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Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.
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The Kids Express is a site that was made for kids, welcomes kids, and is maintained by kids. The Kids Express supports learning in fun ways, so that the kids don't even realize that they're learning. Our magazine can be read or added to by visitors. The kids can do either of these two or both. They can vote at the Youth Booth, or post a message at the Soap Box Park. See you there...
19 & under
Social Sciences & Culture > Education > Elementary | <urn:uuid:38afe0fb-06f9-4537-b210-092ed0a98822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkquest.org/pls/html/f?p=52300:100:1312256445744672::::P100_TEAM_ID:501577225 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951105 | 130 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
California Gov. Jerry Brown speaks during a news conference on May 14, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. Brown proposes $8.3 billion cuts in California to help close a projected $16 billion budget shortfall.
It’s time to hold your nose and take a hard swallow. As Governor Jerry Brown disclosed the latest revised budget for the state, he said it’s time for Californians to take their medicine. The projected budget deficit has hit almost $16 billion, far greater than officials anticipated just five months ago.
That'll mean some "painful cuts" for the state's higher education institutions.
That is unless voters pass a tax initiative intended to maintain the state’s public school budget at its present level. That still keeps California’s higher education spending well below Kentucky’s, Mississippi’s, and West Virginia’s.
If the tax ballot measure fails, the University of California and California State systems would each receive $250 million less than they did this year. That’s $50 million more in cuts than projected back in January.
Lars Walton, a vice chancellor at UC Irvine, said the cuts project a bleak future ahead for the UC system alongside with administrative cuts it’s already made.
"We’ve laid off, system wide, 4,400 employees," says Walton. "Eliminated close to 4,000 positions, deferred academic hiring, cut academic programs, and certainly that has pulled back the university as far as we can go. So there’s little that we can do anymore in terms of wiggle room on the edges."
The Cal State system also operates on the fiscal edge. At Cal State Long Beach, the school faces a deficit of about $34 million according to President King Alexander.
"That’s equivalent to us basically closing the entire College of Business and the entire College of Engineering," he said.
In preparation for more reductions, Alexander said all 23 Cal State campuses have already closed enrollment for the Spring 2013 semester. That means Cal state schools won’t admit any transfer students mid-year. The system’s also considering waitlisting the entire incoming class for the 2013 Fall semester.
The situation is just as dire at community colleges. Jonathan Lightman is executive director of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. He hopes that the potential consequences of state budget cuts will move voters in November.
Gov. Jerry Brown stands away from other Democratic governors at the White House.
Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democratic governors from around the country met this morning with President Barack Obama. The governor says he wants less government regulation from the feds.
Brown wants more flexibility on two of the biggest money issues for California: health care for the poor and education. He says, "We need some waivers from the federal government to make my job more efficient and effective in California."
Brown met with Education Secretary Arne Duncan to talk about relief from some of the requirements of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law. The federal government has granted a waiver to 10 states, but California didn’t apply, concerned it couldn’t afford the more than $2 billion required to make enough reforms to earn the waiver.
Under No Child, failing schools could face mass transfers of students, conversion to charters or a state takeover. Brown says he’s “optimistic” he can work out a compromise with Washington on both No Child Left Behind and Medi-Cal requirements.
Before the pledge, she got down on her hands and knees in front of the horseshoe and began a prayer to God — asking for forgiveness and asking for all in the room to repent for their sins.
That's how Inglewood Unified School Board vice president Trina Williams started the district's first meeting of the year, reports my KPCC colleague Adolfo Guzman-Lopez.
The night apparently didn't get any less dramatic, as the board discussed the likelihood that it would run out of money in the next few months and be forced to declare bankruptcy. That would likely mean the state would strip the school board of its powers and take over the operations of the 12,000-student district.
Guzman-Lopez reported over KPCC's airwaves today:
"The district expects an $18 million deficit by the end of this fiscal year. The superintendent recommended taking out loans, freezing expenses and laying off employees. Inglewood schools have already dismissed 223 workers, mostly teachers, to cut the deficit. The teachers’ union president said a declaration of bankruptcy and a state takeover would stem the flow of red ink." | <urn:uuid:b3aeb29d-1aa7-43ce-81ac-7b2790588a29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/tagged/jerry-brown_1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951168 | 963 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Biz Stone, cited by Kate Murphy in Catching Up With Biz Stone via NYTimes.com
A book that I like to reread every once in a while is “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, & Philosophers,” by Leonard Koren. Wabi-Sabi is a concept and an art form. It’s about the beauty of the natural degradation of things like the rust on a can. Something that I’ve always wanted to do is work the idea of natural degradation into software, like an app you use a lot would become worn-looking. It would be a visual thing because I think having an app that would break down over time wouldn’t be cool.
It would be relatively easy for an OS — like Mac OS or iOS — to render the icons for apps as slowly eroding as a result of the level of our usage, or the background slowly losing its smooth uniformity, like chipped paint: | <urn:uuid:09531c31-b94a-4e27-bc0a-163256306359> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stoweboyd.com/post/37027312443/biz-stone-on-wabi-sabi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962738 | 205 | 1.507813 | 2 |
With the release of the 2012 Bicycle Friendly State rankings, it’s great to see states and advocates continuing to improve conditions for bicyclists.
With that in mind, here’s this week’s advocacy roundup:
West Virginia is updating its 1997 State Bicycle Connectivity Plan. WVDOT held a series of public meetings in May to gather input from bicyclists throughout the state. “The meetings have been well attended and folks are providing good comments and input into the process,” says Perry Keller, WVDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator. This input will be used to create draft plan recommendations on necessary bicycle connections. Residents can review the recommendations during another series of public meetings in August/September.
New York Senator Charles Schumer has come out in favor of building the new Livingston Avenue Railroad bridge (connecting Albany and Rensselaer) with bicycle and pedestrian accommodations. “Senator Schumer’s involvement at this early point in the project design is very timely,” said Brian Kehoe, executive director of the New York Bicycling Coalition. “The [Livingston Avenue RR Bridge] Coalition anticipates productive engagement with all projects stakeholders as this critical project moves forward. We deeply appreciate the Senator’s support for bicycling.” NYBC received an Advocacy Advance Rapid Response grant to help ensure this opportunity results in a multi-modal connection between the two cities.
California’s three-foot passing bill, SB 1464, faces a vote by the full state Senate soon. The bill will require drivers give bicyclists at least three feet of clearance when overtaking them from behind in the same lane. This bill is a response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto last October of SB 910, the previous attempt to enact a three-foot passing law in California. In his veto message, Brown expressed support for the concept but objected to an exception to the three-foot requirement meant to accommodate drivers in dense urban traffic. SB 1464 contains largely the same language as SB 910, but the exception is slightly less restrictive. We’re confident this version of the bill is one that Gov. Brown will sign. Check out the California Bicycle Coalition’s website for more info.
Massachusetts advocates are pushing for a series of bills, including a vulnerable road user law, to address bicycling and walking safety in the Bay State. The vulnerable road user bill provides law enforcement with more flexible tools to encourage motorists to exercise caution when operating around vulnerable road users, including increased fines, traffic safety classes, and community service.
Georgia Bikes! and the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety have awarded their 2012 seed grants for local advocacy organizations across the state. Several projects are already off the ground as a result of the grants.
League State and Local Advocacy Coordinator
Mr. Wempe joined the League in September 2011. For the three years prior, he worked as a transportation planner and Safe Routes to School Coordinator in Fort Collins, Colo. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. | <urn:uuid:000341a8-d8c7-4b5d-963b-74b5d4947037> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.bikeleague.org/blog/2012/05/advocacy-roundup-bridges-safe-passing-connectivity-and-more/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943023 | 650 | 1.5625 | 2 |
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH – 29 January 1995
Murder most sophisticated
Poisoning is the most likely form of homicide to go undetected, says Dr James Le Fanu.
THE PUBLIC’S perennial and vicarious interest in murder trials has been well catered for this week, with a choice between Los Angeles – the O. J. Simpson case – and Edinburgh, where biochemistry lecturer Dr Paul Agutter is accused of allegedly spiking supermarket tonic bottles with the drug atropine.
Although the Simpson drama has attracted the lion’s share of attention, connoisseurs of crime will no doubt be paying closer attention to developments in Edinburgh. Poisoning is much the most interesting and sophisticated method of homicide – and the one with the highest chance of going undetected – usually by the administration of a poison whose deadly effect is difficult to distinguish from death by natural causes. Thus the symptoms of phosphorous poisoning are very similar to those of yellow atrophy of the liver, while thallium simulates the symptoms of polyneuritis – an acute inflammation of the nerves. An Australian woman successfully disposed of two of her husbands in this manner before a detective, suspicious of the similarity of their deaths, ordered their bodies to be exhumed. Toxicological tests revealed massive levels of thallium in the tissues of both.
More recently, the Newcastle surgeon and chairman of the BMA’s Ethical Committee, Mr Paul Vickers, induced a lethal aplastic anaemia – destruction of the bone marrow – in his wife with the anti-cancer drug CCNU. This was a perfect murder in every respect, and Vickers would certainly have got away with it had he not later called off the marriage to his girlfriend and accomplice – who then went to the police and revealed all. Despite the many advantages of murder by poisoning, it remains a rare means of homicide, probably because the poisons themselves are difficult to get hold of, due to rigorous safety regulations.
A more intriguing reason was suggested by Michael Green, professor of forensic medicine at Sheffield University, in an address to the Association of Police Surgeons two years ago, appropriately entitled "Getting Away With Murder". He argued that the apparent rarity of death by poisoning may indeed be because most go undetected. "It is suspected that some illnesses and deaths, especially amongst the elderly, are deliberately drug-induced – notably by overdosage with digoxin [a heart drug] and sedatives," he said.
Further, trends in the forensic-pathology service have reduced the thoroughness of investigations into cases of sudden or unexpected death, thus increasing the chances that death by poisoning will be overlooked. The number of autopsies is certainly falling – and, Professor Green alleges, so is their quality. As a result of financial constraints, it is now more difficult to persuade hospital laboratories to screen for drugs and other toxic substances. "Poisoning," Professor Green urged, "should always cross the minds of those dealing with an unusual case of sudden illness or death."
There could be no better illustration of the importance of this advice than the following very unusual case of a mystery illness, described by Victor Dubowitz, Professor of Paediatrics at the Hammersmith Hospital.
Early one Sunday morning Professor Dubowitz was phoned by a doctor in Qatar and asked if he would admit a 19-month-old girl who, over a period of 10 days, had become increasingly drowsy and lethargic and was unable to sit upright or walk.
By the time the girl arrived at the Hammersmith, she was semi-conscious and unresponsive to commands. She made continuous restless movements when disturbed, had a hoarse cry and seemed to be sweating excessively, even though her temperature was normal.
Professor Dubowitz suspected a viral infection of the brain, or encephalitis, and was disconcerted when all the investigations that might support such a diagnosis were entirely normal. However, the girl’s condition deteriorated to a point where it was thought she would have to be put on a ventilator. While this was being discussed on a ward round, the nurse sitting by the child’s bedside interrupted to say she thought the diagnosis was thallium poisoning. In response to the somewhat surprised reaction of the medical staff, she pointed out that the Agatha Christie novel she was reading, A Pale Horse, described several cases of thallium poisoning, in which the victim’s symptoms were remarkably similar to those of the girl. In addition, the one consistent feature stressed in the book – loss of hair – had just become apparent that morning.
Professor Dubowitz ordered an urgent toxicological analysis, which revealed very high urine levels of thallium – a domestic poison widely used in the Middle East to eliminate cockroaches and rodents, with which she may have been deliberately poisoned. Luckily, the girl responded to treatment, although even four months later she still needed support when standing and walking.
"We are indebted to the late Agatha Christie for her excellent and perceptive clinical description," Professor Dubowitz concludes in his report. And to the nurses’s powers of observation, it would be fair to add.
Copyright: Telegraph Group Ltd | <urn:uuid:7099e1e3-1026-4ca2-aea0-c7f114bb904a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jameslefanu.com/articles/psychology-murder-most-sophisticated | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97248 | 1,068 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Vet convicted under Stolen Valor Act doesn't want his record cleared
Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram
Federal prosecutors in North Texas used the Stolen Valor Act, a law recently declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, to prosecute exactly one person for lying about his military record.
The man, perhaps surprisingly, was a veteran, a sailor-turned-soldier who concocted a breathtaking series of tall tales of heroism and claimed a rack of medals supposedly earned in Iraq and Afghanistan, all to impress people in Amarillo. He became a frequent speaker at colleges, nursing homes and veterans events.
Richard David McClanahan served 30 months in federal prison for his lies, a lengthy penalty imposed because he also lied about his income to buy a pickup from a dealership. Now living in Fort Worth, the 34-year-old ex-convict has a chance to have at least part of his conviction overturned after the Supreme Court's decision.
But McClanahan said he has no interest in clearing his record.
"I have no desire to have my record expunged," he said. "I'm not the victim here. The law was put into place for a very good reason.
"I understand the legal reasons why it was overturned and have no doubt that it was the legitimate decision for the Supreme Court. But I respectfully disagree with the court's decision. I wish the law had remained to prevent people like me from making absurd statements."
McClanahan's case had nothing to do with the appeal that reached the Supreme Court, which involved a public official in California who falsely boasted that he had earned the Medal of Honor. That man, Xavier Alvarez, fought his prosecution on the grounds that the First Amendment protected his speech, even though his statements were lies.
The justices ruled 6-3 on June 28 that the act violates constitutional guarantees of free speech, rights that extend to lies so long as no one is harmed or the person isn't engaging in financial fraud.
McClanahan did not fight his prosecution. He pleaded guilty, and in two recent conversations with the Star-Telegram, he said that he hopes a new law can be crafted to satisfy the court's objections. A new bill has been introduced in Congress that would tailor the definition of the crime to those who benefit financially from lying.
"I wish more people could be brought down and exposed," he said. "I still have friends in the military. I disrespected them. I don't believe that people should be able to get away with that, and this coming from the guy who was convicted and did time for it."
Whether McClanahan is being totally honest remains to be seen. He told the Star-Telegram that he earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from West Texas A&M University. The university says he is a former student but never earned a degree. He also significantly minimized the circumstances of his discharge from the Army, which booted him under "other than honorable" circumstances in lieu of a court-martial, according to the Justice Department.
The Stolen Valor Act, passed overwhelmingly by Congress in 2005 and signed by President George W. Bush in 2006, never resulted in large numbers of convictions.
But according to two defense attorneys in Fort Worth, anyone convicted under the law would be eligible to have the conviction overturned. People still in the appeals process will likely have the matter handled quickly by a judge, they said. Those finished with appeals will have to file a writ of habeas corpus, requesting that a judge overturn the conviction and restore their civil liberties.
"I would think they will all get reversed and those in prison will be set free," said Richard Henderson, a trial lawyer in Fort Worth who does extensive appellate work. "Their records would be completely clear, as if it never happened."
Even if McClanahan changes his mind and wants the Stolen Valor Act conviction overturned, he cannot have the felony conviction for lying on the loan application wiped out.
(None of this affects current members of the military, for whom falsely representing qualifications and decorations has always been a crime.)
McClanahan received more press for his lies and conviction in 2007 than many other offenders, perhaps because it seems more shocking when someone with military experience violates the trust and faith of fellow veterans with such bald untruths.
McClanahan, abandoned as a child, was raised by an adoptive couple for a few years until they divorced. At about age 10, he was sent to Cal Farley's Boys Ranch in Amarillo, where he graduated from high school in 1997. He joined the Navy and served for more than two years until switching to the Army. He said he enjoyed the military's structure because it was similar to Cal Farley's.
Records show that he earned an Army Commendation and two Achievement Medals, a perfectly commendable record for a sergeant who had not yet deployed to a war zone.
But beginning in about 2005, his lying must have started, or at least a record of it accumulated. While in the Army, he began claiming the Navy SEAL Trident, Special Forces and airborne tabs, Marine reconnaissance qualification, three Silver Stars and the Legion of Merit. The Army busted him down in rank, sent him to the brig for 100 days and discharged him for his transgressions.
He returned to his hometown, enrolled at West Texas A&M and became involved in a veterans support group, America Supports You. The organization included city and county officials and retired military personnel, he said. That's when McClanahan laid down the biggest lie: that he had been nominated for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest medal for bravery in combat.
McClanahan said that he was surrounded by people who had better military stories and that his lies grew as he realized that the status gained him more opportunities.
"Who wants to meet a guy who was a medic and deployed to Korea and then goes to college?" he asked. "Those guys are a dime a dozen. My stories weren't worth anything. I just thought, 'What is going to set David apart?'"
Alerted by suspicious veterans, the FBI investigated McClanahan. Within months, he was indicted by a federal grand jury.
He pleaded guilty to one felony count of falsely representing his income to buy the pickup and one misdemeanor count of making false claims about military medals. U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson hammered him with 34 months in prison, going outside the sentencing guidelines for what she called his "consistent pattern of lying."
McClanahan said he can't disagree with her reasoning.
He said he is ashamed and "feels awful" about his lies. He is working to rebuild his life in Fort Worth, having landed a job as a salesman. His ex-wife and two children still live in Amarillo.
Not a day goes by, McClanahan said, that he doesn't regret his actions. He said he rarely speaks to anyone about the military and doesn't want anyone to know he's a veteran because it raises too many uncomfortable subjects.
"I still have a large amount of pride at having served, which only compounds the sorrow of having made the mistake I did," he said.
"I don't go to Veterans Day parades. I don't go to Memorial Day events. I don't stand up when they recognize veterans somewhere. I'm not in the family anymore."
©2012 the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Visit the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at www.star-telegram.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services | <urn:uuid:8459a157-09ff-4d4a-a53f-74e5f59c4069> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stripes.com/news/us/vet-convicted-under-stolen-valor-act-doesn-t-want-his-record-cleared-1.182861 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98667 | 1,563 | 1.6875 | 2 |
If love means never having to say you're sorry, then President Bush is looking for a whole lot of love from voters.
He certainly isn't getting it from the press. On April 13, in only the third prime-time press conference of his administration, Mr. Bush was challenged repeatedly to apologize to the American public for failing to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or for taking the country to war with Iraq.
He steadfastly refused to do so. "I'm sick when I think about the death that took place that day," the president replied when John Roberts of NBC News asked if he wanted to apologize for the Sept. 11 attacks. But he had no doubts as to who owed the apology. "The person responsible for the attacks was Osama bin Laden," he stressed.
On the subject of Iraq, Mr. Bush refused to admit any mistakes in planning or execution, and he said he would still have made the decision to invade even if he'd known about Saddam Hussein's apparent lack of chemical or biological weapons. "I fully understand the consequences of what we're doing," he insisted. "We're changing the world."
Still, the press conference itself was a sign of just how quickly the political world has changed closer to home. The always optimistic chief executive offered what he admitted was a "somber assessment" following two "tough ... gut-wrenching" weeks in Iraq. As violence in Fallujah and Najaf has escalated, the administration's poll numbers have declined. Approval for Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq now hovers in the mid-40s, and just over 50 percent of Americans approve of the way he's handling the terrorist threat.
Just a few months ago - eons, in political time - Mr. Bush's tough foreign policy was supposed to be his best hope of another four years in the White House. Pundits predicted that the economy, if anything, would be the Bush administration's Achilles heel. Like his father, Mr. Bush was given high marks for his handling of foreign affairs, but sluggish growth and weak employment numbers threatened to limit both Bushes to a single term.
Then, suddenly, the economy took off, growing at a blistering rate of more than 8 percent. After several slow months, the job market followed, adding some 300,000 jobs in March alone.
But just as suddenly, something entirely unexpected happened: Voters began to doubt the administration's leadership on issues like terrorism and war. The steady drip of bad news from Iraq turned into a flood in April, with more than 80 American deaths reported in just the first two weeks of the month. Meanwhile, as U.S. troops battled insurgents across central and southern Iraq, the administration battled its critics on Capitol Hill. Weeks of contentious hearings by the 9/11 Commission left many Americans wondering what might have been done to stop the attacks - and even whether the unthinkable could happen again.
Despite the good economic news, surveys show Mr. Bush is unusually vulnerable for an incumbent president. An April poll by the Associated Press found that only 18 percent of respondents ranked the economy as the biggest problem facing the country, down sharply from 31 percent last July. On the other hand, the number of Americans who said war is their No. 1 concern nearly doubled, from 9 percent in July to 17 percent today. Likewise, terrorism was cited by 21 percent in the latest poll, up from 14 percent earlier.
With fears of war and terrorism tarnishing the Bush image on foreign policy, Democrats see a real chance for an upset. John Kerry, their presumptive nominee, can boast war-hero credentials that help to camouflage his lack of any coherent plan for winning the war in Iraq. Despite the absence of solutions from the Kerry camp, a surprising number of voters say they're ready for a change: An April 12 Newsweek poll showed Mr. Bush trailing his Democratic rival by 7 percentage points, well outside the margin of error. (Other polls conducted around the same time still show the race in a statistical dead heat.)
With seven months to go until Election Day, April polls might not normally be a huge cause for alarm at the White House. But two sources of ongoing bad news - the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq conflict - remain largely out of the president's control, and the timing of new developments on those two fronts could well determine who wins on Nov. 2.
These days, the never-ending hearings by the 9/11 Commission don't look like much of a political powder keg. The earlier frenzy surrounding the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and former terrorism czar Richard Clarke has largely died down, leaving plenty of empty seats in both the press gallery and the section reserved for victims' families.
"There were more still cameras on the dais taking pictures of Condoleezza Rice than during the Watergate investigation," said Lisa Sullivan, a commission staffer working the registration table outside the hearing chambers. "We were letting people through the door 10 at a time." On April 13, by contrast, despite high-profile testimony by Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft and his predecessor, Janet Reno, things were quiet-even sleepy.
"I don't know, maybe we're all pooped," ventured Emily Walker, a co-worker sitting next to Miss Sullivan.
Nevertheless, while the hearings may lack the drama of weeks past, they're still fraught with danger for the Bush administration. An April 12 staff report ripped the FBI for failing to make domestic terrorism a top priority, and both Mr. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller came under withering criticism from commission members. Even Mr. Bush appeared to back off his earlier, unequivocal support for the bureau, saying he might consider assigning responsibility for domestic terrorism to a not-yet-created separate agency, patterned after Britain's MI-5.
The commission has not said when it plans to wrap up its work or how many more staff reports it plans to issue in the meantime. Damaging though such interim reports might be, the administration's real concern centers on the committee's ultimate findings, due sometime this summer. Campaign season will be in full swing by then, and any criticism of Mr. Bush by the commission is sure to become political fodder for the Democrats.
With the commission carefully balanced between Republicans and Democrats, no one can predict what the final report will look like. It's bound to be more coherent, at least, than the handwritten fax distributed at last week's hearings by a man carrying a red gym bag on his shoulder. "By The First Officer To Ground Control. all speakers (audio) on air craft Be come mickerphones Transmitted to FBI USAF ad aircraft owner," read the Xeroxed sheet. "I plan to come to Washington DC to Testifie or ask questions about 9/11 blunders By The Government."
Even a report free of spelling errors and conspiracy theories won't be good news for the administration, however. Second-guessing, no matter how generous, can only make earlier decisions look incorrect or ill-informed. And blame-sharing, no matter how evenly spread, can only hurt Mr. Bush, since his predecessor is safely out of office and beyond the wrath of voters.
Still, the good news for the administration is that when it comes to terrorism, Americans seem to be more focused on the future than the past. Though some voters may believe more might have been done to prevent 9/11, there is no denying that the country has avoided any major terrorist attacks since that time.
That helps to explain why the president continues to receive majority approval for his handling of terrorism, despite some erosion in recent weeks. Voters appear to give him credit for protecting the country's borders from a persistent and dangerous enemy. And that, in turn, raises the stakes for Muslim extremists who would like nothing more than to drive Mr. Bush from power. A Spanish-style attack on the eve of the election could cost Mr. Bush his job, just as it did his staunch ally, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
It's a challenge Mr. Bush himself recognizes. Speaking of the terrorists who planned the 9/11 attacks, he told reporters at the press conference: "I'm afraid they want to hurt us again. They're still there. They can be right one time; we've got to be right a hundred percent of the time in order to protect the country. It's a mighty task."
The task in Iraq is no less mighty and no less politically risky. Indeed, while the public views the terrorist threat as a mess largely inherited from previous administrations, Mr. Bush can claim sole ownership of the war in Iraq. In the wake of 9/11, he declared that American troops had the right to strike preemptively against terrorists and their sponsors - a philosophy that came to be known as the Bush Doctrine.
It was that doctrine that served as the main justification for invading Iraq. The vast majority of Americans backed the war, based on the argument that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. When months of searching failed to turn up such weapons, however, most voters didn't seem to mind. Polls continue to show strong support for the president's other main goal in Iraq: fostering freedom and democracy.
"Fighting alongside the people of Iraq, we will defeat the terrorists who seek to plunge Iraq into chaos and violence, and we will stand with the people of Iraq for as long as necessary to build a stable, peaceful, and successful democracy," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address of March 6, 2004.
He repeated the theme often during his April 13 press conference. "Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country or it will once again be a source of violence, a haven for terror," he said. "The nation of Iraq is moving toward self-rule, and Iraqis and Americans will see evidence in the months to come."
The problem for Mr. Bush is that such evidence has thus far been almost as elusive as Saddam's fabled weapons of mass destruction. Without visible progress in building a "stable, peaceful, and successful democracy," the president risks the perception that American lives have been lost in vain.
Despite tens of billions of dollars and more than 100,000 U.S. troops, Iraq seems in danger of anarchy or civil war one year after its liberation. Whole towns have been taken over by insurgents, however briefly. Iraqi troops supporting the coalition sometimes fight, sometimes flee. Long-oppressed Shiites, led by a radical young cleric, have turned against the country that freed them from Saddam's tyranny. Roadside ambushes have become commonplace, and American casualties have reached their highest rate since the fall of Baghdad. As of mid-April, various factions held more than three dozen foreign hostages. And several members of the pro-American Iraqi Governing Council resigned in protest over the Pentagon's get-tough policy in Fallujah.
Despite the turmoil, the president stood by his June 30 deadline for handing over political power, arguing that any delay will be interpreted as breaking trust with the Iraqi people. Though Mr. Bush himself couldn't say what sort of transitional government might be formed (see sidebar), one thing is certain: That government will continue to have plenty of American military support. Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has asked for at least 10,000 additional troops to deal with the growing insurgency.
"If that's what he wants, that's what he gets," the president told reporters. "And we'll need to be there for a while."
Already National Guard and Army Reserve units scheduled to come home around Easter have had their duties extended by up to four months, generating a flurry of negative press in their home states of Florida, Wisconsin, and Oregon-all expected to be battleground states in November.
If there is any silver lining for President Bush, it is that the Democrats have so far been unable to capitalize on the public's growing doubts about Iraq. Mr. Kerry's plan for restoring order is nothing more specific than turning over power to the United Nations - despite the fact that the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad proves many Iraqis would hardly be pleased with such an arrangement. Furthermore, Mr. Kerry can't criticize the Pentagon's request for additional soldiers without appearing to abandon the U.S. troops already in Iraq.
Still, month after month of bad news from Iraq increases the chance that voters will simply opt for any alternative - no matter how ill-defined - rather than sticking with the status quo. "The American people may decide to change - that's democracy," Mr. Bush acknowledged during his press conference. Still: "I don't plan on losing my job. I plan on telling the American people that I've got a plan to win the war on terror. And I believe they'll stay with me."
That may not sound like true love, but at this point, Republicans would gladly settle for a continued marriage of convenience.
- with reporting by Priya Abraham in Washington | <urn:uuid:5125e909-f986-47bb-b940-b2edc236c492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldmag.com/2004/04/i_fully_understand_the_consequences | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971537 | 2,653 | 1.65625 | 2 |
In what genre does the song Dinah by Fats Waller fall? I would like to know the name of the genre as this would enable me to search for on-line lessons containing this type of music (would be great if ...
There are now a lot of good programs out for sight-reading, simple chord progression recognition, and for jazz, even some backing track creators. But is there a program that generates chord changes ...
I am trained in ...
Quite often there are pop songs wich get covered in a jazz style. These covers are seen from youtube to tv. Now I tried doing something like this, with for example Bad Day by Daniel Powter. It's ...
I play piano in a jazz band and I've been learning piano for about 8/10 years now. The type of music I'm talking about here is mainly swing music. What are some good techniques/practices for ...
I'm wondering if some people can point me towards some learning material that they may have enjoyed for learning Cuban style Latin Jazz. Ideally I'd like something I can learn on my own time -- ...
What are the main differences between a jazz Pianist and a classical Pianist, If there are any. If I play mainly songs of pop artists (e.g: The Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, etc.) does this count ...
I played the piano for years classically when I was younger, but eventually left it alone in my late teens and twenties. I probably wouldn't have if I'd been allowed to do more Jazz as I always wanted ...
I'm a classically trained pianist. Took lessons all through my childhood. I've continued to play and read classical literature all my life. But I never learned anything about jazz piano. I also know a ... | <urn:uuid:dcba63a7-f8dc-4b95-bd77-a76c26966a80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/piano+jazz | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964247 | 369 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Starting from Monday, taxi companies will also be able to apply for government subsidies to replace their older vehicles, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.
A policy to subsidize the purchase of new cars by taxi drivers was announced last year. The policy applied only to independent taxi drivers whose cars have been in operation for more than 14 years.
The ministry has gradually loosened restrictions to include motor vehicles that have been in operation for more than seven years.
Applicants must agree to undergo training designed to enhance the quality of their service before they can receive the subsidy.
Each qualified applicant will be eligible for a subsidy of NT$40,000, NT$30,000 of which is provided by the ministry and NT$10,000 from the Environmental Protection Administration.
As of Monday this week, the ministry has received a total of 1,962 applications for the subsidy. Only 25 percent of the applications involved cars that have been in operation for more than 14 years. Those that have been in operation for between 10 and 14 years accounted for 38 percent of the applications. Thirty-seven percent of the applications involved cars that have been in operation for between seven and 10 years.
Further analysis of the applicants showed that 45 percent of them were independent taxi drivers. Thirty-two percent were independent taxi drivers who joined a licensed taxi company for insurance and other reasons, while 22 percent were driving cars owned by taxi companies. | <urn:uuid:1c182a36-9ace-446d-9f0c-8c21aeba8868> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/04/11/2003530061 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98608 | 287 | 1.554688 | 2 |
July 15, 2011
Written By Patrick McKeough
“Peyto Exploration & Development Corp. (PEY) produces and explores for oil and natural gas in Alberta. The company changed its name from Peyto Energy Trust after it converted from an income trust to a dividend-paying stock on December 31, 2010. Peyto Exploration & Development’s average daily production of 31,531 barrels of oil equivalent (including natural gas) is weighted 88% toward gas and 12% to oil.
“In the three months ended March 31, 2011, Peyto’s cash flow rose 9.8%, to $0.56 a unit from $0.51 a year earlier. The shares trade at 9.4 times the company’s forecast 2011 cash flow of $2.35 a share. Peyto’s long-term debt of $450 million is a low 15.5% of its $2.9-billion market cap. Before it converted, Peyto paid a monthly distribution of $0.12 a unit. However, it has since cut its payout to $0.06 a share. It has tax pools that it can use to offset the new tax until 2014, but the lower payout lets Peyto put more of its cash flow toward increasing production. As well, the payout is now a dividend, so it benefits from the dividend tax credit if you hold your shares outside of an RRSP or a RRIF [Canadian retirement accounts]. Earlier this year, Peyto raised its planned 2011 capital spending by 30%, to between $300 million and $325 million. Since the first quarter of this year, production has risen to over 35,000 barrels per day. Peyto Energy & Development Corp. is a buy.”
Patrick McKeough, Canadian Wealth Advisor, 7/11 | <urn:uuid:07b98516-0970-4d25-80ac-9a8046ad8644> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dickdavis.com/2011/07/15/peyto-exploration-development-corp-pey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934342 | 383 | 1.53125 | 2 |
This presentation was given at the Lean Software and Systems Conference 2012 (LSSC12).
Working closely with end users can help ensure complex systems meet not just the contractual specification but also operators’ and other stakeholders’ evolving needs in realistic operational environments. Gaining users’ strong support is crucial to maintaining funding for projects and programs in austere budget environment. But working with users is often difficult to arrange and fraught with challenges: They often disagree among themselves and change their opinions frequently. And which users should we contact and whose inputs should we consider? Users don’t speak engineering and engineers seldom speak “ops” so how can we have a meaningful conversation with them anyway? DOD contracts seldom contain any provisions for contacting or visiting with end users, nor does the USG want to pay for such discussions, so how can we arrange discussions with end users? Since there is no substitute for detailed operational discussions with end users of complex systems, an effective, efficient, reliable method must be found by systems engineers and project managers for the regular, methodical engagement of hands-on users of the systems we design and build. This presentation describes the Technical Concept of Operations (TechCONOPS) as the primary document for tying together users, buyers and designers. Then the briefer discusses the four most common user groups, when to involve each and what kinds of information we can typically get from them. This is followed by a brief discussion of how a robust TechCONOPS can drive modeling and simulation. Lastly the other two key communities (technologists and threat/intel specialists) are discussed in the context of their crucial contributions during regular revisits/updates to the CONOPS. Finally, several real-world examples of failed developmental systems (division air defense artillery system, UAV, imagery analysis software, others) illustrate common pitfalls of not building CONOPS and not involving hands-on end users early enough or often enough in system design and test. | <urn:uuid:5d271bd3-0aec-4820-bf98-d820a88350ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://limitedwipsociety.ning.com/video/lssc12-understanding-the-actual-customer-need-through-conops-mack?xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943875 | 392 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Do you feel safe when driving on an interstate ?
just recently here in penna, the turnpike commission has gone out and bought trucks that can assist motorists with breakdowns, medical emergencies, etc. but this is on a toll road, samething applies in NJ ( been doing for 10 + years ) which i think is an excellent idea, however what about when your on an interstate ( non-toll roads ) ?
interstates here in penna being paid for by federal money can't be turned into toll roads ( believe me gov. rendell when he was in office tried like hell to do, but no luck, stuckdown every time ) when i drive across either interstate 80 ( northern east-west route ) or interstate 78 ( southern east- west route ) there are no assistance stations ( call boxes ) or even the trucks that scan the turnpike, is that right ?
granted the state isn't making any tolls on these roads but don't the people who use them be afforded the same rights as people on toll roads ? several years ago, there was a freak snow storm and gov. rendell shutdown the interstate system problem was there were still people on the roadway and then were stuck in their vehicles for up to 48 hours ( no food, water, etc ) several people did die, is this right and correct ?
i would like to hear your opinions and give it to me straight, don't sugar coat it.......
Nowadays, almost no one goes out on a long drive in the winter time without a fully charged cell phone or car charger for it, or without some kind of onStar system, and those that don't are very few and just irresponsible. Plus, cars are a bit more reliable now than 20 years ago.
There were a few people (like 30 cars I think?) stranded on the Cobequid Pass in Nova Scotia last year I think it was due to a snow storm. They were stuck there for a day or two... That section of the highway is through very hilly terrain and is unpopulated (but a lot of people use it). Couldn't get trucks in to help them, and jack knifed tractor trailers complicated things.
That being said, people have cell phones. And it's a simple thing to carry a basic survival kit with you in the winter. Blankets, nonperishable food and water. Even though that's happened I don't feel like I'm running the risk of being stranded in the winter.
I think that yes, everyone has Cell phones etc, but also many people are plain stupid.
I've seen people walking beside the interstate to pick stuff up that fell out of a trailer, reversing to get an exit they missed etc.
However, in the Atlanta metro we have a great system called "HERO" units( http://www.georgia-navigator.com/hero-faqs.html )
These are privately sponsored (by State Farm insurance) and cover an area of around 100 x 100 mile of very dense traffic. They are 'controlled' by the DoT cameras and turn up next to stalled cars within 2 to 3 mins normally (no idea how, but they are good). they provide basic assistance to the driver and escort, tow them off the hwy to a safe place. It's a great idea, virtually no cost to the tax payer and really helps traffic flow
thank god there expanding the nj turnpike between exits 8 to 6. this is why there was always traffic delays because of stupid accidents. with the expansion of the truckers lane this should solve those problems. like 6/10 times there was an accident on the turnpike everytime i got on it. right now i feel safe because i feel i am a safe and good driver, but there are terrible drivers out there on the turnpike driving next to 18 wheelers...
i am sure you realize that while cellphone use is greatly expanded, not everyone has one. truckers still use cb radios and in mountainous regions it's the best mode of communication.
the economics of the new world order doesn't afford everyone the same opportunities, so a road side crew to help people is a great idea, it's ashame all the states don't have something like that working in their state.
A lot depends on traffic density and weather. I usually have to be more careful in either condition, the problem with traffic density more often than not, in my case, is variations in speed, some driving well over the posted limit and some well under.
I'm a LOT more worried about the idiots driving around me than a freak storm or something like that.
I stay off the phone and away from the radio.
We don't have toll roads out in the Arizona. Most of the interstates out here are quite well traveled. People always moving between here and LA, Las Vegas and Albuquerque. Plus we really don't have much in the way of weather. Every now and then a wet substance falls from the sky which us locals think is voodoo. Its quite safe apart from the old people.
The scariest people on the interstates are the ones who poke along and hog the left lane when they should d@mn well be getting tickets for that.
Otherwise, in regards to winter driving, I don't venture very far north of Atlanta during the winter months, so if I get stranded it will likely be because of a wreck someone ahead caused by hogging the left lane and inciting road rage.
I was almost the innocent victim of road rage one day on I-75 between Atlanta and Kennesaw when a crazed woman in a gorgeous E350 Sport came cruising up behind a minivan in the left lane and jerked her car into my lane out of anger when she had to slow down because of them. Fortunately she realized I was right beside her, pulled back, and seemed regretful, but it was a scary moment at 80 mph.
I find American Interstates more dangerous because there seems to be less in the way of lane discipline. You find cars passing on both sides. Here in the UK Motorways normally only have three or two lanes. Maybe thats why people seem better about moving over to let faster traffic pass. You allways find idiots who think that two car lenghts is a good distance away from the car in front.
how true, most americans ( especially in suv's ) seem to think they are indestructible, while they may survive a crash the poor soul in a car may not.
just this morning going to the post office i had a fellow on a motorcycle in front of me,, and a lady (? ) was tailgating me and was blowing her horn for me to speed up, there was no way ( in a downpour ) i was going any closer than the 5 car lengths i was at. at a traffic light the cyclist, put his kick stand down and walked back to disciuss it with her, and she spit in his face, he wiped it off and proceeded to flaten her left front tire, we both drove away with people blowing their horns at her ( gee, now she can see how it feels )
Speaking of motorcycles, I commute via motorcycles and even though I go significantly above the speed limit (80-85), I leave a much greater distance between me and the car in front (I only have two tires worth of braking). For some reason this bugs the living hell out of some car drivers and makes them tailgate inches away. If I move up closer, still going the same speed, then it's no longer an issue. What am I missing, does a plausible explanation exist?
yes most drivers are medicated heavily | <urn:uuid:43619f95-2ebf-4549-a26c-e660a5bba3d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://backfires.caranddriver.com/forums/126/posts/450067-do-you-feel-safe-when-driving-on-an-interstate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978631 | 1,585 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Her son Ben had hearing loss, and she had to move from Charleston, S.C., to St. Louis so he could attend the Central Institute for the Deaf because it was the only school like it in the Southeast. She took a teacher training program to help her son, and moved to Atlanta.
“She was met by scores of other parents saying, ‘My child can’t talk; my child’s deaf. I would do anything to be able to do what your child is [doing],’” said Comer Yates, the school’s current executive director. “She couldn’t rest without knowing other children didn’t have the same opportunity.”
Hamm joined forces with the Junior League of Atlanta to open the school.
“We started as a school where we charge no tuition. … Seventy-five years later, we’ve never turned away a child because of a family financial limitation,” said Yates, of Druid Hills.
Although it has transformed from a one-room building to a large, comprehensive language and literacy center, the mission remains the same, 75 years later.
“Our purpose is to be Atlanta’s speech school that is available to all Atlanta children. … I’m lucky to have my job. To be a steward of this mission is the highest privilege,” Yates said. “Only 18 percent of our children from low-income families in Georgia will ever read on grade level. We are breaking the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy and poverty.”
Third-grade teacher Leigh Record is in her 40th year at the school, but she said she has not done the “same thing” for 40 years.
“Every year is different; every year there is something new to try, to invigorate you,” said Record, of Vinings. “It’s just a place that fosters that curiosity and learning.”
To celebrate the 75th anniversary, the school will host its 39th annual Language and Literacy Gala Sunday at the Capital City Country Club in Brookhaven. “It’s our annual celebration for the work of the school and the legacy of the people who have made this place so important for each child and every child we’ve served,” Yates said. “It raises money for financial aid that allows all families to be here.”
Other events commemorating the milestone throughout the year include a lecture series, a day of service for employees, alumni events and a fun run, all in the spring.
If you go
o What: 2012 Language and Literacy Galan
o When: Nov. 11 at 6:30 to 10:30 p.m.
o Where: Capital City Country Club, 53 W. Brookhaven Drive, Brookhavenn
o Tickets: $250 to $5,000n
o Information: www.atlantaspeechschool.org/gala. | <urn:uuid:62687d80-32ac-4ed0-a6e4-54696daaf06f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neighbornewspapers.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Atlanta+Speech+School+celebrates+75th+year%20&id=20744855&instance=buckhead | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957431 | 631 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Museum Mondays: Jean Dubuffet’s work is on view alongside art works by Jackson Pollack and Alfonso Ossorio at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. Read about the exhibition “Angels, Demons, and Savages” which is on view until March 12th.
Today is the last day to visit Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years! “To see the last works,” Harmony Murphy, Pace Gallery curator, writes, “is to see all of Dubuffet, his theories contracted into an energetic force comprised of wild, fluid brushstrokes that appear as if they could escape from the confines of any boundaries imposed upon them.”
“He told me they were his last works,” Mr. Glimcher adds. “He said, with a chuckle: ‘I have been painting for over 40 years—I don’t think it is good for my health.’ ” (via Dubuffet’s Last Blast of Provocation)
Jean Dubuffet “Epanouissement, August 15, 1984” photo by Ellen Page Wilson/The Pace Gallery, New York
“The mind has the right to establish being wherever it cares to and for as long as it likes,” Dubuffet writes in a letter to his art dealer Arne Glimcher (April 19, 1985). He adds, “There is no intrinsic difference between being and fantasy; being is an attribute that the mind assigns to fantasy.”
Pace founder, Arne Glimcher, giving insight on a Dubuffet painting currently on display at 510 West 25th Street. Please be sure to visit Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years on view until March 10th, 2012.
Didn’t get a chance to visit Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years opening at 510 West 25th Street on Thursday?! Take an inside look! The exhibit will be open until March 10th, we hope you get to see it in person.
During the final two years of Jean Dubuffet’s life, his canvases exploded with raw emotion. The artist’s mental landscapes described a non-place, made perceptible by fluid intertwining lines and radiant colors that seem drawn from an alternate reality. “To see the last works,” Murphy writes, “is to see all of Dubuffet, his theories contracted into an energetic force comprised of wild, fluid brushstrokes that appear as if they could escape from the confines of any boundaries imposed upon them.” After twelve years of working on his Hourloupe cycle (the longest series of his career) with a palette of primarily red, blue, and black, contained by thick black outlines, in 1983 Dubuffet unleashed an extended color palette across the canvas, removing the borders and a representational reference point. Nearly twenty works drawn from the final two bodies of work by the artist (Mires and Non-Lieux) will be on view.
Jean Dubuffet, The Last Two Years, at Pace Gallery on 25th Street: “For all the young punks who think that rebelling against the art world is its own form of art, rest assured, you have a predecessor (many predecessors, in fact). Among them is the French painter, sculptor and printmaker Jean Dubuffet (1901-85), who coined the term “art brut” (raw art) as a way of celebrating work produced by non-academic outsiders, including children and the insane. His work frequently consisted of crudely-drawn figures and landscapes, as well as plenty of colorful abstract shapes and doodles. The works from his final years, known as the ‘Test Patterns’ consist of the latter — bright swaths of color that suggest crude geometric shapes. Opens Friday, in Chelsea.” (via This Week: Must-See Arts in the City - WNYC Culture) | <urn:uuid:548daec3-c62a-48e1-905c-547dd8aed518> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pacegallery.tumblr.com/tagged/Jean-Dubuffet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960221 | 829 | 1.5 | 2 |
Among the great blunders of Bush’s foreign policy was creating problems where none existed. His decision to construct missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic in order to deal with missiles from “North Korea and Iran” made absolutely no sense. Why would North Korea or Iran fire missiles at Europe knowing full well, the UK and France possessed atomic bombs” In fact, what would ever lead Iran to attack the entire European Union. In response to signs from the Obama administration the entire matter of missile bases in eastern Europe was being reviewed and, most probably, will be ended, the Russian government announced it was suspending plans to place missiles near the border of Poland. A Russian official commented: “These plans have been suspended because the new US administration is not pushing ahead with the plans to deploy the US missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.”
This “problem” is one created by Bush and it revealed his inability to understand how Russians think after being invaded twice in the 20th century and losing nearly 40 million people. Perhaps, if Bush spent less time gazing into the soul of Putin and more reading a few history books he never would have made this idiotic plan. | <urn:uuid:9f117f52-3c20-442e-b171-15235ce0743c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theimpudentobserver.com/world-news/further-dismantling-of-bush-foreign-policy-madness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978549 | 243 | 1.617188 | 2 |
About Personal Democracy Media
Welcome | Manifesto | Staff | Contact Us | Disclosures
Technology and the Internet are changing democracy in America. This site is one hub for the conversation already underway between political practitioners and technologists, as well as anyone invigorated by the potential of all this to open up the process and engage more people in all the things that we can and must do together as citizens. We value your input and ideas.
Democracy is changing.
A new force, rooted in new tools and practices built on and around the Internet, is rising alongside the old system of money intensive broadcast politics.
Today, for almost no money, anyone can be a reporter, a community organizer, an ad-maker, a publisher, a money-raiser, or a leader.
If what they have to say is compelling, it will spread.
The cost of finding like-minded souls, banding together, and speaking to the powerful has dropped to almost zero.
Networked voices are reviving the civic conversation.
More people, everyday, are discovering this new power. After years of being treated like passive subjects of marketing and manipulation, citizens want to be heard.
Members expect a say in the decision-making process of the networked organizations they join. Readers want to talk back to the news-makers. Citizens are insisting on more openness and transparency from government and from corporations too.
All the old institutions and players - big money, top-down parties, big-foot journalism, cloistered organizations - must adapt fast or face losing status and power, and some of them are. That evolution is happening as some governments, political organizations, businesses and nonprofits begin to embrace participation and transparency.
The realization of “Personal Democracy,” where everyone is a full participant, is coming.
Since 2004, Personal Democracy Media has helped nurture a world-wide conversation about technology’s impact on government and politics, and society - providing a place to meet the people who are making that change happen, discover the tools powering the new civic conversation, spot the early trends, and to share in understanding and embracing this dynamic new force. Many of those who are challenging the status quo, learned what they know, or found people to collaborate with, by being a part of Personal Democracy Media.
Now as Personal Democracy Media, that effort will grow as we work to contribute authoritative news, tools and resources focused on adapting to and thriving in a world where together we are building and fulfilling the promise of a 21st century democracy. (Updated January, 2011)
Micah L. Sifry
Chief Operating Officer
Operations and Events Director
Sarah Lai Stirland
Senior Staff Writer
Senior Editor, WeGov
Assistant Editor, International News
Andrew Rasiej, Founder & Publisher
Andrew Rasiej is an entrepreneur and technology strategist. He's counseled national and international political leaders, government officials, academics, and heads of nonprofits and foundations on issues related to civic engagement, technology, transparency, digital diplomacy and campaign strategy. Andrew got his start working at the intersection of technology and politics in 1999 offering early new media advice to leaders like Hillary and Bill Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and Congressional Minority leader Dick Gephardt. In 2003, presidential candidate Howard Dean and his campaign manager Joe Trippi named him chairman of the Technology Advisory Committee for the Dean for America Campaign which demonstrably moved all political campaigns into the future—by pioneering tactics in constituency development, community building, and networked political fundraising that used digital media in strategically orchestrated and thoughtful ways.
After the 2004 presidential campaign, Andrew founded Personal Democracy Forum, the international cross-partisan conference series that examines and analyzes how technology is impacting the evolving global political landscape while illuminating how activists, organizers, technologists, journalists, politicians, and government officials are advancing democratic ideals, using digital media to facilitate a more participatory, connective and transparent world. In 2007, he co-founded techPresident, an award-winning group blog that covers how activists and candidates are using the web. His commitment to finding and promoting digital solutions for a more open and accountable government extends to his position as senior technology advisor to the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 2006, which works to use the power of technology and citizen use of the internet to promote greater government transparency and accountability.
To help demonstrate the potential of the technology to empower local communities, in 2005 Andrew ran a highly publicized campaign for the office of New York City Public Advocate promoting many ideas now being championed by politicians in NYC and elsewhere such as inexpensive public WiFi, using social media to report potholes and other local infrastructure issues, and connecting citizens to each other to improve their neighborhoods and communities.
Andrew's belief that technology could empower citizen engagement originally took hold in 1997 when he founded MOUSE.org (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), a nonprofit helping under-served public school students to become technology leaders in their schools. Today, the MOUSE program is active in 10 states and 58 countries worldwide.
In the wake of the September 11 tragedy he mobilized dozens of volunteers to aid in relief and recovery efforts and subsequently proposed creating a national emergency technology corps to be organized for future natural disasters or terrorist attacks. After his lobbying, and with the help of Senator Ron Wyden, Congress voted 97-0 to create the National Emergency Technology Guard (NET Guard) in 2002, which was later incorporated into the law creating the Department of Homeland Security.
In 2010 Andrew was named chairman of the New York Tech MeetUp, an organization comprising more than 18,000 entrepreneurs, technologists, venture capitalists, and other professionals engaged in the tech start-up renaissance driving innovation and investment in New York.
Prior to a life in politics and education, Andrew founded several music-focused enterprises including: Irving Plaza, the world-famous Gramercy Park/Union Square music ballroom; Digital Club Network, the first live music streaming and archiving channel on the internet; and, Plug-In, the first conference focused exclusively on the future of digital music distribution. While operating Irving Plaza he also founded the New York Night Life Association to promote the hundreds of clubs and live music venues in New York City as an integral part of its economic vibrancy and cultural scene.
He is a graduate of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, an alumnus of the prestigious David Rockefeller Fellowship Program administered by the New York City Partnership, and a member of the Board of Directors of PopTech. Andrew lives and works in New York City.
Micah L. Sifry, Editorial Director
Micah L. Sifry is co-founder and editorial director of Personal Democracy Media, which produces the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference on the ways technology is changing politics, and techPresident.com, an award-winning blog on how politicians are using the web and how the web is using them. In addition, he consults on how political organizations, campaigns, non-profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world. He is a senior technology adviser to the Sunlight Foundation, which he helped found in 2006, and also serves on the board of Consumer Reports. He is the author or editor of six books, most recently Wikileaks and the Age of the Transparency (OR Books, 2011), and in the spring of 2012 he began teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
From 1997-2006, he worked closely with Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization focused on comprehensive campaign finance reform, as its senior analyst. Prior to that, Micah was an editor and writer with The Nation magazine for thirteen years. He is the author of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America (Routledge, 2002), co-author with Nancy Watzman of Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), co-editor of Rebooting America (available online for free download at rebooting.personaldemocracy.com), and co-editor of The Iraq War Reader (Touchstone, 2003) and The Gulf War Reader (Times Books, 1991). His personal blog is at micah.sifry.com and you can follow him on Twitter at @mlsif.
Jennifer Vento, Chief Operating Officer
Jennifer directed the inaugural Personal Democracy Forum Conference in 2004, subsequently managed the launch of personaldemocracy.com, and returned in 2010 to manage the organization's day-to-day operations. Prior to returning to PDM, she co-founded a film production company, Framework Media LLC, and worked primarily with the United Nations Development Program to raise awareness about community-based initiatives in developing countries through video storytelling. She has also produced work appearing on ABC, PBS, and CNN, and, in her former life as a consultant, Jennifer played a key role in new media-related projects for organizations including PBS, the US Navy's Maritime Civil Affairs Group, Gilda's Club Worldwide, Public Agenda, and The Nation Magazine. Jennifer began her career in New York's entertainment industry, most recently as head of technology and production for a music company. She holds a BBA from the George Washington University, an MA in International Affairs from The New School, and sits on the Advisory Board of MOUSE.org. You can follow her on Twitter at @jenvento.
Anthony Russomano, Operations and Events Director
Anthony Russomano received a BA in history with a minor in New York City Studies from Pace University in May 2004. While attending Pace University, Anthony worked in online marketing as the Assistant Director of Marketing for Wall Street Rising, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to restoring the vibrancy and vitality that existed in Lower Manhattan prior to the devastating events of September 11, 2001. During his senior year, in addition to working at Wall Street Rising, Anthony interned at the district office of New York City Councilmember Alan J. Gerson. There he was responsible for researching and drafting legislation that would become New York City laws. Anthony currently resides in Brooklyn, NY and enjoys spending time with his goddaughter Antonia and his nephew Angelo.
Nick Judd, Managing Editor
Nick Judd is the managing editor of techPresident, where he has been an editor and writer since 2009. He also managed candidate and media partnerships for PDM's 10Questions project.
Prior to signing on with PDM, Judd covered politics in the Bronx and in Hudson County, NJ, for newspapers there. He also did a brief stint as a research assistant for the public policy think tank Center for an Urban Future.
He graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a B.A. in metropolitan studies and journalism. You can follow him on Twitter at @nclarkjudd or visit his personal website at nclarkjudd.com. Nick lives in Brooklyn.
Sarah Lai Stirland, Senior Staff Writer
Sarah Lai Stirland is techPresident's senior writer in San Francisco. She's a veteran legal affairs, business and politics reporter, having covered these subjects for more than 15 years. Her work has appeared in the nation's most recognized media outlets, which include: Bloomberg Wealth Manager, Business 2.0, CNN, Congress Daily, Good Housekeeping, National Journal, National Public Radio's On The Media, The New York Post, POLITICO, Portfolio.com, Red Herring, The Village Voice, and Wired.com's widely-read Threat Level, one of Time's favorite 25 blogs. Her leading coverage of the historic 2008 presidential campaign and its unprecedented reliance on social media to influence the race at Wired.com was on the daily bookmark list of television and radio producers around the world. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @LaiStirland.
David Eaves, Senior Editor, WeGov
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and collaboration expert, David pressures, advises and conjoles governments to help them do interesting things in the public interest. In this capacity David serves on the Federal Government's Open Government advisory Panel, served on the Australian Gov 2.0 International Reference Group and advises numerous other governments. In 2009 his work with the Mayor of Vancouver led to the drafting of the Open Motion which initiated the city's open data portal and other initiatives. On issues of strategy and innovation David counts among his clients Code for America, the World Bank, Greenpeace as well as several governments and companies.
David writes and speaks on politics, public sector renewal, open source and innovation as well as foreign policy and other subjects. He posts several times a week on his blog (eaves.ca), publishes regularly in various forums including the Toronto Star, the WeGov Blog at Personal Democracy Media and has a chapter in numerous books including the O'Reilly Media book on Open Government. Born and raised in Vancouver, David is a graduate of Queen's University and Oxford University.
Lisa Goldman, Assistant Editor, International News
Lisa Goldman is techPresident's Assistant Editor, International News. She has a decade's worth of reporting experience in the Middle East, where she freelanced for a number of publications and appeared frequently as a political analyst on major international news networks. In 2010 she co-founded +972, a Tel Aviv-based digital magazine that covers Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Her work has appeared in many well known media outlets, including the New York Times, Jewish Daily Forward, Time Out Tel Aviv, Slate, Reuters, the Guardian and the Columbia Journalism Review.
Lisa is a 2009 winner of the Anna Lindh Journalism Award in the category of conflict reporting.
Sam Roudman, Staff Writer
Sam Roudman is a staff writer for TechPresident. He's reported on cancer curing mollusks, restaurant data bureaucracies, and aging metal bands for the likes of Popular Science, National Public Radio's Radiolab, New York Press, Filter, and others. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He welcomes any and all contact on Twitter at @sroudman.
Antonella Napolitano, Europe Editor
Antonella Napolitano is PDM Europe editor and works as social media consultant.
She is also editor and outreach coordinator for Diritto Di Sapere, an Italian NGO that works to enhance access to information in Italy and abroad.
In the past she served as consultant and volunteers coordinator for UDC, a moderate Italian party, as community manager for Kublai, a project of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, and worked at the Consulate of Italy in New York. She also founded Micromacchina, a nonprofit association that works on enhancing citizens participation.
She graduated in Media Studies (M.A.) at University of Bologna (Italy) and was Research Fellow at Vassar College. She writes about tech and politics for l'Unità and other Italian magazines and she is the author of "Facebook e la comunicazione politica" (Apogeo, 2013).
Her personal blog (in Italian) is Vassar Stories, and you can follow her on Twitter (in Italian and English) @svaroschi.
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Personal Democracy Media maintains a divide between our editorial work on our publications, including techPresident, and our other endeavors. Because, on occasion, PdM may work with organizations that are also covered in our publications, in the spirit of transparency we offer you an accounting of those relationships. We will update this note as needed.
Ongoing -- PDM co-founders Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry are senior technology advisers to the Sunlight Foundation, and have been since its founding in 2006.
Ongoing -- PDM co-founder Andrew Rasiej is an investor in the following companies: ChallengePost, Daylife, Mobile Commons, Blip TV, Medical Algorithmics, CapitalNY and Fluid DB. He is also an advisor to MadRaces.
Ongoing -- PDM is working with the Ford Foundation on a quarterly series of meetings bringing together rising leaders from the technological and philanthropic communities.
Ongoing -- PDM is working with Fight for the Future, a project of the Center for Rights, on a non-partisan initiative funded by the Ford Foundation to increase voter registration, voter education, and voter turnout for the 2012 U.S. Presidential election (http://www.theinternetvotes.org).
Past -- PDM co-founders Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry, along with their associate Allison Fine, consulted for the Avi Chai Foundation from May 2010 thru December 2011, advising them on how to integrate social media into their mission.
Past -- Personal Democracy Media produced and facilitated a one-day "Tech Camp" on November 20, 2010 in Santiago, Chile for the U.S. State Department.
Past -- PDM co-founders Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry have consulted in the past for the New York State Senate's CIO's Office, Air America, the Campaign for America's Future and the Regional News Network.
Past -- PDM co-founders Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry consulted for TechSoup Global, helping the organization grow its presence on the East Coast and offering strategic advice to its leadership as needed.
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Personal Democracy PlusSubscribe
Stay informed about the latest in technology and politics, government and civic life for less than $1.75/week. At a time when technology is playing an ever expanding role in government, politics and advocacy we have launched Personal Democracy Plus (PD+), a premium service ...Learn more about the benefits of PD+ now | <urn:uuid:f4465995-bea3-4fa3-aad0-72bbb725ae9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://personaldemocracy.com/about-us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941553 | 3,772 | 1.640625 | 2 |
As Cal State San Marcos turns 20 this year, the university is being threatened.
Severe state budget cuts – the deepest in history – are forcing CSUSM to limit and even scale back on enrollment, student services and academic programs during a time when regional demand for higher education is at its highest.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recently proposed budget restores some of the lost funding but even with these additional dollars California State University San Marcos would be funded at levels below those of 2007-08.
We must provide a stronger commitment to higher education.
It’s not just students who hurt when the commitment to higher education goes unfulfilled. CSUSM received a 20 percent reduction in state funds this year alone. If these funds are not restored, the negative effects from such deep cuts will undoubtedly ripple through the region’s economy for years to come.
As members of CSUSM’s University Advisory Council, a citizens’ panel consisting of community and business leaders, we share the resolute belief that Cal State San Marcos is a tremendous economic, cultural and social driver in this region. We all lose when academic programs are cut. We all lose when qualified, bright students are turned away. And, we all lose when community partnerships go unfulfilled.
Economists have found that for every dollar the state invests in a CSU student, it receives $4.41 in return. This is not only a terrific return on investment in terms of dollars; there are also the societal benefits of CSUSM’s success: More qualified graduates leaving Cal State San Marcos means lower levels of unemployment, reduced reliance on public assistance, an increase in the consumption of goods and services and increased contributions to the tax base.
Now is not the time to retrench; instead it is time to think strategically about the future, investing in the most promising and essential assets: educated and prepared leaders of tomorrow.
Consider for a moment just a few of the meaningful ways that CSUSM is making an impact on this region: Faculty are performing groundbreaking research in areas related to water conservation, biologics, workforce injury, and more.
As a campus truly engaged with the community, CSUSM is actively involved with more than a dozen chambers of commerce and public school districts, and the Carnegie Foundation has distinguished it by naming it a Community Engaged Institution.
Students annually log more than 100,000 hours of community service valued at more than $800,000.
More than 50 percent of our student population is from diverse ethnic backgrounds and more than 40 percent are the first in their families to earn degrees.
Given this overview of just some of our accomplishments, it is clear: At 20, Cal State San Marcos is a vibrant and innovative university, committed to building on its role as a driver of cultural, social and economic development in the region.
But as your university, we need your advocacy, your voice. Help us send a clear message to Sacramento: Reinvestment in the California State University system is critical now more than ever. Cal State San Marcos is this region’s engine for economic growth.
This region’s economic future depends on our alumni – an educated work force, fully prepared for the job opportunities of today and tomorrow. This region depends on that economic impact – CSUSM produces more than $16 million in tax revenue, sustaining more than 5,000 jobs. And this region depends on our outreach and commitment to partnering to meet community needs and priorities. This region depends on Cal State San Marcos.
Bear is chairman of CSUSM’s University Advisory Council. This piece was signed by 19 other members of the council. | <urn:uuid:c2f70e90-1c17-4342-b9af-c7e26955956d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/19/campus-is-an-economic-engine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952602 | 748 | 1.828125 | 2 |
"If ever there was an economic opportunity and ideal location for transit-oriented development (TOD), this is it," Vandenberg wrote, while chastening opponents of residential development at the site.
"Unfortunately, development proposals are too often viewed through the myopic lens of the annual local budget, seeking to maximize commercial rateables while discouraging residential development. While this short-term view is in some ways understandable, given many municipalities’ struggles to close local budget gaps, it obscures the broader picture and fails to take into consideration the immediate and longer-term benefits that accrue to neighborhoods, residents and businesses when TOD is embraced," she wrote.
"Residential development, in particular, is key to the revitalization of neighborhoods around public transit stations, and the Hoboken Terminal is certainly no exception." Vandenberg stated adding that residential development would generate business for local merchants, opportunities for local entrepreneurs, new restaurants, shops, services and tax revenues.
NJ Transit's proposes a mix of residential, commercial/office and retail uses and provides more density, in keeping with transit-oriented development principles. An alternative proposal favored by the city would see less residential housing.
Despite $115 million investment the 52-acre site, is zoned industrial and remains "vastly underutilized."
"The city’s leadership should act now to truly embrace transit-oriented development for the benefit of its residents, local businesses and neighborhoods. If it does, the economic growth that Hoboken experiences will be a model for other communities considering mixed-use redevelopment proposals around the state." | <urn:uuid:39e591c4-c2c3-41fc-a9f6-ead836f9b32a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2012/09/columist_with_njspotlight_says.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945818 | 319 | 1.710938 | 2 |
First Solar delays Arizona manufacturing
The move by First Solar Inc. to delay manufacturing at its planned Mesa facility will mean a loss of jobs, but the city will continue pursuing development near the plant.
First Solar announced Tuesday it would finish the more than $300 million facility near Signal Butte and Elliott roads, but it wouldn’t start manufacturing as planned in 2013.
“It’s obviously disappointing, but we recognize the dynamics of what’s going on right now in that market,” said Mesa Mayor Scott Smith.
The global market for solar hit a wall this year as more capacity came online just as government incentives in prime markets such as Germany and Italy have been scaled back. The result has led to a glut of panels on the market, and led to many companies cutting back.
Along with the Mesa delay, Tempe-based First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) said it was cutting production at its other plants to about 60 percent to 70 percent of capacity amid a larger fourth-quarter loss. That included idling four of its production lines in Germany and rolling its Malaysian production lines out of service to install new equipment and make upgrades.
If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below. | <urn:uuid:a11a02ae-98b7-4d8e-a841-6bee88c1bd8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/national/2012/02/first-solar-delays-arizona-manufacturing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966724 | 293 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Author: UPlover PM
J.J. Burke is a bad girl who doesn't care about anything her parents say to her until she walks into a hotel that changes her life for good. What will she learn from the residents who are in the hotel and what will she learn about herself?Rated: Fiction T - English - Drama/Family - Chapters: 5 - Words: 4,955 - Reviews: 1 - Follows: 1 - Updated: 09-19-12 - Published: 07-10-12 - id: 3040519
|A+ A- Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten|
December 30, 1957 started off like any other day in The Morrison Suites Hotel. The guests arose from their beds and enjoyed the wonderful breakfast in the dining room.
The doors banged open in the lobby of the hotel.
Gunshots were heard.
Hearts thumped as everyone put their utencils down and were about to get up when suddenly three men with guns burst into the room.
"Sit down Niggers!" One of them yelled.
They all did as they were told and sat in their seats.
"Now you all listen up. This used to be our hotel until they let you Niggers just have it. We're not going to hurt anyone but if you decide to stand up to us these guns are going to go off any minute! We're going to get what we want and have this hotel just to white people again!"
The men walked around with their guns as the guests all sat when a man pounced on one of the gunmen.
"Daddy!" A girl yelled seeing her father get tackled.
A few other men pounced on the men.
Everybody began running as the men began shooting.
A mother dragged her daughter out from under a table and ran to the doors. The girl looked back only to watch her father slump to the floor with blood on his chest. There was no time to go to him and bawl over his body as the mother pulled her screaming child and made a run for it back to their room.
"After them!" yelled one of the three men.
The two dashed up the stairs as their hearts pumped in full fear. Shots from the gun continuously rang through their ears. They got up the stairs that came into their hallway.
Another shot from the gun went off.
The girl turned seeing her mother grasp her heart as blood dripped to the floor. She fell to the floor hitting the banisters. For a while she stared in awe and was about to go to her mother's side when they appeared up the stairs.
"There's the other one!"
She ran again down the hall with the gunmen on her back as she saw her room come into view. She turned the knob to the door with her key and burst into the room.
"Come on out pretty girl. We just want to talk. Just be a good girl and open the door for us very nice men who won't hurt you." one of them said through the cracks of the door.
They thought she was dumb. She thought she was finally getting accepted by the way this hotel was opened just for black people.
A gun shot burst through the door knobs.
They burst through the door.
She ran upstairs to her room and opened the doors to the balcony.
No place to run.
No place to hide.
Her parents were gone.
She could see the people who were in the parking lot when she leaned over the railings. She was too far up for anyone to hear her.
"Times up Nigger!"
A shot rang across the hotel and she fell from the balcony. | <urn:uuid:e32a32c8-a3c7-4bdc-b295-7ea0c2f6e10f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fictionpress.com/s/3040519/1/The-Haunting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988621 | 763 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The results are in for the Colorado Department of Education's annual accountability reports.
The results are based on student performance in the CSAP tests, which are taken annually across the State.
On the whole, school's throughout District 51 received positive marks, with two schools earning ratings of excellent, 14 schools rated high, 20 schools scored in the average range, and 5 schools were rated low.
No schools in the district were given an unsatisfactory rating
and school district officials say the reports are a good way to plan for future academic achievements.
In addition to the report's annual performance indicator, a new measurement was added this year which charts academic growth, something that district officials say will help target individual student performance.
© KKCO NBC 11 News - All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:e867f49c-0a97-4176-ba23-9cee77d5a5ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc11news.com/news/headlines/2059636.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979444 | 157 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The company that created the new paradigm in the way mechanics hand tools connect together with revolutionary automatic-locking technology, LINK Tools, introduces a new 100% made in America BLACK KNIGHTTM tool line.
BLACK KNIGHT tools were developed in response to a request for very low profile locking tools made on behalf of the U.S. military. Because they are slimmer than the base of even the smallest socket, they successfully reach into tight spaces not accessible with other tools. Still, BLACK KNIGHT tools are exceptionally strong and are certified to Aerospace and ANSI strength standards.
The BLACK KNIGHT system also deploys a completely new, state-of-the-art locking technology. It’s revolutionary, patented, spring-loaded locking plunger creates a wedge effect when a pull force is exerted on the socket or tool attachment, thereby providing many times the holding force of the standard spring-loaded ball detent of old-style tools. BLACK KNIGHT’s hold on the attachment actually increases when a pull force is exerted rather than the hold being easily overcome as occurs with old-style tools.
LINK tools have already been the subject of two extended independent on-the-job user tests by Army Aviation and TÜV Rheinland. In both studies LINK tools were found to be much safer and much faster than conventional tools. Moreover, because all LINK tools connect together to eliminate the fear of unintended tool disconnects, users of LINK tools were found to work in less stressful postures, thereby extending the beneficial work life and productivity of the skilled worker, to the economic advantage of all.
LINK tools have received widespread acclaim in numerous industries, including marine, recreation, aviation and aerospace, fleet maintenance of all vehicles on land, air and sea, and maintenance of plants and all fixed, costly, delicate and complex machinery.
Over 20% of the world’s nuclear facilities now use LINK tools (over 80% in North America), and LINK tools were used in refitting the ‘mirv-ed’ nuclear missiles and warheads on our nuclear submarine fleet at the U.S. Navy’s Undersea Warfare Center. LINK tools are also in use division-wide by major U.S. defense contractors, including Lockheed, Northrop and Boeing.
LINK’s BLACK KNIGHT tools are available in different drive sizes and are chrome-plated with knurled, titanium-coated quick-release collars at every connection. They are, of course, covered under LINK’s respected, “no-nonsense” guarantee. | <urn:uuid:cb3c955c-68dd-4d07-bbf3-e9f8eba6897b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/10631630/linkr-tools-announces-new-black-knight-line-of-locking-tools-100-made-in-usa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932734 | 531 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Virginia woman loses 85 pounds by eating only at Starbucks
(CNN) — A woman from Virginia claims to have lost nearly 85 pounds from eating almost every meal at Starbucks.
Christine Hall said she used to weigh 190 pounds, but she’s now down to 114 pounds after she started buying all her meals from the popular coffee chain two years ago.
“I have a busy schedule, so it just works for me,” Hall said. “I know exactly what I’m getting. I can plan my day in advance because I’ve memorized the calories in everything.”
The 66-year-old law librarian said she likes eating Starbucks’ paninis for dinner because they fill her up. But she makes sure to switch it up, incorporating protein, fruits and vegetables into her diet by buying things like the “bistro box,” which contains fruit and cheese.
Hall started keeping a food diary, and in 2010 she started tracking her calorie intake at livestrong.com. It wasn’t long before she was able to lose 40 pounds, enough to become a healthy kidney donor.
The 5-foot-4 Starbucks devotee said she likes buying her food from Starbucks because it’s convenient and the food includes calorie information.
Eating healthy can be expensive, especially eating out for every meal, but Hall says since she’s been buying her food from Starbucks she has more energy now and feels great. | <urn:uuid:353c4e30-e8fb-4f21-ad50-f48cfcb05fb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kdvr.com/2012/09/15/virginia-woman-loses-80-pounds-on-starbucks-diet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975324 | 307 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The statement “10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia” has no basis in fact!
In his original speech Mr. Miller cites a July/August 2002 Sojourners article by Rose Marie Berger in which she misinterprets statements from Penn. State Prof. Philip Jenkins regarding sexual abuse by Protestant ministers.
In the original article Berger writes…
“Philip Jenkins concludes in his book “Pedophiles and Priests” that while 1.7 percent of Catholic clergy have been found guilty of pedophilia (specifically of boys), 10 percent of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia.” (This quote is used in Miller’s speech)
To which Philip Jenkins responds (Sept/Oct 2002)…
“I regret to say that the statement is baloney. I never said it, and it’s not true!… Every time this ten percent statement appears attributed to me, I try to debunk it, but these things have a life of their own. I have no idea what the actual proportion of pedophile protestant clergy is, but I would be amazed if it was more than a fraction of one percent.”
Sojourner Article… http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0207&article=020741d
Sojourners apologized to its readers for passing on erroneous information and revised the article, removing the incorrect and defamatory information. But not before Sam Miller got a hold of it!
Regrettably, Miller’s speech has spread like wildfire within the Catholic community by way of the internet and e-mail. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites, blogs, forums, facebook pages, and news services that have posted it.
Thanks to Rev. Rob Pollock for this information. Keep it in mind as you read the column from Mr. Miller. Fr. Tim
Be Proud to be a Catholic
By Sam Miller, prominent Cleveland Jewish businessman
Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States (and Canada too), namely the Catholic Church?
Do you know - the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars.
Your graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, all at a cost to you. To the rest of the Americans it's free. The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. With an enrollment of 700,000 students. The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people - not just Catholics - in the United States today.
But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.
Let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and remember. For example,
• 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact in a study by the United Methodist Church ,
• 41.8 % of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior;
• 17% of laywomen have been sexually harassed.
Meanwhile, 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia. 10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia. This is not a Catholic Problem.
A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.
The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not necessarily the fault of the Church. You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests (and Bishops who concealed their crimes) that have probably been totally weeded out by now. Walk with your shoulders high and you head higher. Be a proud member of the most important non-governmental agency in the United States (and Canada too!).Then remember what Jeremiah said:
'Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls'.Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions.
Be proud that you're a Catholic.
Be Yourself . . . . . Everyone Else Is Taken” | <urn:uuid:eb12b63b-9806-4681-8f72-ed11abd2029d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frtimmoyle.blogspot.com/2010/04/refreshing-voice-in-these-turbulent.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958276 | 997 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The death of Apple's visionary leader Steve Jobs has provoked the biggest online reaction of any event in recent history, as the official twitter figures reached 10,000 tweets per second.
According to social media monitoring firm SR7, the huge reaction eclipses the previous biggest event, Beyonce's performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, where she revealed she was pregnant, which generated a record 8868 tweets per second.
Other huge online events included Japan beating USA in the women's soccer World Cup finals in July that generated 7196 tweets per second and Osama bin Laden's death that led to over 5000 tweets per second, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Also, 5530 tweets per second were recorded during the Japan earthquake and tsunami in March, and 3966 tweets per second were generated during the British royal wedding.
According to Twitter, across the whole of 2010 there were an average of 600 tweets a second. | <urn:uuid:212ee6c6-4e1f-4a6d-8126-644285aef0a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/1595578/report-steve-jobs-s-death-breaks-twitter-record-with-10000-tweets-per-second | 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 | 0.958717 | 183 | 1.601563 | 2 |
JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - Davey Whitney was the first coach from a historical black college and university to win a game in the NCAA Tournament.
Friday, Coach Whitney was honored for being a trailblazer.
Whitney was one of four recipients of the Harriet Tubman Award handed out by the Magnolia Bar Association Friday night in Jackson.
Whitney guided Alcorn State to 509 wins including an upset of Mississippi State in the first round of NIT in 1980.
He was also the first coach to lead an HBCU to a win in the NCAA Tournament when Alcorn St. beat South Alabama.
Coach Whitney says he was pleasantly surprised by the honor.
"This is a complete surprise and the only thing I can say about that. The reason I'm here to receive this award is because a lot of other people have a lot of things to do with it and I appreciate it very much. I don't want to make no mistake to not to acknowledge it, I didn't get here by myself, I had a whole lot of help from Mississippi and other places," said Whitney.
Coach Whitney is the second winningest coach in HBCU college basketball behind the late Clarence "Big House" Gaines.
Copyright 2012 WLBT. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:a275be56-b7b3-4e6d-bcd1-92565ae0972f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/16519494/davey-whitney-honored-with-harriet-tubman-award | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981854 | 267 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A new intermodal link at Congress Parkway and Financial Place, leading passengers up to Metra platforms, as viewed from the northwest.
If there were a contest for “best hidden train station in the Loop,” the dubious winner would be Metra’s LaSalle Street station. Have you ever tried and failed to find this station, or had to give extremely detailed directions to help someone else find it? If your answer is “yes,” you’ve got lots of company.
So why is it such a mystery?
Much of the signage directing “potential” passengers is small, placed in mid-block locations far out of visual range from adjacent intersections, and doesn’t follow the design standards of Metra signs. The station itself is tucked and hidden behind the Chicago Board Options Exchange; the platforms are also above ground with a single point of entry. This aerial view gives you a point of reference.
CTA riders who wish to connect from the LaSalle/Van Buren ‘L’ station will find signage at platform level mentioning LaSalle Street Metra station. Once you get down to street level, directional signage is tough to find. There is none on the stairs between the CTA platform and street level.
LaSalle Street station sign viewed from mezzanine level of CTA LaSalle/Van Buren station.
The Metra sign shown above is visible from a limited area of the CTA station mezzanine. There is no other Metra signage on Van Buren. If you’re approaching LaSalle from the east, the sign looks like this at most times of day – backlit, with no direct lighting, obscured by bird poop and grime, well above the normal line of sight for this busy intersection. It’s more visible from the west, at least in daylight. At night, it’s in the shadows of the ‘L’ structure. A few smaller signs, attached to some of the ‘L’ support columns closer to eye level, would be more effective.
LaSalle St. station sign viewed from Van Buren at LaSalle
Van Buren at Financial Place (northbound leg) shows a lack of station signage at the access ramp.
View from LaSalle and Congress, northeast corner -nearest signage mentioning Metra (inset) is midblock.
This ADA access sign is adjacent to the Metra sign in the inset above – 1/2 block from either Van Buren or Congress, along a sidewalk that’s much too narrow for a wheelchair.
The situation on the west side of the station, entering from the southbound leg of Financial Place? This side has ADA access, but there is no station signage until the elevator vestibule, near the escalators shown at right below.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve had several injuries that had a major impact on my mobility and greatly increased my awareness of accessibility issues. Being on crutches due to a sprained ankle or knee surgery creates a strong desire to minimize travel distance and impact on the body so that your body doesn’t run out of steam before you reach your destination or a place where you can sit down and rest. There are few things more disheartening than having to go to an unfamiliar place when you’re tired and in pain, then finding that you’ve 1/2 block or more in the wrong direction due to missing, hidden or misleading signage.
Access ramp from Financial Place. There is no station signage here.
Financial Place approach – no station signage until elevator vestibule at left of stairs, a half block east of curb on Financial Place, nearly 1 block south of Van Buren Street.
A new intermodal link was opened at Financial Place and Congress in fall 2011, creating an easier connection to CTA buses.
Intermodal link viewed from platform. The stairs lead down to Congress Parkway.
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Bus stop on Financial Place, looking south from Congress Parkway.
The Blue Line connection is also easier, if you know how to get to and from the LaSalle blue line station. Signage placement is unsatisfactory, making this nicely designed intermodal link less effective than it could be for anyone who isn’t already familiar with it.
If signage for the Blue Line connection was relocated to line-of-sight locations and a small amount of new, better-placed signage was added, the new intermodal link could provide a significant improvement for those who need it, including passengers who ride Metra to connect to the Blue Line to O’Hare. It eliminates the need to walk halfway up the 400 block of LaSalle, then double back across Congress, offering shelter from the weather for most of the connection. Staying on the south side of Congress shortens the walk, which is also helpful if you’re walking to the South Loop or Printers Row. It improves the odds of being able to get to a Rock Island District train on time instead of missing it. Catching a train is especially critical in off-peak trips when service is at 1 or 2 hour intervals, and when open cars on the train are usually towards the south (far) end of the platform, further from station entrances.
The Blue Line connection has signage issues at both ends. The elevator at the new Metra-CTA intermodal link comes down to sidewalk level on Congress, but the sign by the elevator is a bit of a tease. Although the buses are fully accessible, the LaSalle-Congress Blue Line station is not. Passengers unfamiliar with the Blue Line station may assume from the sign that the station is accessible, then discover that the nearest accessible station is a few blocks further away at Jackson and State.
CTA Blue Line sign in elevator alcove at Metra platform level.
If you take the stairs instead of the elevator, view of the directional signage is obscured by a lighting fixture and roof support. It’s well above eye level, not visible from the stairs.
CTA signage – intermodal link, street level.
It’s very easy to miss this sign in the elevator alcove along Congress unless you’re walking near the curb. It would be more visible if placed to the left of its current location.
CTA Blue Line sign in elevator alcove on Congress Parkway east of Financial Place.
At the Blue Line station, old signage at the mezzanine level on the north side of Congress Parkway indicates the old north-south connection to LaSalle Street station. The old connection is still an available option, but it’s longer.
LaSalle blue line, mezzanine level, north side.
No signage has been added to indicate the new, more direct, intermodal link.
An observant, curious person walking west on Congress might notice the link just before Financial Place.
CTA and Metra signage at intermodal link to south of sidewalk, south side of Congress between Metra station and Financial Place.
There is no easily seen signage to direct pedestrians walking west on Congress Parkway towards the Metra station. The station’s minimal, poorly placed signage on all sides represents lost opportunities and lost fares.
On more than one occasion, I have given detailed directions to people who wanted to ride the Rock Island. When they saw no signage to confirm that they were heading in the right direction, they often took wrong turns (or turned back because they thought they’d taken wrong turns) and got into the station late enough to miss the train; evening and weekend trains run only every 1 or 2 hours. Sometimes they went to the Red Line and arrived later. Sometimes they reserved an I-GO car near the station or went home to get their cars. Sometimes that missed train was enough to keep them from making the trip in the time they had available.
Adding a blue and white Metra directional sign at eye level at each intersection around the station could greatly improve access to this station and increase ridership if occasional riders can quickly and easily find the station and get on a train instead of wasting time searching for it. Better signage would also improve the rider experience for anyone with a walking disability.
Grid Chicago is a blog about sustainable transportation matters, projects and culture in Chicago and Illinois, by John Greenfield and Steven Vance since June 2011.
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Western & Ashland BRT: Pros and Cons - This webpage summarizes the project details and describes the pros and cons for each of the 4 bus rapid transit scenarios
Crash Portal - Exploring bike crashes in the City of Chicago and elsewhere
Bike 2015 Plan Tracker - Monitoring the status of implementing the 153 strategies in the Bike 2015 Plan
Chicago Bike Map app - Carry a beautiful Chicago bike map on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, along with numerous, helpful points of interest and resources
Contribute your photos to our Flickr group. | <urn:uuid:688b9f63-62d3-47a5-97c7-202f18ed6895> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gridchicago.com/2012/how-lasalle-street-metra-station-maintains-hard-to-find-reputation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932157 | 2,034 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Gabriel Gbadamosi on London’s riots
I’ve woken up in a riot – inside a London phone box. A brick has just smashed into the glass. There are four of us squashed in to get out of the rain of bottles and stones. I can’t get my arm up to protect my face, we’re all trying to crouch down, I can feel glass fall on my hair. But I’ve got a thick, springy Afro and I can still shake it. My friend’s got blood on his ear lobe; we look at each other and nod, instinctively – the two of us bursting out onto the road and legging it hard and low so the wind of the riot blows over us.
I’ve woken up and I’m fifteen, invulnerable, my heart thumping with adrenalin. I’ve never seen or felt this before and didn’t know it could happen: people squeezing under cars to get out of the rain of glass, pavements strewn with rubble and injured people and blood (there’s a deafness in my ears from the roar and screams of the crowd). I can smell petrol fires and I’m running past smashed up windows of cars and shops. I turn back to look at the pumped-up lines of policemen confronting us across the street, banging their truncheons on metal dustbin lids. I’m on the frontline because I want to see what’s going on – I can see the faces of the police, ashen, white – and before the next charge of boots and uniforms and the answering volley of stones and bottles, sticks and whistles, I can see people picking up and dropping broken slabs of paving stones from under our feet to hurl them over my head at the police.
The ground under my feet is being torn up. The basic social contract that I won’t break the law by being in a riot and that, in return, my society will keep me safe is being ripped apart in this confrontation with the hard reality of violence: we must break them or they will break us. I see a policemen get hit in the head with a brick; people are tearing down walls. Smoke from a police van on fire drifts into the spaces between us. And I’ve woken up because I know my colour and my class can’t be repressed anymore; there are too many of us, change has to come.
That was August thirty-five years ago, and this is August 2011. By my reckoning, the difference between then and now is that this generation of rioting looters and arsonists thinks we failed. Not only did we fail to end discrimination, create better outcomes in education, health, employment and social mobility, we failed to end the entrenchment of hopelessness and poverty in the young. | <urn:uuid:6e4f6992-6606-48c0-b37f-7598516baade> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://essayist.tumblr.com/page/5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94926 | 604 | 1.625 | 2 |
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BEIJING — Three children were killed and more than a dozen injured in an axe attack at a primary school in southern China on Friday, state media said.
A man attacked a group of children gathered in a primary school classroom, killing three and injuring 13, state-run news agency Xinhua said.
Authorities arrested the man, surnamed Wu, after the attack in Pingnan county in Guangxi autonomous region, the report said, adding that he was mentally ill.
China has seen several violent attacks against children over the past two years, including a spate of five incidents in 2010 which killed 15 children and two adults and wounded more than 80.
The attacks have forced authorities to increase security around schools and led to calls for more research into the root causes of such acts.
Violent crime has been on the rise in China in recent decades as the nation's economy has boomed and the gap between rich and poor has expanded rapidly.
Studies have also described a rise in the prevalence of mental disorders in the country, some of them linked to stress as the pace of life becomes faster and socialist support systems wither.
But authorities say that murder, which carries the death penalty, remains far less common than in most Western countries.
Calls made to local authorities and police in Pingnan county went unanswered Friday evening. | <urn:uuid:2c93bb25-a73b-42d3-95dc-cf17236238a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sahilonline.org/english/newsDetails.php?cid=6&nid=15099 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972421 | 282 | 1.515625 | 2 |
50. Thomas Andrews , of Bishopsgate , was indicted for breaking and entering the House of John Wragg , and stealing 18 Plates, value 9s. 7 Dishes, value 14s. a Tea-Kettle, value 3 s. 3 Brass Candlesticks, val. 18 d. a Woman's Cloak, a Hat, a Cloth-Coat, and other things, the Goods of John Wragg , the 17th of Jan . last, about 2 in the Morning .
John Wragg. The Prisoner had been my Journeyman . I have a Wash-house at the Back of my Dwelling-house. On the 17th of Jan. last, between 2 and 4 in the Morning, I was waked by the barking of my little Black Bitch. I got up and look'd out o'Window. I saw the Glimmering of a Light, but being between sleeping and waking, I thought it might come from my Neighbour the Currier, and that his stirring might disturb the Bitch, and so I went to Bed again. But when I came down Stairs, about 7 in the Morning, I found my House was broke open, and several Goods gone. Some Tiles were taken off the Wash-house, and so the Door was unbarr'd and open'd. Then a Hole was cut thro' the Kitchen-door, and that was open'd too. When the Prisoner was my Journey-man he 'bizzled my Goods, and lived but a loose Life; so that I presently inspected him to be the Man; and so I had him taken up the same Day, and he confess'd that he brought 3 Men with him, and they broke my House open, and he confessed where he had pawned my Goods, and I found 'em accordingly.
John Wilshire . Constable. When I apprehended the Prisoner, he confessed to me that he met 3 Men who were Strangers to him, and proposed to them to go and rob his Uncle; but as they were going he told them he'd shew them a nearer Place, and so brought 'em to his Master's House, which they broke open and robbed.
Thomas Wilshire . The Prisoner told me, that on Sunday-Night, the 16th of Jan. as he was going by the Savoy Gate, he met 3 Men, who asked him to walk with 'em. They told him they wanted Money; and he advised them to go with him and rob his Master; which they did.
Daniel Fair . The Prisoner said he met 3 Men as he was coming from the Savoy Stairs; and after some Talk with him, they said they were bent upon getting some Money that Night. He at first advised to rob and murder his Uncle, but afterwards told them his Master's House was nearer; and so they all went thither.
James Robinson . The Prisoner told me the same, and said farther, that on Saturday Night he intended to murder his Uncle, and had prepared every thing in readiness; but a Woman happen'd to be in the Room, and so he was prevented.
Joseph Higginson . I live at the 3 Bowls in Long-Acre. Between 8 and 9 on Monday Morning, Jan. 17. the Prisoner brought those four Dishes, 9 Plates, this Hat, Coat, and Woman's Cloak to my House to pawn. I had seen him 2 or 3 Times before. I examined him, and he told me, the Pewter was his Mother's Goods, and marked with her Maiden Name; and that his Father and Mother were dead.
Amos Haton . I live with my Uncle at the 3 Bowls in Heming's Row. On the 17th of Jan. the Prisoner brought this Tea-kettle, and these 3 Brass Candlesticks to our House, and wanted 7 s. on them, but I let him have but 3 s. I had dealt with him several Times before.
Prisoner. My Master knows that I was out of my Senses, and endeavoured to make away with my self before his House was broke open.
Eliz. Melvin. The Prisoner was quarter'd at my House, and behaved so well, that when his Quarters were out, I took him for a Lodger. The Jury found him Guilty . Death . | <urn:uuid:b07e7b2a-b311-44e1-b58f-8a91d6f692a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t17320223-40 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992609 | 903 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Recently, there has been an increased interest in grow-your-own options as food prices rise globally. Two men who are well familiar with this self-sustaining model are Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora, who founded Back to the Roots in 2009 after successfully growing a bucket of oyster mushrooms in their college kitchen. Their grow-your-own kits are sent out by mail order, and can flourish with only the use of recycled coffee grounds. This low maintenance approach means that their kits can be used by anyone, regardless of how limited the space available.
Both founders graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. When they began their studies they aimed to enter the finance sector, specifically investment banking. However, by the time they reached their final semester their ambitions had shifted and after successfully growing one bucket of mushrooms on recycled coffee grounds they decided to become full-time urban farmers. With the help of a USD 5000 grant from their university’s chancellor and initial interest from eco-friendly chain, Whole Foods, Nikhil and Alejandro set up Back to the Roots. We first covered the urban farming intiative back in 2010, and we recently caught up with the two founders to find out how they’ve progressed.
1. Where did the idea for Back to the Roots come from?
We heard in a lecture that it was possible to grow mushrooms on used coffee grounds. We started experimenting, selling fresh mushrooms to local groceries, and when people started asking us how they could do this too, the idea took off. We made a “Grow Your Own” Mushroom Garden, and started laying out the values we wanted in a company, including hustle and passion. We wanted to create something good in the world, something positive.
2. Can you describe a typical working day?
A lot of emails, a lot of chatting, a lot of brainstorming. There are also usually non-stop phone calls and meetings as well! The day starts as soon as our eyes open – we’re on our phones right away with email, etc. Since we’re on the West Coast, even if we wake up at 5:30 or 6, the day is already well started on the East Coast.
3. How do you unwind or relax when you’re not working on Back to the Roots?
It’s all about the music – Pandora and Rdio are my constant companions!!
4. What’s the secret ingredient to success as an entrepreneur?
Hustle. You have to always keep moving, thinking, and being excited about what you’re doing. If you work as hard as possible, you can make what you want happen.
5. What drove you crazy when building your business?
Lack of passion – we quickly aligned with people who shared the same sense of passion and urgency towards doing good through business and leaving a positive mark on this world. It’s infinitely more rewarding to work with people who have a passion and zest for life and for whatever they do!
6. What motivates you to keep going?
Knowing we can make a positive difference with our business and that we can help kids learn about food. Not to mention working with people who are just as excited about education, food, and sustainability as we are!
7. If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
Invest in design and our branding from Day 1 – we’ve since learned how absolutely critical design is to our success! I still laugh when I look at our first mushroom kit box and initial POP signage!
8. Where do you see your business in five years, and how will you get there?
Back to the Roots wants to spend time on product development, and hopefully in five years will have a fuller product line with more options for people to learn about growing their own healthy food. We’re focusing more attention on what we do best – brainstorm new products and develop them – and making the BTTR brand a well-known name in the food industry so that people know we’re a resource in sustainable food.
9. If you weren’t working on Back to the Roots, what would you be doing?
We’d be in investment banking and consulting – we actually gave up job offers in those fields when we decided to start BTTR.
10. Tell Springwise a secret…
Creating new products and building a company can be daunting, but it’s always fun!
11. Any final words for aspiring entrepreneurs? | <urn:uuid:f16ea8e0-bdd9-4ccf-9ff0-e08c3f6e8ae3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/wise-words-alejandro-velez-nikhil-arora-144022341.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966119 | 941 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Like all great socio-anthropologic efforts, you will never know everything about any one subject. It’s an ongoing search to uncover the unknown. So, too, is the case with PlayBall! – Alameda’s Sandlot Blog. We’ll never rest until every park rat has been identified, all the old shirts re-discovered, and every last one of Barry Weiss’ sunflower seed casings unearthed well, maybe we need SuperFund resources for that last one).
Thanks to a recent post by Fready B. Wishups, we know have a new path to follow. Mr. Wishups calls attention to what was once known as the Webster Playground. Our staff will will now begin to explore where Webster Playground was located and more about a seemingly forgotten haven for Alameda’s west end kids.
Here’s what Fready has to share: “WEBSTER PLAYGROUND had the following players: Tommy Harper, Sidney Lane, Mac Arthur Lane, Donald Johnson, Milton Johnson, James Carter, Marvin White, Emerson Johnson, James Nelson and more that I can’t think of now… Mr. (Don) Grant was a Playground Director at both Webster and Estuary with Webster being his first assignment.“
So park rats and would be “socio-anthropologists” everywhere, start scraping the memory banks for more on this forgotten Island paradise. (LOL, the title of “socio-anthropologist” will get you into more places than just being an Elk, plus a discount at Walgreen’s at South Shore Shopping Center!) | <urn:uuid:9eeba518-415f-4d43-b915-769df46dc8a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://playball94501.wordpress.com/tag/don-grant/ | 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 | 0.943743 | 337 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Life Is Hell For Iraqis
By Layla Anwar
29 April, 2010
Arab Woman Blues
The title on the Al-Jazeera English website is mild --- they call it "Life is Difficult for Iraqis". Bullshit and a thousand bullshits!!! Life is Hell for Iraqis and it's been on ongoing Hell since 2003...year of our so-called "liberation".
Below-- a 2mn video of a widow in Adhamiya...hope am not taking too much of your precious time with a 2mn and 7 bloody years of freedom and democracy...
A new report by Amnesty International says " hundreds of people are still killed and maimed every month and has found that those who speak out, like human rights campaigners or journalists, face constant danger. Religious and ethnic minorities, women, gay men and refugees also all live with the fear they will be battered or killed. And the report goes on to say that --- armed groups linked to "al-Qaeda" and political militias are often responsible. Some have links to Iraqi politicians, like the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia religious leader.."
Oh good morning Amnesty International...good morning !
and the Jazeera article concludes with --- for many Iraqis, life is tough, and fear is constant...
Did you say tough ? hahahahaha, you mean HELL... LIFE IS HELL FOR IRAQIS. | <urn:uuid:eacd3b64-b38c-4b93-829d-9d7951b933d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.countercurrents.org/anwar290410.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939924 | 289 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Taking the classic Sixties feline flick and super-sizing it to a cartoon-like tick, Amy trailblazed a new smokey…More
Smokey Eyes: Cleopatra
Our expert video guide to recreate the look
The earliest record of make-up comes from the age of Cleopatra VII of Egypt (69-30 BC) who was immortalised in film by Elizabeth Taylor in 1963. It’s believed she didn’t go anywhere without her trademark, intricately lined eyes, and like many Egyptians believed the more beautiful you were, the closer you were to the gods. MAC senior artist Caroline Donnelly shows us how to get the look. | <urn:uuid:32bb3c9d-5218-4626-8ab8-f3be58b2801e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stylist.co.uk/beauty/smokey-eyes-cleopatra | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942556 | 140 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Serbian Parliamentary Speaker Slavica Djukic Dejanovic said that there is still no final text of the resolution condemning the Srebrenica massacre, but that she expected the draft resolution to be adopted by the end of month.
Addressing reporters in the parliament on Thursday, the speaker said that she will call a session of the parliament next week during which parliamentary groups would be asked to agree on the content of the document.
"There is no final text. There are variations on how the text could look and once we get it, we will make a decision on the session at which it will be discussed," she said.
Serbia's President Boris Tadic launched an initiative for the adoption of a parliamentary resolution on January 13, claiming that Serbia had a moral obligation to adopt a measure condemning the Srebrenica crimes.
But at the same time, he supported the idea of a separate resolution condemning war crimes committed against Serbs, noting that in this way parliament would avoid allocating "collective guilt".
Srebrenica has become a byword for genocide and a symbol of the horror of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Around 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces after they overran the UN-protected enclave in July 1995.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution in January 2009 calling all European Union member states to recognise 11 July, the date of the start of the Srebrenica massacre, as "a day of commemoration throughout the EU”.
The Serbian speaker specified that the ruling parliamentary coalition has two or three variants of the document which they use in talks with representatives of other parliamentary parties.
"All the deputies are familiar with these texts and the discussions about the possible contents- about how it will look in the end," Djukic Dejanovic said.
According to a survey carried out in January for the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal on a sample of 1,000 respondents, the declaration received the support of 20.6 per cent of respondents, while 46.2 per cent preferred the adoption of a single resolution that would condemn all crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
When asked about the position of the Socialist Party of Serbia, SPS, who ruled Serbia in the nineties, on the use of the term 'genocide', Djukic Dejanovic replied that it was a fact accepted by all parties, not just the Socialists.
"Referring to documents that have been adopted on this subject is not objectionable. SPS is in favour of compromise and there will be no problems about it," said Djukic Dejanovic, who is also vice president of the SPS.
The ICJ, in its 2007 verdict in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Serbia, called the acts perpetrated by Serb forces in Srebrenica crimes of genocide.
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In July 1995 Srebrenica was shelled and occupied by the Army of Republic of Srpska,VRS, despite being declared a protected area by the United Nations. More than 7,000 people were killed, the victims of genocide.
The Bosnian Serb commander’s role in the genocide committed in Srebrenica is described in detail in many indictments and verdicts pronounced before local and international judicial institutions.
Indictments in 1995 and 2000, further amended in 2002 and 2010, charge the former commander of the Republika Srpska Army with genocide and other crimes.
When Mladic ordered his army to bomb the people of Sarajevo until they ‘go insane’, he revealed the murderous intentions that would culminate in the Srebrenica massacre. | <urn:uuid:a208e9a5-4537-453e-b0a7-7b7d0273907d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/srebrenica-resolution-in-serbia-parliament-soon | 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 | 0.951546 | 869 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Whisky Magazine Issue 109
Copyright Whisky Magazine © 1999-2013. All rights reserved. To use or reproduce part or all of this article please contact us for details of how you can do so legally.
Daveconsidered the history and effects of the hot toddy
Avirus they said, which seems to be medical speak for, ‘we haven't a clue, please go away before you infect us as well,' but anyway it was a nasty cough/chest bug that laid low the Family Broom for the festive season. (The only relief was a trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour where I looked in vain for a bottle of fire whisky. The butter beer by the way was non-alcoholic, tooth-meltingly sweet and nothing like the 17th century recipe I turned up in Robert May's 1685 book The Accomplisht Cook, but I digress.) Although the family succumbed, I managed to fight it off, which isn't, I hasten to add, some sort of macho statement as I am as prone as any of my sex to fall victim to the effects of Man Flu. No, my recovery was entirely down to the copious quantities of a cocktail of hot water, Lemsip, honey and whisky. I started with Balvenie Double Wood and ended up on AnCnoc. In other words, I was Saved By Toddy.
Funny how even the most puritanical of whisky drinker reaches for a similar mix when illness looms. It could be the Hot Toddy, or the equally efficacious Whisky Mac. I remember when as, heavy with Man Flu and drinking the latter concoction, a caring friend appeared with another glass of green liquid which I added to the already brimming glass. “But that's Green Chartreuse!” he cried. I drank it, slept like an innocent and awoke cured, but I digress (again).
The Toddy was not always the refuge of the sickly. In Ireland, an order of a Hot Whiskey is perfectly normal. ... | <urn:uuid:d9074266-f4f9-4646-b287-8593a9b84042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whiskymag.com/magazine/issue109/12010539.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959005 | 425 | 1.625 | 2 |
Understanding Author Voice
In my previous article we started discussing author voice, which is the distinct manner in which a novelist creates sentences and story.
In other words, your voice is your exclusive worldview: your beliefs, your fears, your attitudes, your dreams, the way you react to situations.
All of this means that you have to put yourself on your page. This is what is known as developing your voice. Voice isn't merely style. Style would be easy by comparison. Style is watching your use of adjectives and doing a few flashy things with alliteration or simile. Style without voice is flat. Voice is style, plus personal observations, plus passion, plus belief, plus desire. Voice is revealing yourself on the page, and it can be a powerful, frightening experience.
Yesterday we looked at two samples of writing, today there are two more “voices” to listen to:
Women’s Intuition by Lisa Samson
FLANNERY DESERVES TO KNOW THE TRUTH about her father. One day I'm going to have to tell her. But not tonight. I am worn out.
It's a tiredness of years.
You know how those ladies' magazines pretend women can do it all and still appear fresh as a sweet-smelling daisy by a clear Swiss spring? Wearing cute loafers, tweed miniskirts, and a camel cashmere twinset, they deposit their kids at soccer in sleek silver cars, green vans with television screens, or gargantuan white SUVs. Drive-through windows constitute meal planning. They see the best doctors because they don't mind going across town. Malls and boutiques bark their clothing on glitzy, stylistic posters. They instantly rid themselves of the nasty Flair inserts in the Valu-Pak coupon collections I look forward to each month. And they throw them into a recycling bin they bought from some woodsy, catalog-driven company.
They adroitly embroider their own existence with the silk threads of others' lives as though the fabric of their day-to-day duties was spun of gossamer and not the heavy mail plates that make up mine.
Was I ever like that?
Once upon a time, I suppose.
Magdalene by Angela Hunt
SILENCE, AS HEAVY AS DOOM, wraps itself around me as two guards lead me into the lower-level judgment hall. When I fold my hands, the chink of my chains disturbs the quiet.
My judge, Flavius Gemellus, senior centurion of the Cohors Secunda halica Civum Romanorum, looks up from the rolls of parchment on his desk, his eyes narrow. I don't blame him for being annoyed. I am not a Roman citizen, so I have no right to a trial. Besides, I have already confessed and am ready to die.
Do you see a big difference between Angela Hunt’s and Lisa Samson’s excerpts? What do you hear that’s very different?
Can you see the difference in style, personal observations, author’s passions and beliefs in these two samples? Can you glimpse into their worldviews through their voice? I think so. Also, both authors wrote in first person, yet Lisa’s is introspective, and Angela’s character is evaluating her surroundings. Both authors have a very distinctive voice.
Be sure to come back next week. I’ve got some more wonderful samples to examine and some tips on developing your voice.
Megan DiMaria’s debut novel, Searching for Spice, is about a long-married woman who wants to have an affair—with her husband. Her second novel, Out of Her Hands, is about taking life as it comes at you with all the surprises and challenges you face with young adult children. In addition to reaching out through her novels, Megan also speaks to women’s groups and teaches on the craft of fiction to writers at conferences and regional seminars. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and assistant director of Words For The Journey Christian Writers Guild, Rocky Mountain Region. You can find her online at www.megandimaria.com, www.megandimaria.blogspot.com, Facebook, and Twitter. She also authors an online writing column at Examiner.com, contributes to the Seriously Write blog, and the Coffee and the Muse writer’s ezine. | <urn:uuid:24af6b1d-ee93-4888-a6fc-81031ce9e67b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seriouslywrite.blogspot.com/2009/08/understanding-author-voice-by-megan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959778 | 921 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Jim Allen, Executive Director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney interviewed Jim Allen, Executive Director of the Amherst Industrial Development Agency, on the state of the regional economy and some of the controversial projects that have been subsidized of late by local IDA's.
Allen in the interview that aired on WGRZ's Daybreak Sunday said:
- The state is much better off focusing $1 billion in aid pledged by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to promote entrepreneurship and nurture a creative class in Western New York than on trying to lure manufacturers and other large companies to the region.
- The regional economy is more diversified and otherwise in better shape than it was a decade ago, but that WNY isn't doing as good of a job as many other communities to promote and nurture the next wave of economic growth.
- Local IDA's are working well together, but the government economic development efforts as a whole still suffer from insufficient cooperation.
- Vital economic development ties between New York and Ontario are bound to suffer because of recent decisions to close the Canadian Consulate in Buffalo and a state trade mission in Toronto.
- Decisions by the Amherst IDA to fund controversial projects, such as the relocation of Premiere Liquors from Kenmore to Amherst, make sense in the context of IDA's focus on trying to deal with chronic vacancies along some aging commercial strips. | <urn:uuid:669d3807-a379-4b9b-baf6-aa5f039ab5f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://origin.wgrz.com/news/investigative/Investigative_Post/article/173277/461/Investigative-Post-Jim-Allen-from-the-Amherst-IDA?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Cimg%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960147 | 297 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Monday, August 29, 2011
Amanuensis Monday - Sarah Osborn Skinner 1760 - 1848
Back in 2001 I found a distant cousin on GenForum, and we were both descended of Sarah Osborn, who married Charles Skinner on 24 November 1774 in New Brunswick. According to my calculations, Sarah was only about 14 when she married, not the 16 claimed in her obituary. This is the article sent to me by the cousin with whom I was corresponding. This was a wonderful clue to my 5x great grandmother's life, because records are very scarce in Nova Scotia!
The Christian Messenger, January 1848 ( a Baptist magazine):
"Died 15 January 1848 in Cornwallis [Nova Scotia], Mrs. Sarah Skinner in 88th year, daughter of the late Samuel Osborne of Martha's Vineyard, U.S. They removed to Casco, ME, to NB, then to NS. Born 22 July 1760, married in NB at age 16 to Charles Skinner, native of Connecticut. Leaves 8 sons, 7 daughters, 113 grandchildren, 60 great-grandchildren. Late W.A. Chipman was a brother-in-law. Edward Manning and George Dimock sons-in-law. Rev. I. E. Bill married a granddaughter."
Generation 1: Reverend Samuel Osborn, born in Ireland about 1690 and died in 1774 Boston, Massachusetts; married on 1 January 1710 to Jedidah Smith, daughter of Benjamin Smith and Jedidah Mayhew. Six children. He was a graduate of the University of Dublin and became pastor of the church at Eastham, on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, but was dismissed for his Arminian opinions and removed to Boston.
Generation 2: Samuel Osborn, born 1711 at Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, died after 8 October 1753; married on 9 September 1731 in Edgartown to Keziah Butler, born about 1710 in Edgartown and died in October 1768 in Edgartown. Ten Children. Keziah remarried to Samuel Pease in 1752.
Generation 3: Samuel Osborn, born about 1732 in Edgartown, died in Nova Scotia; married on 28 April 1755 to Sarah Wass, daughter of Wilmot Wass and Rebecca Allen, born 24 January 1738 in West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, died about 1813 in Nova Scotia. Five children.
Generation 4. Sarah Osborn, born 22 July 1760 in Fredricton, New Brunswick, died on 15 July 1848 in Pleasant Valley, Cornwallis County, Nova Scotia; married on 24 November 1774 in New Brunswick to Charles Skinner, son of Aaron Skinner and Eunice Taintor, born 3 January 1748 in Colchester, Connecticut, died before 1837 in Nova Scotia. Fifteen children including Ann Skinner, born 1786, who married Thomas Ratchford Lyons in 1802. I descend from their daughter, Isabella Lyons, who is my 3x great grandmother who married the Reverend Ingraham Ebenezer Bill mentioned in the obituary.
Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo | <urn:uuid:84479173-7d1a-48ca-8ae2-fa0117164461> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/08/amanuensis-monday-sarah-osborn-skinner.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973753 | 657 | 1.546875 | 2 |
I have this newspaper clipping for my Grandmother’s obituary. I don’t know where it came from although I would imagine it was from Windsor, Ontario where she lived and died.
So how would you experienced genealogists site this source? I can say it is a newspaper clipping but what else?
Octavie Carriere Champagne was widowed 14 years before she died.
Here she is with her eldest daughter, Denise. Denise went on to marry Pierre Lavoie but they had no children. Denise was widowed in middle age and never remarried. | <urn:uuid:37472d3b-f961-4512-b6e3-7cb061c3b890> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://storiesofmyancestors.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-would-you-source-this.html?showComment=1335120425255 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992258 | 124 | 1.625 | 2 |
MCAD Tech News (#252)16 Oct, 2008
As do many of its competitors, PTC provides a number of resources to education at many levels.
By Jeffrey Rowe
As many of you already know, I've been a long-time proponent of technical education at several levels, secondary school through college and university, as well as associated extracurricular activities. I'm happy to report that the MCAD community has become increasingly more involved in education with greater commitment — and impressive results.
In April, MCAD Tech News #238 discussed the educational programs and products offered by Autodesk. In August, MCAD Tech News #249 looked at education from SolidWorks' point of view. This time around, I spoke with Mark Fischer, director of the education program for PTC. He provided insight into the comprehensive educational programs that PTC offers.
PTC began its educational program in 1999 in the United Kingdom by providing Pro/DESKTOP design software at no cost to secondary schools. Since then, the company has expanded its education programs globally and has continually upgraded its offerings, now providing comprehensive education solutions to meet the needs of secondary schools and universities. PTC's educational program is currently active in 28 countries, involving more than 23,000 teachers.
PTC Products and Programs for Education
Today, PTC provides Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire v4 (a 3D MCAD program), Mathcad (engineering calculation software), and Windchill (online collaboration, PLM software) to secondary schools, colleges, and universities. PTC also provides a complete curriculum that is tied to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) national standards, assessments, online training resources, and certification. Fischer said that PTC is somewhat unique because its education programs are more of a community relations or philanthropic pursuit rather than a revenue generator. "We want schools to get the best software possible and we don't want them to have to worry about the budget; that is why our programs are free or at a low cost," he said. Read more »
Cadalyst contributing editor Jeffrey Rowe is the principal of Cairowest Group, an independent industrial design, mechanical engineering, and technical communication consulting firm with offices in Colorado and Michigan. You can reach him by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 719.221.1867.
By Mike Hudspeth, IDSA
Are you MENSA material? I'm not. Puzzles irritate me. My wife loves to sit for hours figuring them out. I throw puzzles against the wall and go find something more fun to do. I guess I'm not the "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again" type. Actually, I'm the type who uses the computer-game cheat books. I don't play games for the intellectual stimulation; I play them for fun.
It's interesting then that I chose to go into 3D modeling. How so? Let me ask you, How often have you had to use someone else's model and you felt as if you were taking a MENSA test? You can't do this, you can't do that. The model explodes. Does that sound familiar? Just about anyone who deals with 3D models has problems from time to time. It's not their fault (usually). It's just that using models from who-knows-where can be challenging.
No one has it in for you. When you get a model from someone, he or she usually doesn't intend to cause problems. But unless everyone does everything exactly the same way, variation will be commonplace. Until the 3D modeling police make people do things the so-called right way, people are going to do their own thing. It's human nature. Read more »
2009 3D Collaboration and Interoperability Conference
May 17-20, 2009
Estes Park, Colorado
Longview Advisors invite anyone interested in improving the efficiency of their global product design, development and manufacturing operation, to engage in a series of presentations. Read more »
For a complete list of CAD meetings, conferences, training sessions, and more, check out our calendar of events on Cadalyst.com.
Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst! | <urn:uuid:d9325dec-7c91-4b42-b243-52b5d64b5dd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cadalyst.com/manufacturing/news/mcad-tech-news-252-12553 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963461 | 960 | 1.578125 | 2 |
There are impact projects that can expand Sampson County’s tax base, notably around Interstate 40, but the two-year time frame it takes to develop those projects on the local end is an obstacle that has cut into the number of interested prospects.
John Swope, executive director of the Sampson County Economic Development Commission, recently gave an outline of Sampson’s economic future to county officials, with a focus around I-40.
“Economic development is about being prepared,” Swope said. “We have to be able to talk to our prospects today. I have to be able to tell them that we have, or don’t have, what they are looking for.”
That is not just about the size, location and physical characteristics of the site, but questions about water and sewer service, infrastructure, environmental hazards and geotechnical soil questions. “We have to be able to answer those questions quickly,” Swope noted.
He said having those answers immediately, along with prep work completed, could be the difference between having a 300,000 square feet distribution center that brings in $30 million or a manufacturing plant that brings $125 million in investment. Numbers of jobs can range from a few hundred to well over 1,000 — or no investment or jobs at all.
“Our goal is to grow Sampson County’s tax base so that our municipalities can provide services to the citizens that are needed. And with that is a challenge,” said Swope. “You look at the budget and you say how are we going to do this? Every year, it is a challenge. Our goal is to help with that challenge.”
Swope pointed out two projects, one being the long-discussed poultry-litter incineration plant Fibrowatt, which has not come to fruition, and biorefinery Chemtex, which is currently in the works for location in the Clinton Industrial Rail Park.
Chemtex would bring a taxable investment of $90 million, or 2.2 percent of tax base, and pay $650,000 in property taxes the first year. Fibrowatt, which proposed an investment of $145 million, or 3.57 percent of the county’s total tax base, has not happened after Sampson was announced as the site nearly five years ago.
“Fibrowatt, unfortunately, has not come around to reality,” said Swope. “They picked Sampson County, they wanted to come to Sampson County. If they had gotten a power purchase agreement back in 2008 or 2009, their plant would be up and running and they would be paying a property tax bill of $1 million (the first year). We would have given a portion of that back as incentives, but that is a significant tax bill.”
Swope said he is optimistic about Chemtex, a company that has pointed to Clinton as its prime destination but a plant opening is at least two years away and everything is still very much in the works.
Swope said it was important to appreciate the exits Sampson County has on the interstate, as well as the county’s strategic location between major ports, RDU Airport, regional metro areas and military bases.
“We have good regional assets we’re right in the middle of,” he noted. “Just about every prospect that contacts us says we want to be within an hour of a major airport. We’re very fortunate that we’re an hour from Raleigh-Durham Airport. We’re also fortunate that we’re an hour from the Port of Wilmington.”
About 35 percent of the projects that looked at the Southeast region of North Carolina in the past year were “port-related,” said Swope, meaning they would utilize the port and could not be more than an hour away from it.
“We’re one of only two counties that can say we’re within an hour of the Wilmington port and within an hour of Raleigh-Durham Airport,” Swope noted. “That’s one of our significant, unique advantages.”
There are two huge resources along I-40, including Exits 348 and 355. Even if just one-fourth of the buildable acres are developed on those exits, the tax revenue would still be substantial.
According to Swope, Exit 348 has 1,028 buildable acres. Should all land be developed, the taxable building investment would be about $493 million. With 25 percent success, that would be roughly $123 million, with property taxes of $1,596,376.
Exit 355 has 1,180 buildable acres and the total taxable building investment would be about $566 million. With 25 percent success, that would be roughly $141 million and a tax bill of $1,849,460. Even cutting that in half, from 25 percent to 12 percent, the tax revenue would still be around $900,000, Swope said.
“What that shows is the potential of our interchanges to develop into tax revenue-generating resources,” he remarked.
The potential property tax base could have a stabilizing and strengthening effect on the overall tax base in Sampson. Currently, the county requires a two-year time frame to ready those sites with water and sewer, and related infrastructure — some prospects are out immediately when hearing that.
“If you have the water and sewer in place and have these analysis and tests in place, you get a whole lot more prospects than if you don’t,” Swope said. “Right now, we’re getting prospects on I-40 that are going to take a two-year timeframe. There are potential opportunities and examples of site projects we are working to attract, but we are limited because we don’t have infrastructure at the interstate and don’t have analysis done.”
The Newton Grove exits have water and sewer, but “not huge volumes,” said Swope. One problem is finding sizable acreage sites so impact projects — the distribution sites and manufacturing plants — can be developed, said Swope.
“Now we’re in a position that we can compete if a project takes two years. We can meet that time frame,” he said. “If they can get their distribution center or manufacturing plant up in a year, we can’t make it in a year. I know we can recruit those kinds of projects that can make a difference, but we’ll be limited in the number of projects we can recruit because the ones that only have a year timeframe — we won’t get their attention.”
‘Doesn’t look good’
With Chemtex, he said, it is going to take four to six months for engineering, four to six months to obtain right of way easements for water and sewer lines and more than a year for construction. “You’re up against 22 months there,” said Swope. “Most projects don’t have that amount of time.”
Local limitations are not just at I-40, but also N.C. 24. Limited existing utilities, especially in the western part of the county, are not abundant and would need to be established or extended.
Swope said it was important to get the kind of impact projects that could not just garner tax dollars, but improve the quality of life for all citizens of the county. He expressed the desire for the Board of Commissioners to meet with the Economic Development Commission to further discuss how Sampson’s ability to recruit industry can be enhanced.
“When I look at the bottom line, what is done in terms of the industry that is coming to Sampson County in the last 10 years, it just doesn’t look good to me,” said Commissioner Albert Kirby. “It does not look like we’ve brought in a lot of business. It seems like there hasn’t been a lot of headway.”
Swope said he and the EDC Advisory Board believe there is a direction Sampson should go to reach its potential, but it needs further discussion with county officials.
“We have an idea. We think we can advance Sampson County,” he said. “It involves money: not property tax money but part of the general obligation. We would like to talk to you about this very thing.”
Those ideas revolve around I-40, which Swope said is vital to Sampson’s success.
“As an economic developer, I wouldn’t want to be in a county that doesn’t have an interstate. I want to be there. Site location consultants consider those like gold, if you have an interstate and exits,” Swope told commissioners. “We would like to talk to you more about that in the future.”
Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137 ext. 121 or via email at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:7d8c0619-2b32-4d3d-a6ca-ffec107e7e11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clintonnc.com/view/full_story/21795508/article-I-40-exits-in-Sampson-may-prove-valuable-in-economic-development?instance=commented | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972289 | 1,915 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Back in 2009, we've noticed that the modern software and web was becoming more and more interactive. Being independent video game developers and a passion for online, massively multiplayer games pushed us to create a technology that would suit all our needs.
We wanted to build reliable web services without sacrificing any productivity or performance. Moreover, we wanted a single server to handle thousands of concurrent clients at the same time. This ambition led us to create Spike-Engine.
Spike-Engine is a software platform that facilitates building client-server applications
for .NET developers. In particular, it focuses on real-time and duplex communication, performance and productivity.
The core idea behind Spike-Engine is quite simple. There are 3 core principles underpinning the architecture, duplex communication, performance and code generation.
Duplex Communication. We needed duplex communication, and a connected, stateful mode. Duplex communication simply means that client and the server can both initiate the communication and exchange messages easily, at any time (unlike
HTTP). After all, we wanted to build games and interactive applications!
Performance. We wanted our technology to be performant and handle thousands of clients, and hundreds of thousands of packets per second. This proved to be very challenging to achieve and took 3 years to polish and to find a balance
between flexibility, API and performance. Even better, good performance also saves cost, since we did not need to buy large servers with massive amount of bandwith and we could cut our costs.
Code Generation. As most of you, we are a small and agile team. This means we needed to do things smart and be able to stay productive while building high quality, heteregeneous software. From the very beginning, we designed our technology
to help us by generating automatically most of the networking code, while we could concentrate on actually implementing the business logic. | <urn:uuid:5f4df8ff-697e-4d04-8920-6494597a10d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spike.codeplex.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939342 | 383 | 1.5625 | 2 |
On National Review Online's The Corner today, Peter Robinson posts an item titled "'Tolerance' at Dartmouth," which at first glance does smack of secularist intolerance. It has to do with a brouhaha surrounding one Noah Riner, a senior at Dartmouth College and the president of the College's Student Assembly.
According to Robinson:
This past Tuesday at Convocation, the formal event marking the beginning of the Dartmouth academic year, Riner gave a speech on the importance of character. In the course of this speech Riner mentioned--brace yourself--Jesus. An excerpt:Character has a lot to do with sacrifice, laying our personal interests down for something bigger. The best example of this is Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, just hours before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." He knew the right thing to do. He knew the cost would be agonizing torture and death. He did it anyway. That's character.
The result of these remarks? Young Mr. Riner has spent the balance of this week finding himself roundly (and pompously) denounced. A vice president of the Student Assembly resigned, calling Riner's remarks "reprehensible." A petition protesting Riner's remarks was circulated. And The Dartmouth, one of the student newspapers, editorialized against him.
Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?
So I checked out the link supplied by Robinson, to a post on a website called The Dartblog. The author of the post, a conservative and a self-styled "athiest" (sic), says he did not find Riner's speech offensive and that the hullabaloo about it is ridiculous and intolerant. He quotes the same passage as Robinson, and expresses surprise that Riner's dectractors characterized this as a "fire and brimstone speech" likely to make freshmen feel unwelcome.
Then I clicked on the link to the actual speech, and read this passage that follows the one quoted above:
Jesus is a good example of character, but He's also much more than that. He is the solution to flawed people like corrupt Dartmouth alums, looters, and me.
It's so easy to focus on the defects of others and ignore my own. But I need saving as much as they do.
Jesus' message of redemption is simple. People are imperfect, and there are consequences for our actions. He gave His life for our sin so that we wouldn't have to bear the penalty of the law; so we could see love. The problem is me; the solution is God's love: Jesus on the cross, for us.
In the words of Bono:[I]f only we could be a bit more like Him, the world would be transformed. …When I look at the Cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my s--- and everybody else's. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was, or was He just a religious nut? And there it is, and that's the question.
Now that's a bit different, isn't it? (The reference to corrupt Dartmouth alums has to do with an earlier part of Riner's speech in which he said that a Dartmouth education in and of itself was not a sufficient condition for being a good person, and cited the examples of three alumni who had committed, respectively, espionage for the Soviet Union, murder, and sexual assault.) Okay, so maybe it's not "fire and brimstone," as guest columnist and fellow student Brian Martin editorialized in The Dartmouth. But Martin was certainly correct when he wrote that Riner had chosen to "turn Convocation into a religious pulpit" and an occasion to proselytize, and that this was neither appropriate nor respectful to the freshmen.
Note that Riner did not merely invoke Jesus as his own personal solution. His message was quite clear: Jesus is the only solution for everyone.
Did Riner's come-to-Jesus speech violate the Establishment clause? No, certainly not, since Dartmouth is a private college. Did officials and students at a multifaith school have a right to consider it inappropriate and offensive? You betcha. (Of course, I think it would have been equally inappropriate for a student body president to use a convocation to proselytize for any other belief system or cause, be it feminism, vegetarianism, opposition to abortion, or righteous outrage against the war in Iraq. And I do wonder if most of the liberal secularists who were appalled by Riner's sermon would agree with that.)
And by the way, folks, if we're going to talk about character ... isn't it, well, a tad disingeuous to complain about intolerant liberal secularists who object to a speech that merely mentions Jesus, and quoting only the non-objectionable parts of the speech? | <urn:uuid:e92be0f7-7f30-42e6-8101-14e80e89177d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cathyyoung.blogspot.com/2005/09/god-and-man-at-dartmouth.html?showComment=1127507220000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972779 | 1,031 | 1.671875 | 2 |
I am observing that every passionate learning tester have tried doing things that are not testing and try to bring in some learnings to testing from doing them, to test better. For instance, Michael Bolton has tried cooking and theater and has benefited by it in testing, you could read his interview in which he mentions that. Michael Hunter (a.k.a The Braidy Tester) has recently blogged about Drawing and how it has been helping him to test and think about testing. Jonathon Kohl's Exploratory Testing-Music of Investigation is no exception. Bach brothers ( James Bach and Jon Bach) are active in Chess.com and you could read how playing Chess helps to test better by reading Jon Bach's post.
CAST 08 has its theme "Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing". Interdisciplinary approaches drawn from diversified branches of learning or practice, such that insights can be drawn upon and synthesized to influence a particular craft.
Anuj Magazine, an experienced tester from India has been working for quite sometime on Graphology and Software Testing.
I wanted aid his research and agreed to share my handwriting because his research is to identify the traits in successful testers. You can read the analysis of my handwriting by clicking on this link. I hope you'd enjoy reading the analysis and might be of help to Anuj if he approaches you.
I am sure there a lot of untold stories of what else other than testing has helped them to test better. I hope a lot of other testers come out with those stories that might benefit the community.
Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - [email protected]
"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it." -- | <urn:uuid:e1044ef4-b3fb-47e1-b3d9-8b05e8ed2627> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://testertested.blogspot.com/2008/03/grapholohy-music-chess-cooking-drawing.html?showComment=1207053840000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966835 | 392 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Some streets are too small to appear even on the most detailed of maps. Cedar Lane Way, off Mount Vernon Street in Beacon Hill, is among these, on which automobiles cannot plausibly fit (though some have tried with questionable success- losing mirrors in the process). Even the most meticulous route planners will be taken by surprise upon the sight of such unofficial thoroughfares, their fates seemingly abandoned to a history prior to the internal combustion engine.
Beacon Hill. It is the wealthy area of Boston. And one of the most ancient because the main part of the city center was gained of the water along the Boston history. The mansions are luxurious and each year the newspapers give an estimation of the most expensive building of Beacon Hill.
The Charles Street/Beacon Hill area is soooooo cute. Take the T (red line)to Charles MGH I believe. The little houses on the cobblestone and brick streets are so adorable, it's really a picturesque neighborhood.
BOSTON BY FOOT
Great tours by foot exploring different parts of the city with nice experimented guides to give you all the information you want! A must! I took the Beacon Hill tour... just fantastic! Our guide explained all the history of Beacon Hill, the special and unique architecture, secrets gardens, famous people living there etc... Just great!!
The Lenox Hotel Boston
5 Reviews and 1654 Opinions The Lenox Hotel is a family owned hotel in an older building located in the Back Bay. I loved the...
Hotel Commonwealth Boston
3 Reviews and 1816 Opinions This looks like the old Kenmore Hotel of the 1970's Grahm Jr College used this as a dorm and...
Boston Harbor Hotel Boston
3 Reviews and 687 Opinions I originally booked my stay for 4 days but only stayed one night because my friends and family that... | <urn:uuid:f973f2fb-7668-4ea0-b5a6-fef10bc28827> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/North_America/United_States_of_America/Massachusetts/Boston-794476/Off_the_Beaten_Path-Boston-Beacon_Hill_Charles_Street-BR-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935148 | 380 | 1.765625 | 2 |
In the previous essay, we emphasized that gold is to move higher, and since it has just moved significantly higher, it seems that you may wonder what we think about the situation in its sister-metal - silver. However, before providing you with technical details, we would like to provide you with not-so-bullish views on China, and briefly comment on how it might affect the precious metals market.
If you saw the Hollywood thriller “Speed” several years ago with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, you might recall that they were trapped on a bus rigged to blow up if the speed of the bus dipped below a specific level. That, according to one economist, is China’s situation. If and when the economy slows down below a certain level, China’s economic boom will go bust, like a huge bubble pricked by a pin.
We recently read an interesting white paper on the subject, titled “Watch Out for China’s 10 Big Red Flags,” by Edward Chancellor, an analyst with GMO, a privately-held global investment management firm.
Chancellor outlined the 10 “red flags” that indicate the formation of a bubble and how China’s economy shows many of the classic symptoms of a great speculative mania.
China’s economic outlook is of vital interest to gold investors. Chinese demand for gold is set to double within just ten years according to the latest World Gold Council’s 74-page report, Gold in the Year of the Tiger. Chinese gold consumption was worth more than $14 billion in 2009, equivalent to 11% of global gold demand. Over the past five years, Chinese demand for gold has increased at an average rate of 13% per annum. The report estimates that China could exhaust its known gold mining reserves six years from now.
So, will the Chinese miracle continue, or will the boom turn to bust?
Here are the 5 out of the 10 “red flags” that, according to Chancellor, indicate the formation of a bubble and how each applies to China.
1. Great investment debacles generally start out with a compelling growth story, perhaps a new revolutionary technology such as railways in the 19th century, radio in the 1920s, or more recently, the internet.
Chancellor points out that it is generally assumed that the Chinese Dream will continue to grow at around 8% annually in the coming years. In recent months China has overtaken Germany as the world’s number one exporter, and Japan as the world’s number two economy. It has recently surpassed the U.S. as the largest national car market. The inevitability of China’s ascent to global economic primacy is reflected in the title of a recently published book by Martin Jacques, “When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World.”
2. A blind faith in the competence of the authorities is another typical feature of a classic mania. In the 1920s, for example, investors believed the recently established Federal Reserve would bring an end to boom and bust.
According to Chancellor, both economic theory and history argue against central planning as the optimal mode of economic development. China’s rapid growth can be deceptive because the state can invest resources more quickly than can the private sector. However, the quality of investment is lower. In other words, you can't always trust the numbers that a government is putting out.
3. Great booms are invariably accompanied by a surge in corruption.
All great speculative manias have been accompanied by rising levels of fraud. Only in the time of bust do the Enron’s and Madoff's come to light. China has recently slipped to 79th place in Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index, just below Burkina Faso.
The New York Times estimates that up to half of sales of luxury goods in China are purchased to be given as bribes.
4. Strong growth in the money supply is another leading indicator of financial fragility. Easy money lies behind all great episodes of speculation starting with the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1630s.
Low interest rates are part of Beijing’s policy to promote investment. Low interest rates also drive Chinese households into speculating in stocks and real estate. Last year the money supply grew by nearly 20% while interest rates were maintained well below the economy’s nominal growth rate.
5. Dodgy loans are generally secured against collateral, most commonly real estate. Thus, a combination of strong credit growth and rapidly rising property prices are a reliable leading indicator of very painful busts.
High stock turnover, a rising number of new share issues, strong early trading gains and the establishment of new stock exchanges are all classic signs of speculative euphoria. Meanwhile, the real action has been taking place in China’s overheating property market. Over the course of the last decade, national home prices rose at annual rate of 8%. Commercial real estate investment grew by 121 % last year. The total amount of floor space under construction in China is equivalent to the size of Rhode Island. The real estate market displays the classic symptoms of a bubble—stretched valuations, rampant speculation, and frenzied new construction. Sooner or later this bubble will burst, says Chancellor.
What usually happens in times of economic turbulence and fear and when fiat currencies tank? Investors flock to gold and silver. Since we have covered the situation on the gold market in our previous essay, this time we would like to focus on the white metal (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
click to enlarge
As it was the pattern in August 2009, silver is leading Gold and PM stocks to the upside. The RSI is in the overbought area and suggests some temporary resistance, but it seems that the coming move lower will not take silver dramatically lower.
Please note that in September 2009, silver didn't drop visibly before the RSI indicator moved much above the 70 level, and this is what we expect to see also this time. Additionally, please look how the 50-day moving average proved to be a strong support during both August 2009, and in March 2010. Should the history repeat itself once again, it seems that silver may move higher during the next few weeks.
On an immediate-term basis, it would not surprise us to see a few days of trading sideways (or even lower), before silver resumes the rally (in fact we have just sent a Market Alert to our Subscribers regarding details), as it has just moved above the medium-term declining resistance line.
Summing up, the silver market may consolidate for the next several days, but it seems that the coming weeks will provide us with higher prices of the white metal.
Disclosure: No positions | <urn:uuid:67231355-1964-4f96-bb98-ec4be7e52c3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/197645-china-shows-classic-symptoms-of-a-great-speculative-mania?source=thestreet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955103 | 1,406 | 1.632813 | 2 |
|Official Decree of Heroic Virtues
[A Decree of Heroic Virtues is a
judgment of the Congregation
for the Causes of the Saints that a Servant of God lived a life of profound union with God
and fidelity to Church teaching. Theologically it witnesses to the full flowering of
virtue in the person's life, which St. Thomas Aquinas explains occurs when the moral
virtues are perfected in their operation by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Decree is
official when accepted by the Pope. When combined with the approval of a miracle at the
intercession of the Servant of God the requirements for beatification have been met.]
CONGREGATION FOR THE CAUSES OF SAINTS
MANFREDONIA - VIESTE
CAUSE OF BEATIFICATION AND CANONIZATION
OF THE SERVANT OF GOD
PIO OF PIETRELCINA
(to the world: Francesco Forgione)
OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR CAPUCHIN
(1887 - 1968)
DECREE ON HIS VIRTUES
"For me there is no other boast than in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ"
(Gal. 6, 14).
The Cross: Only boast of Padre Pio
Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, like the Apostle Paul, at the
center of his life and his apostolate set the Holy Cross, which was his strength, his
wisdom , and his glory. Free from the vanities of the world and inflamed with love for
Jesus Christ, he was conformed to Him in the immolation of the Cross for the salvation of
the world. In the sequence and in the imitation of the divine Victim he was so generous
and perfect that he would have been able to say: " I have been crucified with Christ
and I am not me anymore that live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal.
2, 19). He wanted to hold it for the treasures of grace, that God had granted to him
with unusual abundance; therefore, without standstill, with his sacred ministry, he served
the men and the women that hastened to him to produce an immense crowd of spiritual sons
Worthy follower of Saint Francis of Assisi
This worthy follower of Saint Francis of Assisi was born May
25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, in the archdiocese of Benevento, from Grazzio Forgione and Maria
Giuseppa De Nunzio. The following day he was baptized with the name of Francesco. He spent
his infancy and adolescence in an environment serene and calm: home, church, fields, and
later, school. At the age of twelve he received the sacraments of Confirmation and First
At the age of sixteen, on January 6, 1903, he entered the
novitiate of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin at Morcone, where on the 22nd of the same
month received his habit and was called Brother Pio. He happily finished his year of the
novitiate, took the profession of simple vows and, on January 27, 1907, that of solemn
After his priestly ordination, received on August 10, 1910 in
Benevento, he rested among his brothers until 1916 for motives of health. In September of
the same year he was sent to the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo and he remained there up
to his death with the great building up of many believers. These, from the year 1918, saw
in him the signs of the Passion of the Lord and other charisms.
His special mission
Turned on by the love of God and by the love of neighbor,
Padre Pio lived in the fullness of his vocation to contribute to the redemption of man
according to the special mission that characterized all his life. He effected this program
with three means: through the direction of the souls, through the sacramental
reconciliation of sinners, and through the celebration of the Holy Mass. To confess to
Padre Pio was not an easy undertaking due to the great crowd of penitents. The highest
moment of his apostolic activity was that in which he celebrated the Holy Mass. The
believers that participated, perceived in it the center and fullness of his spirituality.
On the social plain, Padre Pio sought to assuage the pains and
poverties of many families, mainly with the foundation of the "Home for the Relief of
Suffering", inaugurated May 5, 1956. On the spiritual plain, he formed the
"Prayer Groups," which he himself defined as "breeding grounds of faith and
focuses of love," and from the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI: "A great river of people
For the Servant of God it was a life of faith: everything was
desired and everything was done in the light of faith. He nourished himself by constantly
engaging in prayer. During the day and a big part of the night, in fact, he was in
conversation with God. He said: "In books we learn of God, in prayer we find Him.
Prayer is the key that opens the heart of God." In faith he always came to accept the
mysterious will of God. He was a religious absorbed in the supernatural realities and he
infected all with his faith, radiating it to those that approached him.
The man of hope
Not only was he a man of hope and total trust in God, but he
infused these virtues in souls with his words and with his example.
The love of God so filled him, satisfying every want of his;
charity was the inspiring principle of his day: He loved God and God loved him. His
particular concern: to grow and to behave in charity. This was the secret of his
sacrificial life, that he spent in the confessional and in the direction of the souls.
The greatness of his charity
An expression of the greatness of his charity toward neighbor
was his welcoming, for over fifty years, plenty of people, that hastened to his sacred
ministry, to his counsels and to his comfort. It was almost a siege of love: They looked
for him in the church, in the sacristy, in the convent. And he gave all of his love,
working to revive faith, distributing grace, bringing light and evangelical comfort. In
the poor men, in the suffering ones and in the patients he saw the image of Christ and he
was especially available for them.
He had practiced in an exemplary way the virtue of prudence,
he acted and recommended all to the light of God.
His interest was the glory of God and the good of souls. He
treated all without preferences, with loyalty and great respect.
The virtue of fortitude shown forth in him. He understood
full well that his walk would have been that of the Cross, and accepted suffering with
courage and with love. He experienced for many years the sufferings of the soul. For years
he bore the pains of his wounds with admirable fortitude. He accepted in silence and
prayer the numerous interventions of the ecclesiastical authorities and his Order. In
front of calumnies he always kept silent.
His prayers and his mortifications were the means which he
habitually used for achieving the virtue of temperance, in conformity to the Franciscan
style. He was temperate in his mentality and in his way of living.
Aware of the duties assumed with the consecrated life, he
observed with generosity the religious vows. He loved them because they were reminders of
Christ and because they were the means of perfection. He was obedient in everything to the
orders of his Superiors, even when they were burdensome. His obedience was supernatural in
his intention, universal in his extension and integral in his execution.
He exercised the spirit of poverty by total detachment of
himself from worldly goods, from conveniences and from honors.
He always had a great predilection for the virtue of
chastity. His behavior was always and with all modest.
He sincerely believed himself useless, unworthy of the gifts of
God, full of weaknesses and in need of divine favors. Among so much admiration from the
world, he repeated: "I want to be only a poor friar that prays."
His health, since his youth, was not very good, and, above all,
in the last years of his life it quickly declined.
Sister death came for him at the age of eighty one and found him
prepared and serene on September 23, 1968. His funeral was characterized by an
extraordinary gathering of people.
A stamped representative of the stigmata of Our Lord
On February 20, 1971, only three years from the death of the
Servant of God, Paul VI, speaking to the Superior of the Order of Capuchins, said of him:
"Look what fame he has had, what world clientele has gathered around him! But why?
Was it because he was a philosopher? Was it because he was wise? Was it because he was a
man of means? It was because he said the Mass humbly, he heard confessions from morning to
night, and he was, difficult to say, a stamped representative of the stigmata of Our Lord.
He was a man of prayer and suffering."
The Cause of Beatification
This way God manifested His wish to glorify on earth his
faithful Servant to the Church. The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin did not wait a long
time to complete the steps foreseen by canon law to begin the Cause of beatification and
canonization. Having examined everything, the Holy See, in the form of the Motu Proprio
"Sanctitas Clarior," granted the "nulla osta" on November 29, 1982.
The Archbishop of Manfredonia could proceed then to the introduction of the Cause and the
observance of the Cognitional Process (1983 - 1990). On December 7, 1990 the Congregation
for the Causes of Saints recognized the validity of the Process. Having completed the
Positio (Positive Vote), it was then discussed, as usual, if the Servant of God had
practiced virtues in heroic degree. On June 13, 1997 the Special Congress of the
theological commission was held with positive result. In the next Ordinary Session of the
following October 21, the Proponent of the Cause, His Excellency Monsignor Andrea Maria
Erba, Bishop of Velletri-Segni, the Cardinal Fathers and Bishops recognized that Padre Pio
of Pietrelcina had practiced in heroic degree theological, cardinal and attached virtues.
In heroic degree all the virtues
The undersigned Pro-Prefect has informed the Supreme Pontiff
John Paul II of the procedures completed by the Cause. His Holiness, welcoming and
approving the judgment of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, has ordered that the
Decree of the virtues of the Servant of God be promulgated.
Toward God and toward neighbor
This performed according to the norms, surrounding it, on
todays date, the undersigned Pro-Prefect, the Proponent of the Cause, the Archbishop
Secretary of the Congregation, together with the remainder according to custom, and all
being present, the Holy Father declared solemnly:
It is certain that the Servant of God, Pio of Pietrelcina, to the
world Francesco Forgione, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, has
practiced to an heroic degree the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, both
towards God and towards neighbor, as well as the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice,
fortitude, temperance and the attached virtues, to the goals and the effects of which is
The Supreme Pontiff ordered, finally, this decree to be published
and recorded in the acts of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Given in Rome, on December 18th, in the Year of Our Lord 1997
Titular Archbishop of Caesarian of Numidia
Titular Archbishop of Luni
Translated from the original Italian in "Voce Di Padre
Pio" Vol. XXIX, No. 6, by Father Ladis Cizik, Chaplain, Divine Child Jesus Padre Pio
Prayer Group, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; Diocese of Pittsburgh.
[Provided courtesy of the National Center for Padre Pio] | <urn:uuid:bbe15627-7a1c-45b3-b627-f48865fb21b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ewtn.com/padrepio/saint/decree.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969232 | 2,671 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Repost – Bar Exam Grade Analyzer
Posts Tagged ‘how’
I have created a bar grade analyzer based on the formula used for the Feb 2009 Bar Exam. This will allow you to experiment with “What-If” situations. Keep in mind that the Feb formula was used for both the MBE and the Essays.
I wish everyone the VERY BEST of luck as you hold your breath waiting for your results – just remember to breath every once in a while.
Please let me know what you think of the Analyzer! | <urn:uuid:fe735308-706c-4c1c-870a-ed2389c9a441> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://davislegal.net/?tag=how | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951671 | 115 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Does this sound remotely familiar to you? Is this not what all the safety programs we already have in place are supposed to do? Do we need more?
Sure, Continuous Analysis and Surveillance (CAS) FAR 121.343 applies only to air carriers. Other organizations also have their own safety and quality control programs that do the same thing. Ensuring safety and quality in product or process is standard procedure in our industry. The whole CAS concept and system can easily be adapted directly to other activities and or processes. Why start a whole new system?
If Bill O’Brien were still alive I am certain he would agree with most of my thoughts above. He believed in smaller is better and the fewer regulatory mandates the better. Let private enterprise do the job of supervising their safety culture. There are enough mandates out there to supply and structure such systems without adding more. And yes, who is going to organize and manage this huge effort? It is interesting that ICAO simply passes the job on to the member states, European authorities, and our own FAA. Just like ICAO’s Stage 3 noise standards which were passed on to the UK and other EU states to create and supervise.
Safety data management and collection programs
FAA already has numerous safety management programs in effect that it cannot effectively manage now. How can it add another system and expect to manage it? Will it turn out to be another pile of data collected to simply collect with the rest?
Only one of these safety programs is required by regulation … that is the Continuous Analysis and Surveillance (CAS) program under FAR 121.373 and its Part 135 companion FAR 135.431. As I have stated in the past on numerous occasions, one can only wonder what happens to all the data and required reports collected under this program and whether or not anybody at the FAA or the air carrier even looks at it and analyses it?
Questions have even been raised about whether or not the program is even effective. The Valujet, Alaska Airlines, and Chalks accident cases come to mind. Add the recent problems at Southwest and American and you see the trend.
Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS) is designed to be sort of like a CAS system in that it is a continuous but broader program designed to detect weakness and predict an accident before it happens. This is also what CAS is supposed to do but has failed in too many cases. ATOS uses a systemic approach by attempting to evaluate all the elements of an air carriers operating environment and it is supposed to ensure that all the elements have safety built into their operating systems. (Sound familiar?)
Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) is a far-reaching attempt by the FAA to capture flight data and other operational information. Although there are many concerns raised over the collection and use of such data by flight crew personnel. This is a voluntary participation at this time.
Aviation Safety Action Parnership (ASAP) is another voluntary safety data sharing program that has been around for some time also. It shares the same concerns about the use of raw data without adequate protections from disclosure.
In order to be effective CAS FAR 121.343 needs to be expanded and SMS may be an alternative method to do the job. The NTSB, reviewing noteworthy accidents, has so stated and added that CAS is a one size fits all rule that needs to be changed. The Board said that the FAA should move away from the one size language and focus on a program that will aggressively uncover and address any structural and or other continuing airworthiness issues. (New SMS?)
A vigorous maintenance tracking process must be included in any overall quality control system. The Board cited insufficient FAA oversight. It suggested that principal maintenance inspectors should be more involved in the process and join in the overall analysis of discrepancies, maintenance, and inspection functions. The Board has clearly argued for more oversight. Just where are the inspectors going to come from when and if a completely new safety management system comes on line?
Last week AMT posted a news item regarding the FAA had validated the implementation of US Airways’ Safety Management System (SMS...
Overall, the ARC believes the FAA should issue regulations on SMS. However, it was noted that several SMS concepts already are covered by existing regulations to various degrees.
A draft proposal by the Federal Aviation Administration requiring certificated airports to implement Safety Management Systems (SMS) would burden airports with significant, unfunded mandates and... | <urn:uuid:8180185d-b4ff-4859-b325-80dafa8985b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aviationpros.com/article/10374319/safety-bureaucrats?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959452 | 906 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Health Benefits of a Sincere Apology (cont.)
Changing Your Cells?
Delis-Abrams says changes in thoughts can program cell structure to provide health benefits. "When you tell a lie," she says, "according to Chinese medicine, the lie gets lodged on the body on the cell level. It can feel like a knot. When you say you are sorry, the body knows the truth of whether you mean it. You are the one who can change your body. You are the one in charge of your thoughts."
She tells of a time she told her son something about his sister that was really his sister's prerogative to tell. "I said I was sorry," she recalls. "I freed myself! I felt much better."
Acceptance or Not
Delis-Abrams says the other person does not have to accept your apology for you to get the health benefits. She tells of two business associates who had a falling out. One wrote to the other and said, "I miss you." Her friend said, "Well, I don't miss her." She wrote back and said she didn't miss her former associate but now they were both free to move on.
"Your apology may never be accepted," Orsborn says. "You need to find a way to live with that. When you hold onto problems, it's like dragging an anchor. Your best thinking occurs when you find a sense of peace."
And your best night's sleep, too.
Star Lawrence is a medical journalist based in the
SOURCES: Carol Orsborn, PhD, research associate, UCLA; author, Nothing Left Unsaid: Words to Help You and Your Loved Ones Through the Hardest Times and The Silver Pearl: Our Generation's Journey to Wisdom. Alexandra Delis-Abrams, PhD, author, Attitudes, Beliefs and Choices. WebMD Medical News: "Saying 'Sorry' Goes a Long Way.
© 2005 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
Last Editorial Review: 11/4/2005
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:64228a3b-e5df-4de7-96ff-12493146cff6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=55146&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973029 | 438 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Fifty years ago, three young entrepreneurs had a dream to create a chemical company to meet the needs of maintenance professionals. In May of 1956, the founders, E.T. Swigart, Jr., Nord L. Simpson, and C.D. Werner, began living their dream by starting Spartan Chemical Company, Inc. Today, Spartan is a leading global manufacturer of chemical specialty maintenance products and industrial degreasers.
First Fifty-Five Years
Spartan Chemical began in a small, 1500 square foot building on Summit Street, in downtown Toledo, Ohio. The first product was HD-10 All Purpose Cleaner, later renamed SD-20, which became an industry leading synthetic detergent, that is still sold today. E.T. Swigart often referred to SD-20 as “the girl that brought us to the dance.”
The preferred method of sales and marketing was through the creation of a network of distribution. By 1960, Spartan products were sold through 53 distributors, had new products on the horizon, expanded its operation, and held its first General Sales Meeting.
In 1964, Spartan moved its operation to 110 N. Westwood Avenue in Toledo. The Westwood location became our home for the next 30 years. It was expanded on five or six occasions - until Spartan found it necessary to eventually establish three additional satellite locations in Toledo.
During that timeframe, our jan/san and maintenance chemical lines continued to expand. In the 80’s Spartan launched a new product line for the metal forming industry called the Industrial Product Group, or IPG, and began establishing a network of distribution designated for that product line
In the early 90’s we launched a patented chemical line based on biotechnology. It helped distinguish Spartan and our distributor associates from our competition. Eventually, in 1996, our growth necessitated the building of a 570,000 sq. ft. compounding plant on a new 133 acre campus at 1110 Spartan Drive, Maumee, Ohio.
Also during the late 70’s and 80’s Spartan began to expand internationally, creating a variety of different joint ventures and licensing arrangements as well as establishing international distribution. Today, Spartan has a wholly owned subsidiary, Spartan do Brasil, in Campinas, Brasil, with a compounding plant and offices of about 150,000 sq. ft. and 180 employees. Spartan also has additional representation in 28 other countries through assorted distribution and licensing arrangements.
In the 90’s, Spartan diversified into the computer industry, acquiring a company called CompuClean, which is a software tool that is a natural fit with our end-user marketing and institutional cleaning products.
Spartan also launched a comprehensive chemical line for the food processing industry.
In 2002, Spartan led the National Green Cleaning movement with a line of environmentally preferable products called the Green Solutions products. It was this line that started the “green revolution” in an industry previously dominated by yesterday’s technology.
Continuing with that proactive movement, in 2005, Spartan expanded the environmentally preferred concept and introduced new products, called BioRenewables®, based on technology that promote our renewable resources and contribute to environmental improvement.
Spartan Chemical Company celebrated its 50th Anniversary on May 10, 2006. Over the years, those employees’ faces have certainly changed and grown in number - and their contributions have been innumerable. But their philosophical commitment to high standards and quality products, supported by unparalleled customer service, are cornerstones that Spartan personnel have always embraced.
In 2007, Spartan completed a 29,000 square foot expansion to the corporate headquarters building, expanding the total building to over 600,000 square feet.
Spartan introduces a complete line of Laundry products, Clothesline Fresh™ in 2009 and a line of warewash products, SparClean, in 2010 to complement the Clothesline Fresh Laundry Line.
The Next Fifty-Five Years
Looking into the future, Spartan will continue to create, manufacture, and sell products to meet the ever-changing needs of the maintenance industry, all the while upholding its dedication to quality, cost-effective products. The faces will continue to change, but their resolve and dedication to growth, ingenuity, service, and integrity will be constant. | <urn:uuid:bcd6b55f-869f-403c-946f-8e0234e3d20a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spartanchemical.com/company/history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950324 | 874 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Don’t assume—get the facts
Sizing an Exchange Server 2003 system when you're migrating or upgrading isn't a trivial task. Administrators often use sizing calculators (e.g., HP ProLiant Server Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003) and load-testing tools (e.g., Exchange Server Load Simulator—LoadSim—2003) when designing systems, but sometimes they guess or rely on assumptions when providing input for these tools. (For more information about these tools and their needed inputs, see the sidebar "Tools and Resources for Designing an Exchange 2003 System," page 6.) When I perform an assessment before designing a system, I'm amazed at the lack of good data or insight into answering the root question: How do people use the current Exchange system? To answer this question, you need to determine, at a minimum, the following information:
Exploring the Peaks and Valleys
Two important questions you need to answer before you size an Exchange system are how long is your users' typical workday? and what are their peak work hours? This information is important because you'll need to size your system so that the performance will be acceptable during peak demand. A typical workday for most users is 8 or 9 hours long, but many offices have some type of flexible scheduling, so not everyone starts their day at the same time. For example, some people might start their day at 6:00 a.m., whereas others might start at 9:00 a.m. Work-from-home trends have made flexible scheduling more the norm than the exception. A flexible schedule increases the overall length of the workday past the historical 8 hours of the 9-to-5 job.
Another factor to consider is users' distribution across time zones. If your organization has people spread across several time zones and you plan to use centralized servers, you need to account for this fact when determining the length of the workday. For example, if you have users in California and Washington, DC, the minimum workday is 11 to 12 hours long because of the 3-hour time-zone difference. When you factor in flexible work schedules, a more realistic number is having a workday that's 15 to 18 hours long.
Although knowing the length of the workday is important, it's more important to know when you can expect peak loads and how long the load periods last. Most administrators expect loads to be highest first thing in the morning and right after lunch. However, the loads really depend on how your organization does business. To determine the peaks and their durations, you need to monitor your system, which is easily accomplished by using the Windows Performance Monitor tool.
Performance Monitor has four Information Store (IS) counters that I find useful: User Count, Active User Count, Connection Count, and Active Connection Count. The User Count and Active User Count counters tell you the total number of connections on a per-logon basis. The Connection Count and Active Connection Count counters tell you the total number of connections to resources within the IS. The distinction of an active count is that it shows information about activities performed within the last 10 minutes of the sample. The difference between a connection count and a user count is that a single user can have multiple connections, so generally the connection count is higher than the user count because each user often makes several connections to the IS. For example, a user might have three connections—one to access his or her mailbox, one to access the public folder store, and one to access another user's calendar.
Email-enabled applications, such as Research In Motion's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, can also create connections. You need to consider the source of the connections because different sources can create different loads on the system. For example, at HP, we've found that each BlackBerry user creates the same load as 2.21 Outlook users. You need to consider this type of loading factor when calculating the number of users to put on a server.
Figure 1 shows a graph representing the actual system load results from a server in a site. I added the vertical bars so that you can correlate the user and connection counts to the time of day. This server's administrator had assumed that the load was heaviest early in the morning and at lunch time, but as you can see, users in this organization tend to establish connections when they arrive and don't close them until they leave for the day. The users also tend to be fairly consistent with the frequency in which they interact with the mail system throughout the day. For the day this sample was taken, the server hosted 750 users and the peak user count was 660. Samples from other days showed similar results. So, the administrator and I determined that approximately 80 percent of the user population is consistently online at the same time. This information is needed to help determine how many mailboxes a server can support.
When you use Performance Monitor, don't just take samples for a few days or on certain days. Make sure you sample over a long period of time, then aggregate the results. You might find, for example, that Mondays and Fridays have different results than other days of the week. Or you might find that there's higher utilization a certain week each month because of a recurring event. Don't forget to discount atypical periods, such as weeks that contain a holiday. Finally, don't assume every server is used the same throughout an organization. If you have many servers, those individual servers likely support individual business units. Sometimes business units work differently, and you might find that one set of servers sees steady usage, such as the server represented in Figure 1, whereas other servers have very jagged connection graphs with extreme peaks (high utilization) and valleys (low utilization). You should gather data from a large number of servers, if not all of them, to determine what server types and configurations you need. This information will help you determine, for example, whether you should deploy five or six high-end servers for centralized users and two midrange servers for field offices or deploy a series of identically configured midrange servers for all locations.
Do Users Love It or Leave It?
Do the people in your organization use the mail system all day long for a variety of tasks (e.g., communicating, scheduling), or do they hardly use the mail system at all? Most of the sizing tools ask you to determine the number or percentage of users who fall into the heavy-, medium-, and light-usage categories. These classifications help determine how many transaction logs you expect to generate per day, how fast you expect people to hit their mailbox quota, and how often you expect message transports to be used.
Classifying users and determining exactly how they use the mail system each day is difficult. You need to start by using an assessment tool to gather data to help you classify users. You also need to employ other tactics, such as focus groups and surveys, to gather the information.
One assessment tool you can use is StorStat, a Microsoft BackOffice Resource Kit (BORK) 4.5 utility that gathers information about mailbox usage. Although Microsoft initially designed StorStat for Exchange Server 5.5 upgrades, it's still useful today because it uses the Messaging API (MAPI) to access and evaluate items in a mailbox.
StorStat provides statistics such how many folders are in a mailbox, the average message size in the mailbox, and how many messages are sent and received per day. This information is good to have, but you need to be aware that the tool's results can be misleading. The results will be valid for only the items stored in the mailbox at the time the tool was run. For example, suppose you run the tool and it reports that a user's mailbox contains only a few messages and no attachments. You might assume that the user doesn't receive many messages and rarely receives attachments, but in reality, the person might frequently receive messages, some of which have extremely large attachments. The user just happens to immediately save all attachments on the local drive and regularly delete old messages. StorStat didn't measure the attachments and messages because they were no longer in the user's mailbox. For this reason, you need to conduct more in-depth investigations through focus groups and surveys.
Another limitation of StorStat is that, although it lets you summarize the results from a sampling of mailboxes, it provides only a summary of the entire sample set. It doesn't break down the results for further analysis. For example, StorStat provides the average number of messages sent per day over the sample, but it doesn't break down the number of messages sent by the number of people who sent them (e.g., 3 people sent 0 to 10 messages, 23 people sent 10 to 20 messages). I like to use StorStat for gathering general information, but for more detailed usage information, I use other means (e.g., focus groups, surveys) to get a realistic picture.
I've found that the number of messages sent and received, the size of those messages, and the number of messages sent with attachments are good starting metrics for determining how many users fall into the heavy-, medium-, and light-usage categories. As you capture this information, you can use MAPI Messaging Benchmark (MMB) 3—the benchmarking standard for measuring the performance and scalability of computers running Exchange 2003—to start assessing low-, medium-, and high-usage levels. MMB3 is designed to profile medium usage. For example, for the metric of the number of messages sent per day, 55 messages is considered medium usage, 41 messages (roughly 75 percent of medium) is considered light usage, and 69 messages (roughly 125 percent of medium) is considered heavy usage. You need to be aware that MMB3 is designed to compare hardware from different vendors, and the hardware configurations don't usually reflect real-world deployments. So, you should use the numbers only as a starting point.
After the information starts coming in, you might notice certain trends that are indicative of a certain usage category. For example, I've found that people in the heavy-usage category tend to send and receive a lot of mail and keep what they send and receive for a long time. They're involved in or schedule meetings frequently and usually have attachments saved with their appointments. They tend to create many folders to help organize what they keep.
Open It Again, Sam
Another metric considered important when categorizing users into usage levels is how often people open and reopen a message or attachment. If you're using a noncaching client such as Outlook 2000, each time someone reads a message or accesses an attachment, activity is incurred against the IS. When people frequently access items multiple times, they might be using the mail system as a file store. Although using the system for this purpose isn't necessarily bad (I store documents I occasionally need because I can access my mailbox from almost anywhere), it indicates heavy usage.
Repeat access creates heavier loads on the Exchange server. However, if you plan to deploy Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 as your primary client, repeat access isn't as much of a concern as it used to be. Outlook 2003 has a feature called cached mode that creates a complete copy of the mailbox on the local PC. When people read and reread messages, they're accessing the items from the local copy of the mailbox, which reduces the load on the server. If you're not planning to deploy Outlook 2003 or not planning to use cached mode, you need to determine the amount of repeat access so that you can better ascertain how many heavy users a server can support before it becomes overstressed. Unfortunately, gathering this type of information is difficult because you need to directly survey users.
Give Me More, More, More
The amount of storage a person uses can indicate his or her usage level. For example, I've found that people who use little storage space typically tend not to keep messages. They generally don't receive much mail and don't fall into the heavy-usage category.
In an Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 environment, you can use the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Exchange System Manager (ESM) snap-in to determine how much storage space is being used. In an Exchange 5.5 environment, you can use Microsoft Exchange Administrator to make this determination. Both tools report the storage utilization in bytes for each mailbox. The tools also let you export data to a comma-separated value (CSV) file, which you can load into Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access to analyze. Table 1 provides step-by-step instructions for how to use these tools.
In the past, ensuring that mailboxes had quotas was considered a best practice because you could control the growth of IS files. This practice encouraged people to manage their mailboxes and delete unnecessary items. In many cases, it also encouraged them to move items to personal folder store (PST) files.
Over the years, the cost of disk storage has dropped, Exchange has evolved to support multiple databases, and archiving and secondary-storage utilities have become commonplace. All these factors have created a push to increase mailbox quotas. If you're planning to increase quotas, you need to consider how it might affect not only the mail system but also other parts of the organization. For example, if you're planning to increase quotas because you're going to use Outlook 2003's cached mode, you need to plan on more space being used on PCs' local drives to mirror what's on the server. Depending on your hardware and backup strategy, your backups and restores might take longer and use more media.
Having larger quotas can be advantageous for both users and administrators. Users will likely be happy because they no longer have to save items to PST files, then later search multiple repositories for the data they need. Administrators will likely be happy as well because PST files can create headaches. When users move items to PST files, those files must be stored somewhere—usually on PCs' local drives or network file servers. Local PST files can be a nuisance when administrators need to re-image PCs to resolve a problem or upgrade hardware. If a user has several gigabytes of PST files, an administrator must locate, back up, and restore all those PST files. This task can take hours, and the risk of data loss increases. PST files on network file servers can create hassles, too. Because the PST files are individualized, administrators can't take advantage of single- instance storage. Consider these points as you discuss with users and management your strategy for storage in the new environment.
Get the Facts
Sizing and load-testing tools offer you a formulaic approach to determining your system configuration and server specifications, but you have to input accurate data into these tools. Fortunately, assessment tools such as Performance Monitor and StorStat can provide you with the data you need. However, you also have to supplement the gathered data with feedback from users and management. Having an understanding of how people use mail now, knowing what's possible, and understanding their expectations will help you create a good design. Start with the items I've discussed here and gather good data—don't just assume! | <urn:uuid:62827db3-5131-4137-85b8-017c8d04a471> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windowsitpro.com/print/exchange-server/sizing-exchange-2003-system | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940913 | 3,084 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It took me a long time to learn the lesson. Too Long if you ask me.
From grammar school to high school, I was an excellent student. I almost always did my homework. I rarely missed a day. I wasn’t perfect, but I tried my best. I was very close to perfect. I had no doubt I was going to college. In fact, I could pretty much pick the college I wanted to go to provided my family and I could afford it.
Something changed in college, my focus changed. It went from academics to social. It took me almost the entire four years of college to regain my academic focus. I skipped classes. I took homework for granted. I was able to get B’s and C’s in most classes without having to do too much work. Yet, how did I slip up? What lesson did it take me too long to find?
What would happen is I would miss a class. I’d miss a homework date. Then, I’d miss another class, and another. I’d think to myself. Since, I already missed a class and homework, I can’t be perfect. So, I might as well miss more. Then, mid-term would come, and I’m spending the night before cramming my butt off, because I didn’t do the day-to-day work. I’d get a B or a C on the midterm. This success without work quickly became a bad habit. The thinking since I wasn’t perfect, I might as well slip up even more was poor judgement. The if I’m not perfect, I might as well be the exact opposite.
How does this apply to fitness?
Its the same as thinking, well, I just had a bowl of ice cream, I might as well eat the whole pint.
Its the same thinking as I missed my exercise the past few days, I might as well not do it today.
For me, the lesson I learned is that perfection thinking is crap thinking. Just because you slipped up yesterday, and you can not be perfect anymore doesn’t mean squat. I’m not perfect. I’m human, and humans are not meant to be perfect.
The lesson that took me so long to learn was: If you get off the horse, get right back on as soon as you can! I’ve talked about this unperfection lesson in a different way in the past in the blog post: Begining with the end in mind.
Why do I bring this up? Well, This past week, I fell off the horse. The prior week, I was great. I met all my fitness goals. This week, not so much. I did some great hiking on Sat, Sept 19. (I know that is last week, but the hiking was pretty strenuous and I needed Sunday and Monday to recover. Okay, that seems like an execuse and probably is.) So, I skipped all my weight workouts. I did Bike Wednesday a nice strong 17 miles. Yet, I feel like a failure especially considering I have not adjusted my diet to match my lack of activity. I am even posted late this week. I did a late Tue, but where is Thursday’s post like I said.
But, when you fall off the horse, you get right back up as soon as you can. I’m blogging today, Friday. Saturday, I plan to walk around most of the day. Sunday Morning, I plan on running with my wife for an anniversary jog. I’m still figuring out the rest of my exercise schedule, but I’m going to do it! I’m making exercise immutable.
In other news, I get a chance to practice my photographry skills as I’m going to the Chicago Gourmet Food & Wine celebration this weekend. I will plenty opportunity to take all sorts of great shots in Millenium Park. I’m excited about all the tastings and the chance to hear some expert Chefs and Sommeliers speak. If you have any recommendations on what tastings I should hit, let me know.
Remember. You are not perfect! Yet, you can get dust yourself off and get right back up! You can do it just as I can. | <urn:uuid:1fd99678-3a5c-429d-9d24-215070252dd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://simpleweight.com/motivation/get-back-at-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980299 | 901 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A debt crisis is a terrible thing to waste in a presidential election season, and Democrats and Republicans alike are responding on cue.
The news Saturday night that Republicans won’t support a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan was a devastating blow to the many who had begun to hope that a big bipartisan solution was possible.
House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement saying that the $4 trillion deal that he and President Obama had favored was off the table: “Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt-reduction agreement without tax hikes,” Boehner said in the statement. “I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt-limit increase.”
While the Biden proposal is half the deal Boehner, Obama and others had hoped for, it is still something more than anyone could have expected even a few months ago. And that perspective is worth considering as both Republicans and Democrats threaten to walk away from any agreement that would lead to raising the debt ceiling.
Take, for example, Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. In a new “Waterloo” television ad running in Iowa leading up to the Aug. 13 straw poll, she promises she won’t vote to raise the debt ceiling — before even seeing the terms of the deal.
And Bachmann is not alone. Several members of the Republican Study Committee, headed by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, have signed on to a “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan pledging not to vote for any debt-ceiling increase without serious spending cuts, spending caps and a balanced-budget amendment passed by both the House and Senate.
This will never happen. A constitutional amendment has to pass both chambers by a two-thirds vote (290 in the House; 67 in the Senate). Thus, the signees won’t vote to increase the debt limit unless Boehner and Mitch McConnell somehow magically persuade 50 or so Democrats in the House and about 20 in the Senate to vote for a balanced-budget amendment. The pledge is, therefore, an impossible standard.
As a side note, Bachmann hasn’t signed the pledge, saying that it wasn’t strong enough because it doesn’t also include a demand to repeal Obama’s health-care overhaul.
But Bachmann and others are missing the big picture. They may be stirring the hearts of tea partiers steeped in stubbornness (is there no end to tea metaphors?), but are they being responsible?
What they’re missing (or ignoring) is the enormous opportunity for conservatives that has taken shape since the beginning of the year. Just a few months ago, Obama was asking for a “clean” debt-limit increase. That is, an unconditional hike without spending cuts or reforms.
Republicans responded by making clear that there would be no increase to the $14.3-trillion debt limit without fundamental reforms, including to entitlements, and without spending cuts larger than the debt-limit hike, enforceable limits on future spending and no tax increases.
Fast-forward through a few months of intransigence — and a few friendly rounds of golf — and the conversation has become much different. Just getting the president to consider significant cuts in major spending areas, including entitlements and the Pentagon, is otherwise known as a “sea change.”
No plan will please all, obviously. And the meetings among top leaders have been a test of wills, but also of courage and of compromise. Few honest brokers think that we can prevent a financial catastrophe without both cuts and revenue increases, but there are surely ways to get there from here without necessarily punishing the poor or the wealthy.
Where there are wills, there are ways.
Meanwhile, not raising the debt ceiling is fraught with peril. Even prolonging raising the ceiling is potentially hazardous before a default happens, as investors take preventive actions that could distort the money markets.
Republicans have made enormous advances toward government reforms that were viewed as unachievable a year ago. Voting no may have become the aphrodisiac of small-government conservatives, but it is not necessarily an act of bravery or wisdom.
Sometimes it’s just stubborn.
Kathleen Parker’s email address is [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:442f73cb-a679-4b7d-af96-af209ffecca7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bangordailynews.com/2011/07/12/opinion/contributors/the-%E2%80%98just-vote-no%E2%80%99-crowd/?ref=relatedBox | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958362 | 921 | 1.726563 | 2 |
After 11,700 hours, “Ace” Beall deserves the nickname. As chief pilot for NASA he flew the Boeing KC–135 “vomit comet” to give astronauts experience in weightlessness (and for the weightless scenes in the movie Apollo 13), taught astronauts to fly the Northrop T–38, and flew the Space Shuttle from California to Florida atop a Boeing 747. While in the U.S. Air Force he flew Lockheed C–141s.
Last August Beall teamed with movie photographer Dylan Goss to film aerial scenes for Up in the Air, the story of a single man who prefers the freedom of constant airline travel to marriage and family. Beall works for Wolfe Air Aviation and provides movie footage you have undoubtedly seen. He had flown the company’s Learjet 25B to gather scenes for Up in the Air, but after it was completed the producers felt they needed to try again. This time Beall used the red Wolfe Air Cessna 337 Skymaster.
It was a hurry-up trip. Goss, the film’s aerial director of photography, and Beall visited eight cities in a week, gathering footage of cities and scenery in between. The producers were waiting. Goss is used to that and has worked for movie companies and advertising agencies since he was 18. In this year’s Super Bowl commercials, an SUV flashed down a pier on Bridgestone tires to do a 180-degree turn that would fling a whale out the back door. That car was chased by Goss in a helicopter down a pier at Bodega Bay, Calif., north of San Francisco.
Goss rarely shoots from anything but a helicopter, sometimes while flying at top speed two feet off the deck in a crab while leaning out the door on a harness, or standing on a helicopter landing gear shooting down on a Lexus for a commercial. If you saw that one, they didn’t actually drop it, even though it looks like they did.
The Skymaster is more difficult for Goss to use. He crouched in the back, looking through tiny windows to operate an externally slung, gyrostabilized camera while wearing an oxygen mask for shots at 15,000 to 18,000 feet. Goss pumped argon gas into the glass sphere containing the camera to keep it from fogging, a trick learned from underwater camera operators. They were never lower than 7,000 feet and spent an average of 45 minutes above cities listed in the movie script, including Wichita, Dallas, Des Moines, St. Louis, Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City. They shot scenes enroute when presented with an opportunity.
The movie had been edited and locked before their trip, meaning that if an existing aerial scene had been three seconds, then the new one from the Skymaster had to be the same length. When movie producers saw what Beall and Goss had captured, they unlocked the movie and re-edited, especially when it came to the scene at the end floating just above the clouds. “The aerial scenes became like a character in the movie,” Goss said.
Up in the Air is all but played out at your local cinema, but take a look if you still have a chance. You’ll see Ace’s real first name as the credits roll at the end. | <urn:uuid:70dc0f57-4900-4ca9-bd6a-40e92e70d376> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.aopa.org/blog/?tag=up-in-the-air | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966883 | 691 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Disability & Human Rights Fellows Program
The Center has launched a new Disability & Human Rights Fellows Program, sponsored by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), which will bring attorneys from various parts of the world to WCL to engage in a specialized course of study focused on disability and human rights. This Fall, the Center is pleased to welcome the first cohort of Disability and Human Rights Fellows. They are: Bijay Dahal (Nepal); Alpana Bhandari (Nepal); Facundo Chavez Penillas (Argentina); Juan Ignacio Perez Bello (Argentina); and Adalberto Mendez Lopez (Mexico).
The program is the first of its kind, focused on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its integration into national and local law. The program was developed and is being co-directed by Prof. Robert Dinerstein, director of the WCL Disability Law Clinic, and Hadar Harris, executive director of the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law. WCL is one of six universities around the world participating in this new program in its inaugural year.
The program aims to advance the rights of persons with disabilities, and through legal channels, help overcome the effect of exclusionary practices, so that persons with disabilities achieve a state of full and effective participation and inclusion in society. The program intends to provide disability rights advocates and lawyers with the necessary expertise to develop new legislation, jurisprudence, impact litigation, and scholarship, thereby taking advantage of the innovations and opportunities offered by the UNCRPD. It also seeks to enhance the emerging discourse of disability rights as human rights. | <urn:uuid:f67912bc-ed2d-422f-bb92-a161afeb16a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcl.american.edu/humright/center/projects/disabilityrightsfellows.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935665 | 348 | 1.75 | 2 |
War on Terror in the V&A, London
We've done it again! Another prestigious Museum has accepted our board game into their collection. Last month, the Imperial War Museum welcomed WoT into their esteemed array of historical objects and now we're very happy and humbled to report that the Victoria & Albert Museum has also recognised the cultural value of War on Terror.
The V&A is considered (by themselves) the greatest museum of art and design. It holds over 3000 years worth of artifacts from many cultures. The scope of the entire collection is simply jaw-dropping and also bang up to date, so if you haven't been before we certainly recommend it. Once more we are pleasantly surprised that world experts deem our board game worthy of recognition, while the commercial sector continue to ban us in the name of public wellbeing.
What is more surprising on this occasion is that our game has been accepted into the Museum of Childhood branch of the V&A. This was their decision, not ours. We are absolutely stoked. Maybe this game isn't as mind-warpingly dangerous as we are lead to believe?
In light of these recent educational endorsements it seems apt to take this opportunity to thank some other educational types who have been in touch with us. The following men of good standing have understood our less-than-evil intentions and spoken up in our defense. We doff our EVIL balaclavas to you, gentlemen:
'A cleverly crafted satire that can be used by educators to provoke students to think critically about one of the most important issues of our time'
- Dr. Nick Megoran, lecturer in Geopolitics and Human Geography, University of Newcastle
'Genius is said not to stray far from madness but I'm sure you guys are on the side of the former'
- Dr. Duncan Salkeld, senior lecturer in English, University of Chichester
'War on Terror presents students with geographies they know they know. It also presents unknown geographies that they know about; that is to say they know there are some geographies they do not know. But War on Terror also presents geographical unknown unknowns - the ones that they don't know about yet but will begin to question before the end of the game. War on Terror makes a terrible starter for a lesson but an outstanding starter for an education.'
-Daniel Raven-Ellison, Head of Geography, Langtree School, Reading
Posted by TerrorBull Games on 27 March 2008 - 1 comment
Comments so far:
- an alliance treaty pad. with printed peace treaty agreement for parties to sign. terrorist uprising punishment for breaking rules. had a fun night where one got set on fire.ben tucker from london - 26 April 2008 | <urn:uuid:13160182-7548-48a7-b92c-2e4cec761e41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.terrorbullgames.co.uk/blog/?id=146&title=War%20on%20Terror%20in%20the%20V&A,%20London | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964005 | 561 | 1.632813 | 2 |
There are legions of people who toil in the trade of family history. I’m one of them. We can all tell similar stories: as you begin to peel the onion, you find endless layers. Dead ends turn into “aha” moments. Aha moments can later return to dead-ends. The quest for a families history never ends.
Easter week I had an “aha” that may be one of those openings to a new chapter in my own family history. I hope someone takes the bait. I’ll just provide raw material.
My grandmother Bernard was Josephine Collette (until ca 1878 the family name was Collet, then Collett), born, it was always said, at St. Andrews ND in 1880. St. Andrews, at the confluence of the Red and Park Rivers, was built on the general site of an Alexander Henry Trading Post, known to most present-day people as a rest stop on Interstate 29 between Grand Forks ND and the Canadian border.
St. Andrews had a short and interesting life as settlers poured in beginning in 1878. It is said that Grandma’s Dad, Octave, ran a “hotel” at St. Andrews, probably during the period he was proving his claim a few miles west at Oakwood.
For years I knew the Collette family had first migrated in total to the legendary frontier town St. Anthony, preceding, then later absorbed into Minneapolis. They came west sometime in the 1860s. They had come from St. Lambert QC.
There are no family legends about intervening stops, or how they actually made the trip (depending on when they came, they might have gotten as far as the Mississippi R by train, thence upriver by steamboat.) But no story of what had to be a hard 1000 mile trek has surfaced.
Exactly when they came and left St. Anthony is still lost to history. The 1870 census of St. Anthony shows 14 in the Collette household and that the second to last child Joseph (May 21, 1864) was born in Minnesota, the older children in Canada. (St. Anthony in 1870 had a bit more than 5000 population, similar to Grafton ND today.)
By 1870 my great-grandparents Clotilde Blondeau and Octave Collette had married – at St. Anthony of Padua in St. Anthony – and had their first child, and were likely living with the rest of the family, though recorded as a second household. You can see a tintype of Clotilde and Octave, likely taken after their marriage in 1869 in St. Anthony MN, below (click to enlarge all photos).
The census shows that four adults were working in a “paper mill”; the two wives were “housekeepers”. (There is mention of the Paper Mill at page 328 in this most interesting link about the St. Anthony Falls District.)
By 1875 most if not all Collette’s moved to Dayton MN (suburban Minneapolis), thence in 1878, the first of the family moved to Dakota Territory. They seem to have made group decisions on these matters.
But where did they live in St. Anthony?
Until this past week, I hadn’t delved into this question.
I found the likely answer a few miles from where I type this post, at the library of the Minnesota Historical Society. In the 1871-72 city directory of Minneapolis and St. Anthony was this: “Collet, D. farmer 2d St. cor [corner] Maple”. I asked to see a period map of St. Anthony (click to open, portion below): St Anthony ca 1870001.
I’ve been to this area many times, in fact, twice this past week I was in the falls area for other purposes. I made a trip to see the exact spot. Alas, there is no longer a “Maple Street”. A quick review of contemporary maps fixed Maple as now being 6th Avenue SE, the access point to Fr. Hennepin Park and the famous Stone Arch Bridge one short block away, and three blocks upriver from the I-35W bridge – the one that collapsed into the river in 2006.
While the environment has totally changed from 1860s and 1879s to today, it felt like I was home for Easter.
Here are some photos I took in the area Friday April 6, 2012. Click to enlarge.
Postscript: Of course, tentatively answering one of these questions raises infinite other questions. Without enumerating mine, perhaps you can raise your own…and help with the research!
Type the word “heritage” in the search box to find the previous five heritage articles. #1 is here. | <urn:uuid:3f5145a4-5641-4ef2-97e4-41fe9cb3a3f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.outsidethewalls.org/blog/2012/04/07/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974068 | 998 | 1.820313 | 2 |
As consumers grow more cynical about marketers' claims, the persuasion industries are researching and refining methods to reinforce an emotional attachment between Americans and the brands they buy. Commenting on what can create consumer loyalty that is "beyond reason" are Kevin Roberts, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide; Bob Garfield, columnist for Advertising Age; Clotaire Rapaille, market researcher; Frank Luntz, corporate and political consultant; and Andy Spade, Song Airlines' creative consultant. These excerpts are drawn from their extended FRONTLINE interviews.
CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide.
…How do you go beyond the brand?
You have to really dig in to emotional connections with consumers. The rational side of life isn't enough. We've got too much information. We do not live in the information age anymore, nor do we live in the age of knowledge. We've gone hurtling past that. Once everybody has information and knowledge, it's no longer a competitive advantage. We live now in the age of the idea. What consumers want now is an emotional connection. They want to be able to connect with what's behind the brand, what's behind the promise. They're not going to buy simply rational. You feel the world through your senses, the five senses, and that's what's next. The brands that can move to that emotional level, that can create loyalty beyond reason, are going to be the brands where premium profits lie. ...
How do you find emotional information?
You've got to dig deep and go into homes, and you've got to have people who are curious, who are really interested and who can get on with the consumer and can really understand them, can predict, can interpret -- not just a lot of quant[itative] stuff. And you've got to be able to figure out how do you feel what they're thinking, rather than how do you enumerate it? ...
What's the importance of this emotional connection to a brand?
The goal of any marketing manager should be to create loyalty beyond reason for their product, to create loyalty beyond reason, because that means you can appeal to heavy users forever. You make all your money with your heavy, committed users, not through new users. Toyota makes its money by selling to people throughout the range, from a Scion through to a Prius to a Lexus -- customers for life. You want lifetime customers, and you want them to have a love affair with you so that no matter what the competition do, no matter what Wal-Mart is offering cheaper, they will stay with you and they will pay a premium, just as you will stay with your wife or your husband over 30 years because you have towards them loyalty beyond reason, something bigger than a product attribute, bigger than a brand benefit, OK? That's the role of marketing.
The deepest emotion of all is love. It's not trust, it's not respect; these are table stakes. You need those, so you need to trust and respect your brand. You've got to have fantastic performance. But what will ultimately differentiate Nike, Adidas and Reebok is not their performance, and it's not their athletes; it is the emotional connection they can build.
I'll give you an example: Nike. Nike started life as a product -- a lighter running shoe. [Bill] Bowerman introduced that at the University of Oregon versus Adidas. And so athletes, Steve Prefontaine and these guys, frankly ran faster. It soon turned into a trademark because they put the swoosh all over it, and then it turned into a brand with great advertising from Wieden & Kennedy and "Just do it." Some of the best advertising I've ever seen.
And then one act with Nike turned this into a Lovemark, an emotional connection, and that was Michael Jordan. He single-handedly took Nike from being a brand to being a Lovemark. He took the price of Nikes from $70 to $200. People didn't care anymore; you had loyalty beyond reason. And Michael retired, and then all this Asian sweatshop drama came into play, and the love ebbed. So probably today Nike is a very powerful brand, but it hasn't yet found the next emotional connection after Jordan.
You've got to keep it up to stay a Lovemark.
One of the important things about a Lovemark is that it has to be full of mystery. So when we watched Mike, we knew we weren't going to be Michael Jordan, but we wanted to be like him. There was mystery in it: How did he do this? What about all these crazy things they have in their shoes? What is this stuff inside there? Most brand managers are obsessed with explaining their product in the minutest detail and nobody could care less, because once you know everything there is to know and there's nothing left, who cares anymore? I mean, even Einstein said that, that the more you know, the less interesting something becomes, right? Most brands and marketers overload information, and that's not what they want.
If you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend and they wear the same clothes every night, and they eat the same food and they respond the same way, the relationship gets boring pretty quickly. There's got to be mystery. So you've got to be constantly innovating; you've got to be constantly entertaining, constantly stimulating, not just through product innovation. I think the marketing innovation in the world today has gone to sleep. All the marketers do now [is] wait for incremental initiatives on the product side, and they've given up the great marketing ideas in the past. ...
Columnist, Advertising Age.
…Is Kevin Roberts onto something with his book, Lovemarks?
No. To be honest, I haven't read Kevin's book, but he's just belaboring the obvious, from what I've read. … that there's emotional connections between brands and consumers and that it's not just intrinsic qualities that motivate people.
Well, OK, fine. Sometimes you can make emotional connections. AT&T has done it. Hallmark has done it. Coca-Cola has done it. But mostly the people who have tried to make emotional connections with consumers over the years, by far, the vast, vast majority have failed.
Since time immemorial, advertising agencies have been trying to create emotional reactions to goods and services. But there is no magic string for the puppet; there is no Svengali spell; there's no poison gas; there's no magic wand. Advertising works, and sometimes good advertising campaigns work, especially, but they are not controlling your mind, they're not controlling your heart, and they're not controlling your glands. What they are doing mostly is failing again and again and again.
So you don't think we can get to our "lizard brain," like Clotaire Rapaille argues.
Clotaire has worked on I don't know how many brands, but none of them is dominant. Tell me exactly how many cars he's sold. The answer is, not that many. There's just no poison gas. There happens to be something about cars which does generate a response. I own a Miata that I put about 2,000 miles on per year because I really love those 2,000 miles. I love the wind in my hair. When I'm in my Miata, I don't even go fast, and I feel like I'm sailing. But it wasn't a Miata ad that did it for me; it was something intrinsic to the car. And, you know, fundamentally, people armed with information make decisions of self-interest. This is not The Manchurian Candidate, where they're responding to messages buried deep within their psyche that they don't even know are there. There's a lot of people in the advertising industry who would like it to be that way, and there's a lot of people outside of the advertising industry who imagine it to be that way, but it ain't that way. …
…One of my discoveries was that in order to create the first imprint of a word -- when you learn a word, whatever it is, "coffee," "love," "mother," there is always a first time. There's a first time to learn everything. The first time you understand, you imprint the meaning of this word; you create a mental connection that you're going to keep using the rest of your life. And to create this mental connection, you need some emotions. Without emotion, there is no production of neurotransmitters in the brain, and you don't create the connection. So actually every word has a mental highway. I call that a code, an unconscious code in the brain. ...
Do these imprints have to happen as a child?
Well, yes. They don't have to, but if you don't have an imprint when you are a child, and if you get the first imprint later -- for example, I'm trying to speak English, but my first imprint of language was French, because I was born during the war in France. When I start learning English it was later. I was already also grown up, so I will never have the same imprints with English that I have with French. Most of the time, when children don't learn a foreign language before they are 7, they always have some kind of an accent. The brain is very available if you want at an early age to create this mental connection.
When we [are] born, we have the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is there already. It's part of survival; it's breathing, eating, going to the bathroom. But then, in relationship with the mother, we develop the second brain, which is the limbic brain -- emotions -- and these emotions vary from one culture to another. In the relationship with your mother, you're going to imprint, make mental connection about what means love, what means mother, what means being fed, what means a home, what means all the things that are very basic for survival. [These] are transmitted by the mother to you, and you create this mental connection in the brain -- like a reference system, if you want, that you keep using. After a while, this system becomes unconscious. You do not even think about it. You know "Oh, this is a house; of course this is a house." Well, for a lot of people around the world, this is not a house. A house might be a tent or made of ice or whatever, but this is not their reference system. It might be different for others. ...
What's wrong with traditional market research?
They are too cortex, which means that they think too much, and then they ask people to think and to tell them what they think. Now, my experience is that most of the time, people have no idea why they're doing what they're doing. They have no idea, so they're going to try to make up something that makes sense. ...
I will not criticize too much marketing research. I would say some people are good, like everywhere. Some people are not that good. But in terms of the way they approach people's behavior, I think you need to go beyond words, and my training with autistic children is that I had to understand what these kids were trying to tell me with no words. So that's part of my training.
How can I decode this kind of behavior which is not a word? My theory is very simple: The reptilian always wins. I don't care what you're going to tell me intellectually. I don't care. Give me the reptilian. Why? Because the reptilian always wins. ...
How do CEOs recognize or understand this phenomena?
It's absolutely crucial for anybody in communication -- and that could be journalists, TV, media, all of it, or marketing people -- if you want to appeal to people, it's absolutely crucial to understand what I call the reptilian hot button. If you don't have a reptilian hot button, then you have to deal with the cortex; you have to work on price issues and stuff like that.
Example: You didn't eat for two weeks, right, and suddenly there is some food here. Are you going to negotiate the price? Your reptilian brain says, "I need to eat, I need to eat," so you don't negotiate the price. The reptilian always wins. You cannot impose something that goes against people's reptilian.
In the kind of communication I'm developing and using, with 50 of the Fortune 100 companies who are my clients, almost full time, it is not enough to give a cortex message. "Buy my product because it's 10 percent cheaper": That's cortex. Well, if the other is 15 percent cheaper, I move to the others. You don't buy loyalty with percentages. That is key. It's not a question of numbers; it's the first reptilian reaction. ...
Are marketing people muddling their messages?
Some people are getting there now. Some people understand the power of the reptilian in a very gutsy way. They don't do all the analysis of the three brains, but [they get it]. For example, the Nextel campaign, "I do, therefore I am." Right, bingo. This is not "I think, therefore I am." And the campaign for the Hummer -- the Hummer is a car with a strong identity. It's a car in a uniform. I told them, put four stars on the shoulder of the Hummer, you will sell better. If you look at the campaign, brilliant. I have no credit for it, just so you know, but brilliant. They say, "You give us the money, we give you the car, nobody gets hurt." I love it! It's like the mafia speaking to you. For women, they say it's a new way to scare men. Wow. And women love the Hummer. They're not telling you, "Buy a Hummer because you get better gas mileage." You don't. This is cortex things. They address your reptilian brain.
They appeal to the logic of emotion.
Right. This is the connection between the limbic and the reptilian, what I call the logic of emotion, which is how the emotions deal with the urges, the instincts, the needs we have. ...
A corporate and political consultant.
…You think emotions are more revelatory than the intellect for predicting these decisions?
80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you. How you think is on the outside, how you feel is on the inside, so that's what I need to understand. ...
…Traditional market researchers are cold and calculating and scientific. In this business of language, you have to have a heart, and you have to have emotion, and you have to be willing to become what you are studying, no matter what it puts you through.
So the main point is emotion.
It's all emotion. But there's nothing wrong with emotion. When we are in love, we are not rational; we are emotional. When we are on vacation, we are not rational; we are emotional. When we are happy, we are not [rational]. In fact, in more cases than not, when we are rational, we're actually unhappy. Emotion is good; passion is good. Being into what we're into, provided that it's a healthy pursuit, it's a good thing.
But if emotion is the main point, why go for the words?
Because the words provide the emotions.
Words are keys to the emotions?
Yeah. You call it keys, but my job is to look for the words that trigger the emotion. Words alone can be found in a dictionary or a telephone book, but words with emotion can change destiny, can change life as we know it. We know it has changed history; we know it has changed behavior; we know that it can start a war or stop it. We know that words and emotion together are the most powerful force known to mankind. …
Creative consultant for Song Airlines
… I think what differentiates Song is the emotional component of it. If you look at other airlines, especially in North America today, I don't see anyone doing anything that really has resonance, on an emotional level, that really makes me feel something beyond what's logical or what's practical.
You can obviously look at an airline and say, "Okay you have more legroom than they do." And on one level I think that's great, but it doesn't stick with me. The next month I'll see someone else who has another two inches of legroom. So overall you're competing for a small benefit -- in my opinion, a small benefit. Those things add up to something greater, obviously the TV and the food and those [other things]. But at the end of the day a lot of airlines can copy other airlines, it's not illegal to suddenly go and hire a chef and create your own menu that's unique to you. So what really differentiates something from another thing? I think it's creating something that communicates to people on another level, beyond a logical level.
When I look at Apple and I look at Volkswagen, obviously they both have great products, but there's something about, you know, the humor and the irreverence of those things that I identify with. I kind of think their end of the commercial should say, "We know you're out there." I love that they're irreverent, I love that they're intelligent. I love that they're smart and they're innovating and they're doing things. Apple for example, it's definitely product advertising but it's so much brand advertising. The iPod advertising is great, it's all about a product, but it's doing it in such an interesting and emotional way.
There are five to 10 different brands right now that I can speak to, that do that well and they become a part of culture. And I think at the end of the day you want to become a part of culture. When you get to that point, you've created a huge success. The Song airline, it didn't exist 10 years ago and now I think about it today and it's really changed the way that people think about things. And we've become a reference point. It would be great to have other airlines using them as a reference point and say, "Let's look at Song and see what they're doing."…
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posted nov. 9, 2004
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web site copyright 1995-2013 WGBH educational foundation | <urn:uuid:e421ff5e-a15b-4b83-a47c-095b3065bf99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/themes/magic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976745 | 3,949 | 1.539063 | 2 |
One of Sun Microsystems' ambitious dreams, a vibrant open-source community for the Solaris operating system to rival the Linux collective, is in serious danger of evaporating in the Oracle era.
Oracle is committed to Solaris, a version of Unix, but the future of the open-source OpenSolaris project is in limbo, and the OpenSolaris Governing Board that oversees the open-source community is threatening to disband.
Sun poured resources into the OpenSolaris project in an attempt to give it some of the new-era flavor and developer attention devoted to rival Linux. After Oracle's acquisition of Sun, though, the board is struggling to hear anything at all from Oracle, according to mailing list messages and the minutes of Monday's OpenSolaris Governing Board meeting.
A motion from board member Neale Ferguson, who's worked to help translate OpenSolaris to work on IBM's Power processors, reads as follows: "The OGB is keen to promote the uptake and open development of OpenSolaris and to work on behalf of the community with Oracle, as such the OGB needs Oracle to appoint a liaison by August 16, 2010, who has the authority to talk about the future of OpenSolaris and its interaction with the OpenSolaris community. Otherwise the OGB will take action at the August 23 meeting to trigger the clause in the OGB charter that will return control of the community to Oracle."
Oracle didn't respond to a request for comment. However, board member and former Sun employee John Plocher spoke to Oracle Chief Customer Officer Jeb Dasteel, who said Oracle would "like us to wait a couple of months before we make any moves to disband," according to the minutes.
This isn't the first open-source concern at Oracle, a major proprietary software company. The European Union's European Commission objected to Oracle's Sun acquisition because of fears of how it would handle the open-source MySQL database. Oracle won the EC approval eventually after Oracle pledged to continue MySQL development under the GNU General Public License, among other promises.
In the case of OpenSolaris, it's not clear how long Oracle can wait, though, if it wants to nurture a community that never did match the broad corporate and volunteer participation built around Linux.
Plocher expressed exasperation on the OpenSolaris Governing Board mailing list:
I'd have to say the OGB is alive, but on life support. We have been contacting senior Oracle management and talking to them about the devastating impact their continued radio silence is having on what used to be a vibrant open source community, but every place we turn, we hear the same mantra: Oracle's senior management has not made up its mind as to what to do with the OpenSolaris developer community, so the company officially says nothing at all...
Our community was chartered because both Sun and the community were committed to "open and constructive development and dissemination of [a subset of the Solaris Operating System's] code base." The OGB, in particular, was created to "to manage and direct an OpenSolaris community in its efforts to improve upon and advocate in favor of OpenSolaris, so that the community may long endure."
Since Oracle bought out Sun, we've seen their commitment to the above dry up almost completely. In the three months since this OGB took office, we have had no Oracle/OGB Liaison, no Oracle employees on the OGB, no Oracle Web site support for our new constitution, no community-driven distro, and no real communication between Oracle and the OGB...Many of the senior [Open]Solaris engineering leaders were RIF'd or have since jumped ship. Not a pretty picture at all.
And in another message, Plocher said of April and later board meetings:
The first "official" business was that our only OGB member from Oracle resigned because her new job/manager didn't want her spending time with our community...
The last few meetings have been focused on whether or not we should continue the charade. The wall of complete and utter silence formerly known as Sun Microsystems has drained all the enthusiasm from the board, since it seems that there is no longer a community out there to "govern."
Joining him was Dennis Clarke, another longtime OpenSolaris participant.
"Oracle has done more damage to the open community concept in six months than all of Sun's financial and product blunders could do in a decade," Clarke said.
That message drew criticism from one longtime Solaris engineer, Alan Coopersmith, who urged restraint in a response.
"Believe me, I know the problems with your lack of contact, and have been pushing up the chain from this side--which I thought had some effect," Coopersmith said. "If you constantly attack them like this message, I wouldn't either. Smash down the few people trying to help you and soon you'll have destroyed everything by yourself." | <urn:uuid:0ca83974-ab7e-4842-951b-b0cc58f60366> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20010587-264.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965163 | 1,013 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Daily Devotional ThoughtsThis Week’s Study: Galatians 2:21-3:11Monday - I do not set aside the grace of God.I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain (Galatians 2:21).Let’s back up and review the preceding verse to put this one in it’s context.I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20).In the last devotional I mentioned that to me Galatians 2:20 is the key to living the victorious Christian life. Daily dying to self, daily allowing Christ to live in me. When we give ourselves to God every morning, the first thing in the morning, then we can truly say “Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”In today’s verse Paul reinforces his clear gospel teaching that our salvation and our righteousness MUST come through trusting in God’s grace and the resulting sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Paul says, “If you could be righteous through obedience to God’s law, “then Christ died in vain.”He is hammering away at our save-ourselves-by-our-own-righteous-works mentality. “By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Galatians 2:16). How then are we justified (judged right before God)? “By faith in Christ Jesus” Galatians 2:16.Today, I invite you to put your trust in Christ Jesus. He died that you might live eternally. You can be His, just now, for eternity.Tuesday - Who has bewitched you?O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? (Galatians 3:1).Why would Paul call the Galatians foolish? And then go on to say “Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?” Of course he is seeking to make a point. And the point is to be so foolish you must be bewitched! Who did it? What is all the ruckus about?Someone has come along behind Paul seeking to undermine his strong teaching about God’s all sufficient grace. Paul is just amazed. He writes, We “clearly portrayed among you” Jesus Christ “as crucified.” We’ve taught you that Jesus died in your place. Your sins are forgiven. God loves you. You go free. It is the best possible news. And yet you are turning around and trying to pick the burdens of your sin up again.Foolish people! You can’t ever be good enough (be saved by obedience to God’s perfect law) to atone for your past sins or earn a seat in heaven! You just can’t do it.Friend, I in turn appeal to you today. Don’t be foolish. Believe God loves you and Jesus Christ died for you sins, and it will be counted to you as righteousness! (Galatians 3:6).Wednesday - Are you so foolish as to think you can be made perfect apart from the Spirit?This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? (Galatians 3:2-4).“Let’s talk,” writes Paul. “So how did your first receive the Spirit? Was it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Surely you are not so foolish as to believe you can begin in the Spirit and be made perfect by the flesh (obeying the law in your own power apart from God’s Spirit). Have you gone through and suffered so many things in vain? Surely it is not in vain.”Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (Galatians 3:5).Paul is trying to break through the stubborn mindset of the Galatians. He writes, “Do you really think God works all His miracles among you by ‘the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?’”When we stop to answer Paul’s rhetorical questions the answer comes clearly. Righteousness does not come by slavish obedience to the law. It only comes by faith. Cling to that truth. It supports all that is important in your Christian journey.Today my friend, on what are you basing your hope of eternal life? Is it on the good deeds you produce or are you trusting in God’s way of salvation?For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).Thursday - Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.Just as Abraham "BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham (Galatians 3:6-9).In our devotional text today, Paul quotes from Genesis 15:6 as he shows the most eminent of the patriarchs was not saved by obedience to the law. Here is the original statement: “And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). In Romans 4:3-5 this theme is developed in depth.Here are some important take-aways from today’s devotional:1) Even in Old Testament times, Abraham was accounted righteous when he “believed God.” Believing God, Trusting God, Having faith in God are all essentially synonymous. We are saved as we believe on God (see Romans 4:5).2) All (“only those”) who are “of faith are sons of Abraham.” This is restated clearly in Galatians 3:29 “And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Spiritual Israel today is comprised of all who are living by faith in God. Ancestry has nothing to do with it today.3) “So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham” (Galatians 3:9).I want to be part of that blessed group of people don’t you?Friday/Weekend - I know longer live but Christ lives in me!For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT CONTINUE IN ALL THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO DO THEM." But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" (Galatians 3:10-11).This verse can be challenging sometimes. When Paul states “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” what does he mean?As many as are seeking to be justified by yielding obedience to the Law. . . . The proposition is . . . designed to show that . . . it is impossible to be justified by the works of the Law, since, under all circumstances of obedience which we can render, we are still left with its heavy curse resting on us. . . . Having failed by all [our] efforts to yield perfect obedience, [we] must, of course, be exposed to the curse which the Law denounces on the guilty (Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible: Galatians 3:10).Because in our sinful human state we fail to “continue in all the things” written in God’s law, we find ourselves cursed and without hope apart from God.Paul puts it succinctly, “That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident.” He is absolutely correct but the good news brings hope! "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" (Galatians 3:11).May God help us, each one of us, to live by faith from this moment forward. | <urn:uuid:3136f3d6-6afe-4295-ac1c-24dc3cc75d52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.messageradio.net/devotional/galatians_2_21-3_11.htm | 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 | 0.958335 | 1,903 | 1.6875 | 2 |
official word on "break in"
After reading many discussions and seeing much disagreement, here is the official word from the manual, typed out word for word:
Moving parts need breaking-in time to adjust to each other. Please follow the instructions below in order to achieve the optimal service life and economy of operation for your vehicle.
Engine and differential
Always obey all official speed limits.
Up to 1,200 miles/2,000 km
Drive at varying engine and road speeds, but do not exceed an engine speed of 5,500 rpm or a road speed of 105 mph/170 km/h.
Do not depress the accelerator all the way.
From 1,200 miles/2,000 km to 3,000 miles/5,000 km
Engine and road speeds can be increased gradually up to a traveling speed of 135 mph/220 km/h. Use the maximum speed only for brief intervals, e.g. when passing.
The transmission begins functioning at an optimal level only after a distance of approx. 300 miles/500 km. Do not exceed engine speeds of 5,500 rpm during this period.
Due to technical factors associated with their manufacture, tires do not achieve their full traction potential until after an initial break-in period. Therefore, drive cautiously during the first 200 miles/300 km.
Brakes require an initial break-in period of approx 300 miles/500 km to achieve optimized contact and wear patterns between brake pads and rotors. Drive cautiously during this break-in period.
The function of the clutch reaches its optimal level only after a distance driven of approx. 300 miles/500 km. During this break-in period, engage the clutch gently.
Following part replacement
The same break-in procedures should be observed if any of the components mentioned above have to be renewed in the course of the vehicle's operating life.
--------------------end of manual snippet------------------------
I like what what already posted by GT3 Tim (I think that was his handle, but anyway), he said...
Many things can happen. One guy I knew hammered on his new car and proceeded to break some piston rings. Result, massive oil consumption and a new motor to fix it!
You can break or chip/damage the piston rings. Thus, scoring the cylinder walls...ouch! New motor time!
You can damage the valves and valve seats.
You can spin a bearing...
You can do all sorts of nasty crap to it!
You could also damage the tranny, but this is less likely.
New motors are build to some fairly tight tolerances. Typically, the higher performance the car, the tighter the tolerances. Thus, things need to "seat" and wear-in. By taking it easy on the car, and altering rpms (no long cruises at 65mph!), everything will seat nicely. Then you can hammer on it.
As for symptoms...your original question...the guy I spoke of had massive il consumption. If the problem were in the valve seat, you prolly wouldn't notice anything until down the road, when you end up burning a valve. Other than that, I dunno. Just take it easy on the car for a while. All sorts of stuff is breaking in...and there WILL be tiny metal shavings as a result.
I highly recommend changed in the oil at about 500 miles too. I would also recommend changing the gear oil, etc. at that time. Reason being, that this is the worst time for wear. Every rotaing or reciprocating part is going to be shaving off a little material. Best to flush it out ASAP. That's how I see it and thats what I will be doing. I have done it with every car I have owned in the last 20 years or so...you would be amazed at how much metal you will find on the magnetic drain plug...after you see that, you will be glad you changed all the fluids!
To each his own though...I am a bit more "careful" with the fluids than others. But to me, it is a small investment for some peace of mind | <urn:uuid:a16f484c-60f3-4af9-868c-77cf704d81ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2297881&postcount=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946224 | 845 | 1.625 | 2 |
Healthcare transitions which are not well coordinated can lead to emergencies, higher costs and lower quality. This is a big problem. Breaking the cycle of hospitalization, nursing home admissions, home health visits, followed by repeated hospitalizations, then spiraling into decline with eventual death is something we must do. In the case of my mother the last years of her life went through this revolving door with very high mental, emotional and financial costs.
A study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine, confirms what many of us have observed: health care transitions, such as moves in and out of the hospital from a nursing home, do not lead to positive outcomes. More common are frequent medical errors; poor care coordination, infections and additional medications. For patients with acute dementia, these transitions can exacerbate already present symptoms such as agitation, confusion and emotional distress. But improving care transitions is important for everyone.
On Friday, October 14th, 2011, a group of innovators, policy and health IT experts, healthcare providers, patient organizations, technology companies, and government agencies will gather in Washington, D.C. to assess progress in improving transitions in care and to prioritize how better use of health IT can address some of the most difficult challenges related to care transitions on a broader scale. Conference participants will identify:
- Best practices using health IT that can be implemented immediately to improve care transitions
- Best practices that can be implemented within a year
- A research agenda focused on finding solutions to persistent barriers to further progress.
The event will focus on a set of prominent drivers of errors that are major opportunities for improvement by better using technology. There will be breakout session during the event on each of these levers. They are:
- Discharge process
- Medication reconciliation
- Information flow/exchange
- Patient and care-giver activation
As HHS CTO Todd Park said, "Care transitions are difficult for patients and families for many reasons. If we can clearly identify the most challenging issues, for which no solutions exist today, we will provide much needed focus to innovators and investors across the country who are energized to improve care for patients, and systems of care for providers."
Some of the speakers participating in the event will be: National Coordinator for Health IT, Dr. Farzad Mostashari; Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer of HHS; Dr. Aaron McKethan, ONC Director of the Beacon Community Program; Dr. Eric Coleman, creator of the Care Transitions Intervention; Dr. Joanne Lynn, Altarum Institute; Carol Beasley, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief, Susan Dentzer.
Using technology to improve care transitions can have an incredible impact, not only on outcomes but eventually also on the cost of care. Health IT will be key to improving quality by better coordinating care across the healthcare continuum. “By expanding the smart use of health information technology during transitions, we are paving the way for smarter, lower-cost health care and new levels of sustainable health care quality,” said George Bo-Linn, MD, Chief Program Officer of the San Francisco Bay Area Program with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. “This kind of large-scale, systemic change has the potential to make a difference in people’s lives that will be both lasting and significant.”
“With our eyes on the prize to ensure seamless transitions, we are pursuing a range of aligned strategies including standards, interoperability, exchange and provider adoption and meaningful use. Through our programs, we need to deeply understand and spread the simple yet powerful HIT-enabled solutions that address the complex problem of care transitions,” said Farzad Mostashari.
Care transitions refer to any movement patients make between practitioners and health care settings, but for the purpose of this meeting, are defined as hospital to post-hospital. Hospital readmissions, one common outcome of an unsuccessful transition, are extremely expensive: one in five Medicare patients is back in the hospital within 30 days of discharge, at the cost of approximately $17 billion per year, and many of these readmissions are considered avoidable.
“All health care providers understand both the human need to improve the patient experience during transitions of care, as well as the new demands that Medicare and others will be placing on systems to improve transitions. This meeting is an important service to anyone trying to create patient-centered transitions that are high quality, safe and efficient,” said Scott Young, MD, Associate Executive Director of Clinical Care and Innovation at Kaiser Permanente.
“It is increasingly clear that health information technology, implemented in a patient-centered way, has vast potential to help us reduce the number of injuries, accidents and re-hospitalizations that are causing stress and harm to patients, particularly older patients, every year,” said Christopher Langston, PhD, Program Director of the John A. Hartford Foundation. “We are committed to helping identify and support the best examples of health IT to assist complex patients in their most vulnerable moments. | <urn:uuid:ced5b5e5-9a20-4a7a-a96b-a32bfa5e9b4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ahier.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946132 | 1,032 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Prof. Roger S. Gottlieb Authors Fourth Book
Joining Hands: Politics and Religion Together for Social Change is released
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE/July 3, 2002
Contact: WPI Media Relations, 508-831-5616
Prof. Gottlieb poses several questions throughout his writings: Did Martin Luther King's spiritual understanding of political struggle truly help the Civil Rights movement? Can breast cancer victims incorporate both spiritual wisdom and political action in their fight for life? How have visionary spirituality and hard-headed political organizing fused in the environmental movement? With compelling interpretations of King and the civil rights struggle, feminism, disability rights, the global environmental movement and the fight for breast cancer, Joining Hands alters the way spiritual seekers, political activists and society as a whole think about the political role of religion and the spiritual component of politics.
"I chose to write this book because progressive politics and the most authentic part of religious ethics share a common vocation in remaking the world," said Gottlieb. "At the same time, they need to learn from each others insights and wisdom to fulfill that task."
Roger S. Gottlieb is a professor of philosophy in the department of
humanities and arts at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Gottlieb's
writings have appeared in top academic journals such as the Journal of
Philosophy, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Ethics;
and in popular publications such as The Boston Globe and Orion
Afield. Widely respected for his unique range of interests,
combination of personal and political passion, clarity of writing, and
originality, he is one of few American intellectuals to be reviewed in
publications as disparate as New Age Journal,
WPI is a pioneer in technological higher education, and is recognized as one of the leading outcomes-oriented undergraduate programs preparing people for success in our technological world. Since its founding in 1865, WPI has broadened and perfected an influential curriculum that balances theory and practice.
This innovative and unique combination of educational methods, learning environment and a worldwide network of project centers is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) Its main campus is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. WPI supports the academic and research pursuits of over 2,800 undergraduate students, 1,200 graduate students and 220 faculty pursuing opportunities to blend technological research and practice with societal needs, delivering meaningful real-world benefits.
For over a century, WPI has awarded advanced degrees in the sciences and engineering disciplines, as well as the management of technology and business. Our alumni include Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry; Harold Black, inventor of the principle of negative-feedback; Carl Clark, inventor of the first practical airbag safety system; Dean Kamen, inventor of the first wearable drug infusion pump; and many others who contribute to the transformation of our technological world. | <urn:uuid:199bc5df-63d5-4300-bcd5-d302af9ba992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wpi.edu/news/20012/gottlieb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944943 | 592 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 10:13:01 PM
5Cats, that's the point. A centaur is different from a Minotaur. It has two complete bodies! Usually the man-body s attached where the horses neck would be. So... Ah, who the hell cares, it`s just funny. Vote Romney, I say!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 11:40:58 AM
@HG: Thus a REVERSE centaur is a horse from the "waist" up where a man's neck would be. Except that`s just stupid, as this stupid picture stupidly illustrates.
A "reverse centaur" would take the un-used part of the horse (mostly) and human (again, mostly) left over from a centaur! Gotta add a little bit in the torso area so the poor thing survives, eh? It`s an ancient Greek rule... yes I am making it up as I go along, thanks for reading!
"A 'reverse centaur` would look a lot like the Minotaur: Human-like body with a Horse`s head, DUH! "
NO. A centaur has a man from the waist up where the horse`s neck would be. It isn`t just a man`s head on a horses body. Thus a REVERSE centaur is a horse from the "waist" up where a man`s neck would be. | <urn:uuid:4bf64c80-848d-418f-a775-5ce2262112ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=78542 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945311 | 299 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Students walk through the center of campus at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in this file photo.Photo by Dan Henry
The Secular Student Alliance at UTC on Friday advanced the debate about public prayer on the school's campus and in Hamilton County.
The group urged its members to contact UTC administrators after learning about a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that challenges Christian prayers at university events such as football games.
"This is definitely an issue where religious minorities feel excluded because of the explicitly and only Christian nature of these prayers," said Bryan Barkley, a 23-year-old University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior and a founding member of the Secular Student Alliance. "We encourage anyone to call and just let them know how they feel."
The Chattanooga Times Free Press first reported on Friday that UTC administrators received a letter in May from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. The letter specifically mentions prayers held by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at football games beginning in 2010.
Jay Fowler, local director of the fellowship, said the university has asked the group to lead prayers in the past.
"We've never pushed that or to do that," Fowler said. "We're very thankful that we've had that opportunity. If the university continues to ask us to do [the prayers], we will be happy to."
UTC Associate Vice Chancellor Chuck Cantrell confirmed Friday that university officials have not taken any additional steps after receiving the letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
"We have received their request, and we are taking [it] under consideration," Cantrell said.
The issue of prayers at government meetings is rippling through the county.
The Hamilton County Commission is embroiled in a lawsuit over the use of Christian prayers to open its weekly meetings. The Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a separate letter in May to Hamilton County commissioners, asking them to stop holding Christian prayers.
Commissioners continued to hold their prayers, and two residents filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop them in June. A major order on a motion for preliminary injunction in that case is expected soon.
On Thursday, the Hamilton County Election Commission held a moment of silence instead of its usual invocation.
Election Commissioner Jerry Summers said the panel doesn't want to get tangled up in the lawsuit against the commission.
"We don't need to be brought into it," he said. "To keep us from getting into more trouble, we need to have a moment of silence."
Summers said he doesn't personally oppose prayer, but he's just "trying to save the taxpayers' money."
Ansley Haman covers Hamilton County government. A native of Spring City, Tenn., she grew up reading the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga Free Press, which sparked her passion for journalism. Ansley's happy to be home after a decade of adventures in more than 20 countries and 40 states. She gathered stories while living, working and studying in Swansea, Wales, Cape Town, South Africa, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Ga., and Knoxville, Tenn. Along the way, she interned for ...
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Tennessee had to be a tempting target.
The decision to switch from prayers to a moment of silence before UTC football games is meant to ensure the ...
Two men suing the Hamilton County Commission over the Christian prayers it holds during meetings gathered Tuesday with a Christian ...
Officials at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga are considering how to respond to a request that they stop Christian ... | <urn:uuid:ac743b18-56f2-45c0-b2d2-b704c9e3cc18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tfponline.com/news/2012/aug/18/utc-group-calls-for-response-to-prayer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962545 | 705 | 1.515625 | 2 |
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new Texas rule that would have excluded Planned Parenthood clinics from offering women's health services for the poor in the state because the organization provides abortions.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in favor of Planned Parenthood means thousands of women enrolled in the Texas Women's Health Program who go to its clinics will not be required to find new healthcare providers, at least for now.
"The court is particularly influenced by the potential for immediate loss of access to necessary medical services by several thousand Texas women," Yeakel said in a 24-page ruling.
The preliminary injunction is a big win for Planned Parenthood, which has been under siege in several states by abortion opponents. In the past year alone, states including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana, in addition to Texas, have all moved to block Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer money.
"For many women, we are the only doctor's visit they will have this year," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. "This ruling affirms what women have known all along: politics simply doesn't have a place in women's health."
The state Health and Human Services Commission will comply with the order and will work with the state attorney general to determine its next steps, spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.
"We remain confident that federal law gives states the right to establish criteria for Medicaid providers," Goodman said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry and some Republican lawmakers have said they would rather eliminate the women's healthcare program entirely than direct money to Planned Parenthood clinics.
The Texas program, which is part of the federal-state Medicaid program, provides cancer screenings, birth control and other health services to more than 100,000 low-income women.
The program does not pay for abortions or allow abortion providers to participate in the program. The new Texas state rule would ban program money from going to affiliates of abortion providers.
BAN ON AFFILIATES
State law has included that ban on affiliates since the program began in 2007, but the state did not enforce it. Texas notified the federal government last year that it intended to begin enforcing the ban, effectively excluding Planned Parenthood from the program.
According to Planned Parenthood, about 49 percent of the women who received services through the program in 2010 obtained some services through a Planned Parenthood provider. Planned Parenthood said it would lose about $13.5 million of annual funding for preventive care and family planning if the rule is applied, forcing it to close clinics and lay off staff.
Texas has already made deep cuts in other family-planning programs. As a result, state subsidies that once provided low-cost birth control to 220,000 women a year now cover fewer than 60,000 women a year.
The federal government pays for 90 percent of the cost of the Texas Women's Health Program, which serves low-income women of reproductive age who do not qualify for regular Medicaid coverage. Texas puts up just $4 million a year.
Critics object to Planned Parenthood receiving taxpayer money, which cannot be used to provide abortions, arguing that a steady stream of government grants provide an indirect subsidy by helping pay utility bills and keep doctors on staff.
Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, terminating about 330,000 pregnancies a year.
It gets about a third of its revenue - $360 million in 2009 - from government grants to provide birth control, gynecological exams and care for sexually transmitted diseases to low-income women.
(Reporting by Corrie MacLaggan and Stephanie Simon; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune and Vicki Allen) | <urn:uuid:ca30f52b-73b4-4fa1-b6d6-1293bbe25296> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wdez.com/news/articles/2012/apr/30/texas-cannot-exclude-planned-parenthood-from-health-program-judge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960473 | 753 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Here’s Your Chance to Own the Painting the Beatles Made Together in 1966
A one-of-a-kind collaborative painting that the Beatles worked on during their 1966 visit to Tokyo has been unboxed after spending over 20 years under its owner’s bed — and now it’s headed for the auction block.
The painting, titled ‘Images of a Woman,’ gave the Fab Four something to do while they were holed up in the Tokyo Hilton during a tour stop. Forced to dart between the hotel and the concert venue under tight security during the height of Beatlemania, the band members sat down at a canvas and came up with the only painting to bear all four of their signatures — a colorful image that they donated to the chairman of their Tokyo fan club.
The painting was auctioned off by the original owner’s wife in 1989, ending up in the hands of a collector (and huge Beatles fan) named Takao Nishino who paid the equivalent of half a million dollars for it — only to run out of wall space three years later. After purchasing a special humidity-controlled frame, he decided to box it up and slide it under his bed, where it’s mostly stayed for the last 20 years.
Says Nishino now, “Originally, I thought it might be best kept as a piece of Japan’s cultural heritage; it has never left Japanese soil in 46 years. But the Beatles phenomenon was and remains a global one.” There should be no shortage of willing bidders for the painting on Sept. 14, when it will be sold alongside celebrity memorabilia that includes Frank Zappa artwork and a leather jacket that belonged to the Notorious B.I.G. | <urn:uuid:0b7e476a-c569-4ae6-9ffc-700e3f9e094b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://98kool.com/heres-your-chance-to-own-the-painting-the-beatles-made-together-in-1966/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965612 | 359 | 1.835938 | 2 |
2. Turn Worry Into Action and Gear Up for Advocacy
The first reaction many library administrators have when learning that significant budget decreases are likely to occur is panic: “We can’t do this!” The second one is worry: “I don’t know how to do this.”
Whether you feel your cuts are fair or unfair, it’s time to turn that worry into action. Take a few deep breaths. There are some constructive things you can do at this early stage.
Timelines vary widely. What is yours? It’s the number of weeks or months you have between the day you learn that cuts are likely and the day when decisions will be made about the depth of those cuts. Six weeks? Three months? In many instances, the timeline may be fairly long, six to nine months or more. A long timeline has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, you have a significant period of time to plan, advocate and communicate. On the minus side, your staff will feel anxious for all of these months, and it will be up to you to be both honest and positive in your messages to them.
If you take action to reduce the impact that cuts will have on your library’s services, your timeline will serve as the framework to help you organize those efforts. Every library has a unique set of circumstances and a timeline that might be longer or shorter than another’s. The first set of activities, listed below, should take anywhere from two to four weeks, depending on the length of time you have and the resources available to you.
If you learn that your household budget is going to be stressed due to a job change that will reduce your personal income, what’s the first thing you do? You look at your expenditures and determine which ones are fixed and which ones are discretionary. Where can you cut back? Do you eat out three times a week? Once a week may be all that’s in your new budget. Love those premium cable channels? You can learn to love the basic package too.
You get the idea. Your library’s budget can be approached the same way. Some costs are out of your control: Your library has to be staffed, lit, air conditioned and heated all the hours it’s open. Your computers, printers and copiers must function all the time. But some other costs are well under your control. For example:
- Materials are a big part of every library’s budget, and you can start there.
- What purchases can cease for the time being?
- Which can be cut back? New DVDs? Journal subscriptions?
- What about programming? That’s painful to cut, but if it adds to your costs in terms of staffing or supplies, it’s expendable.
- How about printed materials? They can add up too.
- The computers you’d planned to replace this year? That purchase may have to be deferred.
In other words, the place to start is with what you spend. Pare back now, and the cuts you dread will be a little less painful when they are a reality.
Because the problem of decreased budgets is so widespread among libraries of all sizes everywhere, chances are you have professional colleagues who have been – or may currently be – in your shoes. Talk to them! There is much to be learned from the experience of others.
Open, positive communication is important during the entire process of budget-cut planning and implementation. At every stage of the change process you will be an important source of information to a broad audience. Your staff, the general public and your decision makers will be looking to you for accurate information.
Communicate with Your Staff
You can be absolutely certain that your staff will be anxious and perhaps discontent from the moment they realize that cuts are coming. Who can blame them? For your staff, it’s about more than library services. Their jobs are on the line. Uncertainty always fuels the rumor mill. Gossip and rumors will fly, and it will be your job to keep them at a minimal level by communicating openly and regularly with your staff.
But how much communication and what kind? Believe it or not, it’s possible to communicate too much, and too much communication can cause people to worry more. You may be approached by staff members who want to know every detail and nuance of your budget challenges. Assure them that you will cut everything possible before turning to staff reductions, but resist the urge to share all of the “what if” and “it’s possible” scenarios. That will stress people despite your good intentions. One simple rule: Make it a point never to share information that isn’t firm.
Communicate in a variety of ways:
- Send e-mail memos to your staff throughout the budget planning process. E-mailing gives you the power to craft your communications carefully, and it gives staff opportunities to respond to issues that energize or concern them. It invites dialogue.
- Use your intranet to post minutes of administrative meetings in which the budget concerns were discussed. This sharing of information gives those meetings a transparency that your staff will appreciate and will help them feel “in the loop.”
- Use your intranet, too, to invite staff members to submit ideas (perhaps anonymously) for budget reductions. Don’t underestimate the insight that your staff may have. You can’t think of everything.
- Hold “coffee and conversation” meetings with staff members. It will be a great trust builder and will allow you to keep your finger on the pulse of your staff’s anxieties. If you’re a director of a multi-branch system and there are management staff between you and many of your frontline employees, consider making these coffee and conversations management-free so that your more cautious staff members feel they have direct access to you without worrying about what their supervisor might think of their ideas or concerns.
- Always let your staff know that you are listening and that their opinions matter. Empowerment is important, because the situations people fear most are the ones in which they feel powerless. All of these ideas encourage open exchange, build trust and empower your staff.
Communicate with Your Board, Trustees and Friends
Let this group of insiders know about your budget challenges as soon as you’ve informed your staff. Tell them you will be looking at all parts of the budget for areas that can be reduced and that you may be calling upon them for their help and advice.
Communicate with the Community
- Be sure you let people know that the library will be experiencing cutbacks, but that its staff understands the community’s challenges and is part of a team that is working to ensure that community needs are met.
- Tell them that careful planning is underway.
- Let your community know that library services will be maintained at the highest possible level, even when hours and staff are reduced.
- Make sure that changes in services are communicated through every channel open to you. Use:
- Your library’s website
- Your city/county/township’s website
- Signs, flyers and bookmarks inside and outside the library
- Conversations between your frontline staff and people in the community
- Your community newspaper and its website
- Local radio and TV
- Keep your messages positive and remind staff to do the same. Remember that it’s not your patrons’ fault that your budget is being reduced. Declare your library a NO WHINING zone.
Libraries that have had the good fortune to be included in surveys in which individual community members are asked to value or rank their community’s services are in wonderful place indeed. Why? Whenever community service rankings occur, the library always comes out near the top because people consider their library to be an essential service. Public safety (police and fire) may rank higher, but you can be sure that your library will finish very strong. For this reason, one excellent advocacy strategy is to convince your governing body to survey its citizens about what services they value most in these tough economic times. Surveys can be done easily on the city/county/township’s website and inserted in city-wide mailings such as water bills.
When the results come in and your library finishes in the top rankings, you will have gained valuable justification for keeping your budget strong. You won’t have to “plead your case” because the people in your community will have spoken. They will make that case for you. Your job will be to be sure that decision makers hear and understand individuals’ strong feelings of library affection and support. | <urn:uuid:9625d4ff-64cf-4902-961c-d9bbb3e5e267> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/advocacyuniversity/budget_crosshairs/gearupforadvocacy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956287 | 1,815 | 1.796875 | 2 |
By Andy Mannix
By Caleb Hannan
By Olivia LaVecchia
By CP Staff
By Aaron Rupar
By Jacob Wheeler
By Olivia LaVecchia
By Aaron Rupar
It happens in the work-place and it can happen in your home. It can pounce on you unexpectedly, triggered by something as trivial as an unmade bed, or it can build gradually, eating away your energy, your confidence, your patience, and your tolerance. It can undermine your self-esteem, scar your marriage, disrupt your family, and harm your kids. It's as common as the winter cold but rarely discussed; its sufferers are embarrassed, feeling as if they're weak or have in some vague way failed. Call it parent burnout. It's real and you're at risk.
burnout occurs any time any person is too intensely involved in any activity without relief, without support, and without reward. burnout happens to people of all ages and circumstances who keep all of their eggs in one basket, and then that basket breaks. They feel empty and angry--hopeless, frustrated, and futile. Parents burn out for many reasons, the most common being the nature of the job itself. Raising children is, by definition, a twenty-four-hour-a-day, three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day-a-year, all-consuming, thankless task. Parenting is a skill that can never be mastered and, once begun, it never ends. It may be the most important job you'll ever have but, even if you live long enough, you may never know whether you did it well.
Parenting means pressure. Pressure causes burnout. Sure, raising kids has its rewards. The silent satisfaction you feel, for example, as your toddler quiets in your arms. The smile that breaks through your fatigue as you watch your children sleep. The pride you feel when someone compliments your son or admires your daughter. Even the pat on the back you offer yourself when your teen makes the right choices. But these precious, private moments don't always outweigh the distress caused by those constant skirmishes over what to do and what not to do, where to go and where not to go, how to behave and not behave . . . you know the drill.
And support? What parent hasn't felt alone there on the frontlines doing battle with a defiant six-year-old at bedtime or going head to head with a determined teen over his curfew? Even if you have the good fortune to share the job with an active and supportive coparent, even if these very same battles don't drive a wedge between you and your coparent, real support can seem precious and rare. Far too often parents feel unsupported, and lack of support breeds burnout.
You may be a candidate for parent burnout if one or more of these things are true about you:
* You are or you feel like you are parenting alone. You either don't have a coparent or feel your coparent isn't fulfilling his or her responsibility. Or worse, you feel your coparent is actively undermining your authority with the kids.
* You are low on your own priority list. In an effort to keep the family going, you sometimes miss meals and sleep, forget to bathe, exercise, and otherwise take care of yourself. You believe your needs can wait when, in fact, your children need you refueled and available for them.
* Your child is your life. You and he are best friends to the exclusion of your more appropriate adult relationships and at the cost of your ability to set healthy limits. You have no job, no community ties or other adult connections, or these things are always second after your child's many needs.
* Your child is very assertive, strong-willed and/or defiant (better known these days as "spirited"). In theory you can see how these qualities might get him far one day as an adult, but for now you're tired of the challenges.
* Your child has a serious physical health problem, mental health problem, or learning difference. Advocating for your child's needs can be a full-time job full of frustration and parent-blame, particularly in this climate of managed health care.
* You yourself have a serious physical, emotional, or learning challenge and/or otherwise high stresses elsewhere in your life.
* Very little is secure and predictable in your world. This includes everything from housing to paychecks, from threat of violence to essentials like food, clothing, and medical care. Parents who live with alcoholism and drug abuse, domestic violence, and poverty are at high risk of burnout.
The short-tempered, hopeless parenting fatigue characteristic of burnout typically emerges slowly over time. In its earliest and most common form, you might feel apathetic and restless around your kids. You're distracted, and the quality of your family time together diminishes. In this "pre-burnout" state, you might be accused of having lost your sense of humor and you'll be less able to parent creatively.
This earliest sign of burnout is the feeling that parenting has become a thankless chore filled with nothing but responsibilities. You've lost the joy you once felt or expected to feel. You're still doing the job, but there's no pleasure in it, a state that can leave the kids feeling angry, scared, and confused.
Without remedy, burnout quickly moves into its second stage, a state of near exhaustion and increasing defensiveness. You overreact easily and often. Your temper is short and your patience nonexistent. You feel like your buttons are constantly being pushed. Because you are becoming emotionally less available, the kids' behavior accelerates in search of your emotional presence, positive or negative. If this cycle continues, you might find yourself dreading time together.
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Holidays are by their nature, challenging for divorced and separated parents. The family-focused activities present dilemmas: Which parent will host which activity; which parent will chaperone which event; which parent will have Santa visit? This month can end up feeling anything but festive.
“You couldn’t agree on things when you were married. Now you’ve got to agree to them when you are divorced,” said Edward Farber, a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor at George Washington University School of Medicine.
Farber has been practicing for more than 30 years and his new book, “Raising the Kid You Love with the Ex You Hate,” (Greenleaf) is poised to be published next month. He said the key for ex-couples navigating the treacherous holidays is to keep focus not on each other, but on the child.
“Divorced parents sometimes think that having their child with them over the holidays is winning. The holidays are for the child, not for scoring points on your ex. Be flexible and responsive to the needs of your child.
“The holiday schedule your child needed when you separated may not be the same holiday schedule that works for her five years later when she is 13.”
In an interview this week, Farber went on to explain in more depth how divorced or separated parents might follow that advice. He also discussed what we have learned culturally about kids and divorce in the years he’s been in practice.
Excerpts of our interview are below:
JD: What are some of the biggest traps divorced and separated parents can fall into during the holidays and how can they be avoided?
EF: Frankly, it’s just hard for your child not to see both of his parents to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanza. Spending Christmas with dad because your agreement says that’s what supposed to happen in even numbered years may work for the parents, but it can ignore the needs of your child.
Not seeing a parent at all over the holidays because of an agreement just leaves the child feeling empty and hollow. A pre-scheduled call to mom on the holidays and getting her boatload of presents is great, but spending the holiday away from mom entirely because it’s dad’s year to have the child simply underscores the split in the family.
If both parents are in town, let your child spend some holiday time with each parent. Develop new traditions. Christmas gifts can be opened in the morning in one house and late Christmas day in the other. Hanukkah candles can be lit right after school in one house and before bedtime in the other. Be flexible when it comes to family gatherings. Often when dealing with your ex around the holidays, what goes around one year comes around the next.
JD: What about faith — if the parents are of different faiths, how can conflict be avoided?
EF: Co-parenting means you are not always going to get what you want. But you need to remember this isn’t about you, it’s about your child. You no longer control the values and religious upbringing of your child all of the time. You share this control with your ex, someone you once loved, but now do not.
Create for your child as stable, harmonious and conflict free world as you can. If you practiced two faiths previously, allow that to continue. You have to respect the parenting decisions and values of your ex, even if that includes a religious belief different than yours. The differences in religious beliefs and practices will not create behavioral and emotional difficulties in your child, but conflicts between parents over those differences will cause distress. Tell your child, “Many people practice different religions. Your dad grew up celebrating Hanukkah. Your mom grew up celebrating Christmas. Both are important and all of your family want you to enjoy and celebrate the meaning and traditions of both holidays.”
The bottom line is that when adults fight — whether about Christmas or Kwanza or about organic or non-organic — and when they cannot together set consistent expectations that allow meaningful relationships with both parents, the child suffers.
JD: You have been in practice for more than 30 years. How do you think parents have gotten better at co-parenting? Are there areas where they’ve, in general, gotten worse?
EF: Real co-parenting as the cultural norm is a relatively new practice. Thirty years ago, children generally stayed with their moms and saw their dads on some weekends. Moms did most of the heavy lifting of child rearing and dads were often “Disney Dads” involved in mostly the fun and games activities. Moms made decisions about education, religion, extracurricular activities and social and moral development with dads having input on financial matters or major health issues. Dads often didn’t want or have the day-to-day responsibilities and decision-making roles, especially with young children.
Well, all that has changed. Joint legal custody — where both parents have to agree on major decisions in the child’s life, is the norm. Some forms of joint legal custody — where the child spends significant time living with each parent, are also far more common. But with more joint legal and physical custodial relationships can come more problems.
JD: If a divorced or separated parent were to take away one message from your book, what would you hope it would be?
EF: Co-parenting can promote positive growth and development in your child, even if co-parenting with an ex you hate. After divorce your child needs a meaningful relationship with both parents. She needs to see you and your ex parenting without conflict and together making important decisions in her life. You can effectively parent the child you love with an ex you hate.
Are you coordinating the holidays with an ex this year? What are your strategies? | <urn:uuid:adefc124-a810-4935-b07d-f1f20373ae93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-parenting/post/the-holidays-with-kids-and-an-ex/2012/12/06/35606f3a-3efd-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_blog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962587 | 1,226 | 1.539063 | 2 |
December 4, 2007
Supremes Grant Cert in Philippines v. Pimentel
Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel, No. 06-1204. The case is a proceduralist's dream and anyone else's nightmare: the intersection of interpleader, class action, and compulsory party joinder. The primary issue before the Supreme Court concerns Rule 19(b): "Whether a foreign government that is a 'necessary' party to a lawsuit under Rule 19(a) and has successfully asserted sovereign immunity is, under Rule 19(b), an 'indispensable' party to an action brought in the courts of the United States to settle ownership of assets claimed by that government."
Pimentel is the class representative for a Rule 23(b)(3) class of 9,539 persons with claims against Ferdinand Marcos for human rights abuses; the class won a judgment of nearly $2 billion. That was the case affirmed as Hilao v. Marcos (In re Estate of Marcos Human Rights Litigation (9th Cir. 1996), and notable to mass tort litigators not only as an example of a class action used to address human rights abuses, but also for its use of statistical sampling methods to award damages.
Then comes the interpleader. Merrill Lynch was custodian of an account, opened by Ferdinand Marcos, containing $35 million. The district court in the class action had awarded those assets to the plaintiff class. But the Republic of the Philippines claimed ownership of the assets on the ground that Marcos had taken the money illegally. Other claimants asserted an interest as well. Perfect occasion for interpleader. Merrill Lynch interpleads Pimentel as representative of the class, the Philippines, and other claimants.
The problem: the Philippines successfully asserted sovereign immunity, gaining a dismissal. The big question is whether, in the absence of the Philippines, the court must dismiss. The court held that the country was a necessary party under Rule 19(a), but declined to dismiss under Rule 19(b). The Philippines argues on appeal (another issue before the Supreme Court is whether a dismissed party has a right to appeal the Rule 19(b) decision) that in its absence the case must be dismissed.
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In honor of Mother’s Day, milkmakers is launching a program in which 5 percent of all sales in May will be donated to Open Arms Perinatal Services, an innovative Seattle-based nonprofit that serves women and families through the transformational time from pregnancy though birth and into early parenting.
May 2011 (Seattle, WA) – milkmakers, a Seattle-based baking company that makes lactation cookies to support nursing moms in their efforts to provide an abundant supply of breastmilk to their babies, is donating 5 percent of all sales of its cookies in May to Open Arms Perinatal Services in honor of Mother’s Day on May 8th.
Open Arms embraces a world that cherishes birthing women, their babies, their families, and their communities. The mission of Open Arms is to provide services that support, educate, respect, honor, and empower women and their families from pregnancy through birth and into early parenting. Most of the women served by Open Arms have little to no support available from other sources. milkmakers founder Emily Kane is passionate about their cause – she has volunteered with Open Arms since 2009, and currently serves on the Board of Directors.
“Open Arms fills a big void in communities by giving mothers the support they need to become empowered, confident parents,” Emily says. “Becoming a parent – whether it’s for the first time or if there are other children – is a life-changing moment. It’s hard enough for families with strong resources and support to navigate that transition. But for a woman facing financial pressures, domestic violence, cultural or language barriers, or who simply finds herself socially isolated, this transition can be incredibly difficult and even traumatic.”
Open Arms Perinatal Services provides community-based services, which recognizes culture and language as important and provides a partner for members of the community to identify needs and goals for resolving those needs. This model has proven to be very effective, for both new mothers and for women who find work serving other women from their community in this way. Open Arms has the capacity to serve women in fifteen different languages including English. Open Arms has seen the positive impacts of their programs, including lower health care costs and higher breastfeeding rates. But sometimes the result of good support is simply that a mother can welcome her baby with joy.
To view a video of one mother helped directly by Open Arms, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVnW1Rw0LHI. For more information about Open Arms Perinatal Services, please visit http://www.openarmsps.org.
Through Mother’s Day, milkmakers is offering 30% off all subscription orders of the original chocolate chip oatmeal cookie, the dairy-free oatmeal raisin cookie, or a variety pack. To receive information about further promotions, sign up to receive the milkmakers newsletter at www.milkmakers.com.
milkmakers is a Seattle-based baking company whose unique cookies help nursing moms provide a plentiful supply of breastmilk to their babies. Emily Kane, a working mother of three who was looking for a way to increase her own breastmilk supply after the birth of her first daughter, experimented with traditional remedies and recipes to create milkmakers lactation cookies. Her chocolate chip cookies and dairy-free oatmeal raisin cookies contain oats, brewer’s yeast and flax seed, which have been shown to provide nutrients that benefit the health of both nursing mothers and their babies. The essential fatty acids available in milkmakers cookies give moms the B-complex vitamins that aid with mood stability; fiber to help with regular digestion; protein to aid with muscle re-strengthening; and iron to replenish possible iron depletion from pregnancy. Babies that drink the breastmilk of moms with these nutrients benefit from the omega-3 fatty acids for their own brain development, as well as the protein and fat necessary for growth. To find out more information about milkmakers, or to place an order, visit www.milkmakers.com. Also available on the company’s website are links to additional resources for breastfeeding moms, as well as suggestions for finding a lactation consultant and dietician. | <urn:uuid:06603972-acfb-46ad-b2e0-83127afb7264> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://openarmsps.org/blog/2011/05/milkmakers-announces-partnership-with-open-arms-perinatal-services-to-support-breastfeeding-moms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952353 | 865 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Free Photo Archive of over 26,000 vintage photographs. Find people and the places were they lived. Search for your surnames. Find photos of your ancestors. Make connections with genealogy cousins. Add your family's photos.
Ruth Lurline Brobst Minute
Ruth Lurline Brobst was born 29 Jan 1897 in Conneaut, Ashtabula Co, OH, and died 28 Jul 1927 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga Co, OH. She was the daughter of David A. Brobst and Verda M. Batchelor. She married Alfred Minute.
Submitted by Arthur Holmes III, Curator, Brobst Family Registry | <urn:uuid:8e16a50a-ffb5-4612-b6f9-a948cecf216f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www3.familyoldphotos.com/photo/ohio/11790/ruth-lurline-brobst-minute | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961587 | 137 | 1.59375 | 2 |
While at DevConnections/OpenForce, I had some great conversations with various people on the topic of ASP.NET MVC. While many expressed their excitement about the framework and asked when they could see the bits (soon, I promise), there were several who had mixed feelings about it. I relish these conversations because it helps highlight the areas in which we need to put more work in and helps me become a better communicator about it.
One thing I’ve noticed is that most of my conversations focused too much on the MVC part of the equation. Dino Esposito (who I met very briefly), wrote an insightful post pointing out that it isn’t the MVC part of the framework that is most compelling:
So what's IMHO the main aspect of the MVC framework? It uses a REST-like approach to ASP.NET Web development. It implements each request to the Web server as an HTTP call to something that can be logically described as a "remote service endpoint". The target URL contains all that is needed to identify the controller that will process the request up to generating the response--whatever response format you need. I see more REST than MVC in this model. And, more importantly, REST is a more appropriate pattern to describe what pages created with the MVC framework actually do.
In describing the framework, I’ve tended to focus on the MVC part of it and the benefits in separation of concerns and testability. However, others have pointed out that by keeping the UI thin, a good developer could do all these things without MVC. So what's the benefit of the MVC framework?
I agree, yet I still think that MVC provides even greater support for Test Driven Development than before both in substance and in style, so even in that regard, there’s a benefit. I need to elaborate on this point, but I’ll save that for another time.
But MVC is not the only benefit of the MVC framework. I think the REST-like nature is a big selling point. Naturally, the next question is, well why should I care about that?
Fair question. Many developers won’t care and perhaps shouldn’t. In those cases, this framework might not be a good fit. Some developers do care and desire a more REST-like approach. In this case, I think the MVC framework will be a good fit.
This is not a satisfying answer, I know. In a future post, I hope to answer that question better. In what situations should developers care about REST and in which situations, should they not? For now, I really should get some sleep. Over and out.
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"Seligman & Route 66 - A town not forgotten" Top 5 Page for this destination Seligman by Yaqui
Seligman Travel Guide: 12 reviews and 44 photos
Founded in 1886, Prescott Junction now called Seligman by a significant New York Banker named Jesse Seligman; this junction was a significant railroad maintenance station as well as a famed Harvey Houses. Seligman was a bustling town surrounded by vast rich cattle lands that are still very prominent to this day. Seligman survived for many years till the new interstate bypassed the town. Then to make matters worse as with many of the little towns along route 66 experienced, the trains found no need to stop along these destinations and started either pulling up tracks or demolishing stations. The Harvey House located here is on the verge of experience demolition if funds cannot be raised to save her.
Yet, Seligman found hope in some locale town’s people who had Seligman to Kingman portion of old Route 66 dedicated by the State of Arizona to be as historic Route 66. This dedication will hopefully keep alive the preservation alive.
When we decided to veer off of Interstate 40, we had no clue what we were going to find in Seligman. We stopped because I had picked up a pamphlet illustrating the different significant stops of Route 66 by Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona. We were delighted to see that Seligman was making a huge effort to capture and maintain those by gone days. Many of the structures are still being maintained wonderfully and found most of people very friendly. We stopped at The Rusty Bolt and were completed amazed in how many wonderful merchandised dedicated to Route 66. What a lovely shop. We asked the lady if they were doing ok and she said they are doing just fine with so many tour buses that detour to the town so they can experience it. So that was so nice to hear the hope still thrives here.
- Pros:Route 66 still lives here and has shops and groceries
- Cons:A simple town so keep open minded and enjoy what they have to offer.
- In a nutshell:Some pretty funky shops to enjoy and experience that past.
Very sad news. I had been informed that they torn down this wonderful structure. I will keep this here for future... more travel advice
This shop has one of the funkiest store fronts I have ever seen. It immediatly catches your eye. It screams fun and come... more travel advice
Yaqui's Related Pages
Seligman Travel Guide
Member Travel Pages
- "Seligman & Route 66 - A town not forgotten"
- "Basaic Seligman Page"
- ""Get Your Kicks on Route 66""
- "Seligman, on historic route 66"
- "Seligman, Arizona"
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- Top 5 Page for this destination Long Beach Intro, 53 reviews, 224 photos | <urn:uuid:d98a2eca-ae7f-4e12-b2b6-9452cd85072f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/5fcc8/b72e2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941688 | 866 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Yahoo LAUNCHCAST Song Of The Day-Big Joe Turner
Artist:Big Joe Turner
Song:Flip, Flop & Fly
Album:Joe Turner/Rockin' The Blues
R & B shouter Big Joe Turner was one of the pioneers of Rock 'n' Roll. He was born May 18, 1911 in Kansas City, MO. The key event in his early career was getting together with boogie piano master Pete Johnson. They worked together for 13 years until Turner moved to Los Angeles in 1945. It was there that he first met producer Herb Abramson. Turner recorded for a lot of small labels but wasn't doing that well until Abramson & Ahmet Ertegun caught Turner filling in for Jimmy Rushing in the Count Basie band at the Apollo. They signed Turner to Atlantic Records and he had a string of hits in the mid 50s including the classic Flip, Flop & Fly. This twofer from Collectibles consists of two of his Atlantic albums from 1957-58. Turner left Atlantic in 1959. His career faded but was revived when Norman Granz signed him to his Pablo label in the 70s. Turner continued to tour until his death on Nov. 24, 1985 at age 74. Big Joe Turner was known as the Boss Of The Blues and was an important figure in the development of pop music. Here's Big Joe Turner performing Shake, Rattle & Roll in the 1955 film Rhythm & Blues Revue. | <urn:uuid:7e2e1078-68e8-42d8-a891-73dc93336e7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://frankp316.blogspot.com/2007/12/yahoo-launchcast-song-of-day-big-joe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978795 | 303 | 1.703125 | 2 |
About Pond Creek Schools
- There are 2 K-12 schools in Pond Creek, OK, including 2 public schools. Pond Creek public schools belong to one districts, Pond Creek-Hunter School District.
- There are 1 Pond Creek elementary school, 1 Pond Creek middle school and 1 Pond Creek high school.
Contact Education.com with questions or feedback about SchoolFinder.
Please note, if you wish to speak to someone at the school, you must contact the school directly. | <urn:uuid:ac67254a-df72-4a39-9f95-9f6481d811bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/oklahoma/pond-creek/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947315 | 98 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Teaching a Hippo to Dance
The most brilliant policies will fail if government does not attract talented people and free them to do their best work.
Four years ago, I left Silicon Valley to accept a presidential appointment as a White House fellow. After undergoing months of interviews and obtaining a top-secret security clearance, I moved to Washington, D.C., to join a class of 12 nonpartisan White House fellows and to work in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. After my fellowship ended I stayed on, caught up in the challenging work of improving the nation’s trade policies. My old business-school friends and my colleagues at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company were perplexed. Why would anyone want to serve in the federal government, the epitome of everything that is slow, bureaucratic, andopaque?
There, in a nutshell, is a major problem confronting American government in the 21st century: how to attract talented youngpeople—not just to the prestigious jobs that bring you face to face with a cabinet secretary or the president but to the line jobs that exist across the civil service. It is not just a recruiting challenge. Government will only attract the people it needs when it refashions itself so that public servants can serve the publiceffectively.
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Amy Wilkinson, a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, is writing a book about the next generation of leadership.more from this author >> | <urn:uuid:6d53b8af-aa42-436b-8395-f839937c9370> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=1358&AT=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943484 | 373 | 1.773438 | 2 |
In the magical land of gadget blogs, and increasingly the mainstream media, fantasy sometimes seems like reality the way things are often reported these days. Credibility, at times, seems to be as rare as sighting a unicorn, or at least tougher to discern. A rumor starts, gets picked up, gets recirculated, regurgitated, and recycled to the point that it becomes what looks mysteriously like something called the truth. For the life of the rumor, and often sadly beyond, it does become a truth. I bet our readers can easily remember rumors and hype that turned into fairy dust once real information on a new product was actually made available. I’ll admit, I’ve fallen prey to that myself as have other GBM writers.
Yesterday, word started circulating about info from a Swedish website, that the cheapest Microsoft Surface Tablet was going to come in around $1000. Well, in the world we live in today, that’s not just news, but that’s enough to spark a gazillion clicks, ad impressions, raging commenters, fan boy wars, more speculation, predictions of Microsoft’s doom, stock market fluctuations, and goodness knows what else.
The tech bloggers, including some pretty reputable outlets, jumped feet first into the frenzy, and within a few hours, there was a new truth about the price of Surface Tablets and Microsoft was doomed. A leading indicator that some were having doubts about the info was to count the number of headlines that had question marks in them. (Microsoft Surface Tablet to Cost $1000?)
Just to be clear, that price point isn’t accurate and has been debunked. (Prices listed were placeholders on the product site.) You can read about that here on techie buzz.
Now, if the information had been true it would have been real news. Since its not, life will move on. There will be some posts debunking the rumor, some outrage, and some derision slopped around. But hey, that’s another series of posts that will generate more hits. Or should. Some will just post and update to the original post and this being the Internet, someone looking for info before Microsoft announces the price will see the headlines and wonder.
So, who is to blame when something like this happens? Well there’s plenty of that to go around. Nature abhors a vacuum, and even though you can say that most things about tech news isn’t necessarily natural, the tech news scene one ups nature when it comes to vacuum abhorring. When a company doesn’t release specific data about price points, release dates, and specs, they leave themselves open to the rumor mill and more than spotty reporting. But is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Most companies thrive on the rumor mill because its PR that they don’t have to pay for. It increases the hype factor. They all have their ways of leaking info to help the rumor mill churn as well. Apple is a master at this. Apple’s competitors would like to be.
But if you even vaguely pay attention to the gadget news scene you’ll notice that while there is still more fiction than non-fiction out there on many stories, we are seeing “sources” that invariably offer bogus info eventually fall faster than they rise. DigiTimes is a case in point. If you search for the phrase, “according to DigiTimes” you’ll break Google’s servers with the number of results from years’ past. But DigiTimes has largely been discredited and is sourced more rarely now.
Remember there are people out there eager for info on these new gadgets and products. Fortunes turn on how quickly new products are purchased in a way that increasingly reminds me of how a film must perform on its opening weekend. Sad to say, that is what it is, but I don’t think its healthy. And don’t think that some of these half announcements without specific info and rumors aren’t planned and planted by companies competing with each other to create confusion among consumers. They are.
In this week’s earnings call Apple suggested that rumors and inaccurate info contributed to some of its selling woes. I don’t doubt that’s true. But that is only one edge of a double-edged sword that Apple wields at its own discretion. Call it a self-inflicted wound. Common sense should tell anyone who has any, that Apple’s iPhone selling prowess is going to slow as it nears its next release date. The same is true for Microsoft and Windows. Yep, the PC market is depressed right now. Why? Windows 8 is around the corner. Sure it’s debatable as to what the early sales will be on Windows 8 machines, but it makes sense for most folks to play wait and see, leading to the slow down in PC sales.
The bottom line for consumers is to remember that nothing you read is necessarily real until the company making the product puts it up for sale and you can get your hands on it. Press releases and press briefings are all full of good info and at the same time lack info. So do early reviews and hands on impressions. That’s never going to change. Neither is the rumor game, nor the speculation spectacular. | <urn:uuid:43a6410f-1b8a-4b80-9cad-ab51e3227960> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/07/26/on-unicorns-rumors-and-that-1000-surface-price-story/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966084 | 1,103 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Fifteen years ago, Jamaica Plain’s Multicultural Arts Center had to vacate its large, prominent Centre Street space because it was having trouble paying the rent, causing much upset in the community. But no one is complaining about space for the arts in JP now.
J.P. Licks later bought the former fire station and has occupied it since March 1999. Meanwhile, arts programming has spread across the neighborhood, finding homes in some beautiful, hospitable places, including back on the walls of 659 Centre St.
At a meeting in June 1997, as the neighborhood was reeling from the loss of the arts center that opened 10 years before to house classes, exhibits and performances, local arts activists accurately predicted and encouraged increased use of other buildings in JP for arts.
One place was an obvious successor: Spontaneous Celebrations at 45 Danforth St., near Stony Brook T Station. Founder Femke Rosenbaum volunteered the space that had opened a couple of years earlier. The furniture from the center was given to Spontaneous “on long-term loan.” Spontaneous still runs programs, sponsors special events like the Wake Up the Earth Festival, and serves as perhaps JP’s most “traditional” full-time arts venue.
The JP, Connolly and Egleston branch libraries all hold regular visual art exhibits as well as literary events and children’s activities.
First Thursday, sponsored by JP Centre/South Main Streets, has put visual art in that business district for the past eight years. Arts openings and performances take place on the first Thursdays of every month, but visual art is often on display in businesses all the time. During Jamaica Plain Open Studios, the whole neighborhood becomes a gallery for a weekend.
Two hubs of intense arts action have evolved here over the years.
One arts area suggested in 1997 is historic Monument Square, home of the JP library, the Loring-Greenough House, First Church, the Footlight Club and the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts. Recently, small commercial galleries—the hallway, UFORGE and Aviary—joined Art Market nearby.
The second hub, The Brewery in the Brookside neighborhood, rents to a large dance center, a silkscreen studio, woodworkers and children’s and teens’ art programs. Also, there is Bella Luna/Milky Way, which has performances, and next door is Stonybrook Fine Arts Studio.
Churches and green spaces see a lot of arts activity. St. John’s acoustics are perfect for the JP Concerts series. Some arts events seem to be returning to Forest Hills Cemetery, sponsored by Forest Hills Educational Trust, after a hiatus. The gazebo at Jamaica Pond hosts spring butterfly art and winter poetry. The JP Music Festival will be at the pond Sept. 8.
In a category of its own, Taylor House Bed and Breakfast on Pondside shows off its beautiful renovations by holding regular arts exhibits and concerts for the public.
Those are just some of many arts venues here. For more, see JP Resources at jamaicaplaingazette.com or the “Sights & Sounds” listings in every JP Gazette. In culturally rich JP, nowhere is off-limits to the arts. | <urn:uuid:68ba87a4-fa18-4253-9de9-1327f7e578d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jamaicaplaingazette.com/2012/03/30/jp-observer-jp-has-dozens-of-arts-centers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960013 | 677 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The database page for Stephen Jonathan Geist
Jenne Keller's original memorial is posted at
Stephen was born on April 12, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, he called Silver Spring, Maryland, his home. While growing up he was involved in swimming, Speology, the Boy Scouts and the Civil Air Patrol. All of his activities indicated his desire to be part of a well-functioning team. His goal was not for personal glory but to become one with a group of men who were highly motivated to excellence and dedicated to the same interests. This desire manifested itself in Stephen's intention to become part of the United States Army Special Forces. The proudest day of his life was the day he was awarded his Green Beret.
After training, Stephen volunteered for Vietnam. He served as a demolition and small arms expert on an "A" team supported by a Provincial Unit of ARVN. After six months of heavy combat, Stephen was pulled back to a supporting field unit of the Special Forces.
There, he was assigned as a Heavy Weapons Specialist, Detachment A-332, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), III Corps, War Zone C, Republic of Vietnam. As a member of this 12-man team, Stephen was responsible for the training for indiginous SVN troops in the operation of heavy weapons, such as machine guns, mortars, recoilless rifles, as well as infantry tactics and training and camp defenses. He also accompanied troops on combat patrols.
He wrote letters home not about how many ways he'd learned to kill, but how many ways he'd learned to preserve life and aid others from his training. He spoke of the privilege to be associated with men who shared his dedication and belief that freedom cannot merely be wished for, it must be earned by hard work. He never spoke in apathy of the Vietnamese people, but rather the courage of these people to place themselves in harms way and die if necessary for their rights...free from fear or coercion.
On September 25, 1967, Stephen was the observer aboard an O-1D aircraft of the 74th Aviation Company piloted by Lt. Lynn R. Huddleston on a visual reconnaissance mission north of Minh Thanh, Binh Long Province, 4 miles from the Cambodian border.
A radio call was received by Detachment A-332 at 0930 hours from Lt. Huddleston. No coordinates were given. Again at 1030 hours, a call from Lt. Huddleston was monitored by Hon Quan Radar, and Huddleston gave his position as the vicinity of grid coordinates XT633739, or a few miles from the Cambodian border just north of Minh Thanh. This was the last radio communication with the men aboard the O-1D. The plane never reached its destination. Search and rescue was initiated at 1310 hours but was terminated 3 days later without any sightings of either the aircraft or its crew. No trace has ever been found.
Two additions have been added to Stephen's file. In 1988 one such addition makes mention of remains coming out of Cambodia however these remains belonged to neither Stephen or Lt. Huddleston. Another addition mentions a villager who saw an O-1D go down in that area on that day. When villagers arrived at the crash site, one man was dead and the one with a gun was executed. This shows the search for these two brave men may now be expanded into Cambodia.
On a more personal note, Stephen's memorial marker is placed in Andersonville, Georgia, at the old Civil War POW camp and the National X-POW Museum. In 1999, Stephen received a second Purple Heart medal, this one for giving his life for his country. The Medal presentation was performed with 4-star General Thomas Schwartz, Commander of the Army's Forces Command Fort McPherson. General Schwartz wears Stephen's bracelet as I do. A grateful nation has, at last, given Stephen the honor he well deserves.
Some of this information was provided by the P.O.W. Network.
A memorial from |
and a sister-in-law
|Top of Page|
With all respect - K. J. Davis, Commander, United States Navy (Ret) | <urn:uuid:3af02b4e-5c16-4bfc-b2a9-72db2f2df2c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.virtualwall.org/dg/GeistSJ01a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97849 | 873 | 1.554688 | 2 |
2009-10 Myron and Margaret Winegarden Visiting Professor - Christopher Paul Curtis
Christopher Paul Curtis was born in Flint, Michigan, the setting of many of his books. He was a great reader, but as a youth, he could not find books that “were about me.” After high school, Curtis spent 13 years on the assembly line of Flint’s historic Fisher Body Plant. He attended college at night and wrote during his breaks to escape the noise of the factory. Christopher Paul Curtis made an outstanding debut in children’s literature with The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, named a Newbery Honor Book and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. His second novel, Bud, Not Buddy, won the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award. Christopher Paul Curtis will be fulfilling his appointment as the 2009-10 Winegarden Visiting Professor during parts of both the Fall and Winter Semesters. (Nominated by Associate Dean and Professor of Education Rose Casement, School of Education and Human Services; and Chair and Professor of English Fred Svoboda, College of Arts and Sciences).
One of the many and varied activities that 2009-10 Winegarden Professor Christopher Paul Curtis has been involved with while on the Flint campus was the Christopher Paul Curtis Writing Adventure where over 400 fourth grade students from the Flint Community Schools visited campus to hear first-hand from our most prestigious visiting professor. Students were challenged with going back to their respective schools to engage in a writing competition where one student from each school will be selected as having the best story and then would compete against the other 17 schools. | <urn:uuid:9cd13f9d-f000-487a-afa6-da3c0397b813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.umflint.edu/provost/winegarden/c_p_curtis.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973487 | 330 | 1.6875 | 2 |
"An integrative book by a grandmaster of the field is a treasure. Yoland gives us, not only a rich book on engaging in social research, but also a deep insight into her own thought processes of how to work with issues and questions, and to work with people who care and who want to change structures. This is a book which invites us to develop our own integration of who we are and how we work."
- David Coghlan, Trinity College Dublin, author of Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization.
"Highly original… an ambitious integration of concepts. Credible and useful. Grounded in pioneering empirical research."
- Professor Danny Burns, University of West England
"This work is unquestionably original and in major ways innovative."
- Professor Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney
"Brilliant...I'm not aware of any other book of this nature. The examples are impressive."
- Linette Hawkins, social work educator
"In this the third and final text in her life’s work trilogy [Wadsworth] displays an extraordinary capacity to integrate many different perspectives, theories, constructs and approaches within an overarching accessible framework. She puts those perspectives and approaches in dialogue with each other, and provides the reader with a way to navigate the labyrinth created by the intersection of inquiry and practice. Her own depth of experience and accomplished capacity for reflection as both a practitioner and inquirer make her insights important and innovative. Her style of writing, presenting and engaging the reader is uniquely her own–and therefore quite original…. Wherever people are engaged in trying to make the world a better place and open to undertaking inquiry as a part of that process, this book will be a welcome addition to their journey."
- From the Foreword by Michael Quinn Patton, author of Utilization-Focused Evaluation | <urn:uuid:4ba4df0b-52de-46bb-9fc2-bb864ac45b9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=369 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933975 | 375 | 1.695313 | 2 |
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- A plane carrying trekkers to the Everest region crashed and burned just after takeoff Friday morning in Nepal's capital, killing the 19 Nepali, British and Chinese people on board, authorities said.
The pilot of the domestic Sita Air flight reported trouble two minutes after takeoff, and Katmandu airport official Ratish Chandra Suman said the pilot appeared to have been trying to turn back. The crash site is only 547 yards from the airport, and the wrecked plane was pointing toward the airport area.
Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash and identify the bodies, and Suman said he could not confirm if the plane was already on fire before it crashed. Cellphone video shot by locals showed the front section of the plane was on fire when it first hit the ground and appeared the pilot had attempted to land the plane on open ground beside a river.
The fire quickly spread to the rear, but the tail was still in one piece at the scene near the Manohara River on the southwest edge of Katmandu. Villagers were unable to approach the plane because of the fire and it took some time for firefighters to reach the area and bring the fire under control.
Soldiers and police shifted through the crash wreckage looking for bodies and documents to help identify the victims. Seven passengers were British and five were Chinese; the other four passengers and the three crew members were from Nepal, authorities said.
Large number of local people and security forces gathered at the crash site. The charred bodies were taken by vans to the hospital morgue.
The weather in Katmandu and surrounding areas was clear on Friday morning, and it was one of the first flights to take off from Katmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Other flights reported no problems, and the airport operated normally.
The plane was heading for Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest. Thousands of Westerners make treks in the region around the world's highest peak each year. Autumn is considered the best time to trek the foothills of the Himalayan peaks.
The crash follows an avalanche on another Nepal peak Sunday that killed seven foreign climbers and a Nepali guide.
Copyright 2012 The Associated | <urn:uuid:4947f510-337c-4fec-a1e1-091282367044> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksdk.com/news/world/article/340626/28/Everest-bound-plane-crashes-killing-19 | 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 | 0.977165 | 453 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Fresno is the largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, and is a very culturally diverse city. Its Mexican, Basque and Chinese communities have been here for decades, and, more recently, thousands of Hmong have put down roots in the area. The Armenian community is represented by author/ playwright William Saroyan, who was born, lived and died in this city he loved. Population: 510,365 as of the 2010 census.
Climate: Fresno has mild, moderately wet winters and hot, dry summers. Lots of golfing weather where the average annual rainfall is only 11 inches, and there is no snow.
Cost of living: The cost of living in Fresno is 11% greater than the national average.
Housing costs: Significantly less (58%) than the rest of California, the average price of a home is about 10% greater than the U.S. average. The median retirement home cost in Fresno is $203,800.
Colleges and Universities: There is an OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at California State University Fresno, which is a program created for retirees age 50+ who wish to continue learning and exploring for the sheer joy of it.
Transportation:Fresno has two airports, Fresno Yosemite International, and Chandler Executive. FAX (Fresno Area Express) helps with around-town transportation. Both Amtrak and Greyhound also serve the area.
Travel and tourism: Residents and visitors alike will enjoy exploring the Tower District which has book and record stores, music clubs, and a handful of stylish, highly regarded restaurants. Fresnos old brick warehouses lining the Santa Fe railroad tracks are an impressive sight, as are the many historic downtown buildings such as the 1894 Fresno Water Tower and the 1928 Pantages (Warnors) Theatre.
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major part of your retirement planning (read on) | <urn:uuid:05e2fc61-e694-4862-b3ea-4648c77282fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.retireusa.net/retirement/Fresno-VidaliaCalifornia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931647 | 522 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Earlier I asked about the multipliers for the consumption of rich and poor people. Let me be a little bit and more explicit. I would assume that rich people spend a lot more on personal services and expensive goods.
Expensive goods tend to have much higher markups. Remember Henry Ford II responding to the influx of Volkswagens observing that mini cars mean mini profits. Expensive branded goods have very high markups, meaning relatively few jobs per dollar of expenditure compared to the spending of the less affluent. Personal services are probably bimodal. Some professional work would probably mean relatively few jobs per dollar of expenditure; some less prestigious work might mean quite a few jobs per dollar of expenditure; for example, underpaid immigrant nannies. Any thoughts? | <urn:uuid:c56c2ce3-b74f-4373-8de7-12a9d9d672d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2007/10/rich-and-poor-multipliers-again.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959002 | 154 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Mustang made all kinds of sales records obsolete in the '60s: one million units in the first two model years; two million by mid-year 1968, despite a Ford-crippling UAW strike. impressive by anyone's sales' standards, but did you know the '70 Ford Maverick-introduced on the Mustang's fifth anniversary, April 17, 1969-blew past the Mustang's sales successes, beating the '65 Mustang's sales numbers at 578,914 units in the same 18-month period. Ford introduced the Maverick as "The First Car of the '70s at '60s Prices." The Maverick's phenomenal success wasn't a flash in the pan; it continued for five years. Sales began to decline in 1976 when the Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch consumed a significant percentage of Maverick sales.
The all-new Falcon replacement sold so well because it was everything the Falcon was in 1960-only more affordable and certainly nicer. Base sticker price for the '70 Maverick with a six and a column stick-shift was a checkbook-cracking $1,995. Perfect as a second car, or for all those baby boomers heading off to college who wanted something larger and cheaper than a Volkswagon Beetle. The new Maverick was unbeatable because it was such a simple car, just like the Falcon was ten years earlier. People loved it for that and its slippery styling on a 103-inch wheelbase. It was easy to drive and park, and with the 170 and 200ci sixes, it was fuel stingy to boot. It was likely the greatest automotive bargain of the 20th century.
For all the tomatoes, broken bottles, and raspberries the Maverick gets from the same crowd that bashes the Mustang II and Pinto, it sold extraordinarily well throughout its seven model-year production run in the U.S. By the time production ended in 1977, Ford had sold more than 2.5 million Mavericks. Someone out there certainly liked them.
You would expect Derrick Yee to be driving a late-model Mustang. He just doesn't look the Maverick type. But Derrick is "maverick" in spirit. He marches to his own beat, committed to cruising in something that attracted him from the start. He loves the Ford Maverick, and makes no apologies for it.
Look what Derrick has done to this thrifty '73 Ford sedan rocketship. Just for fun, a custom-built 302-inch mill with '66 289 heads fitted with 1.94/1.60-inch valves and 53cc chambers. On top, Comp Cams 1.6:1 roller rockers motivated by an aggressive Lunati hydraulic camshaft. Forged JE 8.5:1 pistons squeeze the mixture carefully because we're dealing with small chambers in the vintage Mustang heads. We're also dealing with nitrous and the potential for supercharging later on. Derrick had to carefully consider every aspect of his engine's architecture, including fuel delivery, spark timing, and compression.
Derrick went with a pinch of overkill to help keep things safe: a 750-cfm double-pumper Holley on top of a Holley 174 Power Charger super charger manifold, just to make sure the 302 stays well fed while under the gun of nitrous-oxide. A Mallory 140 fuel pump and regulator keep the Holley supplied under the most demanding conditions. Derrick trusted no less than MSD to provide the high-energy spark-MSD's Blaster coil to blaze a thundering void through the gasoline and nitrous mixture. Mallory's time-proven Unilite distributor, coupled with MSD's BTM ignition controller, gets the job done reliably. Taylor 8mm ignition wires route high-energy current to the spark plugs. Derrick also placed his trust in the NX Nitrous Express Phase 3 twin-plate system with an automatic bottle opener. No thinking required, and certainly no waiting. Cool comes from a Griffin aluminum radiator, a 160-degree thermostat, Cool-Flex hoses, and an electric cooling fan. Hedman headers give way to 211/42-inch pipes all the way to the tailpanel. Magnaflow XL performance mufflers deliver a throaty persona.
A powerful 302 needs a driveline that can stand up to the punishment of nitrous power. In the tunnel is a C4 Select-Shift transmission working hand-in-hand with a 3.50:1 9-inch-large bearing housing fitted with 31-spline Moser axles and 3-inch screw-in studs. In the middle, a nodular iron chunk with a Traction-Lok differential takes anything Derrick can toss at it. A Continental 10-inch torque converter multiplies the twist with a 2,800-rpm stall speed. Art Carr gears improve the hole shot.
Down under, Derrick needed a chassis that would compliment the powertrain. A relatively stock suspension system is fitted with polyurethane bushings and KYB gas shocks. A 1-inch front sway bar with polyurethane bushings controls body roll. TMC 620 coils control the action in front.
Wilwood binders are exactly what you would expect from Derrick, who is as disciplined in his chassis logic as he is with the engine and driveline. Those are cross-drilled Wilwood Dynalite Pro-Series 11.75-inch front disc brakes. In back, the same thing, with a Wilwood Pro-Series parking brake kit. Derrick has thought of everything.
On the ground, Bridgestone Potenza 245/40/17s in front, wrapped around 17x7-inch Boyd Coddington Dictators. In back, 255/45/18 (yes, 18 and loving it) on 18x8-inch Dictators. Derrick had to roll the fender lips to clear the Potenzas.
Inside, strict attention to detail-Cobra Daytona seats wrapped in rich leather with Sparco four-point harnesses for safety. Derrick upholstered the rear seat the same way for uniformity. That's a Dino leather-wrapped steering wheel. Auto Meter instrumentation provides important information. A Panasonic CQ-CC8400U system with a removable face-plate feeds the thunder to CJ-DA6910 6x9-inch and CJ-DA1000 4-inch two-way speakers. Auto Custom carpet provided the thick, plush carpeting. Billet window cranks compliment the Maverick's otherwise utilitarian door panels.
We like the Hella H4 headlamp conversions with Koito White Beam H4 lamps and the smoked taillights. APR carbon fiber mirrors look sharp and functional, as does the custom carbon-fiber hood.
Derrick has answered the Maverick challenge respectfully and with precision. This is an exercise in how to build a restomod that isn't mainstream, yet it is something you'd be proud to own. Derrick demonstrates to most of us that you can build wonderful imagination into just about anything, and keep the populous coming back for more-just like Ford did in 1970. | <urn:uuid:2e11ec92-6e3a-4754-9592-550564104913> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mustangandfords.com/featuredvehicles/maverick/mufp_0501_1970_ford_maverick/viewall.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938882 | 1,473 | 1.5 | 2 |
- Special Sections
- Public Notices
The sun beat down with no relief.
the sweat dripped down my chin.
I looked up at the mountain so tall
and let the journey begin.
It must have been a hundred miles wide
and at least ten times that tall
as I climbed my way up the rugged terrain
and hoped I wouldn’t fall.
Shrieks and growls and echoes came,
probably lions and tigers and bears,
their eyes lurking in the bushes all around
— I’d just have to stay aware.
Rattle snakes slithered in and out of rocks,
their fangs thirsty for flesh.
Vultures circle over head
to take whatever’s left.
I kept on going up the trail,
my muscles screamed in pain.
I was running low on water
and the heat drove me insane.
I didn’t know if I could make it.
My heart was beating fast.
With that scorching heat and vertical hills
I didn’t think I could last.
But there’s the top, I must push on!
As I continued with the climb
my head got dizzy and my energy low,
I was running out of time!
I staggered wobbly to the top,
blood trickling down my knees.
The view was the most beautiful thing,
seeing as far as the eye could see.
I was now on top of the world
as I sat and looked around.
I’d made it up the mountain
…now I’d just have to get down.
— Dana Crooks
Dana Crooks is a junior at Los Alamos High School. | <urn:uuid:63352a59-7c2d-42ab-a484-b93331a77395> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lamonitor.com/content/poetry-corner-07-31-11?quicktabs_2=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941185 | 363 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Formed with the initial destruction of The Allman Brothers Band, the group that evolved into Sea Level was the trio "We Three". Featuring Lamar Williams (bass), Jaimoe (drums) and Chuck Leavell (piano, keyboards, vocals), all then-members of the Allman Brothers, the trio would occasionally open shows for the group in 1975 and 1976. With the Allmans' first disbanding in 1976, the trio added guitarist Jimmy Nalls and named the band based on a phoenetic pun of their leader's name (C. Leavell). They toured relentlessly, eventually signing with Capricorn Records (home of the Allman Brothers) and recording their debut album.
After the release of their first album, the group expanded to a septet with the additions of Davis Causey (guitar), George Weaver (percussion) and Randall Bramblett (saxophones, keyboards and vocals). That configuration recorded the group's second album (which produced a moderate "hit" with "That's Your Secret"). By the time of the third, Jaimoe and Weaver had both left, replaced by Joe English. The sextet of Bramblett, Causey, English, Leavell, Nalls and Williams recorded the fourth album, unreleased in the United States for nearly twenty years, adding percussionist Matt Greeley for their fifth and final album, issued on Arista in 1980. Their greatest hits album (CD) wrapped up their body of work, minus a handful of appearances on various compilation albums (mostly Southern Rock). | <urn:uuid:29006fee-f44b-4fec-9c7f-5575233e01cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Sea_Level_(band) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948603 | 320 | 1.5 | 2 |
Was David Petraeus as great a general as the write-ups of his downfall routinely claim? This is a provocative question that I will begin to answer with another question: Did America prevail in the Iraq War? I suspect few would say "yes" and believe it, which is no reflection on the valor and sacrifice of the American and allied troops who fought there. On the contrary, it was the vaunted strategy of the two-step Petraeus "surge" that was the blueprint of failure.
While U.S. troops carried out Part One successfully by fighting to establish basic security, the "trust" and "political reconciliation" that such security was supposed to trigger within Iraqi society never materialized in Part Two. Meanwhile, the "Sunni awakening" lasted only as long as the U.S. payroll for Sunni fighters did.
Today, Iraq is more an ally of Iran than the United States (while dollars keep flowing to Baghdad). This failure is one of imagination as much as strategy. But having blocked rational analysis of Islam from entering into military plans for the Islamic world, the Bush administration effectively blinded itself and undermined its own war-making capacity. In this knowledge vacuum, David Petraeus' see-no-Islam counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine would fill but not satisfy the void.
The basis of COIN is "population protection" -- Iraqi populations, Afghan populations -- over "force protection." Or, as lead author David Petraeus wrote in the 2007 Counterinsurgency Field Manual: "Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force." ("COIN force" families must have loved that.) Further, the Petraeus COIN manual tells us: "The more successful the counterinsurgency is, the less force can be used and the more risk can be accepted." "Less force" and "more risk" translate into highly restrictive rules of engagement.
More risk accepted by whom? By U.S. forces. Thus we see how, at least in the eyes of senior commanders, we get the few, the proud, the sacrificial lambs. And sacrificed to what? A theory.
The Petraeus COIN manual continues: "Soldiers and Marines may also have to accept more risk to maintain involvement with the people." As Petraeus wrote in a COIN "guidance" to troops in 2010 upon assuming command in Afghanistan: "The people are the center of gravity. Only by providing them security and earning their trust and confidence can the Afghan government and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) prevail." That was a theory, too. Now, after two long COIN wars, we know it was wrong. | <urn:uuid:39d112f3-3f79-4e9d-823e-f28bb04c6d84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2012/11/15/petraeus_betrayed_his_country_before_he_betrayed_his_wife | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970017 | 543 | 1.570313 | 2 |
It always amazes me when people who are deeply in debt to their credit card companies fail to do everything in their power to pay it off immediately. My current pet peeve: when cardholders who’ve been living with a hefty balance for months, if not years, insist on holding onto the Treasurys they own as a long-term investment strategy.
Average credit card interest rates have been hovering above 14% for months. Treasury yields, on the other hand, by and large remain depressed versus pre-recession levels. In my opinion, owning bonds and carrying credit card debt is a tremendous misallocation of capital.
The iShares Barclays 7-10 Year Treasury Bond Fund (IEF), returns 3.3% annually. So on a $10,000 investment, you’ll make $330 – with roughly a third of that going to taxes, depending on your federal bracket. Meanwhile, if you’re carrying a credit card balance of just half that amount ($5,000), you’re paying your card company $700 a year.
Selling low-yielding bonds to pay off high-interest credit card debt should be the easiest investment decision you make all year. At the very least, it should make you a few hundred dollars richer twelve months from now.
In the next year the Federal Reserve System is widely expected to increase the rate banks can charge each other for loans. When that happens, credit card companies tend to raise the rates they charge to indebted cardholders. A Fed rate increase will likely increase most bond yields as well. This isn’t a good thing for bondholders, as bond yields move inversely to prices; when yields increase, the values of bonds decrease.
Thus, owning taxable bonds like Treasurys while carrying credit card debt makes little fiscal sense currently, and will become even more disadvantageous going forward. | <urn:uuid:c852fd45-bc00-445f-b280-5bc57c8fe9de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2010/05/11/credit-card-tip-of-the-week-pay-off-that-balance-then-worry-about-investing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950674 | 387 | 1.710938 | 2 |
ETHOS: Tyrrellspass, County Westmeathby Aine McCormackI love what's happening in Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath. I recently received an email from Eugene Dunbar who told me about ETHOS (Everything Terrellspass Has On Show) which is a community based initiative planning an exciting series of events this year. They are taking a seasonal approach in Tyrrellspass, featuring a new event Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, that will explore the local environment in a unique way.Beverly Is Goneby Kathleen DonohoeIn 1951, Beverly Rose Potts vanished from the same neighborhood as Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. The Wild Hunt.by Tony LockeKnown throughout European Folklore for thousands of years The Wild Hunt are made up of the things of nightmares. In pagan folklore they were the fairies of the Unseelie Court in christian lore they were spirits that couldn't enter heaven and were not allowed into hell. They roamed throughout time claiming dominion over the souls they could catch.
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Citizenship by Descent
Did you know that if one of your grandparents was born in Ireland,
you may be able to obtain Irish citizenship? The Republic of Ireland
does grant citizenship to applicants who can prove their descent
from a grandparent born in Ireland.
a Research Trip To Ireland
If you plan to visit Ireland, I would encourage you to consider
making a genealogical odyssey part of your experience of this beautiful
and historical island.
Irish Genealogy Advice
NOW for your chance to win | <urn:uuid:3490713f-fac1-4069-bfd4-30f48be4c14f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://irishabroad.com/Home/Default.aspx?requestedURL=%2FProfile%2Fprofile.aspx%3Fuid%3D302149 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934235 | 479 | 1.648438 | 2 |
It is illegal to possess or have under your control any controlled substance. Possession of any controlled substance or more than 35 grams of Marijuana is a Class C Felony. Possession of 35 grams or less of Marijuana is a Class A misdemeanor.
Drug Possession is the most frequently litigated issue in drug related cases. Possession may be proven by circumstantial evidence, however, the State must prove that the defendant consciously and intentionally possessed the substance.
A person “possesses” a controlled substance if they have knowledge of the presence and nature of the drug, has actual or constructive possession of the drug. The State must prove that the defendant knew of the drugs “nature,” i.e., that the substance was a drug of some sort, and not just baking powder.
Actual possession means on your person or within reach and control. Someone who has the ability and the intent to exercise ownership or control over the drug either directly or through others, is in constructive possession of the substance. Possession may be sole (one person) or joint (two or more persons sharing
possession of the drug).
Trace amounts of drugs may not be possession. Some Missouri cases have held that the State must establish that the illegal substance was present in an amount detectable by ordinary observation in order to sustain a conviction of possession.
Another set of Missouri Drug cases insists that, because there is no statutory threshold amount required, the State may support a conviction by evidence of the presence of trace or residue amounts of a substance coupled with evidence of other circumstances (usually admissions of the defendant) indicating knowing | <urn:uuid:cb017fe3-382f-47a9-80c4-5b01d25d0642> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sansonelaw.com/lawyer-attorney-1697198.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946661 | 328 | 1.75 | 2 |
Credit cards and checking cards are certainly a boon to modern lives. Both are innocuous, magnetically-charged and hologram-emblazoned wedges of innocuous plastic, but simply swipe them through a reader and they magically slurp out money from your account. But the simplicity of this technology which we all take for granted makes it all too easy to over-extend ourselves financially: the credit card process obfuscates in many non-trivial ways exactly how much money we’re spending on a daily basis.
The Live Checking Card is an interesting conceptual answer to the problem. The card works like a regular credit or checking card, but displays the accumulated spending amount on the face of your card through an e-ink matrix every time you make a purchase, matching your card with your bank account transaction history using RFID.
What this is, then, is a combination bank card and bank balance, that also keeps you aware of the purchases of any significant partner linked to your account. That might have a few ramifications on your love life if your partner is spend happy, but that’s a small concern.
Unfortunately, the Live Checking Card is only a concept for right now. But gentlemen! We have the technology! Why haven’t banks already come out with this?
Read more at Yanko Design | <urn:uuid:0268fec8-b823-4120-9312-4565ebc88482> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geek.com/gadgets/live-checking-card-concept-combines-a-bank-card-with-a-dynamic-banking-statement-1076691/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93643 | 271 | 1.648438 | 2 |
These lines will try to shed some light on the last days of tens of people from my town who fled to Warsaw during the Holocaust and are missing. I shall start from the place I lived in- the home of Yitzhak Izhbitzki. He was the concierge of a large house at 29 Gjibovska street. Many were jealous of him because concierges were not taken for forced labor. The home was near a metal-bed factory where non-Jewish Poles worked, and these people helped us by smuggling food. Each day they brought foodstuffs which we paid for with our gold and jewelry. Some of the food we ate and some we passed on to grateful friends. The food was not hygienic but it was better than eating waste scraps.
Yitzhak's home became a center for the Ghetto Jews. There we heard what had happened in the expulsions from Koło, Izhbitza Lubelska and other places.
I think about 100 Koło Jews took refuge in Warsaw. I can recall Izho Frankel, his wife and son Kova (who supported them), David Fernikez, his wife, and daughter Halinka,Moshe-Leib Levin, his wife, their daughter Genia and son Adjo, Tempelhof and his wife, Israel Czeczinski and family, Yedza Bijzvinska, Paula Zaitzek, Yehezkel Vahulder and family, Adek Schlechtov and wife, Regina Schlechtov and husband, Mrs Schmuklerska and family, Binyamin Kuninski and family from the New Market, Rabbi Shlomo Rotfeld and daughters, Brunek Silberberg and family, the son of Sinai Brockstein, chankovitch, Itzhe Neumann and wife Olek Neumann and wife,Ignasz Neumann, wife and son, Gittel Neumann Nashelska, Ezra Izbitzki, the Futter family, Naomi Kirschbaum, Sala Kirschbaum and her sons.
The Jews of Koło came with a few belongings and sought work. Ignasz Neumann and I stitched uniforms for the army, this saved us from deportation.
our relatives: Itzik Czezinski was a policeman with the Jewish militia Adek Schlectov and his wife were dentists, Ezra Izhbitzki was a metal worker.
One day Regina Schlectov and her husband visited me. Their knapsacks indicated a lengthy journey. Regina showed me a German handbill that said: If you want bread and work, come to Umschlagplatz and you will be sent to a place of work
They complained about their bitter life, they were tired and hungry. At that time nobody knew of the Nazi deception. The Nazis tricked thousands of Jews, and so they were in the first transports to the crematoria.
The family of David Firnikazh were killed in Warsaw. His wife was killed when an SS officer entered their room and told them to stand up. She was paralysed and could not move so she was shot on the spot. David tried to move to the Aryan side of the city and with him went the families of Szezinski, Wachelder and Bizhvinski. They were all captured and shot and nobody knows where they are buried.
In Warsaw also died the wife and three daughters of Arthur Nashelski, Kazik Yoel and his wife (nee Wartski). Fabian Yoel, his wife and daughter, Abraham Feldman, his wife and daughters, Aharon Ritschke, his wife and their daughter Zoshia. His son Shaya Rassler returned from Russia and was killed in Warsaw.
Tempelhof refused to go to Umschlagplatz and commmitted suicide with cooking gas.
The rest of our fellow townsmen mentioned above were caught in the Selections and sent to Maidanek and Treblinka.
As the ghetto area was reduced, Yitzhak Izhbitzki was dismissed and found work as a concierge on Niske street.
He was killed in the final assault on the ghetto as he smuggled weapons through the sewers into the ghetto for the Jewish fighters.
The years 1941-42 in the Warsaw ghetto were cruel and bitter. Each day we waited in vain for deliverance. Those who found work became slaves, but we did not lose hope, we tried our best to hold on.
Nobody who was not in that Hell can imagine the slow death of our community in Koło.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
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Updated 9 Aug 2009 by LA | <urn:uuid:52718ae8-b4bf-4823-a925-1aa24f21c1f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/kolo/kol180.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979785 | 1,053 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The EU has filed a new Statement of Objections against Microsoft, this time alleging that the company's practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows violates EU antitrust law. According to a statement released by the government body, "Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice."
The statement comes in response to a complaint filed in late 2007 by Opera, in which that company accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows and by failing to comply with web standards.
The current Statement is based on the Court of First Instance's findings in 2004 when it held that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position. Based on this, the EU has found that Microsoft's market share (over 90 percent) gave the company a potentially unfair advantage and shielded IE from true head-to-head competition in the browser market. The Commission is also concerned that the constant presence of IE across the market created "artificial incentives" for content providers and software developers. Presumably, this led to the departure from web standards that has Opera upset.
"We are committed to conducting our business in full compliance with European law. We are studying the Statement of Objections now... Microsoft will be afforded an opportunity to respond in writing to this Statement of Objections within about two months," the software giant responded. "The company is also afforded an opportunity to request a hearing, which would take place after the submission of this response... the European Commission will not make a final determination until after it receives and assesses Microsoft’s response and conducts the hearing, should Microsoft request one."
Microsoft has eight weeks to answer the EU's filing; the company can also request/respond via a hearing if it chooses to do so.
A brave new browser world
Let's leave "compliance with web standards" argument aside for a moment and focus on the bundling issue. Opera's bundling argument seems to have been pulled straight from 1996 or so. The 800-pound gorilla here, of course, is Firefox, with its worldwide market share hovering in the 20 percent range. Presumably that share would be higher if Safari and Chrome didn't exist. Compare Firefox and Opera and they seem far more alike than they are different.
Opera is free. Firefox is free. Opera bills itself as the better alternative to other browsers—and so does Firefox. Obviously somewhere along the line, the Mozilla Foundation did something right that the Opera folks didn't do (it might be as simple as being in the right place at the right time). Both Opera and Firefox competed hard against Microsoft with free alternatives—and with very different results.
Meanwhile, there's a very large practical problem standing in the way of Opera's request. If Microsoft unbundles Windows and Internet Explorer, how do you get on the Internet to get another browser? There are no elegant solutions to that problem. Dell or HP could conceivably bundle a different browser—and would love for the Mozilla Foundation, Opera, or Google to pony up for the privilege of having their browsers installed with new PCS—but until that happens, they're going to bundle the browser the majority of their customers are familiar with—IE. Meanwhile, those of us who buy OEM or retail copies of the OS are evidently stuck burning our own browser install discs. Possible, sure. Convenient? No.
Consumers, rightly or wrongly, view a reduced-functionality product as a lesser value, even if that functionality was reduced in the name of giving users more choice; anyone who doubts it need only check the sales of Windows XP N, the version of Windows XP that shipped without any media player functionality.
The greatest argument against Opera's position that bundling a browser equates to market abuse, however, lies within the way the relationship between computers and the Internet has changed over time. In 1996, only a handful of people were online. Of those, some of them were only online to read and send e-mail, and engaged in no actual "browsing" whatsoever. Back then, a computer was a stand-alone box, and Microsoft could, perhaps, be taken to task for bundling this obviously unrelated software.
I'd argue that this is simply no longer the case in 2008. The browser may have started off as a separate piece of software, but a huge number of people now define the usefulness of a computer by the existence and speed of its Internet connection. Take away the Internet via a lack of built-in browser, and the perceived value of the system at any given time plummets.
Data source: Net Applications (top); Google Analytics (bottom)
Opera is in a tough position in the browser market. It typically accounts for about 2.5 percent of browser visits at Ars and less than one-third of that worldwide, according to Net Applications. One can make an argument that Opera has been harmed by Microsoft's practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows over the past decade or so. But in the age of ubiquitous Internet, shipping an OS without a browser just isn't practical, and the success stories of Firefox and, to a much lesser extent, Safari for Windows and Chrome, prove that it's possible to take on the IE juggernaut without government help. | <urn:uuid:6b9d89e8-791d-4d51-b8d2-7886580db98f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/01/eu-vs-microsoft-bundling-wars-ad-nauseam/?comments=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952863 | 1,075 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The Grinch and Employee Benefit Plans?
In the iconic 1966 cartoon, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! the Grinch hates everything to do with the holiday season. He hates presents, trees, wreaths, ribbons, bows and even roast beast. He devises an ingenious, and infamous, plot to stop Christmas from coming to Whoville.
Imagine how he would react if he had to return gifts post-holiday. Imagine him standing in line and having to deal with stringent return policies. Imagine the noise, noise, noise if he didn’t have a receipt. You can practically hear Boris Karloff (for those of you too young to remember him think of a more classic Jim Carrey) sighing about the holiday persecution.
The good news – the Grinch isn’t likely to get many gifts (at least prior to his transformation) and can therefore avoid this whole messy process.
Many Americans are not as lucky. Returning gifts has become as much a holiday tradition as receiving them. While some may be duplicate gifts, more often than not they simply missed the mark on color, size or style. This causes unnecessary stress and can have financial implications.
This sentiment came through loud and clear in the fourth quarter 2012 Principal Financial Well-Being IndexSM. Some key findings from the survey:
- 42% of employees are stressed about the economy
- Nearly two-third view the current economy as unhealthy to some degree
- The economy is causing people to rethink their holiday spending
- 36% indicated that they will be spending less per gift
- 35% will be scaling back on the number of people they buy gifts for
- Just over half of respondents (52%) indicated that holiday spending will put a moderate amount of stress on their personal finances
The respondents also offered some insight into what they would be doing in 2013 to help reduce their financial stress. Many of their responses were expected and consistent with prior years including:
- Put a set amount of money into savings each month (29%)
- Pay off credit card debt (27%)
- Reduce spending by a set amount each month (21%)
- Stop using my credit cards (14%)
Unfortunately a couple of other responses were more tepid including to defer more into my defined contribution plan (10%) and work with a financial planner or other financial advisor (6%). Both of these actions can help put an employee on a path toward long term financial success.
This clearly indicates that there is a role for the employer in helping their employees achieve financial success. This role can include education about the importance of deferring into their retirement plan or providing access to a financial professional as part of their benefit program.
Longer-term employers should learn more about Employee Stock Ownership Plans and other benefit programs that can help employees achieve financial success.
You can view the full report at www.principal.com/wellbeing.
In addition to blogging here, I also tweet regularly about topics of interest to ESOPs. Click to follow me on Twitter- @jlripperger.
Insurance products and plan administrative services are provided by Principal Life Insurance Company a member of the Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®), Des Moines, IA 50392. | <urn:uuid:d1bebd83-241a-4d19-bc08-e83b1ef42881> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.principal.com/2013/01/07/the-grinch-and-employee-benefit-plans/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=bc4cf9c758 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961514 | 664 | 1.625 | 2 |
Discussion will be rife at The University of Queensland
on Friday afternoon, when eight of the nation's best high school debaters battle it out at the St Lucia campus.
The UQ Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
is hosting the preliminary final of the National Schools Debating competition - a week-long tournament which sees teams from every state and territory compete in a round robin format.
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law Associate Dean Professor Sarah Derrington said UQ was pleased to host the preliminary final and welcomed the teams and their supporters on campus.
"I would like to congratulate all of the competitors on being selected to represent their State or Territory at a national level and look forward to a lively debate on Friday," Professor Derrington said.
"Being able to formulate an argument and articulate ideas clearly are skills which will always be valuable, whether at school, university or in the workplace."
Most debates have been held at Brisbane high schools, allowing students an opportunity to see the nation's best debaters in action.
The tournament is also the setting for the selection of the Australian Schools Debating team, which goes on to represent Australia at the World Schools Debating Championships.
Each team in the competition is comprised of four members, with some States also bringing reserves.
Each State is required to provide two adjudicators to judge the debates, as well as a coach to supervise and advise their team.
The debates are adjudicated by a panel of three adjudicators, all of whom have to pass an annually updated national accreditation test, to ensure the best quality of decision and feedback for the debaters.
Media: Penny Robinson at UQ Communications (07 3365 9723, [email protected])
Source: The University Of Queensland http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=21675 | <urn:uuid:8c9bbe68-4f42-448b-8bd7-5bbf9b58dced> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.campusdaily.com.au/read_university_news.php?title=uq_encourages_a_healthy_debate_4509 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956759 | 389 | 1.578125 | 2 |
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