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Get Living Without's FREE Recipe of the Week
Delicious allergy-friendly recipes for you and your family
I learned I had celiac disease at age 50 after an inability to gain weight and chronic tummy troubles sent me to a string of different physicians. Besides gluten, I discovered I was intolerant of dairy, soy, corn and processed sugars and eventually learned to recreate meals without the offending ingredients. Cooking, teaching and writing about food became a passion that developed into a career as I helped others navigate their dietary challenges.
One of the common worries when eliminating problem ingredients from the diet is whether people can get enough nutrients from the foods that are left. Fear not, most nutrients have numerous food sources. Removing a food or food group need not lead to nutritional downfall as long as you avoid the common traps of poor substitutions and picky eating. And if youre avoiding dairy, take calcium and maybe vitamin D. | <urn:uuid:1834a237-4bed-4de5-b19c-a3ef9d6f628c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livingwithout.com/issues/4_18/grapevine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965033 | 186 | 1.546875 | 2 |
"Did you just say somethin' hit the World Trade Center?'' an incredulous military official asked shortly after the beginning of America's terrorism nightmare on September 11, 2001.
Minutes later, with air traffic authorities warning that another commercial jet was off course and just 10km from the White House, Washington ground control sounded in denial, saying it was "probably just a rumour''.
Moments later American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon.
The stunned reactions by authorities to first reports about 9/11, in the full exchanges between ground control, pilots and military authorities during the hijacking chaos of 10 years ago, were made public on Thursday.
They illustrate just how unprepared the United States was for the audacious plot.
While portions of the audio recordings have circulated before, the document published by the Rutgers Law Review allows an unprecedented blow-by-blow recreation of the brief period on September 11, 2001, when four airliners were hijacked and slammed into New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
The raw recordings released in the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the tragedy show air controllers desperately trying to understand what happened to the planes, where they were, and where they were going.
In one exchange, a controller at New York Center says that there were reports of a fire at the Twin Towers.
"And that's, ah, that's the area where we lost the airplane,'' the controller says.
At the same time, an unidentified pilot is asking over the airwaves: "Anybody know what that smoke is in lower Manhattan?''
At Boston Center control, a worker says: "We have, ah, a problem here, we have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New, New York and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there to help us out.''
The answer, revealing the astonishment at what was happening, is: "Is, is this real world or exercise?''
Even at 8:43, a full 19 minutes after suspected American Airlines Flight 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta broadcast to air traffic control that "We have some planes,'' and nine minutes after Boston Center notifies controllers of the flight's hijacking, Major James Fox, leader of the Northeast Air Defense Sector who is patched in to the breaking developments, expresses disbelief.
"I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise,'' Fox said, according to the transcript.
As millions of Americans tuning in to news broadcasts watched the second jet hitting the World Trade Center, New York air traffic controllers sounded dumbfounded at the events.
"Another one just hit, just hit the building,'' a controller said, according to the transcript.
New York Center: "Wow.''
New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON): "Oh my god.''
New York Center: "Another one just hit the World Trade.''
New York TRACON: "The whole building just, ah, came apart.''
New York TRACON: "Oh my god.''
New York Center: "Holy smokes. Alright. I guess you guys are going to be busy.''
Even at 9:38, 35 minutes after the second plane hit the Twin Towers, controllers in Washington sounded skeptical about hijacked Flight 77 bearing down on the US capital.
When asked whether they knew anything about controller reports that a rogue jet was near the White House, Washington Center responded: "No, we do not and it's probably just a rumour.
"But ah, you might want to call ah, ah, National (airport) or Andrews somebody (Andrews Air Force base) somewhere like that and find out, but we don't (know) any thing about that.''
The recordings also include tragic exchanges with flight attendants on Flight 11 about how two of their colleagues had been knifed and hijackers were in the cockpit.
The 9/11 Commission tasked Rutgers Law Review with piecing together the critical communications on that fateful morning, and the Review said in its preface that "the raw material that went into our reconstruction of the day was not obtained easily''.
"If we had not pushed as hard as we did - ultimately persuading the commission to use its subpoena power to obtain the records - many of the critical conversations from that morning may have been lost to history.''
Click here for the full Rutgers report and audio. | <urn:uuid:ed1a089e-6d97-4424-a20c-4acc7cb51c09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10750529 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956557 | 902 | 1.789063 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (May 8, 2003) -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision to detain a Haitian asylum seeker as a means to deter future migrations is a "dangerous precedent," according to the chairman of the bishops' Committee on Migration, who called the decision "troubling."
"Asylum seekers should only be detained when necessary for the limited purposes of individually determining danger to the community and risk of flight," said Miami Auxiliary Bishop Thomas G. Wenski in a statement released today. "People seeking asylum and fleeing persecution should never be sent the message of deterrence through detention."
Bishop Wenski noted that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has called the detention of asylum seekers for the purpose of deterrence "an inappropriate goal."
According to Ashcroft's April 24 decision in the case of 18-year old Haitian David Joseph, categories of asylum seekers can be held indefinitely without regard to their individual circumstances, based solely on their nationality and a determination that they pose a threat to national security.
"U.S. law provides for individualized bond determinations to ascertain whether an individual is a flight risk or a danger to the community, as well as whether an individual presents a national security risk," Bishop Wenski said. "The government conducts security checks on thousands of non-citizens. Surely, the same type of screening could be applied to a few hundred Haitians."
Bishop Wenski called Ashcroft's decision "troubling" and urged him to reverse his ruling.
"We renew our call for respect to be shown for the human dignity of Haitians and other asylum seekers arriving at our shores," Bishop Wenski said. "Most importantly, this new policy may cause undue suffering to thousands of innocent people who come to our land to find protection from persecution." | <urn:uuid:67a1b219-73c1-4655-b87c-38ebc723a1d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://old.usccb.org/comm/archives/2003/03-095.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953859 | 370 | 1.789063 | 2 |
All investing comes with risk. Assessing risk is at the heart of all economic activity. Investing in a frontier market, though, starts with the kind of risk usually associated with darkened alleys and jungle safaris. But, for the person looking for a chance to make not only a significant amount of money but be a part of something that will materially improve the lives of countless people, then a frontier or emerging market provides the best opportunity for that to happen.
In Southeast Asia, the risks start with liberalization of the economy by governments used to having complete control. This was true in the early stages of Vietnam's development, and it is true today as the process of equitization, for example, is still in its infancy. Our stock market has the smallest total market cap in the region at $28 billion US, compared to Indonesia's $351 billion or Malaysia's $268 billion.
Access to good financial information, statistics, and research is poor. One has to do a lot of digging to mine informational gold in Vietnam. Moreover, there is an arbitrage in that information that exists between the untrained analysts in the broker community and their foreign clients who cannot extrapolate the information they need to make timely decisions. While that process is improving it still has a long way to go.
Moreover, there is a tremendous amount of inertia in what are known as State Owned Enterprises. These companies grew in a closed environment and for many the switch from privately run firms with no clear metrics or motives for success to those that operate more publicly and can be assessed by the investing public has been difficult. As always, the market eventually sort things out and finds value, but value is, as I said, difficult to assess. When the process moves forward, however, the results can be spectacular for an investors in the Market Vectors Vietnam ETF, VNM.
Making an SOE into a public entity uncovers inefficiencies which create opportunities for massive earnings and profit growth. This was seen with British Airways in the 1980s, and we're seeing that as well in Vietnam. Sabeco, the largest producer of alcoholic beverages in Vietnam, has seen 80% sequential earnings growth in its first two years of becoming publicly traded.
In places like Laos and Myanmar, their governments have only just begun this process and their governments are very loathe to give up control over important industries like communications and travel. While all of these countries welcome, nee encourage, foreign investment, there are still a number of restrictions on ownership of property and stock for foreigners.
The term foreign room is something to get acquainted with when looking at Asian stocks. A stock at or near its foreign room can sometimes carry with it outsized risk due to simple supply shortages keeping prices elevated.
As with any kind of knowledge, the farther one is from the source of the information, the less reliable it is. And that creates a boom and bust cycle in the shallow stock exchanges in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This discourages longer-term investment by institutional investors. It is estimated that 78% of retail investors in Vietnam's stock exchanges are purely speculating. The situation in real estate is similar at 64%.
Many Southeast Asian countries are following the path blazed by China, utilizing a weak currency and rapid expansion of bank credit to fuel short-term booms, which eventually burst. Vietnam is working through a very difficult time in which the banking stocks within the VNM ETF needs to both consolidate and write down a significant portion of their assets before the next phase of growth can truly begin.
However, given those things, Vietnam represents a fantastic opportunity and challenge. Emerging market countries (EEM) can expand at blistering rates and sustain them for a while. The unleashing of human potential when allowed the freedom to create nearly always surpasses our expectations.
Everyone knows about China's (FXI) growth path. How about a country like Malaysia (EWM) which has sustained 5-7% GDP growth rates for more than a generation, though with a tremendous amount of volatility? Because of their relatively open economy the recoveries are sharp and explosive. It is no longer an emerging market but an established one. For example, Malaysia grew at an incredible 9+% rate from 1988 to 1997. But, the Asian Financial crisis saw GDP contract 7.4% in 1998. In 1999 it expanded at 6.1% and 8.9% in 2000. The country contracted only mildly during the global recession of 2009 and came back with a vengeance in 2010.
At those rates, one's money doubles every 9-10 years. It is not possible to get those kinds of indexed returns in the West anymore, with the S&P 500 having not made a new high since 1999.
Places like Vietnam are attractive because of their potential to become the next Malaysia or Indonesia. The port city of Vung Tau is one of the fastest growing places in the world with annual per capita earnings growing at 46% in 2011, and is 550% higher than the national average because of its unique combination of geographical proximity to the offshore oil and natural gas fields and Ho Chi Minh City, the country's capital and economic center.
Cambodia is interesting because it is growing at near 6% compounded rate and has a very liberal approach to foreign investment. While there is no market for national securities, it is a highly dollarized economy that is working on a number of basic infrastructure projects in coordination with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) to connect Bangkok with Ho Chi Minh City through both Siem Reap and the capital of Phnom Penh. Their rubber exports, for example, grew at 170% in 2011. The government runs a budgetary surplus and the banking industry is evolving in a nearly regulation free environment, which is both a blessing and a curse for foreign investors.
It is obvious that there is a tremendous wellspring of investment interest in the region that can easily overwhelm the local infrastructure. Different countries respond to it differently. In order for Intel to build an IC factory in Vietnam they had to, as well, invest in education and training in IT, engineering and the area's digital infrastructure.
The same thing is happening in the lesser developed nations on the Indochina peninsula. Now Vietnam is flexing its investing muscles, pursuing hydroelectric power, rubber, coal and other natural resources in Laos and Cambodia, themselves becoming the source of foreign investment in their neighbors to strengthen the entire area. Much of this is being done under the guidance of ASEAN. For example, recently construction began on an airport in a remote southern province in Laos to serve the Vietnamese company HAG that has a major investment in the area to produce sugar cane and other products.
Emerging and frontier markets offer both the excitement of pioneering with the opportunity for tremendous success. Not every project succeeds, and not every country embarks on a sustainable growth path. Some, like Malaysia, accept a short, sharp downturn every decade, while others will attempt to forestall the pain with mercantilist policies and banking protection and still others will crash and burn before rising from the ruins like Argentina or Iceland after their hyperinflations of the last decade. But in all of these cases the rewards for the right investment at the right time can be worth all the risk.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. | <urn:uuid:0eac414a-d5fa-43fd-abad-980985f8d66c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/485171-frontier-investing-big-gains-in-vietnam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957046 | 1,516 | 1.820313 | 2 |
EU Eyes New Syria Sanctions as Nations Recall Ambassadorsإقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Europe stepped up pressure on Syria on Tuesday as several nations recalled their ambassadors from Damascus and the EU considered new sanctions to cut the regime's access to cash.
France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands decided to bring back their envoys for consultations, joining Britain and Belgium to protest the regime's relentless opposition crackdown. The United States has closed its embassy.
Paris denounced the "worsening repression" while Rome voiced the "firm condemnation and disgust of the Italian government for the unacceptable violence perpetrated by the regime in Damascus against the civilian population".
Gulf states also decided to withdraw their envoys, while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would launch a new initiative "with those countries who stand by the Syrian people, not the regime".
Erdogan denounced Russia and China's torpedoing of a U.N. resolution backed by the West and the Arab League as a "fiasco for the civilized world" which had handed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a "license to kill".
"We cannot remain silent on what is happening in Syria and we cannot turn our backs on the Syrian people," Erdogan said as regime tanks pounded the central city of Homs for a fourth straight day.
During a visit to Brussels, Turkey's European affairs minister Egemen Bagis called on the international community to work together to put "an end to this massacre" and convince the regime to implement reforms.
The latest moves came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with Assad in Damascus that the Syrian leader was "fully committed" to ending the bloodshed.
French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Lavrov should use Russia's influence to make Damascus "understand its isolation" and support an Arab League plan aimed at ending the violence.
The 27-member EU began discussing new measures against Syria's central bank and a ban on gold and gems after China and Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution backing the League plan at the weekend.
"There's a long way to go yet, but we're looking at economic measures which will tighten further the Syrian regime's access to sources of finance," a European diplomat said.
Another diplomat said the sanctions could target Syrian central bank transactions as well as a ban on the sale of gold and other precious metals -- similar to measures taken against Iran last month.
The EU has already prohibited the delivery of bank notes and coins to the Syrian central bank in a previous set of sanctions approved last year.
A ban on gold and gems had been agreed in principle last year but a final decision was never taken. Diplomats said it was put back on the table this week.
The EU has imposed an asset freeze and visa ban on 108 individuals and an asset freeze on 38 entities. A diplomat said more asset freezes were being discussed.
The bloc is also enforcing an arms embargo and a ban on imports of Syrian crude oil.
The EU's External Action Service, however, has no plans to withdraw its head of delegation in Syria, arguing that it needs to have people on the ground to "report and observe what is going on" since there is no free press in Syria.
Michael Mann, an EU spokesman, said the bloc's foreign service will continue "to do everything we can diplomatically" with the 27 EU states and international partners "to try and bring an end to this totally unacceptable situation."
The spokesman for foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said the EU continues to support Arab League efforts to end the 11-month-old crackdown, which rights groups say has claimed the lives of about 6,000 people.
"We think that this should be an Arab-led process," Mann said. "We call upon the international community to take its responsibilities and to have an international solution to this problem."
Speaking on a visit to Lisbon, Morocco's Foreign Minister Saad-Dine El Othmani called for "every possible pressure to stop the violence" short of a military intervention.
He added that it was up to China and Russia to step up the pressure on Syria. | <urn:uuid:406fe868-63a3-4f95-891f-baa8afe2777e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/29222-eu-eyes-new-syria-sanctions-as-nations-recall-ambassadors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963681 | 854 | 1.5 | 2 |
Philippines to question priest in ivory trade
MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine authorities say they will question a Roman Catholic priest about ivory smuggling after his collection of ivory religious icons was featured in National Geographic magazine.
Monsignor Cristobal Garcia is quoted in the October issue of the magazine as describing how to bring ivory figurines into the United States.
National Bureau of Investigation official Sixto Comia said Wednesday that authorities are investigating the origin of ivory icons widely used in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. He said Garcia will be questioned but declined to give further details.
An international ban on trade in ivory and elephant tusks has been in effect since 1990.
The head of the Philippine bishops' organization, Archbishop Jose Palma, said Garcia should be allowed to explain. He said the church supports the ivory ban.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:aebd1b62-8921-4679-9da1-dd43dd4c1ee2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/world/21008635471388/philippines-to-question-priest-in-ivory-trade/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952104 | 183 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The “Cat in the Hat” and other famous characters from the pages of Dr. Seuss’ books will be coming to life on stage this weekend at Newton High School. The school is presenting “Seussical the Musical” with three performances: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17, and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 18, in the NHS auditorium. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students. “It’s a very high-energy show that’s great for a family outing, and it brings Dr. Seuss to life,” said NHS theater director Cassandra Conley. “... It’s kid friendly.” The show’s plot follows the story “Horton Hears a Who!,” about an elephant named Horton who tries to protect the people of Who-ville, who live on a tiny speck of dust. However, other characters from famous Dr. Seuss tales, such as “The Cat in the Hat,” also make appearances in the show. Conley said her students have been working hard to prepare for the show. They have been rehearsing two to three times a week since September, and students also have helped build the show’s whimsical sets and designed some of the colorful costumes. Some students are performing in the musical’s pit orchestra, as well. She estimates about 100 students are involved in the production. “I think a lot of the kids have really excelled in overcoming obstacles and have done really well with design,” she said. “It’s definitely student-driven.” She said being in a musical is a good experience for students and teaches them creativity, flexibility and problem-solving skills. “I think theater helps prepare them for the world by learning life skills,” she said. Reservations for “Seussical the Musical” may be made by emailing [email protected] or by calling 284-6280, ext. 2430. | <urn:uuid:b77891e2-dbfe-44f5-b8aa-0555ac092637> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thekansan.com/article/20121116/NEWS/121119679/1001/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97449 | 449 | 1.757813 | 2 |
No Consensus For Obama or Romney Policies! Lowest Voter Turnout Since 2004!Submitted by Richard Taylor APP on Wed, 11/07/2012 - 11:16
NO CONSENSUS! Say American Voters to either Obama's policies or Romney's policies.
" WASHINGTON - A significant drop in voter turnout in Tuesday's election didn't keep President Barack Obama from winning a second term.
Early figures from states where more than 90 percent of the vote had been counted suggest fewer people voted this year than four years ago, when voters set turnout records as they elected Obama.
In most states, the numbers are shaping up to be even lower than in 2004, said Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate."
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levine all tried to OVER HYPE the numbers of voters at the polls in the attempt misinform their radio audiences and perpetuate a gross LIE of Romney's popularity who was scathingly trounced by the lowest rated president possibly in history, with the lowest per capita turnout.
Americans clearly Showing an NO CONSENSUS MESSAGE through LOW VOTER Turnout that Obama's Policy STINKS and Romney's policies stunk even WORSE.
This was compounded by the large numbers of voters voting for Ron Paul and ANYONE BUT Obama and Romney.
Read More on Low Voter Turnout:
American Patriot Party.CC | <urn:uuid:300cedc9-e17b-4ec1-9d6a-26481225216d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailypaul.com/262104/no-consensus-for-obama-or-romney-policies-lowest-voter-turnout-since-2004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942505 | 299 | 1.71875 | 2 |
It's that time of year. What's the old song? "I can still remember..." And I do. It's what I talk about when I'm invited to be a graduation speaker and what I write about every year at this time.
When the April figures on unemployment were released May 4, they were more than disappointing. They were deeply disturbing.
Editor, Manteca Bulletin, I have only followed bits and pieces of the water tower controversy. My only question regarding this issue is "what constitutes a landmark?" I think of a landmark, not as a structure, but of the people that first erected that structure – their struggles, their hearts, their faith, their values and their principles. Therefore, I believe that a true landmark should be a tribute to those people and ...
In 1993, a jury convicted Clarence Aaron for his role in two planned cocaine deals. Aaron was a 23-year-old college student. It was his first offense. Unlike his co-defendants, Aaron was not a career drug dealer. He didn't know enough to plead guilty and testify against others to win a reduced sentence. He perjured himself in court. A federal judge sentenced Aaron to three terms of life without parole for a first-time nonviolent drug offense.
President Barack Obama emerged from his ideological closet last week when he said, "Same-sex couples should be able to get married." Obama supported same-sex marriage in 1996. He opposed same-sex marriage, however, in 2004 and 2008 and right up until Vice President Joe Biden announced that he is "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex nuptials on "Meet the Press" May 6. Thus, I would categorize the president's position on same-sex marriage not as having evolved, as he ...
National Public Radio's Kai Ryssdal recently talked about the weak economy. His guests, two reporters from The Washington Post and The New York Times, acknowledged the obvious - that the economy is underperforming.
Depending on which poll you believe, Obama is either up by 3, 7 or 9 points, or down by 1, 3 or 5.
First, the corruption. Then, the cover-up. And now, a sham to cover-up the cover-up.
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," President John F. Kennedy famously said in his inaugural address.
Editor, Manteca Bulletin, When the Obama Administration's healthcare financing plan was signed into law, President Obama and Congress promised that funds under the new law would not cover abortions. This has now been proven to be empty rhetoric. Why? Because the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has mandated that under the healthcare law, private health insurance plans must cover the "full range of FDA approved ...
"My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war," said Barack Obama from Bagram Air Base.
President Barack Obama was entitled to a victory lap. In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama stuck out his neck when he said that there were terrorists holed up in the mountains of Pakistan and that he was willing to do something about it.
As a candidate for the presidency, George W. Bush took heat for supposedly saying something like, "God wanted me to become president." He never said that. But no matter. Here comes another yet another Bible-banging religious conservative "taking his marching orders from God." Apparently, if you feel God endorses a particular path, God wants you to keep the news to yourself.
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., has made some nasty charges during his 19 terms in Congress. Stark has called a female colleague a "whore," a male colleague a "little fruitcake" and a black Cabinet member "a disgrace to his race." At a political debate last month, Stark accused Democratic challenger Eric Swalwell, a city councilman, of accepting "hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes" - without presenting any proof.
Mitt Romney can't get past the Seamus story. In 1983, Romney put the family dog in a carrier on the roof of his Chevy as his wife, their five sons and their luggage squeezed in to the station wagon for a vacation. The dog got diarrhea. Romney has not figured out how to put the 29-year-old story behind him. So critics continue to use the episode as the defining anecdote about the GOP hopeful.
Compared to the hell Jackie Robinson went through, Jason Collins is getting a ticker tape parade.
The Washington Post reported something surprising on April 29 - a hidden-camera expose by pro-life advocates. On the front page of the Metro section, the Post reported how a veteran D.C. abortion doctor named Cesare Santangelo told a 24-week pregnant woman that in the unlikely event that an abortion resulted in a live birth, "we would not help it."
"The worst mistake of my presidency," said Ronald Reagan of his decision to put Marines into the middle of Lebanon's civil war, where 241 died in a suicide bombing of their barracks.
The Pecksniffs of America had nothing but scorn for Congress' vote last week to stop furloughs of air traffic controllers, which were ostensibly mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act.
Hours after the Boston Marathon bombings but before authorities identified suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, President Barack Obama purposefully addressed the nation. "We will find out who did this. We'll find out why they did this," the president pledged. "Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice."
As much as liberals had their fingers crossed after the Boston Marathon bombings - please don't let it be a Muslim, please don't let it be a Muslim - that's who the terrorists were. All that wishing and hoping is based on the very ugly premise that "middle America" is a cesspool of bigotry and hate, a sentiment shared by Muslim terrorists.
This week, the Obama administration furloughed 14,500 air traffic controllers - staffers will lose two days of work per month - ostensibly to comply with the 2011 Budget Control Act's $85 billion in sequester cuts this year. The Federal Aviation Administration's share is $637 million. So expect delays at the airport. That's the idea, but it didn't have to be.
Sometimes a picture speaks volumes. Sometimes it's outright deceptive. The picture of "Bomber No. 2" didn't look a bit like a mass murderer. A sweet-faced college kid, the former lifeguard, the nice young man described by classmates and friends. It couldn't be. There must be some outside organization calling the shots. An international conspiracy, perhaps. Brainwashing.
The bipartisan immigration package put forward by the Gang of Eight looks like a reasonable bill, but it likely won't become law, and it probably shouldn't.
WASHINGTON - It's sure to be a major motion picture worthy of the talents of Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. If the FBI does indeed have the right suspects, the docudrama screenplay - "based on a true story" - will begin with FBI public-domain footage of two young men carrying backpacks along a crowded street and then two bombs detonating near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more than 170. ...
Lead poisoning is entirely preventable. | <urn:uuid:174b24cd-dc20-4e32-8804-8528b9c434bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mantecabulletin.com/archives/section/160/?page=3&archive_page=30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977144 | 1,518 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Election Events: U.S. Consulate in Thessaloniki, Greece
As submitted by embassy staff
Consulate General Thessaloniki hosted an election returns breakfast for approximately 60 students and faculty from the American Farm School, Pinewood and Anatolia College – the three American-affiliated educational institutions in Thessaloniki, Greece. Our interns – Greek students from local universities – began by giving an overview of the U.S. political system to the diverse group of students which also included international students from Albania, Macedonia, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain. The guests asked questions about the Electoral College, prompting a discussion of the pros and cons of the system, and its role in providing equal representation for large and small states. Students were interested to learn that federal elections are conducted exclusively by states and that each state has multiple offices and issues up for vote. I passed around a copy of a blank ballot from my home state of California to show the diversity of issues and candidates – from elections to the local water board, school district, and sheriff – all the way to electing a president and vice president. Because of space limitations at the venue and high-demand from students to attend, one school even required prospective attendees to write essays about the U.S. political system and those with the best papers were invited to attend. Another school required those in attendance to present what they learned to their classmates after the event. Over breakfast, students also had the opportunity to cast their own ballots. The result? An overwhelming victory for President Obama. They also clamored to take photos with the life size cutouts of the candidates and the event concluded with students watching both the concession and later, victory speeches. When we asked the guests for their assessment of the speeches — several students spoke of both Governor Romney and President Obama’s emphasis on the need for Americans to unite and work together to address common problems – a message they greatly appreciated. Despite the early hour, the discussion and excitement of watching the returns energized the students and furthered their understanding of the American political system.
|Click above images to enlarge and scroll through photo album.|
Additional photos of election events can be found at http://www.facebook.com/USEmbassyAthens. | <urn:uuid:8e7902b9-7ce9-4438-a8c3-37f65a085e1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humanrights.gov/2012/11/19/observing-the-u-s-election-thessaloniki-greece/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968323 | 460 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Alcoholics Anonymous: The First Step
April 22, 2012
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By: Randy Badgerow
Family Hope Center will be reviewing each step of the 12 step program during the next few weeks.
Why can't I stop drinking? It is ruining all my relationships. I spend all my money and I am just sick of it. Does this sound familiar, then you should read this?
The twelve steps of Alcohols Anonymous were created and founded by William Wilson, (Bill W), a New York stockbroker, and Dr Robert Smith, MD (Dr. Bob), a surgeon from Akron, Ohio. Both men had been introduced to recovery through a Christian program called the Oxford Group. They had both tried many ways to stay sober but it was not working no matter what they tried. They met each other in Akron, Ohio when Bill W., as he is lovingly known, was on a business trip. The business venture did not pan out but the rest is history. As Scott Peck wrote, "it is not nuclear fission that we will remember about the twentieth century, but the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous."
The first step states: We are powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. How did we become powerless? When did it happen? How did it happen? These are questions many of us in recovery have asked ourselves before and after we came to the twelve step program that we are in.
First, it is not our fault and it is not a sign of weak character. People ask, "Why don't they just stop?" Well, if we could stop on our own it would not be an addiction. We are very strong in most areas of our lives except this one. It could be genetics, environment, the drug (some are quicker for addiction, meth, cocaine, pain medication like vicodin, or anti-anxiety meds like xanax, valium), emotional problems especially abuse, sexual, physical, or emotional. Post traumatic stress can bring it on. So, as you can see many things cause it.
The easiest answer that has been offered is when we can no longer predict how much or how long we are going to drink, every single time we drink. When we had no intentions on drinking that day and the next thing we knew we were drinking. We can no longer stop, once we begin until we are done. We drink in spite of the negative consequences that might have occurred last time we drank. Our friends and/or families are confronting us about our drinking. "Just don't drink so much, that might help, or maybe you should only drink on weekends", or "if you do not stop drinking I do not know what I am going to do."
That first step brings us to the point of we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. We have had enough and want to get on with our recovery.
Most people manage their life by making a decision from their intellect and the emotions do not overtake them. The unmanageability for those addicted to alcohol or drugs comes from an inversion of the equation I/E + Alcohol or drugs = E/I, the E is emotion and the I is intellect. Our life starts becoming a lot of emotional reactions or just the opposite, no reaction at all. Everything becomes a drama. We start spending more money then we have and our boss starts asking us about why we are not as dependable or productive as we used to be. Of course we always have an answer, usually a lie, or some kind of response.
Maybe we over react and quit or threaten to. Or we tell our significant other that we are going to leave or they tell us the same thing. It just starts feeling like life is in chaos, because it is.
As we get recovery in our life, the equation gets inverted back to where it needs to be, E/I + Recovery = I/E.
Our agency would be very willing and able to help you along in the process of recovery. We are trained, educated and experienced in recovery from our own hurts, hang-ups, and issues that addiction brings into lives.
We have been helping people with addiction problems since 1988.
Visit us at www.familyhopecenterbac.org or call 989-893-1165.
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At home with history
Who needs new age watchamacallits when artefacts rich in history can decorate your home?
Treasure House lives up to its name.
ABOUT A hundred years ago round, huge bowls, called urulis in Malayalam, were used in large joint family households for cooking. But now they are seen as ornamental pieces usually filled with water and flower petals floating on them.
They are an attractive addition to any drawing room however, and the old brass bowl definitely does complement any drab corner!
In metros such as Bangalore and Chennai, stores dealing in antique pieces have never had it better, with more and more people looking to add that extra touch of creativity. Most of these pieces come from dismantled old bungalows or ancestral residences, and fetch their owners a fortune from antique dealers.
Treasure House on Car Street is home to antique pieces from all over the country.
The store also has an impressive collection of curios hand picked from places as far apart as Sarangpur in Uttar Pradesh, Kolkata, Rajasthan, and even Nepal!
"We deal with antiques and artefacts primarily because we have an interest in them and not because there is business potential in this field,'' says Sooraj Kiran Nayak, who, along with his family, has been running the store since the last eight years. The family's first business venture remains the furniture production store Woodhouse.
While most of the pieces in the store are made of brass, the finish given to each piece lends a distinct look. The brass nutcrackers, for example, come in several kinds of designs and polishing. Some of them have the rusty, corroded look; others have been given a golden polishing. Although rarely used on an everyday basis nowadays, these nutcrackers can be used as decorative pieces on the walls or on wood panelling.
A chessboard made of granite with chess pieces made of brass metal in Roman style is something that really looks straight from the past. This antique piece from Aligarh costs a fortune, but there are many willing customers, says Sooraj. "Brass will always retain its price value even decades from now. It is the way a design or a structure is crafted and carved that matters. And also the polishing, which can always be touched upon," he adds.
Beautifully carved figurines of women in traditional Odissi costumes made in German silver are another attraction here. Brought from a village in Orissa, these figurines have been handcrafted by local craftsmen there. The German silver polish gives it just the right kind of subtlety and fine finishing that traditional crafts like these usually lack.
The popular Chinese Feng-shui crafts are also found here, such as the three-legged frog with a coin in its mouth. "This is supposed to be kept at the entrance of one's door facing inward. It is a sign of wealth flowing into the household,'' says Sooraj. He does add though that there's less demand for Feng-shui crafts now.
"Many artefacts have a certain finish which gives them an antique look. Most of these artefacts are made by village craftsmen from the remotest areas in the North,'' says Sooraj. His family takes turns to travel around the country in search of valuable, unique goods. They even have an enviable collection at their own home.
Centuries-old pillars from dismantled old bungalows in and around Dakshina Kannada and Kerala now find a place at the Nayak household.
"One needs to have a keen eye to spot that creative piece, which could even be just lying around ignored. One of the oldest brass vessels that was found at my home has now been converted into a washbasin,'' he says.
Goodbye ceramics and concrete. The past is making a comeback now!
Treasure House is at No.1, Arathy Place, Car Street. You can contact the store on 2494488 or 514844.
Send this article to Friends by | <urn:uuid:b1e79fd8-b8f0-484d-aa30-8bc0bc1b66af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2004/09/13/stories/2004091300800400.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966699 | 842 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Email deliverability: what's it all about?
You can think of email deliverability as a fancy word for describing all the issues involved with getting your email delivered to the intended recipient. Anything that affects whether your outgoing email appears in front of the recipient comes under the heading of deliverability.
The expression is also used to describe your relative success at getting email delivered. That's why you hear people talk about "improving" their email deliverability, which means taking action to ensure more emails reach the people who signed up for them.
If you're new to email marketing, you might wonder just what issues there could be around delivery. After all, you write an email, you put in the recipient's email address, you click "send", and you expect it to land in front of that recipient a moment or two later.
Unfortunately, when you send marketing email that goes out to dozens, hundreds, thousands or millions of recipients, not all of those recipients are going to get your email. In fact, it's not unusual for a good 10% to miss out on your message.
Nobody can click on a link in an email they never see. Which is why deliverability is important. The worse your deliverability, the less successful your email marketing efforts.
So why don't all the emails you send land at the desired destination? There are two main reasons: bounces and anti-spam measures.
You can think of a bounce as an email that is "returned to sender." The email gets sent off OK, but for some technical reason it can't get through to the recipient email address. The email infrastructure recognizes the delivery problem and normally informs the sender that the email has not got through by sending back an informative email (the bounce message).
Here's an example of just such a bounce message:
There are many reasons why an email might "bounce", but they generally fall into two camps.
The first group of reasons is where there is some permanent technical problem with the recipient's address. For example, the email address you're sending to just does not exist. If you tried to send email to mark@aol, it would bounce (just like the original email referenced in the above bounce message.)
There is no mark@aol. There might be a [email protected], but the email systems we use can't think for themselves. They just see a bad address and bounce the email.
If people submit their email address to you so you can send them marketing emails, you might rightly ask how you'd ever end up with a non-existent address in your list.
Fact is, non-existent addresses are inevitable. For example, people change jobs and their old email address gets deleted. Addresses in your email list "go bad" over time. A certain level of hard bounces (as these permanent address problems are often called) is to be expected.
The second group of reasons for a bounce is where there is some temporary technical problem with delivering the email. One reason for a temporary problem is where there is a dodgy connection somewhere along the line. For example, if the website you're currently reading went offline for a few hours, emails sent to me would not get through.
These temporary problems (often called soft bounces) are handled in a variety of ways by the email system, depending on the nature of the problem and the services being used to send and deliver the email.
Often, the system keeps hold of your message and tries to send it again later. Sometimes the bounce message will tell you this. Sometimes you might get a bounce message several days after you sent out the email, telling you that the system has just given up trying to deliver to a certain address. Sometimes you might get no bounce message at all.
Bounces are a science unto themselves, but for now it's enough to know that technical difficulties can interfere with delivery of email.
2. Anti-spam measures
Anti-spam measures are where the system receiving the email at the recipient's end deliberately interferes with delivery of your email.
Unwanted spam emails are a scourge on the Internet, and the businesses who provide the services, software and infrastructure for people to use email go to great lengths to prevent spam emails getting through to people. So there are various mechanisms in place for identifying email as spam.
Any email so identified is either deleted undelivered or sent through to the recipient's junk/spam folder, rather than to their inbox. So the recipient never sees the spam email...either because it was never delivered in the first place or because it disappeared into that junk email folder.
The problem for email marketers is threefold.
First, the anti-spam mechanisms in place are not perfect. Sometimes they label a perfectly normal email as spam. That's the so-called false positive problem, where perfectly legitimate marketing email gets caught up in the anti-spam net.
That's why you can't assume that just because you don't spam, you won't have delivery problems due to anti-spam measures.
Second, the number of different anti-spam mechanisms out there is enormous. Each email service may take a different approach to controlling spam. This makes it difficult for marketers to create and send out legitimate marketing emails that take account of anti-spam mechanisms.
Third, when your email gets called spam and dealt with accordingly, you very rarely get any feedback. You rarely get a bounce message like you would if you were trying to send email to a non-existent address. So it's not always easy to pinpoint the cause of any particular delivery problems. Or even to know if you have one.
You can begin to see why deliverability is such a big issue among email marketers. Fortunately, there are things you can do as a sender of marketing emails to ensure as many get through as possible.
The nice thing about delivery problems due to bounces is that you know about them. You get bounce messages that usually (but not always) contain information that explains the problem. So you can take the appropriate action.
If you use an email marketing service to send out your emails, the reports they give you should include information about bounces. Here are excerpts from a report created after a small batch of emails went out to subscribers: it tells the sender how many emails bounced and why.
The sender can now take those two non-existent addresses ("user unknown") off her list. And she should keep an eye on those addresses that have connection problems ("timed out".) If those same addresses continue to bounce when she sends emails to them later, she'll need to take them off her address list, too.
Many email marketing services build this bounce management concept into their system. If an address produces a soft bounce for X emails in a row, then it's automatically removed from future mailings.
It's important to "clean up" your address list like this because bounces are more than just an inconvenience.
Repeatedly sending email to an address that doesn't exist is something spammers do. So such behavior can result in one more tick on the "is this spam?" checklist used by email systems when deciding whether to deliver your email or not. Increasingly, these systems are restricting the delivery of emails from senders who produce too many bounces.
Managing bounces comes under the heading of "list hygiene," and you can learn more about that here.
Coping with anti-spam measures is another issue entirely. And this is a hot and complex topic in email marketing. You'll find dozens of appropriate articles and documents in the deliverability category here at Email Marketing Reports. But let me offer some words of reassurance...
Anti-spam measures are there to stop spam. They're not there to stop legitimate marketing email. In fact, the anti-spam fraternity and marketers are on the same side. Neither want spam to get through and neither want normal emails to get blocked or filtered out from the delivery flow.
The anti-spam groups dislike spam because it uses up infrastructural resources and annoys the heck out of people.
Marketers dislike spam because it clutters up inboxes and casts a bad light on email as a whole. And because it forces the email community to put up delivery hurdles and blocks that legitimate emails get caught in too.
There are lots of clever practices to ensure your emails are not labelled and rejected as spam. But the basic message is this...you can go a long way to maintaining good deliverability by sticking to this basic principle:
Send useful, relevant emails to people who have explicitly requested them.
Spammers send email to people who don't want them...so don't do that.
The emails that spammers send contain nothing useful...so don't do that.
Good email deliverability comes from bounce management and permission-based email marketing. Permission-based means ensuring that what you send and when you send it reflects not just your own business needs and wishes, but the needs and wishes of the recipient. For more on the critical issue of permission, see these articles. And don't forget the other deliverability articles listed here. Good luck!
Need more email marketing guidance? Try the email newsletter.
First published: May 2007 | <urn:uuid:dac8a600-41f1-4120-9f49-5b260ee47f85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/deliverability/introduction.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960241 | 1,899 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Some things in cycling never change.
Jerome K Jerome wrote "Three Men on the Bummel" back in 1914. It's a marvellous work, one of my favourite books, perhaps one of the funniest books of all time. The protagonists go on a cycle tour, and have many adventures before and during the tour. In some ways it's quite old fashioned, but in others its right up to date. Most of the cycling problems are still with us today. For instance, there are still saddles which cause conversations like the following:
I said: “Can you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have not tried?”
He said: “It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be found.”
I said: “You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world of joy and sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of kidneys.”
He said: “You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles.”
“Very likely,” I replied. “The box you bought it in had a picture on the cover, representing a sitting skeleton—or rather that part of a skeleton which does sit.”
He said: “It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the—”
I said: “We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me indelicate.”
He said: “Medically speaking, it was right.”
“Possibly,” I said, “for a man who rode in nothing but his bones. I only know that I tried it myself, and that to a man who wore flesh it was agony. Every time you went over a stone or a rut it nipped you; it was like riding on an irritable lobster. You rode that for a month.”
“I thought it only right to give it a fair trial,” he answered.
I said: “You gave your family a fair trial also; if you will allow me the use of slang. Your wife told me that never in the whole course of your married life had she known you so bad tempered, so un-Christian like, as you were that month."
The book is well out of copyright and can be downloaded for free. The text is available from Project Gutenberg amongst other places. Alternatively, why not buy a copy. It's a thin book ideal for reading on a cycling holiday. It's one of a small number of cycling books that I think are well worth reading and if you're going to buy it you could do worse than the very inexpensive copy on our website amazon shop.
The picture is one of those by L Raven Hill which illustrates the book. It's of "The Overhauling Fiend". Those who have read the book will realise he's another character who is still with us. Before Three Men on the Bummel, the same Author wrote the more well know Three Men in a Boat. Also a wonderful book, but with fewer bikes in it. My wife suggests not reading either of these books on public transport as laughing out loud attracts too much attention. | <urn:uuid:cb2889d3-e0ab-4d9e-9875-7770a32b4959> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2008/10/imperfect-world-of-joy-and-sorrow.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984126 | 715 | 1.835938 | 2 |
By Matthew A. Ward
PORTSMOUTH, Virginia (Reuters) - Virginia lawmakers took a step toward outlawing abortion on Tuesday by approving "personhood" legislation that grants individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception.
The Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children "from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development."
The measure now heads to the Senate, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats but with Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling wielding the tie-breaking vote.
Republican Delegate Bob Marshall, an abortion opponent who introduced the legislation, said the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States would not have been rendered if Texas state law had regarded the unborn as a person "in the full sense."
"So this is a first step, a necessary step, but it's not sufficient to directly challenge Roe," Marshall said in a phone interview.
Virginia's approach differs from failed attempts to define a fertilized egg as a legal person in Colorado in 2008 and 2010 and in Mississippi in 2011.
Virginia's effort avoids involving a constitutional amendment like those states, instead seeking changes throughout the legal code, said Elizabeth Nash, public policy associate at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues.
But she said the intent is the same, with the measure ultimately aimed at banning abortion, contraception and infertility treatment.
"Should this bill become law, it could have a far-reaching impact on women's access to health care," Nash said. "No state, as yet, has adopted anything like this."
Marshall said the measure does not have the authority to ban birth control or infertility treatment.
"Let's just say that the imaginations of the opponents are fertile, but their arguments are sterile," he said.
The national anti-abortion group Parenthood USA issued a statement ahead of Tuesday's vote calling on House Republicans to strengthen the measure before considering it.
Ted Miller, a spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America, said state Republicans pushing the Virginia measure had hoodwinked voters after campaigning on the economy and jobs ahead of last fall's general election, when the Republican Party gained seats in the General Assembly.
"That agenda is out of touch with the values and priorities of Virginians, as well as Americans across the country," Miller said.
Though such a measure has yet to pass both legislative chambers in any state, Miller said Virginia was now the third state where a personhood bill had been approved by a single legislative chamber, following North Dakota and Alabama.
Similar legislation failed last year in the Virginia Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
A spokesman for Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell said the governor would review the measure if the Senate sends it to his desk but did not give any insight into whether McDonnell would sign it into law.
The House also passed a second anti-abortion measure on Tuesday requiring that women be offered the chance to view an ultrasound fetal image prior to an abortion. That legislation was approved in a 63-36 vote, sending it to the Senate.
(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Trotta) | <urn:uuid:07a06240-ca7b-409b-8f7a-62417790c5e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whbl.com/news/articles/2012/feb/14/anti-abortion-personhood-bill-advances-in-virginia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962889 | 661 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Today, during lunch at Arby’s, I saw a story about someone getting fired because of something they said online. Sure, there are PLENTY of these stories and I’ve written on this subject from a job-seeker’s point of view in the past. This one is a little different.
This time, the comments the employees were terminated for were said in a password protected area of MySpace. Granted, it seems the employer’s legal team has shaped their story well enough at this point to cover their asses, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on whether making a concerted effort to keep conversations private online should protect you from legal action. Is there such a thing as a private conversation online? Is a password protected myspace conversation any different than a conversation via email? If an employer knowingly reads communications they know weren’t meant for them, does that put them at risk? | <urn:uuid:fcf1cd43-e3da-436e-b732-cfb7b4025546> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://johnrhopkins.com/another-story-about-getting-fired-because-of-myspace/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977744 | 191 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Shopping in the Middle East and around the world is set to become more sophisticated as an increasing number of international retailers sell their products online.
According to research published this week by CBRE, the amount of online shopping conducted globally is set to double. The property consultant surveyed 50 leading international retailers with a combined worldwide network exceeding 32,000 stores.
They said while online sales currently represent 5 per cent of their total, in two years they estimate this will double to 10 per cent.
Although 70 per cent of international retailers view their businesses as based in physical stores, 63 per cent say by 2014 their businesses will be fully integrated with online shopping and mobile apps. The survey found although online shopping remained in its infancy outside the developed markets of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australasia, retailers felt online retailing would play an increasingly important role in emerging markets including the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Central and eastern Europe.
With a dearth of postal services hampering the growth of online shopping in many parts of the Middle East, two thirds of retailers predicted over the next two years, shoppers would be ordering online and picking up their goods in stores. When asked how they would do more business online, 80 per cent of respondents said they would offer shoppers the chance to use online kiosks in their stores.
Another 77 per cent said they would offer mobile apps or smartphone-enabled websites within the next two years.
"In the Middle East, participation in multi-channel retailing is still in its infancy with consumers immersed in an established mall culture that has become a focal point for everyday life and an avenue for social interaction among the region's growing youth population," said Matthew Green, the head of research & consultancy for CBRE Middle East. "However, there has been notable growth in participation levels for Web-based auction sites, group discount sites and flight and hotel bookings engines.
"To be successful online retailers will have to become more creative in their offer in order to entice shoppers away from organised formats," he said. | <urn:uuid:5c447f2f-e54f-4e8a-9245-0cfc25cd2cc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albawaba.com/print/business/online-shopping-middle-east-443838?quicktabs_accordion=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965208 | 412 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Aussies cash in on good causes
"Finding confusion is exciting, as it is an opportunity to provide useful tools" ... Luke Miller, co-founder of Offset Options.
Australian James Windon is one of the top executives at social giving site Causes.com, which has raised $US40 million for over 500,000 causes in the last four years - and he says he's just getting started.
The former Sydneysider believes technology will be the most significant force for social change this century, and he's one of several Australian tech entrepreneurs around the world who are getting rich while solving global social and environmental problems.
In the Valley, you're only as important as the issues you are trying to solve.
Last month this website reported on Australian apps to help people with eating disorders and smoking addictions, but this was just the tip of the iceberg. Windon, along with another Australian, Luke Miller of Offset Options in Spain, are making some of the biggest waves in for-profit philanthropy.
James Windon of Causes.com.
Windon is the VP of business development at Causes.com in San Francisco, the world's largest online platform for philanthropy and activism. The site was started by billionaire Sean Parker, of Facebook and Napster fame, and Windon is responsible for the overall business and revenue strategy.
Anyone can use Causes to promote a cause they support and, with tight social media integration, recruit people to become part of it. Windon said over the last four years more than 170 million people had used the Causes platform to create 500,000 causes, collectively raising over $US40 million.
But there is much progress still to be made, he said, noting that online giving represents only 11 per cent of total charity, while advocacy campaigns rarely take proper advantage of the web.
''Silicon Valley is full of smart people interested in doing good. Most of my peers didn't join or start tech companies primarily to make money. They view technology as the most leveraged way to solve significant issues,'' said Windon.
The Causes campaigns so far range from Amazon Watch, which sought to raise money to fund international protests against the building of the world's third largest dam in Brazil, to people donating their birthdays.
Over 400,000 people, including Jon Bon Jovi, have used Causes to donate their birthday, asking friends and family to donate all presents to charity instead.
''We are trying to modernise the century-old $300 billion charitable industry; we are trying to build the infrastructure to meaningfully organise millions of people online; and we are trying to provide individuals with tools to effectively leverage their social network and make positive impact,'' said Windon.
Windon moved from Sydney to Washington DC to do his masters in international trade law. After graduating he spent much of 2009 in Geneva working at the World Trade Organisation, but he joined Causes in April 2010 after searching for somewhere he could quickly and invidually effect meaningful change.
Quoting Paul Graham of the startup incubator YCombinator, he said that what mattered in Silicon Valley was the effect you have on the world.
''In the Valley, you're only as important as the issues you are trying to solve,'' he said.
About a year ago Causes raised $1 million for a children's hospital in San Francisco, thanks to the generosity of the Silicon Valley elite.
Another Australian, Luke Miller, co-founder of Offset Options, chose Barcelona, Spain for his base. Offset was one of the first companies to join the European startup incubator Seedcamp, which is similar to YCombinator in the US.
One of Miller's biggest wins was being able to assist U2 in offsetting the environmental impact of their 360 tour.
Offset works primarily with travel, logistics and events companies to assess their service's carbon footprint, select from a pre-screened list of offset suppliers and projects, and then, using the web, offer their customers the ability to pay a small amount extra to offset the environmental impact.
Miller said the key to his success was the ability for companies to integrate his offset solutions into their online order and sales systems. This means that customers get all the information about the offsets and the option to pay for one while making the initial online purchase.
''We are working towards making consumers more informed around their purchasing behaviour, informing them of how to take action and integrating this with online technology and tools,'' he said.
Miller and the other co-founder, German Olaf Petzschmann, met while they were studying for their MBAs at the ESADE Business School. They created the business from one of the study rooms at ESADE in Barcelona in 2009.
''I began my interest in carbon markets when in Mongolia, investigating how we could use it in the context of power generation in remote parts of the countryside,'' Miller said.
''I found the market extraordinarily confusing and lacking transparency. For many tech people finding confusion is exciting, as it is an opportunity to provide useful tools.
While Silicon Valley technology companies struggle to recruit staff and are forced to pay exorbitant wages, in Spain this is not an issue - the unemployment rate is 20 per cent, while youth unemployment is an eye-watering 40 per cent.
''It has been both thrilling and challenging to start a company in Spain,'' said Miller, adding his Spanish skills were still not strong.
''We started our company in Barcelona as there is opportunity in Spain despite the downturn, while also having a low cost base, great networks, strong international skill base and in one of the most enjoyable lifestyle cities you can find.''
This reporter is on Twitter: @ashermoses | <urn:uuid:f8700b47-59f6-4dd8-abc6-52666b399c3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/aussies-cash-in-on-good-causes-20120106-1po4m.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966949 | 1,162 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Last month, 12 mainly European-based, mainly Muslim or ex-Muslim intellectuals, alarmed by the spell on free speech cast by Cartoon Rage 2006, signed onto an anti-totalitarian manifesto for freedom of expression published by Denmark's Jylland-Posten.
"After having overcome fascism, Nazism and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism," the manifesto began.
"We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all."
Among the dozen signatories were Somali-born Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Ugandan-born Canadian writer Irshad Manji; Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie, and Pakistani-born writer Ibn Warraq.
Rounding out the list were a few French writers, a Bangledeshi, a Lebanese and several Iranians. What is striking is that none of them come from that "world" they hailed, the one that overcame fascism, Nazism and communism -- not merely "Stalinism." (One signatory is billed as an Iranian communist, which may account for the jarring distinction.)
Not only that, but, as the blogger Belmont Club pointed out, the manifesto was printed, "not in The New York Times, Le Monde or the Times of London, but of all places, in a provincial Danish newspaper of no particular fame."
All of which should shove a big, fat question mark onto the "world" stage to ask where these brave signatories' writerly, journalistic and intellectual brethren are on this one, not to mention Big Media coverage. After all, the world didn't overcome fascism, Nazism and communism with the silent treatment, restrained rhetoric or exquisite editorial discretion. But beyond the blogosphere, coverage of the manifesto -- not the last word on the subject, but certainly a start -- has been sparse, just as though freedom of speech weren't in peril. And just as though the signatories, for affirming freedom of speech, weren't either.
But they are. A crude death threat has been posted at the British Muslim Web site, ummah.com -- the kind of Web site where, as Time magazine reported after the London underground bombings last year, a poem said to have been posted by Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi glorified terror-bombings in Iraq, and another user wrote that "killing Americans is not murder, it is retaliation." This time, under a thread entitled "Writers Slam Islamic 'Totalitarianism,'" the names of the Free Expression 12 appeared and someone wrote:
Report: Boehner Won't Bring Immigration Bill to the Floor Without Majority of Republicans On Board | Guy Benson | <urn:uuid:2f3e84c5-0ae6-4e61-ba56-e18be794e762> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2006/03/20/twelve_voices_defend_freedom_as_big_media_cowers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941441 | 561 | 1.84375 | 2 |
School Library Journal
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Gr 3-6-The moon is missing from the sky, and its absence causes unrelenting heat and drought. At night, Rendi can hear the sky moan and whimper for the missing moon, a sound that has plagued him since running away from home and ending up as a chore boy at an isolated inn. When a mysterious and glamorous guest arrives, she bring stories and asks Rendi to tell her tales in return. These stories weave the characters and plotlines together while revealing the backstory of Rendi's flight from home, the village's geography, and the missing moon, and how they tie together. This follow-up to Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown, 2009), takes place centuries earlier, when Magistrate Tiger's son was still young, and missing. The stories the characters tell are based on traditional Chinese folktales, but Lin adds her own elements and layers and mixes them with original tales to form a larger narrative that provides the background and the answers for the frame story. This tight and cyclical plotting, combined with Lin's vibrant, full-color paintings and chapter decorations, creates a work that is nothing short of enchanting. Like the restored moon, Starry River outshines the previous work.-Jennifer Rothschild, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Oxon Hill, MD (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Lin returns to Chinese folklore as the foundation for this masterfully told tale. Rendi, a runaway with a shadowy past, mistakenly lands at a remote inn and is taken on as chore boy. Plagued by moans he alone hears issuing nightly from the sky, perplexed by the absence of the moon, and longing to escape the unhappy villagers, Rendi is unwillingly drawn into their problems when wise, enigmatic Madame Chang arrives. Lin's signature device of interspersing the plot with stories told by various characters enriches this story on many levels, especially when Rendi, pressured by Madame Chang, begins to tell his own revealing stories. Neither sequel nor prequel, this fantasy is linked to Lin's Newbery Honor book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (2009), through numerous elements, including lush imagery, glorious full-color artwork, food similes ("Rendi's muscles were as soft as uncooked tofu"), and the cruel and hot-tempered Magistrate Tiger. The lively mix of adventure, mystery, and fantasy, supported by compelling character development and spellbinding language, will captivate a wide swath of readers. Ages 8-12. Agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
*Starred Review* This mesmerizing companion to the Newbery Honor Book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (2009) does not disappoint. Rendi has run away from home, stowed in the back of a merchant's cart, until he is discovered and left stranded in the scarcely populated Village of Clear Sky. There he becomes the innkeeper's chore boy and is introduced to a cast of characters, including Mr. Shan, a wise older man; Madame Chang, a mysterious out-of-town guest with a gift for storytelling; and a toad whom Mr. Shan calls Rabbit. All the while, the moon is missing, and it seems only Rendi is tormented by the sky's sad wailing noises at night. Madame Chang insists that for each story she tells including one about ruler Wang Yi's wife, who transformed into a toad and lived out the rest of her days on the moon Rendi must tell one of his own. Unlike its predecessor, this novel is stationary in setting, but it offers up similar stories based on Chinese folklore that interweave with and advance the main narrative. Each of the tales reveals something important about the teller, and most offer a key piece of the mysterious puzzle: what happened to the moon? A few characters from Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, including Magistrate Tiger, appear on the periphery of the action. Lin's writing is clear and lyrical, her plotting complex, and her illustrations magical, all of which make this a book to be savored.--Kelley, Ann Copyright 2010 Booklist | <urn:uuid:407f0571-f609-4c2c-8b3a-b6bf2186be47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ls2content.tlcdelivers.com/content.html?customerid=735&requesttype=text-review&button=false&isbn=9780316125956&upc= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943011 | 936 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 - 13:26
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - 12:17
To encourage industry-driven, competitive solutions, CIOs should focus on “what” rather than “how”. 5E decision framework is a methodical approach to identifying IT consolidation targets. With no reprieve from budget deficits and greater investment scrutiny, 5E additionally allows CIOs to formulate a strong business case. This post explores Execution- the Last of the five Es.
Execution – the Last of the Es: Having skilled personnel and management, including governance, in place is another foundational element of picking consolidation targets. Budget constraints, investment scrutiny and customer satisfaction concerns necessitate investigation of this final and likely the most expensive criterion.
The consolidation roadmap requires that personnel demands of proposed systems be supplied internally or externally within a reasonable timeframe. Appropriate governance, tools and processes should also be in place or planned to allow the initiative to succeed.
Some managers erroneously apply Gertrude Stein’s advice – “a rose is a rose is a rose” – to personnel staffing, probably as a result of successful marketing by staff augmentation companies. They forget that people come with different skills and strengths. For example, a superstar technical manager may not be an effective project manager and vice-versa. Even those with the same skills have different levels of expertise that need to be assessed before considering them interchangeable.
It’s not important to have IT personnel but it’s vital to have the right IT personnel who are empowered with the right tools. Another common oversight while evaluating viability is to derive direct time costs without accounting for the time personnel will spend in meetings, over the phone and other sundry tasks.
Effective IT governance is absolutely critical to successful execution of consolidation projects. The governance management structure must have representatives from all stakeholders with decision-making authority. Many projects fail without an effective governance initiative. According to "Creating an Effective IT Governance Process" by Gartner's Michael Gerrard , “To avoid the most common causes of failure in IT governance initiatives, design governance as a set of end-to-end processes to define roles and responsibilities, and create a practical and action-oriented governance mechanism tailored to your enterprise's decision-making style and management culture.”
In addition, metrics must be a fundamental element of the governance structure to enable clear visibility into the status of projects and value to the business. A tool to capture end-to-end view of all investments and business results to validate the business case will provide the decision makers with facts to reassess decisions and shape future decisions.
Ravi Bansal is a project executive and a strategist at IBM Global Business Services. He is a proven business leader with experience proposing, leading and delivering multimillion-dollar business solutions. In addition, Mr. Bansal is a strategist for IBM federal’s cloud computing and smarter government initiatives. He authored 5E framework for targeted IT consolidation and the strategic framework for cloud alliances. He is passionate about cloud computing, cleantech, next generation business strategies and most importantly, helping clients articulate vision for their business.
Mr. Bansal is one of IBM Americas’ top consultants and has also been inducted in IBM’s delivery excellence circle. Over years he has been honored with numerous awards for outstanding business performance and exceptional client service. Outside of direct work responsibilities, he is involved in an eclectic collection of giveback activities. Among other things, he was an officer of the Executive Committee of Metropolitan Washington Mensa, canvasser for IBM employee charitable contributions campaign and a guest speaker at business schools. Mr. Bansal is a graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with majors in Finance and Strategy. | <urn:uuid:daf5287b-c1a5-4f2b-9c28-acdc820507ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessofgovernment.org/blog/strategies-font-color-redcut-costsfont-and-improve-performance/execution-%E2%80%93-last-es-5e-framework | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93238 | 769 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Updated on 13 June 2012
Traumatic brain injury trials to be held in Thailand, China and Russia
Singapore: BHR Pharma has started recruiting patients, who are suffering from severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), for their SyNAPSe clinical trial at 14 sites in Thailand, China and Russia. Gloabally, the trial presently has 153 participating sites, including level 1 and 2 trauma centers.
The SyNAPSe clinical trial is evaluating the effectiveness of BHR-100, which is a proprietary intravenous progesterone infusion formulation, as a neuroprotective agent for treating severe TBI patients. The US FDA had granted orphan drug designation to BHR-100 and have placed the drug on a fast track status in order to accelerate its potential approval.
Dr Thomas W MacAllister, president & CEO, BHR Pharma, said that, "In the past four months we've added 28 clinical trial sites, including additional centers in the US and Europe, and we're working towards opening six Malaysian sites in the near future. We're on track to complete enrollment for this pivotal clinical trial early next year, with the intent of bringing the first-ever treatment for TBI to market."
Building on the SyNAPSe study of BHR-100 and promising research conducted by Emory University, BHR is also developing BHR-310, an intranasal progesterone powder. This nasal spray is being evaluated as a potential treatment that can be administered to wounded warriors or athletes with TBI quickly after injury on the battlefield or playing field. | <urn:uuid:f83d63db-57b5-4d75-b8d6-d78e75b7019d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biospectrumasia.com/biospectrum/news/1824/bhr-expands-synapse-trial-thailand-china-russia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95707 | 320 | 1.679688 | 2 |
State Health Department Announces Income Guidelines for 2009 Food Programs
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) today announced the 2008-09 federal income guidelines that are used to determine whether families are eligible for free or reduced-price meals at participating facilities. The Child and Adult Care Food Program reimburses these child and adult day care facilities and emergency shelters for meals served to clients who meet these guidelines.
More than 3,000 facilities in Missouri participate in the program each year. The program provides reimbursement to:
child care facilities for meals served to children age birth through 12 years,
after-school programs and family emergency shelters that provide meals to school-age children, and
adult day care programs.
Approximately $40 million will be paid to participating facilities in Missouri in 2008.
Income eligibility guidelines, which are in effect from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, can be found at: www.dhss.mo.gov/dnhs_pdfs/CACFPIncomeGuide08-09.pdf. | <urn:uuid:6f1b64b1-97e2-4b56-b940-dc1b01110c87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nemonews.net/2008/08/07/state-health-department-announces-income-guidelines-for-2009-food-programs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936491 | 215 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The owners (the “billionaires”) want a bigger piece of the pie so that their return on investment is higher. The players (the “millionaires”) want a bigger piece because that’s their income. Of course, the size of the pie being divided may shrink if they don’t come to an agreement soon enough. Support for the Thunder could wane as fans find alternative entertainment. Hockey hasn’t recovered from its labor turmoil, although the NFL and MLB seem to have suffered no ill-effects from theirs.Typical economic analysis, an appeal to “supply and demand,” doesn’t work in this situation. This is a “monopoly versus monopsony” situation: the cartel (NBA owners) versus the union (National Basketball Player’s Association). The resulting negotiations only exist because antitrust law does not hold in professional sports. And so the consequences we can expect are different from the normal results.
Despite protestations to the contrary, the real losers in this will be the fans. And it’s not just missing seeing the likes of Kevin Durant smoke another defender with grace and style that’s lost. It’s ticket prices. It’s bragging rights. Fans and other Oklahomans are the real losers in this battle, particularly those taxpayers who aren’t even fans.
Franchise players such as LeBron James and Durant can afford to sit out and not play in foreign leagues. They’ve got a few extra pies in the cupboard from earlier contracts. The journeymen are already moving on to foreign leagues. They know they’re replaceable and the salary difference is not as large. Besides, they don’t have many pies in their cupboard. Of course, the NBA claims that many owners are losing money, so maybe some owners don’t have a well-stocked cupboard either.
How will this all be resolved? When one side blinks. The blink will occur when the cupboard is bare. It looks like the players are most likely to run out of pies first and so will end up getting the smaller piece of subsidized pie. If this ends up being the case, the billionaires will have won over the millionaires.
Lost in all of this are the games already canceled through November. Of course, that’s been a pretty good deal for other entertainment options. Few people are much richer or poorer for the lack of an NBA game. So they spend their entertainment dollar on something else.
In a “Big League City” (thanks to the NBA?) like OKC, there’s a lot to do in the evening. Many unsubsidized businesses will gladly accept payment for their services. And they’ll provide it now, without public debate over how to divide the pie.
Willner, an Oklahoma City resident, is chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at Oklahoma City University’s Meinders School of Business. | <urn:uuid:a5d467a6-b581-40cd-81e5-7478f18dc3e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/article-13506-fans-lose-in-lockout.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95041 | 623 | 1.625 | 2 |
TICONDEROGA A boat sank in Lake Champlain near the Ticonderoga ferry dock June 3. Michael Wallace, 40, his wife, Theresa Wallace, 39; and nephew Jeffrey, 24, all of Ticonderoga, had been fishing near the International Paper plant and were heading back to the Fort Ticonderoga ferry landing sometime between 4 and 4:30 p.m. when the wind picked up and it looked like a storm was coming in. A strong west wind had increased waves from about 1 foot to 3 feet. There was so much water in the back of the boat, the front end went up in the air and the boat flipped. It happened so fast that Mr. Wallace was only able to grab one life preserver, which he threw to his wife. She started swimming to shore but watched as her husband, using the fuel tank for buoyancy, floated in the other direction. Her nephew was able to climb atop the capsized boat. Once Mrs. Wallace reached land, she went to the train station and called for help. Ronald Martel of Whitehall had just landed his boat when he heard someone had capsized. Martel returned to the lake and rescued the two men. The Wallaces were in a 14-foot aluminum boat with a 15-horsepower outboard motor. The boat capsized 500 to 600 feet north of the Fort Ticonderoga ferry landing. | <urn:uuid:f1862b8a-5640-42d0-8396-94208a760da5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.denpubs.com/news/2007/jun/02/fishing-boat-sinks-in-lake-champlain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989175 | 288 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Chavez's authoritarian regime sweeps governorships
Initial electoral results indicate that Chavez’s candidates won in 20 of the 23 governors’ races in Venezuela's latest round of elections
One week after Hugo Chavez stunned his nation with news of new cancer surgery and anointed Vice President and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro as his heir, Venezuelans went to the polls to elect 23 governors and members of state legislatures.
Initial electoral results indicate that Chavez’s candidates won in 20 of the 23 governors’ races, regaining from the opposition four previous governorships. These victories were attributed to low voter turnouts, widespread sympathy for the ailing Chavez, the effectiveness of the Commandante’s political machine, and a lack of clear-cut alternatives to Chavista programs of social benefits and generous subsidies.
Despite such unpromising electoral news, the former candidate of the united opposition in the October 7 presidential elections, Henrique Capriles, held on to win re-election in Miranda state. He defeated Elias Jaua, Chavez’s former vice president, by a slender margin. The victory is significant because it enables Capriles to keep himself in the forefront of opposition figures hoping to slow his nation’s march toward authoritarian socialism and worse.
In Havana, various official sources claim Chavez is recovering satisfactorily from complicated surgery but suggest his return to Caracas and to power remains distant. The nature of Chavez’s cancer that has thus far required four separate surgeries in addition to radiation and chemical therapy remains unknown.
By law, the new president must be sworn in on January 10. If Chavez is too ill to assume the presidency for the fourth time, it could trigger a new round of presidential elections within 30 days. His death would clearly lead to a battle for succession.
One thing appears certain: Venezuelans can expect stormy political weather ahead. Two former U.S. Ambassadors to Venezuela—Charles Shapiro and Patrick Duddy—see a polarized and “de-institutionalized” Venezuela as potentially turbulent and unstable for the foreseeable future.
This blog originally appeared on The Foundry
Read more on: hugo chavez, Hugo Chavez cancer, Hugo Chavez's economic performance, Hugo Chavez and Henrique Capriles Radonski, capriles, venezuala, Ray Walser, Ray Walser Heritage Foundation, and Ray Walser and Hugo Chavez
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We are wholly dependent on the kindness of our readers for our continued work. We thank you in advance for any support you can offer. | <urn:uuid:bc95950c-335f-43e6-8aab-b7d69ca1afd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2289/chavez_s_authoritarian_regime_sweeps_governorships | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946516 | 583 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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|Home > Life in Japan > Features|
Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012
Innovative organic farming achieves sustainability in rural Hokkaido
German Stefan Koester-Hirose applies wide experiences to build a diversified business
By KRIS KOSAKA
Special to The Japan Times
How to endure? It's an elemental question perfectly matched to the endless, ripening fields of the organic farm Land Mann in the town of Biei, Hokkaido.
Stretched out to the horizon and topped by boundless blue, the potato crops of farmer, Land Cafe owner and sagaciously unpretentious German Stefan Koester-Hirose convey infinity while revealing a carefully etched plan for endurance.
"Potatoes exhaust the soil, so it takes a few years to recover," says Koester-Hirose, 54. "See there, at the edge of the sky where the trees line the horizon? You can see green land, and then different green land, dotted with clover. Next is new green barely coming through the dirt next to the potatoes here, and then after the potatoes, we have the sunflowers as green manure to help the soil recover."
His eyes travel the six segmented rotating plots encompassing his six-year cycle for potatoes. They represent one of the many ways with which Koester-Hirose has crafted a sustainable life in Japan: Alternate your resources.
How to sustain is a question Koester-Hirose deliberately asked himself 16 years ago before moving to Japan and one he still thinks about every day. "What I do is a combination of tourism, personal enjoyment and biological farming," he says.
As a young man, extensive travel satisfied his wandering mind but also revealed the pitfalls in a traveler's path. "I saw a lot of foreigners in foreign countries, saw how they get restless, how they change their feelings about their adopted country, how they start hanging their national flags outside their windows and pining for home. I thought, I must find a convenient place for my soul to thrive."
Koester-Hirose wandered wide and for various reasons: for pleasure (among others, a trip across the United States by bicycle), for study (to learn Spanish in Ecuador) and for work (with the German Development Service in Nepal and Vietnam). After meeting in Ecuador the Japanese woman who would become his wife, they enjoyed this nomad's life until the imminent birth of their third child encouraged a more settled lifestyle.
He did not want to merely "try" Japan; he wanted to try to make a lasting home. "Working for the German Development Service, you must enter an educational course before you go overseas. I learned that among expatriates or people who are living away from their home countries, 80 percent return home again, usually in the seventh or eighth year," he recalls. "My wife is from Tokyo so we looked there, but I felt I could not spend my whole life in Tokyo."
Koester-Hirose journeyed throughout Japan, searching for a place to settle. Something about Biei recalled his hometown in Gutersloh, northern Germany. "The sunflowers are the same, the grass and environment seemed similar. I began working immediately as a 'day-man' in farming and construction in nearby Nakafurano."
Although he had never planned a life in farming, it became his way to sustain satisfaction and livelihood in a foreign country. "Because I could not speak Japanese, I thought I needed my own place, that no company would hire me — my wife and I talked about opening a restaurant or vacation cottages — but in Japan you cannot buy farmland unless you are recognized as a farmer. We found the land we wanted first, so it wasn't so much in my mind to be a farmer, it was the legality of buying the land."
Luckily, his connections among the farmers in Nakafurano supported him, and they unanimously validated him for the sale, a requirement in Japanese law for purchasing farmland. He named his farm Land Mann and slowly built a client list, selling organic produce directly to restaurants and individuals.
Like the potato crops, however, Koester-Hirose realized early on he had to divide his livelihood, not exhaust all his resources in one venture. "I learned from the farmers in Nakafurano how uncertain and difficult it was to farm, so I decided I needed to do something different."
His first university master's degree was in civil engineering, specializing in hydrology and environmental protection, (his second was in business administration), so farming organically was a natural choice. He also decided to open a cafe and to later build a holiday cottage on their land, adding a walking path for tourists, further diversifying their resources.
"Some farmers try to be different by growing something different, like mangoes in Hokkaido, but I wanted to concentrate on the produce that grows naturally in this area," he says.
Doing things naturally brings up another key belief in sustainability: Let things unfold with as little interference as possible. One glance at Koester-Hirose's raspberries, riotously clambering up a gentle slope, confirms this life lesson. "In conventional farming, raspberries are carefully cultivated on a fence, cutting and maintaining them so that you can grow perfect fruit," he explains. "I let mine grow out with minimal interference and just take what I can get. We use what we need, and let the rest go back in naturally.
"It is funny, but with organic farming, it balances itself. At first it's a disaster, a lot of diseases, the bugs come. It takes a couple years, but there develops a natural balance. Some years I have a longer time supplying the cafe with raspberries, and sometimes the season is quite short, depending on the rain, but you adjust the menu, depending on what grows. That's true for your whole lifestyle, because it's the only way to be truly sustainable."
Flexibility and adaptability both aided Koester-Hirose as he experienced the ups and downs of expat life. He has been featured in documentaries and newspapers in Japan in what he wryly refers to as the "gaijin bonus." He has weathered draught and snowstorms, and avalanches of frustration as he slowly learned to work within the restrictions governing organic farming in this country.
He credits the advice of other farmers in the area. "I try to ask the elderly, to talk with conventional farmers often, to get to the reason why something is done a certain way so I can determine how I can change it. Conventional farmers often follow manuals from the JA (Japan Agriculture), schedules on what kind, how, when and how often to use agricultural chemicals. It is helpful in one way, but on the other hand, you can become dependent, unable to make your own decisions."
Koester-Hirose also needed determination. Standing in front of his onion patch, he admits: "Onions are just personal pride and fun for me. An onion farmer I worked with in Nakafurano who became a good friend of mine always said, 'It is impossible to grow onions organically,' but I always thought, 'I will show you.' " He concedes onions are difficult, with such a long growth period before harvesting and thus many concerns to deal with over that time, but today they sweep healthily, pesticide-free, across the hillside.
Finally, part of Koester-Hirose's success comes from knowing his own nature. "My mother says I was educated to sit in an office or to be the boss of a big company, but I personally like to be outside and to be physically doing something.
"Farming is not just touching the soil or cleaning the leaves or watching seedlings grow up. Farming encompasses everything. You drive a tractor, a truck, a forklift, an excavator, farmers have a lot of machinery, so you are a driver or operator. Farmers do not call a carpenter to repair the shed or barn. They do it themselves, so a farmer is a carpenter. Because you have so much machinery, you can not always call someone to look after the maintenance. You do it yourself, changing the oil or if something breaks down you have to fix it, so you are a mechanic.
"Farming is so fun, for me. It is not just the soil and the seedling, it is all the other things. You also have to run a business. Automatically farmers run a business, always calculating in their heads how much time it takes to do this, so that they are not writing down or making account sheets; but ask any farmer and they are clearly planning a business inside their head."
Koester-Hirose pauses. His land stretches out, an infinity behind him. He adds the last almost shyly. "And, the best, you are free."
For more about Stefan Koester-Hirose and his farm, visit www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~orgfarm/englindexfarm.html | <urn:uuid:5546ca9c-64e4-4db0-9969-75cb2f4aae89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://info.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120818a1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9688 | 1,950 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Text of Bush's Speech at West Point
Published: June 1, 2002
Following is the full text from President Bush's commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point Saturday, as recorded by The New York Times.
Thank you all. Thank you very much, General Lennox, Mr. Secretary, Governor Pataki, members of the United States Congress, academy staff and faculty, distinguished guests, proud family members and graduates. I want to thank you for your welcome. Laura and I are especially honored to visit this great institution in your bicentennial year.
In every corner of America the words ``West Point'' command immediate respect. This place where the Hudson River bends is more than a fine institution of learning. The United States Military Academy is the guardian of values that have shaped the soldiers who have shaped the history of the world.
A few of you have followed in the path of the perfect West Point graduate, Robert E. Lee, who never received a single demerit in four years. Some of you followed in the path of the imperfect graduate, Ulysses S. Grant, who had his fair share of demerits and said the happiest day of his life was ``the day I left West Point.'' During my college years I guess you could say I was a, during my college years I guess you could say I was a Grant man.
You walk in the tradition of Eisenhower and MacArthur, Patton and Bradley, the commanders who saved a civilization. And you walk in the tradition of second lieutenants who did the same by fighting and dying on distant battlefields.
Graduates of this academy have brought creativity and courage to every field of endeavor. West Point produced the chief engineer of the Panama Canal; the mind behind the Manhattan Project; the first American to walk in space. The fine institution gave us the man they say invented baseball and other young men, over the years, who perfected the game of football.
You know this but many in America don't. George C. Marshall, a V.M.I. graduate, is said to have given this order: ``I want an officer for a secret and dangerous mission. I want a West Point football player.''
As you leave here today I know there is one thing you'll never miss about this place: being a plebe. But even a plebe at West Point is made to feel he or she has some standing in the world. I'm told that plebes when asked whom they outrank are required to answer this: ``Sir, the superintendent's dog, the commandant's cat and all the admirals in the whole damn Navy. I probably won't be sharing that with the Secretary of the Navy.''
West Point is guided by tradition. And in honor of the golden children of the corps I will observe one of the traditions you cherish most. As the commander in chief I hereby grant amnesty to all cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct offenses. Those of you in the end zone might have cheered a little early because you see I'm going to let General Lennox define exactly what minor means.
Every West Point class is commissioned to the armed forces. Some West Point classes are also commissioned by history to take part in a great new calling for their country.
Speaking here to the class of 1942 six months after Pearl Harbor, General Marshall said: ``We're determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming power on the other.''
Officers graduating that year helped fulfill that mission, defeating Japan and Germany and then reconstructing those nations as allies. West Point graduates of the 1940's saw the rise of a deadly new challenge, the challenge of imperial communism, and opposed it from Korea to Berlin to Vietnam and in the cold war from beginning to end. And as the sun set on their struggle many of those West Point officers lived to see a world transformed.
History has also issued its call to your generation. In your last year America was attacked by a ruthless and resourceful enemy. You graduate from this academy in a time of war, taking your place in an American military that is powerful and is honorable.
Our war on terror is only begun. But in Afghanistan it was begun well. I am proud, I am proud of the men and women who have fought on my orders. America is profoundly grateful for all who serve the cause of freedom. And for all who've given their lives in its defense. This nation respects and trusts our military. And we are confident in your victories to come.
This war will take may turns we cannot predict. Yet I'm certain of this: Wherever we carry it the American flag will stand not only for our power but for freedom.
Our nation's cause has always been larger than our nation's defense. We fight as we always fight, for a just peace. A peace that favors human liberty. We will defend the peace against threats from terrorists and tyrants. We will preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers. And we will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.
Building this just peace is America's opportunity and America's duty. From this day forward it is your challenge as well. And we will meet this challenge together. | <urn:uuid:03418369-1dfd-4135-b658-a7447e419da5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/01/international/02PTEX-WEB.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965298 | 1,084 | 1.734375 | 2 |
In response to concerns over trace levels of ractopamine found in U.S. pork shipments, China has delisted 11 plants.
Ractopamine (Paylean from Elanco Animal Health) is used as a feed additive to promote lean growth in pigs, and has been approved for use in 24 countries. Ractopamine produces dramatic muscle growth, but is not a steroid or hormone, but rather a beta agonist. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its use in 1999.
The following pork plants are currently barred from exporting to China:
Most of the suspensions took place in August; two of the plants have been suspended since 2005.
There are seven other plants under 45-day warnings, meaning they can still export product but must go 45 days without incident or also be suspended, according to USDA.
The American Meat Institute (AMI) said China’s suspension of U.S. plants from exporting safe, inspected U.S. pork products is not based upon sound science.
“Products produced by the plants suspended by China were inspected and passed as wholesome by U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors,” says AMI President J. Patrick Boyle. “U.S. food safety standards are among the most stringent in the world and our pork products are recognized for their safety. These products could be sold in the United States and consumed safely by American consumers, yet China rejected them.”
Nick Giordano, international trade counsel for the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), agrees with that assessment. “This is not a food safety issue. This is a political issue. It is protectionist and we are not going to stand for it,” he stresses.
The Chinese have been under the microscope for a variety of food safety and product safety issues and this is their way of retaliating, Giordano points out.
As an advocate for the pork industry, NPPC will be “pulling out all the stops to get all of the U.S. pork plants relisted and to get the Chinese to establish an import maximum residue level for ractopamine,” he notes.
According to the AMI, in a paper presented in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, Chinese scientists have concluded that ractopamine is safe to use in swine. “AMI is asking the U.S. government to engage the Chinese in a dialogue to establish a scientifically-based, acceptable level of ractopamine,” Boyle says.From 2005 to 2006, U.S. exports of pork and pork products to China increased 13% in volume, totaling 97,283 tons, valued at $126 million. “U.S. pork exports have exploded because of the increased access resulting from China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO),” says Elizabeth Watson, international trade research specialist for the NPPC. “Since China implemented its WTO commitments on pork in December 2001, U.S. pork exports have increased 53% in volume and 90% in value.” | <urn:uuid:75870b0c-712e-4636-8c9c-3e46ebb9964f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nationalhogfarmer.com/print/news/newsflash/china-suspends-pork-imports | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959753 | 639 | 1.789063 | 2 |
This fall season - Scuba Diving Camporees are becoming a popular activity among the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Even though summer is over, it’s not stopping Scouts from getting involved with scuba diving. Since the launch of the scuba merit badge, Scouts are eager to take scuba diving lessons and become certified, and they are finding Camporees and Jamboree the perfect events to do it.
Did you know? Camporees and Jamborees aren't the only place that Scouts can get scuba diving lessons. PADI Dive Centers and Resorts all over the United States are the premier training facilities for the BSA. Find a PADI Dive Center or Resort in your area to get started today! | <urn:uuid:ca5d0809-f208-41a1-b66b-a36accec2379> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportdiver.com/article/padi-news/learn-to-dive-scuba-diving-camporees | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946593 | 156 | 1.710938 | 2 |
CAIT challenges government to face open debate instead of rally
Taking a strong view of the proposed rallies by the Congress Party substituted by the Government, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has said that instead of holding rallies, the Government should face an open debate on the controversial issue at any open platform may be at any media platform.
B. C. Bhartia, CAIT National President and Mr. Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General said that both sides may be allowed to accompany their respective experts. If Presidential Candidates in US can have open election debate why can't we have an open debate on this issue which has vital bearings on crores of people across the Country.
They also revealed that J and K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Industrialist Raj Kumar Dhoot, Congress MPs Keshava Rao and Shri J.P. Aggarwal were part of the Parliamentary Standing Committee which submitted its unanimous report on 8th June,2009 in the Parliament recommonding a blanket ban on entry of global retailers and domestic corporate houses in retail trade of India. They questioned what has happened now that they are opposing their own recommendations.CAIT leaders said that if the advantageous arguments advanced by the Government and corporate bodies, in favour of FDI in Retail are logical and sound, then Govt and Industry bodies should not hesitate to accept the CAITs invitation of a debate.
HARBHAJAN THANKS ITBP FOR SAVING HIS LIFE
June 18, 2013 at 7:51 PM
DELHI CM LAUDS UPGRADATION OF CONSUMER REDRESSAL FORUM
June 18, 2013 at 7:26 PM
4th Generation Intel Core Processors
June 18, 2013 at 7:19 PM | <urn:uuid:6e0b4b2c-9472-4123-9e8e-ddc2b0bedf4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/2012/10/28/261-CAIT-challenges-government-to-face-open-debate-instead-of-rally.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950643 | 361 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Storm blows through Wilmette; Bicentennial Ash downed
Children inspect the damage to Wilmette's oldest tree after strong winds felled it and knocked out power to parts of the northern suburbs Monday. | Dan Luedert~Sun-Times Media
Updated: October 31, 2011 12:46PM
Monday’s brief but intense windstorm blew down power lines and up-ended trees across Wilmette, leaving thousands — including Village Hall — without electricity.
The storm also toppled the oldest public tree in Wilmette, the Bicentennial Ash.
The lights went out Monday morning at Village Hall, 1200 Wilmette Ave., forcing the village offices to close. Staff returned Tuesday afternoon to answer phone calls from residents, prepare for Tuesday evening’s Village Board meeting, and was expected to fully reopen the doors for business at 7 a.m. Wednesday.
When the storm first blew through the area, an estimated 615,000 ComEd customers were left in the dark, 280,000 or so of them in the north suburbs. Initially, 7,242 Wilmette customers were hit, but by late afternoon, 2,639 of them had been restored, leaving 4,603 still off-grid overnight Monday.
Progress was made Tuesday afternoon, though 2,146 ComEd customers in Wilmette were still without power. Compared to the June 21 violent storm, Monday’s event knocked out power to six times as many residents. The residents still without electricity 36 hours after the storm represented double the amount that lost power during the peak out the late June outages.
The most concentrated blackout areas, Village Manager Timothy J. Frenzer reported, included neighborhoods south of Lake Avenue and east of Green Bay Road, and Central Wilmette along Ridge, Hunter and Glenview roads.
“We are working with (ComEd) to identify the areas of the village where the most customers are out,” Frenzer said, adding that the utility services company hoped to restore the electrical flow to 90 percent of its customers by Friday afternoon.
“Residents’ main concern is getting reliable information from ComEd about when their power will be restored,” he continued. “Unfortunately, we only have the information that is being released to the news media.”
Downed power lines or light outages caused significant traffic disruptions at Lake and Lavergne avenues, and at Lake and Skokie Boulevard, both impacting the Edens Expressway ramps.
Police and Public Works crews fanned out across the village starting Monday morning, Police Chief Brian King said, looking for wind damage and clearing downed trees and tree limbs.
Several traffic lights were out along Lake Avenue between Ridge Avenue and Skokie Boulevard, he said, as well as lights at Crawford Avenue and Old Glenview Road, and at Hunter and Glenview roads.
Power was out at the Wilmette Park District, Communications Manager Shelagh Donaghue said. One of the district’s biggest losses, however, was the district’s Bicentennial Ash.
The tree, which historians said was planted in 1746, had stood, until its defeat by the winds, at the Michigan Avenue entrance to Gillson Park. | <urn:uuid:7bfe1f1e-ec6a-4d66-aaae-13841c99c033> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pioneerlocal.suntimes.com/6458445-584/storm-blows-through-wilmette-bicentennial-ash-downed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973869 | 666 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Scott Bernstein, CNT’s President, recently made a presentation about the need to redefine housing affordability at the Home Depot Foundation National Partners and Federal Government Officials Convening in Washington, D.C. When people shop for home or apartments, they don’t necessarily have the full knowledge of the true costs of a location. The current definition of housing affordability is 30% of income, which does not take into account transportation costs. Our research shows that for a working family, those earning $20,000-$50,000, housing takes 30% while transportation takes up to 27% of income, and in the exurbs, transportation can easily exceed housing costs. Read more »
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
The U.S. Green Building Council –Chicago Chapter and its partners are recruiting up to 25 more projects for analysis in year 2 of the Regional Green Building Case Study Project. If interested in enrolling an Illinois LEED project in this multi-year study, please visit the project recruitment web site then submit a completed authorization form.
During the project’s first year the U.S. Green Building Council—Chicago Chapter and its partners collected and analyzed data from 25 projects across the state. With the generous support of the Grand Victoria Foundation and the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, we will re-engage the initial 25 projects while adding 25 more projects, for a total sample size of 50. This is one of a few post-occupancy studies with such a broad scope of metrics and is among the first to collect multiple years of data and provide ongoing analysis to participants.
Click here to learn more about year 2 of the Regional Green Building Case Study, including eligibility requirements.
Click here to learn more about CNT’s work on the year 1 of the Regional Green Building Case Study.
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Today, President Obama addressed a delegation from the U.S. Conference of Mayors on strengthening the economy and creating jobs in communities large and small.
It is clear from his remarks that the President is committed to investing in sustainable communities. He recognized the relationship between transportation, housing, and energy policy. President Obama is making strides to put forth federal policies and spending that put people to work and “help rebuild and revitalize our cities and metropolitan areas for the future.” Read more »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
All seemed fairly routine when the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency hosted a meeting at their offices to provide an update on the study of green infrastructure practices and regulations the Agency is required to conduct under P.A. 96-0026, the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act. But it was not expected that during the meeting, Marcia Willhite, Chief of the IEPA Water Bureau, informed the 100 or so people in attendance that the IEPA Water Bureau “needs to rethink some things, part of which is how to promote green infrastructure and innovative environmental projects” through the funding of projects with State Clean Water Revolving Fund money. Willhite said she intends to establish an advisory committee to revise revolving fund criteria to ensure that green infrastructure projects receive greater priority.
Read more »
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
A new analysis by CNT, Smart Growth America, and U.S. PIRG shows that in the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation have created twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways. The new report shows that by mimicking funding levels for transportation set out in ARRA, the Jobs for Main Street Act (H.R. 2847), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December, missed an opportunity to create additional jobs where they are needed most.
The report, “What we learned from the Stimulus”, is available here.
Read more »
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Lessons Learned from Recovery Act Show Superior Job Creation from Spending on Public Transportation
WASHINGTON, D.C.— A new analysis by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Smart Growth America, and U.S. PIRG shows that in the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation have created twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways. The new report shows that by mimicking funding levels for transportation set out in ARRA, the Jobs for Main Street Act (H.R. 2847), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December, missed an opportunity to create additional jobs where they are needed most.
The report, “What we learned from the Stimulus, and how to use what we learned to speed job creation in the 2010 jobs bill”, is available here: www.smartgrowthamerica.org/stimulus2009.html
The Jobs for Main Street Act provides $27.1 billion for the Surface Transportation Program (STP) versus just $8.4 billion for Public Transportation even though public transportation investments under ARRA created twice as many jobs per dollar of investment. The Senate plans to take up its version of the jobs bill early in 2010, and the report shows that if the Senate version ensures funds are invested equally in public transportation and highways, the same level of overall investment would produce 71,415 additional job-months, equivalent to year-round employment for 5,951 more workers than from the House bill.
“This is a no-brainer. The Senate can ensure that more jobs are created across the country building the transportation system we need for the 21st century,” said Geoff Anderson, President of Smart Growth America. “If we are serious about creating jobs and bringing about the economic recovery our nation desperately needs, members of the Senate will insist on investing a greater percentage of the transportation funds in public transportation. Who is against more jobs?”
The data compiled by the states shows that every billion dollars spent on public transportation produced 16,419 job-months, compared to 8,781 job-months for every billion spent on highway infrastructure. Public transportation projects create more jobs than road projects because they spend less money on land and more on labor, and because projects are often more complex, whether laying rack or manufacturing vehicles.
The report also uses the data from ARRA to refute the idea that public transportation projects are not as “shovel-ready” or able to be launched as quickly as highway projects. Nationally, public transportation and highway infrastructure projects are spending money at about the same rate. But because public transportation projects spend more of those dollars on more labor, equivalent spend rates produce more and faster jobs from public transportation.
“As the Senate prepares to take up a jobs bill, lawmakers should learn the lessons of the Recovery Act,” said Phineas Baxandall, Senior Analyst for U.S. PIRG. “We cannot afford to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results. The fact is investments in public transportation will produce more jobs quicker and will address billions of dollars of unmet needs.”
“Public transportation is a lifeline for communities big and small across the country” said Scott Bernstein of the Center for Neighborhood Technology. “Too many people could not get to their jobs without public transit. But even as demand for service is up, systems everywhere face budget shortfalls forcing layoffs, reduced service and fare hikes. Increased local reinvestment is essential to preventing these cuts that will cripple our workforce and increase expenses for working Americans. In passing the Jobs for Main Street bill to tackle the continuing crisis, Congress can learn from the ARRA experience, putting the money where it will do the most good, and leaving no job, no family and no community-in-need behind.” | <urn:uuid:c7269eec-dda2-4213-834b-b729ff60cdfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnt.org/news/2010/01/ | 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 | 0.948569 | 1,611 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Training, education and the pursuit of excellence
Continuing education requires relevance and active learning in order to be interesting for the experienced provider
By Art Hsieh
I am an educator by practice, preparation and passion. Like many before me, I started down this career path when an instructor asked me to help out in a first aid class. I liked the experience, and soon I taught CPR classes (remember multimedia CPR ?), followed by other certification and "con-ed" classes.
I eventually added primary education classes such as EMT and Paramedic, and have the privilege of presenting at conferences across the country.
I distinctly remember my evolution as an instructor. Not surprisingly, it was much like my development as an EMS clinician.
Phase 1: Blissfully ignorant
At first, I just didn't know what I didn't know. I thought that if I simply read the instructor book I could deliver a killer class. Well, sometimes that happened, but more times than not the reviews were disappointing.
Moreover, I watched other instructors teach the same materials and saw how good they were and how interested the students were.
Phase 2: Know what you don't know
I quickly realized how great instructors were much more knowledgeable about the materials than they let on. The additional information made them better at explaining difficult concepts or demonstrating techniques or procedures. They were better prepared to deliver the materials as well; their self-confidence allowed them to use different teaching techniques with ease and deliberately incorporate ancillaries like video clips or games into their curricula.
The ethos rings true: you have to be operating at a level higher than the level you're teaching in order to give a full learning experience for your students.
Phase 3: Knowing what you do know
The more I taught, the more I learned. It's just like clinical practice, only the skill set is different. And that's what makes teaching challenging. A great clinician does not automatically beget a great teacher. (It is certainly the basis for great teaching!) Learning how to be a trainer means understanding how people learn, why people learn, and knowing when learning has happened.
You begin to realize just how differently we learn. Some of us are great book learners — we love to read anything we can get our hands on. However, many of us are more active in our learning — we literally need to manipulate the information, either through our hands or within our brains.
Continuing education requires relevance and active learning in order to be interesting for the experienced provider. Breaking into groups, allowing students to lead their own learning can capture the audience's attention. Simple, web-based tools can enhance the learning process in fun ways.
For example PollEverywhere allows students to respond to a question using the text messaging capabilities of their mobile devices. Making short video clips using nothing more than a cell phone can be effective at illustrating a process or procedure.
Regardless of what you teach, keep a principled approach. What is it that you want your students to learn? How will you carry the information forward? How do I capture the student's interest? How will you evaluate whether learning occurred? How can you do it better next time? Keeping these questions in mind will create the basis for a solid, fun learning experience.
I've had great fun helping others learn about EMS. At some point in your career, you may have the same opportunity. If you decide to give it a try, strive to do it well, even if it's a onetime event. Keep standards high. Stay current. We are in the business of keeping people safe, and the pursuit of teaching excellence will help us complete that mission. | <urn:uuid:a678202b-2498-49a4-a350-6f69732a7058> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ems1.com/ems-products/education/articles/1204387-Training-education-and-the-pursuit-of-excellence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963954 | 746 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The number of tombstones toppled in a beloved Berks County cemetery has now tripled.
It was first believed that only about 100 tombstones were knocked over, but Aulenbach Cemetery on Perkiomen Avenue in Mount Penn reported Thursday that 317 tombstones have been desecrated by vandals.
"I'm getting phone calls from people. They are absolutely outraged at what they see happening here," said Sanda Stief, superintendent of the cemetery.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is also getting involved since several of the desecrated tombstones belong to men who helped shape our country.
One veteran's tombstone was broken into three pieces. A father and son, who fought bravely in the Civil War also had their tombstone senselessly knocked over.
"It's just a shame how this is being done to these people that fought for our country," said Stief.
Thanks to a story that first aired on 69 News, a war veteran in Allentown has decided to use his paving company to fix the devastation, but volunteers are needed.
"We have huge heavy stones weighing several tons, and once that's lifted up, people need to help guide it into place," said Stief.
If you would like to volunteer to help replaced the cherished tombstones, you can call 610-468-7879.
If you know anything about the vandalism, you can call Crime Alert Berks County at 877-373-9913. | <urn:uuid:dd201ddf-e425-4f63-b256-59c13a2d776e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-berks/Number-of-tombstones-toppled-in-Aulenbach-Cemetery-triples-outrage-grows/-/121418/17918314/-/lcf0tq/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981141 | 297 | 1.609375 | 2 |
About Mason Schools
- There is 1 K-12 school in Mason, TN. Mason public schools belong to one district, Fayette County School District.
- There are 1 Mason elementary school, 1 Mason middle school and 4 Mason preschool schools.
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:50031fb9-1f3a-4719-af64-d5df0b650e4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/tennessee/mason/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941104 | 86 | 1.828125 | 2 |
BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts state police say an unclaimed camera that led the crew of a United Airlines international flight to divert to Boston has been X-rayed and found to be safe.
State police spokesman David Procopio said at about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday that the passengers were taken off the plane during an inspection by bomb technicians at a remote area of Logan International Airport. He said the flight was resuming.
United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said the crew decided to divert Flight 956, en route from Newark, N.J., to Geneva, Switzerland, after flight attendants found the camera in an unoccupied seat. Johnson said the Boeing 767 has 157 passengers and 11 crew members.
The Transportation Security Administration said the plane was diverted "out of an abundance of caution" and its officers also responded. | <urn:uuid:28f29c85-ed8a-4aff-bc9a-12b95a7c2d61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_21205580/united-plane-diverts-boston-no-hazard-found | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97122 | 171 | 1.53125 | 2 |
What is Aurora?
Aurora is a Linux Distribution based on Debian and specifically designed for ease of use on any computer. Aurora can be
used by individuals, schools and businesses alike to run an effective and mobile OS which gives you the freedom you need.
Aurora is FREE to download, FREE to distribute, and FREE to share.
It takes an average of 20-30 minutes to install Aurora and once its on you have all the software you need installed and ready to do whatever you need it to do.
Aurora keeps you up to date with a clever rolling release style setup with "service packs" every 3 months to update to the latest software versions. | <urn:uuid:38b36674-e447-4780-9adb-0729c582622d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eeebuntu.org/project/faq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941992 | 139 | 1.695313 | 2 |
My dad arrived in NY Sunday, and the girls have been going nuts over this rockstar. He brought them a mountain of toys, including a Sesame Street space explorer, an awesome wooden train set, a Lego mountain terrain and - can you believe it - an alien outpost.
Last night, Bee cornered her Grandpa after supper and those two spent about two solid hours putting together the outpost. (sorry for the blur)
Stormy learned young that life throws you curve balls - hurricanes, influenza epidemics, indoor plumbing. If you can't adapt, you'll get left behind.
Although she didn't believe in evolution (not until you show me the missing link!) she clearly understood that the ability to adapt to a new set of circumstances separates the quitters from the survivors, and those who just survive from those who thrive.
Over the course of her 95 years, Stormy had to adapt many times - to losing her mother when she was only 6, to a stepmother and new siblings, to electricity inside the house, to new schools, to life as a military wife, to life as a single mother of four, to living all alone, to helping care for her great-grandson, to life in another city, to life in a nursing home, to failing eyesight...
That's a lot of adapting. So how did Stormy do it so successfully? She had a vigorous two-step approach.
Step One: Don't talk about it.
Why dredge up bad feelings? What are you, selfish? Don't you know everyone's got problems? What makes you so special?
When I was little, I used to wonder why she told the same stories over and over and over. The aunt who won a drawing contest, the uncle who went to the national spelling bee, the day she walked to the sidewalk to pick up the paper and suddenly realized her middle-aged need for reading glasses had cured her nearsightedness.
"The hand is the hardest part of the human body to draw? No, Grandma, I didn't catch that the 42,000 times you've said it before."
When I got older and learned about all the much more interesting, tragic, scandalous and downright absurd family stories from other relatives, I realized Stormy had a vast catalog of stories. It was just that most of them were filed away in a drawer that read "Maybe this didn't happen."
Step Two: If you can't pretend it didn't happen, pretend it doesn't matter.
Remember how Aunt Leona had that baby before she got married, and she told her husband that it was her sister's child? And remember how, when he was just a little boy, Leona would keep him at home with her all day, until she heard Uncle Leo's car in the drive, and then Little Ajax would run out the back door, across the backyard, back to his mama/aunt's house? And remember that time, long after Ajax was a grown man and Leona was long dead, when Ajax was sitting in the living room on Christmas eve at Granddaddy's house, and someone said, "Uncle Leo's here!" And poor, old Ajax jumped up out of instinct and ran toward the back door?
Oh, that was funny.
So Stormy learned her methods from some sophisticated masters. And she passed on her lessons with equal mastery.
Witness the time when she left her cane sitting in an unexpected place, and her daughter (then in her 50s) tripped over it and fell with a hard thunk on the wood floor and laid there for several minutes.
Stormy lifted her hands over her head. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. "I've killed Janie Mae!" (short pause) "Oh, well. There's nothing I can do about it now."
I got a lot from my grandmother. My height and build. My hands look like hers might have looked if she had not worked in a kitchen for many, many years, but instead worked at a desk and bought herself Bath & Body Works anti-bacterial moisturizing lotion (Midnight Pomegranate). I also have her tendency to look at the world - and myself - as something in urgent and perpetual need of improvement.
But perhaps the greatest lesson my grandmother taught me was her keen talent for passive aggression.
I've decided to share those lessons with you, here, on Fridays. You don't have to thank me. No, really, I just type this stuff because I like the sound of my calloused, aching fingers pounding the keyboard. Don't mind me.
How to Get What You Want Without Ever Asking. Ever.
There are two ways to get what you want from other people.
The first way is to examine your own needs through a process of honest reflection, then identify the most logical person to ask for assistance. Then ask.
Yeah - simple and boring. Why take a short boring trip when you could take the scenic route?
When Stormy wanted a ride to the grocery store or church or Galveston, Texas, to visit her sister, do you think she just went up and asked someone?
You know she didn't.
If she wanted to go to the grocery store, she'd call and invite you to the Pizza Hut buffet for lunch (her treat!). When you were drowsy and weak from all that cheese pizza and iceberg lettuce laced with Thousand Island dressing, she would look out the window somewhat wistfully.
"I think I'm low on bread..."
Her voice would lift slightly at the end, more subtle than a question mark, more hopeful than a period. It would flutter there in front of you like a butterfly gliding on her breath.
"Would you like me to take you to the store?"
"Oh no. You have to get home."
"No I don't. I can take you to the store."
"I'll probably just get a taxi or take the bus."
"I can take you. It's on the way home."
"Maybe Miss Marguerite's granddaughter can take me the next time she comes to church with us."
"Or I could take you now."
"I'm just afraid I'm going to run out of things, is all. But maybe I can walk if I need to."
"It's five miles from your house. Why don't you let me take you now?"
"Or if it's just bread, I can walk up to the little corner store. The one where that drug dealer got shot."
"PLEASE WOMAN, LET ME TAKE YOU TO THE GODDAM A&P!"
"Only if it will make you happy."
Note the way Stormy managed not only to get what she wanted without asking, but she actually got the other person to beg for permission to do the favor. That's brilliance, my friends. It doesn't happen overnight, but with lots of practice, you can be there, too.
I had a dream last night that I was showing my grandmother where we keep our coffee cups in this kitchen. It wasn't a particularly remarkable dream, except for the fact that my grandmother died a little over a week ago, and I have an admittedly questionable hunch that my dead relatives visit me when I'm sleeping. Or that they let me know when I'm sleeping that they visit me. Something like that.
After Mom died, I had many, many dramatic and excruciating dreams about her. I dreamed that she hadn't really died, but that I had spent all her retirement money. I dreamed that she had come back to see my kids. I dreamed that she didn't know she was dead, and that I was going to have to tell her.
With my grandmother, who was 95, I had a very ordinary, undramatic dream that she was emptying my dishwasher and asked where the coffee cups belong. I pointed to the cabinet above the dishwasher - "Up there." That was that. No drama. No hand-wringing. No choking sobs. Just putting away the dishes.
We have finally made concrete moves to get rid of the 1989 surfer wallpaper in the master bedroom. Mister Dave has been coming every day with his steamer and his putty knife, and the house's most offensive wallpaper will soon be history.
So long, rad dude.
Now we just have to decide what color we should paint the walls in the dining and TV rooms, master bedroom and girls' room.
OK, we have to make three decisions. I already know the answer to the last question is pink.
I may have to turn to my favorite time suck, Polyvore.
If you're still out there, Internet strangers, send me photos of your favorite rooms.
School's not out for summer
I'm in the middle of a writing class that has been plagued with technical difficulties, including my complete inability to either write or even read poetry. Line breaks? Huh?
There was a time when I couldn't hear jazz music. I mean, the sounds struck my ears, but every last one of them sounded like the soundtrack to an early '70s Sesame Street clip about tying shoes or sharing the equipment at the city park or walking to school with friends. It took years before I could really hear the heroine in Chet Baker's horn.
This class has taught me that, although I enjoy poetry and have an instinctive feel for it, I don't really hear it or understand how it works. This weekend, I leave for a 5-day institute on student-led teaching - also for school. The institute will be conducted according to Open Space Technology, which sounds exciting and frightening.
And it will get me in the wilds of Vermont for five days. I can taste the granola now, and I am loving it.
We love this movie
Bee has fallen in love with Enchanted, and I am totally cool with it. The princess is funny, and at the end she saves the life of that guy from "Can't Buy Me Love." | <urn:uuid:2d0e0ae5-4101-42d3-a890-c906441eb4d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://etb.typepad.com/bettiebookish/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981488 | 2,086 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Treasury yields have posted historical lows for the past several years, implying strongish economic growth and the potential...
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., sent a letter Tuesday to Christy Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled...
The U.S. economy is sliding sideways with consumer sentiment down on higher gasoline prices and economists realizing a mild winter stimulated early economic activity, according to CoreLogic.
A weather-related upswing in economic activity during the winter can result in a sluggish spring since buyers spend earlier, creating a potential drop off in spring activity.
Meanwhile, the housing sector continues to reflect two opposing trends: On one hand, household growth increased a slight 0.6% in 2011, said Mark Fleming with CoreLogic. This slow growth suggests the presence of pent-up demand, a factor that could later turn into home sales. Furthermore, home affordability levels are back to pre-1990s home prices, giving consumers an incentive to eventually buy.
Still, Fleming believes real estate activity could decline if mortgage rates rise this year.
"The most likely scenario is moderately higher interest rates that return housing affordability to where it was last year, hardly a draconian impact," Fleming wrote in his update.
Overall, the real estate market continues to putt along with housing starts falling to an annualized rate of 698,000 in February 2012, down from 702,000 in January. Fleming sees the change as "OK" given the fact starts have been flat since January of 2010.
The good news is the recent upswing in home sales. In February, sales increased 11.5% from a year ago to 280,100 units, CoreLogic said. Over the past 12 months ending in February, 3.9 million homes were sold, slightly above the pace set in calendar year 2011 levels while still below 2010's pace when the market was aided by homebuyer-tax credits.
Fleming said the recovery is now 3 years old, but it's the slowest post-recessionary growth period to-date when compared to post-war expansionary periods.
Don’t miss out: get HW delivered via email | <urn:uuid:87ad568e-8c3f-442e-9bce-d1dc7a2891ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.housingwire.com/news/2012/04/11/economy-slides-sideways-housing-nascent-recovery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956342 | 440 | 1.5 | 2 |
Australian Bureau of Statistics
1345.4 - SA Stats, Mar 2008
Previous ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 27/03/2008
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EXPORTS AND IMPORTS
South Australia's value of exports (in original terms) in January 2008 was $657m, an increase of 10.8% from the value of exports in January 2007 ($593m). The largest reported increases in value of exports over this period were for Road vehicles, parts and accessories (up $58.6m, or 502.4%) and Petroleum and petroleum products (up $5.9m, or 25.9%). The largest declines in value were reported for the exports of Metals and metal manufactures (down $66.0m, or 37.5%) and Wine (down $6.6m, or 6.1%).
The value of Australian merchandise exports for January 2008 was $13,185m, which was 4.4% greater than that for January 2007.
The value of South Australian merchandise imports increased to $634m in January 2008 from $554m in December 2007. In January 2007 the state's merchandise imports amounted to $600m.
The value of Australian merchandise imports for January 2008 was $16,937m, a 16.5% increase from January 2007.
VALUE OF MERCHANDISE EXPORTS AND IMPORTS,
Original, South Australia
Source: International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia (cat. no. 5368.0)
These documents will be presented in a new window.
This page last updated 28 April 2008 | <urn:uuid:260cfa22-5d40-469a-b076-886659b57e28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Previousproducts/1345.4Main%20Features11Mar%202008?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1345.4&issue=Mar%202008&num=&view= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946889 | 344 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Excuse me, Mr. Space Rock, have you got a minute? I'm with the media and I have a few questions about last Friday. 2012 DA14: I'm in a bit of a rush actually. Can't you wait for Asteroid Week on the Discovery Channel? Or trouble the Higgs Boson instead?
That particle is too hard to detect; it's much easier to bounce a signal off you, actually. According to scientists, you're a near-Earth asteroid with an estimated diameter of 50 meters and a mass of 190,000 metric tonnes.
2012 DA14: Yep, I'm a big rock. Anything else?
You came within a hair's breadth of missing Earth last Friday, in terms of astronomical distances.
2012 DA14: I wouldn't worry too much about it. The odds of dying from an asteroid strike are about 1 in 75 million.
In other words, approximately the same odds as encountering Leonard Cohen at a Red Bull promotional event.
2012 DA14: Huh? Never mind. What about the smaller object that struck Russia the same day as your flyby? What are the odds of an asteroid and a meteorite coming around at the same time?
2012 DA14: Some of us space rocks travel in packs. 99 percent of us originate in the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars, and occasionally gravitational forces skew our trajectories. The rest of us are wanderers from the outer fringes of the solar system.
I see. Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, said fireballs happen approximately once a day, but we just don't see them because many fall over the ocean or in remote areas. In the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia, the airburst from an incoming asteroid flattened trees like matchsticks for 770 square miles. If that had happened anywhere in Europe it would have been a catastrophe for civilization.
2012 DA14: True that. Back to that air show in the eastern hemisphere last week. What is about Russia and you guys? Is this about Pussy Riot?
2012 DA14: Say what? Sorry, I'm just being an idiot. More than 1,000 Russians were reportedly injured by the blast wave from the meteorite. What if this event had involved you, and not the much smaller guy?
2012 DA14: Oh, you'd know it if I dropped in. It would be a multi-megaton calling card; enough to wipe out a big city. Last week, even junior managed to reduce people of the 21 st century to a state of quivering awe. And we're talking about folks who live in a time where planetary science is well understood. Imagine something my size coming out of nowhere 10,000 years ago, when no one had a clue. Can you imagine the loincloth-crapping mysterium tremendum of it? My friends say that's where your ideas about Sky Gods originate - from us falling out of the sky. And the occasional comet and supernova flaring up. We asteroids don't have much to do with comets, actually. Stuck-up iceballs.
I hear you. I once witnessed an eclipse in the South of England and I saw how an astronomical event could strike educated, rational people to the core - myself included. A teenage girl standing near me burst into tears. There's something existentially disturbing about the sky erupting into blinding light or descending into impenetrable darkness, whether you understand the reasons or not.
2012 DA14: Your primate brains don't deal well with cosmic surprises. You have constructed religious beliefs partly as a bulwark against uncertainty. But now that you have some scientific understanding of the planetary risks, you civilized types should consider constructing a space-based defence shield for protection against the likes of me. I'm hardly the biggest out there.
I thought you said the odds of disaster were very long. 2012 DA14: For an individual person, yes. For a species hoping to evolve throughout the lifespan of its sun, no. Consider asteroids a natural selection mechanism for galactic intelligence. We're like Darwin Awards for beings that turn their weapons inward rather than outward.
I appreciate you sharing time with us, 2012 DA14. What's your next stop? 2012 DA14: Hopefully nowhere. I'll just keep rolling around in space for billions of years. I'm not much for excitement and not interested in making a scene. www.geoffolson.com | <urn:uuid:908fd1bf-f6f0-48b1-bbf6-b420831b7c4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vancourier.com/technology/Near%20miss%20asteroid%20goes%20record/8001778/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955434 | 908 | 1.671875 | 2 |
As the rain turned to snow Thursday evening, VDOT hit the streets to salt and sand the roads. But drivers got a surprise when thunder and lightening filled the sky.
The snow started falling in Henrico around 6p.m. before moving Southeast. VDOT spokeswoman Dawn Eischen said Thursday that crews first began in the Western part of the Richmond district before following the snow Eastward.
As the snow turned to rain and back to snow again, VDOT warned drivers that slush could freeze over. VDOT's pavement sensors read the ground was at freezing, which could be dangerous for morning commuters.
However, VDOT crews won't start plowing until there is two inches on the ground. Thursday night, many commuters said they were expressing extra caution but weren't concerned enough to stay off the roads.
"It's worth slowing down," said Kyle Sherwood. "Better safe than sorry."
"I hope most people are staying off the road," said Steve Cullen. "I still need to get home!"
However, drivers had more than snow to worry about overhead.
NBC12 crews heard thunder and saw lightening overhead during the snowstorm. Viewers called and wrote in to report the sighting as well.
When an NBC12 reporter asked William Overby if he was surprised by the so-called "thundersnow," he replied, "We live in Virginia and we get bipolar weather so it changes up pretty quickly."
Copyright 2013 WWBT NBC12. All rights reserved.
WWBT-TV NBC 12
P.O. Box 12
On Your Side
Video and Pics | <urn:uuid:75cad716-7578-468b-b1be-b2fda7fa1447> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc12.com/story/20618868/drivers-face-slush-ice-rain-even-thundersnow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973454 | 337 | 1.523438 | 2 |
How can you copy the 40s style?
Vintage fashion is becoming more and more popular. Clothes that hark back to a simpler and more glamorous era are a great reminder that things weren't always as throwaway and fluid as they are today. Where some people just go for a general vintage style – mix and matching eras and fashions – some people prefer a more unified look. If you'd like to copy the elegant style of the 40s, here are a few tips how to do so.
The type of dress you choose will depend somewhat on whether you are going for a street look, or a more dressed up look. Street dresses in the 1940s were often made of wool, and had long sleeves and high necks and were calf or knee length. Afternoon and evening dresses were more suited to special occasions or functions and tended to be brighter than street dresses, with a lower neckline and generally had capped or puffed short sleeves.
All 40s dresses were simply and beautifully cut, so these fashions suit people of all body shapes, if you're not comfortable showing too much of your bare arms, why not pair plus size tops with shorter sleeved vintage dresses, so you won't have to miss out on wearing any of the wonderful fashions of the era.
Coats of the 1940s were often made of wool, as this is a good, durable outdoor material. In length, they tended to fall to around the knee or mid calf. They were often quite dull colours, such as browns and greens, and had a simple yet classic cut. Summer coats, however, would be somewhat lighter, and often had a blazer cut, akin to the jacket of a dress suit. These blazers were usually cut in a flattering style, coming in at the waist to accentuate the figure.
Day shoes tended to be flat or low heeled and sensible for walking in. Pumps and Oxfords were popular choices, and colours of the era were dark blues, greens, wine red, browns and black. Ladies often tried to match their shoes to the colour of their coat, jacket or cardigan. For evening wear, higher heeled shoes were common, and were often made of suede or patent leather. It was common to match ones shoes to their dress.
One of the main accessories of the 1940s was a good hat. For street wear, choose a wide brimmed hat made of a material that won't mark when dampened by rain or snow. For more formal occasions, smaller hats, such as pillbox hats, made out of more luxurious materials were common. Another essential accessory was a good pair of stockings. Evening stockings were sheer and skin toned, whereas stockings for street or day wear tended to be sturdier and more opaque. These would have been attached to a garter belt or sometimes to a slip under the clothing.
There are a lot of vintage and vintage style clothes around today, so if you know what the 1940s look entails, it's not hard to pull it off. Charity shops and vintage clothes shops are a good place to start, as well as scouring online sellers. | <urn:uuid:37949e1a-7646-46b7-a90d-f1e0b2ebd06f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ivillage.co.uk/how-can-you-copy-the-40s-style/165235 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986302 | 649 | 1.742188 | 2 |
“Life changes fast.”
– The first sentence of The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion earned her reputation as one of the great American prose stylists partly through the memorable first sentences of her books and articles. She won the 2005 National Book Award for nonfiction for a memoir of death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, that opens with three words: “Life changes fast.”
Do opening lines have an importance that goes beyond their ability to make you keep reading? Didion dealt with the question in a Paris Review interview about the early nonfiction pieces that helped to make her famous:
Interviewer: You have said that once you have your first sentence you’ve got your piece. That’s what Hemingway said. All he needed was his first sentence and he had his short story.
Didion: What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.
Interviewer: The first is the gesture, the second is the commitment.
Didion: Yes, and the last sentence in a piece is another adventure. It should open the piece up. It should make you go back and start reading from page one. That’s how it should be, but it doesn’t always work. I think of writing anything at all as a kind of high-wire act. The minute you start putting words on paper you’re eliminating possibilities.
Joan Didion in “The Art of Fiction, No. 71,” an interview with Linda Kuehl in the Fall-Winter 1978 issue of the Paris Review. You can find the full text of that interview and another with Didion that appeared in the spring 2006 issue by searching for “Joan Didion” at www.parisreview.org. Didion’s hardcover publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, has posted an excerpt from The Year of Magical Thinking at www.aaknopf.com, where you can read the pages that follow: “Life changes fast.”
Cover art for the the Fall-Winter 1978 Paris Review shown here: Robert Moskowitz
© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:1911e7cb-5ec3-47fb-af86-174d27ec5ed2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/joan-didion-on-beginnings-and-endings-in-writing-quote-of-the-day/ | 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 | 0.953827 | 499 | 1.820313 | 2 |
1995 Chrysler LHS Repair Question
1995 Chrysler LHS
1995 Chrysler LHS 6 cyl Front Wheel Drive Automatic
Car shakes at idel and when you hit around 40mph.
Could this be a sensor problem and which one, and how do I find out without going to a dealer.
Shaking is due to a misfire of one cylinder. Sensor data causes the engine computer to adjust fuel metering to all cylinders equally.
The dealership mechanics are highly trained to find the problem quickly without blindly throwing a bunch of parts at it. Sensor information is read with a hand-held $6200.00 computer to speed the diagnosis. That's part of the expert service you're paying for which very often in the long run is the least expensive and fastest way to properly diagnose and fix the car.
How many miles on the engine? How long since the spark plugs and wires were replaced?
17,280 answers provided | <urn:uuid:97a56a17-e95d-418a-b741-c691deac9fb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.2carpros.com/questions/chrysler-lhs-1995-chrysler-lhs--6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941878 | 188 | 1.75 | 2 |
- App Store Info
DescriptionSmachico is a number game for children up to the preschool age.
Playful there are motivated to learn the numbers from 1 - 12 with symbols, dices and written numbers.
Good results on the way through the different levels are honored with medals.
Smachico can be played in English, French and German. | <urn:uuid:90d8f7fd-11e8-41c1-9b0c-3be0b8fd6b6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.appspy.com/app/465380/smachico | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933348 | 73 | 1.679688 | 2 |
You just never know where the iPad 2 is going to show up these days. From airplane cockpits to the NFL, the iPad is increasingly becoming a favored replacement for massive reams of paper.
Not too long ago, we reported that the Tampa Bay Buccaneer football team gave all 90 of its players iPad 2s to serve as replacements for gargantuan playbooks that made the Yellow Pages seem small by comparison.
And now the iPad 2 is making inroads into medical schools, a fact which shouldn’t be too surprising given its current popularity with doctors and hospitals.
Starting this Fall, Yale Medical Students won’t have to worry about carrying around obscenely large textbooks. Nope, their shoulders will be spared the wear and tear of carrying around a collection of books that can seemingly way upwards of 30 pounds.
So out with the old textbooks and in with the iPad 2.
But far from solely serving as a textbook replacement, students will can use their new iPads to check out Yale’s curriculum and “read and handle confidential patient health information.” What’s more, students will be able to download lecture notes and access course materials as well.
Even better, the iPad 2s are genuine gifts and students will be allowed to keep them after graduation. Of course, that sounds like a great deal until you ponder the insane price of a Yale medical education these days.
All told, Yale plans on distributing 520 iPads to students this year at a cost of $600,000. In contrast, printing up, collating, and distributing course materials via paper eats up $100,000 every year. Not to worry, though, as Yale expects to cover the initial cost of the iPad 2s with the money it will cumulatively save on printing going forward.
The School of Medicine tested the use of iPads in the classroom with a pilot group of nine first-year students last spring. The group included some students who self-identified as not “technology-savvy,” but even they responded positively to the device, Schwartz said. For those who remain committed to pen and paper, printed course materials will be available for purchase.
Robert Stretch MED ’14, a student in the pilot group, said he much preferred reading course notes electronically to having them on paper.
“We get binder upon binder of notes, literally several feet of notes, and carrying them to the library or to class is just unrealistic,” Stretch said.
Oh, and did we mention that the iPad 2s supplied to Yale’s medical students are of the 64GB 3G variety and come with Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard. Must be nice to be a Yalie!
The iPad is also a more secure device than a laptop for handling Electronic Protected Health Information, Schwartz said. Students work with this confidential information when they do clinical training, and in the past campus staff needed to set up special security on students’ laptops for them to be able to handle it safely. By contrast, the iPad is encrypted and can be remotely locked or erased completely if it is lost or stolen.
Now you can bet that this is the type of story Apple would love to bring up the next time it holds a special media event centered on the iPad.
via Yale Daily News | <urn:uuid:9bdc67ee-2e38-4b59-bb89-30798daf09a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edibleapple.com/2011/09/07/yale-hands-out-64gb-ipad-2s-to-entire-medical-school-student-body/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953873 | 680 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Given the strong correlation between high-performing schools and surrounding neighborhood home values, buyers and sellers should be aware of the ways in which well-ranked districts can affect values, especially in highly ranked areas such as Mercer Island.
It is no secret that the Mercer Island School District is ranked very highly when compared to other school districts on a national level. According to the district’s website, Forbes magazine rated the Mercer Island School District among the top 25 best school districts for a buyer’s housing dollar, as well as among the top ten school districts in small cities across the country. Recent plans for rebuilding our schools should further improve these rankings.
So, what does this mean for Mercer Island’s real estate market?
According to an article by Matthew Strozier in The Wall Street Journal last month, “schools have always been a driver for home buyers.” If purchasing a home in one of the higher ranked areas such as Mercer Island, buyers with school-age children will be receiving a top-notch education. Buyers are making an investment in the future value of their home. It was also reported there were fewer foreclosures in high-ranking school districts, and Seattle was one of the cities included in the study, which showed that as the ranking of the school districts went up, the percentage of foreclosures decreased.
People will always seek the best education available for their children, and there is always competition to get into a great school district. For homeowners, this means the value of their property will hold as the market fluctuates. As Strozier writes, “Higher-rated school districts also maintained higher home-sale prices, and higher home prices per square foot.” For the residents of Mercer Island, this means that sellers can ask for a higher price than an equivalent home in a lower-ranked district.
Buying or selling a home is serious business. Fortunately, the Mercer Island housing market is still relatively strong. Don't allow national or regional statistics to make you believe otherwise. Even now, there are well-qualified buyers wanting to buy homes in areas with good schools. Even if children aren’t in your future plans, owning a home in an area like Mercer Island, with high ranking schools, will greater ensure the value of your home especially in these uncertain economic times. | <urn:uuid:9f9f245b-6fcc-4577-b0f8-c2a65d622547> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mercerisland.patch.com/groups/ken-urman-real-estate-brokers-blog/p/bp--highly-ranked-schools-continue-to-have-a-positive2527c3bdc5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969868 | 477 | 1.679688 | 2 |
You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run Kenny Rogers
Sometimes, when you are running a PPC campaign, you find a keyword, ad group (or even a campaign!) that has low volume. So low that you can go a while without any conversions. When you find yourself in this situation, it’s important to know (as Kenny would say) when to fold ‘em.
The way I have approached this problem, is to select a conversion rate (whether it be a target, the conversion rate of other elements of the campaign or a historical conversion rate) and then pose the question as:
How many clicks have to elapse without a conversion before we are sure (with 95% confidence) that the conversion rate is lower than our estimated conversion rate?
The following table shows, for sample conversion rates, how many clicks have to go by without a conversion before you can be pretty sure the actual conversion rate is lower than the target:
|Historic conversion rate||Number of clicks without conversion that should worry you (95% level)|
Why you need advanced maths to do PPC
You don’t actually need to have a degree in probability and statistics to manage a PPC campaign effectively. Creativity and an attention to detail are probably the greatest requirements. Calls like the one that is the subject of this post can often be made by ‘gut feel’ without needing to know exact probabilities.
Having said that, gut feel doesn’t scale. If you are running dozens of campaigns, with hundreds of ad groups and many thousands of keywords, you need to be able to automate some elements of the process. A big part of where we add value for our clients is by combining industry knowledge, creativity and that attention to detail with our mathematical approach. We build tools that leverage our maths degrees (I knew there was a reason for sitting through advanced probability and stochastic modeling) into scalable solutions that help us get deep into the heart of what’s going on with a campaign, no matter what size it is.
The maths bit – warning probability ahead!
(unless you just want to see us doing some clever stuff!)
So, the question can be reframed as:
How many clicks have to occur without a conversion before we are 95% sure that the conversion rate is less than p?
The generalised case (I have n conversions in C clicks and a supposed conversion rate of p, should I be worried?) is harder. We have a tool in development that will do this kind of statistical analysis, but it involves beta functions and I can’t do it in my head…!
The basic case, however, is pretty straight-forward undergraduate statistics.
Let W be the random variable ‘number of clicks we have to wait before we get a conversion’ (on whatever subset of the account we are watching). Then W is a random variable known as the waiting time of a sequence of Bernoulli trials. It turns out it is a geometric variable with mass function f(k) = p(1-p)^(k-1) (integer k) (*).
Let p be the probability a click converts => probability a given click doesn’t convert = 1-p.
Then P(W > k) = (1-p)^k (essentially, the probability of having to wait longer than k = probability none of the first k convert).
So, if we want to be confident at the 95% level that there is something wrong (i.e. we should have already had a conversion), we need to find the k such that:
0.05 > P(W > k) (i.e. 5% chance we wouldn’t have had a conversion within k clicks)
=> 0.05 > (1-p)^k
=> log(0.05) > k*log(1-p)
=> k > log(0.05) / log(1-p) (reverse inequality since log(1-p) is negative)
To be 99% certain, we’d need to see k > log(0.01) / log(1-p) clicks and no conversions.
Note that you can’t generalise this by simply looking for gaps of k clicks when there are no conversions over a larger number of clicks including a number of successful conversions. This is because, while 95% seems like a high number, it does mean that out of every 20 sets of k clicks, there will be one with no conversions in it. So as soon as you start looking at multiple sets of k clicks, the results no longer hold.
It’s a good quick ‘n’ dirty way of working out statistical significance on small sample sizes, however.
* Probability and Random Processes, Grimmett and Stirzaker | <urn:uuid:741d0b62-9379-49f2-ba31-647803dce90d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.distilled.net/blog/ppc/ppc-lesson-from-kenny-rogers-and-some-advanced-maths/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933112 | 1,029 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Hmmm... 192.168.80.50 is inside the default range that Core will use for Pluto devices. Your Windows box should get an address in the 80.129 to 80.254 range (if you've left the defaults in place) and this address will be automatically allocated by the Cores DHCP server. Let the Core allocate it a valid IP for a non-pluto device and then the auto detection scripts should do the rest for you.
Thanks Andrew. I hadn't thought of that. I've statically assigned the IP of this box since it acts as a server for other functions, and it was .1.50 before, so I decided to just stick with .50 for the last octet. I did modify the DHCP range of Pluto before doing this, so that the range for MDs ends at .49.
So, if I'm to use Pluto to hand out an IP to this box so that it automatically detects Windows shares, how would I go about setting up a DHCP Reservation? I'd like its IP to always be the same, whatever that may be. | <urn:uuid:129536a7-1c8a-4f72-9237-32586b4abf6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=1083.0;prev_next=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934534 | 223 | 1.734375 | 2 |
By Cameron Chai
CRANN, a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)-sponsored nanoscience institute located at Trinity College Dublin, has declared that it has entered into a new strategic collaboration with Ceram, an UK-based company providing materials analysis, testing and consultancy services.
Nanoscience Institute CRANN Inks Strategic Partnership with Ceram
The collaboration will offer globally accepted analytical capability to Irish companies, while providing novel commercial and industrial benefits to both Ceram and CRANN. With this partnership, the two organizations can also work for huge industrial research projects in their respective fields including pharmaceutical, technology, energy and more, throughout Europe and globally.
CRANN’s proven and widespread joint research program with industry partners is the basis of the partnership with Ceram. Through the program, more than 70 local and international companies have partnered with CRANN, which recently received an award from Intel for its contribution in developing sophisticated technologies for Intel. CRANN’s high-tech research facilities such as its Advanced Microscopy Laboratory play a major role in its success.
CRANN is also memorializing the first anniversary of its Advanced Microscopy Laboratory, a facility jointly financed by the SFI and HEA. Since its establishment, more than 20 firms operating in the markets, including aeronautical, biopharma, medical devices, energy and more, have regularly utilized the facility for their research. Moreover, the facility has trained 200 scientists of eight Irish academic institutes in handling various microscopy instruments.
CRANN scientists have also been secured a non-exchequer funding worth €5 million in an international competition. Dr. Diarmuid O’Brien, who serves as CRANN’s Executive Director, stated that the collaboration with Ceram reinforces the position of Ireland as a major research center for firms as well as strengthens the institute’s leadership in the nanoscience field. | <urn:uuid:6f97dcc6-219f-4323-90f4-44660bd34f78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?NewsID=23610 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958584 | 386 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Software puts smartphone users in touch with police
Published: Friday, August 10, 2012 at 7:23 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, August 10, 2012 at 7:23 p.m.
These days people use smartphones for just about anything and everything, and Transylvania County Sheriff David Mahoney wants to use those habits to fight crime.
On Friday, Aug. 3, the sheriff launched a new software that sends crime alerts to residents and allows them to text or e-mail tips anonymously.
“We’ve been utilizing a system for a couple of years to send instant alerts to people who signed up for them via e-mail,” Mahoney said. “Several months ago we began to look at a system that sends crime alerts and hazard alerts and getting the community to be able to respond back.”
Residents can send text messages, e-mails or notes to the Sheriff’s Office’s social media websites.
“For example, if we are looking for a suspect, we can send out an alert even with a photo if we have it, and it goes out in text messages or e-mails and posts on our Facebook page,” he said. “People can see it and respond immediately. It’s most useful to us because recipients can respond anonymously.”
Mahoney said the new software, Tipsoft, went online a week ago and by Monday, there were 30 new users.
“The user never sends information directly to the Sheriff’s Office,” Mahoney said. “Tipsoft provides a number to the user and that is how we get the tips. If the tip leads to an arrest that a reward is attached to, we can contact Tipsoft to get the person responsible the reward.”
Mahoney said Tipsoft, which for now isn’t costing the taxpayers any money, merges with what his department was already doing.
“We had the ability to send alerts, and tips could be given on our website,” he said. “Now we have merged those to make it easier. We are seeing a considerable amount of our tips come in on some form of electronic method these days.”
Anyone interested in signing up for alerts can visit the Sheriff’s Office website at www.transylvaniasheriff.org or the department’s Facebook page.
Reach Harbin at 828-694-7881 or [email protected].
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:599407cc-34bf-420e-b586-5eb7b122df53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20120810/ARTICLES/120819982/1144/news?Title=Software-puts-smartphone-users-in-touch-with-police | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939809 | 568 | 1.65625 | 2 |
However, what most people might not be aware of is that-of all exercises-Yoga actually can help immensely for weight loss in the abdominal region. There are specific poses, that target excess weight in the abdomen and coupled with a customized diet, those seeking abdominal weight loss would find success in using these yoga exercises.
Let’s go over them, shall we?
Abdominal Weight Loss: Yoga Poses to Use.
1. The Sun Salutations: These are a combination of poses that serve as a warm up-routine for a Yoga session or class. They are very similar to the popular calisthenics exercise known as burpees. However, they differ in that they have a spiritual significance included as a result of executing them. Due to the forward and backward bending motions involved, after performing a few to several rounds on a daily basis, you are bound to notice a marked loss of weight in you abdominal area and the added bonus of muscular tone.
2. The Bow Pose: This simple pose involves laying flat on your belly and grabbing your ankles with both arms while simultaneously lifting your head up high. When performed correctly, you should be resting on your abdomen. Needless to say, it is a pose commonly recommended for weight loss and the prevention and correction of chronic constipation.
3. The Peacock Pose: This is slightly more challenging. The objective is to balance your abdomen on your conjoined elbows while simultaneously raising your legs and head of the floor. Naturally, merely attempting it speeds up abdominal weight loss and detoxification of the visceral organs and the preparatory stage could suffice as the actual execution of the pose till the mastery of it is achieved.
4. The Abdominal Lift: This is not a pose, per-se but is a specific exercise that involves you exhaling your breath and pulling the diaphragm in while holding the breath out. This is a specific abdominal exercise for weight loss, spiritual rejuvenation and detoxification.
Now friends, there are other poses such as the shoulder-stand, the forward-bending pose, the spinal twist and the wheel pose that also target increase in muscular tone and weight loss in the abdominal regions, however from practice the 4 above will perhaps be the most effective.
Do note though that if you are female and pregnant or in your menstrual period, some of these poses might not be the best to execute.
Moreover, since these poses-besides helping with abdominal weight loss-aid tremendously with detoxifying, it is advised that one eats a proper and healthy diet to augment the actions of these poses.
Other fantastic exercises for abdominal weight loss include your intense Aerobics, the use of the ab-wheel, basic sit-ups, windmills etc.
So empower yourself with these tips and information to achieve your goal for weight loss. Lose that gut starting today. | <urn:uuid:3ed54ea8-6ec8-41c0-954b-5ec408be7bc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://loseweight-safe.com/fitness/abdominal-weight-loss-yoga-can-help-you-lose-the-gut/ | 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 | 0.952461 | 584 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Looters ransacked supermarkets in several Argentine cities, causing two deaths and evoking memories of widespread theft and riots that killed dozens during the country's worst economic crisis a decade ago.
Santa Fe Province Security Minister Raul Lamberto described the attacks as simple acts of vandalism and not social protests.
Lamberto said two people were killed by a sharp object and gunfire after attacks yesterday on about 20 supermarkets in the cities of Rosario and Villa Gobernador Galvez. He said 25 people were injured and 130 arrested during the looting about 305km northeast of Buenos Aires.
Closer to the capital, riot police fired rubber bullets to drive off a mob that was trying to break into a supermarket in San Fernando.
A police lieutenant was hit on the head with a crowbar and suffered severe injuries during the clashes, authorities said. Officials said 378 people were arrested during those confrontations.
Some shops closed in several cities despite the busy Christmas shopping season, because of worries that looting might spread.
The troubles followed a wave of looting that began Friday when dozens of people broke into a supermarket in the Patagonian ski resort of Bariloche. The Government deployed 400 military police to that southern city. | <urn:uuid:626c5b2c-c33c-4c43-898b-7e2c2aec2677> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10855773&ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976748 | 245 | 1.570313 | 2 |
We know that Tyler Clemente and Trayvon Martin are dead and we are not naive about who else will kill whom else. We know about Colorado killings and Tucson killings and Newtown killings and we know we don’t want to even have to name everybody. We know about the sting of death, especially that worst kind of death, useless death, the kind that has no point and just stings and stings and stings, the way a bullet first hurts a child and then goes on to haunt a family.
We also know that the dead alert and compost the living into new ways of being. The dead help us get clear, clear enough to live beyond the sting. While haunting us, they also fertilize us to unsentimental appreciation for life and breath. We get unstung and we almost never know how. We know the process of release from pain and marvel at why it took so much death to get changes in gun laws or a tad of release from racism. We muse on what a useful death can be in a world of such extensive uselessness.
We begin to see that death had its name on our own resume before we even got to update it. Someone asked Arianna Huffington if she was going to write a memoir and she quipped, “Aren’t they for dead people?” Yes, they are for dead people but once you write the story down, you don’t have to carry it around any more either. Once you write the memoir, by dying early to an achieving self, you are lighter. You might even begin to have a useful life heading towards a useful death.So many people say to me: “I don’t feel good about what I’m not getting done.” The best advice I ever got as an organizer was to go lie down in a field and watch a carrot grow. When I could do that, people were willing to trust me as a leader. Before I could do that, I was just pushing them around, packaging them into justice and peace packages, all destined to assuage my own terror about my unwritten memoir. Teja Cole calls this the White Savior Industrial Complex. When you live there, you are already dead.
The second best advice I got from another organizer was that the pace of coveted change was directly proportional to the pace of trust. People who have been violently harmed – stung by senselessness – move slow towards trust. Like a carrot grows. They move from useless to useful death.
How does death become useful? By helping us get over our own memoirs and accomplishments and terrors in time for our own dying. By getting our own dying and living far enough out of the way that we can attend each other in the rebuilding of broken trust. “Great art suspends the reversed eye..releasing us from the coil of ourselves,” says Ken Wilbur, the poet. When we coil, we can’t care. When we uncoil, we can care. Native Americans would say that the only real danger in life and death is the breaking of the circle of trust. Useless death tries to do that. We intervene whenever we enter the circle of trust, making even death useful.
March 30 Devotional “Loosed from Pharaoh’s Bitter Yoke”
I believe in the insurrection. Resurrection comes after insurrection, not before. Resurrection is that lift out of the basement, after you empty your attic. You live in the main house on the main floor with the stuff you need for living, not more, not less. You become simple, just like you always said you wanted to be.
Insurrection is the Saturday before the Sunday. It is your way to resurrection. Insurrection is your uncanny way to its freedom. You die to your old ways, your constant obedience to Pharaoh’s bitter yoke, your compliance with the rules about who you must be and what you must do. You even die to the complicated fantasy that if you just do everything right, then everything will be ok. Even the most free among us, the artists, the dancers, even those with the most Zen of personalities and the least reliance on self-medication, even we can be cluttered with death. We can feel like we are living the wrong life, or someone else’s life, or our mother’s life, or our father’s life. We can yearn for the main floor of life only to be stuck above or below. We can live in the attic with our memories or in the basement of our fears. We can keep our windows closed, even when it is warm outside. We can work at a job that doesn’t have our name on its paycheck or stay married for the health insurance. We may not be the victim of Pharaoh’s bitter yoke, so much as its quiet but faithful servant. We object in our spare time to our marching orders and then we pull up our bra straps or gird our loins and go out to march in his parade. Recently the commandments have become to answer your email and post on your face book: Aye, aye, captain. Imagine what an insurrection could do to the Internet!
If resurrection is that great sense of surprise that the women knew at the grave at dawn, insurrection is the refusal to keep looking for the living among the dead. Many activists work hard at changing the system that makes us work hard. The time famine among do gooders is a perfect example of worshipping Pharaoh while thinking you are not. I was just with a magnificent group of activists who after a few hours of honesty began to tell each other something like the truth. Our truth was summarized in our final report as “fighting for a little stillness.” We had a great belly laugh about FIGHTING FOR STILLNESS. Insurrection is the refusal to fight for the grace we have been given.
What grace, you will say? I can’t afford grace. It would mean I wasn’t in charge. I think I’ll be in charge and go out to fight for stillness and demand justice or declutter my house. Is there not insurrectionary grace in Jesus’ questions? Have you not seen? Did you not hear? Your people crossed the red sea. Have you not seen? I fed a lot of people with a little. Do you not know? I take care of birds. Will I not take care of you? Do you not remember? You will know me in brokenness of bread and spilled wine. You will know me because they will kill me and I won’t be afraid. Don’t tell me you need more evidence than that to live on the main floor of your life?
Loose us again and again from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke. Amen. | <urn:uuid:87a1d6a3-88f7-49d4-bc1e-4f52d439afb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/02/26/dare-we-get-used-to-violence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962597 | 1,407 | 1.65625 | 2 |
For those of you who may not know who Simon & Garfunkel are (don’t worry I wouldn’t admit to it either), they were an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. Most notably known for their hit single “The Sound of Silence” and also for their music being featured in the film The Graduate which featured another one of their hits “Mrs. Robinson”.
Simon & Garfunkel rose to critical and commercial success between 1960 and 1970 when they recorded their final studio album Bridge Over Troubled Water which included the song “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”. The origins and meaning of this song have long been debated, one argument is that the song is a dedication to Frank Lloyd Wright from Art Garfunkel who was himself a former architecture student, and the other argument is that the song served as a hidden farewell between Simon & Garfunkel since this would be their final album together. Evidence can be found within the lyrics of the song that says, “I remember the nights we’d harmonize till dawn, I never laughed so long, so long, so long…” The repeated use of the “so long” can be interpreted as a goodbye between the two.
What do you think were the intentions behind this song…?
So long, Frank Lloyd Wright.
I can’t believe your song is gone so soon.
I barely learned the tune
I’ll remember Frank Lloyd Wright.
All of the nights we’d harmonize till dawn.
I never laughed so long
Architects may come and
Architects may go and
Never change your point of view.
When I run dry
I stop awhile and think of you
So long, Frank Lloyd Wright
All of the nights we’d harmonize till dawn.
I never laughed so long
Our friends from Studio Banana TV shared with us their interview with MVRDV‘s Winy Maas. Founded in 1993 by Maas along with Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries the firm has produced impressive works among them the well known Balancing Barn and WoZoCo. In recent news (featured just this week on ArchDaily) MVRDV along with COBE were chosen as the winners of an international competition for their design scheme to transform a former concrete factory into a multifunctional creative hub.
In the video Maas discusses a number of MVRDV’s projects including their Market Hall project in Rotterdam and The Why Factory (T?F) which was established at Delft University of Technology in 2008 as a thinktank for future cities. Earlier this year Maas was recognized for his design contributions in France by receiving the French Legion of Honor.
A few months ago I had the chance to meet Steven Holl, whose work I admire. I think that he has been able to innovate and challenge programs as we used to know them, and experiment with materials and structures, while sticking to what really matters in architecture: space, context and light.
When I attended his “Disobedience” lecture in Columbia (during Kenneth Frampton’s 80th birthday) I understood how this disobedience is tied to his constant investigations, and then reflected on his buildings (like the competition for the Nelson Atkins museum as he tells on the video). I also really liked the fact that he’s very down to earth, and how he started his career and moved to the east coast. If you ever had the chance to attend one of his lectures, don’t miss it!
Steven Holl along with partner Chris McVoy lead Steven Holl Architects, one of the more innovative architecture and urban design offices in the world. A graduate of the University of Washington, Holl also studied in Rome and London before heading to New York to establish an architecture practice.
Holl has also contributed to the profession as an educator; the architect and watercolorist has taught at Columbia University since 1981, where he is a tenured faculty member. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the recipient of the New York American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor and the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal.
Steven Holl Architects’ has been recognized internationally by some of architecture’s most prestigious awards. Recent recognition for SHA work includes 2010 P/A Award for LM Harbor Gateway and the 2009 CTBUH Best Tall Building Overall for Linked Hybrid. Their numerous AIA awards include the AIA 2008 Institute Honor Award as well as a Leaf New Built Award 2007 for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City; the AIA 2007 Institute Honor Award, AIA New York Chapter 2007 Merit Architecture Award, and a RIBA International Award for the School of Art & Art History at the University of Iowa. And the New Residence at the Swiss Embassy in Washington, D.C was awarded an AIA New York Chapter 2007 Honor Architecture Award and the RIBA International Award.
SHA’s completed works featured on ArchDaily:
- Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy, Norway
- Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Herning, Denmark
- Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing, China
- Nanjing Sifang Art Museum
- Museum of Ocean and Surf
- Chapel of St. Ignatius
- College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, UMINN
- T Space
- Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City
- Simmons Hall at MIT
- Horizontal Skyscraper
- New Doctorate’s Building, National University Bogota
- Glasgow School of Art
- Sliced Porosity in China
- Queens Library at Hunters Point
- Hangzhou Normal University Performing Arts Center
- Daeyang Gallery and House
Video credits: J.P. Barrera Faus (Editing), J.C. Labarca (Camera).
The design by Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with Solange Fabiao is the winning scheme from an international competition that included the offices of Enric Miralles/Benedetta Tagliabue, Brochet Lajus Pueyo, Bernard Tschumi and Jean-Michel Willmotte.
Stay tuned for the full interview!
Photos by FG+SG Fernando Guerra and Sergio Guerra.
This exclusive video of OMA’s Maggie’s Centre by BD online features OMA partner Ellen van Loon discussing the design for the cancer care center. Led by OMA Partners Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon with Associate-in-charge Richard Hollington the Maggie Gartnaval center located in Glasgow opened today.
Ellen van Loon shared, “I enjoyed designing such an exceptional environment with this very dedicated and inspired team of designers and contractors. The sequence of spaces is an interplay of openness, retreat and support to underpin the Maggie’s programme.”
This snapshot of a new documentary about mid-century modern architecture in Arkansas illuminates classic post-war designs. Simple, clean lines were often the elements that delineated the aesthetics of these buildings. While many lay in disrepair, they still exude an aura of a time when optimism was reflected in the country’s desire to build a new future. Some of the architectural icons that are featured include the University of Arkansas’s Fine Arts Center by state native Edward Durell Stone, the Tower Building in Little Rock, the Fulbright Library in Fayetteville, and the abandoned Hotel Mountainaire. Check out the short clip of what will air in November on AETN. Also, see the highlights of the current affairs and award winning architecture that is taking place within the state of Arkansas here.
Two young artists Ryan and Trevor Oakes have introduced a unique way for drawing using a 3D drawing machine that assists in re-presenting the view in front of one’s eyes. The machine was developed as an exploration of the nature of vision with a goal to recreate realism in the correct proportions and perspective. The artists explain how the machine works; by limiting vision of the scene to one eye and the other to plot the image on concave paper, an illusion occurs where the paper becomes transparent, rendering an effect that you are simply tracing the scene in front of you. It is an interesting take on creating artwork with amazingly accurate results. Check out the video for their presentation.
Gensler, architects of SanFrancisco International Airport’s Terminal2(SFO T2) and Virgin America, the terminal’s anchor tenant, announce the release of A Day in the Life of SFO T2, a video by filmmakers Spirit of Space. A Day in the Life of SFO T2 is a key element in Virgin America’s fall promotion “VX Deals on the Fly,” launching today via Loopt, the geo-social network. The promotion will offer travelers mobile check-in rewards at various locations throughout SFO T2. More information after the break. (more…)
In this video from Cities of Opportunity 2011, architectural superstar and OMA founder Rem Koolhaas shares his views on the contemporary evolution of the city and his vision for the future of urban centers. Produced by accounting giant PwC (a.k.a PricewaterhouseCoopers before their 2010 re-branding) and the Partnership for New York City, Cities of Opportunity 2011 “analyzes the trajectory of 26 cities, all capitals of finance, commerce, and culture and through their performance, seeks to open a window on what makes cities function best.”
Documenting Richard Meier’s career this video starts at the beginning with Meier’s acceptance to Cornell along with his earliest projects. Included within the documentary is a description by Meier and fellow alumni Peter Eisenman about The New York Five, video footage of Meier’s Getty Center along with a lecture by Meier in ’92 describing his architecture.
This video was created in 2006 in honor of Meier’s 50th reunion (Cornell class of 1956)
The well established and nationally recognized architecture firm Brooks + Scarpa (2010 AIA National Firm of the Year) recently decided to shake things up a bit. “Our office has turned more into a conventional office over the years, and I was just really looking for something that could become a glorified cabinet shop where we could actually work and make things, have the space to do that, and have some outdoor space to build bigger things,” shares Larry Scarpa.
Yesterday we showed you a preview, and here it is the full interview with one of the most influential contemporary architects.
Architect, educator, and theorist, internationally recognized Peter Eisenman was a part of an important generation of architects and popularized amongst the general public when he was exhibited at the MoMA in 1969 as one of the New York Five. Eisenman, along with Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, and Richard Meier (Eisenman’s second cousin) made up the ‘group of architects whose work, represented a return to the formalism of early modern rationalist architecture’.
Eisenman earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University, a Master of Science in Architecture degree from Columbia University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Cambridge University (U.K). He founded an international think tank for architecture, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), serving as director until 1982 and simultaneously established his own architecture firm.
As an educator, Eisenman has taught at some of the most prestigious architecture programs including the Yale School of Architecture, Cambridge, Princeton, Harvard, and Ohio State universities.
Peter Eisenman’s work ranges from large-scale housing and urban design to educational institutions and private houses. Often labeled as a deconstructivist Eisenman is also known for his intricate drawings. He has been recognized for his design abilities receiving the Medal of Honor from the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2001, the Smithsonian Institution’s 2001 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture, and he was also awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale.
In 2006 Eisenman’s design for the University of Phoenix Stadium for the Arizona Cardinals earned him the label as one of the top five innovators of 2006 according to Popular Science.
Eisenman’s most recent book Ten Canonical Buildings: 1950-2000 revisits some of the most important buildings of the past century with a critical view, a must read for every architect.
Projects by Eisenman previously featured at ArchDaily:
We’ve been covering the Freedom Tower quite extensively, sharing documentaries, time lapse videos, renderings and even news the tower’s first major tenant. And, today, director Gaspard Giroud shared this amazing clip of the progress on the tower. Commissioned by Silverstein Properties, Piranha NYC, a motion graphic design and visual effects company, wrote, produced, art directed, filmed, and finished all vfx for this inspiring piece marking the 10th year anniversary of 9/11. The clip was then presented a few days ago at Tower 7 in the presence of Mayor Bloomberg. We love how the film condenses the building’s time lapse of construction – especially the reflections of the progress in car windows and even through the glass façade of a neighboring building. And, of course, it’s a beautiful thing to see people occupying the finished tower. What do you think of the film?
When we first saw MAD’s Erdos Museum for Inner Mongolia, the renderings teased us with a futuristic blob-like form that was planned for Ordos’ designed, but yet not constructed, urban masterplan. Now, a few years later, the firm is celebrating the museum’s completion and the finished effect of both the form and its materiality can be fully appreciated. MAD shared a video on the finished project with us and we hope you enjoy it!
More info about the project after the break. (more…)
Peter Eisenman is one of the most influential figures in contemporary architecture. Theorist, academic and practitioner, Peter Eisenman was part of a very important generation of architects and one of the New York Five.
In his recent book Ten Canonical Buildings: 1950-2000 Eisenman revisits some of the most important buildings of the past century with a critical view, a book that is in my opinion a must read for every architect.
During the interview Peter talks about the practice/project of architecture, his views on running an architecture practice, and the current state of American architecture, among other relevant topics. On this preview you can see his views on today’s American Architecture.
Full interview tomorrow!
Greg Tran shared with us his amazing video, ‘Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d’. The video was the Thesis Prize Winner in Harvard Graduate School of Design 2011. You can see the short version above, and if you want to check to complete version, you can watch it here: Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d (Full Version).
“Architecture has always been the medium which defines the spaces we live in, but with the emergence of Digital 3d or “augmented” technology, immaterial stimuli is beginning to encroach upon those spaces. Thus far, digital forms have few relationships to their material context, but there is interesting potential for their interaction. Digital tools act as an infrastructural and informational prosthetic, but will be most profound when they tie back to the human body and engage the built environment.”
Burden, a performance artist known for crucifying himself on a Volkswagen and once hiring a friend to shoot him in the arm, doesn’t have any particular interest in transportation or urban planning, he says, although he has used toys in his artworks since the 1970s. “Toys are interesting as objects — they’re the tools you use to inculcate children into adults,” he told Fastco Design. “They’re a reflection of society.” His mini-city is “modeling something that’s on the twilight of extinction: the era of the ‘free car,’” Burden says, referring to the idea of jumping into one’s car anytime and going wherever one pleases. “Those days are numbered, but think it’s a good thing. The upside is that cars can be faster and safer, and you don’t have to worry about drunk drivers. Think about it: The cars in Metropolis II are going a scale speed of 230mph. That’d be great to do for real in L.A.”
The Vienna Design Week 2011, now in its fifth year, is Austria’s most important international design festival. From September 30 — October 9th, 2011, it will bring some of the best designers of our time to the Austrian capital while simultaneously fostering the talents of tomorrow. The festival is diversified in content — comprising positions of product design, industrial design, and furniture design. For more information, please click here.
Taking full advantage of the density of the towers, Chocron set up multiple cameras at various angles in order to shoot a sequence of time lapse videos from sundown to sunup. What looks like an intricately choreographed light show, is cleverly composited in post-production. Predictably, in the evening residents turned their lights on, and as the evening progressed turned them off. In order to create the dance of lights in similar effect to that of an equalizer, Chocron switches between the illuminated and darkened states in concert with the choreography of the song. The end result is an intriguing audiovisual composition.
Photographer Onnis Luque recently shared with us an interesting video he shot of the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion by Zaha Hadid Architects. The form of the 700 sqm Chanel Pavilion is a celebration of the iconic work of Chanel, unmistakeable for its smooth layering of exquisite details that together create an elegant, cohesive whole. For more on this project click here. | <urn:uuid:cb973640-da62-4c55-8c9b-30aeff09ffc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.archdaily.com/category/videos/page/24/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947345 | 3,812 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Our Own "Living Jewel"
By Linda Montgomery
It’s hard to know where to begin when writing about a man who has done as much for the hobby of koi keeping as Ed
Fujimoto. It is quite overwhelming and almost impossible to mention all of the positive influences that this quiet and energetic
man has accomplished in the many years that he has admired and loved koi. This task was even more daunting when I began to
realize that many of his achievements I would have to discover for myself by researching back issues of Koi USA, as Ed is
extremely modest and dwells very little on his past accomplishments.
Dr. Bertrelle Caswell, who did a wonderful article on Ed that was published in the 1980 May/June issue of Koi USA, has
no idea how much she has helped. The following is an excerpt from that article:
Eddie was born in Seattle, Washington. At the beginning of the war, as a teenager, he was sent to a relocation camp in
Idaho. Farm workers were needed, so he volunteered to go out and pick sugar beets and dig potatoes. When summer was over,
he decided to stay in Preston, Idaho, and work in a restaurant while going to school. He stayed two semesters, went back to
camp, but ended up going to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in a defense plant making parachutes.
"From Cleveland I went into the service in 1944. I volunteered. The first couple of years I was in uniform. I was sent
to Okinawa. At that time, they were repatriating Japanese prisoners of war from Russia, and they were interrogating people.
They hardly had anybody in the CIC (Counter Intelligence Corp.) who could speak Japanese and English. I worked as an interpreter
for them for a couple of months, and pretty soon they had me doing it by myself. They sent me to Tokyo to CIC school. That
is how I got into investigation.
I’ve been in investigation all my adult life, it seems. I served with the Office of Special Investigation for seventeen
years. I came back from that, and I played for one whole year…went to school, took one subject – landscaping,
motorboating. Then one day I was building onto my house when I got a call from a friend who said that Douglas Aircraft wanted
an investigator. I went down there and got the job, and have stayed with them for 14 years."
All of his life Ed has owned and raised small fish, such as goldfish and tropicals, so the transition to koi in the mid
1960’s wasn’t all that far of a jump. It was a great benefit to all of us in the koi hobby when he first became
interested in koi while living in southern California and attending a local koi show. The Grand Champion of the show, a beautiful
sanke, caught his eye and that’s all it took, he was hooked! The evolution from koi admirer to koi keeper was almost
instantaneous when soon after he purchased his first eleven koi on a visit to the Japanese Deer Park in Los Angeles, California.
"The day we were there they were selling koi at $10 each, about 3" long. It is funny: I was stationed in Japan, three different
tours, a total of twelve years – my last six years in the Nigata area – and I never went to see koi. Then I came
back, and after I got interested, I took a special trip just to see Hanako. That’s all I did, see fish!" (In the first
issue of Koi USA, Ed speaks of this memorable experience visiting with Hanako and his owner Dr. Koshihara, who also was responsible
for first coining the phrase in 1966, "Living Jewels", which has now become synonymous with Nishikigoi the world over.)
Not only has Ed contributed to our wonderful hobby over the years, by his numerous informative articles, but more importantly,
by his unique ability of bringing knowledge and people together. This talent was demonstrated to it’s fullest extent
by his creation of Koi USA. When asked the question of what prompted him to start Koi USA he explained that he was a member
of So-Cal Koi Club but it was too far to travel from Orange County, so he co-founded the Nishiki Koi Club. So-Cal Koi Club
had many Japanese-speaking people who could also read Japanese and therefore, had most of the knowledge gleaned from books
and Japanese experts that they came in contact with. For several years after the new club was formed, the members lamented
that no one could read Japanese, including Ed himself, and as such were not privy to much of the information available to
those who could read and write Japanese. There were several magazines written in English by Japanese writers, but it was difficult
to understand them. Many members wanted a source of koi information they could rely upon. In 1976, Ed decided that even though
he had no writing or publishing experience he would put out a magazine to see if it would go over. He knew nothing about layouts
or putting a magazine together, but his good friend and co-worker at Douglas Aircraft, Johnny Pounds, had been publishing
a small magazine "The Treasure Hunter". He taught Ed all that was involved in producing a small publication, including the
layouts, that were done page by page, by hand on a drawing board, with a T-square, blue pencil and rubber glue. His first
attempt was Volume 1, Issue 1, and was sent out to known koi members of different clubs free of charge. It is fondly recalled
by many friends, how Ed drove around with the first issues of Koi USA in the back of his Volkswagen van, to dry them out in
the hot California sun, before taking them to the post office, in an effort to reduce the postage. The response was great
for this first endeavor, thus began his part-time career, for the next five years, as a writer, publisher, editor, photographer,
layout person, ad solicitor, and every other job connected with getting a magazine out.
In 1980, when Ed turned over the publication of Koi USA to the Associated Koi Clubs of America he felt a twinge of regret
at no longer being publisher, but he said "I’m glad it is AKCA that is taking it over. It has taken AKCA six months
or more to come to a decision, and I was getting worried because I didn’t want to turn it over to anybody else. I wanted
to make sure the magazine was going to be for all koi people, and not for one group only. AKCA represents all of us, all over,
so I felt it would be good."
Ed feels his long ago intuition that AKCA would be good for Koi USA has been realized. When asked what has surprised him
most in the last twenty-five years of Koi USA, he responded, "How professional the magazine has become compared to the twenty-four
page, black and white magazine I started with. Koi USA has far surpassed what I had hoped it would ever be and I am happy
that I contributed something to it’s birth."
What Ed now enjoys most about Koi USA is reading articles on koi health and he feels really indebted to the many professionals
who have generously contributed articles so selflessly. But putting things in perspective…before reading anything, he
always skims through the magazine first for names or photos of his many friends that he has made throughout all his years
in koi raising.
All the stories that Ed has on koi keeping could easily fill a book, but my personal favorite is a fun tale, which he swears
is true. "I bought some baby koi from a dealer who had just imported them from Japan. The ones I looked at were about 3 or
4 inches long, from which I picked out about half a dozen. I’m almost positive he charged me only fifty cents each.
Anyway, several years later, I entered one of these fish in a show and it came in 3rd place. At the show, those
fish that placed were placed in separate tanks and displayed. The Grand Champion, 1st place, 2nd place,
and 3rd place winner tanks were placed side by side. When my wife, Ann, and I went to look at our koi in the 3rd
place tank we were surprised as we witnessed her jumping into the adjacent 2nd place tank and almost immediately
into the 1st place tank. I naturally caught it and returned it to it’s rightful place. Maybe it thought it
was better than a 3rd place winner. I thought it was!"
The single most important piece of advice that Ed would give to a new koi member would be to buy inexpensive koi, so that
if you should lose it, the fish and money won’t be a double loss. He also highly recommends joining a koi club to learn
about koi keeping before buying any koi. The biggest misconception in the hobby that he has noticed over his many years has
been in the area of filtration. There are so many new types of filters, with the manufactures all stating that theirs is the
best. He still uses a gravel-down filter with very satisfactory results and feels that "what works for you is probably the
Now a twenty-year retiree of the U.S. Air Force and an early retiree of McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now Boeing), he
currently enjoys boating and fishing. Ed and Ann presently are living in Kingston, Washington on four acres of land on the
waterfront and upkeep on the property keeps Ed more than busy.
In all his years in the koi hobby, Ed’s most rewarding experience has been the successes of Koi USA, Associated Koi
Clubs of America, Pacific Northwest Koi Clubs Association, and last but certainly not least, making lasting friendships. Besides
being instrumental in creating all of them, he was also the first chairman of AKCA and PNKCA, and Co-founded the Nishiki Koi
Club, Puget Sound Koi Club, and Olympic Koi Club. In addition to these many accomplishments, Ed has also been a judge at koi
shows, both the Northwest Koi and Goldfish Club and the Canada Koi Club shows. His unique ability to make things happen has
been essential in helping to promote the hobby of koi keeping for over a quarter of a century. Both his quick ready smile
and his warm personality have welcomed more new koi enthusiasts into this hobby than any other single person. We all owe so
much to this wonderful man! Thank you Ed!Note: This article was written in 2000 for the 25th anniversary issue
of Koi USA.
PNKCA accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of content of information on this website. Reproduction rights by written
permission only. Click here to read the full disclaimer. | <urn:uuid:7dafd8ad-66f0-4b71-9a27-cb870fc6d64b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pnkca.com/id138.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986234 | 2,331 | 1.554688 | 2 |
As the Builder, Tim Carter: Making repairs over torn drywall
DEAR TIM: I was removing an ugly ceramic tile backsplash in my kitchen. Some of the drywall paper came off with the old glue. It looks horrible. A home center employee told me I have to put in new drywall. This can’t be true. Is there a way to repair this so the wall is once again perfectly smooth? Surely you know secret ninja tricks that will save me! - Shelly B., Siesta Key, Fla.
DEAR SHELLY: I’ll never forget the first time that happened to me. I was removing large sheets of a thin wood paneling that had been nailed and glued over unpainted drywall. What a mess I had! The second time it happened to me, I was stripping off wallpaper in a bathroom. The paperhanger hadn’t primed the drywall with the proper sealant to prevent the wallpaper glue from bonding to the drywall paper.
The advice you received from the home center employee is completely wrong. You don’t have to replace the drywall. I’m going to describe to you how to repair it. It’s a shame that so much bad advice is dispensed each day inside those big- box stores.
The common drywall found in many homes is made with fairly high-technology paper. You’d be surprised how thick the actual paper is. You can see it if you look closely at a cross section of drywall after it’s been cut or at the end of a piece before it’s installed.
The side of the paper that faces into your room and the other side that touches the wet gypsum at the factory both are made to resist the water that’s in the finishing compounds and the wet gypsum. But the center part of the paper will react violently if water reaches it.
If you’ve ever tried to patch drywall where the facing paper is torn off, exposing the core of the paper, you’ll discover that the water in the patching compound almost always causes bubbles and blisters to form. The more you pop them and recoat them, the faster they return.
The first step in making a blister-free repair is a razor knife. You use this tool to trim any partially peeled-up paper around the edges of the damaged area. You must have crisp cut lines all around the damaged area with no peeling paper.
Once you’ve done this simple step, you should coat the brown inner-core paper with an oil-based sealer that dries quickly. You can purchase spray cans of these primers, or you can brush on clear or white shellac. Just be sure that, whatever sealer you use, it doesn’t contain any water. You can even use leftover oil-based paints.
When you apply this sealer, paint or spray over the edges of the damaged area onto the undamaged drywall paper. You want to seal the thin edges of the drywall paper, too.
Once the sealer has dried, you can skim-coat the area with regular drywall compound. The area that needs to be coated is probably less than 1/32 inch, so it’s not very thick. | <urn:uuid:0fb26ba4-1a22-4b1e-84e1-bab05898efc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northjersey.com/community/house_gardening/186498441_As_the_Builder__Tim_Carter__Making_repairs_over_torn_drywall.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933743 | 688 | 1.578125 | 2 |
On Mar 26, 2001, an Israeli named Shalhevet Pass, age 10 months, was killed by Palestinian sniper fire at the entrance to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron. Shalhevet was shot in the brain, while in her stroller - with her parents by her side.
The Jewish baby was one of dozens of Israelis who have been murdered as the result of Palestinian sniper fire emanating from Gaza or the West Bank since the early 90s.
Pass’s murder came to mind when I first read a 2012 report by the Guardian’s Chris McGreal suggesting that IDF soldiers deliberately took aim at Palestinian kids – a narrative of Israeli cruelty which actually paled in comparison to a 2005 story he wrote which was even more explicit in evoking the image of such sadistic villainy.
In ‘Rachel Corrie verdict exposes Israeli military mindset‘, Aug. 28, McGreal, in an effort to contextualize the death of Rachel Corrie, and dismissal of the Corrie family lawsuit, as symptomatic of something much darker, argued that “the state of the collective Israeli military mind…cast the definition of enemies so widely that children walking down the street were legitimate targets if they crossed a red line that was invisible to everyone but the soldiers looking at it.”
Here are some passages from McGreal’s tale.
“It was the shooting of Asma Mughayar that swept away any lingering doubts I had about how it is the Israeli army kills so many Palestinian children and civilians.
Asma, 16, and her younger brother, Ahmad, were collecting laundry from the roof of their home in the south of the Gaza Strip in May last year when they were felled by an Israeli army sniper. Neither child was armed or threatening the soldier, who fired unseen through a hole punched in the wall of a neighbouring block of flats.
the army changed its account and claimed the pair were killed by a Palestinian, though there was persuasive evidence pointing to the Israeli sniper’s nest.
In southern Gaza, the killings take place in a climate that amounts to a form of terror against the population. Random fire into Rafah and Khan Yunis has claimed hundreds of lives, including five children shot as they sat at their school desks.Many others have died when the snipers must have known who was in their sights – children playing football, sitting outside home, walking back from school.”
McGreal provided no source for the fantastical story – which was, perhaps, inspired by dispatches in 2001 from Gaza by the discredited American reporter Chris Hedges - and certainly nothing resembling actual evidence that Israeli snipers fired on Palestinian children.
Of course, the most iconic image, preceding the reports by McGreal and Hedges, purporting to characterize unimaginable Israeli malevolence – that Israelis deliberately kill innocent and defenseless children - was the reported death, in Sept of 2000, of Mohammed al-Durrah.
The incident – illustrated by a video purportedly showing a father standing by impotently as the Israelis shot down, in cold blood, his terrified son – was quickly framed in the West as a justifiable source of outrage for “a beleaguered Palestinian people fighting for their independence“.
Despite the fact that the evidence of the case overwhelmingly demonstrates that al-Durrah was almost certainly not shot by Israelis, and, in fact, in all likelihood, was not shot at all, what Shelby Steele describes as poetic truths triumphed over the empirical evidence, and a lethal narrative about Zionist brutality, which continues to incite Jihadists to this day, emerged victorious.
This one incident became an icon of hatred towards Israel.
Countries had postage stamps honoring al-Durrah. Daniel Pearl was killed to avenge his “death”. Osama Bin Laden used the incident to incite before 9/11, and town squares & academies have been named after him. Al-Durrah was even referred to in the Arab media as “a tiny sleeping Jesus“.
In short, he became a poster child for the Intifada, and as proof of Zionist malice.
More recently, a French Jihadist named Muhammad Merah murdered Jewish school-girls in cold blood outside their school in Toulouse to avenge the murder of Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli soldiers.
Yet, how many people in the West even know the name ‘Shalhevet Pass’?
Indeed, no matter how absurd the charges that the IDF targets innocent Palestinian kids, such morally reckless narratives evoking the specter of unimaginable Jewish malevolence has become so ingrained in the Islamist and extreme-left imagination that the facts regarding such libels have become largely irrelevant.
Richard Landes explained the significance of the media’s unfathomable credulity in the face of such crude propaganda, thus:
“One of the key functions of the mainstream news media is to serve as a dialysis machine, filtering out the poisons that can weaken the civil polities in which they operate. At least in the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have, alas, played the role of injecting the poisons of lethal narratives into the information stream of the West.”
When Chris McGreal conjures the grotesque image of bloodthirsty IDF soldiers ruthlessly taking aim at innocent Palestinian children, the already powerful Judeophobic antipathy – nurtured continually in the Middle East – becomes that much more impenetrable, and violence directed at Israeli and non-Israeli Jews that much more probable.
- A Guardian journalist conjures Israeli “snipers with children in their sights” (cifwatch.com)
- Why any Israeli can be murdered by Palestinian terrorists, as explained by Chris McGreal (cifwatch.com)
- One more devastating blow against propagandists still advancing the al-Durrah Hoax (cifwatch.com)
- Lies of omission and commission: Chris McGreal’s propaganda from Gaza (cifwatch.com)
- Surprise, surprise! Jon Donnison’s fauxtographic Tweet partner is a Guardian journalist (cifwatch.com)
- Chris McGreal lies about Israeli building freeze (cifwatch.com)
- Two footballers cited by Chris McGreal as endorsers of anti-Israel petition flatly deny signing it (cifwatch.com)
- Another lethal narrative on the BBC website (bbcwatch.org)
- Chris McGreal vs. Harriet Sherwood on Israel’s 2009 settlement construction freeze (cifwatch.com)
- CAMERA backgrounder on al-Durah | <urn:uuid:540a038a-edcf-4964-a56b-aad860960253> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cifwatch.com/2013/01/08/the-guardians-lethal-narrative-about-snipers-who-murder-innocent-children/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960284 | 1,365 | 1.734375 | 2 |
N.J. considers $100 million bond issue to buy, demolish houses in flood-prone areas
December 10, 2012By Phil Gregory
A New Jersey Assembly committee has advanced legislation that would provide more money to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas.
The measure would authorize the state to issue $100 million in bonds for "Blue Acres" projects. If voters approve the bonding, most of the money would fund buying up the houses, their demolition and then preservation of the cleared land for recreation.
Assemblywoman Connie Wagner says residents in flood zones are tired of rebuilding.
"We now know that homes never should have been built in certain areas," she said. "The bottom line is they're there. Do we continue the same pattern or do we try a new approach?"
Wagner, D-Bergen, says $15 million would be allocated for some homes to be elevated.
"Some property owners don't want to leave their communities, and they know that if they elevate the homes that they will be OK," she said. "We also know that municipalities are in fear of losing all of their assessments. They need to have their tax base."
Environmental groups support the legislation, but they would prefer that it be combined into a bond act that would also provide money for other land-preservation programs. | <urn:uuid:0123be67-bc2c-439d-8a8e-3da45f8ca278> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/48154 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982902 | 272 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Sunday, a local church took time to celebrate Black History Month and all that it stands for.
Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church hosted a special ceremony Sunday afternoon. The church's pastor said it was an opportunity to celebrate while connecting with the present and moving forward. Pastor Stanley Wright from Dekalb was the guest speaker.
"It is going down memory lane," Wright said. "And remembering all those whose life was spent trying to better a race of people."
"We are just thankful for the month," Mt. Zion Pastor Timothy Jones said. "And not only looking forward to celebrating for the month, but everyday. Just expressing our love for and gratitude for those who came before us."
Mt. Zion has been celebrating celebrating Black History Month all month long with special poems and readings during Sunday school. | <urn:uuid:96eb649f-6c1c-474e-b304-ea06a4d0984c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtok.com/news/mississippi/headlines/Local-Church-Celebrates-Black-History-Month-192936551.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972523 | 165 | 1.585938 | 2 |
FACTBOX-Five big decisions facing Brazil's Rousseff
March 4 (Reuters) - Just past the mid-point in her first term, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff faces several difficult economic and political decisions that will define the rest of her presidency:
1) GO FOR DEEPER TAX REFORM?
Rousseff has acknowledged the need to overhaul Brazil's tax system, which is considered by the World Bank to be the world's most complex. But she has so far opted for targeted tax cuts - in part because she doesn't think she can push a broader reform through Congress and its 24 squabbling political parties.
Could she reconsider in 2013? Any early signs of another weak economic performance this year could lead Rousseff to become more aggressive on the tax front. Alternatively, she could stick with piecemeal changes, such as the current proposal to cut the ICMS tax on inter-state commerce and the planned change to simplify the so-called PIS/Cofins taxes that companies pay on sales receipts.
2) TIME TO SHUFFLE HER ECONOMIC TEAM?
As the economy continues to struggle, some analysts say Rousseff's policymaking team has contributed to the problem with unclear and occasionally contradictory messages about inflation and other issues. The Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said this month that Finance Minister Guido Mantega was "likely" to depart in an upcoming cabinet shuffle as Rousseff tries to improve her government's credibility with investors.
3) PURSUE NEW TRADE DEALS?
Rousseff has so far failed to advance on negotiations that could open up Brazil's overwhelmingly closed economy. Despite its reputation as an exporter of commodities such as soy and orange juice, trade accounts for less of Brazil's output than any other major economy in the Western Hemisphere.
There is little evidence to suggest that Rousseff could embrace a more trade-friendly agenda, especially since Brazil's manufacturers are struggling to be competitive. But there is no shortage of interest from the European Union, the United States and some other South American countries, and Rousseff could change her stance if the right offer comes along.
4) PUSH NEW MINING CODE?
Brazil's mining code is outdated for a major minerals exporting nation. Six months after Rousseff took office, Mining and Energy Minister Edison Lobão said the code would be updated But two years later Congress is still waiting. Will Rousseff shake up Brazil's mining framework before the end of her term?
It seems she will. Mining royalties are at rates well below the rest of the world. The current code sets down concession rules that are too lenient on extractors and need stiffening for Brazil to reap the full benefit of its immense resources, the government argues.
Mining executives think the code does not need fixing. They say Brazilian taxes are very high and raising royalties might push Brazil out of the market. They fear greater state control could cause more harm than good, which is what some believe happened when Brazil reformed its oil code.
5) WHO TO PICK AS RUNNING MATE?
Should Rousseff keep Vice President Michel Temer as her running-mate for her 2014 re-election bid? He is from the PMDB, Brazil's largest political party, which controls both chambers of Congress and is her biggest ally in the 17-party government coalition. Or should she try to enlist Pernambuco Governor Eduardo Campos for the ticket? His PSB party is the fastest up-and-coming political force and he seems to be toying with a presidential bid of his own in 2014, which could complicate matters for Rousseff. No easy choice, but she still has a year to ponder her decision.
(Editing by Kieran Murray and Tim Dobbyn) | <urn:uuid:f11bd9d2-50ce-48b6-96a5-480727685ea2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnbc.com/id/100516941 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966933 | 771 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Welcome to outdoor and environmental learning at UMD!
The Center for Environmental Education is dedicated to facilitating leadership and educational experiences that foster environmental sustainability through outdoor and environmental education. We value an integrated approach to environmental sustainability, as well as an experiential-based approach to engaging students in the environmental challenges of our local, regional, and international communities. We aim for excellence in outdoor and environmental education, leadership, and scholarship. Our vision is to be a leader in education for sustainability by serving as a catalyst for collaboration among campus departments and community organizations, sponsoring educational opportunities, facilitating outreach and civic engagement opportunities with off-campus organizations and agencies, and encouraging research activities that support the goals of environmental sustainability. | <urn:uuid:3a4d825f-ea1f-4a08-b0b0-71c06c2e1fd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://d.umn.edu/ceed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960624 | 140 | 1.84375 | 2 |
It was either Edward Banfield or James Q. Wilson—I forget which, but it doesn’t matter since they were both giants of political science who thought in similar ways—who once told another political scientist: “Stop trying to predict the future; you can’t even predict the past!”
This lapidary epigram came to mind recently when all the usual people (meaning liberals and the media) got their knickers in a twist when those no-nothing “anti-science” Republicans on Capitol Hill moved to cut or restrict National Science Foundation funding for academic political science. The media-academic complex went into full swing to defend their oxygen supply. From the outcry you’d have thought Republicans were proposing to cut off taxpayer subsidies for avant-garde art through the National Endowment for the Arts or something.
So kudos to Jacqueline Stevens, a professor of political science (tenured, I assume) at Northwestern University, who took to the New York Times a few days ago to point out that academic “political” science has a terrible track record:
It’s an open secret in my discipline: in terms of accurate political predictions (the field’s benchmark for what counts as science), my colleagues have failed spectacularly and wasted colossal amounts of time and money. The most obvious example may be political scientists’ insistence, during the cold war, that the Soviet Union would persist as a nuclear threat to the United States. In 1993, in the journal International Security, for example, the cold war historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote that the demise of the Soviet Union was “of such importance that no approach to the study of international relations claiming both foresight and competence should have failed to see it coming.” And yet, he noted, “None actually did so.” Careers were made, prizes awarded and millions of research dollars distributed to international relations experts, even though Nancy Reagan’s astrologer may have had superior forecasting skills.
There’s more good stuff in the article, but suffice it to say that if academic political science, especially government-grant funded studies, were subjected to any kind of quality control test, most of it would be regarded as a more scandalous waste than those legendary $800 Pentagon toilet seats.
PAUL ADDS: When I was studying law at Stanford, I audited a class in modern Soviet history taught by a distinguished specialist in the field. He noted that neither he nor his peers had predicted the fall of Nikita Khrushchev. He added, however, that since Khrushchev himself had not seen his fall coming, it was unreasonable to expect specialists, who had less access to the facts on the ground, to have predicted it.
It’s an interesting argument, but not ultimately a persuasive one, in my opinion. | <urn:uuid:e585ae38-7c21-4b7c-b347-91873d8d8fcc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/06/predicting-the-past.php?tsize=large&tsize=small | 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 | 0.975471 | 592 | 1.695313 | 2 |
"Keystone Fight is Uniting Tea Partiers with Environmentalists." No, it's not a mirage. This good news headline actually appeared Monday on the Talking Points Memo website.
According to TPM journalist Brian Beutler, TransCanada, the company that wants to connect the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, is preparing to build in spite of the Obama administration's delay in approving the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada is circumventing the roadblock by moving ahead with the southern section of the pipeline that would link Nebraska to Texas. Its tactic? Going to court.
"TransCanada has threatened to use disputed eminent domain powers to condemn privately held land over the owners' objections," Beutler's article reads. "By taking this route, TransCanada avoids a review by U.S. authorities and the requirement for a presidential permit required to build the entire length." | <urn:uuid:3b1c6495-d90e-4bee-85aa-aa61dc53c5ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic?page=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939255 | 184 | 1.664063 | 2 |
U.S. Government Shutdown Threatens 800,000 People As Obama Seeks Solution
In the event of a government shutdown, the National Institutes of Health won’t admit new patients, some taxpayers will wait longer for refunds and any furloughed civil servants with federally issued BlackBerrys must turn them off.
A failure by Congress to extend the government’s spending authority, which expires tomorrow, would force the closure of national parks, monuments and museums. Federal agencies -- such as the National Labor Relations Board -- that don’t protect lives, property or national security also would be shuttered.
As Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress seek agreement on a spending measure for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year, the Obama administration has warned of economic disruption from even a short shutdown. More than 800,000 “non-essential” federal workers -- out of a civilian workforce of 2.1 million -- would be furloughed until new spending legislation was passed. Agencies have drafted contingency plans for who would work and who wouldn’t.
The prospect of a government shutdown, however limited it may be, has placed pressure on the Obama administration and congressional leaders to settle their dispute over $30 billion or more in cuts from the federal budget through September before a suspension -- as of midnight tomorrow -- of all but essential federal services. Leaders of both parties are bracing for the blame that will be attached to their failure to resolve what the White House has described as minimal differences.
“People are going to have to understand that a shutdown would have real effects on everyday Americans,” President Barack Obama said last night after a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House, where he expressed confidence that a shutdown can be averted.
Elected officials, including members of Congress and the president, would get paid during a shutdown unless Congress changes the law. Unlike the president and legislators, though, military personnel and federal employees who are deemed “essential” would receive no paychecks.
Although troops and the civilian employees who continue to work would get paid for their service after government financing is restored, there is no guarantee that Congress would make furloughed workers whole.
“You should plan accordingly,” says a sample letter to non-essential employees prepared by the House Administration Committee that also advises furloughed workers not to log on to government e-mail and to turn off their government-issued BlackBerrys.
$174 Million Per Day
The cost of back pay for furloughed government workers would be $174 million for each day the government is closed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government analyst Scott Anchin.
The U.S. military’s operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya would continue under the Feed and Forage Act, which guarantees payment of its expenses. The 1861 law “was designed for the cavalry troop that was going through Dodge City and needed to get ammunition for its rifles and food for men and horses,” said John F. Cooney, a former government budget official. It’s “a standing promise” by Congress to “fund any bill troops run up” to defend themselves, he said.
Medicare, Social Security
Medicare and Social Security would continue to pay benefits to elderly Americans because they don’t depend on year-to-year spending measures from Congress, said Cooney, who was deputy general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan.
The Social Security Administration plans to continue sending checks during a shutdown and accept new applications for benefits, said spokesman Mark Hinkle.
As long as there is money in the Medicare trust fund, Medicare beneficiaries would continue to receive checks, said an administration official who briefed reporters yesterday. The trust fund would only be depleted if there is a lengthy government shutdown, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Internal Revenue Service will continue sending refunds to taxpayers who file their returns electronically, Commissioner Douglas Shulman said yesterday. Online filings accounted for 70 percent of all tax returns last year, he said.
Taxpayers who filed by mail may have to wait longer to get their money because Shulman says the IRS won’t process their refunds during a shutdown.
The IRS would also suspend tax audits, said the administration official.
The political drama in Washington has not disrupted the prevailing calm in financial markets. Yields on two-year Treasury securities rose 2 basis points yesterday to 0.83 percent. That is still below the average yield of 2.59 percent in the last decade, according to Bloomberg Bond Trade prices.
Those prices reflect expectations by investors that when political leaders “come to the edge of the precipice, a more rational approach should prevail,” said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Capital Markets Group.
As White House officials warned of devastating economic consequences, some Republicans attempted to downplay the impact of a shutdown.
“There is no such thing as an actual government shutdown,” Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota told a crowd of Tea Party protesters outside the Capitol yesterday. “It is a government slowdown.”
The economic impact would depend on its duration and whether government workers are repaid.
“If they’re not losing their income or some of it is made up, then you have a situation where impacts are minor, relatively,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.
There is no precedent for Congress reimbursing the hundreds of thousands of federal contractors or their employees who may be laid off during a shutdown.
“A government shutdown would be devastating to small businesses, their employees and their communities,” said Terry Williams, a spokesman for the National Association of Small Business Contractors in Washington.
Contractors such as SAIC Inc. (SAI), AeroVironment Inc. (AVAV) and Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (CMTL) face greater financial risk than rivals because they must report earnings after April 30, according to a Lazard Capital Markets LLC report.
It will be difficult for such companies to “pick up all that lost revenue” by April 30, Michael Lewis, the report’s author, said in a telephone interview.
Economic Data Delay
A shutdown would delay release of U.S. economic data, such as the scheduled April 12 release of Labor Department figures on March import prices, Commerce Department numbers on the February trade balance and the Treasury’s budget for last month.
Closures of the Small Business Administration and the Federal Housing Administration would suspend processing of business loans and government-insured home mortgages, the administration official said. FHA-insured mortgages account for about 30 percent of the home-loan market, compared with 12 percent during the last two shutdowns in late 1995 and early 1996.
And researchers at the National Institutes of Health would not be allowed to start new clinical trials of experimental treatments or admit new patients, said the administration official.
Open for Business
The Treasury Department will conduct its regular schedule of securities auctions, a government official said yesterday on condition of anonymity. The Federal Reserve Board and its 12 regional banks will continue to operate because the Fed finances its operations from its bond portfolio.
Also unaffected would be air-traffic control operations, airplane safety inspections and maintenance of airport communications, Randy Babbitt, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, told a congressional subcommittee.
The FBI’s criminal investigations will likely be “unhindered,” though a shutdown would force the bureau to postpone training and new initiatives, director Robert Mueller told a House subcommittee yesterday.
All 116 federal prisons would remain open and criminal investigations and prosecutions would continue, said Justice Department spokeswoman Jessica Smith in an e-mail. The agency would be forced to “stop or significantly curtail” civil litigation, outreach to crime victims and managing grants.
The federal court system will use fees paid by litigants and criminal defendants to remain open for about two weeks, said spokesman Dick Carelli.
The State Department’s passport and visa services will likely be curtailed, said spokesman Mark Toner. U.S. embassies “will continue to provide services” of an emergency nature to Americans abroad, he said.
National parks, monuments and Smithsonian Institution museums would close to visitors. The National Zoo in Washington would continue to employ keepers and veterinarians to care for the animals.
The animals “need to have their keepers” for food and “vets on duty” in case they get sick, said spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas. “What they won’t have is visitors.”
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:c988d931-e37a-40ec-a560-ebae87284f0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-04-07/government-shutdown-threatens-800-000-as-obama-seeks-solution.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95454 | 1,838 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Egypt constitution talks stumble on role of Islam
CAIRO (Reuters) - A proposal by ultraconservative Salafis to give Egypt's main Islamic institution the final say on whether the law of the land adheres to Islamic laws threatens to bring the already painfully slow process of drafting the new constitution to a grinding halt.
The proposal would give the revered Al-Azhar power similar to a supreme court by making it the arbiter of whether a law conforms with the principles of sharia, already cited in the constitution of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak as Egypt's "main source" of legislation.
Opponents say the move would only exacerbate Egypt's volatile politics and make it harder to heal social tensions in a country where one tenth of the population is Christian.
The argument is also diverting energy away from other essential points of law - the balance of power between president and parliament, the influence of the army, defense of personal freedoms and an independent judiciary.
"Lack of trust is so deep-seated now in Egypt," said Shadi Hamid, a political analyst at the Brookings Doha Center. "Anything in the constitution will be interpreted through this lens of mistrust."
A constitutional assembly of 100 thinkers, scholars, professionals and political and religious leaders dominated by Islamists is drawing up the constitution, without which the country cannot hold elections to replace a parliament that a court declared void in June.
Islamist President Mohamed Mursi holds lawmaking power for now, an awkward arrangement that erodes the credibility of his government, elected after Mubarak was overthrown last year.
Some liberals committed to a more secular state have already boycotted the assembly and are challenging it in court, saying Islamists have too much control and want to turn Egypt into an Iran-style theocracy.
"An assembly that doesn't reflect the intellectual diversity and a constitution in which core values aren't agreed on will lead to a deep social rift," Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said on his Twitter account earlier this month. He has not responded to invitations to attend a hearing session at the assembly.
"BRING BACK SHARIA"
The assembly aims to complete a first draft of the constitution by late September, although a court has yet to rule on whether the assembly itself is legitimate.
The assembly is working by breaking the document apart: four committees are handling one section each. After they agree the articles in their sections they send drafts to the phrasing committee, which is where the Al-Azhar proposal now sits for debate - now delayed - over the exact wording.
Articles will then be approved by general consensus, or if that fails by more than two-thirds vote, and if that fails, then after more discussion, with at least 57 votes. The draft constitution must finally be approved by public referendum.
Analysts expect the new document to have a more Islamic flavor than its predecessor, including articles prohibiting criticism of God and establishing an institution to collect zakat, or charitable donations for the poor, while cancelling an article banning parties based on religion.
At the vanguard of this movement are the Salafis, who were kept out of politics under Mubarak but leaped onto the scene after his fall, taking second place in the country's first free and fair parliamentary vote in six decades.
Their slogan was to "bring back sharia" - laws derived from Islam's Holy Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad - in the belief it would solve Egypt's moral and social ills.
They say that since Article 2 of the old constitution already says "the principles of sharia" are the main foundation of legislation, they merely want to see this idea fully applied, if not by strengthening the role of Azhar, then by changing the wording to make it just "sharia" itself rather than its principles.
"Egypt is entering a new age that will witness a confirmation of the reference to sharia law in constitutions and a better application of it," said independent Salafi scholar Mohamed Youssry Ibrahim.
Some liberals accept the idea of giving laws a religious seal of approval but say Azhar's advice must not be binding.
The head of Azhar, founded over 1,000 years ago and widely respected among Sunni Muslims, is named by the president, but that arrangement is set to change. A new law will allow its leading Sheikh to be elected by a committee of 40 scholars proposed by the outgoing Sheikh and approved by the president, giving the prestigious institution more independence.
Given the composition of the assembly, and the public's general support for a more Islamic political leadership, the Salafis proposal would have a good chance of passing if put to a vote. But it could also spark a wholesale boycott that would delay - and maybe even scupper - the entire process.
"If there is no consensus, I think it will be difficult to have a draft constitution," said Waheed Abdel Maguid, a liberal member of the assembly and its spokesman.
BACK TO FRONT
Egypt's military leadership threw out the legal rule book when they removed Mubarak from power in February 2011 to end mass street protests and embarked on 18 months of rule by decree.
Mursi's election in June brought some clarity but the final extent of his powers still hangs on the deliberations of the constitutional assembly - an odd outcome caused by the back-to-front transition devised by the generals.
Judges are wading through a flurry of court cases and appeals challenging decrees from Mursi, the legality of the Brotherhood's political party and the move to void parliament.
Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood allies, whose party was the largest in the dissolved legislature, have avoided weighing into the dispute over Article 2 in an attempt to forge a consensus.
"We don't have a problem with it ... because Egyptians are religious by nature," said Hussein Ibrahim, former head of the Brotherhood parliamentary bloc and a member of the assembly.
Critics of the Salafis accuse them of trying to foist onto Azhar a role that contradicts a tenet of Sunni Islam - that no one holds a monopoly in interpreting the word of God.
Others say that making any Islamic body an arbiter of civil law ignores the rights of a Christian minority anxious at the growing assertiveness of Islamists in the nation of 83 million, the most populous in the Arab world.
"When you take away the monitoring ... from the constitutional court and give it to a religious entity, this is discrimination against Christians," said Hafez Abu Saeda, head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
Salafis in the constitutional assembly say they have watered down their original demands, which included an article that would have stated that "sovereignty is with God".
"We don't seek dramatic change," said Salafi ex-MP Younes Makhyoun. "We are a minority and nothing is passed except through consensus."
But he added: "After the revolution, Egyptians chose Islamists. Egyptians want Islam and the application of sharia. No one (opposes it) except TV personalities who have a loud voice and are trying to impose a different reality".
If and when the sharia debate is resolved, other vital details must be hammered out before the constitution can be put to a popular referendum, such as oversight of the army's budget and the power of competing institutions.
"How do you wield power? ... to what extent does it guarantee freedom of expression? These are issues that will really have an effect on people's lives," said analyst Hamid.
(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Sonya Hepinstall)
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Clearwire Clouds VoIP Picture
Broadband wireless startup, Clearwater, recently formed a $100 million partnership with Bell Canada to sell VoIP services to its customers. Now some of those customers are complaining that Clearwater is blocking their third-party VoIP service.
Clouds may be on the horizon for high-profile broadband wireless startup Clearwire Corp. Led by cellphone mogul Craig McCaw, the Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire is weathering a storm of criticism over its policy limiting subscriber access to VoIP.
Following its $100 million deal with Bell Canada providing U.S. customers WiMax-based private label VoIP, Clearwire is now defending itself against charges of blocking outside IP telephony and other popular broadband services.
VoIP services, such as those from Vonage can be "problematic" for wireless networks, according to Gerry Salemme, executive vice president of Clearwire. Outside VoIP services could harm or even "bring down the customers" of Clearwire, Salemme told reporters.
(Clearwire failed to return calls from Enterprise VoIP Planet reqesting interviews for this story.)
VoIP provider Vonage said a number of Clearwire subscribers reported access to the IP telephony service blocked. The incident was resolved when Vonage changed the SIP port used by the subscribers' equipment.
"Clearwire's excuse for blocking VoIP traffic on its network is, in a word, lame," Joe Laszlo told Enterprise VoIP Planet. Laszlo, a broadband analyst for Jupiter Research, says the port blocking calls into question Clearwire's future as a VoIP provider.
"VoIP traffic is not especially bandwidth-intensive, and the claim that usage of VoIP somehow compromises a wireless broadband network is, on the face of it, pretty absurd," says Laszlo.
Central to the controversy is a terms-of-service agreement forbidding many bandwidth-intensive applications from the wireless network, including VoIP.
"The more applications a broadband service provider blocks, the less appealing its network is going to be for consumers," adds the analyst.
"At the very least, it raises some huge questions about whether Clearwire's service is ever going to be competitive with cable modem and DSL services," says Laszlo.
"Clearwire may have to come up with some sort of excuse that it's not all VoIP traffic that's harmful, just VoIP it doesn't control," says Laszlo. "But that sounds very much like making up a technical justification for what's really a revenue-based decision," according to Laszlo.
The reports "raises some big questions about Clearwire's recent VoIP deal with Bell Canada," says Laszlo.
Bell Canada earlier this month announced it will invest $100 million in Clearwire to become Clearwire's exclusive partner for VoIP in the U.S. and preferred IP voice provider outside North America. "This partnership leverages Bell Canada's IP-based network capabilities and Clearwire's leading wireless broadband services," according to McCaw.
Bell Canada will manage the deployment and operation of Clearwire's VoIP service.
The Bell Canada announcement follows an earlier $100 million from Intel for Clearwire to use WiMax. "We are certainly committed to WiMax and believe there is growing and significant momentum that is building around WiMax," says Todd Wolfenbarger, Clearwire spokesperson.
Although unwilling to say when or where the proposed service will appear, VoIP "is an important service for Clearwire and we will offer it in a simple-to-use manner that is consistent with the broadband Internet service we are currently providing today," says Wolfenbarger.
"We will be in at least 20 U.S. cities by the end of 2005," says Wolfenbarger. (Clearwire is currently in only four locations: Daytona Beach, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., Abilene, Tex., and St. Cloud, Minn. Clearwire has service trials ongoing in Ireland and Belgium.)
"We can access the U.S. 'without crossing the border'," says Daniela Pizzuto, Bell Canada spokesperson. "Work can be conducted from Canada or through existing Clearwire facilities in the U.S. Bell will have no offices in the U.S. and will not need to open any as a result of the announcement," says Pizzuto.
Will VoIP save broadband?
"Clearwire recognizes the need to offer VoIP in a bundled broadband service, " says Keith Nissen, VoIP analyst at In-Stat/MDR. VoIP "is probably the only way for a wireless broadband carrier to make a profit."
"Clearwire is pretty clearly a huge winner in this deal," says Jupiter Research's Laszlo. Bell Canada's VoIP experience wasn't the reason, believes the analyst. "If VoIP were the issue, it would have been far simpler to partner with an established provider like Vonage or Level3, both much more adept at providing VoIP in the U.S.," according to Laszlo.
"It's risky for Bell Canada from the perspective that Clearwire may not prove a successful competitor in the U.S. broadband market," says Laszlo.
Despite the reasoning, the risks, and the paucity of actual details, the VoIP deal between Clearwire and Bell Canada is unusual and intriguing, says Phil Solis, analyst with ABI Research.
A big deal
"This is a big deal: Typically you'd want to pick a local provider," says Solis. "You'll have someone providing VoIP from outside the U.S."
On the other hand, "this is the start of a new trend: It doesn't matter who brings VoIP to you; that's the end-game," says Solis of Clearwire's choice of Bell Canada to support U.S. VoIP.
For enterprise customers, the agreement will encourage data-only providers, such as TowerStream, to offer VoIP, says Solis. | <urn:uuid:2c72f99a-b573-4ffc-8ee5-c0b67601b804> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/unified_communications/Clearwire-Clouds-VoIP-Picture--3494171.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950229 | 1,245 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Lack of civic education and government failure to sensitise the public on the importance of involvement in ongoing constitutional review process are two major shortcomings in the exercise to gather public views.
The Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) and the Constitutional Forum noted that the pitfalls in a survey they conducted last month. In several areas a section of the public upcountry was unaware of the presence of team members, they said.
When briefing reporters in Dar s Salaam yesterday, the two organisations noted that this contributed to a poor turn out of citizens in the respective areas.
LHRC Executive Director Helen Kijo-Bisimba said while it was imperative for the public to be sensitised ahead of planed meetings, instead the public were asked to give their views and they did not know what to say.
She said during the tracking the made they noted some of the meetings between commission members and citizens were held in the morning when the latter were required to be engaged in income generating activities.
In some instances members issued threats prompting some people to refrain from giving out their views.
Other shortcomings include deliberately ignoring the disabled and lack of serious of commission members.
She said the information about the presence of the commission in the wards for gathering views was not effectively provided to the public. “In certain areas some of the commission members were seen standing, a scenario that creates fear to the public.”
It was observed that the process was not free and fair because some respondents provided specific views for the benefits of some people.
The Chairman of Tanzania Constitutional review forum Deus Kibamba said although the commission had a lot of money it generally ignored the issue of the disabled.
He noted that there are few collection centres in the district and that there are long distances from one centre to another.
“In most districts, only six to eight wards were reached by the commission; this number is very low considering that the districts have more than 20 wards,” Kibamba explained
The chairman elaborated that the commission also observed to misuse money by publishing the document of poor quality, which does not provide clear information to the people.
He is explained that the tendency of political parties interfering in constitutional review processes is destroying the process because the parties’ idea would only be presented.
Kibamba added that there was a problem for a commission member to continue with their business. “Although members are supposed to work for full time they did not do so but continue to be given all allowance as if he or she is at work all the time,” Kibamba elaborated
The organisations suggested that the commission should collaborate with other institutions providing clear education to the public, through community radios and television so as to reach many people.
The commission should use other constitutional documents which are already published by scholars, which are more useful rhan their edition.
The commission should reconsider the time for gathering views, stating that mornings are not proper and that there should be one meeting per day.
They proposed that the commission should stop threatening the public. Instead, they should assist them and the members should use their full time as required.
However, Principal Information Officer with the Constitutional Review Commission Omega Ngole, reacting on the report, said: "We have not seen their (LHRC) report. Moreover, as we speak, members of the Commission are returning from the field; we will do a thorough evaluation and come up with a report that will be shared with you.” | <urn:uuid:2ab4ba92-d573-4b1e-8cd7-23fd7dec011f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php/iatio/theme/?l=44400 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979313 | 711 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Joshua Tree National Park 1991: It rained the night before. Not the light sprinkling of rain the desert was used to. Not the soaking rain that brought the brown dormant plants back to the green color of life. It was a "once a decade" gully washer. It was the kind of rain that moved boulders and changed the paths of riverbeds. It was the kind of rain you that made you hope you were at home, snuggle up with a book, listening to it pounding on the roof. Instead, I lay in my tent, watching the leaks drip from the ceiling and wondering why I ever came on this class field trip to begin with.
The cold front came through sometime between the time I went to bed and when the alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning. I wanted to sleep in but knew the only way to stay warm was to get moving. I climbed into my car and slowly made my way past my companions still bundled up in their tents.
I parked the car beside the road and slowly made my way along a jeep trail into the desert. The landscape was quiet, dark, and encased in ice and frost. Every step I took on the frozen ground sent the sound of cracks and pops shouting across the desert. I finally found the spindly Joshua Tree I was looking for and set up the camera. As I waited for the sunrise, I pace back and forth on the trail, occasionally skipping and jumping, to keep warm. Finally, the color of the coming sunrise began to color the lowest margins of the sky. The warm color on the horizon bled to purple then to blue and finally back to the black of night directly overhead where the stars still twinkled in the darkness. At that moment I knew I had my image. I've seen more incredible sunsets and sunrises at Joshua Tree since that morning. I've seen skies that seem to catch fire from the setting sun. I've seen fog cloaking the landscape at dawn and I've seen clearing storm send shafts of light blazing across the landscape. Still, no photo in the park has ever captured a moment for me like this one, perfectly catching the contrast between the last lingering cold of the night and the hope of the warm rising sun of the day. | <urn:uuid:d05b1a4a-f87c-4194-95f0-447b6588079d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jimlundgrenphoto.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973623 | 465 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Hello friends and neighbors. It is good to see you here.
On Feb. 28, assistant principal Mary Gray invited Joe Harrington and I to attend a Black History Month program at Shiloh Institute of Learning. The students performed and they did an awesome job. I learned so much. The program began with music from the student choir followed by “Who Am I?” where the students recited the biography of a black American. The audience guessed the name of the person. All the students did well but Hiakaru Smith recitation about Mae Jemison, the first black female astronaut, was phenomenal. Hiakuru never missed a word; her recall was outstanding.
The students performed some negro spirituals led by choir director Sylvia Hines where we learned that the songs based on the Bible had meaning for those listening such as “Wade in the Water” told fugitive slaves to take to the water to throw bloodhounds off the trail. A group of students led by director Ariel Edmonds also played the bells. The bells were all different colors. The director stood in the aisle and turned flash cards with the different colors which told the students when to play their bells and for how long. Isn’t that clever? Principal Bobby Gray asked the director if she had cards to help him play the guitar.
The students looked so nice dressed in black and white party attire. The program was certainly a credit to the students, the school and its teachers, and the parents.
Last week I spent two days talking with some very bright Parkwood Elementary students about fiction and nonfiction writing and on Friday, I was honored to again judge the oration contest at Summersill Elementary. These students do such a good job each year which also reflects well on the students, teachers, school and parents. I always learn so much. Don’t I have the best job to be able to watch the next generation grow and learn? Next week I am going to
Did y’all see that our own Angie’s Family Restaurant of Jacksonville was included in the “Roadsite Eats Checklist, 70 Places Just Off the Road” by Jeffrey Turner and Sarah Perry in the February edition of Our State Magazine? The magazine says that Angie’s has “country cooking and breakfast. Laminated menus indicate what kind of place this is. It’s the right spot to stop for breakfast.”
I like the grilled biscuits for breakfast but I am a lunch regular at Angie’s about twice a week along with the Judys, Judy Huff and Judy Goodson, where we eat those good ol’ collards. Sometimes David Shepard and Joe join us. This week Joel Cauley sat with us.
We always see the regulars there but our timing was such on Tuesday that we saw Carolyn Becker and Martha Jacob. When Martha got ready to leave with her to-go box, her waitress Tami Brown walked her to the car with her packages and waited for Carolyn to pick upMartha up. That is service beyond the call.
Anita Marshburn usually waits on us and keeps us straight. This week, waitress Sharon Acosta brought me a photo of my sister-in-law Brenda Boyt that she had taken in school year 1995-96 when Brenda taught her son Zack. Zack is now a senior at UNC-W. Brenda died on Nov. 30 and it sure is a treasure not only to have the photo but to hear again about Brenda being a good teacher. It made us all tear up.
I know y’all think that all I do is eat out but that’s not true. Well, maybe because I have another “eat out” story. On Sunday after church, Barbara Woodward, Faye Morton, Iris King, Jim Freeman, Joe and I ate at Madison’s Restaurant in Sneads Ferry before going to the play “Over the River and Through the Woods” at the Sneads Ferry Community Center. In the ladies bathroom at
There was also an official sign that warned of flushing supposed “flushables” down the toilet. The sign said that these items are not flushable and that they destroy sewage grinding pumps. Flushers will be liable for the damage. So now you know.
The discussion brought up the bathrooms at NC State University Carter Finley stadium with signs that warn not to flush liquor bottles down the toilet. Go figure.
Jim said that he went into a toilet when he was still in the Marine Corps with a sign that read, “Please do not throw cigarette butts into the urinals. It makes them hard to light.” Now that’s a warning sign that inquiring minds can comprehend.
Great dinner conversation. If you want to hear or share some more stories from Roadside Eats in
Thank you for coming. | <urn:uuid:3262ca37-0e08-4c3d-b4f7-4a3fa3b6178b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jdnews.com/news/columns/enjoying-time-spent-in-the-classroom-1.108662 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96993 | 1,002 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Goshen Medical Clinic employee Caroline Robinson admits to being nervous just before grabbing a fire extinguisher and putting out a small, controlled fire on a chilly Tuesday morning.
“I have never even handled one before,” Robinson said, before blasting the extinguisher into the fire and putting it out within seconds. “I have never been in a position where I would have to put a fire out, but know nowthat I can do it.”
Robinson is one of eight employees at Goshen’s office, located on U.S. 421 North just outside of the Clinton City limits, that will learn the proper techniques in handling a fire extinguisher on this day, as well as putting out a small fire, if the need should ever arise.
“I think it is important that we are out here today learning this,” she explained. “I have never had to use one before, but if the time comes, me, along with the other employees here, will be able to handle it.”
It is the second stop at a Goshen Clinic on this day, according to John King, from King’s Fire and Safety in Roseboro.
“Each year, we come and do all the clinics associated with Goshen in and around Sampson County,” King explained. “We just came from one earlier this morning and we will be going to others later this week. They like to know that their employees can use them in case they are in a situation they need to handle quickly. By the time we are finished, we will have trained about 175 employees to use a fire extinguisher … I think it is just great.”
At some locations, King even sets up a mock fire drill before he providing the extinguisher training to test the reaction time of the employees. After the drill, King and his employees, James Alton Britt and Shannon Higginbottom, set up the small fire pit, heated by propane, that will allow each employee time to learn the proper wayto handle and use an extinguisher
“Well, we all see the red extinguishers in buildings, but really, if the time came, would you be able to use one to put out a fire?” he explained. “That is the whole point of what we are doing here today. We want the employees to feel comfortable holding the extinguisher and, if need be, use it. Just last night there was a fire up at Durham Regional and because those employees knew how to use an extinguisher, many lives were saved.”
As curious onlookers at a next door gas station watch Robinson put out her second fire with another extinguisher, King smiles and says, “I think she has got it.”
Robinson is happy as well. “I think it is a great thing that we are being taught this,” she said. “I am really pleased they are out here today teaching us.”
King says this time of year his company keeps busy with the training. In addition to Goshen’s Medical network, King will also be at some of the larger corporations doing the same drills throughout the month of November.
“We go all year round,” he explains. “But it seems like this is our busy time, which I think is great, because our local companies know how important this training is, not just to the employees, but the company as well.”
As Robinson finishes up, she returns to the clinic. Within minutes another employee is out being taught the same technique.
“Some of these employees have never held one of these extinguishers,” says King. “It is important that they are familiar with it and they know how to use it. That is what we want to accomplish today.”
For more information on the training call King at 910-564-2588 or 910-990-5730.
To reach Doug Clark call 910-592-8137 ext. 123 or email to [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:b8291cd4-7f5f-4354-9259-975b923e0a89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clintonnc.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Local+employees+get+education+in+fire+safety%20&id=20767668 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975573 | 853 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/180
160 [CH. XI.
for the superiority of the latter, suggesting to my imagination the effects of a moister atmosphere, and a table land six thousand feet lower than that of the valley of Mexico, and some such other propositions as an old author says ought "duly to be inquired into for the forming of a well proportioned, righte, judgement thereupon;"—I was asked if I should like to dance. There were nothing danced but waltzes, and I must say they were performed with great delicacy and elegance. The figures and attitudes were even more varied and multiplied than I had seen them at Mexico: there were present some of the noblest families of the place, and two or three of those of the ministry;—so that I set the meeting down as a Transatlantic branch-Almacks.
I had the honour of being introduced to Don José de Beteta, minister of finance: he was, here, fulfilling the part of a looker on, a character more necessary in a ball-room than the world gives them | <urn:uuid:fc8a1f3f-fb9d-4cda-8031-94a4086ddc9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Narrative_of_an_Official_Visit_to_Guatemala.djvu/180 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977876 | 233 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Billie Houseman was pretty surprised when the member of the York County Veterans Honor Guard marched to his table and handed him a folded flag.
Every year, at the Pearl Harbor/Battle of the Bulge Remembrance Day breakfast to honor local veterans, the honor guard presents a veteran with a flag. Houseman, who attended Wednesday's event at the York Expo Center, had no idea they planned to present him with the flag. And he wasn't sure why the organizers of the breakfast selected him.
"Unless they figure that this guy's getting so damn old that we better give it to him this year because he might not be around next year," said Houseman, 86, retired as a lathe operator from the old Allis-Chalmers plant in West Manchester Township.
Houseman wasn't sure what he did to deserve the honor. But it was pretty clear.
He entered the Army on July 30, 1943. After basic training, he was sent to England, then on to France, Belgium and Germany. He was with the 561st Field Artillery, manning a 155mm gun that could deliver a 95-pound shell to a target 13 miles away.
He was in combat for 303 straight days, he said. He was at the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle of World War II.
He was all of 19 years old, a kid from York.
"The first time you're in combat," he said, "is traumatizing. But you've got to get it into your head that these guys are trying to kill you."
His unit backed up the 101st Infantry in the Ardennes. They were pretty green troops, he recalled, "a lot of them never heard a shot fire in anger." They made it through and thwarted the German offensive, one of the pivotal points in the war and the beginning of its end.
Houseman recalls it being bone-chilling cold, the coldest winter in Belgium in 35 years. He remembers troops suffering frostbite - their toes turning yellow, then green, then black. He recalls seeing a soldier sitting on the frozen corpse of a German soldier, eating a sandwich.
War had a way of hardening you, he said.
But it never became routine.
"Anybody who says they were never scared in combat should go home and look at themselves in the mirror," he said. "Everybody's scared. Nobody ever comes home from war the same."
It gave him a new appreciation for life. "Every day, you don't know if it's going to be your last day on Earth," he said.
He gives talks about his war experience and often, after, someone will approach him and tell him he's a hero.
"We're not heroes," he said, glancing around at his fellow veterans gathered in the Pennsylvania Room at the York Expo Center. "The heroes are the ones who made the supreme sacrifice. They're under the ground. We weren't heroes. We were just doing our job."
Remembrance Day event
Wednesday's event included a keynote speech from Phil Palandro, director of York County Veterans Affairs, a rifle salute, flag-folding presentation and other activities.
County veterans of Peal Harbor/Battle of the Bulge who were present at the Remembrance Day breakfast and ceremony, according to York County Veterans Affairs, were:
Charles Delprete, Red Lion
Charles Fetrow, Dover
Malcolm Harner, Hanover
Billie Houseman, York
John Kunkle, York
Robert Sipe, York
Charles Slenker, York
Clyde Rohrbaugh, York | <urn:uuid:44656bd9-0fb0-40f9-be54-1c8784434d8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ydr.com/ci_19480532 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979582 | 754 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Appling County School System received notification that all schools in the district had been “Accredited with Quality” from the Georgia Accrediting Commission (GAC). Altamaha Elementary, Appling Elementary, Appling Primary, Fourth District, Appling Middle School and Appling High School were all recognized by the Board of Education and Superintendent Scarlett Copeland on October 17, for this outstanding honor.
In order to be recognized by the Georgia Accrediting Commission, schools must meet the established standards that promote instruction that is high quality for children in Georgia. GAC provides an accreditation process designed to establish and uphold standards, to strengthen the quality of education in each school, and to assure its membership and the general public that the established standards are related to the best educational practices.
GAC also determines the accreditation status of the educational program of each school and publishes an annual list of schools with accredited programs. The GAC Executive Director issues certificates for those schools and agencies Provisionally Accredited, Accredited Annually, Accredited, Accredited Fully and Accredited With Quality.
The GAC, an independent agency, is governed by a board of elected educators who have an interest in education in Georgia. Membership of the governing board represents teachers, instructional supervisors, school administrators, Regional Educational Service Agency personnel, Georgia Department of Education personnel, and college personnel who are responsible for the preparation of teachers and other professional educators. | <urn:uuid:4b367aef-9031-487b-80c8-41a9a4569d09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baxleynewsbanner.com/archives/1586-Appling-School-System-receives-Accredited-with-Quality-from-Georgia-Accrediting-Commission.html | 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 | 0.969324 | 287 | 1.726563 | 2 |
His latest piece, “ Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom?” is more accurately titled "In Praise of Exploitation." When you strip his argument down, it amounts to: “A lot of people choose to be exploited, and voluntarily take jobs where they are paid less than they deserve because they hope to be big winners.” As in really big winners. Davidson repeatedly compares the payoffs to various activities (working the the mail room at William Morris, being a low level drug dealers, acting, working in a law firm or investment bank) to a lottery.
The lottery analogy, which Davidson uses through the entire piece, is wonderfully, nails-on-the-chalkboard screechingly at odds with his claim: “That’s the spirit of meritocratic capitalism!” Lotteries involve random, blind draws of “lots”. Modern lotteries, the kind that plug holes in government deficits, are such astonishingly low odds affairs that they are described as “a tax on people who are bad at math.” So Davidson appears to be telling us that success in modern capitalism is painfully unlikely and pretty much random.
And there are ample proofs that meritocracy is a fantasy. A devastating 1992 paper by Patrick D. Larkey and Jonathan P. Caulkin, “All Above Average and Other Unintended Consequences of Performance Appraisal Systems,” declared that 100 years of dealing with performance review systems proved they were inherently unable to produce objective results. Among the reasons: the complexities of the boss-subordinate relationship, the fact that virtually all performance appraisals are subjective (even ones of salesmen should allow for who has better or worse territories), and that it is pretty much impossible to devise sensible ways to compare staff caliber across departments. When I was a young person on Wall Street, getting comp right was management’s most important job, and at Goldman, they spent the better part of six weeks of the year on it.
Or consider the example portrayed in Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball. The baseball industry has always measured players’ skill and achievements by a handful of well-known statistics. To make the most of a limited budget, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane relied on statistical analysis to sign low-salaried players that appeared to be dramatically undervalued. The result: The team, with one of baseball’s lowest payrolls, has placed first or second in its division for eight seasons running.
Remember: baseball is a business where the recruiting is unusually transparent, the basic rules have remained unchanged for decades, competitive encounters are in full view, and the incentives for success are high. This would seem to be the perfect environment for developing good rules for hiring and promotion, yet the entire industry was largely wrong.‘
And that’s before we get to the role of good old fashioned bias. A 1997 Nature paper by Christine Wenneras and Agnes Wold, “Nepotism and Gender Bias in Peer-Review,” determined that women seeking research grants need to be 2.5 times more productive than men to receive the same competence score. Similarly, Tom Ferguson has combed though the data sets underlying a recent study claiming that the executive ranks of large firmswere meritocratic, and the underrepresentation of “out groups was due to their lack of skills. Ferguson found that the distribution suggested otherwise: ethnic groups are in fact over-concentrated in a few pockets, when they should be scattered evenly if merit selection dominated. | <urn:uuid:941440c4-164c-4881-a1cb-bb11c799c401> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/story/154325/nyt_mag's_adam_davidson_praises_economic_exploitation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965443 | 742 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Working Together: Faculty, Staff, and Students with Disabilities
Access Services offers web-based training for faculty. This short course can be completed in under an hour and provides a wealth of information for working with your students with disabilities. Click on Online Faculty Training under Quick Links. Credit is available toward salary advancement for full-time faculty.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What should I do if I suspect a student has a disability?
A. First, make sure that all of your students are aware of available services with a verbal announcement on the first day of class and a disability statement on your syllabus. In addition to promoting awareness of campus resources, these simple actions communicate your interest in the success of your students with disabilities and normalize the accommodation process by incorporating it as an element of the course. The following syllabus statement may be used or adapted:
Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact Access Services at 360-475-7540, [email protected], or visit the office in the Humanities and Students Services Building, Room 204, for information or appointment.
Some students choose not to disclose their disabilities, and their privacy should be respected. Approach them as you would other students in your class who are having difficulty. Instead of asking specifically about a disability, ask what might be impacting their progress in class. If the difficulties are disability related, students will often disclose at this time. Discuss possible strategies for success, and refer them to Access Services. If the student does not disclose a disability, offer a list of campus resources which include Access Services (AS), Tutoring, Counseling, etc.
Learning disabilities, psychiatric disorders, and many chronic health conditions are “hidden disabilities,” and comprise over 80% of the total population of students at Olympic College who request academic adjustments on the basis of disability.
Q. What are the responsibilities of Olympic College students with disabilities?
A. Any student wishing to request accommodations must self-identify to Access Services as an individual with a disability and follow published procedures for requesting services (available through Access Services, in the catalog or on the OC website at www.olympic.edu/accessservices). The first step in the process generally requires that the student provide current medical and/or psychological documentation from a qualified professional which diagnoses the disability and describes its impact in an academic setting. Students must meet and maintain academic standards for college courses, programs and activities, and adhere to the Student Code of Conduct.
Q. A student with a disability is enrolled in my class. What are my responsibilities, and what specific adjustments or accommodations must I make?
A. There are many types of disabilities, and they impact students in different ways. Academic adjustments are determined through an analysis of each student’s need, based on documentation by a qualified professional. The college has assigned this role to Access Services, whose Notice of Accommodation is your assurance that the student has followed proper procedures and qualifies for the services outlined in the notice. Access Services welcomes the cooperation of faculty in this process and, in some cases, active collaboration between AS staff, faculty, and the student is necessary to ensure the appropriateness of an accommodation. However, it is in your best interest, both logistically and legally, to defer to Access Services for the review of documentation and the determination, if any, of appropriate services.
Q. What if I have questions or concerns about the recommendations of Access Services in a student’s Notice of Accommodation?
A. If you have questions about how to implement an accommodation or are concerned that an accommodation is not appropriate for your course, contact Access Services as soon as possible. On rare occasions, an academic adjustment may inadvertently compromise the essential elements of a course, and thereby undermine its purpose. The staff of Access Services will work with you to accommodate the student in a manner that does not fundamentally alter the nature or standards of the course.
Q. I have received several Notices of Accommodation from Access Services for students who qualify for test accommodation. How does this work, and how will you guarantee the integrity of my tests?
A. Access Services works with the Assessment & Testing Center, located in the Humanities and Student Services Building, Room 222, to assist faculty with test accommodations. You may make your own arrangements for testing if you prefer, as long as the appropriate accommodation is made. If you choose to use testing services, the following procedures are in place for convenience and test security:
- It is the student’s responsibility to schedule tests with the Assessment & Testing Center. Access Services strongly encourages students to schedule exams on the same day they are administered to the rest of the class; however, space is limited, and tests are scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis.
- Students will be given a Make-up and Access Testing Support Form at the time of scheduling, which should be brought to you at the next class meeting. The form confirms the date and time of the exam and must be initialed by you for approval. There is space on the form for detailed testing instructions. Whenever possible, deliver the exam with the Make-up and Access Testing Support Form in person or by e-mail to [email protected] at least one day prior to the scheduled dated. Upon completion, tests are returned to the instructor via interoffice mail unless otherwise requested.
- Testing services are available at the Poulsbo campus on a limited basis through the Assessment and Testing Center with advance notice. Shelton students should contact Jennifer Hoodenpyle or Janis Johnson through the administrative office at the Shelton campus at 360-432-5400.
- Students may be asked to present picture identification at the time of the test. Exams are secured throughout the test process and will not leave the designated testing facility until the student has finished. Any student violation of this procedure may result in an invalid test. If a student misses his/her scheduled time, or is more than thirty minutes late, the test will be returned to you.
Q. How can I make sure my course materials are accessible?
A. Implementing the principles of Universal Design for Learning can help ensure that your curriculum incoporates flexibility, reduces barriers, and optimizes levels of challenge and support to meet the needs of all your students, including those with diagnosed and undiagnosed disabilities. Keep the following tips in mind when developing your materials, and feel free to contact Access Services for information or assistance.
Handouts: Students with print disabilities (learning disabilities and vision loss) may rely on assistive technology to read print. Whenever possible, have print materials such as your syllabus and handouts available in electronic format. Post them on the web or send them via e-mail to your students with this accommodation. Occassionally, other versions such as audio, Braille, or enlarged text may be required. Access Services will communicate with you regarding the appropriate format and provide support for this process. Converting print to alternate format can be time consuming and expensive - advance planning is critical, and your cooperation is appreciated.
Texts: As you review texts for future courses, look for books that are also available in electronic format. This information can usually be found on the publisher’s website or the preface of the book (under the “Student Resources” or “Students with Special Needs” section), and occasionally a CD version is provided for review. Access Services staff is happy to assist you with this research.
Videos: Before ordering videos, check to be sure that they are captioned. Captioning can be added after production, but often at a cost of thousands of dollars! When captioning is not available, provide an outline or summary of the material for your deaf or hard of hearing students. Occasionally, a transcript can be obtained from the producer. Once again, Access Services is available to support you with this process.
Notes: Making your lecture notes available online helps all students, but is especially valuable to students with sensory impairments and learning disabilities. If you already have course information on the web, or are planning to implement this, check with Information Technology or Access Services for resources on web accessibility. Certain formats (tables, graphics, etc.) may not be compatible with screen reading technology. | <urn:uuid:91c81dd5-77bf-4be9-a353-4f58882a3774> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.olympic.edu/Students/StudentServices/AccessServices/Faculty+Information.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942954 | 1,710 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Language unites people and so does teaching. Some claim teaching is as easy as ABC but there's more to teaching English as a foreign language than a firm grasp of the alphabet. If you've got a desire to teach, travel and earn, fix yourself up with Global Language Training and hop onto one of our courses.
An estimated 1 billion people learn English worldwide and you can become a fundamental part of this phenomenon by completing one of our exciting, dynamic and cost-effective online courses, from the comfort of your very own home.
Our courses are suitable for anyone, whether you are a recent graduate, established teacher or someone just looking for a career change, we can assist you to achieve your goal. Experiencing the countries, cultures and climates of the world is the ambition of many, but the regret of many more who never have the opportunity to do so, and the time has never been better to travel, earn and teach than by the medium of the English language. You decide whether your classroom will be overlooked by the towering Andes mountains, next to dazzling white sandy beaches and clear blue sea of South East Asia, or part of the dynamic, thriving and bustling city centers of Rio, Beijing or Tokyo.
Our highly qualified, knowledgeable and experienced trainers have designed a cutting edge program, incorporating the latest theories and techniques. They will support and guide you through the course, step by step, ensuring you develop the required skills and techniques that will enable you to walk confidently into any English classroom around the world.
The flexibility of our courses allows you to carry on with your daily life and study at your own pace, whilst planning your ideal getaway. | <urn:uuid:a4bc2c29-3be9-407d-9825-39740be76894> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globaltefl.uk.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954169 | 334 | 1.742188 | 2 |
With Thom Moran.
This project was an entry to the 2008 ENYA Competition: South Street Seaport Re-Envisioning the Urban Edge. The competition brief called for the design of a new pier on the East River containing a mixture of community facilities. The authors of the competition hoped that such a structure would help to reconnect the community to their waterfront.
This entry contends that the best way to reconnect the South Street Seaport neighborhood to its waterfront is not to isolate community facilities on a pier on the East River. By drawing the coast line deep into the city fabric, this project creates an urban space for the community that is centered around the waterfront, restoring Peck Slip’s historic relationship to the water’s edge. The pier of facilities called for in the competition brief has been rotated 90-degrees to create a vertical pier with frontage on Water Street. This vertical pier reinforces the street wall on Water Street, and defines Peck Slip as an open-ended urban space that embraces its waterfront to the East. Carefully considering the scale of the building at the pedestrian level, the structure has been shaped to minimize its footprint at the base, where public programs are easily accessible to the community. Above, the building is allowed to rise beyond the level of the surrounding context to create an iconic beacon for the neighborhood. The sanctuaries are located on the soaring upper levels of the building, providing dramatic views of the East River, Lower Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The parking that once crowded Peck Slip has been moved out onto a Pier on the East River, where it has been covered with a landscape that frames views back into Peck Slip. The park/parking pier integrates vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and links to the park space that is being developed along the East River.
The project is both conservative and progressive; practical and dreamy. It respects the history and site conditions of the neighborhood, while stridently defining a new center for the South Street Seaport neighborhood.
The parking in Peck Slip is moved out onto a “parking pier,” reintroducing the water to Peck Slip. The parking pier is topped with a public space that extends the new East River waterfront park network. The pier of public program that the competition brief requested is turned vertical, becoming a mini-tower that defines the western side of a new Peck Slip water plaza.
The structure’s belly is clad with mirrored glass and slanted to reflect the activities in the plaza below. The building becomes an immense screen and illusively extends the space of the plaza.
Collectible study models | <urn:uuid:cb81492d-60cd-4c0f-88c9-0e01812bdd25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mclainclutter.com/?p=9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947787 | 529 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Kolkata // On a monsoon kind of day in Kolkata, Adrita Dutta shelters in a coffee shop a block away from the local university, tallying the cost of her dreams. Ms Dutta, 21, had just finished her studies in business management at the top of her class. Hardly taking a breath from that rigorous regimen, she was already preparing for a Master of Business Administration programme.
But in India, the way to the top of the academic heap is paved with more than good grades. India's youth are paying a steep price for the country's development, flocking to schools in the hope of getting ahead, and, in many cases, failing - with fatal consequences. The fee for taking the entrance exam is nearly Dh1,700 - no small figure in a country where the average annual income is about Dh8,000. Where Ms Dutta's family will really feel the crunch is if she actually gains admission.
"There, I'll definitely pay six to seven lakh (Dh51,000 to 59,600) for my studies," she said. "It's a huge amount of money. It's a big pressure for me as well as for my family." But as an overachiever from a middle-class family, Ms Dutta can afford to shrug off the pressure with a smile. She will find a way - even if thousands of others are not so lucky. Every day, newspapers in academic cities across the country bear witness. In Kolkata, the country's oldest subway comes to a grinding halt because a student has leapt onto the tracks. In Faridabad, just outside of New Delhi, a 17-year-old student hangs herself because she was afraid of failing the board exams. And in the southern city of Bangalore, three students, including the daughter of a high court judge, take their lives after receiving less-than-stellar marks in their exams.
More than 16,000 students have committed suicide in the past three years, according to India's ministry of health. Since 2006, the number has risen every year, with experts expecting 2008 to be the deadliest yet. "We find that it's definitely increasing," said Gorav Gupta, a senior psychiatry consultant at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals in New Delhi. It is not unusual, he said, for developing countries to drive their youth headlong into the future. Everyone is vying to get ahead and parents push their children to seize opportunities they themselves never had. With student ranks swelling, admission requirements are ratcheted up accordingly.
The problem is particularly acute in southern India, which leads the world in youth suicides, according to a 2004 report published in the British medical journal, The Lancet. Beyond Kerala's picturesque canals, beaches and Chinese fishing nets, for instance, is a well-oiled scholastic machine. Academies and institutes stud the landscape. And the focus on education shows, with a nation-leading literacy rate of nearly 97 per cent. Most of the state's youth are groomed to get medical and technical jobs abroad. But according to The Lancet report, there are 32 suicides for every 100,000 people - about three times the rate as the rest of the country. Although that number includes all age groups, it is notable that northern states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have some of the lowest literacy rates in the country - and also the fewest suicides.
Indian schools are, at last, recognising the need for students to take a deep breath. And exhale slowly. In fact, at the Heritage School in Gurgaon, near Delhi, it is part of the curriculum. Days begin with meditation sessions, along with a tall glass of fresh juice. Yoga and breathing classes are becoming the norm at schools across the country. Even one of Kolkata's oldest learning centres, La Martiniere School for Boys, is shaking up 150 years of book-bound learning with a concerted effort. To keep pupils from becoming what Sunirmal Chakravarthi, the head teacher, terms as "lumps of flesh", the school is reviving its orchestra and making weekend football matches mandatory for children between 11 and 13.
Mr Chakravarthi arrived at the school in Jan 2006 with a mandate to unplug the high-tension academic atmosphere. "You obviously have to perform," he said. "But in doing so, I think we're turning out a generation of academically bright people, who are diffident in everything else." In other cases, students are simply opting out of the rat race entirely. Instead of pursuing his education to the highest possible level, Bhim Kaul, 21, emerged from the academic gauntlet relatively early with a university degree in electrical engineering.
"That's about all the education I could manage," the New Delhi resident said. "I couldn't put up with any more classes." Indeed, Mr Kaul says it is too easy to get lost in India's endless procession of classrooms. "A classroom kind of education nowadays in this country doesn't actually help you get a great job," he said. "It's what you know in an extra-curricular way that can help you be more outspoken, be more unique than all the other candidates that are there with you."
So Mr Kaul joined a management consultancy based in the United Kingdom, and started playing drums in a heavy metal band. Anything, he said, to differentiate himself from the hyper-schooled masses. India, he said, placed too much emphasis on rote learning. "What about all the guys that maybe didn't do so well academically, but they have a good IQ? They're good abstract thinkers, they're creative in nature.
"With so many guidelines and so many boundaries being put across education, it's very hard for people who think out of the box to actually find a niche for themselves. They just get drowned in the regular rat race and I'm sorry to say, they get left behind." Unless, of course, the aim is a career in the percussive arts. "I want to make a living out of music some day," Mr Kaul said. "And I want that day to be really soon."
But in a country of 1.2 billion people, no vocation is certifiably free of stress. "Even that is a stressful job. Indian music is not like it's going anywhere. People can keep patting you on the back and saying, 'Wow, your band is great. You guys are really going to go places.' But no one actually goes anywhere. They still stay. They do their regular jobs." @Email:[email protected] | <urn:uuid:bed9d011-8e81-45f4-84ee-fdaf4a423d14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/stress-drives-students-to-suicide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975667 | 1,368 | 1.789063 | 2 |
MUMBAI, March 10, 2011- As water resources continue to decline, the gravity of the issue often remains unrecognized and available solutions are not implemented.
Elaborating on this, speakers Upmanu Lall, Director of the Columbia Water Center at Columbia University, Mangesh Gupte, Head of CSR at ACC Limited, Suresh Prabhu, four-time member of the Lok Sabha in the Indian Government, and Kapil Narula, Director of the Columbia Water Center, India, spoke at The Race for Water: Securing Asia's Water Future. This programme was presented in partnership with the Columbia Alumni Association, the Columbia South Asia Centre, the Columbia Water Centre, the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, and the Centre for Environmental Research and Education.
Lall explained the problem of low efficiency in using water, predicting that innovation for improvement on this front would come from Asia, where the need for such solutions is critical. He underscored the necessity to spread information about the extent of the problem and available solutions, and to align the interests of groups such as farmers with better use of water.
Gupte stressed the need to ensure that the race for water is inclusive. He noted that the average person's water use has increased substantially over time, and that a range of solutions for more efficient water use are not being implemented. He also recognized the difficulty in selecting a solution that minimizes capital costs, energy requirements, and ground action requirements.
Prabhu emphasized how the complexity of the issue increased because of water being a limited resource, wherein more resources here necessarily means that there is less left elsewhere. He warned of an impending crisis, when people will demand water from their land which is currently being diverted today to other regions within the country. He also spoke of the need to create a centralized body with transparent accountability to manage water resources within India — now, there are 14 government departments overlooking this, and they all shift responsibility amongst themselves and to state governments.
Narula explained high levels of water stress prevalent today, and the livelihoods affected by it. This could lead to conflicts at all levels — between countries, between districts within countries, and between farmers and corporates. Simple, low-cost solutions that derive from traditional methods are available, but Narula lamented that there is a preoccupation with finding large-scale, technologically savvy solutions that are harder to implement. The focus, he said, needs to be on converting subsidies for farmers into incentives for them to use water more efficiently.
The race for water, Narula summed up, is indeed "a race against ourselves." | <urn:uuid:309ea504-6a33-4065-bcb4-a7bf18ccbb70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asiasociety.org/policy/environment/water-and-food-security/race-water-against-ourselves | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957502 | 533 | 1.804688 | 2 |
(*) The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was “sure there was a battle between her and Melbourne... He is sure there was one about the men’s sitting after dinner, for he heard her say to him rather angrily, ‘it is a horrid custom-’ but when the ladies left the room (he dined there) directions were given that the men should remain five minutes longer.” Greville Memoirs, February 26, 1840 (unpublished).
Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent at the opera or at the play. Next morning the royal critic was careful to note down her impressions. “It was Shakespeare’s tragedy of Hamlet, and we came in at the beginning of it. Mr. Charles Kean (son of old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully. His conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say incomprehensible, character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all his actions and attitudes are good, though not at all good-looking in face... I came away just as Hamlet was over.” Later on, she went to see Macready in King Lear. The story was new to her; she knew nothing about it, and at first she took very little interest in what was passing on the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with the Lord Chamberlain. But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her attention was fixed, and then she laughed no more. Yet she was puzzled; it seemed a strange, a horrible business. What did Lord M. think? Lord M. thought it was a very fine play, but to be sure, “a rough, coarse play, written for those times, with exaggerated characters.” “I’m glad you’ve seen it,” he added. But, undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those on which there was dancing. She was always ready enough to seize any excuse—the arrival of cousins—a birthday—a gathering of young people—to give the command for that. Then, when the band played, and the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side—then her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and on into the small hours of the morning. For a moment Lord M. himself was forgotten.
The months flew past. The summer was over: “the pleasantest summer I ever passed in my life, and I shall never forget this first summer of my reign.” With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her. The coronation came and went—a curious dream. The antique, intricate, endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some machine of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order. The small central figure went through her gyrations. She sat; she walked; she prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold; the Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong finger, so | <urn:uuid:92b7f246-1289-4132-b36e-2247c4fbaa58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/1265/40.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98924 | 660 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Nigeria: Fear of violence displaces thousands in the north
|Publisher||Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)|
|Publication Date||7 October 2011|
|Cite as||Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Nigeria: Fear of violence displaces thousands in the north , 7 October 2011, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4e92dfb82.html [accessed 20 June 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
Increasingly violent attacks against civilians, reportedly linked to members of the Boko Haram Islamist sect or other criminal groups, have continued to cause death, destruction of property and displacement in northern Nigeria. Thousands of people have fled the city of Maiduguri in recent months in fear of further violence. On 2 October, 19 people were killed and houses burnt in a raid by a gang of robbers in Zamfara State. Joint military-police teams have been deployed to the area to quell the violence.
At the end of September the head of police in Bauchi State accused IDPs from Borno and Plateau States of contributing to the growing insecurity in the area. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had suggested that up to a million IDPs had found refuge in Bauchi, but after widespread controversy, NEMA clarified that the figure referred to the number of people displaced over the years since 2001. | <urn:uuid:2be41664-2331-40cd-bbba-a7bcc68aad29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=country&category=&publisher=IDMC&type=&coi=NGA&rid=&docid=4e92dfb82&skip=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936878 | 341 | 1.523438 | 2 |
They have been commissioned by XYZ Company (come up with a company
name - or let the students find a real company - car company/monster
trucks/tractors - whatever) to come up with a "mascot" for their
commercials and marketing. The company wants to see a prototype of the
mascot (monster). You have only X number of days/weeks to get the
mascot to them so you choose paper mache as your medium (also because
it is lightweight and easier to ship). The final mascot will be cast
in plastic from a clay model made by the company design staff.
Have the student body vote on their favorite Monster that would win if
this were a real situation. Have the students who made them limit down
the selection by voting first. Be sure to put a sign with each monster
stating the objectives of the chosen "company".
Extend the lesson. Students could design an advertisement using their
mascot (monster)..... and they could also do a company logo (if they
are creating their own company).
Caption for real "Fast"
"Rare Collectable VW Fast! Own A Piece of VW History with this
Collectors toy! A very rare Item, sent to VW Dealers as promo item!
The item is New and comes with a DVD, MK5 GTI "FAST" Brochures. Comes
with all the interchangeable tails and VW "FAST" Storybook!"
Caption for prototype "Fast"
"Make friends with your fast. Developed as a personal prototype during
phase one of project fast. Created from personal data collected from
markets in nyc and abroad. This is your chance to own a piece of
premature GTI history. Includes extra tail. Don't miss this one! Very
Very rare, it will go fast, just like you."
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to assist Volkswagen
in developing a mascot that is truly "fast."
Enter the briefing room at projectfast.com A disembodied voice with a
thick German accent will instruct you in completing a number of tasks,
aimed at identifying the "collective consciousness" of what is truly
First up is an ink blot test, then a series of questions about the
look, texture, sound, and even smell of "fast." Despite any interest
you may have in finding out the results immediately, you will be
notified via e-mail of the results once compilation of the data has
Only you can help Volkswagen develop a mascot that is truly "fast."
This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
I have already saved my "fast" images for this lesson plan and am
writing VW today for my permission to post on IAD. I know I won't hear
back from them.
Thanks Wendy AND Laurie (who is doing the monster lesson). I guess VW
has to rethink what they do with their Fast..... Looks like they were
giving them away with purchase of a new car? Bet they will stop doing
that now. Can't have anyone else profiting from their generosity now
Laurie - I have many paper mache artists listed on the Paper Mache
ideas page on IAD..... For a culture to use as reference - look at my
Oaxacan animals lesson.... many resources are given there for fanciful | <urn:uuid:f20d8f10-f4e0-4473-a426-0a24194644a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.getty.edu/education/teacherartexchange/archive/Feb06/0297.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939695 | 712 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Paralympic swimmers Jessica Long (L) and Elizabeth Stone pose with Benjamin Smith during his Olympic Training Center visit.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- In November 2011, 10-year-old Benjamin Smith went to the doctor for what his mom thought was a ganglion cyst.
“They [doctors] told us no big deal; we’ll remove it if it causes him any pain,” his mother, Krystal, said.
Fast forward to April when Benjamin accidentally bumped it.
“It swelled to the size of a golf ball. They removed it June 4 and called me on June 6,” said Krystal.
The doctors did a routine biopsy, as standard with surgically removed tissues, and Krystal heard the word no parent wants to hear: cancer.
Benjamin had his left foot amputated.
“He’s been really depressed thinking that every dream he’s had has been shot down and put on hold. Right from the get-go people were saying, ‘You’re not going to be able to do this or that,’” Krystal said.
Calls were made and Benjamin had a special trip planned for him.
The World Class Athlete program contacted with the Olympic Training Center to give Benjamin a unique day.
Thinking he was going to another doctor’s appointment Benjamin received a happy surprise walking into the Fort Carson WCAP headquarters.
“His face lit up, he was so happy,” said Paralympic track and field hopeful Jerrod Fields.
Fields, like Benjamin, is an amputee. As a U.S. Army soldier, Fields deployed to Iraq. In 2005 while on a reconnaissance mission he got injured by an improvised explosive device. Fields was able to drive his comrades back to base and received a Bronze Star for his actions. He had his leg amputated so he could continue his career in the Army.
Fields had no qualms about helping Benjamin out.
“As soon as they shot me the information and told me what it was about I was all for it.”
Benjamin’s favorite part of the day was getting his uniform. He joined the WCAP athletes in formation where he was given his own Army uniform, personalized dog tags and a fresh buzz-cut to meet military standards.
“For him to fall in the ranks with us, salute and have a uniform with dog tags – it completely lit him up,” Fields said. “He was so happy because one of the things [he wanted] before the injury was to be a soldier.”
After an eventful tour of Fort Carson, and a hard workout, Benjamin and company transitioned to the Olympic Training Center for lunch and a special tour.
“The best cheeseburger ever,” Benjamin said of his lunch.
| Jessica Long shows her London 2012 gold medal to Benjamin
During lunch he was introduced to Jessica Long, who earned eight swimming medals at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. “I actually saw her Paralympic medal! It was cool because it showed an angel’s wing and it had braille if you’re blind,” he explained.
Long and Paralympic swimming teammate Elizabeth Stone took Benjamin to the pool, where they explained their training regimen and all the technological advantages they have.
Long enjoyed helping out because “he didn’t notice we [Long and Stone] wore prosthetics until we showed him, so it motivated him.”
Fields wanted to inspire Benjamin further. “I told him don’t quit, you can do it, just push through. You can fulfill and do anything you want.”
He expects to see Benjamin again soon.
“I truly believe he will be here in a few years. This is going to push him to whatever it is he wants to do.”
Excited to try new sports, Benjamin wants to try shooting soon.
“I think they showed him he can stay strong, be strong,” Krystal said, “just keep going.” | <urn:uuid:bce89f73-4947-4f9f-8780-f47e40853741> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teamusa.org/News/2012/December/14/Getting-His-Uniform.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98433 | 874 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Issue Number: 103
What will future generations be drawn to when they look back to the 2009 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition? It’s a question that sprang to mind as we began researching the exhibition of 1888 in connection with our latest show.
John William Waterhouse, whose work makes a triumphal return to the RA this summer, was a frequent exhibitor at the Summer Exhibition. In 1888, midway through his career, Waterhouse submitted what was to become one of his most famous pictures, The Lady of Shalott. An appropriate year, we thought, to explore both Waterhouse's life and a Summer Exhibition at the height of the Victorian era (page 34).
Our cover star, A Mermaid (1900), rivals The Lady of Shalott as a Waterhouse favourite, but as Frank Whitford discovers in our story, when first shown, The Lady of Shalott wasn’t universally loved. So, when we asked the illustrator Paul Cox to re-create the gallery and have the picture feted by the great and good of Victorian society, we knew we were using a little dramatic licence. But real enough is the sense of excitement, caught in Paul’s drawing, that greets another Summer Exhibition.
For 240 years, the Summer Exhibition has been a highlight of the season and a platform for well-known and lesser-known artists. As Martin Gayford points out (page 42), the success of this summer celebration has a lot to do with the show’s ability to incorporate change gradually.
This year, the Academy hosts a video and film room for the first time and will no doubt generate a few headlines by doing so. Only a few years ago the exhibiting of photography would have raised eyebrows and yet this year, in terms of the Summer Exhibition, the medium will come of age with the first presentation of a photographic prize. (Incidentally, on page 49 we publish a photographic piece by Richard Long RA, coinciding with his new show at Tate Britain.)
‘Making Space’, the theme of this year’s exhibition, sums up the flexibility that is the institution’s strength. It’s why we have a show, part of which Waterhouse would have recognised, but one that also reflects the art world of today.
Eileen Cooper RA, Come About, 2009 To coincide with her new exhibition of work, Dreams of Elsewhere, at the Art First gallery, London, Eileen Cooper RA has generously donated an original print, Come About, for one lucky reader. The piece is from a suite of four screenprints and was printed at the Glasgow Print Studio. For a chance to win this beautiful prize, simply answer the following question: In which Peak Distrct town was Eileen Cooper RA born? Send your answer on a postcard, with your name and address, to Eileen Cooper Print Competition, RA Magazine, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J OBD. Entries should arrive no later than 2 Sep, 2009.
Friends of the RA can enter the competition online. Visit the new Friends website, then follow the log-on procedure and look for the link to the RA Magazine competition page. If you are not yet a Friend, visit the site to find out more about the benefits of Friends membership.
For competition rules, click here . | <urn:uuid:a40c9e30-9907-47eb-9d55-e6152e414e8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/print/ra-magazine/summer-2009/acting-editor-nigel-billen-on-an-institution-that-has-stayed-the-course,220,RAMA.html?action=com.othermedia.webkit.site.UserPreferenceAction&actionToken=anYcludcM_472&preference=user-size-medium | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953033 | 680 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The image of nursing: A culture of respect
In the first of our series of blogs on the image of nursing, Sandy and Harry Summers look at the portrayal of nurses in the media and the effects of these negative stereotypes.
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If you are a registered subscriber you also need to activate your subscription in order to access your subscriber-only content and free learning units online. | <urn:uuid:d63b5f66-872c-4e91-9d3c-f388b690b790> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/clinical-specialisms/public-health/the-image-of-nursing-a-culture-of-respect/5018600.article | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944318 | 162 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Many people are educated by madrassas across Bangladesh
The British body responsible for overseeing charities has launched a formal inquiry into alleged UK links to an arms haul in Bangladesh.
The weapons cache was found in the south of the country at an Islamic school, or madrassa, allegedly run by a charity based in Manchester.
A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said they were investigating the "very serious" allegations.
There has been no response from the charity, Green Crescent.
Bangladeshi police say the arms were found in the coastal district of Bhola earlier this week. They say the cache included weapons, bomb-making equipment and bullets.
Police say that the madrassa is run by the Green Crescent charity based near Manchester in north-west England. No-one at the charity was available for comment on Wednesday.
The Charity Commission said that the inquiry would focus on "determining the extent of the links" between the charity and the arms haul allegations.
It will aim to find out "whether or not the charity, its funds, or funds raised on its behalf were used unlawfully and the role of the trustees".
The commission's website said that in 2008, Green Crescent had a turnover approaching £70,000 ($102,733).
"We are working with relevant law enforcement and other agencies to investigate the allegation that terrorist activity is connected with the charity," said Charity Commission chief executive Andrew Hind.
"The matter is of serious concern to us, and we are taking this action given the gravity of the matter, the public interest and the need to protect charity work and funds."
He said the results of the inquiry would be made public once it was completed.
Bangladeshi officials say that the madrassa is located on a remote river island only accessible via a drawbridge.
They have described the premises as a "mini-ordnance factory" and said the whole compound was being used for militant training.
A teacher and three employees at the madrassa were arrested on Tuesday, at a time of heightened tension in Bangladesh because of a mutiny last month by border guards which killed 74 people and has been blamed by some in the government on Islamic militants.
The raid on the madrassa was carried out by the country's elite anti-crime force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), who say they found about 12 guns and several thousand bullets.
Police in Bhola say a leading member of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) extremist group was arrested in the raid along with three other people. They say that they also want to speak to the charity's UK-based owner, who is also believed to be in Bangladesh.
The JMB carried out a series of bombings across the country in 2005 and is blamed by some in the government for last month's mutiny.
Police say that booklets about jihad, or holy war, were found at the school.
A RAB spokesman, Mamunur Rashid, said that the school was opened a few months ago in a remote area of Bhola, about 100km (60 miles) south of Dhaka.
Bangladesh has in recent years been hit by a number of bomb attacks at political rallies, in courts and at cultural venues.
The attacks have mostly been blamed on JMB and other radical groups who are accused of wanting to establish their austere version of Islamic law in a traditionally secular - but overwhelmingly Muslim - country.
Last week Finance Minister AMA Muhith said that the authorities would examine the activities and sources of funding of some Islamic charities approved by the previous alliance government - which contained two Islamic parties. | <urn:uuid:55489dfd-fb3c-4480-8d24-d93d73ec02dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7963609.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980012 | 756 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Study To Examine Traffic In Northern Worcester
SNOW HILL - Work on a massive northern Worcester County traffic study intended to predict the county's traffic future will begin soon, said staff this week.
On Tuesday, the Worcester County Commissioners awarded the work to Columbia, Md.'s RBA Group, which offers both traffic and land planning services. The work will cost roughly $94,000.
According to County Commissioner Judy Boggs, the county saved up for the study, putting aside money over the last few years.
Two years ago, the county had a study done of traffic in West Ocean City, but according to Comprehensive Planning Director Sandy Coyman, that information is stale and limited in scope.
As a tourist destination, with a growing year-round population, transportation will be a major issue in the future, he said.
The study will scrutinize all of northern Worcester County from Newark north.
'We want to take a more comprehensive look at the entire northern end of the county,' Coyman said.
RMB Group will consider traffic counts, levels of service at intersections, and potential solutions to poor service.
'They're going to look at mass transit options and bicycles and see how that fits in our future,' said Coyman.
The commissioners approved the bid award with little discussion.
'We plan on moving forward aggressively,' Coyman said Tuesday. 'We want to send out the notice to proceed this afternoon or within a day.'
The county's transportation options are limited by geography. Waterways, requiring bridges, bays and wetlands mean that the county has to utilize current roads better.
'We don't have a whole lot of options for bypasses and additional roadways,' Coyman said. 'Adding new roads is not really a solution we see. We want to maximize capacity.'
Mass transit has its difficulties in Worcester County, with long distance punctuated by a scattered population, but as growth is encouraged to concentrate, buses may make a real difference with traffic levels. The study will look at ways to make this happen.
'When you have higher densities, you have a market for mass transit,' Coyman said.
According to Coyman, the shift to a $1 ride all day system in Ocean City had a significant effect on resort traffic when that change was made.
'We'll be working with the town of Ocean City staff, and invite Berlin to participate, and the folks from Ocean Pines,' Coyman said. | <urn:uuid:e2d62864-8576-40e1-8234-d71eba6a7736> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mdcoastdispatch.com/articles/2007/07/06/Top-Stories/Study-To-Examine-Traffic-In-Northern-Worcester | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948079 | 506 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Connect to share and comment
WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said it will be ready to resume so-called extraordinary measures to ensure all debt obligations are met starting from May 19, a Treasury official said on Thursday.
A bill allowing the U.S. government to borrow money beyond its record $16.4 trillion debt limit won final Congressional approval earlier on Thursday. The bill, which needs to be signed by President Barack Obama, suspends the debt limit until May 19.
The U.S. first touched the debt limit on Dec. 31, and the Treasury Department began shuffling around funds to ensure the government could still make all its payments while Congress debated the debt limit.
Once Obama approves the legislation, the Treasury said it would start unwinding the measures it was using. | <urn:uuid:6ec1e33e-ddc5-4dbf-93e6-f5e49b2fdbf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/thomson-reuters/130131/us-treasury-unwind-emergency-measures-used-avoid-debt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940586 | 168 | 1.703125 | 2 |
There is no adequate substitute for feeling Aikido. Metaphorical descriptions be they conferred by word, picture or video; cast in the language of science, philosophy or arcane concepts out of the depths of time are rendered unsatisfactory when what is happening is actually felt by my partner and me.
I learn Aikido via the interaction of my partner and myself as we move about the mat practicing technique, Ki exercises, randori or whatever. As training time progresses I become familiar with how I feel when things go smoothly and naturally. I learn to feel when I have connected with my partner and we move in concert rather than conflict. Feeling provides me with all the feedback I need to determine the effectiveness of my performance. When I feel bumping, pulling, pushing, tugging, towing, undue exertion... I immediately know that something is wrong, we're no longer connected, and I then seek to reestablish my link with my partner. Aikido practice is self-correcting. If I just pay attention to how I feel then, with time, I will be able to refine my practice in such a way as to continually approach correct feeling which is my most natural and strongest possible state.
Along the way, I endeavor to dispense with metaphor as a substitute for feeling. Metaphor is a seductive but limiting tool for trying to encapsulate a dynamic process in static imagery. Metaphor is an order of magnitude removed from experience. If I rely on metaphor to bolster my understanding and perpetuate my growth in Aikido I will surely stray from the path which is laid out before me but must be felt to be really experienced and understood.
(Original blog post may be found here | <urn:uuid:7d476772-cccf-4432-8f6c-6c660a5b518c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=255876 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951481 | 346 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The St. Charles County school safety task force may not have any legislative power, but that didn't stop it from making suggestions for improvements on Tuesday.
Two weeks after the first meeting of the Schools, Mental Health And Emergency Services Task Force, the 14-member panel of school administrators, law enforcement and mental health professionals met for the second time early Tuesday at the Spencer Road Library. After spending much of the first meeting listening, meeting No. 2 was more focused on discussion and having a conversation.
Armed with the knowledge gained through a series of presentations made two weeks ago and a few made early Tuesday, the task force began compiling a list of recommendations it will present to the St. Charles County Council.
Near the top of the list is to find a way—most likely asking state legislators for some help—to increase the number of school resource officers. St. Charles County Councilman Joe Brazil, R-District 2, said adding more SROs should be the No. 1 priority.
Brazil said that having an armed person in school, preferably a police officer was important. He said if money is an issue, schools need to consider just how important SROs are. He said the armed officers were just as important to have in school as teachers.
The issue, of course, is the money. St. Peters Police Chief Tom Bishop said to get an officer inside every school his department would need to add nine to 10 more officers.
"I don't know where that funding is going to come from," Bishop said.
In addition to the SROs, the task force also talked about jumping aboard the new county-wide emergency radio communication system. County Director of Administration Joann Leykam told the task force earlier in the meeting about plans to upgrade the emergency communication system so that all departments and first responders are on the same page.
Leykam said she spoke to Motorola and was told that with the new system going into place, schools could get involved. Under the new system, schools could get a "panic" button installed somewhere in the building that would immediately call dispatch. St. Charles Community College already has a panic button system in place.
Task Force chairman Bernard DuBray, the superintendent of Fort Zumwalt, said the panic button would be a comfort to parents. Bishop said the idea had a lot of potential, as long as it wasn't abused. He said that St. Peters Police have a staggering amount of false alarms when it comes to home security systems and the department can't be rushed to the school for minor infractions. The educators on the board agreed and said that a plan would need to be put in place for types of cases that would require activation of the button.
Another reccomendation the task force made was to make sure schools and law enforcement work together as much as possible. Plans should be shared and law enforcement officers should be welcome in schools to get the lay of the land down. The task force said this is pretty much already in place, but it wouldn't hurt to be reminded that the two groups need to work together.
Dubray also proposed that schools should take safety in mind when building or renovating. He said Fort Zumwalt is already looking into making front door glass smaller and other schools should be encouraged to think about safety when drawing up plans. The rest of the task force agreed.
The task force also agreed that a system should be put in place to identify troubled kids. At the first meeting, Fort Zumwalt broke down how it monitors and tracks kids who could pose a threat to themselves or others. The task force said all school should be encouraged to create a similar identification program.
In the mental health field, making sure all the resources are known was another recommendation by the task force. Finding more funding is important, but the task force said making sure that schools, and really everyone, knows about mental health first aide and behavioral health response is a priority. Making a list or adding a section on the county website was one of the ways the task force discussed letting people know about all the resources available.
Brazil ended the meeting talking about violent video games. Touting the county's progressive banning of bath salts and K2, Brazil wondered if violent video game policy needs to change. Brazil suggested making that buyers of violent games are of a certain age would be a good step to take. Worried about overstepping their bounds, the task force instead said a review of policies in place would be good. If the policies are lacking, Brazil said the county council could address them without the imput of the task force. | <urn:uuid:1ac966de-9a57-43ca-8517-bcccd362ce3c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stcharles.patch.com/articles/more-resource-officers-panic-buttons-among-recommendations-of-school-safety-task-force-2c75dbee | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976176 | 941 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Oglesby Leads National Dialogue on MPH Practicum StandardsPosted Aug. 2, 2012
As one of the founding faculty members, Oglesby is responsible for creating the college’s MPH practicum, a course that gives students supervised practical application of previously studied theory. “It’s designed to polish skill sets so graduates are job-ready, and it’s required for all accredited MPH degrees,” he explains.
Wanting to understand what leading accredited colleges of public health were doing “so we could be better,” Oglesby reviewed level of coordination, prerequisites, credit hours granted, contact hours required, contact time documentation, form of final products and student assessment methods, among other areas. He found there was conspicuous variation. “While the accreditation bodies have been at work on other aspects of standardization, they have not yet addressed the MPH practicum,” he says.
Buzz among peers about his findings led to him delivering a June 27 Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) webinar that drew 70 chairs, deans and faculty leaders. “We’re not even accredited yet, and all the audience members were from accredited institutions,” he says. “My research calls for national standards of practice to be established – standards that will cascade to hundreds of schools. It’s my hope to lead the process under our college,” he says. | <urn:uuid:93b6485c-d17b-4163-b6c4-1565c134b4f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ashtabula.kent.edu/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsitem=DD8ABEC1-9FFC-FF05-82437F76D8B42D28 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96822 | 297 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Speaking at Overview and Scrutiny Committees
Members of the public may make representations to any of the Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committees on any substantive item on the agenda, subject to them registering to speak.
Speakers at the Overview and Scrutiny Committees must declare any current or prospective financial or personal interest they may have in the subject and will be allowed to speak for three minutes.
There is a maximum number of six speakers allowed on any one agenda item, with speakers being taken in the order in which they have registered.
To register, you should contact the Committee Manager by 2.00pm one working day before the meeting, stating which item you wish to speak on. You can find out who the Committee Manager is by selecting the meeting you wish to speak at on the calendar of Committee meetings.
How a Scrutiny meeting is conducted
Elected and Co-Opted Members sit at the table with experts, Council officers and other witnesses being called to the table at relevant points during the meeting. The meeting will be guided by the Chair or Vice-Chair. Seats for members of the public are usually set to the side of the room. The meeting normally follows the running order on the front sheet of the agenda. It always starts with the formal business of recording apologies and confirming the minutes of the previous meeting as an accurate record of what was said and agreed. Following this, the meeting will move on to consider the items listed on the agenda. The running order can be changed by agreement with the Chair if, for example, someone speaking on one particular agenda item has to leave early.
If you would like further information, please contact the Committee Manager. | <urn:uuid:ffee9ad8-1fcd-4232-9a84-50f918e61042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.richmond.gov.uk/ro/home/council_government_and_democracy/democratic_processes_and_events/participating_in_council_meetings/speaking_at_overview_and_scrutiny_committees.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954954 | 344 | 1.804688 | 2 |
A relentless assault
At least seven people were reported killed Thursday as Kabul came under intense attack from U.S.-led airstrikes on Afghanistan, sources told CNN. Kandahar, the spiritual and administrative center of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, was also targeted. However, Afghans living in the eastern province of Nagrahar told CNN that the Taliban are exaggerating reports of civilian casualties from U.S. raids there.
Attacks around Kabul, the country's capital, were aimed at a military base and air defenses, and there were reports of strikes against a Taliban tank unit. Fires from a fuel depot hit in Wednesday's airstrikes covered Kabul with thick, black smoke. In Kandahar, one of the Taliban's commando units may have been hit, sources told CNN. (Full story)
Afghans from the eastern province of Nagrahar told CNN that the Taliban exaggerated reports of civilian casualties in a bombed-out village they displayed to a group of international journalists Sunday. CNN's Nic Robertson was among the journalists who traveled to Koram, about 60 miles west of the Nagrahar's provincial capital, Jalalabad. (Full story)
The Pentagon is sending radio broadcasts into Afghanistan telling the Taliban they are "condemned," and the messages seem to suggest that U.S. troops will eventually be on the ground in that country. (Full story)
U.S. President George W. Bush has landed in China for his first trip abroad since the September 11 terrorist attacks, but he is sure to keep the anti-terror fight high on the agenda during the Asia-Pacific meet. (Full story)
A meeting of exiled Afghan mujahedeen commanders, tribal elders and religious leaders ended Thursday with a resolution condemning terrorism and blaming Afghanistan's Taliban leaders for the U.S. bombing of the Central Asian nation. But the group also came down firmly against the introduction of international ground troops in Afghanistan. (Full story)
Japan's Lower House has passed a bill allowing its troops to give logistical support to America and its allies in overseas military operations for the first time since World War II. The bill clarifies the role Japan's military could play in U.S.-led operations without violating the nation's pacifist constitution. (Full story)
The former king of Afghanistan is actively working to create a provisional government that will step in should the ruling Taliban be ousted from power, an envoy to the king tells CNN. (Full story)
When will the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban group that controls up to 10 percent of Afghanistan, begin a ground offensive to take the capital of Kabul? Are they making any progress? (Click here for more.)
What is life like in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, with increasingly intense U.S. airstrikes overhead? (Click here for more.)
How long will the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan last? (Click here for more.)
What is the goal to the U.S. airstrikes over Afghanistan? What is the key to the mission's success? (Click here for more.)
What is the White House doing to prevent al Qaeda from airing what it calls "propaganda" on U.S. media outlets? (Click here for more.)
Who are the key players in the political landscape of Afghanistan, and how could U.S. military intervention affect the balance of power there? (Click here for more.)
George W. Bush: U.S. president
Osama bin Laden: A wealthy Saudi expatriate living in Afghanistan who U.S. authorities cite as one of the primary suspects in masterminding the attacks. (Click here for more.)
Condoleezza Rice: U.S. national security adviser. (Click here for more.)
Colin Powell: U.S. secretary of state. A former Army general, Powell also served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Click here for more. (Click here for more.)
Gen. Richard B. Myers: Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Click here for more.)
Donald Rumsfeld: U.S. secretary of defense. (Click here for more.)
George Tenet: CIA director. (Click here for more.)
Northern Alliance: A group of former mujahedin fighters, mainly from minority ethnic groups that oppose the Taliban. The group controls about five percent of northern Afghanistan.
George Robertson: Secretary-General of NATO (and former British defense minister) (Click here for more.)
The military attacks that began October 7 mark the start of what the Bush administration says will be a lengthy struggle against terrorist organizations worldwide -- one that could take years.
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|Back to the top| | <urn:uuid:6361da82-c4cd-4ee5-8ddb-819f67ec232f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/10/18/ret.retaliation.facts/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949215 | 1,002 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Old Upper Mountain Road
Fact Sheet - February 2013
Upper Mountain Road Update: Remedy Proposed for State Superfund Site; Public Comment Period and Public Meeting Announced
Council Chambers; Lockport Municipal Building
One Locks Plaza; City of Lockport
Gulf Creek below the site. Sediment throughout this
area is heavily contaminated.
The public is invited to comment on a remedy proposed by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) related to the Old Upper Mountain Road Site ("site") located at Old Upper Mountain Road, Lockport, Niagara County. Please see the map for the Site Location.
Documents related to the cleanup of this site can be found at the locations identified below under Where to Find Information.
How to Comment
DEC is accepting written comments about the proposed plan for 30 days, from February 28, 2013 through March 28, 2013. The proposed plan is available for review at the locations identified below under Where to Find Information. Please submit comments to the DEC project manager listed under Project Related Questions in the Who to Contact area below.
The site is listed as a Class "2" site in the State Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Sites (list of State Superfund sites). A Class 2 site represents a significant threat to public health or the environment; action is required.
Proposed Remedial Action Plan
- Final Feasability Study Report for Operable Units (OU) 1 and 2 - Document 1 of 2 (76 page PDF, 4.41 MB)
- Final Feasability Study Report for OUs 1 and 2, Figures, Tables and Appendicies - Document 2 of 2 (43 page PDF, 2.62 MB)
Record of Decision
By the Numbers
Typical ash fill found throughout the site
3 - number of OU at the brownfield site
6 acres - area of OU 01
7 acres - total area of site
80 - height of ravine running through site
18,100 cubic yards - estimated sediment contaminated at OU 02
200,000 cubic yards - estimated volume of waste material at OU 01
DEC collected contaminated samples from site
DOH collected contaminated samples
Site Characterization conducted
Site listed as a Class 2 Site
August 2009 - October 2011
Remedial Investigation (RI) began
Proposed Remedial Action Plan
Summary of the Remedy for OU 01:
- A remedial design program to provide the details necessary for the construction, operation, maintenance, and monitoring of the remedial program.
- Relocation and contouring of the ash waste will be necessary to achieve the 3:1 slopes required for cap stability. This material will be placed into the open ravine at the base of OU 01 to extend the current footprint of the landfill farther into the ravine.
- Prior to extending the landfill into the open ravine, a groundwater drainage and diversion system will be installed to convey groundwater that naturally flows down the filled portion of the ravine to Gulf Creek at a fixed point(s) along the toe of the extended landfill. Discharge from the storm sewer culvert will flow down an armored diversion swale constructed across the top of the extended landfill.
- Following remediation, an Environmental Easement will be placed on the effected properties.
- Long-term monitoring and maintenance to ensure that the remedy remains effective.
Summary of the Remedy for OU 02:
- A remedial design program to provide the details necessary for the construction, operation, maintenance, and monitoring of the remedial program. A floodplain and hydraulic study will be completed to help with a design for a creek restoration plan that optimizes aquatic and riparian habitat.
- The complete excavation of all contaminated sediment in Gulf Creek between the site and Niagara Street that exceeds the sediment SCGs (approximately 18,100 cubic yards). All excavated sediment will be dewatered at a facility constructed at the site before being placed in OU 01 prior to the construction of the multi-layer cap (Part 360 cap) proposed for OU 01 (Landfill Capping with a Part 360 Cap - Extended Landfill Footprint).
- Following removal of all contaminated sediments, the creek will be restored.
- The proposed project involves unavoidable impacts to federally regulated wetlands, and as a result wetlands mitigation is proposed. A mitigation plan will be developed during design for on-site wetlands creation in a manner that would meet or exceed the functions and values of the existing wetlands.
- Long-term monitoring to ensure that the remedy remains effective.
Summary of the Investigation for OU 01:
A State Superfund RI began in August 2009 and was completed in October 2011. The RI determined that waste at the site consists primarily of white to gray ash containing metal, glass, rock, ceramic, coal, brick and concrete fragments with occasional layers of black foundry sand. This waste ranges in thickness from 0.5 to 78 feet. The thickest fill was encountered at OU 01 where the former ravine was filled with ash. The estimated volume of waste material at OU 01 is 200,000 cubic yards.
The incinerator ash was found throughout the site, with thirteen samples of this ash failing the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) Regulatory Limit for lead, indicating that characteristic hazardous waste (D008) is present at the site. This ash also contains elevated concentrations of semivolatile organic compounds and metals.
Summary of the Investigation for OU 02:
The RI determined that sediment in Gulf Creek between the site and Niagara Street is contaminated with semivolatile organic compounds and metals. It is estimated that approximately 18,100 cubic yards of sediment is contaminated.
DEC developed the proposed remedy after reviewing the detailed investigation of the site and evaluating the remedial options in the "feasibility study" submitted under New York's State Superfund Program.
A more detailed description of cleanup activities proposed is available in the full plan at the locations listed below in Where to Find Information.
DEC will consider public comments as it finalizes the remedy for the site. The selected remedy will be described in a document called a "Record of Decision" that will explain why the remedy was selected and respond to public comments. A detailed design of the selected remedy will then be prepared, and the cleanup will be performed.
DEC will keep the public informed throughout the investigation and cleanup of the site.
The Old Upper Mountain Road Site is located near the intersection of NY State Routes 31 and 93 in both the City and Town of Lockport, Niagara County, New York in a mixed residential, commercial and industrial neighborhood. The site is bounded on the west by Old Upper Mountain Road, on the south by the active CSX and Somerset railroads, on the east by the active Somerset Railroad and an abandoned rail spur, and on the north by residential property and a steep ravine known as The Gulf.
The Old Upper Mountain Road Site is approximately 7 acres in size and located on a relatively flat-lying plateau separated by the Somerset Railroad, which is approximately 10 feet higher than the surrounding topography. The topography slopes steeply to the north into The Gulf; there is an approximate 80-foot difference in elevation between the site and the base of the ravine. A portion of this ravine underlies the site and has been filled in with waste material. A narrow stream, Gulf Creek, emerges from a storm sewer culvert at the west side of the site and flows along the bottom of the ravine, eventually discharging into Eighteenmile Creek approximately one mile to the northeast.
The Old Upper Mountain Road Site consists of fifteen parcels owned by eight individuals, municipalities and corporations. Different parcels of the site are zoned for residential, commercial, industrial and public utility use. Eight parcels contain active rail lines, one parcel contains a single family dwelling, and six parcels are vacant.
The Old Upper Mountain Road Site has been subdivided into three Operable Units (OUs) defined as follows: OU 01: Landfill - Old Upper Mountain Road Parcel, OU 02: Gulf Creek (including the associated riparian area), and OU 03: Landfill - Otto Park Place Parcel. OUs 01 and 03 are the former landfill that is divided into two operable units by the Somerset Railroad. OU 01 is located north of the Somerset Railroad, and is approximately 6 acres in size. OU 03 is located between the active Somerset and CSX railroads, and the abandoned rail spur. This operable unit is approximately 1 acre in size. OU 02 consists of approximately 4,400 linear feet of contaminated Gulf Creek sediment between the site and Niagara Street to the north.
Past Use of the Site
The Old Upper Mountain Road Site was reportedly operated as a municipal landfill by the City of Lockport from 1921 through the 1950's. Access to the landfill was from a viaduct under the CSX Railroad just north of Old Upper Mountain Road (now known as Otto Park Place). In later years, a gate was placed at the viaduct in an attempt to control unauthorized dumping. This gate is no longer present. Incinerator ash from garbage and other wastes was apparently dumped at the landfill and then pushed into the ravine. It has also been reported that local companies dumped their wastes directly into the landfill. In November 1997 the DEC collected thirteen soil/waste samples from OU 01. All samples contained elevated concentrations of semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) and metals. In October 1998 the DOH collected five surface soil samples from OU 01. These samples contained elevated concentrations of metals. In 2007 the DEC conducted a Site Characterization at OUs 01 and 03. In August 2008, based upon the results from the Site Characterization, the Old Upper Mountain Road Site was listed as a Class 2 Site in the Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites in New York State.
Additional site details, including environmental and health assessment summaries, are available on DEC's website.
State Superfund Program
New York's State Superfund Program (SSF) identifies and characterizes suspected inactive hazardous waste disposal sites. Sites that pose a significant threat to public health and/or the environment go through a process of investigation, evaluation, cleanup and monitoring. DEC attempts to identify parties responsible for site contamination and require cleanup before committing State funds. For more information about the SSF, visit: DEC's website.
Who to Contact
Comments and questions are always welcome and should be directed as follows:
Project Related Questions
Mr. Glenn May, Project Manager
270 Michigan Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14203
Site-Related Health Questions
Mr. Matthew J. Forcucci
584 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14202
Where to Find Information
Public interest in this project is valued and appreciated. Project documents are available at the following location to help the public stay informed.
Lockport Public Library
23 East Avenue
Lockport, NY 14094
Phone: (716) 433-5935
NYSDEC Region 9 Office
270 Michigan Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14203
Phone: (716) 851-7220
(Please call for appointment)
You may also view electronic copies of project documents, which are available in the right column under the Important Links section.
For More Information
We encourage you to share this fact sheet with neighbors and tenants, and/or post this fact sheet in a prominent area of your building for others to see.
Have site information such as this fact sheet sent right to your email inbox. DEC invites you to sign up with one or more contaminated sites county email listservs available. It's quick, it's free, and it will help keep you better informed.
As a listserv member, you will periodically receive site-related information/announcements for all contaminated sites in the county(ies) you select. You may continue also to receive paper copies of site information for a time after you sign up with a county listserv, until the transition to electronic distribution is complete.
Aerial view of the Old Upper Mountain Road site | <urn:uuid:e75251ec-3ff1-4867-9b86-bf68d7e09b5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/62847.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930834 | 2,467 | 1.835938 | 2 |
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Fact is, we went to war
By Max Dunbar.
Narcomania: A Journey Through Britain’s Drug World, Max Daly and Steve Sampson, William Heinemann 2012
We have been engaged in a war against drugs for 30 years. We’re plainly losing it. We have not achieved very much progress. The same problems come round and round. I have frankly conceded that policy has not been working. We are all disappointed by the fact that far from making progress it could be argued we are going backwards at times… The Government has no intention whatever of changing the criminal law on drugs.
- Ken Clarke, Secretary of State for Justice, Home Affairs Select Committee, July 3 2012
Don’t matter who did what to who at this point. Fact is, we went to war, and now there ain’t no going back. I mean, shit, it’s what war is, you know? Once you in it, you in it. If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.
- Slim Charles, The Wire, series 3, episode 12, ‘Mission Accomplished’
Let me introduce you to a maverick politician. The young MP entered Parliament at a time when his party was exhausted and factionalised. This MP seemed to be going places, and to represent a step forward for his party. He was a smart and personable man, and not afraid to take unorthodox positions. In 2002 he backed a Home Affairs select committee that recommended the downgrading of some illegal drugs, and the possibility of legalisation. The MP also recommended the prescription of heroin, and licensed ‘shooting galleries’ where addicts could inject drugs safely. In 2005 the MP gave an interview to the liberal Independent newspaper, in which he expressed weariness with machine politicians who ‘attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator by posturing with tough policies and calling for crackdown after crackdown. Drugs policy has been failing for decades.’ His name, of course, was David Cameron.
The coalition has yet to develop a sensible and coherent approach to drugs. Neither did the Labour government that preceded it. The last brave policy decision was made by the Thatcher government in 1988. It allowed the distribution of free syringes to heroin users. The papers, of course, went ballistic. The public shouldn’t be subsidising junkies, the tabloids said. The government ignored them. Huge amounts of Middle Eastern smack hit Britain’s streets in the 1980s. This influx created a generation of addicts, and a rocketing rate of HIV infections from intravenous drug use. HIV was spread by the sharing of works, and drug support workers had been giving out clean syringes illegally for years. The Thatcher administration set up two hundred needle exchanges. It was to be the final act of pragmatism in this area of policy.
Politicians are willing to criticise the war on drugs – after they have done their tour of duty. In Narcomania, their brilliant expose of the lie we fight on, Max Daly and Steve Sampson list numerous ex ministers from both parties, who from the safety of the back benches criticise government policy long after they had an opportunity to change it. The list includes Labour’s Claire Short, Lord Jenkins and Tony Banks and, from the Tory benches, Peter Lilley, Michael Portillo, and the noble Lords Baker and Lawson. Again, none of them made their interventions when these interventions could have counted. Cameron dropped his radicalism long ago. A Tory peer told the authors that the Prime Minister ‘still thinks drugs ought to be legalised, but if he’s questioned about it he runs sideways like a startled crab.’
This is a striking state of affairs. Governments are elected on change platforms. Once elected they announce a programme of Great Reforms for everything from welfare to schools to bin collection. And real progress has been made on formerly controversial issues like gay marriage. Yet UK drug policy remains preserved in aspic. When government commissions even suggest that a change is needed, or point out the exaggeration of health risks, their reports are torn up and their academics denounced in the press. It is as if, once someone assumes serious elective office, they are taken into a Whitehall basement somewhere with a lot of large, sinister men, and told: ‘Congratulations on becoming a minister. We would like to wish you the very best of luck with your legislative programme. Just one thing, though: if you ever make a serious attempt to change the law on drugs, we will murder you and your families. Coffee?’
A point Narcomania hammers home time and again is that success under the current model is impossible. Daly and Sampson use the example of prisons. In prison the inmates’ behaviour is constantly monitored, and yet drugs are easily available: policing the trade on the outside is a fool’s game. The business attracts the most smart and inventive criminals, and they are always a step ahead. There is a smuggler’s pathway in every country on earth and, with twelve thousand miles of British coastline to police, the chance of a shipment being intercepted is laughable. Just two per cent of drug seizures are made by the UK Border Agency. The rest is down to what we call ‘community policing’. In my home city of Manchester the police carry out dawn raids on identified users and dealers, with a live Twitter feed and tame reporter in tow. This is fair enough: middle class liberals like me often forget the havoc that problem drug users and violent dealers bring to working class communities. But the idea that these raids represent a serious advance is fantasy.
Daly and Sampson talk to customers and suppliers all over the UK, and the results are fascinating. The pyramidical or hierarchical gang structure of The Wire does not apply in this country. Instead we have a picture out of utopian capitalist theory, with thousands of small innovators selling different kinds of product to different people for different reasons. Turf wars are rare, and there is absolutely no profile: drug dealers are students, professionals, hipsters, immigrants, intellectuals, eccentrics, and territorial psychopaths. The drug trade in the UK is not so much The Wire as Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad introduces a gentle, bumbling, middle aged loser, Walter White, who after a cancer diagnosis begins to manufacture and sell crystal meth. The show is a kind of Faustian retelling: as a drug dealer Walter becomes rich and powerful, but loses his soul, and we watch his descent from hapless family man to terrifying gunslinger of the South Valley crime scene. The premise is farfetched – an executive told creator Vince Gilligan that his pitch constituted ‘the single worst idea for a television show that I have heard in my whole life’ – but it illustrates the evolution of criminality in a free world. Last year a college tutor in Burnage was locked up for twenty-one years. It turned out that apparently mild-mannered IT teacher Mohammed Sarwar was, in fact, a major cocaine wholesaler. The sentencing judge told Sarwar that ‘You qualified as a teacher, you could have led a lawful, decent life – you have done no such thing… Instead of putting your intelligence and resources to good and helpful use, you have put them to very unlawful purposes.’
We need to be realistic about the prospect of legalisation. There is no way that the gangsters will give up their market without a fight, and probably even under a liberal regime we would still see black market drugs undercutting straight prices. Also, some drugs are better than others. People can take coke and ecstasy every weekend and live long, productive lives. But who has a purely recreational relationship with crack, or crystal meth? We should not dismiss or downplay the very real dangers of some drugs: the mental health risks of cannabis, for instance, or the tranquilliser drug ketamine, which caused a spate of bladder problems in users, to the extent that waiting lists for surgery are through the roof. Legalisation will be difficult, but the status quo is impossible.
Oh, change will come. Even some American states have recently experimented with local legalisation of marujuana. God knows why we haven’t tried it up to now. My take is that so many public sector careers are riding on the drug war, that to surrender would mean the derailing of a very profitable gravy train.
Let’s finish on an anecdote. Last year I was at a crime prevention conference in a work related capacity. We munched on free food and listened to management whalesong from various council officers at the lectern. One speaker outlined a multi agency drug prevention strategy, rolling out all the rehabilitation and sentencing crap that we have been trying for years and doesn’t work. The speaker took a question from the floor:
You may want to plead the fifth amendment on this, but I was speaking to a London drug squad officer recently and I asked what, in his opinion, would resolve the huge drug-related crime problem in London.
He told me: ‘Legalisation of drugs.’
What do you think of that?
The speaker said: ‘I would prefer not to comment.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max Dunbar was born in London in 1981. He recently finished a full-length novel and his short fiction has appeared in various print and web journals. He is reviews editor of 3:AM.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Friday, November 30th, 2012. | <urn:uuid:101ff9b1-79ae-4f07-b654-4b06584ad294> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/fact-is-we-went-to-war/ | 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 | 0.96394 | 1,980 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The press conference announcing the choice of Daniel Libeskind's design for Ground Zero often seemed like a graduation ceremony. Governor George Pataki quoted Winston Churchill, and said that it was "a great day for New York and a historic day for America." The top rebuilding officials each publicly thanked one another, repeatedly. The chosen architect stepped up to the podium and gave a triumphant tour through his design.
If the day seemed valedictory, it is because a huge part of the long, fractious, sometimes inspiring and often confusing process to design the World Trade Center site is now behind us. "We've come a long way, baby," said key Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board member Roland Betts at the February 27 announcement.
First there were six plans, released to widespread dismay in July 2002. These were scrapped, and then there were nine, prepared by some of the most famous architects in the world and unveiled to the public in December 2002 in a showy press conference at a restored Winter Garden.
These plans were then winnowed down to two very different visions, by Libeskind and the THINK team, led by Rafael Vinoly. While Libeskind's design went underground, exposing the foundations of the Twin Towers, THINK's latticework towers put cultural buildings at different places in the sky.
Both finalists then worked on modifying their plans for Ground Zero, and wooing the public. In the weeks leading up to the decision, the finalists met with civic groups, repeatedly showed up in the New York Times style section, and made regular appearances on local and national television, including the Oprah show. "Not since Gary Cooper appeared in The Fountainhead has the public been so riveted by architecture and architects," wrote Julie Iovine in the New York Times.
As the decision drew closer, the debate grew harsh, with Times critic Herbert Muschamp driving home his preference for the THINK design, calling Libeskind's proposal "astonishingly tasteless" and "predictably kitch." The architects themselves, careful up until this point not to attack the competition, started making pointed criticisms. In a chat with Gotham Gazette, Libeskind called the THINK towers "skeletons in the sky."
Now that Libeskind's design has been selected [take a virtual tour of his plan], civic groups and others say that one of their next steps will be ensuring that his design is actually built, and not compromised by commercial, political or developers' interests. The proposal suggests building the memorial, museum and cultural buildings, transportation center and the single iconic 1776 foot tall office tower first. The other buildings would come later. [frequently asked questions about the design, and the process]
Libeskind has said that he is confident that his vision will prevail. "As an architect who has had the good fortune to build primarily public projects, I believe that one of the most important roles is to be a strong and persuasive advocate. I believe that the urban idea has to be strong enough to withstand the vicissitudes of both developers and politicians," Libeskind said.
But some say that no matter what is built downtown, new buildings will never be able to really help New Yorkers recover from the September 11 attacks. Philip Nobel, in a Nation article, suggested that people are investing too much hope that the aesthetics of architecture will heal the city or provide solutions. "The shaken should look elsewhere [besides architecture] for solace," he writes.
Of course, Libeskind, who is trying to provide this very solace, disagrees. "I believe architecture to be a communicative public art that tells a story, not just of its own making, but much more importantly the story of its context," he said. | <urn:uuid:5d15024a-8249-41f8-89b1-583d5cce43ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/chosen/index_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97707 | 767 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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