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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A judge tentatively agreed Friday to have customers pay a little more than half the estimated $2.2 billion cost to improve Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s gas lines, rejecting the utility's request to have ratepayers shoulder 84 percent of safety upgrades required after the deadly San Bruno explosion.
The money is aimed at improving record-keeping and safety testing of PG&E's gas transmission lines after the Sept. 9, 2010, blast that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes in the bedroom community.
The explosion prompted a series of investigations and new requirements for state utilities. Among them, the commission required state utilities last year to forecast how they would pressure-test or replace the untested segments of their gas transmission lines.
On Friday, Administrative Law Judge Maribeth Bushey of the California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposed decision to have ratepayers cover about 55 percent of the company's $2.2 billion plan, according to agency officials' analysis of the plan.
PG&E had previously acknowledged the plan's total cost could balloon to ultimately reach an estimated $5 billion, including the cost of financing and recuperating investments over many years.
PG&E Senior Vice President Tom Bottorff called the proposed ruling "wholly inadequate" in a statement Friday.
In the coming months, the commission will review public comments on the judge's proposal. The full five-member commission may vote on the proposal as soon as December.
Tom Long, an attorney with The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco-based nonprofit consumer advocacy group, said the plan did not go far enough to penalize the company for its shoddy record-keeping leading up to the explosion, and would still allow PG&E to earn a sizeable profit.
Under the judge's proposed decision, the return that PG&E can earn from ratepayers on its capital investments is capped at 6.05 percent annually for five years. But after that, the company can earn an 11.35 percent return for decades to come.
"PG&E is going to get to make a lot of money off the mess they created," Long said. "Their failure to keep good records means that all this work needs to be done because they can't prove that their pipes can withstand the right pressures. It's not fair to stick ratepayers with the bill."
Bottorff said the company had hoped the commission would pay for more of the upgrades but the company is committed to getting necessary work done.
"When this comes before the entire commission, we're hopeful that they will consider the ramifications of this work and its critical importance to California," he said.
PG&E could face hundreds of millions of dollars in possible fines in other proceedings before the commission. On Thursday, two CPUC judges granted a request to temporarily suspend public hearings to determine the amount of fines collected from the company, and instead hold closed-door negotiations to reach a settlement.
Relatives who lost loved ones in the blast and San Bruno officials had urged the commission to continue open hearings to foster trust in the process.
The commission's president, Michael Peevey, said holding private negotiations could bring about a settlement sooner. | <urn:uuid:72bd0c65-f0fd-45c3-8ff2-5935937aba96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-10-12/cpuc-gives-initial-nod-to-2-dot-2b-gas-safety-plan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956764 | 670 | 1.53125 | 2 |
I just took a shower. For most of you, this is not fascinating. Unfortunately, the shower itself was not that great.
A shower needs to be a great experience, especially since it's already a poor substitute for a nice long soak in a tub big enough for such a soak. Instead, the makers of this shower's plumbing made it one step worse by designing a faucet which inextricably links the water's temperature with its pressure.
In order to get hot water, you simply turn the faucet farther. Of course, this results in more pressure. Turn it up high enough to have a nice hot shower, and needles tear at your flesh. Turn it down to a gently stimulating spray, and the frigid chill stimulates goosebumps.
How does it make sense to link water pressure with water temperature?
Do you provide any packaged services in your business which make as little sense?
Do you require a client to take Service B when they sign up for Service A? Do you place restrictions which make life easier for you, not your client? Are there ways you can let suspects, prospects and clients have more choice, more control, over the degree and kind of services you provide them?
A cold brisk shower might not be your thing; nor might a gentle hot shower. It's not about you! Don't suffer from BLM (Be Like Me.) Unless the packages you've assembled are required by your very best professional advice, don't insist that the people who provide your livelihood think like you.
Shower the people you serve with choice. | <urn:uuid:aca3cc32-3707-4e3f-8b70-a07ec59d0328> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chiefvirtualofficer.com/blog/tag/convenience/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959359 | 322 | 1.5625 | 2 |
It's the beginning of the Three Weeks, the period we mourn for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and I'm thinking about what a friend recently said to me: "All the restrictions are so hard for me because I don't even know what I'm mourning for. We don't have the Beit Hamikdash -- so what? We have our shul. We have our community. I know I'm not supposed to feel this way, but I don't see any reason to be sad."
This is the deepest type of sadness; we don't even know that we are missing something.
A few years ago a young mother died, and for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about her two-year-old daughter. That daughter will not even remember her mother in a few years. She won't know that she is even missing her mother's love.
As Jews, we have lost the most essential connection in our lives, and we are like children who can't remember their Father's face. How can we yearn to return to a place that we don't remember?
When I first visited the new Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, I walked through the maze of photographs and videos and felt the heaviness of families torn apart, of whole worlds disappearing without a whisper of protest. And then I saw it. It was a photograph of Jews moving into the Warsaw Ghetto. They were pulling wooden carts piled high with all of their furniture. There were chairs, tables, beds and suitcases. One teenage boy was facing the photographer, with a chair on his shoulders. His eyes bore into mine. He looked like so many people I knew. He could have been a brother or a cousin or a son.
No one understood that they'd be better off leaving their dining room chairs behind.
I couldn't stop staring at this photograph. I stood there, crying. Where did they think they were going? Why were they carrying so many heavy, useless pieces of furniture? Didn't they know they didn't need them anymore? No one understood that they'd be better off leaving their dining room chairs behind.
I felt like I was looking in a mirror. How much time do we spend buying and planning and carrying around all of our "furniture?" From the choice of a car to the decision of the material of our living room couches, we invest so much of our time making sure that we are as comfortable as possible. Comfort isn't necessarily bad; it becomes a problem when we make comfort the goal. Like the people in the photograph carrying their furniture to the ghetto, I don't realize that I'm not really going home, that I'm living in an illusion. And perhaps saddest of all, I don't see that as a nation we are cut off from the Source of life itself.
As I walked out of the museum into the glaring afternoon sun, I heard the voices of all the recordings echoing in my mind:
They took away my baby and killed him right in front of me….My own father fell during the march and I didn't stop to help him, I don't know why I didn't stop, I was so afraid….We were on the train without food, without water, without air, …..I have no one left now, no one… .I lay under mounds of dead bodies, I was only six-years-old and I climbed to the top and I saw the forest..
I drive home and try to forget the voices. Because I have to make dinner. And I have to feed the baby. And I have to finish my project. And pick up the clothes from the dry cleaner and make the dentist appointments. The voices begin to fade as my to-do list grows in my mind.
But that photograph won't go away. Those people are my family. Their losses are mine. I think of the recent terror attack in Jerusalem. What did I do after the first moment of horror upon hearing the news? I began to make phone calls. Where is my husband? Are my parents okay? Are my children safe? And when I ascertain that everyone is safe, I breathe a sigh of relief and continue the illusion that everything is okay. But it's not! People are hurt. Someone just lost a mother, a child, a spouse who was completely fine this morning. I cannot just go on with my routine. It cannot continue this way. I can't just say a prayer and go out to dinner.
But I do. And now my heart hurts as I allow myself to think about my fellow Jews. Because they are my family. And we are all lost together . During the Three Weeks and especially during the Nine Days, we decrease our physical enjoyment. We put down the furniture from our backs and stop trying to move towards the illusion of comfort. When we aren't distracted by material comforts, then maybe we can see that we are all in exile. We are disconnected from ourselves, from each other and from our Father.
And when we stop writing our ‘lists' we may begin to see that the Almighty is waiting for us to put down our suitcases and cry. He wants us to realize that even with our thriving shuls, wonderful schools and growing homes, we are only travelers. He wants us to want to come Home. And finally, He wants us to see that we are all holders of one, broken heart of our lost nation. Your loss hurts me. Your simchah brings me joy. And together, as a family, we will find our way home. | <urn:uuid:e51f26bd-1da7-4f5a-bd57-cdfe9070a963> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aish.com/h/9av/ht/Warsaw_Ghetto_Furniture.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987169 | 1,139 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Or "Why the fuck does what people in Iowa think about the candidates matter to the country in general?". The rhetoric whenever the Iowa Caucus comes up is that Iowa uniquely represents the United States because it embodies true American values, like the idea of small town life and of small scale democracy, the democracy of town meetings. Of hard working religious citizens. Who happen to be mostly white. And not just white but the whitest of the white, with 71% of people identifying as either English, Irish, German, "American", or Norwegian. According to the U.S. Census Iowa is 94.9% white. It also has just under three million people, which is smaller than the Detroit area of Michigan alone, which is where I'm from. In fact, according to the Census Iowa is the fifth whitest state in the country, with its fellow brother in bellwether New Hampshire ranking as the third whitest. Similarly, it ranks 39th in African American population in terms of percentage, with New Hampshire ranking 43rd. As for education Iowa ranks 37th in terms of the percentage of people who have bachelors degrees--well below the United States as a whole. New Hampshire ranks pretty high on that scale, probably because of its status as a semi-bedroom community to Massachusetts.
Yet if candidates don't show well in Iowa and New Hampshire they're expected to drop out of the race due to a perceived unelectability. Might as well hold them in Northern Idaho.
Does Iowa represent Chicago, New York, L.A., Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, in terms of ethnic and racial composition, to say nothing of smaller metro areas? Is preserving the weight of this notion of average America appropriate when Americans, taken on average, don't resemble it at all?
I'm glad Obama's polling high in Iowa, but I suspect his family has no plans to move there any time soon. | <urn:uuid:0d3e476d-5b2f-4d38-aaa2-be602b173f6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.losthighwaytimes.com/2007/11/iowa-caucus-putting-caucus-back-into.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961229 | 387 | 1.570313 | 2 |
As has been stated under treatment, surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome may be tried. Surgery to move the ulnar nerve in the elbow should be avoided.
Unfortunately, having HNPP does not make one immune to other problems and diseases in life. One can still get the flu or have a car accident or develop a hernia in need of repair. If surgery is needed for any reason (gallbladder, appendix, etc.) the entire surgical team needs to be alerted to the HNPP diagnosis. Surgery for anyone increases the risk of nerve damage, from lying still. Individuals with HNPP are at a much greater risk. Knowing about the susceptibility to pressure palsies can help the surgical team avoid causing them by positioning you to avoid pressure palsies.
First, the surgeon needs to know that you have HNPP and will need to have special positioning during surgery. Make absolutely sure that you communicate this to him or her. Next, you need to make sure that everyone you are seeing or talking to about your surgery knows that you need special positioning too. This includes the nurse who takes your history, the preoperative room nurse, the operating room nurse, the nurse anesthetist and most importantly the anesthesiologist (doctor of anesthesia).
A generic letter to the surgical team has been developed and successfully used to tell the surgical team exactly what kind of positioning will help prevent pressure palsies. Feel free to print this letter and take it with you when you have surgery. This puts in writing what you need and can help minimize any mistakes.
Last updated 1/00
Home / What is HNPP? / Other names for HNPP / Varieties of HNPP / HNPP Symptoms / The Genetics of HNPP / Number of People affected / Getting Diagnosed / The Genetic Test / Progression / HNPP Articles and Other Links of Interest / Other Organizations supporting HNPP / Q and A/FAQs / Prevention is key / Conservative management of HNPP / Toxic drug List / Surgery and HNPP / Letter to Surgical Team / Helpful hints by and for people with HNPP / People Say this works for them / Join HNPP e-mail support group / Life with HNPP / Survey of individuals with HNPP / Personal Stories / Significant HNPP Symptoms / Pain / Learning to Pace Activity / Adapting the house, etc / Equipment fundiing / Doctors who treat HNPP / HNPP Researchers / HNPP Experts / Research Studies / Disability and ADA / People First language / Tax Deductions / Glossary / Contact Maureen | <urn:uuid:507efffd-8a1a-42a1-8742-b9b95079f5be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hnpp.org/surgery.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940141 | 533 | 1.78125 | 2 |
i have an old toshiba 20G laptop hard drive which suffered an electrostatic shock. it wouldn't show up in the bios, nor in the os after that. it does spin, and makes clacking noises. i think the shock caused a controller board malfunction.
now you're all thinking it's dead, because of the clacking, but since the reason for the malfunction was not a physical bump, i don't think it's the reader arm that's broken.
ubcd managed to see it, but not diagnose or read it.
i'm a newbie to ubcd, so there may be tricks on it that i haven't discovered, but in case there is no such thing on the cd, it would be very nice with some software that could override the controller board.
The controller chip for the HD is manufactured to the hardware specific...this goes for any hardware. There is no way legally to reprogram or modify it...aswell as bypass it as it controls the hardware. BUT you could try finding the exact same model online that doesnt work for whatever reason, and replace the circuit board and see if that allows it to work.
I will say that if its constantly clicking... and doesnt stop..then I would trash it.
You could possibly try knoppix as people have said that for whatever reason it can read and access HD's that cant be accessed by any other program they tried. Its worth a shot...and its free and a livecd. I would unplug it and let it sit overnight out of the computer to see if it can possibly "decharge" and then try the knoppix as your last resort.
Visit the UBCD Wiki: http://wiki.ultimatebootcd.com
Please check your UBCD
ISO MD5 Hash Sum
; May prevent issues later on by not having an exact copy.
Currently Working on Common Issues and Repair Tips
on the Wiki. | <urn:uuid:a8fa172d-9348-4411-880e-c971c503a305> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1858 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965856 | 397 | 1.53125 | 2 |
While basketball season doesn’t begin for another four months, Midway’s program is wasting no time in making sure that they are prepared for not only this upcoming season but also those for years to come.
Led by Midway girl’s head coach Jennifer Honeycutt, the camp features rising fifth through ninth grade girls at the Midway High School gymnasium for four hours in the morning from Monday until Wednesday.
The number of campers has grown each year since Midway began the camps in the summer of 2009.
“It’s been really successful,” Honeycutt said of the camp. “It works out well. We’re building our program.”
With current and past Lady Raiders there to lead the drills and instruct the campers, the program feeds off of itself as it looks to teach younger basketball players fundamentals and individual skills that they may not have time to receive once the season begins.
“They have to take these skills in the summer as soon as they can get them and go home and work on them,” continued Honeycutt. “When basketball season starts, it’s more so about the plays and defense. This works on the individual aspects and gives them key things to get the fundamentals down so they can build on them later.”
Help from a number of sponsors has allowed the camps to run smoothly. These sponsors provide each camper with snacks during the day as well as a t-shirt, bag, and basketball.
“It couldn’t have been possible if not for support from our community,”attested Honeycutt.
Last basketball season, the Lady Raiders improved their overall record by three games and saw their league record jump from 2-12 to 7-7. For this improvement to continue, Honeycutt works to make sure that work ethic, as well as an excitement for the game, is instilled in all of those associated with the Midway basketball program.
“It’s already started,” Honeycutt responded to the question of how soon she expects to see the skills taught during these camps reflect on the basketball season. “We’re obviously improving. But every year when we get new kids in we’ve got to keep building. Right now, we’re putting down that foundation.” | <urn:uuid:53831eac-7148-4b24-875f-f693e220097f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clintonnc.com/view/full_story/19626868/article-Happy-campers | 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 | 0.97061 | 493 | 1.617188 | 2 |
in reply to
Re^2: Perl 5's greatest limitation is...?
in thread Perl 5's greatest limitation is...?
Here's an example from my experience. I wrote a perl script to do something via Telnet, and wanted to hide the password input. I downloaded Term::ReadKey which worked fine, but I had to go round every PC in the department installing the module on each one.
When I moved on to a new project, I took the script with me and found a use for much the same functionality, but Term::ReadKey would not install. It turns out that it needs a C compiler.
It's not exactly a weakness with the language, but if we were using C (admittedly with non-standard platform-specific extensions), I wouldn't have needed anything else as I would have hand-coded it pretty easily. In fact a hidden input routine was one of my personal library of C functions back in those days. | <urn:uuid:d81595a7-85ed-4dff-9b7d-da67beb79d99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=479854 | 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 | 0.976891 | 194 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Belle Cantrell felt guilty about killing her husband and she hated that. Feeling guilty, that is. A lady shouldn't do something she's going to feel guilty about later was a rule Belle kept firmly in mind.
Welcome to the world of beautiful, irrepressible Belle Cantrell, years before she becomes grandmother to Sissy LeBlanc of Loraine Despres' bestselling The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc. It is 1920, prohibition is in full swing, women are clamoring for the vote -- and in the little town of Gentry, Louisiana, narrow-minded intolerance is on the rise. Sent to jail for swimming in an indecent bathing costume with a group of suffragists, Belle Cantrell knows her behavior broke the rules. But sometimes -- most of the time -- she has to twist the rules a little, because they all say the same thing: "Don't."
A sexy, sassy story of murder, adultery, romance, bigotry, and regular church attendance, with laugh-out-loud humor and a cast of zany, endearing characters you won't forget, The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell is a big comic love story . . . and much more.
About the Author
Loraine Despres is the author of the bestselling novel The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc and its tie-in title, The Southern Belle's Handbook. Raised in Amite, Louisiana, Despres is a former television writer and international screenwriting consultant. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and continues to enjoy bad behavior.
Praise for The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell…
“Best Prequel of 2005”
-New Orleans Times-Picayune | <urn:uuid:5be8fb7c-dff6-428e-b3aa-dab39e595948> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklinebooksmith-shop.com/book/9780060515263 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943845 | 357 | 1.539063 | 2 |
‘Why join the Islamists? Because they pay more’
By Colin Freeman, Diabaly, telegraph
In the end, Corporal Adama Toure chose to serve his country’s interests rather than his own, but it was a close-run thing.
Sitting under the shade of a mango tree in the village of Diabaly in northern Mali last Thursday, he told how he was tempted to switch sides when al-Qaeda fighters attacked the dusty farming hamlet the week before.
Not because he any particular interest in militant Islam, but for the simple reason that the pay and conditions were better.
“Look at me – in 18 years I have only moved from private to corporal, and I am still poor like a beggar,” grumbled Cpl Toure, whose army gives him a Kalashnikov and shabby green uniform but no boots, forcing him to wear tennis shoes instead. “I tell you, a lot of us soldiers have been tempted to join the militants, myself included.”
On the condition that his real name not be used, Cpl Toure spoke candidly to The Sunday Telegraph as life in Diabaly gradually returned to normal after a turbulent fortnight as a weathervane town for Mali’s future. Having fallen a fortnight ago to the Islamists, who easily outgunned the few Malian troops stationed there, it was then “liberated” again last weekend after a French aerial bombardment destroyed several of the Islamists’ gun trucks and sent them fleeing into the forests further north.
Corp Toure, whose unit was 10 miles from Diabaly at the time and was ordered to let the French do the fighting, said he later heard that among the Islamist guerrillas was one of his old comrades, who also had an older brother living in the village.
“The older brother asked him: ‘Why did you join the militant people?’” recalled Corp Toure. “He replied: ‘Because they pay well.’ He said he was earning two million CFA (£2,600) a year, plus 500,000 CFA (£750) for every day spent fighting.”
That might not sound much by Western standards, but Corp Toure said that even the basic pay level was double his own army income.
Especially after the inevitable “deductions” from his superiors, who routinely cream a bit off from the lower ranks’ earnings each month to line their own pockets. And when it came to earning the “fighting” bonus, it was probably safer to be the side of the well-armed, well-organised militants than the chronically under-equipped Malian army, who lost so many battles to them last year that it sparked the military coup in March and, ultimately, this month’s French intervention.
“I did wonder about joining them, but then I had second thoughts and decided to protect the people instead,” added Corp Toure, as he watched children playing around the wreckage of three burnt-out gun trucks. “But if you look up in Timbuktu and Kidal (militant-held towns in the north) I can tell you plenty of soldiers who have switched sides there.”
The fact that members of Mali’s security forces are willing to take the mercenary coin is just one of the challenges that the French military now faces in trying to ensure that towns like Diabaly do not fall to the Islamists yet again. In doing so, they may also have to grapple with the country’s other underlying problems, which include not just chronic poverty but almost total disillusionment with both civilian and military governments, to which the Islamists claimed to offer an uncorrupt alternative.
More immediately, there is also the risk of ethnic score-settling now that the militants are on the back foot.
Reports have already surfaced in the past week of Malian soldiers executing people deemed to have been sympathetic to the Islamists in and around the central Malian city of Severe, allegedly throwing their bodies down wells. Some were apparently ethnic Tuaregs, the light-skinned nomads of northern Mali who have long had tensions with the black Africans of the south.
“They gathered all the people who didn’t have national identity cards, and the people they suspected of being close to the Islamists, to execute them and put them in two different wells near the bus station,” one eye witness told The Associated Press.
The France-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said it had credible reports of up to 20 killings, and called for an inquiry to “determine the scale of the abuses and to punish the perpetrators”.
General Carter F Ham, the commander for Africa of the branch of the US military responsible for monitoring threats on the continent, admitted last week that not enough attention had been paid to “ethics” during US training of Malian troops in recent years.
To date, the French intervention still appears to have the overwhelming backing of most Malians, with the tricolor still being waved in many places last week. But should the French role have to expand to policing Mali’s different ethnic sects that could change, creating an opportunity ripe for exploitation by Islamists.
For while there is little overt support for the Taliban-style rule that al-Qaeda has imposed in cities such as Gao and Timbuktu in the north – where French forces were fighting on Saturday – there is nonetheless support for hardline Islam in some sections of Malian society. Preachers of Wahabbism – the puritanical brand of the faith exported from Saudi Arabia – can now fill arenas in the capital, Bamako, and in parts of the city, veiled women are now a common sight.
One Malian aid worker, who returned to the country in 2003 after nearly two decades abroad, said: “When I came I was shocked by the changes I saw in the extent of radical Islam here. There are lot more radical Muslims and radical Islamic organisations that didn’t exist before.”
In some parts of the country, the lawlessness that goes hand in hand with a weak, corrupt, coup-ridden government has also created strong support for harsh punishments, if not necessarily the religious dogma that goes with it. Abdurraham Ballo, 64, the imam of the Mosque of the New Bus Station in Segou, said the only thing that was wrong with the amputations carried out in the Islamist-held towns further north was that they cut off feet as well as hands.
“That practice is not allowed in Islam, it should only be the hands,” he said. “But the purpose of amputation is to prevent as well as punish, and if it can stop people stealing and robbing, then why not? Nowadays there all kinds of people stealing, and carrying out robberies with violence.”
Mr Ballo added that he laid part of the blame on Mali “importing Western laws”, which stopped people beating thieves and emphasised criminals’ “human rights”.
“All laws in Africa are imported from Europe these days, and they all talk of ‘human rights’,” he said. “Who is human? Only Europeans?” | <urn:uuid:4db1d5f0-f7ce-48d7-a4db-767051177925> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://indepthafrica.com/why-join-the-islamists-because-they-pay-more/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976283 | 1,521 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Brain Dump #1
Garrett G. Hodgson
Fri Feb 7 02:47:07 CET 2003
> What do these things do?
> Zope is a content manager/publisher
> Jabber is an instant messaging system
> Blogger is software to write/syndicate and publish weblogs
> I looked at the zope website and couldn't understand what it was all
we've been using zope for years and don't understand what it's all about.
> I thought to myself - any of the things they do in
> zope/jabber/blogger we could do *much* better in Erlang.
zope and blogger, yes. jabber, you could do, but the value of jabber is
in the world surrounding it (users, servers, clients, etc), not the thing
> But somewhere there seems to be the idea that instant messaging is
> something that people do - not things.
> I can "chat" to my friend with jabber - but not get an instant message
> when a page in a data base is changed.
sure you can. this, indeed, is the really cool thing about jabber.
it's easy to write bots and notifiers and such for it, since it's open
and well supported by various languages.
what would be great is if it was well supported in erlang, as well.
this would be pretty easy, given xmerl and such.
> I once started on a system I called "things that do stuff" - the idea
> was to extend the idea of e-mail.
> Again you can send e-mail to a person, but not to a web page, or an object.
> I was thinking about things like booking rooms for meetings -
> Why can't I send email to a web-page
> And get the page to correct itself -
> Why can't I get an instant message when a data base is updated?
you can. this is one of the case studies in oreilly's jabber book.
they build a thing that notifies you when a cvs watch fires.
i've been real interested in the notion of chatbots lately, and have built
a small framework and some sample bots in python. great fun, and you can easily
do lots of cool stuff. building these using the features of erlang would be
really nice, but i don't have the time to build the jabber.erl i'd need to
build the framework i'd like to have. it's on my todo list, but who knows.
in any case, there's a good paper on chatbots that you might check out to
get ideas at http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/01/11/jabber_bots.html
another good one on purl, an irc bot in perl, is at
Garry Hodgson Did you see your God
Senior Hacker rising in the smoke
Software Innovation Services to tell you
AT&T Labs that it was your time?
- Warren Haynes
More information about the erlang-questions | <urn:uuid:d067a17d-f282-47ed-bc43-9cb686e9e770> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2003-February/007201.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933559 | 672 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Natural Diet,Fruits and Veggies at their best: Most people, at one time or another have attempted to be on a diet. And some succeed. At least for a little while they feel good about their weight. But most people end up returning to their old habits and in time regain their lost weight or even add on more. More »
Fat Loss Factor is a highly popular weight loss and fitness program created by Dr Michael Allen, a certified nutrition expert and chiropractic physician. This innovative program avoids the most common advice available from the fitness experts, which recommends that people should stick to the restricted diet to achieve weight loss.
With so many different fitness options available, it is easy to find a workout that you enjoy and that will keep you motivated to reach your goals. These are great tips to follow and keep you going.
Vary your exercise activities so you can get the best results. If someone normally exercises on a treadmill, they can go running around their neighborhood. The different kinds of stress that the different exercises put on the body will yield different results. By adding variety to workouts, one can avoid the body becoming too accustomed to any given exercise, which keeps weight loss steady.
Many people want to get a great-looking, healthy body by working out and becoming involved in fitness training. Fitness is crucial. If you are in top condition, your lifestyle can be one that is more vigorous, enjoyable and far healthier. Continue reading to find some great fitness tips.
Exercise for weight loss is one of the most important components of any good diet to lose weight programs, exercise help in speeding up the burning of fats and stretching your muscles during the weight loss journey.
But you must know that there is no a single exercise that can make you lose your weight without any effort, the way is hard but the result desire that effort.
Weight loss tips can help you a lot in losing weight if you are following a good diet to lose weight, it will help you to drop a lot of extra pounds, these weight loss tips are great in helping you to obtain the weight that you ever dreams, but you must follow a good diet to lose weight in parallel with these tips. | <urn:uuid:30a848aa-d71f-444a-b491-d0c52a9efbf2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dietstolose-weight.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961118 | 445 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Press & Broadcast
Laurence Gardner contributed to many websites and radio shows during his life.
Book review: 14th December 2010 Suite 101
An in-depth biographical exploration of the character known as Yahweh, Allah or simply Lord, seeks to uncover and evaluate who or what He was.
Few books have been written about God that are not specifically theistic or atheistic in nature, and beyond these traditions of belief and disbelief, scant attention has ever been paid to the personal history of God from a standpoint outside the Bible –
Read full review:
Suite 101 - Geoff Ward - The Origin of God
Interview: 6 November 2003 Nexus Magazine
When gold and platinum-group metals are transformed into the monatomic state, a fine white powder is produced. This substance was used by pharaohs and kings of the ancient world. It was also part of the secret knowledge of mediaeval alchemy and the Knights Templar.
Read full interview:
Nexus Magazine - The White Power Gold of The Ancients
Select an interview date below
|Coast to Coast AM|
Solomon, Knights Templar & White Gold - interview on Coast to Coast AM.
|Open Interviews Below|
Historian Laurence Gardner traced the connections between King Solomon & his Temple, the Knights Templar, the Ark of the Covenant, Free Masonry, and White Powder Gold. Solomon, who lived around 1,000 BC, built the first temple of Jerusalem, set an example for 'kingship,' and was thought to have stocked his temple with treasures. The Temple changed hands over the years, and eventually became an Islamic mosque, Gardner noted.
The Knights Templar, a kind of ambassadorial military unit, conducted excavations at the Temple during the first Crusades. When they returned to Europe in 1128, they became a powerful knightly order, made wealthy by the treasures they had brought back from Jerusalem, he detailed.
The Ark of the Covenant, according to the Bible, was used as a kind of high-tech weapon during wars. The magical White Powder Gold or manna along with the Ark, suggest the ancient Hebrews had an advanced science. It was the knowledge of these ancient secrets that the Free Masons once had but lost, back in the 1700s, Gardner explained. Research on White Powder Gold and monoatomic elements begun in the 1980's, has revealed a number of unusual properties such as levitation, and possible applications in medicine and energy, he added.Planets Everywhere
In the second half of the first hour, physicist James McCanney commented on new findings which suggest there could be a multitude of rocky Earth-like planets in our galaxy. With new telescopes being able to view other solar systems, he predicted that we'll eventually see comets forming planets in these systems.
There may be hundreds, if not thousands of undiscovered planet-sized objects in the far reaches of our own solar system too, he suggested.
Da Vinci Code Roundtable - interview on Coast to Coast AM.
Scholars of ancient manuscripts and legends, Laurence Gardner, William Henry, and Glenn Kimball shared their reactions to the ideas presented in The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's popular book which was recently turned into a movie. Gardner commented that in Brown's novel there is a murkiness blending fact and fiction, and that he is definitely wrong in stating some items as factual in his introduction - such as details about the Priory of Sion.
The three guests concurred with the theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. This is not what has been traditionally taught, so the revelation upsets the church hierarchy, said Gardner. Yet Kimball commented that every nun considers herself to be a "bride of Jesus." As evidence for the marriage, Gardner cited the New Testament's description of Mary Magdalene's anointing of Jesus' feet with oil. This was a long-standing wedding ritual, he said. Kimball believes Jesus and Mary had several children, including a daughter named Sarah (though this name was really a title that meant princess, rather than her actual first name).
Henry praised Dan Brown's work for posing valuable questions and bringing Gnostic thought to the masses. He suggested that the bloodline of Mary and Jesus may have faced persecution because they held a higher type of consciousness that threatened the church's authority. The church sought to quash the secret knowledge of transforming an ordinary human into a being of light, explained Henry.
Hamid Mir Update
First half-hour guest, journalist Hamid Mir spoke from Pakistan about his interviewing of Osama bin Laden in 2001. He said he is 100% certain that bin Laden is still alive. Mir also shared his conclusions that Al-Qaeda operatives have obtained Russian suitcase nukes which have been smuggled into the U.S. However, according to his investigations, Al-Qaeda only plans to use these weapons if they have "solid justification" i.e. as a retaliatory measure.
Holy Grail & Da Vinci Code - interview on Coast to Coast AM.
|Guests:||William Henry, Laurence Gardner, Robert Trombley|
Investigative mythologist William Henry & historian Laurence Gardner joined in a discussion about Holy Grail mysteries and how they relate to theories in the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. As in that book, both Gardner and Henry contend that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children with her. Their bloodline, is what some consider to be the Holy Grail.
Gardner offered a critiqued of the Da Vinci Code, suggesting that some of the material presented as fact in the fiction work, were less than entirely accurate. For instance, he said the notion that Da Vinci encoded his paintings with hidden allegorical messages, while true, was more evident in certain works that Brown didn’t cite. Gardner also explained how Jesus likely survived the crucifixion. Historically, he said, it could take up to two weeks for people to die when nailed to a cross and additionally the idea of Jesus' resurrection was not compiled until the 4th century.
During Hour 2, Henry appeared solo and chatted about the Annunaki and ancient stargates, one of which may have resided in Iraq. He mentioned he is working on a new book about the symbolism of Atlantis, and theorized that in the center of Atlantis there could have been a vortex/stargate that became lost when the continent was submerged. Interestingly, he noted that the purpose of the human body may be to function as a "ladder or stairway into heaven."
The Lost Ark & Gold Powder - interview on Coast to Coast AM.
|Guests:||Laurence Gardner, Stan Deyo, Holly Drennan Deyo|
Author and historian Laurence Gardner returned to Coast on Tuesday night, for a follow-up discussion of his book, Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark, which has been optioned to serve as the basis for a Hollywood film by Living Element Pictures. Gardner said he was pleased with the idea of "moving his academic work into mainstream entertainment."
The Ark could have been the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction" in its day, said Gardner who added that he believed the 1.5 ton pure gold object could store and release massive amounts of electrical voltage. Its location was last recorded in 1307 by the Knights Templar, he said.
Gardner also spoke extensively about the white gold powder, an exotic matter which has been associated with various unusual properties, such as levitation. He suggested that it acts like a "super conductor" and is composed of "light waves." The compound has been associated with DNA repair in one study, and could be potentially applied to cure diseases he said. An Arizona farmer, David Hudson, has become involved in employing the substance in such a manner, but its usage has not been without controversy. Gardner has set up a special page on his site which lists reputable companies that sell variations of this product.
Disaster Preparedness Tuesday's first hour guests, preparedness experts Stan & Holly Deyo discussed the location of safe places in the US in the event of natural or manmade disasters. While volcanic eruptions and solar flares are concerns, terrorist attacks in the US are a "real and present danger," said Stan.
The Deyos pointed out that 3.5 million Americans live within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear reactor, which could be the target of the next attack. They also speculated that a terrorist attack could be timed to take place after the US has been hit by a natural disaster, in order to take advantage of the country's increased vulnerability.
Ancient Secrets - interview on Coast to Coast AM.
|Guests:||William Henry, Laurence Gardner|
Delving into mythic and historical enigmas were authors William Henry & Laurence Gardner who made a joint appearance on Tuesday night's show. Among the topics discussed was the Holy Grail which "has many attributes," said Gardner, explaining that it wasn't just a particular physical object, but a concept that represented the "ultimate quest."
William Henry expounded on the Blue Stones, which he believes the "stargate" gods of Sumeria once possessed. These stones, he suggested, could have transformative powers, altering humans so they would be capable of traveling through a stargate or wormhole. Possible evidence of these stones was gleaned on their recent Holy Grail Pilgrimage in France, where Henry said he saw Egyptian mummy cases at the Louvre that had blue stones attached.
A corollary to the stones is the "white powder," a substance derived from gold, which Laurence has been studying. Lore about it dates back to the earliest times, yet it is currently being experimented with for nuclear and astrophysics applications, Gardner said. It's also said to possess anti-aging properties and Gardner revealed that he has recently begun to ingest it. The website subtleenergies.com has information on one variant of this powder.
Mysterious White Powder - interview on Coast to Coast AM.
"History is full of facts but not necessarily full of truths," said Laurence Gardner an esteemed historian, genealogist and author who was the guest on Wednesday's show. Delving back into ancient times, Gardner has sifted through arcane sources to reach an astonishing conclusion. He believes that a mysterious white powder was known to the Egyptians, Babylonians and Israelites and was used to power the Ark of the Covenant, which he suggests was a potent battlefield weapon. This white powder was derived from gold and had "magical and exotic properties," Gardner said.
He posited that the powder was taken internally by the Pharaohs and that it increased their perceptions and longevity. "These substances would change the physical being of the person," Gardner said, adding that they may have actually started to glow. That is why "they call them the shining ones," he added. The magical powder called "mfkzt" was also associated with levitation and superconductivity.
Gardner believes this formulation is the same as the elemental substance that was discovered in modern times called Orbitally Rearranged Monatomic Element (ORME). This material could have applications in everything from medicine to fuel cell technology. It's "the ultimate key," said Gardner "with routes to the macrocosm in terms of space technology and the microcosm in terms of nanotechnology."
Saturday, March 12
and Jim Marrs
|Unknown Country - Dreamland|
Monday, January 15th
|Beyond the Ordinary Radio|
Tuesday, February 13th
|Beyond the Ordinary Radio|
Monday, March 5th
|The Jeff Rense Program|
Thursday, March 7th
|Unknown Country - Dreamland|
Tuesday, March 20th
|Beyond the Ordinary Radio|
Thursday, April 5th
'X' Zone Radio
|'X' Zone Radio|
Monday, April 23rd
|Lights On Radio|
- The Patrick Foundation - http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/
- The Inner Potential Centre - http://www.innerpotential.org/
- Centre for Crop Circle Studies - http://www.cccs-uk.org/
- Cercle Alpheus - The Rennes Alchemist - http://www.rennesalchemist.com/
- Swirled News - http://www.swirlednews.com/
- UFO Research Midlands, Stourbridge - http://www.uform.org/
- Fountain International - http://www.fountain-international.org/
- Research Into Lost Knowledge Organization - http://members.aol.com/rilko/
- Library of Halexandria - http://www.halexandria.org/
- Ramtha's School of Enlightenment - http://www.ramtha.com/
- Stargate Mystery School - http://www.Ancientwisdomtours.com
- Wolf Lodge Stargate Files - http://www.stargatefiles.com/
- International Association for New Science - http://www.ians.org/
- Earthfiles - http://www.earthfiles.com/
- The ConspiraSearch Database - http://www.skiens.com/conspirasearch/
- Golden Pathways - http://www.goldenpathways.org/
The Theosophical Fellowship -
- The Origin of God
- The Grail Enigma
- The Shadow of Solomon
- The Magdalene Legacy
- Lost Secrets of The Sacred Ark
- Realm of the Ring Lords
- Genesis of the Grail Kings
- Bloodline of the Holy Grail
- Translated Books
- Lecture Transcripts
- Press & Broadcast
- White Powder Gold
- The Grail Code
- Lord of The Rings
- Family Tomb of Jesus
- House of David
- First Church Ever Built
- St George - Hidden History
- Bloodline of The Holy Grail
- Lost Secrets - Concert
- Marriage at Cana - Concert
- The Art of Peter Robson | <urn:uuid:ed34d2f7-23ae-4fc8-891d-7e4814678018> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://graal.co.uk/events.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951207 | 2,900 | 1.8125 | 2 |
US 7468045 B2
A guidewire for medical use such as in vascular and nonvascular systems. The guidewire made from a titanium molybdenum alloy wire with a composition of approximately 78% titanium 11.5% molybdenum 6% zirconium and 4.5% tin by weight such that it is softer than stainless steel guidewires and stiffer than NiTi alloy guidewires. The distal end of the guidewire is of a smaller diameter and softer than the proximal end and fitted with a coil for springiness such that the distal end will bend when encountering curves in the body passageways. The distal tip may be heat treated for a gradient of softness with the distal tip being the softest. The distal end may also be tapered to provide an additional gradient of softness. A distal tip on the distal end of the guidewire protects the wall of the passageway from being punctured as the guidewire travels through the passageway. The resulting guidewire has properties between those of stainless steel guidewires and NiTi alloy guidewires for better torsion and stiffness characteristics.
1. An intravascular guidewire adapted for insertion into the vascular system of a patient during the course of a catheterization procedure, comprising: a titanium molybdenum alloy wire having approximately 78% titanium, 11.5% molybdenum, 6% zirconium and 4.5% tin by weight, the wire having a diameter in a range of from 0.005 inch and 0.040 inch over a predetermined length dimension thereof, said wire having a proximal end portion and a distal end portion that is tapered to a lesser diameter than the diameter of the proximal end portion and that terminates in a rounded distal tip.
2. The guidewire as in
the distal end portion with a helical coil attached, and where the coil touches a distal tip of the guidewire, the coil providing springiness proximate the distal tip inhibiting kinking of the coil.
3. The guidewire as in
a rounded distal tip member on the end of the distal end portion of the wire to prevent the distal end of the wire from penetrating tissue in the wall of a body lumen upon passage of the guidewire through the body lumen.
4. The guidewire as in
the wire has a lubricious polymer coating.
5. The guidewire as in
the wire has a hydrophilic coating.
6. An intravascular guidewire adapted for insertion into the vascular system of a patient during the course of a catheterization procedure comprising a titanium molybdenum alloy wire having approximately between about 75% and about 83% titanium, between about 8% and about 14% molybdenum, between about 4% and about 8% zirconium and between about 2% and about 6% tin by weight, the wire having a diameter in a range of from 0.005 inch and 0.040 inch over a predetermined length dimension thereof, said wire having a proximal end portion and a distal end portion where the distal end portion is tapered to a lesser diameter than the diameter of the proximal end portion and terminates in a rounded distal tip.
7. The guidewire as in
8. The guidewire as in
a distal tip member on the distal end portion to prevent the distal end of the wire from penetrating tissue in the wall of said body passageway.
9. The guidewire as in
the wire has a lubricious polymer coating thereon.
10. The guidewire as in
the guidewire has a hydrophilic coating thereon.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of medical devices and more particularly to guidewires for use primarily in intra vascular procedures. Guidewires made with a titanium molybdenum alloy allow for a flexible and formable tip with reduced kinking, high torque, trackability and high column strength.
2. Description of the Related Art
A major requirement for guidewires and other guiding members, whether they are solid wire or tubular members, is that they have sufficient column strength to be pushed through a passageways in a patient such as the patient's vascular system with minimal kinking or binding. However, the distal section of the guidewire must be flexible enough to avoid damaging the blood vessel or other body lumen through which it is advanced. Efforts have been made to improve both the strength and flexibility of guidewires to make them more suitable for their intended uses, but strength for pushing and flexibility for turning without damaging vascular walls tend to be diametrically opposed to one another, in that an increase in one usually involves a decrease in the other. There has been a gradual decrease in the profiles or transverse dimensions of commercially available intravascular catheters and guidewires particularly for use in coronary arteries. However, concomitant with the decrease in profile has been a loss in pushability and kink resistance.
The distal portion of the guidewires frequently have a spring or coil around a tapered, thinner and therefore softer metal core. The thinner softer core may be too thin to engage the coil and may therefore allow the coil to kink when bent.
Guidewires have been made of many different materials. The most popular materials are stainless steel and NiTi alloys such as Nitinol.
Stainless steel guidewires tend to kink. They have good pushability but are not flexible enough to easily bend inside of the vascular system. Stainless steel has good torque qualities for rotating the guidewire but tends to bind when rotated since it does not readily flex. Once the guidewire is kinked, it must be discarded and replaced with a new guidewire.
NiTi guidewires tend to be too springy, especially when negotiating a tortuous path in vessels, they do not have good pushability because want to straighten out or return to their original shape. NiTi guidewires will readily get hung up when rotated while extending around a curved path. NiTi guidewires can not be torqued as readily as stainless steel because it is springy. NiTi guidewires tend to have good shape memory. The shape memory makes it difficult for a physician to shape the tip of the guidewire with his fingers for accessing difficult to reach portions of the patient's vascular system.
The guidewires need to have distal ends that are soft for bending and turning inside of the blood vessels as they are advanced and so they will not puncture the vessel walls.
The most popular guidewires are made out of stainless steel or NiTi alloys. Both of these materials have advantages and drawbacks. A different guidewire material is required to have the desirable qualities of both without as many drawbacks to enhance the performance of guidewires.
A titanium molybdenum alloy used to make guidewires for use in passages within a body has several advantages over NiTi and stainless steel guidewires. The titanium molybdenum alloy has properties of high springback, and flexability that is, in between the values of stainless steel and NiTi alloys which are the two most widely used metals used for making guidewires.
The titanium molybdenum alloy has moderate stiffness, about 42% of stainless steel and excellent torque transmission and formability. It is softer and more flexible than stainless steel for better bendability while negotiating though passageways in the body and less likely to puncture the walls of the passageways. The titanium molybdenum alloy is also easier to torque than stainless steel, which tends to bind when the guidewire is in nonlinear passageways. The titanium molybdenum alloy is stronger and has a better pushability than NiTi alloys and is easier to torque because it is less springy and will not bind against the walls of a vessel as much on a non linear path allowing easier rotation of the guidewire.
Titanium molybdenum alloys can be easily welded or soldered using standard manufacturing techniques, as opposed to NiTi alloys which are not easy to weld or solder.
The titanium molybdenum alloy can be tapered in steps at the distal end producing a softness gradient with the distal end the softest. This allows the distal tip to be more flexible and bend around curves without puncturing the tissue in the passageway. The titanium molybdenum alloy core is softer so it can be make thicker such that a coil around the core engages at a larger diameter and will not kink as it bends.
The titanium molybdenum alloy guidewire can be coated with a plastic such as Teflon® or a hydrophilic coating to make it slipperier.
The titanium molybdenum alloy is preferably a mixture of about 78% titanium 11.5% molybdenum 6% zirconium and 4.5% tin by weight.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with the right amount of stiffness to easily advance the guidewire.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with the right amount of softness to bend around curves in a passageway without puncturing the walls of the passageway.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with rotatability such that it can be torqued without binding up in a nonlinear passageway.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with a coil at the distal end of the guidewire which is less likely to kink when bent.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with a softness gradient at its distal end.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire which steers better in the passageways of the patient.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire which is easily weldable and solderable.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with an easily shaped tip.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire with a radio opaque tip.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire having a higher kink resistance than a stainless steel guidewire.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire having less springiness than a NiTi alloy guidewire.
It is an object of the invention to provide a guidewire having a coating to make is easier to advance the guidewire though the vascular system of the patient.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawing.
Guidewires used in passageways within patients are used for a large number of medical procedures. Many of the procedures involve the use of the guide as a guidewire for inserting catheters and other devices in the vascular system of the patient. Guidewires have been made from stainless steel, which is stiff and does not readily bend around in the passageways of the patient. Guidewires are also frequently made using a NiTi alloy which is softer and springier than stainless steel and has a better memory but is not as stiff so that it does not have the pushability of stainless steel. Further NiTi alloy is not as easily bendable so that the distal tip can not be as readily shaped.
A guidewire is shown in
The guidewire in
Alternatively the guidewires can be made with a range of values for its alloys. The range of values is approximately 75-83% titanium, 8-14% molybdenum 4-8% zirconium and 2-6% tin by weight.
The titanium molybdenum alloy can be deflected more than 42% more than stainless steel with no permanent deformation and has a lower force deflection rate and a higher spring back and flexibility.
Comparing stainless steel to Nitinol, which is a NiTi alloy, stainless steel takes a set which is not a desirable quality for a guidewire and, Nitinol is too springy which is not a desirable quality for a guidewire. If a guidewire is too stiff it takes a set and will not easily bend. The stiffness however makes for good pushability allowing for the guidewire to be inserted into a passageway and allows the guidewire to be rotated at the distal end when turned at the proximal end. However if the guidewire does not bend easily and there is a nonlinear passageway that the guidewire must negotiate, the stiffness of the guidewire will form arches in the guidewire around curves and will not torque as easily since the entire guidewire will tend to push against the wall of the passage. If the guidewire is too springy and the guidewire is torqued the guidewire will bind in the curved portions in the passageways.
A guidewire made from a titanium molybdenum alloy is less springy than NiTi alloys but more springy than stainless steel. Titanium molybdenum alloys are stiffer than NiTi alloys and but not as stiff as stainless steel. Therefore titanium molybdenum alloys have desirable properties when used in guidewires.
In the past coils 18 would tend to kink and not return to their original shape if there was a large space between the inside diameter of coil 18 and the core of the distal end 14 of the guidewire 10. The titanium molybdenum alloy has a softness which allows it to have a larger diameter and still be soft enough at the distal end 14 such that the outside diameter of the distal end of the guidewire 10 engages the coil 18 on the inside diameter reducing the space therebetween and prevents the coil from kinking as the coil 18 and the distal end 14 bend. The coil 18 is wound around the core of the distal end 14 without spaces between the turns and in tight contact with core to prevent kinks from occurring when the guidewire is bent.
The titanium molybdenum alloy is made softer by tapering the distal end 14 to reduce the cross section of the guidewire. The tapering at the distal end 14 provides a gradient of softness with the tip of the distal end 15 being the softest. The gradient of softness helps the tip bend while keeping the remainder of the guidewire 10 straighter. The distal end 14 can have a tapered portion 20 which gradually changes the diameter of the guidewire material and provides for a gradient of softness.
Abrupt changes in the stiffness of the distal end of the guidewire causes kinking at stress points of the coil, when the distal end is bent. By having a larger number of tapered sections with small changes in the diameter the flexibility (bendability) of the guidewire can continually increase toward the distal end of the guidewire 14 without an abrupt change averting kinking.
The proximal end 12 of the guidewire is less flexible and is more uniform and can transmit torque and pushing force with high fidelity.
The titanium molybdenum alloy steers better than stainless steel guidewires or NiTi alloy guidewires because it is more flexible than stainless steel yet stiff enough to have torque and it stiffer than NiTi.
The distal tip 16 and coil 18 are attached to the titanium molybdenum alloy guidewire 10 by welding or soldering. The titanium molybdenum alloy is more easily welded or soldered than NiTi alloys.
The guidewire 10 can be coated with a plastic for making the guidewire slipperier. The guidewire can be coated with Teflon® or a similar material for a hydrophilic coating.
The proximal end 12 of the guidewire 10 can have a coating or surface making it easier to grasp for the doctor to more effectively use the guidewire.
The guidewire 10 can be made with lengths of preferably between 20 cm and 500 cm and between diameters of 0.005 inches and 0.040 inches with a coil length preferably of between 0.5 cm and 100 cm . . . .
The guidewire 10 can be made with lengths of preferably between 20 cm (7.87 inches) and 500 cm (196.85 inches) and between diameters of 0.127 cm (0.005 inches) and 1.02 cm (0.040 inches) with a coil length preferably of between 0.5 cm (0.197 inches) and 100 cm (39.37 inches).
Obviously, many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in light of the above teachings. It is therefore to be understood that, within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described.
Citas de patentes | <urn:uuid:048812ef-5174-474a-ae53-29693ce0b330> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.es/patents/US7468045?dq=flatulence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939998 | 3,621 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The nation's mortgage crisis worsened last month as thousands of homeowners across the country failed to keep up with their monthly payments and faced the possibility of losing their homes.
Foreclosures rose 9 percent in July compared with June and were up 93 percent from a year ago, according to the latest monthly figures released Tuesday by RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks foreclosed properties.
Nearly 180,000 fillings — including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported during the month. That means that one in every 693 U.S. households was hit with foreclosure in July.
The new foreclosure data, along with ongoing turmoil in the financial markets, renewed debate in Washington over whether the government has responded adequately to the meltdown of the mortgage market. Caught in the middle are borrowers who may qualify for better terms but remain at risk of losing their homes because they can't refinance their existing mortgages.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering various measures to restore a mortgage market that has fallen into disarray. Some are suggesting that lenders and borrowers involved in the risky loans that are now going bad should simply suffer the consequences. But supporters of more aggressive measures argue that the government may need to step in before the current mortgage mayhem threatens the wider economy.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., urged the administration Tuesday to raise limits on the portfolios of mortgages held by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, federally chartered companies that play a huge role in the housing market.
"The power exists today with regulators to lift those caps," Dodd told a news conference following the meeting following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. "That does not require statutory language or new laws."
But Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate, said Paulson indicated the Treasury was "not likely to move in that direction."
"I'm still concerned Treasury does not appreciate the importance of this issue," said Dodd.
Earlier, Paulson told CNBC that the Treasury is "talking to a wide variety of participants in that market, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we're thinking through options to reduce the strain in the mortgage market."
Paulson said the turmoil in the credit markets would take time to settle, but stressed that the underlying U.S. economy remains in good shape.
"This will play out over time, and liquidity will return to normal when the market has a better understanding, when investors have a better understanding, of the risk return trade-off," Paulson said.
But while investors cope with the turmoil in the financial markets, millions of homeowners remain at risk of losing their homes. Like everything else involving real estate, the impact of the mortgage mess and the ongoing wave of foreclosures have been felt unevenly across the country. Much of the damage has occurred in the states like California and Florida where the housing boom — combined with rampant speculation and easy-money lending — grew the fastest.
Other hard hit states such as Michigan were already battered by weak economic conditions before the recent credit storm hit. Detroit posted a 70 percent month-over-month increase in foreclosures in July, pushing the city’s foreclosure rate to one filing for every 97 households — more than seven times the national average.
Though 43 states have seen higher year-over-year foreclosure rates, more than half of the total has been concentrated in just five states — California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Georgia.
Nevada topped the list with with one filing for every 199 households — more than three times the national average. Georgia, with one foreclosure for every 299 households, ranked second. Michigan’s foreclosure rate of one filing for every 320 households ranked third. Other states with foreclosure rates in the top 10 included Colorado, Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts and Indiana.
As foreclosures have risen, the flow of new money into the mortgage market has slowed sharply. Hardest hit have been buyers applying for so-called “jumbo” loans (more than $417,000 for a single-family home) which have become much harder to come by — and more expensive when available — in just the past few weeks. Some borrowers with good credit looking for so-called “conforming” loans below that limit are also having a hard time getting mortgages approved.
The worry is that a slowdown in the availability of new mortgages could deal yet another blow to a housing industry already suffering its worst downturn in more than a decade.
“The reduction in credit availability to the broader mortgage market in recent days represents a new and potentially more damaging phase to the housing correction,” Credit Suisse's chief economist Neal Soss wrote in a research note Friday. “We have sharply lowered our residential investment forecast accordingly.”
Soss figures that home sales “could register huge declines over the next several months” which could, in turn, set off a new round of construction cutbacks. Credit Suisse now forecasts a 33 percent drop in residential real estate investment from the last year’s peak. That would be bigger than the 24 percent decline in the late '80s and early '90s, but not as big as the 45 percent drop in the early '80s, according to Soss.
Both of those housing pullbacks sent the U.S. economy into recession. But Soss, among others, believe that the current strength in the U.S. job market, strong consumer spending and a rapidly expanding global economy could limit the impact of the current mortgage mayhem on the broader economy.
“Whether or not the current financial episode devolves into a more significant storm for the business expansion remains to be seen, but history suggests that financial crises on Wall Street are often treated as a spectator sport by Main Street, with little impact on the real economy,” he wrote.
Despite last week’s efforts by the Federal Reserve to put out the fire, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are working on broader measures to try to stem the ongoing wave of foreclosures and calm the mortgage markets.
“We've got a serious problem, with a lot of potential foreclosures out there. How can we keep people in their homes?” Dodd told CNBC Monday. “That's an ongoing problem here in addition to trying to change the regulatory environment that allowed this to happen in the first place.”
A key issue under discussion in Congress is whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be given more leeway to expand their reach in the mortgage market.
As the housing market boomed earlier in the decade and subprime lending took off, these quasi-governmental agencies lost market share to more lenient lenders with easier terms like no money down or little or no documentation. (Along the way, they also lost friends in Congress following disclosure of accounting problems and other issues.)
Now, backers of the two agencies are pushing a series of reforms to help them regain mortgage market share. Because these loans carry the implicit backing of the federal government, they typically charge lower interest rates because the risk to investors who buy them is lower. The hope is that homeowners now at risk of foreclosure — because of pricier terms offered by subprime lenders — could avoid default by converting to cheaper loans that conform to lending standards required by these government-chartered agencies.
“(Fannie Mae) checked on subprime mortgage issuance out there, and they say roughly up to half of the holders of subprime mortgages would qualify on a credit basis for a Fannie Mae conventional conforming loan,” said Sam Lieber, president of the Alpine Mutual Fund Group.
In April, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., proposed spending hundreds of millions of dollars of government funds to help troubled borrowers avoid losing their homes. In May, the House passed a bill that would raise current limits on the size of mortgages that can be insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
But the bill would also allow FHA to insure loans with no money down and charge higher premiums to riskier borrowers. Critics of those moves, including Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and other Senate Republicans, say the changes that eased lending standards could expose the FHA — and taxpayers — to the kinds of risks that got subprime borrowers and lenders into trouble to begin with.
“We have to be very careful going down this road,” said Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners. “Longer term, we're going to have a problem with risks being mispriced. That is how we got into this situation in the first place. So I think we need to be very wary about federal government actions.”
Though the details of any reform package have yet to be worked out, the turmoil in the mortgage markets has provided momentum to legislation that has been stalled for months. Last week, President Bush indicated general support for giving federal housing agencies enough "flexibility" to help try to avert more foreclosures.
It remains to be seen how far Congress and the White House will go to use taxpayer dollars to help bail out homeowners facing foreclosure. But some see a significant shift in the political wind in the past few weeks.
"I do smell a federal bailout," said Darda. "We have a Democratically controlled Congress and a Republican president with a disastrous international situation and a plummeting approval rating. So this could be irresistible."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:3c00b36c-7048-4b0b-bdc1-76d026629a7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/20364043/ns/business-real_estate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963088 | 1,940 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Anthony Barnett, the founder of openDemocracy, has published an inspiring, fascinating analysis of the state of UK politics on New Statesman. Everyone should read it. Barnett goes back to the 80s to answer the question "New Labour - what went wrong?" in a dazzling summary of the forces at work in party politics over the last two decades. He pulls no punches in describing the authoritarianism of the Blair/Brown/Mandelson triumvirate; Cameron fares no better in a devastating critique of the failed two-party system.
Here's the opening of his analysis of Brown's civil liberties record:
But below the radar, and from early in the New Labour years, he and Blair initiated an audacious and sustained "transformation of government". Its ample official documents, never debated by parliament, set out to restructure the relationship between the state, citizens and business. It is a programme for a "database state" in which government departments can transfer information on citizens without them knowing, where surveillance is ubiquitous and government becomes the corporate deliverer of Britain's inhabitants to the marketplace. The "DBS", as it is cheerfully known, presents a novel and formidable challenge. A supporter recently told me that the database state is "inevitable and desirable. What we need are strong rights within it, iron-clad privacy within a context of the DBS."
But there cannot be "iron-clad privacy" within its context. That is the whole point. And I was struck by the combination of the "inevitable" and the "desirable", of fate and enthusiasm, the coin of New Labour from the start, merging delight in power with historical inevitability.
We are entering a new kind of constitution, one overseen not by judges, but by the Association of Chief Police Officers, organised as a private company outside the reach of Freedom of Information. The state that results can penetrate our daily lives at will without a warrant, log our movements, demand to know our intentions when we travel and compile, as with the DNA database, police records that imply guilt irrespective of charges, let alone a verdict.
Central to this redefinition of what it will mean to be British is the National Identity Register, with the ID card as its visible expression. This is not a card that permits us to claim our rights as with a passport, which was meant, as the name itself records, to be a laissez-passer, a right to travel. The UK identity card is closer to the electronic tag worn by criminals allowed out on probation. It belongs to the state and will entail an obligation to keep it informed and updated as the state manages our identity for us. Should it become compulsory, it will mark our subordination to the electronic leviathan.
Barnett follows with an exhilirating proposal for rebellion at the next election, a national effort to bring opposition and debate back into politics and shake up a corrupt system. The commentary is so spot-on, and the prose so succinct, that it offers a continual series of "lightbulb moments" where you realised he has just brilliantly argued and expressed something which you have felt to be true for years.
Go on, make a cup of tea, give yourself ten minutes and read it now. | <urn:uuid:b696f722-86ab-42d2-8c20-ab666127204d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://policestate.co.uk/articles/62 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954804 | 665 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Lake Oswego is the 84th safest City. Neighboring West Linn is the 36th. The two towns are the only Oregon cities on the list.
NeighborhoodScout researched the 100 safest cities in America with 25,000 or more people, based on the total number of property and violent crimes per 1,000 residents. Crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. Data used for this research are 1) the number of total crimes reported to the FBI to have occurred in each city, and 2) the population of each city.
To see the list and read local media coverage, follow the links below. | <urn:uuid:439ab48e-79d2-444d-8f4c-6827c7121bad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ci.oswego.or.us/print/18437 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942975 | 147 | 1.757813 | 2 |
China fingered as lappie disappears from Taiwanese boat
Machine could contain info on high-speed stealth ships
Taiwanese military types are trying to allay fears that a laptop which went missing from a high-speed missile boat last month could pose a risk to national security after concerns that the device was stolen by Chinese spies.
Colonel Lin Gau-joe of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence told reporters that the laptop was being used to test communications capabilities and did not contain any classified information, according to The China Post .
The laptop in question apparently went missing from a Kuang Hua VI (KH-6) fast attack craft in May when the vessel was anchored at Tso-ying naval base in the south of the island.
There are fears that the device could contain top secret information on the stealth vessels, which were commissioned a couple of years ago. The stealth vessels – together with their cargo of Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missiles – form the first line of defence for any attack launched on the republic.
After an initial investigation got nowhere, a separate team was established to find out what happened, but the navy has already admitted to AFP that security at the base was not as tight as it should have been.
China would seem to be the prime suspect, assuming the laptop was stolen and not accidentally dropped overboard, given the turbulent history of the two countries.
After the bitter civil war in China ended in 1949, the nationalist faction retreated back to Taiwan, but no peace treaty was ever signed between the two sides and many on the Communist-ruled mainland still regard the island as China's.
Although recent years have seen improved relations, helped along by bilateral trade – especially in the technology space – covert cross-Strait cyber espionage is thought to be common. ® | <urn:uuid:440b3c60-c857-431f-bc16-40351d3462fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/13/taiwan_laptop_china_spies/print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974036 | 369 | 1.679688 | 2 |
|1.||Potato and Corn Festival|
The most exciting thing that happens to the state of Conneticut. Sometimes peaple cancel vacations to simply go for a day, and others go to have a chance to hang out with friends or someone they want to be friends with. Peaple of Conneticut flock to the festival, crowding streets that usually have one or two cars on it at a time (the daily farm tractor does not count) For some reason a starch food festival is needed somewhere.
Person one: Im going to the Potato and Corn festival today
Person two: Its because that girl is going isnt it?
Person one: No! Why would I go just for one girl!
Person two: its the P&C festival! We all have done it. | <urn:uuid:a5f7782c-d610-448e-a405-08575c51ada0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Potato%20and%20Corn%20Festival&defid=5970950 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954152 | 163 | 1.640625 | 2 |
|Lansbury (Isaac) Edgar|
|J - L - L|
Edgar (Isaac) Lansbury
Son of the famous Labour leader George Lansbury, Edgar (as he was always known) was born in 1887. His early life was spent in Poplar and as a young man he entered the Civil Service. However, in 1910, he went into partnership with a brother as a timber merchant, running Veneer Mills. His first wife was Minnie Glassman but the marriage was childless.
He was a Labour Poplar councillor from 1912-25, for the last five of those years being elected as a Communist/Labour candidate (one of two). Lansbury went to jail along with 29 other Poplar Councillors in September and October 1921. While in Brixton jail, a daily meeting of the council took place and the minutes were later to be incorporated into the official records of Poplar Borough Council.
The stand of the Poplar Councillors and Guardians was condemned by the Times newspaper as a “communist doctrine of full maintenance for the unemployed”. `The Communist’ of November 12th 1921, in response to Labour leader and Hackney Mayor Herbert Morrison’s attack on the Poplar councillors’ stand, stated that: “The
After his first wife Minnie (see separate entry) died, Edgar married Moyna MacGill in 1924 and the couple went on to have three children. This was his second wife and she had been born Charlotte Lillian MacDowie, on December 10, 1895 in
Edgar Lansbury was elected Mayor of Poplar for 1924-1925. One of the strongest supporters of the Poplar councillors was Bethnal Green’s Communist Mayor, Joe Vaughan (see separate entry), whose council (along with Clem Attlee’s Stepney) followed Poplar’s stand. Clem Attlee who actually moved the resolution at Stepney Borough council to follow Poplar stated: “I have always been a constitutionalist, but the time has come when it is necessary to kick.”
Edgar Lansbury had joined the Communist Party at foundation and, in May 1924, was elected a substitute member of the central committee.
He died suddenly in 1935 and Moyna Lansbury moved with her children to the | <urn:uuid:5e9362d4-dab6-4748-bed9-5cd120bd71b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=338:isaac-edgar-lansbury&catid=12:l&Itemid=113 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988623 | 483 | 1.734375 | 2 |
I’ve linked to the original posts. Feel free to reblog this or either of them, or answer in my ask box any/all of the questions.
You say that embryos/fetuses deserve the full rights and protections of born human beings….
If this unborn person is to be treated as a born person, say, a child, they would be protected legally as a child, correct?
So, if a person was to have a miscarriage, would they need to be investigated for manslaughter, the crime of killing a human being unintentionally/without malice aforethought?
If a person engaged in activities deemed risky during pregnancy, would they need to be investigated for child abuse/endangerment?
If a person didn’t get prenatal care, or ignored/couldn’t comply with their doctor’s advice, would they need to be investigated for neglect?
If a person physically unfit to be pregnant (with some sort of illness or disability) became pregnant, would they need to be investigated for abuse, neglect, or something else?
If a pregnant person became suicidal, how should the government respond to ensure the person inside them would be safe?
Since a large percentage of zygotes, or fertilized eggs, are lost before they get a chance to implant in the uterine wall, would we need to check everyone’s period to be sure there is not a dead person in there? I know it sounds silly, but if it’s a person from the moment of conception, or fertilization, then millions of people are dying every day because they aren’t able to implant.
Will we need to issue “conception certificates,” or any kind of legal documentation, once a pregnancy occurs? If they are a person, shouldn’t we have a record of them?
Should pregnant people have the right to sue for child support? They need prenatal care just as much as born children need to be fed and clothed, if they are to keep this person inside them healthy.
Could pregnant people list their fetuses as dependents?
Could pregnant people collect welfare for their fetuses?
Could the father of this unborn person sue for custody?
Will these regulations apply to frozen embryos in fertility clinics? If a fertility clinic is damaged by a natural disaster, who will be held responsible for the deaths of the embryos?
Here’s something I’ve been wondering about, and since I’m not a legal expert, I don’t have an answer.
If we were to treat embryos and fetuses as people, with a right to life and all that, what would we do about the fact that they are using someone else’s body against their will? Can abortion be justified as self-defense? There is no intent on the part of the embryo/fetus, since it is not sentient, and I imagine that would affect how they are treated legally.
Would their right to life trump the pregnant person’s right not to have their body used against their consent? If so, could that precedent be used to erode other bodily autonomy issues? This relates back to my questions on fetal personhood.
If their right to life didn’t take priority over bodily autonomy, then what? Would physicians be restricted to only performing inductions, no matter at what stage of development the fetus was? That is, would the fetuses have to be surgically removed or birthed, so as not to commit murder? Would letting them die be infringing on their right to life? Would it be more cruel to keep a severely underdeveloped baby alive, knowing it had little to no chance of survival, but was in great pain and anguish, or would likely suffer severe developmental problems?
These are questions we need to ask. There has to be a solid reason for outlawing abortion, and the most common reasoning I’ve seen is this “right to life.” I think that the treatment of uterus owners pre-Roe would not be as accepted today (though stranger things have happened), so old justifications wouldn’t hold much water. So, what happens when two people with equal rights are residing in one body? | <urn:uuid:004d58c8-bf03-416f-a79a-28a92e9fa5b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://propaganda-for-life.tumblr.com/tagged/Prolife | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970368 | 869 | 1.796875 | 2 |
TAHOE/TRUCKEE - Old town Truckee was once well on its way to becoming a fine example of western hospitality. You could ride into town, hitch your horse or wagon anywhere, mosey around, get your supplies and feel welcome, like everyone in town should feel. A friendly community was everyone's top priority. Well, almost everyone. Truckee had more than its fair share of gun slinging back in the old days.
Then, paid parking was installed and a new commotion began.
On the surface, the idea of paid parking to promote business seems diametrically opposed to common sense and good manners. If the intent is to welcome people, the last thing you want to do is make them pay for showing up. We don't invite people over for dinner and then say, "Oh, by the way, that'll be $25 each." Shouldn't the town's parking policy reflect the same values we try to live by in our private lives?
That all depends on how much money it costs, and even free parking costs money.
Last year I spoke with Dan Wilkins, Public Works Director for the town Of Truckee, and more or less promised him I'd put in my two cents worth on the parking controversy, which seems to have died down since then. It has been a long time since there have been any letters to the editor about parking problems, but, apparently, a car was ticketed, or towed, for parking at the post office in the wee hours of the morning. Towing, or ticketing a car at two in the morning, makes no sense. At that hour it is hard to imagine that one parking violation would prevent someone from checking their mail.
What Mr. Wilkins was most concerned about was the popular notion that parking is, or should be, automatically free. The one thing he most wants us to know is that it is not free, even when it's "free." The town of Truckee spends a total of a half million dollars every year on land lease agreements with the Union Pacific Railroad and local private businesses, as well as other expenses, so they can, among other things, provide free, and paid, parking.
Without paid parking, that cost, which we already help pay for when we buy from certain stores, would have to be recovered from us in other ways. It would not be fair if the entire financial burden for parking fell on business owners.
There was a bronze plaque mounted in stone beside the railroad tracks at the Truckee Train Depot, dedicated to the memory of Ignatius Joseph Firpo. The memorial was in temporary storage until an appropriate new location for it can be found. Hopefully it has, or will, end up in a place of equal prominence. The words of Mr. Firpo engraved upon it are well worth reading, and living by. Those words are, "What we have done for ourselves dies with us; what we have done for others remains and is immortal."
It would be nice to return to a simpler time, or progress into a blissful utopia where everything is free, the community is in perfect harmony and you don't get punished for being there, your car never gets towed, and angry, hostile words between neighbors are a thing of the past; where there's nothing but old fashioned, small town hospitality. But that kind of world is impossible unless people on both sides of any controversy (parking, dogs, etc.) give the other side the benefit of the doubt and live by the wise words of Ignatius Firpo.
Wherever we stand, whatever the issue, we need to ensure that common courtesy and genuine western hospitality don't become things of the past. Only an ornery old, wild west gunslinger would say, "Get out partner, this town ain't big enough for the two of us".
Hopefully Mr. Firpo's words have since been taken to heart, and Truckee has returned to a more close-knit, friendly and hospitable community.
Bob Sweigert is a Sierra Sun columnist, published poet, former college instructor and ski instructor. He has a B.A. and an M.A.T. from Gonzaga University. He has lived at Lake Tahoe for 30 years. | <urn:uuid:3cd025f3-3231-48cb-abde-2a2c264120c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20130205/NEWS/130209964 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979703 | 877 | 1.5625 | 2 |
by Anne Archist
A cyclist has been tackled to the ground by the Olympic ‘Torch Security Team’ (TST to those of us who prefer letters to real words). This follows an old Italian woman trying to touch the torch to bring Italy luck in Euro 2012, two young boys grabbing the torch in Coventry, water-bombs being thrown at the convoy and a protester trying to throw a bucket of water over the torch and more.
In some of these incidents the response of the torch’s minders was fairly reasonable and restrained, while in other cases they and the police massively over-reacted. The response to the cyclist getting too close to the torch is just one example of this; the Leeds bucket protester was arrested and accepted a caution (most likely under threats and intimidation from the police) for an offence under Section 4(presumably 4A) of the Public Order Act as well. For those that don’t know, 4A defines an offence as follows:
A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he—(a)uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or(b)displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.
Presumably the ‘disorderly behaviour’ of throwing a bucket of water over the torch was considered to cause people ‘alarm or distress’ – in which case one wonders how they leave the house in the morning.
I think the handling of the security around the Olympic torch tells us a lot about socially-endemic attitudes towards freedom, the rule of law, protest, and so forth. Particularly, the behaviour of the police (of which the current TST is a part) – and the (lack of) response to that behaviour by authorities such as the Greater London Authority, the British Olympic Association and senior police – illustrates the way that power is wielded in our society.
There will, of course, be endless political-philosophical debates in any modern democratic culture about the appropriate balance between freedom and security, between the rights of the individual to do as they wish and the rights of others not to be adversely affected (or ‘harmed’ in J. S. Mill’s terminology) by them, etc. This is something that even the most strong-minded of us have to accept as a fact of life; we may think that our society is too permissive or too authoritarian, but there is at least an ongoing discursive recognition that this is something that is disputed and over which political battles are, and will continue to be, fought.
What interests me about our attitudes towards freedom and security, however, is illuminated brilliantly by the Olympic torch (if you’ll pardon the pun) – it’s the way in which this discourse of ‘security’ can be misappropriated as an abstraction which is then used repressively by those with power. I should be clear that I’m not talking here about the debate about whether in a particular instance it’s reasonable to view a particular individual or action as a threat to a notion of security that we hold in common , such as how much we should worry about terrorist attacks; whether or not we think that there is a realistic threat of terrorist attack, and whatever we think should or shouldn’t be interpreted as the indicators of such a threat (such as the debate around racial profiling for anti-terrorist purposes), we do at least all roughly acknowledge that should a terrorist bombing of civilians take place, that would be a violation of a type of ‘security’ to which we are all entitled.
What I’m talking about are questions which have nothing to do with risk of death or injury, of integrity of the private home from intruders, etc. These questions can be re-framed as questions of ‘security’, bringing them under one of the most powerful and guarded political categories and lending them the kind of seriousness and concern with which we debate terrorism or armed robbery. Often in political-philosophical debates, categories are constructed, the appropriate reactions and attitudes towards them are determined, and then people try to sneak things which fall outside of a category into it in order to shield it with the legitimacy of real members of that category, and that’s often what happens with the Olympic Games and similar events in general, but the torch is a particularly good and clear example of this.
The TST are “tasked with ensuring the continuity of the Olympic flame”, in the words of the BBC; one member of the team stated that ”If anyone of any age threatens the security of the flame or torchbearer, we need to move that threat away quickly”. Note the interesting language in “security of the flame” – what does it mean for a flame to be ‘secure’ or not? The concern is not even stated as being the security of the torch, which one might construe as protecting it from damage theft, perhaps – rather than the more natural ‘torch or torchbearer’, we get the presumably intentional ‘flame or torchbearer’; not only this, but the same police team “protect a mother flame in a lantern during the day, while officers take turns to sleep with it in their rooms overnight”. The concern here is clearly with the continuity of the actual flame, which is considered to have symbolic (political?) importance.
We should really ask ourselves as a society whether we think it is appropriate to employ agents of the state en masse to guard the symbolic continuity of a torch flame, at cost to society, in order to foil attempts to touch, steal or even (God forbid) extinguish the torch. We should consider whether legally backed and endorsed ‘flame bodyguards’ should be able to push, manhandle, tackle and arrest people who threaten the continuity of the flame (particularly considering the bloody thing goes out all the time anyway). What kind of a society are we that we think young people should be tackled from bikes and pinned to the ground for cycling too close to something that they have been taught by their elders to believe is a historic event that they should bear witness to?
Similarly, where do we think the line should be drawn when it comes to the police interfering in our lives? The vast majority of the populace, however cynical or jaded they may (justifiably) feel towards the police force, recognise that some of its functions are necessary or helpful and that some of its employees do their best to serve the community. It is a fact of social life in the UK that the police have the power, in pursuit of these ends (if also in pursuit of less admirable ones or through problematic means) to arrest, to detain, to question, to search, etc; quite rightly, these police powers have limits and conditions governing their use.
Yet we live in a society which is so lax towards its heritage of ‘liberal’ thinking that nobody bats an eyelid when a man is stopped and questioned by police just for wearing a Batman costume and the officers ‘suggest’ that the man should cease his work for the day due to the policing operation surrounding the Olympic torch relay. Surely there comes a point where even the most conformist among us begins to feel that the police have an attitude of casual superiority and consider civilians merely as objects of power to be managed according to a schema convenient for political and policing purposes? This low-level contempt for, and condescension towards, the public is widespread – as those of us who more regularly have contact with the police as objects to be managed (such as urban youth, political campaigners, etc) know all too well. In 2009, officers tasked with torch security caused hospitalising head injuries to a journalist in Vancouver.
This attitude isn’t limited to the police but is displayed at times by others who hold power or work in a disciplinary capacity, such as teachers or politicians. It is often at its worst when dissenters are seen as trying to ‘ruin’ something or as a ‘nuisance’ to other citizens, even in the absence of any real illegality or danger. In 2006, the Italian Interior Minister said that “Law enforcement officials are doing all they can so that [protesters including anti-globalisation groups] can’t provoke more serious damage to the image of our country”. The Prime Minister (which was Berlusconi at the time) declared “zero tolerance” for protesters, stating that the government “may take drastic measures” to prevent the country’s ‘image’ being affected.
Similarly, the theoretical legal relationships that are intended to protect us from abuses are frequently overlooked or circumvented in these kinds of situations. In 2008, Chinese “torch minders” were left to their own devices to bully and harass torchbearers, manhandle and detain members of the public, and generally act like they owned the place – not only in China but also when they toured the world accompanying the torch to other countries (including in London). Various bodies and agencies, including the Greater London Authority and the British Olympic Association, who could have overseen and taken responsibility for their actions simply disavowed any connection to them, and the police left them free to do as they wished despite their complete lack of legal powers outside of their own country.
In every case, “security” is given by way of excuse and explanation. But ‘security’ is a word we associate with bodily safety, with the protection of rights, with freedom from harassment – not a word that we would generally use to refer to stopping a torch from going out or being touched by an Italian restaurateur. When those embedded in systems of power like politicians and police officers tell us that young people must be pushed from bikes and pinned to the floor for the sake of security, what they fear is harm to ‘image’ or ‘message’, not bodies or communities. This shows through in their more candid moments – despite attempts to position the Olympic torch behind a phalanx of vague concerns about security, conjuring up images of Islamic terrorism in this day and age, it should be evident that the supposed symbolism of a shoddy metal torch should not be allowed to substitute for the freedom to get on with our daily business, to take part in the spectacle, or even to protest.
The ‘security’ of the Olympic torch symbolises everything that is wrong with the Olympic Games, not their positive potential. The continuity of the flame should remind us of the attitudes adopted and measures taken to guarantee that continuity – the Olympic torch most closely resembles the torch of the Witchfinder General. | <urn:uuid:69394bb0-2558-49f3-8935-f5461c1b23e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thegreatunrest.wordpress.com/tag/olympic-relay/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96357 | 2,233 | 1.71875 | 2 |
MBA in Retail
The Retail Industry is a booming industry in India today. With a number of shopping malls cropping up in various parts of the country, it offers huge scope for a bright career. To address the demand for expert professionals in the industry, MBA institutes have come up with various courses in retail. These courses provide an in depth knowledge regarding various aspects of the organized and unorganized retail industries. It also provides a host of career opportunities like, store management, merchandising, retail promotion, supply chain management, etc. With many renowned players entering the industry, it provides a huge scope of growth to the candidates.
(Fostiima Business School) | <urn:uuid:9fda5f54-298a-4b55-9964-a697bfbc4ac5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coolavenues.com/forums/showthread.php?s=b32c9f11be8502653a79b6015683573d&p=81894 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937348 | 137 | 1.78125 | 2 |
General Motors (GM) is one of America's top three automobile producers, a corporation in business for over a century. However, on paper GM is only a year-old company, one that has had a steady decline from its market peak at $39.48 per share. The former GM was plagued by the rising costs of its long term commitments to unions, an overly broad product line and the rising costs of its materials. These problems led to bankruptcy protection and federal bailout money. During the restructuring, new contracts with unions and suppliers, cost cutting and trimmed product lines helped bring the company back to profitability.
Post-bailout, GM has managed to post profits for nearly two years. GM was initially under the watch of federal regulators but is now in the hands of CEO Daniel Akerson. Akerson was recruited in 2009 to lead GM out of bankruptcy protection. Akerson has both positive and negative things to say about GM. He claims that there is “a resistance to change” among the “lumbering bureaucracy”. On the flip side, he says the company is recruiting “good people”.
The U.S. automobile industry as a whole has been making great strides to regain its competitive edge. U.S. market share is increasing at the expense of Japanese automakers Toyota (TM) and Nissan (NSANF.PK). The U.S. has regained 2% of the market share from its foreign-based competitors. U.S.-made automobiles now claim a total of 47% of the domestic market. Toyota and Nissan are barely holding onto 19% together. This year GM posted net profits of $7.1 billion in the first three quarters but had a decline in the third quarter due to its European arm, Opel. Toyota just slashed its yearly profit forecast by over 50% due to problems linked to the natural disasters in Asia. Toyota now expects to make $2.8 billion, placing it in the #2 spot behind GM.
In current news, GM struggled to get is Cruze plant back online following a shutdown brought on by supply chain woes. Also, GM is under investigation concerning fires in the battery packs of the hybrid Volt model. This problem also hurts the rest of the car industry, especially Nissan, whose Leaf model runs on battery power only. Internationally, GM is being hurt by its European arm, Opel. Opel is expected to post a net operating loss of over $1 billion in the next year due to weak sales. This is after projecting break even in 2011. CEO Akerson expects Opel to show profitability by 2016. Furthermore, GM's presence in China, India and Russia earned much less compared to a year ago.
Restructuring was good for GM. Its current debt to equity ratio is low at 29%, or just over $10 billion. GM is currently trading about 5x earnings and has a substantial amount of institutional investment. Technicals support a possible base forming. GM, currently trading around $19, is at a previous but untested support level. Volume is weak (8.9 million shares average daily volume) compared to Ford (F) at 49.9 million. Technical indicators show GM as oversold, but without a strong catalyst, investors will be shy about dedicating dollars to GM.
GM has a lot of things going for it. Fundamentals are improved following restructuring. GM is able to make money now but will need to do so on a quarter to quarter basis. Technicals are showing support at current levels but there just isn't enough historical data. Current charts only go back thirteen months following its emergence from bankruptcy protection. CEO Daniel Akerson is also making strides to ensure that GM stays current with market needs. However, there are headwinds for GM to battle. Its European arm is not keeping up with the domestic improvements, there are still supply chain hurdles, alternate fuel vehicles are proving costly to develop and investor confidence just isn't there. GM is a cautious buy. It will need to stay on track and prove it is a viable company on into the future.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. | <urn:uuid:8f21bedd-1c10-4fe9-8809-b1e6fa1743a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/315217-gm-a-cautious-buy-for-brave-investors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973791 | 857 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Far from the pricey resorts and trendy spas of Marrakech and Casablanca lies a simpler, more traditional slice of Morocco-the region known traditionally as the Mogador, on the country's south Atlantic coast. It's a region of semi-arid Mediterranean valleys, windswept coastlines, and miles of unspoiled beaches. We had a chance last winter to 'wheel the backcountry of this largely untouristed landscape, and found plenty of unpaved byways worth exploring-especially if rocks are your thing.
The white-walled seaport town of Essaouira has been an important trading post since Phoeni
Base camp for our adventure was the seaport city of Essaouira (roughly, "Ess-ah-wee-rah"), a white-walled settlement on a rocky outcropping bordered on three sides by the Atlantic and home to some 60,000 souls. Founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC and occupied in later times by the Romans, French, and Portuguese (who ringed the town with battlements in the 16th century, all still intact), the city was an important trading post and bridgehead for successive waves of European colonizers. More recently, the town has served as a magnet for hippies and rock musicians (Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley both spent time here), and it's still a haven for artists, intellectuals, and freethinkers throughout the Arab world.
At the heart of Essaouira is its medina ("town," or city center), a labyrinth of narrow walkways and cobbled back alleys that plunge the traveler into a sea of sensory overload. Storefront windows filled with hand-thrown pottery, carpets, and woodwork tempt the bargain-hunter, and the air is filled with the sinewy sounds of Arab pop music played over loudspeakers, the barking of vendors hawking their wares in outdoor stalls, the muezzin's call to prayer at a nearby mosque. Take a deep breath, and one inhales the smells of fresh-caught fish on a grill, whole lamb turning on a rotisserie, the sweet spice of teas, and dried herbs piled high in wicker baskets at an open-air souk.
The old medina of Essaouira is a maze of shops and souks that plunge the outsider into a s
The medina is tiny, barely a quarter mile from one end to the other, and while its layout seems chaotic to the outsider, it's actually a tight-knit ordering of subdistricts arranged by ethnicity, profession, and the like. Even so, we'd have surely gotten lost in the maze of souks were it not for a helpful local guide (who shivered uncontrollably during our twilight walk. "It's freezing," she said of the 60-degree weather; "It never gets this cold here!" Our colleagues from Michigan, in shirtsleeves, chuckled). After a hearty tagine and a good night's sleep, we were awakened at dawn by a morning call to prayer, and after breakfast we headed out for the Mogador backcountry.
Cowabunga! The beaches south of Essaouira are renowned for their world-class surfing, and
Leaving pavement a few miles south of town off the N1 Highway, a well-manicured blacktop that parallels the shoreline from Essaouira to Agadir, one can find myriad unmarked roads that snake into the foothills of the lower High Atlas, the spiny mountain range that bisects the country diagonally. Venturing deeper into the mountains, the roadbed eventually turns into bumpy stretches of washed-out asphalt before giving way to loose dirt and shelves of exposed bedrock. Here, in the high country, you wend your way slowly down narrow tracks-in places, more like goat paths-bordered by rough-hewn stone walls, past tiny clusters of farmhouses and fields with shepherds tending their flocks. One also becomes aware that you are sharing the trail with dozens of camels, sheep, goats, and children-this is their main thoroughfare, after all-so it's important to keep your speeds down and stay alert. In the higher elevations, farms give way to pine and cedar forests, and snow is not uncommon in the winter months.
Further inland, the trails grow sandier as rocky hills give way to broad valleys and highland plateaus dotted with small farms and vineyards (a new crop, courtesy of the French, and one well suited to a Mediterranean climate and sandy soil), groves of almond and argan trees-and if you're lucky, you'll catch a glimpse of one of nature's best examples of local adaptation, the tree-climbing goats of Mogador. The region is also interspersed with oases, their locations marked by dense green marshes and stands of date palms, natural springs, and waterfalls-and depending on the season, the occasional stream crossing.
While rainfall is infrequent, stream crossings may be encountered near oases, which dot th
Gridlock, Moroccan-style. You never know who you'll run into when wheeling the hinterlands
If sand is your thing, the Mogador has plenty of it-and you don't need to drive deep into
Overall, the predominant topography in the Mogador is what the Moroccans call haroucha-a rock-littered soil that makes agriculture a challenge, trails rough and bumpy, and four-wheel drive a necessity in places. In our time in the backcountry, we encountered numerous small "rock gardens," drop-offs, and wash-outs that required a pliant suspension, slow and steady throttle, sturdy sidewalls, and a fair amount of ground clearance.
In Morocco, you don't need to drive deep into the Sahara to find sand dunes, and the beaches south of Essaouira are filled with steep slopes of blowsand and miles of empty coastline. This is a great place to enjoy a picnic, fly a kite, comb for driftwood, or simply air it out and enjoy a high-speed run down a wide-open shore. The beach here is a mecca for surfers too; depending on the trade winds and the time of year, 15-foot swells beckon the adventurous boardsman. | <urn:uuid:8c7bb835-bdae-4b11-baf0-3a978b9f37d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fourwheeler.com/adventures/129_0710_2008_land_rover_lr2_morocco/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948411 | 1,327 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Our property consists of 575 acres, of which 275 acres encompass one of the largest contiguous forested areas in Woodford County. The remaining 300 acres are utilized as an agricultural operation in addition to our programs.
As of March 1, 2013, LAC is excited to offer horseback riding trails that are open to the public. We have three trails of varying lengths. Access to the trailhead is through our west gate at 570 Milner Road. Trailer parking is available for a $10 fee.
Several federally funded land management programs help further our mission and provide additional educational opportunities.
CRP-Conservation Reserve Program
In the last 10 years, over 15,000 trees (seedlings) have been planted to help restore environmentally sensitive land for conservation benefits. Through CRP, we are able to plant trees that will improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and eventually produce habitat for native wildlife.
TSI- Timber Stand Improvement
We work closely with the KY Department of Forestry to improve the overall quality and lifespan of our forest. Through this partnership, we work to reduce the number of non-native species and improve wildlife habitat.
WHIP- Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program
Since 2005, we have partnered with the NRSC to restore native prairie grasses and wildflowers. LAC is already seeing the benefits. Since it's inauguration, we regularly observe fox, deer, birds of prey, turkey, and quail in the area. | <urn:uuid:fcd47c25-3cc3-4819-aa14-4927b9fcd036> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lifeadventurecenter.org/go/205/our-farm.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941962 | 298 | 1.664063 | 2 |
From T-shirts to roses, to furniture and duct tape, West Virginia University's logo is big business.
The university saw a record-setting $3.5 million in royalties from the use of its trademarks during the 2011-2012 financial year.
WVU's director of trademark licensing, Marsha Malone, tells The Charleston Daily Mail (http://bit.ly/Vj96YQ ) the royalties help fund university marketing initiatives and athletic scholarships.
The licensing program began in the mid-1980s with four trademarks: "West Virginia University," the WVU seal, the Mountaineer mascot and the "Flying WV" logo. Today, that has expanded to include others, including "Let's Go Mountaineers!" and "Gold Rush."
Malone says there are about 480 companies licensed to use the WVU trademarks.
Earlier this month, the school signed a new, 10-year contract with Atlanta's Collegiate Licensing Co. to manage the program.
Information from Charleston Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com | <urn:uuid:82eee471-3c84-484a-b1a0-d494d23e93cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtae.com/news/local/West-Virginia-University-sees-record-setting-royalties-from-logo-use/-/9681086/17606146/-/mho7npz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931838 | 219 | 1.570313 | 2 |
George Ryan through the years
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was a pharmacist, state lawmaker, secretary of state, governor and inmate. On Jan. 31, 2000, Ryan declared moratorium on executions, and followed up the move, Jan. 10-11, 2003, by pardoning four on death row and commuting 167 death sentences. On April 2, 2002, feds indicted Ryan and his staff on charges of corruption and illegally using state workers for political purposes. On April 17, 2006, Ryan was found guilty of corruption.
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Photo of Lura Lynn
Homer Ryan, son of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, carries a picture of his late mother Lura Lynn into his father's home in Kankakee, Ill. George Ryan was released from a halfway house to his home in Kankakee after serving a sentence in a federal prison for corruption. | <urn:uuid:5e8eabe6-7dd5-49ee-90bf-36d17379455e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/breaking/chi-081204-george-ryan-photogallery,0,3680746.photogallery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968435 | 181 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Starting just before Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas, Hillary Rodham Clinton made about $100,000 in one year in the commodities market with the help and advice of a friend who was the top lawyer for one of the state's most powerful and heavily regulated companies.
The investments, made in a commodities trading account that was opened three weeks before Mr. Clinton was elected Governor in 1978, substantially altered the finances of the Clintons. At the time, Mr. Clinton was Attorney General. He and his wife were rising stars in Little Rock whose salaries were modest by the standards of their peers.
The proceeds helped them to buy a home, to invest in securities and real estate and eventually to provide a nest egg for their young daughter, according to the couple's associates and a review of the family's financial records. Tyson's Fortunes
But the trades, which came to light during a two-month examination of the Clintons' finances by The New York Times, also left them in the position of having relied significantly on the help of one of the state's premier powerbrokers, James B. Blair, a Clinton confidant who at the time was the primary outside lawyer for Tyson Foods Inc., of Springdale, Ark., the nation's biggest poultry company.
During Mr. Clinton's tenure in Arkansas, Tyson benefited from a variety of state actions, including $9 million in government loans, the placement of company executives on important state boards and favorable decisions on environmental issues. Even today, critics in Congress and elsewhere have complained that the Clinton Administration is too close to Tyson and the poultry industry it dominates, sparing it from some of the tougher Federal inspection guidelines enacted against the meat industry. Her Money, Her Risk
In a written statement, the Clintons' personal lawyer, David Kendall, said today that Mrs. Clinton had traded in commodities futures "with her own funds and assumed the full risk of loss."
"She did so through two different trading accounts in her own name in Little Rock and Springdale, Ark.," he said. "Mrs. Clinton reported gains and losses on her tax returns as appropriate."
Mr. Blair, in telephone interviews on Wednesday and today, confirmed that he had encouraged Mrs. Clinton to invest in the normally risky commodity markets and to open an account at a Springdale brokerage, and that he then used his investing skills to help guide her through a series of lucrative trades.
Mr. Blair and Administration officials designated to discuss the matter -- but who would speak only on condition of anonymity -- said Mrs. Clinton had put up the stake with which she began trading. The officials would not say how much money Mrs. Clinton had put at risk.
Lisa Caputo, Mrs. Clinton's press secretary, said in a statement tonight: "Mrs. Clinton consulted with numerous people, and she did her own research. This was her own risk; the commodity investments were her own responsibility."
The Administration officials said that Mrs. Clinton also studied financial data, including some in The Wall Street Journal.
John Podesta, a White House spokesman, said tonight: "Hillary and Jim were friends. He gave her advice. There was no impropriety. The only appearance is being created by The New York Times."
Mr. Blair, who himself made several million dollars trading commodities, said he saw no conflict of interest; he said he had helped Mrs. Clinton as a close friend, not because of the position held by her husband.
Speaking of the Clintons, he said: "Do they have to go weed their friends out and say they can only have friends who are sweeping the streets? They have friends who are high-powered lawyers. They have friends who write books, who write poetry."
The following article is based on reporting by Dean Baquet, Jeff Gerth and Stephen Labaton and was written by Mr. Gerth. | <urn:uuid:ccfccda5-62df-41cb-8cea-07057f05cbe8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/18/us/top-arkansas-lawyer-helped-hillary-clinton-turn-big-profit.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985308 | 777 | 1.726563 | 2 |
01 May. 2010
NATO 2020: Assured security; dynamic engagement
The report of the Group of Experts on NATO's new Strategic Concept comprises a summary of findings and a more detailed discussion of and recommendations on key issues, such as the security environment, core tasks, partnerships and Alliance capabilities. The report was aimed at assisting the Secretary General in drafting a new Strategic Concept for NATO, to be agreed by Allies at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010.
Last updated: 27-Jun-2012 11:38 | <urn:uuid:8edd9f94-db9b-410c-89b3-4a1bdab77f9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-D35C67B1-895FA751/natolive/topics_85961.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930039 | 103 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The VReader was one of the most memorable tech toys from Toy Fair 2010
With this toy, VTech has created an interactive reading experience for kids based on their skill level while combining educational games that reinforce letters, sounds/phonics, reading comprehension, and logic.
VReader is one of the most requested E-book reader for children aged 36 months - 7 years and is lining up to be the BEST-SELLING and A Must Buy Christmas Gift of 2010.
VReader will teach your kids reading in such a fun way. Kids will be addicted to learning new words. V Reader makes learning to read like never before!
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With V-Reader Animated EBook, children will discover the joy of reading while seeing well-loved characters like Shrek and Disney Fairies in stories with vivid animations.
As the stories come alive with animations and sounds on the color touch screen, children take a journey into a world of imagination while developing the necessary building blocks to grow from a pre-reader to a confident and fluent reader.
Cartridges (sold separately) are age graded for 3 to 5 year-olds and 5 to 7 year-olds. Each storybook cartridge includes a fully narrated and animated story, 8 reading skill games, and a story dictionary.
V Reader by vTech - An E-Reader for the Kindergarten Set
A Kindle for kindergartners? V.Tech hopes so, with this week’s release of V.Reader, formerly called FLiP, a $60 e-book player targeting early readers, ages 3 to 7, with a clear touch screen and a membrane QWERTY keyboard.
Unfortunately, the overall experience isn’t nearly responsive enough to keep up with a child’s active imagination, at least with the two books I tried, Shrek’s Vacation and What’s That Noise. Each was presented with sluggish page turns and choppy animation, and the activities are packed with instructions. This makes it hard justify the price; the reader costs $60, which doesn’t include an SD card (required to download content online) or the four AA batteries.
Plus, the device comes with only one title; each additional one costs $20.
To read a book, you snap in a cartridge, or, if you’ve downloaded content from a Mac or Windows computer, you touch the backpack icon with a stylus. You listen as the story is narrated in slide-show fashion, or touch any page to discover hidden hot spots. Perhaps the best feature is the ability to touch a word to hear it read aloud, in a clear voice.
In August, you will be able to download additional stories from the company’s Web site, when the device is plugged into a Mac or Windows computer by way of the U.S.B. port. The stories include “The Little Engine That Could,” Disney/Pixar’s “Cars,” “Shrek,” “Dora the Explorer,” Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story 3,” “Disney Fairies,” “Mr. Men” and “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.”
[source: New York Times]
Other features include:
- an earphone jack, volume controls and the ability to toggle on/off the music. A U.S.B. cable is included; the AC adapter is not.
What customer says about VReader
We tried this item on a demo at a local store. My son loved it because it was just like Mommy's Kindle. We both enjoyed the annimation feature. My son has insisted that I help him ask Santa for this for Christmas this year and two weeks after trying it out is still talking about it.
To address a previous reviewer's concerns, it is animated, but it also shows and highlights the words of the story. Also, unlike with the tag and other reading toys, the page turning option does not appear until the entire passage has been read. I've noticed that this discourages my little button pusher from skipping the reading portion and just looking at the pictures.
I've done some research online about this item , and the Vtech website will soon have an ebook library similar to the Kindle. The website says that many of the books offered there will be free. Considering that the Vreader is expensive itself, having free books offered is definitely welcome.
V.Reader Animated E-Book System Storage Tote
- This durable VTech V.Reader Animated E-Boo
- System storage tote is sleek, trendy-looking and in bright colors to appeal to both kid sensibilities and big-kid aspirations
- Sleek, trendy-looking storage tote design in bright colorsCompact, sturdy storage tote protects but maintains easy portability
- Easy to open and close
- For use with V.Reader Animated E-Book System
Where to Buy V Reader at The lowest Price
You can buy VReader from many big retailers offline or online like Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart etc. But which one is the best?
We have done work for you, we find the best place to buy V Reader is at Amazon.com. This giant online retailers give the best price which included FREE Shipping (in US only).
Amazon.com is a reputable company that stand out in customer services. You will have a piece of mind because not only they will make sure you get the holiday gift on time but they are very actively in updating you the status of your gift delivery. Gift wrapping is also available for just a small additional fee. | <urn:uuid:e62221c3-a203-4a7f-a40a-4af82f7d2f71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vreader.net/index.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939028 | 1,244 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Spotlight: Berkeley Law's Henry Stern '09 Elected to Co-chair Campus Student Environmental Group
Apparently not sufficiently burdened by a law student workload, Henry Stern ’09 has opted to tackle some of society’s most vexing problems as co-chair of the Berkeley Energy Resources Collaborative (BERC).
A student-led organization that works to connect and educate the UC Berkeley energy and resources community, BERC acts as a bridge between the many schools, programs, and labs on campus. It also forges connections with the larger energy and cleantech cluster growing in the Bay Area and beyond, to foster productive applications of university research and technology.
“I see BERC as the connective tissue of Cal’s massive energy and environmental community,” he says. “There’s so much going on, and academic departments can get insulated from others with similar interests. BERC builds connections through students’ shared concerns about climate change, energy poverty, and natural resource degradation.”
Stern faces a challenging year. BERC will continue to play a key role in planning the annual UC Berkeley Energy Symposium—which set a high bar last year with appearances by Sen. Barbara Boxer and cleantech expert John Doerr.
The group plans to maintain a clean energy and climate law careers guide it had earlier developed, and will provide guidance to public and private organizations seeking to implement green policies. BERC is also developing projects and activities aimed at introducing environmental concepts to East Bay grade school students. Additionally, Stern says, BERC hopes to strengthen a graduate student energy and resource consulting group, and to partner with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in a project that enables students to explore and assess promising clean technologies.
Stern doesn’t seem at all daunted. “With so many incredible projects underway, this is going to be a big year for BERC and a big year for energy and environmental innovation at Cal,” he says. “But we need law students who are willing to think outside the box to help make these projects take off.”
– By Andrew Cohen | <urn:uuid:155aa58b-f383-4912-af3e-cb0636dd409c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.berkeley.edu/2209.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945451 | 438 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Hispanic leaders in Colorado, like so many in the United States, are committed to addressing challenges and improving opportunities for their community. They want to work with the Federal government to understand policies, access information, leverage resources, and build collaboration that will help provide solutions to pressing concerns. In Denver, I saw this commitment first hand.
I was fortunate enough to join the team from the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics for the fifth in a series of community action summits taking place throughout the nation, wherein Administration officials meet with Hispanic community leaders to share policy and program accomplishments, gather feedback, and participate in conversations initiated by the leaders.
More than 150 Colorado Latino leaders gathered for the summit and joined Administration officials from the White House, the Departments of Education, Treasury, Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the day was highly productive. After a morning that included round-robin style presentations by the Administration officials on jobs and the economy, health and healthcare, education, and immigration, the agenda was turned over to attendees, utilizing the open space process.
Participants were invited to present their own ideas for discussion to the group, and everyone was encouraged to “vote with their feet” and attend only the topics that interested them. Not surprisingly, subjects that received the most participation touched on core community issues for Latinos: immigration, education, youth development, and healthcare, particularly for seniors.
Summit participants engaged in lengthy conversations. While people were encouraged to break for lunch on their own and then resume the dialogues, they opted instead to gather over the meal and continue speaking, to not lose any precious time.
Finally, each breakout group submitted a discussion report online, and the entire audience gathered for closing remarks, or “news of the day.” Feedback at the end of the summit was overwhelmingly positive. Participants expressed a desire to continue the conversation and collaboration, and invited us to return for more work together.
Something that made an impression on me was the dedication to this work shown by the attendees. Many of the participants were from nonprofit organizations, and a number of them hold additional positions in a volunteer capacity. Through their attendance and comments, it was clear to me that members of this community give their time and talent on a volunteer basis – in short, they serve – extensively, for the benefit of the entire population.
This level of engagement, this spirit of service is what the President has called upon all Americans to embrace through his United We Serve call to service. The President has said that the challenges America faces are unprecedented, and that we need to build a new foundation for economic growth in America.
The policies and investments called for in the President's American Jobs Act would help advance economic growth, especially for Americans most in need. The activities and efforts of community leaders like those we met in Denver also mobilize resources and create opportunities for those who could benefit most at this time – low-income families, at-risk youth, and returning veterans and their families.
In my conversations, I highlighted how utilizing the resources and support of national service and volunteering could bolster the work of the attendees. Many communities are already leveraging national service to improve their schools, build or rehabilitate affordable housing, provide healthy meals for children and services for seniors, and support veterans, wounded warriors, and military families.
As the summits continue in other cities, we will continue our conversations with leaders about how to strengthen the Hispanic community. Together, we will improve lives and solve community challenges, making a stronger America.
Follow us on the following social networks, to ensure that you are always up to date!
Additional opportunities to serve include: | <urn:uuid:e83752e6-0cab-4699-b018-1d61c107225d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.serve.gov/stories_keysearch.asp?keyword=Hispanic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963533 | 747 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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Winds of Change
By Claudia Lynch, Benchmarks Online Editor
Hurricane force winds blew across the Gulf Coast on August 29th and again on September 24th this year and changed the lives of many people forever. That included people at colleges and universities, as this month's Network Connection article, "Weathering the Storm," points out.
The IT community at UNT played a special part in helping ease the strain of the situation for evacuees of both storms who found themselves in Denton. CITC employees Scott Windham, Data Communications; Matt Duncan, Unix Support Services; J. P. Williams, Central Web Support; Tracy Hansen, Desktop Support; Brenda Kirk, Network Manager; Stormy Shippy, Desktop Support and Sandy Burke, Helpdesk Support Services were instrumental in setting up and managing a computer network at Camp Copass — a Baptist church camp on Lewisville Lake, east of the Denton city limits (click here to see some pictures from the Camp Copass facility).
Camp Copass housed more than 300 Katrina evacuees from September 2nd through September 23rd. The computers were set up to enable evacuees to fill out FEMA forms, search for loved ones, write resumes, and complete homework assignments. Many people from UNT and the Denton community volunteered in a variety of capacities at the Camp, and UNT Network Managers and others in computer related positions were especially helpful in guiding people through the process of using the computers. Many evacuees had never used a computer before and they needed one on one support. E-mail addresses had to be set up, passwords chosen so that they could be remembered, etc. It was a daunting task for the volunteers and the evacuees alike, but it was accomplished successfully, due in large part to the volunteers' patience and willingness to help.
When Rita blew through the Beaumont area, the UNT community was ready to help again. This time, UNT became a home away from home for evacuees when we opened up "Mean Green Village" on September 23rd. The American Red Cross was directly involved this time, running the evacuee center. Many of the same people involved with setting up and running the computer network at Camp Copass did it all over again at Mean Green Village, with Scott Windham and Sandy Burke taking leadership in the endeavor. Approximately 200 people were housed at "Mean Green Village" through October 4th. Amazingly, some of the people there had initially fled from New Orleans to Beaumont when Hurricane Katrina struck.
Besides hosting the evacuees, UNT also provided the North Texas Animal Rescue Alliance a facility near Mean Green Village so that they could care for evacuees' pets. President Pohl summed things up in the September issue of the UNT Alumni Newsletter, the North Texas Insider:
UNT System Response
For further information on the UNT System response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita see:
From the students' perspective, via the NT Daily: | <urn:uuid:a38b34cb-1fa1-4e70-b152-b4f79add1efc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/archives/2005/october05/comp.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959631 | 619 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Purchasing storage units left abandoned by others, and all their contents, has been popularized by the television show “Storage Wars“, leading to legions looking for that one rare find. Here’s some of the rarest and greatest items ever found in storage units. What will your next “pick” bring?
1966 Shelby Mustang
Lecompton, Kan., auctioneer and businessman Bill Fair was hired by a court-appointed attorney to clean out a storage unit. Fair has performed this task many times, finding everything from skulls and body parts to rare items worth thousands or more. But this 1966 Ford Shelby Mustang was Fair’s rarest find and one of only around 1,100 original genuine 1966 Shelby Mustangs. Similar cars have sold for up to around $2 million, but unfortunately since he didn’t buy the storage unit himself, Fair won’t see that money.
Original Amelia Earhart Photos
Diane Brown of Tracy, Calif. was cleaning out the storage unit she’d just purchased when she stumbled upon a manila envelope, thinking it was trash. It turned out the envelope contained priceless photographs of Amelia Earhart, the legendary female pilot who died while attempting to fly around the world in 1937. Brown contacted the “Antiques Roadshow” about appraisal and was then referred to auction, where the photos were expected to fetch at least $1,000 each.
$500,000 in Gold and Silver
“John” of San Jose, Calif., who didn’t reveal his full name to the media, purchased an abandoned storage unit in Contra Costra County, Calif., and did not even need a trip to the “Antiques Roadshow” to figure out what his find was worth: it came in the form of gold and silver totaling more than $500,000. This pirate’s treasure was reportedly found in a Rubber-Maid container and was so heavy that three men had to lug it out.
A near-mint copy of the most sought-after comic book in existence was found by the winner of a storage unit auction in the Los Angeles, Calif., area. This copy was once owned by Nicolas Cage. One of the first comics ever to be published sold for the exorbitant sum of $2,161,000 at an internet auction, its lucky finder the recipient of one of the largest-paying storage finds ever. You can even read how the Cage comic saga may be turned into a movie!
Civil War Antiques
An auctioned storage unit in Virgina had been owned by a former World War II general and contained priceless military-related antiques leading all the way back to the Civil War, including multiple documents signed by U.S. presidents. The total value? $200,000.
Casey Haslem is a writer and a hobby painter. She writes often about storage and organization. If you’re in need of help with storage, contact Philadelphia self storage units or Chicago Extra Space Storage. | <urn:uuid:7f3605aa-45d2-4501-ac84-956bac57063e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antiquetrader.com/antiques/collectibles/five-rare-antiques-and-collectibles-found-in-storage-units | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969165 | 625 | 1.695313 | 2 |
- 1 (3 to 4 pound) chicken, cut into 12 pieces
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- Peanut or vegetable oil, for frying
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 4 sprigs rosemary
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
Rub the chicken with salt, pepper, and 3 tablespoons lemon juice. Let the chicken season at room temperature for 1 hour.
Fill a large deep pot with enough oil to cover the pieces of chicken (about 3 1/2 inches). Heat the oil to 375 degrees F over medium-high heat (at this temperature a droplet of water will sizzle immediately when it hits the oil).
Season the flour with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour and then dip them in the beaten eggs. Working in batches if necessary, put the chicken into the oil, taking care not to over crowd the pan. (If all the chicken will not fit at one time, cook the larger pieces first.) Fry the chicken at about 350 degrees F (adding the chicken causes the temperature to drop) until the pieces are crisp and golden on 1 side, about 10 minutes. Turn the pieces of chicken and cook until the second-sides are crisp and the juices clear, about 7 minutes more. Add the garlic and herbs and fry until they too are crisp. Drain the chicken and herbs on a plate lined with paper towels. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, and lemon juice and serve topped with fried herbs and garlic.
* Professional Recipe
This recipe was provided by a chef, restaurant or culinary professional and makes a large quantity. The Food Network Kitchens chefs have not tested this recipe in the proportions indicated and therefore cannot make any representation as to the results. | <urn:uuid:7daeb44f-a022-46f2-aefd-926d37060386> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tylers-ultimate/lemon-fried-chicken-pollo-fritto-recipe/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931648 | 380 | 1.578125 | 2 |
From Wendell Berry:
It is not possible to look at the present condition of our land and people and find support for optimism. We must not fool ourselves.
It is altogether conceivable that we may go right along with this business of “business,” with our curious religious faith in technological progress, with our glorification of our own greed and violence always rationalized by our indignation at the greed and violence of others, until our land, our world, and ourselves are utterly destroyed. We know from history that massive human failure is possible….
On the other hand, we want to be hopeful, and hope is one of our duties. A part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendants is to study our life and our condition, searching always for the authentic underpinnings of hope. And if we look, these underpinnings can still be found. | <urn:uuid:077f332a-bdd6-4b7f-a99a-a335f5178c6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gainesvillecw.org/tag/duty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952904 | 180 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Now I need to tell you about things about my ancestors that have surprised, humbled or enlightened me. Oh my what to choose? Here we go.
- I was surprised to find out that my 11th Great Grandparents were the first official family to settle in New France. (Quebec) Louis Hebert and Marie Rollet both have statues erected in their honour in Quebec.
- I was really surprised when one of my sisters was sent a photo randomly from her sister in law of a trip she was on back in the 60's. There is my sister on her way to Nova Scotia and she is sitting on the edge of Louis Hebert's statue. This was 40 years before I did our family history and we had no idea we were related to him.
- I am humbled by the sacrifice of all my ancestors but most of all by my Metis ancestors who fought so bravely to try and save their land and their homes during the Louis Riel Rebellion.
- I was humbled by my Grandmother who had given birth a minimum of 12 times. How did you survive something like that? How do you care for them all? Feed them? Oh and the many that didn't survive. How do you bury so many like some of my ancestors had to do.
- I have been enlightened by all my ancestors. I had no interest in history before I started researching but now find many things to interest me about the past. A storm or drought from the past now has real meaning to me. | <urn:uuid:486ed08d-2c3d-4900-88e4-01068f151e7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://storiesofmyancestors.blogspot.com/2010/04/ancestor-approved-award_10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992617 | 310 | 1.710938 | 2 |
1.What are anal warts?
Anal warts are small growths that affect the area around and inside of the anus. They start off as small growths very small in size and can grow to the size of a pea.
2.What are the symptoms?
Usually, they do not cause any discomfort or pain. However, they can be associated with itching, bleeding, mucus discharge, and the feeling of a lump in the anal region.
The human papilloma virus (HPV) is spread from person to person by direct contact. It is a an STD. Patients may transmit the virus during sexual intercourse. Heterosexuals and homosexuals are at risk. Anal intercourse is not necessary to spread the virus, although it is one cause.
4.Should they be removed?
Yes, otherwise they grow and multiply and lead to an increased risk of cancer.
5. What are the treatments available?
Depending on the size, there are many different treatments. IRC (see below), liquid nitrogen, topical antiviral medications, and surgery ranging from simple to more involved?
6.What treatment do you provide in your office?
Treatment of course is based upon the individual situation. Generally, we treat the lesions that are not surgical candidates (too large) with the IRC and a combination of topical antiviral treatment. Any surgical candidates will be evaluated by colorectal surgeon and we will work with them to formulate the best plan.
7.What is the IRC?
Infrared Coagulation was initially developed for the treatment of external anal warts, hemorrhoids, and tattoo removal. Treatment involves applying a probe that transmits heat (infrared) energy directly to the lesions. The heat does not burn but rather destroys the tissue. It is performed in our fully accredited office with minimal discomfort both during and after the procedure.
The procedure is performed by Board certified Gastroenterologists. The procedure lasts 5-10 minutes and is performed in our accredited office facility (We are accredited with AAAASF).
8.How many treatments are needed?
Recurrent warts are common. More than one treatment may be necessary depending on size, location, and potential for discomfort.
9.What is happens after the procedure?
Bleeding may be seen for 2-3 weeks after treatment. Post procedure pain meds are not usually needed although some discomfort is felt.
Constipation should be avoided and fluid consumption increased.
10.Is a followup visit needed?
Yes. A visit should be scheduled 2 months after treatment.
11.Can recurrence of warts be avoided?
Abstain from sexual contact with individuals with anogenital warts. Unfortunately, people are not always aware of the presence of these warts. Sexual partners of patients with warts should be checked.
12.What is the anal pap?
This is a screening exam to help detect the presence of any area of tissue that may be predisposed to develop anal cancer. All patients with anal warts should have this test. We work in conjunction with board certified colorectal surgeons to arrange these services. | <urn:uuid:20c8986c-7cd1-4c97-a781-e20fe79f93f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hemorrhoidtreatmentnyc.com/conditions-anal-warts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941549 | 646 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Wildfire continues to rage across much of the west, and the military has responded by dispatching tanker planes to help battle the blazes. This video shows an Air National Guard crew dropping chemical fire retardant over one of Colorado's wildfires with a C-130 Hercules.
Unfortunately, 14 U.S. Air Force tankers were grounded after one of them crashed in South Dakota Tuesday, killing four crew members and seriously injuring the other two. The crash is still under investigation, but the cause isn't yet known.
(Hat tip to JF!) | <urn:uuid:a40f9b7d-2a62-4858-80a6-c6c34703f701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jalopnik.com/5923978/amazing-video-of-plane-dropping-fire-retardant-on-a-wildfire?tag=plane-crash | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954753 | 112 | 1.554688 | 2 |
‘Newsies!’ to Be Performed By Local Children in Boro
POINT PELASANT — A summer camp, run by resident Elizabeth Tiroly out of her home, will hold a backyard performance of “Newsies!” for all who wish to attend next weekend.
“Newsies!” is a play about how orphans in New York City united to tell the story of the 1899 newsboy strike. The boys went on strike after the price of newspapers was raised.
Mrs. Tiroly, who has been babysitting children for seven years, has four daughters of her own: Maggie, 11, Celeste, 10, Isabel, 8, and Sheena, 5.
Mrs. Tiroly decided to start putting on backyard plays a few years ago when she was unable to send all of her children to take theater classes.
“None of them are trained,” she explained, but all had an interest in acting — so they decided to put on a show of their own.
“My daughters love to sing, and we did ‘Wicked’ and ‘Wizard of Oz,’ and they just wanted to sing all of those songs and those kids just joined in,” she said.
The summer camp consists of Mrs. Tiroly’s four daughters and four local children she babysits. There are also another six children that come to her house throughout the summer months just to be in the play.
“They love it,” Mrs. Tiroly said. “They love hanging out with the other kids and they just all mix and play well. They all just love being together and performing.”
Mrs. Tiroly said she generally holds practices on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but most of the time is spent in the kitchen or playing in the yard instead of on the stage.
“We spent more time in the pool and kitchen, but the whole time they’re here, they’re inundated,” Mrs. Tiroly said. “Theses songs are long. It’s a lot of words for them to learn, but I always have the music on. We watched the movies in the beginning, but I stopped them from that so that they could have their own ideas of what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it.”
Mrs. Tiroly orders sound equipment and tries to keep the play as professional as possible.
“We make it as professional as we can with the stage [and] set up,” she said. “We get a professional sound system so that they each have their own wireless headsets. We have play bills and we sell snacks and drinks like a normal play. We have a curtain drop and a set change, and we rent costumes.
“They have 10 numbers, there’s a couple of solos. They’re all 12 and under and they do a great job,” she added.
The play is free of charge for both the children and anyone who wishes to see it.
Mrs. Tiroly’s mother-in-law, Nancy Tiroly, said Mrs. Tiroly does all of this from the bottom of her heart.
“It’s just wonderful. The kids have gotten so much enjoyment and confidence — last year was ‘Godspell,’ and now ‘Newsies,’” Mrs. Nancy Tiroly said. “She [Elizabeth] puts so much of herself and her heart into it and it’s great for the kids to have someone care about them so much all summer long.”
Mrs. Tiroly said her family came up from West Virginia this year and in years past to see the play. She also invited neighbors, friends and teachers from the Point Pleasant Borough School District to attend.
The summer camp put on two shows this past weekend and will hold two more this upcoming weekend.
This weekend, show times will be Saturday, Sept. 8, at 4 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 9, at 2 p.m.
The play will be held in Mrs. Tiroly’s backyard, located at 1516 Beaver Dam Road.
The total show time is approximately two hours and 15 minutes with intermissions.
Space is limited, so to reserve a seat or find out more information, contact Mrs. Tiroly at 732-899-2521 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:7a3f6017-112f-4025-a4b2-4d5abaa87739> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://starnewsgroup.com/weekly/2012/09.07.12/_newsies___t_09.07.12_70528.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971667 | 967 | 1.546875 | 2 |
A brand new look for some of the oldest artwork at The Art Institute. We preview newly restored classical works from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire on Chicago Tonight at 7:00 pm. Read a Q&A with the chief curator of the new exhibit and view a photo gallery.
The Art Institute explores ancient art of the Mediterranean in the new Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art. The inaugural display, Of Gods and Glamour, tells the rich story of those who lived in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world, displaying over 550 works, spanning 4,000 years of artistic achievement. The galleries include an inaugural special exhibition, unveiling 51 rarely seen works of art from the British Museum, many of which have never before traveled to the United States.
Chicago Tonight spoke with Karen Manchester, chair and curator of ancient art, Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art.
In these new galleries, there are more than 550 works on display; that’s a tremendous undertaking. What was the selection process like for the installation?
There are 561 total works on display, and of those 360 are from our permanent collection, so a big challenge was finding the additional works on display. We had a giant courtyard to fill, so we could be creative in our approach. We borrowed a bunch of artworks from personal and institutional collectors. Fifty-one works come from the British Museum as a special exhibition, and we were very fortunate to get them. The timing was such that they were closing their galleries for renovation, and instead of putting them in storage, they lent them to us for nine months. Other works came from local museums, and a number came from private Chicago collectors. A lot of this really was Chicago-based.
What are some of the challenges that come with putting on an installation of this size?
The biggest challenge was we couldn’t modify existing architecture, so we replaced floors and windows, painted walls, and replaced tile from the slanted ceiling. It seemed to me, perhaps the best thing we could do for the artwork and installation, was to ensure it was in beautifully manufactured display cases. For the first time, we worked with Goppion Museum Workshop based in Milan, and they produced exquisite display cases for us.
One challenge with previous installations was that the artwork was grouped tightly together in display cases. With this installation, the number of cases increased so we had space to expand, allowing us to display individual pieces as opposed to packed groupings. Visitors can walk around almost all of them and see the artwork as a three-dimensional object.
Another challenge with a courtyard was ensuring that the objects sensitive to light were properly installed, using baffle walls and sinking pieces into the architectures to reduce the amount of light. These are real objects that are three-dimensional; you can’t simply hang them on the wall. There’s a variety of media, and we’re dealing with 4,000 years of time.
The temporary exhibit features treasures from the British Museum. Did you visit the museum in London for the selection?
We did. I worked with a lovely Chicago couple, and they and I traveled to London around February 2011. We had preliminary conversations with colleagues there about the possibility of borrowing. There were negotiations back and forth. Our director spoke with theirs and they negotiated the final loan.
The British Museum was facing some of the same problems with their installation that we had, so we tried to collaborate on a way to display the pieces here that might help inform their reinstallation process. Their director came here and gave a talk during the Chicago Humanities Festival. He was ecstatic and pleased with the way we have displayed them.
Primarily, we were looking very broadly, covering a broad chronological span across three continents. When we heard their Byzantine gallery was closed, we got excited because we have very little Byzantine in our own collection. This was an extraordinary opportunity for us to show a full chronological span from the third millennium B.C. to first millennium A.D. Once it leaves, we won’t have it ever again.
Is there anything else that you would like to add about the galleries?
The north side of the gallery is the Greek side, displaying Greek art, and it was closed off while installing. We were placing objects in the display cases and they were all wrapped in brown paper because we promised the donors that they would be the first ones to see the installation. We left a few objects unwrapped as little teases, but two nights before the gala, we had to remove the paper to light the display cases properly. This was the first time I saw the installation; 25 months working on it and this was the first time I had seen it all! It brought tears to my eyes at how it looked. You never know with seeing everything relative to other objects, especially with three-dimensional pieces, to make sure they talk with each other properly. And I was stunned.
*This interview has been condensed and edited. | <urn:uuid:610e59be-cd30-4933-ad5d-0899a748fe45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2013/01/24/gods-and-glamour | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977637 | 1,026 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Comment posted MCA serves Argyll Ferries with improvement notice by ferryman.
Er … they would be able to travel between Gourock and Dunoon? Is that not their main objective?
Can you point me towards any discussions that took place previously where the elderly and disabled were complaining about the difficulties getting between the streaker service and the train?
They certainly are complaining now. They are saying they are missing hospital appointments, they feel unsafe and even unable to travel on the bathtubs and they have even taken Alex Salmond to task on the issue on national radio.
ferryman also commented
- I travel regularly as both a vehicle and a foot passenger.
Loss of the Streaker service has made my travel both as a foot passenger and as a vehicle driver worse.
If the bathtubs don’t run I don’t care if there is a gold plated moving walkway in Gourock taking me direct from the boat to the train – it is of no use.
- I have no idea about Gourock I guess the taxpayer can fork out £2M there for pontoons so that Transport Scotland and CalMac can claim to have made “improvements”. The bathtubs still will not sail in what is normal weather for the Firth of Clyde though.
The current bathtubs cost £2M. Pontoons at Dunoon, which now clearly serve no purpose, would have cost £2M, pontoons at Gourock will also cost around £2M.
So those in power, for some obscure reason, seem happy to throw away £6M (plus how much per year in running costs) on a service that does not work rather than invest in seaworthy vessels providing a reliable service.
Where is the logic, where is the common sense, where is the acting in for the public good?
- There is a large sign saying the passenger service will run from the linkspan at the old pier for a week from 23/July.
This must surely torpedo any further nonsense about spending £2M to install pontoons in Dunoon.
The bathtubs will be able to come alongside much more easily to the old pier. It keeps the listed pier in use as a working pier, and passenger facilities are already in place.
What possible additional benefits would pontoons confer to justify spending £2M ?
- George you are making a very simple and straightforward point that Newsroom (aka soapbox) just has not grasped.
Most of the traffic going to and from McInroy’s point goes via Gourock. Most of the traffic going to and from Hunter’s Quay goes via Kirn.
For a lot of people the town centre route was better at both ends, it cut congestion and travel time and the cost was comparable.
- The current linkspans go up and down with the tide to match the boats, better than pontoons. Argyll Ferries contracted to use the linkspans, why should £3-4m be spent on pontoons?
Pontoons are not going to change the fact that the bathtubs cannot cope with the weather and Argyll Ferries are having to bend/ignore the rules to get even the current dismall performance.
you are also changing your position by admitting pontoons need to be designed for the size of boat and, since the “fine, clear, settled” weather Ali Cat is to be replaced, we don’t know what that will be.
Recent comments by ferryman
- Argyll Flyer in Ardmaleish boatyard
Will the current linkspan works be completed by Friday 21/June?
Working on the linkspan while the Argyll Flyer was having its recent scheduled maintenance would have made sense, but they did not do it.
Bring forward maintenance on the Argyll Flyer by a minimum of 6 months and more than likely 8-9 months seems odd.
Why are they not waiting till September to work on the Argyll Flyer. That is closer to when she is due her maintenance and I hear the Gourock linkspan will be out of action again then?
- Shetland Line remains in legal contention with Scottish Government on Northlink Ferries tender
Regarding the Dunoon Gourock ferry service one of the ‘needs and requirements’ the Scottish Government failed to specify was that the vessels employed could actually operate reliably in the weather on the Firth of Clyde.
How incompetent is that!
- Argyll Flyer spotted going into Ardmaleish yard on Bute this afternoon
The Ali Cat was having technical problems whilst the Argyll Flyer was being maintained recently, resulting in periods of no service.
Following its maintenance the Argyll Flyer was indeed continuing to suffer technical problems.
The linkspan at Gourock is now being serviced with the result that the Argyll ferries is, once again running a reduced service. This happened right through the Dunoon Film Festival.
It is beyond belief that the Argyll Flyer maintenance and the repairs to the linkspan should not have been planned to run concurrently and without clashing with the Film Festival.
- Scottish Government forced to intervene on loose-mouthed Russell gaffe in Campbeltown
JimB asked “why does Dunoon not set out to attract day trippers?”
Dunoon would make an excellent destination for people from Glasgow seeking both Day Tripper and Weekend Breaks.
Why don’t they come though?
Well they certainly won’t drive the long way round, it is too far. There are plenty of other attractive destinations that are closer to home.
A relatively short drive and the pleasant experience of a ferry crossing to the town ought to be attractive, but then we hit the price barrier – £44.50 for a young family of 4 in a car.
Why would people pay that premium to come to Dunoon when they can go elsewhere?
The passenger only service is unattractive because of its unreliability.
What Dunoon needs is a truly competing vehicle ferry services.
- Reminder: Argyll Ferries on ‘refit’ service schedule
The scottish Government has failed to deliver on the transferable ferry tickets it was going to setup. The bus scheme is a bodge that adds anything upto two hours to travel time.
Any news on what they are going to do for Cowal Games or are they just going to try another gamble on the weather.
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A paradox is a seemingly contradictory statement that might nonetheless be true. The deepest one I've come across recently goes something like at a time of high unemployment and persistent joblessness, Millennials are asking for more concessions and perks from their employers. I just came across a CNN story about how new hires at marketing agency Euro RSCG told their CEO that they want to come in at 10 or later, have free food and a Pilates room, and get reimbursed for their personal trainers.
This might be an extreme example, but it's not the only one. It seems like there's a new meme in the air that rewards in the workplace go to those who ask the most, rather than those who give the most. I bet that The Apprentice and other people-behaving-badly reality TV shows contribute to this.
Whatever its origins, it needs to be stamped out. In every real-world workplace I've come in contact with, the higher-ups most valued the junior folk who could get work done, not those who could most fluently talk about themselves and their needs. And while I've seen plenty of divas (both old and young), the only divas who got to stick around for any length of time were the ones who also got a lot of work done, or closed a lot of deals, or kept their customers really happy. In short, they got to preen and demand a lot because of their demonstrated skills, but preening and demanding are not themselves job-related skills.
Companies need to hire Millennials if they want to understand Millennials (in order to communicate with them or sell products to them, as is the case with Euro RSCG), if they value the energy and enthusiasm that are the great gifts of youth, and maybe also if they want to have more people around who are natively comfortable with social media and the rest of the 2.0 toolkit. That's it.
Let's dispense with this idea that Millennials are somehow just smarter than all the generations that have come before. When I learn that over one-third of undergraduates these days show no significant gains after four years in vital skills like critical thinking and written communication, I have trouble seeing the broad genius of Gen Y.
Many employers evidently agree; as of March, the unemployment rate among Millennials was, at 18.8%, almost twice that of the general workforce. Given this state of affairs, let me offer some advice to young job seekers that goes against current practices.
Take the first decent job that's offered to you. Stop waiting for one that recognizes all your talents and plays to all your strengths.
Offer your employer superior ROE — return on employee. Compared to your peers, give your employer more and ask less. Trust me on this: it'll be recognized, and you'll come across as a huge breath of fresh air.
Take every chance offered to you to learn a new skill.
Learn to serve, not just to lead. Of course you think you could do a better job running the place; everyone else thinks they could, too. Until that happens, learn to be a good subordinate, teammate, or customer liaison. Humility and selflessness are two of those new skills you've just committed to learn after reading the previous bullet point.
Keep in mind that self-esteem comes from achievement, not the other way around.
You Millennials, through no fault of your own, have been dealt a bad hand; you're just starting out during the worst job market in decades. I wish you luck in the world as you navigate this, and I beg you to stop asking for Pilates rooms. Getting and keeping a job is workout enough these days. | <urn:uuid:3a9308eb-3c02-469e-a9bc-bf2b0e468618> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee/2011/08/when-entitlement-meets-unemplo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97596 | 752 | 1.546875 | 2 |
In 1999, Cooper appeared in two noteworthy films. One, 'American Beauty,' received eight Academy Award nominations, winning four, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Kevin Spacey), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Cooper played a repressed, repressive ex-marine colonel, a standout role that the Academy ignored. It's an earlier performance in a film released the same year, however, that shows Cooper at his best, due in part to a strong, nuanced script, a compelling story defined by the particulars of a time and place, and a character that proves that reacting is a key component in any actor's repertoire. That film, 'October Sky,' primarily a star vehicle for a then up-and-coming young actor, Jake Gyllenhaal, arrived in movie theaters in February, 1999, a time usually reserved for studio cast-offs and low-rent genre entries. The lack of studio faith, however, was unwarranted.
A small-scale family drama set in the late 1950s in the coalfields of West Virginia, 'October Sky,' focuses on Gyllenhaal's character, Homer Hickam. Homer, the son of a mining superintendent, John Hickam (Cooper), went on to a degree in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech, service in the U.S. military, and, eventually, NASA, where he served as an aerospace engineer. Hickam's book, "Rocket Boys" served as the basis for 'October Sky' ("October Sky" is an anagram of "Rocket Boys"). Homer's struggle, both universal and particular, centers on his desire to leave the West Virginia coal mines behind for the wider world, a desire that continually frustrates his father and threatens to irrevocably ruin the relationship between the pair.
The elder Hickam fully expects Homer to follow in his footsteps, but Homer's high-school teacher, Miss Frieda Riley (Laura Dern), encourages Homer and several other boys to develop their interests in science and engineering. With the launch of Sputnik 1, the Soviet Union's opening salvo in the space race, Homer and his friends become obsessed with rockets, spending their free time working on model rockets, and participating in a science fair. The fair offers Homer and the other kids the prospect of receiving college scholarships -- and with those scholarships, a decidedly different future than their brothers. And fathers.
'October Sky' relies on the conflict between Homer and his father. John may seem to be the antagonist to Homer's protagonist, but he isn't a one-dimensional villain. John takes pride in his difficult, often risky work in the mines, seeing it as noble and worthy of respect. He also sees it as a family tradition. Homer doesn't. It's in that conflict and in Cooper's nuanced, hyperbole-free performance that a common experience, the children of working class, blue-collar parents finding their way in a white-collar world through higher education, increased social status and, presumably, economic stability, that makes 'October Sky' emotionally engaging.
Cooper gives John just the right amount mix of self-righteousness, willful blindness (to his son's dreams), and self-awareness (if not of his own, personal failings, then of his own, unspoken, unfulfilled dreams) that makes John a rounded, three-dimensional character. In the hands of a lesser actor, John could have turned into a scenery-chewing caricature, a villain unworthy of sympathy or understanding, but that's why filmmakers often rely on outstanding character actors like Chris Cooper. | <urn:uuid:23f5d07d-bb37-4f26-acb4-cc0b649ca422> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/12/22/chris-cooper-best-role/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969899 | 729 | 1.632813 | 2 |
- This Week
The Fossil Fool pushes bicycle advocacy in the direction of music, art and parties
05.10.11 - 6:02 pm | Steven T. Jones |
Freedman, who studied at Harvard, has designed innovative sound and lighting systems for his art bikes.PHOTO BY ADAM AUFDENCAMP
FF It's having cooler bike and being able to use it and not have to step into the stress of car culture if you can avoid it.
SFBG What's your next step?
FF One of the really positive things for me has been the Rock the Bike community, with its roadies, performers, musicians — all types of people who are on our e-mail list. So I can just say, I need three roadies for a three-hour performance slot and there's going to be a jam at the end, so bring your instruments. That's an awesome thing and it's just going to improve, so I think the community will grow as we continue do gigs where we have fun and the people have fun.
In terms of my own art, this tree [gesturing to his El Arbol bike] has been my focus for the last year or two, and it's not done yet. It has to look undeniably like a tree. It looks like a tree, but with a light green bark that you really don't see in nature, so that has to change. I want it to have brown bark, but I still want it to do beautiful things at night with translucency. And I want it to have a true canopy of leaves, so that when you're far away from it at Sunday Streets and you're wondering whether to go over there, you'll see a tree. Not just a representation of a tree, but I want them to be like, how the hell did he ride a tree over here?
SFBG Why a tree?
FF I don't know. You get these ideas, and you start drawing them and can't shake them. There are all sorts of reasons why trees are interesting. They are gathering points.
SFBG And you're doing some very innovative design work on this bike, such as the landing gear.
FF The roots. Yeah, that's never been done before. Through the course of doing the project, people would send me tips and interesting things, and one guy sent me a link to a photo of tall bikes being used in Chicago in the early 1900s as gas lamp lighting tools, and they were very tall. I'd say 10 to 12 feet tall, and they were tandems, so there was a guy on top and a stoker on the bottom providing extra power, and they didn't have landing gears. So they would ride from one lamp to another and hold the lamp as they refilled it. And I just love that story because if you were growing up in Chicago, and you saw these gas lamp people coming by in the early evening to turn the lights on, and if you were a little kid trying to fall asleep or whatever, that would have an indelible mark on your childhood, and that whimsical quality is what I'm going for. That should be part of what it's like to grow up in the Mission District in 2011.
SFBG How does that fit into the other cultural stuff that you're also bringing to the bike movement, the music you're writing, design work, the style, and the events that you're creating?
FF Sometimes I wish it wasn't so multipronged. I would clearly be a better performer and musician if it was the only thing I did, so I apologize to all my fans for not putting 100 percent into the music. But I put 100 percent into the whole thing, including creating bikes and running Rock the Bike, which is a business.
SFBG But are you doing all these things because you find a synergy among them?
FF It's the fullest expression of who I am.
SFBG Where do you see this headed? What will Rock the Bike be like five years from now?
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- Yep, like I said, you contribute nothing to help, unlike me. - May 19, 2013 | <urn:uuid:f75ea389-a16a-4e43-8635-af81e4f92e2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sfbg.com/2011/05/10/fun-side-bikes?page=0,2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980442 | 1,014 | 1.5 | 2 |
Pizza is a Vegetable: Pay It Forward (Video)
|Pizza is a vegetable that we can't get out of our heads!|
Yes, that movie with the do-gooder boy who sees dead people was heart-wrenching and all that stuff, but paying it forward can also mean passing on some horrible song that's stuck in your head.
Case in point: The Pizza is a Vegetable song by Jonathan Mann. In the YouTube video that we unearthed, Mann sings "pizza is a vegetable" to a banging synth track. Over and over...and over...(though he switches it up to take a knock at Congress).
Once we watched the inane ode to Congress acting like dickweeds and pronouncing pizza as good as a vegetable for public school lunches, we knew we would never get that ditty out of our heads.....unless we paid it forward.
Just because we like you (and not because we want to purge ourselves from the curse of the tune) -- here's the Pizza is a Vegetable song. Our advice? Pay it forward!
Follow Clean Plate Charlie on Facebook and on Twitter: @CleanPlateBPB. | <urn:uuid:0af4690d-929e-4232-bf50-fe8b348b8d6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/cleanplatecharlie/2011/12/pizza_is_a_vegetable_video.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958439 | 245 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Check out the Special Collections & Archives webpage to read a transcription of Vernon M. Babbitt’s diary. After fighting in the Civil war, he attended Alfred University and was graduated in 1871. His diary gives an excellent glimpse into early student life on campus. Especially notable are his mentions of visits by Sojourner Truth and Julia Ward Howe.
View the diary here! | <urn:uuid:985f52f1-ea5c-4c13-8f59-c05c4784fba1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://herr.alfred.edu/special/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947509 | 79 | 1.648438 | 2 |
June 20, 2006
The Rt. Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Dear Prime Minister Harper:
The Justice and Peace Unit of the Anglican Church in the Diocese of New Westminster would like to add our voice to those who call for the role of the Canadian military in Afghanistan to turn from military involvement to active support for peacemaking and reconciliation.
The areas in which the Canadian military is making a positive difference in Afghanistan seem to be in police training, rural development, land mine clearing and repatriation of refugees. These are practical and useful to the Afghan people. The other part of Canada's mission in Afghanistan, of military combat, is the destructive aspect that will not bring peace, and will not help the people re-build their lives.
Canada has got to move our military away from participation in combat and move it actively to support the Afghan Government's initiative: "National Peace and Reconciliation Commission." The Afghan government needs enhanced technical support to make such an initiative meaningful.
Our Canadian military could support such a national peacemaking initiative in helping concretely with the mechanism to make these meetings happen. There are many groupings in Afghanistan who have national concerns and they are being lumped in with terrorists. They are not terrorists. They do have national and regional grievances and want a way for these to be heard.
Canada is in the position to invest in peace in Afghanistan as part of our contribution to peace and stability in the country. The National Peace and Reconciliation established by the Afghan govenment is poorly resourced and does not have the technical capacity to run peace dialogues between various groups. Canada could help this to happen, and do what needs to be done to create an atmosphere of trust by helping in this way and getting out of the combat role.
This gap which exists right now in Afghanistan, in which very little is happening to get a peace and reconciliation initiative on a national level off the ground and working means more deaths every day. Canada could make a real difference for peace and save lives of Canadians and Afghans.
As Christians we believe that we cannot do violence to create peace. Jesus showed us in his life that violence needed to stop. We teach our children that they must solve their differences with words, and then we take our country into military combat. There can only be lasting peace when we do the long and hard work of peace. We are not helping the Afghan people at this time by having our Canadian soldiers be part of combat.
We can serve the real needs of peace with the direction of the Afghan government, by giving the technical and logistic support and the leadership needed to help bring people together in regional meetings across Afghanistan for peace and reconciliation talks.
Canada needs to live into the contribution we can make to peace in our world in Afghanistan and Darfur and other regions in the world. There, our presence as peacemakers and peacekeepers will make a long lasting difference to the lives of many.
"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silence of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and duty." Archbishop Oscar A. Romaro.
The Rev. Margaret Marquardt
Chair, Justice and Peace Unite
Dioceses of New Westminister
The Rev. Don Johnson
Chair, Social Justice Committe
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada
CC: The Hon. Bill Graham, MP
The Hon. Gilles Duceppe, MP
The Hon. Jack Layton, MP | <urn:uuid:0411a74a-12bf-44ff-84d5-e201681ea642> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clarion-journal.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2006/06/anglican_letter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95117 | 761 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Top White Papers
EDE 2.0 releasedMay 21, 2012, 02:00 (0 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by karijes)
EDE (Equinox Desktop Environment) is a desktop for UNIX-like operating systems. Main features of EDE are speed and responsiveness, low resource usage and familiar look and feel. Simply said, desktop that doesn't get on your way. This is major rewrite with a lot of goodies to put here. Most important are: everything is powered with FLTK 1.x, new components and rewrite of old, improved interoperability with other toolkits and applications and much more.
0 Talkback[s] (click to add your comment) | <urn:uuid:c4ac3460-702e-4ba1-b7e5-5b2794d53930> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linuxtoday.com/upload/ede-2.0-released-120519031458.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952496 | 149 | 1.703125 | 2 |
VMware demos Operations for View tool
- — 20 October, 2011 00:04
At VMworld this week, VMware demonstrated vCenter Operations for View, an upcoming management tool that will allow enterprises that have rolled out virtual desktops to get more insight into how their environment is performing and possible problems.
The goal is to make the rollouts of virtual desktops based on VMware's View platform more straightforward and, in the end, successful, according to Robert Baesman, group product manager at VMware. Today, some users run into storage performance roadblocks that could be avoided if they had more visibility into their environment, he said.
Just like the regular version of VMware's Operations Manager tool, the version for View will have an interface that can be customized, according to Baesman.
The user interface showed at VMworld took a top-down look at a virtualized desktop environment, showing how storage, user desktops, the View and the vSphere infrastructure had performed during the last six hours.
But an administrator will also be able to start from the bottom up, with a user that has reported a problem. The administrator would, in this scenario, start by searching for the user, and then take a closer look at all the parts of the infrastructure that can impact his performance, including PC over IP (PCoIP), the protocol used by VMware to distribute server-based application to a client.
Operations for View will take advantage of performance counters -- which can be used to measure latency and throughput -- that VMware added in version 5 of the View platform.
Today, the tool is still under development, and is only available as a tech preview. VMware isn't ready to say when it will start shipping. The same goes for how the tool will be packaged, Baesman said.
Send news tips and comments to [email protected] | <urn:uuid:3d8dedba-aa49-428c-86fa-e198a53c7fb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/404673/vmware_demos_operations_view_tool/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954395 | 385 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The English Department offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in writing and literature, designed to meet the needs of a richly diverse student body. We emphasize writing as a creative and rhetorical act and the analysis of texts in historical, critical, and cultural contexts. Both graduate and undergraduate programs feature coursework in cultural criticism, literary analysis, the essay, rhetoric, and professional writing. The rigorous study of literary and cultural texts — from the canon and from traditions historically excluded from academic study — is at the center of our work.
Courses in the First Year Writing Program focus on interdisciplinary issues intended to stimulate purposeful writing at each level of development. The study of the elements of rhetoric, along with intensive practice, equips students with the writing skills they will need for success in college and in the business and professional worlds after graduation.
The four sophomore literature courses, any two of which satisfy the six-credit literature requirement of the Humanities core curriculum, survey the Western literary tradition from the beginnings to the present as well as the non-Western traditions of Africa, Asia and/or Latin America. Readings from a wide variety of texts may be structured chronologically or thematically, depending on the instructor.
The B.A. in English offers concentrations in Literature, Creative Writing, or Writing & Rhetoric. Students gain a breadth of knowledge in literature in English, a sense of the scope of English studies and familiarity with contemporary debates in their chosen field of concentration.
The English Department promotes literary studies and the literary arts through the activities of the English Club; the Omicron Zeta chapter of Sigma Tau Delta (the international English honor society); our literary magazine, Downtown Brooklyn; the Voices of the Rainbow poetry/fiction reading series, and the annual Paumanok Lecture on American Literature. In addition, the Creative-Writing MFA Program publishes its own literary magazine, Brooklyn Paramount, and hosts the MFA Reading Series. | <urn:uuid:3028cffd-bb0d-405c-bf70-7cc20e61d598> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.liu.edu/brooklyn/english | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930018 | 393 | 1.609375 | 2 |
New London - When the U.S. Coast Guard Academy offered her a place at a military preparatory school instead of accepting her directly into the academy, Tahnee Zaccano was torn.
Zaccano didn't want to be a year behind her high school friends and she was waiting to hear from the Naval Academy.
Ultimately she decided if prep school was the way to join the Coast Guard, she would do it.
Now a first-class cadet - a senior- at the academy, Zaccano said she realizes spending a year at the Marion Military Institute in Alabama was "a gift" that kept her out of academic and disciplinary trouble during her academy career.
Zaccano, 22, grew up in Harrisburg, Pa. and worked on a sheep and llama farm.
"By the time I got to the academy, I knew what my life priorities were," she said. "I had figured myself out and grown up."
Class sizes at the academy are shrinking as record numbers of officers stay in the service. Each year only about 10 percent of students who complete an application are accepted.
Yet Rear Adm. Sandra L. Stosz, the academy superintendent, has no plans to diminish the prep school program, which is officially called the Coast Guard Academy Scholar Program.
Historically, about 15 percent of students in each class, or between 40 and 60 cadets, are prep school graduates. Stosz expects that percentage to stay roughly the same for future classes.
The program is one way the academy can recruit an athlete so a sports team will have enough players, a piccolo player for the band, or a minority student so the school will be diverse, Stosz said. Students from areas of the country that aren't heavily represented at the academy, including New London, have been sent to prep school.
These students either had grades or test scores that were just short of the academy's standards or went to high schools that didn't offer the courses in which they need a foundation, such as calculus and physics, she added.
The academy, Stosz said, is looking for well-rounded leaders, not just scholars.
Stosz said she would pick the football player who is an Eagle Scout over the student with only a perfect SAT score. It's important to maintain the academy's many sports and clubs because they build character and leadership skills and draw prospective students to the school, she added.
"Other schools like Connecticut College or Yale, they aren't hiring their graduates. They want the highest SAT scores," she said. "We're hiring our graduates. They need to have the potential to be a great leader."
Academy graduates serve for five years in the Coast Guard. A year in prep school helps these students who have potential succeed in a science, technology, engineering and math-based curriculum, Stosz said.
"We don't have the option of putting kids on a five- or six-year plan and letting them slip to a softer subject. It's a STEM program," she said a reference to the subjects in the curriculum.
Help with math
Hayley Smith, 20, was the company commander in New London High School's Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program but she struggled in math on the SAT.
Lukas Laplante, 22, of Leeds, Mass., played soccer, basketball and baseball and volunteered in the community during high school, but he didn't take calculus or advanced chemistry and physics.
Smith went to the Marion Military Institute. Laplante went to the New Mexico Military Institute. At prep school the students take college-level science, math and English classes. The instructors help them develop better study habits and improve their fitness. They must retake either the SAT or ACT and do well on the test.
"Academics are so different in high school. I worked hard and did my homework but I didn't really need to study. I didn't know how," Smith said.
She said prep school gave her a second chance. She improved her SAT score dramatically and is now a freshman cadet.
For Laplante, who is now a junior, prep school was his introduction to the military lifestyle.
"Being exposed to the military experience for an entire year helped exponentially," he said. "It not only helped with the military side of things at the academy. It took all that stress and all those worries away and let me focus on my academics more than I would've before."
Smith and Laplante arrived at the academy with friends from prep school, which they said made adjusting to life at the academy much easier.
Most of the students who attend prep school move on to the academy.
Brendan McNeil and Patrick Hanrahan, who are both 19 and graduated last year from the magnet school program at New London High School, are at the Georgia Military College now. Hanrahan said it was a relief to get into prep school instead of being turned down.
"They want the whole package, someone who is athletic, personable, active in the community. And you have to be intelligent on top of that," said Hanrahan, who was recruited to play soccer. "As a kid I knew I wanted to go to the academy and I did everything I could to make myself the best applicant I could be."
McNeil said he's working hard to get to the academy next year.
"Going to the academy isn't easy," McNeil added. "If it was easy, everybody would do it."
Laplante said he thinks the academy should absolutely keep the scholar program going.
"Looking back at it, I wasn't ready academically, even though I may have thought I was," said Laplante, who plays baseball and is doing well in his classes. "Going to prep school really helped me get to where I needed to be. And I know for a fact I wouldn't be as successful as I am now here if it wasn't for that extra year."
Zaccano rows on the crew team and is involved in nearly every club at the academy. She is one of the presidents of Cadets Against Sexual Assault and she helped lead the summer training program.
"One of the best-kept secrets of the Coast Guard Academy is this prep school opportunity," she said. "I would recommend, if someone got the opportunity, not to hesitate and to take it. I'm so glad I did. I met my best friends through prep school and it has been invaluable to my Coast Guard career." | <urn:uuid:755c2a85-f7f5-46e2-8e83-8fc3817bd350> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theday.com/article/20130204/NWS09/302049955/1070/milestones02 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985745 | 1,342 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Ok – Now it gets a little bit harder. I want you to take your journal out and write your life story. This is a very powerful exercise of learning who you are as a person and where you came from.
Writing the details of your life will help you understand that the choices you’ve made have brought you to this point in your life.
Don’t let this idea overwhelm you because you can just do it in bullet-list form if you want. Start by breaking down the events that most affected you and then go back and fill in between these events.
Ask yourself these questions:
• What were your most vibrate memories – good and bad?
• When did you feel the most loved, angry, betrayed etc,?
• When did your choices change the path of your life?
• Are there certain people that affected your life and how?
Take your time doing this in as much detail as possible because the actual process will deepen the connection you have with yourself. You will start to have compassion for all that you have been through and you will appreciate your inner strength.
The events and details are different for each of us but we all have the underlying need for more self-care. When you are finished, step back and ask yourself – What did I discover while writing the story of my life? | <urn:uuid:30f9cfac-cbaf-492b-93f7-a8bf7cbf463b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sisterhoodofwidows.com/2012/03/06/part-four-widows-and-self-care/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970499 | 274 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Focus: Tax and Intellectual Property April 2004
Transfer pricing, intellectual property and advanced pricing agreements: how business taxpayers can protect themselves
In brief: What is the width of the definition of a royalty, and what can transfer pricing issues and advanced pricing agreements mean for business taxpayers? Senior Associates Monica Jordan and Marc Johnston look at these questions and provide some suggestions as to what taxpayers should consider if the Australian Taxation Commissioner contacts them with questions regarding their intellectual property dealings.
In his 2004 Compliance Plan, the Australian Commissioner of Taxation, Michael Carmody, identifies international dealings between related parties involving intellectual property (IP dealings) as a focus of audit activities in the coming year.
The Commissioner is concerned that IP dealings are being used to shift profits outside Australia. This can happen through:
excessive royalty payments from Australia to offshore related parties; or
shifting Australian intellectual property offshore in circumstances where the Australian party does not receive full value for the offshore use of that intellectual property.
The Commissioner proposes to address these concerns through a range of methods, including education, rulings, risk reviews, audits and by promoting Advanced Pricing Agreements (APAs). The Commissioner may also seek to make adjustments to IP dealings under the transfer pricing provisions of the tax legislation. Transactions with tax havens will be of particular interest to the Commissioner, who is concerned to see that any profit allocated to a tax haven is commensurate with the economic value added by the tax haven.
For taxation purposes, 'royalty' has an extended statutory definition that is wider than its ordinary meaning of payments for the use of rights owned by another. Among other things, the extended definition covers payments or credits for:
- the use of any intellectual property;
- the use of industrial, commercial or scientific equipment (eg equipment royalties);
- the supply of scientific, technical, industrial or commercial knowledge, information or assistance (eg know-how);
- the supply of any assistance ancillary and subsidiary to, and furnished as a means of enabling the application or enjoyment of, any property, right, equipment, knowledge or information noted above; and
- undertaking that any of the above types of property or rights will not be granted or supplied to any person.
The width of the definition indicates the extensive range of underlying transactions giving rise to a royalty that the Commissioner would target if reviewing a taxpayer's IP dealings. The width of the definition is also important because the Commissioner will seek to impose withholding tax on royalty payments made offshore and would expect to see similar payments being received in Australia by the holders of Australian intellectual property that is used outside Australia.
A related issue is the market valuation of intellectual property. The market value of intellectual property indicates the level of royalties that a user would be expected to pay for the use of that intellectual property. The Commissioner states in the Compliance Plan that the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will investigate instances where there are discrepancies between the market valuations of the intellectual property in one context and the tax values of the intellectual property in the business in another context. An example of this might be cases where a low royalty is paid on Australian intellectual property used by a related party offshore indicating that the intellectual property has a low market value yet large amortising deductions are claimed for the same intellectual property for Australian tax purposes.
Broadly, the transfer pricing provisions allow the Commissioner to make adjustments to income and deductions for certain international related-party transactions by deeming an arm's-length consideration.
A taxpayer may avoid the operation of the transfer pricing provisions by entering into an APA. In the past, the majority of taxpayers who have entered into APAs have been large business taxpayers. However, the Commissioner is of the view that APAs may also be appropriate for small-to-medium enterprises with cross-border related-party transactions and has stated that the ATO will seek to streamline the process for these businesses.
An APA may be bilateral or unilateral. A bilateral APA is an agreement between the Commissioner, the taxpayer and the relevant foreign tax authority on the income tax treatment of the cross-border transactions between related parties. A unilateral APA is made between the Commissioner and the taxpayer.
An APA generally lasts for three to five years. It sets out the transfer pricing methodology that will be used to establish arm's-length prices for the transactions covered by the APA. The APA also sets out the critical factors and assumptions that underlie it. If these factors or assumptions change, the APA is no longer binding but may be amended by the parties. While an APA is operative, the Commissioner will not seek to apply the transfer pricing provisions to the taxpayer, provided the taxpayer has complied with the APA (the taxpayer is required to submit an annual compliance report detailing compliance with the APA).
The Commissioner actively encourages the use of APAs, stating that an APA may:
- provide an agreed pricing methodology where there is no realistic, alternative way of both avoiding double tax and of ensuring that all profits are correctly attributed and taxed;
- provide certainty on an appropriate transfer pricing methodology, therefore increasing certainty in the tax treatment of international transactions;
- substantially reduce the possibility of double taxation;
- limit expensive and time-consuming examinations of major transfer pricing issues arising under an audit and lessen the risk of litigation; and
- place the taxpayer in a better position to predict costs and expenses, including tax liabilities.
Taxpayers should carefully consider whether an APA would be appropriate in their circumstances. The process of applying for an APA may be expensive and time-consuming. This is particularly so because the taxpayer must show that the proposed methodology produces arm's-length results between the taxpayer and the related foreign parties. Additionally, while it is possible for an APA to only deal with certain international transactions, the Commissioner would normally seek to consider all of the taxpayer's cross-border transactions and to consider the taxpayer's business as a whole. This may increase the cost and complexity of the process, and would need to be weighed up against the benefits that the APA may provide.
All taxpayers (whether contemplating entering into an APA or not) need to be able to justify the basis of the pricing of their IP dealings and the market valuation of that property. The greater the taxpayer's contemporaneous records regarding pricing, the easier it will be for the taxpayer to establish that the royalties or other consideration paid or received for the use of intellectual property represents arm's-length pricing.
The best way to deal with a potential tax audit is to minimise the risk of it occurring. Before commencing an audit, the ATO would generally undertake a risk review. If a taxpayer can show at an early stage that it has internal strategies and controls to effectively manage its transfer pricing issues, and there is accurate and timely documentation supporting this, there is a chance that the ATO will move onto a higher risk taxpayer to audit.
If a tax audit is to occur, the taxpayer must implement a strategy to deal with the audit in much the same way as it would deal with any other risk facing the business. An appropriate strategy to manage a transfer pricing audit should involve:
- establishing an audit team comprised of employees of the taxpayer who have knowledge of the various matters that are the subject of the audit;
- appointing a single liaison officer as the sole point-of-contact for the conduct of the audit;
- requesting that the ATO confirm the scope of the audit and the income years covered;
- managing the ATO's access to the taxpayer's premises; and
- keeping records of all documentation supplied to or copied by the ATO and all answers given by employees questioned by the ATO.
The audit team should 'brainstorm' how it perceives the audit will be carried out and how it should be dealt with by the taxpayer, including considering the questions that the ATO is likely to ask and the answers to be given. The ATO has significant access powers and it must be provided with 'all reasonable facilities and assistance for the effective exercise of its powers'. Any failure to do so exposes the taxpayer and its employees to the offence provisions of the taxation legislation.
Prior to the audit occurring, it is vital that the audit team master the facts and analyse the issues to determine the strengths of the taxpayer's position and expose any weaknesses that could hinder successful negotiation or litigation with the ATO. Depending on the level of pricing analysis previously undertaken, it might be appropriate to appoint an independent economist to assist you at this stage.
After the audit, the ATO usually prepares a position paper dealing with its views on the proper taxation consequences of the transactions entered into by the parties. This is when negotiations commence and there will either be a settlement entered into with the ATO or, if negotiations fail, an amended assessment may be issued.
Although taxpayers may have been lulled into a false sense of security over the past two decades that they will not be the subject of a tax audit, the ATO has firmly indicated its intention to escalate the number and extent of audits that will be carried out over the next few years. It is therefore vital that taxpayers implement appropriate strategies to deal with their transfer pricing risks so that they are well-placed to deal with any audit carried out by the ATO.
- Tony SheehanConsultant,
Ph: +61 2 9230 4781
- Peter AllenConsultant,
Ph: +61 7 3334 3350 | <urn:uuid:31bfda38-728e-4eff-b900-078bb376de9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allens.com.au/pubs/tax/fotaxapr04.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941119 | 1,921 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Image via CrunchBase
Good-bye and good luck, Steve. Steve Jobs resigned this week as Apple’s President and is looking to move to Chairman of their Board.
It would be difficult to overstate the significance of Steve Jobs to Apple, and harder still to overstate Apple’s influence on the tech sector. Jobs was the towering figure behind a towering company.
So says Steve Wozniak, the man who founded Apple with Jobs. Wozniak waxed poetic about Jobs in an interview with Bloomberg. He spoke at length about Jobs’ leadership, the culture he created at Apple and the future of the company.
“He’s always going to be remembered, at least for the next hundred years, as the greatest technology business leader of our time,” Woz said of Jobs.
Steve Jobs named Tim Cook
as his successor, and he has already has stepped up. Cook said working with Jobs and Apple has been “the privilege of a lifetime” and he’s looking forward to the years ahead.
There are many books written about Job’s
rise, fall and ultimate ascension to build the most innovative computer company in modern times. Good luck Steve. Thanks for giving us such as great industry leader. | <urn:uuid:8e51cbc8-684e-4e52-82c5-b6b12fbb9a7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://craigpeterson.com/tag/steve-wozniak | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96531 | 265 | 1.570313 | 2 |
THE GOLDEN AGE by Chamuel Anshelon
You set the price! 17570 words.
Language: English. Published on May 20, 2013. Nonfiction » Religion and Spirituality » Spiritual awakening.
This is a magical book. It was dictated by a being of light from the sacred world. Every word captures thee and takes thee into its spell. Be enchanted and guided into the new time, in the Golden Age. | <urn:uuid:5d159a12-04f7-464f-b052-ebbc8e042d42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1073/newest/0/any/short/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933809 | 89 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Jane Jacobs: School marm hipster becomes urban design guru
We have to apologize to our readers here in Jacksonville that we have discussed the inadvertent monsters of city planning like Robert Moses before really mentioning Jane Jacobs, but so much of her work infuses the everyday language of good cities that most of you will already feel acquainted with her as you read this. In fact, so much of her work is now accepted wisdom that you have to keep in mind that her work was groundbreaking and against the tidal wave of New Deal Era central planning bureaucracies of the time.
Here is a picture of Jacobs. She was what she looked like: A sweet faced, incredibly intelligent, tough little lady.
For most of us the actual outlines of who Jane Jacobs is and what her legacy means are fairly vague. If you have heard of her, you know her as the opposite number to Robert Moses, which is to say that she’s The Good Guy opposite his mustache-twirling central planning baddie in the battle for the soul of New York City’s built environment. (For the curious, read Roberta Brandes Gratz’s Battle For Gotham, if you are interested in the story of the battle of wills between these two titans). As already mentioned, Jacobs’ ideal city looks a lot like what most of us would describe and includes the very same built-in, human-scale elements and efficiencies like street vibrancy and greenness.
Jacobs wasn’t much for mega-projects, which made itself felt most famously in her (successful) opposition to Robert Moses’ attempts to turn Fifth Avenue into a major arterial and open a highway that would’ve sped drivers through lower Manhattan, but also manifested in her resistance to better-conceived developments such as Lincoln Center.
Jacobs was, on the other hand, generally all for community-driven initiatives. While this enables us to divide recent development projects and schemes up into things Jacobs would or would not have liked — she would’ve loathed plan for Brooklyn; she presumably would’ve loved Springfield's privately conceived, funded and executed quasi-homesteady Community Gardens Project (which just recently had its ribbon-cutting ceremony) — it doesn’t really do us much good in terms of helping us to understand contemporary cities as Jacobs might have.
That understanding becomes doubly difficult when we consider just how much of what’s happening in New Urbanism's, carbon emission driven popularity is the result of incentives designed by one of Jacobs’ other bugaboos: the state.
Does it matter what Jane Jacobs would think about all this? Whether she’d recognize anything of the city she describes and celebrates and excoriates in The Death and Life of Great American Cities in the modern American City? In terms of your commute, or the price of your apartment, or your property taxes, the answer is probably no.
In terms of understanding the city in which we live, though, it might. Jacobs’ Good and Evil view of the struggle between Communities and Power may be dated in the sense that the conflict doesn’t take the shape that it once did — they don’t necessarily get to write the laws, but it’s not tough to argue that mega-developers currently wield nearly as much power than city government, and occasionally wield said power through the city government — but the conflict between big and small interests and big and small development are enduring, and endure still.
It’s telling that, all these years later, Jacobs’ ideas still have the power to elicit snarky, peevish editorials from real estate developers in the Wall Street Journal. And it’s telling, too, that the organic, community-driven urbanism that Jacobs so prized in 1961 is so remarkably close to the Sustainable City ideal nearly 50 years later.
All these years after her revolutionary book: The Death and Life of Great American Cities, we are still having essentially the same life-and-death argument about the relative sustainability, livability and viability.
All of us owe her a huge debt, for pointing out the undiscovered truths of humans within cities and then by demonstrating that tireless advocacy and activism is the cure.
If you haven't already read her works, then by all means stop and pick up copies of her seminal, world changing writing. She will open new perspectives on the world around you, even today, 50 years after she started writing.
See full article | Read and join discussions about this article
- Downtowns are for People by Urbanist Jane Jacobs
- Annie Lytle School Cleanup Effort This Weekend
- What A Real Transit Rail System Looks Like: The Station
Like Metro Jacksonville
Copyright 2012 by MetroJacksonville.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:8e016a87-0f08-4e91-9a57-f4c9c13eb19c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news4jax.com/news/Jane-Jacobs-School-marm-hipster-becomes-urban-design-guru/-/475880/14756548/-/format/rsss_2.0/view/print/-/su2rsvz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9575 | 1,001 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Basketball fans have one more day to fill out their March Madness brackets. They'll need to predict not just the champions and their route to victory, but also the paths of all the losers. It's not easy. In fact, no person or computer has yet been able to do it.
But that's not for lack of trying. Andy Dieckhoff has been working on his NCAA basketball ranking system for more than a decade. He's a senior at Portland State University studying applied linguistics. But in his spare time he studies basketball.
"I get really excited," he says. "I tend to think of Bracket Day as more enjoyable than my birthday most years."
Dieckhoff started watching games with his dad when he was 5 or 6, and he ran his first bracket pool in middle school.
"I wanted to give myself kind of an advantage," he says.
So he poured a bunch of win-loss stats into a spreadsheet and used some basic equations to try to predict the winners.
"It was nothing sophisticated or anything like that when it started," Dieckhoff says.
But since that first year, when Dieckhoff beat all of the 11-year-olds in his pool, his system has become a lot more complex. The spreadsheet has grown to include not just scores but also rebounds, assists, three-point shooting percentages and numerical values for some qualities that are harder to define, like hustle, discipline and even luck. The system is all about using intuition to interpret the stats.
"The weighting of everything is done on completely gut feeling," Deickhoff says. "I've picked up things I feel are important in the game."
Dieckhoff's system correctly predicted 66 of the 68 teams that made it into this year's tournament. But that doesn't necessarily mean it will help him predict winners in the tournament.
"There's no making sense of it," Dieckhoff says. "I'm trying pretty hard to make sense of it. But at the end of the day, any team can win any game."
Dieckhoff isn't alone. More than 3 million people filled out brackets on ESPN.com last year.
Keith Lipscomb, a senior editor at ESPN Fantasy Games, says no one got a perfect bracket; the best anyone did was guessing 52 out of the 64 games. Raw knowledge of basketball doesn't count for that much when it comes to filling out brackets.
"The NCAA tournament happens to be my favorite thing in the world," Lipscomb says. "But that doesn't mean I have any better grip on it than anybody else just because I watch a lot of games. I feel like you're sometimes better off not knowing too much, because that way you don't overthink it."
So what if you know nothing? What are the odds of randomly predicting the outcome of every tournament game?
According to Mike Weimerskirch, a math professor and sports fan at the University of Minnesota, those odds aren't good: about 147 quintillion to one (that's 147,000,000,000,000,000,000:1). The odds get slightly better (about 9 quintillion to one) if you ignore the play-in games and just look at the field of 64.
"It's going to be more likely for Phil Mickelson to get a hole in one on all four of the par threes in the opening round of the Masters than it is to fill out a perfect bracket," Weimerskirch says.
But what if you take a slightly smarter approach to filling out your bracket and always pick the teams that are seeded higher?
"You bring it down to about 150 billion to one," Weimerskirch says.
But in the age of Google, shouldn't we be able to get closer than that? Shouldn't we be able to use all our computational power to correctly predict all the winners and create the perfect bracket?
That's the question behind a very special March Madness pool run by Danny Tarlow, a postdoctoral student at Microsoft Research Cambridge. His pool has just one serious rule: no humans.
Computer programs fill out the brackets.
It started a few years ago when Tarlow entered a March Madness bracket and wanted to give himself a bit of an edge. He hijacked the basic structure of a program he was working on (it was designed to anticipate a reader's book selection) and used it to predict winners.
"It worked surprisingly well," Tarlow says. "I won the pool, so it wasn't behaving completely crazily."
The next year he invited other programmers to enter their own bracket-building algorithms.
Each competitor enters a program that must learn about basketball by chewing through the stats from past games. It's similar to voice recognition software learning speech. The programs guess the outcome of a game, then refine their algorithms based on the actual results. Then they repeat the process, guessing and checking, with all the games on record.
"It can take quite a long time to do this initial learning phase — several hours to even a day," Tarlow says.
So are these programs any good at filling out brackets?
"Looking at the group of algorithms, it's probably not that much different than you would expect to see out of your group of friends," Tarlow says.
It turns out that the cold statistical precision of a computer program is just as unsuccessful as human intuition. Weimerskirch says there just isn't enough data to overcome the randomness of college basketball.
"No matter how much computer analysis you do, you're still stuck with the way the ball bounces," he says.
"That's the beauty of college basketball," Dieckhoff says. "There are upsets all the time. Maybe sometimes it's better to just put on a blindfold and pick the teams."
Or you could try a more creative strategy.
"Somebody apparently won their office pool basing their picks on who would win the game if the mascots fought," Weimerskirch says.
In some years that could bring up some tricky questions.
That kind of unpredictable match-up is what makes March Madness so ... maddening. | <urn:uuid:7d7d39d1-95c8-4dbd-80cc-04a1f88e98e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2013/mar/20/good-luck-with-that-perfect-march-madness-bracket-youll-need-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976312 | 1,289 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Bachelor of Criminal Justice
The Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice (BCJ) is broad-based and designed to provide criminal justice (CJ) practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the CJ system. This program enhances the knowledge of persons employed in law enforcement, corrections, the legal field, and private security. The curriculum also prepares individuals to attend graduate school, including law school. (Acceptance into any graduate school depends on that school's admissions requirements and the qualifications of each applicant.)
The Bachelor of Criminal Justice (BCJ) program is unique in the following ways:
- The broad-based curriculum approach emphasizes law enforcement, private security, corrections, and jurisprudence (pre-law);
- The faculty has extensive experience in the fields of criminal justice;
- The BCJ faculty is recognized by their peers as knowledgeable and effective instructors;
- The BCJ full-time and adjunct faculty are currently teaching at various law enforcement academies and criminal justice agencies within Alabama;
- All courses are presented from a moral and ethical viewpoint; and
- The courses were selected in consultation with an advisory board comprised of criminal justice administrators and practitioners.
- Upper-level courses may be completed in one year (3 semesters).
- Courses are offered two nights per week or all day on Saturdays.
- The courses are offered in a traditional classroom and online enhanced format.
- The degree consists of six modules, each lasting 8 weeks
- Academic credit is granted for law enforcement and corrections minimum standards certification.
Please see our Department of Criminal Justice page for more details. | <urn:uuid:ceea9b1b-8733-4735-b7fd-9e3cb5b92bb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://[email protected]/admissions/montgomery/oneyear/bcj/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947464 | 325 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Low-graphic news index |
Sunday, February 3, 2013 - Page updated at 05:30 a.m.
New Yorkers sound off as ‘Don’t Honk’ signs come down
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
The New York Times
NEW YORK — Cabbies do it from the back of a taxi line at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, coaxing their colleagues to move up a spot. Commuters do it at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel, flabbergasted that others in a city of 8 million might share their route.
And should a fellow driver commit the cardinal sin of hesitating at a light just turned green, anyone — from brain surgeons to criminals to the kindliest of grandmothers — can be expected to smack a palm against the steering wheel.
“Those people,” former Mayor Ed Koch said last month, “are the worst.”
It is the signature act of the New York City road, and in the grand tradition of jaywalking, it happens to be illegal; everyone does it, but barely anyone is punished.
Now, it appears, the city has effectively thrown up its hands — or, more accurately, taken down its signs.
In a move condemned by critics as a tacit surrender to a ubiquitous noise, the Transportation Department has begun removing all “Don’t Honk” signs from the streets, and predicts there will be none left by the end of the year.
City officials said the move was part of an effort to declutter the streets of often-ignored signs. Nonetheless, the decision has ignited a voluble opposition among noise-conscious New Yorkers, particularly in high-traffic residential areas such as the Upper East and Upper West Sides.
“I can’t tell you how many requests I get for ‘no honking’ signs,” said Gale A. Brewer, a councilwoman in Manhattan who wrote a letter to the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, arguing against the change.
An ill-advised honk remains illegal, carrying a fine of $350. Few are actually fined; last year, the Police Department issued 206 summonses for “unnecessary use of horn.”
Koch, whose administration introduced the “Don’t Honk” signs in the 1980s, said in January he believed “there’s far less honking today than there was” then, and he credited the signs for playing “a role in making that happen.” (Koch, 88, died Friday of heart trouble.)
But interviews with officials, residents and cabbies suggest that it is virtually impossible to tell whether honking has decreased in New York City, or to gauge how effective the signs have been. Many said they believed honking had been curbed somewhat, but wondered if they had simply stopped noticing it.
“Blowing the horn is a fact of life, part of the fabric and culture of the city,” said Robert Sinclair Jr., a spokesman for AAA New York.
The Transportation Department noted that since 2008, complaints to 311 about honking have declined 63 percent, to 1,796 in 2012 — suggesting that either honking has waned or tolerance of the noise has risen.
Some residents worry that removing the signs, even if they are typically ignored, amounted to an admission of defeat.
Arline Bronzaft, a noise expert, assisted in updating the city’s noise code in 2007. She said, “If people ignore it anyhow, it means they haven’t enforced it. That’s what it really speaks to: their failure.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently acknowledged that the city did not enforce traffic laws as well as it should.
Beside a taxi stand in front of Madison Square Garden one recent day, the omnipresence of the honk was clear. In the span of one green light at West 33rd Street, beginning at 3:38 p.m. and ending at 3:39 p.m., 28 honks were audible, including eight from the same white truck toiling behind a bus.
And yet, the noises seemed to fade into the background, overwhelmed by the beep of a pedestrian signal, the whistles of a man trying to hail a cab, a steel drum performance rising through a grate from a subway station and a spirited conversation between two rival sidewalk newspaper vendors.
Sandra Deifel, 27, who traveled in January with her husband, Frank, from Cologne, Germany, on her first trip to New York, said she had already grown accustomed to the honking. It took all of four days.
“You get used to it,” she said. “Now I can’t recognize it anymore.”
Low-graphic news index
Graphic-enabled home page | <urn:uuid:404507e3-d293-4645-8197-b6b90a5fb455> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seattletimes.com/text/2020268865.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961281 | 1,026 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Obama Lead Shrinks in Virginia, New Poll Shows
Quinnipiac University poll shows presidential race in a dead heat at 44-44 percent in battleground state.
Virginia's status as a battleground state seems to have solidified, after results of a new poll were released Thursday, showing the presidential race between President Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at a dead heat of 44-44 percent.
The new poll, by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT, shows Obama's lead in the state shrinking, according to previous polls by the university, which showed Obama leading by 47 to 42 percent in June and 50 to 42 percent in March.
"Virginia voters are sharply split along gender and political lines about the presidential race. The two candidates equally hold their own political bases and are splitting the key independent vote down the middle," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a release.
The poll shows that women favor Obama (46 to 41 percent) and men favor Romney (46 to 42 percent).
Obama campaigned in Virginia last weekend, including a stop in Fairfax County.
From July 10 - 16, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,673 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones. | <urn:uuid:e827acf1-b9dc-4dc0-9273-838b624d1027> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://woodbridge-va.patch.com/articles/obama-lead-shrinks-in-virginia-new-poll-shows-fe5017d8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957016 | 272 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Canadian Library Association Webinar on Proving Value
"Information professionals’ intercollegial story telling often involves variations of 'SharePoint is perceived to be the solution to every information related challenge' or 'everyone is expected to be a highly skilled researcher as a result of having any graduate degree'. It is increasingly challenging to demonstrate to employers and clients that we truly are worth our pay … but some techniques are worth considering. Ulla speaks to strategies info pros can use to create awareness - where it counts - about the value they add to the organizations where they work. "The speaker is Ulla de Stricker. The cost is $25 to CLA members, and $35 to members of other associations (AIIM, ARMA, CALL, CHLA, provincial library associations, SLA, etc.).
Earlier Library Boy posts on how to prove the value of your library services include:
- Blog Series on How to Increase Your Value in Your Workplace (March 4, 2010): "The SLA Blog has started a series called 'Alignment Steps' that contains advice on how librarians and information professionals can prove and increase their value in their workplace."
- Law Librarians Can Prove Their Value Through Training (March 10, 2010): "(...) the January/February 2010 Law Librarians newsletter put out by legal publisher Westlaw has published an article entitled 'Law Firm Economics and the Librarian—Bring Value Through Training'. The lessons can apply beyond the context of private law firm libraries (...)"
- Proving the Value of the Special Library (April 8, 2010): "On his Stephen's Lighthouse blog, Stephen Abram has written a post about the 'Value of Special Libraries' (...) The post describes various studies that demonstrate the impact of information specialists and special libraries that include entities such as government, courthouse, law firm, medical, scientific libraries."
- Best Practices to Demonstrate the Value of Your Law Library (April 10, 2010): "Deborah Copeman from the library of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society and I have put together a document on best practices to demonstrate the value of the law library. It is based on contributions from members of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) who responded to a survey we sent out earlier this year ( ...)"
- Research Library Special Issue on Proving Value in Libraries (September 25, 2010): "Research Library Issues, a publication of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), recently published a Special Issue on Value in Libraries: Assessing Organizational Performance (...) ARL has built a program of assessment over the past 20 years and continuously looks for ways to strengthen this capacity for member libraries. This issue of RLI highlights ways in which assessment tools have helped libraries improve their services and programs. These improvements are the result of library leadership and their staff using data to make decisions that would have the most impact. This issue also captures some of the newer initiatives focused on demonstrating the value of library services."
- Resources to Prove the Value of Your Library Services (October 14, 2010): "The UK organization Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) has put together resources that demonstrate the value and impact of special library and information services such as law, health and government libraries." | <urn:uuid:eab869c8-64c4-4caa-878f-02e448212fc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2012/11/canadian-library-association-webinar-on.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940098 | 667 | 1.53125 | 2 |
"What they have is a giant hammer. They could hurt North Korea by shutting down all economic relations and trade but that would likely generate a large number of refugees, something the Chinese aren't interested in."
The U.N. has already passed two resolutions aimed at preventing North Korea from launching ballistic missile technology and suspending all activities related to its missile program.
North Korea claims the rocket tests will enable it to launch a satellite but many nations consider the launches a cover for testing ballistic missiles.
The U.S. tried to tighten sanctions against North Korea in the wake of April's failed launch by targeting banks, businesses and government entities that are violating the resolutions, but China vetoed all but three of the 40 entities the U.S. had suggested should be added to the sanction list.
The other forum for engaging Pyongyang are the "six-party talks" between South Korea, Japan, China, the U.S. and Russia. Plans to resume the talks after Kim Jong Un took power in December, following the death of his father, were scuppered after North Korea's failed missile launch in April. | <urn:uuid:6f5dd3d8-814c-41b2-bf25-cda898d152ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news4jax.com/news/China-reaction-key-as-neighbors-decry-launch/-/475880/17744072/-/item/1/-/139wl7n/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973365 | 225 | 1.796875 | 2 |
By Brakhage: An Anthology [DVD]
MPAA Rating : NR
Over more than half a century, filmmaker Stan Brakhage made some 320 films, which ranged in length from 9 seconds to more than 4 hours. A unique and personal innovator and visionary, he ranks alongside such experimental masters as Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clark, Maya Deren, and Michael Snow as one of the truly pivotal figures in avant-garde cinema, someone who saw possibilities in the medium that others didn’t—or couldn’t.
The breadth and depth of his body of work is nothing less than astounding, and although each of his films is unique and he explored multiple avenues of filmic representation, the one thing all his films had in common was an intense focus on the visual. Brakhage was a filmmaker who, more than anything else, wanted to make the viewer see the ordinary in extraordinary terms. It is not surprising, then, that the subject matter of most of his films hails from the everyday world of living—life, death, birth, sex, nature. But, through his keen eye and unbridled creativity, these subjects are made surreal, larger than life, expansive; he is an artist who can make the entire universe appear in a single image of a leaf.
For most, Dog Star Man, his five-part mythopoetic epic shot over four years from 1961 to 1964, is his masterpiece, the film that more than any defines his artistic relevance (it was included in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 1992, the fourth year of the Registry’s existence). A stunning, mind-bending collage of superimpositions that tells a seemingly simple story about family and survival, Dog Star Man is truly a revelatory film worth viewing multiple times.
Those who appreciate the artistry of experimentation often cite the films in which he directly manipulated the film stock itself, sometimes scratching away the emulsion, other times painting directly onto the celluloid as a way of connecting multiple media into one form of representation. The 9-second Eye Myth (1972) is a startling use of paint to suggest both entrapment and freedom, while The Wold Shadow (1972) turns an ordinary image of a forest into a startling evocation of the mysteries of nature. In several of his films, Brakhage broke down one of the fundamental aspects of cinema by refusing to use a camera. Rather, he taped physical objects directly onto strips of celluloid and printed them, creating a literal collage of nature in films like Mothlight (1963) and The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981). Both of these films dance across the screen, turning leaves and moth wings into rapid-fire abstractions that delight as much as they intrigue.
Another of his most important films is Window Water Baby Moving (1959), which is a document of the home birth of his first child. Like many artists, Brakhage drew a great deal from his own life, particularly his family and their living conditions in Colorado. In this important film, he bears witness to the act of childbirth, breaking up the temporality by juxtaposing close-up shots of the birth itself with shots of his pregnant wife in a bathtub, thus suggesting the circularity of life and how the moment of birth is just that—but one moment among millions. This was a groundbreaking film because, at the time, fathers were not encouraged to be present during the birthing process, and by committing the event to film, Brakhage helped break down gender barriers and involve both parents in the miracle of life.
However, for me, the crucial film in Brakhage’s career is also his least experimental: The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes (1971). Shot in a Pittsburgh morgue, it consists entirely of footage of autopsies being performed. Unlike most of Brakhage’s other films, there are no metaphorical superimpositions, manipulation of the film stock, or montage editing. Rather, Brakhage allows the power of the subject matter—the investigation of the human body devoid of life—to literally speak for itself through the images. As Brakhage has noted, the word autopsy derives from a Latin word meaning “the act of seeing with one’s own eyes,” which underlines the connection between the exploration of the body and cinema itself.
The film begins with footage of the pre-autopsy routine, which involves no cutting. Even at this point, though, Brakhage’s camera lurks behind the men in white coats performing the work, as if it is afraid to get too close. As the film progresses, the camera moves in closer and closer, registering the fine details of the gory work of the morticians as they cut into the bodies and search for the clues of death. Brakhage constructs the film almost entirely of close-ups, so the raw meat of the exposed innards becomes an alien landscape, often cut off from the context of its surrounding environment. In a strange way, The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes is disturbingly beautiful; once the discomfort of seeing this usually veiled act unfold before your eyes wears off, the wonder and mystery of what lies beneath our skin takes hold and forces us to continue watching. Thus, it creates a crucial metaphorical connection to Brakhage’s body of work, which always seeks intently to expose what has been hidden, to put it before us so we can see it “with our own eyes.”
|By Brakhage: An Anthology Criterion Collection Two-Disc DVD Set|
|Distributor||The Criterion Collection / Home Vision|
|Release Date||June 10, 2003|
| 1.33:1 (Academy Aspect Ratio)|
Until now, Stan Brakhage’s films have been almost impossible to see outside of museum and university screenings, so it is a real treasure that 26 of his most important works have been released by Criterion on DVD. A real labor of love, this DVD features transfers that were made from newly struck interpositives and fine-grain masters made specifically for that purpose. In addition, the transfers were supervised by film scholar Fred Camper at Stan Brakhage’s request, so you can be sure that the images on this disc are the closest possible representation of what the films should look like. Because most of his films were shot on 16mm, they have a slightly rough look and fine film grain is often apparent. The prints used for the transfers were all in extremely good condition, with only minor wear and tear, and the fact that they look as good as they do is surprising since the liner notes inform us that no digital restoration tools were used.
| English Dolby Digital 1.0 Monaural |
Most of Stan Brakhage’s films are silent; in fact, he notes in his commentary that he feels that sound distracts from the power of the image. There are five sound films in this collection, all of which are presented in fairly clean original monaural transferred from 16mm optical soundtracks.
| “Brakhage on Brakhage” video interviews |
There are four separate video interview segments on this two-disc collection, each of which runs in the neighborhood of 10 minutes. The footage was all shot by British filmmaker Colin Still in 1996, and in them Brakhage discusses various aspects of his work. There is also interspersed footage of Brakhage at work making his films, sometimes shooting and sometimes painting on the celluloid. Presented in 1.33:1.
Audio commentary by Stan Brakhage
20-page insert booklet
© 2003 James Kendrick | <urn:uuid:2445e76e-927c-4a96-88f7-7ebddaf70d4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nigeriasun.com/index.php/nav/mreview/2080 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964026 | 1,602 | 1.828125 | 2 |
As President Obama's second term gets underway, The American Prospect asked experts and activists look back and weigh in on who Obama should have chosen to serve, if partisan politics (and reality) were no object. Please find below Shadi Hamid's contribution, which discusses Obama's optimal choice for Secretary of State.
Secretary of State
John Kerry would be a safe bet and a solid Secretary of State. But I’m not sure if a safe, solid Secretary of State—or a solid Secretary of Defense—is precisely what America needs now. That Kerry turned against the Iraq war and revised his views on the use of force is a credit to him. President Obama has clearly decided that he wishes to pursue a prudent, status quo-oriented foreign policy. But as the Middle East threatens to implode and with America’s moral leadership increasingly in doubt, a better choice would be someone at least slightly outside the Washington consensus—someone who saw foreign policy as a way to fashion new opportunities rather than manage the same set of threats. Though the Obama administration may not agree, the Arab Spring is on par with the transformative world events of 1848, 1945, and 1989. In an ideal world, Obama would appoint someone who gets the Arab revolutions and understands the opportunities they provide for bold, creative U.S. policymaking.
To be sure, there are few candidates of stature who fit that bill. Two exceptions are Samantha Power and Michael McFaul. Power came from a human rights background and, as Director for Multilateral Affairs on Obama’s National Security Council, has been a key administration voice for a more ideals-based foreign policy (especially during the debate over intervention in Libya). McFaul was also a senior NSC director and is now U.S. Ambassador to Russia (full disclosure: I briefly worked with McFaul when I was a fellow at the center he directed at Stanford University). Before joining the administration, he established himself as one of the leading American scholars not only on Russian politics but also on democratic transitions, an issue that is front and center not only in the Arab world, but also in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Eastern Europe. There is also something to be said for having an academic in the position, which can mean (but certainly doesn’t always) that the person in question has a broader, longer-term view of economic and political dynamics and the role they play in international politics.
Read the full list of recommendations by a range experts and activists on The American Prospect » | <urn:uuid:92f0efbb-70ea-45d7-8fe9-fbc956164472> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/01/21-obama-cabinet-hamid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96899 | 511 | 1.515625 | 2 |
What better way to say I Love You than with a fresh stinging nettle soup, right? I thought so too. My husband had a cold and was a touch off his game, so this past Valentine’s day I decided to harvest the first crop of spring nettles, spinach and kale and make him a steaming bowl of Cream Of Green Soup.
It sounds scary, but when tender young spring nettle leaves (Urtica dioica) are cooked, their stingy-ness [aka formic acid] is removed, and their flavor and texture is akin to spinach with an added touch of richness. Nettle leaves are jam packed with nutrient goodness and are a surprisingly not scary addition to soups, stews, pasta sauces and casseroles. One of my most memorable herb classes was an early spring nettle harvest. After we came back from the woods, muddy and tired with baskets full of stinging nettles, our teacher sauteed them lightly in a little garlic and butter. All of us warily nibbled at them, concerned about the well being of our tongues, then tasted and chowed down.
While I realize that nettles don’t necessarily flourish in everyone’s front yard, if you can get your (gloved) hands on some, this soup is worth it. To harvest the nettles sustainably, I essentially prune the top 2-3 sets of leaves from the plants, pinching them back and encouraging them to branch out and continue to grow for later harvest. Rinse and lay about 4 cups of the beautiful bounty out on a clean kitchen towel to drip dry.
This concoction of brilliance also has fresh spinach and kale, which both have nutrients in common with nettles. Their dark green leafiness packs enormous amounts of vitamin A, C, K and D as well as B vitamins, folate, manganese, calcium and protein, and make them logical roommates in the pot. Of course any leafy green vegetable or vegetable like broccoli makes a welcome addition to this blended elixir and I usually toss in whatever is available or in season.
CREAM OF GREEN SOUP
1 TBSP of olive oil
1 sweet onion diced
1 clove garlic minced
1 ½ boxes of organic vegetable broth
1 tsp. salt
Pinch of pepper
¼- ½ tsp. cayenne pepper to taste
1 ½ or 2 large organic potato coarsely diced, depending on how thick you want the soup to be
2 cups fresh kale leaves
2/3 cups grated organic carrot
1 cup chopped fresh broccoli
4 cups packed fresh kale & nettle leaves
6 cups fresh spinach leaves
1 cup fresh chickweed or other leafy green as available
Sauté the onion and garlic in an iron skillet or soup pot until transparent. Add vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Add diced potato, kale, broccoli and carrots and simmer until the potato is softened enough to be easily pierced easily with a fork. Don your shiny yellow rubber gloves and add the nettle leaves or vegetables of your choice. Cover and bring to a boil for 3-4 minutes or until the greens have wilted.
Remove the pot from the heat and let it rest/cool for about 5 minutes, then blend with a stick blender to the desired consistency. The starch from the potatoes will thicken this soup and give it a smooth, creamy texture. Get creative with the garnish – I like it with a dollop of sour cream, a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan cheese on the top.
Oh sure, the barbs of Cupid’s arrow usually yield some kind of chocolaty goodness on Valentine’s Day. But this year when I served stinging nettle soup to my sweetie, he sighed and said “Ah, this is going to make me feel better.” | <urn:uuid:ec75fdce-2180-4edf-9af8-fec47393ebe6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.earthmamaangelbaby.com/fun-with-herbs/cream-of-green-soup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936297 | 804 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Is It a Good Idea to Axe Tax Breaks for Parents?
If Congress can't reach an agreement, a number of tax breaks for parents could be on the chopping block.
CNN Money reports that four tax breaks for low-income parents could cease to exist soon. That means thousands of dollars that used to go back into your pocket after filing taxes, won't.
For the Earned Income Credit, "low-income" is defined as a married couple with three kids making a little over $50,000 a year.
If Congress fails to extend tax cuts before the end of the year, the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Credit, Child and Dependent Care Credit and American Opportunity Credit would be reduced or chopped, according to CNN Money.
This isn't a done deal, but a definite possibility.
What do you think about those tax breaks potentially ending? We have a significant amount of national debt -- should we try to plug the hole with more tax money, or should it come out of other programs?
And the big question: Should this come out of the pockets of low-income taxpayers, or would it make more sense to tax those with high incomes? A few thousand dollars is a few thousand dollars, but it means something different to someone who makes $50,000 vs. $250,000.
On the other hand, could the current tax credits be seen as money taken from the rich and simply handed over to the poor/low-income? | <urn:uuid:e466458a-4be2-467f-adbe-9d06698a1142> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://loganville.patch.com/articles/tax-breaks-for-parents-on-the-chopping-block-will-it-affect-you | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967698 | 302 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The effect of three different levels of footwear stability on pain outcomes in women runners: a randomised control trial
- 1Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
- 2Nike Sports Research Laboratory, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
- Correspondence to Dr Michael B Ryan, Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre, 3055 Wesbrook Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z3, Canada;
- Accepted 10 May 2010
- Published Online First 27 June 2010
Background The present study examines the injury status in women runners who are randomised to receive a neutral, stability or motion control running shoe.
Methods 81 female runners were categorised into three different foot posture types (39 neutral, 30 pronated, 12 highly pronated) and randomly assigned a neutral, stability or motion control running shoe. Runners underwent baseline testing to record training history, as well as leg alignment, before commencing a 13-week half marathon training programme. Outcome measures included number of missed training days due to pain and three visual analogue scale (VAS) items for pain during rest, activities of daily living and with running.
Results 194 missed training days were reported by 32% of the running population with the stability shoe reporting the fewest missed days (51) and the motion control shoe (79) the most. There was a significant main effect (p<0.001) for footwear condition in both the neutral and pronated foot types: the motion control shoe reporting greater levels of pain in all three VAS items. In neutral feet, the neutral shoe reported greater values of pain while running than the stability shoe; in pronated feet, the stability shoe reported greater values of pain while running than the neutral shoe. No significant effects were reported for the highly pronated foot, although this was limited by an inadequate sample size.
Conclusion The findings of this study suggest that our current approach of prescribing in-shoe pronation control systems on the basis of foot type is overly simplistic and potentially injurious.
Funding Nike Global, One Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, Oregon, USA.
Competing interests A research partnership grant from Nike Global was awarded to MBR, JET and KM to conduct this investigation. GAV is employed at Nike Global
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval Ethics approval was provided by the Clinical Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed. | <urn:uuid:b2b555a2-3541-4888-9e36-d319774d7a46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2010/06/26/bjsm.2009.069849.abstract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939026 | 511 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Kalydeco to be available via the NHS to all G551D Cystic Fibrosis sufferers in the UK
Responsible department: Department of Health
We are a Patients Interest Group for those sufferers of Cystic Fibrosis with the G551D mutation and want the government to approve the funding of Kalydeco to all those with G551D in the UK via the NHS.
“ Kalydeco offers an innovative therapeutic approach for patients with cystic fibrosis: it is the first treatment that targets the underlying mechanism of the disease, by restoring the function of the mutated CFTR protein. Currently available therapies for patients with cystic fibrosis only address the consequences of the disease, not the underlying defect. Clinical studies showed that Kalydeco improved pulmonary function in cystic fibrosis patients with the specific G551D-CFTR mutation.”
This paragraph is taken directly from the EMA Press release of 25th May2012.
Kalydeco has been approved and prescribed in the USA since February of this year and has been found to have outstanding results in preventing further lung damage in those with the G551D mutation.
Not received your confirmation email? | <urn:uuid:59643192-6e41-4031-a4e4-64f2d19e03e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/34753 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944416 | 245 | 1.5625 | 2 |
U.S. officials and Boeing Co. are investigating whether defective batteries from the same batch caused incidents in two 787 Dreamliners that triggered the plane’s worldwide grounding, according to two people familiar with the incidents.
If that proves to be true, it could show that a flaw causing the incidents was confined to a small number of 787s rather than a systemic fault with the plane’s engineering, design or manufacturing, and could speed the resumption of flights on the jet. The people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly, said the information is preliminary and that investigators haven’t yet ruled out other causes.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which certified the plane in 2011, ordered flights on the 787 halted until airlines can show that the plane’s lithium-ion batteries “are safe and in compliance,” according to an agency statement this week. It didn’t say how the carriers should accomplish that.
The FAA’s move, its first in 34 years to ground an entire type of plane, set off a race to find and fix whatever caused the battery-fault warning on a 787 operated by All Nippon Airways Co. and a fire on a Japan Airlines Co. jet. The two Japanese airlines have parked their two dozen 787s, almost half the global fleet, after the battery warning forced pilots of an ANA domestic flight to make an emergency landing.
“Nobody knows what the fix is because they don’t know what the problem is,” John J. Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said in an interview. Accident investigative agencies in the United States. and Japan, as well as the FAA, have not yet said what started the fires.
The batteries were made by Kyoto, Japan-based GS Yuasa Corp., which has said the Dreamliner’s faults may go beyond the batteries.
Marc R. Birtel, a spokesman for Chicago-based Boeing, said he couldn’t comment on anything related to the investigation. Peter Quinlan, a spokesman for GS Battery, a unit of GS Yuasa in Roswell, Ga., declined to comment. He referred questions to Thales SA, manufacturer of the Dreamliner’s electrical power-conversion system, which includes the batteries.
Giaime Porcu, a spokesman for the company’s Civil Aerospace Division, declined to comment. Thales is based in Neuilly, France.
A flaw in a battery, such as a manufacturing defect that allowed the flammable liquid inside to leak, might trigger a fire in one battery cell that would then ignite other cells within the pack, according to tests on generic batteries conducted by the FAA.
“Anything that involves the potential for fire onboard an aircraft, you’ve got to get to the bottom of and figure out what the corrective action is, and they will,” said former FAA head Marion C. Blakey, now president of the Arlington, Va.-based Aerospace Industries Association.
“It makes all the sense in the world to address something early, figure it out and go forward,” she said. “I think all of the customers are going to be pleased that happened, even though it’s inconvenient.”
While this week’s U.S. order affects only six planes, all flown by United Continental Holdings, it led to a worldwide grounding of the 787 as the FAA’s counterparts in Japan, India and Chile ordered Dreamliners in their countries out of service.
LOT Polish Airlines SA, Ethiopian Airlines Enterprise and Qatar Airways Ltd. also said they would suspend service of 787s. LOT’s 787 was left stranded in Chicago after its maiden trans-Atlantic flight. The European Aviation Safety Agency said that it adopted the FAA directive.
The FAA last ordered an entire type of plane grounded in 1979, when it revoked certification of the Douglas DC-10 after inspections found wing damage similar to what led to a crash in Chicago that killed 271 people. The order was lifted a month later.
“We’ve become so safe in commercial aviation that the public expects perfection,” John W. McGraw, a retired FAA official who served in the agency’s safety and certification offices, said in an interview. “Because of that, the perception of a safety risk becomes even a bigger factor with a malfunction like this.”
Before Wednesday’s ANA incident, the U.S. safety board was investigating a Jan. 7 fire in Boston aboard a Japan Airlines plane that had just arrived from Tokyo. A lithium-ion battery pack in the belly of the jet ignited, and it took airport firefighters 40 minutes to extinguish the fire, according to an NTSB news release.
The battery warning aboard the ANA 787 was on a different pack located beneath the nose of the plane.
“The battery failures resulted in release of flammable electrolytes, heat damage, and smoke on two Model 787 airplanes,” the FAA said in a statement.
“These conditions, if not corrected, could result in damage to critical systems and structures, and the potential for fire in the electrical compartment.”
Lithium-ion cells are more flammable than other battery technology because they hold more energy, which can create sparks and high heat if not properly discharged. The chemicals inside the battery are also flammable and, when ignited, are difficult to extinguish because they contain their own source of oxygen, Mike Sinnett, the 787 project engineer, said last week.
Boeing chose lithium-ion batteries for the 787 because they hold more energy and can be quickly recharged, Sinnett said.
In a worst-case scenario in which the batteries do burn, they are designed to do so in a way that doesn’t threaten the aircraft, Sinnett said.
If the plane is airborne, smoke is supposed to be vented out of the compartment so that it doesn’t reach the cabin, Sinnett said, and all of the battery cells can ignite without harming the jet’s ability to stay aloft. | <urn:uuid:9dac2612-a13c-476f-9cb7-0b2a0b82b7fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130118/BUSINESS/130119182/1032 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948291 | 1,291 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Department of Pediatrics
Medical Student Training Clerkships
Pediatrics 1 is a required five week clerkship taken during the third year of medical training. Pediatrics 1 focuses on inpatient pediatrics. Students will spend time in large and busy pediatric inpatient units at Doernbecher Children's Hospital at OHSU, Legacy Emanuel Hospital, Providence St. Vincent's, or Riverbend in Eugene. Students can decide which hospital site they prefer. For students rotating at Doernbecher, there are opportunities to explore pediatric subspecialites for a few weeks during the rotation. While the experiences at the three sites may be different, the pediatrics department has taken great care to ensure that the educational experiences are equivalent and valuable regardless of site choice. Click here for the combined goals and objectives for Pediatrics 1 & 2.
Pediatrics 2 is a required four week clerkship taken during the fourth year of medical training. Pediatrics 2 offers two tracks: an opportunity to explore a pediatrics specialty or work in a general pediatric clinic. Specialty experiences are numerous and varied. General pediatrics clinics include OHSU Doernbecher facilities on Marquam Hill or in Beaverton. Many community pediatricians have graciously welcomed students into their practices to provide even more for educational opportunities for OHSU students. Every effort is made to match students with their preferred site. With department approval, students may also create unique specialty or general pediatrics experiences by developing their own rotations with community or OHSU pediatricians. The flexibility of this clerkship allows students to follow their own interests while completing their pediatrics training. Click here for the combined goals and objectives for Pediatrics 1 & 2.
The Department of Pediatrics offers numerous elective rotations for both OHSU and visiting students. Sub-internship requirements can be fulfilled with rotations on the pediatric inpatient unit, neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric intensive care unit, or on the pediatric hematology-oncology unit. The department also offers numerous other elective courses. With faculty approval, students may design their own electives.
The Department of Pediatrics is one of the busiest OHSU departments in terms of visiting students. The department is committed to providing educationally valuable experiences to as many visiting students as possible. The department encourages students to explore all OHSU has to offer, both in terms of medical student education and residency opportunities. | <urn:uuid:0328fd62-b45c-4d97-a7c4-383af5efd441> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/health/services/doernbecher/research-education/education/med-education/index.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952809 | 485 | 1.523438 | 2 |
“I mean that there is no way to disarm any man,” said Dr. Ferris, “except through guilt. Through that which he himself has accepted as guilt…If there’s not enough guilt in the world, we must create it. If we teach a man that it’s evil to look at spring flowers and he believes us and then does it—we’ll be able to do whatever we please with him. He won’t defend himself.” –Atlas Shrugged, pg. 548
What would a group of students attending a pricey private college in Florida do about the deficit? For one thing the editor said they would not be “selfish.” For another, they’d be glad to levy new taxes, even though the taxes “would affect them disproportionately.”
The students' new taxes would include a carbon tax, higher gas taxes and a new 5 percent sales tax even if the latter “could drive the cost of a Big Mac sky-high.”
AARP Bulletin editor Jim Toedtman met these fiscal wonder kids during one of his spring “teaching and listening” excursions at Flagler College in St. Augustine. Toedtman was so inspired he penned an editorial about the young progressives in the May issue of the Bulletin.
Toedtman noted the bipartisan failures in Washington, claiming they “all but shut down the federal government” and “left the annual budget process in a shambles.”
That shambles, it must be pointed out, came about as a direct result of Democrats in Congress—they simply couldn’t find time to prepare a budget although they did make time to set world records for spending US tax dollars.
Toedtman said he challenged his political science and communications students to “rein in federal spending…” Students came up with their ideas to cut spending and apparently to raise revenue. The editor gave the impression their ideas are novel when in fact they’re the same ideas that have led us to where we are today.
For instance, the college kids didn’t want to cut education although the federal bureaucracy we call the Dept. of Education is probably the most worthless agency in the history of the country. You could cut the budget by half, block up the rest into direct-to-states grants and we would never even know the department was gone.
Aside from that, Toedtman said his kids “made sizable defense cuts, others closed tax loopholes and added or raised taxes, including higher gasoline taxes and a new 5 percent sales tax…”
In other words, most of those students will probably grow up to be tax and spend Democrats.
That may be new to Toedtman, but it’s old news to the rest of us. The editor quoted one student who said, “In such depressing economic times, we must all make sacrifices and share in the responsibility.”
As for the proposed taxes affecting the students “disproportionately,” that’s a hard one for me to swallow. How many of those college kids paid income taxes last year, I wonder?
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Mary 9, 2011)
Related Articles at The US Report
Clamoring for ‘fair share’ points to tax system in need of reform
Please use the PayPal donation link in the top right column to help keep The US Report online. Donations are used to pay contributors, fund research and help pay hosting fees. TUSR appreciates your support! | <urn:uuid:7c2ebf18-60c1-4b4b-81de-bcb4c2b2a1b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theusreport.com/the-us-report/2011/5/9/aarp-editors-dream-kids-are-not-selfish-but-eager-to-tax.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963005 | 756 | 1.78125 | 2 |
CHARTRES (AFP).- An 18th century table screen likely from the heart of Imperial China sold for more than one million euros ($1.3 million) in a French auction house, an official said Monday.
The decorative wooden item, measuring 26 cm (10.2 inches) high by 18 cm (7 inches) long, features a white jade disc at its centre, said Pascal Maiche from the auction house in Chartes, near Paris.
A Taiwanese couple, who decided to fly to France for the auction, won the piece Sunday by paying a total of 1.2 million euros with fees.
Also used for meditation, the table screen has "a poem by Emperor Qianlong on the back," and its probable origin from the heart of Imperial China makes it extremely rare, Maiche said.
Originally valued between 50-80,000 euros ($64-100,000), the seller decided to part with the piece because he was moving. He "thought it could be worth something" because it had been in his family since 1860, the auctioneer said.
© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse | <urn:uuid:d8e8463e-da24-419a-899e-182285027b8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=58637&int_modo=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963493 | 231 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Photographer: Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By KEVIN McGILL / Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Energy companies have reoccupied nearly 400 of the production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico that were abandoned in advance of Hurricane Isaac, though oil production remains almost entirely shut down.
Oil and gas workers began retaking the offshore sites Friday and federal officials on Saturday say that 377 of the 596 productions platforms have some staffing on them, up from just 97.
Yet officials estimate that 94 percent of oil production and about 65 percent of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico remains shut in in the aftermath of the hurricane.
The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement say 19 of the Gulf's 76 drilling rigs are still evacuated, down from 48 as the storm approached. | <urn:uuid:2a7aabb5-24b7-4a46-9085-16db94985193> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=232842 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952858 | 170 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Portugal's appearance in tonight's final will certainly herald the end of one era, but probably also the start of another. While members of the 'golden generation' such as Luís Figo, Rui Costa and Fernando Couto bring the curtain down on their illustrious careers, hoping to add a senior European title to that of world junior champions, the younger players can look forward to being part of a new force in European football.
'Change in mentality'
Jorge Baptista is one of the country's best-known TV summarisers, and a long-time friend of UEFA through his work as a media officer at club and international competitions. Baptista is in no doubt that a significant corner has been turned in Portuguese football: "Regardless of the result of Sunday's match, we have achieved what I think is the most important thing, which is a change in mentality," he told uefa.com.
Balance is right
"In my opinion we are fortunate in having excellent players, but [José] Mourinho at [FC] Porto and [Luiz Felipe] Scolari with the national team have been very important in bringing the self-confidence and the right mentality to play the game. In 1989 and 1991 our youth teams won the world championships, but without pressure; now they know how to deal with the pressure. Everyone knows the Latin mentality, but finally we have achieved the right balance and the talent has done the rest."
Anyone who has been in Portugal for these championships cannot fail to have been impressed by the scale of the celebrations that have followed every Portuguese victory. "It's an important moment for the Portuguese people, because the confidence was not so good before the tournament," Baptista explained. "That's why we see so many people partying, and that's why the whole country stops when the Portuguese players are on the pitch.
'Proud to be Portuguese'
"For the first time that I remember the whole nation is together – I've never seen so many flags and people wearing the national colours. Some years ago everyone was saying this was kitsch, but now everyone is wearing the colours because they are proud to be Portuguese. It's been really important for our self-esteem because it was very low, and I know the players are all aware of that too."
Going forward, Baptista is hopeful of a knock-on effect for domestic football. "Of course they are playing at home, with the support of the people, but they earned this support," he said. "With this involvement of the people with the national team, the next season could be much better with people coming to the new stadiums to watch the matches. Also the players now know they can construct a very good career in Portugal.
"I think with the national team now we can move Portuguese football forward. Maybe we can realise that with a good structure and with everybody pushing from the same side, we can go further and further. We can't expect titles every year, but at least we can be there, we can fight for them. We have been knocked out of many tournaments because of our mentality, but now we have some excellent examples of how it is possible to change, that it’s possible to achieve important things.
"There are many countries that would like to have our talent, with their own organisation, and it's very important to finally understand that we can be among the best teams in Europe. Portuguese people like to play football, they are skilful, and if they have an open mind to guide them, like the Brazilians for example, they can achieve things. The Portuguese like to play so much that to score a goal sometimes is a problem, because they like to keep the ball! But if someone is there to tell them there is a goal, they will enjoy it even more."
©UEFA.com 1998-2013. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:6a9b3576-e0c7-40c8-ba3e-ea41c99578d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/news/newsid=205102.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977118 | 796 | 1.507813 | 2 |
|7.||Frances Gordon TURNER was born 19 AUG 1831 in Stoke, near Guildford, Surrey, England, was christened 19 AUG 1831 in Stoke, near Guildford, Surrey, England, and died 24 NOV 1870 in Calcutta, India.
She was buried 24 NOV 1870 in Calcutta, India (Military Burial Ground of Fort William). She was the daughter of 14. John Edward TURNER and 15. Dannetta Frances PAYNE.|
Children of Frances Gordon TURNER and Albert Marc VERCHÈRE are:
| || i.||Frances Aline Dannetta VERCHÈRE was born 3 FEB 1862 in Peshamur, India, now Pakistan, was christened 23 MAR 1862 in Peshamur,, and died 30 MAY 1862 in Abbottabad, now in Pakistan.|
|3.|| ii.||Alberta Frances Gordon VERCHÈRE was born 23 MAY 1863 in Serinagur India, and died 19 AUG 1948 in Santa Cruz County, California. She married John Wesley KEYES in Likely in Ontario between 1883 -1890.
He died ABT JAN 1920 in Buena Vista, CA. Died "when grandson Bob was 7-8 years old".
| || iii.||Dannetta Antoinette VERCHÈRE was born 2 APR 1864 in Bunnoo, Punjab. Current map says Bannu in Pakistan., and died 21 JUN 1957 in San Diego, California. She married George F. HARGITT ABT 1885, son of Charles HARGITT Sr. and Mary BAGLEY.
He was born 11 NOV 1837 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and died 5 SEP 1926 in San Diego, California.
| || iv.||Arthur Gaillaird VERCHÈRE was born 18 AUG 1867 in Jullundur, Punjab, India, and died 14 JAN 1932 in Ladysmith, BC. He married Emilie HARGITT 1 AUG 1898 in Date of marriage certificate, Woodstock, Ontario, daughter of George F. HARGITT and Marianne O'NEILL.
She was born 1868 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and died 9 APR 1947 in Ladysmith, BC.
| || v.||Francis Albert Evelyn VERCHÈRE was born 14 SEP 1865 in Abbottabad, Punjab. Now Pakistan., was christened 24 SEP 1865 in Abbottabad, Punjab, and died 11 MAY 1946 in White Rock, BC. He married Mary Winnifred HARGITT 1887 in Ontario, daughter of George F. HARGITT and Marianne O'NEILL.
She was born 1866, and died 1 MAR 1928 in Mission City, BC.
He married Flora Frances HARGITT, daughter of George F. HARGITT and Marianne O'NEILL.
She was born 1874, and died 20 FEB 1956 in Newton, BC.
| || vi.||Anthony Marc Payne VERCHÈRE was born 8 JUL 1868 in Dalhousie, India, was christened 2 AUG 1868 in Dalhousie, and died ? . He married Edith Mary HARGITT 1898 in Woodstock, Ontario, daughter of George F. HARGITT and Marianne O'NEILL.
She was born ABT 1870, and died 22 NOV 1945 in White Rock, BC. | <urn:uuid:26d99fc7-27a2-4a74-b45a-c3656be64720> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=billv&id=I413 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958128 | 723 | 1.601563 | 2 |
What would most of us do when we come across a snake battling for like? We're most likely to flee from the scene.
During NH17 4 lane road construction in Udupi, Karnakataka, an unfortunate snake came under the mighty jaws of a JCB and was cut into two pieces.
When the news reached Sudhindra Aithal of Animal Rescue centre, he rushed to the spot, retrieved the snake and set on a mission to restore its body. He joined the two parts with lot of herbal medicines. 3 months since the accident now, the snake is recovering well. Though there isn't much motion in the tail section, Sudheendra Aithal feels it would recover fully in another 3 months.
More about the Animal Rescue centre in this post | <urn:uuid:12fbf435-e40b-4d16-82d8-24e262035d6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.enidhi.net/2012/04/rescued-cobra.html?showComment=1334397909756 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969742 | 159 | 1.546875 | 2 |
If you’re among the thousands of Arizonans who will be using state highways over the Thanksgiving weekend, there’s good news about your travel plans.
No construction-related closures are scheduled along state highways between Wednesday afternoon and early Monday morning, November 25, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
ADOT Director John Halikowski says his agency will hold off on work requiring closures to ease travel and promote safety as the busy holiday travel season gets under way.
“We’re asking drivers to concentrate on safety and to be prepared before heading out on the road,” said Halikowski. “That means getting adequate rest before traveling, obeying speed limits, avoiding distractions and never drinking and driving.”
Fourteen people were killed last year in a total of 12 fatal crashes on Arizona’s highways and local roads over the Thanksgiving weekend. Three of those crashes were alcohol-related and claimed four lives. It was the deadliest holiday weekend in the state in 2011.
Other safe-driving recommendations for holiday travel include:
Check your vehicle, including tire pressure, fluid levels and the condition of engine belts
Buckle up and double-check child safety seats
Be prepared for unscheduled closures due to accidents. Have an emergency preparedness kit that includes extra clothes, blankets, flashlights, snack foods and drinking water
Check on travel conditions before leaving by visiting ADOT’s Travel Information site at www.az511.gov. Statewide highway conditions also are available by calling 5-1-1
While no closures are scheduled over the holiday weekend, drivers are urged to use caution when traveling through existing work zones. Those locations include:
• Interstate 17/State Route 69 interchange expansion work zone approximately 60 miles north of Phoenix
• Interstate 10 widening work zones in the Casa Grande area east of Phoenix
Additional information about winter driving and items to include in an emergency preparedness kit can be found at www.azdot.gov/KnowSnow. | <urn:uuid:4e203768-5e9d-495f-90f4-82cfd7a375a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ahwatukee.com/news/article_e8ed060c-32a1-11e2-b54d-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940257 | 411 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Welcome to Human Trafficking NZ
There is very little information about the problem of human trafficking within New Zealand. This website aims to bring together information from a variety of sources and set it out simply for people to read.
On this website you will find a wide range of information, including what organisations are involved in fighting this industry, how to identify victims of trafficking, and how to educate yourself about it all! I'd highly recommend reading the news section - It shows the ways in which New Zealand is affected by trafficking from a number of different angles.
I believe that a key way to deal with this problem is by raising awareness. So this is just a part of my contribution towards doing just that. Please let me know if you have any additional information that would be useful to others, and I can put it up as soon as possible. Also please realise that as this page is relatively new, there will be constant updates being made - So do come back!
Me - I am a third year politics student who is extremely passionate about abolishing the modern day slave trade. I personally find it shocking that such an industry still exists given how much fight there has been for freedom in the last century or so. I am currently an intern for the Hope for Justice organisation based in Seattle - Check out their website: www.hopeforjustice.org
My future plans include an exchange to Poland where I will be studying for six months. During my time there, I hope to learn a lot more about the human sex trafficking industry that exists in Eastern Europe. I will finish my degree as soon as I have finished this exchange, and then plan to start a postgraduate diploma as soon as semester one starts in 2014. When I have finished this by the following year, I hope to do a masters. I plan to focus all my postgraduate work on countering human trafficking. | <urn:uuid:5a4ebdb7-0847-4101-a141-de85eb8f38f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humantraffickingnz.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966873 | 377 | 1.539063 | 2 |
PALMETTO, FL - Some come for the food, some for the fun, but no matter what brings them there, the Manatee County Fair attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. And on opening weekend, fair officials have already set expectations high, saying the 2013 fair will be a record breaker.
This year fair officials are expecting close to 200,000 people, and they say when they come, they spend, benefiting the entire community.
“Probably at least $100 after food and tickets, and we already spent $80 just getting in, and we bought passes for all 11 days,” says fair goer Richard Uptegraff.
And even though having fun there may cost you a little bit, officials with the Manatee River Fair Association say overall, the fair has a huge impact on the local economy. “Throughout the whole community of Manatee County, we use plumbers and electricians and people like that to help us with the fair, and so it's just a whole community effort when it comes to the business community as well,” says fair manager Daniel West.
Just ask Ashley Zappa. She lives right across the street from the fair grounds, and she's out there every year. “We just park cars on our lawn. We have a few customers.” Ashley says she usually makes a few hundred bucks during the fair.
And at Palmetto High School, the fair ends up being a nice little fundraiser. The school charges $5 for parking. “Games for the kids, costs a lot of money, busing you name it, uniforms, just anything to help the kids in our school,” says Kenny Ansboro, Athletic Director at Palmetto High School.
Aside from parking, local school's 4-H clubs also make their fair share. “We have live stock buyers that come in and buy a few hundred head of hogs and beef animals here at the fair from the 4-H students,” says West.
And whether the money is coming in or going out, The fair is all about fun. “I brought the grand kids out to the fair and they're all having a good time. That's what counts,” Julie Zook.
Fair officials say they won't know exactly how much money is made by the fair until a few days after it ends, but they do expect it to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. | <urn:uuid:10c0608b-b8eb-4da0-9568-c83ad07138ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/manatee_newsroom/manatee-county-fair-s-economic-boost/article_75ea8a54-61ee-11e2-98f5-001a4bcf6878.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976382 | 507 | 1.703125 | 2 |
2012 Presidential Campaign Finance Explorer
The 2012 presidential election is on track to be the most expensive in history. Use this graphic to see where the money is coming from — and where it’s going. Updated: Dec. 7, 2012.
Individuals may give national parties up to $30,800 each calendar year.
Individuals may give candidates up to $2,500 per election (primary or general).
* and companies under his or her control
Notes: Receipts for parties, campaigns and super PACs will not equal the totals in the graph above because some money raised by the candidates' joint fundraising committees has not been transfered into campaign and party accounts. Some funds are also raised for state parties which are not included here. In the 'Top super PAC contributors' section above, Republican figures include the American Crossroads and Restore Our Future super PACs. Democratic figures include Priorities USA Action and American Bridge 21st Century.
SOURCE: Federal Election Commission, candidate campaigns, media reports. GRAPHIC: Jason Bartz, T.W. Farnam, Sisi Wei and Karen Yourish - The Washington Post. Published Sept. 25, 2012.
Organizations accounting for Obama's total raised and spent funds are: Obama for America, Obama Victory Fund, DNC, Priorities USA, American Bridge 21st Century and Swing State Victory Fund. Organizations accounting for Romney's totals raised and spent funds are: Romney for President, Romney Victory, RNC, Restore Our Future, American Crossroads and Citizens for a Working America.
Please email us us with questions or suggestions. New data is pulled as soon as the FEC releases it on the 20th of every month. Our final update for this tracker was made on Oct. 21, 2012.
An earlier version of this graphic incorrectly included donations to Winning Our Future, a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, in the donation totals of individual super PAC donors. Those donations have been subtracted from each donor's contribution amount. Summary totals were not affected, as those totals were not counting any contributions to Winning Our Future. | <urn:uuid:a51ea82a-d99f-4373-848d-36be48e73a15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/campaign-finance/?c=P60003654,P8000335 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93931 | 420 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Spring brings beautiful spring dresses, but some women aren’t confident about showing their legs due to vein health. How about you?
Spring is here and summer’s just around the corner. For many women, that means bringing out and wearing their lovely skirts and dresses. Some of those same women—and possibly many others—may not be all that excited about wearing clothes that show their legs, however. For them, it can be a near-mortifying experience. Why? Millions of adult women have issues with vein health that make them self-conscious or downright embarrassed.
It may be a widespread concern, too. In fact, an article published in July 2009, indicated that nearly half—47%---of all British women literally “hate” their legs. What’s more is that one in six of those women will not even show their legs in public by wearing skirts or dresses—and the same amount of women will not even show their legs to their partners. According to the article, the women’s reasons varied from varicose veins, excess fat, cellulite or being too pale.
The study included the responses of 4,000 polled women. Other findings from the study include that 17% of the women “believed that their legs have held them back in life,” while 63% said “they’d feel more confident if they were happier about their legs.”
Additionally, 28% of the women polled were so self-conscious about their legs that they wouldn’t wear a bikini while on vacation—with 49% of the women opting to wear a sarong or a towel at the pool to cover up their legs.
Now back to the dress…
The study also indicated that women hate their legs so much that, during the summer, they would wear a skirt or dress only twice a week. The study also found that women worry about their legs at least twice a day and spend about an hour and a half thinking about their legs, weight and dress size.
"It's saddening to hear how many women hate their legs and it seems that often this comes down to a lack of confidence," psychologist Corinne Sweet said.
Some women, however, have found some help in diosmin—a naturally occurring antioxidant bioflavonoid that comes from various plant sources.† As a bioflavonoid and antioxidant, diosmin supports already healthy levels of inflammation as well as free-radical scavenging. First isolated from Scrophularia nodosa in 1925, diosmin made its way into the “vascular support” spotlight in 1969.
In fact, diosmin’s been used for over 40 years to help maintain overall blood vessel strength. Additionally, it is backed by human clinical studies and has been widely prescribed by doctors in Europe for decades. Studies in which diosmin has been clinically tested have indicated that it can reduce the visible signs of varicose veins and spider veins. But that’s not all. It is reported to also alleviate occasional swelling in the legs and ankles.†
Diosmin also promotes the health and tone of veins and capillaries, especially in the legs, supporting healthy circulation. Additionally, diosmin promotes natural lymphatic flow and drainage, which is a plus for supporting the body’s natural detoxification system.
That may just provide the confidence some women need to say yes to the dress this spring and summer!
† These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. | <urn:uuid:a3227ef8-263e-4c11-beb2-40dd8a104c6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gardenoflife.com/Our-Company/Articles/Daily-Health-Article-Display/ContentPubID/581/settmid/4862.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978832 | 749 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The double-decker bus, traveling from Atlanta to Charlotte, N.C., caught fire around noon near Lavonia, Ga. Lavonia is about 90 miles from Atlanta and just 8 miles from the South Carolina border.
Reportedly, there were around 80 passengers aboard as the bus burst into flames. According to a statement by Megabus, the driver was able to evacuate all of the passengers in time. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
Though no one was reported as injured in the accident, the double-decker bus blocked traffic as it crashed, and efforts to remove it from the scene slowed down traffic on I-85 for miles.
The burned wreckage of the bus had to be cut in half horizontally to fit it onto the wrecking trucks that came to clean up the scene.
"It's the only way for the wreckers to remove it," Terri Pope of the Georgia Department of Transportation told the Associated Press.
According to the Associated Press, the highway was reopened later on Wednesday.
This isn't the only high-profile Megabus crash, Last week, a Megabus in southern Illinois crashed into a concrete pillar that holds a bridge above Interstate 55. State police blamed the crash on a flat tire, which caused the driver to lose control, according to the Chicago Tribune. Eighty-one passengers were on the bus, with as many as 25 reported as injured. | <urn:uuid:381008fe-baa0-422b-bf93-50be971f3dc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibtimes.com/fiery-megabus-crash-north-georgia-leaves-no-one-injured-742502 | 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 | 0.981616 | 287 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Immigration and Illegal Aliens are More a Blessing than a Burden - Archives Of Rudolph W. Giuliani,kennedy School Of Government,cambridge, Massachusetts, Thursday,october 10, 1996
… I'm pleased to be with you this evening to talk about the anti-immigrant movement in America.… And why I believe this movement endangers the single most important reason for American greatness, namely, the renewal, reformation and reawakening that's provided by the continuous flow of immigrants who are seeking to create
better lives for themselves and their families &…
As tax day is here, it is worth considering the contributions of legal immigrants to Uncle Sam. A new study by the Library of Congress highlights the extraordinary level of Federal taxes paid by legal immigrants. Recent immigrants—including both those who have not yet naturalized and those who have become citizens—paid an
estimated $55 billion in Federal income taxes in 1995. Withou…
… It has become fashionable for Congress over the last several years to use immigrants as scapegoats and blame them for society's problems. So I am pleased when we focus attention on the many ways in which immigrants have contributed to our country and serve our nation. According to the Cato Institute, immigrants account for
more than 20% of all recipients of the Congressional Medal …
… [A] consensus seems to have emerged in the Congress that immigrants are—as they have been throughout most of our history—beneficial to our economy and assets to our society in other ways as well. This favorable attitude regarding immigration on Capitol Hill is evidenced by the pro-immigrant legislation that has passed the
House and Senate in recent years and the wise rejecti…
… In the past decade, a number of studies have been attempted to address the question of fiscal impacts [of immigration]. Several conclusions have emerged upon which there appears to be fairly widespread agreement. First, immigrants (and immigrant households) pay a considerable amount in taxes to all levels of government.
However, because immigrant incomes are generally lower than native in…
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Category — Online Resources
Via the Greenhorns
A set of videos to help guide new farmers in the right direction. Cool footage for sure.
March 14, 2009 1 Comment
So I’m very pro-worker in the world of farming. But if there continues to be a shortage of young farmers, then I suspect that those of us that have chosen to farm should probably be as efficient as we can. Maybe with some automation, instead of having 10 people on 1 farm of 15 acres, there could be 2 people on 5 farms of 10 acres. I’d be interested in costing the infrastructure costs out and see what it’s feasibility actually would be…..
Here’s why I write about this.
And the company who makes these transplanters has several other videos of their innovative products. I was stuck on their site for quite awhile watching videos…..
March 13, 2009 No Comments
Our friend Josh has worked at Sauvie Island Organics for several seasons, and is now branching out on his own to further his personal vegetable endeavors as well as help other farm folk out by doing some consulting. He has a really thorough outline on weed management that he’s gathered from working at SIO as well as info he’s gathered traveling to fellow organic farms. It’s really worth jumping over to his entry and studying what he presents. I always learn the best by looking at others work, strategies, ideas instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by myself sitting in my shop.
If you have any questions on the various implements he presents I’d just drop him an email. My experiences with Josh are always educational and intentional.
The farm community is just beginning to see the networking possibilities with the internet. I look forward to seeing this community grow.
February 2, 2008 2 Comments | <urn:uuid:f446da3f-897e-4f34-b112-119a5e2fc92b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wannafarm.com/category/online-resources/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970685 | 376 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Of Red Hats and Red Sox
Cardinal O'Malley is no Fenway regular. But he keeps tabs on Boston's secular faith - baseball.
Cardinal William H. O'Connell was never much of a Red Sox fan. Despite presiding over the Archdiocese of Boston during a period when the team won the World Series four times, there's no evidence that he used his free pass to Fenway, and he railed against the playing of baseball on Sundays.
His successor, Cardinal Richard J. Cushing, was more of an enthusiast, periodically buying blocks of seats at Fenway and bringing hundreds of nuns, in full habit, to games.
Cardinal Humberto S. Medeiros was a real fan, so much so that, on his way into a papal conclave in Rome, he famously asked how the Red Sox were doing. (That was in 1978, a grim year for the Vatican, when two popes died, and for the Red Sox, who lost the American League East division in a one-game playoff with the New York Yankees.)
Now comes Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, a Capuchin Franciscan friar better known for his affection for foreign films, Spanish literature, and "A Prairie Home Companion," but who showed up at Fenway Park with a group of priests and church officials to watch the Red Sox clinch a wild card berth on Sept. 23.
"Since I have been the archbishop of Boston, the team has won two championships," O'Malley blogged afterward. "Only one other archbishop in the history of the diocese can make that claim. Cardinal O'Connell saw the victories of 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918 . . . but, I have just gotten started!"
O'Malley's embrace of the Red Sox has echoes across the nation, as clergy of many stripes endorse, bless, or express support for a variety of sporting events. Some of the gestures are sincere expressions of fandom, others are an effort by clerical leaders to demonstrate their humanity, and others are forms of evangelism with a history that dates back to the mid-19th-century phenomenon of "muscular Christianity," in which ministers embraced sports as a way of trying to draw more men into the pews.
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, the Catholic bishop of Providence, is probably the best-known example of a bishop/fan. The Pittsburgh native is passionate about the Steelers, and, despite living in a region enamored of the New England Patriots, he hangs a Steelers banner from the railing of the bishop's residence and has a room that many refer to as a Steelers shrine in the house. Although Tobin's passion for the team is real, he said it also has pastoral benefits; his well-known love of the sports team makes it easier for many people, from parishioners to politicians, to start a conversation with him.
"We deal with so many heavy issues, and complicated issues, and sometimes very difficult and emotional issues, and it's really good to have a lighter side and to have people be able to relate to that," Tobin said. "It makes the office of the bishop, and the bishop himself, more approachable, and the discussion about sports and the banter is really an excellent icebreaker."
Cardinal O'Connell, a Lowell native who served as archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death in 1944, was not much of a fan. His biographer, James M. O'Toole, a Boston College history professor, said that although O'Connell was offered free passes by the owners of both the Red Sox and the Braves, and responded with notes of encouragement, "I never saw any evidence of his attending a baseball game."
"Like most other religious leaders in town, he opposed Sunday baseball in the 1920s," O'Toole said. "They considered this a form of Sabbath-breaking, and O'Connell in particular thought 'the noise made in rooting' disrupted the quiet of Sunday."
Now, six decades after O'Connell's death, the Red Sox are again on a bit of a winning streak - having won the World Series twice in the last four years and now in the midst of an American League Championship Series against the Tampa Bay Rays (who formerly had the word Devil in their name, but whatever). Cardinal O'Malley, is not known to be such a committed sports fan himself, but he has periodically watched the Super Bowl with his fellow Capuchin friars in Boston, and his attendance at the Sept. 23 Red Sox-Indians game was only the latest public expression of solidarity with the Olde Towne Team.
In 2003, shortly after his installation in Boston, O'Malley offered public advice to the Red Sox, saying, "They just need to stay focused now, keep cool," and he told reporters, "the first request I received from a Boston priest was that the new archbishop make sure that the Red Sox would win this year, so I'm working on it."
In 2006, when he went to Rome to receive the red hat that signaled his elevation to cardinal, he pulled up his cassock at a news conference to show reporters his cardinalatial red socks and said, "At least nobody can doubt my sports affiliation now, with the Red Sox."
And in April, as he prepared to attend a papal Mass at Yankee Stadium, he told reporters, "I'll be wearing my red socks, and if I get a chance I'll bury them in the outfield." The cardinal was, of course, referring to an incident in which a construction worker buried a Red Sox jersey in the clubhouse concrete at the new stadium in a supposed effort to bring bad luck to the Yankees.
"Most religious leaders will probably say to you categorically that God has more important things to do than worry about who wins or loses a sporting event," said Christopher H. Evans, a professor at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and coauthor of "The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion and American Culture."
"But religious leaders, like everyone else, are fans, and obviously there are all kinds of examples of how religion is used in some way to provide a sense of blessing, particularly in NASCAR events, but you also have that dimension that when a bishop or a cardinal shows up for a game, it can take on new meaning, as if somehow the event is being sanctified or blessed," Evans said.
O'Malley's spokesman, Terrence C. Donilon, described the cardinal's relationship to the team this way: "The cardinal enjoys sports, but because of his many responsibilities and commitments, he does not get a chance to attend many games or watch them on TV. It is unlikely that the cardinal will be able to watch an entire game during the postseason, but I expect that he will keep track of how the Red Sox are doing as they move through the playoffs."
As for the cardinal's repeated mentions of the Red Sox, Donilon said, "let's just say the cardinal has a good sense of humor, and timing, and keeps track of how Boston's sports teams are doing against teams in other cities."
The Red Sox have cultivated a clerical presence in the stands. For years, the team has had a clergy pass program allowing up to 100 men and women of the cloth (of any denomination) to half-price standing room tickets for regular-season games, according to Susan Goodenow, a team spokeswoman.
"The Yawkey regime had a connection to the Catholic Church, and that's where it started, but now it's a gesture on behalf of our ownership group to this segment of our population who give so much to others," said Sam Kennedy, the chief sales and marketing officer for the Red Sox. Kennedy has personal experience with the program - his father, the Rev. Thomas B. Kennedy, is a local Episcopal priest who worked at Trinity Church and St. Paul's Cathedral and who brought young Sam to games.
"A lot of people's prayers were answered in 2004, and hopefully we'll keep it going over the next couple of weeks," Sam Kennedy said. | <urn:uuid:950ec347-69a3-4911-bc2c-3e095ce92a71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/10/12/of_red_hats_and_red_sox/?page=2 | 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 | 0.982136 | 1,669 | 1.59375 | 2 |
CAIRO — The power struggle between Egypt’s Islamic and secularist forces intensified Wednesday, with some analysts warning of civil war and supporters of the Islamist government planning to march Saturday on a central square in Cairo where opponents have been holding a sit-in for more than a week.
Fears of violent street clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi grew a day after more than 200,000 demonstrators crowded into Tahrir Square, the iconic scene of last year’s Arab Spring protest, to denounce the president for decrees he issued last week that put him above any oversight, including the judiciary.
Judges in the country’s appellate courts joined the protest Wednesday by announcing a strike against any further legal business until Mr. Morsi rescinds his decree.
Meanwhile, the country’s highest judicial panel, the Supreme Constitutional Court, announced a direct challenge to Mr. Morsi. It said it will rule Sunday on whether to dissolve a 100-member assembly writing a new constitution, which is dominated by Mr. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist allies.
“I have always said, ‘No, I don’t think this can happen.’ [Now], I feel that this can very well happen.”
The constitution will define how Egypt’s government functions. Secular Egyptians are concerned that Islamists are imposing a constitution that grants the president too much power and could limit freedom of speech and the rights of women and minorities.
“Egypt is lost for good, ruined for good,” said Mona El-Ashry, 39, a pharmacist. “Today, the Muslim Brotherhood decided to occupy Egypt. The Muslim Brothers do not treat Egyptians as one family. They impose everything on the people and will never leave the throne.”
Rushing to pass the constitution
Islamists continued their attempts to pass the constitution despite the withdrawal over the past few weeks of liberal, leftist and Coptic Christian members of the constitutional assembly. The assembly is pushing to finish a draft of the legal charter by Thursday.
The head of the assembly, Hossam al-Gheriany, urged secular members to “come back and finish the discussion on Thursday.”
Still, his attempts to assuage opposition concerns are unlikely to succeed, given the tense mood in Cairo, analysts say.
Others say the decision to put the constitution to a vote Thursday reflects confidence in Mr. Morsi’s camp that Islamic forces will win a subsequent referendum early next year. That vote would confirm the popular legitimacy of the draft constitution.
“They feel that they will have enough votes to pass it, and I believe them,” Mr. Fahmy said.View Entire Story
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– Dave Gibbons, responding with humor to the news that his original cover art for Watchmen #1 fetched $155,350 at auction on Friday, many times what he originally sold it for. (As the artist recently noted, the covers were included in an agreement for the original pages to all 12 issues of the landmark series.) “I thought I had a great deal. At the time,” he added in response to a tweet.
The original covers for the first three issues brought a total of $216,892.50 at the New York City auction. The covers for Watchmen #4-12 are expected to be put up for sale later this year.
Vintage comics and original comic art brought in $4.4 million over the weekend during a Heritage auction in New York City, Artinfo reports. Among the bigger sales were a CGC-graded 6.5 copy of Detective Comics #27, for $567,625, and John Romita Sr.’s original cover for The Amazing Spider-Man #121, which fetched $286,800.
As we noted on Friday, Dave Gibbons’ original cover art for Watchmen #1 sold for $155,350, with the first three covers going for a combined $216,892.50. John Higgins’ color guide for the first cover was bought for $7,767.50. The remaining covers for the 12-issue landmark series are expected to go up for auction later this year.
Wired.com delves into the history of the 12 covers, which were purchased at a Sotheby’s auction in 1993 by former Wizard Publisher Gareb Shamus for what’s been reported to be in the neighborhood of $26,000. The article doesn’t repeat that figure, but it does say what was paid was “a bargain price” (for instance, Higgins’ color guide for the cover of Watchmen #1 was picked up for $50, which was then five to 10 times the usual price).
Dave Gibbons’ original cover art for Watchmen #1-3 sold today at auction for a combined $216,892.50. The first cover, featuring the iconic blood-splattered smiley face, was responsible for the lion’s share of that total, bringing in $155,350 alone. They were joined by John Higgins’ color guide for the cover of Watchmen #1, which went for $7,767.50.
Part of the $1.4 million Shamus Modern Masterworks, accumulated in the 1980s and ’90s by retailer Martin Shamus, father of Wizard magazine founder Gareb Shamus, the Watchmen covers were included in Heritage’s Heritage’s Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction, held today and Saturday in New York City. Consigned last year to Heritage, the collection already has produced one remarkable sale: Todd McFarlane’s original cover art for The Amazing Spider-Man #328 fetched $657,250 in July, breaking the record for a single piece of American comics art set in 2011 by a splash page from The Dark Knight Returns #3 ($448,125).
Heritage’s Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction also includes John Romita Sr.’s original cover art for The Amazing Spider-Man #121, an original Calvin and Hobbes strip by Bill Watterson, and 10 pages from Dave Sim’s Cerebus: High Society.
Gibbons’ covers for Watchmen #4-12 reportedly will be put up for sale later this year.
John Romita Sr.’s original cover art for the landmark Amazing Spider-Man #121 has reached $268, 875 in online bidding ahead of a live auction scheduled for today in New York City.
The piece is being offered as part of Heritage’s Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction, which includes Dave Gibbons’ iconic Watchmen covers, an original Calvin and Hobbes strip by Bill Watterson, and 10 pages from Dave Sim’s Cerebus: High Society.
The Amazing Spider-Man #121, “The Night Gwen Stacy Died,” was a defining moment not only for Peter Parker but for the comics industry; as Heritage Auctions notes in its description, some point to the story as the end point for the Silver Age. (This was the end of innocence for comics,” Arnold Blumberg wrote in Comic Book Marketplace. “It remains one of the most potent stories ever published.”)
Asked by A Moment of Cerebus whether the sale was part of the “Doomsday Scenario” he outlined last summer in Glamourpuss #26, Sim explained, “Well, in a sense, when you’re 57 years old in the comic-book field, everything is a Doomsday Scenario. I set this in motion by calling Lon and finding out if Heritage was interested, which they were. Very. So, that was very gratifying. But you have to start early. It’s a long process of negotiation and I knew that would be the case. I set that in motion and then John and I did the Kickstarter campaign which didn’t require AS early a start. It was successful but I guessed the money wouldn’t last much past the end of the year with all the overhead and that was what happened. Lon and I weren’t ready for the November auction which is what we originally planned. There was still some negotiating to do. But we were ready for the February auction. Lead time. Everything is lead time.”
Bidding continues online through Thursday, with the sale scheduled for Friday in New York City as part of Heritage Auctions’ Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction.
Three months after an original 1986 Sunday installment of Calvin and Hobbes, drawn and hand-colored by Bill Watterson, sold for $203,150, another original strip is going on the auction block.
Like the previous piece, this daily strip was part of a 1986 swap between Watterson and Adam@Home and Red and Rover cartoonist Brian Bassett. However, The Daily Cartoonist notes that while Bassett sold the other original to help with the expenses of a divorce and upcoming marriage, this one is being offered by his ex-wife Linda through Heritage Auctions (both are signed by Watterson to Brian and Linda).
The strip, part of Heritage’s Feb. 21-23 Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction in New York City, has already garnered a top online/telephone bid of $15,000. The company cautions, “We know you’ve heard us say this before, but consider this a rare opportunity that may not be repeated for a long time to come. We have no more Watterson Calvin originals ‘waiting in the wings’ to trot out next time around.”
See the full strip below.
The iconic blood-splattered smiley face cover for Watchmen #1 is among a handful of original artwork from the seminal 1986 miniseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons up for sale next month as part of a Heritage Auctions signature auction in New York City.
Described by the auction house as “historic” and a “DC masterwork,” the 10-inch by 15-inch image is joined by Gibbons’ covers for Watchmen #2 and #3, John Higgins’ color guide for the cover of Issue 1, a page from Issue 7, and a page and color guide from Issue 8.
The pieces are part of the $1.4 million Shamus Modern Masterworks, accumulated in the 1980s and ’90s by retailer Martin Shamus, father of Wizard magazine founder Gareb Shamus. Consigned last year to Heritage, the collection already has produced one remarkable sale: Todd McFarlane’s original cover art for The Amazing Spider-Man #328 fetched $657,250 in July, shattering the record for a single piece of American comics art set in 2011 by a splash page from The Dark Knight Returns #3 ($448,125).
Online bidding for the Watchmen art begins Feb. 2. The auction will be held Feb. 21-22 at the Ukrainian Institute of America at The Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion in New York City.
With the Team Cul de Sac benefit art book set for release on June 5, Heritage has begun auctioning off original art from the project to, like the book, raise funds for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Like Fox, Cul de Sac creator Richard Thompson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
Up for auction are pieces by Karl Kesel (above), Sergio Aragones, Bill Watterson, Gary Trudeau, Pat Oliphant, Evan Dorkin, Bill Amend, Roger Langridge, David Malki, Mort Walker and many more. The auctions started on Monday and will run for two weeks.
A page of Silver Surfer original art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott from 1966′s Fantastic Four #55 sold last week for $155,350 in an auction of vintage comics and comic art that included the very first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sketch. According to Heritage Auctions, that price for the Page 3 half-splash marks the most ever paid for a panel page of comic art.
Held in Dallas, the auction brought in a total of nearly $5.5 million, including $113,525 for a restored copy of Detective Comics #27, featuring the first appearance of Batman, $107,500 for a near-mint copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #1, and $101,575 for Detective Comics #29, the second-ever Batman cover.
Other items included a good copy of Pep Comics #22, featuring the first appearance of Archie ($35,850), and Archie Comics #2 ($31,070).
Titled “When Strikes the Silver Surfer,” Fantastic Four #55 was the fourth appearance of the Herald of Galactus. The page, which you can see in full below, was signed by Stan Lee during a 1983 convention appearance.
The very first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles drawing, thrown together as a joke in November 1983 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, was bought Friday by an anonymous bidder for $71,700 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. An undisclosed percentage of the proceeds will be donated to The Hero Initiative.
“What an incredibly exciting week this has been! The Turtles have been blessed with the best fans on the planet, so I chose this event to make available personal historical TMNT items for those really hardcore supporters – but WHOA – what a response!” Eastman, who consigned the sketch to the auction house, wrote in a statement. “My many, many, thanks to all the fans that have given me the best job in the world, and for their love for a great, goofy, bunch of green guys that just wanted to be normal teenagers – Mutant Ninja ones anyway!”
That 1983 drawing led the following year to the publication of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, a black-and-white parody from Eastman and Laird’s Mirage Studios, that, with the help of licensing agent Mark Freedman, grew into a multimedia empire of comics, animated television series, feature films, video games and merchandise. Laird completed a buyout of Eastman’s interests in TMNT in 2008, and then sold the property to Viacom the following year for $60 million.
“For 30 years the Turtles have been a worldwide phenomenon, entertaining hundreds of millions of children and that influence shows no sign of slowing with the upcoming TV and film projects featuring the team,” Barry Sandoval of Heritage Auctions said of the sketch. “This is a piece of pop culture that will only increase in value and influence over the coming decades.”
The bulk of the comic collection amassed by a young Billy Wright in the late 1930s and early 1940s sold at auction Wednesday for a staggering $3.5 million, The Associated Press reports, far surpassing initial estimates.
Wright’s childhood purchases — 345 comics, all kept in good condition — boasted 44 of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide’s list of Top 100 comics from the Golden Age, including Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27 and Captain America Comics #2. Wright passed away in 1994 at age 66, leaving the comics forgotten until his great nephew Michael Rorrer discovered them neatly stacked in a basement closet last February while cleaning house his great aunt’s Martinsville, Virginia, home following her death.
“The scope of this collection is, from a historian’s perspective, dizzying,” J.C. Vaughn, associate publisher of Overstreet, told The AP.
The “jaw-dropping” collection had been expected to fetch about $2 million. However, the 227 comics sold Wednesday brought in a whopping $3,466,264, including $523,000 for the CGC-Certified 6.5 copy of Detective Comics #27 and $299,000 for a 3.0 copy of the first appearance of Superman. The remaining, lesser comics will be sold online Friday and Saturday by Heritage Auctions; they’re expected to bring in about $100,000.
According to The Associated Press, 31-year-old Michael Rorrer found the neatly stacked comics in a closet last February while he was cleaning out his great aunt’s home following her death. It turns out that his great uncle Billy Wright, who died in 1994 at age 66, had (unknown to most of the family) held onto his boyhood comics dating back to 1938.
Described as “jaw-dropping” by Lon Allen of Heritage Auctions, the collection boasts 44 of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide’s list of Top 100 comics from the Golden Age, including Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27 and Captain America Comics #2. The CGC-Certified 6.5 copy of Batman’s first appearance is expected to fetch about $475,000, while the 3.0 copy of Superman’s debut could bring as much as $325,000.
More than nine months after an original splash page from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns sold for a record $448,125, Heritage Auctions is offering two more original pieces of Frank Miller art, expected to bring in more than $50,000 each.
Consigned by Miller himself, the pieces are the cover to 2006′s Absolute Dark Knight and the frontispiece from the 1997 10th-anniversary edition of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
“It took me years to define, in my own mind, Batman as less a creature of vengeance than of vigor,” Miller said of the Absolute Dark Knight cover. “This piece is one of my personal favorites. To me, it sums the man up.” And on the Batman and Robin splash: “Like any hero, Batman is complex. Here we see him as a father figure, instructing one of my favorite creations, dear Carrie Kelly.”
The two pieces will be auctioned Feb. 23 by Heritage, which notes that while Miller worked with inker Klaus Janson and colorist Lynn Varley on The Dark Knight Returns, “these images are rare examples of 100 percent Frank Miller pencils and inks on his most popular character.”
Calvin & Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson is notoriously reclusive, and original pieces of art from his long-running strip are just as rare. That’s why recent news by Heritage Auctions that a piece of his is going up for sale is worth perking your ears up about.
The watercolor illustration (seen at right) was a piece done by Watterson for a 1989-90 calendar cover. The piece comes from the collection of comic historian Rick Marschall, to whom Watterson inscribed it to in the lower right corner.
The current highest bid is at $26,000, but the auction house expects it to top $50,000 by the time the live floor auction starts on Feb. 23. I expect to see a vast array of comics art collectors come out for this, and perhaps even a few comic artists who are fans of Watterson’s work.
The latest in a long line of historical comic-related auctions is coming up at Heritage Auctions‘ next event –a never-before-seen pre-Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schulz. Here it is:
Created in the late 40s between Schulz’ first work Li’l Folks and the debut of Peanuts in 1950, it contains characters that bear more than a passing resemblance to future Peanuts stars Charlie Brown and Snoopy. The artwork is being offered by the family of the late Frieda Rich, a lifelong friend of Schulz who served as the inspiration for the Frieda character with the famous “naturally curly hair.”
This will be one of many pieces that’ll hit Heritage Auctions’ auction block on May 5, and the organizers expect this piece to bring more than $20,000 alone. | <urn:uuid:77bc43ae-f83b-4fe8-ab44-b3dff45efa19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/tag/heritage-auctions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949483 | 3,604 | 1.5 | 2 |
Roger William Corman was born April 5, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied engineering at Stanford, but, while in school, he began to lose interest in the profession, and developed a growing interest in filmmaking. Upon graduation, he worked a total of three days as an engineer (at U.S. Electrical Motors), which cemented his growing realization that engineering wasn't for him. He quit and took a job as a messenger for 20th-Century Fox, eventually rising to the position of story analyst.
After a term spent studying modern English literature at Oxford and a year spent bopping around Europe, Corman returned to the U.S. intent on becoming a screenwriter/producer. He sold his first script in 1953, "The House in the Sea," which was eventually filmed and released as Highway Dragnet (1954).
Horrified by the distance between his vision for the film and the final product, Corman took his pay from the picture, scraped together a little capital, and set himself up as a producer, turning out Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954). Corman used his next picture, the original version of The Fast and the Furious (1955), to finagle a multi-picture deal with a fledgling company called American Releasing. It would soon change its name to American International Pictures (AIP), and, with Corman as its major talent behind the camera, become one of the most successful independent studios in cinema history.
With no formal training, Corman first took to the director's chair with Five Guns West (1955), and, over the next 15 years, he directed 53 films, mostly for AIP. Corman proved himself a master of quick, cheap productions, turning out several movies as director and/or producer in each of those years--nine movies in 1957, then again in 1958. His personal speed record was set with the original version of The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which he shot in two days and a night.
In the early 1960s, he began to take on more ambitious projects, gaining a great deal of critical praise (and commercial success) from a series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories, most of them starring Vincent Price. His film The Intruder (1962) was a serious look at racial integration in the South, starring a very young William Shatner. Critically praised, and winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, the movie became Corman's first commercial flop. Corman called its failure "the greatest disappointment in my career." As a consequence of the experience, Corman opted to avoid such direct "message" films in the future, and resolved to express his social and political concerns beneath the surface of overt entertainments.
Those messages became more radical as the '60s wound to a close, and, after AIP began re-editing his films without his knowledge or consent, he left the company, retiring from directing to concentrate on production and distribution through his own newly-formed company New World Pictures. In addition to low-budget exploitation flicks, New World dealt in distinguished art cinema from around the world, becoming the American distributor for the films of Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, and others. Selling off New World in the '80s, Corman has continued his work through various companies in the years since--Concorde Pictures, New Horizons, Millenium Pictures, New Concorde. In 1990, after the publication of his biography ("How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime," one of the all-time great books on filmmaking), he returned to directing, but only for a single film, Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
With hundreds of movies to his credit, Corman is one of the most prolific producers the film medium has ever produced, and one of the most successful--in his nearly-six-decades in the business, only about a dozen of his films have failed to turn a profit. Corman has been dubbed "The King of the Cult Film" and "The Pope of Pop Cinema," and his filmography is packed with hundreds of remarkably entertaining films, dozens of genuine cult classics. Corman has displayed an unrivaled eye for talent over the years--it could almost be said that it would be easier to name the top directors, actors, writers, creators in Hollywood who didn't get their start with Corman than those who did. Among those he mentored are Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, James Cameron, Robert De Niro, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante and Sandra Bullock. His influence on modern American cinema is almost incalculable. In 2009, he was honored with an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
|Julie Corman||(23 December 1970 - present) 4 children|
Tribute in the Memory of Film section at the Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium.
In the early years of the American Releasing Corporation (later American International Pictures), he became one of their major sources of product for distribution. He would be given a sum of money and an advertising campaign (or somethimes just a title) and he would have to come up with the scripts and produce the films.
If he had to shoot a film on location, he would always try to shoot a second film at that same location in order to spread out the costs.
In the new decade of the 1960s, he decided that he wanted to do something that would advance his career. When American International offered him a sum of money to create another one of their low-budget black-and-white double features, he countered with an offer to use the same money to shoot a single feature in color and Cinemascope. American International finally agreed to this offer. It led to the production of House of Usher (1960). The gamble paid off and the film became a box-office hit and generated something that was unusual for an AIP release - critical praise. This was followed by what became known as Corman's "Poe series.".
A running gag in Hollywood was that Corman could negotiate the production of a film on a pay phone, shoot the film in the booth, and finance it with the money in the change slot.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985." Pages 234-242. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.
His film The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) set a world's record for the shortest shooting schedule for a feature film...Two days!.
Did a brief stint of study at Oxford University.
Society of Operating Cameramen (SOC) Recipient, Governors Award (CAMMY) (2004).
Uncle of Todd Corman.
Corman, as a director and/or producer, is credited with starting and/or mentoring the careers of many now-famous film directors, such as Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, John Sayles, James Cameron, Joe Dante, and Martin Scorsese, and writers such as Robert Towne, and John Sayles. He also discovered/gave early roles to then-unknown actors and actresses such as Jack Nicholson, Charles Bronson, Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Diane Ladd, and Sandra Bullock.
Discusses his movie House of Usher (1960) in the book "A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde" (McFarland & Co., 2010) by Tom Weaver.
As an example of his influence in Hollywood, no Corman-produced movies were up for Oscars at the 1974 Academy Awards, but nearly every major category featured wins or nominations by "Corman School" graduates--those whom Corman had either started in the business or mentored early in their careers.
Although his films were notable for the flair and mobility with which he composed for wide-screen, Corman revealed in "Cinema Retro" magazine (Issue #18) that he hadn't originally wanted to shoot his cult Poe series in Panavision: "I thought the anamorphic lens was better suited to westerns, whereas I was shooting in these contained little sets. But that was a decision made by AIP [American International Pictures]. They were convinced that just using that lens would not only make the pictures look bigger but sound bigger in the ads".
In science-fiction films the monster should always be bigger than the leading lady.
I think there is always a political undercurrent in my films. With the exception of The Intruder (1962), I tried not to put it on the surface.
All my films have been concerned simply with man as a social animal.
I've never made the film I wanted to make. No matter what happens, it never turns out exactly as I hoped.
|Highway Dragnet (1954)||$3,500|
|Frankenstein Unbound (1990)||$1,000,000|
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Click here to add your resume and/or your photos to IMDb. | <urn:uuid:9f374ea3-6606-4ea9-93c0-a68e075a4751> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000339/bio | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971783 | 1,990 | 1.554688 | 2 |
This information is provided by the candidate
On the Issues
- In Congress, Susan authored a Quality Teaching Package that would assist teachers in low-performing schools to demonstrate high teaching skills through a proven evaluation program. In addition, the package will help teachers in family literacy programs learn the most effective teaching techniques.
- In 2001, Susan worked to pass major federal education reforms to strengthen accountability for student achievement, require rigorous testing in reading and math, and ensure communication with parents about school quality.
- Susan opposes school voucher plans and supports using finite taxpayer dollars to fund public schools that educate 90% of America's children.
- For her work on behalf of children, parents, and teachers, Susan was named 1999 Legislator of the Year by the League of Middle Schools and has twice been honored by the California School Boards Association.
- As an Assemblywoman, Susan wrote the California State law that requires HMOs to give women direct access to their OB/GYNs. Now Susan is fighting to pass similar legislation in Congress to ensure that all American women can see their doctors without first getting the approval of a bureaucratic gatekeeper.
- Susan supports adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare and reducing prescription prices for seniors and families.
- Susan co-sponsored the Patients' Bill of Rights. This legislation ensures that patients have the right to a second opinion and have access to emergency care.
- Susan regularly hosts health care events in the community, including free Osteoporosis screenings to give San Diegans information on how to prevent and treat the degenerative bone disease.
- Susan is a strong advocate for a woman's right to choose and supports public policies that guarantee access to a full range of reproductive health services.
- For her work in Congress, Susan earned a 100% voting record on choice issues from Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL).
Defense / Military
- For her work on environmental issues in Congress, Susan was awarded an "A" from the American Wilderness Coalition, a 93% voting record from the League of Conservation Voters, and has been endorsed by the Sierra Club.
- In 2001, Susan secured $7 million to protect and preserve San Diego's open spaces.
- Susan supports funding for renewable energy research, such as solar power, wind power, and fuel cells that will not harm our environment. In Congress, Susan authored a bill to establish a tax credit for the installation of renewable energy systems.
- As a member of the House Armed Services and the Veteran's Affairs Committees, Susan makes it her priority to protect the readiness of our military and to improve benefits and services for active and retired military families - by fighting for increased pay and higher housing allowances, and restoring free and reduced school lunches for the children of military families.
- Susan co-founded and co-chairs the bipartisan Navy-Marine Corps Caucus in the House of Representatives.
- In 2001, Susan secured $175,000 for the Unity Through Reading program, which keeps deployed parents in touch with their children by videotaping them reading children's books and delivering the tapes to their children.
- Susan believes preserving Social Security must be a top national priority since it is the backbone of many Americans' retirement.
- Susan opposes risking the financial stability of Social Security by investing the Social Security Trust Fund in the stock market.
- Susan co-sponsored legislation to eliminate the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision, which reduce the Social Security benefits of teachers, government employees and their spouses.
- Susan has consistently voted against tax increases.
- Susan voted to permanently eliminate the marriage tax penalty, which penalizes over 200,000 married couples in San Diego.
- Susan recognizes the need for economic relief for all Americans and has fought to ensure that economic stimulus packages benefit everyone, not just the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
- Susan was awarded San Diego Business Journal's "Women Who Mean Business Award" in 2001.
- Susan voted in favor of Trade Promotion Authority. Susan has consistently stressed that international labor and environmental standards should be promoted through the trade negotiation process.
- Susan supports policies that would ensure that corporations, including their CEOs and auditors, are held accountable for upholding honest business practices.
- Susan authored legislation to improve the SENTRI system and make it permanent. SENTRI allows commuters who have passed extensive background security checks to by-pass long lines at the border.
- Susan supports strong new penalties for pension fraud and greater accountability for the management of employees' pension funds to safeguard retiring Americans from future situations like the Enron scandal.
- Susan co-sponsored legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $6.65 by 2003.
- Susan voted in support of federal ergonomic standards.
- In response to the high cost of housing in San Diego, Susan authored legislation to increase the Veterans Administration's guaranteed home loan limit from $240,000 to $300,000 to open the door to home ownership for San Diego veterans.
- Susan co-sponsored legislation to increase the availability of loans for low and moderate-income borrowers and to increase federal funding for the construction and preservation of affordable rental units.
- Susan has repeatedly voted to restore funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
- Susan sponsored a high school art contest in her Congressional district and supports music education programs in schools.
- Susan co-sponsored legislation that would guarantee equal pay and equal hiring practices for all Americans.
- Susan co-sponsored legislation to stiffen penalties for hate crimes.
- Susan supports transportation systems that integrate roads, transit, open spaces, bike paths and sidewalks.
- In 2001, Susan secured $61 million to expand the San Diego Trolley system, including the construction of new stops at San Diego State University and Alvarado Hospital.
- In the California State Assembly, Susan led efforts to extend I-15 through Mid-City and to enhance the 40th Street corridor with park areas. Susan is continuing to fight for federal funds to help alleviate congestion caused by in-fill development and population growth in San Diego.
- Susan supported the federalization of airline and airport security. She believes we must continue to actively monitor, test, and enhance security procedures. | <urn:uuid:aea9bc07-d744-4c6c-9b59-3fcfadf9faf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/11/05/ca/state/vote/davis_s/philosophy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940555 | 1,267 | 1.671875 | 2 |
India is a major power today in its own right. While much of the world has started to acknowledge it, Indian policy-makers remain diffident, almost apologetic, about their nation's rising profile, writes Harsh V Pant.
In the last few days, India has engaged with two major powers -- China and the US -- at the highest levels. Both are vital states in so far as Indian national security interests are concerned and both deserve to be treated with a degree of seriousness reserved for great powers.
But what is equally important to recognise is that India is also a major power today in its own right. While much of the world has started to acknowledge it, the Indian policy-makers remain diffident, almost apologetic, about their nation's rising profile. And when they interact with major powers, they reveal this weakness embedded in the Indian psyche.
So when External Affairs Minister S M Krishna went to Beijing to mark the 60th anniversary of India's recognition of the People's Republic of China, he ended up pleading once again for Chinese support for India's permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. It is unseemly for a nation that claims to be a rising power in the international system beseeching Beijing for its support, again and again, and then again, only to be rebuffed. More damagingly, it betrays a lack of confidence in India's own ability to define the terms of debate of its rise in the global inter-state hierarchy.
China is not going to support India's candidature for the Security Council, at least not in the foreseeable future. If the Indian foreign policy establishment cannot understand this basic fact of Asian geo-strategy, they have no right to be running this nation's foreign policy. And if there is some psychological need that gets satisfied in asking this question time and again why can't it be done outside the public glare, saving the Indian public constant humiliation?
Every time India asks for China's support and gets a negative answer it underlines China's status as the pre-eminent Asian power that reserves the right to grant India the privilege of being in the Security Council.
It should also be asked why does India have to waste so much of its diplomatic capital on an issue that is not likely to get resolved anytime soon. And why should India care about this so much. Even as the UN's failures have become self-evident over the years, Indian political elites have continued to view it as an almost indispensable actor in global politics that needs substantial Indian diplomatic investment.
While this fascination with a moribund institution may not have had any cost in the past when India was on the periphery of global politics, today's India cannot afford to cling on to that same old worldview. India's experience with the UN has historically been underwhelming, to put it mildly. India's interests have suffered whenever the nation has looked to the UN for support.
Yet for most of the Indian policy establishment the role of the UN in Indian foreign policy continues to be one of using the organisation "as a manifest of our desire to be a responsible world citizen." It is time to disabuse ourselves of the notion that India is going to be a permanent member of the Security Council anytime soon and that too with China's support.
Instead, Indian policy-makers should work towards an eventuality where India gets invited to join the Security Council by virtue of sheer heft in global politics.
India's obsequiousness towards China is not the only problem. It's evident in India's engagement with the US too. The Indian prime minister's reception in Washington was no doubt warm. All the right things were said and the Indian government's media managers underlined that President Barack Obama was indeed sensitive to Indian concerns.
The nation was told that Obama "fully understood our concerns about the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan" and "was engaging" Islamabad on these issues. Again, while one cannot quarrel with these assertions, it has become a regular feature of Indian diplomacy to press America toward securing its own regional security interests. The speed with which India has outsourced its regional foreign policy to Washington is astonishing.
New Delhi is now reduced to pleading with Washington to tackle Pakistan and to rein in Pakistan army's nefarious designs against India in Afghanistan, in Kashmir and elsewhere.
It is true that India and the US share a set of common goals in the region. There is a fundamental convergence between India and the Obama administration in viewing Pakistan as the source of Afghanistan's insecurity and the suggestion that the world must act together to cure Islamabad of its political malaise. In recognising that the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan constitute the single most important threat to global peace and security, arguing that Islamabad is part of the problem rather than the solution, and asking India to join an international concert in managing the Af-Pak region, the US has made significant departures from its traditionally held posture towards South Asia.
But it is equally true that a divergence has emerged between American and Indian interests in recent times. Indian regional policy should be based on an unambiguous assertion of its vital national interests, not on the hope that eventually America is there to pull its chestnuts out of the fire. By failing to craft its own narrative on Af-Pak ever since the US troops went into Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, New Delhi has allowed America to dictate the contours of Indian policy towards the region, doing much damage to India's credibility as a regional power of any consequence.
The US will only take India seriously when India starts taking itself seriously and starts behaving like a major power. The same applies to China. China is nothing if not pragmatic in its foreign policy. China's support for India's candidature to the Security Council's permanent membership will come when India's rise becomes a reality that Beijing can no longer ignore.
A diffident India will continue to crave for the attention of Beijing and Washington but will not get it in return. A confident India that charts its own course in world politics based on its national interests will force the world to sit up and take notice.
For all the breast beating in recent years about India emerging as a major global power, Indian strategic and political elites display an insecurity that defies explanation. A powerful, self-confident nation should be able to articulate a coherent vision about its priorities and national interests without apologies. The brazen display of a lack of self confidence by Indian elites in their nation's abilities to leverage the international system to its advantage will only weaken India over the long term. India should assess its interests carefully and learn to stand up for them.
Harsh Pant teaches at King's College London. | <urn:uuid:6e4aa423-7720-4b1a-b1f4-85859492b175> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.rediff.com/column/2010/apr/15/foreign-policy-indias-diffidence-problem.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958693 | 1,357 | 1.640625 | 2 |
It’s comfortable living in a cocoon — associating only with those who share your views, reading journalism and watching news that only reinforces them, avoiding those on the other side of the cultural divide.
Liberals have been doing this for a long time. In 1972, the movie critic Pauline Kael said it was odd that Richard Nixon was winning the election, because everyone she knew was for George McGovern.
Kael wasn’t clueless about the rest of America. She was just observing that her own social circle was politically parochial.
The rest of us have increasingly sought out comfortable cocoons, too. Journalist Bill Bishop, who lives in an Austin, Texas, neighborhood whose politics resemble Kael’s, started looking at national data.
It inspired him to write his 2009 book The Big Sort, which describes how Americans since the 1970s have increasingly sorted themselves out, moving to places where almost everybody shares their cultural orientation and political preference — and the others keep quiet about theirs.
Thus professionals with a choice of where to make their livings head for the San Francisco Bay Area if they’re liberal and for the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex (they really do call it that) if they’re conservative. Over the years the Bay Area becomes more liberal and the Metroplex more conservative.
But cocooning has an asymmetrical effect on liberals and conservatives. Even in a cocoon, conservatives cannot avoid liberal mainstream media, liberal Hollywood entertainment, and, these days, the liberal Obama administration.
They’re made uncomfortably aware of the arguments of those on the other side. Which gives them an advantage in fashioning their own responses.
Liberals can protect themselves better against assaults from outside their cocoon. They can stay out of megachurches and make sure their remote controls never click on Fox News. They can stay off the AM radio dial so they will never hear Rush Limbaugh.
The problem is that this leaves them unprepared to make the best case for their side in public debate. They are too often not aware of holes in arguments that sound plausible when bandied between confreres entirely disposed to agree.
We have seen how this works on some issues this year.
Take the arguments developed by professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown Law that Obamacare’s mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. Some liberal scholars, such as Jack Balkin of Yale, have addressed them with counterarguments of their own.
But liberal politicians and Eric Holder’s Justice Department remained clueless about them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked whether Obamacare was unconstitutional, could only gasp: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”
In March, after the Supreme Court heard extended oral argument on the case, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin was clearly flabbergasted that a majority of justices seemed to take the case against Obamacare’s constitutionality very seriously indeed.
Liberals better informed about the other side’s case might have drafted the legislation in a way to avoid this controversy. But nothing they heard in their cocoon alerted them to the danger.
Another case in point is Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s law restricting the bargaining powers of public-employee unions. The unions and the crowds in Madison, which is both the state capital and a university town that, with surrounding Dane County, voted 73 to 26 percent for Barack Obama, egged each other on with cries that this would destroy the working class. No one they knew found this implausible.
The unions had an economic motive to oppose the laws and seek to recall first Republican legislators and then Walker himself. The law ended the automatic checkoff of union dues, which operated as an involuntary transfer of money from taxpayers to union leaders.
But voters declined to recall enough Republicans to give Democrats a majority in the Senate, and Walker currently leads Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett in polls on the June 5 recall election.
The Madison mob seemed unaware that there were attractive arguments on Walker’s side.
Why should public-employee-union members pay less for health insurance and get fatter pensions than the taxpayers who pay their salaries? Why is it a bad thing for property taxes to be held down and for school districts to cut perks for union members enough to hire more teachers?
Beyond the Madison cocoon, in Wisconsin’s other 71 counties, which voted 55 to 44 percent for Walker in 2010, such arguments are evidently proving persuasive. Maybe liberals should listen to Rush every so often.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner. © 2012 The Washington Examiner. Distributed by Creators.com. | <urn:uuid:3cc89633-7afd-4fd4-b0e4-58d85b4192e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300866/echo-chamber-politics-michael-barone | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959566 | 951 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Do You Have a Personal Professional Improvement Plan?
Published in Dairy Star November 11, 2006
Many professionals develop and follow a professional improvement plan to keep themselves up to date. Some plans involve formal college or technical school studies while others revolve around less formal workshops and seminars. Even regular reading of journals and magazines related to their field keeps them abreast of what is happening in changing industries. As a dairy farmer, you are no less the professional than many of the people who provide services to you and your farm. You also need to keep up to date on the latest management systems that can make you a better dairy manager.
One factor in what we call "operational excellence" is having a professional development plan for everyone on the farm; that includes the management team as well as all the employees. The specific plan will be different for each category of manager or employee, and may be different for each person, depending on the skills and abilities he/she brings to the dairy.
A plan should provide answers to two questions:
- What is this person expected to do or contribute on the dairy?
- What skills or knowledge does this person need to add or hone in order to better meet those expectations?
A plan is probably best developed in a one to one discussion with the person. Such a visit also provides an opportunity for evaluation of his/her work and how he/she feels about it, while determining how to help the person be a better employee or manager.
Professional development planning meetings can help identify employees who may be candidates for advancement within the business. If a good employee shows interest in a different position that may have more responsibility, helping him/her develop or sharpen the necessary skills might be just the incentive necessary to keep that employee on your farm. Even if that person cannot move into a different role soon, recognition of his/her interest and a demonstrated willingness to help that person achieve higher goals will show you care about him/her as a person, not just a worker. By participating yourself in professional improvement, you demonstrate to others on the farm the value you place on improvement. You will lead by example.
A recent article by Dan Simmons in the Animal Science Monitor gave four additional good reasons for attending conferences that offer you or your employees professional improvement opportunities:
- Training - often thought of as the first reason to attend any conference or program;
- Networking - connect with other people of similar interests. This is where you learn of new opportunities and new ideas that might fit your farm.
- Other people's knowledge - pick their brains! If you have a situation you aren't quite sure how to address, it is very possible other people at a conference have faced the same issue. What you learn from their experience could be valuable.
- The opportunity to refresh yourself - Everyone needs a break from the routine once in a while. While attending a conference in your chosen field isn't exactly a vacation, the break from the normal routine can still recharge one's batteries.
Professional development might be off-farm seminars and workshops or it might be something right on the farm. Commercial businesses often offer programs for the benefit of their customers, some of which don't even try to sell you anything! Some training and development opportunities offered by the Extension Service can be conducted for a farm or small group of farms cooperatively if requested.
Excellent opportunities exist for interaction with industry professionals and dairy operators at programs like the annual 4-State Dairy Management Conference in June (Dubuque, IA), the Midwest Dairy Expo in December (St. Cloud), or the Carver County Dairy Expo in February (Norwood-Young America). The Minnesota Extension Service will be conducting its annual Minnesota Dairy Days at nine (9) locations around Minnesota in early January. This 'close to home' opportunity will bring you up to date on a variety of topics without a lot of travel time. Some may prefer on-farm opportunities for professional improvement.
Why not have subscriptions to some good industry magazines on the rack or table in the employee lunchroom? If your employees happen to be Spanish-speaking, some of these magazines offer selected articles in Spanish. Many sources offer videos for loan or purchase. Having a library of selected videos available can help sharpen the skills of employees without having to leave the farm.
Take the time to develop professional development plans for yourself and your staff. The potential for smoother and more efficient operations on your farm could pay off in healthier stock, more high quality milk, greater profits to the farm, and more satisfied employees who take pride in their work. | <urn:uuid:5fa77a9e-e7ee-4774-97a6-0b1ad383f88c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/dairy/employees/do-you-have-a-personal-professional-improvement-plan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956615 | 924 | 1.570313 | 2 |
It was a challenging week for gold investors. Although the yellow metal has been on a spectacular 11-year bull run, recent strength in the economy has some thinking gold's heyday is over.
As I often say, investing, like life, is about managing expectations-even throughout gold's decade-long rise, price action over the short term can go both ways. It helps to look at what happens after short-term drops. For example, looking at the past decade of one-day 5 percent declines in gold, you can see that this event is pretty rare. In 2006, gold dropped more than 5 percent in a day only two times. In 2008, there were three such events. Another one occurred at the end of this February.
click to enlarge
The 1.7 percent drop experienced over the past month shouldn't surprise gold investors given the seasonal pattern for gold. Whereas gold rises nearly 2 percent in both January and February, over the past 11 years, it's been a non-event for gold to correct in March.
In addition, it's a good reminder that bullion has historically been less volatile than the stock market: the 12-month rolling volatility over the past 10 years for gold was 13 percent. For the S&P 500 Index, the 12-month rolling volatility over the same period was 19 percent.
This March, there seemed to be one main driver eight thousand miles away negatively affecting gold prices. I often say that government policy is a precursor to change, and fiscal policy strongly affected the Love Trade in India last month. To trim its current account deficit, India's finance minister proposed doubling the customs tax on the precious metal. It was soon reported that jewelers closed shops in protest.
As a result, gold imports into the world's largest gold market fell 55 percent.
It's not the customs tax that has the gold shops boycotting, says UBS Investment Research firm. Jewelers' "prime gripe is with the new 1 percent excise duty on unbranded jewelry" leading to a greater recording of gold transactions, which means more regulation and red tape. What's so egregious to jewelers is the excise tax will be retroactive so those shop owners holding old gold stocks will have to pay duty on those as well, says UBS.
I believe this is only a temporary sell-off for India. As I often discuss in my presentations, traditional festivals and holidays drive gold demand in India because of their strong history with gold. With their love for the yellow metal, Indians hold the belief that gold "will perpetually rise," although there are certain buyers that wait for a "psychologically important $1,600 level," keeping in mind the strength of the rupee, says UBS.
While the seasonal Love Trade period for gold generally falls between August and February, an important holiday is coming up which has historically driven higher sales of gold. Akshaya Tritiya festival occurs on April 24 this year. This is an important occasion for Hindus, celebrated annually in late April or early May, depending on the Hindu calendar. Buying and wearing of gold jewelry is important on this day, as UBS says it's one of the two "biggest gold buying events" in the Hindu calendar. The second event is Dhanteras, which occurs during the peak seasonality period for the yellow metal.
How important is this festival for the gold market? UBS analyzed the buying data from India last year when Indians celebrated Akshaya Tritiya festival on May 6. It found that "physical sales to India peaked four days beforehand." Also, "sales were consistently above average for 13 working days" before the festival because local banks and jewelers restocked their inventory.
Two factors need to change to help sales in India this year, warns UBS. The firm says the jewelers' strike needs to end, and, according to one local who talked with UBS, it would help gold sales if the price of oil would reverse-this would "relieve some of the current account pressure and perhaps allow for more flexibility with regard to gold imports."
What won't change over the long-term is Indians' gold-buying behavior: Indians "have an extensive cultural tie to gold" and this "is not changing," says UBS.
Fear Trade for Gold is Still Alive
The world has been experiencing the largest liquidity boom, as the central banks' seven-month easing binge continues. Over this time, ISI counted 127 different stimulative policies, such as printing money, lowering interest rates and other easing measures, taken by governments around the world.
The policy shifts helped carry the equity market a long way from the low on March 9, 2009. At the time, we noted in a special Investor Alert that there were significant government policy changes that signaled the market had hit rock bottom. According to USA Today, from the 2009 bottom through the end of the first quarter, the S&P 500 Index increased more than 100 percent. No wonder U.S. equity investors are singing.
However, the side effect of the abundance of printing by the central banks in the U.S., Europe, Japan and England has bloated balance sheets amounting to nearly $9 trillion. This is double the amount that it was three and a half years ago, says Ian McAvity in his recent Deliberations on World Markets, as the printing presses have pumped our monetary system full of liquidity. This is merely "kicking the can down the road," as central banks will have to deal with the overhang later, says Ian.
This has historically been a strong positive catalyst for gold. An analyst at the Economics and Finance Fanatic blog put together a visual that illustrates just how strong of a catalyst the nonstop printing of money is. The chart compares the U.S. adjusted monetary base since 1990 with the "surging" price of gold. As you can see below, the amount of money in the U.S. system climbed to extraordinary heights since 2008, with gold following the same path.
The economic challenges of the U.S. and eurozone "promise to be a prolonged one with sluggish economic growth," says the blog, and easy monetary policies will likely be the remedy for awhile. I believe this provides a strong case that any pullback in the gold price appears to be a buying opportunity. Ian says, "Tax uncertainty, festering toxic debt that's out there but out of sight and impossible debt service ability looming? I'll stick with gold and sleep better at night."
U.S. investors might sleep better at night with an allocation to gold in the face of continued negative real interest rates. The chart below shows how gold has historically climbed when interest rates fell below zero percent, with a "strong correlation from 1977-84, and again recently when rates turned negative in early 2008," according to Desjardins Capital Markets.
The U.S. has not made any cuts in entitlements which make up 60 percent of the deficit. There have been no changes in fiscal policy and no change in current monetary policy. Ian McAvity says these factors together make "the most powerful argument in favor of converting that paper into gold."
What would have to change to make me turn bearish? I believe the following three actions would need to be taken:
1. Real interest rates would have to increase 2 percent above the CPI in the U.S. and Europe
2. GDP per capita in Chindia would need to fall, negatively affecting the Love Trade
3. Substantial fiscal cuts would need to be made in entitlement programs in the U.S. and Europe
I believe there is a low probability of these events occurring any time soon. In this environment, gold should thrive.
Update: Jewelers and bullion traders in India called off their strike on Friday after India's finance minister said that the government would address the concern of the duty on gold jewelry. This is just in time for Indians to purchase gold ahead of the Akshaya Tritiya festival, but the boycotting may arise again as the levy proposal will be up for consideration in parliament in early May.
All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is one of the most widely recognized price measures for tracking the price of a market basket of goods and services purchased by individuals. The weights of components are based on consumer spending patterns. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. | <urn:uuid:bacaaef3-f507-4528-af54-f487db35081d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/487581-managing-expectations-why-gold-should-thrive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962886 | 1,786 | 1.515625 | 2 |
1. Always shoot in RAW mode. That goes without saying.
2. The LCD on the back of the camera is set to off. You never want it turning on by itself while you’re shooting on the street for the obvious reason that it draws attention to you.
3. I have the LCD picture mode set to monochrome. In the Canon dslr world it’s called “Picture Style” and it’s under the second camera icon on the menu. The way my workflow is setup, the images although they are shot in color (Adobe RGB) as they are imported into Lightroom, I have a developer preset to grayscale. So in most cases, at least in the beginning, I never see the images in color.
4. Every digital SLR has these shooting modes:
Program (program priority), AV (aperture priority), TV (shutter priority), and M (manual)
For street shooting, which is to say when you don’t know what you are going to be shooting next, I have each preset. AV is set to F1.4. TV(on a sunny day) is set to 1/1000th. M (not set up).
White Balance is set to AWB (auto white balance). I’m not going to be fiddling around with white balance while I’m walking around.
The Canon 40D has something called Highlight Tone Priority (with the 40D it’s under Custom Functions II – Image). This is always set to ENABLE. What does it do? It gives me some leeway at the right end of the histogram. It attempts to put more pixels into the highlight side and without this I find that it is too easy to lose highlights. It has one possible downside – it doesn’t allow you to shoot at an ASA lower than 200. I have no idea why, but since I generally shoot at 400 ASA it’s not a problem.
I have one lens (generally) the Sigma 30mm f1.4 (If I have a particular project in mind, then I may bring other lenses along) but this is just about the normal walking around mode.
The idea with pre-setting the AV and TV modes is that the camera remembers how they were set and I can quickly turn from a low-light shot to a quick moving shot with a turn of the dial. Example might be, I’m on the way to pick up groceries and walk into the dimly lit store. I’ll simply turn the switch to AV and I know that I’m in the ballpark.
On a sunny day, the city turns into a grid of shadow and brightly lit streets. If I’m on the sunny side of the street I’ll leave the camera in Program mode. I know it will give me a high enough shutter speed to capture moving things.
If I’m on the shady side of the street I’ll set the camera to TV. I want to make sure that I have enough shutter speed to freeze motion.
Any sort of noise reduction settings are off. I want to get as pure an image from the RAW file as possible. I can always use noise reduction in Lightroom if it’s needed, which is very rare.
What else? Oh, on the Canon you can configure focus lock to be triggered by the little AF-ON button on the back (what this is called is specific to the Canon 40D but Canon has had this feature since film camera days). On the 40D, what this button is used for can be configured under the Custom Functions IV menu. The camera is configured so that exposure readings are triggered by the Shutter Button and focus lock by that AF-ON button.
I only use the center focus point to pre-focus and then hold the button on the back; or if it’s going to be a long time and I don’t want to kill the batteries I’ll flip the lens to manual focus (and hopefully remember to set it back).
I can count the times I’ve put the camera into rapid fire mode on one hand. Even if I was shooting sports I doubt if I’d use it. To me, the thrill is still related to pressing the shutter button at the right time. If I’m photographing a pitcher at a baseball game, I’ll be pre-focused on him, whether I’m using a super long lens or whatever – and try and anticipate the moment I want.
And I’ll tell you one other thing – although I need eyeglasses to drive, I never walk around with glasses on. My eyes are good enough to see when something interesting is happening or about to happen, and I don’t really see things clearly until I look through the viewfinder where the diopter has been set for my eyes. That’s about all I can think of. I don’t know whether these custom functions exist on the other camera lines, but I’d guess they do. | <urn:uuid:405f28b7-79ad-423e-84c2-4e3665406497> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beckermanphoto.com/blog/my-dslr-configuration/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941767 | 1,068 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Core T is All: The Male Sexy Hormone
A recent study from the University of Abertay has come out today which challenges testosterone as the primary hormone responsible for male attractiveness; the main culprit is portrayed as cortisol:
Women preferred cues to low cortisol in general and in the fertile phase of the cycle, and there was an interaction between T and cortisol in general and in the non-fertile phase. Results were consistent with the SL-ICHH but not the original immunocompetence handicap model: females expressed preferences for cues to cortisol but not for cues to T, except in interaction with the stress hormone.
Cortisol can be simplified as a stress hormone. The more stressed you are, the more cortisol is floating around your system. Long-term elevated cortisol is hypothesised to play a detrimental effect on health. This is consistent with why the only personality where there is any evidence that there is long-term detrimental health effects is type A.
A brief google search confirms that simple strategies for relaxation such as meditation (or ahem, commonsense: removing a stressor if there is one) helps keep the stress down. I even saw someone say carbohydrates can put your cortisol up (via insulin release, which stimulates cortisol release).
However, the study does have a small sample size. It examined reactions to face only, and not in a holistic manner. I wonder if it’s reproducible.
What do you say girls: is sexual attractiveness something you associate more with someone who’s taking it easy? | <urn:uuid:ce134f6f-c0c9-4bb5-b515-897646dd4428> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://girlgame.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/core-t-is-all-the-male-sexy-hormone/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941058 | 316 | 1.546875 | 2 |
When employees think they are working in a hostile environment, emotions often run high. Sometimes they even boil over. If an employee believes he is working under intolerable conditions, he may strike back with a harassment campaign of his own.
Anonymous letters, e-mails and other unconventional forms of communication may amount to reverse harassment—and you don’t have to tolerate it. As long as you can reasonably trace the origins of the communications to the employee who is responsible for them, you should be able to punish the behavior without being accused of retaliation or illegal discrimination.
Recent case: Glenn Perry, who is black, worked as a police officer at Fort Dix. From Day One, Perry claimed was out to harass him because of his race. He filed an EEOC complaint, pointing to a series of professional slights and several isolated instances of overheard racist comments as proof of discrimination.
But Perry didn’t stop after going through official channels. Management claimed he also slipped a long, anonymous complaint letter into his supervisor’s office mailbox. The letter included crude references to sexual activity and called the supervisor a “sambo.”
Because video surveillance of the mailbox area showed Perry nearby at about the time the letter showed up, management assumed he was the culprit and fired him. Perry sued for retaliation and discrimination.
But the court said management had a legitimate reason to fire him: Management believed Perry had harassed his own supervisor. The court said that’s not retaliation. It also concluded that Perry hadn’t worked in a hostile environment because the slurs were not pervasive or severe. The court dismissed Perry’s case. (Perry v. Harvey, No. 06-5386, DC NJ, 2008)
Final note: There’s a huge difference between making a legitimate discrimination complaint and harassing co-workers or supervisors. You don’t have to put up with bad behavior.
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" This information is proudly provided by Business Management Daily.com: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/5432/theres-protected-activity-then-theres-harassment " | <urn:uuid:eab4b45e-d739-4478-9baa-776496e3e78c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/5432/theres-protected-activity-then-theres-harassment | 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 | 0.963528 | 568 | 1.789063 | 2 |
In a wide-ranging speech Wednesday that focused on recent bipartisan Capitol Hill accomplishments for veterans, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., summoned the spirit of a past Republican president and five-star Army general to offer hope for the nation's unemployment problem.
She drew on Dwight D. Eisenhower's vision in the 1950s about how massive public-works projects, despite their high federal cost, were the building blocks of economic growth and national security.
"These were very difficult economic times," Pelosi told thousands of veterans gathered in Milwaukee for the 92nd American Legion National Convention. "And in spite of that bad economy, he made the decision to build the Interstate Highway System. But where would the money come from? You'd hear this all the time. The president said we are going forward because it is a national-security issue to have the American people connected by an Interstate Highway System. Not only that, it created an enormous amount of jobs. Just think where the country would be if it had not invested in that infrastructure at that time. It was a very courageous move by a very courageous president."
Today, as the nation grapples with continued high unemployment, particularly for veterans, Pelosi says Ike's strategy can be deployed again to rebuild America's aging infrastructure, put people back to work and strengthen the nation as a whole."All who serve our country in uniform know that some of the reasons for going to war can be addressed by having a stronger America here. We promised them a future worthy of their sacrifice. That future must provide economic opportunity for them and their families as they make it in America, build our infrastructure, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, clean up our air, and make us technologically No. 1. The connection between our returning vets, job opportunities, preserving our industrial base, strengthening that base, building the infrastructure of America ... is the path I believe we must work together so that everyone can make it in America."
During her 30-minute presentation, Pelosi touched on a number of recent legislative accomplishments fueled by American Legion initiatives and support, including:
- Passage and implementation of a GI Bill for the 21st Century. "With The American Legion at our side, just as (it was) for the creation of the original GI Bill, we passed the Post 9/11 GI Bill," Pelosi said. "Together, we have restored the promise of a full four-year scholarship for our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and have made it transferable to their spouses and children. Educating our nation's veterans is a cost of war, and it's a promise we make to our troops."
- Passage of advance appropriations for VA health-care facilities to ensure timely budgets at the facility level. "Advance appropriations is now the law of the land," said Pelosi, who was applauded after acknowledging that advance appropriations was the Legion's highest legislative priority in 2009, the year it passed.
- Passage of the largest one-year increase in VA funding in history, "which means tens of thousands of new doctors and nurses, new Vet Centers and outpatient clinics, 300,000 modest-income veterans receiving VA health care for the very first time," she explained.
- House approval of legislation to end the so-called "disabled veterans tax" or restriction against concurrent receipt of VA disability compensation and DoD retirement pay, even though they are different payments for different reasons from different budgets. "We're going to keep the pressure on the Senate until it becomes the law of the land," Pelosi said.
- Increased health-care services for veterans who live far from VA facilities and quadrupling of the travel reimbursement for those who have long distances to drive for their VA care.
- Passage of over $13 billion in funding to handle an expected wave of VA claims after three new diseases were added to the list of those presumed to have been caused by exposure to Agent Orange defoliant during the Vietnam War.
Pelosi said The American Legion has worked alongside Congress and helped set priorities that led to most of the recent accomplishments. "Together, we have made more progress over the last four years for our veterans, military and families than has been made since the passage of the original GI Bill in 1944. I am especially proud that the vast majority of our accomplishments were done with overwhelming bipartisan support. There should be no division between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to supporting those who have worn our nation's uniform."
-30-Media contacts: Joe March, or Craig Roberts (414) 908-5475. | <urn:uuid:a8ce7ef7-b034-4482-acf6-f3379791d3ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.legion.org/print/90707 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968235 | 914 | 1.84375 | 2 |
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