such as the name and title of the speaker, the topic title, etc., can be very embarrassing, and in a few cases, unforgivable.
• In case you have to introduce a panel of speakers, there are a few additional points to be added in your speech such as the format and structure of the presentation with regard to the panel and the perspective of each individual. You can introduce them all at once or one at a time as the program moves ahead.
A welcome speech is very important, when the event is hosting a large audience. It creates the mood for the rest of the program by relaxing the audience and getting them attentive to what the speakers have to say during an event.
• A general welcome to all the guests, in which you must announce the name of the event, the name of the host, and thank all the guests for attending the event.
• An introduction of the host and the occasion.
• Introduction of the next speaker if needed.
• A good conclusion, which should make the audience eager for whatever is next on the agenda.
• Read the speech; do it from the perspective of the audience too. Think about how you feel about the person mentioned, what characteristics does that person have, and whether you like the person after listening to the intro. Make changes to the speech depending on the answers.
• Discuss the introduction with the speaker to find out if any changes are to be made, for better continuity.
• Prepare the speech well in advance. This will give you a chance to review it for clarity in thought, understanding of the topic, and pronunciation of the names of the host or speaker.
• Rehearse till you are fluent, to avoid any last-minute, embarrassing errors.
• When you are on the stage, a good body language and positive attitude can work wonders. A confident stance and a genuine smile can help a lot.
• Make sure you enunciate your words correctly for maximum effect. Also, you must sound enthusiastic throughout your speech.
• It is alright to get notes for reference, but it is a bad idea to read out the entire speech. This makes the effort sound unprofessional and boring.
Introduction speeches should be prepared with the help of an expert, if possible, and well practiced keeping all the mentioned points in mind, as it is an important part of any event. |
0.983311 | Calculate the percent composition of lithium in ##"Li"_3"PO"_4##?
A compound's essentially tells you how many grams of each constituent element you get per ##"100 g"## of compound.
This means that in order to find the of lithium phosphate, ##"Li"_3"PO"_4##, you need to know how many grams of each constituent element you get in a sample of the compound.
The first thing to do here is use the molar mass of each element to find the molar mass of the compound. This will then allow you to calculate the percent composition of lithium by using the mass of lithium that corresponds to one mole of lithium phosphate.
This means that one mole of lithium phosphate will have a mass of ##"115.794 g"##. But you also know that one mole of lithium has a mass of ##"6.941 g"##, and that you get three moles of lithium per mole of lithium phosphate.
Therefore, you will get ##"17.983 g"## of lithium for every ##"100 g"## of lithium phosphate. |
0.99989 | Create a copy of NetSuite data (with schema) in a PostgreSQL database with no effort.
Copying NetSuite data to PostgreSQL cannot be simpler. You just need to perform the following three simple steps.
You don't need to prepare the PostgreSQL database - Skyvia creates the tables corresponding to the NetSuite objects - Accounts, Leads, Contacts, etc. - automatically.
Skyvia can more than just create a copy of the NetSuite data in PostgreSQL - it can keep this copy in an up-to-date state automatically. All you need is to configure a schedule when to update the PostgreSQL replica database.
When updating the data copy in the PostgreSQL database, Skyvia does not perform full data copying each time. It retrieves only updated data from NetSuite and writes only necessary updates to the PostgreSQL database.
If you need more than just to copy data from NetSuite to PostgreSQL, you may use Skyvia's powerful data import functionality. Skyvia's data import tools will correctly extract NetSuite data, transform it, and load to PostgreSQL when PostgreSQL tables have different structure than NetSuite objects. |
0.999998 | Is it possible to write 41 other names with more pronunciations of all vowels including Y? These Names are all written in Romans 16.
Is there a meaning to why these Names were all written in Romans 16?
Does something happen to us when our soul reverberates these and the other WORDS in the BIBLE?
Genesis 5 points to the promised ONE and the meaning of the Hebrew names from Adam= Man, Seth=Appointed, Enosh=Mortal, Kenan=Sorrow, Mahalel=THE BLESSED GOD, Jared=Shall Come Down, Enoch=Teaching, Methuselah=HIS death shall bring, Lamech=The Despairing, Noah=Rest or comfort, point to JESUS, GOD'S HOLY CHRIST described exactly in Book of Isaiah written about 700 years before JESUS stepped down to earth to fulfill the Law so we could step up into Heaven by reflecting the unconditional unending AGAPE LOVE OF GOD. |
0.950814 | Should You Make an Early 401k Withdrawal?
It's hard to give advice on whether to make an early 401k withdrawal, as we don't know your specific circumstances. Normally, we'd advise against it, but there are circumstances where it makes sense. And if you decid to do it, we can help you calculate 401K early withdrawal penalties.
Making an early 401k withdrawal should be a last resort. We'd never recommend cashing out your 401k because the market is down, or because you want to buy a new car. However, there are some legitimate reasons to cash out. We'll list a few below and an example of how the early 401k withdrawal penalties are calculated.
You're leaving your employer and only have a few hundred dollars in your account.
An emergency comes up and you have no other way of paying for it. If it is a medical emergency, your retirement accounts are protected and should not be used for payment.
You will be taxed on any withdrawal you make at your marginal income tax rate. You will also have to pay an early withdrawal penalty of 10% of your withdrawal. For example, if you made $50,000 last year and withdrew $40,000 from your 401k you would pay the following: Income taxes on $40,000 at the federal 25% tax rate plus state taxes (we'll assume 5%). That would mean an extra $12,000 in taxes. In addition you would pay $4,000 in 401k early withdrawal penalties. So in the end, you'll pay about $16,000 in taxes on a $40,000 withdrawal. That is why you should only make an early withdrawal for dire circumstances. |
0.939329 | What is the chemistry of Klonopin?
Klonopin is a benzodiazepine. It is a popular brand name version of the medication generically named clonazepam. It is a long-acting benzodiazepine that which relaxes the central nervous system by acting on the brain’s gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors to reduce neuronal activity. This action results in decreased excitation levels of multiple other neurons, resulting in a calming effect, relaxation, slight sedation, and overall feelings of mild euphoria.
While most benzodiazepine drugs are prescribed for anxiety or insomnia treatment, Klonopin is best known as an anticonvulsant medication to reduce seizures, including those brought on by light-sensitive epilepsy. It is also used to treat panic and other anxiety-related disorders.
Like all medications in the benzodiazepine family, ongoing Klonopin use can lead to addiction, physiological dependency, and have potentially lethal withdrawal symptoms if stopped abruptly. Additionally, taking Klonopin while using other drugs, including alcohol, can be particularly dangerous.
What is the history of Klonopin?
Clonazepam was patented in 1964 by the Hoffman La Roche company, at a time when benzodiazepines in general were replacing barbiturates as the sedative drug of choice. Klonopin became available for medical prescription in 1975 and was first marketed as a treatment for epileptic seizures.
Like all members of the benzodiazepine family (there are 15 approved benzodiazepine medications in the US, 200 world wide), Klonopin builds up tolerance fairly quickly and has potential for addiction, especially when taken regularly for more than a few weeks. It is classified as a Schedule IV drug and in 2011, a national study done in Emergency Departments across the country reported 61,000 people sought ED treatment for recreational or nonmedical use of clonazepam or Klonopin use.
In 2013, Tennessee passed the first U.S. law requiring pharmacies to limit benzodiazepine dispensing to a 30-day prescription.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the number of deaths from benzodiazepines overall, increased more the 400% between 2002 and 2015.
Common side effects of Klonopin include dizziness, frequent drowsiness, changes in salivation, stuffy or runny nose, skin rashes, blurred vision, and loss of appetite. Some people experience more serious effects such as shallow breathing, pounding heart, loss of judgment, easy bruising, or urination difficulties. There have been rare reports of clonazepam withdrawal-induced catatonia.
Klonopin is also known to be a risk factor in birth defects and fetal dependency and withdrawal, so pregnant women should avoid taking it. And, like most sedative medications, Klonopin should never be used with alcohol as it has a synergistic effect. That means essentially that the effects of using both Klonopin and Alcohol aren’t like 1+1=2, its’ more like 1+1=3 or even 5.
As with any medication, if you are on a new Klonopin prescription and begin to experience unusual physical effects, report it to your doctor immediately.
How was Klonopin intended to be used?
Besides seizures, Klonopin is now commonly prescribed for panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and social anxiety disorder (SAD). When taken according to prescription, it calms the nerves and makes it easier to cope with tense situations.
Because of its addictive potential, Klonopin is not generally recommended for long-term use. Anyone receiving a prescription should consider it a temporary measure while taking time to learn alternate coping skills and possibly find other medications without the abuse potential.
How is Klonopin used illicitly?
As with most prescribed drugs with addiction potential, illicit-use problems with Klonopin typically involve someone going outside prescription instructions and taking extra pills on their own, usually because they are no longer satisfied with the effects of the recommended dose (though there are cases of people developing addiction from taking Klonopin strictly according to prescription). It can’t be said often enough: Never trust to your own judgment on deciding whether you “need” more of a prescription medication. Check with your doctor.
Some people who are desperate for a fast effect, or experimenting recreationally, may crush Klonopin pills and “snort” them as a powder. Or they may liquefy and inject the drug. Either approach is more dangerous, since the faster effect comes with increased risk of overdose.
What are the signs of illicit use of Klonopin?
Signs that someone may be using the drug in a non-prescribed manner include: constant drowsiness, chronic sore throat, diarrhea, loss of appetite, numbness or stiffness, fainting spells, tremors, cognitive impairment, nightmares, paranoia, violent mood swings, and increasing tolerance (needing to take more Klonopin to get the same effect).
Symptoms of withdrawal include: headaches, nausea, heavy perspiration, dizziness, hallucinations, seizures, depression, and thoughts of suicide. As with other benzodiazepines, withdrawal can produce potentially lethal effects and should never be attempted without professional medical supervision.
Symptoms of overdose include: blurry vision, extreme confusion, dizziness, muscle weakness, breathing difficulties, slowed reflexes, and extreme fatigue or loss of consciousness. Call 911 immediately for treatment (tell the dispatcher what was taken, how much, and when if possible), and, after being stabilized, ask about options for full detoxification and treatment.
How Does Recovery Centers of America Treat Klonopin Abuse and Addiction?
Detoxification from Klonopin dependence or addiction must be done in a facility with 24-hour medical care as it can be life-threatening, particularly when combined with alcohol or other drugs. Withdrawal symptoms may include seizures, muscle spasms, anxiety, confusion, suicidal thoughts, extreme fatigue, sweating, tremors, nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, drastic mood swings, and hallucinations.
Withdrawal from Klonopin is typically divided into three phases: early withdrawal, acute withdrawal and protracted or late withdrawal.
Klonopin Has a long half-life, half of the amount in your system leaves your body every 18-50 hours. This means that withdrawal symptoms don’t start until about 1-3 days after the last dose. That doesn’t mean you won’t feel anxiety and craving for more, it just means that Klonopin leaves slowly, over time, and the worst effects are usually not felt till 24-72 hours after the last dose.
Early withdrawal typically lasts 2-4 days depending on amount used and length of time used.
Acute withdrawal typically peaks about 2 weeks after stopping and can last up to a month. The majority of the withdrawal side effects happen during this time period.
Finally, the protracted withdrawal may include drug craving and other psychological symptoms and that can appear suddenly, anytime and last for several months or even continue, in a diminished way, for years. This is particularly true of panic and anxiety since there are typically the symptoms the individual had prior to starting the Klonopin.
At intake, RCA staff administer the assessment in a calm environment, providing something to eat and beverages to keep the you comfortable. If, due to an inability to concentrate or anxiety symptoms, you find it difficult to participate, the assessment can be divided into smaller sections for you. Since patients with Klonopin abuse or addiction often have additional problems with anxiety or panic disorder, RCA also provides a clear orientation to the treatment process, program rules, and expectations for participation to decrease any externally related anxiety about the process.
A slow and controlled tapering of the Klonopin is the safest method of withdrawal and will result in minimal discomfort. RCA will monitor your vitals and your level of withdrawal distress a minimum of every 4 hours upon admission. Medications such as Phenobarbital, Clonidine, beta-blockers and others may be used depending on their efficacy for each particular patient and the patient’s level of withdrawal symptoms.
Patient’s typically stay on the Detoxification unit until they are medically cleared to move to the rehabilitation units (often 5-9 days). Once moved to the rehab unit, however, medical oversight and 24-hour RN coverage and attention will continue throughout your stay.
As with any disorder, it’s very important to involve significant others. During the initial assessment and intake processes, RCA identifies family members or significant others who will support the patient and their treatment goals and get them involved immediately.
After medical detoxification, treatment will include additional small group therapy sessions, individual sessions, educational seminars, and workshops. For our patients struggling with Klonopin or other benzodiazepine problems, or difficulties with anxiety or panic, additional services to assist with calming the body and the mind such as mindful meditation, yoga, progressive relaxation, and other therapeutic techniques may be helpful.
Through wellness seminars, life skills workshops, and various therapies, RCA focuses patients on developing a balanced lifestyle that includes restoring healthy eating and sleeping habits, participation in physical exercise and recreational activities, as well as building a healthy support group to get them started on the road to long-term recovery.
We focus on coping with cravings to diminish relapse potential. These include cognitive behavioral techniques such as problem solving, making alternative plans, living in the moment. RCA teaches patients to examine the circumstances, situations, thoughts, and feelings that increase the likelihood they will return to use. While we hope that no one returns to drug use after detoxification or treatment, we know that this happens. You need to be particularly aware of the hazards of using Klonopin shortly after treatment as your system has no tolerance built up for the drug and using, particularly at similar doses or when used with alcohol, poses many dangers including overdose and death. |
0.999767 | Each term in the series is one less than the square of the preceding term. Thus; (2)(2sq) - 1 = 3 (3)(2sq)- 1 = 8, (8)(2sq) — 1 = 63 :.
Missing term = (63)(2sq) — 1 = 3969- 1 = 3968. |
0.999934 | Rashi to Gen. 1:1 says that Hashem started the Torah with the account of Creation in order to demonstrate that He has the right to dispose of the world's territory as He wishes. Thus, we can validly claim the Land of Israel as ours (rather than being seen as interlopers who conquered the land from its rightful owners).
On another level, I've seen something (I think it was in The Beginning, by R' Avigdor Miller zt"l), that it's in the spirit of "derech eretz kadmah laTorah" - proper behavior precedes, and is a prerequisite for, Torah knowledge and mitzvah observance. So the Torah devotes its entire first book to stories of our forefathers and foremothers, for us to use as models for derech eretz; having absorbed those, we are ready to go on to the laws and precepts of Jewish life.
It was taught, R' Akiva said: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" - this is the great verse of the Torah. Ben Azzai said: "This is the book of the generations of Adam/man [on the day that G-d created Adam, in the likeness of G-d did He create him]" - this is greater.
According to many sources (including this) Ben Azzai makes the claim that the Torah includes the story of Adam to explain that we are all connected and brothers and created in G-d's image. The Torah's not exclusively a book of commandments, but a book of the G-dliness of humanity.
I am reminded of the story of the illiterate who recited the aleph-bet and asked G-d to form the words of the prayers he would like to hear (although, in my favorite version, the end is a little snappier). I think this may actually be the same sort of thing, only backwards.
Had G-d started the Torah with a list of commandments and rules, or even a dry list of facts and dates, how many people (regardless of the rightness of it) would find themselves drawn into the study of Torah or understanding of what those commandments mean? By providing us with stories, G-d has created a way for those who have not spent years and years studying to begin to understand the ways of Torah and how to observe halacha.
While a child may have trouble extracting the knowledge they need from a list of mitzvot or prohibitions, she or he will be able to listen to the story of the golden calf and understand that to worship idols is wrong. |
0.970556 | Why is a Title Search Necessary when purchasing Real Estate?
Before a bank will loan you money to purchase a piece of real estate (also known as real property) the bank will require a title search for all current liens upon the land. If, however, a bank in not involved in the purchase (it is a cash purchase) you will want to conduct your own title search through a title company.
If you do not conduct your own title search, and there are liens on the property, you as the new owner would have to pay or satisfy those liens before selling the land or obtaining a loan. This encumbrance can be avoided by using a qualified title company and by purchasing your own title insurance. |
0.98882 | The correct frequency of exercise in order for it to be effective is A. at least twice a day. B. a maximum of eight times per week. C. at least seven times per week. D. a minimum of three to five times per week. |
0.998483 | [prMac.com] Singapore, Singapore - Orasis Imaging has released Orasis 2.0, its brain-inspired photo correction app for iPhone and iPad. The result of academic research, Orasis's main objective is to make your photos look closer to what your eyes perceived at the exact moment your photo was taken. Orasis will make your photos look more realistic, extracting visual information in the dark or bright areas, which was not visible in the original captured image. The name "Orasis" comes from the Greek word Vision.
What is the "sensation of appearance"?
Believe it or not, what we "see" is not just the light which reaches our eyes, but rather, the result of a very complicated spatial processing that the retina and visual cortex apply to the image captured by our eyes. Part of this processing is dedicated to form the sensation of appearance. The sensation of appearance determines how much dark or light are the objects that we perceive, what is their exact shade and their level of details.
Make the following experiment! Use your camera or iPhone/iPad to take a picture of your window across the room, during the day. Turn off any lights. Point your camera in a way, as to capture partially the window and partially the room and then take a photo. Observe it carefully, looking at the real scene and back to your captured photograph. The dimmer the ambient room light is, the greater the discrepancy you will see.
What exactly does Orasis do?
Orasis attempts to bridge the gap between "what you see" and " the camera's output". Orasis enhances the shadow or the bright regions of an image, while keeping intact all the correct ones. The final result is a lot closer to the human perception of the scene, than the original captured image, revealing visual information that otherwise wouldn't be available to the human observer.
Orasis' algorithm is the result of years of academic research in the field of biologically-inspired image processing, and has been published in peer reviewed scientific journals. It combines the shunting characteristics of the ganglion cells of the retina, as well as, the filling-in mechanisms of the visual cortex, into an efficient spatially-processing algorithm. This means that Orasis does not globally transform the whole image, but rather locally, according to its contents. This is a major difference with other existing enhancement applications, which usually increase image brightness globally, and thus, improve some regions while deteriorate others. When pressing the "Auto" correction button, a neural network, which has been trained using psychophysical data from many observers, selects the most appropriate parameters in order for the corrected photograph to approximate, as close as possible, the image as seen by your eyes. Since however, photography is also a matter of personal taste, controls are provided for any additional manual adjustment.
So, what should you expect from Orasis?
Orasis will make your photographs look closer to what you see with your eyes, compared to what they originally looked like, when they were captured by the camera. This means that, you should not always expect "WOW" results, since there are cases where captured photographs are a quite accurate representation of what we see. These kinds of photographs are usually taken indoors, in a uniformly well lit room, without any shadows or strong light sources in the picture. In these cases, Orasis does not change the captured images significantly.
However, in cases where shadows, strong light sources (e.g. the sun), camera flash, or generally, high contrast imaging conditions are present, Orasis can significantly improve your captured images. More specifically, it will lighten all the dark areas, such as shadows or dark backgrounds caused by camera flash, and at the same time it will darken all the unnaturally bright areas, equalizing the appearance of the image and making it look "more natural". Most important though, it will do so without compromising local contrast (e.g. object details) and without affecting all the good image regions.
Orasis is not an HDR software. It does not take multiple photographs of the same scene and combine them into one final image. Although its results can be similar to some HDR applications, Orasis uses only a single image. This can be a major advantage in many cases. With Orasis you can capture moving objects (e.g. a car) and have at the same time high quality images, whereas with HDR applications you can capture only still scenes, since you have to take multiple photos. On the other hand, the results of Orasis are bounded by the quality and the range of visual information contained in the one captured image. Particularly, image regions which are totally white, due to their very strong brightness during capturing, contain absolutely no visual information, and thus, cannot be corrected by Orasis or any other image processing software.
Orasis 2.0 is only $0.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Photo & Video category.
Orasis Imaging is a newly founded company which is specialized in Biologically Inspired Image Processing and more particularly in Image Enhancement. It consists of people with extensive academic background in traditional image processing and computer vision, as well as, visual neurosciences. Copyright (C) 2012 Orasis Imaging. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. |
0.99993 | Generate content within a mobile-friendly website or blog. Pixabay image, CC0.
The best way to get more followers to your blog or website, increase sales, and keep audiences interested in your brand is to… create great content. Ah, you say, I’ve heard this before about unique content and so forth. But what does it really mean? If you’re about to add that you don’t have the biggest social media network to market the content so what’s the point, well, I’ll stop you right there.
Even the best marketing efforts won’t be helped by crappy content. That’s why I wanted to write this blog post that is sponsored by Content Mother who compensated me for my honest opinions. It all boils down to providing quality writing, photos, videos or another type of content. Your small business needs great content behind social shares and SEO (search engine optimization) only works with unique content. And regarding social media outreach, that requires content marketing first and foremost if you want it to be successful. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Quality content is at the core of a good marketing strategy. Pexels photo, CC0.
Essentially, content marketing is a strategy for delivering content in a smart way to your target audience. This involves providing information to customers (potential and existing ones) rather than just pitching your product or service. In turn, you position your small business as an expert in the relevant industry and build a relationship with people who can make use of your products or services. When they receive valuable content regularly from you, prospects begin to trust you, which can drive sales and propel repeat business.
A successful content strategy is one crafted to your particular business, from its features (size and industry, for example) to its particular products and services. As it can be complex to put together a variety of content that aligns closely with what you sell, your time may be best spent investing in professional services like content marketing for small businesses from Content Mother. It will launch soon to provide social media marketing and management, blogger outreach, content creation, and marketing of content. Content Mother also runs a Lifestyle Blog, Parenting Blog, and Wedding Blog.
Let’s look at the word: INFO (providing value to readers) and GRAPHIC (visual imagery for those people skimming content online). Yes, these two things together can be a hit! It’s a unique way to tell a story. You can hire graphic design professionals to make them for your small business or use tools for creating infographics yourself if you’re short on cash.
Include infographics within blog posts and as shares on their own across social media networks, such as Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.
Generate content on a mobile-friendly website or blog. Pixabay image, CC0.
If you’re not offering your content in a form that is mobile yet then you’d best get on that. As I wrote in my post on why you need an on online presence, the number of smartphone users making purchases via these mobile devices is increasing. This means you will have access to a lot more potential customers when you have a mobile-friendly website or blog. More eyes on your quality content is a good thing!
A focus on mobile is therefore part of a good content marketing strategy. This includes using a responsive web design. After all, customers aren’t likely to return to a site if it doesn’t come up quickly on their phones. The focus needs to start at this usability point as views won’t convert into sales if people are clicking on a website or blog that isn’t giving the info they desire. The goal is to create a user-friendly website with quality content filling its pages.
If you are interested in more posts on content marketing tips and online tips for bloggers, feel free to let me know in the comments below. I may just offer more of these types of posts. I enjoy blogging and am always looking to learn more too if you have additional tips here or want to guest post. Overall, the best thing for your small business, in my opinion, is to target your activities to your users, first and foremost.
Thanks for the mindful review, Christy. Hugs.
Content is the most important thing.
Thanks for appreciating my views on it, Kitt!
Thank you so much, Christy! This was very insightful and helpful to me!
Some great ideas here, thanks Christy!
Awesome feedback, Alec! Wishing you much success in business.
This is a great post! I too think that little SEO tricks will never match amazing content. I have also been working on creating quality content on my blog Businesses With Stories for the last year. I wonder if you could take a look and maybe give me some recommendations on how I can create better content. Thanks! |
0.50771 | DeMarcus Omar Ware (born July 31, 1982) is a former American football outside linebacker and defensive end. He played college football at Troy and was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys with the 11th overall pick in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft. After spending nine seasons with the Cowboys, Ware departed in 2013 as the franchise's all-time leader in quarterback sacks with 117. Ware then played three seasons for the Denver Broncos, with whom he won Super Bowl 50 over the Carolina Panthers. After the 2016 season with the Broncos, he announced his retirement from the NFL. In 2017, he signed a one-day contract with Dallas to retire as a Cowboy. In 2018, the Broncos hired Ware as a pass-rush consultant.
Ware was born on July 31, 1982, in Auburn, Alabama. He attended Ogletree Elementary School. Ware played football, basketball, baseball, and ran track in high school; he attended Auburn High School (with defensive end Osi Umenyiora and linebacker Marcus Washington). In football, Ware played both linebacker and wide receiver, and as a senior, he won every game, and was named the team's Most Valuable Wide Receiver and Most Valuable Linebacker, and won Top Leadership honors. He finished his senior season with seven sacks and 55 total tackles (40 solo tackles, 15 assisted tackles).
In track & field, Ware was one of the state's top performers in the long jump (PB of 7.14 meters). He ran the 55 metres in 6.74 seconds and had a personal-best jump of 1.94 meters in the high jump.
Ware accepted a scholarship from Troy University, where he was a two-time All-Sun Belt Conference selection for the Troy Trojans football team.
Ware became a starter at defensive end as a sophomore, and was a part of a defensive line that included future NFL player Osi Umenyiora. He posted 72 tackles (fifth on the team) and 19.5 tackles for loss. The next year, he registered 62 tackles, 16 tackles for a loss, 6 sacks, 32 quarterback hurries (led the team), 5 forced fumbles and 2 fumble recoveries.
As a senior, Ware was a dominant player, receiving the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year, and was a finalist for the Hendricks Award, which is given annually to the top defensive end in college football. In 2004, he helped lead his team to the school's first-ever bowl appearance, the Silicon Valley Football Classic. He posted 53 tackles, 10.5 sacks (led the Sun Belt Conference), 19 tackles for loss and 4 forced fumbles.
Ware finished his college career with 27.5 sacks, 201 tackles, 74 quarterback hurries, ten forced fumbles, four fumble recoveries, and one interception. His 27.5 sacks rank second in school history for sacks in a career, and his 55.5 tackles for losses rank first in school history.
Ware was named to the Sun Belt Conference All-Decade Team. In 2012, he was inducted into the Troy University Sports Hall of Fame. In 2014, he was inducted into the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame.
A defensive end at Troy, Ware was considered a "tweener DE/OLB prospect" by most scouts. He was supposed to be a perfect fit as rush linebacker in 3-4 defense prior the 2005 NFL Draft and was projected to go early in the second round by Sports Illustrated. Prospect Marcus Spears was considered by head coach Bill Parcells to be the key to the team's eventual move to a 3-4 defense and wanted to take him with the first selection (11th overall pick). Owner/general manager Jerry Jones overruled Parcells and selected Ware instead, who the team thought would not be available later in the draft. Spears was selected by the Cowboys with the 20th overall pick.
Ware also was credited with a 430-pound bench press, a 570-pound squat, and a 360-pound power clean.
In 2006, Ware ended the regular season with a team-high 11.5 sacks, the most ever by a Cowboys linebacker. This total broke Anthony Dickerson's record of 10.5 from 1983. He added 73 tackles, a fumble recovery, and an interception, both returned for a touchdown. Ware was named a starter on the NFC Pro Bowl team and was also named Second-team All-Pro by The Associated Press. In Week 6 against division rival Eagles, Ware had a memorable moment with his 69-yard fumble return for his first career NFL touchdown. He recorded his first career interception against Michael Vick in a game against Atlanta Falcons and returned it for a 41-yard touchdown. Ware finished tied for ninth in the league in total sacks and Shawne Merriman led the league with 17 sacks.
Ware broke out with his 2007 season, leading new Cowboys' head coach Wade Phillips to call him the best outside linebacker in the league. Ware became the second Cowboy ever to record at least 14 sacks in a season, since Jim Jeffcoat in 1986. Ware led the team with 27 quarterback pressures, eight tackles for losses, and four and forced fumbles while finishing with 80 tackles. Ware made his second straight Pro Bowl along with 12 other teammates. He was also selected to the All-Pro team for the second straight year along with teammates, Terrell Owens and Jason Witten. Ware finished tied for third in the league behind Patrick Kerney (14.5 sacks) and Jared Allen (15.5 sacks).
In the 2008 matchup against the St. Louis Rams, Ware tied the NFL record of former Denver Broncos linebacker Simon Fletcher for recording a sack in ten straight games. Ware was selected to his third consecutive Pro Bowl after pacing the league, establishing an official club record and tying Derrick Thomas for sixth in league history with 20 sacks. Ware ended the 2008 season with 84 tackles, 9 tackles for a loss, six forced fumbles, and two passes defended. Ware was named NFC Defensive Player of the Year by Kansas City Committee as well as NFL Alumni Pass Rusher of the Year. Ware became the first recipient of the professional Butkus Award. Ware finished the 2008 season as the league leader in sacks for the first time in his career. Joey Porter finished second on the list with 17.5 sacks and John Abraham third with 16.5 sacks.
In 2009, Ware was listed as the best 3-4 outside linebacker by Sporting News In October, Ware signed a six-year, $78 million contract, putting him among the top-five highest paid defenders in the NFL. Two months later, Ware suffered a neck injury and was taken off the field by a cart while playing against the San Diego Chargers. The injury was diagnosed later as a sprained neck. He was taken to the hospital for further tests, but was released the next day. He came back to play the very next week, against the then-undefeated New Orleans Saints, and recorded two sack-fumbles, including the one that ended the Saints' chances at a comeback and an undefeated season. For this performance, he was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week. He made his fourth consecutive appearance in the Pro Bowl as a starter in 2009, after leading the Cowboys with 11.0 sacks, a career-high 45 pressures, and five forced fumbles. He was named to the First All-Pro team in recognition of his 2009 season.
Ware recorded 15.5 sacks and led the NFL in that category for the second time in three seasons. He made a fifth straight Pro Bowl and garnered another All-Pro nomination. By leading the NFL in sacks for the second time in his career, Ware tied the record for most seasons leading the league in sacks with two. He tied Mark Gastineau, 1983–84; Reggie White, 1987–88; Kevin Greene, 1994, 1996; Michael Strahan, 2001, 2003; and Jared Allen, 2007, 2011.
In 2011, Ware had 19.5 sacks, 47 tackles, two pass deflections, and two forced fumbles. Ware ended the season only half sack away from both becoming the first player in NFL history to post multiple 20+ sack seasons and becoming the 29th player in NFL history to reach 100+ career sacks. In addition, Ware was 2.5 sacks shy of becoming the first player ever to lead the league in sacks three times. Earlier in the season, Ware was on pace to pass Michael Strahan's sack record of 22.5 sacks in a season but ultimately fell short. On October 30, 2011, Ware recorded a career-high four sacks against the Philadelphia Eagles in a 34-7 loss. Ware finished second in the NFL in total sacks for the 2011 season behind Jared Allen who posted 22.0 sacks. Ware was selected to the 2012 Pro Bowl as a starter and voted to the All-Pro team again.
In the season opener against the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants at MetLife Stadium, Ware recorded two sacks against Eli Manning to reach 101.5 sacks for his career. With these two sacks Ware became the second fastest player (113 games) to reach 100 sacks behind Reggie White (96 games) while also becoming just the 29th player in NFL history to reach 100 or more sacks. At the end of the 2012 season, Ware finished with 11.5 sacks, five forced fumbles and was selected to his seventh Pro Bowl and was named to the Second All-Pro team. Ware was unable to play in the Pro Bowl after his off-season shoulder surgery. He endured a difficult season having to deal with a hamstring he tore in training camp, a fractured right wrist and losing mobility on his right arm in the last three games, because of a hyperextended elbow and a torn labrum that forced him to use an elbow and shoulder harness.
Due to the Cowboys switch to the 4-3 from the 3-4, under new defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, DeMarcus moved to defensive end, along with Anthony Spencer, who started his NFL career opposite Ware at left side linebacker, but was a defensive end at college. Under Kiffin's system, Ware was able to dedicate himself as a pass-rusher. Despite becoming a pure pass rusher, on his first play as a defensive end, Ware picked off Giants quarterback Eli Manning. In Week 3 against the St. Louis Rams, he became the Cowboys' all-time sack leader, surpassing Harvey Martin's 30-year-old record of 114.
After nine seasons with the Cowboys, Ware was released on March 11, 2014, making him a free agent for the first time in his career.
On March 12, 2014, one day following his release from the Cowboys, Ware signed a three-year, $30 million contract with the Denver Broncos. The deal included $20 million in guaranteed money. Ware started at right outside linebacker for the team. He played 16 games, of which he started 15, finishing the season with 41 tackles, 10 sacks, one interception, one pass defensed, and two forced fumbles. He received Pro Bowl honors in his first season with the Broncos.
For the 2015 season, Ware was reunited with former head coach Wade Phillips as his defensive coordinator. The Broncos finished the season with the #1 defense and a 12-4 record. Ware posted 25 tackles and 7.5 sacks while playing in 11 of the regular season games, missing five games due to injury. In September, he earned AFC defensive player of the month honors. He was ranked 36th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2016.
In the Divisional Round against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ware had 3 tackles, recovered a crucial fumble near the end of the game, and recorded the game winning sack to help the Broncos win 23-16. Ware advanced to the Conference Championship for the first time in his career. In the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots, Ware and the defense hit quarterback Tom Brady 27 times and placed pressure on him the entire game. The Broncos held on to win the game by a score of 20-18. On February 7, 2016, Ware was part of the Broncos team that won Super Bowl 50. In the game, the Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers by a score of 24–10. Ware recorded five tackles and two sacks in the Super Bowl.
In a Week 1 Super Bowl 50 rematch against the Carolina Panthers, Ware recorded a team leading 1.5 sacks and helped the Broncos beat the Panthers by a score of 21-20. In Week 2 against the Colts, Ware left the game with an apparent arm injury as he was trying to bring down quarterback Andrew Luck. It was eventually revealed that there was an ulna fracture near the elbow. The injury required surgery with 4–5 weeks to recover. Ware went on to play 10 games recording four sacks before having season-ending back surgery on December 28, 2016.
On March 13, 2017, Ware announced his retirement from the NFL after 12 seasons and 138.5 sacks, through his Twitter account.
On April 24, 2017, about a month after announcing his retirement from the NFL, Ware signed a one-day contract to retire as a member of the Dallas Cowboys, the team that drafted him.
Ware is tied for the record of most seasons leading the league in sacks with two (2008 and 2010). Ware is tied with Mark Gastineau, 1983–84; Reggie White, 1987–88; Kevin Greene, 1994, 1996; Michael Strahan, 2001, 2003 and Jared Allen, 2007, 2011.
Pete Prisco, CBS Sports Senior NFL Columnist, ranked Ware as the 3rd best player in the NFL (behind Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady) going into the 2012 season and as the best defensive player in the NFL. In 2012, NFL.com analyst Daniel Jeremiah ranked Ware as the best edge pass rusher in the league and a "top-five player in the NFL, regardless of position". The NFL Top 100 for 2012 ranked Ware as the best rusher, best linebacker, 2nd overall defensive player behind defensive back Darrelle Revis (number 5 overall) and the 6th overall player in the NFL.
Ware is the second fastest player ever to reach 100+ sacks (Reggie White is the fastest) and the 29th player in history to do so.
Ware recorded 28 multiple-sack games and 32 forced fumbles as a member of the Dallas Cowboys, both most in club history.
Ware has ranked in the top three in total sacks league-wide in 4 out of 5 seasons (3rd place in 2007, 1st place in 2008, 7th place in 2009, 1st place in 2010, and 2nd place in 2011).
On April 19, 2016, the governor of Alabama declared April 19 "DeMarcus Ware Day" in his honor.
In March 2005, Ware married his high school sweetheart, Taniqua Smith, a former Air Force member and the daughter of a police officer. After three difficult pregnancies, including the birth and death of a son, Omar, in 2006, they adopted their daughter, Marley. In 2010, they had a son, DeMarcus Ware, II.
Ware and Smith divorced in 2012.
On September 12, 2018, Ware was announced as one of the celebrities who will compete on season 27 of Dancing with the Stars. His professional partner is Lindsay Arnold.
^ Legwold, Jeff. "Broncos hire DeMarcus Ware as pass-rush consultant". ESPN.
^ "J.J. Watt, Jared Allen, Jake Long among NFL's best linemen". National Football League. October 24, 2012. Retrieved October 24, 2012.
^ "Jamario Thomas named Sun Belt Player of the Year: Troy's Demarcus Ware named Defensive Player of the Year". Archived from the original on January 2, 2009. Retrieved December 16, 2008.
^ Broaddus, Bryan. "Draft-Day Storytime: DeMarcus Ware". Bryan Broaddus Blog. DallasCowboys.com. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
^ Brandt, Gil (April 11, 2005). "Gil Brandt's NFL Draft Analysis By Position: Defensive Ends". Packers.com, NFL.com. Archived from the original on March 9, 2008. Retrieved September 7, 2008.
^ Nawrocki, Nolan (April 4, 2005). "A true look at Wonderlic results". Pro Football Weeklywebsite. Archived from the original on October 11, 2008. Retrieved April 25, 2009.
^ "Demarcus Ware, OLB+DE, Troy State". USA Today. May 18, 2005. Retrieved April 27, 2009.
^ Wade Calls Cowboys LB Ware "Pretty Amazing"
^ Archer, Todd (January 9, 2009). "Dallas Cowboys' Ware wins Butkus Award". Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on August 24, 2010.
^ "DeMarcus Ware 'a lot better'; Cowboys won't rule out LB". USA Today. December 14, 2009. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
^ NFL Game Summary. "NFL Game Summary - Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles" (PDF). NFL.com. NFL.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
^ Ellis, Josh. "Notes: Bryant Ends Silence; Murray Finds 2nd-Half Groove". DallasCowboys.com. DallasCowboys.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
^ http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-training-camps/0ap2000000222599/Which-Cowboy-is-shining Which Dallas Cowboy is shining?
^ "DeMarcus Ware becomes Cowboys' career sacks leader". Associated Press. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
^ Schefter, Adam. "Broncos sign DeMarcus Ware". ESPN. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
^ Wesseling, Chris. "DeMarcus Ware to undergo surgery on broken arm". NFL. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
^ DiLalla, Aric (December 28, 2016). "DeMarcus Ware, Kayvon Webster headed to IR". DenverBroncos.com. Archived from the original on August 25, 2017.
^ D-Ware [@DeMarcusWare] (March 13, 2017). "It's time ..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
^ Wesseling, Chris (March 13, 2017). "Broncos LB DeMarcus Ware retires after 12 NFL seasons". NFL.com.
^ Eatman, Nick (April 24, 2017). "DeMarcus Ware Ceremonially Re-Signs With Cowboys To Retire in Dallas". DallasCowboys.com.
^ Spagnola, Mickey. "Mr. Indispensable Spagnola: The Annual Award Goes To ..." DallasCowboys.com. DallasCowboys.com. Archived from the original on July 7, 2012. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
^ Prisco, Pete. "Top 100 NFL players: No influence here, other than scouts, film". CBSSports.com. CBSSports.com. Archived from the original on October 20, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
^ Jeremiah, Daniel. "NFL Podium Awards: DeMarcus Ware rules edge pass rushers". Retrieved June 1, 2012.
^ "Gov. Bentley proclaims today DeMarcus Ware Day in Alabama".
^ Bishop, Greg (June 15, 2008). "Cowboys' Ware Fulfills a Challenge for Fatherhood". The New York Times. Retrieved September 7, 2008.
^ "10 things you might not know about DeMarcus Ware; former Cowboys DE wins first Super Bowl with Broncos".
^ Goldstein, Micheline (September 12, 2018). "Dancing with the Stars Season 27 Cast Revealed". ABC. Retrieved September 15, 2018.
The 2011 Dallas Cowboys season was the team's 52nd season in the National Football League, the third playing their home games at Cowboys Stadium and the first full season under head coach Jason Garrett. The team improved on their 6–10 record from 2010, but failed to make the playoffs after their loss to the New York Giants for the NFC East division title in the final game of their season, who later went on to win the Super Bowl.
Anthony E. Spencer II (born January 23, 1984) is a former American football outside linebacker who played nine seasons in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. He played college football at Purdue University and was drafted by the Cowboys 26th overall in the 2007 NFL Draft.
DeMarcus "Tank" Lawrence (born April 28, 1992) is an American football defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Cowboys in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He played college football at Boise State.
Kyle Wilber (born April 26, 1989) is an American football linebacker for the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He played college football at Wake Forest.
Larry Blakeney (born September 21, 1947) is a former American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Troy University from 1991 to 2014, compiling a record of 178–113–1 in 24 seasons. He is one of only two coaches to have taken a college football program from NCAA Division II to the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, the other being UCF's Gene McDowell.
Blakeney was the recipient of the Johnny Vaught Lifetime Achievement Award by the All-American Football Foundation in 2000. He was inducted into the Wiregrass Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame on May 30, 2009. On December 21, 2010, he received the Sun Belt Conference 10th Anniversary Most Outstanding Head Coach award.
In the spring of 2011, Troy University honored Blakeney by naming the football playing surface Larry Blakeney Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium. On August 10, 2012, Blakeney was inducted into the Troy University Sports Hall of Fame. He was part of the inaugural class along with DeMarcus Ware, Don Maestri, Chase Riddle, Bill Atkins, Sim Byrd, Denise Monroe, Vergil McKinley, Ralph Adams, Mike Turk, and Charles Oliver.
Lindsay Arnold Cusick (born January 11, 1994) is an American professional Latin and ballroom dancer. She was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance. She is a professional dancer and choreographer on Dancing with the Stars.
This is a list of National Football League players who have led the regular season in sacks each year. Sacks became an official statistic in 1982. Michael Strahan of the New York Giants holds the record with 22.5, which he had during the 2001 season. In 2013, the NFL created the Deacon Jones Award to recognize the season leader in sacks. There have only been two players lead in sacks with 2 different teams, Jared Allen (2007 with the Chiefs and 2011 with the Vikings) and Kevin Greene (1994 with the Steelers and 1996 with the Panthers). The Chiefs and the Vikings have had the most players lead the NFL in sacks with 4. Six players have led the NFL in sacks twice, nobody has led three times.
This is a list of National Football League (NFL) players who have reached the 100-sack milestone.
The NFL began to keep track of sacks in 1982. Sacks before this date are not included in this list.
For the offensive lineman, see Marcus Spears (offensive tackle).
Marcus Raishon Spears (born March 8, 1983) is an American former college and professional football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons. He played college football for Louisiana State University (LSU), and earned consensus All-American honors. The Dallas Cowboys drafted him in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft, and he also played for the NFL's Baltimore Ravens.
Reginald Wayne Herring (born July 3, 1959) is an American football coach and former player who is currently the linebackers coach for the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). A former linebacker at Florida State University, he began his coaching career in 1981. He has now coached for 36 years across college and the NFL. Herring arrived in Denver to coach linebackers in 2015 after previous stops in the league with Chicago (2014), Houston (2002-03, ’11-13) and Dallas (2008-10). Herring has coached nine linebackers who have made Pro Bowl appearances during their careers, including outside linebackers DeMarcus Ware (9), Mario Williams (4), and Connor Barwin (1), and inside linebackers Zach Thomas (7), Keith Brooking (5), Lance Briggs (7), Brian Cushing (1), Sean Lee (2) and DeMeco Ryans (2). Herring also served as the interim head football coach for the University of Arkansas in the 2008 Cotton Bowl Classic.
Sports Media, Inc. (SMI) is a sports media and marketing company that produces radio and television programming as well as representing professional athletes.
Keith L. Ware, U.S. Army Major General killed in Vietnam. |
0.999997 | Well, here is my effort to explain and counter-argue some of the stereotypes plaguing fraternity and sororities across the nation.
Most fraternities and sororities consistently stay above the average grade point average of their college’s students. Also, at most campuses, notable public speakers are invited to discuss the importance of academic excellence, effective study habits and essentials to achieving scholastic success. Additionally, retreats are often offered for all undergraduate members along with numerous leadership conferences and conventions. Each chapter is also required to have a scholarship and new member education chairperson responsible for ensuring academic success, like study hour logging programs, academic accountability partners, and scholarship programs to aid in academic performance.
The Greek community welcomes students of all backgrounds and values their cultural diversity. The recruitment process for men and women is a type of “mutual selection,” the chapters interview prospective members and the prospective members interview the chapters they will potentially join. Therefore, the new members choose an organization they feel most comfortable accepting membership into. The segregation of the sororities and fraternities comes from an exception to the federal law guidelines for Title IX Gender Equality in Education Act, because many chapters are social co-habitational organizations and not required or expected to be co-educational.
Most chapters are actually founded upon the development of moral growth, high values and positive community influence. Most members actively participate in community service projects and have religious foundations that further support wide acts of common decency. National chapters firmly hold their members to high behavioral standards and questionable delinquency or discrepancies are taken very seriously and never tolerated.
Movies like The House Bunny, Animal House and the television show GREEK have contributed to the stereotype that Greek members binge drink, use illegal drugs and engage in questionable behavior. Every organization is required to abide by federal, state, and university policies on drugs and alcohol. Almost every campus also has implemented programs to educate and diminish the role that drugs and excessive alcohol consumption play within the Greek social events, the largest being, Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol (GAMMA).
Risk management policies are heavily enforced within the chapters and members are held on a zero-tolerance basis in most cases.
Actually, a majority of students maintain strong friendships with peers from their hometowns, students within their classes and residence halls, or friends they’ve made at work or at their internships. Greek life also encourages non-Greeks to attend their philanthropy events, homecoming festivities, and social events to further educate the community on the lifestyle of a fraternity or sorority member.
Hazing comes from the idea of allegedly mistreating or abusing new members or pledges or new members, or any member throughout the organization, individually or as a group. National chapters are making great progress to eliminate hazing from their societies through proactive approaches and strict enforcement of zero-tolerance policies. In a reputable organization, members can be assured they will have a safe and rewarding experience in their fraternity or sorority.
Outside the Greek community one might not understand the wealth of opportunities available through fraternities and sororities. Academic resources, heightened leadership skills, social activities devoted to developing interpersonal skills, community service opportunities, connections to established and influential alumni, and a network of supportive and lifelong friendships all ensure an invaluable experience.
Have you heard additional stereotypes you would like to inquire about? Post a comment below! |
0.986002 | does IPTABLES as a router always require masquerade / SNAT?
If I set up a linux box as a router behind a DSL gateway, do I need to enable masquerading or SNAT?
Logically I would assume that all I need to do is enable ip_forwarding (done) but traffic to Internet dies if I don't perform any NATing.
If NAT is running on the broadband router, then would I also need it running on the ubuntu router?
-A INPUT -i eth1 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "ssh on eth1"
-A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "allow ping from internal"
-A FORWARD -p tcp -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "all tcp"
-A FORWARD -p udp -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "all udp"
-A FORWARD -p icmp -j god -m comment --comment "all icmp"
But why??? Why does this box work only with SNAT, which is not needed because its already in place on the DSL router?
As seen in the comments, Radhil and MichaelB are both correct. I am failing to take into account the lack of routing on the broadband router for anything other than one subnet (192.168.1.0 in this instance). Unfortunately this particular broadband router provides no means of adding additional static routes, so my solution for enabling source based routing from the internal subnet in this instance is to use the PREROUTING tables to chain the traffic.
This is obviously a lousy solution (done this way as IPTABLES does not allow one to DROP within the PREOUTING / POSTROUTING tables, but I've just included it as an example of being able to route based on source within these straitened circumstances.
The DSL router is running it's own NAT on 192.168.1.0, correct? That's the network it's set to hand out.
So the answer would be that it doesn't know anything about any 192.168.2.0 network, and therefore doesn't attempt to NAT it. It may forward that trafficout to the Internet, but the Internet will drop those private IPs right away. It probably also doesn't have routing information to get back through your box to your 2nd network segment, so you would have no return path anyway, unless you set that up as a static route somewhere and didn't point it out.
So you need to give the DSL router something it's expecting. Either find a way to change settings on it to NAT both segments and a static route to your Ubuntu for 192.168.2.0, or set up the NAT on yours like you found.
This is because the DSL modem doesn't know about the 192.168.2.* network, when the router receives a packet from 192.168.2.x it is presuming it must reply through the default gateway, because it has no specific route to that subnet.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged linux router iptables or ask your own question.
How to I configure iptables for both IP masquerading and firewalling at the same time? |
0.992596 | a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi,"
1. At all relevant times from in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, an international terrorist group existed which was dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence. This organization grew out of the "mekhtab al khidemat" (the "Services Office") organization which had maintained offices in various parts of the world, including Afghanistan, Pakistan (particularly in Peshawar), and the United States. The group was founded by Usama Bin Laden and Muhammad Atef, a/k/a "Abu Hafs al Masry," together with "Abu Ubaidah al Banshiri," and others. From in or about 1989 until the present, the group called itself "al Qaeda" ("the Base"). From 1989 until in or about 1991, the group (hereafter referred to as "al Qaeda") was headquartered in Afghanistan and Peshawar, Pakistan. In or about 1991, the leadership of al Qaeda, including its "emir" (or prince) Usama Bin Laden, relocated to the Sudan. Al Qaeda was headquartered in the Sudan from approximately 1991 until approximately 1996 but still maintained offices in various parts of the world. In 1996, Usama Bin Laden and other members of al Qaeda relocated to Afghanistan. At all relevant times, al Qaeda was led by its emir, Usama Bin Laden. Members of al Qaeda pledged an oath of allegiance (called a "bayat") to Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. Those who were suspected of collaborating against al Qaeda were to be identified and killed.
2. Bin Laden and al Qaeda violently opposed the United States for several reasons. First, the United States was regarded as an "infidel" because it was not governed in a manner consistent with the group's extremist interpretation of Islam. Second, the United States was viewed as providing essential support for other "infidel" governments and institutions, particularly the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the nation of Israel, and the United Nations organization, which were regarded as enemies of the group. Third, al Qaeda opposed the involvement of the United States armed forces in the Gulf War in 1991 and in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1992 and 1993. In particular, al Qaeda opposed the continued presence of American military forces in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere on the Saudi Arabian peninsula) following the Gulf War. Fourth, al Qaeda opposed the United States Government because of the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of persons belonging to al Qaeda or its affiliated terrorist groups or those with whom it worked. For these and other reasons, Bin Laden declared a jihad, or holy war, against the United States, which he has carried out through al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations.
3. One of the principal goals of al Qaeda was to drive the United States armed forces out of Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere on the Saudi Arabian peninsula) and Somalia by violence. Members of al Qaeda issued fatwahs (rulings on Islamic law) indicating that such attacks were both proper and necessary.
4. Al Qaeda functioned both on its own and through some of the terrorist organizations that operated under its umbrella, including: Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, and at times, the Islamic Group (also known as "el Gamaa Islamia" or simply "Gamaa't"), and a number of jihad groups in other countries, including the Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and the Kashmiri region of India and the Chechnyan region of Russia. Al Qaeda also maintained cells and personnel in a number of countries to facilitate its activities, including in Kenya, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Malaysia, and the United States.
5. Al Qaeda had a command and control structure which included a majlis al shura (or consultation council) which discussed and approved major undertakings, including terrorist operations. Al Qaeda also had a "military committee" which considered and approved "military" matters.
6. Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hizballah, for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.
7. Since at least 1989, until the filing of this Indictment, Usama Bin Laden and the terrorist group al Qaeda sponsored, managed, and/or financially supported training camps in Afghanistan, which camps were used to instruct members and associates of al Qaeda and its affiliated terrorist groups in the use of firearms, explosives, chemical weapons, and other weapons of mass destruction. In addition to providing training in the use of various weapons, these camps were used to conduct operational planning against United States targets around the world and experiments in the use of chemical and biological weapons. These camps were also used to train others in security and counterintelligence methods, such as the use of codes and passwords, and to teach members and associates of al Qaeda about traveling to perform operations. For example, al Qaeda instructed its members and associates to dress in "Western" attire and to use other methods to avoid detection by security officials. The group also taught its members and associates to monitor media reporting of its operations to determine the effectiveness of their terrorist activities.
8. Since in or about 1996, Usama Bin Laden and others operated al Qaeda from their headquarters in Afghanistan. During this time, Bin Laden and others forged close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. To that end, Bin Laden informed other al Qaeda members and associates outside Afghanistan of their support of, and alliance with, the Taliban. Bin Laden also endorsed a declaration of jihad (holy war) issued by the "Ulema Union of Afghanistan."
10. On September 11, 2001, co-conspirators Marwan al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, a/k/a "Banihammad Fayez," Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, and Mohald al-Shehri hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, bound from Boston to Los Angeles, and crashed it into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York.
11. On September 11, 2001, co-conspirators Khalid al-Midhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Hani Hanjour, Salem al-Hamzi, and Majed Moqed hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, bound from Virginia to Los Angeles, and crashed it into the Pentagon.
12. On September 11, 2001, co-conspirators Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed al-Haznawi, Saaed al-Ghamdi, and Ahmed al-Nami hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, bound from Newark to San Francisco, and crashed it in Pennsylvania.
13. ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," was born in France of Moroccan descent on May 30, 1968. Before 2001 he was a resident of the United Kingdom. MOUSSAOUI held a masters degree from Southbank University in the United Kingdom and traveled widely.
14. Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, a/k/a "Ahad Sabet," a/k/a "Ramzi Mohamed Abdellah Omar," was born in Yemen on May 1, 1972. He entered Germany in or about 1995 and afterwards lived in Hamburg, where he shared an apartment with hijacker Mohammed Atta (#11) in 1998 and 1999. Bin al-Shibh also was employed with Atta as a warehouse worker at a computer company in Hamburg.
15. Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a/k/a "Mustafa Ahmed," was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 5, 1968.
16. From in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," with other members and associates of al Qaeda and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to kill and maim persons within the United States, and to create a substantial risk of serious bodily injury to other persons by destroying and damaging structures, conveyances, and other real and personal property within the United States, in violation of the laws of States and the United States, in circumstances involving conduct transcending national boundaries, and in which facilities of interstate and foreign commerce were used in furtherance of the offense, the offense obstructed, delayed, and affected interstate and foreign commerce, the victim was the United States Government, members of the uniformed services, and officials, officers, employees, and agents of the governmental branches, departments, and agencies of the United States, and the structures, conveyances, and other real and personal property were, in whole or in part, owned, possessed, and leased to the United States and its departments and agencies, resulting in the deaths of thousands of persons on September 11, 2001.
1. At various times from at least as early as 1989, Usama Bin Laden, and others known and unknown, provided training camps and guesthouses in Afghanistan, including camps known as Khalden, Derunta, Khost, Siddiq, and Jihad Wal, for the use of al Qaeda and its affiliated groups.
2. At various times from at least as early as 1990, unindicted co-conspirators, known and unknown, provided military and intelligence training in various areas, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Sudan, for the use of al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
3. At various times from at least as early as 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, Usama Bin Laden, and others known and unknown, engaged in financial and business transactions on behalf of al Qaeda, including, but not limited to: purchasing land for training camps; purchasing warehouses for storage of items, including explosives; purchasing communications and electronics equipment; transferring funds between corporate accounts; and transporting currency and weapons to members of al Qaeda and its associated terrorist organizations in various countries throughout the world.
4. At various times from at least as early as 1992, Usama Bin Laden, and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons.
5. At various times from in or about 1992 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, Usama Bin Laden, working together with members of the fatwah committee of al Qaeda, disseminated fatwahs to other members and associates of al Qaeda that the United States forces stationed on the Saudi Arabian peninsula, including both Saudi Arabia and Yemen, should be attacked.
6. At various times from in or about 1992 until in or about 1993, Usama Bin Laden, working together with members of the fatwah committee of al Qaeda, disseminated fatwahs to other members and associates of al Qaeda that the United States forces stationed in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, should be attacked.
7. On various occasions, an unindicted co-conspirator advised other members of al Qaeda that it was Islamically proper to engage in violent actions against "infidels" (nonbelievers), even if others might be killed by such actions, because if the others were "innocent," they would go to paradise, and if they were not "innocent," they deserved to die.
8. On or about August 23, 1996, a Declaration of Jihad indicating that it was from the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan entitled, "Message from Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Laden to His Muslim Brothers in the Whole World and Especially in the Arabian Peninsula: Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques; Expel the Heretics from the Arabian Peninsula" was disseminated.
9. In February 1998, Usama Bin Laden endorsed a fatwah under the banner of the "International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders." This fatwah, published in the publication Al-Quds al-`Arabi on February 23, 1998, stated that Muslims should kill Americans - including civilians - anywhere in the world where they can be found.
10. In an address in or about 1998, Usama Bin Laden cited American aggression against Islam and encouraged a jihad that would eliminate the Americans from the Arabian Peninsula.
11. On or about May 29, 1998, Usama Bin Laden issued a statement entitled "The Nuclear Bomb of Islam," under the banner of the "International Islamic Front for Fighting the Jews and the Crusaders," in which he stated that "it is the duty of the Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God."
12. In or about June 1999, in an interview with an Arabic-language television station, Usama Bin Laden issued a further threat indicating that all American males should be killed.
13. In or about September 2000, in an interview with an Arabic-language television station, Usama Bin Laden called for a "jihad" to release the "brothers" in jail "everywhere."
14. In or about April 1998, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI was present at the al Qaeda-affiliated Khalden Camp in Afghanistan.
15. Beginning in and about 1998, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Mohammed Atta (#11), Marwan al-Shehhi (#175), and Ziad Jarrah (#93), and others, formed and maintained an al Qaeda terrorist cell in Germany.
16. On or about January 15, 2000, Khalid al-Midhar (#77) and Nawaf al-Hazmi (#77) traveled from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles, California.
17. At various times in 2000 and 2001, in Florida, Mohammed Atta (#11) made inquiries regarding starting a crop dusting company.
18. On or about June 3, 2000, Mohammed Atta (#11) traveled to the United States from Prague, Czech Republic.
19. In or about early July 2000, Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) visited the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma.
20. Between in or about July 2000 and in or about December 2000, Mohamed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) attended flight training classes at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida.
21. On or about June 29, 2000, $4,790 was wired from the United Arab Emirates ("UAE") to Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) in Manhattan.
22. On or about July 19, 2000, $9,985 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
23. On or about July 26, 2000, in Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh wired money to Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) in Florida.
24. On or about August 7, 2000, $9,485 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
25. On or about August 30, 2000, $19,985 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
26. On or about September 18, 2000, $69,985 was wired from UAE into a Florida SunTrust bank account in the names of Mohamed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175).
27. In or about August 2000, Ziad Jarrah (#93) attempted to enroll Ramzi Bin al-Shibh in a flight school in Florida.
28. On or about May 17, 2000, in Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh applied for a visa to travel to the United States, listing a German telephone number ("German Telephone #1") . This visa application was denied.
29. On or about June 15, 2000, in Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh applied for a visa to travel to the United States. This visa application was denied.
30. On or about August 14, 2000, in Yemen, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh arranged to wire money from his account in Germany to the account of a flight training school in Florida.
31. On or about September 15, 2000, in Yemen, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh applied for a visa to travel to the United States, listing a residence in Hamburg, Germany. This visa application was denied in September 2000.
32. On or about October 25, 2000, in Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh applied for a visa to travel to the United States. This visa application was denied.
33. On or about September 25, 2000, in Hamburg, Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh sent money via wire transfer to Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) in Florida.
34. On or about September 29, 2000, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI contacted Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma using an e-mail account he set up on September 6 with an internet service provider in Malaysia.
35. In or about October 2000, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI received letters from Infocus Tech, a Malaysian company, stating that MOUSSAOUI was appointed Infocus Tech's marketing consultant in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, and that he would receive, among other things, an allowance of $2500 per month.
36. On or about November 5, 2000, Mohammed Atta (#11) purchased flight deck videos for the Boeing 747 Model 200, Boeing 757 Model 200, and other items from a pilot store in Ohio ("Ohio Pilot Store").
37. Between on or about December 2 and December 9, 2000, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh traveled from Hamburg, Germany to London, England.
38. On or about December 9, 2000, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI flew from London, England to Pakistan.
39. On or about December 11, 2000, Mohammed Atta (#11) purchased flight deck videos for the Boeing 767 Model 300ER and the Airbus A320 Model 200 from the Ohio Pilot Store.
40. Between in or about January 2001 and March 2001, Hani Hanjour (#77) attended pilot training courses in Phoenix, Arizona, including at Pan Am International Flight Academy.
41. Between on or about February 1, 2001, and on or about February 15, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) took a flight check ride around Decatur, Georgia.
42. In or about February 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) and Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) attended a health club in Decatur, Georgia.
43. On or about February 7, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI flew from Pakistan to London, England.
44. On or about February 23, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI flew from London, England to Chicago, Illinois, declaring at least $35,000 cash on his Customs declaration, and then from Chicago to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
45. On or about February 26, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI opened a bank account in Norman, Oklahoma, depositing approximately $32,000 cash.
46. Between on or about February 26, 2001, and on or about May 29, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI attended the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, ending his classes early.
47. On or about March 19, 2001, Nawaf al-Hazmi (#77) purchased flight deck videos for the Boeing 747 Model 400, the Boeing 747 Model 200 and the Boeing 777 Model 200, and another video from the Ohio Pilot Store.
48. In or about March 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI joined a gym in Norman, Oklahoma.
49. On or about April 1, 2001, Nawaf al-Hazmi (#77) was in Oklahoma.
50. Between on or about April 23, 2001, and on or about June 29, 2001, Satam alSuqami (#11), Waleed al-Shehri (#11), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (#175), Majed Moqed (#77), Marwan al-Shehhi (#175), Mohammed Atta (#11), Ahmed al-Nami (#93), Hamza al-Ghamdi (#175), Mohald al-Shehri (#175), Wail al-Shehri (#11), Ahmed al-Haznawi (#93), Fayez Ahmed (#175), and Salem al-Hazmi (#77) traveled from various points in the world to the United States.
51. On or about May 23, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI contacted an office of the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami, Florida via e-mail.
52. In Summer 2001, Fayez Ahmed (#175), Saeed al-Ghamdi (#93), Hamza al-Ghamdi (#175), Waleed al-Shehri (#11), Ziad Jarrah (#93), Satam al-Suqami (#11), Mohald al-Shehri (#175), Ahmed al-Nami (# 93), and Ahmed al-Haznawi (#93) each opened a Florida SunTrust bank account with a cash deposit.
53. In or about June 2001, in Norman, Oklahoma, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI made inquiries about starting a crop dusting company.
54. Between May and July 2001, in Florida, Ziad Jarrah (#93) joined a gym and took martial arts lessons, which included instruction in kickboxing and knife fighting.
55. In or about June 2001, in Florida, Waleed al-Shehri (#11), Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) and Satam al-Suqami (#11) joined a gym.
56. On or about June 20, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI purchased flight deck videos for the Boeing 747 Model 400 and the Boeing 747 Model 200 from the Ohio Pilot Store.
57. On June 25, 2001, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi used a cash deposit to open a checking account at a Standard Chartered Bank branch in Dubai, UAE.
58. On June 25, 2001, at the same Standard Chartered Bank branch in Dubai, UAE, Fayez Ahmed (#175) used a cash deposit to open a savings account and also opened a checking account.
59. On or about July 8, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) purchased a knife in Zurich, Switzerland.
60. On or about July 10 and July 11, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI made credit card payments to the Pan Am International Flight Academy for a simulator course in commercial flight training.
61. On July 18, 2001, Fayez Ahmed (#175) gave power of attorney to Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi for Fayez Ahmed's Standard Chartered Bank accounts in UAE.
62. On July 18, 2001, using his power of attorney, Al-Hawsawi picked up Fayez Ahmed's VISA and ATM cards in UAE.
64. On or about July 25, 2001, Ziad Jarrah (#93) traveled from the United States to Germany.
65. Between on or about July 29 and August 2, 2001, in Norman, Oklahoma, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI made several telephone calls from public telephones to a number in Duesseldorf, Germany ("German Telephone # 2").
66. On or about July 30 and 31, 2001, in Hamburg, Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, using the name "Ahad Sabet," received two wire transfers, totaling approximately $15,000, from "Hashim Abdulrahman" in UAE.
67. On or about August 1 and 3, 2001, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, using the name "Ahad Sabet," wired approximately $14,000 in money orders to ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI in Oklahoma from train stations in Dusseldorf and Hamburg, Germany.
68. On or about August 3, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI purchased two knives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
69. On or about August 4, 2001, Ziad Jarrah (#93) traveled from Germany to the United States.
70. On or about August 9 and August 10, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI was driven from Oklahoma to Minnesota.
71. On or about August 10, 2001, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI paid approximately $6,300 in cash to the Pan Am International Flight Academy.
72. Between August 13 and August 15, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI attended the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for simulator training on the Boeing 747 Model 400.
a notebook listing German Telephone #1, German Telephone #2, and the name "Ahad Sabet;"
74. On or about August 17, 2001, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, while being interviewed by federal agents in Minneapolis, attempted to explain his presence in the United States by falsely stating that he was simply interested in learning to fly.
75. On or about August 17, 2001, Ziad Jarrah (#93) undertook a "check ride" at a flight school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
76. On or about August 22, 2001, Fayez Ahmed (#175) used his VISA card in Florida to obtain approximately $4,900 cash, which had been deposited into his Standard Chartered Bank account in UAE the day before.
78. On or about August 25, 2001, Khalid al-Midhar and Majed Moqed purchased with cash tickets for American Airlines Flight 77, from Virginia to Los Angeles, California, scheduled for September 11, 2001.
79. On or about August 26, 2001, Waleed al-Shehri and Wail al-Shehri made reservations on American Airlines Flight 11, from Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, scheduled for September 11, 2001, listing a telephone number in Florida ("Florida Telephone #1") as a contact number.
80. On or about August 27, 2001, reservations for electronic, one-way tickets were made for Fayez Ahmed and Mohald al-Shehri, for United Airlines Flight 175, from Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, scheduled for September 11, 2001, listing Florida Telephone Number #1 as a contact number.
81. On or about August 27, 2001, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Salem al-Hazmi booked flights on American Airlines Flight 77.
82. On or about August 28, 2001, Satam al-Suqami purchased a ticket with cash for American Airlines Flight 11.
83. On or about August 28, 2001, Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari reserved two seats on American Airlines Flight 11, listing Florida Telephone #1 as a contact number.
84. On or about August 29, 2001, Ahmed al-Ghamdi and Hamza al-Ghamdi reserved electronic, one-way tickets for United Airlines Flight 175.
85. On or about August 29, 2001, Ahmed al-Haznawi purchased a ticket on United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, scheduled for September 11, 2001.
86. On or about August 30, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) purchased a utility tool that contained a knife.
87. On or about September 3, 2001, in Hamburg, Germany, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, using the name "Ahad Sabet," received approximately $1500 by wire transfer from "Hashim Ahmed" in UAE.
88. On or about September 4, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) sent a FedEx package from Florida to UAE.
89. On or about September 5, 2001, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh traveled from Dusseldorf, Germany, to Madrid, Spain, and did not return to Germany.
90. On or about September 6, 2001, Satam al-Suqami (#11) and Abdulaziz Alomari (#11) flew from Florida to Boston.
91. On or about September 6, 2001, approximately $8,055 was wired from Fayez Ahmed's (#175) Florida SunTrust account to the Standard Chartered Bank account over which Al-Hawsawi had power of attorney.
92. On or about September 8, 2001, an Arab male retrieved the package from Mohammed Atta (#11) at FedEx in Dubai, UAE.
93. On September 8, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) wired $2,860 to "Mustafa Ahmed" in UAE.
94. On September 8, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) wired $5,000 to "Mustafa Ahmed" in UAE.
95. On September 9, 2001, Waleed M. al-Shehri (#11) wired $5,000 to "Ahamad Mustafa" in UAE.
96. On September 10, 2001, Marwan al-Shehhi (#175) wired $5,400 to "Mustafa Ahmad" in UAE.
97. On September 11, 2001, in UAE, approximately $16,348 was deposited into Al-Hawsawi's Standard Chartered Bank account.
98. On September 11, 2001, in UAE, at about 9:22 a.m. local time (the early morning hours of Eastern Daylight Time), Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi moved approximately $6,534 from the $8,055 in Fayez Ahmed's (#175) Standard Chartered Bank account into his own account, using a check dated September 10, 2001 and signed by Fayez Ahmed; Al-Hawsawi then withdrew approximately $1,361, nearly all the remaining balance in Ahmed's account, by ATM cash withdrawal.
99. On September 11, 2001, in UAE, approximately $40,871 was prepaid to a VISA card connected to Al-Hawsawi's Standard Chartered Bank account.
100. On or about September 11, 2001, the hijackers possessed a handwritten set of final instructions for a martyrdom operation on an airplane using knives.
101. On or about September 11, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) and Abdulaziz Alomari (#11) flew from Portland, Maine to Boston, Massachusetts.
102. On or about September 11, 2001, Mohammed Atta (#11) possessed operating manuals for the Boeing 757 and 767, pepper spray, knives, and German travel visas.
103. On or about September 11, 2001, Ziad Jarrah (#93) possessed flight manuals for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft.
104. On or about September 11, 2001, Mohammed Atta, Abdul Aziz Alomari, Satam al-Suqami, Waleed M. al-Shehri, and Waleed al-Shehri hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, which had departed Boston at approximately 7:55 a.m. They flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan at approximately 8:45 a.m., causing the collapse of the tower and the deaths of thousands of persons.
105. On or about September 11, 2001, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald al-Shehri, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, and Marwan al-Shehhi hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767, which had departed from Boston at approximately 8:15 a.m. They flew Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan at approximately 9:05 a.m., causing the collapse of the tower and the deaths of thousands of persons.
106. On or about September 11, 2001, Khalid al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, and Hani Hanjour hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757, which had departed from Virginia bound for Los Angeles, at approximately 8:10 a.m. They flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Virginia at approximately 9:40 a.m., causing the deaths of 189 persons.
107. On or about September 11, 2001, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami, Ahmed al-Haznawi, and Ziad Jarrah hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757, which had departed from Newark, New Jersey bound for San Francisco at approximately 8:00 a.m. After resistance by the passengers, Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania at approximately 10:10 a.m., killing all on board.
108. On September 11, 2001, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi left the U.A.E. for Pakistan.
109. On September 13, 2001, the VISA card connected to Al-Hawsawi's account was used to make six ATM withdrawals in Karachi, Pakistan.
110. On or about October 7, 2001, in Afghanistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to join the battle against the United States.
111. On or about October 7, 2001, in Afghanistan, Usama Bin Laden praised the September 11 attack, and vowed that the United States would not "enjoy security" before "infidel armies leave" the Saudi Gulf.
112. On or about October 10, 2001, Sulieman Abu Ghaith announced, on behalf of al Qaeda, that all Muslims had a duty to attack United States targets around the world.
1. The allegations contained in Count One are repeated.
2. From in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," and other members and associates of al Qaeda and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to commit aircraft piracy, by seizing and exercising control of aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States by force, violence, threat of force and violence, and intimidation, and with wrongful intent, with the result that thousands of people died on September 11, 2001.
3. In furtherance of the conspiracy, and to effect its illegal objects, the defendant, and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, committed the overt acts set forth in Count One of this Indictment, which are fully incorporated by reference.
2. From in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," and other members and associates of al Qaeda and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to willfully destroy and wreck aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and to willfully perform acts of violence against and incapacitate individuals on such aircraft, so as likely to endanger the safety of such aircraft, resulting in the deaths of thousands of persons on September 11, 2001.
2. From in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," and other members and associates of al Qaeda and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to use weapons of mass destruction, namely, airplanes intended for use as missiles, bombs, and similar devices, without lawful authority against persons within the United States, with the results of such use affecting interstate and foreign commerce, and against property that was owned, leased and used by the United States and by departments and agencies of the United States, with the result that thousands of people died on September 11, 2001.
2. From in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," and other members and associates of al Qaeda and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to kill officers and employees of the United States and agencies and branches thereof, while such officers and employees were engaged in, and on account of, the performance of their official duties, and persons assisting such employees in the performance of their duties, in violation of Section 1114 of Title 18, United States Code, including members of the Department of Defense stationed at the Pentagon.
2. From in or about 1989 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Southern District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, a/k/a "Shaqil," a/k/a "Abu Khalid al Sahrawi," and other members and associates of al Qaeda and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to maliciously damage and destroy, by means of fire and explosives, buildings, vehicles, and other real and personal property used in interstate and foreign commerce and in activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce, and buildings, vehicles, and other personal and real property in whole and in part owned and possessed by, and leased to, the United States and its departments and agencies, and as a result of such conduct directly and proximately caused the deaths of thousands of persons on September 11, 2001, including hundreds of public safety officers performing duties as a direct and proximate result of the said damage and destruction. |
0.955592 | Manila (CNN Philippines Life) — As the sun went down, a sea of rainbow-colored flags filled up the People Power Monument on Saturday, March 17. A sign sparked to life, spelling out “EQUALITY” but missing the “I.” “Ikaw ‘yung ‘I’ sa ‘equality,’” said the hosts. The gathering, attended by allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community, was a rally for the passing of the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression (SOGIE) Equality Bill.
Previously known as the Anti-Discrimination Bill, the SOGIE Equality Bill has finally reached the Senate after nearly 20 years of being put on the backburner. But the bill has met staunch opponents in legislators like Manny Pacquiao, Tito Sotto, and Joel Villanueva, who often cite religious rights as reason for barring it from moving forward.
At the rally, leaders and representatives of various LGBT groups took center stage, often calling out the lawmakers in their speeches. Performers such as drag queens and spoken word artists also got the crowd roaring. The air buzzed with a mix of hope and uncertainty.
CNN Philippines Life talked to various people at the rally and asked them why it was important for them to join, and what the passing of the SOGIE Equality Bill meant to them. |
0.945607 | The argument that the existence of God can be known to all, even prior to exposure to any divine revelation, predates Christianity. St. Paul made this argument when he said that pagans were without excuse because "since the creation of the world God's invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made". In this Paul alludes to the proofs for a creator, later enunciated by St. Thomas and others, but that had also been explored by the Greek philosophers.
Some Christians note that the Christian faith teaches "salvation is by faith", and that faith is reliance upon the faithfulness of God. The most extreme example of this position is called fideism, which holds that faith is simply the will to believe, and argues that if God's existence were rationally demonstrable, faith in its existence would become superfluous. Søren Kierkegaard argued that objective knowledge, such as 1+1=2, is unimportant to existence. If God could rationally be proven, his existence would be unimportant to humans. It is because God cannot rationally be proven that his existence is important to us. In The Justification of Knowledge, the Calvinist theologian Robert L. Reymond argues that believers should not attempt to prove the existence of God. Since he believes all such proofs are fundamentally unsound, believers should not place their confidence in them, much less resort to them in discussions with non-believers; rather, they should accept the content of revelation by faith. Reymond's position is similar to that of his mentor Gordon Clark, which holds that all worldviews are based on certain unprovable first premises (or, axioms), and therefore are ultimately unprovable. The Christian theist therefore must simply choose to start with Christianity rather than anything else, by a "leap of faith". This position is also sometimes called presuppositional apologetics, but should not be confused with the Van Tillian variety.
Positive atheism (also called "strong atheism" and "hard atheism") is a form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods. Some strong atheists further assert that the existence of gods is logically impossible, stating that the combination of attributes which God may be asserted to have (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, transcendence, omnibenevolence) are logically contradictory, incomprehensible, or absurd, and therefore the existence of such a god is a priori false. Metaphysical naturalism is a common worldview associated with strong atheism.
Dawkin's Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit analogizes the above. Some theists argue that evolution is akin to a hurricane assembling a Boeing 747 — that the universe (or life) is too complex not to have been designed by someone, who theists call God. Dawkin's counter-argument is that such a God would himself be complex — the "Ultimate" Boeing 747 — and therefore require a designer.
Atheistic Hindu doctrines cite various arguments for rejecting a creator God or Ishvara. The Sāṁkhyapravacana Sūtra of the Samkhya school states that there is no philosophical place for a creator God in this system. It is also argued in this text that the existence of Ishvara (God) cannot be proved and hence cannot be admitted to exist. Classical Samkhya argues against the existence of God on metaphysical grounds. For instance, it argues that an unchanging God cannot be the source of an ever-changing world. It says God is a necessary metaphysical assumption demanded by circumstances. The Sutras of Samkhya endeavor to prove that the idea of God is inconceivable and self-contradictory, and some commentaries speak plainly on this subject. The Sankhya- tattva-kaumudi, commenting on Karika 57, argues that a perfect God can have no need to create a world, and if God's motive is kindness, Samkhya questions whether it is reasonable to call into existence beings who while non-existent had no suffering. Samkhya postulates that a benevolent deity ought to create only happy creatures, not an imperfect world like the real world.
Psychologists observe that the majority of humans often ask existential questions such as "why we are here" and whether life has purpose. Some psychologists have posited that religious beliefs may recruit cognitive mechanisms in order to satisfy these questions. William James emphasized the inner religious struggle between melancholy and happiness, and pointed to trance as a cognitive mechanism. Sigmund Freud stressed fear and pain, the need for a powerful parental figure, the obsessional nature of ritual, and the hypnotic state a community can induce as contributing factors to the psychology of religion.
↑ See e.g. The Rationality of Theism quoting Quentin Smith "God is not 'dead' in academia; it returned to life in the late 1960s". They cite "the shift from hostility towards theism in Paul Edwards's Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967) to sympathy towards theism in the more recent Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
↑ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 47; cf. Canons of the First Vatican Council, 2:2.
↑ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Books. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-618-68000-9.
↑ Seeskin, Kenneth. "Maimonides". plato.stanford.
1 2 Flew, Antony (1976). "The Presumption of Atheism". The Presumption of Atheism, and other Philosophical Essays on God, Freedom, and Immortality. New York: Barnes and Noble. pp. 14ff. Archived from the original on 2005-10-12. Retrieved 2011-12-10. In this interpretation an atheist becomes: not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God; but someone who is simply not a theist. Let us, for future ready reference, introduce the labels 'positive atheist' for the former and 'negative atheist' for the latter.
1 2 Martin, Michael (2006). The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84270-9.
1 2 "Definitions of the term "Atheism"". Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 2007. Retrieved 2010-06-01.
↑ Cline, Austin. "What is Agnosticism?". About.com. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
↑ "The Argument From Non-Cognitivism". Retrieved 2008-02-11.
↑ Polkinghorne, John (1998). Belief in God in an Age of Science. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07294-5.
↑ Lewis, C.S. "10". Mere Christianity, Bk. III.
↑ Klostermaier, Klaus K. (2007). A survey of Hinduism. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 357. ISBN 978-0-7914-7081-7.
↑ Maria Ekstrand; Bryant, Edwin H. (2004). The Hare Krishna movement: the postcharismatic fate of a religious transplant. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-231-12256-6.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Aquinas, Thomas (1274). Summa Theologica. Part 1, Question 2, Article 3.
↑ "Stephen Edelston Toulmin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
↑ Hinman, Joseph (2014-05-28). The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief (1 ed.). GrandViaduct. ISBN 978-0-9824087-1-1.
↑ Hinman, Joseph (2014-05-28). The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief (1 ed.). GrandViaduct. pp. 85–92. ISBN 978-0-9824087-1-1.
↑ Hinman, Joseph (2014-05-28). The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief (1 ed.). GrandViaduct. pp. 90–92. ISBN 978-0-9824087-1-1.
↑ Hinman, Joseph (2014-05-28). The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief (1 ed.). GrandViaduct. pp. 100–103. ISBN 978-0-9824087-1-1.
↑ Hinman, Joseph (2014-05-28). The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief (1 ed.). GrandViaduct. pp. 104–105. ISBN 978-0-9824087-1-1.
1 2 Nolan, Lawrence. "Descartes' Ontological Argument". Stanford.
↑ "Plantinga 'The Ontological Argument' Text". Mind.ucsd.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-03-14. Retrieved 2013-05-14.
↑ Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District , 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005) ("the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity"). , Ruling p. 26. A selection of writings and quotes of intelligent design supporters demonstrating this identification of the Christian god with the intelligent designer are found in the pdf Horse's MouthArchived June 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. (PDF) by Brian Poindexter, dated 2003.
1 2 Ghazali, Abu Hamid (1100). Deliverance from Error.
1 2 Ghazali, Abu Hamid (1105). The Alchemy of Happiness.
↑ "Islamic Awareness: The Challenge of the Qur'an".
↑ "The Inimitability of the Qur'an".
↑ Swinburne, Richard (1997). Is there a God?. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-823545-3.
↑ "Based on our real life experiences we clearly know that it was God, the Supreme Soul, Shiva, Himself, had entered into his body. It was God who had revealed the truth about the coming destruction, and of the establishment of the heavenly world which would then follow. And it was God Himself who had given the sign that he, Dada, was to be His medium and the engine for creating such a divine world." Archived July 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Reichenbach, Bruce R. (April 1989). "Karma, causation, and divine intervention". Philosophy East and West. 39 (2): 135–149 . doi:10.2307/1399374. JSTOR 1399374. Retrieved 2009-12-29.
↑ Gefter, Amanda "Concept of 'hypercosmic God' wins Templeton Prize," The New Scientist, Mar. 2009.
↑ Eliot, Charles (2007-09-01). Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol II. (of 3). p. 243. ISBN 9781406862966.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Black Swan, 2007 ( ISBN 978-0-552-77429-1).
Lenzen, Wolfgang (March 1, 2017). "Leibniz's Ontological Proof of the Existence of God and the Problem of Impossible Objects". Logica Universalis. 11: 85–104. doi:10.1007/s11787-017-0159-2. |
0.999023 | Initial coin offerings (ICO) of cryptographic tokens is a relatively new phenomenon in the global economy. For a little over three years, such ICOs have been challenging rules and norms that were formed over many decades. As in any trend, there are those who skillfully take full advantage of the immature market and reap the largest benefit even in the price of stretching (some would say overstretching) the legal boundaries. They call themselves `market makers'.
The `Underwriters' of the cryptocurrency industry Market makers are individuals and companies, well immersed in the global cryptocurrencies industry, who offer their services for start-up companies in selling their tokens to various potential purchasers at variable commercial terms. The most successful market makers in this field have assisted entrepreneurs raise substantial amounts of money, some raised over $100 million.
Market makers are by no means unique to the ICO industry, and have long existed in traditional capital markets, usually functioning as "underwriters," with an important role in helping companies that go public, sell their shares to institutional investors. Functioning as underwriters usually entails close familiarity with local capital markets; assisting the company in preparing its IPO documents, notably the prospectus; and most importantly helping the company secure the amounts of money that the company needs for the IPO to meet its goal. Underwriting in capital markets is, however, tightly regulated while crypto market makers have basically no regulatory restrictions.
High remuneration may affect future crypto market price This can cause some serious legal issues. Take for example the remuneration model. Some market makers are remunerated through allocation of seller tokens (sometimes in addition to cash, payment in other cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, or equity in the issuing company). This comes in the form of a bonus for each coin they manage to sell. These bonuses can potentially be extremely high, occasionally 100% over the selling price. If the market maker manages to sell most of the offered tokens, it can end up holding most of the tokens sold. Therein lies the problem; the market makers seek to liquidate their tokens by selling them on the secondary market. In fact, they have a bigger incentive to do so than any other player, because they hold a substantial share of the market. Some of them have direct relationships with exchanges. Sale on secondary markets, especially shortly after the ICO, could cause a significant fluctuation in the value of the coin, and adversely affect other purchasers. Resolute entrepreneurs stipulate a no-sale period for the market makers, which can range between several months and three years, but even so, size matters, and if the market maker has a large share of the market, it can manipulate the value of the currency which might be unfortunate to the current token holders.
Using syndicates to bypass regulation Another common method market-makers deploy is working with syndicates. These are groups of investors that join forces for the purpose of buying tokens. Their interests are financial. They don't buy the currency for the underlying service or product, but in order to liquidate it within a relatively short time. Syndicated investors have a threefold advantage: they have better commercial leverage than if working separately; usually, the transaction is entered vis--vis a lead investor who, for securities regulations purposes, is considered a qualified (accredited) investor, or is a resident of a jurisdiction that allows investments of this kind; and only the lead investor goes through the KYC procedures required under anti-money laundering laws, while the other syndicate members do not have to be identified (many cryptocurrency investors highly value their anonymity).
The advantage of market makers is their ability to reach such syndicates and close relatively big transactions with investors from different jurisdictions. However, this method leaves the entrepreneurs with little control over the issuance process and in many cases no control over the issue price. In some situations, the market makers offer several currencies as a bundle, and the proceeds are divided among all the offerors, in a manner that does not adequately reflect the actual market interest in each of the bundled currencies. From a legal perspective the most significant concern is that entrepreneurs might find that their tokens had been sold to unauthorized individuals, thus exposing them to sanctions under securities laws.
Losing control of the company's legal and commercial representations Another aspect to consider is the manner in which the issuing company makes its representations. The practice in the last few years has been that instead of a prospectus required pursuant to the securities laws, cryptocurrency issuers would issue a `White Paper' with all the relevant representations. Such representations are needed for the buyer to know exactly what he is buying, and so that the parties have clarity regarding the nature of the product. Representations made on the White Paper are contractually binding against the seller. In other words, in case of a misrepresentation or omission of a material fact, the issuer could be subject to contractual or damage suits. As long as the entrepreneur controls the process, it is likely in his best interest to offer full and accurate disclosure; but when the issuance is managed by a third party, this interest is not so clear. Companies may be exposed to legal action for representations made on their behalf, without their express consent. This concern could be mitigated through legal disclaimers and term & conditions, but cannot be completely removed where the issuer does not control the sale process.
Time for regulators to step in As the cryptocurrency market continues to develop, we anticipate the further emergence of `maker makers.' Already today we see them as probably among the most dominant players in the cryptocurrency industry, second only to exchange platforms managers. The problem is not with the role that they play, but with the methods that some of them have adopted over time. If the regulators intend to step in, protect investors, assure market efficiency and fair trade, they would be well-advised to start with the market makers. In an industry that is gradually moving from the avantgarde to a more mature stage, this is an imperative regulatory move, without which the cryptocurrency market will be less of a market and more of a bazaar. |
0.799751 | Definition:Vitamin D is a fat-soluble steroid hormone precursor that contributes to the maintenance of normal levels of calcium and phosphorus in the bloodstream.
Strictly speaking, it is not a vitamin since human skin can manufacture it, but it is referred to as one for historical reasons.It is often known as calciferol.
Vitamin D regulates the calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood by promoting their absorption from food in the intestines, and by promoting re-absorption of calcium in the kidneys, which enables normal mineralization of bone and prevents hypocalcemic tetany. It is also needed for bone growth and bone remodeling by osteoblasts and osteoclasts.
Absent vitamin K or with drugs (particularly blood thinners) which interfere with Vitamin K metabolism, Vitamin D can promote soft tissue calcification.
Vitamin D affects the immune system by promoting phagocytosis, anti-tumor activity, and immunomodulatory functions.
Vitamin D deficiency can result from inadequate intake coupled with inadequate sunlight exposure, disorders that limit its absorption, conditions that impair conversion of vitamin D into active metabolites, such as liver or kidney disorders, or, rarely, by a number of hereditary disorders.Deficiency results in impaired bone mineralization, and leads to bone softening diseases, rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, and possibly contributes to osteoporosis.
Vitamin D regulates the expression of genes associated with cancers and autoimmune disease by controlling the activation of the vitamin D receptor (VDR), a type 1 nuclear receptor and DNA transcription factor. Research has indicated that vitamin D deficiency is linked to colon cancer and more recently, to breast cancer. Conflicting evidence links vitamin D deficiency to other forms of cancer.
Several forms (vitamers) of vitamin D have been discovered. The two major forms are vitamin D2 or ergocalciferol, and vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol.
Chemically, the various forms of vitamin D are secosteroids; i.e., broken-open steroids. The structural difference between vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 is in their side chains. The side chain of D2 contains a double bond between carbons 22 and 23, and a methyl group on carbon 24.
Vitamin D2 is derived from fungal and plant sources, and is not produced by the human body. Vitamin D3 is derived from animal sources and is made in the skin when 7-dehydrocholesterol reacts with UVB ultraviolet light at wavelengths between 270–300 nm, with peak synthesis occurring between 295-297 nm. These wavelengths are present in sunlight at sea level when the sun is more than 45° above the horizon, or when the UV index is greater than 3. At this solar elevation, which occurs daily within the tropics, daily during the spring and summer seasons in temperate regions, and almost never within the arctic circles, adequate amounts of vitamin D3 can be made in the skin after only ten to fifteen minutes of sun exposure at least two times per week to the face, arms, hands, or back without sunscreen. With longer exposure to UVB rays, an equilibrium is achieved in the skin, and the vitamin simply degrades as fast as it is generated.
In humans, D3 is as effective as D2 at increasing the levels of vitamin D hormone in circulation; However, in some species, such as rats, vitamin D2 is more effective than D3. Both vitamin D2 and D3 are used for human nutritional supplementation, and pharmaceutical forms include calcitriol (1alpha, 25-dihydroxycholecalciferol), doxercalciferol and calcipotriene.
Vitamin D is a prohormone, meaning that it has no hormone activity itself, but is converted to the active hormone 1,25-D through a tightly regulated synthesis mechanism. Production of vitamin D in nature always appears to require the presence of some UV light; even vitamin D in foodstuffs is ultimately derived from organisms, from mushrooms to animals, which are not able to synthesize it except through the action of sunlight at some point in the synthetic chain. For example, fish contain vitamin D only because they ultimately exist on calories from ocean algae which synthesize vitamin D in shallow waters from the action of solar UV.
The skin consists of two primary layers: the inner layer called the dermis, composed largely of connective tissue, and the outer, thinner epidermis. The epidermis consists of five strata; from outer to inner they are: the stratum corneum, stratum lucidum, stratum granulosum, stratum spinosum, and stratum basale.
Vitamin D3 is produced photochemically in the skin from 7-dehydrocholesterol. The highest concentrations of 7-dehydrocholesterol are found in the epidermal layer of skin, specifically in the stratum basale and stratum spinosum. The production of pre-vitamin D3 is therefore greatest in these two layers, whereas production in the other layers is less.
Synthesis in the skin involves UVB radiation which effectively penetrates only the epidermal layers of skin. While 7-Dehydrocholesterol absorbs UV light at wavelengths between 270–300 nm, optimal synthesis occurs in a narrow band of UVB spectra between 295-300 nm. Peak isomerization is found at 297 nm. This narrow segment is sometimes referred to as D-UV. The two most important factors that govern the generation of pre-vitamin D3 are the quantity (intensity) and quality (appropriate wavelength) of the UVB irradiation reaching the 7-dehydrocholesterol deep in the stratum basale and stratum spinosum.
A critical determinant of vitamin D3 production in the skin is the presence and concentration of melanin. Melanin functions as a light filter in the skin, and therefore the concentration of melanin in the skin is related to the ability of UVB light to penetrate the epidermal strata and reach the 7-dehydrocholesterol-containing stratum basale and stratum spinosum. Under normal circumstances, ample quantities of 7-dehydrocholesterol (about 25-50 µg/cm² of skin) are available in the stratum spinosum and stratum basale of human skin to meet the body’s vitamin D requirements, and melanin content does not alter the amount of vitamin D that can be produced. Thus, individuals with higher skin melanin content will simply require more time in sunlight to produce the same amount of vitamin D as individuals with lower melanin content. As noted below, the amount of time an individual requires to produce a given amount of Vitamin D may also depend upon the person’s distance from the equator and on the season of the year.
Once vitamin D is produced in the skin or consumed in food, it is converted in the liver and kidney to form 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D, (1,25(OH)2D) the physiologically active form of vitamin D (when “D” is used without a subscript it refers to either D2 or D3). Following this conversion, the hormonally active form of vitamin D is released into the circulation, and by binding to a carrier protein in the plasma, vitamin D binding protein (VDBP), it is transported to various target organs.
The hormonally active form of vitamin D mediates its biological effects by binding to the vitamin D receptor (VDR), which is principally located in the nuclei of target cells. The binding of calcitriol to the VDR allows the VDR to act as a transcription factor that modulates the gene expression of transport proteins (such as TRPV6 and calbindin), which are involved in calcium absorption in the intestine.
The Vitamin D receptor belongs to the nuclear receptor superfamily of steroid/thyroid hormone receptors, and VDR are expressed by cells in most organs, including the brain, heart, skin, gonads, prostate, and breast. VDR activation in the intestine, bone, kidney, and parathyroid gland cells leads to the maintenance of calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood (with the assistance of parathyroid hormone and calcitonin) and to the maintenance of bone content.
The VDR is known to be involved in cell proliferation, differentiation. Vitamin D also affects the immune system, and VDR are expressed in several white blood cells including monocytes and activated T and B cells.
Only fish is naturally rich in vitamin D, so much vitamin D intake in the industrialized world is from fortified products including milk, soy milk and breakfast cereals or supplements.
A blood calcidiol (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) level is the accepted way to determine vitamin D nutritional status. The optimal level of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D is 35–55 ng/mL; with some debate among medical scientists for the slightly higher value. Suplementation of 100 IU (2.5 mcg) vitamin D3 raises circulating 25(OH)D by 2.5 nmol/l (1 ng/ml).
The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that older adults, people with dark skin, and those exposed to insufficient ultraviolet radiation (i.e., sunlight) consume extra vitamin D from vitamin D-fortified foods and/or supplements. Individuals in these high-risk groups should consume 25 µg (1000 IU) of vitamin D daily to maintain adequate blood concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the biomarker for vitamin D status.
The Canadian Pediatric Society recommends 2,000 IU daily for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
Milk and cereal grains are often fortified with vitamin D.
Fatty fish, such as salmon, are natural sources of vitamin D.Fortified foods represent the major dietary sources of vitamin D, as very few foods naturally contain significant amounts of vitamin D.
The role of diet in the development of rickets was determined by Edward Mellanby between 1918–1920. In 1921 Elmer McCollum identified an anti-rachitic substance found in certain fats could prevent rickets. Because the newly discovered substance was the fourth vitamin identified, it was called vitamin D. The 1928 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Adolf Windaus, who discovered the steroid 7-dehydrocholesterol, the precursor of vitamin D.
Rickets, a childhood disease characterized by impeded growth, and deformity, of the long bones. The earliest sign of subclinical vitamin D deficiency is Craniotabes, abnormal softening or thinning of the skull.
Prior to the fortification of milk products with vitamin D, rickets was a major public health problem. In the United States, milk has been fortified with 10 micrograms (400 IU) of vitamin D per quart since the 1930s, leading to a dramatic decline in the number of rickets cases.
Vitamin D malnutrition may also be linked to an increased susceptibility to several chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, tuberculosis, cancer, periodontal disease, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, depression, schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder, peripheral artery disease and several autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes .
Vitamin D requirements increase with age, while the ability of skin to convert 7-dehydrocholesterol to pre-vitamin D3 decreases. In addition the ability of the kidneys to convert calcidiol to its active form also decreases with age, prompting the need for increased vitamin D supplementation in elderly individuals. One consensus concluded that for optimal prevention of osteoporotic fracture the blood calcidiol concentration should be higher than 30 ng/mL, which is equal to 75 nmol/L. One billion people in the world are currently Vitamin D deficient, if 75 nmol/L is used as cutoff value for insufficiency.
Because inflammation leads to the increased conversion of 25D into 1,25 D and because studies typically only measure 25D to determine deficiency, it is important to differentiate symptoms caused by insufficient 25D from those conditions which themselves cause lower levels of 25D, which presents as insufficiency.
The American Pediatric Association advises vitamin D supplementation of 200 IU/day (5?g/d) from birth onwards. (1 IU Vitamin D is the biological equivalent of 0.025 ?g cholecalciferol/ergocalciferol). The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that pregnant or breastfeeding women consider taking 2000 IU/day, that all babies who are exclusively breastfed receive a supplement of 400 IU/day, and that babies living above 55 degrees latitude get 800 IU/day from October to April. Health Canada recommends 400IU/day (10?g/d). While infant formula is generally fortified with vitamin D, breast milk does not contain significant levels of vitamin D, and parents are usually advised to avoid exposing babies to prolonged sunlight. Therefore, infants who are exclusively breastfed are likely to require vitamin D supplementation beyond early infancy, especially at northern latitudes. Liquid “drops” of vitamin D, as a single nutrient or combined with other vitamins, are available in water based or oil-based preparations (“Baby Ddrops(R)” in North America, or “Vigantol(R) oil” in Europe). However, babies may be safely exposed to sunlight for short periods; as little as 10 minutes a day without a hat can suffice, depending on location and season. The vitamin D used for in supplements and infant formula is not distinguishable in efficacy from that produced by the body naturally. The risk of overdose is not present with natural exposure to sunlight, because the skin’s capacity to produce vitamin D is self-limiting (skin production is thought to reflect the dose of vitamin D to which our evolution optimized human biology). In contrast, care should be given to limit oral intake for infants to no more than 1000 IU (25 mcg) daily, or for adults no more than 10,000 IU (250 mcg) daily.
Obese individuals may have lower levels of the circulating form of vitamin D, probably because of reduced bioavailability, and are at higher risk of deficiency. To maintain blood levels of calcium, therapeutic vitamin D doses are sometimes administered (up to 100,000 IU or 2.5 mg daily) to patients who have had their parathyroid glands removed (most commonly renal dialysis patients who have had tertiary hyperparathyroidism, but also to patients with primary hyperparathyroidism) or with hypoparathyroidism. Patients with chronic liver disease or intestinal malabsorption disorders may also require larger doses of vitamin D (up to 40,000 IU or 1 mg (1000 micrograms) daily).
The use of sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 8 inhibits more than 95% of vitamin D production in the skin. Recent studies showed that, following the successful “Slip-Slop-Slap” health campaign encouraging Australians to cover up when exposed to sunlight to prevent skin cancer, an increased number of Australians and New Zealanders became vitamin D deficient. Ironically, there are indications that vitamin D deficiency may lead to skin cancer. To avoid vitamin D deficiency dermatologists recommend supplementation along with sunscreen use.
The reduced pigmentation of light-skinned individuals tends to allow more sunlight to be absorbed even at higher latitudes, thereby reducing the risk of vitamin D deficiency. However, at higher latitudes (above 30°) during the winter months, the decreased angle of the sun’s rays, reduced daylight hours, protective clothing during cold weather, and fewer hours of outside activity, diminish absorption of sunlight and the production of vitamin D. Because melanin acts like a sun-block, prolonging the time required to generate vitamin D, dark-skinned individuals, in particular, may require extra vitamin D to avoid deficiency at higher latitudes. In June 2007, The Canadian Cancer Society began recommending that all adult Canadians consider taking 1000 IU of vitamin D during the fall and winter months (when typically the country’s northern latitude prevents sufficient sun-stimulated production of vitamin D). At latitudes below 30° where sunlight and day-length are more consistent, vitamin D supplementation may not be required. Individuals clad in full body coverings during all their outdoor activity, most notably women wearing burquas in daylight, are at risk of vitamin D deficiency. This poses a lifestyle-related health risk mostly for female residents of conservative Muslim nations in the Middle East, but also for strict adherents in other parts of the world.
Vitamin D stored in the human body as calcidiol (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) has a large volume of distribution and a half-life of about 20 to 29 days. However, the synthesis of bioactive vitamin D hormone is tightly regulated and vitamin D toxicity usually occurs only if excessive doses (prescription forms or rodenticide analogs) are taken. Although normal food and pill vitamin D concentration levels are far too low to be toxic in adults, because of the high vitamin A content in codliver oil, it is possible to reach toxic levels of vitamin A (but not vitamin D) via this route, if taken in multiples of the normal dose in an attempt to increase the intake of vitamin D. Most historical cases of vitamin D overdose have occurred due to manufacturing and industrial accidents.
Exposure to sunlight for extended periods of time does not cause vitamin D toxicity. This is because within about 20 minutes of ultraviolet exposure in light skinned individuals (3–6 times longer for pigmented skin) the concentration of vitamin D precursors produced in the skin reach an equilibrium, and any further vitamin D that is produced is degraded. Maximum endogenous production with full body exposure to sunlight is 250 µg (10,000 IU) per day.
The exact long-term safe dose of vitamin D is not entirely known, but dosages up to 250 micrograms (10,000 IU) /day in healthy adults are believed to be safe., and all known cases of vitamin D toxicity with hypercalcemia have involved intake of or over 1,000 micrograms (40,000 IU)/day. The U.S. Dietary Reference Intake Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) of vitamin D for children and adults is 50 micrograms/day (2,000 IU/day), although this is widely presumed to be below actual physiological daily requirements. In adults, sustained intake of 2500 micrograms/day (100,000 IU) can produce toxicity within a few months. For infants (birth to 12 months) the tolerable UL is set at 25 micrograms/day (1000 IU/day), and vitamin D concentrations of 1000 micrograms/day (40,000 IU) in infants has been shown to produce toxicity within 1 to 4 months. In the United States, overdose exposure of vitamin D was reported by 284 individuals in 2004, leading to 1 death. The Nutrition Desk Reference states “The threshold for toxicity is 500 to 600 micrograms [vitamin D] per kilogram body weight per day.” The US EPA published an oral LD50 of 619 mg/kg for female rats.
Serum levels of calcidiol (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) are typically used to diagnose vitamin D overdose. In healthy individuals, calcidiol levels are normally between 32 to 70 ng/mL (80 to 175 nmol/L), but these levels may be as much as 15-fold greater in cases of vitamin D toxicity. Serum levels of bioactive vitamin D hormone (1,25(OH2)D) are usually normal in cases of vitamin D overdose.
Some symptoms of vitamin D toxicity are a result of hypercalcemia (an elevated level of calcium in the blood) caused by increased intestinal calcium absorption. Vitamin D toxicity is known to be a cause of high blood pressure. Gastrointestinal symptoms of vitamin D toxicity can include anorexia, nausea, and vomiting. These symptoms are often followed by polyuria (excessive production of urine), polydipsia (increased thirst), weakness, nervousness, pruritus (itch), and eventually renal failure. Other signals of kidney disease including elevated protein levels in the urine, urinary casts, and a build up of wastes in the blood stream can also develop. In one study, hypercalciuria and bone loss occurred in four patients with documented vitamin D toxicity. Another study showed elevated risk of ischaemic heart disease when 25D was above 89 ng/mL.
Vitamin D toxicity is treated by discontinuing vitamin D supplementation, and restricting calcium intake. If the toxicity is severe blood calcium levels can be further reduced with corticosteroids or bisphosphonates. In some cases kidney damage may be irreversible.
VDR ligands have also been shown to increase the activity of natural killer cells, and enhance the phagocytic activity of macrophages. Active vitamin D hormone also increases the production of cathelicidin, an antimicrobial peptide that is produced in macrophages triggered by bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Vitamin D deficiency tends to increase the risk of infections, such as influenza and tuberculosis. In a 1997 study, Ethiopian children with rickets were 13 times more likely to get pneumonia than children without rickets.
These immunoregulatory properties indicate that ligands with the potential to activate the VDR, including supplementation with calcitriol (as well as a number of synthetic modulators), may have therapeutic clinical applications in the treatment of; inflammatory diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis), dermatological conditions (psoriasis, actinic keratosis), osteoporosis, cancers (prostate, colon, breast, myelodysplasia, leukemia, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and basal cell carcinoma), and autoimmune diseases (systemic lupus erythematosus, type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis) and in preventing organ transplant rejection. However the effects of supplementation with vitamin D, as yet, remain unclear, and supplementation may be inadvisable for individuals with sarcoidosis and other diseases involving vitamin D hypersensitivity.
A 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported evidence of a link between Vitamin D deficiency and the onset of Multiple Sclerosis; the authors posit that this is due to the immune-response suppression properties of Vitamin D.
The Canadian Cancer Society recommends that adults should consider supplementeing with 1,000 IU of vitamin D per day during the fall and winter. They base this recommendation on the growing evidence for a link between vitamin D and a reduced risk for colorectal, breast and prostate cancers.
The vitamin D hormone, calcitriol, has been found to induce death of cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. Although the anti-cancer activity of vitamin D is not fully understood, it is thought that these effects are mediated through vitamin D receptors expressed in cancer cells, and may be related to its immunomodulatory abilities. The anti-cancer activity of vitamin D observed in the laboratory has prompted some to propose that vitamin D supplementation might be beneficial in the treatment or prevention of some types of cancer.
A search of primary and review medical literature published between 1970 and 2007 found an increasing body of research supporting the hypothesis that the active form of vitamin D has significant, protective effects against the development of cancer. Epidemiological studies show an inverse association between sun exposure, serum levels of 25(OH)D, and intakes of vitamin D and risk of developing and/or surviving cancer. The protective effects of vitamin D result from its role as a nuclear transcription factor that regulates cell growth, differentiation, apoptosis and a wide range of cellular mechanisms central to the development of cancer. In 2005, scientists released a metastudy which demonstrated a beneficial correlation between vitamin D intake and prevention of cancer. Drawing from a meta-analysis of 63 published reports, the authors showed that intake of an additional 1,000 international units (IU) (or 25 micrograms) of vitamin D daily reduced an individual’s colon cancer risk by 50%, and breast and ovarian cancer risks by 30%. Research has also shown a beneficial effect of high levels of calcitriol on patients with advanced prostate cancer. A randomized intervention study involving 1,200 women, published in June 2007, reports that vitamin D supplementation (1,100 international units (IU)/day) resulted in a 60% reduction in cancer incidence, during a four-year clinical trial, rising to a 77% reduction for cancers diagnosed after the first year (and therefore excluding those cancers more likely to have originated prior to the vitamin D intervention). In 2006, a study at Northwestern University found that taking the U.S. RDA of vitamin D (400 IU per day) cut the risk of pancreatic cancer by 43% in a sample of more than 120,000 people from two long-term health surveys.
A 2006 study using data on over 4 million cancer patients from 13 different countries showed a marked difference in cancer risk between countries classified as sunny and countries classified as less–sunny for a number of different cancers. Research has also suggested that cancer patients who have surgery or treatment in the summer — and therefore make more endogenous vitamin D — have a better chance of surviving their cancer than those who undergo treatment in the winter when they are exposed to less sunlight.
A scientific review undertaken by the National Cancer Institute found no link between baseline vitamin D status and overall cancer mortality. They did find that vitamin D was beneficial in preventing colorectal cancer, which showed an inverse relationship with blood levels “80 nmol/L or higher associated with a 72% risk reduction”.
Research indicates that vitamin D may play a role in preventing or reversing coronary disease. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increase in high blood pressure and cardiovascular risk. When researchers monitored the vitamin D levels, blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors of 1739 people, of an average age of 59 years for 5 years, they found that those people with low levels of vitamin D had a 62% higher risk of a cardiovascular event than those with normal vitamin D levels.
A report from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) found that low levels of vitamin D were associated with an increased risk of peripheral artery disease (PAD). Researchers divided 4,839 participantes in NHANES into quartiles (four groups) based on their blood levels of vitamin D, and found that increasing levels of vitamin D were associated with a lower prevalence of PAD. The authors adjusted for other factors which could influence the development of PAD (such as smoking and high cholesterol) and found that among participants with the lowest vitamin D levels (<17.8 ng/mL) PAD was 80% more common than in individuals with the highest levels (>29.2 ng/mL) of vitamin D.
Researchers publishing in the Journal of Circulation studied the blood levels of vitamin D in 1739 middle-aged children of partipants in the Framingham Heart Study in Framinhgam, Massachussetts (their mean age was 59 years; 55% were women; all were white) who did not have any prior history of cardiovascular disease. These subjects were followed for a mean of 5.4 years. The authors adjusted for other conventional risk factors for cardiovascular disease which could have confounded the results and still found that among the 120 individuals in this group who suffered a first cardiovascular event, those who had the lowest levels of vitamin D were most likely to have had an event. Individuals with lowest levels of vitamin D (<15 ng/mL) had a 62% increased risk (95% confidence interval 1.11 to 2.36, P=0.01) for having a first cardiovascular event compared with those with vitamin D levels of 15 ng/mL. This effect was evident in participants with hypertension, but not in those without hypertension.
In a study of 34 middle-aged men, researchers found that low levels of vitamin D were associated with hypertension, elevated VLDL triglycerides, and impaired insulin metabolism.
As with cancer incidence, a qualitative inverse correlations was found between coronary disease incidence and serum vitamin D levels of 32.0 versus 35.5 ng/mL. Cholesterol levels were found to be reduced in gardeners in the UK during the summer months. Heart attacks peak in winter and decline in summer in temperate but not tropical latitudes.
The issue of vitamin D in heart health has not yet been settled. Exercise may account for some of the benefit attributed to vitamin D, since vitamin D levels are higher in physically active persons. Moreover, there may be an upper limit after which cardiac benefits decline. One study found an elevated risk of ischaemic heart disease in Southern India in individuals whose vitamin D levels were above 89 ng/mL. These sun-living groups results do not generalize to sun-deprived urban dwellers. Among a group with heavy sun exposure, taking supplemental vitamin D are unlikely to result in blood levels over the ideal range, while urban dwellers not taking supplemental vitamin D may fall under the levels recognized as ideal, and being below the preferable levels may cause adverse affects on the health of each group.
Low vitamin D levels are associated with cancer, diabetes, and hypertension, and in increased mortality among patients undergoing dialysis. Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Melamed and coworkers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine evaluated whether low serum vitamin D levels were associated with mortality in the general population. The researchers studied the association of low vitamin D levels with all-cause mortality, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among 13,331 diverse American adults who were 20 years or older. Vitamin D levels of these participants were collected over a 6-year period (from 1988 through 1994), and individuals were passively followed for mortality through the year 2000. The researchers found that being older, female, nonwhite, having diabetes, a current smoker, and having a higher body mass index were all independently associated with a greater risk of being vitamin D deficient, while greater physical activity, vitamin D supplementation, and evaluating subjects in a non-winter season (greater exposure to sunshine) were all associated with higher levels. During a median of 8.7 years of follow-up, there were 1806 deaths, including 777 (43%) from CVD. The authors divided the participants into 4 groups (quartiles) based on their serum vitamin D levels, and adjusted for baseline demographics, season, and CVD risk factors. Being in the lowest quartile (vitamin D levels <17.8 ng/mL) was associated with a 26% increased rate of all-cause mortality (mortality rate ratio, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.08-1.46). The adjusted models of CVD and cancer mortality revealed a higher risk, but it was not statistically significant. The authors concluded that having low levels of vitamin D (<17.8 ng/mL) was independently associated with an increase in all-cause mortality in the general population.
Among many factors that may be responsible for vitamin Ds apparent beneficial effect on all-cause mortality is its effect on telomeres and its potential effect on slowing aging. Richards and coworkers examined whether vitamin D concentrations would slow the rate of shortening of leukocyte telomeres (a marker of aging). The authors stated that vitamin D is a potent inhibitor of the proinflammatory response and slows the turnover of leukocytes. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) predicts the development of aging-related disease, and length of these telomeres decreases with each cell division and with increased inflammation (more common in the elderly). Researchers measured serum vitamin D concentrations in 2160 women aged 18-79 years (mean age: 49.4) from a large population-based cohort of twins. This study divided the group into thirds [tertiles http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tertile] based on vitamin D levels, and found that increased age was significantly associated with shorter LTL (r = -0.40, P < 0.0001). Higher serum vitamin D concentrations were significantly associated with longer LTL (r = 0.07, P = 0.0010), and this finding persisted even after adjustment for age (r = 0.09, P < 0.0001) and other variables that independently could affect LTL (age, season of vitamin D measurement, menopausal status, use of hormone replacement therapy, and physical activity). The difference in LTL between the highest and lowest tertiles of vitamin D was highly significant (P = 0.0009), and the authors stated that this was equivalent to 5.0 years of aging. The authors concluded that higher vitamin D levels, (easily modifiable through nutritional supplementation), were associated with longer LTL, which underscores the potentially beneficial effects of vitamin D on aging and age-related diseases.
The Importance Of Calcium And Vitamin D: Getting Vitamin D Can Be Tricky, Even When It’s Sunny!
This entry was posted in Suppliments our body needs and tagged Health, Nutrients, Nutrition, Ultraviolet, UVB, Vitamin, Vitamin D, Vitamins and Minerals on October 10, 2008 by Mukul.
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0.992301 | Phylogenetic modelling of the variation of the evolutionary process across sites from multi-species sequence alignments has garnered increasing attention over the last few decades. One of the main approaches, sometimes known as random effects modelling, adopts the view that the heterogeneity across observations is a result of the data set having been emitted from several different models, each drawn from a distribution. When little is known about the form of the across-site heterogeneity, finite mixture models provide discretizations of the unknown distribution into a pre-determined set of sub-models, or components. Choosing a level of discretization that is sufficiently fine-meshed to reflect the underlying heterogeneity is typically done from a set of likelihood-based model comparisons using different numbers of components. In the infinite mixture framework, accounting for the uncertainty regarding the number of components is another layer built into the model formulation (i.e., a hierarchical modelling framework), providing a rich non-parametric fitting of the distribution of across-site heterogeneity. Here, we use Bayesian cross-validation to compare a wide range of finite mixture models, along with the infinite mixture modelling approach known as 'CAT', and gamma-distributed rates-across-sites approach. We apply the comparison to both simulated and real multi-gene alignments. Our findings indicate that the potential improvement in model-fit, as reported by cross-validation score, from finite mixture models is attained when the number of components of the mixture is between 20 and 60. In all cases that we considered, the fit of the CAT-GTR+Γ model matched or exceeded the best-fitting finite mixture model. When testing these models on data sets prone to long branch attraction our findings indicate that finite mixture models with low numbers of components result in topologies that align with those found from analyses using simple models. Finite mixture models, with many components at their disposal, on the other hand, produce topologies that match those obtained with the infinite mixture model CAT-GTR. |
0.980897 | Sledging in cricket has been in practice as old as cricket's origin itself but the spotlight is more now than ever. The introduction of social media and the involvement of the athletes along with the fans has brought in the deepest insights of what's happening and when it comes to sledging, fans just love it.
The interesting face to face conversation or the verbal sparring between their admired heroes is what fans would love to see. Sledging brings out the real personality of an athlete and when it happens, fans are just drawn towards that action.
But. does sledging have an impact on players as well?
The answer would be a BIG YES.
The act of taking the cool out of your opponent for your advantage on the field is what sledging is all about and the result is always intimidating.
When somebody sledges you, you might get provoked and that's where your opponent plays the 'Clever game'. The on-going India tour of Australia has been a series with several sledging incidents between the two teams and the cricket fans are loving it, even though Steve Smith and David Warner aren't the part of Aussie Team.
Team India wasn't sure about the new-age host nation on sledging. Starting the series with a high note, team India won the first Test by 31 runs and the Indian players were all confident about their upcoming matches. The second Test in Perth was something that sparked the notion of sledging into the series which was verbal sparring between the two skippers, Virat Kohli and Tim Paine.
It all started when Tim Paine entered to bat on day 3, Kohli was heard saying " If he messes it up, its 2-0", to which Paine replied, " You've got to bat first, big head". The sparring continued and at one point it was Umpire Chris Gaffaney who had to make his presence in between the convo and say "That's enough, come on, play the game, you both are captains".
The verbal sparring is something that would never end with matches rather it would ignite the momentum, something similar continued in day two, the third Test in Melbourne. Tim Paine was again the front face of the Melbourne banter which started when Rohit Sharma made his mark to the crease.
Paine was heard chatting to Finch "If Rohit hits a six I'm changing to Mumbai" where he intended to say about his support to an IPL team. On the other side, Rohit Sharma didn't take the comments to heart and played a decent knock. Test cricket is a pure testimony of one's temperament and if a player would get distracted and try to respond to the banter he would land up nowhere and what Rohit did was exactly what a team want, not to bite.
The sledging isn't player specific, Paine continued his sledging with Rishab Pant, Indian wicketkeeper on day 3 of the third Test. The sledging ignited in the second Innings of Indian batting.
"Tell you what, big MS is back in the one-day squad too, we might get him down to the hurricanes this bloke, we need a batter" Paine was heard chatting on the mic. The dialogue didn't just stop there but Paine continued adding, "Fancy that Pant, extend your little Aussie holiday. Beautiful town Hobart too. Get you a nice apartment on the waterfront." Paine took it way too far when he asked Pant to babysit so that he could take his wife for movies.
All these verbal sparrings had cricketing fans on their toes. What's rare and unusual is what sells and so is sledging. Apart from the game that we all enjoy, it's these moments that add life to the game. As fans, we all need a small bit of Entertainment and sledging gives the proper dosage of what a fan demands.
As cricketers, it's something that they have to be careful because sledging can sometimes backfire where the opponent can perform extremely well and we have seen many examples of it and the consequences can also get worse if the sledging goes beyond the line that is cricketers have to pay a hefty fine and may also be banned at extreme cases.
Cricket being a 'Gentlemen's Game', with all due respect to the sport, it no longer is. As we see a new generation take the centre stage with aggression and fast approach to the game, we can hardly expect them to not involve in sledging.
The game is now global and is reaching new untouched regions with millions of people tuning in for the game as well as for their favourite player's social media updates. Social media platforms can only survive if the people stick to it and when it comes to sports, sledging can do it better than the scorecard because scores are everywhere.
Finally, it's all about what people want from the game and also what players get from sledging. Sledging should never be prefered over the spirit of the game. The game today we see, live, love, enjoy and admire is the result of its spirit. |
0.999996 | What is monkey fever or KFD?
The disease was first reported from Kyasanur Forest of Karnataka in India in March 1957. The disease first manifested as an epizootic outbreak among monkeys killing several of them in the year 1957. Hence the disease is also locally known as "monkey disease" or "monkey fever".The similarity with Russian spring-summer encephalitis was noted and the possibility of migratory birds carrying the disease was raised.
Monkey fever is a virus fever, belonging to the family Flaviviridae, which also includes yellow fever and dengue fever. The disease is carried by ticks, rodents, birds, etc and it affects monkeys and human beings. It is a vector-borne disease.
Money fever or Kyasanur forest disease (KFD) is a viral fever that is a tick-borne hemorrhafic fever. It is detected in South Africa and coastal southern India.
It is a virus fever, belonging to the family Flaviviridae, which also includes yellow fever and dengue fever. The disease is carried by ticks, rodents, birds, etc and it affects monkeys and human beings. It is a vector-borne disease.
The virus is transmitted to humans through the bite of nymphs of the tick or when humans come into contact with an infected animal. |
0.998012 | Tea, the most popular beverage for the Chinese, is one of China's specialities and traditional exports. China is the homeland of tea. It is believed that China has tea-shrubs as early as five to six thousand years ago, and human cultivation of tea plants dates back two thousand years. Tea from China, along with her silk and porcelain, began to be known the world over more than a thousand years ago and has since always been an Important Chinese export. At present more than forty countries in the world grow tea with Asian countsies producing 90% of the world's total output. All tea trees in other countries have their origin directly or indirectly in China.
The word for lea leaves or tea as a drink in many countries are derivatives from the Chinese character "cha". The Russians call it "cha", which sounds like "chaye" (tea leaves) as it is pronounced in northern China, and the English word "tea" sounds similar to the pronunciation of its counterpart in Xiamen (Amoy). The Japanese character for tea is written exactly the same as it is in Chinese, though pronounced with a slight difference. The habit of tea drinking spread to Japan in the 6th centuty. but it was not introduced to Europe and America till the 17th and I8th centuries. Now the number of tea drinkers in the world is legion and is still on the increase.
Chinese tea may be classified into five categories according to the different methods which it is processed.
1) Green tea: Green tea is the variety which keeps the original color of the tea leaves without fermentation during processing. This category consists mainly of Longjing tea of Hangzhou, Maofeng of Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province and Biluochun produced in Jiangsu.
2) Black tea: Black tea, known as "red tea" (hong cha) in China, is the category which is fermented before baking; it is a later variety developed on the basis of the green tea. he best brands of black tea are Qihong of Anhui, Dianhong of Yunnan, Suhong of Jiangsu. Chuanhong of Sichuan and huhong of Hunan.
3) Wulong tea: This represents a variety half way between the green and the black teas, being made after partial fermentation. It is a specialty from the provinces on China's southeast coast: Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.
4) Compressed tea: This is the kind of tea which is compressed and hardened into a certain shape. It is good for transport and storage and is mainly supplied to the ethnic minorities living in the border areas of the country. As compressed tea is black in color in its commercial form. So it is also known in China as "black tea". Most of the compressed tea is in the form of bricks; it is, therefore, generally called "brick tea", though it is sometimes also in the form of cakes and bowls. It is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
5) Scented tea: This kind of tea is made by mixing fragrant flowers in the tea leaves in the course of processing. The flowers commonly used for this purpose are jasmine and magnolia among others. Jasmine tea is a well-known favorite with the northerners of China and with a growing number of foreigners.
A new tea-plant must grow for five years before its leaves can be picked and, at 30 years of age, it will be too old to be productive. The trunk of the old plant must then be cut off to force new stems to grow out of the roots in the coming year. By repeated rehabilitations in this way, a plant may serve for about 100 years. For the fertilization of tea gardens. soya-bean cakes or other varieties of organic manure are generally used, and seldom chemical fertilizers. When pests are discovered, the affected plants will be removed to prevent their spread, and also to avoid the use of pesticides.
The season of tea-picking depends on local climate and varies from area to area. On the shores of West Lake in Hangzhou, where the famous green tea Longjing (Dragon Well) comes from, picking starts from the end of March and lasts through October, altogether 20-30 times from the same plants at intervals of seven to ten days. With a longer interval, the quality of the tea will deteriorate. A skilled woman picker can only gather 600 grains (a little over a pound) of green tea leaves in a day. The new leaves must be parched in tea cauldrons This work, which used to be done manually, has been largely mechanized. Top-grade Dragon well tea, however, still has to be stir-parched by hand, doing only 250 grams every half hour. The tea-cauldrons are heated electrically to a temperature of about 25 or 74 degree centigrade. It takes four pounds of fresh leaves to produce one pound of parched tea.
The best Dragon Well tea is gathered several days before Qingming (Pure Brightness, 5th solar term) when new twigs have just begun to grow and carry "one leaf and a bud" To make one kilogram (2.2 lbs) of finished tea, 60,000 tender leaves have to be plucked In the old days Dragon Well tea of this grade was meant solely for the imperial household; it was, therefore, known as "tribute tea". For the processes of grinding, parching, rolling, shaping and drying other grades of tea various machines have been developed and built, turning out about 100 kilograms of finished tea an hour and relieving the workers from much of their drudgery.
As a sign of respect, in Chinese society, the younger generation shows respect to the older generation by offering a cup of tea. Inviting and paying for their elders to go to restaurants for tea is a traditional activity on holidays.
The Chinese make serious apologies to others by pouring them tea. This act is taken as a sign of regret and submission. In the traditional Chinese marriage ceremony, both the bride and groom kneel in front of their parents and serve them tea as an expression of gratitude. The customary phrase spoken to the parents during this ritual can be translated as "Thank you for bringing us up. Now we are getting married. We owe it all to you." The parents will usually drink a small portion of the tea and then give the couple a red envelope, which symbolizes good luck.
Tea has been one of the daily necessities in China since time immemorial. Countless numbers of people like to have their after meal cup of tea. In summer or warm climate, tea seems to dispel the heat and bring on instant cool together with a feeling of relaxation. For this reason, tea-houses abound in towns and market villages in South China and provide elderly retirees with the locales to meet and chat over a cup of tea. Medically, the tea leaf contains a number of chemicals, of which 20-30% is tannic acid, known for its anti-inflammatory and germicidal properties. It also contains an alkaloid I(5%, mainly caffeine), a stimulant for the nerve centre and the process of metabolism. Tea with the aromatics in it may help resolve meat and fat and thus promote digestion. It is, therefore, of special importance to people who live mainly on meat, like many of the ethnic minorities in China. A popular proverb among them says, "Rather go without salt for three days than without tea for a single day."
Tea is also rich in various vitamins and, for smokers; it helps to discharge nicotine out of the system. After wining, strong tea may prove to be a sobering pick-me-up. The above, however, does not go to say that the stronger the tea, the more advantages it will yield. Too much tannic acid will affect the secretion of the gastric juice. Irritate the membrane of the stomach and cause indigestion or constipation. Strong tea taken just before bedtime will give rise to occasional insomnia. Constant drinking of over-strong tea may induce heart and blood-pressure disorders in some people, reduce the milk of a breast-feeding mother, and put a brown color on the teeth of young people. But it is not difficult to ward off these undesirable effects: just don't make your tea too strong.
If you are a Chinese tea lover and would like to find out how tea is harvested, processed and turned from a simple leaf into the tea you love to drink, speak with Splendid China Tours NOW to plan your own private China Tea Tour! We will bring you to explore these lovely mountains and villages where great Chinese Tea is planted and produced!
Check our Tea Tours to China 2015, please click HERE! China Tea Tours from the Tea Plant to the Teapot! |
0.999999 | How Much Did My Neighbor Pay For Their House?
Is there a way to find out how much my neighbor paid for their house?
There are a couple of ways to find out how much your neighbor paid for their house. The first, and possibly the easiest, is to get in touch with a real estate sales person or broker and have them look it up on the multiple listing service. Multiple listing services maintain information about closed sales for several years. In fact, the MLS is the primary tool used by appraisers to find comparable sales in connection with determining the value of a property.
The "old-fashioned" way is much more complicated and time consuming. However, if a sale was handled privately, i.e., if someone sold their home without having listed it for sale through a broker on the MLS, the old-fashioned way is the only way.
Depending on how they handle things in your jurisdiction, you will need to go to the division of your county government and find out how to look up a deed. The county recorder's office is probably your best bet.
Once you get the deed, you will probably see that property in question was transferred for "ten dollars and other good and other valuable consideration." Don't worry! All is not lost.
On the deed, you will see tax stamps. Those tax stamps, with a little bit of math, will tell you how much the property sold for. You see, most states and even some counties and cities tax real estate transactions on the basis of the purchase price. Thus, you will need to find out the tax rate at the time of the transaction. Once you know that, here's how you would figure out the price: Let's say that at the time of the transaction the taxing jurisdiction imposed a transfer tax of $7.50 per $1,000. Let's also assume that the tax stamps show that a tax of $750 was paid. If you divide the tax rate (7.50) by the amount of tax paid (750) you get 100. Multiply that by the measuring unit (1,000) and you get $100,000 as the purchase price. Hope that helps.
The county tax assessor is a good source for this type of information. Most counties have a website where you can enter the property address and it should generate a profile summary of the property which often times include transaction history and purchase price. Also will provide property tax amount and rate; property square footage, both lot and structure, zoning, current owner's name, etc.
Also you can try zillow.com and type in the address; if property recently sold, the amount should be stated here as well. |
0.999871 | Kayla runs a lemonade and chocolate chip cookies stand during summer vacation to make some money.
She has just sold her last cup of lemonade for the day. She made a total of $180 and sold 80 chocolate chip cookies.
Kayla wants to know how many cups of lemonade she has sold to prepare for tomorrow's sales.
A linear equation in standard form can be used to find the number of cups of lemonade.
The standard form of a linear equation is Ax + By = C, where A and B cannot both equal zero.
Let's use x to represent the number of cups of lemonade sold and y for the number of cookies sold.
We also know that the cost per cup of lemonade is 2 dollars.
And that Kyla sells her cookies for 1 dollar and 50 cents each.
We also know that Kyla sold a combined hundred eighty dollars' worth of cookies and lemonade.
Our coefficients in this example are the prices we know. So 2 can be substituted in for A. Now we have an expression that represents the money earned from the lemonade: 2x.
$1.50 can be substituted in for B. 1.5y stands for the money earned from the cookies.180 can be substituted in for C. This represents Kyla's sales total for the day. So our expression to find the number of cups of lemonade Kayla sold, written in standard form, is 2x + 1.5y = 180.
Since we know Kyla sold 80 cookies, we can plug this into y. Now we can solve the equation for x in order to find the number of cups of lemonade Kyla sold.
The first step is to multiply 1.5 and 80 together, giving us 120. Remember, 120 is the total money Kyla earned from selling cookies.
The next step is to subtract 120 from both sides of the equation, leaving us with 2x = 60.
The last step is to divide both sides of the equation by 2, leaving us with x = 30. So now we know Kayla sold 30 cups of lemonade today.
A linear equation in standard form can also be graphed to determine the number of cups of lemonade and cookies sold for 180 dollars. The linear equation produces all possible combinations of lemonade and cookie sales that would yield $180 including negative values.
The part of the graph we need to focus on is in the first quadrant where x and y are positive. The x- and y-intercepts can be used to find the starting point and ending point for the number of items sold.
The x-intercept will show the maximum amount of lemonade that can be sold for $180. The y-intercept will show the maximum amount of cookies that can be sold for $180.
The first step is to find is the x-intercept. This is the point that crosses the x-axis when y is 0. This means we should substitute y in the equation with 0.
Since anything times 0 equals 0, this leaves us with the equation 2x = 180. The last step is to divide both sides of the equation by 2, giving us x equals 90. Now we have our x-intercept. And we can graph the ordered pair of (90, 0) on the coordinate plane.
The second step is to find is the y-intercept. This is the point that crosses the y-axis when x is 0. This means we should substitute x in the equation with 0. Since anything times 0 equals 0, this leaves us with the equation 1.5y = 180.
The last step is to divide both side of the equation by 1.5 giving us y equals 120. Now, we have our y-intercept. So we can graph the ordered pair of (0, 120) on the coordinate plane.
We can use the graph to see how many cups of lemonade sold when she sold 80 cookies. When y equals 80, we look at our line and see that x equals 30 cups of lemonade.
We can use the graph to see the relationship between the number of cups of lemonade and number of cookies sold for Kayla to make $180.
Another example is Kayla would have made $180 by selling 60 cups of lemonade and 40 cookies.
The next day Kayla comes to open her stand. Oh no! All of the neighborhood kids want to get in on her profit!
When writing linear equations, the equation can be written in more than one form. Most common is the slope-intercept form, but point-slope form and standard form (general form) also have advantages. To answer linear equation problems, how do you know which form to use?
That depends on the unknown value, and this is why you must understand all the forms. For this video, we will explore the standard form of linear equations. The standard form of a linear equation is: Ax + By = C. There are some restrictions for the use of this form. Both A and B cannot be equal to zero at the same time, both A and B must be integers, and usually A is a positive number. To understand the real value of this form, graph the information.
You will see the graph shows all the combinations possible combinations of x and y to sum to the constant – the C-value. The x-intercept at point ( x, 0 ) is the maximum value for x, and the y-intercept at point ( 0, y ) is the maximum point for y. The standard form is valuable in the real world for situations when you need to figure out the combinations of two variables to sum to a constant. To learn more about the standard form of linear equations, sit back, relax, and take a look at this video.
Use slope to create equations of the line. |
0.919786 | A Well Presented Two Bedroom Terraced Home Found In A Tucked Away Village Location.
Located in what can be best described as a cul-de-sac off a cul-de-sac within the popular village of Lane End is this well presented modern two bedroom mid-terraced home.
From the quiet cul-de-sac location you enter the property via the front door into the main living room which has stairs rising to first floor landing providing under stairs storage cupboard, electric storage heater and wood laminate flooring. A door leads to the good size kitchen/dining room being fitted in a modern range of base and wall mounted units with a range of cupboards and drawers and work surfaces incorporating a one and a half bowl sink unit with mixer tap. Built in appliances include oven, hob and hood with further space for additional appliances. Tiling can be found to splash back work surface areas and there is a double glazed window door opening to the conservatory. The conservatory is an attractive feature of the property providing additional living space being of brick base construction and double glazed window to side and rear aspects and double glazed double doors which open to the rear garden. Both the bedrooms and the bathroom are accessed via the first floor landing as is the loft via the hatch. Bedroom one has a front aspect and built in storage cupboard and ample space for free standing wardrobes. The second bedroom can be found to the rear of the property overlooking the rear garden and the bathroom comprising a modern white suite of panelled bath with side grips and wall mounted electric shower over, low level WC, vanity wash hand basin with cupboards below, tiling to splash back areas and extractor fan. Outside to the rear is the enclosed rear garden, there is an initial area of timber decking and a step to an area of level lawn, timber constructed shed and pedestrian access to rear. Parking can be found to the front of the property and the property is complimented by double glazing and storage heaters.
Lane End is a popular village providing easy access to both High Wycombe and Marlow towns which provide a wealth of amenities and communication via railways and motorway networks. The village itself provides local day to day shops, popular schools, restaurants, caf , doctors surgery and access to open countryside.
Approaching Lane End village from the East on Finings Road (the B482) take the fourth turning left into The Row. Proceed along The Row which becomes Park Lane and then take the third turning right into Archers Way, then the first right into Blackwell Road and then left into Johnson Road. Continue to the end until it becomes Prospect Court where the property can be found at the end on the right hand side. |
0.999896 | You bring up some things that are troubling to many grievers.
One of the problems is that the people who care about us don’t know what to say or how to say it, which is based on there being so much mis-information in our society about grief.
We caution people to be careful for the phrases “I’m Sorry,” and even “I’m sorry for your loss,” especially when they don’t know either the griever or the person who died.
Even so, we recognize that people are well-intended with those comments, but the impact of them on the griever is often as you report.
It is difficult to be the griever and at the same time to try to educate people as to what to say or not say to you.
Over the years, we’ve taught grievers to say, “Thank you, I really appreciate your concern,” and not engage in a discussion about what was said, because it distracts them from the primary issue at hand, their grief.
As to your second point about people calling you morbid: Again, this is the unfortunate by-product of societal mis-information about grief. In this case, it relates to the myth that “time heals all wounds.” That persistent myth causes people to say that beyond a certain arbitrary point after a death, that you are morbid when you are still having feelings about someone who has died.
Remember, we live in a culture that wants you back at work, looking good, feeling fine, and being productive, 3-5 days after someone important in your life has died. Makes no sense at all.
This is the same world that gives you six weeks off, with pay, when you break your leg, but only a very limited time when your heart is broken.
All that said, while we know that we're all affected by the words and actions of others, the most important thing for you is to take care of your own emotions about your relationship with your mother. The more you do on that, the less affected and troubled you will be by what other people say. |
0.987717 | The Ecology of Breast Cancer About twenty-five years ago I began to think about breast cancer as an ecological disorder, after realizing that genetic susceptibility, other recognized risk factors, and life style simply do not explain why many people develop this disease. Nor do they fully explain breast cancer patterns in populations. I thought that insights from ecological science might lead to different study designs and interventions to help prevent this disease, then responsible for over 40,000 deaths annually in the United States.
Ecological science seemed worth considering. Migration studies show that breast cancer risk remains low in first-generation immigrants who move to a high-risk country after spending childhood and adolescence in a country with lower incidence. But the risk in second-generation immigrants increases when they live their entire lives in a high-risk country. What makes a country high-risk for breast cancer? That kind of question is familiar to ecologists. They often want to know what makes an ecosystem vulnerable. Why does ecosystem structure and function change, often rapidly and irreversibly?
Ecology is the study of complex, diverse interactions among organisms and their environments. Ecologists study multi-level nested systems of individuals, populations, and diverse communities. Ecosystems feature interactions within and across levels, feedback loops, thresholds, and shifting dynamics that together impart resilience or vulnerability. These concepts seemed relevant to breast cancer and other complex diseases that are stubbornly resistant to more complete understanding of their origins and response to treatment.
The Ecology of Breast Cancer: The Promise of Prevention and the Hope for Healing, explores these ideas more fully. It reviews and summarizes a large scientific literature and draws practical conclusions that I hope will stimulate more widespread efforts to prevent this disease and improve outcomes after diagnosis and treatment.
Historically, scientific studies of most human diseases, including breast cancer, have typically gathered and analyzed data using linear, reductionist models and methods. They have attempted to identify main effects of single variables while “controlling” for others using various statistical techniques and often studying relatively homogeneous populations. Dynamic interactions among variables have been either of secondary interest or ignored altogether. While this approach has led to important insights and medical therapies, it has limited ability to address the systemic causes and prevention of complex diseases.
In recent years eco-social models that include multi-level interactions and changing system dynamics have gained some traction in epidemiologic research. Systems biology is an emerging approach applied to basic biological research that focuses on complex interactions within biologic systems. But most breast cancer research uses older, more traditional methods. Decades of research into the effects of diet on breast cancer risk is limited by failure to account for confounding and modifying effects of physical activity levels. The unanticipated effects of combinations of early life chemical exposures and variable diets on mammary gland cancer risk in laboratory animals are dramatic, but this is difficult to study in people and we have no human data.
Several years ago, I began looking into lifestyle interventions that people who had been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer might undertake to complement their traditional therapy. I was curious after conversations with Michael Lerner, president of Commonweal, a nonprofit center in California, and co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Michael is author of Choices in Healing (MIT Press, 1994) and has co-led Cancer Help Program retreats for 28 years. Most of the participants in the Cancer Help Program are women with breast cancer who are committed to improving the quality of their lives and prognoses. Integrative therapies for breast cancer and integrative oncology more generally significantly improve outcomes, and we thought that a summary of the evidence addressing diet, exercise, weight control, stress reduction, and social support as elements of a comprehensive approach to breast cancer treatment would be useful. I soon decided to broaden the scope of this project to include breast cancer prevention, to explore the evidence linking these and other variables to development of the disease in the first place.
In addition to risk factors associated with hormone levels and reproductive development and history, many other, multi-level environmental variables also interact with human breast biology. This begins during fetal development and continues throughout life, influencing breast cancer risk and outcomes following diagnosis and treatment. None of these risk factors appears to increase breast cancer risk nearly as dramatically as cigarette smoking increases the risk of lung cancer. Instead breast cancer arises from a complex entanglement of many, multi-level variables. To be sure, some are more important than others, but most generally seem to contribute only modestly to risk, particularly when they are studied in isolation. But their dynamic interactions, over the life course, can be dramatic and profoundly important, as repeatedly demonstrated in laboratory studies and increasingly in epidemiologic studies as well. Breast cancer seems to fit well within the ecologic or eco-social framework.
The Ecology of Breast Cancer: The Promise of Prevention and the Hope for Healing concludes that breast cancer is generally a disease arising from diverse societal conditions. To be sure, in individual women or men, a genetic predisposition or specific environmental exposure may be predominantly responsible. But breast cancer patterns in populations cannot be explained by one or two culprits. Rather, dynamic interactions among numerous features woven into the fabric of our lives and communities collectively create conditions that make breast cancer more or less likely. Thinking about this as a design problem and an ecological challenge are likely to help us identify multi-level interventions that will reduce breast cancer incidence and improve outcomes after diagnosis. This cannot be done by individuals alone. Community planners, health care professionals, public health officials, businesses, schools, governments, and farmers also have opportunities to help reduce the burden of this disease.
Some people resist an ecological framing of breast cancer, preferring to see this all-too-common disease exclusively as one of abnormal cells, often unexplainable, in unfortunate women or men. And it’s undeniable that biomedical sciences have made great progress in breast cancer treatment, based on improved understanding of this cellular pathology. But, a public health perspective widens the lens to look at breast cancer patterns in populations and offers additional insights into prevention and treatment. An ecological framework accommodates both and adds new science. It expands the ways we can study and address this disease.
Finally, there may be considerable value in applying the ecological framework more widely to other complex disorders, including various kinds of cancer, diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease, learning disabilities, cognitive decline, and dementia. I strongly suspect that changes in diet and the food system, the built environment, social environment, and reductions in hazardous chemical exposures designed to address breast cancer will help to reduce the burden of many of these as well.
November 19 Michael Lerner will be discussing The Ecology of Breast Cancer: The promise of prevention and the hope for healing with Ted Schettler at The New School at Commonweal. More information here.
December 16CHE Cafe Call with Michael Lerner and Ted Schettler discussing the themes that emerge from The Ecology of Breast Cancer: The promise of prevention and the hope for healing.
with a calendar, latest research, and an innovative search feature.
SEHN uses an Ecological Framework of Health for making explicit the interconnections among individual, family, community, population, and environmental health. A unifying goal of SEHN's work is to emphasize these connections and advocate for appropriate interventions. We use this framework in our goal to reconnect medicine with public and environmental health.
this year hosted by U-Mass Lowell, the group is working to implement a statewide primary prevention strategy, which we expect to be a catalyst in other states.
, argues that the law must be transformed to recognize that we live within the ecological constraints of the Earth. Our legal code should reward healthy, sustainable economic activity and uphold our nation's historic commitment to equal rights and justice for all.
Join us in creating a healthier world! Your support makes this work possible.
Join with SEHN to Create a Healthier World! |
0.934484 | The Hungarian town was founded in 972 by High Prince Géza on four islands in the moors of the streams Gaja and Sárvíz. He also had a small stone castle built. Székesfehérvár was first mentioned in a document by the Bishopric of Veszprém, 1009, as Alba Civitas.
St. Stephen granted town rights to the settlement, surrounded the town with a plank wall, had a provosty and a school built and under his rule the construction of the basilica began (it was built between 1003 and 1038). The settlement had about 3500 inhabitants at this time and was the royal seat for hundreds of years. 43 kings were crowned in Székesfehérvár (the last one in 1526) and 15 kings were buried here (the last one in 1540).
In the 12th century the town prospered, churches, monasteries and houses were built. It was an important station on the pilgrim road to the Holy Land. Andrew II issued the Golden Bull here in 1222. The Bull included the rights of nobles and the duties of the king, and the Constitution of Hungary was based on it until 1848. It is often compared to England's Magna Charta.
During the Mongol Invasion of Hungary (1241–1242) the invaders could not get close to the castle: Kadan ruled Mongol warriors could not get through the surrounding marshes because of flooding caused by melting snow. In the 13th–15th centuries the town prospered, several palaces were built. In the 14th century Székesfehérvár was surrounded by city walls.
The Ottomans occupied the city after a long siege in 1543 and only after a sally ended in most of the defenders including the commander, György Varkoch, being locked out by wealthy citizens fearing they might incur the wrath of the Ottomans by a lengthy siege. They discovered after surrendering, however, that the Ottomans were not without a sense for chivalry and those responsible for shutting the defenders out were put to death.
The city remained under Ottoman occupation for 145 years, until 1688, except for a short period in 1601 when it was re-occupied by an army led by Lawrence of Brindisi. The Ottomans destroyed most of the city, they demolished the cathedral and the royal palace, and they pillaged the graves of kings in the cathedral. They named the city Belgrade ("white city", from Serbian Beograd) and built mosques. In the 16th–17th centuries it looked like a Muslim city. Most of the original population fled. It was a sanjak centre in Budin Province as "İstolni Belgrad" during Ottoman rule.
The city began to prosper again only in the 18th century. It had a mixed population, Hungarians, Serbs, Germans and Moravians.
In 1702 Albert of Austria[disambiguation needed ] was ordered to blow up the cathedral of Nagyboldogasszony, therefore destroying the largest cathedral in Hungary at that time, and the coronation temple. According to the Doctrine of the Holy Crown, all kings of Hungary are obliged to be crowned in this cathedral, and to take part in coronation ceremony on the surroundings of the cathedral. The coronations after this time were done in Pozsony/Bratislava.
In 1703 Székesfehérvár regained the status of a free royal town. In the middle of the century several new buildings were erected (Franciscan church and monastery, Jesuit churches, public buildings, Baroque palaces). Maria Theresa made the city an episcopal seat in 1777.
By the early 19th century the German population was assimilated. On March 15, 1848 the citizens joined the revolution. After the revolution and war for independence Székesfehérvár lost its importance and became a mainly agricultural city. New prosperity arrived between the two world wars, when several new factories were opened.
After World War II the city was subject to the industrialization like many other cities and towns in the country. The most important factories were the Ikarus bus factory, the Videoton radio and TV factory and the Könnyűfémmű (colloquially Köfém) aluminium processing plant, since acquired by Alcoa. By the 1970s Székesfehérvár had swelled to more than 100,000 inhabitants (in 1945 it had only about 35,000.) Several housing estates were built, but the city centre was able to preserve its Baroque atmosphere. The most important Baroque buildings are the cathedral, the episcopal palace and the city hall.
In the past few decades archaeologists excavated medieval ruins (that of the Romanesque basilica and the mausoleum of St. Stephen of Hungary) that can be visited now.
At the end of the Socialist regime, all important factories were on the verge of collapsing (some eventually folded) and thousands of people lost their jobs. However, the city profited from losing the old and inefficient companies as abundance of skilled labour coupled with excellent traffic connections and existing infrastructure attracted numerous foreign firms seeking to invest in Hungary and Székesfehérvár became one of the prime destinations for multinational companies setting up shop in Hungary (Ford and IBM are some of them), turning the city into a success story of Hungary's transition into a market economy. A few years later Denso, Alcoa, Philips, and Sanmina-SCI Corporation also settled down in the city. |
0.995433 | Does this article make you feel awkward?
On Sunday, the charity Scope is launching a national television campaign to get people talking about why they might feel "awkward" around disabled people. Comedian Lee Ridley, known as Lost Voice Guy, regularly experiences public awkwardness.
Hello. I'm Lee, and I'm disabled. Do you feel awkward yet?
In fact, I have a disability called cerebral palsy and, in my case, it means I can't speak (I use a communication aid to talk with - a bit like Stephen Hawking but better looking). I move like a zombie from The Walking Dead, and the right side of my body is weaker than my left. Do you feel awkward now?
What if I told you that I also do stand-up comedy where I enjoy taking the mick out of myself and disability in general. How awkward are you about that? Judging by some audience members I've encountered recently, you may not know where to look.
According to a survey by the disability charity Scope, two out of three people feel uncomfortable talking to a disabled person. So they have launched a campaign to help people to end this perpetual awkward stand-off.
The awkwardness goes both ways though, rest assured.
My tablet computer speaks my words in a synthetic voice but I have to write those words first. And because people see me writing, people think I'm also deaf for some reason - I'm not. You don't have to write everything that you want to say to me on a piece of paper, I can understand you perfectly.
Of course, I will wait while you write down what you want to say to me, as, by then, I'll feel awkward too and I'm not going to make the situation worse by explaining things. I'll take the easy way out and let you continue, partly because I'm too polite, and partly because I can't be bothered to explain it... again. (Often I can't even read your writing but that's another matter).
You're not too sure what's up with me either, or how to refer to me, are you? Awkward. Often this comes from people you'd expect might know a thing or two: a doctor once kept calling me physically challenged. I always thought that was a game on The Crystal Maze.
Please don't get me started on the taxi driver who opened a conversation by asking me if I was as clever as Hawking! Of course, I'm not. The only thing I know about the universe is that He-Man is the master of it.
Contrary to popular belief, disabled people don't all know each other and we don't all live on Disabled Avenue (which is just behind Pigeon Street) either.
The survey by Scope also suggests that 43% of people don't know anyone who is disabled. Either those people are blind (which would be very ironic) or they don't understand disability that well. We're not all in wheelchairs. Some disabilities are more visible than others.
Only 17% of people are born with their disabilities. The rest I call the not-yet-disabled, because being able-bodied is not a lifelong certainty, I'm afraid. Now that's certainly awkward.
It's easy to joke about this awkwardness but it has serious consequences as well.
I'm fairly sure I've been overlooked for jobs because potential employers couldn't see past my disability. Of course, if they had asked me, I could have explained how I work and put their minds at rest. They probably felt too awkward to ask but, until that changes, disabled people will always be fighting a losing battle - a particular problem with the benefits system in disarray as it is.
When I started in stand-up comedy, I didn't do it to get people talking about disability more openly. But I'm fairly sure it has helped bridge the gap between disabled people and the not-yet-disabled people. I like to think I'm showing that disability is nothing to be scared of. It's something which can be joked about to help put people at ease.
So, feel free to be curious and ask questions, it's the only way we can all become less awkward.
Just don't write your questions on a piece of paper.
Lee Ridley, aka Lost Voice Guy, is performing his one-man show at this year's Edinburgh Fringe at The Assembly Rooms from 1-24 August at 17:00 BST. |
0.996868 | If a company files within an extension period, will it be considered timely for form eligibility purposes?
Yes - it will be treated as having timely filed its Exchange Act reports for the purposes of the Form S-3 eligibility requirements.
Form S-3 is available only to registrants who have filed their Form 10-Ks and 10-Qs on time during the most recent 12 month period.
Companies that file late and do not use Rule 12b-25 at all - and companies that file a Form 12b-25 but do not submit their reports within the applicable extension period - lose their ability to use short-form registration.
Source: The SEC's Manual of Publicly Available Phone Interpretations under "M. Exchange Act Rules", interpretation #17 discusses how secondary offerings on Form S-3 can continue during an extension - until a company fails to make a filing by the Rule 12b-25 deadline.
When a company no longer is "listed" by an exchange.
In other words, the exchange no longer allows the securities to be traded through its system.
Before a company can begin trading on an exchange or the Nasdaq Stock Market, it must meet certain initial requirements or "listing standards." The exchanges and the Nasdaq Stock Market set their own standards for listing and continuing to trade.
The SEC does not set listing standards. Many distressed companies are at risk of falling out of compliance with the Nasdaq, NYSE or Amex listing maintenance standards.
Nasdaq has been aggressive about enforcing its standards at least in part because it has been embarrassed by the number of Nasdaq-listed technology companies that have developed serious financial problems.
selecting "Reviews/Suspensions" in the drop-down category box.
What are the "listing standards"?
Each exchange has minimum qualifications that a company must meet - and maintain - to be listed.
These include quantitative and qualitative (e.g., corporate governance) standards.
The initial listing requirements mandate that a company meets specified minimum thresholds for: the number of publicly traded shares, total market value, stock price, and number of shareholders.
After a company starts trading, it must continue to meet different, less stringent standards set by the exchanges or Nasdaq.
market value of the public float number of market makers.
the SEC requires companies to be current in their filings before their stock can be quoted on the OTCBB.
or on the Pink Sheets, which do not have reporting requirements.
When a company isn't listed, it often will trade on the Pink Sheets or the Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB).
A stock that doesn't trade on a major exchange is said to trade over the counter (OTC).
This means that the stock is dealt between individuals connected by telephone and computer networks.
The company may be listed on the OTCBB because it is unable to meet the initial listing requirements of the Nasdaq or NYSE. In such a case, a company may choose to test the waters of the OTCBB, using it as a stepping stone before leaping into the larger exchanges and markets.
The Pink Sheets are different from the OTCBB.
Companies on the Pink Sheets are not required to meet minimum requirements or file with the SEC. So-named because they were actually printed on pink paper, the Pink Sheets started out as a daily quote service provided by the National Quotation Bureau.
Typically, companies are on the Pink Sheets because either they are too small to be listed on a national exchange or they do not wish to make their budgets and accounting statements public.
To avoid having to file with the SEC, some large foreign companies such as Nestle S.A. have penetrated the American securities markets through the Pink Sheets.
Companies listed on the Pink Sheets are difficult to analyze because it is tough to obtain accurate information about them.
The companies on the Pink Sheets are usually penny stocks and are often targets of price manipulation. They should only be purchased with extreme caution.
How Does a Company Become Quoted on the Pink Sheets?
To be quoted on the Pink Sheets, you need to find one market maker willing to quote your company's stock.
Only SEC-registered broker-dealers (market makers) that are members of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) can quote securities in the Pink Sheets.
Form 211 - SEC Rule 15c2-11 requires that, before a broker or dealer publishes proprietary quotes on a quotation medium, it must gather, review, and retain certain information about the issuer.
The market maker must file a Form 211 with the NASD OTC Compliance Unit, along with two copies of the required issuer information. After a successful review, the NASD Compliance Unit will notify the market maker that it may enter a quotation on the Pink Sheets. Issuers may contact a registered broker-dealer for sponsorship of a security on the Pink Sheets.
There are over 200 market makers that participate in the Pink Sheets. Only one market maker is required for a security to be in the Pink Sheets; however, not all market makers are willing to file a Form 211. Many market makers will begin to quote a security after it becomes "piggyback qualified" and they can do so without filing the Form 211.
There are no listing requirements to be quoted on the Pink Sheets. Current financial information must be submitted with the Form 211. Current NASD rules do not require the financial statements of Pink Sheet issuers to be audited, but they should be prepared in accordance with GAAP or, for foreign issuers, in accordance with their home country's accounting standards.
A company can help a market maker quote its stock by providing the market maker with information.
SEC Rule 15c2-11 requires a broker/dealer to obtain and keep in its files certain information about an issuer before initiating a quote for the issuer.
The market maker must have a reasonable basis for believing that the information is accurate and obtained from reliable sources.
The required information includes a general business description, location and contact information, officers, total shares outstanding, transfer agent, recent prospectus or offering circular, balance sheet, retained earnings and profit and loss statements.
The NASD monitors compliance with this rule by requiring market makers to file a Form 211 at least 3 days prior to quotation in the Pink Sheets.
NASD review may take a considerable amount of time depending, among other things, on whether or not the NASD requests additional information from the market maker and the amount of time required to respond to requests for additional information.
Because the Pink Sheets is a quotation medium for subscribing members and not an issuer listing service, a delisted issuer cannot "list" themselves in the Pink Sheets.
The Issuer of the securities is subject to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and current in its filing obligations.
The securities were delisted from NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ or the OTCBB.
The Issuer is a bank, savings and loan, or insurance company.
The securities were issued as part of a bankruptcy plan of reorganization.
The security being quoted is a foreign ordinary, which is listed on a foreign exchange, or an ADR representing such ordinaries.
The Issuer is not subject to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. However, adequate current information concerning the Issuer is publicly available via the Pink Sheets News Service and the Issuer's transfer agent is registered under the Exchange Act. This information must be [is] less than 90 days old and [it] include, at a minimum, the following basic information regarding the issuer specified in paragraphs (a)(5)(i) to (xiii), inclusive, and paragraph (a)(5)(xvi) of Rule 15c2-11 under the Exchange Act or, if the issuer is an insurance company, the information specified in Section 12(g)(2)(G)(i) of the Exchange Act. Pink Sheets has created a Guideline for Providing Adequate Current Information Pursuant to Rule 15c2-11 (pdf) to help OTC issuers and brokers in understanding what information is required to be provided.
Previously in this thread, I supplied several posts that will identify various discussion points of the PR. If you feel that additional data is required, PM me and I will add it, after it has been edited for content where relevent to this thread..
For the sake of clarity and ease of discussion, I’ve broke out this PR up into 38 distinctive discussion points.
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 2005--Commencing at 9:30 a.m. EST yesterday, trading of the common stock of CMKM Diamonds Inc. (Pink Sheets:CMKX) was temporarily suspended by the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC").
(1). This temporary suspension will expire on March 16 at 11:59 p.m. EST and trading in CMKX is anticipated to resume on March 17, 2005.
of Rules 144 and 145 of the Securities Act.
company that has done business with CMKX.
back to transactions and stock issuances in 2002.
cause this temporary suspension of trading.
to be issued by the SEC in the near future.
and maintain the integrity of the securities markets.
(13). CMKX is continuing to search for additional property claims in Canada and monitor its holdings in Ecuador.
(14). On Feb. 17, 2005, CMKX filed an amended Form 15 to reinstate its reporting obligations under the 34 Act. SEC regulations require CMKX to file, within 60 days after the date of the filing of the amended Form 15, all reports which would have been required had the original Form 15 not been filed.
(15). CMKX has not been provided a waiver, "variance" or any other relief by the SEC for complying with the 60-day requirement.
able to comply with the 60-day requirement.
stock and continues to aggressively do everything within its power to comply with its 34 Act reporting requirements.
(19) CMKX anticipates filing a number of significant corporate updates with the SEC in the upcoming weeks on Form 8-K.
(20).Investors and stockholders are encouraged to review these forms as they become available through the SEC's EDGAR database.
concept: all investors, whether large institutions or private individuals, should have access to certain basic facts about an investment prior to buying it.
(22)."Casavant reiterated, "We understand the importance of supplying accurate information to the public and have made it our top priority to uncompromisingly disclose all material corporate information as soon as it becomes available."
has disclosed certain corporate information pertaining to its operations and corporate structure.
approximately 2,032 stockholders of record (excluding shares held in "street name").
address to 5375 Procyon St., Suite 101, Las Vegas, NV.
to allow them to focus on completing the tasks at hand.
on Form 8-K as they become available.
which offers the public a wealth of educational information.
(32).Generally, the words "believe," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate,"
statements, which generally are not historical in nature.
to differ materially from CMKX's historical experience and its projections.
may differ from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.
Point #1 (hereafter all points will be referred to as simply their numerial assigned identifer).
WOW fastwalker, did you ever leave your computer this weekend. |
0.904548 | A 50,000-year record of mammals consumed by early humans in southwestern France indicates there was no major difference in the prey hunted by Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, according to a new study.
The paper, published in the online Journal of Archaeological Science, counters the idea proposed by some scientists that Cro-Magnon, who were physically similar to modern man, supplanted Neanderthals because they were more skilled hunters as a result of some evolutionary physical or mental advantage.
"This study suggests Cro-Magnon were not superior in getting food from the landscape," said lead author Donald Grayson, a University of Washington professor of archaeology. "We could detect no difference in diet, the animals they were hunting and the way they were hunting across this period of time, aside from those caused by climate change.
"So the takeover by Cro-Magnon does not seem to be related to hunting capability. There is no significant difference in large mammal use from Neanderthals to Cro-Magnon in this part of the world. The idea that Neanderthals were big, dumb brutes is hard for some people to drop. Cro-Magnon created the first cave art, but late Neanderthals made body ornaments, so the depth of cognitive difference between the two just is not clear."
The study also resurrects a nearly 50-year-old theory first proposed by Finnish paleontologist Björn Kurtén that modern humans played a role in the extinction of giant cave bears in Europe. Cro-Magnon may have been the original "apartment hunters" and displaced the bears by competing with them for the same caves the animals used for winter den sites.
Grayson and his colleague, Francoise Delpech, a French paleontologist at the Institut de Prehistoire et de Geologie du Quanternaire at the University of Bordeaux, examined the fossil record left in Grotte XVI, a cave above the Ceou River, near its confluence with the Dordogne River. The cave has a rich, dated archaeological sequence that extends from about 65,000 to about 12,000 years ago, spanning the time when Neanderthals flourished and died off and when Cro-Magnon moved into the region. Neanderthals disappeared from southwestern France around 35,000 years ago, although they survived longer in southern Spain and central Europe.
The researchers were most interested in the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic, or Middle to Late Stone Age.
Neanderthals occupied Grotte XVI as far back as 65,000 years ago, perhaps longer. Between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago, people began making stone tools in France, including at Grotte XVI, that were more like those later fashioned by Cro-Magnon. However, human remains found with these tools at several sites, were Neanderthal, not Cro-Magnon. Similar tools but no human remains from this time period were found in Grotte XVI and people assumed to be Cro-Magnon did not occupy the cave until about 30,000 years ago.
The researchers examined more than 7,200 bones and teeth from large hoofed mammals that had been recovered from the cave. The animals – ungulates such as reindeer, red deer, roe deer, horses and chamois were the most common prey – were the mainstay of humans in this part of the world, according to Grayson.
He and Delpech found a remarkable dietary similarity over time. Throughout the 50,000-year record, each bone and tooth assemblage, regardless of the time period or the size of the sample involved, contained eight or nine species of ungulates, indicating that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon both hunted a wide variety of game.
The only difference the researchers found was in the relative abundance of species, particularly reindeer, uncovered at the various levels in Grotte XVI. At the oldest dated level in the cave, reindeer remains accounted for 26 percent of the total. Red deer were the most common prey at this time, accounting for nearly 34 percent of the bones and teeth. However, as summer temperatures began to drop in Southwestern France, the reindeer numbers increased and became the prey of choice. By around 30,000 years ago, when Cro-Magnon moved into the region, reindeer accounted for 52 percent of the bones and teeth. And by around 12,500 years ago, during the last ice age, reindeer remains accounted for 94 percent of bones and teeth found in Grotte XVI.
Grayson and Delpech also looked at the cut marks left on bones to analyze how humans were butchering their food. They found little difference except, surprisingly, at the uppermost level, which corresponds to the last ice age.
"It is possible that because it was so cold, people were hard up for food," Grayson said. "The bones were very heavily butchered, which might be a sign of food stress. However, if this had occurred earlier during Neanderthal times, people would have said this is a sure sign that Neanderthals did not have the fine hand-eye coordination to do fine butchering."
In examining the Grotte XVI record, the researchers also found a sharp drop in the number of cave bears from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon times.
"Cave bears and humans may have been competing for the same living space and this may have led to their extinction," Grayson said. He added that it is not clear if the decline and eventual extinction of the bears was driven by an increase in the number of humans or increased human residence times in caves, or both.
"If we can understand the extinction of any animal from the past, such as the cave bear, it gives us a piece of evidence showing the importance of habitat to animals. The cave bear is one of the icons of the late Pleistocene Epoch, similar to the saber tooth cats and mammoths in North America. If further study supports Kurtén's argument, we finally may be in a position to confirm a human role in the extinction of a large Pleistocene mammal on a Northern Hemisphere continent." |
0.944839 | Mention the name Dizzy Gillespie and the image of the musician playing the trumpet with his cheeks puffed up with air comes to mind. No doubt some music instructor at some time tried to get him to change his style, but Gillespie persisted and did it his own way. Throughout an illustrious career, which is in its sixth decade, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie has distinguished himself as a truly immortal figure in the history of America’s “classical music” as a virtuoso musician, pioneer, innovator, composer, arranger, bandleader, raconteur, and cultural ambassador. Born in Cheraw in 1917, Gillespie was the last of nine children. His father, who was the leader of a small band, died when Dizzy was ten years old. Until his father’s death, the young lad was exposed to many instruments. He first played the trombone. When he was 12 years old he switched to trumpet and began playing for dances at schools in his area. Mr. Gillespie has performed before numerous royalty and countless world leaders, including four American presidents; has appeared as guest soloist with symphony orchestras all over the world; has won every imaginable award in the field of jazz; and has received 14 honorary doctoral degrees. In 1989, he was honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Gillespie, with the late Charlie Parker, is acclaimed as the co-founder of Bebop which revolutionized music of the 20th Century. Over 40 years ago, Gillespie began to explore the varied music of cultures throughout the world. He is the catalyst who incorporated Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and Caribbean music and rhythms into the jazz idiom. He believes that jazz “celebrates the internationally of music — our common language, our common bond.” In 1956, Gillespie was the first jazz artist appointed by the Department of State as Cultural Ambassador to tour on behalf of the United States of America. His successful tours through the Near East, Asia Eastern Europe and Latin America were early landmarks in a lifetime of cultural statesmanship by Gillespie. In January 1989, Mr. Gillespie was asked to embark on a ground-breaking tour of Africa sponsored by the United States Information Agency Arts America Program. In Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Zaire and Nigeria — where, installed as a traditional Chieftain, “Baashere of Iperu,” Chief Gillespie became the “King of Entertainers” – the legendary “Master of Bebop” returned proudly to this roots and “wowed ’em!” His spectacular all-star United National Orchestra has performed in 14 countries on three continents since its inception in 1988. Mr. Gillespie’s synthesis of the African/American and Afro-Cuban experience is the subject of the award-winning film, “A Night in Havana,” which is currently in theatrical release throughout the world. On June 13, 1989, the Maestro was awarded the highest honor in the Arts in France when he was designated a Commandre d’Ordre des Artes et Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. At the White House on November 17, 1989, Mr. Gillespie was honored with the National Medal of Arts by President George Bush. |
0.80855 | Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law, Alfred Davis, founded Wilsdorf and Davis, the company that would eventually become Rolex SA, in London, England in 1905. Wilsdorf and Davis' main business at the time was importing Hermann Aegler's Swiss movements to England and placing them in quality watch cases made by Dennison and others.
These early wristwatches were sold to jewellers, who then put their own names on the dial. The earliest watches from Wilsdorf and Davis were usually hallmarked "W&D" inside the casebook, and in 1908, Wilsdorf registered the trademark "Rolex" and opened an office in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The company name "Rolex" was registered on 15 November 1915.
The book The Best of Time: Rolex Wristwatches: An Unauthorized History by Jeffrey P. Hess and James Dowling says that the name was just made up. One story, never confirmed by Wilsdorf, is that the name came from the French phrase horlogerie exquise, meaning "exquisite clockwork" or as a contraction of "horological excellence". Wilsdorf was said to want his watch brand's name to be easily pronounceable in any language. He also thought that the name "Rolex" was onomatopoeic, sounding like a watch being wound. It is easily pronounceable in many languages and, as all letters have the same size, allows to be written symmetrically. It was also short enough to fit on the face of a watch.
In 1914, Kew Observatory awarded a Rolex watch a Class A precision certificate, a distinction which was normally awarded exclusively to marine chronometers, and in 1919, Wilsdorf left England due to wartime taxes levied on luxury imports as well as export duties on the silver and gold used for the watch cases driving costs too high and moved the company to Geneva, Switzerland, where it was established as the Rolex Watch Company.
Its name was later changed to Montres Rolex, SA and finally Rolex, SA. Upon the death of his wife in 1944, Wilsdorf established the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation in which he left all of his Rolex shares, making sure that some of the company's income would go to charity. The company is still owned by a private trust and shares are not traded on any stock exchange.
Rolex participated in the development of the original quartz watch movements. Although Rolex has made very few quartz models for its Oyster line, the company's engineers were instrumental in design and implementation of the technology during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1968, Rolex collaborated with a consortium of 16 Swiss watch manufacturers to develop the Beta 21 quartz movement used in their Rolex Quartz Date 5100. Alongside other manufactures including the Omega Electroquartz watches. Within about five years of research, design, and development, Rolex created the "clean-slate" 5035/5055 movement that would eventually power the Rolex Oysterquartz.
Rolex produced specific models suitable for the extremes of deep-sea diving, caving, mountain climbing, polar exploration, and aviation. Early sports models included the Rolex Submariner (1953) and the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date Sea Dweller. The latter watch has a helium release valve, co-invented with Swiss watchmaker Doxa, to release helium gas build-up during decompression. The Explorer (1953) and Explorer II (1971) were developed specifically for explorers who would navigate rough terrain, such as the world famous Mount Everest expeditions.
Another iconic model is the Rolex GMT Master (1954), originally developed at the request of Pan Am Airways to provide its crews with a dual time watch that could be used to display GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), which is the international time standard for aviation and was needed for Astronavigation during longer flights. |
0.999983 | shebangs with absolute paths are default (POSIX)?
EDIT: The question and the answers are correct, but the problem I stated here is not. The maintainer actually REFUSED to use /usr/bin/env as a solution and instead recreated the script as an sh one, and doing that broke other users installs. So, using env for finding bash is not POSIX, but is default "enough" to be considered a standard.
I'm having some errors on installing software on nixos (specifically the haskell stack ) and after some digging on internet, I found some examples of people having trouble with the specific path of installed software. Here an example where a maintainer reverted a modification to a /usr/bin/env solution on finding bash because it broke other users installations.
So, referring to env on a shebang without informing the absolute path of installation (relying on the system search path) is something that could be considered wrong?
if the absolute path of installation for env itself is not default on all systems?
env is present in /usr/bin on virtually all Unix-like systems that are still extant in the 21st century. The two exceptions I'm aware of are SCO OpenServer (which still powers a few very old servers) and NextSTEP (there can't be much supported hardware that hasn't died out). For portability, use #!/usr/bin/env. Anything else is less portable (except #!/bin/sh, which carries its own problems and is only useful if you do plan to run your script on SCO).
POSIX and Single Unix don't define /usr/bin/env, or /bin/sh, or any absolute path other than /, /tmp, and a few entries in /dev. /usr/bin/env is not a formal Unix standard, but it is very much a de facto standard.
#!/usr/bin/env bash is perfectly fine for a bash script and I question the wisdom of the maintainer who rejected a change from #!/bin/bash. It looks like the maintainer was ruffled by the request and then didn't take it very seriously. Changing to use standard sh instead of bash is even better for portability, but apparently that didn't work (the script probably had a nonstandard construct left). If converting the script to work in other shells was not possible then the script should still have been changed to use #!/usr/bin/env bash instead of #!/bin/bash.
One common historical implementation is that the execl(), execv(), execle(), and execve() functions return an [ENOEXEC] error for any file not recognizable as executable, including a shell script. When the execlp() and execvp() functions encounter such a file, they assume the file to be a shell script and invoke a known command interpreter to interpret such files. This is now required by POSIX.1-2008. These implementations of execvp() and execlp() only give the [ENOEXEC] error in the rare case of a problem with the command interpreter's executable file. Because of these implementations, the [ENOEXEC] error is not mentioned for execlp() or execvp(), although implementations can still give it.
Another way that some historical implementations handle shell scripts is by recognizing the first two bytes of the file as the character string "#!" and using the remainder of the first line of the file as the name of the command interpreter to execute.
If the process image file is a valid executable (in a format that is executable and valid and having appropriate privileges) for this system, then the system executes the file.
If the process image file has appropriate privileges and is in a format that is executable but not valid for this system (such as a recognized binary for another architecture), then this is an error and errno is set to [EINVAL] (see later RATIONALE on [EINVAL]).
If this is a call to execlp() or execvp(), then they invoke a command interpreter assuming that the process image file is a shell script.
If this is not a call to execlp() or execvp(), then an error occurs and errno is set to [ENOEXEC].
where <shell path> is an unspecified pathname for the sh utility, file is the process image file, and for execvp(), where arg0, arg1, and so on correspond to the values passed to execvp() in argv, argv2, and so on.
The shell reads its input from a file (see sh), from the -c option or from the system() and popen() functions defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2008. If the first line of a file of shell commands starts with the characters "#!", the results are unspecified.
Can't locate object method "echo" via package "./foo.sh" (perhaps you forgot to load "./foo.sh"?) at ./foo.sh line 2.
Which character encodings are supported by posix?
are the results of echo $(FOO=bar foobar) unspecified in a POSIX shell?
Why are System V message queues conforming POSIX NOT called POSIX message queues? |
0.950399 | What kind of people to truly treasure in life?
There are very few of these kind of people left in the world now. Most are haters. |
0.999884 | The right Python developers will distinguish themselves with experience in developing projects similar to the position you’re trying to fill. This hiring kit includes a general job description, sample interview questions, and a basic want ad to help you determine who is right for the job.
Python is a widely used general purpose interpreted programming language. It’s a high-level language that can support multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative, functional programming, and procedural styles. Because of this language versatility, the skills, specializations, and experience of Python developers tends to vary considerably.
The search for candidates for a Python developer needs to be as project-specific as possible. Narrowing a search to candidates with specific experience in coding and developing applications similar to your project will save time and eliminate mismatches. However, because the code is designed to be highly readable, all candidates should be able to write code that is clear, clean, and concise, with proper indentions and delineated code blocks.
The Python developer will work with a team of developers, product managers, and other stakeholders. The team will use Python to design, build, test, and deploy applications using the Python programming language. The application may include [insert your company’s projects here].
The successful candidate will have superior coding and programming skills as well as a demonstrable ability to communicate and successfully collaborate with other team members. They should also be skilled in translating vague concepts into plans of action and achievable milestones. |
0.999884 | According to the First Golden Rule we should "Buy what's worth owning forever". A company is worth owning forever if it has a great financial track record.
Analysing past financial performance is important as it defines the present condition of the company and gives one pointer for how well equipped the company is to handle future uncertainty. |
0.951638 | When does fasting begin and end?
The streak of dawn which starts the prohibitions of fasting is the time of imsak. By then, the deadline of the night prayer ends and the time of the morning prayer begins. This time is also when sahur ends and fasting begins. The time of sunset when prohibitions of fasting end is called the time of iftar. By this time, the time of the evening prayer begins. In places where day and night do not form fully, the time of imsak and iftar is determined with estimation. |
0.981185 | 1. If you feel constantly being humiliated by your partner for no absolute reasons, it is a toxic relationship. Often in a healthy relationship, a person is generally happier, more stable and positive energies overflow constantly. A toxic relationship will drain you emotionally. You no longer recognize yourself. You feel ungrounded and unable to move out. You will constantly finding yourself getting ill frequently and pains in all the part of your body.
2. When people fall in love, you see only the good side of the person. You will find everything is gorgeous and whatever the person will say, you will find it easy to go for it. But this is not love. This is stupidity. Balancing is important. Do not just got for a relationship just because you are alone. Know the person well, their qualities and what you do not like. Sometimes both partners need to compromise because of indifferences else this lead to toxic relationship. You no longer have the same pleasure and sensuality like before. Your desires towards your partner seem to fade out and one of you seem to have more power over the other one.
3. Before, you held a high self esteem to yourself, had more respect for your partner and there was an innocence in your relationship. Now, there is no freewill but more arguments and discussion. Your partner no longer approach you with more compassion and empathy. There is more conflict.
4. You both have contrasting communication styles. You both speak words that only hurt and assertiveness is now aggressiveness and there is no win-win situation. Sometimes there is more dishonesty. One partner can start cheating or having extra marital affairs. Partners cannot separate because of children. You are living the worse toxic relationship.
5. Your partner has lost his trust on you and is more jealous of you. Sometimes in certain cases, partners display jealousy because of their partner is more successful than them and they cannot bear this. This is the ego which is speaking. What can be done to heal this relationship or should you move out?
1. In order to heal your relationship, first of all you will have to understand yourself and love yourself more. Try to find out what is missing in you, what are the mistakes you have done and how can you make yourself a better person. Make a list of all the good things about you and be grateful.
2. Secondly, you will have to list of all the good things about your partner. How you both met, recall all the moments and think deeply why are you both leading a toxic relationship? How can this be solved?
3. Both should find a comfortable place and sit down opposite side tending away from each other. Start the conversation and talk softly. This is difficult as one of you will tend to be one man show. But you will have to give each other time to speak and heal this relationship.
4. Recall all wonderful moments, re-write your vows and promises and sort out all differences. Plan a vacation together.
5. If this doesn’t work, then it is time to move out because staying longer in a toxic relationship will make you unstable, aggressive, hostile, unfriendly and indecisive. |
0.999998 | When going on trip, go away your automobile in your driveway. If this isn’t doable, ask your neighbor if he or she will park in your driveway. If intruders see a car in the driveway, they may assume somebody is residence. This implies they are going to avoid breaking into your private home. Altering the locks on your house may be an effective way to extend security. Locks should all the time be modified when buying a brand new dwelling. There could possibly be numerous people that had copies of the keys, from the actual property agent to the earlier house owners. Locks also needs to be modified every time your keys change into misplaced, or after a break-up in a relationship.
In the event you dwell in a snowy space, remember that an absence of footprints in your yard can sign to a burglar that you are out of town. If you’re planning to be away, then, ask considered one of your neighbors to stroll around your yard for you in order that no one would be the wiser. Put down a fence in your yard to safe the realm that is yours and stop burglars from coming in. Be sure that this fence is excessive sufficient in order that it is extremely tough for any robbers to recover from it. It will add a robust layer of safety across the perimeter of your own home.
If you are on the lookout for a superb place to cover a spare key, think about taping one to the within of your dog’s collar. This is significantly useful if you have a large canine that is not very friendly with strangers. You’ll have a spare key close , and you will not have to fret about anybody gaining access to it. In term of solid recommendation, you have simply read a considerable amount of it. How are you going to use it for your dwelling? Stay informed about this subject and hold defending your private home and your family.
This will prevent your door from opening up if the clamp is near its roller.
Ensure all exterior wiring is properly protected or covered. Copper wiring is a favorite object for theft as it’s typically accessible from outside the home and could be sold for an excessive amount of cash. Air conditioners are a main goal for copper thieves. Also ensure exterior power and phone traces are protected and not simply minimize. If any spot round your own home is dark, install a motion sensitive or infrared gentle detector there. This turns them on solely when somebody lurks there, permitting you to save cash on electrical energy whereas thwarting anybody who is likely to be casing out your home. No one will rob a house which is nicely lit!
Ask for ID earlier than letting anybody into your private home. Posing as a safety professional is an excellent means for an experienced thief to get inside your home and plan a less-pleasant return visit. This puts your household and valuables at appreciable danger. Act cautiously to avoid potential dangers. Don’t depend on just a spring lock. Spring locks can simply be broken, typically simply utilizing a bank card. These locks are simply too susceptible. Have a deadbolt lock put in as a substitute, which is way tougher for an intruder to get round. Ensure that there is no way a burglar can saw the deadbolt, although.
If you personal a house, you then perceive the significance of maintaining it safe. There’s nothing worse than having your own home severely damaged. The home in which you reside is often your most substantial funding, and it’s the place you conduct your life. Learn on for recommendation to keep this most valuable asset secure. Don’t maintain your spare key in a place simple to find for intruders. Many people put the key in a mailbox, or under a plant. That is a lot too simple for a criminal to search out. Consider an space a burglar wouldn’t look. One good solution to disguise a key’s by burying it someplace in your yard.
If you can be going out of time, have someone you belief get your mail. Also, have them search for fliers caught in your door. Thieves have put them up in order to see if individuals are home to take them down. If the flier is not removed, it is easy for a burglar to suspect that the proprietor is away. Go away your garage door closed, even if you are at dwelling. A storage provides easy access into your house. Many people additionally store things of worth in that area, making it enticing to intruders. Therefore, shut it every time you are not exterior in your yard. It is better to be secure than sorry.
If anybody tries to enter your own home unannounced, Rover can be on guard, barking at them until they take off fleeing and your private home is secure again. |
0.998909 | VPython 6 is based on the cross-platform library wxPython (wxpython.org), which allows Python programs to create windows and handle events on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. The major changes from VPython 5 made possible by wxPython are the elimination of nearly all platform--dependent C++ code, the elimination of complex multithreading in the C++ code, and the ability for Macintosh versions to use 64-bit Python based on the Cocoa framework (VPython 5 on the Mac was based on the Carbon framework, which is no longer supported by Apple).
Almost all VPython 5 programs will run on VPython 6 with no change. However, animation loops must have a rate or sleep statement (not time.sleep) to permit the screen to be updated, and you must import visual or vis before importing graph or controls or filedialog, which most users have always done anyway.
There are new "callback" and "waitfor" mechanisms available for handling mouse and keyboard events, which provide more flexibility and capability.
The functions for reading and writing files now offer platform-standard file dialog boxes.
At times you may need to know how large is the display region inside a window: window.dwidth and window.dheight are the extra width and height of windows compared to the display region. For example, if scene.width and scene.height are 500, the actual display region within the window has width = scene.width - window.dwidth and height = scene.height - window.dheight. If a menubar is added, that takes up an additional amount of vertical space given by window.menuheight.
VPython was initially created by David Scherer in the spring of 2000. Assisting him were David Andersen, Ruth Chabay, Ari Heitner, Ian Peters, and Bruce Sherwood.
Starting in 2002, Jonathan Brandmeyer made several major contributions to VPython 3, including changing the connection between Python and C++ from CXX, which was no longer supported, to the Boost C++ libraries, and implementing auto-configurable installations for Linux.
Arthur Siegel implemented dependence on the currently supported numpy library in place of Numeric, which is no longer supported. Hugh Fisher provided a big start on the native-mode Mac version and initiated work on stereo display, which was completed by John Zelle and Bruce Sherwood. Shaun Press implemented the pyramid and ellipsoid objects. Michael Temkine fixed some bugs and implemented keyboard handling for Windows.
VPython 5 was created by David Scherer and Bruce Sherwood in 2008. Jonathan Brandmeyer provided support in VPython 4beta for opacity, local lighting, and textures, and made some important architectural changes, but had to stop work on the project before it was completed. Further development led to API changes which were incompatible with the VPython 4beta release, so there was no version 4.
Kadir Haldenbilen and Bruce Sherwood collaborated to create the 3D text object and the extrusion object for VPython 5.
The development of VPython 6, based on wxPython, was initiated by Bruce Sherwood in June 2012. Major contributions to the first release were made by Steve Spicklemire.
2013-03-02: VPython 6.04 released to fix bugs and improve documentation.
2011-05-06 VPython 5.71: Adds log-log and semilog plots to graphs, and the ability to offset the graph origin. Thanks to a diagnosis by David Scherer, random dots around the text of label objects (Windows and Linus) are (nearly) eliminated. A bug that occasionally prevented a graph from displaying has been fixed.
2011-03-27 VPython 5.70: Adds an easy to use way to leave a trail behind a moving object..
2011-03-23 VPython 5.61: Adds mouse crosshairs to graphs, simplifies the use of controls (no need to call interact), fixes a long-standing inconsistency in the background of a label object's box, and fixes bugs in materials.bricks and in the checking for the presence of Polygon and font modules.
2011-03-13 VPython 5.60: Add facilities to extract faces data from extrusion and text objects, and to make extrusion and text objects single-sided for speed. Kadir Haldenbilen contributed improved gear facilities to the shapes library, including rack gears.
2011-03-01 VPython 5.51: Fix memory leak on Windows and Mac. Correct errors in assigning color and material to a text object.
2011-02-20 VPython 5.50 for all platforms introduces the powerful extrusion object developed by Kadir Haldenbilen and Bruce Sherwood. Included are shapes and paths libraries that simplify the creation of complex extrusions. Haldenbilen has also contributed new materials which can be viewed in the updated example program material_test.py. The curve object has been modified to be able to use the new shapes and paths libraries.
2010-12-02 VPython 5.41 for Windows, to fix bugs in active and passive stereo.
2010-11-22 VPython 5.4 package for Python 2.6 for Windows and Mac, which includes numpy 1.5.1. It was pointed out that there was no scipy module for Python 2.7 or Python 3.1, and the existing VPython 5.32 for Python 2.6 included numpy 1.3, whereas scipy now requires numpy 1.4.
2010-11-03 VPython 5.4 package for Python 2.5, 2.6, or 2.7 for Linux. This package can presumably also be used to build on Python 3.1, but this would require building Boost libraries for Python 3.1, for which there may not be Linux packages.
2010-10-27 VPython 5.4 for Python 2.7 and Python 3.1, for Windows and Mac.This release includes a new module, "vis", which permits selective import of VPython objects without the importing of math and numpy that is done for "from visual import *". See the main page of the full documentation for details. The font modules included in this VPython installer have been updated to work with Python 3.1, but tested only to the extent that they work with VPython. It is quite possible that additional work is needed to make them fully functional with Python 3.1. Ned Deily fixed a problem with IDLE (and VIDLE) on Macs; it was recently noticed that quitting on the Mac did not prompt you to save unsaved code.
2010-09-14 Beta test version of VPython 5.32 for Python 3.1, currently only for Windows.
2010-09-04 VPython 5.32 for Python 2.7 rebuilt for Intel Mac to use production version of numpy 1.5.0..
2010-08-31 VPython 5.32 for Python 2.7 rebuilt for Windows to use production version of numpy 1.5.0.
2010-08-16 VPython 5.32 is now available for Python 2.7 for Windows and Intel Macs using beta version of numpy 1.5.0.
2010-04-10 VPython 5.32 released for all platforms. Now the 3D text object handles multiline text containing newline characters ("\n"), and Kadir Haldenbilen made a 20% speedup in the creation of the text object.
2010-04-02 VPython 5.31 released for all platforms. Kadir Haldenbilen made further corrections to the ttfquery and FontTools modules, which fixed a variety of errors in rendering 3D text.
2010-03-30 VPython 5.3 released for all platforms. Thanks to great work by Kadir Haldenbilen, there is a new "text" object that from any True Type (.ttf) font produces extruded 3D text. This supercedes the very limited old visual.text machinery (which however is being left in place for upward compatibility). The Windows and Mac versions install some font-handling modules that include Polygon, for which the following conditions apply: "Polygon is being distributed subject to the following conditions: This distribution contains code from the GPC Library, and/or code resulting from the use of the GPC Library. This usage has been authorized by The University of Manchester, on the understanding that the GPC-related features are used only in the context of this distribution. It is not permitted to extract the GPC code from the distribution as the basis for commercial exploitation, unless a GPC Commercial Use Licence is obtained from The University of Manchester, contact: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/gpc/". There are new faces functions make_normals() and make_twosided(), and you can now specify your own criterion for smooth(). The gcurve object for making graphs now has an option "dot=True" that highlights the currently plotted point on the curve. Some minor bugs were fixed in faces, points, and helix.
2010-02-17 Gary Pajer pointed out that numpy 1.4.0 had been withdrawn, so VPython 5.24 for Windows and for Mac were built to use numpy 1.3.0 instead.
2010-02-03 Mirko Bordignon fixed a bug in the Mac build procedure that made VPython 5.22 not work on OSX 10.5. VPython 5.23 for the Mac should work on OSX 10.4 or later.
2010-01-28 Thanks to work by Mirko Bordignon on threading problems, VPython 5.21 released for the Mac, which may address problems seen on the Mac with VPython refusing to start. It was discovered that 5.21 didn't work on OSX 10.5, so Mirko rebuilt the Boost libraries on OSX 10.5 and verified that VPython would then work on both 10.5 and 10.6, and a VPython 5.22 installer was released based on these libraries.
2010-01-26 VPython 5.2 released for Windows, Mac, and Linux includes new faces function "smooth()" which averages similar normals at shared vertices to make an object look smoother. See faces documentation.
2009-12-23 VPython 5.14 released for Windows for any version of Python 2.6. This fixes a problem that until the development of Boost 1.41 it was not possible to build an installer for VPython that worked with Python 2.6.4. VPython 5.14 is otherwise identical to VPython 5.13. Work is proceeding to deal with the same problem on Macintosh (work completed 2010-01-23, thanks to help from Mirko Bordignon). For Linux, simply use Boost 1.41 to build VPython.
2009-10-13 VPython 5.13 released for Windows (Python 2.6), Mac (Python 2.6, Intel, OSX 10.4 and above), and Linux. Bugs fixed on Linux concerned with making windows visible and invisible, and with reporting correct values of scene.x, scene.y, scene.width, and scene.height. Bugs fixed on all platforms: vector.mag now is ordinary number instead of numpy.ndarray; helix.color is (red,green,blue) instead of an array (the array of colors in the helical curve is helix.helix.color); corrected documentation error which erroneously claimed that that you couldn't specify a list of points for gcurve, gvbars, or ghbars; error in VIDLE corrected by Guilherme Polo -- sometimes initially scrolled so that the first line was not visible.
2009-08-21 VPython 5.12 released for Windows (Python 2.6), Mac (Python 2.6, Intel, OSX 10.4 and 10.5), and Linux. New: frame_to_world and world_to_frame functions for converting between frame and "world" coordinates, stimulated by a suggestion of Robert Xiao. Fixes: bug in frame manipulations (pointed out by Robert Xiao), bug in helix that didn't permit creating additional attributes when creating a helix. There are significant improvements to VIDLE thanks to Guilherme Polo, including the ability to edit and test without first saving a file, and the shell window coming forward when there is an error, to alert you. The VIDLE startup icon on the Mac (in /Applications/VPython) has been simplified and is probably more robust.
2009-06-19 VPython 5.11 released for Windows (Python 2. 5 and 2.6 ), Mac (Python 2.6, Intel and PowerPC, OSX 10.4 and 10.5), and Linux. Not yet released for Mac with Python 2.5. VPython 5.11 fixes a minor bug in the handling of arrow attributes fixedwidth, shaftwidth, headwidth, and headlength to make behavior consistent with VPython 3. The documentation on these arrow attributes has been made clearer.
2009-05-15 VPython 5.1 for Python 2.6 released for Windows, Mac, and Linux. David Scherer provided crucial help for getting VPython to work on Python 2.6. VPython 5.1 includes formerly missing features of VPython 3, including right-button and middle-button mouse event handling. VPython 5 provides the basic mouse event functionality that was present in VPython 3 for handling events from right and middle buttons when userspin or userzoom is disabled, out of concern for supporting old programs. However, it has become evident that there are limitations to this approach which could preclude some kinds of mouse handling that people might want to do in the future. For example, you might want to allow userspin with right drags yet also pick up right clicks. For that reason it is conceivable that future developments in this area might break existing programs, and therefore for maximum forward compatibility it is prudent to use only left-button interactions in new programs.
2009-01-20 VPython 5.03 for all platforms incorporates a fix to handling keyboard events proposed by CL Cheung after his careful analysis of a deadlock condition.
2009-01-17 VPython 5.02 for all platforms incorporates corrections made by CL Cheung: fixing a bug associated with changing the opacity of an object in a frame, and, on Windows, changing some details of mouse handling which affected docking/undocking operations in the wxpython context. Tests of the frame bug which failed on Windows did not fail on Mac or Ubuntu, but the fix has been incorporated anyway, as there really was a bug in the code.
2008-12-31 VPython 5.01 for Linux corrects an error in the size attribute of the points object. New documentation of size and shape attributes for graphing gdots. Package now includes threadpool files.
2008-12-30 VPython 5.01 for Windows and Mac corrects an error in the size attribute of the points object. New documentation of size and shape attributes for graphing gdots.
2008-12-8 Release of VPython 5.0 by David Scherer and Bruce Sherwood: opacity, local lights, materials such as wood. Includes for the first time a native-mode version for the Mac.
2008-03-10 A major redesign for VPython-4 Beta is underway. The central goal of the new design is to create an architecture which is more robust, easier to maintain and to extend, and easier to install and to use. The principal architects are David Scherer and Bruce Sherwood. Steve Spicklemire and Ruth Chabay have also been involved in discussions. As a result, a number of changes to the current beta version are likely. Support for textures will change. Rather than creating a texture bitmap, a programmer will be able to specify a material (such as wood). Transparency will be supported. At this point it is unclear exactly what support there will be for bitmapped images; they may be supported only as "decals" which can be applied to flat surfaces. Lighting options may change; it is likely that spotlights will not be supported at first in this version. You can look forward to higher-quality rendering of scenes on computers with modern graphics cards. A Macintosh version which does not require X11 or Fink will be created. Both the Windows version and the Mac version will no longer depend on the large GTK libraries, which will however still be the foundation for Linux. |
0.987935 | Exclusive: Official Washington marches in propaganda lockstep about Crimea’s decision to rejoin Russia two years ago, with references to a Russian “invasion” and a “sham” referendum of Crimea’s voters, but the reality is different, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
With high symbolism Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Crimea “to check on the construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which will link the Crimean peninsula and continental Russia,” the Kremlin announced on Thursday.
As the Russians like to say, “It is no accident” that he chose today – marking the second anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea three weeks after the U.S.-sponsored coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and just days after a referendum in which Crimean voters approved leaving Ukraine and rejoining Russia by a 96 percent majority.
The 12-mile bridge is a concrete metaphor, so to speak, for the re-joining of Crimea and Russia. When completed (the target is December 2018), it will be the longest bridge in Russia.
Yet, the Obama administration continues to decry the political reunion between Crimea and Russia, a relationship that dates back to the Eighteenth Century. Instead, the West has accused Russia of violating its pledge in the 1994 Budapest agreement — signed by Ukraine, Russia, Great Britain and the U.S. — “to respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine,” in exchange for Ukraine surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.
Did Moscow violate the Budapest agreement when it annexed Crimea? A fair reading of the text yields a Yes to that question. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances, including alarm among Crimeans over what the unconstitutional ouster of Ukraine’s president might mean for them, as well as Moscow’s not unfounded nightmare of NATO taking over Russia’s major, and only warm-water, naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea.
But what is seldom pointed out is that the other parties, including the United States, seem to have been guilty, too, in promoting a coup d’etat removing the democratically elected president and essentially disenfranchising millions of ethnic Russian Ukrainians who had voted for President Viktor Yanukovych. In such a context, it takes a markedly one-dimensional view to place blame solely on Russia for violating the Budapest agreement.
Did Ukrainian President Yanukovych expect to be overthrown if he opted for Moscow’s economic offer, and not Europe’s? Hard to tell. But if the putsch came as a total surprise, he sorely underestimated what $5 billion in “democracy promotion” by Washington can buy.
“The revolution will not be televised,” or so the saying goes. But the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch in Kiev was YouTube-ized two-and-a-half weeks in advance. Recall Nuland’s amateurish, boorish – not to mention irresponsible – use of an open telephone line to plot regime change in Ukraine with fellow neocon, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, during an intercepted conversation posted on YouTube on Feb. 4.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk (aka “Yats”) was quickly named prime minister of the coup regime, which was immediately given diplomatic recognition by Washington. Since then, he has made a royal mess of things. Ukraine is an economic basket case, and “Yats” barely survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence and is widely believed to be on his way out.
Did Moscow’s strong reaction to the coup, to the danger of NATO setting up shop next door in Ukraine come as a surprise to Nuland and other advisers? If so, she ought to get new advisers, and quickly. That Russia would not let Crimea become a NATO base should have been a no-brainer.
Nuland may have seen the coup as creating a win-win situation. If Putin acted decisively, it would be all the easier to demonize him, denounce “Russian aggression,” and put a halt to the kind of rapprochement between President Barack Obama and Putin that thwarted neocon plans for shock and awe against Syria in late summer 2013. However, if Putin acquiesced to the Ukrainian coup and accepted the dangers it posed to Russia, eventual membership for Ukraine in NATO might become more than a pipedream.
Russia has been repeatedly rebuffed – or diddled – when it has suggested bilateral talks on this key issue. Four years ago, for example, at the March 2012 summit in Seoul, Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev asked Obama when the U.S. would be prepared to address Russian concerns over European missile defense.
In remarks picked up by camera crews, Obama asked for some “space” until after the U.S. election. Obama can be heard saying, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Putin claims to have seen no flexibility on this strategic question.
The Obama administration and its stenographers in the mainstream U.S. media would like the relevant Ukrainian history to start on Feb. 23, 2014 with “Yats” and his coup cronies deemed the “legitimate” authorities. To that end, there was a need to airbrush what George Friedman, president of the think-tank STRATFOR, publicly called “the most blatant coup in history” – the one plotted by Nuland and Pyatt in early February 2014 and carried out on Feb. 22.
As for Russia’s alleged designs on Crimea, one searches in vain for evidence that, before the coup, the Kremlin had given much thought to the vulnerability of the peninsula and a possible need to annex it. According to the public record, Putin first focused on Crimea at a strategy meeting on Feb. 23, the day after the coup.
Yet, given the U.S. mainstream media’s propagandistic reporting on the Ukraine crisis, it is small wonder that the American people forgot about (or never heard of) the putsch in Kiev. The word “coup” was essentially banished from the U.S. media’s lexicon regarding Ukraine.
The New York Times went so far as to publish what it deemed an investigative article in early 2015 announcing that there was no coup in Ukraine, just President Yanukovych mysteriously disappearing off to Russia. In reaching its no-coup conclusion, the Times ignored any evidence that there was a coup, including the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. In regards to Ukraine, “coup” became just another unutterable four-letter word.
“In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, ‘The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,’ Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation. What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?
And so it goes. More recently, in Jeffrey Goldberg’s lengthy magnum opus in The Atlantic on Obama’s foreign policy, there were two mentions of how Russia “invaded” Crimea, two allusions to Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine, but not a word about the coup in Kiev.
In Catholic theology, the theory that some people can be “invincibly ignorant” can lessen or even erase their guilt. Many Americans are so malnourished on accurate news – and so busy trying to make ends meet – that they would seem to qualify for this dispensation, with pardon for not knowing about things like the coup in Kiev and other key happenings abroad.
The following, unnerving example brings this to mind: A meeting of progressives that I attended last year was keynoted by a professor from a local Washington university. Discussing what she called the Russian “invasion” of Crimea, the professor bragged about her 9-year-old son for creating a large poster in Sunday School saying, “Mr. Putin, What about the commandment ‘Thou Shall Not Kill?’” The audience nodded approvingly.
This picnic, thought I, needed a skunk. So I asked the professor what her little boy was alluding to. My question was met by a condescending smirk of disbelief: “Crimea, of course.” I asked how many people had been killed in Crimea. “Oh, hundreds, probably thousands,” was her answer. I told her that there were, in fact, no reports of anyone having been killed.
A few weeks before the professor’s remarks, after a speaking engagement in Moscow, I had a chance to do a little souvenir shopping on the Arbat. The behavior of the sales people brought me up short. It was decades since I had served as a CIA officer in the Soviet Union; the shopkeepers then were usually taciturn, allergic to discussing politics, and not at all given to bragging about their leaders.
The short conversation that ensued made it immediately clear that Russian salespeople in Moscow – unlike many “sophisticated” Americans – were well aware that the troubles in Ukraine and Crimea began in Kiev on Feb 22, 2014, with “the most blatant coup in history.” And, not least, they were proud of the way Putin used the “polite green men” to ensure that Crimea was not lost to NATO.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst he headed the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch. In retirement, he helped create Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
How much Putin pays “ex-CIA analyst” for these “articles”?
Keep on writing, Ray. I very much enjoy your timely expertise, especially that of VIPS.
Bob Parry argues a decent case that Mr. Obama’s transgressions may have been tepid compared to what the impliedly crazier and totally amoral neocons or Responsibility to Protect crowd pressured on him. Does that make him a good leader, a decent human being? Not if standard is lesser depravity.
Let’s see: does it count that he has presided of a deterioration of human rights, failed to prosecute torture, prosecuted against against innocents abroad in our name, that he’s reliably reported to have resorted to the same embarrassing depravity of the Bush administration, if perhaps to a lesser degree, in the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo, in the depraved treatment of Manning, the destructive attack agains Snowden, outrageous campaign against whistle blowers, ruthless attacks on journalists, moved the barbarity of drone warfare and targeted assassination to new extremes, and appointed that known liar, but Obama private ethicist, Brennan to have his way with the chronically amoral CIA?
Do we think he’s not participated in the apparent lethal Boston Marathon false flag, the purported noble lie charade at Sandy Hook…?
That Hillary, the Donald, Ted and others may yet outdo Obama’s abysmal performance should not be cause for praising him, even tepidly.
Do we think he should not be called to account for his violations of national, international treaty law, and the Geneva Conventions?
God, what a chaotic collision of opinion. Mr. McGovern simply stated the obvious.
I have one word for Crimea and Syria problems, “McCain” but nothing will happen to him he will just get another pardon! The father of ISIS!
I appreciate your work, Mr. McGovern. And how does it feel to report your analyses, day-in, day-out, and run into scenarios like you mentioned, with the Professor and her son at Sunday school? And over the ensuing years-to-come, we’ll hear analyses about the fulfillment of that famous description of The Plan, by that famous Fabian George Orwell, in his book “1984” (although carried out by Neo-Feudalists): PanEuropa will finally be achieved when “Regime Change” comes to Russia, and DeGaulle’s dream of “Europe; from the Atlantic to the Urals” is secured by the Synarchy Movement for Empire (the SME that FDR’s O.S.S. guys uncovered). Siberia is sacrificed to the Asia Group because it’s deemed too hard to hold against the Asians…and European Empires always coveted Africa anyway. This will become the SME’s “resource bank” instead of Siberia (Who wants to deal with the cold?…let the Cinese do it). So Khadaffi’s dream of Pan-Africa is squashed; and the “Zionist Deployment” blocks access-to-Africa, by the Asian Group, via the narrow “Middle East Isthmus”(so much for the big scary Zionista Plot). Meanwhile the RoundTable Group (Cecil Rhodes, Milner, et al) finally secures USA for the British Empire (now discretely named The Commonwealth), and is dragged back into the fold…securing for the English-speaking Tribe two Continents (Anglo-America and Australia) and two Island Groups (U.K. and New Zealand). Ibero-America will be kept for The Commonwealth as somewhat of a resource bank, but mainly to deny access to PanEuropa/Africa, and the Asian Group. TransPacifica will be “danced around” by The Commonwealth and The Asian Group. So that’s The Plan that would-be Emperors are working on, replete with endless Border Wars to keep the serfs pre-occupied.
It is of paramount importance , to defeat The Plan of the Oligarchy and secure a peaceful developing World, for the Russian Federation and the USA to become stalwart allies and continue to pander to the Chinese “Win-Win” policies of Silk Road/World Land Bridge. The Chinese are now de facto Dirigists of Dr. Sun Yat Sen; no longer Fascist/Communist of the Chaing Kai Shek/Mao Tse Tung dichotomy. So are the Russians. Soon, we will be Dirigist too, when New Deal policies are re-instituted to bring an end to Great Depression II that we’ve been suffering for eight years now… And FDR’s vision will be realized, via the cooperation of the three Great Republics.
Bravo, Brad Owen. You have read the history of the British Empire and Lord Milner with Carroll Quigley’s “Anglo-American Establishment” and “Triumph and Tragedy.” It was the Round Table Group that established the Foreign Affairs clubs in the US and Canada to bring back the US into the British fold via the “English speaker peoples.” Since the Civil War did not achieve their goals, this was the British Plan B. Meanwhile, the Tory press mad sure that the US and Russia were separated via articles on Siberia, ignoring prison conditions in the western US ant the time. Amazing work, but not surprising, from an empire that had survived so long. Also, WWI took out the British rivals, Russia and Germany. It also gave us Hitler and a total of 100 million dead, 27 million of which were in Russia in WWII. It is no wonder that the Russians have no use for opponents on their borders. Constant invasions do that to you.
Yeah, it leaves me numb, almost willing to turn my back on these web sites…but it’s hard to stop watching an on-going train wreck. The USA’s historic mission (for the English-speaking Tribe at the very least) was to supplant Imperial Oligarchy with republican Democracy, and “unfettered” Capitalism (controlled my the Imperial Oligarchy) with the American System of dirigist political economy. This Mission is completely defeated…and now comes the Collapse of epic proportions, 5th century Roman Empire-style, of the entire Trans-Atlantic System (Empire) as built by The City and The Street. This greatly impacts both Domains of the Round Table Group, and the SME Group. Our one chance to save the humanity of PanEuropa and The CommonWealth is for USA to reach out to Russia in strong alliance and, together, co-operate with China and Her Asian Group, in “Great Projects” (Silk Road, World Land Bridge, Space Programs that lead to developing the Solar System, etc…). The on-coming collapse is most unnerving though. Almost nobody seems to see it though…THAT is what’s unnerving.
Not that this proves anything either. I just wish we’d get more actual Crimean people who have left the country and can speak freely to straighten out this story. I don’t believe either side.
“asked Crimeans if the results in the March 16, 2014 referendum to secede reflected the views of the people.
A total of 82.8% of Crimeans said yes.
while 68.4% of Ukrainians felt so.
MG you forgot to mention that it was done shortly after annexation and that source of news suddenly shifted from Ukrainian channels to all russian channels, bc russians start jamming Ukrainian news and overflowing news with anti-Ukrainian propaganda. The gallup poll just demonstrated how efficient is russian propaganda.
If you consider that other people dumb and so much affected by TV, may I ask what kind of TV are you watching?
Bob, if that is your name, I agree with your confession that your comment doesn’t prove anything, but you do loudly assert the referendum was “fake”. Unfortunately for everyone, it is the fallacy of tortured argumentation that won’t go away, and like asserting ” global warming is a hoax”, rests firmly on ignorance, in your case ignorance of history. Seven months before Ukraine declared independence, a referendum in Crimea reaffirmed its status as an Autonomous Region within the Soviet Union. This alone renders the assertion “Crimea was part of the Ukraine” invalid, and calls into question the legality of Ukraine taking Crimea with it into independence from the USSR. It does give one a clear idea of the general will of the population of Crimea. Post-1991, the history is complex, a 1992 Crimean constitution declaring Crimea an Autonomous Republic, the Ukrainian government unilaterally declaring the Crimean Constitution void, even an attempt at direct rule by decree by the Ukrainian President. Clearly, the present status of Crimea has been a long time coming and reflects the post-1991 historical trend, constant reassertion of Crimean Autonomy and constant attempts by Ukraine to void previous agreements, finally catalyzed by the Maidan Episode, and is a return to a historical stasis disrupted by Nikita Kruschev(sp) circa 1954.
David, you so desperately trying to disprove that fake was not fake like your life depends on this. what is in it for you?
Lets summarize. Nuland with Yats with support of a few hundred right sector ultras with wooden shields and a few invisible CIA agents conceived and utilized within a month flawless coup with only evidence of a phone call and hundreds casualties from right sector and overthrown legitimate president and government. The president and government were totally cooperating with Russian FSB for years, had thousands of police forces and criminal elements under their wing with several hundreds AK’s on hands, controlled communication lines and mass media, had Russian intelligence guiding them and troops on the boarder ready to intervene.
However, as we know now. It took russians roughly 25000 troops and 500 hundred fully armed special forces, hundreds of armed vehicles, entire Black Sea Fleet, years of monitoring, planing and preparations to annex peninsula with only a few thousand Ukrainian troops that did not know what the heck is going in on. And Putin said he start reacting only on Feb 23d.
Is this really what all of you believe?
Well, let’s not forget the little matter of Victoria Nuland’s boast of the U.S. having poured $5 billion into the Ukraine to finance pro-Western opposition groups in the10 years leading up to the coup. The U.S. has channeled, and is channeling, U.S. taxpayers’ money to sow the seeds of unrest in a huge swath of former Soviet republics. The fact the corporate media doesn’t report this is probably why you haven’t heard about it. Perhaps you might be a little less complacent about your hard-earned income being squandered in this way if Russia had been doing the same in Canada and Mexico.
Oh, I forgot, no need for Russia to undermine democracy in Mexico, the U.S. is already making a fine mess of things there too.
Bryan you are mistaken and let me demonstrate you how budget of $500 millions per year buys you almost nothing in Ukraine in terms of politics. Lets look at corruption level in Ukraine. For last several years. A head of local district transport police in regional center city like Kharkiv, Lviv, Odessa, Donetsk was collecting at least $100,000 per month in bribes to send up the chain in Kyiv. Say in those cities there are like 5 districts. Lets get top 10 cities. We are getting $5 millions per month and around 60 millions per year. This is only a crude estimate of transport police. Look in their news almost every other day new police discovers conversion centers laundering at least $100,000. Sons of Yanukovich and Pshonka were collecting in bribes millions per day. You add custom, IRS, medical, banks and you easy swallow Nulands $500 millions in bribes and achieve nothing, money just disappear. You said about opposition groups. Look who is in parliament, the same faces that were there more then 10 years. Svoboda did not even get there. What is the right sector? couple of hundred of people marching around. So after 10 years of investment in opposition groups there are no groups, no mass media that is totally biased pro-western. Where are all those money?
At the same time look what russia was doing. I can see their investments. RT, lifenews, annanews, zillions of network groups in vkontakte, sponsoring left and right wings in Europe, conducting conferences of neo-nazi in St Peterburg on regular basis, Dugin pure fascist is going time to time to EU at those meetings and was consulting Putin sometime ago. Markin (Rodina), Tsarev (Party of Regions) are in Moscow. Entire communist party of Ukraine was supported and guided by FSB. I can see where they put their money.
Efremov was holding Lugansk region in his packet or at least he thought so. Where is he now? Hiding in Kyiv with junta. Where is Akhmetov sponsor of Party of Region? He is in Zaporozhya. The entire governing body of Party of Regions change the name to Opposition Block and moved out of so called rebellion region. Were they suppose to lead anti junta movement? A bunch of so called separatists at leading positions in Special Regions of Dontesk and Lugansk Districts (ORDILO) sent their kids to Kyiv to live among the junta and right sector. Do you see how ridiculous the myth about junta is? And this article is once more asking you to chew the same old gum that was aired by RT and lifenews since 2014 over and over and over.
You lost Crimea, you are about to lose Donesk/Lugansk. The efficacy of Ukrainian incoherance is impressive.
It might be good to have a little historical perspective as well. The Crimea was occupied by British troops for almost two decades, following the Crimean War, in which former bitter adversaries Britain and France flexed their military might together for the first time, selecting a weaker neighbor to attack on the flimsiest of provocations.
In so doing they laid down the pattern for the terrible German wars to come in the next century.
The statement, repeated several times, in this article that “Russia annexed Crimea” is absolutely false. Crimea was severed(a precise term) by the Russian SSR and attached to the Ukrainian SSR in the status of an Autonomous Region. Under international law an Autonomous Region within a sovereign state may choose to secede and declare itself a sovereign state. IMO, if it can declare independence, it can also choose to join another sovereign state, but that is a question for an expert in international law, as I am not aware of any precedents. It should be noted that the Crimean Rada(legislature) voted in 2008 to secede from the Ukraine. I am merely a layman, so I am unfamiliar with established procedure for an Autonomous Region to secede, but it must require a referendum, as this is what happened in 2014. I have looked, and cannot find any objections by experts on international law regarding the Crimean Autonomous Region’s secession. I am perplexed that a former CIA officer would misspeak himself on this absolutely critical issue, as “to annex” is a very short step from “to invade”.
David, you are may be coherent, but your lack of basic jurisprudence lead you to a maze from which you cannot get out. I will help you. A mere word accuracy is not a major decisive factor. When case is in court judge will consider all provided substantial evidence and will be conducting multiple tests to characterize not only events, level of damage and responsibilities of involved parties, but conduct, intentions and capabilities. Collection of evidence has begun.
AJFA, the subject of my comment was the status of an Autonomous Region under International Law. Stick to the topic, or stay off the thread. Your comments are a mass of Fallacies of Informal Argument, and your incoherent statements fail, absurdly, to rise to the level of Unsound Propositions.
Your statements are irrelevant and have mistakes in defining the status of Crimea. They are irrelevant because on February 27 2014 Ukraine was recognized internationally within its borders including Crimea. Particularly it was recognized by Russia when they signed Common Wealth Agreement, Budapest Memorandum in 1994, Agreement of friendship, collaboration and partnership in 1997 and extended in 2010. All these agreements superseded anything what happened in 1954, 1991 or invented by you in 2008. So, status of Crimea was undisputably territory of Ukraine and covered by Ukrainian Constitution. It was undisputable, because there was no any on going trial in international courts regarding the status of Crimea. Why is the date important, because on February 27 2014 Russia has began conducting military operation on the territory of Ukraine resulting in annexation of Crimea on March 18 2014. It was a military aggression as defined in the resolution 3314 (XXIX) of UN General Assembly, December 14 1974. Russia is a member of UN and thus is bound by it. Conduct of russian troops included blocking Ukrainian military bases, airports and water line by military ships. Any territorial gain is not valid.
This is a stupid lie.
Thank you, Mr. McGovern, and God bless you for “telling it like it is” for us. I am not naive about the sneaky and underhanded ways our government goes about working its will in other nations. Hence, I’ve read with a very cynical eye all the reportage concerning this affair.
Your report is for me the most transparent and believable narrative of events and description of the situation. I feel that I now know the truth.
Since it was not an initiative by Russia but a decision of the Crimean population, and not really an annexation, Russia did not violate its pledge in the 1994 Budapest agreement, in my opinion.
The US push to make trouble on the borders of Russia should motivate Russia to seek military alliances on the doorstep of the US, explicitly attributing this to the US right wing provocations on their doorstep. This would teach the US about the foolishness of allowing its right wing to provoke foreign wars so as to pose as protectors, a lesson of great value to the US.
Could you imagine the uproar from the MSM serial liars if Russia tried what we do in Canada or Mexico?
The media are our enemy.
===what we do in Canada or Mexico?
Unlike the savvy Russians, there is no society anywhere in the world more dumbed-down than the American culture. It’s estimated that about 90% of all Americans don’t have a clue about what their government/corporatists/military institutions are doing to others.
Just to show you the level of geo-political/financial illiteracy, follow American trends: social justice for minorities (meaning they do NOT recognize how the 1% has caused intense poverty, unemployment, and the inability to pay for a university education), victimization mentalities and clustering themselves into little like-minded cellphone friends & relatives.
As a result, American military/financial hegemony can do whatever they please.
It’s greater than 90%. I’d guess that more people in the US are fluent in 3+ languages than US foreign policy.
And yes Russia did break the Budapest Memorandum but to me it is also clear some of the signatories also broke their promises to Russia (US & Britain being the driving forces behind NATO). The US backed coup in Ukraine was just one step too far and, as you have rightly pointed out, threatened the national security of Russia, as it would have done to any state (Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind). I just think what happened in Ukraine was one of the most “un-democratic” things that I have seen in my life and the US’ fingerprints are all over this disaster (USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, US Politicians etc.). I also find it unbelievable seeing that Ukraine is using Nazis and Islamists to fight the war in Eastern Ukraine, that is not going to turn out well – Mujahideen anyone? If the Ukrainian people had, in early elections as had been agreed upon, voted Yanukovych out of power – then all the power to them. Then if all of Ukraine had a referendum to join the EU, again all the power to them. But that is not what happened. I remember doing some quick reading on the coup that the CIA pulled off in Iran in 1953 (Operation AJAX) and I believe again there were actual protesters in the streets against Mossadegh but the CIA, I think Kermit, paid off some protesters and opposition government officials and we ended up with a coup. Also, I don’t find the notion of a coup in Ukraine far-fetched when another coup, pulled off by a graduate of the School of the Americas (now WHINSEC) located in Fort Benning, Georgia USA, occurred in Honduras in 2009 (along with USAID, NED, and others trying to overthrow Chavez in Venezuela in 2002). I just shake my head when I think of all of this underhandedness, that is not the world that I want to live in.
One other point that I find interesting about the Crimea story is that at the time I just remember almost all of western MSM were reporting that Crimeans were voting at gunpoint and the reported 82% voter turnout with 96% of them voting to rejoin Russia was completely dismissed. Then a year later or more we have Gallup, GFK and Pew Research polls, all trusted western polling services, basically in their information supporting the initial numbers that were reported. This also shows, as people keep screaming about Russian propaganda, how much propaganda our own news agencies are spewing.
I wonder how many prisoners of Buchenwald concentration camp voted in the survey that they are fully supporting Hitler?
Well, why don’t you go to Crimea and ask poor oppressed Crimeans yourself? You are in for a surprise.
I agree totally with this response and wish that more Americans were watching our state department and the policies that are being driven by the neo-con think tanks rather than by interest in the true circumstances that are behind conflict in this global community.I for one am tired of being lied to and tired of seeing what military might of the USA is inflicting on the world in our name.
Thank you so much for this essay. The remark on supposed Russian caused casualties in Crimea by a Washington professor were astonishingly and inexcusably ignorant.
Americans are the most out of touch with reality nation in this world,dumbed down by the zionist msm.
Their agenda is Israel,not US,and the wealth that eternal war brings.
As always, thank you Ray McGovern. I remember watching the Olympic coverage in Sochi and being stunned by the negative on air commentary about Russia and wondering what it was about. I found my go to guy on Russia, Stephen Cohen who was saying similar things as you have said here. At the time I remember thinking, unbelievable that the Obama administration would allow such negative diplomatic talk, but I have since learned that it was simply more of the same.
As Hillary’s term at State becomes more apparent, its clear that she thinks as a neocon, approves of all of this Empire rubbish, and that, heartbreakingly, the good ole US is still up to its regime changing tricks. Both Hillary and Donald Trump are unacceptable candidates, so what’s next?
“Yet, the Obama administration continues to decry the political reunion between Crimea and Russia, a relationship that dates back to the Eighteenth Century”.
Precisely, 1784. The year when the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, was ratified. It would be another four years before the US Constitution was ratified. Crimea has been part of Russia since before the USA existed.
In 1989, Secretary Baker – and Helmut Kohl – both assured Gorby that if the Warsaw Pact was dissolved “NATO would not move one inch eastward.” (Since NATO was formed to counter any threat from the Soviet Union, and said union disappeared a few years later, NATO should have been disbanded – didn’t happen, it just started its march eastward.) The Budapest agreement wasn’t a treaty, rather a political understanding, and politics change. Ukraine remains a total financial basket case with Right Sector and other lovely fascist groups gaining power.
I am not aware was the date 02.22.2014 set by Nuland or Yats? And who put date 20.02.2014 on medal for Crimea Nuland?
Very good article. When I look at controversial issues, I ask myself “how would I feel?” or “what would I do if I were in the other side’s shoes?”. With respect to Ukraine…if the majority of western Ukrainians want a pro-european government (and Yanukovich was working against their aspirations) then I applaud them for opposing the status-quo. With respect to Donesk…I understand their proclivity toward Russia and dissatisfaction with the coup. I applaud their back-bone to stand up for their rights. I don’t think I would appreciate Ukrainian tanks and troops shooting in my direction. Bottom line: Eastern and Western Ukraine have different views and aspirations and are pulling in opposite directions (so they should separate). With respect to Crimea: I would have done exactly what Putin did.
The Solution? Ukraine should grant Donesk full independence to include land stretching down to Crimea. In return, Ukraine would receive the western 50% of Crimea back from Russia. Ukraine and New Ukraine would establish treaties regarding trade, travel, and political recognition. Then, they would shake hands and become good friends again.
how about this. Some neighbor mobsters get into your house and occupy say kitchen and drive way because they are scared that some other mobsters from other part of town will get your porch next to them. You defend yourself against them with a kitchen knife. Then a bigger mobster shows up with a machete and pushes you to a living room. Then they tell you they want your backyard too, because it was some time ago part of their property, but then was sold and added to your property. You agree to give them living room instead in return of 50% of your driveway. Your daughter kind of liked one of mobsters and stays with them to party and your son will be kind of hostage in their house just in case you go to other mobsters to talk. And the mobsters will be telling everybody around that you planned to get their porch and they did not have a choice, but to intervene. And if you want heat upstairs you have to pay them 5 times more than the real price. Smile and be friends with them.
Russia can occupy Alaska because American Nazi Party exists in the US?
Sold Crimea?No a gift from Krushchev?,a Ukrainian.
AJFA, are you suggesting Russia quintupled(5X) the price of natural gas to Ukraine? Given your verbose incoherance, I have to ask, although your succinct incoherance is equally obscure.
The people of Crimea will never under any circumstance agree to allowing the western 50% of Crimea to go back to the Ukraine. Your suggestion/solution simply doesn’t hold water and betrays a significant understanding of the region and of Crimea.
Ukraine is run by US funded NAZI thugs without Integrity or Honor. Isolate them in Gitmo.
Turn the screws on Nuland’s little kingdom and starve it into submission.
which set up the chain of events, consequences of which we witness now.
We will be lucky if it is just a new cold war. Some of these folks are really anxious for a new hot war, which they think can be fought without affecting the US at all.
all about the US White Elite getting other people’s resources for nothing.
The US must be seen as a world pariah before the 154 wars its funding and weaponizing spread to DC.
Stop acting as if Crimea is NOT a real issue.
When people start shooting at each other like in Donbass, be sure that issue is real as it only can be.
From Cuba to Miami – 330 miles.
Soviet missiles on Cuba precipitated Caribbean Crisis with nuclear weapons ready to fly.
From Ukrainian border to Moscow – 350 miles.
What any Russian administration should consider appearance of any military alliance there any different than Kennedy administration?
MG hold your breath, NATO is already within 390 miles away from Moscow in Latvia. And I will open a secret to you, Ukraine will not be part of NATO for a while do not be scared for poor russians. They have Kalinigrad from which they can cover with Topol a good portion of Europe.
Still does not answer why Russia should behave differently than Kennedy administration. |
0.999999 | I heard that some glaciers in Alaska are growing, not shrinking. Is this true?
It’s true that many Alaskan glaciers, including, most notably, the Hubbard Glacier, have been advancing in recent years. The reasons for this are complex and may have nothing to do with whether or not climate change is occurring. To simplify what is the rather complicated science of glaciology, there are different types of glaciers. Some glaciers rest in valleys and tend to be more sensitive to changing temperatures. Others, including Hubbard, are known as calving glaciers. They terminate at an ocean and parts of them break away in a stunning spectacle known as “calving.” The five large glaciers in Alaska that are growing, including Hubbard, all have several commonalities: 1) they have previously experienced long periods of retreat only recently reversed (in the past century or so); 2) they all calve on shallow moraine shoals; 3) they all lay at the heads of long fjords; 4) they have positive mass balances that, by sheer force of weight, cause them to expand as gravity pushes down on them; and 5) they have small ablation areas; that is, small surface areas where melting and sublimation occur. Glaciologists note that glaciers with these qualities are not strongly influenced by even long-term temperature changes. |
0.999806 | On October 18, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California issued a preliminary injunction ruling that affirmed the tax-free distribution and discount sale of tribal fuel. A quick overview of the facts: -- The Torres-Martinez Tribe developed the Red Earth Travel Center on tribal trust lands; -- A Yakama-member-owned business, First American Petroleum, provides tax-free fuel to the Red Earth Travel Center; -- The Torres-Martinez Tribe has delegated certain fuel management authority to First American Petroleum for purpose of obtaining tax-free fuel for the Red Earth Travel Center; -- First American Petroleum transports tax-free fuel to Red Earth Travel Center; -- The Torres-Martinez Tribe "sells fuel and convenience stores items at the travel center to help support the tribal economy"; and -- Ultimately, state fuel or travel-related taxes are not imposed on the Torres-Martinez Tribe or First American Petroleum and those tax savings are passed on to non-Indian patrons of Red Earth Travel Center.
Not only did the District Court hold that fuel or travel-related taxes could not be assessed on First American Petroleum (at least preliminarily) but it acknowledged that the Torres-Martinez Tribe could not be sued for tax collection due to its sovereign immunity. In other words, any California right to collect excise taxes on the fuel sold at the Red Earth Travel Center cannot, as a practical matter, be collected.
The Southern District of California's decision currently stands as a wonderful affirmation of tax-free inter-tribal commerce. |
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