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Today, in a good NYT article, John Schwartz explores the problem of whole body imaging and privacy after the Detroit bombing. What I find interesting is the effort of privacy groups to run for cover now that the cost of their campaigns is clear. Schwartz interviews the head of a particularly aggressive privacy group, Marc Rotenberg of EPIC, asking him about his group's position on whole-body imaging:
Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said his group had not objected to the use of the devices, as long as they were designed not to store and record images.
That sounded very moderate, very nuanced.
What it didn't sound was, well, true. I didn't remember that perfectly reasonable position coming out of Rotenberg's mouth before the Detroit bombing. So I went back to the record.
In May, EPIC signed a letter demanding that use of the machines be suspended until a Privacy Impact Assessment was complete. That sounded pretty reasonable, too. Technically, EPIC's letter just asked for an assessment of the technology. But the history of environmental assessments shows that they are often just the first step in a campaign to stop new technology cold. And the name of EPIC's campaign was, after all, "Stop Whole Body Imaging."
So, was the May letter a stalling tactic or an honest request for a careful privacy impact study? If you couldn't tell in May, you surely could by October. Because by then, giving EPIC and its allies the benefit of the doubt, DHS's Chief Privacy Officer had actually completed the Privacy Impact Assessment that they had asked for. It came to the conclusion that Rotenberg now says he supports, finding that whole body imaging
"has the potential to improve threat detection capabilities for both metallic and non-metallic threat objects, while improving the passenger experience for those passengers for whom a physical pat-down is uncomfortable. The operating protocols of remote viewing and no image retention are strong privacy protections that permit security benefits to be achieved.
If all that EPIC wanted was a fair assessment plus safeguards against data storage, that should have been enough.
Not on your life. It turns out that EPIC didn't want an assessment, or an assurance about storing images. What EPIC wanted was an assessment that banned use of the machines for primary inspection. Here's what EPIC and its allies told Congress in October about the Privacy Officer's assessment:
"[I]f the Chief Privacy Officer were satisfying her statutory duty to assure that new technologies do not erode the privacy protections of American citizens, the new policy would not have been implemented in the first place. Due to its extremely invasive nature, the whole body imaging technology is almost by definition a new technology that erodes the privacy protections of American citizens. Implementing such technology for every traveler that passes through an airport security checkpoint regardless of suspicion is exactly the type of action that the Chief Privacy Officer should be preventing in satisfaction of her statutory obligations.
What EPIC is saying here is quite remarkable. It's claiming that DHS's Chief Privacy Officer had a statutory duty to prohibit deployment of the machines. The assessment, in other words, could only come out EPIC's way. Any other outcome is a violation of law.
And EPIC's preferred outcome isn't exactly nuanced. If the law were followed, EPIC said, "the new policy would not have been implemented in the first place" because that "is exactly the type of action that the Chief Privacy Officer should be preventing in satisfaction of her statutory obligations."
As far as I can see, everything EPIC did and said up until Christmas Day 2009 was perfectly consistent with the name of its campaign. It wanted to "stop" whole body imaging, not reform it or guarantee that images weren't stored.
Not so much.
Now, I guess the question is: Whose image is EPIC protecting -- yours or its own? | <urn:uuid:222e7836-e300-439c-a78f-e71a95cc24c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skatingonstilts.com/skating-on-stilts/2009/12/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969043 | 794 | 1.664063 | 2 |
A ROMANCE OF THE SHALLOWS
'Allas!' quod she, 'that ever this sholde happe!
—The Frankeleyn's Tale.
FREDERIC COURTLAND PENFIELD
LAST AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA TO THE LATE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE, THIS
OLD-TIME TALE IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED IN
MEMORY OF THE RESCUE OF CERTAIN DISTRESSED
TRAVELLERS EFFECTED BY HIM IN THE
WORLD'S GREAT STORM OF THE YEAR
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Of the three long novels of mine which suffered an interruption, "The Rescue" was the one that had to wait the longest for the good pleasure of the Fates. I am betraying no secret when I state here that it had to wait precisely for twenty years. I laid it aside at the end of the summer of 1898 and it was about the end of the summer of 1918 that I took it up again with the firm determination to see the end of it and helped by the sudden feeling that I might be equal to the task.
This does not mean that I turned to it with elation. I was well aware and perhaps even too much aware of the dangers of such an adventure. The amazingly sympathetic kindness which men of various temperaments, diverse views and different literary tastes have been for years displaying towards my work has done much for me, has done all--except giving me that over-weening self-confidence which may assist an adventurer sometimes but in the long run ends by leading him to the gallows.
As the characteristic I want most to impress upon these short Author's Notes prepared for my first Collected Edition is that of absolute frankness, I hasten to declare that I founded my hopes not on my supposed merits but on the continued goodwill of my readers. I may say at once that my hopes have been justified out of all proportion to my deserts. I met with the most considerate, most delicately expressed criticism free from all antagonism and in its conclusions showing an insight which in itself could not fail to move me deeply, but was associated also with enough commendation to make me feel rich beyond the dreams of avarice--I mean an artist's avarice which seeks its treasure in the hearts of men and women.
No! Whatever the preliminary anxieties might have been this adventure was not to end in sorrow. Once more Fortune favoured audacity; and yet I have never forgotten the jocular translation of Audaces fortuna juvat offered to me by my tutor when I was a small boy: "The Audacious get bitten." However he took care to mention that there were various kinds of audacity. Oh, there are, there are! . . . There is, for instance, the kind of audacity almost indistinguishable from impudence. . . . I must believe that in this case I have not been impudent for I am not conscious of having been bitten.
The truth is that when "The Rescue" was laid aside it was not laid aside in despair. Several reasons contributed to this abandonment and, no doubt, the first of them was the growing sense of general difficulty in the handling of the subject. The contents and the course of the story I had clearly in my mind. But as to the way of presenting the facts, and perhaps in a certain measure as to the nature of the facts themselves, I had many doubts. I mean the telling, representative facts, helpful to carry on the idea, and, at the same time, of such a nature as not to demand an elaborate creation of the atmosphere to the detriment of the action. I did not see how I could avoid becoming wearisome in the presentation of detail and in the pursuit of clearness. I saw the action plainly enough. What I had lost for the moment was the sense of the proper formula of expression, the only formula that would suit. This, of course, weakened my confidence in the intrinsic worth and in the possible interest of the story--that is in my invention. But I suspect that all the trouble was, in reality, the doubt of my prose, the doubt of its adequacy, of its power to master both the colours and the shades.
It is difficult to describe, exactly as I remember it, the complex state of my feelings; but those of my readers who take an interest in artistic perplexities will understand me best when I point out that I dropped "The Rescue" not to give myself up to idleness, regrets, or dreaming, but to begin "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'" and to go on with it without hesitation and without a pause. A comparison of any page of "The Rescue" with any page of "The Nigger" will furnish an ocular demonstration of the nature and the inward meaning of this first crisis of my writing life. For it was a crisis undoubtedly. The laying aside of a work so far advanced was a very awful decision to take. It was wrung from me by a sudden conviction that there only was the road of salvation, the clear way out for an uneasy conscience. The finishing of "The Nigger" brought to my troubled mind the comforting sense of an accomplished task, and the first consciousness of a certain sort of mastery which could accomplish something with the aid of propitious stars. Why I did not return to "The Rescue" at once then, was not for the reason that I had grown afraid of it. Being able now to assume a firm attitude I said to myself deliberately: "That thing can wait." At the same time I was just as certain in my mind that "Youth," a story which I had then, so to speak, on the tip of my pen, could not wait. Neither could "Heart of Darkness" be put off; for the practical reason that Mr. Wm. Blackwood having requested me to write something for the No. M of his magazine I had to stir up at once the subject of that tale which had been long lying quiescent in my mind, because, obviously, the venerable Maga at her patriarchal age of 1000 numbers could not be kept waiting. Then "Lord Jim," with about seventeen pages already written at odd times, put in his claim which was irresistible. Thus every stroke of the pen was taking me further away from the abandoned "Rescue," not without some compunction on my part but with a gradually diminishing resistance; till at last I let myself go as if recognising a superior influence against which it was useless to contend.
The years passed and the pages grew in number, and the long reveries of which they were the outcome stretched wide between me and the deserted "Rescue" like the smooth hazy spaces of a dreamy sea. Yet I never actually lost sight of that dark speck in the misty distance. It had grown very small but it asserted itself with the appeal of old associations. It seemed to me that it would be a base thing for me to slip out of the world leaving it out there all alone, waiting for its fate--that would never come?
Sentiment, pure sentiment as you see, prompted me in the last instance to face the pains and hazards of that return. As I moved slowly towards the abandoned body of the tale it loomed up big amongst the glittering shallows of the coast, lonely but not forbidding. There was nothing about it of a grim derelict. It had an air of expectant life. One after another I made out the familiar faces watching my approach with faint smiles of amused recognition. They had known well enough that I was bound to come back to them. But their eyes met mine seriously as was only to be expected since I, myself, felt very serious as I stood amongst them again after years of absence. At once, without wasting words, we went to work together on our renewed life; and every moment I felt more strongly that They Who had Waited bore no grudge to the man who however widely he may have wandered at times had played truant only once in his life.
1920. J. C.
|This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.
The author died in 1924, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. | <urn:uuid:4d421b88-569f-433d-82cb-bf887780735a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rescue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979774 | 1,772 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Gainesville residents shared their concerns during a meeting Wednesday regarding the cleanup of the Cabot-Koppers site.
The 49-acre area, located off Northwest 23rd Avenue, has a history of wood treatment and pine tar and oil production. Some of the byproducts from that industrial process breached containment and contaminated the ground and aquifer underneath.
The meeting was organized by the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency so they could gather feedback from the public on the consent decree, which is a legal agreement binding property owner Beazer East Inc. to the cleanup of the area.
Michael Cadigan reported for WUFT-TV.
Scott Miller, the EPA’s remedial project manager, said it was important to hear feedback from the community.
“It is not a common event during the consent decree process to hold a public meeting like this, but we thought it was important because there’s a lot of community involvement here — concern — throughout the process all along,” he said.
Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe hopes the EPA will consider the comments from Wednesday’s meeting for the cleanup.
Some residents wanted cleanup to include the interior of homes. That won’t be part of the decree, however.
“This consent decree does not have all of the remediation that we sought, but at least it is a step forward for the remediation of the site and the most solid development that we’ve seen on this issue since it’s been a problem for Gainesville,” he said.
Miller said the cleanup will cost about $55 million.
“That includes from here going forward,” he said. “That doesn’t include what’s been done today from 1998 to present.”
Miller also added the consent decree ensures Beazer East — not taxpayers — will be responsible for funding the cleanup in its entirety.
If the consent decree is passed, cleanup could begin in late 2013 or early 2014 and could take five years to complete, Miller said.
Samantha Dean wrote this story online. | <urn:uuid:8b324c8e-5403-48c8-a9b0-8b13c09a1b44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wuft.org/news/2013/02/28/gainesville-residents-adress-concerns-of-cabot-koppers-cleanup/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962646 | 434 | 1.5625 | 2 |
In this month's editorial, the PLOS Medicine Editors comment on the World Health Organization's (WHO) latest World Health Report, originally planned for publication in 2012, and the outcomes of the journal's collaboration with WHO on the intended theme of "no health without research." As part of that collaboration, the journal editors and WHO previously called for submission of papers to a joint collection on that theme, inviting "the submission of articles, especially from low- and middle-income countries, on topics related to the strengthening of key functions and components of national health research systems", intended to accompany the official publication of the Report. The Call for Papers has resulted in a Collection of papers highlighting these topics at http://www.ploscollections.org/whr2012.
However, the PLOS Medicine Editors now report on delays and changes in scope of the Report, saying that "in light of the interest in the Collection, it is disappointing to learn that the 2012 World Health Report will now not exist, at least as originally envisaged… the report has been delayed until 2013." The editors note that "the report's focus will now be oriented towards 'the contributions of research to universal health coverage' but that its scope, and linkages to previous reports in related areas such as the previous report on Health Systems Financing are still unclear."
Funding: The authors are each paid a salary by the Public Library of Science, and they wrote this editorial during their salaried time.
Competing Interests: The authors' individual competing interests are at http://www.plosmedicine.org/static/editorsInterests.action. PLOS is funded partly through manuscript publication charges, but the PLOS Medicine Editors are paid a fixed salary (their salary is not linked to the number of papers published in the journal).
Citation: The PLOS Medicine Editors (2012) The World Health Report 2012 That Wasn't. PLoS Med 9(9): e1001317. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001317
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER (THIS LINK WILL BECOME LIVE WHEN THE EMBARGO LIFTS):
The PLOS Medicine Editors
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system. | <urn:uuid:0b85283f-3c07-40ce-ad46-2a5e86804298> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/plos-pme091912.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907599 | 511 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Posted by: Lucie6 - 9/9/2010
Position: Secretary of State
Country: United States
Affiliation: Democrat/Left Wing
Hillary Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a United Methodist family, first in Chicago and then, from the age of three, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was the son of Welsh and English immigrants; he managed a successful small business in the textile industry. Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell, was a homemaker of English, Scottish, French, French Canadian, and Welsh descent. She has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
She is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham attracted national attention in 1969 for her remarks as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College. She embarked on a career in law after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. Following a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Bill Clinton in 1975. Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977 and became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. Named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, she was twice listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 with husband Bill as Governor, she successfully led a task force to reform Arkansas's education system. On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to a daughter, Chelsea, her only child. She sat on the board of directors of Wal-Mart and several other corporations.
In 1994 as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Her years as First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public. The only First Lady to have been subpoenaed, she testified before a federal grand jury in 1996 due to the Whitewater controversy, but was never charged with wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during her husband's administration. The state of her marriage was the subject of considerable speculation following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998.
After moving to the state of New York, Clinton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2000. That election marked the first time an American First Lady had run for public office; Clinton was also the first female senator to represent the state. In the Senate, she initially supported the Bush administration on some foreign policy issues, including a vote for the Iraq War Resolution. She subsequently opposed the administration on its conduct of the war in Iraq and on most domestic issues. Senator Clinton was reelected by a wide margin in 2006. In the 2008 presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost to Senator Barack Obama. As Secretary of State, Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president's cabinet.
- Health care reform
- As Secretary of State, Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president's cabinet
Clinton served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services (1988–1992) and the Children's Defense Fund (as chair, 1986–1992).
Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board | <urn:uuid:854f9e55-4ddd-4c2d-8598-98d555ff3621> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ipolitics360.com/Celebrities/HillaryRodhamClinton-5.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973525 | 786 | 1.757813 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- In the quiet of a Capitol elevator, one of Edward M. Kennedy's fellow lawmakers asked whether he had plans for a family Thanksgiving away from the nation's capital. No, the Massachusetts senator said with a shake of his head, and mentioned something about visiting his brothers' gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.
In his half-century in the public glare, Kennedy was, above all, heir to a legacy -- as well as a hero to liberals, a foil to conservatives, a legislator with few peers.
Alone of the Kennedy men of his generation, he lived to comb gray hair, as the Irish poet had it. It was a blessing and a curse, as he surely knew, and assured that his defeats and human foibles as well as many triumphs played out in public at greater length than his brothers ever experienced.
He was the only Kennedy brother to run for the White House and lose. His brother John was president when he was assassinated in 1963 a few days before Thanksgiving; Robert fell to a gunman in mid-campaign five years later. An older brother, Joseph Jr., was killed piloting a plane in World War II.
Runner-up in a two-man race for the Democratic nomination in 1980, this Kennedy closed out his failed candidacy with a speech that brought tears to the eyes of many in a packed Madison Square Garden.
"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," he said. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."
He was 48, older than any of his brothers at the time of their deaths. He lived nearly three more decades, before succumbing to a brain tumor late Tuesday at age 77.
That convention speech was a political summons, for sure. But to what?
Kennedy made plans to run for president again in 1984 before deciding against it. By 1988, his moment had passed and he knew it.
He turned his public energies toward his congressional career, now judged one of the most accomplished in the history of the Senate.
"I'm a Senate man and a leader of the institution," he said more than a year ago in an Associated Press interview. He left his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to pass Congress over a span of decades. Health care, immigration, civil rights, education and more.
Republicans and Democrats alike lamented his absence as they struggled inconclusively in recent months with President Barack Obama's health care legislation.
He was in the front ranks of Democrats in 1987 who torpedoed one of President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominees. "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution," he said at the time.
It was a single sentence that catalogued many of the issues he -- and Democrats -- devoted their careers to over the second half of the 20th century.
A postscript: More than a decade later, President Clinton nominated a former Kennedy aide, Stephen Breyer, to the high court. He was confirmed easily.
There were humiliations along the way, drinking and womanizing, coupled with the triumphs that the Kennedy image-makers were always polishing. After the 1980 presidential campaign, Camelot took another hit when he divorced. He later remarried, happily.
In later years came grumbling from fellow Democrats that his political touch had failed him, and that he was too eager to strike a deal with President George W. Bush on education and Medicare.
"I believe a president can make a difference," he said over and over in that campaign of 1980, at a time the country was suffering from crushing combination of high interest rates, inflation and unemployment.
But it wasn't necessary to be a president to make a difference, or to try.
He once startled a Republican senator's aide, tracking her down by phone in Poland, part of an attempt to complete a bipartisan compromise.
For years, he left the Capitol once a week to read to a student at a nearby public school as part of a literacy program.
When a longtime Senate reporter fell terminally ill, Kennedy dispatched one of his watercolors to her room in a nursing home, and cheered her with chatty phone calls.
Kennedy took up painting in earnest after a plane crash that broke his back in the mid-1960s and led to a lengthy convalescence. Much of his work hangs in his Senate office, several seascapes or images of sailboats of the type he piloted in the waters off Cape Cod.
The walls of other rooms are filled with political and personal memorabilia, family photographs or letters or some combination of the two that hint at the passage of time and power.
In one room hangs a photo showing Kennedy and his siblings and parents in a family portrait taken in the 1930s, at a time their father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was U.S. ambassador to England.
In another hangs a plaque from the USS John F. Kennedy, the Navy vessel commissioned in 1968 and named for the slain president.
In another, the letter he wrote his mother, Rose, teasingly accusing her of having covered up a deficiency in math. No, she wrote back firmly in pencil, she always got an A.
"To Dad. Thank you for helping me get ahold of that first rung," wrote his son, Patrick, after winning a seat in the Rhode Island Legislature in 1990. The parent had dispatched aides to Providence to help assure victory for the child, now an eighth-term member of Congress.
There were other, far more public ways that Kennedy became the family standard bearer.
Robert Kennedy had spoken of the assassinated president at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Four years later, he, too, was dead, and this time the last surviving brother delivered the eulogy.
"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life," his voice trembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. "He should be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."
A generation later, John Kennedy Jr., who had been a toddler when his father was in the White House, died in a small plane crash off Martha's Vineyard. This eulogy invoked the words of William Butler Yeats, the poet: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair. But like his father, he had every gift but the gift of years."
"Thank you my friend for your many courtesies. If the world only knew," reads a letter hanging on one wall of the office. It came from Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, once the Senate's top Republican.
As the most prominent liberal of his day, Kennedy was long an easy and popular target for Republicans. The automobile accident that resulted in the death of a young Pennsylvania woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, drew snickers both before and after it shadowed his presidential campaign in 1980. Kennedy was driving the car in the accident at Chappaquiddick.
It is a cliche, yet true, that if his name was invaluable in Democratic fundraising, conservatives long ago discovered they could generate cash simply by telling donors they were doing battle with Kennedy.
Kennedy understood that, and knew how to turn it to his own advantage.
When a Moral Majority fundraising appeal somehow arrived at his office one day in the early 1980s, word leaked to the public, and the conservative group issued an invitation for him to come to Liberty Baptist College if he was ever in the neighborhood.
Pleased to accept, was the word from Kennedy.
"So I told Jerry (Falwell) and he almost turned white as a sheet," said Cal Thomas, then an aide to the conservative leader.
Dinner at the Falwell home was described as friendly.
Dessert was a political sermon on tolerance, delivered by the liberal from Massachusetts.
"I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly?"
Kennedy said from the podium that night. "There are those who do, and their own words testify to their intolerance."
More than a quarter-century later, he was still eager to make a difference. At a critical point in the 2008 presidential race, he endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, then embarked on an ambitious schedule of campaign appearances.
He cast his endorsement in terms that linked Obama to the Kennedys.
"There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier," he said.
"He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party," Kennedy said.
"And John Kennedy replied: 'The world is changing. The old ways will not do. ... It is time for a new generation of leadership.'"
That endorsement came a few months before the seizure that signaled the presence of a deadly brain tumor. There were memorable public moments ahead, a surprise visit to the Senate to cast the decisive vote on a Medicare bill and, before that, a turn at the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
"As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship," he said there last summer. "So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days. Together we have known success and seen setbacks, victory and defeat.
"But we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world," he said. "And I pledge to you, I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test."
His time in the Senate was growing short, though. He smiled broadly as he took his seat outdoors at Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, then suffered a seizure a few hours later at a luncheon inside the capitol.
"He was there when the Voting Rights Act passed" in the mid-1960s, the nation's first black president said moments later in his remarks. "And so I would be lying to you if I did not say that right now a part of me is with him. And I think that's true for all of us."
Generations of aides recall Kennedy telling them the biggest mistake of his career was turning down a deal that President Richard M. Nixon offered for universal health care. It seemed not generous enough at the time. Having missed the opportunity then, Kennedy spent the rest of his career hoping for an elusive second chance.
Now, some Democrats wonder privately if the party can learn from that lesson, and take what is achievable rather than risk everything by reaching for what it uncertain. Republicans and Democrats alike say Kennedy's absence has affected the debate on Obama's signature issue, with unknown consequences.
It was the issue that motivated him even after he was no longer able to travel to the Capitol to cast a vote. He called it "the cause of my life."
And in July, in a reflection on his own mortality, he worried that his precarious health might mean Massachusetts would have only one senator for a brief while, and Democrats would be handicapped as they tried to pass health care legislation.
After 47 years in the Senate -- in a seat held by his brother before him -- Kennedy urged a change in state law so the governor could appoint a temporary replacement "should a vacancy occur."
More details in The Republican tomorrow. | <urn:uuid:dfb2c9f8-724a-4eaa-b731-29a652c3c9cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/sen_ted_kennedy_dies_at_77_aft.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984313 | 2,421 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Rerouting lines gets bridge project off to a slow startWritten by Caitlin Bowling
Although work has barely begun, the replacement of Park Street Bridge in Canton has already hit a delay.
The project was previously slated for completion on Nov. 5, 2012, but the date has been pushed back to Dec. 1. The hiccup was caused by a delay in rerouting the utilities running adjacent to the bridge, said Mitchell Bishop, an engineer with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
DOT knows which utilities must be moved before a contractor is awarded a project, and ideally, the lines are relocated before construction begins. However, sometimes, that is not possible, Bishop said.
Department of Transportation agents in Raleigh must work with myriad utility companies to move the cable, fiber, telephone and electrical lines either before or during project.
“We knew the water and sewer was going to be rerouted,” Bishop said, adding that the overhead power lines running along the bridge could not be moved until after the project began.
The actual razing and replacing of the Park Street bridge will not begin until the first couple weeks of November.
The bridge was built in 1924 and will cost about $3.5 million to replace.
The reconstruction will slow traffic on downtown Canton’s busiest one-way streets, Main and Park, which run parallel to each other. Cars typically leave Canton via the Park Street bridge and enter the town using the Main Street bridge. However, the project will require Main Street become a two-way street while the other bridge is closed. A dog-leg detour will reroute traffic around the construction. | <urn:uuid:f30d530c-0c90-48b2-998d-f71151b9416b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smokymountainnews.com/index.php/calendar/item/5436-rerouting-lines-gets-bridge-project-off-to-a-slow-start | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966727 | 340 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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|Players:||2 - 2|
|Play Time:||30 - 60 minutes|
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Punct Board Game
PÜNCT is the final game of Project GIPF, a series of games that, as you probably know, was announced to consist of 6 games and a number of sets with additional pieces. GIPF, the central game of the Project, was initially released in Belgium in 1997. Now, 8 years later, the series is complete.
PÜNCT is a connection game: the goal is to link two opposite sites. On your turn, you either bring a new piece into play, or you move a piece that is already on the board. The more pieces you bring into play, the more possibilities you have to make a connection. But each time you put a new piece on the board, you reveal a bit of what your plan is. The trick is to place your pieces in such a way that your opponent will expect you to do something different from what you really have in mind. As such, PÜNCT is not only about making a connection, but also about misleading your opponent! You'll have to proceed subtly!
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this also bought. | <urn:uuid:ddf4159b-8898-475e-bdf7-e7a66539a020> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/Board%20Games/Punct+Board+Game/Acc-BGRGGPunct01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952165 | 375 | 1.882813 | 2 |
The first step to eliminating unwanted bugs is a parasite cleanse. A good parasite cleanse will be effective against adult parasites, their developing young and the eggs. In some cases each stage of the parasite life-cycle requires a different treatment. A good parasite cleanse will cater for each stage.
Your parasite cleanse should include a colon cleanse to help expel the dead parasites, their eggs, their toxins and to strength your immune system. Another reason to do a colon cleanse is the fact that parasites thrive in an impacted colon.
Parasites can also travel to other organs. For this reason a parasite cleanse that includes detoxification of the liver and kidney is a recommended protocol for repairing the effects of a parasitic infection and for renewing your overall health. Not to mention that cleansing can result in significant weight loss, an unexpected benefit.
It is extremely easy to pickup a parasite. A kiss. A handshake. A taste of fruit. A bite of rare meat or raw fish. A drink of water. A naked romp. A barefoot walk in the park. A freshwater swim. An insect bite. An exoctic holiday in the tropics.
And the symptoms of some parasite infections are so similar to other ailments that parasite infections are often overlooked as the possible cause of both acute and chronic illness. If you are suffering from recurring gastrointestinal trouble or constant fatigue, mysterious anaemia or any other unexplained malady you may wish to consider a thorough parasite cleanse.
A parasite cleanse is something that the whole family, pets included, should undergo at least twice a year. Former generations knew that a regular parasite cleanse was an essential part of their health care. Over time, modern practices have convinced us that we are immune to parasites. But today's research tells us that parasites of one form or another are present and involved in every major illness from Cancer to Crohn's to Aids. If you have pets and young children the probability is high that your whole family is infected right now...with worms at least...unless of course you are already taking steps to to do a regular parasite cleanse. It is not difficult or onerous and there are simple dietary steps that you can take to make it difficult for parasites to even establish themselves in your body.
There are 3 main categories of parasites that infect humans and 1 other category that is not always described as a parasite.
There are hundreds if not thousands of parasites that can infect many parts of the body from your blood to your intestine to your eye or brain or skin. Besides lice, worm infestations are probably the most common infection depending on where you've traveled and where you live. If you live in a tropical climate malaria is a leading parasitic threat to your health.
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Learn more about the identification and treatment of specific parasites, their related symptoms, effective treatment, cleansing and prevention.
We include dietary tips (like our Cinnamon Tea) that make it more difficult for parasites to establish themselves in your body.
This series also includes traveler's tips and natural remedies to carry in your traveler's first aid kit.
Learn about pinworms the most common parasite found in children.
Copyright © 2007 - 2009 Inward Bliss. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks used on this site are the property of their respective holders. | <urn:uuid:5c85ad94-6a78-4ddb-87f1-25fb9fd0c16c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inwardbliss.com/parasite-cleanse.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938345 | 677 | 2.1875 | 2 |
|Four Bologna E-Cats: nearest one covered in insulation.|
In a preliminary demonstration in January 2011, the inventor Andrea Rossi and his scientific collaborator Professor Sergio Focardi at the University of Bologna showed off a version of their device, called "E-Cat" for "energy catalyzer", which produced 12 kW for a number of hours. The energy emerges from the device in the form of hot steam.
The E-Cat's fuel consists of Nickel powder and Hydrogen gas plus a "secret Italian sauce" that is necessary for the reaction to proceed. Rossi apparently discovered this secret catalyst though a long process of trial and error.
On March 29, 2011, the Bologna scientists performed a second demonstration of a smaller "more stable" version of the E-Cat (pictured above) that produced 4.4 kW for a period of 6 hours resulting in a total energy output of 24 kWh. Besides the "secret sauce" the reactor was fueled with 50 grams of Nickel and 1.1 grams of Hydrogen. I infer from their report that the reaction was terminated before the fuel was exhausted so we do not as yet know the ultimate capacity of this new Bologna energy source.
The second demonstration was witnessed by two members of a Swedish skeptics society who were allowed complete access to the E-Cat at all stages of its operation. The Swedish team could not discover any covert sources of energy and concluded from the facts available that some new form of nuclear reaction was involved.
According to physicist Brian Josephson, who has followed the cold fusion effort more closely than I, the Bologna research is self-funded but a Greek company Defkalion Green Technologies has contracted Rossi and Focardi to build a 1 MegaWatt reactor in Athens, Greece, which they hope to achieve by linking together 300 of the 4.4 kW demonstration model E-Cats.
Rossi and Focardi are also carrying out experiments to determine the nature of the reaction or reactions that power this device. For a nuclear scientist the most puzzling feature of the Rossi-Focardi E-Cat is that it produces substantially no gamma rays and no radioactive byproducts. A cursory study of possible reaction mechanisms between protons (Hydrogen) and Nickel suggests that both gamma rays and radioactive isotopes of Nickel should be produced. Because these expected products seem to be absent, the answer to the question: "What is the mechanism for the Rossi-Focardi reaction?" will probably turn out to be highly unconventional.
Until a plausible (and experimentally verifiable) nuclear mechanism is put forth, scientists are wise to suspend their belief. One obvious experiment that begs to be done is to run a small E-Cat to exhaustion while carrying out isotopic analysis at various stages of the process. I am hoping that Rossi and Focardi will publish soon the results of such an experiment.
|Nuclear Data Table on the Ni/Cu region. Click to expand.|
We can use this table, for instance, to see what happens when the most abundant Nickel isotope absorbs a proton. Ni58 + p --> Cu59. (We see from the table that Cu59 has a half-life of 81.8 sec and decays into Ni59 by emitting a positron and gamma rays.) Since this reaction produces gamma rays, both directly and through the annihilation of the resulting positron, and also produces a radioactive residue of Ni59, this hypothetical reaction cannot be responsible for the E-Cat's energy production.
So if it's a nuclear reaction, which reaction is it? Using this table, can you devise a plausible cold-fusion scheme that 1) emits no gamma rays and 2) does not create a radioactive residue of Ni59, Ni63 or Ni65?
Whatever the origin of its power, this new Bologna power source is extremely light (10 pounds) and compact, producing 4.4 kW for at least 6 hours (and probably much longer) using 50 grams of Nickel (an American Nickel coin weighs exactly 5 grams) and 1.1 grams of Hydrogen (an amount that would fill a seven-foot balloon).
For comparison purposes let's consider the properties of the largest home electric generator sold by Honda--the Honda Eu6500.
The Honda Eu6500 (pictured below) weighs 250 pounds and produces 6.5 kW of power (compared to one E-Cat's 4.4 kW). The Honda is fueled by gasoline and will run 5 hours on its 4.7 gallon tank producing about 30 kWh of energy compared to the 25 kWh produced by one E-Cat during its most recent demonstration.
Quantitatively the Bologna E-Cat's output is comparable to the Honda generator but there is one important difference. The Honda outputs its energy in the form of electricity while the E-Cat in its present stage of development produces its energy in the form of heat.
Congratulations, Rossi and Focardi! May your secret Italian sauce transform the world.
|Honda Eu6500 Portable Generator| | <urn:uuid:a59f0527-225c-4910-9527-0669c6143614> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quantumtantra.blogspot.com/2011/04/bologna-e-cat.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94083 | 1,036 | 3.3125 | 3 |
CHAPEL HILL — The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina has urged Chapel Hill leaders to let controversial ads stay on local buses.
ACLU Legal Director Christopher Brook wrote in a letter Friday that his group has received complaints from several residents who “don’t want to see their community suppress free speech and dialogue.”
Chapel Hill instead should “serve as a model for other North Carolina communities by embracing the free exchange of ideas, even when controversial,” he said.
The ads, which started running in mid-August on Chapel Hill Transit buses, read: “Join with us. Build peace with justice and equality. End U.S. military aid to Israel.”
A Town Council vote to remove the ads or change the policy to prohibit political ads would be an unconstitutional gag on free speech, Brook said. It also would violate a longstanding Chapel Hill tradition of openness and dialogue, he said.
Chapel Hill has never rejected an ad, and removing these ads doesn’t serve any “compelling government interest,” he said. If the council tries to create a neutral policy banning all political advertisements, it would be motivated only by opposition to this specific ad, Brook said.
The letter also argues that local buses are public forums, because of the town’s stated policy, which allows political, religious and “issues” advertising if the ad also carries a disclaimer identifying who paid for the ad and their contact information.
The Church of Reconciliation, a Presbyterian USA church in Chapel Hill, paid to run 98 ads but did not include the church’s contact information. The ads were removed after 10 days, revised and reposted in early September.
The town has received deluge of emails about whether political and religious ads belong on public buses. Opponents and supporters also mounted a strong public response at the Sept. 12 council meeting. Opponents petitioned the council to remove the ads, calling them offensive to Jews. Supporters also petitioned the council, arguing the ads are a protected form of free speech.
Council member Penny Rich, whom the ACLU letter specifically calls out for her opposition to the ads, said the ACLU’s letter is just another opinion. While she wants to see the report from town staff and Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos first, Rich said doesn’t see local buses “as a place where political ads do anyone any good.”
“We have people from a different perspective, we have people hurt by this ad, and we have people who say it’s a conversation opener,” Rich said. Jewish people have never stopped talking about how to get along and how to make peace, said Rich, who is Jewish.
“You don’t hurt people to have a conversation opener,” but it can stop the conversation, she said.
Council member Laurin Easthom said she understands that some people might find the ad “uncomfortable and problematic,” but the letter raises several good issues. Easthom said she, too, is waiting for the staff report, but she agrees the council is in a position where it might not be able to change the policy.
“What we’ve done is created a forum with certain restrictions,” Easthom said. “As long as you pay the fee, you have a right to put it up there.” | <urn:uuid:df16a2d2-af7b-4cd0-b253-15e1b4a915b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/10/01/2383749/aclu-letter-let-chapel-hill-bus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97002 | 714 | 1.65625 | 2 |
October 3, 2002
New Century Poses Challenge
High costs and staff shortages could impact Cedar's-Sinai's next 100 years.
One hundred years ago, when Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's predecessor, Kaspare Cohn Hospital, opened its doors with 12 beds as Los Angeles' first Jewish hospital, such medical staples as penicillin and insulin remained to be discovered. Life expectancy was 51 years, and the average annual income was $467.
Today, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center exists in a world of dizzying medical developments, where scientists manipulate genes, and doctors are testing a diagnostic camera in a capsule so small that patients can swallow it. Life expectancy has increased by more than 25 years, and in 2000, the country spent $1.3 trillion on health-care costs.
In such an increasingly complex health-care environment, Cedars-Sinai's ability to celebrate a second century will depend on how the medical center, which is also a research and educational institution, navigates a modern set of challenges. The 905-bed facility, like other U.S. hospitals, is facing skyrocketing costs coupled with shrinking insurance reimbursements, staffing shortages and an aging population that will place a severe strain on resources in the future.
"[There are a] myriad of challenges being thrown at the institution ... [which put] a tremendous amount of pressure on all [health-care] organizations," said Thomas M. Priselac, president and chief executive officer of Cedars-Sinai Health System. "We believe that if we [fulfill the strategic objectives supporting] our mission and our vision -- what it is we stand for and what we want to achieve ... we will be able to keep the institution at the leading edge."
Perhaps the most formidable challenge facing Cedars-Sinai is rising health-care costs. New procedures and emerging technologies, while advancing medical care, outpace the payments hospitals receive from insurers and government health plans. Many of these plans pay health-care providers a fixed fee rather than one based on the nature of services rendered. According to the California Healthcare Association, the state has had more than $60 billion in Medicare payment cuts over the last four years. About 45 percent of Cedars-Sinai patients are on Medicare, and another 14 percent are on Medi-Cal.
Compounding the problem of limited payments is the prospect of no payments at all. More than 2 million Los Angeles County residents are uninsured, and Cedars-Sinai will now be caring for an even greater percentage of them.
The Los Angeles County Health Department may deal with a projected $700-800 million deficit over the next three years by converting Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance and Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar into outpatient clinics.
Both currently operate emergency rooms, and like Cedars-Sinai, Harbor-UCLA is one of the county's 13 trauma centers. Eleven community health clinics and four school-based clinics have already been closed as part of county cutbacks. The closures will funnel more uninsured patients to Cedars-Sinai's emergency room and ambulatory care clinic.
Last fiscal year, Cedars-Sinai spent approximately $70 million on uncompensated and under-compensated care and community health programs, Priselac said. "Clearly [these factors present] a financial challenge to the institution.
"However, because we are a not-for-profit community hospital ... we welcome [this challenge], because of our roots and founding, and because of our obligation to the community and our desire to be a community-oriented organization," he said.
Barbara Factor Bentley, board of directors chair, added, "It goes back to our Jewish traditions. When people look up and see the Star of David on the medical center, they know it means quality care for all people."
Providing care requires continually updating and adding to facilities and equipment. Under Cedars-Sinai's Master Facilities Plan, nearly every building on the medical campus is scheduled to undergo renovations and improvements, either to replace facilities lost in the 1994 earthquake or to house expanded programs and services.
Last year saw the opening of a 45-bed neonatal intensive-care unit -- close to 7,000 babies are delivered at the medical center annually -- and a new unit within the department of psychiatry and mental health. This month marks the opening of the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center, and the commencement of construction on the new North Care Tower to house predominantly intensive-care services.
Philanthropy helps make such growth possible. The medical center's major fund-raising initiative, the Campaign for the 21st Century, has so far raised $322 million of its $500 million goal. Cedars-Sinai also benefits from the efforts of 40 different fund-raising groups. In addition, it receives another $80 million in grants.
However, even with sufficient funding, Cedars-Sinai, as well as other hospitals nationwide, faces the specter of staffing shortages. According to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, more than 126,000 U.S. nursing positions are currently unfilled, and "that number [is] expected to skyrocket as aging baby boomers begin placing unprecedented demands on America's health-care system." One of the reasons for the national nursing shortage is that nurses are aging. In 2000, 60 percent of registered nurses were over 40.
Dr. Michael Langberg, Cedars-Sinai's chief medical officer, said the medical center isn't feeling the nursing crunch right now. To keep it that way, the medical center has just established the Cedars-Sinai Institute for Professional Nursing Development.
Through a partnership with California State University Los Angeles, the institute will eventually graduate 150 new bachelor's degree nurses annually to help increase the number entering the profession. The hospital will try to persuade institute graduates to stay at Cedars-Sinai by picking up their internship tab if they remain for a specified period of time.
While the nursing shortage has received the most news coverage, shortages of other professionals exist, too. There is a need for hospital personnel such as radiology technicians, computer systems specialists and laboratory personnel, among others.
"We're working hard to create a work environment . . . that makes Cedars-Sinai an attractive place to come to work," Priselac said. He added that the medical center works with other institutions to provide professional training programs and lobbies at the state and federal levels to increase funding for educational institutions.
As baby boomers edge toward retirement age, they will increasingly utilize health resources. The number of elderly in California will almost double in the next 25 years, according to the National Economic Council.
To gear up for anticipated increases in the demand for services, Cedars-Sinai is boosting resources in fields heavily utilized by geriatric patients, such as cardiology, neurology, oncology, orthopedics and pulmonary medicine. Priselac said that as options for outpatient treatment increase, patients who do require hospitalization will be sicker and require a more intense level of care.
This month construction is beginning on the North Care Tower, which will add 120 intensive-care beds. Educational programs on health and wellness, and early intervention tools, such as the Cedars-Sinai Heart Watch, have been adopted to attract the health-conscious baby boomer generation. The American Association of Retired Persons ranked Cedars-Sinai as the No. 2 metropolitan hospital in the nation.
Baby boomers are only one segment of the diverse population served by the medical center. To reach vulnerable groups with little access to care, 120 programs target the elderly, ethnic minority populations, pregnant women, children and the poor.
As technology advances, the potential for ethical dilemmas also increases, for example, end-of-life issues. As part of the hospital's bioethics program, physicians and other professionals regularly meet to discuss challenges they face as health-care providers. A committee is also available to doctors and families when they need help sorting through options in a specific case.
Rather than coming up with the answers, Priselac said, "we put in place the resources and a process to let the individual, the family members and their physician come to the right decision as a group."
Last year, the medical center cared for more than 44,000 in-patients and more than 137,000 out-patients. Assuring quality control and patient safety is challenging for a system where close to 10,000 people -- from doctors to orderlies to volunteers -- provide care in some form.
Cedars-Sinai "is universally committed to patient safety and patient care quality," Langberg said. Priselac chairs the medical center's Quality Council, and the hospital maintains numerous committees to address aspects of this issue.
While state law will soon mandate such solutions, the medical center is already in the process of instituting a $20 million computerized patient information system that includes entry of physician orders. By having doctors enter orders electronically, rather than by writing them, the system streamlines the process and allows prescriptions to be immediately and automatically checked for potential problems, such as drug interactions or allergies. Langberg said the system reduces medication errors by about 60 percent.
The patient information system is just one example of how Cedars-Sinai has embraced information technology. The medical center was named one of the 100 "most wired" hospitals and health systems in Hospitals and Health Networks magazine. The new S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center features all-digital instruments, enabling rapid transmission of test results to physicians.
To view a patient's X-ray or lab results, doctors no longer have to wait for film to be delivered to their offices. They don't even need to be on site. A special computer program enables physicians to have instant access to patient and other medical data with a few key strokes on their Palm Pilot or computer.
The doctors who founded Cedars-Sinai would be amazed to see how their 12-bed hospital has grown and astounded by today's world of medicine that utilizes such tools as computers, magnetic resonance imaging and artificial livers. While it's hard to imagine what the next century might bring, Priselac promised, "What will be here ... is Cedars-Sinai's continued commitment to the community." | <urn:uuid:bd4ea653-5b38-4334-aa53-55feedaf9c5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishjournal.com/science_and_technology/article/new_century_poses_challenge_20021004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944163 | 2,148 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Still, Fowler became one of the highest-paid screenwriters of the era, and befriended the likes of W. C. Fields and the Barrymores. When he died, in 1960, his famous friends contributed reminiscences to a pamphlet paying tribute to his life and legend. In it, you can detect ambivalence toward the movie business: “Occasionally Fowler found himself pressed for cash, though he had made fortunes during his career. At these times, he went to work for the movies, driving down early each morning and taking up the ridiculous stance in one of the overdressed cubicles, poised, always, for a ‘conference.’ But before he started the drive, he customarily threw up, out of distaste for the day’s nonsense to come.” Hollywood was run by the sort of people who attacked one another behind closed doors, and I can’t imagine Fowler ever felt completely comfortable there.
When he first came to New York, Fowler lived in an apartment on Amsterdam Avenue, right down the street from Columbia University. The apartment looks out at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine—the largest cathedral in the world, a mad, ambitious attempt to outdo the Gothic churches of Europe. One hundred and twenty years after construction began, the cathedral remains unfinished, like a stunt suspended in time.
Now and then, when work is slow, I will sit on the cathedral’s steps and eat lunch in its ludicrous shadow. I picture Fowler doing the same thing 100 years ago. And I wonder if, sitting there, he too was reminded of Bonfils and Tammen and the time before subtlety, when glory lay in the regions where most men dared not go, somewhere up beyond timber line. | <urn:uuid:cfed8350-67eb-40c3-b1de-65694a14b42d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cjr.org/second_read/rocky_mountain_fever.php?page=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963683 | 362 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Today’s world fairs, or expos, tend to emphasize themes like technology and urban planning rather than the object-focused integration of art and industry. But in their reflection of the rise of industry, earlier world’s fairs (the first was in 1851), offered visitors a look at the technical innovations of the day translated through the eyes of gifted artists and designers. “Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851-1939,” an exhibition that opens on Saturday at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, presents more than 200 items from those fairs. Curated by Jason T. Busch and Catherine L. Futter, curators of decorative arts at the Carnegie Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (the first and previous stop of the show’s four-city tour), respectively, the exhibition includes pieces from European and American collections and represents a who’s who of artists, designers and manufacturers.
Among the treasures on display are a mid-19th-century Gothic bookcase designed by Gustave Herter, Oswald Haerdtl’s famous 1925 wine decanter for Lobmeyr (whose numerous world’s fair presentations merit an essay in the exhibition’s catalog), a gilded porcelain vase by Christopher Dresser for Minton & Co. from around 1873, spectacular jewelry, silver and glass from Tiffany & Company, which also gets its own essay, and a wood and gilt-bronze cabinet from around 1900 by the Art Nouveau master Louis Majorelle. Some pieces are well known, like the 1925 porcelain urn by Gio Ponti for Richard Ginori, while others, like the sinuous 1937 settee by Josef Hoffmann, with its silvered wood legs and stylized botanical-pattern upholstery, might surprise some viewers. The dominance of industrial materials in the 1930s is illustrated in designs like a glass table with a three-column base from the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, or an example of Marcel Breuer’s molded plywood furniture. The exhibition continues in Pittsburgh through Feb. 24, 2013, and then moves to the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C. | <urn:uuid:07b97223-cdb6-41e5-b840-220d78f41388> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/lobmeyr/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925169 | 483 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Malcolm Bull’s review in the L.R.B. of A Perfect Moral Storm: The ethical tragedy of climate change by Stephen Gardiner (Oxford, 2011) poses the moral problematic of climate change in a profoundly fallacious way. The crux of his confusion is his idea that climate change is as remote as possible–temporally, spatially and humanly–from those who are called upon to care. The gesture is necessary for converting an issue with immediate stakes into what amounts to the economists’ unsolvable math problem of discount rates, which is to say, a technical method for determining how much we should care about climate change in financial terms.
One may surmise that posing a moral question in economic terms makes for suspect premises, but it is a lot more than that. For example, in his review, uncertainty starts as a scientific problem, but then becomes the presumption of distant climate effects which, strangely and wrongly, for Bull seem to bea priori unknowable. It is also apparent in the complete ambiguity of his use of the first person plural. Who is ‘we,’ in this essay, when one asks about climate change in concrete terms? Perhaps we should talk about the massive floods that pulsed through Bangkok last year, leaving some $54 billion in damages, most of it uninsured, and prompting the Thai government to promise foreign investors a taxpayer-backed $1.6 billion insurance pool to preempt complaints of under-funded and mismanaged public infrastructure. Rainfall that year has been estimated at almost three standard deviations above normal. Why are Thais paying for global capital’s weather risk, and why are insurers so severely underfunded?
Bull’s ultimate fallacy is the assumption that we are in a position to decide how much we are going to spend on climate change. But this is a joke. What have been the economic consequences of the Texas drought and wildfires, or the fires that have ripped across Russia? What are the economic stakes of Australia’s intense and as-yet unsolvable water problems? If for Bull the moral question of climate change is why we should care about other people, remote in time and space, it is because he systematically misrecognizes the immediacy of the stakes of climate change already underway and fast outpacing our ability to plan and anticipate.
One last thing holds together the tenuous fallacies of Bull’s moral quandary, and that is the incessant focus on atmospheric emissions. It is one thing to understand atmospheric CO2 as a driver or chemical mechanism, but it is a bit of fetishism to think it is the cause of climate change. The stakes of the Arctic are a case in point. “The ice that has long maintained the Arctic as a uniquely placid international space is receding rapidly,” write the authors of ‘Climate Change and International Security: The Arctic as Bellwether.’ They document the massive remilitarization of the Arctic and, in particular, Russia’s explicit national interest in exploiting vast, frozen fossil fuel reserves. Exxon has already signed a very large contract, on the order of hundreds of billions, with one of Gazprom’s subsidiaries.
These are some of the immediate, concrete manifestations of climate change itself. The newest petrostates are Canada and Russia, both of whom have recently rejected the Kyoto Protocol. Fossil energy extraction already accounts for some 20% of Russia’s GDP; the authors of that report quote Dmitry Medvedev claiming, “Our first and main priority is to turn the Arctic into Russia’s resource base for the twentieth century.” One might say that waiting for the ice to thaw in order to unearth those resources amounts to a practice of climate change per se. It’s not about the atmosphere, it’s about the geology–not the carbon footprint but the fossil bootprint.
One suspects, then, that posing climate change as a moral problem already is a mistake. It is a political problem of the first order, which means it is not an issue of how much we care about hypothetical others but how—in what ways—we may still be able to care for ourselves. That makes it a problem not of calculation but of work, achievement or commitment. | <urn:uuid:265d5a36-969e-4b6a-af2a-02daba302c77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://accountingforatmosphere.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/malcolm-bulls-zenos-paradox-of-climate-morality-3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954083 | 881 | 1.96875 | 2 |
The capital of Gyeonggi-do, the province surrounding Seoul , Suwon is a large (population 1.1 million), prosperous city that’s known as a center of the electronics industry. But it’s primarily of interest to tourists as the site of a remarkably intact 18th-century fortress, which encloses much of the city center to this day.
Hwaseong Fortress (Ingye-dong, tel. 031/251-4435, http://ehs.suwon.ne.kr , daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m., ₩1,000) was constructed 1794-1796 by King Jeongjo of Joseon, who wanted to found a new city to house the tomb of his father and strengthen his own political position. Thanks to extensive restoration efforts beginning in the 1970s, it remains an impressive sight, consisting of nearly six kilometers of walls, gates, towers, and abutments that continue to snake through the city in a rough circle.
It was designated a national monument in the 1960s and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The entire structure is open to the public, and it’s possible to circumnavigate the fortress in its entirety in about 2-3 hours via a path that skirts (and in places takes you on top of) its walls.
Among the fortress’s more significant buildings are Janganmun, its massive northern gate, which is the largest such structure in Korea; Hwahongmun, a graceful pavilion mounted on seven arches designed to let water flow in and out of the compound; and the Hwaseong Haenggung, a temporary palace that provided refuge to the monarch in times of war.
Strolling among Hwaseong’s walls and well-designed defensive towers, all riddled with holes from which soldiers could launch missiles or sentries could peer for intruders, it’s easy to cast one’s mind back to martial times.
Next to Hwaseong, Suwon’s biggest attraction is Suwon galbi (barbecued marinated beef ribs), noted for their large size and savory seasoning. By some counts there are over 300 restaurants in central Suwon serving this specialty with a variety of accompaniments and soups, so you’ll have no difficulty finding somewhere to try it.
If you’re at a loss to choose one, Bonsuwon Galbi (51-20 Uman 2-dong, Padal-gu, tel. 031/241-8434, daily noon-10 p.m., ₩10,000-25,000) and Yeonpo Galbi (25-4 Buksu-dong, Jangan-gu, tel. 031/255-1337, daily 11 a.m.-10 p.m., ₩10,000-25,000) are both centrally located and garner positive reviews.
With Seoul so close Suwon is easily done as a day trip, but if you’d like to spend longer exploring the city it has several lodging options. The Ibis Suwon Ambassador (132-12 Ingye-dong, Paldal-gu, tel. 031/230-5000, www.ibishotel.com , ₩110,000) is a solid, centrally located choice, with large, like-new rooms, a fitness center, sauna, and restaurant.
For those on a tighter budget or who want to be closer to Hwaseong Fortress, the Hwaseong Guesthouse (4 Paldal-no 2-ga, Paldal-gu, tel. 031/245-6226, www.hsguesthouse.com , ₩30,000) provides no-frills but clean and comfortable accommodation under friendly management at a low price.
The city has multiple tourist information centers, including one in Suwon station and five smaller centers around the Hwaseong Fortress compound, any of which can be reached via the city tourist hotline (tel. 031-1330).
The easiest way to reach central Suwon is by taking Seoul subway line 1 to Suwon station, a trip of about an hour. There are also express trains to Suwon from Seoul Station that take just half the time but are significantly more expensive. Hwaseong Fortress is a two-kilometer walk from the station or a quick cab ride. | <urn:uuid:3de621a6-dda5-4bce-9742-e2a9faa7c694> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moon.com/print/26504 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942915 | 939 | 1.9375 | 2 |
The OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Circulars are the documents that govern all federal grants. The following are the circulars that are pertinent to research conducted at educational institutions:
Research.gov: The Research.gov Policy Library is the U.S. Government's electronic portal for accessing Federal policies, guidelines and procedures.
A-21: Cost Principles for Educational Institutions;
See below for the text of Exhibit C, Examples of "major project" where direct charging of administrative or clerical staff salaries may be appropriate.
A-110: Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Other Agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals and Other Non-Profit Organizations;
A-133: Audits of States, Local Governments, and Non-Profit Organizations;
Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
The Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) is a cooperative initiative among 10 federal agencies and 92 institutional (university) recipients of federal funds; its purpose is to reduce the administrative burdens associated with research grants and contracts.
The FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) governs all federal contracts. The agency specific contract regulations can also be accessed from the FAR.
An IPA (Intergovernmental Personnel Act) Agreement is one in which Georgetown faculty members may take a one year leave of absence to work at a federal agency. The concept of the program is one of mutual benefit so while the GU faculty member works full time at the government agency, he or she remains a University employee with all customary benefits. When an IPA Agreement is negotiated, the budget lines include salary and fringe benefits only. Additional details about this program can be found at the following site: http://www.opm.gov/programs/ipa/index.asp
Exhibit C -- Examples of "major project" where direct charging of administrative or clerical staff salaries may be appropriate.
- Large, complex programs such as General Clinical Research Centers, Primate Centers, Program Projects, environmental research centers, engineering research centers, and other grants and contracts that entail assembling and managing teams of investigators from a number of institutions.
- Projects which involve extensive data accumulation, analysis and entry, surveying, tabulation, cataloging, searching literature, and reporting (such as epidemiological studies, clinical trials, and retrospective clinical records studies).
- Projects that require making travel and meeting arrangements for large numbers of participants, such as conferences and seminars.
- Projects whose principal focus is the preparation and production of manuals and large reports, books and monographs (excluding routine progress and technical reports).
- Projects that are geographically inaccessible to normal departmental administrative services, such as research vessels, radio astronomy projects, and other research fields sites that are remote from campus.
- Individual projects requiring project-specific database management; individualized graphics or manuscript preparation; human or animal protocols; and multiple project-related investigator coordination and communications.
These examples are not exhaustive nor are they intended to imply that direct charging of administrative or clerical salaries would always be appropriate for the situations illustrated in the examples. For instance, the examples would be appropriate when the costs of such activities are incurred in unlike circumstances, i.e., the actual activities charged direct are not the same as the actual activities normally included in the institution's facilities and administrative (F&A) cost pools or, if the same, the indirect activity costs are immaterial in amount. It would be inappropriate to charge the cost of such activities directly to specific sponsored agreements if, in similar circumstances, the costs of performing the same type of activity for other sponsored agreements were included as allocable costs in the institution's F&A cost pools. Application of negotiated predetermined F&A cost rates may also be inappropriate if such activity costs charged directly were not provided for in the allocation base that was used to determine the predetermined F&A cost rates. | <urn:uuid:e05ea488-4a17-4fcb-b4fe-4e1976f24014> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/osp/osp_www/pages/government.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931068 | 805 | 2.359375 | 2 |
And why would you want to drink it?
When I tell people that I’m a huge herbal tea geek, the most common reaction is “Why?”
To many people, herbal tea is something to drink only when sick, if at all. It’s sad, boring and it all tastes the same.
But herbal tea has just as much to offer as tea or coffee, both of which are now treated as delicacies all over the world.
There are hundreds of different types of herbal tea — in fact, there are probably hundreds left I haven’t even tried. Give me a few minutes and I’ll try to convince you that the world of herbal tea is definitely worth exploring.
Clearing up a few misconceptions
First, let’s establish what herbal tea isn’t.
Green tea is not herbal tea. Green tea is a processed form of Camellia sinensis (the “tea plant” or simply “tea”) from which all varieties of true tea are made. Black tea, yellow tea, oolong, pu-erh, green tea, white tea — it’s all Camellia sinensis. The difference in the appearance and taste of the final product comes from the different ways these teas are oxidized, dried and cured — but that’s another post. The important thing is that Camellia sinensis makes up the group of drinks we call “tea”.
Herbal teas are simply hot-water infusions that use material from other species of plants. (OK, other species excluding those in the Coffea genus which are used to make coffee. Smart aleck.) When we talk about “herbal teas”, the one thing we aren’t talking about is bona fide tea. Confusing, huh?
Tisanes and herbal infusions
“Tisane” is another word for herbal tea. It’s a little less confusing because it doesn’t contain a paradoxical reference to true tea.
However, it’s not very well known outside of tea-geek circles. The same goes for the clinical-sounding term “herbal infusion”. Being precise is a virtue, but not if it confuses the people you’re trying to talk to. For that reason, I use the term “herbal tea” more than “tisane” when writing for Supplement SOS. However confusing the term is, it’s the most common name understood by the largest number of people.
Herbal tea all tastes the same
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to getting people to take herbal tea seriously is the idea that it all tastes like hot water and damp grass. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of herbal teas that do taste grassy to a greater or lesser extent — but there also tisanes like hibiscus and elderflower that taste gloriously fruity and surprising, or valerian tea which has a marvelous funk, or the cool sweet-saltiness of spearmint tea, or countless other intriguing and delicious herbal tea flavors.
The reason most people think tisanes all taste crappy is that they’ve only ever tasted crappy tisanes. And that’s not their fault; the way most herbal teas are prepared and served is pitiful. At any trendy cafe with a barista who can talk for hours about the provenance of their coffee beans or the rarefied qualities of an espresso ristretto, you are still as likely as not to be given a sad teabag floating mournfully in a cup of scalding water if you ask for herbal tea.
Imagine how much less popular coffee would be if it were always made with instant crystals, or how much less popular green tea would be if it were always made with dusty bags scorched by boiling water and left to stew.
This is the current state of herbal tea, and it’s a real shame.
Teabags are the enemy
Teabags became popular in the US and UK because they conveniently provide a drinkable beverage that bears a passing resemblance to properly brewed black tea. This simply isn’t true for many — perhaps the majority of — herbal teas.
In order for a teabag steeped in boiling water to be an appropriate infusion apparatus, the plant material being infused needs to possess the following qualities:
- A teabag will hold approximately the correct amount of material to brew one cup of the infusion
- The material will not need to move around the cup to infuse properly
- The material will infuse to an acceptable level before the cup of water cools down
- Boiling or close-to-boiling is an acceptable temperature for the infusion water
Many tisanes meet few or none of these criteria. Some need much more plant material per cup than would fit in a teabag. Some need 10, 20, 30 minutes or longer to infuse properly and so cannot be made in a cup that will cool down in 5. Some will be undrinkably bitter and scorched if made with boiling water.
Moreover, a teabag can hide many sins. Bags generally have a poorer quality of material than loose-leaf herbal teas. Because the material in teabags is ground more finely, sometimes to a literal dust, they oxidize and become stale much more quickly.
So, to people who say that all herbal teas taste the same or have no flavor, I contend they have never had good herbal tea.
Making herbal tea properly
A complete guide to making perfect tisanes would be a post by itself (and may well be in later weeks) but I’ll touch on the most important points briefly.
To properly make a tisane, you will need:
- To start with a high quality herbal tea that’s been stored properly (somewhere cool without undue contact to air or light — a tin with a tight lid is perfect). I buy many of my herbs online, but local health food stores or Asian groceries or spice shops are a good bet too.
- A large heat proof vessel. A teapot is traditional but a french press or cafetierre is a good alternative. French presses are great because they leave loads of room for the plant material to move freely in the hot water, but you can still strain out the herbal tea when you’re ready to serve. If you use a teapot with an infusion basket, also called a tea cage, make sure it’s as roomy as possible. Another option is to let the herbal tea move freely in the teapot and pour through a tea strainer when you serve.
- A water heating device. A pot on the stove and a thermometer is OK, an electric kettle with an adjustable target temperature is better.
- A timer.
- A drinking vessel. Dealer’s choice.
That may sound like a lot of fuss, but the hardware can be bought or improvised for a few dollars. Most herbal teas themselves are pleasantly inexpensive when bought in modestly large quantities.
Why drink herbal tea
So why drink herbal tea, other than it tastes great when you prepare it properly?
My main reason is that I can drink as much as I like of it without worrying about calories or caffeine. If I have a deadline coming up I can get through 10 or 15 cups in a few hours. If I tried the same thing with coffee I’d have heart palpitations or a panic attack.
Many herbal teas also have some scientifically-backed health benefits — but that’s another post!
In any case, I’ve rambled on for long enough for today. I hope I’ve cleared up at least a few misconceptions about herbal tea and encouraged you to investigate more on your own. I’m going to go and put the kettle on. | <urn:uuid:1c271e24-3582-4398-bbd2-2b41b56e5595> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supplementsos.com/blog/what-is-herbal-tea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939554 | 1,671 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Published: 18 Oct 2012 17:59 GMT+02:00 | Print version
Updated: 18 Oct 2012 17:59 GMT+02:00
France is to scrap plans to make would-be citizens pass a test on the country's history and culture before´being naturalised, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Thursday.
Valls also said that the need for new citizens to have permanent jobs before they are given a passport would also be lifted, but a relatively tough requirement in terms of proficiency in French is being maintained.
"You don't become French by answering multiple choice questions and I reject the idea that only those with permanent employment contracts can become French," Valls said.
The minister is himself a naturalised French citizen of Spanish origin.
The citizenship test had been due to be introduced on July 1, 2012 under legislation adopted under the previous government designed to address concerns over the perceived failure of some immigrants to adapt to the French way of life.
But following the return of Valls' Socialists to government in June, the measure has not been applied.
Valls said a requirement for new citizens to have the same ability to understand and speak French at the level expected of 15-year-old natives would be maintained.
He also stressed that candidates must support the core values of the French republic, in which he included the concepts of secularism and solidarity as well as the classic trio of liberty, equality and fraternity.
"Naturalisation has to remain the natural conclusion of a successful integration," Valls said.
The assessment of candidates' level of French and their perceived support for "republican values" is at the discretion of officials in town halls who process applications. The language requirement does not apply to the over 65s.
Valls said the number of people acquiring French citizenship through naturalization – a total of just under 120,000 in 2010 – had since fallen by more than 30 percent as a result of the previous right-wing administration's policies.
Eric Ciotti, the national secretary of the main opposition UMP, attacked Valls's reforms, saying: "French nationality should be earned, not just given away."
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right National Front, echoed the theme, accusing the minister of "dispensing nationality like metro tickets."
Many of those naturalised are teenagers born in France to foreign parents who have an automatic right to citizenship when they turn 18. Under the new rules, foreign children who spent five years in education will benefit from a "strong assumption" that their citizenship application should be granted.
As Carlo Ancelotti paid fulsome tribute to the retiring David Beckham the Paris Saint Germain manager revealed an announcement on his own future may be imminent. READ () »
France's disgraced former budget minister, forced out of office over a tax fraud scandal, will not seek re-election to his former parliamentary seat, a newspaper reported Sunday. READ () »
Spain's world championship leader Marc Marquez will start on pole in Sunday's French MotoGP on the Bugatti circuit at Le Mans after coming out on top in Saturday's qualifying. READ () »
A man was arrested on Friday after causing a scare at the Cannes Film Festival, where he attacked a TV studio with a gun loaded with blanks and a dummy grenade, police and witnesses said. READ () »
French actor and newly-minted Russian citizen Gerard Depardieu on Saturday compared President Vladimir Putin to the late Pope John Paul II and said the ex-KGB agent is what Russia needs as a leader. READ () »
France became the 14th country to legalise same-sex marriage Saturday after President Francois Hollande signed the measure into law following months of bitter political debate. READ () »
Struggling French oyster farmers, whose haul has diminished in recent years, are set to receive some much needed help from their Swedish counterparts, by importing oyster spats from Sweden for the first time. READ () »
France's highest court the Constitutional Council cleared the divisive gay marriage bill on Friday, paving the way for same sex unions to become legal. Francois Hollande said he would sign the bill into law as soon as Saturday. READ () »
While many in the world of football raised a glass to David Beckham when he announced his retirement on Thursday, elements in the French media as well as PSG fans in Paris could not hide the fact they feel a little cheated by his minimal contribution on the pitch. READ () »
Thieves have stolen Chopard jewellery worth $1 million at Cannes Film Festival, French police reported on Friday. The jewellery was due to be loaned to film stars over the coming days. READ () » | <urn:uuid:6c3ae8d0-7ddc-439d-83a0-68ea4e33bf82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelocal.fr/20121018/france-scraps-citizenship-tests | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967167 | 956 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Are you tired of drinking beverages that are entirely liquid? Do you believe that America’s decline is due in large part to alcoholic beverages can be made simply by pouring the ingredients into a glass? Is the prospect of making dozens of jokes about “blue balls” appealing to you? Then the Cocktail R-evolution Gin Tonic is probably right up your alley.
You may recall from our last post that Mrs. Bottle and I have recently become chemists. But instead of cooking up meth Walter White-style, we are mixing up interesting new drinks. Even though our emulsification experiment was a bit of a failure, we remain undeterred. This week we went with spherification, also know as balling.
|Actually, this looks a lot like Heisenberg meth.|
Spherification is the process of turning a liquid into tiny spheres (or balls). The spheres have the size and consistency of salmon roe. The good news is that our balls didn’t taste like fish eggs. Instead they were made with tonic water and blue Curaçao so they tasted like tonic water and blue Curaçao. But the consistency was dead on.
Turning a liquid into blue balls takes a lot of teasing and a little chemistry. The first step is to mix the tonic water and blue Curaçao with sodium alginate (NaC6H7O6) powder. Even though its empirical formula spells “nacho”, the powder tasted horrible on a Tostito. That isn’t that surprising since it is extracted from brown algae. Its purpose is to create a gelatin-like substance out of liquid.
When Mrs. Bottle mixed the powder in using our last-century hand mixer, she happened to splash some of the blue liquigel onto the counter. To the untrained observer it appeared to be a careless spill, but the trained observer would realize she was ritualistically pouring some on the counter as a tribute to our fallen homies. Luckily our countertops are stain resistant since the same tribute happened last time she tried to mix something.
|Spherification in action|
|That lime slice looks suspiciously|
like a lemon wedge
|After adding some ice and tonic water|
Ease of Preparation: 1
Drinks Until Blackout: 3 - All gin | <urn:uuid:1407e089-2f94-4a23-9d7d-d656ee2a4745> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thebottleisawonderland.blogspot.com/2012/09/drink-201-balls-well-that-ends-well.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946153 | 489 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Max the Mammoth
Thousands of fossil bones of prehistoric animals have been found In the Eastern Scheldt during the construction of the storm surge barrier by mussel fishers, etc. Max is a bull mammoth with a shoulder height of around 3.25 metres and a length of 5.25 metres. He must have been about 55 years old when he died between 30 and 50 thousand years ago. Max lived in the IJssel-Vecht delta. When the ice fields began to melt, Max was trapped in the marshland of the Maas in Limburg. | <urn:uuid:36529711-1aaa-4808-813f-32a82a1018cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neeltjejans.nl/index.php/en/schools/max | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9638 | 116 | 2.796875 | 3 |
As seniors age, there is always a concern for the onset of dementia, in any form. But the symptoms of Frontotemporal Dementia, FTD, can start when someone is in there 40's and 50's. Gerontologist Dr. Freddie Segal-Gidan describes the challenges of caring for a loved one with FTD. Family members, particularly long time spouses, coping with an FTD patient often feel they can handle it without outside help. But Dr. Freddie Segal-Gidan emphasizes that as the disease progresses, it becomes too difficult for a family member to meet the growing needs of someone with FTD. She recommends that for both the benefit of the families and the FTD patient it is critical to explore using an outside caregiver to assume primary care.
TrackBack URL: http://www.kcet.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/12836 | <urn:uuid:615337fd-6bb8-4ff0-85b2-904d859b0150> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcet.org/shows/yourturntocare/do/how-ftd-affects-families.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944621 | 190 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Alan Turing is the man. He developed the concept of the Turing Machine, which helped helped solidify the concepts of the algorithm and computability, came up with the Turing Test, broke German WWII ciphers, worked on one of the earliest true computers and has earned a place as one of the Giants of Computer Science. He’s been honoured with a computer language named after him (although he’d be appalled at the language itself).
Alan was gay at a time when being so was considered to be a mental disease and acting so was a crime. His career ended when he was outed and was convicted for gross indecency. He was given a choice between imprisonment and chemical castration; he chose the latter. Not long afterward, he was found dead at his home, apparently from suicide.
For his work, which created that field that is my work, my hobby and my passion, I’d like to wish Alan Turing – whom I call “Big Gay Al” as a nickname of endearment – a happy birthday. I salute him with a filet mignon on a flaming sword! | <urn:uuid:0c3aea8d-57ee-4a86-9068-f4e477cb1083> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/06/23/happy-birthday-alan-big-gay-al-turing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99099 | 231 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Flood Geology Fossil Layering
A selection of articles related to flood geology fossil layering.
Original articles from our library related to the Flood Geology Fossil Layering. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Flood Geology Fossil Layering.
- Noah's Ark
- The story (or myth? ) of Noah and his ark full of animals is told from the accounts in the Hebraic Bible, from the Christian’s Book of Genesis in the Old Testament Bible and from the Muslim’s Qur’an.
Old Testament >> Genesis
- Pagan Roots of the Bible
- "The Bible is the innerrent word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc. Jerry Falwell I have heard this assertion...
Saga of Times Past >> History & Anthropology
- King James Bible: Genesis, Chapter 7
- Chapter 7 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not...
Old Testament >> Genesis
- Celtic Gods and Heroes: The Gods of Ancient Ireland
- Celtic peoples established themselves in Ireland about 2,500 years ago. But humans had inhabited the island long before that, as evidenced by the monument site at Newgrange dating to 3000 B.C., as well as the prehistoric megaliths at Carrowmore in Sligo, and...
Deities & Heros >> Celtic, Welsh, Irish & Brittish
Flood Geology Fossil Layering is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Flood Geology Fossil Layering books and related discussion.
Suggested Pdf Resources
- Can Flood Geology Explain the Fossil Record?
- Flood after the Cretaceous appear to conflict with the fossil record. INTRODUCTION. Although espoused by most European Flood geologists, and a 'post-.
- Flood Geology's Abominable Mystery
- flood geology models, of how pollen and spores would be expected to be distributed in the geological ..
- Why Don't We Find Human & Dinosaur Fossils Together?
- We find human fossils in layers that most creationists consider post-. Flood. .
Suggested Web Resources
- Fossils, Flood Geology and Creation Science.
- the time of Noah's flood, and the layers of sedimentary rock which preserve fossils was laid that has been given the scientific sounding name 詮lood Geology'.
- Flood Geology Fossil Layering | RM.com ®
- Flood Geology Fossil Layering articles, reference materials. Need more on Flood Geology Fossil Layering?
- Where are the human fossils? • ChristianAnswers.Net
- Discussion on why we don't find human fossils as evidence for a global flood.
- Fossils from the Biblical Flood
- The fossil record is truly a recording of history captured in rock layers.
Great care has been taken to prepare the information on this page. Elements of the content come from factual and lexical knowledge databases, realmagick.com library and third-party sources. We appreciate your suggestions and comments on further improvements of the site. | <urn:uuid:99977a36-e7c5-4964-ae91-957b90ff4412> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realmagick.com/flood-geology-fossil-layering/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90593 | 731 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Obama’s Pump Dream
March 7, 2012 by John Myers
“This president, systematically, is doing everything he can to raise the price of energy in this country. He’s shutting down all sorts of opportunities for us to drill for oil.”
If you think gasoline is expensive now, just wait and see the price at the pump if Barack Obama is re-elected. His policies have steadily dragged the country toward $5 per gallon. If he gets another term in office, affordable gas will be a faint memory. And that will have Obama and his Green backers tickled pink.
The Obama Administration doesn’t seem to care that every 1 cent increase in the price of gasoline costs the economy $1.4 billion. America is becoming more dependent on Muslim oil while turning its back on a half-century energy alliance with Canada. This has been made evident by the President’s rejection of the Keystone Pipeline.
When Obama was sworn into office, the price of gasoline was $1.80 a gallon. Three years into his term, prices for some Americans are approaching $5 per gallon.
That is just the way Obama likes it. Given another four years, gasoline prices could reach $8 a gallon. This is because Obama has a greater allegiance to the Green Machine that drove home his victory in 2008 and that is fueling his chances for another victory lap come November.
The specifics of what the President promised to the environmentalists if he is re-elected remain a secret. But what we know for certain is that Obama clamped down on deep-water drilling inside the Gulf, tightened Federal restrictions for onshore oil exploration and vetoed the Keystone Pipeline, a major oil artery that would secure dependable Canadian crude to a nation thirsting for oil.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said the evidence is in, that the Obama Administration has willfully brought higher prices to the gas pump because it has put an embargo on fresh and dependable sources of North American petroleum.
“We can’t slow down global demand for oil and gas, but we can do a lot more here at home to assure that we have the energy we need and to halt skyrocketing costs,” Hutchison said. “President Obama’s policy has resulted in an unprecedented slowdown in new exploration and production of oil and gas.”
Speaker of the House John Boehner said the President has been reckless in mismanaging the nation’s energy policies.
When added up, not passing the Keystone Pipeline and “scrapping leases for oil-shale development” makes the President responsible for $5 gasoline, read a press release from Boehner.
“The Obama administration has spent more than three years blocking efforts to expand energy production and bring down gas prices, while pushing job-crushing tax hikes and taxpayer-backed loans to companies like Solyndra.”
Boehner laid out a timeline showing Obama’s purposeful drive to sending gasoline prices higher:
- Jan. 7, 2010 – The Obama administration announces new bureaucratic hurdles to American energy production that Secretary Salazar admitted “could add delays to the leasing and drilling process.” Gas is $2.67 a gallon.
- March 31, 2010 – Instead of opening new areas to energy exploration and development, President Obama blocks deep-ocean energy production on 60 percent of America’s Outer Continental Shelf. Gas is $2.80 a gallon.
- Dec. 1, 2010 – The president re-imposes and expands the moratorium on offshore energy production. Gas is $2.86 a gallon.
- Jan. 2, 2011 – TIME reported that the Obama administration issued the first in a series of regulations on January 2 designed to unilaterally impose a national energy tax. Gas is $3.05 a gallon.
- May 5, 2011 – The White House issues a formal statement opposing House-passed Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act and Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act, legislation designed to jumpstart [sic] American energy production, address rising gas prices, and help create new jobs. Gas is $3.96 a gallon.
- June 21, 2011 – The White House opposes the House-passed Jobs & Energy Permitting Act that would unlock an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Gas is $3.65 a gallon.
- Nov. 8, 2011 – The Obama Administration releases a plan for a five-year moratorium on offshore energy production, placing “some of the most promising energy resources in the world off-limits,” according to the House Natural Resources Committee. Gas is $3.42 a gallon.
- Jan. 18, 2012 – President Obama rejects the bipartisan Keystone XL pipeline and the more than 20,000 jobs that would come with it. Gas is $3.39 a gallon, and rising faster and earlier than ever before.
Rising in tandem with gasoline prices has been crude oil. As you can see from the chart below, crude oil has risen almost 40 percent in the past two years and last week had an upward gap at $105 per barrel. This is a bullish signal and technically indicates the price of oil is going to go higher. More importantly, I think Obama will continue to provide the fundamentals for crude and gasoline to increase, perhaps another 40 percent higher if he is re-elected this November.
While debating other GOP candidates last month, Newt Gingrich criticized Obama’s national energy program, saying it has been instrumental in driving the price of gasoline to $5 per gallon in some parts of the country.
“[America needs a new] energy policy, getting back to $2.50 a gallon gasoline, outlining both the economic and National Security implications, indicating that instead of bowing to a Saudi King we ought to be drilling, and our goal should be to be so independent that we don’t care what the Iranians are doing in the Straits of Hormuz,” Gingrich said.
That really is a pipe dream for Gingrich and it can only happen if a Republican is in the Oval Office next year. Short of that, Obama’s pump dream of $8 per gallon gasoline is what we will have. That might good for Green backers and tree huggers, but it will cripple the recovery for the rest of the Nation that depends on affordable gasoline.
Yours in good times and bad,
Editor, Myers’ Energy & Gold Report
Editor’s Note: Last week, TransCanada announced it would move ahead with part of the Keystone XL pipeline, completing a section Oklahoma to Texas. This plan does not require Federal approval. In January, the Obama Administration rejected TransCanada’s proposal to build a pipeline from the Montana-Canada border through Nebraska because of pressure from environmentalist groups. | <urn:uuid:e79da15c-ae34-47dd-9767-614da18ad9a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://personalliberty.com/2012/03/07/obamas-pump-dream/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=c1c9c39881 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935619 | 1,414 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A Monstrous War Crime
A Monstrous War Crime
Our collective failure has been to take our political leaders at their word. This week the BBC reported that the government's own scientists advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on
Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report".
Scientists at the
The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research was "robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended "caution in publicly criticising the study".
When these recommendations went to the prime minister's advisers, they were horrified. One person briefing Tony Blair wrote: "Are we really sure that the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies?" A Foreign and Commonwealth Office official was forced to conclude that the government "should not be rubbishing the Lancet".
The prime minister's adviser finally gave in. He wrote: "The survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones".
How would the government respond? Would it welcome the Johns Hopkins study as an important contribution to understanding the military threat to Iraqi civilians? Would it ask for urgent independent verification? Would it invite the Iraqi government to upgrade civilian security?
Of course, our government did none of these things. Tony Blair was advised to say: "The overriding message is that there are no accurate or reliable figures of deaths in
His official spokesman went further and rejected the Johns Hopkins report entirely. It was a shameful and cowardly dissembling by a Labour - yes, by a Labour - prime minister.
Indeed, it was even contrary to the
This Labour government, which includes Gordon Brown as much as it does Tony Blair, is party to a war crime of monstrous proportions. Yet our political consensus prevents any judicial or civil society response.
At a time when we are celebrating our enlightened abolition of slavery 200 years ago, we are continuing to commit one of the worst international abuses of human rights of the past half-century. It is inexplicable how we allowed this to happen. It is inexplicable why we are not demanding this government's mass resignation.
Two hundred years from now, the
• Richard Horton is a doctor and the editor of the Lancet [email protected] | <urn:uuid:6131908f-29f3-4414-b621-49448cfb9ab5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/a-monstrous-war-crime-by-richard-horton | 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 | 0.967075 | 523 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The geography of the is varied. It is made up
of Coastal Plains, the vast Great Plains, and the Rocky
Mountains. The flows out of the Rocky
Mountains, forming the border between the United States
and Mexico, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Plateaus, Canyons, Mesas
The is the major plateau in the
Southwest. The area is also famous for its canyons, which
are deep, narrow valleys with steep sides. Among the
deepest is the . A is another landform
found in the Southwest. It is a hill with a flat top. There are also in the area. They are like mesas, but are even smaller. The Grand Canyon is 217 miles long and stretches through northern Arizona. It is more than one mile deep in some places and measures 18 miles from rim
to rim at its widest point. The flows out of the Rocky Mountains and runs through the bottom of the
Grand Canyon. Over millions of years the river cut a deep
path into the plateau and carved the walls into fantastic
shapes. This process is called , which is the slow wearing away of the land by water, wind, or ice. Canyons, mesas, and buttes are all formed by erosion. The Grand Canyon is a national park and is visited by about four million people each year. It is one of our country's most famous and beautiful natural features.
The Roaring Rapids
A is where a river flows very swiftly as elevation
drops. As the Colorado River flows through the Grand
Canyon, it falls more than 1,000 feet in elevation. Most of this drop takes place as the river flows over small
waterfalls. down the Colorado River takes several
days. Along the way you can see the colorful rock walls,
lizards, desert bighorn sheep, and stars in the night sky. | <urn:uuid:9de84ee1-2c7e-4e5e-b868-68fa9fba31c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mhschool.com/socialstudies/2003-5/student/review.php?vGrade=0021492654&vUnit=1&vChapter=1&vLesson=1&language=0&vAnswered=no | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964876 | 393 | 3.609375 | 4 |
I would like to detect an rising comparator output and execute an interrupt routine for that rising comparator output.
I found that I can do this by connecting the compout pin to another gpio and configuring that gpio as an xint source..
However if I wanna save some pins. can I just configure the compout pin as an xint input and do two things on the same pin ( i.e. use the same pin for both compout and xint input)
Thanks in advance.
Tufan, did you ever get an answer to this question?
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TI is a global semiconductor design and manufacturing company. Innovate with 100,000+ analog ICs andembedded processors, along with software, tools and the industry’s largest sales/support staff. | <urn:uuid:efdddb68-a8b3-41b9-9bd1-918753df41c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/c2000/f/171/p/54804/605572.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911417 | 323 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Implementing the global strategy on infant and young child feeding
© UNICEF/HQ95-0355/ Charton|
A mother breastfeeds her baby as the grandmother looks on. Myanmar.|
The “Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding,” was approved by the World Health Assembly of WHO in May 2002. In September 2002, the Global Strategy was endorsed by the UNICEF Executive Board as the foundation for UNICEF's action in support of optimal infant and young child feeding for survival, growth and development of children worldwide.
It is reflective of rights-based, lifecycle programming, recognition of gender needs, supportive of the mother and family, and directly improving early childhood survival, growth and development.
These activities support the World Fit for Children:
- “Exclusive breastfeeding for six months, (significantly reducing child mortality and malnutrition)
- Continued breastfeeding with safe, appropriate and adequate complementary feeding up to 2 years or beyond” (addition reductions in mortality and reducing stunting), as well as
- Related nutrition and reproductive health care for the mother, including delay of first birth and spacing of births three to five years apart, which also contributes to the best nutritional and survival outcomes for both mother and child.
UNICEF efforts will recognize children’s and families’ rights and responsibilities and include suggested proven activities for advocacy and support of government and non-governmental actions at three levels: National Commitment, Health Care Improvements, and Community.
1. Develop Multi-sectoral National Commitment by:
- National breastfeeding/complementary feeding coordinator
- Multi-sectoral national committee
- Policy, protocols and standards on IYCF in the context of national policies, programming, and professional health organizations
- Development and dissemination of advocacy materials addressing policy and legislation, new and ongoing, to all relevant groups, such as health workers, political leadership, stakeholders and partners.
- Encouraging national development of legislation and enforcement of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, subsequent relevant WHA Resolutions, the ILO Maternity Protection Convention
- Consideration should be given to new legislation or other suitable measures
2. Implement Health Services and Training Reform (Baby-Friendly Health Care):
Develop and maintain Baby-Friendly Health Care (BFHC) by:
- Supporting full implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative in all maternity services, including Step 10, which is the development of community activities to support the breastfeeding mother.
- Advocating and providing technical assistance in the development of standards for BFHC, and for their inclusion into the National Health Information Systems.
- Reviewing all health system contacts to ensure that each contact includes age-appropriate feeding support for mother and child.
- Providing technical assistance for revision of pre-service training curricula to include appropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding support skills, and appropriate job-aids to support improved healthcare practices at all levels.
- Including support for birth spacing of at least 3 years for the health and survival of mother and child (preferably 3-5 years) in all programs.
3. Provide Communications/Community/Social Advocacy Programming by:
- Creating emphasis on community social support for the mother and the ability to refer for medical support when needed, and on family and societal support for an optimal infant and young child feeding norm and at least three years birth spacing. National communications and social mobilization activities will be supported.
4. Address Cross-cutting and Partnership Issues:
This includes building capacity, monitoring and evaluation, and provision of guidance on feeding infants and young children in exceptionally difficult circumstances and on the related support required by mothers, families, and other caregivers, in unstable situations such as in families/communities living with HIV/AIDS or in manmade or natural emergencies. | <urn:uuid:7363fd9f-cb36-44d9-be42-66dcec6ba010> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unicef.org/french/nutrition/13096.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925579 | 787 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Damage assessment of 400,000 Structures in Haiti
The Haiti Ministry of Public Works, Transport, and Communications (MTPTC) conducted an earthquake damage assessment program on an unprecedented 400,000 buildings after the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Miyamoto International set up a technical platform and trained as many as 600 Haitian engineers under extreme postdisaster conditions. We also managed 15 divisions of Haitian engineers to collectively provide building assessments. This was the world’s first postdisaster assessment program to use a personal digital assistant (PDA) database management system to provide real-time information to key disaster response and recovery organizations. The main objectives of the project were to: 1. Provide rapid safety assessments of damaged structures. 2. Develop a strategic reconstruction plan. 3. Build the local leadership and skills needed to respond to this disaster and to rebuild the country. The information generated by this program allowed people to move from temporary shelters into adequate housing before the hurricane season began. The work included using the Applied Technology Council’s detailed earthquake damage and safety evaluation procedures and adapting them to Haitian construction to identify any existing damage for the facilities being assessed.
Port Au Prince, Haiti | <urn:uuid:0bbcd799-da1b-47fd-b759-a46c4ed2d7b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miyamotointernational.com/our-work/disaster/haiti-public-works/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933759 | 236 | 2.203125 | 2 |
The game of golf is thought to have been introduced to Europe during the early Middle Ages, yet the modern game of golf began around the 15th century in Scotland. The first written record we have is of James II banning the game in 1457 because he believed it to be an annoying distraction to learning archery.
Yet despite his best efforts the game caught on and spread throughout most of the modern world. It was not until 1892, a relatively lengthy amount of time since 1457, that the first golf course opened in America in Downers Grove, Illinois. Yet even for the late start America would go on to dominate the sport.
Golf became more popular in America than any other country, mostly through the new burgeoning class of super-rich industrialists that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. It became a steeple of wealth and social class and rapidly spread throughout the country. Today there are 17,672 courses in America alone, far outdistancing the UK, which has 2,757, making it a close second with 8% of the world’s total courses. | <urn:uuid:7651d94a-3f9a-4250-b0d7-8b7798e564eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.omg-facts.com/Sports/50-Of-The-World-s-Golf-Courses-Are-In-Th/53568 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97803 | 223 | 2.84375 | 3 |
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Compostable Packaging Test: Whole Foods Deli Containers
Posted By Starre Vartan On August 5, 2010 @ 12:37 pm In green packaging,packaging-the-future | 11 Comments
Today marks the second installment of our new Packaging the Future series, which explores a greener future for packaging design, brought to you by Eco Chick founder and green journalist Starre Vartan !
Because I’ve heard mixed messages about the compostability of packaging labelled biodegradable , I figured the only way to figure out what works and what doesn’t is to stop listening to rumors and try them out myself. My first experiment was with a Whole Foods deli container, simply because it was at hand; I shop at the supermarket in both Manhattan and in Darien, CT where the chain has recently opened its newest store. In an ideal world, I would make my own pasta, bean and whole grain salads every Sunday and store them in reusable containers for the week. In reality, I’m not the world’s most enthusiastic cook and I regularly buy the salad-bar concoctions so that I have healthy, fresh food when I come home hungry at 9pm at night.
After a rain shower and a couple of days in my compost, the box started to collapse.
Whole Foods’ deli packages, available at all their stores, did really well in my test, breaking down in about a month in my backyard compost bin . Disclaimer: I’m not a really dedicated composter (some people get science-y and keep track of oxygen and nitrogen levels and keep their composts at optimum temps for biodegradability.) I just throw my scraps on top, mix them around with some dead leaves and let nature run her course, which means mine is not a perfect system and doesn’t break stuff down as fast as a well-managed bin could turn organic matter to soil. But I get great compost from it each spring for my garden, and I keep some garbage out of the landfill, which works for me.
Eight days in, the box was breaking down.
Ashley Hawkins, of Whole Foods Market, told me that the boxes are made from a mixture of natural fibers grown annually, including sugar cane pulp (bagasse), corn starch, cattails (bulrush), asparagus, tapioca root, and bamboo . ‘[The box] can also be easily integrated into our store compost and food waste collection programs,” said Ashley.
After noticing how well and quickly the box broke down in my backyard bin, I wasn’t surprised when Ashley also told me that Whole Foods tested the compostability of the packages themselves, in various locations (the dry and less-rainy Cali climate is very different from the hot, humid and rainy weather I get in Connecticut, yet good biodegradability needs to occur in both locations for a successful product).
Three weeks into an admittedly hot and wet summer (which aids biodegradability), the box was almost unrecognizable.
Ashley told me that she is not at liberty to detail the cost of the containers or the company that makes them. I’d really love to know how much more they cost vs. the traditional plastic ‘clamshells’ one normally finds at salad bars. It would also be worth doing a cost/benefit analysis of the energy needed to create the natural fiber box versus a plastic one. They are testing out these containers in the meat department of some of their markets and may use them in other applications in the future.
At least one hurdle has been jumped; these containers are proof that we can have real-life compostability and keep food fresh and leak-free.
Article printed from Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building: http://inhabitat.com
URL to article: http://inhabitat.com/compostable-packaging-test-whole-foods-deli-containers/
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Email: mailto:?subject=http://inhabitat.com/compostable-packaging-test-whole-foods-deli-containers/
Packaging the Future: http://inhabitat.com/packaging-the-future/
Eco Chick: http://www.amazon.com/Eco-Chick-Guide-Life-Fabulously/dp/0312378947
Starre Vartan: http://eco-chick.com/author/starre/
take-out boxes: http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/03/18/student-designs-biodegradable-packaging-for-mcdonalds/
reusable containers: http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/08/04/pure-water-bottle-filters-99-9-of-bacteria-with-uv-light/
Biodegradable: http://inhabitat.com/2010/02/19/new-research-reveals-sugar-based-plastics-could-be-composted-at-home/
compostable containers: http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/03/18/first-100-compostable-chip-bags-to-hit-shelves-soon/
mixed messages about the compostability: http://www.justmeans.com/Compostable-Packaging-a-Bust-Ethical-Consumption-Investigates/21858.html
labelled biodegradable: http://inhabitat.com/2010/03/18/first-100-compostable-chip-bags-to-hit-shelves-soon/
compost bin: http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/04/07/worm-factory-compact-composting-kits/
bamboo: http://inhabitat.com/2010/06/18/sun-powered-bambu-house-sprouts-at-solar-decathlon-europe/
real-life compostability: http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/22/help-new-york-city-start-composting-by-bicycle/
+ Green packaging solutions: http://inhabitat.com/green-packaging/
Image: http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/22/announcing-inhabitats-packaging-the-future-series/starr/
Eco-Chick : http://eco-chick.com/
The Eco-Chick Guide to Life: http://www.amazon.com/Eco-Chick-Guide-Life-ebook/dp/B001EN58OU
The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
MNN.com: http://www.mnn.com/
Copyright © 2011 Inhabitat Local - New York. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:357b7709-9cf4-4ea1-bbb1-cfdfb373f093> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/compostable-packaging-test-whole-foods-deli-containers/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904182 | 1,559 | 1.890625 | 2 |
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Recent Entries to this Blog
weeds n seeds's Blog
Gettin' them seeds goin'
Category: gardening | Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:00 pm
Time has FINALLY come to begin getting just a wee bit serious about planting seeds for this summers vegetables and flowers. January 21 saw gerberas (African Daisies that take 6 months to reach blooming size), lemon catnip (gotta keep the neighborhood cats happy!), asters, bushy Evening Primrose (to "treat" the hummingbird moths) and edible dandy-lions sowed, today it was Red Russian kale, Golden Ace cabbage, fringed decorative kale, Bon Vivant leaf lettuce and smooth-leaf spinach. The crops planted Jan. 21 are coming up, now the wait starts for today's.
The aster seed was taken from "volunteer" plants this past season, the wild Evening primrose seed came from a lovely plant I discovered growing out behind the workshop and was too nice to pass up, just had to collect some seed off spent spikes and save it! Am not a big seed-saver, so was very leary of what..actually..to expect, if anything. The asters were up within 3 days; the minute seedlings of the primrose are just beginning to show today and those brought great JOY to behold! As the primrose is classified as a biennial, I'll be really surprised if it blooms this year, but know it will in 2009 so is something to look forward to there. As for the double-flowering asters, time will tell if they're the annual variety or perennial, left the Mother plants alone, after a cutting back, to see if they'll return later in the season and, if not, I do have the new ones.
The Jan.21 planting of seeds were done in a seed-row planter, will all need transplanting into larger cells/pots/soil within next few weeks. Everything else has been planted in deep cell 6 paks, are in waterproof 1020 trays, covered with plastic domes and are on heat mats for bottom warmth to aid germination.
From the beginning, I leave the plastic domes propped up a bit up to allow for some air circulation, and once all seedlings appear, the domes come totally off, trays of plants that don't need bottom heat any longer are moved to a cooler section of the plant room to grow on. Using the deeper cells for germination would require huge amounts of seed staring medium to fill them, but came across a method in an English gardening book that I just LOVE, and results are GREAT! The bottom 2/3 of the cells are filled with regular dampened potting soil, and only the top 1/3 is filled with the dampened starting medium recommended for starting seeds. What this does is allow the seeds to be planted in a sterile medium and by the time a good root system forms, they are down into soil that affords what they need for good growth..and away they go!
Once seedlings get their second set of "true leaves", they get a light application of a 3 month timed-released pelleted fertilizer simply applied to top of soil (making sure it isn't touching the stems as it will burn them) that I press slightly in, and this..in the watering process..is slowly released til it's time for the plants to be set outside in their respective containers or beds. Works beautifully with any type container used to start seeds, and DOES help eliminate the "did I, or didn't I fertilize" syndrome by taking all the guesswork out of it as you can see the pellets on the soil's surface and know it's been done. I have been doing this for 3 seasons now with unbelievable success.
Have only scratched the surface, so far, starting seeds for 2008, will be an almost constant thing now from mid-February thru early May as I plant by lunar and astrological signs, and gotta get them seeds goin' when the time is right! Happy growing all!!!
This blog entry has been viewed 382 times
Dirt Under The Fingernails
Category: gardening | Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:31 pm
Spent 2 1/2 hours yesterday transplanting 60 little "Happy Faces" (pansies) into 3 inch pots and 6 pak cells. Have been waiting..very patiently..for the youngsters roots to start showing at the base of the seed row starter tray telling me "get us into something BIGGER!", and it finally happened: felt SOO GOOD getting my hands dirty while playing in the soil once again!
Started an early variety called "Carolina Giants", and some OLD mixed pansy seeds of several types, in November, planted the old seeds a bit on the heavy side as I didn't know what to expect from them. Much to my surprise, had excellant germination with ALL, even had to cull a few because they were too thickly planted! Broke me heart to do it, but was necessary, watered in the potted seedlings with the tears that fell..what can I say?
I've had a terrible time with getting good pansy seed germination last few years no matter what I tried, so for this season bought/used Pro Mix seed starting medium..the results more than speak for themselves so far! Seedlings are strong and healthy, root systems absolutely beautiful!
They've been transplanted into Pro Mix potting soil now, should have blooming plants by Memorial Day if all goes according to Hoyle, can't WAIT for their lovely scents and joyous colors to greet me when I walk into the greenhouse later in the season! There's just something about them that "makes the day" when nothing else is doing much yet. Way it looks, there'll be hanging baskets and containers full of pansies everywhere, but that's okay in my book as they're such "happy plants".
At present, the trays are still in my sunroom in front of big, south-facing windows, are on bottom heat just in CASE temp out there wants to nosedive during a nasty cold spell (so far, knock on wood!, temp has been getting no lower than 50 degrees nights even tho' outside temps have been as low as 0!). Will let the babies adapt a bit to new potting up, then remove them to another shelf without heat til they can be evacuated into unheated greenhouse, probably in late February.
Next to start are gerberas, blue mealy sage (which looks like Russian Sage), and evening primroses (seeds I saved from a wild plant) end of this month, then in February will be about 30 other things, including peppers and cool weather plants. By May, poor sunroom AND greenhouse will be overflowing with "green" things of all descriptions imagineable! Needless to say, I just LOVE starting everything from seed and watching it grow, especially when the snow's still flyin' outside!
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EARTH MONTH - OUR FAMILY'S EARTH DAY
CELEBRATED ON SATURDAY...
In the early morning we rushed off to 2 soccer games (Try watching 6 & 9 year-olds play soccer, it is so entertaining!)
After the games, we spent a few hours picking up trash around our local NATURE PARK (aka "The Duck Pond"). Of course we played too and discovered things all over the many ponds. We spotted other people doing the same. (Then we did yard work ALL DAY!) It takes a little effort to take care of our EARTH. We have so many beautiful things and beautiful landscapes around us.
What did you do to celebrate EARTH DAY?
Reduce. Reuse. Recyle.
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Addressing the Talent Shortage in China and India: Leveraging Women in the Workforce
During a period of high unemployment rates around the world, pockets of talent shortages remain due to skills mismatches and an inability to find qualified candidates for certain positions. There is a global talent shortage for high-skilled workers, and this key inefficiency represents one of today’s greatest human capital challenges in Asian developing countries such as India and China. Furthermore, women are largely underutilized in these labor markets. Leveraging women in the workforce is essential to resolve this talent shortage and promote both social and economic development in these countries. | <urn:uuid:1e776868-f288-4892-af6a-14da5ffcadb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conference-board.org/topics/publicationdetail.cfm?publicationid=2409&topicid=40&subtopicid=190 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910937 | 126 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Zu Essence loudspeaker Measurements
One of the Zu Essence's unique selling points is its very high efficiency. While my estimate of its sensitivity, 92.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, is lower than the specified 97dB (due, I suspect, both to the 12 ohm impedance and to the lack of presence-region energy in the on-axis responsesee later), it's still 10dB higher than the sensitivity of the BBC LS3/5A. Probably to oversimplify, the Zu speaker driven by 10W will play as loudly as the LS3/5A driven by 100Wassuming the little BBC monitor could actually handle 100W without melting!
Not only does the Essence not require many volts to play loud, it doesn't need many amps, either: its impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) remains above 12 ohms for most of the bass and treble, with a minimum value of 8.6 ohms at 250Hz. However, in the top octavethe region covered by its ribbon supertweeterthe impedance drops below 8 ohms to reach a value of just 4.3 ohms at 20kHz. With tube amplifiers having the usual high source impedance, the disparity between the impedance in the mid-treble and that above 10kHz will shelve the top octave down. Similarly, the reduced impedance in the lower midrange compared with that in the bass and treble will suppress that region somewhat when the Essence is driven by a tube amplifier.
Fig.1 Zu Essence, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (5 ohms/vertical div.)
The small impedance peak at 150Hz and the discontinuity in the magnitude trace just above 400Hz imply the existence of enclosure resonances of some kind. The Essence's large cabinet panels don't appear to be damped in any way, and investigating their vibrational behavior with an accelerometer uncovered the existence of many high-amplitude resonances (fig.2). While there is a mode at 150Hz, the highest-level modes occur at 290, 390, and 490Hz, with the specific mix of modes differing according to which panel was being tested and where on that panel I had placed the accelerometer. What was odd, however, was that when I listened to the cabinet walls with a stethoscope while playing the semitone-spaced stepped toneburst track from Editor's Choice (CD, Stereophile STPH016-2), while I could hear the resonances, they were not as obtrusive-sounding on music as their measured behavior had led me to expect.
Fig.2 Zu Essence, cumulative spectral-decay plot calculated from output of accelerometer fastened to center of front baffle (MLS driving voltage to speaker, 7.55V; measurement bandwidth, 2kHz).
The Zu's cabinet resonances are all of very high Q, or Quality Factor, and the rule of thumb is that for a resonance to be fully excited, it needs to be stimulated by a sustained tone at its center frequency for the same number of cycles as the Q; ie, if there is a resonance at 400Hz with a Q of 100, it will take 100 cyclesa quarter of a secondfor the resonance to fully ring. If the stimulus doesn't last that long or is not quite at the same frequency, the resonance will not fully develop. That will not be true for impulsive signals, however, so while it's possible that the Zu Essence's cabinet resonances will not color the sound with sustained tones, they will add coloration to drum recordings. I could also hear the cabinet-induced coloration on male spoken voice, which, of course, is not confined to the fixed pitches of the Western Scale. As Art Dudley explains, the Essence's bass loading is intriguing, resembling a quarterwave horn, but with a foam wedge progressively loading the vent at the opposite end of the enclosure from the drive-unit. However, the twin low-frequency peaks in the speaker's impedance suggest that the woofer alignment is more akin to that of a reflex design, with the port tuned to 41Hz. While I was visiting AD, to measure the speakers in his listening room (see later), I measured the woofer's nearfield response with and without the internal foam wedge in place, making sure in the latter case that the vent opening was the same size as it had been with the wedge. The amplifier used was Art's Shindo Haut-Brion, whose transformer has a 16 ohm secondary winding.
The results are shown in fig.3. The red trace was taken with the wedge in place. The curve looks similar to that of a reflex-loaded woofer with its port tuned to 43Hz, there being the usual minimum-motion notch at that frequency. (This is when the back pressure from the port resonance holds the woofer cone still.) There is another suckout in the woofer's output between 100 and 170Hz. Without the wedge (blue trace), the vent tuning frequency moves 10Hz higher in frequency, and the peaks and dips are a little more extreme. The foam thus appears to lower the frequency of the vent tuning and lower the overall Q. Looking at the step responses of the woofer and vent (fig.4), the fact that the woofer output (blue) and that of the vent (red) are in opposite polarity does suggest that the Essence's bass alignment is closer to that of a reflex design than a true horn.
Fig.3 Zu Essence, anechoic response on woofer axis at 10", with internal foam wedge in place (red) and with cabinet empty (blue).
Fig.4 Zu Essence, step response of woofer (blue) and vent (red). (50ms time window, 1kHz bandwidth)
This is confirmed by looking at fig.5, which shows the nearfield responses of the woofer (blue) and vent (red). The woofer's output again features a well-defined minimum-motion point, while the vent's output peaks at the same frequency. However, placing the vent at the end of the pipe introduces a second peak in the vent's output, at 150Hznot coincidentally, the frequency of the impedance peak noted earlier and of a step down in the woofer's output. The black trace below 300Hz in fig.5 shows the complex sum of the woofer and vent outputs, taking into account acoustic phase and the different distances of the radiators from a nominal farfield microphone position. The upper vent resonance gives rise to a sharp notch in the combined output. The usual boost in the upper bass that results from the nearfield measurement technique is absent, suggesting that the Essence's bass extension will not be as great as might be expected from the large size of the enclosure. The bass will also be tightly controlled.
Fig.5 Zu Essence, anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50", averaged across 30° horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with nearfield woofer (blue) and vent (red) responses plotted below 300Hz and 1kHz, respectively, plus complex sum of nearfield responses (black).
The Zu speaker's midrange response, taken on the supertweeter axis, is basically flat and even, but even with the whizzer cone, the drive-unit is in breakup at and above 2kHz, with a large suckout evident in the presence region. (This suckout reduces the measured sensitivity, as indicated earlier.) The response is reinforced by the ribbon supertweeter in the top two octaves, and the ribbon unit is 3dB too high in level on this axis, which is 34" from the ground. The average height of a seated listener's ears, we have found, is 36" from the ground, but Art Dudley sits about 6" higher than that. Fig.6 shows the Essence's vertical dispersion, normalized to the ribbon-unit axis; it appears that the presence-region suckout does fill in a little on the woofer axis.
Fig.6 Zu Essence, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 155° above axis, reference response, differences in response 510° below axis.
The Zu's lateral-dispersion plot (fig.7) indicates that the suckout also fills in to the speaker's sides. The speaker's treble balance can thus be optimized by experimenting with both listener height and toe-in angle. Art had the speakers set up so that their axes crossed behind his listening position, and their spatially averaged response in his room, driven by the tubed Shindo amplifier, is shown as the red trace in fig.8. (I derive this graph by averaging 20 measurements taken for each speaker in a rectangular grid measuring 36" by 18" and centered on the position of the listener's ears. I used an Earthworks omni microphone and a Metric Halo ULN-2 FireWire audio interface, in conjunction with SMUGSoftware's Fuzzmeasure 2.0 running on my Apple laptop.) The peaks and dips below 300Hz are room effects that have not been minimized by the spatial averaging. However, the gentle slope down from 700 to 120Hz appears to be real, and I wonder if this led to Art's finding that the Essence slightly lacked midrange clarity and resolution (though the cabinet resonances may well have added to this impression).
Fig.7 Zu Essence, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 905° off axis, reference response, differences in response 590° off axis.
The blue trace in fig.8 shows the Essences' spatially averaged response taken in my listening room, the speakers toed-in to the listening position and driven by a solid-state amplifier. The speakers actually work better at low frequencies in my room than in Art's. In general, the overall shapes of the two traces map very closely between 150Hz and 5kHz, though the tube amp's higher output impedance gives rise to a little more low-treble energy in Art's room. The traces are very different above 5kHz, Art's use of the tube amp and his using less toe-in giving rise to a smoothly sloped-down response in the top two audio octaves. I could hear this as a lack of "air" when I auditioned the Essences in Art's room, though he doesn't mention it in his own listening comments. In my room, with the speakers toed-in to the listening seat and driven by a solid-state amp, there was way too much top-octave energy, both in the spatially averaged response and in the tonal balance.
Fig.8 Zu Essence, spatially averaged, 1/6-octave response in AD's listening room, driven by Shindo tube amp (red); spatially averaged, 1/6-octave response in JA's listening room, driven by Simaudio solid-state amp (blue).
In the time domain, the Essence's step response on the supertweeter axis is shown in fig.9. Both drive-units are connected in positive acoustic polarity, and the ribbon unit's output (the sharp up-down-up spike) slightly leads that of the woofer (the right-triangle shape). Moving a little higher will bring the two units' outputs into time alignment.
Fig.9 Zu Essence, step response on tweeter axis at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).
The cumulative spectral-decay plot on this axis (fig.10) is relatively clean in the midrange and in the top octave, but looks terrible in the mid-treble, with significant ridges of delayed energy evident at 1865Hz, 2.7kHz, and 5.8kHz, as well as some lower-level hash at other frequencies. Like the plots of lateral and vertical dispersion, this graph suggests that the Essence's owner will need to experiment with toe-in and listening height to mitigate the effect of these cone-breakup modes by reducing the energy level in the same region.
Fig.10 Zu Essence, cumulative spectral-decay plot on tweeter axis at 50" (0.15ms risetime).
In many ways, the Zu Essence is an underachiever, measurement-wise. But the surprise for me, when I auditioned it in AD's room, was how much of its measured misbehavior was not too audible, other than the rolled-off highs and the lack of impact in the lower midrange. I suspect that Zu's designer has carefully balanced the individual aspects of the Essence's design so that the musical result is greater than the sum of its often disappointingly-measuring parts.John Atkinson | <urn:uuid:5aaa2e26-806b-4c20-b81a-3d493867a893> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stereophile.com/content/zu-essence-loudspeaker-measurements | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948921 | 2,659 | 1.617188 | 2 |
ČĪT (borrowed from Indian, where it occurs in many dialects with the meaning “spotted cloth,” probably of non Indo-Aryan origin; Turner, no. 5036; cf. Irwin and Brett, p. 1), cotton cloth decorated with block-printed or painted designs in multiple colors. The term čīt passed into English as “chintz,” now the common designation for any cotton or linen furnishing fabric printed with floral designs in fast colors. Conversely, in India Persian qalam-kārī was used to distinguish painted from printed cotton textiles.
In India Persian cultural influence was strong in the independent Muslim courts that arose in the west and in the Deccan after the collapse of the Delhi sultanate in 801/1398. In particular Gujarat, Khandesh, and Golconda developed into important production centers for painted cotton textiles. Golconda enjoyed close family, diplomatic, and trade links with Safavid Persia, to which it exported cotton cloth painted with designs of flowering trees and peacocks. Persian inspiration, transmitted through immigrant craftsmen and merchants, is, however, discernible in the style and technique of textiles produced in the succeeding Mughal period (932-1274/1526/1858). The similarities engendered by these close contacts complicate any effort to trace a distinct Persian industry producing either čīt or qalam-kārī textiles, especially as few examples survive from before the 13th/19th century.
Safavid miniature paintings feature textiles that may represent printed or painted cottons. In a copy of the Šāh-nāma painted for Shah Ṭahmāsb I about 945/1537 women wear white head scarves figured with delicate flower sprays in red, blue, and gold, comparable to the designs on lengths of čīt from the 13th/19th century (Welch, pp. 100, 168, 172). Formal receptions are depicted, with rulers seated under canopies bordered in bold lozenge and zigzag designs in white, black, red, orange, and green, possibly made of painted cotton canvas (Welch, pp. 128, 132, 141, 153, 157). A more explicit representation is seen in a Šāh-nāma of 984/1576-77 (Robinson, pp. 4041), where Sohrāb is received by his mother, Tahmīna, who is seated on a white čīt floor cover patterned with dark red and black sprigs within a deep border of alternating stripes of leaf and flower scrolls. Sir John Chardin, during his second visit to Isfahan in 1083-88/1672-77, noted a distinction between painted cloths imported from India and fabrics printed locally with floral and figural motifs (p. 278).
In the 13th/19th century references to a Persian industry were more numerous, but there is also abundant evidence of competition from a new source: cheap factory-made textiles from Europe. Jakob Polak, a German physician living in Persia, reported in the 1280s/1860s that, though cloth printed in variegated colors was highly valued in Persia, the work involved in making it was time-consuming: “The most widely used calicoes in Persia (chit) are usually supplied by Manchester factories, where goods are made to suit Persian taste and for sale in the Orient” (II, p. 167; tr. in Issawi, p. 269). The threat to local production was confirmed by Mīrzā Ḥosayn, an official of Isfahan who described his city’s handicrafts in 1294/1877. Nevertheless, he reported that 284 establishments—workshops, offices, and retail shops—specialized in čīt production were operating in the Isfahan bāzār (Issawi, p. 279). In the 1310s/1890s Lord Curzon testified further to the dominance of imported Manchester cotton cloth, both plain and patterned (Curzon, Persian Question II, p. 525).
One factor contributing to the success of cheap, machine-printed imports was the laborious process of producing čīt and qalam-kārī textiles. Three main stages were involved (Murdoch Smith, pp. 55-58; Wulff, Crafts, pp. 224-27). First, the cloth was cut to the required shape and then prepared with various resists or mordants. Then pearwood blocks, each carved with a section of the design, were used to print colors—usually four—successively onto the cloth. First, narrow black outlines were printed; then areas were filled with crimson and dark blue. Details were added in ocher and occasionally in gold. At intervals during the printing process the cloth was washed, rinsed, and dried. Traditionally the colors were prepared from infusions of minerals and plants, such as iron, madder, indigo, and pomegranate skins. Synthetic dyes gradually became more common.
The finished products were used for many purposes: as door curtains, wall hangings, bed and table covers, garment linings, and women’s jackets and trousers. Curtains and hangings were patterned with bold schemes of peacocks, lions, and cypress trees, all within multiple borders of floral scrollwork. Ambitious pictorial compositions derived from popular epic and romantic tales were worked in a combination of printed and painted techniques. In contrast, fabric lengths used for clothing were printed with delicate patterns of such small repeat motifs as flower tendrils and narrow stripes; often they were stamped at one end with the maker’s name and date.
There was a revival of production of čīt and qalam-kārī in the mid-14th/20th century, mainly to supply the demand for tourist souvenirs. New designs, for example, Achaemenid symbols and figures derived from the sculptures at Persepolis, were added to the traditional repertoire.
J. Chardin, Travels in Persia, ed. N. Penzer, London, 1927.
J. Irwin and K. Brett, Origins of Chintz, London, 1970.
C. Issawi, ed., The Economic History of Iran, Chicago, 1971.
R. Murdoch Smith, Persian Art, London, 1876.
J. E. Polak, Persien. Das Land and seine Bewohner, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1865.
B. W. Robinson, “Rothschild and Binney Collections. Persian and Mughal Arts,” in Persian and Mughal Art, London, 1976.
R. L. Turner, A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, London, 1966.
S. C. Welch, A King’s Book of Kings, London, 1972.
(Jennifer M. Scarce)
Originally Published: December 15, 1991
Last Updated: October 20, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. V, Fasc. 6, pp. 602-03 | <urn:uuid:efe64312-3906-4e24-943d-8b7668a1e840> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cit-borrowed-from-indian-where-it-occurs-in-many-dialects-with-the-meaning-spotted-cloth-probably-of-non-indo-aryan-orig | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951058 | 1,528 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Awarding smiley-face stickers to teams of first-graders in Baltimore for the good behavior of the individual team members greatly increased the likelihood that the students would experience an adolescence free of substance abuse and dependence. Teachers gave out the stickers and other token rewards and penalties in the Good Behavior Game (GBG), a classroom activity designed to inculcate appropriate behavior during children's first 2 years in school.
"The GBG gives teachers an effective method of managing behavior in the classroom and of teaching children how to be students," says Dr. Sheppard Kellam of the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Kellam and colleagues began the longitudinal study of the GBG while at Johns Hopkins University in close partnership with the Baltimore City Public School System. Dr. Kellam suggests that the activity produces a broad spectrum of long-term benefits by steering 5- and 6-year-olds away from aggressive and disruptive behaviors, which have long been recognized as precursors of many negative adolescent and adult outcomes. The study found that the GBG was protective not only against substance abuse and dependence but also against teenage delinquency, antisocial personality disorder, and suicide attempts.
How to Play the Game
Teachers first set the rules of the game, presenting a list of behaviors, such as sitting quietly, that will be rewarded. They then divide their classes into teams for the GBG. Later, when students are working independently, the teacher announces that the game is in play. Teams whose members maintain the stated behaviors during the game period receive prizes, such as stickers. Students who act out or commit other infractions incur a checkmark, lessening their teams' chances for prizes.
The game is played for brief intervals at first; the time and frequency are gradually lengthened as the children gain practice in controlling their behaviors. Eventually, to instill constant attentiveness to appropriate behavior, the teacher stops announcing when the game is in play and awards the prizes to successful teams only at the finish of a GBG period.
The GBG was devised in the 1960s by Harriet H. Barrish, Muriel Saunders, and Montrose M. Wolf at the University of Kansas. Its underlying concept is that team members, wanting to win, will pressure—and help—each other to meet the behavioral objectives.
"When kids come to school, they often don't know how to behave like students. They have to be taught. It's not intuitive, parents don't always get it, and teachers aren't being trained to deal with it," says Dr. Kellam. "This is the issue the GBG attempts to address."
And the stakes are high: Children who do not adapt to the student role early in their school careers risk rejection by peers, failure to achieve academically, and conflict with their teachers and other authority figures. The consequences of these problems in the teen years include increased risk for self-destructive and antisocial behaviors, Dr. Kellam explains.
Small-scale, more limited studies have provided evidence that the GBG might alleviate behavioral problems in the early grades. The Baltimore project is the first randomized field trial of the GBG's effectiveness, and the first to examine its impact on adolescent outcomes outside of school. Dr. Kellam notes that the participation of entire classrooms, representative of large areas of Baltimore, makes the results applicable across that city and perhaps similar ones.
In 1985, Dr. Kellam and colleagues identified three to four schools in each of five demographically distinct neighborhoods, ranging in ethnicity from mostly African-American to mostly White and in economic status from very low to moderate income. Altogether, more than 1,000 children from 41 first-grade classes in 19 schools either used the GBG or served as controls in the study.
During the first weeks of school, teachers in both the GBG and the control classes assessed each student's behavior; about 12 percent of the males and 3 percent of the females were classified as aggressive and disruptive. Teachers in the game-playing classrooms divided these high-risk students roughly equally among the teams.
The teachers using the GBG began by implementing the game for 10 minutes three times a week; they then increased its frequency and duration as the school year progressed. The same children continued to play the GBG or serve as controls through second grade. The game did not cut into instructional time because it took place when students were at their desks reading, completing work assignments, or engaging in other quiet activities.
About 15 years later, the researchers located and interviewed approximately 75 percent of children, now aged 19 to 21. The proportion of GBG alumni who reported a drug use disorder was 12 percent, compared with 19 percent among former controls. The youths who played the GBG were also less likely to smoke, to report alcohol use disorder or antisocial personality disorder, or to have considered or attempted suicide.
|Mental Health or Medical Services||13%||18%|
|Drug Abuse Treatment||4%||9%|
|Criminal Justice System||12%||20%|
* For problems with behavior, emotions, drugs, or alcohol.
The GBG was more advantageous to boys than to girls, except with respect to alcohol abuse, where the game's impact was similar in both genders. The greatest benefits were realized by boys whose first-grade teachers classified them as aggressive and disruptive. Among these boys, 29 percent who played the GBG reported drug use disorders, compared with 68 percent of controls (see graph above).
"We did not anticipate that a single intervention would have such a major impact," says Dr. Kellam, who led the study. "The key to the GBG's efficacy seems to be its effect on aggressive and disruptive boys. These are the kids who get sent to the principal's office and eventually expelled, so these are the kids who most need help."
Saving Money on Treatment and Social Services
By lowering teens' rates of smoking, substance abuse and addiction disorders, antisocial personality disorder, and suicidal tendencies, the Good Behavior Game (GBG) yielded economic dividends to public agencies that address those problems. Study recipients' self-reports and researchers' reviews of school and court records indicated that from first grade to age 19-21, GBG alumni, compared with controls, were assigned to fewer school-based services such as individual therapy or placement in special classrooms; they also has less involvement with juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.
The GBG's effect on males accounted for the entire reduction in service use. Roughly 25 percent of males who played the game received one or more services, compared with 38 percent in the control group. In contrast, among females about 19 percent of both players and controls received at least one service.
The greatest reduction was in the use of school services by males who were classified by their first-grade teachers as aggressive and disruptive. Among this group—who made up about 12 percent of all study participants—17 percent of those who played the game used school services, compared with 33 percent of those who did not play. "That's twice the number of aggressive children that receive these expensive school services," notes Dr. Jeanne Poduska, who oversaw the young-adult followup while employed by Johns Hopkins and has analyzed the service data while employed at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Poduska and colleagues propose an overall strategy of using the universal intervention in early grades, followed by more targeted interventions for children who have persistent behavioral problems, and finally mental health treatment for an even more selective group.
Dr. Elizabeth Robertson, chief of prevention research in NIDA's Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research, says the report shows that behavioral training in the elementary grades can place students on a more productive course and reduce costs for a wide range of social programs. "It is an example of why early intervention makes sense from an economic standpoint," she says.
Poduska, J.M., et al. Impact of the Good Behavior Game, a universal classroom-based behavior intervention, on young adult service use for problems with emotions, behavior, or drugs or alcohol. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 95 (Suppl.1):S29-S44, 2008. [Full Text (PDF, 385KB)]
In 1986, the teachers who had implemented the GBG in their classrooms the previous year did so again with another cohort of over 1,000 first-graders. The teachers had received 40 hours of preliminary training plus mentoring during the first year, but none during the second year. Followup interviews when these children were 19-21 years old revealed that the magnitude of reductions in smoking and drug abuse were not as great as they had been for the original 1985 cohort. According to the researchers, this falloff in efficacy of the GBG indicates a need for continued teacher mentoring and support.
The researchers have refined their training methods since 1985, but Dr. Jeanne Poduska of the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C., continues to search for better ways to train and motivate teachers. "The question we're trying to address is: What support does a teacher need to learn a new practice and sustain it over time?" Dr. Poduska says.
In addition to improving student outcomes, Dr. Kellam notes, the GBG gives teachers a method of managing classroom behavior. He says that many teachers find that their preparation for behavioral management is insufficient, and struggles with class behavior are a primary cause of teacher burnout.
Overall, the researchers conclude, their recent work supports "real optimism" that a single early, inexpensive intervention can improve a wide variety of outcomes, especially for the children at highest risk. Dr. Kellam says that the study is the first to link a universal childhood intervention with reduced frequency of a psychiatric disorder.
Dr. Elizabeth Robertson, chief of prevention research in NIDA's Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research, calls the study results "stunning." She says, "What we are seeing is a change in the life-course trajectories of these kids as a result of putting them on the right path early on." If the GBG were to be widely adopted in schools, she adds, the public health impact could be huge.
Kellam, S.G., et al. Effects of a universal classroom behavior management program in first and second grades on young adult problem outcomes. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 95(Suppl. 1): S1-S4, 2008. [Abstract]
Kellam, S.G., et al. Effects of a universal classroom behavior management program in first and second grades on young adult behavioral, psychiatric, and social outcomes. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 95(Suppl. 1): S5-S28, 2008. [Full Text (PDF, 795KB)]
Petras, H., et al. Developmental epidemiological courses leading to antisocial personality disorder and violent and criminal behavior: Effects by young adulthood of a universal preventive intervention in first- and second-grade classrooms. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 95(Suppl. 1): S45-S59, 2008. [Full Text]
Wilcox, H.C., et al. The impact of two universal randomized first- and second-grade classroom interventions on young adult suicide ideation and attempts. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 95(Suppl. 1): S60-S73, 2008. [Full Text (PDF, 963KB)] | <urn:uuid:0888d035-d5eb-43bd-898b-525b34e82fec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2010/04/behavior-game-played-in-primary-grades-reduces-later-drug-related-problems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963246 | 2,350 | 3.578125 | 4 |
(1953)5Rebecca Flint MarxWith Audrey Hepburn at her most appealing, Gregory Peck at his most charismatic, and Rome at its most photogenic, Roman Holiday remains one of the most popular romances that has ever skipped across the screen. Aside from being an enormously enjoyable romp, the film is most notable for two reasons. The first is Hepburn, featured here in her first starring role in a Hollywood film. Her performance won her an Academy Award and established her as an actress whose waifish, delicate beauty presented a viable alternative to the amply proportioned bombshells of the day. With her wide-eyed but cultivated portrayal of Princess Anne, Hepburn kicked off a trend defined by the Audrey Hepburn "look"--simple, sophisticated, and streamlined. The second reason for the film's importance is its location. Whereas modern-day filmmakers may think nothing of jetting off to remote and exotic locales, in 1953 the idea of traveling beyond a Hollywood soundstage was fairly novel. Director William Wyler's use of Rome is one of the best examples of how a location can become a leading character in a film: without the city's twisted alleyways, bustling crowds, and hulking ruins, Roman Holiday would have had the visual impact of a museum diorama. The effect of using the actual city in the film was eye-popping: audiences saw not just a romance between the two lead characters but a love affair between the camera and the city. In this respect, Roman Holiday goes beyond its status as one of the screen's most enduring romances to become one of history's most thumbed-through travel brochures. | <urn:uuid:8b85fc10-1df8-4c73-80b8-ab988e97250c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allmovie.com/movie/roman-holiday-v41976/cast-crew | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966814 | 336 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Can you match the mass and length or height of these things to
The Man is much smaller than us. Can you use the picture of him
next to a mug to estimate his height and how much tea he drinks?
Can you deduce the pattern that has been used to lay out these
There are nasty versions of this dice game but we'll start with the nice ones...
Who said that adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing
couldn't be fun?
This challenge is a game for two players. Choose two numbers from the grid and multiply or divide, then mark your answer on the number line. Can you get four in a row before your partner?
Unmultiply is a game of quick estimation. You need to find two
numbers that multiply together to something close to the given
target - fast! 10 levels with a high scores table.
Here is a chance to play a version of the classic Countdown Game.
What do you notice about the date 03.06.09? Or 08.01.09? This
challenge invites you to investigate some interesting dates
This activity challenges you to decide on the 'best' number to use
in each statement. You may need to do some estimating, some
calculating and some research.
Mr. Sunshine tells the children they will have 2 hours of homework.
After several calculations, Harry says he hasn't got time to do
this homework. Can you see where his reasoning is wrong?
Make an estimate of how many light fittings you can see. Was your
estimate a good one? How can you decide?
There are four equal weights on one side of the scale and an apple
on the other side. What can you say that is true about the apple
and the weights from the picture?
Find the exact difference between the largest ball and the smallest
ball on the Hepta Tree and then use this to work out the MAGIC
How might you use mathematics to improve your chances of guessing the number of sweets in a jar? | <urn:uuid:bc5806f5-6697-47ef-836f-b95a2cc3bd06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nrich.maths.org/public/leg.php?code=5021&cl=1&cldcmpid=2372 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920223 | 422 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Cardinal Francis Arinze has celebrated a special Academic Mass for students and staff of London's Universities and Colleges at Westminster Cathedral on Sunday, 19th November 2006. The Mass was held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the Catholic Chaplaincy to the London Universities.
In his homily, Cardianl Arinze, who is the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, reminded the congregation that everyone has a vocation and mission in the general mission of the Church to spread the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ. “There are no spectators in the Church. Everyone — cleric, consecrated person or lay faithful — has a definite mission to carry out.'
'There is a temptation for some lay faithful to expect holiness from clerics and consecrated men and women rather than from among themselves. But the correct theology is that stated by Vatican II: “All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity” (Lumen Gentium, 40).'
Cardinal Arinze continued; 'A Catholic in the academic community becomes holy by living a dynamic life inspired by our faith. That Catholic is to be the witness of Christ among colleagues in the arts and professions, in trade and commerce, in science and culture, in law and medicine, and indeed in the various arenas of private and public life where the person is called to be present. It was Cardinal John Henry Newman who said: “God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission”. None of us should be afraid to stand up and be counted for Christ and his Gospel.' | <urn:uuid:1624c646-81cf-44e5-8423-c7eef4049eae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rcdow.org.uk/diocese/default.asp?library_ref=4&content_ref=1074 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967826 | 361 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Do you text while driving? Go ahead, be honest. In some states it's illegal to even use the phone while driving. Some places make you pull over to designated lanes for phone use. and other laws allow conversation so long as the driver uses some sort of headset. But then you have to be that guy with the Bluetooth on, and nobody wants to be that guy. It's quite a conundrum.
But for all the vagaries of in-car phone usage, we can likely all agree that texting while driving is about as dangerous as it gets. Not only is your focus elsewhere than on the road, your hands are physically typing and your eyeballs are looking at your phone. You might as well put on a blindfold and take your hands off the wheel.
Texas linebacker Sergio Kindle -- and yes, when we first read this story, we thought Sergio had perhaps been felled by a popular online bookstore's e-reader -- was "either sending or receiving" a text message, according to his attorney, when his car slammed into an apartment building in Austin, Texas. No one was hurt in the accident. Kindle suffered a concussion, but was able to pull his car back out into the street and drive home with little event.
And so our story ends. Large, very strong linebacker suffers concussion, is still somehow able to move his car back onto a road and drive home. This is why he can text message in the car and you cannot: supreme physical superiority. But really, kids, be safe out there. Wear the dorky Bluetooth.
Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:5d59bbe5-69d0-4712-8d39-0240210dbd3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/Text-Causes-Texas-Football-Stars-Crash.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979008 | 373 | 2 | 2 |
September 22, 2010 —Photo by Sean Robertson.
Aviation history was made when the University of Toronto’s human-powered aircraft with flapping wings became the first of its kind to fly continuously.
The “Snowbird” performed its record-breaking flight on August 2 at the Great Lakes Gliding Club in Tottenham, Ont., witnessed by the vice-president (Canada) of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world-governing body for air sports and aeronautical world records. The official record claim was filed this month, and the FAI is expected to confirm the ornithopter’s world record at its meeting in October.
For centuries Engineers have attempted such a feat, ever since Leonardo da Vinci sketched the first human-powered ornithopter in 1485.
But under the power and piloting of Todd Reichert
(EngSci OT5), an Engineering PhD candidate at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), the wing-flapping device sustained both altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds, and covered a distance of 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour.
“The Snowbird represents the completion of an age-old aeronautical dream,” says lead developer and project manager Reichert. “Throughout history, countless men and women have dreamt of flying like a bird under their own power, and hundreds, if not thousands have attempted to achieve it. This represents one of the last of the aviation firsts.”
The Snowbird weighs just 94 lbs. and has a wing span of 32 metres (105 feet). Although its wingspan is comparable to that of a Boeing 737, the Snowbird weighs less than all of the pillows on board. Pilot Reichert lost 18 lbs. of body weight this past summer to facilitate flying the aircraft.
With sustainability in mind, Aerospace Engineering graduate students of UTIAS learned to design and build lightweight and efficient structures. The research also promoted “the use of the human body and spirit,” says Reichert.
“The use of human power, when walking or cycling, is an efficient, reliable, healthy and sustainable form of transportation. Though the aircraft is not a practical method of transport, it is also meant to act as an inspiration to others to use the strength of their body and the creativity of their mind to follow their dreams.”
The Snowbird development team is comprised of two University of Toronto Engineering graduate students: Reichert, and Cameron Robertson
(MASc 2009, UTIAS) as the chief structural engineer; UTIAS Professor Emeritus James D. DeLaurier
as faculty advisor; and community volunteers Robert and Carson Dueck. More than 20 students from the University of Toronto and up to 10 exchange students from Poitiers University, France, and Delft Technical University, Netherlands, also participated in the project.
“This achievement is the direct result of Todd Reichert’s dedication, perseverance, and ability and adds to the already considerable legacy of Jim DeLaurier, UTIAS’s great ornithopter pioneer,” says Professor David Zingg
, Director of UTIAS. “It also reflects well on the rigorous education Todd received at the University of Toronto. We’re very proud of Todd and the entire team for this outstanding achievement in aviation history.”
See the Ornithopter slideshow on Flickr
. Visit the team's website
and their YouTube channel
U of T student makes history with human-powered ‘flapping-wing’ plane
Read the Toronto Star story
.All the Wright stuff: Canadian student pilots wing-flapping plane
Read the Vancouver Sun story
.Human-powered flying machine makes history, says Toronto university
Read the Winnipeg Free Press story
.Human-powered flight stays airborne
Read the Los Angeles Times story | <urn:uuid:632515f9-7b39-425a-93f4-77e6967c498b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.engineering.utoronto.ca/About/Engineering_in_the_News/Human-powered_Ornithopter_Becomes_First_Ever_to_Achieve_Sustained_Flight.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928858 | 825 | 3.625 | 4 |
For twenty years I worked as a Probation Officer in Ohio and primarily corrected behavior by correcting the diet. (See www.naturalpress.info for books and DVD). We kept records for 12 years and the recidivism rate was less than 15%. In Sacramento County, CA the Community Addiction Recovery Association (CARA) worked with the Drug Court and they duplicated my work with an 85% SUCCESS rate over 10 years - saving Sacramento County $20 million - plus salvaging all those lives.
This approach is so basic it has been overlooked by the vast majority of states. My late husband Paul Stitt was a biochemist and the two of us owned a large Whole Grain Bakery in WI for over 25 years. In 1997, we were invited to provide fresh whole foods to an Alternative High School in Appleton, WI which was so out of control with violence they had a full time armed police office on staff. ALL we changed was the foods and in less than two months they had no discipline problems. A powerful 14 minute DVD "Impact of Fresh Whole Foods on Learning and Behavior" covers our 5 years of sponsoring the school....which was featured in the award winning film - "Super Size Me".
When the healthier foods program was extended to the entire school district of 15,000 students (K-12), the Superintendent and School Board were amazed at the improvement in attendance, behavior, academic and physical ability of the students. Their average of 450 high school drop outs per year plunged to an average of l6 .... out of 4500 high school students!
The neurotransmitters in the brain can not perform well unless they are nourished and free of allergens - it is that basic !
The general population - as well as the students - primarily consume refined factory made, artificially colored and flavored 'junk' foods instead of fresh nourishing whole foods. A percentage of these people are severely reactive to the artificial colors, sugar/corn syrup, and highly refined nutrient-deficient foods and drinks they are consuming. Soda machines, candy and other junk food machines make a lot of money for schools, companies and 'convenience' stores found everywhere.
This awful episode of senseless killing and maiming in Arizona is an example of how violent some people can get when they are suffering from low blood sugar reaction. The detectives who investigated the scene paid no attention to what 'foodstuffs' were in the house - nor did any of the 'professionals' who had attempted to work with him in the past. After doing hundreds of home investigations during my 20 years with the courts I can tell you with certainty they would find NO fresh, nutritional foods in that house....and this is always overlooked.
In 1975, I tested 106 probationers with 20 stating they 'easily became violent;' 14 admitted to suicidal tendencies, 6 felt a desire to cause damage to others and 7 would like to get revenge on society!
If you are genuinely interested in making an impact on the recidivism rate you may wish to contact CARA's Executive Director, Carolyn Reuben [Note: CARA stands for Community Addiction Recovery Association] in Sacramento, CA. You may also Google the Alliance for Addictions Solutions. Another excellent website is www.feingold.org. Dr. Ben Feingold discovered in the 1960's that artificial colors could cause violent behavior in some children as young as age 2 or 3 - and all ages including adults. I have personally witnessed this on a number of occasions.
I would enjoy speaking with you further if you desire.
Barbara Reed Stitt
Author: Food & Behavior - Nutritional Guidelines for Correcting Behavior - DVD - 'Impact of Healthy Foods on Learning and Behavior - www.naturalpress.info. | <urn:uuid:f69f688c-6187-4e97-96fd-43056629d513> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.feingold.org/enews/stittletter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962323 | 767 | 1.625 | 2 |
Famed mixologist Jackson Cannon recently invited me on a trip to Louisville Kentucky to photograph and experience the process of selecting whiskey barrels from the esteemed Four Roses Distillery. Jackson is Bar Director for Eastern Standard Kitchen and Drinks, Island Creek Oyster Bar, and Owner of The Hawthorne in Boston, Massachusetts.
The lobby of the renowned Brown Hotel.
Happy hour at the bar across the street Van Winkle 13 year rye only $5.95 a glass!
The modest entrance to the Four Roses bottling facility.
Straight from the barrel by whiskey thief.
Similar in look to a wine tasting, but far more intense and not for the faint of heart. That being said, I am now a whiskey drinker and truly appreciate the breadth of variety that each barrel can present.
Taking a breather the Four Roses Distillery
On the way out of town we stop at the “liquor mart”. The whiskey, bourbon and rye selection is expansively different in Kentucky than in the rest of the world.
THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN WHISKEY
The origins of whiskey can be traced back to the Medieval monks of both Ireland and Scotland, but now, those two countries make their own distinctive styles of their native spirit. So it is with American whiskey–the original concept may have been imported from far away lands, but some 300 years later, American whiskey, a spirit that can’t be made without corn, an indigenous American grain, is a product unto itself.
American whiskey started its life as a raw, unaged spirit that had, as its main attribute, the power to spur the courage of the first colonists. And through the years, whiskey has developed into the complex, big-bodied, distinctively American bourbons, ryes, and Tennessee whiskeys that today, are savored by connoisseurs, sipped by grandmothers, tossed back by barflies, and “discovered” by almost every American as he or she reaches that magical age of twenty-one. American whiskey, itself, has reached maturity in relatively recent years, after spending a 300-year adolescence being molded by every major event that has affected its native country. And at times, the reverse is true–whiskey has affected the nation itself.
Whiskey-making was one of the first cottage industries in the land; it was responsible for George Washington mustering federal troops for the first time, and whiskey went with the early pioneers as they traveled westward to explore new territories. Whiskey was a spirit of contention during the Civil War, and was, in part, the reason that Grant never served a third term in the White House. Whiskey spurred the women of America to lead a crusade that led to Prohibition, and has played a part in every major war this nation has seen. In short, where America has been, so has American whiskey–and where whiskey has traveled, so have Americans been influenced by its presence.
Bourbon, in fact, is so darned American, that, in 1964, Congress itself recognized it as “a distinctive product of the U.S.A.” And although straight rye, and Tennessee whiskeys haven’t attained such a prestigious honor, they too have traveled the same dusty trails that led to today’s superhighways and are as distinctively American as any bourbon whiskey.
When the first immigrants arrived on this continent, their love for alcohol in almost any shape or form led to a chain of events that would culminate in the creation of distinctive American whiskeys. By tracing the thirst the settlers wanted to slake we can plot the development of American whiskey from the early days of the settlers in Virginia and New England all the way through time to today. Furthermore, we can track the creation of bourbon and Tennessee whiskey back to their very roots–a rare opportunity when the subject is food or drink. | <urn:uuid:407129d8-a180-472a-a876-6ccd339d26ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stephensheffield.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9593 | 800 | 1.765625 | 2 |
- assets (n.)
- 1530s, "sufficient estate," from Anglo-French asetz (singular), from Old French assez (11c.) "sufficiency, satisfaction; compensation," noun use of adverb meaning "enough, sufficiently; very much, a great deal," from Vulgar Latin *ad satis "to sufficiency," from Latin ad- "to" (see ad-) + satis "enough" (see sad).
Beginning as a legal term, "sufficient estate" (to satisfy debts and legacies), it passed into general use; meaning "any property that theoretically can be converted to ready money" is from 1580s. Asset is a 19c. artificial singular. Asset stripping attested from 1972. | <urn:uuid:0d68db4b-d6ac-483f-8ca6-854071c727a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=assets&allowed_in_frame=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933354 | 155 | 2.8125 | 3 |
input needed: developing '44 load for a rifle
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January 19, 2006, 03:37 AM
Join Date: November 1, 2005
> I have read in numerous sources that it is a myth that a longer barrel has anything to do with the useful burn rate of a powder.
mmm.. and that's why we use slower powders in rifles than in handguns? not sure what you mean. Cheers!
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Page generated in | <urn:uuid:13966731-5ed9-4189-8965-af8b46462451> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1833279&postcount=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929558 | 105 | 1.84375 | 2 |
To control loose thread tails on spools, wrap them with strips of Hugo’s Amazing Tape. Simply cut the tape slightly longer than the diameter of the spool. The tape must be stretched around the spool with the end of the tape pressed firmly against the beginning of the tape. The tighter you stretch the tape, the greater the holding power. Both ends of the tape must be stretched and be in complete contact with the tape.
To inspire and nurture personal creativity and productivity by connecting embroiderers and digitizers with innovative, high-quality products and information that significantly elevate their enjoyment and experience while maximizing the use of technology. In other words, more toys and more fun! | <urn:uuid:af78e783-1299-45ef-a33d-c195d5df1fae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lindeegembroidery.com/tag/utility/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921088 | 140 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The condition is dense breast tissue --not a disease, not an abnormality, just the way some breasts are constituted. Making women aware of dense breast tissue and what it means for the risk of cancer is the purpose of "Are You Dense? Day," which the California Legislature has declared for Today, August 8, in a resolution authored by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto.
I began notifying women with dense breast tissue in 2005, so that they could consider additional screening with ultrasound. As a result more than 30 early invasive breast cancers have been detected, just at my small facility, that were not seen with mammography.
Until recently detection rested almost entirely on mammography, but we are now aware that for women with dense breast tissue mammography alone is inadequate. Dense breast tissue appears white on a mammogram. So does cancer, making it harder to discern cancerous tumors, especially in the early, smaller stages of their development. A recent study found that in women with dense breast tissue, 75 percent of cancers are missed by
We have the tools to compensate for this, but the affected women do not know to ask for them
Further, dense breast tissue, especially in women of middle-age or older, is associated with a higher risk of cancer. For women with extremely dense breast tissue, the risk is five times greater than for those with low density.
"Are You Dense? Day" is a day to encourage women to learn more about their breast health. Forty percent of women tested by mammograms have dense breast tissue, but surveys show that more than 90 percent of women are unaware of their breast density.
Women with dense breast tissue should talk to their doctors about the potential benefits of screening tools beyond mammograms. Ideally every woman should have a breast cancer screening plan that takes into account her individual risk factors - her age, family history, breast density and her own health history.
Legislation introduced by Simitian would require that the mammogram reports sent to women include information about breast density, and for those women with dense breasts, suggest that they might benefit from supplemental screening. Simitian's Senate Bill 1538 has 32 co-authors in the Senate and 52 in the Assembly.
The message of "Are You Dense? Day" is not just that the law should require patients to be informed if they have dense breasts, but that women should take the initiative to ask for this information as part of their mammography report. Under federal law, an assessment of breast density already is included in mammography reports to referring physicians. This is information that a woman has a need and a right to know.
Late-stage diagnosis of breast cancer causes immeasurable personal and societal costs in grief, suffering, and money. These costs have a ripple effect and result in increased health care costs, lost productivity and earnings, and the premature deaths of mothers, sisters, wives, co-workers, and friends.
Notification of the vital information about breast density is essential for women to make informed health choices. In my own practice it has also facilitated needed discussion with primary care physicians about individual assessment of breast cancer risk, and strategies to improve prevention and early detection. "Are You Dense? Day" sends a message to all women that they need to be informed if they are to be effective advocates for their own health. One of the most important facts to know is "Am I dense?"
Women, ask your doctor. And insist that doctors share what I and my fellow radiologists already know.
Judy Dean, MD, is a Board-certified Diagnostic Radiologist who practices in Santa Barbara, California and has specialized in breast imaging for over 20 years. | <urn:uuid:c79c4ac2-0bf3-4eb4-b937-49a97c92b245> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_21258497/comment-are-you-dense-day-encourages-women-learn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971312 | 757 | 2.421875 | 2 |
“Chase” is an art project from 2005 that I only heard about recently. In it, animated cartoon characters participate in a never-ending chase in which their speed and actions correspond to the speed of a moving car. It’s a modest experiment but I could see the idea being applied to more interesting and ambitious marriages of interactivity and animation in real-world environments. The artist, Karolina Sobecka, offers the following artistic statement about the work:
Danger, violence, fear, persecution are popular themes driving the children’s cartoons. Such infantilized representation of these concepts stands in absurd contrast to the stark reality of the urban LA context. | <urn:uuid:75880f27-5ea4-4644-9610-896c6adade1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cartoon-culture/interactive-animated-wall-projections-5838.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940428 | 140 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Lauren, 26, Rheumatoid Arthritis
Lauren Vaknine is 26 Lauren and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. Here she talks openly about her illness, homeopathy and her life.
I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) when I was two years old which initially affected my knees and ankles. At the time the only treatment available was large quantities of steroids, but my parents didn’t want me to be on these drugs at such a young age, which was fortunate for the long-term effects of treating such young children with high doses of steroids were later found to do more harm than good. Looking for other options my parents decided to try homeopathy.
When I was 17 I had a huge arthritic flare-up. In my right eye I had Uveitis, an inflammation of the middle layer of the eye, a condition most children with JRA get at a young age. A cataract was forming rapidly but they couldn’t remove it as in normal cases, as there was too much inflammation in the eye. The cataract was growing more layers and getting dangerous, so I had to take a conventional medication for a short period of time in order to have the operation. I was prescribed a chemo-based drug which I shall call “M”. After a few months this drug made me so ill I couldn’t function any more. The arthritis started to spread – it was only in five joints for the first 18 years of my life. By the time I’d been taking M for a year, the arthritis had spread to every joint in my body – hips, fingers, jaw, neck, elbows, everywhere. I also lost half my hair and it damaged my liver. I was also wheelchair bound, so I swore never to take a conventional medication again.
I started seeing a homeopath when I was just four years old and it has kept me strong for so many years. During my childhood I attended group hydrotherapy sessions and always had more energy than the other children who were being slowed down by steroids. I was still not like most normal children and my arthritis affected me, but homeopathy kept my body strong and able to fight illnesses.
Homeopathic medicine is now the only medication I take. I attend the RLHIM every two months where I see a number of doctors including Dr Peter Fisher. I’m prescribed various medicines depending on what is going on with me at the time, but I do find Pulsatilla very helpful. This is why I love homeopathy: it treats the person not the disease.
I believe that the only reason I live a normal life is because of homeopathy. Most people who have had arthritis for 24 years have many deformities, and other secondary illnesses due to all the medications they have taken over the years. I am proud to say that I am strong, have great general health and a good immune system and I look like a normal 26 year old. I’m convinced this is only because I have been using homeopathy from a very young age. If I’d spent my childhood taking conventional medicine, I’m sure I wouldn’t be as healthy as I am now. My rheumatologist, who is not a homeopath, says my bone density should be much worse than it is after 24 years of arthritis. But as I live a more active life than most people who have this illness, he agrees I should carry on doing what I'm doing.
Complementary medicine is now an important part of my life. The wonderful thing about the RLHIM is that it offers a whole range of integrated therapies. I see Dr Tariq Khan for podiatry and I use his excellent Marigold treatment which corrected the slight deformities that were starting to appear in my toes. I see Dr Raj Sharma for hypnotherapy and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). I have Craniosacral therapy with Dr Weissner and I’m now also being seen in the insomnia clinic to help with my sleep problems. I also meditate as I believe I need to keep mind clear and strong in order to stay healthy.
I know there are studies that suggest there is a link between food allergies and rheumatoid arthritis and some sufferers avoid certain foods, but I don’t. When my illness was very bad I cut out wheat, dairy and sugar, as well as some vegetables and fruits that are supposed to be bad for arthritis. However, I now believe that moderation is the best approach. You shouldn’t deprive your body of what it wants but you should limit everything. I don’t eat lots of bread, maybe once or twice a week, but I don’t cut it out. I have lactose free milk instead of full dairy milk. I eat a lot of fresh vegetables and not too much red meat, but like I said – a little of everything. I try to eat lots of fish and I make sure I drink plenty of water and herbal teas, such as fennel tea as it is good for cleansing.
Living a fulfilling life
When I left school I went to performing arts school as I had dreams about being an actress and director. This is when I got really sick and ended up in a wheelchair, so I was unable to go to university to study acting and directing. However, I have since had some small acting roles in films, TV shows and theatre. Six years ago I studied interior design and have worked in this field ever since, alongside working as a presenter for a west London radio station for two years.
I still have arthritic flare-ups a few times a year, so find it very difficult to work for someone else as some mornings I have a lot of difficulty getting up and moving around quickly, especially in the winter. I used to work for a great interior design company where I got to travel, but following a flare-up which stopped me going in to the office for three weeks, I lost my job. So I decided to start my own business, JayLa Enterprises, where I can work from home designing house interiors, although I sometimes get asked to do offices and showrooms too.
In April last year I published my autobiography “My Enemy, My Friend”, which tells the story of my life with arthritis: the low points I have reached; the trouble I’ve had with the hospital system; but how, ultimately, I came through it with the help of integrated medicine and a strong family.
If you would like to interview Lauren please call Cristal Sumner on 01582 408674 or email [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:225b73bb-8365-4256-87ab-61a8d6ea689d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishhomeopathic.org/media_centre/case_studies/rheumatoid_arthritis_case.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980897 | 1,419 | 1.5 | 2 |
Eliminate toxic chemicals
Pregnant women protest outside the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel against man-made toxic chemicals that contaminate unborn babies
Dangerous chemicals threaten our water, air, land and ultimately the health of all living beings. Many are knowingly released into the environment, causing disease, mutation and stunted fertility. Even newborn babies enter the world contaminated with poisonous chemicals inherited from their mothers. The slow accumulation of such substances in the environment, food chain and our bodies is a serious problem. Greenpeace does not oppose the use of chemicals, but is against the release of dangerous ones, especially when there are safer alternatives.
Fortunately, the tide is turning towards the elimination of such substances. In 2007, the world’s most progressive chemical legislation entered into force for EU countries. The EU law, called REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals), requires firms to be more transparent regarding the chemicals they manufacture and use. It is based on a precautionary principle, shifting the burden of proof regarding for safety onto manufacturers and importers, and it provides for restrictions and phasing out of dangerous chemicals.
If properly implemented, REACH will result in the replacement of the most dangerous chemicals with safe/r alternatives. The proof of its effectiveness will be in how well and how quickly phase outs occur, pursuant to commitments to make chemical management safe by 2020. The impacts of REACH stand to be felt in the wider world too, with non-European manufacturers and governments aligning their policies to Europe’s. In the coming years, additional dangerous substances will be added to the REACH phase out process.
In addition to REACH, the EU’s Water Framework Directive is meant to halt the release of dangerous chemicals into European waters. The directive is set to be expanded in 2011 and 2012. | <urn:uuid:53a0de76-b7e7-4720-8641-2272735cf32a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/campaigns/chemicals/?tab=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938147 | 371 | 3.140625 | 3 |
|A Bactrian Camel walking in the snow|
|Map of the world showing distribution of camelids. Solid black lines indicate possible migration routes.|
The animals of the genus Camelus are also called Afro-Asiatic Camelids. The animals of the genus Lama and genus Vicugna are also called South American Camelids.
There also exists a camelid hybrid called a Cama. It is the child of a female Llama and a male Dromedary Camel. The Cama does not exist in nature, but is "made" by humans through artificial insemination (that means the sperm is artificially put into the female).
Camelids and humans [change]
Camelids have been domesticated by humans for about 5000 years. They have been important for transport, but were also kept for wool, meat and milk. The llama and alpaca were very important for the South American cultures, like the Inka. The camels were used by people in north Africa and Asia, especially in deserts.
Other websites [change]
|Wikispecies has information on: Camelidae.|
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Camelidae| | <urn:uuid:3fb6323b-0a3b-4e96-8ba2-2f6911590c78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91314 | 248 | 3.5625 | 4 |
The joke used to be that getting families involved in their children's education was like the weather: Everyone discussed it, but no one did much about it.
That's no longer true. Schools are beefing up their efforts--especially Title I schools, required by No Child Left Behind to provide for parent involvement at the state, district and local school levels.
Such mandates are only one reason to "do something" about parent involvement. Research shows that students with involved parents--regardless of their background or income level--reap a bevy of benefits, including attending school regularly, enrolling in more advanced classes, getting better grades, graduating from high school, and pursuing post-secondary education.
What kinds of involvement make the greatest difference for students, and how can schools encourage this activity? Although more research is needed, a review of existing studies offers some direction:
Be strategic Parent involvement activities are more likely to have a positive long-term effect when they are comprehensive and well planned.
Be inclusive NCLB requires districts to involve parents in developing and approving Title I parent involvement policies. Schools that involve parents in these and other activities must work to create a welcoming, non-threatening climate. Studies show white, middle-class families tend to be more involved at school. Schools that successfully engage families from diverse backgrounds build trust, respect and address families' needs as well as class and cultural differences, and share power and responsibility.
Build school capacity Teacher outreach to parents is linked to strong, consistent gains in student reading and math performance. Yet most teachers receive little or no training in how to work with parents. Administrators can support teacher efforts by offering staff development in effective outreach practices (e.g., meeting with parents at school, conducting home visits, staying in touch about progress, and sending learning materials home).
Build parent capacity Most parents want to help their children, but many aren't sure they "know enough" to contribute. Teachers can provide encouragement and information. Some parents don't realize that simply reading aloud is one of the best ways to help children who are learning to read. Children of all ages do better in school when their parents talk to them about school, expect them to do well, and involve them in constructive activities at home. None of these actions require special training. Schools might consider offering workshops for parents on how to help their children at home. (This has been linked to higher reading and math scores.)
Don't limit efforts to elementary schools Parents who stay involved beyond the early years help students make better transitions and to stay in school. One study found that high school students were three times more likely to complete a bachelor's degree when their parents talk with teachers, monitor homework and help with post-high school planning. | <urn:uuid:eedc5ad0-aff1-46ed-9a31-812849cd587f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.districtadministration.com/article/be-strategic-boost-family-involvement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971876 | 555 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Building soils for better crops
Cronin Farms, Gettysburg, S.D., is making some big gains in soil organic matter. It’s risen from 2% soil organic matter to 4% organic matter in recent years — which is worth about $1,100 per acre by some estimates.
“We saw a small, slow increase in organic matter after we converted to 100% no-till 20 years ago,” says Dan Forgey, Cronin Farms agronomy manager. But the gain was limited to the top few inches of soil where crop residue was concentrated.
• South Dakota farm sees a jump in organic matter over the past six years.
• The increase came by adding cover crops to the farm’s rotation.
• The practice increased nutrients and soil moisture.
The latest increase — about 2 percentage points — has come over the past six years since Cronin Farms began including cover crops in the rotation after spring and winter wheat.
“We used to think you wanted to keep stubble clean after harvest to conserve moisture,” Forgey says. “But we have learned the soil likes living roots more.” He says the soil contains microbes and other organisms that thrive on live roots. “They need to be fed just like us.”
Adding cover crops after winter and spring wheat keeps a living crop on the land throughout the growing season. Cover crops haven’t hurt Cronin Farms yields, even in dry years, because the crops have increased soil organic matter.
“Organic matter acts like a sponge,” Forgey says. “It will hold up to 90% of its weight in water.”In dry years, the added capacity makes a difference in yields. “When you have reduced yields in a dry year, maybe you have to start looking at soil health,” Forgey says.
Cronin Farms has about 8,500 acres of farmland and usually plants about 700 acres of cover crops each year. Legumes add nitrogen to the soil, and grasses add organic carbon and recycle phosphorus to legume crops. Oilseed radish is planted to loosen the soil and recycle N.
“We’re still learning about cover crops,” Forgey says. “But it’s clear. They are really accelerating the increase in our soil organic matter.”
TAKING STOCK: Dan Forgey probes a field planted to a cover-crop cocktail. He’s seeing an improvement in soil quality.
This article published in the April, 2011 edition of DAKOTA FARMER.
All rights reserved. Copyright Farm Progress Cos. 2011. | <urn:uuid:988bf37c-357f-4693-8260-9a2629b99ed4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://farmprogress.com/missouri-ruralist/library.aspx/building-soils-better-crops-41/46/1096 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944636 | 554 | 2.4375 | 2 |
``Maybe it should've been Agonizing Pass or Not-so-easy Pass,'' joked Transportation Commissioner John J. Haley Jr., referring to the years of negotiations. The project was conceived more than 10 years ago.
But from here on, the public-private partnership expects no further delays and envisions a profit machine that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars.
E-ZPass is in place at river crossings into New York City, including the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. New Jersey officials hope the system will be interwoven with similar ones in other states, enabling motorists to drive from Massachusetts to Washington without reaching for their wallets.
In a financial estimate provided yesterday, officials project that over a 10-year period, they will collect $450 million in fines from violators in New Jersey. Another $205 million will come from renting the excess capacity on new underground fiber-optics lines, whose primary purpose will be transmitting toll charges to a central processing center in Secaucus.
Those two revenue sources will barely cover construction, debt service and other costs, but the estimates are on the conservative side because they were prepared to demonstrate the ability to repay $300 million that is being borrowed for start-up costs.
In reality, the partnership expects to earn a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars over that 10-year-period, said William Thompson, president of the principal contractor, MFS Transportation Systems of Mount Laurel.
MFS will get 15 percent of profits. The remaining 85 percent will be split among members of a consortium that includes the Turnpike Authority, the New Jersey Highway Authority (which operates the Parkway), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the South Jersey Transportation Authority (which operates the Expressway), and the Delaware Department of Transportation.
To participate, motorists must obtain a wallet-size ``transponder'' from a store, gas station or even over the Internet. There is no cost other than a $10 security deposit. They can then call a toll-free number and give their credit card number to set up a minimum $25 account.
Each time the motorist passes through a specially marked toll booth, the scanner will identify the car and send the information electronically to the center in Secaucus - a transportation bank of sorts where the tolls will be deducted from the driver's account.
In addition to the Hudson and East River crossings, an E-ZPass system is in place on the New York State Thruway, and another is under construction on the bridges run by the Delaware River Port Authority. The latter could join the New Jersey-Delaware-New York consortium, or it could set up its own customer-service center.
Even in the latter case, New Jersey motorists could cross the Benjamin Franklin Bridge with the same transponder they use on the Turnpike, because the technology is the same.
The same is also true for toll roads in Pennsylvania and Maryland; each agency could handle the other's transactions as needed, much as automated tellers at one bank can accommodate transactions for another bank.
MFS, the contractor, is a subsidiary of MFS Network Technologies of Omaha, Neb. The Omaha company is owned by WorldCom Inc., the maverick telecommunications company that stunned Wall Street last fall with its bid to purchase MCI Communications, the country's second-largest long-distance telephone carrier.
WorldCom, based in Jackson, Miss., will likely rent space on the very fiber-optics lines that are being laid by its subsidiary, to carry both local- and long-distance telephone traffic. But it won't pay any less than AT&T Corp. or any other phone company, MFS officials said.
``They'll pay the going rate,'' Thompson said.
One unexpected by-product of E-ZPass could be better tracking of fugitives from justice.
Transportation officials say the system was not conceived as a way to aid law enforcement, but they concede that police may at times come in search of driver information. When police were tracking suspects in the killing of North Jersey businessman Nelson Gross, for example, they subpoenaed E-ZPass records from the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
The New Jersey consortium would provide records only under court order, said Lynn Fleeger, a spokeswoman for the Turnpike Authority. | <urn:uuid:231ed785-298a-4b9d-a803-709a7c9cccb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.philly.com/1998-03-12/news/25745237_1_toll-booth-electronic-toll-system-turnpike-authority | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939974 | 878 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.
Compete | FAQ | Contact Us
E-Commerce : The Way to do Business in the Future
As we all know, with the advent of Internet in the world of IT, E-Commerce has grown to become an important tool to conduct business. It would be good if students in schools are well-informed about the concept of E-Commerce, how Internet is being used and its advantages, for they will be the one engaging on it intensively in future.
The objectives of the entry :
1) to create awareness about E-Commerce
2) to highlight the importance of E-Commerce in today's world
3) to highlight examples of current usage of E-Commerce
OwMacPherson Secondary School, Singapore, Singapore
Yuan YangMacPherson Secondary School, Singapore, Singapore
KennyMacPherson Secondary School, Singapore, Singapore
19 & under
Sheikh Farid Abdul KarimMinistry of Education, Singapore, Singapore
Business & Industry > Money & Economics | <urn:uuid:4b3369ff-f47d-4aa1-becc-e1c71cf030b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkquest.org/pls/html/f?p=52300:100:2619767410969150::::P100_TEAM_ID:501569993 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913873 | 228 | 2.421875 | 2 |
From Jacob Mendlovic of Toronto comes a letter of complaint about “the intense hostility of Haredim,” or ultra-Orthodox Jews, toward gentiles as manifested in such “Jewish n-words” as sheygets (a non-Jewish boy; from Hebrew shaketz, “abomination”); shikse (a non-Jewish girl); orel (an uncircumcised man) and akum (heathen — a talmudic acronym for ovdey kokhavim u’mazalot, “worshipers of stars and signs”). And that’s not all. “When a Haredi Jew dies,” Mr. Mendlovic writes, “Haredim use the Hebrew-derived expression er iz nifter geven, ‘He passed away,’ whereas when a gentile dies, they say er iz geshtorbn [the past tense of German-derived shtarbn, to die] — or worse yet, using the Hebrew word peger, an animal carcass, er hot gepeygert. In their literature and newspapers, they make a sharp, punning distinction between a beys-tfile, a ‘house of prayer’ or synagogue, and a beys-tifle, a ‘house of folly’ or church. If you want, I can mail you examples of all this.”
There’s no need to. The hostility of some Jews, particularly insular ones, toward gentiles is hardly news, and certain Yiddish turns of phrase that express this, like er iz gepeygert, “He [a gentile] croaked,” are truly ugly. But although there’s no real excuse for such turns of phrase, one needs to remind oneself of two things. The first thing is that Yiddish was, until recently, an Eastern European language, and that in Eastern Europe, where millions of Jews were murdered by Christians not very long ago, neither Jews nor Christians made a secret of not liking each other. (This is, of course, a generalization. There were always many exceptions to the rule.) The second thing is that Yiddish has a whole set of binary terms for Jews and gentiles that, while they certainly reflect a Jewish sense of superiority, do not necessarily reflect animus. Rather, they come from a traditional Jewish sense that Jews and gentiles inhabit separate universes, one sacred and the other profane, and that language may sometimes indicate this.
In most cases, Yiddish made such distinctions in matters of religious practice. Although Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe did not call a church a beys-tifle unless they wished to be derogatory (the neutral terms kirkh and kloyster were far more common), and beys-tfile was not a frequent term for a synagogue, once in a church or synagogue, the words used for Jewish and Christian worship were not the same. When a Jew prayed, he “davened” (the word is of obscure origins, though many years ago, in these pages, I tried to trace it back to Hebrew); for Christians, the verb was molyen zikh, from Polish modlić się. The holiday the Jew prayed on was a yontif (from Hebrew yom tov, “good day”); the Christian celebrated a khoge (from Aramaic ḥ aga, “holiday”). A sermon in the church was a preydik (from German predigen, to preach); a sermon in the synagogue was a droshe (from Hebrew d’rashá). The lectern the Christian preacher stood at was a shtender; a shtender in a synagogue was a stand for a book, while a preacher’s lectern, also used by the prayer leader and the Torah reader, was the amud (from Hebrew again).
The emphasis was on difference, not derogation. It was often reinforced, as can be seen, by the use of a Hebrew word with sacral associations for Jews and the use of a non-Hebrew word for gentiles. The Jewish slaughter of kosher animals was designated by the verb shekhtn, from Hebrew shaḥ at; Christian slaughter was koylen, from Russian kolot. A Jewish cemetery was Hebrew beys-oylem, a “house of eternity”; a Christian cemetery was a tsvinter, from Ukrainian tsvintar. (This word ultimately goes back to Greek koimeterion and Latin coemeterium, and has such Eastern European cognates as Polish cmentarz and Hungarian tzinterem.) Burying a gentile was bagrobn, a Germanic word related to English “grave”; burying a Jew was more often mekaber zayn or brengen tsu kvure, from Hebrew kavar, “bury,” and k’vurá, “burial.”
One could go on. A saintly Jew was a tzaddik, from the Hebrew word for “righteous man”; a saintly Christian was a heyliker, from German heilig, “holy.” A scholarly Jew was a lamden, from Hebrew lamad, “learn, study”; a scholarly Christian, a gelernter. And once again: heyliker and gelernter were respectful terms. They just referred to a different realm, a separate sphere of existence.
None of this is to argue for or against Mr. Mendlovic’s assessment of ultra-Orthodox attitudes toward gentiles. Having little first-hand familiarity with the Haredi world, I have no idea how much we are talking about unthinkingly inherited linguistic usages and how much about genuine prejudice. Although words like “goy,” sheygets, shikse, orel, etc., can certainly be contemptuous, they don’t have to be. They can simply express a sense of otherness, of the enormous gulf dividing Jews from gentiles that was the common experience of many Eastern European Jews and continues to be that of ultra-Orthodox Jews today. Feeling superior as a Jew doesn’t necessarily mean denying a non-Jew’s worth, even if you think you’re lucky not to have been born one.
Questions for Philologos can be sent to [email protected] | <urn:uuid:ff9e5bb4-230b-4a7a-9257-3d3de316340f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/159146/interfaith-insults/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954162 | 1,382 | 1.921875 | 2 |
$24.9M to U. Dayton for USAF Materials ResearchJan 31, 2006 02:34 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
The University of Dayton Research Institute in Dayton, OH received a $24.9 million cost-reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract with task orders. The objective of this program is to develop materials for Air Force electronic and optical applications. The range of materials to be investigated in this program includes bulk compound semiconductor materials, epitaxially engineered semiconductor materials, optical materials, and high-temperature superconducting materials. Advances made in the program are expected to lead to improved materials and devices for digital, microwave, infrared detector, opto-electronic, nonlinear optical, power generation and control applications.
A partial list of UDRI’s capabilities and foci can be found here. Research tasks shall be accomplished primarily on-site using government furnished equipment, materials, and facilities in a complementary/ collaborative mode with other ongoing government supported in-house research projects. In certain cases, research may be performed off-site when it clearly represents the most advantageous method for accomplishing the research task. This work will be complete by January 2010. The Headquarters Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH issued the contract (FA8650-06-D-5401). | <urn:uuid:2d224e95-011b-49b1-a269-27caf97b3244> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/249m-to-u-dayton-for-usaf-materials-research-01817/ | 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 | 0.902049 | 279 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Prince Snow Mountain is seated at the west end
of the Baimang Snow Mountain, higher and more elegant compared
with the Bamang Snow Mountain. The local Zang people (Tibetan)
regard it as a Holy Mountain. Each year in autumn, the Zang people
come from far and near gathering here for Hajj the Prince Snow
Mountain. One thing we would like to warn you is that climbing
Meli Mountain could be very dangerous. Several attempts have been
made to conquered Meli Mountain since '90, but all failed.
In 1991, a Sino-Japan joint climbing team were very
close to the main peak-Kawagebo when it began to snow heavily. The
team were forced to abandon the climbing plan, and the whole team
died in the way of returning to No.3 Base of 5,100 meters above
sea level, including 6 Chinese and 11 Japanese, which marked the
greatest sacrifice in the history of mountain- climbing in China.
It's until in July,1998 that the frozen corpses of the team were
The best season for visiting the Prince Snow
Mountain is in the summer time and it must be clear day.
The snow-capped Meili Mountains, whose every peak
is the subject of an enchanting tale. The glacier at the foot of
the peak extends 11,000 meters downward to a surprisingly low
level, seeming to plunge into the Lancang ( Mekong ) River. | <urn:uuid:7d3b46a3-e652-4b3d-bb7c-deb56c3b4b91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelchinayunnan.com/city/deqen/attraction/meili.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956275 | 310 | 1.796875 | 2 |
March 16, 2012
The BP Wayback Machine
While looking toward the future with our comprehensive slate of current content, we'd also like to recognize our rich past by drawing upon our extensive (and mostly free) online archive of work dating back to 1997. In an effort to highlight the best of what's gone before, we'll be bringing you a weekly blast from BP's past, introducing or re-introducing you to some of the most informative and entertaining authors who have passed through our virtual halls. If you have fond recollections of a BP piece that you'd like to nominate for re-exposure to a wider audience, send us your suggestion.
Roy Halladay has had a rocky start to his exhibition season, but in 2000, he experienced far greater struggles in games that counted. Just over a decade ago, Rany Jazayerli covered both that disastrous season and the impressive turnaround that followed it in the article reproduced below, which originally ran as a "Doctoring the Numbers" column on March 6, 2002.
In the last installment of DTN, we examined the topic of whether left-handed pitchers take longer to have a breakout season than right-handers do. In the process, we had to define exactly what a "breakout" season is. I used a series of qualifiers to define the term, and it worked pretty well. But there is a much simpler definition:
A breakout season is what Roy Halladay had in 2001.
Sure, a 5-3 record and a 3.16 ERA in 105 innings doesn't look that impressive on the surface...unless you consider that Halladay had a 10.64 ERA in 68 innings in 2000, the worst ERA in major-league history for someone with even 40 innings. Here is a list of the worst single-season ERAs since 1900:
Year Pitcher IP ERA 2000 Roy Halladay 67.2 10.64 1999 Micah Bowie 51 10.24 1973 Steve Blass 88.2 9.85 1998 Andy Larkin 74.2 9.64 1985 Glen Cook 40 9.45
Halladay improved his ERA by 7.48 points in 2001, which--not surprisingly--is a record for anyone with 50 or more innings in two consecutive seasons. What is surprising is the margin by which this is a record:
Pitcher Year 1 ERA Year 2 ERA Diff Roy Halladay 2000 10.64 2001 3.16 7.48 Willis Hudlin 1936 9.00 1937 4.10 4.90 John D'Acquisto 1977 6.54 1978 2.13 4.41 Albie Lopez 1997 6.93 1998 2.60 4.33 Ferdie Schupp 1915 5.10 1916 0.90 4.20
(On a pure percentage basis, it's hard to imagine anyone cutting their ERA by more than Ferdie Schupp, who sliced 82% off his ERA in 1916. He threw just 140 innings in 1916, preventing him from holding the single-season record for ERA.)
It's not just Halladay's massive improvement in his ERA that is so eye-catching, though. After all, looking at Halladay's career numbers, his 2000 season stands out for its overall suckitude. In 1999, Halladay had 3.92 ERA; he gave up just three earned runs in 14 innings in his 1998 cup of coffee, and came within an out of a no-hitter on the season's final day.
No, what makes Halladay's 2001 performance stand out in bold relief from the rest of his career is not his ERA. It's his strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Here are Halladay's walk and strikeout numbers, year by year:
Year BB K 1998 2 13 1999 79 82 2000 42 44 Total 123 139
Moreover, this fits perfectly with the trend Halladay showed in the minors, where he was considered a top prospect despite his maddeningly unimpressive strikeout-to-walk ratios in Triple-A. In 1998, he had 71 strikeouts against 53 walks; in 1997, he had 64 strikeouts against 53 walks. (In fairness, his ratios in the low minors were much better.)
Going into 2000, Halladay's career K/BB ratio in the majors was just 1.13. To put that in perspective, the lowest K/BB ratios of any active pitcher (min: 200 IP) through 2000 were:
Pitcher BB K Ratio Jamey Wright 349 335 0.960 Steve Sparks 307 333 1.085 Jason Grimsley 345 385 1.116 Roy Halladay 123 139 1.130 Dennis Springer 288 254 1.134
Greg Maddux and Bret Saberhagen, these guys are not. These five pitchers include a pair of knuckleballers and a Rocky Mountain refugee, and what a man with Halladay's stuff was doing on this list isn't entirely clear. To his credit, last season he orchestrated one of the most impressive leaps in K/BB ratio in history.
Halladay's ratios, through 2000 and in 2001:
Years BB K Ratio 1997-2000 123 139 1.13 2001 25 96 3.84
That's a remarkable difference. Halladay more than tripled his career strikeout-to-walk ratio in 2001. That's more than remarkable: it's historic. The following chart lists the greatest improvements in K/BB ratio over a pitcher's previous career norms. To qualify, a pitcher had to throw at least 100 innings in his year of improvement, and have at least 200 previous career innings:
--- Season --- ---- Career ---- Pitcher Year Age BB K K/BB BB K K/BB Ratio Hal Brown 1963 38 8 68 8.500 355 589 1.659 5.123 Jack Chesbro 1901 27 52 129 2.481 138 84 0.609 4.076 Cy Young 1904 37 29 200 6.897 931 1734 1.863 3.703 Bill Henry 1959 31 26 115 4.423 156 198 1.269 3.485 Rudy May 1982 37 14 85 6.071 932 1659 1.780 3.411 Red Donahue 1903 30 34 96 2.824 528 438 0.830 3.404 Roy Halladay 2001 24 25 96 3.840 123 139 1.130 3.398
Halladay ranks eighth behind a group of veteran pitchers who suddenly stopped walking people entirely (Cy Young actually qualifies for the list again in 1905, but he was excluded for the sake of brevity.)
There's another way to construct this study. K/BB ratio is a wonderful metric, but it is subject to distortion at the extremes. In particular, a pitcher who is able to cut his walks down to a bare minimum can dramatically increase his K/BB ratio even if his strikeouts don't budge. Consider a pitcher with 20 walks and 70 strikeouts, a ratio of 3.50. If he adds 10 strikeouts to his total, his ratio inches up to 4.00. On the other hand, if he cuts 10 walks, his ratio doubles to 7.00. Hal Brown didn't suddenly turn the corner at age 38. In his "breakout season," he struck out 68 batters in 141 innings, less than one every other inning. But because his control was freakishly impeccable for one fluky season (just 0.57 walks per nine innings), he reached the top of the previous chart.
That's not what Halladay did. Halladay's performance--cutting his walk rate and increasing his strikeout rate--was far more impressive. So instead of comparing strikeouts to walks, let's compare each of them to innings pitched.
Halladay cut his previous career walk rate by more than two-and-a-half walks per nine innings, and increased his strikeout rate by an even higher margin. If we take the weighted average of the two (using an identical process to the one that turns homers and stolen bases into Bill James' Power-Speed number), we arrive at an "Improvement Ratio" of 2.72. This is the highest recorded by any pitcher, at any age, in major-league history.
Pitcher Year BB Imp K Imp Imp Ratio Roy Halladay 2001 2.656 2.787 2.720 Randy Johnson 1995 2.257 2.733 2.473 Todd Van Poppel 1995 3.063 1.976 2.402 Jim Maloney 1963 2.164 2.621 2.371 Charlie Puleo 1987 2.274 2.392 2.295 Duane Ward 1991 1.549 2.999 2.043 Randy Johnson 1993 2.221 1.856 2.022 Jack Kramer 1944 2.622 1.627 2.008 Pedro Martinez 1999 1.368 3.616 1.985 Hal Newhouser 1946 1.458 2.679 1.888
Todd Van Poppel standing side-by-side with Randy Johnson, Charlie Puleo giving back cuts to Duane Ward...that's, um, a rather eclectic group of pitchers.
In general, the fluke seasons are vastly outnumbered by the truly great pitchers coming into their own. If we eliminate Van Poppel, Puleo, and Jack Kramer (a journeyman pitcher benefiting from the decreased talent level during World War II), we're left with a Hall of Famer (Hal Newhouser), two future ones (Johnson and Pedro Martinez), one of the better starters of the 1960s (Jim Maloney), and Duane Ward, who in the early 1990s might have been the best set-up man in baseball history.
If we extend the list, that trend becomes even more pronounced. Forty-one men have posted an Improvement Ratio of 1.5 or higher. Those 41 pitchers include Kevin Brown, Jack Chesbro, Rich Gossage, Sandy Koufax, Greg Maddux, Sudden Sam McDowell, J.R. Richard, Nolan Ryan, John Smoltz, Mario Soto, Dazzy Vance--and five different iterations of Randy Johnson.
Whatever Halladay started doing differently last year, let's hope he keeps doing it, because he's on to something big. The path he's following has been covered by some of the great pitchers in baseball history. But let's not get too excited yet. Remember, Todd Van Poppel once walked this way, too. | <urn:uuid:fcb157b4-7fd1-4b25-afdc-64a5f1ca8048> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?type=2&articleid=16235 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946037 | 2,116 | 1.523438 | 2 |
|Image of raw asbestos, courtesy of Envirotest Labs|
For all the romance of historic building preservation, one always has to face the reality that, in old buildings, there’s always the potential for finding hazardous materials which will need to be removed by a qualified contractor. We recently hired Envirotest Laboratories, Inc. to test suspect materials at the Alvah Kittredge House for asbestos and to assist us through the abatement process. For those unfamiliar with this process, here is a primer.
The first step entailed collecting samples of any materials that might contain 1% or more of asbestos, which were many, as the house contains a jumble of finishes that had been installed in its over 150 years of use. Typical materials to test include floor and ceiling tiles, pipe and furnace insulation, window putty and flooring mastic, but even plaster from the late 1800s sometimes contained asbestos.
Regulations controlling asbestos were enacted in 1985, but at that time laws allowed up to 5% of the substance to be added to materials, so manufacturers continued to use it as an inexpensive bonding and strengthening material. In 1992 regulations were modified to lower the permissible amount to less than 1%, and manufacturers finally stopped using it as an additive.
|The drums of abated material removed from the Kittredge House|
The next step was for Envirotest to develop an abatement plan which was approved by the Department of Environmental Protection. This plan was used to solicit contractor bids after a walk-through on the site. E & F Environmental Services was chosen and the work began.
The first day of remediation was committed to carefully setting up the site to ensure all regulations are followed and no asbestos contaminants were spread to other areas. All doors, windows and openings to the containment area were sealed, and the abatement area was set up with a negative air machine which filters exhaust air from this area through HEPA filters at a rate of four air changes per hour. A decontamination facility was set up that allows workers to enter and leave the abatement area without spreading contaminants. This consisted of three areas to pass through: the “dirty room” (in this case the stairwell) where workers removed 2 layers of Tyvek suiting; the “shower room” (a portable station the size of a phone booth) where workers used soap and water to wash hands, faces, and any exposed skin (dirty water is then sucked into a wet vac and disposed of as a contaminant); and finally the “clean room,” where workers left their respirators before exiting the area. Each of these areas is isolated from the other with double layers of heavy plastic flaps. All abated materials were placed in drums that were lined with bags; the bagged materials were wet down to prevent dust from escaping, then sealed and removed from the site.
|Image of equipment utilized during abatement|
We are grateful to the workers who completed the abatement; this work is grueling, particularly in summer in a hot, stuffy environment where workers are wearing one layer of street clothes and two layers of Tyvek suiting and breathing through respirators. We are also thankful for the assistance of Envirotest Laboratories for guiding us through this complicated process. | <urn:uuid:dd94bd23-3f8d-4eb7-9563-791b5ffff815> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.historicbostonblog.org/2012/08/kittredge-house-asbestos-abatement.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 | 0.969615 | 681 | 3 | 3 |
< Back to The Price of Oil, The Price of Life references
BP hands 'tarred in pipeline dirty war'. Colombia's military have been blamed for the murder of thousands of civilians. New claims link the British oil company to a security campaign supplying equipment to a notorious army unit and running a spy network of former troops. By Michael Gillard, Ignacio Gomez and Melissa Jones. Saturday October 17, 1998
The northern part of the Ocensa pipeline winds through Antioquia and the Magdelena Medio - the areas most savaged by Colombia's 33-year armed conflict.
Peasant farmers living near the pipeline are caught in the crossfire between the Colombian army, its feared paramilitary allies and leftwing guerrillas.
In the past 10 years more than 30,000 unarmed civilians have been the victims of politically motivated killings in Colombia. International human rights groups hold the state security forces and paramilitaries responsible for 70 per cent of these murders.
Many of the tortured and decapitated bodies - community leaders, trade unionists, church workers, peasant farmers and human rights defenders - are buried in the land around the pipeline.
Their families will never see those responsible prosecuted, because the Colombian security forces implicated in this dirty war escape with almost total impunity.
BP is a major shareholder in the Ocensa consortium, along with the Canadian firms TransCanada and IPL Enterprises and the French oil company Total.
Ocensa recently completed the 520 mile pipeline, which transports high-quality crude from BP's huge oilfield in the eastern foothills of the Andes to tankers off the Caribbean coast.
The pipeline, which is a military target for the guerrillas, has two lines of defence.
First is an internal security department created and run by a secretive Anglo-American company, Defence Systems Limited, which is based in London. DSL and its former SAS soldiers were initially brought to Colombia by BP to protect its £25billion oilfields.
Second is a secret agreement with the Colombian defence ministry to provide protection by counter-guerrilla brigades based near the pipeline.
Ocensa's defence needs are worth millions to the private security industry and the Colombian military. BP is also the country's biggest investor.
With this in mind the Israeli security company Silver Shadow approached Ocensa's security department in the summer of 1996. In July it sent a two-page fax to Ocensa's security manager, Roger Brown, detailing what it called "The Turn Key Project".
The proposals for protecting the northern section of the pipeline included armoured attack helicopters, the "direct supply of anti-guerrilla special weaponry and ammo", night-vision goggles, small robotic spy planes (drones) and secure communications equipment.
Mr Brown is a former British army officer and veteran of the Oman war. In civvy street he joined DSL and in 1992 was sent to Colombia to run security for BP's oilfields. Three years later he was transferred to set up and run Ocensa's pipeline security department. The two security operations worked closely together and handle security matters for the consortium.
The Guardian has obtained copies of the correspondence between Silver Shadow and Ocensa, including other documents related to the arms deal.
The Silver Shadow papers reveal that Mr Brown said he had received "verbal agreement" from Ocensa's management to study pipeline protection plans, including the Turn Key Project.
Ocensa transferred an advance payment of $202,000 (£126,000) to Silver Shadow's Tel Aviv account.
And in May last year, when the US export licence was approved, 60 pairs of restricted night-vision goggles were sent directly to the notorious 14th Brigade, which operates in Segovia, through which the pipeline passes.
This brigade has one of the worst human rights records in Colombia's dirty war. Lawyers have proved the involvement of a brigade commander and officers in one of Colombia's worst massacres in Segovia in 1988 when more than 90 men, women and children were attacked and 43 of them killed.
In 1996, while Ocensa and Silver Shadow were discussing arming the brigade with attack helicopters and guns, the brigade was once again under investigation for its role in the execution of 14 civilians in Segovia that April. The incidents were unconnected with oilfield protection.
Numbed by the latest massacre, officials of the government ombudsman wrote to Ocensa in November 1996 to express concern at the social and environmental impact of its operation on the community in the region.
"The people asked us if the 14th Brigade has the right to kill you when you are detained. They feel very unprotected," said Beatriz Londoño, who visited Segovia for the ombudsman's office.
She added: "We are very worried about the large number of police and army protecting the pipeline. The unequal investment [by oil companies] in security over community projects generates more conflict."
Ocensa refuses to comment on its relationship with the 14th Brigade and DSL. But BP's chief spin doctor, John O'Reilly, told the Guardian the sale of military equipment and the general relationship with the brigade were "unavoidable" under Ocensa's secret agreement with the defence ministry.
Mr O'Reilly also denied that any attack helicopters were bought for the army, but justified Ocensa's involvement by citing the "terrible security situation at the time" caused by guerrilla attacks on the pipeline.
But it was not the only target. So too were communities living near it. Amnesty International points out that the Turn Key Project was negotiated when paramilitary death squads, with 14th Brigade support, had intensified political cleansing operations against government critics and perceived subversives in the region. More than 140 people were killed last year alone.
An Amnesty researcher, Susan Lee, also questioned another aspect of Ocensa's relationship with the brigade.
"In the past this brigade brought in an Israeli security company to provide mercenary training for paramilitaries operating under its control," she said. "These death squads went on to commit widespread atrocities against the civilian population."
Silver Shadow was not involved in that operation. Its director, Asaf Nadel, is a former Israeli army officer who once worked at the embassy in Colombia. The Turn Key Project was his first commercial venture there.
Mr Nadel would not discuss the Ocensa deal, other than to say: "They got everything they paid for."
The Silver Shadow papers also reveal a disturbing plan to give Ocensa and BP top management "a state-of-the-art investigation-intelligence and psychological warfare 18-day seminar". It would be tailored "to suit Ocensa/BP special requirements" along the pipeline.
According to one confidential fax, Mr Brown and Silver Shadow discussed using former Israeli intelligence officers - "whose methods are [sic] known worldwide" - to train Ocensa security staff in interrogation, intelligence collection, targeting and running informants in the field, preparation of intelligence files and investigating private individuals.
The discussions took place between July 1996 and February last year and, according to Mr Brown's correspondence, had the approval of senior Ocensa management.
The spying plan fits perfectly with BP's confidential security review, which said: "In order to have peace, we must train for war." But it contradicted BP's public policy that its "best security lies in the support of local communities."
Amnesty is concerned that the target of the psychological warfare could have been civilians.
BP said that the "psy-ops" training did not proceed for "budgetary reasons". Anyway, insisted Mr O'Reilly, the intelligence course was about community relations training, not spying.
Last year the Guardian revealed how DSL had written a proposal for BP to create "intelligence cells" of local informants around its oilfields. BP has consistently denied that it would ever have implemented this option. But it appears that Ocensa did.
We have spoken to a former Colombian army officer who worked for DSL at the Ocensa security department for two years. He revealed his own involvement in a spying operation targeting perceived guerrillas and "subversives" in communities in and around the pipeline.
Senior human rights sources warned the Guardian that if this man is named he could be killed, declared mentally insane or forced to retract his statements by Colombian security agents determined, as in previous cases, to destroy evidence of their clandestine operations.
The security official was part of a 35-strong team of former Colombian officers who reported to Mr Brown and a BP security manager, Alvaro Pérez. He described his own role as "the eyes of the state security forces."
Ocensa security staff, he says, work as civilians in local communities. They keep quiet about their military past but are chosen by DSL because of previous experience in a particular region as serving officers.
His job was to nurture informants in the local community. "They pass intelligence on little bits of paper left in drop zones to be collected," he said. "The community is unaware they are passing information secretly."
Informants are told to find out about union and community leaders or sent to spy on a community meeting. They are paid from a secret fund at Ocensa's security department, where security officials must register their informant's name and payment. "Everything is authorised and registered in documents in Ocensa," he told the Guardian.
Intelligence reports are written daily and passed to senior Ocensa security officials. The information is regularly shared with the Colombian defence ministry and local army brigade. Ocensa, he says, pays the brigades for "intelligence", and registers the payments in the company's security accounts.
The security source denied that Ocensa or BP had any links with paramilitary groups.
Ocensa may argue that this intelligence arrangement is necessary to protect its pipeline and staff.
Even so, says Ms Lee, "It is disturbing that intelligence information is passed by Ocensa to the Colombian military who, together with their paramilitary allies, have frequently targeted those considered subversive for extra-judicial execution, and disappearance."
BP told the Guardian: "We have absolutely no evidence of this intelligence network."
It is, however, the second time such explosive insider testimony has emerged.
In 1995 a Colombian military intelligence officer, Colonel Luis Garces, then working for the 16th Brigade, which is paid by BP to protect its oilfields, spoke to a government human rights commission. He told it that oil companies, including BP, had shared intelligence such as photographs of the local communities, with his unit. Col Garces's testimony was made in front of several lawyers, who still say he explicitly mentioned BP's name.
BP strongly denies the allegation and claims the colonel later wrote to them denying he had named BP. But the oil company refuses to release this letter.
An official report on this and other allegations of BP's complicity in human rights abuses was published this year by the Colombian government. The authors did not interview Col Garces or those who heard his evidence.
They did, however, find in the 16th Brigade's files 18 irregular payments by BP totalling $312,000 between May 1996 and August last year. BP said in the report that this was for "extras", including "intelligence work".
Nevertheless, the Colombian government closed the investigation into BP for lack of evidence. It is a move which has left many British NGOs and Amnesty International convinced that the allegations against BP were not thoroughly investigated.
However, the government kept open its investigation into DSL, following the Guardian's revelations last year that former SAS soldiers working for DSL were secretly training the Colombian police in counter-insurgency tactics on BP oil rigs. BP says this training was defensive.
As a result of this latest scandal, Ocensa and BP sacked Mr Brown and asked DSL to conduct yet another internal inquiry while BP investigated which managers authorised what.
DSL, whose multi-million pound contract with BP Colombia was renewed in August, refuses to comment, as does Mr Brown.
Today's exposure of the Silver Shadow papers will give the Foreign Minister Tony Lloyd much to discuss when he arrives in Colombia on Wednesday. | <urn:uuid:2eff307a-1ef5-4299-8a13-dad6a63cef2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flyingfish.org.uk/articles/rushdie/98-10-17bgu.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971713 | 2,483 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Some doctors argue that 60 to 80 percent of the population may be affected by an overgrowth of Candida yeast. Much of this is caused by the overuse of prescription antibiotics. If left untreated the yeast can form a fungus, developing rhizoids (plant like roots) that penetrate and attach themselves to the inside of the intestinal wall. These roots can dig deep enough to cause permeability (leakage) in the intestinal tract and allow toxic material to flow into the blood. This condition is known as Leaky Gut Syndrome (LGS). Beneficial bacteria also attach themselves to the intestinal wall helping to repair and clean the mucosa rather than destroy it. Bad bacteria, good bacteria, and Candida all fight for available attachment points along the intestinal wall. When enough beneficial probiotics are introduced Candida are overtaken and normal intestinal flora may colonize in their place.
Study Shows Syntol Natural Anti-fungal Kills Yeast without Side-Effects
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Yeast thrives in extremely anaerobic (non oxygenated) conditions. Syntol facilitates an extremely oxygenated environment preventing the growth of additional yeast colonies and provides the perfect conditions for indigenous bacterial growth. In addition Syntol is extremely effective at removing Candida yeasts that have already attached to the digestive tract. Candida albicans are composed of an outer protective protein layer. Under this shell Candida is primarily composed of cellulose (cell walls) and N-acetyl-glucosamine (Chitin). Syntol uses the extremely potent blend of protease (protein digesting), celluslase (cellulose digesting), and chitosinase (chitin digesting) enzymes. These enzymes strip away the Candida's protective protein shell and begin digesting its cellular infrastructure. Syntol contains a powerful intestinal cleanse to assist in the removal of dead yeast and other bad bacteria from the body. This will protect the body from experiencing detox symptoms from toxins given off from the elimination of yeast.
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Please call us to find about our monthly specials and bulk discounts today. | <urn:uuid:35a407bd-f6f7-4b9f-ac6b-502ab8c594de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fibromedica.com/syntol1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909192 | 577 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The Arkansas Times is a weekly alternative newspaper based in Little Rock. It was founded in 1978 and had a 2011 circulation of 25,890.
Once a monthly magazine, the Times switched to a weekly newspaper format after the Arkansas Democrat bought the assets of Gannett's Arkansas Gazette in 1991. The deal combined the publications into what is now the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas' only statewide daily newspaper.
Max Brantley was among the former Gazette staffers who lost their jobs as a result of the merger. He joined the Arkansas Times as editor. The Gazette's renowned editorial cartoonist, George Fisher, became the Times' cartoonist until his death.
Billed as Arkansas's "weekly newspaper of politics and culture," the Times is noted for its opinion columnists and feature articles that take a liberal stance in comparison to the Democrat-Gazette.
Since its founding, the publication's parent company — Arkansas Times Limited Partnership — has produced special inserts and associated publications, including the weekly Arkansas Times AutoBuyer, which circulates separately, and El Latino, a Spanish language weekly. It also produces the Native's Guide to Pulaski County, a comprehensive guide to communities and services in Little Rock and throughout Arkansas's most populous county.
The Times has found success online with its Arkansas Blog, led by Brantley, who is now senior editor. The Times' current editor is Lindsey Millar.
- Video: 'Arkansas Week' & the Arkansas Business Week in Review
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- Troy Duke, L.R. Gardner Plan to Buy Bank of Rison 2 days ago | <urn:uuid:6ba037ea-2927-437a-a650-bc7129350b1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/research/company-profiles/127/arkansas-times | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943243 | 430 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Solid State #1 by Sanjay Sharma
(a) Amorphous solids (b) Crystalline solids
4. Solid angle
5. Interfacial angle
6. Zone and Zone-axis
(i) AB type structures
The AB2 or A2B type of ionic crystals contain the ions in the ratio 1:2 or 2 : 1 respectively. For Example : CaF2 populary called to have fluorite structure with other examples like SrF2, BaF2, PbF2and BaCl2 etc. The coordination number of Ca++ in CaF2 is 8 while that of F- is 4. On the contrary Na2O have antifluorite structure i.e., here the place of cations in occupied by anions and vice versa.
The size of the unit cell and arrangement of atoms in a crystal is determined with the help of measurement of differaction of x-rays by the crystal. When a beam of monochromatic x-ray strikes two planes of atoms in a crystal at a certain angle Q, It is reflected. The intensity of reflected beam will be maximum if -
In actual practice it is difficult to grow a perfect crystal. Even single crystals grown with-all care are found to contain
In an ionic crystal, the electrons are mostly concentrated around the electronegative component. Some of these electrons have the tendency of thermal release i.e., the property of loosing its position on increase in temperature. These thermally released electrous become mobile resulting to increase in conductivity of solid
When an electron is thermally removed from its position the electron deficient site thus formed is called a HOLE. Holes also impart electrical conductivity but their movement is opposite in direction to which the electrons move. The electrons and holes in solids give rise to electronic imperfections.
The defect discussed above is/are called point defects and can be categorised to following 3 types -
(A) Stoichiometric defects
(B) Non - stoichiometric defects
(C) Impurity defects.
If imperfections in crystals are such that the ratio between the cations and the anions remains the same as described in its molecular formula, the defect will be called STOICHIOMETRIC DEFECT. These can be further categorised to-
(a) Schottky defect (b) Frenkel defect.
In an ionic crystal of A+B- type, if equal no. of cations and anions are missing from their lattice sites, the defect is called SCHOTTKY DEFECT. In this defect electrical neutrality is maintained due to disappearence of similar no. of cations and anions (Lattice Vacancy).
The schottky defect is shown by highly ionic compounds having -
(i) High co-ordination number
(ii) Small difference in the size of cations and anions
For Example : NaCl, KCl, KBr, CsCl etc.
This type of defect is seen in those crystals where the difference in the size of cations and anions is very large and their coordination no. is low for example AgCl, AgBr, ZnS etc. Due to such a defect the density of the solid remains unchanged.
When the ratio of cations and anions due to imperfection differ from that indicated by their molecular formula, the defects are called Non-stoichiometric defects. These defects results in either excess of metal atom of excess of non metal atom.
The metal excess may occur in either of the following two ways -
(i) Due to missing of a negative ion from its lattice site,
thus leaving a hole which is occupied by an electron.
The electrons thus trapped in the anion vacancies
are called F.Centres (F=Farbe=German word for color) as these are responsible for imparting color to the crystals.
This defect is similar to frenkel defect
e.g. FeO, FeS, NiO etc.
Another common method of introducing defects in ionic solids is by adding impurity ions having different change than host ion. These foreign atoms are present at lattice site in substitutional solids and at vacant interstitial sites in interstitial solids.
f + C = e + 2
where, f = Number of faces
e = Number of edges
c = Number of interfacial angles.
2. Coordination Number
3. Crystallographic axes
4. Standard or unit plane
5. Axial ratio. | <urn:uuid:48b76e97-12de-44f4-b57c-216bfbaecbfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cbse-sample-papers.blogspot.com/2008/08/solid-state-1-course-material-iit-jee.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919807 | 951 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Editor's Note: This perspective comes from an Ohio Republican. Michael A. Fox served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives for 23 years and is currently a County Commissioner in Butler County, Ohio. Conservative on most issues, Fox has come to realize that the war in Iraq is about feeding our oil addiction and it doesn't sit well with him. He raises his voice eloquently against "trading the bodies of our young people for barrels of oil." As more and more Americans from both the right and the left discover that the current energy crisis is not temporary but permanent, the political ground underneath many different issues, from the environment to foreign policy, will shift.
Bodies for Barrels: Betrayal and Energy Dependence
By Michael A. Fox
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
America's energy problems are not, as President Bush recently declared, because Americans have an "addiction to oil." Our energy problems stem from the failed leadership of two political parties - Democrats and Republicans.
For over thirty years presidents and congresses from both parties have had an addiction to playing politics and courting the special interests who fund their next election cycle - all at the expense of our national security.
They have betrayed us. America felt the first shock wave of energy dependence with the oil embargo of 1973. The lessons from that experience were clear - our nation and our economy could be brought to its knees by a handful of hate-filled lunatics in the Middle East; a lesson ignored by both parties. Since then, leaders from each party periodically paid lip service to energy independence, making symbolic moves designed to reassure the public that making America energy independent was important. But neither party ever made it a priority. Neither party has provided continuous and determined leadership to secure our national security by securing our energy independence.
The result? Never in our history has our country been more vulnerable to foreign influence and economic attack from our enemies. The neglect and betrayal by both parties has led us to an unspoken yet horrifically real and hollow energy and foreign policy that reduces us to trading the bodies of our young people for barrels of oil.
Like many Americans I trusted the President. I believe that he is a good and decent man. But like presidents before him, he cannot even seem to envision a policy that leads to energy independence. When he delivered his State of the Union Address a few weeks ago, I cringed when I heard him brag that "Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources - and we are on the threshold of incredible advances." He announced the creation of an "Advanced Energy Initiative - a 22 percent increase in clean energy research." Big deal, like going to a gun fight with a toy knife.
Suggesting that we can somehow do anything meaningful to achieve energy independence by increasing our five year investment in research by roughly $200 million per year is laughable. To put this investment in energy independence in perspective, consider that since 2001 Americans have spent $200 billion dollars on pet food - 20 times more on buying pet food than the federal government spends on energy research.
Here's the essence of our energy policy. Imagine this: you pull into a gas station and tell the attendant to fill up the gas tank. It comes time to pay and the attendant asks "Which of your children do you want to sacrifice in payment." Which child must die? Ridiculous? How is that different than what we are doing in the Middle East?
The invasion of Iraq, the stationing of our 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, the posting of our troops at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars annually throughout the Middle East is about protecting the oil fields of Saudi Arabia - our so-called ally who has provided funding for most of the terrorist groups that stir anti-American hatred throughout the world.
America invests hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of young people's lives and mangled bodies each year to make sure each of us can fill up our tank when we need it - bodies for barrels. But what if we had to trade our child (as so many have been called to do) for a full tank of gas?
Wouldn't we demand an alternative solution like a responsible energy policy that is as important to us as the Manhattan Project was during World War II or putting a man on the moon was in the 60s? I believe we would - and we should.
If it is financially sustainable for our nation to spend what some estimate will be a trillion dollars in the Iraqi War before we're finished, then why is it so outlandish to expect that we make an equal investment of national and financial resources to energy independence? If we are willing to ask our young people to sacrifice and die or get maimed so we can top off our tanks, then why are we not equally willing to commit our nation to energy independence?
Our nation's energy vulnerability is an outrageous betrayal by both parties - Democrats and Republicans. In the coming days you will see a frenzy of proposals coming from both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress. These proposals will continue to cascade until the November election and then we'll go back to business as usual.
These gestures are nothing more than symbolic gestures. The public needs more than symbols from our leaders; we deserve solutions. America has the ingenuity, intellectual infrastructure, spirit and knowledge to come through this crisis as we have others in our history.
Across America there are young minds teeming with ideas that deserve research funding so they can help us end our reliance on foreign energy. There are ideas that will enable us to conserve more energy, get more efficiency out of our engines and industrial enterprises and lead to alternative sources heretofore not even considered.
The missing ingredients are and always have been, leadership, vision, and will. Money follows vision. Our political leaders need to articulate a simple vision and actually mean it - energy independence.
Here's a start. As Congress currently debates a measure that will provide increased funding for the Iraq War why not adopt a policy that says: "Not one more dollar should be spent on the Iraq War or securing the oil fields and shipping lanes of the world unless an equal dollar is spent on research to secure our energy independence?" If it is important enough to spend a dollar sending a young man or woman to war then it is important enough as a nation to spend an equal dollar eliminating the threat that causes them to lay down their life.
America needs political leadership that looks beyond the next election and beyond the favor of oil and multinational corporate interests. There is nothing that America cannot achieve if we commit ourselves to a vision and support it with the full will and might of our nation. What happened to the days when our political leaders had the courage to do what is right and had the will to set politics aside to protect our national security?
There is nothing more important to America's future than securing energy independence. Without it, our children and grandchildren are likely to see wars of incomprehensible destruction. President Eisenhower once said that "the only way to win World War III was to prevent it."
We are at the threshold or Armageddon and the fuse that is likely to set it off is energy dependency, nations warring to secure scarce resources. Our ability to avoid the incomprehensible horror of World War III depends on our energy independence. Continued energy dependence will mean continued war. America can do better than an energy policy that trades the bodies of our young people for barrels of oil. In order to do this, each American has to stand ready to make whatever sacrifice is required to become energy independent.
Why not give research a chance? Why not give America's brilliance and innovative spirit a chance? Why not enlist the creativity and intellectual fire-power of our young people's minds and back it with the full might of our nation's wealth?
If we must, in the short run, spend billions of dollars to send our young people into battle to secure the oil our economy needs then let's match those expenditures with equal amounts going into laboratories and university research centers to find the solutions to our energy dependence.
How can our leaders send someone's child to battle knowing that the circumstances that make their sacrifice necessary are driven by the unwillingness of our nation to make the sacrifices that must be made to avoid the war we send them to fight? How can any congressman, senator, or president send someone's child to battle without being able to look them in the eye and tell them with conviction and truth that we will match their sacrifice with the courage, force of will, and resources to become energy independent?
Our leaders are the stewards of freedom and thus far they have betrayed the trust of the American people. On the day President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, the speech he was to have delivered contained these words: "We in this country - are - by destiny rather than by choice - the watchmen on the walls of world freedom." His words ring true today, and unless our national leaders break the bonds of energy dependence, the walls of freedom will come tumbling down.
Our leaders have been asleep at their posts. It's time that they wake up and rise to the challenge of our time. It's time for them to make some tough choices and break our chain of dependence. It is time for them to muster the courage to do whatever is necessary to make sure that not one American son our daughter is sent to battle to fight for a barrel of oil.
For me the choice is easy. What I don't understand is why our national leaders cannot see it. For the sake of our children, our future, and the security of America, it's time we force them to see the challenge and act.http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_042906Y.shtml
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) | <urn:uuid:532bcba4-935d-4059-a7f3-a833d6a7fc29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plainfieldstuff.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95762 | 2,073 | 2.078125 | 2 |
The Fantail goldfish is the western form of the Ryukin that possesses an egg-shaped body, a high dorsal fin, a long quadruple caudal fin, and no shoulder hump.
The Fantail goldfish may have either metallic or nacreous scales and normal or telescope eyes. Its finnage are less well developed than the Ryukin. It supports double anal and tail Fins. The anal and caudal fins are well divided into two matching halves. Although generally considered a hardy goldfish, Fantails can be sensitive to prolonged exposure to low water temperatures. Keeping Fantails in an aquarium requires an ideal temperature ranging between 55 to 70°F (13 to 21°C).
Fantails with red, bronze (more commonly known as chocolate), and calico colors are common. Other less common varieties exist, such as blue and white. | <urn:uuid:abca3239-af08-4a87-b9b9-60178d9810c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goldfishvideos.com/fantail/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914933 | 180 | 2.828125 | 3 |
As we all wait for decisions in this Term's major cases, people may wonder what is taking so long and why the big cases are so often the last cases to be announced. The short answer is that the big cases are also those in which there is most likely to be fairly strong disagreement among the justices, meaning that there are likely to be multiple opinions -- and when that happens, the process can take some time. Here's a quick primer on what happens:
Each week of argument, the justices meet in Conference to discuss the cases. They take a tentative vote at that point. After the Conference, the Chief Justice assigns the majority opinion in each case in which he is on the winning side. In any other cases, the senior justice in the majority assigns the opinion. | <urn:uuid:906733a4-0ce8-4d3f-9185-5217245456c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oyez.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965879 | 156 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Hey gang got another way to spend you working hours on the computer!
The Midwest Dairy Association has launched a new Facebook app called “Butter-Fy Yourself” that allows you to create and share of image of yourself that replicates the butter statues often created for state fairs. To butter-fy yourself, you just select a photo from Facebook or your desktop and then select a butter persona: Dairy Princess, Butter Hippie, Butter Cow, Butter Liberty, Butter Bouffant and Butter Up. You can then arrange your photo within that frame, slap it on a postcard, and share it with your friends via your wall, photo album or personal invite to join in the fun.
… Apparently, the first butter statue was created by Tibetan monks, who carved animals and gods out of the fatty substance, which was then jazzed up with colorful dye. After that, the buttery creations found their way to North America in the early 1800s, where people whipped up decorative patterns and displayed them at state fairs. In 1910, the first butter cow was created at the Iowa State Fair, and now you can find sculptures of all shapes and sizes at fairs across the Midwest.
(Link to the app) | <urn:uuid:a5f87d89-813e-46ca-9ff1-95ff81b94ffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wil92.com/2010/09/22/butter-fy-your-face/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953635 | 250 | 1.585938 | 2 |
I just added the website of author Simonetta Carr to my Recommended Sites page. She is the author of a series of children’s books called Christian Biographies for Young Readers. These are beautifully illustrated and informative stories of the lives of heroes of the faith to which most children’s books do not get around to featuring. Carr’s series includes titles on the lives of Athanasius, Augustine, John Calvin, John Owen and most recently, the martyr Lady Jane Grey.
I strongly recommend that you get these titles and read them to your children of any age. They are simple enough for your toddlers to get it, but informative enough to educate your interested pre-teens and even young teens, like my daughter, will enjoy them, too. She’s already submitted a request for her copy of Lady Jane Grey. She saw a movie about this martyr on Netflix last year and when I asked what the story was about, she explained that Grey was going to be killed for being a Protestant. Profoundly, yet humorously, she added, “A good way to die.” | <urn:uuid:c0243832-0ef2-451e-ad57-695445280e86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://capthk.com/2012/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969778 | 227 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Doing real planetology: An interview with Agustin Chicarro
As Project Scientist (1997-2009) for Mars Express, Agustin Chicarro monitored the development of the scientific instruments before the mission was launched. On arrival at Mars, he made sure that each instrument fulfilled its scientific objectives. This interview was conducted in 2003, just before Mars Express arrived at Mars.
Mars Lead Scientist, Mars Express
Born: 23 July 1956 in Madrid, Spain
Agustin studied geology, geophysics, geochemistry, biology and astrophysics at the University of Paris in Orsay and obtained his PhD in 'Compressive tectonics of Mars'.
He then carried out three years research at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, USA, on the geology of Mars, Venus, the Moon and Mercury.
After continuing research in Madrid at the Museum of Natural Sciences and teaching at universities in Taiwan, he joined ESA in 1988, working on studies for future missions to Mars and the Moon.
Agustin lives in the Netherlands and enjoys reading, travel, photography and learning Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
ESA: How do you feel as Mars Express gets so close to its final destination?
I am very excited. Under pressure, of course, but hopeful.
ESA: What most fascinates you about Mars?
Mars is the most similar planet to Earth in terms of its surface geology and climate, while Venus is the most similar when it comes to the interior and geodynamics. I am deeply fascinated by the differences in the evolutionary paths of Earth, Mars and Venus, and the processes that transformed Mars into the barren cold world we see today.
With Mars Express, we will find out what these were. Above all, we aim to obtain a complete global view of the planet - its history, its geology, how it has evolved. Real planetology!
ESA: What is your greatest hope for this mission?
Mars Express is exciting because it will provide a global view of Mars at a much higher level than we have today. Each mission to Mars takes a quantum leap in terms of what we know.
And, of course, it is particularly exciting when these big jumps are made on the questions of water and life on Mars. I still have an interest in biology so I'm really excited that a major goal for Mars Express is to find out whether there is or has been life on Mars, and on where the water is and how much we have on the planet at present.
ESA: How did you first become interested in space science?
Well, I have heard that everyone’s passions are started when they are around five years old. At that age, I was very curious about space, triggered by my father who showed me the night sky and how to spot the big satellites circling Earth at that time.
When I was a teenager I wanted to become a doctor. Then I began to realise that medicine is a part of life science, which is a part of Earth science. Earth, in turn, is just one planet among others in the Solar System. I went in the opposite direction of somebody who wants to specialise by expanding my horizons.
ESA: What advice would you give somebody who wanted to work in space research?
I would say that doing what you love is more important than how much you earn. I would say to young people, don’t look at the financial prospects, just do it. | <urn:uuid:9e4bb4b8-de8b-4497-bdd2-515ff053f97d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Doing_real_planetology_An_interview_with_Agustin_Chicarro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962969 | 705 | 2.328125 | 2 |
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/14/health/ba ... ?hpt=hp_c1
Atlanta (CNN) -- The first time Edi Guyton tried to commit suicide, she was 19 years old, wracked with depression and unable to deal with the social and academic pressure of college.
Even as a little girl, Guyton never seemed happy. Her mother had encouraged her to smile, but she didn't see any reason to. In her mind, everyone who smiled was "faking it."
She often thought about taking her own life, and one night in her college dorm, Guyton's dark thoughts gave way to action. With a razor blade, Guyton cut one wrist, then the other.
"I think I wanted it to get better or I wanted to die," she said. "The point was that everything was so bad, I wanted people to know that it was controlling me."
Edi Guyton lived with debilitating depression for 40 years before experimental brain surgery.
Her depression controlled her life for the next 40 years -- until she decided to volunteer for an experimental treatment. A neurosurgeon would drill two holes in Guyton's skull and implant a pair of battery-powered electrodes deep inside her brain.
The procedure -- called deep brain stimulation, or DBS -- targets a small brain structure known as Area 25, the "ringleader" for the brain circuits that control our moods, according to neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg.
Mayberg's groundbreaking research on this part of the brain showed that Area 25 is relatively overactive in depressed patients. So, Mayberg hypothesized that in patients who do not improve with other treatments, Area 25 was somehow stuck in overdrive.
Mayberg published the results of her brain scan studies in 1999, the same year Edi Guyton attempted suicide again -- this time an overdose of prescription meds that were supposed to ease her depression.
"It's not that you won't be happy or that you aren't happy; it's that you can't be happy," Guyton said.
The first patients
Four years after publishing her research, Mayberg was ready to try what had never before been done: applying deep brain stimulation to Area 25.
Area 25 is the junction of all brain circuits that control our moods, according to neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg.
DBS had been used since 1997 as a treatment for movement disorders, including essential tremor, Parkinson's disease and dystonia. Mayberg theorized the low voltage current from DBS could also help severely depressed patients.
Her first surgical experiment in 2003, in collaboration with neurosurgeon Dr. Andres Lozano at Toronto Western Hospital in Canada, was more about testing for safety than actually treating the patients.
"For all we knew, we were going to activate [the circuits] and actually make people feel worse," Mayberg explained.
The six patients who volunteered for the procedure had all tried and failed conventional treatments. Some had attempted or considered suicide.
"We had patients who were profoundly without any options and suffering," she said.
All six were lightly sedated when the holes were drilled and the electrodes implanted, but they were awake to describe what they experienced. Several patients reported profound changes just minutes after the stimulator was turned on. One said the room suddenly seemed brighter and colors were more intense. Another described heightened feelings of connectedness and a disappearance of the void.
The patients' descriptions during the procedure went far beyond anything the doctors expected.
One patient spontaneously talked about the first crocus blooms in early spring. Mayberg wondered if the procedure had triggered a hallucination or perhaps the electrode had touched a memory circuit. The patient explained it's the feeling of looking forward to something new and rejuvenating.
Mayberg says she struggled to remain a dispassionate scientist, but her empathy for the desperate patients who were, in effect, collaborators in the experiment got the best of her.
"I did a lot of crying," she said.
After six months of stimulation, four of the six the patients were significantly better. Mayberg has since reported similar results for 31 other patients.
Mayberg and Lozano published the results of that first DBS experiment in 2005, the same year Edi Guyton's depression subverted her career.
'I felt nothing'
For years, Guyton had thought she could outrun her despair by working hard. She had earned her Ph.D. while raising two daughters, landing a tenured position as a professor, earning accolades and awards for her teaching and research, and ultimately becoming chair of Georgia State University's early childhood education department. She said she got there by "faking it."
Can a computer diagnose, treat cancer? Art inspires brain injury survivors Coffee may lower risk of depression
"I was the great pretender," Guyton said.
Then, after 22 years working at GSU, she told her boss and colleagues about her struggle with depression and retired from the job she loved. Still not fully grasping the nature of her illness, she blamed herself.
"After all, what do I have to be depressed about?" she thought.
She tried a variety of treatments, including talk therapy and psychiatric medicines, but nothing worked.
For the next several years, nine sessions of electroconvulsive therapy kept her stable. "I didn't like it, but it worked," she said. "But then I went back down. And I went back down very deep."
With the support of her husband, Guyton managed to stay in the fight. She inquired about the experimental DBS procedure being offered by Dr. Helen Mayberg and her colleague, psychiatrist Paul Holtzheimer, at Emory University in Atlanta.
Mayberg remembers the first time she saw Edi Guyton. Her slow movements were "like being in a muck," an obvious sign of severe depression, she said. "You could pick her out of a line up."
Seventeen patients out of more than 1,000 who had inquired were ultimately selected for the experiment. Ten of them, including Guyton, had major depressive disorder and the seven others had depression as a result of bipolar disorder.
The doctors warned them all that the procedure carried the risks of any other brain surgery, including brain damage and death, and no guarantee the depression would lift. Guyton signed the consent form, feeling that she had little to lose.
"It was that bad," she said.
She could not even bond with her family. The most vivid example was visiting her baby grand-niece. Guyton could barely go through the motions.
"Somebody handed her to me and I held her, but I didn't even put her face to mine," Guyton said. "I just held her because I thought, 'This is what a great-aunt does. She holds the child. She admires the child. And then, thank God, she gives the child back.' And I felt nothing. Nothing."
A new lease on life
On February 23, 2007, Guyton rolled into a surgical suite, propelled by a sweet and sour mixture of hope and hopelessness. Her head was mounted in a rigid frame as the doctors studied computer-enhanced images of her brain.
Dr. Robert Gross, the neurosurgeon, began drilling the holes in her skull.
Edi clenched her teeth. "The tears came," she says. "The sound of the drill, the feeling of it: Not painful, just like somebody's touching you. That was, I think, what kind of woke me up and said this is your brain that is being drilled into. Somebody is going into your brain."
The two holes allowed Gross to insert hollow tubes called cannulas, which created a pathway for the DBS electrodes -- one on each side of the brain. The electrodes are 1.27 millimeters in diameter, "about the thickness of angel hair pasta," Gross explained.
As they position the electrodes, the doctors are able to monitor the sound of neurons firing. The gray matter makes a raspy sound. The white matter is silent. And that's where the sweet spot seems to be: the white matter slightly below Area 25.
Each electrode has four contacts. Each contact can be independently controlled, on or off, with various levels of electricity. Typically, the doctors apply about a thousandth of the power that's used in a flashlight bulb. At the target, it stimulates approximately 1 cubic centimeter of brain tissue, "about the size of a pea," according to Gross.
Finding which contact works best is done through trial and error as the patient describes what feels best. As a benchmark, the doctors asked Guyton to rate her feelings of dread on a scale of 1 to 10.
"Eight," she reported.
Two minutes later, with contact No. 1 on, Guyton said, "Three."
But doctors would get an ever better result with contact No. 2.
Shortly after the second contact was turned on, Guyton quietly announced, "I almost smiled." Then she chuckled.
Dr. Holtzheimer asked, "Did something strike you as funny? Or was it just sort of spontaneous?"
"I was thinking about playing with [grand-niece] Susan," Guyton replied. "That was when I almost smiled. But when I laughed, that was because I almost smiled."
She had imagined holding the child and looking into her face. "I felt feelings that I thought were gone," she would later say.
How did it feel to have a machine and electricity transform her emotions?
"It felt fantastic," she said. "I didn't care what was doing it!"
To determine whether the surgery was truly effective or if the patients felt better simply because they believed in the treatment, the doctors told the patients that some of the battery packs powering the electrodes inside their brains would be turned off, while others would be left on, to measure any placebo effect.
Guyton's power pack was turned off, and her depression quickly returned. With the stimulator back on, she improved.
Based on her scores in February from a widely used psychological test called the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Guyton's mental illness is in remission. Her ups and downs are the same that any healthy person would experience -- as long as the battery in the stimulator implanted under her collarbone remains charged.
Five years after the surgery, Edi Guyton is one of Mayberg's most dramatic success stories. She volunteers with a mental health advocacy group, she's active with a church and she's in a writer's club. And last fall she toured Italy with college friends who knew her from the days she had put a razor to her wrists.
To be sure, Guyton still has some bad days. "I don't feel good all the time," she admitted, and she sometimes worries that a bad spell could be lurking on the horizon. "But this gives me the capacity that if I can, if there is joy in my life, I have the capacity to feel it."
As much as Mayberg's experiments showcase how far brain science has advanced, there is still much more to learn. In fact, more than 10 years after her pioneering studies on Area 25, Mayberg is still trying to answer basic questions about the experimental treatment she conceived. Does the electricity from DBS activate neurons near Area 25 or inhibit them? Is DBS flipping a switch or knocking down a wall?
"To be brutally honest, we have no idea how this works," Mayberg said.
If there is joy in my life, I have the capacity to feel it.
Edi Guyton, patient
Mayberg is the co-holder of a patent for the procedure, which has been licensed to St. Jude Medical, Inc., a company that manufactures and sells DBS equipment. St. Jude is hoping to win Food and Drug Administration approval for commercial use of DBS for treatment-resistant depression.
The FDA awarded limited approval in 2009 to Medtronic, Inc., to use DBS on a different part of the brain for intractable obsessive compulsive disorder. Medtronic is funding a study to determine if that part of the brain, the ventral capsule/ventral striatum, could also be a viable target for depression.
In the meantime, Mayberg still hopes to answer why DBS helps some patients but not others. After all, if Area 25 is the "ringleader," why doesn't everyone improve? Mayberg simply does not know.
"We've got to understand the biology better," she says. "So until we're actually hitting 90% or really effectively helping everybody, we've got our work cut out for us." | <urn:uuid:6188d369-d28c-4f02-8beb-5cc42bcbdfb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://suicidegrief.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&p=16270 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981598 | 2,627 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Description of the Procedure
The doctor will cut several keyhole openings in the spaces between the ribs. Next, the doctor will pass a small camera through one of the incisions. This small camera is called an endoscope. It will light, magnify, and project an image of the organs onto a monitor. The endoscope will be attached to one of the robotic arms. The other arms will hold instruments for grasping, cutting, dissecting, and suturing. These may include:
While sitting at a console near the operating table, the doctor will look through lenses. He will see magnified 3D images of the inside of the chest. Another doctor will stay by the operating table and adjust the camera and instruments. The console will have joystick hand controls and foot pedals. Using these, the doctor will guide the robotic arms and instruments. After the instruments are removed, incisions will be closed with sutures or staples. | <urn:uuid:3e948bdf-25e5-4152-8a32-fa6cad423378> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/Conditions-AZ/Kaposis-sarcoma.aspx?ChunkID=144249 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924033 | 189 | 2.703125 | 3 |
When representatives of NASA's Kennedy Space Center wanted to know if there is a recipe for successful technology business incubation, they asked Cris Johnsrud, director of research and planning at the Southern Technology Applications Center (STAC), to find out.
"The answer is no," Johnsrud says, "but there are certain ingredients that successful technology incubators seem to have in common."
To uncover those ingredients, Johnsrud consulted many sources. "We looked at information from our online data sources, we talked with individuals who operate business incubators and relied a lot on NBIA publications – collections of materials on best practices and creating technology-based incubators. We also looked through files of correspondence and the history of incubator development – and then we looked for similarities," she says.
Keywords: best practices
Phone: (740) 593-4331
Fax: (740) 593-1996
340 West State Street, Unit 25
Athens, OH 45701-1565 | <urn:uuid:758768b2-0b27-4b55-9026-5e18cb245e40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbia.org/resource_library/review_archive/0898_06a.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93039 | 205 | 1.804688 | 2 |
On Jan. 22, the citizens of this nation either mourned or celebrated the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Few issues in our country’s history have divided us so.
For an example, look no further than myself. I am 16, and I firmly believe that abortion is the greatest evil of our country. But many girls my age or younger have had or will soon have an abortion, and fiercely defend their right to do so.
The difference between us is not our parents, education, or friends. It runs much deeper. | <urn:uuid:70796863-1eba-4f6d-b94b-9f05446ac8ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.galaxgazette.com/opinion/letters?page=3&mini=calendar-date%2F2012-11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963902 | 111 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris was established in 1658-63, its chief founders being Mgr Pallu, Bishop of Heliopolis, Vicar Apostolic of Tongking, and Mgr Lambert de la Motte, Bishop of Bertyus, Vicar Apostolic of Conchin-China. Both bishops left France (1660-62) to go to their respective missions and as true travellers of Christ they crossed Persia and India on foot. The object of the new society was and is still the evangelization of infidel countries, by founding churches and raising up a native clergy under the jurisdiction of the bishops. In order that the society might recruit members and administer its property, a house was established in 1663 by the priests whom the vicars Apostolic had appointed their agents. This house, whose directors were to form young priests to the apostolic life and transmit to the bishops the offerings made by charity, was, and is still situated in Paris in the Rue de Bac. Known from the beginning as the seminary of Foreign Missions, its secured the approval of Alexander VII, and the legal recognition, still in force, of the French Government.
The nature and organization of the society deserves special mention. It is not a religious order but a congregation, a society of secular priests, united as members of the same body, not by vows but by the rule approved by the Holy See, by community of object, and the seminary of Foreign Missions, which is the centre of the society and the common basis which sustains the other parts. On entering the society the missionaries promise to devote themselves until death to the service of the missions, while the society assures them in return, besides the means of sanctification and perseverance, all necessary temporal support and assistance. There is no superior general; the bishops, vicars Apostolic, superiors of missions and board of directors of the seminary are the superiors of the society. The directors of the seminary are chosen from among the missionaries and each group of missions is represented by a director. The bishops and vicars Apostolic are appointed by the pope, after nomination by the missionaries, and presentation by the directors of the seminary. In their missions they depend only on Propaganda and through it on the pope. No subject aged more than thirty-five may be admitted to the seminary nor may anyone become a member of the society before having spent three years in the mission field. Several points of this rule were determined from the earliest year of the society's existence, and others were established by degrees and as experience pointed out their usefulness. By this rule the society has lived and according to it its history has been outlined.
This history is difficult, for owing to the length of the journeys, the infrequent communication, and the poverty of resources the missions have developed with difficulty. The chief events of the first period (1658-1700) are: the publication of the book "Institutions apostoliques", which contains the germ of the principles of the rule, the foundation of the general seminary at Juthia, (Siam), the evangelization of Tongking, Cochin China, Cambodia, and Siam, where more than 40,000 Christians were baptized, the creation of an institute of Annamite nuns known as "Lovers of the Cross", the establishment of rules among catechists, the ordination of thirty native priests. Besides these events of purely religious interest there were others in the political order which emphasized the patriotism of these evangelical labourers: through their initiative a more active trade was established between Indo-China, the Indies, and France; embassies were sent from place to place; treaties were signed; a French expedition to Siam took possession of Bangkok, Mergin, and Jonselang, and France was on the verge of possessing an Indo-Chinese empire when the blundering of subalterns ruined an undertaking the failure of which had an unfortunate influence on the missions. But the most important work of the vicars Apostolic and the society is the application of the fruitful principle of the organization of churches by native priests and bishops. Thenceforth the apostolate in its progress has has followed this plan in every part of the world with scrupulous fidelity and increasing success. In the second half of the eighteenth century it was charged with the missions which the Jesuits had possessed in India prior to their suppression in Portugal. Many of the Jesuits remained there. The missions thereupon assumed new life, especially at Setchoan, where remarkable bishops, Mgr Pottier and Mgr Dufresse, gave a strong impulse to evangelical work; and in Cochin China, where Mgr Pineau de Behaine performed signal service for the king of that country as his agent in making with France a treaty, which was the first step towards the splendid situation of France in Indo-China. At the end of the eighteenth century the French revolution halted the growth of the society, which had previously been very rapid. At that time it had six bishops, a score of missionaries, assisted by 135 native priests; in the various missions there were nine seminaries with 250 students, and 300,000 Christians. Each year the number of baptisms rose on a average of 3000 to 3500; that of infant baptisms in articulo mortis was more than 100,000.
In the nineteenth century the development of the society and its missions was rapid and considerable. Several causes contributed to this; chiefly the charity of the Propagation of the Faith and the Society of the Holy Childhood; each bishop receives annually 1200 francs, each mission has its general needs and works allowance, which varies according to its importance, and may amount to from 10,000 to 30,000 francs. The second cause was persecution. Fifteen missionaries died in prison or were beheaded during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the beginning of the nineteenth century; but after that the martyrs among the missionaries were very numerous. The best known are Mgr Dufresse, vicar Apostolic of Se-tchoan, beheaded in 1815; Gagelin, Marchand, Jaccard, Cornay, and Dumoulin-Borie from 1833 to 1838; and from 1850 to 1862 Schoeffler, Vénard, Bonnard, Néron, Chapdelaine, Néel, Cuenot, vicar Apostolic of Eastern Cochin China. If, besides these, mention were made of the native priests, catechists, and nuns, in short of all who died for Christ, we should have a record of one of the bloodiest holocausts in history. These persecutions were described in Europe by books, pamphlets, annals, and journals, arousing the pity of some and the anger of others, and inspiring numerous young men either with the desire or martyrdom or that of evangelization. They moved European nations, especially France and England, to intervene in Indo-China and China, and open up in these countries an era of liberty and protection till then unknown. Another cause of the progress of the missionaries was the ease and frequency of communication in consequence of the invention of steam and the opening of the Suez Canal. A voyage could be made safely in one month which formerly required eight to ten months amid many dangers.
The following statistics of the missions confided to the Society will show this development at a glance: Missions of Japan and Korea — Tokio, Nagasaki, Osaka, Hakodate, Korea, total number of Catholics, 138,624; churches or chapels, 238; bishops and missionaries, 166; native priests, 48; catechists, 517; seminaries, 4; seminarists, 81; communities of men and women, 44, containing 390 persons; schools, 161, with 9024 pupils; orphanages and work-rooms, 38, with 988 children; pharmacies, dispensaries, and hospitals, 19. Missions of China and Tibet — Western, Eastern, and Southern Se-tchoan, Yun-nan, Kouy-tcheou, Kouang-ton, Kouang-si, Southern Manchuria, Northern Manchuria. — Catholics, 272,792; churches or chapels, 1392; bishops and missionaries, 408; native priests, 191; catechists, 998; seminaries, 19; seminarists, 661; communities of men and women, 23, with 222 members; schools, 1879, with 31,971 pupils; orphanages and work-rooms, 132, with 4134 children; pharmacies, dispensaries, and hospitals, 364. Missions of Eastern Indo-China — Tongking, Cochin China, Cambodia — Catholic population, 632,830; churches or chapels, 2609; bishops and missionaries, 365; native priests, 491; catechists, 1153; seminaries, 14; seminarists, 1271; communities of men and women, 91, with 2538 persons; schools, 1859, with 58,434 pupils; orphanages and work-rooms, 106, with 7217 children; pharmacies, dispensaries, and hospitals, 107. Missions of Western Indo-China — Siam, Malacca, Laos, Southern Burma, Northern Burma — Catholics, 132,226; churches or chapels, 451; bishops and missionaries, 199; native priests, 42; catechists, 242; seminaries, 3; seminarists, 81; communities of men and women, 47, with 529 members; schools, 320, with 21,306 pupils; orphanages and work-rooms, 132, with 3757 children; pharmacies, dispensaries, and hospitals, 86. Missions of India — Pondicherry, Mysore, Coimbatore, Kumbakonam. — Catholics, 324,050; churches or chapels, 1048; bishops and missionaries, 207; native priests, 67; catechists, 274; seminaries, 4; seminarists, 80; communities of men and women, 54, with 787 members; schools, 315, with 18,693 pupils; orphanages and work-rooms, 57, with 2046 children; pharmacies, dispensaries, and hospitals, 41.
In addition to these missionaries actively engaged in mission work, there are some occupied in the establishments called common, because they are used by the whole society. Indeed the development of the society necessitated undertakings which were not needed in the past. Hence a sanatorium for sick missionaries has been established at Hong-Kong on the coast of China; another in India among the Nilgiri mountains, of radiant appearance and invigorating climate, and a third in France. In thinking of the welfare of the body, that of the soul was not lost sight of, and a house of spiritual retreat was founded at Hong-Kong, wither all the priests of the society may repair to renew their priestly and apostolic fervour. To this house was added a printing establishment whence issue the most beautiful works of the Far East, dictionaries, grammars, books of theology, piety, Christian doctrine, and pedagogy. Houses of correspondence, or agencies, were established in the Far East, at Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Saigon, Singapore, and one at Marseilles, France. The Seminary of the Foreign Missions which long had only one section, has for twenty years had two.
LUQUET, Lettres à l'évêque de Langres sur la cong. des Missions-Etrangères (Paris, 1842); LAUNAY, Hist. générale de la Société des Missions-Etrangères (Paris, 1894); Docum. hist sur la Soci. des Missions-Etrangères (Paris, 1904); Hist. des missions de l'Inde (Paris, 1898); Hist. de la mission du Thibet (Paris, 1903); Hist. des missions de Chine 8 (Paris, 1903-8); LOUVET, La Cochinchine religieuse (Paris, 1885); DALLET, Hist. de l'église de Corée (Paris, 1874); Marnas, La religion de Jésus ressuscité au Japon (Paris, 1896).
APA citation. (1912). Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14079a.htm
MLA citation. "Society of Foreign Missions of Paris." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14079a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by M. Donahue.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads. | <urn:uuid:3f6b83a1-640a-4607-9dc8-cc66257d640f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14079a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948104 | 2,758 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Q&A: FEELING FUZZY
Q: When I have been on a ride of around two hours or more even at a steady pace, I get a fuzzy/numb feeling in the top of my head on both sides. I seem to be fine on the bike — the problem seems to be when I have got home and comes on after an hour or so and then lasts for the rest of the day. Its not painful but is noticeable. It has usually gone after a night’s sleep.
A: It sounds to me like a touch of vertebrobasilar insufficiency (VBI), a temporary reduction in the blood flow to the back of the brain caused by impingement or obstruction within the vertebral artery. In your case, I suspect the cause is postural.
During cycling there is a tendency to overextend the neck. There is also research that shows that VBI is more common in people who exercise hard using their legs, such as cycling, when blood may be shunted to the large muscles.
My recommendation is to seek postural advice from a cycling professional to ensure your bike fits you correctly. Keep yourself as hydrated as possible, don’t overextend the neck or overflex the back, try cycling in a more upright position. Should this not help, go to your GP for cardiovascular and cholesterol tests.
Osteopath - Specialises in treating elite athletes and his clientele includes Olympians and football internationals | <urn:uuid:776e7bda-93b2-414c-b830-3a364b4c82c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/archive/349628/q-a-feeling-fuzzy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958239 | 306 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The person who is suffering severe anxiety is out of control regarding their life and needs to regain control as rapidly as possible. There is often a temptation to blame external factors when this happens and the problem often lies within ourselves.
If work is the major cause of stress, it is important to organise your work routine and maintain efficiency and enjoyment in the work situation. It is also valuable to allow sufficient time to complete the task and to learn to say 'no' when you are asked to do too many things at once and this takes in the need to delegate work to other people. Balancing your time is necessary between work, family social life and hobbies and leisure pursuits. Exercise is also important for 'burning off' the excess adrenaline and helping to relieve the anxiety symptoms.
More specific relaxation techniques include relaxation therapy, yoga, transcendental meditation, hypnosis and massage. If the person has a specific phobia, then a combination of relaxation and behaviour therapy is very effective.
Cognitive behaviour therapy is a way of modifying the response to the phobia and is often carried out in a slow 'step ladder' approach to gradually reverse the phobia. The person has to pursue increasingly more difficult tasks, whilst using relaxation therapy, to help to cope with their anxiety symptoms.
Psychotherapy is also very effective for those people who have unconscious conflicts which can be traced back to early childhood, which are producing marked anxiety symptoms at present. Psychotherapy is a process of talking about these fears and difficulties in detail.
For a certain group of people who lack assertion or self esteem, assertion training, self esteem enhancement, and social skills training are also effective techniques to help them to relieve these problems.
A large number of patients receive drug treatment for their phobias and also anxiety states. Minor tranquillisers or benzodiazepines are very useful for relieving anxiety, but should only be given for a short course of no more than 4 to 6 weeks. However there has been considerable discussion about the risk of addiction with this medication
Beta blocker drugs are also helpful for relieving psychosomatic symptoms of anxiety, as they block adrenaline which causes these symptoms and these drugs are not addictive.
Antidepressants are useful as well, even though there is no evidence of depression and there is no risk of addiction with this medication. | <urn:uuid:1196fef1-18f8-4dbb-9517-28e5479aa1bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/articles/september-2008/anxiety-and-phobias/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962835 | 467 | 2.5 | 2 |
One of the joys of blogging is that you get to experience sectors of the Christian world that you might otherwise miss. Even if you’ve been walking with Jesus for years — or in some cases, like mine, decades — there is always something new to learn.
Several weeks ago I linked to the YouTube postings of a BBC documentary on 13-year-old Deborah Drapper. Her story is a mixture of elements: A somewhat isolated, innocent, homeschooled girl in rural England who somehow has no fear when it comes to wading into a group of partying teens on a Friday night to ask them some serious faith questions. Her style is forceful and direct; a style gained from listening nightly to podcasts from Ray Comfort’s Way of the Master website.
So when I learned this week that Deborah had a blog, I took a few minutes to scan it, and in that short time a phrase somewhat jumped out at me several times:
The Law and the Gospel
Having seen the entire BBC show helped here, and if you haven’t you’re at somewhat of a disadvantage, but Ms. Drapper’s style begins — always — with the Ten Commandments as an example of how peoples’ beliefs that they are “good” can never possibly line up with God’s “Big Ten.”
That’s a fair approach. I’ve heard Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley do the same, and I was on the same track a few weeks ago when I preached in a Toronto church on the story of the rich young official (or rich young aristocrat, or rich young bureaucrat, or rich young ruler.) He felt he had kept all ten commandments, but then Jesus helps him to see the impossibility of human righteousness — “there is none good but God.”
But watching Deborah, I got a slightly different vibe. I’m not sure if it was just a reaction to her formulaic approach — she is only 13, after all — but I think it was her total reliance on the “big ten” as the basis for her verbal witness. The British Teens she spoke with would wake up the next morning remembering the message of the Ten Commandments, and not the grace of God in sending Jesus, or the ability of Jesus to meet us at our point of need.
(As an aside, this is why we don’t hire high school students where I work. There are too many complex “life issues” that people are facing that younger people haven’t necessarily dealt with.)
Unsure what vibe I was sensing, I was finally able to articulate it when I saw the phrase “The Law and the Gospel,” or “The Ten Commandments, The Law and the Gospel” so clearly printed on her blog. The nuances of adding “The Law” so distinctly to the presentation are not part of my previous experience. (Google the phrase for examples of other places where it’s used online.)
Again, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to quench everything that God is doing through Deborah. And I’m not here to debate the effectiveness of The Way of the Master, or even The Four Spiritual Laws, or even apologetics in general.
The only point I want to make today — and ask your response to it — is that there seemed to be something awkward about going out for an evening of evangelism with the premise that you’re going to share “The Law” with people; and I say that recognizing that “The Gospel” is only good news in light of the condemnation that the law puts everyone under. There seemed to be something definitely not postmodern about it. Read the first page currently up on her blog, and tell me if I’m over-reacting.
Visitors: You may not be here by accident! If you got here from a WordPress or search tag and you’re not a Christ-follower, please understand that in critiquing the approach I’m not minimizing the message or its urgency. All of us are constantly looking for ways to help the broader population confront the eternal questions that need to be faced. At the end of the day, Deborah, Ray Comfort and I would have you reach the same conclusion, namely that Jesus’ claim to be God was true, and therefore his message needs to be clearly heard and individually applied. God is a righteous judge, but also rich in grace, mercy and compassion. To hear a presentation like Deborah’s, continue to this site. | <urn:uuid:c5930d5f-36ec-4d0a-ad46-7a7da2111e98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paulwilkinson.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/the-law-and-the-gospel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958326 | 961 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Roxon praised for work on tobacco
- From: AAP
- February 02, 2013
AUSTRALIA'S first female attorney-general Nicola Roxon won international recognition for taking on big tobacco and driving Australia's world-leading packaging laws, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.
Ms Roxon, who was elected as the member for Gellibrand in 1998, has resigned as attorney-general and minister for emergency management.
She will move to the backbench on Monday to be replaced by Victorian MP Mark Dreyfus, QC, and will not contest her safe seat at the next election.
Ms Roxon was emotional in Canberra on Saturday as she explained it had been a privilege to work for Labor for all those years.
But it was a demanding and exhausting job and she could not commit to the work rate for a sixth term in parliament.
"When I was elected 15 years ago, I hadn't even met my husband Michael and my daughter Rebecca was a long way from being born," she said.
"If I run for office again, she'll almost be in high school before I might retire.
"I admire the work the prime minister has done on behalf of Australian families and am extremely grateful for her understanding of the needs of mine," she said.
However she urged other women to consider giving politics a go, saying the sky was the limit and the political system needed them.
Ms Gillard said Ms Roxon had fearlessly taken on big tobacco and as minister for emergency management had been at the helm of the nation's response to natural disasters on many occasions. | <urn:uuid:ff1f0e43-38af-4d63-b71c-d24ab116e533> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/roxon-praised-for-work-on-tobacco/story-e6frfku9-1226567310562?from=public_rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987083 | 328 | 1.523438 | 2 |
In the last few days, the shifting front line in Libya’s conflict has been moving rapidly westwards towards the capital of Tripoli from Benghazi, the eastern coastal city that has been the epicenter of the anti-Qaddafi Libyan rebellion that erupted three weeks ago. Ever since midweek, when the ragtag rebels of “free Libya,” based in Benghazi, repulsed a raid by a roving contingent of Muammar Qaddafi’s troops against two oil towns—Brega and Ras Lanuf—that represent their western flank, the front line in this conflict has been coming closer to the coastal city of Sirt. Sirt marks the halfway point between Benghazi and Tripoli, and, after the capital, is Qaddafi’s ultimate stronghold.
Today, I came to Ras Lanuf, the site of a major Libyan oil refinery situated on the coastal highway. Like Brega, another industrial enclave I visited on Wednesday during fighting there, Ras Lanuf is a company town with compounds of cookie-cutter residences and its own airstrip, hospital, and schools. Between these towns, there is almost nothing but desert, herds of dromedaries, and the occasional roadblock established by the emerging “army” of the East, a collection of male civilians, most of them armed youths in their twenties. Almost none are experienced fighters. They are enthusiastic and trigger-happy, and repeatedly fire their weapons into the air; they roar back and forth in S.U.V.s and pick-ups they have rigged up as Somali-style “technicals,” with heavy machine guns and, in some cases, anti-aircraft guns looted from military armories.Continue Reading >> | <urn:uuid:c63c07fa-1041-4200-a782-d94bd2da4987> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/03/12.html | 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 | 0.968028 | 356 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Vlaamse Gemeenschap (Dutch)
|— Community of Belgium —|
|• Minister-President||Kris Peeters|
|Celebration Day||July 11|
The term Flemish Community (Dutch: Vlaamse Gemeenschap [ˈvlaːmsə ʝəˈmeːnsxɑp] ( listen); French: Communauté flamande; German: Flämische Gemeinschaft [ˈflɛːmɪʃə ɡəˈmaɪ̯nʃaft]) has two distinct, though related, meanings:
- Culturally and sociologically, it refers to Flemish organizations, media, social and cultural life; alternative expressions for this concept might be the "Flemish people" or the "Flemish nation" (in a similar sense as the Scottish, Welsh, or Québécois people or nations, referring to a national identity). The term "community" should then not be capitalized.
- Politically, it is the name of which both elements are normally capitalized, for one of the three institutional communities of Belgium, established by the Belgian constitution and having legal responsibilities only within the precise geographical boundaries of the Dutch-language area and of the bilingual area of Brussels-Capital. Unlike in the French Community of Belgium, the competences of the Flemish Community have been unified with those of the Flemish Region and are exercised by one directly elected Flemish Parliament based in Brussels.
State reforms in Belgium turned the country from a unitary state into a federal one. Cultural communities were the first type of decentralisation in 1970, forming the Dutch, French and German Cultural Community. Later on, in 1980, these became responsible for more cultural matters and were renamed to simply "Community", the Dutch (Cultural) Community also being renamed to the Flemish Community. In the same state reform of 1980, the Flemish and Walloon Region were set up (the Brussels-Capital Region would be formed later on). In Flanders it was decided that the institutions of the Flemish Community would take up the tasks of the Flemish Region, so there is only one Flemish Parliament and one Flemish Government.
Under the Belgian constitution, the Flemish Community has legal responsibility for the following:
- education (except for degree requirements, and for more than 95% of its financing);
- culture and language matters (except for all its economic aspects, which belong to the federal or to the regional level);
- certain aspects of health care (a minor part of the entire public health policy);
- international development cooperation in all areas of the competency of the Community (not yet operational).
- agriculture (although the bulk of this policy is determined by the European Union);
- public works and regional economic development;
- energy (although nuclear energy remains on the federal level).
Members of the Flemish Parliament who were elected in Brussels region, have no right to vote on Flemish regional affairs. They can only vote on community affairs, since affairs concerning their region are governed by the Brussels Parliament.
Legally speaking, in the regions of Brussel-Capital as well as of Flanders, the Flemish Community is responsible not for individual people, but for Flemish institutions such as schools, theatres, libraries and museums. The reason for this is that no distinct sub-national status exists in Belgium.
Dutch is the official language of the Flemish Community. Minorities speak French, Yiddish, Turkish, Arabic, Berber, Italian, Spanish, English and German, as well as over 100 other languages. Though most of these groups are recent immigrants, since the Middle Ages, Jews have formed the oldest minority to retain its own identity.
Compared with most areas in the Netherlands, the historical dialects of Flemish people still tend to be strong and particular to locality. Since the Second World War however, the influences of radio and television, and of a generally prolonged education, as well as the higher mobility for short trips or for moving towards farther localities, have resulted in a deterioration of the traditional 'pure' dialects, in particular amongst younger people. Some of the differences between the dialects are eroding, and mainly in localities or suburbs with a considerable influx from other areas, new intermediate dialects have appeared, with various degrees of influence by standard Dutch. In Dutch, these are often called tussentaal ("in-between language", often used for near-standard Dutch interspersed with typical dialect aspects) or, rather derogatorily, verkavelingsvlaams (a mix of more or less "cleaned-up" dialects as heard in a newly built-up suburban area with people influenced by different dialects). More recently, a number of local initiatives have been set up to save the traditional dialects and their diversity.
In Brussels, the local dialect is heavily influenced by French, both in pronunciation and in vocabulary. Nowadays, most Flemings in Brussels do not speak the local dialect. This is due in part to the relatively large numbers of young Flemings coming to Brussels, after a long period of many more others moving out while French-speakers moved in (see Frenchification of Brussels).
In certain municipalities along the border with the Walloon and the Brussels-Capital regions, French-speakers enjoy "language facilities". These cover rights such as to receive certain official documentation in their own tongue. Similar facilities are enjoyed by Dutch-speakers in some Walloon municipalities bordering the Flemish Region, by German-speakers in two municipalities in the French language area of the Walloon Region, and by French-speakers in the territory of the German-speaking Community. The geographical limitations of the communities require the French Community to ensure Dutch basic education in its municipalities with facilities for speakers of Dutch (which is a rather theoretic affair as no Dutch-language school ever got recognized in those places), and the Flemish Community to finance French schools in its municipalities with facilities. The total budget for the latter is over 10 Mio € p/a.
Flemish institutions in Brussels
Where responsibilities of the Flemish Region can be devolved to the provincial level, no such equivalent exists in the Brussels-Capital Region, which itself exercises many competencies for territorial tasks elsewhere assigned to the provinces. The community competencies (education, culture and social welfare) there, are exercised by the two affected institutional communities. The Flemish Community therefore established a local elected council and executive (the Flemish Community Commission or 'VGC') to cater for intermediate-level decision making & public services. The VGC then recognised local, municipal institutions to take care of the purely local public service in these community areas (called gemeenschapscentra or community centres).
Flanders has an official radio and television broadcasting company, the Vlaamse Radio en Televisieomroep or VRT in Dutch. Since 1989, several private companies for region-wide radio and television broadcasting have become established. There are also so-called "regional" broadcast companies of which the range is limited to only smaller parts of the Flemish Region. The written press is dominated by a number of 'quality' dailies (such as De Tijd, De Morgen and De Standaard), several 'popular' dailies (such as Het Laatste Nieuws and Het Nieuwsblad) and a huge number of general and specialised magazines.
- Since the Brussels-Capital Region is part of both the Flemish and French Community of Belgium, it is not possible to give a definitive population figure. The Brussels-Capital Region has 1,119,088 inhabitants (as of 2011-1-1), of which some 10-20% could be seen as being part of the Flemish Community. Together with the Flemish Region which has 6,306,638 inhabitants (as of 2011-1-1), this gives an estimated 6.4 to 6.5 million inhabitants.
- The parliament of the French Community is distinct from the Walloon Parliament; this is more obvious for the parliament of the German-speaking Community because its much smaller territory is within the latter region.
- (English) Flemish authorities (Dutch: Vlaamse overheid)
- (Dutch) Flemish authorities (Dutch: Vlaamse overheid)
- Flemish Parliament (Dutch: Vlaams Parlement)
- Flemish government (Dutch: Vlaamse regering)
- Flemish Community Council in Brussels (Dutch: Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie (VGC))
- Public radio & television (Dutch: Vlaamse radio en Televisie)
- VRT online news in English, French and German
- Flanders Today, weekly paper about Flanders (actual information in English)
- Study opportunities in Flanders (accredited non Dutch-language courses)
- Touristic information about Flanders (Dutch: Toerisme Vlaanderen)
- Flanders Investment and Trade - Information for foreign investors | <urn:uuid:03f22bf1-b7ff-4b84-a490-a40359b58ca2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Community | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941575 | 1,935 | 3.203125 | 3 |
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that
All things are made of atoms - little particles that that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.
In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.
Richard Feynman was the ultimate physicist and the greatest science lecturer of all time. It's unbelievable physical insight into all matters, his original way of thinking and his unique character made him one of the most influential personalities ever. His influence is so strong that can be transmitted even through a single web page collecting some of his ideas, 15 years after his death.
Physics is like sex; sure, you can get some interesting results, but that's not why we do it.
The Universe in a Glass of Wine
A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he said that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look in glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If in our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let us give one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!
In the early 60's Feynman (at the time faculty member at Caltech) was asked to teach Caltech's undergraduate 2 year introductory course in physics. He agreed to teach the course only once. The lectures he gave during these 2 years were audio recorded and the blackboards where photographed. A couple of years later, these lectures came out in written form as The Feynman Lectures on Physics, and are considered one of the most important achievements of the 20th century: the encapsulation of the entire field of physics, by its greatest living practitioner.
He taught physics like none had before him; in the normal physics course they usually went through all the historical developments until in the final weeks they reach the chapter on atoms and molecules, the very essence of our world. However in Feynman's very first lecture in the fall of 1961, over 200 students were gathered to listen to him announcing the words you can find at the beginning of this page. In his second lecture he summed up "Physics before 1920's" in less than half an hour and went on to quantum physics, the new stuff that students came excited to hear.
Here is an audio sample on his concluding remarks on the near symmetry in nature - one of Feynman's finest moments. symmetry.mp3:
And this is his explanation of the existence of our world:
why atoms do not fall apart! atoms.mp3:
Apart from these official lectures, for more than 20 years he taught unofficially a course called Physics X; once every week people gathered somewhere on campus under the sun of LA and they could ask Feynman any physics question they wanted. The students were meeting the previous days in order to come up with questions that could possibly frustrate him, although it is said that none ever managed to do that.
You see, when you ask why something happens, how does a person answer why something happens?
For example, Aunt Minnie is in the hospital. Why? Because she went out on the ice and slipped and broke her hip. That satisfies people. But it wouldn't satisfy someone who came from another planet and knew nothing about things...
When you explain a why, you have to be in some framework that you've allowed something to be true. Otherwise you're perpetually asking why... You go deeper and deeper in various directions.
Why did she slip on the ice? Well, ice is slippery. Everybody knows that-no problem. But you ask why the ice is slippery... And then you're involved with something, because there aren't many things slippery as ice... A solid that's so slippery?
Because it is in the case of ice that when you stand on it, they say, momentarily the pressure melts the ice a little bit so that you've got an instantaneous water surface on which you're slipping. Why on ice and not on other things? Because water expands when it freezes. So the pressure tries to undo the expansion and melts it...
I'm not answering your question, but I'm telling you how difficult a why question is. You have to know what it is permitted to understand... and what it is you're not.
You'll notice in this example that the more I ask why, it gets interesting after a while. That's my idea, that the deeper a thing is, the more interesting...
The Challenger Destruction
On January 1986 the space shuttle Challenger carrying 7 people exploded in the air shortly after its launch. A committee was called in order to investigate the accident and Feynman was in it. Figuring out the causes of the accident became a matter of national importance (plus some government pressure), being the main topic discussed in TV and newspapers these days.
2 weeks after the accident a press conference was held. Feynman kept asking for a glass of ice water, which he got after numerous attempts. Then he interrupted the conference by putting a small piece of rubber material (same as on the shuttle) inside the glass of water, which immediately contracted due to the cold. When the cameras focused on him, he pulled the piece out and showed that it didn't regain its original shape explaining what he did:
I took this stuff that I got out of your seal and I put it in ice water, and I discovered that when you put some pressure on it for a while and then undo it it doesn't stretch back. It stays the same dimension. In other words, for a few seconds at least and more seconds than that, there is no resilience in this particular material when it is at a temperature of 32 degrees.
I believe that has some significance to our problem.
Not only did it have some significance to the problem, but it it was indeed the physical cause of the accident, and he managed to demonstrate it simply in front of everyone. The video with his demonstration played again and again the following days and Feynman also became known to a vast majority of non-technical people (he was already quite famous among scientists and science-related people).
More on Feynman
The best way to get to know him is seeing him in action, i.e. lecturing. In 1979 he gave 4 lectures on Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) appealing to general audience. He chose New Zealand to deliver these lectures because he didn't want to risk a possible failure by lecturing at his native Caltech. Fortunately you can find these memorable lectures online here, so that you can witness Feynman at his best.
Update July 2009:
Microsoft Research has put online videos of the extremely rare Messenger Lectures that Feynman gave at his prime in Cornell in 1964. Those lectures only existed as a book until now, "The Character of Physical Law". They are probably the best material of Feynman you can find around. Watch them here.
James Gleick's Genius is by far the best book about Feynman; Gleick writes as if he knows him since childhood, keeping a distinct balance between his life and his research. In that book you will also find an excellent account on geniuses, investigating the reasons why they seem to have vanished in modern years. You can find it on Amazon.
The Tuva trader sells every possible Feynman related material, including his QED lectures on DVD.
www.feynman.com is his official website; you will find lots of information about him written by people they knew him really well.
No need to say that if you are (even indirectly) involved or like Physics, you should purchase his Lectures right now. They are expensive, but they are worth every single buck.
Side note: After watching Feynman, reading Feynman and reading about Feynman I sometimes wish I was born a few years before; just to have the slightest chance of talking to him once. | <urn:uuid:1a8f8834-d0e4-4b71-be18-1dd99494d403> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timaras.com/science/feynman.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976029 | 1,903 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
A new study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association associates prolonged television viewing with increased risks of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, joining smoking and lack of exercise as major risk factors for those diseases. Parents can take note of the findings in light of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation that kids under 2 watch no television, and older kids watch no more than 1-2 hours each day.
Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and the study’s co-author, told The Boston Globe that the average American spends 5 hours a day watching television, possibly putting their health at risk in the process:
“There’s something unique about TV watching,” says Hu, that sets it apart from other sedentary activities, like reading a book or tapping out e-mails to friends. “People tend to eat while watching TV,” he says. “They see commercials for junk food and sugary beverages, and it’s part of our culture to eat chips and beer when watching a sporting event….It’s almost completely passive and is probably the best marker of a sedentary lifestyle — the couch potato syndrome.”
For more, read one pediatrician’s insight on whether our kids are watching too much television.
How do you handle television viewing with your kids?
(image via: http://www.fashioncentral.pk/) | <urn:uuid:c26df076-338c-4484-9270-a6c72de82d0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parents.com/blogs/parents-news-now/tag/couch-potato/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938371 | 310 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Matter: Its Property & Its Changes
by Tom Derosa and Carolyn Reeves
88 Page 11 x 8 1/2 paperback (Full Color)
Retail Price: $12.99
Experience the science of fun!
In this Investigate the Possibilities series the 3rd through 6th grade, elementary chemistry becomes infused with fun through activities and applied learning!
This dynamic full-color book provides over 20 great ways to learn about bubbles, water, colors, salt, and the periodic table, all through interactive lessons that ground students in their faith in God. Help tap into the natural curiosity of younger learners with activities utilizing common household items, teaching them why and how things work, what things are made of, and where they came from.
You will learn about:
• The physical properties of chemical substances
• Why adding heat causes most chemical changes to react faster
• The scientist who organized a chart of the known elements
• The difference between chemical changes and physical changes
Investigate God's amazing world through science that is both fun to explore and educationally sound in this comprehensive series!
About the Authors:
Authors Tom DeRosa and Carolyn Reeves are committed biblical creationists with a combined 60 years teaching science. Both are excellent at helping students experience science concepts in the world around them.
Tom Derosa studied biblical creation and became committed to breaking down the barrier of a lack of knowledge about the biblical account of creation that is keeping people from Christ. In 1988 he formed Creation Studies Institute and has authored several books.
Carolyn Reeves, Ph.D., and her husband make their home in Oxford, Mississippi where they are active members of North Oxford Baptist Church. Carolyn retired after a 30-year career as a science teacher, finished a doctoral degree in science education, and began a new venture as a writer and an educational consultant. The Reeves have three children, three in-law children and nine grandchildren. | <urn:uuid:512c7813-b362-442e-8316-7efb776634de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://store.nwcreation.net/matter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950823 | 392 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The proverb is, "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" and with their love of toys, movies and Japanese animation, Aya and Shingo Miyazaki of design team Hyaku show that you can have the best of both worlds and be successful.
Hyaku means luck in Japanese. Actually it translates to "one hundred" which itself is considered a lucky number in Japan. Illustrator Aya Miyazaki and Art Director Shingo Miyazaki chose Hyaku as the name of their design business back in 2002 and over the last nine years it has proven to be a wise choice. Not all of their commercial success is because of sheer luck, however. Talent obviously plays a large part and if Hyaku is anything, it’s talented.
Growing up in the late 1970s, both Shingo and Aya benefited from artistic households as Shingo’s mother is a designer and Aya’s father practices illustration as a hobby. As children they surrounded themselves in Japanese animation, MANGA and video games which not only fostered their love of drawing, but of toys and figurines as well. Though their parents encouraged such play, they weren’t entirely supportive of illustration as a career option at first. "We think our parents are worried that we won’t be able to make a living as an illustrator. But please don’t worry!" They didn’t always want to be artists, though. Shingo wanted to be a drummer, which continues to be his favorite hobby, and Aya had an early passion for fashion and wanted to be a hair/makeup artist or a seamstress for Karl Lagerfeld. Nevertheless, illustration was the path that they both chose.
They attended a Tokyo art school where they met in an illustration class, yet didn’t get into vector illustrations until leaving school. After graduating in 1999 they both went on to work for graphic design companies before coming back together and starting Hyaku in 2002. They grew tired of being asked to imitate the art of others and decided that the only way they would be happy in their careers was to do what they wanted to do. In fact, that is one of Shingo’s biggest pieces of advice for up-and-coming illustrators: have fun at work.
Fun is definitely in the air at their company. Their office as well as their apartment in Toyko is decorated with the figurines that started their love of art and they will soon be able to add another toy to their collection. This is quite possibly the most important one yet since they created it themselves, having won the RAJE Toys Project Blueprint contest. Their design, along with the 15 other contest winners, was unveiled at the 2010 New York Comic Con event and is expected to be available in early 2011.
Toys aren’t the only artistic creations that take up space in their home and office. Shingo and Aya are huge movie buffs and movie posters cover their walls. Some of their favorite films are "The Godfather," "Star Wars," "Pulp Fiction," and "Apocalypse Now." It’s only natural that some of their favorite directors are the minds behind these films.
One thing that these films have in common is very memorable, well-developed characters. Hyaku follows suit when they are creating their character illustrations.
Our characters all have different personalities. [They all] have settings such as names, personalities, hobbies [and] there are times when the settings don’t appear in the illustrations. By coming up with these settings, [it] gives the characters individuality and brings them to life."
Their favorite part of creating each unique character is when they are brainstorming all of the details that make that character who it is, such as clothing and setting. Once they have those ideas in mind they get to work using their Macs, Wacom tablets and most importantly, they add, spirit(!!).
Like many designers, they find themselves working on extremely tight deadlines, which is their biggest complaint.
"There are times when we think if there was more time, we could have done a better design. Still, we think that meeting the deadline is very important as a professional."
Short deadlines don’t always go along with one of their biggest project requirements: the ability to express their individuality. "We are very happy if we meet a client or agent who is requiring our originality. We receive jobs by phone or via e-mail, and head to the client’s company for further arrangements. We then show a rough sketch, and then deliver the finished work. We try to understand exactly what the client is requesting and propose the best we can do." This consistent process, their professionalism and unique designs have resulted in a client list that includes the Japanese snack company, Tohato, Inc., mobile phone companies NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and KDDI CORPORATION and various Japanese magazines.
Right now Shingo and Aya balance a heavy workload that has them working seven days a week on projects that include snack package design and personal work consisting of costume design and illustration. The latter fits perfectly with one of Aya’s favorite pastimes, musicals ("We love CATS!!") and fashion design ( "[The]Galliano show is amazing!"). In fact, in addition to movies and MANGA, fashion is one of their biggest inspirations.
Hyaku eventually wants to expand their design business to include clients outside of their native Japan. Seeing that they had one of their beloved toy designs featured at New York’s Comic Con this year, that shouldn’t be a problem. After all, they have luck on their side. | <urn:uuid:7f0c6c3b-fa46-43b6-bf82-7ac76258fe2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/profile-hyaku-one-hundred-percent-creativity/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979313 | 1,181 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Brain slows down after 40
The human brain starts slowing down after the age of 40, according to new scientific research.
US scientists said genes start working less hard after 40, a discovery which may explain why mental functions deteriorate with age.
Researchers at The Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School studied brain tissue from 30 bodies ranging in age from 26 to 106. They studied 11,000 genes.
Within the brains which had passed 40 years of age many genes showed significant changes. Many were damaged and could not properly function and instruct cells to create proteins.
More were found to be functioning at a lower level - including those involved in learning, memory and communication between brain cells.
But some genes were found to be working harder after 40 - those related to DNA repair, antioxidant defence and stress and inflammatory responses.
The scientists believe these genes may have been working harder to compensate for the damaged and poor-functioning genes.
Professor Bruce Yankner of the department of Neurology and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, said it was not clear whether the changes were due to lifestyle or genetic make-up.
"But this gives us a starting point because what we've shown is that there's a genetic signature, so to speak, of this ageing process and now we can work to determine how that impacts brain function," he said.
The findings were published in the journal Nature. | <urn:uuid:3e7a22b5-b920-4d2c-a726-694dcdbd600f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/10/1086749826825.html?from=storylhs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970461 | 281 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Why massage therapy?
The interest in massage therapy has steadily
increased in the last 20 years. A healing art
that's been around since ancient times, massage
therapy offers an unlimited number of benefits
that can touch each person individually.
Massage therapy provides numerous therapeutic
benefits for health, fitness and mental
well-being. Massage helps improve the body's
circulation, increases blood and lymph flow,
stimulates the nervous system and affects internal
organs as well as all of the muscles.
Massage therapy is a healing art that encompasses
the manipulation of soft tissues, positively affecting
and improving health and well-being. There are many
styles of massage, including: Bodywork, Shiatsu,
Reflexology, Neuromuscular, Esalen (Swedish), Deep
Tissue, Circulatory, Sports and Cranial-Sacral.
Because there are so many different styles of massage
it's important to find the
that offers the style that best fits your needs, in
order for you to get the most from your session.
Massage therapy can relieve muscle tension, strain,
soreness and strain, as well as insomnia, arthritis,
bursitis, headaches, digestive problems, stress,
anxiety, depression and much more.
Not only does massage feel good, help you relax,
improve your range of motion and relax your muscles,
it can also enhance your overall health and well-being.
Therapeutic massage may not be appropriate for
some individuals. It's always important to consult
with your doctor before you receive a massage,
especially for those individuals with infectious diseases,
certain forms of cancer, skin problems, phlebitis
(inflammation of the veins) and cardiac conditions.
The American Massage Association
to learn more about the benefits of massage. | <urn:uuid:37f16186-e202-4bcf-89b8-821bb28471d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.1sthealthsource.com/alt-med/massage/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908052 | 391 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Wit and humor
Aug 22, 2009 — President Thomas Jefferson once said, "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?" — a line that British comedy writers John Lloyd and John Mitchinson co-opted for the title of their new anthology of quotations.
Feb 17, 2009 — A new book says snark is threatening to take over how Americans converse. Snark is a tone of teasing or snideness. David Denby, the author of Snark, discusses about how clever put-downs and cheap shots are coarsening public debate.
Aug 6, 2008 — Stop Me If You've Heard This Before, Jim Holt's funny, scholarly history of humor, ranges high and (very) low to answer the question, "What are you laughing at?"
May 12, 2008 — Politicians are known for delivering a scripted message. Those who stray far from their prepared remarks often find themselves in trouble. But a select few who dare — think Winston Churchill or Daniel Webster — can make a point with their quick wit. | <urn:uuid:e0e27b1c-4907-4b15-9007-1ff64f38d403> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/nprnews.php?id[138012876]=Wit%20and%20humor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945109 | 213 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Immigrants 'must add to quality of life in Britain'
People coming to live in the UK from outside the EU must "add to the quality of life in Britain", immigration minister Damian Green has said.
He argued Britain does not need more "middle managers" or unskilled labour and those who settle could have to command a salary of more than £31,000.
Any British citizen who wants to bring in a non-EU spouse should also meet a minimum salary level, he added.
Labour said ministers had set out "no workable proposals" to cut immigration.
The government has pledged to cut net migration from 242,000 - the figure for the year ending September 2010 - to the "tens of thousands" last seen in the 1990s.
As part of that the number of people from outside the EU coming to the UK to work will be capped.National consensus
In his speech to the Policy Exchange in London, Mr Green referred to a report by the government's Migration Advisory Committee (Mac) which found there were up to 23 fewer jobs for British workers for every additional 100 working migrants coming from outside the EU.
He said it disproved the "old assumption" that "as immigration adds to GDP it is economically a good thing, and that therefore logically the more immigration the better, whatever the social consequences".
Conservative ministers have focused on cutting the numbers of immigrants - but this speech is about a vision of what the remainder all adds up to.
At its heart is an idea that has long driven policy in countries like Australia and the US: You only get in if you're good enough - and only if Britain wants you.
It's a markets-led approach to economic migration. The UK should select only what it needs from a global stall of workers.
Labour tried to sell this idea - but struggled to get the message across because, as it admitted, the system wasn't fit for purpose.
The criticism Damian Green will face is that he's focusing on immigration rights for the wealthy despite the lower-paid also paying their way and keeping Britain moving
Ministers know that public trust in immigration is the prize. A lot of that trust will depend on the reforms to the system itself.
"That was the view of the previous government in its early years, and it is still the view of Tony Blair and some of his former advisers," he said.
"It is not my view, or the view of the vast majority of the British people.
"The key insight of the Mac's work is that the measure of a successful immigration policy is how it increases the wealth of the resident population."
Mr Green said he wanted to build a "national consensus" around immigration, adding: "Importing economic dependency on the state is unacceptable.
"Bringing people to this country who can play no role in the life of this country is equally unacceptable."
He said he wanted anyone moving to the UK to join a British spouse "to be able to integrate and be independent", which was why a requirement to speak English was being introduced.
But he said he was also proposing to set a minimum income level for any sponsor seeking to bring in a foreign spouse - and said the recommended level from Mac was between £18,600 and £25,700.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said that would be "hammer blow to the human rights of cross border partners and their families".
Chief executive Habib Rahman said: "They've already been hit with an age minimum (although we defeated that), language requirements and ever increasing visa fees. Now they face what is likely to be an unreasonably high income threshold.
"One might argue that this government has it in for poor people who fall in love with anyone who's not resident in the UK."Skill shortages
Ahead of his speech, Mr Green told BBC Radio Kent he wanted "to be much more intelligently selective about who we let come here", and that anyone individual seeking permanent settlement should be able to command a salary of between £31,000 and £49,000.
"We need to know that you're not going to be living off benefits from day one of arriving here.
End Quote Chris Bryant Shadow immigration minister
The government is still weakening action on illegal immigration, abandoning checks at our border during the summer”
"We want people either to fill skill gaps we may have... [or] we want to know that they are being offered jobs that are genuinely at a skill level.
"Similarly with students, we want to make sure that they are genuine student studying genuine courses at a genuine institution."
New specialist routes will be developed further to improve the visa system for short-term business visitors and entertainers, as well as a "young talent" scheme to encourage the entrepreneurs and scientists of the future to immigrate.
But on the subject of professions suffering from shortages, such as nursing, Mr Green said there was "no reason why Britain should have a permanent shortage of nurses" and any use of foreign workers should be temporary.
He said importing unskilled labour had "caused enough problems when there was an economic boom on" and would be completely "wrong-headed" in tougher times.'Massive gap'
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migration Watch UK, said it had to be the "right approach" to try to get immigration down by being "much more selective".
"We need to consider the common good, not just the demands of special interest groups who benefit financially from immigration," he said.
Shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant said Labour agreed with the need for national consensus but there was "still a massive gap between the government's rhetoric and the reality on immigration".
"David Cameron pledged 'no ifs, no buts', net migration would be in the tens of thousands by the end of the Parliament. Yet the minister today has again set out no workable proposals to deliver it," he said.
"And the government is still weakening action on illegal immigration, abandoning checks at our border during the summer, stopping the routine fingerprinting of illegal immigrants trying to enter the UK through the Channel Tunnel, and seeing the number of people removed for breaking the rules going down not up."
The government has promised to crack down on sham and forced marriages, and last year consulted on plans to create a more formal test to define whether a relationship is genuine.
This could involve UK Border Agency case workers questioning a couple to see whether they are able to provide accurate personal details about each other and whether they agree on the facts of their relationship, for example how they met. | <urn:uuid:bf6f633b-1b88-422f-b8bd-1d4a1b6c7007> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16850563 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972294 | 1,349 | 1.570313 | 2 |
A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum uses hip-hop to teach youth
Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was one.
So was black nationalist Malcolm X.
Both held Pullman porter jobs along their upward trajectories into history books.
But Lyn Hughes, founder of Chicago’s small but renowned A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, notes too few young people today know that trivia or the history of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, America’s first chartered black labor union.
Housed in one of the Historic Pullman District’s original rowhouses built in 1880 by rail car titan George Pullman, the 18-year-old museum at 104th and Maryland is working with youth in the inner city to impact that historical deficiency.
Its program, “Museum 44: Where Hip Hop Meets History ,” immerses youth in black history through music, poetry and art as a violence prevention tool.
“We have a very clear understanding of how the medium of hip-hop reaches young people. We are using that vehicle to enlighten young blacks about their history — talking to them in their language, from their perspective,” Hughes said.
The museum, home to one of the nation’s largest collection of photos, family artifacts and personal memorabilia from the black labor movement — a precursor to the civil rights movement — hosts its annual fund-raiser at the Marmon Grand on Sunday in support of “Museum 44,” named for the 44th president — Barack Obama.
Organized in 1925 by civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph to take on the powerful Pullman Rail Car Co., the porters union battled long hours and scant pay for attendants on Pullman’s luxury sleeping cars, winning recognition in 1937.
As a law student in the early ’30s, Marshall worked as a porter for $50 a month, while Malcolm X washed dishes as one and served food on trains in the early ’40s.
The sacrifices endured by such black icons increasingly are lost on youth, says Hughes, pointing to rapper Lil Wayne’s denigration of another icon, Emmett Till, in rap lyrics. The lyrics were dropped after controversy erupted this week.
“Their history isn’t taught, their awareness is only enforced one month a year,” Hughes said. “If it is ongoing, if you continue to learn about where you came from, the richness of your history and strength of character of your people, then those subliminal messages — the ones that tell you you’re worthless, you came from nothing, you’ll never amount to anything — won’t fall on fertile ground.” | <urn:uuid:e601d6ad-250b-4192-b875-435512331981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.suntimes.com/mobile/18231592-463/a-philip-randolph-pullman-porter-museum-uses-hip-hop-to-teach-youth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945732 | 570 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Americans being, well, Americans
According to some folks "All Asians look alike." In Korea that ism is closer to being true. The only difference between North and South Korea is ideology, resulting in completely differing economies. And there the difference is like night and day.
When viewed at night from outer space North Korea is black as coal while Seoul, the capital of South Korea, glows like a giant Christmas tree. doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2006/10/13/
If allowed one photo in the restricted zone (you had to check your camera) during the tour of the "Third Tunnel of Aggression," our second stop on the DMZ tour, I would have shot the point of intersection where South Korea had dug a tunnel down deep and steep to the unfinished North Korean effort.
The South Korean tunnel was well lit, ventilated, about eight feet high by 8 feet wide, smoothly cylindrical and completely coated in concrete; the North Korean tunnel was as crude as it was cramped. Perhaps 5.5 feet high by 5.5 wide, with rough jagged edges all around. The average person had to duck the entire time.
Fortunately, as I whacked my head four or five times, yellow construction hard hats were required.
When North Korea hastily abandoned their pernicious project, they left behind definitive evidence: small holes drilled in the solid rock just large enough to hold the dynamite used for excavation.
Obviously the placement of the holes--now highlighted in red paint--indicated the tunnel was a North to South endeavor.
According to our tour guide (and Wikipedia) if the tunnel had become operational an entire division of soldiers with artillery could have passed per hour. Since we had to walk single file while hunched over I doubt even highly-trained soldiers could move at a rate of 30,000 per hour. But I'm sure an awful lot of them could.
And they would then have had a terrifying advantage: the element of surprise.
To date South Korea has uncovered four different tunnels all pointed towards the capital city of Seoul, where one-quarter of the population resides. And government officials fear many more tunnels are out there.
So now a Great Wall of barbed wire extends all the way from the city limit of Seoul to the DMZ, running parallel to the and Freedom Highway. Interspersed every half-mile or so, an elevated guard tower staffed by soldiers with machine guns.
At a military checkpoint we are boarded for a passport check by a young soldier dressed in camouflage uniform and sporting black reflective sunglasses. About half way to the back of the bus he slowly raises his glasses and says sternly in broken English "Who took picture?"
Everybody looks surprised (myself included) while shaking our heads side-to-side. "I saw a flash!," he declares and then looks around for a reaction. Getting none, he turns and marches off the bus after hardly glancing at our passports.
This was about 11:00 AM on a beautifully clear sunny day, so I'm fairly sure a digital camera would not have flashed. It could simply have been bright sunshine bouncing off a shiny object on the bus...or maybe the border guards always play that game just to reinforce the posted warnings (verbally reinforced many times by our tour guide).
In South Korea men are required to perform 2 years of military service. Every 6 months they get a bar added to a shoulder patch on their uniform to indicate length of experience, and by easy deduction amount of time left to serve. Our interrogator had earned only one bar.
Seated behind me on the bus three American 20-something women had been chatting up a storm on the one-hour journey from Seoul, pausing now and then to softy sing Beatles songs. Immediately after passing the military checkpoint one dials her cellphone: "Sorry Mom, I forgot about that...(probably referring to the 13-hour time difference.) "But we're here, we're at the DMZ!"
After the brief conversation ends she said to her friend soberly "Grandma had two brothers who served here, and they're still missing."
Freedom Bridge was our first stop on the tour, so named because when prisoners of war were exchanged after the 1953 cease fire they shouted "freedom" as they sprinted towards their respective homelands.
Now it is unused and heavily guarded on both sides. Overhead a helicopter gunship flies in a slow--but probably very precise--grid pattern.
Our 3'rd stop was the furthermost observation outpost of the ROK army, the ground where--according to a dedication plaque on cite--outnumbered American and South Korean soldiers stood "shoulder to shoulder" to withstand a massive assault by fanatical Chinese troops.
Naturally the base is located atop a peak of one of the ubiquitous Korean mountains.
Perhaps 100 people hover around the dozen binocular stations that allowed a view of yet another neighboring mountain, only this one was located in North Korea. Young South Korean soldiers numbering in the dozens were among those who came to gawk.
The last stop on the tour was Dorasan Train Station, a beautiful modern facility that opened in 2002 with the hope that reunification would allow passenger service thru North Korea. The architect designed the building roof to resemble a hand shaking another hand.Click to enlarge
Women who volunteer serve in the military. And they start at higher rank.
The $35 half-day tour ended at noon so I did not get to up to Panmunjom where the cease fire treaty was signed in a building now--like the country itself--a "house divided". Where guards stand glaring at each other from within spitting distance.
The Korean (undeclared) War never concluded...they just came to an official truce, which at times--particularly now--seems precarious. Yet at all the stops along the DMZ, powerful symbols exist dedicated to reunification: A sculpture of the globe split in half with Koreans on opposite sides trying to push it back together.
Or the repetitive use of the terms "freedom" and "reunification" for infrastructure around the DMZ, including roads, bridges and even entire villages. When asked, our young S. Korean tour guide said quite confidently that reunification would happen within the next ten years.
Meanwhile a North Korean inter ballistic missile--capable of hitting Hawaii--warms up in a silo with an estimated launch date of July 4, perhaps a symbolic message to the United States.
Thursday June 23'rd marked the 59'Th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, a day that South Koreans treat with the same respect as Americans do Memorial Day. In North Korea's Pyongyang 100,000 residents turned out for an anti-American rally.
Millions perished in the Korean War and even now 59 years later, the catastrophic conflict is agonizingly unresolved. But still, they have hope. And it is strong.
If indeed, hope is a muscle--then South Korea is the strongest nation on earth. | <urn:uuid:929e6367-ca04-4dc2-88f4-d6bea0811d15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlyintherepublicofamherst.blogspot.com/2009/06/heart-seoul.html?showComment=1246171065328 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96773 | 1,440 | 1.671875 | 2 |
MAPC strives to advance these elements through our organizational policies, practices, and project selection, and through the implementation of MetroFuture, our regional plan for Greater Boston.
Metro Boston Indicators project
Our MetroFuture plan includes goals to eliminate unfair, preventable, and systematic differences among groups, and create more equitable conditions in our region.
The Metro Boston Indicators website provides data and findings from "The State of Equity in Metro Boston," which we released on December 13, 2011.
- Download State of Equity in Metro Boston Executive Summary and Key Findings.
- Contact [email protected] to learn more about the program.
MAPC Equity Implementation Plan
MAPC is taking action to advance equity and cultural competency in our organization and beyond through implementation of the MAPC Equity Implementation Plan.
The plan outlines action items MAPC prioritized in order to advance equity and cultural competency across five key areas:
- Organizational Culture
- Agency Policies, Standards, and Decision-Making
- Administration and Governance
- Service Delivery
- Communications and Community Relations
A progress summary on plan implementation on 2011-2012 and the FY13 Action Plan is forthcoming.
Community Leaders Breakfast Series at MAPC
MAPC's Community Leaders Breakfast Series creates an opportunity for us to meet with diverse leaders in our region and exchange knowledge and ideas.
For our first breakfast, we invited Latino and Brazilian community leaders to learn about the scope of MAPC’s work in the areas of planning and policy, as well as the various ways that MAPC can be available as a resource to the community.
“What’s on the Menu at MAPC,” is a handout that provides a sampling of MAPC’s resources to community leaders.
Contact Emily Torres to learn more about the series.
Accessibility at MAPC
MAPC is committed to improving access to our offices, public meetings and programs. The agency values engaging people from every culture, demographic group, and those with physical limitations in our planning processes.
Contact Joan Blaustein to learn more about MAPC's efforts in the area of accessibility.
MAPC defines equity as fair access to opportunities for people from all communities, so that everyone in the region can achieve the full potential they envision for themselves. Back to top
MAPC defines cultural competency as the ability to recognize and consider the diverse cultural norms, attitudes, identities and world views of our leaders, staff, and constituents when making decisions about how we interact and engage with stakeholders across the region. Organizations and people who strive towards maintaining a culturally competent practice engage in mindful cross-cultural interaction and carefully consider their own biases and expectations before making inferences about the identities and values of others.> | <urn:uuid:da0fee35-bfe6-4dd3-a435-15f2bf2fffd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mapc.org/resources/equity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903849 | 564 | 1.578125 | 2 |
A NEW diet where calorie intake is cut to a quarter of the recommended daily intake for two days a week could be more effective than simply reducing calories over a whole diet.
The 5:2 diet or Fast Diet stipulates that men eat 2500 kilojoules and women eat 2100 kilojoules on two non-consecutive days a week.
It does not specify what can and can't be eaten as long as the dieter keeps to this limit and then eats sensibly for the remaining five days.
Typically for women, breakfast might be two eggs and a small portion of smoked salmon and another meal of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.
Professor Tim Gill, associate professor and principal research fellow at the Boden institute of obesity, nutrition, exercise and eating disorders at the University of Sydney, said it was a mechanism for reducing total calorie intake that might work for some people.
''There's no magic, no suggestion of any physiological advantage. The theory is that if you reduce intake constantly then the body adapts but for 12 or 16 hours in the day we aren't eating anyway … I don't think it is a panacea but it is a way of structuring calorie reduction for some people. I see it as more of a male thing, men like structure. If every diet worked for everyone we would only ever have had one diet.''
The diet was the subject of a BBC documentary, which will be screened here later this year on SBS.
Professor Amanda Sainsbury-Salis also from the university's Boden institute said she did not consider the diet a fad and that it was more of a new movement in weight management and health improvement. ''There is some evidence that variations in intake can result in some improved health outcomes but we need to do more research into what is best in terms of timing.''
She said it was important to have medical supervision for severe calorie reduction, which could result in some problems such as gall stones.
Dr Rosemary Stanton, a visiting fellow of the medical school at the University of NSW, said the diet might help some people to actually realise what it felt like to be hungry.
''I see people who eat in case they get hungry,'' she said.
''If someone wants to do this I don't have a problem but they would need to realise they can't go crazy on the non-diet days.'' | <urn:uuid:b6849ca7-1b0c-4825-96ba-aa2cdaabe817> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/1306124/fasting-diet-gains-backing/?cs=27 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974829 | 486 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Donkey campaign carries serious message
Published on March 13 2013
They’re beasts of burden but instead of carrying heavy loads, the donkey will be saddled with an important message this week at Brock.
Off-Campus Living and Neighbourhood Relations has kicked off its Don’t be a Donkey campaign again this year, reminding students who plan to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day to not test the luck of the Irish too much and go easy on the green beer.
That means having fun on March 17 but doing it in a way that’s safe and mindful of others - Brock students and local residents alike, explained Curtis Gadula, manager of Off-Campus Living and Neighbourhood Relations.
“(St. Patrick’s Day) has been a day where there’s been a dramatic increase in social interaction but it has been in a very respectful fashion,” he said. “That’s what we want to continue to encourage because it is a day of such celebration.” | <urn:uuid:8260008e-ee8b-4675-be76-0a5518ea4644> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://[email protected]/news/22134 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937801 | 216 | 1.976563 | 2 |
by M A N @roquesdoodle
I don’t rant very often, but when I do, it’s because of something that irritates me to the Nth degree. No, it’s not about the BP oil spill or the slow creep of genuine insanity into our world of politics. It’s about grammar. So, to those of you who are bored easily, fair warning.
There are quite a few writers whom I respect not only for their views and insights, but for the gifted way they express themselves. However, several months ago I began to notice that many of my favorite bloggers have been using the articles “a” and “an”--especially “an”-- in a way that makes my teeth grind. Allow me to explain.
--BEWARE! Grammar ahead!--
Let’s look at this simple sentence:
That is a cat.
This is one of the simplest sentence structures in the English language. We have our noun (“That”), our verb (“is”), while “cat” serves as our predicate nominative. What about “a” you ask? “A” is an article (one of the three: “a”, “an”, and “the”). Articles fall under the adjective category, which makes sense since they are words that modify nouns or pronouns. In this instance, it’s modifying the word “cat.” It’s “a cat.” Now let’s look at this sentence:
That is an octopus.
Notice how we changed the article from “a” to “an?” The reason for this is that the word octopus begins with a vowel sound. And that’s the funny thing about the articles “a” and “an.” It’s the phonetics of the word the article is modifying that determines which is the correct article to use. If the modified word begins with a consonant sound, we use the article “a”, as in “a cat.” If the modified word begins with a vowel sound, we use the article “an”, as in “an octopus.” Easy, right? I mean, this is a concept that most English speakers grasp in grade school.
Now, this is where things start to get fucking annoying.
Let’s look at this sentence:
That is an ugly octopus.
For those of you who had to diagram sentences back in the day, you know that even though the word “ugly” comes between “an” and “octopus,” “an” still modifies the word “octopus” and not the word “ugly.” Unless you’re a cat using LOL speak, it’s “an octopus” and not “an ugly.” However, the phrase still flows because “ugly,” the word that immediately follows “an,” also begins with a vowel sound. But lately I have been seeing many writers doing things like this:
That is an beautiful octopus.
Hold on, I need a minute. Just typing that makes me want to run through the streets, kicking old ladies.
Okay, let’s look at that horrid fucking sentence again, shall we?
That is an beautiful octopus.
So here’s my problem. When reading that, let alone speaking that, I find the sentence clunky, awkward, and that it takes me out of the reading experience entirely. Yet, technically, the above sentence is correct. “An,” our article acting as an adjective, is still modifying the word “octopus” and not the word “beautiful.” Because “octopus” begins with a vowel sound, we must use “an,” regardless of the phonetics of the word immediately following the article.
Personally, I believe the sentence should read: That is a beautiful octopus. For me, the article should be determined by the phonetics of the word that immediately follows it, NOT the word it modifies. The rules of English grammar disagree.
And I hate it.
I mean with a drag-it-into-the-middle-of-the-street-so-the-whole-neighborhood-can-watch-me-skull-fuck-it-like-I-was-a-sailor-on-shore-leave kind of hate.
Let me be the first to say that I am no grammarian. Even though I have a degree in English Education and spent a year teaching High School English, I am not impervious to mistakes. Just ask my editors. There’s a reason I keep a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and The Beacon Handbook within arm’s reach. And I would never deign to tell other writers to refrain from following that rule, no matter how much I feel it might stain their otherwise pristine prose.
But for myself, it is a rule I refuse to follow. | <urn:uuid:ae61dc3c-d69b-4d1d-aed0-4db00640ff13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2010/06/one-rule-i-refuse-to-follow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948683 | 1,119 | 2.46875 | 2 |
31 August 2012
Mauritius summit ends with pledge by education ministers on collective input to UN discussions
Education ministers concluded their 18th conference in Mauritius today (Friday) with a pledge to ensure a strong Commonwealth voice in the process of formulating the next generation of global development goals.
They have agreed to set up a Commonwealth Ministers Working Group to feed into discussions taking place at the United Nations on a framework for post-2015 anti-poverty targets.
“Ministers noted that unless robust advocacy for the pivotal role of education post-2015 - in the economy, for society, for democracy and for development - is made, there is a risk that it might lose its place in the global priorities,” they said in their final communiqué.
The Mauritius Communiqué acknowledged that solid progress had been made towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals in education and the Education for All goals by 2015, particularly in universal primary education. But they noted that 23.3 million primary age children were still out of school in Commonwealth countries and identified quality education and equal access as common challenges.
Members of the working group on recommendations for the post-2015 development framework are Bangladesh, Barbados, Cyprus, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda.
The 18th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers took place from 29 to 31 August and was attended by 39 countries, of which 34 were led by ministers.
The 19th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers will be held in The Bahamas in 2015. | <urn:uuid:d99325ad-046c-44ee-92ad-db5aa747fe0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thecommonwealth.org/news/34580/249623/310812ccemconclusion.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959306 | 323 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Lighting is an important part of workspace ergonomics. Finding the right lighting solution for your office or workstation can be just as important as finding the right chair, desk, or keyboard.
Lighting isn’t only about function; it’s also about comfort, style, longevity, and great design. That’s why we recommend LED task lamps over incandescent or fluorescent lighting. LED technology has become the standard in ergonomic task lighting: LED based task lamps are brighter, more energy efficient, and they last longer than fluorescent and incandescent bulbs.
Designed for efficiency, intuitive movement, and exceptional focused illumination, the new line of LED task lamps from Humanscale also feature slim, sharp profiles that will give your workspace a fresh look and feel while offering clean, energy efficient ergonomic lighting.
Explore the further benefits of LEDs over more traditional technologies below:
• Long life and energy-efficient – LEDs last 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs and ten times as long as compact fluorescent bulbs, and they’re up to 50% more energy efficient
• Powerful—LEDs produce more light per watt than incandescent bulbs and compact fluorescent bulbs
• Instant On – LEDs bulbs instantly turn on to full brightness
• Focused – LEDs provide spot-specific light to your work area without the need for a shade
• Consistent—LED lights dim smoothly, and they don’t yellow or change color when dimmed
When compared to single-source (overhead and/or fluorescent under bin) lighting, LED task lights provide a more functional, comfortable, and healthier lighting solution while helping you to cut down on maintenance and electricity costs. Humanscale has taken task lighting to the next level, with sleek and stylish designs that look great and offer maximum, hassle-free adjustability. Humancale’s new task lighting line features slim and compact profiles, providing a strong, bright and uniform light source without the bulkiness of more traditional bulbs.
Next week, we’ll explore the longevity of LED lighting solutions, and how they can save you time, money, and energy. | <urn:uuid:262e59e3-435a-4459-a82e-105507e0319d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thehumansolutionblog.com/2011/07/the-benefits-of-ergonomic-led-task-lighting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904214 | 437 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Who? This class is for Upper-Intermediate members. Spring Festival is celebrated around the world by the Chinese Diasporas and in many different Asian cultures, but how does it compare to other festivals around the world? What are your plans for the week? Will you be part of the world’s largest annual movement of people? Or will you try and avoid the crush on the public transport system and stay at home? How will you cope with the stresses and strains of the festival itself? If you’re interested in discussing this most joyous of occasions, then make sure you come to this class!
What? In this class, we’ll start off by looking at some other annual festivals from around the world, and how we can learn from these to describe what happens during Spring Festival in China. Next, we’ll examine the issues related to the world’s greatest human migration as people from all around China try to get home in time to spend Chinese New Year with their nearest and dearest. Finally, we’ll draw up some tips to help each other get through what can be a stressful time and give some coping strategies for dealing with friends, family and relatives. Book Now»
Who? This class is for Pre-Intermediate members. One of the main reasons that we learn how to communicate is that we want to be able to meet people, but meeting people is only half of the battle. What’s more important is that we meet the right kind of people – people who can help us professionally or socially. If you want to learn some useful tactics for expanding your social network, as well as the English you need to know to communicate with them, then this is the class for you!
What? In this class we’ll start off by looking at the different types of networks we have, and the differences between friends and acquaintances. Next, we’ll look at some of the animal kingdom’s most successful networkers, and what lessons we can learn from them. Finally, we’ll investigate our own social networks and how we can get others to help us in a time of need. Book Now» | <urn:uuid:75303ab0-f0a0-4cdf-9a3b-0fc5e916b49d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://englishcollective.org/tag/friends/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959955 | 445 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits