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Visit Homeschool LeaderHomeschool Leader HelpHomeschool Leader is a web-based tool for homeschooling parents who would like a tool for tracking subjects, classes, reading lists and, of course, time. It’s a great way for those of us who need to gather this information for reviewers or, in many cases, our own edification.
Because it is web-based Homeschool Leader is only as far away as an internet connection so you don’t have to worry about installing anything on your machine. Signing up is really quick especially if you already have a google account. The setup process will take five minutes at most – before you know it you will be setting up students, sessions and classes.
Homeschool Leader is pretty easy to use but it helps to know some of the terminology we throw around while you’re using the application. Here’s a list of terms we think you should know.
|Family||The main organizational unit – families consists of teachers, students and sessions|
|Student||The student is your homeschooling child.|
|Teacher||The parent is the teacher|
|Session||An organization school unit in which a set of subjects is studied at a particular grade level. Similar to a semester (but that sounded too formal to us).|
|Subject||A categorization for an activity.|
|Activity||This can be a class or a field trip or anything else that is part of your curriculum.|
Armed with that information, Homeschool Leader is designed to be a very easy to use system that takes some of the tedium out of homeschooling and leaves the fun. | <urn:uuid:650ff732-1d7f-49c5-b593-5b1ef9f9344e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iwonderdesigns.com/project_overview/homeschoolleader/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937381 | 346 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Today, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen took a historic stand for military women. Now it’s our turn to stand with her.
More than 400,000 women serve in the armed forces and put their lives at risk to preserve our rights and safeguard our freedom. Yet these women are denied access to the same care available to the civilians they protect. If you’re a woman putting your life on the line for your country in the U.S. military, your health insurance won’t cover abortion care even if you’re a victim of sexual assault.
Sen. Shaheen has put forward an amendment that would bring back basic fairness to military policy, and allow the military health system to cover abortion care in cases of rape and incest — just as the federal government does for all other federal employees, women enrolled in Medicaid, and women who use the Indian Health Service, among others. The Shaheen Amendment does one simple, yet powerful, thing: it stops singling out U.S. servicewomen and military families for inferior and unequal treatment. Every woman should have the health care coverage she needs, but at the very least our military women deserve the same access to care as all of the other women who get their health insurance through the federal government.
But filing the amendment is just the first step. Now Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, need to make sure that the Senate moves forward. Our servicewomen fight every day for us — it’s time we fight for them.
The House leadership turned their backs on servicewomen last spring when they blocked a vote on this very same issue. Don’t let the Senate make the same mistake. | <urn:uuid:e25caded-272b-49ce-959c-69876d761598> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom-womens-rights/shaheen-amendment-promises-basic-fairness-servicewomen-now | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951593 | 355 | 1.734375 | 2 |
I read here about certain Jewish sects prescribing face veil. Is there, in fact, a rule requiring or encouraging covering the faces of women in presence of unrelated men? If so, what is the source for this rule?
This sect is referred to by many today with a mixture of amusement, frustration, and annoyance. Most will tell you that they are bringing the rules of modesty to an unprecedented extreme for which there is no source nor Jewish tradition.
However, a while ago on the Seforim Blog, Marc Shapiro addressed this sect (which he calls the "Jewish Taliban Women"), and brings many sources that recommend or praise the use of such full-body veil (burqa-like) coverings. I will not reproduce his words here, but his sources include the Jerusalem Talmud (as interpreted by its commentaries), R' Baruch Epstein (1860-1941), and R' Joseph Messas (1892-1974). Additionally, Shapiro lists some contemporary rabbis who have written/spoken in favor of the shawls worn by these women.
I am pretty sure RaMbaM said for a girl to cover her hair at age 3 because that is when she is sent to the market and is in the public's view. Once married she needs to put a rodid on top of the mitpahath.
(I don't have the source of the top of my head, I am to going to bed now and am typing this from my phone, but whoever knows the RaMbaM, please edit the post and put it in there.) I also have pics to display to show as examples, but that will all be tommorow.
|show 12 more comments| | <urn:uuid:93805442-4009-499a-8929-6ed7c1a3a5a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/26840/women-face-veil-prescribed?answertab=active | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964823 | 350 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Fake Craigslist Job Ads May Lead to Identity Theft
If you're unemployed, underemployed, or unhappily employed, Craigslist job ads are probably a regular stop in your browser of choice.
But if you're relying on the popular website's classified ads to find employment opportunities, you also have to watch out for employment scams. Not every job posted on Craigslist reflects a position in the real world that's worth applying for, according to an article at UnemploymentHandbook.com.
It's a waste of time to write out a resume and cover letter for a job that's not even there, so here are some signs of a potential scam when you're looking at job ads online:
- No skills required. Sure it's nice to find entry-level jobs, but even those require some skills, even if it's just using a computer. Hundreds of people are applying for these jobs, which makes your chances pretty slim, so it may not be worth your time unless the job looks amazing. If you see a high salary combined with "no skills required," it's almost certainly a scam.
- "Mystery shopper" positions. Jobs for mystery shopping where the mystery-shopping "employee" gets a check and wires leftover money back to a "company" are bad news. Those kinds of wire transfer schemes are almost always scams to cheat you out of your money when the checks bounce. If an ad asks you to do that, run the other way.
- Ads that seek unnecessary personal info. For a job application, all you should have to submit is your name and prior work experience. Bank information and credit reports are not relevant, and it's generally not legal for employers to ask for them during interviews anyway. Don't give out personal information when you're applying for a job unless you want to be a victim of identity theft. You can always provide it when you're hired, if necessary.
- No company name. When you're applying to jobs, it's helpful to do some homework on the hiring companies so you know if they will be a good fit. That's impossible to do if there's no company name in the ad. It also makes it less likely the job is legitimate, since employers want you to gauge your interest in the company before applying. If you don't see a company name, you may not want to apply.
- Ads that redirect. The majority of Craigslist ads allow you to respond directly to the email provided with your cover letter and resume. But some redirect you to a new website and ask you to fill out information on that page instead. Large corporations like hotel chains may work this way, but it's unlikely legitimate smaller employers would go to this trouble. In general, it's best to steer clear of these ads, and instead look for ones that will accept your job application directly.
- Craigslist Scams - 20 Ways to Identify Fake Job Scams (HubPages)
- Craigslist Ends 'Adult Services' Section (FindLaw's Blotter)
- Angered Accountant Sues Over Craigslist Rant (FindLaw's Injured) | <urn:uuid:331c6988-896b-403f-bcc1-709a21a84f9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://commonlaw.findlaw.com/2012/11/fake-craigslist-job-ads-may-lead-to-identity-theft.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942041 | 633 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Paths to Power: The US Electricity Grid
(stream / mp3)
With power outages across the country causing everything from minor disruptions to death, Living on Earth turns to the experts to find out what’s going on with the U.S. power grid. Host Bruce Gellerman talks with Judah Rose of ICF International, a consulting firm that specializes in energy and environmental issues, and Ashley Brown, Executive Director of Harvard University’s electricity policy group. (9:00)
Not in My Skyline
(stream / mp3)
The Department of Energy has a plan in the works to ensure the nation’s energy supply, sometimes at the cost of the little guy. Bruce Gellerman talks with Chris Rossi of Hubbardsville, NY, who is protesting the installation of new power lines in her community. (3:00)
Retrofit It/ Claire Schoen
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Producer Claire Schoen takes a tour of a California home and finds out that it’s the little things that count in cutting energy bills this summer. (14:00)
Organics Taste Test/ Pim Techamuanvivit
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As Walmart and other big stores carry more and more organic foods, food writer Pim Techamuanvivit laments that the packaged organics don’t always have healthy ingredients, and they rarely taste good. (3:30)
Emerging Science Note/ Allison Smith
(stream / mp3)
Women tested in parts of South Africa, where DDT is used to fight malaria, showed levels of residue of the pesticide up to 77 times higher than safely allowed. Allison Smith reports. (1:30)
Keeping Away the Rays
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Host Bruce Gellerman turns to Jane Houlihan, Vice President of Research for the Environmental Working group to get the inside scoop on what’s inside sunscreen. (5:45)
Cashing in on the Oil Thing/ Jeff Young
(stream / mp3)
The oil industry is enjoying a gusher of profits. Just where does that money go? Living on Earth's Washington correspondent Jeff Young follows the oil money pipeline. (8:30)
Sounds of the surf on California’s coast.
HOST: Bruce Gellerman
GUESTS: Ashley Brown, Jane Houlihan, Judah Rose, Chris Rossi
REPORTER: Claire Schoen, Jeff Young
COMMENTATOR: Pim Techamuanvivit
SCIENCE NOTE: Allison Smith
GELLERMAN: From NPR, this is Living On Earth.
GELLERMAN: I’m Bruce Gellerman. Imagine making a billion dollars a day. Exxon Mobile did last quarter. So, where is all the money going? Industry executives say it is being well spent.
FELMY: The oil and natural gas industry is investing more than they make in earnings. So, we’re plowing the money back in to produce more oil and gas in the future.
GELLERMAN: But critics charge that when you do the math the numbers just don’t add up.
WYDEN: The major oil companies are only putting back in the ground a modest fraction of what they have been siphoning away from consumers at the pump across our country.
GELLERMAN: Also, shocking news. The world’s biggest machine has some big problems. The nation’s electric power grid needs a new game plan.
GELLERMAN: These stories and more this week on Living on Earth. Stick around.
ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the National Science Foundation and Stonyfield Farm
GELLERMAN: From the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios in Somerville, Massachusetts - this is Living on Earth. I’m Bruce Gellerman sitting in for Steve Curwood.
You flip a switch and the lights go on. Now, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. But in recent days it became painfully obvious that sometimes it doesn’t. Record breaking temperatures across the country had people cranking up their air conditioners. The demand for electricity soared and supplying the power to satisfy needs stressed and strained generating plants. In California there were blackouts and the grid supplying the state with electricity came close to the breaking point.
NEWSCAST: Our big story here in Southern California is the heat wave of ’06. Temperatures are going to stay in the triple digits again across much of Southern California today and thousands are still without power. We have live team coverage…
GELLERMAN: In Missouri thunderstorms knocked out power lines. More than half a million were without electricity for a week. Officials there declared a state of emergency.
NEWSCAST: The mayor warns many may not have power restored until next week.
MAYOR SLAY: One of the things we want to make sure of though is we do everything we can to protect every person in the city. This is a life or death situation. We want to reach as many individuals as possible, so we’re not sparing any expense.
GELLERMAN: And in Queens New York they still don’t know what caused the power lines there to melt, leaving tens of thousands to sweat in the dark for days.
WOMAN: The bad news is he has told everyone here, all of the assembled reporters, that there is no time, no day officially that CON-ED can guarantee that the power will be restored for 100,000 people here in Queens.
GELLERMAN: It’s all a reminder of just how dependent we are on what engineers call "the world’s largest machine." It’s the network of 180 thousand miles of high-power transmission lines that criss cross the country, carrying electricity from generating plants to local utilities. The production of power was deregulated in the 1990’s. It was supposed to result in more competition and cheaper electricity. But the system of lines that carry the power was kept in tack and now, some say it is badly in need of a major overhaul. Joining me to discuss the nation’s power grid are two experts in the field. Judah Rose is managing director of ICF international, it’s a consulting firm that specializes in energy and environmental issues. And Ashley Brown, executive director of Harvard University’s electricity policy group. He’s also former commissioner of the public utilities commission of Ohio.
Gentlemen, thanks for your time.
ROSE: Thank you, it’s a pleasure.
BROWN: You’re welcome, it’s a pleasure.
GELLERMAN: The electric system in the United States is the backbone of our modern economy and yet some have called it, like former Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, a third world electric grid. How good is our grid, Mr. Rose?
ROSE: I think our grid is medium. That’s sort of the score I would give it. It’s a large grid. It’s the largest in the world. It generally functions the way we want it to function. But there is significant room for improvement and it’s an improvement that is long overdue.
GELLERMAN: Mr. Brown?
BROWN: I don’t disagree with that. I don’t think I would describe it as third world, as Governor Richardson did, but it certainly has room for a lot of improvement.
GELLERMAN: Well, who owns the grid?
BROWN: Ah, that’s easy. Lots and lots of different people. It’s a very balkanized system in terms of ownership. It was owned by, each utility had its own grid. And some utilities, particularly municipal utilities were dependent on other owners of the grid. But basically there are several hundred owners of the grid. Now the control, in many cases the owners also control it. But in big parts of the United States now, particularly the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and in the West Coast and in Texas, the grid is actually, although owned by several utilities, the grid is actually centrally operated by independent system operators.
GELLERMAN: So, we’ve got this huge system, Mr. Rose, that’s got tens of thousands of miles that’s being controlled by hundreds of different owners, and yet it has to make split-second decisions on where all this electricity goes.
ROSE: Yes that’s correct. And historically there have been procedures and mechanisms put into place to facilitate the coordinated operation of the grid. But that coordination is voluntary and is not consistent with the changing nature of the power system, both in terms of the deregulation of the industry, and in terms of the very dynamic growth that we’re seeing in demand for electricity.
GELLERMAN: So, do we need more transmission lines?
BROWN: Well, certainly in some areas of the country. There was a recent study that indicated at least four areas where there was real deficiency. When I say four areas – four areas of North America. One of the areas was Ontario. But the other areas were the New York area, southwest Connecticut, southern California.
ROSE: It is undisputed, in my view that’s how strong I feel about it, that there’s been under-investment in the grid. Many of the areas that Ashley just mentioned are known sort of problem areas. And it turns out that you can’t solve everything with new power plants. It’s important to recognize that while in many cases you can either have power plants or new transmission lines, there’s a limit to how much you can just rely on new power plants, and we have crossed that limit. And we have, therefore, lowered the reliability of the grid. But as you take a look at the investment levels, although they have started improving in the last two or three years, in the period leading up to the 2003 black out they were just down, down, down, relative to the electricity demand.
GELLERMAN: Well, the blackout that you cite was the largest blackout in North American history. 50 million people were effected in nine states. Nine nuclear power stations went down.
BROWN: And Ontario.
GELLERMAN: And Ontario. And it’s traced back to this first energy company. And it’s one of those stories for want of a nail. It started off it seems with a tree kind of hitting a sagging electric power line. But do we know what caused that blackout?
BROWN: Well, there’s really two issues. One is what caused the initial incident which you described earlier. But the second question is why did it cascade into other systems. And I’m not sure we know exactly why. In some systems it didn’t cascade. We in New England weren’t affected by it. Southern Ohio, just south of First Energy territory was not affected by it. On the other hand, as you point out, a number of states were. So, the cascading affect you can’t say simply that that was a result of First Energy. There were obviously failings that went along the system.
ROSE: I think that you know, when you push the grid to its extreme you should not be surprised that systems fail.
GELLERMAN: It’s interesting that even now we’re really not sure what caused the blackout of 2003. But soon afterwards, President Bush got on nation wide TV and said, and said this.
BUSH: Obviously the sooner we can get electricity up, the more normal people’s lives will become. The one thing, I think I can say for certain, is that this was not a terrorist act.
GELLERMAN: Mr. Brown, how did we know that it wasn’t terrorism, just minutes after the blackout occurred?
BROWN: Records are maintained at the companies of exactly what was going on and they knew on an instantaneous basis. So, you could go back and retrace and figure out various failings along the way. Could a terrorist act cause that kind of thing? Yeah, possibly it could. But that’s not what happened here.
GELLERMAN: I was reading in Columbia that they have two hundred terrorist attacks against transmission lines a year.
BROWN: They do and they’re very good at replacing them very quickly.
ROSE: You know, there are mechanisms, remote cameras, remote sensors. I think that people are sensitive to that problem, increasingly so. But it’s outside the normal realm of experience where the typical problems are individual line failures and tornadoes or hurricanes, or that type of problem.
GELLERMAN: When I see one of these huge transmission towers, 100 to 120 feet high, I think of Godzilla. And I think they’re very vulnerable, he’s tripping over them. And they’re ugly, let’s face it. Why don’t they put these things under ground?
ROSE: A couple comments on the Godzilla problem. The first is that these lines are very hot. They’re dissipating a lot of heat. So if you touched them that would be for many reasons a bad thing to do. So to stick them under ground you have to basically deal with the heat problem. And what happens is that your system becomes somewhere between three and ten times more expensive when you go to an all underground system. So in some sense we are dealing with a difficult problem. And I think that no one likes to see the lines and yet there’s – except for in limited niche situations – not a lot of chance that we’re really going to be able to really eliminate that problem.
GELLERMAN: Mr. Rose, thank you for coming in.
ROSE: My pleasure.
GELLERMAN: Ashley Brown is executive director of Harvard University’s electricity policy group. Judah Rose is managing director of ICF international. And Mr. Brown thank you.
BROWN: Thank you, my pleasure as well.
GELLERMAN: Well, in the next few weeks the department of energy will designate what are called "national interest electric transmission corridors." The plan gives the federal government eminent domain over 7 to 10-mile wide swaths of land as rights-of-way for utility transmission towers. One place that’s likely to be on the list is a 200-mile long tract stretching from Utica to Port Jervis New York. Chris Rossi lives in Hubbardsville, near Utica. She’s with one of forty groups protesting the plan.
Hello, Ms. Rossi.
GELLERMAN: My understanding is that the proposed power line will go through a national park, 154 streams and rivers, 155 wetlands and 65 miles of farmland.
ROSSI: Yes, that’s correct and in addition to that it cuts through 56 towns in New York and 17 towns, possibly, in Pennsylvania.
GELLERMAN: Now you live in Hubbardsville, New York. Where would this line go in relationship to you?
ROSSI: Well, Hubbardsville is a very very small town. And I would have a lovely view of these very very large, 130-foot tall power lines from my front porch.
GELLERMAN: What does it look like when you look out your window, Ms. Rossi?
ROSSI: Well, my house was probably built in the 1870s it was when the hops were being grown in central New York. It was a time of great prosperity. I look out over rolling green fields and little houses, little farming houses.
Power lines cut through many rural areas as "rights of way."(Photo courtesy of: NASA)
GELLERMAN: Well, you use electricity, right?
GELLERMAN: Well, so where do you think it comes from?
ROSSI: Well, I think it comes from the windmills that I can see when I drive through my area. We do have windmills. I, and many of the other people in my area, are very much in favor of forward-looking energy transmission and energy generation. We don’t think this company is featuring any forward-looking aspects to the project.
GELLERMAN: So the electricity that would be on this power line wouldn’t come to your house?
ROSSI: No, in fact it goes straight from hydro Quebec down to Westchester where it’s been distributed downstate. Upstate would not get any of the power. In addition, it would lower rates somewhat downstate but it would bring rates up in my area.
GELLERMAN: Well, Ms. Rossi, what are you going to do?
ROSSI: What am I going to do? I am the co-chair of Stop NYRI and we have been very vocal in our opposition to the project. We have been working with local politicians and the other citizens’ groups up and down the line. So, I’m going to keep talking, talking, talking, and agitating to keep this out of our area.
GELLERMAN: Chris Rossi is with the group Stop NYRI. She lives in Hubbardsville, New York. Well, Ms. Rossi, I want to thank you very much.
ROSSI: Thank you for this opportunity.
[MUSIC: Say Hi To Your Mom "Pintsized Midnight Moonbeam Workers" from ‘Discosadness’ (Euphobia/RBG – 2006)]
GELLERMAN: Coming up: when it comes to conserving energy – every little thing can mean big savings. Some homeowner tips are just ahead. Keep listening to Living on Earth.
[MUSIC: The Instruments "My Ship" from ‘Billions of Phonographs’ (Orange Twin Records – 2002)]
GELLERMAN: It’s Living on Earth. I’m Bruce Gellerman. Keeping cool this summer means turning up the juice…but demanding juice, juice and more juice strains not just the nation’s electric power grid, it can also short circuit your budget .You could retrofit your house with big ticket items--things like solar panels or tankless hot water heaters. But, producer Claire Schoen discovered it’s the little stuff that really counts.
SCHOEN: David Johnston is President of "What's Working," a green building consulting firm. I met with him at a cafe not long ago, to get some ideas about tackling skyrocketing energy bills.
JOHNSTON: I don't know if you're in stocks and bonds, and got money in the bank at maybe 3% or 4% interest. You're looking at 20 or 30% return on your money by doing energy retrofits. It's the best investment you can make.
SCHOEN: This caught the attention of the guy at the next table who broke into our conversation to introduce himself -- as Daniel Marcus -- and told us a tale of woe about his own energy bill.
MARCUS: Typically it runs around $60 to 80 dollars. And suddenly went up to $160 which I, clenched my teeth and paid that. And then I got the real big surprise last month which was $250. Pretty detrimental to my pocket book! (Chuckle)
SCHOEN: I decided to pay Daniel a visit at his home. He's single and lives in small house in Berkeley, California -- with his roommate, Shawn.
[MUSIC: Daniel Marcus, Alan Stonebraker and Sarah Miller. "Surrender" from ‘Surrender’ (Dirty Little Locket – recorded 2006)]
MARCUS: I'm a recording artist. Uh, we're putting together an album called Surrender right now. It's a root rock meets nouveau techno album. And I manage to hold down a day job to support my fledgling career.
HODGE: My name's Shawn Hodge. And I'm a private guitar teacher and a musician.
SCHOEN: The two of them took me on a tour of their house. It was a textbook illustration of America's love affair with electronic devices.
[ELECTRONIC MUSIC SOUNDS]
MARCUS: We're in the living room.
HODGE: Typical living room with a TV and sound system.
MARCUS: Here's the kitchen over here. Electric stove, toaster oven, microwave, refrigerator with a freezer. This is my washer and drier. They reside in my garage. Takes up a pretty good chunk of energy. I have no double about that. (Chuckle). So this is my bedroom. Chargers for my phones and gadgets floating around. Alarm clock.
HODGE: I have a printer, I have a heater, I have a little hotplate. Computer, a lamp, over-head light.
MARCUS: Let's see in the bathroom. Electric shaver, hair trimmer.
HODGE: Keep my little goatee at a certain length.
MARCUS: Goat trimmer. (Chuckle)
HODGE: And then I have two amplifiers.
MARCUS: Our hot tub. It's a nice amenity. I really like it. And uh, you know keep it at 103, 104 degrees pretty consistently. (Laugh)
SCHOEN: It's a fairly standard setup for an America house -- well, except perhaps the hot tub -- but mainly filled with the gadgets of our modern lifestyle, that all add up. Then we moved on to Daniel's music room:
[MUSIC: Daniel Marcus, Alan Stonebraker and Sarah Miller. "Surrender" from ‘Surrender’ (Dirty Little Locket – recorded 2006)]
MARCUS: This is my recording studio. I have my recording system, computer, wide assortment of mikes, keyboards, various instruments, plug-ins, amps, preamps, and printer.
SCHOEN: While most of us don't have a home recording studio, we all have our own unique energy needs that are emptying our pocketbooks. Daniel and Shawn don't want to be shelling out big bucks for their energy usage. But they also don't want to be forced to change their lifestyle.
HODGE: The little clocks and phone chargers and..... I consider those pretty necessary in my life. They're not something that I really feel like I need to or want to give up.
SCHOEN: Do they really need to give up their phone chargers? Daniel and Shawn actually don't have a clue where their problem lies. It's just not something they think about.
MARCUS: I don't have time. So it's like for me, every little thing is like, "How do I make this go away really fast."
SCHOEN: Daniel's focus is not on home improvements, but rather on his music. What's on his mind right now is whether he'll be able to interest a visiting producer in his band's cover song.
[IN DANIEL’S MUSIC ROOM]
STONEBRAKER: So, what should we play here?
MARCUS: Let's play "Surrender". That one's a pretty tasty little nugget. I don't think Pierro's heard that song.
[MUSIC: Daniel Marcus, Alan Stonebraker and Sarah Miller. "Surrender" from ‘Surrender’ (Dirty Little Locket – recorded 2006)]
PIERRO: Yeah, I think you guys have definitely achieved that with the whole thing. It's kinda of very, it’s folksy but it doesn't whine. (Laugh)
SCHOEN: Daniel's high tech home studio makes it possible for him to be his own engineer and mix demos right here.
MARCUS: What I'd like to do is actually reroute your tone through a compressor. And naturalize it a little. It will warm up the tone a little bit...
SCHOEN: Besides, Daniel and Shawn are not convinced that fixing up the house is going to save them enough money to make it worth taking time and effort away from their music.
HODGE: There are a lot of smart people in this country. A lot of educated people about finances. And people would be doing more energy efficient things if it was cheaper. But it's not, I don't think. You know, I might as well just pay the extra high energy bills and keep using energy.
SCHOEN: I decided to bring green building expert, David Johnston into the picture. He offered to pay a visit to Daniel and Shawn to assess their energy situation.
MARCUS: Hi there.
JOHNSTON: Daniel, good to see you. David Johnston.
MARCUS: David. Nice to see you again.
JOHNSTON: So, what should we be looking at today.
MARCUS: Ah well, tell me what I can do to be more energy efficient in my house, without having to sacrifice my gadgets or my high-tech lifestyle. (Chuckle)
JOHNSTON: Well, you're an All-American guy.
MARCUS: (chuckle) This is my roommate Shawn.
HODGE/ JOHNSTON: Hi. How's it going? Nice to meet you.
JOHNSTON: I hear you're a toy junkie too.
HODGE: I am. Just like most people I think.
JOHNSTON: So let's do the low hanging fruit, the stuff that's least expensive, that gives you a return in energy savings. Let's go back to the front door. And let's just take a quick look at it.
MARCUS: Yeah my door looks a little drafty to me... (Walking)
JOHNSTON: Anytime you have a penetration in the envelope of the building, there's an opportunity for air to get through. If you look right by the deadbolt there, what do you see?
MARCUS: I see daylight.
JOHNSTON: Air will gallop through there like wild horses.
MARCUS: Wild horses.
JOHNSTON: So we can see right here you can see this old weather stripping that's been here for 50 years. And simply... even a musician can do this.....
MARCUS: Oh, even a musician? (Chuckle) We're not handy at all.
JOHNSTON: You get sticky-backed foam that comes in a roll and you just wash this surface down real well fits right on that strip and so when the door closes it crushes the foam. So, that's costing you maybe 50¢ a day.
MARCUS: That will add up after a while.
JOHNSTON: It's significant.
SCHOEN: And.... then there is the hot tub.
JOHNSTON: So, can we open the top on your hot tub?
MARCUS: Hot tubs are one of God's gifts to humankind as far as I'm concerned.
JOHNSTON: Amen. (Laugh) Especially depending how often you entertain your vocalists out here.
MARCUS: I haven't talked my vocalist into my hot tub yet. (Both laugh)
JOHNSTON: I can feel right now with my hand six inches above the water, the heat radiating from the surface of the water. Can you feel that?
JOHNSTON: So, one more layer of insulation. A foam that's cut out to fit the contour of the side and just lays on the top of the water.
SCHOEN: Another quick fix... Back inside, David took a look up into the attic.
JOHNSTON: Where's your furnace?
MARCUS: Up in the attic. Probably. (Chuckle) We think so. Some large device that whirrs from time to time is up above.
JOHNSTON: We'll pop it and we'll take a peek up in the attic. (Sure, sure)
JOHNSTON: Some insulation up here. Kinda spotty. There's some here. There's some there. I see holes everyplace. You're just throwing money right out through the attic.
MARCUS: The heating thing is still somewhat of a mystery to me.
JOHNSTON: What I would do is use bags of what's called dry cellulose.
MARCUS: Dry cellulose.
JOHNSTON: You can do it yourself, you don't have to pay anybody. So this is where an afternoon with a rake and a couple of buddies. And just bring as many bags of cellulose as you can get up here. And could literally save yourself a quarter of your energy bill every year. Just by putting more grey stuff up there. And it's really inexpensive.
MARCUS: Couple hundred, few hundred bucks...
JOHNSTON: Yeah, it's in the hundreds, not the thousands.
MARCUS: That's a good thing.
JOHNSTON: So it's going to serve you immensely.
MARCUS: Keep it cooler as well?
JOHNSTON: Oh, absolutely. Much cooler.
MARCUS: Cooler and hotter. So it's a win-win on both seasons.
SCHOEN: Then David turned his attention to Daniel's home recording studio.
JOHNSTON: Alright, let's look at the toy room.
MARCUS: Here is my music studio.
JOHNSTON: Well, it's quite a set-up. With your mixer and your computers and speakers and piano and that's a lot in one place. So when everything's fired up it's probably really sucking a lot of juice.
SCHOEN: In fact, all this equipment is sucking juice even when it's not fired up.
JOHNSTON: A lot of equipment, TV's, stereos, computers, even though they say they're off they're still drawing power. And that parasitic power is typically invisible to us. But it's still spinning the meter. And it's like having a hole in your bucket, it all adds up.
MARCUS: And I think when you say parasitic mode you're referring to...
JOHNSTON: Instant on. We want to turn on our computer. (snap) We want to be ready to log on instantaneously. We turn on our TV we want a picture instantly. And we're talking about, you know five seconds differential.
JOHNSTON: So, the way you address that issue, have an on/off strip on a power strip. And so when you leave the room, just hit the off switch on the power strip. And that absolutely kills everything. They do add up. It's like walking down the street and dropping dollar bills. And we wouldn't do that. We'd probably pick up a dollar bill if we saw it.
SCHOEN: After meeting with David, Daniel decided to pick up a few of those dollar bills -- starting with the attic insulation.
MARCUS: I'm definitely interested in putting in the dry cellulose. It doesn't sound like fun work, especially up in a dusty attic. But if it will save me a little money and keep my place warmer and more comfortable and then cooler and more comfortable in the hot months, then... Put down the guitar for a few hours and get out and do some grunty work. It's totally worth it.
[BIG BOX HARDWARE STORE SOUNDS]
INTERCOM: Miguel, please come to insulation. Miguel, insulation.
SCHOEN: Daniel located the insulation at a big-box hardware store not too far away.
MARCUS: So, hopefully this will be simple and easy. And I guess we're about to find out. Hello. Got a question for you. So, I need some insulation which is, um, dry cellulous.
MAN: This is the dry cellulous right here.
MARCUS: I could use a rake and just beat on it.
MAN: Yeah, you can just....
MARCUS: It'll come apart?
MARCUS: So, I'll just grab a couple of bags and give it a try.
MAN: You have a cart?
MARCUS: Alright, so I'm hitting the touch screen. And I'm selecting English. (Beep, beep)
MACHINE: Insert cash. Or select payment type.
MARCUS: Service with a smile. But no smile.
MACHINE: Please take your change.
SCHOEN: Daniel picks up the band's bass guitarist, Alan Stonebraker on the way home.
MARKUS: We're going to be spreading dry cellulous around my attic.
MARCUS: But as a reward I'll let you jump in the hot tub.
STONEBRAKER: (Laugh) Well, now you're talking!
MARCUS: We have gloves, we have masks. Drag this stuff up the ladder.
[DRAGGING, CLANKING, MOVING THINGS AROUND]
MARCUS: OK, so, I'm up here in the attic with my rake and my little flashlight. And I've noticed that right here in the middle of the house there is almost no insulation what-so-ever. OK, so I guess I just sort of chuck this stuff out there, huh? And just trying to spread it around. It's a little like playing in the sandbox as a little kid. But it's hotter and dustier and not as much fun. Alan! When you joined the band did you know that you were going to get to do really fun stuff like this?
STONBRAKER: I had no idea. (Laugh)
MARCUS: Whoo! This is some work!
STONEBRAKER: Yeah, it's like stuff you do in the military. Like, all that crawling under stuff, and…
MARCUS: Alright. I'm becoming more intimately familiar with my furnace than I ever thought I’d be.
SCHOEN: So are most Americans actually going to tackle something like this? With the demand for electricity breaking records, David Johnston thinks that we better.
JOHNSTON: Two years from now, energy is going to be twice as expensive as today. That's going to get somebody's attention. But you want to be doing this now, because the longer you wait, that's just money that’s thrown literally out the windows.
MARCUS: This isn't something that I would have thought to have done if I hadn't met you guys randomly in a cafe. So, maybe a lot of people wouldn't think about or wouldn't know where to engage somebody with that expertise.
SCHOEN: Daniel was able to get advice from David who also works with a non-profit called Build It Green. Brian Gitt is Executive Director of Build It Green. But he says you don't have to live in Berkeley to get free advice on energy savings.
GITT: There are programs like ours all across the country. Over 50 regional programs on the ground today, that are doing very similar work to Build It Green. In the Midwest. You have them in the South. Atlanta, Georgia has had a really amazing program for over 20 years. This is really a national trend.
SCHOEN: Daniel has taken the first step towards retrofitting his house. Time will tell how much it will affect his bottom line. But there are national figures and they're promising.
GITT: According to the Department of Energy, simple, low-cost measures such as weatherization – which is, in essence, just filling all those little cracks and holes around your windows, around your doors and then adding attic insulation – can save on average about 30% on your home's energy bill.
SCHOEN: There are all sorts of other energy saving solutions homeowners can employ. For instance replacing a ten-year-old fridge with a new Energy Star model can save between $500 and $1,000 over the life of the machine. Plus there are all those parasitic appliances David was talking about.
GITT: A study coming out of Cornell University said that we're spending 3 billion dollars per year just on parasitic power. That's when the machine or the appliance is off. The average homeowner can save $200 per year by reducing this type of electricity consumption.
SCHOEN: So, imagine how much surge protectors could save someone like Daniel. Maybe he could even afford his hot tub.
[HOT TUB SOUNDS, OPENING IT GETTING IN]
STONEBRAKER: Oh yeah
MILLER: Great. Relaxing.
STONEBRAKER: We stay in here until we're wrinkled, right?
MARCUS: I find that after my fingers go into a complete prune state, that I've a really good sensitivity to the strings. Some say that's actually the key to our music. (laughter)
MILLER: It's time to play some music.
MARCUS: Is it time?
SCHOEN: For Living on Earth, this is Claire Schoen, in Berkeley, California.
TECHAMUANVIVIT: Bad things sometimes happen to good ingredients. You know what I'm talking about...those 'organic' foods that are meant to be healthy alternatives to regular junk food: the five-bucks-a-box cereals that taste like extruded cardboard. Or those 'Energy' Bars that are basically compacted sawdust.
What's astonishing to me is our tolerance for foods that plainly taste horrible, merely because they are supposed to be better for us. Well, it said so, right there on the box! No hydrogenated oil. No High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup. All 'natural'. No flavor!
Don't get me wrong. I love fresh organic and sustainable food just as much as you do. Yet every time I browse the isles full of 'natural' processed food and snacks at my local whole food market, I wonder to myself if they really are that good for us.
In the spirit of research, I picked up a bag of baked cheese sticks –those fluorescent orange puffs. They were crispy but tasted oddly under-baked, and had 290 milligrams of sodium just in a small handful –that's more than a tenth of the suggested daily intake by the National Institutes of Health. Then I tried a toaster pastry. Ok, just a corner of one, if truth be told, because it was like eating baked clay with sticky sweet stuff in it. I simply couldn't go on. Had I done so, I would've ingested 5 teaspoons of sugar and 210 calories, mostly of carbohydrates.
I also bought some salad dressings. The worst of the lot was a Honey Mustard flavor with almost two teaspoons of sugar in every serving. And it tasted oily, thick, and sickly sweet. Not something I'd put on my salad.
There was also that Natural Beef Flavored Gravy I found –not made of beef exactly, only natural beef flavor. And don't you think that reconstituted mashed potato should just be banned on principle? What part of Just Add Water is natural and wholesome anyway?
I appreciate that consumers want common processed foods they're accustomed to in conventional stores. An apple doesn't always satisfy a hankering for a snack. And with all the demands of modern life, there is a legitimate need for more 'convenient' foods. And yes, compared to the conventional food riddled with ingredients I can't pronounce, these natural counterparts are certainly better for you. Yet, all that sugar, carbohydrates, and sodium can hardly be that good for anyone.
Perhaps it's time for an organic consumer revolt. We mustn't let the organic industry get away with selling crappy tasting foods in the name of health. They're not all that healthy anyway, why can't they at least taste good?
[MUSIC: Architecture in Helsinki "Spring 2008" from ‘Fingers Crossed’ (Bar None - 2004)]
GELLERMAN: Pim Techamuanvivit writes about food on her blog Chez Pim. To read more of her menu musings, visit our website, L-O-E dot org. That’s L-O-E dot O-R-G. You can reach us at comments at L-O-E dot org. Once again, comments at L-O-E dot o-r-g. Our postal address is 20 Holland Street, Somerville Massachusetts, 02144. And you can call our listener line at 800-218-9988. That’s 800-218-9988. CDs and transcripts are fifteen dollars.
GELLERMAN: You’re listening to the always-tasteful Living on Earth.
Chez Pim website
ANNOUNCER: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations, and: Kashi, whose "Day of Change" tour features yoga lessons, natural food cooking demos, and Kashi cereals, crackers and granola bars. Details at Kashi dot com; The Kresge Foundation, investing in nonprofits to help them catalyze growth, connect to stakeholders, and challenge greater support. On the web at Kresge dot org; and, The Kellogg Foundation, helping people help themselves by investing in individuals, their families, and their communities. On the web at wkkf dot org. This is NPR, National Public Radio.
[MUSIC: Eyvind Kang &Tucker Martine "Horizon" from ‘Orchestra Dim Bridges’ (Conduit Records – 2004)]
GELLERMAN: It’s Living on Earth. I’m Bruce Gellerman, and coming up: more big profits for big oil. So, where’s all the money going? First, this note on emerging science from Allison Smith.
SMITH: A new study from South Africa shows women there have an average of 12 times the maximum residue limit of DDT in their bodies. The most extreme case exceeded the tolerable limit by 77 times. Research has linked DDT to infant mortality due to preterm births and shortened lactation periods.
Scientists have been studying DDT residue in childbearing women since the 1980’s. DDT was outlawed in the United States as an agricultural insecticide in 1972, but it is still used in developing countries as a cheap, efficient way to control pests. It enters the body through food and water sources, inhalation during farm work, and most notably by way of mosquito insecticide used to prevent malaria. Malaria kills more than a million people in Africa each year.
International initiatives in the early ‘90’s aimed to find alternatives to DDT. But an epidemic outbreak of malaria in 1995 forced South Africa to reintroduce DDT as a blanket defense against new resistant strains of the virus.
That’s this week’s note on emerging science. I’m Allison Smith.
The Independent’s article on the study
GELLERMAN: Tis the season to slather on the sunscreen. And while we’ve all been warned about the dangers of the sun’s rays, now comes a warning about the products that are supposed to protect us. Jane Houlihan is vice president of research with the Environmental Working Group. The organization is coming out with a new report evaluating the effectiveness and safety of the ingredients in sunscreens. Ms. Houlihan, thanks for joining me.
HOULIHAN: You’re welcome, I’m happy to be here.
GELLERMAN: Now, the organization which you are vice president of, the Environmental Working Group, recently did some research investigating the ingredients that go into sunscreens. What did you find?
HOULIHAN: In the US we have 17 active sunscreens that are approved for use in sunscreen, and they vary a lot across the board in terms of how much protection they provide from radiation and in terms of how safe they are to put on the skin. So we looked at – are these ingredients themselves presenting some toxicity? And we found that ranges pretty widely. For instance some of the ingredients in sunscreens produce free radicals. And those can damage DNA or cells and present cancer risks.
GELLERMAN: In preparing for this interview I looked up some of those ingredients and there are some suspicions that some are neurodisruptors, some act as estrogens. Is that true?
HOULIHAN: Yes, for instance some ingredients act like estrogens in the body like octylmethoxycinnamate. That’s in almost 300 sunscreens that we looked at, almost half of the sunscreens we’ve investigated. That’s a concern because estrogen is linked to increased risk for breast cancer. And also there are concerns about what happens to those chemicals when they are washed off our bodies in the shower and they get into wastewater treatment plants and into streams and rivers.
GELLERMAN: Is there any evidence to suggest that once these ingredients wash off and are in the water that they effect the wildlife, the fish, the plant life?
HOULIHAN: Yes. Some of the early concerns about the toxicity, the dangers of sunscreens came from studies of wildlife. And what’s been found is that these chemicals may be feminizing fish. So it’s a big concern for wildlife. And of course those studies raise questions about what these chemicals are doing when we put them on our bodies. And so when your combining, you know, six products a day on average for men, twelve a day on average for women, that includes sunscreen too, you know, we’re each applying 100 almost 200 unique ingredients to our skin every day and those exposures can add up.
GELLERMAN: Some of these chemicals on the backs of these products are unpronounceable. And for the average consumer how are they supposed to know which are safe or not safe?
HOULIHAN: It is really hard for consumers to navigate the safety of personal care products including sunscreens. And it’s one reason that my group has worked for three years to give people a resource which helps guide them. And one thing we have done is compile ingredient and product safety information for about 14,000 products on the market and we’ve put it in a big searchable online data base called Skin Deep.
Cosmetics, personal care products – there is no requirement for pre-market safety testing and what that means is that the whole system operates on, you know, the honor system. The manufacturers are operating on an honor system and so the claims on sunscreens sometimes just flat out aren’t substantiated. Some companies use ingredients that are safe to eat and other companies use human carcinogens in their products. It’s a huge variation and one thing you can look for in products when you’re buying them are antioxidants, because those will help quench free radicals. It’s the reason manufacturers are adding them. So if you look for things like vitamin E, vitamin C, even green tea. Those kinds of ingredients can help.
GELLERMAN: Now Ms. Houlihan, what does SPF actually mean?
HOULIHAN: That sun protection factor tells you how well that product protects you from sunburn. And it’s actually a number that’s set based on people who volunteer to be sunburned in a laboratory. That SPF protection factor though, only covers what’s called UVB radiation and it doesn’t cover UVA radiation – the other dangerous side of how we’re exposed to radiation from the sun. And that kind of radiation actually penetrates deeper into the skin. And the FDA is way behind the curve. They haven’t set standards yet for UVA protection. Most other countries have standards. So, when you’re buying a sunscreen you have to do your homework. You have to first of all look for products that are claiming broad spectrum protection, because that’s at least a start. And then look on the back of the label for ingredients like zinc oxide or avobenzone that are actual UVA protectors.
GELLERMAN: Zinc oxide is the stuff that I used to watch lifeguards put on their nose.
HOULIHAN: Right. So it used to be white and really noticeable on the skin. And formulations over the last few years have been made that use smaller particles of zinc oxide that are transparent. So you don’t have that problem of looking white all over when you use the product.
GELLERMAN: Now vitamin D has been called the sunshine vitamin and if I screen out the sun am I kind of diminishing my ability to get vitamin D?
HOULIHAN: One thing we know is that it doesn’t take much sun to give us enough vitamin D. So if you’re even out in the sun for say 15 minutes you’re getting enough of a dose of sunshine to get your vitamin D.
GELLERMAN: Ms. Houlihan, thank you very much.
HOULIHAN: You’re welcome.
GELLERMAN: Jane Houlihan is vice president for research for the Environmental Working Group. To find out which products might be safer for you, check out our website: loe.org.
Environmental Working Group report: Skin Deep
[MUSIC: Amon Tobin “Saboteur” from ‘Supermodified’ (Ninja Tune – 2000)]
GELLERMAN: Second quarter reports are in for the major oil companies and it’s another gusher. The world’s largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, made 10-point-4 billion dollars in profits over the last three months—that’s just shy of an all time record. It marks the first time in US history that a company’s revenues topped a billion dollars a day. Let me say that again: a billion dollars a day. BP, Shell, and Conoco-Phillips also saw profits soar 30 percent or more. Living on Earth’s Jeff Young took a look at just what the oil industry is doing with all that money.
YOUNG: John Felmy has a tough job. As chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute Felmy needs to persuade you that those record oil profits you hear about really aren’t that big.
FELMY: What API is trying to do is put our earnings in perspective. While the earnings from the companies are very large, it’s simply because the companies are very large. But if you calculate earnings in terms of cents in the dollar you’ll find that our earnings as an industry are in line with the earnings of the average of all other industries.
YOUNG: API – the trade group for the major oil companies – has increased its spending on advertising to make the point. Graphs in the ads show banking and pharmaceuticals making much more on the dollar than the oil industry, which has earnings between 8 and 9 percent.
FELMY: And that’s fair given everything we have to do as an industry to find, produce, refine, market and transport oil to consumers.
YOUNG: And Felmy says they’re putting those profits into exploration, research and development the country will need as energy supply tightens and demand grows.
FELMY: The oil and natural gas industry is investing more than they make in earnings. So we’re plowing the money back in to produce more oil and gas in the future.
YOUNG: Felmy and his peers can’t afford to look too happy with their success. Already there’s talk on capitol hill of windfall taxes on oil profits, new laws against price gouging at the pump, and repeal of some industry subsidies. Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden is skeptical of Felmy’s claims.
WYDEN: I think the American people deserve a true accounting of what’s been going on behind the numbers at the gas pump and where their hard earned money has been going for the past several years.
YOUNG: Wyden asked the non-partisan Congressional Research Service to look into oil company profits and investment over the past 6 years. The report found the industry doubled its spending on exploration. But both the industry’s return on equity and its cash reserves increased six times over.
WYDEN: The bottom line is that the major oil companies are only putting back in the ground a modest fraction of what they have been siphoning away from consumers at the pump across our country.
YOUNG: Wyden wants to close a loophole that allows oil companies to escape billions in royalty payments to the government for drilling on federal property. So far the idea hasn’t gained traction. And those proposals to tax windfall profits and repeal subsidies also fell by the wayside. Ideas like those run into another oil industry investment: hundreds of millions in lobbying and campaign cash. The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics says the oil industry spent 60 million dollars lobbying Congress last year. It gave more than 80 million in campaign cash over the last 3 election cycles—mostly to Republicans. And it gave four and a half million to help elect former oilman George W. Bush, president.
BUSH: I urge congress to pass legislation that makes America more secure and less dependent on foreign energy.
YOUNG: The Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy organization, says the energy bill president bush signed a year ago gave the oil industry 6 billion in subsidies and tax breaks. The Petroleum Institute’s Felmy denies his industry benefits from a Bush White House.
FELMY: I don’t see how you can possibly say the change in the White House was a significant impact on the industry because what it was that changed everything was the change in the markets. But as far as a political change, I see no impact on the industry.
YOUNG: Felmy says Wyden’s study intentionally picked the years with the lowest and
highest industry take so the math would make a more dramatic point. But some industry analysts also find fault with how Felmy’s using the numbers. For example, his claim that the industry invests more than it earns doesn’t wash with analyst Lyle Brinker.
BRINKER: They have so much money they probably can’t spend it all even if they wanted to.
YOUNG: Brinker’s with the John Herold Energy Research Firm. Brinker’s also skeptical of industry talk about renewable and alternative energy. BP recently pledged to double its investment in renewable energy and devotes much of its advertising to topics other than oil.
AD SOUND: There are so many opportunities that haven’t been looked at, that the transition from oil to another alternative source is a must.
BRINKER: They’re probably much more of a PR issue than actual dollars spent. Or you might get the impression from some ad campaigns from some companies that they’re spending more than they really are. It’s still a very small piece of their overall capital budgets.
YOUNG: Even small pieces of budgets that big do add up. BP already has about 10 percent of the world’s market in solar power. And Exxon Mobil pledged 100 million dollars over the next decade for Stanford University to develop technology to lower emissions that contribute to global warming. But Exxon Mobil is taking heat from environmentalists for its stand on climate change policy.
DAVIES: Exxon is the laggard in corporate responsibility on global warming, full stop.
YOUNG: Kert Davies at Greenpeace has a research project called Exxon Secrets. They aren’t secrets, so much as information hidden in plain view, in this case, in Exxon Mobil records on charitable giving. Davies finds Exxon gave 19 million dollars over seven years to think tanks and advocacy groups who oppose action on global warming.
DAVIES: Groups some people may never have heard of, the George Marshall Institute, or Frontiers of Freedom, Competitive Enterprise Institute, basically a who’s who of the right-wing think tank industry.
YOUNG: Now in the Exxon world, this is chump change we’re talking about. But they’re getting a pretty good value on this.
DAVIES: They’re certainly getting their money’s worth out of these groups. These are the groups that have injected uncertainty questions into the journalistic coverage of global warming for the past 8 years, and successfully beat back policies on Capitol Hill to combat global warming.
YOUNG: Davies found a Washington-based think tank called the Competitive Enterprise
Institute gets the most Exxon Mobil money. CEI as it’s known, recently produced and ran this television ad timed to counter the release of Al Gore’s global warming film.
AD EXCERPT: Now, some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed. What would our lives be like then? Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution. We call it life.
YOUNG: Myron Ebell leads the CEI climate policy program. Ebell is a regular at climate-related events in the capital, fighting what he calls the global warming alarmists.
EBELL: Well I’m talking about the view that global warming is a very serious problem and the impacts or consequences or effects of global warming will be both severe and very adverse, and therefore the need to do something about it is overwhelming. I think that’s the three steps of the alarmist argument.
YOUNG: A spokesperson for Exxon Mobil declined an interview request. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say they’ll keep pressuring Exxon on climate change. Amid all the finger pointing, there is one more telling statistic to consider. As company profits rose so did consumer demand—up a little more than one percent in the last 3 months. For all the griping over gas prices and fretting over global warming we still want more oil.
For Living on Earth, I’m Jeff Young in Washington.
[MUSIC: JoRane "The Cave" from ‘The You and the Now’ (Six Degrees Records – 2005)]
- American Petroleum Institute’s "Facts on Earnings"
- Greenpeace "Exxon Secrets" page
- Exxpose Exxon - a project of several environmental groups
- BP page on alternative energy
- Congressional Research Service report
GELLERMAN: Next week - They’re noisy and they steal others’ young. They’re the birds folks love to hate.
J.D.: I don’t know anybody that likes magpies.
TAYLOR: To wake up every morning to screeching magpies.
WAJ: I’m not sure I would hate them as much if it weren’t for the fact that so many other people seem to hate them.
GELLERMAN: But scientists say the magpie doesn’t deserve the bad rap. Meet the much-maligned magpie, next time on Living on Earth.
[EARTH EAR: "Ocean Waves" recorded by Kim Wilson from ‘Echoes of Nature: Natural Sounds of the Wilderness’ (Delta Music - 1993)]
GELLERMAN: We leave you this week – at the edge of the ocean. Kim Wilson recorded these California surf sounds. And if you can’t get to the beach today, well, maybe this will help you keep cool.
GELLERMAN: Living on Earth is produced by the World Media Foundation. Our crew includes Ashley Ahearn, Chris Ballman, Eileen Bolinsky, Jennifer Chu and Ingrid Lobet - with help from Bobby Bascomb, Kelley Cronin, and James Curwood. Our interns are Tobin Hack and Allison Smith. Our technical director is Dennis Foley. Alison Lirish Dean composed our themes. You can find us at loe dot org. I’m Bruce Gellerman. Thanks for listening.
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On November 14, 2009 an unprecedented agreement was struck between Russell Athletic and the union representing 1,200 unjustly laid off workers at its former Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) factory. The company has agreed to open a new facility in the Choloma area, re-hire and provide substantial economic assistance to the former JDH workers, institute a joint union-management training program on freedom of association and commit to a position of neutrality with respect to unionization, which will open the door for union representation at all of Fruit of the Loom’s Honduran facilities (Russell Athletic is owned by Fruit of the Loom).
“This agreement represents one of the most significant advances for fundamental workplace rights in the twenty-year history of apparel industry codes of conduct,” said Scott Nova of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which conducted independent investigations into violations of freedom of association at JDH. “It is hard to overstate the significance of this breakthrough.”
The agreement is the result of a massive effort by students, unions and labour rights organizations in Honduras, the US, Europe and Canada, including MSN. United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) in the US and MSN in Canada convinced over 100 universities that have adopted ethical purchasing policies to tell Russell Athletic they would withdraw licensing agreements with the company (worth millions of dollars annually) unless it took action to remediate the violations.
The violation were discovered by several investagations conducted by the WRC and the Fair Lbor Association (FLA)
• Read the Joint Public Statement on the agreement by the union and the company (November 17, 2009)
• Read the WRC report and memos on the Jerzees closure.
• Read Russell Athletic’s statements on the case.
• Read MSN's letter to Canadian Universities regarding Russell's Jerzees closure.
In a special meeting convened December 1, 2009, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) Board of Directors formally lifted the "Special Review" of Russell Athletic's membership in the FLA after the company's agreement reached on November 14 with the workers' union (SITRAJERZEESH) and the confederation to which it is affiliated (CGT) was found to address the key issues that were pending from the FLA remediation plan previously issued to Russell.
An unprecedented agreement has been struck between Russell Athletic and the union representing 1,200 unjustly laid off workers at its former Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) factory. The company has agreed to open a new facility in the area, re-hire and provide substantial economic assistance to the former JDH workers, institute a joint union-management training program on freedom of association and commit to a position of neutrality with respect to unionization, which will open the door for union representation at all Fruit of the Loom facilities in Hondura.
Students protest Russell Athletic
Citing Russell Athletic's "failure to engage in good faith negotiations with the CGT union on issues like compensation for terminated employees, a meaningful first-hire policy and reasonable access for unions to company factories", the Fair Labor Association (FLA) has put its member company Russell Athletic on Special Review for 90 days. If Russell fails to complete a series of required steps in 90 days their FLA membership may be revoked.
The Ethical Trading Action Group is asking for your assistance to convince sportswear supplier Russell Athletic to get serious about remediating well-documented violations of workers’ rights at its recently closed Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) factory in Choloma, Honduras.
Please write to retailers in your city asking them to review the labour rights abuses reported at the JDH factory when considering whether to continue stocking Russell Athletic products on their store shelves.
Feb 14, 2009 - "Schools Score Points by Standing Up for Workers," By David Bonior, Huffington Post
Sportswear supplier Russell Athletic is facing growing pressure from students and other anti-sweatshop activists and US and Canadian universities to get serious about remediating well-documented violations of workers’ rights at its recently closed Jerzees de Honduras factory in Choloma, Honduras.
In January, nine labour rights organizations, including MSN, filed a formal request with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) calling for urgent precautionary measures to protect the life of Honduran trade union leader Evangelina Argueta.
“Recent developments indicate a substantial probability that a plot to assassinate Ms. Argueta and/or her colleagues, or otherwise commit violence against them, is already in the works,” says the IACHR submission ...
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) has released findings from its investigation into allegations of freedom of association violations surrounding Russell Athletics’ planned closure of its Jerzees de Honduras plant. Among the findings were "that anti-union animus was a significant factor in the company’s decision to close the plant," and that threats, harassment, and interference with collective representation were used at the plant to prevent workers from exercising their right to freedom of association. | <urn:uuid:ccb76639-0c0d-4bcc-8aff-4c6023182dab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.maquilasolidarity.org/jerzees?SESS89c5db41a82abcd7da7c9ac60e04ca5f=vdsqh11sdadlm32nj85lh5kji5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955009 | 1,043 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Ilkley Literature Festival began in 1973, the brainchild of Michael Dawson, first Director of the newly formed Yorkshire Arts Association. During the 1971 postal strike, the lack of any new mail gave him the space to browse through a stack of brochures from arts festivals across the country. To his surprise he discovered that only Cheltenham staged a literary festival and that that there was nothing of the kind in the North and he set about instituting a new Literature Festival in Ilkley, his home town. After two years of planning and fund raising, the first Festival was launched by W.H. Auden in April 1973, in one of the poet’s last public appearances. At first biennial, the Festival became a regular yearly event by 1988, going from strength to strength. Over the last thirty five years innumerable famous authors have passed through its doors – from international figures and Nobel prize winners to poets like Ted Hughes and Benjamin Zephaniah. There have been residencies, literary walks, discussions, commissions, workshops, exhibitions, performances & moments of high drama.
Today the Festival is held over a two week period at the start of October in the miniature Victorian spa town at the foot of Ilkley Moor - surrounded by beautiful countryside – but only fifteen minutes from Leeds Bradford airport and a stone’s throw from Haworth, Harrogate, Leeds and Bradford. The Festival is supported by Arts Council England Yorkshire, West Yorkshire Grants and Bradford Metropolitan Council who also provide the Festival with two tiny offices in a listed Victorian cottage on the site of a Roman Fort in the grounds of the Manor House Museum. Each year more than 180 events take place in a variety of venues across the town, from a well equipped modern studio theatre for 150 at Ilkley Playhouse, to the large function rooms at the imposing Craiglands Hotel and the ornate Grade 2 listed early nineteenth century King’s Hall, with its gilded boxes and balconies, seating 500. The Children’s Festival has a home at the newly built All Saints C of E Primary School and other events take place at St Margaret’s Church Hall, Otley Courthouse Arts Centre and the Education Room of the Manor House Museum. There are projects and residencies involving local schools and community organisations across the town and a lively Fringe that squashes into any venue it can find.
As J.B. Priestley said, when he wrote in support of the very first Festival:
‘Ilkley is the right size for a Festival town…large enough to provide various amenities and small enough to stroll around and run into everybody.’ | <urn:uuid:0e899fd4-1445-4b90-bb20-1ba9a2c16ef4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sileedsliteraryprize.wordpress.com/our-partners/ilkley-literature-festival/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959216 | 535 | 1.671875 | 2 |
But be careful - not all bamboo is the same. Some bamboo is harvested prematurely using non-sustainable methods and few if any quality controls to keep cost down. Unfortunately, this produces a softer, more easily damaged floor that won't hold up as well as products made from mature bamboo. With bamboo you truly get what you pay for.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Select flooring that comes in multiple length planks to give a more natural appearance to the floor.
- Look for water-based solvent-free finishes. The manufacturer should be a member of the U.S. Green Building Council.
- Buy only plantation grown bamboo to assure proper maturity and species. Moso (Phyllostachys pubescens) is a good choice and is NOT a food source for pandas.
- Coordinating finish accessories should include, floor vents, stair risers, treads and nosings, as well as moldings, reducers and thresholds so that your new floor will have a beautiful finished look. | <urn:uuid:3c0f1129-2614-4386-9d02-c9d140531f3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yourerie.com/fulltext-erichson?nxd_id=68801 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953829 | 212 | 1.53125 | 2 |
On February 11, dozens of SUNY campuses convened at the Legislative Office Building in Albany’s Empire State Plaza to showcase their individual contributions to their communities as well as SUNY’s collective contributions. SUNY Day is an event where the public, senators, and assemblymen are all welcome to see the latest of what each SUNY campus has to offer. This year’s theme was experiential education.
Generation SUNY is helping bring you a few of those stories in our SUNY DAY 2013 series.
This past year, SUNY Geneseo’s Center for Inquiry, Discovery and Leadership began the Student Ambassador Awards – a grant program that awards $5,000 to support student-designed research that results in identifiable and transformative change for the student and the community.
Nine Student Ambassador Awards were given last year. Winners were chosen based on their ability to work successfully in a self-directed project; demonstrated interest in innovation, leadership, and community values; willingness to participate in the Student Advisory Board of the Center in 2012-2013; willingness to give a presentation on the project to the Geneseo community; and students had to be returning on a full-time basis for the next fall academic semester.
Three members of Geneseo’s inaugural class of Ambassadors were on hand at SUNY Day to discuss their research, the program, and experiential learning at SUNY Geneseo.
Brandon Eng, winner of the James Houston ’80 Ambassdorship in Innovation, used his Ambassadorship to preserve oral histories of immigrants and study their visual identity. Eng worked with the Chair of Geneseo’s Anthropology Department, Dr. Rose-Marie Chierici and Art History faculty member Dr. Lynette Bosch to develop his research. He chose to study immigration through visual mediums, rather than text. “Text is a very culturally specific, very bounded method and it ignores cultural flows that have lesser or different impacts when converted into text.”
His interest in the subject was partially inspired by his own history. “I was also inspired by my own family background, as well as that of many of my high school peers. I attended the Bronx High School of Science which aside from being racially and ethnically diverse has a large population of first and second generation students. They often had home lives straddling two cultures; I was interested in that divide.”
Beyond this Ambassadorship, Eng is an ambitious student. “I may TA a Film and Anthropology class next fall semester, if I end up going abroad I will probably still try to work with Dr. Aimers in the anthropology department to revamp the curriculum with a nod towards critical visual anthropological studies.” In the future, he intends to curate contemporary art. “I treated this exhibition in many ways as a sort of installation art piece. The ideological hang is an idea I’m really interested in. The Ambassadorship has been a huge step towards realizing that goal. I’m looking forward to working with several on-campus galleries to coordinate exhibitions with interdisciplinary foci that can bring more students into these spaces.”
At SUNY Day, we also met Grace Trompeter and Stephanie Kelly, two members of the Community Health Alliance student organization that received one of two the Frank Vafier Ambassadorships in Leadership.
Like Eng, the members of the Community Health Alliance also worked with Dr. Rose-Marie Chierici and as an organization, they decided on a project. Trompeter said, “We sat down and discussed our current community partners and decided on a project where we could have the most impact on the community.”
For the project, the Community Health Alliance worked closely with Geneseo Parish Outreach Center where they assisted in “entering patient information and helping other volunteers use the software.”
In analyzing what kind of impact they wanted to have, Trompeter said the organization discovered some major flaws in community health care. “We have seen how low socio-economic status contributes to barriers to access to health care and high incidence of chronic disease. We also noticed through observation and discussion with volunteer clinicians of the POC that patients weren’t always receiving consistent care as they were seeing medical professionals irregularly and often saw a different clinician at each visit. We wanted to work with a doctor to create a streamlined standard of care for patients and knew the first step was analyzing the patient demographic to understand their greatest needs.”
Their persistence resulted in substantial results for the community. “Our Ambassadorship has allowed the POC to purchase a[n] (electronic medical records) system that will help streamline the care of uninsured and underinsured patients in our community. The analysis we provide will create a portrait of the greatest needs of this underserved demographic and help the POC improve their care in chronic disease maintenance and prevention.” Of their legacy, “We hope that this project continues and the students who follow behind us will continue to expand the Community Health Alliance, strengthening our relationship with the community, promoting healthful lifestyles, and gaining experience for future careers in public health and medicine,” said Trompeter.
Other Student Ambassador Award winners included:
- The Frank Vafier Ambassadors in Leadership – Josh Kent ’13, Major: International Relations and Spanish
- The James N. Leary Ambassador in Leadership – Celeste Hoelzl ’14, Major: Business Administration and Spanish
- The Community Advocates Ambassador in Community Engagement – Melissa Graham ’13, Major: Biology
- The Gerard Gouvernet Ambassador in French Language and Culture – Erin O’Brien ’14, Major: French and Spanish
- The Provost’s Ambassador in Diversity – Kevin Castaneda ’13, Major: Sociology
- The John A. and MaryGrace Gleason Ambassador in Student Affairs – Michael Venturiello ’13, Major: English
- The Edward Pettinella Ambassador in Business – Robert Kahrs ’13. Major: Business Administration | <urn:uuid:e60a0d36-dacd-451b-9e9c-8edd5400d30d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.suny.edu/2013/02/suny-day-2013-suny-geneseo-ambassador-program-transforms-university-community-relations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959665 | 1,264 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The discovery of an additional dog with upper respiratory illness has extended a 14-day quarantine of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department Animal Control Shelter.
The facility was placed on minimal 14-day quarantine today after an inspection May 7 by the Georgia Department of Agriculture. The inspection was requested by the Animal Control staff.
The quarantine would have ended today had another case not been discovered. Animal Control officers have isolated the animal and continue to treat the center to prevent additional outbreaks. An inspector for the Department of Agriculture is scheduled to revisit the shelter on Friday.
The upper respiratory issues first were noticed by Animal Control officers in the outside kennels two weeks ago.. The illness is common in shelters and animal facilities but the intake and adoption of animals must be halted during the quarantine period.
Shelter staff also will sanitize the facility during the quarantine period before reopening to the public for normal operations.
During this period, the public will have no access to the center and the intake of animals will be limited. Animal Control officers will be able to respond to emergency-based calls, but animals are being adopted from the facility after adopters are advised of the illness.
UPDATE: Animal control will reopen to the public on TUESDAY | <urn:uuid:2c4e60fb-f728-4370-b8b7-9d0a029171b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsradio1290wtks.com/pages/petcentral.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96306 | 252 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Picture, if you will, a tiny car barrelling down the motorway and a woman belting out Christmas carols at the top of her voice. That, gentle readers, is me on my commute at the moment, singing along with the Annie Lennox Christmas album. I verily live up to my Native American name of ‘Sings Loud in Small Car’. I’m not sure what my favourite carol is, possibly a toss up between ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ and ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’, especially the latter as I like the thought of being saved from Satan’s power when I am ‘gone astray’ (which is quite often). I do like the opportunity to sing loudly and in public, so maybe carolling is a way forward for me, much like the people in today’s picture….
|A Carol Laura Alma Tadema|
A group of cherubic kiddiwinks belt out classics in the hallway of their home. Blimey, they’re organised, one even has a lute. It wasn’t like that in my day. Also, just because I grew up in the middle of Wiltshire, please don’t imagine it was some romantic Thomas Hardy-esque Casterbridge Christmas. We ambled through the various 1960s new-build estates, then gave up when our wellies filled with rain. To avoid the wellies-and-rain combination, these smart children are carol singing indoors. Genius! The roughest terrain they are going to tackle is the rug. Victorian kids had it easy…
Looking at the children, their faces are together in a neat arrangement...
The two youngest sing, holding a large book of music between them, the elder boy plays his lute and the girl carries a plate with a scroll and some tulips. Ahhh, the tulips. Not especially known as a Christmas plant, but they do enable us to date the picture exactly. This painting is set in 1636, and while it wasn’t unusual for Laura Alma Tadema to use seventeenth century Dutch style in her work, this picture is easy to date because rather than being about Christmas, it’s about folly and wealth.
I’m guessing that the tulips pictured on the silver plate are Rosen, the variegated red/pink and white variety, possibly even Admiral Verijck, a specially prized specimen, pictured below…
During the Tulip Mania of 1636-37, the lovely Admiral would cost you 1045 florins. The price rose dramatically from December 1636 to February 1637, and so the children are carrying an extremely expensive bunch of flowers as they sing in the middle of the period of mania. Maybe the young lady with the plate should pay more attention as the petals have begun to fall and one has settled on the fur of the bear. The flowers won’t last much longer, and neither will their fortune if it is dependant on something as fragile and transient as the fashion for flowers.
Modern discussion of Tulip Mania began in this country in 1841 with the publication of Charles Mackay’s splendidly named Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Greed and folly were seen as herd instincts for people, all driven mad as they clamoured to buy into the thing that would make them rich. Alma Tadema seems to have contrasted the tulip on the silver plate with the carols, songs about a child born in a stable.
So, where are the children? It seems they are within their own home, singing for their parents, but why are they faced with a closed door? It might be as simple as the parents will open the door and bestow gifts upon their lovely offspring, but as images go, surely it would be less ambiguous, more straight-forward, to have the parents smiling at their carolling kids. The only thing I can think is that it hints that not all rewards are forthcoming. The children sing sweetly in the corridor but the door remains closed, just as Holland went mad for the tulip but the reward for their actions was not given when the bubble burst and the tulips fell in price. It could be that the painting is suggesting that their wealth is as fragile as the tulip that is already falling apart.
Sing up Kids, by February you’ll be busking for your supper.
See you tomorrow. | <urn:uuid:b881cfbf-1342-4716-aadb-b739fa1cd609> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fannycornforth.blogspot.com/2011/12/13th-december-carol.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969268 | 929 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Millions of pounds will be spent on improving Towcester’s secondary school as developers prepare to double the size of the town.
When Persimmon and Bloor Homes first produced a masterplan for 2,750 new homes to the south and west of Towcester in 2007, they included plans to rebuild Sponne School at the southern end of the town near to Cow Pastures.
A second, later plan put the new school on the western edge of town – but speaking exclusively to the Advertiser this week, Andrew Grant, Northants County Council’s member for children, said instead ‘several million pounds’ will be ploughed into the school’s current site in Brackley Road.
He said: “The proposed site would have been at the southern extremity of the town, past the racecourse, and I think there could have been implications on transport, but that’s irrelevant now.”
He added: “Sponne is one of the few outstanding schools in the county under the new Ofsted regime and there is a great buzz around the school – this will secure Sponne at the heart of the community.”
Developers have also agreed to build two new primary schools capable of teaching 420 pupils each.
The site once allocated for the secondary school will now be turned into two adult football pitches, three junior pitches, a hard court the size of three tennis pitches and changing facilities.
Mr Grant added: “The first thing someone asked me when I was elected in 2003 was ‘where are my kids going to play football in Towcester?’”
Mr Grant said after years of discussion and delays caused by the recession, a planning application for the 2,750 new homes is expected to go before SNC planners in April.
Sponne’s headteacher Dr Jamie Clarke said: “The increase in capacity is relatively small and it makes sense to expand the current site rather than building a new, very small and uneconomic secondary school. We look forward to working to ensure sufficient funds are made available to accommodate this expansion at Sponne.”
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Weather for Buckingham
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Temperature: 13 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North
Temperature: 12 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east | <urn:uuid:a38a8398-f817-4b97-9188-a91d62d13ccd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buckinghamtoday.co.uk/news/local/future-more-certain-for-towcester-s-secondary-school-1-4883448 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956765 | 505 | 1.5 | 2 |
Back in January, I worried with my infinite wisdom about an application to the CRTC by Discovery Channel Canada to allow game shows as part of its programming categories. I worried that this might be an excuse to import a
U.S. British trivia show called Cash Cab into Canada, stretch the limits of the channel's mandate and suck up some easy cash.
Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. The CRTC approved the change in its license, and Discovery announced that it was carbon-copying importing the format for use here. I still held out hope that the format would be predominantly educational in nature, and/or that the subjects of the questions would deal with science, technology and nature.
After watching a couple of episodes (you can see complete episodes online here), it seems my original fears were more than justified.
For those who haven't seen it (or don't want to see it), Cash Cab's format has a guy driving a van through the streets of Toronto, and then surprising people who come aboard by telling them they're on a TV game show they've never heard of (a part that's either hilarious or awkward depending on your tastes). He then asks them questions, gives money for each right answer, and when they get three wrong they're booted out of the cab.
It's nothing more than a cookie-cutter trivia show with a lame hook. Some of the questions are certainly scientific in nature, but others relate to sports, business, history and even popular culture. It's hard to distinguish these questions from the ones on every other trivia-based game show out there.
Discovery's reputation: Destroyed in Seconds
For how bad Cash Cab is, Destroyed in Seconds is worse. This embarrassment of programming is essentially a carbon copy of World's Most Amazing Videos (which currently airs on Spike TV), in all the bad ways imaginable. Here's how both shows work:
- Find a video that shows some catastrophic event: a plane crash, a bridge collapse, an explosion. Usually this will be amateur video of poor quality, but that's ok. In fact, it adds to the realness of the show.
- Ensure that nobody dies in the event that took place. You wouldn't want to be accused of profiting off someone's death, after all. You want miraculous escapes and/or recoveries here. Exceptions can be made if the video is really good and you don't actually see any bodies.
- Show the video as a man with an exaggerated voice explains the situation (usually something along the lines of "it looks like an ordinary day, but in a few seconds their lives will be in mortal danger"), until the surprising, terrifying event happens.
- Have the narrator explain, as briefly as possible, what caused the catastrophy, as well as the aftermath.
- Show the moment of catastrophe over and over and over again. Slow-motion, zoomed-in, any different way you can think of. Have the narrator point out how the people on the video were "inches from certain death" or "moments from disaster" or "lucky to escape with only minor injuries"
- Move on to the next clip.
There is no educational value to this show whatsoever. You learn nothing other than what an explosion looks like.
Compare that with a show like Mayday (my personal favourite) which re-enacts airplane accidents (with cool computer graphics) and then explains very seriously and clearly what caused them and what has been done to ensure they don't happen again. Or Mythbusters, which tests sometimes silly hypotheses, but does them in (mostly) scientific ways. Both have the idea of teaching viewers as the main focus, and entertainment is a convenient medium to do so.
For Cash Cab and Destroyed in Seconds, the main focus is to entertain. That's not a bad thing, and these shows have their homes (Cash Cab on the Game Show Network, Destroyed in Seconds on Spike TV), but neither belong on the Discovery Channel.
If we're going to continue with the idea that specialty channels should have protected formats (and you're well within your rights to question whether that's necessary anymore), we should honour those formats, not try to find ways around them to pad the bottom line. | <urn:uuid:f6c64944-d99e-455d-aae2-1beff037de48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.fagstein.com/tag/destroyed-in-seconds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965246 | 874 | 1.835938 | 2 |
There was an election on November 6th, yet the majority of voters granted the same group of groping grand-standers another grab at power. Instead of “great men”, voters chose more grinding through gridlock. Congressmen grill each other with growls for months, then grab each other at the last minute and grimace and groan over raising taxes instead of cutting spending.
The whole debt, spending, cut and paste drama is just a grimy, grating joke. Grr!
If voters want Congress to go from “gridlock” to “great”, they need to blame themselves for why things have grown the way they have grown. Our representatives are doing exactly what they were sent to do. They reflect the mindset of voters who elected them to cut spending, but not their spending. Moreover, just like putting off study for an exam or practice for a speech, Congressmen are acting from an impulse endemic to humanity: do as little as possible, and get as much in return. It is human nature to wait until the last minute to do something that no one wants to do.
Ghandi could not broker Congressional comity. Hoover might make arrests (or wear a dress?). Free-market economist Milton Friedman offered this advice: “Get the wrong people to do the right things.” Voters have to tell our leaders what to do. Fiscal cliffs, debt ceilings, limits to the uncivil, partisan gridlock: A Cliff’s Notes perusal of Walden may suggest that we refuse to pay our taxes. Perhaps civil disobedience will force reform. | <urn:uuid:f8a203ec-8ad9-4a92-ade4-dda375c80cea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aschaper1.blogspot.com/2013/01/about-fiscal-cliff-notes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967367 | 330 | 1.523438 | 2 |
AP Political Writer
RICHMOND, Va. - Mitt Romney had a little trouble with women voters in Virginia, but a poll released Thursday shows Gov. Bob McDonnell is one Republican with no gender gap problem.
Quinnipiac University's survey of 1,469 registered Virginia voters show that by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio, women hold a favorable opinion of the governor who's already included in the buzz about potential 2016 GOP presidential prospects.
Exit polls from last week's election showed women voters narrowly favored President Barack Obama in Virginia over the Republican.
Quinnipiac's poll, conducted Nov. 8-12, found that among women respondents, 48 percent approved of McDonnell to 26 percent who disapproved. Fifty-nine percent of men had a positive view of McDonnell to 27 percent who did not. Overall, the governor's approval rating stood at 53 percent.
McDonnell fared well among young voters 18 years old to 34, too. Forty-eight percent approved, and 24 percent disapproved.
Among black voters, who broke overwhelmingly for Obama last week, 41 percent approved of McDonnell, and 34 percent did not.
McDonnell's results are uncommon among Republicans, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling institute.
"He is the only Republican officeholder in seven states surveyed by Quinnipiac University who get positive ratings from women _ almost 2-to-1 in this case _ and a plus score from black voters. A 2-to-1 approval rating among young voters doesn't hurt," Brown said.
The results also indicate that McDonnell does not share the disapproval many female voters felt toward Republicans in Virginia's General Assembly after last winter's divisive debate over a new law mandating pre-abortion ultrasound exams.
The law, which initially would have required vaginally invasive ultrasonic examinations, sparked several Capitol Square demonstrations involving thousands of people, most of them women. After television comedy shows, including NBC's "Saturday Night Live," made Virginia a laughingstock over the legislation, McDonnell persuaded House and Senate Republicans to require only an external abdominal ultrasound exam, not an internal one.
Other findings from the poll:
_ Respondents were split over uranium mining in the state with 41 percent in favor and 40 percent opposed. Proposals to mine a uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County provoked deep differences. Many fear its polluting effects, particularly in Southside Virginia and the Hampton Roads regions dependent on the Lake Gaston watershed for drinking water. Others contend it will provide jobs and make the nation less dependent on foreign energy. Among the legislature's most weighty and emotional decisions next year will be whether to lift Virginia's ban on mining the radioactive metal.
_ Year-round public school is a bad idea, said 51 percent of those polled; 43 percent liked the idea. Voters with kids in public schools were about split on the proposal with 50 percent in support and 47 percent opposed. College-educated respondents supported all-year school 50 percent to 44 percent.
_ Forty-nine percent felt it should be easier to fire public school teachers while 42 percent did not. The poll found a wide partisan split with 63 percent of Republicans liking the idea and 60 percent of Democrats opposing it.
_ Tolls on parts of Interstate 95 south of Richmond is a non-starter with 57 percent of those surveyed while 38 percent support it. Asked whether they'd prefer tolls or higher gasoline taxes to pay for the repair and upkeep of roads, however, 56 percent preferred tolls to 32 percent who preferred to pay at the pump.
_ Forty percent disapproved of privatizing the operation of Virginia's sea ports compared with 34 percent who approved.
The poll's margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
Besides Virginia, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac also conducts regular polling in Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Quinnipiac University's new Virginia poll: http://tinyurl.com/dysbpal
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Which big cat had some trouble coughing this up? (Photos)
Doctors saved this boy's life with a medical first involving a printer.
Clothes have a starring role at the Cannes Film Festival. (Photos)
French universities could say goodbye to this language in class. | <urn:uuid:7131d11b-9f34-4541-ae16-567d22f0522a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtop.com/120/3120398/Poll-No-gender-gap-problem-for-GOPs-McDonnell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941028 | 896 | 1.632813 | 2 |
740 WGSM/94.3 WCTO Stereo
An early 1970's WCTO logo.
WCTO promised "52 minutes of music, 24 hours a day".
This is the WCTO hour.
WCTO was fully automated. It had an IGM automation system with two
Scully model 270 decks for playing music reels, a carousel for commercials, two tape cart
machines and a mechanical network joiner for news. Commercial cartridges had to be loaded
in the carousel in the order that they played. After a while a second carousel was added.
The station I.D.s were done by some of the WGSM air staff as well as announcers Mike Jay
and John Taylor from Greater Media's station WCTC in New Jersey. The I.D.s were changed at
intervals to give the appearance that each announcer had an air shift. Music was programmed
by Stereo Radio Productions. Music reels alternated every 15 minutes and were changed every 2 hours.
The carousels held 24 tape cartridges. News occupied the first minute of the 2 minute break
at the bottom of the hour. Who ever was on duty in the newsroom had to get all the news
headlines in that 1 minute. It was fun to watch. Overnight the news was pre-carted and played
from an external cart machine tied to the automation system. Sometimes the news was read by
the overnight operator, who was often Bill Shepperd (you can see his picture on the WGLI
An playlist from one of the SRP music reels.
Contributed by "a friend".
A WCTO dial card.
Something many FM stations had at that time. You kept it by your radio
so you would know where to find the station on the dial.
Most radio stations had bumper stickers. WCTO had these metal plates to strap on to
the bumper of your car.
The original transmitter at WCTO was a Gates FM 3 H.
The transmitter ran 2.8 kilowatts with a Jampro 2 bay H & V antenna
atop the tower to give WCTO an ERP of 3 kilowatts. Later the antenna was changed to an MCI
panel antenna. The transmitter was then field converted to an FM 5 H in order to maintain the
The original FM 3 H name plate from the WCTO transmitter.
It was replaced with an
FM 5 H name plate when we field converted the transmitter. Today it hangs on one of the
cabinets in the WA2FNQ transmitter room.
The WCTO (now WMJC) tower on Crooked Hill Road near the Long Island Expressway.
See the WMJC Tower Rebuild
On May 1, 2007 the top 2 sections of the tower were replaced to improve its structural integrity.
My thanks to Mike Glazer for allowing me on site to witness this.
Hear some WCTO airchecks on Joe's Radio Aircheck Page. | <urn:uuid:7e3258a7-2564-4b48-8848-c263e8052f98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wa2fnq.com/wgsmcto/gsmcto5.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970556 | 637 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Hierarchy of Light
Throughout time, the idea of a group of wise and enlightened beings working behind the scenes to guide our planet has been conveyed in spiritual teachings, in literature and myth. This group, known by various names such as the spiritual Hierarchy, the Masters of the Wisdom, and the Elder Brothers has ever come forth in times of crisis and today will be no different. Great teachers such as Socrates, Shri Krishna, Mohammed, the Buddha and the Christ have all been members of the Hierarchy.
As we move through this difficult transition period our future stands in the balance. It is up to humanity to accept responsibility for instituting the necessary changes so that we will begin to realise our higher spiritual possibilities. The way will then be cleared for these great teachers to return to outer physical plane activity. It is important, therefore, that more people know about the fact of the Hierarchy and about what sort of individuals the Masters of the Wisdom really are.
In ageless wisdom teachings we’re told that the Masters have been described as the “rare efflorescence of a generation of enquirers." They work primarily behind the scenes, protected in the remote areas of Earth, and it is futile, therefore, to seek them out upon the physical plane. They are individuals of extraordinary capacities. Through the repeated experience of life in form, under the Law of Rebirth, they eventually achieved self-mastery and freed themselves from the confines of normal human existence and entered into a higher state of consciousness. Because of their relative freedom they possess a tremendous ability to wield spiritual energy -- thus their power to serve, to love and to heal.
The Hierarchy works ceaselessly and could be compared to a great army working for world upliftment. They are the inspiration for the major changes being implemented in the world yet they take no credit for the work that they do. Through the process of spiritual impression they influence those leaders and progressive thinkers whose minds and hearts are receptive to the new and forward looking, incoming ideas. Their work extends to all aspects of our planetary life -- politics, education, religion, art, science, psychology and economics.
The Masters work with deliberation, free from any sense of speed, toward their objectives but they do have a time limit based on the law of cycles. There are periods of major opportunity of which the Hierarchy takes advantage and this present period is one of major opportunity. In the coming decades members of the Hierarchy will begin the process of externalisation, moving outward onto the physical plane. They will again walk among humanity to help usher in the new age and prepare human consciousness for the reappearance of the World Teacher.
This externalisation process will cause tremendous changes. Because of the Hierarchy’s enlightened leadership, the course of human affairs will be irrevocably turned towards the light and towards the realisation of the divine Plan. This will work out most noticeably through the establishment of right human relations and goodwill among the peoples of the world.
In preparation for the externalisation humanity has an important part to play. One way that we can help is through the daily use and distribution of the Great Invocation, one of the oldest and most powerful prayers ever given to humanity. and all who use it produce powerful changes both within themselves and within their environment. Since 1945 this prayer has been used by millions and is now translated into almost 70 languages. It is the most potent tool available to us for planetary transformation during this time of expectancy.
THE GREAT INVOCATION*
From the point of Light within the mind of God
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
From the centre where the Will of God is known
From the centre which we call the human race
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
*THIS IS A SLIGHTLY ADAPTED WORDING OF THE GREAT INVOCATION. MEN AND WOMEN OF GOODWILL THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ARE USING THIS INVOCATION IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE. WILL YOU JOIN THEM IN USING THE INVOCATION EVERY DAY - WITH THOUGHT AND DEDICATION?
Please promote the flow of goodwill and send this link to a friend. | <urn:uuid:f9edd144-abf0-40bb-992c-53359e6cc52e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lucistrust.org/en/service_activities/e_pamphlets/the_hierarchy_of_light | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931186 | 863 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Editor's note: Tolu Ogunlesi is a freelance journalist in Lagos, Nigeria. In 2009 he was awarded the Arts and Culture prize in the annual CNN Multichoice African Journalism Awards.
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- I recently stumbled on a Nigerians For Obama Twitter handle, launched on October 10 this year. "We nigerians in American (sic) want to tell obama that we have got his back," the inaugural tweet read.
There's nothing surprising about that -- after all, Barack Obama, born of an African man, is "our son."
The story of "Obamagic" goes back four years, when it emerged that a black man actually stood a chance of becoming the president of the most powerful country in the world. Here, the boss of the stock exchange launched an "Africans for Obama" group (never mind that she probably meant to say "Billionaire Nigerians for Obama") and organised a fund-raising dinner that amassed $600,000 for the Democratic candidate.
There was only one snag; no one had taken the time to find out what American campaign financing laws had to say about such a move. The Obama campaign wasn't allowed to receive the money, and Nigeria 's anti-graft agency stepped in to probe the fundraising.
For those who couldn't say "Yes we can" with their checkbooks, there was Facebook which, back then, was a relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria. We could join the Americans and the rest of the world to share our opinions about the son of Africa on his way to the White House.
Just a year after Nigeria's 2007 general elections -- which brought Umar Yar'Adua to power in a election derided by some as a "charade" -- Obama's race to the White House was a chance for Nigerians to vicariously participate in a political process that appeared transparent and was no doubt inspiring; not to mention the amusement of indulging in debates about whether things would've been different had Barack Obama, Sr. been Nigerian and not Kenyan.
Four years later, a lot has changed. The novelty of 2008 has worn off, and many Nigerians appear to have moved on.
Much of the energy that in 2008 went into the U.S. elections has since found an outlet in our own electoral processes. As I wrote this piece one of the prominent things on my Twitter timeline was a running commentary on the live broadcast of the governorship debate in Nigeria's Ondo State, where elections are due this weekend. A scenario like this was highly unlikely four years ago.
We also now have our own "Facebook President" -- Goodluck Jonathan announced his decision to run for president on Facebook, and is today one of the world's most "liked" heads of state on the social networking site (he has actually been called "Nigeria's Obama.") It is this homegrown excitement that the Obama-Romney contest now has to compete against.
I've been randomly asking friends if they stayed up to watch the first presidential debate. While most respondents didn't, as the debate took place at 3:00 a.m. here, a U.S. debate is just the sort of thing -- like the Academy Awards or English Premier League matches -- that would have set Twitter afire in Lagos.
I awoke the next morning to find a BlackBerry message from a friend to a group of 16 of us. He'd sent it during the debate, asking if anyone was up. When I saw it the next morning, I panicked slightly, wondering what emergency had arisen overnight. It turned out there'd been no emergency; he simply wanted to know if anyone else was watching. Only one other member of the group was awake at that time.
Lawyer and Big Brother Nigeria alumnus Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, another of my friends who watched that first debate, told me he did so as a "cynic", merely for an opportunity to see Barack Obama "challenged" after a lackluster first term.
Linda Ikeji, Nigeria's best-known entertainment blogger, has been weighing in on the U.S. presidential debates. In response to her post asking readers if they watched the first debate, and if it "harm[ed]" Obama, a comment described the U.S. president as "simply clueless" -- an interesting choice when one considers that "clueless" is one of the most widely used epithets used to describe President Jonathan.
Perhaps we're seeing in Obama a reflection of our own president: swift dissipation of a hope founded largely on a campaign charged with personal stories; a case of soaring soapbox poetry swiftly replaced by the clunky prose of presidential politics.
Yet none of the Nigerian love Obama may have lost appears to have found its way to Mr. Romney. Blogger Ikeji's post about the second debate clearly demonstrates that the fondness for Mr. Obama in these parts is instinctive.
In the last couple of days I've seen friends on social media tickled by the idea of a "Myth Romney." Mitt's faith isn't a big help to him here either, in a country where fervent Pentecostals remain wary of Mormons (of whom there are roughly 100,000 in Nigeria today).
Still, we're nowhere near the 2008 levels of U.S. election enthusiasm. If the Africans for Obama dinner was the high point of 2008, the high point of the 2012 U.S. presidential season in Nigeria was the controversy around the presence of opposition party leader Bola Tinubu at the Democratic National Convention.
Initial reports quoted his team as saying he was specially invited by Obama --- but it quickly emerged that Tinubu did not receive any special invitation, and his party reportedly said he'd paid a fee to attend.
For days national media feasted on the story and the ruling People's Democratic Party seized its chance to pillory the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria, describing it as "founded on fraud and deceit."
That sort of name-calling, as opposed to debates around manifesto highlights, lies at the heart of Nigerian politics. 2015 might actually end up being the first Nigerian general election in recent history in which "issues" -- power, state subsidies, taxation, roads, etc. -- will carry the day. Just maybe.
Since we're not conditioned to judging candidates on the strength or otherwise of their beliefs in health insurance or taxation or foreign policy, it's easy to tune off when the American elections slide into that territory.
"A lot of Nigerians don't understand the politics or economy of America ," says journalist Olumide Iyanda, Saturday Editor at the Lagos-based Independent Newspapers. "It's the soap opera that Nigerians are interested in, not the issues." | <urn:uuid:a4dd21b8-0d60-47fd-98fe-8ee78aa6f330> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/22/opinion/lagos-postcard/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973614 | 1,393 | 1.632813 | 2 |
With so many exterior paints and coatings available on the market today, choosing the right product for your home improvement project can be confusing.
"By using a top quality 100% acrylic latex paint, you'll enjoy a variety of performance benefits, whether your home exterior is made of wood, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, or masonry," says Debbie Zimmer, spokesperson for the Paint Quality Institute .
When applied to a properly prepared wood exterior , acrylic latex paint can protect and beautify a home for up to 10 years or more, making it a great long-term investment. If an exterior is primed beforehand, the paint can resist peeling and flaking. Acrylic paint is also very elastic, making it stretch and shrink with the wood as necessary without the paint suffering damage.
Top quality acrylic latex paints also contain beneficial ingredients that ward off troublesome problems on wood. Mildewcide, a common additive in paint, can help prevent mildew growth on exterior wood surfaces.
While aluminum siding is very durable, the paint applied by the factory tends to fade and chalk with time. Applying a coat of top quality acrylic latex paint can restore the appearance of the aluminum panels, as well as provide superior resistance to harmful UV rays that cause the fading and chalking to occur.
Special additives in latex paint help the paint to go on thick, level and uniform. Whether the siding is smooth or textured, the new paint will tend to duplicate the original appearance of the aluminum siding.
Manufacturers often describe vinyl siding as being "maintenance free," but over time, the surface can become chalky, marred, or discolored. Whether the surface is flawed, or just needs a change in color, acrylic latex paint adheres to the surface of vinyl siding and offers superior flexibility.
Vinyl siding has a slick surface, so it is imperative to use a paint that will grab onto the vinyl siding without slipping off. Using a top quality paint that is flexible enough to move with the panels when the temperature changes is also important. A quality paint will expand and contract with the differences in temperature.
To slow down the fading in color of vinyl siding, there are some top quality 100% acrylic latex paints that are made with reflective pigments that protect vinyl siding from the sun's UV rays. As with aluminum siding, the good leveling quality of the paint chosen can duplicate the original appearance of vinyl siding.
In order to get the best performance on stucco, concrete, brick, or any other masonry surface, there are many reasons to use a top quality exterior acrylic latex paint.
These paints can offer excellent chalk resistance, which helps to keep the color from fading, even under harsh UV rays. "By contrast, a lesser paint can quickly fade under these conditions," says Zimmer.
100% acrylic latex paints also have superior alkali resistance. Fresh masonry often has a high alkaline content, which could cause a less-quality paint to change color, and over time, deteriorate the paint film.
Using a top quality paint on aged masonry offers the advantage of resistance to efflorescence, a white crusty powder that can ruin the appearance of any paint job.
Whatever type of exterior siding you have on your home, by choosing a top quality 100% acrylic latex paint, you'll get some great benefits that will protect your home and keep it looking freshly painted for many years. | <urn:uuid:de89e899-7e60-45ae-b521-72a44d9a0a74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moneypit.com/print/9171 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939588 | 710 | 1.5 | 2 |
(The court’s narrow 5-4…)
With one stroke of the pen, the US Supreme Court, last week, legitimised the signature legislative accomplishment of President Barack Obama, a healthcare bill he signed into law after spending huge political capital in March 2010.
A conservative backlash against the law, which expands health insurance coverage to poor and lower middle-class Americans, had fuelled the birth of the Tea Party movement, and led to the Republican takeover of the US House of Representatives seven months later.
More than half the US states litigated against the law, questioning its constitutional validity - especially that of a provision that mandates all Americans to purchase health insurance, which was seen by most opponents as an overarching government intrusion.
Many observers had expected the apex court, dominated by conservative justices, to toss out the law either in full, or at least parts of it.
Therefore, the court's narrow 5-4 validation of the law came as a huge surprise. Astonishingly, the man who swung the pendulum in favour of Obamacare was chief justice John Roberts, who was appointed by Republican George W Bush. Until now, Robert had proved to be a reliably conservative justice.
The impact of last week's ruling cannot be overestimated. Had the court voided the law, billed as the most far-reaching social legislation in America in half a century, it would have damaged the Obama presidency and his legacy beyond repair.
The presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, has already been hammering at the president for "wasting" most of his first term on a deeply flawed law, which the former Massachusetts governor has vowed to repeal. No doubt it would have given Romney more ammunition.
A casual look at the American healthcare landscape will show that if any country needs to reform and restructure its healthcare policy, it is the United States.
Despite the colossal spending in the area - the healthcare economy is more than 17% of the US GDP, nearly double the share other industrialised nations spend on healthcare - 50 million Americans are without health insurance.
Healthcare costs in the United States are among the highest in the world. Even though the country has the largest drug industry in the world - which also receives taxpayer subsidies worth billions of dollars - medicines here are prohibitively expensive. One of the reasons for that is pharmaceutical companies are the sole arbiters of drug price in the United States.
The US healthcare market is also highly inefficient. According to the Congressional Budget Office, which supplies economic data to Congress, "nearly 5% of GDP - or roughly $700 billion each year - goes to healthcare spending that cannot be shown to improve health outcomes."
Yet, for decades, healthcare has proved to be the proverbial third rail of American politics. A number of politicians have got their fingers burned by it.
When Bill Clinton attempted to reform it during his first term, there was huge pushback against Hillarycare - Hillary Clinton was leading the efforts back then - from same constituencies that are going after the current law. The former president did not take up the issue again rest of his presidency.
The law might still hurt Obama in November. As many have pointed out, though he has saved his legacy, Obama might very well end up losing the election.
The Romney camp - aided by the likes of Koch brothers and casino mogul Sheldon Anderson - has already launched the repeal campaign.
But from Obama's vantage point, he now lives to fight another day, and even if he loses the re-election bid, the Democrat will not be subjected to the ignominy of seeing his single biggest legislative accomplishment going down in flames before his presidency ended. | <urn:uuid:b612d9bf-874b-4919-a55e-1e144c2d1806> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-07-03/news/32523832_1_healthcare-market-health-insurance-constitutional-validity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975923 | 737 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Greece, the birthplace of democracy, has set off a voters' rebellion against the dictatorship of financiers. In the eye of the vortex, no one knows if the centre can hold or what happens next when voters say no to austerity imposed by the same financiers who caused the crash. JP Morgan's reckless derivatives gamble lands on cue to make the point. As François Hollande and Angela Merkel meet for the first time on Tuesday, Karl Marx could not have devised so perfect a crisis of capitalism.
At first the voters acquiesced, tightened their belts, obeyed the iron laws set by bankers whose grotesque pay flows from bailouts by states they impoverished. But the prospect of years of unremitting high unemployment and stagnation shows the great austerity experiment has failed, and even its north European proponents are being gingerly forced to acknowledge it.
In Britain the failure of that experiment is most telling, because no one imposed it on us except our own government. Inflation is predicted to stay obstinately high while wages lag, shrinking demand in households with ever less to spend. Industry now begs the government to kick-start the economy. Bond rates here fell even lower on Monday: our government can borrow more cheaply than for 300 years. The refusal of Cameron and Osborne to borrow and invest in housing, energy, schools and transport is the ideological fixation that will destroy them. Once a Conservative government loses the trust of industry, it's in deep trouble.
The cabinet's only response to criticism is to attack, but how unwise to set upon business. Stop whingeing, said Philip Hammond. Stop complaining, said William Hague: "There's only one growth strategy – hard work". Impudently he ordered firms to get "on a plane, go sell things overseas", as if every country isn't desperately trying to export its crisis by selling into one another's moribund markets.
The British Chambers of Commerce retorted: "Businesses up and down the country are busting a gut to find new growth opportunities at home and abroad. They think that the government could do more." And to Eric Pickles's assertion that "we should all work that little bit harder … Government can't create growth", the BCC replied tartly: "The government needs to recognise that it is a major customer, a maker of markets and the guardian of Britain's infrastructure."
Indeed, the public realm is an essential partner in growth and prosperity. Hammond blamed companies for hoarding £700bn, but they won't invest without a glimmer of consumer demand. Babcock, the engineering group, calls for ministers to invest £4bn a year in an industrial bank. Even dry as dust John Cridland of the CBI agrees, while other engineering firms and Sainsbury's Justin King join the chorus. For a serious government, this would be Plan B time.
This government's blend of incompetence and ideological rigidity would be a fascinating spectacle if we were distant bystanders. The bungling and dogmatism are unrivalled in postwar Britain. Let's take just one day of their collisions with the real world: see with what insouciance they can create new flotillas of unlikely and needless enemies. Insulting business was just one self-inflicted black eye, but here are others that Monday had to offer.
Iain Duncan Smith seems to enjoy shocking Telegraph readers with a boast that half a million people will lose disability living allowances: thalidomide victims and servicemen who have lost limbs may not qualify. All will undergo new tests: "They were just allowed to fester," he says. Exactly £2.24bn will be saved, so he must have preordained the number who must fail.
Will they go quietly or will they fester very noisily indeed? As two-thirds of disabled children lose their allowance, is it politically wise to pick on them? The Institute for Fiscal Studies says 88% of benefit cuts are still to come, so it's hard to gauge how voters will respond to housing-benefit evictions forcing families hundreds of miles, or disabled people left housebound. But enough voters will be shocked – and 74% of other public service cuts are yet to come.
Nick Clegg makes yet another speech claiming to promote social mobility, despite myriad policies to the contrary. Does it fool any of the people any of the time? The IFS says education funding is cut by 13%, the largest cut since the 1950s. Early years take a heavy hit, yet that's where deprivation is best countered. Over half of schools say they use Clegg's pupil premium to plug holes in their other spending: some are using it well to re-employ education welfare officers lost in the cuts. The IFS says the lost education maintenance allowance did well at keeping poorer pupils in post-16 education. But Michael Gove, speaking to private school heads, asserts: "Deprivation need not be destiny." He says Finland has equal outcomes with less spending – but he ignores Finland's place as one of the most socially equal countries, while Britain is one of the most unequal.
In the real world, Gove's free schools take half as many pupils on free school meals as average while his academy scheme gives top schools extra money. Every Child a Reader brilliantly rescues six-year-olds from failing to read, but this year 9,000 fewer will get this programme that shoots the deprived ahead permanently. So until ministers' deeds match their words, they would do well to be quiet about social mobility: it only angers those who care.
These are examples from one day in the life of this austerity government. Add in another of the day's random ineptitudes: David Cameron will meet Mitt Romney as a candidate, having snubbed Hollande. Boris Johnson calls for a Tory – "someone who is free market" – to be BBC director general, setting a terrible precedent by making it a political post. Whatever they do, the crass and the cruel collide with cuts designed to diminish the state for ever.
Try though George Osborne did to frighten the markets with the comparison, luckily we are not Greece. We have choices. We need not cut so deep, we can borrow to invest, as Blair, Mandelson and Darling now join forces with the two Eds to urge. Business is protesting at scorched earth austerity after two years of failure, and Labour policies for investment in growth now look mainstream, while Tory austerity looks extreme. YouGov on Monday reported Ed Miliband polling higher than David Cameron, who with every passing day looks increasingly like the prime minister of a one-term government.
• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree | <urn:uuid:2002f7e5-a005-4050-863f-d67057ce7af9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/14/clegg-cameron-cruellest-business-disabled | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95759 | 1,356 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Russia’s most prominent Web player, Yandex NV, is in discussions to give a state company veto power over changes in its ownership while ensuring independence in other areas, amid growing Kremlin calls for more control over major local Internet companies.
In recent weeks, President Dmitry Medvedev and other Russian officials have highlighted what they call the “strategic” nature of major Russian Internet companies, warning that foreign control over them could be a security concern.
But Russian laws limiting foreign investment don’t cover the sector, leaving it in a murky middle ground where rules aren’t clear and sensitive deals can be blocked on technicalities, industry officials say.
Yandex officials said they hope their approach will provide a transparent, simple mechanism for Russian authorities to exercise a veto over any significant change in Yandex’s ownership without ceding any other powers to the state.
“We understand the government has concerns,” said Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh, who is also a major shareholder of the privately held company. “Our main goal is to create a transparent scheme we can explain to shareholders.”
Yandex’s other major shareholders include management and several Western investment funds. While the authorities are concerned primarily about foreign takeover, Yandex has also expressed fears that a local buyer also could threaten the company’s success. Last year, a local tycoon with close ties to the Kremlin sought to buy a stake, but Yandex was reluctant, and the deal fell through.
Russia’s leading search engine, Yandex is well ahead of global giant Google Inc. in local market share, according to industry analysts. The proposed deal would be the first of its kind.
Despite its tight grip over national print and television media, industry officials say the Kremlin has generally remained true to its public pledges not to try to block Internet content. But officials are increasingly concerned that a major local player could wind up in the hands of foreign investors.
Foreign investment in search engines and social networks is “inevitable,” Mr. Medvedev said earlier this month. “We need to watch this, because these are questions of security,” he added.
Official interest in the Internet — which is now used by an estimated 50 million Russians — has stepped up since Mr. Medvedev became president a year ago, industry officials say.
Last fall, Russian antitrust regulators blocked Google’s purchase of an Internet-advertising company. People close to that deal said government officials privately expressed concern about selling control of a major local player to Google.
The Communications Ministry is working up security criteria to determine where foreign ownership might be restricted; a spokeswoman endorsed Yandex’s proposed approach as “one form of defense for the state.”
In Yandex’s plan, it would sell to a state company a “golden share” entitling it to block any shareholder from acquiring more than 25% of Yandex. The shareholder would have no other rights. | <urn:uuid:b9c5e0fe-4783-49f7-a16c-d3a3291590d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/yandex-bends-over-for-the-kremlin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951727 | 640 | 1.679688 | 2 |
What I never considered was that my grandparents might actually have slang of their own. Or at least, I never considered it until my most recent trip to their humble abode. One day during my stay, my grandma informed me that we needed to go “marketing.” Hmmm, marketing eh? What product could my grandma possibly need to market? And to whom? But then she explained: marketing is what she calls grocery shopping. The arrangement does make logical sense. Marketing, or the act of going to the market. Much to my surprise, it had absolutely nothing to do with the advertising.
Thus through one short word I was reminded of language’s fluctuations; and much to the chagrin of my ego, realized that my generation did not invent slang.]]>
Among the residents voicing their opposition to the proposed Rize development in the Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver is a 94-year-old man who lives in a senior care facility near the intersection of Broadway and Kingsway streets. According to the Vancouver Courier, Woodrow Coward feels that the intersection is already too congested: “This is the Achille’s heel of the whole project, in my opinion,” Coward said. “The project is simply in the wrong place and I think it is the wrong use for that particular piece of land.”]]>
Just posted a link to this article on Twitter and Facebook, but could not help expanding a little bit. Azad Essa of Al Jazeera notes in this article how youth have attracted the majority of attention in recent political events world-wide. With this as his baseline, he reports from Senegal with a a pertinent question: “with all of this focus on youth, what about the elderly in Senegal?”
He talks to five people between the ages of 66 and 90. Their answers are as diverse as they are fascinating. But two recurrent themes are the duties and obligations of citizenship and dissatisfaction with the current government. Definitely worth a read!]]>
The Office of the Ombudsperson in B.C. recently released a massive report (400 pages!) on the care of seniors in the province. Andrew MacLeod’s write-up in The Tyee provides some insightful analysis.
I took a quick look through some of the documents and it is clear that the report recognizes pressing issues. It is certainly not short on recommendations. But as with most things political, implementation often lags far behind. We will not know for some time how serious the government is about changing policy.
In the meantime, hopefully this report will serve as a starting point for a wider conversation on senior care.]]>
(image via cbc.ca)]]>
The race to replace the IMF’s managing director wrapped up last year, with French lawyer and politician Christine Lagarde taking the reins of the organization. But there was some controversy when another candidate, Stanley Fischer, was ruled ineligible because of his age. Fischer was 67 at the time, making him two years too old for the position of IMF Managing Director.
As stated in the IMF’s by-laws: ” no person shall be initially appointed to the post of Managing Director after he has reached his sixty-fifth birthday and…no Managing Director shall hold such post beyond his seventieth birthday.”]]>
When the warm summer months give way to the frost, not only the birds fly South
Manimals, it seems, also seek shelter where they can’t see exhaust, or the breath from their mouth
Usually the young ones, with robust circulation, will brave the wind and the sleet and the snow
But as old age sets in, these wintery battles become the ultimate, unbeatable foe
So with no job to hold them, the retirees flock, to places where the palm trees grow
Golf can be played the entire year ’round – below 15, thermometers rarely go
Oh what it must be, for kids in these lands, I feel that it’s almost unfair
Because over and over they are constantly told, “you’re from Boca? My grandparents live there!”
Lorne Green gives safe holiday driving advice in a voice we wouldn’t dare to disobey, nurses at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children sing (and giggle) in perfect white-hatted formation, and Toronto winds up for its 1957 annual Eaton’s Santa Parade.]]> | <urn:uuid:be24470d-9f4c-462a-8b7e-a1c3c67f7c1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lestersarmy.com/recommends/feed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966251 | 925 | 1.710938 | 2 |
I had to take the plant out of the pot because it was not growing strong. The plant was getting less and less healthy.
The plant kept growing but the leaves were not strong or healthy. In fact, several had been falling off.
The problem was the plant had no room to grow.
The roots were growing tighter and tighter around themself.
The roots took in the nutrients from the soil and water but couldn't get them to where they were needed.
As I started working on re-potting my plant, I realized that my life has been a lot like my little plant. I am growing. I continue to give myself what I need to grow (food, exercise, friends, reading the Bible, and prayer). I have been growing. I am just not sure I am growing strong enough.
I am comfortable with my life. I have great friends. I am involved in wonderful activies. I read. I exercise. I play. I lead a healthy, happy life.
I keep myself tightly contained in my life.
I need to take myself out of my self-created comfortable space. I need to spread out. I need to look for opportunities to meet, serve, and get to know other people. I must search for ways to grow (in my relationships, my intelligence, and my spiritual understanding).
I know that if I am to get stronger, I have to face challenges.
I am open to the work that must be done in my heart and my life.
I should expect struggles and challenges, as I pull my comfort-zone apart.
I gave my plant a bigger pot, fresh soil, and water.
I know that stepping out of my comfort zone will lead to opportunities, relationships and a strengthened faith.
I want to continue to grow. I want to grow strong.
This plant is now on my kitchen counter. It's roots are on my mind and challenging me not to be so comfortable in my life that I unable to grow. | <urn:uuid:7748b70d-5c73-479d-bd7b-9bf7cfd42f06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gravityofmotion.blogspot.com/2009/07/roots-are-problem.html?showComment=1248664012347 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988154 | 410 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Iglesia de San Ginés
- Calle del Arenal 13
- 8.45am-1pm & 6-9pm Mon-Sat, 9.45am-2pm & 6-9pm Sun
Lonely Planet review for Iglesia de San Ginés
Due north of Plaza Mayor, San Ginés is one of Madrid’s oldest churches: it has been here in one form or another since at least the 14th century. It is speculated that, prior to the arrival of the Christians in 1085, a Mozarabic community (Christians in Muslim territory) lived around the stream that later became Calle del Arenal and that their parish church stood on this site. What you see today was built in 1645 but largely reconstructed after a fire in 1824. The church houses some fine paintings, including El Greco’s Expulsion of the Moneychangers from the Temple (1614), which is beautifully displayed; the glass is just 6mm from the canvas to avoid reflections. The church has stood at the centre of Madrid life for centuries; Spain’s premier playwright Lope de Vega was married here and novelist Francisco de Quevedo was baptised in its font. | <urn:uuid:6c1e5e19-e862-44b4-a91d-566ce912eb28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/madrid/sights/church/iglesia-san-gines | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964442 | 255 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Like my notes from the Websphere and Struts talk, this is going to be a stream of consciousness sort of thing...
Steve Ornburn of GBC, David Kane of SRA speaking.
The Problem - CMM is being mandated by a lot of the government - especially defense - organizations. At the same time, there's a lot of interest in XP/Agile, especially at the grass roots level. The theory - the two are in conflict. Are they?
The answer - there are real differences, both in the approaches and in the philosophies. There are ways to meld, but they are high risk.
Right off, I notice an interesting bias - CMM is called "High Maturity", as opposed to Agile. Interesting.
- Is AD a mature process?
- Can AD fit into a high maturity shop?
- Is it worth it?
There's a map of the meta-model of software life-cycle. Highly oriented towards CMM, which makes mapping Agile to it problematic, IMHO. Now we have some definitions - Spiral development is defined as a Risk driven development model. Others are Waterfall, Iterative, Evolutionary. Requirements driven, Architecture driven. The point being made - different projects require different models based on the risks.
Agile maintains a balance between a requirements driven and an architecture driven approach. So the question here is, for what risk profile is Agile appropriate?
Safety Critical - Managed change and requirements, so the environment is stable. Their example - the Space Shuttle. Bad, bad example IMHO. I think the shuttle was more of a budget driven project with overblown process layredon, so the whole thing went badly. In any case, I'm not sure I'd use it as an example of a place that is appropriate for CMM.
Not safety critical, but unpredictable change - appropriate for Agile. Again, IMHO, this sets up a straw man that Agile is unsafe. I don't think that's fair, and I think that the overall failure rate in the software business - including in the safety critical side - is not encouraging.
This actually engendered a huge conversation - I think a lot of people here are incomfortable with the straw man being presented. For instance, one of the speakers from the last time I came here brought up the fabled 350,000 lines of code from the original Space Shuttle project - 5 years, virtually no defects. Well. Note how slowly the space program has moved - compared, say, to the early aerospace efforts - which were very much agile efforts.
In contrasting with Agile, this talk is going to focus on XP and the Agile Manifesto.
The CMMI -
- Meets the needs of software organizations
- Is as upgrade to the sW-CMM
- Benefits from best practices contributed from all three source models (the older ones0
CMMI is best described here. Ranges from Level 1 (Chaos) to Level 5 (Optimizing, Continuous Improvement). So, the question - can XP/Agile methods be mapped to CMM continuous improvement standards? IMHO, a lot of this was covered by Scott Ambler in his XP Brazil talk - it's all about what you pack vs. what you actually need (overhead).
Requirements and Software planning map pretty well from Agile to CMM. For instance, stories capture requirements, customer interaction deals with ongoing planning. etc. What they say Agile misses is doing organizational change - because, in their opinion, Agile (especially XP) is more focused at the raw development level - not at the corporate level.
CMM really wants a definable process, so that said process can be evaluated. Given things like emergent requirements (etc), can a CMM definable process be defined from XP? CMM had notions that process is akin to manufacturing - it can be defined and refined, somewhat like an assembly line. This isn't how Agile looks at this. CMM has moved somewhat away from this view. So based on all this, the claim is that one can map the XP processes to CMM level 3 pretty easily.
"Fixing" XP - Agile omits process ordering; this can be addressed. Comment from the crowd - CMM is largely mandated from above, in order to get the "good housekeeping seal of approval". The engineers often don't buy into this, and it all becomes worthless. The way to make this mapping work is not to get overly detailed. CMM is partly about artifacts (reproducability), while Agile isn't. Another example - XP teams use whiteboards and other ephemeral documents - CMMI wants documentation and artifacts. This will have to be addressed carefully in order to make a CMM assessor happy.
Lots of things are not dealt with at all by Agile - subcontract management, Technology Change Management, Process Change Management, etc. IMHO, that's because these are not practices day to day developers need to worry about. Ultimately, CMMI is aiming at a broader scope than XP/Agile. IMHO, CMMI is aimed up at the CIO level, not at the project/project manager level.
A Level 5 Shop
Improvements are selected based on quantitative measurements. How do you get that? It could easily be via Agile methods.
What if the shop is less than level five? Be prepared for resistance and turf battles (for instance, architects and QA folks, for whom there is no defined role in XP). If that's not resolved, you get politics - which destroys projects quickly.
Next question - is the attempt worth it? Is Agile succeeding through a self selecting, superior developer crowd? Is it just that better programmers succeed, almost without regard to the practices?
Agile - focused on small to medium sized projects, assume a high level of customer trust
CMMI - Frequently applied to large, complex projects, often require detailed conceptuial models before cutting code, often used as part of a formal acquisition process
Ultimately, I think one of the big issues with trying to relate software to real engineering is best practices - construction (for instance) has a suite of best practices. In software, we don't really have an agreed upon set of best practices. We are still arguing over what they are. | <urn:uuid:9dc16ab4-cd6b-4c49-8c24-2d609e884322> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?prevFrom=3233736198 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957864 | 1,307 | 1.679688 | 2 |
This weekend, more than 90 syndicated cartoonists will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks through the distilled power of the artfully inked image.
When readers open their Sunday “funnies,” they will see cartoon responses that range from honor to critical anger.
The 9/11 comics tribute, spearheaded by King Features, will include creators from such other top syndicates as Creators, Tribune Media Services and Universal Uclick, and the Washington Post Writers Group. On Sept. 11, all the participating comics will also be viewable at the site www.CartoonistsRemember911.com.
“At a time when the national conversation will be one of remembrance,” King Features comics Editor Brendan Burford told Comic Riffs, “we thought it was appropriate for the cartoonists to join in and give readers something to reflect with.”
To pull back the curtain a bit on this tribute, Comic Riffs asked a sampling of participating cartoonists to share their reactions to commemorating 9/11, as well as their memories of that dark day a decade ago. Here are their thoughts:
JIM TOOMEY (“Sherman’s Lagoon”):
Immediately after 9/11, my job became impossible. Not only was I in no mood to create cartoons, [but] I knew that my audience was in no mood to laugh.
9/11 changed us in many ways, both as individuals and collectively as a culture. It realigned many of our sensibilities, including our sense of humor. A lot of my humor is very “Monty Python.” It’s dark. For a long time, my readers didn’t want dark, they wanted light. In the aftermath of the attacks, it was very difficult for me to work with my own, changed sense of humor — to create cartoons for my readers whose senses of humor had also changed.
When I was asked to do a 9/11 tribute cartoon for this 10th anniversary, I initially said no, because I thought cartoons were simply inadequate for this task. I knew this would be a day of remembrances and memorials, and a day of looking back at the horror and the acts of bravery. I just didn’t see a way that cartoons could fit in. But then, as the day approached, I realized that this event was going to be a day of healing, and a day of finding strength in our values and our history, and it became obvious to me that the Sunday funnies were indispensable.
JERRY SCOTT and JIM BORGMAN (“Zits”):
Today's real-life 16-year olds would have been in kindergarten or the first grade when the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 occurred. While the significance of that terrible day's events would become apparent to them in subsequent years, that would be a job for their history books. It would have been their parents' and teachers' reactions that imprinted on their minds at the time.
And one of the things most of us parents remember is the overwhelming need to hug and protect our kids at the end of that day. It returns — a sort of muscle memory — whenever we remember Sept. 11th.
DARRIN BELL (“Candorville”):
Ten years ago, on the afternoon of 9/11, I drew an editorial cartoon that caused protests, and became a ... national story because it depicted turban-wearing terrorists with a flight manual burning in Hell. The evening of 9/11, I turned to my wife and said, “It’s a good thing Gore didn’t win,” because I wanted blood and I knew Bush would give it to me. I’d spent the previous year drawing cartoons about Bush stealing Florida, yet here I was thanking God Bush was in the White House. He had me.
But then ... we invaded the wrong country, started calling each other traitors and started torturing prisoners and mocking the United Nations. We didn’t ask the rich to sacrifice at all.
When King Features asked us to participate in the anniversary project, I spent months trying to come up with an uplifting, forward-looking image. But I realized that’s just not honest, because we didn’t respond to this the way the “Greatest Generation” responded to their [much more perilous] crisis. We fumbled this. We forgot who we were. We did not honor either those who we lost on 9/11, or the heroes who responded to it on our behalf. And while everyone else will probably use the anniversary to honor the victims of 9/11, I thought it was equally important that someone takes a moment to say we have to be introspective, admit our failings and learn from our mistakes.
Ten years ago, when I drew that first cartoon, it was necessary to remind ourselves what was right about America, and to point out that whatever our failings, what they did was inexcusable. Ten years later, it’s time to stop saying “It’s too soon” for introspection.
DAVE COVERLY (“Speed Bump”):
I think acknowledging the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the comics page is entirely appropriate, and akin to, say, a moment of silence at a public event. For one day, many of us are taking a break from what we normally [try to] do — make jokes -- and are speaking from the heart instead of the funny bone.
For me personally, it was a real challenge, as I don’t have specific characters in my cartoons, and I didn’t want to approach it was though it were a political cartoon. In my end, my idea wasn’t so much to say thank you to the heroes — which has been done and will be done by better cartoonists than I — but to reflect on the deep, lasting effect a single event had on our country. I’m sure my cartoon could actually be done 20, 30, and even 50 years from now as well...”
MARK TATULLI (“Lio”):
I really feel weird about this whole project now. I wanted to do something, but what I ended up with is incredibly unsatisfying to me. I don't think my strips bring anything to the table here. I think I'd just rather forget and get back to comic stripping. Comic strips are in their own world; a distraction from reality by design. In retrospect, I really don't think I had any place commenting on that true-to-life horror 10 years later.
TIM RICKARD (“Brewster Rockit”):
It was tricky to try to do a cartoon commemorating something that was so enormously tragic. Somehow, any dialogue seemed both over-the-top and yet inadequate. Complicating matters was how to get such snarky characters that populate my strip to have a respectful reaction to the memory of that event and not break character. I decided to take a point-of-view from space using the iconic twin lights from the WTC area with my two main characters in a quiet, reflective moment. The absence of dialog, for me, seemed to strike the right mood.
I was in the process of creating "Brewster Rockit" when 9/11 happened. I stopped working on the strip because nothing seemed funny to me after that. It was awhile before I started developing the strip again, eventually getting it syndicated in 2004.
LINCOLN PEIRCE (“Big Nate”):
I like to stay pretty far ahead of my deadlines, so by the time I heard that King was organizing something, I'd already finished my own 9/11 tribute. I felt strongly that I didn't want to create something where the characters step outside their regular roles to honor the victims and heroes; I wanted Nate and his friends to stay in character and acknowledge the significance and solemnity of the date in their own small way.
GENE WEINGARTEN (“Barney & Clyde”):
We came up with this idea in, literally, one minute. “Barney & Clyde,” above all, is an urban strip. So our thoughts instantly went to the two cities [New York and Washington], and voila.
BRIAN WALKER (“Hi & Lois”):
“Hi and Lois” is a warm, friendly, family strip, so we didn't want to do anything that would upset our readers. I discussed it with [artist] Chance Browne [son of “Hagar the Horrible” creator Dik Browne] and we decided to go with a positive, supportive salute to the heroes — the first-responders, as well as the many individuals who helped clean up, rebuild and defend our country after this tragic event. We incorporated the "Heroes wear many hats" strip that we did for the Thanksgiving tribute in 2001 and updated the message to include the "day of service and remembrance" theme of the anniversary. Chance did a great job with the artwork and deserves most of the credit for the final page.
I hope this provides an appropriate statement and I look forward to seeing how other cartoonists responded to this challenge on Sunday. | <urn:uuid:17d01aa4-173f-4d8a-9624-c72d347d2648> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/911-art-from-honor-to-anger-10-cartoonists-reveal-feelings-behind-sundays-funnies-to-mark-anniversary/2011/09/08/gIQA4ASwEK_blog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974857 | 1,946 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The accidental shooting of a University of Maryland police officer trainee in a an exercise is a public relations disaster that Baltimore's mayor and police commissioner wish were just a bad dream ("Campus officer shot in training," Feb. 13).
Everyone is asking how this incident that reeks of a Keystone Cops caper could have occurred. But sadly, it's no laughing matter.
Apparently the proper authorities were not notified that the training sessions were being conducted at the former Rosewood facility. Strike one.
There are reports that an officer conducting the training mistakenly grabbed the wrong pistol — one that was loaded with live ammunition rather than simulated rounds — from a table and shot the trainee officer. Strike two.
Strict adherence to training rules was breached and there was a lack of communication with the chain of command. Strike three.
Just a few years ago a female Baltimore City firefighter trainee was killed during an exercise. One would think that a similar incident could not occur again. We were wrong, because it did happen again, not in the same department, but in the same city.
That is as incomprehensible as it is totally unacceptable. The mayor is embarrassed and no one can blame her: Controlled-environment training exercises should never, ever end in a tragedy involving loss of life.
I am certain that follow-up reports will show that a glaringly obvious lack of attention to detail played a role in this incident.
We are all praying for the recovery of the police trainee. As for the city, guidelines must be put in place so that human error in a training environment does not occur in the future.
Patrick Lynch, Nottingham | <urn:uuid:c8885edf-a574-41ba-82fa-c8ff1a29b141> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bs-ed-police-trainee-shot-20130217,0,6507593.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984371 | 333 | 1.664063 | 2 |
GETTING AROUND GOZO
|www.carnaval.com/malta || Go Gozo ||RABAT/Victoria ||Xaghra ||Nadur ||Ghajnsielem ||Ghasri || Gharb || Marsalforn ||MGARR ||QALA ||San Lawrenz ||Sannat ||Xewkija ||Xlendi Bay ||Zebbug|
BUS TERMINUS is in Main Gate Street, Victoria.
Buses in Gozo are grey with a central red band and show the route number on the front. Gozo buses operate along circular routes, leaving from and returning to Victoria without scheduled stops at termini. http://www.maltatransport.com
A regular service runs to and from Mgarr, route 25, and is timed to coincide with the ferry timetable
With a population of around 4,000, Nadur is Gozo's 2nd largest City with a proud reputation as Gozo's Festival City. The name Nadur means `look out' in Maltese as Nadur hilly position provided an excellent viewpoint to spot any unfriendly navy ships or pirates raiders.
The parish church of St Peter and St Paul was designed in 1766 and is a mix of baroque and 19th century. The facade and dome make it one the most grand and monumental of Gozo's churches.
Kenuna Tower was built as a telegraph link between Gozo and
Ir-Ramla Bay can be reached through Nadur. This is Gozo's largest and prettiest sandy bay. Nadur also includes the coastal area of San Blas, and Dahlet Qorrot - both are small coves perfect for snorkeling.
DAHLET QORROT BAY
SAN BLAS BAY
Ramla Bay has been voted by international travel journalists as one of the finest beaches in the Mediterranean. Gozo's longest and best red sand beach offers splendid views, a summer snack bar, water sports, sun beds and umbrellas
Maltese people often refer to this beach as the "Ramla il-Hamra" - the Red Sandy Beach. The are around the beach is quite interesting and provides some very rich historical treasures. Amongst these are the Roman remains close to the beach as well as the famous Calypso's Cave at the top of the cliffs on the Western side of the beach. " maltagozo.com/bramla
FOOD & DRINK
opposite the church is Rabokk Pizzeria
SPONTANEOUS CARNIVAL IN NADUR
-the 5 nights when Malta's 360 churches go dark
At sunset, the maskarati (people wearing a mask and clothes to disguise themselves), used to come out into the streets, shouting, whistling and doing things which would be regarded as strange, during the normal days of the year. Sometimes, they used to throw sweets, while those who could afford them, used to throw sweet almonds. At those times, the streets of Gozo used to be poorly lit. This helped in encouraging these maskarati to put aside their habitual shyness and throw themselves along with the others, enjoying the outraging happiness
The annual Cena tas-Sinjur (the Lord’s Supper) is organized every
year at the Centre for Christian Doctrine (MUSEUM) in Nadur, Gozo. Hundreds of people from all over Malta visit this special room during the last week of Lent to experience the Last Supper Exhibition.
I-Imnarja FESTA (St Peter & Paul) June 29
|360 view of Ta' Kenuna by gozo.com/photogallery/pan_nadur.php|
The Azure Window a
giant rock arch in the cliffs of the Dwejra coastline and the
Inland Sea, a secluded pool of clear water and pebbly sand, sheltered by
Dwejra Tower by dinlarthelwa.org restoration work completed in'97
|Ghajnsielem Gozo is home to a Black Madonna, Our Lady of Loreto in Ghajnsielem Cathedral, just off Mgarr harbor|
|Ghasri home to the first lighthouse and the northernmost point of the Maltese islands|
Church of the Immaculate Conception is just the beginning of the
strong spiritual feeling here. Two famous characters of Gharb are
venerated in tiny museums :
Basilica ta' Pinu, Malta's
pre-eminent shrine to the Virgin Mary. Ta' Pinu islocated
in the valley separating Garb and Ghammar . The basilica is isolated
and except for a small one-story building on the road leading to the
church, there are no other buildings. The church is surrounded by
terraced fields and the deep blue Mediterranean is visible behind
the basilica. On a hill just to the right of the basilica, there are
white marble statues depicting the fourteen stations of the cross.
The church dates back to 1920 and is built around a small,
barrel-vaulted votive chapel which dates back to the sixteenth
Frenc Tal-Gharb Museum Frenc tal-Gharb Gozo's most famous faith healer, and an apostle of Our Lady of Ta' Pinu. His house has been converted into a historical and folklore Museum. Situated at 74 Rock Street - Gharb Tel (+356)21562384 Opening hours; October - June: 13.00pm - 16.00pm July - September: 11.00am - 16.00pm Entrance: Free
Chapel of San Dimitri. According to legend, the small chapel was built on the cliff side by a woman whose son was freed from captivity by St. Demetrius.
"The village square, so quintessentially Gozitan, has become the view on many a postcard.
Marsalforn, 10 minutes by car
from Victoria, is Gozo`s largest resort. The former fishing village
has filled its rocky shores with hotels, apartments, shops and
restaurants. The small Marsalforn beach attracts crowds, but travel
north west to find quieter bays of Qbajjar and Xwejni
Marsalforn the former fishing village on the north coast has developed into Gozo's most popular sea resort.Venture to the north west and you will find the bays of Qbajjar and Xwejni, much quieter for swimming.
|MGARR Dominating the scene are the Churches of Our Lady of Lourdes, on the cliffs above the village, and neighboring Ghajnsielem.|
Qala is located on the eastern tip of Gozo, two miles from Mgarr. and also reached from Nadur. Farmland surrounds the church and most well-known landmark, an 18th century windmill
Qala church dedicated to the immaculate conception but known
as Santa Marija tal blat (St. Mary of the rocks). This Church faces
Comino and it is said that it was built so that people of that
island would follow mass from across the straits when rough weather
precluded a priest from going there.
tal-harrux Remains of a
Carthaginian temple complex in use between 300BC and 100 AD
|Sannat the parish church, dedicated to St. Margaret and built in 1781|
|The huge and ornately embellished
baroque church of our Lady of Victories forms the focal point of
this sprawling hilltop village where Malta's most visited attraction
resides. Xaghra contains the most famous of all the
prehistoric sites, the temples of Ggantija, and the Neolithic
site of Santa Verna, which lie nearby but visitors should not
miss the town itself.
Victories: The present
village while it became a parish in 1688, its church was only built in
the mid 19th century. This is one of the most beautiful on Gozo with a
richly-decorated interior, gilted sculptures, Italian marbles and
Calypso's cave, of mythical
fame, also lies within Xaghra in the cliffs. Look out for the
unforgettable view from Calypso cave overlooking the beautiful and
distinguished red sands of Ramla Bay on
the northeastern coast.
|Xewkija home of the dome|
ferry terminal to Malta is
The Dome of Xewkija, is the 3rd or 4th largest in Europe and one of the biggest in the world yet, for most Gozitans, it is not quite big enough; the intention was to exceed the dimensions of the Mosta Dome in Malta, which it succeeds in height but not in diameter.
Ta’ Pinu the pilgrimage church is noteworthy
The delightful sea inlet, known as Xlendi Bay, lies at the end of a deep, lush ravine which was a river bed. Until the mid 20th century, Xlendi was a small fishing port and a restful summer resort for a few locals and Maltese but now it is Gozo's main waterside resort. On the promontory is Xlendi Tower, built in 1650.
The seven-story hotels, which frame the little cove of Xlendi, haven't detracted from this inlet's natural beauty. Have lunch on the terrace and a dip with the locals in the pale green water.The shingle beach , rocky shore and clear waters are good for swimming and the caves and rugged reefs provide ideal conditions for snorkeling and scuba diving.
|Zebbug (pop: 1600)|
An old hilltop village
with exotic views
once famous for its olive trees
Chapel Of St. Roque St Roque is considered to the protector of those suffering from the plague. This chapel was built in 1592 during the first bubonic plague epidemic to hit the Maltese Islands. It also houses a museum showing the achievements of various Zebbug personalities. preserved through the work of www.dinlarthelwa.org
religious values are untarnished, as judged for example from the
high priority given to the maintenance of street niches. "
|Comino dive||knights of malta||atlantis||precession|
|travel tools||AFORUM||equinoX MaltA?||PHOTOS|
Carnaval.com || main page || site map || search | <urn:uuid:69a786d6-72e8-45a5-a7e0-f13fd76aeee0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carnaval.com/malta/gozo/guide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930508 | 2,213 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Let me tell you how the world looks like from the "tech savvy" person viewpoint - everyone has an idea, they are all looking for a technical partner (that will only get a small part of the company because it's not his/hers idea) and 99.9% of those idea are worthless, and the 0.1% of ideas that are actually worth something are pitched by people that have no idea about the amount of work involved and will be generally unreasonable.
To find a partner you have to either bring money (and lots of it) or prove the idea is valuable and you can be trusted to do the work required to make it a successful product/service.
First you have to define what the service does and doesn’t do – this has to be extremely detailed and it’s best to do that in combination with mockups of the web site (this will help convince the tech partner your idea is doable, that you know what you are talking about and that you are willing to do some work).
You then have to talk to customers and do market research – and what you really want are a few people that say they’ll pay for this if you build it – this proves there’s some market for what you are proposing.
And finally you have to decide what you bring to the table, actually building something is extremely hard work – so you have to bring something equally valuable (your idea is not valuable, at this point in time it’s totally worthless).
So, any programmer that’s worth something is getting pitched crappy idea by unreliable people all the time – so, to “be heard above the noise” you have to prove that your idea is commercially viable and you are willing to work hard to do whatever it takes to make the product/service a success. | <urn:uuid:ce535139-b819-43f7-9f66-30b66e74d5e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/28302/how-do-i-find-a-techie-to-help-build-a-start-up-website | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97371 | 375 | 1.710938 | 2 |
As many of you already know, I lost my son.
Not in a store like our little girl once long ago within furry clothes racks. Not left behind on the counter of Henry Bear’s Park in his car seat carrier during the daze of new motherhood. Lost forever to the hands of time. Passed away to the spirit world, to a hereafter we hope he’s happy in.
Refracted in the tears of all who love him is a rainbow of colored light so warm we can only believe Luke is one with the sky and the earth. He lived a life that mattered. To many. And in that knowledge we find peace.
Luke loved conversation.
He was able to talk to anyone, of any age, of any gender, race or nationality, of any profession or any educational level. He sought such conversations out.
"Talk to a stranger every day," he would say—and try.
The more different, the better.
He had a glow that illuminated any room.
Because he was truly interested in you. All of you.
His ability to see the light inside everyone defined who he was and how he lived in the world.
His friend Nick remembered at his memorial service: "Luke saw me at my best and he saw me at my worst. But to Luke I was always at my best."
THAT was Luke.
Edith Wharton said "there are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." Few of us can imagine a person who did both. Shine from within and refract every one else's best. Luke did. In fact, we believe he still does.
In every story told about him, in every time someone he knew remembers him, in every instance someone he loves says YES instead of no...there is Luke shining and warming and loving. Incandescent.
Friends put together a tribute that honors Luke's light that is like a salve for our family. They have established a fund to collect money in Luke’s honor to buy solar lights for communities in Kenya that are off the electrical grid. Luke spent time in Kenya a couple of years ago and we couldn't think of a more perfect tribute than to bring Luke's light into the dark, smoky, dung huts currently lit by kerosene. It shows us the way out of a sadness and darkness of heart we feared could overwhelm us. The "Luke's Light" movement is a sweet star and sunlit path towards healing.
Whether you are a parent or not, try to imagine:
One instant your child is shining as bright as a lighthouse on the ocean or a firefly in a meadow.The next moment OFF.
Dan and I lost our son Luke on the cusp of adulthood, with the impish traits of a boy and the big plans of a man.
"Dream big. Do bigger." was his motto. Who even has a personal motto at 19? Luke did.
The loss of his deep voice in our lives, his throaty laugh, his lanky hugs is viscerally raw to us. But the loss of his potential is so gargantuan it does not compute.
And then this "Luke's Lights" movement took shape. An act of generosity and shared humanity that reached out to me and my family (and Luke) at a time of terrible tragedy.
A prism is only glass until light catches it.The more light hits it, the more colors are revealed, the more rainbows reflected.
This quest feels like a prism to us. It gives light. Magical, healing, life-affirming light. To our family. And to those whose own families live in darkness.
Our tears flow more joyfully when we think of Luke's departure from this earth having an impact that mirrors his lightness of being.
I had to share this with you who have become so much more than fans to our B. brand. Many of you have become dear friends to me, and I thank you for the outpouring of support I have received from you. To those of you who understood my family's pain and reached out, I am indebted forever.
I am a mother of three. Always. One is a spirit now. | <urn:uuid:e5a56784-9522-4fcb-aa3e-d0c084dbbd90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justb-byou.com/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977992 | 875 | 1.5625 | 2 |
House fires spark safety warnings
FIREFIGHTERS are warning residents about the dangers of open fires in the home after tackling two blazes.
The fires broke out in Smallthorne and Meir Park earlier this week.
The Smallthorne fire was caused by a poorly-fitted wood-burning stove which sparked a chimney fire in Duddell Road.
Fire crews had earlier tackled a garage fire in Meir Park when hot ashes put in a wheelie bin were still burning and caused a fire which spread to the nearby garage.
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Now fire officers are urging residents to make sure their open fires are being used safely.
Head of Risk Reduction Glynn Luznyj said: "Due to the energy costs of gas and electric rising, more people are opting for open fires.
"Fortunately the occupants of the house in Smallthorne were awake and noticed the fire.
" If they had been asleep the incident may have been far more serious as the room could have filled with carbon monoxide which could have killed them. We encourage people to have working smoke alarms." | <urn:uuid:40023b5b-c403-404b-a99c-cafc949309df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/House-fires-spark-safety-warnings/story-18410175-detail/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959049 | 353 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Lawmakers consider cracking down on synthetic drugsST. PAUL — In a continued fight against synthetic drugs, Minnesota lawmakers are considering making selling some of them a felony.
By: Danielle Nordine, Worthington Daily Globe
ST. PAUL — In a continued fight against synthetic drugs, Minnesota lawmakers are considering making selling some of them a felony.
A bill is headed to the House floor setting a penalty for selling certain synthetic drugs, compounds meant to mimic the effects of the actual drugs, a felony with five years in prison.
It currently is a gross misdemeanor.
“Maybe the threat of jail time will get the message across that we don’t want one more death in Minnesota as a result of these dangerous drugs,” bill author Rep. Bob Barrett, R-Shafer, said.
Synthetic drugs are becoming more popular, Barrett said at a House committee hearing Wednesday.
He said young people are experimenting with them while older drug users have said they provide the “ultimate high.”
Last year, the Legislature banned a number of synthetic drug compounds, but Barrett said that has not solved the problem.
“This year some head shop owners haven’t got the message yet,” he said.
The bill adds some new substances to the list of illegal synthetic drugs.
But people have been tweaking formulas slightly and continued selling essentially the same drugs, Barrett said.
The bill also would allow the state Board of Pharmacy to use an expedited process to outlaw dangerous drugs, making it easier to keep up with new synthetic drugs as they are discovered, he said.
“This would allow us to deal with immediate health threats,” Board of Pharmacy Director Cody Wiberg said.
The synthetic drug problem received notice after a party in Blaine, where one person died and others were hospitalized after overdosing on a synthetic drug known as 2 C-E.
Synthetic compounds have caused problems in a number of other cities as well. Duluth, Moorhead and other cities’ officials have tried to stop the sale of synthetic drugs in local businesses.
There are rules on what kind of drugs can be added to the board’s list, Wiberg said.
To add a substance to the top tier, called schedule one, it must have a high potential for misuse, no currently accepted medical use and known adverse effects, among other qualifiers.
Wiberg quelled concerns about over-the-counter or prescription medicines falling under this classification.
“This is truly meant for the synthetic designer drugs that have not been tested by anyone,” he said.
It still would take about 90 days to ban a substance, Wiberg added.
“We are well equipped to make those determinations,” Wiberg said.
Nordine reports for Forum Communications Co., which owns the Daily Globe. | <urn:uuid:5ba9e29a-4c3d-48be-baa5-97f7382104bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/55874/publisher_ID/24/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957833 | 598 | 1.554688 | 2 |
By Jim Schutze
By Rachel Watts
By Lauren Drewes Daniels
By Anna Merlan
By Lee Escobedo
By Alice Laussade
By Scott Reitz
Watching Chris Finley ready his gear before performing a gig as Kashioboy is like watching someone preparing for an '80s computer techie's yard sale. At a recent fund-raiser for The Bee's Fifth artists' collective, held at Matthew Gray's house (aka Bee's Manor), Finley spent nearly 20 minutes connecting several different Game Boys, an original two-tone gray-box Nintendo Entertainment System, a desktop PC and other hand-held gaming consoles all with yards of wires and cables.
Artists often use programs on modern computers to sample or synthesize the glitched-out 8-bit "bleep-bloop" videogame sounds. But performers like Finley actually synthesize the sounds by using the antiquated videogame or computer consoles; in his performances, Finley mixes those live chip sounds with digitally emulated chips and other samples.
For the artists making chiptunes, as the music is called, the appeal seems to fall somewhere between novelty and nostalgia—but the chips' sound and limitations prove more than early game-console sentimentalism. Finley, who has been writing music since 1998, started with circuit-bent Casio keyboards and other toys, but quickly gravitated to chiptunes. "I grew up around that hardware, and sure, it reminds me of my childhood," Finley says. "But what I really love is the simplicity of chiptunes. They're simple, yet you can make them very complex, like doing more with less. And it's fun to push the chips to their limits, making new sounds that you've never heard."
Of course, making music with outdated home gaming consoles is nothing new. Treewaves' Paul Slocum got started decades ago: "I was editing programs and making music on my Commodore in the '80s when I was a kid," he says. For him, the allure of making music with old equipment stemmed from the actual programming paired with the machines' limitations. "The way those devices make sounds, like the Atari 2600, the pitch is terrible and every note is out of tune, in a different way," Slocum says. "And you can't really find an instrument that can do that. It's not anything you could just buy at Guitar Center."
Since moving to Denton from Texarkana in fall 2007, Finley has only played two Denton gigs and just one show in Dallas. But the audiences in the metroplex—so far, at least—are much more receptive to the music, Finley says. "In Texarkana, I used to play for mostly friends, people I knew and the occasional redneck drunk."
Look for more performances by Kashioboy in the coming month as DJ Joey Leichty (aka Yeah Def), a self-described "big fan" of chiptunes, is in the process of booking an all-chiptune show in Denton.
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Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:c07a3740-15b0-467d-8ee1-4fddd12306c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-04-16/music/introducing-kashioboy-and-his-chiptunes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956627 | 689 | 1.640625 | 2 |
"It sounded like gunshots, a lot of screaming. The sad part is, it wasn't unfamiliar to me just because I've seen so many riots on TV," said the Vancouver-based actress and screenwriter.
Earlier in the day, Surh and her husband, Steve Chung, had cancelled a meeting on the other side of the bridge, as she feared it would be difficult to get home after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.
The outcome, as it has been well documented, was far worse than she — or anyone — could have imagined.
Similar to last year's G20 protests in Toronto, a fringe group of rioters turned the event into an opportunity for senseless violence and destruction.
Armed with Molotov cocktails, hammers and gas masks, they streamed into the downtown corridor before the end of the final showdown between the Canucks and Bruins with the sole intention of creating an atmosphere of chaos.
But unlike the G20 riots, which were at least partly grounded in political protest, their appeared to be no motive for the Vancouver riot.
"I think initially when it was going on I was really sad, disgusted and ashamed. But later on you realized they actually weren't Canucks fans. A lot of them were outsiders just coming to cause havoc," says Surh.
Images from the riot went viral, triggering global attention, as a shocked city tried to recover.
Once the debris was cleared and the glass swept away, the incident forced Vancouver — and the rest of Canada — to take an honest look at how this could have happened in a place promoted for its friendly, laidback vibe, and, perhaps more importantly, what lessons could be learned.
"Ideally, the riot will enable us to rethink the city, and the image of the city that we want to project. It will force us to think about ways in which to make it more livable, for more people. It will help us replace empty boosterism with proper, rational debate," says University of British Columbia professor Jon Beasley-Murray.
It also raised questions about whether this would have happened if the Canucks had won, and why the 2010 Olympics, a much larger sporting event, appeared to go off without a hitch.
"There might well have been a riot if the Canucks had won. All the same factors — terrible planning, under-resourced and inadequate policing — were in place, and there would have been even more people on the streets," Beasley-Murray says.
"The difference with the Olympics is the city council tried to achieve the same feel-good effect but on a shoe-string budget and with minimal planning. There were minimal police on the streets, and zero plans as to what to do with revellers once the hockey was over. It was a disaster waiting to happen."
In spite of the outcome, however, some positives emerged.
"So, what's the good news?" asks Beasley-Murray. "Well, above all, and despite what this small group of people is saying, they are not the 'real' Vancouver. The real Vancouver and the real Canada are much more diverse. Indeed, that diversity is their strength."
The "real" Vancouver has become one of the major post-riot themes, as Vancouverites work to take back their city — and its reputation.
Tourism Vancouver manager Amber Sessions says while she's received a handful of emails from concerned visitors, the images of Vancouverites coming together to clean up the mess and write messages of love on The Bay's now iconic plywood wall, has left a strong impression.
"After the riots, there was this outpouring of amazing energy and comments from Vancouverites themselves. It was so much better than anything we could put together," she says.
The organization also created a website modelled after the wall, where anyone can continue the conversation. And now instead of focusing on Vancouver's beautiful landscapes, Sessions says the spotlight is on the residents.
"What really shone was the Vancouverites and how proud they are of their city, how devastated they were at what had happened, so now what we're mentioning [about Vancouver's strengths] are the people."
City Councillor Heather Deal, who has been working closely with Vancouver Tourism, says she was also overwhelmed by the outpouring of humanity in action.
"We were down there fairly early in the morning and every train that stopped, every bus that stopped, people got off carrying brooms and bags, long after there was any glass to pick up," she says. "People were coming down and saying, 'What can I do?' and we said, 'Go buy a coffee from a business whose window was broken. Show them the love.' "
With three independent reviews currently underway, Deal hopes insight is coming into what went wrong, and how the city can do better in the event of another incident.
In the meantime, she's touched by the visible signs of community strength popping up in every corner.
"Just now I was in Granville Market having a lunch meeting and there was a big sign up that said 'We are the true Canucks fans.' In some ways it's made us a stronger city."
(Photo credit: Geoff Howe/The Canadian Press) | <urn:uuid:c5803054-ac2a-4d86-93ee-a0a030424d36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/residents-seek-show-real-vancouver-riot-182216138.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985516 | 1,067 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Local leaders were understandably excited about the announcement from Texas Comptroller Susan Combs on Monday that more than $101 billion is being projected for general-purpose spending in the 2014-15 biennium.
Christmas may be over, but Combs’ forecast — on the eve of the opening of the 83rd legislative session — must have brought back many visions of sugar plums.
Local leaders say they’re hopeful that funding lost during the current biennium can be restored in the next legislative session, and we have a feeling that they’re not alone. We’re sure that Combs’ forecast will have officials across the state lining up to make their case for a share of the loot.
And why not? On the surface, at least, the report is cause for optimism, if not outright celebration. After many lean years of budget downturns, the Texas economy is projected to increase by 3.4 percent in fiscal 2013 and in fiscal 2014, the comptroller reported. For fiscal year 2015, the economy is projected to grow by 3.9 percent.
OK, so the projected increases are modest at best, but they are projected increases — and local officials who have been hit time and again with budget cuts are justifiably optimistic.
The state estimates that general revenue collections from taxes, fees and other income will be $96.2 billion for the 2014-15 biennium, the comptroller said in a news release. About $3.6 billion would be set aside from those funds and placed in the state’s Rainy Day Fund (the state’s saving fund), leaving $92.6 billion in net general revenue.
The comptroller’s office projected an $8.8 billion ending balance from the current biennium, giving the Legislature an estimated $101.4 billion for general-purpose spending.
That’s certainly good news, but we will risk being called party-poopers by throwing out a note of caution — we hope legislators will use great care, even restraint, during upcoming budget deliberations.
Dr. Robert Bland, chairman of the University of North Texas public administration department, said the state is in better shape now to restore services that were lost last year and to provide better services. If Texas wants to remain competitive, Bland said, it needs to invest in its future and take into account the growth of its population.
We agree with Bland that Texas needs to invest in its future to remain competitive, but we believe every investment should be made carefully to ensure that it will bring a fair return.
The last thing we need to do is restore programs and services simply because they were lost to budget cuts.
We need to be prudent and take an honest look at our budgetary needs — all those cuts were painful, but they were made and the patient survived. The last thing we need now is to go right back to our old ways of doing business.
Instead, let’s give careful consideration to where the money should be spent and get the most bang for our bucks. | <urn:uuid:307072cc-d68f-485f-a29f-c0f590831fe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dentonrc.com/opinion/editorials-headlines/20130109-take-honest-look-at-needs.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964836 | 627 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Tips and tricks for teaching senior citizens how to use computers and technology to improve their lives.
RoseAleta Laurell has worked with seniors for over 6 years, teaching them everything from email to wikis to Facebook. She will share some of her ideas, inspirations and thoughts on working with senior citizens. Ms. Laurell is the director at the Ingleside Public Library, and has been chosen to participate in the IMLS Western Regional Fellowship: Transforming Life After 50.
Join us to learn how to best help your older patrons in learning and using new technologies!
The Texas State Library is hosting this webinar and has invited people from anywhere in the country to join in. It is free, so take a look. | <urn:uuid:bc2f3aa3-a3e9-42ea-a69f-7eccedeb2bd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.floridalibrarytraining.com/index.php/2010/09/21/silver-surfers-in-cyberspace-technology-training-for-seniors-online/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959152 | 150 | 1.8125 | 2 |
CAN WE TRUST THE BIBLE?
Written by Doug Ponder on February 3, 2013
If you want to understand the Bible it helps to have some idea of what it is, where it came from, and what it’s all about. This is the second article in four-part series devoted to giving you just that. You can read the first article here.
Questions about the Bible
Love it or hate it, the Bible is an indisputably significant book. Its status as the best-selling, most published, most translated, most read, and most quoted book in the world makes it the most influential book in the history of humanity.
“Yes, but influence doesn’t equal truth,” you might say. “And hasn’t the Bible been proven wrong? Isn’t it full of contradictions? Weren’t the authors deeply biased and self-serving?”
These are reasonable questions that thinking people everywhere are asking today. Of course, it’s not a crime for people to wonder whether the Bible is reliable, accurate, or true. But it is a great injustice—to yourself and to others—to make up your mind about the Bible without really considering the quality of its content.
Common Arguments for the Reliability of the Bible
There are many ways that people have gone about trying to demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of the Bible. Here are just a few:
You could look to the fulfilled prophecies of Scripture. No other religious text claiming to be divinely inspired contains fulfilled prophecies as numerous and specific as those in the Bible.
You could look to archaeological evidence as proof of the Bible’s accuracy, since there have been no discoveries yet that contradict any of the Bible’s records of people and places. Additionally, archaeology has uncovered more than 25,000 manuscripts (surviving hand-written copies) of biblical texts, giving us an unparalleled degree of certainty concerning the accuracy of the Bible’s transmission through history.
You could look to the Bible’s coherence, or internal consistency. That is, despite having been written by nearly 40 authors over a span of more than 1,000 years, the Bible’s teachings are remarkably consistent and harmonious with one another.
You could look to the biblical author’s embarrassing forthrightness about their own mistakes. If you were writing a book that your friends would read, would you include the worst mistakes of your life? Probably not. Yet the biblical authors honestly record things like their own adulterous affairs, their petty arguments over who’s the greatest disciple, their catnaps while Jesus told them to stay awake, and a public denial of Jesus while he was away dying for that author’s sins.
You could look to the power of the Bible’s message to transform people’s lives. Even though Christianity is given a bad rap in some circles, the truth is that the Bible’s presence has historically had a tremendously good impact upon society. Not only has it changed the lives of individuals who come to believe its message; it has consistently led to things like: an increase in hospitals, schools, and orphanages; an increase in humanitarian relief for the poor; an increase in the work equality of men and women; an increase in the literacy rate the country, and so forth. What other book has a résumé this good?
Taken together, these are powerful and persuasive reasons for the trusting the goodness and reliability of the Bible. But I think there is an even more convincing proof than all of these combined: Jesus himself.
Jesus and the Bible
Jesus trusted the Bible (which, at the time when he was living would have been what we call the “Old Testament”). Jesus loved the Bible. Jesus obeyed the Bible. For Jesus, the story of the Bible was the central, defining story for the whole world. Therefore, if Jesus was who he claimed to be, then we’d be fools not to trust, love, and obey the same book that he trusted, loved, and obeyed.
I know what you’re thinking. How can we possibly know whether Jesus was who he claimed to be? Wouldn’t we have to use the Bible in order to do so? Isn’t that circular reasoning?
Well, it would be circular if I said the following:
1. If Jesus is who he claimed to be, then he can be trusted about all things, including the Bible.
2. The Bible says that Jesus is who he claimed to be.
3. Therefore, Jesus can be trusted about the Bible.
But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that the accounts in the Bible of the life of Jesus of Nazareth have been confirmed by more than 30 non-biblical writings from the first century A.D. Some of these were written by Jesus’ enemies, who would have had no motivation to give him any credit. Indeed, there is no historical question that Jesus was a popular teacher who was purported to have performed miracles and who was sentenced to crucifixion at the hands of the Romans. Virtually all scholars—Christian and non-Christian—agree that this much is true.
What scholars don’t agree on is what happened next. Was Jesus really resurrected from the dead? If so, don’t we have to take him (and, by extension, the Bible) seriously? If not, how can we explain the sudden origin of the Christian faith, which centers on the belief of Jesus’ resurrection?
The Resurrection of Jesus and the Rise of the Church
Here are some arguments that skeptics have put forward as alternative explanations to the resurrection:
1. Jesus didn’t really die on the cross; he only looked dead, and he revived in the tomb. Response: The Romans knew how to kill people. They would break the legs of their victims as they hung vertically for hours, effectively cutting off their ability to breathe. (And don’t forget that Jesus had been whipped 39 times before his crucifixion.) Plus, no one would have been fooled by a half-dead, thoroughly bloody Jesus into thinking that he’d defeated death and inaugurated the kingdom of God.
2. When the women went to Jesus’ tomb, they met someone (maybe his half-brother, James) whom they thought was Jesus. Response: Cases of mistaken identity can’t last forever. Nor are they the sort of thing that people found new religions upon.
3. Jesus’ disciples wanted so strongly to believe that he had risen that they experienced some sort of collective hallucination. Response: “Doubting Thomas” and the apostle Paul, who had previously persecuted Jesus’ people, are clear examples of some who did not expect or want Jesus to have risen from the dead. Yet they saw him and were convinced.
4. Jesus’ disciples were embarrassed that their would-be Messiah was put to death, so they stole the body from the tomb and made up a lie about his resurrection. Response: A rag-tag group of untrained and unarmed ex-fishermen hardly would have hardly stood a chance against the professionally trained and well-armed Roman soldiers that guarded Jesus’ tomb. Secondly, Jews didn’t do this sort of thing. There were many Messiah-claimants before and after Jesus; but when they were put to death, their followers would simply move on to the next available candidate. They never went around saying that their leader had risen from the grave, because that wasn’t a belief they shared in their Jewish worldview.
In addition to these responses, we should also consider the following arguments, which help demonstrate the explanatory power of the resurrection:
1. We know from history that Jewish tombs, especially those of martyrs like Jesus, were venerated and often became shrines. Yet there is not a shred of historical evidence that this happened with Jesus’ grave, despite his incredible popularity. (This strongly suggests that the tomb was empty.)
2. The early church worshipped on the first day of the week, Sunday, not the customary Sabbath day (Saturday) that Jews had kept holy for over a thousand years. This sort of shift is very hard to explain unless something striking—like a resurrection—really did happen on this day of the week.
3. Jesus’ disciples were hardly likely to suffer and die for something they knew to be false. They at least believed that Jesus had been risen from the dead, and, as we said above, this wasn’t the sort of belief that they would have inherited from their existing worldview. Yet none of them recanted this belief, even after being tortured and put to death.
All the evidence seems to be pointing in the same direction. The alternative explanations for the rise of the early church and its insistence on the resurrection of Jesus simply cannot account for all these details with sufficient explanatory power. As crazy as it may seem, the best explanation is the one the Bible offers: Jesus of Nazareth, having been killed and buried, really was raised to life just as he said he would be.
Now, the significance of Jesus’ resurrection for our life is much, much greater than merely proving the reliability of the Bible. Nevertheless, his identity as the resurrected Lord adds undeniable credibility to what he thought about things. So if Jesus trusted, loved, and obeyed the Bible, then shouldn’t we?
To be fair, sometimes people get worried when they come across what seems to be a contradiction between two of the Bible’s teachings, or between one of the Bible’s teachings and some scientific discovery. Concerning the first worry, you need not have much fear. Teachings that seem contradictory are almost always a result of misreading or misinterpretation. Most of these tensions are resolved with a little study of the context for the teachings in question. Concerning the second worry, you should know that science is not the enemy of the Bible. When all the facts are known and rightly interpreted, there will be no final conflict between the findings of science and the teachings of the Bible. Why should there be? God authored them both.
At the end of the matter, it’s important to realize that most people don’t distrust the Bible because of a lack of evidence (even if they say otherwise). The deepest motivation for distrusting the Bible comes from disliking what it says. Sometimes this happens because people have misunderstood the actual meaning of the Bible’s message. Other times this happens because people have observed the behavior of a few people who call themselves “Christians” but who don’t look anything like Jesus. Yet for most people it seems that distrust of the Bible stems from the thought of having to trust and obey someone other than themselves. The proper response to such people isn’t brow-beating them with arguments about the reliability of the Bible. Rather, Jesus calls us to love them, serve them, and show them just how great it is to trust and obey someone who died and rose again to rescue broken and needy people like us. That is always the order of things, isn’t it? Trust in Jesus produces trust in the Bible that points to him.
Continue to the third article, “The Bible Isn’t About You”.
The arguments for the resurrection have been summarized from N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, 61-64.
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is the author of Rethink Marriage & Family. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder. | <urn:uuid:1838a452-1a49-4dd8-a38b-591bbcc5a51c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.remnantresource.org/can-we-trust-the-bible/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973874 | 2,468 | 1.773438 | 2 |
One (Obscenely Profitable) Day In the Life of Big Oil August 2, 2012Posted by rogerhollander in Economic Crisis, Energy, Environment.
Tags: abby zimet, big oil, carbon pollution, Obama, oil ceos, oil companies, oil industry, oil profits, roger hollander, romney, stock paybacks, tax breaks
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by Abby Zimet
Every hour this year, the five biggest oil companies have made $14,400,000 in profits, or more in one minute than what 96% of American households earn in one year. Each hour they also received over $270,000 in federal tax breaks, or $2.4 billion a year. Romney and the GOP want to double that, even though they already pay under 17% in taxes. ThinkProgress created a great chart tracking their money and pollutants over one day. | <urn:uuid:7fc8da21-d56e-4a1f-babc-3c2ba32e87db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/tag/oil-ceos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955252 | 185 | 1.507813 | 2 |
70% believe contracts take too long to read, and more than half think they are too difficult to understand
But many have gone on to regret it - with broadband/phone/
Three quarters of us have signed contracts without reading them properly. Although they're widely seen as too long to read and too difficult to understand,
millions have lived to regret 'signing blind'.
Revealing much about attitudes to contracts, figures* released today by Debt Advisory Centre highlight the need to pay more attention to legally binding agreements.
Asked which contracts they had signed without reading thoroughly:
· 44% said a PayPal / eBay user agreement - equivalent to 22 million people
· 43% said a broadband, phone or pay TV contract - equivalent to 21.5 million
· 42% said online retailer terms & conditions - equivalent to 21 million
Even more worrying, millions of us have had reason to regret signing a contract without reading it.
Broadband, phone & pay TV contracts caused the most regret. Over three million people wish they hadn't signed at least one of these without first going through the terms and conditions.
Credit was also high on the list. As the research shows, around 2.5 million people regret not reading the terms of a loan or credit agreement.
The two reasons that really stood out when we asked people why they didn't read contracts before committing themselves were:
· 26 million: they take too long to read
· 19 million: they're too difficult to understand.
Age and gender are major factors influencing our attitudes. Younger people were more than twice as likely to feel that reading contracts simply wasn't worth the time, while men seemed particularly impatient:
· While 21% of 18-34 year-olds felt this way, just 9% of the over-55s agreed
· 17% of men agreed with this, compared with 11% of women.
It pays to take the time
"Understanding what you're committing yourself to is an essential part of managing your finances properly," said Ian Williams of Debt Advisory Centre.
"Our experience with people in debt is that many people simply didn't understand what they had signed, which can cause real problems when it comes to things like cancellation fees or fixed contracts."
* Opinium Research carried out 2,017 online interviews between 29th and 31st January 2013. Results have been weighted to nationally representative criteria.
Notes to Editors
The Debt Advisory Centre offers expert debt advice, as well as a range of debt solutions for people facing financial difficulties.
For more information, visit the Debt Advisory Centre website at www.debtadvisorycentre.co.uk.
Debt Advisory Centre
Tel: 07855 214851 | <urn:uuid:cff09997-4a91-4a9b-a233-f74f4bace338> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prlog.org/12084468-37-million-have-signed-on-the-dotted-line-without-reading-terms-and-conditions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972257 | 555 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Filed under: The Fashion Statement
A handful of fashion editors got a look at Alexander McQueen's last, unfinished collection on Tuesday, making them acutely aware of the genius the industry has lost.
The 16-piece collection, half of what was supposed to have been shown in Paris this week, was 80 percent finished on Feb. 11 when the designer hanged himself at his London apartment at the age of 40. He had been reportedly distraught by his mother's death and there were rumors of a failed love relationship. Sarah Burton, who worked with McQueen for more than a decade, finished his work.
The presentation was set to opera music the designer was listening to when he was working recently. It was "solemn, funereal and even a little spooky," according to Women's Wear Daily.
Editors said the show was difficult to watch because it was soon clear that McQueen was fixated on the afterlife. The clothes had medieval and religious overtones and suggested battles between angels and demons-themes that take on significantly more meaning in light of McQueen's death. With pale faces and wearing bronze skull caps, models glided out in Jacquards and silks on which Old Master paintings by Botticelli, Hieronymus Bosch and Jean Fouquet were digitally transferred. One print portrayed hell and damnation while another featured doves. A skull, a signature of McQueen's, showed up in this collection crushed and broken.
Gallery: Alexander McQueen Fashion | <urn:uuid:0e982e9e-60fc-4cbe-b2d9-9aa4e33c3317> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.luxist.com/tag/FashionWeekParis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987958 | 302 | 1.507813 | 2 |
As protesters clashes, President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt announced a referendum on a proposed constitution. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.
TAHRIR SQUARE, CAIRO -- This was the place where the revolution began: the roundish square where Egyptians celebrated Mubarak's fall.
This is where they are shouting on bullhorns again, outraged because they say the Muslim Brotherhood has stolen the revolution and is railroading though a constitution that could lock in Muslim Brotherhood rule for 50 years, bringing more Islamic law. They cry -- not against Islam -- but that an extremist interpretation is being forced down their throats by a president who critics say is acting every part the tyrant.
This is also a warning, they claim, of what may happen across the Middle East. The era of the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have arrived. President Obama has hailed the Brotherhood's President Mohammed Morsi as a pragmatist who helped end the Gaza crisis. Egyptians here think the Brotherhood has conned Washington, just like it conned them.
"President Obama is supporting a terrorist," a man told me amid chants of "Leave! Leave!" in Tahrir Square and "Down, down with the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader." Before, it was "Down, down with Mubarak."
Morsi's decree divides Egypt
Egypt was torn in half just over a week ago when Morsi made himself more powerful than Mubarak ever was, and the kings before him. Morsi declared himself above judicial oversight, his decisions final and unassailable. He made himself, according to critics, a new pharaoh on the Nile. Imagine if, after five months in office, an American president announced that he could pass any law he pleased regardless of Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court. Imagine if he said his decisions were final and inspired by God.
After issuing a decree making himself more powerful than the courts, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has sparked a wave of anger – some of which is directed toward the United States. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Morsi last night apologized for the power grab and said he didn't want the extra authorities, but that they were necessary for the good of the people and to safeguard the revolution. Dictators always say stuff like that. Burn down the village to save it.
At first Egyptians were shocked that Morsi would make such an obvious and, according to Egyptian judges, blatantly illegal move. It's clear now, as some analysts have long feared, that the brotherhood is making sure it doesn't lose power again by taking control of Egypt's constitution. The Brotherhood wants to write the rules of the game. Now they've done that too.
Protected by the president's new-found supreme and unquestionable powers, Morsi ordered his Islamist allies to finish writing the constitution and get it on his desk by the end of this week. They did it, even though many independent legal experts, Christians and opposition politicians boycotted the drafting process. The Brotherhood called the new constitution "a jewel." Many Egyptians say it leaves too much room for the implementation of Shariah law.
The constitution also empowers the people and government with a duty to uphold moral values, a vague clause that could pave the way for vigilante morality police. The constitution barely mentions protecting women's rights. According to women who were originally involved in the drafting process, and who subsequently left because they felt they were being ignored, clauses specifically demanding that women be protected from violence and sex trafficking were dropped because Islamists feared it would conflict with their desire to allow child brides.
The constitution has long been the Muslim Brotherhood's lodestar and, in the past, they have been willing the kill for it. In 1954, not long after a group of 'free officers' carried out a coup against the British-backed monarchy, a Brotherhood assassin tried to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser, a leading free officer, favored a mostly secular, pro-military constitution. The Brotherhood, an Islamist group that supports the return of Arab and Islamic unity and the revival of ancient Muslim glory and Shariah laws, couldn't accept the new rules.
The Brotherhood's assassination attempt failed. The gunman's eight bullets, fired while Nasser was giving a speech in Alexandria, all missed. The Brotherhood was banned. The group went underground, at times tolerated but more often repressed by Nasser's successors: presidents Mubarak and Anwar el-Sadat. When the revolts started against Mubarak, the Brotherhood saw that fate had given them another chance.
Muslim Brotherhood's calculated rise to power
Looking back now, it all seems so obvious, yet many Egyptians refused to see it coming. In fact, many of the secular revolutionaries backed the Brotherhood, arguing they were better allies than the hated military. The Brotherhood played its cards well.
The Brotherhood was late to join the anti-Mubarak revolts in 2011. When students and liberals initially occupied Tahrir Square, it looked like it might be a passing thing. The Brotherhood either didn't appreciate its significance, or wanted to wait to see who was winning.
I remember watching the Brothers march into the square. They arrived in a large group of perhaps five hundred. Nearly all were men. Many had beards. Most were dressed in poorly cut dark suits. They occupied a corner of Tahrir near a Kentucky Fried Chicken. They came with microphones and wood to build a platform. The other protesters in the square seemed happy to have the support of the new arrivals.
The protests continued to grow. Labor unions went on strike. The military enacted a coup against Mubarak. President Obama withdrew his support for Washington's long-time Arab friend. And Mubarak the president was no more.
The Brotherhood first said it wouldn't seek the new presidency at all. It promised to exist solely as an influential member of civil society. Back then, many Egyptians feared the Brotherhood. It was a semi-secret group. It had a small office in a Cairo apartment building with a sign on the door the size of an index card. Mubarak-era officials had often described the Brotherhood as a group of terrorists. One security official I know called the Brotherhood the most dangerous group in the world. But in the heady 1960s-like days after Mubarak's resignation, the Brotherhood's bad reputation only seemed to give the group more credibility. They'd been oppressed by the man. It was a new day. Everyone, it appeared, deserved a new beginning.
The Brotherhood went to work. It organized its considerable finances. It built a big new headquarters with far bigger signs on the doors. It sent its representatives around the world, especially to Washington, on a charm offensive. We've been oppressed, they claimed. We were slandered by a tyrant. We're not what you've heard. We can unite the Sunni world against Iran. We can help bring Israeli-Palestinian peace. There were many promises of a great future.
Even then, the Brotherhood's focus on the constitution was clear. The Brotherhood insisted the constitution be drafted only after a new president was elected. The military was overseeing a transition back then. The Brotherhood argued that the military couldn't be trusted to oversee the creation of such an important document. Many Egyptians agreed -- a decision some sorely regret today.
Morsi won the election by a narrow margin and then five months into his term, made himself a dictator and ordered his Islamist friends to quickly finish the constitution. Morsi has said he'll drop his extraordinary powers as soon as the constitution is approved in a referendum in December. Islamists are convinced they'll be able to use their grassroots network of activists to win the referendum like they won the elections. Western diplomats tend to agree.
Yet the United States has remained mostly silent on all this, urging both sides to stay calm and work it out. Washington's policy seems to be that what's going on is simply democracy in progress as Egyptians learn to use their new rights.
But in Tahrir Square people seem convinced the Brotherhood isn't testing its fledgling wings. They say Morsi knows exactly what he's doing, Washington be warned.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Fast cars go cheap as bubble bursts in 'China's Dubai'
- Video: Morsi loyalists rewrite Egyptian constitution
- PhotoBlog: Survivors of Bangladesh factory fire that killed dozens
- Leveson report on Rupert Murdoch, son: Evidence suggests 'cover-up'
- ANALYSIS: UN's Palestinian statehood vote is victory for Abbas | <urn:uuid:674e3f41-2bdb-487d-b314-50641ef652fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/01/15578733-egyptians-fear-decades-of-muslim-brotherhood-rule-warn-morsi-is-no-friend-to-us?lite?ocid=twitter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978072 | 1,717 | 1.554688 | 2 |
About Clarendon Park
For those of you not living in the area, here is a flavour of Clarendon Park.
Clarendon Park is an area of south Leicester, postcode LE2. Its borders are a little fuzzy but broadly speaking, Victoria Park Road (the B568) is to the north, London Road (the A6) to the east, Knighton Road to the south and Welford Road (the A5199) to the west. Here is a map. Within Clarendon Park, the main roads are Queens Road (the main shopping district today), and Clarendon Park Road. There is an excellent Queens Road blog here, giving a feel for the lunatic eclectic mixture that is Clarendon Park today.
Housing and people
The housing is mainly Victorian with some Edwardian, though there is a substantial amount of 1930s housing to the south. Somehow the later housing developments don’t feel part of Clarendon Park and I often forget that they are. There are some modern flats, mainly where large old houses have been pulled down, but not many. There is a LOT of character here, both in terms of the buildings and the people who live here. Being so close to the university, many students live here and also a number of lecturers. There is a good mixture of families, young people and older folk. Let’s be honest – it is largely middle class and reasonably affluent, despite having been originally built as housing for labourers with some fancier parts (mostly at the London Road end of Clarendon Park Road and some of Howard Road). In fact, one old lady told me that when she was a girl, St John’s Church used to deliver food parcels to the residents of Montague Road and the streets off it.
Shops and businesses
These days, Clarendon Park supports two delicatessens, a designer dress agency, a health food shop and various eating establishments – but it does also have two green grocers, two butchers, a bakery and many other really useful shops. I love the second-hand bookshop on Clarendon Park Road. There are two banks and a building society, and a post office. There are printers, photographers and goodness knows what else. Plenty of estate agents too.
Clarendon Park certainly has plenty of these. The parish church is St John the Baptist, Clarendon Park Road. On the same road are Christchurch, Leicester Chinese Christian Church, Hindu Temple Geeta Bhavan and Sikh temple Guru Amardas Gurdwara. There is also Clarendon Park Congregational Church on the corner of London Road and Springfield Road. Avenue Community Church meet at Avenue School. There is a Messianic Jewish synagogue which meets at the Brice Memorial Hall. I am aware of other religious groups which meet in the area but can’t find details. Leicester Society of Friends (Quakers) are at the Friends’ Meeting House in Queens Road. Please do let me have them if you know of any group not mentioned. | <urn:uuid:91e37617-f443-4350-901e-96390950628f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yourhistories.wordpress.com/about-clarendon-park/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96257 | 634 | 1.617188 | 2 |
On January 13, six U.S. Senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) imploring him not to rush the Protect IP Act (PIPA) to a vote on the floor without the chance to amend and debate the bill on January 24.
The letter goes on to explain that the bill is in dire need of some revision and that they have listened to the strongly-expressed concerns of constituents and stake-holders about the unintended consequences of the bill in its current form. Some of those consequences named by the Senators included problems with cyber security, damage to the integrity of the internet, the stifling of innovation and creativity, and more.
The six Senators that signed the letter are Chuck Grassley (D-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma).
The letter was cc'd to Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and the bill's sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
You can read the bill via Sribd.
Image credit: Scribd | <urn:uuid:8b3b68a0-b541-4fa6-944d-bd56cdc21490> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/01/13/six-senators-urge-harry-reid-slow-down-pipa-vote-plans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940048 | 247 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Before Richard Schulze can acquire and turn around Best Buy, he needs to come to terms with the State of Minnesota.
Mr. Schulze is the founder and owner of 20 percent of Minnesota-based Best Buy. On Monday, he went public with a proposal to acquire Best Buy from $24 to $26 a share in cash.
Mr. Schulze likely announced his bid to force the Best Buy board into considering a deal, but there’s another strategic reason for this announcement.
Minnesotans, famous for their niceness, don’t seem to like hostile takeovers very much. The state has adopted some of the stricter antitakeover laws in the country.
Mr. Schulze’s letter was clearly aimed at addressing the problem he confronts from one of these statutes, the Minnesota business combination act, which is adopted word-for-word in the company’s certificate of incorporation.
The business combination act requires that a:
public corporation may not engage in any business combination. . . . with, any interested shareholder of [Best Buy] or any affiliate or associate of the interested shareholder for a period of four years following the interested shareholder’s share acquisition date unless the business combination or the acquisition of shares made by the interested shareholder on the interested shareholder’s share acquisition date is approved before . . . . prior to the interested shareholder’s becoming an interested shareholder on the share acquisition date. . .
An interested shareholder is a shareholder who owns 10 percent or more of the company. The share acquisition date is the first date that the interested shareholder exceeds this amount.
This statute is quite strict. It means that before any person can acquire 10 percent or more of Best Buy, the acquisition must be approved by a committee of disinterested directors. If the approval is not obtained before the threshold is passed, then the acquirer has to wait four years to squeeze out the remaining shareholders.
Compare this with Delaware’s business combination statute, which applies only to shareholders who acquire 15 percent or more of the company and requires a wait of only three years. Even thereafter, the acquirer can still squeeze out the minority shareholders by obtaining a 66.66 percent vote of the outstanding voting stock that is not owned by the interested stockholder.
Mr. Schulze has held his 20 percent interest long enough so that the four-year period wouldn’t apply, but this statute would ordinarily require him to obtain approval to acquire even one more share. The banks will want Mr. Schulze and his partners to gain approval to acquire the company before they will agree to billions in financing, meaning that any acquisition is impossible if this statute applies.
In truth, this is not such a problem, since Mr. Schulze really can’t acquire additional shares of Best Buy without the board’s approval anyway because the board can just adopt a poison pill to prevent this. Instead, Mr. Schulze is trying to push the board into a friendly deal and get any necessary approval under Minnesota’s antitakeover statutes.
But the real problem is a quirk in the business combination statute. Once Mr. Schulze takes on a partner to bid for Best Buy, the partner will be deemed part of a new group of interested shareholders. This sets off application of the business combination statute and the four-year waiting period.
The consequence is that Mr. Schulze can’t make any arrangements with partners until the board approves. Otherwise, he and his partners will be effectively barred from acquiring Best Buy for four years. And because the statute is broadly worded as to what constitutes a partnership, Mr. Schulze really can’t have more than preliminary talks with partners or he risks activating the statute.
But it appears that the Best Buy board is hesitant to allow him to arrange such partnerships.
The Minnesota business combination statute provides Mr. Schulze some help to push the issue. Now that Mr. Schulze has announced his proposal, the law requires the board to form an independent committee of disinterested directors to consider the offer and make a decision within 30 days. By putting forth even this highly conditional proposal, Mr. Schulze has set the clock ticking.
But again, Minnesota law works against Mr. Shulze. In Minnesota, companies are not required to sell to the highest bidder. Instead, boards can choose to “consider the interests of the corporation’s employees, customers, suppliers, and creditors, the economy of the state and nation, community and societal considerations, and the long-term as well as short-term interests of the corporation and its shareholders including the possibility that these interests may be best served by the continued independence of the corporation.”
This legal standard provides the board substantial leeway to not only pick the buyer but to decide not to sell because of a variety of reasons, including perhaps the leverage that Mr. Schulze may put on the corporation and the employee cuts it may bring.
So what comes next? Well, the board of independent directors has a tough decision. Since the board really holds the cards, it may just say no, but the it may just allow him to speak to his partners without further addressing the offer. To not do so may make the board seem recalcitrant, and it doesn’t tie the board to any sale decision anyway.
Thereafter, Mr. Schulze would have to come through with a firm offer. Right now, his financing is not secure. Instead, Mr. Schulze’s financial adviser, Credit Suisse, has issued a “highly confident” letter.
Such a letter is a relic from the 1980s, when banks refused to commit to risky financing, Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham would step in to say that while a commitment was not forthcoming, the bank was highly confident it could raise the money. But that doesn’t mean financing is certain or even that there is a contractual obligation to provide financing. (In Mr. Schulze’s defense, he is not likely to have signed a commitment letter anyway at this stage because it would have cost him too much in fees.)
Mr. Schulze will still not only have to arrange financing but persuade a private equity partner to help him buy this struggling company. It’s not the easiest feat in the world in this market, and it may be yet another reason why the Best Buy board is hesitant to let him pursue what may be an errant chase.
Steven M. Davidoff, a professor at the Michael E. Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, is the author of “Gods at War: Shotgun Takeovers, Government by Deal and the Private Equity Implosion.” E-mail: [email protected] | Twitter: @StevenDavidoff
A stock retreat spread around the world, with European markets down around 2 percent and Wall Street futures indicating a 1 percent drop at the opening.
Ford cited a strong currency and high costs for the decision to close its engine plant in Geelong and its vehicle assembly plant in Broadmeadows.
While Wednesday’s I.R.S. hearing felt like an unforgiving, angry inquisition, senators seemed halfhearted in their desire to beat up on Apple, which has been accused of dodging taxes.
A deeper look at tornadoes in a changing climate.
Why do communities fail to secure the buildings that house their children against momentous hazards?
There are affordable ways to live more safely in tornado zones.
The sitcom, which is likely to have additional episodes produced, has Mr. Crystal playing a once-great comic who tries to revive his career.
The product, rather than the model’s body, may be the focus of new campaigns. Or not.
A new campaign suggests that Mike’s Hard Lemonade is a versatile drink for occasions beyond the backyard barbecue.
A federal judge’s ruling could halt the resale of digital music as well as other digital good like e-books.
A world-renowned physicist meets a gorgeous model online. They plan their perfect life together. But first, she asks, would he be so kind as to deliver a special package to her?
The Winklevoss brothers have moved on from their battle with Mark Zuckerberg and are more active than ever.
A new report from ConsumerLab.com shows that some bottled varieties of green tea appear to be little more than sugar water, while some green tea leaves are contaminated with lead
The law made the procedure illegal if performed about 18 weeks after fertilization, earlier than the time recognized by Supreme Court precedents.
A Senate committee approved a bill on Wednesday that would give the Food and Drug Administration greater authority over compounding pharmacies.
Kenneth deRegt, the executive in charge of Morgan Stanley’s once-powerful fixed-income department, is retiring. | Jamie Dimon is looking to mend fences with regulators. | Tesla Motors repaid a federal loan nine years ahead of schedule. | A look at the battle over Herbalife.
Sign up for the DealBook Newsletter, delivered every morning and afternoon, and receive breaking news alerts throughout the day. | <urn:uuid:08a53eb7-2133-44d8-92d2-a11f63cf2bf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/minnesota-minefield-for-a-best-buy-deal/?ref=creditsuissegroup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961183 | 1,902 | 1.515625 | 2 |
I love to look on ebay for jazz or early r’n'b related memorabilia from time to time. A few weeks ago, being a little bored, I started to browse to see if any interesting photographs would come up. Then suddenly I recognized tenor saxophonist Eddie Chamblee (1920–1999) one one of the stamp sized pictures you see in an ebay listing. The seller was offering the photo under the heading “photo of unidentified black musicians” and I had the luck to get it for the pricely sum of $5.
Eddie Chamblee (left) and two unidentified persons, circa mid 50s.
Comparing with other photos of Chamblee I would say it is from the mid 1950s. The other two men look very familiar to me. Does anyone know, who these two might be? Maybe they are members of Lionel Hampton’s band, Chamblee played with Hampton around 1955/1956. They look familiar, but I am not able to place them.
You might as well have some music while thinking about who these men may be. Here is Eddie Chamblee and his band playing Julian Priester’s composition “Swing A Little Taste”.
This was recorded January 20, 1958 in Chicago for Mercury and the band members are: Fortunatus “Fip” Ricard (tp) Julian Priester (tb) Eddie Chamblee (ts,vcl) Charles Davis (bar) Jack Wilson (p) Robert Wilson (b) James Slaughter (d). And it was released on this LP:
“Swing A Little Taste” had been recorded 18 months earlier on one of the first recording sessions of the Sun Ra Arkestra , of which Priester was a member at that time. This version was originally released on the sampler “Jazz In Transition” on the Transition label (go to Robert L. Campbell’s page about Sun Ra’s early years for more information about that session).
While the label on the Transition LP gives Julian Priester as the sole composer of this tune, the Mercury LP “Doodlin” adds one “Washington” to the composer’s credit. This “Washington” is obviously the person to the right of Chamblee on the cover of the ”Doodlin” LP (no prizes for giving her full name).
I also acquired another photo from the same seller, also for $5 (it said ”photo of unidentified black musicians” again). Now does anyone have an idea who this lady could be? (And no: Just the fact she is holding a trumpet does not make her Valaida Snow!) Or where and when this photograph was taken? | <urn:uuid:a65321d0-32fb-42b6-bbd1-d6e5d343d4a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crownpropeller.wordpress.com/tag/julian-priester/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960907 | 583 | 1.578125 | 2 |
On January 11, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) selected John White as Louisiana's new State Superintendent of Education. The appointment was made during a special called meeting in Baton Rouge. White's term as the state education chief becomes effective immediately.
Governor Bobby Jindal said, "John's done a great job for the Recovery School District and he's going to do a great job as Superintendent of Education. Improving our educational system will require bold leadership and innovative ideas, such as empowering parents with more choices, rewarding highly effective teachers, and giving our schools the flexibility to pursue the most effective reforms for students in their communities. John is just the type of passionate, competent, and committed educator we need as Superintendent to build on our record of reform. Our kids only grow up once, and we cannot wait for the system to reform itself. I applaud BESE for recognizing John's leadership and entrusting him with the responsibility to prepare our students for success in our schools and the workforce."
Jindal's endorsement of White was reiterated by other state and national leaders.
"I want to salute the Louisiana Board of Education for appointing John White as the state's new superintendent," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "John is a visionary leader who has done great things in New York City and New Orleans, and I'm confident he'll do the same for the whole state of Louisiana."
"John White has developed a reputation as a proven leader in reforming education and increasing student achievement," said U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. "He has led successful education reform efforts in some of the country's most challenging school systems - most recently, as head of the Recovery School District. John's knowledge, talents, and commitment to serving the best interests of children make him a perfect fit for Louisiana as we seek to advance education in our state."
"Considering the high expectations we've set for our students, Superintendent White is the clear choice," BESE President Penny Dastugue said. "Specifically, when we look at the strategies we're pursuing - supporting the success of teachers and principals and turning around failing schools- John's demonstrated ability to advance similar initiatives in New York City and elsewhere makes him uniquely qualified. Likewise, as head of the Recovery School District, John has earned a reputation as an honest and straightforward leader, who is genuinely committed to listening, works to resolve contentious issues, keeps his promises, and makes sure we're taking care of our business. Those qualities are of immeasurable value for our State Superintendent."
The New Orleans Agenda.com is the leading local alternative for information on News, Arts, Culture & Entertainment in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Region.
Read more stories from The New Orleans Agenda » | <urn:uuid:7c9fb167-5160-401c-b482-0e5b8849bd5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nolabeez.org/article/2012-0125-new-orleans-agenda-state-education-board-names-john-white-state-superintendent-of-education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970389 | 561 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Many people start scrapbooking because they have many heritage photos that they want to preserve. The problem is that preserving and recording ones ancestors can be a daunting task. Becky Higgins’s new book, Family History Scrapbooking, will help simplify the process and put you on the right path for preserving your family’s history.
The book is divided into 6 chapters, each focusing on a different step in the family history scrapbooking process.
All of the information is presented as answers to questions. A question is at the top of most pages and then Becky writes her answer to the question. This was a very effective way to present the information because people really do have so many questions about preserving family history and here are all of the questions and answers in one organized book.
One of my favorite parts of the book is the checklists. Many checklists are included throughout the book that give you tips and ideas of things that you can do or look for when working on your family history. Some of the checklist topics are: interview questions, organizing photographs and memorabilia, tips for identifying people and list of helpful online links.
Becky also shares some fun idea on how to incorporate these historical pictures into the décor of your home.
In addition to being filled with very useful ideas and information, Becky has filled this book with many of her own family history layouts. So, not only are you getting an informational resource, you are getting a great idea book too.
As an online bonus, you can check out a few of the layouts that are featured in the book by clicking here. Looking at this will familiarize you with Becky’s clean and simple design style if you are not already familiar with it.
If you have been thinking about preserving your family history, but you are not sure where to start, I recommend picking up a copy of Family History Scrapbooking. | <urn:uuid:fe6c50f1-9470-49f3-b206-2a3182e6b71f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.families.com/blog/family-history-scrapbooking-by-becky-higgins | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96526 | 387 | 1.648438 | 2 |
ACR&S is lucky to work with many wonderful veterinarians. Most of our animals owe their lives and health to vets who have donated time, supplies, knowledge, and money to provide care above and beyond what we might hope for. Now it’s time for us to help pay them back!
One of our vets in particular, Dr Lauren Powers, also devotes a good amount of her time to furthering the science of companion animal medicine by publishing research papers about some of the cases she’s seen. It’s all well and good for a vet to be knowledgeable and to learn from her experiences, but sharing that knowledge with other vets is critical to improving the ability of ALL vets to care for these difficult cases. The primary way for vets to share their knowledge is through peer reviewed research papers published in veterinary medicine journals.
Dr Powers has had a case involving a young rat named Dylan, who had a very unusual illness – one that has possibly never yet been described in medical journals. We’d like to help Dr Powers get his case published so that other rats can be helped, by letting other vets read about Dylan and Dr Powers’ efforts to save him.
Dylan first came to Dr Powers with very low blood glucose. He did not respond to treatment. This is typically a sign of insulinomas, which are tumors that secrete insulin. Dr Powers did every test she could, but his condition got so bad that he had to be euthanized, and Dr Powers did indeed find a tumor when she did a necropsy on him. This is a rare spontaneous tumor in rats, but it’s not unheard of – it’s known that they do occur in rats. However, further testing of Dylan’s tumor found that it is NOT an insulinoma – if the results are correct, this means Dylan had a relatively new form of pancreatic tumor (somatostatinoma, or mixed tumor). Dylan may have survived with successful surgery.
Dr Powers has spent a significant amount of her own personal money to diagnose and treat Dylan and to get the initial examination of his tumor. She needs one more analysis which will be done at Michigan State University (MSU) to confirm the nature of the tumor. That analysis costs $450, and ACR&S has promised to help Dr Powers raise the money so that this analysis can be done and the study can be published. This way, Dylan’s illness will not be in vain. Other rats may be presenting with similar symptoms and are dying because their vets don’t know it could be a somatostatinoma: since there is no report of this occurring in the veterinary literature, the vets don’t know that this is a possibility and don’t attempt to treat it. Additionally, description of a somatostatinoma in a rat might even help human doctors understand the occurrence of similar tumors in people! For all these reasons, we feel that getting Dylan’s results published is critically important.
One of ACR&S’ board members has pledged $50, so we are already part way there! If we can get just 20 people to donate $20 each, or 40 people to donate $10 each, we’ll make it in no time! All we need is some help from anyone who loves rats, or wants to help vets have a better understanding of how to diagnose and treat cancer. If you have loved and lost a rattie with cancer, please consider giving.
You can make your donation through PayPal – just use the link at the top of the page or log into your PayPal account and send money to [email protected]. This will be a tax-deductible charitable donation and you will receive a receipt to use on your taxes. Additionally, ACR&S’ board members will absorb the PayPal fees, so 100% of your donation amount will be sent to Dr Powers and MSU. You can also send a check directly to ACR&S or MSU, just email us to get the mailing address. | <urn:uuid:55ebcf21-63cb-4010-b193-7707b0552957> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.allcreaturesrescue.org/2011/02/21/help-us-raise-450-for-rat-medical-science-and-cancer-treatment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965071 | 841 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Posters show the visual kaleidoscope of world culture
More than 400 posters collected from 46 countries and regions will be showcased at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum from tomorrow (November 25) until May 19, 2008, offering viewers a visual kaleidoscope of world cultures.
The exhibition, "Beyond the Surface - Hong Kong International Poster Triennial 2007", organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Hong Kong Designers Association, presents outstanding poster designs of different countries.
The exhibition's opening ceremony was held today (November 24). Officiating guests included the Director of Leisure and Cultural Services, Mr Thomas Chow, the Chairman of the Hong Kong Designers Association, Mr Eddy Yu, and two judges of the adjudication panel for a competition of the triennial - Mr Han Jiaying from Mainland China and Mr Stanley Wong from Hong Kong.
Mr Chow said that since the triennial was first held in 2001, it had continued to grow with an increasing number of participants and participating countries/regions. Also it had become a significant event in the designers' circle.
"The triennial event consists of three parts - an open competition, an exhibition and a seminar. These activities not only document the development of poster design, but also foster cultural exchange at an international level," Mr Chow said.
This year, the triennial's competition was well-received. A total of 2,252 pieces of works were submitted by 737 designers. The entries were grouped under four categories: "Ideological", "Promotion of Cultural Events", "Commercial and Advertising", and "Thematic - Children".
Based on their visual impact, creativity, effectiveness of communication, persuasive power and excellence in execution, 249 sets of poster works were selected for display in the exhibition. Gold, silver and bronze have been awarded for each category and eight poster works have been awarded Honorable Mention.
Representative poster works by the six judges of the competition, including Stanley Wong Ping Pui (Hong Kong), Han Jiajing (Mainland China), Shin Matsunaga (Japan), Garry Emery (Australia), Anette Lenz (France) and Rick Valicenti (USA), are also featured as testimony to their creative achievements.
Located at 1 Man Lam Road in Shatin, the Heritage Museum opens from 10am to 6pm from Monday to Saturday, and from 10am to 7pm on Sundays and public holidays. On Christmas Eve and Chinese New Year's Eve, the museum will close at 5pm. It is closed on Tuesdays (except public holidays) and the first two days of Chinese New Year. Admission is $10, with a half-price concession for senior citizens aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and full-time students. Admission is free on Wednesdays.
Car parking is available at the Heritage Museum. Those who prefer to use public transport may take the KCR to the Che Kung Temple station, which is within five minutes' walk of the museum.
For enquiries, call 2180 8188. For details of the exhibition, visit the Heritage Museum's website at http://hk.heritage.museum
Ends/Saturday, November 24, 2007 | <urn:uuid:c4fd0215-1cdc-4b26-bb90-64890359393a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/en/ppr_release_det.php?pd=20071124&ps=01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959821 | 649 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Five tried and tested tricks to save more on groceries.
Rip Off #1: Big Packages
Watch out for stores trying to trick you into thinking the biggest package means the best value. Just as at warehouse stores, it always pays to do the math. Outsmart it by scanning the shelf tag for the cost per unit – you might find that the medium size offers the best value. No shelf tag? Bring a pocket calculator (or use the one on your phone) and divide the cost by the number of ounces or grams.
Bonus Tip: If you have a coupon, do your calculations after you factor in the savings it provides.
Rip Off #2: Salad and Hot-Food Bars
There’s nothing wrong with hitting one of those bars for a quick entree or side dish for tonight’s dinner, but be careful what you choose, since everything is priced per pound. If you’re buying an inexpensive item such as macaroni and cheese or baked means for example, you could end up paying far too much. Purchase only items that are pricey to begin with, such as roast beef and chicken parmesan – those can be a decent deal, since you’re only buying what you need. Just don’t be fooled into spending $4 on 15 cents worth of Jell-O.
Rip Off #3: Packaged Sliced Lunch Meat
Cold cuts are convenient, but you pay a premium for pre-slicing and packaging. A 7.5 ounce container of sliced ham can run more than $10 per pound, while a larger smoked ham- which you could also use for dinners – is usually far less at about $3 a pound. Buy uncut ham and slice it yourself for sandwiches. Serve thicker slices for dinners and use smaller pieces to flavor soups or pastas. Freeze anything you don’t want to use right away. Do the same with a whole turkey breast.
Bonus Tip: If you opt to buy deli meat, compare the per-pound prices of pre-sliced and sliced-to-order meats.
Rip Off #4: Bottled Water
Supermarkets devote shelves to bottled water, and often have refrigerated bottles at the register, too. Even at its cheapest, 1 cent per ounce of bottled water is still more than 300 times as costly as tap water. If you drink one 16-ounce bottle of water every day for a year at $1.50 per bottle, you’re spending more than $545. Multiply that by every person in your household! Drink your tap water. Install a filter if taste or contaminants are a concern (you can find a faucet-mounted Pur filter online for as little as $35 and it filters about 100 gallons of water).
Rip-Off #5: Sale Prices in Multiples
Do you go straight for those three-for-$5 deals in the store? Who doesn’t? But watch out for such sales. Some prompt you to buy more than you otherwise would. For example, a 10-for-$10 deal on apples might sound great, until you realize you’re paying $1 per apple, perhaps a worse deal than if you just buy the three you want – and the extra fruit might go to waste. Other wonderful-sounding deals (three avocados for $5) can get you to buy items you don’t really need or desire. Use a calculator to ensure you’re actually getting a bargain.
The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast. | <urn:uuid:841a997b-fdf3-429d-8ca2-00772b780fa9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/lifestyle/2012/02/01/dont-fall-for-grocery-store-gimmicks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933763 | 748 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Rodwell sending off rescinded. What happens to the referee?
The FA have accounted Jack Rodwell wrongfully dismissed in the Merseyside derby last weekend. He will not serve the 3-match ban that usually follows a dismissal.
However, there is no mention made of any measures to be taken against the said referee, Martin Atkinson. His error caused the balance of the contest to be in the favour of Liverpool.
Before any Liverpool fans start to fume, Kenny Dalglish himself said that before the sending off it was a close match. This is not a demand for the three points, or a replay, or any other unrealistic aim.
There does, though, remain the question of what happens to Martin Atkinson. In employment cases of wrongful dismissal, the employee has the right to claim damages against the former employer. Granted that Rodwell was not the referee's employee, but he was subject to the ref's (apparently wrongful) perceptions.
Two issues arise here:
The first is that football, as a multi-billion dollar business, is utilising technology from over a hundred years ago. The most notable technological advance in the last century has been the addition of nets to the goals. That is if we exclude the Star Trek earpieces sometimes worn - please could we stop this? If the (lack of) technology was working well, it would be an acceptable situation. However, the technology is not working. Mistakes are being made too often. Prior to the derby, Liverpool's manager had complained quite publicly about poor refereeing decisions this season. Discontent at the current rate of refereeing faux pas is notable. The time has come for video technology to assist referees with their decisions. It is not replacing referees' discretion (though some might applaud such an action), but instead it is permitting the referees to use all the aids available. To be brutal, footballers generally cheat anyway. This would be a way of reducing unfair advantages gained from such behaviour.
The second point is what will happen to Atkinson? Why did the FA make no comment about the consequences to him of his error? Is there a policy for such instances? Apparently we have another year of the Respect campaign. However, the public is not given the respect of knowing what will happen to an official who has made such a thunderous blunder. I'm afraid that to be told that referees are human and make mistakes does not really carry weight. It may be factually correct, but is an invalid excuse. It is an after-the-event shrug. It is not respectful. It may be that there is already a process that has begun, whereby the referee in question is to face certain consequences, but we have been told nothing.
This need not be about one specific game. There is a general arrogance by football authorities shown towards those of us who finance the game by attending or paying to view. We are offered a game that is ever more fast moving, but with no technology to cope with that new pace. And when things go wrong, tough cheese. If football fans acted with the same intelligence as shoppers, we'd go elsewhere. Bit difficult to do that with a monopoly, though. | <urn:uuid:dd08a6d2-678f-4bb6-bb80-8abedcd097b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.evertonbanter.co.uk/2011/10/rodwell-sending-off-rescinded.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973761 | 646 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Honing Your Communication Skills, Part 1
- Thursday, April 17, 2003
Most people think their communication skills are just fine. It's easy to progress through life as a relatively happy and productive person with poor communication skills. It's the type of problem that erodes at your quality of life in subtle, indirect ways.
If your appendix becomes infected and starts to swell, you will know in short order. Before long you'll be in the hospital taking care of a problem that has demanded your attention. Unfortunately for many, poor listening and poor communication skills never grab their attention in the same way. They unknowingly endure the consequences of an ailment they never even recognize.
Once you make a commitment to work on your communication skills the results are immediate.
Every relationship you have will improve. It doesn't matter what relationship it is. It may be a relationship with your boss, a relationship with your closest friend, relationships with the other people on your softball team, or maybe a relationship with the eventual love of your life. Every relationship will get better, and then your own enjoyment of life is going to go up. I have to tell you that any person who is a great communicator enjoys life more.
You have the sense of getting more of the really important innermost stuff from inside of you across to other people. You have the sense of their not only receiving it, but understanding it and liking it, and more than that you have the sense of getting clear about your own inside world for yourself.
Your efforts at becoming a better communicator will straighten out the wrinkles of your life. Most wrinkles in life have to do with poor communication. When you aren't very good at communicating with other people, then all kind of difficulties start occurring.
Four things are needed to be a great communicator:
1. You need to be able to access your innermost thoughts and feelings.
Now accessing your innermost thoughts and feelings should be easy, but it's not. It's especially difficult for men, but there are a lot of people for who it's difficult. As I go around the country I talk about the conspiracy that I think has existed in relation to little boys in our culture that has kept them from becoming great communicators.
That conspiracy has to do with our fear that they will become sissies and so, in order to keep them away from their tender feelings that might cause them to cry now and then, we keep them away from all their feelings. We get them to hit balls and to shoot baskets and to throw a football with a spiral and we keep them from all their tender thoughts and feelings. Because they're kept away from all those tender thoughts and feelings they lose contact with those thoughts and feelings. They're not able to access them at some point in their mid-twenties or early thirties when their new wife says to them, "Let's talk about deep things. Let's be intimate with each other." They just don't know how to be intimate because they just can't get hold of what they can share that would be intimate.
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The general belief seems to be that it is important to "clear the field" in primaries to get a winning hand in the fall general election. The belief is founded on a number of factors. Many interest groups will not back a candidate with a primary election opponent. Primary election campaigns can be costly and challengers generally have less money to spend than incumbents. Anecdotal evidence points to a number of campaigns easch cycle where a strong primary is followed by disappointing results in the fall.
I decided to test this thesis by looking at election results for all 31 Democratic pickups in the House during the 2006 cycle (including Peter Welch as a pickup in Vermont) and comparing the results to close losses. The close losses were not systenmatic but I looked at 20 races that fit the bill.
Overall, 14 of the 31 pickups (45%) were preceded by primary elections, a higher than expected number. Although some of these were blowouts, a surprising number were close and in many cases surprise winners emerged despite less money. As a comparison, among the 20 close but losing elections only seven (35%) were preceded by primaries and only one of those was close: the Tammy Duckworth-Christine Cegelis- Scott duel in IL-6. | <urn:uuid:1000aeec-5a35-45a2-a387-ceb39aaf0a12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swingstateproject.com/tag/surprises | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981785 | 253 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Full country name: Barbados
Area: 431 sq km
Capital City: Bridgetown
Language: English, Bajan
Religion: 95% Christian (40% Anglican), 5% other (Hindus, Muslims, Baha’i Faith, Jews)
Government: Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional monarchy
Time Zone: Eastern Caribbean (UTC-4)
Dialing Code: +1-246
Electricity: 115V, 50Hz
Weights & measures: Metric
Currency: Barbadian dollar (BBD)
Money & Costs:
Average Yearly Salary: $17,700
Geography: Barbados is an easternmost Continental Island of the Lesser Antilles in the North Atlantic Ocean. The island is usually described as being flat or a low lying, however, it has terraced plains, separated by rolling hills that are generally as high as about 1100ft. Judging by its physical shape, Barbados is often compared to a pear or a leg of mutton.
Climate: Barbados has a pleasantly sunny weather with lots of warm days and cozy nights. There are constant sea breezes that cool down the island and its tropical climate, but still Barbados is sunnier and drier that other similar islands. There is a season (from July to November) called the wet season, however, even then the island experience only some brief rain showers. Barbados has an average of 8 to 10 sunshine hours per day. There is a possibility of tropical storms or hurricanes between June and November.
Recommended clothing: Since Barbados is a tropical island with an average afternoon temperature of 30 C (86 F), be prepared to dress casually and lightweight. Do not forget to bring your swimsuit, shorts and sandals. However, there are some strict rules concerning beach wear. For example, shopping in your swimsuit, bareback or barefoot is not accepted and most of the stores will ask you to wear at least a shirt and sandals to get service. Some fancier restaurants expect you to wear nicer attire when going for dinner. This doesn’t have to be an evening dress, you can simply wear jeans and a nice polo shirt.
Important note: camouflage clothing is strictly prohibited from being worn or imported into Barbados.
Health: Don’t forget to use a sun protection at all times when in Barbados. The island is only 13 degrees off of the equator, therefore you can easily get sun burnt. It is also very important to keep your water intake high, so try to drink more water. It is advisable to use a bug spray in the evenings or at night, as there are plenty of mosquitoes outdoors.
Food: Barbadian cuisine is a Caribbean cuisine with some products and variations of tastes borrowed from various nations. East Indian elements are obvious in numerous Barbadian dishes, such as roasted chicken, roasted beef or roasted fish served with potatoes. The national dish of Barbados is cou-cou and Flying Fish. Cou-cou is a recipe which came from African cuisine. You can try a variety of types of this dish, such as green banana cou-cou, breadfruit cou-cou etc. Barbadians also like the meals to be spicy, therefore they have numerous spicy sauces used for flavoring the dishes. Some of other traditional Barbadian dishes include rice and peas, pudding and souse, macaroni, yam, sweet potato pies and many other.
Drink: Barbados can be proud of their pure water. People say that it is the purest water in the world and that it can be drunk straight from the tap. Even cruise ship employees stock up their water supplies while docked at Barbados. When talking about alcoholic drinks, Rum is the king in Barbados. There are no bars that wouldn’t have Rum or rum drinks. If you want to socialize and meet real Barbadians, go to one of the small establishments called rum shops. Local citizens (95% men) meet up in such rum shops to catch up on the local news.
Jan 1 New Year’s Day
Jan 21 Errol Barrow Day
Apr 2 Good Friday
Apr 5 Easter Monday
Apr 28 National Heroes’ Day
May 1 Labour Day
May 24 Whit Monday
Aug 1 Emancipation Day
Aug 2 Kadooment Day
Nov 30 Independence Day
Dec 25 Christmas
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John Adey isn’t an engineer. But the president of the American Boat and Yacht Council “can speak engineer.”
Adey, 42, has been at ABYC for a decade, and he once was routinely “the youngest guy at the table.” He’s still often the youngest guy, but he’s no stranger to the standards process.
Adey worked in a neighbor’s small engine shop as a teenager and loved everything mechanical. His grandfather spoke engineer with employees at his shop, an engineering firm that designed and built conveyor-belt systems. Adey has an undergraduate business degree from Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from Marylhurst University in Oregon.
He has worked in a boatyard doing repairs, although he credits his customer service experience with being every bit as helpful in his day-to-day work as the repair side.
His innate curiosity about how things work makes the creation of boat standards a fun job for him. “How things break is probably more interesting to me than anything else, and thinking of unique solutions,” Adey says.
That’s probably a good thing. The group goes through a lot of trial and error in writing its standards — both for compliance with federal regulations and keeping up with the rapidly changing technology in boats.
The bottom line is keeping boats safe and keeping standards tight to avoid government regulation.
“People like working with ABYC instead of the federal government.” Adey says. “We’re easier to work with — we’re a small organization, so we can change things a lot faster than the federal government.”
Q: Can you tell me how and why you’re trying to reach the public and what benefit ABYC has in that realm?
A: The first assumption everybody makes when buying a boat is that ‘somebody is in charge of making this boat safe for me,’ and it’s kind of a dangerous assumption. They just assume that everyone who builds a boat has some level of competence or some level of knowledge that makes this boat safe.
There are lots of builders that do and some that don’t. We want to make sure … that customers understand there is a standards organization that’s been around since 1954 that good builders use to ensure the product is going to be safe and have the longevity customers expect.
I think the next level is — after you’ve bought this animal — what do you do with it? And that’s where our certified technicians come in. We want the public to not even consider having a boat repaired without using an ABYC-certified tech.
Q: How does your outreach involve manufacturers and dealers?
A: We call it ‘Take the Standards to the Water.’
We started these boat checks this year, where we find a marina that’s a member and has a certified tech, and we invite the public to come out for a day. We have surveyors and certified techs go through the boat with a checklist and [inspect] it for free.
It’s something we want to go nationwide with. We had a nice little trial here in Annapolis at the end of this summer, and we’re going to do it here again this spring. [It’s] a great opportunity for certified techs and boatyards and dealers and it makes them money. If they find problems and those problems are backed up by a standard, then the marinas have a third party telling the customer, “This work has to be done or the boat isn’t safe.”
Q: Can you tell me about new regulations coming regarding electricity on boats?
A: Builders will have to install a device called an ELCI — equipment leakage circuit interrupter. There are several other options. But this particular device is similar to the ground fault circuit interrupter — the GFCI you have in your bathroom. This is just designed for larger amperage application.
Q: So this device can tell if the electricity is going where it’s supposed to go?
A: Correct: That’s the best way to put it. The circuit breaker will trip, and obviously the boat won’t be a problem anymore.
Q: There were a lot of high-profile electrocutions. Has there been an increase?
A: No, I think it’s been fairly steady. The accidents we saw [last] summer were land-based, meaning that a marina or somebody had wired their docks wrong, so I don’t know that the ELCI would’ve protected the boat in those instances. I don’t know if there are more accidents, but I do know there’s more awareness, so investigators are looking a little more deeply than they used to. Instead of just writing certain accidents off as drownings, they’re looking a little further.
Now the land-based guys, the [National Fire Protection Association], the National Electrical Code, have made an attempt to see that marinas are educated on wiring. [The Association of Marina Industries] sent me an email the other day saying they’re interested in getting an electrical fitness document for Clean Marina certification, and that would be huge. We’re going to help them work on that even though ABYC’s responsibility ends at the shore-power cord.
Q: Why were people angry over ELCI?
A: It was a rough implementation because the device didn’t exist before ABYC put it into the standard. It was not an American device. It was a bumpy process. But finally, as of December, it’s ready to go. Manufacturers have started building it, installers have started installing it, so it’s a viable device now.
Q: Isn’t that the case with several of these standards — there’s no solution identified, but it’s determined that something needs to change and the technologies will have to be developed?
A: That’s an excellent point. The first thing your readers should know is that ABYC strives for what we call performance-based standards. I’m going to tell you all of the things an ELCI has to do and we may have a device in mind, but the bottom line is if you come up with a device that meets the criteria and it doesn’t look like the device we had in mind, that’s fine.
It’s the chicken-and-the-egg argument: Do standards drive technology or does technology drive standards? And depending on which standard you’re looking at, it’s both. I would say, in the refueling standard, it was 100 percent that standards drove technology.
When it comes to things like joystick steering and drive by wire and all the new electronic equipment, it’s technology driving standards. So it’s a good mix of both, and the nice thing about the standards process is it’s designed to handle both. Very rarely do we get surprised.
Q: What are some of the challenges with getting the boatbuilders and dealers on board?
A: I think budget and time. There are two distinct [types of] boatbuilders. You have the builders that have lot of experience with varied products and are used to liability issues. They’re used to being sued, so they understand how compliance standards protect them from the fault-finding consumer, which is a relatively new term. Therefore, they budget for standards activities.
Other builders budget for materials and innovation, but when it comes to having a full-time compliance guy on staff [who] can take the time to go to an ABYC meeting [they] don’t see the value in that and they learn too late, unfortunately.
If a boat company gets in a large accident (and there have been several lately), they get sued to the tune of millions of dollars. What they realize a little too late is, had they had a compliance guy on staff who was aware of the federal regulations and the ABYC standards, they would’ve saved a lot of money.
Q: Do high-profile accidents make government oversight and regulation more likely?
A: I know it sounds like a simple answer, but it’s not. ABYC exists to fend off government regulation. That’s why we’re here.
Our clients want less government and less federal interaction. So if we can fend off federal regulations by implementing standards, we’re all better off for it. Federal regulations were implemented in 1971 and remain largely unchanged. The reason you would get involved with ABYC as a manufacturer is to make sure the government doesn’t come and give you more [rules] that can’t change with technology, that become onerous, that become very expensive.
There is a process by which standards do become regulation. The engine cutoff lanyard is a perfect example. Every boatbuilder does it. They’re ready for the regulation. They’re accepting the regulation, and we have handed our standard over to the government to use as part of the regulation. But I’ve been following that one for six years now and it’s still no closer to being a regulation now than it was six years ago. It’s probably one of the easiest regulations possible to pass, and it’s just not passing.
Q: A common complaint is that mandates are written by people who don’t understand the industry they’re trying to regulate.
A: You’re absolutely correct. The EPA is a perfect example of that. They wrote a regulation to address evaporative emissions and we had to write standards to clean up the implementation of that regulation so people wouldn’t die. I don’t want to sound too strong, but if you read the EPA standard at face value and don’t combine it with ABYC standards that were created and/or modified because of that regulation, you wouldn’t have a safe product.
So there are two things. One, write the standard before there’s the possibility of being regulated. And two, in the event you are regulated, make sure you write a standard that makes the regulation a safe implementation.
Q: When the EPA suggests a regulation, I hear that companies involved in the process have a real benefit because they can consult their engineers and if there are issues they can present those to the EPA and work together to find a way that works.
A: They do. And NMMA and John McKnight in the Washington office do a phenomenal job of keeping everyone informed of pending regulation. Then there gets to be a certain point where he calls us and says, ‘We can live with these things, but we need to write a standard to make it palatable.’ That’s where we get involved.
We’re not around to lobby or fight regulatory issues. That’s what you join the NMMA for. You join us to make sure there’s a document that backs up the way you design and build the product. Sometimes boatbuilders get what they want out of a standard, sometimes they don’t, because sometimes the committee doesn’t see safety the same way that a boatbuilder does. It could be more stringent than what they wanted.
We have a good relationship with the EPA, and the nice thing is they know that we will write a standard that will make their regulation useful, and then they will go ahead and incorporate our standard by reference.
Fortunately we’ve had very good people in the regulatory process who’ve worked with us, and that includes the EPA as well as the Coast Guard. I could see how it could go south very quickly if you didn’t have guys like John McKnight and certain compliance folks from major companies involved. They’re all members of ours and all volunteers on our committees.
Q: How else does it benefit OEMs to participate in this process?
A: We did touch on it a little bit when it comes to the liability issue — to protect them from what we’re calling the fault-finding consumer. When money gets tight they get really stingy with their recreation, so when they find a problem with a boat or there’s a small accident, the chances of suing go up. I think from a product liability and safety standpoint, that’s a major reason for an OEM to be involved.
The next one is engineering and design. If you sit in on a meeting you know long before a standard gets implemented that something is going to happen. So you have the opportunity to go back to your engineers and designers to see if you can comply. If you can comply, you can see how much it’s going to cost you; if you can’t comply, you can form your argument so that section of the standard doesn’t get implemented.
Q: After the Fourth of July Silverton accident there were calls for new laws or rules about occupancy. Where does all that stand?
A: Even though I told you we don’t lobby, we can educate. So when [New York Sen. Chuck] Schumer’s office gives us a call, we will educate him on existing standards, educate him on what we’ve done in the past and on the fact that if we did write a stability standard right now, we’re 99.9 percent sure Silverton would’ve passed it.
We try to tell him what we think the cause of the accident is, based on reports we have read, or we may even have someone investigate the accident for us. In that particular case, one thing we’re talking about is whether there should be a capacity on a flybridge. It could say, ‘This flybridge is only designed for six occupants.’
The first thing the Coast Guard did was call us and ask for help. They said, “We can’t do anything about this right away, but maybe you can, and if you do we can take what ABYC says to Congress and tell them we have a trusted source working on this. And once ABYC takes care of it, the boating industry will follow.”
We have one of the largest amounts of compliance among any product line. When we make a standard and the NMMA decides to do the certification to that particular standard, about 85 percent of boats on the water have to comply with that standard. There’s not another industry that I know of that can state that.
That’s one of the things the NMMA uses when it goes to Capitol Hill and talks to the EPA. They report on the fact that standards could affect 85 percent of the boats on the water when the NMMA decides to inspect to it.
So we like to look at things from several angles, not just what the public outcry is.
Do you remember that high-profile accident in Florida with the football player? One senator’s solution was that ‘Help’ should be gelcoated into the bottom of every boat and the bottom should be orange. I asked him, ‘Why don’t we just prevent the boat from flipping over in the first place?’
So we can’t really go with what the public outcry is. We try to walk in and be the voice of reason for when something should be done. We try to offer a viable, engineering-minded solution.
Q: Do you suspect there were too many people on that Silverton flybridge?
A: We don’t know. That accident is still under investigation. When you take a look at boats like that, a common problem is overloading above the center of gravity. I think it was the sea conditions, the inexperience of the skipper. I don’t know what the flybridge capacity was. I don’t think we’ll ever know, but some of the discussions have said maybe we should consider it.
The Europeans have a stability standard. It’s in an ISO document, and it’s very complicated. It seems to change with every accident, and we don’t want to get into that kind of a game. It’s a bad use of resources. We have watched our European neighbors and we’ve learned quite a bit. So we are cautiously researching the issue.
Q: Can you tell me more about ABYC’s educational outreach and certifications?
A: We’ve talked a lot about OEMs, but a big portion of our members are either independent marine mechanics or boatyards that have mechanics. The big thing here is, if you’re a member of ABYC [and have] certified techs, your membership will make you money and will drive people to your location.
ABYC is not something the average boater looks for, but we’re trying to change that. Our certifications are up to the minute and work in concert with OEM certification, so if you’re a Mercury Marine-certified technician, our certification is still valid for you.
We have lots of educational programs for our members. We try to do a good webinar once a month, where people can dial in and learn about various topics. We try to run about 30 physical classes a year to get people certified in our eight different certifications.
Certifications are taught by qualified professionals and it’s third party-recognized. We would like to get it to the level of an ASE-certified mechanic that you would take your car to. When you take your car to an independent guy, you look for certification. We want to get that way.
We’re also looking at regionalizing ABYC to have chapters. What happens in Seattle is applicable in Seattle. And how great would it be if we had a network where members could help out other members?
What’s really unique about our organization is we have OEMs as members as well as certified techs. I had a tech with a question, and I knew the guy who designed the electrical system for Sea Ray. He was able to email his question to the designer, and the technician cut his work time by hours. So it’s a really good resource.
Driving membership is an underlying part of this. We are all about boating safety. We have a great community of volunteers, but we can’t do any of this without our members.
This article originally appeared in the February 2013 issue. | <urn:uuid:1b142730-1b18-4633-986c-561e1c5a5581> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tradeonlytoday.com/recentnews/15-general/523594-qaa-with-abyc-president-john-adey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969179 | 3,911 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Unlike jailhouse artists who find creative inspiration behind bars, however, the 56-year-old is there by choice. He paints at 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios, a decade-old arts organization that this year moved into its new home in the Detroit Police Department's former Third Precinct station.
The city closed the building in 2005 as part of a department-wide reorganization, and the former lobby where residents once could walk in to report crimes now is an airy gallery. Detectives' offices now serve as classroom and studio space. And potentially claustrophobic cells—bars still on their doors—are fostering creativity.
"I didn't really have anything in mind before going to my jail cell," said Navarro, whose colorful paintings of Detroit's shuttered Michigan Central Depot and fires gutting homes adorn some of the cells near where he's worked for the past few months. "I just let myself go and let my inside do the work."
The Third Precinct renovation is among a handful of projects nationwide converting old police facilities, including one in Chicago that is becoming live theater venues and one in Philadelphia that is being converted into homes. For Carl Goines, a co-founder of 555, says the project is a balancing act between preserving parts of the police station's past and
"This is a space that's taking on a new life. It's a space that's becoming inspirational," said Goines, a sculptor. "It pushes them to take their work to a new level."
555 is leasing its new home from Southwest Housing Solutions, a nonprofit community developer that bought the former precinct in 2009 and spent about $2 million on the project. Garage space at the building houses Detroit Farm and Garden, a gardening, farming and landscape supply store.
While Southwest Housing Solutions traditionally is involved in residential projects in southwest Detroit, developing roughly $100 million in housing and real estate, making sure the former precinct didn't languish as vacancy in one of the city's stronger neighborhoods made its reuse more important.
"It's exactly what we wanted it to be," said Tim Thorland, the developer's executive director. "The great thing about the gallery space is that it's a continuous work in progress."
In Philadelphia, the former 26th Precinct Police Station, which sat vacant for years, is being renovated with the upper floors as apartments, said architect Victor Barr Jr. of VLBJR Architects Inc. Much of its history as a neighborhood law enforcement hub was erased by time and earlier reuse, but salvaged architectural details are being recreated to bring back some of its character. Arches in the basement, Barr said, mark where cells once stood.
In Chicago, the Griffin Theatre Company acquired a former police station and plans to start construction in September on the first of two live performance spaces. The building's large cells are too massive to remove, said William Massolia, a founding member, so they'll be used to house a green room, dressing rooms and a box office.
"We're going to be using some of what was there and not disguise the fact that it was a police station and a jail," Massolia said.
At 555, an official opening event is planned for Sept. 14 and the building is a work in progress. In years to come, part of a second floor that once was home to a locker room used by officers could become a dance studio. A gym where officers once could play basketball might be a place for performances.
That raw potential is part of what makes it attractive. Elizabeth Sutton, 42, a photographer who is part of 555's board and an educator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, is turning first-floor space formerly used as detectives' offices into a darkroom. She said the building's past enters into her thinking as she works there.
"I'm really sensitive to space," Sutton said. "One of the things that I kind of like about this is that it is sort of institutional and industrial. But at the same time I think it is really open to transformation."
Follow David Runk on Twitter: https://twitter.com/runkdavi | <urn:uuid:a9fdd9fa-8e05-407f-884b-eea1e58b2a4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eveningsun.com/entertainment/ci_21270970/ex-jail-cells-serve-artist-studios-detroit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982417 | 843 | 1.523438 | 2 |
An Inconvenient Al Gore tries to give away his movie only the National Science Teachers Organization thinks this is like videos from al Qaeda and want nothing to do with truth, science or reality. They complain this video will alienate their sponsors such as Exxon-Mobile Oil. Meanwhile, the effects of CO2 fueled global warming alarm scientists who don't belong to that silly organization.
By Laurie David
Sunday, November 26, 2006; B01
At hundreds of screenings this year of "An Inconvenient Truth," the first thing many viewers said after the lights came up was that every student in every school in the United States needed to see this movie.
The producers of former vice president Al Gore's film about global warming, myself included, certainly agreed. So the company that made the documentary decided to offer 50,000 free DVDs to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for educators to use in their classrooms. It seemed like a no-brainer.
The teachers had a different idea: Thanks but no thanks, they said.
In their e-mail rejection, they expressed concern that other "special interests" might ask to distribute materials, too; they said they didn't want to offer "political" endorsement of the film; and they saw "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" in accepting the free DVDs.
I remember when all college biology books had case study after case study of diseases that afflict tobacco plants. I argued back then, the plants should die, not be saved. Got good grades for that cheekiness.
t's bad enough when a company tries to sell junk science to a bunch of grown-ups. But, like a tobacco company using cartoons to peddle cigarettes, Exxon Mobil is going after our kids, too.
And it has been doing so for longer than you may think. NSTA says it has received $6 million from the company since 1996, mostly for the association's "Building a Presence for Science" program, an electronic networking initiative intended to "bring standards-based teaching and learning" into schools, according to the NSTA Web site. Exxon Mobil has a representative on the group's corporate advisory board. And in 2003, NSTA gave the company an award for its commitment to science education.
They need technocrats. These are supposed to be people who ask no questions and tell no tales, sort of like 90% of the think tank denizens we see in the news all the time, trying to explain things they refuse to understand. So it is with science: if it makes interesting goodies that can be exploited or if it enables rulers to exploit, then it is good. And if it is all about understanding systems and changing our way of using things or dealing with people in a liberal fashion, this is evil with these people.
The marginalization of Al Gore continues. The need to fool people into hating him or covering their ears when they hear his voice, is nearly universal within our mainstream media which conspired to destroy his Presidency. The direction we would have taken if he was allowed to win as he did win, hurts to imagine. We got eight years of Skull and Boneheaded stupidity.
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 29 November 2006
The Bush administration could be forced to take action on global warming using a 30-year-old piece of legislation to control the nation's vast emissions of greenhouse gases.
The US Supreme Court will today be asked to force the government to order its environmental regulatory body to control, as a matter of the public health, the amount of carbon dioxide pumped out by vehicles.
Amid a growing disparity between the Bush administration and many US states on the issue of global warming, it will be the first time the country's highest court has heard a case relating to climate change.
The Opus Dei gang wants a dead earth because then Jesus will come in all his Glory and say, 'Wow, you guys would wreck the Garden of Eden and Heaven! What a great job you did, destroying this earth! As a reward, you get to live here for all eternity. Welcome to Hell, dudes!' Um, can't they see this? Eh?
The global warming news just keeps getting worse. Things are deteriorating much faster than anyone anticipated, and the pace continues to accelerate. Now comes news that CO2 concentrations at the North Pole are rising 2.5 to 3 times faster than they were just a decade and a half ago. Guardian:
Like all systems ballooning, it gets worse and worse faster and faster until the peak is reached, the bubble pops, everyone dies and then things get back to normal. This cycle is not one we humans should want to have, we, the dominant species, are the ones slated to be eliminated.
By BETH DUFF-BROWN
EUREKA, NUNAVUT TERRITORY — Scientists are peering into the clouds near the top of the world, trying to solve a mystery and learn something new about global warming.
The mystery is the droplets of water in the clouds. With the North Pole just 685 miles away, they should be frozen, yet more of them are liquid than anyone expected.
So the scientists working out of a converted blue cargo container are trying to determine whether the clouds are one of the causes — or effects — of Earth's warming atmosphere.
"Much to our surprise, we found that Arctic clouds have got lots of super-cooled liquid water in them," said Taneil Uttal, of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
With NASA reporting that 2005 was the warmest year on record worldwide, the debate over global warming marches on, but not here.
The death march of the debate over global warming is being conducted at gun-point by Cheney who shut down much of northern Florida this week so he could have a blast blasting away at tame birds and tame lawyers. Cheney can't tolerate talk of global warming. Gun in hand, he snarls at the American people and then swills beers with the Presidents of Exxon/Mobil and the Saudi Royals.
Even so, $500 million is a mighty high price tag for a presidential library. In comparison, Clinton's cost $165 million, which was more than double the tab for Bush 41's.
So why is Bush 43 shooting for half-a-bil? According to an insider, the amount is "so much bigger than anything that's been tried before. But the more you have, the more influence [on history] you can exert."
In other words, it's going to take a hell of a lot of money to try and perform the political alchemy of turning Bush's legacy of tragic failure into something future generations won't need a gas mask and an air sickness bag to study.
So where is the $500 million going to come from?
According to the New York Daily News, Bush fundraisers hope to raise half their goal -- $250 million -- in "megadonations" of $10 million to $20 million from "wealthy heiresses, Arab nations, and captains of industry."
They should make an oil well, a bed with a wax model of Bush kissing Gannon and the Saudi Royals and of course, the bin Laden Canis Cavum. You go inside and get it up the ass.
Bush shamelessly solicits money from the same people who are trying to keep us on this disasterous path, the inconvenient truth is, we continue this way, we get eliminated by Mother Nature who can be much nastier than Babs Bush. Much nastier.
Here is an interview with Gore from Sweden:
Here it the Exxon/Mobil cartoon making fun of this very serious, life and death topic: | <urn:uuid:d2a5f572-97f0-4fd6-a4d2-fb20a1a7db8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/weather_news/2006/11/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960842 | 1,593 | 1.757813 | 2 |
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is a divisive figure at home and abroad. His defeat was once a Cold War obsession for the U.S. He has risen, fallen and risen again.
Now the one-time Sandinista revolutionary is headed for victory Sunday in an election that his critics say could be the prelude to a presidency-for-life.
Since returning to power in 2007, the 65-year-old Ortega has boosted his popularity in Central America's poorest country with a combination of pork-barrel populism and support for the free-market economy he once opposed.
Now, riding on a populist platform and World Bank praise for his economic strategies, he seeks a third term — his second consecutive one — after the Sandinista majority on the Supreme Court overruled the term limits set by the Nicaraguan constitution.
With nearly 50 percent of voter support and an 18-point lead over his nearest challenger in the most recent poll, Ortega could end up with a mandate that would not only legitimize his re-election but allow him to make constitutional changes guaranteeing his perpetual stay in office.
To those who benefit most from his policies — microcredit, farm aid, subsidies, bonuses for civil servants — "It doesn't matter that he steps on judicial procedures, they just care that something is being done on a local level," said Federico Barriga of the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.
Ortega is one of several leftist leaders in Latin America, led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who have changed or dodged presidential term limits adopted by the democracies that emerged after decades of dictatorships and military rule. Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a 2009 coup when his conservative opposition suspected he was trying to change the constitution to run again. Bolivia has also abolished term limits.
Ortega led the Sandinista movement that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, and withstood a concerted effort by the U.S. government, which viewed him as a Soviet-backed threat, to oust him through a rebel force called the Contras.
The fiery, mustachioed leftist ruled through a junta, then was elected in 1984 but was defeated after a term characterized by authoritarian policies and an economy in shambles. After two more failed runs, he softened his rhetoric, took a free-market stance, and regained the presidency in the 2006 election.
To his supporters, he is just plain Daniel, while opponents say that in his new incarnation, he has espoused "Orteguismo," a politics of personality based on Christianity, socialism and free enterprise.
He's no Somoza, they say, but worry that this could change. Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a former Sandinista who has become one of Ortega's most outspoken critics, speaks of his "caudillo politics," using the Spanish term for strongman.
He believes that if he wins — and especially if he captures more than half the vote — "he will establish the principle of indefinite re-election" and will look to make constitional changes to make what he's doing legal.
"Ortega will go as far as the Nicaraguan people will allow him," Chamorro said. "The Somoza regime built its power by controlling the military. With his (Ortega's) new power, there's a risk that the military and police will be absorbed into his caudillo politics ... Then we would be repeating a similar pattern."
Ortega doesn't give interviews or news conferences, but he has said in campaign speeches that claims he will become president for life or another Somoza are lies and scare tactics. He said his poll numbers show that people are now voting without fear.
"No previous government has helped the people like we have," said Jacinto Suarez, Sandinista international relations secretary. "They promised heaven and paradise on earth and didn't do anything."
In 2009 the Supreme Court effectively removed term limits when it said Ortega could serve as president for multiple terms, separately or consecutively. The ruling stoked such passions that Ortega opponents threw eggs at one of the judges, while his supporters, some hurling fireworks, chased the U.S. ambassador from a public event because he called the change "improper."
In his most recent term, Ortega has built wide support among the youth and the poor in a country of 5.8 million people, more than 40 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day. He created dozens of programs giving microcredit, farm animals, transport subsidies, a popular zinc roof program and a $33 monthly bonus for government workers. Poverty and illiteracy rates have dropped slightly, while school enrollment is up, according to the International Foundation for Global Economic Challenges, a Nicaraguan nonprofit group.
"He's totally in solidarity with us poor people," said Andrea Benavidez, a 19-year-old mother of two in Managua, the capital. "I'm a Sandinista because of what Daniel has done for the youth. He has given us scholarships. He has built sports fields."
He also has maintained ties to the U.S. even as he has grown closer to Chavez, signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement and cultivated Nicaragua's large business sector. Per capita income, one of the lowest in Latin America, has grown steadily since 2006, according to the World Bank, which has praised Ortega's macroeconomic policies as "broadly favorable."
"There's a big difference between Ortega and Chavez: the recognition of the need for a vibrant private sector," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "That's a radical difference from the Sandinistas of the 1980s ..."
Still, he has been helped immensely by Chavez, who according to estimates has provided at least $500 million a year in discounted oil and outright donations. Much of that aid is handled by Albanisa, a private company Ortega created that has been criticized for operating outside the government budget and public transparency. The International Monetary Fund, which also praises Ortega's economic policies, recently began requiring more transparency on the Chavez donations.
Ortega also is believed to funnel money through his Citizen Power Councils, groups of party loyalists created to monitor local governments, and the country is flooded with posters and propaganda bearing his image.
"It's a very clientelistic, topdown mechanism. If you support the Sandinistas you get them (the benefits), and if you don't, you don't," Arnson said.
Many warn his success comes at democracy's expense. Claims of widespread fraud in the 2008 municipal elections led Washington to cancel $62 million in development aid.
The 2006 election drew more than 18,000 election observers. This time election observation is much more difficult and local observers are being denied credentials. The European Union and the Organization of America States have negotiated access to Sunday's vote, but "There is no confidence, no guarantees, no legitimate process," said Roberto Courtney, director of Ethics and Transparency, a Nicaraguan advocacy group.
Ortega's popularity, however, has continually climbed, to 48 percent in the last CID-Gallup survey before the close of the campaigns. He leads his closest competitor, opposition radio station owner Fabio Gadea of the Liberal Independent Party, by 18 points. Conservative Arnoldo Aleman, a former president and perennial candidate, has 11 percent support in the poll taken between Oct. 10-17 with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
He only needs 35 percent of the vote and a 5-point lead over his nearest challenger to win outright and avoid a runoff.
"If you have half the population, those in the rural areas, benefiting from the Ortega regime, they don't care if he's re-elected three, four, five times. The same is true of the private sector, which is making a lot of money unde the Ortega regime," said Central American analyst Eduardo Stein, a former vice president of Guatemala.
"The matter of political democratic purism plays louder abroad than within the country," he said.
Katherine Corcoran reported from Mexico City | <urn:uuid:161413f5-2948-471c-bc21-1a820beaabcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/nov/06/free-of-term-limits-nicaragua-prez-nears-3rd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976791 | 1,715 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Manuscript Christmas Vase From a Recycled Tin Can!
So in keeping with the musical theme, I made a little Christmas vase decorated with music manuscript.
This is a quick and easy last minute Christmas project using recycled materials. Make more than one, and dot them around the house to add some colour and freshness during the winter months.
Read on for the tutorial...
To make the Christmas vase you will need;
A tin can - I think mine was a soup can but any will do, just make sure it's clean (obviously!) and has no sharp edges.
A sheet of Christmas music, I printed mine from 8notes.com
Some left over haberdashery trim (do you recognise this beaded loveliness? It features on my Pink Embellished Umbrella)
Firstly you need to age your manuscript paper, so get the kettle on!
Make a strong cup of tea (no milk).
Put the sheet of music in an oven tray and pour the tea over. Leave to stand for 5 minutes and then pour the liquid away, leaving the paper in the tray.
Place the tray in a very cool oven to dry the paper. Be sure to check the paper regularly and do not leave it. My paper was ready in 10 minutes. Sandwich the manuscript between 2 clean sheets of paper and gently press it with a cool iron.
Cut the paper to fit your can, overlapping slightly at the back and glue into place.
Cut a length of ribbon or haberdashery trim to decorate the can and glue into place.
Just add some flowers and your little vase is ready.
Although I've used a Christmas manuscript to decorate the vase, this idea would work equally well with any sheet of music and could be used all year round...or celebrate News Year with "Auld Lang Syne"!
Merry Christmas to all my lovely readers, and Happy New Year! | <urn:uuid:0199ed35-48b7-40a5-be8f-94b328509e05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wagdoll.co.uk/2012/12/manuscript-christmas-vase-from-recycled.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931822 | 402 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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PhotoVoice are partnering with the National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People in running five participatory photography projects over the next year. All projects will run in partnership with specialist support organizations (all the participating partner projects support young people identified as at risk of sexual exploitation or who have been affected by sexual exploitation).
Youth perspectives on issues such as gangs, knife crime and youth opportunities.
Young people in the UK explore the relevance and importance of children’s rights through photography.
PhotoVoice runs a bursary scheme to support photographers trained through our projects to continue developing their photographic skills and explore opportunities for work placements and further study and we are thrilled that the fantastic charity The Photographic Angle generously supported six PhotoVoice project participants from our Lookout London project, throughout 2011-2012.
PhotoVoice teamed up with the Geffrye Museum to deliver a course of five weekly digital workshops with the young people from the World’s End Estate, Chelsea in Re:generate trust facilities, to learn and develop their photography skills and techniques.
Young Scottish people are offered the chance to showcase their views, issues and lives in Scotland, as well as give them the opportunity to present their aspirations for Scotland over the next 5 years.
Young people in London join the debate about gangs and knife crime through photography.
Young disabled people give feedback about their experience of activities and services in Cheshire East through photography.
Young Glaswegians affected by homelessness photograph and peer educate in hostels around Glasgow, creating images to inform policy makers of the changes they see needing to happen.
Photography with young people at risk of or affected by sexual exploitation
Young disabled people across the North West explore what the transition from child to adult services means for them, informing improvements to services.
From July 2009 PhotoVoice has been working in partnership with the Liverpool City Council (LCC) to deliver photographic workshops with young people across Liverpool to provide them with a new skill and a way to express their thoughts and aspirations to their families, peers and the public.
Photolife worked with young people in Greenwich allowing them to share their thoughts, views and feelings about their local area and give voice to the challenges, concerns, hopes and fears in their lives.
Funded by the Big Lottery Fund, The Young Refugees’ Media Project offers communication and media training to young refugees and asylum seekers - between the age 13 and 21 - to encourage them to participate in the public debate about the issues that concern them.
The projected aimed to provide a forum through which the pariticipants could share their thoughts, views and feelings about being a young parent and use this as a basis for personal dialogue and understanding with their peers and community.
Through photographic workshops in the South East, South West, London, West Midlands and Yorkshire, PhotoVoice enabled nearly 50 participants to document and explore their identities as disabled young people. They wanted to focus especially on the issues around access and inclusion. A booklet of some of the work was produced to raise awareness of their concerns among policy makers, leisure providers and the public. The project culminated in regional exhibitions and an exhibition in London.
Moving Lives is a photography and digital-storytelling project giving a voice to young refugees living in East London and helping them integrate into the UK.
New Londoners is a partnership project between PhotoVoice and Dost, which aims to help young separated refugees settle and integrate into the UK.
Beneficiary and Community Perceptions of Social Protection Programmes
Digital stories by recipients of cash transfers in Kenya and Mozambique.
In partnership with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
Young people with differing requirements for inclusion speak out about the issues and barriers the face in their local communities, in partnership with World Vision.
Community engagement through photography by young people, in partnership with World Vision Albania.
Programme Manager Jane Martin and freelance facilitator Ben Thomas have recently completed the workshops for pastoral children in the Somali region of Ethiopia.
Young people speak out about the risks and root causes of human trafficking in their communities. In partnership with World Vision.
Photography by young people living with HIV in St Petersburg, Russia, and young Roma women in Bosnia Herzegovina. In partnership with World Vision.
Young people in Afghanistan use photography to explore the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. | <urn:uuid:f9ec33e0-5cfe-4ab4-a304-b1cebd3fe875> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.photovoice.org/tags/category/young-people | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950568 | 892 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Our mission and Spiritual Dynamic declare that the all-satisfying supremacy of God shines most brightly through sacrificial deeds of joyful love. The cry of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our people is for a fresh, decisive emphasis on relationships of love.
Therefore we eagerly embrace God's call for new, visible manifestations of love toward each other, our guests, and our neighbors. With a fresh openness and outgoing spirit to each other and to all new people, we henceforth put understanding above accusation, forbearance above faultfinding, and biblical unity above the demand for uniformity.
Fresh Initiative 5. Good news to the poor. We will develop new strategies for proclaiming the all-satisfying supremacy of God's love and justice to the poor through 1) personal involvement; 2) a more welcoming atmosphere; 3) local missionary strategies of urban disciple making; and 4) equipping missionaries for unreached urban peoples.
Introduction: Spreading a Passion . . .
This morning we continue our unfolding of the Fresh Initiatives of the Bethlehem Mission and Vision Statement. Keep in mind why we exist: we exist "to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples." I wonder if it has hit you that the word "spread" defines us as a people on a mission for others. We used to define Bethlehem by saying: "Bethlehem is a vision of God and we exist to savor that vision in worship and strengthen that vision in nurture and spread that vision in evangelism and world missions." Notice the new priority given to the word "spread." We exist "to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples."
You may ask, "What about savoring the vision of God. What has become of that priority?" Answer: It's in the word "passion"—"passion for the supremacy of God." The supremacy of God is the vision we have of him. And our passion for this is our savoring of him and the vision we have of him. What we have, then, in our new mission statement is a declaration of God's supremacy over all things magnified and savored in the word "passion," rocketed off of this launching pad with the word "spread." In other words, the lead word "spread" signals a fresh commitment—not that we value "savoring" and "strengthening" the vision of the supremacy of God less than we used to—but that we value it so much we WILL NOT keep it to ourselves.
Savoring the supremacy of God as an end in himself—being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus—is so good that we cannot keep it to ourselves. Or: The supremacy of God that we savor in worship is the very supremacy that he exerts in saving my neighbor. And if I have a passion to see and savor that supremacy of God—as an end in itself—I must speak it and show it to my neighbor. Hence the preeminence of the word "spread."
There is a new way to say the mission of Bethlehem, because God is creating new passions in our hearts.
Bethlehem and the Reality of Poverty
This new preeminence given to "spreading" our passion for the supremacy of God leads us to Fresh Initiative #5:
We will develop new strategies for proclaiming the all-satisfying supremacy of God's love and justice to the poor through 1) personal involvement; 2) a more welcoming atmosphere; 3) local missionary strategies of urban disciple making; and 4) equipping missionaries for unreached urban peoples.
What is behind this Initiative? Why does it rank among the six fresh priorities on page three of the mission/vision statement booklet?
First some facts from the world and then some facts from the Word.
Facts from the World
Poverty is a problem out of control in a world that now has the highest standard of living of any time in history.
- 800,000,000 people live in absolute poverty.
- 70,000,000 are on the threshold of starvation, every day.
- Another 400,000,000 consume less than the "minimum critical diet."
- The infant mortality rate is 14% in the poorest third of the world as compared with 1% in the richest third of the world.
- Half of the children of the absolute poor do not live to be 5.
- There are 125,000,000 infant deaths a week, most preventable with simple medical care or hygiene.
- The poor who survive the first few years will, on average, die before the age of 47, while in our third of the world we will live an average of 26 years longer.
- 13% of the poorest third of the world will learn to read as compared with 90% of our society.
- The average person in the poorest third of the world will earn about $300.00 this year, while the average person in the richest third of the world will earn about $18,000.00.
- Half of the least developed countries are also the least evangelized countries. The other half have very few Christians.
One study of poverty and spiritual need expressed this observation:
The most dominant impression one gains from looking at the world in this way is that the poor are the lost and the lost are the poor. Whether one approaches the data from a desire to learn where the Good News needs to be heard, or a desire to find the poorest of the poor, the answer is the same.
What Is Our Response to These Global Realities?
You need to know that one of the effects that these realities has on me is to incline me away from finery and the symbols of wealth. I try to keep the destitution and suffering of the world before me. I keep records of these things. I ponder them and hold them before my mind. Because I fear the inoculating effects of wealth and of fine culture on me. In other words, for me, the more I take the lost and desperate condition of the world seriously, the more uncomfortable I feel with the symbols of wealth and refinement that tend to distance me from the poor—including 195,000,000 Christian brothers and sisters in the least developed countries. I say this simply to let you know that those impulses are at work in me, and have an impact on my life and the way I feel called to do church.
Don't conclude from this that I naïvely think that the solution to poverty is for all of us to toss out our refrigerators and computers, take the bus, and close down the universities. Nobody is going to be helped by us turning our backs on the refined achievements of modern technology. In fact these things need to be used with big hearts and big discernment for the sake of the poor. But I do believe that if we could all spend a year in Dhaka, Bangladesh, or Calcutta, India, the way we think and feel about finery would be profoundly affected. I urge you to keep these realities in the circle of your awareness, lest you become anesthetized by American abundance and affluence.
Poverty Close to Home
And, of course, poverty is not just a distant thing. And, even though its a relative thing, it is close to home. Take Philips neighborhood for example. In 1990, 17,000 people lived there, where I live. The median household income was $12,254. The percent of the population living in poverty was 48.9%. In 1992 slightly more than half the children in Minneapolis (not just Philips) were receiving economic assistance. And 75% of those were living in "female headed families." Which tells us one thing about the value for kids of durable marriages. I only mention these few statistics to let you know that there are realities of poverty staring us in the face close to home as well as in the underdeveloped countries of the world.
Implications for Ministry
If our mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in the salvation of the lost, what does the staggering reality of poverty imply? The study quoted above concluded like this:
If [globally speaking] the lost are the poor, and the poor are the lost, then a holistic ministry, one in which compassion, social transformation, and proclamation are inseparably related, would seem to be the strategy for this time in human history. If incarnation is the model practiced by the One who ministered to such as these, then holistic practitioners, people whose lives are eloquent concerning the values and worth of the Gospel, would seem to be the messengers of the hour.
This is the conviction behind Fresh Initiative #5—proclaiming good news to the poor. And, like most of the other Initiatives, this train is already moving. God has not waited for us to get it all together here. He is changing us in this incarnational direction, and he has burdened many of you to live and minister among the poor. Many of our missionaries work among the poor. Jim and Raquel Bloom have moved into the Gate House on a mission of discipling among the urban poor at 2910 Bloomington Ave. And the evangelistic cell-group in this connection just divided into two. Not to mention the ministries of Masterworks and involvement at Elliot Twins and Marie Sandvig and others.
The train is already moving. And one of the clearest signs that God is in this is that he is "doing the vision" before we do any pushing.
What I would like to do, then, is simply awaken you to the biblical pattern of care about the poor, with the prayer that God would make it a priority in our Christian living and ministry.
Remember the Poor
In Galatians 2:9–10 Paul tells us about the time he and Barnabas met with Peter, James, and John to come to terms about the gospel. The upshot of that meeting was unity of purpose and different missions. Here's the way Paul recorded it:
James and Cephas and John . . . gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. (10) They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do.
Isn't it remarkable that out all the things Paul could have chosen to highlight, the one he chose was that both major apostolic bands—the Paul circle and the Peter circle—ended their summit meeting with the agreement that in all their work remembering the poor would have an essential place? That says to me: make this ministry essential.
God Chose the Poor of This World
Why is that? Well there are some evidences that God himself has a special merciful blessing for the poor. For example, in James 2:2–5 James is tackling the problem of partisanship toward the rich in the church. One of the reasons he gives why this is so wrong is that God's orientation to the poor is very different:
For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, "You sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool," 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? 5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?
So it appears that God intends to turn our natural bent upside down by bringing poor people to faith. They don't give as much to your church, and they don't make a splash in the media. And so they don't gratify the lust of the flesh and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). So God calls them.
Invite the Poor, Crippled, Blind, and Lame
And Jesus told us to call them. In Luke 14 he said,
Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame . . . When you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:21; 14:13–14).
And this command fit in with his whole ministry—which is what Christmas is all about too—namely, his incarnation. He moved from infinite wealth to poverty and finally destitution for the sake of our salvation. 2 Corinthians 8:9 puts it like this:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
And when Paul pondered how that should affect his own ministry strategy, he chose a lean, wartime, missionary way of life. In 2 Corinthians 6:10 he describes himself, "poor, yet making many rich" (just like Jesus). In other words he chose to do what Jesus did in coming to earth.
The fact that Jesus was born to a poor couple in a cow stall tells us something about the way God meant to reach the world.
And when he entered his ministry he did two things: he declared with his mouth that he was sent to the poor; and he declared with his life that he would be among the poor. In Luke 4:18 he said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." And in Matthew 8:20 he said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
There are many more texts—literally hundreds more in the Bible—that make an incarnational proclamation of the gospel to the poor a high priority. But these are enough this morning to shed God's light on Fresh Initiative #5. We will do it, God helping us, by
- personal involvement;
- a more welcoming atmosphere;
- local missionary strategies of urban disciple making; and
- equipping missionaries for unreached urban peoples
May God give us a mind to dream and a heart to love—so that we spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples—especially the poor. | <urn:uuid:6b0524b7-4a06-4b34-9014-4241ce051891> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/good-news-to-the-poor?turn_off_admin_bar=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956021 | 3,014 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Iowa pays millions to spur job creation during 2012
DES MOINES (AP) — It was an unprecedented year for economic development efforts in Iowa, with the state paying out tens of millions of dollars in tax benefits and loans to nearly 70 companies that promised to create about 2,000 jobs.
The deals included two huge fertilizer projects, each involving capital investments exceeding $1 billion. Companies receiving state incentives overall pledged to spend $3.7 billion in the state to build new facilities or expand existing businesses, but critics question whether the money spent per job created is an efficient use of taxpayer money.
The state spent about $12 million on loans to companies expanding or locating in Iowa during the year, according to Iowa Economic Development Authority records. The agency did not immediately have a breakdown of tax credits awards offered this year alone, but said it made more than $151 million in tax credit awards in 2011 and 2012.
If you have any technical difficulties, either with your username and password or with the payment options, please contact us by e-mail at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:2a9e0003-0936-42b5-8b1b-0d9ff7456bd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newtondailynews.com/2012/12/31/iowa-pays-millions-to-spur-job-creation-during-2012/aspw07t/?list-comments=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961869 | 220 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Posted on Tue, Jan. 18, 2011
last updated: March 15, 2013 11:58:03 AM
WASHINGTON — Chinese President Hu Jintao this week restated pledges to crack down on illegal business practices and painted a rosy picture for foreign investors, but confidential U.S. diplomatic cables tell a far different story for U.S. businesses.
U.S. companies complain about China's persistent disregard for intellectual property rights — shorthanded as IPR — where Chinese firms ignore patents or copyrights and sell falsified products at home and abroad. They also complain about China's "indigenous innovation" policy, designed to give domestic companies a leg up when selling to China's government, which controls much of the economy.
Hu promised that all will be fixed in an interview published Monday in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
"China will continue to improve laws and regulations concerning foreign investment, strengthen IPR, promptly address the legitimate concerns of foreign companies and facilitate the growth of enterprises all kinds in China by offering them a stable and transparent legal and policy environment," the Chinese leader said.
Hu also said that China's efforts to stimulate its economy during the global downturn benefited U.S. firms in China.
"Their innovation, production and business operations in China enjoy the same treatment as Chinese enterprises. The package plan and the related policy measures that the Chinese government introduced to counter the international financial crisis have also provided good opportunities for the growth of all enterprises in China, foreign companies included," Hu wrote.
Hu's glossy view on the eve of his state visit to Washington this week is a very different take from the unvarnished one offered in a secret January 2010 memo to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from Jon M. Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to China. The memo was one of hundreds of classified documents released late last year by the website WikiLeaks.
"Strong Chinese economic and export growth coupled with an artificially undervalued RMB (currency) will further heighten focus on our huge trade deficit with China. Widespread perceptions that China's industrial policies are rolling back market access add to the overall sense that China plays unfairly in the global marketplace," Huntsman noted in the confidential memo. "Other emerging issues, like Google's problems (censorship and ad hoc bans) and new rules on indigenous innovation, create a drumbeat of bad news stories for firms seeking to do business in China."
The cable addressed the need to push China in areas that could benefit U.S. jobs, including reducing barriers that favor Chinese-made goods over U.S. exports and pressing China to eliminate requirements that service-sector investors must have a Chinese joint venture partner.
Another obstacle Huntsman cited was China's more assertive global posturing as the U.S. struggled to emerge from the global financial crisis it created.
"We may want to consider ways to toughen up our talking points and enhance the use — or perception of likely use — of other real 'sticks' in order to achieve market opening, job-creating objectives," Huntsman wrote. "This will require some consideration of just how much disruption in our economic relations we are willing to countenance if we must carry through on threats."
The biggest "stick" the U.S. wields is the threat of retaliation against China for the valuation of its currency — called the yuan or renminbi. Over the past 12 months, the Treasury Department has twice delayed a report to Congress on whether China unfairly manipulates its currency to make its exports cheaper and foreign products more expensive in China. The delays ostensibly are to give China time to revalue its currency, but that hasn't happened, and lawmakers threaten legislation.
In another cable released on WikiLeaks about private meetings in 2009 during a visit by Robert Hormats, the undersecretary of state for economic affairs, Chinese economic leaders acknowledged that the currency dispute must be addressed. They also admitted that local leaders are acting to protect their local tax bases and favored industries.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week called on China to act now on the currency, noting that doing so would benefit China most.
"If China does not allow the currency to appreciate more rapidly, it will run the risk of seeing domestic inflation accelerate and face greater risk of a damaging rise in asset prices, both of which will threaten future growth," Geithner said. "And sustaining an undervalued currency will undermine China's own efforts to rebalance growth toward domestic consumption and higher-value-added production."
It would be hard to loosen U.S. investment restrictions and export controls to allow Chinese firms access to U.S. high technology, Geithner suggested, without movement from China on its currency and other problems for American firms in China.
"We are willing to make progress on these issues, but our ability to move on these issues will depend of course on how much progress we see from China," Geithner said. "As China reduces the role of the state in the economy, reforms policies that discriminate against U.S. companies, removes subsidies and preferences for domestic firms and technology, and allows its exchange rate to reflect market forces, then we will be able to make more progress on China's objectives."
The appeal of the huge China market to U.S. businesses was underscored in another embassy memo leaked on WikiLeaks late last year, written by Huntsman's predecessor, Clark T. Randt.
"China plans to build 20,000 to 50,000 new skyscrapers over the next two decades — as many as ten New York cities," Randt wrote in a cable outlining challenges and opportunities posed by economic interdependence. "More than 170 Chinese cities will need mass transit systems by 2025, more than twice the number now present in all of Europe."
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A Postmodern Garden: The Work of Margaret Lanzetta
This essay appeared in the catalog accompanying the exhibition, Margaret Lanzetta: Pet the Pretty Tiger: Works 1990-2010, Curated by Carol Schwarzman at the Cantor Art Gallery, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, October 21 – December 15, 2010.
If the world exists to end up in a book, as the symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé claimed, or as a bodiless image on a high resolution screen, as postmodernist theorists have advanced, then one of the artist’s preoccupations is how to read and understand a constantly changing, visually insistent, multitudinous world. In Margaret Lanzetta’s bold, graphic paintings, the artist weaves, jams together and recombines patterns and shadow images in order to understand their often-unacknowledged presence in our lives. We see them, but do not notice them. Derived from both the world she inhabits and the very different societies in which she has traveled and stayed for extended periods of time— Japan, India, Syria, etc— her vocabulary of silhouettes and symbolic motifs embraces the postmodern age and ancient cultures, both East and West. Her sources encompass Buddhism and stylized details of Islamic architecture; nature (plant forms) and machinery (gear wheels and cogs); ordered and disordered grids; patterns and repetitions of distinct organic or geometric structures; and abstract, decorative signs often rendered in industrial or printer’s saturated colors. Out of this plethora of diverse and competing languages, many of which are embedded so deeply in their respective cultures as to be taken for granted, Lanzetta fashions both a response and a commentary.
In some of the earliest works in this two decade survey exhibition (1990-2010), Lanzetta has woven rubber strips into elongated containers that are simultaneously organic and machine-like. Her weaving, wrapping or non-mechanical repetition of industrial materials in sculptures such as Arcanta Group (1991) and Long Sack (1990) connects her to the pioneering sculptor Eva Hesse (1936-1970), who led the way from Minimalism to Postminimalism. In Lanzetta’s case, it’s as if she wanted to gather things together, or repair things, as the act of wrapping implies, as well as make a vessel-like form that could hold different elements. Working primarily as a sculptor in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the artist began moving from the three dimensional realm to the two dimensional realm around 1992 without sacrificing her involvement with physically repetitive, meditative processes such as stacking, layering and weaving. One of the impulses that prompted this development was Lanzetta’s strong desire to directly record physical imprints of the material world from which the sculptures emerged. To join the mechanical and organic in more extensive and meaningful ways, her insistent sculptural processes were transformed into stamping, rubbing and printing, first on seven foot and later ten foot long industrial Mylar panels that referenced not only the vertical scale of her sculptures, but also that of the human body. In Delivery (1993) and Syncopation (1994), two early paintings on Mylar, her vocabulary is effectively broadened with a more diverse range of materials and painting techniques. Materially, the use of rubber and Mylar prefigured concerns still central in Lanzetta’s work: specifically the intersection of nature and industry. Rubber, a natural substance transformed through galvanization, still retains the sheen and texture of animal hides, while the translucency of Mylar, a manufactured plastic, recalls fine calfskin vellum.
By combining a vocabulary derived from machine parts and surface textures of steel plates with floral patterns and architectural ornamentation, a grittiness emerges. It is as if modern technology and its often-deleterious effects have invaded paradise, which the floral patterns certainly recall. This is underscored through the forms she incorporates, as well as her use of intense, saturated color. The dark lotus floating near the center of Lotus (cayenne) (2005-06), for example, seems on some level to have succumbed to the effects of a poisonous world, while the overlay of rich black, flower-like machine parts in Signal Jumping, Black (2010) or It’s All Spiritual (2010) transform the decorative into something far-removed from paradise.
At the same time, recognizing that mutation is constantly pressuring and altering forms, particularly those that have migrated across different cultures and historical periods, the artist deploys a variety of means to transfer her vocabulary from one domain to another; including silkscreen, digital technology, traditional oil paint, enamel, acrylic, and even pigmented pulp as in the Brittle Spring series (1998-1999), a suite of unique pulp paintings created during a Workspace Residency Grant at the Dieu Donne Papermill. Through these mechanical means of reproduction, combined with hands-on, textural applications of paint, the artist underscores the extent to which industrialization and postmodern technology have become pervasive influences on our environment and the way we view it. She acknowledges that we live in a world of media-images, enmeshed in relentless fields of visual information. Thus a question I believe the artist poses to the viewer as well as herself is whether mechanical repetition means the destruction of things done by hand or can the two be made to coexist constructively? There is a sense that the artist believes coexistence can occur, but recognizes that may not always happen.
Over the past twenty years, Lanzetta has gathered together a diverse vocabulary that enables her to construct multilayered works that evoke a host of narratives, none of which can be reduced to an overriding story. By this, I do not mean to imply that certain themes and preoccupations aren’t evident, because that isn’t the case. One constant theme reappearing is the sharp collision between the natural world and cultural production, with the understanding that humans have invested far too much belief in the artificial. Another theme, as previously advanced, is the conflict between modern technological advances and ancient traditions.
By enlarging and transforming flowers into bodiless silhouettes and placing them against a patterned background, as she does in series such as Cultural Instructions (2003-2004) and Company Paintings (2009), Lanzetta evokes the history of wallpaper as an inexpensive substitute for paintings; still-life paintings; the changing reality we inhabit, where plant life itself is becoming altered; black-and-white noir films of the forties and fifties, particularly those influenced by German Expressionism with their fondness for exaggerated lighting and elongated shadows; and the lingering effects of colonialism and unregulated industrialization on rural culture.
Conceived and completed after the artist’s six month Fulbright Research Fellowship to India and Syria in 2008, the Company Paintings series (2009) consists of twelve paintings in square format. Using a vocabulary of alternating bands and one plant motif, Lanzetta limited herself to using four silkscreens printed in different color combinations. Each painting is titled the name and telephone area code of a remote Indian town, such as Beed 0442. According to the artist, the title for the series “comes from the term for works commissioned by the East India Company to document India in the middle of the 18th century.” A British corporation, originally chartered during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the East India Company monopolized trade between England and India for more than one hundred years; the commissioned paintings were meant to present the rosier side of colonialist history.
Lanzetta’s Company Paintings are stark and jarring, their artificial colors hard and often disorienting. The series can be divided into three groups: those that juxtapose a plant form against geometric bands; those that create the plant form outline using geometric bands, thus inverting the figure-ground relationship; and those only made up of different colored bands, horizontally stacked. By working with a limited number of silkscreens, the artist is able to discover unlikely combinations, as well as push herself into new territory.
In Howrah 0322, the orange, black and white bands diminish in size as they rise toward the top edge, suggesting an aerial perspective of a landscape of tilled fields, as well as an unstable image found on old-fashioned television sets. By evoking these diverse readings, the artist underscores the ongoing clash between modern technology and ancient traditions that pervade many non-Western cultures, without offering a clear resolution to a persistent problem.
In Jorhat 0376, the artist juxtaposes a yellowish-green silhouette of an oversized plant against a pattern of vertical, horizontal and diagonal pink and black bands. There is something disturbing and threatening about the combination of forms and colors, which initially might come across as a still life, generally a benign subject, but upon further reflection clearly is not. The plant extends beyond both the top and bottom edge, disorientating a sense of its actual size; the leaves seem too large, as if the plant has been feeding on hormones. For all their repetition, the pink and black bands lack a detectable order. Why are some bands diagonal and others horizontal?
Questions like these, which are addressed directly to what the viewer sees, lead to other questions. What initially seems like a familiar image becomes less so the longer we look. In Jorhat 0376 and other paintings, such as Biophilia Eve (2007) and Last Two Million (2008), a spiky flower or benign houseplant becomes super-sized and menacing. I would characterize this as one of Lanzetta’s strengths— she can turn a familiar image strange, as well as transform what is perceived as elegant and decorative into something cold and threatening. This even persists, as with Howrah 0322, when the artist restricts herself to repeating geometric patterns. Again, in Karnal 0184, only horizontal bands of yellow, black and white are used. However, some bands are tilted, while a vertical band interrupts others, causing symmetry and asymmetry to collide. Order, it seems, has broken down, and disruption is unavoidable.
In Ballary 0839, the combination of plant-like shapes and geometric bands is pushed to an extreme, making it difficult to distinguish figure from ground. If anything, they keep exchanging roles: in one view we might conclude that the leaf-like shapes defined by black and white bands are in front of the yellowish-green leaf-like shapes filled with reddish-magenta leaf like shapes. However, this view reverses, and we can also believe that the yellowish-green leaf-like shapes are in front of the black-and white bands. The instability of the view becomes a comment on the subject—the inextricable embrace of form and content is troubling. In contrast to Bridget Riley and other artists involved with op art, Lanzetta recognizes that there is no pure state of seeing; everything is inflected by culture and history.
The clash between symmetry and asymmetry, order and disorder, underscores Lanzetta’s vision of reality as a struggle between two opposing forces made of the same, if not identical, stuff. In this sense, the artist undermines the sense of order and decorum normally associated with decorative and architectural patterns. She reminds us that the world has gone awry, and that there is no clear agreement on a resolution. We can neither restore the old order, nor determine how to create a new, widely beneficial order. Even the idea of progress is called into question.
Conflict, entropy, mutation are also not concepts we think of with regard to floral patterns or decorative motifs. Yet that is precisely what the viewer encounters in Lanzetta’s work. In the Confection Series (2005-06), which “relates to the proposed deployment of US military bases, dubbed ‘lily pads’, throughout Central Asia and North Africa,” the artist mutates a lotus flower into exploding, cartoon-like forms, knowing that in actuality it grows in muddy water and rises above the surface to bloom, thus signifying in Buddhism rebirth and the purity of heart and mind. Clearly, another preoccupation of the artist is the devaluation of language and symbols. By transforming the lotus into an exploding form, the artist comments not only on external events over which she has no real control, but she also frames the viewer’s relationship to art.
In Lilypad Deployment I, (2006) jagged orange and yellow forms float above a stylized floral motif and an aerial view of a plan for an enclosed fortress. In Glassblower II, (2005), part of the Recitativo Series, a large, elegant magenta floral form stretches across a ground of yellow arabesques. Its translucency evokes both the glassblower’s breath and the fantastic shapes that molten glass can assume. Is art meant to be something pretty— a lush floral pattern, for example? Or can art insinuate itself into our lives, make us more aware of the world we inhabit? Rather than answering this question, and thus becoming ideological, the artist leaves it up to the viewer to decide what role art will play in her or his life.
Art, Lanzetta’s work advances, can offer many possibilities, as well as lead to many places. Her work of the past two decades is the record of a journey and a search, as well as a document of one’s passing through time and history. For all of its subjectivity, the work is neither inward and personal nor purely political. Rather, there is an openness to her work, motivated by an attempt to embrace the myriad networks and patterns of information saturating the contemporary world.
John Yau is a poet and critic living in New York. His latest book is A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (DAP, Distributed Art Publishers, 2008). He has just completed a book, Glamourless Reality, which will be published in 2011 and is an Associate Professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University). | <urn:uuid:9d67c803-f684-4a39-9cb1-444bd511b032> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artcritical.com/2010/12/15/lanzetta/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950397 | 2,931 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Salon: Mississippi could begin prosecuting women for miscarriages.
Ol’ Miss wants to play God.
Newsweek/DailyBeast: Why Suicide Has Become an Epidemic—and What We Can Do to Help.
Looking at it sideways, as I am wont to do, it’s more dangerous to own a brain than a gun.
Discover Mag: New Bird Flu May Be Able to Spread Between People.
“Now a study in ferrets, considered the best model animal of flu transmission in humans, has found that the virus is transmissible via air and direct contact, making it possibly capable of human-to-human transmission as well. Such transmission was seen with the last major bird flu threat, H5N1, but it was limited to small number of cases.”
WSJ, MarketWatch: Study—Vitamin B treatment could curb dementia.
“After 2 years the treatment group had a loss of gray-matter mass of 0.6%, roughly in line with the shrinkage normally associated with aging; the placebo group lost more than 5%. The researchers’ conclusion: ‘B vitamins lower homocysteine, which directly leads to a decrease in GM atrophy, thereby slowing cognitive decline.’” Can’t seem to find the size (# of patients) in the study.
Guardian.UK: Peering at bright screens after dark could harm health, doctor claims.
Harrumph. I used to stare at CRTs for hours in cold dark ballrooms, dark warehouses, darkened offices, demo rooms. Never had a problem sleeping. Aren’t LCDs supposed to be better for you anyway?
NY Times: Revisiting the ‘Crack Babies’ Epidemic That Was Not.
This makes me want to spit nails. It wasn’t an epidemic. But it existed — don’t try to wash it away. Until you’ve taken infant CPR, walked the floors with a newborn who won’t stop crying from suffering detox, having to remain calm when their heart monitor goes off (again), and more … I’d certainly like to give these folks a piece of my mind. Not a one of these ‘investigative reports’ ever talks with foster parents of the era.
Later: Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Many of the victims are dead from heart defects. If they made a year, they were lucky. Who speaks for them?
CJR: Untangling Obamacare — What’s behind the rate increases?
What does a 100% increase sound like to you? Subsidies will soften the blow … I remain maximally skeptical.
Guardian.UK: Pioneering author’s body found mummified in New Mexico home.
“Her brother-in-law Louis Ponce found the body after he and his wife Edna, Salinas’ sister, drove from their home in California to check on her after two years of unreturned phone calls and letters.”
NY Times: No Benefit in Sharply Restricting Salt, Panel Finds.
“As you go below the 2,300 mark, there is an absence of data in terms of benefit and there begin to be suggestions in subgroup populations about potential harms.” First eggs, then butter … now salt. Everything in moderation.
NY Times: My Medical Choice.
Angelina Jolie undergoes a voluntary double mastectomy. Gutsy lady.
Oh … and under the weather.
Spring cold knocked me off my feet Friday night. Recovering now. Hopefully.
NY Times: Practicing Yoga at 30,000 Feet.
Airline yoga. I’m sure the person in the seat next to you will appreciate that rogue elbow or knee.
NY Times: Suicide Rate Rises Sharply in U.S.
“The boomers had great expectations for what their life might look like, but I think perhaps it hasn’t panned out that way.” We also remember how it was, perhaps, and despair of it ever being that fine again.
BBC: MMR—How parents feel now about avoiding jabs.
“People needed a degree in critical reading to understand some of the science, but the newspapers were tapping into a public terror. The public wasn’t getting a balanced view from the media, as it wasn’t reporting the some of the robust studies in 1999 and 2000 which showed there was no causal link between MMR and autism.” Any measles jab, whether single or combined, tends to have some severe side effects in very few cases. This got conflated into the mix as a ‘sign’ of MMR ‘badness’.
Guardian.UK: Scientists find key to ageing process in hypothalamus.
CJR: Untangling Obamacare—Rate shock!?
“In her remarks admitting rate increases would be coming, Sebelius said she is ‘a believer in the market strategies that will minimize the rate impact.’” The more I learn about it, the more I expect a swift kick in the wallet. Esp. when anyone mentions “market strategies” as an ameliorating influence.
Guardian.UK: Scientists concerned at H7N9 bird flu outbreak that has killed 24 people.
“One of the biggest problems is that the virus does not cause illness in chickens, so it is impossible to know which are infected and which are not. In the past, China has slaughtered flocks to eradicate bird flu viruses, but H7N9 is now known to be present in chickens in all 31 provinces of China.” I’ve posted previously from other sources that this flu is not supposed to be a concern; however, the speed at which it is ‘spreading’ may increase mutation … ?
Telegraph.UK: Mad cow infected blood ‘to kill 1,000’.
Mention ‘Mad Cow’ and watch the British lose it. Note that 1,000 number is a ‘high case’ scenario. Panic never solves anything.
The New Yorker: What if the Tsarnaevs Had Been the “Boston Shooters”?
Our responses to extreme violence are skewed.
Discover: When Media Uncritically Cover Pseudoscience.
Pacific Standard: Should We Be Worried About the Bird Flu Outbreak?
Apparently not. This time.
Politico: Lawmakers, aides may get Obamacare exemption.
“There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it. The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer — in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere.”
BBC: Bringing people back from the dead.
“While 45 minutes is absolutely remarkable and a lot of people would have written her off, we now know there are people who have been brought back, three, four, five hours after they’ve died and have led remarkably good quality lives.”
Pacific Standard: Genetic Evidence of Yoga’s Impact on the Immune System.
“The researchers found that the nature walk and music-driven relaxation changed the expression of 38 genes in these circulating immune cells. In comparison, the yoga produced changes in 111.” Grain of salt time (very small sample size), but still worthy of note.
NY Times/Editorial Board: A Toothless Law on Toxic Chemicals.
“ For the most part, the law requires the government to prove that a chemical is unsafe before it can be removed or kept off the market instead of requiring manufacturers to prove that their chemicals are safe before they can be sold and used.” | <urn:uuid:ffc89801-a952-4eb8-88f3-2537bab75ee7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dangerousmeta.com/site/archive/category/health/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947224 | 1,690 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Obama, GOP reach deal to extend tax cuts
WASHINGTON—Brushing past Democratic opposition, President Barack Obama announced agreement with Republicans Monday night on a plan to extend expiring income tax cuts for all Americans, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and grant a one-year reduction in Social Security taxes.
The emerging agreement also includes tax breaks for businesses that the president said would contribute to the economy's recovery from the worst recession in eight decades.
Obama's announcement marked a dramatic reversal of his long-held insistence, originally laid out in his 2008 campaign, that tax cuts should only be extended at incomes up to $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. He explained his about-face by saying that he still opposed the move and noted the agreement called for a temporary, two-year extension of cuts at all income levels, not the permanent renewal that Republicans have long sought.
At the same time, it signaled the arrival of a new era of divided government following midterm elections in which Republicans won control of the House and strengthened their hand in the Senate.
"We cannot allow this moment to pass," Obama said.
Officials said that under the plan, unemployment benefits would remain in effect through the end of next year for workers who have been laid off for more than 26 weeks and less than 99 weeks. Without an extension, two million individuals would have lost their benefits over the holidays, the White House said, and seven million would have done so by the end of next year.
The Social Security tax cut would apply to workers, not employers, and would drop from 6.2 percent of pay to 4.2 percent for one year. The White House said the result would be to fatten take-home pay by $120 billion over the course of the year.
In addition, administration officials emphasized that the agreement would extend a variety of other tax breaks for lower and middle-income families, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child tax credit.
The estate tax provision under discussion would mean the first $5 million would pass tax-free to heirs. Anything over that would be taxed at a rate of 35 percent. Democrats favored a $3.5 million threshold, with a 45 percent tax on anything higher.
In a sign of Democratic discontent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., reacted curtly to the president's announcement.
"Now that the president has outlined his proposal, Senator Reid plans on discussing it with his caucus tomorrow," his spokesman, Jim Manley, said in a written statement.
Top Republicans were far more receptive.
"I appreciate the determined efforts of the president and vice president in working with Republicans on a bipartisan plan to prevent a tax hike on any American and in creating incentives for economic growth," said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader. In a jab at Democratic lawmakers, he added, "I am optimistic that Democrats in Congress will show the same openness to preventing tax hikes the administration has already shown."
Democrats also objected to an extension of the estate tax that tilted toward the Republican position.
For months, Democrats have repeatedly raised objections to including the upper-income in any plan to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 when George W. Bush was president. The Democratic-controlled House recently passed legislation to let the cuts lapse on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. On Saturday, Republicans blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to do the same.
Obama said he personally opposed elements of the deal, such as an extension of expiring income tax cuts at upper income levels and the more generous deal on estates. But he said he decided that an agreement with Republicans was more important than a stalemate that would have resulted in higher income taxes at all levels on Jan. 1.
"Make no mistake, allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family and that could cost our economy well over a million jobs," he said at the White House.
Obama said the continued political stalemate over taxes amounted to a "chilling prospect for the American people whose taxes are currently scheduled to go up on Jan. 1."
In his announcement, Obama said he had agreed on a bipartisan framework, and said he wanted Congress to approve it before lawmakers adjourn for the year later this month. In a telling sign that the White House recognizes the extent of Democratic opposition, officials said they would prefer the Senate vote first.
Republicans won control of the House last month, and strengthened their hand in the Senate. Even though the newly elected lawmakers don't take their seats until January, Obama has already treated their leaders with far more deference than he has so far in his term. Similarly, McConnell and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, in line to become House speaker, have seemed willing to strive for compromise with the White House, rather than merely oppose virtually all of the president's initiatives.
Momentum for a year-end deal picked up after Obama met at the White House last week with Republican leaders for the first time since his party's dispiriting election losses, and accelerated again when the government reported last week that joblessness had risen in November, to 9.8 percent.
The flurry of negotiations is taking place with lawmakers eager to wrap up their work for the year and adjourn for the holidays.
Obama, Reid and McConnell have all said in recent days they believe a deal on tax cuts and unemployment benefits is possible by midweek. If so, that would leave time for the Senate to debate and vote on a new arms control treaty with Russia, which Obama has made a top year-end priority.
Senate Republicans have seemed more willing to hold a ratification debate in recent days as the negotiations over taxes intensified, suggesting at least an implicit link between the two issues in the talks. | <urn:uuid:8d3cdf52-e8c3-406b-a0cd-76dda17051f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/business/taxes/articles/2010/12/06/obama_gop_reach_deal_to_extend_tax_cuts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977172 | 1,192 | 1.546875 | 2 |
2012 Montana Voters Pass Initiative 166 Declaring That Corporations Are Not People
Update: 5:55 a.m. Nov 9-
Despite personal assurance from the Secretary of State herself that the ballots from Yellowstone County would be finished by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday Nov. 7, 7% of Montana’s ballots have still not been accounted for. All but a few hundred of the unaccounted votes will effect the initiatives.
Initiative 166 will easily pass. It has the second highest support of any of the 2012 initiatives pulling 74.70% of the vote. Over 374,000 votes were cast in favor of the initiative while less than 100,000 voters came out against it.
7: 14 a.m. Nov. 7 -
With 543 precincts fully reporting and partial reports from the rest, there is little chance that initiative 166 won’t pass. There are currently 326,925 votes in favor of the measure and 110,747 votes against.
With 38 of 794 precincts reporting, Initiative 166 is receiving overwhelming support in early voting with 76% in support and 23% against.
If passed, initiative 166 would not extend constitutional rights to corporations and would not allow Montana lawmakers to legally view corporations as persons. It also forces Montana’s Congressional delegation to present an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that “corporations are not human beings entitled to constitutional rights.”
The full text of the initiative as it appears in 2012 ballots appears below.
A LAW PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION
Ballot initiative I-166 establishes a state policy that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings, and charges Montana elected and appointed officials, state and federal, to implement that policy. With this policy, the people of Montana establish that there should be a level playing field in campaign spending, in part by prohibiting corporate campaign contributions and expenditures and by limiting political spending in elections. Further, Montana’s congressional delegation is charged with proposing a joint resolution offering an amendment to the United States Constitution establishing that corporations are not human beings entitled to constitutional rights. | <urn:uuid:7089c30d-71db-4c87-a92e-94eb826034a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kyssfm.com/did-initiative-166-corporations-are-not-people-pass/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951792 | 439 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham argued at CPAC Friday that global warming wasn't man-made because the number of pirates in the world have increased along with global temperatures.
"Correlation isn't causation," Cunningham told an audience assembled for a CPAC panel denying the existence of climate change. "Should we kill all the pirates then?"
Cunningham then put up a chart showing the number of pirates vs. global average temperatures—a chart originally created by the parody religion of Pastafarianism, which worships a deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and satirizes the teaching of creationism in schools.
Cunningham was joined on the panel by Harold Doiron, who is part of a group of retired NASA scientists and engineers who believe there is no "convincing physical evidence" of man-made climate change and call themselves "The Right Climate Stuff Research Team."
Doiron said anyone who could "read a graph" could see that global temperatures were stable over time. | <urn:uuid:d8a242f5-0047-4ff3-8fc0-4e17fb388051> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/03/15/apollo-7-astronaut-uses-pastafarian-chart-on-pirates-and-global-temperatures-to-argue-climate-change-isnt-real?s_cid=related-links:TOP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956497 | 202 | 1.679688 | 2 |
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Baby Boomers Becoming Bolder Givers
Why don't affluent Baby Boomers give more money away? We ask this question not to guilt-trip, as Boomer slang would put it, but because solving some urgent social problems hangs on the answer.
People between 51 and 64 donate less than 3/4 of one percent of their investment assets, on average--significantly less than those either younger or older than them, according to New Tithing's analysis of 2003 IRS data.
These numbers gall us because we're Baby Boomers ourselves. We'd like to believe that as a generation, we are living up to our 60's ideals. How could we lag behind both the Gen X's and the WWII "Greatest Generation"?
But there's another reason to care besides petty generational rivalries. The popular perception of Baby Boomers as more socially active than other Americans is rooted in fact. According to the Pew Research Center, we volunteer more, join community groups more, and vote Democratic far more often than other age groups. So if we donate less money, it's mostly our own liberal and progressive causes that experience the shortfall.
According to the United Nations, it would take $50 billion more a year to provide everyone on earth with health care, nutrition, clean water, education and a clean environment. Baby Boomers with incomes between $200,000 and $1 million a year could donate that amount by giving just two percent more of their investment assets. Just two percent: we're not talking about simple living here!
When the Baby Boomer generation passes from this earth, what will our legacy be? Will we leave a world poisoned, hungry and war-torn? Or will we put the unprecedented wealth of our generation towards solving those crises before we die?
We know which answer we want. That's why we launched the Bolder Giving Initiative. It starts with two assumptions about what people need in order to give more boldly, drawn from our own experience with wealth and our 20 years working with donors.
First, people need inspiration. We are all affected by what's normal around us, and what¹s normal is to give 2 to 3% of income or at most, to 'tithe' 10%. To inspire greater giving, we have gathered stories from more than 85 people who have busted the lid off this norm. We call them 'The 50% League' because they have each donated half or more of their income or business profits for at least three years or half of their assets.
What motivated the 50% League members to give so much? Many wanted greater impact on a cause they were passionate about. As Carol Newell explains, "I wanted my $25 million inheritance to have as much impact as possible towards a more just and sustainable economy in the region I love, British Columbia."
And we found more super-generous Baby Boomers:
Marji Greenhut thought globally and acted locally: she applied the Jewish value of tzedakah to donations that shifted her native Maine away from a sweatshop economy and towards a local organic economy.
Lawyer Brad Seligman poured the proceeds from selling his law partnership into a nonprofit that supports class action suits such as the historic Wal-Mart sex discrimination case.
Are you thinking, "I wish I could do what they've done, but I'm not rich"? You might be inspired, then, by Richard Semmler, a community college professor who donates over half his pay to Habitat for Humanity and scholarships. You don't have to be rich to be a bolder giver.
Our second assumption: to give more boldly, most people need individual support. They need help to think through how much to leave their children, how much of their money is truly discretionary, and what difference they want to make. The good news is that the web has tremendous educational resources for givers that didn't exist a generation ago.
Giving 50% may be way out of reach, but many of us could, without hardship, double our giving-- for instance, from 5% to 10% of our income, or from 1% to 2% of our assets.
Imagine for a moment that a new wave of generosity spreads among progressive Baby Boomers and we start giving at our true potential, whether that is 5% or 95%. We could turn the future around if we applied our full resources -- money, talent and love.
Anne and Christopher Ellinger are the founders and directors of Bolder Giving in Extraordinary Times (http://www.BolderGiving.org). They co-authored the award-winning book "We Gave Away a Fortune," and served as co-directors of the national peer education network More than Money for over a decade. | <urn:uuid:916a7f36-c3c2-4365-8384-532d4b5cd26d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/20/1984 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961124 | 985 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Recently we played at a small limestone amphitheater. I set the L1's up about 7 metres apart behind us and all sounded great.
We had a friend filming us with a stereo camcorder, and when we played back the movies taken from the side they sounded good, but when we played the one taken from the middle we could hear a strange phasing sound.
It’s mainly at the very beginning of the clip.
Do we need to put the towers further apart?
Thank you for the question! It certainly appears to be a case of phase cancellation. This can and does happen in live sound all the time.
I don't believe separating the L1's out would have any beneficial effect. What you might have to do is to get a stereo mixer, and pan one of the mics a little to the left, and the other mic a little to the right. (That is assuming that you have both mics playing through both towers at the same time) You can also just plug one mic into the left L1, and the other mic just into the right L1. This would have the same desired effect.
Hope this helps!
Bose Live Music Support
I use a Behringer stereo rackmount mixer to feed both towers. We have tried hard-panning, but then one pair of singers cant hear the other side too well.
I didnt realise you could pan "a bit".
|Powered by Social Strata| | <urn:uuid:bbd6e2f8-3042-4192-b22c-6acb227fc829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bose.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/76010377/m/5220064606 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96145 | 305 | 1.578125 | 2 |
In a comment on yesterday’s posting, a long-time Boston 1775 reader gave a link to the Amazon page for this album: Music of the American Revolution: The Birth of Liberty. Since that link is so long, I’m not sure people will be able to see it and use it, so I’m repeating it here. And here’s a link direct from the record company, New World.
This CD contains “The New Massachusetts Liberty Song” under the title “Song on Liberty.” There are audio samples at both sites. Perhaps revealing where his political sympathies lie, the commenter referred to those lyrics as the “Patriot burlesque” on the original “British Grenadiers.” That’s certainly true as far as chronology goes, but the word “burlesque” implies some parody, and the Massachusetts rewrite is so deadly serious. The grenadiers were having much more fun to begin with.
It’s interesting to note that “The New Massachusetts Liberty Song” itself was parodied even before it was printed (or at least before any surviving printed versions). The Historical Society of Pennsylvania reportedly owns a manuscript dated April 1770 and titled “Massachusetts Liberty Song Parodized.”
Who could have made fun of such noble sentiments? Paul Revere later suspected Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., of this deed. In the same 1798 letter in which he described his ride on 18-19 April 1775, Revere wrote of Church:
He was esteemed a very capable writer, especially in verse; and as the Whig party needed every Strength, they feared, as well as courted Him. Though it was known, that some of the Liberty Songs, which We composed, were parodized by him, in favor of the British, yet none dare charge him with it.Revere had been happy to add Church’s quickly-composed verse to the bottom of at least one of the political cartoons he engraved, and left no expression of doubt about the doctor before the war. But after Church was caught in secret correspondence with the enemy in late 1775, the silversmith became suspicious.
I was a constant and critical observer of him, and I must say, that I never thought Him a man of Principle; and I doubted much in my own mind, wether He was a real Whig.
Musically, American Whigs and Tories seem to have gone at each other like two modern rappers enjoying a marketable feud. In 1768, someone in Boston took John Dickinson’s “Liberty Song” and parodied it like this:
Come shake your dull noddles, ye pumpkins, and bawlThe first newspaper to print that parody said it came from “a garret at Castle William,” pointing the finger at the Customs Commissioners holed up in that island fort. But some people suspect Dr. Church. Ironically, some people also give Church credit for the Whigs’ answer song in the same style, called “The Parody Parodized”:
And own you’ve gone mad at fair Liberty’s call;
No scandalous conduct can add to your shame
Condemned to dishonor, inherit the fame,In folly you’re born and in folly you’ll live
To madness still ready, and stupidly steady,
Not as men, but as monkeys, the tokens you give.
Come swallow your bumpers, ye tories, and roarEverybody join in!
That the Sons of fair Freedom are hamper’d once more;
But know that no cut-throats our spirits can tame,
Nor a host of oppressors shall smother the flame.In freedom we’re born, and, like sons of the brave,
Will never surrender, but swear to defend her,
And scorn to survive, if unable to save. | <urn:uuid:3709b3a8-8458-41df-b5f6-80a27efcce7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2007/05/parody-of-parody-of-rewrite-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964393 | 829 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Test your P-51 memory, knowledge and research ability!
This is A68-674, 44-13016 , the photo was taken in the hanger of King City Aviation around the early 90,s It now is the DOVE of PEACE N9200N and was or still for sale
A68-674 and A68-679 were purchased from Warbirds Aviation Museum (Mildura Australia)in 1981 by a five man syndicate headed up by Bryan Gabriel. The syndicate owned a treasure trove of Mustang parts with the two airframes as the centre-piece. Many spares were collected over time and work had begun assessing the Project in preparation for restoration in Albury NSW. Just prior to ordering new lower longerons from California, three of the syndicate members were persuaded to sell the Project to another group (Milne, Thomas and Lane) leaving the principals (Gabriel and Beard) empty handed. Interestingly Milne, Thomas and Lane eventually shipped the parts to the US to be restored (sold?) and are believed to have given an undertaking that the aircraft would be returned to Australia. Sadly (predictably?) that did not occur and Mustang afficianados in Australia can take small comfort in the knowledge that A68-674 now resides in New Zealand. Bryan Gabriel is now building a half scale P-51 replica for his own use, having given up any idea of owning any part of the real thing. His replica will be finished in the same colours A68-674 wore when in service with the RAAF. | <urn:uuid:116728fd-f6da-41ba-be76-fcfb146a1f13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/p51who/?page=305 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958185 | 314 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Maybe the first thing you need to think about is what to call your website. Unfortunately most of the obvious names are gone. Every 3 letter combination has probably been registered already, along with most of the 1, 2, 3 4,5 and 6 letter words in the dictionary and some of them which aren't, so you're either going to have to register your own name if it's still available (e.g. bobatkins.com - which isn't available of course!) or you're going to have to make something up.
Using your name isn't a bad idea if it's fairly easy to spell. If your name is Zbigniew Brzezinski, you probably don't want to attempt to register the domain zbigniewbrzezinski.com, but if it's John Shaw, johnshaw.com is pretty good.
Making something up means combining two or more short words into a name. Keeping it fairly short is good. While you could attempt to register the domain name "theverybestphotowebsiteontheplanet.com", it probably wouldn't be a great idea. Nobody would want to type that many characters and the chances of making a typo are high. Even with a simple compound name you have to be careful.
Let's take the example of combining "photo" and "pics". This makes "photopics" - or does it? From the way it sounds, it could easily also be "photopix" or "photopicks" or even "fotopics", "fotopix" or "fotopicks". Now remember what I said about obvious names being taken already? Well here's the situation for these names.
So as you can see, even domain names which aren't so good are already gone! All you're left with is a very non-obvious spelling option. Of course you can hyphenate the name, but do you think people will know whether or not to use a hyphen, and if they don't know, they probably won't. So you could look at the domain names foto-pix.com, photo-pix.com, foto-pics.com, photo-pics.com, foto-picks.com and photo-picks.com to see if they are available, but you have to ask yourself if you'd really want any of them given that the non hyphenated versions have all been registered.
Throwing two unrelated words together is a possibility, such as purplefrog.com, happygoat.com or yellowdonkey.com - but all those domain names have also been taken! Strings like "Mountain Light" would be great, but of course mountainlight.com has already been taken, as has "PixelMagic" and most similar names. You could be lucky and be the first person to think of a really great domain name, but the odds are against it.
You can make up words for names like yozzy.com, pixota.com or truba.com - but you'll find all of those taken as well. Most short character strings that even sound like words have been registered. Not all of them, but most of them.
One way to look for names is to first pick a main word related to photography. That could be Camera, Lens, Image, Pixel, Focus, Aperture, Iris, Photo, Picture etc. Then you can create a list of prefixes and suffixes which you could add to those words. Some examples might be Best, Light, Sharp, Clear, Shop, Better, Unique, Work, Play etc. If you look at all the combinations of the two sets of words, something may emerge which sounds reasonable and hasn't been registered yet (though don't bet on it!). I have the domain name "LensPlay.com" for example. "CameraWork", "CameraPlay" and "LensWork" were all taken, but at the time (2001), LensPlay wasn't. Of course 7 years later, it's a lot harder to find unregistered name combinations.
So be prepared for a long quest for a good domain name. The main reason to do it NOW is that the sooner you do it the less likely it is that someone else will have had the same idea and registered the name before you get a chance to. As of early 2008 there were 160 million domain names registered and in the first 3 months of 2008, about 14 million more were added, so you can see that the competition for names is pretty fierce. Not all domains are used, in fact maybe 1/2 of all registered names are not associated with a website. They have been bough on speculation, hoping that they can be resold for a profit. A domain name can sell for anything from under $100 to over $1,000,000 depending on how good it is and how much someone wants it. The name "Business.com" reportedly sold for 7.5 million dollars and "Porn.com" is said to have changed hands for 9.5 million dollars. If there's a billionaire out there called "Bob Atkins", feel free to contact me about "bobatkins.com"!
Do you need a .com? Well, it doesn't hurt. It's the default extension and it's the one that everyone on the web knows. If someone tells you to "checkout the Google website", you'll type in google.com, not google.net or google.org. Some browsers will look for websites if you don't provide an extension - but they look for .com first.
Now .net or .org are OK sometimes. Photo.net does very well , but it's an old and well established site. My advice would be to try to find a .com name, but if you have a really good name and only .net is available, it might be OK. Just take a look at what the .com version leads you to. If it's a site that would directly compete with you, taking the .net version might not be a good idea as you'd probably be sending them some of your traffic.
There are domain name generators and domain name finders all over the web. Many of them allow you to type in keywords and the site will generate all possible combinations of them, then check which ones are available. One such site is snapitnow.com, though there many others.
You can also check out lists of recently deleted (expired) domains at sites like DeletedDomains.com. However you'll probably find that most of those names are pretty awful, which is why they were allowed to expire. A good domain name is worth a lot of money and some have changed hands for six-figure sums. If you had cars.com or photography.com or insurance.com, you would not let it expire! | <urn:uuid:8a277dd7-1897-4c84-a88a-b5d456c1e645> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/website/domain_names.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966217 | 1,415 | 1.796875 | 2 |
In theory, yes, but for all the talk about how "second amendment is there to ensure that all the others apply", I don't see it actually happening, despite the rapid encroachment on other freedoms over the course of the 20th century, and especially in the last few decades.
No, it hasn't been blocking third party cookies for years. This is the core of why such policies are a bad idea. It says it blocks third party cookies, but there are actually lots of exceptions to that rule in order to avoid as the summary says "false positives". You can read about what really happened with Google on Lauren Weinstein's blog, it's very different to how you paint it (there was no "trying to circumvent" involved).
The only thing 3rd party cookies are useful for is tracking you. Anyone who says otherwise makes their living out of stripping you of your privacy.
Reading fail! The summary itself says the policy is being delayed because of false positives, ie, things that they are blocking that is causing users to complain.
This is exactly what happened with Safari. Somebody decides that "privacy" can be viewed exclusively through the lens of particular technologies, that advertising is bad and they will "save the users" from targeted advertising that's wrecking the web (or relevant advertising that funds the web, depending on your perspective). Then they discover that 3rd party cookies are not exclusively used for advertising, and start punching holes in the policy, until it gets to the point where any site that wants to can set a third party cookie by writing their code in a different way. Then some company offers their users a feature they can opt in to that requires third party cookies, so the documented workarounds for the blocking policy are used to make it work, then there's a big media story about how said company is "working around privacy protections".
For example, this happened with Facebook and Safari. The Safari guys got bug reports that their users were being randomly logged out of Facebook but not when other browsers were used. After a long time, they tracked it down to third party cookie blocking interacting badly with the Like button, which is the sort of thing that uses them. So they added yet another heuristic to try and distinguish "good" stuff such as Like buttons from "bad" stuff such as adverts, and ended up making the policy so weak it could even be triggered by accident!
Google does not use stack ranking in the sense you are referring to it (the form that promotes competition between employees to avoid being in the bottom X% that gets fired or top Y% that gets promoted).
(usual disclosure: I'm a Google engineer).
Those are all really bad examples.
Retiring ActiveSync for consumer accounts is not "trying to prevent Windows Phone from syncing calendar and contact data". Not even close. ActiveSync is a Microsoft-specific protocol which is so heavily protected by the patent system it requires fees. There are open equivalents for all its functionality. Perhaps if Microsoft doesn't want to implement CalDAV or CardDAV like its major competitors do and would rather its competitors pay them per-user license fees for the privilege of using a crappy syncing protocol, they should not be surprised when support for said protocol goes away. They can catch up with everyone else and support the non-licensed calendar and contact syncing protocols instead. For corporate users, well, they pay so the costs of ActiveSync can just be passed straight through.
By "hindering the development of a YouTube app" you actually mean requiring Microsoft to obey the terms of service, right? The sort of co-operation Page was talking about doesn't mean Microsoft can do whatever they want, demand whatever they want, and everyone gives it to them on a plate for nothing. It means cooperating to find a reasonable solution that works for everyone. In this case, there's already an HTML5 website Windows Phone users can access, and if WP becomes popular enough then probably Google would make a native app that follows content creators requirements and allows the site to be funded. Or maybe provide the access they need to build a proper app that does follow the ToS. After all, that's what happened with the iPhone app despite the iPhone being Android's biggest competitor (it started out written by Apple and later moved to being written by Google).
The sort of thing Microsoft does here is exactly what Larry was talking about. They must have known when they were developing the YouTube app that the features they added were not allowed - because it says so right in the YouTube ToS. So what was their goal here? Apparently to try and confuse people and try to score points when they got inevitably told to stop. And it's working on you, isn't it? It's exactly the same kind of immature behaviour they're pulling in so many other ways. This is not co-operation. It's playing politics instead of building better technology. Larry isn't the only one that's sick of it.
Most of my fellow citizens have no idea what is happening. They think the world is just as it is presented on the news.
It's worse than that. While cops were going door-to-door in Boston, taking house occupants out at a gunpoint and searching them and their homes (without any warrants, I must add), many the people who were watching that from the windows were cheering for it as an example of government working efficiently to "keep them safe". This, more than anything, has convinced me that a police state is perfectly viable in US - you just need some enemy, real or imagined or concocted, for a convenient scapegoat, and you can do practically anything in the name of security, with cheers from the crowd.
One of the benefit of them getting democracy later in the game is that they could learn from your mistakes. And 200+ years of US democracy include slavery, genocide of Indians, a civil war, witch hunts for communists, and Japanese internment camps, so there's plenty to learn from.
Also, I wouldn't diss Hungary on the grounds of little experience with liberty. After all, they were the only country in the Soviet bloc that had a country-wide armed popular uprising against their Soviet government - even if that ultimately failed.
It looks to me that the 9/11 attacks killed about 7.5x the number of people that died from ladders in 2001.
If you count stairs as well, then more people have died from falling off stairs and ladders in 2001 than in 9/11.
Yeah, I thought about that, but the meter had a screen on the front that counted down the amount of time remaining. When you point coins in, the time goes up. Pretty simple actually. So I am not sure how I could have been accidentally cited for that either because there was over an hour left on the meter when I left. I suppose there could have been some other infraction I'm not aware of, though.
I had two weeks to file an appeal, only one of which I was going to be in the country. That's filing, it doesn't mean it's resolved within two weeks. Also, unfortunately I only noticed the ticket under the wipers after driving off. So I didn't take a photo of where I was parked. Apparently the guy who issued the ticket is supposed to take a photo, but I have no idea how to see it (probably can't).
There doesn't seem to be any online appeals process. I was told I'd have to send them a letter by the post. If there was an online process I might have been tempted to use it. The City of Santa Cruz website only has the ability to pay tickets, not file an appeal or complaint.
Last I checked, MS haven't sued, or otherwise complained about, OpenOffice using "undocumented APIs" to parse
First when usng their APIs they agreed to the TOS.
You realize that the "API" in question is basically just a bunch of URLs, right? Are you really willing to argue that by opening a website in your browser you're agreeing to its ToS?
I don't think it's just Florida that's abusing traffic citations for profit. I visited Santa Cruz, CA on Sunday and parked by the beach. There were cars on either side of me, white space dividing lines and a meter right in front of the space where I parked. I got a $48 citation for "parking in a red zone". So I called them up and asked what this meant, it means "no parking at any time under any circumstances". That means the ticket was quite obviously wrong as no-parking zones don't have parking meters in them.
I don't see any way this can be an honest mistake. You can't write out a ticket saying a car parked in a no parking zone whilst standing next to a meter with plenty of time left on it.The ticket itself, their contact line and their website all make the appeals process rather prominent so apparently they get a lot of appeals. Unfortunately you only get two weeks to appeal, I'm not staying in California, I'll be on vacation next week and then I return to my home in Europe. So I'll probably just pay the $48, there's no way it makes sense to appeal a parking ticket for a rental car from the other side of the world whilst on vacation.
This whole incident leaves a bad taste, it appears to be open and unchecked corruption on the part of municipal governments. The kind of thing I expect in a banana republic, not America.
Interesting but Apple developed iPhone over ~2 - 2.5 years. Depending on when the key players sat with Intel that likely would have been enough time to develop a first generation chip.
Remember, Intel was THE LEADER in cutting-edge ARM chips until they sold the ARM division to Marvell in June 2006. They even introduced high-end feature like Mobile MMX and SpeedStep, and pushed clock speeds higher than any of their competitors.
That's absolutely in the time-frame of iPhone development, plus a year into Paul's tenure. The fact that they sold the ARM division and decided to start back at square one with Atom (not exactly a power miser in the first revision) shows that they had no intention of going "high volume, low price" like Steve Jobs was asking. | <urn:uuid:2918adb2-d54a-43ff-8377-8a0544528063> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://slashdot.org/~niw/firehose | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979135 | 2,117 | 1.804688 | 2 |
SYDNEY, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Lines formed around the world to buy Apple's iPhone5 Friday, officials said. The company's co-founder, Steve Wozniak, waited in a line in Australia.
Wozniak waited overnight at an Apple store in Queensland and bought two phones, one white, one black, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"I went in thinking I liked the black better, but now I'm thinking I like the white better," he said.
Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs in 1976, is in Australia for business and to attend a concert.
Demand for the latest Apple phone has been unprecedented, the company said.
Some people in Sydney waited in line three days to get the phone. In Hong Kong, customers were escorted into stores one at a time to chants of "iPhone5, iPhone5" by sales clerks.
People waited in darkness outside stores in the United States to buy the phone.
More than 2 million pre-orders were placed in the first 24 hours after availability of the new phone was revealed, twice as many as the earlier version.
As many as 10 million of the new phones may be sold by the end of September, analysts predict.
Descriptions of the new device evoke those of superheroes: It's taller, faster, and slimmer. It has a bigger screen.
And it's already controversial.
Rival Samsung said Friday it would include the iPhone 5 in its long-running patent infringement suit against Apple.
|Additional Technology Stories|
TORONTO, May 25 (UPI) --A Canadian man has been charged with sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Toronto more than 20 years ago.
BURBANK, Calif., May 24 (UPI) --Baz Luhrmann's big-screen adaptation of the classic novel, "The Great Gatsby," has crossed the $100 million mark at the North American box office.
WASHINGTON, May 24 (UPI) --The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it's taken a close look at a mobile app that analyzes photos of urine samples and has been in contact with its maker. | <urn:uuid:b99b79f9-f8b4-4afd-a65f-e147c14e4a06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2012/09/21/iPhone5-buyers-out-in-force/UPI-20841348228220/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970836 | 457 | 1.5 | 2 |
A taste of Spanish sunshine
22 FEBRUARY 2012
Egyptian-born Claudia Roden revolutionised the way Westerners viewed Middle Eastern cuisine with the publication of A Book of Middle Eastern Food
in 1968. She has since turned her attention to Italy, to Jewish food and conquered much of the Arab world in Arabesque. Her list of achievements is long – which makes her latest book, The Food of Spain
, a must add to your collection.
The book was five years in the making – painstaking research into Spanish food coupled with her writing work have resulted in a book that is both full of passion but also authenticity – occasionally a difficult coupling. She examines the regions and history of Spain and how these interweave with the culture and people of this incredible food nation.
She crosses from delicate soups and simple tapas dishes to cover complex showpieces for celebrations, cakes and desserts. The book is charmingly divided into chapters such as Almond cakes, fried onion and garlic: Jewish Legacies
to Of wrinkly potatoes and hot sauces: the Canary Islands
. The Food of Spain
is an educational, edible journey through the food of this influential, delicious country.
The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden, published by Michael Joseph, RRP £25
- Please note, all comments are those of readers and do not represent the opinion of Hellomagazine.com
- Hellomagazine.com reserves the right to remove comments it considers offensive or not relevant
- Please focus on the topic | <urn:uuid:3ca6e4ed-de36-4aa8-8a07-d7e5865504d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hellomagazine.com/cuisine/201202227289/claudia/roden/cookbook/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955229 | 310 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Twitter, Facebook and Western Civilization's Decline
This is a sequel of sorts to a column I wrote last week called " Social Stupidity: Am I too social (LinkedIn, so to speak) to be saved." In that piece, I focused on my own challenges in getting security right in the social networking world. This installment focuses more on how the platform providers themselves are making matters worse.
Facebook: True, Facebook users shoot themselves in the foot all the time by sharing too much information [See some examples in " 6 ways we gave up our privacy"].
But Facebook is making things worse by continually messing around with the privacy settings, making it increasingly impossible for users to tell who, exactly, has access to their information.
Foursquare: The platform is billed as a way for people to connect more effectively geographically and find the closest coffee shops, bars and the like. But the more we look at it, the more it comes off as nothing more than a tool for would-be kidnappers and stalkers.
My colleague Joan Goodchild gave a good example of the problem in her story " Pleaserobme.com highlights dangers of TMI on social networks" when she explained how the site "aggregates the Twitter feeds of people who play Foursquare, a location-sharing application that allows users to "check in" from their various geographic whereabouts as part of a game where they earn badges for reaching certain milestones. The problem is, according to pleaserobme, in playing the game, many users are also publicly broadcasting that their home is likely unattended and a good "opportunity" (as the site terms it) for thieves."
Twitter: We've already reported extensively on the threats facing users, including phishing attempts and other forms of social engineering. In an effort to be more like Foursquare, Twitter decided to add a function that lets users tell everyone exactly where they're tweeting from. Did I mention yet that I don't like that about Foursquare?
LinkedIn: This one is still best in terms of locking down the user's privacy. But very subtle and quiet design changes along the way are giving users increasing opportunities to get themselves into the kind of trouble they now get into via Facebook. That includes users falling for imposter profiles advertised as one person but controlled by a bad guy.
In fact, with every design tweak LinkedIn starts to look more and more like Facebook (the ability now exists to "like" someone's post, for example), which in turn has been trying to look more and more like Twitter.
In my view, trying to look more like the other guy means you are increasing your risk of making the same security mistakes as the other guy.
Read more about social networking in CSOonline's Social Networking section. | <urn:uuid:398d734a-291b-4937-b71e-074f713eddbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcworld.com/article/197892/twitter_facebook_and_western_civilizations_decline.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95815 | 573 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Click here for full size image...
Click here for
full size back side of card
I have this
postcard picture that everyone in our BEATTY family loves, but we have not
been able to identify the people as our BEATTY family or our MCDONALD
family. My maternal grandmother was Edith BEATTY (1889-1956), and my
maternal grandfather was Winfield MCDONALD (1888-1967).
This is the message on the back of the picture postcard:
"Earl - How does this look to you? This is Pa's rig. The big day. That is
Will in black, standing by the horse head and this picture is taken in front
of my house."
My questions about this picture have always been:
1. Is "Earl" actually Clarence Earl Beatty? Clarence was the 1st-born of the
12 children of John Clinton and Sarah Jane (HAGGERTY) BEATTY and was born 04
December 1880, Claybanks, Oceana, MI and was known by his middle name by
some people. He married 1st, Cecile (ADAMS) before 1909 and had a daughter
and a son. The daughter is still living in Battle Creek, Calhoun Co., MI at
age 94. Clarence married 2nd, Hazel Marian (COWLES) 06 April 1923, Grand
Rapids, Kent Co., MI, and there was a daughter and a son from this marriage,
also. Only the daughter is still living and in her early 70s. Clarence died
18 March 1963, Grand Rapids and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, as was his
second wife, Hazel, who was our family historian for over 30 years.
2. Is "Pa" actually John Clinton BEATTY, father of the 12? The parents of
John C. BEATTY were James Lewis BEATTY IV, born 20 November 1819 in Stark
Co., OH, m. 11 December 1840, Mercer, Mercer Col., OH to Ann/Anna Maria
(WILCOX). James L. BEATTY died 17 October 1888, South Bend, St. Joseph Co.,
IN in the County Poor House and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Walkerton,
St. Joseph Co., IN. Anna Maria was born 26 February 1824, Walkerton, St.
Joseph Co., IN and died 19 March 1874, Chesterton, Porter Co., IN.
3. Is "Will" actually Willard Beatty? Williard/Willard was the 6th-born of
the 12 children, and he was born 11 March 1893, Claybanks, Oceana Co., MI.
Although I do not think he was ever referred to as "Will," possibly some of
his siblings called him "Will.". Willard married 1st, 1915 Mae (NORTON), 2
children and Mae both died early in their marriage.
Willard married 2nd, before 1921, Hazel "May" (REEVES) and they had nine
children. There were many tragic events in this family. One set of twins and
another daughter died as infants, and the daughter of the 1st-born set of
twins died at age 25, just 8 hours after her mother and the mother of
Willard's nine children. There were five young children left motherless by
the daughter and five children under 25 left motherless by the mother.
Presently, there are two surviving children of Willard and "May," one almost
80 and one in his late 60s. There are many grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. Willard died 03 December 1970, Traverse City, Grand
Traverse Co., MI, 3-5 years after their youngest daughter Mary Jean (BEATTY)
MCLAUGHLIN disappeared, leaving five very young children, ages 8 years to 6
months. Mary Jean, the youngest of the nine, was born 13 June 1938, so she
could still be alive at age 65 and simply does not want to be found.
4. Is it Ernest Beatty's house in Battle Creek? Or could it be the house of
one of the other brothers? The person who wrote the postcard message lived
in this house.
When I found the postcard, recently again, I saw my own handwriting in
pencil written lightly upside down on the postcard--and I had written "Bill
McDonald?"--so that must have been my first impression back in 1989 when I
found the picture at my mom's house after her death.
I kept thinking that this postcard was sent to my grandmother, Edith
(Beatty) McDonald, but after finding it again, I was wrong. There is no
stamp and no address. There is a William McDonald on my grandfather's side,
but there is no Earl McDonald, as far as I know.
There are several Williams in the family of William Henry Beaty, brother of
John Clinton Beatty. That William was the only one who dropped one "T" in
his last name, and so did Willard, but, of course, there is no mention of
the Beaty/Beatty name on the postcard, anyway. Also, there is no Earl Beaty
in the family of William Henry Beaty, as far as I know.
5. Who is holding the reins? Is it the famous Clyde Beatty, as a grandson of Willard seems
to suggest? He thinks that the "B" word to the left of the surrey top in the Wedding Carriage
picture might be "Barnum," and that the surrey might have been loaned to the wedding party
by P.T. Barnum.
If any Beaty or Beatty family has ever seen this picture or has any
suggestions, please contact me. | <urn:uuid:f577725d-989f-4b1d-a8a6-080e2af4f45f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bp2000/Lois-039/lois.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98187 | 1,231 | 1.679688 | 2 |
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Pauline Kael: A Life in the Darkby Brian Kellow
Synopses & Reviews
Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year
The first biography of The New Yorker's influential, powerful, and controversial film critic.
A decade after her death, Pauline Kael remains the most important figure in film criticism today, in part due to her own inimitable style and power within the film community and in part due to the enormous influence she has exerted over an entire subsequent generation of film critics. During her tenure at the New Yorker from 1967 to 1991 she was a tastemaker, a career maker, and a career breaker. Her brash, vernacular writing style often made for an odd fit at the stately New Yorker.
Brian Kellow gives us a richly detailed look at one of the most astonishing bursts of creativity in film history and a rounded portrait of this remarkable (and often relentlessly driven) woman. Pauline Kael is a book that will be welcomed by the same audience that made Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution and Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls bestsellers, and by anyone who is curious about the power of criticism in the arts.
"Relentlessly outspoken, unafraid of challenging idols and embracing the lowbrow and the overlooked, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who died in 2001, proves a formidable, however natural, subject for Opera News columnist Kellow (Ethel Merman). He handles this difficult, unsympathetic personality with an admirable evenhandedness, considering that Kael cultivated as many detractors as admirers with her honest, gut-provoked reviewing. Born in 19TK to Polish Jewish immigrants who tried their luck running a chicken farm in Petaluma, Calif., before moving to San Francisco, Pauline was a crack student, deep reader, and eventual philosophy student at Berkeley, her early critical skills honed in the fledgling Berkeley Renaissance of the 1940s, with critics R.P. Blackmur and James Agee as early influences. From a stint as codirector of the Berkeley Cinema Guild with her then husband, Edward Landberg, Kael segued naturally into radio (KPFA) and freelance journalism, championing the New Wave and attacking the fashionable 'auteur theory.' Her first book, I Lost It at the Movies (1965), established her reputation as the 'saltiest' reviewer around, leading to her opening salvo at the New Yorker with an enthusiastic review of Bonnie and Clyde (1968). The old guard, like editor William Shawn, never warmed to her, but the young and iconoclastic loved her. In his fluent, immensely readable study, Kellow fairly represents Kael's tendency to hyperbole (writing of Barbra Streisand or Last Tango in Paris) as well as hurtful ad hominem (George Cukor's Rich and Famous; Shoah)." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
The first major biography of the most influential, powerful, and controversial film critic of the twentieth century
Pauline Kael was, in the words of Entertainment Weekly's movie reviewer Owen Gleiberman, "the Elvis or Beatles of film criticism." During her tenure at The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, she was the most widely read and, often enough, the most provocative critic in America. In this first full-length biography of the legend who changed the face of film criticism, acclaimed author Brian Kellow gives readers a richly detailed view of Kael's remarkable life—from her youth in rural California to her early struggles to establish her writing career to her peak years at The New Yorker.
About the Author
Brian Kellow is the features editor of Opera News, where his column, “On the Beat,” appears monthly. He is the author of The Bennetts: An Acting Family and the coauthor of Can’t Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell. A classically trained pianist, Kellow has also written for Opera and Playbill, among others. He lives in New York City.
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Arts and Entertainment » Film and Television » Critics | <urn:uuid:d722719c-ed1c-44aa-b77e-e520f94cae6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780670023127-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931472 | 942 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Teleworking on the rise
In the past, the term "working" meant traveling to the office and conducting businesses activities in a cubicle. This is no longer the case, largely due to the emergence of mobile and cloud computing technologies that support remote access to mission-critical resources at any time, anywhere.
A new study by Intelligent Office highlighted the teleworking trend, noting that more people are working outside the office every day. The survey polled more than 1,000 employees across the United States and Canada and found that 70 percent of respondents regularly alternate between working from home and going to the office, while another 29 percent said they like to do business in other locations, including libraries, cafes and hotels.
"This survey further identifies that today's workers are continuing to shift towards a more personal and custom work style," said Tom Camplese, COO of Intelligent Office. "We are continuing to find that to maintain productivity while increasing mobility, a new breed of worker is conducting business on the go and wants to be able to work more independently, from anywhere and at any time."
By implementing a cloud infrastructure, decision-makers can be sure their organization supports a mobile workforce. As a result, more companies are migrating to the cloud in an effort to remain competitive and appeal to next-generation employees. According to MarketsandMarkets, the global cloud computing market is forecast to expand at a compound annual growth rate of more than 26 percent between 2010 and 2015, largely driven by ongoing deployments in the private sector.
While neglecting the cloud is not necessarily disastrous, it may make it more difficult for executives to support teleworking habits, which are becoming increasingly demanded.
- Welcome to GoGrid!
- I'm a live Cloud Expert.
- What questions do you have today? | <urn:uuid:002dd97b-39c0-4e94-887c-a2db977f7e4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gogrid.com/news/2012/10/31/cloud-computing-teleworking-rise?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960018 | 362 | 1.578125 | 2 |
A digest of important news from sources selected by our local editors. Delivered weekday mornings.
Companies moving to or expanding in Tennessee have received at least half a billion dollars in state grants and state and local tax breaks since 2006, promising to create thousands of jobs.
By 2011, as the nation emerged from the recession, an overwhelming amount of those positions had been cut, representing a negative return on the state’s multimillion-dollar investment.
In short, the state has lost much of what it paid for.
Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam inked an expansion last month of the state’s FastTrack program, offering tens of millions of dollars more for a program aimed at generating jobs.
Haslam’s move marks a significant shift in Tennessee’s financial effort to lure companies by systematically pushing away from the multi-year tax credit deals frequently used under previous administrations in favor of one-time cash grants. Those secretive tax deals represent hundreds of millions of dollars more in forgone state revenue with no definitive measure of success.
The change is key because it could decrease the overall amount of incentives — meaning an even greater portion of the state’s economic development dollars would go to a grant program that has delivered fewer jobs than originally promised.
For businesses, the impact represents a tricky balance: Companies often want state money to help them move or grow, but they also want effective government programs that create jobs and boost the economy.
This edition explores the effectiveness of state and local incentive programs, each of which make up a piece of the half a billion dollars spent in recent years. While it’s difficult to quantify the full impact of such programs, the ability for state and local governments to attract and maintain jobs is critical to the future of Tennessee’s reputation as a good place to do business.
Annie Johnson covers health care and legal affairs. You can follow her on Twitter at @AnnieNBJ.
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of American City Business Journals. | <urn:uuid:bd5c08c7-69f7-4aa5-98e9-a2e26d4ba2ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/print-edition/2012/06/01/tennessees-millions-in-incentives.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933322 | 483 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Kids and Parenting
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Does your child ignore every consequence you give him? This week, James Lehman gives you 10 specific ways to make consequences work—even for the most resistant child. When kids are faced with something unpleasant, they'll often act like it doesn't matter to them.
Spring can be a magical time. A time to open up the windows and let the fresh breeze sweep through the house taking with it cobwebs and dust bunnies and the stale aroma of winter. A time to fluff our aprons and twirl our brooms and sing joyfully as our home suddenly begins to sparkle and come alive like flowers bursting forth into this new season. Okay, maybe not, but a girl can dream.
Home / Free Resources for Parents
NOTE: This post was originally part of my “ Thrifty Tips You Can Use “ series. It has been updated with more information and better quality photos. | <urn:uuid:3cd47d38-f8c1-4c37-97cc-2015aa46500d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pearltrees.com/aclevelandmk/kids-parenting/id2555365 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949401 | 199 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Taur Matan Ruak looks set to replace Jose Ramos-Horta as East Timor's president.
Provisional results on Tuesday from Monday's election gave the former armed forces chief 60 per cent of the votes counted, giving runoff election rival Francisco Guterres only a slim chance of winning the largely ceremonial post for his Fretilin Party.
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel laureate, came third in last month's first round of voting, leaving two contestants in a runoff that proved to be free from violence or claims of vote-rigging.
Both Guterres, a former parliament speaker, and Matan Ruak pledged to abide by the outcome of the balloting and have urged their supporters to do the same.
Matan Ruak, Ramos-Horta and Guterres were independence fighters alongside Xanana Gusmao, East Timor's first president and its current prime minister.
Gusmao, who switched from president to prime minister after the 2007 election, campaigned for Matan Ruak, who is notionally running as an independent.
A win for Matan Ruak would point to another likely loss for Fretilin in the July parliamentary election.
It would show Gusmao still able to win widespread support among the half-island's 620,000 voters for his ruling coalition.
Fretilin formed a government after the former Portuguese colony gained its independence from Indonesia in 2002 but lost power in 2006 amid civil strife that saw international troops return to restore order.
East Timor was a Portuguese colony for 400 years before Indonesia sent in troops in 1975. The 24-year occupation was ended by a UN-sponsored independence referendum in 1999.
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Other articles in Asia-Pacific
G8 ministers strongly condemn N Korea 11 April 2013
US 'prepared' to deal with North Korea action 11 April 2013
China ex-minister tied to bullet-train graft 10 April 2013
New leaks detected in Japan's Fukushima plant 10 April 2013
South Korea raises military alert status 10 April 2013
N Korea urges foreigners in South to evacuate 09 April 2013
Japan deploys missiles over N Korea threat 09 April 2013
N Koreans skip work at joint industrial zone 09 April 2013
N Korea to halt work at joint industrial zone 08 April 2013
WHO urges calm over China bird flu outbreak 08 April 2013 | <urn:uuid:c742e246-e37a-4674-9889-850f35f37ec7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mwcnews.net/news/asia-pacfic/18271-east-timor-president.html?fontstyle=f-smaller | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944311 | 491 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Spokesman for Indian PM Cites Work of Dr. Prakash
Professor Nishith Prakash, Economics and Human Rights, research on “The Returns to English Language Skills in India” was recently cited by Dr. Sanjaya Baru at The Business Standard on 15th August, 2011 (this day also happens to be the
Independence Day for India).
Dr. Sanjaya Baru is the Editor of a leading financial newspaper in India, The Business Standard. From May 2004 until August 2008 he was the Official Spokesman and Media Advisor to the Prime Minister of India. Prior to his official appointment, he was the Chief Editor of The Financial Express. He has also been the Associate Editor of The Economic Times and The Times of India. He is one of India’s most respected and influential commentators on political and economic issues.
Dr Sanjaya Baru has been a Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in New Delhi, and a Member of India's National Security Advisory Board in the Prime Minister's Office. He is the author of Strategic Consequences of India's Economic Performance, which was launched in the UK at the IISS in April 2007, and The Political Economy of Indian Sugar (1990). He has also published extensively on economic and strategic policy in India and abroad.
In this research work, Professor Prakash with his co-authors (Professor Chin at University of Houston and Dr. Azam at The World Bank) find that being fluent in English (compared to not speaking any English) increases hourly wages of men by 34%, which is as much as the return to completing secondary school and half as much as the return to completing a Bachelor's degree. Being able to speak a little English significantly increases male hourly wages 13%. They find considerable heterogeneity in returns to English. More experienced and more educated workers receive higher returns to English. The complementarity between English skills and education appears to have strengthened over time. Only the more educated among young workers earn a premium for English skill, whereas older workers across all education groups do. | <urn:uuid:48187a22-a65a-41ef-b174-f908b25e958e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://humanrights.uconn.edu/announcements.php?id=66 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969271 | 425 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Quick Five :
Location : From Machilipatnam district it is at a distance of around 10-km, Andhra Pradesh
Importance : Historic Port City
Manginapudi Beach, Andhra Pradesh, India :
Manginapudi Beach is situated around 110 kms away from Machilipatnam and is recognized as one of the best beaches in the district. This beach earns the significance given as having pleasing splendor and partially from being historic port city.
This place is a picnic spot as well as a health resort. The beach owns marvelous potential with a natural cove and moderately low and safe waters. There is a park that is beautifully laid with a fountain and well-lit surroundings further improve its status as a place for recreation.
For accommodations there are guesthouses and tourists lodges available at Machilipatnam. | <urn:uuid:9c9a8e1b-f91d-4afa-8b5e-7f803248dc60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.traveladda.com/south_india/andhra_pradesh/beaches/manginapudi_beach.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953892 | 175 | 1.578125 | 2 |
A personal memo sent out by EPA staff refers to the existence of secondary email accounts for top staffers, according to a new release of agency documents. These secret email accounts were allegedly only known to high-level senior staff, and their contents are not available to the public. Since the EPA is a government agency, its emails are supposed to be available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which filed for records of the secret email accounts, these were not just secondary accounts, but an entire false identity. Emails sent from the pseudonym “Richard Windsor” were actually sent by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. That begs the question of why the EPA would want to go to such levels of secrecy. Jackson resigned at the end of 2012, without any explanation, shortly after these emails surfaced.
According to CEI, “[t]he memo acknowledged that ‘[f]ew EPA staff members, usually only high-level senior staff, even know that these accounts exist,’ and that it is unable to recreate most of the accounts' usage histories.”
CEI Senior Fellow Chris Horner told the Business and Media Institute that “federal law requires that government officials maintain an adequate record of their activities. It should go without mention that creating a false-identity email account for certain correspondence with one's inner circle – inside as well as outside government, notwithstanding EPA's untrue but wholly irrelevant spin that the false-identity account was acceptable because it was just for internal purposes – fails that requirement.”
Horner wrote a recent book on this topic, entitled “The Liberal War on Transparency: Confessions of a Freedom of Information ‘Criminal’ .”
Lisa Jackson said while she was still the nominee for her current job that “as administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency.” Apparently Jackson changed her mind on “transparency” thing, and possibly even the “rule of law.”
A batch of emails released by the EPA on February 15 included a November 2009 internal email alert about a Wall Street Journal article being published on the “EPA’s transparency.” Kim Strassel, who wrote the WSJ article, also wrote another article on how CEI unearthed emails forbidding the release of a report by a senior analyst at the EPA which called into question the conclusiveness of climate change research.
Another top EPA official, Region 8 Administrator James Martin, also announced that he would resign on February 22, after Sen. David Vitter questioned him about the emails.
No major media outlets have reported on this developing story as of yet. The CEI lawsuit began in May 2012, according to an official statement by CEI. | <urn:uuid:e9e8bcfa-272a-4104-a4fc-1fc6e62313f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrc.org/print/articles/epa-hid-information-behind-false-identities | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96901 | 605 | 1.648438 | 2 |
So, I have a cube that acts as a button. I'm trying to figure out how to create a particle system at a particular location (or activate one, that would be easier) with a click of that cube. Here's my code so far, I don't know what to do to create/activate the particle system.
if(Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0)) //Make sure the object is clicked on
So, What do I do next?
Additional info: I've checked a lot of posts but i can't find anything. | <urn:uuid:2923d767-b7b0-4a9f-869a-b3e2da9fd229> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/300537/create-particle-system-on-click-of-another-object.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962218 | 114 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The word “passion” is an understatement – if that’s possible – for this Class of 1982 alumnus whose career reached a new high in recent years. Kelly led a team in the discovery of a drug that cures a rare amyloid disease, within a class of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s. The drug is so full of potential that, in 2010, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer acquired FoldRx, the company Kelly co-founded.
SUNY Fredonia and the Hillman Memorial Music Association honored retired music teacher Helen (Tinch) Williams, ’60, on Nov. 12, prior to the performance of “The Tales of Hoffmann.” This year’s Hillman Opera – a Fredonia tradition which began during Mrs. Williams’ freshman year in 1956 – featured more than 140 of the campus’ top performing arts students.
“The companies are recognizing what the campus has to offer,” said School of Business Dean Russell Boisjoly. “They are seeing that not only do our faculty members offer valuable knowledge and research avenues, but our students offer tremendous potential to them as interns and potential new hires.”
Research by Dr. Mahoney and colleagues has shown that children do better at learning English if their primary language is also used to teach other subjects. “For example, children who enter school speaking Spanish learn English and other subjects better if they are taught bilingually. This may seem counterintuitive, but there is a lot of empirical evidence to support it,” she said.
As a first generation Chinese American, Dr. Tan is interested in ethnic identity formation among immigrant children; international/intercultural education; and comparative education. Her primary research interest is equity in education, including the study of migrant children’s education and the education of young girls in China.
Through a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Chemistry Professor Erica Snow is gathering precise measurements that will help test the current theories and expand knowledge of the hydrogen molecule, one of the simplest systems and therefore an excellent test ground and springboard to larger and more complicated systems.
“This year we’ve worked very hard to incorporate students; there have been students and alumni at every single event featured as presenters,” said English Professor Natalie Gerber, who directs the series with Communication’s Dr. Laura Johnson and Visual Arts and New Media’s Dr. Michele Bernatz.
Holly Koester says she “practically lived in Dods Hall.” She played volleyball for the Blue Devils. She kept score for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. She competed on countless recreational sports teams. Even today – nearly 30 years after graduating from SUNY Fredonia – Ms. Koester hasn’t lost her passion for sports. What makes her so remarkable is that she lost something far more valuable: the use of her legs.
Come on out and cheer your alma mater!
Volleyball, cross country, soccer, tennis...
Saturday, Feb. 12, in the final regular-season game, all 30 players will show that real men – including rugged hockey players – do wear pink, especially to support a worthy cause. This novel breast cancer awareness promotion started in 2007 with a modest beginning and just a handful of flyers posted around campus – but no pink jerseys.
On Monday, Jan. 31, SUNY Fredonia will hold a Strategic Planning Conference, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Williams Center Multipurpose Room. Participants will engage in several small-group activities designed to gather ideas, and we'll be distributing toolkits for strategic planning discussions in departments, divisions, offices, and other groups.
That multi-faceted principle guided SUNY Fredonia’s Sustainability Committee in crafting a series of speakers, each set to convey a vital message throughout the spring semester, and arranging the event-filled Earth Week in April. It seemed only natural, then, that “Finding Balance” should be the theme of Fredonia’s fourth annual Earth Week.
After directing the Honors Program for more than two decades, Dr. Ted Steinberg is stepping down from that leadership role, acknowledging that he’s not able devote the time necessary to lead the thriving program and still remain fully engaged in his true passion of teaching.
When touring the new Campus and Community Children’s Center at SUNY Fredonia, one thing is immediately clear: this beautiful facility was designed with children’s needs at the forefront. From small square windows one foot off the ground overlooking colorful gardens to miniature toilets and sinks, there’s no question that kids come first around here.
On Oct. 23, during Family Weekend, over a thousand students, parents, benefactors, faculty and staff were in attendance to be recognized among the more than 800 students who in 2010 received more than $1 million in scholarship support.
U.S. Army Col. Philip Smith (ret.), ’85, whose military career spanned more than 20 years, was the keynote speaker for the Veterans Day observance held on campus in the Williams Center. The event provided a forum through which university and surrounding community members gathered to remember, honor, and show their gratitude to the men and women who have served the U.S. through the Armed Forces. During the observance, the second annual SUNY Fredonia Veterans Scholarship award was presented to student Daniel E. Morton, a former U.S. Marine who received a Purple Heart for injuries sustained from an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) while serving in Iraq. He hails from Ashville, N.Y., and is a senior Social Studies Adolescence Education major.
The notion of holding a job for life no longer exists. Organizations need to be flexible and nimble, employees are expected to change along with the organization and its operating environment, job security is ambiguous, and companies are no longer stable entities due to increasing mergers and acquisitions resulting from increased global competition.
Alumni and friends of the Educational Development Program will return to campus April 29 to May 1.
Professor Emeritus Robert Jordan returned to campus in September to perform a piano recital in Rosch Recital Hall in celebration of his 70th birthday. The event was attended by over 90 friends, former piano students, colleagues and family members. | <urn:uuid:3619abde-90cc-49d8-b8f5-076b7d2ae1a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alumni.fredonia.edu/Magazine/January2011.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957138 | 1,329 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Have you ever experienced this scenario before?
“I have successfully lost 15 of the 25 pounds that I want to lose, but now I am stuck at the same weight even though I am faithfully controlling my food intake and doing my exercises. What happened? Is the diet not working anymore?”
Yes, many women over 40 start off their weight loss programs full of excitement and determination, and indeed you do see the pounds dropping off over the first few weeks.
That’s great, of course.
However, the next thing you know is that your progress has come to a dead stop…
…and you have just hit the dreaded weight loss “plateau.”
But don’t despair — you are _not_ the only one experiencing this.
Hitting a plateau is a common experience for most women over 40 on a weight loss program.
And it can be one of the most de-motivating things to happen.
Thankfully, overcoming it is easy… IF you know the simple steps you can take.
Today, I’m going to show you some very simple and specific steps you can take to overcome your plateaus:
1. Be careful of the little things: It’s easy to lapse into complacency over time, so I suggest that you keep a food diary. Writing down what you eat each day can help you to spot those times when you might be taking in more food than you realize. A little snack here and there can (and will) add up to a lot of extra calories.
2. It may not be the food: Sometimes, it’s not the food per se that is the cause of the plateau. For example, work or family stress may be the culprit instead. Stress can cause you to want to go dig into that tub of chocolate ice cream. If you are feeling stressed, it’s important to acknowledge it right now, and go find some other forms of relief other than reaching out for more (typically unhealthy) food. Go take a walk, listen to music or play with your dog instead!
3. Start off on the right foot: You got to eat something for breakfast every day. Not only will you start the day with your stomach feeling satisfied, eating breakfast actually kick starts your metabolism so that you’ll burn more calories throughout the day.
4. Eat more often: Instead of eating 3 big regular meals each day, opt to have 5 smaller meals. After you eat, your body releases the hormone insulin, which causes your body to store fat. The larger the meal, the more insulin your body releases. But smaller, more frequent meals keep insulin levels lower and more stable. The less insulin you have in your blood, the more fat you burn, and the less you store.
5. Try water first: If you’re feeling “hungry,” try drinking a glass of water first before you go grab something to much on. Sometimes we confuse thirst for hunger, and end up eating more food unnecessarily. If the water doesn’t make that hunger pang go away, you can always grab something to eat later. And the bonus is that the water would have helped you to feel fuller, so you don’t have to eat as much!
6. Avoid snacks at night: After you’ve had your dinner, do not snack or eat supper. And never ever eat just before you go to bed. Take it from Oprah — she says that one of her secrets to her successful weight loss is that she does not eat anything after 7:30pm… not even a grape.
7. Try a weekly one-day “cleanse”: Choose 1 day in the week to cleanse your system by taking only vegetable juices. And please use fresh vegetable juices if you can, and avoid the canned stuff that are chock-full of sodium or added sugars!
Apply these 7 simple steps and you too will be able to overcome those plateaus easily.
Copyright 2005 Tracy Lee
About The Author
Tracy Lee is the owner of the “Weight Loss for Women Over 40″ site. Get the latest news, tips & tricks that can help women over 40 to lose weight safely and permanently, and your complimentary copy of our Special Report “9 Little-Known Insider Weight Loss Secrets To Help Women Over 40 Make Those Extra Pounds Disappear” instantly here: http://www.weight-loss-for-women-over-40.com/insidersecrets/ | <urn:uuid:2a7392a1-33e1-4e49-a6f7-66f3a6dcbacf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.natural-health-journals.com/43/weight-loss-plateaus-7-easy-steps-to-overcome-it | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94082 | 935 | 1.632813 | 2 |
30 October 2012
5 body language signals and what they mean
by Fran Creffield
Can you read the signs a date is giving you? Do you know what you are saying through your non-verbal communication? Knowing how to read body language is a great skill when it comes to dating.
The study of body language – or kinesics as it is technically known – has risen in popularity amongst management and business people because they recognise that being able to read more than a person is saying with words places them at a distinct advantage in the business world.
The same is true in personal relationships and mastering the art can give you a distinct advantage when it comes to dating not just because it will help you to read your date better but because understanding body language enables better self-awareness and self-control too.
Although men and women will display different body language signals to show they are attracted to someone there are some that are universal. Here are five simple signals you can learn to read which will give you a head start in this subtle art.
1. Eye to eye contact
We intuitively read people’s eyes and are continually interpreting someone’s glance to find out if they are listening, are angry with us, are friendly or avoiding interacting with us. When it comes to dating eye contact is particularly important because it is often the clearest indication if there is a physical attraction and connection.
The reading of body language is an inexact science but you can generally gauge that the date isn’t going too well if they continually drop eye contact and scan the room. Use your own eye contact to good effect. If you really want to let your date know you are interested Judi James, author of The Body Language Bible, says ‘the “flick” is one of the most high-impact signals you can send. Allow your eyes to flit down to their mouth and back up to meet their eyes; this suggests kissing and, combined with a smile, subtle head-tilt, softened eye expression and slowed blink rates all signal sexual approval.’ – use sparingly!
Those all important first impressions are hugely influenced by how someone is holding themselves. This is what you will notice before they even open their mouth. Judi James suggests ‘When approaching a stranger you want to impress, exude confidence in your stance, even if you’re on edge.’
Keep your head up and eyes off the floor, put your shoulders back and make sure your arms and legs are uncrossed as that will indicate openness. Face your date squarely while you are talking to them rather than turning to face the room. Once you are chatting, echoing or mirroring someone’s posture will encourage them to open up to you.
Noticing your own posture will make you more aware of other people’s and how much more at ease you feel with someone when their posture invites openness rather than being shut down and defensive
3. Smiling and facial expressions
There are six universal facial expressions which are recognized around the world – happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise and anger. Every human being uses their facial expressions to communicate their feelings so it is particularly important to understand more than just those 6 basic expressions if you want to be able to read your date better but also to ensure you are sending out the right signals yourself.
The mouth is the centre of most facial expressions and the expression that will encourage most openness from your date is obviously smiling – relax, smile and show you are enjoying yourself. A real smile is symmetrical and will produce creases around the eyes and mouth whereas a fake smile will generally be a mouth only gesture.
4. Head movements
When you are talking to someone and they are nodding along with what you are saying you naturally feel encouraged to continue and as though they are paying attention but this nodding could have an even deeper meaning according to Judi James – ‘Keep up eye contact when they’re speaking and use nods that are paced to their dialogue, a metronomic gesture to show that you are synchronised, which also suggests sexual compatibility.’
5. Hand gestures
Men and women make different hand gestures when they are flirting with each other. Women often touch their face or twirl their hair to indicate attraction while men may smooth their hair, touch their chest or have erect thumbs (a male sign of enjoyment). Both partners may engage in displacement gestures, small repetitive fiddles that signal a desire to speed things up and make contact.
Don’t let reading someone’s body language become more important than enjoying your date or think that if they are not displaying certain signals it means that they aren’t interested – it is an inexact science. The most important thing is to relax and enjoy noticing how you connect. | <urn:uuid:ba678628-d3f5-4f18-8a59-46613c41e917> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eharmony.co.uk/relationship-advice/dating/2012/10/5-body-language-signals-and-what-they-mean | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958993 | 983 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Student Debt: Our Top Financial Priority
- By Jessica M. Kerchner
The educational debt of our graduating students is a major concern of the Office of Medical Student Education. The average debt of our graduates is expected to top $180,000 for the class of 2012. The reasons for mounting student borrowing are many. The economic downturn has been the biggest factor; it has reduced the value of our endowed scholarship funds and reduced available capital for our donors, especially the Freeman Foundation, which ended support to our students in 2012.
Recognizing that UVM must be proactive on debt, we have developed a three pronged plan to attack this problem:
- Tuition Growth. The average medical school increased tuition by 6.3% in 2011. We recognize that mounting educational costs cannot continue to be borne by increases in student tuition. Thus since his arrival in 2007, Dean Morin has held tuition increases to at or below the cost of living. This has had a dramatic effect on our ranking among medical schools with respect to tuition costs. In 2007, we were the 22nd most expensive US medical school (measured as total cost of attendance) for non-residents and the 61st most expensive school for in-state residents. Currently, due to continued restraint on tuition increases, we have fallen to 58th among 130 schools for expense for out of state students and 101st for in-state students.
- Scholarship Aid: Dean Morin has made scholarships for students the #1 priority in the upcoming University fundraising campaign. In addition, the University has reorganized its fundraising efforts and created the UVM Foundation, which has College of Medicine needs high on its list of priorities. These professional fundraisers are hard at work looking for philanthropic contributions to help our students. We hope to raise at least $20 million in endowed funds to ensure that all worthy students can afford to come to UVM.
- Counseling and Student Financial Services: We are changing the way student financial services are organized in the College of Medicine. As the new full-time coordinator to Medical Student Financial Services, I now administer services and counseling right here in the Office of Medical Student Education. Thus any student will be able get personal advice or processing help 5 days a week right here in the office. In addition, as counselor, I will oversee all financial services for students and will provide financial counseling and help each student develop a proactive plan to minimize their overall debt.
Bringing educational cost is extremely important because it lowers entry barriers to medical school and enables graduating students to focus on their optimum career choice unburdened by repayment worries. In an era characterized by uncertainty over medical care financing, it will be important to be proactive to ensure that graduates can comfortably repay the investment they made in their education.
UVM COM Student Financial Services
Courtyard at Given, N-125
89 Beaumont Ave.
Burlington, VT 05405 | <urn:uuid:dd96bdf8-2d74-4a15-ba73-e226c2d81fc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uvm.edu/medicine/?Page=news&storyID=14165&category=comall | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967504 | 591 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Updated 18 May, 2013, 5:40 pm IST
IIT JEE: Test of Caliber
| by Priyanka Tilve
The IITs, which enjoy a cult status attract some of brightest minds from the whole of India. No wonder then that the competition is fierce, with the number of students appearing for the entrance exams increasing every year. This year, the exam that is being conducted by IIT Delhi will see over five lakh students appearing for the mere ten thousand seats available in the seven IITs spread across India. You don’t need to be a great analyst to work out the math for just how difficult getting into IIT can prove to be.
The sprawling tree-lined campuses of the IITs have nurtured many dreams and continue to lure the brightest minds.
Speaking about the increased competition, Professor Avinash Mahajan, Chairman, IIT-JEE Bombay zone, an IITB alumnus who graduated in 1986 says, “If I remember correctly, there were about 50,000 students appearing for the exam in 1982 for something like 1,200-1.300 seats. Now both have increased almost ten times. So, in some sense, the competition is still the same, but maybe there is a greater focus on the IITs now than before and so a larger fraction are preparing very hard for the entrance exam. In that sense, it may be more difficult now. Also, right now the reserved seats are 49.5 %, while earlier the fraction of reserved seats was 22.5 %. So the number of open category seats is smaller, making it all the more challenging.” So how does one prepare for these exams? Here’s the low-down.
First of, there is no formula for success other than hard work. If you are serious about cracking the exams, then you should began preparing as early as class nine. For one, it will help you to do well in school, and secondly, it provides you with ample time to familiarize yourself and study the concepts in-depth. Ramesh Batlish, Maths Expert from FIITJEE, says, “Ideally one should start preparing as early as standard nine, simply because the volume of preparations required is quite high. This will give them sufficient time to understand those concepts and apply them in the various kinds of problems which are generally asked in the JEE. Also, it covers concepts of Maths, Chemistry and Physics, which are even a part of the standard 11 and 12 CBSE board syllabi. And these are also covered to some extent in the standard 9 and 10 syllabus. So if you start preparing earlier then it will definitely give you an edge over others.”
Most of the students rely on coaching classes to prepare for these entrance exams and there is no dearth of such institutes. In fact, there are some towns that have emerged as coaching class hubs, specializing in training for entrance exams. Kota in Rajasthan is one such city that has garnered a reputation of producing toppers at the IIT entrance exams, year after year. The coaching institutes, themselves have a stringent admission process. A student will be offered a place based on his exam scores and getting into a reputed institute can be challenge in itself. If you are lucky enough to get through, you will have to follow a strict study regime and your performance in tests will be constantly monitored. You will have to manage this along with your regular studies. It goes without saying that this is definitely not an easy task.
Preparations for the exams
While there are many voices raised against these coaching classes totally governing the lives of students, the sad fact remains that without them the chances of clearing the entrance exams are slim. But this doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. If a student is exceptionally focused, motivated and can grasp the concepts really well, then he can easily do well without the help of any classes. But for the rest, coaching classes can provide the right direction, as they are more focused on syllabi based on the entrance exams. Speaking about the need of coaching classes, Ramesh says, “The best part of the coaching classes is that it brings together like-minded students, where they get ample opportunities to prepare for exams, manage their time, build confidence, identify their weak areas and work on them before the exam. Also, we teach students to solve a particular question using two to three methods. The student can then choose one he is most comfortable with when solving problems. Apart from this, their performance is also monitored long before the actual exams and they have the opportunity to improve by working on their weaker areas much before the actual exam.”
Prof Mahajan admits that the question of coaching classes is a tricky one. While he says that it’s not imperative to join a coaching class, he opines that joining one can definitely help. “There are lakhs of students in the coaching classes and they are doing a serious job. They are helping students learn the concepts in a way that is geared towards this sort of exam, as opposed to 12th standard which is not geared to these exams.”
18 May, 2013, 01:46 PM
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Irsan Suryadi Saputra
Sun May 19, 00:13:49 | <urn:uuid:61b49efa-f1bb-4d9a-a400-27d1f1a58722> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tech2.in.com/features/general/iit-jee-test-of-caliber/289502 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967149 | 1,196 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Check-altering criminal mastermind Frank Abagnale has five ways to lockdown your checking account and secure your identity. Check fraud isn’t an anachronistic threat like Communism. Determined thieves can easily use your checks to steal your cash and your identity. Here’s how to stop them…
Meet Charles Ray Fuller, 21, of Crowley, TX. He was arrested on April 22 after allegedly trying to pass a check for $360 billion at a Forth Worth Chase bank.
Commenter annelise13 writes:
My husband and I recently received a letter from Charles Schwab about our account. It refers to a check they sent us last year for the grand total of $.01. Yes, that’s one cent. A single penny. I never cashed the check, having found it funny that they wasted a stamp to send us such a tiny amount. I tacked it up on the fridge for a few months to amuse myself, and eventually tossed it.
Don’t say we never printed anything nice about you, BoA. One of your customers just had an experience with you that—despite still having an overdraft fee of $20 to pay—has left her feeling pretty good about you.
Nicholas wrote in with a scary problem: his paycheck, which he deposited at his local branch of PNC on Saturday, never showed up in his bank account. The teller seemed to have difficulty processing the deposit, but the slip he gave to Nicholas showed the check had been processed.
This morning, Mary logged onto her USAA bank account to check her balance and was surprised to find that her rent check had been cashed twice while she was asleep. She was eventually able to get through to a human and get the problem addressed, but it wasn’t easy. And she may not have been the only one affected.
Reader Aaron writes in to complain about a “scam” that he can’t believe is legal. Many of you know about this little marketing tactic, and we’ve written about it before, but some of you probably do not.
With high-quality printers are widely available at the consumer level, check counterfeiting is on the rise, usually in conjunction with “advance fee scams,” where someone is tricked into cashing an overpayment of some sort and then sending the remainder to another address, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Then by some machination or another, the overpayment turns out to be fraudulent and the scammer vanishes. The image above shows various security features to look for when evaluating a check’s verisimilitude.
Reader Larry writes in with a complaint about a commonly used “scam.” We call it a “scam” because we believe it’s misleading and designed to take advantage of people who do not read things carefully, but you judge for yourself. Here’s how it works:
How does Frank Abagnale, an infamous check forger in the 60′s, protect himself from modern day identity thieves?
We have more than a passing interest in customer service over here, so it always amuses us when a company loses a customer simply because they’re too stubborn to apologize for messing up.
Old-fashioned check fraud is coming back into style as banks tailor their anti-fraud efforts to safeguard internet commerce. Check fraud cost banks almost $1 billion in 2005. The LA Times took the time to test the effectiveness of one resurgent scheme, check washing:
In a test at The Times — following directions supplied by a local security expert — the writing in the “Pay to the Order,” “Dollars” and signature areas on a check was dissolved in less than 15 minutes. Printed information — including the bank routing numbers and the name and address of the account holder — remained intact.
Reader DudeAsInCool got an apology from Walgreens and a $20 coupon after submitting his complaint over the hassle he was put through when trying to pay with a check. Somehow the who/what/when/why/where/how of his purchase tripped Walgreen’s check verification service, Certegy, and he had to go through a ridiculous phone call in order to get his check cleared.
The woman at AT&T told me I received it because AT&T no longer provided telecom service to the Penn State campus – where I haven’t lived for 8 years (because I am 100). I’m not sure what went down so that they’re sending me almost three whole dollars, but it’s three dollars I didn’t have this morning, so… Aces.
Kate tells us she’s very excited to cash her check so she can buy “IN TOUCH and some gum.” She also notes that the check says “CON REFUNDS,” which we feel is heartwarmingly honest of AT&T —MEGHANN MARCO | <urn:uuid:59cbb5a5-a919-4c4a-8ba6-1220110817b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://consumerist.com/tag/checks/page/3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966967 | 1,043 | 1.617188 | 2 |
SECURE IT ALERT: Mac malware making headlines (this is not a repeat)
Homeland Secure IT Alert for Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Flashback was so last month. The new hotness is SabPub, which actually has been around for a while now, but only recently making its appearance in the headlines. Even though SabPub has been around for around two months, it was not discovered in the wild until a few days ago.
Not unlike Flashback, one source of entry to your beloved Mac for this trojan is through Java, in fact, the very same vulnerability as leveraged by Flashback. Another SabPub variant uses a well known and publicized vulnerability in Microsoft Office’s Word.
What should you do? Insure updates are in place for your operating system, and that Java is up to date, as well as any Adobe software/plugins like Flash Player, Reader, Acrobat, etc.
Also, purchase a reliable anti-virus software package immediately.
What if you are already infected? Find a reputable and reliable computer repair / service shop in your area and let them check it out. Some service centers like Homeland Secure IT offer a free evaluation of your machine. You can call us at 864.990.4748 for more information.Tags: anti-virus, evaluation, exploit, Flashback, Java, mac, malware, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, Repair, SabPub, Secure IT Alert, Service, Trojan, Updates, Virus, vulnerability | <urn:uuid:e9161f4d-7bd3-41ab-82d8-656e395ad24d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homelandsecureit.com/blog/2012/04/secure-alert-mac-malware-making-headlines-this-repeat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942386 | 307 | 1.570313 | 2 |
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Big Y Foods hosted a “Native Farmstand” tour last weekend, in which farmers' markets featuring fruits and vegetables grown in Massachusetts and Connecticut were set up outside the entrance of select stores.
Featured farmer John Burney of Meadowbrook Farm, East Longmeadow, Mass., brought sweet peppers, eggplants, squash and more to the event. The markets were held at six Big Y locations in Springfield, Longmeadow, Ludlow and Wilbraham, Mass.
“I would say the consumer is looking for local produce now,” said Burney, who started out selling strawberries to the retailer in the early '80s.
“Big Y truly is committed to buying local produce and has been very good to me as far as helping me expand my local business because of their commitment to buy locally,” he told SN.
In ads promoting the event, Big Y notes that purchasing locally raised foods not only boosts the local economy, it also helps the environment. Reducing “food miles,” or the distance food has to travel, also cuts down the amount of fuel used, and the associated pollution generated by transport.
“Having been grown locally, these fresh products are delivered daily to your neighborhood Big Y to ensure the finest quality and greatest taste,” Big Y states in promotional materials. “Buying locally means helping out globally, and that is important for everyone's future.” | <urn:uuid:71cfeba3-3112-4ba3-ad82-4788e7df0f23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supermarketnews.com/produce/big-y-hosts-new-farmers-markets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967092 | 304 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Athletic Training Education Program is a 128 credit hour program that leads to a Bachelor of Science Degree in Athletic Training. The ATEP is accredited by the CAATE, signifying it meets the standards required to prepare students for the Board of Certification, Inc. (BOC) Examination and a professional career as an Athletic Trainer.
The program has two main components, academic course work and clinical education. New students primarily engage in academic course work during the first year of enrollment (Pre-athletic Training Phase). Once students are admitted to the program (Professional Athletic Training Phase), academic course work and clinical education are completed simultaneously. Entrance into the Professional Athletic Training Phase is competitive.
The academic component includes 64 liberal arts credits, 51 athletic training didactic course credits and 13 clinical/field experience credits. The clinical education component requires 1000 hours (maximum of 1300 hours) of documented experience over approximately 3 years. Clinical rotations occur both on the Hofstra University campus and at off-campus locations, including other colleges, high schools, physical therapy clinics, medical offices or professional sport facilities. Through a variety of clinical educational experiences students will be able to best develop and apply acquired athletic training knowledge and skills. Exposure to various health care providers and patients enables students to understand and appreciate different approaches to health care and the needs of diverse physically active populations. Athletic training student learning objectives include the understanding of content knowledge in athletic training sub-disciplines and application of disciplinary content to prevention, management, and assessment of health care problems associated with physical activity. Students will demonstrate competent athletic training skills performance and application using evidence based practice and demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to all. | <urn:uuid:fba31b28-e5ea-46f1-bfa7-28a499b80448> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hofstra.edu/academics/Colleges/SOEAHS/HPK/athletictraining/athletictraining_programdescription.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949566 | 339 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Olympics boost traffic at Vancouver FBOs
The three FBOs located at Canada’s Vancouver International Airport each managed hundreds of operations during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The airport experienced its “busiest day in history” when general aviation travelers departed after the February 28 closing ceremonies, according to Scott Harrold, general manager of Landmark Aviation’s Vancouver FBO. “It was quite an experience,” he said. “It will always live with me and our team.”
Harrold and his colleagues spent two years preparing for the influx of traffic and at one point had reservations for 600 movements. During the final days of the event, Landmark handled nearly 150 departing aircraft.
Harrold serves on the board of directors of the Canadian Business Aviation Association and he served on the aviation security committee during the Winter Olympics. Although he doesn’t believe that business aviation presents a high security risk, it was necessary to implement strict security procedures, which included gateway airports and rigorous departure passenger screening at the Vancouver FBOs. Working with the Canadian Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit helped authorities learn more about how business aviation works, he said. “I think it opened up their knowledge to business aviation.”
Landmark brought in extra employees from other company FBOs in Canada to help manage the high volume of traffic, and the FBO put both of its Vancouver facilities into play. Normally business aviation customers use Landmark’s main (west) facility, and VIP customers can use the east facility if they need privacy. During the Winter Olympics, the west FBO handled arriving flights and the east facility handled all departures, which made security much simpler and prevented unscreened people from mingling with screened travelers.
During the final departure push on March 1, Harrold said, “people were patient. Everybody was in a good mood, the games were fantastic and it was a nice Vancouver day weatherwise. Everything went off fairly smoothly.”
Million Air chief branding
and business development officer Sandy Nelson spent 10 days at
the Million Air Vancouver FBO, helping shepherd nearly 300 arriving and departing aircraft, including Olympic athletes and more than one torch. “Everything went smoothly,” she said. The FBO brought in 40 employees from other Million Air FBOs to staff two weeks of 24-hour shifts. “Once it started clicking and all the plans worked,” she said. “There were no hiccups and it got to the point where it was synchronicity; it was beautiful.”
Nelson and Million Air’s event-planning experts spent months preparing for the Winter Olympics. “We were putting in late nights preparing,” she said. “We were already exhausted when we got there.” Unlike the Super Bowl in the U.S., which is just one event on one day, the Winter Olympics, she said, “is long and it’s about sustaining, staffing and stamina.”
To handle the security needs of departing passengers, Million Air modified a hangar as a VIP lounge, with curtains covering the walls and a temporary ceiling. The lounge was stocked constantly with fresh sandwiches and fruit, Starbucks coffee and Coca-Cola as well as five big-screen TVs and a Wii system loaded with Olympics games in the “Kids Zone.” Million Air employees drove into Vancouver to pick up catering from a variety of restaurants for customers who hailed from many different countries.
Nelson echoed Harrold’s sentiments about the effect of the influx of business aviation traffic on security officials. She found that security personnel “were reasonable in recognizing the difference between general aviation and commercial operations. They were commonsense about it and they became part of the family. It gave them an insight into what general aviation is all about.”
To manage logistics on the busy ramp, a Million Air ramp boss kept a constant tab on every aircraft, its passengers and crew, catering and supplies and any other details. The ramp bosses worked in shifts to provide 24-hour coverage.
Million Air’s Vancouver maintenance operation, Penta Aviation, helped fix any problems that came up on customer aircraft. Hawker Beechcraft also placed a team of technicians at the FBO during the Winter Games.
After the last airplane departed on March 1, the Million Air team shared a bottle of champagne then celebrated at the Flying Beaver bar, a local airport hangout.
Avitat Vancouver handled more than 300 movements during the Winter Olympics, according to sales and marketing specialist Farah Faruqi. “It was fast-paced and intense,” she said. “It’s something we’ll have memories of for a long time.”
Avitat also converted a hangar into a VIP lounge and security screening area and provided refreshments and big-screen TVs for passengers using the lounge.
Most of the traffic at the Avitat FBO flew in Boeing 737s, Bombardier Globals and large-cabin Gulfstreams, according to Faruqi. The FBO brought in personnel from other Canadian Avitat bases and hired 50 more people from the Vancouver area to help with baggage handling, concierge services and meeting arriving and departing passengers.
After the hectic rush, Avitat held a team appreciation event. “Once that’s over,” Faruqi said, “everybody’s going to be taking holidays as well.”
Some travelers who didn’t want to land at a gateway airport before flying to Vancouver landed instead at Bellingham International Airport, the nearest U.S. airport and only 50 miles from Vancouver. Bellingham Aviation Services had plenty of ramp space and helped make local transportation arrangements for arriving passengers. | <urn:uuid:556aa04f-85ee-423c-9cd9-fef7cf5a1472> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2010-03-30/olympics-boost-traffic-vancouver-fbos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962468 | 1,205 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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Topics Packaging, Sustainability, Materials, Injection Molding, Blow Molding, Recycling, Suppliers
VALENCIA, CALIF. (July 20, 1:25 p.m. ET) — Canyon Plastics will use a $1.2 million loan from CalRecycle to help it relocate to a larger plant in Valencia, Calif., and finance equipment purchases, according to Kirit Gijera, Canyon’s president and CEO.
Under the loan’s terms, the custom injection and blow molder has agreed to divert 582 tons of plastics annually from California landfills, in addition to the 506 tons it already diverts, according to the CalRecycle application. It also has committed to creating 36-42 more jobs, most of them within the first year. Currently, Canyon employs 86.
CalRecycle — the state of California’s Resources, Recycling and Recovery Department — announced that it had approved the 15-year recycling-market development-zone loan at a July 19 meeting in Sacramento.
Commercial real estate brokerage NAI Capital of Santa Clarita, Calif., said Canyon purchased a 110,950-square-foot industrial building on 5.3 acres in December 2010, in a transaction valued at $7.75 million. The new site is just over a mile from Canyon’s longtime operation in Valencia, comprising a 30,000-square-feet building, which the firm owns, and leased warehouse space totaling 75,000 square feet. All of the facilities are in an unincorporated portion of Valencia in Los Angeles County.
CalRecycle expects to fund the loan by the end of July.
Canyon has relocated its warehousing and has begun moving equipment to the new plant, with plans to start production in September. The company said it may retain ownership of its former plant.
Canyon operates eight injection molding machines of 55-400 tons and 14 blow molding machines with the largest shot size capacity being 5 pounds. No decisions have been made yet regarding equipment purchases.
Gijera declined to disclose sales figures.
Canyon provides concept-to-completion services ranging from design, prototyping, mold making and production through distribution for the nutritional, nutraceutical, aerospace, medical and agricultural industries. Its auxiliary services include hot stamping, sonic welding, screen printing, pad printing, assembly and customized packaging.
Among its operations, the company can capture a job’s remaining hot-runner resin and use it for the same customer to meet a specific demand for post-consumer recycled content in a product, Gijera said. “We use our own material for our own customers,” he said.
The company uses virgin resin to mold critical-care parts.
A 1989 state law established the recycle-market development-zone program through which CalRecycle loans funds to eligible businesses and non-profits in designated zones. CalRecycle, received Canyon’s application last August. In the request, Canyon said it would use the loan to finance equipment purchases and capital improvements, facilitate its relocation and provide working capital.
Gijera’s Unistar Enterprises Inc. acquired Canyon Plastics in November 1998. | <urn:uuid:a1378605-dffd-4f56-90ef-2fa832eeae1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20120720/NEWS/307209973?channel=210 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943829 | 669 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Also, my heart goes out to all the families, students, and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School. My friend's husband's fraternity brother lost his little girl that day. I can't even imagine the pain they are all going through. I cry for them everyday and wish there was something that I could do to help with their pain.
Now in order to make up for all the missed days, I will be having several freebies a day. Here is one to start today. It is called "123 Cocoa Counting". Your students need to identify the missing numbers on the cocoa cups with marshmallows. It also includes 2 worksheets and is common core aligned.
Please leave a comment and Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:a1b9a907-5aac-4aec-8def-e1b61bad923b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theteachersbackpack.blogspot.com/2012/12/123-cocoa-counting-freebie-mia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985126 | 146 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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